HARRY’S PROGRESS.
After this, Harry “settled down.” It was a somewhat disappointing,
disenchanting process, but still it was better than it appeared at the
first glance. Paolo, finding that his friend could not be happy without
a sitting-room, which seemed to himself the most unnecessary of
luxuries, exerted himself to procure an appartamento for him which
should include this, and managed, after a little delay, to do so, at a
price so modest that Harry was astonished, and the padrone di casa much
disgusted and indignant when he found that he had actually suffered his
rooms to go, at a rent extravagant only for Italians, to an Englishman.
The landlord was so disappointed and annoyed by this that the occasion
made him voluble; for “Ecco!” he said, “a countryman, that is--a
countryman. He knows as much as we do. He is aware of everything. He can
do what he pleases. That he should have the rooms cheap, that
understands itself: that is all just. But a stranger! And, on the other
hand, they want so much more, these strangers. They will demand
breakfast, and even refreshments in the evening! They are so lazy they
will not give themselves the pain to descend to the caffè for their
coffee, which is the natural way, but will demand to have it here, which
is endless trouble. I never could have believed that Ser Paolo, who is a
person of education, would so have treated an old neighbour.” He said so
much on the subject that Harry, with something of that impatience and
careless magnificence which are (supposedly) the characteristics of the
English, declared that, rather than be so persecuted, he would pay
twenty lire a month more than had been asked of him, an offer which made
the padrone think him a great fool, but a true Englishman, and which
drove Paolo nearly out of himself with indignation. It may be understood
by this fact that Harry soon picked up as much Italian as made him
understand at least the tone of address, whether it was friendly or
angry: and in smaller matters he was soon able to make himself
understood.
The first night of his residence in his new quarters, when he heard
Paolo close the door behind him, and felt himself left all alone at the
top of a tall Italian house, without a soul within call, gazing round
him at the four bare white walls, his lamp looking at him with three
unwinking eyes, and not a trace of anything that looked like home--vain
word!--the young fellow was altogether overcome, and staring round with
a wild look of despair, was as near breaking into idle tears as ever man
was. But what was the use? He had made his bed (or his people had made
it for him, as he thought), and there he must lie. He had half a dozen
books on the table: one upon the laws that affect shipping and the
maritime code, another on International Law generally, the rest Italian
grammars and dictionaries, a volume of easy little stories in the same
language, and that well-known volume of Silvio Pellico, out of which so
many people have learned their first Italian lessons. They were none of
them very interesting to Harry. “Le Mie Prigioni,” when you have made
it out with the aid of a dictionary, is not more tempting than any other
book would be under these circumstances. They were as blank as the white
walls, the silent room, the dead solitude of the place, to Harry. A
yellow novel, if he could have got that, would have been precious to
him. But he had not even that to fall back upon. He crept dismally to
bed, unable to contemplate his fate, and turned his face to the wall,
much as his mother was doing at home. But in the morning things were
better; and though he never could reconcile himself to the gloom and
solitude of his appartamento at night, during the day things went
tolerably well with him when he began to know what was being said around
him, and to wake up to the new insight which a new language confers.
Gradually he began to take a little interest in the porter’s family, in
the shrill padrona, shrieking her orders and her commentaries from the
balcony of the fourth piano across the deep well of the courtyard, who
was a terrible nuisance, yet by and by began to feel homelike, so that
he missed her sharp peacock-cry when the arrival of a baby compelled a
brief withdrawal from her usual active survey of the affairs of her
tenants. And so the time went on, and months passed, and Harry became
accustomed to his life.
There were times, however, in which those slow beginnings of content
which soothed Harry’s mind, rose into something a great deal higher and
brighter: and these were the hours which he spent in the private rooms
at the Consulate, where, by degrees, he became very familiar, a sort of
son of the house. Harry never knew how this happened, nor did the
Bonamys themselves, who, bit by bit, opened their doors more completely
to him. They had never done so before to any clerk. The office generally
was held at arm’s length by the head of it. He was thought proud by the
_employés_ generally. What was he, many even asked, that he should give
himself so many airs? But he never gave himself any airs to Harry. Even
when they began to forget that romance about the young squire who had
quarrelled with his family, which was entirely their own invention, they
did not turn away from or cast off the stranger who, falling into their
midst with no recommendations at all, had made himself so strong a
footing amongst them, partly from accident, partly from imagination.
