A Fourth Form Friendship (2 page)

Keith laughed. "I don't suppose she's crying her eyes out over you either," he observed.

"I'm sure she isn't. I've no doubt she's almost as delighted as I am. She's going to The Thorns, to teach Blanche and Minna Lawson. They're absolutely pattern girls, warranted never to do anything they shouldn't, so I hope she'll be happy at last. I find them insufferably dull."

"You may get a far worse mistress at school than Miss Perkins."

"I don't think so. You know, Mary Kennedy has been at The Grange, and she says Miss Drummond is a perfect dear. They have all kinds of games there too. It will be lovely to learn hockey and lacrosse; I've never played either before."

"School isn't all games, I can tell you," said Keith, pulling a straw from the stook and chewing it meditatively. "There's a jolly lot of grind to be gone through. You'll find you'll have to set that young head of yours to work in good earnest."

"I can easily do that," declared Aldred, tossing back her dark curls, "I've no fear at all of not managing my lessons. Why, when I cared to take the trouble, I could simply astonish Miss Perkins. I could work sums far quicker than she did, and I used to reel off French verbs so fast that sometimes she could hardly follow me, even with the book in her hand."

"All very well with a private governess, Madam Conceit! You've had no competition. Wait till you work with a class. At The Grange you'll probably find several other girls who can reel things off a little quicker."

"Then I shall go quicker still. I tell you, I mean to be top of my class, and head of the examinations too."

"Don't boast too much beforehand, or pride may bring a fall!" said Keith, speaking with the superior authority of his sixteen years. "You'll have to find your own level, Sis. The other girls may have ambitions as well as you, and will be ready to dispute for the head place."

"Then they won't get it! It's booked already for Aldred Laurence, and so is the tennis championship, and anything that's first and foremost in the way of hockey and lacrosse."

"Great Scott! What more?" exclaimed Keith, looking at his sister with quizzical amusement. "Are there no bounds to your ambition?"

"Well, I've often heard you say yourself that if one is to get on at school one must do well at games."

"No one tolerates slackers, certainly I'll allow that."

"I mean to be a general favourite," continued Aldred. "I want the girls to be tremendously fond of me, and ready to do anything for me."

"They won't jump into your arms all at once, I assure you."

"I'll make them like me! Just you wait and see! I can always make people care about me when I try hard enough."

"How about Miss Perkins?" suggested Keith dryly.

"Miss Perkins? Oh, well, I didn't even try! I disliked her so much, I wanted to get rid of her. But it will be a very different matter indeed when I go to The Grange. I don't mind undertaking that by the time I've been there a year I shall be the most popular girl, not only in my class, but in the whole school."

"Whew! That's a large order! Popularity isn't so easy to come by, Sis. It depends on a dozen things--sometimes, indeed, it seems almost an accident. If you work too hard for it, you may overstep the line, and find yourself sent to Coventry instead. I've known two or three fellows served that way."

"You always want to discourage me," declared Aldred, with a flush on her cheeks.

"No, I don't. But I think you've far too good an opinion of yourself. You need taking down considerably, and fortunately school will soon do that for you. You'll talk very differently from this at the end of your first term, or I'm much mistaken."

Aldred shrugged her shoulders. She was confident of her own success, and regarded Keith's warnings simply in the light of brotherly teasing. She said no more for the present, but gave her whole attention to her sketch, which had now arrived at the painting stage. She dabbed on the colours with the greatest assurance; there was no hesitation in the bold, rather clever strokes, and the picture, though somewhat "slap-dash" in style, was already beginning to bear a very fair resemblance to the scene before her.

"You're not the only one out working to-day," remarked Keith, after an interval of silence. "Here's Mr. Bowden himself sauntering down the field in search of a subject."

Aldred looked round and waved her hand to a tall, grey-haired gentleman, who, armed with a sketchbook, appeared to be jotting down the outlines of some of the corn stooks. On seeing her smiling face he came at once in her direction, and stopped critically behind her easel.

Mr. Bowden was an artist of considerable repute; he was a friend of their father's, and always had a pleasant word for Aldred when he visited at the house. Therefore she awaited his verdict with some anxiety.

"Very good, Aldred! I had heard you were fond of drawing, though I did not know you could do so well as this. But, my dear child, it's full of faults, all the same. The perspective of the front of the house is completely wrong."

