Chapter Four.
Discovery.
Kitty Lascelles watched her model out of the room with some intentness. When she turned away at last, she gave a little troubled sigh, and looked at Bell, standing before her picture. Bell answered the look by an extremely brief question. “Well?”
“Bell,” said the other girl, in a very low voice, “does it strike you that there is anything odd about that—Italian?”
“Odd?” repeated Bell.
“I can’t make him out,” said Kitty, uneasily. “It must be fancy, of course, but still I don’t really think he is quite what he seems.”
“In what way?”
“You’ll laugh, Bell, but—do you think he looks like a common man? He doesn’t talk like one, at any rate. I think it is just as well he is not coming again. I—”
“Well,” interrupted her friend, “what do you say to his hands?”
“Then, that struck you too?” exclaimed Kitty eagerly. “Why what is it?”
For Bell had flung herself into a chair in a sudden paroxysm of laughter, so long and so unchecked that for a time she could not speak.
“So you suspect at last?” she cried. “Oh, Kitty, Kitty!”
“What do you mean?” cried the girl. “Bell, I shall shake you if you are so dreadfully silly. What do you mean? What do you know? Oh, Bell, don’t be provoking!”
“But I want you to guess. I shan’t tell you until you have had at least six guesses. Who do you suppose—only you never will suppose, that’s the worst of it!—still, who, of all unlikely persons, has been your model?”
Kitty drew herself up.
“I don’t know; and if you knew and did not tell me, I am not sure that I shall ever forgive you.”
This terrible threat appeared in no way to disconcert her friend.
“Guess.”
Kitty shook her head, and walked to the window.
“Come back, or I won’t tell you.”
Kitty hesitated; then marched back.
“Tell me directly.”
“It was Mr Everitt himself.”
“Bell!”
The hot colour surged up all over the girl’s face and throat; after that one word, she stood speechless. Her model Mr Everitt, the painter—the great painter, as she called him! It was impossible, impossible! But Bell’s amusement was intense, “I don’t know that I should have told you yet, if you had not suspected something in that innocent little way of yours. Still, it was almost more than I could keep to myself; and oh, Kitty, imagine the situation when last night I met him at a dinner-party!”
But Kitty did not laugh.
“Bell,” she said gravely, “I can’t believe it. I am sure you must be making some extraordinary mistake.”
“My dear, I am quite, quite certain. Why, even my father, who only saw him here yesterday, fidgeted all last night about some likeness. I didn’t say a word. It wouldn’t do with papa.”
“It will not do with any of us,” said Kitty, with spirit.
“You won’t tell your father?”
“I shall tell mother, and she can act as she likes.”
“Take care,” said Bell, more seriously. “You don’t want a regular fuss to grow out of a bit of absurdity. What has he done?”
“He has come here in a false position and under false pretences. I think it dreadful. What could make him behave so?”
“Shall I tell you what I believe? That it was laziness or good-nature. I dare say he forgot all about the model, and then was afraid you would be awfully disappointed. Mrs Marchmont said so much about it. It is all over now, and remember, he did his utmost to get out of coming to-day.”
“Mother must judge.”
“Well, I think you are extremely hard on the poor man. You would not have liked it at all if you had waited through yesterday morning and had no model. I am sure he was very uncomfortable himself.”
“And that was the reason he stood so badly!” cried Kitty. “I hope he was uncomfortable.”
“Kitty,” said Bell earnestly, “if I were you I would say nothing about it. You don’t know what mischief you may set going. It is over and done with; he is not coming again, and if you appear to remain in ignorance, you will be in a far more dignified position than if our fathers bring a clatter about his ears. If he really took the character in order to do you a kindly turn, it will be very ungrateful of you to damage his reputation.”
“Then, you allow,” said Kitty, with her head thrown back, “that it is damaging?”
“I think he has done a thing which might tell against him immensely; but I don’t think a scrap the worse of him myself. There!” said Bell.
Kitty was silent, but there was that in her face which did not satisfy the other girl.
