The Head Girl at the Gables Part 28

"Then why didn't he speak English, if he wanted to impress people?"

"Which man was it?"

"That one--next to the lady in blue."

"Why--why--if I'm not utterly mistaken, I verily believe it's the man we looked at through the gla.s.ses from Tangy Point: he met Madame Bertier on the sh.o.r.e."

"And I couldn't remember where I'd seen him before. Oh, Carina! Let's follow them, and I'll look at him again."

But the crowd in the Academy was rapidly increasing, and the three foreigners were lost behind a row of ladies in fas.h.i.+onable spring hats.

They must have made an unexpected exit, for though Lorraine kept her eyes open for them the whole of the morning, she did not chance to see them again.

"It's rather mysterious, isn't it?" she said to Margaret afterwards.

"It is--if he was telling the truth. Some of these foreigners are queer people. Never mind Madame Bertier now; let us enjoy ourselves. Shall we get tickets for a _matinee_ to-morrow, or leave theatres for the evenings? Remember, we want plenty of time for Kew."

CHAPTER XVI

An Opportunity

Lorraine, after a delirious round of pleasure in town, returned to Porthkeverne quite tired out with festivities, but declaring that she had had the time of her life.

"It will be your turn next," she said to Monica, who sat on the floor while she unpacked, and demanded a circ.u.mstantial account of every hour of the gay visit. "We shall certainly have you jaunting off to London some day."

"Not till I'm seventeen, perhaps," the voice was doleful, "and that's just ages to wait. Daisy Phillips has been to London three times, and she's only ten! She crows over me dreadfully."

"Poor old Cuckoo! You're a badly-used child! See what I've got for you inside this parcel."

"A j.a.panese pencil-box! The very thing I wanted! And such a lovely one!

It's nicer than anybody else's in the whole form."

"Then you'll score over Daisy for once!"

"Rather! Lorraine, you're a trump! Oh, and the ducky little blue knife inside, and pink pencils! I know everybody'll want to borrow them at once, but I shan't lend them to a single soul! They're too nice even to use myself. _Do_ say I'm not to lend them, and then the girls needn't call me stingy."

"All right! I absolutely forbid them to be lent. Where's Rosemary? I've a parcel here that may interest her. No, Cuckoo! You're not to peep inside. What a Paul Pry you are! Go and call her, and I'll show it to her myself."

Somehow Lorraine felt as if the little visit to London had suddenly added years to her age. It had enlarged her circle of experiences so greatly that she had begun to look on life from almost a grown-up standpoint. She had gone away, older certainly than Monica, but regarded in the family category as one of "the children", and she had returned to take her place on a level with Richard, Donald, Rodney, and Rosemary.

She was allowed to read Richard's letters from Mesopotamia, instead of only having portions retailed to her; and she was not sent out of the room now, when Father and Mother discussed Rodney's future for those halcyon times when peace should be declared, and he should leave the Air Force. She began in some measure to realize her mother's daily, hourly anxiety about these boys at the front, and to understand how behind all the happiness of her daily life stood a nightmare, with a spectral hand raised ever ready to fall on those three best beloved.

Trouble, which mercifully spared their own family, struck nevertheless very near. A yellow envelope arrived one day at the Barton Forresters'

house, and Aunt Carrie opened it with trembling fingers and a sinking heart.

"There's no answer!" she said briefly to the waiting telegraph girl.

Then she sat down and tried to face what the short message from the War Office really conveyed. Only twelve words, but it meant the hope of a family trailed in the dust. Lindon, their one treasured boy, had "gone west". Well, other mothers had given their dearest and best! She would offer him gladly, joyfully, on the altar of Britain's glory! But her face seemed to grow suddenly shrunken, and the high colour faded from her cheeks, leaving a network of little red veins instead.

"If only she wouldn't try to be _quite_ so brave about it!" said Mrs.

George Forrester. "It's such a terrific effort for her to keep up like this! Why, the very next day she went to the Red Cross Hospital just as usual. She hasn't slacked a single thing. The strain must be tremendous.

She absolutely wors.h.i.+pped that poor boy! The girls hadn't an innings in comparison with him. I admire the way she's taking it, but I'm afraid some day it will be more than she can stand, and she'll just collapse.

If it had been Richard, I couldn't have borne to speak of him to anybody just at first, yet she talks quite calmly of Lindon. It's too much for human nature!"

Uncle Barton, grown suddenly ten years older, went about looking small and stooping, with a reef of wrinkles about his kind eyes. He clung to Betty, whose manner had softened under the blow. Of the three girls she understood him the best, and, though she was still undemonstrative, her silent consideration comforted him.

Lorraine, in the sanctuary of the studio by the harbour, railed at Providence.

"Why should Lindon be taken?" she asked bitterly. "Lindon--the nicest of all our cousins! Oh, Carina, why should a splendid hopeful young life like this be sacrificed, and poor Landry be left behind? I don't understand! It seems so futile--such a waste!"

Margaret stroked her hand for a moment before she answered:

"It may seem so on the face of it, but then we don't see the whole--only one side of it. Perhaps the splendid useful life is wanted for work and greater development in the next world, where it can spread its spiritual wings unhampered by physical disabilities. And poor Landry may be needed here, as a discipline to purge somebody's soul, or to bring kindness to a heart that might otherwise have gone unenlarged. This world is a school to train character, and, if some of us are sent on quickly into a higher form, it is because there are other lessons to learn there. Don't for a moment call Lindon's sacrifice 'waste'! Have you ever read these lines?

