Lady Mervyn's prediction regarding Lord Clement's movements proved to be correct. His yacht, La Catalina, arrived at Cannes two or three days after we did, and that event was speedily followed by the appearance of her noble owner at the hotel where we were staying.
The interest with which Kitty's affairs inspired me had led to my speculating a good deal on the subject of this young lord; and I had made up my mind that he was almost sure to have something or other disagreeable about him which would counterbalance his many charms, and afford some explanation of her unwillingness to accept him. No doubt, thought I, he is loutish, silly, ugly, untidy, bad mannered, eccentric, or in some other way objectionable. This anticipation, however, turned out to be wrong, and I soon perceived that he had none of the defects with which my lively imagination had credited him.
He was rather below middle height, dressed well and quietly, and could never by any accident be mistaken for anything but a gentleman—which, indeed, he certainly was in every respect. Neither handsome nor ugly, his face was amiable and mild, but possessed no other very marked expression of any kind. One would not suppose him to be powerful or weak, distinguished or insignificant, a genius or a fool. If there was nothing specially attractive about his appearance, neither was there the reverse.
His intellect was not in any way brilliant, but he had good sense and fair average abilities, was eminently painstaking, and would work as laboriously at whatever he thought it his duty to do as though his livelihood had depended on his exertions. In short, I think that the most appropriate description of him is mediocrity, in respect of everything except moral qualities; but where these were concerned he was by no means mediocre, being far more conscientious and anxious to do right than are the majority of rich young men who have the world at their feet.
The most trying thing about him was a tendency to make a fuss about trifles, and to attach a needless importance to all the minor proprieties of life, which was sometimes rather irritating. But, after all, fidgettiness and extra deference to Mrs. Grundy are only very small defects in the eyes of most people. I could understand that Kitty might occasionally be aggravated by these failings, yet they alone were not, in my opinion, sufficient to account for his being refused by a girl who was ambitious, and who had enough perspicacity and worldly wisdom to appreciate what an excellent match he was, and what an opening for ambition would be afforded by the position of his wife.
I was curious to know how Kitty treated him, and profited by every opportunity I had of watching them together. From these observations I came to the conclusion that he had inspired her neither with affection nor aversion, and that she was struggling to bring herself to accept him. I thought that her reason and judgment were pleading for him, and expatiating on his attractions, as her mother had done, and that she was lending a willing ear to these advocates, and doing all she could to let herself be convinced by their arguments. Yet I had a great idea, too, that the effort went against the grain with her, and that she often could not help keeping him at arm's length, even in spite of her own wish. It was as if she had been conscious of the grasp of an invisible hand, from which she could not wrench herself free, and which constantly drew her back when she strove to approach nearer to her suitor.
Is it Captain Norroy's hand that restrains her? I asked myself, as I pondered over this result of my observations. Yet, if so, it seems very odd that no one except me should have discovered their attachment for one another. From all that I have seen and heard I should have thought that a young couple in society would never have managed to become spoons to any serious degree without giving rise to some amount of suspicion as to the true state of affairs between them. How ever can these two have contrived to deceive the lynx eyes of gossip-loving servants, and to hoodwink the worldly and wide-awake Lady Mervyn, whose heart is set on securing a brilliant match for her favourite daughter?
Lord Clement's behaviour towards Kitty after his arrival at Cannes seemed to me that of a man who felt himself to be on trial—was nervous lest she should think him over eager in his addresses, and objected to getting himself talked about with a girl who perhaps would not marry him after all. His first proceeding was to get introduced to Mrs. Rollin, who had till then been a stranger to him. The introduction was easily effected, and after that he had no lack of opportunities of meeting the object of his affections; for Mrs. Rollin responded cordially to his advances, inviting him to join in all the excursions to neighbouring lions which she and Kitty made, and letting it be apparent that he was most welcome whenever he chose to pay them a visit, and to accompany them anywhere.
I have no doubt that this civility of hers resulted, in the first instance, from something said by Lady Mervyn as to his admiration for Kitty, and the desirability of encouraging him as much as possible. But though this may have been the original motive of the empressement with which Mrs. Rollin received him, there was no fear of her not welcoming him for his own sake when once she had made acquaintance with him and discovered what he was like. For she was a person who held that the most important matter in life was to stand well in the world's opinion, and consequently she was quite charmed with his scrupulous regard for convenances and extreme horror of doing anything that could shock Mrs. Grundy.
"There's nothing of more consequence," Mrs. Rollin would declare, "than to keep up appearances, because, provided one does that, one is quite safe to be thought perfect. And that's what every one wishes to be thought, or, if they don't, they ought to. I call it quite wicked of any one to pretend that it doesn't matter what the world's opinion about them is. Depend upon it, that whatever the whole world thinks can't be wrong; and that if a person is generally condemned or praised, there's always some good reason for the blame or the approval."
