Childish Loves (37 page)

‘Are you very much shocked? I believe the wife of Lord Blessington, and the friend of Count d'Orsay, will find very little to shock her.' She said nothing, only smiling, and after a while I continued. ‘There are only two principles to which I am entirely consistent: a love of liberty and a hatred of cant, which amounts to the same thing, as there is no liberty dearer to me than the freedom of
mind
. But I intend to make something of myself before I die. I don't mean more scribbling, which I am perfectly aware makes me nothing at all. I have half a mind to go to Greece – and play at governments, like Washington. I have a presentiment I shall die in Greece. Now is not this the sort of thing you hoped to hear from the poet of
Childe Harold
?'

But whether she hoped it or not, it mattered little, for a few days later she informed me that her husband meant to ‘carry them both' (she meant herself and d'Orsay) on to Naples at the end of May. We were sitting in the gardens at the Albergo, which had a fine view of the terraces beneath us, all grey in the spring sunshine, with the green of the vineyards and the blue of the bay beyond them. ‘Now I have offended
you
,' she said. ‘For you look very gloomily at me.'

‘I am perfectly prepared to be abandoned. It is exactly what I expect.'

‘There can be no question of abandonment. We have stayed much longer than we intended – mostly on your account.'

‘Only, it does me good sometimes to speak a little English.'

‘Oh, if it is only on that account,' she said.

‘And where will you go after Naples? One cannot be always living in hotels.'

‘I do not know where his lordship means to take us, and do not much mind, so long as he returns me in the end to number 10 St James's Square.'

‘St James's Square,' I repeated. ‘It sounds to me now as mythical as Marathon used to.'

‘I assure you it is not in the least mythical. It may even be visited, without the aid of Bruton's and a Greek grammar.'

‘There are obstacles still more formidable.'

‘You mean Madame Guiccioli.'

Eventually, I said: ‘She had influence enough to prevent my return a few years ago and she may not be less successful now.'

‘This is a most unaccountable life you lead!' she declared. ‘I wonder you can stand it.'

We sat for a minute awkwardly in silence, but before I took my leave, she expressed more gently a wish to have ‘something of mine as a remembrancer'.

‘In that case,' I told her, still a little put out, ‘I should like to sell you my boat.'

It rather surprised me when she agreed, and falling in line with the proposal myself, which was by no means a bad one, I offered her this inducement. ‘I will ask my friend Trelawny to take you around, as he handles entirely that side of my affairs. I think you will not be sorry to meet him – perhaps he will live up to your idea of Childe Harold.'

‘That is exactly what I
would
like,' she said. ‘For you know, it was to see Childe Harold, as you call it, that we came to Genoa.'

*

Trelawny came, and Lady Blessington went, but Trelawny did not go. One day, while we were at breakfast, Fletcher announced that there were two gentlemen to see me. ‘At least, one of them is an Englishman,' Fletcher said and gave me his card: Captain Edward Blaquiere. The other gentleman was a Greek named Luriottis. They had both come from London, where they had met with Hobhouse. Blaquiere seemed good-natured enough, if enthusiastic; Luriottis was something better. Hobhouse had lately joined the London Greek Committee, and Luriottis had been sent from the new government in the Morea to enlist their aid. Hobhouse had told them to apply to me. Fletcher returned with a pot of coffee and a plate of fruits; and then Pietro followed him, heavy with sleep, for we had gone to a party at Lady Hardy's the night before, and there had been dancing. Teresa's brother is a small, handsome, large-headed young man, and as brown as a Turk. Sometimes, to tease him, I call him the onion-eater, a term of abuse he taught me himself and native to Ravenna. It means peasant.

Pietro was delighted with Luriottis and practised his Greek upon him, which he reads a little of and speaks not at all. All of this put me unaccountably in very good spirits. It was a fine spring morning, the sky perfectly blue and the sun not very hot, unless you sat in it directly. I had broken a little biscuit and thrown it underfoot, and the sparrows pecked at it. Blaquiere wanted me to come with him to the Morea. Nothing could be nobler than their intentions, but somehow the Greeks had got themselves into a habit of disagreement under the Turks, which they could not break. What they wanted was someone or something to unite them; I had only to ‘show myself, and they would ‘rise up of their own accord'.

