Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Part 19

"'Twas a quarrel about play-on my word, about play," Harry said. "My poor lord lost great sums to his guest at Castlewood. Angry words pa.s.sed between them; and, though Lord Castlewood was the kindest and most pliable soul alive, his spirit was very high; and hence that meeting which has brought us all here," says Mr. Esmond, resolved never to acknowledge that there had ever been any other but cards for the duel.

"I do not like to use bad words of a n.o.bleman," says Westbury; "but if my Lord Mohun were a commoner, I would say, 'twas a pity he was not hanged.

He was familiar with dice and women at a time other boys are at school, being birched; he was as wicked as the oldest rake, years ere he had done growing; and handled a sword and a foil, and a b.l.o.o.d.y one too, before ever he used a razor. He held poor Will Mountford in talk that night, when b.l.o.o.d.y d.i.c.k Hill ran him through. He will come to a bad end, will that young lord; and no end is bad enough for him," says honest Mr. Westbury: whose prophecy was fulfilled twelve years after, upon that fatal day when Mohun fell, dragging down one of the bravest and greatest gentlemen in England in his fall.

From Mr. Steele, then, who brought the public rumour, as well as his own private intelligence, Esmond learned the movements of his unfortunate mistress. Steele's heart was of very inflammable composition; and the gentleman usher spoke in terms of boundless admiration both of the widow (that most beautiful woman, as he said) and of her daughter, who, in the captain's eyes, was a still greater paragon. If the pale widow, whom Captain Richard, in his poetic rapture, compared to a Niobe in tears-to a Sigismunda-to a weeping Belvidera, was an object the most lovely and pathetic which his eyes had ever beheld, or for which his heart had melted, even her ripened perfections and beauty were as nothing compared to the promise of that extreme loveliness which the good captain saw in her daughter. It was _matre pulcra filia pulcrior_. Steele composed sonnets whilst he was on duty in his prince's antechamber, to the maternal and filial charms. He would speak for hours about them to Harry Esmond; and, indeed, he could have chosen few subjects more likely to interest the unhappy young man, whose heart was now as always devoted to these ladies; and who was thankful to all who loved them, or praised them, or wished them well.

Not that his fidelity was recompensed by any answering kindness, or show of relenting even, on the part of a mistress obdurate now after ten years of love and benefactions. The poor young man getting no answer, save Tusher's, to that letter which he had written, and being too proud to write more, opened a part of his heart to Steele, than whom no man, when unhappy, could find a kinder hearer or more friendly emissary; described (in words which were no doubt pathetic, for they came _imo pectore_, and caused honest d.i.c.k to weep plentifully) his youth, his constancy, his fond devotion to that household which had reared him; his affection how earned, and how tenderly requited until but yesterday, and (as far as he might) the circ.u.mstances and causes for which that sad quarrel had made of Esmond a prisoner under sentence, a widow and orphans of those whom in life he held dearest. In terms that might well move a harder-hearted man than young Esmond's confidant-for, indeed, the speaker's own heart was half broke as he uttered them; he described a part of what had taken place in that only sad interview which his mistress had granted him; how she had left him with anger and almost imprecation, whose words and thoughts until then had been only blessing and kindness; how she had accused him of the guilt of that blood, in exchange for which he would cheerfully have sacrificed his own (indeed, in this the Lord Mohun, the Lord Warwick, and all the gentlemen engaged, as well as the common rumour out of doors-Steele told him-bore out the luckless young man); and with all his heart, and tears, he besought Mr. Steele to inform his mistress of her kinsman's unhappiness, and to deprecate that cruel anger she showed him.

Half frantic with grief at the injustice done him, and contrasting it with a thousand soft recollections of love and confidence gone by, that made his present misery inexpressibly more bitter, the poor wretch pa.s.sed many a lonely day and wakeful night in a kind of powerless despair and rage against his iniquitous fortune. It was the softest hand that struck him, the gentlest and most compa.s.sionate nature that persecuted him. "I would as lief," he said, "have pleaded guilty to the murder, and have suffered for it like any other felon, as have to endure the torture to which my mistress subjects me."