“I believe you are dreadfully unforgiving,” she said. As she spoke, she walked to the window and knelt on the low window-seat. Kitty followed her, looking pale.
“Bell, I really am vexed. I think it is particularly unfortunate,” she said. “You know that it has cost father a great deal to let me have my way, and make a profession of my painting; there have been a dozen lions in the way at least. But such a lion as this never entered our heads. Don’t you see that if he hears of a gentleman dressing up and coming here as a model, there will be an end of everything? Supposing, even, that it is as you say, a mere good-natured freak, do you think that he is likely to understand it in that light?”
There was a pause; then Bell said slowly—
“And yet you would tell him?”
The girl’s colour rose.
“Yes,” she said very proudly; “whatever comes of it, he shall never say that I have deceived him. I shall tell mother, and she will do what is best.”
“Whenever,” murmured her companion—“whenever you sweet-tempered people take the bit between your teeth, I have noticed that it is absolutely hopeless to attempt to turn you. Well. Kitty, since you are determined to set a torch to the gunpowder, I hope we shan’t all go up with the explosion. My father is good for a magnificent fizz. I hear him now in the passage.”
Another moment saw him in the room, and with him came Mrs Lascelles, a large, kindly-faced woman, in whose brown eyes gleamed the same clear brightness which met you in her daughter’s. The old colonel was as stormily benevolent as usual.
“So you gave me the slip after all, eh, Miss Bell? I’ve just been telling your godmother that she hasn’t brought you up well; little Kitty here would never dare to be so undutiful. Eh? I met your precious rascal of an Italian close by here; can’t think how you admit such a fellow within the gates. I stopped him, but he was as sulky as a bear. I have it, though, I have it!” he cried, slapping his thigh; “to be sure! That’s the man the painter-fellow last night was like. What was he called?—Egerton—Elliott—friend of Marchmont’s, you know, Bell. ’Pon my word, the most extraordinary likeness, eh, Bell, eh?”
“There was a likeness, certainly,” said his daughter calmly.
“A likeness! This man is his double. It’s been annoying me all the night. I never will be beaten by a likeness.”
“But I hope the model is not such a disreputable being as you describe,” said Mrs Lascelles, a shade of anxiety in her voice. “If he is, it cannot be very pleasant for you, Kitty.”
“He behaved well enough,” said the girl, in a low voice.
“And he is not coming again; he has not the time to spare,” Bell said cheerfully. “Kitty has been very successful with him, and ought to be exceedingly obliged. Look, Mrs Lascelles!”
“Obliged!” grumbled her father. “The fellow gets paid, eh? Well, upon my word, that’s not at all bad, Kitty. I tell you what I’ll give you your first order, and I’ll sit for you myself. Then you needn’t have those fellows sneaking about the place. They’ll be bringing dynamite one of these days. If I were Lascelles I wouldn’t stand it—I wouldn’t stand it.”
“Father,” said Bell promptly, “I’m ashamed of you! You’re only saying this to tease Kitty, and she’s just as white as a ghost already. Come home with me at once; and, Kitty, don’t you think about anything that he has said.”
Then she flung herself upon her friend, and kissed her with the warmth which marks a certain phase in young ladies’ friendships.
When they were gone, Mrs Lascelles went to the window, where her daughter was standing.
“There’s something the matter, Kitty,” she said, putting her hand on her shoulder.
“Yes, mother, there is,” returned the girl gravely.
Neither of them spoke for a little while, for Mrs Lascelles never extracted confidences. Kitty sighed.
“To tell you the truth,” she said, “I can’t be sure whether I had better say it out or not.”
“And I can’t help you,” said Mrs Lascelles, with a laugh.
“You see, mother, so far as I am concerned, it would be the greatest relief; but Bell thinks that by repeating it will be made of more importance, and I don’t know that she isn’t right.”
“Well,” said her mother, after a pause, “I trust you entirely, Kitty.”
