Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Part 3

Coming up to London again some short time after this retreat, the Lord Castlewood dispatched a retainer of his to a little cottage in the village of Ealing, near to London, where for some time had dwelt an old French refugee, by name Mr. Pastoureau, one of those whom the persecution of the Huguenots by the French king had brought over to this country. With this old man lived a little lad, who went by the name of Henry Thomas. He remembered to have lived in another place a short time before, near to London, too, amongst looms and spinning-wheels, and a great deal of psalm-singing and church-going, and a whole colony of Frenchmen.

There he had a dear, dear friend, who died and whom he called aunt. She used to visit him in his dreams sometimes; and her face, though it was homely, was a thousand times dearer to him than that of Mrs. Pastoureau, Bon Papa Pastoureau's new wife, who came to live with him after aunt went away. And there, at Spittlefields, as it used to be called, lived Uncle George, who was a weaver too, but used to tell Harry that he was a little gentleman, and that his father was a captain, and his mother an angel.

When he said so, Bon Papa used to look up from the loom, where he was embroidering beautiful silk flowers, and say, "Angel! she belongs to the Babylonish Scarlet Woman." Bon Papa was always talking of the Scarlet Woman. He had a little room where he always used to preach and sing hymns out of his great old nose. Little Harry did not like the preaching; he liked better the fine stories which aunt used to tell him. Bon Papa's wife never told him pretty stories; she quarrelled with Uncle George, and he went away.

After this Harry's Bon Papa, and his wife and two children of her own that she brought with her, came to live at Ealing. The new wife gave her children the best of everything, and Harry many a whipping, he knew not why. Besides blows, he got ill names from her, which need not be set down here, for the sake of old Mr. Pastoureau, who was still kind sometimes.

The unhappiness of those days is long forgiven, though they cast a shade of melancholy over the child's youth, which will accompany him, no doubt, to the end of his days: as those tender twigs are bent the trees grow afterward; and he, at least, who has suffered as a child, and is not quite perverted in that early school of unhappiness, learns to be gentle and long-suffering with little children.

Harry was very glad when a gentleman dressed in black, on horseback, with a mounted servant behind him, came to fetch him away from Ealing. The _noverca_, or unjust stepmother, who had neglected him for her own two children, gave him supper enough the night before he went away, and plenty in the morning. She did not beat him once, and told the children to keep their hands off him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear to strike a girl; and the other was a boy, whom he could easily have beat, but he always cried out, when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the rescue with arms like a flail. She only washed Harry's face the day he went away; nor ever so much as once boxed his ears. She whimpered rather when the gentleman in black came for the boy; and old Mr. Pastoureau, as he gave the child his blessing, scowled over his shoulder at the strange gentleman, and grumbled out something about Babylon and the scarlet lady.

He was grown quite old, like a child almost. Mrs. Pastoureau used to wipe his nose as she did to the children. She was a great, big, handsome young woman; but, though she pretended to cry, Harry thought 'twas only a sham, and sprung quite delighted upon the horse upon which the lackey helped him.

He was a Frenchman; his name was Blaise. The child could talk to him in his own language perfectly well: he knew it better than English indeed: having lived hitherto chiefly among French people: and being called the little Frenchman by other boys on Ealing Green. He soon learnt to speak English perfectly, and to forget some of his French: children forget easily. Some earlier and fainter recollections the child had, of a different country; and a town with tall white houses; and a ship. But these were quite indistinct in the boy's mind, as indeed the memory of Ealing soon became, at least of much that he suffered there.

The lackey before whom he rode was very lively and voluble, and informed the boy that the gentleman riding before him was my lord's chaplain, Father Holt-that he was now to be called Master Harry Esmond-that my Lord Viscount Castlewood was his _parrain_-that he was to live at the great house of Castlewood, in the province of --shire, where he would see madame the viscountess, who was a grand lady. And so, seated on a cloth before Blaise's saddle, Harry Esmond was brought to London, and to a fine square called Covent Garden, near to which his patron lodged.

Mr. Holt the priest took the child by the hand, and brought him to this n.o.bleman, a grand languid n.o.bleman in a great cap and flowered morning-gown, sucking oranges. He patted Harry on the head and gave him an orange.

"_C'est bien ca_," he said to the priest after eyeing the child, and the gentleman in black shrugged his shoulders.

"Let Blaise take him out for a holiday," and out for a holiday the boy and the valet went. Harry went jumping along; he was glad enough to go.

