CHAPTER VII.
PHOTOGRAPHERS ABROAD.
Mrs. Morland, as may have been gathered, was in a sense an indulgent mother, and her children lacked nothing necessary for their health or their comfort. Her personal interest in their private concerns, their hobbies, their undertakings, their studies, was regulated entirely by what she estimated as social opinion—by the effect which the particular hobby or pursuit in question might have on the position of Frances and of Austin among their juvenile fellows, and in the eyes of Mrs. Morland’s own acquaintances.
Thus, she had almost from the first set the seal of her approval on the Society of the Altruists; because she observed that Frances, as founder and leader of that energetic body, had secured a kind of sovereignty over her comrades; also, that the majority of the better-class Woodendites spoke well of the young people’s efforts, and gave honour to Frances as the inspirer of all their best intentions. Greater still was the credit given to the girl for the modesty which made her obviously unaware of the good opinions she had won from her mother’s friends, and for the unselfishness which made her eager to admire the generous labours of her supporters; and Mrs. Morland was careful to do nothing to make Frances more self-conscious, and therefore less attractive to critical eyes.
At home, the mother was content to give an occasional peep into the club-room when a meeting was in full swing, and to subscribe liberally when funds were requisitioned; abroad, she was fond of allusions to “my lassie’s up-to-date fancies,—which really, you know, are quite amusingly altruistic”. Mrs. Morland was by no means a popular person, in spite of her local distinction. Woodend happened to be favoured with, for its size, an unusually large number of well-to-do residents; and among these, by birth, by fortune, by knowledge of the world, Mrs. Morland had an undoubted prominence. When qualities of head and heart were considered, her claims were less readily admitted.
Yet she was, in a degree, an able woman, though her talents were purely social, and she had no sympathy with art or with letters except in so far as they might help to secure social consideration. Austin inherited a share of his mother’s gifts, and was naturally her favourite child. In Frances she detected all those qualities which had least appealed to her in her husband’s character; but as most people seemed to find these traits admirable, she gave them toleration on account of their value in the eyes of others.
Christmas-day dawned in what the girls and boys of Woodend called “proper weather”—snow under foot, clear blue sky and sunshine overhead. Frances and Austin had worked hard on Christmas-eve at church decorations, proving themselves Muriel Carlyon’s best allies. Their mother viewed without enthusiasm the ornamentation of her pictures, furniture, and walls, when the materials were holly and fir. Indeed, she called such time-honoured greenstuff “messy nonsense”, which soiled whatever it touched when fresh, and covered the floors with litter when dry. In church, she found it unnecessary to disapprove of anything which had the sanctity of tradition to support its use; and so she willingly granted Muriel’s request that the two youngsters might be spared to help her, and allowed to share her luncheon in order to save the time spent in going home.
Muriel Carlyon was a popular person both in school and out of it, but she certainly shone as a holiday companion. She was as invariably ready to interest herself in the latest schemes of harmless frolic as in the soberer matters of daily life and duty, and had been quite as enthusiastic as any of her pupils over the plans for the great entertainment, quite as delighted at its triumphant success. There were a few among her younger friends who knew that her sympathies could go deeper still, that she could sorrow with the sorrowing, and point the way to seek for comfort.
The old rector, Dr. Stansby, looked on Edward and Muriel Carlyon almost as a son and daughter. They spent with him all they could of their scanty leisure, and held it a pleasant duty to see that a sense of growing infirmity should not touch his peace of mind. No parish matter could be neglected while these two workers watched over affairs, and Edward tackled bravely the few abuses which old-fashioned prejudices had rendered unassailable in the days when Dr. Stansby had laboured alone.
The brightness of the Christmas morning with which my story is concerned was reflected in the faces of Mrs. Morland’s pair of youngsters as they ran into the breakfast-room to see what fate had sent them. Their mother followed at leisure, her simple winter morning-gown falling gracefully about her stately person. She never had been known to be in a hurry; and of late years the assured comfort of her circumstances, and the small demands made on her for sustained exertion, had weakened further her naturally inert disposition. But she had a smiling face for her children when they sprang back to throw their arms about her and offer grateful kisses.
