Chapter 5 Three Girls from School by L. T. Meade
Annie’s Scheme
There are at all schools girls of different degrees of talent. There are the brilliant girls, the idle girls, the plodding girls. Now Annie belonged to the middle class. She knew how essential it was for her to work hard unless she were to accept a fate which she considered too horrible to contemplate—namely, that of companion to kind Uncle Maurice in the country rectory. Her hope was to do so well at school that she might, when she left, induce her uncle to send her for at least a year to Paris in order to put what might be called the final polish on her education. Then, if her present plans went well, she might go into society with the aid of Mabel Lushington, who of course would be from henceforth in her power.
Now Annie had a fairly good gift for writing, and this gift on the present occasion she put absolutely at the disposal of her friend. Poor Mabel, excited by the scheme which Annie had proposed, trembling with fear that it might be found out, could not have written a single line of coherent English were it not for Annie’s clearer and cleverer brain.
As they sat for hours together in the summer-house, Annie’s thoughts really filled Mabel’s manuscript.
“I will dictate to you, and you will put down exactly what I say,” remarked Annie. “Now then, fire away. Idealism. You must get a sort of epitome of what your thoughts are on the subject.”
“I have not any,” said Mabel. “I can’t give an epitome of what I know nothing about.”
“Oh, come, Mabel; you are a goose! Here, let me dictate.”
She began. Her sentences had little depth in them, but they were at least expressed in fairly good English, and would have passed muster in a crowd. After a long time the task was completed, and an essay was produced—an essay, compared to the one which poor Mabel had already written, almost fine in its construction. Annie, as she read it over, was in raptures with it.
“I only trust it is not too good,” she said. “Don’t you think it sounds very nice when I read it aloud, Mabel?”
“I suppose it does,” answered Mabel. “I have got a horrid headache; I hate sitting up all night.”
“You will have to sacrifice something to your year’s bliss,” replied Annie. “Now then, May, that is done. I have given you a paper. At five o’clock we will both go into Priscie’s room. When there, a little transaction will very briefly take place. You will have to promise Pris that you will pay her school fees for another year—namely, for three whole terms; and she, in return for this kindness, will sign this essay as her own, and will hand it in as her essay during the course of the morning. Miss Phillips will lock it up, and it will lie perdu until the great prize day. Pris meantime will have given you a really good paper, which you will sign and give in as your own. Thus your victory will be accomplished, and you need dread nothing further.”
“But,” said Mabel, “I am looked upon as rather a fool in the school; no one for a moment thinks me clever.”
“I am coming to that point. For the next fortnight I shall make myself intensely busy in circulating a little story. You must pretend to know nothing about it, and in all probability the tale will not reach your ears. But this story is to the effect that you are in reality a sort of hidden genius; in short, that you are a poet and write verses in private. Now what do you think of that? Am not I a friend worth having?”
“You are wonderfully clever,” said Mabel. “I begin to be almost afraid of you.”
“Oh, you needn’t be that, dear. Who would be afraid of poor little Annie?”
“I don’t know,” said Mabel. “Your eyes look quite wicked sometimes. You must be frightfully wicked, you know, to have thought out this scheme so cleverly.”
“I am not more wicked than you are—not one single bit,” cried Annie. “Only I have the courage of my convictions, and the ability to think things out and to save my friends. If you imagine that I am unhappy now, you are vastly mistaken. Far from being unhappy, I feel intensely triumphant; for I have managed to help three people—Priscie, you, and myself.”
“Oh Annie!” said Mabel, “I am not at all sure that Aunt Henrietta will invite you to Paris.”
“Aren’t you?” said Annie. She took the essay as she spoke, and rolled it up. She then proceeded to gather up some loose pages of foolscap paper, pen and ink, and blotting-paper, and finally she blew out the candles and added them to a little parcel which she proceeded to stow away in a small basket.
“We will go back to the house now,” she said. “We must tread very softly.”
