"CLAUDIA! HOWCOULDYOU FORGET?"
"Can't you get it signed now, and send it off?" she suggested.
"Father's away to-day, but I'll ask him to sign it when he comes back, and post it at once. I don't suppose it's much use, though."
"Oh, Claudia, I'm so sorry!"
"Well, it can't be helped now," said her friend, rather impatiently. "The rain's stopped, and I'm going to plant another row of peas."
Lorraine could not quite understand Claudia's attitude of mind, which seemed to hold more dread of Miss Janet's anger than concern for missing the application for the scholarship. There was a curious shade of relief mingled with her contrition. She began to sing quite cheerfully as she planted the peas, and, when Constable came running past, she picked him up and kissed him.
"Violet would miss me dreadfully if I went away. We've been friends the last few days," she remarked later on. "I helped to make Baby a new frock, and he looks so sweet in it. Heisa darling!"
There was trouble at The Gables when the Misses Kingsley returned and learnt the bad news. They wrote off at once to Miss Halden, explaining the circumstances, but the answer came back that certain rules of the College were very strict, and the governors could not consider any application submitted later than the 6th.
"Also," wrote the Principal. "I feel that a girl, who could forget such an immensely important step in her own career, would be of no use tous, and I could not feel justified in awarding her a scholarship. I am exceedingly sorry, but fear this decision must be final."
So there, as far as the College was concerned, the matter ended. At school, however, Claudia with an obstinate look on her face weathered the storm of Miss Janet's contempt.
"After all the trouble I took in coaching you! It's really too bad! You've ruined your own career, and no one but yourself to thank for it! Why, the scholarship was as good as gained! You'd so easily have passed the exam. It was all arranged with Miss Halden, and you've spoilt the whole thing with your carelessness. You might at least have the grace to say that you're sorry!"
"I'm very sorry, Miss Janet," said Claudia in an apathetic voice.
The mistress glanced at her keenly.
"I doubt if you really are! I can't make you out! I'm disgusted with the whole affair. One gets very little thanks for trying to help people!"
Claudia, in terrible disgrace, retired sobbing. Later on, however, she poured confidences into Lorraine's ear.
"I'm sorry of course to disappoint Miss Janet, but I can't tell you how relieved I am, really! I never wanted to go, and that's the fact. I'd havehatedto be a kindergarten teacher! I'd rather go on the land if I leave home at all, but—but——"
"Claudia!" began Lorraine, with sudden enlightenment, "were you going to behome-sick?"
"I suppose so. I'm fond of the children, youknow, though I get fed up with them sometimes. It would take a very strong magnet to draw me away. Perhaps if something reallyfascinatingoffered, I'd want to go—but not for Kindergarten! No thanks! Some other girl may get the scholarship instead of me, and she's welcome to it. After all, home is a very nice place."
"It certainly is. I don't want to leave mine just at present," agreed Lorraine reflectively.
With the beginning of a new term two very important events happened in Lorraine's little world. Mervyn was sent to Redfern College, and Morland went into training. Mervyn's exodus was really somewhat of a relief, for he had been getting rather out of hand lately, and had waxed so obstreperous on occasion that his father had decided to pack him off at once for a taste of the discipline of a public school. Morland, who was now eighteen, went away in high spirits. On the whole he was tired of lounging about at home. He had reached the age when the boy is passing into manhood, and begins to think of making his own way in the world. All kinds of shadowy pictures of the future were floating in his mental vision, day dreams of brave deeds and great achievements, and laurel wreaths to be won by hands that had the luck to pluck them. His eyes were shining as he bade Lorraine good-bye.
"You must have thought me rather a slacker sometimes," he said. "But really there wasn't anything to urge a fellow on at home. PerhapsI'll tumble into my own niche some day. Who knows? Would you be glad, Lorraine, if you saw me doing decently?"
"Glad? Of course I should!"
"I didn't know whether you'd worry your head one way or another about it, or care twopence whether I went to the dogs or not!"
"Don't be silly! You're not going to the dogs."
"I might—if nobody was sufficiently interested in me to mind."
"Heaps of people are interested!"
"One doesn't want people in heaps—I prefer interest singly. By the by, if you've any time to spare, you might write to a fellow now and again. I'll want letters in camp."
"All serene! I'll send you one sometimes."
"Just to remind me of home."
"Morland! I believe you've got home-sickness as badly as Claudia. You'll be back at Porthkeverne before long, unless I'm greatly mistaken!"
"With my first leave, certainly," twinkled Morland.
As the weeks passed by in April, the artistic world of Porthkeverne reached a high pitch of anticipation and excitement. Practically every painter there had submitted something to the Academy, and the burning question was which among them would be lucky enough to have their work accepted. They looked out eagerly for the post, awaiting either a welcome varnishing ticketor a printed notice regretting that for lack of space their contributions could not be included in the exhibition, and requesting them to remove their pictures as speedily as possible.
In the studio down by the harbour expectation ran rife. Margaret Lindsay had finished her painting of "Kilmeny"—if not altogether to her own satisfaction, at any rate to that of most of her friends—and had dispatched it to the Academy.
