CHAPTER VII
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 youwere 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 tosee his pictures one day. I hear he's painting in pastel now. I've beengoing in for tempera. How are the babies? And Madox? He's a specialfriend of mine. I've brought them a box of real shortbread fromEdinburgh. Yes, I'm making a sketch of this piece of the common. Itappeals to me in the sunset."
"What a charming lady! _Who_ is she?" whispered Lorraine as their partypassed on.
"She's an artist--Miss Lindsay. We knew her in London, and it was shewho 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 shegoes 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 astudio!"
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," returnedMorland. "Thank goodness I'm beyond the 'Bubbles' stage of beauty. It'sMadox's turn for that!"
"Don't congratulate yourself too soon. I heard Father say the other daythat you'd make an absolutely perfect study for 'Sir Galahad', and thatViolet must tell Lizzie to clean that suit of armour, for he meant tobegin it as soon as he'd finished 'Endymion'."
"Oh, strafe Sir Galahad!" groaned Morland. "The armour's the mostbeastly uncomfortable hot stuff to wear you can imagine. I wish I had aturned-up nose and freckles."
Lorraine, living in a modern unromantic house in the residents' suburbsof Porthkeverne, had hitherto had little or no acquaintance with theartist population of the town. They mostly lived in the old quarter, andhad studios close to the harbour, their colony being centred round theArts Club in the Guildhall. She had often watched them painting at theireasels in the narrow picturesque streets, and had longed for a moreintimate acquaintance. Their delightful Bohemian way of life had afascination for her. She sometimes wished her father were an artistinstead of a lawyer. It was so much more romantic to paint pictures thanto make people's wills or transfer their property.
"Dad's utterly practical," she confided to Claudia. "He's busy all dayat the office, and he prides himself on not being sentimental. He'sabout as artistic as that cow!"
"I'd swop dads with you," said Claudia. "I wish mine went to an officeevery 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 aspecial 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 seena studio, and Claudia says I'll _adore_ her pictures, so you _will_ letme go, won't you?"
"If it won't interfere with your home lessons and practising. It'sextremely kind of her to ask you, I'm sure."
"I'll just _swat_ at my lessons when I get back, to make up, and I'lldo my practising before breakfast."
"Very well, but don't stay later than half-past five. The evenings arebeginning to get dark so soon now."
"Oh, thanks most immensely!"
To Lorraine, brought up in a little world consisting mostly of her ownfamily and a circle of cousins, it was really quite an event to pay thisvisit into the _terra incognita_ of the Art Colony. She came to schoolin her best dress that afternoon, with the chain of amber beads thatDonald had sent her from Italy. They were at present the only artisticthings 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 thenarrow, quaint streets that led towards the sea. The harbour atPorthkeverne was a picturesque place that had figured over and overagain on the walls of the Academy. Its green waters this afternoonsheltered a fleet of red-sailed fishing-boats, whose owners were busymaking ready to put out into the bay. Over the beach and round about thebreakwater 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 andold timber, was a row of irregular buildings that had once served assailmakers' warehouses or boat builders' workshops. The artistic colonyhad joyfully seized upon these, and had turned them from their originaluse into a set of studios. Large glass windows fronted the bay, andtwisting flights of steps and painted railings led up to the doors onwhich were brass plates with names well known both in London andprovincial exhibitions.
Claudia led the way along the quay, crossing the gangway where thelittle river flowed down, and passing the "Sailors' Rest" where a fewblue-jacketed old salts were reading the newspapers, then stopped at aparticular flight of wooden steps that were painted pale sea-green. Upthese 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 woodenwalls of the studio had been covered with a soft brown embossed paper,that served as a background for sketches, framed and unframed, whichwere hung there. Pieces of tapestry and oriental curtains were drapedbetween, and large blue-and-white willow-pattern plates made a friezeabove. A rare walnut cabinet, a Japanese screen, a gate-legged table,some Chippendale chairs, and a carved oak cupboard composed thefurniture of the room; and there were scattered about a large number ofartistic "properties"--bright scarves, shells, beads, pottery, vases,pewter, and standing on the floor a huge brass jar filled with branchesof flaming autumn leaves.
