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

The invitations for the garden-party arrived in due course: one for Lady Hayes, another for Miss Darsie Garnett, and in the corner of each, beside the name of a celebrated military band, appeared the magic words “Treasure Hunt.” Darsie felt something of the proud interest of the author who beholds in print the maiden effort of his brain, as she gazed upon those words, and reflected that but for her own suggestion they would never have appeared. Lady Hayes also seemed to feel a reflected pride in her niece’s ingenuity, which pride showed itself in a most agreeable anxiety about the girl’s toilette for the occasion.

After a survey of the few simple dresses which composed Darsie’s wardrobe, it was pronounced that nothing was suitable for garden-party wear, and a dressmaker was summoned from the country town to take measurements for a dainty white dress and hat to match. The dress was made to reach right down to the ankles, in deference to Lady Hayes’s ideas of propriety, and Darsie felt prodigiously fine and grown-up as she peacocked about before the long glass of her bedroom wardrobe on the day of the garden-party itself. Never in her life before had she possessed a gown made by an expert dressmaker, and the result was surprisingly flattering. She expatiated on the same with a candour startling to the audience of aunt and her maid.

“Don’t I look s–weet? So slim! I’d no idea I was such a nice shape. I don’t know which looks nicest, the frock on me or me in the frock! Aren’t I tall? Isn’t it graceful when I stand like this, and show the pleats? The hat’s a duck! I must say I do look most scrumptiously nice!”

“My dear!” Lady Hayes looked both shocked and alarmed. “My dear, how can you? I shall begin to regret my purchases if they encourage a spirit of vanity. I was always taught to allow others to praise me and to keep silent myself.”

“But you thought all the time, Aunt Maria, you couldn’t help thinking, and it’s worse to bottle it up. I’m always quite candid on the subject of my appearance,” returned Darsie calmly. “On principle! Why should you speak the truth on every other subject, and humbug about that? When I’ve a plain fit I know it, and grovel accordingly, and when I’m nice I’m as pleased as Punch. I am nice to-day, thanks to you and Mason, and if other people admire me, why shouldn’t I admire myself? I like to admire myself! It’s like the cocoa advertisements, ‘grateful and comforting.’ Honest Ingin, Aunt Maria! Didn’t you admire yourself when you saw yourself in the glass in that ducky grey bonnet?”

Evidently the question hit home, for Lady Hayes made a swift change of front.

“My dear, my dear, moderate your language! Your expressions are unsuitable for a young gentlewoman. You are growing up. Try, I beg, to cultivate a more ladylike demeanour!”

Darsie made a little face at the charming reflection in the glass, the which Lady Hayes wisely affected not to see, and presently aunt and niece were seated side by side in the big old barouche, forming one of a concourse of vehicles which were converging together out of every cross road, and turning in a seemingly endless string in the direction of the Hall. Shut carriages, open carriages, motors of different sizes and makes, dog-carts, pony carriages, governess carts—on they came, one after another, stirring up the dust of the road till the air seemed full of a powdery mist, through which unhappy pedestrians ploughed along in the shadow of the hedgerows, their skirts held high in white-gloved hands.

Darsie thought it inhuman of her aunt not to fill the carriage to overflowing with these unfortunates, but she made no attempt to do so, but sat up stiff and straight in her seat, a typical old lady of the olden times, in her large bonnet, grey satin gown, and richly embroidered China crape shawl.

“If you’re not proud of yourself, I’m proud of you!” the girl declared, smoothing the satin folds with an approving hand. “You look just what you are, a dear old fairy godmother who pretends to be proud and fierce, and is really a lump of kindness and generosity. All the other old ladies look dowds beside you.”

“Don’t flatter me, my dear. I dislike it extremely,” returned Lady Hayes with such an obvious look of satisfaction the while that Darsie laughed in her face, and laughed unreproved.