"I don't believe for a moment that it will get in," she assured Lorraine. "I never seem to have any luck, somehow. I'm not a lucky person."
"Perhaps you will have this time," said Lorraine, who was washing out oil paint brushes for her friend, a messy task which she sometimes undertook. "Let'swillthat you shall be accepted. Youshallbe!"
"All the 'willing' in the world won't do the deed if the judges 'will' the other way, and their will tugs harder than ours!" laughed Margaret. "It depends so much on the taste of the judges. There's a fashion in pictures as in other things, and it's constantly changing."
"Is there? Why?"
"That I can't tell you, except that people tire of one style and like another. First the classical school was the favourite, then pre-Raphaelitism had its innings, then impressionism came up. Each period in painting is generally boomed by some celebrated art critic who deprecates the old-fashioned methods and cracks up the new. The public are rather like sheep. They buy what the criticstell them to admire.Punchhad a delightful skit on that once. Ruskin had been pitching into the commonplace artist's style of picture rather freely, soPunchevolved a dejected brother of the brush giving vent to this despairing wail:
'I takes and paints,Hears no complaints,And sells before I'm dry;Then savage RuskinHe sticks his tusk in,And nobody will buy!'"
'I takes and paints,Hears no complaints,And sells before I'm dry;Then savage RuskinHe sticks his tusk in,And nobody will buy!'"
'I takes and paints,Hears no complaints,And sells before I'm dry;Then savage RuskinHe sticks his tusk in,And nobody will buy!'"
"I lovePunch!" cackled Lorraine, drying the brushes on a clean paint-rag. "Tell me some more artistic titbits."
"Do you know the one about the old lady in the train who overheard the two artists talking? One said to the other:
"'Anything doing in children nowadays?'
"And his friend answered: 'A feller I know knocked off seven little girls' heads—nasty raw things they were too!—and a chap came in and carried them off just as they were—wet on the stretcher—and said he could do with a few more.'
"The poor old lady, who knew nothing of artists' lingo, imagined that she had surprised details of a ghastly murder, instead of a satisfactory sale to an enterprising dealer. But to come back to theAcademy, Lorraine; I know I shan't get in! I've sent five times before, and always had the same disappointment, if you can call it a disappointment when you don't expect anything. The last time it happened I was in town, and I went to the Academy myself to fetch away my pictures. As I walked down the court-yard and out into Piccadilly with my parcel under my arm, I felt pretty blue, and I suppose I looked it, for a wretched little street arab stared at me with mock sympathy, and piped out: 'Have they rejected you too, poor darling?' He said it so funnily that I couldn't help laughing in spite of my blues."
"When are you likely to hear your luck?" asked Lorraine.
"Any day now; but it will be bad luck."
"Then I shall call every day on my way home from school to see if you've had a letter."
Lorraine kept her word, and each afternoon took the path by the harbour instead of the direct road up the hill. Day after day passed, and the post-woman had not yet delivered the longed-for official communication.
"No news is good news!" cheered Lorraine. "Mr. Saunders had his rejection last week, so Claudia told me. Mr. Castleton only heard this morning."
"How many has he in?"
"Three—the view of Tangy Point from the beach, Madox wheeling Perugia in the barrow, and the portrait of Madame Bertier. Claudia says they're immensely relieved, because even Mr. Gilbertson is 'out' this year. Here comes the second post! Is there anything for you? I'm going to see!"
Lorraine, in her impatience, tore down the wooden steps of the studio, and waylaid the post-woman.She came back like a triumphant whirlwind, waving a letter.
"I believe this is 'it'. Oh, do open it quick! I can't wait. I never felt so excited to know anything in all my life! I could scream!"
Margaret, equally agitated, nevertheless kept her feelings under control, and opened the envelope with outward calm, though her fingers trembled noticeably. She looked at the enclosure, flushed crimson, and, turning to Lorraine, dropped a mock curtsy.
"Madam Kilmeny," she announced, "I'm happy to be able to inform you that your portrait is to appear upon the walls of the Royal Academy!"
"Oh, hurrah!" jodelled Lorraine, careering round the studio in an ecstatic dance, somewhat to the peril of various studies on easels. "Iknewit would get in, Carina! I had a kind of premonition that it would!"
"And I had a premonition the other way entirely. I never was so surprised in my life! You've been my little mascot, and brought me the luck!"
"No, indeed; it's your own cleverness. It's a beautiful painting. Claudia says even her father admired it, and he scarcely ever allows anybody's work is decent except his own."
"I certainly take praise from Mr. Castleton as a compliment," admitted Margaret. "I'm glad to hear that he liked it. Well, this is actually my first real artistic success. I don't know myself this afternoon. I feel an inch taller than usual."
"And so do I, to think I'm going to be hung in the Academy! Of course, I know you've idealized me out of all recognition; but there's a foundation of 'me' in the picture—enough to cock-a-doodle about. The Castletons have been painted so often, they don't care; but it's a unique experience for me. It makes me feel somehow as ifIwere Kilmeny, and had spent those seven long years among the fairies. I felt it all the time I was standing for you, Carina."
