The Head Girl at the Gables Part 27

"I believe this is 'it'. Oh, do open it quick! I can't wait. I never felt so excited to know anything in all my life! I could scream!"

Margaret, equally agitated, nevertheless kept her feelings under control, and opened the envelope with outward calm, though her fingers trembled noticeably. She looked at the enclosure, flushed crimson, and, turning to Lorraine, dropped a mock curtsy.

"Madam Kilmeny," she announced, "I'm happy to be able to inform you that your portrait is to appear upon the walls of the Royal Academy!"

"Oh, hurrah!" jodelled Lorraine, careering round the studio in an ecstatic dance, somewhat to the peril of various studies on easels. "I _knew_ it would get in, Carina! I had a kind of premonition that it would!"

"And I had a premonition the other way entirely. I never was so surprised in my life! You've been my little mascot, and brought me the luck!"

"No, indeed; it's your own cleverness. It's a beautiful painting.

Claudia says even her father admired it, and he scarcely ever allows anybody's work is decent except his own."

"I certainly take praise from Mr. Castleton as a compliment," admitted Margaret. "I'm glad to hear that he liked it. Well, this is actually my first real artistic success. I don't know myself this afternoon. I feel an inch taller than usual."

"And so do I, to think I'm going to be hung in the Academy! Of course, I know you've idealized me out of all recognition; but there's a foundation of 'me' in the picture--enough to c.o.c.k-a-doodle about. The Castletons have been painted so often, they don't care; but it's a unique experience for me. It makes me feel somehow as if _I_ were Kilmeny, and had spent those seven long years among the fairies. I felt it all the time I was standing for you, Carina."

"That's where you made such a perfect model. I could see the glamour of the fairies in your face, and tried to catch it in my painting. I always contend that one of the chief elements in a good sitter is imagination, so as to maintain the right expression. One sees many apathetic portraits, and knows that the originals must have been feeling bored to tears. You never looked bored."

"No, the fairies were dancing round me all the time! You conjured them up. Do you know, Carina, I think fairies are your forte? I like those small paintings of them better than anything else you do."

"Those coloured frontispieces for children's magazines? They're certainly the only things in which I've ever succeeded. It's well to realize one's limitations. I've been so ambitious in my time, and wanted to paint historic scenes and battle-pieces, and other things quite beyond my powers. It's strange if the line we rather despise turns out to be our best bit of work. Look at Edward Lear. He was a rather cla.s.sically inclined artist, whose serious work seems to have vanished, yet he is known and appreciated all over the world by the delightful and inimitable _Book of Nonsense_ that he knocked off in a few leisure hours to amuse the children of a n.o.ble family whose portraits he was painting.

Hans Andersen, too, is another instance. No one ever now reads his numerous novels and solid books, but his fairy-tales have been translated into almost every language. Nothing so charming and poetical has ever been written. His is a magic flute that draws children of every clime and age to listen to him. Not that I'm for a moment comparing myself to Edward Lear or Hans Andersen! All the same, I think I shall take a hammer and smash up those statues I was trying my hand at, and stick to fairies for the future."

"I hope they'll hang 'Kilmeny' on the line!"

"So do I, but I don't expect it. It will be most exciting to go up to town and see it. I wonder----"

"You wonder what?" asked Lorraine, for Margaret had suddenly stopped short.

"Never mind! It was an idea that came into my head. Perhaps I'll tell you some other time."

"Oh, do tell me now!"

"Certainly not--you must wait. No, it's no use your guessing, for I shan't say whether you're right or wrong."

Lorraine's guesses, which were of rather a wild description, did not come anywhere near the real truth, which was sprung upon her a few days later by her enterprising friend. It was nothing more or less than an invitation to go up to London with Miss Lindsay and see "Kilmeny" for herself on the wall of Burlington House.

"I daren't tell you beforehand in case it should be an impossible scheme," said Margaret, "but your mother gives permission, and I saw Miss Kingsley myself, and she promised you a few days' holiday. I told her it was part of your education to see the Academy, and she quite agrees with me. So you're to go!"

This was news indeed! Lorraine was half crazy with joy. Though she had turned seventeen, she had never yet been to London. Porthkeverne was a long journey from town, and any holidays which she had taken had been to visit relations in other parts of the country. She had envied Rosemary when the latter started for the College of Music; now she was actually to see the great city for herself, and in company with Carina, of all delightful people in the world. They were to go up for a whole precious week, and to stay in a hotel--Lorraine had never yet stayed in a hotel--and they were to do theatres, and as many of the sights as could possibly be crammed into the short s.p.a.ce of time. The prospect was dazzling. Monica, catching in her breath sharply, decreed: "You're the biggest lucker I've ever met, Lorraine!"

Clothes, of course, were a paramount topic.

"I can't let Miss Lindsay take a Cinderella with her to London," said Mother, looking over the fashionable advertis.e.m.e.nts in the papers, and trying to decide what was the most suitable costume for a girl of seventeen. "You want something to look smart in at the Academy, and yet that won't get soiled directly with going about in motor omnibuses. Now this is a sweet dress! I'd like you in this, but it would be ruined in five minutes if you were caught in a shower; and how can we guarantee fine weather? Does your umbrella want re-covering? If there isn't time to have it done, Rosemary must lend you her new one."

