Chapter 27 Three Girls from School by L. T. Meade
A Defender
When Annie left the “Beau Séjour” at Zermatt, Mabel felt herself in a state of distressing weakness and uncertainty. Annie had been her prop, and, as she had expressed it, she could not possibly go on being wicked without her. Accordingly, when the loss of the necklace was revealed to Lady Lushington on the following morning, Mabel let out a great deal more with regard to the loss of that treasure than Annie had intended her to do. She said nothing to deteriorate its value, but murmured so vaguely that she had certainly put it into the old trunk, and looked so sheepish when she was saying the words, that Lady Lushington began to suspect the truth.
“Now, Mabel,” she said, taking her niece’s hand and drawing her towards the light, “you are not at all good at concealing things; you have not the cleverness of your friend. I have for some time had my suspicions with regard to that quondam friend of yours, Annie Brooke. I don’t want you to betray her in any sense of the word, but I will know this: are you telling me the truth about the necklace? Did you put it into the lid of the trunk?”
Mabel prevaricated, stammered, blushed, and was forced to admit that she had not done so. On the top of this revelation, Lady Lushington was quick in pressing her niece to make a further one, and at last Mabel admitted that she thought, but was not at all sure, that Mr Manchuri, the old Jewish gentleman who had been staying at the Hotel Belle Vue, knew something about the necklace.
“It is quite safe; I am certain it is quite safe,” said Mabel; “but I think he knows about it. Had not we better write and ask Annie?”
“We will do nothing of the kind,” said Lady Lushington. “Mabel, I am disgusted with you. You can go away to your room. You are my niece, or I would never speak to you again; but if I do not get to the bottom of this mystery, and pretty quickly, too, my name is not Henrietta Lushington.”
“Oh dear,” thought poor Mabel, “what awful mischief I have done! Annie will be wild. Still, all is not known. I don’t think Aunt Henrietta can think the very worst of me even if she does learn the story of the necklace; that won’t tell her how I won the prize, and that won’t explain to her the true story of Mrs Priestley’s bill.”
As Mabel was leaving the room, very downcast and fearfully miserable, Lady Lushington called her back.
“I am disgusted with you,” she repeated. “Notwithstanding; justice is justice. I never wish you to have anything more to do with Annie Brooke; you never shall speak to her again, if I can help it. But in one thing she was right. I have received Mrs Priestley’s bill thin morning with all due apologies, and begging of me to forgive her for having, through a most gross error, and owing to the fault of one of her assistants, added another lady’s account to mine. Your bill for clothes, therefore, Mabel, only amounts to forty pounds, which is high, but allowable. As you are not going back to the school we shall never require Mrs Priestley’s services again. I will send her a cheque to-day for forty pounds, and that closes my transactions with the woman, whom, notwithstanding apologies, I do not consider too straight.”
Even this small consolation was better than nothing to Mabel. She went away to her room feeling very queer and trembling, and Lady Lushington took those immediate steps which she was fond of doing when really aroused. She did not know Mr Manchuri’s private address, but she was well aware that he was a wealthy Bond Street jeweller. She wrote, therefore, straight to his place of business, and her letter, when it reached him, electrified the good man to such an extent that he scarcely knew what he was doing. Fortunately for himself, he had not yet sold the necklace. Having read the letter, he sank down into a chair and gazed before him. Well did he remember the scene when Annie, looking sweet, innocent, and charming, had told him with a little pride of her knowledge with regard to gems, and had shown him with extreme diffidence the valuable necklace, and asked him what it was worth.
“What a fool I was to snap at it!” he said to himself. “I might have known that no honest girl of the class of Annie Brooke would have forty pounds to spend on jewellery. But just that hateful desire to make money came over me, and I grabbed at the thing. Now what is to be done?”
Mr Manchuri returned home early that day. Lady Lushington’s letter was burning a hole all the time in his pocket.
