In common with many Englishmen of Timothy Cockayne's and John Catt's class, Theodosia's father at once concluded that the poor polite little Vicomte de Gars was an adventurer, and that his coronet was pasteboard, and his shirt studs stolen. Mr. John Catt distinguished himself on his arrival by loud calls for bottled beer, the wearing of his hat in the sitting-room, and by the tobacco-fumes which he liberally diffused in his wake.
When the little Vicomte made his accustomed appearance in the drawing-room, after the table d'hôte, he offered the Cockayne ladies his profoundest bows, and was most reverential in his attitude to Mr. Cockayne, who on his side was red and brusque. As neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cockayne could speak a French word, and Mr. John Catt was not in a position to help them, and was, moreover, inclined to the most unfavourable conclusions on the French nobleman, the presentations were on the English side of the most awkward description. The demoiselles Cockayne "fell a giggling" to cover their confusion; and the party would have made a ridiculous figure before all the boarders, had not the Reverend Horace Mohun covered them with his blandness.
Mr. John Catt was not well-mannered, but he was good-hearted and stout-hearted. He was one of those rough young gentlemen who pride themselves upon "having no nonsense about them." He was downright in all things, even in love-making. He took, therefore, a very early opportunity of asking his betrothed "what this all meant about Monsieur de Gars?" and of observing, "She had only to say the word, and he was ready to go."
This was very brutal, and it is not in the least to be wondered at that the young lady resented it.
I am, as the reader will have perceived, only touching now and then upon the histories of the people who passed through Mrs. Rowe's highly respectable establishment while I was in the habit of putting up there. This John Catt was told he was very cruel, and that he might go; Mrs. Cockayne resolutely refused to give up the delights and advantages of the society of the Vicomte de Gars; the foolish girl was—well, just as foolish as her mamma; and finally, in a storm that shook the boarding-house almost to its respectable foundations, the Cockayne party broke up—not before the Vicomte and Miss Theodosia Cockayne had had an explanation in the conservatory, and Mrs. Cockayne had invited "his lordship" to London.
I shall pick up the threads of all this presently.
CHAPTER XI.
MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLERS.
Poor girl! she was timid, frightened. I saw at once that the man with whom she was, and who packed her feet up so carefully in the travelling rug in her state cabin, was not of her class. She could not have been daintier in mien and shape than she appeared. Hands round and white as pearls, feet as pretty as ever stole from a man's hand to the stirrup; a sweet wee face, that had innocence and heart in it. Country bred, I thought: nested in some Kentish village: a childhood amid the hops: familiar with buttermilk and home-baked bread.