T is provoking!” exclaimed Cora Clayton.
“What is the matter now?” asked bright-faced Madge, who had strolled into her sister’s studio from the garden, her hands full of snowdrops and aconites from the shrubbery borders.
“Why, little Muriel Ellerton has just sickened with measles, and you know I was depending upon her as a model for my Academy picture. It is so difficult to get a really picturesque-looking child; and Muriel would have done beautifully. I really haven’t any time to lose; and here I am at a perfect deadlock!”
“What a pity!” said Madge, who took great interest in her talented sister’s drawing. Cora Clayton had achieved a rather considerable success for an amateur, and for two years past had exhibited a small picture in the Royal Academy. During the winter months just past she had been away from home with her brother’s delicate wife, who had been ordered to the south of France, so that she had not been able to do much painting. Now that she was home again she was eager to get forward, and it was provoking to be disappointed of her model just upon the very morning when she had reckoned to start work.
“Is there no other child who would do?” asked a voice from the couch beside the fire. Young Mrs. Clayton, the barrister’s delicate wife, had established herself in Cora’s studio, as she was fond of doing. The sisters were greatly attached to their brother’s wife, and the family lived happily together in perfect harmony in their old-fashioned semi-country house at Hampstead.
“I can’t think of one that just suits my ideas,” answered Cora. “Muriel would just have done, with her cloud of fair curls and blue eyes with a sort of pathetic wistfulness behind their brightness. It was just the face for my subject. It is provoking! You know I am not like some artists; I know what I want to paint, but imagination doesn’t do everything for me. I must have the model, and the right model, and I’m sure I don’t know where to turn to next!”
“I wonder if little Allumette would do!” suddenly exclaimed Madge. “She had the sweetest little face, and just such eyes and hair as Muriel; only I think she is prettier.”
“Allumette! What do you mean? I never heard such a name!”
“Oh, that is Bertram’s nickname. She is a little match-seller in the City. I saw her the other day when I was in town with him. Evidently she is often on his beat, for he had given her that cognomen, and one could see that she quite adored him. I daresay he has been kind to her often.”
Cora and Eva were both interested, and when Madge had described the child, Cora declared she really had a good mind to go and have a look at her.
“It would really be easier in some ways than Muriel,” she said, “for if I paid her I suppose her relations would be glad enough to let me have her over here; and they would keep her for me at the gardener’s cottage for a week or two, so that I could have her backwards and forwards as I wanted, instead of being fettered by lesson hours and other things as I should be with Muriel. One does see very pretty children often in the streets; only, as a rule, it would not be practicable to get hold of them.”
“We will ask Bertram about little Allumette when he comes home,” said Eva, “and if he thinks it a good plan we could have her over here whilst your picture was being painted, Cora.”
“Little Allumette,” said the young barrister when appealed to at dinner that evening, “why, I should think you could get her, and that she would think herself in the seventh heaven to come! Oh, yes, I have asked her about herself sometimes. Her relationships are rather complicated. Her own father and mother are dead, and she lives with a stepmother who has married again. I like the little puss! She has always a smile and a bit of arch fun. Sometimes she brings me a button-hole when times are good. We are great friends in our way, little Allumette and I.”
“Then I will come into town with you to-morrow, Bertram, and see if she will do for me, and what arrangements I can make.”
“I’ll come too,” added Madge gaily; “I will give my valuable assistance in the matter, since it was my idea to start with.”
Brother and sisters went up to town together the following day, and sure enough there was little Allumette with her tray of matches at the accustomed corner, eagerly scanning the faces of the passing crowd, to see if her gentleman was amongst them.
Cora was delighted with the little bright, sensitive face, and when the child caught sight not only of Bertram himself, but of the lady who had made her that wonderful present, she was at once resolved to get the little one for her model, and soon Allumette was overwhelmed with shy delight, because the gentleman and two beautiful ladies had stopped in front of her.
“Allumette,” said her friend with a twinkle in his eye, “do you know how to sit or stand very still?”
“Please, sir, I think so. I sit still with baby very often.”
“And what do you get for sitting still with baby?”
“I don’t get anything, sir, unless baby wakes up, and then I sometimes get a clout on the head.”
Cora and Madge both laughed, whilst Bertram went on gravely—
“Then do you think that for sixpence an hour and your keep you could stand very still for this lady to draw? Did you ever see anybody draw pictures?”
“Please, sir, they draw them on the blackboard at school; and there’s a man comes ’long here sometimes that draws them beautifully on the pavement, all red and blue and yellow. Ah! I could watch him all day, I could! It’s real beautiful!”
Bertram looked at his sisters smilingly.
“Well, I must be getting on; you’d better finish settling the matter. It’s a long way for her to go backwards and forwards. If you do have her, I should put her up at the cottage for a week or so, and make what use you want of her at the time. I don’t suppose she makes much by her matches; but of course you must pay her people a fair equivalent.”
He moved off, and then Cora and Madge tried to explain to the bewildered and blushing Allumette what it was they wanted.
It was all like part of a wonderful dream to the child. She showed the ladies the way to her home; she heard them talk to her stepmother, and vaguely knew that something very strange and wonderful was about to happen; and then she was rather summarily hustled into the best clothes she possessed, which was not saying much, and was bidden to run and ask Mrs. Gregg if she could take her up to Hampstead at once, as the overworked woman with a large number of children to look after could not possibly do so.
