Sinking into a sweet slumber, and lulled by those harmonious sounds, our
young patient passed a night of pleasant unconsciousness, and awoke in
the morning to find a summer sun streaming in at the window, and his
kind host and hostess smiling at his bed-curtains. He was ravenously
hungry, and his doctor permitted him straightway to partake of a mess of
chicken, which the doctor's wife told him had been prepared by the hands
of one of her daughters.
One of her daughters? A faint image of a young person--of two young
persons--with red cheeks and black waving locks, smiling round his
couch, and suddenly departing thence, soon after he had come to
himself, arose in the young man's mind. Then, then, there returned the
remembrance of a female--lovely, it is true, but more elderly--certainly
considerably older--and with f----. Oh, horror and remorse! He writhed
with anguish, as a certain recollection crossed him. An immense gulf of
time gaped between him and the past. How long was it since he had heard
that those pearls were artificial,--that those golden locks were only
pinchbeck? A long, long time ago, when he was a boy, an innocent boy.
Now he was a man,--quite an old man. He had been bled copiously; he had
a little fever; he had had nothing to eat for very many hours; he had a
sleeping-draught, and a long, deep slumber after.
“What is it, my dear child?” cries kind Mrs. Lambert, as he started.
“Nothing, madam; a twinge in my shoulder,” said the lad. “I speak to my
host and hostess? Sure you have been very kind to me.”
“We are old friends, Mr. Warrington. My husband, Colonel Lambert,
knew your father, and I and your mamma were schoolgirls together at
Kensington. You were no stranger to us when your aunt and cousin told us
who you were.”
“Are they here?” asked Harry, looking a little blank.
“They must have lain at Tunbridge Wells last night. They sent a horseman
from Reigate yesterday for news of you.”
“Ah! I remember,” says Harry, looking at his bandaged arm.
“I have made a good cure of you, Mr. Warrington. And now Mrs. Lambert
and the cook must take charge of you.”
“Nay; Theo prepared the chicken and rice, Mr. Lambert,” said the lady.
“Will Mr. Warrington get up after he has had his breakfast? We will send
your valet to you.”
“If howling proves fidelity, your man must be a most fond, attached
creature,” says Mr. Lambert.
“He let your baggage travel off after all in your aunt's carriage,” said
Mrs. Lambert. “You must wear my husband's linen, which, I dare say, is
not so fine as yours.”
“Pish, my dear! my shirts are good shirts enough for any Christian,”
cries the Colonel.
“They are Theo's and Hester's work,” says mamma. At which her husband
arches his eyebrows and looks at her. “And Theo hath ripped and sewed
your sleeve to make it quite comfortable for your shoulder,” the lady
added.
“What beautiful roses!” cries Harry, looking at a fine China vase full
of them that stood on the toilet-table, under the japan-framed glass.
“My daughter Theo cut them this morning. Well, Mr. Lambert? She did cut
them!”
I suppose the Colonel was thinking that his wife introduced Theo too
much into the conversation, and trod on Mrs. Lambert's slipper, or
pulled her robe, or otherwise nudged her into a sense of propriety.
“And I fancied I heard some one singing the Evening Hymn very sweetly
last night--or was it only a dream?” asked the young patient.
“Theo again, Mr. Warrington!” said the Colonel, laughing. “My servants
said your negro man began to sing it in the kitchen as if he was a
church organ.”
“Our people sing it at home, sir. My grandpapa used to love it very
much. His wife's father was a great friend of good Bishop Ken, who wrote
it; and--and my dear brother used to love it too;” said the boy, his
voice dropping.
It was then, I suppose, that Mrs. Lambert felt inclined to give the boy
a kiss. His little accident, illness and recovery, the kindness of
the people round about him, had softened Harry Warrington's heart, and
opened it to better influences than those which had been brought to bear
on it for some six weeks past. He was breathing a purer air than that
tainted atmosphere of selfishness, and worldliness, and corruption, into
which he had been plunged since his arrival in England. Sometimes the
young man's fate, or choice, or weakness, leads him into the fellowship
of the giddy and vain; happy he, whose lot makes him acquainted with
the wiser company, whose lamps are trimmed, and whose pure hearts keep
modest watch.
