"Twenty-five, sir--I choose to be twenty-five; and in eight years no man hath ever touched my heart. Yes--you did once, for a little, Harry, when you came back after Lille, and engaging with that murderer Mohun, and saving Frank"s life. I thought I could like you; and mamma begged me hard, on her knees, and I did--for a day. But the old chill came over me, Henry, and the old fear of you and your melancholy; and I was glad when you went away, and engaged with my Lord Ashburnham, that I might hear no more of you, that"s the truth. You are too good for me, somehow.
I could not make you happy, and should break my heart in trying, and not being able to love you. But if you had asked me when we gave you the sword, you might have had me, sir, and we both should have been miserable by this time. I talked with that silly lord all night just to vex you and mamma, and I succeeded, didn"t I? How frankly we can talk of these things! It seems a thousand years ago: and, though we are here sitting in the same room, there is a great wall between us. My dear, kind, faithful, gloomy old cousin! I can like now, and admire you too, sir, and say that you are brave, and very kind, and very true, and a fine gentleman for all--for all your little mishap at your birth," says she, wagging her arch head.
"And now, sir," says she, with a curtsy, "we must have no more talk except when mamma is by, as his Grace is with us; for he does not half like you, cousin, and is jealous as the black man in your favorite play."
Though the very kindness of the words stabbed Mr. Esmond with the keenest pang, he did not show his sense of the wound by any look of his (as Beatrix, indeed, afterwards owned to him), but said, with a perfect command of himself and an easy smile, "The interview must not end yet, my dear, until I have had my last word. Stay, here comes your mother"
(indeed she came in here with her sweet anxious face, and Esmond going up kissed her hand respectfully). "My dear lady may hear, too, the last words, which are no secrets, and are only a parting benediction accompanying a present for your marriage from an old gentleman your guardian; for I feel as if I was the guardian of all the family, and an old old fellow that is fit to be the grandfather of you all; and in this character let me make my Lady d.u.c.h.ess her wedding present. They are the diamonds my father"s widow left me. I had thought Beatrix might have had them a year ago; but they are good enough for a d.u.c.h.ess, though not bright enough for the handsomest woman in the world." And he took the case out of his pocket in which the jewels were, and presented them to his cousin.
She gave a cry of delight, for the stones were indeed very handsome, and of great value; and the next minute the necklace was where Belinda"s cross is in Mr. Pope"s admirable poem, and glittering on the whitest and most perfectly-shaped neck in all England.
The girl"s delight at receiving these trinkets was so great, that after rushing to the looking-gla.s.s and examining the effect they produced upon that fair neck which they surrounded, Beatrix was running back with her arms extended, and was perhaps for paying her cousin with a price, that he would have liked no doubt to receive from those beautiful rosy lips of hers, but at this moment the door opened, and his Grace the bridegroom elect was announced.
He looked very black upon Mr. Esmond, to whom he made a very low bow indeed, and kissed the hand of each lady in his most ceremonious manner.
He had come in his chair from the palace hard by, and wore his two stars of the Garter and the Thistle.
"Look, my Lord Duke," says Mistress Beatrix, advancing to him, and showing the diamonds on her breast.
"Diamonds," says his Grace. "Hm! they seem pretty."
"They are a present on my marriage," says Beatrix.
"From her Majesty?" asks the Duke. "The Queen is very good."
"From my cousin Henry--from our cousin Henry"--cry both the ladies in a breath.
"I have not the honor of knowing the gentleman. I thought that my Lord Castlewood had no brother: and that on your ladyship"s side there were no nephews."
"From our cousin, Colonel Henry Esmond, my lord," says Beatrix, taking the Colonel"s hand very bravely,--"who was left guardian to us by our father, and who has a hundred times shown his love and friendship for our family."
"The d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton receives no diamonds but from her husband, madam," says the Duke--"may I pray you to restore these to Mr. Esmond?"
"Beatrix Esmond may receive a present from our kinsman and benefactor, my Lord Duke," says Lady Castlewood, with an air of great dignity. "She is my daughter yet: and if her mother sanctions the gift--no one else hath the right to question it."