Mabel found herself trembling a great deal and wishing most heartily she was out of this scrape as she followed Annie across the grass. There was a brilliant moon in the sky, and there was a little piece of lawn, bare of any shelter, which they had to cross in order to get to the home. Should any one happen to be looking out of a window, that person could not fail to see the girls as they crossed this moonlit lawn. Mabel thought of it with growing terror as they returned home, and when they found themselves standing at the edge of a belt of dark pine-trees preparatory to rushing across the lawn, she clutched her companion by the arm.
“Oh, I know we shall be seen!” she cried. “Oh, I wish I had not done it!”
“It is too late to go back now, Mabel,” said Annie; “there is nothing for it but forward—right forward. Don’t be a coward;—no one will see us. What teacher is likely to be out of bed at two o’clock in the morning? We shall be in the house in next to no time. We’ll then creep upstairs to our private sitting-room, and all danger will be over. Come, May, come; there’s no holding back now.”
Annie took her companion’s hand, and they rushed tremblingly across the lawn, each of them devoutly hoping that no one was up. A minute or two later they were safely inside the shelter of the house, and then, again, in another minute Annie had softly opened the door of the girls’ sitting-room, where they were to stay until the time for invading Priscilla arrived.
“You may go to sleep if you like,” said Annie. “I will hold your hand; you needn’t be at all alarmed, for I have drawn the bolt of the door, so that if any one should come prying, that person would be prevented entering. But just before you drop asleep I want to arrange my part.”
“I wish I were well out of the whole thing,” said Mabel.
“You can be, of course,” said Annie. “It is but to destroy, this paper that we have just composed together.”
“Oh no, Annie; it isn’t mine at all.”
“Well, at least you have done the writing of it; if the thoughts are mine, the penmanship is yours. Come, Mabel, don’t be a goose. Everything is in progress, and you’ll be as happy as the day is long by this time to-morrow.”
“You forget that I have still to get that horrid money.”
“Of course you have; but as you seem so nervous and faint-hearted, you had much better write a little note now to Mrs Priestley. I will light one of the candles, and you can get that over. I will take it to-morrow afternoon, and trust me not to return without your thirty pounds safe and sound. But the one thing which must be settled, and positively settled, is my little part. You have got solemnly to promise that I shall spend the summer holidays with you.”
“Suppose Aunt Henrietta refuses.”
“But she is not to refuse, Mabel. If this thing were completed and I found that you had backed out of your honourable bargain with me, I should find it my duty to— Oh Mabel, need I go on?”
“No, no,” said Mabel, “you needn’t; I understand you. I don’t expect I shall be as happy as I thought, even if I have my year of liberty; but still, I suppose I must make the best of a bad bargain, and of course I should like to have you with me in Paris.”
“It will be necessary for you to have me with you, if you are to manage the money for the two remaining terms,” said Annie.
“Very well; I will agree, I will agree.”
“You promise that I shall spend the holidays with you?”
“Yes; that is, after the first week or so. I must have at least a week to get round Aunt Henrietta.”
“Oh, I will give you a week, my dear; for I also must have that week to get round Uncle Maurice. Now then, all is right. Give me a kiss, dear; we shall have fun! You will never regret this night, I can tell you, Mabel.”
“I hope I sha’n’t. I do feel mean and small at present. But what about the note to Mrs Priestley? What am I to say?”
“Dear, dear,” said Annie, who was now in the highest spirits, “what it is to have brains! Come and sit in this corner, over here. Now I will light the candle for you; no one can see any light under the door. Here we are: and here’s our little candle doing its duty.”
As Annie spoke she swiftly struck a match.
“Here is your sheet of paper, Mabel; and here is your pen. And now I will dictate the note. Write what I say.”
Mabel began:
”‘Dear Mrs Priestley,—My friend Annie Brooke is taking this letter to you. The business is of great importance, and she will explain and make the necessary terms. I want you to lend me thirty pounds, please. Annie will arrange the terms; and I want you, please, not to tell anybody. You know Annie Brooke—she is my greatest friend. Aunt Henrietta will want me to have a specially beautiful dress to wear at the break-up, for I expect to take a most distinguished position there.’”
“Oh, must I put that in?” said Mabel.
“You must put what I tell you,” answered Annie. “Go on. Have you written ‘distinguished position’?”
