Chapter 21 The Girls of St. Wode's by L. T. Meade
WHAT IS UP?
Mr. Parker and Leslie went in the direction of the river. They walked slowly down the towing-path. Several of the college girls were out in their different boats. Leslie began to remark about them. The merchant held up his hand to stop her.
“We will discuss the beauties of nature and the beauty of those fair companions of yours later on,” he remarked. “But first of all I want to talk over the very important matter which has brought me here to-day. Miss Leslie, I want you to confide in me. What is up, my dear – what is up?”
“What is up!” cried Leslie. “I do not understand you. Oh, I know,” she added, her face turning pale, “that you are hiding something dreadful from me. Mother is ill, or Llewellyn, or one of the girls; but I have heard nothing, I assure you. Oh, please, tell me the truth at once.”
“It is for you to tell me,” replied Mr. Parker somewhat tartly. “Let me assure you once for all that your family are in the best of health; but, Miss Leslie, I did think that you – well, I will say it, I felt hurt at what occurred yesterday.”
“But what can you mean? You felt hurt at what occurred yesterday! What did occur? I assure you I am absolutely in the dark.”
“Oh, no, you are not, young lady. You are putting it on, and that does not suit a man of my caliber at all. Instead of coming to me yourself, or even writing to me – instead of giving me your full confidence, and feeling sure that I, as your father’s old friend, would not be too hard on you – you had not the courage to do that – you sent a stranger to me.”
“I cannot understand,” said poor Leslie. Her heart beat fast. She felt quite certain now that some trouble was going to be revealed to her; she knew that the moment had come when she must exercise self-control. Happen what might, she must not give herself away. Another, a stranger had approached Mr. Parker on her behalf. A queer sense of heartsickness came over her; she seemed partly to guess already what was coming. Making a violent effort not to show the alarm which was paling her cheeks, and almost causing her heart to stop beating, she said quickly: “Please speak.”
Mr. Parker had observed her agitation and he now whispered to himself.
“She has done it; I am mistaken in her. I thought she was like my Jenny. She had the same voice, and something the same ways, and very much the same expression; but I am mistaken. There never could have been two Jennies in this wicked old world. I was mistaken. The child was like her in the external features only.”
“Please speak,” repeated Leslie.
“I am going to speak,” said the merchant. “I am disappointed. No, I am not going to be angry. I suppose girls, all but one, and her I won’t mention in this discussion, are alike all the world over. If they suddenly want a little money and remember that their father’s old friend can be befooled, being an old man himself, and tender-hearted, they yielded to temptation. You are like the rest, Miss Leslie; just like the rest. Your mother shall never know, nor that brave brother of yours. I won’t say another word when I have had my say out today; but, my dear, let me ask you just once, why did you do it?”
“Oh, you are driving me mad,” said poor Leslie. “You are talking about something I did; but I don’t know yet what I did. Do speak.”
“You don’t know about that sixty pounds. Come, now, that’s putting it on too fine. You went into debt for sixty pounds, and were afraid, and sent that other girl, Annie Colchester, whose shoes you are not fit to black, for the money. I gave it to her, of course, for your letter was so pitiable; but I did not tell her that I was coming down the next day to inquire into this matter myself.”
There was a seat close by; it faced the river. Leslie sat down on it just as if somebody had shot her. She did not speak for some time. Had she done so, she must have burst out with the truth. In her immense effort for self-control, for repression of her feelings, she even thought that she was going to faint.
“You ran in debt, child; the temptations here were too much for you. You ran in debt for fal-lals and gew-gaws, and all the other sort of things which please pretty girls; you thought, of course, the old man would pay up. Well, the old man has paid up. I am sorry. You might have asked me for the money in the first place, and not gone into debt for it; but that is the way with modern girls. We will say no more about it. I see you did not want to pain me.”
Mr. Parker patted her on the arm. Leslie shrank away from him.
“Don’t,” she said. “I cannot bear you to touch me just now.”
“You cannot bear me to touch you! Well, that’s nice hearing when I’m spending my money on you and thinking such a lot of you, and remembering the straight honorable sort of man your father was.”
