A World of Girls: The Story of a School

“Come into this room, my child,” he said. “My dear, you will be ill yourself if you give way like this. Pooh! pooh! this agitation is extreme – is uncalled for. You have got a shock. I shall prescribe a glass of sherry at once. Come downstairs with me, and I will see that you get one.”

“But how is she, sir – how is she?” poor Hester managed to articulate.

“Oh! the little one – sweet, pretty, little darling. I did not know she was your sister – a dear little child. She got an ugly fall, though – came on a nasty place.”

“But, please, sir, how is she? She – she – she is not in danger?”

“Danger? by no means, unless you put her into it. She must be kept very quiet, and, above all things, not excited. I will come to see her again to-morrow morning. With proper care she ought to be quite herself in a few days. Ah! now you’ve got a little colour in your cheek, come down with me and have that glass of sherry, and you will feel all right.”

Chapter Twenty Four

Annie To The Rescue

The picnic-party arrived home late. The accident to little Nan had not shortened the day’s pleasure, although Mrs Willis, the moment she heard of it, had come back; for she entered the hall just as the doctor was stepping into his carriage. He gave her his opinion, and said that he trusted no further mischief, beyond a little temporary excitement, had been caused. He again, however, spoke of the great necessity of keeping Nan quiet, and said that her school-fellows must not come to her, and that she must not be excited in any way. Mrs Willis came into the great hall where Hester was standing. Instantly she went up to the young girl, and put her arm around and drew her to her side.

“Darling,” she said, “this is a grievous anxiety for you; no words can express my sorrow and my sympathy; but the doctor is quite hopeful, Hester, and, please God, we shall soon have the little one as well as ever.”

“You are really sorry for me?” said Hester, raising her eyes to the head-mistress’s face.

“Of course, dear; need you ask?”

“Then you will have that wicked Annie Forest punished – well punished – well punished.”

“Sometimes, Hester,” said Mrs Willis very gravely, “God takes the punishment of our wrongdoings into His own hands. Annie came home with me. Had you seen her face as we drove together you would not have asked me to punish her.”

“Unjust, always unjust,” muttered Hester, but in so low a voice that Mrs Willis did not hear the words. “Please may I go to little Nan?” she said.

“Certainly, Hester – some tea shall be sent up to you presently.”

Miss Danesbury arranged to spend that night in Nan’s room. A sofa bed was brought in for her to lie on, for Mrs Willis had yielded to Hester’s almost feverish entreaties that she might not be banished from her little sister. Not a sound reached the room where Nan was lying – even the girls took off their shoes as they passed the door – not a whisper came to disturb the sick child. Little Nan slept most of the evening, only sometimes opening her eyes and looking up drowsily when Miss Danesbury changed the cold application to her head. At nine o’clock there came a low tap at the room door. Hester went to open it; one of her school-fellows stood without.

“The prayer-gong is not to be sounded to-night. Will you come to the chapel now? Mrs Willis sent me to ask.”

Hester shook her head.

“I cannot,” she whispered; “tell her I cannot come.”

“Oh, I am so sorry?” replied the girl; “is Nan very bad?”

“I don’t know: I hope not. Good-night.”

Hester closed the room door, took off her dress, and began very softly to prepare to get into bed. She put on her dressing-gown, and knelt down as usual to her private prayers. When she got on her knees, however, she found it impossible to pray; her brain felt in a whirl, her feelings were unprayerlike; and with the temporary relief of believing Nan in no immediate danger came such a flood of hatred toward Annie as almost frightened her. She tried to ask God to make Nan better – quite well; but even this petition seemed to go no way – to reach no one – to fall flat on the empty air. She rose from her knees, and got quietly into bed.

Nan lay in that half-drowsy and languid state until midnight. Hester, with all her very slight expedience of illness, thought that as long as Nan was quiet she must be getting better; but Miss Danesbury was by no means so sure, and, notwithstanding the doctor’s verdict, she felt anxious about the child. Hester had said that she could not sleep; but at Miss Danesbury’s special request she got into bed, and before she knew anything about it was in a sound slumber. At midnight, when all the house was quiet, and Miss Danesbury kept a lonely watch by the sick child’s pillow, there came a marked change for the worse in the little one. She opened her feverish eyes wide and began to call out piteously; but her cry now was, not for Hester, but for Annie.

“Me want my Annie,” she said over and over, “me do, me do. No, no; go ’way, naughty Daybury, me want my Annie; me do want her.”

