“They will all be out in a minute, Liddy; but never mind, my pet, you’ll see them later, and they’ll bring in your boxes and all your things. Come in, come in, you must be tired with your night’s journey—and let me look at you; I want no more, but just to look at you, you’re better than Italy to me.”
“Mother,” Lydia said, holding back, “I have brought some one with me—a gentleman; you must give a welcome to him too.”
“A gentleman!” Mrs. Joscelyn gave a little sigh of disappointment. “It will be Lionel. Yes, I am glad to see him; but I should have liked you all to myself this first morning. He knows he is welcome, my dear.”
“It is not Lionel, mother; it is some one whom I met—in Italy.”
Mrs. Joscelyn began to tremble a little, and looked earnestly in her daughter’s face, but not with any suspicion of the truth.
“I will try—to give anyone a welcome, my darling; if you love him, and if it is for your sake.”
Harry had got down from the phaeton like a man in a dream. He gazed about him at the place which was so familiar, yet so strange, as if he had dropped from the skies, remembering everything all in a moment, his boyhood, his old childish holidays, his last night. He remembered the foolish exaggerated passion with which he stood, furious, shut out, before that closed door. He was full of agitation, of compunction, of wonder, at his own boyish unreasonableness, and at the long obdurate closing of his heart, which could not have been, he said to himself, had it not been full of other things. His heart beat as he looked at his mother, and heard the cry with which she clasped to her her other child. And Liddy was going to forsake her too, poor woman, poor mother! Somehow he thought more of this than of all the trouble he had himself brought upon her. He stood at a little distance, keeping his furred coat closely round him, stamping his feet a little to get them warm. Had he lived always on the Fells, he would have wanted no furred coat, and felt no cold in his feet. Then Lydia beckoned to him, and he went towards them. It was all he could do to keep calm. “I am sure the gentleman is very welcome, Liddy,” he heard his mother say, in her tremulous voice. He came up to them where they still stood in the doorway. Something about his air, about his general aspect, startled her, though she was so pre-occupied, and Harry did not know how to contain himself as his eyes met hers. She gave him a smile, a little forced, with her lips, but her eyes more sincere, betrayers of her heart, investigated him with anxiety and wonder. He could not meet them without betraying himself. He took the hand she held to him, and bowed over it and kissed it, as he had learned to do in Italy; and he felt as he did so that the worn white hand, which he thought he must have recognised had he seen no more of his mother, trembled. She said, “Come in, Sir,” with a quaver in her voice; “Come in—you are kindly welcome,” and tremulously led the way into the hall he remembered so well, and opened the parlour door. The fire was burning brightly within, the table laid for breakfast, everything as if he had left it the day before. Mrs. Joscelyn would have had her guest, who had set her all a-tremble, yet whom she thought she welcomed reluctantly, enter before her, in old-fashioned politeness; but when he held back, went in precipitately, holding Liddy by the hand. She turned round instantly to look at him again.
“Liddy—you have not told me—the gentleman’s name?” she said, feeling her head go round. “Liddy! I think—I must have seen him before.”
Then Harry could keep himself in no longer. He loathed a scene like every Englishman, but he forgot this, as even Englishmen do in moments of extreme feeling. He fell down on his knees before her, not knowing what he did. “Mother! will you forgive me?” he said. And he did not well know what followed, till the air cleared a little again, and the day came back, and they had put her in the great chair, her face like death, her eyelids quivering, her lips trembling and incapable of speech. She had given a great cry of “Harry! Harry!” which startled all the house.
Then some one else came noisily clattering down the stairs, crossing the hall with a heavy foot. “Where is my little Liddy?” Ralph Joscelyn said; and he added with a certain rough sympathy as he kissed his child, “I told her it was more than she was up to. Let her be, let her be—she will come round. I wanted her to bide in her bed, and I would bring you to her there. Well, and so you’re back, my lass—and welcome! There’s nobody like you to mend her. Did you bring—a doctor with you all the way?”