(Isn't it just like Barty to begin a lyric that will probably last as long as the English language with an innocent jingle worthy of a school‑boy?)
After dinner, in the evening, it was Lady Caroline's delight to read aloud, while Barty smoked his cigarettes and inexpensive cigars—a concession on her part to make him happy, and keep him as much with her as she could; and she grew even to like the smell so much that once or twice, when he went to Antwerp for a couple of days to stay with Tescheles, she actually had to burn some of his tobacco on a red‑hot shovel, for the scent of it seemed to spell his name for her and make his absence less complete.
Thus she read to him Esmond, Hypatia, Never too Late to Mend, Les Maîtres Sonneurs, La Mare au Diable, and other delightful books, English and French, which were sent once a week from a circulating library in Brussels. How they blessed thy name, good Baron Tauchnitz!
"Oh, Aunt Caroline, if I could only illustrate books! If I could only illustrate Esmond and draw a passable Beatrix coming down the old staircase at Castlewood with her candle!" said Barty, one night.
That was not to be. Another was to illustrate Esmond, a poor devil who, oddly enough, was then living in the next street and suffering from a like disorder.[1]
As a return, Barty would sing to her all he knew, in five languages—three of which neither of them quite understood—accompanying himself on the piano or guitar. Sometimes she would play for him accompaniments that were beyond his reach, for she was a decently taught musician who could read fairly well at sight; whereas Barty didn't know a single note, and picked up everything by ear. She practised these accompaniments every afternoon, as assiduously as any school‑girl.
Then they would sit up very late, as they always had so much to talk about—what had just been read or played or sung, and many other things: the present, the past, and the future. All their old affection for each other had come back, trebled and quadrupled by pity on one side, gratitude on the other—and a little remorse on both. And there were long arrears to make up, and life was short and uncertain.
Sometimes l'Abbé Lefebvre, one of the professors at the séminaire and an old friend of Lady Caroline's, would come to drink tea, and talk politics, which ran high in Mechelen. He was a most accomplished and delightful Frenchman, who wrote poetry and adored Balzac—and even owned to a fondness for good old Paul de Kock, of whom it is said that when the news of his death reached Pius the Ninth, his Holiness dropped a tear and exclaimed:
"Mio caro Paolo di Kocco!"
Now and then the Abbé would bring with him a distinguished young priest, a Dominican—also a professor; Father Louis, of the princely house of Aremberg, who died a Cardinal three years ago.