Chapter Five.
Consequences.
Everitt made his way home in happy unconsciousness of the discovery that followed his departure. To tell the truth, he troubled himself less than he might have done—for he was not without suspicions that Miss Aitcheson had penetrated his disguise further than he liked—because his thoughts were running persistently on one subject: how to see Miss Lascelles again, and quickly.
The most direct way was to get hold of Mrs Marchmont, and induce her to take him; but he had the grace to determine that, in telling her his wishes, he would tell her all, and be guided by her advice. If she were in favour of a frank confession, he was quite ready to undertake it. It must be owned that he did not imagine that in personating the disreputable Italian he had committed a very unpardonable fault; he did not, at any rate, so imagine it now, when it appeared to hint he had been far more inexcusable in suggesting that such a model as Giuseppe should sit for Kitty Lascelles.
He would go to Mrs Marchmont that afternoon.
So full was he of these thoughts that he neglected precautions, and very nearly blundered into the arms of the irrepressible Jack, who was diverting himself by strolling up and down the passage, and imparting a more truculent expression to the countenance of a grimy marble lion which stood on guard. He came into Everitt’s studio by-and-by with his curiosity very much alive.
“Hill swears no one has been here, but I can swear—harder—that twice to-day I’ve seen Giuseppe, or his double, and I believe he ran to earth in here.”
“I’ve not seen the fellow,” said Everitt, coolly.
“Well, you may take my word for it he’s been here. Do you mean to tell me I don’t know that old sun-burnt cloak of yours?”
“I mean to tell you nothing, except that I’ve not seen Giuseppe.”
“Where’s the cloak?”
“Where it always is, I presume. Look for yourself.”
Jack investigated the cupboard. There was the cloak certainly, also the red waistcoat, also the brown hat with the crossed ribbons, also the sandals, with—and this was strange—a stain or two of fresh mud. He brought them to Everitt triumphantly.
“They’ve been worn this morning; how do you account for that?”
The other man looked black.
“For pity’s sake, Jack, leave the thing alone! You want to know if Giuseppe’s been here, and I tell you no. That’s enough. You’re so abominably inquisitive!”
Jack stared at him meditatively for a few moments; then he flung himself into an armchair, stretched out his legs, and burst into a vociferous peal of laughter. It lasted long enough for Everitt to get red, try to look stern, and finally to break into an accompanying laugh himself.
“What a fool you are!” he said presently, by way of compensation.
“Oh, I say!” cried Jack, when he could speak; “if this doesn’t beat everything! I knew there was something up, but I never thought of anything so rich as this. My very reverend, grave, and sober Mentor!”
“Shut up!”
“I’d have given all I have in the world to have been there,” Jack continued, springing up in the ecstasy of his feelings. “A precious bad bargain she must have had! You stand for a model! You couldn’t, my dear fellow, to save your life. I say, aren’t you stiff? Everitt?”
“Well?”
“I believe it was the duke’s daughter put it into your head?”
“It’s true enough I get my folly from you,” said the elder man, not ill-humouredly.
“Oh, no more speeches of that sort! I’ve the whip-hand of you for a good while,” said Jack, triumphantly. “You can’t say I ever dressed up as a model to get into a house.”
“To get into a house!” Everitt frowned. “Certainly that was not my motive.”
“What then?” demanded the imperturbable Jack.
“Merely that that brute came drunk, and I had promised to send some one.”
“Oh!”
“What do you mean by your ‘oh’? it was, I tell you—hotly. I dare say. But it won’t look like it to them when they find it out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only what I say. You’ll be run in, somehow, of course; you’re not the sort of fellow to do it under the rose. Well, when it comes out they won’t believe but that you had some object in view.”
“Go on, Jack; you’re a marvel of precocious wisdom! I tell you, I’d never seen or heard of them before.”
“Not Miss Aitcheson?”
“Oh, Miss Aitcheson! I’m sure I never want to see Miss Aitcheson again.”
“Was she there?”
“Yes.”
“And don’t you suppose she recognised you?”
“Shouldn’t wonder.”
“Well, you have put your foot in it.”
“What’s the harm? I promised a model; he failed, and I went myself.”
“Oh, no particular harm,” said Jack, coolly; “no harm at all, I dare say; only if I had happened to do such a thing—”
“You!” repeated Everitt, looking at Jack. Put in this manner, the idea certainly appeared intolerable. “You! Oh, you’re different.”
“I should say I was. I shall never pull up to your heights of audacity, that’s certain. What’s your next move? Are you going again?”
