feverish we must get a doctor. She may have a little touch of the sun, my dears; it is always unwise to be out too much this hot weather.”
“She looked awfully flushed,” said one girl, “when we met her in the High Street yesterday. It was after she had been with Mrs Priestley.”
“It must be a touch of the sun,” said Mrs Lyttelton; “perhaps I had better go to her myself.”
“Let me go first, dear Mrs Lyttelton,” said Miss Phillips; “I can soon let you know if there is anything wrong.”
Accordingly, Miss Phillips went gently upstairs Annie had the curtains drawn at the windows, but the windows themselves had their sashes open. She was lying in such a position that the powder on her face could not be noticed. When Miss Phillips came in Annie uttered a groan.
“Oh, why do you trouble?” she said, opening half an eye and looking at the mistress.
Her dread was that Mrs Lyttelton herself might appear. It would be difficult to hide the powder from her. Old Phillips, however, as she termed her, was a person easily imposed upon. “Don’t fuss about me, please,” said Annie. “I have just a bad headache. I am sorry I can’t be in the schoolroom this morning; but I just can’t. I am not a bit hot – not a bit – but my head is dreadful. I want to go out and lie in one of the hammocks in the garden. Do you think Mrs Lyttelton will let me?”
“Indeed she will, poor dear!” said Miss Phillips. “She is ever so sorry for you. You do look bad, Annie. Wouldn’t you like me to draw back the curtain, dear? Your room is so dark.”
“Oh, please don’t!” said Annie. “I can’t bear the light.”
“Well, my dear – well, of course – how thoughtless of me! I have brought you some tea.”
“Thank you; I shall be glad of a cup.”
“Poor child! Then you wouldn’t like to see Mrs Lyttelton herself?”
“Not for the world,” said Annie with unnecessary vehemence. But then she added prettily, “It is so sweet of her to think of it, and for little me – as if I were of any consequence. It’s just a headache, and I’ll be all right in the garden, and at dinner-time you will see me looking just as usual.”
“I hope so, indeed,” said Miss Phillips, who went downstairs to report that Annie was singularly pale, but not in the least feverish, and that her great desire was to lie in a hammock during the entire morning in the shady garden.
“Go up at once and tell her that she has my permission,” said Mrs Lyttelton.
Miss Phillips opened the door very softly. Annie was still lying with her eyes shut, the bandage at once shading and concealing her face; but the cheeks, the tip of the little nose, and the chin were all dreadfully white; only the pretty lips were still rosy.
Annie just opened languid eyes.
“I am better, really,” she said in the faintest and most patient voice.
“You poor, sweet thing,” said Miss Phillips. “How I sympathise with you! I get those frantic headaches myself sometimes.”
“It hurts me even to talk,” said Annie. “I do value your sympathy, but I can’t express what I feel. May I go into the garden? Did you find out?”
“Yes; Mrs Lyttelton has given you her permission. I am so sorry, dear, that none of us will be able to be with you. Mrs Lyttelton herself is going to drive to London, and of course the rest of us will be busy; but if you want any one, love, I could send one of the maids to you.”
“I shall want nothing,” said Annie, whose voice, in her eagerness, had suddenly become strong. Any one who was not poor Phillips would have been suspicious on the spot. “I am so dreadfully sorry,” said Annie, “that you should be put out about me; but if I am allowed to treat my headache in my own way, I shall be all right by early dinner. Now go, dear, won’t you? I will get dressed and creep down to the garden as soon as lessons begin.”
“You are such a thoughtful, unselfish girl,” said Miss Phillips. “Anybody else who looked so terribly ill would make a fuss.”
“Sweet Miss Phillips!” murmured Annie; and with these words sounding in her ear Miss Phillips left the room.
The moment she did so Annie sprang to a sitting position on her bed. She flung the bandage across the room with a petulant movement, and the next instant she had locked the door and begun an active and hurried toilet. The powder was removed. The small, fair face assumed its normal complexion, and by the time prayers were over and the girls were all assembled in the different class-rooms, Annie, in her neat cotton dress, wearing a big shady hat, with gloves drawn over her small white hands, and a parasol ready to shade her from the sun, stood waiting by her open window.
Presently she heard a welcome sound – the noise of wheels disappearing down the avenue. Now was her time. Across the lawn she went. The hammocks were there, but Annie had no use for them at present. Until she was well out of sight of the house she did not dare to run, but when a depression in the ground hid the house from view she put wings to her feet, and flew panting and racing along by the shrubbery, until, at the farthest end, she found a small postern door.
This door opened by means of a certain catch, so that to the uninitiated it always seemed locked, whereas to the initiated it would open any minute. Annie was one of the initiated. She let herself out being very careful to close the door after her, so that it would respond to that same apparently gentle touch when she wished to come back. It was most important that she should make all things right with regard to the door, as by that means she saved at least half-an-hour of her precious – her most precious time. Oh, if only Miss Phillips could see her now! Where was the pallid, suffering girl? Surely she was not represented by this red-faced, panting, strong-looking creature who was careering along the dusty roads en route for Hendon.
By-and-by she reached the suburbs, turned down a side street, and knocked loudly at a little green door. The door was opened by a woman who was evidently at once the owner of the house and her own servant.
“How do you do, Miss Brooke?” she said, looking at Annie in some astonishment. “I am very sorry indeed, miss, but Susie has been having her bad days, and your dresses are not ready for you. She’ll send them down this evening, if possible; but when her back aches at its worst she cannot manage the machine, miss; so I do hope, Miss Brooke, that you won’t be hard on her.”
“Not at all; I am very sorry for her,” said Annie in her gentle voice. “May I go in and talk to her for a few minutes, Mrs Martin?”
“To be sure, miss; you will find her upstairs in the sewing-room.”
Annie seemed to know her way quite well about this house. She ran up some very steep stairs and entered a low room which had at the end a sloping roof. There was a bed tucked as it were out of sight under the eaves; but right in the fall blaze of the summer sun, and where the room was most stiflingly hot, sat a very pallid girl with a large, over hanging brow, pale, tired-looking eyes, and a sensitive mouth.
The girl was bending over a large sewing-machine, the work of which she was guiding with her hand, while her feet worked the treadles. The moment she saw Annie she looked at her with a great rush of colour spreading over her face.
“Why, Miss Brooke!” she said.
“Ah,” said Annie, “you are behaving very badly indeed to me, Susie. I have just seen your mother, and she says
