Читать книгу A College Girl - Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey - Страница 6

Among the crowd of relations near and far most families possess one relation par excellence, who stands out from all the rest by reason either of generosity, aggravatingness, or strength of character. Sometimes this relation is an uncle; more often it is an aunt; almost invariably he or she is unmarried or widowed, because the single state naturally allows more time and energy for interests beyond the personal household.

The Garnetts’ relation par excellence was Aunt Maria—Lady Maria as they erroneously called her, being unsophisticated in the niceties of the peerage. Her rightful cognomen was Lady Hayes, and she was the elderly, very elderly, widow of an estimable gentleman who had been created a Baronet in recognition of services rendered to his political party. The Garnetts felt that it was very stylish to possess an aunt with a title, and introduced her name with an air when the Vernons grew superior on the subject of “the grounds.” Lady Hayes was an eccentric individual who inhabited a beautiful old country house in the Midlands, from which base she was given to suddenly swooping down upon her relations, choosing by preference for these visits the times when carpets had been sent away to be cleaned, or the maids granted days off to visit relations in the country. Then Lady Hayes would appear, announce her intention of staying a couple of nights, declare her unwillingness to give the slightest trouble, and proceed to request that her maid should be accommodated with a room next to her own, and that they should both be supplied with a vegetarian diet, supplemented by glasses of sterilised milk at intervals of every two hours. Sometimes the vegetarianism gave place to a diet of minced beef, but whatever might be the diet of the moment it was invariably something which no one else wanted to eat, and which took about three times as long to prepare as the entire rations for the household dinner of ten.

It was at the close of the Midsummer term, when the Garnett family were blissfully preparing for the yearly migration to the sea, that a letter from Aunt Maria fell like a bombshell upon the peaceful scene. This year the holiday promised to be even more blissful than usual, for the Vernons had secured a second farmhouse, not ten minutes’ walk from their own, and connected with the sea by the same fascinating field-paths. A farm and the sea! Could there possibly exist a more fascinating combination? The young people sniffed in advance the two dear, distinctive odours which, more than anything else, presented the scenes before them—the soft, cowy-milky scent of the farm, the salt, sharp whiff of the brine. From morn till night, at every available moment, they discussed the day’s programme—feeding animals, calling the cows, bathing, picnicking on the sands, crab-hunting, mountain climbing. Excitement grew until it really seemed impossible to exist through the intervening days, and then the bombshell fell! A letter arrived by an evening post, when Mr. and Mrs. Garnett were enjoying the one undisturbed hour of the day. It bore the Hayes crest, and was written in Aunt Maria’s small, crabbed handwriting—

“My dear Emily—

“I propose, all being well, to pay you a short visit from Tuesday to Thursday next, twelfth to fifteenth instant. Please let me have the same rooms as on my last visit. I am at present living on Benger’s food, and must ask you to see that it is made freshly for each meal, in a perfectly clean, enamelled saucepan.

“The chief object of my visit is to bring back one of your three daughters to stay with me during the summer vacation. I have been feeling somewhat lonely of late, and my doctor recommends young society, so it has occurred to me that in obeying his instructions I might at the same time afford pleasure and benefit to one of your family. Should I become interested in the child it might be to her advantage hereafter, but it must be understood that I can make no promises on this point.

“The eighteen months which have elapsed since my last visit have somewhat dimmed my remembrance of your girls, so that I must see them again before deciding as to which of the three I should prefer as a companion.

“With love to William and yourself—

“Believe me, my dear Emily—

“Your affectionate Aunt—

“Maria Hayes.”

Mrs. Garnett read this communication in silence, handed it to her husband, and watched him flush and frown over the perusal.

“Does not even go through the form of asking our consent!”

“No! That’s Aunt Maria all over. You could hardly imagine that she would. Oh dear! Oh dear! I’m afraid, Will—I’m afraid she will have to go!”

“Poor little kiddie, yes! How she will hate it! Just at this moment when they are all wild with joy at the thought of their holiday with the Vernons. It seems positively brutal!”

“Oh, it does. I am so sorry for her—whichever it may be—but one must sometimes be cruel to be kind. We can’t afford—I am not mercenary, as you know—but with our means we can’t afford to refuse any possible advantage for our girls! The sacrifice of a summer holiday ought not to weigh against that.”

“No, you’re right, quite right. So be 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 proudly “the study.” The bureau in the corner was Dan’s special property, and might not be touched by so much as a finger-tip. The oak table with three sound legs and a halting fourth, supported by an ancient volume of Good Words, was Vie’s property; John and plain Hannah shared the dining-table, covered with the shabby green baize cloth, which stood in the centre of the room. There were a variety of uncomfortable chairs, an ink-splashed drugget, and red walls covered with pictures which had been banished from other rooms as they acquired the requisite stage of decrepitude and grime.

The five girls surged into the room, faced each other, and burst into eager speech—

“Who’s going to prison?”

“We don’t know. Wish we did!”

“What do you mean by prison?”

“Aunt Maria’s!”

“Lady Maria’s?”

“Lady Maria’s! One of us has to go and stay with her for eight weeks instead of going with you to the sea.”

Vie Vernon collapsed on to the nearest chair, and gasped for breath. “Stu-pendous!” she murmured beneath her breath. Vie had a new word each season which she used to describe every situation, good and bad. The season before it had been “Weird!” this season it was “Stupendous,” and she was thankful for the extra syllable in this moment of emotion. “It’s really true? You mean it in earnest? Why?”

“Thinks it would be a pleasure to us, and that we should be cheery companions. So likely, isn’t it?”

“But—but surely your mother—What does she say?”

“Preaches! Oughtn’t to think of ourselves. Ought to show a right spirit and go.”

“Stu-pendous!” cried Vie once again. Plain Hannah hoisted herself on to the corner of the table, and hunched herself in thought. She really was extraordinarily plain. Looking at her critically, it seemed that everything that should have been a line had turned into a curve, and everything that should have been a curve into a line; she was thick-set, clumsy, awkward in gait, her eyes were small, her mouth was large, she had a meagre wisp of putty-coloured hair, and preposterously thick eyebrows several shades darker in hue, and no eyelashes at all. Friends and relations lavished much pity on poor dear Hannah’s unfortunate looks, but never a sigh did Hannah breathe for herself. She was strong and healthy, her sturdy limbs stood her in good stead in the various games and sports in which she delighted, and she would not have exchanged her prowess therein for all the pink cheeks and golden locks in the world. Hannah’s manner, like her appearance, lacked grace and charm; it was abrupt, forceful, and to the point. She spoke now, chin sunk in her grey flannel blouse, arms wrapped round her knees—

“Is she coming to see you before she chooses, or will it be done by post?”

“She’s coming! Two days next week. Isn’t it too awful? We were so happy—the telegraph up, and the weather jolly, and holidays nearly here. ‘All unsuspecting of their doom the little victims played.’ And then—this! Holidays with Aunt Maria! Even the third of a chance turns me cold with dismay. I couldn’t bear—”

“You won’t need to. She won’t have you. She’ll choose Darsie.”

Darsie squealed in shrillest protest—

“No, no! It’s not fair. She won’t! She can’t! It’s always the eldest or the youngest. I’m the middle—the insignificant middle. Why should she choose me?”

“You are not so modest as a rule! You know perfectly well that strangers always do take more notice of you than any one else. You are always the one who is fussed over and praised.”

“Because I want to be! This time I shan’t. I’ll be just as sulky and horrid as I can for the whole blessed time.”

“You’ll be there anyway, and you can’t alter your face.”

“My fatal beauty!” wailed Darsie, and wrung her hands in impassioned fashion. Then she looked critically from one sister to another, and proceeded to candid criticisms of their charms.

“Clemence is not pretty, but she’s nice! If she did her hair better, and sat up, and had a colour, and didn’t poke her chin, she’d look quite decent. I should think it would be interesting to take some one who needed improving, and see what you could do. Lavender’s gawky, of course, girls are gawky at her age, but I shouldn’t wonder if she grew quite decent-looking in time. Rest and quiet would do wonders!”

“Thank you, indeed! You are kind!” The sisters bridled and tossed their heads, by no means appeased by such prognostications of their future charms. “Certainly if she took you, she might teach you to be modest!”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, I don’t want any of you to go!” Vie, the peacemaker, rushed to the rescue. She was just sixteen, younger than Clemence, older than Darsie, attached almost equally to the two. Lavender, of course, was quite too young for a companion, but then Lavender and Hannah paired together; if she were absent, Hannah at a loose end would demand entrance into those three-sided conferences which made the joy of life. The fear of such an incursion made Lavender at that moment seem even more precious than her sisters. Vie continued her lament with bitter emphasis—

“Too bad—too hard—stupendous! Spoil everything. Horrid interfering old thing! If I were your parents I wouldn’t—not for all the money in the world, I wouldn’t sacrifice a child to an old ogre like that! I’d keep my own children and let them be happy while they could, but, of course, if she talks of duty … ! If there’s one thing more stupendous than another it’s being put on one’s honour! It gives one no chance. Well, you’ll have to go, I suppose, and our holiday is spoiled. I’ve never been so disappointed in my life.”

“Think of how we feel!” croaked Clemence tragically, but this time the tragedy did not ring so true, for since plain Hannah’s verdict her spirits had risen considerably. Hannah was the shrewdest and cleverest of all five girls, and her prophecies were proverbially correct. Clemence felt sufficiently reassured to reflect that as the eldest in years, she would do well to show an example of resignation. She lengthened her face, and added solemnly—

“I don’t think you ought to talk like that about honour, Vie! It ought to be an incentive. If I go, the only thing that will console me most is the feeling that I am doing my duty!”

Vie stared, and the younger girls coughed in derisive chorus.

“Isn’t it easy to be resigned for somebody else?” demanded plain Hannah of the ceiling. “You are not going, my dear, and you know it. Darsie likes well enough to queen it as a rule, and now she’s got to pay the price. That’s the cost of good looks. Thank goodness no one will ever want to run off with me!—not even a staid old aunt. Tell us about your aunt, by the way—you’ve talked enough about yourselves. Where does she live, and what is she like, and what does she do, and what will you do when you’re there? Have any of you ever seen the place?”

“Not since we were old enough to remember, but mother has been and told us all about it. It’s big, with a lodge, two lodges, and a park all round, very rich, and grand, and respectable, and dull. There are men-servants to wait at table, and the windows are never open, and she drives out every day in a closed carriage, and plays patience at night, and wears two wigs, turn about, a week at a time. Her cheeks are red, the sort of red that is made up of little red lines, and never gets brighter or darker, and she likes to be quiet and avoid excitement. Oh, imagine what it would be like to choose to be quiet, and deliberately run away from a fuss! Can you imagine if you lived a thousand years ever reaching such a pitch as that?”

Darsie held out both hands in dramatic appeal, and her hearers groaned with unction. It was impossible, absolutely beyond the power of imagination to picture such a plight. Each girl hugged to herself the conviction that with her at least would remain immortal youth; that happen what might to the rest of mankind, no length of years could numb her own splendid vitality and joie de vivre.

Not even, and at the thought the three Garnetts sighed in concert, not even Aunt Maria!