Passage Illustrated

A slight shudder shook D'Esmonde's frame at the touch of that hand which so often had been clasped within his own, long, long ago, and he raised it tenderly, and pressed it to his lips. Then, passing his other arm around her, so as to prevent escape, he said, but in a voice barely audible, the one word, “Lola!”

With a violent effort she tried to disengage herself from his grasp; and although her struggles were great, not a cry, not a syllable escaped her. “Hear me, Lola,” said D'Esmonde; “hear me with patience and with calm, if not for my sake, for your own.”

“Unhand me, then,” said she, in a voice which, though low, was uttered with all the vehemence of strong emotion. “I am not a prisoner beneath this roof.”

“Not a prisoner, say you?” said D'Esmonde, as he locked the door, and advanced towards her. “Can there be any bondage compared to this? Does the world know of any slavery so debasing?”

“Dare to utter such words again, and I will call to my aid those who will hurl you from that window,” said she, in the same subdued accents. “That priestly robe will be but a poor defence here.”

“You'd scarcely benefit by the call, Lola,” said D'Esmonde, as he stole one hand within the folds of his robe.

“Would you kill me?” cried she, growing deathly pale.

“Be calm, and hear me,” said the priest, as he pressed her down upon a seat, and took one directly opposite to her. “It never could be my purpose, Lola, to have come here either to injure or revile you. I may, indeed, sorrow over the fall of one whose honorable ambitions might have soared so high; I may grieve for a ruin that was so causeless; but, save when anguish may wring from me a word of bitterness, I will not hurt your ears, Lola. I know everything, — all that has happened; yet have I to learn who counselled you to this flight.” [Chapter LXV, "The 'Muskova'," 585]

Commentary: The Plot shifts to Loa, D'Esmonde, and Norwood

Lever and Phiz continue to develop the revolutionary plotter, the Abbé Eustace D'Esmonde, as an antagonist as they transfer the action of the novel away from Baden and back to the region of Tuscany. The Abbé, clad in priestly clothing but of fashionable cut, secretly visits The "Moskova," a palatial villa located at Fiesole, on a scenic height overlooking Florence, about five kilometres northeast of that city, where Giovanni Boccaccio set The Decameron. The priest's intention is to waylay Lola, now the mistress of Prince Mdchekoff. In the Russian nobleman's library, D'Esmonde disguises himself and orders a servant to "Send the Signora," whom the reader expects to be the Prince's long-term fianceé, Kate Dalton. Apparently, in youth the Abbé and Lola, introduced earlier as Kate's maid in Lady Hester's household, had engaged in a romantic liaison, when D'Esmonde was a "serge-clad seminarist" at Salamanca. Now both he and the Toreodor's daughter apparently have an interest in sabotaging the Prince's marriage to Kate. Lola is in love with Lord Norwood (Gerald Acton), but believes that Gerald is in love with Kate, yet she refuses to assist D'Esmonde in his plot against Lord Norwood. Hastily, the secretive priest descends the mountain in rapid strides, and returns quickly to Florence in the carriage that brought him to Fiesole at noon.

Bibliography

Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. London: William Blackwood, 1906.

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1859, and 1872. [Two volumes as one, with separate page numbers in the 1859 volume, after I: 362.]

_______. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). Vol VI of Lever's Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882. [This large-format American edition reproduces only six of the original forthy-eight Phiz illustrations.]

Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Vol. 2. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32062/32062-h/32062-h.htm

Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 31 May 2022