Although the recital of Esmond's story, and his pa.s.sionate appeals and remonstrances, drew so many tears from d.i.c.k who heard them, they had no effect upon the person whom they were designed to move. Esmond's amba.s.sador came back from the mission with which the poor young gentleman had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a reprieve, felt more cast down than Mr. Esmond, innocent and condemned.

As had been arranged between the prisoner and his counsel in their consultations, Mr. Steele had gone to the dowager's house in Chelsey, where it has been said the widow and her orphans were, had seen my lady viscountess and pleaded the cause of her unfortunate kinsman. "And I think I spoke well, my poor boy," says Mr. Steele; "for who would not speak well in such a cause, and before so beautiful a judge? I did not see the lovely Beatrix (sure her famous namesake of Florence was never half so beautiful), only the young viscount was in the room with the Lord Churchill, my Lord of Marlborough's eldest son. But these young gentlemen went off to the garden, I could see them from the window tilting at each other with poles in a mimic tournament (grief touches the young but lightly, and I remember that I beat a drum at the coffin of my own father). My lady viscountess looked out at the two boys at their game, and said-'You see, sir, children are taught to use weapons of death as toys, and to make a sport of murder'; and as she spoke she looked so lovely, and stood there in herself so sad and beautiful an instance of that doctrine whereof I am a humble preacher, that had I not dedicated my little volume of the _Christian Hero_ (I perceive, Harry, thou hast not cut the leaves of it. The sermon is good, believe me, though the preacher's life may not answer it)-I say, hadn't I dedicated the volume to Lord Cutts, I would have asked permission to place her ladyship's name on the first page. I think I never saw such a beautiful violet as that of her eyes, Harry. Her complexion is of the pink of the blush-rose, she hath an exquisite turned wrist and dimpled hand, and I make no doubt--"

"Did you come to tell me about the dimples on my lady's hand?" broke out Mr. Esmond, sadly.

"A lovely creature in affliction seems always doubly beautiful to me,"

says the poor captain, who indeed was but too often in a state to see double, and so checked he resumed the interrupted thread of his story. "As I spoke my business," Mr. Steele said, "and narrated to your mistress what all the world knows, and the other side hath been eager to acknowledge-that you had tried to put yourself between the two lords, and to take your patron's quarrel on your own point; I recounted the general praises of your gallantry, besides my Lord Mohun's particular testimony to it; I thought the widow listened with some interest, and her eyes-I have never seen such a violet, Harry-looked up at mine once or twice. But after I had spoken on this theme for a while she suddenly broke away with a cry of grief. 'I would to G.o.d, sir,' she said, 'I had never heard that word gallantry which you use, or known the meaning of it. My lord might have been here but for that; my home might be happy; my poor boy have a father.

It was what you gentlemen call gallantry came into my home, and drove my husband on to the cruel sword that killed him. You should not speak the word to a Christian woman, sir-a poor widowed mother of orphans, whose home was happy until the world came into it-the wicked G.o.dless world, that takes the blood of the innocent, and lets the guilty go free.'

"As the afflicted lady spoke in this strain, sir," Mr. Steele continued, "it seemed as if indignation moved her, even more than grief.

'Compensation!' she went on pa.s.sionately, her cheeks and eyes kindling; 'what compensation does your world give the widow for her husband, and the children for the murderer of their father? The wretch who did the deed has not even a punishment. Conscience! what conscience has he, who can enter the house of a friend, whisper falsehood and insult to a woman that never harmed him, and stab the kind heart that trusted him? My lord-my Lord Wretch, my Lord Villain's, my Lord Murderer's peers meet to try him, and they dismiss him with a word or two of reproof, and send him into the world again, to pursue women with l.u.s.t and falsehood, and to murder unsuspecting guests that harbour him. That day, my lord-my Lord Murderer-(I will never name him)-was let loose, a woman was executed at Tyburn for stealing in a shop. But a man may rob another of his life, or a lady of her honour, and shall pay no penalty! I take my child, run to the throne, and on my knees ask for justice, and the king refuses me. The king! he is no king of mine-he never shall be. He, too, robbed the throne from the king his father-the true king-and he has gone unpunished, as the great do.'

