Having her lily handkerchief in token of adieu to the departing
travellers, Mrs. Lambert and her girls watched them pacing leisurely on
the first few hundred yards of their journey, and until such time as a
tree-clumped corner of the road hid them from the ladies' view. Behind
that clump of limes the good matron had many a time watched those she
loved best disappear. Husband departing to battle and danger, sons to
school, each after the other had gone on his way behind yonder green
trees, returning as it pleased Heaven's will at his good time, and
bringing pleasure and love back to the happy little family. Besides
their own instinctive nature (which to be sure aids wonderfully in the
matter), the leisure and contemplation attendant upon their home life
serve to foster the tenderness and fidelity of our women. The men gone,
there is all day to think about them, and to-morrow and to-morrow--when
there certainly will be a letter--and so on. There is the vacant room
to go look at, where the boy slept last night, and the impression of his
carpet bag is still on the bed. There is his whip hung up in the hall,
and his fishing-rod and basket--mute memorials of the brief bygone
pleasures. At dinner there comes up that cherry-tart, half of which
our darling ate at two o'clock in spite of his melancholy, and with a
choking little sister on each side of him. The evening prayer is said
without that young scholar's voice to utter the due responses. Midnight
and silence come, and the good mother lies wakeful, thinking how one of
the dear accustomed brood is away from the nest. Morn breaks, home and
holidays have passed away, and toil and labour have begun for him. So
those rustling limes formed, as it were, a screen between the world and
our ladies of the house at Oakhurst. Kind-hearted Mrs. Lambert always
became silent and thoughtful, if by chance she and her girls walked up
to the trees in the absence of the men of the family. She said she would
like to carve their names up on the grey silvered trunks, in the midst
of true-lovers' knots, as was then the kindly fashion; and Miss Theo,
who had an exceeding elegant turn that way, made some verses regarding
the trees, which her delighted parent transmitted to a periodical of
those days.
“Now we are out of sight of the ladies,” says Colonel Lambert, giving a
parting salute with his hat, as the pair of gentlemen trotted past the
limes in question. “I know my wife always watches at her window until we
are round this corner. I hope we shall have you seeing the trees and the
house again, Mr. Warrington; and the boys being at home, mayhap there
will be better sport for you.”
“I never want to be happier, sir, than I have been,” replied Mr.
Warrington; “and I hope you will let me say, that I feel as if I am
leaving quite old friends behind me.”
“The friend at whose house we shall sup to-night hath a son, who is
an old friend of our family, too; and my wife, who is an inveterate
marriage-monger, would have made a match between him and one of my
girls, but that the Colonel hath chosen to fall in love with somebody
else.”
“Ah!” sighed Mr. Warrington.
“Other folks have done the same thing. There were brave fellows before
Agamemnon.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. Is the gentleman's name--Aga----? I did not
quite gather it,” meekly inquired the young traveller.
“No, his name is James Wolfe,” cried the Colonel, smiling. “He is a
young fellow still, or what we call so, being scarce thirty years old.
He is the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the army, unless, to be sure,
we except a few scores of our nobility, who take rank before us common
folk.”
“Of course of course!” says the Colonel's young companion with true
colonial notions of aristocratic precedence.
“And I have seen him commanding captains, and very brave captains, who
were thirty years his seniors, and who had neither his merit nor his
good fortune. But, lucky as he hath been, no one envies his superiority,
for, indeed, most of us acknowledge that he is our superior. He is
beloved by every man of our old regiment and knows every one of them. He
is a good scholar as well as a consummate soldier, and a master of many
languages.”
“Ah, sir!” said Harry Warrington, with a sigh of great humility; “I feel
that I have neglected my own youth sadly; and am come to England but an
ignoramus. Had my dear brother been alive, he would have represented our
name and our colony, too, better than I can do. George was a scholar;
George was a musician; George could talk with the most learned people
in our country, and I make no doubt would have held his own here. Do you
know, sir, I am glad to have come home, and to you especially, if but to
learn how ignorant I am.”
“If you know that well, 'tis a great gain already,” said the Colonel,
with a smile.
“At home, especially of late, and since we lost my brother, I used to
think myself a mighty fine fellow, and have no doubt that the folks
round about flattered me. I am wiser now,--that is, I hope I am,--though
perhaps I am wrong, and only bragging again. But you see, sir, the
gentry in our colony don't know very much, except about dogs and horses,
and betting and games. I wish I knew more about books, and less about
them.”
