“You actually haven’t had this changed!” exclaimed Ingred. “I thought it must all have been swept away by now!”
“No. You see, Father took me over the house when first he decided to come here, and when he was arranging what papers to choose. I fell in love with this dear wee room just as it was, and begged that it mightn’t be touched. Father let me have it for my very own. It was so different from all other rooms. I liked the pictures pasted on the walls, and the bits of poker-work nailed up. I knew some other girls must have been here, and it gave me a homely feeling, as if you had only gone away for a few minutes, and might come back any time and talk to me. Then there was your portrait. I wondered who ‘Ingred’ was! The name struck my fancy immensely, and so did the face. You remember we removed to Rotherwood at the end of July, and all the rest of the summer I wondered about the portrait. I used to come up here and sit when I felt very lonely, and it seemed company, somehow. You can’t think how fond I got of it. I suppose I was rather silly and absurd, but I knew nobody in Grovebury then, and Mother was ill in her room, and Father away all day—anyhow I got into the habit of talking to it as if it were a girl friend, and showing it my paintings, and my pressed flowers, and everything I was doing. I pretended it liked to see them. Sometimes I even brought up my violin and played to it. That was nicer than being quite by myself. It grew to be as dear to me as the little sister I had always longed to have.
“Then in September I went to the College. You can imagine what a start it gave me when somebody called you ‘Ingred.’ I looked at you, and I saw at once that you were the ‘Ingred’ of my picture, only grown older. I was absolutely thrilled. It was very foolish of me, but I thought somehow you’d understand. Of course you didn’t! How could you? It was idiotic of me to expect it. The ‘Ingred’ on the wall was simply the friend of my fancy.”
“And the real one was just hateful to you!” said Ingred sorrowfully. “I know I was a perfect beast! I was ashamed of myself all the time, only I wouldn’t confess it. Lispeth used to slate me sometimes for my nastiness. She called me ‘a jealous blighter,’ and so I was! The girl of your fancy is a great deal nicer than I am, or ever can be, but I’ll try to live up to her as well as I can, Bess, if you’ll let me!”
“Let you!” echoed Bess, linking her arm affectionately in that of her friend. “You’re a perfect dear nowadays.”
The girls tore themselves away quite regretfully from the little attic studio, but time was passing only too quickly, and they wished to try a game of tennis before Ingred returned to the hostel.
“So you like the house in its new dress?” asked Bess as they walked down the steps into the garden. “Father thinks it’s beautiful. He says Mr. Saxon is the best architect he knows. He’s simply put everything in exactly the right place. Does he only design houses, or does he go in for anything bigger?”
“He would if he got the chance,” replied Ingred. “What sort of things do you mean?”
“Oh, a church, or a museum, or an art gallery.”
“I know he’s done most splendid designs for these, but he’s never had the luck to get them accepted. There’s generally so much influence needed to get your plans taken for a big public building like that. At least, that’s what Dad says. If you have a relation on the City Council, it makes a vast difference to your chances. We’ve no friends at Court.”
“Oh!” said Bess, rather abstractedly, and the subject dropped.
The girls had only time for one game of tennis, when the stable-clock, chiming half-past six, reminded Ingred that if she wished to do her preparation that evening she must rush back to the hotel. She bade Bess a reluctant goodbye.
“You’ll come and see me again?” asked the latter.
“Rather! And I’ll send thought-waves to animate my portrait, and let it talk for me in my absence,” laughed Ingred. “Perhaps you’ll get more than you bargain for—I’m an awful chatterbox.”
“You’ll never talk too much for me,” said Bess, as she kissed her goodbye.
XIX
The Nun’s Walk
The Saxon family agreed that whatever might be the drawbacks of Wynch-on-the-Wold in wintry weather, it was an idyllic spot in the month of May. The wallflowers which Ingred had transplanted were now in their prime, the apple trees were in blossom, clumps of lilies were pushing up fast, and pink double daisies bordered the front walk. The woods in the combe below the moor were a mass of bluebells, and here and there those who searched might find rarer flowers, orchises, lily of the