"Kinsman and benefactor!" says the Duke. "I know of no kinsman: and I do not choose that my wife should have for benefactor a--"
"My lord!" says Colonel Esmond.
"I am not here to bandy words," says his Grace: "frankly I tell you that your visits to this house are too frequent, and that I choose no presents for the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton from gentlemen that bear a name they have no right to."
"My lord!" breaks out Lady Castlewood, "Mr. Esmond hath the best right to that name of any man in the world: and "tis as old and as honorable as your Grace"s."
My Lord Duke smiled, and looked as if Lady Castlewood was mad, that was so talking to him.
"If I called him benefactor," said my mistress, "it is because he has been so to us--yes, the n.o.blest, the truest, the bravest, the dearest of benefactors. He would have saved my husband"s life from Mohun"s sword.
He did save my boy"s, and defended him from that villain. Are those no benefits?"
"I ask Colonel Esmond"s pardon," says his Grace, if possible more haughty than before. "I would say not a word that should give him offence, and thank him for his kindness to your ladyship"s family. My Lord Mohun and I are connected, you know, by marriage--though neither by blood nor friendship; but I must repeat what I said, that my wife can receive no presents from Colonel Esmond."
"My daughter may receive presents from the Head of our House: my daughter may thankfully take kindness from her father"s, her mother"s, her brother"s dearest friend; and be grateful for one more benefit besides the thousand we owe him," cries Lady Esmond. "What is a string of diamond stones compared to that affection he hath given us--our dearest preserver and benefactor? We owe him not only Frank"s life, but our all--yes, our all," says my mistress, with a heightened color and a trembling voice. "The t.i.tle we bear is his, if he would claim it. "Tis we who have no right to our name: not he that"s too great for it. He sacrificed his name at my dying lord"s bedside--sacrificed it to my orphan children; gave up rank and honor because he loved us so n.o.bly.
His father was Viscount of Castlewood and Marquis of Esmond before him; and he is his father"s lawful son and true heir, and we are the recipients of his bounty, and he the chief of a house that"s as old as your own. And if he is content to forego his name that my child may bear it, we love him and honor him and bless him under whatever name he bears"--and here the fond and affectionate creature would have knelt to Esmond again, but that he prevented her; and Beatrix, running up to her with a pale face and a cry of alarm, embraced her and said, "Mother, what is this?"
""Tis a family secret, my Lord Duke," says Colonel Esmond: "poor Beatrix knew nothing of it; nor did my lady till a year ago. And I have as good a right to resign my t.i.tle as your Grace"s mother to abdicate hers to you."
"I should have told everything to the Duke of Hamilton," said my mistress, "had his Grace applied to me for my daughter"s hand, and not to Beatrix. I should have spoken with you this very day in private, my lord, had not your words brought about this sudden explanation--and now "tis fit Beatrix should hear it; and know, as I would have all the world know, what we owe to our kinsman and patron."
And then in her touching way, and having hold of her daughter"s hand, and speaking to her rather than my Lord Duke, Lady Castlewood told the story which you know already--lauding up to the skies her kinsman"s behavior. On his side Mr. Esmond explained the reasons that seemed quite sufficiently cogent with him, why the succession in the family, as at present it stood, should not be disturbed; and he should remain as he was, Colonel Esmond.
"And Marquis of Esmond, my lord," says his Grace, with a low bow.
"Permit me to ask your lordship"s pardon for words that were uttered in ignorance; and to beg for the favor of your friendship. To be allied to you, sir, must be an honor under whatever name you are known" (so his Grace was pleased to say); "and in return for the splendid present you make my wife, your kinswoman, I hope you will please to command any service that James Douglas can perform. I shall never be easy until I repay you a part of my obligations at least; and ere very long, and with the mission her Majesty hath given me," says the Duke, "that may perhaps be in my power. I shall esteem it as a favor, my lord, if Colonel Esmond will give away the bride."
"And if he will take the usual payment in advance, he is welcome," says Beatrix, stepping up to him; and, as Esmond kissed her, she whispered, "Oh, why didn"t I know you before?"
