The Head Girl at the Gables Part 9

"He's been having rather a blow-up with Violet," explained Claudia.

"It's your own fault this time, Landry, you know! Still, it's just as well to take a walk and let the atmosphere clear before we come back.

Violet easily fizzes over, but she doesn't keep it up long. Where shall we go, Lorraine? You know the walks here better than we do."

"Suppose we go past Pettington Church and along the cliffs to Tangy Point?"

"Right you are! Anything you like will suit us," agreed Morland easily.

So they turned through the farmyard and down the steep lane that led to the small church whose square grey tower and carved Norman doorway looked out across the green cliff-side to the sea.

"Father was sketching here yesterday," volunteered Claudia, pausing to peep in at the gateway.

"What was he painting?" asked Lorraine, stopping also to look and admire, for the mellow October suns.h.i.+ne glinting on the grey walls and the autumn-clad trees and the gleaming sea made a picture all in russet and pearl.

"It's one of a series of ill.u.s.trations for Matthew Arnold's poem, 'The Forsaken Merman'. You know it, don't you? Well, this is 'the little grey church on the windy hill', where Margaret came to say her prayers. You remember she left her merman husband and her children in 'the clear green sea' because--

''T will be Easter time in the world--ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'

She promised to come back to them all, but she never came, so they went to look for her.

'From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, But we stood without in the cold-blowing airs.

We climbed on the graves, on the stones, worn with rains, And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes.

She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: 'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.'"

"That's the part Daddy's drawing--just where they're peeping in through the windows. He sketched Lilith this morning for the youngest mermaiden; he's given her a little fish's tail, and she looks such a darling! And Beata and Romola are bigger ones, leaning on a gravestone with their arms round each other's neck, and garlands of sh.e.l.ls in their hair, and Constable is holding up a great trail of sea-weed. Father's going to draw me as Margaret for one ill.u.s.tration; I'm to be sitting at my wheel 'in the humming town'. He's just bought a ducky little spinning-wheel on purpose!"

"What fun to be put in a picture!"

"No, it isn't! We all think it a horrid nuisance to have to be Daddy's models and sit still for hours just when we want to do something else.

But you'll like the merman picture, especially Lilith. She's really sweet!"

"You've seen the mermaid carved on the chancel bench inside?" asked Lorraine.

"No, I haven't. I've not been to the church on week-days."

"I go sometimes. Mr. Jacques lets me practise on the organ," said Morland. "But I've never noticed any mermaid there."

"Oh, come in and look at her, then! She's worth seeing."

The church was open, so they stepped from the suns.h.i.+ne outside into the soft diffused golden light glowing on sandstone pillars, oak-beamed roof, and saint-filled windows. It was newly decorated for harvest festival--great clumps of Michaelmas daisies hid the font, scarlet bryony berries trailed from the lectern, and chrysanthemums screened the pulpit. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers. Lorraine led the way to the chancel, and, moving aside some torch lilies, disclosed to view the end of a choir-bench, where, on the ancient black oak, was roughly carved the figure of a mermaid, with comb and gla.s.s in hand.

"There's a story about her," said Lorraine. "There was a young fisherman who sang in the choir. He had such a lovely voice that it was more beautiful even than her own, and she fell in love with him. She used to come on Sunday evenings and sit outside the church to listen to him singing. Then, one day when he was out in his boat, she rose up from the waves and beckoned to him. He rowed close to her, and she suddenly clasped him in her arms and carried him down into the sea. He was never seen again; and the villagers carved the picture of the mermaid in the church to remind people of what had happened."

"What a most amazing story! I must tell Daddy. Perhaps he'll like to draw that too," said Claudia. "By the by, where's Landry?" looking round anxiously after her charge.

"He's all right," Morland a.s.sured her. "He's gone up those dusty stairs into a little musty, cobwebby gallery. He always goes and sits there while I'm practising the organ. Can't think why he should like it; but he doesn't do any harm, so I let him. Look! You can see him."

Morland pointed upwards, where, at the west end of the church, ran a small gallery. Over its carved oak bal.u.s.trade leaned Landry, like a cherub on a Jacobean monument. The sunlight, glinting through the window above, turned his golden curls into a halo.

"He's waiting for me to play," continued Morland.

"Oh, do!" cried Lorraine.

