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 surreptitious glance in the glass 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!”
Peggy looked at Esther, and Esther looked at Peggy. They did not say a word, but a flash of understanding passed from the brown eyes to the grey, which meant that they were on their mettle. They were not going to defend themselves, but henceforth it was a case of die or produce a good photograph, and so oblige Oswald to alter his tone of scornful incredulity.
For the next week the camera was the one engrossing thought. Every minute that could be spared was devoted to experiments, so that Fr?ulein complained that lessons were suffering in consequence. The hearts of her pupils were not in their work, she declared; it would be a good thing if a rule could be made that no more photographs were to be taken until the Christmas holidays. She looked very fierce and formidable as she spoke, but soft-hearted Mrs Asplin put in a plea for forgiveness.
“Ah, well, then, have patience for a few days longer,” she begged. “They are just children with a new toy; let them have as much of it as they will at first, and they will tire of their own accord, and settle down to work as well as ever. We can control their actions, but not their thoughts; and I’m afraid if I forbade photography at present, you would find them no more interested in lessons. I fancy there is something especially engrossing on hand this week, and we might as well let them have it out.”
Even Mrs Asplin, however, hardly realised the thoroughness with which the girls were setting to work to achieve their end. They held a committee meeting on Esther’s bed, sitting perched together in attitudes of inelegant comfort, with arms encircling their knees, and chins resting on the clasped hands, wherein it was proposed and seconded that Peggy, the artistic, should pose and take the sitters, while Esther, the accurate, should undertake the after-processes.
“And what am I to do?” cried Mellicent plaintively; and her elders smiled upon her with patronising encouragement.
“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.