heartily pray you didn't; and I can afford to despise 'em. And he paid
me his court, that's a fact; and so have others, and that I'm used to;
and he might have prospered better than he did perhaps (for I did not
know my dear lord, nor come to vally his great and eminent qualities, as
I do out of the fulness of this grateful heart now!), but, oh! I found
William was deficient in courage, and no man as wants that can ever have
the esteem of Lydia, Countess of Castlewood, no more he can! He said
'twas you that wanted for spirit, cousin, and angered me by telling me
that you was always abusing of me. But I forgive you, George, that I
do! And when I tell you that it was he was afraid--the mean skunk!--and
actually sent for them constables to prevent the match between you and
he, you won't wonder I wouldn't vally a feller like that--no, not that
much!” and her ladyship snapped her little fingers. “I say, noblesse
oblige, and a man of our family who hasn't got courage, I don't care not
this pinch of snuff for him--there, now, I don't! Look at our ancestors,
George, round these walls! Haven't the Esmonds always fought for their
country and king? Is there one of us that, when the moment arrives,
ain't ready to show that he's an Esmond and a nobleman? If my eldest son
was to show the white feather, 'My Lord Esmond!' I would say to him (for
that's the second title in our family), 'I disown your lordship!'” And
so saying, the intrepid little woman looked round at her ancestors,
whose effigies, depicted by Lely and Kneller, figured round the walls of
her drawing-room at Castlewood.
Over that apartment, and the whole house, domain, and village, the
new Countess speedily began to rule with an unlimited sway. It was
surprising how quickly she learned the ways of command; and, if she
did not adopt those methods of precedence usual in England among great
ladies, invented regulations for herself, and promulgated them, and made
others submit. Having been bred a Dissenter, and not being over-familiar
with the Established Church service, Mr. Warrington remarked that she
made a blunder or two during the office (not knowing, for example,
when she was to turn her face towards the east, a custom not adopted, I
believe, in other Reforming churches besides the English); but between
Warrington's first bridal visit to Castlewood and his second, my lady
had got to be quite perfect in that part of her duty, and sailed into
chapel on her cousin's arm, her two footmen bearing her ladyship's great
Prayer-book behind her, as demurely as that delightful old devotee with
her lackey, in Mr. Hogarth's famous picture of “Morning,” and as if
my Lady Lydia had been accustomed to have a chaplain all her life. She
seemed to patronise not only the new chaplain, but the service and the
church itself, as if she had never in her own country heard a Ranter in
a barn. She made the oldest established families in the country--grave
baronets and their wives--worthy squires of twenty descents, who rode
over to Castlewood to pay the bride and bridegroom honour--know their
distance, as the phrase is, and give her the pas. She got an old
heraldry book; and a surprising old maiden lady from Winton, learned in
politeness and genealogies, from whom she learned the court etiquette
(as the old Winton lady had known it in Queen Anne's time); and ere long
she jabbered gules and sables, bends and saltires, not with correctness
always, but with a wonderful volubility and perseverance. She made
little progresses to the neighbouring towns in her gilt coach-and-six,
or to the village in her chair, and asserted a quasi-regal right of
homage from her tenants and other clodpoles. She lectured the parson
on his divinity; the bailiff on his farming; instructed the astonished
housekeeper how to preserve and pickle; would have taught the great
London footmen to jump behind the carriage, only it was too high for her
little ladyship to mount; gave the village gossips instructions how to
nurse and take care of their children long before she had one herself;
and as for physic, Madam Esmond in Virginia was not more resolute about
her pills and draughts than Miss Lydia, the earl's new bride. Do you
remember the story of the Fisherman and the Genie, in the Arabian
Nights? So one wondered with regard to this lady, how such a prodigious
genius could have been corked down into such a little bottle as her
body. When Mr. Warrington returned to London after his first nuptial
visit, she brought him a little present for her young friends in Dean
Street, as she called them (Theo being older, and Hetty scarce younger
than herself), and sent a trinket to one and a book to the other--G.
Warrington always vowing that Theo's present was a doll, while Hetty's
share was a nursery-book with words of one syllable. As for Mr. Will,
her younger brother-in-law, she treated him with a maternal gravity
and tenderness, and was in the habit of speaking of and to him with a
protecting air, which was infinitely diverting to Warrington, although
Will's usual curses and blasphemies were sorely increased by her
behaviour.
As for old age, my Lady Lydia had little respect for that accident in
the life of some gentlemen and gentlewomen; and, once the settlements
were made in her behalf, treated the ancient Van den Bosch and his large
periwig with no more ceremony than Dinah her black attendant, whose
great ears she would pinch, and whose woolly pate she would pull without
scruple, upon offence given--so at least Dinah told Gumbo, who told
his master. All the household trembled before my lady the Countess: the
housekeeper, of whom even my lord and the dowager had been in awe; the
pampered London footmen, who used to quarrel if they were disturbed at
their cards, and grumbled as they swilled the endless beer, now stepped
nimbly about their business when they heard her ladyship's call; even
old Lockwood, who had been gate-porter for half a century or more, tried
to rally his poor old wandering wits when she came into his lodge to
open his window, inspect his wood-closet, and turn his old dogs out of
doors. Lockwood bared his old bald head before his new mistress, turned
an appealing look towards his niece, and vaguely trembled before her
little ladyship's authority. Gumbo, dressing his master for dinner,
talked about Elisha (of whom he had heard the chaplain read in the
morning), “and his bald head and de boys who call um names, and de bars
eat em up, and serve um right,” says Gumbo. But as for my lady, when
discoursing with her cousin about the old porter, “Pooh, pooh! Stupid
old man!” says she; “past his work, he and his dirty old dogs! They are
as old and ugly as those old fish in the pond!” (Here she pointed to two
old monsters of carp that had been in a pond in Castlewood gardens for
centuries, according to tradition, and had their backs all covered with
a hideous grey mould.) “Lockwood must pack off; the workhouse is the
place for him; and I shall have a smart, good-looking, tall fellow in
the lodge that will do credit to our livery.”
“He was my grandfather's man, and served him in the wars of Queen Anne,”
interposed Mr. Warrington. On which my lady cried, petulantly, “O Lord!
Queen Anne's dead, I suppose, and we ain't a-going into mourning for
her.”
This matter of Lockwood was discussed at the family dinner, when her
ladyship announced her intention of getting rid of the old man.
“I am told,” demurely remarks Mr. Van den Bosch, “that, by the laws,
poor servants and poor folks of all kinds are admirably provided in
their old age here in England. I am sure I wish we had such an asylum
for our folks at home, and that we were eased of the expense of keeping
our old hands.”
“If a man can't work he ought to go!” cries her ladyship.
“Yes, indeed, and that's a fact!” says grandpapa.
“What! an old servant?” asks my lord.
“Mr. Van den Bosch possibly was independent of servants when he was
young,” remarks Mr. Warrington.
“Greased my own boots, opened my own shutters, sanded and watered my
own----”
“Sugar, sir?” says my lord.
“No; floor, son-in-law!” says the old man, with a laugh; “though there
is such tricks, in grocery stores, saving your ladyship's presence.”
“La, pa! what should I know about stores and groceries?” cries her
ladyship.
“He! Remember stealing the sugar, and what came on it, my dear
ladyship?” says grandpapa.
“At any rate, a handsome, well-grown man in our livery will look better
than that shrivelled old porter creature!” cries my lady.
“No livery is so becoming as old age, madam, and no lace as handsome
as silver hairs,” says Mr. Warrington. “What will the county say if you
banish old Lockwood?”
“Oh! if you plead for him, sir, I suppose he must stay. Hadn't I better
order a couch for him out of my drawing-room, and send him some of the
best wine from the cellar?”
“Indeed your ladyship couldn't do better,” Mr. Warrington remarked, very
gravely.
And my lord said, yawning, “Cousin George is perfectly right, my dear.
To turn away such an old servant as Lockwood would have an ill look.”
“You see those mouldy old carps are, after all, a curiosity, and attract
visitors,” continues Mr. Warrington, gravely. “Your ladyship must allow
this old wretch to remain. It won't be for long. And you may then engage
the tall porter. It is very hard on us, Mr. Van den Bosch, that we are
obliged to keep our old negroes when they are past work. I shall sell
that rascal Gumbo in eight or ten years.”
“Don't tink you will, master!” says Gumbo, grinning.
“Hold your tongue, sir! He doesn't know English ways, you see, and
perhaps thinks an old servant has a claim on his master's kindness,”
says Mr. Warrington.
The next day, to Warrington's surprise, my lady absolutely did send a
basket of good wine to Lockwood, and a cushion for his armchair.
“I thought of what you said, yesterday, at night when I went to bed; and
guess you know the world better than I do, cousin; and that it's best to
keep the old man, as you say.”
And so this affair of the porter's lodge ended, Mr. Warrington wondering
within himself at this strange little character out of the West, with
her naivete and simplicities, and a heartlessness would have done credit
to the most battered old dowager who ever turned trumps in St. James's.
“You tell me to respect old people. Why? I don't see nothin' to respect
in the old people, I know,” she said to Warrington. “They ain't so
funny, and I'm sure they ain't so handsome. Look at grandfather; look
at Aunt Bernstein. They say she was a beauty once! That picture painted
from her! I don't believe it, nohow. No one shall tell me that I shall
ever be as bad as that! When they come to that, people oughtn't to live.
No, that they oughtn't.”
Now, at Christmas, Aunt Bernstein came to pay her nephew and niece a
visit, in company with Mr. Warrington. They travelled at their leisure
in the Baroness's own landau; the old lady being in particular good
health and spirits, the weather delightfully fresh and not too cold;
and, as they approached her paternal home, Aunt Beatrice told her
companion a hundred stories regarding it and old days. Though often
lethargic, and not seldom, it must be confessed, out of temper, the old
lady would light up at times, when her conversation became wonderfully
lively, her wit and malice were brilliant, and her memory supplied her
with a hundred anecdotes of a bygone age and society. Sure, 'tis hard
with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have even a
life-enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most,
some forty years' lease. As the old woman prattled of her former lovers
and admirers (her auditor having much more information regarding her
past career than her ladyship knew of), I would look in her face, and,
out of the ruins, try to build up in my fancy a notion of her beauty in
its prime. What a homily I read there! How the courts were grown
with grass, the towers broken, the doors ajar, the fine gilt saloons
tarnished, and the tapestries cobwebbed and torn! Yonder dilapidated
palace was all alive once with splendour and music, and those dim
windows were dazzling and blazing with light! What balls and feasts were
once here, what splendour and laughter! I could see lovers in waiting,
crowds in admiration, rivals furious. I could imagine twilight
assignations, and detect intrigues, though the curtains were close and
drawn. I was often minded to say to the old woman as she talked, “Madam,
I know the story was not as you tell it, but so and so”--(I had read at
home the history of her life, as my dear old grandfather had wrote it):
and my fancy wandered about in her, amused and solitary, as I had walked
about our father's house at Castlewood, meditating on departed glories,
and imagining ancient times.
When Aunt Bernstein came to Castlewood, her relatives there, more, I
think, on account of her own force of character, imperiousness, and
sarcastic wit, than from their desire to possess her money, were
accustomed to pay her a great deal of respect and deference, which
she accepted as her due. She expected the same treatment from the new
Countess, whom she was prepared to greet with special good-humour. The
match had been of her making. “As you, you silly creature, would not
have the heiress,” she said, “I was determined she should not go out of
the family,” and she laughingly told of many little schemes for bringing
the marriage about. She had given the girl a coronet and her nephew
a hundred thousand pounds. Of course she should be welcome to both of
them. She was delighted with the little Countess's courage and spirit
in routing the Dowager and Lady Fanny. Almost always pleased with pretty
people on her first introduction to them, Madame Bernstein raffled of
her niece Lydia's bright eyes and lovely little figure. The marriage was
altogether desirable. The old man was an obstacle, to be sure, and his
talk and appearance somewhat too homely. But he will be got rid of.
