“My dear Lord March” (wrote Mr. Warrington from Tunbridge Wells, on
Saturday morning, the 25th August, 1756): “This is to inform you (with
satisfaction) that I have one all our three betts. I was at Bromley two
minutes within the hour; my new horses kep a-going at a capital rate. I
drove them myself, having the postilion by me to show me the way, and
my black man inside with Mrs. Betty. Hope they found the drive very
pleasant. We were not stopped on Blackheath, though two fellows on
horseback rode up to us, but not liking the looks of our countenantses,
rode off again; and we got into Tunbridge Wells (where I transacted my
business) at forty-five minutes after eleven. This makes me quitts with
your lordship after yesterday's piquet, which I shall be very happy to
give your revenge, and am--Your most obliged, faithful servant, H. ESMOND WARRINGTON.”
And now, perhaps, the reader will understand by what means Lady Maria
Esmond was enabled to surprise her dear aunt in her bed on Saturday
morning, and walk out of the house of captivity. Having despatched Mrs.
Betty to London, she scarcely expected that her emissary would return
on the day of her departure; and she and the chaplain were playing their
cards at midnight, after a small refection which the bailiff's wife
had provided for them, when the rapid whirling of wheels was heard
approaching their house, and caused the lady to lay her trumps down,
and her heart to beat with more than ordinary emotion. Whirr came the
wheels--the carriage stopped at the very door: there was a parley at the
gate: then appeared Mrs. Betty, with a face radiant with joy, though her
eyes were full of tears; and next, who is that tall young gentleman who
enters? Can any of my readers guess? Will they be very angry if I say
that the chaplain slapped down his cards with a huzzay, whilst Lady
Maria, turning as white as a sheet, rose up from her chair, tottered
forward a step or two, and, with an hysterical shriek, flung herself in
her cousin's arms? How many kisses did he give her? If they were mille,
deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, and so on, I am
not going to cry out. He had come to rescue her. She knew he would; he
was her champion, her preserver from bondage and ignominy. She wept a
genuine flood of tears upon his shoulder, and as she reclines there,
giving way to a hearty emotion, I protest I think she looks handsomer
than she has looked during the whole course of this history. She did not
faint this time; she went home, leaning lovingly on her cousin's arm,
and may have had one or two hysterical outbreaks in the night; but
Madame Bernstein slept soundly, and did not hear her.
“You are both free to go home,” were the first words Harry said. “Get
my lady's hat and cardinal, Betty, and, Chaplain, we'll smoke a pipe
together at our lodgings, it will refresh me after my ride.” The
chaplain, who, too, had a great deal of available sensibility, was very
much overcome; he burst into tears as he seized Harry's hand, and
kissed it, and prayed God to bless his dear, generous, young patron. Mr.
Warrington felt a glow of pleasure thrill through his frame. It is good
to be able to help the suffering and the poor; it is good to be able
to turn sorrow into joy. Not a little proud and elated was our young
champion, as, with his hat cocked, he marched by the side of his rescued
princess. His feelings came out to meet him, as it were, and beautiful
happinesses with kind eyes and smiles danced before him, and clad him in
a robe of honour, and scattered flowers on his path, and blew trumpets
and shawms of sweet gratulation, calling, “Here comes the conqueror!
Make way for the champion!” And so they led him up to the king's house,
and seated him in the hall of complacency, upon the cushions of comfort.
And yet it was not much he had done. Only a kindness. He had but to put
his hand in his pocket, and with an easy talisman, drive off the dragon
which kept the gate, and cause the tyrant to lay down his axe, who had
got Lady Maria in execution. Never mind if his vanity is puffed up; he
is very good-natured; he has rescued two unfortunate people, and pumped
tears of goodwill and happiness out of their eyes:--and if he brags a
little to-night, and swaggers somewhat to the chaplain, and talks about
London, and Lord March, and White's, and Almack's, with the air of a
macaroni, I don't think we need like him much the less.
