The brief visit at the camp was vanishing with almost incredible rapidity; the week would finish on Saturday, but Miss Gibbs had decided to stay till Monday morning, so as to put in the full period of work on Saturday afternoon. Sunday was of course a holiday, and the pickers enjoyed a well-earned rest. Those who liked went to the little church in Shipley village, the clergyman of which also held an outdoor service in the stackyard at the farm for all whom he could persuade to come.

In the afternoon the members of the camp gave themselves up to hospitality. They had small and select private tea-parties, and invited each other, the hostesses generally being “at home” in some cosy spot beneath a tree, or under the shelter of a hedge, where the alfresco repast was spread forth, each guest bringing her own mug and plate. Raymonde, Morvyth, Katherine, and Aveline were the recipients of a very special invitation, and Miss Gibbs assenting, they accepted it with glee. Miss Lowe, the artist with whom they had struck up a friendship, had removed on Friday from the camp to lodgings at an old farm near the village, and she had asked her four school-girl acquaintances to 154 come for early dinner and tea, so that they might spend the afternoon with her.

Miss Lowe was an interesting personality. She sketched beautifully, and had shown the girls a few charming specimens of her work. She had been painting in the neighbourhood for some weeks before the strawberry picking began, and had many quaint accounts to give of her experiences. Her quarters in the village had been decidedly uncomfortable, and it seemed very uncertain whether the rooms she had engaged at the farm would turn out to be any improvement.

“You’ll have to take pot-luck if you come to dinner with me,” she announced to her guests. “I don’t believe my landlady has even the most elementary notions of cooking. The meal will probably be a surprise.”

“We shan’t mind that!” the girls assured her.

Miss Lowe had chosen her lodgings more for the sake of the picturesque than for creature comforts. The farm-house was an extremely ancient building, and its very dilapidation rendered it a more suitable subject for her brush. It consisted of a front later-date portion, and a much older part at the back, the two being really separate blocks, connected by a large central hall. This hall, which measured about twenty feet square and thirty feet in height, must at one time have belonged to a family of some pretensions. The walls to a height of fifteen feet were covered with splendid oak panelling, grey with neglect, and above that were ornamented with plaster designs in bas-relief—lions, unicorns, wild boars, stags, and other heraldic devices, a form of decoration which was also continued over the ceiling. 155 The back part of the house was evidently the older; the same beautiful plaster-work was to be seen, both in the bedrooms and kitchen, together with fine black oak beams. There was a winding stair to the upper story, with narrow windows that suggested a castle, and that dull, dim, soft yellow-brown light about everything which only seems reflected from ancient walls. The front portion consisted of two great sitting-rooms, one of which was empty, while the other had been arranged for the accommodation of visitors. Neither walls nor window-sills had been touched with paint for half a century, and they were sadly in need of attention. The house was the property of an old miser, who refused to spend a penny on repairs, and every year things went on from bad to worse. The woodwork of the wide old staircase was rotting away, most of the doors were off their hinges, and the rain came through several spots in the roof. Like many another fine mansion, it had descended from hall to farm-house, and showed now but faded relics of its former grandeur.

The farmer and his family lived entirely in the back premises, and the whole of the front was given up to their lodgers.

“I shouldn’t like to sleep here alone,” said Morvyth, as Miss Lowe acted cicerone and showed them through the house. “These long, gloomy, eerie corridors give me the shivers!”

“I felt the same,” admitted their friend, “so I persuaded Miss Barton to join me. She’s as mad on the antique as I am, and together we enjoy ourselves immensely, though we should each feel spooky alone. Our first business last night was to 156 turn five bats out of our bedroom. There’s an open trap-door in the ceiling of the landing, and a whole colony of them seem to be established up there; they flit up and down the stairs at dusk! One has to sacrifice comfort to the picturesque. I think I begin to have just a glimmer of an understanding why some people prefer new houses to old!”

Both Miss Lowe and Miss Barton certainly found their romantic proclivities came into collision with their preconceived ideas of the fitness of things. Mrs. Marsden, their landlady, was a kind soul who did her best; but she had all her farm work and a large family of children to cope with, so it was small wonder that cobwebs hung in the passages and the dust lay thick and untouched. It is sometimes wiser not to see behind the scenes in country rooms. Miss Barton had set up her easel in the great hall, and absolutely revelled in painting the grey oak and plaster-work, nevertheless she had a tale of woe to unfold.

“They use the place as a dairy,” she explained, “and they keep the milk in large, uncovered earthenware pots. First I found the cat was lapping away at it, and I jumped up and scared it off; and then the dog strayed in and began to help itself, and I had to rush again and chase it away. Then the unwashed baby, still in its dirty little night-gown, brought a mug and kept dipping it into the pot to get drinks. We’re going to take a jug into the field at milking-time this afternoon, and ensure our particular portion straight from the cow.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Morvyth, looking considerably relieved. 157

“Perhaps it’s as well we don’t see most foodstuffs in the making,” moralized Aveline.

