By the way, during the police court proceedings, fresh light on the subject of Lola's parentage was furnished by an odd entry in an Irish paper: "Lola Montez, Countess of Landsfeld, is the daughter of a Cork lady. Her mother was at one time employed as a member of a millinery establishment in this city; and was married here to Lieutenant Gilbert, an officer in the army. Soon after the marriage, he sailed with his wife and child to join his regiment in India. At the end of last year, Lola's mother, who is now in delicate health, visited her sister in Cork."
IV
Thanks to the bright eyes of Lola (or perhaps to the musical jingle of the Cornet's cash bags), a very loose watch was kept on the pair. Hence the reason why the Countess of Landsfeld (as she still insisted on being called) had not kept her second appointment at Marlborough Street was because, together with the dashing ex-Life Guardsman, she had left England early that morning. Travelling as Mr. and Mrs. Heald, the pair went, first, to Paris, and then to Italy.
A British tourist who happened to be in Naples wrote to The Times, giving an account of a glimpse he had of them. According to him, the couple, "a youthful bridegroom and a fair lady," accompanied by a courier, a femme de chambre, and a carriage, took rooms at the Hotel Vittoria. After one night there, they left the next morning, hiring a special steamer, at a cost of £400, to take them to Marseilles. The hurried departure was said to be due to a lawyer's letters that was waiting for the bridegroom at his banker's. "I am told," adds the correspondent, "that Mr. and Mrs. Heald were bound on an excursion to the Pyramids; and that, when the little business for which the lady is wanted at home has been settled, they mean to prosecute their intention. Pray, sir, help Mrs. Heald out of her present affliction. Is this the first time that a lady has had two husbands? And is she not bound for the East, where every man has four wives?"
The booby Cornet, with his ideas limited to fox-hunting and a study of Ruff's Guide, was no mate for a brilliant woman like Lola. Hence disagreements soon manifested themselves. A specially serious one would seem to have arisen at Barcelona, for, says a letter from a mutual acquaintance, "the Countess and her husband had a warm discussion, which ended in an attempt by her to stab him. Mr. Heald, objecting to such a display of conjugal affection, promptly quitted the town."