The Volcano Lover (50 page)

So all was well, except that Charles was not so fine a character as he seemed. For he decided to give this priceless girl up so he could marry money, but did not have the courage to tell, and lied to her, and though it all turned out for the best, first my darling's heart had to bleed until she be used to it. For Charles had a rich old uncle, and he wanted the uncle to pay his debts. He was always writing letters to his uncle, and Charles truly looked up to him, and he was very tall, but so was Charles, because they both come from the same family. They did look alike, both fine men, except the uncle did not seem always so worried like Charles. He was in England now for he had lost his Welsh wife, and had to bring the poor woman's body back so she wouldn't be buried in heathen ground. And after that he came often to visit us. I don't think he had an eye on my beautiful girl, I believe it was all Charles's idea, but you never know, men can turn ruttish so quick. And the next thing you know, the uncle had gone back to where he lived, where he was very grand, Charles said, and Charles wanted us both go visit him, so my darling could speak Italian and French and learn the piano and all that which make a lady. And my darling, who never could resist a chance to better herself, said yes. She was so happy to go to foreign parts and see what was in books, but she mainly did it so Charles would love her more and be proud of her. I know she thought nothing but still she made Charles swear over and over he would come soon, in just a few months. I was not so keen to go, being a little feared of the travel, and having my old bones bumped over so many roads and high places. I heard that we would cross the Alp, which I thought then was just one mountain, and that the countries are very dangerous, and a body can starve from not eating the food, which is full of hot pepper. But if my darling wanted to go, I said, then I would be happy. And she kissed me.

It was a very long journey, I did not know any place could be so far away, but very enjoyable for me because we were seeing new sights all the time, which is natural because we had not come this way before. My darling was hanging out the coach from morning to night, so joyful to see everything she had not seen. With us we had a painter who was a friend of Charles and lived in Rome and he was going back, and he said that all good painters had to live in Italy now. And she said to him, Mr. Romney don't want to live in Rome, which was a bit forward of her, because she meant Mr. Romney is a better painter than you, but she didn't say that. But he knew it. My darling loved Mr. Romney so much, like a father. She was almost as grieved to quit him as Charles, though she thought it only for a year at most before she would see her painter again, and five months before seeing Charles. Little did she know it would be five
YEARS
.

Even if it was less time, these changes and being apart are hard to bear if you are truly fond. How happy I am that after Cadogan, God take his black Welsh heart, I never was parted with my darling again.

When we reached Rome she wanted to see the buildings, but the uncle had sent a steward to fetch us and we went on the rest of the journey with him in the uncle's carriage. This steward told us his master had seven carriages, and this was the least good of them. Seven carriages. How does one man need seven carriages, even if he be a fine gentleman, since his wife is gone now, and I suppose a rich pair want to travel separate, but even if his wife was still alive that would only make a need for two. So what did he do with the other five? While I was breaking my skull over these foolish questions, for foolish they were as I was soon to find out, for the rich always find a use for their luxury, one need not worry about them, my darling was taking in the sights to be seen from the carriage window, which was real glass by the way. She had her questions that she put to the steward Valerio, who spoke a bit of the King's English. She was asking the names of the flowers and the trees and the fruit in them, and writing on a tablet what he told her. And she asked him to say very slow some words in his language, good day and farewell and please and thank you and how beautiful and I am so happy and what is that. She wrote these down too. She was always learning.

And when we arrived where we were going, this great house where Charles's uncle was ambassador in, that was truly a surprise. I never saw such a house, and more servants than you could count, and the uncle gave us four big rooms and servants for my darling all for herself. And I was so happy for her, for I could see the uncle looking at her, and I thought why not. But she, poor darling, she didn't see it at first. She thought his being so kind to her was because he loved his nephew so much. My daughter had such a good heart, she could be very innocent. I had to tell her what was as plain as the nose on the uncle's face, and Charles sent us here for that, and she fell in a rage. It was the first time my own child ever raged against her own mother, and it was cruel to bear. She threatened to send me back to England the next day to beg forgiveness of her dear Charles for insulting him, but I didn't take it personal. She said it was her own mother who was trying to sell her to the uncle. Mr. Romney had told her about a picture of someone like me, she said, by a French painter that showed an artist and a model and an old woman in the corner who could have been the mother and was really a bawd, and how this may be the custom in other countries like France or Italy, but it wasn't like that in England. Look at Mr. Romney, she had gone to his studio so many times alone, without any chaperone, and he never laid a hand on her. And her Charles was his friend and could not be base. How could I suggest Charles would pass her on to his uncle for money. Then tell me, I said, why you have never had one letter from him since we come here, and you writing him fond letters every day. And then she looked so sad, and cried, oh, he must come, I will make him come and fetch me. How I wished I was wrong, but I was right. I don't say a mother is always right, but sometimes she is when she don't want to be.

But then everything came out for the best, as it always did for my darling, when she was young. There was the lowest time of all, after she told Sir Harry she was with child, I told her not to tell him, but she wouldn't mind me. And he turned us off and we came back to London, she with child, though it didn't show, and soon we had not a farthing, owing rent in the doss house, and she took herself off and was gone for eight days. How drear I felt while I waited, thinking all those men, under bridges, against alley walls, you know how men are. But when she came back, to spare me, for she was always thinking of my feelings, she told me it was just one man the whole time, and a gentleman, walking with his fine friends in Vauxhall Gardens though he was a foreigner, who gave her all that money, enough to feed us a month. And just as that was running out was the letter from Charles and we were saved. And now it was the same with Charles's uncle, with us living now as we never did before, much better than with Charles.

