after another was made, only to be waved aside with lordly contempt,
until at last the girls gave up any say in the matter, and left Oswald
to arrange the group in a manner highly satisfactory to himself and his
two friends, however displeasing to the more artistic members of the
party. Three girls in front, two boys behind, all standing stiff as
pokers; with solemn faces, and hair ruffled by constant peepings beneath
the black cloth. Peggy in the middle, with her eyebrows more peaked
than ever, and an expression of resigned martyrdom on her small, pale
face; Mellicent, large and placid, on the left; Esther on the right,
scowling at nothing, and, over their shoulders, the two boys' heads,
handsome Max and frowning Robert.
"There," cried Oswald, "that's what I call a sensible arrangement! If
you take a photograph, _take_ a photograph, and don't try to do a
pastoral play at the same time. Keep still a moment, and I will see if
it is focused all right. I can see you pulling faces, Peggy! It's not
at all becoming. Now then, I'll put in the plate--that's the way!--
one--two--three--and I shall take you. Stea-dy?"
Instantly Mellicent burst into giggles of laughter, and threw up her
hands to her face, to be roughly seized from behind and shaken into
order.
"Be quiet, you silly thing! Didn't you hear him say steady? What are
you trying to do?"
"She has spoiled this plate, anyhow," said Oswald icily. "I'll try the
other, and if she can't keep still this time she had better run away and
laugh by herself at the other end of the garden. Baby!"
"Not a ba--" began Mellicent indignantly; but she was immediately
punched into order, and stood with her mouth wide open, waiting to
finish her protest so soon as the ordeal was over.
Peggy forestalled her, however, with an eager plea to be allowed to take
the third picture herself.
"I want to have one of Oswald to send to mother, for we are not complete
without him, and I know it would please her to think I had taken it
myself," she urged; and permission was readily granted, as everyone felt
that she had a special claim in the matter. Oswald therefore put in new
plates, gave instructions as to how the shutters were to be worked, and
retired to take up an elegant position in the centre of the group.
"Are you read-ee?" cried Peggy, in professional sing-song; then she put
her head on one side and stared at the group with twinkling eyes. "Hee,
hee! How silly you look! Everyone has a new expression for the
occasion! Your own mothers would not recognise you! That's better.
Keep that smile going for another moment, and--how long must I keep off
the cap, did you say?"
Oswald hesitated.
"Well, it varies. You have to use your own judgment. It depends upon--
lots of things! You might try one second for the first, and two for the
next, then one of them is bound to be right."
"And one a failure! If I were going to depend on my judgment, I'd have
a better one than that!" cried Peggy scornfully. "Ready! A little more
cheerful, if you please--Christmas is coming! That's _one_. Be so good
as to remain in your positions, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll try
another." The second shutter was pulled out, the cap removed, and the
group broke up with sighs of relief, exhausted with the strain of
cultivating company smiles for a whole two minutes on end. Max stayed
to help the girls to fold up the camera, while Oswald darted into the
house to prepare the dark room for the development of the plates.
When he came out, ten minutes later on, it was a pleasant surprise to
discover Miss Mellicent holding a plate in her hand and taking sly peeps
inside the shutter, just "to see how it looked." He stormed and raved,
while Mellicent looked like a martyr, wished to know how a teeny little
light like that could possibly hurt anything, and seemed incapable of
understanding that if one flash of sunlight could make a picture, it
could also destroy it with equal swiftness. Oswald was forced to
comfort himself with the reflection that there were still three plates
uninjured; and, when all was ready, the six operators squeezed
themselves in the dark room, to watch the process of development,
indulging the while in the most flowery expectations.
"If it is very good, let me send it to an illustrated paper. Oh, do!"
said Mellicent, with a gush. "I have often seen groups of people in
them. `The thing-a-me-bob touring company,' and stupid old cricketers,
and things like that. We should be far more interesting."
"It will make a nice present for mother, enlarged and mounted," said
Peggy thoughtfully. "I shall keep an album of my own, and mount every
single picture we take. If there are any failures, I shall put them in
too, for they will make it all the more amusing. Photograph albums are
horribly uninteresting as a rule, but mine shall be quite different.
