IT was like a play the intercourse which went on between these two; the perpetual aggressions of the girl and defences of the young man, the troubled spectatorship of the father, who saw that slave of his word resisting, fighting always, more or less feebly, but yet resisting all the agaceries, all the temptations, which a spirit of mischief could throw in his way. Sometimes the sight was laughable, sometimes it was almost tragic, to the looker on; and he was much disturbed at the same time on his own account, not knowing what Rita meant by it all. “Take care what you are doing,” he would say to her, with mingled pity and alarm—pity for the young man, alarm for himself and her. “What am I doing, papa?” Rita would ask, with the greatest innocence. “That is exactly what I can’t tell,” poor Mr. Bonamy said. But his warnings never came to more than this. And nothing in all her life had so amused Rita as her torture of this unfortunate young man. One day they happened to be alone for a little while, Mr. Bonamy having been called away. It was on a Sunday evening, after dinner, a day when the Bonamys, following the old-fashioned English rule, were always alone. Harry had avoided opportunities of being alone with Rita as much as lovers generally scheme for that privilege, but to-day there was no help for it. She was seated at the open window in her usual dress of vapoury white; the summer was advancing, and it would soon be time for the removal of the household to the country, where they went every year. Mr. Bonamy had been called away, quite unexpectedly, to his own dreadful vexation and the terror of Harry, but to Rita’s secret delight. The night-air puffed the white curtains over her head and about her white, half-visible figure. The window looked out upon the garden, and there was a little moisture of the sea in the air. Harry was standing at the other side of the window, half concealed by the floating veil of the curtain. Rita was half buried in a great chair. A shaded lamp stood on a table in the other part of the room, but that was all, not light enough to see each other by. There had been a somewhat long silence, and Harry was trying hard to break loose from this enchantment and go away. But his heart was faint with the sweetness of it, poor fellow! and he could not get free, especially now that they were alone. If it could have been helped, he would not have stayed; but he had not been able to help it, and it was sweet. He was snatching a fearful joy, not saying anything, scarcely daring to breathe. Then into the soft silence came her voice.
“Mr. Oliver, they tell me summer nights in England are so much sweeter than here. What are those long twilights? I have read about them, but I don’t understand it. Tell me.” He could make out that she leaned forward in her chair, putting her hands together, which was a way she had.
“I don’t think,” said Harry, catching his breath, “that anything can be sweeter than the evenings here.”
“Ah, but there is a difference; tell me. You know that I am never to go to England,” said Rita, plaintively; “though I remember you said you would not be afraid to take me. What made you say that, Mr. Oliver? perhaps you forget that you ever did.”
“Oh, no; I don’t forget.”
“You never would enter into any particulars; but I am glad at least that you don’t forget. Now papa is away, we may talk of it. It always hurts papa when I speak of England. So tell me—tell me quick—how was it that you thought you could make it safe? Ah, how I wish you could!” she said, clasping her hands.
Harry said never a word. His heart was thumping so against his breast that he thought every moment it would burst forth from that uneasy house. Now it got into his throat, and seemed to choke him; he could not speak.
“You don’t say anything,” said Rita, with again a little tone of complaint. “Do you think that is kind, or fair? You rouse my expectations, and then you never say another word. I have thought of it all this time, and always wondered if you would ever tell me. How could Mr. Oliver manage to take me to England without danger? that is what I have always been saying to myself. What, Mr. Oliver! won’t you say a word?”
Here there burst a cry from Harry’s breast. “Don’t torture me,” he said; then collecting all his strength, “It was my presumption. I thought only that to take—the most precious care of you——”
His voice shook, and at last his little torturer felt that she had got almost to the end of his powers.
“That is a very pretty way of saying it, Mr. Oliver; precious care; it is not slang, is it? I am sure you would be kind—very, very kind.”
“Oh, kind!” cried poor Harry, grasping unconsciously the white curtains that kept blowing between him and her, in his strong, hot hands.
“Don’t you like the word? I think it is such a nice word. There is nothing like it in Italian, and you can apply it so widely. You can be kind to a horse or a dog; and then to children, and sick people and poor people; and then—to everybody—me. You have always been, ever since I knew you, very kind to me.”
“Don’t say so—don’t say so—not that word,” Harry cried.
“But there is no other word half so good. Other words express other feelings; kind means, just kind. There is nothing else expresses it. English is a wonderfully fine language. It is so strong and so trustworthy. You feel as if you could believe it, every word. Mr. Oliver,” said Rita, in her little, soft, insinuating voice, “did you really, really believe that—that I might go to England, if—someone were to take care of me, such care as you call precious; but, then, who would do that? not papa, for he is so frightened. No one I know.”
