Chagmouth Folk
As this book partly concerns the doings of the group of girls who came
daily from Chagmouth to Durracombe, we will follow them as they motored
back on their ten miles' journey from school. Squashed together in 'the
sardine-tin,' as they irreverently nicknamed the highly respectable car
driven by Mr. Vicary, who owned the garage close to the mill, they held
high jinks and talked at least thirteen to the dozen. There was so much
to discuss. The school was new to all of them, and naturally they wished
to criticise its methods, its teachers, its girls, and its prospects of
fun during the ensuing term.
"I like Miss Mitchell!"
"Yes, she's jolly, though I fancy she could be stern."
"Oh, I shouldn't like to face her in the study, of course."
"Miss Fanny is a dear!"
"And so is Miss Pollard."
"What d'you think of the monitresses?"
"Merle is A1!"
"Yes, I'm taken with Mavis and Merle! Partly because they seem to belong
to Chagmouth. They come over nearly every Saturday with Dr. Tremayne."
"Good! Then we shall see something of them. Hello! What's this car trying
to pass us? Babbie Williams! I'd forgotten for the moment she lives at
Chagmouth too."
It was Babbie, driving in solitary state, who flew by in the big motor,
which turned up the side road that led to The Warren. She gave a friendly
nod as she passed, and the six 'sardines' smiled in return.
"It's a case of 'we are seven' from Chagmouth," commented Fay. "If we
include Mavis and Merle that would make nine. I guess we'll get up a set
of nature study rambles on Saturday afternoons and all go out together.
We'd have some real frolics!"
"Rather! I'm your girl! Romola and I are ready for any fun that's going.
That's to say if there's going to be time for any fun. But with all the
pile of lessons Miss Mitchell has given us we shall be busy, with our
noses at the grindstone. It always takes both of us hours to do our
prep!"
The car meanwhile, with Mr. Vicary at the driving-wheel, had run across
the moor and down the steep hill, and was jolting over the cobble-stones
of the narrow main street of Chagmouth. It stopped outside the Post
Office, for the principal reason that if it went any farther it would be
impossible for it to turn round, and the girls, dismounting, took their
satchels or piles of books, said good-bye to one another, and scattered
to their respective homes. Beata and Romola crossed the bridge that
spanned the brook, skirted the harbour, climbed a flight of steps cut in
the solid rock, and reached a house which stood on the top of a high crag
overlooking the sea. It was an ideal spot for an artist to live, and it
was chiefly for its glorious view that Mr. Castleton had chosen it. He
was intensely sensitive to his surroundings, and preferred a picturesque
cottage, however inconvenient, to the comforts of an unaesthetic, bow-
windowed, modern, red-brick, suburban residence.
"Romance before everything!" he declared. "It's impossible to paint
unless you're in the right atmosphere. English scenery is getting spoilt
and vulgarised to such a degree that there'll soon be none of it left to
sketch. Where are the beautiful villages of thirty years ago? Gone--most
of them! The thatched roofs replaced by corrugated iron, and the hedges
clipped close to please the motorists. I defy anybody to make a
successful picture out of a clipped hedge! Even the gnarled apple trees
are being cut down and replaced by market gardeners' 'choice saplings.'
Picturesque England will soon be a thing of the past! I consider
Chagmouth one of the last strongholds for an artist, and I'm going to
live here as long as it remains unspoilt. There's enough work to keep me
busy for several years at any rate."
It is part of an artist's business to move about from place to place in
quest of fresh subjects. Mr. Castleton had spent some years at
Porthkeverne, and having, from a professional point of view, exhausted
that neighbourhood, he had transferred himself and his family to a new
horizon. He had a genius for discovering his right niche, and he had been
fortunate enough to light upon exactly the place that appealed to him. It
would not have suited everybody. It was a long low house, made of three
fishermen's cottages thrown into one, built so close to the edge of the
cliff that it seemed like a sea-bird's nest, with windows overlooking the
channel and the harbour, and a strip of stony garden behind. Inside, the
accommodation was somewhat cramped, but the rooms, if small, were quaint,
with an old-fashioned air about the panelled parlour and raftered dining-
room that suggested bygone days of smugglers and privateers. Below, in a
nook of the cliff, stood an old sail-shed, which Mr. Castleton had turned
into his studio. The big new skylight had only just been fitted into the
roof, and the stove which was to heat it during the winter was still at
Durracombe station waiting for the carrier to fetch it, but canvases were
already hung round the walls, the throne was erected and the big easel
placed in position, and an old fisherman, with weather-beaten countenance
and picturesque stained jersey, sat every morning for his portrait.