He is old and in delicate health. “He will want to go to America, or
perhaps farther,” says the Baroness, with a shrug. “As for the child,
she had great fire and liveliness, and a Cherokee manner which is not
without its charm,” said the pleased old Baroness. “Your brother had
it--so have you, Master George! Nous la formerons, cette petite. Eugene
wants character and vigour, but he is a finished gentleman, and between
us we shall make the little savage perfectly presentable.” In this
way we discoursed on the second afternoon as we journeyed towards
Castlewood. We lay at the King's Arms at Bagshot the first night, where
the Baroness was always received with profound respect, and thence
drove post to Hexton, where she had written to have my lord's horses in
waiting for her; but these were not forthcoming at the inn, and after
a couple of hours we were obliged to proceed with our Bagshot horses to
Castlewood.
During this last stage of the journey, I am bound to say the old aunt's
testy humour returned, and she scarce spoke a single word for three
hours. As for her companion; being prodigiously in love at the time,
no doubt he did not press his aunt for conversation, but thought
unceasingly about his Dulcinea, until the coach actually reached
Castlewood Common, and rolled over the bridge before the house.
The housekeeper was ready to conduct her ladyship to her apartments. My
lord and lady were both absent. She did not know what had kept them, the
housekeeper said, heading the way.
“Not that door, my lady!” cries the woman, as Madame de Bernstein
put her hand upon the door of the room which she had always occupied.
“That's her ladyship's room now. This way,” and our aunt followed, by
no means in increased good-humour. I do not envy her maids when their
mistress was displeased. But she had cleared her brow before she joined
the family, and appeared in the drawing-room before supper-time with a
countenance of tolerable serenity.
“How d'ye do, aunt?” was the Countess's salutation. “I declare now, I
was taking a nap when your ladyship arrived! Hope you found your room
fixed to your liking!”
Having addressed three brief sentences to the astonished old lady, the
Countess now turned to her other guests, and directed her conversation
to them. Mr. Warrington was not a little diverted by her behaviour,
and by the appearance of surprise and wrath which began to gather over
Madame Bernstein's face. “La petite,” whom the Baroness proposed to
“form,” was rather a rebellious subject, apparently, and proposed to
take a form of her own. Looking once or twice rather anxiously towards
his wife, my lord tried to atone for her pertness towards his aunt by
profuse civility on his own part; indeed, when he so wished, no man
could be more courteous or pleasing. He found a score of agreeable
things to say to Madame Bernstein. He warmly congratulated Mr.
Warrington on the glorious news which had come from America, and on his
brother's safety. He drank a toast at supper to Captain Warrington. “Our
family is distinguishing itself, cousin,” he said; and added, looking
with fond significance towards his Countess, “I hope the happiest days
are in store for us all.”
“Yes, George!” says the little lady. “You'll write and tell Harry that
we are all very much pleased with him. This action at Quebec is a most
glorious action; and now we have turned the French king out of the
country, shouldn't be at all surprised if we set up for ourselves in
America.”
“My love, you are talking treason!” cries Lord Castlewood.
“I am talking reason, anyhow, my lord. I've no notion of folks being
kept down, and treated as children for ever!”
George! Harry! I protest I was almost as much astonished as amused.
“When my brother hears that your ladyship is satisfied with his conduct,
his happiness will be complete,” I said gravely.
Next day, when talking beside her sofa, where she chose to lie in state,
the little Countess no longer called her cousin “George,” but “Mr.
George,” as before; on which Mr. George laughingly said she had changed
her language since the previous day.
“Guess I did it to tease old Madam Buzwig,” says her ladyship. She wants
to treat me as a child, and do the grandmother over me. I don't want no
grandmothers, I don't. I'm the head of this house, and I intend to let
her know it. And I've brought her all the way from London in order to
tell it her, too! La! how she did look when I called you George! I might
have called you George--only you had seen that little Theo first, and
liked her best, I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose I like her best,” says Mr. George.
“Well, I like you because you tell the truth. Because you was the only
one of 'em in London who didn't seem to care for my money, though I was
downright mad and angry with you once, and with myself too, and with
that little sweetheart of yours, who ain't to be compared to me, I know
she ain't.”
“Don't let us make the comparison, then!” I said, laughing.
“I suppose people must lie on their beds as they make 'em,” says she,
with a little sigh. “Dare say Miss Theo is very good, and you'll marry
her and go to Virginia, and be as dull as we are here. We were talking
of Miss Lambert, my lord, and I was wishing my cousin joy. How is old
Goody to-day? What a supper she did eat last night, and drink!--drink
like a dragoon! No wonder she has got a headache, and keeps her room.
Guess it takes her ever so long to dress herself.”
“You, too, may be feeble when you are old, and require rest and wine to
warm you!” says Mr. Warrington.
“Hope I shan't be like her when I'm old, anyhow!” says the lady. “Can't
see why I am to respect an old woman, because she hobbles on a stick,
and has shaky hands, and false teeth!” And the little heathen sank back
on her couch, and showed twenty-four pearls of her own.
“Law!” she adds, after gazing at both her hearers through the curled
lashes of her brilliant dark eyes. “How frightened you both look! My
lord has already given me ever so many sermons about old Goody. You are
both afraid of her: and I ain't, that's all. Don't look so scared at one
another! I ain't a-going to bite her head off. We shall have a battle,
and I intend to win. How did I serve the Dowager, if you please, and my
Lady Fanny, with their high and mighty airs, when they tried to put
down the Countess of Castlewood in her own house, and laugh at the poor
American girl? We had a fight, and which got the best of it, pray? Me
and Goody will have another, and when it is over, you will see that we
shall both be perfect friends!”
When at this point of our conversation the door opened, and Madame
Beatrix, elaborately dressed according to her wont, actually made her
appearance, I, for my part, am not ashamed to own that I felt as great a
panic as ever coward experienced. My lord, with his profoundest bows and
blandest courtesies, greeted his aunt and led her to the fire, by which
my lady (who was already hoping for an heir to Castlewood) lay reclining
on her sofa. She did not attempt to rise, but smiled a greeting to her
venerable guest. And then, after a brief talk, in which she showed a
perfect self-possession, while the two gentlemen blundered and hesitated
with the most dastardly tremor, my lord said:
“If we are to look for those pheasants, cousin, we had better go now.”
“And I and aunt will have a cosy afternoon. And you will tell me about
Castlewood in the old times, won't you, Baroness?” says the new mistress
of the mansion.
O les laches que les hommes! I was so frightened, that I scarce saw
anything, but vaguely felt that Lady Castlewood's dark eyes were
following me. My lord gripped my arm in the corridor, we quickened our
paces till our retreat became a disgraceful run. We did not breathe
freely till we were in the open air in the courtyard, where the keepers
and the dogs were waiting.
And what happened? I protest, children, I don't know. But this is
certain: if your mother had been a woman of the least spirit, or had
known how to scold for five minutes during as many consecutive days of
her early married life, there would have been no more humble, henpecked
wretch in Christendom than your father. When Parson Blake comes to
dinner, don't you see how at a glance from his little wife he puts his
glass down and says, “No, thank you, Mr. Gumbo,” when old Gum brings
him wine? Blake wore a red coat before he took to black, and walked up
Breeds Hill with a thousand bullets whistling round his ears, before
ever he saw our Bunker Hill in Suffolk. And the fire-eater of the 43rd
now dare not face a glass of old port wine! 'Tis his wife has subdued
his courage. The women can master us, and did they know their own
strength, were invincible.
Well, then, what happened I know not on that disgraceful day of panic
when your father fled the field, nor dared to see the heroines engage;
but when we returned from our shooting, the battle was over. America had
revolted, and conquered the mother country.
CHAPTER LXXIV. News from Canada
Our Castlewood relatives kept us with them till the commencement of the
new year, and after a fortnight's absence (which seemed like an age
to the absurd and infatuated young man) he returned to the side of his
charmer. Madame de Bernstein was not sorry to leave the home of her
father. She began to talk more freely as we got away from the place.
What passed during that interview in which the battle-royal between her
and her niece occurred, she never revealed. But the old lady talked
no more of forming cette petite, and, indeed, when she alluded to her,
spoke in a nervous, laughing way, but without any hostility towards the
young Countess. Her nephew Eugene, she said, was doomed to be henpecked
for the rest of his days that she saw clearly. A little order brought
into the house would do it all the good possible. The little old
vulgar American gentleman seemed to be a shrewd person, and would act
advantageously as a steward. The Countess's mother was a convict, she
had heard, sent out from England, where no doubt she had beaten hemp in
most of the gaols; but this news need not be carried to the town-crier;
and, after all, in respect to certain kind of people, what mattered what
their birth was? The young woman would be honest for her own sake now:
was shrewd enough, and would learn English presently; and the name to
which she had a right was great enough to get her into any society. A
grocer, a smuggler, a slave-dealer, what mattered Mr. Van den Bosch's
pursuit or previous profession? The Countess of Castlewood could afford
to be anybody's daughter, and as soon as my nephew produced her, says
the old lady, it is our duty to stand by her.
The ties of relationship binding Madame de Bernstein strongly to her
nephew, Mr. Warrington hoped that she would be disposed to be equally
affectionate to her niece; and spoke of his visit to Mr. Hagan and his
wife, for whom he entreated her aunt's favour. But the old lady was
obdurate regarding Lady Maria; begged that her name might never be
mentioned, and immediately went on for two hours talking about no one
else. She related a series of anecdotes regarding her niece, which, as
this book lies open virginibus puerisque, to all the young people of the
family, I shall not choose to record. But this I will say of the kind
creature, that if she sinned, she was not the only sinner of the family,
and if she repented, that others will do well to follow her example.
Hagan, 'tis known, after he left the stage, led an exemplary life,
and was remarkable for elegance and eloquence in the pulpit. His lady
adopted extreme views, but was greatly respected in the sect which she
joined; and when I saw her last, talked to me of possessing a peculiar
spiritual illumination, which I strongly suspected at the time to be
occasioned by the too free use of liquor: but I remember when she and
her husband were good to me and mine, at a period when sympathy was
needful, and many a Pharisee turned away.
I have told how easy it was to rise and fall in my fickle aunt's favour,
and how each of us brothers, by turns, was embraced and neglected. My
turn of glory had been after the success of my play. I was introduced
to the town-wits; held my place in their company tolerably well;
was pronounced to be pretty well bred by the macaronis and people of
fashion, and might have run a career amongst them had my purse been long
enough; had I chose to follow that life; had I not loved at that time
a pair of kind eyes better than the brightest orbs of the Gunnings or
Chudleighs, or all the painted beauties of the Ranelagh ring. Because I
was fond of your mother, will it be believed, children, that my tastes
were said to be low, and deplored by my genteel family? So it was, and I
know that my godly Lady Warrington and my worldly Madame Bernstein both
laid their elderly heads together and lamented my way of life. “Why,
with his name, he might marry anybody,” says meek Religion, who had ever
one eye on Heaven and one on the main chance. “I meddle with no man's
affairs, and admire genius,” says uncle, “but it is a pity you consort
with those poets and authors, and that sort of people, and that, when
you might have had a lovely creature, with a hundred thousand pounds,
you let her slip and make up to a country girl without a penny-piece.”
“But if I had promised her, uncle?” says I.
“Promise, promise! these things are matters of arrangement and prudence,
and demand a careful look-out. When you first committed yourself with
little Miss Lambert, you had not seen the lovely American lady whom your
mother wished you to marry, as a good mother naturally would. And your
duty to your mother, nephew,--your duty to the Fifth Commandment, would
have warranted your breaking with Miss L., and fulfilling your excellent
mother's intentions regarding Miss--What was the Countess's Dutch name?
