Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls

  CHAPTER XXV.

  THE "HOUSEHOLD ALBUM"--SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES--A NEWSPECIES?--JACK'S BARGAIN--THEORIES.

  Out of motherly affection, and also because their early attempts atdrawing were very clever, Mrs. Arkwright had, years before, begun ascrapbook, or "Household Album," as it was called, into which she pastedsuch of her children's original drawings as were held good enough forthe honour; the age of the artist being taken into account.

  Jack's gift in this line was not as great as that of Clement or Eleanor,but this was not the only reason why no drawing of his appeared in thescrapbook. Mrs. Arkwright demanded more evidence of pains and industrythan Jack was wont to bestow on his sketches or designs. He resented hisexclusion, and made many efforts to induce his mother to accept hishasty productions; but it was not till the summer to which I alludedthat Jack took his place in the "Household Album."

  It was during a long drive, in which we were exhibiting the country tosome friends, that Eleanor and I chose the place of that particularsketching expedition. The views it furnished had the first, and almostthe only, quality demanded by young and tyro sketchers--they were verypretty.

  There was some variety, too, to justify our choice. From the sandy road,where a heathery bank afforded the convenience of seats, we could lookdown into a valley with a winding stream, whose banks rose intohillsides which lost themselves in finely-coloured mountains ofmoorland.

  Farther on, a scramble on foot over walls and gates had led us into awooded gorge fringed with ferns, where a group of trees of particularlygraceful form roused Eleanor's admiration.

  "What a lovely view!" had burst from the lips of our friends at everyquarter of a mile; for they were of that (to me) trying order ofcarriage companions who talk about the scenery as you go, as a point ofpoliteness.

  But the views _were_ beautiful--"Sketches everywhere!" we cried.

  "There's nothing to make a sketch _of_ round the Vicarage," we added."We've done the church, with the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, andwithout the Deadmanstone Hills behind it, till we are sick of thesubject."

  So, the weather being fine, and even hot, we provided ourselves withluncheon and sketching materials, and made an expedition to the pointwe had selected.

  We were tired by the time we reached it. This does not necessarily dampone's sketching ardour, but it is unfavourable to accuracy of outline,and especially so to purity of colouring. However, we did not hesitate.Eleanor went down to her study of birch-trees in the gorge, Clementclimbed up the bank to get the most extended view of the Ewden Valley; Icontented myself with sitting by the roadside in front of the same view,and Jack stayed with me.

  He had come with us. Not that he often went out sketching, but ourdescriptions of the beauty of the scenery had roused him to make anotherattempt for the "Household Album." Seldom lastingly provided, for hisown part, with apparatus of any kind, Jack had a genius for purveyingall that he required in an emergency. On this occasion he had borrowedMrs. Arkwright's paint-box (without leave), and was by no means illsupplied with pencils and brushes which certainly were not his own. Hehad hastily stripped a couple of sheets from my block whilst I wasdressing, and with these materials he seated himself on that side of mewhich enabled him to dip into my water-pot, and began to paint.

  Not half-way through my outline, I was just beginning to realize thecomplexities of a bird's-eye view with your middle distance in avalley, and your foreground sloping steeply upwards to your feet, whenJack, washing out a large, dyed sable sky-brush in my pot, with anamount of splashing that savoured of triumph, said:

  "_That's_ done!"

  I paused in a vigorous mental effort to put aside my _knowledge_ of therelative sizes of objects, and to _see_ that a top stone of myforeground wall covered three fields, the river, and half the river'sbank beyond.

  "_Done?_" I exclaimed. Jack put his brush into his mouth, in defiance ofall rules, and deliberately sucked it dry. Then he waved his sketchbefore my eyes.

  "The effect's rather good," I confessed, "but oh, Jack, it's out of allproportion! That gate really looks as big as the whole valley and thehills beyond. The top of the gate-post ought to be up in the sky."

  "It would look beastly ugly if it was," replied he complacently.

