But to Hamilton her report gave food for deep reflection. He knew Marie Caroline very well. Never a word of hers but was uttered with purpose and tended to some clearly seen end of her own. He listened, reflected, and went off in a day or two to the Villa Columbaia to see the Duchess.
She was lying in the languor of weak health on a long chair in the glorious gardens, shaded from the heat of the sun but rejoicing in the sun-warmed airs that breathed about her. One of her women had been reading aloud to her and Sir William picked up the book when she was dismissed: “Clarissa, The History of a Young Lady of Quality,” by Samuel Richardson.
“It is somewhat of an old-fashioned book now,” said the Duchess, “but choicely good, as I think, and in my busy life I never had time for it before. Do you know it?”
“Certainly, but I was always inclined to think it over-strained and impossible. How does your Grace to-day?”
“Well, but no better. I think I never shall be better. We Gunnings are not a long-lived race—think of my sister’s twenty-seven years. Indeed, I have exceeded my span, but if I fade as gently as I do now in this sweet land, I need not complain.”
He responded with real feeling. She charmed him as beautiful things never failed to do, and the pathos of her fading loveliness was poignant.
They talked for a while of family matters very well known to them both, she slowly and steadily leading the way to the subject on her mind. It was the more interesting to her because Emma had devoted the whole of the day before to her service, as she often did now, and there was gratitude mixed with many other considerations.
“Mrs. Hart met the Queen here a few days since,” she said at last, playing with her black fan. “I rejoiced to see the favourable impression she made. Her manner was perfect. It never would surprise me to learn she had good blood in her veins.”
“I doubt if your Grace would be so confident of that if you knew the worthy Mrs. Cadogan intimately,” Sir William replied, with a smile of memory at some of La Signora Madre’s oddities.
“There is always the father!” said the Duchess, smiling in her turn.