"I'm afraid I don't know anything about perspective," pleaded Aldred. "I just drew it as I thought it looked. The cottage is so pretty, I felt I simply must paint it."

"That is the right spirit. Go on and try, even if you don't always succeed. I am glad to see you make an effort to sketch out-of-doors. There is no teacher like Mother Nature, and the attempt to reproduce a living tree, or a house, on paper will do you more good than a hundred copies. Why did you make the lines of your windows run up, when they so clearly ought to run down?"

"I don't quite understand," said Aldred, looking puzzled.

"Give me your pencil a moment, and I will show you."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Aldred, jumping up with alacrity. "Please take my camp stool, and then you will have exactly the same view as I have. It looks so different when one is sitting down."

Mr. Bowden good-naturedly installed himself in Aldred's place, and, taking her paint-box and brushes, began to give her a practical lesson in sketching from nature.

"The composition is not bad," he remarked, "but if you had brought in that far tree, which is considerably taller than the cottage, it would have raised the subject on the left-hand side of the picture, and given a pleasanter result. Shall I put in a touch to show you what I mean?"

"Oh, please!--as many as you like. It would be such a help to watch you!" replied Aldred.

"Very well, then. In the first place, I make the lines of your perspective slope down to their right vanishing point. Is not that better? Now, a dab of brighter blue in the sky, with a raw edge to give the effect of that white cloud. The trees need massing together, with a greater depth of shade to give roundness to them, and a branch just indicated here and there among the foliage. The stubble field needs a tone of richer and warmer yellow, while a few stooks here in the foreground would be the utmost improvement. Look how I am blocking them in, with strong light and shadow, and two or three ears marked definitely at the top, to show against the dark of the hedge beyond. There! Go on working yourself at the field and the distance. Paint moistly, and don't spare your cobalt blue."

"It's like magic!" said Aldred, reviewing the improvement in her sketch with immense satisfaction. "I hardly know how to thank you. I'm afraid I've been wasting your time dreadfully."

"No matter, if it has helped you," said Mr. Bowden, picking up his sketch-book. "I must go now, though, for I want to catch the effect of the late afternoon light on those marshy pools beyond the cottage. Don't forget the hints I have given you," and with a friendly nod to Keith he walked rapidly away, and was soon out of sight.

For some little time after Mr. Bowden had left, Aldred painted away industriously at her foreground. Keith, in the shelter of the stooks close by, was deep in his book; and there was no sound except the chirping of birds, or the lowing of cattle, to disturb her. How pleasant it was! She keenly enjoyed each touch of her brush, and tried hard to follow the directions which her kind old friend had given.

Fully half an hour had passed away, and her stubble field had made considerable progress, when voices in the pathway behind her caused her to look round.

It was Mr. and Mrs. Silvester, the vicar and his wife, who, bearing a basket, were walking in the direction of the cottage, no doubt with the intention of paying a visit to old Mrs. Barker.

Recognizing the little figure at the easel, they came at once to see what she was working at so briskly.

"Aldred, my dear! have you turned artist? This is an extremely good sketch. How long has it taken you?" asked Mrs. Silvester.

"I only began it this afternoon," answered Aldred. "We came here about three o'clock--didn't we, Keith?"

"It is really excellent!" exclaimed the Vicar. "I myself have had a little experience in painting, so I am able to judge. The composition of the picture is most artistic; I admire the way the tree has been arranged to just overtop the chimney, and the large corn stook to bring the eye down to the foreground. The perspective is correct, the light and shade have been handled in quite a masterly fashion, and the sky with the patch of cloud is particularly happy. I hope you are going to have drawing lessons at school. I am sure you have unusual talent, which ought certainly to be cultivated."

Keith, who had risen from his seat among the corn to greet the visitors, gave a peculiar, rather suggestive cough, but did not volunteer any remark. Aldred's eyes were very bright, and her cheeks pink, as she replied:

"I'm certainly fond of painting. I don't think I can do any more to the distance. I was just finishing the foreground when you came."

"Don't put another touch to it," said the vicar. "It is excellent just as it is. I beg that you will shut your paint-box, and leave it; it would be a mistake to work at it any more."

"I am most interested to have seen it," declared Mrs. Silvester; "it is delightful to find anyone with such a decided gift for art. You must make it your special study, and we shall look for great things from you when you have finished school."

