Seated alone in the train, _en route_ for her visit to the Percivals,
Darsie had time to think in a more quiet and undisturbed fashion than
had been possible in the past bustling days, and a disagreeable feeling
of apprehension arose in her mind as she recalled the wording of the
three invitations. In each was present the same note of depression, the
same hint of trouble in connection with the son of the house. Could
anything have happened of which she was unaware? No letter from The
Manor had reached her for some weeks past, but letters were proverbially
scarce at Christmas-time, so that it would be foolish to argue ill from
that fact alone. Darsie braced herself physically and mentally, squared
her shoulders, and resolutely dismissed gloomy thoughts.
Noreen and Ralph met her at the station, looking reassuringly cheerful
and at ease a magnificent new motor stood in waiting outside, with a
cart for the luggage. Inside the beautiful old house the atmosphere was
warmed by hot pipes, and scented with the fragrance of hothouse plants,
banked together in every corner. It was not the usual case of being
warm and cosy inside a room, and miserably chilled every time one
crossed a passage or ascended the stairs. Mrs Percival and the girls
were marvels of elegance in Parisian gowns, Ralph looked his handsomest
in knickerbocker suit and gaiters, and the servants moved noiselessly to
and fro, performing their tasks with machine-like accuracy.
Extraordinary how complete a change of scene may take place between
lunch and tea! How swiftly a new atmosphere makes the old unreal!
As Darsie sat drinking her tea in the old wainscoted hall, it seemed
impossible to realise that such things as poverty and struggle were in
existence; even the shabby bustle and squeeze of her own dear home
became incredible in the face of this spacious, well-ordered calm!
Mrs Percival made no attempt at private conversation, and showed no
trace of "ulterior motive" in manner or conversation, which was a huge
relief to Darsie's mind. She was not in a mood for serious
conversation; what she wanted was the usual Percival offering of praise,
admiration, and petting, and this was bestowed upon her with even more
than the usual generosity. The grey-whiskered old Squire kissed her on
both cheeks; the girls assured her that she was prettier than ever, and
greeted her feeblest sallies with bursts of delighted laughter. Ralph
gazed at her with adoring eyes; it was all, as Darsie had been wont to
remark, most grateful and comforting!
The first evening passed pleasantly enough, though there was a
noticeable effort on the part of each member of the family to keep the
conversation from touching upon the subject of Ralph's affairs. Any
reference to Cambridge was taboo, as Darsie swiftly discovered, but
there were many points of interest left, which were both pleasant and
amusing to discuss.
The next morning--the last morning of the year--broke fine and bright,
and the view seen through the long windows of the dining-room was almost
as beautiful as in summer itself. The park showed the same stretch of
velvet green, a belt of evergreens and tall Scotch firs filled up the
far distance, while the leafless boughs of elms and beeches made a lace-
like tracery against the sky. To the right the old cedar stood calm and
unmoved, as it had stood while generations of Percivals had lived, and
loved, and sorrowed, and died.
When breakfast was over--and breakfast in the country is a meal which
pursues a calm and leisurely course--the four young people strolled into
the porch to discuss the programme for the day.
"Darsie is nerving herself to look at the horses' tails!" said Ida
laughingly. It was a Percival peculiarity, agreeable or irritating
according to the mood of the hearer, that they never by any chance
forgot a remark, but continually resurrected it in conversation for
years to come. Never a morning had Darsie spent at the Manor that she
had not been reminded of scathing comments on the habit of daily visits
to kennels and stables, as delivered by herself on the occasion of her
first visit. To-day, however, she had only time to grimace a reply,
before Ida continued cheerfully--
"You won't be asked, my dear! We have something far more important on
hand. You have walked right into the jaws of the tenants' annual New
Year's treat, and will have to tire your hands decorating all the
morning, and your gums smiling all the evening. It's an all-day-and-
night business, and we get home at cock-crow in a state of collapse--"
"It's held in the village hall," Noreen took up the tale, slipping
unconsciously into what Darsie called her "squire's-eldest-daughter-
manner."
