Any taste for pleasure which Esmond had (and he liked to _desipere in
loco_, neither more nor less than most young men of his age) he could now
gratify to the utmost extent, and in the best company which the town
afforded. When the army went into winter quarters abroad, those of the
officers who had interest or money easily got leave of absence, and found
it much pleasanter to spend their time in Pall Mall and Hyde Park, than to
pass the winter away behind the fortifications of the dreary old Flanders
towns, where the English troops were gathered. Yatches and packets passed
daily between the Dutch and Flemish ports and Harwich; the roads thence to
London and the great inns were crowded with army gentlemen; the taverns
and ordinaries of the town swarmed with red-coats; and our great duke’s
levees at St. James’s were as thronged as they had been at Ghent and
Brussels, where we treated him, and he us, with the grandeur and ceremony
of a sovereign. Though Esmond had been appointed to a lieutenancy in the
Fusilier regiment, of which that celebrated officer, Brigadier John
Richmond Webb, was colonel, he had never joined the regiment, nor been
introduced to its excellent commander, though they had made the same
campaign together, and been engaged in the same battle. But being aide de
camp to General Lumley, who commanded the division of horse, and the army
marching to its point of destination on the Danube by different routes,
Esmond had not fallen in, as yet, with his commander and future comrades
of the fort; and it was in London, in Golden Square, where Major-General
Webb lodged, that Captain Esmond had the honour of first paying his
respects to his friend, patron, and commander of after-days.
Those who remember this brilliant and accomplished gentleman may recollect
his character, upon which he prided himself, I think, not a little, of
being the handsomest man in the army; a poet who writ a dull copy of
verses upon the battle of Oudenarde three years after, describing Webb,
says:—
To noble danger Webb conducts the way,
His great example all his troops obey;
Before the front the general sternly rides,
With such an air as Mars to battle strides:
Propitious Heaven must sure a hero save,
Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave.
Mr. Webb thought these verses quite as fine as Mr. Addison’s on the
Blenheim campaign, and, indeed, to be Hector _à la mode de Paris_, was
part of this gallant gentleman’s ambition. It would have been difficult to
find an officer in the whole army, or amongst the splendid courtiers and
cavaliers of the Maison-du-Roy, that fought under Vendosme and Villeroy in
the army opposed to ours, who was a more accomplished soldier and perfect
gentleman, and either braver or better-looking. And, if Mr. Webb believed
of himself what the world said of him, and was deeply convinced of his own
indisputable genius, beauty, and valour, who has a right to quarrel with
him very much? This self-content of his kept him in general good humour,
of which his friends and dependants got the benefit.
He came of a very ancient Wiltshire family, which he respected above all
families in the world: he could prove a lineal descent from King Edward
the First, and his first ancestor, Roaldus de Richmond, rode by William
the Conqueror’s side on Hastings field. “We were gentlemen, Esmond,” he
used to say, “when the Churchills were horseboys.” He was a very tall man,
standing in his pumps six feet three inches (in his great jack-boots, with
his tall, fair periwig, and hat and feather, he could not have been less
than eight feet high). “I am taller than Churchill,” he would say,
surveying himself in the glass, “and I am a better made man; and if the
women won’t like a man that hasn’t a wart on his nose, faith, I can’t help
myself, and Churchill has the better of me there.” Indeed, he was always
measuring himself with the duke, and always asking his friends to measure
them. And talking in this frank way, as he would do, over his cups, wags
would laugh and encourage him; friends would be sorry for him; schemers
and flatterers would egg him on, and tale-bearers carry the stories to
head quarters, and widen the difference which already existed there
between the great captain and one of the ablest and bravest lieutenants he
ever had.
His rancour against the duke was so apparent, that one saw it in the first
half-hour’s conversation with General Webb; and his lady, who adored her
general, and thought him a hundred times taller, handsomer, and braver
than a prodigal nature had made him, hated the great duke with such an
intensity as it becomes faithful wives to feel against their husbands’
enemies. Not that my lord duke was so yet; Mr. Webb had said a thousand
things against him, which his superior had pardoned; and his grace, whose
spies were everywhere, had heard a thousand things more that Webb had
never said. But it cost this great man no pains to pardon; and he passed
over an injury or a benefit alike easily.
Should any child of mine take the pains to read these, his ancestor’s
memoirs, I would not have him judge of the great duke(10) by what a
contemporary has written of him. No man hath been so immensely lauded and
decried as this great statesman and warrior; as, indeed, no man ever
deserved better the very greatest praise and the strongest censure. If the
present writer joins with the latter faction, very likely a private pique
of his own may be the cause of his ill-feeling.