Mrs. Gregg came and took the directions from the ladies, and promised to bring the little girl at once. She was given the railway fare, and Allumette stood by, dancing from one foot to the other with keenest excitement. She could not believe that this thing could really be true, and kept asking Mrs. Gregg if she was sure she knew how to get to the place, and whether she really thought the ladies meant it.
“Bless the child, yes! Why should they have taken all that trouble else?” was the reassuring answer. “I’ve heerd tell before of fine folks getting others to come and sit for them. They call them models. It may be a good thing for you, ducky. It’s poor work selling matches in the street. Perhaps the ladies will find you something better to do by-and-by.”
It was all like a dream to Allumette. She had not to be at her destination till the afternoon; but Mrs. Gregg took her a wonderful walk upon the Heath first. The child had never seen such a place before, and although the wind blew cold the sun shone, and the child held her breath in awe and wonder at the great expanse of sky and the green sweep of broken ground, the shining water, the budding trees.
“Will heaven be like this, do you think, Mrs. Gregg?” she asked in a low voice.
Allumette was very hazy as to what heaven was, but she had an idea that it was a very beautiful place where the sun always shone, and she had never seen anything so beautiful before as the scene upon which her eyes now rested.
Later on, with a feeling of great awe, mingled with that of joy, she stood at the back door of a big house within sheltering walls, holding very fast to Mrs. Gregg’s hand, and almost disposed to cry and run away when told that she must leave her friend, and follow the servant into the house.
“Don’t be frightened, ducky, they’ll be kind to you,” said Mrs. Gregg, kissing her; “and I’m to have a cup of tea in the kitchen, they say; so maybe I’ll see you again before I leave.”
There was consolation in that thought, and Allumette rallied her courage. The servant smiled kindly at her as she went on in front, and although everything seemed to swim before the child’s eyes as she walked, and she could not see clearly where she was going, she knew that she was taken down a long passage, and then a door was opened at the end, a curtain was drawn back, and she heard her guide say—
“Here is the little girl, ma’am!”
Allumette stood just within the threshold of this most wonderful place. She thought she had got into a fairy palace, and she rubbed her eyes and gasped in her astonishment.
It was a great square room with all the windows overhead; and wherever she looked she saw beautiful things, rich colours, pictures, hangings, ornaments—things of whose names and uses she had no idea, but the very sight of which filled her soul with awe and rapture, they were so wonderful and beautiful.
“Come, little Allumette; come to the fire!” said a kind voice. “You shall have a mug of hot tea and a piece of cake here, and we will see how to dress you up as a little model!”
It was the lady who spoke—the first lady—Miss Madge, as Allumette came to call her later on, and she came forward dressed in that lovely red dress with the soft grey fur upon it, in which the child had first seen her. And when Allumette had timidly advanced a few steps, and could see the room better, she saw that the other lady was there too, standing before an easel which held a picture, whilst upon a sofa near the fire a third lady lay, who had put down her book, and was now looking straight at the little girl, with a kind smile in her eyes.
“So you are little Allumette, are you? My husband has told me about you. He says you sell very good matches. Come and sit on that little stool here, and you shall tell me all about yourself. Madge, bring the mite some tea and cake. I’m sure she looks as though she wanted it!”
Allumette sat down where she was bidden, and soon a great wedge of delicious cake was put into her hands. But although she was so strangely happy in this beautiful place, she was almost too shy and excited to feel hungry; and as she nibbled at the unwonted dainty, she answered the questions of the ladies about herself and her life, gradually losing her fear of them, and beginning to smile and even to laugh at the funny remarks of Miss Madge, or the questions of young Mrs. Clayton.
Meantime the artist studied the face of the little one, and dashed off a few little pencil sketches with great satisfaction to herself. Yes, it was just such a face as she wanted—wistful without being sad, bright and sunny, yet pathetic withal. Eva Clayton had a knack with children which she was exercising now for Cora’s benefit, and before half an hour had passed she was fully satisfied that she had got the right model for her picture.
It was a wonderful life that began for little Allumette. No more early rising in the dark and cold to do her household tasks, and lay in her store of matches for the day. No standing about at street corners in the cold wind and driving rain; no more hunger and uncertainty of the day’s earnings; no harsh words and unkind teasing from boys either at home or in the streets.
Here everything was beautiful and happy. She lived with a kind couple who soon treated her almost as if she had been their child, and the greater part of her day was spent in that wonderful studio, where all that was asked of her was to stand still in a pretty frock whilst the tall lady painted her; and Miss Madge generally came in and out or sat still by the fire with a book, and often amused them by her play with the dog, or with her merry chatter, or else by teaching Allumette out of some simple primer.
“She’s a dear little thing,” Madge said to her brother a day or two after the commencement of the experiment. “I’ve often wanted an object for my benevolence, and an object on which to expend my superfluous energy in the matter of good works. I think I shall take up Allumette and make her my special charge. You needn’t look so grave, sir! Wouldn’t it be a very deserving object?”
“Perhaps; but take care, Madge, take care. You know how often you have failed from lack of perseverance. Don’t unfit the child for her old life, or buoy her up with false hopes, only to forget her and disappoint her later on. It is always a serious matter taking the destinies of another human being as it were into our hands. Don’t do anything rash; don’t give the child cause to regret in days to come that she has ever known us!”
“Gracious! what a lecture!” cried Madge gaily. “I thought you’d be pleased at my desiring to do a good work; and, behold, I get a scolding!”
