Lady Normanby was at Sydenham when the catastrophe occurred; she at once came up to London and helped her cousins for the moment. Then Lady Shelley, the daughter-in-law of Italima's old friend Mrs. Shelley (see chap. i.), fetched them home to her at Boscombe near Bournemouth, and was unboundedly kind to them. Sir Percy Shelley offered them a cottage rent-free in his pine-woods, but they only remained there three weeks, and then went to Lady Williamson at Whitburn Hall near Sunderland, where I first saw them.
Everything had happened exactly as Madame de Trafford had predicted. My sister wrote to me:—
"The most dreadful news. We are ruined. Mr. B. has bolted, and is a fraudulent bankrupt. Nobody knows where he is. We are nearly wild. God help us. I hardly know what I am writing. What is to become of Francis and William? We hardly know what we have lost. I fear B. has seized on Mama's mortgages. Pray for us."
We received this letter when we were staying at Fotheringham. We were very much shocked, but we said that when my sister talked of absolute ruin, it was only a figure of speech. She and her mother might be very much poorer than they had been, but there was a considerable marriage settlement; that, we imagined, B. could not have possessed himself of.
But it was too true; he had taken everything. The marriage settlement was in favour of younger children, I being one of the three who would have benefited. Some years before, Mr. B. had been to Italima and persuaded her to give up £2000 of my brother William's portion, during her life, in order to pay his debts. On her assenting to this, Mr. B. had subtly entered the whole sum mentioned in the settlement, instead of £2000, in the deed of release, and the two trustees had signed without a question, so implicit was their faith in Mr. B., who passed not only for a very honourable, but for a very religious man. Mr. B. had used the £2000 to pay William's debts, and had taken all the rest of the money for himself. About Italima's own fortune he had been even less scrupulous. Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall had never existed at all. Mr. B. had taken the £46,000 for himself; there had been no mortgages, but he had paid the interest as usual, and the robbery had passed undetected. He had kept Italima from coming upon him during the last summer by cutting off her supplies, and all might have gone on as usual if Madame de Trafford had not brought his victims to England, and Italima had not insisted upon seeing the mortgages.
The next details we received were from my aunt Eleanor Paul.
"Sept. 1, 1859.—B. is bankrupt and has absconded. They think he is gone to Sweden. The first day there were bills filed against him for £100,000, the second day for £100,000 more, all money that he swindled people out of. I have not suffered personally, as the instant I heard there was anything against him, I went to his house, demanded my securities, put them in my pocket, and walked away with them. But I fear B. has made away with all the mortgages your mother and sister were supposed to have, or that they never existed, as they are not forthcoming. It is supposed that he has also made away with all the trust-money, besides the £5000 left to your sister by her aunt. At this moment they are penniless.... Your mother went to B. as soon as she arrived and desired to have the mortgages. He promised to have them ready in a few days, and meantime he talked her over, and made her believe he was a most honourable man. Before the day came he had bolted...."
I went from Gibside to Whitburn to be there when Italima arrived. Her despair and misery were terrible to witness. She did nothing all day but lament and wail over her fate, and was most violent to my sister, who bore her own loss with the utmost calmness and patience. Nothing could exceed Lady Williamson's kindness to them. She pressed them to stay on with her, and cared for them with unwearied generosity during the first ten months of their destitution. Many other friends offered help, and the Liddell cousins promised an annual subscription for their maintenance; but the generosity which most came home to their hearts was that of their old Roman friend Mr. William Palmer, who out of his very small income pressed upon them a cheque for £150. In this, as in all other cases of the kind, those who had least gave most. One idea was to obtain admission for them to St. Catherine's Almshouses for ladies of good family, but this was unwisely, though generously, opposed by my Aunt Eleanor.
"I am inclined to quarrel with you for ever mentioning the word 'Almshouse.' I have lived with my sister during her richer days, and certainly do not mean to desert her in her distress. I only wish she could think as I do. We can live in a smaller domain very happily, and if the worst come to the worst, I have £300 a year, and if the Liddell family allow £150, that, with the colliery shares, would make up £500 a year between us: and I have every prospect of recovering at least a portion of my fortune, and if I do, shall have £200, perhaps £300 a year more, making £800. Knowing this, I think it wrong to make oneself miserable. Francis and William must work: they have had their share of the fortune. I am only waiting till something is settled with regard to my affairs, but desertion has never for a moment entered my brain, and I hope you never gave me credit for anything so barbarous."[174]
To MY MOTHER (before seeing Italima).