HESTER'S HOUR OF TRIAL.
However calmly or however peacefully Annie slept that night, poor Hester
did not close her eyes. The white face of the girl she had wronged and
injured kept rising before her. Why had she so deceived Annie? Why from
the very first had she turned from her, and misjudged her, and
misrepresented her? Was Annie, indeed, all bad? Hester had to own to
herself that to-night Annie was better than she--was greater than she.
Could she now have undone the past, she would not have acted as she had
done; she would not for the sake of a little paltry revenge have defiled
her conscience with a lie, have told her governess that she could throw
no light on the circumstance of the stolen essay. This was the first lie
Hester had ever told; she was naturally both straightforward and
honorable, but her sin of sins, that which made her hard and almost
unlovable, was an intensely proud and haughty spirit. She was very sorry
she had told that lie; she was very sorry she had yielded to that
temptation; but not for worlds would she now humble herself to
confess--not for worlds would she let the school know of her cowardice
and shame. No, if there was no other means of clearing Annie except
through her confession, she must remain with the shadow of this sin over
her to her dying day.
Hester, however, was now really unhappy, and also truly sorry for poor
Annie. Could she have got off without disgrace or punishment, she would
have been truly glad to see Annie exonerated. She was quite certain that
Susan Drummond was at the bottom of all the mischief which had been done
lately at Lavender House. She could not make out how stupid Susan was
clever enough to caricature and to imitate peoples' hands. Still she was
convinced that she was the guilty person, and she wondered and wondered
if she could induce Susan to come forward and confess the truth, and so
save Annie without bringing her, Hester, into any trouble.
She resolved to speak to Susan, and without confessing that she had been
in the school-room on the night the essay was changed, to let her know
plainly that she suspected her.
She became much calmer when she determined to carry out this resolve, and
toward morning she fell asleep.
She was awakened at a very early hour by little Nan clambering over the
side of her crib, and cuddling down cozily in a way she loved by Hester's
side.
"Me so 'nug, 'nug," said little Nan. "Oh, Hetty, Hetty, there's a wy on
the teiling!"
Hester had then to rouse herself, and enter into an animated conversation
on the subject of flies generally, and in especial she had to talk of
that particular fly which would perambulate on the ceiling over Nan's
head.
"Me like wies," said Nan, "and me like 'oo, Hetty, and me love--me love
Annie."
Hester kissed her little sister passionately; but this last observation,
accompanied by the expression of almost angelic devotion which filled
little Nan's brown eyes, as she repeated that she liked flies and Hetty,
but that she loved Annie, had the effect of again hardening her heart.
Hester's hour of trial, however, was at hand, and before that day was
over she was to experience that awful emptiness and desolation which
those know whom God is punishing.
Lessons went on as usual at Lavender House that morning, and, to the
surprise of several, Annie was seen in her old place in class. She worked
with a steadiness quite new to her; no longer interlarding her hours of
study with those indescribable glances of fun and mischief, first at one
school-companion and then at another, which used to worry her teachers so
much.
There were no merry glances from Annie that morning; but she worked
steadily and rapidly, and went through that trying ordeal, her French
verbs, with such satisfaction that mademoiselle was on the point of
praising her, until she remembered that Annie was in disgrace.
After school, however, Annie did not join her companions in the grounds,
but went up to her bedroom, where, by Mrs. Willis' orders, she was to
remain until the girls went in. She was to take her own exercise later in
the day.
It was now the tenth of June--an intensely sultry day; a misty heat
brooded over everything, and not a breath of air stirred the leaves in
the trees. The girls wandered about languidly, too enervated by the heat
to care to join in any noisy games. They were now restored to their full
freedom, and there is no doubt they enjoyed the privileges of having
little confabs, and whispering secrets to each other without having Miss
Good and Miss Danesbury forever at their elbows. They talked of many
things--of the near approach of the holidays, of the prize day which was
now so close at hand, of Annie's disgrace, and so on.
They wondered, many of them, if Annie would ever be brought to confess
her sin, and, if not, how Mrs. Willis would act toward her. Dora Russell
said in her most contemptuous tones:
"She is nothing, after all, but a charity child, and Mrs. Willis has
supported her for years for nothing."
