AFTER DINNER.
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.