“But do you, knowing my father as you did, feeling for him as you still do – do you really believe this of me?” said Leslie.
“Believe it of you? How can I help it, child? But if there is any way out of, any way to lessen the kind of shock I got yesterday, I will bless you, Leslie Gilroy, to the longest day I live.”
Leslie again felt as if she had got a dash of cold water. She could clear herself, but at what a cost!
“Tell me exactly what occurred before I say anything more,” she said in a low, tremulous voice.
“Oh, that’s all easy enough,” said Mr. Parker. “It was Annie Colchester who came to me. I have known her brother for a year or two. Rupert is about as bad a lot as I have ever met. The girl is different; clever, with a lot of enthusiasm and blind worship for that good-for-nothing brother of hers. I helped Rupert, took him into my own office; but afterwards I had to give him the sack. I could not keep that sort about me, you understand.”
“Please, go on,” said Leslie.
“Well, I dismissed him a month ago for improper conduct. I expect that chap will go to the dogs as fast as he can. I am the last man, Leslie, to uphold young rascals of that sort. He is a scoundrel, and the least said about him the better. The girl is different. I had letters from her now and then, and she always spoke of you with great affection. She never mentioned you by name, and I never guessed until yesterday, when she called to see me, that you were the girl, her roomfellow, she said, whom she liked better than anybody else at St. Wode’s – that you were the same girl whom I cared for more than aught else in the world.”
“Oh, you don’t,” said Leslie. There was a break in her voice.
“I do, child. You always seemed to me to be Jenny come back again; but there, once for all, I will not drag Jenny into this. Annie Colchester called at my office yesterday; she brought me a note from you. By the way, here it is.”
“Don’t show it to me,” said Leslie suddenly.
“Don’t show you your own letter? Why not?”
“Because – oh, don’t ask me.” She felt cold and sick. If Mr. Parker really showed her that letter, written by Annie but signed in her name, she knew that she could not trust herself, she knew that she must say something which would betray her miserable friend. The one rope she had to cling to was a blind sense of honor. She would give Annie a chance, she would not betray her, she would get Annie herself to make her own confession.
“What train must you go back by?” she said suddenly.
“You look quite ill, child. I see you cannot put the thing straight, as I had hoped just for a moment: but, after I have asked you one or two questions, we will never allude to the matter again. Was it an ordinary debt you wanted the money for?”
Leslie bent her head in apparent acquiescence.
“Then, that is a relief. I did think that you were above all the petty wants and caprices of your sex; but if you do want to look pretty and charming, why, my dear, I have more money than I know what to do with. Here” – he fumbled in his pocket – “would you like another twenty pounds, for I have got some bank-notes? I could let you have three or four. You are pretty enough to look charming in the simplest dress; but if you think otherwise, why – ”
“Oh, don’t, Mr. Parker,” cried Leslie. “I cannot touch your money; put it away, please.” She pushed it from her. The strain was becoming intolerable.
“Did you say,” she continued, “that Annie took you that note herself?”
“Yes, my dear. You told me in it that you particularly wished to get the money in notes and gold; so I sent notes and gold. Now, Leslie, don’t be tempted in that way again. If you want money come to me straight. Say to me, ‘Mr. Parker, for the sake of my father, let me have five pounds,’ or ten, or fifteen, or whatever supply you want. Don’t ask me in Jenny’s name, for Jenny would not have done that sort of thing; but, for Gilroy’s sake, I – I’ll never refuse you, child. Don’t go into debt for it, that’s all.”
“I never will,” said poor Leslie. “Oh, I cannot explain things now, and I know you must think dreadfully of me.”
“I see you are concealing something,” said Parker, knitting his brows and giving her another fixed look. “Tell me the whole truth, little girl.”
“I can’t; not at present.”
Mr. Parker’s voice changed again. He looked hard at Leslie, then he looked away. He pursed up his lips and uttered a long whistle.
