And next day, with some suppressed tears and fictitious smiles, and a general excitement of the whole neighbourhood, as if the village itself had been going abroad, the party went away. The vicarage people and all the Selbys came out to their doors to see them pass. Raaf Selby on horseback stood like a statue at the end of the bridge, and took off his hat and gave Lydia a look half-tragical and altogether melodramatic. Joan drove her mother in the phaeton steadily, but with a very grave countenance, though now and then bursting into momentary jokes and laughter, to the station to see them off, her husband riding very slowly by their side. Joan laughed by times, but that did not change the seriousness of her face; and Mrs Joscelyn sat with her veil down, a large Spanish veil covered by great spots of black flowers, behind which nobody could see what she was doing. Lydia herself broke down, and cried freely, though her mother could not cry. “I’ll bring home Harry,” the girl cried, with a passionate promise, out of one window of the railway carriage. Lionel was at another, keeping in the background, eager to be off, and shorten the moment of farewells, when his attention was distracted from the pathetic group by the sudden swaying upwards of old Isaac’s shock head. “I thought you’d like to know, Sir,” old Isaac said, “as my missis and me’s the best of friends. And it’s all owing to you, as had the judgment never to say a word. Good-bye and good luck to you, Master; don’t forget old Isaac Oliver as will do you a good turn and welcome whenever he has the chance. Lord! but we took t’ Missis in, that time,” Isaac said, with a grin that reached from ear to ear. And that was the last the travellers saw of the village folk.
THE quiet that fell over the White House, not to speak of other houses, when Liddy was thus carried off into the wider world, was something which might be felt, like the darkness in the vision. Mrs. Joscelyn subsided into a kind of half-life. She had been living in her child, and when her child was withdrawn, her existence ebbed away from her. She began to wring her hands again, especially when in the wild winter weather the posts were delayed. All that could be done for her was done by the Selbys, who humoured her and petted her, everybody said, like a child. Joan drove over in her phaeton as often sometimes as thrice in a week, and Philip, who was “an understanding man” his wife allowed, did what was still better. He subscribed for her to the circulating library, and kept the poor lady supplied, in defiance of all prejudices, even those of his wife, with a boundless supply of novels. Joan was somewhat indignant and much scandalised by this, asking him if he thought mother was a baby, and if it was his opinion that an old person should waste her time over such nonsense? “If it was a good book indeed,” Joan said. But Philip verified his title to be called “understanding.” He helped her through the dull days as nobody else could. She read and read till she got a little confused among the heroes and heroines, all of whom she wove together by an imaginary thread of connection with Liddy, comparing their fictitious graces, their adventures, their history with those of her child, and following her imaginary Liddy through many a chapter. Lydia’s letters when they came were like another warmer, fuller romance, the most enticing of all.
And then Ralph Joscelyn himself suddenly developed a new character. He was miserable when his daughter was fairly gone, though he had never betrayed any unwillingness to let her go. He read every word of her long letters with a patience which had never been equalled in his life. He gave up the dashes and blanks of which his conversation was once full, and would come in the cold afternoons and sit with his wife, often fatiguing her greatly, and keeping her back from the end of an exciting story, but always meaning the best, and filling her soul with gratitude, even when she felt most bored. And by and bye he would put on his spectacles, and surreptitiously turn over a novel too, when the day was wet, or on a long evening. Thus the sight might be seen of these two in their old parlour, one at each side of the fire, rather dull but friendly, like people who had grown old together, and in whom a moderate modest affection had outlived all quarrels and years. He was a little shamefaced when he was found thus in his wife’s company, but by degrees that wore off too.
Meanwhile, Lydia went far afield, leaving dulness and darkness and cloud behind her; finding winter turned into summer, and her life into sunshine. It would be impossible to use words too strong to express the change that had come upon her. From the north country of England to the south of France was not a more complete difference than from the grey and limited life of the yeoman household to the brightness and variety and grace of existence among people accustomed all their lives to wealth and refinement and luxury. The way in which they travelled, the attendants always round them, the ease with which they took all their gratifications, surprised by nothing that was pleasant, taking luxuries, which were princely to Liddy, as a matter of course, had an extraordinary effect upon her—the effect of a forced and miraculous education, in which every half hour told like a year. For a short time she was much subdued, almost stupefied, indeed, by the revolution in everything round her, and was so very quiet that Lady Brotherton almost came the length, notwithstanding her animated countenance, and the favourable first impression she had made, of thinking her dull. In fact, she was only in a state of intense receptiveness, taking in everything, opening her mind and spirits to all the new influences, which confused and dazzled her. But after thus lying dormant for a time, Lydia suddenly awoke into new life, and bloomed like a flower. She awoke to a great many things which were completely new and strange; to beauty and wealth, to art, which was entirely unknown, and a revelation to her; and to Nature of a lavish and splendid kind, almost as entirely unknown.
There were other revelations, too, upon which, at this moment, it is unnecessary to dwell. It was more than enough that little Lydia, out of what was not much more than a northern farmer’s house, should have found herself in society, in that wandering society of the English abroad where the finest specimens are to be found afloat among the coarsest, and in which all the elements of life are represented; hearing names familiarly pronounced every day which she had hitherto read with reverence in books, talking to personages whose distant doings she had but heard of with awe and wonder, and living in palaces, which she heard found fault with as poverty-stricken and uncomfortable, she who had known nothing better than the drawing-room at Heatonshaw. The party went from France to Italy; to Florence and Rome, and still further south, Naples and all its dependencies. So dazzled and transported was she with all the new things she saw and heard that for the first month or two Lydia forgot all about her quest. When she bethought herself of it, a question arose which was far more troublesome here than it had been at home. What was she to do? To examine anxiously every new face she saw, to look out in the streets and in every company she entered for somebody like Harry, seemed a far less hopeful enterprise in Italy than it had been in England. She did not remember Harry’s face, which was disabling to begin with, and then why should he be in Italy? she asked herself. Poor people (unless they were artists) did not seem to come to Italy, but only people with plenty of money and leisure, who came to enjoy themselves. She was so bewildered by this altogether new idea that she did not know what to do, nor did Lionel, “Cousin Lionel,” to whom she began to refer everything (as indeed his mother did), suggest anything that could help her. They looked over all the visitors’ books together, and lists of the English inhabitants in every new place they came to, with their young heads together, and much secret enjoyment of the business; but neither did this stand her in much stead. In Rome, where they spent Christmas, they were joined, as Lady Brotherton’s prophetic soul had divined, by Lord Eldred; but when they left he did not follow, and Liddy’s course, which was not that of true love but wandering fancy, required no trouble to keep it smooth. But, by others besides Lord Eldred, Lydia was “very much admired,” as people say. She might have got “a very good match” out of her wanderings; but walked through all these possibilities unwitting, not having even her little head turned, which Lady Brotherton expected. The elder lady, however, was delighted with the little sensation she made. She liked the little flutter of moths about this gentle taper. She liked to have half-a-dozen young men standing ready to do every necessary civility, to procure everything that was wanted. Lydia saved her a great deal, she said, in commissionaires; and old Sir John laughed his chuckling old laugh, and said she was just like her mother; his Cousin Lydia had always a train after her. Liddy wondered sometimes whether it was a former Cousin Lydia, a century old or so, whom the old man meant. But they were very kind to her. They became fond of her as the time went on. She lived an enchanted life among them, with “Cousin Lionel” always at her side, seeing everything, doing everything, along with her; and she could not have believed that it would prove so easy to forget Harry and all about him. Sometimes she awoke to this thought with such a sense of guilt as depressed her for days; but in the meantime life was flowing on in content, brightness, and variety, full of a hundred occupations. There was not a moment vacant. Sometimes it would glance across her that the day must come when she must leave it all and return to the White House. Alas, poor mother! vegetating there, keeping herself alive by means of her novels, and chiefly the unfinished romance of Lydia, most delightful of all. What would she have felt had she known the cold chill which came over Lydia as she realised that the day must come when she would be once more at home; and how wretched, how angry Lydia was with herself, how she despised her own frivolous being when she felt this chill invading her! Generally however she put the thought away, and was content to live, and no more. To live, how sweet it was! “Good was it in that time to be alive, and to be young was very heaven.” At last Lydia came, as the time of return approached, to throw away every consideration, and exist only in the moment, with a kind of desperation of happiness. “I shall never have it over again,” she said to herself, and shut her eyes and went on, forgetting home and forgetting Harry, refusing to think of anything but the sweet hours that were going over her; “I shall have had my day.”