"That's where you made such a perfect model. I could see the glamour of the fairies in your face, and tried to catch it in my painting. I always contend that one of the chief elements in a good sitter is imagination, so as to maintain the right expression. One sees many apathetic portraits, and knows that the originals must have been feeling bored to tears. You never looked bored."
"No, the fairies were dancing round me all the time! You conjured them up. Do you know, Carina, I think fairies are your forte? I like those small paintings of them better than anything else you do."
"Those coloured frontispieces for children's magazines? They're certainly the only things in which I've ever succeeded. It's well to realize one's limitations. I've been so ambitious in my time, and wanted to paint historic scenes and battle-pieces, and other things quite beyond my powers. It's strange if the line we rather despise turns out to be our best bit of work. Look at Edward Lear. He was a rather classicallyinclined artist, whose serious work seems to have vanished, yet he is known and appreciated all over the world by the delightful and inimitableBook of Nonsensethat he knocked off in a few leisure hours to amuse the children of a noble family whose portraits he was painting. Hans Andersen, too, is another instance. No one ever now reads his numerous novels and solid books, but his fairy-tales have been translated into almost every language. Nothing so charming and poetical has ever been written. His is a magic flute that draws children of every clime and age to listen to him. Not that I'm for a moment comparing myself to Edward Lear or Hans Andersen! All the same, I think I shall take a hammer and smash up those statues I was trying my hand at, and stick to fairies for the future."
"I hope they'll hang 'Kilmeny' on the line!"
"So do I, but I don't expect it. It will be most exciting to go up to town and see it. I wonder——"
"You wonder what?" asked Lorraine, for Margaret had suddenly stopped short.
"Never mind! It was an idea that came into my head. Perhaps I'll tell you some other time."
"Oh, do tell me now!"
"Certainly not—you must wait. No, it's no use your guessing, for I shan't say whether you're right or wrong."
Lorraine's guesses, which were of rather a wild description, did not come anywhere near the realtruth, which was sprung upon her a few days later by her enterprising friend. It was nothing more or less than an invitation to go up to London with Miss Lindsay and see "Kilmeny" for herself on the wall of Burlington House.
"I daren't tell you beforehand in case it should be an impossible scheme," said Margaret, "but your mother gives permission, and I saw Miss Kingsley myself, and she promised you a few days' holiday. I told her it was part of your education to see the Academy, and she quite agrees with me. So you're to go!"
This was news indeed! Lorraine was half crazy with joy. Though she had turned seventeen, she had never yet been to London. Porthkeverne was a long journey from town, and any holidays which she had taken had been to visit relations in other parts of the country. She had envied Rosemary when the latter started for the College of Music; now she was actually to see the great city for herself, and in company with Carina, of all delightful people in the world. They were to go up for a whole precious week, and to stay in a hotel—Lorraine had never yet stayed in a hotel—and they were to do theatres, and as many of the sights as could possibly be crammed into the short space of time. The prospect was dazzling. Monica, catching in her breath sharply, decreed: "You're the biggest lucker I've ever met, Lorraine!"
Clothes, of course, were a paramount topic.
"I can't let Miss Lindsay take a Cinderella with her to London," said Mother, looking over thefashionable advertisements in the papers, and trying to decide what was the most suitable costume for a girl of seventeen. "You want something to look smart in at the Academy, and yet that won't get soiled directly with going about in motor omnibuses. Now this is a sweet dress! I'd like you in this, but it would be ruined in five minutes if you were caught in a shower; and how can we guarantee fine weather? Does your umbrella want re-covering? If there isn't time to have it done, Rosemary must lend you her new one."
By dint of much eager cogitation on the part of the whole family, Lorraine's wardrobe was at last satisfactorily arranged and packed in a suit case. She herself, in a new grey coat and skirt and a grey travelling hat trimmed with pink, joined Margaret Lindsay at the railway station. They were to catch the early express, and Mother, Rosemary, and Monica came to see them off. It felt so grand to be going away without the rest of the family, and to hang out of the carriage window shouting good-bye while they frantically waved handkerchiefs upon the platform. Lorraine, still clutching in her new gloves the sticky packet of sweets that Monica had pressed as a last offering into her hand, went on signalling until Margaret pulled her forcibly back on to her seat.
"We don't want your head whisked off first thing, please, and we're coming to the bridge. I wouldn't sit on the lunch-basket, if I were you! Let me put it up on the rack."
"I'msoexcited!" sighed Lorraine. "I'm gladwe've got the carriage to ourselves, Carina, because we can talk. Isn't it sport?"
"We shan't keep it long. It will probably fill up at St. Cyr, so work off your spirits now, if you want to. But my advice is to take things calmly, or you'll be tired out before we get to town."
The long railway journey, first along the coast, and then inland through scenery which was very different from Porthkeverne, was deeply interesting to Lorraine; and if she grew tired and closed her eyes for part of the route, her enthusiasm woke again when they reached London. The great station with its crowds of people, the rows of cabs and taxis, the streets with their endless traffic, all seemed a new world to the little country mouse who was making her first acquaintance with the metropolis.
