The morning came, and a very lovely morning it was, as bright and almost
as warm as summer, one of those glimpses of real spring which come to us
only by days at a time. Aunt Milly came almost before we had finished
breakfast. I dare say she is accustomed to early hours; but it was
evidently strong anxiety and excitement that had brought her out so soon
to-day. I had told Lizzie she was coming, and Lizzie, either with some
perception of the real nature of her visit, which I could not in any way
account for, or with natural Scotch jealousy and reluctance to satisfy
the curiosity of strangers as to our relationship, kept on the watch
after she had given baby into my charge, and got her triumphantly into
the house without any intervention on the part of Domenico. Aunt Milly
sank into a chair, very breathless and agitated. It was some time before
she could even notice little Harry. To see her so made me more and more
aware how serious this business, whatever it was, must be.
“But I am too early, I suppose?” she said with a little gasp.
Harry thought it was rather too early, unless he were to tell Mr. Luigi
plainly what he was wanted for, which she would not permit him to do. It
was a very uncomfortable interval. She sat silent, evidently with her
whole mind bent upon the approaching interview. We, neither knowing the
subject of it, nor what her anxiety was, had nothing to say, and I was
very glad when Harry went downstairs to find the Italian. Then Aunt
Milly made a hurried communication to me when we were alone, which
certainly did not explain anything, but which still she evidently felt
to be taking me into her confidence.
“My dear, Sarah knows something about him,” said Aunt Milly; “somehow or
other Sarah knows that he has a claim upon us. When she heard of the
inquiries he was making, she was in a state of desperation--used to
drive out with the carriage blinds down, poor soul, and kept watching
all day long, so wretched and anxious that it would have broken your
heart. But how it all is, and how about this Countess, and his being
named Luigi, and his claim upon the estate, and her knowing him--though,
so far as I can judge, he could be no more than born when she came
home--Hark! was that somebody coming upstairs?”
It was only some of the people of the house moving about. Aunt Milly
gave a sigh of relief. “My dear, I’m more and more anxious since I’ve
found _you_, to know the worst,” she said. “It is as great a mystery to
you as to your baby, how he can have any connection with us. Dear, dear!
to think of a quiet family, and such a family as the Mortimers, plunged
all at once into some mystery! it is enough to break one’s heart;--but
then, you see, Sarah was so long abroad.”
“Was she long abroad?” said I, with a little cry. All at once, and in
spite of myself, my old fancy about that old Miss Mortimer, whom I
imagined living in my grandfather’s house, came back to my mind. The
great beauty whom my good Mrs. Saltoun had seen abroad--how strange if
this should be her after all! Somehow my old imaginations had looked so
true at the time, that I seemed to remember them as if they were matters
of fact and not of fancy. I looked up, quite with a consciousness that I
knew something about it, in Aunt Milly’s face.
“What do you know about her?” cried Aunt Milly, rising up quite erect
and rigid out of her chair. Her excitement was extreme. She had
evidently gone beyond the point at which she could be surprised to find
any stranger throwing light upon her mystery. But at that moment those
steps for which we had been listening did ascend the stairs. We could
hear them talking as they approached, the Italian with his accent and
rather solemn dictionary English, and Harry’s voice that sounded so easy
in comparison. Aunt Milly sank back again into her chair. She grasped
the arms of it to support herself, and gave me a strange half-terrified,
half-courageous look. In another moment they had entered the room.
Mr. Luigi came in without any idea, I dare say, of the anxiety with
which we awaited him; but he had not been a minute in the room when his
quick eye caught Aunt Milly, though she had drawn back with an
involuntary movement of withdrawal from the crisis she had herself
brought on. I could read in his face, the instant he saw her, that he
divined the little contrivance by which he had been brought here. He
stood facing her after he had paid his respects to me, and took no
notice of the chair Harry offered him. As for Harry and I, not knowing
whether they really knew each other, or whether they ought to be named
to each other, or what to do, we stood very uncomfortable and
embarrassed behind. I said “Miss Mortimer,” instinctively, to lessen the
embarrassment if I could. I don’t believe he heard me. _He_ knew Miss
Mortimer very well, however it was.
And it was he who was the first to break the silence. He made a kind of
reverence to her, more than a bow, like some sort of old-fashioned
filial demonstration. “Madame has something to say to me?” he asked,
with an anxiety in his face almost equal to her own.
“Yes,” cried Aunt Milly, “I--I have something to say to you. Sit down,
and let me get breath.”
He sat down, and so did we. To see her struggling to overcome the great
tremor of excitement she had fallen into, and we all waiting in silence
for her words, must have been a very strange scene. It was the merest
wonder and curiosity, of course, with Harry and me; but I remember
noticing even at that moment that Mr. Luigi was not surprised. He
evidently knew something to account for her agitation. He sat looking at
her, bending towards her with visible expectation of something. It was
no mystery to him.
