Chapter Seven.
Flight.
With regard to Everitt and Jack Hibbert, a change had taken place which could not but be considered remarkable. Everitt, who had hitherto been noted for the energy and industry of his work, now was frequently absent from his studio, and when there painted in a half-hearted fashion, which was not likely to do him much good. He was conscious of it, annoyed, and was always expecting a return of his old enthusiasm; as it did not arrive, he became depressed, and told Jack that he believed he had lost the trick of it. The change in Jack himself fortunately lay in quite another direction; Everitt could not tell what had come over the lad, who was early and late in his studio, and worked with a purpose and intensity which he had never known before. Me used at intervals to rush into Everitt’s studio to ask his advice and assistance. Smitten with compunction one morning when the artist had spent a good deal of time over a question of colour, he expressed himself to that effect.
“My dear fellow,” said Everitt, “don’t disturb yourself. I don’t know that I am of much good to you, but I’m very sure I’m of less to myself. If it wasn’t for you, I suspect I should drop it all for a month or two.”
“Oh, you’ve been overworking yourself; that will pass,” said Jack, sagely.
Everitt walked over to his own canvas and stood regarding it with his hands thrust into his pockets. It was a forge, where two horsemen, escaping from pursuit, had pulled up to get a thrown shoe replaced; one had dismounted; the other, turned sideways on his horse, was anxiously looking back along the road by which they had ridden; a girl pressed forward to see the riders.
“There’s my morning’s work,” said Everitt, pointing to her figure; “and it’s wood—no life, no go in it.”
“Well, you know I don’t think much of that model.”
“The model’s good enough,” said the other man impatiently. “She never stood better. The fault lies somewhere else. I wish it didn’t.”
Jack glanced at him with an honest expression of dismay.
“Oh, I say, Everitt,” he exclaimed, “it’s absurd to talk like that. Everybody’s got their slack times. To-morrow you’ll paint better than ever you did in your life. You’ve run down—that’s all.”
“I’ve half a mind to go away,” Everitt said.
“Well,” Jack replied, heroically, “perhaps that would set you up. Where shall we go?”
“We?”
“You didn’t suppose you were going to get rid of me?”
“If I go, I go by myself,” Everitt answered, with decision. “You’ve got into the swing of work at last; stick to it, my boy, and you’ll do something good. As to where I shall go, I’m not in the mood for any place in particular. Toss up, if you choose, and settle for me.”
Jack made a further endeavour to persuade him to let him be his companion, but the elder man was quite resolute in his determination to be alone. He did not care where he went, and no place offered any particular attraction; he had only a restless desire to shake off an influence which seemed to be in some strange way paralysing his work. The fact that it was so paralysing it no doubt alarmed him; he had not been prepared for such a result, and all his instincts revolted against it. He argued that an infatuation springing from so slight a foundation should be under reasonable control. He would not have parted from it for worlds, but was it to be suffered to wreck his life? He tried another day with his model; at the end of it he painted out her figure and turned his canvas with its face to the wall. When Jack came in, he found Hill at work under Everitt’s directions.
“I’m off,” the latter said, briefly.
“Where?”
“To the other side of the channel. Perhaps by that time my ideas will have taken shape. At present they only consist of hazy notions of the coast of Brittany—unoriginal, but that’s what I suffer from being just at present.”
When Mrs Marchmont heard of this move, she was greatly disconcerted.
“I did not expect,” she remarked, severely, “that you would have left the field in this fashion.”
“I don’t find myself in the field at all, that’s the truth,” Everitt said, with a laugh.
“Well, you might have been there,” she said. “Pray, do you expect me to keep off other people?”
“I expect nothing,” he replied. “Seeing what a mess I have made of the thing myself, it would be unjust to suppose that others are to set it right.”
“Where are you going?” she demanded, suddenly. “At any rate, keep me informed of your movements, so that if there should be anything to write—”
“Would you be so kind!” he said, eagerly. “But, of course, there can’t.”
