Among the company which came to visit the two officers was an old
acquaintance of Harry Esmond; that gentleman of the Guards, namely, who
had been so kind to Harry when Captain Westbury’s troop had been quartered
at Castlewood more than seven years before. Dick the Scholar was no longer
Dick the Trooper now, but Captain Steele of Lucas’s Fusiliers, and
secretary to my Lord Cutts, that famous officer of King William’s, the
bravest and most beloved man of the English army. The two jolly prisoners
had been drinking with a party of friends (for our cellar and that of the
keepers of Newgate, too, were supplied with endless hampers of burgundy
and champagne that the friends of the colonels sent in); and Harry, having
no wish for their drink or their conversation, being too feeble in health
for the one and too sad in spirits for the other, was sitting apart in his
little room, reading such books as he had, one evening, when honest
Colonel Westbury, flushed with liquor, and always good-humoured in and out
of his cups, came laughing into Harry’s closet, and said, “Ho, young
Killjoy! here’s a friend come to see thee; he’ll pray with thee, or he’ll
drink with thee; or he’ll drink and pray turn about. Dick, my Christian
hero, here’s the little scholar of Castlewood.”
Dick came up and kissed Esmond on both cheeks, imparting a strong perfume
of burnt sack along with his caress to the young man.
“What! is this the little man that used to talk Latin and fetch our bowls?
How tall thou art grown! I protest I should have known thee anywhere. And
so you have turned ruffian and fighter; and wanted to measure swords with
Mohun, did you? I protest that Mohun said at the Guard dinner yesterday,
where there was a pretty company of us, that the young fellow wanted to
fight him, and was the better man of the two.”
“I wish we could have tried and proved it, Mr. Steele,” says Esmond,
thinking of his dead benefactor, and his eyes filling with tears.
With the exception of that one cruel letter which he had from his
mistress, Mr. Esmond heard nothing from her, and she seemed determined to
execute her resolve of parting from him and disowning him. But he had news
of her, such as it was, which Mr. Steele assiduously brought him from the
prince’s and princesses’ Court, where our honest captain had been advanced
to the post of gentleman waiter. When off duty there, Captain Dick often
came to console his friends in captivity; a good nature and a friendly
disposition towards all who were in ill fortune no doubt prompting him to
make his visits, and good fellowship and good wine to prolong them.
“Faith,” says Westbury, “the little scholar was the first to begin the
quarrel—I mind me of it now—at Lockit’s. I always hated that fellow Mohun.
What was the real cause of the quarrel betwixt him and poor Frank? I would
wager ’twas a woman.”
“’Twas a quarrel about play—on my word, about play,” Harry said. “My poor
lord lost great sums to his guest at Castlewood. Angry words passed
between them; and, though Lord Castlewood was the kindest and most pliable
soul alive, his spirit was very high; and hence that meeting which has
brought us all here,” says Mr. Esmond, resolved never to acknowledge that
there had ever been any other but cards for the duel.
“I do not like to use bad words of a nobleman,” says Westbury; “but if my
Lord Mohun were a commoner, I would say, ’twas a pity he was not hanged.
He was familiar with dice and women at a time other boys are at school,
being birched; he was as wicked as the oldest rake, years ere he had done
growing; and handled a sword and a foil, and a bloody one too, before ever
he used a razor. He held poor Will Mountford in talk that night, when
bloody Dick Hill ran him through. He will come to a bad end, will that
young lord; and no end is bad enough for him,” says honest Mr. Westbury:
whose prophecy was fulfilled twelve years after, upon that fatal day when
Mohun fell, dragging down one of the bravest and greatest gentlemen in
England in his fall.
From Mr. Steele, then, who brought the public rumour, as well as his own
private intelligence, Esmond learned the movements of his unfortunate
mistress. Steele’s heart was of very inflammable composition; and the
gentleman usher spoke in terms of boundless admiration both of the widow
(that most beautiful woman, as he said) and of her daughter, who, in the
captain’s eyes, was a still greater paragon. If the pale widow, whom
Captain Richard, in his poetic rapture, compared to a Niobe in tears—to a
Sigismunda—to a weeping Belvidera, was an object the most lovely and
pathetic which his eyes had ever beheld, or for which his heart had
melted, even her ripened perfections and beauty were as nothing compared
to the promise of that extreme loveliness which the good captain saw in
her daughter. It was _matre pulcra filia pulcrior_. Steele composed
sonnets whilst he was on duty in his prince’s antechamber, to the maternal
and filial charms. He would speak for hours about them to Harry Esmond;
and, indeed, he could have chosen few subjects more likely to interest the
unhappy young man, whose heart was now as always devoted to these ladies;
and who was thankful to all who loved them, or praised them, or wished
them well.
