Annie Forest, sitting in the midst of a group of eager admirers, was chatting volubly. Never had she been in higher spirits, never had her pretty face looked more bright and daring.
Cecil Temple coming into the play-room, started when she saw her. Annie, however, instantly rose from the low hassock on which she had perched herself and, running up to Cecil, put her hand through her arm.
“We are all discussing the mystery, darling,” she said; “we have discussed it, and literally torn it to shreds, and yet never got at the kernel. We have guessed and guessed what your motive can be in concealing the truth from Mrs. Willis, and we all unanimously vote that you are a dear old martyr, and that you have some admirable reason for keeping back the truth. You cannot think what an excitement we are in—even Susy Drummond has stayed awake to listen to our chatter. Now, Cecil, do come and sit here in this most inviting little arm-chair, and tell us what our dear head-mistress said to you in the chapel. It did seem so awful to send you to the chapel, poor dear Cecil.”
Cecil stood perfectly still and quiet while Annie was pouring out her torrent of eager words; her eyes, indeed, did not quite meet her companion’s, but she allowed Annie to retain her clasp of her arm, and she evidently listened with attention to her words. Now, however, when Miss Forest tried to draw her into the midst of the eager and animated group who sat round the play-room fire, she hesitated and looked longingly in the direction of her peaceful little drawing-room. Her hesitation, however, was but momentary. Quite silently she walked with Annie down the large play-room and entered the group of girls.
“Here’s your throne, Queen Cecil,” said Annie, trying to push her into the little arm-chair; but Cecil would not seat herself.
“How nice that you have come, Cecil!” said Mary Pierce, a second-class girl. “I really think—we all think—that you were very brave to stand out against Mrs. Willis as you did. Of course we are devoured with curiosity to know what it means; arn’t we, Flo?”
“Yes, we’re in agonies,” answered Flo Dunstan, another second-class girl.
“You will tell exactly what Mrs. Willis said, darling heroine?” proceeded Annie in her most dulcet tones. “You concealed your knowledge, didn’t you? you were very firm, weren’t you? dear, brave love!”
“For my part, I think Cecil Temple the soul of brave firmness,” here interrupted Susan Drummond. “I fancy she’s as hard and firm in herself when she wants to conceal a thing as that rocky sweetmeat which always hurts our teeth to get through. Yes, I do fancy that.”
“Oh, Susy, what a horrid metaphor!” here interrupted several girls.
One, however, of the eager group of schoolgirls had not opened her lips or said a word; that girl was Hester Thornton. She had been drawn into the circle by an intense curiosity; but she had made no comment with regard to Cecil’s conduct. If she knew anything of the mystery she had thrown no light on it. She had simply sat motionless, with watchful and alert eyes and silent tongue. Now, for the first time, she spoke.
“I think, if you will allow her, that Cecil has got something to say,” she remarked.
Cecil glanced down at her with a very brief look of gratitude.
“Thank you, Hester,” she said. “I won’t keep you a moment, girls. I cannot offer to throw any light on the mystery which makes us all so miserable to-day; but I think it right to undeceive you with regard to myself. I have not concealed what I know from Mrs. Willis. She is in possession of all the facts, and what I found in my desk this morning is now in her keeping. She has made me see that in concealing my knowledge I was acting wrongly, and whatever pain has come to me in the matter, she now knows all.”
When Cecil had finished her sad little speech she walked straight out of the group of girls, and, without glancing at one of them, went across the play-room to her own compartment. She had failed to observe a quick and startled glance from Susan Drummond’s sleepy blue eyes, nor had she heard her mutter—half to her companions, half to herself:
“Cecil is not like the rocky sweetmeat; I was mistaken in her.”
Neither had Cecil seen the flash of almost triumph in Hester’s eyes, nor the defiant glance she threw at Miss Forest. Annie stood with her hands clasped, and a little frown of perplexity between her brows, for a moment; then she ran fearlessly down the play-room, and said in a low voice at the other side of Cecil’s curtains:
“May I come in?”
Cecil said “Yes,” and Annie, entering the pretty little drawing-room, flung her arms round Miss Temple’s neck.
“Cecil,” she exclaimed impulsively, “you’re in great trouble. I am a giddy, reckless thing, I know, but I don’t laugh at people when they are in real trouble. Won’t you tell me all about it, Cecil?”
“I will, Annie. Sit down there and I will tell you everything. I think you have a right to know, and I am glad you have come to me. I thought perhaps—but no matter. Annie, can’t you guess what I am going to say?”
