_ CHAPTER XLII. HESTER
At Lavender House the confusion, the terror, and the dismay were great. For several hours the girls seemed quite to lose their heads, and just when, under Mrs. Willis' and the other teachers' calmness and determination, they were being restored to discipline and order, the excitement and alarm broke out afresh when some one brought Annie's little note to Mrs. Willis, and the school discovered that she also was missing.
On this occasion no one did doubt her motive; disobedient as her act was no one wasted words of blame on her. All, from the head-mistress to the smallest child in the school, knew that it was love for little Nan that had taken Annie off; and the tears started to Mrs. Willis' eyes when she first read the tiny note, and then placed it tenderly in her desk. Hester's face became almost ashen in its hue when she heard what Annie had done.
"Annie has gone herself to bring back Nan to you, Hester," said Phyllis. "It was I told her, and I know now by her face that she must have made up her mind at once."
"Very disobedient of her to go," said Dora Russell; but no one took up Dora's tone, and Mary Price said, after a pause:
"Disobedient or not, it was brave--it was really very plucky."
"It is my opinion," said Nora, "that if any one in the world can find little Nan it will be Annie. You remember, Phyllis, how often she has talked to us about gypsies, and what a lot she knows about them?"
"Oh, yes; she'll be better than fifty policemen," echoed several girls; and then two or three young faces were turned toward Hester, and some voice said almost scornfully:
"You'll have to love Annie now; you'll have to admit that there is something good in our Annie when she brings your little Nan home again."
Hester's lip quivered; she tried to speak, but a sudden burst of tears came from her instead. She walked slowly out of the astonished little group, who none of them believed that proud Hester Thornton could weep.
The wretched girl rushed up to her room, where she threw herself on her bed and gave way to some of the bitterest tears she had ever shed. All her indifference to Annie, all her real unkindness, all her ever-increasing dislike came back now to torture and harass her. She began to believe with the girls that Annie would be successful; she began dimly to acknowledge in her heart the strange power which this child possessed; she guessed that Annie would heap coals of fire on her head by bringing back her little sister. She hoped, she longed, she could almost have found it in her heart to pray that some one else, not Annie, might save little Nan.
For not yet had Hester made up her mind to confess the truth about Annie Forest. To confess the truth now meant humiliation in the eyes of the whole school. Even for Nan's sake she could not, she would not be great enough for this.
Sobbing on her bed, trembling from head to foot, in an agony of almost uncontrollable grief, she could not bring her proud and stubborn little heart to accept God's only way of peace. No, she hoped she might be able to influence Susan Drummond and induce her to confess, and if Annie was not cleared in that way, if she really saved little Nan, she would doubtless be restored to much of her lost favor in the school.
Hester had never been a favorite at Lavender House; but now her great trouble caused all the girls to speak to her kindly and considerately, and as she lay on her bed she presently heard a gentle step on the floor of her room--a cool little hand was laid tenderly on her forehead, and opening her swollen eyes, she met Cecil's loving gaze.
"There is no news yet, Hester," said Cecil; "but Mrs. Willis has just gone herself into Sefton, and will not lose an hour in getting further help. Mrs. Willis looks quite haggard. Of course she is very anxious both about Annie and Nan."
"Oh, Annie is safe enough," murmured Hester, burying her head in the bed-clothes.
"I don't know; Annie is very impulsive and very pretty; the gypsies may like to steal her too--of course she has gone straight to one of their encampments. Naturally Mrs. Willis is most anxious."
Hester pressed her hand to her throbbing head.
"We are all so sorry for you, dear," said Cecil gently.
"Thank you--being sorry for one does not do a great deal of good, does it?"
"I thought sympathy always did good," replied Cecil, looking puzzled.
"Thank you," said Hester again. She lay quite still for several minutes with her eyes closed. Her face looked intensely unhappy. Cecil was not easily repelled and she guessed only too surely that Hester's proud heart was suffering much. She was puzzled, however, how to approach her, and had almost made up her mind to go away and beg of kind-hearted Miss Danesbury to see if she could come and do something, when through the open window there came the shrill sweet laughter and the eager, high-pitched tones of some of the youngest children in the school. A strange quiver passed over Hester's face at the sound; she sat up in bed, and gasped out in a half-strangled voice:
"Oh! I can't bear it--little Nan, little Nan! Cecil, I am very, very unhappy."
"I know it, darling," said Cecil, and she put her arms round the excited girl. "Oh, Hester! don't turn away from me; do let us be unhappy together."
"But you did not care for Nan."
"I did--we all loved the pretty darling."
"Suppose I never see her again?" said Hester half wildly. "Oh, Cecil! and mother left her to me! mother gave her to me to take care of, and to bring to her some day in heaven. Oh, little Nan, my pretty, my love, my sweet! I think I could better bear her being dead than this."
"You could, Hester," said Cecil, "if she was never to be found; but I don't think God will give you such a terrible punishment. I think little Nan will be restored to you. Let us ask God to do it, Hetty--let us kneel down now, we two little girls, and pray to Him with all our might."
"I can't pray; don't ask me," said Hester, turning her face away.
"Then I will."
"But not here, Cecil. Cecil, I am not good--I am not good enough to pray."
"We don't want to be good to pray," said Cecil. "We want perhaps to be unhappy--perhaps sorry; but if God waited just for goodness, I don't think He would get many prayers."
"Well, I am unhappy, but not sorry. No, no; don't ask me, I cannot pray." _