Never mind. A name is nothing; but a plumb, Master George, is something
to look at! Why, I have my dear little Miley at a dancing-school with
Miss Barwell, Nabob Barwell's daughter, and I don't disguise my wish
that the children may contract an attachment which may endure through
their lives! I tell the Nabob so. We went from the House of Commons
one dancing-day and saw them. 'Twas beautiful to see the young things
walking a minuet together! It brought tears into my eyes, for I have a
feeling heart, George, and I love my boy!”
“But if I prefer Miss Lambert, uncle, with twopence to her fortune, to
the Countess, with her hundred thousand pounds?”
“Why then, sir, you have a singular taste, that's all,” says the old
gentleman, turning on his heel and leaving me. And I could perfectly
understand his vexation at my not being able to see the world as he
viewed it.
Nor did my Aunt Bernstein much like the engagement which I had made,
or the family with which I passed so much of my time. Their simple ways
wearied, and perhaps annoyed, the old woman of the world, and she no
more relished their company than a certain person (who is not so black
as he is painted) likes holy water. The old lady chafed at my for ever
dangling at my sweetheart's lap. Having risen mightily in her favour,
I began to fall again: and once more Harry was the favourite, and his
brother, Heaven knows, not jealous.
He was now our family hero. He wrote us brief letters from the seat of
war where he was engaged; Madame Bernstein caring little at first
about the letters or the writer, for they were simple, and the facts he
narrated not over interesting. We had early learned in London the news
of the action on the glorious first of August at Minden, where Wolfe's
old regiment was one of the British six which helped to achieve the
victory on that famous day. At the same hour, the young General lay in
his bed, in sight of Quebec, stricken down by fever, and perhaps rage
and disappointment at the check which his troops had just received.
Arriving in the St. Lawrence in June, the fleet which brought Wolfe and
his army had landed them on the last day of the month on the Island of
Orleans, opposite which rises the great cliff of Quebec. After the great
action in which his General fell, the dear brother who accompanied the
chief, wrote home to me one of his simple letters, describing his modest
share in that glorious day, but added nothing to the many descriptions
already wrote of the action of the 13th of September, save only I
remember he wrote, from the testimony of a brother aide-de-camp who was
by his side, that the General never spoke at all after receiving his
death-wound, so that the phrase which has been put into the mouth of
the dying hero may be considered as no more authentic than an oration of
Livy or Thucydides.
From his position on the island, which lies in the great channel of the
river to the north of the town, the General was ever hungrily on the
look-out for a chance to meet and attack his enemy. Above the city and
below it he landed,--now here and now there; he was bent upon attacking
wherever he saw an opening. 'Twas surely a prodigious fault on the
part of the Marquis of Montcalm, to accept a battle from Wolfe on equal
terms, for the British General had no artillery, and when we had made
our famous scalade of the heights, and were on the Plains of Abraham,
we were a little nearer the city, certainly, but as far off as ever from
being within it.
The game that was played between the brave chiefs of those two gallant
little armies, and which lasted from July until Mr. Wolfe won the
crowning hazard in September, must have been as interesting a match as
ever eager players engaged in. On the very first night after the landing
(as my brother has narrated it) the sport began. At midnight the French
sent a flaming squadron of fireships down upon the British ships which
were discharging their stores at Orleans. Our seamen thought it was good
sport to tow the fireships clear of the fleet, and ground them on the
shore, where they burned out.
As soon as the French commander heard that our ships had entered the
river, he marched to Beauport in advance of the city and there took up
a strong position. When our stores and hospitals were established, our
General crossed over from his island to the left shore, and drew nearer
to his enemy. He had the ships in the river behind him, but the whole
country in face of him was in arms. The Indians in the forest seized
our advanced parties as they strove to clear it, and murdered them with
horrible tortures. The French were as savage as their Indian friends.
The Montmorenci River rushed between Wolfe and the enemy. He could
neither attack these nor the city behind them.
Bent on seeing whether there was no other point at which his foe might
be assailable, the General passed round the town of Quebec and skirted
the left shore beyond. Everywhere it was guarded, as well as in his
immediate front, and having run the gauntlet of the batteries up and
down the river, he returned to his post at Montmorenci. On the right of
the French position, across the Montmorenci River, which was fordable
at low tide, was a redoubt of the enemy. He would have that. Perhaps,
to defend it the French chief would be forced out from his lines, and
a battle be brought on. Wolfe determined to play these odds. He would
fetch over the body of his army from the Island of Orleans, and attack
from the St. Lawrence. He would time his attack, so that, at
shallow water, his lieutenants, Murray and Townsend, might cross the
Montmorenci, and, at the last day of July, he played this desperate
game.
He first, and General Monckton, his second in command (setting out from
Point Levi, which he occupied), crossed over the St. Lawrence from their
respective stations, being received with a storm of shot and artillery
as they rowed to the shore. No sooner were the troops landed than they
rushed at the French redoubt without order, were shot down before it in
great numbers, and were obliged to fall back. At the preconcerted signal
the troops on the other side of the Montmorenci avanced across the river
in perfect order. The enemy even evacuated the redoubt and fell back to
their lines; but from these the assailants were received with so severe
a fire that an impression on them was hopeless, and the General had to
retreat.
The battle of Montmorenci (which my brother Harry and I have fought
again many a time over our wine) formed the dismal burthen of the first
despatch from Mr. Wolfe which reached England and plunged us all in
gloom. What more might one expect of a commander so rash? What disasters
might one not foretell? Was ever scheme so wild as to bring three great
bodies of men, across broad rivers, in the face of murderous batteries,
merely on the chance of inducing an enemy, strongly entrenched and
guarded, to leave his position and come out and engage us? 'Twas
the talk of the town. No wonder grave people shook their heads, and
prophesied fresh disaster. The General, who took to his bed after this
failure, shuddering with fever, was to live barely six weeks longer,
and die immortal! How is it, and by what, and whom, that Greatness is
achieved? Is Merit--is Madness the patron? Is it Frolic or Fortune? Is
it Fate that awards successes and defeats? Is it the Just Cause that
ever wins? How did the French gain Canada from the savage, and we from
the French, and after which of the conquests was the right time to
sing Te Deum? We are always for implicating Heaven in our quarrels, and
causing the gods to intervene whatever the nodus may be. Does Broughton,
after pummelling and beating Slack, lift up a black eye to Jove and
thank him for the victory? And if ten thousand boxers are to be so
heard, why not one? And if Broughton is to be grateful, what is Slack to
be?
“By the list of disabled officers (many of whom are of rank) you may
perceive, sir, that the army is much weakened. By the nature of this
river the most formidable part of the armament is deprived of the power
of acting, yet we have almost the whole force of Canada to oppose. In
this situation there is such a choice of difficulties, that I own
myself at a loss how to determine. The affairs of Great Britain, I know,
require the most vigorous measures; but then the courage of a handful
of brave men should be exerted only where there is some hope of a
favourable event. The admiral and I have examined the town with a view
to a general assault: and he would readily join in this or any
other measure for the public service; but I cannot propose to him
an undertaking of so dangerous a nature, and promising so little
success.... I found myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I begged
the general officers to consult together for the public utility. They
are of opinion that they should try by conveying up a corps of 4000
or 5000 men (which is nearly the whole strength of the army, after the
points of Levi and Orleans are put in a proper state of defence) to draw
the enemy from their present position, and bring them to an action. I
have acquiesced in their proposal, and we are preparing to put it into
execution.”
So wrote the General (of whose noble letters it is clear our dear scribe
was not the author or secretary) from his headquarters at Montmorenci
Falls on 2nd day of September; and on the 14th of October following,
the Rodney cutter arrived with the sad news in England. The attack had
failed, the chief was sick, the army dwindling, the menaced city so
strong that assault was almost impossible; “the only chance was to fight
the Marquis of Montcalm upon terms of less disadvantage than attacking
his entrenchments, and, if possible, to draw him from his present
position.” Would the French chief, whose great military genius was known
in Europe, fall into such a snare? No wonder there were pale looks in
the City at the news, and doubt and gloom wheresoever it was known.
Three days after this first melancholy intelligence, came the famous
letters announcing that wonderful consummation of fortune with which Mr.
Wolfe's wonderful career ended. If no man is to be styled happy till his
death, what shall we say of this one? His end was so glorious, that I
protest not even his mother nor his mistress ought to have deplored it,
or at any rate have wished him alive again. I know it is a hero we speak
of; and yet I vow I scarce know whether in the last act of his life I
admire the result of genius, invention, and daring, or the boldness of
a gambler winning surprising odds. Suppose his ascent discovered a
half-hour sooner, and his people, as they would have been assuredly,
beaten back? Suppose the Marquis of Montcalm not to quit his entrenched
lines to accept that strange challenge? Suppose these points--and none
of them depend upon Mr. Wolfe at all--and what becomes of the glory
of the young hero, of the great minister who discovered him, of the
intoxicated nation which rose up frantic with self-gratulation at
the victory? I say, what fate is it that shapes our ends, or those of
nations? In the many hazardous games which my Lord Chatham played,
he won this prodigious one. And as the greedy British hand seized the
Canadas, it let fall the United States out of its grasp.
To be sure this wisdom d'apres coup is easy. We wonder at this man's
rashness now the deed is done, and marvel at the other's fault. What
generals some of us are upon paper! what repartees come to our mind when
the talk is finished! and, the game over, how well we see how it should
have been played! Writing of an event at a distance of thirty years,
'tis not difficult now to criticise and find fault. But at the time when
we first heard of Wolfe's glorious deeds upon the Plains of Abraham--of
that army marshalled in darkness and carried silently up the midnight
river--of those rocks scaled by the intrepid leader and his troops--of
that miraculous security of the enemy, of his present acceptance of our
challenge to battle, and of his defeat on the open plain by the sheer
valour of his conqueror--we were all intoxicated in England by the
news. The whole nation rose up and felt itself the stronger for Wolfe's
victory. Not merely all men engaged in the battle, but those at home who
had condemned its rashness, felt themselves heroes. Our spirit rose as
that of our enemy faltered. Friends embraced each other when they met.
Coffee-houses and public places were thronged with people eager to talk
the news. Courtiers rushed to the King and the great Minister by whose
wisdom the campaign had been decreed. When he showed himself, the people
followed him with shouts and blessings. People did not deplore the dead
warrior, but admired his euthanasia. Should James Wolfe's friends weep
and wear mourning, because a chariot had come from the skies to fetch
him away? Let them watch with wonder, and see him departing, radiant;
rising above us superior. To have a friend who had been near or about
him was to be distinguished. Every soldier who fought with him was a
hero. In our fond little circle I know 'twas a distinction to be
Harry's brother. We should not in the least wonder but that he, from his
previous knowledge of the place, had found the way up the heights which
the British army took, and pointed it out to his General. His promotion
would follow as a matter of course. Why, even our Uncle Warrington wrote
letters to bless Heaven and congratulate me and himself upon the share
Harry had had in the glorious achievement. Our Aunt Beatrix opened her
house and received company upon the strength of the victory. I became a
hero from my likeness to my brother. As for Parson Sampson, he preached
such a sermon that his auditors (some of whom had been warned by his
reverence of the coming discourse) were with difficulty restrained from
huzzaing the orator, and were mobbed as they left the chapel. “Don't
talk to me, madam, about grief,” says General Lambert to his wife,
who, dear soul, was for allowing herself some small indulgence of her
favourite sorrow on the day when Wolfe's remains were gloriously buried
at Greenwich. “If our boys could come by such deaths as James's, you
know you wouldn't prevent them from being shot, but would scale the
Abraham heights to see the thing done! Wouldst thou mind dying in
the arms of victory, Charley?” he asks of the little hero from the
Chartreux. “That I wouldn't,” says the little man; “and the doctor gave
us a holiday, too.”
Our Harry's promotion was insured after his share in the famous battle,
and our aunt announced her intention of purchasing a company for him.
