A College Girl, Mrs George de Horne Vaizey [good non fiction books to read txt] 📗
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“But how—how? There was no train. Did you cycle? Where did you get your machine?”
“Borrowed him from the stationmaster, and left my watch in exchange, in case I never went back. Jolly good exchange for him, too. It’s the worst machine I ever rode, and that’s saying a good deal. I told your mother I’d bring you back all right, and persuaded her to go home. What on earth possessed you to be such a muff?”
Darsie tossed her head, gratitude giving place to wounded pride.
“Muff, indeed! You don’t know what you are talking about, or you wouldn’t be so unkind. I ran like the rest, but I fell—caught my foot on something, and fell on my face. I believe I fainted.” There was an irrepressible note of pride in her voice as she made this last statement, for fainting, being unknown in the healthy Garnett family, was regarded as a most interesting and aristocratic accomplishment. “I do believe I fainted, for for several minutes I didn’t know where I was. And I hurt myself, too; look at my hand!”
Dan looked and whistled.
“Skinned it properly, haven’t you! Reminds me of the days of my youth. Better sponge it clean with your handkerchief and some of that water. And when you did remember, the train had gone—.”
“Yes—and not another until after ten, and not a halfpenny in my pocket to buy a ticket, and no one but a callous wretch of a porter to consult. Oh, Dan, I was wretched—I’ll bless you all my life for coming back like this!”
“Rot!” said Dan briskly. “I was the only man. Couldn’t do anything else. I say, you know, it was your doing that I came to this blessed old picnic at all, and you have let me in for a day! Eleven to eleven before we’ve done with it—twelve solid hours! I’ve had about as much picnic as I want for the rest of my natural life.”
“I’m sorry. I thought it would be so nice. I’m sorry I bothered you, Dan.” Darsie was tired and cold, in a condition of physical depression which made her peculiarly sensitive to a slighting mood. She leaned her head against the ugly wall, and shut her lids over her smarting eyes. Her cheeks were white. Her lips quivered like a wearied child’s, but she made a charming picture all the same, her inherent picturesqueness showing itself even in this moment of collapse.
Dan’s gaze grew first sympathetic, then thoughtful, as he looked. In a dim, abstract way he had been conscious that Darsie Garnett was what he would have described as “a pretty kid,” but the charm of her personality had never appealed to him until this moment. Now, as he looked at the dark eyelashes resting on the white cheek, the droop of the curved red lips, the long, slim throat that seemed to-night almost too frail to support the golden head, a feeling of tenderness stirred at his heart. She was such a tiny scrap of a thing, and she had been tired and frightened. What a brute he was to be so gruff and ungracious! “Buck up, Darsie! Only ten minutes more to wait. I’ll get you a cup of coffee when we arrive. Your mother said we were to take a cab, so all the worry’s over and nothing but luxury ahead.”
But Darsie, quick to note the soothing effect of her prostration, refused to “buck up,” and looked only more worn and pathetic than before. The opportunity of lording it over Dan was too precious to be neglected, so she blinked at him with languid eyes, and said faintly—
“I’ll try, but I’m so very tired! Do you think you could talk to me, Dan, and amuse me a little bit? That would pass the time. Tell me about yourself, and all you are going to do when you go up to Cambridge.”
And to his own astonishment Dan found himself responding to her request. His was one of the silent, reserved natures which find it difficult to speak of the subjects which lie nearest to the heart, but even silent people have their moments of expansion, and when once Dan had broken the ice, he found it unexpectedly easy to talk, with Darsie’s big eyes fixed on his in eloquent understanding. She was a capital little listener; never interrupted at the wrong moment, indulged in senseless ejaculations, or fidgety, irritating movement. Nothing about her moved, hardly even the blue eyes, so fixed and absorbed was their gaze, while Dan spoke in low, rapid tones of the course of work which lay ahead, of the ambitions and dreams which were to crown his efforts. He must take first-class honours at Cambridge; nothing less than first-class honours would do—honours so distinguished that he would have no difficulty in obtaining a good post as schoolmaster to tide him over the next few years. “Teaching’s the thing for me—for it leaves four months over for my own work, the real work of my life—scientific study and research! That’s the only thing worth living for from my point of view, and I shall plump for that. I don’t care for money, I don’t want to marry, I’d be content to make enough to keep body and soul together, if I could only help on the cause of humanity. I am not going up to Cambridge for two years. I can do better grinding quietly at home, and the governor doesn’t mind. In fact, he is just as well pleased to think I shall have more time to run when Hannah goes up to Newnham.”
Darsie drew her breath sharply.
