Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls

  CHAPTER XV.

  ELEANOR'S THEORIES REDUCED TO PRACTICE--STUDIES--THE ARITHMETIC-MASTER.

  Madame was not ungenerous to an apology. She believed in Eleanor too,and was quite disposed to think that Eleanor might be in the right in adispute with anybody but herself. Perhaps she hoped to hear her triumphin a discussion with Mr. Henley, or perhaps it was only as a punishmentfor her presumptuous remarks that Madame started the subject on thefollowing day to the drawing-master himself.

  "Miss Arkwright says your trees are all one, Mr. Henley," she began.(Madame's English was not perfect.) "Except that the half are yellow andthe other half blue. She knows not the kind even."

  The poor little drawing-master, who was at that moment "touching up" ayellow tree in one of the younger girls' copies, trying by skilfullydistributed dabs to make it look less like a faded cabbage-leaf,blushed, and laid down his brush. Eleanor, who was just beginning tocolour a copy of a mountain scene, turned scarlet, and let her firstwash dry into unmanageable shapes as she darted indignant glances atMadame, who appeared to enjoy her bit of malice.

  "Miss Arkwright will observe that these are sketches indicating thegeneral effect of a scene; not tree studies."

  "I know, Mr. Henley," said poor Eleanor, in much confusion; "at least, Imean I don't know anything about water-colour sketching, so I ought notto have said anything; and I never thought that Madame would repeat it.I was thinking of pencil-drawings and etchings; and I do like to knowone tree from another," she added honestly.

  "You draw in pencil yourself?" asked Mr. Henley.

  "Oh no!" said Eleanor; "at least only a little. It was my mother'sdrawings I was thinking of; and how she used to show us the differentways of doing the foliage of different trees, and the marking on thebark of the trunks."

  Mr. Henley drew a sheet of paper from his portfolio, and took a pencilfrom his case.

  "Let us see, my dear young lady, what you remember of these lessons. Thepencil is well cut. There are flat sides for shading, and sharp ends foroutlines."

  Madame's thin lips pursed with the ghost of a smile, as Eleanor, withhot cheeks and hands, came across "the room" to put her theories inpractice.

  "I can't do it, I know," she said, as she sat down, and gave herselfone of those nervous twitches common to girls of the hobble-de-hoy age.

  But Eleanor's nervous' spasms were always mitigated by getting somethinginto her fingers. Pencil and paper were her favourite implements; andafter a moment's pause, and a good deal of frowning, she said: "We've agood many oaks about us;" and forthwith began upon a bit of oak foliage.

  "It's only a spray," she said.

  "It's very good," said the drawing-master, who was now looking over hershoulder.

  "Oak branches are all elbows," she murmured, warming to her work, andapparently talking to herself. "So different from willows and beeches."

  "Ve-ry good," said Mr. Henley, as Eleanor fitted the branchesdexterously into the clusters of leaves; "now for a little bit of theoak bark, if you please."

  "This is only one tree, though," said Madame, who was also looking on."Let us see others, mademoiselle."

  "Willows are nice to do," said Eleanor, intent upon her paper; "and thebark is prettier than oak, I think, and easier with these long points.My mother says branches of trees should be done from the tips inwards;and they do fit in better, I think. Only willow branches seem as if theyought to be done outwards, they taper so. Beech trunks are very pretty,but the leaves are difficult, I think. Scotch pines are easy." AndEleanor left the beech and began upon the pine, fitting in thehorizontal branches under the foliage groups with admirable effect.

  "That will do, Miss Arkwright," said the little drawing-master. "Yourmother has been a good guide to you; and Mother Nature will completewhat she has begun. Now we will look at the copy, if you please."

  Eleanor's countenance fell again. Her pink mountain had run into herblue mountain, and the interrupted wash had dried with hard andunmanageable outlines. Sponging was the only remedy.

