Part 5 (1/2)
Five eager faces peered over his shoulders, rosy red in the light of the lamp; five pairs of lips uttered a simultaneous ”Oh!” of surprise; five cries of dismay followed in instant echo. It was the tragedy of a second. Even as Oswald poured the fluid over the plate, a picture flashed before their eyes, each one saw and recognised some fleeting feature; and, in the very moment of triumph, lo, darkness, as of night, a sheet of useless, blackened gla.s.s!
”What about the conversational annotations?” asked Robert slily; but he was interrupted by a storm of indignant queries, levied at the head of the poor operator, who tried in vain to carry off his mistake with a jaunty air. Now that he came to think of it, he believed you _did_ mix the two developers together! Just at the moment he had forgotten the proportions, but he would go outside and look it up in the book; and he beat a hasty retreat, glad to escape from the scene of his failure. It was rather a disconcerting beginning; but hope revived once more when Oswald returned, primed with information from the _Photographic Manual_, and Peggy's plates were taken from their case and put into the bath.
This time the result was slow in coming. Five minutes went by, and no signs of a picture--ten minutes, a quarter of an hour.
”It's a good thing to develop slowly; you get the details better,” said Oswald, in so professional a manner that he was instantly reinstated in public confidence; but when twenty minutes had pa.s.sed, he looked perturbed, and thought he would use a little more of the hastener. The bath was strengthened and strengthened, but still no signs of a picture.
The plate was put away in disgust, and the second one tried with a like result. So far as it was possible to judge, there was nothing to be developed on the plate.
”A nice photographer you are, I must say! What are you playing at now?”
asked Max, in scornful impatience; and Oswald turned severely to Peggy--
”Which shutter did you draw out? The one nearest to yourself?”
”Yes, I did--of course I did!”
”You drew out the nearest to you, and the farthest away from the lens?”
”Precisely--I told you so!” and Peggy bridled with an air of virtue.
”Then no wonder nothing has come out! You have drawn out the wrong shutter each time, and the plates have never been exposed. They are wasted! That's fivepence simply _thrown_ away, to say nothing of the chemicals!”
His air of aggrieved virtue; Peggy's little face staring at him, aghast with horror; the thought of four plates being used and leaving not a vestige of a result, were all too funny to be resisted. Mellicent went off into irrepressible giggles; Max gave a loud ”Ha, ha!” and once again a mischievous whisper sounded in Peggy's ear--
”Good for you, Mariquita! What about the 'conversational annotations'?”
CHAPTER EIGHT.
PEGGY SHOWS HERSELF IN HER TRUE COLOURS.
The photographic fever burnt fiercely for the next few weeks. Every spare hour was devoted to the camera, and there was not a person in the house, from the vicar himself to the boy who came in to clean boots and knives, who had not been pressed to repeated sittings. There were no more blank plates, but there were some double ones which had been twice exposed, and showed such a kaleidoscopic jumble of heads and legs as was as good as any professional puzzle; but, besides these, there were a number of groups where the likenesses were quite recognisable, though scarcely flattering enough to be pleasant to the originals. There was quite a scene in the dining-room on the evening when Oswald came down in triumph and handed round the proofs of the first presentable group, over which he had been busy all the afternoon.
”Oh, oh, oh! I'm an old woman, and I never knew it!” cried Mrs Asplin, staring in dismay at the haggard-looking female who sat in the middle of the group, with heavy, black shadows on cheeks and temple. The vicar cast a surrept.i.tious glance in the gla.s.s above the sideboard, and tried to straighten his bent shoulders, while Mellicent's cheeks grew scarlet with agitation, and the tears were in her voice, as she cried--
”I look like a p-p-pig! It's not a bit like! A nasty, horrid, fat, puffy pig!”
”I don't care about appearances; but mine is not in the least like,”
Esther said severely. ”I am sure no one could recognise it; I look seventy-eight at the very least.”
Robert flicked the paper across the table with a contemptuous ”Bah!” and Max laughed in his easy, jolly manner, and said--
”Now I know how I shall look when my brain softens! I'm glad I've seen it; it will be a lesson to me to take things easily, and not over-study.”
”But look at the leaves of the ivy,” protested Oswald, in aggrieved self-vindication, ”each one quite clear and distinct from the others; it's really an uncommonly good plate. The detail is perfect. Look at that little bunch of flowers at the corner of the bed!” All in vain, however, did he point out the excellences of his work. The victims refused to look at the little bunch of flowers. Each one was occupied with staring at his own portrait; the Asplin family sighing and protesting, and Peggy placidly poking a pin through the eyes of the various sitters, and holding the paper to the light to view the effect.
It was a little trying to the feelings of one who had taken immense pains over his work, and had given up a bicycle ride to sit for a whole afternoon in a chilly pantry, dabbling in cold water, and watching over the various processes. Oswald was ruffled, and showed it more plainly than was altogether courteous.
”I'm sorry you're not pleased,” he said coldly. ”I aim at truthfulness, you see, and that is what you don't get from a professional photograph.
It's no good wasting time, simply to get oneself disliked. I'll go in for Nature, and leave the portrait business to somebody else. The girls can try! They think they can do everything!”