CHAPTER VII.
I VISIT CASTLEWOOD ONCE MORE.
Thus, for a third time, Beatrix's ambitious hopes were circumvented, andshe might well believe that a special malignant fate watched and pursuedher, tearing her prize out of her hand just as she seemed to grasp it,and leaving her with only rage and grief for her portion. Whatever herfeelings might have been of anger or of sorrow, (and I fear me that theformer emotion was that which most tore her heart,) she would take noconfidant, as people of softer natures would have done under such acalamity; her mother and her kinsman knew that she would disdain theirpity, and that to offer it would be but to infuriate the cruel woundwhich fortune had inflicted. We knew that her pride was awfully humbledand punished by this sudden and terrible blow; she wanted no teaching ofours to point out the sad moral of her story. Her fond mother could givebut her prayers, and her kinsman his faithful friendship and patience tothe unhappy, stricken creature; and it was only by hints, and a word ortwo uttered months afterwards, that Beatrix showed she understood theirsilent commiseration, and on her part was secretly thankful for theirforbearance. The people about the Court said there was that in hermanner which frightened away scoffing and condolence: she was abovetheir triumph and their pity, and acted her part in that dreadfultragedy greatly and courageously; so that those who liked her least wereyet forced to admire her. We, who watched her after her disaster, couldnot but respect the indomitable courage and majestic calm with which shebore it. "I would rather see her tears than her pride," her mother said,who was accustomed to bear her sorrows in a very different way, andto receive them as the stroke of God, with an awful submission andmeekness. But Beatrix's nature was different to that tender parent's;she seemed to accept her grief and to defy it; nor would she allow it (Ibelieve not even in private and in her own chamber) to extort from herthe confession of even a tear of humiliation or a cry of pain. Friendsand children of our race, who come after me, in which way will you bearyour trials? I know one that prays God will give you love rather thanpride, and that the Eye all-seeing shall find you in the humble place.Not that we should judge proud spirits otherwise than charitably. 'Tisnature hath fashioned some for ambition and dominion, as it hath formedothers for obedience and gentle submission. The leopard follows hisnature as the lamb does, and acts after leopard law; she can neitherhelp her beauty, nor her courage, nor her cruelty; nor a single spot onher shining coat; nor the conquering spirit which impels her; nor theshot which brings her down.
During that well-founded panic the Whigs had, lest the Queen shouldforsake their Hanoverian Prince, bound by oaths and treaties as she wasto him, and recall her brother, who was allied to her by yet strongerties of nature and duty; the Prince of Savoy, and the boldest of thatparty of the Whigs, were for bringing the young Duke of Cambridge over,in spite of the Queen, and the outcry of her Tory servants, arguing thatthe Electoral Prince, a Peer and Prince of the Blood-Royal of this Realmtoo, and in the line of succession to the crown, had, a right to sitin the Parliament whereof he was a member, and to dwell in the countrywhich he one day was to govern. Nothing but the strongest ill willexpressed by the Queen, and the people about her, and menaces of theRoyal resentment, should this scheme be persisted in, prevented it frombeing carried into effect.
The boldest on our side were, in like manner, for having our Prince intothe country. The undoubted inheritor of the right divine; the feelingsof more than half the nation, of almost all the clergy, of the gentry ofEngland and Scotland with him; entirely innocent of the crime for whichhis father suffered--brave, young, handsome, unfortunate--who in Englandwould dare to molest the Prince should he come among us, and flinghimself upon British generosity, hospitality, and honor? An invader withan army of Frenchmen behind him, Englishmen of spirit would resist tothe death, and drive back to the shores whence he came; but a Prince,alone, armed with his right only, and relying on the loyalty of hispeople, was sure, many of his friends argued, of welcome, at least ofsafety, among us. The hand of his sister the Queen, of the people hissubjects, never could be raised to do him a wrong. But the Queen wastimid by nature, and the successive Ministers she had, had privatecauses for their irresolution. The bolder and honester men, who had atheart the illustrious young exile's cause, had no scheme of interest oftheir own to prevent them from seeing the right done, and, provided onlyhe came as an Englishman, were ready to venture their all to welcome anddefend him.