Before Austin’s place at table stood a beautiful enlarging camera, which would surely be a priceless help in the practice of the “dark art”; he found, too, a fine array of photographic plates and papers, and the latest thing in “print-washers”, as a gift from his sister. All these matters being of moment in regard to his latest hobby, the boy was certain that no present could have pleased him better. Frances found herself the possessor of a beautiful writing-case, fitted with everything necessary and unnecessary. Austin had amused himself and Max vastly by a special journey to Exham in order to select his present, which now astonished his sister’s eyes. It was a plain wicker work-basket of enormous proportions; and half an hour of coaxing had induced Muriel Carlyon to line the monster with crimson silk, on which were stitched at regular intervals great white letters:
“FRANCES THE ALTRUIST”.
The peals of laughter with which Frances received this offering, and in which Austin joined, almost upset Mrs. Morland’s equanimity; but just as she began to think of frowning, the lively couple calmed down and pounced on the row of new story-books, which were to be a joint possession.
Frances remembered for long afterwards the special peacefulness and happiness which seemed to mark the morning of that Christmas-day. Never had she more thoroughly enjoyed the service in the old Woodend church, with the rector’s benign face seeming to greet each well-known member of his congregation, and Edward Carlyon reading the familiar prayers, and Muriel accompanying on the organ her well-trained choir of boys and men. The choristers were recruited chiefly from Mr. Carlyon’s pupils, so that Austin was the soloist that morning, and sang with bird-like clearness a vocal hymn of joy and praise.
The children dined late with their mother on great occasions, and now, after a luncheon of sandwiches, mince-pies, jelly, and cream, they hurried out for a run which might assist digestion. Austin carried his camera, for he pined to get a snow-effect, and thought that the view of Woodend village from the elevation on which his mother’s house stood would answer admirably for a subject.
“It wasn’t worth while to bring my camera-case,” announced the boy, as he darted round from a side-door his arms burdened with impedimenta. “You won’t mind carrying something, will you, Frances, as it’s such a little way we’re going?”
“I always carry something,” replied his sister calmly; “and I would have come to help you collect your baggage if Mater hadn’t called me back to write a letter for her. It was only a little letter, but it took time. Everything takes time. I wish the days were twice as long.”
“Well, as they’re at their shortest now, and we’ve only two hours of light before us, we’d better scurry. There, I’ve dropped my dark cloth, and I can’t stoop to pick it up.”
“Mercy! Are your dark slides in it?”
“No, better luck.”
“But ought you to carry them without any covering? I’m sure light will get in and fog the plates when the sun shines like this.”
“It’s December sun,” said Austin testily. “And what’s the use of calling the slides ‘dark’ if they let in the light?”
“I don’t know; but surely you remember last week, that waster you got—”
“If you’re going to begin by talking about wasters—!”
“Oh, never mind, dear!” cried Frances hastily, remembering that Austin’s “wasters”, as he called his spoilt plates, were sore points. The glory of his few photographic successes could hardly, as yet, be said to atone for the bitterness of almost universal failure.
Austin had pulled three dark slides from under one arm, a tripod from under the other, and had held towards Frances the racked-out camera he had hugged to his breast.
“If you’ll carry this tricky thing I’ll be awfully obliged,” he said piteously. “I’m in mortal fear of dropping it and smashing my lens.”
“All right!” agreed Frances. “Wrap the slides in the dark cloth and I’ll take them also. That’s the way. Now, let’s run.”
So Austin shouldered the tripod, and off they went. Down the carriage-drive to the gate, and then along the road overlooking the village till they reached the desired spot. Here they cried a halt, and Austin set up his tripod.
“No cap on the lens!” exclaimed Frances in dismay.
“Oh, crikey! Why didn’t you tell me when I handed you the wretched thing?”
“I never looked at the lens. I thought you would have made sure you had everything before you came downstairs. Not that I need have thought so,” added Frances grimly. “Last time, you forgot the dark cloth; and the time before, when Max was with us, don’t you remember—?”
“There you are again with your ‘rememberings’!” muttered Austin. “A fellow can’t be expected to keep his wits about him with you and Max chattering like fun.”
“Oh, I dare say!” laughed Frances. “Here, take the camera, and I’ll run back for the cap.”
