CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
TRIPOS WEEK.
The Tripos week! Every third-year girl felt as if life and deathtrembled in the balance during those eventful days. They woke on theMonday morning with much the same feeling as that of a patient whoexpects to have an arm amputated at eleven, and is morally convincedthat she will sink beneath the strain, and when at seven o'clock asecond-year friend crept into the study, tray in hand, and administeredsympathising cups of tea, the final touch was given to the illusion.
Darsie quailed before the prospect of those three-hour papers.Experience had proved that she was not at her best in examinations;imaginative people rarely are, since at the critical moment the brain isapt to wander off on dire excursions into the future, envisaging thehorrors of failing, instead of buckling to work in order to ensuresuccess. Historical French Grammar in especial loomed like a pall, andshe entered the Mission Room at Saint Columba's with the operation-likefeeling developed to its acutest point.
For several minutes after taking the first paper in her hand Darsiefound it impossible to decipher the words. The type danced mistilybefore her eyes; and when at last letters shaped themselves out of theconfusion, the last state was worse than the first, for she wasconvinced--drearily, hopelessly convinced--that she could not answer asingle question out of the number.
She laid down the paper, and steadied herself resolutely. All over theroom other girls were sitting on hard, uncomfortable chairs beforetables like her own, some motionless and stunned-looking like herself,some already setting briskly to work. On the walls, among a number ofquotations, "_Help one another_!" stared her in the face with tragicsignificance, and again: "How far high failure overleaps the bounds oflow successes." _Failure_! She lifted the paper again, and decidedwith a glimmer of hope that she could answer at least _one_ question,set to work, and scribbled for life until the last moment of theprescribed three hours! What exhaustion! What collapse! Positivelyone's legs wobbled beneath one as one trailed wearily Newnhamwards.What a comfort to be fussed over and petted, treated as distinguishedinvalids whom the College was privileged to tend!
The Tripos girls "sat at High" at the head of the room, surrounded byattentive Dons, with the V.C. herself smiling encouragement, and urgingthem to second helpings of chicken (chicken!!). By the time that it wasnecessary to start forth for the afternoon's ordeal they felt mentallyand physically braced, and the operation feeling lessened sensibly.
At the afternoon's ordeal, however, the weariness and depression grewmore acute than ever, and on the walk home the comparing of answers hadanything but a cheering effect. No girl was satisfied; each was morallyconvinced that her companions had done better than herself. Where shehad failed to answer a question, a reminder of the solution filled herwith despair. Of course! It was as simple as ABC. She had known itoff by heart. Nothing short of softening of the brain could explainsuch idiotic forgetfulness.
It was a kindly custom which separated the sufferers on their return toCollege, each one being carried off by her special second-year adorer toa cheery little tea-party, for which the most congenial spirits and themost delectable fare were provided. Here the tired senior was soothedand fed, and her self-esteem revived by an attitude of reverence on thepart of the audience. The second-year girls shuddered over the papers;were convinced that never, no never, could they face the like, andsuggested that it would be a saving of time to go down at once.
Later on that first evening, when Marian White appeared to put herinvalid to bed, she bore in her hand a letter from Margaret France,which Darsie hailed with a cry of joy.
"Ah! I _thought_ she would write to me. I wondered that I didn't havea letter this morning, but she was right as usual. She knew I shouldneed it more to-night!"
Margaret's letter was short and to the point--
"Dearest Darsie,--A year ago you were cheering me! How I wish I coulddo the same for you in your need, but as I can't be present in theflesh, here comes a little line to greet you, old dear, and to tell youto be of good cheer. You are very tired, and very discouraged, and veryblue. I _know_! Every one is. It's part of the game. Do you rememberwhat a stern mentor I had, and how she bullied me, and packed me to bed,and took away my books? Oh, the good old times! The good old times,how happy we were--how I think of them now, and long to be back! Butthe best part remains, for I have still my friend, and you and I,Darsie, `belong' for our lives.
"Cheer up, old dear! _You've done a lot better than you think_!
"Margaret."
"What's the matter now?" asked the second-year girl sharply, spying twobig tears course slowly down her patient's cheeks, and Darsie returned astammering reply--
"I've had such a ch-ch-cheering letter!"
