And then a week or more elapsed. After the first twenty-four hours Harry began to have heats and chills, wondering if he would be forbidden to go again. He did not intend to go, but yet to be sent away is different; and he awaited a summons to the Vice-Consul with feelings of alarm. But though he was constantly summoned to the Vice-Consul’s presence, he heard nothing upon this all-interesting subject. Mr. Bonamy looked coldly upon him for the first day, but said nothing save about business. And afterwards Harry went on just as before. Rita’s “night” came round, but Harry did not go. He dressed himself as if he were going, and got rid of Paolo, who had been greatly disappointed by the total absence of confidence in him which his friend showed. Naturally, after his exertions on Harry’s behalf, the offer of the ring and the studs, the purchase of the flower and the eau-de-cologne, Paolo had felt that he had a right to hear all that had taken place, and how the lady had been won, which he did not think would be a difficult matter. The idea that his friend could be called back without the lady being won, did not occur to his swift Italian mind. And after that critical moment when he linked his arm in Harry’s, and led him eagerly off to the quietest promenade he could think of, to hear all about it, Paolo had treated Harry’s indignant denial that there was anything to tell with the contempt it deserved. “Nothing?” he had said, with an astonishment almost beyond speech. “Nothing? But that means that you do not wish to tell me—that you will not give your confidence to me.” When Harry disclaimed this, Paolo had only shook his head. “I see that you have not trust in me,” he said, and he had retired in his turn for a few days from his friend’s society, and a little coolness and momentary estrangement had ensued.
But some time had elapsed since then, and one of those reconciliations of which Harry was afraid had followed, and Paolo’s interest was warmer than ever. He watched his friend’s looks and noted every visit he paid, so that it required nothing less than the effort of dressing and setting out for the Vice-Consul’s to shake himself free from Paolo’s society and remarks. Harry went to the very street, to the opposite side, to watch the windows, and to get a glimpse if he could of the little white figure, which was the central point in the world to him. But long before the usual hour the party broke up, and Harry was surprised by a sudden outpouring of groups of people in evening dresses—ladies with scarfs thrown over their heads, and satin slippers, not adapted for the rough pavement. Some of these groups, departing guests, perceived him, before he was aware. “Oh! are you going to the Bonamys?” said a lady; “don’t go; the Vice-Consul has been taken ill; he has had a fit or something. You may see how early we are coming away.” The whole street was soon full of a babble of voices, all talking of this. The Vice-Consul had been suddenly taken ill; he had fainted in the midst of the assembly, and the doctor had been sent for in haste. When Harry looked up at the windows they were all deserted—the lights still burning, the white curtains faintly swaying about, but the rooms entirely empty. In a moment all had become miserable and neglected. Life had ebbed out of the room, and left everything cold and silent. He felt with a chill at his heart as if death had come in instead to fill up the vacant place; he went to the door to inquire about his kind patron, his trustful master, his fatherly friend, with a heart out of which all the previous thoughts had departed for the moment. He thought of Rita, indeed, with instant anxiety; but yet her father was foremost in his mind. “Very bad, sir,” the servant said, who was an Englishman, “very bad,” holding the door wide open as he said so; and Harry went in in his evening clothes, looking as if he had meant to go to the party. He was a little scared afterwards to think that Rita never could know that he did not mean to come to the party. He went upstairs into the empty drawing-room; there were a few signs of hasty disturbance about it, evidences of the sudden interruption; a card-table set out with all the cards as they had been dealt round it; groups of chairs standing together, and a tray of ices on a side-table. Such a forsaken room always raises an infinite crowd of suggestions. It is such a lesson upon the dangers and changes of life as no sermon can read. Harry stood in the midst of it, feeling as if he had seen the writing on the wall which startled the ancient king in the midst of his revel. It had been an innocent revel—nothing in it to offend earth or heaven; but the touch of a sudden calamity makes even the most innocent pleasure-making seem vain. He stood there feeling as if on the edge of a tomb, hearing in the distance muffled yet hasty steps running to and fro, and all the excitement of a sudden illness. And he had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for nobody came near the room for, he thought, hours; though, of course, this was a mistaken estimate of the time that really passed. At last Harry heard measured steps and voices coming downstairs, and hurrying to the door found the English doctor in company with one of the ladies of the English community who had known Rita all her life. They told him that the Vice-Consul’s attack was a very serious one, that he was still unconscious, and that no one as yet could say how it would turn. “I have told him for some time he ought to go away. He was struggling foolishly, when he ought to have given in as so many people do.” “And poor little Rita, what is to become of her?” the lady said.
Harry stood with his heart in his mouth, ready for any service. Alas! what can a young man do in such a case? An old woman is of more use. He was sent off, however, to fetch a nurse, and to get various articles that were necessary, and this gave him occupation. He was about the house all the night, hearing with faint pleasure that Rita would not leave her father’s bedside, and glad to share her vigil. He would have liked to be there too to help, not caring what he did. The Vice-Consul was very ill for many days, during which time Harry threw himself into the business of the office, and worked like a slave. He thought neither of reward nor of the manner in which his behaviour was being contemplated by the little community around, all as much interested as the population of a village, though they formed an important part of a large and busy town. He thought nothing of all this; his new life absorbed him so that he had no faculty or thought that was free for anything else. He did not seem to require either rest or regular meals, but took up Mr. Bonamy’s work during the day, and ran about on any errand of the sick-room all the night.
