The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.

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In a couple of years after that calamity had befallen which had robbed
Lady Castlewood of a little--a very little--of her beauty, and her
careless husband's heart (if the truth must be told, my lady had found
not only that her reign was over, but that her successor was appointed,
a Princess of a noble house in Drury Lane somewhere, who was installed
and visited by my lord at the town eight miles off--pudet haec opprobria
dicere nobis)--a great change had taken place in her mind, which, by
struggles only known to herself, at least never mentioned to any one,
and unsuspected by the person who caused the pain she endured--had
been schooled into such a condition as she could not very likely have
imagined possible a score of months since, before her misfortunes had
begun.

She had oldened in that time as people do who suffer silently great
mental pain; and learned much that she had never suspected before. She
was taught by that bitter teacher Misfortune. A child the mother of
other children, but two years back her lord was a god to her; his words
her law; his smile her sunshine; his lazy commonplaces listened to
eagerly, as if they were words of wisdom--all his wishes and freaks
obeyed with a servile devotion. She had been my lord's chief slave and
blind worshipper. Some women bear farther than this, and submit not only
to neglect but to unfaithfulness too--but here this lady's allegiance
had failed her. Her spirit rebelled, and disowned any more obedience.
First she had to bear in secret the passion of losing the adored object;
then to get further initiation, and to find this worshipped being was
but a clumsy idol: then to admit the silent truth, that it was she was
superior, and not the monarch her master: that she had thoughts which
his brains could never master, and was the better of the two; quite
separate from my lord although tied to him, and bound, as almost all
people (save a very happy few), to work all her life alone. My lord sat
in his chair, laughing his laugh, cracking his joke, his face flushing
with wine--my lady in her place over against him--he never suspecting
that his superior was there, in the calm resigned lady, cold of manner,
with downcast eyes. When he was merry in his cups, he would make jokes
about her coldness, and, "D--- it, now my lady is gone, we will have
t'other bottle," he would say. He was frank enough in telling his
thoughts, such as they were. There was little mystery about my lord's
words or actions. His Fair Rosamond did not live in a Labyrinth, like
the lady of Mr. Addison's opera, but paraded with painted cheeks and a
tipsy retinue in the country town. Had she a mind to be revenged, Lady
Castlewood could have found the way to her rival's house easily enough;
and, if she had come with bowl and dagger, would have been routed off
the ground by the enemy with a volley of Billingsgate, which the fair
person always kept by her.

Meanwhile, it has been said, that for Harry Esmond his benefactress's
sweet face had lost none of its charms. It had always the kindest of
looks and smiles for him--smiles, not so gay and artless perhaps as
those which Lady Castlewood had formerly worn, when, a child herself,
playing with her children, her husband's pleasure and authority were all
she thought of; but out of her griefs and cares, as will happen I think
when these trials fall upon a kindly heart, and are not too unbearable,
grew up a number of thoughts and excellences which had never come into
existence, had not her sorrow and misfortunes engendered them. Sure,
occasion is the father of most that is good in us. As you have seen the
awkward fingers and clumsy tools of a prisoner cut and fashion the most
delicate little pieces of carved work; or achieve the most prodigious
underground labors, and cut through walls of masonry, and saw iron bars
and fetters; 'tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or
endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but
for the circumstance which gave them a being.

"'Twas after Jason left her, no doubt," Lady Castlewood once said with
one of her smiles to young Esmond (who was reading to her a version of
certain lines out of Euripides), "that Medea became a learned woman and
a great enchantress."

"And she could conjure the stars out of heaven," the young tutor added,
"but she could not bring Jason back again."

"What do you mean?" asked my lady, very angry.

"Indeed I mean nothing," said the other, "save what I've read in books.
What should I know about such matters? I have seen no woman save you
and little Beatrix, and the parson's wife and my late mistress, and your
ladyship's woman here."

"The men who wrote your books," says my lady, "your Horaces, and Ovids,
and Virgils, as far as I know of them, all thought ill of us, as all
the heroes they wrote about used us basely. We were bred to be slaves
always; and even of our own times, as you are still the only lawgivers,
I think our sermons seem to say that the best woman is she who bears
her master's chains most gracefully. 'Tis a pity there are no nunneries
permitted by our church: Beatrix and I would fly to one, and end our
days in peace there away from you."

"And is there no slavery in a convent?" says Esmond.

"At least if women are slaves there, no one sees them," answered the
lady. "They don't work in street gangs with the public to jeer them: and
if they suffer, suffer in private. Here comes my lord home from hunting.
Take away the books. My lord does not love to see them. Lessons are over
for to-day, Mr. Tutor." And with a curtsy and a smile she would end this
sort of colloquy.

Indeed "Mr. Tutor," as my lady called Esmond, had now business enough on
his hands in Castlewood house. He had three pupils, his lady and her two
children, at whose lessons she would always be present; besides writing
my lord's letters, and arranging his accompts for him--when these could
be got from Esmond's indolent patron.

Of the pupils the two young people were but lazy scholars, and as my
lady would admit no discipline such as was then in use, my lord's son
only learned what he liked, which was but little, and never to his
life's end could be got to construe more than six lines of Virgil.
Mistress Beatrix chattered French prettily, from a very early age;
and sang sweetly, but this was from her mother's teaching--not Harry
Esmond's, who could scarce distinguish between "Green Sleeves" and
"Lillibullero;" although he had no greater delight in life than to hear
the ladies sing. He sees them now (will he ever forget them?) as they
used to sit together of the summer evenings--the two golden heads over
the page--the child's little hand, and the mother's beating the time,
with their voices rising and falling in unison.

But if the children were careless, 'twas a wonder how eagerly the
mother learnt from her young tutor--and taught him too. The happiest
instinctive faculty was this lady's--a faculty for discerning latent
beauties and hidden graces of books, especially books of poetry, as in a
walk she would spy out field-flowers and make posies of them, such as
no other hand could. She was a critic, not by reason but by feeling; the
sweetest commentator of those books they read together; and the happiest
hours of young Esmond's life, perhaps, were those passed in the company
of this kind mistress and her children.

These happy days were to end soon, however; and it was by the Lady
Castlewood's own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It
happened about Christmas-time, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen
years of age, that his old comrade, adversary, and friend, Tom Tusher,
returned from his school in London, a fair, well-grown, and sturdy lad,
who was about to enter college, with an exhibition from his school, and
a prospect of after promotion in the church. Tom Tusher's talk was of
nothing but Cambridge now; and the boys, who were good friends, examined
each other eagerly about their progress in books. Tom had learned some
Greek and Hebrew, besides Latin, in which he was pretty well skilled,
and also had given himself to mathematical studies under his father's
guidance, who was a proficient in those sciences, of which Esmond knew
nothing; nor could he write Latin so well as Tom, though he could talk
it better, having been taught by his dear friend the Jesuit Father, for
whose memory the lad ever retained the warmest affection, reading his
books, keeping his swords clean in the little crypt where the Father
had shown them to Esmond on the night of his visit; and often of a night
sitting in the chaplain's room, which he inhabited, over his books, his
verses, and rubbish, with which the lad occupied himself, he would look
up at the window, thinking he wished it might open and let in the good
Father. He had come and passed away like a dream; but for the swords
and books Harry might almost think the Father was an imagination of his
mind--and for two letters which had come to him, one from abroad, full
of advice and affection, another soon after he had been confirmed by the
Bishop of Hexton, in which Father Holt deplored his falling away. But
Harry Esmond felt so confident now of his being in the right, and of his
own powers as a casuist, that he thought he was able to face the Father
himself in argument, and possibly convert him.

To work upon the faith of her young pupil, Esmond's kind mistress sent
to the library of her father the Dean, who had been distinguished in the
disputes of the late king's reign; and, an old soldier now, had hung
up his weapons of controversy. These he took down from his shelves
willingly for young Esmond, whom he benefited by his own personal advice
and instruction. It did not require much persuasion to induce the boy
to worship with his beloved mistress. And the good old nonjuring Dean
flattered himself with a conversion which, in truth, was owing to a much
gentler and fairer persuader.

