Читать книгу A College Girl - Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey - Страница 12

There were no bones broken; she was not seriously hurt; but one has to try for oneself the experiment of running at full tilt, and while so doing to pitch forward at full length on the ground, to realise how extremely disagreeable and disconcerting it can be. Darsie dragged herself slowly to a sitting position, and sat dazed and stupefied, a forlorn, dust-encrusted figure, with hat tilted rakishly on one side, and the palm of her right hand scratched to bleeding where it had dragged along the stony ground. She blinked and stared, and mechanically brushed at her blackened skirts, but it was several moments before remembrance of her position returned to her brain, and with it the realisation of the consequences of delay. She scrambled to her feet, ran forward for a few paces, and stopped short with a sharp groan of pain. She had bruised her knees as well as her hand, and the rapid movement was quite startlingly painful; she fell into a limp, straining her head upwards to peep over the hedgerow at the road beyond. And then, clear and distinct after the interval of silence, came another sharp whistle, another laborious puff, puff, puff.

The train was leaving the station, and she was left behind!

Darsie stopped short, and leaned against the hedge. There was no longer any need to hurry. Either her absence had been discovered or it had not, and a few minutes’ time would settle that question once for all. It soothed her to pretend that there was a chance that she might find some one waiting her arrival on the platform, but at the bottom of her heart she had little hope of such a possibility. As members of a large family whose parents were not rich enough to pay for the modern plethora of nurses and governesses, the Garnetts and Vernons had been brought up to be independent, and to fend for themselves, hence the two mothers would not be so anxious to count the number of their brood, to see that each member was safe and sound, as would have been the parents of smaller, more indulged families.

There would be a rush for tickets, a hurried glance around on emerging from the office, the signal of waving hands, and bobbing heads from half a dozen windows, a quick leap into the nearest seats, and off they would all steam, panting and puffing, congratulating themselves on their escape.

No, Darsie told herself, it was stupid to pretend; certainly, quite certainly she was left behind; nevertheless, when two or three minutes later she reached the top of the railway bridge and peered over the stone wall, it was with quite a big pang of dismay that she beheld the empty platform. Not a soul! Not a single soul except a cross-looking porter sitting astride a barrow, with his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

Anything less promising in the shape of a forlorn hope it would be difficult to imagine, but the circumstances offered no alternative. Darsie took her courage in both hands and marched boldly towards him.

“Please will you tell me the time of the next train from town?”

The porter rolled his eye sideways, surveyed her up and down, formed an evidently poor opinion, and without a change of position muttered a curt reply—

“Ten-thirty.”

“Ten-thirty!” Dismay at the lateness of the hour struggled with wounded pride at the man’s lack of respect. Half-past ten before any one could come to the rescue; three long hours of chill and darkness, with no one to speak to, and nowhere to go! Darsie threw the thought aside with the impetuous incredulity of youth.

“When’s the next train to town?”

“Nine-ten.”

That was better! Nine-ten. If she could manage to travel by that train she would arrive at the terminus in abundance of time to prevent any one starting by the next stopping train. It was all easy—perfectly easy, except for the want of a miserable eightpence, but, alas! for the moment eightpence seemed as inaccessible as eighty pounds. Darsie bent a scrutinising glance upon the porter’s downcast face. “He looks about as disagreeable as he can be, but he’s a human creature; he must have some heart! Perhaps he’s in trouble, too, and it’s soured his disposition. It would mine! I just hate it when things go wrong. I don’t in the least see why I shouldn’t have a ticket on account! I’ll see what I can do.”

She coughed and ventured tentatively—

“I missed the last train.”

“Did ye!” said the porter coldly. It was not a question; there was no flicker of the interest of a question in his voice, only a dreary indifference which seemed to demand what in the world you were thinking of to trouble him about a stupidity which had happened twenty times a day throughout twenty years of his service on the line. Darsie drew herself up with a feeling of affront. He was a rude, ill-mannered man, who ought to be taught how to speak to ladies in distress. She would ask her father to complain to the railway!

What were porters paid for but to make themselves useful to passengers? She drew herself up in haughty fashion, then as suddenly collapsed as her eye rested on her dusty boots and blackened, bloodstained skirt. Ridiculous to act the grand lady with such handicaps as these! She drew a sharp breath, and said in a voice of childlike appeal—

“I’m left behind! My friends have gone on. It’s very awkward!”

“Are ye?” asked the porter indifferently. He took one hand out of his pocket and pointed woodenly to the right. “Waiting-room first door. Ye can sit there!”

