'From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.We climbed on the graves, on the stones, worn with rains,And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.'"
'From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.We climbed on the graves, on the stones, worn with rains,And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.'"
'From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.We climbed on the graves, on the stones, worn with rains,And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.'"
"That's the part Daddy's drawing—just where they're peeping in through the windows. He sketched Lilith this morning for the youngest mermaiden; he's given her a little fish's tail, and she looks such a darling! And Beata and Romola are bigger ones, leaning on a gravestone with their arms round each other's neck, and garlands of shells in their hair, and Constable is holding up a great trail of sea-weed. Father's going to draw me as Margaret for one illustration; I'm to be sitting at my wheel 'in the humming town'. He's just bought a ducky little spinning-wheel on purpose!"
"What fun to be put in a picture!"
"No, it isn't! We all think it a horrid nuisance to have to be Daddy's models and sit still for hours just when we want to do something else. But you'll like the merman picture, especially Lilith. She's really sweet!"
"You've seen the mermaid carved on the chancel bench inside?" asked Lorraine.
"No, I haven't. I've not been to the church on week-days."
"I go sometimes. Mr. Jacques lets me practise on the organ," said Morland. "But I've never noticed any mermaid there."
"Oh, come in and look at her, then! She's worth seeing."
The church was open, so they stepped from the sunshine outside into the soft diffused golden light glowing on sandstone pillars, oak-beamed roof, and saint-filled windows. It was newly decorated for harvest festival—great clumps of Michaelmas daisieshid the font, scarlet bryony berries trailed from the lectern, and chrysanthemums screened the pulpit. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers. Lorraine led the way to the chancel, and, moving aside some torch lilies, disclosed to view the end of a choir-bench, where, on the ancient black oak, was roughly carved the figure of a mermaid, with comb and glass in hand.
"There's a story about her," said Lorraine. "There was a young fisherman who sang in the choir. He had such a lovely voice that it was more beautiful even than her own, and she fell in love with him. She used to come on Sunday evenings and sit outside the church to listen to him singing. Then, one day when he was out in his boat, she rose up from the waves and beckoned to him. He rowed close to her, and she suddenly clasped him in her arms and carried him down into the sea. He was never seen again; and the villagers carved the picture of the mermaid in the church to remind people of what had happened."
"What a most amazing story! I must tell Daddy. Perhaps he'll like to draw that too," said Claudia. "By the by, where's Landry?" looking round anxiously after her charge.
"He's all right," Morland assured her. "He's gone up those dusty stairs into a little musty, cobwebby gallery. He always goes and sits there while I'm practising the organ. Can't think why he should like it; but he doesn't do any harm, so I let him. Look! You can see him."
Morland pointed upwards, where, at the west end of the church, ran a small gallery. Over its carved oak balustrade leaned Landry, like a cherub on a Jacobean monument. The sunlight, glinting through the window above, turned his golden curls into a halo.
"He's waiting for me to play," continued Morland.
"Oh, do!" cried Lorraine.
The organ was unlocked, so Morland seated himself and began to improvise slow, dreamy, haunting music, that rose and fell through the little church like the murmur of the sea. Whatever faults of character the boy might have, his face was rapt when he played, and to Lorraine it seemed as if the very saints and angels in the stained-glass windows were looking and listening. Landry sat with parted lips and far-away blue eyes.
"He's always quiet when Morland is playing," whispered Claudia. "He loves music. I wish we could teach him. I've tried, but it's absolutely hopeless. He'd sit there all the afternoon, and I verily believe Morland would too, once he's started on that organ. We shall have to stop him if we want to go on with our walk. Morland! We're keeping Lorraine waiting!"
Morland came back from the clouds and closed the organ, Claudia beckoned Landry down from the gallery, and they stepped out again into the sunshine and the fresh salt breeze that blew up from the shore.
It was a beautiful path to Tangy Point, all alongthe edge of the cliffs, with great rugged rocks below, and the sea lapping gently on the shingle. Gulls flashed white wings against the autumn blue of the sky, and linnets twittered among the gorse bushes; here and there a few wild flowers lingered, and Claudia picked quite a summer-looking bouquet. The Point was a narrow spit of land crowned with a cairn, and here the young people climbed to get the view over the western sea.
"I believe all here under the water is the lost land of Lyonesse!" said Lorraine. "In King Arthur's days it was a prosperous place with cornfields and villages, and then the sea came and swallowed it all up. Fishermen say there's a castle and a church under the waves still, and that sometimes they can hear the bells ringing, but of course that's just imagination."
"Perhaps the mermaids live there!" laughed Claudia.
"You'd better send Lilith to look!"
"I say," said Morland, "there's a sort of a path down here. Are you game to come and explore?"
"Of course we are! It will be topping down on those sands. Leave your flowers here, Claudia; you can get them when we come back."
The path down to the sands was a scramble, but not particularly difficult for agile young limbs. It led them on to a belt of rocks, where ghost-like little fishes were darting across silvery pools, and small crabs were scuttling among tangled masses of sodden, salt-scented sea-weed, and sea-anemones spread scarlet tentacles in the clearwater. The wall-like, reddish-brown cliff rose almost sheer above, with gulls and puffins and guillemots and cormorants perched on its rugged crags, or rising to circle screaming in the air.
"Looks like the entrance to a cave over there!" said Morland. "Bet you six cigarettes to six chocolates I'm right!"
"You oughtn't to bet, you naughty boy!" returned Claudia. "Besides, we can't get any chocolates nowadays. We'll go and see, though, if it really is a cave. I love exploring."
