My deepest gratitude is due to you for the pains you have been at to write to me under the care of my late uncle's bankers, which communication has safely reached me. Sir, I do most grievously note that my lord and husband, the Viscount St. Amande lyeth sick unto death--(Mr. Kinchella had written when Quin had learned from the woman my father lodged with that there was no hope for him)--and also in dire poverty; and, ill as he hath treated me, I do pray that his end may be peace. Moreover, if you or any friend of yours should see him and he should be able to comprehend your words, I do beseech you to tell him that I forgive him all he has done to me and that, in another and a better world, to which I believe myself to be also hastening, I hope to meet him once more, though, whether he live or die, we can never meet again upon this earth.
But, sir, if the news which you give me of the grievous state in which my lord lies is enough to wring my heart, what comfort and joy shall not that heart also receive in learning that my beloved child, whom I thought dead and slain by his father's cruelty, is still alive, and that he, whom I have mourned as gone from me for ever, should live to be restored to his mother's arms? Yet, alas! I cannot come to him as I fain would and fold him in my arms, for I am sorely stricken with the palsy which creepeth ever on me, though, strange to relate, there are moments, nay hours, when I am free from it, so that sometimes my physician doth prophesy a recovery, which, however, I cannot bring myself to hope or believe. And, moreover, honoured sir, I am without the means to travel to Dublin. My uncle, when he rescued me from my unhappy husband's hands, provided me with one hundred guineas a year, which, at his death last year, he also willed, should be continued to me while parted from my husband. But if he dies that ceases also, since my uncle, the Duke, did naturally suppose that I by settlement shall be well provided for, tho' now I doubt if such is likely to prove the case.
Yet, though well I know my brother-in-law to be a most uncommon bad man and one who will halt at nothing to further his own gains, I cannot believe that the law will allow him to falsely possess himself either of my child's rank and title, or of aught else that may be his inheritance, though I fear there is but little property left, short of his succession to the Marquisate of Amesbury. But, honoured sir, since it is not possible that I can come to my boy, could he not come to me? He would assuredly be as safe in London, if not safer, under the protection of his mother, as in Dublin where, you say, he lurketh, and where, I cannot doubt, his uncle will take steps to bring about harm to him. Here he would be with me and, since my uncle is now dead, it may be that the Marquis will be more kindly disposed towards him and, even at the worst, he cannot refuse to recognise him. Therefore, sir, if the wherewithal could be found for bringing or sending him to London, I would see the cost defrayed out of my small means, on which you may rely.
So, honoured sir, I now conclude, begging you to believe that I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you have done for my child, and that also I thank the honest man, Mr. Quin, of whom you speak, and I do most earnestly pray that the God of the fatherless and the orphan may reward you for all. And, sir, with my greatest consideration to you, and a mother's fondest love to my child, whom I pray to see ere long, I remain your much obliged and grateful,
Louise St. Amande.
"Gerald," said Mr. Kinchella, when he had concluded reading this letter to me, over which, boy-like, I shed many tears, "her ladyship speaks well. Dublin is no place for thee. If in his lordship's lifetime you were not safe, how shall you be so when now you alone stand between your uncle and two peerages?"
"Yet," I exclaimed, while in my heart there had arisen a wild desire to once more see the dear mother from whom I had been so ruthlessly torn, "yet how could it be accomplished? Surely the cost of a journey to London would be great!"
"I have still a guinea or two in my locker," said Mr. Kinchella, "if that would avail--though I misdoubt it."
"I have a better plan, sir," exclaimed Quin, who was also of the party again on this occasion. "If his young lordship would not object to voyaging to London entirely by sea, there are many cattle-ships pass between that port and this by which he might proceed. Or, again, he might pass from here to Chester, there being many boats to Park Gate, or he might proceed to Milford."
"Yet he is over-young for such a journey," said kind Mr. Kinchella; he being, as ever, thoughtful for me. But I replied: