BUT Lydia was far, very far from being out of the embarrassment which she had brought upon herself. When the ladies went back to the drawing-room, which they did after the English fashion, Rita took no more notice of her than civility required, though she could not help owning to herself that there could be no reason for displeasure with her husband, or the least sense of jealousy on Lydia’s account; Rita however could not help showing her adoption of Harry’s quarrel by the chilliest civility to the girl against whom he had bidden her to be on her guard. She would not, as some suspicious women might have done, seize the opportunity to find out something concerning that part of his life which was unknown to her. She was too proudly honourable to do this; and she could not help feeling a certain enmity towards the girl who might betray him, even to herself. No, she would not hear a word Miss Joscelyn might have to say. She lingered by her a moment coldly, and asked if she would like to look at some books of engravings (it was before the time of photographs), placing them before her on a little table; and then she sat down on a sofa in a distant corner of the room with Lady Brotherton, and talked and talked. When the gentlemen came in, Lydia was visible in her white dress, all lighted up by the condensed light under the shade of a large lamp, sitting quite alone, while the voices of the two others seemed to bring her solitude into more full relief. Quite alone—nobody taking any notice. There was room round her for all the party, and it would have been natural that they should have collected about her, the only girl among them, so pretty as she was, and neglected by the other women. But the younger men were balked by the Vice-Consul, who stepped forward briskly, and at once put himself into a chair beside her. He talked to her, as he had a gift of talking, with delightful sympathy and kindness. He asked her about her travels, how far she had gone, and entered into all the little adventures of which she told him, telling her stories of the days when he too had travelled, and giving her all manner of anecdotes. The Vice-Consul was still a handsome man, as majestic and gracious as ever; and he had a way, as everybody acknowledged, of talking to young people. He charmed Lydia altogether. She thought she had never met with anyone so delightful; and then he led the conversation quite imperceptibly to England, and her part of the country, and her family and herself.
“England is a closed country to me,” he said. “To be sure I might go now that my daughter is married, and I am no longer indispensable to her. But I forget that. When Rita was younger, before she married, I was all she had, as she is still all I have in the world. I hope your parents are both living, Miss Joscelyn, and happy in their child? Ah, that is well. Rita has never been in England, and must never be.”
“Must never be?” Lydia looked across the room to the sofa on which Mrs. Oliver was still sitting, with mingled wonder and pity. And yet, she reflected, she herself was not so very glad to get back to England. That was a fate which, under certain circumstances, might be bearable enough.
“No; I dare not risk her among the fogs and damps. She is—well, perhaps, I ought not to say she is delicate, not now: but she was so during all her earlier life. You see, I forget that she is not still my little girl, but has now little girls of her own. That makes a difference. No, she was never to go to England, that I vowed almost as soon as she was born. The cold and the damp were fatal to her mother, and Rita is so like her; I dare not risk my daughter there.”
“But,” said Lydia, “it is not always cold and damp. It is very lovely here, but people are prejudiced, and talk nonsense about England. If it is so long since you were there, you have, perhaps, forgotten. We have something else besides rain and fog.”
“Yes, yes; I know there is an occasional fine day. You come from the south of England probably, Miss Joscelyn, where some sort of fine weather is to be found?”
“No, indeed, I come from the north—quite the north, close to Scotland; and we have often beautiful weather,” said Lydia, with a glow of patriotism; “a different blue from this, and a great deal more cloud; but then that is what makes it so beautiful, flying over the hills, clearing off in a moment, then dropping again like a white veil, and the sun bursting out all in a moment like a surprise. When one comes to think of it the variety is the charm. Here you have the same thing all day long, and every day; but with us the skies are never the same for an hour; and as for cold, I never feel any cold; one takes a brisk walk, and that is all that is wanted.”
“I see you enter into the spirit of the country. The north? That is where my son-in-law comes from.” The Vice-Consul always said to himself that he put in his tone a note of interrogation to this question; but Lydia took it for a statement, and received it without hesitation.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said.
“I think I heard you say that you knew—relations of his? Are they neighbours of yours? I am interested in everything about Harry.”
“That puzzles me,” she said, “to hear you call him Harry. I thought he was Isaac Oliver. I know some one of that name.”
“A neighbour? It is, as you say, an uncommon name. I might have thought of that. Yes, quite an uncommon name. And your Mr. Oliver, Miss Joscelyn, was——?”
“Oh,” cried Lydia, forgetting all previous cautions, with a laugh at the unnecessary title, “he was not Mr. Oliver at all. He was a man whom—he was a man—he was a——”
Here she stopped all at once, bethinking herself of Lady Brotherton’s injunction, and of the possible effect upon the young man who had looked at her with such a strange, curious look, of this revelation. She stopped all at once, and looked at her questioner with sudden alarm. “I have not the least reason to think that he is a relation of Mr. Oliver’s,” she said. “It was only an idea on my part. It was because of the name. When I heard the name I thought it must be some one sent to bring me home.”