“Hang it, can’t I use my hand? I’m sure I’d cover the lens all right.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t! Wait, and I won’t be long.”
Frances scudded away, but when she had gone almost out of sight, suddenly turned and scudded back again.
“I suppose you have filled the slides?” she inquired.
“Filled them!” ejaculated Austin. “Why,” he began lamely, “weren’t they full? I never thought of that. And I want slow plates.”
“You dreadful goose!” cried Frances; and picking up the slides, she raced away again.
Arrived in the dark-room, she found that only one of the double slides possessed its piece of black card for dividing the two plates. A search for the missing necessaries delayed her a good deal, and might have ruffled her temper had she not become resigned to photographic muddles.
“Here I am at last!” she remarked cheerfully, as she came up to Austin, who remained seated in philosophic calm on the top of a five-barred gate. “There were no cards in two of the slides.”
“Oh!” remarked Austin, “I thought perhaps you’d lost the cap.”
“I had lost it!”
“Well—it might have lost itself. Thank you ever so much for going.”
“Let’s make a start, Austin. The sun’s sinking down into the mist.”
“That’s all right. It says in my photographic handbook there are ‘immense possibilities in mist and cloud’; and also, that ‘there is pictorial value in a gate or a stile carefully placed’. Now, I haven’t been wasting my time while you’ve been away; I’ve been thinking over what that chap wrote. And I’ve made up my mind to get the mist and the cloud and this gate into my photograph.”
“Likewise the windmill, the group of poplars, and the whole expanse of Nature, I presume?” observed Frances sarcastically.
“I dare say I could edge in the poplars—my lens has a wide field,” said the photographer. “The windmill is behind our backs.”
“I thought you were going to take the village. And you can’t see the village through the gate or over it. You must open the gate and go into the field to get the view we wanted.”
“Humph! I believe I’ll give up the village in favour of the gate. I’m certain I can ‘carefully place’ the gate on my ‘neg.’, so as to give it ‘pictorial value’; and a gate is easier than a whole village. Besides, the cloud and the mist will go in of themselves, not to mention your poplars.”
“Get your beloved gate on the ground-glass, and we’ll settle.”
This Austin proceeded to do, while Frances patiently held the cap—the sixth which had been bought for this particular camera. Each of the remaining five had been dropped and trodden into a shapeless mass in what its owner called “moments of remarkable enthusiasm”. Anticipating such a moment, Frances thought it well to watch over the survivor.
“I’m doing my best,” announced the operator from the enveloping folds of his dark cloth, “but those poplars are awful worrying. They don’t work in nicely with the gate when it’s ‘carefully placed’.”
“Leave them out.”
“Oh, not when I’ve promised you,” said Austin courteously. “There, I’ve focussed the lot somehow. Just take a peep, Sis, and admire my work.”
Frances accordingly concealed the greater part of her person from view beneath the dark cloth—which, it may be noted, was of proportions as Brobdignagian as Frances’s work-basket, in order to elude the light which like a fiend seemed to pursue Austin’s dark slides.
“I see the gate on the extreme left,” commented the critic, “and half the poplars on the extreme right, and a long strip of hedge cutting the picture nearly in two, and a foreground muddled into nothing—”
“You must have a muddled foreground,” interrupted Austin. “It’s artistic.”
“Well, I like to tell a bush from a wall myself,” said Frances; “but I suppose you’re an impressionist, like those people your photographer-man writes about. There’s plenty of cloud and mist, Austin; and if you don’t think a picture with just a gate and poplars, and a hedge and an impressionist foreground, rather dull—”
“I’d have liked a figure or two, ‘to give interest’,” admitted the handbook student. “Of course I can put you in.”
Frances groaned. She always was “put in”,—with frightsome results.
“Hallo!” shouted Austin just then, “here come two jolly figures for me!”
Frances looked, and saw Max Brenton and Betty Turner tramping through the snow at a pace dictated by Betty’s aversion to undue haste. Max lugged a big basket in one hand and a small one in the other, and was trying to keep up his circulation by whistling vigorously. Betty was pensive, and disinclined at the moment for conversation.
As soon as the two pairs of youngsters hailed each other from afar, they began, after the fashion of their age and kind, to rush together as though they had been opposing currents of electricity. They met with a bump and a shock and a great deal of laughter.
