PAOLO came back from his labours in the evening, very curious to know all about Harry’s interview with the Consul, and the origin and the result of the acquaintance between them. But Harry was prudent. He was prudent without any motive, from personal pride, rather than from any consideration for the credit of Miss Bonamy, which he did not think to be in the least involved. The women with whom Harry was acquainted were not of a kind who would have been afraid to go anywhere in the evening, and it did not occur to him that the reputation, even of a girl, in Italy would be jeopardized by such an innocent benevolence as that of going to visit a sick neighbour at night. Therefore it was simply pride and English reserve, not any notion of prudence on Rita’s account, that kept him silent on the subject. Paolo had a very different conception of the affair. He was very anxious to find out what had been the immediate effect upon Harry’s mind of the visit to the Consul’s house.
“There is a—young ladi there,” he said, watching Harry’s face. “You see perhaps, yes? a young ladi, the daughter of the Signor.”
“Oh, yes, I saw Miss Bonamy,” Harry said.
“And you nevare—see her before?” This Paolo asked with a gleam of mischief in his dark eyes, and the air of a man who knew a great deal more than he said.
“Oh yes, I have met her before,” said Harry lightly. “They were quite old friends. I did not in the least expect to meet people so like old friends here.”
Paolo was bewildered by this speech, and did not know what to think.
“Ah,” he said in a tone of disappointment. “You know them in your country? what you call at ’ome? But,” he added with a little triumph, “there you could not meet Signorina Rita, because she is never to go to England; her mother die in England, her mother was the daughter of an English and Italian, like me for example; but she die in England when she go, all young, when the Signorina was a bébé. The Signor Vice-Consul was mad—Si! mad, there is no other word. It was a long time that it was thought he die too—but no, he live, he go on living; but the Signorina Rita never go to England, that is finished, that is fixed, nothing will change it. It could not be that you meet her there.”
“Do you know Miss Bonamy very well,” said Harry with a little offence, “that you call her by her Christian name?”
“I say Signorina Rita, it is our custom. If she were an old, I should say Sora Rita; and the Vice-Consul he is Ser Giovanni, that is our custom. Ser Isaack you, Ser Paolo me—but not for you, amico. When you say Paul-o, that pleases me,” and Paolo laughed, showing his teeth, which were very white and even. He added, after a moment, with a sudden moistening of his brilliant eyes, “But what displeases me, after becoming amici, as we are, is not to be able to serve you. I picture to myself that I will do something; not moche, but yet something. I will stand up and say, ‘I take him upon myself. He is without papers, but I take him upon myself—me.’ Now I am without use. It is no matter to you to have Paolo Thomp-sone for your friend. The Vice-Consul is moche bettare—he is grand personage; he has power, not only the heart, like me.”
“But, Paul-o,” said Harry, anxious to comfort him, and half touched, half amused by his distress, “but for you I should never have gone near the Vice-Consul: you put it into my head. But for you,” he added, with a laugh, putting his hand lightly on Paolo’s shoulder, “I think I should have turned tail altogether, and wandered off I don’t know where.”
Paolo’s face shone with delight. He would have rushed into Harry’s arms had that been practicable, and thrown himself upon his breast. But Harry, laughing, kept his friend at arm’s length. To have kissed, or to have suffered himself to be kissed by, any man, seemed to him the height of ridicule. Paolo, baffled in this impulse, sat down and looked at him with radiant eyes. “Now I know that we are amici,” he said. “Aspetto! There is still a way I can serve you. I well teach you to speak the Italian. You shall know it so well that they shall say, Ecco un Italiano. Me, I have been to school in Sienna. I know the real Toscano—the best Italian. We shall begin this moment. That pleases to you, Ser Isaack?” asked Paolo, tenderly, looking with humble and deprecating eagerness into his face.
“You must learn to speak English better,” Harry said, with some condescension. “I told you before you must not not say an English, but an Englishman, and to say an old is nonsense—it should be an old woman, or an old man, whichever it may be.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Paolo, “that is alright, that is understood. You correct me when I say what is not just, and I teach you.”
“Come out now for a walk,” Harry said.