“Miss Bonamy, I must say good night,” said Harry, very shortly, taking himself out of the floating curtain, almost tearing it down in his agitation.
“Good night! before papa comes back? Oh, but that would be unkind. Don’t. Why should you run off in such a hurry in the very middle of our talk?”
“Because,” he said, with the crushed curtain like a wisp in his hands, “I can’t stay—I mustn’t stay. Forgive me, and, if you will, excuse me: and—good night!”
He was rushing away, when she put out her hand. He saw that, though there was so little light. He could not refuse to shake hands with her; and instead of leaving the pressure to him, she took hold of his hand for a second, lightly but firmly detaining him. “Mr. Oliver,” she said, with that little plaintive tone, “you should not run away.”
Harry was hoarse with agitation and distress. That soft, light touch of detention made him wild. “I must fly,” he said, “fly! Do you think I want to go? I must fly, and come no more.”
And he turned and disappeared like an arrow, as swift, but not so noiselessly, stumbling through the dark room. She lay back in her chair and listened to him all the way rushing down the stairs, shutting the great door with a clang. Then his steps were audible along the street hurrying away. The very foot, Rita thought, spoke English among the other footsteps. She seemed to hear them ever so far off, hurrying, flying. She was a spoiled child. She had not succeeded in her wicked attempt, and some other feeling mingled with the childish disappointment which provoked and mortified her. When the Vice-Consul came back, not without a great deal of anxiety in his mind, he found her still sitting there, crying as if her perverse heart would break. It gave him a mingled sense of fright and relief to see that there was no one else in the room; but when he found that Rita was crying, his foolish, fatherly heart was melted altogether. He hurried across the half-lighted room. “What is the matter, my darling, what is the matter? Where is Oliver? Is it his fault?” he said.
“Papa,” cried Rita, with sobs, “do not speak to me of Mr. Oliver; he is a clod, he is a stone. It is not a bit true what you told me of him. He must have been laughing at you—or perhaps at me. It is not a bit true.”
“What is it that is not true? My pet, this young fellow has been saying something to vex you? Bless my heart! he shall go to-morrow if he has broken his word and said anything to annoy you.”
And the Vice-Consul, very wroth, drew a chair to the side of Rita’s, and put his arm round her, soothing her with soft words and caresses, and launching thunderbolts of anger at the supposed culprit. Rita cried softly for some time on her father’s shoulder. Then she interrupted him, putting her hand upon his mouth.
“Papa, don’t; you don’t know. What provokes me is different. It is not because he said anything. Listen,” said Rita, putting her lips to his ear; “I know it is not true what he said to you. It can’t be true, because I have tried him and tried him, and he won’t say anything. He has no feeling at all in him, and it cannot be true.”
“Rita! Rita! what are you saying?” Mr. Bonamy cried.
The horror in his voice brought her to herself. She sat up suddenly, drying her eyes. “Well, papa, it is your fault. You gave me a puzzle to make out. I thought it would be fun; but it is not fun. As for Mr. Oliver, he is just an excellent, trustworthy Englishman. You need not fear that he will ever be carried away. As for feeling, I don’t think he knows what it is. He is English—English all over.” She clapped her hands together to give emphasis to her sentence, like a true Italian, which by turns she was.
“Yes, he is English—very English. I thought you liked everything that was English,” the surprised father said.
“And so I do; but what does it matter if you will never, never let me go to England? Take me to England, papa!”
“My darling! when you know what my feeling is on that subject—anything but that, Rita; ask me anything but that.”
“Well,” she replied, “Mr. Oliver said there would be no difficulty about it; he said he would take the most precious care of me. Is that slang, papa?”
“Slang? bless my heart, it sounds like something quite different to me,” cried the Vice-Consul, frowning. But Rita once more put her hand upon his mouth.
“You know better than I do,” she said, demurely. “I could not be sure which it was; but you may make yourself quite comfortable, papa, for Mr. Oliver is very conscientious, and never said a word. I begin,” she said pensively, “to understand English now.”
“Rita, I think you must be taking leave of your senses. You begin to understand English! your own language!”
She nodded her head a great many times in reply.
“Yes, I begin to understand it,” she said. And this was all he could get out of her. She began presently to talk upon other subjects, and kept him amused all the rest of the evening, and Harry was not mentioned again between them.