From the low arm-chair by the fire-place rose Miss Lindsay, a fittingcentre for her beautiful surroundings. She was one of those people whoseem neither old nor young, for her intense personality quiteovermastered any ravages time might have made in her appearance. Thepassing years, while they had brought a grey thread or two among thebrown of the hair, had mellowed her expression; and the shining hazeleyes seemed as the windows of a soul behind, noble, tender, and full ofsympathy. They were merry eyes, too, and they danced as their ownerwelcomed 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 callher what I like. I hope you're fond of potato cake? And shortbread? It'sthe real kind from Edinburgh. You'd rather begin with plain bread andbutter? 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 scentof late carnations wafted from a vase on the table, and her elbow almosttouching the delicate blue-green velvet of Miss Lindsay's artisticdress, Lorraine looked round the studio, fascinated. She thought she hadnever seen such a delightful place. It appealed intensely to herromantic side, and with its bright draperies and cosy corners seemedlike the opening scene of a novel. She was glad that the tea gave hersome excuse for silence. She was too much interested in gazing about tofind words for conversation.
Their hostess, wise in her generation, left her to herself until potatocakes 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 mypictures," she said after a while. "Come to the window and sit here onthese chairs, and I'll put the sketches on the easel. They are a seriesI'm doing for a children's magazine in America. They're to be reproducedin colour."
Miss Lindsay's sketches were charming, and full of a quaint fancy. Theywere rendered in a medium of her own invention, a combination of pencil,paint, and crayon, which gave the soft effect of a pastel with thepermanence of a water-colour. The first depicted a nurse holding by thehand a tiny child, who turned with wondering eyes to look at delicatelittle fairies which the grown-up person evidently did not see. Inanother a little boy sat in the forest playing with butterfly-wingedelves who danced among the bright scarlet toadstools. A third showed abrownie in a tree-top, nestling by the side of a baby owl, and a fourththe pixies sporting under a starlit sky. There were many others, dainty,imaginative and ethereal, some illustrating poems or books, and sometelling their own story, all painted with the same clever touch andlight, brilliant colouring.
"These are my favourites, so I've shown them first, while the lightlasts," said Miss Lindsay, "but I've heaps of other studies, landscapesmostly, sketches of Scotland I took this summer. I'll go on putting themon the easel, and when you're really bored stiff you must cry mercy, andI'll stop."
"Bored!" said Lorraine, with a sigh of intense satisfaction, "they'retoo lovely for anything! I'd give the world if I could paint like that!"
So they looked through piles of fascinating sketches till the shortdaylight had faded, and the logs on the fire began to throw queershadows round the studio.
"We must go!" said Claudia at last. "I've some shopping to do for Violeton my way back, and she'll be raggy if I don't turn up soon. I ratherbelieve the things are wanted for supper," she added casually.
"Then you must hurry," smiled Miss Lindsay, who was well acquainted withthe Bohemian ways of the Castleton family. "Even artists don't like tobe kept waiting for their meals, however absorbed they get in theirpictures." Then, turning to Lorraine, "I'm going to ask you to dosomething for me, Kilmeny. Will you come to the common with me one daythis week at sunset, in the same brown dress you wore last Saturday, andlet me sketch you among the thistles and bracken?"
Lorraine flushed with pleasure. She had never stood as model in herlife, and, though the experience might be stale and wearisome toClaudia, to her it had all the charm of novelty.
"Of course I will. Would you like me to come to-morrow?" she murmureddelightedly. "And--I hope you don't mind my asking--but I _should_ liketo know why you call me 'Kilmeny'?"
