IN THE STREET.
Out in the street, out upon the world, out upon a perfectly lonely sea,
where they saw nobody and thought of nobody, but those two worlds of
themselves, he and she, moving alone together, with a little space of
clear daylight between them, the two parallel lines which can never come
together so long as measurements last--For a time they moved on with no
communication at all, each feeling very solitary, and unspeakably
dignified and superior to all trivial thoughts and words. What could
they have to say? What does he care? Lydia said to herself; what does
anyone care but me? She had done her work, but she had not got much
satisfaction out of it. It had estranged her friends from her, and
everybody. Her mother would be pleased, that was always a little
consolation to think of. Dear mother! and what if she were disappointed
too? You never can tell how little satisfaction there is in a new thing
till it has happened, she said to herself. In her preoccupation she
stumbled over a crossing, over the rough pavement, and then her
companion spoke.
“Take care; these little streets are so many traps. Will you take my arm
till we get into the smoother way?”
“Thank you,” said Lydia, “it is not at all necessary. I did not notice
where I was going.”
“You prefer not to be helped in anything,” her adversary said.
“Indeed, no; if anybody will help me, I am always very thankful,” Lydia
replied.
And then he turned his eyes upon her. “I think you are mistaken in
yourself,” he said, quickly, “we often are. You think women should be
independent and manage their own affairs.”
Lydia raised her eyebrows a little.
“I was not thinking about women, or what they should do. I think
everyone, woman or not, likes best to look after their own affairs
themselves.”
“Do you think so? I have always been brought up to believe that it was a
man’s part to take the rough work, and that a woman did well to accept
his help.”
“Cousin Lionel,” said Lydia, “if you are angry because I went off to Mr.
Bonamy’s myself, instead of leaving you to work things your own way, you
are surely very unreasonable. I was sure of it; there was not any reason
to doubt; and why should I bother you about what I could do so easily?
It was my business; you could not be supposed to--take--much interest.”
“Trouble me!” he cried, “take much interest! Do you think there is
anything you care for that I don’t take an interest in? What is the
chief thing I have thought of ever since I knew you? You speak so much
at your ease; I wish you would tell me that.”
“I hope it is nothing to be angry with me about,” said Lydia, with
meekness, “but how can I know?”
“No, I suppose you don’t know,” he said, with almost a scornful tone,
“you have only seen me every day these five months, and talked to me,
and pretended to take some interest in me, as you say; and now you turn
upon me and ask me how can you know? How can you help knowing? is what
I should say.”
“Cousin Lionel, I don’t know why you should be angry. If I had waited
for you this morning I should have lost my chance. There was so little
time to do anything; and time runs away so fast when it is the last
day.”
“Do you think I am talking only of this morning? What is this morning?
It is all the time I complain of. It has just been the same all the
time.”
And now it was Lydia’s turn to look round, this time in unfeigned
surprise; but her glance at him, perhaps, gave her more information than
his words: at least, there was a subtle tone of hypocrisy in the
meekness with which she asked.
“Have I displeased you all the time?” with a little tragic accent of
remonstrance. “I am so sorry,” she said.
“Sorry! and displeased! it is not words like those that will do any
good,” Lionel cried.
Liddy looked at him again piteously, but perhaps in the puckers round
her eyes, and the droop of her mouth, there was a dimple or two which
the faintest touch could have turned into smiles. She shook her head.
“You are hard upon me, Cousin Lionel; you are angry about this morning,
and then you tell me it is not this morning; but all the time; and when
I say I am sorry (what else can I say? for I am very sorry, and so
mistaken! I thought we were such friends!) you say, words like these
will not do any good. What am I to say? It is a discovery I never
expected to make, that I had been--disagreeable all the time.”
“I think you want to drive me out of my senses!” he cried.
Which, indeed, was very foolish; she had all the reason and force of the
argument on her side, and he, having at some point in the altercation
taken a wrong turning, got only further and further astray at every step
he made.