"I then thought to speak for you," Mr. Steele continued, "and I interposed by saying, 'There was one, madam, who, at least, would have put his own breast between your husband's and my Lord Mohun's sword. Your poor young kinsman, Harry Esmond, hath told me that he tried to draw the quarrel on himself.'

" 'Are you come from _him_?' asked the lady" (so Mr. Steele went on), "rising up with a great severity and stateliness. 'I thought you had come from the princess. I saw Mr. Esmond in his prison, and bade him farewell.

He brought misery into my house. He never should have entered it.'

" 'Madam, madam, he is not to blame,' I interposed," continued Mr. Steele.

" 'Do I blame him to you, sir?' asked the widow. 'If 'tis he who sent you, say that I have taken counsel, where'-she spoke with a very pallid cheek now, and a break in her voice-'where all who ask may have it;-and that it bids me to part from him, and to see him no more. We met in the prison for the last time-at least for years to come. It may be, in years hence, when-when our knees and our tears and our contrition have changed our sinful hearts, sir, and wrought our pardon, we may meet again-but not now.

After what has pa.s.sed, I could not bear to see him. I wish him well, sir; but I wish him farewell, too; and if he has that-that regard towards us which he speaks of, I beseech him to prove it by obeying me in this.'

" 'I shall break the young man's heart, madam, by this hard sentence,' "

Mr. Steele said.

"The lady shook her head," continued my kind scholar. " 'The hearts of young men, Mr. Steele, are not so made,' she said. 'Mr. Esmond will find other-other friends. The mistress of this house has relented very much towards the late lord's son,' she added, with a blush, 'and has promised me, that is, has promised that she will care for his fortune. Whilst I live in it, after the horrid, horrid deed which has pa.s.sed, Castlewood must never be a home to him-never. Nor would I have him write to me-except-no-I would have him never write to me, nor see him more. Give him, if you will, my parting-Hush! not a word of this before my daughter.'

"Here the fair Beatrix entered from the river, with her cheeks flushing with health, and looking only the more lovely and fresh for the mourning habiliments which she wore. And my lady viscountess said-

" 'Beatrix, this is Mr. Steele, gentleman-usher to the prince's highness.

When does your new comedy appear, Mr. Steele?' I hope thou wilt be out of prison for the first night, Harry."

The sentimental captain concluded his sad tale, saying, "Faith, the beauty of _Filia pulcrior_ drove _pulcram matrem_ out of my head; and yet as I came down the river, and thought about the pair, the pallid dignity and exquisite grace of the matron had the uppermost, and I thought her even more n.o.ble than the virgin!"

The party of prisoners lived very well in Newgate, and with comforts very different to those which were awarded to the poor wretches there (his insensibility to their misery, their gaiety still more frightful, their curses and blasphemy, hath struck with a kind of shame since-as proving how selfish, during his imprisonment, his own particular grief was, and how entirely the thoughts of it absorbed him): if the three gentlemen lived well under the care of the warden of Newgate, it was because they paid well: and indeed the cost at the dearest ordinary or the grandest tavern in London could not have furnished a longer reckoning, than our host of the "Handcuff Inn"-as Colonel Westbury called it. Our rooms were the three in the gate over Newgate-on the second story looking up Newgate Street towards Cheapside and Paul's Church. And we had leave to walk on the roof, and could see thence Smithfield and the Bluecoat Boys' School, Gardens, and the Chartreux, where, as Harry Esmond remembered, d.i.c.k the Scholar, and his friend Tom Tusher, had had their schooling.

Harry could never have paid his share of that prodigious heavy reckoning which my landlord brought to his guests once a week: for he had but three pieces in his pockets that fatal night before the duel, when the gentlemen were at cards, and offered to play five. But whilst he was yet ill at the Gatehouse, after Lady Castlewood had visited him there, and before his trial, there came one in an orange-tawny coat and blue lace, the livery which the Esmonds always wore, and brought a sealed packet for Mr. Esmond, which contained twenty guineas, and a note saying that a counsel had been appointed for him, and that more money would be forthcoming whenever he needed it.

