MR. BONAMY felt weary of his morning’s expedition. It was not that there was really anything to tire him in it; but he was dejected, disappointed, mortified. He did not feel able to go into the office as usual, to meet Harry as usual, to do and say the usual things. He thought he would go into the house instead, and rest a little, and see Rita and the children, and try to console himself with the reflection that this painful discovery only made them all belong to himself the more. It was a poor consolation, and yet in a way it was sure. He felt them more his now that he was certain no other family could claim them. Poor girl! poor babies! some time they might be glad to take the name of Bonamy instead of that wretched one that was their own. He did not intend to say a word to Rita on the subject, but he did what it was the habit of this imprudent man to do, he thrust himself into temptation. He went, all emotional and disturbed as he was, into the dwelling-house, into the room where his daughter would most likely be found, and where she was certain to inquire into the cause of his depression. In half an hour, in the ordinary state of affairs, he would have been at Rita’s mercy, and notwithstanding all his fine resolutions would have betrayed everything to her. He went in, however, determined not to say a word, only to show his child who was injured, though she did not know it, that her father’s tenderness would never fail her. He was so foolish that he went into a jeweller’s on his way, and bought a little ornament for her. And he meant to say something very kind of Harry too, though it was by Harry that his humiliation had come. A peasant, a servant! and his poor child who might have been a princess! but he would make it up to her, and she should never know.
In this mood Mr. Bonamy went into the dim and cool drawing-room, out of the heat and glare of the streets. He saw some one seated near the window, but he could not for the first moment make out who it was. He was greatly disappointed, however, to have the privacy of his first interview with his daughter interfered with, and though he was too polite to show his annoyance, yet it was with no friendly feelings towards the intruder that he made his way among the furniture to the spot where she sat. He had looked for a moment of attendrissement, of something like the old unbroken union between the father and child. Your husband is a disappointment, but your father will never forsake you; he did not mean to say this, would not have said it for the world; but he intended that it should be understood, and there was no doubt a melancholy enjoyment in the anticipation. Whoever this stranger might be he wished her at Jericho; nevertheless courtesy goes before all, and he went up to her, with the full intention of being friendly if he knew her, and at all events civil, as became a man in all circumstances towards a lady in his daughter’s drawing-room. Lydia looked up as he approached. She saw him well enough, her eyes being accustomed to the darkness. She was white as a ghost, and trembling, expecting, though there was not yet time, the return of Rita with an answer to her message—perhaps, if she was right, of Harry himself, and his recognition, and the clearing up of the whole matter. But when she saw only Mr. Bonamy, her heart seemed to stand still. She threw up her arms with a pained and wondering cry.
“Oh, is it only you? Oh, am I wrong, am I wrong, after all?”
The Vice-Consul was as much surprised as she was to find her there; and he was piqued, as an oldish (not very old) man, who knows himself to be a handsome man, notwithstanding his years, would naturally be by such an address; but he pulled himself together, and laughed, and bowed.
“It’s only I, as you say, Miss Joscelyn. I am very sorry to disappoint you. I daresay some one more interesting will soon be here.”
Lydia was so over-excited, so exhausted with the agitations of the night and the excitements of the morning, that she burst out crying while he was speaking. The Vice-Consul was confounded; but he was never more in his element than when administering consolation. He took her gently by the hand, and put her back into the seat from which she had risen. “My dear young lady,” he said, soothingly, “I am grieved to see you distressed. What is the matter? In what are you wrong?” Then he began to understand dimly that Lydia’s distress must be somehow connected with his own. He grew very grave, though he still held her hand with fatherly kindness. “If you have come to tell Rita anything unpleasant about her husband,” he said, “I am very, very sorry you should have thought it right to do so, Miss Joscelyn. I have heard it all from Lady Brotherton. I don’t deny that it has wounded me; but, after all, my daughter did not marry her husband for his relations, but for himself. He is the just the same in himself as he has been these nine, ten years. To tell me would have been right enough, but why vex Rita? She need never know anything about it. Neither, so far as I am concerned, is there any need to reproach Harry with it. I do not even intend to let him know that I am acquainted with the condition of his family. Let me persuade you, Miss Joscelyn—you ought to be of gentle mind, so young, and pretty, and gentle-looking as you are—to pretend this is only a common call, and not to say anything to Rita, or to him either, poor fellow. Rita is a girl of a high spirit; she might not forgive her husband. Come, come, let me take you back to Lady Brotherton; and forget that you have ever seen young Oliver, or his wife, or myself, or any one here.”
“Mr. Bonamy, you are very, very kind. We don’t say much in the north country, but I think I love you,” Lydia said.
A smile came over his face; even in such circumstances the Vice-Consul could not help being pleased. “This is very sweet and very pleasant, and I have no doubt the feeling would soon be mutual—if you will do what I ask you, what I beg of you. Let these young people alone. Why should you interfere with them? I hope the Olivers are decent people, at least, if nothing more.”
“The Olivers,” cried Lydia, hotly, “are poor folk; they are nobody; they have nothing to do with it. I will never more submit to call Harry by that name. I couldn’t do it even at first, though I couldn’t tell why.”
“Now what does this mean?” said Mr. Bonamy, quickly. “What does this mean? Is there some further story to be told? God bless my soul! what is it, young lady? You are not the sort of person to interfere and make mischief. If there was anything disagreeable to be told, why not send for her father and tell it to me?”
“There is no reason why it should be disagreeable. I may be wrong—I may still be wrong,” cried Lydia. “Oh, don’t speak for a moment that we may hear her step coming back! If he comes with her, then I shall know I am right. A few minutes will make me—I sent Mrs. Harry with a message to him. I thought he would like best, if it was true, to tell her himself. Oh, listen, listen! is there nobody coming? This was the message I sent: ‘Uncle Henry is dead, and he has left his property, and it will all be divided and lost to you if you do not come back.’ Did you hear anything? If he understands that, don’t you see?—you can judge for yourself—I shall be right; and mother, dear mother!” cried Lydia, with an outburst of tears.
Mr. Bonamy stood by her confounded. “Uncle Henry is dead, and has left his property? What else could Uncle Henry do? he could not take it with him if he is dead. If he understands that! Well, I do not understand it, that is one thing certain.”
“Oh, open one of those dreadful windows; that there may be a little light—a little light!” Lydia cried.
The Vice-Consul obeyed quite humbly; he had lost his standing-ground altogether, even the painful bit of soil he had got under his feet this morning. He seemed swimming in a sea of bewildered conjecture. He opened the persiani, throwing a broad bar of sunshine across the dark room: and then there ensued another pause. They waited in complete silence, he confounded, shuffling about, taking up things and putting them down, to the exasperation of Lydia’s nerves, who sat bolt upright and pale as her dress, with her eyes fixed upon the door.