Thus time came to have a prodigious sweep and fling as the long delicious holiday approached its end. The hours and days rushed on like the waters of a river hurrying to the falls, every minute increasing the velocity; already the skies were getting bright (as if they had ever been anything but bright!) with spring; the flowers were bursting forth everywhere; the warmth becoming excessive; the English tourists beginning to return home in clouds. And the Brothertons spoke quite calmly of going back to England. To them it meant a natural succession, no more; they would return home to other delights. When autumn came back they would set out again, and go over the same enchanted lands; but for Lydia all would be over. She tried to enter into their plans, however, quite steadily, concealing the vertigo that seized her, and her wild sense of the hurrying rush of those last days. When it was suggested that they should rest a few days at Pisa, Sir John having a cold, and from thence go on to Leghorn, and take the steamer, Lydia felt like a criminal who has got a reprieve; but oh, how guilty, how more than ever deserving of any sentence that could be passed upon her!
By this time there had come a strange uneasiness into her intercourse with “Cousin Lionel.” Liddy had always been more reserved with him than with anyone else, she could not tell why. Since the first frankness of the days when she went with him to Birrenshead there had been a great seriousness in all their relations. This was partly his doing, and partly hers. Lord Eldred’s appearance had checked him when he had been getting rid of the impression which his mother’s opinion on the subject of Lord Eldred had produced on him. And Lydia’s seriousness had subdued the young man. She had consulted him indeed, referred to him constantly, took his advice, kept up an invariable tacit appeal to him in all her concerns, which she was scarcely herself aware of, but which went to the very bottom of his heart; but she was always serious. Her gayer flights were with the moths, as Lady Brotherton called them, the commissionaires, the young men who fluttered about the two ladies, and whom Lydia, caring nothing about them, treated with every kind of gay malice, and a hundred caprices; but she was never capricious with cousin Lionel. They treated each other with a sort of stately dignity, reserved on one side, reverential on the other, to the amusement, but great gratification of Lady Brotherton.
“Thank heaven there is no fear of these two falling in love with each other,” she said, “which is an embarrassment one is scarcely ever safe from.” As for Sir John, he chuckled and declared that his son was an old woman. “Talk’sh like two ambassadorsh,” said the old man. Never was anything more satisfactory; for to have a course of true love so near to her, notwithstanding her sentimental sympathy with the thing in the abstract, would not have suited Lady Brotherton at all. But on the day of Sir John’s cold at Pisa, something occurred which, if she had not been so busy administering gruel, she might not have found so satisfactory. The two young people being thus left alone went out together, and walked very soberly, as was their wont, about the Cathedral and the Baptistery, gazing at everything as it was their duty to do. They stood and looked up at the delicate fretted galleries of the leaning tower, and the blue sky above which filled up every opening. They had been very silent, and silence is dangerous. At last Lionel said hastily:
“I don’t know why this should make me think of the old Joscelyn tower you showed me; there is not much likeness certainly between this and a Border tower.”
“The sky was just as blue,” said Lydia, “in all the crevices; though they say that in England we never see the sky.”
“You remember it too?”
“Yes,” she said with a faint little tremor in her voice.
“And soon you will be there again,” he said (as if it were not brutal to remind her of it!), “but I—— where shall I be?” He threw so much pathos into his tone that Lydia, feeling herself on the brink of darkness and desolation, could not quite restrain a little outburst of impatience. He to talk like that, who would have nothing to give up, whose life would always be as beautiful as it was now!
“Where should you be—but where you please!” she said, with a sharp tone of irritation in her voice.
“Where I please?——do you think?—but I must not ask you that,” Lionel said, drawing a long breath. And then he added as if he were breathless and hurried, though in reality there was nothing to hurry him, “Lydia—I want to speak to you before—before——”
“I don’t know what you mean; you can talk to me whenever you please,” cried Lydia, with the daring of anger. She was angry with him, she could scarcely tell why.
He was silent for a minute, looking at her with a curious expression which she did not understand. What did it mean? No doubt Lionel thought that Lydia knew exactly all that was overflowing in him; the eagerness in his eyes, the hesitation in his mind. He thought she looked him through and through, and she thought he looked her through and through. The young man felt as if it could scarcely be necessary for him to say what was in his heart; she must have seen it in every look for months; and she, on her side, felt that her secret, which he was so likely to have divined, must be kept from him at all hazards. Thus they stood for a moment as in a duel, the man sealing his lips by force, considering, with a generosity that cost him much, that to speak now would make the position intolerable for her, and that any formal declaration of his sentiments (which she must know so well before he uttered them!) must be reserved for the very end of the family intercourse in which they had been living; while the woman, who had been far too much interested on her own account ever to discover his meaning fully, doubted still, and guarding herself against a mistake of vanity, had to guard her own secret, which she would not have him divine. They looked at each other thus for a breathless moment; then he spoke.
“I can talk to you whenever I please? but not now; before—if ever—we part.”
What did that mean? “Before—if ever.” Her heart beat so loudly that she seemed unable to do anything but keep it down, and yet she asked herself wistfully what was the meaning of it. She was tantalized and aggravated beyond words. “That will soon be,” she said with a little mocking laugh, and turning, walked away towards the river. He followed her quite silent and cast down, for he thought this laugh meant the very worst. And when they got back to the inn Lydia disappeared, and save in his mother’s presence saw him no more that day. Lady Brotherton saw no difference for her part. She tried to throw them together benevolently. “You must try and make the best of it,” she said. “I must go back to your father, Lionel. Take Lydia somewhere, show her the town. You are cousins, you need not stand upon ceremony, you don’t want a chaperon.”