"It's busier than I expected, and ever so much dirtier!" she commented.
"Yes, it's a different world from Porthkeverne—no arum lilies and yuccas and aloes—only plane-trees and lilac-bushes in the squares. Here we are at our hotel! It will be nice to wash and rest!"
Lorraine, with a beaming face, sat next morning at the little table laid for two, and discussed plans over the breakfast bacon. She had drawn up a programme of things she wanted to see in town, of so lengthy a description that Margaret Lindsay declared it would take at least a month instead of a week to work through it adequately.
"Some of the shows are shut up because of the war," she said, going through the list and putting ticks against the most suitable places. "We can see the Zoo, and Madame Tussaud's, and Kew Gardens, and I'll enquire whether the Tower and the Houses of Parliament are open to visitors at present.WestminsterAbbey will, of course, be on view, but I expect we shall find the monuments banked up with sandbags for fear of raids. Never mind, we'll do Poets' Corner at any rate. What would you like to start with this morning?"
"May I choose? Then I plump for the Academy!"
So to the Academy they went, and it was a very gay, pink-cheeked, bright-eyed version of Lorraine who walked up the flight of stairs at Burlington House, and through the turnstile into the entrance hall where the palms are. She had seen small exhibitions at the Arts Club in Porthkeverne, but never a series of great rooms hung with large pictures. Margaret was turning over the pages of the catalogue.
"Oh, do find out where 'Kilmeny' is, and let us go and see her first!" begged Lorraine.
"She's in Room VII, No. 348."
It was difficult to tear Margaret away from the nearest pictures, but Lorraine's impatience dragged her along to Room VII. "Kilmeny" was really in a very good position, if not exactly on the line, only just above it, and fortunately the pictures on either side were in low tone, and did not spoil the effect of colour.
"A field of poppies or a Venetian carnival next door would have utterly killed my sunset and thistledown!" rejoiced Margaret. "I ought to be very grateful to the hanging committee. It doesn't look so bad as I expected."
"Bad! It's the most beautiful picture in the whole room."
"We must hunt up our other friends," said Margaret, turning over the pages of the catalogue. "Where are Mr. Castleton's, I wonder? Oh, there's one in the next room—No. 407. Let's go and look at it."
The picture in question was the portrait of Madame Bertier, a clever study in an impressionist style, showing the bright eyes and eager features of that volatile lady under cover of a large black hat and veil. It was perhaps one of the best pictures that Mr. Castleton had ever painted, and it was attracting quite a small crowd. Margaret and Lorraine came up, and joined the outer circle of admirers. In front of them stood two gentlemen and a lady—foreigners. They spoke softly and rapidly together in French. Lorraine, whose knowledge of that language was not far beyond the ordinary schoolgirl standard, could not understand all they were saying, but she caught a word here and there. The lady was admiring the skill of the painting, and voting it worthy of the Salon in Paris; one of the gentlemen admired the beauty of the model, the other, with a pleased smile, explained that it was his wife, and that, though a charming portrait, it scarcely did justice to the original.
"Mais c'est à merveille!" he said, with a quick gesticulation, as he moved on to allow other people access to the picture.
Lorraine nudged Margaret, and drew her aside.
"Did you hear that?" she whispered. "That man in the light suit declared that Madame Bertier was his wife!"
"Impossible! Her husband is interned in Germany!"
"Well, that was what he said at any rate."
"Perhaps he was making up, just for effect. Some people like to tell these wonderful fibs in public, just to impress the outside world."
"Then why didn't he speak English, if he wanted to impress people?"
"Which man was it?"
"That one—next to the lady in blue."
"Why—why—if I'm not utterly mistaken, I verily believe it's the man we looked at through the glasses from Tangy Point: he met Madame Bertier on the shore."
"And I couldn't remember where I'd seen him before. Oh, Carina! Let's follow them, and I'll look at him again."
But the crowd in the Academy was rapidly increasing, and the three foreigners were lost behind a row of ladies in fashionable spring hats. They must have made an unexpected exit, for though Lorraine kept her eyes open for them the whole of the morning, she did not chance to see them again.
"It's rather mysterious, isn't it?" she said to Margaret afterwards.
"It is—if he was telling the truth. Some of these foreigners are queer people. Never mind Madame Bertier now; let us enjoy ourselves. Shall we get tickets for amatinéeto-morrow, or leave theatres for the evenings? Remember, we want plenty of time for Kew."
Lorraine, after a delirious round of pleasure in town, returned to Porthkeverne quite tired out with festivities, but declaring that she had had the time of her life.
"It will be your turn next," she said to Monica, who sat on the floor while she unpacked, and demanded a circumstantial account of every hour of the gay visit. "We shall certainly have you jaunting off to London some day."
"Not till I'm seventeen, perhaps," the voice was doleful, "and that's just ages to wait. Daisy Phillips has been to London three times, and she's only ten! She crows over me dreadfully."