"Quite a nice building. We make it look festive with wreaths and
bunting. They think so much of decorations!" ("They" in Percival
parlance alluded to the various tenants on the estate.) "We try to think
of something novel each year as a surprise. They like surprises. We've
arranged with half a dozen girls to be there to help. Quite nice girls,
daughters of the principal farmers. You must be _quite_ sweet to them,
Darsie, please! It is our principal meeting of the year, and we make a
point of being friendly."
"Must I really?" Darsie assumed an expression of dejection. "What a
disappointment! It's so seldom I get an opportunity of being proud and
grand. What's the good of staying at a Manor House, and driving down
with `the family,' if I have to be meek and friendly like any one else?
Couldn't you introduce me as the Lady Claire, and let me put on airs for
a treat? It would act as a contrast to your `friendly ways,' and make
them all the more appreciated."
The girls laughed as in duty bound, and declared that it _would_ be
sport, and wondered if they dared, but Ralph sharply called them to
order.
"Rot! As if everybody in this neighbourhood didn't know Darsie by
heart! Put on your hats, and don't talk rubbish. It will take us all
our time to get through with the hall before lunch."
Town-bred Darsie privately hoped that the motor would appear to carry
the helpers to the hall three miles away, but the Percivals themselves
never seemed to dream of such a possibility. In short skirts and thick
boots they plodded cheerfully across boggy meadows and muddy lanes,
climbed half a dozen stiles, and arrived at last in the High Street of
the little village, close to the entrance of the unpretentious wooden
building which called itself the Village Hall.
Darsie thought that she had never beheld an interior which seemed so
thoroughly to need, and at the same time to defy, decoration!
Whitewashed walls, well splashed by damp; a double row of pegs all round
the walls at a level of some five or six feet from the ground; wooden
forms, and a small square platform, made up a whole which was bare and
ugly to a degree.
A group of five or six girls stood beside a pile of evergreens; a youth
in shirt-sleeves was in process of unpacking crumpled flags and
flattened Japanese lanterns from an old tin box; two ladders stood
against the walls.
The entrance of "the family" was marked by a general movement among the
little company, and Darsie watched the greetings which ensued with
twinkling amusement.
Noreen and Ida were _so_ pleasant, _so_ full of gratitude for the
presence of each individual helper, _so_ anxious to be assured that they
could _really_ spare the time. Ralph was so laboriously polite, while
the girls themselves, pleasant, kindly, and well-educated, were either
happily unaware of the thinly disguised patronage, or had the good
manners to conceal their knowledge. There was no doubt which side
appeared to best advantage in the interview!
"The first thing we must do is to decide upon a scheme of decoration,"
Ida declared. "Darsie, suggest something! You have never done it
before, so your ideas ought to be novel. What can we do to make the
hall look pretty and cheerful?"
"Rebuild it!" was Darsie's instant and daring reply, whereat the
farmers' daughters laughed _en masse_, and the Percivals looked
haughtily displeased.
"Father built it!"
"Awfully good of him! _And_ wicked of his architect. I shan't employ
him to build my house!"
"I think," said Noreen loftily, "that we had better confine ourselves to
discovering the scheme of decoration. It is too late to interfere with
the structure of the hall. We generally make wreaths and fasten them to
the gas brackets, and drape the platform with flags."
"Then we may take it as settled that we _won't_ do that to-day. What
happens to the pegs?"
"They hang their things on them, of course--hats, and coats, and
mufflers--"
"That _must_ be decorative! How would it be to make them leave their
wrappings at the entrance to-night, or put them under their own chairs,
and to arrange a broad band of holly round the room so as to hide the
pegs from view? It would be so easy to tie on the branches, and it
would have quite a fine frieze effect."
"`Mrs Dick, you are invaluable!'" quoted Ralph gaily. "It's a ripping
idea. Let's set to at once, and try the effect."
