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Chapter Twenty Four
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It was all over – the fun, the gaiety, the good things of life, the delights of fine living, the charm of being with rich friends. It is true that Annie Brooke returned to England with a little private fund of her own in her pocket; but John Saxon insisted on her returning him the two five-pound notes he had enclosed to her. Out of these he paid for her ticket back to England.

John Saxon was a very cold, silent, and unsympathetic fellow-traveller. He sat moodily in a corner, wrapped in his greatcoat, the collar of which he turned up; a travelling-cap came well down over his head, so that Annie could see little or nothing of his face. He had done what he could to make her comfortable, and had wrapped her round with warm things. Then he had taken no further notice of her.

On the whole, Priscilla Weir had a far more interesting journey to England than had that spoiled child of fortune Annie Brooke. Annie, however, was glad to be left alone. She did not want to talk to that odious man, Cousin John Saxon. But for him, life would not have been suddenly spoiled for her. She would not have been found out. She was far too clever not to be sure that Lady Lushington had found her out. Not that Lady Lushington had discovered any serious crimes to lay at her door, but then she had read her character aright, and that character was of the sort which the great lady could not tolerate. Therefore Annie was – and she knew it well – shut away from any further dealings with Mabel Lushington.

Poor Mabel! How would she provide the money for Priscilla’s two remaining terms at school? How would she go through a stern catechism with regard to the necklace when Annie was no longer by her side?

“Everything will be discovered,” thought Annie Brooke. “There is no help for it. What shall I do? And I’d managed so well and so – so cleverly. There isn’t a bit of good in being clever in this world. It seems to me it’s the stupid people that have the best times. Of course that idiotic old Mabel will let out the whole story before many hours are over. And then there’ll be a frightful to-do, and perhaps Mabel will be sent back to Mrs Lyttelton’s school – that is, if Mrs Lyttelton will receive her, which fact I very much doubt. As to me – oh, well, I’ll have to hide somewhere. I hope to goodness Mr Manchuri will never tell anybody about the necklace; he faithfully promised he wouldn’t and he seemed an honourable sort of man. But then, ought I to expect any one to be honourable in his dealings with me? I don’t know; the world seems coming to pieces. Horrid John Saxon! How I detest him! Oh, I feel as though I could go mad!”

Annie started up impatiently. She went across the carriage and opened one of the windows, putting her head out at the same time. She hoped Saxon would take some notice. She wanted him to speak to her. His silence, his apparent indifference to her, were just the sort of thing to madden the girl in her present mood.

Saxon was seated facing the engine, and, in consequence, when Annie opened the window wide he was exposed to a tremendous draught. He bore it for a minute or two; then, rising, he said very quietly:

“Will you excuse me? I don’t think the night air is good for you, and it is certainly bad for me. I will, therefore, with your permission, shut the window; it is cold.”

“I am suffocating,” said Annie.

“I will open it again in a few minutes so that you can have fresh air from time to time.”

“Oh!” said Annie, with a sudden burst of passion, beating one small hand over the other, “why have you been so cruel to me?”

Saxon glanced at her. There was only one other occupant of the carriage – an old gentleman, who was sound asleep and snoring loudly.

“Won’t you speak?” said Annie. “Why do you sit so silent, so indifferent, when you have spoiled my life?”

“We have different ideas on that point,” he said. “You can do exactly as you please with your life, as far as I am concerned, by-and-by. At present you are under the care of your uncle, the Rev. Maurice Brooke. While he lives you have to do his wishes, to carry them out according to his views. I am helping him in this matter, not you. Afterwards, we will discover by your uncle’s will what he wishes to have done with you. You are only seventeen; you must yield to the directions and the will of those who are older than yourself and who are placed by God in authority over you.”

“Oh, how I hate you when you preach!”

“Then perhaps you will not speak to me. I am exceedingly tired; a journey to Zermatt and back again without any rest makes a man inclined for slumber. I will sleep, if you have no objection. In the morning perhaps we shall both be in a better temper than we are at present.”

“I wish,” said Annie, speaking in sudden passion, “that I could fling myself out of that window. You have destroyed every prospect I ever had in life.”

“You talk in an exceedingly silly way,” said Saxon. “Now do try and be quiet, if you please.”

