CHAPTER IX.
THE BRITISH CONSULATE.
THE Vice-Consul’s family still lived in the same house, with more frequent use than before of the succursale of the Villa, where the children spent so much of their time. Naturally, however, it was a changed house, brighter and happier in one sense, in another—perhaps not all that it had been. Perhaps Mr. Bonamy had found a more delicate and complete happiness in it when he and his little daughter lived there alone, in perfect companionship, he sharing every thought with his child, and finding an entire and sweet compensation for all the troubles of his life in that perfect union and sympathy. It was true that, as he was aware now, he had known very little of Rita all that happy time: but while it lasted he did not know this, and thought that he had everything. It is the lot of fathers and mothers. When this last exquisite dream of his life failed him, and his Rita went over to that amiable, well-disposed, and kind young enemy, who had conquered and supplanted her father, Mr. Bonamy had, it is needless to say, a certain struggle with himself. But the circumstances helped him to a large degree. He was ill, expecting to die, and glad to think that whatever happened to him he had secured a companion, a support for her. When, however, death dropped into the background, and he had to begin again, and to reconcile himself to a third person in his house, at his table, and in all the most intimate relations of his life, the Vice-Consul had found it hard; and very hard it was to see his Rita turn to this other man as a flower turns to the sun, with all the clinging and dependence she had once shown to her father, and with a constant reference to and consultation of his wishes. It was quite right that it should be so, oh, perfectly right! and she was happy, as happy as a young woman could be—but it jarred upon the man who was left out in the cold, and who had to share, nay to give up the best of, this love which had been the recompense of his life, to a stranger. It is the lot of the fathers and mothers; when they make any difficulty about consenting to it, we call them hard names; but yet once in a way it may be allowed, that it is a bitter thing to do. Mr. Bonamy on the whole had done it with a very good grace. He was, more or less, grateful to the interloper that his house was not left to him desolate: and he swallowed Harry with as few grimaces as possible, making in private those which he could not altogether suppress. On the whole no man could have occupied so invidious a position more genially, more inofficiously than Harry did. He was grateful and attached to his father-in-law, and he had a profound respect for him and his judgment, to which unfortunately Mr. Bonamy did not make much response. The Vice-Consul indeed had that half-painful, half-amused sense of being a better man than his son-in-law, which at once increases the pang of such a rivalry and makes it ludicrous. “Having known me to decline on a range of lower feelings, and a narrower heart than mine.” When a father utters in the depths of his own heart such a sentiment as this, it may be somewhat bitterly, but it must be with a sense that it is utterly ludicrous. Mr. Bonamy felt all through like the disappointed lover in the poem “Thou shalt lower to his level day by day;” for indeed Rita herself, when she became Mrs. Harry, soon came to have far less interest in matters above Harry’s level, than she had felt when it was her father’s level by which her eager young being was founded. Then she had been his leader sometimes, his little oracle, with a fineness of perception that filled him with wonder and admiration; now she avoided those fine questions and speculations in which her husband did not share. He was faultless, Mr. Bonamy was just enough to allow; he was not exacting, he would still look on with honest admiring looks when they went beyond his knowledge, and smile and listen to discussions in which he could not take any share. But what Harry did not feel for himself, Rita felt for him. She would not go beyond him. She limited her own impulsive eager steps, which had been so ready for every path of fancy in order to keep upon the beaten ground by his side. Perhaps it gave her a little prick of pain too to leave her father alone, to curb all her natural impulses, to keep to that steady solid pace which suited Harry; and she did it knowing that her father felt it was a decline. But nevertheless her delicate instinctive unspoken loyalty to her husband carried her through. She was “falsely true” as much as Lancelot though in so different a way, belying herself, for Harry’s sake, who did not want such a sacrifice; but Rita felt it to be his due. There, as in all cases where there is a divided duty, the happiness which they possessed was purchased by a little inevitable pain, it was no longer unalloyed. The interloper, the breaker up of that previous blessedness, was the one who felt least drawback in it. For one thing he was naturally very modest and humble about himself, and it did not at all hurt him to acknowledge himself less clever than his wife and father-in-law. He would not have objected had they gone on talking over his head. His taste was less fine, and his perceptions much less acute than Rita’s. And he got the advantage of that finesse of thought and feeling, that delicacy which was so much greater than anything he was capable of, really without knowing it, or being at all aware of the sacrifice she made.
