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"You are looking well, my dear," said the woman, "and I am glad you are
back, for we want young life about the old place."
"You won't have it long," said Annie.
Mrs Shelf took no notice. "The raspberries are past," she said; "but
there are a good few gooseberries still to preserve, and there are the
early pears coming on; they make beautiful jam, if boiled whole with
cloves and lemon-peel and a little port wine thrown in. But you must
stand over them the whole time in order to keep them from breaking.
Then there are the peaches; I set store by them, and always put them in
bottles and bury them in the garden. There are gherkins, too, for
pickling; and there are a whole lot of walnuts. We mustn't lose a day
about pickling the walnuts, or they'll be spoiled. We might begin over
some of the jams to-morrow. What do you think?"
"You may if you like, Shelfy," said Annie; "but I sha'n't. I have only
come here for a visit. I'm off to Paris immediately."
"You off to Paris!" said the old woman. "Highty-tighty! what will your
uncle say?"
"Uncle Maurice will say just what I like him to say," answered Annie.
"Please have a chop or something nice for my supper, for I can't stand
slops. And is my room ready?"
"I hope so, child. I told Peggie to see to it." Peggie was not the
best of servants, and Annie's room was by no means in a state of
immaculate order. It was a large room, but, like the rest of the house,
very badly furnished. There was a huge old four-poster for the girl to
sleep in, and there was a little rickety table which held a
looking-glass with a crack down the middle, and there was a cracked
white basin and jug on another table at the farther end of the room. Of
wardrobe there was none; but a large door, when opened, revealed some
shelves and a hanging press.
"Oh! it is just as of old," thought the girl--"an intolerable, horrid
place. I could never live here--never; and what's more, I won't. How
wise I was to make provision for myself while at school! I declare, bad
as I thought the old place, I didn't imagine it to be quite so
ramshackle."
While these thoughts were rushing through Annie's mind she was brushing
out her pretty golden hair and arranging it becomingly round her small
head. Then she straightened and tidied her dress, and presently ran
downstairs, her trim little figure quite stylish-looking for that old
house, and pretty enough, in the rector's opinion, to gladden any place
which she chose to grace.
Old Mr Brooke loved Annie. She was all he possessed in the world. He
had never married, and when his only brother, on dying, had left the
child to his care, he had vowed to be a father to her, to bring her up
well, and to do the best he could for her. Annie was the child of an
English father and an Italian mother. In appearance she had taken in
every respect after her father's race, being fair, with all the
attributes of the Saxon, but in her nature she had some of the
craftiness which distinguishes the Italian. Hers was a difficult nature
to fathom, and to a very high-minded man like the Rev Maurice Brooke
she was a problem he could never solve. For a couple of years past he
had owned himself puzzled by Annie. When she was a little child she
delighted him; but more and more, as she returned from school for each
holiday, he felt that there was something behind. She was frank with
him; she grumbled quite openly in his presence. These things he did not
mind, but he was sure there was something behind the grumbling, and that
fact puzzled and distressed him.
Still, he looked forward to the weeks which Annie spent at Rashleigh
Rectory as the golden periods of his life. All the little pleasures and
indulgences were kept for this time. "When my niece comes back we'll do
so-and-so," was his favourite remark. "When Annie comes, Mrs Shelf, we
must have that new tarpaulin put down; and don't you think her room
ought to be repapered and painted for her? Girls like pretty things,
don't they?"
But Mrs Shelf read Annie's nature far more correctly than did her old
uncle.
"If I were you, Mr Brooke," she said, "I wouldn't spend money on that
girl until I knew what she was after. Maybe she won't take to the room
when it's painted and papered."
"Won't take to it?" he replied. "But naturally she'll take to it, Mrs
Shelf, for it will be her own room, where, please God, she will sleep
for many long years, until, indeed, she finds another home of her own."
Mrs Shelf was silent when the rector said these things. But, somehow,
the room was not papered, nor was the old paint renewed; and Annie
failed to notice these facts.
"Well, my little girl," he said on the present occasion, as they both
sat down to supper in a small room which opened out of the study, "it's
a sight for sair een to see you back again; and well you look, Annie--
well and bonny." He looked at her admiringly. She was not at all a
beautiful girl, but she was beautiful to him. "You have a look of my
brother Geoffrey," he said. "Ah, Geoffrey, dear fellow, was remarkably
good-looking. Not that looks signify much, Annie; we ought never to set
store by them. It is the beauty of the mind we ought to cultivate, my
love."
"Well," said Annie, "I'd like to be handsome. I don't see, for my part,
why I should not have both. What do you think, uncle?"
"That would be as the Almighty chose," he replied. "But come now, my
love; time passes quickly. I often forget, myself, how the years run
on. How old are you, my dearie?"
"I was seventeen my last birthday, Uncle Maurice; quite grown up, you
know."
"Why, to be sure, to be sure," he replied.
"Your mother was married at seventeen, poor young thing! But in these
days we are more sensible, and girls don't take the burden of life on
them while they are still children. You are a schoolgirl yet, Annie,
and won't be anything else for another year at least."
"Oh, all right, uncle," said Annie, who had no wish to change Lyttelton
School for the dullness of Rashleigh Rectory.
"But the months fly on," said the old man. "Help yourself to a
roast-apple, my dear. And before we know where we are," he continued,
"you'll have left school and be back here with me. I look forward to
that time, my little Annie; there will be a power of things for you to
do, and the parish will be all the better for your society."
Annie shuffled her feet and grew red. The old rector did not especially
notice her. He was absorbed in contemplation. He had eaten his large
bowl of Quaker oats, and now he laid the spoon on his plate and gazed
into the fire.
