A College Girl. Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
it then. Write and tell her to come, only I tell you plainly my holiday’s spoiled … With Darsie gone—”
“Dear! she has not chosen yet.”
“Dear! you know perfectly well—”
They looked at each other, smiling, rueful, half-ashamed. It seemed like treason to the other girls, this mutual acknowledgment that Darsie was the flower of the flock, the child of the six to whom all strangers were attracted as by a magnet. Clarence and Lavender were equally as dear to the parents’ hearts, but there was no denying the existence of a special and individual pride in the fascinations of Darsie.
Mr. Garnett turned aside with an impatient shrug.
“There’s one thing, Emily, you must tell her when it is settled! There’ll be a tremendous scene. I flatly refuse—”
“Very well, dear, very well; I’ll do it. But it’s not decided yet, remember, and one can never be sure. I’d better break the idea to the girls before Aunt Maria comes, and let them get over the first excitement. To-night would be a good opportunity. You will be out late, so would be spared the scene!”
“Bless you, Emily! I’m a coward, I know, but I should be grateful. I can’t answer for what I should do if Darsie cried, and begged my protection. Women have twice the pluck of men in these affairs!”
Nevertheless it was with a quaking heart that Mrs. Garnett broached the object of Aunt Maria’s proposition over the schoolroom tea that afternoon, and her nervousness was not decreased by the smilingly unperturbed manner in which it was received. Never, never for a moment did it appear possible to the three girls that such a proposition could be seriously discussed.
“So likely!” sneered Clemence with a fine disdain. “Give up all the fun and excitement of the sea with the Vernons, to browse with Aunt Maria. So likely, to be sure!”
“Poor dear old love! She is deluded. Thinks it would be a pleasure and benefit, does she. I wouldn’t take a thousand pounds—”
Thus Lavender. Darsie went a step farther in tragic declamation.
“I’d drown myself first! To sit there—panting, in hot rooms, on Benger’s food, and know that all the others were bathing and running wild on the shore—I’d burst! I’d run away in an hour—”
“Dears, it’s a beautiful old place. There are gardens, and lawns, and horses, and dogs. Cows, too! I am sure there are cows—she used to keep a herd of Jerseys. You could see them being milked.”
“Welsh cows are good enough for me. I don’t need Jerseys. Or lawns! Give me the free, untrammelled countryside!
“ ‘And to see it reflected in eyes that I love.’ ”
Darsie paraphrased a line of the sweet old ballad, singing it in a clear, bell-like voice to a pantomime of clasped hands and rolling eyes. “It would be bad enough in an ordinary year, but to rend us apart from the Vernons—oh, no, it’s unthinkable!”
“You have the Vernons near you all the year, dear. Aunt Maria only asks for eight weeks. There are occasions in life when it does not do to think only of our own pleasure.”
Silence. A note in the mother’s voice had startled her hearers into the conviction that the invitation must be regarded seriously, and not tossed aside as a joke. A lacerating suspicion that the authorities were in favour of an acceptance pierced like a dart.
“Mother! What do you mean? You couldn’t possibly be so cruel—”
“Mother, you don’t mean—.”
“Mother, what do you mean?”
“I mean that you ought to go, dears, which ever one of you is asked. Aunt Maria is an old lady, and she is lonely. Her doctor has ordered cheerful companionship. Moreover, she has been a kind friend to father in the past, and has a right to expect some consideration in return. If you went in the right spirit, you could be of real use and comfort, and would have the satisfaction of doing a kind deed.”
Darsie set her lips in a straight line, and tilted her chin in the air.
“Couldn’t pretend to go in the right spirit! I’d be in a tearing rage. Somebody else can have the ‘satisfaction,’ and I’ll go to the sea.”
“Darsie, dear, that’s naughty!”
“I feel naughty, mother. ‘Naughty’ is a mild word. Savage! I feel savage. It’s too appalling. What does father say? I’m sure he would never—”
“Father feels as I do; very disappointed for our own sakes and for yours that our happy party should be disturbed, but he never shirks a disagreeable duty himself, and he expects his children to follow his example.”
Lavender instantly burst into tears.
“It’s always the way—always the way! It was too good to be true. We might have known that it was. She’ll choose me, and Hannah will go without me. We’d planned every day—fishing, and bathing, and making hay, and I shall be mewed up in a close carriage, and have meals of nuts—and n–n–nobody to talk to. Oh, I can’t—I can’t bear it! I wish I could die and be buried—I cannot bear it—”
“You won’t have to bear it. She’ll choose me. I’m the eldest, and the most of a companion.” Clemence spoke with the calmness of despair, her plump cheeks whitening visibly, her pale eyes showing a flush of red around the lids. “Of course, if it’s my duty, I must go—but I’d as soon be sent to prison! I’m feeling very tired, and thought the holiday would set me up. Now, of course, I shall be worse. Eight weeks alone with Aunt Maria would try anybody’s nerves. I shall be a wreck all winter, and have neuralgia till I’m nearly mad.”
“Nonsense, darling! If you are so tired, the rest and quiet of The Towers will be just what you need; and as we don’t know yet which one of you Aunt Maria will wish as a companion, it is a pity for you all to make yourselves miserable at once. Why not try to forget, and hope for the best! Surely that would be the wiser plan.”
The three girls looked at each other in eloquent silence. Easy to talk. Forget, indeed. As if they could! Mother didn’t really believe what she said. She was making the best of it, and there were occasions when making the best of it seemed just the most aggravating thing one could do.
It was a relief to the girls when Mrs. Garnett was summoned from the room on household business, and they were left to themselves. A craving for sympathy was the predominant sensation, and prompted the suggestion, “Let’s wire to the Vernons,” which was followed by a stampede upstairs. The telegraph was a sufficiently new institution to appear a pleasure rather than a toil, even though a message thus dispatched was an infinitely longer and more laborious effort than a run round the terrace, so to-day a leaf was torn from the note-book, a dramatic announcement penned and placed in the hanging-bag, with its jingling bell of warning, and the three girls took it in turns to pull at the cord till the missive arrived at its destination. Attracted by the sound of the bell, Vie and plain Hannah stood at the window awaiting the communication, read over its contents, and stood silent and dismayed. The Garnetts, watching from afar, realised the dramatic nature of that pause, and thrilled in sympathy.
“One of us is going to be sent to prison instead of to the country!”
“Prison!” Vie and plain Hannah wagged their heads over the cipher, hesitated long, pencil in hand, and, finally, in a frenzy of impatience, which refused to be curbed even by loyalty to the telegraph itself, dispatched an urgent summons to speech—
“Come round and talk!”
The Garnetts flew. The Vernons, waiting upon the doorstep, escorted them upstairs to the scantily furnished room which had first been a nursery, then promoted to playroom, and, ultimately, when the more juvenile name wounded the susceptibilities of its inmates, had become definitely and