IT was a beautiful night, the stars shining like diamonds, like ethereal lamps in the sky, clear and crisp, with a twinkle and movement in them as of something living; the sea all in a ripple, in absolute peacefulness yet endless life, sweeping like a smooth, green, transparent flood of liquid metal under the bow, seething in white curd and spray behind, marking a long, moving line of white across its surface as the great boat rustled and fretted on. The air was so sweet, the sea so calm, that everybody stayed late on deck, except Lady Brotherton, who had placed herself at once on her sofa with her eyes closed, not to see the motion, of which, even when there was no motion at all, she was afraid. But Sir John sat on deck till it was late, enjoying the voyage greatly, and, in the absence of his wife, keeping his son near him, and addressing to him all his thousand questions. “’Shay, Lionel, what’sh that Consul fellow doing with Liddy, ’shgot a wife of hish own.” “You forget,” Lionel said, “that he’s her brother, Sir—Harry Joscelyn. Mr. Bonamy told you all about it to-day.” “Yesh, yesh, old Bonamy, easy-going old duffer. ’Shish own daughter—should take more care of her. You look after little Liddy; shgot wife of his own.” Lionel looked at the pair walking up and down with feelings it would be difficult to describe. It was easy to say, take care of little Liddy. Liddy was hanging on her brother’s arm, quite independent of him. They two were now the two who belonged to each other now. When they parted in England it was her brother who would take Lydia home. She had no need of Lionel to talk to, to make a companion of; Harry was much better—a novelty, and all women like novelty—and then he was her brother; what could be more natural and right? Lionel took to theorizing about women, as men naturally do when ill-used by them. This was the kind of thing to be expected from these unaccountable creatures, whom, of course, no man could understand—though every man is surrounded by them all his life; triumphant folly of sex which transcends all experience! He railed at women in his heart, because Lydia was occupied, and had no attention to give him. He heard her laugh, and the soft current of her voice running on continually, with a kind of maddening contempt. She leant on her brother’s arm, which she never did on his—Lionel’s. It made his heart sick to see her thus enjoying herself, enjoying the balmy night. There was nothing so bad that he did not think it as the hours of the delightful twilight, the soft, early night, flew by. Perhaps it was not her fault: were not all women the same? treacherous, fickle, blown about by every wind—off with the old whenever there was something new to take to; mysterious, worthless, untrustworthy creatures, who, however sweet they might be one day, were never to be relied upon for the next; who would part from you with the tenderest of farewells and meet you next time as if you were the merest acquaintance! Lionel felt that he hated the whole sex as he stood by his father’s side watching these two about the decks. When they passed she would nod at him, or give him one of her easy smiles, not in the least ignoring his position, recognizing it, and coolly suffering it so to be. At last he had to withdraw, helping Thomas to move his father into the cabin reserved for him, and consequently losing sight of them for a moment. When he returned he could not see them, and the rage in him burned fiercer than ever. Then, on the bridge, high up against the sky, he discerned something like Harry’s figure, with a red tip of a cigar appearing above the collar of his warm coat. Harry had become chilly after ten years of Italian life. Lionel laughed at this effeminacy. He liked to feel that his own coat was thin, yet quite enough for his muscular Anglicism. No doubt she had gone in, retired for the night, and all that was out of the question. He did not specify to himself what all that was. He had not the heart even for a cigar. If he smoked he would come across that fellow, and be compelled to talk to him. After all, it was a great mistake to dis-inter relations whom you know nothing about. One might be nice—though even of that he felt far from certain—but the rest were almost sure to be bores, like this fellow. Indeed, the brothers were all bores, and without any breeding. It was a mistake to have taken any trouble about them, or ever to have sought them out at all. “Confound them!” he said to himself, facing the breeze, diving his hands deep down to the bottom of his pockets, and angrily gazing into the night.
“Confound whom, Cousin Lionel?” said a voice by his side.
Lionel started violently, then turned round. “Oh! are you there? I did not know where you were. I thought you had gone to bed.”
“Must one go to bed? They say we get to Genoa quite early; and it is such a lovely, lovely night.”
“Do you think so?” he said, softened; “so do I. If you will stay with me, I don’t think you need go to bed; but if you are going off again with that fellow—I mean, of course, with your brother——”
“It is quite delightful,” said Lydia, with energy, “to have a brother—you know, a real brother—a little like one’s self: not elderly, and worldly, and Westmoreland, like Will and Tom.”
“I thought you were so fond of Westmoreland,” said Lionel.
“Ah! so I am; but not that kind. Now Harry is—you can’t think what Harry is——”
“I know what you want me to think him—the most disgusting interloper, the worst nuisance in the world. It is quite unaccountable of him to go and leave you alone here. Doesn’t he know how a lady should be taken care of? In a common steamboat when there are all sorts of people——”
“I never knew you were so ill-natured before,” said Lydia in a plaintive tone. “Poor Harry! he took me to the cabin-door; he thinks I am there now. I came up afterwards—well—because it is hot there, because it is such a lovely night, because the sea is so beautiful—look at that light on it—and, then, because I thought you would perhaps think it civil to come and say good night.”
“Ah, Liddy!” he cried, seizing her hand and drawing it through his arm, “come and walk about a little. I thought I was never to have a chance of saying a word to you to-night. I have been swearing at everything and everybody.”
“I thought so,” said Liddy, with a little laugh, “from the expression of your face.”
“And you laughed—at my torture——”
“Would you have had me cry? What could I do? I could not take you from Sir John; and then you never looked as if you wanted to have anything to say to us. Well,” said Lydia, stopping short, “now all the purposes of civility are fulfilled, and we can say good night.”