“No, I’m sure I can’t,” said Annie. “I saw for a moment or two to-day that some of those absurd girls suspected me of being the author of all this mischief. Now, you know, Cecil, I love a bit of fun beyond words. If there’s any going on I feel nearly mad until I am in it; but what was done to-day was not at all in accordance with my ideas of fun. To tear up Miss Russell’s essay and fill her desk with stupid plum-cake and Turkish delight seems to me but a sorry kind of jest. Now, if I had been guilty of that sort of thing, I’d have managed something far cleverer than that. If I had tampered with Dora Russell’s desk, I’d have done the thing in style. The dear, sweet, dignified creature should have shrieked in real terror. You don’t know, perhaps, Cecil, that our admirable Dora is no end of a coward. I wonder what she would have said if I had put a little nest of field-mice in her desk! I saw that the poor thing suspected me, as she gave way to her usual little sneer about the ‘under-bred girl;’ but, of course, you know me, Cecil. Why, my dear Cecil, what is the matter? How white you are, and you are actually crying! What is it, Cecil? what is it, Cecil, darling?”
Cecil dried her eyes quickly.
“You know my pet copy of Mrs. Browning’s poems, don’t you, Annie?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You lent it to me one day. Don’t you remember how you made me cry over that picture of little Alice, the over-worked factory girl? What about the book, Cecil?”
“I found the book in my desk,” said Cecil, in a steady tone, and now fixing her eyes on Annie, who knelt by her side—“I found the book in my desk, although I never keep it there; for it is quite against the rules to keep our recreation books in our school-desks, and you know, Annie, I always think it is so much easier to keep these little rules. They are matters of duty and conscience, after all. I found my copy of Mrs. Browning in my desk this morning with the cover torn off, and with a very painful and ludicrous caricature of our dear Mrs. Willis sketched on the title-page.”
“What?” said Annie. “No, no; impossible!”
“You know nothing about it, do you, Annie?”
“I never put it there, if that’s what you mean,” said Annie. But her face had undergone a curious change. Her light and easy and laughing manner had altered. When Cecil mentioned the caricature she flushed a vivid crimson. Her flush had quickly died away, leaving her olive-tinted face paler than its wont.
“I see,” she said, after a long pause, “you, too, suspected me, Cecil, and that is why you tried to conceal the thing. You know that I am the only girl in the school who can draw caricatures, but did you suppose that I would show her dishonor? Of course things look ugly for me, if this is what you found in your book; but I did not think that you would suspect me, Cecil.”
“I will believe you, Annie,” said Cecil, eagerly. “I long beyond words to believe you. With all your faults, no one has ever yet found you out in a lie. If you look at me, Annie, and tell me honestly that you know nothing whatever about that caricature, I will believe you. Yes, I will believe you fully, and I will go with you to Mrs. Willis and tell her that, whoever did the wrong, you are innocent in this matter. Say you know nothing about it, dear, dear Annie, and take a load off my heart.”
“I never put the caricature into your book, Cecil.”
“And you know nothing about it?”
“I cannot say that; I never—never put it in your book.”
“Oh, Annie,” exclaimed poor Cecil, “you are trying to deceive me. Why won’t you be brave? Oh, Annie, I never thought you would stoop to a lie.”
“I’m telling no lie,” answered Annie with sudden passion. “I do know something about the caricature, but I never put it into that book. There! you doubt me, you have ceased to believe me, and I won’t waste any more words on the matter.”
There were many girls in the school who remembered that dismal half-holiday—they remembered its forced mirth and its hidden anxiety; and as the hours flew by the suspicion that Annie Forest was the author of all the mischief grew and deepened. A school is like a little world, and popular opinion is apt to change with great rapidity. Annie was undoubtedly the favorite of the school; but favorites are certain to have enemies, and there were several girls unworthy enough and mean enough to be jealous of poor Annie’s popularity. She was the kind of girl whom only very small natures could really dislike. Her popularity arose from the simple fact that hers was a peculiarly joyous and unselfish nature. She was a girl with scarcely any self-consciousness; those she loved, she loved devotedly; she threw herself with a certain feverish impetuosity into their lives, and made their interest her own. To get into mischief and trouble for the sake of a friend was an every-day occurrence with Annie. She was not the least studious; she had no one particular talent, unless it was an untrained and birdlike voice; she was always more or less in hot water about her lessons, always behindhand in her tasks, always leaving undone what she should do, and doing what she should not do. She was a contradictory, erratic creature—jealous of no one, envious of no one—dearly loving a joke, and many times inflicting pain from sheer thoughtlessness, but always ready to say she was sorry, always ready to make friends again.