But Harry himself, poor fellow, went home like the wind, or rather like a straw blown before the wind; hastening, without any apparent movement of his own, to the bare rooms which were his only refuge. He arrived there panting like a man pursued, and shut his door as if it were a fence between him and his pursuers. He could not have explained to himself why he did this, for Rita, though she had certainly assailed him, had not come after him through the streets, as by his appearance one might have thought she had done, forcing him to his best speed. But when he sat down and thought it all over, though Harry was excited to the highest degree, it could scarcely be said of him that he was unhappy. He was breathless with the excitement of his escape. He said to himself that he must not go again; that he would not run such risks again, that another time he must betray himself; but all the time, underneath everything, he had the consciousness that his very flight had told his story as effectually as words could have done it, and that she could not now be at any loss to know what was the moving spring of all his recent life. He felt that she had suspected him all these days. He knew that she had meant to surprise his secret somehow, whether in simple love of mischief and curiosity, or whether with some other motive, who could tell? but certainly this was what she had been doing: and there dawned upon him a light of something which was not exactly hope, but which yet warmed and brightened his horizon, and made the whole world somehow a better, a less heavy and tedious place. He did not say even to himself that anything definite was in his hope; what he said was that he could not go back, that he would run no more risks, that, whatever might be said to him on the subject, his policy was to keep away. But this had no such tragic meaning to him as it had on the previous occasion, when his life had been cut off in half, and his heart, he thought, rent in twain. If he was ever made to go back again—a thought which made Harry’s heart jump, but which he did not feel, as before, was impossible—then it would not be to hold his tongue. And whatever happened there was one thing which he could not be doubtful about. He had saved his honour, hard as had been the trial, and yet she knew. She could not, he was sure, either mistake him or ignore him any longer. Reject him, yes; allow him to languish far from her, which would be the kindest thing, unless—— but certainly now she knew.
And then a week or more elapsed. After the first twenty-four hours Harry began to have heats and chills, wondering if he would be forbidden to go again. He did not intend to go, but yet to be sent away is different; and he awaited a summons to the Vice-Consul with feelings of alarm. But though he was constantly summoned to the Vice-Consul’s presence, he heard nothing upon this all-interesting subject. Mr. Bonamy looked coldly upon him for the first day, but said nothing save about business. And afterwards Harry went on just as before. Rita’s “night” came round, but Harry did not go. He dressed himself as if he were going, and got rid of Paolo, who had been greatly disappointed by the total absence of confidence in him which his friend showed. Naturally, after his exertions on Harry’s behalf, the offer of the ring and the studs, the purchase of the flower and the eau-de-cologne, Paolo had felt that he had a right to hear all that had taken place, and how the lady had been won, which he did not think would be a difficult matter. The idea that his friend could be called back without the lady being won, did not occur to his swift Italian mind. And after that critical moment when he linked his arm in Harry’s, and led him eagerly off to the quietest promenade he could think of, to hear all about it, Paolo had treated Harry’s indignant denial that there was anything to tell with the contempt it deserved. “Nothing?” he had said, with an astonishment almost beyond speech. “Nothing? But that means that you do not wish to tell me—that you will not give your confidence to me.” When Harry disclaimed this, Paolo had only shook his head. “I see that you have not trust in me,” he said, and he had retired in his turn for a few days from his friend’s society, and a little coolness and momentary estrangement had ensued.
But some time had elapsed since then, and one of those reconciliations of which Harry was afraid had followed, and Paolo’s interest was warmer than ever. He watched his friend’s looks and noted every visit he paid, so that it required nothing less than the effort of dressing and setting out for the Vice-Consul’s to shake himself free from Paolo’s society and remarks. Harry went to the very street, to the opposite side, to watch the windows, and to get a glimpse if he could of the little white figure, which was the central point in the world to him. But long before the usual hour the party broke up, and Harry was surprised by a sudden outpouring of groups of people in evening dresses—ladies with scarfs thrown over their heads, and satin slippers, not adapted for the rough pavement. Some of these groups, departing guests, perceived him, before he was aware. “Oh! are you going to the Bonamys?” said a lady; “don’t go; the Vice-Consul has been taken ill; he has had a fit or something. You may see how early we are coming away.” The whole street was soon full of a babble of voices, all talking of this. The Vice-Consul had been suddenly taken ill; he had fainted in the midst of the assembly, and the doctor had been sent for in haste. When Harry looked up at the windows they were all deserted—the lights still burning, the white curtains faintly swaying about, but the rooms entirely empty. In a moment all had become miserable and neglected. Life had ebbed out of the room, and left everything cold and silent. He felt with a chill at his heart as if death had come in instead to fill up the vacant place; he went to the door to inquire about his kind patron, his trustful master, his fatherly friend, with a heart out of which all the previous thoughts had departed for the moment. He thought of Rita, indeed, with instant anxiety; but yet her father was foremost in his mind. “Very bad, sir,” the servant said, who was an Englishman, “very bad,” holding the door wide open as he said so; and Harry went in in his evening clothes, looking as if he had meant to go to the party. He was a little scared afterwards to think that Rita never could know that he did not mean to come to the party. He went upstairs into the empty drawing-room; there were a few signs of hasty disturbance about it, evidences of the sudden interruption; a card-table set out with all the cards as they had been dealt round it; groups of chairs standing together, and a tray of ices on a side-table. Such a forsaken room always raises an infinite crowd of suggestions. It is such a lesson upon the dangers and changes of life as no sermon can read. Harry stood in the midst of it, feeling as if he had seen the writing on the wall which startled the ancient king in the midst of his revel. It had been an innocent revel—nothing in it to offend earth or heaven; but the touch of a sudden calamity makes even the most innocent pleasure-making seem vain. He stood there feeling as if on the edge of a tomb, hearing in the distance muffled yet hasty steps running to and fro, and all the excitement of a sudden illness. And he had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for nobody came near the room for, he thought, hours; though, of course, this was a mistaken estimate of the time that really passed. At last Harry heard measured steps and voices coming downstairs, and hurrying to the door found the English doctor in company with one of the ladies of the English community who had known Rita all her life. They told him that the Vice-Consul’s attack was a very serious one, that he was still unconscious, and that no one as yet could say how it would turn. “I have told him for some time he ought to go away. He was struggling foolishly, when he ought to have given in as so many people do.” “And poor little Rita, what is to become of her?” the lady said.