CHAPTER LXXV. The Course of True Love
Had your father, young folks, possessed the commonest share of prudence,
not only would this chapter of his history never have been written, but
you yourselves would never have appeared in the world to plague him in
a hundred ways to shout and laugh in the passages when he wants to be
quiet at his books; to wake him when he is dozing after dinner, as a
healthy country gentleman should: to mislay his spectacles for him,
and steal away his newspaper when he wants to read it; to ruin him with
tailors' bills, mantua-makers' bills, tutors' bills, as you all of you
do: to break his rest of nights when you have the impudence to fall
ill, and when he would sleep undisturbed but that your silly mother will
never be quiet for half an hour; and when Joan can't sleep, what use,
pray, is there in Darby putting on his nightcap? Every trifling ailment
that any one of you has had, has scared her so that I protest I have
never been tranquil; and, were I not the most long-suffering creature in
the world, would have liked to be rid of the whole pack of you. And
now, forsooth, that you have grown out of childhood, long petticoats,
chicken-pox, small-pox, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and the other
delectable accidents of puerile life, what must that unconscionable
woman propose but to arrange the south rooms as a nursery for possible
grandchildren, and set up the Captain with a wife, and make him marry
early because we did! He is too fond, she says, of Brookes's and
Goosetree's when he is in London. She has the perversity to hint that,
though an entree to Carlton House may be very pleasant, 'tis very
dangerous for a young gentleman: and she would have Miles live away from
temptation, and sow his wild oats, and marry, as we did. Marry! my dear
creature, we had no business to marry at all! By the laws of common
prudence and duty, I ought to have backed out of my little engagement
with Miss Theo (who would have married somebody else), and taken a rich
wife. Your Uncle John was a parson and couldn't fight, poor Charley was
a boy at school, and your grandfather was too old a man to call me to
account with sword and pistol. I repeat there never was a more foolish
match in the world than ours, and our relations were perfectly right
in being angry with us. What are relations made for, indeed, but to be
angry and find fault? When Hester marries, do you mind, Master George,
to quarrel with her if she does not take a husband of your selecting.
When George has got his living, after being senior wrangler and fellow
of his college, Miss Hester, do you toss up your little nose at the
young lady he shall fancy. As for you, my little Theo, I can't part with
your. You must not quit your old father; for he likes you to play Haydn
to him, and peel his walnuts after dinner.
[On the blank leaf opposite this paragraph is written, in a large,
girlish hand:
“I never intend to go.--THEODOSIA.”
“Nor I.--HESTER.”
They both married, as I see by the note in the family Bible--Miss
Theodosia Warrington to Joseph Clinton, son of the Rev. Joseph Blake,
and himself subsequently Master of Rodwell Regis Grammar School; and
Miss Hester Mary, in 1804, to Captain F. Handyman, R.N.--ED.]
Whilst they had the blessing (forsooth!) of meeting, and billing and
cooing every day, the two young people, your parents, went on in a
fool's paradise, little heeding the world round about them, and all its
tattling and meddling. Rinaldo was as brave a warrior as ever slew Turk,
but you know he loved dangling in Armida's garden. Pray, my Lady Armida,
what did you mean by flinging your spells over me in youth, so that not
glory, not fashion, not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit in
whose way I fell, could keep me long from your apron-strings, or out of
reach of your dear simple prattle? Pray, my dear, what used we to say to
each other during those endless hours of meeting? I never went to sleep
after dinner then. Which of us was so witty? Was it I or you? And how
came it our conversations were so delightful? I remember that year I did
not even care to go and see my Lord Ferrers tried and hung, when all the
world was running after his lordship. The King of Prussia's capital
was taken; had the Austrians and Russians been encamped round the Tower
there could scarce have been more stir in London: yet Miss Theo and her
young gentleman felt no inordinate emotion of pity or indignation. What
to us was the fate of Leipzig or Berlin? The truth is, that dear old
house in Dean Street was an enchanted garden of delights. I have been as
idle since, but never as happy. Shall we order the postchaise, my dear,
leave the children to keep house; and drive up to London and see if the
old lodgings are still to be let? And you shall sit at your old place in
the window, and wave a little handkerchief as I walk up the street. Say
what we did was imprudent. Would we not do it over again? My good folks,
if Venus had walked into the room and challenged the apple, I was so
infatuated, I would have given it your mother. And had she had the
choice, she would have preferred her humble servant in a threadbare coat
to my Lord Clive with all his diamonds.
Once, to be sure, and for a brief time in that year, I had a notion of
going on the highway in order to be caught and hung as my Lord Ferrers:
or of joining the King of Prussia, and requesting some of his Majesty's
enemies to knock my brains out; or of enlisting for the India service,
and performing some desperate exploit which should end in my bodily
destruction. Ah me! that was indeed a dreadful time! Your mother scarce
dares speak of it now, save in a whisper of terror; or think of it--it
was such cruel pain. She was unhappy years after on the anniversary of
the day, until one of you was born on it. Suppose we had been parted:
what had come to us? What had my lot been without her? As I think of
that possibility, the whole world is a blank. I do not say were we
parted now. It has pleased God to give us thirty years of union. We have
reached the autumn season. Our successors are appointed and ready; and
that one of us who is first called away, knows the survivor will follow
ere long. But we were actually parted in our youth; and I tremble
to think what might have been, had not a dearest friend brought us
together.
Unknown to myself, and very likely meaning only my advantage, my
relatives in England had chosen to write to Madam Esmond in Virginia,
and represent what they were pleased to call the folly of the engagement
I had contracted. Every one of them sang the same song: and I saw the
letters, and burned the whole cursed pack of them years afterwards when
my mother showed them to me at home in Virginia. Aunt Bernstein was
forward with her advice. A young person, with no wonderful good looks,
of no family, with no money;--was ever such an imprudent connexion, and
ought it not for dear George's sake to be broken off? She had several
eligible matches in view for me. With my name and prospects, 'twas a
shame I should throw myself away on this young lady; her sister ought to
interpose--and so forth.
My Lady Warrington must write, too, and in her peculiar manner. Her
ladyship's letter was garnished with scripture texts.
She dressed her worldliness out in phylacteries. She pointed out how I
was living in an unworthy society of player-folks, and the like people,
who she could not say were absolutely without religion (Heaven forbid!),
but who were deplorably worldly. She would not say an artful woman had
inveigled me for her daughter, having in vain tried to captivate my
younger brother. She was far from saying any harm of the young woman I
had selected; but at least this was certain, Miss L. had no fortune or
expectations, and her parents might naturally be anxious to compromise
me. She had taken counsel, etc. etc. She had sought for guidance where
it was, etc. Feeling what her duty was, she had determined to speak. Sir
Miles, a man of excellent judgment in the affairs of this world (though
he knew and sought a better), fully agreed with her in opinion, nay,
desired her to write, and entreat her sister to interfere, that the
ill-advised match should not take place.
And who besides must put a little finger into the pie but the new
Countess of Castlewood? She wrote a majestic letter to Madam Esmond, and
stated, that having been placed by Providence at the head of the Esmond
family, it was her duty to communicate with her kinswoman and warn her
to break off this marriage. I believe the three women laid their heads
together previously; and, packet after packet, sent off their warnings
to the Virginian lady.
One raw April morning, as Corydon goes to pay his usual duty to Phillis,
he finds, not his charmer with her dear smile as usual ready to welcome
him, but Mrs. Lambert, with very red eyes, and the General as pale as
death. “Read this, George Warrington!” says he, as his wife's head drops
between her hands; and he puts a letter before me, of which I recognised
the handwriting. I can hear now the sobs of the good Aunt Lambert, and
to this day the noise of fire-irons stirring a fire in a room overhead
gives me a tremor. I heard such a noise that day in the girls' room
where the sisters were together. Poor, gentle child! Poor Theo!
“What can I do after this, George, my poor boy?” asks the General,
pacing the room with desperation in his face.
I did not quite read the whole of Madam Esmond's letter, for a kind of
sickness and faintness came over me; but I fear I could say some of it
now by heart. Its style was good, and its actual words temperate enough,
though they only implied that Mr. and Mrs. Lambert had inveigled me into
the marriage; that they knew such an union was unworthy of me; that (as
Madam E. understood) they had desired a similar union for her younger
son, which project, not unluckily for him, perhaps, was given up when
it was found that Mr. Henry Warrington was not the inheritor of the
Virginian property. If Mr. Lambert was a man of spirit and honour, as
he was represented to be, Madam Esmond scarcely supposed that, after her
representations, he would persist in desiring this match. She would not
lay commands upon her son, whose temper she knew; but for the sake
of Miss Lambert's own reputation and comfort, she urged that the
dissolution of the engagement should come from her family, and not from
the just unwillingness of Rachel Esmond Warrington of Virginia.
“God help us, George!” the General said, “and give us all strength to
bear this grief, and these charges which it has pleased your mother
to bring! They are hard, but they don't matter now. What is of most
importance, is to spare as much sorrow as we can to my poor girl. I know
you love her so well, that you will help me and her mother to make the
blow as tolerable as we may to that poor gentle heart. Since she was
born she has never given pain to a soul alive, and 'tis cruel that she
should be made to suffer.” And as he spoke he passed his hand across his
dry eyes.
“It was my fault, Martin! It was my fault!” weeps the poor mother.
“Your mother spoke us fair, and gave her promise,” said the father.
“And do you think I will withdraw mine?” cried I; and protested, with
a thousand frantic vows, what they knew full well, that I was bound to
Theo before Heaven, and that nothing should part me from her.”
“She herself will demand the parting. She is a good girl, God help me!
and a dutiful. She will not have her father and mother called schemers,
and treated with scorn. Your mother knew not, very likely, what she was
doing, but 'tis done. You may see the child, and she will tell you as
much. Is Theo dressed, Molly? I brought the letter home from my office
last evening after you were gone. The women have had a bad night. She
knew at once by my face that there was bad news from America. She read
the letter quite firmly. She said she would like to see you and say
good-bye. Of course, George, you will give me your word of honour not to
try and see her afterwards. As soon as my business will let me we will
get away from this, but mother and I think we are best all together.
'Tis you, perhaps, had best go. But give me your word, at any rate, that
you will not try and see her. We must spare her pain, sir! We must spare
her pain!” And the good man sate down in such deep anguish himself that
I, who was not yet under the full pressure of my own grief, actually
felt his, and pitied it. It could not be that the dear lips I had kissed
yesterday were to speak to me only once more. We were all here together;
loving each other, sitting in the room where we met every day; my
drawing on the table by her little workbox; she was in the chamber
upstairs; she must come down presently.
Who is this opens the door? I see her sweet face. It was like our little
Mary's when we thought she would die of the fever. There was even
a smile upon her lips. She comes up and kisses me. “Good-bye, dear
George!” she says. Great Heaven! An old man sitting in this room,--with
my wife's workbox opposite, and she but five minutes away, my eyes
grow so dim and full that I can't see the book before me. I am
three-and-twenty years old again. I go through every stage of that
agony. I once had it sitting in my own postchaise, with my wife actually
by my side. Who dared to sully her sweet love with suspicion? Who had a
right to stab such a soft bosom? Don't you see my ladies getting their
knives ready, and the poor child baring it? My wife comes in. She has
been serving out tea or tobacco to some of her pensioners. “What is it
makes you look so angry, papa?” she says. “My love!” I say, “it is the
thirteenth of April.” A pang of pain shoots across her face, followed by
a tender smile. She has undergone the martyrdom, and in the midst of the
pang comes a halo of forgiveness. I can't forgive; not until my days
of dotage come, and I cease remembering anything. “Hal will be home
for Easter; he will bring two or three of his friends with him from
Cambridge,” she says. And straightway she falls to devising schemes for
amusing the boys. When is she ever occupied, but with plans for making
others happy?