“I am so sorry, Lady Brotherton,” said Liddy with an innocent air, “but I must go and write letters. We have been moving about so much lately. I have not written half so often as usual to my mother. I thought I’d take this afternoon for it.”
“That is a pity,” said Lady Brotherton, “I am sure she will excuse you, my dear; you will be with her so soon! and Lionel will be quite lonely; you might give him this afternoon. Your mother will have you in a week, you know.”
Poor wicked Liddy! what a pang it gave her! and a still greater pang to think that it should be a pang. She looked at Lady Brotherton with sorrowful, half reproachful eyes, into which, much against her will, the tears came—but fortunately kept suspended there, making her eyes big and liquid, not falling. “I know,” she said, trying hard to suppress a sigh; “but I must write all the same.”
“Don’t think of me,” said Lionel. “I shall play a game at billiards—or something.” Lady Brotherton paused to launch a mot at the absurdity of coming to Italy to play billiards before she went to Sir John, and in that interval Lydia disappeared, and except at dinner, when his mother was present, the two did not meet again that day.
Sir John was a little better next morning, and declared himself able to go the little way there was to Leghorn, where he would rest another night before taking the steamer. “And there’sh old Bonamy,” he said, “old friend’sh, never forshake old friend’sh. Bonamy, Vicesh-Conshull, famous old fellow.” He was delighted at the idea, though Lady Brotherton shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, yes, he is very nice,” she said, “not old, quite a handsome man; but all these Consular people, they are—you know what they are—However Mr. Bonamy is quite superior. Another night in Italy, Liddy, though it is only a mercantile place and not interesting. Let us hope there will be a moon.”
But Lydia did not wish for a moon. She had got into a state of feverish indifference. It was so nearly over now, that she wished it over altogether. What was the good of a few more hours? She would have run away, had she been able, to get out of it all, to forget Italy if that were possible, and all these five months of happiness. She felt angry with Sir John and his friend, and the place they were going to, and everything about it. A moon? what did she want with a moon? she would have liked to pluck it out of that blue, blue intolerable sky that never changed. It was all Liddy could do to keep herself from making a cross reply.
They got to Leghorn early that Sir John might not be exposed to the heat of the day; and the aspect of that place did not tend to soften Lydia’s feelings; a town with shipping and docks and counting-houses; she declared to herself that it was like any town in England, not like Italy at all. Sir John, who was fond of novelty, had his card sent at once to the Vice-Consul, with a request that Mr. Bonamy would go and see an old friend who was not well enough to visit him; and the old man grew quite brisk on the strength of something new, and sat up in a chair and declared himself quite well. He looked so comfortable that Lady Brotherton was very sorry that she had settled to stay another evening. “When we have quite made up our minds to it, it seems a pity,” she said, “to lose a day.” How tranquilly she spoke! while the two young people listening to her, and too languid or too nervous to take any part in the discussion, felt a secret fury burn within them. “Lose a day!” Neither of them knew whether it was a loss or a gain, an incalculable treasure of possibilities, or a miserable hour the more of suspense and unhappiness. Perhaps they were both most disposed to look upon it in the latter light; and yet they were both angry with Lady Brotherton for talking of losing a day. There is no consistency in youth, nor was there any reason for the nervous excitement which possessed them both. They sat down to luncheon together, both of them devouring their hearts, and quite indisposed for other fare.
“Mr. Bonamy knows our English ways. I should not be surprised,” said Lady Brotherton, “if he came to lunch.”
“Yes, yes, knowshur English ways, English himself,” said Sir John, “knowsh what’sh what. Shure to come in to lunch.”
And then they sat down at table. Lady Brotherton ate her bit of chicken with all that unearthly, immeasurable calm which distinguishes elder people, taking everything quite coolly, though with a flaming volcano on each side of her; would she eat her chicken all the same, they wondered, if they too were to explode and be carried off into the elements? Notwithstanding their mutual opposition, they could not help giving each other a glance of sympathy as they watched her, wondering how she could do it. Lionel felt that he never could again believe in those sensations which his mother had often described to him, which affected her when he was in any trouble. Sympathy! She could not take things so quietly if she was a woman of any sympathy at all.
The meal was half over. Lydia had scattered salad over her plate to look as if she had eaten what was set before her, and Lionel, on his side, had practised some other artifice. Thank heaven the moment was almost over when they must sit there together exposed to observation. When the door opened, Lionel rose to his feet to receive his father’s old friend. But what did Lydia care for Sir John’s old friend? it was an excuse to push her chair away from the table. It was Sir John’s English servant who introduced the stranger; an Italian might have made a mistake about the name, but about this there was no mistake. Thomas came in before the visitor with all the imperturbability of a British flunkey.
“Mr. Isaac Oliver,” he said.
Then Lydia too rose to her feet wondering, with a little cry of surprise. She did not know what she thought, whether it was a messenger from home with evil tidings, or merely a fantastic coincidence. Lionel was greatly astonished too. He made a step forward to meet the new-comer—and there was something in the aspect of the new-comer which puzzled him still more, he could not tell why. Where had he seen him before? He was certain he had seen him before.
“Mr.—Isaac—Oliver?” he said.
He perceived, without being aware of it till after, that at his surprised tone the stranger turned a suspicious look upon him, and glanced round upon the party with the manner of a man who was not entirely at his ease.
“Yes, that is what I am called,” he said.
AND after all, what is there in a name? That was not an original observation in Romeo’s case, much less in that of an English resident in Italy far on in the nineteenth century. The person who thus presented himself in Sir John Brotherton’s rooms was tall and strong, and fair, with the amplitude of chest and breadth of back which show a man to have attained the very fullness of manhood, or perhaps a little more. His hair was light brown and curly, with life and vigour in every crisp twist of it, and in the short beard then unusual with Englishmen, and considered “foreign” by the inexperienced. Except this beard, and something in his dress which betrayed a continental tailor, he was altogether English in his appearance, and in his voice there was something that betrayed the North-country, or so at least two of the company, startled by his name, supposed. Lydia who felt ashamed of herself for her little cry of wonder, sat down in a corner behind backs, and felt the better for the curious stir of surprise and expectation which seemed to blow on her like a breath of fresh air: while Lionel bestirred himself to welcome the stranger, who explained that he came on the part of Mr. Bonamy, then occupied in public affairs, who hoped to pay his respects to Sir John later. “I ought to introduce myself as his son-in-law,” Mr. Oliver said.
“Oh, you are Rita’s husband,” said Lady Brotherton, “little Rita! forgive me, I used to know her when she was a child. I have not realised the idea of Rita married.”