Paolo jumped up alert and delighted. It is true that it glanced across the mind of the young Englishman that perhaps it was beneath the dignity of a man who was a friend of the Vice-Consul’s, and thus, as it were, a member of the best society, to walk about with Paolo hanging on to his arm. But, though Harry was full of youthful conceits and the prejudices of an ignorant Englishman, he yet had a heart in his capacious bosom, and Paolo’s devotion had been so great as to touch that heart. He said to himself, with a little effusion, that he never would turn his back upon a little fellow who had been so anxious to help him. It might be that it was presumption on the part of the little fellow to think himself capable of serving Harry, but still it was well meant, and his undisguised admiration showed a most just and well-judging spirit. Nothing, he said to himself, would induce him to turn his back upon Paolo, his first friend. Antonio had given his whole attention to the two during the course of dinner. He had loitered behind them when he was not actively pressing upon them all the choicest morsels, to the despair of various less interesting guests who could not catch his eye, and who shouted and stamped in vain. He kept shifting from one foot to another in the restlessness of pure pleasure as he caught now and then a word of the conversation between them, and rubbed his hands with delight in the consciousness of being able to understand it. Now and then he would punch a fat Italian, with whom he was familiar, in the shoulder, and call his attention. “Ecco il giovane Inglese,” he would say, though Harry was doing nothing more important than eating his dinner. Antonio had got his five francs for a very short day, for naturally the time passed in the Consul’s had given him no trouble except that of waiting, and what was still more to the purpose than the five francs was the importance of having such a witness to his power of English-speaking as this new guest, who could arrange nothing for himself without his (Antonio’s) help. He disregarded even the call of the chief butler, so absorbed was he in his favourite stranger.
“Do you wish the young Inglese to starve,” he asked, indignantly, in his native language, “when you know the Inglesi are the best customers the padrone has, and always send millions more? Do you propose to yourself that he should have nothing to eat, this young one that is no doubt made of gold; and how can he have anything to eat if I am not there to serve him?”
Thus he kept behind Harry’s chair with a countenance full of delighted interest. Now and then he would put in a word. “Ze signori will do much better to go to ze opera to-night,” he said. “Zey will hear La Catalina, who is ze first in Italy. It is ze ‘Barbiere,’ Ser Paolo, which gives itself to-night.”
Paolo looked up appealingly into his friend’s face, but Harry brushed the suggestion away with a true British argument. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he cried, “don’t let us go and box ourselves up in a hot theatre on such a night.”
Paolo sighed, but obeyed. He repeated the sentiment in a superior tone to Antonio, who was anxiously serving them with Cigare Scelte, arranged in different kinds upon a wooden tray. “A hot theatre, Antonio mio! one does not go there in a so warm evening. That goes well with the winter, when it is cold; but in summer, we young have need of moche air and the great world to keep us comfort-able. When you know more of real English you will learn what they love.”
Antonio accepted this decision of his superiors with much respect, and laid it up in his memory, to be produced on his own account when it might accord with his pretensions as an Anglomane and person of high sentiment to produce it. But in the meantime he could not but launch a little criticism to the others who overheard this dignified rebuke. “That little Paolino,” he said, as they went out, “to give himself the air of a rich Inglese! He is neither one thing nor another. He is no more than an abozzo—a sketch of an Inglese,” Antonio cried. He had been in an artist’s studio in his day. “Me, I understand them, al fondo,” he added, beating his breast.
Little Paolo had no notion that he was being called an abozzo. He sallied forth, lighting his cigar, thrusting his arm through Harry’s with the greatest delight and pride.
Next day, at the hour appointed, Harry presented himself at the Vice-Consul’s office, and was received with the same cordiality. Mr. Bonamy had “made inquiries,” but, as nobody in Leghorn knew anything about Harry, there was not much information to be procured. Neither did the captain of the steamer in which he had arrived know anything about him except that he was a passenger in the second cabin; although he looked quite superior to the second cabin. “I set him down as somebody’s son in disgrace with his family,” the captain said. This chimed in sufficiently well with Mr. Bonamy’s observations. He met Harry after the first consultation with a grave face. “You know I know nothing about you, Mr. Oliver,” he said, “except—and that is not much—what you have chosen to tell me.”
“That is quite true, Sir,” said Harry, growing serious too, and feeling his heart sink, “and I have no right to expect you to take my word even for that.”
“Therefore,” said the Vice-Consul, “(for you should never interrupt a man in the middle of a sentence), I have the more claim upon you to treat me in an honourable way. If you had come with all your papers, as they say in this country, I should not have had the same right to put you on parole, as it were. If you know no reason why I shouldn’t take you into my office, and trust you with the Queen’s affairs, I mean to do so. But if there is anything that would make you a discredit to Her Majesty’s Service——”
“There is nothing, Sir,” said Harry, standing up. His face flushed, his nostril dilated, an impulse of almost fierce self-justification came upon him; but fortunately for him he was not used to defending himself, and he could not say another word.
“Then that is enough,” said the Vice-Consul. “I take you on your own parole.”
They were both silent for a minute or two after. It was not like a common engagement. Harry’s heart was in his throat. What with surprise at this extraordinary good fortune, and the emotion called forth by a confidence in him which he could not help feeling to be as extraordinary, he was quite beyond his own control. If he had said anything he would have “made a fool of himself,” so he said nothing, but sat still, almost disposed, like Paolo, to be tearful, which was the most dreadful catastrophe he could think of. The good Vice-Consul was a little affected too.