“I believe I must tell you,” said the girl, “and then you must decide whether it should go any farther.” For in her heart of hearts, Kitty knew that her father was not the safest person in the world for such a confidence, and knew that her mother was aware of it, too. “It is about the model.”
Mrs Lascelles looked uneasy.
“Mother, Bell thinks that Mr Everitt could not get the man he promised to send, and that—he came himself.”
“Kitty!”
“Yes. It’s dreadful,” Kitty said despairingly.
“It’s absurd! It must be Bell’s imagination. Came himself?”
“Do you think she can have imagined it?”—more hopefully. “She declares she is quite sure. And you heard what Colonel Aitcheson said?”
“There may be a likeness—of course there must be a likeness—but it is far more probable that this likeness misled them, than that such an extraordinarily unlikely thing should be done by any one. Still, the very idea would distress your father more than I can say.”
“That’s what I thought,”—despairingly again. “Mother, ought he to know?”
Mrs Lascelles hesitated, “No. I think, while it is all so uncertain, and may be only Bell’s fancy, that Bell is right in saying it should be kept quiet. Of course, if he were coming here again, it would be necessary to ascertain one way or the other; but you say there is no fear of that?”
Kitty shook her head. “He didn’t want to come to-day.”
“Kitty,” said her mother suddenly, “did you suspect anything?”
“Not yesterday,” said the girl, lifting her clear true eyes to her mother’s. “But to-day I did feel uncomfortable. I noticed his hands and his voice seemed different—not like that of a common man.”
“What did he say?” Mrs Lascelles tried to speak indifferently.
“Oh, he spoke—why, if it were Mr Everitt, he spoke about himself. I asked him, you know.”
“Oh!” Mrs Lascelles might be forgiven for looking anxiously at her daughter’s sweet unconscious lace, and thinking that a man might peril a good deal for a second sight of it.
But Kitty read a certain reproach in the look.
“Mother,”—earnestly—“I hadn’t the smallest suspicion. Of course, I treated him like any other model.”
“Of course,” said her mother, kissing her. “My dear, I am not blaming you in the least. It is only an unfortunate beginning to have this idea troubling one, even if, as I believe, Bell’s imagination has run away with her. I shan’t like to leave you here alone. At any rate, did I understand anything about another model coming in his place?”
“Yes; another man in the same costume.”
“We will stop that, at any rate. We will certainly have no more models of Mr Everitt’s providing, be they who they may. But I don’t want to enter into communication with him; if, if there is anything actual in this absurd idea, he might make it an excuse for forcing an acquaintance upon us. Still, we must stop the model somehow.”
“Yes,” said Kitty sadly, standing before her easel and regarding the unfinished painting with the yearnings of an artist.
“Yes, indeed,” said her mother, not quite entering into this; “and I’ll tell you what we will do. It was Mrs Marchmont who settled it for you?”
“Yes.”
“I will write and ask her to let Mr Everitt know that we do not require another model. That will avoid any direct communication.”
“I suppose it is the best plan.”
“My poor Kitty! Unless you can arrange always to have some one to paint with you, you had better keep to women. Now you must come, or those ravenous children will be unmanageable.”
All the rest of that day little Kitty was in a subdued mood. The more she thought over slight incidents of each sitting, the more she became convinced that Bell was right in her surmise. She had caught a glimpse of a shirt-cuff which was spotlessly clean; she remembered that the short trimness of his hair had struck her as inappropriate from the first. Then his voice. On this second day, a certain gruffness, which he had kept up on the first, quite disappeared; she had been surprised to find him expressing himself like an English gentleman. Moreover, she now recalled a momentary drawing back when she offered the money.
“I am glad I paid him; I am glad he had that to go through!” cried Kitty, with burning cheeks, and a longing to heap some humiliation on his head. “He must have hated it. I wonder what he did with the money?”
If Kitty had known, her cheeks would certainly have burnt more fiercely still; for Everitt had, with painful efforts, himself sewn up the money in a little case, and painted outside it the initials “K.L.” and a date.
This little case he will carry with him always—till his death.