Sampson continued to be prodigiously affected. This man had a nature
most easily worked upon, and extraordinarily quick to receive pain
and pleasure, to tears, gratitude, laughter, hatred, liking. In his
preaching profession he had educated and trained his sensibilities so
that they were of great use to him; he was for the moment what he acted.
He wept quite genuine tears, finding that he could produce them freely.
He loved you whilst he was with you; he had a real pang of grief as he
mingled his sorrow with the widow or orphan; and, meeting Jack as he
came out of the door, went to the tavern opposite, and laughed and
roared over the bottle. He gave money very readily, but never repaid
when he borrowed. He was on this night in a rapture of gratitude and
flattery towards Harry Warrington. In all London, perhaps, the unlucky
Fortunate Youth could not have found a more dangerous companion.
To-night he was in his grateful mood, and full of enthusiasm for the
benefactor who had released him from durance. With each bumper his
admiration grew stronger. He exalted Harry as the best and noblest of
men, and the complacent young simpleton, as we have said, was disposed
to take these praises as very well deserved. “The younger branch of our
family,” said Mr. Harry, with a superb air, “have treated you scurvily;
but, by Jove, Sampson my boy, I'll stand by you!” At a certain period of
Burgundian excitement Mr. Warrington was always very eloquent respecting
the splendour of his family. “I am very glad I was enabled to help you
in your strait. Count on me whenever you want me, Sampson. Did you not
say you had a sister at boarding-school? You will want money for her,
sir. Here is a little bill which may help to pay her schooling.” And the
liberal young fellow passed a bank-note across to the chaplain.
Again the man was affected to tears. Harry's generosity smote him.
“Mr. Warrington,” he said, putting the bank-note a short distance from
him, “I--I don't deserve your kindness--by George, I don't!” and he
swore an oath to corroborate his passionate assertion.
“Psha!” says Harry. “I have plenty more of 'em. There was no money in
that confounded pocket-book which I lost last week.”
“No, sir. There was no money!” says Mr. Sampson, dropping his head.
“Hallo! How do you know, Mr. Chaplain?” asks the young gentleman.
“I know because I am a villain, sir. I am not worthy of your kindness.
I told you so. I found the book, sir, that night, when you had too much
wine at Barbeau's.”
“And read the letters?” asked Mr. Warrington, starting up and turning
very red.
“They told me nothing I did not know, sir,” said the chaplain “You have
had spies about you whom you little suspect--from whom you are much too
young and simple to be able to keep your secret.”
“Are those stories about Lady Fanny, and my cousin Will and his doings,
true then?” inquired Harry.
“Yes, they are true,” sighed the chaplain. “The house of Castlewood has
not been fortunate, sir, since your honour's branch, the elder branch,
left it.”
“Sir, you don't dare for to breathe a word against my Lady Maria?” Harry
cried out.
“Oh, not for worlds!” says Mr. Sampson, with a queer look at his young
friend. “I may think she is too old for your honour, and that 'tis a
pity you should not have a wife better suited to your age, though
I admit she looks very young for hers, and hath every virtue and
accomplishment.”
“She is too old, Sampson, I know she is,” says Mr. Warrington, with much
majesty; “but she has my word, and you see, sir, how fond she is of
me. Go bring me the letters, sir, which you found, and let me try and
forgive you for having seized upon them.”
“My benefactor, let me try and forgive myself!” cries Mr. Sampson, and
departed towards his chamber, leaving his young patron alone over his
wine.
Sampson returned presently, looking very pale. “What has happened, sir?”
says Harry, with an imperious air.
The chaplain held out a pocket-book. “With your name in it, sir,” he
said.
“My brother's name in it,” says Harry; “it was George who gave it to
me.”
“I kept it in a locked chest, sir, in which I left it this morning
before I was taken by those people. Here is the book, sir, but the
letters are gone. My trunk and valise have also been tampered with. And
I am a miserable, guilty man, unable to make you the restitution which
I owe you.” Sampson looked the picture of woe as he uttered these
sentiments. He clasped his hands together, and almost knelt before Harry
in an attitude the most pathetic.
Who had been in the rooms in Mr. Sampson's and Mr. Warrington's absence?