“Yes—oh yes. This letter sounds perfectly horrid, and not a bit like me.”
“It will soon be finished now,” said Annie.
“Come, Mabel; you are chicken-hearted. You most pay something for your thirty pounds, you know.”
“Yes; but how on earth am I to return it to her?”
“I’ll manage that, goosey, goosey. Now then, proceed.
”‘I will call on you to-morrow in order to choose the dress. It must be very rich indeed, and with real lace on it. My aunt would wish me to look well dressed on the prize day.—Yours, Mabel Lushington.’
“Now, the date, please,” said Annie.
Mabel inserted it.
“Fold it up, please, and direct this envelope,” continued practical Annie. This was done and the letter slipped into Annie’s pocket. She then, to Mabel’s surprise, put another sheet of paper before that young lady.
“What does this mean?” said Mabel.
“You will write these words, please, Mabel:
“In acknowledgment of thirty pounds, I, Mabel Lushington, faithfully promise to invite Annie Brooke to spend the summer holidays with Lady Lushington and myself in Paris.”
“But, Annie,” cried poor Mabel, “I am terrified at having to write this.”
“Don’t write it, and the thing is off,” said Annie.
She moved to the other end of the room. Mabel sat the very picture of misery by the little table where the one candle burned. Some minutes went by. After a time Annie said:
“You may as well go on, for I hold your letter to Mrs Priestley in my pocket.”
“Oh, oh!” said Mabel, “I get more frightened of you, Annie, each moment. Well, what am I to say? I forget.”
“Darling, it is so easy,” said Annie in her gentlest tone. “Now then, I will dictate once more.”
She did so. The words were put down. Annie herself folded up this precious piece of paper, and put it for safety into the bosom of her dress.
“Now we are all right,” she said; “and I’ve got some chocolates to give you, and we can both curl up on the sofa and go to sleep until it’s time to wake Pris.”
Mabel and Annie were about to retire to the comfortable old lounge which occupied a place of honour in the sitting-room, when they were at once frightened and rejoiced by hearing a voice say very distinctly outside the schoolroom door:
“It is I—Priscie. Let me in.”
Annie immediately flew to the door, drew back the bolt, and admitted Priscilla. Priscilla was wearing a long, ugly, grey dressing-gown; her face looked nearly as grey. She came swiftly forward and put her manuscript on the table.
“Sign it,” she said to Mabel. “Be quick. Don’t hesitate, or I will draw back. I have lived through the most awful night; but there’s no use in waiting until five o’clock. I was up, and saw you two run across the lawn. I guessed you would come here, and I made up my mind. Be quick, Mabel Lushington—sign.”
“Here is your pen,” said Annie.—“Pris, you are a plucky girl. You’ll never repent of this.”
“You promise,” said Priscilla, “to pay me a year’s schooling?” She did not glance at Annie; her eyes were fixed on Mabel.
“Yes,” said Mabel, nodding to her and speaking with difficulty.
“You will get your money to-morrow evening, dear, at latest,” said Annie; “I mean the money for the autumn term.”
Still Priscilla did not look at Annie.
“Where is your paper?” she asked, her eyes still glued on Mabel’s face.
Annie supplied it.
“It is a very good paper,” she said. “You won’t be at all ashamed to read it. I only trust,” she added, “that it is not too good.”
One very bitter smile crossed Priscilla’s face for a moment. Then, going on her knees, she deliberately wrote with a defiant air her own signature at the foot of the essay which Annie had dictated and Mabel had written. Mabel’s weaker handwriting signed Priscilla’s paper. Then Priscilla, gathering up the false essay, folded it within her dressing-gown, and, without glancing at either girl, left the room.
“There,” said Annie when the door had closed behind her, “isn’t she just splendid? Haven’t we managed well? Oh! I am tired and sleepy. Aren’t you, Mabel?”
“I don’t know,” said Mabel. “I am bewildered. I never knew what it was before to feel just awfully wicked.”
“You will get over that, dear. We’ll just wait a minute longer, and then we’ll creep up to our rooms. What a good thing it was that I oiled the locks! There is no fear of any one finding us out.”