Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General. Lever Charles James

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ so am I too.”

      “Well, so am not I; and you may call me a Dutchman if you catch me here again.”

      “The Count hopes you will permit him to see you. He asked this morning whether he might call on you about four o’clock.”

      “Yes, I’ll see him with sincere pleasure for once,” I cried; “since it is to say good-bye to him.”

      I was in my dressing-room, packing up for the journey, when the Count was announced and shown in. “Excuse me, Count,” said I, “for receiving you so informally, but I have a hasty summons to call me back to England, and no time to spare.”

      “I will, notwithstanding, ask you for some of that time, all precious as it is,” said he in French, and with a serious gravity that I had never observed in him before.

      “Well, sir,” said I, stiffly; “I am at your orders.”

      It is now seventeen long years since that interview, and I am free to own that I have not even yet attained to sufficient calm and temper to relate what took place. I can but give the substance of our conversation. It is not over-pleasant to dwell on, but it was to this purport: – The Count had come to inform me that, without any intention or endeavour on his part, he had gained Mrs O’Dowd’s affections and won her heart! Yes, much-valued reader, he made this declaration to me, sitting opposite to me at the fire, as coolly and unconcernedly as if he was apologising for having carried off my umbrella by mistake. It is true, he was most circumstantial in showing that all the ardour was on one side, and that he, throughout the whole adventure, conducted himself as became a Gran’ Galantuomo, and the friend of Gioberti, whatever that might mean.

      My amazement – I might almost call it my stupefaction – at the unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to him without an effort at interruption.

      “I have come to you, therefore, to-day,” said he, “to give up her letters.”

      “Her letters!” exclaimed I; “and she has written to you!”

      “Twenty-three times in all,” said he, calmly, as he drew a large black pocket-book from his breast, and took out a considerable roll of papers. “The earlier ones are less interesting,” said he, turning them over. “It is about here, No. 14, that they begin to develop feeling. You see she commences to call me ‘Caro Animale’ – she meant to say Annibale, but, poor dear! she mistook. No. 15 is stronger – ‘Animale Mio’ – the same error; and here, in No. 17, she begins, ‘Diletto del mio cuore, quando non ti vedo, non ti sento, il cielo stesso, non mi sorride piu. Il mio Tiranno’ – that was you.”

      I caught hold of the poker with a convulsive grasp, but quick as thought he bounded back behind the table, and drew out a pistol, and cocked it. I saw that Gioberti’s friend had his wits about him, and resumed the conversation by remarking that the documents he had shown me were not in my wife’s handwriting.

      “Very true,” said he; “these, as you will perceive by the official stamp, are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura – the originals are safe.”

      “And with what object,” asked I, gasping – “safe for what?”

      “For you, lllustrissimo,” said he, bowing, “when you pay me two thousand francs for them.”

      “I’ll knock your brains out first,” said I, with another clutch at the poker, but the muzzle of the pistol was now directly in front of me.

      “I am moderate in my demands, signor,” said he, quietly; “there are men in my position would ask you twenty thousand; but I am a galantuomo – ”

      “And the friend of Gioberti,” added I, with a sneer.

      “Precisely so,” said he, bowing with much grace.

      I will not weary you, dear reader, with my struggles – conflicts that almost cost me a seizure on the brain – but hasten to the result. I beat down the noble Count’s demand to one-half and for a thousand francs I possessed myself of the fatal originals, written unquestionably and indisputably by my wife’s hand; and then, giving the Count a final piece of advice, never to let me see more of him, I hurried off to Mrs O’Dowd.

      She was out paying some bills, and only arrived a few minutes before dinner-hour.

      “I want you, madam, for a moment here,” said I, with something of Othello, in the last act, in my voice and demeanour.

      “I suppose I can take off my bonnet and shawl first, Mr O’Dowd,” said she, snappishly.

      “No, madam; you may probably find that you’ll need them both at the end of our interview.”

      “What do you mean, sir?” asked she, haughtily.

      “This is no time for grand airs or mock dignity, madam,” said I, with the tone of the avenging angel. “Do you know these? are these in your hand? Deny it if you can.”

      “Why should I deny it? Of course they’re mine.”

      “And you wrote this, and this, and this?” cried I, almost in a scream, as I shook forth one after another of the letters.

      “Don’t you know I did?” said she, as hotly; “and nothing beyond a venial mistake in one of them!”

      “A what, woman? a what?”

      “A mere slip of the pen, sir. You know very well how I used to sit up half the night at my exercises?”

      “Exercises!”

      “Well, themes, if you like better; the Count made me make clean copies of them, with all his corrections, and send them to him every day – here are the rough ones;” and she opened a drawer filled with a mass of papers all scrawled over and blotted. “And now, sir, once more, what do you mean?”

      I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. “Where does that Count Castrocaro live?” I asked.

      “Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left Turin – started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He’s a Gran’ Galantuomo, sir,” added he, as I stood stupefied.

      “I am aware of that,” said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my packing.

      “Did you settle with the Count?” asked my wife at the door.

      “Yes,” said I, with my head buried in my trunk.

      “And he was perfectly satisfied?”

      “Of course he was – he has every reason to be so.”

      “I am glad of it,” said she, moving away – “he had a deal of trouble with those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him.” I could have told what they cost me; but I never did, till the present moment.

      I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. All these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with composure of this friend of Gioberti.

      Admiral Dalrymple tells us, СКАЧАТЬ