The History of Henry Esmond, Esq Part 15

Harry Esmond got off the horse to run to his mistress, as did little Frank, and one of the grooms took charge of the two beasts, while the other, hat and periwig in hand, walked by my lord's bridle to the front gate, which lay half a mile away.

"Oh, my boy! what a fright you have given me!" Lady Castlewood said, when Harry Esmond came up, greeting him with one of her shining looks, and a voice of tender welcome; and she was so kind as to kiss the young man ('twas the second time she had so honored him), and she walked into the house between him and her son, holding a hand of each.

CHAPTER XIV.

WE RIDE AFTER HIM TO LONDON.

After a repose of a couple of days, the Lord Mohun was so far recovered of his hurt as to be able to announce his departure for the next morning; when, accordingly, he took leave of Castlewood, proposing to ride to London by easy stages, and lie two nights upon the road. His host treated him with a studied and ceremonious courtesy, certainly different from my lord's usual frank and careless demeanor; but there was no reason to suppose that the two lords parted otherwise than good friends, though Harry Esmond remarked that my Lord Viscount only saw his guest in company with other persons, and seemed to avoid being alone with him. Nor did he ride any distance with Lord Mohun, as his custom was with most of his friends, whom he was always eager to welcome and unwilling to lose; but contented himself, when his lordship's horses were announced, and their owner appeared, booted for his journey, to take a courteous leave of the ladies of Castlewood, by following the Lord Mohun down stairs to his horses, and by bowing and wishing him a good-day, in the court-yard. "I shall see you in London before very long, Mohun," my lord said, with a smile, "when we will settle our accounts together."

"Do not let them trouble you, Frank," said the other good-naturedly, and holding out his hand, looked rather surprised at the grim and stately manner in which his host received his parting salutation; and so, followed by his people, he rode away.

Harry Esmond was witness of the departure. It was very different to my lord's coming, for which great preparation had been made (the old house putting on its best appearance to welcome its guest), and there was a sadness and constraint about all persons that day, which filled Mr.

Esmond with gloomy forebodings, and sad indefinite apprehensions. Lord Castlewood stood at the door watching his guest and his people as they went out under the arch of the outer gate. When he was there, Lord Mohun turned once more, my Lord Viscount slowly raised his beaver and bowed.

His face wore a peculiar livid look, Harry thought. He cursed and kicked away his dogs, which came jumping about him--then he walked up to the fountain in the centre of the court, and leaned against a pillar and looked into the basin. As Esmond crossed over to his own room, late the chaplain's, on the other side of the court, and turned to enter in at the low door, he saw Lady Castlewood looking through the curtains of the great window of the drawing-room overhead, at my lord as he stood regarding the fountain. There was in the court a peculiar silence somehow; and the scene remained long in Esmond's memory:--the sky bright overhead; the b.u.t.tresses of the building and the sun-dial casting shadow over the gilt memento mori inscribed underneath; the two dogs, a black greyhound and a spaniel nearly white, the one with his face up to the sun, and the other snuffing amongst the gra.s.s and stones, and my lord leaning over the fountain, which was bubbling audibly. 'Tis strange how that scene, and the sound of that fountain, remain fixed on the memory of a man who has beheld a hundred sights of splendor, and danger too, of which he has kept no account.

It was Lady Castlewood--she had been laughing all the morning, and especially gay and lively before her husband and his guest--who as soon as the two gentlemen went together from her room, ran to Harry, the expression of her countenance quite changed now, and with a face and eyes full of care, and said, "Follow them, Harry, I am sure something has gone wrong." And so it was that Esmond was made an eavesdropper at this lady's orders and retired to his own chamber, to give himself time in truth to try and compose a story which would soothe his mistress, for he could not but have his own apprehension that some serious quarrel was pending between the two gentlemen.

And now for several days the little company at Castlewood sat at table as of evenings: this care, though unnamed and invisible, being nevertheless present alway, in the minds of at least three persons there. My lord was exceeding gentle and kind. Whenever he quitted the room, his wife's eyes followed him. He behaved to her with a kind of mournful courtesy and kindness remarkable in one of his blunt ways and ordinary rough manner. He called her by her Christian name often and fondly, was very soft and gentle with the children, especially with the boy, whom he did not love, and being lax about church generally, he went thither and performed all the offices (down even to listening to Dr.

Tusher's sermon) with great devotion.

"He paces his room all night; what is it? Henry, find out what it is,"

Lady Castlewood said constantly to her young dependant. "He has sent three letters to London," she said, another day.

"Indeed, madam, they were to a lawyer," Harry answered, who knew of these letters, and had seen a part of the correspondence, which related to a new loan my lord was raising; and when the young man remonstrated with his patron, my lord said, "He was only raising money to pay off an old debt on the property, which must be discharged."