“It is a curious name. We have got used to it: we have forgotten that. The man then is—not a gentleman? I think I may guess as much. He is a—what? A farmer—a yeoman? The yeomen in the north country, I have always heard, are a very fine, independent class of men.”
“Oh, it is not a farmer, or a—— Indeed, indeed, it was the silliest mistake on my part. Besides, it is not really the same name, even if that were anything, for you call him Harry; so he cannot be Isaac Oliver, after all.”
“You must not think me too pressing, Miss Joscelyn. I have a particular reason for wishing to know. We have never known much about his family; and I think I am sure that it must be the same family, for the name of Joscelyn is—— What is it, what is it, Harry? Am I wanted? This is the way we are worked, we poor servants of the public. H.B.M., God bless her! is a hard taskmistress: but this conversation is too interesting to be abandoned. Keep my seat for me here, Paolo. I put great confidence in you till I come back.”
Paolo, who had been hovering about with many longing looks, took the seat with enthusiasm.
“I take it,” he said, “with all my heart; but to give it up, even to the Signor Consul himself, that is what I shall not do if I can help it. Mees Joscelyn has known Mr. Bonamy before? He is charming. He will not only talk, but make talk. He has great education and feeling; and in art, he knows himself much better than most of the English—not to speak with unkindness of the English, who have much fine qualities: and also I am English myself.”
“But one would not think so,” said Lydia, “to hear you talk.” She was of opinion on the whole that this was rather a compliment than otherwise, for “foreigners” in her opinion were more “interesting” than commonplace Englishmen. But Paolo was in despair.
“You think me—? Ah, it is cruel! and if Mees Joscelyn say so,” said little Paolo, “it must be true. No, I am not like my friend for example; but Englishmen are not all one like another. There is variety, as you have said so beautifully, like a poem, about the weather. Ah, the English weather! I should like that.”
“I don’t think you would altogether,” said Lydia with a quiet smile. She had no attention to bestow on Paolo. But she did what impulsive people are so apt to do with strangers, insignificant but sympathetic, often to the great damage of the victim. She leant forward a little and took him into her confidence. “You are a great friend of Mr. Oliver?” she said, “you told me so; then please don’t go away when Mr. Bonamy comes back, for he is asking me questions, and I would rather not answer. It might do Mr. Oliver harm.”
“I will not go—for the King himself—if you thus tell me to remain,” cried Paolo, enchanted. But he was confounded too; he did not understand. The first and most natural idea seemed to be that Lydia and Harry were old friends or lovers, with a secret between them; or else this was a mere pretence to secure the pleasure of his, Paolo’s, society, instead of that of Mr. Bonamy. English young ladies, who were so free in their manners, so emancipated, did very strange things. Paolo smiled upon Lydia with his most captivating smile. “I could stay here for evare,” he said.
Lydia gave him a look of amused surprise, but she did not mind the little man at all, nor did it for a moment occur to her that he might interpret her sudden confidential impulse according to any theory of nationalities.
“It is very hard,” she said, leaning back in her chair with a little sigh of relief, “when anyone looks you in the face, and keeps on asking questions, not to tell everything that you know.”
“You think so,” said Paolo. “Ah! Mees Joscelyn, it is that you are so true, what you call straightforwards in England; here one would take a pleasure in doing otherwise. In Italy, when it is imagined that you desire to know more than is necessary, that pleases to us to confuse you. Not to me,” he said, bethinking himself, and beating his breast lightly to indicate himself as an exception, “not to me, for I am also English: but to noi altri Italiani:” this little confusion of a double identity as English, yet one of noi altri, pleased Paolo; he laughed at his own cleverness with the frankest self-appreciation. “It pleases,” he said, “to put a too much inquirer wrong.”
“But when he looks you in the face,” said Lydia, amused and relieved, “how can you say anything but what it really is? There is a—person in England whom I know. He is not a gentleman, but he has the same name as Mr. Oliver. Mr. Oliver’s name is Isaac, is it not? but then they call him something else, and I don’t know what to think.”
“My amico, Oliver, pleases to Miss Joscelyn?” Paolo said.
“Pleases to——? I feel a great interest in him,” said Lydia. “He startled me so much with the sound of his name; and then he is like somebody I know. I cannot remember who it is—but there is some one; and then Mr. Bonamy asks me so many questions—I feel an interest. I do not think it very wise, if you have poor relations, to be ashamed of them—do you? And yet one does not like to betray another if there is any reason—” Lydia became so fragmentary in her utterances, that Paolo could not follow the broken thread of her thoughts.