Very soon, indeed, Harry came to be considered as part of the family; a
ready hand to be appealed to for everything; a ready hearer, though he
did not always understand: an invariably sympathetic and trustworthy
friend of the house. To Mr. Bonamy it was a great advantage to have some
one in the office whom he could treat upon this footing; to whom he
could speak confidentially of all that occurred, and with whom, if need
were, even in the bosom of society, he could confer on any accident of
official business, sending Harry off to do this or that, even from the
card-table where he was playing round games with the younger guests, or
out of the heart of a valse, when need was. Harry liked the dance, and
was merry and useful at the card-playing, but he never complained or
grumbled if he were sent away. He had to come back late when the company
was gone, to make his report, and that privilege atoned to him for the
self-sacrifice. On such occasions, when the great _salone_ was still all
alight, and Rita reposing upon the sofa, or buried in a great chair,
after her exertions, while the Vice-Consul had already put on the light
dressing-gown in which he smoked his evening cigar, the young man,
returning, had the pleasantest welcome. Mr. Bonamy put towards him his
box of cigarettes; the windows were all open; the warm Italian night
glowing out of doors; the stars shining, and every breath of the soft
air a delight. In that Italian room the light smoke was not thought out
of place. Rita had been used to it all her life. She might have taken
one of these little cigarettes herself and nobody thought any harm; but,
fortunately for Harry’s feelings, to whom it would have been a very
terrible profanation of a girl’s lips, she did not. But she lay back in
her chair, her pale face and dark locks relieved upon the soft, rich old
damask, and watched the two men with a smile. The Consul, who loved
everything that was beautiful, had his smoking-coat also made of
damask--a piece of brocade, in colours which Harry thought faded--and
he, too, threw himself negligently back in his chair and listened to his
young aide-de-camp’s report, with his fine head on one side, like a
benevolent prince listening to the information collected for him by a
young prime minister, all visionary, and eager in his plans for the
benefit of their people. Perhaps it was only a refractory ship-captain
whom Harry had talked into submission, or an impatient Englishman whose
suspicions of extortion had got him into trouble; and sometimes the
three would laugh over the characteristic follies of their countrymen,
and incapacity to understand the grandiloquence of the Italian
authorities. When Harry got to be sufficiently strong in the language,
he would himself make very merry over the _sentimento magnifico_ of the
professional pillagers whose charges here and there drove a stranger
wild, but who always professed the noblest superiority to all interested
motives. Rita, who was more than half an Italian, was sometimes piqued
by the laughter in which her father joined, and would stand up for the
kindly race to whom she owed half her blood and all her training. She
would shine out from the soft background when she thus roused herself in
defence of her people, her great dark eyes glowing, her white little
figure all alive with energy. “You are all made up of suspicions, you
English,” she said. “You think everyone wants to cheat you, to get your
money from you. Yes, and it is you who want to get what they have from
them. I wonder who it is who picks up the pictures, and the
_bric-à-brac_, and shakes his head” (which she did with a good imitation
of her father’s benevolent regret), “and complains that all the little
dealers are beginning to know the value of the things they have to
sell, eh, papa? Old Leonardi showed his _sentimento magnifico_ when he
let you have that little Ghirlandajo for next to nothing.”
“I don’t believe it is a Ghirlandajo--of his school, that is all,” said
the Consul, blandly, “and he lets me have it cheap--not for nothing: he
lets me have it cheap because he thinks the English travellers will see
it here and will go to him to be fleeced, that is the best reason he
has, I fear.”
“And if it is, you take advantage of it,” cried Rita. “Which is worst?
There was that piece of lace the other day. I said (it was quite true)
what shall I do with it, Signor Giovanni? it is not enough for a dress;
and he said, in the prettiest way, the Signorina shall put it upon her
handkerchief to remind her of old Leonardi. I took it; what could I do?
it would have made him angry if I had refused it after that. Was not
that the _sentimento magnifico_, Mr. Oliver--you who don’t believe in my
Italians? If I had offered him money for it he would never have spoken
to me again.”
“I thought he was an old Jew,” said Harry; “but I see he is a fine old
fellow, and I shall go and buy something from him to-morrow. He will
cheat me; but I shan’t mind after what you have said.”
“He will cheat you,” said the Vice-Consul, with equanimity; “though he
has a fine sense of the proper time to be honest, and the proper time to
be liberal all the same; but let us hear how you got your Englishman out
of his clutches, for that is the business immediately in hand.”
