CHAPTER TWELVE.
DARSIE'S SUGGESTION.
With the passing of the jetty, fear awoke for the first time in Darsie'sbreast--the fear which arises when the possibility of action is over andnothing remains but to sit still and await the end. In one moment oftime an incredible number of thoughts flashed through her brain; shethought of her father and mother, of their grief and pain at theknowledge 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 allgarbed in black, sitting round the study fire, enlarging upon her ownvirtues and graces; she thought of Aunt Maria and her responsibility;she saw a vision of herself, cold and still, being dragged out of themillpond, with her hair floating like seaweed behind her, and at thethought 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 stoodout from the bank.
Darsie leaped to her feet and, raising the paddle so high above her headthat it caught against the branches, strove to delay the progress of thepunt. The result was to upset her own equilibrium, and as she fellforward she screamed loudly, a shrill, penetrating scream of panic andappeal.
With almost startling quickness the answer came, in the form of ananswering cry, close at hand. Round the corner of the next clump ofbushes dashed the figure of Ralph Percival, bareheaded, eager-faced,and, thank Heaven! unhesitating in action. Not for one fraction of asecond did he hesitate, but with the assurance of one who knows everyinch 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 outas far as you can!"
Darsie fell on her knees, and, leaning forward to the utmost extent ofher body, held out the paddle as directed. There was a moment ofsickening suspense, then came a halt, a jerk that seemed to pull herarms half out of the sockets, and the punt swung heavily towards theshore. The danger was over; she was helped on to the bank, where shecollapsed in a little heap, while Ralph worked the punt slowly along tothe 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 swallowthe lump in her throat sufficiently to be able to say in a weak littlevoice--
"You've saved my life!"
"You've spoiled my trousers!" retorted Ralph in a matter-of-fact mannercalculated to put an instant check on sentimentality. He sat down onthe 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 newsuit, too! It will never look the same again."
"I'm sorry."
"So you ought to be. Things are bad enough as they are, _but_... Howon earth did you come to be careering about alone in that punt?"
"I was waiting to see your sisters. I wandered down here, and thoughtI'd just sit in it for a rest, then I thought I could just paddle up anddown. I managed quite well going up the stream; I got as far as thewillow!" Even at that moment a faint note of pride crept into Darsie'svoice. "We grounded there, and I--I must have fallen asleep, I suppose,and that hateful old mill must needs choose the opportunity to beginworking 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 inanother 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 QueerStreet by this time. Nice thing it would have been for us to discoveryour drowned body in the millpond, and have had to tell your aunt!"
"I thought of that," agreed Darsie meekly. "It was one of my dyingthoughts. Don't scold me, please, for I feel so shaky, and you wouldn'tlike it if I cried. It was my own fault, and I got what I deserved. Iwasn't a bit frightened till I missed the jetty, but that one moment waslike a hundred years. Did my yell sound very awful?"
"Pretty middling blood-curdling!" replied Ralph, smiling. "Good thingit did. Gave me a bit of a shock, I can tell you, to see the old puntdashing down to the gates, with you sitting huddled up in the bottom,with your hair hanging wild, and your face the colour of chalk. Youlooked 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 ofoffence, at which her companion laughed triumphantly.
"Oh, _you're_ better; you're coming round again all right! I was afraidyou were going to faint. I don't mind telling you that you were jollyplucky. Most girls would have started screaming miles before, but youheld on like a Briton. How do the arms feel now? Rather rusty at thehinges, 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 thinkyou'd better come up to the house and have some tea?"
"Yes, please. And you can change your clothes, too. I should feel somiserable if you caught cold."
"No fear of that. I'm used to splashing in and out of the water half adozen 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 youfrom getting sentimental. _They're_ all right!" Ralph paused a moment,then, "I say!" he cried anxiously, "is this going to get you intotrouble 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 sidealong the gravelled paths, and finally arrived at a conclusion.
"I think, on the whole, I'll tell! Aunt Maria allowed me to go outalone as a great concession, and it was mean to take advantage and runrisks. So upsetting for her if I were killed in her house! So I'm inhonour bound to confess, and promise not to do it again."