“But I don’t know a word of the language,” at last Harry said.
“We have more to do with Englishmen than Italians,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Perhaps the fellow whom you knocked down ‘quietly,’ as you told me, may come and make his complaint to you. Your knocking a man down quietly was the thing that tickled me. I wonder what was his opinion of it. You must learn the language of course, and some other things quite as important. You must find out all about the harbour by-laws and dues, and all that affects the shipping. These are things we have a great deal to do with. You must master them, that is the most important thing; and when you have been here for a little while you will find out other points. Do you know anyone from whom you can get lessons? But I suppose, as a matter of fact, you don’t know anyone here.”
Here Harry, finding his power of speech, told him of Paolo, with that half laugh of commentary which implies a certain slight of the friend to whom he had so much reason to be grateful. He felt that it was mean, but he could not help it. How could he help implying a laugh at the droll little person who held by him so faithfully, yet was so entirely out of Harry’s way? However, the Vice-Consul took Paolo quite seriously. He nodded his head with approval. “Nobody better—nobody better,” he said. “I see you laugh at him; but he is as sound as a bell, that little fellow, and always rings true. That he is not quite your equal,” Mr. Bonamy added, “does not matter a bit in the circumstances. I am glad that you have chanced so fortunately. To get hold by accident of such a genuine person as Paolo is quite a piece of luck. I rather think you must be a lucky person,” he added, with a laugh.
“Since I came to Leghorn,” said Harry, fervently, “nothing could be more true than that.”
“Yes, I think you must be lucky,” said the Vice-Consul, “to hit upon a perfectly honest person as your first acquaintance, then making haste to get yourself into a row to have so good an excuse for it as my Rita, and then——”
“And then,” said Harry, “to meet with such astonishing, such unlooked-for kindness, to fall on my feet in such a wonderful way.”
“Well, perhaps,” said Mr. Bonamy, not displeased, “we may say that was luck too; and one thing, Oliver,” he added quickly, “it will be so much the better for you that employment in Her Majesty’s Service is a disgrace to nobody; mind what I say. Of course, in the nature of events, you and your family will not be at daggers drawn for ever; and when you condescend to go back, or they find you out, and come to look for you——”
“Neither, neither will happen,” cried Harry, shaking his head.
“We shall see; but if that day comes, there is nothing for them to find fault with. A Consulate is not like a merchant’s office; anybody may serve Her Majesty. None of us, I hope, are too good for that.”
“I assure you, Sir——” Harry cried, hastily.
“No, no, you need not assure me. I don’t want to know anything; unless, indeed, your heart should be opened to tell me everything, which I should really be glad of. Well,” he said, “come to-morrow morning and begin. Your friend, Paolo, will tell you about the hours: and I hope, Oliver, we shall always remain the best of friends,” the Vice-Consul added, rising and holding out his hand. “I hope nothing will happen to make me entertain a less opinion of you than I do now; that’s understood. You shall have a card for Rita’s evening at-home, and I hope you’ll come and see us occasionally in a friendly way. Let us say next Sunday, perhaps? Sunday’s a dreary day for a young man by himself. Come after church, and stay for the after noon; for the present, goodbye.”
Harry took his hat and made his best bow. He was really quite tremulous with excitement, surprise, and pleasure. To be so speedily and so easily established was more good fortune than he could realize. When he was at the door Mr. Bonamy called him back.
“Oliver!” he cried, “one moment; I would not knock any more men down if I were you; however quietly it is done, it is a little risky, and Her Majesty’s Service, you know——”
“You needn’t fear, Sir; that’s what Paul-o has been preaching to me all the time,” Harry said.
Upon which the Vice-Consul laughed benignly.
“Paul-o, as you call him, is as good an adviser as you could have,” he said.