“If you cannot tell me, well, there’s no more to be said,” he remarked. “I am cut up a bit, that’s all. But understand this, Leslie, I’ll have no more fooling. There is a limit even to my endurance, and, when roused, I can be hard and very just. I will never tell your mother. I wouldn’t vex her nor give her another care for all the money I possess. You did wrong in spending that money before you got it; you did very wrong to go into debt. If you go in debt again, why, there, I won’t help you. But if you ask me for money, and say you want it, and give me a good reason – even if it is to buy a smart frock or pretty hat – you shall have it, child; and there’s my last word. Good-by, my dear. Don’t fret too much. Whatever you may have done wrong, you stand in Jenny’s place to me now. Cheer up, cheer up.”
But Leslie could not utter a word, she did not even raise her head; she was only conscious that Mr. Parker had pulled out his watch, uttered a hasty exclamation, looked to right and left, then, going up to her, stooped and kissed her lightly on her forehead.
“For your father’s sake, and for the sake of old times,” he said.
She heard his retreating footsteps as he went along the towing-path to Wingfield.
For nearly an hour Leslie Gilroy sat on that seat alone. None of her companions came by. She was glad of this, if she could be said to be glad of anything at that moment. She felt stunned; all her life up to the present had been bright. She found herself all of a sudden, through no fault of her own, in the position of one who is degraded, dishonored; she, who had always been upright, respectable, and respected. With her and open sin there was nothing whatever in common. To sin gravely, to commit a really great sin, was impossible to a nature like Leslie’s. Direct temptation would shrink away from one so pure, so innocent, so generous, so loving; and now she was stained just as if she had really committed the sin which she loathed. How could she live under this terrible imputation? How could she take the sin of another and bear it bravely on her young shoulders? The man to whom she was indebted for so much believed her guilty. How could she stand it? Was it right for her to stand it?
Leslie considered this with bent head and knitted brows.
Suppose she wrote to Mr. Parker, and told him the truth, what would happen then? She could guess, and the thought of what would happen caused her to tremble. He liked her; he was kind to her for her dead father’s sake and because he imagined that she bore a likeness to the child he had lost; but he had spoken with a certain harshness of the Colchesters. He would certainly not stand the knowledge that he had been befooled by a girl twice as clever as himself. He would come down to Wingfield, he would see Annie, he would speak to the authorities about her, she would be rusticated, sent down, expelled. Her career in life would be practically ruined. No. Leslie felt she could not betray her.
“Not yet, anyhow,” she said to herself. “If she will confess, I think Mr. Parker will forgive her, but I cannot be the one to ruin her whole life.”
Leslie struggled hard to regain her ordinary calmness; but, try as she would, she could not get it back. Annie had hurt her too deeply. To take a letter purporting to be written in her hand to Mr. Parker, to borrow money in her name, to get Mr. Parker to think so badly of her. Oh, the sin was too dark; it cut too sore; it lay too deep.
Leslie shivered as she returned slowly to the house. Eileen Chetwynd met her in the quadrangle and ran up eagerly.
“We were looking for you, Leslie,” she cried. “We wanted you to come on the water with us this lovely afternoon. Have you a headache? You don’t look well.”
“Perhaps I have a headache; but I don’t quite know,” replied Leslie.
“You don’t quite know? You look queer.”
“I will go upstairs and lie down.” Leslie ran past Eileen, who stared after her in some wonder.
When Leslie entered her room, Annie, still buried in her novel, was crouched up on the window-sill. Her books, papers, and problems were pushed aside; her hair was rumpled, her cheeks slightly flushed; nevertheless, there was an expression of rest about her face that Leslie had never before seen there. She turned away from her, feeling that she could scarcely bear to inhabit the same room. For the first time in her gentle life hatred of another was visiting her. Her religious principles did not come to her aid in this crisis; she felt a sense of being crushed, she felt sure that because of this thing she must go halt and maimed for the remainder of her days.
Annie looked up as she came in.
“Had a good time?” she asked in a light, careless sort of voice.
“I was down by the river,” replied Leslie coldly.
“Has your visitor gone?” asked Annie, not noticing the tone.
“Yes. He returned to London by the 5.30.”
