Chapter 3 Three Girls from School by L. T. Meade
To Catch at a Straw
Priscilla’s eyes, large, dark, grey, and full of feeling, opened to their widest extent as she turned them now and fixed them on her companion.
“What do you mean?” she said. “Do you know that you are a horrible girl to propose anything of this sort. How dare you? I don’t want to speak to you again.”
“Very well, Priscilla,” replied Annie, by no means offended, and speaking in a gentle, meek little voice. “I have heard of worse things being done before, and I only meant to help you both. You are both my greatest friends. One of you wants to stay at school; the other wants to leave school. It can be done by such a very simple matter as changing your essays.”
“It is horrible—quite too horrible even to think about,” was Priscilla’s response.
“But you said you didn’t care about the prize.”
“No; but I do care about honour. I am bad, but I am not as bad as all that.”
“Well,” said Annie, a little frightened at Priscilla’s manner and the look on her face, “the whole thing can do me no good; I don’t profit by it. I have got to stay at school, nolens volens; and I think I should prefer Mabel as my greatest friend for the next twelve months to you. You won’t say anything about it, Priscie, for that would indeed be to ruin me, and I only meant to make you both happy.”
“Oh, of course I won’t tell,” said Priscilla. “I shall be leaving school in a fortnight, and then you won’t ever see me again. I can promise you to keep quiet with regard to this proposal of yours for that time.”
“Very well,” said Annie; “then that is all right. I will tell poor Mabel.”
“You don’t mean that you have suggested the thing to her?”
“Not exactly, but I have hinted at it—I mean at something—and she is very much interested. I’ll have to tell her that my little scheme is up a tree. Poor old Mabel! She is such a dear, too. We shall be glad to keep her at school.”
“Really, Annie, you are too extraordinary. Have you written a paper for the literature prize yourself?”
“I? Oh yes. But I have no imagination; not a bit. The subject is ‘Idealism’—such an odious, impossible subject; but it has appealed to you.”
“It did appeal to me very strongly; I loved to write about it.”
“I can fancy you at it; you are just full of imagination.”
“It is my dearest possession,” said Priscilla. A new look came into her eyes. She turned her fine face and looked at her companion. “And when I leave school,” she added, “I shall take it with me. Even when I am working in the dairy and mending the children’s socks I shall still rejoice in it. I am glad you reminded me of it—very glad.”
“Well, I wish you joy of your future life. I would have helped you, but you won’t be helped.”
“You don’t suppose,” said Priscilla suddenly, “that I don’t just long to catch at any straw? You don’t suppose that I am not tempted? But even—even if I were to consider your base proposal for a single minute, what good on earth would it do me? The reason I am leaving school is because Uncle Josiah will not pay for my schooling. He certainly won’t pay for it any more because I have not won the literature prize.”
“But if I can positively promise you—and I am almost sure it can be done—that your schooling will be paid in another way, what then?”
“Annie, you cannot make me that promise. Say nothing more about it.”
“Oh, well, if you won’t talk of it, it can’t be helped. I am going to Mabel now.”
“Annie, I suppose you mean kindly, and I suppose I ought to feel that you do; but you don’t understand. It is a case of noblesse oblige with me. If I did stoop to what you suggest I should never, never have a happy hour again.”
“Very well,” said Annie. “I am glad I have not such a troublesome conscience.”
As she spoke she skipped away from her companion and joined the other girls on the lawn. Two little girls of about eleven and twelve years of age ran up to her. Their names were Flora and Violet Frere.
“What are you looking so solemn about, Annie?” asked Violet.
“Oh, I am worried. Poor old Priscie has got to leave school. Isn’t it an awful shame?”
Violet gave a sort of howl. “I can’t live without Priscie. I don’t believe it for a single minute. Where is she?”
“She is walking up and down in the shrubbery. I tell you what it is, Vi. You have great influence with her. You and Flora both go to her now, and put your arms about her, and pet her a lot, and tell her that she simply must not go—that she must stay with you whatever happens.”