A gentleman sitting in spectacles before an old ledger, and writing down
pitiful remembrances of his own condition, is a quaint and ridiculous
object. My corns hurt me, I know, but I suspect my neighbour's shoes
pinch him too. I am not going to howl much over my own grief, or enlarge
at any great length on this one. Many another man, I dare say, has had
the light of his day suddenly put out, the joy of his life extinguished,
and has been left to darkness and vague torture. I have a book I tried
to read at this time of grief--Howel's Letters--and when I come to the
part about Prince Charles in Spain, up starts the whole tragedy alive
again. I went to Brighthelmstone, and there, at the inn, had a room
facing the east, and saw the sun get up ever so many mornings, after
blank nights of wakefulness, and smoked my pipe of Virginia in his face.
When I am in that place by chance, and see the sun rising now, I shake
my fist at him, thinking, O orient Phoebus, what horrible grief and
savage wrath have you not seen me suffer! Though my wife is mine ever so
long, I say I am angry just the same. Who dared, I want to know, to
make us suffer so? I was forbidden to see her. I kept my promise, and
remained away from the house: that is, after that horrible meeting and
parting. But at night I would go and look at her window, and watch the
lamp burning there; I would go to the Chartreux (where I knew
another boy), and call for her brother, and gorge him with cakes and
half-crowns. I would meanly have her elder brother to dine, and almost
kiss him when he went away. I used to breakfast at a coffee-house in
Whitehall, in order to see Lambert go to his office; and we would salute
each other sadly, and pass on without speaking. Why did not the women
come out? They never did. They were practising on her, and persuading
her to try and forget me. Oh, the weary, weary days! Oh, the maddening
time! At last a doctor's chariot used to draw up before the General's
house every day. Was she ill? I fear I was rather glad she was ill. My
own suffering was so infernal, that I greedily wanted her to share
my pain. And would she not? What grief of mine has it not felt, that
gentlest and most compassionate of hearts? What pain would it not suffer
to spare mine a pang?
I sought that doctor out. I had an interview with him. I told my story,
and laid bare my heart to him, with an outburst of passionate sincerity,
which won his sympathy. My confession enabled him to understand his
young patient's malady; for which his drugs had no remedy or anodyne. I
had promised not to see her, or to go to her: I had kept my promise. I
had promised to leave London: I had gone away. Twice, thrice I went back
and told my sufferings to him. He would take my fee now and again, and
always receive me kindly, and let me speak. Ah, how I clung to him! I
suspect he must have been unhappy once in his own life, he knew so well
and gently how to succour the miserable.
He did not tell me how dangerously, though he did not disguise from
me how gravely and seriously, my dearest girl had been ill. I told him
everything--that I would marry her and brave every chance and danger;
that, without her, I was a man utterly wrecked and ruined, and cared not
what became of me. My mother had once consented, and had now chosen to
withdraw her consent, when the tie between us had been, as I held, drawn
so closely together, as to be paramount to all filial duty.
“I think, sir, if your mother heard you, and saw Miss Lambert, she would
relent,” said the doctor. Who was my mother to hold me in bondage; to
claim a right of misery over me; and to take this angel out of my arms?
“He could not,” he said, “be a message-carrier between young ladies who
were pining and young lovers on whom the sweethearts' gates were shut:
but so much he would venture to say, that he had seen me, and was
prescribing for me, too.” Yes, he must have been unhappy once, himself.
I saw him, you may be sure, on the very day when he had kept his promise
to me. He said she seemed to be comforted by hearing news of me.
“She bears her suffering with an angelical sweetness. I prescribe
Jesuit's bark, which she takes; but I am not sure the hearing of you has
not done more good than the medicine.” The women owned afterwards that
they had never told the General of the doctor's new patient.
I know not what wild expressions of gratitude I poured out to the good
doctor for the comfort he brought me. His treatment was curing two
unhappy sick persons. 'Twas but a drop of water, to be sure; but then
a drop of water to a man raging in torment. I loved the ground he trod
upon, blessed the hand that took mine, and had felt her pulse. I had a
ring with a pretty cameo head of a Hercules on it. 'Twas too small for
his finger, nor did the good old man wear such ornaments. I made
him hang it to his watch-chain, in hopes that she might see it, and
recognise that the token came from me. How I fastened upon Spencer
at this time (my friend of the Temple who also had an unfortunate
love-match), and walked with him from my apartments to the Temple, and
he back with me to Bedford Gardens, and our talk was for ever about our
women! I dare say I told everybody my grief. My good landlady and Betty
the housemaid pitied me. My son Miles, who, for a wonder, has been
reading in my MS., says, “By Jove, sir, I didn't know you and my mother
were took in this kind of way. The year I joined, I was hit very bad
myself. An infernal little jilt that threw me over for Sir Craven Oaks
of our regiment. I thought I should have gone crazy.” And he gives a
melancholy whistle, and walks away.
The General had to leave London presently on one of his military
inspections, as the doctor casually told me; but, having given my
word that I would not seek to present myself at his house, I kept it,
availing myself, however, as you may be sure, of the good physician's
leave to visit him, and have news of his dear patient. His accounts of
her were, far from encouraging. “She does not rally,” he said. “We must
get her back to Kent again, or to the sea.” I did not know then that the
poor child had begged and prayed so piteously not to be moved, that
her parents, divining, perhaps, the reason of her desire to linger in
London, and feeling that it might be dangerous not to humour her, had
yielded to her entreaty, and consented to remain in town.
At last one morning I came, pretty much as usual, and took my place in
my doctor's front parlour, whence his patients were called in their turn
to his consulting-room. Here I remained, looking heedlessly over the
books on the table and taking no notice of any person in the room, which
speedily emptied itself of all, save me and one lady who sate with her
veil down. I used to stay till the last, for Osborn, the doctor's man,
knew my business, and that it was not my own illness I came for.
When the room was empty of all save me and the lady, she puts out two
little hands, cries in a voice which made me start “Don't you know me,
George?” And the next minute I have my arms round her, and kissed her
as heartily as ever I kissed in my life, and gave way to a passionate
outgush of emotion the most refreshing, for my parched soul had been in
rage and torture for six weeks past, and this was a glimpse of Heaven.
Who was it, children? You think it was your mother whom the doctor had
brought to me? No. It was Hetty.
CHAPTER LXXVI. Informs us how Mr. Warrington jumped into a Landau
The emotion at the first surprise and greeting over, the little maiden
began at once.
“So you are come at last to ask after Theo, and you feel sorry that your
neglect has made her so ill? For six weeks she has been unwell, and you
have never asked a word about her! Very kind of you, Mr. George, I'm
sure!”
“Kind!” gasps out Mr. Warrington.
“I suppose you call it kind to be with her every day and all day for a
year, and then to leave her without a word?”
“My dear, you know my promise to your father?” I reply.
“Promise!” says Miss Hetty, shrugging her shoulders. “A very fine
promise, indeed, to make my darling ill, and then suddenly, one fine
day, to say, 'Good-bye, Theo,' and walk away for ever. I suppose
gentlemen make these promises, because they wish to keep 'em. I wouldn't
trifle with a poor child's heart, and leave her afterwards, if I were a
man. What has she ever done to you, but be a fool and too fond of you?
Pray, sir, by what right do you take her away from all of us, and then
desert her, because an old woman in America don't approve of her? She
was happy with us before you came. She loved her sister--there never was
such a sister--until she saw you. And now, because your mamma thinks her
young gentleman might do better, you must leave her forsooth!”
“Great powers, child!” I cried, exasperated at this wrongheadedness.
“Was it I that drew back? Is it not I that am forbidden your house? and
did not your father require, on my honour, that I should not see her?”
“Honour! And you are the men who pretend to be our superiors; and it is
we who are to respect you and admire you! I declare, George Warrington,
you ought to go back to your schoolroom in Virginia again; have your
black nurse to tuck you up in bed, and ask leave from your mamma when
you might walk out. Oh, George! I little thought that my sister was
giving her heart away to a man who hadn't the spirit to stand by her;
but, at the first difficulty, left her! When Doctor Heberden said he was
attending you, I determined to come and see you, and you do look very
ill, that I am glad to see; and I suppose it's your mother you are
frightened of. But I shan't tell Theo that you are unwell. She hasn't
left off caring for you. She can't walk out of a room, break her solemn
engagements, and go into the world the next day as if nothing had
happened! That is left for men, our superiors in courage and wisdom; and
to desert an angel--yes, an angel ten thousand times too good for you;
an angel who used to love me till she saw you, and who was the blessing
of life and of all of us--is what you call honour? Don't tell me, sir!
I despise you all! You are our betters, are you? We are to worship and
wait on you, I suppose? I don't care about your wit, and your tragedies,
and your verses; and I think they are often very stupid. I won't set
up of nights copying your manuscripts, nor watch hour after hour at a
window wasting my time and neglecting everybody because I want to see
your worship walk down the street with your hat cocked! If you are
going away, and welcome, give me back my sister, I say! Give me back my
darling of old days, who loved every one of us, till she saw you. And
you leave her because your mamma thinks she can find somebody richer
for you! Oh, you brave gentleman! Go and marry the person your mother
chooses, and let my dear die here deserted!”
“Great heavens, Hetty!” I cry, amazed at the logic of the little woman.
“Is it I who wish to leave your sister? Did I not offer to keep my
promise, and was it not your father who refused me, and made me promise
never to try and see her again? What have I but my word, and my honour?”
“Honour, indeed! You keep your word to him, and you break it to her!
Pretty honour! If I were a man, I would soon let you know what I thought
of your honour! Only I forgot--you are bound to keep the peace and
mustn't... Oh, George, George! Don't you see the grief I am in? I am
distracted, and scarce know what I say. You must not leave my darling.
They don't know it at home. They don't think so but I know her best of
all, and she will die if you leave her. Say you won't! Have pity upon
me, Mr. Warrington, and give me my dearest back!” Thus the warm-hearted,
distracted creature ran from anger to entreaty, from scorn to tears. Was
my little doctor right in thus speaking of the case of her dear patient?
Was there no other remedy than that which Hetty cried for? Have not
others felt the same cruel pain of amputation, undergone the same
exhaustion and fever afterwards, lain hopeless of anything save death,
and yet recovered after all, and limped through life subsequently? Why,
but that love is selfish, and does not heed other people's griefs and
passions, or that ours was so intense and special that we deemed no
other lovers could suffer like ourselves;--here in the passionate young
pleader for her sister, we might have shown an instance that a fond
heart could be stricken with the love malady and silently suffer it,
live under it, recover from it. What had happened in Hetty's own case?
Her sister and I, in our easy triumph and fond confidential prattle, had
many a time talked over that matter, and, egotists as we were, perhaps
drawn a secret zest and security out of her less fortunate attachment.
'Twas like sitting by the fireside and hearing the winter howling
without; 'twas like walking by the maxi magno, and seeing the ship
tossing at sea. We clung to each other only the more closely, and,
wrapped in our own happiness, viewed others' misfortunes with complacent
pity. Be the truth as it may. Grant that we might have been sundered,
and after a while survived the separation, so much my sceptical old age
may be disposed to admit. Yet, at that time, I was eager enough to share
my ardent little Hetty's terrors and apprehensions, and willingly chose
to believe that the life dearest to me in the world would be sacrificed
if separated from mine. Was I wrong? I would not say as much now. I may
doubt about myself (or not doubt, I know), but of her, never; and Hetty
found in her quite a willing sharer in her alarms and terrors. I was for
imparting some of these to our doctor; but the good gentleman shut my
mouth. “Hush,” says he, with a comical look of fright. “I must hear none
of this. If two people who happen to know each other chance to meet and
talk in my patients' room, I cannot help myself; but as for match-making
and love-making, I am your humble servant! What will the General do when
he comes back to town? He will have me behind Montagu House as sure as I
am a live doctor, and alive I wish to remain, my good sir!” and he skips
into his carriage, and leaves me there meditating. “And you and Miss
Hetty must have no meetings here again, mind you that,” he had said
previously.