To reach the place Morland had pointed out, they were obliged to struggle through jungles of brown sea-weed, and to slip down little precipices slimy with green sea-grass, and to scramble over rough projecting points of rock, honey-combed into queer shapes by the action of the tide. A jump across a crevice and a climb up a few feet of sheer precipice landed them at the entrance of the cave. Morland scrambled in front, and gave a hand to the others.
They found themselves in a large, rounded grotto, the walls of which shelved gently in a series of natural ledges; the floor was dry, and covered with fine silvery sand, and at the far end lay a pile of timber, washed in perhaps from some wreck by an abnormally high tide. The afternoon sun shone through the entrance and gleamed on little bits of mica and spar in the walls, making them glitter like diamonds.
"What an adorable place!" exclaimed Claudia with enthusiasm.
"Topping!" agreed Morland.
"A regular sea-nymphs' grotto!" exulted Lorraine, and Landry, who was not given to words, smiled, and pulling out a piece of timber sat down upon it.
"A good idea!" said Lorraine, following suit. "Look here, I've just had a brain wave. Let's appropriate the cave, and call it ours. Except just in the August holidays, I don't suppose anybody ever comes here, so we should have it quite to ourselves. It shall be a real sea-nymphs' grotto. We'll get shells from the shore, and make lovely patterns with them all along those ledges, and hang sea-weeds about, and make some seats with those pieces of wood, and we'll come out here on Saturdays sometimes, and bring our lunch. What votes?"
"A1! I'm your man, or rather your merman!" grinned Morland. "Any good recipe for growing a fish's tail, please? A diet of whelks and winkles not welcome, for my digestion's delicate."
"It's a chubby idea!" beamed Claudia. "I'd love it, only Idobargain we keep it to ourselves. I don't want the whole tribe trailing after us every time we come. The little ones mustn't know anything about it."
"Ishan't tell them, you bet!" declared Morland.
"It isn't a suitable place to bring children," agreed Lorraine. "I won't say anything to Monica, or even to Mervyn, because he'd be sure to blurt it out to her. It shall be just our own secret."
"I expect it has been a sort of secret place," said Morland. "Those ledges look literally made for smugglers. No doubt they kept kegs of brandy there, and chests of tea, and bales of silk and lace in the good old days."
"Why shouldn't we keep a few things here?" suggested Claudia. "A kettle, and a tin of cocoa and milk, and some matches, and a box of biscuits. Then we could light a fire and have a little feast any time when we came."
"A ripping notion. I'll make a sort of cupboard with some of that wood to keep the things in. We'll bring cups and saucers as well as a kettle."
"And a frying pan in case we catch flukes down in the pools," put in Lorraine eagerly.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Morland, quite roused to enthusiasm. "I'll come over on Monday and bring a saw with me, and a hammer and nails, and see what I can knock together in the shape of a cupboard and seats. Then next Saturday we'll tramp over and have our picnic."
"Splendiferous!"
"We'll have to come in the morning, because of the tide."
"Right you are! I guess we'd better be getting back now. I haven't grown my merman's tail enough yet to swim with, and I've no wish to stop here all night."
Morland kept his word, and went on Monday to the cave, armed with various useful tools. He could work well enough at anything that took his fancy, and, though he never knocked ina nail at home, he toiled here in a way that would have amazed his family if they could have seen him. Landry went also, and helped in a fashion. He could not do much, but he held pieces of wood steady while his brother hammered, and he collected whole pocketfuls of shells from the beach.
Morland whistled cheerily as he worked. He wanted to give the girls a surprise, and, as they were busy at school all the week, he had the field to himself until Saturday. His artistic temperament found scope in the decoration of the cavern; fresh ideas kept occurring to him, and he enjoyed carrying them out. He felt like a kind of combination of Robinson Crusoe and the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, with a spice of poetry running through it all.
Next Saturday Lorraine, having obtained permission from her mother to go to a picnic with the Castletons, started off, basket in hand, resisting the agonized entreaties of Monica, who implored to be allowed to accompany her.
"Sorry I can't take you to-day, Cuckoo! But you see they didn't ask you—only me. Beata and Romola aren't going either."
"But why shouldn't weallgo, and Madox too?" wailed Monica the spoilt.
"It's too far. Look here, I'll ask Mother to let you have some of the Castleton children to tea one day. Would that content you?"
"Ye—es!" conceded Monica doubtfully. "But it doesn't make up for this morning. I think you'reeverso mean, Lorraine!"
"Poor old Cuckoo! But you know you couldn't really have come in any case, for you're to be at the dentist's by eleven."
"Strafe the old dentist! I wish he were at the bottom of the sea!" declared the youngest of the Forrester family, with temper.
Lorraine ran away at last, and pelted up the hill to the Castletons' house, meeting Morland, Claudia, and Landry in the lane, whither they had fled to avoid a contingent of younger ones. They were laden with a cargo of miscellaneous articles—a kettle, a pan, some plates, and various tins.
"It's like a young removal," said Claudia.
"Or emigrating to the wilds of Canada," laughed Lorraine. "I've brought an enamelled mug, because it doesn't break like a teacup, and a little old Britannia metal teapot that I prigged from the attic. It was only going to be sent to a rummage sale, so we may just as well have it."
"Do mermaids drink tea, please?"
"No doubt they do when they can get it. Perhaps the smugglers taught them how."
