He had not been
married three years when he was drowned in the Adriatic, no one ever
knew how. The young widow came back to Rome, to her father, and here
shortly afterwards, in the shadow of Saint Peter's, her little girl was
born. It might have been supposed that Mrs. Light would marry again,
and I know she had opportunities. But she overreached herself. She
would take nothing less than a title and a fortune, and they were not
forthcoming. She was admired and very fond of admiration; very vain,
very worldly, very silly. She remained a pretty widow, with a surprising
variety of bonnets and a dozen men always in her train. Giacosa dates
from this period. He calls himself a Roman, but I have an impression he
came up from Ancona with her. He was l'ami de la maison. He used to hold
her bouquets, clean her gloves (I was told), run her errands, get her
opera-boxes, and fight her battles with the shopkeepers. For this he
needed courage, for she was smothered in debt. She at last left Rome
to escape her creditors. Many of them must remember her still, but she
seems now to have money to satisfy them.
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