“We were just coming to you,” said Betty. “At least, I was. Mamma has some friends staying with her, and this morning each of them gave me something for our Society stores—”
“How kind of them!”
“It was rather decent. So I thought I’d like you to have the things, as it’s Christmas-day; and the servants were fearfully busy, so I just took the basket to bring it myself. Coming up the hill I got so hot and tired, and I just sat down on my basket—”
“And might have been sitting there yet!” ejaculated Max tragically.
“Only Max came and helped me up, and carried the basket. It was nice of him, only he’s always in such a hurry. In the other basket, the little one, he has some nonsense of his own—”
“That’s what she calls Dad’s prescriptions.”
“Oh, I hope they’re not ‘every four hours’ bottles!” cried Austin. “Do look, Max. Perhaps, by luck, they’re ‘at bed-time’ potions. I want you and Betty to be figures for me.”
“Got out the camera? My, what larks!”
The boys immediately set off at the best pace permitted by the baskets, Austin giving a hand with the altruistic burden. The girls followed, at Betty’s leisure.
“There’s no hurry about Dad’s things,” remarked Max, setting his load down by the roadside and dashing at the camera. Max could be enthusiastic with anybody. “What are you taking, old fellow? The lens doesn’t seem to be pointing anywhere.”
“It’s pointing at a pictorial gate, an impressionist foreground, half a group of poplars, and any amount of mist and cloud ‘thrown in’. Frances actually says my view will be dull!”
“Let’s look.”
Max accordingly popped under the cloth, and presently emerged with a somewhat puzzled and dejected appearance.
“I suppose it’s all right,” he remarked humbly to the owner of the camera; “though things do seem a little mixed in front.”
“Poor Max! He doesn’t appreciate the charms of impressionism,” said Frances, coming up arm in arm with the serene Betty.
“Ha! there’s another figure for me!” cried Austin next. “My star’s overhead this afternoon. Fly, Max, and tell Florry to hurry up. She’s the very thing for a photograph. There’s ‘pictorial value’ in any girl with long hair and an animated expression.”
Max “flew” as desired; and, while he ran—by way of saving time,—acquainted Florry at the top of his voice with the honour in store for her. Florry naturally flew to meet the honour, reached Max midway, caught his hand, and dashed wildly back. They landed, at full pelt, in the middle of Frances, Betty, Austin, the camera, and the baskets. In the result, Austin and the smaller basket became as mixed as the impressionist foreground.
“Goodness!” said the boy ruefully, picking himself up. “I’ve squashed your basket, Max, and all your father’s things are running out in streams!”
The entire company precipitated themselves on the snow to examine the ruin.
“It wasn’t medicine—it was port-wine,” confessed Max in sorrow; “Dad was sending it to old Briggs. Janet had made him some jelly and stuff, too. You needn’t mind, though, Austin; it was my fault.”
“Bosh!”
“You needn’t mind, either of you,” said Frances. “Mamma will give us some more port-wine, and we’ll beg a jelly from cook.”
“Thank you,” said Max fervently. “You’re awfully kind, Frances,—Frances the Altruist!”
“Now for the figures!” Austin sprang with recovered glee to his camera. “You’d better all stand nicely up against my carefully-arranged gate.”
“But why should we all stand up against a gate?” objected Betty. “Let half of us, at least, sit down.”
“Why should you sit down in the snow?” inquired Austin sensibly. “I should say that, for choice, you’d rather stand up.”
“I could sit on my basket,” murmured Betty. But she allowed Austin to “place” her, as carefully as any handbook could desire, exactly against the middle of the gate, with Florry and Max on either hand.
“Aren’t we a bit stiff?” suggested Max mildly. “Mightn’t I sit on top of the gate, instead of standing in a row with the girls? Or, as Betty likes sitting, couldn’t she mount the gate?”
“Catch me!” cried Betty.
“I’d hold you on,” said Max accommodatingly.
“No, indeed!” said Austin severely; “Betty would block out my best clouds. And if you held her on, Max, I couldn’t take your eyes. I don’t fancy portraits when you can’t see the folks’ eyes.”