“Come, Flora,” said Violet—“Thank you, Annie, for telling us. We’ll certainly go and make dear Priscie stay.”
“Yes,” said Flora. “I wouldn’t stay at school myself if Priscie were to leave. I should be a very naughty girl; I would run away.”
“And so would I,” said Violet. Annie stood still for a minute or two after the little girls had left her; then she went into the house. She felt troubled. Annie was by no means the best of girls. She had naturally a turn for crooked and underhand ways. She was ambitious and discontented with her own lot. When she left school she would go to stay with her uncle, the Rev. Maurice Butler. She would live in a musty old rectory in a very dull part of England, and see hardly any people, and try to devote her time to mothers’ meetings and school feasts, and all the thousand and one things which occupy a young girl’s time when she happens to be the niece or daughter of the rector. Now, Annie had no taste for these occupations. She hated the holidays, which she had invariably to spend at Burfield Rectory. She had no appreciation for Uncle Maurice, although he was the best and kindest of men. She wanted to get into the world. She pined to enjoy herself. She was neither very pretty nor very clever. She was, as far as appearance went, an everyday sort of girl. It is true, she had lovely golden hair, but that was about all. At school she was the sort of girl who, apparently good-natured, makes many friends. Her object was to make friends. Her one desire in life was to secure the goodwill of her school companions, so that by-and-by they might invite her to their houses and give her the sort of good time she had always pined for. She knew in a vague sort of way that if she could get one of these girls more or less into her power, she might dictate her own terms. And now her chance had come. No prickings of conscience held her back; it did not even occur to her that she was acting badly. If she thought at all, it was but to pronounce Priscilla’s ideas of honour obsolete and impossible. She had little doubt that she could get Priscilla to yield to the plan which was forming itself in her own brain; and she was also pretty sure that Mabel would be even a more easy victim. Many of her school friends were fond of asking small services of Annie; for she was invariably good-natured, and had a sunny, pleasant temper. She was rather amusing, too, and to all appearance never thought of herself.
Now she ran up to the elder girls’ sitting-room, threw the door open wide, and entered. A tall, pale girl, with an aristocratic face was seated by an open desk busily writing. She looked annoyed when Annie entered.
“Am I in your way, Constance?” asked Annie.
“No, Annie. Of course you have a right to sit here, but I do hope you will keep quiet. I am busy writing my prize essay—not that I have a chance of the prize, but of course I want to do my very best. The subject interests me.”
Annie said nothing. She flung herself into a chair, and taking up a story-book, tried to read. But her thoughts were too busy with the scheme which was forming itself in her brain. She threw down the book, and drawing her chair to the opposite window, looked out.
Constance Hadley seemed to feel her presence, for after a time she sank back in her chair with a sigh.
“Finished, Constance?” cried Annie.
“No; I can’t manage the end. I want to do something really good, but the something won’t come.”
“I wonder you bother,” said Annie; “that is, of course, unless you are sure of the prize.”
“I sure of the prize!” laughed Constance. “Why, there are at least four girls in the school who will do better work than I. You, for instance, Annie; you have an audacious, smart little way of writing which very often takes.”
“But I can do nothing with such a subject as ‘Idealism,’” replied Annie, “except to laugh at it and thank my stars that I have not got it.”
Constance looked at her gravely.
“I wonder who will get the prize,” she said.
Annie did not reply. Constance rose, stretched herself slightly, and putting her papers together, laid them in orderly fashion in her desk.
“I shall get up early to-morrow,” she said, “and come down here and finish my paper. There is no time so good as before breakfast for brain-work.”
“Well, thank goodness, my attempt is quite finished,” said Annie.
“I suppose,” remarked Constance, “that Priscilla will get the prize. She is the cleverest of us all.”
“Oh, I’m not at all sure of that,” said Annie. “Priscie is clever, no doubt; but Mabel is clever too—very clever.”
“Mabel Lushington! What do you mean?”
“What I say. She is awfully clever when she takes pains.”
“I must say I have never found it out.”