Those of our readers who have met the Castletons before in _The Head
Girl at the Gables_, will remember that they were a very large family.
Morland, the eldest, had been at the war, had won the D.C.M., and was now
learning engineering; Claudia was studying singing in London; Madox had
been sent for his first term at boarding-school; and the four little
ones, Constable, Lilith, Perugia, and Gabriel, were still in the nursery.
There was only one gap. Landry, poor Landry, who had never been like
other boys, had passed over the divide and joined the beautiful mother
whom in features he had so strongly resembled. A painting of him, as a
little child in her arms, hung on the studio wall. In some respects it
was the most brilliant portrait which Mr. Castleton had ever achieved. He
always showed it to visitors as a specimen of his best work.
At the time this story begins, Beata and Romola were fourteen and
thirteen years of age. They thoroughly maintained the family reputation
for good looks. There was a certain resemblance between them, and yet a
difference. Beata's eyes were clear grey, with dark lines round the iris,
and her hair was the exact shade of one of her father's best English gold
picture frames. She was a clever, capable girl, with a great love for
music, and was beginning to play the violin rather well. She got on quite
tolerably with her stepmother, and was fond of the little half-brothers
and sisters, though the warmest corner of her heart was reserved for
Madox, who was the baby of the elder portion of the family.
Romola, blue-eyed and ethereal, with long amber hair like a Saxon
princess, was her father's favourite model whenever he wished to depict
scenes of olden times. She figured as 'Guinevere' in a series of
illustrations to the _Morte d'Arthur_, as 'Elaine' her portrait had
been exhibited in the Academy, as 'The Lady of Shalott' she had appeared
in a coloured frontispiece of _The Art Review_, she inspired a most
successful poster of 'Cinderella,' and was the original of a series of
fairy drawings in a children's annual. She was not so clever or go-ahead
as Beata, and was rather dreamy and romantic in temperament, with a gift
towards painting and poetry, and a disinclination to do anything very
definite. She left most of the problems of life to Beata, and seldom
troubled to make decisions for herself. She was rather a pet with Violet,
her young stepmother, who, while preferring her to her sister, found her
the less useful of the two.
"You go, Beata, you're so quick!" Violet would say, when she wanted an
errand done, and for the same reason gave the charge of the children to
the one who was the more capable of assuming the responsibility.
It was not that Romola consciously shirked home duties, but she would any
time rather pose for an hour on the throne in the studio than take
temporary command of the nursery. Beata, on the contrary, hated sitting
still, and considered there was no greater penance than to be
commandeered by her father as a model. Her energetic temperament liked to
find its expression in outdoor activities. She had set to work upon the
neglected garden, and was busy trying to make flower-beds, and she looked
forward keenly to the forthcoming hockey season at school. The daily
drive to Durracombe and back was pure delight, and formed her greatest
compensation for leaving Porthkeverne and The Gables.
The Haven, as the house occupied by the Castletons was called, had been
changed into its present form by an old retired sea-captain, and there
was much about it that suggested a nautical atmosphere. The panelled
walls of the parlour might have been taken from a ship's cabin, the
dining-room contained convenient lockers, there was a small observatory
upstairs built to accommodate a big telescope, and the figure-head of a
vessel adorned the garden. Young Mrs. Castleton, whose tastes inclined
towards up-to-date comforts, often grumbled at its inconveniences, but on
the whole the family liked it. They would not have exchanged it for a
suburban villa for worlds. Just on the opposite side of the harbour, with
the jetty and the broad strip of green water in between, was the
furnished house rented at present by the Macleods. It stood in the more
aristocratic portion of Chagmouth, apart from the town and the fishing,
in company with one or two other newly-built residences. It was
charmingly pretty and artistic, in a perfectly modern fashion, and had
been designed by a famous architect. Its owner, a retired naval officer,
had gone abroad for a year, and had let the place in his absence,
rejoicing to have secured a careful tenant. He might certainly
congratulate himself upon leaving his house in such good hands. Mr.