The landlady was ready to go on her knees, and declare that nobody
had come in: nor, indeed, was Mr. Warrington's chamber in the least
disturbed, nor anything abstracted from Mr. Sampson's scanty wardrobe
and possessions, except those papers of which he deplored the absence.
Whose interest was it to seize them? Lady Maria's? The poor woman
had been a prisoner all day, and during the time when the capture was
effected.
She certainly was guiltless of the rape of the letters. The sudden
seizure of the two--Case, the house-steward's secret journey to
London,--Case, who knew the shoemaker at whose house Sampson lodged in
London, and all the secret affairs of the Esmond family,--these points,
considered together and separately, might make Mr. Sampson think that
the Baroness Bernstein was at the bottom of this mischief. But why
arrest Lady Maria? The chaplain knew nothing as yet about that letter
which her ladyship had lost; for poor Maria had not thought it necessary
to confide her secret to him.
As for the pocket-book and its contents, Mr. Harry was so swollen up
with self-satisfaction that evening, at winning his three bets, at
rescuing his two friends, at the capital premature cold supper of
partridges and ancient Burgundy which obsequious Monsieur Barbeau had
sent over to the young gentleman's lodgings, that he accepted Sampson's
vows of contrition, and solemn promises of future fidelity, and reached
his gracious hand to the chaplain, and condoned his offence. When the
latter swore his great gods, that henceforth he would be Harry's truest,
humblest friend and follower, and at any moment would be ready to die
for Mr. Warrington, Harry said, majestically, “I think, Sampson, you
would; I hope you would. My family--the Esmond family--has always been
accustomed to have faithful friends round about 'em--and to reward 'em
too. The wine's with you, Chaplain. What toast do you call, sir?”
“I call a blessing on the house of Esmond-Warrington!” cries the
chaplain, with real tears in his eyes.
“We are the elder branch, sir. My grandfather was the Marquis of
Esmond,” says Mr. Harry, in a voice noble but somewhat indistinct.
“Here's to you, Chaplain--and I forgive you, sir--and God bless you,
sir--and if you had been took for three times as much, I'd have paid
it. Why, what's that I see through the shutters? I am blest if the sun
hasn't risen again! We have no need of candles to go to bed, ha, ha!”
And once more extending his blessing to his chaplain, the young fellow
went off to sleep.
About noon Madame de Bernstein sent over a servant to say that she would
be glad if her nephew would come over and drink a dish of chocolate with
her, whereupon our young friend rose and walked to his aunt's lodgings.
She remarked, not without pleasure, some alteration in his toilette: in
his brief sojourn in London he had visited a tailor or two, and had
been introduced by my Lord March to some of his lordship's purveyors and
tradesmen.
Aunt Bernstein called him “my dearest child,” and thanked him for his
noble, his generous behaviour to dear Maria. What a shock that seizure
in church had been to her! A still greater shock that she had lost three
hundred only on the Wednesday night to Lady Yarmouth, and was quite a
sec. “Why,” said the Baroness, “I had to send Case to London to my agent
to get me money to pay--I could not leave Tunbridge in her debt.”
“So Case did go to London?” says Mr. Harry.
“Of course he did: the Baroness de Bernstein can't afford to say she is
court d'argent. Canst thou lend me some, child?”
“I can give your ladyship twenty-two pounds,” said Harry, blushing very
red: “I have but forty-four left till I get my Virginian remittances. I
have bought horses and clothes, and been very extravagant, aunt.”
“And rescued your poor relations in distress, you prodigal good boy.
No, child, I do not want thy money. I can give thee some. Here is a note
upon my agent for fifty pounds, vaurien! Go and spend it, and be merry!
I dare say thy mother will repay me, though she does not love me.” And
she looked quite affectionate, and held out a pretty hand, which the
youth kissed.
“Your mother did not love me, but your mother's father did once. Mind,
sir, you always come to me when you have need of me.”
