THE DECISIVE MOMENT.
Mr. Bonamy felt weary of his morning’s expedition. It was not that there
was really anything to tire him in it; but he was dejected,
disappointed, mortified. He did not feel able to go into the office as
usual, to meet Harry as usual, to do and say the usual things. He
thought he would go into the house instead, and rest a little, and see
Rita and the children, and try to console himself with the reflection
that this painful discovery only made them all belong to himself the
more. It was a poor consolation, and yet in a way it was sure. He felt
them more his now that he was certain no other family could claim them.
Poor girl! poor babies! some time they might be glad to take the name
of Bonamy instead of that wretched one that was their own. He did not
intend to say a word to Rita on the subject, but he did what it was the
habit of this imprudent man to do, he thrust himself into temptation. He
went, all emotional and disturbed as he was, into the dwelling-house,
into the room where his daughter would most likely be found, and where
she was certain to inquire into the cause of his depression. In half an
hour, in the ordinary state of affairs, he would have been at Rita’s
mercy, and notwithstanding all his fine resolutions would have betrayed
everything to her. He went in, however, determined not to say a word,
only to show his child who was injured, though she did not know it, that
her father’s tenderness would never fail her. He was so foolish that he
went into a jeweller’s on his way, and bought a little ornament for her.
And he meant to say something very kind of Harry too, though it was by
Harry that his humiliation had come. A peasant, a servant! and his poor
child who might have been a princess! but he would make it up to her,
and she should never know.
In this mood Mr. Bonamy went into the dim and cool drawing-room, out of
the heat and glare of the streets. He saw some one seated near the
window, but he could not for the first moment make out who it was. He
was greatly disappointed, however, to have the privacy of his first
interview with his daughter interfered with, and though he was too
polite to show his annoyance, yet it was with no friendly feelings
towards the intruder that he made his way among the furniture to the
spot where she sat. He had looked for a moment of _attendrissement_, of
something like the old unbroken union between the father and child. Your
husband is a disappointment, but your father will never forsake you; he
did not mean to say this, would not have said it for the world; but he
intended that it should be understood, and there was no doubt a
melancholy enjoyment in the anticipation. Whoever this stranger might be
he wished her at Jericho; nevertheless courtesy goes before all, and he
went up to her, with the full intention of being friendly if he knew
her, and at all events civil, as became a man in all circumstances
towards a lady in his daughter’s drawing-room. Lydia looked up as he
approached. She saw him well enough, her eyes being accustomed to the
darkness. She was white as a ghost, and trembling, expecting, though
there was not yet time, the return of Rita with an answer to her
message--perhaps, if she was right, of Harry himself, and his
recognition, and the clearing up of the whole matter. But when she saw
only Mr. Bonamy, her heart seemed to stand still. She threw up her arms
with a pained and wondering cry.
“Oh, is it only _you_? Oh, am I wrong, am I wrong, after all?”
The Vice-Consul was as much surprised as she was to find her there; and
he was piqued, as an oldish (not very old) man, who knows himself to be
a handsome man, notwithstanding his years, would naturally be by such an
address; but he pulled himself together, and laughed, and bowed.
“It’s only I, as you say, Miss Joscelyn. I am very sorry to disappoint
you. I daresay some one more interesting will soon be here.”
Lydia was so over-excited, so exhausted with the agitations of the night
and the excitements of the morning, that she burst out crying while he
was speaking. The Vice-Consul was confounded; but he was never more in
his element than when administering consolation. He took her gently by
the hand, and put her back into the seat from which she had risen. “My
dear young lady,” he said, soothingly, “I am grieved to see you
distressed. What is the matter? In what are you wrong?” Then he began to
understand dimly that Lydia’s distress must be somehow connected with
his own. He grew very grave, though he still held her hand with fatherly
kindness. “If you have come to tell Rita anything unpleasant about her
husband,” he said, “I am very, very sorry you should have thought it
right to do so, Miss Joscelyn. I have heard it all from Lady Brotherton.
