CHAPTER XI.
THE COUNSELS OF THE NIGHT.
“LIDDY, Liddy, my dear! you should not have said anything about that old man. How is it possible that he could be a relation of Mr. Bonamy’s son-in-law? It is odd, of course, about the name; still, you know, there might be another Lydia Joscelyn in the world who was no relation of yours. There are Joscelyns down in the South. I thought when Sir John first remembered about your mother that it was one of them she had married; and there might just as well as not be a Lydia among them. Lydia is not a common name, no more common than Isaac—but there might be a Lydia among them, who, of course, would not be related to you.”
“I don’t think now that he is related to Mr. Oliver,” Lydia said.
“I wonder,” said Lionel, “what reason you have for that? It seems much more likely to me than before. I don’t think the fellow is a gentleman. Oh, he looks well enough, there is nothing amiss about his appearance; still there are some things I have remarked.”
“If Lionel thinks so,” said Lady Brotherton, “my dear, in these matters, I always take the opinion of a man, just as about women I would take a lady’s opinion before all the men in the world. Oh, yes, it is very pretty to talk of jealousy, and all that; but you may be sure we all know our own kind the best. If Lionel thinks so, I would take his opinion before my own.”
At this Lionel had compunctions, and drew back a little.
“Perhaps I went too far,” he said. “I was out of temper. Still there are some things a man would not do, if——” but though he felt that he had been rash, he did not complete his sentence. The carriage stopped, indeed, at that moment at the inn door, and there was no time for him to say anything more; and Lydia took no further part in the discussion.
She bade her friends good night in the hall of the inn and ran upstairs to her room. She was rather glad to have disagreed with Lionel and set her own opinion before his, and she felt angry with him, indignant, and almost wounded, that he should have given such an opinion. She felt it almost to be something against herself. She hurried up to her own room, to finish her packing, she said. She had taken out her white dress to wear that evening, and had now to put it back, to resume her travelling-garments. It was their last night in Italy; next evening they would be at sea, seeing the sun set in the Mediterranean. It was a warm night, and her mind was far too restless and busy for sleep. When she had put away her dress, and arranged all her possessions in order, she went to the open window and sat down there, looking out at the moon. The room was high up near the skies, and she had all the firmament to herself, nothing to disturb its calm except the old belfry of a convent with its little tinkling bell, which was always in movement all day long, but which seemed to have gone to bed along with the peaceful sisters and their pupils. This little belfry stood out against the deep blue of the sky, which lined out every little curve and corner, but all was quiet in and about it, its shrill tongue still till morning. All was quiet; the room looked out to the back of the house, and not an echo of the street reached Lydia in her retirement. She felt, half with the giddiness of her excited condition, half with the expectation of to-morrow, as if she were sailing upon a sea of space, floating between the earth and sky; and as she sat there so still, her candles burning in the background unnoticed, sedately awaiting her leisure, and the soft night blowing in upon her with a breath of the sea in it, a perfect crowd and storm of thoughts burst on Lydia in the quiet. She thought, you would suppose, of what she had been doing to-night, of the curious questions about Isaac Oliver, and the examination to which the Vice-Consul had subjected her, and all the novelty of this story into which she had been thrust head and shoulders without any will of her own; but, to tell the truth, Lydia thought nothing about this at all, at first. She thought of to-morrow, of the tide of movement which would sweep her away, of leaning over the bulwark and seeing the long trail of the water gliding under the ship, and of what might be said to her there. Sir John would be safely installed in the deck-cabin, which had always to be secured for him, and Lady Brotherton would stretch herself out on a sofa and close her eyes, in preparation for being ill. And then: what would be said? She wove a great many imaginary conversations that came to nothing. Why should they come to anything? He would tell her—what he was going to do in town; that he hoped she would enjoy going home; something commonplace, ordinary—or else he would say foolish things about the months they had been together, and pretend to regret them. Why should he regret them? Lydia imagined herself saying much that would not be true, that she was impatient to get back, that the quiet of the Fells would be delightful after so much wandering; and much besides which would pique him and wound him, and perhaps goad him to say other unpleasant things in return.