Lydia by this time had recovered all her usual composure. When one party
to a controversy gets hot and weak, the other becomes calm. She felt
herself to have the best of it, and it was a pleasure to her, after her
recent discomfiture, to have the upper hand, and find herself in the
exciting position, not altogether un-enjoyable, of skilfully fencing and
keeping off an agitated man’s self-disclosure. It agitated herself a
little, but the circumstances strengthened her. Besides, whatever was
going to be said, this was not the moment to say it, in the streets,
with the Leone almost within sight. His self-betrayal gave her force to
stand against him.
“Here we are,” she said, softly, “almost at home--if you can call the
hotel home. Whatever I have done amiss, I hope you will pardon me. We
shall be such a short time together now. Oh----!” for some one, darting
forward, caught her with the very tears in her eye, the quaver in the
tone. “Mr.--Paul; Signor----”
“Not me,” said Paolo, shaking his head; “I am born in Livorno, but
except that I am an Englishman; Mees Joscelyn will not find it is
necessary to say Signor to me. I have had a commission--from the bureau.
I am in this direction, and I wait to pay my--homage--to lay once more
my respects--from the heart, from the heart!” said little Paolo, laying
his hand upon that organ, “at these ladies’ feet, and to ask if I can be
of service. The Signor Consul has authorized me. I am known, well known,
on the board of the _vapore_. I could arrange the baggage, select the
cabins, what Mees Joscelyn will.”
Lionel repeated instinctively his movement of last night; he came a step
nearer, as if to keep the anxious Italian off.
“We are much obliged to you, but our own servant has looked after all
that,” he said.
Paolo’s eyes flashed a little. The Englishman was rude; but in Paolo’s
experience Englishmen were very often rude, and he was not surprised.
Englishwomen, that was a different matter. He gave his shoulders a
little shrug, and turned to Lydia once more.
“A servant--that is one thing,” he said, with a wave of his hand, “there
are many, and the travellers many. One pays not too much attention to
servants; but me, I think I can command----” Paolo said this with an
ineffable look of modest importance; and he added in a lower tone: “To
make it more easy for these ladies to go away--that is not what I should
wish to do; but one must forget one’s self, and there may come another
time--perhaps?”
“Yes,” said Lydia, smiling. She was so glad to come to an end of the
_tête-à-tête_, which was becoming so embarrassing, that she smiled with
double sweetness upon Paolo. “Indeed I shall have more to do with
Leghorn than I ever supposed. Mr. Oliver--who is your friend----”
“My friend--of my heart,” said Paolo, laying his hand once more on his
much-decorated bosom. He had dressed himself in all his finest chains
and buttons, and a beautiful waistcoat, that Lydia might see him at his
best.
“Ah!--he is my brother,” Lydia said. She had begun to shake off the
jarred and painful feelings that had spoiled her morning’s work.
Daylight and ordinary life, and a new excitement between her and that,
began to restore the perspective; and as she made this announcement the
first really wholesome natural sense of pleasure came over her. It was
Lionel who was out of perspective now, too close to her, overshadowing
heaven and earth. But the other event began to appear in its natural
size and aspect. Paolo’s state of wonder was unfeigned. The Italian was
quick enough to observe the undercurrents around him on ordinary
occasions; but Lydia had made too great and immediate an impression upon
him to leave his eyes free for anything else.
“Your brother!” he cried.
“Tell me how he arrived here, as you told me last night; but I did not
know all the meaning of it then,” said Lydia. “Tell me again how he
came, and carried his own box.”
She was more than half in earnest, wanting to hear about Harry, and yet
it was half a pretence; she could not help but be conscious of the
figure at her elbow stalking along in silent disgust, ready to abandon
her for ever, and all the plans connected with her; ready to seize the
little Italian by his coatcollar and whirl him away into the sea or air,
yet jealous of losing a word of what was said. Lionel walked along the
street like an embodied thunder-cloud, and they were already at the door
of the Leone, which thank heaven, he thought, would at least put an end
to this. It did not do so, however, for Lydia in her perversity insisted
upon carrying Paolo with her to Lady Brotherton, interrupting him in the
midst of the narrative she had asked for, but which in her gradually
increasing excitement about her other companion she could not listen to.