St. John and Harley both had kind words in plenty for the Prince'sadherents, and gave him endless promises of future support; but hintsand promises were all they could be got to give; and some of his friendswere for measures much bolder, more efficacious, and more open. Witha party of these, some of whom are yet alive, and some whose names Mr.Esmond has no right to mention, he found himself engaged the year afterthat miserable death of Duke Hamilton, which deprived the Prince ofhis most courageous ally in this country. Dean Atterbury was one of thefriends whom Esmond may mention, as the brave bishop is now beyond exileand persecution, and to him, and one or two more, the Colonel openedhimself of a scheme of his own, that, backed by a little resolution onthe Prince's part, could not fail of bringing about the accomplishmentof their dearest wishes.
My young Lord Viscount Castlewood had not come to England to keep hismajority, and had now been absent from the country for several years.The year when his sister was to be married and Duke Hamilton died, mylord was kept at Bruxelles by his wife's lying-in. The gentle Clotildacould not bear her husband out of her sight; perhaps she mistrusted theyoung scapegrace should he ever get loose from her leading-strings; andshe kept him by her side to nurse the baby and administer posset to thegossips. Many a laugh poor Beatrix had had about Frank's uxoriousness:his mother would have gone to Clotilda when her time was coming, butthat the mother-in-law was already in possession, and the negotiationsfor poor Beatrix's marriage were begun. A few months after the horridcatastrophe in Hyde Park, my mistress and her daughter retired toCastlewood, where my lord, it was expected, would soon join them. But,to say truth, their quiet household was little to his taste; he could begot to come to Walcote but once after his first campaign; and then theyoung rogue spent more than half his time in London, not appearing atCourt or in public under his own name and title, but frequenting plays,bagnios, and the very worst company, under the name of Captain Esmond(whereby his innocent kinsman got more than once into trouble); and sounder various pretexts, and in pursuit of all sorts of pleasures,until he plunged into the lawful one of marriage, Frank Castlewoodhad remained away from this country, and was unknown, save amongst thegentlemen of the army, with whom he had served abroad. The fond heart ofhis mother was pained by this long absence. 'Twas all that Henry Esmondcould do to soothe her natural mortification, and find excuses for hiskinsman's levity.
In the autumn of the year 1713, Lord Castlewood thought of returninghome. His first child had been a daughter; Clotilda was in the way ofgratifying his lordship with a second, and the pious youth thought that,by bringing his wife to his ancestral home, by prayers to St. Philip ofCastlewood, and what not, heaven might be induced to bless him with ason this time, for whose coming the expectant mamma was very anxious.
The long-debated peace had been proclaimed this year at the end ofMarch; and France was open to us. Just as Frank's poor mother hadmade all things ready for Lord Castlewood's reception, and was eagerlyexpecting her son, it was by Colonel Esmond's means that the kind ladywas disappointed of her longing, and obliged to defer once more thedarling hope of her heart.
Esmond took horses to Castlewood. He had not seen its ancient graytowers and well-remembered woods for nearly fourteen years, and since herode thence with my lord, to whom his mistress with her young childrenby her side waved an adieu. What ages seemed to have passed since then,what years of action and passion, of care, love, hope, disaster! Thechildren were grown up now, and had stories of their own. As forEsmond, he felt to be a hundred years old; his dear mistress only seemedunchanged; she looked and welcomed him quite as of old. There was thefounta
in in the court babbling its familiar music, the old hall and itsfurniture, the carved chair my late lord used, the very flagon he drankfrom. Esmond's mistress knew he would like to sleep in the little roomhe used to occupy; 'twas made ready for him, and wall-flowers and sweetherbs set in the adjoining chamber, the chaplain's room.