Then the children, though they were a new bond, and a great pleasure to Mr. Bonamy (being good and healthy and smiling children, making the best of themselves, and looking merry and pretty, as children ought to do), gave a little wound also to his fantastical delicacy (for it was of course fantastical) about his daughter, whom he did not like to think of as involved in all the functions of motherhood. But the Vice-Consul, though perhaps not a very wise man by the head, was wise by the heart, and he would not do or say anything to throw the least cloud upon his child’s happiness; he accepted everything, allowing to himself that he was fantastical; and their home was pointed out to everybody as the emblem of a united house, full of love and mutual consideration, and the closest affection—which it was, though not the same home as of old.
On this particular day Rita was somewhat excited by the prospect of a visit from the Brothertons. Lady Brotherton had been one of the objects of her girlish devotion—that devotion which so often flows forth to an older woman before it turns to a lover. She had admired the beautiful lady as only a girl can admire, and had copied her in many a little matter, and still believed in her with all the delightful prejudice which clings to the friends of our youth. She was eager to show everything—her husband, her babies, her own maturity of life—to her old authority, and see how they looked through Lady Brotherton’s eyes. When she saw her husband before dinner she was full of this pleasant excitement.
“What a pity, what a pity that Ralph and Vanna are at the Villa” (Harry in his perversity had given his father’s name to his eldest boy, though he was of opinion that he hated his father), Rita cried, “I should have liked her to see them; but there is always Madge and baby. I wonder if she will think Madge like you, Harry. I wonder if she will think baby a beauty. English children are so big and red in the face; she may think ours pale; though I am sure they are quite strong. I wonder how she will think papa is looking. I wonder if she will approve of——”
“Me?” said Harry, with a somewhat uneasy smile; “she will think me not half good enough for you, and there I agree with her, so we shan’t quarrel on that subject. But listen, dear, there is some one with her, whom I want you to be a little on your guard with; a—a girl—a Miss Joscelyn——”
Rita looked up suddenly, with a keen light in her dark eyes. She had Italian blood in her, to which jealousy was quite possible. She looked up startled, ready to take fire; but Harry went on tying his neck-tie, not so much as conscious, in his honest simplicity, that such a sentiment as jealousy could enter into the possibilities.
“I have a kind of idea,” he said, “that she must belong to people—I used to know. I may be mistaken, but still I have a notion she does. So don’t say anything, darling; don’t let her enter upon the subject.”
“What subject?” said Rita, breathless. “Do you mean that you knew the—lady—in those old times that I know nothing about?”
“I can’t tell,” said Harry; “if I knew her, it was as a child. But, Rita, you are always generous; you never have bothered me with questions. Don’t say anything to her, or to any of them, if they should question you—about me.”
“About you!” Rita’s mind was partially relieved, but it was not in human nature to receive, without some retort, this curious commission. “What can I say about you? I know nothing,” she said, with a little bitterness. Then, as he turned and looked at her with unfeigned astonishment, “Oh, no, no, I do not mean that! I know everything, dear Harry, I know you; but nothing before you came here.”
“That is true,” he said, thoughtfully. “I wonder if I ever shall be able to tell you—all about it?” The sight of Liddy and the sound of her name had worked upon him more than he had thought anything could.
“Do! do!” cried Rita, all eagerness, clasping his arm with both her hands.
He had never said so much to her before, and she, in fastidious delicacy, had not asked. He laughed now, but still with anxiety in his face.
“At present I must get ready for dinner,” he said.
“Ah! it is always like this,” cried Rita; “when you are in a humour to tell me, something happens, dinner, or something equally unimportant!” which was more like one of her early girlish outbursts than the matronly composure by which she liked to think herself distinguished now.
But at this moment her maid came to tell her that the carriage of the English Signori, who were coming to dinner, had just driven into the courtyard, and Rita had to give her skirts a last settling, and to hurry to the drawing-room. And Harry had failed in his tie; he had to take a new one, feeling his hands tremble a little. His mind was in a great ferment. Some months before he had seen the advertisement for Harry Joscelyn, or a certificate of his death, in the Times, where he was described as “supposed to have emigrated,” and this of itself had roused no small commotion in him. He was to hear of “something to his advantage.” Harry could not tell what that might be, and if for a moment now and then the temptation came over him to answer the appeal and understand the cause of it, it yielded immediately, not only to the old resentment, but to the new sense of alarm and apprehension with which the idea of breaking up his present life, and disclosing to those who knew him under one name another identity, filled his spirit. It appeared to him that, if he gave up his present standing ground by revealing another, his whole life, so happy, so sweet, so full of natural duty, work, and recompense, would break up and disappear from him. As Isaac Oliver he was at the head of the Consular business, known and named in all its affairs. As Isaac Oliver he was the husband of his wife. All the town knew him under that name, his children bore it. It had become almost dear to him, the name which he had picked up in bitter ridicule, and adopted with a perverse laugh, as he might have stuck a feather in his hat. The sound was familiar now to his ears, he liked it. It was Rita’s name. She called him Harry, as the name of his childhood, which he preferred, and he had been led to admit that the “Harry Joscelyn Isaac Oliver,” with which, for precaution sake, he had signed the register on his marriage, was his full baptismal name. He signed it now H. J. Isaac Oliver, and she was Mrs. Isaac Oliver. He liked it, and had a certain pride in it, as a name that was honest and without stain, and which should never suffer in his hands; and if he cut himself off from it, what would become of him? his identity would be gone. But the appearance of Liddy had made a very great impression on him. When she rose up suddenly, with a little start and cry, at the sound of his name, he had seen in a moment, in imagination, the real Isaac Oliver, shuffling like a crab along the North-country road, and a sense of the incongruity had struck him painfully, bringing a sensation of sudden shame and discomfiture; but in general he was not ashamed of the name to which he had grown familiar, and he felt as if, resuming the other, his pleasant life would all break up and disappear, and he would become another man.