“Ny-ce?” he said. “But my friend Oliver is very ny-ce—there is not a thought in him that is not ny-ce. I know,” said Paolo, with an ingratiating smile, “that word so well.”
“How nice of you to answer for him so!” cried Lydia, turning upon him with a sudden radiance of smiles. “It is delightful to meet with such a true friend.”
Paolo’s very soul expanded with pleasure. He put his hand upon his shirtfront, and bowed over the little table, laden with the picture-books. He did not deprecate as an Englishman would have done, or disclaim any merit in this; but took the full credit of it with a pleasant consciousness of deserving it. He thought, however, that there had been enough of Oliver, and determined to push his own successful fortunes without further delay. “Miss Joscelyn, I hope, will stay long, a little while, two, tree weeks at Livorno? No! Oh! that is bad news, very bad news,” said Paolo, his face growing longer and longer as she shook her head.
“Only till to-morrow—to-morrow evening we are to go by the steamboat;” and Lydia, reverting to her own thoughts, recorded this statement with a sigh.
“You are sorry to leave the beautiful Italy. Ah! and Italy too will be desolated when so many charming Inglesi, so many beautiful ladies leave her shore—to-morrow! That is bad news, very bad news,” Paolo said.
“I am afraid Italy will not care very much,” said Lydia, with a little laugh. “The English come and go every year; but I don’t think I shall ever come back. For me it is once in my life,” she said, this time with a sigh; and the sigh was a sad one, for there came once more over her mind, which had been temporarily distracted by a new subject, all the heavy and troubled thoughts which had made her so restless and wretched for a few days past.
“No, no,” cried Paolo. “No, no—ah! pardon, it must not be one time in the Signorina’s life. She must return—she must return! There are impressions, made in a moment—which will nevare, nevare be effaced——”
Paolo was carried out of himself; he leaned across the table, almost kneeling at Liddy’s feet, and with the most passionate expression in his large liquid Italian eyes. Lydia on her side looked at the little man with the sublimest composure. She elevated her eyebrows the least in the world in mild surprise, and a passing wonder crossed her mind, immediately checked by the reflection that these were “Italian ways.” But Paolo’s rapt looks attracted the attention of others, if not of her to whom they were addressed. Two champions stepped forth immediately to the rescue. On one side Harry, hasty and disposed to be a little peremptory with his friend, and on the other Lionel, anxious and alarmed, thinking of course that any rival might come in at the last moment and “cut him out.”
“Paolo,” said Harry, “I wish you’d look after that gymnastic man for the children—the man you told me about. Ralph is coming back to-morrow; he wants exercise when he’s in town.”
“Ralph?” said Lydia, looking up, and once more meeting a look which bewildered her. Harry’s brow was a little clouded, but his eyes had the same tender appeal in them, the same solicitude, as if he wanted her to understand him. What did he want her to understand? and here was another familiar name.
“Yes,” he said, but a little uneasily; “it is an English name. We are divided a little in our family. The next is Giovanna, after an aunt—of my wife’s.”
“But that has an English form, too,” said Lionel. “Joan.”
A spark seemed to flash out of the eyes of this strange Mr. Oliver. He meant something. What did he mean? Lydia seemed to herself to be groping after him as if he had led her into a dark passage with a doubtful outlet, yet one that showed faintly far off. Isaac or not, he must be somebody who knew about him, who was conscious of some connection. And to see him standing there before her, the idea that he belonged to old Isaac Oliver seemed too absurd to be entertained. How foolish she had been to say anything about it; how unkind and impertinent to try to vex him by producing that ghost of an old country servant! But then how was it that this stranger knew she was speaking of an old peasant, a man of a different species? He knew all about him, she was convinced. Old Isaac meant to him what it meant to her. Here again Liddy got entirely confused in the darkness, and groped and felt that she must be on the edge of finding out all about it, but for the moment knew nothing, and had not even begun to suspect any new turn which the confusion might yet take.
“Names seem very much the same in all languages,” said Harry; “the contractions are different. In England we take the first half of the name, in Italy the last. My wife’s name is Rita; one little girl is Madge; but they are the same name—Margaret. And you’ve only to stick on a vowel, and an English name becomes prime Italian. There’s yours, for instance, Paolo; in English you would be Paul.”