"Poor old Cuckoo! You're a badly-used child! See what I've got for you inside this parcel."
"A Japanese pencil-box! The very thing I wanted! And such a lovely one! It's nicer than anybody else's in the whole form."
"Then you'll score over Daisy for once!"
"Rather! Lorraine, you're a trump! Oh, and the ducky little blue knife inside, and pink pencils! I know everybody'll want to borrow them at once, but I shan't lend them to a single soul! They'retoo nice even to use myself.Dosay I'm not to lend them, and then the girls needn't call me stingy."
"All right! I absolutely forbid them to be lent. Where's Rosemary? I've a parcel here that may interest her. No, Cuckoo! You're not to peep inside. What a Paul Pry you are! Go and call her, and I'll show it to her myself."
Somehow Lorraine felt as if the little visit to London had suddenly added years to her age. It had enlarged her circle of experiences so greatly that she had begun to look on life from almost a grown-up standpoint. She had gone away, older certainly than Monica, but regarded in the family category as one of "the children", and she had returned to take her place on a level with Richard, Donald, Rodney, and Rosemary. She was allowed to read Richard's letters from Mesopotamia, instead of only having portions retailed to her; and she was not sent out of the room now, when Father and Mother discussed Rodney's future for those halcyon times when peace should be declared, and he should leave the Air Force. She began in some measure to realize her mother's daily, hourly anxiety about these boys at the front, and to understand how behind all the happiness of her daily life stood a nightmare, with a spectral hand raised ever ready to fall on those three best beloved.
Trouble, which mercifully spared their own family, struck nevertheless very near. A yellow envelope arrived one day at the Barton Forresters' house, and Aunt Carrie opened it with trembling fingers and a sinking heart.
"There's no answer!" she said briefly to the waiting telegraph girl. Then she sat down and tried to face what the short message from the War Office really conveyed. Only twelve words, but it meant the hope of a family trailed in the dust. Lindon, their one treasured boy, had "gone west". Well, other mothers had given their dearest and best! She would offer him gladly, joyfully, on the altar of Britain's glory! But her face seemed to grow suddenly shrunken, and the high colour faded from her cheeks, leaving a network of little red veins instead.
"If only she wouldn't try to bequiteso brave about it!" said Mrs. George Forrester. "It's such a terrific effort for her to keep up like this! Why, the very next day she went to the Red Cross Hospital just as usual. She hasn't slacked a single thing. The strain must be tremendous. She absolutely worshipped that poor boy! The girls hadn't an innings in comparison with him. I admire the way she's taking it, but I'm afraid some day it will be more than she can stand, and she'll just collapse. If it had been Richard, I couldn't have borne to speak of him to anybody just at first, yet she talks quite calmly of Lindon. It's too much for human nature!"
Uncle Barton, grown suddenly ten years older, went about looking small and stooping, with a reef of wrinkles about his kind eyes. He clung to Betty, whose manner had softened under the blow. Of the three girls she understood him the best, and, though she was still undemonstrative, her silent consideration comforted him.
Lorraine, in the sanctuary of the studio by the harbour, railed at Providence.
"Why should Lindon be taken?" she asked bitterly. "Lindon—the nicest of all our cousins! Oh, Carina, why should a splendid hopeful young life like this be sacrificed, and poor Landry be left behind? I don't understand! It seems so futile—such a waste!"
Margaret stroked her hand for a moment before she answered:
"It may seem so on the face of it, but then we don't see the whole—only one side of it. Perhaps the splendid useful life is wanted for work and greater development in the next world, where it can spread its spiritual wings unhampered by physical disabilities. And poor Landry may be needed here, as a discipline to purge somebody's soul, or to bring kindness to a heart that might otherwise have gone unenlarged. This world is a school to train character, and, if some of us are sent on quickly into a higher form, it is because there are other lessons to learn there. Don't for a moment call Lindon's sacrifice 'waste'! Have you ever read these lines?
'A picket frozen on duty,A mother starved for her brood,Socrates drinking the hemlock,And Jesus on the Rood;The million, who, humble and nameless,The straight, hard, pathway trod—Some call it consecration,And others call it GOD!'"
'A picket frozen on duty,A mother starved for her brood,Socrates drinking the hemlock,And Jesus on the Rood;The million, who, humble and nameless,The straight, hard, pathway trod—Some call it consecration,And others call it GOD!'"
'A picket frozen on duty,A mother starved for her brood,Socrates drinking the hemlock,And Jesus on the Rood;The million, who, humble and nameless,The straight, hard, pathway trod—Some call it consecration,And others call it GOD!'"
