The three girls looked at each other in eloquent silence. Easy to talk.

Forget, indeed. As if they _could_! Mother didn't really believe what she said. She was making the best of it, and there were occasions when making the best of it seemed just the most aggravating thing one could do.

It was a relief to the girls when Mrs Garnett was summoned from the room on household business, and they were left to themselves. A craving for sympathy was the predominant sensation, and prompted the suggestion, "Let's wire to the Vernons," which was followed by a stampede upstairs.

The telegraph was a sufficiently new inst.i.tution to appear a pleasure rather than a toil, even though a message thus dispatched was an infinitely longer and more laborious effort than a run round the terrace, so to-day a leaf was torn from the note-book, a dramatic announcement penned and placed in the hanging-bag, with its jingling bell of warning, and the three girls took it in turns to pull at the cord till the missive arrived at its destination. Attracted by the sound of the bell, Vie and plain Hannah stood at the window awaiting the communication, read over its contents, and stood silent and dismayed.

The Garnetts, watching from afar, realised the dramatic nature of that pause, and thrilled in sympathy.

"_One of us is going to be sent to prison instead of to the country_!"

"_Prison_!" Vie and plain Hannah wagged their heads over the cipher, hesitated long, pencil in hand, and, finally, in a frenzy of impatience, which refused to be curbed even by loyalty to the telegraph itself, dispatched an urgent summons to speech--

"_Come round and talk_!"

The Garnetts flew. The Vernons, waiting upon the doorstep, escorted them upstairs to the scantily furnished room which had first been a nursery, then promoted to playroom, and, ultimately, when the more juvenile name wounded the susceptibilities of its inmates, had become definitely and proudly "the study." The bureau in the corner was Dan's special property, and might not be touched by so much as a finger-tip.

The oak table with three sound legs and a halting fourth, supported by an ancient volume of _Good Words_, was Vie's property; John and plain Hannah shared the dining-table, covered with the shabby green baize cloth, which stood in the centre of the room. There were a variety of uncomfortable chairs, an ink-splashed drugget, and red walls covered with pictures which had been banished from other rooms as they acquired the requisite stage of decrepitude and grime.

The five girls surged into the room, faced each other, and burst into eager speech--

"_Who's_ going to prison?"

"We don't know. Wish we did!"

"What do you mean by prison?"

"Aunt Maria's!"

"Lady Maria's?"

"Lady Maria's! One of us has to go and stay with her for eight weeks instead of going with you to the sea."

Vie Vernon collapsed on to the nearest chair, and gasped for breath.

"Stu-pendous!" she murmured beneath her breath. Vie had a new word each season which she used to describe every situation, good and bad. The season before it had been "Weird!" this season it was "Stupendous," and she was thankful for the extra syllable in this moment of emotion.

"It's really true? You mean it in earnest? _Why_?"

"Thinks it would be a pleasure to us, and that we should be cheery companions. _So_ likely, isn't it?"

"But--but surely your mother-- What does she say?"

"Preaches! Oughtn't to think of ourselves. Ought to show a right spirit and go."

"Stu-pendous!" cried Vie once again. Plain Hannah hoisted herself on to the corner of the table, and hunched herself in thought. She really was extraordinarily plain. Looking at her critically, it seemed that everything that should have been a line had turned into a curve, and everything that should have been a curve into a line; she was thick-set, clumsy, awkward in gait, her eyes were small, her mouth was large, she had a meagre wisp of putty-coloured hair, and preposterously thick eyebrows several shades darker in hue, and no eyelashes at all. Friends and relations lavished much pity on poor dear Hannah's unfortunate looks, but never a sigh did Hannah breathe for herself. She was strong and healthy, her st.u.r.dy limbs stood her in good stead in the various games and sports in which she delighted, and she would not have exchanged her prowess therein for all the pink cheeks and golden locks in the world. Hannah's manner, like her appearance, lacked grace and charm; it was abrupt, forceful, and to the point. She spoke now, chin sunk in her grey flannel blouse, arms wrapped round her knees--

"Is she coming to see you before she chooses, or will it be done by post?"

"She's coming! Two days next week. Isn't it too awful? We were so happy--the telegraph up, and the weather jolly, and holidays nearly here. 'All unsuspecting of their doom the little victims played.' And then--_this_! Holidays with Aunt Maria! Even the third of a chance turns me cold with dismay. I couldn't bear--"

"You won't need to. She won't have you. She'll choose Darsie."

Darsie squealed in shrillest protest--

"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 impa.s.sioned 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 rea.s.sured 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!

CHAPTER FOUR.

A DOUBLE PICNIC.

Only four days before Aunt Maria arrived to make her great decision!

The Garnetts were living in what Darsie graphically described as "the hush before the storm," adored, condoned, and indulged by parents who saw before them the pangs of separation, and by brothers shrewdly expectant of parting spoils.

Clemence, Darsie, and Lavender were acutely conscious of the rarified atmosphere by which they were surrounded, and only regretted its necessarily limited duration.

"Let's take advantage of it!" cried Darsie, the diplomat. "It's our chance; we should be noodles if we let it slip. Anything we ask now they'll let us have. It's like prisoners who can order what they like for supper the night before they're hanged. Let's think what we'd like, and go in a body and pet.i.tion mother. She won't have the heart to refuse!"

The sisters agreed enthusiastically, but were not rich in suggestions.

It is one of the curious things in life that whereas every day one is brought up sharply against a dozen longings and ambitions, without the fulfilment of which it seems impossible to live, yet if the sudden question be put, "_What would you have_?" instantly the brain becomes a blank, and not a single suggestion is forthcoming. The Garnetts stared at one another in labouring silence. It was too late for parties; too early for pantomimes, a definite gift, failed to meet the case, since each girl thought with a pang, "What's the use? I might not be here to enjoy it!" Extra indulgences, such as sitting up at night, or being "let off" early morning practising, did not appear sufficiently important, since, with a little scheming, these might be gained in addition. It was Lavender who at last succeeded in hitting the popular taste.