No ordinary measure of time could be sufficient to calculate what this was; it was hours; it was weeks; it was minutes. Lydia had time to go over everything in her thoughts; to glance at the aspect of affairs at home; the consternation of Will and Tom; the happiness of her mother; the mingled wonder and delight of Joan. She had time to go through half-a-dozen scenes with Lionel; to speculate how her father would take it: to realise even old Isaac Oliver’s gape of astonishment when he heard that Harry had taken his name of all names in the world—before at last there came a sound, unfamiliar to her, but which Mr. Bonamy knew, the little click of the swing door at the end of the passage which communicated with the office. Then came the sound of steps. Lydia rose up to her feet to meet the decision whatever it was. She trembled so that she could scarcely stand, and seeing this the Vice-Consul, though not yet in charity with her, went to her side in his kindness, and drew her arm within his. “Lean upon me, my poor child,” he said. They stood on one side of the broad band of light which divided the room, and which, though it showed to them the other two who came in, also arm-in-arm, concealed them from the new-comers. Rita, tearful and excited but not melancholy, was clinging to her husband’s arm. He with an eager, pre-occupied face pressed forward across the light. “Confound that sunshine! who opened the window?” were the first words he said, then strode along across it, paying but little regard to Rita, whom he dragged after him. When he got face to face with Lydia he paused.
“Was it you that sent me that message?” he said. “Is it true?”
Lydia’s emotion fled in a moment at this matter-of-fact address. She drew her arm out of Mr. Bonamy’s, trembling no longer.
“It is true,” she said; “they have advertised and done everything to find you.”
“I know—I know. I saw that; but they never said why. And they would like to take it from me! Will and Tom—and their father.”
“For shame!” she said; “not father. He is the one that stands out—with mother, and Joan, and me.”
He had been quite steady and business-like, almost stern, up to this moment; now he suddenly fell a-laughing in the strangest way.
“What a united family!” he said, “Mother—and Joan—and you. Who are you? Little Liddy, the little girl at school, that poor mother always thought—but, poor soul! she thought that of me too.”
Lydia’s excitement was almost uncontrollable; but she was a North-country girl, and she kept herself down a moment longer.
“Joan always says still,” she said, “that there was a great deal of mother in you.”
And then he burst forth into a half shriek of laughter and sobs.
“Look here, I can’t stand it any longer,” he cried. “Mother—is living then, and all right?” He seized her by the shoulders, looked her in the face, kissed her almost roughly, brushing his beard along her smooth cheek. “I knew you the first moment,” he said, “you little thing! I knew you the first moment. You were always a clever baby from your cradle. I have often thought the last baby was like you. You were the sharpest little thing! Of course I knew nobody else could be Liddy Joscelyn. And you thought I belonged to old Isaac, eh? that is the best joke I ever heard. Old Isaac—is the old fellow living? And father—stood out for me? Well he ought to, for it is along of him——” Here Harry stopped a minute, put Lydia away, and looked round him upon the two silent spectators who regarded this scene with an astonishment beyond words. He made a pause, pulling himself up all at once. “Poor old father,” he said, “after all he’s done more for me than anyone (I called the boy after him, you can tell him). It is along of him—that I found the best friend and the dearest wife that ever was.”
And Harry gathered his Rita—who had been standing by with a countenance swept by all manner of emotions: now angry, now melting, wondering, bewildered, indignant, always chill with that sense of being left out, which is the most terrible of sensations to such as she—into his arms and kissed her, and put his hand over her forehead as if clearing some veil away. “You are not Mrs. Oliver any longer,” he cried; “that’s a good thing over. You’re Rita Joscelyn, and the best and the sweetest that ever did honour to the name. Isn’t she a little beauty, Liddy? What will mother say to her, and to the children?” Here poor Harry, overmastered by excitement and pleasure, fairly burst out crying, and kissed his wife over and over, sobbing, and bedewed her hair with his tears.
“You might let her speak to me, Harry,” said Lydia, crying a little in sympathy, but brightening and beaming too.
“This is all very astonishing,” said Mr. Bonamy. “You have talked a great deal in an unknown tongue, and kissing is all very well, Harry; but you owe a fuller explanation to me.”
Then Lydia stepped forth. “We are the Joscelyns of Joscelyn Tower—the real old Joscelyns whom everybody knows in the Fell country,” she said. “We are not quite so rich as we once were (but father has been doing so well lately,” she added, in a parenthesis to Harry) “and we live in the White House. He ran away ten years ago, and never has written, never has sent a word (oh, shame, Harry! and poor mother breaking her heart) all this time. But when I left home in November,” Liddy said, holding her head high, “to come abroad, I told them I should find him, I should bring Harry home; nobody believed me of course, but I have done it; and now, Mr. Bonamy, you know why I said I loved you. We are relations,” she said, holding out her hand; “we all belong to the same family now.”
The Vice-Consul was greatly touched; and he was deeply relieved at the same time in his own mind (though, if truth were told, a little, just a little, disappointed too). He took the hand she offered to him very gallantly, with his old-fashioned, paternal grace. “Then, my dear, I may as well follow Harry’s good example,” he said, stooping over her to kiss her forehead. “I am very glad to receive you into my family.” Yet he would have liked to have had his daughter all to himself. The Isaac Oliver business, which had seemed such a terrible downfall an hour ago, looked a little, just a little, to be regretted now. It was an unworthy thought, and Mr. Bonamy felt that it was so. He in his turn held out his hand to his son-in-law. “When you are at leisure,” he said, plaintively, “perhaps you will shake hands with me in your new capacity. Harry Joscelyn—is that your name now? Well, it is preferable to that of Isaac Oliver one must allow.”
As for Rita she was crying a little on her husband’s shoulder. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I like all things as they were. I shall never know who people are speaking to when they say Mrs. Joscelyn; and how are we to explain to——. We are not going to tell everybody all the story, I hope.”
This was a little perversity not to be got over all at once. She had not said anything to Lydia; she could scarcely forgive Lydia for being her Harry’s sister, for finding him out, for resembling the baby: she saw that herself now, but was angry with Benedetta for having discovered it, and with Lydia for having in that disagreeable way announced a private claim upon her (Rita’s) family. No doubt Ralph would be like her too, for he and the baby had always been said to resemble each other. Poor little Ralfino—Rita, who up to this moment had called him Raaf in defiance of all Italianisms, instantly conferred upon him the softening vowel and diminutive: Ralfo, Ralfino he should be henceforward, she decided in a moment; and she took no notice of Lydia. Papa, she said to herself, was doing all that was necessary in that way.
Thus the scene of the discovery, the restoration of Harry to his family, and his inheritance to its right owner, which according to all dramatic precedent ought to have been ecstatic, was not at all so, and ended in embarrassment and mutual annoyance. The results would be very advantageous in every way to the hero himself and his wife and children, and would not be advantageous, but the reverse to Liddy, who was at once so much the poorer by Harry’s discovery. But it was she who gained, not she who lost, who took the revelation unpleasantly. “You will have to go—to England I suppose,” she said, looking askance at the new-found sister, and clasping the arm of her husband; and there was a grudge in her tone.
