“I have just left the quay,
my dearest girl, and the wind blows right across to Spezzia, which adds to the
vexation I feel at being unable to leave this place. For my own part, I should
have been with you in all probability on Wednesday evening, but I have been
kept day after day, waiting for Shelley’s definitive arrangements with Lord B. relative to poor Hunt, whom, in my opinion he has treated vilely. A letter from
Mary, of the most gloomy kind,
reached S. yesterday, and this mood of hers aggravated my
uneasiness to see you; for I am
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“Would I could take the present gale by the wings and reach you to-night; hard as it blows, I would venture across for such a reward. However, to-morrow something decisive shall take place; and if I am detained, I shall depart in a feluca, and leave the boat to be brought round in company with Trelawny in the ‘Bolivar.’ He talks of visiting Spezzia again in a few days. I am tired to death of waiting—this is our longest separation, and seems a year to me. Absence alone is enough to make me anxious, and indeed, unhappy; but I think if I had left you in our own house in solitude, I should feel it less than I do now.—What can I do? Poor S. desires that I should return to you, but I know secretly wishes me not to leave him in the lurch. He too, by his manner, is as anxious to see you almost as I could be, but the interests of poor H. keep him here;—in fact, with Lord B. it appears they cannot do anything,—who actually said as much as that he did not wish (?) his name to be attached to the work, and of course to theirs.
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“In Lord Byron’s family all is confusion;—the cut-throats he is so desirous to have about him, have involved him in a second row; and although the present banishment of the Gambas from Tuscany is attributed to the first affair of the dragoon, the continued disturbances among his and their servants is, I am sure, the principal cause for its being carried into immediate effect. Four days (commencing from the day of our arrival at Leghorn) were only given them to find another retreat; and as Lord B. considers this a personal, though tacit attack upon himself, he chooses to follow their fortunes in another country. Genoa was first selected,—of that government they could have no hope;—Geneva was then proposed, and this proved as bad if not worse. Lucca is now the choice, and Trelawny was despatched last night to feel their way with the governor, to whom he carried letters. All this time Hunt is shuffled off from day to day, and now, heaven knows, when or how it will end.
“Lord B.’s
reception of Mrs. H. was—as
S. tells me—most shameful. She
came into his house sick and exhausted, and he scarcely deigned to notice her;
was silent, and scarcely bowed. This conduct
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“Adieu!—Take body and soul; for you are at once my heaven and earth;—that is all I ask of both.
“S. is at Pisa, and will write to-night to me.”