“Decidedly! Isn’t there a story of a barrel of treacle, and a little nigger baby being found at the bottom?”

“And an attendant who fell by mistake into the sausage machine,” added Miss Lowe, laughing. “I suppose one ought to be judiciously blind if one is to preserve one’s peace of mind.”

“One may shut one’s eyes, but one can’t do away with one’s nose!” persisted Miss Barton. “There was the most horrible and peculiar and objectionable odour in the hall yesterday morning, all the time I was painting. I came to the conclusion that a rat must have died recently behind the panelling. Then Mrs. Marsden came in with some milk-cans, and she raised a lid from a big pot close to where I was sitting. What do you think was inside? Twelve pounds of beef that she had put down to pickle! I hinted that it was rather high, but she didn’t seem to perceive it in the least. She can’t have the slightest vestige of a nose!”

“Perhaps, like some tribes of Africans, she prefers her meat gamey. Don’t look so alarmed, you poor girls, it’s not going to appear on our table for dinner! I ordered a fowl.”

“Which was alive only a couple of hours ago, for I saw the children assisting to chase it wildly round the yard and catch it!” put in Miss Barton. “We warned you, when we invited you, not to expect too much!”

Mrs. Marsden’s training in the domestic arts had evidently been defective, and her cooking was decidedly eccentric. The fowl turned up at table 158 plucked, certainly, but looking very pale and anÆmic with its long untrussed legs sticking helplessly out before it. It was such an absurd object that as soon as the landlady had departed from the room the company exploded.

“How am I to carve the wretched thing?” shrieked Miss Lowe. “I hardly know where its wings are! I’ve never before seen a chicken served absolutely au naturel!”

“I expect it to rise up and walk!” hinnied Miss Barton. “It seems hardly decent to have left its claws on! Look at the sauce! It’s simply bread and milk! Oh, for the fleshpots of Egypt!”

A ground-rice pudding which followed proved equally astonishing. Miss Lowe had suggested that an egg would be an improvement in its composition, and behold! when it made its appearance there was an egg neatly poached in the middle. The giggling guests rather enjoyed the episode than otherwise. They had come to be entertained, and they certainly found plenty to amuse them, especially in the humorous attitude with which their hostesses viewed all the little inconveniences.

“Perhaps we shall do better at tea-time,” said Miss Barton hopefully. “Mrs. Marsden surely can’t go very wrong there. We’re going to walk to the woods this afternoon. I’ve bespoken Jenny, the fourth child, as a guide. She’s the most quaintly fascinating person. I hope she won’t be long; we’re waiting for her now.”

The girls were all impatience to start for the woods, so, as their little guide was already late, Miss Barton went to the kitchen in search of her, and found her concluding a somewhat lengthy toilet 159 with the assistance of her family. The choicest possessions of several members, in assorted sizes, seemed to have been commandeered, and she was finally turned out in a red serge dress, a black jacket much too large, a feather boa, and a pair of woollen gloves, which, considering that it was quite a hot day, was rank cruelty, though—true daughter of Eve as she was—she seemed so pleased with her appearance that nothing would induce her to pull off her suffocating grandeur. She was not at all shy, and very old-fashioned for her seven years. The girls found her conversation most entertaining as they walked along.

“She is absolutely refreshing!” giggled Raymonde. “The way she shakes out her skirts and manoeuvres the sleeves of the big jacket is perfectly lovely. She ought to be a mannikin when she grows up, and try on coats and mantles in shops. Wouldn’t she just enjoy it?”

To Jenny an expedition with six ladies was apparently the opportunity of a lifetime, and she was determined to make the most of it. She volunteered to recite, and wound out a long poem in such a rapid, breathless monotone that it was hardly possible to distinguish a word. The party politely expressed gratitude, whereupon she announced: “I’ll say it for you again!” and plunged at once into an encore.

“For pity’s sake stop her! I’m getting hysterical!” gurgled Morvyth. “She’s like a gramophone record that’s rather blurred and has been set too fast. Thank goodness, here’s the wood! She can’t recite while she’s climbing that stile.”

Everybody decided that the wood was worth the 160 walk. They spent a delicious afternoon lying under the tall straight pines, with the sweet-smelling needles for a bed, watching the delicate and illusive effects of light filtering among the shimmering leaves of birches.

“I feel as if I ought to be picking something!” laughed Katherine, throwing pine cones at Raymonde. “If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget this strawberry-gathering business. One got to do it automatically.”

“You know the story, don’t you, of the old man who described himself in the census as a picker?” said Miss Barton. “When he was asked to explain, he said: ‘Well, in June I picks strawberries, and then I picks beans, and then I picks hops, then when them’s over I picks pockets, and then I gets copped and sent to quod, and picks oakum!’ I shouldn’t wonder if some of your gipsy friends, Raymonde, could boast of a similar record.”

“I don’t care—they’re top-hole!” declared Raymonde, sticking up for the tribe.