“Oh, Dan! how fortunate you are—how fortunate Hannah is, to be able to do as you like! I would give my ears to go up to Newnham, too, but father says it’s impossible. He can’t afford it with the boys’ education getting more expensive every year. I shall have to stay at home, and turn into a miserable morning governess, teaching wretched little kids to read, and taking them for a walk round the park. Oh, oh! it makes me ill to think about it.”
Dan laughed shortly.
“Excuse me! it makes you well. You look quite like yourself again. I’ll give you a bit of advice if you like: don’t believe that anything’s impossible in this world, because it isn’t! Put the nursery governess idea out of your mind, and fire ahead for Newnham. There’s always the chance of a scholarship, and even if that didn’t come off, who can tell what may happen in three years’ time? The way may clear in a dozen ways; it probably will clear, if you get ready yourself. There are precious few things one can’t gain by steady slogging ahead.”
Darsie looked at him with a kindling glance, her lips set, a spot of red showed on either cheek.
“Right!” she said briefly, and at that moment the train steamed into the station and the conference was at an end.
Aunt Maria arrived on Tuesday night, bringing “my woman” in attendance. She was more like a parrot than ever, for her face had grown narrower, her nose bigger, and the roundness of her eyes was accentuated by gold-rimmed spectacles. When a richly coloured Paisley shawl was drawn tightly over her sloping shoulders the resemblance was positively startling to behold, and the terrors of an eight-weeks visit loomed larger than ever before the minds of the Garnett sisters.
The extraordinary thing was that Aunt Maria seemed to take no notice of the girls, whom, as everybody was aware, she had come to inspect. She talked to father, she talked to mother, she cross-questioned the boys as to their progress at school and expressed regret that they had not done better; she displayed an intelligent interest in the neighbours, the servants, and the new dining-room rug, but for the three daughters of the house she had not a word, hardly, it was believed, a glance.
In the presence of such utter indifference it was impossible to keep up the various rôles which each girl had privately practised with the view of concealing her charms and diverting Aunt Maria’s attention from herself. Clemence had decided that rounded shoulders and a lurching gait were defects which at seventeen threatened a painful permanence, and had therefore lurched persistently throughout the first evening, since which time she had slowly but steadily recovered her natural gait.
After long practice before the mirror Darsie had decided that an open mouth and falling under-jaw could work marvels in the way of stupidity of expression, and had nerved herself to sit agape for the period of forty-eight hours. Lavender had decided to sulk. “Every one hates sulks! It would be better to live alone on a desert island than with a person who sulks. I’ll sulk, and she won’t be paid to have me!” So one sister had sulked and the other gaped the whole of that first long evening, and then, becoming increasingly freed from their fears, began to smile secretly across the table, to nod and to nudge, to telegraph messages in the silent but eloquent fashions to which members of a large family resort when visitors are present and talking is not allowed. And Aunt Maria munched her food, and wrapped the Paisley shawl more closely round her shoulders, and cast not a glance to right or left! A blissful possibility was broached that she had changed her mind, and did not desire a visitor after all.
Wednesday and Thursday passed in increasing calm, but on Friday morning certain alarming symptoms became visible. Mrs Garnett came to breakfast with unmistakable signs of agitation upon her face. Mr Garnett was silent and distrait, hid behind his newspaper, and answered at random the remarks of his family. Late arrivals were allowed to pass without reproach, and Tim’s raids upon the marmalade received no further protest than a flickering smile.
The die was cast! The girls knew it without a word; in a stupor of misery they sat, ears cocked, hearts in their boots, waiting for a sign which should betray the truth, and decide once for all the identity of the victim.
It came at last, towards the end of the meal, in the midst of a ghastly silence.
“Darsie, darling,” said Mrs Garnett fondly, “won’t you have some more coffee?”
“Darling!” Never were Mrs Garnett’s north-country lips known to use that term except under stress of the most poignant emotion. To be “darling” one was compelled to be very ill, very sad, angelically repentant, or in an extremity of fear, and Darsie, who this morning was not afflicted in any one of these three ways, realised in a flash the awful significance of the term. She sat white and silent, too dazed for speech, and to do them justice Clemence and Lavender looked almost as perturbed as herself, relief on their own account being eclipsed for the moment by a realisation of the loss which the holiday party was about to sustain. With a sudden and uninvited humility each sister mentally acknowledged that for the general good of the family it would have been better had the choice fallen upon herself!
Darsie braced her feet against a leg of the table, and struggled with a lump in her throat. Coffee? she never wanted to drink any more coffee so long as she lived! The sight, the smell of it would be for ever associated with this ghastly moment. She turned big, woeful eyes on her mother’s face and stammered a breathless inquiry:
“Mother, you have
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