Morland had intended to give the girls a surprise, and when they entered the grotto their amazement quite came up to his expectations. The cave seemed truly transformed into a sea-nymphs' palace. Landry had worked untiringly all the week picking up shells, and these were arranged in patterns, with long pieces of sea-weed draped artistically here and there. Fragments of wreckage had been neatly sawn and nailed together to form a cupboard, a table, and some seats, and just insidethe entrance, in white pebbles, was the word "Welcome".
Landry, in his own way as pleased as his brother, stood beaming. Morland, though inwardly proud, affected nonchalance.
"Couldn't make it look much, of course," he apologized.
"Much? Why, it's topping!"
"It's like a fairy-tale! However did you find time to do all this?"
"Oh! I just worked a bit," murmured Morland modestly.
The first picnic in the grotto was a huge success. To be sure the table was unsteady, and had a decided lop to one end, and the benches felt slightly insecure, but the girls said that added an element of adventure, for you never knew when you might be suddenly precipitated on to the floor. They put the cocoa, biscuits, and matches in tins, and stowed them away inside the new cupboard which Morland had placed in an angle of the rocky shelf, then, fearing that the rising tide would cover the shore below and cut off their retreat, they bade a regretful farewell to all their arrangements, promising themselves the pleasure of coming often again.
It seemed too early to go straight home, so they spent the afternoon rambling about the cliffs, watching the sea-birds or the waves that were dashing below. Time flew apace, and when they came down the hill again from Tangy Point the sky was golden with sunset. The warm eveninglight flooded the common, where brown bracken grew like a forest, and goldfinches flitted about among a grove of thistles. Lorraine, who had an eye for colour, picked a large wand-like sheaf of yellow ragwort, and, holding it over her shoulder, trudged through the thistles, sending showers of down to float in the breeze, and dispersing the goldfinches from their feast. With her eyes on the horizon instead of on the ground in front, she nearly walked into an easel that was stationed among the bracken. Its owner sprang up to save it, and Lorraine, stopping just in time, paused with her russet dress and flying brown hair a dark mass against the gold of the sky and the thistle-down background. There was a second of silence as a pair of clear hazel eyes grasped the picturesque impression and registered it; then a mellow voice murmured: "Kilmeny!"
"I'm dreadfully sorry!" apologized Lorraine.
"It doesn't matter at all. You did no damage."
"But I nearly knocked over your picture!"
"A miss is as good as a mile!"
"Why, it's Miss Lindsay!" exclaimed Claudia, coming up. "I thought you were still in Scotland."
"I've been back a week and am quite settled down again at Porthkeverne, and hope to stay here all the winter. Tell your father I'm coming up to see his pictures one day. I hear he's painting in pastel now. I've been going in for tempera. How are the babies? And Madox? He's a special friend of mine. I've brought them a box of real shortbread from Edinburgh. Yes, I'm making a sketch of this piece of the common. It appeals to me in the sunset."
"What a charming lady!Whois she?" whispered Lorraine as their party passed on.
"She's an artist—Miss Lindsay. We knew her in London, and it was she who advised Father to come and live at Porthkeverne. I'm glad she did, for we all like it just heaps better than Kensington."
"Does she live here?"
"She has rooms in the town and a studio down by the harbour, but she goes about to a great many places sketching. You'd love her pictures."
"I wish I could see them."
"Perhaps she'd let me take you some day to her studio."
"Oh! do you think she really would? Do you know I've never been inside a studio!"
Claudia laughed.
"You wouldn't want to if you'd had to sit as a model as often as I have! Would she, Morland?"
"Rather not. As a family I reckon we're fed up with studios," returned Morland. "Thank goodness I'm beyond the 'Bubbles' stage of beauty. It's Madox's turn for that!"
"Don't congratulate yourself too soon. I heard Father say the other day that you'd make an absolutely perfect study for 'Sir Galahad', and that Violet must tell Lizzie to clean that suit of armour, for he meant to begin it as soon as he'd finished 'Endymion'."
"Oh, strafe Sir Galahad!" groaned Morland. "The armour's the most beastly uncomfortable hot stuff to wear you can imagine. I wish I had a turned-up nose and freckles."
Lorraine, living in a modern unromantic house in the residents' suburbs of Porthkeverne, had hitherto had little or no acquaintance with the artist population of the town. They mostly lived in the old quarter, and had studios close to the harbour, their colony being centred round the Arts Club in the Guildhall. She had often watchedthem painting at their easels in the narrow picturesque streets, and had longed for a more intimate acquaintance. Their delightful Bohemian way of life had a fascination for her. She sometimes wished her father were an artist instead of a lawyer. It was so much more romantic to paint pictures than to make people's wills or transfer their property.
"Dad's utterly practical," she confided to Claudia. "He's busy all day at the office, and he prides himself on not being sentimental. He's about as artistic as that cow!"
"I'd swop dads with you," said Claudia. "I wish mine went to an office every day instead of to his studio."
"You won't forget about Miss Lindsay?"
"No, I'll try to take you, if you're really so keen about going."
Claudia was as good as her word, and one day came to school armed with a special invitation for herself and Lorraine. The latter, much excited, begged permission at home to accept.
"I think she's lovely, Mummie! Miss Lindsay, I mean. And I've never seen a studio, and Claudia says I'lladoreher pictures, so youwilllet me go, won't you?"
"If it won't interfere with your home lessons and practising. It's extremely kind of her to ask you, I'm sure."
"I'll justswatat my lessons when I get back, to make up, and I'll do my practising before breakfast."
"Very well, but don't stay later than half-past five. The evenings are beginning to get dark so soon now."
"Oh, thanks most immensely!"