“Yes, my darling; I must go and see my mother.”
“That is your first duty,” said Mr. Bonamy, almost severely; the severity was intended for his perverse child, but she took no notice of it. “Of course you must go to your mother. If I had known, my boy, that there was a mother in the case——”
“Oh! for heaven’s sake, papa, don’t upbraid him now! it is bad enough without that. When must you go? and why, now that I am strong as a little horse, why shouldn’t I go with you?” cried Rita, clasping his arm with both hers.
“I don’t know any reason, dear, except——” Harry turned appealing eyes upon Mr. Bonamy, who had stiffened into a man of stone.
“Except—your solemn promise,” said the father; “but that was thought very binding in my day.”
“In that case there is nothing more to be said, Sir,” said Harry, not without a shade of incipient offence; and then he turned to his wife. “It will only be for a very short time, my darling. I shall not be away from you, you may be sure, a moment longer than I can help.”
Oh, sublime selfishness of marriage! which looks like the most generous and perfect of sentiments to the two concerned; the bystanders scarcely saw it in the same light. The father, realizing that his child had to be consoled for being left a week or two to his sole company and tenderness; the sister, who had taken so much trouble to reinstate her brother in his fortune and family, finding out that he was to give to that family not a moment longer than he could help—looked at each other with a mutual understanding, which found vent on Lydia’s side in an uncontrollable laugh of mingled humour and disgust. “Mother would be pleased to hear you say so, Harry,” she cried, “after ten years. I think you might give her a day or two of your free will beyond that.”
Rita was very quick-witted, and she saw and was ashamed. She detached herself from her husband and drew near to his sister. “I daresay you don’t like me, d’avance, because I have the first right to him,” she said.
“I have never seen him since I was a child,” said Liddy, with dignity. “It cannot be supposed that it makes much difference to me. I was very anxious to find him for mother’s sake, and to let him have his property, because it was justice, but otherwise why should I fight with any one about him? he is a stranger to me.”
“Don’t say so, Liddy,” her brother cried.
“I must say so when I am asked such questions. Mrs. Harry does not seem to understand,” Liddy said.
There is nothing perfect in this world. How different, how very different, she had expected it all to be! She had expected perhaps that Harry himself would be a little gratified, that he would be touched by the faith in him of his little sister and her determination to find him. Lydia had herself forgotten that this determination had fallen much into the background in her recent wanderings. She thought her mind had always been full of it, and that this was the recompense of her devotion. She was hurt and wounded. Though she was Harry’s sister, and though she had brought him a fortune in her hand, she was still a stranger in Harry’s house, and his wife defied her. She could have cried this time in sheer mortification and injured feeling. “I will let them know that you are here,” she said with as much stateliness as she could muster. “I have done all that I suppose is in my power. I will not intrude upon anyone.” What a dreadful thing it is to be a woman and have that weakness of crying when you are hurt! Liddy kept her tears in her eyes only by main force, and could not altogether succeed in subduing the tremor in her voice.
At this moment, however, the door opened, and the servant appeared, introducing Lionel, who stared when he saw the party thus assembled. Lionel was not in the best of tempers. He had been making inquiries as best he could, and he had found all Lydia’s guesses confirmed. But he had gone back to find that she had stolen a march upon him, and he was exceedingly cross, so cross that he was sometimes very angry with, and at other times very sorry for, himself. When he had made his bow to Rita, and stared with a gloomy countenance at her husband, he turned to Lydia with suppressed passion. “My mother has sent me for you,” he said. “She wishes you to remember that everything must be ready early to be sent down to the steamboat. Time and tide will wait for no man, you know.” This was said with a little smile, as if he were beginning to perceive, and wanted at least to hide from the others, the vexation in his tone.
This made a diversion, and as the whole story had to be told him, the members of this strange family group were drawn nearer to each other in spite of themselves. Under cover of the little commotion of talk which got up, all of them sometimes speaking together, Rita, who began with her quick intelligence to realize the position, and to see her own ungraciousness, took the opportunity to draw a little nearer to Lydia. She kissed her when she went away. “I—I hope you will forgive me if I was bewildered,” she said: and Lydia forgave. But she was not the less stately when she left the party, feeling, with a little bitterness, that without her they would talk the matter over more at their ease. Lionel was stately, too. He made them his congratulations with the utmost gravity, as if pleasure were out of the question, and he took the earliest opportunity to remind Lydia a second time that his mother was waiting, and that the things must be sent to the boat. They went out of the house together in a sort of armed pacification, a truce hastily patched up, stalking side by side, not looking at each other. Going out into the street was a sort of solemnity to them, like steering out into the sea on a voyage in which they did not know what might happen. Anything might happen in it. They might quarrel for ever and ever, they might part not to see each other again. They might do anything—except walk quietly from the British Consulate to the Leone, where Lady Brotherton was waiting, fretting over Miss Joscelyn’s box, which was not locked, and of which no one could find the key.
OUT in the street, out upon the world, out upon a perfectly lonely sea, where they saw nobody and thought of nobody, but those two worlds of themselves, he and she, moving alone together, with a little space of clear daylight between them, the two parallel lines which can never come together so long as measurements last—For a time they moved on with no communication at all, each feeling very solitary, and unspeakably dignified and superior to all trivial thoughts and words. What could they have to say? What does he care? Lydia said to herself; what does anyone care but me? She had done her work, but she had not got much satisfaction out of it. It had estranged her friends from her, and everybody. Her mother would be pleased, that was always a little consolation to think of. Dear mother! and what if she were disappointed too? You never can tell how little satisfaction there is in a new thing till it has happened, she said to herself. In her preoccupation she stumbled over a crossing, over the rough pavement, and then her companion spoke.
“Take care; these little streets are so many traps. Will you take my arm till we get into the smoother way?”
“Thank you,” said Lydia, “it is not at all necessary. I did not notice where I was going.”
“You prefer not to be helped in anything,” her adversary said.
“Indeed, no; if anybody will help me, I am always very thankful,” Lydia replied.
And then he turned his eyes upon her. “I think you are mistaken in yourself,” he said, quickly, “we often are. You think women should be independent and manage their own affairs.”
Lydia raised her eyebrows a little.
“I was not thinking about women, or what they should do. I think everyone, woman or not, likes best to look after their own affairs themselves.”
“Do you think so? I have always been brought up to believe that it was a man’s part to take the rough work, and that a woman did well to accept his help.”
“Cousin Lionel,” said Lydia, “if you are angry because I went off to Mr. Bonamy’s myself, instead of leaving you to work things your own way, you are surely very unreasonable. I was sure of it; there was not any reason to doubt; and why should I bother you about what I could do so easily? It was my business; you could not be supposed to—take—much interest.”
