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

the door of a sitting-room where a lady sat before a desk. It was a pretty, cheerful-looking apartment, full of flowers, books, pictures, and quaint old-world furniture, and the lady herself looked so much like other middle-aged ladies, that if you had not known it you would never have suspected her of being the Vice-President of a Women’s College.

She was kind and agreeable. She shook hands, and hoped you were well; hoped you had had a pleasant journey, hoped you would be happy in College, hoped you would like your rooms; but there was a certain mechanical quality in her voice which betrayed the fact that she had said the same thing over and over again on innumerable occasions, would say it twenty times or more this very afternoon, and that your own personal arrival left her perfectly calm and cool.

The girls stuttered and stammered in response, felt vaguely crestfallen, and worried as to what they should do next, but the Vice herself was in no doubt. “She hoped they were ready for tea,” and with a wave of the hand summoned the maid to lead them a stage forward on their journey.

The second stage deposited the new-comers in the dining-hall, where tea was already in progress, and about a dozen disconsolate-looking Freshers were munching at bread-and-butter and cake in a silence which could be felt. Apparently Darsie and Hannah were the only ones of the number lucky enough to have come up in pairs, but even their tried powers of speech were paralysed beneath the spell of that terrible silence, and still more so by the relentless scrutiny of those twelve pairs of eyes. And how those Freshers did stare! The whites of their eyes positively shone, as with one accord the pupils turned towards the opening door. They had been stared at themselves, had come through the ordeal of being the last arrival; now, with thanksgiving, they were revenging themselves upon fresh victims! Darsie felt a horrible certainty that she would drop her cup, and spill the tea over the floor; plain Hannah munched and munched, and looked plainer than ever, with her shoulders half-way up to her ears and her chin burrowed in her necktie.

Presently the door opened again, and another Fresher entered, cast a frightened glance around, and subsided on to the nearest chair, while every eye turned to gaze upon her, in her turn. This programme was enacted several times over before Darsie and Hannah had finished tea, and were ready to be escorted to the upstairs apartments, which were to act as bedroom and study combined.

Mercifully the rooms were close together, so that, leaving Darsie half-way along the corridor, the maid could point to a door near at hand, where she could join her friend when her inspection was complete. She entered with the feeling of one on the threshold of a new life, and stood gazing around in mingled disappointment and delight. The first impression was of bareness and severity, an effect caused by the absence of picture or ornament of any kind. A small white bed stood in one corner; a curtain draped another, acting as a substitute for a wardrobe; a very inadequate screen essayed unsuccessfully to conceal a wooden washstand, and a small square of glass discouraged vanity on the part of an occupant. So far, bad! but, on the other hand, the room contained inexpensive luxuries, in the shape of an old oak chest, a bureau, a standing bookcase, and a really comfortable wicker chair.

Darsie could hardly believe that these treasures were meant for her own use; it seemed more likely that they had belonged to a former student, who would presently demand their return. She was sorrowfully resigning herself to this contingency when the door burst open, and in rushed Hannah, aglow with excitement.

“I’ve got a chest, and a bookcase, and a bu—”

Her eyes rounded with surprise. “I say! So have you—I thought I was swag! Do you suppose it’s the usual thing?”

“Can’t say. Topping for us if it is. But the screen’s a wretch, and the walls will need a lot of covering. My few mites of pictures will go nowhere. There’s not too much room for our clothes, either. We’d better unpack, I suppose, and get out things for dinner. What are you going to wear?”

“Oh, something—whatever comes handy,” replied plain Hannah in her most casual manner.

The subject seemed to her of infinitesimal importance; but Darsie went through many agitations of mind before she decided on a high-necked summer frock, and then suffered still keener pangs because, on descending to Hall, several Freshers were discovered in full evening dress, and, in her imagination at least, eyed her lace yoke with disdain.

Dinner was almost as silent as tea—an ordeal of curious, appraising eyes, as each Fresher continued to stare at every other Fresher, condemning her mentally for want of frankness and kindliness, while utterly neglecting to practise these virtues on her own account. Then one by one the girls slunk upstairs, tired, shy, and homesick, and crept gratefully into their narrow beds.

Sleep was long in coming to Darsie Garnett that night: she lay awake hour after hour, living over again in thought the events of the last three years.

First and foremost her thoughts went back to the old great-aunt to whose generosity she owed the present fulfilment of her ambition. Until Lady Hayes’s death, a year ago, Darsie had spent the major part of her holidays at The Towers, and the friendship between the old woman and the girl had developed into a very real affection.