Macleod was an American gentleman, who, owing to a nervous breakdown, was
travelling in Europe, and happening in the course of the summer to wander
to Chagmouth, he had fallen in love with the quaint old town and had
decided to spend the winter there. The factor which largely influenced
this decision was the presence of Mr. Castleton. Mr. Macleod was an
enthusiastic amateur painter, and the prospect of being able to take
lessons from so good an artist was sufficient to chain him to Chagmouth.
His wife encouraged the idea.
"George is just miserable if he's nothing to do," she explained to her
friends. "The doctor told me not to let him read too much or take up any
special mental hobby, but sketching strikes the happy medium. He
thoroughly enjoys pottering about in Mr. Castleton's studio, or making
drawings down on the quay. It's not arduous work and yet it keeps him
occupied. I like the house, and Fay can go to school near, so I expect
we're fixed here until next spring at any rate. If I get too bored I
shall run over to Paris and see my sister, but really I haven't been well
lately myself, and it will do me good to take a thorough rest for a
while."
Fay, who had formed an enthusiastic friendship with Beata and Romola, was
as pleased with Chagmouth as her parents. From the windows of Bella Vista
she could look across the harbour to The Haven, and had already arranged
a code of signals by which she might communicate with her chums. She was
a bright, amusing girl, rather grown-up for her age, and the constant
companion of her father and mother.
"Fay runs the house!" Mrs. Macleod would declare sometimes; but she was
immensely proud of her young daughter, and unwilling to thwart her in any
of the projects which she might care to take up. These, indeed, were
many. Fay dabbled in numerous hobbies, and her demands varied from
photographic materials to special sandals for toe dancing. She thoroughly
enjoyed life, and the freshness of her enthusiasm provided her parents
with a perpetual interest. To those friends who urged boarding-school her
mother was ready with the reply:
"Why must we be parted from her? She's her father's best tonic! She keeps
him young and makes him laugh. She's getting her education and living her
home life at the same time, and that seems to me ideal. We shall probably
have to spare her later on to be married, so we may as well make the most
of her now while we've got her. It's the chief tragedy of parents that
the children grow up and go away. We'll enjoy our nest while we have our
one chick here. When the young ones are fledged, the old birds stop
singing."
[Illustration: MR. CASTLETON DID NOT LOOK AT ALL PLEASED]
Of the other girls who shared the car to Durracombe, Tattie Carew, whose
parents were in India had come to live with her aunt Miss Grant, in the
ivy-covered house at the top of the hill, while Nan and Lizzie Colville
were the daughters of the newly-appointed vicar. All six, therefore, were
fresh comers to the neighbourhood, and as yet had neither explored the
whole of its beauties nor learnt to understand its traditions. In both of
these respects Mavis and Merle, though non-residents, had the advantage
of them. Their friendship with Bevis Talland, the boy who, once the
village foundling, had turned out to be heir to the Chagmouth estate, had
given them an intimate acquaintance with the life of the place. Bevis had
shown them the haunts of the birds, and the best places for wild flowers,
had told them the local legends and the histories of the various worthies
of the parish. The little town indeed seemed strangely empty without him,
but at present he was away at school, and later would be going to
college, though eventually, when he came of age, he would probably take
up his residence in the old family home. The Warren, where Tallands had
lived for so many generations, had been let on a lease to Mr. Glyn
Williams, and the lawyers who managed the property had decided that this
arrangement should be continued during Bevis's minority; heavy death
duties and land-taxes would cripple the estate for some years, and it was
not worth while running a house for the sake of a schoolboy who could
pass only his holidays there. Mr. Glyn Williams meanwhile had bought
Bodoran Hall near Port Sennen, and would have leisure to make all the
many structural alterations which he wished before he was obliged to
leave The Warren. Through Bevis's foster-mother, Mrs. Penruddock of
Grimbal's Farm, where Dr. Tremayne had his branch surgery at Chagmouth,
Mavis and Merle were also kept very much in touch with the tone of the
place and knew most of the little happenings that occurred. They were
friendly with many of the village people, almost all of whom were their
uncle's patients at one time or another, and the Saturday expedition over
the moor from Durracombe was to them the central attraction of the whole
week.