Still he told her what there was to tell, and gave her a list of places where he would apply for letters. With these in her mind, Mrs Marchmont went off the next day to the Lascelles’, at a time when she knew that Kitty was out. She saw Mrs Lascelles.
“How is Kitty?” she inquired. “It strikes me that she is looking pale and thin.”
“She is not very well,” the mother admitted. “The weather has been hot lately. I’m not sure that so much painting is good for her, and, to tell you the truth, I think Kitty has worried over this foolish affair. I wish she would forget it.”
“So do I,” said Mrs Marchmont, candidly.
“What shall we do to her?”
“She has plenty of sense,” said Mrs Lascelles, “and if no more is said about it, and she finds there is no danger of meeting Mr Everitt, I hope she will cease to think about it all.”
“Poor man!”—with a sigh.
“Oh, come, Mary,” Mrs Lascelles said, with a laugh, “I am not going to have him pitied. He has caused us a great deal of annoyance, and if Kitty gets ill, I shan’t forgive him in a hurry.”
“Why don’t you take her away for a change? The inestimable Miss Potter would look after the children, and Captain Lascelles could dine with us whenever he pleased.”
Mrs Lascelles looked doubtful.
“Where could we go?”
“Oh, to the Channel Islands, or Brittany, or Normandy. Have you ever done Brittany? Kitty could draw, and would be very happy.”
“It has been a sort of dream between us,” Mrs Lascelles admitted; “and to tell you the truth, my husband has to go down to Yorkshire next week. Still—for me to go away!”
She protested a little in fact, but when Mrs Marchmont left her she was well on the way to yielding. Her visitor departed in high spirits, and her next point was to see Bell.
“Bell,” she said, confidentially, “I’ve something to tell you. Mr Everitt is going abroad.”
“I know,” remarked Bell, calmly. “I heard that yesterday.”
Now, this somewhat astonished Mary Marchmont. She began to think that Bell’s means of information were remarkably efficient, and to wonder what they were. Meanwhile she begged her to say nothing about it to the Lascelles’.
“Mrs Lascelles talks of taking Kitty to Brittany, and if by any happy chance they were to meet, everything might come right. But, you know, if a hint reached them—”
“I know,” repeated Bell. “Well, but you will not set him on their track?”
“He would not go if I did. I shall not tell him that they are even leaving England. Everything must be quite accidental and unpremeditated. Indeed, Bell, I have done nothing beyond suggesting that Kitty wanted change of air, and that Brittany was a nice near place.”
“Oh!” said the girl, with a laugh. However, in spite of her mockery she was very ready to promise, and when Jack arrived later in the day, he was admitted into the new conspiracy, which he was to aid by keeping Everitt to the starting-point.
It was not difficult. Everitt had too little inclination for any place but London to be disposed to resist even the gentlest pushes in a given direction. Once, indeed, he gave Jack a shock by declaring positively that he was going to Russia, where it was very certain there would be no Kitty for him to meet. The bare idea necessitated Jack’s seeking advice from Miss Aitcheson, but by the time he came back, armed with invincible suggestions, Everitt had forgotten his fancy, and announced that he should go to Havre that night.
Jack went to the station with him, and had the satisfaction of seeing him take his ticket, and of extracting all the certainty he could from that fact. It was not absolute, because Everitt announced that, once on the other side, chance or the fancy of the moment were likely enough to direct his steps, but, setting this aside, his plan, so far as he had one, was to go leisurely through some of the old Normandy towns, and to work along the coast to the neighbouring province. As for work, he meant, to see on what terms with it he found himself. If the spring came back, well and good. If not, he would not force himself, but turn to anything which presented itself. He was fully aware of the unreasonableness of his present mood; it seemed nothing short of ludicrous that the experiences of a day or two—and such experiences—should be sufficient to change his life. But the very unreasonableness prevented argument from producing its effect. He had seen Kitty, and he loved her—that was the long and short of it, which nothing could alter.