'Twas a queer letter from the scholar as she was, or as she called herself: the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood, written in the strange barbarous French which she and many other fine ladies of that time-witness Her Grace of Portsmouth-employed. Indeed, spelling was not an article of general commodity in the world then, and my Lord Marlborough's letters can show that he, for one, had but a little share of this part of grammar.

Mong Coussin (my lady viscountess dowager wrote), je scay que vous vous etes bravement batew et grievement blessay-du coste de feu M.

le Vicomte. M. le Compte de Varique ne se playt qua parlay de vous: M. de Moon aucy. Il di que vous avay voulew vous bastre avecque luy-que vous estes plus fort que luy sur l'ayscrimme-quil'y a surtout certaine Botte que vous scavay quil n'a jammay sceu pariay: et que c'en eut ete fay de luy si vouseluy vous vous fussiay battews ansamb. Aincy ce pauv Vicompte est mort.

Mort et peutayt-Mon coussin, mon coussin! jay dans la tayste que vous n'estes quung pety Monst-angcy que les Esmonds ong tousjours este. La veuve est chay moy. J'ay recuilly cet' pauve famme. Elle est furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher le Roy (d'icy) demandant a gran cri revanche pour son Mary. Elle ne veux voyre ni entende parlay de vous: pourtant elle ne fay qu'en parlay milfoy par jour. Quand vous seray hor prison venay me voyre.

J'auray soing de vous. Si cette pet.i.te Prude veut se defaire de song pety Monste (Helas je craing quil ne soy trotar!) je m'en chargeray. J'ay encor quelqu interay et quelques escus de costay.

La Veuve se raccommode avec Miladi Marlboro qui est tout puicante avecque la Reine Anne. Cet dam senteraysent pour la pet.i.te prude; qui pourctant a un fi du mesme asge que vous savay.

En sortant de prisong venez icy. Je ne puy vous recevoir chay-moy a cause des mechansetes du monde, may pre du moy vous aurez logement.

ISABELLE VICOMPTESSE D'ESMOND.

Marchioness of Esmond this lady sometimes called herself, in virtue of that patent which had been given by the late King James to Harry Esmond's father; and in this state she had her train carried by a knight's wife, a cup and cover of a.s.say to drink from, and fringed cloth.

He who was of the same age as little Francis, whom we shall henceforth call Viscount Castlewood here, was H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, born in the same year and month with Frank, and just proclaimed at St. Germains, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.

Chapter III. I Take The Queen's Pay In Quin's Regiment

The fellow in the orange-tawny livery with blue lace and facings was in waiting when Esmond came out of prison, and, taking the young gentleman's slender baggage, led the way out of that odious Newgate, and by Fleet Conduit, down to the Thames, where a pair of oars was called, and they went up the river to Chelsea. Esmond thought the sun had never shone so bright; nor the air felt so fresh and exhilarating. Temple Garden, as they rowed by, looked like the garden of Eden to him, and the aspect of the quays, wharves, and buildings by the river, Somerset House, and Westminster (where the splendid new bridge was just beginning), Lambeth tower and palace, and that busy shining scene of the Thames swarming with boats and barges, filled his heart with pleasure and cheerfulness-as well such a beautiful scene might to one who had been a prisoner so long, and with so many dark thoughts deepening the gloom of his captivity. They rowed up at length to the pretty village of Chelsey, where the n.o.bility have many handsome country-houses; and so came to my lady viscountess's house, a cheerful new house in the row facing the river, with a handsome garden behind it, and a pleasant look-out both towards Surrey and Kensington, where stands the n.o.ble ancient palace of the Lord Warwick, Harry's reconciled adversary.

Here in her ladyship's saloon, the young man saw again some of those pictures which had been at Castlewood, and which she had removed thence on the death of her lord, Harry's father. Specially, and in the place of honour, was Sir Peter Lely's picture of the Honourable Mistress Isabella Esmond as Diana, in yellow satin, with a bow in her hand and a crescent in her forehead; and dogs frisking about her. 'Twas painted about the time when royal Endymions were said to find favour with this virgin huntress; and, as G.o.ddesses have youth perpetual, this one believed to the day of her death that she never grew older: and always persisted in supposing the picture was still like her.