Oh no! Of course we would have none! We are gentlemen of honour, and so
forth, and our word is our word. Besides, to have seen Hetty, was not
that an inestimable boon, and would we not be for ever grateful? I am
so refreshed with that drop of water I have had, that I think I can hold
out for ever so long a time now. I walk away with Hetty to Soho, and
never once thought of arranging a new meeting with her. But the little
emissary was more thoughtful, and she asks me whether I go to the
Museum now to read? And I say, “Oh yes, sometimes, my dear; but I am too
wretched for reading now; I cannot see what is on the paper. I do not
care about my books. Even Pocahontas is wearisome to me. I...” I
might have continued ever so much further, when, “Nonsense!” she says,
stamping her little foot. “Why, I declare, George, you are more stupid
than Harry!”
“How do you mean, my dear child?” I asked.
“When do you go? You go away at three o'clock. You strike across on the
road to Tottenham Court. You walk through the village, and return by the
Green Lane that leads back towards the new hospital. You know you do! If
you walk for a week there, it can't do you any harm. Good morning, sir!
You'll please not follow me any farther.” And she drops me a curtsey,
and walks away with a veil over her face.
That Green Lane, which lay to the north of the new hospital, is built
all over with houses now. In my time, when good old George II. was yet
king, 'twas a shabby rural outlet of London; so dangerous, that the City
folks who went to their villas and junketing houses at Hampstead and the
outlying villages, would return in parties of nights, and escorted by
waiters with lanthorns, to defend them from the footpads who prowled
about the town outskirts. Hampstead and Highgate churches, each crowning
its hill, filled up the background of the view which you saw as
you turned your back to London; and one, two, three days Mr. George
Warrington had the pleasure of looking upon this landscape, and walking
back in the direction of the new hospital.
Along the lane were sundry small houses of entertainment; and I remember
at one place, where they sold cakes and beer, at the sign of the
Protestant Hero, a decent woman smiling at me on the third or fourth
day, and curtseying in her clean apron, as she says, “It appears the
lady don't come, sir! Your honour had best step in, and take a can of my
cool beer.”
At length, as I am coming back through Tottenham Road, on the 25th of
May--O day to be marked with the whitest stone!--a little way beyond Mr.
Whitefield's Tabernacle, I see a landau before me, and on the box-seat
by the driver is my young friend Charley, who waves his hat to me and
calls out, “George! George!” I ran up to the carriage, my knees knocking
together so that I thought I should fall by the wheel; and inside I see
Hetty, and by her my dearest Theo, propped with a pillow. How thin the
little hand had become since last it was laid in mine! The cheeks were
flushed and wasted, the eyes strangely bright, and the thrill of the
voice when she spoke a word or two, smote me with a pang, I know not of
grief or joy was it, so intimately were they blended.
“I am taking her an airing to Hampstead,” says Hetty, demurely. “The
doctor says the air will do her good.”
“I have been ill, but I am better now, George,” says Theo. There came a
great burst of music from the people in the chapel hard by, as she was
speaking. I held her hand in mine. Her eyes were looking into mine once
more. It seemed as if we had never been parted.
I can never forget the tune of that psalm. I have heard it all through
my life. My wife has touched it on her harpsichord, and her little ones
have warbled it. Now, do you understand, young people, why I love it so?
Because 'twas the music played at our amoris redintegratio. Because it
sang hope to me, at the period of my existence the most miserable. Yes,
the most miserable: for that dreary confinement of Duquesne had its
tendernesses and kindly associations connected with it; and many a time
in after days I have thought with fondness of the poor Biche and my
tipsy jailor, and the reveille of the forest birds and the military
music of my prison.
Master Charley looks down from his box-seat upon his sister and me
engaged in beatific contemplation, and Hetty listening too, to the
music. “I think I should like to go and hear it. And that famous Mr.
Whitfield, perhaps he is going to preach this very day! Come in with me,
Charley--and George can drive for half an hour with dear Theo towards
Hampstead and back.”
Charley did not seem to have any very strong desire for witnessing the
devotional exercises of good Mr. Whitfield and his congregation, and
proposed that George Warrington should take Hetty in; but Het was not
to be denied. “I will never help you in another exercise as long as you
live, sir,” cries Miss Hetty, “if you don't come on,”--while the youth
clambered down from his box-seat, and they entered the temple together.
Can any moralist, bearing my previous promises in mind, excuse me for
jumping into the carriage and sitting down once more by my dearest Theo?
Suppose I did break 'em? Will he blame me much? Reverend sir, you are
welcome. I broke my promise; and if you would not do as much, good
friend, you are welcome to your virtue. Not that I for a moment suspect
my own children will ever be so bold as to think of having hearts of
their own, and bestowing them according to their liking. No, my young
people, you will let papa choose for you; be hungry when he tells
you; be thirsty when he orders; and settle your children's marriages
afterwards.
And now of course you are anxious to hear what took place when papa
jumped into the landau by the side of poor little mamma, propped up by
her pillows. “I am come to your part of the story, my dear,” says I,
looking over to my wife as she is plying her needles.
“To what, pray?” says my lady. “You should skip all that part, and come
to the grand battles, and your heroic defence of----”
“Of Fort Fiddlededee in the year 1778, when I pulled off Mr.
Washington's epaulet, gouged General Gates's eye, cut off Charles Lee's
head, and pasted it on again!”
“Let us hear all about the fighting,” say the boys. Even the Captain
condescends to own he will listen to any military details, though only
from a militia officer.
“Fair and softly, young people! Everything in its turn. I am not yet
arrived at the war. I am only a young gentleman, just stepping into
a landau, by the side of a young lady whom I promised to avoid. I am
taking her hand, which, after a little ado, she leaves in mine. Do you
remember how hot it was, the little thing, how it trembled, and how it
throbbed and jumped a hundred and twenty in a minute? And as we trot on
towards Hampstead, I address Miss Lambert in the following terms----”
“Ah, ah, ah!” say the girls in a chorus with mademoiselle, their French
governess, who cries, “Nous ecoutons maintenant. La parole est a vous,
Monsieur le Chevalier!”
Here we have them all in a circle: mamma is at her side of the fire,
papa at his; Mademoiselle Eleonore, at whom the Captain looks rather
sweetly (eyes off, Captain!); the two girls, listening like--like
nymphas discentes to Apollo, let us say; and John and Tummas (with
obtuse ears), who are bringing in the tea-trays and urns.
“Very good,” says the Squire, pulling out the MS., and waving it before
him. “We are going to tell your mother's secrets and mine.”
“I am sure you may, papa,” cries the house matron. “There's nothing to
be ashamed of.” And a blush rises over her kind face.
“But before I begin, young folks, permit me two or three questions.”
“Allons, toujours des questions!” says mademoiselle, with a shrug of her
pretty shoulders. (Florac has recommended her to us, and I suspect the
little Chevalier has himself an eye upon this pretty Mademoiselle de
Blois.)
To the questions, then.
CHAPTER LXXVII. And how everybody got out again
You, Captain Miles Warrington, have the honour of winning the good
graces of a lady--of ever so many ladies--of the Duchess of Devonshire,
let us say, of Mrs. Crew, of Mrs. Fitzherbert, of the Queen of Prussia,
of the Goddess Venus, of Mademoiselle Hillisberg of the Opera--never
mind of whom, in fine. If you win a lady's good graces, do you always go
to the mess and tell what happened?”
“Not such a fool, Squire!” says the Captain, surveying his side curl in
the glass.
“Have you, Miss Theo, told your mother every word you said to Mr. Joe
Blake, junior, in the shrubbery this morning?”
“Joe Blake, indeed!” cries Theo junior.
“And you, mademoiselle? That scented billet which came to you under Sir
Thomas's frank, have you told us all the letter contains? Look how she
blushes! As red as the curtain, on my word! No, mademoiselle, we all
have our secrets” (says the Squire, here making his best French bow).
“No, Theo, there was nothing in the shrubbery--only nuts, my child!
No, Miles, my son, we don't tell all, even to the most indulgent of
fathers--and if I tell what happened in a landau on the Hampstead Road,
on the 25th of May, 1760, may the Chevalier Ruspini pull out every tooth
in my head!”
“Pray tell, papa!” cries mamma: “or, as Jobson, who drove us, is in your
service now, perhaps you will have him in from the stables! I insist
upon your telling!”
“What is, then, this mystery?” asks mademoiselle, in her pretty French
accent, of my wife.
“Eh, ma fille!” whispers the lady. “Thou wouldst ask me what I said? I
said 'Yes!'--behold all I said.” And so 'tis my wife has peached, and
not I; and this was the sum of our conversation, as the carriage, all
too swiftly as I thought, galloped towards Hampstead, and flew
back again. Theo had not agreed to fly in the face of her honoured
parents--no such thing. But we would marry no other person; no, not if
we lived to be as old as Methuselah; no, not the Prince of Wales
himself would she take. Her heart she had given away with her papa's
consent--nay, order--it was not hers to resume. So kind a father must
relent one of these days; and, if George would keep his promise--were it
now, or were it in twenty years, or were it in another world, she knew
she should never break hers.
Hetty's face beamed with delight when, my little interview over, she
saw Theo's countenance wearing a sweet tranquillity. All the doctor's
medicine has not done her so much good, the fond sister said. The girls
went home after their act of disobedience. I gave up the place which I
had held during a brief period of happiness by my dear invalid's side.
Hetty skipped back into her seat, and Charley on to his box. He told me
in after days, that it was a very dull, stupid sermon he had heard. The
little chap was too orthodox to love dissenting preachers' sermons.
Hetty was not the only one of the family who remarked her sister's
altered countenance and improved spirits. I am told that on the girls'
return home their mother embraced both of them, especially the invalid,
with more than common ardour of affection. “There was nothing like a
country ride,” Aunt Lambert said, “for doing her dear Theo good. She
had been on the road to Hampstead, had she? She must have another ride
to-morrow. Heaven be blessed, my Lord Wrotham's horses were at their
orders three or four times a week, and the sweet child might have the
advantage of them!” As for the idea that Mr. Warrington might have
happened to meet the children on their drive, Aunt Lambert never once
entertained it,--at least spoke of it. I leave anybody who is interested
in the matter to guess whether Mrs. Lambert could by any possibility
have supposed that her daughter and her sweetheart could ever have come
together again. Do women help each other in love perplexities? Do women
scheme, intrigue, make little plans, tell little fibs, provide little
amorous opportunities, hang up the rope-ladder, coax, wheedle, mystify
the guardian or Abigail, and turn their attention away while Strephon
and Chloe are billing and cooing in the twilight, or whisking off in the
postchaise to Gretna Green? My dear young folks, some people there are
of this nature; and some kind souls who have loved tenderly and truly in
their own time, continue ever after to be kindly and tenderly disposed
towards their young successors, when they begin to play the same pretty
game.
Miss Prim doesn't. If she hears of two young persons attached to each
other, it is to snarl at them for fools, or to imagine of them all
conceivable evil. Because she has a hump-back herself, she is for biting
everybody else's. I believe if she saw a pair of turtles cooing in a
wood, she would turn her eyes down, or fling a stone to frighten them;
but I am speaking, you see, young ladies, of your grandmother, Aunt
Lambert, who was one great syllabub of human kindness; and, besides,
about the affair at present under discussion, how am I ever to tell
whether she knew anything regarding it or not?
So, all she says to Theo on her return home is, “My child, the country
air has done you all the good in the world, and I hope you will take
another drive to-morrow, and another, and another, and so on.”
“Don't you think, papa, the ride has done the child most wonderful good,
and must not she be made to go out in the air?” Aunt Lambert asks of the
General, when he comes in for supper.
