Three Girls from School

She shivered once or twice with cold, and one of the girls who had got into the same carriage, and who had stared very hard at Annie from time to time, noticing her great dejection and pallor and her want of any wraps, suddenly bent forward and said:

“If you please, miss, I have a cloak to spare, and if you’re taken with a chill I’d be very glad to lend it to you to wrap about you.”

“Thank you,” said Annie instantly. Her small teeth were beginning to chatter, and she was really glad of the girl’s offer.

A few minutes later she was wrapped up in the cloak, and feeling inexpressibly soothed and knowing that her disguise was now more effectual than ever, she dropped into an uneasy sleep. She slept for some time, and when she awoke again she found that the third-class compartment was full of people – a rough and motley crew – and that the two girls who had accompanied her into the carriage were both still present. One faced her; the other sat pressed up close to her side. It was the girl who had lent Annie the cloak who sat so near her.

“Are you a bit better, miss?” she said when Annie had opened her startled blue eyes and tried to collect her scattered senses.

“Oh yes,” said Annie; “but I am thirsty,” she added.

“Suck an orange, then; do,” said the girl. “They are a bit sour yet, but I bought some to-day for the journey.”

She immediately thrust her hand into a string bag and produced an unripe and very untempting-looking specimen of the orange tribe.

Annie took it and said, “Thank you.”

“Lor’ bless you,” said the girl, “but your ’ands is ’ot!”

“No, I am not hot at all,” said Annie; “I am more cold than hot. Thank you so much for the orange. How kind you are!”

The girl looked at Annie with great admiration and curiosity. Then she bent forward and whispered to her companion. They consulted together for a few minutes in low tones which could not possibly reach Annie’s ears owing to the swift-going motion of the train. Then the girl who was seated opposite to Annie bent towards her and said:

“Ain’t you Miss Annie Brooke of Rashleigh Rectory?”

This remark so took Annie by surprise and so completely upset her already tottering nerves that she gave a sudden cry and said in a sort of smothered voice:

“Oh, please, please don’t betray me!”

The girl now nodded to her companion, and the girl who was seated close to Annie said in a low, soothing tone:

“We ain’t goin’ to tell on yer, miss. If yer want to go up to town unbeknown to them as has the charge o’ yer, ’tain’t no affair o’ ours. I’m Tilda Freeman, and that ’ere girl is Martha Jones. I am a Lunnon gel, and Lunnon bred, and I was down on a wisit to my friend Martha Jones. She’s comin’ up with me for a bit to see the big town. Be you acquainted with Lunnon, miss, and do you know its ways?”

“No, I don’t know London very well,” said Annie. She had recovered some of her self-possession by this time. “You are mistaken in supposing,” she continued, trying to speak in as cheerful a tone as she could, “that I am – am going away privately from my friends. I have lost my dear uncle, and am obliged to go to London on business.”

“Yes, miss,” said Martha Jones, “and you has peeled off yer mournin’. You was in black when we seed you at the funeral. And why has yer come up by the night train, and why has yer taken a third-class ticket? And why do you ask us not to betray you? Don’t you tell no lies, miss, and you’ll be told no stories. You’re runnin’ away, and there’s no sayin’ but that it ’ave somethin’ to do with Dawson the butcher.”

“Dawson?” said Annie, her heart beginning to beat very hard.

“Dawson’s in a rare way about a cheque which ’e cashed for yer, miss. ’E can’t get ’is money back. Now Mrs Dawson is own sister to my mother, and we know all about it. There, miss, Tilda and me, we don’t want to be ’ard on a young lady like you, and if you ’ud confide in us, you ’ud find us your good friends. There ain’t no manner o’ use, miss, in your doin’ anythin’ else, for we can soon send a bit o’ a letter to Aunt Jane Dawson, and then the fat’s in the fire.”

“Oh, oh!” said Annie, “I – ” She roused herself; she pushed back her hat; she pressed her hot hand to her hot cheek. “Do you think we might open a little bit of the window?” she said.

Tilda immediately complied.

“There now,” she said; “that’s better. Didn’t I say as you was ’ot? – and no wonder. You tell Martha and me, and we’ll do wot we can for yer.”

“I don’t know what you mean about a cheque,” said Annie; “that is all nonsense – I mean – I am not going away on that account.”

“Oh no, miss,” said Tilda, winking at Martha. “Who hever said you was?”

“But you are right,” continued Annie; “I am going to town for a day or two, just – just – on a little business of my own.”

