When the famous Trojan wanderer narrated his escapes and adventures to
Queen Dido, her Majesty, as we read, took the very greatest interest
in the fascinating story-teller who told his perils so eloquently. A
history ensued, more pathetic than any of the previous occurrences in
the life of Pius Aeneas, and the poor princess had reason to rue the day
when she listened to that glib and dangerous orator. Harry Warrington
had not pious Aeneas's power of speech, and his elderly aunt, we may
presume, was by no means so soft-hearted as the sentimental Dido;
but yet the lad's narrative was touching, as he delivered it with his
artless eloquence and cordial voice; and more than once, in the course
of his story, Madam Bernstein found herself moved to a softness to which
she had very seldom before allowed herself to give way. There were not
many fountains in that desert of a life--not many sweet, refreshing
resting-places. It had been a long loneliness, for the most part, until
this friendly voice came and sounded in her ears and caused her heart to
beat with strange pangs of love and sympathy. She doted on this lad,
and on this sense of compassion and regard so new to her. Save once,
faintly, in very very early youth, she had felt no tender sentiment for
any human being. Such a woman would, no doubt, watch her own sensations
very keenly, and must have smiled after the appearance of this boy, to
mark how her pulses rose above their ordinary beat. She longed after
him. She felt her cheeks flush with happiness when he came near. Her
eyes greeted him with welcome, and followed him with fond pleasure. “Ah,
if she could have had a son like that, how she would have loved him!”
“Wait,” says Conscience, the dark scoffer mocking within her, “wait,
Beatrix Esmond! You know you will weary of this inclination, as you have
of all. You know, when the passing fancy has subsided, that the boy may
perish, and you won't have a tear for him; or talk, and you weary of
his stories; and that your lot in life is to be lonely--lonely.” Well?
suppose life be a desert? There are halting-places and shades, and
refreshing waters; let us profit by them for to-day. We know that we
must march when to-morrow comes, and tramp on our destiny onward.
She smiled inwardly, whilst following the lad's narrative, to recognise
in his simple tales about his mother, traits of family resemblance.
Madam Esmond was very jealous?--Yes, that Harry owned. She was fond of
Colonel Washington? She liked him, but only as a friend, Harry declared.
A hundred times he had heard his mother vow that she had no other
feeling towards him. He was ashamed to have to own that he himself had
been once absurdly jealous of the Colonel. “Well, you will see that my
half-sister will never forgive him,” said Madam Beatrix. “And you need
not be surprised, sir, at women taking a fancy to men younger than
themselves; for don't I dote upon you; and don't all these Castlewood
people crevent with jealousy?”
However great might be their jealousy of Madame de Bernstein's new
favourite, the family of Castlewood allowed no feeling of illwill to
appear in their language or behaviour to their young guest and
kinsman. After a couple of days' stay in the ancestral house, Mr.
Harry Warrington had become Cousin Harry with young and middle-aged.
Especially in Madame Bernstein's presence, the Countess of Castlewood
was most gracious to her kinsman, and she took many amiable private
opportunities of informing the Baroness how charming the young Huron
was, of vaunting the elegance of his manners and appearance, and
wondering how, in his distant province, the child should ever have
learned to be so polite?
These notes of admiration or interrogation, the Baroness took with
equal complacency (speaking parenthetically, and, for his own part, the
present chronicler cannot help putting in a little respectful remark
here, and signifying his admiration of the conduct of ladies towards one
another, and of the things which they say, which they forbear to say,
and which they say behind each other's backs. With what smiles and
curtseys they stab each other! with what compliments they hate each
other! with what determination of long-suffering they won't be offended!
with what innocent dexterity they can drop the drop of poison into the
cup of conversation, hand round the goblet, smiling, to the whole family
to drink, and make the dear, domestic circle miserable!)--I burst out of
my parenthesis. I fancy my Baroness and Countess smiling at each other
a hundred years ago, and giving each other the hand or the cheek, and
calling each other, My dear, My dear creature, My dear Countess, My dear
Baroness, My dear sister--even, when they were most ready to fight.