When bent on exhibiting them, nothing could exceed Beatrix Bernstein's
grace or good-humour. “I can't help loving you, child,” she continued,
“and yet I am so angry with you that I have scarce the patience to speak
to you. So you have actually engaged yourself to poor Maria, who is
as old as your mother? What will Madam Esmond say? She may live three
hundred years, and you will not have wherewithal to support yourselves.”
“I have ten thousand pounds from my father, of my own, now my poor
brother is gone,” said Harry, “that will go some way.”
“Why, the interest will not keep you in card-money.”
“We must give up cards,” says Harry.
“It is more than Maria is capable of. She will pawn the coat off your
back to play. The rage for it runs in all my brother's family--in me
too, I own it. I warned you. I prayed you not to play with them, and
now a lad of twenty to engage himself to a woman of forty-two!--to write
letters on his knees and signed with his heart's blood (which he spells
like hartshorn), and say that he will marry no other woman than his
adorable cousin, Lady Maria Esmond. Oh! it's cruel--cruel!”
“Great heavens! madam, who showed you my letter?” asked Harry, burning
with a blush again.
“An accident. She fainted when she was taken by those bailiffs. Brett
cut her laces for her; and when she was carried off, poor thing, we
found a little sachet on the floor, which I opened, not knowing in the
least what it contained. And in it was Mr. Harry Warrington's precious
letter. And here, sir, is the case.”
A pang shot through Harry's heart. “Great heavens! why didn't she
destroy it?” he thought.
“I--I will give it back to Maria,” he said, stretching out his hand for
the little locket.
“My dear, I have burned the foolish letter,” said the old lady.
“If you choose to betray me I must take the consequence. If you choose
to write another, I cannot help thee. But, in that case, Harry Esmond,
I had rather never see thee again. Will you keep my secret? Will you
believe an old woman who loves you and knows the world better than you
do? I tell you, if you keep that foolish promise, misery and ruin are
surely in store for you. What is a lad like you in the hands of a wily
woman of the world, who makes a toy of you? She has entrapped you into a
promise, and your old aunt has cut the strings and set you free. Go back
again! Betray me if you will, Harry.”
“I am not angry with you, aunt--I wish I were,” said Mr. Warrington,
with very great emotion. “I--I shall not repeat what you told me.”
“Maria never will, child--mark my words!” cried the old lady, eagerly.
“She will never own that she has lost that paper. She will tell you that
she has it.”
“But I am sure she--she is very fond of me; you should have seen her
last night,” faltered Harry.
“Must I tell more stories against my own flesh and blood?” sobs out the
Baroness. “Child, you do not know her past life!”
“And I must not, and I will not!” cries Harry, starting up. “Written or
said--it does not matter which! But my word is given; they may play with
such things in England, but we gentlemen of Virginia don't break 'em.
If she holds me to my word, she shall have me. If we are miserable, as
I dare say we shall be, I'll take a firelock, and go join the King of
Prussia, or let a ball put an end to me.”
“I--I have no more to say. Will you be pleased to ring that bell? I--I
wish you a good morning, Mr. Warrington,” and dropping a very stately
curtsey, the old lady rose on her tortoiseshell stick, and turned
towards the door. But, as she made her first step, she put her hand
to her heart, sank on the sofa again, an shed the first tears that had
dropped for long years from Beatrix Esmond's eyes.
Harry was greatly moved, too. He knelt down by her. He seized her cold
hand, and kissed it. He told her, in his artless way, how very keenly he
had felt her love for him, and how, with all his heart, he returned it.
“Ah, aunt!” said he, “you don't know what a villain I feel myself. When
you told me, just now how that paper was burned--oh! I was ashamed to
think how glad I was.” He bowed his comely head over her hand. She felt
hot drops from his eyes raining on it. She had loved this boy. For half
a century past--never, perhaps, in the course of her whole worldly
life, had she felt a sensation so tender and so pure. The hard heart was
wounded now, softened, overcome. She put her two hands on his shoulders,
and lightly kissed his forehead.
“You will not tell her what I have done, child?” she said.
He declared never! never! And demure Mrs. Brett, entering at her
mistress's summons, found the nephew and aunt in this sentimental
attitude.