“Trouble me!” he cried, “take much interest! Do you think there is anything you care for that I don’t take an interest in? What is the chief thing I have thought of ever since I knew you? You speak so much at your ease; I wish you would tell me that.”
“I hope it is nothing to be angry with me about,” said Lydia, with meekness, “but how can I know?”
“No, I suppose you don’t know,” he said, with almost a scornful tone, “you have only seen me every day these five months, and talked to me, and pretended to take some interest in me, as you say; and now you turn upon me and ask me how can you know? How can you help knowing? is what I should say.”
“Cousin Lionel, I don’t know why you should be angry. If I had waited for you this morning I should have lost my chance. There was so little time to do anything; and time runs away so fast when it is the last day.”
“Do you think I am talking only of this morning? What is this morning? It is all the time I complain of. It has just been the same all the time.”
And now it was Lydia’s turn to look round, this time in unfeigned surprise; but her glance at him, perhaps, gave her more information than his words: at least, there was a subtle tone of hypocrisy in the meekness with which she asked.
“Have I displeased you all the time?” with a little tragic accent of remonstrance. “I am so sorry,” she said.
“Sorry! and displeased! it is not words like those that will do any good,” Lionel cried.
Liddy looked at him again piteously, but perhaps in the puckers round her eyes, and the droop of her mouth, there was a dimple or two which the faintest touch could have turned into smiles. She shook her head.
“You are hard upon me, Cousin Lionel; you are angry about this morning, and then you tell me it is not this morning; but all the time; and when I say I am sorry (what else can I say? for I am very sorry, and so mistaken! I thought we were such friends!) you say, words like these will not do any good. What am I to say? It is a discovery I never expected to make, that I had been—disagreeable all the time.”
“I think you want to drive me out of my senses!” he cried.
Which, indeed, was very foolish; she had all the reason and force of the argument on her side, and he, having at some point in the altercation taken a wrong turning, got only further and further astray at every step he made.
Lydia by this time had recovered all her usual composure. When one party to a controversy gets hot and weak, the other becomes calm. She felt herself to have the best of it, and it was a pleasure to her, after her recent discomfiture, to have the upper hand, and find herself in the exciting position, not altogether un-enjoyable, of skilfully fencing and keeping off an agitated man’s self-disclosure. It agitated herself a little, but the circumstances strengthened her. Besides, whatever was going to be said, this was not the moment to say it, in the streets, with the Leone almost within sight. His self-betrayal gave her force to stand against him.
“Here we are,” she said, softly, “almost at home—if you can call the hotel home. Whatever I have done amiss, I hope you will pardon me. We shall be such a short time together now. Oh——!” for some one, darting forward, caught her with the very tears in her eye, the quaver in the tone. “Mr.—Paul; Signor——”
“Not me,” said Paolo, shaking his head; “I am born in Livorno, but except that I am an Englishman; Mees Joscelyn will not find it is necessary to say Signor to me. I have had a commission—from the bureau. I am in this direction, and I wait to pay my—homage—to lay once more my respects—from the heart, from the heart!” said little Paolo, laying his hand upon that organ, “at these ladies’ feet, and to ask if I can be of service. The Signor Consul has authorized me. I am known, well known, on the board of the vapore. I could arrange the baggage, select the cabins, what Mees Joscelyn will.”
Lionel repeated instinctively his movement of last night; he came a step nearer, as if to keep the anxious Italian off.
“We are much obliged to you, but our own servant has looked after all that,” he said.
Paolo’s eyes flashed a little. The Englishman was rude; but in Paolo’s experience Englishmen were very often rude, and he was not surprised. Englishwomen, that was a different matter. He gave his shoulders a little shrug, and turned to Lydia once more.
“A servant—that is one thing,” he said, with a wave of his hand, “there are many, and the travellers many. One pays not too much attention to servants; but me, I think I can command——” Paolo said this with an ineffable look of modest importance; and he added in a lower tone: “To make it more easy for these ladies to go away—that is not what I should wish to do; but one must forget one’s self, and there may come another time—perhaps?”
“Yes,” said Lydia, smiling. She was so glad to come to an end of the tête-à-tête, which was becoming so embarrassing, that she smiled with double sweetness upon Paolo. “Indeed I shall have more to do with Leghorn than I ever supposed. Mr. Oliver—who is your friend——”
“My friend—of my heart,” said Paolo, laying his hand once more on his much-decorated bosom. He had dressed himself in all his finest chains and buttons, and a beautiful waistcoat, that Lydia might see him at his best.
“Ah!—he is my brother,” Lydia said. She had begun to shake off the jarred and painful feelings that had spoiled her morning’s work. Daylight and ordinary life, and a new excitement between her and that, began to restore the perspective; and as she made this announcement the first really wholesome natural sense of pleasure came over her. It was Lionel who was out of perspective now, too close to her, overshadowing heaven and earth. But the other event began to appear in its natural size and aspect. Paolo’s state of wonder was unfeigned. The Italian was quick enough to observe the undercurrents around him on ordinary occasions; but Lydia had made too great and immediate an impression upon him to leave his eyes free for anything else.
“Your brother!” he cried.
“Tell me how he arrived here, as you told me last night; but I did not know all the meaning of it then,” said Lydia. “Tell me again how he came, and carried his own box.”
She was more than half in earnest, wanting to hear about Harry, and yet it was half a pretence; she could not help but be conscious of the figure at her elbow stalking along in silent disgust, ready to abandon her for ever, and all the plans connected with her; ready to seize the little Italian by his coatcollar and whirl him away into the sea or air, yet jealous of losing a word of what was said. Lionel walked along the street like an embodied thunder-cloud, and they were already at the door of the Leone, which thank heaven, he thought, would at least put an end to this. It did not do so, however, for Lydia in her perversity insisted upon carrying Paolo with her to Lady Brotherton, interrupting him in the midst of the narrative she had asked for, but which in her gradually increasing excitement about her other companion she could not listen to. She broke into it just as Paolo, with the water in his eyes, was recounting how he had thrown himself on Harry’s bosom and sworn eternal friendship. “Siamo amici, I said to him,” said Paolo. “What is mine is thine. I will be your caution; I will respond for you; I will present you——” “Come upstairs, Mr. Paul,” said Lydia, restless, “Lady Brotherton will be glad to have you to help us.” He stopped short, thus interrupted in the midst of his narrative, and it hurt poor Paolo. But next moment he smiled with his usual sweet temper, and followed her. Lionel could not help feeling that in the same circumstances he could have almost killed her—which, indeed, was the state of his mind now. And then there followed such an afternoon of trouble and excitement as drove Lionel nearly out of his senses. Lady Brotherton had to be told the strange story, and then Sir John, who could not understand it at all; and afterwards, in the midst of all the preparations for the start, “all Leghorn,” the indignant young man said to himself, poured down upon them. All Leghorn meant Harry and his family, and Mr. Bonamy, who came one after another in different degrees of excitement. Rita arrived first with her two youngest children and their nurse, to show to her new sister-in-law, and to make amends for her previous want of graciousness. “I could not understand it—how could I understand it?” she said, and she was magnanimous enough to point out the resemblance of the bambino to his aunt. Then came Harry to say that he had made hasty preparations to go home with his sister, and would join them that evening at the steamboat. And finally the Vice-Consul’s exertions brought some sort of enlightenment to Sir John, whose first idea was that Mr. Bonamy’s son-in-law wanted to marry little Liddy, though he had already a wife of his own. All these perpetual visitors kept the party in a whirl of commotion, and Lionel, at last driven to the end of his patience, sallied forth and walked about till the moment of departure came, all but cursing Harry, and vowing to himself that he would take no further trouble, but let Lydia depart as she came. Why should he take any trouble? His mother would not like it. They (his parents) would wish him, if he married, to marry somebody with money, somebody with position, somebody—— Ah! Here he took himself by the shoulders, so to speak, and shook himself fiercely, and called himself, “you fool!” as if there was any question of marrying anybody! as if she would have him! Was she not pouring contempt upon him? putting even that little hop-o’-my thumb before him, preferring a little Italian beggar, hung all over with jewellery! These were poor Lionel’s reflections as he wandered about the streets. And that other fellow, the brother, if he was her brother, was going with them; would talk to her, who could doubt it, the whole time, and never give a man a chance——! Lionel would have liked, without much hyperbole, to smother them all, or pitch them into the sea.