Of all the callous, cold-blooded—! Darsie turned with a swing and marched forward into the bleak little cell which had the audacity to call itself a first-class waiting-room, seated herself on a leather-covered bench which seemed just the most inhospitable thing in the way of furniture which the mind of man could conceive, and gave herself up to thought. Never, never so long as she lived would she ever again leave home without some money in her pocket! How in the name of all that was mysterious could she contrive to possess herself of eightpence within the next hour? “Our old woman” would lend it with pleasure, but Darsie shrank from the idea of the darkening country road with the dread of the town-dweller who in imagination sees a tramp lurking behind every bush. No, this first and most obvious suggestion must be put on one side, and even if she could have humbled herself to beg from the porter, Darsie felt an absolute conviction that he would refuse. At the farther side of the station there stretched a small straggling village. Surely somehow in that village—! With a sudden inspiration Darsie leaped to her feet and approached the porter once more. Into her mind had darted the remembrance of the manner in which poor people in books possessed themselves of money in critical moments of their history.

“Porter, will you please tell me the way to the nearest pawnshop?”

“P–p–-!” Now, indeed, if she had wished to rouse the porter to animation, she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams! He spun round, and gaped at her with a stupefaction of surprise. “Pawnshop, did ye say? P–awn! What do you want with a pawnshop, a slip of a girl like you?”

“That’s my business!” returned Darsie loftily. Since he had been so unsympathetic and rude, she was certainly not going to satisfy his curiosity. Her dear little watch would provide her with money, and somehow—she didn’t understand why—pawnbrokers gave things back after paying for them, in the most amiable and engaging of fashions.

“That’s my business! If you would kindly direct me—”

“We haven’t got no pawnshop,” said the porter gruffly. He stared at her slowly up and down, down and up, appeared to awake to a suspicious interest, and opined gruffly, “You’d better go ’ome!”

“Just what I’m trying to do,” sighed poor Darsie to herself. She turned and went slowly back to her leather seat, and a second disconsolate review of the situation. In time to come this experience would rank as an adventure, and became an oft-told tale. She would chill her listeners with hints of The Tramp, evoke shrieks of laughter at her imitation of the porter. Darsie realised the fact, but for the moment it left her cold. Summer evenings have a trick of turning chill and damp after the sun is set, and the vault-like waiting-room was dreary enough to damp the highest spirits. How was she going to obtain that eightpence for a ticket?

The station clock struck nine; the porter took a turn along the platform and peered curiously through the dusty window; a luggage train rattled slowly past, an express whizzed by with thunderous din. The station clock struck the quarter, and still the problem was as far as ever from solution.

“Well,” sighed Darsie miserably, “I must just wait. I’m perished with cold already. In two more hours I shall be frozen. Rheumatic fever, I suppose, or galloping decline. It will settle Aunt Maria, that’s one good thing! but it’s hard all the same, in the flower of my youth! To think of all that a human creature can suffer for the sake of a miserable eightpence!”

She got up stiffly and pressed her face against the pane. People were beginning to assemble for the nine-ten. An old man with a satchel of tools, two old women with baskets. “The poor are always generous to the poor. Suppose I ask them? Twopence three farthings each would not kill them!” But when one is not used to begging, it is extraordinary how difficult it is to begin. Darsie tried to think of the words in which she would proffer her request, and blushed in discomfort. No! she could not. Of the two disagreeables it really seemed easier to shiver two hours, and retain one’s pride intact, and then, suddenly, the door of the waiting-room opened with a bang, and Dan’s heavy figure stood on the threshold! The cry of delight, of breathless incredulity with which Darsie leaped to her feet, must have been heard to the end of the platform. She rushed forward, clutched his arm, and hugged it fast in the rapture of relief.

“Oh, Dan—you angel—you angel! Have you dropped down straight from the skies?”

“Not I! Nothing so easy. Scorched along bad roads on a rickety machine. Would you be kind enough to let go my arm and stop shrieking! You’ll have the whole village here in a moment. So you’re all right, I see! Sitting quietly here, after scaring us half out of our wits—”

“I think I’m the one to be scared! You were all ready enough to go on, and leave me stranded by myself. I’ve gone through a martyrdom. Dan! tell me, when did you miss me first?”

Dan gave an expressive grimace. He looked hot and dusty, and thankful to sit down on the leather bench.

“Well, it was too much of a scrimmage to think of anything for the first few miles, but things have a way of printing themselves on one’s brain, and when I did begin to think, there seemed something missing! I remembered Vie’s face—the colour of a beetroot, and Clemence limping in the rear. I remembered John and Russell hauling up Hannah by her arms, and the two mothers were safely in their carriage—I’d made sure of that, but—I couldn’t remember a thing about you! Then I asked Vie, and she said you were a long way behind, and I began to guess what had happened. At the first stop I did a rush round, and—there you weren’t! So of course I came back.”

“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.