A College Girl, Mrs George de Horne Vaizey [good non fiction books to read txt] 📗

If there were innumerable good points in an acquaintance with the Percival family, there was certainly the inevitable drawback, for on the days when she was alone with her great-aunt, Darsie was rendered lonelier and more restless than before by the knowledge that a couple of miles away were three agreeable young companions who would be only too pleased to include her in their pastimes. The different points of view held by youth and age were, as usual, painfully in evidence. Darsie considered that it would be desirable to meet the Percivals “every single day”; Aunt Maria was glad that you had enjoyed yourself; was pleased that you should meet young friends, and suggested a return invitation, “some day next week!” pending which far-off period you were expected to be content with the usual routine of morning drive, afternoon needlework, and evening patience. Really—really—really, to have lived to that age, and to have no better understanding! Letters from the seaside did not tend to soothe the exile’s discontent. It seemed callous of the girls to expatiate on the joys of bathing, fishing, and generally running wild, to one who was practising a lady-like decorum in the society of an old lady over seventy years of age, and although Dan kept his promise to the extent of a letter of two whole sheets, he gave no hint of deploring Darsie’s own absence. It was in truth a dull, guide-booky epistle, all about stupid “places of interest” in the neighbourhood, in which Darsie was frankly uninterested. All the Roman remains in the world could not have counted at that moment against one little word of friendly regret, but that word was not forthcoming, and the effect of the missive was depressing, rather than the reverse. Mother’s letters contained little news, but were unusually loving—wistfully, almost, as it were, apologetically loving! The exile realised that in moments of happy excitement, when brothers and sisters were forgetful of her existence, a shadow would fall across mother’s face, and she would murmur softly, “Poor little Darsie!” Darsie’s own eyes filled at the pathos of the thought. She was filled with commiseration for her own hard plight... Father’s letters were bracing. No pity here; only encouragement and exhortation. “Remember, my dear, a sacrifice grudgingly offered is no sacrifice at all. What is worth doing, is worth doing well. I hope to hear that you are not only an agreeable, but also a cheerful and cheering companion to your old aunt!”

Darsie’s shoulders hitched impatiently. “Oh! Oh! Sounds like a copy-book. I could make headlines, too! Easy to talk when you’re not tried. Can’t put an old head on young shoulders. Callous youth, and crabbed age...”

Not that Aunt Maria was really crabbed. Irritable perhaps, peculiar certainly, finicky and old-fashioned to a degree, yet with a certain bedrock kindliness of nature which forbade the use of so hard a term as crabbed. Since the date of the hair episode Darsie’s admiration for Lady Hayes’s dignified self-control had been steadily on the increase. She even admitted to her secret self that in time to come—far, far-off time to come,—she would like to become like Aunt Maria in this respect and cast aside her own impetuous, storm-tossed ways. At seventy one ought to be calm and slow to wrath, but at fifteen! Who could expect a poor little flapper of fifteen to be anything but fire and flame!

Wet days were the great trial—those drizzling, chilly days which have a disagreeable habit of intruding into our English summers. Darsie, shivering in a washing dress, “occupying herself quietly with her needlework” in the big grim morning-room, was in her most prickly and rebellious of moods.

“Hateful to have such weather in summer! My fingers are so cold I can hardly work.”

“It is certainly very chill.”

“Aunt Maria, couldn’t we have a fire? It would be something cheerful to look at!”

“My dear!” Lady Hayes was apparently transfixed with amazement. “A fire! You forget, surely, the month! The month of August. We never begin fires until the first of October.”

“You’d be much more comfortable if you did.”

There being no controverting the truth of this statement, Lady Hayes made no reply. But after the lapse of a few minutes she volunteered a suggestion.

“There is a grey Shetland shawl folded up under the sofa rug. You had better put it over your shoulders, since you feel so cold.”

“I?” Darsie gave an impatient laugh. “Fancy me wrapped up in a Shetland shawl! I’d sooner freeze.”

Lady Hayes dropped her eyelids and tightened her lips. Her manner pointed out more eloquently than words the fact that her guest was wanting in respect, but as hostess it was her duty to consider the comfort of her guest, so presently she rang the bell and gave instructions that a cup of hot cocoa should be served at eleven o’clock instead of the usual glass of milk. She herself was never guilty of the enormity of eating between meals, so that the listener knew perfectly well for whose benefit the order was given, but being at once cold, lonely, and cross, her heart was hardened, and she spoke no word.

