A College Girl - Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (books to read to improve english TXT) 📗

something to say! Please say it. Don’t break it to me, please; it’s worse to wait. Say it bang out!”

“Oh, Darsie, darling; yes, darling, it is as you suppose! Aunt Maria has chosen you. She wants you to start with her on Saturday morning, but if it’s too soon—if you would rather stay over Sunday, I will arrange...”

Darsie bit her lips in the desperate resolve not to cry, but to carry off the situation with a high air.

“If I’m to go at all, I’d rather go at once, and get it over. There’s nothing to be gained by delay. ‘Better to die by sudden shock than perish piecemeal on the rock.’”

“But you will want to say goodbye to your friends, dear; you will have little arrangements to make...” Mrs Garnett was all nervousness and anxiety to appease, but after the manner of victims Darsie felt a perverse satisfaction in rejecting overtures, even when by so doing she doubly punished herself.

“I don’t mean to say goodbye. I don’t wish to see any one before I go. I hate scenes.”

“Well, well! just as you please, dear. After all, it is for a very short time. Eight weeks will soon pass.”

Silence. Every youthful face at the table was set in an eloquent declaration that eight weeks was an eternity, a waste, a desert of space. Mr Garnett put down his newspaper and hurriedly left the room. He had the usual male horror of scenes, and, moreover, Darsie was his special pet, and his own nerves were on edge at the thought of the coming separation. If the child cried or appealed to him for protection, he would not like to say what he might do. Flight appeared to be his safest course, but Darsie felt a pang of disappointment and wounded love at this desertion of her cause, and the smart did not help to improve her temper.

“Aunt Maria wishes to see you, dear, as soon as you have finished your breakfast,” continued Mrs Garnett, elaborately conciliatory. “Father and I are very grateful to her for her interest in you, but you know, dear, how we feel about losing you, how we sympathise with your disappointment! We are convinced that in the end this chance will be for your benefit; but in the meantime it is very hard. We are sorry for you, dear.”

“And I,” declared Darsie coldly, “am sorry for Aunt Maria!”

She pushed back her chair and stalked out of the room, while her brothers and sisters stared after her agape. Along the narrow oil-clothed hall she went, up the steep, narrow staircase to the little third-floor bedroom, the only place on earth which was her very own. There was nothing luxurious about it, nothing of any intrinsic value or beauty, but in the eyes of its occupant every separate article was a pearl of price. All her treasures were here—her pictures, her ornaments, her books, mementoes of journeyings, offerings of friends. It was a shrine, a refuge from the cold outer world. Alone in “my room” one lost the insignificance of a member of a large family, and became a responsible human being face to face with personal trials and responsibilities...

Eight weeks out of a life! To the adult mind a sacrifice of so short a period may be a disappointment, but can hardly be deemed a trial; to schoolgirl fifteen it may seem a catastrophe which clouds the whole horizon. To Darsie Garnett the change of plan was the first real sorrow of her life, and these moments of reflection were full of a suffocating misery. Anticipated joys rose before her with intolerable distinctness. She saw her companions happily at play, and felt a stabbing dart of jealousy. Yes, they would forget all about her and feel no loss from her absence! Clemence and Vie would enjoy their tête-à-tête, would be unwilling to admit a third into their conferences at her return. Dan would take them for boating and fishing expeditions. Dan would grow to like Clemence better than herself! Darsie gave a little sob of misery at the thought. She had no sentimental feelings as regards Dan, or any one else at this period of her life, but as the one big boy, almost man, of her acquaintance Dan stood on a pedestal by himself as a lofty and superior being, whose favour was one of the prizes of life. That Dan should become more intimate, more friendly with Clemence and Lavender than with herself was a possibility fraught with dismay.

Darsie sobbed again, but her eyes were dry; she was angry, too angry to cry; her heart was seething with rebellion. Some one knocked at the door and received no answer, knocked again and was curtly ordered to “go away”; then Mr Garnett’s voice spoke, in gentle and conciliatory tones—

“It’s father! Let me in, dear; I’ve just a minute...”