It is strange that such a girl as Annie should have enemies, but she had, and in the last few weeks the feeling of jealousy and envy which had always been smoldering in some breasts took more active form. Two reasons accounted for this: Hester’s openly avowed and persistent dislike to Annie, and Miss Russell’s declared conviction that she was under-bred and not a lady.
Miss Russell was the only girl in the first class who had hitherto given wild little Annie a thought.
In the first class, to-day, Annie had to act the unpleasing part of the wicked little heroine. Miss Russell was quite certain of Annie’s guilt; she and her companions condescended to discuss poor Annie and to pull all her little virtues to pieces, and to magnify her sins to an alarming extent.
After two or three hours of judicious conversation, Dora Russell and most of the other first-class girls decided that Annie ought to be expelled, and unanimously resolved that they, at least, would do what they could to “send her to Coventry.”
In the lower part of the school Annie also had a few enemies, and these girls, having carefully observed Hester’s attitude toward her, now came up close to this dignified little lady, and asked her boldly to declare her opinion with regard to Annie’s guilt.
Hester, without the least hesitation, assured them that “of course Annie had done it.”
“There is not room for a single doubt on the subject,” she said; “there—look at her now.”
At this instant Annie was leaving Cecil’s compartment, and with red eyes, and hair, as usual, falling about her face, was running out of the play-room. She seemed in great distress; but, nevertheless, before she reached the door, she stopped to pick up a little girl of five, who was fretting about some small annoyance. Annie took the little one in her arms, kissed her tenderly, whispered some words in her ear, which caused the little face to light up with some smiles and the round arms to clasp Annie with an ecstatic hug. She dropped the child, who ran back to play merrily with her companions, and left the room.
The group of middle-class girls still sat on by the fire, but Hester Thornton now, not Annie, was the center of attraction. It was the first time in all her young life that Hester had found herself in the enviable position of a favorite; and without at all knowing what mischief she was doing, she could not resist improving the occasion, and making the most of her dislike for Annie.
Several of those who even were fond of Miss Forest came round to the conviction that she was really guilty, and one by one, as is the fashion not only among school girls but in the greater world outside, they began to pick holes in their former favorite. These girls, too, resolved that, if Annie were really so mean as maliciously to injure other girls’ property and get them into trouble, she must be “sent to Coventry.”
“What’s Coventry?” asked one of the little ones, the child whom Annie had kissed and comforted, now sidling up to the group.
“Oh, a nasty place, Phena,” said Mary Bell, putting her arm round the pretty child and drawing her to her side.
“And who is going there?”
“Why, I am afraid it is naughty Annie Forest.”
“She’s not naughty! Annie sha‘n’t go to any nasty place. I hate you, Mary Bell.” The little one looked round the group with flashing eyes of defiance, then wrenched herself away to return to her younger companions.
“It was stupid of you to say that, Mary,” remarked one of the girls. “Well,” she continued, “I suppose it is all settled, and poor Annie, to say the least of it, is not a lady. For my own part, I always thought her great fun, but if she is proved guilty of this offense I wash my hands of her.”
“We all wash our hands of her,” echoed the girls, with the exception of Susan Drummond, who, as usual, was nodding in her chair.
“What do you say, Susy?” asked one or two; “you have not opened your lips all this time.”
“I—eh?—what?” asked Susan, stretching herself and yawning, “oh, about Annie Forest—I suppose you are right, girls. Is not that the tea-gong? I’m awfully hungry.”
Hester Thornton went into the tea-room that evening feeling particularly virtuous, and with an idea that she had distinguished herself in some way.
Poor foolish, thoughtless Hester, she little guessed what seed she had sown, and what a harvest she was preparing for her own reaping by-and-by.
A few days after this Hester was much delighted to receive an invitation from her little friends, the Misses Bruce. These good ladies had not forgotten the lonely and miserable child whom they had comforted not a little during her journey to school six weeks ago. They invited Hester to spend the next half-holiday with them, and as this happened to fall on a Saturday, Mrs. Willis gave Hester permission to remain with her friends until eight o’clock, when she would send the carriage to fetch her home.
The trouble about Annie had taken place the Wednesday before, and all the girls’ heads were full of the uncleared-up mystery when Hester started on her little expedition.
Nothing was known; no fresh light had been thrown on the subject. Everything went on as usual within the school, and a casual observer would never have noticed the cloud which rested over that usually happy dwelling. A casual observer would have noticed little or no change in Annie Forest; her merry laugh was still heard, her light step still danced across the play-room floor, she was in her place in class, and was, if anything, a little more attentive and a little more successful over her lessons. Her pretty piquant face, her arch expression, the bright, quick and droll glance which she alone could give, were still to be seen; but those who knew her well and those who loved her best saw a change in Annie.
