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

category. Prosperity made her more humble, more kindly, more overflowing with love to God and man. A portrait of Lady Hayes stood on her study mantelpiece, and every morning and evening she bent her sunny head to kiss the stern old face. Dear old Aunt Maria! she had so loved being kissed—really kissed, as if one meant it. If in that higher life to which she had gone she knew what was happening on earth, Darsie felt sure that she would like to know that her portrait was still cherished. Her thoughts hovered gratefully about the dead woman as she sat in this wonderful old church, and pictured with awe the succeeding generations who had worshipped within its walls. It was only when the sermon was at an end that, turning her head, Darsie met the gaze of a girl sitting a few seats away, and after a moment of bewilderment recognised the widely set eyes and curling lips of Margaret France.

In her dark hat and coat she looked less attractive than in evening dress, but the fact made no difference in the thrill of pleasure with which Darsie realised her presence. Some quality in this girl appealed to the deep places of her heart; she realised instinctively that if the attraction were mutual the tie between them would be close and firm, but it must be all or nothing—she could never dally with friendship with Margaret France!

Walking home slowly along Silver Street, she found herself answering absently to Hannah’s remarks, her whole attention riveted on watching the passers-by, wondering if by any possibility Margaret France would stop to speak to her once more, and her heart leaped with exultation as a footstep paused by her side, and the clear, crisp tones addressed her by name.

“Morning, Miss Garnett! Morning, Miss Vernon! Ripping day, isn’t it? Glad to see you in King’s. Saw you long before you spotted me, and enjoyed your enjoyment. Never forgot my first services. Good to be there, isn’t it?”

“Oh–h!” Darsie’s deep-drawn breath of rapture was an eloquent response. “I have been happy! I’ve never in my life seen anything so wonderful before. It seems almost too good to be true that I can go there every Sunday for years to come. Cambridge is wonderful. I am more enchanted every day. Even to walk along the streets is a joy.”

“Good!” cried Margaret heartily. “Drop in to five o’clock service sometimes when you’re feeling tired, and tied up with your work. It’s a grand soother. How goes the work so far? Enjoying the lectures? Finding the literature interesting?”

The two Modern Languages discussed work together eagerly, while mathematical Hannah marched on a few feet ahead. Darsie felt a pang of remorse, because she could not help wishing that she would stay ahead, and so give the chance of a prolonged tête-à-tête with Margaret France. The feeling of attraction was so strong now that they were face to face that it was only by an effort of will that she could resist slipping her hand through the black serge arm, but the expression of her face was eloquent, and Margaret smiled back well pleased. When they parted a few minutes later to go to their different halls, the older girl said casually, but in a lowered voice which showed that the invitation was meant for Darsie alone—

“By the way, I’m at home for cocoa on Tuesday evenings at ten. Bring your milk, and come along, will you! I’d like to have you.”

“Rather!” cried Darsie eloquently, and ran up to her room aglow with delight and pride, which grew still deeper at lunch when a casual reference to the invitation (it was really impossible to keep silent on so thrilling a point!) evoked a wide stare of surprise.

“To her Tuesdays! Are you sure? Nobody goes to those but her very boon companions. You are honoured!”

“Didn’t ask me, I notice!” sniffed Hannah huffily. “No twin soul here. Recognised an affinity in you, I suppose.”

“Well, I wasn’t asked to play in team matches! Don’t grudge me my little score!” returned Darsie, knowing well that an honour in sport was more to her companion than many cocoas. “Besides, you must remember you have Helen Ross!”

“Oh, ah, yes! Helen Ross dotes on me. Disinterested, of course. No connection with the brother over the way!” commented Hannah with a grin. “By the way, I hear from Dan that your friend Ralph Percival is in trouble already, playing cards, getting into debt, and staying out after hours. Seems to be a poor-spirited sort of fellow from all accounts!”

“He saved my life, anyway, when I was a youngster, and very nearly drowned myself, paddling up a mill-stream. There’s no want of spirit about Ralph. Life has been made too easy for him, that’s the mischief!” said Darsie in her most elderly and judicial manner. “It’s difficult to keep to the grind when you know that you will never need to work. He needs an object in life. Until he finds that, he will be content to drift.”

“He’ll drift into being sent down at this rate. That will be the end of him!” croaked Hannah gloomily; whereupon Darsie knitted her brows and collapsed into silence for the rest of the meal.

Poor, dear, handsome Ralph! At the bottom of her heart Darsie was hardly surprised to hear Hannah’s report. The indifference with which he had entered upon his college life had not developed into any more earnest spirit, as had been abundantly proved by his conversation when the two had last met, during the long vacation, while the hesitating manner of his mother and sisters seemed to hint at a hidden anxiety. In the depths of her heart Darsie was feeling considerably piqued by the fact that though she had now been over a month in Cambridge Ralph had shown no anxiety to meet her, or to fulfil his promise of “showing the ropes.” Other girls had been invited to merry tea-parties in the different colleges, and almost daily she had expected such an invitation for herself, but neither of her two men friends had paid her this mark of attention; but for the fact of an occasional meeting in the streets they might as well have been at the other end of the land. Pride forbade her commenting on the fact even to Hannah; but inwardly she had determined to be very proud and haughty when the deferred meeting came about. Dan was too wrapped up in himself to care for outsiders; Ralph was a slacker—not worth a thought. Darsie dismissed them both with a shrug. Margaret France was worth a dozen men put together!