The organ was unlocked, so Morland seated himself and began to improvise slow, dreamy, haunting music, that rose and fell through the little church like the murmur of the sea. Whatever faults of character the boy might have, his face was rapt when he played, and to Lorraine it seemed as if the very saints and angels in the stained-gla.s.s windows were looking and listening. Landry sat with parted lips and far-away blue eyes.

"He's always quiet when Morland is playing," whispered Claudia. "He loves music. I wish we could teach him. I've tried, but it's absolutely hopeless. He'd sit there all the afternoon, and I verily believe Morland would too, once he's started on that organ. We shall have to stop him if we want to go on with our walk. Morland! We're keeping Lorraine waiting!"

Morland came back from the clouds and closed the organ, Claudia beckoned Landry down from the gallery, and they stepped out again into the suns.h.i.+ne and the fresh salt breeze that blew up from the sh.o.r.e.

It was a beautiful path to Tangy Point, all along the edge of the cliffs, with great rugged rocks below, and the sea lapping gently on the s.h.i.+ngle. Gulls flashed white wings against the autumn blue of the sky, and linnets twittered among the gorse bushes; here and there a few wild flowers lingered, and Claudia picked quite a summer-looking bouquet. The Point was a narrow spit of land crowned with a cairn, and here the young people climbed to get the view over the western sea.

"I believe all here under the water is the lost land of Lyonesse!" said Lorraine. "In King Arthur's days it was a prosperous place with cornfields and villages, and then the sea came and swallowed it all up.

Fishermen say there's a castle and a church under the waves still, and that sometimes they can hear the bells ringing, but of course that's just imagination."

"Perhaps the mermaids live there!" laughed Claudia.

"You'd better send Lilith to look!"

"I say," said Morland, "there's a sort of a path down here. Are you game to come and explore?"

"Of course we are! It will be topping down on those sands. Leave your flowers here, Claudia; you can get them when we come back."

The path down to the sands was a scramble, but not particularly difficult for agile young limbs. It led them on to a belt of rocks, where ghost-like little fishes were darting across silvery pools, and small crabs were scuttling among tangled ma.s.ses of sodden, salt-scented sea-weed, and sea-anemones spread scarlet tentacles in the clear water.

The wall-like, reddish-brown cliff rose almost sheer above, with gulls and puffins and guillemots and cormorants perched on its rugged crags, or rising to circle screaming in the air.

"Looks like the entrance to a cave over there!" said Morland. "Bet you six cigarettes to six chocolates I'm right!"

"You oughtn't to bet, you naughty boy!" returned Claudia. "Besides, we can't get any chocolates nowadays. We'll go and see, though, if it really is a cave. I love exploring."

To reach the place Morland had pointed out, they were obliged to struggle through jungles of brown sea-weed, and to slip down little precipices slimy with green sea-gra.s.s, and to scramble over rough projecting points of rock, honey-combed into queer shapes by the action of the tide. A jump across a crevice and a climb up a few feet of sheer precipice landed them at the entrance of the cave. Morland scrambled in front, and gave a hand to the others.

They found themselves in a large, rounded grotto, the walls of which shelved gently in a series of natural ledges; the floor was dry, and covered with fine silvery sand, and at the far end lay a pile of timber, washed in perhaps from some wreck by an abnormally high tide. The afternoon sun shone through the entrance and gleamed on little bits of mica and spar in the walls, making them glitter like diamonds.

"What an adorable place!" exclaimed Claudia with enthusiasm.

"Topping!" agreed Morland.

"A regular sea-nymphs' grotto!" exulted Lorraine, and Landry, who was not given to words, smiled, and pulling out a piece of timber sat down upon it.

"A good idea!" said Lorraine, following suit. "Look here, I've just had a brain wave. Let's appropriate the cave, and call it ours. Except just in the August holidays, I don't suppose anybody ever comes here, so we should have it quite to ourselves. It shall be a real sea-nymphs'

grotto. We'll get sh.e.l.ls from the sh.o.r.e, and make lovely patterns with them all along those ledges, and hang sea-weeds about, and make some seats with those pieces of wood, and we'll come out here on Sat.u.r.days sometimes, and bring our lunch. What votes?"

"A1! I'm your man, or rather your merman!" grinned Morland. "Any good recipe for growing a fish's tail, please? A diet of whelks and winkles not welcome, for my digestion's delicate."

"It's a chubby idea!" beamed Claudia. "I'd love it, only I _do_ bargain we keep it to ourselves. I don't want the whole tribe trailing after us every time we come. The little ones mustn't know anything about it."

"_I_ shan't tell them, you bet!" declared Morland.