There was one person who, Lorraine suspected, was grieving for Lindon more than she would allow anybody to imagine. Rosemary had always been fond of this particular cousin, and, between the day-dreams of dukes and generals who were to sue for her sister's hand, it had sometimes occurred to Lorraine that a far more ordinary and commonplace romance might be enacted under her eyes near at home. Lindon had been wont to come to the house far more frequently than Elsie, Betty or Vivien; he had always enjoyed Rosemary's singing, and had given her his photo in a locket before he went away. He had written to her often from the front, and though there had been no hint of such a thing as an engagement, it had been apparent to anyone not absolutely blind that they were interested in each other. It is perhaps much harder for a girl, in such circumstances, to lose her lover, than for one who is definitely engaged, and can claim open sympathy for her sorrow. Rosemary felt that she could not talk about Lindon to Elsie, Betty and Vivien. They had always been rather jealous of his preference for her, and had resented his frequent visits to Pendlehurst. They did not know about the locket or the letters. She kissed Uncle Barton, however, with extra affection, and he responded so warmly, holding her arm as they walked down the garden, that she somehow thought he understood.
So Rosemary gulped back this trouble as she had borne her disappointment about the Collegeof Music, and flung herself into that universal panacea for heart-breaks—work for the Red Cross. She slaved at scullery-duty three mornings a week at the hospital, and put in alternate afternoons rolling bandages at the depot. She would have given up her whole time to either, but that her mother would not allow.
"You're all eyes, child!" she commented. "You must get out into the fresh air this lovely weather, and put some roses into your cheeks. I shall give you a tonic. You look like a canary that's been moulting."
Privately, Rosemary felt as if her heart had been moulting, and she had not yet had time to grow her new spiritual feathers. The fact that anybody was noticing, however, made her brace up. She had no wish to pose as a sentimentalist. She swallowed the tonic dutifully, took the prescribed daily walk, and even, with a great effort, practised the piano. She could not yet bring herself to touch her songs—the remembrance of Signor Arezzo's verdict was still too raw.
CLAUDIA FLUNG HER ARMS ROUND ROSEMARY'S NECK AND HUGGED HER
One glorious beautiful afternoon saw Rosemary wending her way up the hill to the Castletons. Lorraine had promised to send a paper pattern to Claudia, but had been at home all day with a violent headache, so Rosemary had volunteered to walk to Windy Howe after tea and take it. She went by a short cut through the fields, and approached the house by way of the orchard. The apple-trees were in full blossom; the lovely pink bloom stood out against the blue of the afternoonsky in a delicate maze of colour too subtle for even the most cunning artist hand to reproduce. Mr. Castleton's sketch, left on its easel under the hedge, and splotched with dabs of rose madder and Payne's grey, gave only the faintest impression of the fairy scene. Clumps of primroses bloomed among the grass, and a thrush, on the tip-top of a hawthorn bough, trilled in rivalry with the blackbird whose nest was in the old pear-tree. They were not the only musicians, however. Somebody had opened the gate from the garden and was walking leisurely down the orchard—somebody in a light cotton dress, with the sunshine gleaming on her golden hair. She came slowly, and sang as she walked, sang like the blackbird and the thrush, for sheer enjoyment of the glory of the spring day. The clear high notes went thrilling through the air with all the freshness and sweetness of the birds' tones.
Rosemary, unnoticed, stood aside to watch and listen, as Claudia, still warbling on high A, stopped under an apple-tree to feed a coopful of chickens with some bread she had brought. The girl's beautiful face and figure against the apple-blossom background and the blue sky made a picture worthy of the brush of an Academician.
"Heavens!" thought Rosemary. "What a voice! If Signor Arezzo could hearthat, now, he'd consider it worth training. It has all the glorious tone and volume that I lack. And so pure and high! I should think she could take C! The girl looks a singer. With that magnificentchest and throat she ought to be able to bring out her notes. She has such a splendid physique. She's a lovely girl, too. What a sensation she'd make on a concert platform!"
Aloud, however, Rosemary simply said, "Good afternoon!" presented the paper pattern, explained that Lorraine had a headache, and asked if Claudia were fond of singing. Claudia flushed crimson.
"Oh, I can't sing!" she stammered. "Not really. Only just to myself when nobody's listening. I didn't know you were there."
"You ought to take lessons," commented Rosemary.
Claudia shook her head. She was pinning back a yellow curl with a clasp.
"That's quite impossible, so it's not an atom of use thinking about it. It's Beata's turn for music, and she's to begin the violin with Madame Bertier next term. Don't look distressed! I'll just squall on to please myself. Nobody else cares to hear me, I'm sure."
"It's a pity to waste a talent," said Rosemary.
Claudia shrugged her shoulders.
"It isn't wasted; it comes in handy to croon the babies to sleep," she answered humorously. "And as I'm going to stay at home for the present it will most probably be wanted."
Rosemary went home with her head in a whirl. A voice like that to be devoted to crooning children to sleep! It seemed wicked. Her experience at the college had taught her enough to make her realize how much might be made of Claudia's voicewith proper training. Oh! if she could only have exchanged places with Claudia! For a moment a flood of wild, bitter jealousy swept over her. This girl had all the qualifications for the want of which she herself had failed. Why had not Providence, who gave her the keen enthusiasm for music, also gifted her with that throat and voice?
"It's not fair!" raged Rosemary, wiping away very salt tears. "Some people have all the luck in life. I'd give worlds for a strong voice, instead of my wretched little drawing-room twitter."