Leslie wondered that Annie did not take alarm when she heard that her visitor had come from London; but the possibility of Mr. Parker’s appearing at Wingfield had evidently never entered her brain. She turned another page of her novel, and read on contentedly.
“How good it is to have a whole afternoon’s real rest,” she said; “and this book is splendid. By the way, have you read it – ‘The Caxtons,’ by Bulwer Lytton?”
“Yes; I have read it,” replied Leslie in a low voice.
“Don’t you want to make any tea this afternoon?” said Annie. “I am so thirsty.”
“I don’t care about tea to-night,” replied Leslie.
“We shall be going down to dinner in less than an hour.”
Annie stifled a sigh, and once more resumed her book. Leslie went and sat with her back to her. She took up a book, but she could not read. As a rule, it was Leslie’s task and privilege to get tea for them both. Annie missed her companion’s gentle attentions. After a minute or two she tumbled down from her seat on the window-sill, and began in a perfunctory manner to get ready for dinner.
Leslie also rose, shook out her dress, put on a fresh tie and collar, and smoothed her hair.
“You are not making much of a toilet this evening,” said Annie.
“Oh, I shall do very well,” replied Leslie.
“Do! I should think you will,” said Annie in a tone almost of affection. “If I had as pretty a face as yours, I should not much mind how I dressed; or, yes, perhaps I should. Perhaps I should give up my whole life to my beautiful face, and spend all my time devising means to make it still more attractive.”
“Don’t,” said Leslie in a sharp voice. The thought that Mr. Parker also supposed that she was vain enough and despicable enough to go into debt for fine clothes returned to her memory with Annie’s words.
“You look sweet,” said Annie. “Come along, take my arm. I am in a mighty good humor, I can tell you, and as hungry as a hawk. I missed the tea which you, you kind little roomfellow, have generally got for me.”
“Go on; don’t wait for me,” said Leslie. “I have forgotten a handkerchief.”
She ran back just when they reached the door. Annie, in some wonder, went downstairs alone. Leslie waited until she had gone.
“Oh, God help me to bear it!” she said, raising a piteous cry to the One who alone could help her. Then, feeling a little better, she went downstairs, and took her place at table.
When dinner was over, one or two girls came up to invite both Annie and Leslie to join them at a cocoa-party.
Leslie looked at Annie with a sort of suppressed eagerness.
“She will be going out presently,” thought the girl. “She will be going to meet that bad fellow, to give him the money – the money which has ruined my life. I shall watch her. I hate being with her, and yet I cannot keep away from her.”
She waited for Annie to speak again.
“Do you want to go?” she said.
“No; I cannot go this evening,” said Annie; “but it will be all right for you, Leslie. You will go, will you not?”
“I shall stay with you.” said Leslie in a dogged sort of voice.
The girls who had invited them looked somewhat surprised and disappointed. They said nothing more, however; and Leslie and Annie went upstairs once more to their own room. Annie went and stood by the open window.
“What can be the matter with you?” she said, turning to her companion. “You do look very queer. You have not been a bit like yourself for the last hour or two.”
Leslie made no reply.
Annie glanced at her again.
“It is so hot to-night,” she said. “I am going out for a stroll. I may not be in until half-past ten, or even later. Why, Leslie Gilroy, you are quite glaring at me; your eyes have got the queerest expression.”
“Never mind about my eyes,” replied Leslie. “I have something to say.” Her quiet was over; she knew that the time for action had come.
“Annie Colchester,” she said, “I know where you are going. You have got a chance, one chance; will you take it?”
“You know where I am going, and I have got a chance – what do you mean? How very queer you look!”
“I will tell you in a few words exactly what I mean. I know everything. There is time yet. Annie, Annie, you cannot mean really to ruin me. I have always been kind to you – that is, I have tried to be kind. You cannot mean quite to ruin me, Annie.”
“To ruin you – to ruin you, Leslie? No; I don’t mean to ruin you.”
It was now Annie’s turn to look pale; her eyes, startled and alarmed, glanced from Leslie to the ground.