  "You've got a very good tint for those hills; but the foreground is merescrambling. Oh, Jack, do finish it a little more! You would draw sonicely if you had any patience."

  "How imperfectly you understand my character," said Jack, packing up histraps. "I would sit on a monument and smile at grief with any one, thisvery day, if the monument were in a grove, or even if I had an umbrellato smile under. To sit unsheltered under this roasting sun, and makemyself giddy by gauging proportions with a pencil at the end of my nose,or smudging my mistakes with melting india-rubber, is quite anothermatter. I'm off to Eleanor. I've got another sheet of paper, and I thinktrees are rather in my line."

  "I _thought_ my block looked smaller," said I, rapidly comparing Jack'spaper and my own, with a feeling for size developed by my labours.

  "Has she got a water-pot?" asked Jack.

  "She is sure to have," said I pointedly. "She always takes her ownmaterials with her."

  "How fortunate for those who do not!" said Jack. "Now, Margery dear,don't look sulky. I knew you wouldn't grudge me a bit of paper to getinto the 'Household Album' with. Come down into the ravine. You're aswhite as a blank sheet of Whatman's hot-pressed water-colour paper!"

  The increasing heat was really beginning to overpower me, but I refusedto leave my sketch. Jack pinned a large white pocket-handkerchief to myshoulders--"to keep the sun from the spine"--and departed to the ravine.

  By midday my outline was in. One is no good judge of one's own work,but I think, on the whole, that it was a success.

  It is always refreshing to complete a stage of anything. I began to feelless hot and tired, as I passed a wash of clean water over my outline,and laying it in the sun to dry, got out my colours and brushes.

  As I did so, one of the little gusts of wind which had been anunpleasant feature of this very fine day, and which, threatening achange of weather, made us anxious to finish our sketches at a sitting,came down the sandy road. In an instant the damp surface of my blocklooked rough enough to strike matches on. But impatience is not mybesetting sin, and I had endured these little catastrophes before. Iwaited for the block to dry before I brushed off the sand. I also waitedtill the little beetle, who had crept into my sky, and was impeded inhis pace by my first wash, walked slowly down through all my distances,and quitted the block by the gate in the foreground. This was partlybecause I did not want to hurt him, and partly because a white cumuluscloud is a bad part of your sketch to kill a black beetle on.

  I washed over my paper once more, and holding it on my knee to dry justas much and no more than was desirable, I looked my subject in the facewith a view to colour.

  A long time passed. I had looked and looked again; I had washed in andwashed out; I had realized the difficulty of the subject withoutflinching, and had tried hard to see and represent the colouring beforeme, when Clement (having exhausted his water in a similar process) camedown the hill behind me, with a surly and sunburnt face, to replenishhis bottle at a wayside water-trough.

  It was then that, as he said, he found me crying.

  "It's not because it's difficult and I'm very stupid," I whimpered. "Idon't mind working on and trying to make the best of a thing. And it'snot the wind or the sand, though it has got dreadfully into the paints,particularly the Italian Pink; but what makes me hopeless, Clement, isthat I don't believe it would look well if I could paint it perfectly.It looked lovely as we were driving home the other evening, but now----Just look at those fields, Clem; I _know_ they're green, but really andtruly I _see_ them just the same colour as this road, and I don't thinkthere is the difference of a shade between them and that gate-post. Whatshall I do?"

  A tear fell out of my eyelashes and dropped on to my river. Clement tookthe sketch from me, and dried up
the tear with a bit of blotting-paper.

  Then to my amazement he gave rather a favourable verdict. It comfortedme, for Clement never says anything that he does not mean.

  "It's not _half_ bad, Margery! Wait till you see mine! How did you getthe tints of that hillside? You've a very truthful mind, that's onething, and a very true eye as well. I do admire the way you abstain fromfilling up with touches that mean nothing."

  "Oh, Clement!" cried I, so gratified that I began to feel ready to go onagain. "Do you really think I can make anything of it?"

