Two Studios

by Frances Mary Peard

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.