She broke into it just as Paolo, with the water in his eyes, was
recounting how he had thrown himself on Harry’s bosom and sworn eternal
friendship. “Siamo amici, I said to him,” said Paolo. “What is mine is
thine. I will be your caution; I will respond for you; I will present
you----” “Come upstairs, Mr. Paul,” said Lydia, restless, “Lady
Brotherton will be glad to have you to help us.” He stopped short, thus
interrupted in the midst of his narrative, and it hurt poor Paolo. But
next moment he smiled with his usual sweet temper, and followed her.
Lionel could not help feeling that in the same circumstances he could
have almost killed her--which, indeed, was the state of his mind now.
And then there followed such an afternoon of trouble and excitement as
drove Lionel nearly out of his senses. Lady Brotherton had to be told
the strange story, and then Sir John, who could not understand it at
all; and afterwards, in the midst of all the preparations for the start,
“all Leghorn,” the indignant young man said to himself, poured down upon
them. All Leghorn meant Harry and his family, and Mr. Bonamy, who came
one after another in different degrees of excitement. Rita arrived first
with her two youngest children and their nurse, to show to her new
sister-in-law, and to make amends for her previous want of graciousness.
“I could not understand it--how could I understand it?” she said, and
she was magnanimous enough to point out the resemblance of the bambino
to his aunt. Then came Harry to say that he had made hasty preparations
to go home with his sister, and would join them that evening at the
steamboat. And finally the Vice-Consul’s exertions brought some sort of
enlightenment to Sir John, whose first idea was that Mr. Bonamy’s
son-in-law wanted to marry little Liddy, though he had already a wife of
his own. All these perpetual visitors kept the party in a whirl of
commotion, and Lionel, at last driven to the end of his patience,
sallied forth and walked about till the moment of departure came, all
but cursing Harry, and vowing to himself that he would take no further
trouble, but let Lydia depart as she came. Why should he take any
trouble? His mother would not like it. They (his parents) would wish
him, if he married, to marry somebody with money, somebody with
position, somebody---- Ah! Here he took himself by the shoulders, so to
speak, and shook himself fiercely, and called himself, “you fool!” as if
there was any question of marrying anybody! as if she would have him!
Was she not pouring contempt upon him? putting even that little
hop-o’-my thumb before him, preferring a little Italian beggar, hung all
over with jewellery! These were poor Lionel’s reflections as he wandered
about the streets. And that other fellow, the brother, if he was her
brother, was going with them; would talk to her, who could doubt it, the
whole time, and never give a man a chance----! Lionel would have liked,
without much hyperbole, to smother them all, or pitch them into the sea.
At last the moment of departure came. Rita, with a flush of excitement
about her, her cheeks hot, her eyes shining, and without a tear, came to
the steamboat with her husband to see him away. He whispered again in
her ear that he would not stay a moment longer than he could help; that
he would count the days he was away from her; that she must not worry
about him, must not feel lonely.
“Lonely!” she cried, in a tone which wounded poor Harry deeply. “Oh no,
I shall not be lonely. I mean to amuse myself very much. I shall go
everywhere. I shall not miss you at all. Ser Paolo will take care of
me.”
“You will have your father to take care of you, my darling,” Harry said,
very gravely, with a little surprise; and then he added, with a laugh,
“he will be glad to be rid of me for once, to have you all to himself.
But Paul-o, all the same, will stand by you, I know,” he said, turning
round to his friend lest his susceptible feelings should be wounded;
“it is not that I doubt Paul-o--who will do everything.”
“Yes, everything,” Paolo said, with a fervent grip of his friend’s hand.
And Rita laughed. Why should she laugh? She did not shed a tear to part
with him. Harry looked over the bulwark of the ship and watched his
little wife standing in the boat which had brought them on board as long
as he could make her out. The boatmen lay on their oars, and Rita stood
up, waving her handkerchief, with Paolo by her side. These two figures,
and after them all the features of the well-known scene, and then the
very place itself, which was his home, which contained all his
independent life, dropped away into the mists, into the distance. He had
said to himself many a day that he would never go back; yet he was going
back, severing himself, as he had done before, from everything he knew
or cared for. And Rita had not seemed to care! He was not sentimental,
but he turned away when there was no longer anything to be seen of
Leghorn, with a little shiver, and a pang at his heart.