On presenting himself at the commander-in-chief’s levee, his grace had not
the least remembrance of General Lumley’s aide de camp, and though he knew
Esmond’s family perfectly well, having served with both lords (my Lord
Francis and the viscount, Esmond’s father) in Flanders, and in the Duke of
York’s Guard, the Duke of Marlborough, who was friendly and serviceable to
the (so-styled) legitimate representatives of the Viscount Castlewood,
took no sort of notice of the poor lieutenant who bore their name. A word
of kindness or acknowledgement, or a single glance of approbation, might
have changed Esmond’s opinion of the great man; and instead of a satire,
which his pen cannot help writing, who knows but that the humble historian
might have taken the other side of panegyric? We have but to change the
point of view, and the greatest action looks mean; as we turn the
perspective-glass, and a giant appears a pigmy. You may describe, but who
can tell whether your sight is clear or not, or your means of information
accurate? Had the great man said but a word of kindness to the small one
(as he would have stepped out of his gilt chariot to shake hands with
Lazarus in rags and sores, if he thought Lazarus could have been of any
service to him), no doubt Esmond would have fought for him with pen and
sword to the utmost of his might; but my lord the lion did not want master
mouse at this moment, and so Muscipulus went off and nibbled in
opposition.
So it was, however, that a young gentleman, who, in the eyes of his
family, and in his own, doubtless, was looked upon as a consummate hero,
found that the great hero of the day took no more notice of him than of
the smallest drummer in his grace’s army. The dowager at Chelsea was
furious against this neglect of her family, and had a great battle with
Lady Marlborough (as Lady Castlewood insisted on calling the duchess). Her
grace was now mistress of the robes to her Majesty, and one of the
greatest personages in this kingdom, as her husband was in all Europe, and
the battle between the two ladies took place in the queen’s drawing-room.
The duchess, in reply to my aunt’s eager clamour, said haughtily, that she
had done her best for the legitimate branch of the Esmonds, and could not
be expected to provide for the bastard brats of the family.
“Bastards,” says the viscountess, in a fury, “there are bastards amongst
the Churchills, as your grace knows, and the Duke of Berwick is provided
for well enough.”
“Madam,” says the duchess, “you know whose fault it is that there are no
such dukes in the Esmond family too, and how that little scheme of a
certain lady miscarried.”
Esmond’s friend, Dick Steele, who was in waiting on the prince, heard the
controversy between the ladies at Court, “And faith,” says Dick, “I think,
Harry, thy kinswoman had the worst of it.”
He could not keep the story quiet; ’twas all over the coffee-houses ere
night; it was printed in a News Letter before a month was over, and “The
Reply of her Grace the Duchess of M-rlb-r-gh, to a Popish Lady of the
Court, once a favourite of the late K— J-m-s,” was printed in half a dozen
places, with a note stating that this duchess, when the head of this
lady’s family came by his death lately in a fatal duel, never rested until
she got a pension for the orphan heir, and widow, from her Majesty’s
bounty. The squabble did not advance poor Esmond’s promotion much, and
indeed made him so ashamed of himself that he dared not show his face at
the commander-in-chief’s levees again.
-------------------------------------
During those eighteen months which had passed since Esmond saw his dear
mistress, her good father, the old dean, quitted this life, firm in his
principles to the very last, and enjoining his family always to remember
that the queen’s brother, King James the Third, was their rightful
sovereign. He made a very edifying end, as his daughter told Esmond, and,
not a little to her surprise, after his death (for he had lived always
very poorly) my lady found that her father had left no less a sum than
3,000_l._ behind him, which he bequeathed to her.
With this little fortune Lady Castlewood was enabled, when her daughter’s
turn at Court came, to come to London, where she took a small genteel
house at Kensington, in the neighbourhood of the Court, bringing her
children with her, and here it was that Esmond found his friends.
As for the young lord, his University career had ended rather abruptly.
Honest Tusher, his governor, had found my young gentleman quite
ungovernable. My lord worried his life away with tricks; and broke out, as
home-bred lads will, into a hundred youthful extravagances, so that Dr.
Bentley, the new master of Trinity, thought fit to write to the
Viscountess Castlewood, my lord’s mother, and beg her to remove the young
nobleman from a college where he declined to learn, and where he only did
harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to
Nevil’s Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir
Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor’s man that
wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the
Prince of Wales’s birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and
the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine,
having toasted King James’s health with open windows, and sung cavalier
songs, and shouted, “God save the King!” in the great court, so that the
master came out of his lodge at midnight, and dissipated the riotous
assembly.