And then Harry returned to his story, and told how the poor tourist had
raved and blasphemed, how he had bought a picture which was vouched for
as genuine, and it was found to be a flagrant copy; and how old Leonardi
had perjured himself over and over again, and sworn by all the saints
that there could be no doubt of its authenticity, holding up his fine
old Italian head in the very presence of the painter, who had made the
copy, and denying all knowledge of it. The tourist, whose settled
conviction it was that “the natives” everywhere were in league against
him, was, however, the chief point in Harry’s report. He had rather
thought so himself when he landed in Leghorn, and the feeling which had
made him refuse Paolo’s first offer of service, and carry his own
portmanteau, and hunt out the hotel for himself, still lingered in his
bosom. He understood the character so well that he set it forth with
great power before his audience; and Harry was so much gratified by his
success, and by the gradual blowing away of the cloud which was on
Rita’s countenance, and the delightful laughter with which she chimed in
after a while, that he rose into higher heights. He himself was just
beginning to awake to the humours of the Englishman abroad, and it was
very pleasant to find himself superior to them, as one who understood
the language and knew the people, and could explain a good many mistakes
and misapprehensions away.
“Mr. Oliver, you are very English,” Rita said gravely, after the story
and the laughter were over. She was apt to change in a moment, and with
the smile just disappearing from her lips, to produce the most serious
remark.
“Am I?” said Harry, a little crestfallen; for he rather thought he had
made it apparent that he was very superior to the English--that is the
common English who travel, and who are often, as we all hasten to tell
our foreign friends, so little credit to the race. Then he added with
more spirit, “I suppose I am very English. What else could I be? I have
only been a year away.”
“Do you call this ‘away?’” she said, with a somewhat startled tone.
“Yes, of course it is ‘away.’ Over there is what you have always been
used to--that is home--of course;” but the idea seemed to be new to
Rita, and not to give her pleasure. The Vice-Consul had gone off to his
business-room to get something that was wanted, and the two young people
were alone.
“It may be home,” said Harry, with a roused and almost irritated tone;
“but I shall never see it again. Home has so many meanings. I shall say
presently I am going home, and I shall mean my appartamento--as Paolo
calls it--not very much of a home,” he said, with a sharp laugh.
“Isn’t it? I say home, too, when I speak of England; but I shall never
see it. Do you know I am never to be allowed to go to England, Mr.
Oliver? That makes me like to hear everything about it. Then you and I
are the same in that; but you will change your mind.”
“You are much more likely to change your mind,” said Harry. “I--have
good reason----”
“And do you think I have not good reason too? When my mother went there,
she died.”
“She might have died anywhere,” Harry said.
“It is harsh of you to say so. Yes, to be sure she might have died
anywhere: but they say it is so cold in England,” said Rita, with a
little shiver; the night air seemed all at once to have grown chilly.
She looked at the big window close to her and shivered again. Harry got
up and closed it without a word.
“It is cold, when you expect it to be cold,” said Harry; “that is pretty
often, to be sure: but it does not take you in an underhand way like
this. In England it is all above-board; it blows right in your face, it
does not steal in like _that_ behind your back and chill you. Things are
honest at home. I think I could take you all over England, and you would
get no harm.”
“Could you?” said Rita eagerly; “do you know a way? but how then, Mr.
Oliver? tell me, do you know a way?”
“It would be just to take care of you,” said Harry, with a blush. “I
know _that_ way. I should understand that you wanted taking care of, and
I would take care of you. For my part, I should not be a bit afraid.”
Rita did not notice the blush on his face. The desire of her heart was
to go to England, and this made her think. She had the credulity of her
birthplace about wonderful elixirs and miraculous ways of doing a
dangerous thing. She looked at him dreamily, yet eagerly, with her great
eyes. “But _how_ should you do it?” she repeated, “Mr. Oliver; if there
is some particular way, will you tell me? For if you only knew--if you
could only know how I wish to go to England----!”
“There is no particular way,” said Harry; “if I were ever to go back
home, which I never shall--and if you were to go with me, which most
likely you never would--then you should go, and no harm would happen to
you; that is all I know.”
He spoke abruptly, and he was flushed and hasty. Rita did not think at
the moment what it meant; she sat very quiet in her great chair, while
her father came in and resumed the conversation--thinking over what he
had said. Immediately there had risen before her a vision of the white
cliffs she had heard of so often, and of green fields and red roofs, and
of all the special features of English scenery which she had read of.