In tears of not unmanly emotion, with prayers of submission to the awfulDispenser of death and life, of good and evil fortune, Mr. Esmond passeda part of that first night at Castlewood, lying awake for many hours asthe clock kept tolling (in tones so well remembered), looking back, asall men will, that revisit their home of childhood, over the great gulfof time, and surveying himself on the distant bank yonder, a sad littlemelancholy boy with his lord still alive--his dear mistress, a girl yet,her children sporting around her. Years ago, a boy on that very bed,when she had blessed him and called him her knight, he had made a vowto be faithful and never desert her dear service. Had he kept that fondboyish promise? Yes, before heaven; yes, praise be to God! His life hadbeen hers; his blood, his fortune, his name, his whole heart ever sincehad been hers and her children's. All night long he was dreaming hisboyhood over again, and waking fitfully; he half fancied he heard FatherHolt calling to him from the next chamber, and that he was coming in andout of from the mysterious window.
Esmond rose up before the dawn, passed into the next room, where theair was heavy with the odor of the wall-flowers; looked into the brazierwhere the papers had been burnt, into the old presses where Holt's booksand papers had been kept, and tried the spring and whether the windowworked still. The spring had not been touched for years, but yielded atlength, and the whole fabric of the window sank down. He lifted it andit relapsed into its frame; no one had ever passed thence since Holtused it sixteen years ago.
Esmond remembered his poor lord saying, on the last day of his life,that Holt used to come in and out of the house like a ghost, andknew that the Father liked these mysteries, and practised such secretdisguises, entrances and exits: this was the way the ghost came andwent, his pupil had always conjectured. Esmond closed the casement upagain as the dawn was rising over Castlewood village; he could hear theclinking at the blacksmith's forge yonder among the trees, across thegreen, and past the river, on which a mist still lay sleeping.
Next Esmond opened that long cupboard over the woodwork of themantel-piece, big enough to hold a man, and in which Mr. Holt used tokeep sundry secret properties of his. The two swords he remembered sowell as a boy, lay actually there still, and Esmond took them out andwiped them, with a strange curiosity of emotion. There were a bundle ofpapers here, too, which no doubt had been left at Holt's last visit tothe place, in my Lord Viscount's life, that very day when the priest hadbeen arrested and taken to Hexham Castle. Esmond made free with thesepapers, and found treasonable matter of King William's reign, the namesof Charnock and Perkins, Sir John Fenwick and Sir John Friend, Rookwoodand Lodwick, Lords Montgomery and Allesbury, Clarendon and Yarmouth,that had all been engaged in plots against the usurper; a letter fromthe Duke of Berwick too, and one from the King at St. Germains, offeringto confer upon his trusty and well-beloved Francis Viscount Castlewoodthe titles of Earl and Marquis of Esmond, bestowed by patent royal, andin the fourth year of his reign, upon Thomas Viscount Castlewood andthe heirs-male of his body, in default of which issue the ranks anddignities were to pass to Francis aforesaid.
This was the paper, whereof my lord had spoken, which Holt showed himthe very day he was arrested, and for an answer to which he would comeback in a week's time. I put these papers hastily into the crypt whenceI had taken them, being interrupted by a tapping of a light finger atthe ring of the chamber-door: 'twas my kind mistress, with her face fullof love and welcome. She, too, had passed the night wakefuly, no doubt;but neither asked the other how the hours had been spent. There arethings we divine without speaking, and know though they happen out ofour sight. This fond lady hath told me that she knew both days whenI was wounded abroad. Who shall say how far sympathy reaches, and howtruly love can prophesy? "I looked into your room," was all she said;"the bed was vacant, the little old bed! I knew I should find you here."And tender and blushing faintly with a benediction in her eyes, thegentle creature kissed him.
They walked out, hand-in-hand, through the old court, and to theterrace-walk, where the grass was glistening with dew, and the birds inthe green woods above were singing their delicious choruses under theblushing morning sky. How well all things were remembered! The ancienttowers and gables of the hall darkling against the east, the purpleshadows on the green slopes, the quaint devices and carvings of thedial, the forest-crowned heights, the fair yellow plain cheerful withcrops and corn, the shining river rolling through it towards the pearlyhills beyond; all these were before us, along with a thousand beautifulmemories of our youth, beautiful and sad, but as real and vivid in ourminds as that fair and always-remembered scene our eyes beheld oncemore. We forget nothing. The memory sleeps, but wakens again; I oftenthink how it shall be when, after the last sleep of death, thereveillee shall arouse us for ever, and the past in one flash ofself-consciousness rush back, like the soul revivified.