Not that his fidelity was recompensed by any answering kindness, or show
of relenting even, on the part of a mistress obdurate now after ten years
of love and benefactions. The poor young man getting no answer, save
Tusher’s, to that letter which he had written, and being too proud to
write more, opened a part of his heart to Steele, than whom no man, when
unhappy, could find a kinder hearer or more friendly emissary; described
(in words which were no doubt pathetic, for they came _imo pectore_, and
caused honest Dick to weep plentifully) his youth, his constancy, his fond
devotion to that household which had reared him; his affection how earned,
and how tenderly requited until but yesterday, and (as far as he might)
the circumstances and causes for which that sad quarrel had made of Esmond
a prisoner under sentence, a widow and orphans of those whom in life he
held dearest. In terms that might well move a harder-hearted man than
young Esmond’s confidant—for, indeed, the speaker’s own heart was half
broke as he uttered them; he described a part of what had taken place in
that only sad interview which his mistress had granted him; how she had
left him with anger and almost imprecation, whose words and thoughts until
then had been only blessing and kindness; how she had accused him of the
guilt of that blood, in exchange for which he would cheerfully have
sacrificed his own (indeed, in this the Lord Mohun, the Lord Warwick, and
all the gentlemen engaged, as well as the common rumour out of
doors—Steele told him—bore out the luckless young man); and with all his
heart, and tears, he besought Mr. Steele to inform his mistress of her
kinsman’s unhappiness, and to deprecate that cruel anger she showed him.
Half frantic with grief at the injustice done him, and contrasting it with
a thousand soft recollections of love and confidence gone by, that made
his present misery inexpressibly more bitter, the poor wretch passed many
a lonely day and wakeful night in a kind of powerless despair and rage
against his iniquitous fortune. It was the softest hand that struck him,
the gentlest and most compassionate nature that persecuted him. “I would
as lief,” he said, “have pleaded guilty to the murder, and have suffered
for it like any other felon, as have to endure the torture to which my
mistress subjects me.”
Although the recital of Esmond’s story, and his passionate appeals and
remonstrances, drew so many tears from Dick who heard them, they had no
effect upon the person whom they were designed to move. Esmond’s
ambassador came back from the mission with which the poor young gentleman
had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told
that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in
that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a
reprieve, felt more cast down than Mr. Esmond, innocent and condemned.
As had been arranged between the prisoner and his counsel in their
consultations, Mr. Steele had gone to the dowager’s house in Chelsey,
where it has been said the widow and her orphans were, had seen my lady
viscountess and pleaded the cause of her unfortunate kinsman. “And I think
I spoke well, my poor boy,” says Mr. Steele; “for who would not speak well
in such a cause, and before so beautiful a judge? I did not see the lovely
Beatrix (sure her famous namesake of Florence was never half so
beautiful), only the young viscount was in the room with the Lord
Churchill, my Lord of Marlborough’s eldest son. But these young gentlemen
went off to the garden, I could see them from the window tilting at each
other with poles in a mimic tournament (grief touches the young but
lightly, and I remember that I beat a drum at the coffin of my own
father). My lady viscountess looked out at the two boys at their game, and
said—‘You see, sir, children are taught to use weapons of death as toys,
and to make a sport of murder’; and as she spoke she looked so lovely, and
stood there in herself so sad and beautiful an instance of that doctrine
whereof I am a humble preacher, that had I not dedicated my little volume
of the _Christian Hero_ (I perceive, Harry, thou hast not cut the leaves
of it. The sermon is good, believe me, though the preacher’s life may not
answer it)—I say, hadn’t I dedicated the volume to Lord Cutts, I would
have asked permission to place her ladyship’s name on the first page. I
think I never saw such a beautiful violet as that of her eyes, Harry. Her
complexion is of the pink of the blush-rose, she hath an exquisite turned
wrist and dimpled hand, and I make no doubt——”
“Did you come to tell me about the dimples on my lady’s hand?” broke out
Mr. Esmond, sadly.