“Then you must prepare yourself for a shock,” he said pleasantly. “For Rita has been married more than eight years.”
“And there are children—of course?”
“Four,” he said, with a smile of affectionate pride, “but my wife still looks like a little girl. You will not find so much difference in her appearance as there ought to be. I think Mr. Bonamy prefers to ignore the babies—and it’s not difficult to do so when you look at her. My father-in-law hoped you would come and dine with us to-night.”
“Sir John is—rather an invalid——”
“Not a bit—not a bit!” cried the old man, speaking for himself. “Yesh, yesh, letsh dine with Bonamy. Bonamy knowsh what’sh what.”
“And we are a large party,” said Lady Brotherton deprecating.
Here Lydia came behind her chair. “You must not think of me, dear Lady Brotherton.” “I have—my letters to write.”
“Still letters to write, Liddy? My dear, you must have set up a most alarming correspondence. My young friend, Miss Joscelyn, Mr. Oliver.”
The stranger made a slight movement in his chair, with a hurried breath, and a sudden startled widening of his eyes. It was a thing which he had often said to himself might happen any day, but years of serenity had almost driven it from his remembrance. As it was, the start was but momentary, and perhaps among men might have passed unnoticed. But Lady Brotherton caught it with her keen observation; and Lydia, herself, so excited and curious, saw it with additional excitement, but without any surprise.
“I hope,” he said with a hesitation which did not sound unfriendly. “I hope we may see—Miss Joscelyn, too.”
“I shall certainly bring her if you think you can really have us. How kind to think of it!” Lady Brotherton said. “But the Bonamys were always kind. I remember your wife’s mother, Mr. Oliver. She was the prettiest creature——”
“I flatter myself you will think the same of her daughter,” he said, with a smile (“But if he thinks so much of his wife what business had he to stare so much at Liddy?” Lady Brotherton said after. “Liddy is a very pretty girl, and of course with young men one knows what one must expect—but a man with a family of children! I don’t think I quite like it.”). He spoke to the elder lady, but his eyes were on the younger—not so much admiringly as curiously, anxiously. Was it? could it be? A sort of brotherly impulse came over him. “I think I must have met—some of Miss Joscelyn’s family—from the Fell-country?—from the North of England?” he said, a rush of colour coming to his face.
“Oh!” cried Lydia, paling as he reddened, “none of my family were ever abroad except one. Oh, I wonder if you can have met my brother. I am looking for him. I came to look for him. Harry Joscelyn? We have people of your name,” she added hastily, “in our village too.”
“I come from—Lancashire,” he said, with a sort of hurried abandonment of the subject. Lionel Brotherton had begun to stare at him too. He felt himself in an atmosphere charged with electricity of some sort, and thought with alarm, that some one or other of this dangerous party might put a moral pistol to his head and accuse him at any moment of his false name. He returned to the subject of his wife and family, which was safer in every way. “You know that Mr. Bonamy will not let his daughter go to England,” he said, “because it was fatal to her mother. It is her great grievance; by dint of being debarred from it there is nothing she wants so much to do.”
“And you—have you nothing to say? Is she so delicate?” Lady Brotherton asked.
“Not delicate at all, thank heaven! I have a great deal to say; but I agree. I came under a solemn promise before I was allowed to marry her, and then I have no wish to take her to England—England—” he said, with a little sternness, “has no particular attraction to me. All the happiness of my life is here.”
“But that is a hard thing to say of your home, Mr. Oliver.”
“My home—is here,” he said. What did that girl mean by watching him so? He felt that he was talking vindictively at her, though all that he desired was to ignore her, and escape the scrutiny of her eyes, which made him angry and alarmed, both together. All this time Sir John had been breaking in at intervals, expressing with a great many sibillations his pleasure in the prospect of dining with “Old Bonamy.”
“Old Bonamysh sh’a very old friend; alwaysh liked him, and hish father before him,” the old man cried. “N’ash for bein’ able to dine out, never wash better, never wash better.” This came in at intervals as a kind of chorus, while Lady Brotherton kept up the central strain of friendly commonplace, as unconscious of Lydia’s eager eyes over her shoulder, as of the vague, alarmed curiosity and anxiety that had roused the girl out of herself.
“It was startling to hear his name,” said Lionel, when after awhile, as quickly as politeness permitted, the visitor took his leave.
“What was there peculiar about his name? Oliver! it is not a bad name,” Lady Brotherton said.
“It is not the Oliver, but the Isaac Oliver. Lydia was startled too. It is a name we know very well in the Fell-country,” Lionel said. He was able to treat the subject more lightly than Liddy, on whom, in her excitement, this new and sudden fire had caught at once. He told his mother all about Isaac Oliver, with details that quite satisfied her as to the origin of the stranger’s startled looks and apparent excitement when he heard Liddy’s name.
“That’s it, you may be sure,” she said; “he is ashamed of his people. He is a son or a nephew or something of your old man, and he doesn’t want it to be known; very natural. He must have kept it a secret from Mr. Bonamy—who never would have let Rita marry him if he had known. Well, I am almost glad it is that, and nothing worse. I thought you had made an impression upon him, Liddy, my dear. I thought his eyes would have leapt out of his head when he saw you. Of course, I saw in a moment there was something; but this explains it. Dear, dear, what a sad thing for the Bonamys if it ever comes to be known! You must take the greatest care, both of you, not to betray him. Now, remember—not a word,” Lady Brotherton said, making as though she would have put her soft, plump, white hand first on one mouth and then on another. Nevertheless, when Mr. Bonamy himself came in later, she could not help telling him that “my young people” knew, they supposed, some of Mr. Oliver’s friends. But Lady Brotherton was very sorry when she saw with how much interest a statement which she thought too vague to do any harm was received.
“My dear lady,” the Vice-Consul cried, “they know more than I do if they know his friends. He is the best fellow in the world and the best son, and the most excellent husband that ever was; but I fear the world in general would think me very imprudent. I know nothing about his family, except that he quarrelled with them, and made a vow never to return till he had made his fortune. Well, I don’t know where he will do that—not in the service of H.B.M. He has settled down here with me, and we are all very comfortable, and it was no small comfort to me to find an English husband for Rita who would not insist upon taking her to England. It was all settled,” said Mr. Bonamy, “when I was so ill. I believed I was going to die, and so did everybody else; and to provide for my Rita was all I thought of. Well, I have nothing to regret. He makes her an excellent husband, and she is as happy as the day is long; and I don’t know what I should do without him. Still I allow it was rash, for I know nothing about his friends.”
“When a man has proved himself to be all that,” said Lady Brotherton, in alarm, “it does not matter much about his family.”
“Well, no—perhaps not,” said the Vice-Consul, doubtfully. “But I have always taken it for granted they were people of some importance,” he added, elevating his head. “He speaks like a man with good blood in his veins; he has all the prejudices of a man of some family. I don’t think I can be mistaken in that; but I have never had the least clue to who they were. I should be quite glad to hear something about them from your young people.”