"Yes, and she's too clever by half; eh, poor old Muddy Stream?" remarked
a saucy little girl. "By the way, Dora, dear, how goes the river now? Has
it lost itself in the arms of mother ocean yet?"
Dora turned red and walked away, and her young tormentor exclaimed with
considerable gusto:
"There, I have silenced her for a bit; I do hate the way she talks about
charity children. Whatever her faults, Annie is the sweetest and
prettiest girl in the school, in my opinion."
In the meantime Hester was looking in all directions for Susan Drummond.
She thought the present a very fitting opportunity to open her attack on
her, and she was the more anxious to bring her to reason as a certain
look in Annie's face--a pallid and very weary look--had gone to her
heart, and touched her in spite of herself. Now, even though little Nan
loved her, Hester would save Annie could she do so not at her own
expense.
Look, however, as she would, nowhere could she find Miss Drummond. She
called and called, but no sleepy voice replied. Susan, indeed, knew
better; she had curled herself up in a hammock which hung between the
boughs of a shady tree, and though Hester passed under her very head, she
was sucking lollipops and going off comfortably into the land of dreams,
and had no intention of replying. Hester wandered down the shady walk,
and at its farther end she was gratified by the sight of little Nan, who,
under her nurse's charge, was trying to string daisies on the grass.
Hester sat down by her side, and Nan climbed over and made fine havoc of
her neat print dress, and laughed, and was at her merriest and best.
"I hear say that that naughty Miss Forest has done something out-and-out
disgraceful," whispered the nurse.
"Oh, don't!" said Hester impatiently. "Why should every one throw mud at
a girl when she is down? If poor Annie is naughty and guilty, she is
suffering now."
"Annie _not_ naughty," said little Nan. "Me love my own Annie; me do, me
do."
"And you love your own poor old nurse, too?" responded the somewhat
jealous nurse.
Hester left the two playing happily together, the little one caressing
her nurse, and blowing one or two kisses after her sister's retreating
form. Hester returned to the house, and went up to her room to prepare
for dinner. She had washed her hands, and was standing before the
looking-glass re-plaiting her long hair, when Susan Drummond, looking
extremely wild and excited, and with her eyes almost starting out of her
head, rushed into the room.
"Oh, Hester, Hester!" she gasped, and she flung herself on Hester's bed,
with her face downward; she seemed absolutely deprived for the moment of
the power of any further speech.
"What is the matter, Susan?" inquired Hester half impatiently. "What have
you come into my room for? Are you going into a fit of hysterics? You had
better control yourself, for the dinner gong will sound directly."
Susan gasped two or three times, made a rush to Hester's wash-hand stand,
and, taking up a glass, poured some cold water into it, and gulped it
down.
"Now I can speak," she said. "I ran so fast that my breath quite left me.
Hester, put on your walking things or go without them, just as you
please--only go at once if you would save her."
"Save whom?" asked Hester.
"Your little sister--little Nan. I--I saw it all. I was in the hammock,
and nobody knew I was there, and somehow I wasn't so sleepy as usual, and
I heard Nan's voice, and I looked over the side of the hammock, and she
was sitting on the grass picking daisies, and her nurse was with her, and
presently you came up. I heard you calling me, but I wasn't going to
answer. I felt too comfortable. You stayed with Nan and her nurse for a
little, and then went away; and I heard Nan's nurse say to her: 'Sit
here, missy, till I come back to you; I am going to fetch another reel of
sewing cotton from the house. Sit still, missy; I'll be back directly.'
She went away, and Nan went on picking her daisies. All on a sudden I
heard Nan give a sharp little cry, and I looked over the hammock, and
there was a tall, dark woman, with such a wicked face, and she snatched
up Nan in her arms, and put a thick shawl over her face, and ran off with
her. It was all done in an instant. I shouted and I scrambled out of the
hammock, and I rushed down the path; but there wasn't a sign of anybody
there. I don't know where the woman went--it seemed as if the earth
swallowed up both her and little Nan. Why, Hester, are you going to
faint?"
"Water!" gasped Hester--"one sip--now let me go."