Miss Danesbury felt puzzled and distressed. Hester, however, was awakened by the piteous cry, and sat up in bed.

“What is it, Miss Danesbury?” she asked.

“She is very much excited, Hester; she is calling for Annie Forest.”

“Oh, that is quite impossible,” said Hester, a shudder passing through her. “Annie can’t come here. The doctor specially said that none of the girls were to come near Nan.”

“Me want Annie; me want my own Annie,” wailed the sick child.

“Give me my dressing-gown, please, Miss Danesbury, and I will go to her,” said Hester.

She sprang out of bed, and approached the little crib. The brightness of Nan’s feverish eyes was distinctly seen. She looked up at Hester, who bent over her; then she uttered a sharp cry and covered her little face.

“Go ’way, go ’way, naughty Hetty – Nan want Annie; Annie sing, Annie p’ay with Nan – go ’way, go ’way, Hetty.”

Hester’s heart was too full to allow her to speak; but she knelt by the crib and tried to take one of the little hot hands in hers. Nan, however, pushed her hands away, and now began to cry loudly.

“Annie! – Annie! – Annie! me want ’oo; Nan want ’oo – poor tibby Nan want ’oo, Annie!”

Miss Danesbury touched Hester on her shoulder.

“My dear,” she said, “the child’s wish must be gratified. Annie has an extraordinary power over children, and under the circumstances I shall take it upon me to disobey the doctor’s directions. The child must be quieted at all hazards. Run for Annie, dear – you know her room. I had better stay with little Nan, for, though she loves you best, you don’t soothe her at present – that is often so with a fever case.”

“One moment,” said Hester. She turned again to the little crib.

“Hetty is going to fetch Annie for Nan. Will Nan give her own Hetty one kiss?”

Instantly the little arms were flung round Hester’s neck.

“Me like ’oo now, dood Hetty. Go for Annie, dood Hetty.” Instantly Hester ran out of the room. She flew quickly down the long passage, and did not know what a strange little figure she made as the moon from a large window at one end fell full upon her. So eerie, so ghost-like was her appearance as she flew noiselessly with her bare feet along the passage that some one – Hester did not know whom – gave a stifled cry. The cry seemed to come from a good way off, and Hester was too preoccupied to notice it. She darted into the room where Susan Drummond and Annie Forest slept.

“Annie you are to come to Nan,” she said in a sharp high-pitched voice which she scarcely recognised as her own.

“Coming,” said Annie, and she walked instantly to the door with her dress on, and stood in the moonlight.

“You are dressed!” said Hester in astonishment.

“I could not undress – I lay down as I was. I fancied I heard Nan’s voice calling me. I guessed I should be sent for.”

“Well, come now,” said Hester in her hardest tones. “You were only sent for because Nan must be quieted at any risk. Come, and see if you can quiet her. I don’t suppose,” with a bitter laugh, “that you will succeed.”

“I think so,” replied Annie, in a very soft and gentle tone.

She walked back by Hester’s side and entered the sick-room. She walked straight up to the little cot, and knelt down by Nan, and said, in that strangely melodious voice of hers —

“Little darling, Annie has come.”

“Me like ’oo,” said Nan, with a satisfied coo in her voice, and she turned round on her side, with her back to Miss Danesbury and Hester, and her eyes fixed on Annie.

“Sing ‘Four-and-twenty,’ Annie; sing ‘Four-and-twenty,’” she said presently.

“Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,” sang Annie in a low clear voice, without a moment’s hesitation. She went through the old nursery rhyme once – twice. Then Nan interrupted her fretfully —

“Me don’t want dat ’dain; sing ‘Boy Blue,’ Annie.”

Annie sang.

”‘Tree Little Kittens,’ Annie,” interrupted the little voice presently.

For more than two hours Annie knelt by the child, singing nursery rhyme after nursery rhyme, while the bright beautiful eyes were fixed on her face, and the little voice said incessantly —

“Sing, Annie – sing.”

”‘Baby Bun,’ now,” said Nan, when Annie had come almost to the end of her selection.

“Bye baby bunting,Daddy’s gone a-hunting —He’s gone to fetch a rabbit-skin,To place the baby bunting in.”

Over and over and over did Annie sing the words. Whenever, even for a brief moment she paused, Nan said —

“Sing, Annie – sing ‘Baby Bun.’”

