Part 4 (1/2)
”Oh, of course, of course,” says my lord, more and more laughing and tipsy. ”Upon his HONOR, Doctor--Nancy Sieve-- ...”
”Take Mistress Beatrix to bed,” my lady cried at this moment to Mrs. Tucker her woman, who came in with her ladys.h.i.+p's tea. ”Put her into my room--no, into yours,” she added quickly. ”Go, my child: go, I say: not a word!” And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from one who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room with a scared countenance, and waited even to burst out a-crying until she got to the door with Mrs. Tucker.
For once her mother took little heed of her sobbing, and continued to speak eagerly--”My lord,” she said, ”this young man--your dependant--told me just now in French--he was ashamed to speak in his own language--that he had been at the ale-house all day, where he has had that little wretch who is now ill of the small-pox on his knee. And he comes home reeking from that place--yes, reeking from it--and takes my boy into his lap without shame, and sits down by me, yes, by ME. He may have killed Frank for what I know-- killed our child. Why was he brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go--let him go, I say, to-night, and pollute the place no more.”
She had never once uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond; and her cruel words smote the poor boy, so that he stood for some moments bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such a hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been.
”I cannot help my birth, madam,” he said, ”nor my other misfortune. And as for your boy, if--if my coming nigh to him pollutes him now, it was not so always. Good-night, my lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your goodness to me. I have tired her ladys.h.i.+p's kindness out, and I will go;” and, sinking down on his knee, Harry Esmond took the rough hand of his benefactor and kissed it.
”He wants to go to the ale-house--let him go,” cried my lady.
”I'm d--d if he shall,” said my lord. ”I didn't think you could be so d--d ungrateful, Rachel.”
Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with a rapid glance at Harry Esmond,--as my lord, not heeding them, and still in great good-humor, raised up his young client from his kneeling posture (for a thousand kindnesses had caused the lad to revere my lord as a father), and put his broad hand on Harry Esmond's shoulder.
”She was always so,” my lord said; ”the very notion of a woman drives her mad. I took to liquor on that very account, by Jove, for no other reason than that; for she can't be jealous of a beer- barrel or a bottle of rum, can she, Doctor? D--- it, look at the maids--just look at the maids in the house” (my lord p.r.o.nounced all the words together--just-look-at-the-maze-in-the-house: jever-see- such-maze?) ”You wouldn't take a wife out of Castlewood now, would you, Doctor?” and my lord burst out laughing.
The Doctor, who had been looking at my Lord Castlewood from under his eyelids, said, ”But joking apart, and, my lord, as a divine, I cannot treat the subject in a jocular light, nor, as a pastor of this congregation, look with anything but sorrow at the idea of so very young a sheep going astray.”
”Sir,” said young Esmond, bursting out indignantly, ”she told me that you yourself were a horrid old man, and had offered to kiss her in the dairy.”
”For shame, Henry,” cried Doctor Tusher, turning as red as a turkey-c.o.c.k, while my lord continued to roar with laughter. ”If you listen to the falsehoods of an abandoned girl--”
”She is as honest as any woman in England, and as pure for me,” cried out Henry, ”and, as kind, and as good. For shame on you to malign her!”
”Far be it from me to do so,” cried the Doctor. ”Heaven grant I may be mistaken in the girl, and in you, sir, who have a truly PRECOCIOUS genius; but that is not the point at issue at present. It appears that the small-pox broke out in the little boy at the 'Three Castles;' that it was on him when you visited the ale-house, for your OWN reasons; and that you sat with the child for some time, and immediately afterwards with my young lord.” The Doctor raised his voice as he spoke, and looked towards my lady, who had now come back, looking very pale, with a handkerchief in her hand.
”This is all very true, sir,” said Lady Esmond, looking at the young man.
”'Tis to be feared that he may have brought the infection with him.”
”From the ale-house--yes,” said my lady.
”D--- it, I forgot when I collared you, boy,” cried my lord, stepping back. ”Keep off, Harry my boy; there's no good in running into the wolf's jaws, you know.”
My lady looked at him with some surprise, and instantly advancing to Henry Esmond, took his hand. ”I beg your pardon, Henry,” she said; ”I spoke very unkindly. I have no right to interfere with you--with your--”
My lord broke out into an oath. ”Can't you leave the boy alone, my lady?” She looked a little red, and faintly pressed the lad's hand as she dropped it.
”There is no use, my lord,” she said; ”Frank was on his knee as he was making pictures, and was running constantly from Henry to me. The evil is done, if any.”
”Not with me, damme,” cried my lord. ”I've been smoking,”--and he lighted his pipe again with a coal--”and it keeps off infection; and as the disease is in the village--plague take it--I would have you leave it. We'll go to-morrow to Walcote, my lady.”
”I have no fear,” said my lady; ”I may have had it as an infant: it broke out in our house then; and when four of my sisters had it at home, two years before our marriage, I escaped it, and two of my dear sisters died.”
