Part 11 (2/2)
East winds prevail, and rheumatism holds some of my neighbours in prison and in torment, but to me they bring exhilaration, a voracious appet.i.te, and the joy of life. Mother Hubbard looks upon me with loving envy and sighs for the days that are beyond recall.
Poor Mother Hubbard! The hard winter has tried her severely, but she never complains and is always sweet and cheerful, and promises herself and me that she will be all right when summer comes. I hope so, for she has grown inexpressibly dear to her adopted daughter whom she does her level best to spoil, and if we were parted now we should miss each other sorely.
I have discovered that she is an excellent chaperon, and enjoys the role beyond my power of description. What a remarkable little woman she is! She knows that I keep a record of my experiences, and has got it into her head that I am writing a book, and she is therefore always on the look-out for the appearance of the hero. She has given me to understand that if she can only be in at the _denouement_, when the hero leads the blus.h.i.+ng bride to the altar amid the ill-restrained murmur of admiration from the crowd, she will be then ready to depart in peace. Needless to say, it is _I_ who am to be the blus.h.i.+ng bride!
It is no doubt a very pleasing fancy, but I am afraid the dear old lady will have to find contentment in an abstraction.
What amuses me most is her well-founded misgiving as to my ability to deal adequately with such a situation in my ”book.”
”You are not very romantic, love,” she said to me one evening, when she had been making unusually large demands upon her imagination, to my considerable amus.e.m.e.nt, ”and I don't think you will ever be equal to the greatest writers unless you cultivate that side of your nature.
You know, love, you are rather practical and common-sense and all that sort of thing, and the men might not know how very nice you are.” She came across and kissed me, hoping I did not mind her candour.
”You see, love, I was always rather romantic myself, and I think I could help you a bit; though, of course, I am not clever like you. But I could just tell you what I think ought to be put in, and you could find suitable language for it.... Now you're laughing at me!”
I believe she thought the hero had arrived when the Cynic turned up on Easter Monday.
It was a truly beautiful day, typically April, except that the showers were wanting, and the much-abused clerk who controls the Weather Department must have been unusually complaisant when he crowded so many pleasing features into his holiday programme. Until the long shadows began to creep across the fields it was warm enough to sit out in the suns.h.i.+ne, whilst there was just sufficient ”bite” in the air to make exercise agreeable.
Every cottage garden had on its gala clothing and smiled a friendly welcome to the pa.s.ser-by, and a sky that was almost really blue bent over a landscape of meadow, moor, and wood that was a perfect fantasy in every delicate shade of green. And the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air lifted up their voices in their several degrees of melody.
It had been a glorious Easter Day, and perhaps on that account I had risen early on the Monday and gone out bareheaded to catch the Spirit of the Morning. Farmer Goodenough pa.s.sed as I stood at the gate, and threw one of his hearty greetings over his shoulder without pausing in his walk.
”Look out for customers to-day, Miss 'Olden! There'll be scores in t'
village this afternoon from Broadbeck way.”
”But suppose I don't want them, Mr. Goodenough,” I replied; ”it's holiday to-day.”
”That 'ud be a sin,” he shouted; ”'make hay while t' sun s.h.i.+nes,' as t'
Owd Book says, holiday or no holiday.”
There was sense in this. Customers had so far been scarce enough, for I had been favoured with the patronage of only three paying sitters, although I had been established in business for eight months. My total takings from the portraiture branch had not totalled thirty s.h.i.+llings; and if my neighbours had not grown accustomed to it, the sign at the bottom of the garden must have appeared very ridiculous indeed. I therefore antic.i.p.ated the arrival of excursionists with no little eager interest.
Half a dozen houses in the village had got out brand new boards indicating that Teas were provided within, and I knew that from this date forward until the autumn a very brisk trade would be done on sunny Sat.u.r.day afternoons and holidays.
Soon after half-past twelve I caught sight of the advance guard approaching. The footpaths between Windyridge and Marsland Moor became dotted with microscopic moving figures which materialised usually into male and female, walking two and two, even as they went into the ark, as Widow Robertshaw might have observed.
When they reached the village street the sight of my studio seemed to astonish them and tickle their fancy. ”In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”--and portraiture. Quite a group of young people gathered about my sign before two o'clock, and from that time until five I never sat down for one minute. As fast as I bowed out one couple another entered, amid a fusillade of good-humoured chaff and curtly-expressed injunctions to ”be quick about it.” I took so much money, comparatively speaking, in three short hours that I began to see visions and dream dreams--but the Cynic dispelled them.
He was standing in the garden, talking to Mother Hubbard, when I locked up the studio, and although he was in shorts I recognised him at once, for thus had I seen him in my dream. I involuntarily glanced at myself to make sure that I was correctly garbed and that it was really the key, and not Madam Rusty's teapot, that I held in my hand.
He came forward smilingly and held out his hand. ”How do you do, Miss Holden? I had intended asking you to take my photograph, but compet.i.tion for your favour was so keen that the modesty which has always been my curse forced me to the background.”
”If it had forced you to the background you would have entered my studio, Mr. Derwent,” I replied; ”all those who have competed successfully for my favour were not deterred by dread of the background. I fear, however, it is now too late to endeavour to encourage you to overcome your bashfulness.”
”Indeed, yes:
”'The shadows of departing day Creep on once more,'
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