‘Now what do you think of this, Trelawny?' I said. ‘This would be something better than scribbling verses.'

‘It would indeed, my lord.'

‘And yet you take it all very coolly.' ‘I don't for a minute suppose you will go.' ‘Perhaps I may, if only on that account.' ‘You could do nothing that would please me better.' ‘Well, I have sold my boat, but I suppose we can buy another.'

He really is very provoking and sat there eating one after another the chocolates Blaquiere had brought me from Gunters in Berkeley Square. He said, ‘If Madame Guiccioli will permit you.'

‘What do you think, Pietro,' I said. ‘Will your sister let us go?'

‘Do you really think of going? But we cannot go as we are – to fight. We must have a new set of clothes. I will go to Giacomo Aspe and tell him what we need. We will certainly need helmets, if there is to be any fighting.'

We parted all on very good terms and saw them again in the evening, though I told the captain not to a mention a word of any of this, as we were dining with Teresa. And a few days later they left us – Blaquiere for London, to make the arrangements with the Committee, and Luriottis for Cephalonia, where Colocotroni was then stationed. He is one of the wildest and bravest of all the tribal chiefs, and wants taming. Teresa at least suspected nothing and we could continue as before. Trelawny, who has an unpleasant way of doing nothing but eat, sleep and drink, as if it was a great imposition to himself and a favour to everyone else, eventually betook himself to Rome, where he had an invitation from the Williamses. He meant, he said, to put a stone on Shelley's grave. But I wrote to Kinnaird in London and asked him to clear two thousand pounds for immediate release and prepare the way for more; and to Charles Barry, my banker in Genoa, to arrange the purchase of a ship. On the recommendation of Dr Alexander, I hired a young Italian to accompany us – a man named Bruno, who reminded me of poor Polidori on account of his youth, but seemed otherwise sensible enough, in the Italian fashion. At twenty-one he believes to have seen a little of everything. I ordered him to procure sufficient medical stores for a thousand men, for two years. And every day I wait for news, of one thing or another, and feel for the first time in many months – I do not know what I feel.

*

Aspe's helmets have arrived; they are very fine. Pietro's is made of brass and black leather and green cloth, with a figure of Athene on the front. For Trelawny and myself I ordered two, on a grander scale, with plumes as high as the ceiling of the sitting room at the Casa Saluzzo; beneath which, on my own, I have had inscribed my coat of arms and the motto ‘Crede Byron'. But Trelawny has not yet arrived. He is still in Rome, though I have sent for him. The boat arranged by Barry floats in the harbour, where it is being repainted from stem to stern and re-christened, too: the
Hercules
.

Teresa has been told; we could not keep it from her any longer. Pietro told her. I said to him (he had come into my room, where I was writing, about eleven o'clock at night; he could not sleep, for thinking of Greece, and because of the night heat, and went for a walk in the street, under the large Italian summer moon, and came back at last a little cooler and saw that my light was burning, and came in), I said to him, ‘Do
you
tell her, Pietro. After all, you are her brother and she has only one brother. Lovers are easily replaced.'

He sat down in a chair, after setting a few books on the floor, and looked at me humorously. ‘I feel I should give you a little advice,' he said.

‘You may give me as much as you please, if only you tell her.'

‘What are you writing there?' – leaning towards me.

‘A letter.'

‘And to whom do you write this letter?'

‘You are very inquisitive. To an American, who has written me on behalf of his countrymen. He speaks very confidently of their good opinion, and I wish to return it.'

‘Oh,' said he, a little disappointed. ‘I thought you might be composing – verses.'

‘Will you tell her?'

He crossed his legs at the foot and rested his weight on his hands on his thighs. ‘Are you so frightened of her?' he said at last. ‘I think she is a good quiet girl.'

‘I am frightened of – myself. When I was younger (when I was as young as you) I did not much mind giving pain, or disappointment. But I like it less now. I am squeamish in this respect and had rather not see it given.' After a minute: ‘Will you tell her? I think she knows. I think she is only waiting to be told.'