"Have you indeed! The less of _that_ sort of cheering you get thisweek, the better for you!" snapped Marian once more. She was jealous ofMargaret France, as she was jealous of every girl in the College forwhom Darsie Garnett showed a preference, and she strongly resented anyinterference with her own prerogative. "Hurry into your dressing-gown,please, and I'll brush your hair," she said now in her most dictatorialtones. "I'm a pro. at brushing hair--a hair-dresser taught me how to doit. You hold the brush at the side to begin with, and work graduallyround to the flat. I let a Fresher brush mine one right when I'd aheadache, and she began in the middle of my cheek. There's been acoldness between us ever since. There! isn't that good? Gets rightinto the roots, doesn't it, and tingles them up! Nothing so soothing asa smooth, hard brush."
Darsie shut her eyes and purred like a sleek, lazy little cat.
"De-lic-ious! Lovely! You _do_ brush well! I could sit here forhours."
"You won't get a chance. Ten minutes at most, and then off you go, andnot a peep at another book till to-morrow morning."
"Marian--_really_--I _must_! Just for ten minutes, to revive mymemory."
"I'll tell you a story!" said Marian quietly--"a _true_ story from myown experience. It was when I was at school and going in for theCambridge Senior, the last week, when we were having the exams. We had_slaved_ all the term, and were at the last gasp. The head girl was oneAnnie Macdiarmid, a marvel of a creature, the most all-round scholarI've ever met. She was invariably first in everything, and I usuallycame in a bad third. Well, we'd had an arithmetic exam, one day, prettystiff, but not more so than usual, and on this particular morning ateleven o'clock we were waiting to hear the result. The MathematicMaster was a lamb--so keen, and humorous, and just--a _rageur_ at times,but that was only to be expected. He came into the room, papers inhand, his mouth screwed up, and his eyebrows nearly hidden under hishair. We knew at a glance that something awful had happened. Hecleared his throat several times, and began to read aloud the arithmeticresults. `Total, a hundred. Bessie Smith, eighty-seven.' There was arustle of surprise. Not Annie Macdiarmid? Just Bessie--an ordinarysort of creature, who wasn't going in for the Local at all. `Mary Ross,eighty-two. Stella Bruce, seventy-four.' Where did _I_ come in? I'dnever been lower than that. `Kate Stevenson, sixty-four.' Some oneelse fifty, some one else forty, _and_ thirty _and_ twenty, and stillnot a mention of Annie Macdiarmid or of me. You should have _seen_ herface! I shall never forget it. _Green_! and she laced her fingers inand out, and chewed, and chewed. I was too stunned to feel. The worldseemed to have come to an end. Down it came--sixteen, fourteen, ten--and then at last--at bitter, long last--`Miss Marian White, _six_! MissMacdiar-mid, Two!'"
Darsie stared beneath the brush, drawing a long breath of dismay.
"What _did_ you do?"
"Nothing! That was where he showed himself so wise. An ordinary masterwould have raged and stormed, insisted upon our working for extra hours,going over and over the old ground, but he knew better. He just bangedall the books together, tucked them under his arm, and called out: `Nomore work! Put on your hats and run off home as fast as you can go, andtell your mothers from me to take you to the Waxworks, or a Wild Beastshow. Don't dare to show yourselv
es in school again until Mondaymorning. Read as many stories as you please, but open a school book atyour peril!'"
Marian paused dramatically, Darsie peered at her through a mist of hair,and queried weakly, "Well?"
"Well--so we didn't! We just slacked and lazed, and amused ourselvestill the Monday morning, and then, like giants refreshed, we went downto the fray and--"
"And what?"
"I've told you before! I got second-class honours, and the Macdiarmidcame out first in all England, distinction in a dozen subjects--arithmetic among them. So now, Miss Garnett, kindly take the moral toheart, and let me hear no more nonsense about `reviving memories.'_Your_ memory needs putting to sleep, so that it may wake up refreshedand active after a good night's rest."
And Darsie weakly, reluctantly obeyed.
CHAPTER THIRTY.
FAREWELL TO NEWNHAM.
May week followed hard on the Tripos that year, but Darsie took no partin the festivities. The remembrance of the tragic event of last summermade her shrink from witnessing the same scenes, and in her physicallyexhausted condition she was thankful to stay quietly in college.Moreover, a sad task lay before her in the packing up her belongings,preparatory to bidding adieu to the beloved little room which had beenthe scene of so many joys and sorrows during the last three years.
Vie Vernon, as a publicly engaged young lady, was paying a round ofvisits to her _fiance's_ relations, but Mr and Mrs Vernon had come upas usual, arranging to keep on their rooms, so that they might have thesatisfaction of being in Cambridge when the Tripos List came out. Witha son like Dan and a daughter like Hannah, satisfaction was a foregoneconclusion; calm, level-headed creatures both of them, who were not tobe flurried or excited by the knowledge of a critical moment, but mostsanely and sensibly collected their full panoply of wits to turn them togood account.