“Nay. Dogs and horses are very good books, too, in their way, and we may
read a deal of truth out of 'em. Some men are not made to be scholars,
and may be very worthy citizens and gentlemen in spite of their
ignorance. What call have all of us to be especially learned or wise, or
to take a first place in the world? His Royal Highness is commander, and
Martin Lambert is colonel, and Jack Hunt, who rides behind yonder, was a
private soldier, and is now a very honest, worthy groom. So as we all
do our best in our station, it matters not much whether that be high
or low. Nay, how do we know what is high and what is low? and whether
Jack's currycomb, or my epaulets, or his Royal Highness's baton, may
not turn out to be pretty equal? When I began life, et militavi non
sine--never mind what--I dreamed of success and honour; now I think of
duty, and yonder folks, from whom we parted a few hours ago. Let us trot
on, else we shall not reach Westerham before nightfall.”
At Westerham the two friends were welcomed by their hosts, a stately
matron, an old soldier, whose recollections and services were of
five-and-forty years back, and the son of this gentleman and lady, the
Lieutenant-Colonel of Kingsley's regiment, that was then stationed at
Maidstone, whence the Colonel had come over on a brief visit to his
parents. Harry looked with some curiosity at this officer, who, young
as he was, had seen so much service, and obtained a character so high.
There was little of the beautiful in his face. He was very lean and very
pale; his hair was red, his nose and cheek-bones were high; but he had
a fine courtesy towards his elders, a cordial greeting towards his
friends, and an animation in conversation which caused those who heard
him to forget, even to admire, his homely looks.
Mr. Warrington was going to Tunbridge? Their James would bear him
company, the lady of the house said, and whispered something to Colonel
Lambert at supper, which occasioned smiles and a knowing wink or two
from that officer. He called for wine, and toasted “Miss Lowther.” “With
all my heart,” cried the enthusiastic Colonel James, and drained his
glass to the very last drop. Mamma whispered her friend how James and
the lady were going to make a match, and how she came of the famous
Lowther family of the North.
“If she was the daughter of King Charlemagne,” cries Lambert, “she is
not too good for James Wolfe, or for his mother's son.”
“Mr. Lambert would not say so if he knew her,” the young Colonel
declared.
“Oh, of course, she is the priceless pearl, and you are nothing,” cries
mamma. “No. I am of Colonel Lambert's opinion; and, if she brought all
Cumberland to you for a jointure, I should say it was my James's due.
That is the way with 'em, Mr. Warrington. We tend our children through
fevers, and measles, and whooping-cough, and small-pox; we send them to
the army and can't sleep at night for thinking; we break our hearts at
parting with 'em, and have them at home only for a week or two in the
year, or maybe ten years, and, after all our care, there comes a lass
with a pair of bright eyes, and away goes our boy, and never cares a fig
for us afterwards.”
“And pray, my dear, how did you come to marry James's papa?” said
the elder Colonel Wolfe. “And why didn't you stay at home with your
parents?”
“Because James's papa was gouty, and wanted somebody to take care of
him, I suppose; not because I liked him a bit,” answers the lady: and so
with much easy talk and kindness the evening passed away.
On the morrow, and with many expressions of kindness and friendship for
his late guest, Colonel Lambert gave over the young Virginian to Mr.
Wolfe's charge, and turned his horse's head homewards, while the two
gentlemen sped towards Tunbridge Wells. Wolfe was in a hurry to reach
the place, Harry Warrington was, perhaps, not quite so eager: nay, when
Lambert rode towards his own home, Harry's thoughts followed him with
a great deal of longing desire to the parlour at Oakhurst, where he
had spent three days in happy calm. Mr. Wolfe agreed in all Harry's
enthusiastic praises of Mr. Lambert, and of his wife, and of his
daughters, and of all that excellent family. “To have such a good name,
and to live such a life as Colonel Lambert's,” said Wolfe, “seem to me
now the height of human ambition.”
“And glory and honour?” asked Warrington, “are those nothing? and would
you give up the winning of them?”
“They were my dreams once,” answered the Colonel, who had now different
ideas of happiness, “and now my desires are much more tranquil. I have
followed arms ever since I was fourteen years of age. I have seen almost
every kind of duty connected with my calling. I know all the garrison
towns in this country, and have had the honour to serve wherever there
has been work to be done during the last ten years. I have done pretty
near the whole of a soldier's duty, except, indeed, the command of
an army, which can hardly be hoped for by one of my years; and now,
methinks, I would like quiet, books to read, a wife to love me, and some
children to dandle on my knee. I have imagined some such Elysium for
myself, Mr. Warrington. True love is better than glory; and a tranquil
fireside, with the woman of your heart seated by it, the greatest good
the gods can send to us.”
Harry imagined to himself the picture which his comrade called up. He
said “Yes,” in answer to the other's remark; but, no doubt, did not give
a very cheerful assent, for his companion observed upon the expression
of his face.