His house seemed so small to me now. How quick this old Mary got herself used to being waited on. One day in a doss house, the next day in a palace! That is life, I always say. Or the other way round. It was a handsome city, I liked to see the sea, though I couldn't understand what nobody said, and she told me, you will have to learn to speak the language. But I never did, which must be one reason people thought I was my darling's maid. But I was her mother.

As I said, the uncle was really a high person there. He was close with the King and Queen, who was the first king and queen we had ever met, so we felt very curious. The King had an awful big nose and the Queen had a big lower lip that stuck out. This was a surprise. But it was still a wonder to see them in their gold carriages.

I do not say my darling was happy at first. She had to get over the other one for she had a tender heart, and she loved Charles so much. She cried and cried, for finally a letter come from Charles who told her to go with his uncle. I did not see why she hated the notion so much. The old man was giving her lessons in French and Italian, and he was taking us in his carriage and showing her off to everybody. He couldn't move his eyes off her, you could see he would give her anything, but she said no. She had to find her own way. But to be sure she got fond of him, he being so kind and she so good-humored, she could not help being grateful to anyone who loved her, and so, finally, all was well, and she went into the old man's bed.

I breathed a sigh of relief because I knew that meant we could stay on here awhile, maybe even a twelvemonth longer before we would have to go back to England, and no point to worry on what would happen then. Let her enjoy herself, I said to myself, she is still young. She had a teacher come three times a day to sing with her, and in the neighbor room sometimes I could not tell who was singing. When I asked Valerio how a man could sing so high, he laughed at my ignorance, and said because the teacher had his thingums cut off when just a lad, and that was the custom here to make a good singer, though forbid by the law, but the churches used all such boys they could get. And he touched his own thingums and crossed himself. And when I told my darling, thinking she would be as surprised as me, she said she knew it, and I should accept that we be now in a foreign country where they do things different than back in dear old England, and that he was a great singer, who had told her she had a wonderful voice. But then he is not a man, I say. Is he a woman. No, she said, he is a man, and some of them do fancy women and women chase after them. But what do he do if it don't rise, I asked. And then she shook her head and said she was surprised to learn I knew so little of the arts of bed as to not imagine what. And I had to own that I never met a man who wanted anything but one thing and that very quick, but she told me there were some men, not too many, who studied to please a woman just like a woman studied to please a man. I never heard of that, said I. And she said she was sorry I had not known that with men. But I told my young lady I had jolly times with her father, rest his soul, and Joe, and some others, and that Welsh thief of my heart, Cadogan. And to watch her tongue and not take on airs with her old mother now she was living like a fine lady, but remember the simple folk she come from. And she said she never did forget who she was, and was just teasing me. But I could not help wondering what man had been such a fancy lover. It could not have been Sir Harry, who was always drunk, or Charles, always washing his hands, that is not a good sign in a man. And the old uncle, much as he doted on her, seemed not such a man for bed. But I did not ask. We always told all, but I did not care to see her too clear in my mind lying with men. To me she would always be my little girl, with her pale skin and wide, wide eyes. I am glad she knew men, for what would a woman be without a man, especially a woman like her who hopes to better herself, to go up in the world. It can't be done no other way. And yet I wish sometimes the world were topsy-turvy. I mean that a woman did not have to please a man if she is such a bold clever girl as my darling. But this is only my view.

And I said to her, how long do you think it will last. And she said what, and I said with the uncle, and she laughed and laughed and said, forever. And I said, don't be foolish, you know how men are, surely by now you understand, after what Charles did to you. And she said, no he is different, he really loves me and I mean to love him and make him as happy as I can.

I think she was happy with the old man. For certainly she made him very happy, and he just doted on her more and more. And he was good to me too, and gave me a little pocket money. And I always ate with them and was asked to stay when the guests came. He had many rocks and statues and paintings and such, the house was full of them everywhere you turned, I am certainly glad I did not have the dusting and polishing of them. And she learned the names of them, and could follow anything he said. When he had clothes made for her, some was so she could look like a lady on one of his old red-and-black vases which he had everywhere, and she dressed up like in the vases and would pose for the guests and everyone admired her. I would sit in one of the first chairs, but the guests did not talk to me. Some was from all over Europe at his parties, even Russia. And wherever they came from they thought my darling was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen, and the old man was so proud of her. It was almost like what I felt, as if he was her father, though you could see he was a healthy man and could not wait to put his hands on her, but then many fathers are like that with their daughters. Who knows if she would not have had a hard time with old Lyon, who died when she was only two months, if he lived for another ten years. Men have their ways, and many cannot leave a woman alone even if she is their own flesh and blood. The only pure love is between a mother and a child. But best if the child be a daughter, for a son grows up and becomes another man. But a daughter can be yours all your life.

And so we had many years of happiness in this foreign land, though I always found it hard to believe in happiness, but my darling did. Whenever matters took a bad turn I would see the worst, and she would say no, it will all work out. And she was always right, for such a long time. She said she would be her ladyship one day, and I told her she was daft. And she was right and the old man did marry her, and that made this old Mary his mother-in-law, and he older than me. But he was very proper and always called me by my name, Mrs. Cadogan. I wager my Welshman would be sorry he had not kept me if he could know how well I would turn out to be.

It was when we went back to England that he married my darling, which his family did not like it at all and it was hardly a wedding with so few people, though in a rich church. It did me good to see the look on Charles's face. But my darling never held anger against him, all those years she sent letters, she being the kind who always loves one she loved even if she was used ill, women are like that, as I still think with fondness of old Lyon, my darling's father, and God help me, my handsome Cadogan. I don't think now of Joe Hart, who drifted from mind, so perhaps I did not love him so much.