By dint of much eager cogitation on the part of the whole family, Lorraine's wardrobe was at last satisfactorily arranged and packed in a suit case. She herself, in a new grey coat and skirt and a grey travelling hat trimmed with pink, joined Margaret Lindsay at the railway station. They were to catch the early express, and Mother, Rosemary, and Monica came to see them off. It felt so grand to be going away without the rest of the family, and to hang out of the carriage window shouting good-bye while they frantically waved handkerchiefs upon the platform.

Lorraine, still clutching in her new gloves the sticky packet of sweets that Monica had pressed as a last offering into her hand, went on signalling until Margaret pulled her forcibly back on to her seat.

"We don't want your head whisked off first thing, please, and we're coming to the bridge. I wouldn't sit on the lunch-basket, if I were you!

Let me put it up on the rack."

"I'm _so_ excited!" sighed Lorraine. "I'm glad we've got the carriage to ourselves, Carina, because we can talk. Isn't it sport?"

"We shan't keep it long. It will probably fill up at St. Cyr, so work off your spirits now, if you want to. But my advice is to take things calmly, or you'll be tired out before we get to town."

The long railway journey, first along the coast, and then inland through scenery which was very different from Porthkeverne, was deeply interesting to Lorraine; and if she grew tired and closed her eyes for part of the route, her enthusiasm woke again when they reached London.

The great station with its crowds of people, the rows of cabs and taxis, the streets with their endless traffic, all seemed a new world to the little country mouse who was making her first acquaintance with the metropolis.

"It's busier than I expected, and ever so much dirtier!" she commented.

"Yes, it's a different world from Porthkeverne--no arum lilies and yuccas and aloes--only plane-trees and lilac-bushes in the squares. Here we are at our hotel! It will be nice to wash and rest!"

Lorraine, with a beaming face, sat next morning at the little table laid for two, and discussed plans over the breakfast bacon. She had drawn up a programme of things she wanted to see in town, of so lengthy a description that Margaret Lindsay declared it would take at least a month instead of a week to work through it adequately.

"Some of the shows are shut up because of the war," she said, going through the list and putting ticks against the most suitable places. "We can see the Zoo, and Madame Tussaud's, and Kew Gardens, and I'll enquire whether the Tower and the Houses of Parliament are open to visitors at present. Westminster Abbey will, of course, be on view, but I expect we shall find the monuments banked up with sandbags for fear of raids.

Never mind, we'll do Poets' Corner at any rate. What would you like to start with this morning?"

"May I choose? Then I plump for the Academy!"

So to the Academy they went, and it was a very gay, pink-cheeked, bright-eyed version of Lorraine who walked up the flight of stairs at Burlington House, and through the turnstile into the entrance hall where the palms are. She had seen small exhibitions at the Arts Club in Porthkeverne, but never a series of great rooms hung with large pictures. Margaret was turning over the pages of the catalogue.

"Oh, do find out where 'Kilmeny' is, and let us go and see her first!"

begged Lorraine.

"She's in Room VII, No. 348."

It was difficult to tear Margaret away from the nearest pictures, but Lorraine's impatience dragged her along to Room VII. "Kilmeny" was really in a very good position, if not exactly on the line, only just above it, and fortunately the pictures on either side were in low tone, and did not spoil the effect of colour.

"A field of poppies or a Venetian carnival next door would have utterly killed my sunset and thistledown!" rejoiced Margaret. "I ought to be very grateful to the hanging committee. It doesn't look so bad as I expected."

"Bad! It's the most beautiful picture in the whole room."

"We must hunt up our other friends," said Margaret, turning over the pages of the catalogue. "Where are Mr. Castleton's, I wonder? Oh, there's one in the next room--No. 407. Let's go and look at it."

The picture in question was the portrait of Madame Bertier, a clever study in an impressionist style, showing the bright eyes and eager features of that volatile lady under cover of a large black hat and veil. It was perhaps one of the best pictures that Mr. Castleton had ever painted, and it was attracting quite a small crowd. Margaret and Lorraine came up, and joined the outer circle of admirers. In front of them stood two gentlemen and a lady--foreigners. They spoke softly and rapidly together in French. Lorraine, whose knowledge of that language was not far beyond the ordinary schoolgirl standard, could not understand all they were saying, but she caught a word here and there.

The lady was admiring the skill of the painting, and voting it worthy of the Salon in Paris; one of the gentlemen admired the beauty of the model, the other, with a pleased smile, explained that it was his wife, and that, though a charming portrait, it scarcely did justice to the original.

"Mais c'est a merveille!" he said, with a quick gesticulation, as he moved on to allow other people access to the picture.

Lorraine nudged Margaret, and drew her aside.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered. "That man in the light suit declared that Madame Bertier was his wife!"

"Impossible! Her husband is interned in Germany!"

"Well, that was what he said at any rate."

"Perhaps he was making up, just for effect. Some people like to tell these wonderful fibs in public, just to impress the outside world."