In the play-room she devoted herself exclusively to the little ones; she never went near Cecil Temple’s drawing-room; she never mingled with the girls of the middle school as they clustered round the cheerful fire. At meal-times she ate little, and her room-fellow was heard to declare that she was awakened more than once in the middle of the night by the sound of Annie’s sobs. In chapel, too, when she fancied herself quite unobserved, her face wore an expression of great pain; but if Mrs. Willis happened to glance in her direction, instantly the little mouth became demure and almost hard, the dark eyelashes were lowered over the bright eyes, the whole expression of the face showed the extreme of indifference. Hester felt more sure than ever of Annie’s guilt; but one or two of the other girls in the school wavered in this opinion, and would have taken Annie out of “Coventry” had she herself made the smallest advance toward them.
Annie and Hester had not spoken to each other now for several days; but on this afternoon, which was a bright one in early spring, as Hester was changing her school-dress for her Sunday one, and preparing for her visit to the Misses Bruce, there came a light knock at her door. She said, “Come in!” rather impatiently, for she was in a hurry, and dreaded being kept.
To her surprise Annie Forest put in her curly head, and then, dancing with her usual light movement across the room, she laid a little bunch of dainty spring flowers on the dressing-table beside Hester.
Hester stared, first at the intruder, and then at the early primroses. She passionately loved flowers, and would have exclaimed with ecstasy at these had any one brought them in except Annie.
“I want you,” said Annie, rather timidly for her, “to take these flowers from me to Miss Agnes and Miss Jane Bruce. It will be very kind of you if you will take them. I am sorry to have interrupted you—thank you very much.”
She was turning away when Hester compelled herself to remark:
“Is there any message with the flowers?”
“Oh, no—only Annie Forest’s love. They’ll understand——” she turned half round as she spoke, and Hester saw that her eyes had filled with tears. She felt touched in spite of herself. There was something in Annie’s face now which reminded her of her darling little Nan at home. She had seen the same beseeching, sorrowful look in Nan’s brown eyes when she had wanted her friends to kiss her and take her to their hearts and love her.
Hester would not allow herself, however, to feel any tenderness toward Annie. Of course she was not really a bit like sweet little Nan, and it was absurd to suppose that a great girl like Annie could want caressing and petting and soothing; still, in spite of herself, Annie’s look haunted her, and she took great care of the little flower-offering, and presented it with Annie’s message instantly on her arrival to the little old ladies.
Miss Jane and Miss Agnes were very much pleased with the early primroses. They looked at one another and said:
“Poor dear little girl,” in tender voices, and then they put the flowers into one of their daintiest vases, and made much of them, and showed them to any visitors who happened to call that afternoon.
Their little house looked something like a doll’s house to Hester, who had been accustomed all her life to large rooms and spacious passages; but it was the sweetest, daintiest, and most charming little abode in the world. It was not unlike a nest, and the Misses Bruce in certain ways resembled bright little robin redbreasts, so small, so neat, so chirrupy they were.
Hester enjoyed her afternoon immensely; the little ladies were right in their prophesy, and she was no longer lonely at school. She enjoyed talking about her schoolfellows, about her new life, about her studies. The Misses Bruce were decidedly fond of a gossip, but something which she could not at all define in their manner prevented Hester from retailing for their benefit any unkind news. They told her frankly at last that they were only interested in the good things which went on in the school, and that they found no pursuit so altogether delightful as finding out the best points in all the people they came across. They would not even laugh at sleepy, tiresome Susan Drummond; on the contrary, they pitied her, and Miss Jane wondered if the girl could be quite well, whereupon Miss Agnes shook her head, and said emphatically that it was Hester’s duty to rouse poor Susy, and to make her waking life so interesting to her that she should no longer care to spend so many hours in the world of dreams.
There is such a thing as being so kind-hearted, so gentle, so charitable as to make the people who have not encouraged these virtues feel quite uncomfortable. By the mere force of contrast they begin to see themselves something as they really are. Since Hester had come to Lavender House she had taken very little pains to please others rather than herself, and she was now almost startled to see how she had allowed selfishness to get the better of her. While the Misses Bruce were speaking, old longings, which had slept since her mother’s death, came back to the young girl, and she began to wish that she could be kinder to Susan Drummond, and that she could overcome her dislike to Annie Forest. She longed to say something about Annie to the little ladies, but they evidently did not wish to allude to the subject. When she was going away, they gave her a small parcel.