After he had been shown to her room by the groom of the chamber, who filled many offices besides in her ladyship's modest household; and after a proper interval, his elderly G.o.ddess Diana vouchsafed to appear to the young man. A blackamoor in a Turkish habit, with red boots and a silver collar, on which the viscountess's arms were engraven, preceded her and bore her cushion; then came her gentlewoman; a little pack of spaniels barking and frisking about preceded the austere huntress-then, behold, the viscountess herself "dropping odours". Esmond recollected from his childhood that rich aroma of musk which his mother-in-law (for she may be called so) exhaled. As the sky grows redder and redder towards sunset, so, in the decline of her years, the cheeks of my lady dowager blushed more deeply. Her face was illuminated with vermilion, which appeared the brighter from the white paint employed to set it off. She wore the ringlets which had been in fashion in King Charles's time; whereas the ladies of King William's had head-dresses like the towers of Cybele. Her eyes gleamed out from the midst of this queer structure of paint, dyes, and pomatums. Such was my lady viscountess, Mr. Esmond's father's widow.

He made her such a profound bow as her dignity and relationship merited: and advanced with the greatest gravity, and once more kissed that hand, upon the trembling knuckles of which glittered a score of rings-remembering old times when that trembling hand made him tremble.

"Marchioness," says he, bowing, and on one knee, "is it only the hand I may have the honour of saluting?" For, accompanying that inward laughter, which the sight of such an astonishing old figure might well produce in the young man, there was goodwill too, and the kindness of consanguinity.

She had been his father's wife, and was his grandfather's daughter. She had suffered him in old days, and was kind to him now after her fashion.

And now that bar-sinister was removed from Esmond's thought, and that secret opprobrium no longer cast upon his mind, he was pleased to feel family ties and own them-perhaps secretly vain of the sacrifice he had made, and to think that he, Esmond, was really the chief of his house, and only prevented by his own magnanimity from advancing his claim.

At least, ever since he had learned that secret from his poor patron on his dying bed, actually as he was standing beside it, he had felt an independency which he had never known before, and which since did not desert him. So he called his old aunt marchioness, but with an air as if he was the Marquis of Esmond who so addressed her.

Did she read in the young gentleman's eyes, which had now no fear of hers or their superannuated authority, that he knew or suspected the truth about his birth? She gave a start of surprise at his altered manner: indeed, it was quite a different bearing to that of the Cambridge student who had paid her a visit two years since, and whom she had dismissed with five pieces sent by the groom of the chamber. She eyed him, then trembled a little more than was her wont, perhaps, and said, "Welcome, cousin", in a frightened voice.

His resolution, as has been said before, had been quite different, namely, so to bear himself through life as if the secret of his birth was not known to him; but he suddenly and rightly determined on a different course. He asked that her ladyship's attendants should be dismissed, and when they were private-"Welcome, nephew, at least, madam, it should be,"

he said, "A great wrong has been done to me and to you, and to my poor mother, who is no more."

"I declare before Heaven that I was guiltless of it," she cried out, giving up her cause at once. "It was your wicked father who--"

"Who brought this dishonour on our family," says Mr. Esmond. "I know it full well. I want to disturb no one. Those who are in present possession have been my dearest benefactors, and are quite innocent of intentional wrong to me. The late lord, my dear patron, knew not the truth until a few months before his death, when Father Holt brought the news to him."

"The wretch! he had it in confession! He had it in confession!" cried out the dowager lady.

"Not so. He learned it elsewhere as well as in confession," Mr. Esmond answered. "My father, when wounded at the Boyne, told the truth to a French priest, who was in hiding after the battle, as well as to the priest there, at whose house he died. This gentleman did not think fit to divulge the story till he met with Mr. Holt at St. Omer's. And the latter kept it back for his own purpose, and until he had learned whether my mother was alive or no. She is dead years since: my poor patron told me with his dying breath; and I doubt him not. I do not know even whether I could prove a marriage. I would not if I could. I do not care to bring shame on our name, or grief upon those whom I love, however hardly they may use me. My father's son, madam, won't aggravate the wrong my father did you. Continue to be his widow, and give me your kindness. 'Tis all I ask from you; and I shall never speak of this matter again."