His absolute disregard of her threat to end her own miserable life made Annie at once furious and also strangely subdued. She sat back in her corner like a little wild creature caught in a trap. There was nothing whatever to be done but to submit. To submit as she was now doing was indeed new to Annie Brooke. Her head was in a whirl; but by-and-by, to her own relief, she also slept, and so part of the miserable journey was got through.

It was late on the following afternoon when Annie and John Saxon found themselves driving in the gig to Rashleigh Rectory. They had to pass through the little village, and Annie looked with a sort of terror at Dawson’s shop. She wondered if the matter of the cheque would ever be brought up against her. So occupied was she with herself and with all the dreadful things she had done that she could scarcely think of her dying old uncle at all.

The memory of a text, too, which she had learned as a child began to be present with her. Her head was aching, and the text, with its well-known words, tormented her.

”‘Be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure – your sin – will find you out,’” murmured Annie in too low a tone for Saxon to hear.

They had been met at the railway station with the information that Mr Brooke was still alive, and Saxon uttered a sigh of relief. Then his journey had not been in vain. Then the old man would be gratified. The greatest longing and wish of his life would be fulfilled. The darling of his heart would be with him at the end.

John Saxon turned and looked at the girl. She was crouching up in the gig. She felt cold, for the evenings were turning a little chill. She had wrapped an old cloak, which Mrs Shelf had sent, around her slim figure.

Her small, fair face peeped out from beneath the shelter of the cloak. Her eyes had a terrified light in them. Saxon felt that, for Mr Brooke’s sake, Annie must not enter the Rectory in her present state of wild revolt and rebellion.

He suddenly turned down a shady lane which did not lead direct to the Rectory. His action awoke no sort of notice in Annie’s mind. Her uncle was alive; he probably was not so very bad after all. This was a plot of John Saxon’s – a plot to destroy her happiness. But for John, how different would be her life now!

They drove down about a hundred yards of the lane, and then the young man pulled the horse up and drew the gig towards the side of the road. This fact woke Annie from the sort of trance into which she had sunk, and she turned and looked at him.

“Why are you stopping?” she asked.

“Because I must speak to you, Annie,” was her cousin’s response.

“Have you anything fresh to say? Is there anything fresh to say?”

“There is something that must be said,” replied John Saxon. “You cannot, Annie, enter the Rectory and meet Mrs Shelf, and, above all things, go into that chamber where your dear uncle is waiting for the Angel of Death to fetch him away to God, looking as you are doing now. You are, I well know, in a state of great mental misery. You have done wrong – how wrong, it is not for me to decide. I know of some of your shortcomings, but this is no hour for me to speak of them. All I can say at the present moment is this: that you are very young, and you are motherless, and – you are about, little Annie, to be fatherless. You are on the very eve of losing the noblest and best father that girl ever possessed. Your uncle has stood in the place of a father to you. You never appreciated him; you never understood him. He was so high above you that you could never even catch a glimpse of the goodness of his soul. But I cannot believe in the possibility of any one being quite without heart or quite without some sense of honour; and I should be slow, very slow, to believe it of you.

“Now, there is one last thing which you have got to do for your uncle Maurice, and I have brought you down here to tell you what that last thing is.”

Annie was silent. She shrank a little more into the shelter of the rough old cloak, and moved farther from her cousin.

“You must do it Annie,” he said, speaking in a decided voice; “you must on no account whatever fail at this supreme juncture.”

“Well?” said Annie when he paused.

“Your uncle is expecting you. God has kept him alive in order that he may see your face again. To him your face is as that of an angel. To him those blue eyes of yours are as innocent as those of a little child. To him you are the spotless darling, undefiled, uninjured by the world, whom he has nurtured and loved for your father’s sake and for your own. You must on no account, Annie, open his eyes to the truth with regard to you now. It is your duty to keep up the illusion as far as he is concerned. I have taken all this trouble to bring you to his bedside in order that he may have his last wish gratified, and you must not fail me. Perhaps your uncle’s prayers may be answered; and God, who can do all things, will change your heart.

“Now, remember, Annie, you have to forget yourself to-night and to think only of the dying old man. Promise me, promise me that you will do so.”

