“You shall wash up all the trays and glasses, and put them neatly away.”
“You shall carry the heavy things, dear, and stand to me for your back hair. I think I could make a really good effect with your back hair.” Peggy put her head on one side and stared at the flaxen mane in speculative fashion. “A long muslin gown—a wreath of flowers—a bunch of lilies in your hands! If you weren’t so fat, you would do splendiforously for Ophelia. I might manage it, perhaps, if I took you from the back, with your head turned over your shoulder, so as to show only the profile. Like that! Don’t move now, but let me see how you look.” She took Mellicent’s head between her hands as she spoke, wagged it to and fro, as if it belonged to a marionette, and then gave a frog-like leap to a farther corner of the bed to study the effect. “A little more to the right. Chin higher! Look at the ceiling. Yes–es—I can do it. I see how it can be done.”
It turned out, indeed, that Peggy had a genius for designing and posing pretty, graceful pictures. With a few yards of muslin and a basket, or such odds and ends of rubbish as horrified Esther’s tidy soul to behold, she achieved marvels in the way of fancy costumes, and transformed the placid Mellicent into a dozen different characters: Ophelia, crowned with flowers; Marguerite, pulling the petals of a daisy; Hebe, bearing a basket of fruit on her head, and many other fanciful impersonations, were improvised and taken before the week was over. She went about the work in her usual eager, engrossed, happy-go-lucky fashion, sticking pins by the dozen into Mellicent’s flesh in the ardour of arrangement, and often making a really charming picture, only to spoil it at the last moment by a careless movement, which altered the position of the camera, and so omitted such important details as the head of the sitter, or left her squeezed into one corner of the picture, like a sparrow on the house-top.
Out of a dozen photographs, three, however, were really remarkable successes; as pretty pictures as one could wish to see, and, moreover, exceedingly good likenesses of the bonnie little subject. Esther’s part of the work was performed with her usual conscientious care; and when the last prints were mounted, the partners gazed at them with rapture and pride. They were exhibited at the dinner-table the same evening amid a scene of riotous excitement. The vicar glowed with pleasure; Mrs Asplin called out, “Oh, my baby! Bless her heart!” and whisked away two tears of motherly pride. Oswald was silent and subdued; and even Robert said, “Humph—it’s not so bad,” a concession which turned the girls’ heads by its wonderful magnanimity.
Their triumph was almost sweeter than they had expected; but, truth to tell, they had had too much of photography during the last week, and Mrs Asplin’s prophecy came true, inasmuch as it now ceased to become an occupation of absorbing interest, and assumed its rightful place as an amusement to be enjoyed now and then, as opportunity afforded.
Chapter Nine.
The Honourable Rosalind.
By the beginning of October Peggy had quite settled down in her new home, and had established her right to be Arthur Saville’s sister by convulsing the quiet household with her tricks and capers. She was affectionate, obedient, and strictly truthful; her prim little face, grandiose expressions, and merry ways, made her a favourite with everyone in the house, from the vicar, who loved to converse with her in language even more high-flown than her own, to the old North-country cook, who confided in the housemaid that she “fair–ly did love that little thing,” and manoeuvred to have apple charlotte for dinner as often as possible, because the “little thing” had praised her prowess in that direction, and commended the charlotte as a “delicious confection.” Mrs Asplin was specially tender over the girl who had been left in her charge, and, in return, Peggy was all that was sweet and affectionate, vowed that she could never do enough to repay such kindness, and immediately fell into a fresh pickle, and half frightened the life out of her companions by her hairbreadth escapes. Her careless, happy-go-lucky ways seemed all the more curious because of the almost Quaker-like neatness of her appearance. Mellicent was often untidy, and even Esther had moments of dishevelment, but Peggy was a dainty little person, whose hair was always smooth, whose dress well brushed and natty. Her artistic sense was too keen to allow of any shortcoming in this respect; but she seemed blessed with a capacity of acting before she thought, which had many disastrous consequences. She was by no means a robust girl, and Mrs Asplin fussed over her little ailments like an old mother-hen with a delicate nursling. One prescription after another was unearthed for her benefit, until the washstand in her room looked like a small chemist’s shop. An array of doctor’s tinctures, gargles, and tonics, stood on one side, while on the other were a number of home-made concoctions in disused wine-bottles, such as a paregoric cough-mixture, and a cooling draught to be taken the first thing in the morning, which last pretended to be lemonade, but in reality contained a number of medicinal powders. “Take it up tenderly, treat it with care!” was Peggy’s motto with respect to this last-named medicine, for she had discovered that by judicious handling it was possible to enjoy a really tasty beverage, and to leave the sediment untouched at the bottom of the bottle!