“You will kindly give this to your schoolfellow, Miss Forest, Hester, dear,” they both said, and then they kissed her, and said they hoped they should see her again; and Hester got into the old-fashioned school brougham, and held the brown paper parcel in her hand.
As she was going into the chapel that night, Mary Bell came up to her and whispered:
“We have not got to the bottom of that mystery about Annie Forest yet. Mrs. Willis can evidently make nothing of her, and I believe Mr. Everard is going to talk to her after prayers to-night.”
As she was speaking, Annie herself pushed rather rudely past the two girls; her face was flushed, and her hair was even more untidy than was its wont.
“Here is a parcel for you, Miss Forest,” said Hester, in a much more gentle tone than she was wont to use when she addressed this objectionable schoolmate.
All the girls were now filing into the chapel, and Hester should certainly not have presented the little parcel at that moment.
“Breaking the rules, Miss Thornton,” said Annie; “all right, toss it here.” Then, as Hester failed to comply, she ran back, knocking her schoolfellows out of place, and, snatching the parcel from Hester’s hand, threw it high in the air. This was a piece of not only willful audacity and disobedience, but it even savored of the profane, for Annie’s step was on the threshold of the chapel, and the parcel fell with a noisy bang on the floor some feet inside the little building.
“Bring me that parcel, Annie Forest,” whispered the stern voice of the head-mistress.
Annie sullenly complied; but when she came up to Mrs. Willis, her governess took her hand, and pushed her down into a low seat a little behind her.
The short evening service was over, and one by one, in orderly procession, the girls left the chapel. Annie was about to rise to her feet to follow her school-companions, when Mrs. Willis stooped down, and whispered something in her ear. Her face became instantly suffused with a dull red; she resumed her seat, and buried her face in both her hands. One or two of the girls noticed her despondent attitude as they left the chapel, and Cecil Temple looked back with a glance of such unutterable sympathy that Annie’s proud, suffering little heart would have been touched could she but have seen the look.
Presently the young steps died away, and Annie, raising her head, saw that she was alone with Mr. Everard, who seated himself in the place which Mrs. Willis had occupied by her side.
“Your governess has asked me to speak to you, my dear,” he said, in his kind and fatherly tones; “she wants us to discuss this thing which is making you so unhappy quite fully together.” Here the clergyman paused, and noticing a sudden wistful and soft look in the girl’s brown eyes, he continued: “Perhaps, however, you have something to say to me which will throw light on this mystery?”
“No, sir, I have nothing to say,” replied Annie, and now again the sullen expression passed like a wave over her face.
“Poor child,” said Mr. Everard. “Perhaps, Annie,” he continued, “you do not quite understand me—you do not quite read my motive in talking to you to-night. I am not here in any sense to reprove you. You are either guilty of this sin, or you are not guilty. In either case I pity you; it is very hard, very bitter, to be falsely accused—I pity you much if this is the case; but it is still harder, Annie, still more bitter, still more absolutely crushing to be accused of a sin which we are trying to conceal. In that terrible case God Himself hides His face. Poor child, poor child, I pity you most of all if you are guilty.”
Annie had again covered her face, and bowed her head over her hands. She did not speak for a moment, but presently Mr. Everard heard a low sob, and then another, and another, until at last her whole frame was shaken with a perfect tempest of weeping.
The old clergyman, who had seen many strange phases of human nature, who had in his day comforted and guided more than one young school-girl, was far too wise to do anything to check this flow of grief. He knew Annie would speak more fully and more frankly when her tears were over. He was right. She presently raised a very tear-stained face to the clergyman.
“I felt very bitter at your coming to speak to me,” she began. “Mrs. Willis has always sent for you when everything else has failed with us girls, and I did not think she would treat me so. I was determined not to say anything to you. Now, however, you have spoken good words to me, and I can’t turn away from you. I will tell you all that is in my heart. I will promise before God to conceal nothing, if only you will do one thing for me.”
“What is that, my child?”
“Will you believe me?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Ah, but you have not been tried yet. I thought Mrs. Willis would certainly believe; but she said the circumstantial evidence was too strong—perhaps it will be too strong for you.”
“I promise to believe you, Annie Forest; if, before God, you can assure me that you are speaking the whole truth, I will fully believe you.”
Annie paused again, then she rose from her seat and stood a pace away from the old minister.
“This is the truth before God,” she said, as she locked her two hands together and raised her eyes freely and unshrinkingly to Mr. Everard’s face.