"You might do something else just as bad! Probably she'll withdraw herpermission 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 appreciatemy confidence," said Darsie, with a grandiloquent air, at which hercompanion whistled softly, his face twitching with amusement. He wasmuch more natural and boyish in his manner than on either of theprevious occasions on which Darsie had met him, and the agitation of thelast few minutes seemed to have carried them in a bound past all theformalities of early acquaintance.
"Right you are!" he said briskly. "I like a straight girl. But if youdon'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 sameexperience. You might warn Lady Hayes not to speak of it either. We'llkeep it a secret between us."
"Just as you like! I _believe_," said Darsie shrewdly, "that you'reafraid of being praised and fussed over, as you would be if people knewthat you had saved my life! Men hate a fuss, but you can't escape mygratitude. I didn't want to die. It came over me with a sort ofhorror--the thought of leaving the flowers, and the trees, and the bluesky, and all the people I love. Have you ever been so nearly dead toknow how it feels?"
"Once--when I had enteric at school. It was a near squeak at thecrisis."
"And how did you feel? What did you think?"
"I didn't care a whit one way or another. I wanted to have the pillowturned. That seemed a hundred times more important than life or death;I was too ill to think... Well, thank goodness, you are _not_ dead! Ihope you'll live for many years to be a pride and glory to--er--er--theranks of women blue-stockings!"
Darsie looked at him sharply.
"The girls have been telling you of my ambitions! Mean of them! Theymight have known you'd scoff. All boys do, but I fail to see why if agirl has brains she should not use them as well as a man."
"The inference being--"
"Certainly! I'm unusually clever for my years!" returned Darsieproudly, whereupon they simultaneously burst
into a peal of laughter.
"Well, you goaded me to it!" Darsie declared in self-vindication. "Ican't stand it when boys are superior. Why must they sneer and jeerbecause a girl wants to go in for the same training as themselves,especially when she has to make her own living afterwards? In our twocases it's more important for me than for you, for you will be a richlandowner, and I shall be a poor school marm. You ought to be kind andsympathetic, and do all you can to cheer me on, instead of being loftyand 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 saidcalmly; and at that very moment, round a bend of the path, the two girlscame suddenly into view, trotting briskly towards the river. They wavedtheir hands, and tore down upon the visitor in lively welcome.
"There you are! This _is_ nice. Bates said you were in the garden, sowe just flew and changed, and rushed off in pursuit. So glad you hadRalph to amuse you. The mill's working! We guessed you'd be therelooking on..."
"There's nothing to see but the old wheel creaking round. Tea is farmore 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 byher Christian name till her hair's up," said Darsie quickly, and Ralphimmediately 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 informal, grown-up fashion, Mrs Percival presiding over the little table,with its shining silver and fine old-world china. There were hot, brownlittle scones, crisp buttered toast, iced cakes, thick cream, and otherindigestible luxuries, which came as an agreeable change from LadyHayes's careful dietary, and Darsie was acutely conscious of the beautyand elegance of the room. How small and poky and drab the home drawing-room would appear in comparison! How different the outlook on anotherrow of red-brick houses, from the sweep of green lawns, and the avenueof great beech-trees seen through the four long French windows whichbroke the side of this long, low room!
How different her own life promised to be from those of the two girls byher side--the girls who had just returned from a ride on their ownhorses over their own land! ... They would never need to worry aboutmoney; their role in life for the next few years would consist in beingpretty and agreeable, wearing charming frocks, visiting at friends'houses, travelling in summer, hunting in winter, and, finally, makingsuitable Carriages, settling down as mistresses of other luxurioushouses, and living happily ever after!
She herself would study and cram for examination after examination; gothrough agonies of suspense waiting for results, and as she passed orfailed, obtain a good or second-rate appointment in a suburban school.Henceforth work, work, work--teaching by day, correcting exercises bynight, in a deserted schoolroom, with three months' holiday a year spentat home among brothers and sisters whose interests had necessarilydrifted apart from her own! As the years passed by she would becomestaid and prim; schoolmistressy manner; the girls would speak of her byderisive nicknames...
