“Oh dear,” thought poor Mabel, “what awful mischief I have done! Annie will be wild. Still, all is not known. I don’t think Aunt Henrietta can think the very worst of me even if she does learn the story of the necklace; that won’t tell her how I won the prize, and that won’t explain to her the true story of Mrs Priestley’s bill.”
As Mabel was leaving the room, very downcast and fearfully miserable, Lady Lushington called her back.
“I am disgusted with you,” she repeated. “Notwithstanding; justice is justice. I never wish you to have anything more to do with Annie Brooke; you never shall speak to her again, if I can help it. But in one thing she was right. I have received Mrs Priestley’s bill thin morning with all due apologies, and begging of me to forgive her for having, through a most gross error, and owing to the fault of one of her assistants, added another lady’s account to mine. Your bill for clothes, therefore, Mabel, only amounts to forty pounds, which is high, but allowable. As you are not going back to the school we shall never require Mrs Priestley’s services again. I will send her a cheque to-day for forty pounds, and that closes my transactions with the woman, whom, notwithstanding apologies, I do not consider too straight.”
Even this small consolation was better than nothing to Mabel. She went away to her room feeling very queer and trembling, and Lady Lushington took those immediate steps which she was fond of doing when really aroused. She did not know Mr Manchuri’s private address, but she was well aware that he was a wealthy Bond Street jeweller. She wrote, therefore, straight to his place of business, and her letter, when it reached him, electrified the good man to such an extent that he scarcely knew what he was doing. Fortunately for himself, he had not yet sold the necklace. Having read the letter, he sank down into a chair and gazed before him. Well did he remember the scene when Annie, looking sweet, innocent, and charming, had told him with a little pride of her knowledge with regard to gems, and had shown him with extreme diffidence the valuable necklace, and asked him what it was worth.
“What a fool I was to snap at it!” he said to himself. “I might have known that no honest girl of the class of Annie Brooke would have forty pounds to spend on jewellery. But just that hateful desire to make money came over me, and I grabbed at the thing. Now what is to be done?”
Mr Manchuri returned home early that day. Lady Lushington’s letter was burning a hole all the time in his pocket.
“What a comfort it is,” he said to himself, “that that dear, nice Priscilla is still in the house! She certainly told me nothing about the necklace. That little horror of an Annie Brooke begged and implored of me to keep the whole thing a secret. But the time has come, my young miss, when I fed absolutely absolved from my promise. I must consult Priscie. Priscie has as wise a head on her shoulders as even my own beloved Esther had.”
The old man entered the house; and Priscilla, who was busily reading in the library, hearing the click of the latch-key in the lock, ran out into the hall. Her face had improved during the last few days. The look of great anxiety had left it. She had, in short, made up her mind, but even Mr Manchuri did not quite know what Priscilla was going to do.
“You are in early,” she said, running to meet him and helping him off with his overcoat and putting his stick in the stand.
“Yes, Priscilla,” he answered; “and I am right glad you are in. The fact is, I came back to consult you, my dear.”