And at last the patient began to get better. The seizure had been a very bad one, but he mended, and was at last able to be removed. He was too confused even then to know what was being done for him, or to realise the state into which his work must have got but for the strenuous and anxious deputyship of his clerk. He was taken away even without knowing, without being able to say a word to Harry. But Rita, who had so tortured him, who even in the midst of her watch had heard without knowing it how Harry had taken her father’s place, and how he had made himself the servant of the house, did not leave him without a token of her gratitude. One day, while he was sitting absorbed in business, but not able to keep himself from thinking now and then wistfully whether he should see either of them before they went away, there came a soft little knock at the door of communication by which the Vice-Consul had introduced him first into his house. Harry was at Mr. Bonamy’s own table, taking his place, and feeling himself already so much at home in the work that the appeals which he had dreaded at first no longer affected him. But when he heard this knock his whole frame quivered. He did not know what to expect. He got up trembling from his chair, and opened the door. In the passage stood Rita, very worn and pale, with dark lines round the eyes that seemed to fill up all her face. She had scarcely left her father’s bedside, he had heard, watching over him night and day. Her slight little figure, always so slim and girlish, seemed to have shrunk to nothing. There was not a trace of colour in her face. “Miss Bonamy!” he said, with a sharp tone of surprise, though he was not surprised; the moment he had heard the knock he had been aware that Rita, and no other, must have made that appeal. The touch on the door had conveyed a plaintive sound to him like her voice. She smiled, but did not say anything. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears, and the soft lines of her mouth quivered. She came into the office, where he stood gazing at her, and held out to him both her hands, smiling up in his face like a child. “I have come to thank you,” she said, at last, the two big tears dropping like drops of rain in a thunder shower, “for all your—kindness.” She paused a little before that last word, and through the tears, through the angelical, pathetic smile, which wrung poor Harry’s heart, there came something that was like a ghost of mischief. She remembered their last conversation, though so much had happened since, and could not refrain, though her heart was moved to its depths, from throwing this ghost of a malicious shaft at him. Somehow the effect upon Harry was of a different kind from before. Perhaps he felt that he had now a standing-ground which no one could undervalue or take from him. At all events he kept her hands in his, and looked at her with a gaze under which her eyes swerved. “It was not kindness,” he said.
Rita drew back a step, though her hands were held fast. Her eyes drooped, she could not meet his, though Harry’s eyes were insignificant English eyes in comparison with those great dreamy lights that shone out of her little pale face. Then she gave one sudden glance at him, wavering and trembling. “I know it was not,” said Rita, with a great effort to steady her voice.
CHAPTER XV.
THE VICE-CONSUL’S RESOLUTION.
THE Bonamys had a little country-house near the sea, one of those grey houses, with its vineyard and its fields, which are so common in Italy, so homely, having so little of the picturesque grace which is suggested by everything Italian to our minds. The rooms were large and sparely furnished, one of them, the only pleasant one, opening upon a terrace which overlooked the sea. Here the Vice-Consul was brought, and laid upon a couch in the long warm days, after the sun had gone off the house, to breathe in the pleasant saltness, and refresh himself with that profound Mediterranean blue which is like nothing else. At first he was able for no mental, and not much physical, effort, but by degrees life came back to him; and with the earliest gleams of revival came the recollection of all that had dropped out of his hands, his work, the office, all that had depended upon him. When this first crisis came, which had been much dreaded by the doctors, Rita had to meet it alone. It came in a moment, after a day of listless enjoyment. There had been some cool breezes, and a little breath of more vigorous life had got into his relaxed and feeble frame. He had fallen asleep in the afternoon, his daughter sitting by him. All was tranquil round about, as became the surroundings of a convalescent, the air breathing softly, the violent sun, which is in Italy an enemy of the feeble, happily gone out of sight, the sea sounding softly upon the rocks, the cicala shrill in the trees. It was the only sharp note in all that quiet, but Rita, for one, no more knew of the existence of a country landscape without the shrill tones of the cicala, than an English girl could realise one without the birds. There were no great trees about, nothing but those which were useful according to the frugal custom of wealthy Tuscany, where everything is expected to bear fruit. The lattice-work overhead was partly covered with a vine, which made a green roof over one part of it; but the sick man wanted all the air he could get, so he was not below the pergola, but in the open part, the soft breeze blowing freely about him. He lay with his fine head turned towards the sea, a beard, the growth of his illness, softening the gauntness of the lower part of his face, sleeping with that utter abandon of weakness which seems to restore something of the charm of childhood to the sick. Rita sat by, with a book in her hands which she was not reading. It would be hard to tell what she was doing; not thinking either;—scenes in the past, scenes in the future, were gliding through her dreamy mind. Which was most real she could not tell. She was standing on the edge of fate, not knowing what a day or a moment might bring forth. All the world had paused with her in that suspense which was sweet. She did not want to be done with it or to shorten it, or to make anything advance a step faster; indeed she did not know what it was that was going to come. But it would not end there, she said sometimes to herself; it was impossible that it could end there; one thing or another must come of it. But what it was she wanted to come of it, Rita, even to herself, would not venture to say.
When all at once, everything being so quiet, the Vice-Consul suddenly woke up. He opened his eyes with more energy than usual, and made a little movement to rise, with an impulse of active life, such as he had not shown before.
“Ah, you are there, my pet,” he said. “I was dreaming that we were at home; that there had been despatches. I fear I have been sadly idle. How long have I been ill? It is too early for us to be here.”
“No, papa,” said Rita, alarmed. “Oh, not at all too early—at this time we are always here.”