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

Only four days before Aunt Maria arrived to make her great decision! The Garnetts were living in what Darsie graphically described as “the hush before the storm,” adored, condoned, and indulged by parents who saw before them the pangs of separation, and by brothers shrewdly expectant of parting spoils.

Clemence, Darsie, and Lavender were acutely conscious of the rarified atmosphere by which they were surrounded, and only regretted its necessarily limited duration.

“Let’s take advantage of it!” cried Darsie, the diplomat. “It’s our chance; we should be noodles if we let it slip. Anything we ask now they’ll let us have. It’s like prisoners who can order what they like for supper the night before they’re hanged. Let’s think what we’d like, and go in a body and petition mother. She won’t have the heart to refuse!”

The sisters agreed enthusiastically, but were not rich in suggestions. It is one of the curious things in life that whereas every day one is brought up sharply against a dozen longings and ambitions, without the fulfilment of which it seems impossible to live, yet if the sudden question be put, “What would you have?” instantly the brain becomes a blank, and not a single suggestion is forthcoming. The Garnetts stared at one another in labouring silence. It was too late for parties; too early for pantomimes, a definite gift, failed to meet the case, since each girl thought with a pang, “What’s the use? I might not be here to enjoy it!” Extra indulgences, such as sitting up at night, or being “let off” early morning practising, did not appear sufficiently important, since, with a little scheming, these might be gained in addition. It was Lavender who at last succeeded in hitting the popular taste.

“A picnic! A real whole-day one this time. Lunch in the woods at Earley, tea in our old woman’s cottage, walk over the fields to the amphitheatre, and home by train from Oxholm. Whoever goes with Aunt Maria will be cheated of her holiday, for the well-behaved country doesn’t count. If you have to wear gloves and walk properly, you might as well be in town at once. For the victim’s sake we ought to have one more day in the woods!”

Clemence and Darsie sparkled, for the programme was an opulent one, combining as it did the two ordinary picnics into one. The yearly programme was that—“if you are good”—the Garnett family should be taken for two half-day excursions into the country on two summer Saturday afternoons, but though the woods and the amphitheatre were only separated by three short miles, never yet had the two places been visited together. An all-day picnic seemed a regal entertainment, worthy of the unique occasion.

“Ourselves and the Vernons! Mrs Vernon to talk to mother, then they won’t have as much time to look after us. When they begin on carpets and curtains they forget everything else, and we can do as we like. Do you suppose Dan would come?”

“Sure he wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“My dear!”

Clemence held out eloquent hands. “Does he ever come? He’s a man, soon going to college, and you are only ‘kids.’ I’m older than he is really; a woman is always older than a man, but he doesn’t like me. We are not en rapport.” Clemence tried hard to suppress a smirk of self-consciousness at the use of the French term, while the two younger sisters jeered and booed with the callous brutality of their kind.

“Ha, ha! aren’t we fine? Roll your r’s a little more next time, my dear. It will sound miles better. Your accent leaves much to be desired. Aren’t we grown-up to-day? Aunt Maria would be impressed! A little stay in Paris just to put on the accent, and it’s wonderful to think of what you might do! En rapport! Bet you daren’t say that to Dan! Dare you to tell him that you are not en rapport!”

Clemence was seized with agitation, discerning through the innocent words a thinly veiled threat. If she didn’t, Darsie would!

“Darsie!” she cried loudly. “You mustn’t tell; you must not! It’s mean. Only sneaky children repeat what is said in private. Promise this minute that you won’t say a word!”

But Darsie, like her brothers, was keenly alive to the privilege of holding a rod in pickle over an elder member of the family. So long as Clemence lived in fear of humiliating disclosure, so long might she herself walk in safety, free from rebuffs. She laid her head on one side and smiled sweetly into her sister’s face.

“I shouldn’t like exactly, positively, to promise, don’t you know, for I am such a creature of impulse. If it rushed over me suddenly, it might pop out, don’t you know, bang! before I knew what I was about! Of course, on the other hand, I might not—”

“Very well,” snapped Clemence sharply, “then I stay at home! It would be no fun for me to go for a picnic with that sort of thing hanging over my head all the time. I know very well how you’d behave—rolling your eyes across the table, and beginning half-sentences, and introducing ‘en rapport’ every other moment. If I’m going to be made miserable, I’ll be miserable at home. You can go to our last picnic as an undivided family without me, the eldest of the family, and I only hope you’ll enjoy it; that’s all!”

“Oh, Darsie!” pleaded Lavender tragically, moved almost to tears by the pathos of those last words, and Darsie shrugged her shoulders, philosophically accepting her defeat.

“All right, I promise! I’ll hug the remembrance secretly in my own breast. It will cheer me through the dullest hours!”

Clemence bridled, but made no further protest. To think of Darsie chuckling in secret was not agreeable, but it was as nothing compared with the humiliation of meeting Dan’s grave stare, and seeing the curl of his lip at the repetition of her high-sounding phrase. As the quickest way of changing the conversation she suggested an adjournment to the morning-room, where mother sat busy over the eternal mending-basket, to broach the picnic project without delay.

Mother agreed instantly, eagerly, indeed, so that there was something almost uncanny in the unusualness of the situation. To every demand, every suggestion came the unfailing, “Yes, darlings! Certainly, darlings!” Even the audacity of the double programme aroused no more notice than the remark that it was an admirable idea. Darsie, striking while the iron was hot, went a step farther and attacked the subject of lunch.

“Could we—for once—have something substantialler than sandwiches? Chickens?” She gasped at the audacity of the request, for chickens were a state dish, reserved for occasions, and in summer for some inscrutable reasons just because they were smaller cost more than ever. “Chickens cut up are so easy to eat. We needn’t have knives and forks. And little cobby dinner-rolls from the confectioner’s, with crisp, browny crust, cut open and stuffed with butter and potted meat, and little green pieces of lettuce. They had them that way at supper at the Masons’ party, and they were superb! And cakes and fruit! Do, mother, let us have a real swagger lunch just for once!”

And mother said, “Yes, darling!” like a lamb, swallowing as it were spring chickens and cobby rolls at a gulp. It was impossible in giving the invitation to the Vernons to refrain from a hint at the magnificence of the preparations, though good manners would, of course, have prompted silence on such a point.

The Vernons accepted with acclamation, all except Dan, who rudely declared that he “refused with pleasure,” when Darsie bearded him in his den and proffered the invitation. He was seated at his desk, for the moment the only occupant of the workroom, and his manner was not expressive of welcome to the new-comer. He was a big, heavily built youth, with a face which was oddly attractive despite irregular features and a dull complexion. Dark eyes looked at you straight and square beneath bushy eyebrows; thin lips curved into the oddest, most expressive of lines, the square chin had a fashion of projecting until it seemed to become one of the most eloquent features in his face.

Close observation showed that there was a shadow of his upper lip, and rumour had it that he shaved, actually shaved every morning of his life. His huge hands had a grip of steel, but it was wonderful how deft and gentle they could be on occasion. Every album and collection in the house was labelled by Dan, indexed by Dan, embellished with ornamental flourishes and headlines, which Dan’s big fingers alone had the power to produce. Now he leaned an elbow on the desk, turned round on his chair, and tilted that eloquent chin in scorn.

“Picnic? Not much. Hate ’em like poison! You don’t want me!”

“We do want you! We shouldn’t have asked you if we didn’t. Don’t be unsociable, Dan. It’s an extra special occasion, and it would be so much jollier to be complete. The boys will behave better if you’re there.”

Dan’s chin tilted still an inch higher. That was of course, but—

“I