May week followed hard on the Tripos that year, but Darsie took no part
in the festivities. The remembrance of the tragic event of last summer
made her shrink from witnessing the same scenes, and in her physically
exhausted 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 been
the scene of so many joys and sorrows during the last three years.
Vie Vernon, as a publicly engaged young lady, was paying a round of
visits to her _fiance's_ relations, but Mr and Mrs Vernon had come up
as usual, arranging to keep on their rooms, so that they might have the
satisfaction of being in Cambridge when the Tripos List came out. With
a son like Dan and a daughter like Hannah, satisfaction was a foregone
conclusion; calm, level-headed creatures both of them, who were not to
be flurried or excited by the knowledge of a critical moment, but most
sanely and sensibly collected their full panoply of wits to turn them to
good account.
Hannah considered it in the last degree futile to dread an exam. "What
else," she would demand in forceful manner--"what else are you working
for? For what other reason are you here?" But her arguments, though
unanswerable, continued to be entirely unconvincing to Darsie and other
nervously constituted students.
The same difference of temperament showed itself in the manner of
waiting for results. Dan and Hannah, so to speak, wiped their pens
after the writing of the last word of the last paper, and there and then
resigned themselves to their fate. They had done their best; nothing
more was possible in the way of addition or alteration--for good or ill
the die was cast. Then why worry? Wait quietly, and take what came
along!
Blessed faculty of common sense! A man who is born with such a
temperament escapes half the strain of life, though it is to be doubted
whether he can rise to the same height of joy as his more imaginative
neighbour, who lies awake shivering at the thought of possible ills, and
can no more "wait quietly" for a momentous decision than he could
breathe with comfort in a burning house.
When the morning arrived on which the results of the Tripos were to be
posted on the door of the Senate House, Darsie and Hannah had taken a
last sad farewell of their beloved Newnham, and were ensconced with Mr
and Mrs Vernon in their comfortable rooms. The lists were expected to
appear early in the morning, and the confident parents had arranged a
picnic "celebration" party for the afternoon.
Darsie never forgot that morning--the walk to the Senate House with Dan
and Hannah on either side, the sight of the waiting crowd, the strained
efforts at conversation, the dragging hours.
At long last a list appeared--the men's list only: for the women's a
further wait would be necessary. But one glance at the paper showed
Dan'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 his
eyes shone, and when Darsie held out her hand he gripped it with a
violence which almost brought the tears to her eyes.
The crowd cleared away slowly, the women students retiring to refresh
themselves with luncheon before beginning a second wait. The Vernons
repaired to their rooms and feasted on the contents of the hamper
prepared for the picnic, the father and mother abeam with pride and
satisfaction, Dan obviously filled with content, and dear old Hannah
full of quips. Darsie felt ashamed of herself because she alone failed
to 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 back
into her mind with a torturing pang. How much longer of this agony
could she stand? Anything, anything would be better than this dragging
on in suspense, hour after hour. But when once again the little party
approached the Senate House, she experienced a swift change of front.
No, no, this was not suspense; it was hope! Hope was blessed and
kindly. Only certainty was to be dreaded, the grim, unalterable fact.
The little crowd of girls pressed forward to read the lists. Darsie
peered with the rest, but saw nothing but a mist and blur. Then a voice
spoke loudly by her side; Hannah's voice:
"First Class! _Hurrah_!"
Whom did she mean? Darsie's heart soared upward with a dizzy hope, her
eyes cleared and flashed over the list of names. Hannah Vernon--Mary
Bates--Eva Murray--many names, but not her own.
The mist and the blur hid the list once more, she felt an arm grip her
elbow, and Dan's voice cried cheerily--
"A Second Class! Good for you, Darsie! I thought you were going to
fail."
It was a relief. Not a triumph; not the proud, glad moment of which she
had dreamed, but a relief from a great dread. The girls congratulated
her, 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 that
Modern Languages had had an uncommonly stiff time this year. Modern
Languages who had themselves gained a first class, kept discreetly out
of the way. Hannah said, "See, I was right! Are you satisfied now?"
No one showed any sign of disappointment. Perhaps no one but herself
had believed in the possibility of a first class.
The last band of students turned away from the gates with a strange
reluctance. It was the last, the very last incident of the dear old
life--the happiest years of life which they had ever known, the years
which from this moment would exist but as a memory. Even the most
successful felt a pang mingling with their joy, as they turned their
backs on the gates and walked quietly away.
Later that afternoon Dan and Darsie found themselves strolling across
the meadows towards Grantchester. They were alone, for, the picnic
having fallen through, Mr and Mrs Vernon had elected to rest after the
day's excitement, and Hannah had settled herself down to the writing of
endless letters to relations and friends, bearing the good news of the
double honours.
Darsie's few notes had been quickly accomplished, and had been more
apologetic than jubilant in tone, but she honestly tried to put her own
feelings in the background, and enter into Dan's happiness as he
confided to her his plans for the future.
"I'm thankful I've come through all right--it means so much. I'm a
lucky fellow, Darsie. I've got a rattling opening, at the finest of the
public schools, the school I'd have chosen above all others. Jenson got
a mastership there two years ago--my old coach, you remember! He was
always good to me, thought more of me than I deserved, and he spoke of
me to the Head. There's a vacancy for a junior master next term. They
wrote 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 that
you deserve your reward. A mastership, and time to write--that's your
ambition still? You are still thinking of your book?"
"Ah, my book!" Dan's dark eyes lightened, his rugged face shone. It
was easy to see how deeply that book of the future had entered into his
life's plans. He discussed it eagerly as they strolled across the
fields, pointing out the respects in which it differed from other
treatises of the kind; and Darsie listened, and sympathised, appreciated
to the extent of her abilities, and hated herself because, the more
absorbed and eager Dan grew, the more lonely and dejected became her own
mood. Then they talked of Hannah and her future. With so good a record
she would have little difficulty in obtaining her ambition in a post as
mathematical mistress at a girls' school. It would be hard on Mrs
Vernon to lose the society of both her daughters, but she was wise
enough 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, incompetent
girls!" sighed Darsie in reply, and her heart swelled with a sudden
spasm of rebellion. "Oh, Dan, after all my dreams! I'm so bitterly
disappointed. Poor little second-class me!"
"_Don't_, Darsie!" cried Dan sharply. He stood still, facing her in the
narrow path, but now the glow had gone from his face; it was twisted
with lines of pain and anxiety. "Darsie! it's the day of my life, but
it'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've
failed for a first yourself, can't you--can't you take any comfort out
of _mine_? It's more than half your own. I'd never have got there by
myself!"
"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 the
old study one afternoon, when all the others were out, talking about
poor Percival, and your answer to a question I asked? `_He needs me,
Dan_!' you said. I argued very loftily about the necessity of a man
standing alone and facing his difficulties by himself, and you said that
was true, but only a part of the truth. I've found that out for myself
since then. If that was true of Percival, it is fifty times truer of
me! _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 probably
always be poor. For years to come I shall be grinding away as a junior
master. Even when the book is written it can never bring much return in
a 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'll
remember 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 had
vanished; a marvellous new interest had entered into her life; she was
filled 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 class
by yourself, and all the honours in the world couldn't improve you. And
now 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 another
moment looking back on the massed towers and spires of Cambridge, then
slowly, reluctantly, turned away.
A new life lay ahead, its outline vague and undefined like that of the
landscape around, but the sun was shining. It shone full on their young
faces, as they went forward, hand in hand.