“You wonder, my dear Maria, that the boy should be so polite?” cries
Madame de Bernstein. “His mother was bred up by two very perfect
gentlefolks. Colonel Esmond had a certain grave courteousness, and a
grand manner, which I do not see among the gentlemen nowadays.”
“Eh, my dear, we all of us praise our own time! My grandmamma used to
declare there was nothing like Whitehall and Charles the Second.”
“My mother saw King James the Second's court for a short while, and
though not a court-educated person, as you know,--her father was a
country clergyman--yet was exquisitely well-bred. The Colonel, her
second husband, was a person of great travel and experience, as well as
of learning, and had frequented the finest company of Europe. They could
not go into their retreat and leave their good manners behind them, and
our boy has had them as his natural inheritance.”
“Nay, excuse me, my dear, for thinking you too partial about your
mother. She could not have been that perfection which your filial
fondness imagines. She left off liking her daughter--my dear creature,
you have owned that she did--and I cannot fancy a complete woman who has
a cold heart. No, no, my dear sister-in-law! Manners are very requisite,
no doubt, and, for a country parson's daughter, your mamma was very
well--I have seen many of the cloth who are very well. Mr. Sampson, our
chaplain, is very well. Dr. Young is very well. Mr. Dodd is very well;
but they have not the true air--as how should they? I protest, I beg
pardon! I forgot my lord bishop, your ladyship's first choice. But, as I
said before, to be a complete woman, one must have, what you have, what
I may say and bless Heaven for, I think I have--a good heart. Without
the affections, all the world is vanity, my love! I protest I only live,
exist, eat, drink, rest, for my sweet, sweet children!--for my wicked
Willy, for my self-willed Fanny, dear naughty loves!” (She
rapturously kisses a bracelet on each arm which contains the miniature
representations of those two young persons.) “Yes, Mimi! yes, Fanchon!
you know I do, you dear, dear little things! and if they were to die,
or you were to die, your poor mistress would die too!” Mimi and Fanchon,
two quivering Italian greyhounds, jump into their lady's arms, and kiss
her hands, but respect her cheeks, which are covered with rouge. “No,
my dear! For nothing do I bless Heaven so much (though it puts me
to excruciating torture very often) as for having endowed me with
sensibility and a feeling heart!”
“You are full of feeling, dear Anna,” says the Baroness. “You are
celebrated for your sensibility. You must give a little of it to our
American nephew--cousin--I scarce know his relationship.”
“Nay, I am here but as a guest in Castlewood now. The house is my Lord
Castlewood's, not mine, or his lordship's whenever he shall choose to
claim it. What can I do for the young Virginian that has not been done?
He is charming. Are we even jealous of him for being so, my dear? and
though we see what a fancy the Baroness de Bernstein has taken for him,
do your ladyship's nephews and nieces--your real nephews and nieces--cry
out? My poor children might be mortified, for indeed, in a few hours,
the charming young man has made as much way as my poor things have been
able to do in all their lives: but are they angry? Willy hath taken him
out to ride. This morning, was not Maria playing the harpsichord whilst
my Fanny taught him the minuet? 'Twas a charming young group, I assure
you, and it brought tears into my eyes to look at the young creatures.
Poor lad! we are as fond of him as you are, dear Baroness!”
Now, Madame de Bernstein had happened, through her own ears or her
maid's, to overhear what really took place in consequence of this
harmless little scene. Lady Castlewood had come into the room where the
young people were thus engaged in amusing and instructing themselves,
accompanied by her son William, who arrived in his boots from the
kennel.
“Bravi, bravi! Oh, charming!” said the Countess, clapping her hands,
nodding with one of her best smiles to Harry Warrington, and darting a
look at his partner, which my Lady Fanny perfectly understood; and
so, perhaps, did my Lady Maria at her harpsichord, for she played with
redoubled energy, and nodded her waving curls, over the chords.