“Sir--young man,” cried Aunt Milly, with a gasp, “I do not know you; you
are a stranger, a foreigner; you have nothing to do with this place.
What, in the name of heaven, is it that you have to do with mine or me?”
Mr. Luigi’s countenance fell. He was bitterly disappointed; it was
evident in his face. He drew a long breath and clasped his hands
together, half in resignation, half appealing against some hard fate.
“Ah!” he said, “I did hope otherwise--is it, indeed, indeed, that you
know not _me_?”
Aunt Milly gave a cry half of terror. “I recognise your voice,” she
said. “I see gleams in your face of faces I know. I am going out of my
wits with bewilderment and trouble; but as sure as you are there before
me, I know no more who you are than does the child who cannot speak.”
Mr. Luigi made no reply for some minutes. Then he made some exclamations
in Italian, scarcely knowing, I am sure, what he was saying. Then he
remembered himself. “Thing most strange! thing most terrible!” cried the
young man; “not even now!--not even now!” and he looked round to us with
such distress and amazement in his face, and with such an involuntary
call for our sympathy, though we knew nothing about it, that his look
went to my heart. Aunt Milly saw it, and was confounded by it. His
genuine wonder and strange grieved consciousness that she ought to have
known this secret, whatever it was, stopped her questions upon her lips.
She sat leaning forward looking at him, struck dumb by his looks. I was
so excited by the evident reserve on both sides, which implied the
existence of a third person whom neither would name, that I burst into
it, on the spur of the moment, without thinking whether what I said was
sensible or foolish. “Who?” I cried, “who is the other person that
knows?”
Both of them started violently; then their eyes met in a strange look of
intelligence. Aunt Milly fell back in her chair trembling dreadfully,
trembling so much that her teeth chattered. Mr. Luigi rose. “I am at
Madame’s disposition,” he said softly; “but what can I say? It is better
I be gone while I do not harm Madame, and make her ill. Pardon! it is
not I who am to blame!”
Saying so, he took Aunt Milly’s hand, kissed it, and turned to the door.
She called him back faintly. “Stop, I have not asked you rightly,” said
poor Aunt Milly. “Could not you tell me, without minding anybody else?
Are you--are you?--oh! _who_ are you? I do beseech you tell me. If wrong
is done you, I have no hand in it. What is there to prevent you telling
me?”
“Ah, pardon. I know my duty,” said the young man. “If she _will_ reject
me--then! but it is yet too early. I wait--I expect--she has not yet
said it to me.”
Aunt Milly gathered herself up gradually, with a strange fluttered look
in her eyes. “_Reject_ you! God bless us! it is some mistake, after all.
Do you know who it is you are speaking of? Do you know if it is my
sister Sarah? She is my elder sister, ten years older than me,--old
enough to be your mother--is it she? or, oh, God help us! is it a
mistake?”
Mr. Luigi turned towards me for a moment, with a face melted out of all
reserve, into such affectionateness and emotion as I scarcely ever saw
on a man’s face. When she named her sister’s age, he said, “Ah!” with a
tone as if her words went to his heart. But that was all. He shook his
head. He said, “No more, no more,” and went slowly but steadily away. It
was no mistake. What she said conveyed no information to him. He knew
_that_ Sarah’s age and all about her, better than her sister did, or I
was mistaken. What he said, and still more what he looked, brought a
strong sudden impression to my mind. I don’t know yet how I can be
right--if I am right it is the strangest thing in the world; but I know
it darted into my head that morning when Luigi’s face melted out so
strongly, and that cry which explained nothing came from his heart.
In the meantime, however, poor Aunt Milly sat wringing her hands and
more troubled than ever, repeating to herself bits of the conversation
which had just passed, and bits of other conversations which we knew
nothing about. Harry and I, a little uncomfortable, still tried to
occupy ourselves so that we should not hear anything she did not want us
to hear; but we did not wish to leave her either. At last Harry went out
altogether and left her alone with me, and by degrees she calmed down. I
do not wonder she was painfully excited. There could be little doubt
some strange, unnatural secret was concealed in her house.
“But you heard him say _reject_,” said Aunt Milly,--“if she rejected
him--do you feel quite sure he understood my last question? Not knowing
a language very well makes a wonderful difference; and what if he
supposed my sister a _young_ woman, Milly? When I began to be troubled
about this business, I couldn’t but think that it was some old lover
Sarah was afraid of meeting, forgetting the lapse of time. She was a
great beauty once, you know. How do you suppose, now, an old woman could
_reject_ a young man?”
“But there are other meanings of the word than as it is between young
women and young men,” said I; “he might mean _disown_.”