Under her ladyship's kind eyes (my lord's being sealed in sleep pretty
generally), Esmond read many volumes of the works of the famous British
Divines of the last age, and was familiar with Wake and Sherlock, with
Stillingfleet and Patrick. His mistress never tired to listen or to
read, to pursue the texts with fond comments, to urge those points which
her fancy dwelt on most, or her reason deemed most important. Since the
death of her father the Dean, this lady hath admitted a certain latitude
of theological reading which her orthodox father would never have
allowed; his favorite writers appealing more to reason and antiquity
than to the passions or imaginations of their readers, so that the works
of Bishop Taylor, nay, those of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Law, have in reality
found more favor with my Lady Castlewood than the severer volumes of our
great English schoolmen.

In later life, at the University, Esmond reopened the controversy, and
pursued it in a very different manner, when his patrons had determined
for him that he was to embrace the ecclesiastical life. But though his
mistress's heart was in this calling, his own never was much. After that
first fervor of simple devotion, which his beloved Jesuit priest had
inspired in him, speculative theology took but little hold upon the
young man's mind. When his early credulity was disturbed, and his saints
and virgins taken out of his worship, to rank little higher than the
divinities of Olympus, his belief became acquiescence rather than ardor;
and he made his mind up to assume the cassock and bands, as another
man does to wear a breastplate and jack-boots, or to mount a merchant's
desk, for a livelihood, and from obedience and necessity, rather than
from choice. There were scores of such men in Mr. Esmond's time at the
universities, who were going to the church with no better calling than
his.

When Thomas Tusher was gone, a feeling of no small depression and
disquiet fell upon young Esmond, of which, though he did not complain,
his kind mistress must have divined the cause: for soon after she showed
not only that she understood the reason of Harry's melancholy, but could
provide a remedy for it. Her habit was thus to watch, unobservedly,
those to whom duty or affection bound her, and to prevent their
designs, or to fulfil them, when she had the power. It was this lady's
disposition to think kindnesses, and devise silent bounties and to
scheme benevolence, for those about her. We take such goodness, for the
most part, as if it was our due; the Marys who bring ointment for our
feet get but little thanks. Some of us never feel this devotion at all,
or are moved by it to gratitude or acknowledgment; others only recall it
years after, when the days are past in which those sweet kindnesses were
spent on us, and we offer back our return for the debt by a poor tardy
payment of tears. Then forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind
glances shine out of the past--oh so bright and clear!--oh so longed
after!--because they are out of reach; as holiday music from withinside
a prison wall--or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because
unattainable--more bright because of the contrast of present darkness
and solitude, whence there is no escape.

All the notice, then, which Lady Castlewood seemed to take of Harry
Esmond's melancholy, upon Tom Tusher's departure, was, by a gayety
unusual to her, to attempt to dispel his gloom. She made his three
scholars (herself being the chief one) more cheerful than ever they had
been before, and more docile, too, all of them learning and reading
much more than they had been accustomed to do. "For who knows," said
the lady, "what may happen, and whether we may be able to keep such a
learned tutor long?"

Frank Esmond said he for his part did not want to learn any more, and
cousin Harry might shut up his book whenever he liked, if he would
come out a-fishing; and little Beatrix declared she would send for Tom
Tusher, and HE would be glad enough to come to Castlewood, if Harry
chose to go away.

At last comes a messenger from Winchester one day, bearer of a letter,
with a great black seal, from the Dean there, to say that his sister
was dead, and had left her fortune of 2,000L. among her six nieces, the
Dean's daughters; and many a time since has Harry Esmond recalled the
flushed face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind
lady regarded him. She did not pretend to any grief about the deceased
relative, from whom she and her family had been many years parted.

When my lord heard of the news, he also did not make any very long
face. "The money will come very handy to furnish the music-room and the
cellar, which is getting low, and buy your ladyship a coach and a
couple of horses that will do indifferent to ride or for the coach. And,
Beatrix, you shall have a spinnet: and, Frank, you shall have a little
horse from Hexton Fair; and, Harry, you shall have five pounds to buy
some books," said my lord, who was generous with his own, and indeed
with other folk's money. "I wish your aunt would die once a year,
Rachel; we could spend your money, and all your sisters', too."

"I have but one aunt--and--and I have another use for the money, my
lord," says my lady, turning very red.

"Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?" cries my lord.
"And what the devil is there that I don't give you which you want!"

"I intend to give this money--can't you fancy how, my lord?"

My lord swore one of his large oaths that he did not know in the least
what she meant.

"I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. Cousin Harry," says my
lady, "you mustn't stay longer in this dull place, but make a name to
yourself, and for us too, Harry."

"D--n it, Harry's well enough here," says my lord, for a moment looking
rather sulky.

"Is Harry going away? You don't mean to say you will go away?" cry out
Frank and Beatrix at one breath.

"But he will come back: and this will always be his home," cries my
lady, with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness: "and his scholars
will always love him; won't they?"

"By G-d, Rachel, you're a good woman!" says my lord, seizing my lady's
hand, at which she blushed very much, and shrank back, putting her
children before her. "I wish you joy, my kinsman," he continued, giving
Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go
to Cambridge, boy, and when Tusher dies you shall have the living
here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the
dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out
of the stable: take any one except my hack and the bay gelding and the
coach-horses; and God speed thee, my boy!"

"Have the sorrel, Harry; 'tis a good one. Father says 'tis the best
in the stable," says little Frank, clapping his hands, and jumping up.
"Let's come and see him in the stable." And the other, in his delight
and eagerness, was for leaving the room that instant to arrange about
his journey.

The Lady Castlewood looked after him with sad penetrating glances. "He
wishes to be gone already, my lord," said she to her husband.

The young man hung back abashed. "Indeed, I would stay for ever, if your
ladyship bade me," he said.

"And thou wouldst be a fool for thy pains, kinsman," said my lord. "Tut,
tut, man. Go and see the world. Sow thy wild oats; and take the best
luck that Fate sends thee. I wish I were a boy again, that I might go to
college, and taste the Trumpington ale."

"Ours, indeed, is but a dull home," cries my lady, with a little of
sadness and, maybe, of satire, in her voice: "an old glum house, half
ruined, and the rest only half furnished; a woman and two children are
but poor company for men that are accustomed to better. We are only fit
to be your worship's handmaids, and your pleasures must of necessity lie
elsewhere than at home."

"Curse me, Rachel, if I know now whether thou art in earnest or not,"
said my lord.

"In earnest, my lord!" says she, still clinging by one of her children.
"Is there much subject here for joke?" And she made him a grand curtsy,
and, giving a stately look to Harry Esmond, which seemed to say,
"Remember; you understand me, though he does not," she left the room
with her children.

"Since she found out that confounded Hexton business," my lord
said--"and be hanged to them that told her!--she has not been the same
woman. She, who used to be as humble as a milkmaid, is as proud as a
princess," says my lord. "Take my counsel, Harry Esmond, and keep clear
of women. Since I have had anything to do with the jades, they have
given me nothing but disgust. I had a wife at Tangier, with whom, as she
couldn't speak a word of my language, you'd have thought I might lead a
quiet life. But she tried to poison me, because she was jealous of a Jew
girl. There was your aunt, for aunt she is--aunt Jezebel, a pretty
life your father led with HER! and here's my lady. When I saw her on a
pillion, riding behind the Dean her father, she looked and was such a
baby, that a sixpenny doll might have pleased her. And now you see what
she is--hands off, highty-tighty, high and mighty, an empress couldn't
be grander. Pass us the tankard, Harry my boy. A mug of beer and a toast
at morn, says my host. A toast and a mug of beer at noon, says my dear.
D--n it, Polly loves a mug of ale, too, and laced with brandy, by Jove!"
Indeed, I suppose they drank it together; for my lord was often thick
in his speech at mid-day dinner; and at night at supper, speechless
altogether.