No sooner said than done; the little band of workers spread themselves
over the room, and began the task of trying prickly holly branches to
the line of pegs in such fashion as to form a band about two feet deep,
entirely round the room. Berries being unusually plentiful that year,
the effect was all the more cheery, and with the disappearance of the
utilitarian pegs the hall at once assumed an improved aspect. A second
committee meeting hit on the happy idea of transforming the platform
into a miniature bower, by means of green baize and miniature fir-trees,
plentifully sprinkled with glittering white powder. The flags were
relegated to the entrance-hall. The Japanese lanterns, instead of
hanging on strings, were so grouped as to form a wonderfully lifelike
pagoda in a corner of the hall, where--if mischievously disposed--they
might burn at their ease without endangering life or property. The
ironwork of the gas-brackets was tightly swathed with red paper, and the
bare jets fitted with paper shades to match. From an artistic point of
view Darsie strongly opposed the hanging of the timeworn mottoes, "A
Hearty Welcome to All," "A Happy New Year," and the like, but the
Squire's daughters insisted that they liked to see them, and the
farmers' daughters confirming this theory, up they went, above the
evergreen frieze, the white cotton letters standing out conspicuously
from their turkey-red background.
It was one o'clock before the work was finished, and a tired and
distinctly grubby quartette started out on their three-mile return walk
across the fields. Certainly country-bred folk were regardless of
fatigue! "If I owned a motor I should _use_ it!" Darsie said to
herself with a distinct air of grievance as she climbed to her own room
after lunch, and laid herself wearily on her couch, the while the
Percival trio trotted gaily forth for "just a round" over their private
golf-links.
The evening programme was to begin with a concert, alternate items of
which were to be given by the villagers and members of the surrounding
"families."
At ten o'clock refreshments were to be served, in adjoining classrooms,
and during the progress of the informal supper chairs and forms were to
be lifted away, and the room cleared for an informal dance, to be
concluded by a general joining of hands and singing of "Auld Lang Syne"
as the clock struck twelve.
The Percival ladies and their guests from the surrounding houses made
elaborate toilettes for the occasion. The villagers were resplendent in
Sunday blacks, "best frocks" and bead chains, the small girls and boys
appearing respectively in white muslins and velveteen Lord Fauntleroy
suits; the Squire opened proceedings with expressions of good wishes,
interspersed with nervous coughs, and Noreen and Ida led off the musical
proceedings with a lengthy classical duet, to which the audience
listened with politely concealed boredom.
To Darsie's mind, the entire programme as supplied by "the families" was
dull to extinction, but to one possessing even her own slight knowledge
of the village, the contributions of its worthies were brimful of
interest and surprise.
The red-faced butcher, who, on ordinary occasions, appeared to have no
mind above chops and steaks, was discovered to possess a tenor voice
infinitely superior in tone to that of his patron, the Hon. Ivor Bruce,
while his wife achieved a tricky accompaniment with a minimum of
mistakes; the sandy-haired assistant at the grocer's shop supplied a
flute obbligato, and the fishmonger and the young lady from the
stationer's repository assured each other ardently that their true loves
owned their hearts; two school-children with corkscrew curls held a
heated argument--in rhyme--on the benefits of temperance; and, most
surprising and thrilling of all, Mr Jevons, the butler from The Manor,
so far descended from his pedestal as to volunteer "a comic item" in the
shape of a recitation, bearing chiefly, it would appear, on the
execution of a pig. The last remnant of stiffness vanished before this
inspiring theme, and the audience roared applause as one man, whereupon
Mr Jevons bashfully hid his face, and skipped--literally skipped--from
the platform.
"Who'd have thought it! Butlers are human beings, after all!" gasped
Darsie, wiping tears of merriment from her eyes. "Ralph, do you suppose
Jevons will dance with me to-night? I _should_ be proud!"
"Certainly not. He has one square dance with the mater, and that
finishes it. You must dance with me instead. It's ages since we've had
a hop together--or a talk. I'm longing to have a talk, but I don't want
the others to see us at it, or they'd think I was priming you in my own
defence, and the mater wants to have the first innings herself. We'll
manage it somehow in the interval between the dances, and I know you'll
turn out trumps, as usual, Darsie, and take my part."