At last the moment of departure came. Rita, with a flush of excitement about her, her cheeks hot, her eyes shining, and without a tear, came to the steamboat with her husband to see him away. He whispered again in her ear that he would not stay a moment longer than he could help; that he would count the days he was away from her; that she must not worry about him, must not feel lonely.
“Lonely!” she cried, in a tone which wounded poor Harry deeply. “Oh no, I shall not be lonely. I mean to amuse myself very much. I shall go everywhere. I shall not miss you at all. Ser Paolo will take care of me.”
“You will have your father to take care of you, my darling,” Harry said, very gravely, with a little surprise; and then he added, with a laugh, “he will be glad to be rid of me for once, to have you all to himself. But Paul-o, all the same, will stand by you, I know,” he said, turning round to his friend lest his susceptible feelings should be wounded; “it is not that I doubt Paul-o—who will do everything.”
“Yes, everything,” Paolo said, with a fervent grip of his friend’s hand.
And Rita laughed. Why should she laugh? She did not shed a tear to part with him. Harry looked over the bulwark of the ship and watched his little wife standing in the boat which had brought them on board as long as he could make her out. The boatmen lay on their oars, and Rita stood up, waving her handkerchief, with Paolo by her side. These two figures, and after them all the features of the well-known scene, and then the very place itself, which was his home, which contained all his independent life, dropped away into the mists, into the distance. He had said to himself many a day that he would never go back; yet he was going back, severing himself, as he had done before, from everything he knew or cared for. And Rita had not seemed to care! He was not sentimental, but he turned away when there was no longer anything to be seen of Leghorn, with a little shiver, and a pang at his heart.
IT was a beautiful night, the stars shining like diamonds, like ethereal lamps in the sky, clear and crisp, with a twinkle and movement in them as of something living; the sea all in a ripple, in absolute peacefulness yet endless life, sweeping like a smooth, green, transparent flood of liquid metal under the bow, seething in white curd and spray behind, marking a long, moving line of white across its surface as the great boat rustled and fretted on. The air was so sweet, the sea so calm, that everybody stayed late on deck, except Lady Brotherton, who had placed herself at once on her sofa with her eyes closed, not to see the motion, of which, even when there was no motion at all, she was afraid. But Sir John sat on deck till it was late, enjoying the voyage greatly, and, in the absence of his wife, keeping his son near him, and addressing to him all his thousand questions. “’Shay, Lionel, what’sh that Consul fellow doing with Liddy, ’shgot a wife of hish own.” “You forget,” Lionel said, “that he’s her brother, Sir—Harry Joscelyn. Mr. Bonamy told you all about it to-day.” “Yesh, yesh, old Bonamy, easy-going old duffer. ’Shish own daughter—should take more care of her. You look after little Liddy; shgot wife of his own.” Lionel looked at the pair walking up and down with feelings it would be difficult to describe. It was easy to say, take care of little Liddy. Liddy was hanging on her brother’s arm, quite independent of him. They two were now the two who belonged to each other now. When they parted in England it was her brother who would take Lydia home. She had no need of Lionel to talk to, to make a companion of; Harry was much better—a novelty, and all women like novelty—and then he was her brother; what could be more natural and right? Lionel took to theorizing about women, as men naturally do when ill-used by them. This was the kind of thing to be expected from these unaccountable creatures, whom, of course, no man could understand—though every man is surrounded by them all his life; triumphant folly of sex which transcends all experience! He railed at women in his heart, because Lydia was occupied, and had no attention to give him. He heard her laugh, and the soft current of her voice running on continually, with a kind of maddening contempt. She leant on her brother’s arm, which she never did on his—Lionel’s. It made his heart sick to see her thus enjoying herself, enjoying the balmy night. There was nothing so bad that he did not think it as the hours of the delightful twilight, the soft, early night, flew by. Perhaps it was not her fault: were not all women the same? treacherous, fickle, blown about by every wind—off with the old whenever there was something new to take to; mysterious, worthless, untrustworthy creatures, who, however sweet they might be one day, were never to be relied upon for the next; who would part from you with the tenderest of farewells and meet you next time as if you were the merest acquaintance! Lionel felt that he hated the whole sex as he stood by his father’s side watching these two about the decks. When they passed she would nod at him, or give him one of her easy smiles, not in the least ignoring his position, recognizing it, and coolly suffering it so to be. At last he had to withdraw, helping Thomas to move his father into the cabin reserved for him, and consequently losing sight of them for a moment. When he returned he could not see them, and the rage in him burned fiercer than ever. Then, on the bridge, high up against the sky, he discerned something like Harry’s figure, with a red tip of a cigar appearing above the collar of his warm coat. Harry had become chilly after ten years of Italian life. Lionel laughed at this effeminacy. He liked to feel that his own coat was thin, yet quite enough for his muscular Anglicism. No doubt she had gone in, retired for the night, and all that was out of the question. He did not specify to himself what all that was. He had not the heart even for a cigar. If he smoked he would come across that fellow, and be compelled to talk to him. After all, it was a great mistake to dis-inter relations whom you know nothing about. One might be nice—though even of that he felt far from certain—but the rest were almost sure to be bores, like this fellow. Indeed, the brothers were all bores, and without any breeding. It was a mistake to have taken any trouble about them, or ever to have sought them out at all. “Confound them!” he said to himself, facing the breeze, diving his hands deep down to the bottom of his pockets, and angrily gazing into the night.