The pleased matron left her young patient devouring Miss Theo's mess of
rice and chicken, and the Colonel seated by the lad's bedside. Gratitude
to his hospitable entertainers, and contentment after a comfortable
meal, caused in Mr. Warrington a very pleasant condition of mind and
body. He was ready to talk now more freely than usually was his custom;
for, unless excited by a strong interest or emotion, the young man was
commonly taciturn and cautious in his converse with his fellows, and was
by no means of an imaginative turn. Of books our youth had been but a
very remiss student, nor were his remarks on such simple works as he
had read, very profound or valuable; but regarding dogs, horses, and
the ordinary business of life, he was a far better critic; and, with any
person interested in such subjects, conversed on them freely enough.
Harry's host, who had considerable shrewdness, and experience of books,
and cattle, and men, was pretty soon able to take the measure of his
young guest in the talk which they now had together. It was now, for the
first time, the Virginian learned that Mrs. Lambert had been an early
friend of his mother's, and that the Colonel's own father had served
with Harry's grandfather, Colonel Esmond, in the famous wars of Queen
Anne. He found himself in a friend's country. He was soon at ease with
his honest host, whose manners were quite simple and cordial, and who
looked and seemed perfectly a gentleman, though he wore a plain fustian
coat, and a waistcoat without a particle of lace.
“My boys are both away,” said Harry's host, “or they would have shown
you the country when you got up, Mr. Warrington. Now you can only have
the company of my wife and her daughters. Mrs. Lambert hath told you
already about one of them, Theo, our eldest, who made your broth, who
cut your roses, and who mended your coat. She is not such a wonder
as her mother imagines her to be: but little Theo is a smart little
housekeeper, and a very good and cheerful lass, though her father says
it.”
“It is very kind of Miss Lambert to take so much care for me,” says the
young patient.
“She is no kinder to you than to any other mortal, and doth but her
duty.” Here the Colonel smiled. “I laugh at their mother for praising
our children,” he said, “and I think I am as foolish about them myself.
The truth is, God hath given us very good and dutiful children, and I
see no reason why I should disguise my thankfulness for such a blessing.
You have never a sister, I think?”
“No, sir, I am alone now,” Mr. Warrington said.
“Ay, truly, I ask your pardon for my thoughtlessness. Your man hath told
our people what befell last year. I served with Braddock in Scotland;
and hope he mended before he died. A wild fellow, sir, but there was
a fund of truth about the man, and no little kindness under his rough
swaggering manner. Your black fellow talks very freely about his master
and his affairs. I suppose you permit him these freedoms as he rescued
you----”
“Rescued me?” cries Mr. Warrington.
“From ever so many Indians on that very expedition. My Molly and I did
not know we were going to entertain so prodigiously wealthy a gentleman.
He saith that half Virginia belongs to you; but if the whole of North
America were yours, we could but give you our best.”
“Those negro boys, sir, lie like the father of all lies. They think it
is for our honour to represent us as ten times as rich as we are. My
mother has what would be a vast estate in England, and is a very good
one at home. We are as well off as most of our neighbours, sir, but no
better; and all our splendour is in Mr. Gumbo's foolish imagination. He
never rescued me from an Indian in his life, and would run away at the
sight of one, as my poor brother's boy did on that fatal day when he
fell.”
“The bravest man will do so at unlucky times,” said the Colonel. “I
myself saw the best troops in the world run at Preston, before a ragged
mob of Highland savages.”
“That was because the Highlanders fought for a good cause, sir.”
“Do you think,” asks Harry's host, “that the French Indians had the good
cause in the fight of last year?”
“The scoundrels! I would have the scalp of every murderous redskin among
'em!” cried Harry, clenching his fist. “They were robbing and invading
the British territories, too. But the Highlanders were fighting for
their king.”
“We, on our side, were fighting for our king; and we ended by winning
the battle,” said the Colonel, laughing.
“Ah!” cried Harry; “if his Royal Highness the Prince had not turned back
at Derby, your king and mine, now, would be his Majesty King James the
Third!”
“Who made such a Tory of you, Mr. Warrington?” asked Lambert.
“Nay, sir, the Esmonds were always loyal!” answered the youth. “Had we
lived at home, and twenty years sooner, brother and I often and often
agreed that our heads would have been in danger. We certainly would have
staked them for the king's cause.”
“Yours is better on your shoulders than on a pole at Temple Bar. I have
seen them there, and they don't look very pleasant, Mr. Warrington.”
“I shall take off my hat, and salute them, whenever I pass the gate,”
cried the young man, “if the king and the whole court are standing by!”
“I doubt whether your relative, my Lord Castlewood, is as staunch a
supporter of the king over the water,” said Colonel Lambert, smiling:
“or your aunt, the Baroness of Bernstein, who left you in our charge.
