The Girls of Chequertrees

by Marion St. John Webb

"He doesn't care for pictures at all," Elizabeth would reply. "And it's no good crossing him—he's been very kind to me, you know, and has given me a roof over my head, and food to eat; I only have to buy my own clothes and my painting materials out of the money I earn by teaching; he provides everything else."

"But look what you do for him in return—cooking, washing, cleaning, and last, but by no means least, looking after his six children for him. How you manage to do it all I'm sure I don't know! And yet he doesn't even recognize that the work you love most is done up here—here in your studio—at all odd moments of the day. And he calls this 'wasting time.'" Pamela gave a short laugh. "Oh, it makes me so indignant," she said.

But her arguments were always in vain. Elizabeth would never make the smallest attempt toward making her brother respect her art, but would continue to go on as usual after Pamela had left, smiling quietly to herself at Pamela's enthusiasm and indignation.

"She is very young," Elizabeth would say to herself, and then give a sigh at the remembrance of when she herself was young and enthusiastic and indignant, when she had dreamed of doing great things in the world of art—long before her sister-in-law had died, and she had come to keep house for her brother. Then, when she was young, it had been an invalid mother who had claimed all her attention, so that she had never had time nor opportunities to make friends with young people of her own age—young people who had interests in common with herself. She had painted and drawn in her spare time, and had even had a couple of terms at an art school, in the days before her mother had become a helpless invalid. Then, when her mother had died, it had been Elizabeth's intention to take a room in London by herself and set resolutely to work to earn a living by her painting; but before this plan could be put into execution news came that her aunt (Alice Maud) had met with an accident, and Elizabeth was asked to go and nurse her. She went. Elizabeth planned many things during her life, but other people always seemed to step in and alter the plans—and Elizabeth allowed them to be altered, and drifted into the new plans with little or no resistance. That was Elizabeth's chief failing, her inability to strike out for herself. As far as art was concerned it was a loss, but her relatives had certainly gained in having so willing and conscientious a worker to look after them in their illnesses. For it was always somebody who was ill that sent for Elizabeth. First, her mother, then her aunt, and finally, just when her thoughts were once again free to turn toward the room in London, her sister-in-law had begged her to come and look after her house and the children as she was taken dangerously ill. So Elizabeth came. And when her sister-in-law died she could not find it in her heart to refuse her brother Tom's request to stay with him and look after his six little motherless children.

Elizabeth used sometimes to dream about the wonderful room she had meant to have in London—the room where she liked to imagine that she would have painted pictures that would have brought her fame and wealth. As she grew older she began to doubt whether she ever would have painted pictures good enough or marketable enough even to pay for the rent of the room. She began to regret her want of initiative—after she had met Pamela. She regretted that she had all along allowed her own affairs to drift. Why had she always allowed others to rule her life, she wondered. She had worked hard at her pictures—and then done nothing with them when they were finished. There were scores of them packed one on top of the other on the shelves of a big cupboard in her studio.

Having got permission to look through this pile of pictures one day, Pamela discovered that Elizabeth was decidedly clever at portrait painting; the likenesses of one or two of the village folk, whom Pamela knew by sight, and of Tom Bagg, and of several of the little Baggs, were very well done indeed; and she asked Elizabeth why she did not do more of this kind of work.

"I haven't done any portraits for a long time," was all that Elizabeth replied. "I don't know why."

The discovery of this branch of Elizabeth's skill set Pamela thinking. Apart from his annoying indifference to his sister's talent Tom Bagg was a genial, good-natured, and quite likeable man, Pamela thought. She liked him more particularly after discovering him one evening sitting by the fire in his living-room, smoking, and telling a long fairy story to his children, who were gathered around him listening, enthralled. It was only occasionally that Daddy could be got to tell them a story; but when he chose he could tell a very good story indeed. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why he was so popular at the 'Blue Boar.' Ensconced in a chimney-corner seat in the old-fashioned parlour of the 'Blue Boar,' he would puff away at his pipe, and yarn to a few bosom friends and occasional strangers for an hour at a stretch, much to the amusement of his audience. At home he was just as popular as a story-teller, and the children would listen enchanted to his tales of adventure, of fairies, and of pirates—and when he came to the humorous parts, where he always stopped to chuckle and shake before he told them the joke, the children could hardly contain their impatience, and while he paused aggravatingly to take a pull at his pipe and chuckle again, they would shower eager questions upon him, giving him no peace until he resumed the tale.

Elizabeth Bagg, when she was not upstairs in her studio, would sit in a corner by the fire on these occasions, mending stockings by firelight, and listening to the story, glancing up now and then at the cheerful, ruddy face of the teller, and at the children sitting on the hearth-rug, on the arms of his chair, and on his knees, all listening intently. The story-telling was always done by firelight; directly the gas was lit, it was supper and bedtime.

Pamela was present at more than one of these story-telling evenings. Old Tom Bagg was used to talking before strangers and new-comers, and her presence made no difference to him. He was always polite, and pleased to see Pamela, and never seemed outwardly surprised at her friendship with Elizabeth, though sometimes he would scratch the bald spot on his head and wonder to himself.