And then all at once, without any doing of hers, her thoughts gave a leap back to to-night, and there began to float and move before her all the new faces never seen before, never, probably, to be seen again, which for an hour or two had filled her with such strange, strong interest. From the moment Mr. Isaac Oliver had been announced, startling her out of herself, until now, when still discussing him, she had left the rest of the party in the hall, the encounter had agitated and disturbed her. “We are of the same country, and I know what you think—but it is not that.” What did he mean?—it is not that! and why did a stranger whom she had never seen before look at her so, and understand her so strangely? Her heart began to beat loudly once more when she thought of her impertinent production of old Isaac, when seated beside her silent host at the table, taunting him with the old man; and he understood her—that was the strange thing. If he did not really belong to old Isaac Oliver, how was it that he understood her? When he looked at her with that curious appeal, as if saying “Do not vex me—do not trouble me,” there would have been no meaning in it if he had not known what she meant; and how could he know if it was not true? Lydia felt herself caught as in a net of confusing questions and thoughts. Another man would have been surprised; he would have asked “Who is this namesake of mine? Tell me about him.” But this man did not ask a question; he knew. She felt that from the first moment she had perceived this involuntarily, and that her little pricks of questions could not have had any point if he had not known old Isaac, and if she had not felt that he knew him. Mr. Bonamy, for instance, did not know at all, and asked natural questions—who the gentleman was? the gentleman! if he was a neighbour, a farmer, a yeoman?—none of which things Mr. Oliver so much as suggested. Then who was this that knew Isaac Oliver, that knew her own name she began to remember, starting when he heard it first, as she had started when she heard his?
By this time Lydia began to get hot after the puzzle which unfolded itself slowly before her. Why did the Vice-Consul ask her so many questions? and he had begun to say something about “the name of Joscelyn.” What about the name of Joscelyn? Then a crowd of bewildering recollections, like motes in the sunbeam, like the whirling flakes of a snowstorm, began to circle and dance and palpitate around her. “We are of the same country, and I know what you think—but it is not that.” What was it, then? What was it? He a relative of Isaac Oliver! no, no!—it was impossible; but he knew Isaac Oliver; he knew his name and herself; he knew what she meant when she spoke; and when she tried to humble him with her impertinence, he was not angry, but sorry. She seemed to see now his kind, half-reproachful, half-appealing eyes, the look which bewildered and arrested her, she could not tell why. Quicker and quicker went the course of Lydia’s thoughts. He had a child who was called Ralph, and another Joan—no, not Joan, but Giovanna; but there had come a gleam out of his eyes when Lionel had suggested Joan. Who was he, who could he be to use these names, to look like that, like somebody she had seen, to understand all she meant, yet not to be angry? And their voices that were of the same tone! She could see this herself, or rather she could hear it herself—that their voices sounded alike, with a suspicion of a North-Country accent. Good heavens! where was this flood of suggestion, of recollection, carrying her? She jumped up from her seat in the confusion and hurry of her thoughts, and began to pace about the room, her hands clasped together like her mother’s. Then she stopped in the centre of the room, and in the silence, in the middle of the night, threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture, and gave a sudden cry. “Harry!” she almost screamed to herself in the stillness. Everybody was asleep around her, the stars winking in the sky as if about to shut up their wakeful eyes, the blue behind the belfry beginning to glow with a pale radiation into the air of the coming dawn—and as if they had given each other a signal, all the clocks of the silent town began chiming and striking, some of them prolonging the lengthened measure of the Italian time into the soft tuning of the night. Lydia standing in the middle of the room in wild excitement, her hair streaming about her, her arms thrown up, her mouth open, looked like a prophetess in a trance, seeing the invisible, almost shrieking her revelation into the heart of the silence. Harry! Harry! She could not keep it to herself; she could not help but scream it out into the night, to make sure that she was not dreaming or raving—but was a sane creature, who had made a discovery which seemed to set her whole being on fire.
It was a long time before she could calm herself down. If there had been anybody to tell it to, that would have been something; but, as she had no way of getting rid of her excitement, it blazed up in her higher and higher. She did not know what to do to calm herself down. She walked about for nearly an hour, now and then going to the window, leaning half out, exposing herself to the fresh air and coolness, eagerly looking for the first early riser, the first window opening, and watching the little belfry grow black against the lightening sky, then flash and blaze to the first touch of the sun. Sleep! she could have sooner done anything else in the world—stretched out her arms like wings and flown, leaped down from the window, called out to all the city, that was what she wanted to do—“Harry, Harry!” She seemed to have but one idea left in the world.