Whatever her old partialities may have been, she has repented of them;
she has rallied to our side, landed her nephews in the Household,
and looks to find a suitable match for her nieces. If you have Tory
opinions, Mr. Warrington, take an old soldier's advice, and keep them to
yourself.”
“Why, sir, I do not think that you will betray me!” said the boy.
“Not I, but others might. You did not talk in this way at Castlewood? I
mean the old Castlewood which you have just come from.”
“I might be safe amongst my own kinsmen, surely, sir!” cried Harry.
“Doubtless. I would not say no. But a man's own kinsmen can play him
slippery tricks at times, and he finds himself none the better for
trusting them. I mean no offence to you or any of your family; but
lacqueys have ears as well as their masters, and they carry about all
sorts of stories. For instance, your black fellow is ready to tell all
he knows about you, and a great deal more besides, as it would appear.”
“Hath he told about the broken-kneed horse?” cried out Harry, turning
very red.
“To say truth, my groom seemed to know something of the story, and said
it was a shame a gentleman should sell another such a brute; let alone
a cousin. I am not here to play the Mentor to you, or to carry about
servants' tittle-tattle. When you have seen more of your cousins, you
will form your own opinion of them; meanwhile, take an old soldier's
advice, I say again, and be cautious with whom you deal, and what you
say.”
Very soon after this little colloquy, Mr. Lambert's guest rose, with the
assistance of Gumbo, his valet, to whom he, for the hundredth time at
least, promised a sound caning if ever he should hear that Gumbo had
ventured to talk about his affairs again in the servants'-hall,--which
prohibition Gumbo solemnly vowed and declared he would for ever obey;
but I dare say he was chattering the whole of the Castlewood secrets
to his new friends of Colonel Lambert's kitchen; for Harry's hostess
certainly heard a number of stories concerning him which she could
not prevent her housekeeper from telling; though of course I would not
accuse that worthy lady, or any of her sex or ours, of undue curiosity
regarding their neighbours' affairs. But how can you prevent servants
talking, or listening when the faithful attached creatures talk to you?
Mr. Lambert's house stood on the outskirts of the little town of
Oakhurst, which, if he but travels in the right direction, the patient
reader will find on the road between Farnham and Reigate,--and Madame
Bernstein's servants naturally pulled at the first bell at hand, when
the young Virginian met with his mishap. A few hundred yards farther,
was the long street of the little old town, where hospitality might have
been found under the great swinging ensigns of a couple of tuns, and
medical relief was to be had, as a blazing gilt pestle and mortar
indicated. But what surgeon could have ministered more cleverly to
a patient than Harry's host, who tended him without a fee, or what
Boniface could make him more comfortably welcome?
Two tall gates, each surmounted by a couple of heraldic monsters, led
from the highroad up to a neat, broad stone terrace, whereon stood
Oakhurst House; a square brick building, with windows faced with stone,
and many high chimneys, and a tall roof surmounted by a fair balustrade.
Behind the house stretched a large garden, where there was plenty of
room for cabbages as well as roses to grow; and before the mansion,
separated from it by the highroad, was a field of many acres, where the
Colonel's cows and horses were at grass. Over the centre window was a
carved shield supported by the same monsters who pranced or ramped upon
the entrance-gates; and a coronet over the shield. The fact is, that the
house had been originally the jointure-house of Oakhurst Castle, which
stood hard by,--its chimneys and turrets appearing over the surrounding
woods, now bronzed with the darkest foliage of summer. Mr. Lambert's
was the greatest house in Oakhurst town; but the Castle was of
more importance than all the town put together. The Castle and the
jointure-house had been friends of many years' date. Their fathers had
fought side by side in Queen Anne's wars. There were two small pieces
of ordnance on the terrace of the jointure-house, and six before the
Castle, which had been taken out of the same privateer, which Mr.
Lambert and his kinsman and commander, Lord Wrotham, had brought into
Harwich in one of their voyages home from Flanders with despatches from
the great Duke.