To Lorraine, brought up in a little world consisting mostly of her own family and a circle of cousins, it was really quite an event to pay this visit into theterra incognitaof the Art Colony. She came to school in her best dress that afternoon, with the chain of amber beads that Donald had sent her from Italy. They were at present the only artistic things she possessed, and therefore the most suitable for the occasion.
She and Claudia hurried away as speedily as possible after four o'clock, and were soon tramping down the hill from The Gables and treading the narrow, quaint streets that led towards the sea. The harbour at Porthkeverne was a picturesque place that had figured over and over again on the walls of the Academy. Its green waters this afternoon sheltered a fleet of red-sailed fishing-boats, whose owners were busy making ready to put out into the bay. Over the beach and round about the breakwater flew hundreds of sea-birds, flapping in and out of the water, and pecking among the sea-weed on the rocks. Some venturesome urchins, scrambling after crabs, screamed almost as lustily as the gulls.
Along the quay, behind the barrels and upturned boats and baskets and old timber, was a row of irregular buildings that had once served as sailmakers' warehouses or boat builders' workshops.The artistic colony had joyfully seized upon these, and had turned them from their original use into a set of studios. Large glass windows fronted the bay, and twisting flights of steps and painted railings led up to the doors on which were brass plates with names well known both in London and provincial exhibitions.
Claudia led the way along the quay, crossing the gangway where the little river flowed down, and passing the "Sailors' Rest" where a few blue-jacketed old salts were reading the newspapers, then stopped at a particular flight of wooden steps that were painted pale sea-green. Up these she ran, and tapped at a half-open door.
"Come in!" said a voice, and the girls entered.
To Lorraine it was like a sudden peep into fairyland. The rough wooden walls of the studio had been covered with a soft brown embossed paper, that served as a background for sketches, framed and unframed, which were hung there. Pieces of tapestry and oriental curtains were draped between, and large blue-and-white willow-pattern plates made a frieze above. A rare walnut cabinet, a Japanese screen, a gate-legged table, some Chippendale chairs, and a carved oak cupboard composed the furniture of the room; and there were scattered about a large number of artistic "properties"—bright scarves, shells, beads, pottery, vases, pewter, and standing on the floor a huge brass jar filled with branches of flaming autumn leaves.
From the low arm-chair by the fire-place rose Miss Lindsay, a fitting centre for her beautifulsurroundings. She was one of those people who seem neither old nor young, for her intense personality quite overmastered any ravages time might have made in her appearance. The passing years, while they had brought a grey thread or two among the brown of the hair, had mellowed her expression; and the shining hazel eyes seemed as the windows of a soul behind, noble, tender, and full of sympathy. They were merry eyes, too, and they danced as their owner welcomed her guests.
"I've been expecting you, and the kettle's boiling! Sit here, Claudia, and you here, Kilmeny! Lorraine is her name? Never mind, I shall call her what I like. I hope you're fond of potato cake? And shortbread? It's the real kind from Edinburgh. You'd rather begin with plain bread and butter? What well brought-up girls!"
Seated on a round, silk cushion-footstool by the cheery wood fire, drinking tea from a cup covered with little pink roses, with the scent of late carnations wafted from a vase on the table, and her elbow almost touching the delicate blue-green velvet of Miss Lindsay's artistic dress, Lorraine looked round the studio, fascinated. She thought she had never seen such a delightful place. It appealed intensely to her romantic side, and with its bright draperies and cosy corners seemed like the opening scene of a novel. She was glad that the tea gave her some excuse for silence. She was too much interested in gazing about to find words for conversation.
Their hostess, wise in her generation, left her toherself until potato cakes and Scotch shortbread should thaw the ice and loose her tongue, and meantime discussed mutual friends with Claudia.
"We mustn't waste the precious daylight if you really want to see my pictures," she said after a while. "Come to the window and sit here on these chairs, and I'll put the sketches on the easel. They are a series I'm doing for a children's magazine in America. They're to be reproduced in colour."
Miss Lindsay's sketches were charming, and full of a quaint fancy. They were rendered in a medium of her own invention, a combination of pencil, paint, and crayon, which gave the soft effect of a pastel with the permanence of a water-colour. The first depicted a nurse holding by the hand a tiny child, who turned with wondering eyes to look at delicate little fairies which the grown-up person evidently did not see. In another a little boy sat in the forest playing with butterfly-winged elves who danced among the bright scarlet toadstools. A third showed a brownie in a tree-top, nestling by the side of a baby owl, and a fourth the pixies sporting under a starlit sky. There were many others, dainty, imaginative and ethereal, some illustrating poems or books, and some telling their own story, all painted with the same clever touch and light, brilliant colouring.
"These are my favourites, so I've shown them first, while the light lasts," said Miss Lindsay, "but I've heaps of other studies, landscapes mostly, sketches of Scotland I took this summer. I'll go on putting them on the easel, and when you'rereally bored stiff you must cry mercy, and I'll stop."
"Bored!" said Lorraine, with a sigh of intense satisfaction, "they're too lovely for anything! I'd give the world if I could paint like that!"
So they looked through piles of fascinating sketches till the short daylight had faded, and the logs on the fire began to throw queer shadows round the studio.
"We must go!" said Claudia at last. "I've some shopping to do for Violet on my way back, and she'll be raggy if I don't turn up soon. I rather believe the things are wanted for supper," she added casually.
