WE had both been reading almost all the evening. Sara had her novel, and I had the Times Supplement, which I am free to confess I like as well as any other part of the paper. I will not deny that I finished the third volume before I began to the newspaper; but, to be sure, a novel, after you are done with it, is an unsatisfactory piece of work; especially if the evening is only half over, and you have nothing else to begin to. I sat leaning back in my chair, wandering over the advertisements, and very ready for a talk. That is just the time, to be sure, when one wants somebody to talk to. If I had ever been used to the luxury of a favourite maid when I was young, as Sarah was, I do believe I should have been in my own cosy room now as well as Sarah, talking everything over with my Carson. But that is not the way I was brought up, you see. To be sure, as there was ten years of difference between us, nobody had ever looked for me, and Sarah had got quite settled in her heiress ways before I was born. When I was young, I used to think it a sad pity for everybody’s sake that I ever was born, especially after my mother died; however, I changed my views upon that subject a good many years ago. Yet here I sat looking all over the advertisements, and keeping an eye on Sara to see if there was any hope of getting a little conversation out of her. Alas! she was all lapped up and lost in her novel. She thought no more of me than of Sarah’s empty chair. Ah! novels are novels when people are young. I looked at the poor dear child, and admired and smiled at her over the top of the newspaper. If I had been a cabbage, Sara could not have taken less notice of me.
At last she suddenly exclaimed out loud—at something she was reading, of course—“I declare!” as if she had made a discovery, and then stopped short and looked up at me with a sort of challenge, as if defying me to guess what she was thinking of. Then, seeing how puzzled I looked, Sara laughed, but reddened a little as well, to my amazement; and finally, not without the least little touch of confusion, explained herself. To be sure it was quite voluntary, and yet a little unwilling too.
“There’s something here exactly like the Italian gentleman; he that people talk so much about in Chester, you know.”{32}
“I never knew there was an Italian gentleman in Chester. What a piece of news! and you never told me,” said I.
“He only came about a fortnight ago,” said Sara. “It looks quite romantic, you know, godmamma, which is the only reason I have heard anything about it. He came quite in great style to the Angel, and said he was coming to see some friends, and asked all about whether anybody knew where the Countess Sermoneta lived. You may be quite sure nobody had ever heard of such a name in Chester. I heard it all from Lucy Wilde, who had heard it from her brother, who is always playing billiards and things at the Angel—Harry Wilde——”
“That is the poor young man who——”
“Oh, dear godmamma, don’t bother! let one go on with one’s story. Harry Wilde says the Italian came down among them, asking everybody about this Countess Sermoneta, and looking quite bewildered when he found that nobody knew her; but still he was quite lively, and thought it must be some mistake, and laughed, and made sure that this was really Chestare he had come to, and not any other place. But next day, people say, he sent for the landlord and asked all about the families in the neighbourhood, and all of a sudden grew quite grave and serious, and soon after took lodgings in Watergate, and has been seen going about the streets and the walls so much since that everybody knows him. He speaks English quite well—people say so, I mean—and he has a servant with him, the funniest-looking fat fellow you ever saw; no more like a proper Italian servant in a play or a novel than I am; and he calls himself just Mr. Luigi; and that, of course, you know, must be only his Christian name.”
“Nay, indeed, Sara, I don’t know anything about it. There is nothing at all Christianlike in the name, so far as I can see.”
“Well then, I know, godmamma, which is all the same,” cried the impatient little creature; “but then, to be sure, our old Signor Valetti used to tell us they never minded their family names in Italy; and that people might be next-door neighbours for ever so long and never know each other’s surnames. Isn’t it pretty? especially when they have pretty Christian names, as all the Italians have.”
“My dear, if you think Looegee pretty, I don’t,” said I. “Take my word for it, there is nothing like the sensible English names. I’ve had a good deal of experience, and I don’t like your romantic foreigners. For my part, I don’t like{33} people that have a story. People have no right to have stories, child. If you do your duty honestly, and always tell the truth, and never conceal anything, you can’t get up a romance about yourself. As for this Italian fellow and his name——”
“I don’t believe he’s a fellow any more than you are, godmamma,” cried Sara, quite indignantly; “people should know before they condemn; and his name is just plain Lewis when it’s put into English. I did not think you were so prejudiced, indeed I did not—or I never would have told you anything at all about the poor count——”
“Heaven preserve us! he’s a count, is he?” said I. “And what do you know about him, Sara Cresswell, please, that you would quarrel with your own godmother for his sake?”
Sara did not speak for a few minutes, looking very flushed and angry. At last, after a good fight with herself, she started up and threw her arms round my neck. “Dear godmamma, I wouldn’t quarrel with you for anybody in the world,” cried the little impulsive creature. Then she stopped and gave a little toss of her head. “But whatever anybody says, I know it’s quite right to feel kind to the poor Italian gentleman, a stranger, and solitary, and disappointed! I do wonder at your people, godmamma—you people who pretend to do what’s in the Bible. You’re just as hard upon strangers and as ready to take up a prejudice as anybody else.”
“I never pretended not to be prejudiced,” said I; “it’s natural to a born Englishwoman. And as for your foreign counts, that come sneaking into people’s houses to marry their daughters and run off with the money——”
“Oh, if it is that you are thinking of, godmamma,” cried Sara with great dignity, sitting quite bolt upright in her chair, “you are totally mistaken, I assure you. I never spoke to the gentleman in my life; and besides,” she went on, getting very red and vehement, “I never will marry anybody, I have quite made up my mind; so, if you please, godmamma, whatever you choose to say about poor Mr. Luigi, whom you don’t know anything about, I hope you will be good enough not to draw me into any stupid story about marrying—I quite hate talk of that kind.”
I was so thunderstruck that I quite called out—“You impertinent little puss,” said I, “is that how you dare to talk to your godmother!” I declare I do not think I ever was put down so all my life before. I gave her a good sound lecture, as anybody will believe, about the proper respect she owed to her friends and seniors, telling her that I was very much afraid{34} she was in a bad way; and that, however her father, who spoiled her, might let her talk, she ought to know better than to set up her little saucy face like that in our house. I said a great deal to the little provoking creature. I am sure she never saw me so angry before, though she has been a perfect plague and tease all her days. But do you think she would give in, and say she was sorry? Not if it had been to save her life! She sat looking down on her book, opening and shutting it upon her hand, her little delicate nostril swelling, her red upper lip moving, her foot going pat-pat on the carpet, but never owning to be in the wrong or making the least apology. After I had done and taken up my paper again, pretending to be very busy with it, she got up and rummaged out the other volume of the novel, and came to me to say good-night, holding out her hand and stooping down her cheek, meaning me to kiss her, the saucy little puss! As she was in my house, and a guest, and her first night, I did kiss her, without looking at her. It was a regular quarrel; and so she too went off to her own room. So here I was all alone, very angry, and much disposed to launch out upon the servants or somebody. Contrairy indeed! I should think so! I wonder how that poor old Bob Cresswell can put up with his life. If she were mine I would send her off to school, for all so accomplished as they say she is.