The Jolliest Term on Record Part 4

Gwethyn stood up to command a full view of the street. Yes, Miss Aubrey was also surrounded by a small crowd, but she took no notice of the spectators, and was painting away as if oblivious of their presence.

"She doesn't seem to mind," commented Gwethyn. "I wish I'd her nerve."

"They seem to find us as attractive as a dancing bear," groaned Katrine.

"That fat old man in the blue flannel shirt is gazing at us with the most insinuating smile. Don't look at him. Oh, why did you? You've encouraged him so much, he's coming to speak to us."

The wearer of the blue shirt appeared to think he was doing a kind action in patronizing the strangers; his smile broadened, he forced his way forward among the pushing children, and opened the conversation with a preliminary cough.

"Be you a-drawin' that old house across there?" he began consequentially. "Why, it be full o' cracks and stains, and 'ave wanted pullin' down these ten year or more!"

"It's beautiful!" replied Katrine briefly.

"Beautiful! With the tiles all cracked and the wall bulgin'? Now if you was wantin' a house to draw, you should 'a done mine. It's a new red brick, with bow windows and a slated roof, and there's a row o' nice tidy iron railings round the garden, too. You must come and take a look at it."

"We like the old cottages better, thank you," said Gwethyn, as politely as she could. "Would you please mind moving a little to the left? You're standing just exactly in my light."

"He's a picturesque figure," whispered Katrine, as their new acquaintance heaved himself heavily from the kerb-stone; then she added aloud: "I wonder if you'd mind standing still a minute or two, and letting me put you into my picture? Yes, just there, please."

"You wants to take I?" he guffawed. "Well, I never did! Best let me go home and tidy up a bit first."

"No, no! I like you as you are. Don't move! Only keep still for three minutes," implored Katrine, sketching with frantic haste.

"I don't know what my missis would say at I being took in my corduroys,"

remonstrated the model, who appeared half bashful and half flattered at the honour thrust upon him. "I'd change to my Sunday clothes if ye'd wait a bit, missie! Well, it be queer taste, for sure! I'd 'a thought a suit o' broadcloth would 'a looked a sight better in a picture."

"See the lady! She's a-puttin' in Abel Barnes!" gasped the children, crowding yet nearer, and almost upsetting the pair of easels in their excitement. "There's his head! There be his arm! Oh, and his legs too!

It be just like him--so it be!"

"Keep back and let the ladies alone!" commanded Abel in a stentorian voice. "Where are your manners got to? If you've finished, missie, you'll maybe not object to my takin' a look. Well, for sure, there I be to the life!"

"Wherever that picture goes in all the world, Abel Barnes will go with it!" piped a small awestruck voice in the background.

"Yes, she'll take me away with her," replied Abel, in a tone that implied some gratification--perhaps a touch of vanity lingered under the blue flannel shirt. "If I'd but a-been in my Sunday clothes!" he continued regretfully. "Still, you've only to say the word, and I'll put 'em on for you any day you've a mind to take I again, and you could draw the missis too, and the house, if you like. I were goin' to give the railings a fresh coat o' paint anyways, so I may as well do it afore you begins."

Finding that Katrine would not commit herself to any rash promises, he finally strolled away, possibly to buy a tin of paint, or to review his Sunday garments in antic.i.p.ation of the hoped-for portrait. The children, filled with envy at his distinction, were all eager to volunteer as models, and began posing in the road in various stiff and photographic att.i.tudes.

"Put in I! Put in I!" implored each and all.

"I shan't put in anybody if you don't behave yourselves," replied Katrine severely. "How can I see anything when you're standing exactly in front of me? Go away at once, and leave us quiet!"

To remove themselves from the vicinity of the interesting strangers was, however, not at all in the children's calculations. They only backed, and formed a close ring again round the exasperated girls, breathing heavily, and keeping up a chorus of whispered comments. Katrine and Gwethyn sighed ruefully, but judged it better to follow Miss Aubrey's example and take no notice, hoping that their tormentors might presently tire, and run off to play marbles or hop-scotch. The cottage proved by no means an easy subject to sketch; it needed very careful s.p.a.cing and drawing before they could secure a correct outline. It would have been hard enough if they had been alone and undisturbed, but to be obliged to work in full view of a frank and critical audience was particularly trying. Every time they rubbed anything out, a small voice would cry:

"Missed again! She can't do it!"

"I never realized before how often I used my india-rubber," murmured poor Gwethyn. "They seem to think I'm making a series of very bad shots."

"I wonder if I dare begin my sky, or if I ought to show the drawing to Miss Aubrey first," said Katrine. "I believe I shall venture. How I wish a motor-car would come along and scatter these wretched infants, or that their mothers would call them in for a meal!"

There was no such luck. The sight of the mixing of cobalt blue and Naples yellow on Katrine's palette only caused the children to press yet closer.