Mrs Marchmont, meanwhile, had been triumphantly successful with the Lascelles. Kitty, it is true, had not taken to the idea so keenly as her mother anticipated, but this, if it proved anything, proved that she was not quite herself, and when she saw that her mother was disappointed at her want of enthusiasm, she promptly set to work to present an outward show at least equal to what was required. She only begged that a definite time might be fixed for their return.
So they, too, went off, with Paris for their first resting-place, and it was quite astonishing how many consultations became necessary between Bell and Jack, before it could be at all decided whether there was a chance of the three drifting together in some odd corner. Considering how often, with all the pains in the world taken to bring it about, some meeting towards which hearts are straining fails, it had to be owned that this chance was slight. Bell and Jack, however, were young enough to think very well of a slight chance. Bell argued that in small country places, where only one tolerable inn existed, there was a far greater likelihood of meeting than in a great city where there were fifty, and Jack was certain, from no grounds at all, that something would throw Everitt into Kitty’s path. But they were doomed to receive a blow. Bell one day found a distracted letter from Mrs Marchmont.
“It has all come to nothing! I have just heard from Charlie that he is already sick of Normandy cider and cart horses, that he has met with a horrid man—he likes him—who has persuaded him to try Auvergne, and that they will go off there at once. Auvergne! Did you ever know anything so stupid? My one consolation is that it is the very plainest country I ever beheld, and I hope he will be bored to death by it. Of course, there is not the smallest chance of the Lascelles going to Auvergne; I should not have the face even to suggest it to them. So there’s an end of it all, and I think men are the most tiresome creatures in the world—except women.”
It was too true.
Led away by this tempter in the person of another artist, Everitt had broken off from the path of duty so carefully marked out for him by his cousin, and made his way towards Paris. He reached it on the day the Lascelles left.
With Kitty the experiment had apparently been very successful. It was the first time that she had crossed the Channel, and the lightness of the air, the freshness of the colouring, and the general picturesqueness of things, delighted her from the moment of landing. She and her mother were excellent companions, and, indeed, to Mrs Lascelles the sense of holiday-making was even stronger than with her daughter. She was like a girl again, enjoying everything with a keen sense of reprieve from the duties of ordering dinner and thinking of dishes which should please, at any rate, the majority. She liked Paris better than Kitty liked it, and would have been well enough content to have stayed there, and made excursions to the old towns; but Brittany had an attraction for the girl, so they kept to their first plan, and left Paris for Dinan on the day, as has been said, that Everitt arrived there.
At Dinan, Kitty was seized with a severe attack of industry. She painted the clock-tower, and the market, and the old steep smelly streets, the walls, and the Rance, and every picturesque thing that came before her. Her mother laughed at her, but in her heart fancied the girl was trying to shut out intrusive thoughts, and felt the more glad that she had taken her away from London. It was early in the season for the rush of travellers, but Dinan carries on small social distractions throughout the year, and they knew one family, half English and half French, who lived in a charming old black and white château, with avenues and a stone dovecot, and a walled garden with a gateway to which you ascended by steps, and where it was not difficult to believe that you were in another world.
Kitty would have been well content to have stayed here for the rest of their time, but Mrs Lascelles was not going to be defrauded of her holiday. She had planned a very comprehensive ten-days’ round, having been carefully drawn on to this by Mrs Marchmont. They were to go to Vannes and Auray, see Carnac, take Quimper and Morlaix, and any other tempting places that lay en route, and return to Dinan and Saint Malo, going home by the Channel Islands. She wrote to Mary Marchmont that after all the trouble she had taken in finding out the most interesting places and the best inns, she could not venture to diverge a mile from the lines laid down. Mrs Marchmont showed the letter to Bell, almost crying.
“Isn’t it too provoking!” she exclaimed. “If only that stupid Charlie had been half so conscientious!”