  Next drawing-lesson day Mr. Henley arrived a few minutes earlier thanwas his wont, staggering under a huge basket containing a large clump offlags and waterside herbage, which he had dug up "bodily," as he said.These he arranged on a tray, and then from the bottom of the basketproduced the broken fragments of a red earthenware jug.

  "It was such a favourite of mine, Miss Arkwright," said he; "but what issacred to a maid-of-all-work? My only consolation, when she smashed itthis morning, was the thought that it would serve in the foreground ofyour sketch."

  Saying which, the kind-hearted little man laid the red crocks among theweeds, and after much pulling up and down of blinds to coax a good lighton to the subject, he called Eleanor to set to work.

  "It is _very_ good of you," said Eleanor emphatically. "When I have beenso rude, too!"

  "It is a pleasure," said the old man; "and will be doubly so if you doit well. I should like to try it myself," he added, making a few hastydashes with the pencil. "Ah, my dear young lady, be thankful that youwill sketch for pleasure, and not for bread! It is pleasanter to learnthan to teach."

  Out of gratitude to Mr. Henley alone, Eleanor would have done her bestat the new "study"; but apart from this the change of subject wasdelightful to her. She had an accurate eye, and her outlines hadhitherto contrasted favourably with her colouring in copies of thesketches she could not like. The old drawing-master was delighted withher pencil sketch of his "crockery among the reeds," and Eleanorconfessed to getting help from him in the choice and use of her colours.

  "Studies" became the fashion among the more intelligent pupils at BushHouse; though I have heard that experience justified the old man'sprophecy that they would not be so popular with the parents as theformer style had been. "They like lakes, and boats, and mountains, andruins, and a brighter style of colouring," he had said, and, as itproved, with truth.

  Eleanor was his favourite pupil. Indeed, she was in favour with all theteachers.

  A certain quaint little German was our arithmetic-master; a very goodone, whose patience was often sorely tried by our stupidity orfrivolity. On such occasions he rained epithets on us, which, from hisimperfect knowledge of English, were often comical, and roused moreamusement than shame. But for Eleanor he never had a harsh word. She wasthoroughly fond of arithmetic, and "gave her mind to it," to use a goodold phrase.

  "Ah!" the little man would yell at us. "You are so light-headed!Sometimes you do do a sum, and sometimes not; but you do never _think_.There is not one young lady of this establishment who thinks, but MissArkwright alone."

  I remember an incident connected with the arithmetic-master whichoccurred just after we came, and which roused Eleanor's intenseindignation. It was characteristic, too, of Madame's ideas of propriety.

  The weather was warm, and we were in the habit of dressing for tea. Ourtoilettes were of the simplest kind. Muslin garibaldis, for coolness,and our "second-best" skirts.

  Eleanor, Matilda, and I shared one room. On the first Wednesday eveningafter our arrival at Bush House we were dressing as usual, when Emma ranin.

  "I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you," said she; "you mustn't put on yourmuslin bodies to-night. The arithmetic-master is coming after tea."

  "I don't understand," said Eleanor, who was standing on one leg asusual, and who paused in a struggle with a refractory elastic sandal tolook up with a puckered brow, and general bewilderment. "What has thearithmetic to do with our dresses?"

  Emma's saucy mouth and snub nose twitched with amusement, as she repliedin exact mimicry of Madame's broken English: "Have you so little ofdelicacy as to ask, mademoiselle? Should the young ladies of thisestablishment expose their shoulders in the transparency of muslin to aprofessor?"

  Matilda and I burst out laughing at Emma's excellent imitation ofMadame; but Eleanor dropped her foot to the floor with a stamp thatbroke the sandal, and burst forth into an indignant torrent of words,which was only stayed by the necessity for resuming our morning dresses,and h
astening down-stairs. There Eleanor swallowed her wrath with herweak tea; and I remember puzzling myself, to the neglect of mine, as tothe probable connection between arithmetic-masters and transparentbodices.