“Ain’t we smart?” said Tilda, winking again at Martha. Martha bent forward, and once more whispered in her companion’s ear.

“Look ’ere,” said Tilda, “when all’s said and done, you’re a gel, same as we two are gels, and although you is ’igh up in the social scale, and we, so to speak, low down, we are made with the same feelin’s, and souls and bodies, and all the rest o’ it; and it ain’t for Martha and me to be ’ard on yer, miss; we ’ud much more like to ’elp yer, miss. We won’t get to Lunnon until close on twelve – Lor’ bless yer! that ain’t a nice time for a young lady to come all alone to the metropolis; ’tain’t a nice time at all – but my brother Sam ’ull meet Martha and me, and take us straight off to Islington, where we lives; and there ’ull be a bit o’ ’ot supper, and our beds all warm and cosy; and wot I say is this: why mightn’t you come along with us too, and share our ’ot supper and the escort of my brother Sam, and ’ave a shakedown at Islington for the night? There’s no safer way to ’ide, miss – if it’s ’idin’ yer mean; for none o’ those grand folks as you belong to will look for yer out Islington way.”

Annie considered this offer for some little time, and finally said in a grateful tone that she did not think that she could do better than accept it; whereupon the girls whispered and giggled a good deal together and left poor Annie more or less to her own reflections.

It was twenty minutes to twelve when the great express entered the huge London terminus which was its destination; and Annie was indeed glad, when she found herself in the whirl of the great Paddington Station, to have Tilda’s arm to lean on, and to be accompanied at the other side by Martha Jones.

Presently a large young man with a shock of red hair and a freckled face rushed up to the girls, clapped Tilda loudly on the shoulder, and nodded in a most familiar manner to Martha. At sight of Annie, however, he fell back breathless with astonishment and open-eyed admiration; for perhaps in all her life poor little Annie had never looked more absolutely beautiful than she did now. Her cheeks were slightly crimson with the first touch of fever. Her blue eyes were at once dark and bright, and her coral-red lips might have resembled a cherry, so rich was their colour. There was a fragility at the same time about the slim young girl, a sort of delicate refinement, which her pretty dress and golden hair accentuated, so that, compared to Tilda, who was loud and coarse and uncommonly like Sam himself, and Martha, who was a plain, dumpy girl with a cast in one eye, the looked like a being from a superior sphere.

Sam had dreamed of creatures like Annie Brooke. He had believed that it was possible for some girls to look like that, but he had never been close to one of these adorable creatures before in the whole course of his life. His silly head swam; his round eyes became rounder than ever with admiration, and even his loud voice became hushed.

“Who be she?” he said, plucking at Tilda’s sleeve, and his own great, rough voice shaking.

“A friend o’ our’n,” said Tilda, who, not being so susceptible, felt her head very tightly screwed on her shoulders, and was not going to give herself away on Annie’s account. “A friend o’ our’n,” she continued, “a gel whose acquaintance we made in the country. She’s a-comin’ along ’ome with Martha and me; so you look after our trunks, Sam, and we’ll go on to the underground as quick as possible. Don’t stare yer eyes out, Sam, for goodness’ sake! She won’t bolt, beauty though she be.”

“Oh! I can’t go with you; I really can’t,” said Annie. “There must be a hotel close to this, and I have plenty, plenty of money. Perhaps this – this – gentleman would take me to the hotel.”

She looked appealingly at Sam, who would have died for her there and then.

“I wull – if yer wish, miss,” he stammered.

“Nothing of the kind,” said Tilda, who, having secured Annie, had no intention of letting her go. A girl with plenty of money who was running away was a treasure not to be found every day in the week. “You’ll come with us, miss, or that letter ’ull be writ to Mrs Dawson afore we goes to bed to-night.”

“Oh yes,” said Sam, wondering more and more what could have happened. “We’ll take the greatest care o’ yer, miss.”

“Her name’s Annie; you needn’t ‘miss’ her,” said Tilda, turning sharply to her brother. “Now then, do get our bits o’ duds, and be quick, can’t you?”

The bewildered young man did see to his sister’s and friend’s luggage. He had already secured Annie’s bag, and he held it reverently, feeling certain that it belonged to one of a superior class. Why, the little, neat bag alone was something to reverence.

By-and-by the whole party found themselves in a third-class compartment on their way to Islington, which place they in course of time reached, Sam indulging in a cab for Annie’s sake, because he saw that she was far too tired to walk the long mile which separated Tilda Freeman’s home from the railway station.