"Then you must hurry," smiled Miss Lindsay, who was well acquainted with the Bohemian ways of the Castleton family. "Even artists don't like to be kept waiting for their meals, however absorbed they get in their pictures." Then, turning to Lorraine, "I'm going to ask you to do something for me, Kilmeny. Will you come to the common with me one day this week at sunset, in the same brown dress you wore last Saturday, and let me sketch you among the thistles and bracken?"
Lorraine flushed with pleasure. She had never stood as model in her life, and, though the experience might be stale and wearisome to Claudia, to her it had all the charm of novelty.
"Of course I will. Would you like me to come to-morrow?" she murmured delightedly. "And—I hope you don't mind my asking—but Ishouldlike to know why you call me 'Kilmeny'?"
"Because youlookedKilmeny. Don't you know the poem? She was stolen away by the fairies, and brought up in the place that George Macdonald callsAt the Back of the North Wind. Then:
'When seven long years were gone and fled,When grief was forgotten and hope was dead,And scarce was remembered Kilmeny's name:Late, late in the gloaming Kilmeny home came'.
'When seven long years were gone and fled,When grief was forgotten and hope was dead,And scarce was remembered Kilmeny's name:Late, late in the gloaming Kilmeny home came'.
'When seven long years were gone and fled,When grief was forgotten and hope was dead,And scarce was remembered Kilmeny's name:Late, late in the gloaming Kilmeny home came'.
Well, you see, I'm going to paint you just coming home, in the evening glow with the yellow light behind, and the thistles and brown bracken. The sheaf of golden ragwort will be like a wand, and you'll still have the spell of fairyland in your face. I'm not sure if I shan't put in a few half-transparent fairies escorting you back; they'd blend among the thistledown. I can see it all in my mind's eye, if I can only manage to paint it. You'll be sure to come in the brown dress?"
"Of course I will, though it's a terribly old one I keep for scramble walks."
"That doesn't matter in the least. It's the colour I want. The whole scheme was a harmony in brown."
Lorraine went twice to stand for Miss Lindsay on the common, and several times afterwards to her studio to be sketched with more detail. Her new friend made three or four separate studies for the picture, intending to work from them afterwards in oils.
"I've sent for quite a decent-sized canvas," she said. "And I'm going to try one or two experiments.I'm not often pleased with my own work, but I like these studies, and feel inspired to do a three by two-and-a-half. Kilmeny, I believe you're going to prove my mascot!"
When Lorraine tried to analyse afterwards why she had at once taken such an extreme liking for Miss Lindsay, she decided that the attraction lay in her voice. On some sensitive temperaments the quality of a voice has as much effect as personal beauty. A rasping, sharp, fretful or uncompromising tone may be as disagreeable as a wrong accent, but the harps of our spirits, finely and delicately strung, vibrate and thrill to kindly, cheerfully spoken words. The friendship between the two progressed apace. Mrs. Forrester, finding that Lorraine showed such a suddenly awakened interest in art, arranged for her to take a course of painting lessons from Miss Lindsay, and she trotted off every Saturday morning to the studio by the harbour.
The drawing classes at The Gables had been the only weak spot in an otherwise excellent scheme of education, so Lorraine simply revelled in her new lessons. She had genuine talent, and was quick in catching up ideas. The artistic atmosphere exactly suited her. So far she had lacked inspiration in her life. She had never been able to feel the enthusiasm which Rosemary threw into music, and though she worked steadily at school, the prospect of college, dangled sometimes by Miss Kingsley, rather repelled than tempted her. She had drifted aimlessly along, without any specially strong tastesor ambitions, till this fresh, wonderful, fascinating world of art suddenly rose up and claimed her for its own. It was a delirious sensation, and very stimulating. She could sympathize now with Rosemary's keenness for the College of Music. Perhaps—who knew?—some day she might prevail on Father to let her go away to London and study painting. The bigness of such a prospect took her breath away.
There could not have been a better pilot in these untried waters than Margaret Lindsay. She proved a veritable fairy godmother, not in painting alone, but in other matters as well. Lorraine had reached that stage of girlhood when she badly needed a new impulse and a different mental atmosphere. It is so difficult sometimes for parents to realize that their children are growing up, and require treating from a revised standpoint. Unconsciously, and out of sheer custom, they rule themde haut en bas, and then wonder why the little confidences of the budding womanhood are given instead to sisters or friends.
Though she was old enough in some ways, in others Miss Lindsay was that most delightful of persons, "a chronic child". On occasion she could seem as young as, or even younger than, Lorraine, and enjoyed herself like a veritable schoolgirl. The two had royal times together, painting in the studio, making tea by the wood fire, rambling on the cliffs, or wandering through the picturesque fishermen's quarter of the town, a hitherto almost unexplored territory to Lorraine. Under her friend'sleadership she began to take up various side branches of art; she dabbled in gesso, relief stamping, leather embossing, stencilling and illuminating. New visions of birthday presents dawned on her horizon, and she intended to astonish the family at Christmas. Her only regret was the very scant time which she had to devote to these delightful occupations. Her position as head girl at The Gables permitted no slacking in the way of lessons, and her mother had made an express proviso that her work at the studio must not be allowed to interfere with her school preparation.
"Lucky you!" wrote Lorraine to Rosemary. "You're able to spend your whole day over the thing you love best. If I'd my choice, I'd never look at maths, or chemistry again, I'd just paint, paint, paint, from morning till night!"