“I could turn my face to you,” said Max persuasively, with a lingering fondness for his bright idea.
Austin was immovable in his determination to arrange his friends in line, and to photograph all the eyes they could present to his camera.
Finally, after the usual agonized commands to his sitters, Austin reached the vital moment and removed the cap from his lens. He remained then in a state of frantic uncertainty as to when he should put it on again; and remained uncertain so long that, before he could settle the important point, the six eyes watching his changeful countenance and palpitating person began to twinkle, and Betty giggled outright.
“There!” said the photographer, with the calmness of despair, “that’s another plate done for!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” said Betty penitently.
“It isn’t as though it would have been a common picture either,” continued Austin stonily; “we’ve lost a really good thing. Not so much a snow-effect as a figure-study, with mist and clouds and poplars.”
Betty was overwhelmed with shame.
“If only I could have made up my mind!” broke out the artist bitterly. “If only I could have made up my mind a moment sooner, I should have capped the lens and saved my best picture!”
“Austin dear,” remarked Frances quietly, “you have six plates in your slides.”
This simple speech effected an immediate transformation. Austin remembered that his little all in the way of plates had not been torn from him. Betty recovered her spirits, and having magnanimously offered to “stand out, in case she spoilt another”, was warmly pressed to remain in and be immortalized. Frances suggested that, after removing the cap, Austin should count ten under his breath, and then do the deed. Florry added the useful hint that if Betty did not fix her gaze on the photographer’s worried countenance she might be better able to control her own.
“Very well,” said Austin graciously, “you may turn your head just a trifle, Betty, and stare at that fir-tree. But I must have your eyes on the camera, Florry; and I’d like one or two of your curling locks pulled over your shoulder to show in front. I want to take your long hair and your animated expression. I believe,” finished Austin joyfully, “this picture will be better than the other. I hadn’t remembered the ‘pictorial value’ of Florry’s curls!”
After several agitated moments, the photographer announced that his mission was accomplished.
“I don’t believe any of you turned a hair,” he remarked gratefully. “I’m no end obliged to you. Let’s all tear off home and develop this plate.”
“Oh, Austin!” remonstrated Frances; “you’re always in such a hurry! Do let’s take some more pictures first.”
“All right. I’ll tell you what. We’ve six plates; one’s spoilt, and one’s properly exposed. That leaves four: one for each of you. I’ll sit on the gate, and watch you take them. Only do be a little quick, for I’m burning to develop my beautiful figure-study.”
A chorus of thanks applauded this generosity; though, to tell truth, Austin’s possessions were always freely at the disposal of everybody. All the present party of friends knew enough of the photographic art to be able to “take” something—what, they were not quite sure until their work had gone through “development” at the hands of Austin or Frances.
Frances now announced that her choice of subject should be the village of Woodend, from the brow of the hill whereon she stood. Betty wished to take a portrait of Frances and Florry. Max was already focussing Austin, as the latter perched on the gate,—“so as to give the girls time to think”. Florry declined to disclose her purpose till her comrades had had their turns.
Austin’s eyes beamed with good-humoured triumph, as he obligingly turned them full on his friend; and Max “took” the eyes and their owner without any discomfiting entreaties for attention and tiresome worry about detail.
Betty was so charmed with Austin’s pose that she insisted on Frances and Florry displacing him and mounting the gate.
“I shall take you large,” she observed ambitiously; “just as big as I can get you on to the ground-glass.”
The sitters made anguished efforts to keep still while Betty, who despised haste in photographic exposure as in everything, counted sixty aloud.
“I’ve given my plate a minute,” she said with satisfaction. “Now something’s sure to come up.”
Frances carried the camera into the field, and focussed her “view”.
“Oh, put in a few figures to give interest!” begged Austin. “My handbook says they’re an enormous improvement to a quiet country landscape.”
“Well, if Max doesn’t mind, he might just run across the field to that stile leading to the brook. He could be crossing over it, as though he were going to the village by the short cut.—When you’re half over it, Max, you might stand still, and—and—just try to look like moving.”
Max ran to execute the required task, and his dramatic instincts brought him to a pause in an attitude quite suggestive of motion.
“But he’s got his back to us,” objected Austin loudly. “We can’t see his eyes. Hi, Max! Turn round, I say!”