”I won't run the risk,” said my lord; ”I'm as bold as any man, but I'll not bear that.”
”Take Beatrix with you and go,” said my lady. ”For us the mischief is done; and Tucker can wait upon us, who has had the disease.”
”You take care to choose 'em ugly enough,” said my lord, at which her ladys.h.i.+p hung down her head and looked foolish: and my lord, calling away Tusher, bade him come to the oak parlor and have a pipe. The Doctor made a low bow to her ladys.h.i.+p (of which salaams he was profuse), and walked off on his creaking square-toes after his patron.
When the lady and the young man were alone, there was a silence of some moments, during which he stood at the fire, looking rather vacantly at the dying embers, whilst her ladys.h.i.+p busied herself with the tambour-frame and needles.
”I am sorry,” she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice,--”I REPEAT I am sorry that I showed myself so ungrateful for the safety of my son. It was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you must perceive, Mr. Esmond, that at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family. You have wished to go to the University, and I think 'tis quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press this matter, thinking you a child, as you are, indeed, in years--quite a child; and I should never have thought of treating you otherwise until--until these CIRc.u.mSTANCES came to light. And I shall beg my lord to despatch you as quick as possible: and will go on with Frank's learning as well as I can, (I owe my father thanks for a little grounding, and you, I'm sure, for much that you have taught me,)--and--and I wish you a good-night, Mr. Esmond.”
And with this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained for ever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her s.h.i.+ning golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading until afterwards he remembered the appearance of the letters of the book (it was in Montaigne's Essays), and the events of the day pa.s.sed before him-- that is, of the last hour of the day; for as for the morning, and the poor milkmaid yonder, he never so much as once thought. And he could not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache, and quite unrefreshed.
He had brought the contagion with him from the ”Three Castles” sure enough, and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall no more than it did the cottage.
CHAPTER IX.
I HAVE THE SMALL-POX, AND PREPARE TO LEAVE CASTLEWOOD.
When Harry Esmond pa.s.sed through the crisis of that malady, and returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered and rallied after the disease, and the lady his mother was down with it, with a couple more of the household. ”It was a Providence, for which we all ought to be thankful,” Doctor Tusher said, ”that my lady and her son were spared, while Death carried off the poor domestics of the house;” and rebuked Harry for asking, in his simple way, For which we ought to be thankful--that the servants were killed, or the gentlefolks were saved? Nor could young Esmond agree in the Doctor's vehement protestations to my lady, when he visited her during her convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her charms, and had not been churl enough to injure the fair features of the Viscountess of Castlewood; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her ladys.h.i.+p's beauty was very much injured by the small-pox. When the marks of the disease cleared away, they did not, it is true, leave furrows or scars on her face (except one, perhaps, on her forehead over her left eyebrow); but the delicacy of her rosy color and complexion was gone: her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her hair fell, and her face looked older. It was as if a coa.r.s.e hand had rubbed off the delicate tints of that sweet picture, and brought it, as one has seen unskilful painting-cleaners do, to the dead color. Also, it must be owned, that for a year or two after the malady, her ladys.h.i.+p's nose was swollen and redder.
There would be no need to mention these trivialities, but that they actually influenced many lives, as trifles will in the world, where a gnat often plays a greater part than an elephant, and a mole- hill, as we know in King William's case, can upset an empire. When Tusher in his courtly way (at which Harry Esmond always chafed and spoke scornfully) vowed and protested that my lady's face was none the worse--the lad broke out and said, ”It IS worse and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was;” on which poor Lady Castlewood gave a rueful smile, and a look into a little Venice gla.s.s she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the gla.s.s, and her eyes filled with tears.
The sight of these in Esmond's heart always created a sort of rage of pity, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the young blunderer sank down on his knees, and besought her to pardon him, saying that he was a fool and an idiot, that he was a brute to make such a speech, he who had caused her malady; and Doctor Tusher told him that a bear he was indeed, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor young Esmond was so dumbstricken that he did not even growl.
”He is MY bear, and I will not have him baited, Doctor,” my lady said, patting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at her feet. ”How your hair has come off! And mine, too,” she added with another sigh.
”It is not for myself that I cared,” my lady said to Harry, when the parson had taken his leave; ”but AM I very much changed? Alas! I fear 'tis too true.”
”Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the world, I think,” the lad said; and indeed he thought and thinks so.
”Will my lord think so when he comes back?” the lady asked with a sigh, and another look at her Venice gla.s.s. ”Suppose he should think as you do, sir, that I am hideous--yes, you said hideous--he will cease to care for me. 'Tis all men care for in women, our little beauty. Why did he select me from among my sisters? 'Twas only for that. We reign but for a day or two: and be sure that Vashti knew Esther was coming.”
”Madam,” said Mr. Esmond, ”Ahasuerus was the Grand Turk, and to change was the manner of his country, and according to his law.”