Regarding the money, Lady Castlewood was not in the least anxious. Few fond women feel money-distressed; indeed you can hardly give a woman a greater pleasure than to bid her p.a.w.n her diamonds for the man she loves; and I remember hearing Mr. Congreve say of my Lord Marlborough, that the reason why my lord was so successful with women as a young man, was because he took money of them. "There are few men who will make such a sacrifice for them," says Mr. Congreve, who knew a part of the s.e.x pretty well.

Harry Esmond's vacation was just over, and, as hath been said, he was preparing to return to the University for his last term before taking his degree and entering into the Church. He had made up his mind for this office, not indeed with that reverence which becomes a man about to enter upon a duty so holy, but with a worldly spirit of acquiescence in the prudence of adopting that profession for his calling. But his reasoning was that he owed all to the family of Castlewood, and loved better to be near them than anywhere else in the world; that he might be useful to his benefactors, who had the utmost confidence in him and affection for him in return; that he might aid in bringing up the young heir of the house and acting as his governor; that he might continue to be his dear patron's and mistress's friend and adviser, who both were pleased to say that they should ever look upon him as such; and so, by making himself useful to those he loved best, he proposed to console himself for giving up of any schemes of ambition which he might have had in his own bosom. Indeed, his mistress had told him that she would not have him leave her; and whatever she commanded was will to him.

The Lady Castlewood's mind was greatly relieved in the last few days of this well-remembered holiday time, by my lord's announcing one morning, after the post had brought him letters from London, in a careless tone, that the Lord Mohun was gone to Paris, and was about to make a great journey in Europe; and though Lord Castlewood's own gloom did not wear off, or his behavior alter, yet this cause of anxiety being removed from his lady's mind, she began to be more hopeful and easy in her spirits, striving too, with all her heart, and by all the means of soothing in her power, to call back my lord's cheerfulness and dissipate his moody humor.

He accounted for it himself, by saying that he was out of health; that he wanted to see his physician; that he would go to London, and consult Doctor Cheyne. It was agreed that his lordship and Harry Esmond should make the journey as far as London together; and of a Monday morning, the 11th of October, in the year 1700, they set forwards towards London on horseback. The day before being Sunday, and the rain pouring down, the family did not visit church; and at night my lord read the service to his family very finely, and with a peculiar sweetness and gravity--speaking the parting benediction, Harry thought, as solemn as ever he heard it. And he kissed and embraced his wife and children before they went to their own chambers with more fondness than he was ordinarily wont to show, and with a solemnity and feeling of which they thought in after days with no small comfort.

They took horse the next morning (after adieux from the family as tender as on the night previous), lay that night on the road, and entered London at nightfall; my lord going to the "Trumpet," in the c.o.c.kpit, Whitehall, a house used by the military in his time as a young man, and accustomed by his lordship ever since.

An hour after my lord's arrival (which showed that his visit had been arranged beforehand), my lord's man of business arrived from Gray's Inn; and thinking that his patron might wish to be private with the lawyer, Esmond was for leaving them: but my lord said his business was short; introduced Mr. Esmond particularly to the lawyer, who had been engaged for the family in the old lord's time; who said that he had paid the money, as desired that day, to my Lord Mohun himself, at his lodgings in Bow Street; that his lordship had expressed some surprise, as it was not customary to employ lawyers, he said, in such transactions between men of honor; but nevertheless, he had returned my Lord Viscount's note of hand, which he held at his client's disposition.

"I thought the Lord Mohun had been in Paris!" cried Mr. Esmond, in great alarm and astonishment.

"He is come back at my invitation," said my Lord Viscount. "We have accounts to settle together."

"I pray heaven they are over, sir," says Esmond.

"Oh, quite," replied the other, looking hard at the young man. "He was rather troublesome about that money which I told you I had lost to him at play. And now 'tis paid, and we are quits on that score, and we shall meet good friends again."

"My lord," cried out Esmond, "I am sure you are deceiving me, and that there is a quarrel between the Lord Mohun and you."

"Quarrel--pish! We shall sup together this very night, and drink a bottle. Every man is ill-humored who loses such a sum as I have lost.

But now 'tis paid, and my anger is gone with it."

"Where shall we sup, sir?" says Harry.

"WE! Let some gentlemen wait till they are asked," says my Lord Viscount with a laugh. "You go to Duke Street, and see Mr. Betterton. You love the play, I know. Leave me to follow my own devices: and in the morning we'll breakfast together, with what appet.i.te we may, as the play says."

"By G--! my lord, I will not leave you this night," says Harry Esmond.

"I think I know the cause of your dispute. I swear to you 'tis nothing.

On the very day the accident befell Lord Mohun, I was speaking to him about it. I know that nothing has pa.s.sed but idle gallantry on his part."

"You know that nothing has pa.s.sed but idle gallantry between Lord Mohun and my wife," says my lord, in a thundering voice--"you knew of this and did not tell me?"