"Oh, look! This lady be doing it in colours!" they shouted. "She be cleverer than the other lady."

"Katrine, we must get rid of them!" exclaimed the outraged Gwethyn; then, turning to the crowd of shock heads behind, she inquired frowningly: "How is it you're not in school?"

"It's a holiday to-day!" came in prompt chorus.

"There's the Board of Guardians' meeting at the schoolhouse," explained an urchin, poking a chubby face in such close proximity to Katrine's paint-box that in self-defence she gave him a dab of blue on his freckled nose.

"It be luck for us when they have their meetings," volunteered another gleefully.

"But not for us," groaned Gwethyn. "Katrine, I wonder if the Church Catechism would rout them. I declare I'll try! It's my last weapon!"

Vain hope, alas! If Gwethyn had expected to thin the throng by acting catechist, she was much mistaken. The children had been well grounded at Sunday school, and so far from quailing at the questions were anxious to air their knowledge, and show off before visitors.

"Ask I! I can say it all from 'N. or M.' to 'charity with all men'!"

piped a too willing voice. "Be you a-going to give I sweets for saying it?" inquired another, with an eye to business.

"Katrine, I shall have to beat a retreat," murmured Gwethyn. "It's impossible to paint a stroke with this sticky little crew buzzing round like flies. I don't like being a public character. I've had enough notoriety this morning to last for the rest of my life. Now then, you young rascal, if you lay a finger on that paint-box I shall call on the schoolmaster and ask him to spank you!"

At this juncture, much to the girls' relief, Miss Aubrey came to criticize their sketches. She pointed out the mistakes in their drawings, and waited while they corrected them.

"It's no use beginning the painting to-day," she remarked in a low tone.

"The children are too great a nuisance. I did not know about the Board of Guardians' meeting, or I would not have brought you this morning. We must come another time, when these small folk are safely in school, and we can work undisturbed. I'm afraid you must have found them very troublesome."

"The ten plagues of Egypt weren't in it!" replied Gwethyn, joyfully closing her paint-box, and beginning to pack up her traps. "You had a crowd, too."

"Oh! I'm more accustomed to it, though I admit I'd rather dispense with an audience. If you want to be an artist, you have to learn to put up with this kind of thing. Never mind! I promise our next subject shall be in an absolutely retired spot, where no one can find us out."

CHAPTER IV

The School Mascot

Although Katrine had come to Aireyholme primarily to study art, she did not escape scot-free with respect to other lessons. Mrs. Franklin was a martinet where work was concerned. She often remarked that she did not approve of young people wasting their time, and she certainly endeavoured to put her principles into practice. She taught the Sixth Form herself. Some of the girls were preparing for their matriculation, and received special private coaching from a professor who came twice a week from Carford; but all, whether they were going in for the examination or not, were taking the same general course. Katrine had pursued her studies at Hartfield High School with very languid interest, and had joyfully abandoned them in favour of the Art School. She was not at all enthusiastic at being obliged to continue her ordinary education, and, indeed, considered the cla.s.ses in the light of a grievance. It was humiliating to find herself behind the rest of the form in mathematics, to stumble in the French translation, and make bad shots at botany; particularly so before Viola Webster, who listened to her mistakes and halting recitations with a superior smile, or an amused glance at Diana Bennett.

"If we had had you at Aireyholme the last year or two, you would have reached a much higher standard by now," said Mrs. Franklin. "You must do your best to make up for lost time. An extra half-hour's preparation every day would do you no harm. You might get up a little earlier in the mornings."

Katrine, whose object was not so much to repair the gaps left in her education by the Hartfield High School as to amble through the present term with the least possible exertion of her brains, received the suggestion coldly, and forbore to act upon it.

"It's all very well for the matric. girls to get up at six and swat, but you won't find me trying it on!" she a.s.sured Gwethyn in private. "What does it matter whether I can work a rubbishy problem, or patter off a page of French poetry? I've got to take the cla.s.ses, worse luck, but all the Mrs. Franklins in the world shan't make me grind."

Between Katrine and the Princ.i.p.al there existed a kind of armed neutrality. Mrs. Franklin persisted in regarding her as an ordinary pupil, while Katrine considered that she had come to school on a totally different footing. Neither would yield an inch. Mrs. Franklin was masterful, but Katrine was gently stubborn. It is impossible to make a girl work who is determined to idle. At art Katrine was prepared to slave, and she had already begun to worship Miss Aubrey, but as a member of the Sixth Form she was the champion slacker. The Princ.i.p.al by turns tried severity, cajoling, and sarcasm.

"A most talented essay!" she remarked one day, handing back an untidy ma.n.u.script. "One might regard it as a study in tautology. The word 'very' occurs seven times in a single page. It is scarcely usual for a girl of seventeen to make twelve mistakes in spelling."