“That is true,” said Paolo, dissembling, with a broad smile of affection, the sensations produced by the slap upon his shoulders which Harry was in the habit of administering, and which he was too polite, too devoted, to complain of. Paolo had a keen pang of disappointment too to have been thus interrupted while he felt he was making such progress with the beautiful young Englishwoman; but he was too sweet-tempered to resent it. He winced under the blow, but he smiled all the same. “That is true,” he said; “but, amico mio, if you could but learn what it is to pronounce two vowels in the Italian! Mees Joscelyn must know that my friend Oliver, he is in Italia for ten years, and still he cannot do justice to two vowels. Will the Signorina make me the pleasure to pronounce my name?—Paolo. Pao-lo, broad, like this—ow. He will never catch it, he is so true an Englishman; but Mees Joscelyn will say it—ah, perfectly!” cried Paolo, clapping his hands together, and once more throwing himself into that adoring attitude; “thanks a thousand times; that is to make music of my poor little name.”
At this both the Englishmen made a step forward, and stood tall and frowning like sentinels on either side of her, glooming down upon the little Italian, thrown forward almost upon his knees, with his clasped hands half way over the table, and rapture in his big, beautiful eyes. The scene roused Lydia in spite of herself. She was only a girl after all, and this conflict of emotion around her, the demonstrative adoration on one side, the furious defence on the other, which was quite as great a compliment, amused her, and gave her a little thrill of pleasure. Both Harry and Lionel, however, were much disgusted to perceive that, instead of being indignant and offended by Paolo’s demonstration, she was at the least amused, and perhaps pleased. This made them more angry than ever.
“The vowel may add softness,” said Lionel, in a tone of irritation; “but I don’t think that is any advantage, at least in a man’s name. In that a little abruptness, a bold conclusion, is desirable, not a liquid a or o.”
“You want English for that,” said Harry; “these foreign beggars (I beg your pardon, Paolo) are all for airs and graces. I suppose I can’t get my mouth about them; though to tell the truth I don’t see any difference between my pronunciation and Miss Joscelyn’s.”
“It is true,” said Paolo, “there is a sound in both your voices—what you call it—a tone. You have in brief, by the way, the same voice—that is strange. Mr. Brotherton, he is in a different key; but you, that is a great compliment for you, amico, you are in the same note with Mees Joscelyn. She will speak perfectly, perfectly! the Italian, and you no. Oh, you no! nevare,” said Paolo with a laugh, clapping his hands; “but nevertheless it is true you are in the same tone.”
“That is strange,” Harry said. Once more he looked at her so affectionately, with a kind look of pleasure in his eyes, that Lydia was more and more bewildered. “It is a great compliment to me, as Paolo says.”
“My mother seems to want you, Lydia,” said Lionel, very coldly. He did not like it at all. It seemed to him that Oliver, who was a married man, was forgetting himself altogether, though he was an Englishman, and ought to have known better; and was paying court undisguisedly to Lydia as well as this little hop-o’-my-thumb of an Italian who was languishing at her feet, just like a foreigner, showing off those sentiments which an Englishman has the delicacy to conceal. And Lydia was pleased! Was it possible? Such a thoroughly nice girl, so modest and delightful in all her ways, never putting herself forward, always with the pretty reserve in her frankness which is the very bloom of maidenhood. To think that she should be pleased! Lionel felt that he could not understand it. This, no doubt, was the sort of thing which made cynics declare women to be incomprehensible creatures. A really nice girl, everything about her good and pure, and yet this kind of thing actually pleased her! Lionel’s indignation, and disgust, and disappointment were extreme, but he tried to restrain himself. “My mother is looking for you,” he said. “And I suppose she wants to go. You must not forget my father has been ill, and that we have a long journey before us.” He hoped the fellow would understand this; that she was going away to-morrow, and that he had no further chance of philandering in this barefaced way; and he hoped Liddy understood that he thought her forgetful and inconsiderate, and showing no feeling for poor old Sir John, not to speak of Sir John’s son. But his ill-temper did not have so great an effect as it might have had in other circumstances. She was looking up at Oliver, wondering, with her pretty eyebrows slightly raised and a softened, gentle, almost child-like look, interrogating the eyes of that fellow, who was a married man! Lionel thought it absolutely immoral. He was disgusted and bewildered, and did not know what to think. He made another step nearer and offered her his arm. “My mother,” he repeated, with some sharpness, “is moving to go away.”
Lydia made no resistance. She took his arm quite submissively, and held out her other hand. “Good night,” she said to Harry. “I suppose we must be of the same country, as we have the same voice.”
“Yes,” he said, holding her hand a moment, “we are of the same country, and I know what you think; but it is not that.”
“It is not that? What is it?” Lydia said, with a startled look, as if she saw light somewhere; but then Rita came forward with Lady Brotherton and took leave coldly of Miss Joscelyn, and there was nothing for it but to go away.