“Unfortunately,” cried Lady Brotherton, “they are both out; and then it was a mere conjecture, you know. Excuse me a moment, and I will ask the servant if he knows whether my son or Miss Joscelyn have come in——” And she hurried to the door to tell Thomas, who was waiting in the passage, to tell Miss Joscelyn and Mr. Brotherton, if they should make their appearance, that she was very much engaged, and begged they would not come in. “Remember, not come in,” she whispered, earnestly. Alarm had seized upon her. She had laughed at Lionel’s description of old Isaac Oliver—but, good heavens! to be the means of introducing such a very undesirable relation to the knowledge of the Bonamys! She was almost too much frightened to be able to face the Vice-Consul again; but it had to be done. She found him pondering when she went back. Sir John was lying down to rest, so that they were alone; and poor Lady Brotherton’s punishment for her indiscretion was not yet over.
“Did you say Miss Joscelyn?” he asked, “then I am sure it must be the same, for my son-in-law has Joscelyn in his name. He does not use it in an ordinary way, but on grand occasions; indeed I did not know it till I saw his signature at his marriage, and he has never liked to be questioned about it. Perhaps he may turn out to be a relation, a connection of your young friend.”
“Oh, I don’t think that is at all likely,” cried Lady Brotherton hastily, “her mother is a cousin of Sir John’s—” then she faltered and coloured, seeing the inference to be drawn from her words. “I do not mean that Mr. Oliver’s family is not—everything that is desirable,” she said.
The Vice-Consul looked up for a moment startled; but then he bethought himself of Lady Brotherton’s “way.” Her way he said to himself was well known. She was fond of connecting things that had no connection, and scorning those that had. So he answered without offence, “I did not suppose for a moment that you meant anything of the kind, Lady Brotherton; you will like him when you know him. He is as good a fellow as ever stepped; not very much educated—but so few of your young English squireocracy are.”
“Do you think so, Mr. Bonamy?” her mind glanced straight of course to Lionel, and she felt a little offence as well as a disdainful pity for so foolish an opinion, and the grounds upon which it must have been formed.
“Yes, I think so; they come here knowing no language but their own, without a notion what they have come for, or what they want, trying to get up cricket matches and yawning in the face of all that makes Italy desirable. If they want cricket they should stay in England, where they would get it at its best. Yes, it must be allowed we see a great many ignorant young fellows—who are thorough gentlemen all the same——”
“I am glad you allow that,” said Lady Brotherton, a little piqued. She was rather fond herself of finding fault with her country folks, but she did not like it in other people; and the Vice-Consul went away with his mind in a considerable ferment, wondering if now he was about to penetrate the mystery of his son-in-law’s antecedents. The idea that he knew nothing about them had given him a prick now and then through all these years; but Harry had never betrayed himself. He had not done so, for the good reason that all his young life had disappeared from him like a mist, and that honestly he never thought of it, or felt tempted to make any reference to it. His marriage had taken place while the Vice-Consul was still in a weak state of health, for the results of his illness had lasted long, though the seizure itself was over: and in all those happy quiet years Harry’s heart had been so full and his mind had been so occupied that he had scarcely thought of the possibility of being called upon some day to roll away the stone from the grave of the past. And a sort of honourable hesitation had moved the Vice-Consul; he had accepted the stranger as he was; ought he to enter into discussion of his rights and wrongs now, and perhaps be compelled to condemn him, though he was so good? Now, however there seemed a prospect of a clearing up. “I should like to know who he is; before I die, I should like to know the rights of it,” Mr. Bonamy said to himself.
“I was so glad you were not here, my dear,” Lady Brotherton said to Lydia. “It appears that this Mr. Oliver has said nothing to the Bonamys about his family. He has allowed it to be supposed that they were people of importance. How they could be so foolish as to let Rita marry him without knowing all about him I can’t imagine; but that is just what has been done. Now, my love, I want to warn you; be on your guard. Be on your guard, Lionel. It was very wrong of the young man to do it, but it’s no business of ours; and they’re married now, and can’t be separated, you know; and Mr. Bonamy has not a word but praise to say of him. Be on your guard; I have no right to speak; I as nearly as possible let it out myself. I said my young people thought they knew Mr. Oliver’s family; but afterwards I assured him that this was mere conjecture, and that I didn’t think there was anything in it. So, my dears, both of you be on your guard.”
“I shall not betray him, mother; but all the same it is a shabby business. The fellow must be a cad to do it,” Lionel said.
Lydia looked up at him with hot, sudden displeasure, she could not tell why. What had she to do with Isaac Oliver? But she was excited by the appearance of this stranger who bore such a familiar name, and she felt angry that he should be called a “cad.” She was in so strange a condition, so feverish, and restless, and impatient, that to be angry for some real cause was a luxury to her. She did not, for her part, give any pledge or make any reply, but seated herself in the carriage with a forlorn and partly fictitious feeling that this man, whom she had never (she thought) seen before, and knew nothing about, would be more near to her, if he were one of the Olivers, than these people with whom she had been so familiar, who had been her friends, and more than her friends, but who were about to drop her (she said to herself) next week, as if she had never belonged to them at all. They were all reminding her of this parting, keeping it before her, she thought, even old Sir John—without any sympathy for her, or regret to leave her, or perception of what the parting would be to her. Anybody from her own country, within her own circle of being, would be more to her, she said within herself, would understand her better, would feel more for her, than the friends who had been so kind, but who did not care.
But the visit of the travelling party was contemplated with very much stronger feelings by the one of all concerned, who alone knew all about it, and understood the full importance of the meeting. Harry had been unable to keep himself from one startled look when he heard his sister’s name. “Liddy” first, which of itself roused him a little—he had not heard the north-country sound of that familiar name since he left the north country—and then Joscelyn. Who could she be? Could there be any Liddy Joscelyn but one? It was his mother’s name, and his little sister’s, whom he remembered with that tender partiality with which elder brothers and sisters think of the little one who is the pet of the family. Liddy had not been old enough to have come to the bar of fraternal judgment when he had left the White House. She was still a child, and he had been fond of her. They had all been fond of her. She had been the pet, sacred from the animadversion even of Tom and Will, who, being married, and separated from their home, were in some measure freed from the family prejudices. But Harry was not freed. He had been angry with all his belongings for all these years, but as soon as he heard her name his heart grew soft to little Liddy. Liddy Joscelyn! He went away from the inn full of excitement, saying over and over to himself those familiar, soft-sounding syllables, Liddy Joscelyn, Liddy Joscelyn. Could it really be that this pretty young woman, who had looked at him over Lady Brotherton’s shoulder, with such earnest eyes, was his little sister? For a long time he could think of nothing else but this, and took a long walk in an entirely different direction from the office to familiarize himself with the idea, and to get his excitement calmed down.