Ten o’clock on Tuesday evening seemed long in coming, but the moment that the clock pointed to the hour Darsie hastened to her new friend’s study, and to her satisfaction found her still alone. The room looked delightfully cosy with pink shades over the lights, a clear blaze upon the grate, and Margaret herself, in a pink rest-gown curled up in a wicker-chair, was the very embodiment of ease. She did not rise as Darsie entered, but pointed to a chair close at hand, with an eagerness which was in itself the best welcome.

“That’s right. Come along! I’m glad you’re the first. Sit down and look around. How do you like my den?”

Darsie stared to right and left with curious eyes, and came to the instant conclusion that Margaret’s room was like herself. From floor to ceiling, from window to door, there was not one single article which did not give back a cheering impression. If the article were composed of metal, it shone and glittered until it could shine no farther; if of oak, every leaf and moulding spoke of elbow-grease, and clean, fresh-smelling polish; if it were a fabric of wool or cotton, it was invariably of some shade of rose, shedding, as it were, an aspect of summer in the midst of November gloom.

Over the fireplace was fastened a long brown-paper scroll, on which some words were painted in big ornamental letters. Darsie read them with a thrill of appreciation—

“Two men looked out through prison bars,
One saw mud, the other stars!”

The eyes of the two girls met, and lingered. Then Darsie spoke—

“That’s your motto in life! You look out for stars—”

“Yes! So do you. That’s why I wanted to be friends.”

“I wonder!” mused Darsie, and sat silent, gazing into the fire. “It is beautiful, and I understand the drift, but—would you mind paraphrasing it for my benefit?”

“It’s so simple. There is mud, and there are stars. It’s just a choice of where we choose to look.”

“Yes—I see. But don’t you think there are times—when one is awfully down on one’s luck, for instance—when there’s no one on earth so trying as the persistent optimist who will make the best of everything, and take a cheerful view! You want to murder him in cold blood. I do, at least. You feel ever so much more cheered by some one who acknowledges the mud, and says how horrid it is, and pities you for sticking so fast!”

Margaret’s ringing laugh showed all her pretty white teeth. She rubbed her hands together in delighted appreciation.

“Oh, I know, I know! I want to kill them, too. Vision’s not a mite of use without tact. But no bars can shut out the stars if we choose to let them shine.”

Her own face was ashine as she spoke, but anything more unlike “goodiness,” abhorred by every normal girl, it would be impossible to imagine.

“Tell me about your work—how do you get on with your coach?” she asked the next moment, switching off to ordinary subjects in the most easy and natural of manners, and Darsie found herself laying bare all the little hitches and difficulties which must needs enter into even the most congenial course of study, and being alternately laughed at and consoled, and directed towards a solution by brisk, apt words.

“You’re all right—you’ve got a head. You’ll come through on top, if you’ll be content to go slow. Want to take the Tripos first year, and honours at that—that’s your style! Calm down, my dear, and be content to jog. It pays better in the end.” She flashed a radiant smile at Darsie’s reddening face, then jumped up to greet her other guests of the evening, three in number, who appeared at that moment, each carrying her own precious portion of milk.

One was “Economics” and owned so square a jaw that the line of it (there was no curve) seemed to run down straight with the ear; another was “Science” and wore spectacles; a third was “Modern Languages,” like the host, but one and all shared an apparently unlimited appetite for Cocoa, Conversation, and Chelsea buns, the which they proceeded to enjoy to the full. “Modern Languages” being in the ascendant, indulged in a little “shop” as a preliminary, accompanied by the sighs, groans, and complaints incidental to the subject.

“How’s your drama getting on? Is it developing satisfactorily?” Student Number Two inquired of Darsie, in reference to the paper given out at the last lecture in Divinity Hall, and Darsie shrugged with a plaintive air.

“I’ve been struggling to develop it, to trace its development, as he said; but the tracings are decidedly dim! I get on much better with a subject on which I can throw a little imagination. ‘The growth of the novel,’ for instance—I wove quite a fairy-tale out of that.”

The girls smiled, but with a dubious air.

“Better be careful! That’s a ruse which most of us have tried in our day, and come wearily back to sober fact... How do you like the Historical French Grammar?”

The Fresher made a gesture as if to tear her hair, whereupon the second-year girls groaned in chorus.

“Hopeless! Piteous! In last year’s Tripos the paper was positively inhuman. The girls said it was impossible even to understand the questions, much less to answer them.”

“Wicked! Waste of time, I call it. Most of us are training to teach, but it’s