There shall be nothing stiff and prim about it; the photographs shall be
dotted about in all sorts of positions, and underneath each I shall put
in--ah--conversational annotations." Her tongue lingered over the words
with triumphant enjoyment. "Conversational annotations, describing the
circumstances under which it was taken, and anything about it which is
worth remembering... What are you going to do with those bottles?"
Oswald ruffled his hair in embarrassment. To pose as an instructor in
an art, when one is in doubt about its very rudiments, is a position
which has its drawbacks.
"I don't--quite--know. The stupid fellow has written instructions on
all the other labels, and none on these except simply `Developer Number
1' and `Developer Number 2'; I think the only difference is that one is
rather stronger than the other. I'll put some of the Number 2 in a
dish, and see what happens; I believe that's the right way--in fact, I'm
sure it is. You pour it over the plate and jog it about, and in two or
three minutes the picture ought to begin to appear. Like this!"
Five eager faces peered over his shoulders, rosy red in the light of the
lamp; five pairs of lips uttered a simultaneous "Oh!" of surprise; five
cries of dismay followed in instant echo. It was the tragedy of a
second. Even as Oswald poured the fluid over the plate, a picture
flashed before their eyes, each one saw and recognised some fleeting
feature; and, in the very moment of triumph, lo, darkness, as of night,
a sheet of useless, blackened glass!
"What about the conversational annotations?" asked Robert slily; but he
was interrupted by a storm of indignant queries, levied at the head of
the poor operator, who tried in vain to carry off his mistake with a
jaunty air. Now that he came to think of it, he believed you _did_ mix
the two developers together! Just at the moment he had forgotten the
proportions, but he would go outside and look it up in the book; and he
beat a hasty retreat, glad to escape from the scene of his failure. It
was rather a disconcerting beginning; but hope revived once more when
Oswald returned, primed with information from the _Photographic Manual_,
and Peggy's plates were taken from their case and put into the bath.
This time the result was slow in coming. Five minutes went by, and no
signs of a picture--ten minutes, a quarter of an hour.
"It's a good thing to develop slowly; you get the details better," said
Oswald, in so professional a manner that he was instantly reinstated in
public confidence; but when twenty minutes had passed, he looked
perturbed, and thought he would use a little more of the hastener. The
bath was strengthened and strengthened, but still no signs of a picture.
The plate was put away in disgust, and the second one tried with a like
result. So far as it was possible to judge, there was nothing to be
developed on the plate.
"A nice photographer you are, I must say! What are you playing at now?"
asked Max, in scornful impatience; and Oswald turned severely to Peggy--
"Which shutter did you draw out? The one nearest to yourself?"
"Yes, I did--of course I did!"
"You drew out the nearest to you, and the farthest away from the lens?"
"Precisely--I told you so!" and Peggy bridled with an air of virtue.
"Then no wonder nothing has come out! You have drawn out the wrong
shutter each time, and the plates have never been exposed. They are
wasted! That's fivepence simply _thrown_ away, to say nothing of the
chemicals!"
His air of aggrieved virtue; Peggy's little face staring at him, aghast
with horror; the thought of four plates being used and leaving not a
vestige of a result, were all too funny to be resisted. Mellicent went
off into irrepressible giggles; Max gave a loud "Ha, ha!" and once again
a mischievous whisper sounded in Peggy's ear--
"Good for you, Mariquita! What about the `conversational annotations'?"
CHAPTER EIGHT.
PEGGY SHOWS HERSELF IN HER TRUE COLOURS.
The photographic fever burnt fiercely for the next few weeks. Every
spare hour was devoted to the camera, and there was not a person in the
house, from the vicar himself to the boy who came in to clean boots and
knives, who had not been pressed to repeated sittings. There were no
more blank plates, but there were some double ones which had been twice
exposed, and showed such a kaleidoscopic jumble of heads and legs as was
as good as any professional puzzle; but, besides these, there were a
number of groups where the likenesses were quite recognisable, though
scarcely flattering enough to be pleasant to the originals. There was
quite a scene in the dining-room on the evening when Oswald came down in
triumph and handed round the proofs of the first presentable group, over
which he had been busy all the afternoon.