After a while, however, in the desperation of being unable to communicate her discovery, or do anything to bring herself more clearly face to face with so wonderful a revelation, Lydia sat down to trace it again step by step, then lay down on her bed, going over and over the familiar ground. She fell asleep just as the sunshine began to stream into her room, and slept soundly for an hour or two in the depths of her exhaustion; but when she woke it was still early, and a long day before her. Naturally the first thing she did was to survey again the entire circumstances, going over them one by one. She had not much experience, and in her whole life no such lawless incident as a nuit blanche, a night spent without taking off her clothes had ever occurred to Liddy before. She felt almost guilty as she found herself lying there, her long hair streaming about her, in her dressing-gown, as she had been when she first sat down at her window to think. Sometimes the morning light dissipates the wisest calculations and conclusions of the night, and turns its theories and revelations into folly; but as she started up hastily, and began to put her facts together again, no such awakening occurred. They seemed more conclusive, more certain, in the sober light of the morning, than they did in the feverish wakefulness of the long, silent night. She pieced them all together hurriedly, in a tremble of excitement. He had been there ten years, and it was ten years since Harry disappeared. He had said nothing about his family, he had even married without any explanation on that point. He had started at the sound of her name; he had understood all she said. He had called his child Ralph—Ralph! after his father, with a prejudice that was North-country all over; and his name was Harry, so called by his wife, though he had himself announced as Isaac Oliver. Lydia thought she could understand exactly what had made him take Isaac Oliver’s name—a moment of despite and despair, yet humour—a putting down of himself from the pinnacle of the Joscelyns to the humility of the lowliest servant, an expedient which would direct the thoughts of anyone who might seek him into another direction. She sprang up, and was fully dressed and ready to begin the extraordinary piece of work she had in hand, before anyone else of the party had stirred. But what was she to do? Was she to go to him straight, without any further inquiry, without a pause, and say, Are you my brother Harry? or, You are my brother Harry! If by any chance he was not so, after all, he would think her mad. What was she to do? She sat down again at the window where she had sat for half the night. The sunshine was pouring in, growing every moment more brilliant, not like the temperate British sunshine which it is a pleasure in the early morning to bathe and bask in, but already blazing, slaying in its Italian force and fervour. She had to close the persiani, which she had herself thrown open in her restlessness on the previous night. When all the people of the hotel were in motion, and life fully astir, she went downstairs; but there was nothing to be done there, save to sit down once more and think it all over again. She had not been there long, however, when Lionel came into the room in search of a book; he had been restless too; but he started violently when he caught sight of her buried in a great chair, with her hands clasped in her lap. For the first moment he thought that she must have been there all night.
“Lydia!” he cried, in great alarm, “what is the matter?” Then he added, hastily, “My nerves are entirely wrong, I think. You startled me so, as if you had been all night in that chair.”
“Not in this chair,” said Liddy, willing, however, to have some credit of her sleepless night, “but almost the same. Cousin Lionel, I want advice very much. I am very lonely and very inexperienced to do anything so important by myself.”
He came quickly and drew a chair close to her. She was excited physically by her vigil, and the tears were very near her eyes, which were brimming full when Lionel, much concerned and very tender and sympathetic, looked her in the face. He put out his hand to take hers with anxious solicitude; and Lydia did not resist. Her heart was so full, and she was so overburdened with this new thing, that the mere touch of a sympathetic hand was a consolation to her. The tears dropped out of her eyes like two drops of rain upon her dress, and then she looked at him and said, “I have found Harry,” with the tremor of a sob in her voice.
“You have found——!” he was so startled that he did not know what to say in reply.
“Cousin Lionel,” cried Lydia, “answer me this—how did he know what I meant when I spoke of Isaac Oliver? He knew very well, he never asked a question; and why did he start when he heard my name? I saw it myself. He arrived here ten years ago, without knowing anybody, he has never told them about his family, he called himself that, don’t you see, in a kind of disdain at himself and everything. Then he married and promised never to take his wife to England. He did not want ever to go to England, why was that? And he called his son Ralph, fancy, Ralph! why was that? And though he is called Isaac Oliver to the world, he could not bear that at home, and they call him Harry, his true name. Oh, Lionel, do you not see it all? It is perfectly clear, as clear as noon-day. And now tell me what am I to do?”