Hannah considered it in the last degree futile to dread an exam. "Whatelse," she would demand in forceful manner--"what else are you workingfor? For what other reason are you here?" But her arguments, thoughunanswerable, continued to be entirely unconvincing to Darsie and othernervously constituted students.
The same difference of temperament showed itself in the manner ofwaiting for results. Dan and Hannah, so to speak, wiped their pensafter the writing of the last word of the last paper, and there and thenresigned themselves to their fate. They had done their best; nothingmore was possible in the way of addition or alteration--for good or illthe die was cast. Then why worry? Wait quietly, and take what camealong!
Blessed faculty of common sense! A man who is born with such atemperament escapes half the strain of life, though it is to be doubtedwhether he can rise to the same height of joy as his more imaginativeneighbour, who lies awake shivering at the thought of possible ills, andcan no more "wait quietly" for a momentous decision than he couldbreathe with comfort in a burning house.
When the morning arrived on which the results of the Tripos were to beposted on the door of the Senate House, Darsie and Hannah had taken alast sad farewell of their beloved Newnham, and were ensconced with Mrand Mrs Vernon in their comfortable rooms. The lists were expected toappear early in the morning, and the confident parents had arranged apicnic "celebration" party for the afternoon.
Darsie never forgot that morning--the walk to the Senate House with Danand Hannah on either side, the sight of the waiting crowd, the strainedefforts at conversation, the dragging hours.
At long last a list appeared--the men's list only: for the women's afurther wait would be necessary. But one glance at the paper showedDan's name proudly ensconced where every one had expected it would be,and in a minute he was surrounded by an eager throng--congratulating,cheering, shaking him by the hand. He looked quiet as ever, but hiseyes shone, and when Darsie held out her hand he gripped it with aviolence which almost brought the tears to her eyes.
The crowd cleared away slowly, the women students retiring to refreshthemselves with luncheon before beginning a second wait. The Vernonsrepaired to their rooms and feasted on the contents of the hamperprepared for the picnic, the father and mother abeam with pride andsatisfaction, Dan obviously filled with content, and dear old Hannahfull of quips. Darsie felt ashamed of herself because she alone failedto throw off anxiety; but her knees _would_ tremble, her throat _would_parch, and her eyes _would_ turn back restlessly to study the clock.
"Better to die by sudden shock, Than perish piecemeal on the rock!"
The old couplet which as a child she had been used to quote darted backinto her mind with a torturing pang. How much longer of this agonycould she stand? Anything, anything would be better than this draggingon in suspense, hour after hour. But when once again the little partyapproached the Senate House, she experienced a swift change of front.No, no, this was not suspense; it was hope! Hope was blessed andkindly. Only certainty was to be dreaded, the grim, unalterable fact.
The little crowd of girls pressed forward to read the lists. Darsiepeered with the rest, but saw nothing but a mist and blur. Then a voicespoke loudly by her side; Hannah's voice:
"First Class! _Hurrah_!"
Whom did she mean? Darsie's heart soared upward with a dizzy hope, hereyes cleared and flashed over the list of names. Hannah Vernon--MaryBates--Eva Murray--many names, but not her own.
The mist and the blur hid the list once more, she felt an arm grip herelbow, and Dan's voice cried cheerily--
"A Second Class! Good for you, Darsie! I thought you were going tofail."
It was a relief. Not a triumph; not the proud, glad moment of which shehad dreamed, but a relief from a great dread. The girls congratulatedher, wrung her hand, cried, "Well done!" and wished her luck; third-class girls looked envious and subdued; first-class girls in other"shops" whispered in her ear that it was an acknowledged fact thatModern Languages had had an uncommonly stiff time this year. ModernLanguages who had themselves gained a first class, kept discreetly outof the way. Hannah said, "See, I was right! Are you satisfied now?"No one showed any sign of disappointment. Perhaps no one but herselfhad believed in the possibility of a first class.
The last band of students turned away from the gates with a strangereluctance. It was the last, the very last incident of the dear oldlife--the happiest years of life which they had ever known, the yearswhich from this moment would exist but as a memory. Even the mostsuccessful felt a pang mingling with their joy, as they turned theirbacks on the gates and walked quietly away.