I don’t deny that it has wounded me; but, after all, my daughter did not
marry her husband for his relations, but for himself. He is the just the
same in himself as he has been these nine, ten years. To tell me would
have been right enough, but why vex Rita? She need never know anything
about it. Neither, so far as I am concerned, is there any need to
reproach Harry with it. I do not even intend to let him know that I am
acquainted with the condition of his family. Let me persuade you, Miss
Joscelyn--you ought to be of gentle mind, so young, and pretty, and
gentle-looking as you are--to pretend this is only a common call, and
not to say anything to Rita, or to him either, poor fellow. Rita is a
girl of a high spirit; she might not forgive her husband. Come, come,
let me take you back to Lady Brotherton; and forget that you have ever
seen young Oliver, or his wife, or myself, or any one here.”
“Mr. Bonamy, you are very, very kind. We don’t say much in the north
country, but I think I love you,” Lydia said.
A smile came over his face; even in such circumstances the Vice-Consul
could not help being pleased. “This is very sweet and very pleasant, and
I have no doubt the feeling would soon be mutual--if you will do what I
ask you, what I beg of you. Let these young people alone. Why should you
interfere with them? I hope the Olivers are decent people, at least, if
nothing more.”
“The Olivers,” cried Lydia, hotly, “are poor folk; they are nobody; they
have nothing to do with it. I will never more submit to call Harry by
that name. I couldn’t do it even at first, though I couldn’t tell why.”
“Now what does this mean?” said Mr. Bonamy, quickly. “What does this
mean? Is there some further story to be told? God bless my soul! what is
it, young lady? You are not the sort of person to interfere and make
mischief. If there was anything disagreeable to be told, why not send
for her father and tell it to me?”
“There is no reason why it should be disagreeable. I may be wrong--I may
still be wrong,” cried Lydia. “Oh, don’t speak for a moment that we may
hear her step coming back! If he comes with her, then I shall know I am
right. A few minutes will make me--I sent Mrs. Harry with a message to
him. I thought he would like best, if it was true, to tell her himself.
Oh, listen, listen! is there nobody coming? This was the message I sent:
‘Uncle Henry is dead, and he has left his property, and it will all be
divided and lost to you if you do not come back.’ Did you hear anything?
If he understands that, don’t you see?--you can judge for yourself--I
shall be right; and mother, dear mother!” cried Lydia, with an outburst
of tears.
Mr. Bonamy stood by her confounded. “Uncle Henry is dead, and has left
his property? What else could Uncle Henry do? he could not take it with
him if he is dead. If he understands that! Well, I do not understand it,
that is one thing certain.”
“Oh, open one of those dreadful windows; that there may be a little
light--a little light!” Lydia cried.
The Vice-Consul obeyed quite humbly; he had lost his standing-ground
altogether, even the painful bit of soil he had got under his feet this
morning. He seemed swimming in a sea of bewildered conjecture. He opened
the _persiani_, throwing a broad bar of sunshine across the dark room:
and then there ensued another pause. They waited in complete silence, he
confounded, shuffling about, taking up things and putting them down, to
the exasperation of Lydia’s nerves, who sat bolt upright and pale as her
dress, with her eyes fixed upon the door.
No ordinary measure of time could be sufficient to calculate what this
was; it was hours; it was weeks; it was minutes. Lydia had time to go
over everything in her thoughts; to glance at the aspect of affairs at
home; the consternation of Will and Tom; the happiness of her mother;
the mingled wonder and delight of Joan. She had time to go through
half-a-dozen scenes with Lionel; to speculate how her father would take
it: to realise even old Isaac Oliver’s gape of astonishment when he
heard that Harry had taken his name of all names in the world--before at
last there came a sound, unfamiliar to her, but which Mr. Bonamy knew,
the little click of the swing door at the end of the passage which
communicated with the office. Then came the sound of steps. Lydia rose
up to her feet to meet the decision whatever it was. She trembled so
that she could scarcely stand, and seeing this the Vice-Consul, though
not yet in charity with her, went to her side in his kindness, and drew
her arm within his. “Lean upon me, my poor child,” he said. They stood
on one side of the broad band of light which divided the room, and
which, though it showed to them the other two who came in, also
arm-in-arm, concealed them from the new-comers. Rita, tearful and
excited but not melancholy, was clinging to her husband’s arm. He with
an eager, pre-occupied face pressed forward across the light. “Confound
that sunshine! who opened the window?” were the first words he said,
then strode along across it, paying but little regard to Rita, whom he
dragged after him. When he got face to face with Lydia he paused.