“What should I call him but Paul-o?” Harry said to himself; and he went off with his head in the air. Lucky! indeed he had been lucky; only the third day since his arrival and he had a situation and a sort of a home and friends; to make up to him for all the evil that had happened to him before, providence was taking special care of him now. Somehow this made Harry think of his mother, of whom, hitherto, his thoughts had been scarcely more kind than towards the others concerned; a little moisture crept unawares to his eyes. “She’ll have been praying,” he said to himself; and suddenly he seemed to see her, as he had seen her so often, wringing her thin worn hands, her lips trembling with words that were inaudible. He thought—it would be hard to trace the exact connection of ideas, but there was one—that he would go in to the first church in which there seemed to be service going on, on his way back to the inn. It would not have occurred to him to go into a church where there was no service, but when he heard the tinkle of a bell, and saw one or two people creeping up and down the broad stone steps, he went in, though with a little opposition in his mind, as well as a certain craving for sympathy and utterance. But when he went in, Harry saw no signs of public worship. The tinkle of the bell was coming from an altar in a side chapel, where a great many candles were burning. In the body of the church some people were seated quietly, others kneeling on the low rush-bottomed chairs. He stood and gazed for a little with mingled feelings, with a great opposition in his mind to the Papist ritual and ceremonies (of which he saw nothing, and which, to tell the truth, he had never seen, and knew nothing whatever about); and disapproval of the people who were in the church for, as he thought, no purpose—mingled with a curious sense of the grateful calm and quietness and seclusion of the place, the serene coolness and breadth of its lofty roofs and silent space. This stole upon him, he could not tell how. He would not have knelt down, as the few people about were doing, to save his life: it would have seemed to him like the famous bowing down in the house of Rimmon, for the North was very Protestant in those days, and sympathy with Rome was very rare. He would not even say a distinct prayer in his heart, which would have seemed like yielding to temptation. But, as he stood, there rose in him an unwilling devotion, and the thanks that had been in his mind were perhaps not the less given that they were arbitrarily refused utterance. For Harry’s prejudices were a part of his training, not anything that originated in himself. When he went away the moisture came again into the corners of his eyes. His mother was as Protestant, more Protestant, than himself. She would have thought it wrong to go into “a Catholic chapel.” She would scarcely have been able to believe in the existence of a country not given over to all evil, in which a Popish place of worship was not a Catholic chapel, but an established church. Oh, the poor people! what benighted darkness they must be in! she would have said, in her ignorance. But somehow, Harry could not have told how, he felt as if he had approached his mother in that foreign place. The silent church, with the silent people in it praying, made him think of her as he had seen her, with her lips moving and her hands clasped together. Often again he stole in for a moment to renew that sentiment, which was so soft and pathetic. He held out against his mother all the time obstinately, though he knew he was condemning her to great suffering—and he entirely disapproved of the church; but for all that the two had some subtle resemblance, a union of two things he was hostile to, which went to his heart.
Paolo came to dinner in great triumph. He had placed a flower in his button-hole and put on a brilliant new tie in honour of the great event, and fairly threw himself upon his amico and kissed him with enthusiasm before Harry could get out of this extremely embarrassing position. Never young girl blushed more uncomfortably than the young man did as he drew himself out of his enthusiastic friend’s embrace.
“What have I done to you that you make no response?” Paolo said, almost weeping over this repulse.
“Hold your tongue, for goodness’ sake! Men don’t kiss each other in England. Whatever you do, don’t be ridiculous,” Harry cried.
Poor little Paolo was wounded to the heart.
“I am an English myself,” he said. “Yes, yes, an Englishman, if you will; I have not the courage to remember. I am a true English-man; but it is cruel all the same. Should I then take no notice? when it is the wish most dear of my heart that will be fulfilled? Always I have said to myself—if the Santissima Virgin would send a real English-man, not one that is what you call ’alf-and-’alf, like me. And when it is done, and my amico whom I have chosen turns out to be he whom I have so much desired, am not I to show a little that I am glad? I am ’appy that I am an Italian,” said Paolo, with indignation, “if it is so.”
And there was a little suspension of intercourse between them. But this did not last; Paolo was too good-humoured and too tender-hearted to stand out; he begged his friend’s pardon in less than five minutes. Harry, whose mind moved more slowly, had not had time to realize that he had been unkind when this reversal of the position took place. Paolo did all but weep in his penitence.
“I am good-for-nothing,” he said, “I am without sentiment, I have no delicacy nor education. Who can say why you were so magnanimous as to choose me, me! for your amico? and when you show the true dignity of an English, me I am so without good-breeding, so common, so devoid of sentiment, that I become angry! but if you will only forgive me, forgive me this once——!”
“It is I who am a brute,” said Harry, penitent in his turn. But Paolo protested with tears in his eyes, and would have thrown himself at his friend’s feet, or on his neck again, in the excitement of the reconciliation. And though he was usually very thrifty, calculating every centissimo, he ordered a bottle of champagne frappé to celebrate the day. Nothing would prevail upon him to countermand this order.
“It is a festa,” cried the little man, “and it is a reparation: and we will drink to our eternal friendship.” Paolo did not know that he was guilty of plagiarism; he was heroically in earnest, and drank his wine, which Antonio brought with great pride and many grins, triumphantly in its pail, setting it on the table before them, and watching its consumption with the most amiable interest. “And here is for a bicchierino,” Paolo said, bestowing, a small coin upon Antonio with much grandeur, “drink thou also the health of Ser Isaack, who is my amico,” and he held out his foaming glass to touch that of his friend.
Paolo’s head was turned altogether by these unusual potations; and Harry’s first office was to see his friend safe home and deliver him from all the dangers of the streets, on this too triumphant night.