“No, no!” shouted Frances. “Keep still!—I couldn’t see his eyes if he turned this way, Austin; he’s too far off. This is a view, not a portrait.”
“Oh!” said Austin in disgust; “you could easily have made it a figure-study.”
Frances, however, appeared satisfied, and speedily recalled Max. To Florry now fell the post of responsibility, and the last plate.
Florry, as dramatist, author, poet, painter, and musician, was easily first among the artistic youth of Woodend. Her social qualities were as naught in the eyes of Mrs. Morland, for she did not understand how to appear “to advantage” before select circles of her elders, and among her fellows she held her many gifts as the property of all. When the universal voice demanded it, Florry emerged from her shell, and wrote, painted, or played to order, without even the affectation of incompetence. She was the sole darling of a refined and modest home, where her talents were wisely nourished and never overstrained.
Florry, with a thoughtful brow, now delivered herself:
“I wish you would all go and look at Max’s basket again.”
“Why? What for?”
“I mean, just as you did before. Frances and Betty squatting anyhow in the snow; Austin standing up with his legs apart, his cap pushed back, his hands in his pockets, and looking awfully ashamed of himself; Max down on one knee, holding the broken bottle, and with such a dismal face.” Florry caught hold of the camera and led the way back to the roadside. She had an idea.
“It will be a picture—we’ll call it ‘Disaster!’,” she went on rapidly. “Frances and Betty will be showing each other the wasted jelly and beef-tea. It won’t be acting—it will be real.”
The young people threw themselves with their usual enthusiasm into Florry’s plan. As they grouped on the snow, Florry, who was careful of details, requested Austin to turn up his collar in consideration of the wintry atmosphere she wished to preserve in the composition of her picture, and implored him to look at the ruin he had wrought, and not to stare, round-eyed, at the camera.
“Is it a quick plate?” she asked him.
“No;—I’m sorry. My handbook says slow plates are best for snow-effects; and when we came out, I meant—”
“Never mind! Just wait a moment, as quiet as you can, while I draw my shutter. But when I say ‘Now!’ mind you don’t wink an eye.”
“Winking an eye,” began Austin eagerly, “wouldn’t show on a slow plate. It—”
“Hush—sh—sh! We sha’n’t hear Florry’s ‘Now!’”
The group waited and listened.
“I’ve done,” said Florry calmly. And she capped her lens as she spoke.
“Why, you never said ‘Now’!”
“And I’m not going to. I wasn’t likely to let you all look like statues.”
“We’ve been ‘took’ unawares!” cried Austin, dancing wildly round Max and the basket.
“Florry’s a base deceiver!” said Frances, chuckling over the little ruse. “Now we’ll pack our traps and learn our fate in the dark-room.”
Subsequent proceedings in the ammonia-perfumed apartment need not be here described, but I give the result.
Austin’s developed plate revealed the distressing fact that a trifling twist of the camera had caused the disappearance of the half-group of poplars. There remained to him the gate, with a tin-soldier row of diminutive figures in front of it—their backs to the fading light, and their faces consequently indistinguishable as to eyes and all other features; a long stretch of hedge, running aimlessly across the picture to the right as though seeking a lost vanishing-point; a foreground more mixed than the most ardent impressionist could have believed possible; and a dark expanse of nothing where the mist and clouds ought to have been.
Max had three portraits of Austin. That is to say, his figure faithfully represented Austin at three different moments, as the model had oscillated on his slippery perch.
Betty’s desire for size had given her two gigantic heads, which acknowledged her leisurely exposure by deliberately fading away before her anxious eyes, leaving her with a coal-black plate and a disappointed soul.
Frances’s lights were a little hard and her shadows a little heavy; but Woodend village loomed with no more than artistic vagueness on her plate, and her short exposure had preserved her mist and clouds. And Max’s far-off figure was quite life-like. Frances hoped that her negative would, after all, yield a decent print, and Austin was consoled by the thought that Woodend village had been photographed at last.
There was no light in the dark-room save that which came from Austin’s ruby lamp, and a flickering reflection through the red-paned window of the waning day without. Frances developed Florry’s plate with friendly care, and announced results to the group peering over her shoulders.