"I knew more of it than my dear mistress did herself, sir--a thousand times more. How was she, who was as innocent as a child, to know what was the meaning of the covert addresses of a villain?"

"A villain he is, you allow, and would have taken my wife away from me."

"Sir, she is as pure as an angel," cried young Esmond.

"Have I said a word against her?" shrieks out my lord. "Did I ever doubt that she was pure? It would have been the last day of her life when I did. Do you fancy I think that SHE would go astray? No, she hasn't pa.s.sion enough for that. She neither sins nor forgives. I know her temper--and now I've lost her, by heaven I love her ten thousand times more than ever I did--yes, when she was as young and as beautiful as an angel--when she smiled at me in her old father's house, and used to lie in wait for me there as I came from hunting--when I used to fling my head down on her little knees and cry like a child on her lap--and swear I would reform, and drink no more and play no more, and follow women no more; when all the men of the Court used to be following her--when she used to look with her child more beautiful, by George, than the Madonna in the Queen's Chapel. I am not good like her, I know it. Who is--by heaven, who is? I tired and wearied her, I know that very well. I could not talk to her. You men of wit and books could do that, and I couldn't--I felt I couldn't. Why, when you was but a boy of fifteen I could hear you two together talking your poetry and your books till I was in such a rage that I was fit to strangle you. But you were always a good lad, Harry, and I loved you, you know I did. And I felt she didn't belong to me: and the children don't. And I besotted myself, and gambled and drank, and took to all sorts of deviltries out of despair and fury.

And now comes this Mohun, and she likes him, I know she likes him."

"Indeed, and on my soul, you are wrong, sir," Esmond cried.

"She takes letters from him," cries my lord--"look here, Harry," and he pulled out a paper with a brown stain of blood upon it. "It fell from him that day he wasn't killed. One of the grooms picked it up from the ground and gave it me. Here it is in their d--d comedy jargon. 'Divine Gloriana--Why look so coldly on your slave who adores you? Have you no compa.s.sion on the tortures you have seen me suffering? Do you vouchsafe no reply to billets that are written with the blood of my heart.' She had more letters from him."

"But she answered none," cries Esmond.

"That's not Mohun's fault," says my lord, "and I will be revenged on him, as G.o.d's in heaven, I will."

"For a light word or two, will you risk your lady's honor and your family's happiness, my lord?" Esmond interposed beseechingly.

"Psha--there shall be no question of my wife's honor," said my lord; "we can quarrel on plenty of grounds beside. If I live, that villain will be punished; if I fall, my family will be only the better: there will only be a spendthrift the less to keep in the world: and Frank has better teaching than his father. My mind is made up, Harry Esmond, and whatever the event is, I am easy about it. I leave my wife and you as guardians to the children."

Seeing that my lord was bent upon pursuing this quarrel, and that no entreaties would draw him from it, Harry Esmond (then of a hotter and more impetuous nature than now, when care, and reflection, and gray hairs have calmed him) thought it was his duty to stand by his kind, generous patron, and said, "My lord, if you are determined upon war, you must not go into it alone. 'Tis the duty of our house to stand by its chief; and I should neither forgive myself nor you if you did not call me, or I should be absent from you at a moment of danger."

"Why, Harry, my poor boy, you are bred for a parson," says my lord, taking Esmond by the hand very kindly; "and it were a great pity that you should meddle in the matter."

"Your lordship thought of being a churchman once," Harry answered, "and your father's orders did not prevent him fighting at Castlewood against the Roundheads. Your enemies are mine, sir; I can use the foils, as you have seen, indifferently well, and don't think I shall be afraid when the b.u.t.tons are taken off 'em." And then Harry explained, with some blushes and hesitation (for the matter was delicate, and he feared lest, by having put himself forward in the quarrel, he might have offended his patron), how he had himself expostulated with the Lord Mohun, and proposed to measure swords with him if need were, and he could not be got to withdraw peaceably in this dispute. "And I should have beat him, sir," says Harry, laughing. "He never could parry that botte I brought from Cambridge. Let us have half an hour of it, and rehea.r.s.e--I can teach it your lordship: 'tis the most delicate point in the world, and if you miss it, your adversary's sword is through you."

"By George, Harry, you ought to be the head of the house," says my lord, gloomily. "You had been a better Lord Castlewood than a lazy sot like me," he added, drawing his hand across his eyes, and surveying his kinsman with very kind and affectionate glances.

"Let us take our coats off and have half an hour's practice before nightfall," says Harry, after thankfully grasping his patron's manly hand.

"You are but a little bit of a lad," says my lord, good-humoredly; "but, in faith, I believe you could do for that fellow. No, my boy," he continued, "I'll have none of your feints and tricks of stabbing: I can use my sword pretty well too, and will fight my own quarrel my own way."

"But I shall be by to see fair play?" cries Harry.