It was impossible to refuse such a request. Darsie opened the door, and there he stood, tall and thin, with the embarrassed boy look upon his face which always made him seem especially near to his children. It was the look he wore when they were in trouble and he essayed to lecture and advise, and it seemed to say, “I’ve been there myself; I understand! Now it’s my part to play the heavy father, but I’m not nearly so much shocked as I pretend!” To-day his manner was frankly commiserating.

“Well, Kiddie, dear! I was running off to town like a coward, but at the last moment I was obliged to come up for a word. It’s hard lines for you, dear, and I want you to know that it’s hard lines for me, too! The country won’t be half so jolly as if we’d all been together. I’ll miss you badly, little lass!”

“Don’t! I’ll howl. Don’t make me howl!” pleaded Darsie hastily, the tight feeling about her eyes and lips giving place to an alarming weepiness at the sound of the tender words. “If you really care, father, couldn’t you—couldn’t you possibly refuse?”

Mr Garnett shook his head.

“No! That’s settled. We talked it over, mother and I, and agreed that it must be done. It’s a duty, dear, and we can’t shelve duties in this life. I’m sorry for you in your disappointment, and only wish I could help, but in this matter no one can help but yourself. You can do a lot if you try. Shall I tell you, Darsie, how you could get over your regret, and turn your visit to Arden into something far more agreeable than you can now imagine?”

Darsie cocked an eye at him, suspicious and hesitating. He was going to preach! She knew the symptoms of old, and by way of counter-action put on her most dour and sullen expression.

“Um!”

“Very well, then, here it is! Turn your back on the might-have-been, and try with all your might to like what is! Aunt Maria will, I know, be all that is kind and indulgent—in her own way! It won’t be your way, however, and that’s the rub. If you begin your visit in a spirit of irritation, I’m afraid you are going to have a pretty poor time, but if you try to enjoy every little thing that comes along out of which enjoyment can be squeezed and to laugh at the rest, to laugh instead of to cry—well, it’s astonishing how the scene will change! Do you think you could try?”

Darsie pouted, sulky and unconvinced. “Were you resigned when you were fifteen?”

“No, my lassie! I wasn’t, indeed. Very far from it, I’m sorry to say. But when one has travelled on for many years and come many a cropper on the way one does long to show one’s children the short cuts! That’s one short cut. Darsie; I wish you’d take it, and avoid the falls. If you can’t have what you like, try to like what you have. Expect good, not evil. Say to yourself every morning: ‘This is going to be a good day, a happy day, one of the happiest days of my life,’ and then you are half-way towards making it so. Poor little Kiddie! it sounds hard, but try it—try it—and occasionally, just for a change, forget that you are Darsie Garnett for five minutes or so at a time, and pretend instead that you are Maria Hayes! Pretend that you are old and lonely and ailing in health, and that there’s a young girl staying with you from whom you are hoping to enjoy some brightness and variety! Eh? The other morning in church you were beside me when we were singing ‘Fight the good fight!’ You sang it heartily, Darsie; I enjoyed your singing.—I thought you looked as if you really meant the words. Well, here’s the battlefield for you, dear! Are you going to play coward? I don’t believe it. I think better of my girl!”

He laid his hand on her shoulder with a caressing touch. Darsie wriggled and screwed up her little nose in eloquent grimace, but when the hand crept up to her chin she lifted her face for the farewell kiss, and even volunteered an extra one on her own account on the dear, thin cheek.

Mr Garnett smiled contentedly to himself as he descended the staircase. Darsie had made no promises, but he was satisfied that his words had not been in vain. And Darsie, left alone in her room, fell instinctively to repeating the words of the grand old hymn—

“Run the straight race through God’s good grace,
Lift up thine eyes, and seek His Face...”

A little sob punctuated the lines. To the blind eyes of earth the straight race appeared so very very crooked!