“I have always loved Mrs. Willis. I have reasons for loving her which the girls don’t know about. The girls don’t know that when my mother was dying she gave me into Mrs. Willis’ charge, and she said, ‘You must keep Annie until her father comes back.’ Mother did not know where father was; but she said he would be sure to come back some day, and look for mother and me; and Mrs. Willis said she would keep me faithfully until father came to claim me. That is four years ago, and my father has never come, nor have I heard of him, and I think, I am almost sure, that the little money which mother left must be all used up. Mrs. Willis never says anything about money, and she did not wish me to tell my story to the girls. None of them know except Cecil Temple. I am sure some day father will come home, and he will give Mrs. Willis back the money she has spent on me; but never, never, never can he repay her for her goodness to me. You see I cannot help loving Mrs. Willis. It is quite impossible for any girl to have such a friend and not to love her. I know I am very wild, and that I do all sorts of mad things. It seems to me that I cannot help myself sometimes; but I would not willingly, indeed, I would not willingly hurt anybody. Last Wednesday, as you know, there was a great disturbance in the school. Dora Russell’s desk was tampered with, and so was Cecil Temple’s. You know, of course, what was found in both the desks. Mrs. Willis sent for me, and asked me about the caricature which was drawn in Cecil’s book. I looked at it and I told her the truth. I did not conceal one thing. I told her the whole truth as far as I knew it. She did not believe me. She said so. What more could I do then?”
Here Annie paused; she began to unclasp and clasp her hands, and she looked full at Mr. Everard with a most pleading expression.
“Do you mind repeating to me exactly what you said to your governess?” he questioned.
“I said this, sir. I said, ‘Yes, Mrs. Willis, I did draw that caricature. You will scarcely understand how I, who love you so much, could have been so mad and ungrateful as to do anything to turn you into ridicule. I would cut off my right hand now not to have done it; but I did do it, and I must tell you the truth.’ ‘Tell me, dear,’ she said, quite gently then. ‘It was one wet afternoon about a fortnight ago,’ I said to her; ‘a lot of us middle-school girls were sitting together, and I had a pencil and some bits of paper, and I was making up funny little groups of a lot of us, and the girls were screaming with laughter, for somehow I managed to make the likeness that I wanted in each case. It was very wrong of me, I know. It was against the rules, but I was in one of my maddest humors, and I really did not care what the consequences were. At last one of the girls said: ‘You won’t dare to make a picture like that of Mrs. Willis, Annie—you know you won’t dare.’ The minute she said that name I began to feel ashamed. I remembered I was breaking one of the rules, and I suddenly tore up all my bits of paper and flung them into the fire, and I said: ‘No, I would not dare to show her dishonor.’ Well, afterward, as I was washing my hands for tea up in my room, the temptation came over me so strongly that I felt I could not resist it, to make a funny little sketch of Mrs. Willis. I had a little scrap of thin paper, and I took out my pencil and did it all in a minute. It seemed to me very funny, and I could not help laughing at it; and then I thrust it into my private writing-case, which I always keep locked, and I put the key in my pocket and ran downstairs. I forgot all about the caricature. I had never shown it to any one. How it got into Cecil’s book is more than I can say. When I had finished speaking Mrs. Willis looked very hard at the book. ‘You are right,’ she said; ‘this caricature is drawn on a very thin piece of paper, which has been cleverly pasted on the title-page.’ Then, Mr. Everard, she asked me a lot of questions. Had I ever parted with my keys? Had I ever left my desk unlocked? ‘No,’ I said, ‘my desk is always locked, and my keys are always in my pocket. Indeed,’ I added, ‘my keys were absolutely safe for the last week, for they went in a white petticoat to the wash, and came back as rusty as possible.’ I could not open my desk for a whole week, which was a great nuisance. I told all this story to Mrs. Willis, and she said to me: ‘You are positively certain that this caricature has been taken out of your desk by somebody else, and pasted in here? You are sure that the caricature you drew is not to be found in your desk?’ ‘Yes,’ I said; ‘how can I be anything but sure; these are my pencil marks, and that is the funny little turn I gave to your neck which made me laugh when I drew it. Yes; I am certainly sure.’
“‘I have always been told, Annie,’ Mrs. Willis said, ‘that you are the only girl in the school who can draw these caricatures. You have never seen an attempt at this kind of drawing among your schoolfellows, or among any of the teachers?’
“‘I have never seen any of them try this special kind of drawing,’ I said. ‘I wish I was like them. I wish I had never, never done it.’
“‘You have got your keys now?’ Mrs. Willis said.
“‘Yes,’ I answered, pulling them all covered with rust out of my pocket.
“Then she told me to leave the keys on the table, and to go upstairs and fetch down my little private desk.
“I did so, and she made me put the rusty key in the lock and open the desk, and together we searched through its contents. We pulled out everything, or rather I did, and I scattered all my possessions about on the table, and then I looked up almost triumphantly at Mrs. Willis.
