What did that mean? “Before—if ever.” Her heart beat so loudly that she seemed unable to do anything but keep it down, and yet she asked herself wistfully what was the meaning of it. She was tantalized and aggravated beyond words. “That will soon be,” she said with a little mocking laugh, and turning, walked away towards the river. He followed her quite silent and cast down, for he thought this laugh meant the very worst. And when they got back to the inn Lydia disappeared, and save in his mother’s presence saw him no more that day. Lady Brotherton saw no difference for her part. She tried to throw them together benevolently. “You must try and make the best of it,” she said. “I must go back to your father, Lionel. Take Lydia somewhere, show her the town. You are cousins, you need not stand upon ceremony, you don’t want a chaperon.”
“I am so sorry, Lady Brotherton,” said Liddy with an innocent air, “but I must go and write letters. We have been moving about so much lately. I have not written half so often as usual to my mother. I thought I’d take this afternoon for it.”
“That is a pity,” said Lady Brotherton, “I am sure she will excuse you, my dear; you will be with her so soon! and Lionel will be quite lonely; you might give him this afternoon. Your mother will have you in a week, you know.”
Poor wicked Liddy! what a pang it gave her! and a still greater pang to think that it should be a pang. She looked at Lady Brotherton with sorrowful, half reproachful eyes, into which, much against her will, the tears came—but fortunately kept suspended there, making her eyes big and liquid, not falling. “I know,” she said, trying hard to suppress a sigh; “but I must write all the same.”
“Don’t think of me,” said Lionel. “I shall play a game at billiards—or something.” Lady Brotherton paused to launch a mot at the absurdity of coming to Italy to play billiards before she went to Sir John, and in that interval Lydia disappeared, and except at dinner, when his mother was present, the two did not meet again that day.
Sir John was a little better next morning, and declared himself able to go the little way there was to Leghorn, where he would rest another night before taking the steamer. “And there’sh old Bonamy,” he said, “old friend’sh, never forshake old friend’sh. Bonamy, Vicesh-Conshull, famous old fellow.” He was delighted at the idea, though Lady Brotherton shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, yes, he is very nice,” she said, “not old, quite a handsome man; but all these Consular people, they are—you know what they are—However Mr. Bonamy is quite superior. Another night in Italy, Liddy, though it is only a mercantile place and not interesting. Let us hope there will be a moon.”
But Lydia did not wish for a moon. She had got into a state of feverish indifference. It was so nearly over now, that she wished it over altogether. What was the good of a few more hours? She would have run away, had she been able, to get out of it all, to forget Italy if that were possible, and all these five months of happiness. She felt angry with Sir John and his friend, and the place they were going to, and everything about it. A moon? what did she want with a moon? she would have liked to pluck it out of that blue, blue intolerable sky that never changed. It was all Liddy could do to keep herself from making a cross reply.
They got to Leghorn early that Sir John might not be exposed to the heat of the day; and the aspect of that place did not tend to soften Lydia’s feelings; a town with shipping and docks and counting-houses; she declared to herself that it was like any town in England, not like Italy at all. Sir John, who was fond of novelty, had his card sent at once to the Vice-Consul, with a request that Mr. Bonamy would go and see an old friend who was not well enough to visit him; and the old man grew quite brisk on the strength of something new, and sat up in a chair and declared himself quite well. He looked so comfortable that Lady Brotherton was very sorry that she had settled to stay another evening. “When we have quite made up our minds to it, it seems a pity,” she said, “to lose a day.” How tranquilly she spoke! while the two young people listening to her, and too languid or too nervous to take any part in the discussion, felt a secret fury burn within them. “Lose a day!” Neither of them knew whether it was a loss or a gain, an incalculable treasure of possibilities, or a miserable hour the more of suspense and unhappiness. Perhaps they were both most disposed to look upon it in the latter light; and yet they were both angry with Lady Brotherton for talking of losing a day. There is no consistency in youth, nor was there any reason for the nervous excitement which possessed them both. They sat down to luncheon together, both of them devouring their hearts, and quite indisposed for other fare.
“Mr. Bonamy knows our English ways. I should not be surprised,” said Lady Brotherton, “if he came to lunch.”
“Yes, yes, knowshur English ways, English himself,” said Sir John, “knowsh what’sh what. Shure to come in to lunch.”