Arrived at the Hall, the guests were escorted through the perilously slippery hall, on which the mats seemed to turn into fresh pitfalls and slide beneath the feet; then through a side-door on to a miniature lawn, in the centre of which stood Mrs Percival, sweetly smiling, and ejaculating endlessly: “Delighted to see you! So nice of you to come!” before passing the visitors on to her husband and children who were ranged at discreet intervals along the sweep of the lawn. The girls whispered dramatically to Darsie that for the time being they were tied, literally tied by the heels, so she sat demurely by her aunt’s side under the shade of a great beech-tree, listened to the band, spilt drops of hot tea down the front of her white dress, buttered the thumbs of her white kid gloves, and discovered the unwelcome but no doubt wholesome fact that there were other girls present who appeared just as attractive, or even more so than herself! Then the band began to play item number four on the programme, and Noreen Percival came forward with a sigh of relief.

“At last I am free! They’ve all come, or practically all, and we can’t wait for the laggards. The Hunt begins at three o’clock. Mother thought we’d better have it early, as it would shake them up and make them more lively and sociable. You’ll have to search by yourself, Darsie, for as we have all done some of the hiding, it wouldn’t be fair to us to go about in pairs. There are piles of presents, and your eyes are so sharp that you are sure to find two or three. You mustn’t open them on the spot, but bring them up to the cedar lawn, where mother will be waiting with the old fogies who are too old to run about, but who would like to see the fun of opening. I do hope I find the right thing! There’s the sweetest oxydised buckle with a cairngorm in the centre that would be the making of my grey dress. I have set my heart upon it, but I haven’t the least notion where it’s stowed. It may even have been among my own parcels, and of course I can’t go near those...”

“If I get it, we’ll swop! I wish I knew the garden better. I don’t know of one good hiding-place except those I made myself... Perhaps I shan’t find anything at all.”

“Oh, nonsense! Keep your eyes open and poke about with your feet and hands, and you can’t go wrong. The paper’s just a shade lighter than the grass. Remember!”

Noreen flew off again to move a chair for an old lady who wished to escape the rays of the sun, and once more Darsie was left to her own resources. By her side Lady Hayes was deep in conversation with another old lady on the well-worn subject of a forthcoming agricultural show, and the town-bred visitor, failing to take an intelligent interest in prize carrots and potatoes, turned her attention to the group on the right, where Ralph Percival was making himself agreeable to three fashionable-looking girls of about her own age.

He wore an immaculate grey suit and a Panama hat, and regarding him critically, Darsie felt another shock of surprise at being compelled to admire a man! Hitherto she had regarded the race as useful, intelligent creatures, strictly utilitarian in looks, as in attire, but to-day it was impossible to deny that the beauty was on Ralph’s side more than on that of his companions. The poise of the tall, slim figure was so graceful and easy that it was a pleasure to behold; the perfect lines of aquiline nose, and dented chin, the little kink and wave which refused to be banished from the clipped hair, the long narrow eyes, and well-shaped lips made up a whole which was quite startlingly handsome and attractive. The three girls looked back at him with undisguised admiration and vied with one another in animated conversation, in return for which he drawled out slow replies in a tone of languid boredom.

During the fortnight which had elapsed since the date of her misadventure on the river, Darsie had had frequent meetings with the Percivals, and now felt on the footing of a friend rather than an acquaintance. Concerning the girls, there was no question in her mind. They were dears, not dears of the same calibre as Vie and plain Hannah, dears of a less interesting, more conventional description, but dears all the same, lively, good-tempered, and affectionate. The only brother was a far more complex character, with regard to whom Darsie changed her mind a dozen times a day. At one time he was all that was delightful, full of natural, boy-like good-comradeships at another he was a bored and supercilious dandy, looking down on schoolgirls from an intolerable height of patronage, and evidently priding himself on a blasé indifference. The present moment showed him in the latter mood, and Darsie’s lips curled as she watched and listened, and in her eyes there danced a mocking light. “Like a vain, affected girl!” was the mental comment, as her thoughts flew back to Harry and Russell, uncompromising and blunt, and to Dan Vernon in his shaggy strength. Even as the thought passed through her mind Ralph turned, met the dancing light of the grey eyes, and turned impatiently aside. He would not look at her, but he could feel! Darsie watched with a malicious triumph the flush