“‘You see the caricature is not here,’ I said; ‘somebody picked the lock and took it away.’
“‘This lock has not been picked,’ Mrs. Willis said; ‘and what is that little piece of white paper sticking out of the private drawer?’
“‘Oh, I forgot my private drawer,’ I said; ‘but there is nothing in it—nothing whatever,’ and then I touched the spring, and pulled it open, and there lay the little caricature which I had drawn in the bottom of the drawer. There it lay, not as I had left it, for I had never put it into the private drawer. I saw Mrs. Willis’ face turn very white, and I noticed that her hands trembled. I was all red myself, and very hot, and there was a choking lump in my throat, and I could not have got a single word out even if I had wished to. So I began scrambling the things back into my desk, as hard as ever I could, and then I locked it, and put the rusty keys back in my pocket.
“‘What am I to believe now, Annie?’ Mrs. Willis said.
“‘Believe anything you like now,’ I managed to say; and then I took my desk and walked out of the room, and would not wait even though she called me back.
“That is the whole story, Mr. Everard,” continued Annie. “I have no explanation whatever to give. I did make the one caricature of my dear governess. I did not make the other. The second caricature is certainly a copy of the first, but I did not make it. I don’t know who made it. I have no light whatever to throw on the subject. You see after all,” added Annie Forest, raising her eyes to the clergyman’s face, “it is impossible for you to believe me. Mrs. Willis does not believe me, and you cannot be expected to. I don’t suppose you are to be blamed. I don’t see how you can help yourself.”
“The circumstantial evidence is very strong against you, Annie,” replied the clergyman; “still, I promised to believe, and I have no intention of going back from my word. If, in the presence of God in this little church, you would willingly and deliberately tell me a lie I should never trust human being again. No, Annie Forest, you have many faults, but you are not a liar. I see the impress of truth on your brow, in your eyes, on your lips. This is a very painful mystery, my child; but I believe you. I am going to see Mrs. Willis now. God bless you, Annie. Be brave, be courageous, don’t foster malice in your heart to any unknown enemy. An enemy has truly done this thing, poor child; but God Himself will bring this mystery to light. Trust Him, my dear; and now I am going to see Mrs. Willis.”
While Mr. Everard was speaking, Annie’s whole expressive face had changed; the sullen look had left it; the eyes were bright with renewed hope; the lips had parted in smiles. There was a struggle for speech, but no words came: the young girl stooped down and raised the old clergyman’s withered hands to her lips.
“Let me stay here a little longer,” she managed to say at last; and then he left her.
“I think, my dear madam,” said Mr. Everard to Mrs. Willis, “that you must believe your pupil. She has not refused to confess to you from any stubbornness, but from the simple reason that she has nothing to confess. I am firmly convinced that things are as she stated them, Mrs. Willis. There is a mystery here which we neither of us can explain, but which we must unravel.”
Then Mrs. Willis and the clergyman had a long and anxious talk together. It lasted for a long time, and some of its results at least were manifest the next morning, for, just before the morning’s work began, Mrs. Willis came to the large school-room, and, calling Annie Forest to her side, laid her hand on the young girl’s shoulder.
“I wish to tell you all, young ladies,” she said, “that I completely and absolutely exonerate Annie Forest from having any part in the disgraceful occurrence which took place in this school-room a short time ago. I allude, of course, as you all know, to the book which was found tampered with in Cecil Temple’s desk. Some one else in this room is guilty, and the mystery has still to be unraveled, and the guilty girl has still to come forward and declare herself. If she is willing at this moment to come to me here, and fully and freely confess her sin, I will quite forgive her.”
The head mistress paused, and, still with her hand on Annie’s shoulder, looked anxiously down the long room. The love and forgiveness which she felt shone in her eyes at this moment. No girl need have feared aught but tenderness from her just then.
No one stirred; the moment passed, and a look of sternness returned to the mistress’ fine face.
“No,” she said, in her emphatic and clear tones, “the guilty girl prefers waiting until God discovers her sin for her. My dear, whoever you are, that hour is coming, and you cannot escape from it. In the meantime, girls, I wish you all to receive Annie Forest as quite innocent. I believe in her, so does Mr. Everard, and so must you. Any one who treats Miss Forest except as a perfectly innocent and truthful girl incurs my severe displeasure. My dear, you may return to your seat.”
Annie, whose face was partly hidden by her curly hair during the greater part of this speech, now tossed it back, and raised her brown eyes with a look of adoration in them to her teacher. Mrs. Willis’ face, however, still looked harassed. Her eyes met Annie’s, but no corresponding glow was kindled in them; their glance was just, calm, but cold.