This was my lord’s crowning freak, and the Rev. Thomas Tusher, domestic
chaplain to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Castlewood, finding his
prayers and sermons of no earthly avail to his lordship, gave up his
duties of governor; went and married his brewer’s widow at Southampton,
and took her and her money to his parsonage-house at Castlewood.
My lady could not be angry with her son for drinking King James’s health,
being herself a loyal Tory, as all the Castlewood family were, and
acquiesced with a sigh, knowing, perhaps, that her refusal would be of no
avail to the young lord’s desire for a military life. She would have liked
him to be in Mr. Esmond’s regiment, hoping that Harry might act as
guardian and adviser to his wayward young kinsman; but my young lord would
hear of nothing but the Guards, and a commission was got for him in the
Duke of Ormonde’s regiment; so Esmond found my lord, ensign and
lieutenant, when he returned from Germany after the Blenheim campaign.
The effect produced by both Lady Castlewood’s children when they appeared
in public was extraordinary, and the whole town speedily rang with their
fame; such a beautiful couple, it was declared, never had been seen; the
young maid of honour was toasted at every table and tavern, and as for my
young lord, his good looks were even more admired than his sister’s. A
hundred songs were written about the pair, and as the fashion of that day
was, my young lord was praised in these Anacreontics as warmly as
Bathyllus. You may be sure that he accepted very complacently the town’s
opinion of him, and acquiesced with that frankness and charming good
humour he always showed in the idea that he was the prettiest fellow in
all London.
The old dowager at Chelsea, though she could never be got to acknowledge
that Mrs. Beatrix was any beauty at all (in which opinion, as it may be
imagined, a vast number of the ladies agreed with her), yet, on the very
first sight of young Castlewood, she owned she fell in love with him; and
Henry Esmond, on his return to Chelsea, found himself quite superseded in
her favour by her younger kinsman. That feat of drinking the king’s health
at Cambridge would have won her heart, she said, if nothing else did. “How
had the dear young fellow got such beauty?” she asked. “Not from his
father—certainly not from his mother. How had he come by such noble
manners, and the perfect _bel air_? That countrified Walcote widow could
never have taught him.” Esmond had his own opinion about the countrified
Walcote widow, who had a quiet grace, and serene kindness, that had always
seemed to him the perfection of good breeding, though he did not try to
argue this point with his aunt. But he could agree in most of the praises
which the enraptured old dowager bestowed on my lord viscount, than whom
he never beheld a more fascinating and charming gentleman. Castlewood had
not wit so much as enjoyment. “The lad looks good things,” Mr. Steele used
to say; “and his laugh lights up a conversation as much as ten repartees
from Mr. Congreve. I would as soon sit over a bottle with him as with Mr.
Addison; and rather listen to his talk than hear Nicolini. Was ever man so
gracefully drunk as my Lord Castlewood? I would give anything to carry my
wine (though, indeed, Dick bore his very kindly, and plenty of it, too)
like this incomparable young man. When he is sober he is delightful; and
when tipsy, perfectly irresistible.” And referring to his favourite,
Shakespeare (who was quite out of fashion until Steele brought him back
into the mode), Dick compared Lord Castlewood to Prince Hal, and was
pleased to dub Esmond as ancient Pistol.
The mistress of the robes, the greatest lady in England after the queen,
or even before her Majesty, as the world said, though she never could be
got to say a civil word to Beatrix, whom she had promoted to her place as
maid of honour, took her brother into instant favour. When young
Castlewood, in his new uniform, and looking like a prince out of a
fairy-tale, went to pay his duty to her grace, she looked at him for a
minute in silence, the young man blushing and in confusion before her,
then fairly burst out a-crying, and kissed him before her daughters and
company. “He was my boy’s friend,” she said, through her sobs. “My
Blandford might have been like him.” And everybody saw, after this mark of
the duchess’s favour, that my young lord’s promotion was secure, and
people crowded round the favourite’s favourite, who became vainer and
gayer, and more good-humoured than ever.