“No,” curtly. “To-morrow I shall send Jackson.”
Jack had a good many more jests to cut, which the other endured with what meekness he could muster. It was annoying that the young fellow should have made the discovery, for it would inevitably serve as a means for plaguing Everitt whenever the artist tried to get Master Jack into steady work. Moreover, the way in which he looked at it made Everitt a little uneasy; it had not before struck him that others might regard it in that attitude, which had, indeed, been far enough from his own point of view.
In the afternoon he went to his cousin’s in Hans Place. She welcomed him with excessive cordiality and some surprise.
“For a wonder I find you alone,” he said.
“That sounds,” she said, “as if you were in the habit of trying to find me. Shall we go into dates, or would you rather throw yourself on my mercy?”
“Much rather. Indeed, I am afraid this is going to be an afternoon of confessions.”
She glanced at him and then at a letter which the servant had given her when Everitt came in.
“Will you excuse me,” she said, “if I read my letter?”
It contained no more than a few lines, but Mrs Marchmont took an unusual time in reading them. When she had finished, she refolded the note and laid it by her side.
“Confessions!” she said. “They will have a great air of novelty from you. What have you been about, Charlie? Forgetting your engagements?”
“No. Only carrying them out too faithfully. You remember that I undertook to supply a model for your friend, Miss Lascelles?”
Mrs Marchmont took the letter she had laid down again into her hand.
“Yes,” she answered. “And you carried out your undertaking. Has anything happened?”
“Why?” he asked quickly.
“Because you told me you had a confession to make, and because this note may have something to do with it. It is from Mrs Lascelles.”
“What does she say?” Everitt demanded, with interest.
“Well, she begs me to let you know that they do not want the model again. There is something odd in that, because Kitty was so very keen for him. What is the mystery? Has the man turned out too much of a ruffian, or too little?”
“Judge for yourself,” he said. “I was the ruffian.”
“You!” she exclaimed. “You!”
“The man failed me, and I couldn’t think of any way of escaping your displeasure but by taking the character myself.”
“You went to the Lascelles’ as a model!”
“I did. I begin to believe now that it was a blunder.”
“It was a blunder,” she said, gravely. “It certainly was a blunder.”
He looked at her.
“At least,” he said, eagerly, “you will understand that my motives were very simple.”
“Yes, I can understand; I am afraid other people may not credit them with such simplicity. It was dreadfully imprudent, Charlie! It was more what I should have expected from your friend Mr Hibbert.” Then she began to laugh. “But it must have been very comic. And did they find you out?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that they did. But, Mary—”
“Well?”
“I want you to tell them, and to square things.”
She shook her head.
“They won’t be at all easy to square, as you call it. You had better leave them alone, and trust to the fates not to bring you across any of the Lascelles family again.”
An odd expression crossed Everitt’s face.
“That won’t do,” he said, getting up and standing with his back to the fireplace. “I want to see them again; at least, I want to see your friend.”
“Kitty? Oh!” exclaimed Mrs Marchmont, in blank amazement. “This is too exciting! Do you really mean it?”
“I mean that I should like to see her again,” repeated Everitt. “You may take that for what it’s worth.”
“Oh, I am delighted!” she cried; “delighted! Charlie, I would do anything in the world if I thought. But there, we needn’t say anything. You just want to be introduced?”
“Yes; and they’d better know. I won’t have that hanging over my head.”
“I’ll manage everything. They have a garden-party on Monday; I shall propose to bring you, and I will go and see them meanwhile. One couldn’t write all that about the model.”
Everitt left her, not ill-satisfied. He had said rather more than he had intended, but it had been necessary to enlist his cousin, and he knew she would act in the friendliest fashion.
He waited impatiently.
On Thursday, Jack Hibbert, who tormented him unmercifully, informed him that he had an invitation for the Lascelles’.
“Hope they’ll never find out I’ve any connection with you,” he remarked, audaciously.
“Hope not, for my sake,” growled Everitt.
Finding that nothing came from Mrs Marchmont, on Friday morning he started for the Park, and strolled along the Row till he caught sight of his cousin riding a bay mare, and surrounded by friends. The first time of passing, she did not see him; but as she came down again she caught sight of Everitt, and rode up to the railings.
“Well?” he said, eagerly.
She shook her head.
“I’m dreadfully disappointed. I’ve done my very best, but they won’t hear of it. I’ve been there, and I’ve seen Mrs Lascelles and Kitty, and said everything I could think of.”