A knifelike pang of envy pierced Darsie's heart; she dropped the daintymorsel of cake on to her plate with a feeling of actual physical nausea;for the moment her old ambitions lost their savour, and appeared greyand dead; she was pierced with an overpowering pity for her own hardlot.
The sensation was, perhaps, as much physical as mental, for no one canpass through a moment of acute mental tension without suffering from acorresponding nervous collapse, but being too young and inexperienced torealise as much, Darsie mentally heaped ashes on her head, and shedtears over her blighted life. The signs of her emotion were noticeable,not only in an unusual silence but in whitening cheeks, which broughtupon 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 amoment ago."
"I'm all right now. Please, please, take no notice. I'm perfectly allright."
Noreen was beginning to protest again, when Ralph called her sharply toorder--
"That's enough, Nora! Awfully bad form to fuss. Talk about somethingelse. What about that garden-party you were discussing? I thought youwanted to ask suggestions."
Instantly both sisters were sparkling with excitement and animation.
"Oh, yes, yes. Of course! We must ask Darsie. She has such lovelyideas. Darsie, we are going to have a garden-party. The invitationsare going out to-morrow. Hundreds of people are coming--mother'sfriends, our friends, everybody's friends, every bowing acquaintance formiles around. The question of the hour is--_What shall we do_? Garden-parties are such monotonous occasions, always the same over and overagain--people sitting about in their best clothes, eating ices andfruit, listening to a band, and quizzing each other's best clothes. Wewant 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. Whathave you done before?"
"Tennis, croquet, clock-golf, ping-pong, archery, yeomanry sports, bluebands, 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'tthink of anything else. Do, like a darling, give us an idea!"
The darling deliberated once more, head on one side, lips pursed, eyeson the ceiling, while the Percival family looked on, and exchangedfurtive glances of admiration. She _was_ pretty! prettier by far thanordinary pretty people, by reason of some picturesque and piquantquality more readily felt than denned. It didn't seem to matter one bitthat 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 eyesto 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 hunga momentous importance, but the Percivals appeared quite taken aback bythe suggestion. The girls stared, and their mother smilingly waved itaside.
"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, pleaselet us have it!"
"I was thinking," said Darsie hesitatingly, "of a treasure hunt!"
Instantly all four hearers acclaimed the idea with such unanimity andfervour that the proposer thereof was quite overpowered by the thankslavished upon her.
"The _very_ thing! Why did we never think of it ourselves? Every onewill like it, and it will keep them moving about, which is always thegreat problem to solve. Presents, presents, lots of presents, stowedaway in odd corners..."
"We'll each take a certain number and hide them in our _own_ pet cornerswhen 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 grandpublic opening, so that the disappointed ones may join in the fun..."
"We may take part ourselves, mother? We _must_ take part! Get lots andlots of presents, and let us hunt with the rest!"
"Certainly, dears, certainly. It is your party as much as mine; ofcourse you must hunt. I'll run up to town and buy the presents at thestores. 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 downon a little gold and ivory tablet which hung by her side unperturbed bywhat seemed to Darsie the reckless extravagance of their nature. It wasmost e
xciting talking over the arrangements for the hunt; most agreeableand soothing to be constantly referred to in the character of author andpraised for cleverness and originality. Darsie entirely forgot the waveof depression which had threatened to upset her composure a few minutesbefore, forgot for the time being the suspense and danger of the earlierafternoon.
Some one else, it appeared, however, was more remindful, for when sheprepared to depart the dog-cart stood at the door, and Ralph announcedin his most grand seigneur manner--
"We're going to drive you back, don't you know! Too awfully fagging tobicycle on a hot afternoon. Put on your hats, girls, and hurry up."
The girls obediently flew upstairs, and Darsie's protestation of "Mybicycle!" was silenced with a word.
"The stable-boy shall ride it over to-morrow morning. You're a bitjumpy still and can't be allowed to run any risks. I mean to see yousafely back in your aunt's charge."
Darsie scrambled up to her high seat and leaned back thereon with anagreeable 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'smost invigorating! I'd like to go in for a long course!"