Rita met the strangers with less composure than she would have done but for that two minutes’ talk. Even when she threw herself into Lady Brotherton’s arms, in the fervour of feeling which her Italian blood made a little more apparent than it would have been had she been all English, she cast an eye upon Lady Brotherton’s companion. Lydia was not looking her best in the confused and painful fever of suspense and expectancy which was upon her; but she looked younger than her real age, and almost childlike in her slightness and slimness beside the matronly form of Lady Brotherton. Even Rita, though still light and small, was rounder and fuller than of old, but Liddy looked eighteen though she was twenty-two, and there could be no doubt that if Harry had seen her before it must have been as a child. This somewhat composed the fanciful bosom of Harry’s wife. Liddy when she had made her curtsey to Mrs. Oliver, sat down behind backs, with a timidity which had come suddenly back to her, isolating herself as far as might be, especially from Lionel, whom she had avoided ever since their recent conversation. Harry had not yet come into the room, and she felt herself altogether in a strange place. Perhaps it was this that brought Paolo to her side; the little Italian thought her probably, a neglected demoiselle de compagnie whom nobody particularly cared to notice, and this was enough to bring him instantly to the rescue. “Miss Joscelyn is a stranger in Italy?” he said with an engaging and conciliatory smile. He spoke a great deal better English than when Harry had made acquaintance with him, and dressed with less abandon and devotion to the beautiful; but he was still a “funny little man,” in the eyes of the English girl; his kindness however could not be mistaken.
“Scarcely,” she said, “I have been in Italy all the winter; and now we are going home.”
“Ah, you are going ’ome, that always pleases; but I hope Mees Jos—lyn will retain a little memory that is pleasant of Italy too.”
“Oh, I have liked it so much,” said Liddy. She was disturbed at this moment by Harry’s entrance; and it occurred to her now for the first time as it had done to Lionel when he first saw him, that she had seen somebody very like him—who was it that was so like him? She paused in what she was saying to interpose this wondering question in her own mind.
“That is Mr. Oliver,” said Paolo, “you have seen him before? He is what we call beluomo, fine man, very fine man; he is my great friend; I was the first to meet him when he stepped upon this shore; we have been friends of the heart always since that day.”
Lydia cast an involuntary look from the little man in front of her, in his elaborate dress, to the big person of the Englishman. She could not help thinking they would make a strange pair. And Paolo, with the quickness of lightning, divined her meaning.
“You think he is so tall, and I—little? Nevare mind,” said the good little fellow, “we are of the same tallness in the heart. Nay, even me, I am a little the tallest there,” he added, laughing, “for I have nobody, and the good Oliver, he has his wife and little children, and many to love. He is my devotion,” added the Italian, warmly. “I have never had a friend before him. I am English too—though perhaps Mees Jos-lyn would not know it.”
“Are you indeed? I beg your pardon,” said Lydia, “I thought you were an Italian. Mr. Oliver is very English. Do you know where—he comes from? and is it long since he came here?”
“That no one can tell you so well as I,” said Paolo, delighted with the subject. “It was in—Ah, how well I remembare! I was upon the quay to watch for the great vapore—the steamboat I should say—and ecco! in one of those little boats that brought the travellers, this tall, big, beautiful young man. I step forward. I offer my help, for he could not speak a word, not one word. But no! he had a distrust of the foreigner. Mees Jos-lyn has perhaps remarked? It is the great fault of the English; they have always a distrust of the foreigners. He would not listen, nor permit himself to be assisted; but caught up his portmanteau and walked along. Wonderful! I stood and looked. Che bell’uomo! they all cried. I, I did not take any time to think—I am English, but I am Italian as well; from that moment I loved him, though he had a distrust of me. When I entered table-d’hôte at the hotel where I always dined, there was he again; and then we became friends. We have quarrelled, oh yes, we have quarrelled—a hundred thousand times,” cried Paolo, “but we are always friends again. Mees Jos-lyn will pardon that I tell such a long tale. It is ten years.”
