The drive by St. James’s Park, Buckingham Palace, and Eton Square was a delight to the Venetians. They exclaimed at every new feature of the way. The houses, the soldiers, the trees, the palace, and even the long, solemn, unbeautiful square impressed them. The magnitude of everything was so astounding after Venice. The wide expanses and seemingly illimitable distances filled them with wonder. They had been surprised at the extent of Milan; but this London looked as if it could swallow twenty Milans.
The brougham drove along the King’s Road, turned into Oakley Street, and brought them suddenly face to face with the Thames in one of its pleasantest aspects. The sun was shining on the river, the trees were purple with swelling leaf-buds, the old houses of Cheyne Walk looked bright and gay in the sunlight.
“Oh, how pretty!” cried Lisa, and Lisa’s aunt was quite as enthusiastic.
“There is one thing I must ask you,” said Vansittart, “before we come to business with the house-agent. I don’t know the surname of either of you ladies.”
“My name is Vivanti,” said the aunt, “and Lisa’s is the same. She is my brother’s daughter.”
“Then Lisa shall be Madame Vivanti, and you—shall we say Mademoiselle?”
“As you will. I have never been married. The man I loved and was to have married was a fisherman, and his boat was wrecked one stormy night between Venice and Chioggia. I never cared for anyone else; so I lived with my brother and his wife, and worked for them and with them. He has a swarm of children, of whom Lisa is the eldest.”
“Then you have a number of brothers and sisters, Lisa,” said Vansittart. “Can you reconcile your mind to living in England and seeing them no more?”
Lisa shrugged her shoulders.
“There are too many of us,” she said; “each of us felt what it was to be one mouth too many. The mother died six years ago, worn out like an old shoe that has tramped over the stones through all weathers. My father would beat us for a word or a look. It was a hard life at Burano. I don’t want to go back there—ever. And your name, Signor; you have not told us that.”
“My name! Ah, true!”
He hesitated for an instant or so. Could he trust them with the knowledge of his name and surroundings? He thought not. They were women, impulsive, uneducated, therefore uninstructed in the higher law of honour.
“My name is Smith,” he said.
“How strange! The same as his,” exclaimed Lisa.
“It is a common English name.”
The carriage stopped at a street corner, and Vansittart led the way up the brand-new staircase to the brand-new third story. Lisa and her aunt were in raptures. Everything was so pretty, the paint, the paper, the ceilings, the windows and balconies, the fireplaces, with their tasteful wooden mantelpieces, and shining flowery tiles, and artistic little grates, warranted to consume a minimum of coals and give a maximum of heat.
There was a somewhat spacious sitting-room, with five windows, including the oriel in the western corner. Opening out of this were two small bedrooms; and on the other side of the landing there was the doll’s-house kitchen, furnished with many shelves and conveniences for cooking and washing up, a kitchen as ingenious in its arrangements, and almost as small as the steward’s cabin on a Jersey steamer.
“Now, Madame Vivanti,” said Vansittart, when the inspection had been made, addressing Lisa with some ceremony, “if you and your aunt are pleased with these rooms, and if you would like to make your permanent home in London, turning your musical gifts to as much account as you can, I shall be happy to furnish them for you, and to pay the rent always, or at any rate as long as you remain unmarried—and”—in a graver tone, “lead a virtuous and reputable life, making no hasty acquaintances, and keeping yourself to yourself until you know this country well enough to make a wise choice of friends. Would you like me to do this?”
“How can you ask such a question? Ah, you are too good and generous to me. I shall be as happy as a queen—to live in rooms like these, with that lovely view over the river. It will be like living in a palace. But pray don’t call me Madame Vivanti. I feel as if you were angry with me.”
“Foolish child! you know better than that,” he said, smiling at her. “I am full of friendliest feelings towards you and your aunt. But I must not call you by your Christian name. Men and women do not do that in England, unless they are blood relations or affianced lovers. You must be Madame Vivanti in future.”
Lisa pouted and looked distressed, but said nothing. La Zia expressed her heartfelt gratitude, for her niece chiefly, for herself in a lesser degree. The kitchen seemed to impress her most of all. There was a hot plate, on which she could cook a risotto or a stufato, or a dish of macaroni, and all those messes which are savoury to the Italian palate.
“You will keep house for your niece, and take care of her boy”—Vansittart approached this subject with a certain hesitation totally unshared by the boy’s mother—“until he is old enough to go to school. Lisa—Madame Vivanti—will have to work hard at her musical education if she means to rise from the ranks of the chorus. I will look about for a respectable singing-master, who is not too famous to teach on moderate terms, and I