“You have spoken very strangely, Cousin John,” said Annie after a very long pause. “I – I will do – my – best I am very bad – but – I will do – my best.”

The next instant Annie’s icy-cold little hand was clasped in that of John Saxon.

“You have to believe two things,” he said. “A great man who was as your father, whom God is taking to Himself. That man loves you with all his heart and soul and strength. When he dies, there is another man, unworthy, unfit truly, to stand in his shoes, but nevertheless who will not forsake you. Now let us get back to the Rectory.”

There was a feeling of peace in the old house, a wonderful calm, a strange sense of aloofness as though the ordinary things of life had been put away and everyday matters were of no account. The fact was this: that for several days now, for long days and long nights, the beautiful Angel of Death had been brooding over the place; and the people who lived in the old Rectory had recognised the fact and had arranged their own lives accordingly.

Money did not matter at all in the shadow of that Presence; nor did greatness – worldly greatness, that is – nor ambition, nor mere pleasure; and, above all things, self-love was abhorrent in that little home of peace, for the Angel of Death brooding there brought with him the very essence of peace.

It was a curious fact that Annie Brooke, when she passed under the threshold and entered on what she expected to be the most awful time of her whole life, found that same peace immediately descend upon her. She lost all sense of fear, and every scrap of regret at having left the good and gay things of life at Zermatt.

She had not been five minutes in the house before she forgot Zermatt, and Mabel, and Lady Lushington. It is true, she thought of Priscilla, and Priscilla’s eyes seemed to haunt her. But even they, with their look of reproach, could not affect the queer peace that had fallen upon her.

Mrs Shelf kissed her warmly, not uttering a word of reproach, and Annie stepped with a light and fairy step, and crept to her own room and put on one of her little home dresses – a blue gingham which she often wore and which her uncle loved. She tripped downstairs again in a few minutes, and entered the kitchen and said to Mrs Shelf:

“Now I am ready.”

“Go in by yourself, darling,” said Mrs Shelf. “I won’t take you. He is in the old room; there is, no one with him. He knows you are here; he knew it the minute you stepped across the threshold. You couldn’t deceive him, bless you! Go to him all alone, dearie, and at once.”

So Annie went. A minute later she was seated by the old man’s bedside, and silently her little hand was laid on his. He just turned his head very slowly to look at her. They both felt themselves to be quite alone together except for the presence of the Angel of Death, who, brooding over the house, brooded more deeply over this sacred chamber, with wings held open, ready to spread themselves at any instant, and arms half extended to carry that saint of God to his home in the skies.

Mr Brooke had longed for Annie, had imagined her to be by his side in hours of delirium, had awakened to his usual senses a day or two before the end and had discovered her absence; had said no word of reproach with regard to his little Annie, but had missed her with a great heart-hunger. Now she was here. She was his own dear child. To the rest of the world Annie was at that moment a wicked, designing, double-faced, double-natured creature, but to Mr Brooke she was just his wee pet lamb, his darling; the treasure whom God had given him.

“You are back, my love,” he said when his very feeble voice could speak. “I missed you, my little one.”

“Yes, I am back,” said Annie, and she did that which comforted him most; she laid her head on the pillow beside him, and kissed his cheek, already cold with the dews which precede the moment when the great Angel of Death carries the soul he has released from its prison away.

“I am going to God,” said Mr Brooke. “It is a wonderful happiness that I am soon to be admitted into the presence of the King of Kings. There is no saying, Annie, what marvels will be revealed to me and what glories mine eyes shall look upon. I shall see in His good time the Saviour of the world. When I am ready for that sight of all sights, it will be given to me. But, my own little Annie, even in that moment of satisfaction, when I wake up after His likeness, I shall carry you, my child, in my heart of hearts. I shall look for you, my little one. You will come to me – not yet, my darling, for you are very young, but some day. Promise me, my dearest dear.”

Annie’s choked voice sounded low and faint.

“I cannot hear you, my sweetest. Say the word I want – say the word I want to take away with me.”

“What shall I say, Uncle Maurice?”

“Say ‘Yes’ – one word, my darling, that I may carry it with me into the great eternity of God.”

“Yes – oh, yes!” said Annie.

“Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,” said the old man. Then the Angel of Death did open wide his glorious wings, and two bright spirits passed out of that room where one had come in.

Chapter Twenty Five
Very Dark Days

Mr Brooke’s death was followed by total collapse on Annie’s part. The time between the death and the funeral was passed by the girl in a sort of delirium, in which she was too restless to stay in bed, but too feverish to go out. On the day of the funeral itself, however, she did manage to follow her uncle to his last resting-place.

A pathetic little figure she looked in her deep mourning, with her pretty face very pale and her golden hair showing in strong relief against the sombre hue of her black dress.

Saxon and Annie were the only relations who followed the Rev. Maurice Brooke to the grave. Nevertheless the funeral was a large one, for the dead man had during a long lifetime made friends and not one single enemy. There was not a soul for miles round who did not know and love and mourn for the Rev. Maurice Brooke. All these friends, therefore, young and old, made a point of attending his funeral, and he himself might well have been there in spirit so near did his presence seem to lonely Annie as she stood close to the graveside and saw the coffin lowered to its last resting-place.

She and John Saxon then returned to the Rectory. Annie was better in health now, but very restless and miserable in spirit. Saxon was consistently kind to her. Her uncle’s will was read, which left her all that he possessed, but that all was exceedingly little, not even amounting to sufficient to pay for Annie’s school expenses at Mrs Lyttelton’s.

Saxon asked her what she would like to do with her future. Her reply was almost inaudible – that she had no future, and did not care what became of her. Saxon was too deeply sorry for her to say any harsh words just then. Indeed, her grief touched him unspeakably, and he almost reproached himself for blaming her so severely for not attending to his first letter.

It was two or three days after the funeral, and Saxon was making preparations to leave the old Rectory, where Annie herself could remain for a few weeks longer under the care of Mrs Shelf, when one morning he got a letter which startled him a good deal. Colour rose to his cheeks, and he looked across at Annie, who was pouring out tea.

“Do you know from whom I have just heard?” he said.

“No,” said Annie in a listless tone.

She did not much care whom her cousin heard from, as she said over and over to herself, nothing ever need matter to her any more. But his next words startled her, and she found that she had a heart and susceptibilities, and that once again cruel, terrible fear could visit her.

“This letter is from a man whom I happen to know exceedingly well; I have met him several times in Australia. He is a certain Mr Manchuri.”

“Yes,” said Annie, her lips parted and the colour rushing into her cheeks.

“He says he knows you – he met you at the Hotel Belle Vue at Interlaken – and that, seeing your uncle’s death in the paper, he has written for a double purpose – to convey his condolences to all those who loved your dear uncle, and to request me to meet him in town on important business in connection with you.”

“Oh!” said Annie. She had been standing; she almost fell into her seat.

“He says further,” pursued Saxon, “that a great friend of yours, a Miss Priscilla Weir, is staying with him.”

“She told him, of course,” said Annie.

“What did you say, Annie?” John Saxon looked at her, a puzzled expression between his brows. Then he started to his feet. “I shall run up to town,” he said. “I will go to-day and see what this means. It was through Miss Weir he learned that I was staying here. But for that he says that he would have come himself to have an interview with you; as it is, he thinks I can manage matters best.”

“Don’t go!” said Annie in a choked voice.

“Don’t do what, my dear Annie?”

“Don’t go; don’t mind him. He means mischief.”

“I don’t want to be cross to you, dear Annie, but really this is silly. Mr Manchuri is a most excellent man; I and my father before me have both known him. My father has transacted some business with him from time to time. He is a first-rate man of business, and straight, in every sense of the word. Of course I shall go; I cannot possibly neglect your affairs. Why, what is it, my dear?”

“You can go if you like,” said Annie. “I – I don’t feel well; that is all.”

She crept out of the room, tottering as she did so, and supporting herself by catching hold of various articles of furniture. When she disappeared John thought for a minute. Then he went into the kitchen, where Mrs Shelf was busy.

“Mrs Shelf,” he said, “I have just had a letter which obliges me to go to London at once; I shall catch the next train. It is scarcely possible for me to be back to-night, but I shall certainly come early to-morrow. In the meantime you will look after Annie.”