“Who wants tea?” said Miss Lowe. “We’ve asked Miss Nelson and Miss Porter from the camp, and if we don’t hurry back at once, we shall find them waiting for us when we return, and slanging us for being rude. Come along!”

Miss Lowe had casually informed Mrs. Marsden that she expected a few friends to tea, but had not mentioned anything about special preparation, thinking that they would carry the cups and saucers into the garden, and have it under the trees. Little did they know the surprise their enterprising landlady had in store for them. When they arrived at the farm they found her, dressed in 161 her best attire, waiting at the door to receive them, and she proudly ushered them into the sitting-room, where she had spread forth a meal such as might be set before a particularly hungry assemblage of Sunday School scholars.

A large ham, not yet quite cold, adorned one end of the table, and a big apple-pie the other, while down the centre were seven round jam-tarts, each measuring about seven inches in diameter. The cruets had been put in the middle of the table instead of Miss Barton’s bowl of flowers, and there were several substantial platefuls of currant-bread. It was an extremely warm afternoon, and even to school-girl appetites the sight of such plenty at 4 p.m. was appalling. Miss Lowe’s convulsed apologies sent the visitors into explosions.

“Look at the tarts!” choked Miss Barton. “They’re all made with black-currant jam! There’s one apiece for us, counting the apple-pie. And the currant-bread is half an inch thick! Who’ll take a slice of lukewarm ham? Oh, it’s positively painful to laugh so hard! I never saw such a bean-feast in my life!”

“We certainly can’t consume all these!” echoed Miss Lowe. “The children must eat up some of them for supper. It will take days to get through such a larderful! For once they’ll be satiated with jam-tarts. Well, I suppose it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. Still, if the baby comes to an untimely end through acute dyspepsia, I shan’t be in the least surprised.”

Mrs. Marsden seemed determined to entertain her guests, and had yet another surprise in store for them. She beckoned them into a little private 162 parlour of her own, and showed them the paintings of her eldest boy, a youth of eighteen, who, she proudly assured them, had never had a drawing lesson in his life. It was not difficult to believe her, for the specimens were so funny that the spectators could hardly keep their faces straight. Horses with about as much shape as those in a child’s Noah’s ark, figures resembling Dutch dolls in rigidity, flowers daubed on with the crudest colours, and the final effort, a bird’s-eye view of the village, consisting chiefly of tiled roofs and chimney-pots in lurid red and black.

“No doubt it has afforded him the supremest delight,” whispered Miss Lowe to Miss Barton, “and it’s evidently a subject of the utmost satisfaction to his mother, so I won’t make carping criticisms, but take it as a moral for the necessity of due humility over one’s own productions. Perhaps mine would be as diverting to an Academician as his are to me.”

In the same room Mrs. Marsden showed her visitors a mysterious oil-painting, black with age and hideous beyond compare, which she informed them was an original portrait of Nell Gwynn. She supposed it to be immensely valuable, and was keeping it safe until prices rose a little higher still, after the war, when she had hopes of launching it on the auction rooms in London, and realizing a sum that would make her family’s fortune.

“An ambition she’ll never realize in this wide world,” said Miss Barton afterwards, “for the thing is absolutely not genuine. It’s not the right period for Nell Gwynn, and it’s so atrociously badly painted that it’s obviously the work of some village 163 artist. She’s in for a big disappointment some day, poor woman! I hadn’t the heart to squash her, when she seemed so proud of it—especially as she was still a little huffy that we hadn’t consumed her black-currant tarts!”

Though physically they were rather weary, the girls were sorry when their week’s strawberry picking came to an end. It was found that when their canteen bills had been paid, and railway fares subtracted, they had each earned on an average a little over five shillings; some who were quicker pickers exceeding that amount, and others falling below. They decided to pool the general proceeds, and present the sum cleared—£4, 16s. 8d.—to the Hospital for Disabled Soldiers as their “bit” towards their country. They went back to school feeling highly patriotic, and burning to boast of their experiences to those slackers who had chosen the parental roof for their holidays.

“I’d have loved it!” protested Fauvette, “but I really did have a very nice time at home. My cousin was back on leave. He’s in the Flying Corps, and he’s six feet three in his stockings—and—well—I’ve got his photo upstairs, if you’d like to look at it.”

“Oh, we’re all accustomed to gipsies and poachers now, and don’t think anything of airmen!” returned Morvyth nonchalantly (she was apt to sit on Fauvette). “You should see my snapshots of the strawberry pickers!”

“And mine!” broke in Cynthia Greene. “By the by, I wrote my name and school address on a card, and packed it inside one of my strawberry baskets. I put on it: ‘Will the finder kindly 164 write to a blue-eyed, fair-haired girl who feels lonely?’”

“Cynthia, you didn’t!” exploded the others.

“I did—crystal! Why shouldn’t I? Lonely soldiers beg for letters, and it’s as lonely at school as in barracks any day, at least I find it so!”

“Suppose somebody takes you at your word and sends an answer?”

“I heartily and sincerely hope somebody will. It would be absolutely topping!”