“A lovely creature in affliction seems always doubly beautiful to me,”
says the poor captain, who indeed was but too often in a state to see
double, and so checked he resumed the interrupted thread of his story. “As
I spoke my business,” Mr. Steele said, “and narrated to your mistress what
all the world knows, and the other side hath been eager to
acknowledge—that you had tried to put yourself between the two lords, and
to take your patron’s quarrel on your own point; I recounted the general
praises of your gallantry, besides my Lord Mohun’s particular testimony to
it; I thought the widow listened with some interest, and her eyes—I have
never seen such a violet, Harry—looked up at mine once or twice. But after
I had spoken on this theme for a while she suddenly broke away with a cry
of grief. ‘I would to God, sir,’ she said, ‘I had never heard that word
gallantry which you use, or known the meaning of it. My lord might have
been here but for that; my home might be happy; my poor boy have a father.
It was what you gentlemen call gallantry came into my home, and drove my
husband on to the cruel sword that killed him. You should not speak the
word to a Christian woman, sir—a poor widowed mother of orphans, whose
home was happy until the world came into it—the wicked godless world, that
takes the blood of the innocent, and lets the guilty go free.’
“As the afflicted lady spoke in this strain, sir,” Mr. Steele continued,
“it seemed as if indignation moved her, even more than grief.
‘Compensation!’ she went on passionately, her cheeks and eyes kindling;
‘what compensation does your world give the widow for her husband, and the
children for the murderer of their father? The wretch who did the deed has
not even a punishment. Conscience! what conscience has he, who can enter
the house of a friend, whisper falsehood and insult to a woman that never
harmed him, and stab the kind heart that trusted him? My lord—my Lord
Wretch, my Lord Villain’s, my Lord Murderer’s peers meet to try him, and
they dismiss him with a word or two of reproof, and send him into the
world again, to pursue women with lust and falsehood, and to murder
unsuspecting guests that harbour him. That day, my lord—my Lord
Murderer—(I will never name him)—was let loose, a woman was executed at
Tyburn for stealing in a shop. But a man may rob another of his life, or a
lady of her honour, and shall pay no penalty! I take my child, run to the
throne, and on my knees ask for justice, and the king refuses me. The
king! he is no king of mine—he never shall be. He, too, robbed the throne
from the king his father—the true king—and he has gone unpunished, as the
great do.’
“I then thought to speak for you,” Mr. Steele continued, “and I interposed
by saying, ‘There was one, madam, who, at least, would have put his own
breast between your husband’s and my Lord Mohun’s sword. Your poor young
kinsman, Harry Esmond, hath told me that he tried to draw the quarrel on
himself.’
“ ‘Are you come from _him_?’ asked the lady” (so Mr. Steele went on),
“rising up with a great severity and stateliness. ‘I thought you had come
from the princess. I saw Mr. Esmond in his prison, and bade him farewell.
He brought misery into my house. He never should have entered it.’
“ ‘Madam, madam, he is not to blame,’ I interposed,” continued Mr. Steele.
“ ‘Do I blame him to you, sir?’ asked the widow. ‘If ’tis he who sent you,
say that I have taken counsel, where’—she spoke with a very pallid cheek
now, and a break in her voice—‘where all who ask may have it;—and that it
bids me to part from him, and to see him no more. We met in the prison for
the last time—at least for years to come. It may be, in years hence,
when—when our knees and our tears and our contrition have changed our
sinful hearts, sir, and wrought our pardon, we may meet again—but not now.
After what has passed, I could not bear to see him. I wish him well, sir;
but I wish him farewell, too; and if he has that—that regard towards us
which he speaks of, I beseech him to prove it by obeying me in this.’
“ ‘I shall break the young man’s heart, madam, by this hard sentence,’ ”
Mr. Steele said.
“The lady shook her head,” continued my kind scholar. “ ‘The hearts of
young men, Mr. Steele, are not so made,’ she said. ‘Mr. Esmond will find
other—other friends. The mistress of this house has relented very much
towards the late lord’s son,’ she added, with a blush, ‘and has promised
me, that is, has promised that she will care for his fortune. Whilst I
live in it, after the horrid, horrid deed which has passed, Castlewood
must never be a home to him—never. Nor would I have him write to
me—except—no—I would have him never write to me, nor see him more. Give
him, if you will, my parting—Hush! not a word of this before my daughter.’
“Here the fair Beatrix entered from the river, with her cheeks flushing
with health, and looking only the more lovely and fresh for the mourning
habiliments which she wore. And my lady viscountess said—
“ ‘Beatrix, this is Mr. Steele, gentleman-usher to the prince’s highness.
