Red Rose and Tiger Lily; Or, In a Wider World, L. T. Meade [digital book reader txt] 📗

Nora could watch her each movement.

Her steps were as light as a sylph's, nothing rattled in the sick-room as she moved about it. She took up a comb and re-arranged her dark, curling hair. She placed a rose in her belt, nodded to her own bright image, and then, seating herself before a small table, began to arrange the flowers. "Nora, you can't think what a mass of roses there are in the green-house this morning. Of course the garden is full, too, but I did not wait to go to the garden to get these for you. You can watch me just as long as you fancy and then shut your eyes. These half-open buds are to be placed on a table close to you, where you can smell them. The other flowers we'll put [Pg 84]here and there about the room. It's a good thing you were brought into this pretty study, for from where you lie you can fancy you are in a sitting-room, and that you are just having a stretch on the sofa to rest yourself. Fancy goes a long way, doesn't it?"

"I don't know," replied Nora. "I'm afraid I can't fancy that."

Tears filled her eyes as she spoke.

"How cool you look," she said presently, "and—and active and happy."

"It wouldn't do for me to look unhappy when I am with you, would it?" asked Annie. "Now tell me, do you like this dress?"

"Yes, it's very pretty. What stuff is it?"

"Only pink cambric, trimmed with pink embroidery. Would you like me to make you one?"

"What do you mean?"

Nora's eyes brightened perceptibly.

"What I say," replied Annie. "I made this dress for myself. I make all my dresses, for I am not at all well off; in short, I am poor, and Mrs. Willis is so sweet and dear that she gives me a couple of hours every day to devote to needlework. In consequence I have got some pretty things, although they cost next to nothing. Now, I think you and I are something alike. We are both dark, and we have both got bright colour. Oh, I don't mean that you have a bright colour just now, you poor little darling; but when you are well, you are sweet, like a wild rose. Suppose I make you a pink cambric frock, and a white one and a blue one? I have got a white and a blue. When you're well again you'll look quite lovely in them, Nora. What do you say?"

[Pg 85]

"I'd like it awfully," said Nora. "You are very good, very good; but I haven't got any money. I—I am even poorer than you."

"Are you? How delightful. I adore poor lady girls, because they are always contriving, and that's so interesting. We'll make the dresses out of odds and ends, and they shan't cost you a penny."

"It's very good of you," said Nora. She was too weak to argue and protest, and the vision of her pretty little self in alternate dresses of pink and white and blue cambric was decidedly refreshing.

She lay and looked at Annie and acknowledged to herself that she made a pretty, a beautiful, picture, and the discontented lines round her mouth vanished, and the time did not seem long.

That evening Molly, excited and in high spirits, arrived on the scene.

Molly was absolutely trembling as she came into the room where Nora was lying; but although her love was ten times deeper, she had not Annie's marvellous tact, and soon contrived to tire poor Nora dreadfully. The nurse seeing this sent her away, and Molly came back to Hester with a very crestfallen expression of face.

"I can't make out how it is," she said; "but Nora does not seem a bit glad to see me."

"Oh, nonsense," said Hester; "what do you mean?"

Annie was sitting in a corner of the room busily engaged over Henry Kingsley's novel, "Geoffrey Hamlyn." She did not raise her eyes, but bent her curly head still lower over the fascinating pages. Nan had gone to spend a few days at the Towers, and the great house at the Grange seemed very quiet and still.[Pg 86]

Molly sank down into a chair near Hester.

"I have been so excited about this meeting," she said. "Nora is almost my twin-sister, and I have suffered so terribly about her. I cannot tell you the relief and joy of being allowed to come here to look after her, but now I fear I shall be next to no good."

"Well, you'll be no end of good to me," said Hester; "and, of course, Nora will like to have you by-and-by, but she is still very weak and cannot bear the least excitement."

"But nurse tells me that you, Annie, spent some hours in her room to-day."

At these words Annie sprang to her feet, and "Geoffrey Hamlyn" fell with a bang to the floor.

"I did spend hours in her room," she said, "and I don't think I tired her; but, then, perhaps you kissed her a lot, Molly?"

"Kissed her?" exclaimed Molly; "I should think so, at least a hundred times."

"Oh, good gracious, how dreadfully fatiguing for a sick person. Well, you see, I didn't kiss her once, nor even touch her."

"But you aren't her sister," said Molly.

"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 passionate prayers for her recovery? Did not Nora love Molly, and did [Pg 87]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 noble."

Molly stared in non-comprehension.

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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 [Pg 89]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 shillings 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 fashion-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 shillings [Pg 90]This was not a large sum, but everything is by proportion, and for poor Annie, with five shillings in her purse and very little chance of any more money coming to her until the end of her visit to the Grange, thirty shillings 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 shillings! Oh, dash that thirty shillings! 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 association, 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 [Pg 91]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