This humble domicile was soon reached, and the whole party went indoors. A frowsy-looking woman with red hair like Tilda’s and Sam’s stood akimbo in the passage, awaiting the arrival of her son and daughter and visitor.

“How late you be!” she cried. “But there’s yer supper in the kitchen, and yer beds ready. – How do, Martha Jones? It’s a dish o’ tripe an’ onions I ’as ready for yer. I know you’re partial to that sort o’ food. Why, a’ mercy! who on earth is this!”

“A friend o’ mine,” said Tilda. “Her name’s Annie. She can sleep along o’ me to-night, mother.”

“Oh no,” said Annie. “I must have a bed to myself.”

“Then you can’t, my beauty,” said Mrs Freeman, “for there ain’t one for yer. Ef yer thinks Tilda good enough to wisit uninvited in the dead o’ night you must be satisfied with half her bed. And now I’m off to mine, for I ’ave to char early to-morrow mornin’ at Pearson’s house over the way.”

Mrs Freeman disappeared, and the girls, accompanied by Sam, went into the kitchen. Annie, try as she would, could not touch the coarse supper; but Tilda, Martha, and even Sam enjoyed it mightily.

Annie had removed her hat, and her hair looked like purest gold under the flaring gas-jet, which cast a garish light over the place. Sam ate in abundance, and cast adoring eyes at Annie. Annie’s head ached; her throat ached; she shivered; but nevertheless, dimly and in a queer sort of fashion, it was borne in upon her that Sam would be her true friend, and that the girls would not. She was in an evil plight, but she was already feeling too ill to care very much what happened to her. Nevertheless, she had still a sufficient amount of self-control to return Sam’s gaze, and once she gave him a timid smile.

By-and-by the two girls went into the scullery to wash the plates and dishes, for great would have been Mrs Freeman’s wrath if she had found them dirty in the morning; and Sam and Annie were alone.

Annie immediately seized the opportunity.

“Sam,” she said, “I am in great trouble.”

“I be that sorry,” murmured Sam.

“I know you have a kind heart, Sam.”

“For you, miss,” he managed to stammer.

“And you are strong,” continued Annie.

“I’d knock any chap down as wanted to injure a ’air o’ yer ’ead, miss. It’s that beautiful, yer ’air is miss, like – like the sunshine when we spends a day in the country.”

“Do you think you would really help me, Sam?” said Annie.

“You has but to ask, miss,” said the red-haired giant, placing a huge hand over his heart.

“I don’t want your sister and her friend to know.”

“Oh, lawks, miss! you’ll turn my ’ead entirely. A secret atween you and me! Well, I’m that obligated I don’t know ’ow to speak.”

“I want to get away from here to-morrow morning,” said Annie. “I want to go down to the docks, Sam.”

“My word!” said Sam.

“And I don’t know the way,” continued Annie. “Do you think that you – you would come with me and find a ship that is going – a long way from England – where you would take a passage for me? A steerage passage, Sam; I can’t afford anything else.”

“And lose sight on yer, miss, for ever and ever?”

“Oh, but – Sam, you promised to help me.”

“My word! – and I will,” said Sam.

“They are coming back,” said Annie in a husky voice. “I’ll get up early – quite early. When do you get up, Sam?”

“I am off to my work at five in the mornin’.”

“How much do you earn a day?”

“Five shullin’ – and good wage, too.”

“I will give you a whole sovereign if you will stay away from your work and help me to-morrow. Shall we meet outside this house – just outside – at five in the morning?”

“Oh, my word, yus!” said Sam; “and there’s no talk o’ sovereigns. It ’ull be jest the greatest pleasure in my whole life to sarve yer, missie.” The girls bustled noisily into the kitchen, and Tilda conveyed Annie to her own tiny attic in the roof. Annie refused to undress, but lay down, just as she was, on the hard, uncomfortable bed. For long afterwards she could not quite remember what occurred that night. It was all a horrible nightmare. She was ill; she was dying. Her throat seemed to suffocate her. Every bone in her body ached. She was confronted by ghastly images; unknown and awful terrors pursued her. Something touched her. She screamed. She opened her eyes and recognised Tilda bending over her.

“What – what do you want?” she said; for Tilda had just grasped the pocket where the money lay.

“Nothing – nothing at all, miss,” said Tilda.

“You leave that gel alone!” shouted a harsh voice from another attic close by.