“Was it you that sent me that message?” he said. “Is it true?”
Lydia’s emotion fled in a moment at this matter-of-fact address. She
drew her arm out of Mr. Bonamy’s, trembling no longer.
“It is true,” she said; “they have advertised and done everything to
find you.”
“I know--I know. I saw that; but they never said why. And they would
like to take it from me! Will and Tom--and their father.”
“For shame!” she said; “not father. He is the one that stands out--with
mother, and Joan, and me.”
He had been quite steady and business-like, almost stern, up to this
moment; now he suddenly fell a-laughing in the strangest way.
“What a united family!” he said, “Mother--and Joan--and you. Who are
you? Little Liddy, the little girl at school, that poor mother always
thought--but, poor soul! she thought that of me too.”
Lydia’s excitement was almost uncontrollable; but she was a
North-country girl, and she kept herself down a moment longer.
“Joan always says still,” she said, “that there was a great deal of
mother in you.”
And then he burst forth into a half shriek of laughter and sobs.
“Look here, I can’t stand it any longer,” he cried. “Mother--is living
then, and all right?” He seized her by the shoulders, looked her in the
face, kissed her almost roughly, brushing his beard along her smooth
cheek. “I knew you the first moment,” he said, “you little thing! I knew
you the first moment. You were always a clever baby from your cradle. I
have often thought the last baby was like you. You were the sharpest
little thing! Of course I knew nobody else could be Liddy Joscelyn. And
you thought I belonged to old Isaac, eh? that is the best joke I ever
heard. Old Isaac--is the old fellow living? And father--stood out for
me? Well he ought to, for it is along of him----” Here Harry stopped a
minute, put Lydia away, and looked round him upon the two silent
spectators who regarded this scene with an astonishment beyond words. He
made a pause, pulling himself up all at once. “Poor old father,” he
said, “after all he’s done more for me than anyone (I called the boy
after him, you can tell him). It is along of him--that I found the best
friend and the dearest wife that ever was.”
And Harry gathered his Rita--who had been standing by with a countenance
swept by all manner of emotions: now angry, now melting, wondering,
bewildered, indignant, always chill with that sense of being left out,
which is the most terrible of sensations to such as she--into his arms
and kissed her, and put his hand over her forehead as if clearing some
veil away. “You are not Mrs. Oliver any longer,” he cried; “that’s a
good thing over. You’re Rita Joscelyn, and the best and the sweetest
that ever did honour to the name. Isn’t she a little beauty, Liddy? What
will mother say to her, and to the children?” Here poor Harry,
overmastered by excitement and pleasure, fairly burst out crying, and
kissed his wife over and over, sobbing, and bedewed her hair with his
tears.
“You might let her speak to me, Harry,” said Lydia, crying a little in
sympathy, but brightening and beaming too.
“This is all very astonishing,” said Mr. Bonamy. “You have talked a
great deal in an unknown tongue, and kissing is all very well, Harry;
but you owe a fuller explanation to me.”
Then Lydia stepped forth. “We are the Joscelyns of Joscelyn Tower--the
real old Joscelyns whom everybody knows in the Fell country,” she said.
