"I should like to watch you work," she said. "I paint a little myself."
"Perhaps you would like to help, then?" Mr. Punter promptly suggested. "All my sons work under Charlie. Come to-morrow, and we will find you an apron and brushes and see what you can manage to produce, eh?"
Laughingly, Evarne promised, and at length was allowed to depart.
CHAPTER XVIII
NEW TRIALS AND TROUBLES
After some search she lighted on a really pleasant room, clean and bright, at a rent of ten shillings weekly. It possessed a true Scotch bed, built into a cupboard in the wall. She had her box conveyed from the station, and that night slept comfortably enough in this curiously situated bed, in which confused dreams of authoresses who inhabited ruins, and hairy men who painted scenery in back gardens, appeared only an appropriate accompaniment.
The next afternoon she wended her way to Sauchiehall Street, and there made the acquaintance of Mr. Punter's six sons, old and young—including Pat, the youth who had first greeted her from the window. Then started scene-painting. She undertook to do a cottage window, draped with snowy muslin curtains. Pots of scarlet geraniums stood on the sill, a big flour-bin was underneath, while a green pasture with a lovely blue sky showed through the open lattice. Her effort evoked ardent admiration from the whole assembled Punter family. Indeed, Mrs. Punter's gratitude was such that she impulsively invited the artist in to tea.
Never had Evarne beheld such an extraordinary chamber as that upstairs one into which—as a guest of the family—she was now admitted. The first impression was of the wildest confusion—house-moving, or spring-cleaning at least. Here, as elsewhere throughout the house, the windows were cracked and broken. In one corner was a huge bed, covered with a grimy patchwork quilt. Boxes stood around, some with open lids, others as yet uncorded, while two large empty crates placed side by side and covered with a cloth formed the table. There were several chairs and stools, piles of dishes, cups and saucers of varied hues and designs; some torn books, devoid of covers; a number of men's hats and outdoor coats; and a baby's cradle half-filled with potatoes.
The uncarpeted floor, on which lay a few small rugs, was decorated likewise by a considerable number of stage "properties" of many descriptions. The half-dozen large plaster statues that stood around doubtless came under this heading, but being all nude, they appeared indecently incongruous amidst this domestic confusion and makeshift. Evarne was now quite convinced that the Punters were merely "squatters"—that they paid no rent, that no public authority knew them to be here, that they had, in fact, taken up their temporary abode in what was really a deserted and supposedly uninhabitable house.