Part 98 (2/2)
”One blunderbuss, four pistols, and a house-dog called Pompey, who would have made mincemeat of Julius Caesar!”
”He certainly eats a great deal, does Pompey!” said Mrs. Riccabocca, simply. ”But if he relieves your mind!”
”He does not relieve it in the least, ma'am,” groaned Riccabocca; ”and that is the point I am coming to. This is a most hara.s.sing life, and a most undignified life. And I who have only asked from Heaven dignity and repose! But if Violante were once married, I should want neither blunderbuss, pistol, nor Pompey. And it is that which would relieve my mind, cara mia,--Pompey only relieves my larder.”
Now Riccabocca had been more communicative to Jemima than he had been to Violante. Having once trusted her with one secret, he had every motive to trust her with another; and he had accordingly spoken out his fears of the Count di Peschiera. Therefore she answered, laying down the work, and taking her husband's hand tenderly,
”Indeed, my love, since you dread so much (though I own that I must think unreasonably) this wicked, dangerous man, it would be the happiest thing in the world to see dear Violante well married; because, you see, if she is married to one person she cannot be married to another; and all fear of this count, as you say, would be at an end.”
”You cannot express yourself better. It is a great comfort to unbosom one's-self to a wife, after all,” quoth Riccabocca.
”But,” said the wife, after a grateful kiss,--”but where and how can we find a husband suitable to the rank of your daughter?”
”There! there! there!” cried Riccabocca, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair to the farther end of the room, ”that comes of unbosoming one's-self! Out flies one secret; it is opening the lid of Pandora's box; one is betrayed, ruined, undone!”
”Why, there's not a soul that can hear us!” said Mrs. Riccabocca, soothingly.
”'That's chance, ma'am! If you once contract the habit of blabbing out a secret when n.o.body's by, how on earth can you resist it when you have the pleasurable excitement of telling it to all the world? Vanity, vanity,--woman's vanity! Woman never could withstand rank,--never!”
The doctor went on railing for a quarter of an hour, and was very reluctantly appeased by Mrs. Riccabocca's repeated and tearful a.s.surances that she would never even whisper to herself that her husband had ever held any other rank than that of doctor. Riccabocca, with a dubious shake of the head, renewed,
”I have done with all pomp and pretension. Besides, the young man is a born gentleman: he seems in good circ.u.mstances; he has energy and latent ambition; he is akin to L'Estrange's intimate friend: he seems attached to Violante. I don't think it probable that we could do better. Nay, if Peschiera fears that I shall be restored to my country, and I learn the wherefore, and the ground to take, through this young man--why, grat.i.tude is the first virtue of the n.o.ble!”
”You speak, then, of Mr. Leslie?”
”To be sure--of whom else?”
Mrs. Riccabocca leaned her cheek on her hand thoughtfully. ”Now you have told me that, I will observe him with different eyes.”
”Anima mia, I don't see how the difference of your eyes will alter the object they look upon!” grumbled Riccabocca, shaking the ashes out of his pipe.
”The object alters when we see it in a different point of view!” replied Jemima, modestly. ”This thread does very well when I look at it in order to sew on a b.u.t.ton, but I should say it would never do to tie up Pompey in his Kennel.”
”Reasoning by ill.u.s.tration, upon my soul!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Riccabocca, amazed.
”And,” continued Jemima, ”when I am to regard one who is to const.i.tute the happiness of that dear child, and for life, can I regard him as I would the pleasant guest of an evening? Ah, trust me, Alphonso; I don't pretend to be wise like you; but when a woman considers what a man is likely to prove to woman,--his sincerity, his honour, his heart,--oh, trust me, she is wiser than the wisest man!”
Riccabocca continued to gaze on Jemima with unaffected admiration and surprise. And certainly, to use his phrase, since he had unbosomed himself to his better half, since he had confided in her, consulted with her, her sense had seemed to quicken, her whole mind to expand.
”My dear,” said the sage, ”I vow and declare that Machiavelli was a fool to you. And I have been as dull as the chair I sit upon, to deny myself so many years the comfort and counsel of such a--But, corpo di Bacco!
forget all about rank; and so now to bed.--One must not holloa till one's out of the wood,” muttered the ungrateful, suspicious villain, as he lighted the chamber candle.
CHAPTER III.
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