The Head Girl at the Gables

  CHAPTER IV

  Greets Claudia

  By dint of urging on the part of the new monitresses the school made aspecial effort for the social gathering. The idea of an exhibition hadfrightened the juniors at first, but when they grew used to it itappealed to them. They were rather pleased to bring specimens of theirbest drawings, photos, plasticine models, or other pieces of handiwork,and, though their efforts might be somewhat crude, Lorraine on the firstoccasion rejected nothing, thinking that comparison with better work wasthe surest means of raising the standard for next time. She and herfellow-monitresses certainly made merry in private over Vera Chambers'lopsided plasticine duck, Opal Clarke's extraordinary originalillustrations, and the cat-stitches in Jessie Lovell's tea-cloth, butthey kept their mirth to their own circle and allowed no hint of it toleak into the lower school.

  On the eventful day of the "Social" the closing bell rang at 3.35instead of at four o'clock, and forty-two delighted girls promptly putaway their books, closed their desks, and trooped into the gymnasium.The monitresses, aided and abetted by Miss Janet, had spent a busy butsuccessful time in preparation, and the room looked quite festive. Flagsdecorated the platforms, and Chinese lanterns were suspended from thebeams of the roof. Round the wooden walls hung a show of sketches,drawings, maps, illuminations and photographs, fastened up with tacksand drawing pins, and on the tables was spread forth quite a goodlydisplay of moths, butterflies, beetles, shells, sea-weeds, pressed wildflowers, fretwork, pokerwork, and needlework. All specimens werelabelled with their owners' names, so it was excitement to walk roundand compare notes. Lorraine, listening critically, judged the mentalbarometer of the school from the juniors' remarks, which, if slangy,were certainly complimentary.

  "Peggie! You paragon! What a perfectly chubby little bag! I couldn'thave made it if I'd tried till Doomsday!"

  "I should cock-a-doodle, Jill, if _I'd_ done that illumination!"

  "Is this sketch really _yours_, Mabel? Hold me up! I feel weak."

  "Wonders will never cease! Here's old Florrie made a collection ofshells."

  "I think this show is a stunt!"

  "Absolutely topping!"

  "Keep out of my way, you blue-bottle! I can't see!"

  "All right, old thing! Don't get raggy!"

  When the exhibits had been duly admired and notes compared as to theirrespective merits, a few of the best musical stars performed on thepiano, then some round games were played, and the proceedings closed bythe whole school forming a wide circle and singing "Auld Lang Syne" inthe orthodox fashion with crossed hands.

  The girls went unwillingly, and would have stayed for another half-hourif Miss Janet had not insisted upon their departure. Lorraine, puttingon her boots in the cloak-room, decided that her first effort had beenan unqualified success. It had certainly seemed to draw the schooltogether in a bond of union, so far as she could judge. She could notresist a purr of satisfaction to Dorothy, whose coat hung next to hers.Dorothy's congratulations were, however, half-hearted.

  "I suppose they enjoyed it," she admitted grudgingly, "though I dare saysome of them felt it a bore to be obliged to stay after four o'clock.Vivien said you'd got the whole thing up to show off your ownspecimens."

  The hot colour flamed to Lorraine's cheeks.

  "Oh, what a shame! I _didn't_! I hardly showed any specimens myself,only a few ferns and photos, and one drawing. You _know_ it wasn't formy own glorification!"

  Dorothy straightened her collar outside her coat as if its arrangementwere the main object in life.

  "Oh, _I'm_ not saying so!" she remarked carelessly. "I'm only tellingyou what I heard Vivien say. Effie Swan wondered you never asked _her_to play when you asked Theresa Dawson."

  "I couldn't ask them all--it wasn't a concert."

  "She's very offended, though. I don't think she's going to come to thenext social."

  "Let her stay at home, then!" snapped Lorraine, thoroughly exasperated.

  Dorothy consulted her watch.

  "It's frightfully late!" she sighed. "I shan't have time to do mypractising. We're going out to a concert to-night."

  She sauntered away, having lodged several very unpleasant shafts, andleaving them to rankle.

  For Lorraine, all the satisfaction of the afternoon had faded. Nothinghurts so much as the confidences of a so-called friend who tells you thedisagreeable things that other people say about you. It is aparticularly mean form of sincerity, for the remarks were probably neverintended to be repeated. The mischief it often causes is incalculable.Lorraine walked home, feeling that there was a barrier between herselfand her cousin.

  "I knew Vivien would be annoyed at my being head girl, but I didn'tthink she'd be so spiteful as that!" she ruminated. "Well, I don't care!I shall go on with the 'socials' all the same, and with any otherschemes that crop up. But it is horrid of her, because she might havebeen such a help to me!"