‘Will she mind it so much?' When I did not answer, he went on, ‘Perhaps you could put it in a poem, you write so prettily.' Then, in Italian, ‘What is it good for if not for that?'

‘She does not like my verses. She thinks they are indecent, so I have stopped writing them – for her. And then she reads so abominably, in English. And in Italian, I write even worse. There would be some misunderstanding.'

‘No, she would understand the main.'

As the night was so warm, I had opened window and shutters and from time to time a breeze blew in. The moonlight fell coldly across the floor. There was also the noise of the cicadas, which seemed very loud in the general stillness, and underneath that noise, distant and quiet but not to be silenced, the noise of the sea. ‘Will you tell her?' I said again.

‘I feel I have not yet given you my advice,' he replied, his large handsome head leaning a little to one side. ‘But I will tell her.' He did not move and a moment later added, ‘She is not yet asleep; she has been sleeping very badly. At least, when I came in a moment ago, there was a light in her room. If I tell her, I will tell her now.'

‘If you tell her you may tell her when you please.'

When he left me, to go downstairs, I blew out my own lamp and sat in the darkness, listening. I could hear his footsteps at first on the tiles, and then nothing, and then the various noises I have already accounted for, besides the hundred vague sounds of an old house at night. I do not know what I expected to hear afterwards; I counted the minutes. Perhaps she is already asleep, I thought, when I continued to hear nothing, or he has changed his mind. But I did not think he would change his mind. Eventually I lay down on my bed without undressing. The first time I met her, at the Countess Benzoni's in Venice (no, it was the second time; I forget, I met her before at the Countess Albrizzi's – we had all come to the Countess Albrizzi's to admire her Canova, and I took the arm of the young girl with the long name, and admired), she was but nineteen years old; she is not much older now. She had been married scarcely twelve months then and is now
not
unmarried. I thought, you are a weak, vain, foolish old man, to let your heart run on like this over a girl; but I had not felt it beat so violently in years. At midnight the bells of Santa Maria rang out, and I sat up and with some difficulty lit the lamp at my table and finished my letter to the American.

*

In the morning, Teresa greeted me with the words, ‘You are taking my brother away.' Sometimes she came to my room before breakfast (at which I eat very little and rarely before noon), and we would talk of the night past and the day to come, and make plans. For these interviews she dressed as if she meant to go out, in dress and corset, and tied her hair in ribbons, and presented herself generally as Madame Guiccioli, which is what I always call her in front of strangers.

‘I don't know who is taking
whom
,' I said. ‘He is quite carried away by the idea.'

‘Forgive me, if I do not understand what the idea is.'

‘Why, a free Greece.'

She hesitated a moment over the next question; she had sat down at the foot of my bed with her hands in her lap. ‘Does Pietro expect to make himself useful?' she said at last.

‘I don't know what he expects.'

‘I think he expects to fight. He showed me his helmet, which looks very foolish, and when I mocked him for it, he showed me yours. Do you expect it, too?'

‘Mostly I mean to give away my money.'

‘And when your money is given away, you will come back?'

‘Maybe even before it is all given away.' And I added, sitting up, ‘You take it very calmly.'

‘It seems to me I take nothing,' she said, ‘you make off with it all,' which made me at last raise my voice: ‘You cannot expect me to continue living this way.'

‘Excuse me, I expect nothing' – this with the natural inflection of the Italian
Dama
, which they acquire at birth and spend the rest of their lives perfecting; and which even in a twenty-three-year-old girl is something formidable. I had feared a scene, but this was not quite a scene – it got no worse. She left me shortly after, and I dressed and came down. And in the weeks to come (we had only a few weeks left, while the
Hercules
was fitting; and waited only on a word from Blaquiere, to tell us where to go), she uttered no reproaches beyond the quiet reproach of her manner, which was correct and gentle and only a little cooler than her usual. It may be that she hoped to provoke me, by this insufferable suffering air, into an outburst, which would produce a scene and be followed by tears, reconciliations and capitulations; but in fact I was only glad to be given no occasion for explaining myself further.