From her sister she enquired whether Claudia could dance.
"Dance!" echoed Lorraine eloquently. "You should just see her! I wish you'd been at the rhythmic dancing display last Christmas. Her forget-me-not dance was simply a dream. Everybody said they never saw anything quite so beautiful. Miss Leighton was tremendously proud of her. She said that Claudia was the only girl in the whole school who took to the poses absolutely naturally. She fell into them as easily as easily, while all the rest of us had to practise no end."
"She's a very graceful girl, as well as immensely pretty."
There was a terrific struggle raging in Rosemary's heart. She knew that Signor Arezzo was always on the look-out for really suitable sopranos to train for opera. A girl who fulfilled his critical conditions would be awarded entirely free tuition, with a maintenance-scholarship in addition at theCollege of Music. If Claudia could be coached a little in Signor Arezzo's particular method of voice production, so that no glaring faults should offend him, it was highly probable that, if she were to sing before him, he would decide to give her a training.
"After two terms with him, I knowexactlywhat he wants," reflected Rosemary. "I could teach someone else, though I could not do it myself. There are all my books of exercises and studies packed away at home; I'd made up my mind never to look at them again. Oh, dear! It will be like opening a wound to get them out. Shall I, or shall I not? The girl seems contented enough as she is."
It takes some qualifications for sainthood to hold open for another the door of a paradise you may not enter yourself. As Rosemary's mind see-sawed up and down, her eyes fell on a quotation printed on a calendar which hung in her room.
"Four things come not back to man or woman—the sped arrow, the spoken word, the past life, and the neglected opportunity."
"Itisan opportunity," she mused; "an opportunity of helping such as probably I shall never find again in the whole of my life. Rosemary Doris Forrester, you've got to buck up and not be an envious beast. You're going to unpack that music, and teach that girl all you know.Isay so, the realI—not the horrid, mean, jealous, selfish, contemptible part of me. Here goes! I'll write and propose it, and send the letter up at once byLorraine, so as to burn my boats. I hope to goodness Claudia will have the sense to snatch at such a good offer. I shan't tell anybody a word about it beforehand."
Lorraine, who always went willingly on any errand to Windy Howe, handed over her sister's impulsive letter, quite unwitting of its contents. Claudia read it, flushed, and caught her breath with a sharp little cry. She turned to her friend with eyes like two stars.
"Do you know what Rosemary proposes?" she asked.
"No."
"Why, she actually offers to teach me to sing! And oh, Lorraine! She hints that, if I try hard, she would write to Signor Arezzo and ask him to hear me, and perhaps he would be able to give me a scholarship for the college, and I could go and study."
It was Lorraine's turn to assimilate the surprise.
"Good old Rosemary! She's a trump card! But I thought you didn't care about winning scholarships, Claudia. I believe you missed sending in that application on purpose."
Claudia blushed consciously.
"That was altogether different. I hated the idea of teaching kindergarten. But to study singing! I'dloveit! You know how fond I am of music—as fond as Morland is, really, only I never had his fingers for the piano. I shouldn't be much of a player, I know; but to sing! It's my ideal! I'll go and write to Rosemary now, and sayI'm ready to be her pupil to-morrow. Oh, itisgood of her!"
So the exercises and studies came out of their retirement in the dark cupboard after all, and Rosemary grew so interested in "putting Claudia through her paces", as she described it, that her own bitter disappointment began somehow to soften and tone down. Claudia was a pattern pupil. To begin with, her voice was such excellent material to work upon; then she had a very world of young enthusiasm, and was sufficiently modest to accept her teacher's dicta without argument. She practised diligently, and the training soon began to tell. In quite a short time there was marked improvement. Rosemary, listening to her deliciously pure high notes, felt a vicarious satisfaction. They were so exactly what she had always longed to produce herself.
"I shan't write to Signor Arezzo till we're through Book II," she decreed. "If you go on at this rate, I think he'll be satisfied when he hears you. If he accepts you, Ishallbe proud!"
For answer, Claudia flung her arms round Rosemary's neck and hugged her.
"You're the sweetest, kindest, most unselfish darling in the whole of the wide world!" she blurted out.
Though Lorraine and Claudia might regard Madame Bertier with more or less suspicion, she was an immense favourite with the rest of the school. The Misses Kingsley found the vivacious little Russian lady one of the best teachers they had ever had, and treasured her accordingly, while most of the girls still revolved round her orbit. She was undoubtedly very clever and fascinating. There is a certain type of pretty woman who can be adorable to her own sex. Madame liked admiration, if it were only that of a schoolgirl, and she thought the flowers and little notes that were showered upon her charming tokens of her popularity.
"They practise their hearts upon me, these poor children!" she would observe sentimentally. "The little love letters! Ah, they aretout à fait gentilles! Wait a few years! They will be writing them to somebody more interesting than their teacher! Oh, yes! I know well!"
"For goodness' sake don't put such ideas into their heads!" said Miss Janet, who admired the open-air type of girl, and had no weakness forromance. "I wish you wouldn't encourage them to write you those silly notes. It's a form of sentiment I've no patience with at all—a mere waste of time and paper!"