Mr. George Forrester and Mr. Barton Forrester were brothers, and partners in the old-established firm of solicitors, Deane and Forrester. The Barton Forresters lived at the opposite side of Porthkeverne, on the road to St. Cyr, in an old-fashioned red brick Queen Anne house named The Firs, with a Greek portico and iron balconies outside the windows. The George Forresters always decided that the house was the exact epitome of Aunt Carrie. It was stately, and stood on its dignity, making you feel that it had a position to keep up, and extended hospitality as in duty bound, but with no special enthusiasm. Houses are largely a reflection of their owners, and five minutes in a drawing-room will often suffice to give you the correct mental atmosphere of a family. If the picturesque general disorder of Windy Howe suggested art run riot, the well-kept but tasteless precision of The Firs expressed a totally opposite temperament. No one could accuse Aunt Carrie of being artistic: her rooms were handsome and spotlessly neat, but they gave you the sense of being furnished, not arranged, and their lack of beauty struck a chill to æsthetic souls.
Aunt Carrie herself was big, and bustling, and overbearing, with well-cut features, a high colour, and a determined voice. She is described first, because she was so decidedly the head of the family. Uncle Barton only came in second. He was a gentle, pleasant little man, with kindly wrinkles round his eyes, and a habit of whistling under his breath when things grew stormy at home. In early days of matrimony he made a struggle for his own way, but abandoned it later in favour of a peace-at-any-price policy. He was a town councillor, and vicar's warden at the parish church, as well as a special constable. In his spare time he lived for golf. Lindon, his only son, was exactly like him, even to the habit of whistling and the propensity for golf. With Lindon, however, shells at the present were doing the whistling, and the trenches took the place of bunkers. His photograph in khaki stood in a silver frame on the drawing-room mantelpiece.
The three girls—Elsie, Betty, and Vivien—were shaded varieties of their mother. When Lorraine counted up her blessings, she always placed Rosemary and Monica as special items. She did not get on with her cousins.
"I like Uncle Barton and Lindon," she decided. "You never hear them say a nasty thing about anybody. It's the girls who pick holes in everyone and everything."
The attitude of the female portion of the family at The Firs was fiercely critical. It might be amusing to themselves, but it was uncomfortablefor other people. Lorraine, visiting there in a new dress, literally squirmed when she felt eyes of inspection directed upon it. It was the same with accomplishments. Both she and Rosemary dreaded to play or sing at The Firs. The chilly "Thank you!" at the end of the performance hurt more than brickbats. The Barton Forresters were always urging on the George Forresters. They started on the assumption that, as a family, they were more clever, capable, and up-to-date, and therefore in a position to give good advice. Elsie, recently engaged to a naval officer, considered that she had scored over Rosemary, who was six months older and still unappropriated. Betty rubbed in her indispensable work at the Red Cross Hospital with comments on those slackers who shirked giving their fair share of help. Vivien's sharp tongue was Lorraine's chief thorn in the flesh at The Gables.
The fact that Vivien was her cousin made things extremely difficult for Lorraine. She could have done battle royal with a stranger, and fought things out in the lists at school and have finished with them. But to quarrel with Vivien was another matter. It meant also quarrelling with Aunt Carrie, Elsie, and Betty, who would take affairs to the tribunal of Pendlehurst and raise a domestic sandstorm.
Long before, when they were quite children, the two girls had quarrelled, and Aunt Carrie had solemnly, and quite unjustifiably, complained to her brother-in-law about Lorraine's conduct. Lorrainehad never forgiven her father for not taking her part more firmly on that occasion. The remembrance of the ready ear he had lent to the enemy's side of the question had prevented any future appeal to intervention. Matters with Vivien went on in a species of guerrilla warfare.
As head girl, Lorraine had, of course, the whip hand at The Gables, but in every fresh scheme she found her cousin a dead weight and an impediment. Vivien always suggested something different. At committee meetings she invariably started an opposition to every resolution. Nothing could be carried without bickering. In her capacity of monitress Vivien was not a favourite. She was far too high-handed and domineering to win any measure of popularity among the juniors. Surging discontent sometimes broke out into rebellion. It is a delicate task for a general whose aide-de-camp is too officious. Lorraine, with a feeling that she was treading on eggs, brought up the subject of discipline at the next committee meeting.
"We must see that rules are kept, naturally," she conceded, "but I think perhaps lately some of us have just a little exceeded our authority. We don't want to get snubbed by Miss Kingsley, and told to mind our own business!"
"If you mean me," retorted Vivien, "I wish you'd say so straight out and have done with it! I hate innuendoes. I consider that the kids want keeping in order, and I'm there to do it, whether they like it or whether they don't."
"We must, of course, keep order; but if we cando it pleasantly, it makes a far nicer feeling in the school. Some of those babes will do anything for a monitress they like."
"Oh, it's all very well to go about fishing for popularity, like some people we know!"
"I suppose you meanme?" said Patsie quickly.
"If the cap fits, put it on."
Nellie and Claire began to giggle at the prospect of a spar between Patsie and Vivien. Dorothy was fiddling with her pencil and frowning.
"I don't let the kiddies take liberties with me," she vouchsafed; "yet they escort me home in relays every day."
"A monitress ought surely to beliked!" said Audrey plaintively.
"What I feel is, that we ought to work more in harmony," explained Lorraine. "It doesn't do for one monitress to allow a thing, and another to forbid it. The juniors don't know where they are."
"Yes, we can't each run the show on our own," agreed Patsie.
"Couldn't we draw up a sort of general list to go upon?"
"A black-list?"
"Well, I mean some general guiding rules."
"It's quite unnecessary," demurred Vivien. "My advice is to keep the kids in their places, and there'll be no more bother with them. It's that sloppy sentimental truckling to them that's at the bottom of all the trouble. I've got to go home now. You may make any rules you like, but I shan't promise to keep them."