And all the time the eyes remained wide-open, and the little hands were burning hot; but, gradually, after more than two hours of constant singing, Annie began to fancy that the burning skin was cooler. Then – could she believe it? – she saw the lids droop over the wide-open eyes. Five minutes later, to the tune of “Baby Bunting,” Nan had fallen into a deep and sound sleep.

Chapter Twenty Five

A Spoilt Baby

In the morning Nan was better, and although for days she was in a very precarious state, and had to be kept as quiet as possible, yet Miss Danesbury’s great dread that fever would set in had passed away. The doctor said, however, that Nan had barely escaped real injury to her brain, and that it would be many a day before she would romp again, and play freely and noisily with the other children. Nan had chosen her own nurse, and with the imperiousness of all babies – to say nothing of sick babies – she had her way. From morning till night Annie remained with her, and when the doctor saw how Annie alone could soothe and satisfy the child he would not allow it to be otherwise. At first Nan would lie with her hand in Annie’s, and her little cry of “Sing, Annie,” going on from lime to time; but as she grew better Annie would sit with her by the open window, with her head pillowed on her breast, and her arm round the little slender form, and Nan would smile and look adoringly at Annie, who would often return her gaze with intense sadness, and an indescribable something in her face which caused the little one to stroke her cheek tenderly, and say in her sweet baby voice —

“Poor Annie; poor tibby Annie!”

They made a pretty picture as they sat there. Annie, with her charming gypsy face, her wild, luxuriant, curly hair, all the sauciness and unrest in her soothed by the magic of the little child’s presence; and the little child herself, with her faint wild-rose colour, her dark deep eyes, clear as summer pools, and her sunshiny golden hair. But pretty as the picture was Hester loathed it, for Hester thought during these wretched days that her heart would break.

Not that Nan turned away from Hetty; she petted her and kissed her and sometimes put an arm round Hetty and an arm round Annie, as though, if she could, she would draw them together; but anyone could see that her heart of hearts was given to Annie, and that Hester ranked second in her love. Hester would not for worlds express any of her bitter feelings before Annie; nay, as the doctor and Miss Danesbury both declared that, however culpable Annie might have been in causing the accident, she had saved little Nan’s life by her wonderful skill in soothing her to sleep on the first night of her illness, Hester had felt obliged to grumble something which might have been taken for “thanks.”

Annie, in reply to this grumble, had bestowed upon Hester one of her quickest, brightest glances, for she fathomed the true state of Hester’s heart toward her well enough.

These were very bad days for poor Hester, and but for the avidity with which she threw herself into her studies she could scarcely have borne them.

By slow degrees Nan got better; she was allowed to come downstairs and to sit in Annie’s arms in the garden, and then Mrs Willis interfered, and said that Annie must go back to her studies, and only devote her usual play-hours and half-holidays to Nan’s service.

This mandate, however, produced woe and tribulation. The spoilt child screamed and beat her little hands, and worked herself up into such a pitch of excitement that that night she found her way in her sleep to Annie’s room, and Annie had to quiet her by taking her into her bed. In the morning the doctor had to be sent for, and he instantly prescribed a day or two more of Annie’s company for the child.

Mrs Willis felt dreadfully puzzled. She had undertaken the charge of the little one: her father was already far away, so it was impossible now to make any change of plans; the child was ill – had been injured by an accident caused by Annie’s carelessness and by Hester’s want of self-control. But weak and ill as Nan still was, Mrs Willis felt that an undue amount of spoiling was good for no one. She thought it highly unjust to Annie to keep her from her school employments at this most important period of the year. If Annie did not reach a certain degree of excellence in her school marks she could not be promoted in her class. Mrs Willis did not expect the wild and heedless girl to carry off any special prizes; but her abilities were quite up to the average, and she always hoped to rouse sufficient ambition in her to enable her to acquire a good and sound education. Mrs Willis knew how necessary this was for poor Annie’s future, and, after giving the doctor an assurance that Nan’s whims and pleasures should be attended to for the next two or three days, she determined at the end of that time to assert her own authority with the child, and to insist on Annie working hard at her lessons, and returning to her usual school-room life.

On the morning of the third day Mrs Willis made inquiries, heard that Nan had spent an excellent night, eaten a hearty breakfast, and was altogether looking blooming. When the girls assembled in the school-room for their lessons, Annie brought her little charge down to the large play-room, where they established themselves cosily, and Annie began to instruct little Nan in the mysteries of —

“Tic, tac, too,The little horse has lost his shoe.”