"It's a fine thing," he said, "to be able to help the poor and needy. I
always say to myself, `When my bit Annie comes back we'll do so-and-so.
We'll have more mothers' meetings and classes for young women.' There
are some mill-hands near here, Annie, who are neglected in their
spiritual part shamefully. They want a lady like yourself to understand
them and to show them what girls ought to know. You might have
sewing-classes, for instance; and you might read aloud to them just to
interest them, you know. I have been thinking a lot about it. And then
what do you say to a Sunday afternoon class, just in one of the big
rooms here, for the mill-hands? It would be a pretty bit of work, and I
wouldn't be above catching them, so to speak, by guile--I mean that I
would give them tea and cake. Mrs Shelf wouldn't mind. We'd have to
manage her, wouldn't we, Annie?"
"Yes, uncle," said Annie, yawning; "yes."
"Then there's a carving-class for the young men."
"I wouldn't mind that so much as the other," said Annie suddenly.
"Now, that is really nice of you, my child, for those rough mill-hands
are often very troublesome. I would always accompany you myself to the
carving-class. We'd get our patterns from London, and you would
encourage them a bit."
"Only I can't carve," said Annie.
"Well, well, that needn't be a difficulty; for it is easy to learn, I am
told; and you might have lessons during your last term at school. Oh,
there'll be a deal for you to do, my pretty one, and no minute left
unemployed; and you, all the time while you are so busy, the very
sunshine of your old uncle's life."
"Am I, Uncle Maurice?" she asked.
"Are you that?" he replied. He rose and held out his arms to her.
"Aren't you just all I've got," he said--"all I have got?"
She allowed him to kiss her, and even faintly responded, for she had
made up her mind not to trouble him about Paris that night.
After a time he allowed her to go to bed, which she was exceedingly glad
to do. But when she had flung herself in her bed and was quickly lost
in slumber, the old man himself sat up and thought a great deal about
her, and prayed for her not a little.
"She is a bonny lass, and a pretty one," he said to himself; "and, thank
the Lord! I don't see a trace of that dark-eyed mother about her. She
takes after Geoffrey, the best of men. Yes, she is a good child, and
will settle down to my busy life here, I make no doubt, with great
equanimity. I have much to be thankful for, and my Annie is the apple
of my eye. All the same, I wish--I do wish--that she was just a
_little_ more responsive."
The next day Annie awoke with the lark. She jumped up, and long before
breakfast was out of doors. The house was shabby enough, but the
Rectory garden was a place to revel in. The rector cared nothing about
indoor decoration, but his hobby was his garden. Lawns with some of the
finest turf in England rolled majestically away from the house towards
the swift-flowing river at the other end of the grounds. There were gay
parterres filled with bright flowers. There were shrubberies and
paddocks, and even a labyrinth and an old Elizabethan walk where the
yew-trees were cut into grotesque forms of foxes and griffins. There
was an old sun-dial, which at one time used to interest Annie but which
she had long ceased to notice; and there was a kitchen-garden, which
ought to have delighted the heart of any young person; for not only were
the vegetables first class, but here was to be found the best fruit in
the neighbourhood. The rector was celebrated for his peaches and
apricots, his pears, his apples, his nuts. He had a long vinery full of
choice grapes, and there were hotbeds containing melons of the finest
flavour; and there were even--and these were as a crown of all crowns to
the old rector--pines growing here in perfection.
Annie was too self-loving and too keenly appreciative of the good things
of life not to like the old garden. She forgot some of her grievances
now as she walked here and there, helping herself indiscriminately to
the ripest and beet fruit.
By-and-by the postman was seen coming up the avenue. Annie ran to meet
him. She had been delayed for a day in leaving Lyttelton School, and
she knew, therefore, that Mabel's invitation would probably arrive at
Rashleigh Rectory this morning. Yes; here it was in Mabel's own
writing. Annie looked at the outside of the envelope for a minute or
two with intense appreciation; then she deliberately opened it and took
out two letters. The first was from no less a person than Lady
Lushington herself:
"My dear Miss Brooke,--I write by Mabel's wish to beg of you to join my
niece and myself here early next week. We are going to Switzerland,
where we hope you will accompany us, but will remain here at the `Grand'
until Wednesday. If you can manage to be with us on Tuesday night, that
will be quite time enough. I hope your uncle will spare you to us; and
you may assure him that while you are my guest you will be treated as
though you were my child, and will have no expense of any sort.
"Looking forward to making your acquaintance, and with my compliments to
your uncle, believe me, yours sincerely, Henrietta Lushington."
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Annie. She read the other letter, but more
carelessly; Lady Lushington's was the important one. Mabel wrote:
"Dear Annie,--It is all right. Don't fail to be with us on Tuesday
night. Aunt Henrietta will send Parker to meet you at the Gare du Nord,
and you will doubtless find some escort to bring you to Paris. It's
great fun here, although the weather is very hot, and we are dying to be
away amongst the cool mountains of Switzerland. Aunt Henrietta goes to
all the fashionable hotels, and dresses exquisitely, so if you can screw
a little money out of that old flint of an uncle of yours, so much the
better; but even if you are shabby, I dare say I can manage to rig you
up.--Your affectionate friend, Mabel Lushington."
"_P.S._--That awful bill has not come yet! I shake when I think of it.
"_P.S._ Number 2.--I am very glad now that I took your advice. It is
heavenly to be emancipated. I wouldn't be back at that odious school
for a kingdom. Do come quickly."
Armed with these letters, Annie now entered the same little room where
she and her uncle had partaken of their supper on the previous night.