“Yes, sure, if a coach-and-six will do his little Theo good, she shall
have it,” Lambert says, “or he will drag the landau up Hampstead Hill
himself, if there are no horses;” and so the good man would have spent,
freely, his guineas, or his breath, or his blood, to give his child
pleasure. He was charmed at his girl's altered countenance; she picked
a bit of chicken with appetite: she drank a little negus, which he made
for her: indeed it did seem to be better than the kind doctor's best
medicine, which hitherto, God wot, had been of little benefit. Mamma was
gracious and happy. Hetty was radiant and rident. It was quite like an
evening at home at Oakhurst. Never for months past, never since that
fatal, cruel day, that no one spoke of, had they spent an evening so
delightful.
But, if the other women chose to coax and cajole the good, simple
father, Theo herself was too honest to continue for long even that sweet
and fond delusion. When, for the third or fourth time, he comes back to
the delightful theme of his daughter's improved health, and asks, “What
has done it? Is it the country air? is it the Jesuit's bark? is it the
new medicine?”
“Can't you think, dear, what it is?” she says, laying a hand upon her
father's, with a tremor in her voice, perhaps, but eyes that are quite
open and bright.
“And what is it, my child?” asks the General.
“It is because I have seen him again, papa!” she says.
The other two women turned pale, and Theo's heart too begins to
palpitate, and her cheek to whiten, as she continues to look in her
father's scared face.
“It was not wrong to see him,” she continues, more quickly; “it would
have been wrong not to tell you.”
“Great God!” groans the father, drawing his hand back, and with such
a dreadful grief in his countenance, that Hetty runs to her almost
swooning sister, clasps her to her heart, and cries out, rapidly, “Theo
knew nothing of it, sir! It was my doing--it was all my doing!”
Theo lies on her sister's neck, and kisses it twenty, fifty times.
“Women, women! are you playing with my honour?” cries the father,
bursting out with a fierce exclamation.
Aunt Lambert sobs, wildly, “Martin! Martin! Don't say a word to her!”
again calls out Hetty, and falls back herself staggering towards the
wall, for Theo has fainted on her shoulder.
I was taking my breakfast next morning, with what appetite I might, when
my door opens, and my faithful black announces, “General Lambert.” At
once I saw, by the General's face, that the yesterday's transaction was
known to him. “Your accomplices did not confess,” the General said,
as soon as my servant had left us, “but sided with you against their
father--a proof how desirable clandestine meetings are. It was from Theo
herself I heard that she had seen you.”
“Accomplices, sir!” I said (perhaps not unwilling to turn the
conversation from the real point at issue). “You know how fondly and
dutifully your young people regard their father. If they side against
you in this instance, it must be because justice is against you. A man
like you is not going to set up sic volo sic jubeo as the sole law in
his family!”
“Psha, George!” cries the General. “For though we are parted, God forbid
I should desire that we should cease to love each other. I had your
promise that you would not seek to see her.”
“Nor did I go to her, sir,” I said, turning red, no doubt; for though
this was truth, I own it was untrue.
“You mean she was brought to you?” says Theo's father, in great
agitation. “Is it behind Hester's petticoat that you will shelter
yourself? What a fine defence for a gentleman!”
“Well, I won't screen myself behind the poor child,” I replied.
“To speak as I did was to make an attempt at evasion, and I am
ill-accustomed to dissemble. I did not infringe the letter of my
agreement, but I acted against the spirit of it. From this moment I
annul it altogether.”
“You break your word given to me!” cries Mr. Lambert.
“I recall a hasty promise made on a sudden at a moment of extreme
excitement and perturbation. No man can be for ever bound by words
uttered at such a time; and, what is more, no man of honour or humanity,
Mr. Lambert, would try to bind him.”
“Dishonour to me! sir,” exclaims the General.
“Yes, if the phrase is to be shuttlecocked between us!” I answered,
hotly. “There can be no question about love, or mutual regard,
or difference of age, when that word is used: and were you my own
father--and I love you better than a father, Uncle Lambert,--I would not
bear it! What have I done? I have seen the woman whom I consider my wife
before God and man, and if she calls me I will see her again. If she
comes to me, here is my home for her, and the half of the little I have.
'Tis you, who have no right, having made me the gift, to resume it.
Because my mother taunts you unjustly, are you to visit Mrs. Esmond's
wrong upon this tender, innocent creature? You profess to love your
daughter, and you can't bear a little wounded pride for her sake. Better
she should perish away in misery, than an old woman in Virginia should
say that Mr. Lambert had schemed to marry one of his daughters. Say
that to satisfy what you call honour and I call selfishness, we part,
we break our hearts well nigh, we rally, we try to forget each other, we
marry elsewhere? Can any man be to my dear as I have been? God forbid!
Can any woman be to me what she is? You shall marry her to the Prince of
Wales to-morrow, and it is a cowardice and treason. How can we, how can
you, undo the promises we have made to each other before Heaven? You may
part us: and she will die as surely as if she were Jephthah's daughter.
Have you made any vow to Heaven to compass her murder? Kill her if you
conceive your promise so binds you: but this I swear, that I am glad
you have come, so that I may here formally recall a hasty pledge which I
gave, and that, call me when she will, I will come to her!”
No doubt this speech was made with the flurry and agitation belonging
to Mr. Warrington's youth, and with the firm conviction that death would
infallibly carry off one or both of the parties, in case their worldly
separation was inevitably decreed. Who does not believe his first
passion eternal? Having watched the world since, and seen the rise,
progress, and--alas, that I must say it!--decay of other amours, I may
smile now as I think of my own youthful errors and ardours; but, if it
be a superstition, I had rather hold it; I had rather think that
neither of us could have lived with any other mate, and that, of all its
innumerable creatures, Heaven decreed these special two should be joined
together.
“We must come, then, to what I had fain have spared myself,” says the
General, in reply to my outbreak; “to an unfriendly separation. When
I meet you, Mr. Warrington, I must know you no more. I must order--and
they will not do other than obey me--my family and children not to
recognise you when they see you, since you will not recognise in
your intercourse with me the respect due to my age, the courtesy of
gentlemen. I had hoped so far from your sense of honour, and the idea
I had formed of you, that, in my present great grief and perplexity,
I should have found you willing to soothe and help me as far as you
might--for, God knows, I have need of everybody's sympathy. But, instead
of help, you fling obstacles in my way. Instead of a friend--a gracious
Heaven pardon me!--I find in you an enemy! An enemy to the peace of my
home and the honour of my children, sir! And as such I shall treat you,
and know how to deal with you, when you molest me!”
And, waving his hand to me, and putting on his hat, Mr. Lambert hastily
quitted my apartment.
I was confounded, and believed, indeed, there was war between us. The
brief happiness of yesterday was clouded over and gone, and I thought
that never since the day of the first separation had I felt so
exquisitely unhappy as now, when the bitterness of quarrel was added to
the pangs of parting, and I stood not only alone but friendless. In the
course of one year's constant intimacy I had come to regard Lambert with
a reverence and affection which I had never before felt for any mortal
man except my dearest Harry. That his face should be turned from me
in anger was as if the sun had gone out of my sphere, and all was dark
around me. And yet I felt sure that in withdrawing the hasty promise I
had made not to see Theo, I was acting rightly--that my fidelity to her,
as hers now to me, was paramount to all other ties of duty or obedience,
and that, ceremony or none, I was hers, first and before all. Promises
were passed between us, from which no parent could absolve either; and
all the priests in Christendom could no more than attest and confirm the
sacred contract which had tacitly been ratified between us.
I saw Jack Lambert by chance that day, as I went mechanically to my not
unusual haunt, the library of the new Museum; and with the impetuousness
of youth, and eager to impart my sorrow to some one, I took him out of
the room and led him about the gardens, and poured out my grief to him.
I did not much care for Jack (who in truth was somewhat of a prig, and
not a little pompous and wearisome with his Latin quotations) except in
the time of my own sorrow, when I would fasten upon him or any one; and
having suffered himself in his affair with the little American,
being haud ignarus mali (as I knew he would say), I found the college
gentleman ready to compassionate another's misery. I told him, what has
here been represented at greater length, of my yesterday's meeting
with his sister; of my interview with his father in the morning; of my
determination at all hazards never to part with Theo. When I found from
the various quotations from the Greek and Latin authors which he uttered
that he leaned to my side in the dispute, I thought him a man of great
sense, clung eagerly to his elbow, and bestowed upon him much more
affection than he was accustomed at other times to have from me. I
walked with him up to his father's lodgings in Dean Street; saw him
enter at the dear door; surveyed the house from without with a sickening
desire to know from its exterior appearance how my beloved fared within;
and called for a bottle at the coffee-house where I waited Jack's
return. I called him Brother when I sent him away. I fondled him as the
condemned wretch at Newgate hangs about the jailor or the parson, or any
one who is kind to him in his misery. I drank a whole bottle of wine at
the coffee-house--by the way, Jack's Coffee-House was its name--called
another. I thought Jack would never come back.
He appeared at length with rather a scared face; and, coming to my box,
poured out for himself two or three bumpers from my second bottle,
and then fell to his story, which, to me at least, was not a little
interesting. My poor Theo was keeping her room, it appeared, being much
agitated by the occurrences of yesterday; and Jack had come home in time
to find dinner on table; after which his good father held forth upon the
occurrences of the morning, being anxious and able to speak more freely,
he said, because his eldest son was present and Theodosia was not in the
room. The General stated what had happened at my lodgings between me and
him. He bade Hester be silent, who indeed was as dumb as a mouse, poor
thing! he told Aunt Lambert (who was indulging in that madefaction of
pocket-handkerchiefs which I have before described), and with something
like an imprecation, that the women were all against him, and pimps (he
called them) for one another; and frantically turning round to Jack,
asked what was his view in the matter?
To his father's surprise and his mother's and sister's delight,
Jack made a speech on my side. He ruled with me (citing what ancient
authorities I don't know), that the matter had gone out of the hands of
the parents on either side; that having given their consent, some months
previously, the elders had put themselves out of court. Though he did
not hold with a great, a respectable, he might say a host of divines,
those sacramental views of the marriage-ceremony--for which there was a
great deal to be said--yet he held it, if possible, even more sacredly
than they; conceiving that though marriages were made before the civil
magistrate, and without the priest, yet they were, before Heaven,
binding and indissoluble.
“It is not merely, sir,” says Jack, turning to his father, “those whom
I, John Lambert, Priest, have joined, let no man put asunder; it is
those whom God has joined let no man separate.” (Here he took off his
hat, as he told the story to me.) “My views are clear upon the point,
and surely these young people were joined, or permitted to plight
themselves to each other by the consent of you, the priest of your own
family. My views, I say, are clear, and I will lay them down at length
in a series of two or three discourses which, no doubt, will satisfy
you. Upon which,” says Jack, “my father said, 'I am satisfied already,
my dear boy,' and my lively little Het (who has much archness) whispers
to me, 'Jack, mother and I will make you a dozen shirts, as sure as eggs
is eggs.'”
“Whilst we were talking,” Mr. Lambert resumed, “my sister Theodosia
made her appearance, I must say very much agitated and pale, kissed our
father, and sate down at his side, and took a sippet of toast--(my dear
George, this port is excellent, and I drink your health)--and took a
sippet of toast and dipped it in his negus.
“'You should have been here to hear Jack's sermon!' says Hester. 'He has
been preaching most beautifully.'
“'Has he?' asks Theodosia, who is too languid and weak, poor thing, much
to care for the exercises of eloquence, or the display of authorities,
such as I must own,” says Jack, “it was given to me this afternoon to
bring forward.
“'He has talked for three quarters of an hour by Shrewsbury clock,' says
my father, though I certainly had not talked so long or half so long
by my own watch. 'And his discourse has been you, my dear,' says papa,
playing with Theodosia's hand.
“'Me, papa?'
“'You and--and Mr. Warrington--and--and George, my love,' says papa.
Upon which” (says Mr. Jack). “my sister came closer to the General, and
laid her head upon him, and wept upon his shoulder.