"Because you _looked_ Kilmeny. Don't you know the poem? She was stolenaway by the fairies, and brought up in the place that George Macdonaldcalls _At 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'.
Well, you see, I'm going to paint you just coming home, in the eveningglow 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 havethe spell of fairyland in your face. I'm not sure if I shan't put in afew half-transparent fairies escorting you back; they'd blend among thethistledown. I can see it all in my mind's eye, if I can only manage topaint 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 scramblewalks."
"That doesn't matter in the least. It's the colour I want. The wholescheme was a harmony in brown."
Lorraine went twice to stand for Miss Lindsay on the common, and severaltimes afterwards to her studio to be sketched with more detail. Her newfriend made three or four separate studies for the picture, intending towork from them afterwards in oils.
"I've sent for quite a decent-sized canvas," she said. "And I'm goingto 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 bytwo-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 suchan extreme liking for Miss Lindsay, she decided that the attraction layin her voice. On some sensitive temperaments the quality of a voice hasas much effect as personal beauty. A rasping, sharp, fretful oruncompromising tone may be as disagreeable as a wrong accent, but theharps of our spirits, finely and delicately strung, vibrate and thrillto kindly, cheerfully spoken words. The friendship between the twoprogressed apace. Mrs. Forrester, finding that Lorraine showed such asuddenly awakened interest in art, arranged for her to take a course ofpainting lessons from Miss Lindsay, and she trotted off every Saturdaymorning to the studio by the harbour.
The drawing classes at The Gables had been the only weak spot in anotherwise excellent scheme of education, so Lorraine simply revelled inher new lessons. She had genuine talent, and was quick in catching upideas. The artistic atmosphere exactly suited her. So far she had lackedinspiration in her life. She had never been able to feel the enthusiasmwhich Rosemary threw into music, and though she worked steadily atschool, the prospect of college, dangled sometimes by Miss Kingsley,rather repelled than tempted her. She had drifted aimlessly along,without any specially strong tastes or ambitions, till this fresh,wonderful, fascinating world of art suddenly rose up and claimed her forits own. It was a delirious sensation, and very stimulating. She couldsympathize now with Rosemary's keenness for the College of Music.Perhaps--who knew?--some day she might prevail on Father to let her goaway to London and study painting. The bigness of such a prospect tookher breath away.
There could not have been a better pilot in these untried waters thanMargaret Lindsay. She proved a veritable fairy godmother, not inpainting alone, but in other matters as well. Lorraine had reached thatstage of girlhood when she badly needed a new impulse and a differentmental atmosphere. It is so difficult sometimes for parents to realizethat their children are growing up, and require treating from a revisedstandpoint. Unconsciously, and out of sheer custom, they rule them _dehaut en bas_, and then wonder why the little confidences of the buddingwomanhood are given instead to sisters or friends.
Though she was old enough in some ways, in others Miss Lindsay was thatmost delightful of persons, "a chronic child". On occasion she couldseem as young as, or even younger than, Lorraine, and enjoyed herselflike a veritable schoolgirl. The two had royal times together, paintingin the studio, making tea by the wood fire, rambling on the cliffs, orwandering through the picturesque fishermen's quarter of the town, ahitherto almost unexplored territory to Lorraine. Under her friend'sleadership she began to take up various side branches of art; shedabbled in gesso, relief stamping, leather embossing, stencilling andilluminating. New visions of birthday presents dawned on her horizon,and she intended to astonish the family at Christmas. Her only regretwas the very scant time which she had to devote to these delightfuloccupations. Her position as head girl at The Gables permitted noslacking in the way of lessons, and her mother had made an expressproviso that her work at the studio must not be allowed to interferewith her school preparation.
"Lucky you!" wrote Lorraine to Rosemary. "You're able to spend yourwhole day over the thing you love best. If I'd my choice, I'd never lookat maths, or chemistry again, I'd just paint, paint, paint, from morningtill night!"
The Head Girl at the Gables Page 8