"Oh, oh, oh! I'm an old woman, and I never knew it!" cried Mrs Asplin,
staring in dismay at the haggard-looking female who sat in the middle of
the group, with heavy, black shadows on cheeks and temple. The vicar
cast a surreptitious glance in the glass above the sideboard, and tried
to straighten his bent shoulders, while Mellicent's cheeks grew scarlet
with agitation, and the tears were in her voice, as she cried--
"I look like a p-p-pig! It's not a bit like! A nasty, horrid, fat,
puffy pig!"
"I don't care about appearances; but mine is not in the least like,"
Esther said severely. "I am sure no one could recognise it; I look
seventy-eight at the very least."
Robert flicked the paper across the table with a contemptuous "Bah!" and
Max laughed in his easy, jolly manner, and said--
"Now I know how I shall look when my brain softens! I'm glad I've seen
it; it will be a lesson to me to take things easily, and not
over-study."
"But look at the leaves of the ivy," protested Oswald, in aggrieved
self-vindication, "each one quite clear and distinct from the others;
it's really an uncommonly good plate. The detail is perfect. Look at
that little bunch of flowers at the corner of the bed!" All in vain,
however, did he point out the excellences of his work. The victims
refused to look at the little bunch of flowers. Each one was occupied
with staring at his own portrait; the Asplin family sighing and
protesting, and Peggy placidly poking a pin through the eyes of the
various sitters, and holding the paper to the light to view the effect.
It was a little trying to the feelings of one who had taken immense
pains over his work, and had given up a bicycle ride to sit for a whole
afternoon in a chilly pantry, dabbling in cold water, and watching over
the various processes. Oswald was ruffled, and showed it more plainly
than was altogether courteous.
"I'm sorry you're not pleased," he said coldly. "I aim at truthfulness,
you see, and that is what you don't get from a professional photograph.
It's no good wasting time, simply to get oneself disliked. I'll go in
for Nature, and leave the portrait business to somebody else. The girls
can try! They think they can do everything!"
Peggy looked at Esther, and Esther looked at Peggy. They did not say a
word, but a flash of understanding passed from the brown eyes to the
grey, which meant that they were on their mettle. They were not going
to defend themselves, but henceforth it was a case of die or produce a
good photograph, and so oblige Oswald to alter his tone of scornful
incredulity.
For the next week the camera was the one engrossing thought. Every
minute that could be spared was devoted to experiments, so that Fraulein
complained that lessons were suffering in consequence. The hearts of
her pupils were not in their work, she declared; it would be a good
thing if a rule could be made that no more photographs were to be taken
until the Christmas holidays. She looked very fierce and formidable as
she spoke, but soft-hearted Mrs Asplin put in a plea for forgiveness.
"Ah, well, then, have patience for a few days longer," she begged.
"They are just children with a new toy; let them have as much of it as
they will at first, and they will tire of their own accord, and settle
down to work as well as ever. We can control their actions, but not
their thoughts; and I'm afraid if I forbade photography at present, you
would find them no more interested in lessons. I fancy there is
something especially engrossing on hand this week, and we might as well
let them have it out."
Even Mrs Asplin, however, hardly realised the thoroughness with which
the girls were setting to work to achieve their end. They held a
committee meeting on Esther's bed, sitting perched together in attitudes
of inelegant comfort, with arms encircling their knees, and chins
resting on the clasped hands, wherein it was proposed and seconded that
Peggy, the artistic, should pose and take the sitters, while Esther, the
accurate, should undertake the after-processes.
"And what am I to do?" cried Mellicent plaintively; and her elders
smiled upon her with patronising encouragement.
"You shall wash up all the trays and glasses, and put them neatly away."
"You shall carry the heavy things, dear, and stand to me for your back
hair. I think I could make a really good effect with your back hair."
Peggy put her head on one side and stared at the flaxen mane in
speculative fashion. "A long muslin gown--a wreath of flowers--a bunch
of lilies in your hands! If you weren't so fat, you would do
splendiforously for Ophelia. I might manage it, perhaps, if I took you
from the back, with your head turned over your shoulder, so as to show
only the profile. Like that! Don't move now, but let me see how you
look." She took Mellicent's head between her hands as she spoke, wagged
it to and fro, as if it belonged to a marionette, and then gave a
frog-like leap to a farther corner of the bed to study the effect. "A
little more to the right. Chin higher! Look at the ceiling. Yes-es--I
can do it. I see how it can be done."