Ralph spoke with cheerful confidence, and Darsie listened with a sinking
heart. The merry interlude of supper was robbed of its zest, as she
cudgelled her brains to imagine what she was about to hear. Ralph was
evidently in trouble of some sort, and his parents for once inclined to
take a serious stand. Yet anything more gay and debonair than the
manner with which the culprit handed round refreshments and waited on
his father's guests it would be impossible to imagine. Darsie watched
him across the room, and noted that wherever he passed faces brightened.
As he cracked jokes with the apple-cheeked farmers, waited assiduously
on their buxom wives, and made pretty speeches to the girls, no onlooker
could fail to be conscious of the fact that, in the estimation of the
tenants, "Master Ralph" was as a young prince who could do no wrong.
For reasons of his own, Ralph was tonight bent on ingratiating himself
to the full. For the first half-hour of the dance he led out one
village belle after another, and it was not until waltz number five had
appeared on the board that he returned to Darsie's side.
"At last I've a moment to myself! My last partner weighed a ton, at
least, and I'm fagged out. Got a scarf you can put round you if we go
and sit out?"
Darsie nodded, showing a wisp of gauze, and, laying her hand on Ralph's
arm, passed with him out of the main room into the flag-decked entrance.
For the moment it was empty, the dancers having made _en masse_ in the
direction of the refreshment-tables. Ralph looked quickly from side to
side, and, finding himself unobserved, took a key from his pocket and
opened a small door leading into the patch of garden at the back of the
hall. The moonlight showed a wooden bench fitted into a recess in the
wall. Ralph flicked a handkerchief over its surface, and motioned
Darsie towards a seat.
"It's clean enough. I gave it a rub this morning. You won't be cold?"
"Oh, no; not a bit." Darsie wrapped the wisp of gauze round her
shoulders, and prepared to risk pneumonia with as little thought as
ninety-nine girls out of a hundred would do in a similar case. The hour
had come when she was to be told the nature of Ralph's trouble; she
would not dream of losing the opportunity for so slight a consideration
as a chill!
Ralph seated himself by her side, rested an elbow on his knees, the
thumb and first finger of the uplifted hand supporting his chin. His
eyes searched Darsie's face with anxious scrutiny.
"You didn't hear anything about me before you left Newnham?"
"Hear what? No! What was there to hear?"
Ralph averted his eyes, and looked across the patch of garden. The
moonlight shining on his face gave it an appearance of pallor and
strain.
"Dan Vernon said nothing?"
"No!" Darsie recalled Dan's keen glance of scrutiny, the silence which
had greeted her own remarks, and realised the reason which lay behind.
"Dan is not the sort to repeat disagreeable gossip."
"It's not gossip this time; worse luck, it's solid, abominable fact.
You'll be disappointed, Darsie. I'm sorry! I _have_ tried. Beastly
bad luck being caught just at the end. I was sent down, Darsie! It was
just at the end of the term, so they sent me down for the last week. A
week is neither here nor there, but the parents took it hard. I'm
afraid you, too--"
Yes! Darsie "took it hard." One look at her face proved as much, and
among many contending feelings, disappointment was predominant--bitter,
intense, most humiliating disappointment.
"Oh, Ralph! What for? I hoped, I thought--you _promised_ me to be
careful!"
"And so I was, Darsie! Give you my word, I was. For the first half of
the term I never got anything worse than three penny fines. It isn't a
deadly thing to stay out after ten. And I was so jolly careful--never
was so careful in my life. But just the night when it was most
important I must needs be caught. You can't expect a fellow to get away
from a big evening before twelve. But that's what it ended in--a big
jaw, throwing up all my past misdeeds, and being sent down. Now you can
slang away."
But Darsie made no attempt to "slang." With every word that had been
uttered her feelings of helplessness had increased. Ralph had
apparently made little difference in his ways; he had only been more
careful not to be found out! At the very moment when she had been
congratulating herself, and boasting of the good results of her
friendship, this crowning disgrace had fallen upon him. No wonder Dan
had been silent; no wonder that he had looked upon her with that long,
questioning gaze! The thought of Dan was singularly comforting at this
moment--strong, silent, loyal Dan, going forth valiantly to the battle
of life. Darsie's little face took on a pinched look; she shivered, and
drew the thin scarf more tightly round her. Her silence, the suffering
written on her face, hit Ralph more hardly than any anger; for the first
time something deeper than embarrassment showed itself in face and
voice.
