Three days after this the picture exhibition opened, and Jeannie and
Miss Fortescue, as they strolled out one morning, passed the Guildhall,
where placards were up saying that the seventh exhibition of the Wroxton
Art Union was now open inside. Jeannie wished to go in. Miss Fortescue
was certain that she did not.
“All you will see, Jeannie,” she said, “will be about an acre of Wroxton
Cathedral, six pictures of sunrise on the Alps, and some studies of
carnations. You can see Wroxton Cathedral and the carnations in our own
garden, and you can see sunrise on the Alps in any tomato salad.”
“I bet you a sterling shilling,” said Jeannie, “that there is at least
one picture that interests us; I have never yet been to any exhibition
in which there was not something I liked to look at. Do you take it,
Aunt Em?”
“Done,” said Aunt Em.
It was still early, and only a few people were straying about the room,
looking as people do at an exhibition, as if they were lost and wanted
to find their way out. But an acre of Wroxton Cathedral, as Aunt Em had
said, stopped egress on one side, the spears of rose-tinted Alps on
another, and several forbidding portraits on a third. At the far end of
the room, however, were some ten or twelve people congregated round one
picture.
“That will be the one, Aunt Em,” said Jeannie, “over which I shall win
my bet. So we’ll look at it last.”
Miss Fortescue smiled in a superior manner.
“That picture is a bereaved party having tea after a funeral,” said Aunt
Em; “I feel it in my bones. Come, Jeannie, here are the tomato salads.
That’s a beauty, but a little overripe.”
They strolled slowly toward the far end of the room, and while still
they were some way off Mrs. Collingwood detached herself from the group
surrounding the chief attraction and came down the room toward them.
Her face was a little flushed, and as she caught sight of them she
paused, and then shot by them without a word.
“No manners,” sighed Miss Fortescue. “Now we are getting into the
carnations.”
Jeannie had bought a catalogue, and turned to the list of artists
exhibiting.
“There’s one by Jack Collingwood,” she said. “Now I am safe to win.
Arthur wrote to him to-day asking him to come and stay with us. I hope
he’ll come: I’ve never seen him. His pictures are splendid. It’s number
8. Oh, that must be the one all those people are standing round. Let’s
go and look at it.”
“Tea after a funeral,” said Aunt Em.
No fresh arrivals had come in lately, and by the time they got near the
picture there was no one by it. Suddenly Jeannie quickened her pace.
“Aunt Em, come here,” she said.
They stood before the picture for a moment in silence, to which its
worth as a work of art alone entitled it. The whole thing was admirable.
A stretch of lank, thick grass, starred with meadow-sweet and ragged
robin ran from side to side of the canvas. The nearer edge of this was
broken away, showing a chalky soil, and from it there ran at a slight
angle a couple of wooden planks with a handrail crossing a stream which
lay invisible but for a streak of water underneath the chalky bank. A
few tall grasses in the immediate foreground round the nearer edge of
the plank bridge showed where the stream ended. In the middle of it,
cutting the picture nearly in two, was the figure of a girl, dressed in
black, hatless, and keeping off a puppy with her parasol. Round the dog
was a halo of spray, and he was in the middle of shaking himself, for
his head was curly, his flanks and tail still smooth. It was an
inimitable representation of a moment. One almost expected to see the
halo of spray spread further, and the hind part of the dog grow curly.
But if Jack had been successful with the dog, he had surpassed himself
in the girl’s figure and face. She lived utterly and entirely in the
present, and had no thoughts but amused apprehensions for her dress. Her
head was bent forward, following the bend of her arm and the parasol,
and the face a little foreshortened. But every inch of her laughed.
Jeannie looked at it in silence. Suddenly bending forward and pointing
at it (the picture was hung rather low), she laughed too.
“Oh, it is admirable! it is simply admirable!” she cried. “And I never,
never heard of such a piece of impertinence in my life. Aunt Em, it’s
the best thing I ever saw. Look at the dog; why, Toby would recognise
it, I believe. And look at me! Certainly I recognise it. But what cheek!
My goodness, what cheek!”
Aunt Em fumbled in her purse.
“A sterling shilling,” she observed, laconically. “Now, Jeannie, it
would be more decent if you came away. We will talk about this
elsewhere.”
“Oh, one moment,” said Jeannie. “You see, I can’t come here again and
look at it, as you can. Aunt Em, I remember the afternoon so well. It
was when we had been down at the mill. But how on earth could Mr.
Collingwood--Well, I suppose I must go. Oh, Aunt Em, mind you don’t tell
Arthur about it. I have my reasons.”