Vivien scraped back her chair and clumped noisily from the room, leaving the majority of the committee indignant. They consulted together, and by general consent drew up a short code for the use of monitresses. They handed a copy of it to Vivien next morning. She glanced at it casually, and flung it into the waste-paper basket.
"I'm a monitress as much as the rest of you," she remarked, "and I have my authority from Miss Kingsley. I can't see that I'm answerable to anyone else."
Among the juniors, Vivien's reputation was not pleasant. Naturally, they talked over the monitresses among themselves. Juniors are sharp-eyed little mortals, and they had a very good idea of how matters stood.
"Vivien loves to boss," said Nan Carson. "She's wild because she's not head, and she takes it out of us in exchange."
"I don't see why she should order us about so."
"She's not a mistress!"
"No, only a monitress."
"It's not fair."
"I shall tell her so, some day."
"She's a mean old thing!"
"Why should we obey her?"
So matters jogged along till one day they reached a crisis. Vivien happened to be passing the door of Form II at about ten minutes to nine. It was, of course, before the official school hour, and Miss Poole had not yet entered to take the call-over. Some of the children were getting out books, somewere making a last effort to learn lessons, and a few were talking, laughing, and throwing paper pellets at one another. They were not making very much noise, and most monitresses would have just walked past the door and taken no notice. Not so Vivien. She bustled in, and commanded order.
"Marjorie, sit down! Connie, shut your desk! Doris, stop talking! Effie, pick up those pieces of paper at once! You ought all to be quietly in your places."
"It's only ten minutes to nine," grumbled the girls.
"I don't care what time it is. If you're here at half-past eight you'll have to behave yourselves. I shall come in again in a few minutes, and if any girl is talking I shall put her name down."
Vivien stalked away, leaving mutiny behind her.
"No one's ever told us before that we weren't to talk before Miss Poole came into the room."
"It's absurd nonsense!"
"Everybodytalks before nine!"
"You bet Vivien does herself!"
"I'm not going to sit still," piped Effie.
"Remember Vivien's coming back," warned Marjorie.
"She won't come back for a few minutes!" grinned Effie, hopping between the desks, "and I don't care if she does, either! I'm not afraid of Vivien! She may jaw away as much as she likes. It amuses her, and it doesn't hurt me. So there we are. See?"
Some of the girls sniggered, and Effie, encouragedby popular approbation, waxed more reckless still. She danced to the blackboard, seized the chalk, and began to draw.
"Here's Vivien's portrait," she announced. "This is her long nose, and this is her mouth, and this is her hair."
"Oh, itislike her!" chirruped Gracie.
"The very image!" hinnied Doris.
"Shut up, Effie, and rub it off, you silly cockchafer," recommended Marjorie, giggling in spite of herself.
"No, no! I haven't finished. I must put her blouse and swanky tie. Wait a sec!" cried the artist, drawing in those details and adding a large balloon issuing from the mouth of her model, and containing the words: "No talking, girls!"
"You'll be caught," urged Marjorie, seizing the duster to clean the blackboard. Effie snatched it out of her hand.
"All right, Grannie. Half a sec. more! I've just time!"
And she scrawled hastily over the top of the portrait: "This is old Vivien."
The last half second was the undoing of Effie, for at that very same instant the monitress reentered the room. Effie wiped the blackboard with frantic speed, but not before Vivien had caught a clear view of her portrait. She glared first at Effie, who had skipped back to her place, then at the nine other conscious faces. Finally she announced:
"You'll every one of you report yourselves to me at four o'clock this afternoon. I shall expectyou in the handicraft room, and you'll each bring a poetry book with you. I shall stay here now until Miss Poole comes. I'm not going to have this form a bear-garden."
The mistress, entering almost immediately, looked rather astonished to see Vivien standing by her desk. Her enquiring glance asked an explanation.
"It was necessary for someone to come in here and keep order, Miss Poole," vouchsafed Vivien.
The mistress turned a reproachful eye on her flock.
"I thought I could have trusted you, girls! I'm sorry to hear you've not been behaving yourselves."
The form focused indignant glances at Vivien, but dared not utter a protest. Their wrath, overflowed, however, at the earliest opportunity for conversation.
"Sneak!"
"Tell-tale-tit!"
"Mean thing!"
"And we've actually got to report ourselves to her at four o'clock."
"It's the limit!"
Though the juniors might rage, the established tradition of The Gables compelled them to comply with the monitress's orders. They grumbled, but obeyed. Directly afternoon school was over, ten sullen and sulky girls presented themselves at the door of the handicraft room. This was situated at the opposite end of the playground, and was, in fact, the old coach-house converted into a sort ofjoiner's shop. The school, in relays, learned wood-carving here, and carpentry, and clay modelling, and any other crafts which made too much mess inside the form rooms or the gymnasium.
Vivien was busy at the bench, planing a piece of wood. She greeted the victims grimly.
"If you can't remember to behave yourselves in school, you'll have to have something to remind you," she remarked. "You may all sit down there. Have you brought your poetry books? Very well, turn to page sixteen and learn the first three verses of Lochinvar. You'll stay here till you know them."
As a matter of fact, Vivien was entirely exceeding her authority. Miss Kingsley had never given the monitresses leave to keep girls in, or give them punishment lessons. Such privileges belonged to mistresses only. The form, however, was not aware of this, and supposed that she had received instructions from head-quarters. They took their places like martyrs, and opened their poetry books, outwardly submissive, but with black rebellion raging in their hearts.
