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. Duflian. 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. Attache 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 Fallow field. 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.'
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A man to be trusted with the keys of anything
Because you loved something better than me
Bitten hard at experience, and know the value of a tooth
From head to foot nothing better than a moan made visible
Glimpse of her whole life in the horrid tomb of his embrace
Gratuitous insult
How many degrees from love gratitude may be
In truth she sighed to feel as he did, above everybody
It 's us hard ones that get on best in the world
It is better for us both, of course
Never intended that we should play with flesh and blood
She was unworthy to be the wife of a tailor
Sincere as far as she knew: as far as one who loves may be
Small beginnings, which are in reality the mighty barriers
Spiritualism, and on the balm that it was
We deprive all renegades of their spiritual titles