“Well, I have,” said Annie, her cheeks brightening and her eyes growing deeper in hue, “and I will just tell you how. She is always scribbling poetry. I found her at her desk one day, and taxed her with it. She was frightfully annoyed, and begged and implored of me not to mention it, for she said she would be ragged by every one if it were discovered. Then she confessed that her one ambition was to be a poet. Isn’t it absurd? Just think of her, with her pretty, round, dimpled sort of face, a poet, forsooth! But, nevertheless, appearances deceive, and Mabel is a poet already. I should not be a scrap surprised if she did very well with such a subject as Idealism.”
“You astonish me!” said Constance. “She must be far cleverer than I gave her credit for; and her very genius in hiding all trace of her talent is much to be commended.”
“Oh, now you are nasty and satirical,” said Annie, “and you don’t believe a word I say. Nevertheless, it is all true; our Mabel is a poet.”
“Well, poet or not,” remarked Constance, “she is a very jolly girl; I like her just awfully.”
“You would not want her to leave the school, would you?”
“Leave the school! Why, there isn’t a chance of it, is there?”
“I don’t know. I hope not. But I must go to her now, poor old darling! She is worrying over her prize essay, doubting her own ability, and all that sort of thing, whereas I know she could do capital work if she pleased.”
“And beat Priscilla?”
“Oh, Priscilla would not be in it if Mabel chose to exercise her powers. But the fact is, she is terribly afraid of your all finding her out. You won’t breathe what I have told you to a living soul, will you, Connie?”
“Not I. I am glad you confided in me. I shall listen to her essay with special pleasure this day fortnight, now that you have really enlightened me with regard to the order of her mind.”
Annie left the room and ran up to Mabel’s bedroom.
Mabel’s room and Annie’s adjoined; but one of the strictest rules of the house was that after bed-time each girl should be unmolested by her schoolfellows. One of the worst offences at Lyttelton School was for a girl, after bed-time had arrived, to infringe the rules by going into the room of her schoolfellow. Before bed-time full liberty was, however, given, and Annie tapped now with confidence at Mabel’s door.
Mabel said, “Come in,” and Annie entered.
“Well, May,” she cried, “has any light dawned on you?”
“Light dawned on me?” replied Mabel in a tone almost of passion. “None whatsoever. I am just in pitch darkness. I can’t write a word that any one will care to listen to. I never could, as you very well know, and certainly am less capable than ever now of doing so. The very thought of all that hangs on my efforts quite unnerves me. I shall write twaddle, my dear Annie; in fact, I don’t think I’ll write at all.”
“Oh, but you must; that would seem very bad, and make your aunt so angry. She might think that you had refused to do so out of temper, and might keep you two years at school instead of one.”
“Do you think so, really? That would be too appalling.”
“I am not at all sure; from what you tell me of her character, I think it would be extremely likely.”
“Well, I will do something. For that matter, I have done something. Can’t I send it in?”
“No, no!” said Annie. “You showed it to me, and I never read such rubbish in all my life. Now, look here, Mabel. You shall write a paper, and it must be the very best paper you can put together; and I will help you all I can.”
“But there is no time.”
“Yes, there is. We can do it to-night.”
“To-night? You know we can’t.”
“I know we can. Miss Phillips goes round to see that all the girls are tucked up properly at ten o’clock. Soon afterwards she goes to bed, poor old dear! When the cat’s away the mice will play. I will tap three times on my wall, and you must tap three times on yours. Not another soul will hear us. Then we’ll both get up and slip stockings over our shoes, and we’ll go down, hand-in-hand, through the silent house until we find ourselves on the ground-floor. I know a window where the hasp is broken. We’ll raise the sash and go out. We will go to the summer-house at the far end of the grounds. I will have candles and manuscript paper and ink there all ready. You will write your essay there, in the summer-house, and I will help you.”
“It is a very dangerous thing to do, Annie, and it strikes me we risk a great deal for very little. For if I were to steal out every night between now and prize day, and write an essay every night in the summer-house, I should not get a prize.”
“You certainly wouldn’t get a prize in that way; but what you do to-night will lead you to the prize.”
“Now I don’t understand you.”
“I will tell you, Mabel. You must listen very attentively, and if you positively decide to have nothing to do with it, you must not be shocked with me or attempt to betray me. What I do I do for your good—although, I will confess, partly for my own also.”
“Ah, I thought a little bit of self would come in,” said Mabel, who knew her school friend better, perhaps, than most people did.
“Yes,” said Annie quite calmly; “I don’t pretend for a moment that I haven’t a bit of self at the bottom of this. But let me tell you my scheme. Only before I breathe it, you will promise most, most faithfully not to betray me?”
“Of course I will. I know you better than you imagine, Annie. You have your good impulses, but you are not the very straightest girl in all the world.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” said Annie. She coloured faintly. “Perhaps you would not be straight,” she said after a minute, “if you had no prospect whatever in life but Uncle Maurice—Uncle Maurice, and all the old women in the parish, every one of them, setting their caps at him, and knitting comforters for his dear throat, and working slippers for his dear feet, and asking about his precious cough, and if he would like some more red-currant jelly. Perhaps you would be a little crooked if you had to sit by the hour holding slobbering babies on your lap at mothers’ meetings, and getting your best frock jammed over by the horrid village children. Oh, it is not a life to recommend itself, I can tell you!”
“Poor Annie!” said Mabel, “I do pity you. But, of course, you won’t be always with your uncle Maurice. Now forgive me for speaking as I did, and tell me your plan.”
(This page missing.)
nest you are trying to land me in, Annie! As if Priscilla would consent!”
“Priscilla will consent. I have sounded her, and I know she will. She fights shy of it, of course, at first, but she will consent, and before morning.”
“But, Annie, what good will it do her? My going away from the school won’t give her money to stay here.”
“Ah,” said Annie, “now comes the crux. You must give her money to stay; you must manage it. You always have heaps of pocket-money. You must undertake to pay all her school expenses for at least a year.”
“Now you are a silly!” answered Mabel.
“To begin with, I have not the slightest idea what Priscilla’s school bills amount to. I know nothing about my own school bills, far less hers. Aunt Henrietta pays for me, and there’s an end of the thing.”
“Mabel,” said Annie, who was now very much excited, “don’t be horrid, please. Listen to me.”
“I am listening. You are propounding an impossible plan, and I am telling you my opinion. Have you anything further to say to me?”
“A great deal. Your aunt is very rich.”
“Rich? Oh, I imagine so. My aunt Henrietta—Lady Lushington—can go where she likes and do what she likes. She never denies herself anything at all.”
“Nor you, Mabel, anything at all.”
“Isn’t she denying me my liberty, and is that nothing?”
“She does it for your good,” said Annie; “there is no question of money in the matter. Now do listen to me. I happen to know what dear Priscie’s school bills amount to. She is taken cheaper than the other girls, and all her expenses for one term are abundantly covered by thirty pounds. Now most likely your expenses for a single term would amount to fifty or sixty pounds, perhaps even to more; but poor old Pris is taken, on special terms. Mrs Lyttelton doesn’t wish it to be known, but I found out; for one day I came across a letter from her uncle, in which he enclosed a cheque to Priscie for last term’s expenses, and I know exactly what it amounted to: twenty-seven pounds seventeen shillings and fourpence. I thought it rather funny of him to enclose the cheque to her, and spoke to her about it. You know she is fearfully untidy, and she had left it with her handkerchiefs and ribbons and things in her top drawer. She told me then, poor girl! that her uncle always sent her the cheque, expecting her to hand it over at once to Mrs Lyttelton. ‘He hates even paying that much for me,’ she said, ‘and I do wish I could get away from him altogether. He is horrid to me, and I lead a hateful life on account of him.’”
“Poor thing!” said Mabel. “It must be disagreeable for her. In some ways she is worse off than I am.”