But they had not said good night full two hours after, when the short voyage was almost over, and the lights of Genoa stretching round the whole breadth of the lovely bay in an ineffectual struggle with the dawn, began to rise upon their dazzled eyes. Then after a little struggle Lydia made her escape. “What will Lady Brotherton think? It must be three o’clock in the morning, and how can I face her? She will see it in my eyes, and she will not like it. Oh! why didn’t we think of that sooner? They will not like it, neither she nor Sir John; for I am nobody, Lionel.”
“Nobody? you are Liddy—that is enough; and then you forget,” he said, with a slight sense of humour, “you are a Joscelyn.”
“Yes, that is true,” said Lydia, very gravely, “I am a Joscelyn; but we are not at all what we used to be. Being Joscelyns,” she added, mournfully, “we are rough country people.”
“You a rough country people! You are Liddy,” he said.
“Oh, what is the good of saying that over and over again! Liddy! what is Liddy? an ugly old-fashioned name. We should have thought of that sooner. They will not have me,” she said.
“No, I hope not. It is I that must have you,” said Lionel, and he took no notice of the fact that it was morning; but, to be sure, there was nobody except the sailors about. He walked with her to the door of the cabin as the deceived Harry had done. How much had passed since then! Liddy thought with shame and self-reproach, as she stole into the darkened shelter where a peevish little lamp was still burning, that it would never have happened had she not given him that opportunity. She had given him the opportunity. She ought to have stayed in the cabin and prevented all that followed. It was her fault; but perhaps, though she felt guilty, she did not feel so penitent as she might have done. Lady Brotherton by dint of shutting her eyes had gone peacefully to sleep, which was a thing she professed never to do on board ship. Lydia retired to rest; she stole out of her gown as quiet as a mouse, and compunctious and guilty, but very happy, crept into her berth. The steamer was coming to anchor with great jars and creakings, and heavy footsteps overhead; and by and by Lydia’s drowsy eyes, so full of happiness and freshness, yet soft weariness and dreaminess, closed in spite of her. She did not suppose that she could have slept on such a night.
But next day was much more difficult to get through. The honest girl did not feel that she could look Lady Brotherton in the face. As long as they were apart, the position, though painful, was possible; but, when they were together, Lydia was so changed from her usual aspect that Lady Brotherton could not avoid noticing the alteration. “Liddy, my child, something is the matter. Are you ill?” she said.
“No, Lady Brotherton.”
“Nervous then—this new brother does not quite fit in with your ideas? You ought to have calculated upon that, Lydia. People cannot be separated for ten years, and fall into one another’s ways again in a moment; though I think he is very nice and very gentlemanly myself.”
“It is not that, Lady Brotherton.”
“What is it then, my dear? You are not a bit like yourself. You are sorry, a little, to part with us? So am I, my sweet—dreadfully sorry; but it must only be for a little while. And, then, you know you are going home.”
“Oh! Lady Brotherton, my heart is breaking! It is not even that. It is that I have got a secret, and you will not be pleased.”
They were sheltering in Sir John’s deck cabin from the heat of the sun, the steamboat ploughing peacefully on its further way to Marseilles, the journey approaching its last stage, and the time of separation drawing near. Lydia’s eyes were full of tears; she covered her face with her hand; the other was clasped in that of the kind friend whom she felt she had betrayed.
“A secret—how can you have a secret? You have never been away from my side. I suppose it must be something about love, Liddy—that is the only secret at your age. And why should I not be pleased—unless you have made an unworthy choice?”
“Oh, no, not that—too good—too good.”
“Lionel, go away; we don’t want you just now. Liddy has something to tell me.”
“It is better that I should tell you for her, mother. She will not let the secret be kept a day. I wanted to put off till—we parted: in case you should be, as she thinks, displeased: though I can’t believe you will be displeased.”
“Lionel!” Of course, from the time he had begun to speak Lady Brotherton had perceived but too well what the secret was. She loosed her hold of Lydia’s hand, which lay white and passive in her lap after she had withdrawn hers, with a kind of appeal in it. Lady Brotherton’s colour went and came. Hard words came to her lips; but she looked at her son’s face and paused. “I am displeased, more than displeased; and your father will never consent to it,” she said.
Lydia did not say a word, but she sighed and took her hand away, to clasp it with the other in that pathetic gesture, “the trick of grief,” which she had learned from her mother. As for Lionel, an only son and spoilt child, he took matters with a high hand.
“My father will consent gladly enough if you consent, mother,” he said; “and what did you expect? You have thrown us together constantly for five months. You must think me a wretched creature if you thought I could not manage to persuade her to like me—a little, with all the opportunities we have had.”
“It is not that,” said Lady Brotherton, with simplicity, falling into the snare, “any girl might like you; of course there is nothing wonderful in that.”
“And, you see,” he said, “unfortunately I loved her—before we ever started at all.”
“Before! and why didn’t you warn me? and I who have been saying you were so safe, and never thought of each other. Liddy! Liddy! you have deceived me! You would never look at him, never amuse yourself as you did with the others, you were always so serious! And pray was it going on all the time, and was that only dust thrown in my eyes?”
“I have never deceived anyone,” Liddy said, with a proud elevation of her head. She could not say, even in her own defence, what the cause of her serious treatment of her lover was.
“And how was it settled at last?” Lady Brotherton said. “Since we started? She has never been away from me night or day.”
This produced a slight flicker of suppressed laughter even in Lydia’s depressed bosom.
“She did not leave the deck till we were in harbour this morning; I kept her by force,” Lionel said.
“Well, that is the most wonderful of all,” cried the not hard-hearted mother; “did you get into your berth by the port-hole? for I declare I never closed my eyes all night, you know I never do—and I never once missed you. I believe you have dreamed it all,” Lady Brotherton said.