My Lord Duke was as hot as a flame at this salute, but said never a word: Beatrix made him a proud curtsy, and the two ladies quitted the room together.
"When does your Excellency go for Paris?" asks Colonel Esmond.
"As soon after the ceremony as may be," his Grace answered. ""Tis fixed for the first of December: it cannot be sooner. The equipage will not be ready till then. The Queen intends the emba.s.sy should be very grand--and I have law business to settle. That ill-omened Mohun has come, or is coming, to London again: we are in a lawsuit about my late Lord Gerard"s property; and he hath sent to me to meet him."
CHAPTER V.
MOHUN APPEARS FOR THE LAST TIME IN THIS HISTORY.
Besides my Lord Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who for family reasons had kindly promised his protection and patronage to Colonel Esmond, he had other great friends in power now, both able and willing to a.s.sist him, and he might, with such allies, look forward to as fortunate advancement in civil life at home as he had got rapid promotion abroad. His Grace was magnanimous enough to offer to take Mr. Esmond as secretary on his Paris emba.s.sy, but no doubt he intended that proposal should be rejected; at any rate, Esmond could not bear the thoughts of attending his mistress farther than the church-door after her marriage, and so declined that offer which his generous rival made him.
Other gentlemen in power were liberal at least of compliments and promises to Colonel Esmond. Mr. Harley, now become my Lord Oxford and Mortimer, and installed Knight of the Garter on the same day as his Grace of Hamilton had received the same honor, sent to the Colonel to say that a seat in Parliament should be at his disposal presently, and Mr. St. John held out many flattering hopes of advancement to the Colonel when he should enter the House. Esmond"s friends were all successful, and the most successful and triumphant of all was his dear old commander, General Webb, who was now appointed Lieutenant-General of the Land Forces, and received with particular honor by the Ministry, by the Queen, and the people out of doors, who huzza"d the brave chief when they used to see him in his chariot going to the House or to the Drawing-room, or hobbling on foot to his coach from St. Stephen"s upon his glorious old crutch and stick, and cheered him as loud as they had ever done Marlborough.
That great Duke was utterly disgraced; and honest old Webb dated all his Grace"s misfortunes from Wynendael, and vowed that Fate served the traitor right. d.u.c.h.ess Sarah had also gone to ruin; she had been forced to give up her keys, and her places, and her pensions:--"Ah, ah!" says Webb, "she would have locked up three millions of French crowns with her keys had I but been knocked on the head, but I stopped that convoy at Wynendael." Our enemy Cardonnel was turned out of the House of Commons (along with Mr. Walpole) for malversation of public money. Cadogan lost his place of Lieutenant of the Tower. Marlborough"s daughters resigned their posts of ladies of the bedchamber; and so complete was the Duke"s disgrace, that his son-in-law, Lord Bridgewater, was absolutely obliged to give up his lodgings at St. James"s, and had his half-pension, as Master of the Horse, taken away. But I think the lowest depth of Marlborough"s fall was when he humbly sent to ask General Webb when he might wait upon him; he who had commanded the stout old General, who had injured him and sneered at him, who had kept him dangling in his ante-chamber, who could not even after his great service condescend to write him a letter in his own hand. The nation was as eager for peace as ever it had been hot for war. The Prince of Savoy came amongst us, had his audience of the Queen, and got his famous Sword of Honor, and strove with all his force to form a Whig party together, to bring over the young Prince of Hanover to do anything which might prolong the war, and consummate the ruin of the old sovereign whom he hated so implacably.
But the nation was tired of the struggle: so completely wearied of it that not even our defeat at Denain could rouse us into any anger, though such an action so lost two years before would have set all England in a fury. "Twas easy to see that the great Marlborough was not with the army. Eugene was obliged to fall back in a rage, and forego the dazzling revenge of his life. "Twas in vain the Duke"s side asked, "Would we suffer our arms to be insulted? Would we not send back the only champion who could repair our honor?" The nation had had its bellyful of fighting; nor could taunts or outcries goad up our Britons any more.