“My word!” said Tilda. She sank down, trembling. “And I didn’t mean to take her money. I am bad, but I ain’t as bad as that; only I wanted to see wot she ’as got. She might make a present to Martha and me; but ef Sam ’as took her up, there ain’t no chance for none o’ us.”

Towards morning Tilda crept into the other side of the bed and fell into profound slumber. Annie also slept and dreamed and awakened, and slept and dreamed again.

”‘Be sure your sin will find you out,’” she kept repeating under her breath; and then, all of a sudden, when she felt a little – just a little – calmer, a hand was laid on her shoulder, a great rough face bent over her, and a voice said:

“I say, missie, it’s time for you and me to be off.”

Annie looked up. The red-haired giant had entered the room and had summoned her. Trembling, shaking, her fever high, her throat almost too sore to allow her to speak, she rose from that horrible bed, tried to shake her tumbled clothes into some sort of order, took up her bag, and followed Sam downstairs. A minute or two later, to her infinite refreshment, they were both out of the house and in the open air. Sam was all alive and keen with interest but when they had walked a few steps he glanced at Annie and the expression of his face altered.

“You be – my word! – you be real bad!” he said.

“I am,” said Annie hoarsely. “I can scarcely speak. It is – my – sin, Sam – that has – found me out.”

“Your sin!” said Sam. “You be a hangel o’ light.”

Annie laid her little, white, burning hand on his.

“I can’t go to the docks,” she said. “I can’t go anywhere – except – except – oh, I must be quick! – oh, my senses will go! Everything swims before me. Sam, I must tell you the truth. Sam, hold me for a minute.”

He did so. The street in which they found themselves was quiet as yet. There were only a few passers-by, and these where hurrying off to their respective employments. Annie put her hand into the little pocket which contained her money. She took out her purse and gave Sam a five-pound note.

“Go,” she said, “to-day to Rashleigh, the place where your sister has been. Go to the Rectory and tell them that I – Annie Brooke – have found out – the truth of one text: ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ Tell them that from me, and be quick – be very quick. Go at once. But first of all take me to the nearest hospital.”

Before poor Sam could quite understand all Annie’s instructions the girl herself was quite delirious. There was nothing for it but to lift her into his strong arms and carry her to a large hospital in the neighbourhood of Islington. There she was instantly admitted, and, after a very brief delay, was conveyed to the fever ward.

Chapter Twenty Nine

From Darkness to Light

Late on that same evening Rover at the old Rectory thought it expedient to raise his voice in the extreme of exasperation and anger. A stranger of the sort that ought not to be seen about the Rectory gardens was daring to approach the back-door right through Rover’s special territory. Luckily for the red-haired giant, Rover could not get at him beyond the limit of his chain. The giant knocked at the back-door, and presently a timid-looking woman, who had been called in to help to nurse Mrs Shelf, opened the door about an inch.

“Now what is up?” she said. “You get out of this; you are a stranger here, and we don’t want parties of your sort about.”

“I ha’ come,” said Sam, “with a message from one as calls herself Annie.”

Mrs Shelf was still lying on the sofa in the kitchen. She was feeling far too weak and shaky to rise; but at the name strength seemed to come into her like magic. She tottered off her sofa and approached the door.

“Whoever you are, come right in,” she said.

Sam entered and stood gloomily leaning up against the dresser.

“What is your message?” said Mrs Shelf. “Do tell me quickly! Do you know where Annie Brooke is?”

“In the Great Northern Hospital,” said Sam Freeman, “where I left her this mornin’. She said I was to come here and say – that her sin had found her out. She guv me five pounds to come and give the message. It’s a sight too much money. I tuk a third-class ticket down, and ’ere’s the change.” He put three sovereigns and a pile of silver on the table. “I tuk a return ticket,” he said. “I’ll be off, arter givin’ my message.”

“But tell us everything,” said Mrs Shelf. “Why, we are just mad to know. Whatever do you mean?”

Thus abjured, Sam did tell what little he knew. Annie had come back with his sister and a friend of hers to their house the night before, and she had wanted him to help her, and he had arranged to do it. But in the morning she was taken bad – very bad – and lost her head, only first of all she was able to give him more than enough money to come to Rashleigh, and a message which he was to convey to the old folks at the Rectory.

“Can’t make ’ead nor tail on it,” said the giant; “for if ever there was a beautiful, ’eavenly creature, it were her. Why, I tak her in these arms to the ’ospital. Oh, she’s like to die!” he continued. “You’d best go to Annie if ever you want to see her again.”