“You needn’t doubt it, Mr John,” said Mrs Shelf.

Saxon lowered his voice. “I don’t quite like her appearance,” he said. “She is suffering a good deal; I think you ought to watch her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Oh, I will see to her, Mr John. The poor child is fretting; she has found her true heart at long last. The death of my beloved master has revealed many things to our Annie.”

“Well, be careful of her,” said the young man. “I will be back as soon as I can.” Shortly afterwards he started for town.

As soon as ever the sound of the horse’s hoofs which was conveying John Saxon to the railway station died away on the road, Annie, who had been crouching rather than lying down in her room, ran to the window and looked out. The semi-peaceful, semi-stunned expression on her face had given way now to the old watchful, almost crafty look which used to characterise it. She was quickly making up her mind. Mr Manchuri could only want to see John Saxon on one subject – the necklace. Priscilla, horrid Priscilla, had told him everything. He had given Annie one hundred pounds for the necklace, seventy of which she had kept for herself. In all probability, if Mr Manchuri carried things out to the bitter end, she could be locked up for theft. She might even see the inside of a prison. The terrified girl felt nearly mad. She paced up and down her little chamber, fearing – she knew not what. She would have prayed, but she did not dare. She would have cried to God, but as she knew nothing would induce her to be good and to confess her sin, she was equally certain that God would not listen to her.

She remembered her promise to her uncle that she would meet him. Of course she never would. They were parted for ever and ever. But she must not think of that now. She must think of the present, and there was not a single minute to lose.

There was only one thing for Annie to do. She must go away. She had in her possession at that moment seventy pounds. With seventy pounds she could go a good way. She could leave England; there was nothing else for it; she must be well out of the country before John Saxon returned from London. He would probably come to Rashleigh Rectory accompanied by Mr Manchuri and that horrible Priscilla, and then the whole story would get out – the whole awful story – Annie’s conduct with regard to the prize, Annie’s conduct with regard to Susan Martin’s poems, Annie’s dreadful conduct with regard to Dawson and her uncle’s cheque which she had kept for herself.

John Saxon would remember how she had borrowed twenty pounds from him, and that too would be told against her. But her last and very greatest crime seemed to be in connection with the pearl and silver necklace. Her theft was biggest here, her craftiness greater, her double dealing more marked.

Oh yes; such a character ought only to be put in prison. But she would not live in prison – she, the gay, the clever, the free, the bold. She would not lose her liberty; it was worth a struggle to keep it. And she had her stolen money; it should do something for her; it should help her to keep the only thing left – the power to go where she pleased, to do what she liked.

“Annie, my darling!” called Mrs Shelf’s voice at the outside of the locked door.

“Coming in a minute, Mrs Shelf,” said Annie, making an effort to speak cheerfully.

She knew well that if she was to carry out her project she must be very wary, she must make her plans. Fortunately for herself, she now believed that she was an experienced traveller, and that, once on the Continent, she could easily baffle all attempts at discovering her.

She went to a glass and surveyed her little face. It had more colour than it had the day before, for excitement and the imminence of her peril brought back some of her old vivacity.

After a minute’s pause she opened the door and ran downstairs. Mrs Shelf was in the kitchen. She was engaged mournfully and with considerable pain searching through cupboards and counting out all the possessions of the late Rev. Maurice Brooke which would now belong to Annie. The poor housekeeper was sighing bitterly over her famous stores of jam, over her incomparable jellies, over her pickles, her liqueurs, her bottles of home-made wine. Not for her again would the trees in the garden blossom and bear fruit; not for her would the strawberries redden or the raspberry-canes yield of their abundance. Other people who could not possibly understand the value of the dear old garden would possess it; it would pass into the hands of strangers, and poor Mrs Shelf felt perhaps as acutely as Annie herself that her life was over. Far more than Annie, too, did this worthy soul love the good old man who had passed away.

It was a tearful face, therefore, she turned upon the girl.