On the first Saturday afternoon of the new term, by special invitation,
they called at The Haven, and made the acquaintance of at least a portion
of the Castleton family. Beata was practising her violin, but she laid it
aside at once.
"I'll finish my half-hour afterwards. It will do quite as well this
evening. It's too fine a day to stay stuffing inside the house. Do you
care to come into the garden? We can step out through this window. These
are the babies, Constable, Lilith, Perugia, and Gabriel. I was keeping an
eye on them while I practised, to see they weren't in any mischief.
Violet has a headache and is lying down. She's our stepmother, you know.
We don't let the little ones call her Violet though! Come here, Perugia,
and shake hands! She's rather a pet, isn't she?"
The younger Castletons, from curly-headed Constable, known familiarly as
'Cooney,' to lovely three-year-old Baby Gabriel, were beautiful children,
and looked particularly picturesque in holland play-overalls embroidered
with saxe-blue. Mr. Castleton, who valued artistic effect before
everything, found Constable one of his most useful models, and though the
boy was now seven and a half, he was generally dressed in a Kate
Greenaway smock and his crop of golden curls was still uncut.
"Don't touch him!" his father would protest, whenever the question of
Constable's hair arose in the family; "as he is he's worth an income to
me! He always gets into exhibitions and he generally sells. He's just
what the average British patron wants to buy. The public can't always
understand my allegorical pictures, but they know a pretty child when
they see one. He'll be spoilt for the studio if he loses his curls, and I
want to sketch him as a singing angel, and as a water-baby, and for some
of my Hans Andersen illustrations. It's too bad to ruin his artistic
value just when I've trained him to pose properly. It will be years
before Gabriel learns to sit as still--if he ever does."
The little fellow had charmingly attractive manners, and came forward
willingly to talk to visitors. He and Perugia were the talkative ones;
Lilith, a flaxen-haired fairy of six, was very shy, and the baby was busy
with his own affairs and refused to be interrupted.
"Romola is sitting for Father," explained Beata. "I expect he'd let her
go now though, if you'd care to come for a walk with us. Bother! What
shall I do with the little ones? I can't leave them to Violet when she's
lying down."
"Bring them with you," suggested Mavis, who was making friends with
Perugia.
"Should you mind? I'll tell you what! I'll borrow the donkey from the
farm, then they can ride in turns and won't get tired. Mrs. Donnithorne
is very good-natured about lending it. Constable, you run and ask her,
while we go to fetch Romola. Do you care to come to the studio?"
Mavis and Merle were only too delighted to have the opportunity of taking
a peep into Mr. Castleton's den, so followed Beata to the old sail-room
down a flight of steps cut in the cliff side. They remembered the place,
for Job Helyar used to plait osiers there, and they had come once to buy
a basket from him. In its former days it had been nothing but a rough
shed. They hardly recognised it now it was turned into a studio. Beata
went boldly in, and introduced her visitors. Her father was painting a
study of Romola for incorporation in a large historical picture. She was
standing on the throne, in a beautiful scarlet mediaeval costume, with
her long fair hair unbound and flowing like an amber waterfall down her
back. Mr. Castleton did not look at all pleased at being interrupted in
his work, but he glanced at his watch and nodded a reluctant permission
to Romola to relieve her pose. She came down from the platform,
stretching her tired arms.
"I'm supposed to be holding up a casket, and it's a horrid position to
keep," she explained. "May I go now, Dad? We want Mavis and Merle to take
us for a walk. I shan't be three seconds changing out of this costume.