What could it be that made him so sure? “If I were ever to go, which I
never shall--and if you were to come with me, which most likely you
never would---- Well, no,” Rita said to herself, with a half smile, “not
much likelihood of that; how could I go with him? he means if we were to
take him with us--he means----” and then she came to a pause, and a
sudden reflection of the colour on Harry’s face wavered over hers for a
minute; only a minute. She was not altogether inexperienced in life; she
had already been the subject of several proposals addressed to her
father, which he had declined after reference to Rita, so that she was
aware that she was looked upon with favourable eyes by various persons,
and that the love which is so much talked of in books might light upon
her at any moment. Rita had, for her part, no particular objection; she
had even left the door of her heart open, so that when he was thereabout
that intrusive sentiment might come in if he pleased. But up to this
moment he had not come in; the door had stood open, but nothing had
entered except poetry and gentle thoughts. But Rita, after this
conversation, experienced a very curious sensation. She felt not as if
anyone had got in by the door, but as if some one passing had half
stumbled against it, finding it closed, and, no answer being given, had
gone his way. In the first haze of this idea she got up from her chair
and said good night, and went off to her room, complaining that she was
sleepy. But she was not sleepy; she sat down and began to think as soon
as she had got within the protection of her chamber. It was not any
personal feeling that moved her, far less any strong emotion; but all at
once she was conscious of a keen and lively curiosity springing up in
her mind, eager and lively as her nature. Did he mean----? What did he
mean? “If I were to go to England--which I never shall--and if you were
to come with me----” Why should she go with him? What reason could there
be for such a thing, what excuse? He must be mad to make such a
suggestion; but yet it kept coming back to her. “If I were to go, and if
you were to come with me.” Certainly the door of that hidden chamber in
her heart had swung to and closed, and somebody passing, a stranger, had
run up against it, and shaken it, as if to try whether it would be easy
to open. It was a very strange suggestion. Rita had been sought by
persons of condition, by people who had something to offer, and who had
made their proposals, as everybody who respects himself does in Italy,
to the young lady’s father. But here was somebody who was nobody, and
who took hold of the handle of that door of her heart, which she had
believed to be open, but which had evidently closed of itself, and gave
it a sharp shake, without thinking of her father or any consequences
whatever. She thought of it for a long time, turning it over and over
with the greatest curiosity. It was a new thing in her experience. He
wanted a great many of the qualities which she considered indispensable
in a man. First and chiefest of all he was not clever. He knew nothing
about books, he scarcely knew a picture when he saw one. Instead of
hunting about in the _bric-à-brac_ shops as her father did, and as even
little Paolo Thompson (whom Mr. Oliver called Paul-ó) was in the habit
of doing, picking up wonderful things now and then, this stranger gazed
with blank eyes at the treasures, and could not understand them. He was
altogether a different kind of man from any she had ever seen, a
homelier, duller sort of man; and yet he was not dull. The whole house
was quiet and asleep when Rita suddenly sprang up from this long
reverie, catching sight of her own big eyes in her looking-glass, and
wondering at the wonder in them. She had got a new idea into her active
little head. It was something novel and curious, and very amusing, but
it did not seem to her at all necessary that it should ever come to
anything. She wondered what he would say next, or how he would look, or
what he would do. She was pleased on the whole to think that now perhaps
she would have an opportunity of watching what a man looked like in such
circumstances as these, which is a thing always interesting and, some
people think, very amusing to see.
As for Harry, he went home that evening with a sensation not less
extraordinary, but much more definite than that of Rita. He had not
thought of the meaning of what he was saying till he had said it; he had
not been aware of meaning anything, and yet he knew now that he did mean
it. What had he been doing? Without a name, without a home, without
anything in the world, he had been so foolish as to fall in love with a
girl who, in the best of circumstances, would have been above him. The
Joscelyns thought a great deal of themselves; but when Harry thought of
the parlour at the White House, and then of Rita’s drawing-room, he felt
that she was immeasurably above him, and that to say such a thing to
her was not only wrong, but mean and ungenerous. If you were to come
with me--Good life, why had he suggested that to her? _She_ come with
him? It seemed ridiculous, more out of the question to Harry than it had
done to Rita. He was angry beyond measure with himself for letting
himself be run away with, so to speak, by the foolish impulse of the
moment. For he had never meant to say it, or indeed to suggest any idea
of the kind. He was full of sense, though passion had him in its power
when it once got hold of him. In the meantime, however, there was no
question of passion. It was the pleasure of his life to be with Rita, to
see her, to do little services for her, to hear her talk; but when the
idea was suddenly set before him that he might marry Rita and carry her
away with him, Harry was more frightened than she was. He to think of
such a thing! He walked home at such a pace, with such a swift,
impatient step, that the few passengers in the streets turned about to
look after him, wondering what business he might have in hand--if he
were going for a doctor, or any such urgent occasion; but Harry was
walking fast only to keep up with his thoughts, which had suddenly been
let loose like colts in a pasture, and were all careering about wildly,
so that it was impossible to catch or lay hold upon them. How could he
have been so mad as to have let them loose! and he wondered had she
understood him? But how could she understand him, a child like that? she
was too innocent to understand. He hurried along to his apartment in
full chase after that wild herd of thoughts and imaginations. If he had
them but once safely shut up again under lock and key certainly it would
be a strong temptation indeed that would tempt him to let them loose.