“Ah, my dearie!” she said, “the days are turning a bit nippy for the time of year, and I thought you would be lonesome all by yourself in your bedroom. Come along and sit by the fire for a bit, won’t you, lovy? and I’ll warm you up a cup of good broth. I have some lovely and tasty in the pantry. Then maybe you’d help me to make a list of the glass and china and the old silver. There’s a quantity of old silver, and most beautiful it is; and it’s all yours, dear. Whenever you start a house of your own, you won’t have to go far to seek for means of making it pretty. There’ll be the silver and the china, and that magnificent Crown Derby dinner-set that your precious uncle took such pride in; and there’ll be the great branch candlesticks – old Sheffield they are, and very valuable; and there’ll be the beautiful house linen – such linen as is not to be found anywhere else in the country-side. You won’t be so bad off when you settle down with your good man, Miss Annie.”

“I’ll never have a good man,” said Annie in a petulant tone. “Nothing would induce me to marry. I hate the thought of it.”

“Poor lamb!” said Mrs Shelf; “you are but a baby yet; but the time will come – you mark my words.”

Annie made no reply. She gazed drearily into the fire. She was wondering how she could circumvent old Shelfy, who might, if she chose, prove a sad hindrance to her getting away before Saxon’s return.

“Shelfy,” she said, “don’t let’s bother about the old things now. I tell you what: I’ll go into the dining-room and write some letters – oh no! I couldn’t go near his study. I’ll just go into the dining-room and stay there for an hour or two; and then, if you will give me some lunch early, I will come and help you in the kitchen soon after that; but I don’t feel up to it this morning. When did John Saxon say he would be back, Shelfy?”

“Not to-night, darling, but some time to-morrow for sure. He’s a very good young man, is Mr John.”

“Well, Shelfy, you know I hate good young men,” said Annie.

Instead of reproving her, Mrs Shelf laughed.

“I declare, now,” she said, “that speech of yours, naughty as it is, is more like your old self than anything I have heard you utter since you came back. But you mustn’t turn against Mr Saxon, lovy, for he is just the best of the best, and sets store by you; any one can see that.”

“Well, I will go into the dining-room now,” said Annie; and she went out of the kitchen.

Mrs Shelf, quite cheered and reassured about her, went busily on with her duties, and Annie was presently able to go softly to her own bedroom, where she made preparations. She fastened her precious notes into her little pocket, which the placed in an inner petticoat, keeping out enough small change for her immediate necessities. She then carefully chose from her wardrobe some of the least smart dresses she had worn when at Interlaken. She must not wear her black; that would cause her to be discovered immediately. But the pretty print and cambric frocks which she had looked so charming in while away from home would not be recognised by any of those who might possibly think it worth while to follow on her track. A dark-blue dress which she used to wear when travelling with Lady Lushington would also come in handy. In short her very modest little wardrobe was quickly selected and put into a small travelling-bag which the could carry herself in one hand.

She could take this as far as the railway station; but that railway station was not to be the one just outside Rashleigh village, but another called Norton Paget, which was situated three miles farther down the line. Not a soul would recognise Annie at Norton Paget in the clothes Lady Lushington had given her. It would be easy to go from Norton Paget to London by the night express, and once in London, she would take an opportunity of getting as far away from England as her means would permit.

Annie from time to time had been fond of reading detective stories, and in these she had learned that there was no place so splendid for hiding in as London itself. She did not know London very well, however, and felt that she would be safest farther afield.

Having carefully packed her little bag, she hid it in a deep cupboard in her room, locked the cupboard, and put the key in her pocket. She then went downstairs.

Mrs Shelf coaxed her to come into the kitchen and share her dinner there. The dinner was very good and nourishing and comforting, and Annie ate quite heartily. She knew well that it was necessary to husband her strength. How to get Mrs Shelf, however, away from the Rectory for two or three hours towards nightfall was the problem which exercised Annie’s brain. Think and think as she would, she was puzzled how to manage this. For if Mrs Shelf was in the house, Annie knew well that she could not possibly leave it without being heard. If Mrs Shelf missed her at once, the hue and cry would be raised, and she could not possibly walk to Norton Paget with her somewhat heavy bag before being discovered. It was, therefore, necessary to get both Mrs Shelf and Dan, their one outside factotum, off the premises.

Almost immediately after lunch, the morning, which had been a bright and sunny one, clouded over and the day became threatening. A few drops of rain, too, fell at intervals, and there was a slight autumnal sound in the wind.