"No, no! It's not fair. She won't! She can't! It's always the eldest
or the youngest. I'm the middle--the insignificant middle. Why should
she choose me?"
"You are not so modest as a rule! You know perfectly well that
strangers always _do_ take more notice of you than any one else. You
are always the one who is fussed over and praised."
"Because I want to be! This time I shan't. I'll be just as sulky and
horrid as I can for the whole blessed time."
"You'll be there anyway, and you can't alter your face."
"My fatal beauty!" wailed Darsie, and wrung her hands in impassioned
fashion. Then she looked critically from one sister to another, and
proceeded to candid criticisms of their charms.
"Clemence is not pretty, but she's _nice_! If she did her hair better,
and sat up, and had a colour, and didn't poke her chin, she'd look quite
decent. I should think it would be interesting to take some one who
_needed_ improving, and see what you could do. Lavender's gawky, of
course, girls _are_ gawky at her age, but I shouldn't wonder if she grew
quite decent-looking in time. Rest and quiet would do wonders!"
"Thank you, indeed! You _are_ kind!" The sisters bridled and tossed
their heads, by no means appeased by such prognostications of their
future charms. "Certainly if she took _you_, she might teach you to be
modest!"
"Oh, dear, oh, dear, I don't want _any_ of you to go!" Vie, the
peacemaker, rushed to the rescue. She was just sixteen, younger than
Clemence, older than Darsie, attached almost equally to the two.
Lavender, of course, was quite too young for a companion, but then
Lavender and Hannah paired together; if she were absent, Hannah at a
loose end would demand entrance into those three-sided conferences which
made the joy of life. The fear of such an incursion made Lavender at
that moment seem even more precious than her sisters. Vie continued her
lament with bitter emphasis--
"_Too_ bad--_too_ hard--stupendous! Spoil everything. Horrid
interfering old thing! If I were your parents I wouldn't--not for all
the money in the world, I wouldn't sacrifice a child to an old ogre like
that! I'd keep my own children and let them be happy while they could,
but, of course, if she talks of duty...! If there's one thing more
stupendous than another it's being put on one's honour! It gives one
_no_ chance. Well, you'll have to go, I suppose, and our holiday is
spoiled. I've never been so disappointed in my life."
"Think of how _we_ feel!" croaked Clemence tragically, but this time the
tragedy did not ring so true, for since plain Hannah's verdict her
spirits had risen considerably. Hannah was the shrewdest and cleverest
of all five girls, and her prophecies were proverbially correct.
Clemence felt sufficiently reassured to reflect that as the eldest in
years, she would do well to show an example of resignation. She
lengthened her face, and added solemnly--
"I don't think you ought to talk like that about honour, Vie! It ought
to be an incentive. If I go, the only thing that will console me most
is the feeling that I am doing my duty!"
Vie stared, and the younger girls coughed in derisive chorus.
"Isn't it easy to be resigned for somebody else?" demanded plain Hannah
of the ceiling. "You are _not_ going, my dear, and you know it. Darsie
likes well enough to queen it as a rule, and now she's got to pay the
price. That's the cost of good looks. Thank goodness no one will ever
want to run off with _me_!--not even a staid old aunt. Tell us about
your aunt, by the way--you've talked enough about yourselves. Where
does she live, and what is she like, and what does she do, and what will
_you_ do when you're there? Have any of you ever seen the place?"
"Not since we were old enough to remember, but mother has been and told
us all about it. It's big, with a lodge, two lodges, and a park all
round, very rich, and grand, and respectable, and dull. There are men-
servants to wait at table, and the windows are never open, and she
drives out every day in a closed carriage, and plays patience at night,
and wears two wigs, turn about, a week at a time. Her cheeks are red,
the sort of red that is made up of little red lines, and never gets
brighter or darker, and she likes to be quiet and avoid excitement. Oh,
imagine what it would be like to _choose_ to be quiet, and deliberately
run away from a fuss! Can you imagine if you lived a thousand years
ever reaching such a pitch as that?"
Darsie held out both hands in dramatic appeal, and her hearers groaned
with unction. It was impossible, absolutely beyond the power of
imagination to picture such a plight. Each girl hugged to herself the
conviction that with her at least would remain immortal youth; that
happen what might to the rest of mankind, no length of years could numb
her own splendid vitality and _joie de vivre_.
Not even, and at the thought the three Garnetts sighed in concert, not
even Aunt Maria!