  As the term went on, Lorraine began to see only too clearly that hertwo great obstacles in the school were Dorothy and Vivien. They did notopenly thwart her, but there was a continual undercurrent of opposition,not marked enough for comment, but sufficiently galling. No matter whatshe proposed, they had always some objection to offer, and, though inthe end they might hold up their hands with the rest, it was with an airof concession more than of whole-hearted agreement. They were thecleverest girls in the form, so it was hard to have to count them asopponents, rather than as allies, in her work. The other members of theSixth, who had passed up the school with her, she knew from experiencewould give scant help. Patsie was a good-natured rattle-trap, Audrey anamiable little goose; Nellie and Claire were very stodgy, ordinarygirls, without an original idea between them, and not much notion of theresponsibilities of monitresses.

  "I want somebody to back me up, and act as lieutenant," thoughtLorraine.

  It was at this juncture that she discovered the capacities of Claudia.

  She had, so far, taken very little notice of the newcomer, except byvaguely appreciating the fact of her extreme prettiness. Claudia had notpushed herself, and the intimacy which now sprang up between the twogirls came of a mere chance. Miss Kingsley had asked the school tocollect fruit-stones and nuts, to be sent to headquarters for use in themanufacture of gas-masks for the army. It was a point of patriotism foreveryone to bring as many as possible.

  Lorraine, strolling out one Saturday on this errand, did not find it aneasy matter to fill her basket. The appeal was a universal one in thetown, and the Council School children had been on the common before her,picking up the beech-mast and acorns. As for hazel-nuts, there seemednot a solitary one left in the hedges. She was wandering disconsolatelyalong, foraging with small success, when she happened to meet Claudia.Lorraine held out her quarter-filled basket for sympathy.

  "That's all I've been able to find, and if there are any more to be had,I'm sure I don't know where they are!"

  "There are heaps of horse-chestnuts in the fields above our house,"replied Claudia. "I'm going home now, and, if you care to come with me,I'll help you to get some."

  Lorraine jumped at the offer, and the girls set off together up theroad, chatting briskly.

  The Castletons had only come lately to Porthkeverne. Mr. Castleton wasan artist, and, attracted by the quaint streets, picturesque harbour,and the glorious cliffs and sea in the neighbourhood, he had taken WindyHowe, an empty farmhouse on a hill some way above the town, converting abig barn into a studio, and establishing himself there with easels,paint-boxes, and a huge pile of immense canvases.

  A critic had once described Mr. Castleton as a genius who had justmissed fire, and the simile was an apt one. His large pictures weregood, but not always good enough to hit the public taste. He wasconstantly changing his style, and one year would astonish theexhibitions by misty impressionism, and the next would return topre-Raphaelite methods. He had dabbled in sculpture, illustration,frescoes, and miniature painting, and had published two volumes of minorpoems, which, unfortunately, had never commanded a good s
ale. He was ahandsome, interesting man, utterly unpractical and irrational,delightful to talk to, but exasperating in the extreme to those withwhom he had business. The quaint, old-fashioned homestead on the hill,with its low-ceiled bedrooms, panelled parlours, black-beamed kitchen,ivied porch, thick hedge of fuchsias, and view over a stretch of heathand the dancing waters of the bay, satisfied his artistic temperament,and provided a suitable background for the new ideas which he wasconstantly evolving. Moreover--though this was quite a secondaryconsideration--it afforded sufficient accommodation for his family.

  Lorraine's first impression of the Castletons was that they went in forboth quality and quantity. They numbered nine, and all had the samenicely-shaped noses, Cupid mouths, irreproachable complexions, neatteeth, dark-fringed blue eyes, and shining sunlit hair. They were averitable gold-mine to artists, and their portraits had been paintedconstantly by their father and his friends. Pictures of them in variouscostumes and poses had appeared as coloured supplements to annuals or asfrontispieces in magazines; they had figured in the Academy, and hadbeen bought for permanent collections in local art galleries. Thefeatures of Morland, Claudia, Landry, Beata, Romola, and Madox had foryears been familiar to frequenters of provincial exhibitions, sometimessingly, sometimes in groups, and sometimes with the lovely mother, whoseprofile was considered a near approach to that of the classic statue ofCeres.

  Five years before this story opens, pretty, impetuous, blue-eyed Mrs.Castleton had suddenly resigned all the sad and glad things that make upthe puzzle we call life, and passed on to sample the ways of a widerworld. For the first six months her husband had mourned for herdistractedly, and had written quite a little volume of poems in hermemory; for the next eight months he was attractively pensive, andthen--all in a few weeks--he fell in love again and married his model, agirl of barely seventeen, with a beautiful Burne-Jones face and aCockney accent. In the following few years three more carnation-cheeked,golden-haired little Castletons--Constable, Lilith, and Perugia--hadtumbled into this planet to form a second nursery, and were alreadylearning to sit for their portraits in various attractive studio poses.

  Claudia, running into the house to fetch an extra basket for thehorse-chestnuts, introduced Lorraine to a few members of the family whohappened to be straying about, showed her a row of pictures in thedining-room, and escorted her through the gap at the bottom of thegarden into the fields at the back of the barn.

  Sitting on the farther gate, whittling a stick, was a boy of seventeen,with the unmistakable Castleton features and sunlit hair.

