Parma, the "Cour de Parme."
My dear Molly,—When I wrote to you last, we were living, quietly, it is true, and unostensively, but happily, on the Lake of Comus, and there we might have passed the whole autumn, had not K. L, with his usual thoughtfulness for the comfort of his family, got into a row with the police, and had us sent out of the country.
No less, my dear! Over the frontier in twenty-four hours was the word; and when Lord George wanted to see some of the great people about it, or even make a stir in the newspapers, he wouldn't let him. "No," said he, "the world is getting tired of Englishmen that are wronged by foreign governments. They say, naturally enough, that there must be some fault in ourselves, if we are always in trouble, this way; and, besides, I would not take fifty pounds, and have somebody get up in the House and move for all the correspondence in the case of Mr. Dodd, so infamously used by the authorities in Lombardy." Them 's his words, Molly; and when we told him that it was a fine way of getting known and talked about in the world, what was his answer do you think? "I don't want notoriety; and if I did, I 'd write a letter to the 'Times,' and say it was I that defended Hougoumont, in the battle of Waterloo. There seems to be a great dispute about it, and I don't see why I could n't put in my claim."
I suppose after that, Molly, there will be very little doubt that his head isn't quite right, for he was no more at Waterloo than you or me.
It was a great shock to us when we got the order to march; for on that same morning the post brought us a letter from James, or, at least, it came to Lord George, and with news that made me cry with sheer happiness for full two hours after. I was n't far wrong, Molly, when I told you that it 's little need he 'd have of learning or a profession. Launch him out well in life was my words to K. I. Give him ample means to mix in society and make friends, and see if he won't turn it to good account. I know the boy well; and that's what K. I. never did,—never could.
See if I 'm not right, Mary Gallagher. He went down to the baths of—I'm afraid of the name, but it sounds like "Humbug," as well as I can make out—and what does he do but make acquaintance with a beautiful young creature, a widow of nineteen, rolling in wealth, and one of the first families in France!
How he did it, I can't tell; no more than where he got all the money he spent there on horses and carriages and dinners, and elegant things that he ordered for her from Paris. He passed five weeks there, courting her, I suppose; and then away they went, rambling through Germany, and over the mountains, down to Venice. She in her own travelling-carriage, and James driving a team of four beautiful grays of his own; and then meeting when they stopped at a town, but all with as much discretion as if it was only politeness between them. At last he pops the question, Molly; and it turns out that she has no objection in life, only that she must get a dispensation from the Pope, because she was promised and betrothed to the King of Naples, or one of his brothers; and though she married another, she never got what they call a Bull of release.
This is the hardest thing in the world to obtain; and if it was n't that she has a Cardinal an uncle, she might never get it. At all events, it will take time, and meanwhile she ought to live in the strictest retirement. To enable her to do this properly, and also by way of showing her every attention, James wrote to have an invitation ready for her to come down to the villa and stay with us on a visit.
By bad luck, my dear, it was the very morning this letter came, K. I. had got us all ordered away! What was to be done, was now the question; we daren't trust him with the secret till she was in the house, for we knew well he 'd refuse to ask her,—say he could n't afford the expense, and that we were all sworn to ruin him. We left it to Lord George to manage; and he, at last, got K. I. to fix on Parma for a week or two, one of the quietest towns in Italy, and where you never see a coach in the streets, nor even a well-dressed creature oat on Sunday. K. I. was delighted with it all; saving money is the soul of him, and he never thinks of anything but when he can make a hard bargain. What he does with his income, Molly, the saints alone can tell; but I suspect that there's some sinners, too, know a trifle about it; and the day will come when I 'll have the proof! Lord G. sent for the landlord's tariff, and it was reasonable enough. Rooms were to be two zwanzigers—one-and-fourpence—apiece; breakfast, one; dinner, two zwanzigers; tea, half a one; no charge for wine of the place; and if we stayed any time, we were to have the key of a box at the opera.
K. I. was in ecstasy. "If I was to live here five or six years," says he, "and pay nobody, my affairs wouldn't be so much embarrassed as they are now!"