Madame shrugged her shoulders eloquently.
"What will you? We all have our own methods! As for me, I win their funny little hearts, then they will work at their lessons for love—yes, for sheer love. In but a few months they have madebeaucoup de progrès! N'est-ce pas?Ah, it is my theory that we must love first, if we will learn."
Though Miss Janet might sniff at Madame's sentimental method of education, she nevertheless could not deny its admirable results. In French and music the school had lately made enormous strides. The elder girls had begun to read French story-books for amusement, and the juniors had learnt to play some French games, which they repeated with a pretty accent. Both violin and piano students played with a fire and spirit that had been conspicuous by their absence a year ago, under the tame instruction of Miss Parlane.
Madame did not confine herself entirely to her own subjects. She took an interest in all the activities of the school. It was she who arranged a ramble on the cliffs.
"They get so hot, playingtoujoursat the cricket," she said to Miss Kingsley. "Of what use is it to hit about a ball? Let them come with me for a promenade upon the hills and we shall get flowers to press for themusée. It is not well to do always the same thing."
A ramble for the purpose of gathering wild-flowers was a suggestion that appealed to the Sixth. The museum was not too well furnished with specimens. There was scope for any amount of further collecting.
Since the curious episode of the cut telephone wires during the Easter holidays, there had been no further happenings at the museum. Miss Kingsley inclined to Madame Bertier's view, that some spy, finding the window had been left open, had taken a ladder and forced an entrance that way. She had caused a screw to be placed in the window, and the door was kept carefully locked except when the room was in use.
To Lorraine the place felt haunted. She had a horror of being there alone, and never ventured to go there unless accompanied by two or three of her schoolfellows. She had an unreasonable idea that the little trap-door in the corner might suddenly open, and a sinister face peer down out of the darkness. The nervous impression was so strong that she held the monitresses' meetings in the class-room instead of in the museum. When the mid-term beano came round, she suggested that they should assemble in the summer-house.
It had been an old-established custom at the school that once in each term the seniors should hold a kind of bean-feast. They met to read aloud papers, and suck sweets. Their doings were kept a dead secret from the juniors, who naturally were exceedingly curious, and made every effort to overhear the proceedings. On this occasion the seniorstook elaborate precautions against intrusion from the lower school. Two monitresses stood in the cloak-room and sternly chivvied the younger girls to hasten their steps homewards. They went unwillingly and suspiciously.
"Why are you in such a precious hurry to get rid of us to-day?" asked Mona Parker, pertly. "You're not generally so keen on us going off early."
"There's been too much loitering about the cloak-room lately," vouchsafed Dorothy.
"Bow-wow! How conscientious we are, all of a sudden! You've something up your sleeve, I think, Madam Dorothy!"
"Mona Parker, put on your boots at once, and don't cheek your betters!"
"But thereissomething going on, I'm sure!" piped up Josie Payne. "Nellie, be a sport and tell us!"
"Mind your own business, and don't butt in where you're not wanted! How longareyou going to be in lacing those shoes?"
"There, there! Don't get ratty! I'm ready now!"
The dilatory juniors, by dint of much urging, were at last hustled off the scenes. The ringleaders among them departed in rebellious spirits, which fizzed over in the playground into a series of aggressive cock-a-doodle-doos, significant of their attitude of annoyance.
The monitresses wisely took no notice. They were too glad to be rid of the younger element tofollow into the playground and do battle. Having cleared the premises, they passed the signal "all serene!" and repaired to the summer-house. It was a good place for a secret meeting, for it was at the bottom of the garden, facing the main path and a patch of lawn, so that it would be quite impossible for anybody to come from the house or the gymnasium without being seen. The accommodation was limited, but some of the girls sat on the floor, and some on the gravel in front. It had been a matter of considerable difficulty to procure sweets, and every likely shop in the town had been foraged. The result, though not very great, was quite wonderful for war-time: there was actually some chocolate, some walnut toffee, two ounces of pear drops, and some gum lozenges. The contributions were pooled, and shared round impartially.
The members were sucking blissfully while Lorraine went round and collected the literary portion of the entertainment.
"Only eight papers to-day! You slackers! Audrey, where's yours? Haven't had time to think of anything? How weak! Doreen, I expected the Fifth to do its duty. Thanks, Phœbe, I'm glad you've written something, and you too, Beryl."
"Please keep mine till theverylast, and don't read it at all if there isn't much time!" implored Phœbe.
"You mustn't read mine first!" fluttered Dorothy.
"Nor mine!"
"Nor mine!"
"Look here! Somebody has got to come first! I shall do it by lot; I'll write your names on slips of paper and shuffle them. Lend me a pencil, Patsie. There! I'll stir them round, and Audrey shall draw one."
Audrey picked out at random one of the little twisted scraps of paper, and the lot fell upon the protesting Dorothy. She rose apologetically.
"They're not much," she murmured. "Just a few 'Ruthless Rhymes', that's all.