  "Nothing more," said Clement. "Don't put another touch. It's unfinished,but no finishing would do any good. We've got an outlandish subject anda bad time of day. But keep it just as it is, and three months hence, ona cool day, you'll be pleased when you look at it."

  "Perhaps if I went on a little with the foreground," I suggested; buteven as I spoke, I put my hand to my head.

  "Go to Eleanor in the ravine, at once," said Clement imperatively. "I'llbring your things. What _did_ make us such fools as to come out withoutumbrellas?"

  "We came out in the cool of the morning," said I, as I staggered off;"besides, it's almost impossible to hold one and paint too."

  Once in the ravine, I dropped among the long grass and ferns, and thedamp, refreshing coolness of my resting-place was delicious.

  Eleanor was not faint, neither had she been crying; but she was not muchhappier with her sketch than I had been with mine. The jutting group ofbirch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably. But whenshe came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, hervery outline had begun to look less satisfactory. When it came tocolour--and the midday sun was darting and glittering through theinterstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of _chiaroscuro_to a subject already defective in point and contrast--Eleanor was almostin despair.

  "Where's Jack?" said I, after condoling with her.

  "He tried the birches for ten minutes, and then he went up the stream tolook for _algae_."

  At this moment Jack appeared. He came slowly towards us, looking atsomething in his hand.

  "Lend me your magnifying-glass, Eleanor," said he, when he had reachedus.

  Eleanor unfastened it from her chatelaine, and Jack became absorbed inexamining some water-weed in a dock-leaf.

  "What is it?" said we.

  "It's a new species, I believe. Look, Eleanor!" and he gave her the leafand the glass with an almost pathetic anxiety of countenance.

  My opinion carried no weight in the matter, but Eleanor was nearly asgood a naturalist as her mother. And she was inclined to agree withJack.

  "It's too good to be true! But I certainly don't know it. Where did youfind it?"

  "No, thank you," said Jack derisively. "I mean to keep the habitat tomyself for the present. For _a very good reason_. Margery, my child, putthat sketch of mine into the pocket of your block. (The paper is muchabout the size of your own!) It is going into the 'Household Album.'"

  We went home earlier than we had intended. Even the perseverance ofEleanor and Clement broke down under their ill-success. Jack was theonly well-satisfied one of the party, and, with his usual good-nature,he tried hard to infect me with his cheerfulness.

  "I think," said I, looking dolefully at my sketch, "that a good deal ofthe fault must have been in my eyes. I suspect one can't see coloursproperly when one is feeling sick and giddy. But the glare of the sunwas the worst. I couldn't tell red from green on my palette, so nowonder the fields and everything else looked all the same colour. Andyet what provokes one is the feeling that an artist would have made asketch of it somehow. The view is really beautiful."

  "And that is really beautiful," said Eleanor, pointing to the birchgroup and its background. "And what a mess I have made of it! I wish I'dstuck to pencil. And yet, as you say, an artist would have got a pictureout of it."

  "I'll tell you what," said Jack, who was lying face downwards with mypicture spread before him, "I believe that any one who knew the dodges,when he saw that everything looked one pale, yellowish, brownish tintwith the glare of the sun, would have boldly taken a weak wash of allthe drab-looking colours in his box right over everything, picked out afew stones in his foreground wall, dodged in a few shadows and so on,and made a clever sketch of it. And the same with Eleanor's. If he hadgot his birch-trees half as good as hers, and had then seen what amuddle the trees behind were in, I believe he would only have washed ina little blue and grey behind the birches, 'indicated' (as our olddrawing-master at school calls it) a distant stem or two--and therewould have been another clever sketch for you!"

  "Another clever falsehood, you mean," said Clement hotly, "to ruinpeople's taste, and encourage idle painters in showy trickery, and makethem believe they can improve upon Nature's colouring."

  "Nature's colouring varies," said Jack. "Distant trees often _are_ blueand grey, though these, just now, are of the rankest green."

  Clement replied, Jack responded, Clement retorted, and a fierceart-discussion raged the whole way home.

