bills, doesn’t she, without worrying you much?”
“Yes.”
“And no one dresses so beautifully as you do in the whole school, Mabel.”
“Oh, well,” said Mabel, “it isn’t necessary for me to be careful – that is just it.”
“You will come to Mrs Priestley to-morrow, and I will go with you; or, if you like best, I will go alone and take a note from you to her. You have but to ask her to lend you thirty pounds, and to put it down in the bill, and there you are. She will have to lend it to you in notes and gold – of course a cheque would never do – and then you can give Pris the money for her next term’s schooling, and Mrs Lyttelton will accept it as a matter of course, and your aunt Henrietta will never know, for, at the worst, she will only scold you for being especially extravagant.”
“Yes – but – but,” said Mabel. Her cheeks were crimson and her eyes bright, and there was no doubt whatever that the temptation presented by cunning Annie was taking hold of her. “That is all very fine. But even if I dared to do the thing, the difficulties of keeping Priscie at the school might be got over for one term; but what about the two other terms? I can’t go on borrowing money from Mrs Priestley, more especially if I am not at the school myself.”
“As your aunt is so very rich, and as she will be taking you into society, it will be quite possible for you to spare thirty pounds each term out of your own allowance,” said Annie. “But even if you don’t wish to do that, I have no doubt at all that Lady Lushington is very generous, and that she will lend you the money for poor Priscie, if you only talk to her judiciously.”
“She might and she might not,” said Mabel; “there is no saying. And as to an allowance, she may not give me any, but just buy my things straight off as I want them. Oh dear, dear! I don’t see my way with regard to the other terms, even if I could borrow the money for this one.”
“You will see your way when the time comes; and, remember, you will have from now till Christmas to think of ways and means. In the meantime you will go to Paris, and from Paris to the different foreign spas, and, oh, won’t you have a jolly time, and won’t you be admired!”
“It certainly sounds tempting,” said Mabel, “although it seems to me that it is awfully wicked – ”
“As to its being so wicked,” interrupted Annie, “I can’t quite see that. Think what good it will do – helping poor old Pris, and giving yourself a right jolly time, and me also.”
“I can’t see where you come in,” said Mabel.
“Oh, but I do. You don’t suppose I am going to leave myself out in the cold, when I am managing so cleverly all these jolly things for you. You have got to get your aunt to invite me to join you in Paris. She will, I know, if you manage her properly. What fun we shall have together, May! How we shall enjoy ourselves! Of course I’ll have to come back here at the end of the holidays; but the summer holidays are long, and, oh! I shall be a happy girl.”
“You might certainly, if you came to visit me, think out a plan for paying Priscie’s school fees for the other terms,” said Mabel. “But, dear, dear! it is awfully dangerous. I don’t know how I can consent. If the whole thing were ever found out I should be disgraced for life!”
“If,” said Annie. “If is a very little word and means a great deal, May. These things won’t be found out, for the simple reason that it is to your interest, and to my interest, and to Priscie’s interest to keep the whole matter in the dark.”
Chapter Four
“I don’t want to do Wrong.”
When Annie had ended her conference with Mabel Lushington – a conference which left that young lady in a state of intense and even nervous excitement, in which she kept on repeating, “I won’t; I daren’t. Oh! but I long to. Oh! but I just wish I could,” until Annie felt inclined to beat her – she went away at last with the quiet assurance of a girl who had won a victory.
Her scheme was ripening to perfection. Mabel, of course, would yield; the money would be forthcoming. Priscilla would stay at the school, and Annie would have her hour of triumph.
It was half-an-hour before bed-time on that same evening when clever and wicked Annie had a further conference with Priscilla. She found poor Priscilla looking very pale and woe-begone, seated all by herself at one end of the long schoolroom.
“Come out,” said Annie; “it is a perfectly lovely evening, and we need not go up to our horrid beds for another half-hour.”
“You want to tempt me again,” said Priscilla, “I won’t go with you.”
“You needn’t,” said Annie with emphasis. “I have only this to say. Your prize paper is finished?”
“Yes.”
“I will come to your room for it very, very early to-morrow morning.”
“You know, Annie, you daren’t come to my room.”
“I dare, and will,” said Annie. “I will be with you at five o’clock, before any of the servants are up. At that hour we will safely transact a very important little piece of business.”
“You mean,” said Priscilla, raising her haggard face and looking with her dark-grey eyes full at the girl, “that you want me to go down for ever in my own estimation, and to proclaim to my good teachers, to dear Mrs Lyttelton, and to all the girls here that I am not myself at all. You want me to read an essay written by one of the stupidest girls in the school as my own, and you want her to read mine – which may probably be the best of those written – and you want her to win the prize which ought to be mine.”
“Yes, I do want her to win the prize,” said Annie, “and for that reason I want her to read your essay as though it were her own.”
“You forget one thing,” said Priscilla. “Mabel writes so atrociously that no one will believe for a single moment that my paper could be her work; and, on the other hand, people will be as little likely to go down in their high estimation of my talent as to suppose that I have seriously written the twaddle which she will give me. You see yourself, Annie, the danger of your scheme. It is unworkable; our teachers are all a great deal too clever to be taken in by it. It cannot possibly be carried out.”
“It can, and will,” said Annie. “I have thought of all that, and am preparing the way. In the first place, the paper you will read will be by no means bad. It will be the sort of paper that will pass muster, and long before prize day there will be an undercurrent of belief in the school that Mabel is by no means the dunce she is credited to be.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You had best not know, Priscilla. The main thing for you to consider is this: You do not go to your horrid uncle Josiah. You spend your summer holidays with him, I know; but you return here afterwards. You have another happy year at Lyttelton School, and at the end of that time you win a splendid scholarship for Newnham or Girton, and go to Cambridge for three happy years. Think of it, Priscilla; and you can do it so easily. Do think of it, darling Pris. You are either a household drudge or a country dressmaker if you don’t do this thing; and if you do – and it’s really such a very little thing – you may be anything you like.”
Priscilla sat very still while Annie was talking to her, but in each of her cheeks there rose a brilliant spot of colour. It spread and spread until the whole