The house would not be up for some hours yet, (it was July, and the dawnwas only just awake,) and here Esmond opened himself to his mistress, ofthe business he had in hand, and what part Frank was to play in it. Heknew he could confide anything to her, and that the fond soul would dierather than reveal it; and bidding her keep the secret from all, he laidit entirely before his mistress (always as staunch a little loyalist asany in the kingdom), and indeed was quite sure that any plan, of his wassecure of her applause and sympathy. Never was such a glorious scheme toher partial mind, never such a devoted knight to execute it. An hour ortwo may have passed whilst they were having their colloquy. Beatrix cameout to them just as their talk was over; her tall beautiful form robedin sable (which she wore without ostentation ever since last year'scatastrophe), sweeping over the green terrace, and casting its shadowsbefore her across the grass.
She made us one of her grand curtsies smiling, and called us "theyoung people." She was older, paler, and more majestic than in the yearbefore; her mother seemed the youngest of the two. She never once spokeof her grief, Lady Castlewood told Esmond, or alluded, save by a quietword or two, to the death of her hopes.
When Beatrix came back to Castlewood she took to visiting all thecottages and all the sick. She set up a school of children, and taughtsinging to some of them. We had a pair of beautiful old organs inCastlewood Church, on which she played admirably, so that the musicthere became to be known in the country for many miles round, and nodoubt people came to see the fair organist as well as to hear her.Parson Tusher and his wife were established at the vicarage, but hiswife had brought him no children wherewith Tom might meet his enemiesat the gate. Honest Tom took care not to have many such, his greatshovel-hat was in his hand for everybody. He was profuse of bowsand compliments. He behaved to Esmond as if the Colonel had been aCommander-in-Chief; he dined at the hall that day, being Sunday, andwould not partake of pudding except under extreme pressure. He deploredmy lord's perversion, but drank his lordship's health very devoutly;and an hour before at church sent the Colonel to sleep, with a long,learned, and refreshing sermon.
Esmond's visit home was but for two days; the business he had in handcalling him away and out of the country. Ere he went, he saw Beatrixbut once alone, and then she summoned him out of the long tapestry room,where he and his mistress were sitting, quite as in old times, intothe adjoining chamber, that had been Viscountess Isabel's sleepingapartment, and where Esmond perfectly well remembered seeing the oldlady sitting up in the bed, in her night-rail, that morning when thetroop of guard came to fetch her. The most beautiful woman in Englandlay in that bed now, whereof the great damask hangings were scarce fadedsince Esmond saw them last.
Here stood Beatrix in her black robes, holding a box in her hand; 'twasthat which Esmond had given her before her marriage, stamped with acoronet which the disappointed girl was never to w
ear; and containinghis aunt's legacy of diamonds.
"You had best take these with you, Harry," says she; "I have no needof diamonds any more." There was not the least token of emotion in herquiet low voice. She held out the black shagreen case with her fairarm, that did not shake in the least. Esmond saw she wore a black velvetbracelet on it, with my Lord Duke's picture in enamel; he had given ither but three days before he fell.
Esmond said the stones were his no longer, and strove to turn off thatproffered restoration with a laugh: "Of what good," says he, "are theyto me? The diamond loop to his hat did not set off Prince Eugene, andwill not make my yellow face look any handsomer."
"You will give them to your wife, cousin," says she. "My cousin, yourwife has a lovely complexion and shape."
"Beatrix," Esmond burst out, the old fire flaming out as it would attimes, "will you wear those trinkets at your marriage? You whisperedonce you did not know me: you know me better now: how I sought, what Ihave sighed for, for ten years, what foregone!"
"A price for your constancy, my lord!" says she; "such a preux chevalierwants to be paid. Oh fie, cousin!"