“At any rate, don’t keep me now,” she said, a shiver passing through her frame. “When I come back I will talk with you as long as you like; but I am in a great hurry. We can talk over – over what you mean (I am sure I cannot imagine what it can be) when I come back.”
“We must talk now,” cried Leslie; “it will be too late when you come back. Annie, I have something to confess to you; and you – God knows you have something terrible to confess to me; but my confession comes first. I followed you the night before last. After the meeting at East Hall I came back to our room and found you absent. I was restless and miserable about you, and I went out to look for you. I was standing near the boat-house when you landed with – with – ”
“You saw us?” cried Annie. “Then you are a sneak – a spy. You saw us, and you – ”
“Yes, I saw you. I stood in the shadow, and I heard what you said. The man who was with you – ”
“Don’t dare to say a word against him!” cried Annie.
“Yes, I will. He is a rascal; a scoundrel.”
“Oh, he is my brother!” cried Annie; “the only one I love in all the world; and you dare not abuse him. What right have you?”
“I have every right, Annie; I know the truth. He wanted money; I heard him say so. He spoke cruelly to you; and you – you promised to help him. You were in great trouble, and I pitied you from my very soul. I did not know; I could not guess that you would make use of me; the crudest, the most terrible use. You forged a letter in my name, and you took it to my friend, Mr. Parker.”
“How – how can you know?” said Annie. Her voice had sunk to the lowest whisper. Leslie had to strain her ears to catch the words.
“I know in the best possible way, and from the best authority,” replied Leslie. “Mr. Parker came to see me to-day, and he told me everything.”
“And you betrayed me?”
Annie flung herself suddenly on her knees; she covered her face with her shaking hands.
“Oh! and I thought myself safe,” she continued. “I have lived through such awful agony – misery beyond words was mine; and just when I thought myself safe. Oh, I was resting to-day, I was so tired; but all my security was false, and I am done for – ruined. Why was I ever born?”
She uttered a piercing cry, and fell forward on her face and hands.
“Get up, Annie; don’t kneel like that. I did not betray you.”
“You did not betray me? Do you mean what you are saying?” Annie started up now, came close to Leslie, and tried to take her hand. “Mr. Parker came here today, and told you what I did yesterday, and you did not tell him the truth? Oh, you angel! Oh, you darling! All my life, as long as I live, I will live for you, and devote myself to you. Oh, you darling; you brave darling!”
“Don’t,” said Leslie. “You would not speak those words to me if you knew what I felt in my heart. Do you think I love you now? No; I am scarcely sorry for you. I simply feel that I cannot betray you.”
“Then, all is well,” said Annie. “I don’t mind in the least at the present moment whether you hate me or not. I declare now, and I shall always maintain it, that you are the noblest girl in the world.”
“But, Annie, do you quite understand? You cannot mean to go on with this. Now that you know what it is to me, you must – you must make restitution. You cannot allow Mr. Parker to go on thinking day after day, month after month, and year after year, that I was really guilty of the terrible sin and meanness of going into debt for sixty pounds, and then sending you to him to ask him to pay my debt. You cannot mean this, Annie?”
“Yes, I do mean it; and so would you if you had a brother like Rupert, and you felt that all his future depended on your helping him. What are you compared to Rupert? He is the only one in the world I passionately love. Oh, there, the clock has struck ten, and he will be waiting for me. If he does not get that sixty pounds to-night he will be desperate. The police are after him, I know; he will be locked up. Oh! what is your grief compared to his misery? Leslie, I am going out; you did not betray me to-day, and you won’t betray me now. Let me go, let me go.”
“Not without me,” said Leslie with sudden firmness. “If you go, I shall go; but if you refuse, I will speak to – ”
“Oh, don’t! don’t! come if you wish; anything, so that we get to him at once. He will be put in prison, sent to penal servitude; and I shall go mad, raving mad. Come; be quick, be quick!”
Annie dragged Leslie by her arm, not allowing her time to utter another word. The girls flew downstairs together, and a moment later were out, with the stars looking down at them, and the moon shining on the beautiful river.