His toilet completed with Mr. Gumbo's aid, his fair hair neatly dressed
by that artist, and his open ribboned sleeve and wounded shoulder
supported by a handkerchief which hung from his neck, Harry Warrington
made his way out of the sick-chamber, preceded by his kind host, who
led him first down a broad oak stair, round which hung many pikes and
muskets of ancient shape, and so into a square marble-paved room, from
which the living-rooms of the house branched off. There were more arms
in this hall-pikes and halberts of ancient date, pistols and jack-boots
of more than a century old, that had done service in Cromwell's wars,
a tattered French guidon which had been borne by a French gendarme at
Malplaquet, and a pair of cumbrous Highland broadswords, which, having
been carried as far as Derby, had been flung away on the fatal field of
Culloden. Here were breastplates and black morions of Oliver's troopers,
and portraits of stern warriors in buff jerkins and plain bands and
short hair. “They fought against your grandfathers and King Charles, Mr.
Warrington,” said Harry's host. “I don't hide that. They rode to join
the Prince of Orange at Exeter. We were Whigs, young gentleman, and
something more. John Lambert, the Major-General, was a kinsman of our
house, and we were all more or less partial to short hair and long
sermons. You do not seem to like either?” Indeed, Harry's face
manifested signs of anything but pleasure whilst he examined the
portraits of the Parliamentary heroes. “Be not alarmed, we are very
good Churchmen now. My eldest son will be in orders ere long. He is now
travelling as governor to my Lord Wrotham's son in Italy, and as for our
women, they are all for the Church, and carry me with 'em. Every woman
is a Tory at heart. Mr. Pope says a rake, but I think t'other is the
more charitable word. Come, let us go see them,” and, flinging open
the dark oak door, Colonel Lambert led his young guest into the parlour
where the ladies were assembled.
“Here is Miss Hester,” said the Colonel, “and this is Miss Theo, the
soup-maker, the tailoress, the harpsichord-player, and the songstress,
who set you to sleep last night. Make a curtsey to the gentleman, young
ladies! Oh, I forgot, and Theo is the mistress of the roses which you
admired a short while since in your bedroom. I think she has kept some
of them in her cheeks.”
In fact, Miss Theo was making a profound curtsey and blushing
most modestly as her papa spoke. I am not going to describe her
person,--though we shall see a great deal of her in the course of this
history. She was not a particular beauty. Harry Warrington was not over
head and ears in love with her at an instant's warning, and faithless
to--to that other individual with whom, as we have seen, the youth had
lately been smitten. Miss Theo had kind eyes and a sweet voice; a ruddy
freckled cheek and a round white neck, on which, out of a little cap
such as misses wore in those times, fell rich curling clusters of dark
brown hair. She was not a delicate or sentimental-looking person. Her
arms, which were worn bare from the elbow like other ladies' arms in
those days, were very jolly and red. Her feet were not so miraculously
small but that you could see them without a telescope. There was nothing
waspish about her waist. This young person was sixteen years of age, and
looked older. I don't know what call she had to blush so when she made
her curtsey to the stranger. It was such a deep ceremonial curtsey as
you never see at present. She and her sister both made these “cheeses”
in compliment to the new comer, and with much stately agility.
As Miss Theo rose up out of this salute, her papa tapped her under the
chin (which was of the double sort of chins), and laughingly hummed out
the line which he had read the day. “Eh bien! que dites-vous, ma fille,
de notre hote?”
“Nonsense, Mr. Lambert!” cries mamma.
“Nonsense is sometimes the best kind of sense in the world,” said
Colonel Lambert. His guest looked puzzled.
“Are you fond of nonsense?” the Colonel continued to Harry, seeing by
the boy's face that the latter had no great love or comprehension of his
favourite humour. “We consume a vast deal of it in this house.
Rabelais is my favourite reading. My wife is all for Mr. Fielding and
Theophrastus. I think Theo prefers Tom Brown, and Mrs. Hetty here loves
Dean Swift.”
“Our papa is talking what he loves,” says Miss Hetty.
“And what is that, miss?” asks the father of his second daughter.
“Sure, sir, you said yourself it was nonsense,” answers the young lady,
with a saucy toss of her head.
“Which of them do you like best, Mr. Warrington?” asked the honest
Colonel.
“Which of whom, sir?”
“The Curate of Meudon, or the Dean of St. Patrick's, or honest Tom, or
Mr. Fielding?”
“And what were they, sir?”
“They! Why, they wrote books.”
“Indeed, sir. I never heard of either one of 'em,” said Harry, hanging
down his head. “I fear my book-learning was neglected at home, sir. My
brother had read every book that ever was wrote, I think. He could have
talked to you about 'em for hours together.”
With this little speech Mrs. Lambert's eyes turned to her daughter, and
Miss Theo cast hers down and blushed.