“You say 'Yes' as if a fireside and a sweetheart were not particularly
to your taste.”
“Why, look you, Colonel, there are other things which a young fellow
might like to enjoy. You have had sixteen years of the world: and I am
but a few months away from my mother's apron-strings. When I have seen
a campaign or two, or six, as you have: when I have distinguished myself
like Mr. Wolfe, and made the world talk of me, I then may think of
retiring from it.”
To these remarks, Mr. Wolfe, whose heart was full of a very different
matter, replied by breaking out in a further encomium of the joys of
marriage; and a special rhapsody upon the beauties and merits of his
mistress--a theme intensely interesting to himself, though not so,
possibly, to his hearer, whose views regarding a married life, if
he permitted himself to entertain any, were somewhat melancholy and
despondent. A pleasant afternoon brought them to the end of their ride;
nor did any accident or incident accompany it, save, perhaps, a mistake
which Harry Warrington made at some few miles' distance from Tunbridge
Wells, where two horsemen stopped them, whom Harry was for charging,
pistol in hand, supposing them to be highwaymen. Colonel Wolfe,
laughing, bade Mr. Warrington reserve his fire, for these folks were
only innkeepers' agents, and not robbers (except in their calling).
Gumbo, whose horse ran away with him at this particular juncture, was
brought back after a great deal of bawling on his master's part, and the
two gentlemen rode into the little town, alighted at their inn, and then
separated, each in quest of the ladies whom he had come to visit.
Mr. Warrington found his aunt installed in handsome lodgings, with a
guard of London lacqueys in her anteroom, and to follow her chair when
she went abroad. She received him with the utmost kindness. His cousin,
my Lady Maria, was absent when he arrived: I don't know whether the
young gentleman was unhappy at not seeing her: or whether he disguised
his feelings, or whether Madame de Bernstein took any note regarding
them.
A beau in a rich figured suit, the first specimen of the kind Harry had
seen, and two dowagers with voluminous hoops and plenty of rouge, were
on a visit to the Baroness when her nephew made his bow to her. She
introduced the young man to these personages as her nephew, the young
Croesus out of Virginia, of whom they had heard. She talked about the
immensity of his estate, which was as large as Kent; and, as she had
read, infinitely more fruitful. She mentioned how her half-sister, Madam
Esmond, was called Princess Pocahontas in her own country. She never
tired in her praises of mother and son, of their riches and their good
qualities. The beau shook the young man by the hand, and was delighted
to have the honour to make his acquaintance. The ladies praised him
to his aunt so loudly that the modest youth was fain to blush at their
compliments. They went away to inform the Tunbridge society of the news
of his arrival. The little place was soon buzzing with accounts of the
wealth, the good breeding, and the good looks of the Virginian.
“You could not have come at a better moment, my dear,” the Baroness said
to her nephew, as her visitors departed with many curtseys and congees.
“Those three individuals have the most active tongues in the Wells. They
will trumpet your good qualities in every company where they go. I have
introduced you to a hundred people already, and, Heaven help me! have
told all sorts of fibs about the geography of Virginia in order to
describe your estate. It is a prodigious large one, but I am afraid I
have magnified it. I have filled it with all sorts of wonderful animals,
gold mines, spices; I am not sure I have not said diamonds. As for
your negroes, I have given your mother armies of them, and, in fact,
represented her as a sovereign princess reigning over a magnificent
dominion. So she has a magnificent dominion: I cannot tell to a few
hundred thousand pounds how much her yearly income is, but I have no
doubt it is a very great one. And you must prepare, sir, to be treated
here as the heir-apparent of this royal lady. Do not let your head be
turned. From this day forth you are going to be flattered as you have
never been flattered in your life.”
“And to what end, ma'am?” asked the young gentleman. “I see no reason
why I should be reputed so rich, or get so much flattery.”
“In the first place, sir, you must not contradict your old aunt, who
has no desire to be made a fool of before her company. And as for your
reputation, you must know we found it here almost ready-made on our
arrival. A London newspaper has somehow heard of you, and come out with
a story of the immense wealth of a young gentleman from Virginia lately
landed, and a nephew of my Lord Castlewood. Immensely wealthy you are,
and can't help yourself. All the world is eager to see you. You shall
go to church to-morrow morning, and see how the whole congregation will
turn away from its books and prayers, to worship the golden calf in your
person. You would not have had me undeceive them, would you, and speak
ill of my own flesh and blood?”
“But how am I bettered by this reputation for money?” asked Harry.
“You are making your entry into the world, and the gold key will open
most of its doors to you. To be thought rich is as good as to be rich.