“What a comfort it is,” he said to himself, “that that dear, nice Priscilla is still in the house! She certainly told me nothing about the necklace. That little horror of an Annie Brooke begged and implored of me to keep the whole thing a secret. But the time has come, my young miss, when I fed absolutely absolved from my promise. I must consult Priscie. Priscie has as wise a head on her shoulders as even my own beloved Esther had.”
The old man entered the house; and Priscilla, who was busily reading in the library, hearing the click of the latch-key in the lock, ran out into the hall. Her face had improved during the last few days. The look of great anxiety had left it. She had, in short, made up her mind, but even Mr Manchuri did not quite know what Priscilla was going to do.
“You are in early,” she said, running to meet him and helping him off with his overcoat and putting his stick in the stand.
“Yes, Priscilla,” he answered; “and I am right glad you are in. The fact is, I came back to consult you, my dear.”
“You will have some tea first,” said Priscilla. “Now that is exactly what Esther would have said,” was the old man’s response. “What a fuss she did make about me, to be sure! And you are going to make a fool of me now. I was a young man when my Esther was there, and I am an old man now, but the difference seems bridged over, and I feel young once more with you so kind to me, Priscilla. But there, there, my child, there is no tea for me until I relieve my mind. Where were you sitting, my dear, when you heard me come into the house?”
“In the library. I had just discovered the most glorious edition of Don Quixote, and was revelling in it.”
“We will go back to the library, Priscilla, if you have no objection.”
Priscilla turned at once; Mr Manchuri followed her, and they entered the great library full of books of all sorts—rare editions, old folios, etc,—as well as a few really valuable pictures.
“Priscilla,” said Mr Manchuri, “you know all about Annie Brooke?”
“Yes,” said Priscilla, her face turning very pale. “I wanted to write to Annie; her dear uncle is dead.”
“You told me so a few days ago. You can write or not, just, as you please. In the meantime, can you explain this?”
As Mr Manchuri spoke he took Lady Lushington’s letter from his pocket and handed it to Priscilla. Priscilla read the following words:
“Dear Sir,—I regret to have to trouble you with regard to a small circumstance, but I have just to my unbounded astonishment, been informed by my niece, Mabel Lushington, that you can throw light on the disappearance of an old-fashioned pearl necklace set in silver which I bought for her at Interlaken the day before we left. I was assisted in the purchase by a girl who was of our party—a Miss Brooke. She professed to have a knowledge of gems, and took me to Zick’s shop in the High Street where I bought the trinket. I paid forty pounds for it, believing it to be a bargain of some value. At present the necklace is not forthcoming, and there has been an idea circulated in the hotel that it was stolen on our journey from Interlaken to Zermatt. My niece, however, now with great reluctance mentions your name, and says that she thinks you can explain the mystery. Will you be kind enough to do so without a moment’s loss of time?—Yours sincerely, Henrietta Lushington.”
When Priscilla had finished this letter she raised a white and startled face. Her eyes saw Mr Manchuri’s, who, on his part, was trying to read her through.
“What do you make of it?” he said.
“I never heard of the necklace,” she said.
“Well, perhaps you heard something else or you noticed something else. Were you sitting in the garden of the Hotel Belle Vue just before déjeuner on the day that you and I left Interlaken?”
“Yes,” said Priscilla.
“I remember quite well now,” considered the old man, “that I noticed you from where I myself was sitting on the terrace. I saw Miss Brooke go up to you, and presently you went away. Then I joined Miss Brooke.”
“Yes,” said Priscilla.
“You have not the least idea what occurred, have you, Priscilla, when Miss Brooke and I were alone?”
“I have not the faintest idea,” said Priscilla.
“Well, I will tell you,” said the old man.
He crossed the room as he spoke, opened the door, and went out, but presently returned with something in his hand. This something he laid on the table before Priscilla.
“Have you ever seen that before?”
“Never,” said Priscilla. “It is rather pretty.”
“It is a valuable old ornament,” said Mr Manchuri. “It was bought at Zick’s shop in the High Street at Interlaken. I gave Annie Brooke one hundred pounds for it.”