  "Hallo, Morland!" cried Claudia. "We're going to get chestnuts. Do comeand help; there's a sport! This is Lorraine Forrester."

  Morland would no doubt have performed the orthodox ceremony of liftinghis cap, but, being bareheaded, he grinned and shook hands instead.

  "Don't advise you to eat them--they're beastly!" he vouchsafed.

  "We're not going to--they're for the soldiers!"

  "Then I pity the poor beggars, that's all."

  "They're not to be eaten, they're to be made into gas-masks. I told youall about it, Morland," declared Claudia.

  "I've a shocking memory," he demurred. "But whatever they're for I'llhelp you get some. Here, give me this to carry," and he took Lorraine'sbasket and hung it over his arm.

  There were plenty of chestnuts lying on the ground under the trees, andmore hanging on the branches which could be dislodged by a well-aimedstone. The young people spent a profitable half-hour, and filled theirhandkerchiefs as well as their baskets.

  "I shall have heaps now!" exulted Lorraine. "You two are trumps to havehelped me!"

  "I'd nothing else to do," said Morland.

  "Wouldn't Violet let you practise?" asked Claudia quickly.

  "No, she said it woke up Perugia!"

  Claudia shrugged her shoulders eloquently.

  "It's always the way!" she replied.

  "Are you fond of music?" asked Lorraine.

  "Love it! It's the only thing I _do_ care about. I'd play all day andnight if Violet didn't turn me out. She locks the piano sometimes."

  "Is she your sister?"

  Morland and Claudia both laughed and looked at each other, and thelatter explained:

  "No, she's our stepmother, but she's so young that all of us call herViolet. She's not such a bad sort on the whole, but we have squallssometimes, don't we, Morland?"

  "Rather!" nodded the boy.

  "Constable and Lilith used to sleep through anything and everything,"added Claudia, "but Perugia's a fidgety child, and she wakes up andyells when she hears the piano."

  "I play the violin a little," admitted Lorraine modestly. "I wonder ifyou two would come down some day and try a few things over with me. I'venobody to play my accompaniments since Rosemary went away. I know Motherwould be pleased to see you."

  "We'd just love it! You bet we'll come!"

  Lorraine, pouring out the account of her adventures when she reachedhome, sought confirmation from her mother for the invitation she hadgiven to the young Castletons.

  "They're the _most_ fascinating family! I saw them all as Claudia wastaking me back through the garden. I think each one's more perfectlybeautiful than the others. They're absolutely romantic. You _will_ letme ask Morland and Claudia to tea, won't you, Muvvie?"

  "I will in this case, because I know something of Mr. Castleton from theLorrimers, but you mustn't go giving broadcast invitations again withoutconsulting me first."

  "I won't! I won't! You're a darling to let me have them. Muvvie, I'm sothankful you're not our stepmother!"

  "So am I," returned Mrs. Forrester humorously. "I find my own familyquite a sufficient handful, and what I should have done with anotherwoman's in addition, I don't know. It would have been quite too big aburden."

  "We can play the piano here," said Lorraine, "because there isn't anybaby to wake up and cry."

  "If there were, you'd have to reckon with me, for I shouldn't let it bedisturbed when I'd successfully hushed it to sleep. I haven't forgottenmy own struggles with you and Richard. You were the naughtiest babies ofthe whole tribe."

  After this rather unconventional introduction, Lorraine's attraction tothe Castletons ripened fast into intimate friendship. They were such anunusual family, so clever and interesting, yet with Bohemian ways thatwere different from those of any one she had yet known.

  In the case of Morland and Claudia their father's artistic talent hadcropped out in the form of music. Claudia cared nothing for painting,but was just beginning to discover that she had a voice. Morland,hopeless as far as school work was concerned, had learned to play thepiano almost by instinct. He was a handsome, careless, good-temperedboy, decidedly weak in character, who drifted aimlessly along withouteven an ambition in life. He was seventeen and a half, and for nearly ayear had been lounging about at home, doing nothing in particular.Spasmodically his father would realize his existence and say: "I mustreally do something with Morland." Then he would get absorbed in a freshpicture, and his good intentions on his son's behalf would fade tovanishing point. In another six months the lad would be liable formilitary service, so until the war should be over it seemed scarcelyworth while to start him in any special career. Doing nothing, however,is a bad training, and even Mr. Castleton's artistic friends--not proneas a rule to proffer good advice--tendered the occasional comment thatMorland was "running to seed". Morland himself was perfectly happy if hewas left alone and allowed to sit and improvise at the piano; he nevertroubled his head about his future career, and was as unconcerned as theravens regarding the sources of food and raiment.

  He played Lorraine's accompaniments easily at sight, with a delicacyof touch and an artistic rendering such as Rosemary had never put intothem. It inspired Lorraine, and yet half humiliated her; she was apainstaking but not a very clever student of the violin; no touch ofgenius ever flowed from her fingers. To listen to Morland was to gain aglimpse of a new musical world in which he flew on wings and shestumbled on crutches. She sighed as she
threw down her violin, for shehad all the ambition that he unfortunately lacked.