“We are not quite so rich as we once were (but father has been doing so
well lately,” she added, in a parenthesis to Harry) “and we live in the
White House. _He_ ran away ten years ago, and never has written, never
has sent a word (oh, shame, Harry! and poor mother breaking her heart)
all this time. But when I left home in November,” Liddy said, holding
her head high, “to come abroad, I told them I should find him, I should
bring Harry home; nobody believed me of course, but I have done it; and
now, Mr. Bonamy, you know why I said I loved you. We are relations,” she
said, holding out her hand; “we all belong to the same family now.”
The Vice-Consul was greatly touched; and he was deeply relieved at the
same time in his own mind (though, if truth were told, a little, just a
little, disappointed too). He took the hand she offered to him very
gallantly, with his old-fashioned, paternal grace. “Then, my dear, I may
as well follow Harry’s good example,” he said, stooping over her to kiss
her forehead. “I am very glad to receive you into my family.” Yet he
would have liked to have had his daughter all to himself. The Isaac
Oliver business, which had seemed such a terrible downfall an hour ago,
looked a little, just a little, to be regretted now. It was an unworthy
thought, and Mr. Bonamy felt that it was so. He in his turn held out his
hand to his son-in-law. “When you are at leisure,” he said, plaintively,
“perhaps you will shake hands with me in your new capacity. Harry
Joscelyn--is that your name now? Well, it is preferable to that of Isaac
Oliver one must allow.”
As for Rita she was crying a little on her husband’s shoulder. “I don’t
think so,” she said. “I like all things as they were. I shall never know
who people are speaking to when they say Mrs. Joscelyn; and how are we
to explain to----. We are not going to tell everybody all the story, I
hope.”
This was a little perversity not to be got over all at once. She had not
said anything to Lydia; she could scarcely forgive Lydia for being her
Harry’s sister, for finding him out, for resembling the baby: she saw
that herself now, but was angry with Benedetta for having discovered it,
and with Lydia for having in that disagreeable way announced a private
claim upon her (Rita’s) family. No doubt Ralph would be like her too,
for he and the baby had always been said to resemble each other. Poor
little Ralfino--Rita, who up to this moment had called him Raaf in
defiance of all Italianisms, instantly conferred upon him the softening
vowel and diminutive: Ralfo, Ralfino he should be henceforward, she
decided in a moment; and she took no notice of Lydia. Papa, she said to
herself, was doing all that was necessary in that way.
Thus the scene of the discovery, the restoration of Harry to his family,
and his inheritance to its right owner, which according to all dramatic
precedent ought to have been ecstatic, was not at all so, and ended in
embarrassment and mutual annoyance. The results would be very
advantageous in every way to the hero himself and his wife and children,
and would not be advantageous, but the reverse to Liddy, who was at once
so much the poorer by Harry’s discovery. But it was she who gained, not
she who lost, who took the revelation unpleasantly. “You will have to
go--to England I suppose,” she said, looking askance at the new-found
sister, and clasping the arm of her husband; and there was a grudge in
her tone.
“Yes, my darling; I must go and see my mother.”
“That is your first duty,” said Mr. Bonamy, almost severely; the
severity was intended for his perverse child, but she took no notice of
it. “Of course you must go to your mother. If I had known, my boy, that
there was a mother in the case----”
“Oh! for heaven’s sake, papa, don’t upbraid him now! it is bad enough
without that. When must you go? and why, now that I am strong as a
little horse, why shouldn’t I go with you?” cried Rita, clasping his arm
with both hers.
“I don’t know any reason, dear, except----” Harry turned appealing eyes
upon Mr. Bonamy, who had stiffened into a man of stone.
“Except--your solemn promise,” said the father; “but that was thought
very binding in my day.”
“In that case there is nothing more to be said, Sir,” said Harry, not
without a shade of incipient offence; and then he turned to his wife.
“It will only be for a very short time, my darling. I shall not be away
from you, you may be sure, a moment longer than I can help.”