“Confound whom, Cousin Lionel?” said a voice by his side.
Lionel started violently, then turned round. “Oh! are you there? I did not know where you were. I thought you had gone to bed.”
“Must one go to bed? They say we get to Genoa quite early; and it is such a lovely, lovely night.”
“Do you think so?” he said, softened; “so do I. If you will stay with me, I don’t think you need go to bed; but if you are going off again with that fellow—I mean, of course, with your brother——”
“It is quite delightful,” said Lydia, with energy, “to have a brother—you know, a real brother—a little like one’s self: not elderly, and worldly, and Westmoreland, like Will and Tom.”
“I thought you were so fond of Westmoreland,” said Lionel.
“Ah! so I am; but not that kind. Now Harry is—you can’t think what Harry is——”
“I know what you want me to think him—the most disgusting interloper, the worst nuisance in the world. It is quite unaccountable of him to go and leave you alone here. Doesn’t he know how a lady should be taken care of? In a common steamboat when there are all sorts of people——”
“I never knew you were so ill-natured before,” said Lydia in a plaintive tone. “Poor Harry! he took me to the cabin-door; he thinks I am there now. I came up afterwards—well—because it is hot there, because it is such a lovely night, because the sea is so beautiful—look at that light on it—and, then, because I thought you would perhaps think it civil to come and say good night.”
“Ah, Liddy!” he cried, seizing her hand and drawing it through his arm, “come and walk about a little. I thought I was never to have a chance of saying a word to you to-night. I have been swearing at everything and everybody.”
“I thought so,” said Liddy, with a little laugh, “from the expression of your face.”
“And you laughed—at my torture——”
“Would you have had me cry? What could I do? I could not take you from Sir John; and then you never looked as if you wanted to have anything to say to us. Well,” said Lydia, stopping short, “now all the purposes of civility are fulfilled, and we can say good night.”
But they had not said good night full two hours after, when the short voyage was almost over, and the lights of Genoa stretching round the whole breadth of the lovely bay in an ineffectual struggle with the dawn, began to rise upon their dazzled eyes. Then after a little struggle Lydia made her escape. “What will Lady Brotherton think? It must be three o’clock in the morning, and how can I face her? She will see it in my eyes, and she will not like it. Oh! why didn’t we think of that sooner? They will not like it, neither she nor Sir John; for I am nobody, Lionel.”
“Nobody? you are Liddy—that is enough; and then you forget,” he said, with a slight sense of humour, “you are a Joscelyn.”
“Yes, that is true,” said Lydia, very gravely, “I am a Joscelyn; but we are not at all what we used to be. Being Joscelyns,” she added, mournfully, “we are rough country people.”
“You a rough country people! You are Liddy,” he said.
“Oh, what is the good of saying that over and over again! Liddy! what is Liddy? an ugly old-fashioned name. We should have thought of that sooner. They will not have me,” she said.
“No, I hope not. It is I that must have you,” said Lionel, and he took no notice of the fact that it was morning; but, to be sure, there was nobody except the sailors about. He walked with her to the door of the cabin as the deceived Harry had done. How much had passed since then! Liddy thought with shame and self-reproach, as she stole into the darkened shelter where a peevish little lamp was still burning, that it would never have happened had she not given him that opportunity. She had given him the opportunity. She ought to have stayed in the cabin and prevented all that followed. It was her fault; but perhaps, though she felt guilty, she did not feel so penitent as she might have done. Lady Brotherton by dint of shutting her eyes had gone peacefully to sleep, which was a thing she professed never to do on board ship. Lydia retired to rest; she stole out of her gown as quiet as a mouse, and compunctious and guilty, but very happy, crept into her berth. The steamer was coming to anchor with great jars and creakings, and heavy footsteps overhead; and by and by Lydia’s drowsy eyes, so full of happiness and freshness, yet soft weariness and dreaminess, closed in spite of her. She did not suppose that she could have slept on such a night.
But next day was much more difficult to get through. The honest girl did not feel that she could look Lady Brotherton in the face. As long as they were apart, the position, though painful, was possible; but, when they were together, Lydia was so changed from her usual aspect that Lady Brotherton could not avoid noticing the alteration. “Liddy, my child, something is the matter. Are you ill?” she said.
“No, Lady Brotherton.”
“Nervous then—this new brother does not quite fit in with your ideas? You ought to have calculated upon that, Lydia. People cannot be separated for ten years, and fall into one another’s ways again in a moment; though I think he is very nice and very gentlemanly myself.”
“It is not that, Lady Brotherton.”
“What is it then, my dear? You are not a bit like yourself. You are sorry, a little, to part with us? So am I, my sweet—dreadfully sorry; but it must only be for a little while. And, then, you know you are going home.”
“Oh! Lady Brotherton, my heart is breaking! It is not even that. It is that I have got a secret, and you will not be pleased.”
They were sheltering in Sir John’s deck cabin from the heat of the sun, the steamboat ploughing peacefully on its further way to Marseilles, the journey approaching its last stage, and the time of separation drawing near. Lydia’s eyes were full of tears; she covered her face with her hand; the other was clasped in that of the kind friend whom she felt she had betrayed.
“A secret—how can you have a secret? You have never been away from my side. I suppose it must be something about love, Liddy—that is the only secret at your age. And why should I not be pleased—unless you have made an unworthy choice?”
“Oh, no, not that—too good—too good.”
“Lionel, go away; we don’t want you just now. Liddy has something to tell me.”
“It is better that I should tell you for her, mother. She will not let the secret be kept a day. I wanted to put off till—we parted: in case you should be, as she thinks, displeased: though I can’t believe you will be displeased.”
“Lionel!” Of course, from the time he had begun to speak Lady Brotherton had perceived but too well what the secret was. She loosed her hold of Lydia’s hand, which lay white and passive in her lap after she had withdrawn hers, with a kind of appeal in it. Lady Brotherton’s colour went and came. Hard words came to her lips; but she looked at her son’s face and paused. “I am displeased, more than displeased; and your father will never consent to it,” she said.
Lydia did not say a word, but she sighed and took her hand away, to clasp it with the other in that pathetic gesture, “the trick of grief,” which she had learned from her mother. As for Lionel, an only son and spoilt child, he took matters with a high hand.
“My father will consent gladly enough if you consent, mother,” he said; “and what did you expect? You have thrown us together constantly for five months. You must think me a wretched creature if you thought I could not manage to persuade her to like me—a little, with all the opportunities we have had.”
“It is not that,” said Lady Brotherton, with simplicity, falling into the snare, “any girl might like you; of course there is nothing wonderful in that.”
“And, you see,” he said, “unfortunately I loved her—before we ever started at all.”