He will remember to his life's end the delights of those days. He was taken to see a play by Monsieur Blaise, in a house a thousand times greater and finer than the booth at Ealing Fair-and on the next happy day they took water on the river, and Harry saw London Bridge, with the houses and booksellers' shops thereon, looking like a street, and the Tower of London, with the armour, and the great lions and bears in the moats-all under company of Monsieur Blaise.

Presently, of an early morning, all the party set forth for the country, namely, my lord viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise, and Harry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols leading the baggage-horses. And all along the road the Frenchman told little Harry stories of brigands, which made the child's hair stand on end, and terrified him; so that at the great gloomy inn on the road where they lay, he besought to be allowed to sleep in a room with one of the servants, and was compa.s.sionated by Mr. Holt, the gentleman who travelled with my lord, and who gave the child a little bed in his chamber.

His artless talk and answers very likely inclined this gentleman in the boy's favour, for next day Mr. Holt said Harry should ride behind him, and not with the French lacky; and all along the journey put a thousand questions to the child-as to his foster-brother and relations at Ealing; what his old grandfather had taught him; what languages he knew; whether he could read and write, and sing, and so forth. And Mr. Holt found that Harry could read and write, and possessed the two languages of French and English very well; and when he asked Harry about singing, the lad broke out with a hymn to the tune of Dr. Martin Luther, which set Mr. Holt a-laughing; and even caused his _grand parrain_ in the laced hat and periwig to laugh too when Holt told him what the child was singing. For it appeared that Dr. Martin Luther's hymns were not sung in the churches Mr.

Holt preached at.

"You must never sing that song any more, do you hear, little manikin?"

says my lord viscount, holding up a finger.

"But we will try and teach you a better, Harry." Mr. Holt said; and the child answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, "That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day before, waited upon him now.

"'Tis well, 'tis well!" said Blaise, that night (in his own language) when they lay again at an inn. "We are a little lord here; we are a little lord now: we shall see what we are when we come to Castlewood where my lady is."

"When shall we come to Castlewood, Monsieur Blaise?" says Harry.

"_Parbleu!_ my lord does not press himself." Blaise says, with a grin; and, indeed, it seemed as if his lordship was not in a great hurry, for he spent three days on that journey, which Harry Esmond hath often since ridden in a dozen hours. For the last two of the days, Harry rode with the priest, who was so kind to him, that the child had grown to be quite fond and familiar with him by the journey's end, and had scarce a thought in his little heart which by that time he had not confided to his new friend.

At length on the third day, at evening, they came to a village standing on a green with elms round it, very pretty to look at; and the people there all took off their hats, and made curtsies to my lord viscount, who bowed to them all languidly; and there was one portly person that wore a ca.s.sock and a broad-leafed hat, who bowed lower than any one-and with this one both my lord and Mr. Holt had a few words. "This, Harry, is Castlewood church," says Mr. Holt, "and this is the pillar thereof, learned Doctor Tusher. Take off your hat, sirrah, and salute Doctor Tusher."

"Come up to supper, doctor," says my lord; at which the doctor made another low bow, and the party moved on towards a grand house that was before them, with many grey towers, and vanes on them, and windows flaming in the sunshine; and a great army of rooks, wheeling over their heads, made for the woods behind the house, as Harry saw; and Mr. Holt told him that they lived at Castlewood too.

They came to the house, and pa.s.sed under an arch into a courtyard, with a fountain in the centre, where many men came and held my lord's stirrup as he descended, and paid great respect to Mr. Holt likewise. And the child thought that the servants looked at him curiously, and smiled to one another-and he recalled what Blaise had said to him when they were in London, and Harry had spoken about his G.o.dpapa, when the Frenchman said, "_Parbleu!_ one sees well that my lord is your G.o.dfather"; words whereof the poor lad did not know the meaning then, though he apprehended the truth in a very short time afterwards, and learned it and thought of it with no small feeling of shame.

Taking Harry by the hand as soon as they were both descended from their horses, Mr. Holt led him across the court, and under a low door to rooms on a level with the ground; one of which Father Holt said was to be the boy's chamber, the other on the other side of the pa.s.sage being the father's own; and as soon as the little man's face was washed, and the father's own dress arranged, Harry's guide took him once more to the door by which my lord had entered the hall, and up a stair, and through an ante-room to my lady's drawing-room-an apartment than which Harry thought he had never seen anything more grand-no, not in the Tower of London which he had just visited. Indeed the chamber was richly ornamented in the manner of Queen Elizabeth's time, with great stained windows at either end, and hangings of tapestry, which the sun shining through the coloured gla.s.s painted of a thousand hues; and here in state, by the fire, sat a lady to whom the priest took up Harry, who was indeed amazed by her appearance.