"For pity's sake, Darsie, speak! Say something! Don't sit there and
look at me like that."
"But, Ralph, what is there to say?" Darsie threw out her arms with a
gesture of hopelessness. "I've talked so often, been so eloquent,
believed so much! If this is the outcome, what more can be said?"
"I _have_ tried! I _did_ want to please you!"
"By not being found out! It's not much comfort, Ralph, to feel that
I've encouraged you in deception. And all those nights when you stayed
out late, were you betting as usual--getting into debt?"
Ralph frowned.
"I've been beastly unlucky, never knew such a persistent run. That's
the dickens of it, Darsie. I haven't dared to tell the Governor yet,
but I positively must get hold of the money before the tenth. I'm bound
to pay up by then. It's a debt of honour."
Darsie's red lip curled over that word. She sat stiff and straight in
her seat, not deigning a reply. Ralph appeared to struggle with himself
for several moments, before he said urgently--
"The mater is going to talk to you. She knows that you have more
influence with me than any one else. It's true, Darsie, whatever you
may think--I should have drifted a lot deeper but for you. When she
does, do your best for a fellow! They'll be down on me for not having
told about this debt. The Governor asked if there was anything else,
but upon my word I hadn't the courage to own up at that moment."
Still Darsie did not reply. She was wondering drearily what she could
find to say when the dreaded interview came about; shrinking from the
thought of adding to the mother's pain, feeling a paralysing sense of
defeat; yet, at this very moment of humiliation, a ray of light
illumined the darkness and showed the reason of her failure.
Dan was right! no one could truly help a man without first implanting in
his heart the wish to help himself! She had been content to bribe
Ralph, as a spoiled child is bribed to be good; had felt a glow of
gratified vanity in the knowledge that her own favour was the prize to
be won. If the foundations of her buildings were unstable, what wonder
that the edifice had fallen to the ground? The thought softened her
heart towards the handsome culprit by her side, and when she spoke at
last it was in blame of herself rather than of him.
"I'm sorry, too, Ralph. I might have helped you better. I rushed in
where angels fear to tread. I gave you a wrong motive. It should have
been more than a question of pleasing me--more even than pleasing your
parents... Oh, Ralph, dear, you know--you know there is something
higher than that!--Is religion nothing to you, Ralph? Don't you feel
that in wasting your life you are offending against God--against Christ!
Can't you try again with _that_ motive to help you?--I can't make light
of things to your people, but I can take part of the blame on myself.
If it is true that I have any influence over you, I have thrown it
away..."
Ralph laid his hand over the gloved fingers clasped together on Darsie's
knee.
"Don't say that! Don't think that, Darsie. I may be a rotter, but I'd
have been a hundred times worse if it hadn't been for you. And don't
exaggerate the position: it's a pity to do that. Every man isn't born a
Dan Vernon. Most fellows only reach that stage of sobriety when they
are middle-aged. It would be a pretty dull world if no one kicked over
the traces now and then in their youth. What have I done, after all?
Slacked my work, helped myself to a bit more play and come down on the
Governor for an extra cheque now and again. Lots of fellows come a
worse cropper than that--"
Darsie wondered if a "worse cropper" might not possibly be a less
serious ill than persistent slacking and irresponsibility; but now that
the bad news was out, Ralph was fast regaining his composure.
"I'll turn out all right yet, Darsie, you'll see. The tenants like me.
I'll settle down and make a first-rate squire when my time comes. And
I'll make up to you then for all this worry and bother." For a moment
his voice was significantly tender, then the recollection of his present
difficulty swept over him once more, and he added hastily: "You'll--
you'll break it to the mater, won't you? About that money, I mean.
She'll take it best from you--"
Darsie rose from her seat, and stood before him, tall and white in the
moonlight.
"No!" she said clearly. "I will not. You must make your own
confession. Things have been made easy for you all your life, Ralph.
