“Your grandmother?”
“Forgive me, madame, if I have anticipated; but Enrichetta Lami became the wife of Montague Bramleigh. The young man, captivated by her marvellous beauty, and enchanted by a winning grace of manner, in which it appears she excelled, made his court to her and married her. The ceremony of marriage presented no difficulty, as Lami was a member of some sect of Waldensian Protestants, who claim a sort of affinity with the Anglican Church, and they were married in the parish church by the minister, and duly registered in the registry-book of the parish. All these matters are detailed in this book of Giacomo Lami's, which was at once account-book and sketch-book and journal and, indeed, family history. It is a volume will, I am sure, amuse you; for, amongst sketches and studies for pictures, there are the drollest little details of domestic events, with passing notices of the political circumstances of the time—for old Giacomo was a conspirator and a Carbonaro, and Heaven knows what else. He even involved himself in the Irish troubles, and was so far compromised that he was obliged to fly the country and get over to Holland, which he did, taking his two daughters with him. It has never been clearly ascertained whether Montague Bramleigh had quarrelled with his wife or consented to her accompanying her father; for, while there were letters from him to her full of affection and regard, there are some strange passages in Giacomo's diary that seem to hint at estrangement and coldness. When her child, my father, was born, she pressed Bramleigh strongly to come over to the christening; but, though he promised at first, and appeared overjoyed at the birth of his heir, he made repeated pretexts of this or that engagement, and ended by not coming. Old Lami must have given way to some outburst of anger at this neglect and desertion, for he sent back Bramleigh's letters unopened; and the poor Enrichetta, after struggling bravely for several months under this heartless and cruel treatment, sunk and died. The old man wandered away towards the south of Europe after this, taking with him his grandchild and his remaining daughter; and the first entry we find in his diary is about three years later, where we read, 'Chambéry,—Must leave this, where I thought I had at last found a home. Niccolo Baldassare is bent on gaining Carlotta's affections. Were they to marry it would be the ruin of both. Each has the same faults as the other.'
“And later on,—
“'Had an explanation with N. B., who declares that, with or without my consent, he will make C. his wife. I have threatened to bring him before the Council; but he defies me, and says he is ready to abandon the society rather than give her up. I must quit this secretly and promptly.'
“We next find him at Treviso, where he was painting the Basilica of St. Guedolfo, and here he speaks of himself as a lonely old man, deserted and forsaken, showing that his daughter had left him some time before. He alludes to offers that had been made him to go to England; but declares that nothing would induce him to set foot in that country more. One passage would imply that Carlotta, on leaving home, took her sister's boy with her, for in the old man's writing there are these words,—
“'I do not want to hear more of them; but I would wish tidings of the boy. I have dreamed of him twice.'
“From that time forth the journal merely records the places he stopped at, the works he was engaged in, and the sums he received in payment. For the most part, his last labors were in out-of-the-way, obscure spots, where he worked for mere subsistence; and of how long he lived there, and where he died, there is no trace.
“Do I weary you, my dear lady, with these small details of very humble people, or do you really bestow any interest on my story?”
“I like it of all things. I only want to follow Carlotta's history now, and learn what became of her.”
“Of her fate and fortune I know nothing. Indeed, all that I have been telling you heretofore I have gleaned from that book and some old letters of my great-grandfather's. My own history I will not inflict upon you—at least not now. I was a student of the Naval College of Genoa till I was fourteen, and called Anatole Pracontal, 'dit' Lami; but who had entered me on the books of the college, who paid for me or interested himself about me, I never knew.