They walked out of the exhibition without looking at the acre of Wroxton
Cathedral at all. On the stairs they met Miss Clara Clifford with a load
of catalogues going up.
“We’ve just spent a half hour in the exhibition,” said Jeannie, “and I
think it is quite excellent. So does Aunt Em. Oh, I don’t think you know
Aunt Em, do you? Miss Fortescue, Miss Clifford. And the picture of me by
Mr. Collingwood is quite admirable. But it was rather a surprise to me.”
The catalogues extended from Miss Clifford’s chin to nearly the whole
stretch of her arms, and bowing was difficult. But it was more difficult
not to drop them all at this remark of Jeannie’s.
“A surprise, Miss Avesham?” she cried. “Will you ever forgive me, for I
am the secretary? But Colonel Raymond said--” and she paused, looking
distressfully at Miss Fortescue.
Jeannie caught the look, and saw that Miss Clifford’s face was the
picture of agonized embarrassment.
“Go on, Aunt Em,” she said, “I’ll come after you.”
Miss Fortescue looked at the ceiling in mute appeal, and then marched
down the stairs.
“There’s no harm done, Miss Clifford,” said Jeannie; “I assure you I
don’t in the least mind. But what did Colonel Raymond say? Oh, take
care, the catalogues are slipping.”
It was too late; the pile bulged ominously in the middle, and then fell
all ways at once to the ground. Miss Clifford clutched wildly at them as
they fell, but the disaster was there.
“We’ll pick them up first,” said Jeannie. “Gracious, what a lot of them!
Where do you want them put? Take care, you’re treading on some.”
“I was just taking them to the entrance where people pay,” said poor
Miss Clifford. “Please don’t trouble; indeed, it is too good of you.”
Jeannie collected a foot or two of them, and together they deposited
them all on the table by the entrance.
“And now, Miss Clifford,” she said, “will you just give me two words
with you? First of all I assure you solemnly that I don’t in the least
mind the picture being in the exhibition, so if it was you who passed it
you can make your mind perfectly easy. But what did Colonel Raymond say
about it?”
Miss Clifford looked round as if she was half determined to run away.
“I cannot tell you, Miss Avesham; indeed, I cannot tell you,” she almost
moaned.
“Oh, don’t be so distressed,” said Jeannie, with the air of a grown-up
person soothing a child. “I am sure I should never be anything but
amused at what Colonel Raymond--I mean Cousin Raymond--said. Please tell
me.”
Miss Clifford closed her eyes and clenched her hands.
“He said--he said there was some understanding between you and Mr.
Collingwood, but that you didn’t wish it to be known yet.”
Jeannie’s smile faded, and a look of intense surprise took its place.
“Colonel Raymond said that?” she asked. “Do you mean he meant we were
engaged?”
Miss Clifford shut her mouth very tight, but moved her head as if she
was swallowing.
“That we were engaged?” repeated Jeannie, wishing to be quite certain.
Miss Clifford’s lips formed the word “yes,” but no sound issued.
Jeannie sat down on a stone seat at the top of the stairs.
“Cousin Raymond is a very imaginative man,” she said. “Miss Clifford, I
have never consciously set eyes on Mr. Collingwood. Oh, yes, I have. I
remember now a young man coming round the corner of the mill when Toby
was shaking himself. I think that must be he. Now!”
“It is terrible, terrible!” moaned Miss Clifford. “I have never been so
ashamed.”
Jeannie was not attending to her particularly.
“Cousin, too,” she said. “He’s no more my cousin than Mrs. Collingwood
is.”
“I am very, very sorry,” continued Miss Clifford, in the same low voice.
“Sorry?” said Jeannie. “My dear Miss Clifford, there’s nothing whatever
for you to be sorry for. Please believe that. I’m delighted you should
have the picture here--I am, really. But please be very careful not to
repeat what Colonel Raymond says. I will see that he doesn’t. Good-bye.
I must go after my aunt. Please cheer up. Does any one else know?”
“Colonel Raymond is rather fond of talking,” said Miss Clifford,
faintly.
“So I should think.”
“He told Phœbe and me not to tell any one. And Mrs. Raymond was there,
too.”
“Good gracious, how many more?”
“No one else,” said Miss Clifford.
Jeannie rose.
“Well, I must go,” she said. “And if you won’t promise me never to blame
yourself, I sha’n’t forgive you. So promise.”
“I will try,” said Miss Clifford.
Jeannie nodded and smiled at her, and went quickly down the stairs after
Miss Fortescue.