A College Girl by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (reading in the dark .TXT) 📖

“Strong arms—stout heart!” murmured Lavender in sentimental aside. “Well, then, tell about the treasure-hunt in the Percivals’ garden—and how you—you know! Go on—that’s another real adventure.”

“All Miss Darsie’s adventures seem to have been in connection with the Percival family!” remarked the Oxford man at this point.

Darsie flushed with annoyance, and retired determinedly into her shell. She was seated almost in the centre of the circle, between her father and John Vernon, and the leaping light of the fire showed up her face and figure in varying shades of colour. Now she was a rose-maiden, dress, hair, and face glowing in a warm pink hue; anon, the rose changed into a faint metallic blue, which gave a ghostlike effect to the slim form; again, she was all white—a dazzling, unbroken white, in which the little oval face assumed an air of childlike fragility and pathos. As she sat with her hands folded on her knee, and her head resting against the dark cushions of her chair, more than one of the company watched her with admiration: but Darsie was too much occupied with her own thoughts to be conscious of their scrutiny.

As each story-teller began his narrative, she cast a momentary glance in his direction, and then turned back to fire-gazing once more. Once or twice she cast a curious glance towards the far corner where Dan Vernon was seated, but he had drawn his chair so far back that nothing could be distinguished but the white blur of shirt-front. Darsie wondered if Dan were uninterested, bored, asleep—yet as her eyes questioned the darkness she had the strangest impression of meeting other eyes—dark, intent eyes, which stared, and stared—

Vie Vernon was telling “a most interesting coincidence,” her opening sentence—“It was told to me by a friend—a lawyer,”—causing surreptitious smiles and nudges among her younger hearers. “There was a girl in his office—a typewriting girl. All the money had been lost—”

“Whose money? The lawyer’s or the office’s?”

“Neither! Don’t be silly. The girl’s father’s, of course.”

“You never told us that she had a father!”

“Russell, if you interrupt every minute, I won’t play. Of course he’d lost it, or the girl wouldn’t have been a typist. Any one would know that! Ed—the lawyer did sea-sort of business—what do you call it?—marine things—and the girl typed them. Years before a brother had disappeared—”

“The lawyer’s brother?”

“No! I’m sorry I began. You are so disagreeable, The girl’s uncle, of course, and they often wanted to find him, because he was rich, and might have helped them now they were poor. One day, when she was typing out one of the depositions—”

“Ha!” The unusual word evoked unanimous comment. “‘De-pos-itions—if you please’! How legal we are becoming, to be sure!”

Vie flushed, and hurried on breathlessly—

“She came across the name of John H. Rose, and she wondered if the H. meant Hesselwhaite, for that was her uncle’s second name, and she looked it up in the big document, and it was him, and he was on the west coast of South America, and they wrote to him, and he left them a lot of money, and they lived happy ever after.”

Polite murmurs of astonishment from the elders, unconcealed sniggerings from the juniors, greeted the conclusion of this thrilling tale, and then once more Darsie was called upon for her contribution, and this time consented without demur.

“Very well! I’ve thought of a story. It’s about a managing clerk who was sent to Madrid on business for his firm. I didn’t know him myself, so don’t ask questions! While he was in Madrid he went to the opera one night, and sat in a box. Just opposite was another box, in which sat a beauteous Spanish maid. He looked at her, and she looked at him. They kept looking and looking. At last he thought that she smiled, and waved her fan as if beckoning him to come and speak to her. So in the first interval the eager youth made his way along the richly carpeted corridors; but just as he reached the door of the box it opened, and a man came out and put a letter into his hand. It was written in Spanish, which the youth did not understand; but, being filled with a frenzy of curiosity to know what the fair one had to say, he decided to run to his hotel, and get the manager to translate it without delay. Well, he went; but as soon as the manager had read the note he started violently, and said in a manner of the utmost concern: ‘I exceedingly regret, sir, to appear inhospitable or inconsiderate, but I find it my painful duty to ask you to leave my hotel within an hour.’ The clerk protested, questioned, raged, and stormed, but all in vain. The manager refused even to refer to the letter; he simply insisted that he could entertain him no longer in the hotel, and added darkly: ‘It would be well for the Señor to take the first train out of Spain.’

“Alarmed by this mysterious warning, the unhappy youth accordingly shook off the dust from his feet and returned to London, where he confided his woes to his beloved and generous employer. The employer was a Spanish merchant and understood the language, so he naturally offered to solve the mystery. No sooner, however, had his eye scanned the brief lines, than a cloud shadowed his expressive countenance, and he addressed himself to the youth more in sorrow than in anger. ‘It grieves me to the heart, Mr—er—Bumpas,’ he said, ‘to sever our connection after your faithful service to the firm; but, after the perusal of this note, I have unfortunately no choice. If you will apply to the cashier he will hand you a cheque equal to six months’ salary; but I must ask you to understand that when you leave my office this morning it is for the last time!’”

A rustle of excitement from the audience, a momentary glimpse of Dan’s face in the flickering light, testified to the interest of this extraordinary history.

Darsie bent forward to encourage her fir-cone with a pat from the poker, and continued dramatically—

“Bewildered, broken-hearted, almost demented, the unfortunate youth betook him to an uncle in America (all uncles seem to live in America), who received him with consideration, listened to his sad tale, and bade him be of good cheer. ‘By a strange coincidence’ (coincidence again!) said the worthy man, ‘there sups with me to-night a learned professor of languages, resident at our local college. He, without doubt, will make plain the mysterious contents of the fatal note!’ Punctual to his hour the professor arrived, and the harassed youth hailed with joy the end of his long suspense. Whatever might be the purport of the words written in that fatal paper, the knowledge thereof could not be worse than the fate which had dogged his footsteps ever since that tragic night when he had first cast eyes on the baleful beauty of the Spanish maid. Yet might it not be that once again the sight of these words would send him wandering homeless o’er the world—that the stream of his uncle’s benevolence might be suddenly damned by a force mysterious as inexorable?

“Trembling with emotion, the young man thrust his hand into his pocket to bring forth this mystic note—”

Darsie paused dramatically.

“And—and—and then—?”

“He discovered that it was not there! In the course of his long wanderings it had unfortunately been mislaid.”

The clamour of indignation which followed this dénouement can be better imagined than described but the example having been set, wonderful how many stories of the same baffling character were revived by the different members of the company during the remainder of the firelight stance. So wild and exaggerated did the narratives become, indeed, that the meeting broke up in confusion, and took refuge in those admittedly uproarious Christmas games which survived from the happy nursery days, when “to make as much noise as we like” seemed the climax of enjoyment.

And so ended Christmas Day for the joint ranks of the Vernons and Garnetts.