It had been a wonderful experience, Darsie reflected, to watch the gradual mellowing of character, the patient endurance of suffering, the peaceful death which was so truly a “falling asleep.” Until that time Darsie had felt all a girl’s natural shrinking from death, but the sight of Aunt Maria’s peaceful face had dissipated that fear once for all. As she knelt by the bedside looking at the still, majestic features, she offered the most fervent prayer of her life—a prayer that she, too, might be enabled to “submit her way,” and so in the end find peace in her soul!

Her acquaintance with the Percival family had ripened into friendship, so that, though Noreen and Ida could never by any chance supplant the Vernon sisters, there were moments when she actually felt more at home with Ralph than with queer, silent Dan.

Ralph, at twenty-one, had outgrown many of his boyish failings—or rather, as Darsie shrewdly surmised, had attained the art of screening them from view. Instead of snubbing his sisters’ friends and adopting airs of haughty superiority, he was now all deference and attention, transparently eager for her society. Dan, on the contrary, was absorbed in work; he had taken the Longs in summer, so that Darsie had no chance of meeting him before starting on her annual visits to Lady Hayes. In the Easter vac. he had visited France and Germany to study languages, while at Christmas-times he was at once too shy and too busy to take part in the daily excursions indulged in by his brothers and sisters. He was doing brilliantly at College, and as a better preparation for his life’s work had decided on a four-years course—taking the Tripos in two parts, in both of which it was a foregone conclusion that he would take a first-class.

Ralph Percival was contentedly slacking it in preparation for a pass degree. “What did it matter?” he demanded serenely. One came to Cambridge, don’t you know, because all one’s people had been there, because it was the thing to do, and a rattling old place for sport and having a good time. He would be confoundedly sorry when it was over. Only wished he could slack it out for twice as long!

Darsie first frowned, and then smiled to herself in the dark as she recalled those utterances, and the actions fitly symbolised her sentiments towards the heir of the Percivals. Her head had no mercy for such an utter want of ambition and energy, but the heart plays often a bigger part than the head in an estimate of a fellow-creature, and Darsie’s heart had a way of making excuses for the handsome truant, who smiled with such beguiling eyes, had such a pretty knack of compliment, and was—generally!—ready to play knight-errant in her service. She felt herself lucky in possessing so charming a friend to act the part of gallant, and to be at her service when she chose to call. And then quite suddenly she drew a sharp breath and said aloud in a trembling voice, “Oh, Aunt Maria, dear Aunt Maria!” and her pillow was wet with tears; for Aunt Maria was dead, had died too soon to hear of her grand-niece’s experiences at Newnham, to which she had looked forward with such interest, but not before evoking a real love and gratitude in Darsie’s heart. How thankful the girl was to remember that she had been able to cheer the last year of that lonely life, to recall every loving word and action, every tiny scrap of self-denial on her own part which had repaid in some small way the great gift to herself. Thankful and grateful she would be to the end of her life, but she was not, and had not even pretended to be, sorry that Aunt Maria was dead.

“She was old, and she was lonely, and she was ill. I’m glad, not sorry,” she had declared to the scandalised Lavender. “I’m glad she’ll never come hobbling downstairs again, and sit all the long, long day in one chair, waiting for it to end. I’m glad she’s forgotten all about her back, and her feet, and her head, and her joints, and all the thousand parts that ached, and could not rest. I’m glad she doesn’t need any more spectacles, and sticks, and false teeth, nor to have people shouting into her ear to make her hear. I’m thankful! If I’d hated her I might have liked her to live on here, but I loved her, so I’m glad. She has gone somewhere else, where she is happy, and cheerful, and whole, and I hope her husband has met her, and that they are having a lovely, lovely time together...”

Darsie was glad, too, in quite an open, unconcealed fashion, when a legacy of a few thousand pounds lifted a little of the strain from her father’s busy shoulders, made it possible to send Harry and Russell to a good boarding-school, continue Clemence’s beloved music lessons, and provide many needfuls for household use. It was not only pleasant but absolutely thrilling to know that as long as she herself lived she would, in addition, possess fifty pounds a year—practically a pound a week—of her very, very own, so that even when she grew too old to teach, she could retire to a tiny cottage in the country, and live the simple life. In the meantime, however, she was young, and life stretched ahead full of delicious possibilities and excitements.

Her great ambition had been achieved. She was a student at Cambridge; the historic colleges whose names had so long been familiar on her lips lay but a few streets away, while in her own college, close at hand, along the very same corridor, lay other girls with whom she must work, with whom she must play, whose lives must of a surety touch her own.

What would happen? How would she fare? When the last night of her three-years course arrived, and she lay as now in this narrow white bed, staring across the darkened room which had been her home, what would her dreams be then? What pictures would arise in the gallery of her mind? What faces smile at her out of the mist?

“Oh, God,” sighed Darsie in a soft, involuntary appeal, “help me to be good!”