A YEAR LATER, THE COUNTESS DE SALDAR DE SANCORVO TO HER SISTER CAROLINE
“Rome.
“Let the post-mark be my reply to your letter received through the
Consulate, and most courteously delivered with the Consul’s
compliments. We shall yet have an ambassador at Rome—mark your Louisa’s
words. Yes, dearest! I am here, body and spirit! I have at last found a
haven, a refuge, and let those who condemn me compare the peace of
their spirits with mine. You think that you have quite conquered the
dreadfulness of our origin. My love, I smile at you! I know it to be
impossible for the Protestant heresy to offer a shade of consolation.
Earthly-born, it rather encourages earthly distinctions. It is the
sweet sovereign Pontiff alone who gathers all in his arms, not
excepting tailors. Here, if they could know it, is their blessed
comfort!
“Thank Harriet for her message. She need say nothing. By refusing me
her hospitality, when she must have known that the house was as free of
creditors as any foreigner under the rank of Count is of soap, she
drove me to Mr. Duffian. Oh! how I rejoice at her exceeding unkindness!
How warmly I forgive her the unsisterly—to say the least—vindictiveness
of her unaccountable conduct! Her sufferings will one day be terrible.
Good little Andrew supplies her place to me. Why do you refuse his
easily afforded bounty? No one need know of it. I tell you candidly, I
take double, and the small good punch of a body is only too delighted.
But then, I can be discreet.
“Oh! the gentlemanliness of these infinitely maligned Jesuits! They
remind me immensely of Sir Charles Grandison, and those frontispiece
pictures to the novels we read when girls—I mean in manners and the
ideas they impose—not in dress or length of leg, of course. The same
winning softness; the same irresistible ascendancy over the female
mind! They require virtue for two, I assure you, and so I told Silva,
who laughed.
“But the charms of confession, my dear! I will talk of Evan first. I
have totally forgiven him. Attaché to the Naples embassy, sounds
tol-lol. In such a position I can rejoice to see him, for it permits me
to acknowledge him. I am not sure that, spiritually, Rose will be his
most fitting helpmate. However, it is done, and I did it, and there is
no more to be said. The behaviour of Lord Laxley in refusing to
surrender a young lady who declared that her heart was with another,
exceeds all I could have supposed. One of the noble peers among his
ancestors must have been a pig! Oh! the Roman nobility! Grace,
refinement, intrigue, perfect comprehension of your ideas, wishes—the
meanest trifles! Here you have every worldly charm, and all crowned by
Religion! This is my true delight. I feel at last that whatsoever I do,
I cannot go far wrong while I am within hail of my gentle priest. I
never could feel so before.
“The idea of Mr. Parsley proposing for the beautiful widow Strike! It
was indecent to do so so soon—widowed under such circumstances! But I
dare say he was as disinterested as a Protestant curate ever can be.
Beauty is a good dowry to bring a poor, lean, worldly curate of your
Church, and he knows that. Your bishops and arches are quite
susceptible to beautiful petitioners, and we know here how your livings
and benefices are dispensed. What do you intend to do? Come to me; come
to the bosom of the old and the only true Church, and I engage to marry
you to a Roman prince the very next morning or two. That is, if you
have no ideas about prosecuting a certain enterprise which I should not
abandon. In that case, stay. As Duchess of B., Mr. Duffian says you
would be cordially welcome to his Holiness, who may see women. That
absurd report is all nonsense. We do not kiss his toe, certainly, but
we have privileges equally enviable. Herbert is all charm. I confess he
is a little wearisome with his old ruins, and his Dante, the poet. He
is quite of my opinion, that Evan will never wash out the trade stain
on him until he comes over to the Church of Rome. I adjure you,
Caroline, to lay this clearly before our dear brother. In fact, while
he continues a Protestant, to me he is a tailor. But here Rose is the
impediment. I know her to be just one of those little dogged minds that
are incapable of receiving new impressions. Was it not evident in the
way she stuck to Evan after I had once brought them together? I am not
at all astonished that Mr. Raikes should have married her maid. It is a
case of natural selection. But it is amusing to think of him carrying
on the old business in 193, and with credit! I suppose his parents are
to be pitied; but what better is the creature fit for? Mama displeases
me in consenting to act as housekeeper to old Grumpus. I do not object
to the fact, for it is prospective; but she should have insisted on
another place of resort than Fallowfield. I do not agree with you in
thinking her right in refusing a second marriage. Her age does not
shelter her from scandal in your Protestant communities.
“I am every day expecting Harry Jocelyn to turn up. He was rightly sent
away, for to think of the folly Evan put into his empty head! No; he
shall have another wife, and Protestantism shall be his forsaken
mistress!
“See how your Louy has given up the world and its vanities! You
expected me to creep up to you contrite and whimpering? On the
contrary, I never felt prouder. And I am not going to live a lazy life,
I can assure you. The Church hath need of me! If only for the peace it
hath given me on one point, I am eternally bound to serve it.
“Postscript: I am persuaded of this; that it is utterly impossible for
a man to be a true gentleman who is not of the true Church. What it is
I cannot say; but it is as a convert that I appreciate my husband. Love
is made to me, dear, for Catholics are human. The other day it was a
question whether a lady or a gentleman should be compromised. It
required the grossest fib. The gentleman did not hesitate. And why? His
priest was handy. Fancy Lord Laxley in such a case. I shudder. This
shows that your religion precludes any possibility of the being the
real gentleman, and whatever Evan may think of himself, or Rose think
of him, I KNOW THE THING.”