"Dearest Child,--How shall I ever convey to you one-half the transport, the joy, the ecstasy I am filled with by this glorious news! There is no longer a question of law or scandal or exposure. Your estates are your own, and your dear name stands forth untarnished and splendid as it has ever done. It is only as I bethink me of what you and dearest Augustus and darling Jack must have gone through that I spare you the narrative of my own sufferings, my days of sorrow, my nights of crying. It was indeed a terrific trial to us all, and those horrid stories of hair turning white from grief made me rush to the gla.s.s every morning at daybreak with a degree of terror that I know well I shall never be able to throw off for many a year; for I can a.s.sure you, dearest, that the washes are a mistake, and most pernicious! They are made of what chemists call Ethiops mineral, which is as explosive as nitro-glycerine; and once penetrating the pores, the head becomes, as Doctor Robertson says, a "charged sh.e.l.l." Can you fancy anything as horrible? Incipient grayness is best treated with silver powder, which, when the eyelashes are properly darkened _at the base_, gives a very charming l.u.s.tre to the expression. On no account use gold powder.
"It was a Mr. Longworth, a neighbor of yours, whom you don"t know, brought me the first news; but it was soon all over Rome, for his father--I mean Pracontal"s--was formerly much employed by Antonelli, and came here with the tidings that the mine had exploded, and blown up only themselves. A very dreadful man his father, with a sabre scar down the cheek, and deep marks of manacles on his wrists and ankles; but would n"t take money from the Cardinal, nor anything but a pa.s.sport. And they went away, so the police say, on foot, P. dressed in some horrid coa.r.s.e clothes like his father; and oh, darling, how handsome he was, and how distinguished-looking! It was young France, if you like; but, after all, don"t we all like the Boulevard de Ghent better than the Faubourg St.
Germain? He was very witty, too; that is, he was a master of a language where wit comes easy, and could season talk with those nice little flatteries which, like _fioriture_ in singing, heighten the charm, but never impair the force of the melody. And then, how he sang! Imagine Mario in a boudoir with a cottage piano accompaniment, and then you have it. It is very hard to know anything about men, but, so far as I can see, he was not a cheat; he believed the whole stupid story, and fancied that there had been a painter called Lami, and a beautiful creature who married somebody and was the mother of somebody else. He almost made me believe it, too; that is, it bored me ineffably, and I used to doze over it, and when I awoke I was n"t quite sure whether I dreamed he was a man of fortune or that such was a fact. Do you think he "ll shoot himself? I hope he "ll not shoot himself. It would throw such a lasting gloom over the whole incident that one could never fall back upon it in memory without deep sorrow; but men are so essentially selfish I don"t think that this consideration would weigh with him.
"Some malicious people here circulated a story that he had made me an offer of marriage, and that I had accepted it. Just as they said some months ago that I had gone over to Rome, and here I am still, as the police-sheet calls me, a "Widow and a Protestant." My character for eccentricity exposes me naturally to these kinds of scandal; but, on the other hand, it saves me from the trouble of refuting or denying them.
So that I shall take no notice whatever either of my conversion or my marriage, and the dear world--never ill-natured when it is useless--will at last accept the fact, small and insignificant though it be, just as creditors take half a crown in the pound after a bankruptcy.
"And now, dearest, is it too soon, is it too importunate, or is it too indelicate to tell your brother that, though I"m the most ethereal of creatures, I require to eat occasionally, and that, though I am continually reproved for the lowness of my dresses, I still do wear some clothes. In a word, dearest, I am in dire poverty, and to give me simply a thousand a year is to say, be a casual pauper. No one--my worst enemy--and I suppose I have a few who hate and would despitefully use me--can say I am extravagant. The necessaries of life, as they are called, are the costly things, and these are what I can perfectly well dispense with. I want its elegancies, its refinements, and these one has so cheaply. What, for instance, is the cost of the bouquet on your dinner-table? Certainly not more than one of your entrees; and it is infinitely more charming and more pleasure-giving. My coffee costs me no more out of Sevres than out of a white mug with a lip like a milk-pail; and will you tell me that the Mocha is the same in the one as the other?
What I want is that life should be picturesque, that its elegancies should so surround one that its coa.r.s.er, grosser elements be kept out of sight; and this is a cheap philosophy. My little villa here--and nothing can be smaller--affords it; but come and see dearest--that is the true way--come and see how I live. If ever there was an existence of simple pleasures it is mine. I never receive in the morning--I study. I either read improving books--I "ll show you some of them--or I converse with Monsignore Galloni. We talk theology and mundane things at times, and we play besique, and we flirt a little; but not as you would understand flirtation. It is as though a light zephyr stirred the leaves of the affections and shook out the perfume, but never detached a blossom nor injured a bud. Monsignore is an adept at this game; so serious, and yet so tender, so spiritual, and at the same time so compa.s.sionate to poor weak human nature--which, by the way, he understands in its conflicts with itself, its motives, and its struggles, as none of your laymen do.
Not but poor Pracontal had a very ingenious turn, and could reconcile much that coa.r.s.er minds would have called discrepant and contradictory.
"So that, dearest, with less than three thousand, or two five hundred, I must positively go to jail. It has occurred to me that, if none care to go over to that house in Ireland, I might as well live there, at least for the two or three months in the year that the odious climate permits. As to the people, I know they would dote on me. I feel for them very much, and I have learned out here the true chords their natures respond to. What do you say to this plan? Would it not be ecstasy if you agreed to share it? The cheapness of Ireland is a proverb. I had a grand-uncle who once was Viceroy there, and his letters show that he only spent a third of his official income.
"I "d like to do this, too, if I only knew what my official income was.
Ask Gusty this question, and kiss every one that ought to be kissed, and give them loves innumerable, and believe me ever your "Doting mamma" (or mamina, that is prettier),
"Augusta Bramleigh.
"I shall write to Marion to-morrow. It will not be as easy a task as this letter; but I have done even more difficult ones. So they are saying now that Culduff"s promotion was a mere mistake; that there never was such a man as Sam Rogers at all--no case--no indemnity--no escape--no anything. Oh, dear me, as Monsignore says, what rest have our feet once we leave total incredulity?"
THE END.