The childish heart was conscious of a keen pang of agony, and Annie went back to her lessons without any sense of exultation.
The fact was this: Mrs. Willis’ judgment and reason had been brought round by Mr. Everard’s words, but in her heart of hearts, almost unknown to herself, there still lingered a doubt of the innocence of her wayward and pretty pupil. She said over and over to herself that she really now quite believed in Annie Forest, but then would come those whisperings from her pained and sore heart.
“Why did she ever make a caricature of one who has been as a mother to her? If she made one caricature, could she not make another? Above all things, if she did not do it, who did?”
Mrs. Willis turned away from these unpleasant whispers—she would not let them stay with her, and turned a deaf ear to their ugly words. She had publicly declared in the school her belief in Annie’s absolute innocence, but at the moment when her pupil looked up at her with a world of love and adoration in her gaze, she found to her own infinite distress that she could not give her the old love.
Annie went back to her companions, and bent her head over her lessons, and tried to believe that she was very thankful and very happy, and Cecil Temple managed to whisper a gentle word of congratulation to her, and at the twelve o’clock walk Annie perceived that a few of her schoolfellows looked at her with friendly eyes again. She perceived now that when she went into the play-room she was not absolutely tabooed, and that, if she chose, she might speedily resume her old reign of popularity. Annie had, to a remarkable extent, the gift of inspiring love, and her old favorites would quickly have flocked back to their sovereign had she so willed it. It is certainly true that the girls to whom the whole story was known in all its bearings found it difficult to understand how Annie could be innocent; but Mr. Everard’s and Mrs. Willis’ assertions were too potent to be disregarded, and most of the girls were only too willing to let the whole affair slide from their minds, and to take back their favorite Annie to their hearts again.
Annie, however, herself did not so will it. In the play-room she fraternized with the little ones who were alike her friends in adversity and sunshine; she rejected almost coldly the overtures of her old favorites, but played, and romped, and was merry with the children of the sixth class. She even declined Cecil’s invitation to come and sit with her in her drawing-room.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I hate being still; I am in no humor for talk. Another time, Cecil, another time. Now then, Sybil, my beauty, get well on my back, and I’ll be the willing dog carrying you round and round the room.”
Annie’s face had not a trace of care or anxiety on it, but her eyes would not quite meet Cecil’s, and Cecil sighed as she turned away, and her heart, too, began to whisper little, mocking, ugly doubts of poor Annie.
During the half-hour before tea that evening Annie was sitting on the floor with a small child in her lap, and two other little ones tumbling about her, when she was startled by a shower of lollipops being poured over her head, down her neck, and into her lap. She started up and met the sleepy gaze of Susan Drummond.
“That’s to congratulate you, miss,” said Susan; “you’re a very lucky girl to have escaped as you did.”
The little ones began putting Susan’s lollipops vigorously into their mouths. Annie sprang to her feet shaking the sticky sweetmeats out of her dress on to the floor.
“What have I escaped from?” she asked, turning round and facing her companion haughtily.
“Oh, dear me!” said Susan, stepping back a pace or two. “I—ah—” stifling a yawn—“I only meant you were very near getting into an ugly scrape. It’s no affair of mine, I’m sure; only I thought you’d like the lollipops.”
“No, I don’t like them at all,” said Annie, “nor you, either. Go back to your own companions, please.”
Susan sulkily walked away, and Annie stooped down on the floor.
“Now, little darlings,” she said, “you mustn’t eat those. No, no, they are not good at all; and they have come from one of Annie’s enemies. Most likely they are full of poison. Let us collect them all, every one, and we will throw them into the fire before we go to tea.”
“But I don’t think there’s any poison in them,” said little Janie West in a regretful tone, as she gobbled down a particularly luscious chocolate cream; “they are all big, and fat, and bursty, and so sweet, Annie, dear.”
“Never mind, Janie, they are dangerous sweeties all the same. Come, come, throw them into my apron, and I will run over and toss them into the fire, and we’ll have time for a game of leap-frog before tea; oh, fie, Judy,” as a very small fat baby began to whimper, “you would not eat the sweeties of one of Annie’s enemies.”
This last appeal was successful. The children made a valiant effort, and dashed the tempting goodies into Annie’s alapaca apron. When they were all collected, she marched up the play-room and in the presence of Susan Drummond, Hester Thornton, Cecil Temple, and several more of her school companions, threw them into the fire.
“So much for that overture, Miss Drummond,” she said, making a mock courtesy, and returning once more to the children.