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.