“What are you saying to Miss Joscelyn, Paul-o, about ten years?”
“I am telling, amico, how we became friends,” said Paolo, stretching himself to his full height by Harry’s side, raising himself on tip-toe. The other looked down on him with a kindness that was not without a touch of contempt. Harry was very faithful to Paolo, and proud of him in his way; but the almost feminine demonstrative affection of the little Italian was always a thing of which he was half ashamed.
“Is it ten years?” he said. “But you might find some better subject to entertain Miss Joscelyn about.”
“I asked him,” said Lydia. She looked at this stranger with very anxious, suspicious eyes. He was a stranger of course. She had seen him for the first time to-day. Still his name was one she knew; his face was one she knew; his very voice sounded familiar. A curious confusion and suspicion came over her. Strangely enough it never once occurred to her to think of her brother.
“Let me take you to dinner,” he said.
Could anything be more commonplace? The Vice-Consul went before them with Lady Brotherton, Sir John hobbled after them with Rita. On either side there were a few words being said. Lady Brotherton on the one hand pouring praises of Rita’s developed beauty into her father’s pleased ears, while old Sir John spluttered forth his remarks on the other. “Fathers’sh an evergreen, my dear. Look’sh ashyoung ash’ever he did. Bloomin’, bloomin’, like yourshelf.” Between these two, feeling a little tremor in the arm she touched lightly with her hand. Lydia walked with her silent companion. He did not say a word, and neither did she. But her heart began to beat: there seemed something strange and exciting in the air. She felt suspicious of him as if he had been a criminal; why did he not speak? It was scarcely any better at dinner. There was a great deal of talk at table, and much liveliness, but in this he took little share. When Lydia looked away to the other end of the table, or talked to anyone else, she invariably found his eye upon her when she returned to herself; but he said nothing except in answer to what was said to him; either he was a very stupid man, or—something else. She became so impatient at last that she turned to him boldly, provoked by his silence.
“Mr. Oliver,” she said, “I know some one of your name in the North-country.”
He seemed to perceive with an effort that she was actually addressing himself; but turned to her quickly, as if prepared for the attack.
“My name is not a very uncommon name,” he said.
“Oliver is not; but Isaac Oliver is surely very uncommon—it made me stare when I heard it. I thought you must be a messenger from home.” Lydia felt herself grow important in her excitement. “Our Isaac Oliver is a very well-known person. Cousin Lionel, you know him too!”
It was a most unjustifiable attack; and to compromise Lionel too! Lady Brotherton stopped short in the midst of something she was saying, in her dismay at this contradiction of all her instructions, and this called the attention of the whole table to what Lydia was saying. There was a general pause in which every word was distinctly audible.
“Everybody knows him,” said Liddy, “in our countryside.”
And then they all looked at Harry, upon whose countenance there came a slight shade of colour.
“Is it so?” he said; “but he is no relation of mine.”
“How can you tell,” the audacious girl went on, “when you do not even know what countryside I mean?”
“Harry,” said Rita, leaning across the table, “what is Miss Joscelyn saying to you? You have forgotten your favourite dish, which was made expressly for you. Look, there is Antonio waiting, and cannot make you understand.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Harry, with a hurried glance round him; and then Antonio, though he did not know a word of English, understood like a true Italian that he was wanted to relieve an embarrassment, and gallantly stepped into the breach with his dish. Lydia, arrested in the midst of her assault, felt herself driven back upon herself, and confused as if she had received a soft, unexpected blow.
“Harry,” she said, in a low tone, “Harry—I thought your name was Isaac Oliver. I beg your pardon, I fear I have been making a mistake.”
The talk had recommenced again; nobody was paying any attention, and Harry’s head was bent over his plate; but suddenly he raised it for a single instant, and gave her a look. What did that look mean? Lydia was stunned by it as by a sudden electric shock. She had been confused before, but not half so confused as now. The look was tender, affectionate even, half-appealing, as if, she thought, there was some secret understanding between them—something which they knew, and which nobody else knew. She stared at him in return, arrested in all the movements of her own mind, her lips dropping apart in her wonder, her eyes opening wide. He was not angry nor surprised at her boldness, nor at her attempt to force upon him an undesirable relation, but looked at her with an almost affectionateness, an understanding which she could not understand. Lydia was altogether confused; she did not say another word. Sitting by this stranger’s side, she relapsed into silence like his own. Who was he? What did he mean? How had he got the command of her? She was giddy with the confusion in her mind, and what it all meant she could not tell.