But the more he thought, the less he could manage to get his excitement calmed down. It might be supposed that he would have thought first of all of the danger of being discovered, and the likelihood that something might arise which would betray him to his sister. But this was only his second impulse. The first was instinctive, a sudden surging up of family affection, a leap of his heart into old prejudices and tendernesses; and it was only when he had exhausted this that he thought of the risk that he would inevitably run when Liddy found herself brought into contact with a man bearing so marked a name as that of Isaac Oliver. He laughed within himself, half bitterly, half with a sort of amusement at the sudden image which her little cry of surprise and startled look brought before him as well as before herself—Old Isaac Oliver! He remembered every line of him, all in a moment, his stooping, his shuffling, his desire to give good advice, his fear of his Missis, and almost laughed out at the strange connection he had himself formed between this grey old figure and himself. Why had he been so absurd as to choose such a marked name? But the idea that anybody could suppose him, Harry Joscelyn, to have anything to do with that old peasant, amused him more than all the rest. He could scarcely keep himself from shouts of laughter. He! The notion was too incongruous to be considered with gravity. It was an offence to him at the same time, but most of all it was ludicrous. And these people were coming to his house to-night, to dine at his table, to ask him questions, to make their remarks, to speak of old Isaac, and, perhaps, put it into the heads of his wife and her father that this was the kind of relation whom he had left behind him in England. The Bonamys had received him so generously, accepted his own explanations so easily, given him the best evidence of their perfect confidence and trust, and, if now they heard this fine story of the old north-country clown, what would they think of him? The more Harry thought of it the more he was confused and bewildered. Liddy had looked at him with a very penetrating, anxious look over Lady Brotherton’s shoulder. What was she so curious about? How could she know? And his wife and she would meet, would talk together, would perhaps come to confidences. He was not able to face the position. He was older and more experienced in many ways, but he was not experienced in such complications of circumstances. His head turned round and round. What was he to do?
The only thing he did was a curious token of the utter helplessness he felt. When he got to the office he called Paolo, who was still a faithful prop of the Consulate, and asked him to dinner to meet some English friends. He waited even till Paolo made his elaborate evening toilette, and walked home with him arm in arm, clinging to him as a sort of protection. There could not be a more clear confession of the state of impotence in which he felt himself. It was like one of his early difficulties long ago, in which Paolo was his only friend.
THE Vice-Consul’s family still lived in the same house, with more frequent use than before of the succursale of the Villa, where the children spent so much of their time. Naturally, however, it was a changed house, brighter and happier in one sense, in another—perhaps not all that it had been. Perhaps Mr. Bonamy had found a more delicate and complete happiness in it when he and his little daughter lived there alone, in perfect companionship, he sharing every thought with his child, and finding an entire and sweet compensation for all the troubles of his life in that perfect union and sympathy. It was true that, as he was aware now, he had known very little of Rita all that happy time: but while it lasted he did not know this, and thought that he had everything. It is the lot of fathers and mothers. When this last exquisite dream of his life failed him, and his Rita went over to that amiable, well-disposed, and kind young enemy, who had conquered and supplanted her father, Mr. Bonamy had, it is needless to say, a certain struggle with himself. But the circumstances helped him to a large degree. He was ill, expecting to die, and glad to think that whatever happened to him he had secured a companion, a support for her. When, however, death dropped into the background, and he had to begin again, and to reconcile himself to a third person in his house, at his table, and in all the most intimate relations of his life, the Vice-Consul had found it hard; and very hard it was to see his Rita turn to this other man as a flower turns to the sun, with all the clinging and dependence she had once shown to her father, and with a constant reference to and consultation of his wishes. It was quite right that it should be so, oh, perfectly right! and she was happy, as happy as a young woman could be—but it jarred upon the man who was left out in the cold, and who had to share, nay to give up the best of, this love which had been the recompense of his life, to a stranger. It is the lot of the fathers and mothers; when they make any difficulty about consenting to it, we call them hard names; but yet once in a way it may be allowed, that it is a bitter thing to do. Mr. Bonamy on the whole had done it with a very good grace. He was, more or less, grateful to the interloper that his house was not left to him desolate: and he swallowed Harry with as few grimaces as possible, making in private those which he could not altogether suppress. On the whole no man could have occupied so invidious a position more genially, more inofficiously than Harry did. He was grateful and attached to his father-in-law, and he had a profound respect for him and his judgment, to which unfortunately Mr. Bonamy did not make much response. The Vice-Consul indeed had that half-painful, half-amused sense of being a better man than his son-in-law, which at once increases the pang of such a rivalry and makes it ludicrous. “Having known me to decline on a range of lower feelings, and a narrower heart than mine.” When a father utters in the depths of his own heart such a sentiment as this, it may be somewhat bitterly, but it must be with a sense that it is utterly ludicrous. Mr. Bonamy felt all through like the disappointed lover in the poem “Thou shalt lower to his level day by day;” for indeed Rita herself, when she became Mrs. Harry, soon came to have far less interest in matters above Harry’s level, than she had felt when it was her father’s level by which her eager young being was founded. Then she had been his leader sometimes, his little oracle, with a fineness of perception that filled him with wonder and admiration; now she avoided those fine questions and speculations in which her husband did not share. He was faultless, Mr. Bonamy was just enough to allow; he was not exacting, he would still look on with honest admiring looks when they went beyond his knowledge, and smile and listen to discussions in which he could not take any share. But what Harry did not feel for himself, Rita felt for him. She would not go beyond him. She limited her own impulsive eager steps, which had been so ready for every path of fancy in order to keep upon the beaten ground by his side. Perhaps it gave her a little prick of pain too to leave her father alone, to curb all her natural impulses, to keep to that steady solid pace which suited Harry; and she did it knowing that her father felt it was a decline. But nevertheless her delicate instinctive unspoken loyalty to her husband carried her through. She was “falsely true” as much as Lancelot though in so different a way, belying herself, for Harry’s sake, who did not want such a sacrifice; but Rita felt it to be his due. There, as in all cases where there is a divided duty, the happiness which they possessed was purchased by a little inevitable pain, it was no longer unalloyed. The interloper, the breaker up of that previous blessedness, was the one who felt least drawback in it. For one thing he was naturally very modest and humble about himself, and it did not at all hurt him to acknowledge himself less clever than his wife and father-in-law. He would not have objected had they gone on talking over his head. His taste was less fine, and his perceptions much less acute than Rita’s. And he got the advantage of that finesse of thought and feeling, that delicacy which was so much greater than anything he was capable of, really without knowing it, or being at all aware of the sacrifice she made.
Then the children, though they were a new bond, and a great pleasure to Mr. Bonamy (being good and healthy and smiling children, making the best of themselves, and looking merry and pretty, as children ought to do), gave a little wound also to his fantastical delicacy (for it was of course fantastical) about his daughter, whom he did not like to think of as involved in all the functions of motherhood. But the Vice-Consul, though perhaps not a very wise man by the head, was wise by the heart, and he would not do or say anything to throw the least cloud upon his child’s happiness; he accepted everything, allowing to himself that he was fantastical; and their home was pointed out to everybody as the emblem of a united house, full of love and mutual consideration, and the closest affection—which it was, though not the same home as of old.