“She would give all the world to stay here for another year,” continued Annie; “and it’s most cruel of that horrid old uncle Josiah of here to take her from school; for I know quite well that if she were allowed another twelve months here she could try for a big scholarship, and go to Girton or Newnham, and than be able to support herself in the way she likes best.”
“Yes, of course,” said Mabel, yawning and walking over towards the window, which she flung wide-open. “But still, I don’t see how I can help.”
“I know how you can help quite well, and how you shall help, and must help,” said Annie, speaking with great deliberation. “You must do what may seem just a leetle crooked in order that good may come Priscie’s life shall not be spoiled; you shall not have a dull year; and I—poor little Annie—must also have my fan, and perhaps before long. Now I will tell you at once, Mabel, how you can do it.”
Mabel sank down in a chair, and her face became quite white.
“This is what you must do,” continued Annie. “Mrs Priestley lends money to several ladies. I happen to know, for a maid Uncle Maurice had in his house last summer told me so. Mrs Priestley has made your dresses ever since you came to school; and your aunt pays the bills, doesn’t she, without worrying you much?”
“Yes.”
“And no one dresses so beautifully as you do in the whole school, Mabel.”
“Oh, well,” said Mabel, “it isn’t necessary for me to be careful—that is just it.”
“You will come to Mrs Priestley to-morrow, and I will go with you; or, if you like best, I will go alone and take a note from you to her. You have but to ask her to lend you thirty pounds, and to put it down in the bill, and there you are. She will have to lend it to you in notes and gold—of course a cheque would never do—and then you can give Pris the money for her next term’s schooling, and Mrs Lyttelton will accept it as a matter of course, and your aunt Henrietta will never know, for, at the worst, she will only scold you for being especially extravagant.”
“Yes—but—but,” said Mabel. Her cheeks were crimson and her eyes bright, and there was no doubt whatever that the temptation presented by cunning Annie was taking hold of her. “That is all very fine. But even if I dared to do the thing, the difficulties of keeping Priscie at the school might be got over for one term; but what about the two other terms? I can’t go on borrowing money from Mrs Priestley, more especially if I am not at the school myself.”
“As your aunt is so very rich, and as she will be taking you into society, it will be quite possible for you to spare thirty pounds each term out of your own allowance,” said Annie. “But even if you don’t wish to do that, I have no doubt at all that Lady Lushington is very generous, and that she will lend you the money for poor Priscie, if you only talk to her judiciously.”
“She might and she might not,” said Mabel; “there is no saying. And as to an allowance, she may not give me any, but just buy my things straight off as I want them. Oh dear, dear! I don’t see my way with regard to the other terms, even if I could borrow the money for this one.”
“You will see your way when the time comes; and, remember, you will have from now till Christmas to think of ways and means. In the meantime you will go to Paris, and from Paris to the different foreign spas, and, oh, won’t you have a jolly time, and won’t you be admired!”
“It certainly sounds tempting,” said Mabel, “although it seems to me that it is awfully wicked—”
“As to its being so wicked,” interrupted Annie, “I can’t quite see that. Think what good it will do—helping poor old Pris, and giving yourself a right jolly time, and me also.”
“I can’t see where you come in,” said Mabel.
“Oh, but I do. You don’t suppose I am going to leave myself out in the cold, when I am managing so cleverly all these jolly things for you. You have got to get your aunt to invite me to join you in Paris. She will, I know, if you manage her properly. What fun we shall have together, May! How we shall enjoy ourselves! Of course I’ll have to come back here at the end of the holidays; but the summer holidays are long, and, oh! I shall be a happy girl.”
“You might certainly, if you came to visit me, think out a plan for paying Priscie’s school fees for the other terms,” said Mabel. “But, dear, dear! it is awfully dangerous. I don’t know how I can consent. If the whole thing were ever found out I should be disgraced for life!”
“If,” said Annie. “If is a very little word and means a great deal, May. These things won’t be found out, for the simple reason that it is to your interest, and to my interest, and to Priscie’s interest to keep the whole matter in the dark.”