My lady viscountess's face was daubed with white and red up to the eyes, to which the paint gave an unearthly glare: she had a tower of lace on her head, under which was a bush of black curls-borrowed curls-so that no wonder little Harry Esmond was scared when he was first presented to her-the kind priest acting as master of the ceremonies at that solemn introduction-and he stared at her with eyes almost as great as her own, as he had stared at the player-woman who acted the wicked tragedy-queen, when the players came down to Ealing Fair. She sat in a great chair by the fire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on a little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box.

She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-coloured brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury Cross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with great gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and an odour of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved or quitted the room, leaning on her tortoisesh.e.l.l stick, little Fury barking at her heels.

Mrs. Tusher, the parson's wife, was with my lady. She had been waiting-woman to her ladyship in the late lord's time, and, having her soul in that business, took naturally to it when the Viscountess of Castlewood returned to inhabit her father's house.

"I present to your ladyship your kinsman and little page of honour, Master Henry Esmond," Mr. Holt said, bowing lowly, with a sort of comical humility. "Make a pretty bow to my lady, monsieur; and then another little bow, not so low, to Madam Tusher-the fair priestess of Castlewood."

"Where I have lived and hope to die, sir," says Madam Tusher, giving a hard glance at the brat, and then at my lady.

Upon her the boy's whole attention was for a time directed. He could not keep his great eyes off from her. Since the Empress of Ealing he had seen nothing so awful.

"Does my appearance please you, little page?" asked the lady.

"He would be very hard to please if it didn't," cried Madam Tusher.

"Have done, you silly Maria," said Lady Castlewood.

"Where I'm attached, I'm attached, madam-and I'd die rather than not say so."

"_Je meurs ou je m'attache_," Mr. Holt said, with a polite grin. "The ivy says so in the picture, and clings to the oak like a fond parasite as it is."

"Parricide, sir!" cries Mrs. Tusher.

"Hush, Tusher-you are always bickering with Father Holt," cried my lady.

"Come and kiss my hand, child," and the oak held out a _branch_ to little Harry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand, upon the gnarled knuckles of which there glittered a hundred rings.

"To kiss that hand would make many a pretty fellow happy!" cried Mrs.

Tusher: on which my lady crying out, "Go, you foolish Tusher," and tapping her with her great fan, Tusher ran forward to seize her hand and kiss it.

Fury arose and barked furiously at Tusher; and Father Holt looked on at this queer scene, with arch grave glances.

The awe exhibited by the little boy perhaps pleased the lady to whom this artless flattery was bestowed; for having gone down on his knee (as Father Holt had directed him, and the mode then was) and performed his obeisance, she said, "Page Esmond, my groom of the chamber will inform you what your duties are, when you wait upon my lord and me; and good Father Holt will instruct you as becomes a gentleman of our name. You will pay him obedience in everything, and I pray you may grow to be as learned and as good as your tutor."

The lady seemed to have the greatest reverence for Mr. Holt, and to be more afraid of him than of anything else in the world. If she was ever so angry, a word or look from Father Holt made her calm: indeed he had a vast power of subjecting those who came near him; and, among the rest, his new pupil gave himself up with an entire confidence and attachment to the good father, and became his willing slave almost from the first moment he saw him.

He put his small hand into the father's as he walked away from his first presentation to his mistress, and asked many questions in his artless childish way. "Who is that other woman?" he asked. "She is fat and round; she is more pretty than my Lady Castlewood."

"She is Madam Tusher, the parson's wife of Castlewood. She has a son of your age, but bigger than you."

"Why does she like so to kiss my lady's hand? It is not good to kiss."

"Tastes are different, little man. Madam Tusher is attached to my lady, having been her waiting-woman, before she was married, in the old lord's time. She married Doctor Tusher the chaplain. The English household divines often marry the waiting-women."

"You will not marry the French woman, will you? I saw her laughing with Blaise in the b.u.t.tery."

"I belong to a church that is older and better than the English Church,"

Mr. Holt said (making a sign whereof Esmond did not then understand the meaning, across his breast and forehead); "in our Church the clergy do not marry. You will understand these things better soon."

"Was not St. Peter the head of your Church?-Dr. Rabbits of Ealing told us so."

The father said, "Yes, he was."