“Mr Manchuri!”
“She told me it was her own, and asked if I would buy it. I knew it was worth a good deal more than the sum I paid her; now it seems that she took me in, I have purchased Lady Lushington’s necklace; it never belonged to Annie Brooke. What is to be done?”
Priscilla sat, white as death, with her hands clasped before her.
“Did you ever,” she said at last after a very long pause, “notice in all your knowledge of mankind how from the beginning of a little act of deceit great and awful things take place? If I had not yielded to a temptation which was put before me at Mrs Lyttelton’s school, Annie would never have been a thief; there would have been no need—no need! Mr Manchuri, I feel that I am responsible for this.”
“Nothing of the kind, child. Please don’t take on in that way! It is too dreadful to hear you.”
Priscilla’s lips trembled.
“We must, we must save Annie Brooke,” she said. “She is in trouble. Her uncle is dead; she has no home any longer. Oh, Mr Manchuri, for the sake of your Esther, don’t be too hard on her!”
“I am just mad with rage,” said the old jeweller. “There are some things I can stand, but not deceit.”
“You can stand me,” said Priscilla very gently, “and yet I was deceitful.”
“You have repented, child; and you are going to do all in your power to show that your repentance is real. I will not have you and Annie Brooke spoken of on the same footing. I cannot bear it, Priscilla.”
“You will be kind to her,” repeated Priscilla.
“I must answer this good woman’s letter. I have got the necklace. I don’t choose to be at the loss of one hundred pounds. There are things I will not bear—I cannot and will not stand—even for you, Priscilla. I have been cheated by that girl, and have lost one hundred pounds on a trinket which I now cannot possibly sell. If Lady Lushington will send me that sum, she can have the necklace back; otherwise Miss Brooke herself must return the money.”
Priscilla was surprised and most distressed at the obduracy of the old man. In the and she could only persuade him to write to John Saxon, whose name she knew well. It would be better for him to be acquainted with this ghastly fact than for Lady Lushington’s just indignation to be turned on Annie’s devoted head.
Accordingly John Saxon was written to, and thus the explanation of his sudden visit to London was arrived at Mr Manchuri had asked the young man to meet him at his house of business, and Saxon, much as he dreaded what might lie before him, little guessed the ghastly news which he was to hear. Mr Manchuri, affectionate as he was to Priscilla, nursed his wrath more and more against Annie during the hours which intervened between his receiving Lady Lushington’s letter and the arrival of John Saxon on the scene.
“I am glad you have come, Mr Saxon,” he said when the young man entered the old jeweller’s private sitting-room, which was situated at the back of the business premises.
“Yes; I came at once,” replied Saxon. “What is it you want with me, Mr Manchuri? You said you had something important to tell me with regard to my cousin, Miss Brooke.”
“Something very ugly to tell you, sir. Now listen. What do you make of this story?”
Saxon did listen while Mr Manchuri enlarged on Annie’s apparently innocent, wheedling ways, on her story with regard to the necklace, and on the fact that he had given her in exchange for it ten notes, each of the value of ten pounds.
“A hundred pounds in all,” said the old jeweller; “and, to tell you the truth, Mr Saxon, cheap at the price, for I could sell that necklace to-morrow for two hundred and fifty pounds, or even three hundred. Mark you, my dear young sir, I could do it, but you could not, nor could she, sharp as she is; for I know the trade and you don’t, and she doesn’t, and Lady Lushington doesn’t. Therefore a hundred pounds is a very fair sum to pay for what only cost her ladyship forty. Now, will you read that?” he added, handing him Lady Lushington’s letter.
John Saxon did so. He returned it and looked full into the face of Mr Manchuri.
“Well, sir,” said the merchant, “what do you mean to do?”
“What do you mean to do, Mr Manchuri?”
Mr Manchuri spread out his hands.
“I,” he said—“I mean to take the law in this matter. I mean to write the simple and exact truth to Lady Lushington, and I mean to confront that precious Miss Brooke with the truth. That is what I mean to do. That sort of wickedness ought not to be permitted, sir. It ought to be nipped in the bud.”