'A picket frozen on duty, A mother starved for her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock, And Jesus on the Rood; The million, who, humble and nameless, The straight, hard, pathway trod-- Some call it consecration, And others call it G.o.d!'"

There was one person who, Lorraine suspected, was grieving for Lindon more than she would allow anybody to imagine. Rosemary had always been fond of this particular cousin, and, between the day-dreams of dukes and generals who were to sue for her sister's hand, it had sometimes occurred to Lorraine that a far more ordinary and commonplace romance might be enacted under her eyes near at home. Lindon had been wont to come to the house far more frequently than Elsie, Betty or Vivien; he had always enjoyed Rosemary's singing, and had given her his photo in a locket before he went away. He had written to her often from the front, and though there had been no hint of such a thing as an engagement, it had been apparent to anyone not absolutely blind that they were interested in each other. It is perhaps much harder for a girl, in such circ.u.mstances, to lose her lover, than for one who is definitely engaged, and can claim open sympathy for her sorrow. Rosemary felt that she could not talk about Lindon to Elsie, Betty and Vivien. They had always been rather jealous of his preference for her, and had resented his frequent visits to Pendlehurst. They did not know about the locket or the letters. She kissed Uncle Barton, however, with extra affection, and he responded so warmly, holding her arm as they walked down the garden, that she somehow thought he understood.

So Rosemary gulped back this trouble as she had borne her disappointment about the College of Music, and flung herself into that universal panacea for heart-breaks--work for the Red Cross. She slaved at scullery-duty three mornings a week at the hospital, and put in alternate afternoons rolling bandages at the depot. She would have given up her whole time to either, but that her mother would not allow.

"You're all eyes, child!" she commented. "You must get out into the fresh air this lovely weather, and put some roses into your cheeks. I shall give you a tonic. You look like a canary that's been moulting."

Privately, Rosemary felt as if her heart had been moulting, and she had not yet had time to grow her new spiritual feathers. The fact that anybody was noticing, however, made her brace up. She had no wish to pose as a sentimentalist. She swallowed the tonic dutifully, took the prescribed daily walk, and even, with a great effort, practised the piano. She could not yet bring herself to touch her songs--the remembrance of Signor Arezzo's verdict was still too raw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLAUDIA FLUNG HER ARMS ROUND ROSEMARY'S NECK AND HUGGED HER]

One glorious beautiful afternoon saw Rosemary wending her way up the hill to the Castletons. Lorraine had promised to send a paper pattern to Claudia, but had been at home all day with a violent headache, so Rosemary had volunteered to walk to Windy Howe after tea and take it.

She went by a short cut through the fields, and approached the house by way of the orchard. The apple-trees were in full blossom; the lovely pink bloom stood out against the blue of the afternoon sky in a delicate maze of colour too subtle for even the most cunning artist hand to reproduce. Mr. Castleton's sketch, left on its easel under the hedge, and splotched with dabs of rose madder and Payne's grey, gave only the faintest impression of the fairy scene. Clumps of primroses bloomed among the gra.s.s, and a thrush, on the tip-top of a hawthorn bough, trilled in rivalry with the blackbird whose nest was in the old pear-tree. They were not the only musicians, however. Somebody had opened the gate from the garden and was walking leisurely down the orchard--somebody in a light cotton dress, with the suns.h.i.+ne gleaming on her golden hair. She came slowly, and sang as she walked, sang like the blackbird and the thrush, for sheer enjoyment of the glory of the spring day. The clear high notes went thrilling through the air with all the freshness and sweetness of the birds' tones.

Rosemary, unnoticed, stood aside to watch and listen, as Claudia, still warbling on high A, stopped under an apple-tree to feed a coopful of chickens with some bread she had brought. The girl's beautiful face and figure against the apple-blossom background and the blue sky made a picture worthy of the brush of an Academician.

"Heavens!" thought Rosemary. "What a voice! If Signor Arezzo could hear _that_, now, he'd consider it worth training. It has all the glorious tone and volume that I lack. And so pure and high! I should think she could take C! The girl looks a singer. With that magnificent chest and throat she ought to be able to bring out her notes. She has such a splendid physique. She's a lovely girl, too. What a sensation she'd make on a concert platform!"

Aloud, however, Rosemary simply said, "Good afternoon!" presented the paper pattern, explained that Lorraine had a headache, and asked if Claudia were fond of singing. Claudia flushed crimson.

"Oh, I can't sing!" she stammered. "Not really. Only just to myself when n.o.body's listening. I didn't know you were there."

"You ought to take lessons," commented Rosemary.

Claudia shook her head. She was pinning back a yellow curl with a clasp.

"That's quite impossible, so it's not an atom of use thinking about it.

It's Beata's turn for music, and she's to begin the violin with Madame Bertier next term. Don't look distressed! I'll just squall on to please myself. n.o.body else cares to hear me, I'm sure."

"It's a pity to waste a talent," said Rosemary.

Claudia shrugged her shoulders.