The Virginians Part 42

"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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 f.a.n.n.y, 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 pet.i.te, 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 p.r.o.nounced to be pretty well bred by the macaronis and people of fas.h.i.+on, 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 G.o.dly 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 pa.s.sed 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 fires.h.i.+ps down upon the British s.h.i.+ps which were discharging their stores at Orleans. Our seamen thought it was good sport to tow the fires.h.i.+ps clear of the fleet, and ground them on the sh.o.r.e, where they burned out.

As soon as the French commander heard that our s.h.i.+ps 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 sh.o.r.e, and drew nearer to his enemy. He had the s.h.i.+ps 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 a.s.sailable, the General pa.s.sed round the town of Quebec and skirted the left sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 a.s.sailants 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.sault: 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sault 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 a.s.suredly, 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 pa.s.sages 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 fas.h.i.+on, not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit in whose way I fell, could keep me long from your ap.r.o.n-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 lords.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d 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 ladys.h.i.+p'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.

"G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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, G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 compa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sionate 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 grat.i.tude 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. .h.i.t 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 pa.s.sionate outgush of emotion the most refres.h.i.+ng, 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 ma.n.u.scripts, nor watch hour after hour at a window wasting my time and neglecting everybody because I want to see your wors.h.i.+p walk down the street with your hat c.o.c.ked! 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 pa.s.sions, or that ours was so intense and special that we deemed no other lovers could suffer like ourselves;-here in the pa.s.sionate 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 s.h.i.+p 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 ap.r.o.n, 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 a.s.sociations connected with it; and many a time in after days I have thought with fondness of the poor b.i.+.c.he 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.