“But——” Lionel said, who had not followed, entirely without preparation as he was, her breathless argument. “What do you mean? tell me what you mean? I am utterly bewildered. Are you speaking of Oliver—Oliver? I don’t understand what you mean.”
Lydia made a gesture of impatience.
“Oh, everybody is so slow, so slow!” she cried, “except him. He understood at once. Don’t you see he must have known it all beforehand, everything that could be said? He never asked, ‘Who is Isaac Oliver?’ he said in a moment, directly, ‘He is no relation of mine.’ How could he know if he had not known?” cried Liddy, too eager to be lucid. “Mr. Bonamy asked me, ‘Who are you talking of? a neighbour, a farmer, a yeoman, who is it?’ but he never asked a question. He said directly, ‘He is no relation of mine;’ and when we were coming away he said to me, ‘I know what you think, but it is not that.’ Now how could he know what I thought if he had not known?”
“By Jove!” said Lionel. He was very much startled, so that some exclamation was necessary. “That is very acute,” he said; “I see what you mean. It is very acute, and this is very strange. Perhaps—there may be something in it. But you know,” he added, “it is far too pat, too complete, to be a real discovery. People do not find long lost brothers like this.”
“Oh, do not talk—in that common way,” cried Lydia; “as if strange things did not happen as much as they ever did! Why should it be too complete? The more you think of everything, the more you will feel sure. Don’t you see just why he chose that name to disguise himself with? I do. And all those little bits of kindness—to call his boy Ralph, like a forgiveness to my father, who was so hard upon him. He has not a Liddy,” she cried, with a little regret. “Ah, I see how that was too! mother, dear mother, he had nothing to forgive her. Lionel! Lionel!” she cried, grasping him by the arm in her excitement, “tell me what I must do?”
“You see meaning in everything,” he said, “more than there is, more than there can be, Lydia. All that about his child’s name is just your own delicate feeling—though after all, when one comes to think of it, Ralph! it is an odd name for a little Italian boy.”
“And the girl is Giovanna; you said yourself it was the same name as Joan.”
“Did I? I am sure I did not mean anything,” said Lionel, with a short laugh, and then he cried, “By Jove!” again. “I really do think there is something in it. He gave a look, I remember now, as if he did understand, as if he thought I meant something. It looks very odd, Lydia; and I had a strong impression he was like some one that I had seen him before.”
“He is like—all of us,” said Lydia, with a little breathless gasp, “not one nor another, but all. But tell me, tell me what to do! We have only to-day, a few hours, nothing more!”
“As for that,” said Lionel, “of course, if this turns out so important, my mother must simply arrange to stay till we see the end of it. She will not mind, she will like to jump into the middle of a romance; and my father will easily be persuaded to stay, there will be no difficulty about that.”
And then there was a long debate and consultation between them; a debate—for Lionel, not understanding that even when a human creature is a woman she likes to do her work with her own hands, was for proceeding to the Vice-Consul himself, and going through all the pros and cons, and bringing the result to her, to save her fatigue, and to keep her from all disagreeable contact with the world; whereas Lydia’s most prevailing desire was to follow out the clue at which she had caught, and to track her prey into his last refuge, and to unveil the impostor. She did not use these words, but this was the course upon which she was intent. She was not afraid of contact with the world, or of what anybody might say. The discussion rose somewhat hotly between them as the servants came and went, laying the table, bringing in the English urn and teapot, which all the Inglesi preferred. They were still sitting close together, talking warmly, interrupting each other, Lydia’s face glowing with the excitement of the situation, when Lady Brotherton appeared. She was startled by the sight, but for the moment she did not ask any questions, being much pre-occupied by Sir John’s breakfast, that the tea should be strong enough without being too strong, that the cream should not be “turned,” and that the fish should be done to his mind. She did not take much notice of them, and the meeting between them broke up, each retiring upon his and her own side of the question. Lydia was too much excited to talk, or to think, of ordinary things. She sat at the table as upon thorns, and the moment the meal was over, got up with some excuse and hastened away. Lionel followed her a few minutes after. He lingered in the hall, hoping he might be in time, at least, to go with her, wherever she might choose to go. But as she did not come, after half-an-hour’s waiting Lionel resolved to act upon his own theory, and accordingly set out on his volunteer mission, hoping that she might have thought better of it, and was staying with dignity in her room, however anxious she might be, waiting till he, her representative, should bring her news. It was a pretty division of labour, and one that fell in with all Lionel’s views.