“Oh, my dear, the most awful evening! The visitors had all brought their very best things, as the Hunt Ball is a great occasion, and they almost all cried, and one poor lady went into hysterics. Her father had been an ambassador and had all sorts of wonderful orders and things which she had had made into brooches and pendants, and they could never be replaced, no matter how much money she spent. Dinner was the most weepy meal you can imagine, and only one or two of the sensible ones went on to the ball. The others stayed at home and moped, and mother had to stay, too. Poor dear! she had to keep calm, and comfort every one else, when she’d lost all her own pet things. There was one string of pearls which has been in our family for generations, and each new owner adds a few more pearls, so that it gets longer and longer, and more and more valuable. It would have belonged to Ralph’s wife some day. He was so funny about it, so disappointed! He kept saying: ‘Poor little girl! it is rough luck!’ We said: ‘Why pity her, when you haven’t the least idea who she is?’ He said: ‘Why not, when I know very well that I shall know some day!’”
Darsie smiled with politely concealed impatience. She was not in the least interested in Ralph’s problematical wife, but she was devoured with anxiety to hear further particulars of the exciting burglary.
“Well, well! Go on! You said they only caught one man that night. That means, I suppose—”
“Yes!” Noreen sighed tragically. “That was the saddest part of it. The next morning they found another man lying just outside the walled garden. He had scrambled up, holding on to the fruit-trees, and had then jumped down and broken his leg, and he was not a stranger, but one of our very own men—an under-gardener whom we had all liked so much. Father believed that he had been bribed and led away by the man from London, and offered to let him off if he would tell all he knew, how many thieves there had been, and give the names and descriptions of the ones who had escaped, but he wouldn’t. Nothing would make him speak. We all tried in turns, and then the Vicar came and was shut up with him for an age, but it was no use. They say ‘there’s honour among thieves,’ and it’s true. He wouldn’t give the others away, so the two were sent to prison together, and they are there still. Father says they won’t mind a few months’ imprisonment, for when they come out they will get their share of the money and be quite rich. They’ll probably sail off for America or Australia and buy land, and live in luxury ever after. It is a shame! Father and mother feel it awfully. Such a dreadful thing to happen when you ask your friends to stay!”
“Yes! it’s a comfort to have nothing to lose. Mother has one diamond ring, which she always wears above the wedding one, and there’s nothing else worth stealing in the house, except watches and silver spoons, so that Aunt Maria need fear no qualms on account of her present visitor. No one will set her house on fire on account of my jewels—a few glass beads and a gold safety-pin, all told! You see them before you now!” Darsie tossed her head and pointed towards her treasures with an air of such radiant satisfaction that Noreen and Ida dropped the effort to be polite, and pealed with delighted laughter.
“You are a funny girl! You do amuse us. It’s so nice to have a new friend. The girls near here are so deadly dull. You seem so full of spirit.”
“Too full. It runs away with me. I act first and think afterwards. Not a good principle for a working life,” pronounced Miss Darsie sententiously as she searched among the green leaves for a strawberry sufficiently large and red to suit her fastidious taste. The Percivals watched her with fascinated gaze. An hour before they would have professed the most profound pity for a girl who lived in a street, owned neither horse nor dog, and looked forward to earning her own living, but it was with something more closely resembling envy that they now regarded Darsie Garnett, weighted as she was with all these drawbacks. There was about her an air of breeziness, of adventure, which shook them out of their self-complacence. It no longer seemed the all-important thing in life to belong to a county family, attend the hunt, and look forward to a presentation at Court; they felt suddenly countrified and dull, restricted in aim and interest.
It was while Darsie was still conversing in airy, discursive fashion, and her companions listening with fascinated attention, that footsteps were heard approaching, and Ralph’s tall figure appeared at the end of the path. He was evidently taking a short cut through the grounds, and as Darsie was out of his line of vision, being planted well back among the strawberry plants, he saw only his two sisters, and advanced to meet them with cheerful unconcern.
“Hulloa! Here’s luck! Hasn’t she come?”
“Oh, yes! But it is luck all the same. Look for yourself!” cried Noreen gleefully, pointing with outstretched hand to where Darsie sat, a pale blue figure among a nest of greenery, her little, flushed, laughing face tilted upward on the long white throat, her scattered locks ashine in the sun. With the air of a queen she extended finger-tips crimson with the strawberry juice towards the newcomer, and with the air of a courtier Ralph Percival stooped to take them in his own.