Between that time and the appearance of James with the tray Aunt Maria made three successive attempts to open new topics of conversation, which were each time checkmated by monosyllabic replies. There was a tone of relief in her voice, as of one hailing a much-needed assistance, as she said briskly—

“Now, my dear, here is your cocoa! Drink it while it is hot. It will warm you up.”

“Thank you, I don’t drink cocoa. It makes me sick.”

There was a moment’s silence. James stood at attention, tray in hand. Lady Hayes tightened her lips, and the little red lines on her cheeks turned a curious bluish shade. Then she cleared her throat, and said in her most courteous tones—

“I am sorry. Would you kindly tell James what you would like instead. Tea—coffee—soup? A warm drink would be better than milk this morning.”

“Nothing, thank you.”

“Nothing, James! You may go.”

James departed. Aunt Maria went on with her knitting, the click-click of the needles sounding startlingly distinct in the silent room. Darsie sat shamed and miserable, now that her little ebullition of spleen was over, acutely conscious of the rudeness of her behaviour. For five minutes by the clock the silence lasted; but in penitence, as in fault, there was no patience in Darsie’s nature, and at the end of the five minutes the needlework was thrown on the floor, and with a quick light movement she was on her knees by Lady Hayes’s side.

“Aunt Maria, forgive me. I’m a pig!”

“Excuse me, my dear, you are mistaken. You are a young gentlewoman who has failed to behave as such.”

“Oh, Aunt Maria, don’t, don’t be proper!” pleaded Darsie, half-laughing, half in tears. “I am a pig, and I behaved as much, and you’re a duchess and a queen, and I can’t imagine how you put up with me at all. I wonder you don’t turn me out of doors, neck and crop!”

Lady Hayes put down her knitting and rested her right hand lightly on the girl’s head, but she did not smile; her face looked very grave and sad.

“Indeed, Darsie, my dear,” she said slowly, “that is just what I am thinking of doing. Not ‘neck and crop’—that’s an exaggerated manner of speaking, but, during the last few days I have been coming to the conclusion that I made a mistake in separating you from your family. I thought too much of my own interests, and not enough of yours.” She smiled, a strained, pathetic little smile. “I think I hardly realised how young you were! One forgets. The years pass by; one falls deeper and deeper into one’s own ways, one’s own habits, and becomes unconscious of different views, different outlooks. It was a selfish act to take a young thing away from her companions on the eve of a summer holiday. I realise it now, my dear; rather late in the day, perhaps, but not too late! I will arrange that you join your family at the sea before the end of the week.”

Darsie gasped, and sat back on her heels, breathless with surprise and dismay. Yes! dismay; extraordinary though it might appear, no spark of joy or expectation lightened the shocked confusion of her mind. We can never succeed in turning back the wheels of time so as to take up a position as it would have been if the disturbing element had not occurred. The holiday visit to the seaside would have been joy untold if Aunt Maria had never appeared and given her unwelcome invitation, but now!—now a return to Seaview would be in the character of a truant carrying within her heart the consciousness of failure and defeat. In the moment’s silence which followed Aunt Maria’s startling announcement the words of advice and exhortation spoken by her father passed one by one through Darsie’s brain.

“If you cannot have what you like, try to like what you have... Put yourself now and then in your aunt’s place.—A sacrifice grudgingly performed is no sacrifice at all... What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.”

Each word condemned her afresh; she stood as judge before the tribunal of her own conscience, and the verdict was in every case the same. Guilty! She had not tried; she had not imagined; everything that she had done had been done with a grudge; the effort, the forbearance, the courtesy, had been all on the other side... There fell upon her a panic of shame and fear, a wild longing to begin again, and retrieve her mistakes. She couldn’t, she could not be sent away and leave Aunt Maria uncheered, unhelped, harassed rather than helped, as the result of her visit.

“Oh, Aunt Maria,” she cried breathlessly, “give me another chance! Don’t, don’t send me away! I’m sorry, I’m ashamed, I’ve behaved horribly, but, I want to stay. Give me another chance, and let me begin again! Honestly, truly, I’ll be good, I’ll do all that you want...”

Lady Hayes stared at her earnestly. There was no mistaking the sincerity of the eager voice, the wide, eloquent eyes, but