Chapter Twelve.
Darsie’s Suggestion.
With the passing of the jetty, fear awoke for the first time in Darsie’s breast—the fear which arises when the possibility of action is over and nothing remains but to sit still and await the end. In one moment of time an incredible number of thoughts flashed through her brain; she thought of her father and mother, of their grief and pain at the knowledge of her untimely end; she thought of her brothers and sisters, of Vie Vernon and plain Hannah, and Dan; she saw a vision of them all garbed in black, sitting round the study fire, enlarging upon her own virtues and graces; she thought of Aunt Maria and her responsibility; she saw a vision of herself, cold and still, being dragged out of the millpond, with her hair floating like seaweed behind her, and at the thought a wild rebellion rose in her heart, a determination to fight on, to fight to the end for her precious life! One or two large trees stood out from the bank.
Darsie leaped to her feet and, raising the paddle so high above her head that it caught against the branches, strove to delay the progress of the punt. The result was to upset her own equilibrium, and as she fell forward she screamed loudly, a shrill, penetrating scream of panic and appeal.
With almost startling quickness the answer came, in the form of an answering cry, close at hand. Round the corner of the next clump of bushes dashed the figure of Ralph Percival, bareheaded, eager-faced, and, thank Heaven! unhesitating in action. Not for one fraction of a second did he hesitate, but with the assurance of one who knows every inch of the land rushed forward waist-deep into the river; halted there, and called out a sharp command—
“Your paddle! Stretch out your paddle towards me! Hold hard! Lean out as far as you can!”
Darsie fell on her knees, and, leaning forward to the utmost extent of her body, held out the paddle as directed. There was a moment of sickening suspense, then came a halt, a jerk that seemed to pull her arms half out of the sockets, and the punt swung heavily towards the shore. The danger was over; she was helped on to the bank, where she collapsed in a little heap, while Ralph worked the punt slowly along to the jetty and fastened it to its chain.
The short breathing space had allowed Darsie to recover her self-possession, to master the overpowering temptation to cry, and to swallow the lump in her throat sufficiently to be able to say in a weak little voice—
“You’ve saved my life!”
“You’ve spoiled my trousers!” retorted Ralph in a matter-of-fact manner calculated to put an instant check on sentimentality. He sat down on the bank, unfastened his mud-soaked gaiters, and threw them on one side. “The river’s beastly dirty, and the mud sticks like the Dickens. A new suit, too! It will never look the same again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So you ought to be. Things are bad enough as they are, but... How on earth did you come to be careering about alone in that punt?”
“I was waiting to see your sisters. I wandered down here, and thought I’d just sit in it for a rest, then I thought I could just paddle up and down. I managed quite well going up the stream; I got as far as the willow!” Even at that moment a faint note of pride crept into Darsie’s voice. “We grounded there, and I—I must have fallen asleep, I suppose, and that hateful old mill must needs choose the opportunity to begin working at that very moment... Just my luck!”
Ralph pursed his lips in eloquent comment.
“If it comes to that, I think you have had a fair amount of luck in another way! I heard the noise of the mill and came down to look on. If I hadn’t been there, you’d have been pretty considerably in Queer Street by this time. Nice thing it would have been for us to discover your drowned body in the millpond, and have had to tell your aunt!”
“I thought of that,” agreed Darsie meekly. “It was one of my dying thoughts. Don’t scold me, please, for I feel so shaky, and you wouldn’t like it if I cried. It was my own fault, and I got what I deserved. I wasn’t a bit frightened till I missed the jetty, but that one moment was like a hundred years. Did my yell sound very awful?”
“Pretty middling blood-curdling!” replied Ralph, smiling. “Good thing it did. Gave me a bit of a shock, I can tell you, to see the old punt dashing down to the gates, with you sitting huddled up in the bottom, with your hair hanging wild, and your face the colour of chalk. You looked like a young Medusa.”
“Sounds attractive, I must say! Medusa froze other people’s blood, not her own,” declared Darsie, tilting her chin with a little air of offence, at which her companion laughed triumphantly.
“Oh, you’re better; you’re coming round again all right! I was afraid you were going to faint. I don’t mind telling you that you were jolly plucky. Most girls would have started screaming miles before, but you held on like a Briton. How do the arms feel now? Rather rusty at the hinges, I expect. The stiffness will probably spread to the back by to-morrow, but it’ll come all right in time. It is a pretty good weight, that punt, and I had to pull for all I was worth... Don’t you think you’d better come up to the house and have some tea?”
“Yes, please. And you can change your clothes, too. I should feel so miserable if you caught cold.”
“No fear of that. I’m used to splashing in and out of the water half a dozen times a day. You need have no anxiety about me.”
“But—the trousers?”
“Oh, bother the trousers! I piled that on a bit, just to prevent you from getting sentimental. They’re all right!” Ralph paused a moment, then, “I say!” he cried anxiously, “is this going to get you into trouble with the aunt? Need you say anything about it, do you think? I’ll swear to secrecy, if you say the word, and not a soul need know.”
Darsie debated the point thoughtfully while the two walked side by side along the gravelled paths, and finally arrived at a conclusion.
“I think, on the whole, I’ll tell! Aunt Maria allowed me to go out alone as a great concession, and it was mean to take advantage and run risks. So upsetting for her if I were killed in her house! So I’m in honour bound to confess, and promise not to do it again.”
“You might do something else just as bad! Probably she’ll withdraw her permission and keep you under her thumb as she did those first weeks.”
“She may; but I don’t think she will! I think she will appreciate my confidence,” said Darsie, with a grandiloquent air, at which her companion whistled softly, his face twitching with amusement. He was much more natural and boyish in his manner than on either of the previous occasions on which Darsie had met him, and the agitation of the last few minutes seemed to have carried them in a bound past all the formalities of early acquaintance.
“Right you are!” he said briskly. “I like a straight girl. But if you don’t mind we won’t speak of it before the mater. She’s a bit nervous, and would be always imagining that the girls were going to have the same experience. You might warn Lady Hayes not to speak of it either. We’ll keep it a secret between us.”
“Just as you like! I believe,” said Darsie shrewdly, “that you’re afraid of being praised and fussed over, as you would be if people knew that you had saved my life! Men hate a fuss, but you can’t escape my gratitude. I didn’t want to die. It came over me with a sort of horror—the thought of leaving the flowers, and the trees, and the blue sky, and all the people I love. Have you ever been so nearly dead to know how it feels?”
“Once—when I had enteric at school. It was a near squeak at the crisis.”
“And how did you feel? What did you think?”
“I didn’t care a whit one way or another. I wanted to have the pillow turned. That seemed a hundred times more important than life or death; I was too ill to think... Well, thank goodness, you are not dead! I hope you’ll live for many years to be a pride and glory to—er—er—the ranks of women blue-stockings!”
Darsie looked at him sharply.
“The girls have been telling you of my ambitions! Mean of them! They might have known you’d scoff. All boys do, but I fail to see why if a girl has brains she should not use them as well as a man.”
“The inference being—”
“Certainly! I’m unusually clever for my years!” returned Darsie proudly, whereupon they simultaneously burst into a peal of laughter.
“Well, you goaded me to it!” Darsie declared in self-vindication. “I can’t stand it when boys are superior. Why must they sneer and jeer because a girl wants to go in for the same training as themselves, especially when she has to make her own living afterwards? In our two cases it’s more important for me than for you, for you will be a rich landowner, and I shall be a poor school marm. You ought to be kind and sympathetic, and do all you can to cheer me on, instead of being lofty and blighting.”
Ralph Percival looked down at her with his handsome, quizzical eyes—
“I don’t mind betting that you’ll never be a school marm!” he said calmly; and at that very moment, round a bend of the path, the two girls came suddenly into view, trotting briskly towards the river. They waved their hands, and tore down upon the visitor in lively welcome.
“There you are! This is nice. Bates said you were in the garden, so we just flew and changed, and rushed off in pursuit. So glad you had Ralph to amuse you. The mill’s working! We guessed you’d be there looking on...”
“There’s nothing to see but the old wheel creaking round. Tea is far more to the point. I’m dying for some, and I’m sure—er—Miss—er—Garnett is, too! She’s had a tiring afternoon.”
“Er—Miss—er—Garnett’s name is Darsie. You can always call a girl by her Christian name till her hair’s up,” said Darsie quickly, and Ralph immediately availed himself of the permission.
“All right, Darsie. It’s a jolly little name. Much easier to say.”
Rather to Darsie’s disappointment tea was served in the drawing-room in formal, grown-up fashion, Mrs Percival presiding over the little table, with its shining silver and fine old-world china. There were hot, brown little scones, crisp buttered toast, iced cakes, thick cream, and other indigestible luxuries, which came as an agreeable change from Lady Hayes’s careful dietary, and Darsie was acutely conscious of the beauty and elegance of the room. How small and poky and drab the home drawing-room would appear in comparison! How different the outlook on another row of red-brick houses, from the sweep of green lawns, and the avenue of great beech-trees seen through the four long French windows which broke the side of this long, low room!
How different her own life promised to be from those of the two girls by her side—the girls who had just returned from a ride on their own horses over their own land! ... They would never need to worry about money; their rôle in life for the next few years would consist in being pretty and agreeable, wearing charming frocks, visiting at friends’ houses, travelling in summer, hunting in winter, and, finally, making suitable Carriages, settling down as mistresses of other luxurious houses, and living happily ever after!
She herself would study and cram for examination after examination; go through agonies of suspense waiting for results, and as she passed or failed, obtain a good or second-rate appointment in a suburban school. Henceforth work, work, work—teaching by day, correcting exercises by night, in a deserted schoolroom, with three months’ holiday a year spent at home among brothers and sisters whose interests had necessarily drifted apart from her own! As the years passed by she would become staid and prim; schoolmistressy manner; the girls would speak of her by derisive nicknames...
A knifelike pang of envy pierced Darsie’s heart; she dropped the dainty morsel of cake on to her plate with a feeling of actual physical nausea; for the moment her old ambitions lost their savour, and appeared grey and dead; she was pierced with an overpowering pity for her own hard lot.
The sensation was, perhaps, as much physical as mental, for no one can pass through a moment of acute mental tension without suffering from a corresponding nervous collapse, but being too young and inexperienced to realise as much, Darsie mentally heaped ashes on her head, and shed tears over her blighted life. The signs of her emotion were noticeable, not only in an unusual silence but in whitening cheeks, which brought upon her the quick attention of her friends.
“Aren’t you feeling quite well, dear?” Mrs Percival asked kindly. “You look pale. Would you like to lie down?”
“Darsie, you are green! What’s the matter? You were all right a moment ago.”
“I’m all right now. Please, please, take no notice. I’m perfectly all right.”
Noreen was beginning to protest again, when Ralph called her sharply to order—
“That’s enough, Nora! Awfully bad form to fuss. Talk about something else. What about that garden-party you were discussing? I thought you wanted to ask suggestions.”
Instantly both sisters were sparkling with excitement and animation.
“Oh, yes, yes. Of course! We must ask Darsie. She has such lovely ideas. Darsie, we are going to have a garden-party. The invitations are going out to-morrow. Hundreds of people are coming—mother’s friends, our friends, everybody’s friends, every bowing acquaintance for miles around. The question of the hour is—What shall we do? Garden-parties are such monotonous occasions, always the same over and over again—people sitting about in their best clothes, eating ices and fruit, listening to a band, and quizzing each other’s best clothes. We want to hit on a brilliant novelty. What shall it be?”
Darsie mused, her face lighting with pleasure and anticipation.
“I know nothing about garden-parties. There aren’t any in town. What have you done before?”
“Tennis, croquet, clock-golf, ping-pong, archery, yeomanry sports, blue bands, red bands, black and yellow bands, glee-singers, Punch and Judy,” Ida counted off one item after another on the ringers of her left hand. “And now we seem to have come to the end of our resources. We can’t think of anything else. Do, like a darling, give us an idea!”
The darling deliberated once more, head on one side, lips pursed, eyes on the ceiling, while the Percival family looked on, and exchanged furtive glances of admiration. She was pretty! prettier by far than ordinary pretty people, by reason of some picturesque and piquant quality more readily felt than denned. It didn’t seem to matter one bit that her nose turned up, and that her mouth was several sizes too large. “If you described me on paper, I’d sound far nicer, but I look a wur–r–rm beside her!” sighed Noreen mentally, just as Darsie lowered her eyes to meet those of her hostess, and inquired gravely—
“How much may it cost?”
It was the question which accompanied every home plan, and on which hung a momentous importance, but the Percivals appeared quite taken aback by the suggestion. The girls stared, and their mother smilingly waved it aside.
“Oh–h, I don’t think we need trouble about that! It’s only once a year, and we must do the thing well. If you have a suggestion, dear, please let us have it!”
“I was thinking,” said Darsie hesitatingly, “of a treasure hunt!”
Instantly all four hearers acclaimed the idea with such unanimity and fervour that the proposer thereof was quite overpowered by the thanks lavished upon her.
“The very thing! Why did we never think of it ourselves? Every one will like it, and it will keep them moving about, which is always the great problem to solve. Presents, presents, lots of presents, stowed away in odd corners...”
“We’ll each take a certain number and hide them in our own pet corners when no one else is in the garden. We’ll make the parcels up in green paper, so as to be less easy to find...”
“Every one must be told to bring them back to the lawn for a grand public opening, so that the disappointed ones may join in the fun...”
“We may take part ourselves, mother? We must take part! Get lots and lots of presents, and let us hunt with the rest!”
“Certainly, dears, certainly. It is your party as much as mine; of course you must hunt. I’ll run up to town and buy the presents at the stores. You must help me to think of suitable things. Bags, purses, umbrellas, blotters, manicure-cases—”
“Boxes of French bonbons, belts, scarfs—”
“Cigarettes, brushes—”
“Nice little bits of jewellery—”
Suggestions poured in thick and fast, and Mrs Percival jotted them down on a little gold and ivory tablet which hung by her side unperturbed by what seemed to Darsie the reckless extravagance of their nature. It was most exciting talking over the arrangements for the hunt; most agreeable and soothing to be constantly referred to in the character of author and praised for cleverness and originality. Darsie entirely forgot the wave of depression which had threatened to upset her composure a few minutes before, forgot for the time being the suspense and danger of the earlier afternoon.
Some one else, it appeared, however, was more remindful, for when she prepared to depart the dog-cart stood at the door, and Ralph announced in his most grand seigneur manner—
“We’re going to drive you back, don’t you know! Too awfully fagging to bicycle on a hot afternoon. Put on your hats, girls, and hurry up.”
The girls obediently flew upstairs, and Darsie’s protestation of “My bicycle!” was silenced with a word.
“The stable-boy shall ride it over to-morrow morning. You’re a bit jumpy still and can’t be allowed to run any risks. I mean to see you safely back in your aunt’s charge.”
Darsie scrambled up to her high seat and leaned back thereon with an agreeable sense of importance.
“I feel like a cat that’s been stroked,” she said to herself, smiling. “When you’re one of a large family you are not used to fussing. It’s most invigorating! I’d like to go in for a long course!”