Keeping up appearances in the eyes of the world was, therefore, her standard of perfection; and she strove zealously never to fall short of that standard, and always to fulfil its requirements punctiliously. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to deduce from this that she was such an abject slave of the world's opinion as to let herself be governed by it in things which it did not see. On the contrary, she drew a line between her public and private actions, and did not allow it to interfere at all with the latter. If she had tastes and inclinations to which it objected, she did not, on that account, sacrifice them, if it was possible that they could be indulged in secret. How she would act, under such circumstances, was illustrated by her behaviour regarding French novels. These she preferred to any other kind of reading, and greedily devoured as many as she could lay hold of. But as she knew that the world sometimes thinks fit to frown at an indiscriminate study of these books (who shall say whether that disapprobation is real or feigned?), therefore she was careful not to reveal her partiality for them. Yet she did not rush to the opposite extreme and disclaim any acquaintance whatsoever with that class of literature. She had no idea of hiding her light under a bushel, and not being duly credited with as many accomplishments as she possessed, and therefore liked to have it known that she understood a foreign language well enough to read and enjoy works written in it. So what she did was, to profess to read French novels solely with the laudable object of keeping up her French; while, at the same time, she was most cautious in talking about them in public, and never betrayed the slightest knowledge of the contents of any that were not fairly decorous and proper.
But I knew better than that. It was a matter in which her maid could not be deceived as easily as the rest of the world.
Bohemianism being an open setting-at-defiance of the world's opinion, was quite detestable to her, with all that savoured thereof; and the very correct Lord Clement was, of course, a man after her own heart. There was, however, a wide difference between the respective ways in which he and she regarded Mrs. Grundy. For while the gentleman had a genuine esteem for that great social authority, and paid her homage in all sincerity, Mrs. Rollin did it only in appearance, and was moved thereto chiefly by fear.
The room in which I slept was immediately over Mrs. Rollin's sitting-room; and by sitting at the open window in my room I could hear—when the weather was calm—most things that were said by people on the balcony beneath. Thus I overheard an interesting conversation as to plans which took place after we had been at Cannes for about as long a time as my two ladies intended to stay there. Where to go next, was the question they were debating. And as Lord Clement happened to call just then, Mrs. Rollin appealed to him to assist them with his advice in the matter.
His manner of complying with this request was eminently characteristic of him. Kitty's society was the object of his keenest desires at that moment, and he was averse to the idea of any movement that would involve his being separated from her. Under these circumstances, and considering the amount of encouragement he had received—especially from the young lady's chaperone—some men would have taken it for granted that their companionship was acceptable, and that it was a matter of course for them to accompany the two ladies to their next destination. Not so, however, would Lord Clement behave. Thus openly to attach himself to them as a travelling companion would inevitably give rise to gossip; and to do anything likely to be talked about as unusual was quite contrary to his ideas of propriety. Though the real object of his visit to the Mediterranean might have been Kitty, yet the ostensible reason had been yachting; and this pretext he had no intention of renouncing by leaving his vessel. In taking part in the discussion as to what our future movements were to be, he gave no indication of being personally interested in the matter in any way, and assumed the air of a strictly impartial adviser. At the same time, however, his opinion as to the desirability of places was in such remarkably exact proportion to their availability from the sea, that I listened with much amusement, and thought that the disinterestedness of his counsels might very fairly be doubted.
Various localities had been suggested and talked over without any determination being arrived at, when Kitty observed, "Now I've quite a new place to propose; and that's Corsica. I saw it looking just like a purple cloud resting on the sea the other day, and I have a great fancy to go and see it close. For one thing, there's no railway there yet; and I should like, for once in my life, to feel that I was in a land through which locomotives have never puffed. It would be an absolutely new sensation to me, and one which the present rate of civilisation will soon render unattainable, I expect; so I vote we experience it while we can. Besides, I'm sure it would be a good place for sketching. What do you say, Aunt Georgina? Don't you think it'll be pleasant to get away from this cockney old Riviera, and go a little bit out of the regular beaten track where every one goes?"
"Kitty, Kitty!" remonstrated her aunt, "it quite distresses me to hear you talk like that! You really shouldn't speak contemptuously of the beaten track, and be so anxious to get away from it. Remember that the fact of its being worn by many feet is also a sure proof of its being smoother, pleasanter, and in every way preferable to other tracks."
"All right, aunty," laughed Kitty; "I won't abuse your favourite walk since it vexes you! But doesn't it strike you that I should appreciate its merits all the more if I were to see with my own eyes—just for once you know—how horrid some other route can be? And isn't that a good reason for going to Corsica? Do let's go there; I've quite set my heart on it."
Kitty rarely failed to get her own way with Mrs. Rollin, who was as susceptible as the rest of the world to the girl's powers of fascination. But the hesitating, reluctant tone in which the elder lady answered, showed me that she had no great fancy for this Corsican visit. "Well, I hardly know what to say," she returned slowly; "to begin with, How does one get there? and in the next place, What's it like when one is there? I think I've heard you say you were there once, Lord Clement; do help me to make up my mind about this, and advise me whether or not to do what this rash niece of mine wishes."