Later that afternoon Dan and Darsie found themselves strolling acrossthe meadows towards Grantchester. They were alone, for, the picnichaving fallen through, Mr and Mrs Vernon had elected to rest after theday's excitement, and Hannah had settled herself down to the writing ofendless letters to relations and friends, bearing the good news of thedouble honours.
Darsie's few notes had been quickly accomplished, and had been moreapologetic than jubilant in tone, but she honestly tried to put her ownfeelings in the background, and enter into Dan's happiness as heconfided to her his plans for the future.
"I'm thankful I've come through all right--it means so much. I'm alucky fellow, Darsie. I've got a rattling opening, at the finest of thepublic schools, the school I'd have chosen above all others. Jenson gota mastership there two years ago--my old coach, you remember! He wasalways good to me, thought more of me than I deserved, and he spoke ofme to the Head. There's a vacancy for a junior master next term. Theywrote to me about it. It was left open till the lists came out, but now!now it will go through. I'm safe for it now."
"Oh, Dan, I'm so glad; I'm so glad for you! You've worked so hard thatyou deserve your reward. A mastership, and time to write--that's yourambition still? You are still thinking of your book?"
"Ah, my book!" Dan's dark eyes lightened, his rugged face shone. Itwas easy to see how deeply that book of the future had entered into hislife's plans. He discussed it eagerly as they strolled across thefields, pointing out the respects in which it differed from othertreatises of the kind; and
Darsie listened, and sympathised, appreciatedto the extent of her abilities, and hated herself because, the moreabsorbed and eager Dan grew, the more lonely and dejected became her ownmood. Then they talked of Hannah and her future. With so good a recordshe would have little difficulty in obtaining her ambition in a post asmathematical mistress at a girls' school. It would be hard on MrsVernon to lose the society of both her daughters, but she was wiseenough to realise that Hannah's _metier_ was not for a domestic life,and unselfish enough to wish her girls to choose the most congenial_roles_.
"And my mother will still have three at home, three big, incompetentgirls!" sighed Darsie in reply, and her heart swelled with a suddenspasm of rebellion. "Oh, Dan, after all my dreams! I'm so bitterlydisappointed. Poor little second-class me!"
"_Don't_, Darsie!" cried Dan sharply. He stood still, facing her in thenarrow path, but now the glow had gone from his face; it was twistedwith lines of pain and anxiety. "Darsie! it's the day of my life, butit's all going to fall to pieces if you are sad! You've done your best,and you've done well, and if you are a bit disappointed that you'vefailed for a first yourself, can't you--can't you take any comfort outof _mine_? It's more than half your own. I'd never have got there bymyself!"
"Dan, dear, you're talking nonsense! What nonsense you talk! What have_I_ done? What _could_ I do for a giant like you?"
Dan brushed aside the word with a wave of the hand.
"Do you remember when we were talking last year, beside the fire, in theold study one afternoon, when all the others were out, talking aboutpoor Percival, and your answer to a question I asked? `_He needs me,Dan_!' you said. I argued very loftily about the necessity of a manstanding alone and facing his difficulties by himself, and you said thatwas true, but only a part of the truth. I've found that out for myselfsince then. If that was true of Percival, it is fifty times truer ofme! _I_ need you, Darsie! I shall always need you. I've not a penny-piece in the world, except what my father allows me. I shall probablyalways be poor. For years to come I shall be grinding away as a juniormaster. Even when the book is written it can never bring much return ina monetary sense, but success will come in the end, I'll _make_ it come!And when it does, it will belong to you as much as to me. You'llremember that?"
"Yes... Thank you, Dan!" The answer came in a breathless gasp.Darsie's big eyes were fixed upon Dan's face in rapt, incredulous gaze.The cramp of loneliness had loosened from her heart; the depression hadvanished; a marvellous new interest had entered into her life; she wasfilled with a beatific content.
"I'll remember! I'll be proud to remember. But--I don't understand!"
"I don't understand myself," said Dan simply. "I only know it is true.So don't get low, Darsie, and don't be discouraged. You're in a classby yourself, and all the honours in the world couldn't improve you. Andnow that's over, and we start afresh!"
It was like Dan to hurry back with all speed to more practical talk.Darsie understood, and was satisfied. They stood together for anothermoment looking back on the massed towers and spires of Cambridge, thenslowly, reluctantly, turned away.
A new life lay ahead, its outline vague and undefined like that of thelandscape around, but the sun was shining. It shone full on their youngfaces, as they went forward, hand in hand.
THE END.
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