Nan was entering into the spirit of the game, was imagining herself a little horse, and was holding out her small foot to be shod, when Mrs Willis entered the room.

“Come with me, Nan,” she said; “I have got something to show you.”

Nan got up instantly, held out one hand to Mrs Willis and the other to Annie, and said, in her confident baby tones —

“Me tum; Annie tumming too.”

Mrs Willis said nothing, but, holding the little hand, and accompanied by Annie, she went out of the play-room, across the stone hall, and through the baize doors until she reached her own delightful private sitting-room.

There were heaps of pretty things about, and Nan gazed round her with the appreciative glance of a pleased connoisseur.

“Pitty ’oom,” she said approvingly. “Nan likes this ’oom. Me’ll stay here, and so will Annie.”

Here she uttered a sudden cry of rapture – on the floor, with its leaves temptingly open, lay a gayly-painted picture-book, and curled up in a soft fluffy ball by its side was a white Persian kitten asleep.

Mrs Willis whispered something to Annie, who ran out of the room, and Nan knelt down in a perfect rapture of worship by the kitten’s side.

“Pitty tibby pussy!” she exclaimed several times, and she rubbed it so persistently the wrong way that the kitten shivered and stood up, arched its beck very high, yawned, turned round three times, and lay down again. Alas! “tibby pussy” was not allowed to have any continuous slumber. Nan dragged the Persian by its tail into her lap, and when it resisted this indignity, and with two or three light bounds disappeared out of the room, she stretched out her little hands and began to cry for it.

“Turn back, puss, puss – turn back, poor tibby puss – Nan loves ’oo. Annie, go fetch puss for Nan.” Then for the first time she discovered that Annie was absent, and that she was alone, with the exception of Mrs Willis, who sat busily writing at a distant table.

Mrs Willis counted for nothing at all with Nan – she did not consider her of the smallest importance, and after giving her a quick glance of some disdain she began to trot round the room on a voyage of discovery. Any moment Annie would come back – Annie had, indeed, probably gone to fetch the kitten, and would quickly return with it. She walked slowly round and round, keeping well away from that part of the room where Mrs Willis sat. Presently she found a very choice little china jug, which she carefully subtracted with her small fingers from a cabinet, which contained many valuable treasures. She sat down on the floor exactly beneath the cabinet, and began to play with her jug. She went through in eager pantomime a little game which Annie had invented for her, and imagined that she was a little milkmaid, and that the jug was full of sweet new milk; she called out to an imaginary set of purchasers, “Want any milk?” and then she floured some by way of drops of milk into the palm of her little hand, which she drank up in the name of her customers with considerable gusto. Presently, knocking the little jug with some vehemence on the floor she deprived it with one neat blow of its handle and spout. Mrs Willis was busily writing, and did not look up. Nan was not in the least disconcerted; she said aloud —

“Poor tibby zug b’oke,” and then she left the fragments on the floor, and started off on a fresh voyage of discovery. This time she dragged down a large photographic album on to a cushion, and, kneeling by it, began to look through the pictures, flapping the pages together with a loud noise, and laughing merrily as she did so. She was now much nearer to Mrs Willis, who was attracted by the sound, and looking up hastened to the rescue of one of her most precious collections of photographs.

“Nan, dear,” she said, “shut up that book at once. Nan mustn’t touch. Shut the book, darling, and go and sit on the floor, and look at your nice-coloured pictures.”

Nan, still holding a chubby hand between the leaves of the album, gave Mrs Willis a full defiant glance, and said —

“Me won’t.”

“Come, Nan,” said the head-mistress.

“Me want Annie,” said Nan, still kneeling by the album, and, bending her head over the photographs, she turned the page and burst into a peal of laughter.

“Pitty bow vow,” she said, pointing to a photograph of a retriever; “oh, pitty bow woo, Nan loves ’oo.”

Mrs Willis stooped down and lifted the little girl into her arms.

“Nan, dear,” she said, “it is naughty to disobey. Sit down by your picture-book, and be a good girl.”

“Me won’t,” said Nan again, and here she raised her small dimpled hand and gave Mrs Willis a smart slap on her cheek.

“Naughty lady, me don’t like ’oo; go ’way. Nan want Annie – Nan do want Annie. Me don’t love ’oo, naughty lady; go ’way.”