Corsica naturally found favour in the young man's eyes as being convenient for yachting purposes. "Oh, if you ask me, I decidedly advise you to go," he replied; "it's really a pretty sort of country, besides being interesting as the birthplace of Napoleon. By the by you should read Boswell's tour if you go. As for getting there, you could go by steamer either from Marseilles to Ajaccio, or else from Leghorn or Genoa to Bastia. But I hope that you will allow me the pleasure of taking you over in La Catalina, which you'll find far more comfortable than either of the regular steamers—they're all nasty, dirty, uneasy little boats, I believe."
"I'm sure we are greatly obliged to you for so good an offer," answered Mrs. Rollin, "and I think we should gladly avail ourselves of it if we were to decide upon going. But I fancy I've heard it said that one can't get anything to eat there—which wouldn't suit me at all. And then, too, there are the dangers from vendettas and banditti to be taken into consideration."
"Oh now, don't go being a perverse aunty, and making difficulties out of nothing!" exclaimed Kitty. "How could the natives exist if there wasn't something to eat? And a vendetta is a strictly private family affair, which doesn't affect strangers one atom. And as for banditti, it's not Corsica but Sicily that is full of them; my belief is that you've gone and mixed the two islands together in your head. The Corsicans are always supposed to be a particularly amiable and friendly set of people as far as ever I heard. Except, of course, when there's a vendetta to excite them, and that wouldn't matter to outsiders like you and me."
"I assure you that that is true, Mrs. Rollin," added Lord Clement, "and that you have really no cause of apprehension from robbers. The only danger of that kind which I ever heard mentioned during my stay there was from escaped convicts. Now and then a few manage to get out of the prison, I believe, and support themselves à la brigand on the mountains, till they are either retaken or else contrive to get across to Sardinia to join some of the banditti there. But that only happens so very seldom that it really is not worth taking into consideration."
"How about the hotels?" inquired Mrs. Rollin; "are there any good ones to be met with?"
"Oh, they are not at all bad at the two chief seaports—Ajaccio and Bastia," he replied, "and there would not be any necessity for you to sleep anywhere else. I could take you from the one town to the other in my yacht, and from those places you could make inland expeditions within the limits of a day, which would enable you to see a great deal of the country without having to rough it at all. I can't say much for the hotel accommodation anywhere except at the two chief towns, and shouldn't recommend you to go travelling about in the interior. But of course you would not care to visit the more wild and out-of-the-way parts."
"You mustn't be too sure of that," said Kitty, laughing. "Whatever a place may be, it's attractive to me if it's different from any other that I've ever seen before. And Aunt Georgina isn't quite so miserable when beyond reach of luxuries as you might think to hear her talk. I've even known her go without five o'clock tea and yet be happy! For my part I begin to feel an intense desire arising in my breast to hunt up an escaped convict and fraternise with him, or at least to go and inspect his lair. What a novel subject for a sketch it would be! And I'm sure that you'll like to do whatever pleases me, aunty, for you always do. Now isn't that true?"
"Well, well, perhaps I do my dear, but only within reasonable limits, please to remember," returned her aunt, who was considerably influenced by Lord Clement's support of the Corsican scheme. "People of my age don't regard 'roughing it' with the same enthusiasm as some of the young ones, who don't really know what that process implies, and for whom it has all the charm of novelty. I should certainly draw the line a long way before the escaped convict you wish to meet. However, joking apart, from what Lord Clement says, there does not seem to be any reason against running over to the island and gratifying your whim to have a peep at it, though I quite agree with him as to its being undesirable to penetrate into any remote and inaccessible parts, where neither pleasure nor advantage are to be gained. I never can see the good of going to places where no one else goes. There's no one one knows there; and besides that, as no one knows anything about them, there's no chance of finding them necessary, or even useful, as topics of conversation in society. So that visiting such places is mere waste of time and money in my opinion!"
"Well, then we may consider Corsica to be our next destination anyhow," said Kitty triumphantly. "That's the first thing to settle, and there is no need to make up our minds as to anything further just yet. Time enough for that by and by, when we get there."
After a little more discussion it was decided that we should be conveyed to Ajaccio in La Catalina; which vessel, though not containing berths enough for us to have slept a night on board, was yet quite capable of accommodating us very comfortably for the time requisite to perform the passage between Cannes and Ajaccio. What our plans should be after reaching the island was left quite uncertain; for though Mrs. Rollin was well inclined to stay only at the two chief towns and move from one to the other in the yacht, as Lord Clement had proposed, yet Kitty was not to be induced to commit herself to any definite approval of this scheme, and without her approval it was impossible to feel sure of its being carried out, for she generally got her own way about things she cared for. All she would say was, that perhaps it might be a good plan and perhaps not, and that there was not the least need to settle the matter positively yet.
Lord Clement was evidently happy to have had his offer of the yacht accepted—for the voyage across at all events. But I think that his satisfaction was somewhat marred by a dread of Kitty's taking the bit between her teeth when once she should be at Corsica, running away with her aunt, all over the island, and getting out of his reach from the sea; if the whim to do it came to her, there was but small probability that she would not accomplish her purpose.