Harry Esmond's departure resolved upon, it seemed as if the Lady
Castlewood, too, rejoiced to lose him; for more than once, when the
lad, ashamed perhaps at his own secret eagerness to go away (at any
rate stricken with sadness at the idea of leaving those from whom he
had received so many proofs of love and kindness inestimable), tried to
express to his mistress his sense of gratitude to her, and his sorrow at
quitting those who had so sheltered and tended a nameless and houseless
orphan, Lady Castlewood cut short his protests of love and his
lamentations, and would hear of no grief, but only look forward to
Harry's fame and prospects in life. "Our little legacy will keep you
for four years like a gentleman. Heaven's Providence, your own genius,
industry, honor, must do the rest for you. Castlewood will always be a
home for you; and these children, whom you have taught and loved, will
not forget to love you. And, Harry," said she (and this was the only
time when she spoke with a tear in her eye, or a tremor in her voice),
"it may happen in the course of nature that I shall be called away
from them: and their father--and--and they will need true friends and
protectors. Promise me that you will be true to them--as--as I think I
have been to you--and a mother's fond prayer and blessing go with you."

"So help me God, madam, I will," said Harry Esmond, falling on his
knees, and kissing the hand of his dearest mistress. "If you will have
me stay now, I will. What matters whether or no I make my way in life,
or whether a poor bastard dies as unknown as he is now? 'Tis enough
that I have your love and kindness surely; and to make you happy is duty
enough for me."

"Happy!" says she; "but indeed I ought to be, with my children, and--"

"Not happy!" cried Esmond (for he knew what her life was, though he and
his mistress never spoke a word concerning it). "If not happiness,
it may be ease. Let me stay and work for you--let me stay and be your
servant."

"Indeed, you are best away," said my lady, laughing, as she put her hand
on the boy's head for a moment. "You shall stay in no such dull place.
You shall go to college and distinguish yourself as becomes your name.
That is how you shall please me best; and--and if my children want you,
or I want you, you shall come to us; and I know we may count on you."

"May heaven forsake me if you may not!" Harry said, getting up from his
knee.

"And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight," said
my lady, laughing; which speech made Harry Esmond start, and turn red;
for indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like
that some chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his
devotion. And it pleased him to think that his lady had called him "her
knight," and often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed
that he might be her true knight, too.

My lady's bed-chamber window looked out over the country, and you could
see from it the purple hills beyond Castlewood village, the green common
betwixt that and the Hall, and the old bridge which crossed over the
river. When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran
alongside his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a
moment, and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had
been passed. It lay before him with its gray familiar towers, a pinnacle
or two shining in the sun, the buttresses and terrace walls casting
great blue shades on the grass. And Harry remembered, all his life
after, how he saw his mistress at the window looking out on him in a
white robe, the little Beatrix's chestnut curls resting at her mother's
side. Both waved a farewell to him, and little Frank sobbed to leave
him. Yes, he WOULD be his lady's true knight, he vowed in his heart; he
waved her an adieu with his hat. The village people had Good-by to say
to him too. All knew that Master Harry was going to college, and most of
them had a kind word and a look of farewell. I do not stop to say what
adventures he began to imagine, or what career to devise for himself
before he had ridden three miles from home. He had not read Monsieur
Galland's ingenious Arabian tales as yet; but be sure that there are
other folks who build castles in the air, and have fine hopes, and kick
them down too, besides honest Alnaschar.




CHAPTER X.

I GO TO CAMBRIDGE, AND DO BUT LITTLE GOOD THERE.


Mr lord, who said he should like to revisit the old haunts of his youth,
kindly accompanied Harry Esmond in his first journey to Cambridge. Their
road lay through London, where my Lord Viscount would also have Harry
stay a few days to show him the pleasures of the town before he entered
upon his university studies, and whilst here Harry's patron conducted
the young man to my Lady Dowager's house at Chelsey near London:
the kind lady at Castlewood having specially ordered that the young
gentleman and the old should pay a respectful visit in that quarter.

Her ladyship the Viscountess Dowager occupied a handsome new house in
Chelsey, with a garden behind it, and facing the river, always a bright
and animated sight with its swarms of sailors, barges, and wherries.
Harry laughed at recognizing in the parlor the well-remembered old
piece of Sir Peter Lely, wherein his father's widow was represented as
a virgin huntress, armed with a gilt bow-and-arrow, and encumbered only
with that small quantity of drapery which it would seem the virgins in
King Charles's day were accustomed to wear.

My Lady Dowager had left off this peculiar habit of huntress when she
married. But though she was now considerably past sixty years of age, I
believe she thought that airy nymph of the picture could still be easily
recognized in the venerable personage who gave an audience to Harry and
his patron.