“Before! and why didn’t you warn me? and I who have been saying you were so safe, and never thought of each other. Liddy! Liddy! you have deceived me! You would never look at him, never amuse yourself as you did with the others, you were always so serious! And pray was it going on all the time, and was that only dust thrown in my eyes?”
“I have never deceived anyone,” Liddy said, with a proud elevation of her head. She could not say, even in her own defence, what the cause of her serious treatment of her lover was.
“And how was it settled at last?” Lady Brotherton said. “Since we started? She has never been away from me night or day.”
This produced a slight flicker of suppressed laughter even in Lydia’s depressed bosom.
“She did not leave the deck till we were in harbour this morning; I kept her by force,” Lionel said.
“Well, that is the most wonderful of all,” cried the not hard-hearted mother; “did you get into your berth by the port-hole? for I declare I never closed my eyes all night, you know I never do—and I never once missed you. I believe you have dreamed it all,” Lady Brotherton said.
THE rest of the journey was hurried and feverish. Lady Brotherton was not hard-hearted; she melted every day when in Liddy’s company, and under the influence of her son’s persuasions and the sight of his happiness; but in the night hardened again, occupying herself with reminiscences of former hopes, and summoning up the ideal woman whom she had intended Lionel to marry, a girl who should be noble if possible, rich and beautiful, and with the highest connections, adding to the dignity of the house of Brotherton, as well as the happiness of its future head; and in this alternation the long journey was got through. There was a night in the railway between Marseilles and Paris, a night at Paris, a night in London, in every one of which this freezing process was performed. Every morning the same round had to be gone over again; by noon the ice was melted; by evening Lady Brotherton would listen between tears and smiles to her son’s picture of his future life and all the happiness she would have in her daughter; and would kiss Liddy and bid her good night almost with an enthusiasm of tenderness. But before morning all this was undone, and she got up as unwilling as ever. By common consent Sir John was told nothing of it while the journey lasted. The information was only to be given him when he was safe at home, and his fatigues over. It was evening when Lydia, escorted by Harry, left finally the party of which she had so long formed part, and with which now her fate was linked so closely. She had stayed two days in London, days during which Lady Brotherton had been very kind to her—in the afternoon. And she was very kind to her on that evening, when she took her in her arms in a farewell embrace. She cried over Liddy, and called her my child, and bade God bless her.
“I don’t know what I shall do without you. It will be like losing my right hand,” Lady Brotherton said. And Lionel, as was natural, took a still more tender leave at the railway.
“I shall not be long after you,” he whispered, with his head projected half-way into the carriage. Liddy shook her head.
“I don’t build any hopes on that. Your mother will——”
“What will my mother do? If you think I will allow myself to be coerced by anyone——”
“But I shall!” said Lydia. “It must never, never be, Lionel, unless she is pleased.”
“She will be pleased; but it shall be anyhow, whether she is pleased or not.”
“Oh, no,” Lydia said.
“Oh, yes, yes! and I shall have the last word,” he cried. This little contention went on till the very moment of their parting, and Lydia put down her veil and cried gently when it was over, and the darkness had closed over her and her train, and all that chapter of her life was over. Was it over? for ever and ever done with, not one last moment still left between her and the blank of the elder world? It was dreadful, she knew, to feel as she did, to think of her home with despair, and all those lingering days which would pass without an incident, without a break, in dread monotony and quiet, nothing happening but a visit from Joan, nothing even to be afraid of but a fit of temper on her father’s part. She was frightened by the prospect. It took away her breath. “Mother, dear mother!” she said to herself, with a gasp of self-disgust; that poor mother would be happy to-day thinking of her child’s return; she would go all over the house to see that everything was in order for Liddy. There would be flowers gathered, and fresh curtains hung, and cakes made, and butter churned, and cream put upon the table for Liddy. And Liddy, she cried to herself, with an ache in her heart, Liddy would not care! Oh, the hypocrite she would have to be; the pretences she would have to make for love’s sake! She must look happy whether she was happy or not; she must make believe even to be thankful to get home again. At this Liddy cried still more behind her veil. Harry observed her with curious eyes. He was very much interested in his little sister, and he thought he understood women—not like Lionel, who pretended that they were inscrutable; but then Harry was a married man.
“You don’t seem to be very cheerful about going home,” he said, at last.
“Oh, yes, very happy,” said Liddy, and cried; “It is only—such a change—Wandering about has been so different—and one never knows—”
Here she broke off, and made a vehement effort to be cheerful. “You will find it very different, too.”
“Yes, I shall find it very different; but I am always sorry for a girl—we can get away, but you can’t. You have never said a word to me, Liddy, but I am not so blind as not to see how things are. Are the objections—on their side?”
“I don’t know that there are objections. Yes, I suppose they are on their side. But how can I ever leave mother?” the girl cried, waking up to the other side of the question. She had never thought of it before, but now stared at her recovered brother, very pale, with large, wide-open eyes.
“Poor mother!” he said, softly. By dint of having children himself Harry had come to a little understanding. “She will never stand in anyone’s way,” he said. He began to perceive a little what life was to some souls. She had been happy in little Liddy, and now Liddy was going too. She would not struggle, but resign the last, with one more pathetic wringing of her hands. She had wrung those hands often for him, and he, more than any, had wrung her heart, and had thought little of it; but somehow he perceived it now. She would stand in nobody’s way. She would give up, having given up all her life; and now there would be no compensation possible, nature herself would be against her. A great pang of pity was in his heart for his mother. She did not know yet what was in store for her. Whoever was happy it must always be her fate to suffer for them all.
The rough little country phaeton, which Harry remembered long years ago, was waiting for them in the early morning at the station. Nobody knew that Harry was coming. The man who drove it stared at him. It was none of the young masters he knew (middle-aged Will and Tom being still indifferently called t’ young masters at the White House), and yet there was a look of the young masters, and of the old master, too, about this finely dressed (as Robin thought), foreigneering gentleman, wrapping himself in his fur-lined coat against the chill freshness of the morning. Was it some one Miss Liddy had picked up in her travels? Liddy had a perception, as she got into the carriage—or, rather, remembered afterwards, that she had perceived other people, strangers, getting out at the little country station, which was not a very usual thing; but she was excited and preoccupied, and did not stay to look who they were, or even notice them much, at the time. She had not written home, except the merest intimation of her return, since she had found her brother, and now she was a little alarmed at her own reserve, wondering what her mother would say, whether she would know him at once, and what effect the discovery would have upon her. Such things had been known as people dying of joy. She began to grow alarmed and very nervous; and Liddy looked round upon everything, to tell the truth, with troubled and doubtful eyes. She was afraid even of the sight of the home landscape, the grey hills, the misty valley, the limestone houses, and dividing dykes, which were so very different from everything she had been seeing. But it was a beautiful morning, and all this grey northern world was bathed in the early glory of the sun; and to Lydia’s great relief the country had not grown smaller, or the hills insignificant, or the sky dirty or prosaic, as people in Italy said. The blue was pale, but still it was heavenly blue; the white mists on the hills, here and there breaking away like the opening of a prison, unfolding on both sides and showing the grey slopes, the stony peaks, the lonely stormy Fells, were as full of poetry and dramatic life as ever. The stream still looked bold and rapid, the village friendly, nestling about the church and over the bridge. “It is not a bit like Italy,” said Liddy, to her brother. He felt the sharpness of the morning air as he never would have done had he stayed among the Fells. “No, you can be quite confident on that subject,” Harry said.