It turned out, indeed, that Peggy had a genius for designing and posing
pretty, graceful pictures. With a few yards of muslin and a basket, or
such odds and ends of rubbish as horrified Esther's tidy soul to behold,
she achieved marvels in the way of fancy costumes, and transformed the
placid Mellicent into a dozen different characters: Ophelia, crowned
with flowers; Marguerite, pulling the petals of a daisy; Hebe, bearing a
basket of fruit on her head, and many other fanciful impersonations,
were improvised and taken before the week was over. She went about the
work in her usual eager, engrossed, happy-go-lucky fashion, sticking
pins by the dozen into Mellicent's flesh in the ardour of arrangement,
and often making a really charming picture, only to spoil it at the last
moment by a careless movement, which altered the position of the camera,
and so omitted such important details as the head of the sitter, or left
her squeezed into one corner of the picture, like a sparrow on the
house-top.
Out of a dozen photographs, three, however, were really remarkable
successes; as pretty pictures as one could wish to see, and, moreover,
exceedingly good likenesses of the bonnie little subject. Esther's part
of the work was performed with her usual conscientious care; and when
the last prints were mounted, the partners gazed at them with rapture
and pride. They were exhibited at the dinner-table the same evening
amid a scene of riotous excitement. The vicar glowed with pleasure;
Mrs Asplin called out, "Oh, my baby! Bless her heart!" and whisked
away two tears of motherly pride. Oswald was silent and subdued; and
even Robert said, "Humph--it's not so bad," a concession which turned
the girls' heads by its wonderful magnanimity.
Their triumph was almost sweeter than they had expected; but, truth to
tell, they had had too much of photography during the last week, and
Mrs Asplin's prophecy came true, inasmuch as it now ceased to become an
occupation of absorbing interest, and assumed its rightful place as an
amusement to be enjoyed now and then, as opportunity afforded.
CHAPTER NINE.
THE HONOURABLE ROSALIND.
By the beginning of October Peggy had quite settled down in her new
home, and had established her right to be Arthur Saville's sister by
convulsing the quiet household with her tricks and capers. She was
affectionate, obedient, and strictly truthful; her prim little face,
grandiose expressions, and merry ways, made her a favourite with
everyone in the house, from the vicar, who loved to converse with her in
language even more high-flown than her own, to the old North-country
cook, who confided in the housemaid that she "fair-ly did love that
little thing," and manoeuvred to have apple charlotte for dinner as
often as possible, because the "little thing" had praised her prowess in
that direction, and commended the charlotte as a "delicious confection."
Mrs Asplin was specially tender over the girl who had been left in her
charge, and, in return, Peggy was all that was sweet and affectionate,
vowed that she could never do enough to repay such kindness, and
immediately fell into a fresh pickle, and half frightened the life out
of her companions by her hairbreadth escapes. Her careless,
happy-go-lucky ways seemed all the more curious because of the almost
Quaker-like neatness of her appearance. Mellicent was often untidy, and
even Esther had moments of dishevelment, but Peggy was a dainty little
person, whose hair was always smooth, whose dress well brushed and
natty. Her artistic sense was too keen to allow of any shortcoming in
this respect; but she seemed blessed with a capacity of acting before
she thought, which had many disastrous consequences. She was by no
means a robust girl, and Mrs Asplin fussed over her little ailments
like an old mother-hen with a delicate nursling. One prescription after
another was unearthed for her benefit, until the washstand in her room
looked like a small chemist's shop. An array of doctor's tinctures,
gargles, and tonics, stood on one side, while on the other were a number
of home-made concoctions in disused wine-bottles, such as a paregoric
cough-mixture, and a cooling draught to be taken the first thing in the
morning, which last pretended to be lemonade, but in reality contained a
number of medicinal powders. "Take it up tenderly, treat it with care!"
was Peggy's motto with respect to this last-named medicine, for she had
discovered that by judicious handling it was possible to enjoy a really
tasty beverage, and to leave the sediment untouched at the bottom of the
bottle!
