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I'm sure it's one worthy of my best attention." We argued it out for an hour or more, but Indiman was not to be moved from his position. So it came back to his original proposition. I was to take up the search on the outside for the Lady Allegra, and Indiman was to hold the fort at Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers. I rose to go.
Later he talks of her as "flourishing like a pomegranate blossom." In March, 1820, we have another reference. "Allegra is prettier, I think, but as obstinate as a mule, and as ravenous as a vulture; health good, to judge by the complexion, temper tolerable, but for vanity and pertinacity. She thinks herself handsome, and will do as she pleases."
In the May or June of 1818 Byron's little daughter, Allegra, had been sent from England, under the care of a Swiss nurse too young to undertake her management in such trying circumstances, and after four months of anxiety he placed her in charge of Mrs. Hoppner.
Shelley and his wife, with the Williamses and Trelawny, soon after settled at the Villa Magni at Lerici in the Gulf of Spezia. Byron, with the Countess and her brother, established themselves in the Villa Rossa at Monte Nero, a suburb of Leghorn, from which port at this date the remains of Allegra were conveyed to England.
How they all got back in their places so quickly I couldn't tell. I went into the dining-room and found Allegra perched on the high chair, lashing two of the cane-seat ones that were thrown down for horses. And I rubbed my eyes again, I must have slept. About the time the chairs had a talk together, I believe I told you.
This idea of Mary would naturally be agreed with by some, and disapproved of by others; but at that time there was certainly no cause to indicate that Bagnacavallo would be more fatal to Allegra than any other place, although Claire's apprehensions were cruelly realised.
One idle day elapsed, after her little Clara had been buried on the Lido; we find her as usual reading, shopping, and seeing Byron, with whom she hoped to make better terms for Claire with regard to Allegra.
The impression then formed of Byron and his surroundings was so painful as to render it a matter of surprise that they could think of returning Allegra to him; but her extreme youth was her safeguard in this respect, and Shelley returned to Este on September 24, to take Allegra a second time from her mother who, with all her love for her "darling," as she always wrote of her in the effaced passages of her diary, could not get over the insuperable difficulties of her birth.
Unlike Byron's daughter Allegra, born the same year only a few miles away, who died young and for whose grave at Harrow the poet had carved the touching line, "I shall go to her, but she will not return to me," the daughter of Thorwaldsen grew up, was happily married and bore a son who achieved considerable distinction as an artist.
I stumbled over a corner of the rug, and would have fallen out of pure weakness if I had not caught at the table for support. My respiration seemed more rapid than usual and the sweat from the slight exertion beaded my forehead. Then I forgot everything but that the Lady Allegra had begun to sing. The desire, the impulse, they had crystallized into resolution. I would wait no longer.
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