You think the study is like me, Mavis? Show them the sketch for the
picture, Dad! Now you see where my place will be in it--just there. The
little page-boy is Constable, and Violet sat for the queen."
While Romola slipped off her mediaeval robe and plaited her long hair,
Beata escorted the visitors back to the garden. She fetched a pair of
field-glasses, took a survey through them, then declared:
"I can see Fay at her window, and Tattie sitting on the bank above her
aunt's tennis-court. I'll signal to them both, and they'll meet us by the
bridge. We'll call at the Vicarage and pick up Nan and Lizzie, then we
shall be quite a jolly party. Oh, here's Constable with Billy. I'm so
glad Mrs. Donnithorne will lend him to us. Are we all ready? Then come
along!"
The six picturesque Castletons were already well known in the streets of
Chagmouth, and many eyes were turned to look at them as they passed
along, with Perugia and Gabriel riding the donkey together, Romola
holding them both on, and Lilith leading Billy by the bridle. Kindly
comments came from cottage doorways.
"Stick on tight, ma dear!"
"Don't 'ee walk behind or her'll kick!"
"Mind her don't run away with ee!"
"Don't they ride pretty, bless 'em!"
At the bridge by the harbour the party was reinforced by Fay and Tattie,
and farther on they were joined by the Colvilles, so that they were
twelve strong as they left the town, and a particularly merry crew. At
the beginning of the first hill, however, the donkey stopped dead.
Several hands seized its bridle and tried to urge it forward, while Mavis
and Merle pushed it in the rear, but not all their efforts could induce
it to stir an inch.
"Romola! What utter idiots we are!" exclaimed Beata. "Of course we've
forgotten the peppermints!"
"Bother! So we have! We must go back for some, that's all!"
"The 'donk' won't go without peppermints! He simply loves them!"
explained Beata tragically.
"We always take a big packet of them with us to give him. He expects
them! He's turning his head round to look for them!"
"Bless his heart, he shall have them then!" cooed Merle, patting the
dusty coat of their steed. "His auntie will go and get some for him
herself if he'll wait like a good boy. Is he particular what kind he
gets?"
"He likes those big brown humbugs!"
"Right-o! I'll run to Denham's shop and buy some. It's not far. Wait for
me, won't you?"
"Wait!" echoed Beata. "There'll be no question of going on. Nothing but
humbugs will make him move his four feet. We'll camp here till you come
back."
Merle performed her errand quickly, returning with two packets of sweets,
one for Billy and the other for the rest of the party. The donkey, after
consuming several peppermints, condescended to move on, and the
procession started once more. They had not gone far, however, before a
mishap occurred: in lieu of saddle a cushion had been tied on to Billy's
back, the strap had loosened, the cushion suddenly slipped, and Perugia
and Gabriel descended into the road. Romola managed to break their fall,
but they were both terrified, and refused to mount again, so Constable
took a turn instead, holding the bridle himself, while Lilith, with all
the Castleton instinct for artistic effect, gathered posies of wild
flowers and wove them into a wreath for the donkey's neck.
The small people could not walk fast, and the steed stopped so often to
demand refreshments, that the expedition was very leisurely and they did
not proceed far. They had only reached the point above the lighthouse
when Mavis, with an eye on her wrist watch, declared it was time to turn
back.
"We'll go with you another time, when we haven't to trail all this crew
along!" sighed Beata, as she bade good-bye to her friends. "Children are
a nuisance if you want to get on quickly. I'd have left them in the
garden if I could! Come and see us again at The Haven, won't you? I wish
Claudia and Morland were at home and we'd have some music. Well, I shall
see you next week, I suppose. I'm to have my first violin lesson on
Monday. I don't know whether I'm glad or not. I expect I shall be
terrified of Mr. Barlow. I learnt from a lady before. How I'm going to
practise and do all the home lessons Miss Mitchell sets us I can't
imagine! I think I shall strike like the 'donk' and refuse to stir unless
they give me peppermints!"