She passed on with her husband, and as they walked towards the cottage the words "marvellous talent" and "astonishing cleverness" were wafted back by the summer breeze.

Aldred closed her paint-box as the Vicar had suggested. Somehow she did not feel inclined to continue her work; all the pleasure had suddenly faded away from it.

Keith had subsided once more into his former lazy attitude, and sat idly picking ears of corn, preserving an ominous silence. He waited until Mr. and Mrs. Silvester were safely inside old Mrs. Barker's garden, then burst forth.

"Well, of all the sneaks you're the biggest! Call that your work? Why, it's Mr. Bowden's!--all the best parts, at any rate, that they were praising so much. And you calmly took the credit for the whole! I wasn't going to speak and give you away, but I'll let you know what I think of you now."

"Oh, Keith! What could I do?" stammered Aldred, the tears welling up in her eyes and splashing down upon the paint-box. "Don't scold me so! I can't bear you to be cross with me."

"But you deserve it! Why didn't you say it wasn't really your own painting?"

"They never asked me if I had been helped," answered Aldred; "and, after all, it's my sketch, not Mr. Bowden's."

"Yes, your sketch, but improved absolutely beyond recognition. Look here! if you play these tricks at school you'll pretty soon find yourself the reverse of popular. Boys wouldn't stand it, and I don't suppose girls will either."

"It didn't strike me to say anything," sobbed Aldred. "Oh, Keith, don't look at me like that! Shall I run after them and tell them? I will, if you want. I'll go at once, if you'll only be friends with me again."

"No, they're inside the cottage, condoling with Mrs. Barker over her rheumatism. You'd only make yourself ridiculous if you followed them, and came out with a dramatic confession in the middle of the kitchen. I hate scenes. Do turn off the water-works, there's a good girl! Be a little straighter in future if you want to keep chums with me, though. Here, I'll help you to pack up your traps, and we'll go home to tea. Your sketch is still wet; if you carry that I'll bring on the rest."

Very crestfallen and miserable, Aldred took up her unfortunate painting, and began to walk away down the path towards the wood, leaving her brother to follow. In her brown holland dress and red poppy hat she made such a sweet picture against the yellow of the corn stooks that, in spite of his disapproval, Keith could not help looking after her with a certain amount of admiration. No one who met Aldred Laurence could have failed to be struck by her personality. She was very neatly and trimly made, and had a way of holding herself erect and looking alert that gave her a distinguished appearance, and seemed to raise her above the level of the average girl. Her lovely dark eyes, long, curling brown hair, and warm, rich colouring had a gipsy effect that was particularly picturesque. Her eyes were so bright and soft and expressive, her cheeks had two such bewitching dimples, and she smiled so readily and winningly in response to the smallest advance, that she generally made friends easily, and had won notice from strangers since the days of her babyhood.

To sober, downright, matter-of-fact Keith his sister was often a sore puzzle. Her eager, impetuous, excitable disposition, and many impulsive acts, were as foreign to him as an unknown language.

"Why need you work yourself up so tremendously over every trifle? What's the use of taking life so stormily?" he once remonstrated.

"I don't know," replied Aldred. "I seem to care so much more about everything than you do. I can't help it; I suppose it was born in me."

"Then it's high time you got it out of you!" remarked Keith, whose ideal was a state of unruffled calm on all occasions.

In spite of the difference in their temperaments the two were really attached to each other, and though Keith might not be demonstrative, he tolerated Aldred's devotion when they were strictly alone, though he would not allow her, as he expressed it, to "make an exhibition of him before other fellows".

Poor Aldred! She had a very warm and loving heart, and a perpetual hunger for affection that, so far, had failed to be entirely satisfied. Since the day, seven years before, when her mother had started on that long journey from which none return, nobody had seemed to understand her quite, or to know how to manage her aright. Her father, a clever barrister who went daily from Dingfield into London, was too absorbed in his profession to give much time or sympathy to his children. Having sent his son to school, and provided a daily governess for his daughter, he felt that he had done all that was required of him. The masters at Stavebury were responsible for Keith, and as for Aldred, if anything more was needful for her upbringing than Miss Perkins could give, surely his sister, who managed his house so admirably, could look after his motherless girl?