Part 14 (1/2)
”No, no; and that is the reason that I am a very good person to be with her, because I amuse her without exciting her. All I did to-day was to sit in the room where she could see me, and arrange some flowers and have a little talk about dressmaking.”
Molly opened her eyes in astonishment. Nora had been at the brink of death. Had not Molly spent a whole night in fervent and pa.s.sionate prayers for her recovery? Did not Nora love Molly, and did not Molly love Nora as only loving sisters can love? and yet Molly exhausted poor Nora, while Annie Forest, who was a stranger, soothed her.
Molly looked at Annie now without in the least comprehending her, and for the first time in all her gentle life a distinct sensation of jealousy was aroused within her.
Annie left the room a moment later, and Hester turned to Molly.
”I see you don't understand Annie,” she said.
”Yes, I'm sure I do; what an awfully frivolous girl she must be. Fancy her talking of dress to Nora, and she so ill.”
”But it did Nora heaps of good; nurse said she was quite jolly this afternoon, and that Annie was the companion of all others for her.”
”Don't say that again, Hester,” said Molly; ”it makes me feel quite wicked.”
”I know well,” replied Hester, ”that Annie is thoughtless.”
”Thoughtless? I should think so; but for her Nora would never have been hurt.”
”But she has the warmest heart in the world,” continued Hester. ”I did not understand her for a long time. Indeed, Molly, I don't mind telling you that once I hated her; but, oh, if you could only see Annie at her best. She can be--yes, she can be n.o.ble.”
Molly stared in non-comprehension.
CHAPTER XI.
THE DIAMOND RING.
Those of my readers who have read ”A World of Girls” will know all about the early story of Annie Forest; but, to those who have not, I may as well explain that she was a motherless girl, that she had been in her day a sad tomboy, that she had a father living, but that it was absolutely necessary for her before long to earn her own living. She was still at school, however, although she now occupied the post there of pupil-teacher. Mrs. Willis, the head-mistress of Lavender House, the school where Annie was educated, was her warm and devoted friend. Mrs.
Willis loved all her pupils and had an extraordinary influence over them, but Annie was almost like her adopted child.
She stood now in the wide, cool hall at the Grange, and reflected for a moment as to what she should do. She then ran lightly up to her pretty bedroom, and, opening her trunk, began to rummage eagerly among its contents. Annie would not be Annie if she were not the most impulsive creature in the world. She meant to devote herself to Nora; she had a great gift for reading character, and a quick glance showed her how best she might amuse this little girl. Nora was pretty, but Nora was not richly endowed with pretty frocks. Annie felt sure that she would arouse the keenest sympathy in the sick girl if she used her skilful fingers to cover the defects in Nora's wardrobe. She had made her own cambric frocks, and imagined that she had plenty of stuff in her trunk to make similar ones for Nora; she saw, to her dismay, however, that she had left the cambric behind her at school; and, as Mrs. Willis was away, and Lavender House was shut up during the summer vacation, it would be impossible for her to send for it. She had only a few s.h.i.+llings in her purse; she was well aware that Nora was possessed of no money. How, then, could she redeem her promise? Annie could not bring herself to ask Hester to help her, and yet, at the same time, it would never, never do to disappoint Nora! Annie had brought herself to consider Nora her own special patient. She had spent an hour with her in the morning and nearly two hours in the afternoon, and during the afternoon visit the girls had talked a good deal about the frocks. It was arranged between them that they were to be surprise frocks, and that Mr. and Mrs.
Lorrimer were to know nothing about them until they saw Nora well once more and arrayed in the prettiest of the three. Annie had hunted up some fas.h.i.+on-books, and had consulted Nora about the shape and the cut of the sleeves, and the way the skirt was to be hung and the embroidery sewn on. Both girls had been animated over the discussion, and Nora had been too interested to feel fatigue.
Well, that happened a few hours ago; now Annie, on her knees, bent over her empty trunk with an expression of keen dismay.
What was she to do? How could she possibly raise the money necessary to the purchase of the cambric? She calculated that the cambric and embroidery necessary for the making of three simple dresses would cost from twenty-five to thirty s.h.i.+llings This was not a large sum, but everything is by proportion, and for poor Annie, with five s.h.i.+llings in her purse and very little chance of any more money coming to her until the end of her visit to the Grange, thirty s.h.i.+llings seemed absolutely unattainable.
”But I must get it somehow!” she murmured, flinging herself on the floor by her open trunk as she spoke. ”I'm not going to be beaten by a little paltry sum like that! I promised Nora the frocks, and she shall have them! I didn't care a bit for Nora yesterday--she didn't suit me, and I thought her affected; but if I hadn't been so desperately thoughtless, she'd have been well now; and, as I have been in part the cause of her accident, I'm simply bound to look after her. Have those frocks she must! Poor little bit of frivolity, nothing in the world will soothe her nerves so much as seeing me making them for her. But that money--that thirty s.h.i.+llings! Oh, _dash_ that thirty s.h.i.+llings! Why should a mean little sum like that worry a girl almost into fits? Get it, I _will_; and ask Hester to help me, I _won't_! The frocks are to be a secret between Nora and me; the secret will be half the fun. Now, how am I to get the money? Have I anything to sell?”
Annie rose from the floor, where she had seated herself, and, going to a drawer, opened it. She took out a little leather box, and looked anxiously at its contents. There were a few treasures there, dear from a.s.sociation, but not of a valuable sort. There was a silver brooch, shaped like a horn, with a little bell attached; a schoolfellow had brought it to her from Switzerland; it probably cost a franc, and, although Annie admired it immensely on her neck, she did not believe any jeweller would give her sixpence for it. Then there was a basket beautifully carved out of an apricot-stone, and a narrow silver chain broken in many parts; and there was a bog-oak brooch and an old jet bracelet. Annie also possessed a gold locket and chain which she had won as a prize on a certain memorable occasion, but this treasure she had also stupidly left behind her. How provoking! She had really nothing she could sell for thirty s.h.i.+llings. But stay, she had forgotten. She coloured high as a memory came to her. She had one article of solid value--a ring. In one sense it was not hers; in another it was. It was a gold ring, with a single diamond; this ring had belonged to Annie Forest's mother. On her dying bed she had given the ring to Mrs. Willis.
One day Mrs. Willis had shown it to Annie, had yielded to Annie's entreaties that she might borrow it for this visit to the Grange, and had told her that, although she could not part with her mother's last gift during her lifetime, she would leave the ring to Annie in her will.
With her dark eyes full of excitement, Annie now took the ring out of its little morocco case and looked at it.
She had meant to wear it proudly on her finger during her stay at the Grange; but, in the excitement of pa.s.sing events, had forgotten to do so up to the present time. The ring was of value; no one had seen it on her finger, therefore no one would miss it. It occurred to Annie that she might ask a jeweller to lend her thirty s.h.i.+llings on the ring. With this thirty s.h.i.+llings she could buy the stuff for Nora's frocks; and as her father always sent her a pound on her birthday, and that birthday was only a little over a month away, she thought that she might manage to sc.r.a.pe together thirty s.h.i.+llings to redeem the ring before she returned to school.
Annie's mind was quickly made up. She would p.a.w.n the ring to someone, and trust to her lucky star to get it back before she returned to Lavender House. She knew well that Mrs. Willis would ask her for it as soon as ever she went back to school. Mrs. Willis was a person who never forgot: big things and small things alike found a place in her memory; but long before then Annie would, of course, have the ring in her possession.