Now you must fight for yourself."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralph bore no malice; even his momentary irritation at finding himself,
as he considered, "left in the lurch," lasted but a few moments after
his return to the hall. Darsie would rather have had it last a little
longer. To see an unclouded face, to catch the echo of merry laughter
within ten minutes of a humiliating confession, seemed but another
instance of instability of character. It seemed literally impossible
for Ralph to feel deeply on any subject for more than a few moments at a
time; nevertheless, such was the charm of his personality that she felt
both pleased and flattered when twelve o'clock approached and he came
smilingly forward to lead her to her place in the great ring encircling
the whole room. "I must have you and mother--one on either side," he
said, and as they crossed the floor together Darsie was conscious that
every eye in the room followed them with a smiling significance. The
young Squire, and the pretty young lady who was his sister's friend--a
nice pair they made, to be sure! Every brain was busy with dreams of
the future, weaving romantic plans, seeing in imagination other scenes
like the present, with Darsie in the place of hostess. She knew it,
divined instinctively that Ralph knew it too, felt the recognition of it
in the grip of Noreen's hand, in the tender pathos of Mrs Percival's
smile. And once again Darsie wondered, and doubted, and feared and felt
the weight of invisible chains. There are moments, however, when doubts
and fears are apt to be swept away in a rush of overwhelming emotions,
and one of those is surely the beginning of a new year. To be young and
pretty; to be by general acceptance the queen of the evening--no normal
girl could help being carried away by such circumstances as these! When
the last chime of the twelve rang slowly out, and the audience with one
accord burst into the strains of "Auld Lang Syne," Darsie's eyes shone
with excitement, and she returned with unction the pressure of Ralph's
fingers.
"Then here's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine!"
The volume of sound swelled and sank, here and there a voice took a
husky tone; here and there an eye grew dim, but these belonged as a rule
to the patriarchs among the guests, for whom the past was full of tender
memories, for whom but a few more New Years could dawn. Perhaps this
might be the last, the very last, they would live to see. The young
folks shed no tears; they were not unconscious of the prevailing
emotion, but with them it found vent in a tingling expectation. Life
lay ahead. Life was to come. What would life bring?
When the song ceased, and the linked circle broke up into separate
groups, Darsie, glancing up into Ralph's face, was surprised to see it
white and tense. She smiled, half amused, half sad, bracing herself to
hear some emotional protest or vow for the future; but Ralph spake no
word. Instead, he led her to a seat, bowed formally before her, and,
still with that white, fixed look, marched straight across the room to
his father.
Darsie's pulse quickened, her little teeth clenched on her lower lip,
she pressed her hands against her knee the while she watched the
eloquent scene. Father and son faced each other; handsome man, handsome
youth, strangely alike despite the quarter of a century between their
respective ages; the Squire's face, at first all genial welcome and
unconcern, showing rapidly a pained gravity. Ralph was speaking
rapidly, with an occasional eloquent gesture of the arm, obviously
recounting some facts of pressing importance to himself and his hearer,
as obviously pleading a cause. With a thrill of excitement Darsie
leaped to the true explanation of the situation. Fresh from the singing
of the New Year song, Ralph had not paused to consider conventions, but
then and there had hastened to make his confession in his father's ears.
"Governor! I'm sorry! I was a coward, and wouldn't own up. I've been
playing the fool again, and have lost more money. I owe over fifty
pounds, and it has to be paid up by the tenth of this month."
The Squire looked his son full in the face.
"Is that all the truth, Ralph, or only a part?" he asked quietly. "Let
me hear the whole please, now that we are about it."
"That is the whole, sir. There's nothing more to be told."
"The money shall be paid, but you must do something for me in return.
We can't talk here. Come to my study when we get home!"
The Squire laid his hand on his son's shoulder with a momentary pressure
as he turned aside to attend to his guests, but Ralph lopped crestfallen
and discomfited. It was one thing to blurt out a disagreeable
confession on the impulse of a moment, and another and very different
one to discuss it in cold blood in the privacy of a study. In the
middle of the night, too! Ralph shivered at the thought. Why on earth
couldn't the Governor be sensible, and wait till next morning? The
money would be paid--that was the main point--all the rest could wait.