“Has it annoyed them so much?” said Everitt, flushing.
“I don’t know about annoyed. They are not angry, and I think they understand how it was done; but—perhaps it’s natural, Charlie—they don’t fancy an acquaintance begun in that fashion. It would be awkward, you must allow, just at first. Kitty wouldn’t know whether she was talking to her model or to you yourself. I think by-and-by we might get over it quietly; but just at present I really don’t see what to do.”
Everitt stared gloomily at a group beyond him.
“You understand how it is, don’t you?” said his cousin, anxiously.
“Oh, it’s clear enough, you needn’t fear. I made a fool of myself, and yet I can’t regret it.” He looked at Mrs Marchmont, and suddenly burst out laughing. “Do you think any one was ever in such a ridiculous position?”
“I am partly responsible,” she said. “What will you do?”
“Get right again somehow,” he replied, briefly. “Do you mean you will give it up?”
“I mean that if I can I shall marry Miss Kitty Lascelles.”
“Oh, Charlie,” said Mrs Marchmont, drawing a deep breath, “I like you ever so much! Tell me how I can help.”
“Here are the others,” said Everitt, standing upright. “I’ll let you know, Mary, when I’ve thought it out.”
The day was grey and showery; the changing silvery lights bringing out the colours of the great banks of rhododendrons massed together in the Park. Everitt walked for some time up and down under the trees, trying to see his way out of his absurd difficulties. They were absurd, but they were not pleasant. To have your acquaintance declined is to receive something very like a slap in the face; the next step forward does not present itself very naturally. However, he was not the man to flinch at an obstacle.
He made his next move on Sunday. The chapel of the old Hospital is open to strangers, and Everitt went off in good time to secure his vantage post. It was a wet, gusty day, full of growth and softness, a southerly wind blowing across the river, the trees washed into lovely tender greens, the red of the building beautiful against the grey clouds. The birds were singing as usual; the old men encourage them, and they take full advantage of the safe shelter they find. Just a few people were turning in at the gates, and lingering on their way to the clock-tower to look up at the solid walls, when Everitt made his way into the circular hall facing the fine quadrangle. The old soldier who acted as verger was not disinclined for a little chat. That was the governor’s stall, the second in command there, and the other officers round, as he saw. Captain Lascelles? Yes, just before him. If he were a friend of the family, he might like to go into their pew, or next to them? No? Well, where would the gentleman like? Everitt indicated a spot opposite, where he would be fully in sight, and the old man promptly conducted and shut him in.
It was early, and Everitt looked round him with a good deal of interest. The chapel, with its plaster ceiling and its high panelling of oak, was ugly enough, but there was enough in its details to be suggestive. The old soldiers came dropping in, with fine furrowed faces, and an air of pride over their medals and their clasps, which stand out in brave relief against their blue coats. Here is one quite blind, carefully led in by a comrade; there is another with an old, gentle face and snow-white hair, with four medals and quite a procession of clasps on his hollow chest. They file in soon in larger numbers, filling up by hundreds the body of the church. And overhead hang the old tattered remnants of flags taken in glorious battle, older many of them than the oldest men, held together by network, colours faded, substance gone—not a shred left on the Blenheim poles. There are the Waterloo eagles, there the republican cap of liberty still flaunts itself; but nowhere in the whole proud array is anything more pathetic than on one of the Indian flags, where, looking closely, you may see on the dull surface the print of a hand, the dead man’s hand whose faithful clasp is marked upon his trust for ever.
By the time Everitt had been there for a quarter of an hour, he was watching the door very carefully. Already a lady and two or three children had gone into the Lascelles’ pew, but it was only a minute or two before the service began that Kitty and her mother presented themselves. She noticed him before long. Perhaps some consciousness of the intentness of his gaze touched her and drew her eyes to his; at any rate, he saw an immediate and troubled look of recognition cross her sweet face. Nor did she glance at him again. He had no encouragement of this sort; but as his former means of studying her had been of an unusual kind, so now it appeared to him as if she gained a fresh charm from the simplicity and gravity of her surroundings—the old men sitting upright, attentive, the old flags slowly waving backwards and forwards over their heads, the solemn words of the familiar service.
When it was finished, Everitt remained in his seat until the Lascelles had left the church. He looked eagerly round when he got out, but the whole family had disappeared; the pensioners chatted in groups, the sun shone out between the clouds on the grass of the quadrangle, and on a few white sea-birds which had come up the river.
Everitt went home dissatisfied.