A College Girl by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (my miracle luna book free read txt) 📕
As regards the matter of distance, it took an easy two minutes to cover the space between the front doors of the two houses, and there seemed an endless number of reasons why the members of the different families should fly round to consult each other a dozen times a day. Darsie and Lavender, Vi and plain Hannah attended the same High School; the Garnett boys and John Vernon the same Royal Institute, but the fact that they walked to and from school together, and spent the intervening hours in the same class-rooms, by no means mitigated the necessity of meeting again during luncheon and tea hours. In holiday times the necessity naturally increased, and bells pealed incessantly in response to tugs from youthful hands.
Then came the time of the great servants' strike. That bell was a perfect nuisance; rin
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“You mean tea-parties?” queried Darsie vaguely, whereat Mrs Reeves subsided into a ripple of laughter.
“No, I do not mean tea-parties—something very much wider. I don’t fancy, however, that Vernon is sociably disposed, and the authorities here are not inclined to encourage meetings between the men and girl students. The head of his college is my brother-in-law, and one of your Dons is a very old friend, so I hear the question discussed from both sides, and then—like a wise woman—I gang my own gait! So long as men are men, and girls are girls, they are bound to attract each other; it’s natural and right, and when they are bound to meet in any case, it is my little hobby to help them to do so under the best conditions. I flatter myself I am quite an expert in the art of being just chaperon enough, and not too chaperon, and I never refuse to act if I can possibly contrive to do so.”
“No! Dan said—” began Darsie involuntarily, and then stopped short with a furious blush. Mrs Reeves, however, did not share her discomfiture; she laughed, and said shrewdly—
“Oh, I have observed his disapproving eye. I can guess what he said. Many people feel the same, who judge only from the surface, and don’t take the trouble to realise my motives. One doesn’t explain such things to the world in general, but I want you to understand. If one man less admirable than another; if his friends and his entertainments are inclined to become rowdy and discreditable, does he need help less, or more? Vernon and other men of his kind consider that they do their duty by leaving such a man severely alone. I find mine in being with him—just—as much—as ever I can!” She emphasised the words by a series of taps with the poker on the top of an obstinate coal, given in the most delightfully school-girlish manner. “I chaperon his parties; I talk to him and his friends; I make myself so agreeable that they love to have me, and want to have me again. I try with every power I possess to encourage all that is good, and kind, and honest, and cheering in themselves and their conversation, and deftly, delicately, invisibly, as it were, to fight against everything that is mean and unworthy. It’s difficult, Darsie!—I may call you Darsie, mayn’t I? it’s such a beguiling little name!—one of the most difficult feats a woman could set herself to accomplish, and though I’ve had a fair measure of success, it’s only a measure. It’s such a great big work. Think of all that it means, that it may mean to England, if we can keep these men from drifting, and give them a pull-up in time! I am constantly looking, looking out for fellow-workers. That’s why I invited you here to-day—to ask you to be on my side!”
“I!” Darsie’s gasp of amazement sounded throughout the room. “I! Oh, you can’t mean it! What could I do? I can do nothing—I’m only a girl!”
“Only a girl! But, dear child, that’s your finest qualification! You can do more than I can ever accomplish, just because you are a girl, and will be admitted to an intimacy which is impossible for me. Besides, Darsie, you are a particularly pretty and attractive girl into the bargain; you know that, don’t you? You ought to know it, and be very, very thankful for a great weapon given into your hands. If you will join the ranks with me, and act as my curate, you will immensely increase my power for good.”
“But I can’t! I can’t! I’d love to if I could, but you don’t know how impossible it is. I couldn’t preach to save my life.”
“I’m thankful to hear it. I don’t want you to preach. You’d soon lose your influence if you did. It’s a case of being, Darsie, rather than doing; being your truest, sweetest, highest self when you are with these men, so that they may feel your influence through all the fun and banter. Lots of fun, please; you can’t have too much of that; a dull girl is soon left to herself. People in general don’t half realise the influence of just right thinking—the atmosphere which surrounds a person who is mentally fighting for good. The sunbeams fall on the dark earth and soak up the poisoned waters, and so may our thoughts—our prayers,” She was silent for a few moments, her hand resting lightly on Darsie’s knees. “There is a girl in your house—Margaret France—I expect you know her! She has been one of my best helpers these last years. Wherever Margaret is there is fun and laughter; she is just brimful of it, but—can you imagine any one going to Margaret with an unworthy thought, an unworthy cause? I want you to follow in her steps!”
She paused again for a long minute, then said slowly and emphatically—
“Ralph Percival needs help, Darsie! He has not fallen very low as yet, but he is drifting. He is in a bad set, and, like too many of our richer men, he lacks purpose. They come up here because their fathers have been before them, and it is the correct thing to do. There is no real reason why they should work, or take a high place, but there seems to themselves every reason why they should have a good time. Parents sometimes seem to hold more or less the same opinion; at others they seem distressed, but powerless. College authorities are regarded as natural enemies; religious influences for the time beat on closed doors; now, Darsie, here comes the chance for ‘only a girl!’ A man like Ralph Percival, at this stage of his life, will be more influenced by a girl like you than by any power on earth. It’s a law of Nature and of God, and if every girl realised it, it would be a blessed thing for the race. I once heard a preacher say that so long as one dealt with general principles, and talked broadly of the human race, there was very little done. We have to fine it down to my next door neighbour before we really set to work. Fine down what I have said to Ralph Percival, Darsie, and help me with him! He’s drifting. He needs you. Help me to pull him back!”