“I agree with you,” said Saxon. He spoke very slowly, and with pain. “It ought to be nipped in the bad, and I am,”—a lamp came to to his throat—“almost glad that you have made this discovery. There would be nothing quite so dreadful for my poor little cousin as that this thing should be hidden. Now it is known, soon a great deal more will be known—of that I am persuaded. But, sir, I want to plead with you on behalf of the guilty party. In the first place, the girl in question is only seventeen. Her exceeding youth, which ought to be the shield of innocence, has not proved sufficient to keep her from acting in the most crafty and guilty manner. But she was the beloved child of one of the beet of men, and for his sake I will not have her name dragged in the dust; if I can save her from the world’s knowledge of such a grave crime as this, I will. Mr Manchuri, you have lost one hundred pounds. Here is my cheque for the amount.”
Here John Saxon took a cheque-book from his pocket.
“Give me a pen and ink,” he said, “and I will fill it in for you. Having received this, will you return the necklace to Lady Lushington, telling her any story you please, but as far as possible shielding Annie Brooke from the worst consequences of her sin?”
“This makes all the difference, sir,” said Mr Manchuri. “I am not appointed in any sense to be the guardian of Miss Annie Brooke. I wish never to see the young lady again. She has acted abominably. I will take your cheque, sir, and return the necklace to Lady Lushington.”
“So far, so good. Then perhaps this ends our business,” said John Saxon.
He took up his hat as he spoke.
“Not quite sure there are not other things I wish to say. Will you sit down?”
Saxon very unwillingly complied.
“You have, perhaps,” continued Mr Manchuri, “heard Miss Brooke speak of a schoolfellow of the name of Priscilla Weir?”
“I have. I believe the young lady was with her and Miss Lushington in Switzerland.”
“That is true,” said Mr Manchuri; “and I had the privilege—I was, in short, the fortunate man to be allowed to escort Miss Weir back to England.”
“Indeed?” said Saxon, who, terribly shocked at this story about poor Annie, could with difficulty bring himself to take the slightest interest in Priscilla.
“You have told me, sir, that Miss Brooke’s uncle is dead?”
Saxon bowed his head. Mr Manchuri gazed hard at the young man.
“Your father was my good friend,” he said, a softer note coming into his voice, “and I have always thoroughly respected you. Your father and I have transacted business, and you yourself have shown me hospitality in a distant part of the world I would not be unkind to you, Mr Saxon, and I pity you very much indeed because of your relationship to Miss Brooke.”
“Pray do not pity me,” said Saxon. “If a man of my age—I am eight-and-twenty—cannot do has beet for a lonely girl, almost a child, he must be a poor sort. I am Annie’s guardian, and will do my utmost as long as she lives to befriend her.”
“Sir, I must speak the truth,” said Mr Manchuri. “You are straight as a die and honest and open as the day; but that girl is crafty, insincere, essentially untrue. You can never turn staff of that sort into true gold, however hard you try.”
“I can at least protect a weak and erring girl,” said Saxon with feeling.
“The best thing you can possibly do for her, sir, is to get her out of England and away from her old friends; for she must never return to Mrs Lyttelton’s school.”
“Why so?” asked Saxon.
“It was my privilege, Mr Saxon, to escort Priscilla Weir back to England. She had been very little noticed by me or by anyone else while at Interlaken. But I think, if I may dare to say the word, that God took care of her, and she alone of all that party really enjoyed the glories of nature. For her the Jungfrau showed some of its majesty, and for her the other great mountains spoke unutterable secrets. She is a queer girl, but has a heart of gold, Mr Saxon, a heart of gold. Now that girl first attracted my attention because the resembled a child of my own—a child who has long lived with the angels. I can scarcely tell you what I felt when I saw the likeness, and since then I have probed into Priscilla’s heart and found that in all respects it resembles the heart of my Esther. Sir, the girl was lonely; she was subjected to temptation, and she yielded to it. She has told me about it, and when Mrs Lyttelton’s school opens it will be Priscilla’s painful duty to tell her mistress something which implicates very seriously your cousin, Miss Brooke. It also implicates Miss Lushington. Priscilla, is a guest in my house now. What she will be eventually I have not yet disclosed to her. It is my impression that Esther sent her to me, and I am not going to let her go in a hurry.”