Meanwhile Madam Beatrix was making her conquests on her own side, and
amongst them was one poor gentleman, who had been shot by her young eyes
two years before, and had never been quite cured of that wound; he knew,
to be sure, how hopeless any passion might be, directed in that quarter,
and had taken that best, though ignoble, _remedium amoris_, a speedy
retreat from before the charmer, and a long absence from her; and not
being dangerously smitten in the first instance, Esmond pretty soon got
the better of his complaint, and if he had it still, did not know he had
it, and bore it easily. But when he returned after Blenheim, the young
lady of sixteen, who had appeared the most beautiful object his eyes had
ever looked on two years back, was now advanced to a perfect ripeness and
perfection of beauty, such as instantly enthralled the poor devil, who had
already been a fugitive from her charms. Then he had seen her but for two
days, and fled; now he beheld her day after day, and when she was at
Court, watched after her; when she was at home, made one of the family
party; when she went abroad, rode after her mother’s chariot; when she
appeared in public places, was in the box near her, or in the pit looking
at her; when she went to church was sure to be there, though he might not
listen to the sermon, and be ready to hand her to her chair if she deigned
to accept of his services, and select him from a score of young men who
were always hanging round about her. When she went away, accompanying her
Majesty to Hampton Court, a darkness fell over London. Gods, what nights
has Esmond passed, thinking of her, rhyming about her, talking about her!
His friend Dick Steele was at this time courting the young lady, Mrs.
Scurlock, whom he married; she had a lodging in Kensington Square, hard by
my Lady Castlewood’s house there. Dick and Harry, being on the same
errand, used to meet constantly at Kensington. They were always prowling
about that place, or dismally walking thence, or eagerly running thither.
They emptied scores of bottles at the “King’s Arms”, each man prating of
his love, and allowing the other to talk on condition that he might have
his own turn as a listener. Hence arose an intimacy between them, though
to all the rest of their friends they must have been insufferable.
Esmond’s verses to “Gloriana at the Harpsichord”, to “Gloriana’s Nosegay”,
to “Gloriana at Court”, appeared this year in the _Observator_.—Have you
never read them? They were thought pretty poems, and attributed by some to
Mr. Prior.
This passion did not escape—how should it?—the clear eyes of Esmond’s
mistress: he told her all; what will a man not do when frantic with love?
To what baseness will he not demean himself? What pangs will he not make
others suffer, so that he may ease his selfish heart of a part of its own
pain? Day after day he would seek his dear mistress, pour insane hopes,
supplications, rhapsodies, raptures, into her ear. She listened, smiled,
consoled, with untiring pity and sweetness. Esmond was the eldest of her
children, so she was pleased to say; and as for her kindness, who ever had
or would look for aught else from one who was an angel of goodness and
pity? After what has been said, ’tis needless almost to add that poor
Esmond’s suit was unsuccessful. What was a nameless, penniless lieutenant
to do, when some of the greatest in the land were in the field? Esmond
never so much as thought of asking permission to hope so far above his
reach as he knew this prize was—and passed his foolish, useless life in
mere abject sighs and impotent longing. What nights of rage, what days of
torment, of passionate unfulfilled desire, of sickening jealousy, can he
recall! Beatrix thought no more of him than of the lackey that followed
her chair. His complaints did not touch her in the least; his raptures
rather fatigued her; she cared for his verses no more than for Dan
Chaucer’s, who’s dead these ever so many hundred years; she did not hate
him; she rather despised him, and just suffered him.
One day, after talking to Beatrix’s mother, his dear, fond, constant
mistress—for hours—for all day long—pouring out his flame and his passion,
his despair and rage, returning again and again to the theme, pacing the
room, tearing up the flowers on the table, twisting and breaking into bits
the wax out of the standish, and performing a hundred mad freaks of
passionate folly; seeing his mistress at last quite pale and tired out
with sheer weariness of compassion, and watching over his fever for the
hundredth time, Esmond seized up his hat, and took his leave. As he got
into Kensington Square, a sense of remorse came over him for the wearisome
pain he had been inflicting upon the dearest and kindest friend ever man
had. He went back to the house, where the servant still stood at the open
door, ran up the stairs, and found his mistress where he had left her in
the embrasure of the window, looking over the fields towards Chelsea. She
laughed, wiping away at the same time the tears which were in her kind
eyes; he flung himself down on his knees, and buried his head in her lap.
She had in her hand the stalk of one of the flowers, a pink, that he had
torn to pieces. “Oh, pardon me, pardon me, my dearest and kindest,” he
said; “I am in hell, and you are the angel that brings me a drop of
water.”
“I am your mother, you are my son, and I love you always,” she said,
holding her hands over him; and he went away comforted and humbled in
mind, as he thought of that amazing and constant love and tenderness with
which this sweet lady ever blessed and pursued him.