On this particular day Rita was somewhat excited by the prospect of a visit from the Brothertons. Lady Brotherton had been one of the objects of her girlish devotion—that devotion which so often flows forth to an older woman before it turns to a lover. She had admired the beautiful lady as only a girl can admire, and had copied her in many a little matter, and still believed in her with all the delightful prejudice which clings to the friends of our youth. She was eager to show everything—her husband, her babies, her own maturity of life—to her old authority, and see how they looked through Lady Brotherton’s eyes. When she saw her husband before dinner she was full of this pleasant excitement.
“What a pity, what a pity that Ralph and Vanna are at the Villa” (Harry in his perversity had given his father’s name to his eldest boy, though he was of opinion that he hated his father), Rita cried, “I should have liked her to see them; but there is always Madge and baby. I wonder if she will think Madge like you, Harry. I wonder if she will think baby a beauty. English children are so big and red in the face; she may think ours pale; though I am sure they are quite strong. I wonder how she will think papa is looking. I wonder if she will approve of——”
“Me?” said Harry, with a somewhat uneasy smile; “she will think me not half good enough for you, and there I agree with her, so we shan’t quarrel on that subject. But listen, dear, there is some one with her, whom I want you to be a little on your guard with; a—a girl—a Miss Joscelyn——”
Rita looked up suddenly, with a keen light in her dark eyes. She had Italian blood in her, to which jealousy was quite possible. She looked up startled, ready to take fire; but Harry went on tying his neck-tie, not so much as conscious, in his honest simplicity, that such a sentiment as jealousy could enter into the possibilities.
“I have a kind of idea,” he said, “that she must belong to people—I used to know. I may be mistaken, but still I have a notion she does. So don’t say anything, darling; don’t let her enter upon the subject.”
“What subject?” said Rita, breathless. “Do you mean that you knew the—lady—in those old times that I know nothing about?”
“I can’t tell,” said Harry; “if I knew her, it was as a child. But, Rita, you are always generous; you never have bothered me with questions. Don’t say anything to her, or to any of them, if they should question you—about me.”
“About you!” Rita’s mind was partially relieved, but it was not in human nature to receive, without some retort, this curious commission. “What can I say about you? I know nothing,” she said, with a little bitterness. Then, as he turned and looked at her with unfeigned astonishment, “Oh, no, no, I do not mean that! I know everything, dear Harry, I know you; but nothing before you came here.”
“That is true,” he said, thoughtfully. “I wonder if I ever shall be able to tell you—all about it?” The sight of Liddy and the sound of her name had worked upon him more than he had thought anything could.
“Do! do!” cried Rita, all eagerness, clasping his arm with both her hands.
He had never said so much to her before, and she, in fastidious delicacy, had not asked. He laughed now, but still with anxiety in his face.
“At present I must get ready for dinner,” he said.
“Ah! it is always like this,” cried Rita; “when you are in a humour to tell me, something happens, dinner, or something equally unimportant!” which was more like one of her early girlish outbursts than the matronly composure by which she liked to think herself distinguished now.
But at this moment her maid came to tell her that the carriage of the English Signori, who were coming to dinner, had just driven into the courtyard, and Rita had to give her skirts a last settling, and to hurry to the drawing-room. And Harry had failed in his tie; he had to take a new one, feeling his hands tremble a little. His mind was in a great ferment. Some months before he had seen the advertisement for Harry Joscelyn, or a certificate of his death, in the Times, where he was described as “supposed to have emigrated,” and this of itself had roused no small commotion in him. He was to hear of “something to his advantage.” Harry could not tell what that might be, and if for a moment now and then the temptation came over him to answer the appeal and understand the cause of it, it yielded immediately, not only to the old resentment, but to the new sense of alarm and apprehension with which the idea of breaking up his present life, and disclosing to those who knew him under one name another identity, filled his spirit. It appeared to him that, if he gave up his present standing ground by revealing another, his whole life, so happy, so sweet, so full of natural duty, work, and recompense, would break up and disappear from him. As Isaac Oliver he was at the head of the Consular business, known and named in all its affairs. As Isaac Oliver he was the husband of his wife. All the town knew him under that name, his children bore it. It had become almost dear to him, the name which he had picked up in bitter ridicule, and adopted with a perverse laugh, as he might have stuck a feather in his hat. The sound was familiar now to his ears, he liked it. It was Rita’s name. She called him Harry, as the name of his childhood, which he preferred, and he had been led to admit that the “Harry Joscelyn Isaac Oliver,” with which, for precaution sake, he had signed the register on his marriage, was his full baptismal name. He signed it now H. J. Isaac Oliver, and she was Mrs. Isaac Oliver. He liked it, and had a certain pride in it, as a name that was honest and without stain, and which should never suffer in his hands; and if he cut himself off from it, what would become of him? his identity would be gone. But the appearance of Liddy had made a very great impression on him. When she rose up suddenly, with a little start and cry, at the sound of his name, he had seen in a moment, in imagination, the real Isaac Oliver, shuffling like a crab along the North-country road, and a sense of the incongruity had struck him painfully, bringing a sensation of sudden shame and discomfiture; but in general he was not ashamed of the name to which he had grown familiar, and he felt as if, resuming the other, his pleasant life would all break up and disappear, and he would become another man.
Rita met the strangers with less composure than she would have done but for that two minutes’ talk. Even when she threw herself into Lady Brotherton’s arms, in the fervour of feeling which her Italian blood made a little more apparent than it would have been had she been all English, she cast an eye upon Lady Brotherton’s companion. Lydia was not looking her best in the confused and painful fever of suspense and expectancy which was upon her; but she looked younger than her real age, and almost childlike in her slightness and slimness beside the matronly form of Lady Brotherton. Even Rita, though still light and small, was rounder and fuller than of old, but Liddy looked eighteen though she was twenty-two, and there could be no doubt that if Harry had seen her before it must have been as a child. This somewhat composed the fanciful bosom of Harry’s wife. Liddy when she had made her curtsey to Mrs. Oliver, sat down behind backs, with a timidity which had come suddenly back to her, isolating herself as far as might be, especially from Lionel, whom she had avoided ever since their recent conversation. Harry had not yet come into the room, and she felt herself altogether in a strange place. Perhaps it was this that brought Paolo to her side; the little Italian thought her probably, a neglected demoiselle de compagnie whom nobody particularly cared to notice, and this was enough to bring him instantly to the rescue. “Miss Joscelyn is a stranger in Italy?” he said with an engaging and conciliatory smile. He spoke a great deal better English than when Harry had made acquaintance with him, and dressed with less abandon and devotion to the beautiful; but he was still a “funny little man,” in the eyes of the English girl; his kindness however could not be mistaken.
