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.