Harry stood with his heart in his mouth, ready for any service. Alas! what can a young man do in such a case? An old woman is of more use. He was sent off, however, to fetch a nurse, and to get various articles that were necessary, and this gave him occupation. He was about the house all the night, hearing with faint pleasure that Rita would not leave her father’s bedside, and glad to share her vigil. He would have liked to be there too to help, not caring what he did. The Vice-Consul was very ill for many days, during which time Harry threw himself into the business of the office, and worked like a slave. He thought neither of reward nor of the manner in which his behaviour was being contemplated by the little community around, all as much interested as the population of a village, though they formed an important part of a large and busy town. He thought nothing of all this; his new life absorbed him so that he had no faculty or thought that was free for anything else. He did not seem to require either rest or regular meals, but took up Mr. Bonamy’s work during the day, and ran about on any errand of the sick-room all the night.
And at last the patient began to get better. The seizure had been a very bad one, but he mended, and was at last able to be removed. He was too confused even then to know what was being done for him, or to realise the state into which his work must have got but for the strenuous and anxious deputyship of his clerk. He was taken away even without knowing, without being able to say a word to Harry. But Rita, who had so tortured him, who even in the midst of her watch had heard without knowing it how Harry had taken her father’s place, and how he had made himself the servant of the house, did not leave him without a token of her gratitude. One day, while he was sitting absorbed in business, but not able to keep himself from thinking now and then wistfully whether he should see either of them before they went away, there came a soft little knock at the door of communication by which the Vice-Consul had introduced him first into his house. Harry was at Mr. Bonamy’s own table, taking his place, and feeling himself already so much at home in the work that the appeals which he had dreaded at first no longer affected him. But when he heard this knock his whole frame quivered. He did not know what to expect. He got up trembling from his chair, and opened the door. In the passage stood Rita, very worn and pale, with dark lines round the eyes that seemed to fill up all her face. She had scarcely left her father’s bedside, he had heard, watching over him night and day. Her slight little figure, always so slim and girlish, seemed to have shrunk to nothing. There was not a trace of colour in her face. “Miss Bonamy!” he said, with a sharp tone of surprise, though he was not surprised; the moment he had heard the knock he had been aware that Rita, and no other, must have made that appeal. The touch on the door had conveyed a plaintive sound to him like her voice. She smiled, but did not say anything. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and the soft lines of her mouth quivered. She came into the office, where he stood gazing at her, and held out to him both her hands, smiling up in his face like a child. “I have come to thank you,” she said, at last, the two big tears dropping like drops of rain in a thunder shower, “for all your—kindness.” She paused a little before that last word, and through the tears, through the angelical, pathetic smile, which wrung poor Harry’s heart, there came something that was like a ghost of mischief. She remembered their last conversation, though so much had happened since, and could not refrain, though her heart was moved to its depths, from throwing this ghost of a malicious shaft at him. Somehow the effect upon Harry was of a different kind from before. Perhaps he felt that he had now a standing-ground which no one could undervalue or take from him. At all events he kept her hands in his, and looked at her with a gaze under which her eyes swerved. “It was not kindness,” he said.
Rita drew back a step, though her hands were held fast. Her eyes drooped, she could not meet his, though Harry’s eyes were insignificant English eyes in comparison with those great dreamy lights that shone out of her little pale face. Then she gave one sudden glance at him, wavering and trembling. “I know it was not,” said Rita, with a great effort to steady her voice.