When does your new comedy appear, Mr. Steele?’ I hope thou wilt be out of
prison for the first night, Harry.”
The sentimental captain concluded his sad tale, saying, “Faith, the beauty
of _Filia pulcrior_ drove _pulcram matrem_ out of my head; and yet as I
came down the river, and thought about the pair, the pallid dignity and
exquisite grace of the matron had the uppermost, and I thought her even
more noble than the virgin!”
-------------------------------------
The party of prisoners lived very well in Newgate, and with comforts very
different to those which were awarded to the poor wretches there (his
insensibility to their misery, their gaiety still more frightful, their
curses and blasphemy, hath struck with a kind of shame since—as proving
how selfish, during his imprisonment, his own particular grief was, and
how entirely the thoughts of it absorbed him): if the three gentlemen
lived well under the care of the warden of Newgate, it was because they
paid well: and indeed the cost at the dearest ordinary or the grandest
tavern in London could not have furnished a longer reckoning, than our
host of the “Handcuff Inn”—as Colonel Westbury called it. Our rooms were
the three in the gate over Newgate—on the second story looking up Newgate
Street towards Cheapside and Paul’s Church. And we had leave to walk on
the roof, and could see thence Smithfield and the Bluecoat Boys’ School,
Gardens, and the Chartreux, where, as Harry Esmond remembered, Dick the
Scholar, and his friend Tom Tusher, had had their schooling.
Harry could never have paid his share of that prodigious heavy reckoning
which my landlord brought to his guests once a week: for he had but three
pieces in his pockets that fatal night before the duel, when the gentlemen
were at cards, and offered to play five. But whilst he was yet ill at the
Gatehouse, after Lady Castlewood had visited him there, and before his
trial, there came one in an orange-tawny coat and blue lace, the livery
which the Esmonds always wore, and brought a sealed packet for Mr. Esmond,
which contained twenty guineas, and a note saying that a counsel had been
appointed for him, and that more money would be forthcoming whenever he
needed it.
’Twas a queer letter from the scholar as she was, or as she called
herself: the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood, written in the strange
barbarous French which she and many other fine ladies of that time—witness
Her Grace of Portsmouth—employed. Indeed, spelling was not an article of
general commodity in the world then, and my Lord Marlborough’s letters can
show that he, for one, had but a little share of this part of grammar.
Mong Coussin (my lady viscountess dowager wrote), je scay que vous
vous etes bravement batew et grievement bléssay—du costé de feu M.
le Vicomte. M. le Compte de Varique ne se playt qua parlay de
vous: M. de Moon auçy. Il di que vous avay voulew vous bastre
avecque luy—que vous estes plus fort que luy sur
l’ayscrimme—quil’y a surtout certaine Botte que vous scavay quil
n’a jammay sceu pariay: et que c’en eut été fay de luy si vouseluy
vous vous fussiay battews ansamb. Aincy ce pauv Vicompte est mort.
Mort et peutayt—Mon coussin, mon coussin! jay dans la tayste que
vous n’estes quung pety Monst—angcy que les Esmonds ong tousjours
esté. La veuve est chay moy. J’ay recuilly cet’ pauve famme. Elle
est furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher le Roy
(d’icy) démandant à gran cri revanche pour son Mary. Elle ne veux
voyre ni entende parlay de vous: pourtant elle ne fay qu’en parlay
milfoy par jour. Quand vous seray hor prison venay me voyre.
J’auray soing de vous. Si cette petite Prude veut se défaire de
song pety Monste (Hélas je craing qùil ne soy trotar!) je m’en
chargeray. J’ay encor quelqu interay et quelques escus de costay.
La Veuve se raccommode avec Miladi Marlboro qui est tout puiçante
avecque la Reine Anne. Cet dam sentéraysent pour la petite prude;
qui pourctant a un fi du mesme asge que vous savay.
En sortant de prisong venez icy. Je ne puy vous recevoir chay-moy
à cause des méchansetés du monde, may pre du moy vous aurez
logement.
ISABELLE VICOMPTESSE D’ESMOND.
Marchioness of Esmond this lady sometimes called herself, in virtue of
that patent which had been given by the late King James to Harry Esmond’s
father; and in this state she had her train carried by a knight’s wife, a
cup and cover of assay to drink from, and fringed cloth.
He who was of the same age as little Francis, whom we shall henceforth
call Viscount Castlewood here, was H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, born in the
same year and month with Frank, and just proclaimed at St. Germains, King
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.