Vivien, going on with her carpentering, kept a strict eye upon them, and said "Hush!" if any one attempted to con her task even in a whisper. She heard each child recite her verses separately, and would not let any of them go till all had said their portions perfectly. By the time they had completely finished it was a quarter to five.
"You may trot home now if you like," allowed the monitress. "And just let this be a lesson toyou for the future. Go in order and close the door after you."
The martyrs made a decent exit, but once outside they stood and pulled faces at the closed door.
"She's an absolute beast!"
"It's abominable!"
"To keep us all this time!"
"And learning hateful poetry!"
"And we hadn't done anything to deserve it, either!"
"What can we do to pay her out?"
"I know," said Effie. "Hush!"
She held up a warning hand and ran back to the coach-house door. The key was on the outside, in the lock. She stood and listened for a moment, then turned it and fled across the playground, followed by the rest of the form. Instead of going home, however, they stayed in the cloak-room, giggling over their achievement.
"If she's so fond of the handicraft room, she may stay there!"
"She shall just be kept in herself, to see what it feels like."
"Won'tshe just be savage!"
"Serve her right!"
Vivien, having finished to her satisfaction the particular little bit of carpentering upon which she had been engaged, put away her tools at last, and turned to leave. She was very much surprised to find that she could not open the door. She rattled the handle, thinking it had stuck. Then she suddenly realized that it was locked,and that she was a prisoner. She hammered till her knuckles were sore, and shouted, but nobody came. It struck her that she was in an exceedingly awkward position. The handicraft room was some little distance from the house. It was improbable that Miss Kingsley, Miss Janet or the maids would hear her. The window was nailed up, and would not open, so escape that way was impossible. Had those wretched juniors locked her in on purpose, and scooted off home? She stamped with wrath at the idea. Yet it seemed only too probable. If so, would she have to spend the night here? The prospect was appalling. She made a last despairing assault on the door. To her immense relief a voice on the other side responded. It was a deep, gruff, evidently feigned voice, and it said:
"Hullo, there!"
"Hullo! Let me out!" shouted Vivien.
"No, thanks! You're better where you are!"
"Let me out, I tell you!"
"Gently! Gently! Don't show temper!"
Vivien seized the handle again, and rattled lustily, but with no effect. She thought she heard a noise like suppressed chuckling.
"Willyou unlock this door and let me out?"
"If we do, will you promise not to boss so hard again?"
"I shan't promise anything of the sort!"
"Right oh! Ta-ta!"
The little wretches surely were not going?
"Here! Come back!" Vivien shouted.
She was allowed a moment or two for reflection, then the gruff voice again began to parley.
"Will you promise?"
"I shall do my duty as a monitress."
"But you won'texceedit?"
"All right!" rather sulkily.
"Honour bright, and no bunkum?"
"I've told you so."
The bottom of the door did not fit closely to the step, and presently through this small aperture the key was pushed. There was a sound of pelting footsteps. By the time Vivien had managed to unlock the door, nobody was in sight. She had the wisdom not to report the matter at head-quarters. She knew that she had exceeded her authority in keeping the children in, and doubted whether Miss Kingsley would back her up. It was too humiliating an experience to relate to her fellow-monitresses, so she kept it to herself. She utterly ignored it when she met the members of Form II next morning. Several of them blushed so consciously that she easily guessed who had been the ringleaders, but she judged it discreet to take no more notice. The sinners, giggling over the joke among themselves, decided that they were now quits with Vivien.
It was Patsie's stroke of genius that originated the White Elephant Sale. The school was racking its brains to raise a little money for the Prisoners of War Fund, and had swept aside as impossible such schemes as a bazaar, a pound day, or self-denial boxes.
"Lily tried it on last term, and it was no go," said Vivien; "couldn't make the kids shell out."
"Well, theyareonly kids," qualified Nellie; "and, of course, they haven't much pocket-money, so what can you expect?"
"We mustn't aim too high," said Claire. "If we plan something too big we scare them, and they won't do anything at all—say their mothers object, and all the rest of the usual excuses."
"Well, everyoneisrather fed up with appeals," admitted Audrey, lazily stretching her arms; "they come in by the dozen with the morning's post."
"And are generally chucked into the waste-paper basket," commented Lorraine. "Thatdoesn't help the prisoners of war. Suggestions, please, quick!"
"Best put an advertisement in the newspapers: 'Wanted, a new way of raising money without taking it out of the pockets of subscribers!'" chuckled Dorothy.
"Look here!" said Lorraine. "Joking apart, I think everybody's prepared either to give or spend just a little—even the kids. They've money enough for chalks, pencils, and all the rubbish they fill their pockets with."
"And swop in the cloak-room," added Claudia.
"Yes, theydoswop," exclaimed Patsie. "That's exactly what they love beyond everything. Claudia Castleton, you've given me a brain wave! We'll have a 'White Elephant' sale. Don't look so staggered! A 'white elephant' is a thing you don't want yourself, but which someone else might like very much. We must all of us have got heaps of such things at home. Well, we'll bring them to school, and let them go as bargains—cheap. They ought to go like wildfire, and if there are any left, we'll have an auction. It would be prime fun!"
"Patsie Sullivan, I should like to shake hands with you!" declared Lorraine. "When women go into Parliament, I believe you'll become a distinguished member of the House of Commons! Brains like yours ought to be devoted to the service of their country!"
"I think itisrather acuteidea," admitted Patsie modestly.
"We'll get to work upon it at once."
The next day, Lorraine pinned up in the cloak-rooma large hand-printed poster which ran as follows: