The Seven Darlings

by Gouverneur Morris

"Never. But now, having drunk at this spring, I have reason to fear the worst. It will take at least a week to get that one drink out of my system."

And so they passed from the promontory with the pine-trees to a little cove with a sandy beach, from this to a wooded island not much bigger than a tennis-court. In every suggested site Jonstone found multitudinous charms and advantages, while Colonel Meredith, from the depths of his military experience, produced objections of the first water. For to be as long as possible in the company of that beautiful girl was the end which both sought.

Maud had gone upon the expedition in good faith, but when its true object dawned upon her she was not in the least displeased. The very obvious worship which the Carolinians had for her beauty was not so personal as to make her uncomfortable. It was rather the worship of two artists for art itself than for a particular masterpiece. Of the six beautiful Darlings Maud had had the least experience of young men. She was given to fits of shyness which passed with some as reserve, with others as a kind of common-sense and matter-of-fact way of looking at life. The triplets, young as they were, surpassed the other three in conquests and experience. And this was not because they were more lovely and more charming but because they had been a little spoiled by their father and brought into the limelight before their time. Furthermore, with the exception of Phyllis, perhaps, they were maidens of action to whom there was no recourse in books or reflection. Such accomplishments as drawing and music had not been forced upon them. They could not have made a living teaching school. But Lee and Gay certainly could have taught the young idea how to shoot, how to throw a fly, and how to come in out of the wet when no house was handy. As for Phyllis, she would have been as like them as one pea is like two others but for the fact that at the age of two she had succeeded in letting off a 45-90 rifle which some fool had left about loaded and had thereby frightened her early sporting promises to death. But it was only of weapons, squirming fish, boats, and thunder storms that she was shy. Young gentlemen had no terrors for her, and she preferred the stupidest of these to the cleverest of books.

Mary, Maud, and Eve had wasted a great part of their young lives upon education. They could play the piano pretty well (you couldn't tell which was playing); they sang charmingly; they knew French and German; they could spell English, and even speak it correctly, a power which they had sometimes found occasion to exercise when in the company of foreign diplomatists. The change in their case from girlhood to young womanhood had been sudden and prearranged: in each case a tremendous ball upon a given date. The triplets had never "come out."

If Lee or Gay had been the victim of the present conspiracy, the gentlemen from Carolina would have found their hands full and overflowing. They would have been teased and misconstrued within an inch of their lives; but Maud Darling was genuinely moved by the candor and chivalry of their combined attentions. There was a genuine joyousness in her heart, and she did not care whether they got her home in time for lunch or not. And it was only a strong sense of duty which caused her to point out the high position attained by the sun in the heavens.

With reluctance the trio gave up the hopeless search for a camp site and started for home upon a long diagonal across the lake. It was just then, as if a signal had been given, that the whole surface of the lake became ruffled as when a piece of blue velvet is rubbed the wrong way, and a strong wind began to blow in Maud's face and upon the backs of the rowers.

Several hours of steady rowing had had its effect upon unaccustomed hands. It was now necessary to pull strongly, and blisters grew swiftly from small beginnings and burst in the palms of the Carolinians. Maud came to their rescue with her steering paddle, but the wind, bent upon having sport with them, sounded a higher note, and the guide boat no longer seemed quick to the least propulsion and light on the water, but as if blunt forward, high to the winds, and half full of stones. She did not run between strokes but came to dead stops, and sometimes, during strong gusts, actually appeared to lose ground.

The surface of the lake didn't as yet testify truly to the full strength of the wind. But soon the little waves grew taller, the intervals between them wider, and their crests began to be blown from them in white spray. The heavens darkened more and more, and to the northeast the sky-line was gradually blotted out as if by soft gray smoke.

"We're going to have rain," said Maud, "and we're going to have fog. So we'd better hurry a little."