You need not spend much money. People will say that you hoard it, and
your reputation for avarice will do you good rather than harm. You'll
see how the mothers will smile upon you, and the daughters will curtsey!
Don't look surprised! When I was a young woman myself I did as all
the rest of the world did, and tried to better myself by more than one
desperate attempt at a good marriage. Your poor grandmother, who was a
saint upon earth to be sure, bating a little jealousy, used to scold me,
and called me worldly. Worldly, my dear! So is the world worldly; and
we must serve it as it serves us; and give it nothing for nothing. Mr.
Henry Esmond Warrington--I can't help loving the two first names, sir,
old woman as I am, and that I tell you--on coming here or to London,
would have been nobody. Our protection would have helped him but little.
Our family has little credit, and, entre nous, not much reputation. I
suppose you know that Castlewood was more than suspected in '45, and
hath since ruined himself by play?”
Harry had never heard about Lord Castlewood or his reputation.
“He never had much to lose, but he has lost that and more: his wretched
estate is eaten up with mortgages. He has been at all sorts of schemes
to raise money:--my dear, he has been so desperate at times, that I did
not think my diamonds were safe with him; and have travelled to and from
Castlewood without them. Terrible, isn't it, to speak so of one's own
nephew? But you are my nephew, too, and not spoiled by the world yet,
and I wish to warn you of its wickedness. I heard of your play-doings
with Will and the chaplain, but they could do you no harm,--nay, I am
told you had the better of them. Had you played with Castlewood, you
would have had no such luck: and you would have played, had not an old
aunt of yours warned my Lord Castlewood to keep his hands off you.”
“What, ma'am, did you interfere to preserve me?”
“I kept his clutches off from you: be thankful that you are come out of
that ogre's den with any flesh on your bones! My dear, it has been the
rage and passion of all our family. My poor silly brother played; both
his wives played, especially the last one, who has little else to live
upon now but her nightly assemblies in London, and the money for the
cards. I would not trust her at Castlewood alone with you: the passion
is too strong for them, and they would fall upon you, and fleece you;
and then fall upon each other, and fight for the plunder. But for his
place about the Court my poor nephew hath nothing, and that is Will's
fortune, too, sir, and Maria's and her sister's.”
“And are they, too, fond of the cards?”
“No; to do poor Molly justice, gaming is not her passion: but when she
is amongst them in London, little Fanny will bet her eyes out of her
head. I know what the passion is, sir: do not look so astonished; I have
had it, as I had the measles when I was a child. I am not cured quite.
For a poor old woman there is nothing left but that. You will see some
high play at my card-tables to-night. Hush! my dear. It was that I
wanted, and without which I moped so at Castlewood! I could not win of
my nieces or their mother. They would not pay if they lost. 'Tis best to
warn you, my dear, in time, lest you should be shocked by the discovery.
I can't live without the cards, there's the truth!”
A few days before, and while staying with his Castlewood relatives,
Harry, who loved cards, and cock-fighting, and betting, and every
conceivable sport himself, would have laughed very likely at this
confession. Amongst that family into whose society he had fallen, many
things were laughed at, over which some folks looked grave. Faith and
honour were laughed at; pure lives were disbelieved; selfishness was
proclaimed as common practice; sacred duties were sneeringly spoken of,
and vice flippantly condoned. These were no Pharisees: they professed no
hypocrisy of virtue, they flung no stones at discovered sinners:--they
smiled, shrugged their shoulders, and passed on. The members of this
family did not pretend to be a whit better than their neighbours, whom
they despised heartily; they lived quite familiarly with the folks about
whom and whose wives they told such wicked, funny stories; they took
their share of what pleasure or plunder came to hand, and lived from day
to day till their last day came for them. Of course there are no such
people now; and human nature is very much changed in the last hundred
years. At any rate, card-playing is greatly out of mode: about that
there can be no doubt: and very likely there are not six ladies of
fashion in London who know the difference between Spadille and Manille.
“How dreadfully dull you must have found those humdrum people at that
village where we left you--but the savages were very kind to you,
child!” said Madame de Bernstein, patting the young man's cheek with her
pretty old hand.
“They were very kind; and it was not at all dull, ma'am, and I think
they are some of the best people in the world,” said Harry, with his
face flushing up. His aunt's tone jarred upon him. He could not bear
that any one should speak or think lightly of the new friends whom he
had found. He did not want them in such company.
The old lady, imperious and prompt to anger, was about to resent the
check she had received, but a second thought made her pause. “Those two
girls,” she thought, “a sick-bed--an interesting stranger--of course
he has been falling in love with one of them.” Madame Bernstein looked
round with a mischievous glance at Lady Maria, who entered the room at
this juncture.