Darsie nodded dumbly. Mrs Reeves thought the expression on her downcast face touchingly sweet and earnest, but even she missed the clue to the girl’s inmost thought.
Years ago she herself had been drifting, drifting towards death, and Ralph had stepped forward to save her; now, in an allegorical sense, the positions were reversed, and she was summoned to the rescue. There was no refusing a duty so obvious. Heavy and onerous as the responsibility might be, it had been placed in her hands. Darsie braced herself to the burden.
It was Christmas Day; fifteen eventful months had passed by since Darsie Garnett and Hannah Vernon had made their appearance in Clough in the character of modest and diffident Freshers. Now, advanced to the dignity of second-year girls, they patronised new-comers with the best, and talked, thought, and behaved as though, deprived of their valuable support, the historical centre of Cambridge must swiftly crumble to the dust.
The little air of assurance and self-esteem which seems inseparable from a feminine student had laid its hand on Darsie’s beauty, robbing it of the old shy grace, and on each fresh return to the old home Clemence and Lavender eloquently described themselves as “squelched flat” by the dignified young woman who sailed about with her head in the air, and delivered an ultimatum on every subject as it arose, with an air of “My opinion is final. Let no dog bark!”
These mannerisms, however, were only, after all, a veneer; and when two or three days of merry, rollicking family life had passed by, the old Darsie made her appearance once more, forgot to be learned and superior, forbore to refer to college and college ways in every second or third sentence, and showed a reviving interest in family affairs.
Clemence was fatter than ever, a subject of intense mortification to herself, though at each fresh meeting she confided in whispered asides that she had “lost five pounds—ten pounds,” as the case might be. No one believed in these diminutions, but if one happened to be amiably disposed, one murmured vaguely, and affected conviction; and if one were not, one openly jeered and scoffed! Lavender was sentimental and wrote poetry in which “pale roses died, in the garden wide, and the wind blew drear, o’er the stricken mere.” She had advanced to the dignity of long skirts, and dressed her hair—badly!—in the latest eccentricity of fashion.
Vie Vernon, on the contrary, had developed into a most elegant person, quite an accomplished woman of the world, darkly suspected of “going to be engaged” to a young lawyer with a dark moustache, who had lately developed a suspicious fondness for her father’s company.
It really gave one quite a shock to realise how grown-up the old companions had become even the brothers Harry and Russell were transformed into tall striplings who bought newspapers on their own account, and preferred, actually preferred, to be clean rather than dirty! It was a positive relief to listen to Tim’s loud voice, look at his grimy paws, and reflect that one member of the family was still in the enjoyment of youth.
As usual, the postman’s arrival was the first excitement of Christmas morning. He brought with him an armful of letters and parcels, and Darsie was quick to spy Ralph Percival’s handwriting upon one of the smallest and most attractive-looking of the packets.
The colour came into her cheeks as she looked, but after holding the parcel uncertainly for a moment, she laid it down again, and proceeded to open other letters and boxes, leaving this particular one to the last. An onlooker would have been puzzled to decide whether it was more dread or expectation which prompted this decision; and perhaps Darsie herself could hardly have answered the question. The table was soon spread with envelopes and wrappings of paper which had enclosed souvenirs from college friends, and the more costly offerings from Mrs Percival and her girls, inscribed with the orthodox words of greeting. Darsie ranged them in order, and then, still hesitating, turned to the last packet of all.
Inside was a note folded so as to act as additional wrapper for a small white box. Ralph’s writing, large and well-formed like himself, filled the half-sheet.
“Dear Darsie,—I hope you will accept the enclosed trifle which has been made for you, from my own design. You will understand its meaning! I am more than ever in need of pulling up! Don’t fail a fellow, Darsie!
“Yours,—
“Ralph B. Percival.”
Inside the box lay a small but beautifully modelled anchor brooch, with a fine golden rope twined round the stock. Darsie looked at it with the same mingling of joy and pain which seemed inseparable from each stage of her friendship with this attractive but irresponsible young man.
It was just like Ralph to have thought of this pretty and graceful way of expressing his sentiments, and it was not in girl nature to resist a glow of gratified vanity; but as she turned the golden anchor in her hands and realised the significance of the symbol, an old impatience stirred in Darsie’s heart. A man who trusted to another for anchorage in life, and who was ever in danger of breaking loose and drifting on to the rocks, was not the strong knight of a young girl’s dreams. There were moments when the protecting tenderness which had prompted the last year’s efforts gave place to sudden intolerance and resentment.
Inspired by Mrs Reeves’s words in her first term at college, Darsie had set gallantly to the task of influencing Ralph Percival for good, and preventing
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