“Infernal young Choctaw! Is he teaching Fanny the war-dance? and is Fan
going to try her tricks upon him now?” asked Mr. William, whose temper
was not of the best.
And that was what Lady Castlewood's look said to Fanny. “Are you going
to try your tricks upon him now?”
She made Harry a very low curtsey, and he blushed, and they both stopped
dancing, somewhat disconcerted. Lady Maria rose from the harpsichord and
walked away.
“Nay, go on dancing, young people! Don't let me spoil sport, and let me
play for you,” said the Countess; and she sate down to the instrument
and played.
“I don't know how to dance,” says Harry, hanging his head down, with a
blush that the Countess's finest carmine could not equal.
“And Fanny was teaching you? Go on teaching him, dearest Fanny!”
“Go on, do!” says William, with a sidelong growl.
“I--I had rather not show off my awkwardness in company,” adds Harry,
recovering himself. “When I know how to dance a minuet, be sure I will
ask my cousin to walk one with me.”
“That will be very soon, dear Cousin Warrington, I am certain,” remarks
the Countess, with her most gracious air.
“What game is she hunting now?” thinks Mr. William to himself, who
cannot penetrate his mother's ways; and that lady, fondly calling her
daughter to her elbow, leaves the room.
They are no sooner in the tapestried passage leading away to their
own apartment, but Lady Castlewood's bland tone entirely changes. “You
booby!” she begins to her adored Fanny. “You double idiot! What are
you going to do with the Huron? You don't want to marry a creature like
that, and be a squaw in a wigwam?”
“Don't, mamma!” gasps Lady Fanny. Mamma was pinching her ladyship's arm
black-and-blue. “I am sure our cousin is very well,” Fanny whimpers,
“and you said so yourself.”
“Very well! Yes; and heir to a swamp, a negro, a log-cabin and a barrel
of tobacco! My Lady Frances Esmond, do you remember what your ladyship's
rank is, and what your name is, and who was your ladyship's mother,
when, at three days' acquaintance, you commence dancing--a pretty dance,
indeed--with this brat out of Virginia?”
“Mr. Warrington is our cousin,” pleads Lady Fanny.
“A creature come from nobody knows where is not your cousin! How do we
know he is your cousin? He may be a valet who has taken his master's
portmanteau, and run away in his postchaise.”
“But Madame de Bernstein says he is our cousin,” interposes Fanny; “and
he is the image of the Esmonds.”
“Madame de Bernstein has her likes and dislikes, takes up people and
forgets people; and she chooses to profess a mighty fancy for this young
man. Because she likes him to-day, is that any reason why she should
like him to-morrow? Before company, and in your aunt's presence,
your ladyship will please to be as civil to him as necessary; but, in
private, I forbid you to see him or encourage him.”
“I don't care, madam, whether your ladyship forbids me or not!” cries
out Lady Fanny, wrought up to a pitch of revolt.
“Very good, Fanny! then I speak to my lord, and we return to Kensington.
If I can't bring you to reason, your brother will.”
At this juncture the conversation between mother and daughter stopped,
or Madame de Bernstein's informer had no further means of hearing or
reporting it.
It was only in after days that she told Harry Warrington a part of what
she knew. At present he but saw that his kinsfolks received him not
unkindly. Lady Castlewood was perfectly civil to him; the young ladies
pleasant and pleased; my Lord Castlewood, a man of cold and haughty
demeanour, was not more reserved towards Harry than to any of the rest
of the family; Mr. William was ready to drink with him, to ride with
him, to go to races with him, and to play cards with him. When he
proposed to go away, they one and all pressed him to stay. Madame de
Bernstein did not tell him how it arose that he was the object of
such eager hospitality. He did not know what schemes he was serving or
disarranging, whose or what anger he was creating. He fancied he was
welcome because those around him were his kinsmen, and never thought
that those could be his enemies out of whose cup he was drinking, and
whose hand he was pressing every night and morning.