“Never mind, honesty is better than books any day, Mr. Warrington!”
cried the jolly Colonel. “You may go through the world very honourably
without reading any of the books I have been talking of, and some of
them might give you more pleasure than profit.”
“I know more about horses and dogs than Greek and Latin, sir. We most of
us do in Virginia,” said Mr. Warrington.
“You are like the Persians; you can ride and speak the truth.”
“Are the Prussians very good on horseback, sir? I hope I shall see their
king and a campaign or two, either with 'em or against 'em,” remarked
Colonel Lambert's guest. Why did Miss Theo look at her mother, and why
did that good woman's face assume a sad expression?
Why? Because young lasses are bred in humdrum country towns, do you
suppose they never indulge in romances? Because they are modest and have
never quitted mother's apron, do you suppose they have no thoughts of
their own? What happens in spite of all those precautions which the
King and Queen take for their darling princess, those dragons, and
that impenetrable forest, and that castle of steel? The fairy prince
penetrates the impenetrable forest, finds the weak point in the dragon's
scale armour, and gets the better of all the ogres who guard the castle
of steel. Away goes the princess to him. She knew him at once. Her
bandboxes and portmanteaux are filled with her best clothes and all her
jewels. She has been ready ever so long.
That is in fairy tales, you understand--where the blessed hour and youth
always arrive, the ivory horn is blown at the castle gate; and far off
in her beauteous bower the princess hears it, and starts up, and knows
that there is the right champion. He is always ready. Look! how the
giants' heads tumble off as, falchion in hand, he gallops over the
bridge on his white charger! How should that virgin, locked up in that
inaccessible fortress, where she has never seen any man that was not
eighty, or humpbacked, or her father, know that there were such beings
in the world as young men? I suppose there's an instinct. I suppose
there's a season. I never spoke for my part to a fairy princess, or
heard as much from any unenchanted or enchanting maiden. Ne'er a one
of them has ever whispered her pretty little secrets to me, or perhaps
confessed them to herself, her mamma, or her nearest and dearest
confidante. But they will fall in love. Their little hearts are
constantly throbbing at the window of expectancy on the lookout for the
champion. They are always hearing his horn. They are for ever on the
tower looking out for the hero. Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see him?
Surely 'tis a knight with curling mustachios, a flashing scimitar, and a
suit of silver armour. Oh no! it is only a costermonger with his donkey
and a pannier of cabbage! Sister Ann, Sister Ann, what is that cloud of
dust? Oh, it is only a farmer's man driving a flock of pigs from market.
Sister Ann, Sister Ann, who is that splendid warrior advancing in
scarlet and gold? He nears the castle, he clears the drawbridge, he
lifts the ponderous hammer at the gate. Ah me, he knocks twice! 'Tis
only the postman with a double letter from Northamptonshire! So it is we
make false starts in life. I don't believe there is any such thing known
as first love--not within man's or woman's memory. No male or female
remembers his or her first inclination any more than his or her own
christening. What? You fancy that your sweet mistress, your spotless
spinster, your blank maiden just out of the schoolroom, never cared
for any but you? And she tells you so? Oh, you idiot! When she was four
years old she had a tender feeling towards the Buttons who brought the
coals up to the nursery, or the little sweep at the crossing, or the
music-master, or never mind whom. She had a secret longing towards
her brother's schoolfellow, or the third charity boy at church, and
if occasion had served, the comedy enacted with you had been performed
along with another. I do not mean to say that she confessed this amatory
sentiment, but that she had it. Lay down this page, and think how
many and many and many a time you were in love before you selected the
present Mrs. Jones as the partner of your name and affections!
So, from the way in which Theo held her head down, and exchanged looks
with her mother, when poor unconscious Harry called the Persians the
Prussians, and talked of serving a campaign with them, I make no doubt
she was feeling ashamed, and thinking within herself, “Is this the hero
with whom my mamma and I have been in love for these twenty-four hours,
and whom we have endowed with every perfection? How beautiful, pale, and
graceful he looked yesterday as he lay on the ground! How his curls fell
over his face! How sad it was to see his poor white arm, and the blood
trickling from it when papa bled him! And now he is well and amongst us,
he is handsome certainly, but oh, is it possible he is--he is stupid?”
When she lighted the lamp and looked at him, did Psyche find Cupid out;
and is that the meaning of the old allegory? The wings of love drop
off at this discovery. The fancy can no more soar and disport in skyey
regions, the beloved object ceases at once to be celestial, and remains
plodding on earth, entirely unromantic and substantial.