Quite unconscious, meanwhile, that they were provoking their friends at home by the implicit obedience with which they had kept within the lines ruled for them by these kindly despots, Kitty and her mother went on their cheerful way by slow and dawdling trains, leaving behind them pretty Dinan, with its river and its rich and fertile country, exploring Vannes, sitting down to sketch in the centre of uneven streets, where some little bit—some rich colouring on the stone, some dark cavern of a doorway, framing a white-capped group, some delicate wreath of greenery flinging itself out joyously to meet the sun—attracted Kitty. The people came round to watch and to suggest themselves as pictures; they were all on the most friendly yet independent terms with the girl, who smiled and nodded at them and sketched bravely on, undismayed by her increasing crowd of admirers. Auray did not offer so much of the picturesque; but Mrs Lascelles would not let Kitty escape her duties, so she carried her off to Carnac.
But it was Kitty herself who proposed the next excursion. She was already tired of menhirs and dolmens; but she had a longing for a little boating on this wild and windy coast. They would drive to Locmariaker, and go across to the little Gavr Innis, where there are some carvings in a cave which give people an excuse for visiting the island. The morning was very rainy, and gusts of wind rushed up from the south-west. Her mother would have begged off, but Kitty was resolute, “They will not take us if there is any danger,” said Mrs Lascelles, at last surrendering.
Kitty mocked at the idea of danger; and, indeed, when they readied Locmariaker and walked down to the little landing-place, the boatmen showed no unwillingness to convey them across. For though the rain still fell, there were rifts in the grey fast-driven clouds which looked as if brighter weather might be near, and the freshness of it all—the grey-green of the water, the saltness of the wind, the swoop of the white gulls—made Kitty the more eager to be out on the dancing waves. She pulled the hood of her waterproof over her hat, her cheeks glowed under the strong wet wind; and her mother, already seated in the boat, looked at her as she stood lightly-poised on the slippery stones, with a smile of satisfaction. Certainly the experiment had been quite successful; and, as they were well out of the reach of hearing anything which might keep up the remembrance of an unifying incident, she might hope to take the girl home with the shadow all gone.
Meanwhile, all seemed ready, and yet they did not start. The old boatman—Stevan—his brown face deeply seamed with lines, made some excuse about his sail, which was not in order, and the boy was sent up to one of the small cottages which straggle down towards the water.
“Kitty, do make him understand that we wish to start,” said Mrs Lascelles. “If I am to be drowned, I don’t want to be all day about it.”
But now the boy reappeared followed by a dark figure in a shabby soutane.
“It is M. le curé,” said old Stevan, addressing himself politely to Kitty. “He has to cross to the island to see a sick person. These ladies will not object.”
The curé came deliberately down with firm, quick steps; he lifted his hat, stepped into the boat, and sat down. Kitty stepped after him; the boy took the oar to push off, but the old sailor still looked towards the land and lingered.
“I believe this is a ferry boat,” cried Mrs Lascelles, impatiently. “Look, Kitty, there is some one else!”
Some one else was in a big ulster; a woman—probably Stevan’s wife—a woman in a white coiffe and blue dress was hastening before him, and pointing eagerly to the boat. It was evident that she had an eye for business, and would not lose a passenger who might add a franc or two to her husband’s gains. Mrs Lascelles was vexed.
“We shall wait here all day at this rate,” she said.
Kitty was gathering up her dress, for the boat was wet. The boatman turned to her.
“We start this moment, immediately,” he assured her, apologetically. “There is not a better boat at Locmariaker. We shall soon be across.”
The curé looked round at the green waves and slightly shrugged his shoulders. Kitty herself turned to see the coming passenger. The woman had stopped; she stood with her arms folded under her apron, watching him. He had not run, but had come quickly down, and was close to the boat before Kitty had time to do more than turn a startled face to her mother; he lifted his hat and sprang in, the boy hurriedly shoved off from the weed-covered stones, and the next moment they were out in the tossing bay, with Charles Everitt for their companion.