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! _Who_ is 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 watched them 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'll _adore_ her pictures, so you _will_ let
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 just _swat_ at 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 the _terra incognita_ of 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 beautiful surroundings. 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 to herself 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're really 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 I _should_ like
to know why you call me 'Kilmeny'?"
"Because you _looked_ Kilmeny. Don't you know the poem? She was stolen
away by the fairies, and brought up in the place that George Macdonald
calls _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 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 tastes or 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 them _de
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's
leadership 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!"