“'This is different, sir,' says I, 'to a passage I remember in
Pausanias.'
“'In Pausanias? Indeed!' said the General. 'And pray who was he?'
“I smiled at my father's simplicity in exposing his ignorance before his
children. 'When Ulysses was taking away Penelope from her father,
the king hastened after his daughter and bridegroom, and besought his
darling to return. Whereupon, it is related, Ulysses offered her her
choice,--whether she would return, or go on with him? Upon which the
daughter of Icarius covered her face with her veil. For want of a veil
my sister has taken refuge in your waistcoat, sir,' I said, and we all
laughed; though my mother vowed that if such a proposal had been made
to her, or Penelope had been a girl of spirit, she would have gone home
with her father that instant.
“'But I am not a girl of any spirit, dear mother!' says Theodosia, still
in gremio patris. I do not remember that this habit of caressing
was frequent in my own youth,” continues Jack. “But after some more
discourse, Brother Warrington! bethought me of you, and left my parents
insisting upon Theodosia returning to bed. The late transactions have,
it appears, weakened and agitated her much. I myself have experienced,
in my own case, how full of solliciti timoris is a certain passion; how
it racks the spirits; and I make no doubt, if carried far enough, or
indulged to the extent to which women who have little philosophy will
permit it to go--I make no doubt, I say, is ultimately injurious to the
health. My service to you, brother!”
From grief to hope, how rapid the change was! What a flood of happiness
poured into my soul, and glowed in my whole being! Landlord, more port!
Would honest Jack have drunk a binful I would have treated him; and,
to say truth, Jack's sympathy was large in this case, and it had been
generous all day. I decline to score the bottles of port: and place
to the fabulous computations of interested waiters, the amount scored
against me in the reckoning. Jack was my dearest, best of brothers.
My friendship for him I swore should be eternal. If I could do him any
service, were it a bishopric, by George! he should have it. He says I
was interrupted by the watchman rhapsodising verses beneath the loved
one's window. I know not. I know I awoke joyfully and rapturously, in
spite of a racking headache the next morning.
Nor did I know the extent of my happiness quite, or the entire
conversion of my dear noble enemy of the previous morning. It must
have been galling to the pride of an elder man to have to yield to
representations and objections couched in language so little dutiful as
that I had used towards Mr. Lambert. But the true Christian gentleman,
retiring from his talk with me, mortified and wounded by my asperity of
remonstrance, as well as by the pain which he saw his beloved daughter
suffer, went thoughtfully and sadly to his business, as he subsequently
told me, and in the afternoon (as his custom not unfrequently was) into
a church which was open for prayers. And it was here, on his knees,
submitting his case in the quarter whither he frequently, though
privately, came for guidance and comfort, that it seemed to him that his
child was right in her persistent fidelity to me, and himself wrong in
demanding her utter submission. Hence Jack's cause was won almost before
he began to plead it; and the brave, gentle heart, which could bear no
rancour, which bled at inflicting pain on those it loved, which even
shrank from asserting authority or demanding submission, was only too
glad to return to its natural pulses of love and affection.
CHAPTER LXXVIII. Pyramus and Thisbe
In examining the old papers at home, years afterwards, I found, docketed
and labelled with my mother's well-known neat handwriting, “From London,
April, 1760. My son's dreadful letter.” When it came to be mine I
burnt the document, not choosing that that story of domestic grief and
disunion should remain amongst our family annals for future Warringtons
to gaze on, mayhap, and disobedient sons to hold up as examples of
foregone domestic rebellions. For similar reasons, I have destroyed the
paper which my mother despatched to me at this time of tyranny, revolt,
annoyance, and irritation.
Maddened by the pangs of separation from my mistress, and not unrightly
considering that Mrs. Esmond was the prime cause of the greatest grief
and misery which had ever befallen me in the world, I wrote home to
Virginia a letter, which might have been more temperate, it is true, but
in which I endeavoured to maintain the extremest respect and reticence.
I said I did not know by what motives she had been influenced, but that
I held her answerable for the misery of my future life, which she
had chosen wilfully to mar and render wretched. She had occasioned a
separation between me and a virtuous and innocent young creature,
whose own hopes, health, and happiness were cast down for ever by Mrs.
Esmond's interference. The deed was done, as I feared, and I would offer
no comment upon the conduct of the perpetrator, who was answerable to
God alone; but I did not disguise from my mother that the injury which
she had done me was so dreadful and mortal, that her life or mine could
never repair it; that the tie of my allegiance was broken towards her,
and that I never could be, as heretofore, her dutiful and respectful
son.
Madam Esmond replied to me in a letter of very great dignity (her style
and correspondence were extraordinarily elegant and fine). She uttered
not a single reproach or hard word, but coldly gave me to understand
that it was before that awful tribunal of God she had referred the case
between us, and asked for counsel; that, in respect of her own conduct,
as a mother, she was ready, in all humility, to face it. Might I, as a
son, be equally able to answer for myself, and to show, when the Great
Judge demanded the question of me, whether I had done my own duty, and
honoured my father and mother! O popoi! My grandfather has quoted in his
memoir a line of Homer, showing how in our troubles and griefs the
gods are always called in question. When our pride, our avarice, our
interest, our desire to domineer, are worked upon, are we not for
ever pestering Heaven to decide in their favour? In our great American
quarrel, did we not on both sides appeal to the skies as to the
justice of our causes, sing Te Deum for victory, and boldly express our
confidence that the right should prevail? Was America right because
she was victorious? Then I suppose Poland was wrong because she was
defeated?--How am I wandering into this digression about Poland,
America, and what not, and all the while thinking of a little woman now
no more, who appealed to Heaven and confronted it with a thousand texts
out of its own book, because her son wanted to make a marriage not of
her liking? We appeal, we imprecate, we go down on our knees, we demand
blessings, we shriek out for sentence according to law; the great course
of the great world moves on; we pant, and strive, and struggle; we hate;
we rage; we weep passionate tears; we reconcile; we race and win; we
race and lose; we pass away, and other little strugglers succeed; our
days are spent; our night comes, and another morning rises, which shines
on us no more.
My letter to Madam Esmond, announcing my revolt and disobedience
(perhaps I myself was a little proud of the composition of that
document), I showed in duplicate to Mr. Lambert, because I wished him
to understand what my relations to my mother were, and how I was
determined, whatever of threats or quarrels the future might bring,
never for my own part to consider my separation from Theo as other than
a forced one. Whenever I could see her again I would. My word given
to her was in secula seculorum, or binding at least as long as my life
should endure. I implied that the girl was similarly bound to me, and
her poor father knew indeed as much. He might separate us; as he might
give her a dose of poison, and the gentle, obedient creature would take
it and die; but the death or separation would be his doing: let him
answer them. Now he was tender about his children to weakness, and could
not have the heart to submit any one of them--this one especially--to
torture. We had tried to part: we could not. He had endeavoured to
separate us: it was more than was in his power. The bars were up, but
the young couple--the maid within and the knight without--were loving
each other all the same. The wall was built, but Pyramus and Thisbe were
whispering on either side. In the midst of all his grief and perplexity,
Uncle Lambert had plenty of humour, and could not but see that his role
was rather a sorry one. Light was beginning to show through that lime
and rough plaster of the wall: the lovers were getting their hands
through, then their heads through--indeed, it was wall's best business
to retire.
I forget what happened stage by stage and day by day; nor, for the
instruction of future ages, does it much matter. When my descendants
have love scrapes of their own, they will find their own means of
getting out of them. I believe I did not go back to Dean Street, but
that practice of driving in the open air was considered most healthful
for Miss Lambert. I got a fine horse, and rode by the side of her
carriage. The old woman at Tottenham Court came to know both of us quite
well, and nod and wink in the most friendly manner when we passed by.
I fancy the old goody was not unaccustomed to interest herself in young
couples, and has dispensed the hospitality of her roadside cottage to
more than one pair.
The doctor and the country air effected a prodigious cure upon Miss
Lambert. Hetty always attended as duenna, and sometimes of his holiday,
Master Charley rode my horse when I got into the carriage. What a deal
of love-making Miss Hetty heard!--with what exemplary patience she
listened to it! I do not say she went to hear the Methodist sermons any
more, but 'tis certain that when we had a closed carriage she would very
kindly and considerately look out of the window. Then, what heaps of
letters there were!--what running to and fro! Gumbo's bandy legs were
for ever on the trot from my quarters to Dean Street; and, on my account
or her own, Mrs. Molly, the girl's maid, was for ever bringing back
answers to Bloomsbury. By the time when the autumn leaves began to turn
pale, Miss Theo's roses were in full bloom again, and my good Doctor
Heberden's cure was pronounced to be complete. What else happened during
this blessed period? Mr. Warrington completed his great tragedy of
Pocahontas, which was not only accepted by Mr. Garrick this time (his
friend Dr. Johnson having spoken not unfavourably of the work), but my
friend and cousin, Hagan, was engaged by the manager to perform the part
of the hero, Captain Smith. Hagan's engagement was not made before it
was wanted. I had helped him and his family with means disproportioned,
perhaps, to my power, especially considering my feud with Madam Esmond,
whose answer to my angry missive of April came to me towards autumn,
and who wrote back from Virginia with war for war, controlment for
controlment. These menaces, however, frightened me little: my poor
mother's thunder could not reach me; and my conscience, or casuistry,
supplied me with other interpretations for her texts of Scripture, so
that her oracles had not the least weight with me in frightening me from
my purpose. How my new loves speeded I neither informed her, nor any
other members of my maternal or paternal family, who, on both sides, had
been bitter against my marriage. Of what use wrangling with them? It was
better to carpere diem and its sweet loves and pleasures, and to leave
the railers to grumble, or the seniors to advise, at their ease.
Besides Madam Esmond I had, it must be owned, in the frantic rage of my
temporary separation, addressed notes of wondrous sarcasm to my Uncle
Warrington, to my Aunt Madame de Bernstein, and to my Lord or Lady
of Castlewood (I forget to which individually), thanking them for the
trouble which they had taken in preventing the dearest happiness of my
life, and promising them a corresponding gratitude from their obliged
relative. Business brought the jovial Baronet and his family to London
somewhat earlier than usual, and Madame de Bernstein was never sorry
to get back to Clarges Street and her cards. I saw them. They found me
perfectly well. They concluded the match was broken off, and I did not
choose to undeceive them. The Baroness took heart at seeing how cheerful
I was, and made many sly jokes about my philosophy, and my prudent
behaviour as a man of the world. She was, as ever, bent upon finding a
rich match for me: and I fear I paid many compliments at her house to
a rich young soap-boiler's daughter from Mile End, whom the worthy
Baroness wished to place in my arms.
“You court her with infinite wit and esprit, my dear,” says my pleased
kinswoman, “but she does not understand half you say, and the other
half, I think, frightens her. This ton de persiflage is very well in our
society, but you must be sparing of it, my dear nephew, amongst these
roturiers.”
Miss Badge married a young gentleman of royal dignity, though shattered
fortunes, from a neighbouring island; and I trust Mrs. Mackshane has
ere this pardoned my levity. There was another person besides Miss at my
aunt's house, who did not understand my persiflage much better than Miss
herself; and that was a lady who had seen James the Second's reign, and
who was alive and as worldly as ever in King George's. I loved to be
with her: but that my little folks have access to this volume, I could
put down a hundred stories of the great old folks whom she had known in
the great old days--of George the First and his ladies, of St. John and
Marlborough, of his reigning Majesty and the late Prince of Wales, and
the causes of the quarrel between them--but my modest muse pipes for
boys and virgins. Son Miles does not care about court stories, or if he
doth, has a fresh budget from Carlton House, quite as bad as the worst
of our old Baroness. No, my dear wife, thou hast no need to shake thy
powdered locks at me! Papa is not going to scandalise his nursery with
old-world gossip, nor bring a blush over our chaste bread-and-butter.