Mrs Willis took Nan on her knee. She felt that the little will must be bent to hers, but the task was no easy one. The child scarcely knew her, she was still weak and excitable, and she presently burst into storms of tears, and sobbed and sobbed as though her little heart would break, her one cry being for “Annie, Annie, Annie.” When Annie did join her in the play hour, the little cheeks were flushed, the white brow ached, and the child’s small hands were hot and feverish. Mrs Willis felt terribly puzzled.

Chapter Twenty Six

Under The Laurel-Bush

Mrs Willis owned to herself that she was nonplussed; it was quite impossible to allow Annie to neglect her studies, and yet little Nan’s health was still too precarious to allow her to run the risk of having the child constantly fretted.

Suddenly a welcome idea occurred to her; she would write at once to Nan’s old nurse, and see if she could come to Lavender House for the remainder of the present term. Mrs Willis dispatched her letter that very day, and by the following evening the nurse was once more in possession of her much-loved little charge. The habits of her babyhood were too strong for Nan; she returned to them gladly enough, and though in her heart of hearts she was still intensely loyal to Annie, she no longer fretted when she was not with her.

Annie resumed her ordinary work and though Hester was very cold to her, several of the other girls in the school frankly confided to their favourite how much they had missed her, and how glad they were to have her back with them once more.

Annie found herself at this time in an ever-shifting mood – one moment she longed intensely for a kiss, and a fervent pardon from Mrs Willis’s lips; another, she said to herself defiantly she could and would live without it; one moment the hungry and sorrowful look in Hester’s eyes went straight to Annie’s heart, and she wished she might restore her little treasure whom she had stolen; the next she rejoiced in her strange power over Nan, and resolved to keep all the love she could get.

In short, Annie was in that condition when she could be easily influenced for good or evil – she was in that state of weakness when temptation is least easily resisted.

A few days after the arrival of Nan’s nurse Mrs Willis was obliged unexpectedly to leave home; a near relative was dangerously ill in London, and the school-mistress went away in much trouble and anxiety. Some of her favourite pupils flocked to the front entrance to see their beloved mistress off. Amongst the group Cecil stood, and several girls of the first-class; many of the little girls were also present, but Annie was not amongst them. Just at the last moment she rushed up breathlessly; she was tying some starry jasmine and some blue forget-me-nots together, and as the carriage was moving off she flung the charming bouquet into her mistress’s lap.

Mrs Willis rewarded her with one of her old looks of confidence and love; she raised the flowers to her lips and kissed them, and her eyes smiled on Annie.

“Good-bye, dear,” she called out; “good-bye, all my dear girls; I will try and be back to-morrow night. Remember, my children, during my absence I trust you.”

The carriage disappeared down the avenue, and the group of girls melted away. Cecil looked round for Annie, but Annie had been the first to disappear.

When her mistress had kissed the flowers and smiled at her, Annie darted into the shrubbery and stood there wiping the fast-falling tears from her eyes. She was interrupted in this occupation by the sudden cries of two glad and eager voices, and instantly her hands were taken, and some girls rather younger than herself began to drag her in the opposite direction through the shrubbery.

“Come, Annie – come at once, Annie, darling,” exclaimed Phyllis and Nora Raymond. “The basket has come; it’s under the thick laurel-tree in the back avenue. We are all waiting for you; we none of us will open it till you arrive.”

Annie’s face, a truly April one, changed as if by magic. The tears dried on her cheeks; her eyes filled with sunlight; she was all eager for the coming fun.

“Then we won’t lose a moment, Phyllis,” she said; “we’ll see what that duck of a Betty has done for us.”

The three girls scampered down the back avenue, where they found five of their companions, amongst them Susan Drummond, standing in different attitudes of expectation near a very large and low-growing laurel-tree. Everyone raised a shout when Annie appeared; she was undoubtedly recognised as queen and leader of the proceedings. She took her post without an instant’s hesitation, and began ordering her willing subjects about.

“Now, is the coast clear? yes, I think so. Come, Susie, greedy as you are, you must take your part. You alone of all of us can cackle with the exact imitation of an old hen: get behind that tree at once and watch the yard. Don’t forget to cackle for your life if you even see the shadow of a footfall. Norah, my pretty birdie, you must be the thrush for the nonce; here, lake your post, watch the lawn and the front avenue. Now then, girls, the rest of us can see what spoils Betty has provided for us.”