“He might mean _disown_,” repeated Aunt Milly slowly,--“_disown_; but,
dear, dear child,” she cried, immediately throwing off her first puzzled
hypothesis, and falling back at once into the real subject of her
trouble, “what can he be to Sarah that she could _disown_ him? Before
you can disown a person he must belong to you. How could Mr. Luigi
belong to my sister? but, to be sure, it is folly to put such questions
to you that know nothing about it. Milly, dear, I’ll have to go home.”
“I am very, very sorry you are going home disappointed,” said I.
“Yes,” said Aunt Milly, with a great sigh, “it is hard to think one’s
somehow involved in doing wrong, my dear; it’s hard to live in the house
with your nearest friend, and not to know any more of her than if she
were a stranger. What was I saying? I never said so much to any creature
before. I take you as if you belonged to me, though you scarcely know me
yet, Milly. I’d like you to settle to come out as soon as possible,
dear. I’d like you to see Sarah, and tell me what you think.
Perhaps--there is no telling--she might say something to _you_.”
“But will she be pleased to know about us?” said I.
“It was _her_ desire to seek for you,” said Aunt Milly. “She thought of
that, somehow, just before this trouble came on. Sometimes it has come
into my mind, that she thought if she found your father, he would have
protected her somehow. I can’t tell: it is all a great mystery to me.”
And so she went away after a while, looking very sorrowful; but came
back to tell me to put my bonnet on and come with her to Mr.
Cresswell’s, who was to drive her home. On our way there I suddenly felt
her grasp my arm and point forward a little way before us, where Mr.
Luigi was walking slowly along the road by Sara Cresswell’s side. Aunt
Milly came almost to a dead stop, looking at them. They were not
arm-in-arm, nor did they look as if they had met _on purpose_. I dare
say it was only by accident. Sara, as usual, was dressed in a great
velvet jacket, much larger and wider than the one she wore indoors, and
held her little head high, as if she quite meant to impress an idea of
her dignity upon the Italian, who had to stoop down a long way, and
perhaps did stoop down more than Aunt Milly and I saw to be exactly
necessary. They went the length of the street together, quite
unconscious of the critics behind them, and then separated, Mr. Luigi
marching off at a very brisk pace, and Sara continuing her way home. We
came up to her just as she reached her own door. She was certainly a
very pretty creature, and looked so fresh and blooming in the morning
air that I could not have scolded her a great deal, though I own I had a
very good mind to do my best in that way, while we were walking behind.
The moment she saw us she took guilt to herself. Her face glowed into
the most overpowering blush, and the little parasol in her hand fell out
of her trembling fingers. But, of course, her spirit did not forsake
her. She was not the person to yield to any such emergency.
“We have been walking after you for a long time,” said dear Aunt Milly,
in a voice which I have no doubt she supposed to be severe. “I should
have called you to wait for us, had I not seen you were otherwise
engaged.”
“Oh! then you saw Mr. Luigi, godmamma?” said Sara, quite innocently. “He
says he thinks he has found out where the Countess Sermoneta is.”
“The Countess Sermoneta!--oh, child, child, how can you speak so to
me?” cried Aunt Milly. “I don’t believe there is any such person in the
world. I believe he only makes a fuss about a name, no one ever heard
of, to cover his real designs, whatever they may be.”
“Godmamma!” cried Sara, with a flash of fury; “perhaps it will be better
to come indoors,” cried the little wicked creature (as Aunt Milly calls
her); “nobody, that I ever heard of, took away people’s characters in
the open street.”
Aunt Milly went in quickly, shaking her head and deeply troubled. The
renewal of this subject swept Sara’s enormity out of her head. We
followed, Sara bidding me precede her with a sort of affronted grandeur,
which, I confess, was a little amusing to me. When we came into the
dining-room, where Aunt Milly went first, the little girl confronted us
both, very ready to answer anything we had to say, and confute us to our
faces. But much to Sara’s surprise, and perhaps annoyance, Aunt Milly
did not say a word on the subject. She shook her head again more
energetically than ever. She was so much shaken on this one subject,
that other matters evidently glided out of her mind, whenever she was
recalled to this.
“No, no! depend upon it there’s no Countess Sermoneta. I believed in it
at first, naturally, as everybody else did. It may be a lady, but it
isn’t an Italian lady. No, no,” said Aunt Milly, mournfully; “he knows
better. He said nothing, you may be sure, about _her_ to me.”
At this moment Mr. Cresswell entered the room, and a little after the
brougham came to the door. There was nothing more said on the subject.
Sara saw them drive away, with a flutter of fear, I could see; but she
need not have been afraid. Aunt Milly had returned into the
consideration of her own mystery, which swallowed up Sara’s. I do not
think, for my own part, that I had very Christian feelings towards Mr.
Luigi as I went home.