“And so I will – and this night, too,” said Mrs Shelf. “I’ll go right along back with you; but first of all I must send a telegraphic message to Mr John Saxon.”

In vain the neighbour who had been put in charge of Mrs Shelf expostulated with her in regard to her madness in going to London.

“If this is madness,” was the sturdy woman’s reply, “I would rather be mad than sane. Is not his bit lamb in danger and suffering, and am I the one to keep away from her?”

Sam heard these words without understanding them, but felt immediately inclined to think that Mrs Shelf was a very good sort. Accordingly, that very same evening Mrs Shelf and Sam Freeman went up to London by the very train which had taken Annie the night before. When they reached London, however, Mrs Shelf bade her companion good-bye.

“I will never cease to thank you as long as I live,” she said; “and if our Annie, our bit lamb, gets better, you will hear from me.”

“I won’t wait for that ma’am,” said Sam. “I’ll call every day at the ’ospital to inquire. I can’t say no more; there’s naught I wouldn’t do for her, ma’am.”

He hurried away, his great shock head towering above most of his fellow-men. Mrs Shelf sighed heavily. At Paddington she got into a four-wheeler and drove straight to the hotel where she knew John Saxon was staying.

He was out. She sat down patiently to wait for him. It was past midnight before he returned. What was his amazement to see the worthy, homely face of Mrs Shelf as she rose from her seat in a corner of the hall of the hotel!

“I have no news for you,” he said. “My good soul, why did you come to town? Now this only adds to our complications. I have spent a fearful day, and have put detectives on poor Annie’s track, but up to the present we have heard nothing.”

“Then I have news for you, Mr John. You don’t suppose I’d come all the way to London for nothing.” And the good woman repeated the astounding intelligence which Sam Freeman had brought her.

“A message from the child herself,” she said; “and you can guess from its tone, sir, and the words she used, how bad our poor Annie must be. Oh, may God spare her, and save her life!”

“Spare her and change her!” murmured John Saxon. “With God all things are possible. I will go at once to the hospital,” he said.

“And you will take me with you, sir?”

“Yes, if you like; but I don’t think we can be admitted at this hour.”

“Oh, sir! I couldn’t stay away. We must at least have a good try. Haven’t I nursed her since she was a little thing – she, who all her days was really motherless?”

“All right,” said Saxon. “We will go at once.” The porter who answered their summons at the great hospital went away immediately to get news with regard to Annie Brooke. This was the reverse of reassuring. She was very ill, quite delirious, and could not possibly be seen until the following morning.

“Then I will wait here,” said Mrs Shelf, settling herself down determinedly. “You can’t put me, a woman of my years, into the street. I will go to her when the day breaks.”

When Saxon and Mrs Shelf were allowed to visit Annie she did not know them. Her delirium ran high, and for days and weeks she lay truly at the point of death. All that could be done for her was, however, done. She had special nurses and a private ward; and at long last there came a day when, in answer to anguished prayers and bitter sorrow, a girl crept slowly back from the shores of death and lay truly like the shadow of her former self high and dry above danger and on her way to recovery. Day after day, slowly, very slowly, almost imperceptibly, her strength returned, until at last there came an hour when she recognised her old friends. Then by degrees she returned to health and strength.

It was three months later, and all the events which make up this story seemed to have passed into a distant part of Annie Brooke’s life, when she and John Saxon had an earnest talk together.

Annie was well once more, but so changed that few would have known her for the laughing and almost beautiful girl of the early part of that same year. She had said very little of the past since her recovery, but on this occasion she made a clean breast of everything to John Saxon.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I knew at last what repentance meant when I passed into that awful state of delirium and when I felt myself face to face with an angry God. But I have got something in my nature, John, which makes me tremble for the future. I am very wicked still. What can I do with my life?”

Then John Saxon made a proposal to her. “Will you and Mrs Shelf and our friend Sam Freeman, who is an excellent fellow at heart and the very person for a colonist, take passage with me to Canada? You can start a new life there, Annie. You have enough money to buy a little land, and Sam Freeman is the very man to help you. I myself will stay near you for the first year, and you can start your Canadian life in the house of a cousin of mine, who, I know, will be only too glad to receive you. In a new country, dear,” continued her cousin, “one can have a clear horizon, a wider view, a better chance. Take up your cross bravely, Annie; never forget that you have sinned, but also that you have repented.”