"Again," Esmond spoke out, "if I do something you have at heart;something worthy of me and you; something that shall make me a name withwhich to endow you; will you take it? There was a chance for me once,you said; is it impossible to recall it? Never shake your head, but hearme; say you will hear me a year hence. If I come back to you and bringyou fame, will that please you? If I do what you desire most--what hewho is dead desired most--will that soften you?"
"What is it, Henry?" says she, her face lighting up; "what mean you?"
"Ask no questions," he said; "wait, and give me but time; if I bringback that you long for, that I have a thousand times heard you pray for,will you have no reward for him who has done you that service? Put awaythose trinkets, keep them: it shall not be at my marriage, it shall notbe at yours; but if man can do it, I swear a day shall come when thereshall be a feast in your house, and you shall be proud to wear them. Isay no more now; put aside these words, and lock away yonder box untilthe day when I shall remind you of both. All I pray of you now is, towait and to remember."
"You are going out of the country?" says Beatrix, in some agitation.
"Yes, to-morrow," says Esmond.
"To Lorraine, cousin?" says Beatrix, laying her hand on his arm; 'twasthe hand on which she wore the Duke's bracelet. "Stay, Harry!" continuedshe, with a tone that had more despondency in it than she was accustomedto show. "Hear a last word. I do love you. I do admire you--who wouldnot, that has known such love as yours has been for us all? But I thinkI have no heart; at least I have never seen the man that could touch it;and, had I found him, I would have followed him in rags had he been aprivate soldier, or to sea, like one of those buccaneers you used toread to us about when we were children. I would do anything for sucha man, bear anything for him: but I never found one. You were ever toomuch of a slave to win my heart; even my Lord Duke could not command it.I had not been happy had I married him. I knew that three months afterour engagement--and was too vain to break it. Oh, Harry! I cried once ortwice, not for him, but with tears of rage because I could not be sorryfor him. I was frightened to find I was glad of his death; and wereI joined to you, I should have the same sense of servitude, the samelonging to escape. We should both be unhappy, and you the most, who areas jealous as the Duke was himself. I tried to love him; I tried, indeedI did: affected gladness when he came: submitted to hear when he was byme, and tried the wife's part I thought I was to play for the rest of mydays. But half an hour of that complaisance wearied me, and what woulda lifetime be? My thoughts were away when he was speaking; and I wasthinking, Oh that this man would drop my hand, and rise up from beforemy feet! I knew his great and noble qualities, greater and nobler thanmine a thousand times, as yours are, cousin, I tell you, a million and amillion times better. But 'twas not for these I took him. I took him tohave a great place in the world, and I lost it. I lost it, and do notdeplore him--and I often thought, as I listened to his fond vows andardent words, Oh, if I yield to this man, and meet THE OTHER, I shallhate him and leave him! I am not good, Harry: my mother is gentle andgood like an angel. I wonder how she should have had such a child. Sheis weak, but she would die rather than do a wrong; I am stronger thanshe, but I would do it out of defiance. I do not care for what theparsons tell me with their droning sermons: I used to see them at courtas mean and as worthless as the meanest woman there. Oh, I am sick andweary of the world! I wait but for one thing, and when 'tis done, I willtake Frank's religion and your poor mother's, and go into a nunnery, andend like her. Shall I wear the diamonds then?--they say the nuns weartheir best trinkets the day they take the veil. I will put them away asyou bid me; farewell, cousin: mamma is pacing the next room racking herlittle head to know what we have been saying. She is jealous, all womenare. I sometimes think that is the only womanly quality I have."
"Farewell. Farewell, brother." She gave him her cheek as a brotherlyprivilege. The cheek was as cold as marble.
Esmond's mistress showed no signs of jealousy when he returned tothe room where she was. She had schooled herself so as to look quiteinscrutably, when she had a mind. Amongst her other feminine qualitiesshe had that of being a perfect dissembler.
He rode away from Castlewood to attempt the task he was bound on, andstand or fall by it; in truth his state of mind was such, that he waseager for some outward excitement to counteract that gnawing maladywhich he was inwardly enduring.
The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne Page 39