“Scarcely,” she said, “I have been in Italy all the winter; and now we are going home.”
“Ah, you are going ’ome, that always pleases; but I hope Mees Jos—lyn will retain a little memory that is pleasant of Italy too.”
“Oh, I have liked it so much,” said Liddy. She was disturbed at this moment by Harry’s entrance; and it occurred to her now for the first time as it had done to Lionel when he first saw him, that she had seen somebody very like him—who was it that was so like him? She paused in what she was saying to interpose this wondering question in her own mind.
“That is Mr. Oliver,” said Paolo, “you have seen him before? He is what we call beluomo, fine man, very fine man; he is my great friend; I was the first to meet him when he stepped upon this shore; we have been friends of the heart always since that day.”
Lydia cast an involuntary look from the little man in front of her, in his elaborate dress, to the big person of the Englishman. She could not help thinking they would make a strange pair. And Paolo, with the quickness of lightning, divined her meaning.
“You think he is so tall, and I—little? Nevare mind,” said the good little fellow, “we are of the same tallness in the heart. Nay, even me, I am a little the tallest there,” he added, laughing, “for I have nobody, and the good Oliver, he has his wife and little children, and many to love. He is my devotion,” added the Italian, warmly. “I have never had a friend before him. I am English too—though perhaps Mees Jos-lyn would not know it.”
“Are you indeed? I beg your pardon,” said Lydia, “I thought you were an Italian. Mr. Oliver is very English. Do you know where—he comes from? and is it long since he came here?”
“That no one can tell you so well as I,” said Paolo, delighted with the subject. “It was in—Ah, how well I remembare! I was upon the quay to watch for the great vapore—the steamboat I should say—and ecco! in one of those little boats that brought the travellers, this tall, big, beautiful young man. I step forward. I offer my help, for he could not speak a word, not one word. But no! he had a distrust of the foreigner. Mees Jos-lyn has perhaps remarked? It is the great fault of the English; they have always a distrust of the foreigners. He would not listen, nor permit himself to be assisted; but caught up his portmanteau and walked along. Wonderful! I stood and looked. Che bell’uomo! they all cried. I, I did not take any time to think—I am English, but I am Italian as well; from that moment I loved him, though he had a distrust of me. When I entered table-d’hôte at the hotel where I always dined, there was he again; and then we became friends. We have quarrelled, oh yes, we have quarrelled—a hundred thousand times,” cried Paolo, “but we are always friends again. Mees Jos-lyn will pardon that I tell such a long tale. It is ten years.”
“What are you saying to Miss Joscelyn, Paul-o, about ten years?”
“I am telling, amico, how we became friends,” said Paolo, stretching himself to his full height by Harry’s side, raising himself on tip-toe. The other looked down on him with a kindness that was not without a touch of contempt. Harry was very faithful to Paolo, and proud of him in his way; but the almost feminine demonstrative affection of the little Italian was always a thing of which he was half ashamed.
“Is it ten years?” he said. “But you might find some better subject to entertain Miss Joscelyn about.”
“I asked him,” said Lydia. She looked at this stranger with very anxious, suspicious eyes. He was a stranger of course. She had seen him for the first time to-day. Still his name was one she knew; his face was one she knew; his very voice sounded familiar. A curious confusion and suspicion came over her. Strangely enough it never once occurred to her to think of her brother.
“Let me take you to dinner,” he said.
Could anything be more commonplace? The Vice-Consul went before them with Lady Brotherton, Sir John hobbled after them with Rita. On either side there were a few words being said. Lady Brotherton on the one hand pouring praises of Rita’s developed beauty into her father’s pleased ears, while old Sir John spluttered forth his remarks on the other. “Fathers’sh an evergreen, my dear. Look’sh ashyoung ash’ever he did. Bloomin’, bloomin’, like yourshelf.” Between these two, feeling a little tremor in the arm she touched lightly with her hand. Lydia walked with her silent companion. He did not say a word, and neither did she. But her heart began to beat: there seemed something strange and exciting in the air. She felt suspicious of him as if he had been a criminal; why did he not speak? It was scarcely any better at dinner. There was a great deal of talk at table, and much liveliness, but in this he took little share. When Lydia looked away to the other end of the table, or talked to anyone else, she invariably found his eye upon her when she returned to herself; but he said nothing except in answer to what was said to him; either he was a very stupid man, or—something else. She became so impatient at last that she turned to him boldly, provoked by his silence.
“Mr. Oliver,” she said, “I know some one of your name in the North-country.”
He seemed to perceive with an effort that she was actually addressing himself; but turned to her quickly, as if prepared for the attack.
“My name is not a very uncommon name,” he said.
“Oliver is not; but Isaac Oliver is surely very uncommon—it made me stare when I heard it. I thought you must be a messenger from home.” Lydia felt herself grow important in her excitement. “Our Isaac Oliver is a very well-known person. Cousin Lionel, you know him too!”
It was a most unjustifiable attack; and to compromise Lionel too! Lady Brotherton stopped short in the midst of something she was saying, in her dismay at this contradiction of all her instructions, and this called the attention of the whole table to what Lydia was saying. There was a general pause in which every word was distinctly audible.
“Everybody knows him,” said Liddy, “in our countryside.”
And then they all looked at Harry, upon whose countenance there came a slight shade of colour.
“Is it so?” he said; “but he is no relation of mine.”
“How can you tell,” the audacious girl went on, “when you do not even know what countryside I mean?”
“Harry,” said Rita, leaning across the table, “what is Miss Joscelyn saying to you? You have forgotten your favourite dish, which was made expressly for you. Look, there is Antonio waiting, and cannot make you understand.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Harry, with a hurried glance round him; and then Antonio, though he did not know a word of English, understood like a true Italian that he was wanted to relieve an embarrassment, and gallantly stepped into the breach with his dish. Lydia, arrested in the midst of her assault, felt herself driven back upon herself, and confused as if she had received a soft, unexpected blow.
“Harry,” she said, in a low tone, “Harry—I thought your name was Isaac Oliver. I beg your pardon, I fear I have been making a mistake.”
The talk had recommenced again; nobody was paying any attention, and Harry’s head was bent over his plate; but suddenly he raised it for a single instant, and gave her a look. What did that look mean? Lydia was stunned by it as by a sudden electric shock. She had been confused before, but not half so confused as now. The look was tender, affectionate even, half-appealing, as if, she thought, there was some secret understanding between them—something which they knew, and which nobody else knew. She stared at him in return, arrested in all the movements of her own mind, her lips dropping apart in her wonder, her eyes opening wide. He was not angry nor surprised at her boldness, nor at her attempt to force upon him an undesirable relation, but looked at her with an almost affectionateness, an understanding which she could not understand. Lydia was altogether confused; she did not say another word. Sitting by this stranger’s side, she relapsed into silence like his own. Who was he? What did he mean? How had he got the command of her? She was giddy with the confusion in her mind, and what it all meant she could not tell.