Oh, sublime selfishness of marriage! which looks like the most generous
and perfect of sentiments to the two concerned; the bystanders scarcely
saw it in the same light. The father, realizing that his child had to be
consoled for being left a week or two to his sole company and
tenderness; the sister, who had taken so much trouble to reinstate her
brother in his fortune and family, finding out that he was to give to
that family not a moment longer than he could help--looked at each other
with a mutual understanding, which found vent on Lydia’s side in an
uncontrollable laugh of mingled humour and disgust. “Mother would be
pleased to hear you say so, Harry,” she cried, “after ten years. I think
you might give her a day or two of your free will beyond that.”
Rita was very quick-witted, and she saw and was ashamed. She detached
herself from her husband and drew near to his sister. “I daresay you
don’t like me, d’avance, because I have the first right to him,” she
said.
“I have never seen him since I was a child,” said Liddy, with dignity.
“It cannot be supposed that it makes much difference to me. I was very
anxious to find him for mother’s sake, and to let him have his property,
because it was justice, but otherwise why should I fight with any one
about him? he is a stranger to me.”
“Don’t say so, Liddy,” her brother cried.
“I must say so when I am asked such questions. Mrs. Harry does not seem
to understand,” Liddy said.
There is nothing perfect in this world. How different, how very
different, she had expected it all to be! She had expected perhaps that
Harry himself would be a little gratified, that he would be touched by
the faith in him of his little sister and her determination to find him.
Lydia had herself forgotten that this determination had fallen much into
the background in her recent wanderings. She thought her mind had always
been full of it, and that this was the recompense of her devotion. She
was hurt and wounded. Though she was Harry’s sister, and though she had
brought him a fortune in her hand, she was still a stranger in Harry’s
house, and his wife defied her. She could have cried this time in sheer
mortification and injured feeling. “I will let them know that you are
here,” she said with as much stateliness as she could muster. “I have
done all that I suppose is in my power. I will not intrude upon anyone.”
What a dreadful thing it is to be a woman and have that weakness of
crying when you are hurt! Liddy kept her tears in her eyes only by main
force, and could not altogether succeed in subduing the tremor in her
voice.
At this moment, however, the door opened, and the servant appeared,
introducing Lionel, who stared when he saw the party thus assembled.
Lionel was not in the best of tempers. He had been making inquiries as
best he could, and he had found all Lydia’s guesses confirmed. But he
had gone back to find that she had stolen a march upon him, and he was
exceedingly cross, so cross that he was sometimes very angry with, and
at other times very sorry for, himself. When he had made his bow to
Rita, and stared with a gloomy countenance at her husband, he turned to
Lydia with suppressed passion. “My mother has sent me for you,” he said.
“She wishes you to remember that everything must be ready early to be
sent down to the steamboat. Time and tide will wait for no man, you
know.” This was said with a little smile, as if he were beginning to
perceive, and wanted at least to hide from the others, the vexation in
his tone.
This made a diversion, and as the whole story had to be told him, the
members of this strange family group were drawn nearer to each other in
spite of themselves. Under cover of the little commotion of talk which
got up, all of them sometimes speaking together, Rita, who began with
her quick intelligence to realize the position, and to see her own
ungraciousness, took the opportunity to draw a little nearer to Lydia.
She kissed her when she went away. “I--I hope you will forgive me if I
was bewildered,” she said: and Lydia forgave. But she was not the less
stately when she left the party, feeling, with a little bitterness, that
without her they would talk the matter over more at their ease. Lionel
was stately, too. He made them his congratulations with the utmost
gravity, as if pleasure were out of the question, and he took the
earliest opportunity to remind Lydia a second time that his mother was
waiting, and that the things must be sent to the boat. They went out of
the house together in a sort of armed pacification, a truce hastily
patched up, stalking side by side, not looking at each other. Going out
into the street was a sort of solemnity to them, like steering out into
the sea on a voyage in which they did not know what might happen.
Anything might happen in it. They might quarrel for ever and ever, they
might part not to see each other again. They might do anything--except
walk quietly from the British Consulate to the Leone, where Lady
Brotherton was waiting, fretting over Miss Joscelyn’s box, which was not
locked, and of which no one could find the key.