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Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time |
was more entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence |
decreased; and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving |
her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt |
by Beaufort’s coffin weeping bitterly, when my father entered the |
chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who |
committed herself to his care; and after the interment of his friend he |
conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a |
relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife. |
There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but |
this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted |
affection. There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind |
which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love |
strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the |
late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set |
a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and |
worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the |
doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her |
virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing |
her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace |
to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes |
and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is |
sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her |
with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and |
benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto |
constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During |
the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had |
gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after |
their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change |
of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, |
as a restorative for her weakened frame. |
From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born |
at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained |
for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each |
other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very |
mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother’s tender caresses and |
my father’s smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my |
first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something |
better—their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on |
them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in |
their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled |
their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed |
towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit |
of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during |
every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, |
and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but |
one train of enjoyment to me. |
For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a |
daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five |
years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they |
passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent |
disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my |
mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a |
passion—remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been |
relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the |
afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale |
attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number |
of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst |
shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, |
accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, |
hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to |
five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far |
above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were |
dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her |
hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her |
clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was |
clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of |
her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold |
her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, |
and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features. |
The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and |
admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was |
not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a |
German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with |
these good people to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been |
long married, and their eldest child was but just born. The father of their |
charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory |
of Italy—one among the _schiavi ognor frementi,_ who exerted |
himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of its |
weakness. Whether he had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria |
was not known. His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and |
a beggar. She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude |
abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles. |
When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of |
our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub—a creature who seemed |
to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter |
than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his |
permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their |
charge to her. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed |
a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty |
and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They |
consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza |
became the inmate of my parents’ house—my more than |
sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and |
my pleasures. |
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