“But it is just as fine as ever,” cried Lydia, with a little enthusiasm. “It is not small nor contracted, nor ugly, as I feared. It is finer than it used to be. These are real hills, after all; and it is so broad, and so pure, and such a delightful air. What would you give in Tuscany for air like that?”
“We should die of it in a month,” Harry said, buttoning his furred coat at the throat.
Lydia was almost angry. He had been there so long, he had got choke full of Italian prejudice. But she was thankful, very thankful, to find that the country-side was still pleasant in her own eyes. And now they drive through the village, one or two early risers looking with expectant faces out of the windows and waving their hands to her as she passes, all with a look of surprise at the strange gentleman in his fur coat, quietly smoking his cigar behind: and the river is crossed, and they come within sight of the White House. Well! there was no doubt it looked small: she had been sure it must look small, grey and homely, and undistinguished, scarcely discernible in its whiteness, which was grey, like everything here, from the slope of the Fell-side. But Lydia had no time to make remarks of this description to herself, for immediately at the door there appeared a slim and tremulous figure, with clasped hands, looking out; and she gave a cry of uncontrollable joy and excitement, and sprang down, almost before the carriage stopped, from her seat, and into the arms of her mother. No, no! there was no change there! For a moment all her depression and heaviness, and sense of guilt and baseness, in the thought that her return was no pleasure to her, all melted away in real natural happiness to see that worn face, and feel the clasp of those tremulous arms again.
“Oh, Liddy, my darling! it’s been long, long! but here I have you again, my own!”
“Oh, mother! why did I ever leave you?” cried the girl, and they clung together as if they would never part.
Mrs. Joscelyn had no eyes for anything but her child. She was about to lead her in with her arm round her.
“They will all be out in a minute, Liddy; but never mind, my pet, you’ll see them later, and they’ll bring in your boxes and all your things. Come in, come in, you must be tired with your night’s journey—and let me look at you; I want no more, but just to look at you, you’re better than Italy to me.”
“Mother,” Lydia said, holding back, “I have brought some one with me—a gentleman; you must give a welcome to him too.”
“A gentleman!” Mrs. Joscelyn gave a little sigh of disappointment. “It will be Lionel. Yes, I am glad to see him; but I should have liked you all to myself this first morning. He knows he is welcome, my dear.”
“It is not Lionel, mother; it is some one whom I met—in Italy.”
Mrs. Joscelyn began to tremble a little, and looked earnestly in her daughter’s face, but not with any suspicion of the truth.
“I will try—to give anyone a welcome, my darling; if you love him, and if it is for your sake.”
Harry had got down from the phaeton like a man in a dream. He gazed about him at the place which was so familiar, yet so strange, as if he had dropped from the skies, remembering everything all in a moment, his boyhood, his old childish holidays, his last night. He remembered the foolish exaggerated passion with which he stood, furious, shut out, before that closed door. He was full of agitation, of compunction, of wonder, at his own boyish unreasonableness, and at the long obdurate closing of his heart, which could not have been, he said to himself, had it not been full of other things. His heart beat as he looked at his mother, and heard the cry with which she clasped to her her other child. And Liddy was going to forsake her too, poor woman, poor mother! Somehow he thought more of this than of all the trouble he had himself brought upon her. He stood at a little distance, keeping his furred coat closely round him, stamping his feet a little to get them warm. Had he lived always on the Fells, he would have wanted no furred coat, and felt no cold in his feet. Then Lydia beckoned to him, and he went towards them. It was all he could do to keep calm. “I am sure the gentleman is very welcome, Liddy,” he heard his mother say, in her tremulous voice. He came up to them where they still stood in the doorway. Something about his air, about his general aspect, startled her, though she was so pre-occupied, and Harry did not know how to contain himself as his eyes met hers. She gave him a smile, a little forced, with her lips, but her eyes more sincere, betrayers of her heart, investigated him with anxiety and wonder. He could not meet them without betraying himself. He took the hand she held to him, and bowed over it and kissed it, as he had learned to do in Italy; and he felt as he did so that the worn white hand, which he thought he must have recognised had he seen no more of his mother, trembled. She said, “Come in, Sir,” with a quaver in her voice; “Come in—you are kindly welcome,” and tremulously led the way into the hall he remembered so well, and opened the parlour door. The fire was burning brightly within, the table laid for breakfast, everything as if he had left it the day before. Mrs. Joscelyn would have had her guest, who had set her all a-tremble, yet whom she thought she welcomed reluctantly, enter before her, in old-fashioned politeness; but when he held back, went in precipitately, holding Liddy by the hand. She turned round instantly to look at him again.
“Liddy—you have not told me—the gentleman’s name?” she said, feeling her head go round. “Liddy! I think—I must have seen him before.”
Then Harry could keep himself in no longer. He loathed a scene like every Englishman, but he forgot this, as even Englishmen do in moments of extreme feeling. He fell down on his knees before her, not knowing what he did. “Mother! will you forgive me?” he said. And he did not well know what followed, till the air cleared a little again, and the day came back, and they had put her in the great chair, her face like death, her eyelids quivering, her lips trembling and incapable of speech. She had given a great cry of “Harry! Harry!” which startled all the house.
Then some one else came noisily clattering down the stairs, crossing the hall with a heavy foot. “Where is my little Liddy?” Ralph Joscelyn said; and he added with a certain rough sympathy as he kissed his child, “I told her it was more than she was up to. Let her be, let her be—she will come round. I wanted her to bide in her bed, and I would bring you to her there. Well, and so you’re back, my lass—and welcome! There’s nobody like you to mend her. Did you bring—a doctor with you all the way?”
Then there was a pause; nobody spoke to give any explanation. “Did you bring a doctor with you,” Joscelyn repeated, with a sudden excited burst of laughter, “all the way? or who may this be?”
Harry turned round and came forward into the light, holding out his hand. “You turned me out last time I was here, father,” he said, not able to forego the gratification of this taunt; “I ought to have asked your leave first before I came back now.”
Ralph Joscelyn stood and stared, a dark red colour coming over his face. He looked uncertainly from Liddy to the stranger. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said shortly; then, “Do you mean this is—Harry? that’s what your mother meant, shrieking out, disturbing everybody in the house. Look to your mother, Liddy! Well! you’ve been a long time coming back. You seem,” he said, looking at the new-comer from head to foot, “to have done well for yourself.”