  We were well used to it. Indeed all conversations with us had a tendencyto become controversial. Over and above which there was truth inKeziah's saying, "The young gentlemen argle-bargles fit to deave abody's head; and dear knows what it's all about."

  Clement finished a vehement and rather didactic confession of hisart-faith as we climbed the steep hill to the Vicarage. The keynote ofit was that one ought to draw what he sees, exactly as he sees it; andthat every subject has a beauty of its own which he ought to perceive ifhis perception is not "emasculated by an acquired taste forprettinesses."

  "I shall be in the 'Household Album' this evening," said Jack, indeliberate tones. "My next ambition is the Society of Painters in WaterColours. The subject of my first painting is settled. Three grass fields(haymaking over the day before yesterday). A wall in front of the firstfield, a hedge in front of the second, a wall in front of the third. Agate in the middle of the wall. A spotted pig in the middle of thefield. The sun at its meridian; the pig asleep. Motto, 'Whatever is, isbeautiful.'"

  Eleanor and I (in the interests of peace) hastened to change thesubject by ridiculing Jack's complacent conviction that his sketch wouldbe accepted for the "Household Album."

  And yet it was.

  The fresh-water _alga_ Jack had been lucky enough to find was a newspecies, and threw Mrs. Arkwright and Eleanor into a state of thehighest excitement. But all their entreaties failed to persuade Jack todisclose the secret of the habitat.

  "Put my sketch into the 'Household Album,' and I'll tell you all aboutit," said he.

  Mrs. Arkwright held out against this for half-an-hour. Then she gaveway. Jack's sketch was gummed in (it took up a whole page, being thefull size of my block), and he told us all about the water-weed.

  It was described and figured in the _Phycological Quarterly_, andreceived the specific name of _Arkwrightii_, and Jack's double triumphwas complete.

  We were very glad for his success, but it almost increased the sense ofdisappointment that our share of the expedition had been so unlucky.

  "It seems such a waste," said I, "to have got to such a lovely placewith one's drawing things and plenty of time, and to come away without asketch worth keeping at the end, just because one doesn't know the rightway of working."

  "I think there's a good deal in what Jack said about your sketch," saidEleanor; "and I think if one looked at the way real artists have treatedsimilar subjects, and then went at it again and tried to do it on asimilar principle----"

  "If ever we do go there again," Clement interrupted, "but I don'tsuppose we shall--these holidays. And the way summer after summer slipsaway is awful. I'm more and more convinced that it's a great mistake tohave so many hobbies. No life is long enough for more than one pursuit,and it's ten to one you die in the middle of mastering that. One is sureto die in the early stages of half-a-dozen."

  Clement is very apt to develop some odd theory of this kind, and topreach it with a severity that borders on g
loom. I never know what tosay, even if I disagree with him; but Eleanor takes up the cudgels atonce.

  "I don't think I agree with you," she said, giving a shove to her softelastic hair which did not improve the indefiniteness of the parting."Of course it's unsatisfactory in one way to feel one will never live tofinish things, but in another way I think it's a great comfort to feelone can never use them up or outlive them if one lasts on to be ahundred. And though one gets very cross and miserable with failing soover things one works at, I don't know whether one would be so muchhappier when one was at the top of the tree. I'm not sure that thechief pleasure isn't actually in the working at things--I mean in thedrudgery of learning, rather than in the triumph of having learnt."

  "There's something in that," said Clement. And it was a great deal forClement to say.

  It does not take much to convert _me_ to Eleanor's views of anything.But I do think experience bears out what she said about this matter.

  Perhaps that accounts for my having a happy remembrance of old timeswhen we worked at things together, even if we failed and cried overthem.

  I know that practically, now, I would willingly join the others in goingat anything, though I could not promise not to be peevish over my ownstupidity sometimes, and if I was very much tired.

  I don't think there was anything untrue in my calling the times we wentsketching together happy times--in spite of what Clement says.

  But he does rule such very straight lines all over life, and I sometimesthink one may rule them too straight--even for full truth.