”You are all Grand Turks for that matter,” said my lady, ”or would be if you could. Come, Frank, come, my child. You are well, praised be Heaven. YOUR locks are not thinned by this dreadful small-pox: nor your poor face scarred--is it, my angel?”
Frank began to shout and whimper at the idea of such a misfortune. From the very earliest time the young lord had been taught to admire his beauty by his mother: and esteemed it as highly as any reigning toast valued hers.
One day, as he himself was recovering from his fever and illness, a pang of something like shame shot across young Esmond's breast, as he remembered that he had never once during his illness given a thought to the poor girl at the smithy, whose red cheeks but a month ago he had been so eager to see. Poor Nancy! her cheeks had shared the fate of roses, and were withered now. She had taken the illness on the same day with Esmond--she and her brother were both dead of the small-pox, and buried under the Castlewood yew-trees. There was no bright face looking now from the garden, or to cheer the old smith at his lonely fireside. Esmond would have liked to have kissed her in her shroud (like the la.s.s in Mr. Prior's pretty poem); but she rested many a foot below the ground, when Esmond after his malady first trod on it.
Doctor Tusher brought the news of this calamity, about which Harry Esmond longed to ask, but did not like. He said almost the whole village had been stricken with the pestilence; seventeen persons were dead of it, among them mentioning the names of poor Nancy and her little brother. He did not fail to say how thankful we survivors ought to be. It being this man's business to flatter and make sermons, it must be owned he was most industrious in it, and was doing the one or the other all day.
And so Nancy was gone; and Harry Esmond blushed that he had not a single tear for her, and fell to composing an elegy in Latin verses over the rustic little beauty. He bade the dryads mourn and the river-nymphs deplore her. As her father followed the calling of Vulcan, he said that surely she was like a daughter of Venus, though Sievewright's wife was an ugly shrew, as he remembered to have heard afterwards. He made a long face, but, in truth, felt scarcely more sorrowful than a mute at a funeral. These first pa.s.sions of men and women are mostly abortive; and are dead almost before they are born. Esmond could repeat, to his last day, some of the doggerel lines in which his muse bewailed his pretty la.s.s; not without shame to remember how bad the verses were, and how good he thought them; how false the grief, and yet how he was rather proud of it. 'Tis an error, surely, to talk of the simplicity of youth. I think no persons are more hypocritical, and have a more affected behavior to one another, than the young. They deceive themselves and each other with artifices that do not impose upon men of the world; and so we get to understand truth better, and grow simpler as we grow older.
When my lady heard of the fate which had befallen poor Nancy, she said nothing so long as Tusher was by, but when he was gone, she took Harry Esmond's hand and said-- ”Harry, I beg your pardon for those cruel words I used on the night you were taken ill. I am shocked at the fate of the poor creature, and am sure that nothing had happened of that with which, in my anger, I charged you. And the very first day we go out, you must take me to the blacksmith, and we must see if there is anything I can do to console the poor old man. Poor man! to lose both his children! What should I do without mine?”
And this was, indeed, the very first walk which my lady took, leaning on Esmond's arm, after her illness. But her visit brought no consolation to the old father; and he showed no softness, or desire to speak. ”The Lord gave and took away,” he said; and he knew what His servant's duty was. He wanted for nothing--less now than ever before, as there were fewer mouths to feed. He wished her ladys.h.i.+p and Master Esmond good morning--he had grown tall in his illness, and was but very little marked; and with this, and a surly bow, he went in from the smithy to the house, leaving my lady, somewhat silenced and shamefaced, at the door. He had a handsome stone put up for his two children, which may be seen in Castlewood churchyard to this very day; and before a year was out his own name was upon the stone. In the presence of Death, that sovereign ruler, a woman's coquetry is seared; and her jealousy will hardly pa.s.s the boundaries of that grim kingdom. 'Tis entirely of the earth, that pa.s.sion, and expires in the cold blue air, beyond our sphere.
At length, when the danger was quite over, it was announced that my lord and his daughter would return. Esmond well remembered the day. The lady his mistress was in a flurry of fear: before my lord came, she went into her room, and returned from it with reddened cheeks. Her fate was about to be decided. Her beauty was gone-- was her reign, too, over? A minute would say. My lord came riding over the bridge--he could be seen from the great window, clad in scarlet, and mounted on his gray hackney--his little daughter ambled by him in a bright riding-dress of blue, on a s.h.i.+ning chestnut horse. My lady leaned against the great mantel-piece, looking on, with one hand on her heart--she seemed only the more pale for those red marks on either cheek. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and withdrew it, laughing hysterically--the cloth was quite red with the rouge when she took it away. She ran to her room again, and came back with pale cheeks and red eyes--her son in her hand--just as my lord entered, accompanied by young Esmond, who had gone out to meet his protector, and to hold his stirrup as he descended from horseback.
”What, Harry, boy!” my lord said, good-naturedly, ”you look as gaunt as a greyhound. The small-pox hasn't improved your beauty, and your side of the house hadn't never too much of it--ho, ho!”