Esther and Mellicent were almost equally well supplied by their anxious
mother, but their bottles behaved in a well-regulated fashion, and never
took upon themselves to play tricks, while those in Peggy's room seemed
infected by the spirit of the owner, and amused themselves with seeing
how much mischief they could accomplish. A bottle of ammonia had been
provided as a cure for bites of gnats and flies; Peggy flicked a towel
more hastily than usual, and down it fell, the contents streaming over
the wood, and splashing on to the wardrobe near at hand, with the
consequence that every sign of polish was removed, and replaced by white
unsightly stains. The glass stopper of a smelling-salts bottle became
fixed in its socket, and, being anointed with oil and placed before the
fire to melt, popped out suddenly with a noise as of a cannon shot,
aimed accurately for the centre of the mirror, and smashed it into a
dozen pieces. The "safety ink-pot," out of which she indited her
letters to her mother, came unfastened of its own accord and rolled up
and down the clean white toilet cover. This, at least, was the
impression left by Peggy's innocent protestations, while the gas and
soap seemed equally obstinate--the one refusing to be lowered when she
left the room, and the other insisting upon melting itself to pieces in
her morning bath!
"Mrs Saville was right--Peggy is a most expensive person!" cried Mrs
Asplin in dismay, when the bills for repairs came in; but when the vicar
suggested the advisability of a reproof, she said, "Oh, poor child; she
is so lonely--I haven't the heart to scold her;" and Peggy continued to
detail accounts of her latest misfortune with an air of exaggerated
melancholy, which barely concealed the underlying satisfaction. It
required a philosophic mind to be able to take damages to personal
property in so amiable a fashion; but occasionally Peggy's pickles took
an irresistibly comical character. The story was preserved in the
archives of the family of one evening when the three girls had been sent
upstairs to wash their abundant locks and dry them thoroughly before
retiring to bed. A fire was kindled in the old nursery, which was now
used as a sewing-room, and Mrs Asplin, who understood nothing if it was
not the art of making young folks happy, had promised a supper of roast
apples and cream when the drying process was finished.
Esther and Mellicent were squatted on the hearth, in their blue
dressing-gowns, when in tripped Peggy, fresh as a rose, in a long robe
of furry white, tied round the waist with a pink cord. One bath-towel
was round her shoulders, and a smaller one extended in her hands, with
the aid of which she proceeded to perform a fancy dance, calling out
instructions to herself the while, in imitation of the dancing-school
mistress. "To the right--two--three! To the left--two--three! Spring!
Pirouette! Atti-tude!" She stood poised on one foot, towel waving
above her head, damp hair dripping down her back, while Esther and
Mellicent shrieked with laughter, and drummed applause with heel and
toe. Then she flopped down on the centre of the hearth, and there was
an instantaneous exclamation of dismay.
"Phew! What a funny smell! Phew! Phew! Whatever can it be?"
"I smelt it too. Peggy, what have you been doing? It's simply awful!"
"Hair-wash, I suppose, or the soap--I noticed it myself. It will pass
off," said Peggy easily; but at that moment Mrs Asplin entered the
room, sniffed the air, and cried loudly--
"Bless me, what's this? A regular Apothecaries' Hall! Paregoric! It
smells as if someone had been drinking quarts of paregoric! Peggy,
child, your throat is not sore again?"
"Not at all, thank you. Quite well. I have taken no medicine to-day."
"But it is you, Peggy--it really is!" Mellicent declared. "There was
no smell at all before you came into the room. I noticed it as soon as
the door was opened, and when you came and sat down beside us--whew!
simply fearful!"
"I have taken _no_ medicine to-day," repeated Peggy firmly. Then she
started, as if with a sudden thought, lifted a lock of hair, sniffed at
it daintily, and dropped it again with an air of conviction. "Ah, I
comprehend! There seems to have been a slight misunderstanding. I have
mistaken the bottles. I imagined that I was using the mixture you gave
me, but--"
"She has washed her hair in cough-mixture! Oh, oh, oh! She has mixed
paregoric and treacle with the water! Oh, what will I do! what will I
do! This child will be the death of me!" Mrs Asplin put her hand to
her side, and laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks, while
Mellicent rolled about on the floor, and Esther's quiet "He, he, he!"
filled up the intervals between the bursts of merriment.