“Yes, this is very interesting, and I am glad that a girl so worthy as Miss Weir should have found a friend in you,” was Saxon’s response. “But you have not explained what my cousin Annie has done.”
“No, no; it is not within my province. But I can only assure you that that unfortunate young lady has got herself, as well as two more of her schoolfellows—namely, Priscilla Weir and Mabel Lushington—into the most horrible scrape. Priscilla’s conscience will not allow her to live any longer under the load of unconfessed sin, and it is her duty to inform Mrs Lyttelton.”
“And me,” said Saxon in a determined voice.
“You must be patient, sir. I will not tell you Priscilla’s secrets. They are her own. But I should advise you immediately to take steps to remove Miss Brooke from Mrs Lyttelton’s school.” Saxon said a few words more, and then took his leave. He had a good deal of business to attend to that day in connection with the late Mr Brooke’s affairs; the winding-up of his small property and the paying of a few trifling outstanding bills must be attended to as soon as possible. But Annie—what was to be done with her? Saxon himself intended to return to Australia within a month. His business called him there, and he did not think he ought to delay. But what was to become of Annie?
She must not return to school; indeed, her circumstances forbade such a hurry. Would it be possible to settle her somewhere with Mrs Shelf? Saxon thought over this idea, but dismissed it. Annie was far too clever to be left in the hands of a person whom she could completely rule. The young man felt stunned at the depth of her wickedness. He spent a very anxious night, and returned by an early train on the following morning to Rashleigh. There he was met by the appalling information that Annie had gone.
It was Dan who first told him at the station. Dan blurted out the words, almost sobbing as he spoke. Mrs Shelf was so bad that she couldn’t speak. She was lying in the kitchen, where a neighbour had found her when she had come in in the morning. The poor woman was moaning to herself in the most dreadful way. Dan knew no particulars except that Miss Annie was nowhere to be found and that Mrs Shelf was ill.
“Really,” thought Saxon, “troubles thicken. I wonder when we shall see a gleam of daylight. Was there ever such a troublesome and terrible girl put into the world before?”
But the very greatness of the emergency roused all that was strongest and best in the young man. He soon got the truth out of poor Mrs Shelf, who blamed herself almost more than Annie for having gone to Rashleigh. Having tried to assure the poor old woman that she was not in fault, and that he was wrong not to have insisted on taking Annie with him to London, he further soothed her by saying that he would soon find Annie; that it was absolutely impossible for a young girl like Annie Brooke to lose herself in these days of clever detectives and patient investigations.
“We’ll have her back,” he said. “We’ll have her back, and you must get well. And now, I am going immediately—yes, immediately—to take steps. You must have a neighbour in to look after you, Mrs Shelf; and I will write you or send a telegram whenever I get news.”
“But oh, sir! there is something else on my mind,” said Mrs Shelf; and she told him the story of Dawson and the cheque.
“Oh, that is all right,” said Saxon in a cheery voice. “We will settle the matter with Dawson as soon as ever letters of administration have been taken out with regard to Mr Brooke’s will. Don’t fret any more about that and don’t blame poor little Annie more than you can help, Mrs Shelf.”
Mrs Shelf burst into tears. It was a relief to her to hear the manly voice and to feel the confident pressure of the strong young hand. If John Saxon could be cheery and hopeful about Annie, why should she despair?
When he was gone—and he left the house almost immediately afterwards—Mrs Shelf rose totteringly from the sofa in the old kitchen and began to potter about her work. All was not lost even for Annie Brooke, while John Saxon was there to defend and help her.