For a statesman that was always prating of liberty, and had the grandest philosophic maxims in his mouth, it must be owned that Mr. St. John sometimes rather acted like a Turkish than a Greek philosopher, and especially fell foul of one unfortunate set of men, the men of letters, with a tyranny a little extraordinary in a man who professed to respect their calling so much. The literary controversy at this time was very bitter, the Government side was the winning one, the popular one, and I think might have been the merciful one. "Twas natural that the opposition should be peevish and cry out: some men did so from their hearts, admiring the Duke of Marlborough"s prodigious talents, and deploring the disgrace of the greatest general the world ever knew: "twas the stomach that caused other patriots to grumble, and such men cried out because they were poor, and paid to do so. Against these my Lord Bolingbroke never showed the slightest mercy, whipping a dozen into prison or into the pillory without the least commiseration.
From having been a man of arms Mr. Esmond had now come to be a man of letters, but on a safer side than that in which the above-cited poor fellows ventured their liberties and ears. There was no danger on ours, which was the winning side; besides, Mr. Esmond pleased himself by thinking that he writ like a gentleman if he did not always succeed as a wit.
Of the famous wits of that age, who have rendered Queen Anne"s reign ill.u.s.trious, and whose works will be in all Englishmen"s hands in ages yet to come, Mr. Esmond saw many, but at public places chiefly; never having a great intimacy with any of them, except with honest d.i.c.k Steele and Mr. Addison, who parted company with Esmond, however, when that gentleman became a declared Tory, and lived on close terms with the leading persons of that party. Addison kept himself to a few friends, and very rarely opened himself except in their company. A man more upright and conscientious than he it was not possible to find in public life, and one whose conversation was so various, easy, and delightful.
Writing now in my mature years, I own that I think Addison"s politics were the right, and were my time to come over again, I would be a Whig in England and not a Tory; but with people that take a side in politics, "tis men rather than principles that commonly bind them. A kindness or a slight puts a man under one flag or the other, and he marches with it to the end of the campaign. Esmond"s master in war was injured by Marlborough, and hated him: and the lieutenant fought the quarrels of his leader. Webb coming to London was used as a weapon by Marlborough"s enemies (and true steel he was, that honest chief); nor was his aide-de-camp, Mr. Esmond, an unfaithful or unworthy partisan. "Tis strange here, and on a foreign soil, and in a land that is independent in all but the name, (for that the North American colonies shall remain dependants on yonder little island for twenty years more, I never can think,) to remember how the nation at home seemed to give itself up to the domination of one or other aristocratic party, and took a Hanoverian king, or a French one, according as either prevailed. And while the Tories, the October club gentlemen, the High Church parsons that held by the Church of England, were for having a Papist king, for whom many of their Scottish and English leaders, firm churchmen all, laid down their lives with admirable loyalty and devotion; they were governed by men who had notoriously no religion at all, but used it as they would use any opinion for the purpose of forwarding their own ambition. The Whigs, on the other hand, who professed attachment to religion and liberty too, were compelled to send to Holland or Hanover for a monarch around whom they could rally. A strange series of compromises is that English History; compromise of principle, compromise of party, compromise of worship! The lovers of English freedom and independence submitted their religious consciences to an Act of Parliament; could not consolidate their liberty without sending to Zell or the Hague for a king to live under; and could not find amongst the proudest people in the world a man speaking their own language, and understanding their laws, to govern them. The Tory and High Church patriots were ready to die in defence of a Papist family that had sold us to France; the great Whig n.o.bles, the st.u.r.dy republican recusants who had cut off Charles Stuart"s head for treason, were fain to accept a king whose t.i.tle came to him through a royal grandmother, whose own royal grandmother"s head had fallen under Queen Bess"s hatchet. And our proud English n.o.bles sent to a petty German town for a monarch to come and reign in London and our prelates kissed the ugly hands of his Dutch mistresses, and thought it no dishonor. In England you can but belong to one party or t"other, and you take the house you live in with all its enc.u.mbrances, its retainers, its antique discomforts, and ruins even; you patch up, but you never build up anew. Will we of the new world submit much longer, even nominally, to this ancient British superst.i.tion? There are signs of the times which make me think that ere long we shall care as little about King George here, and peers temporal and peers spiritual, as we do for King Canute or the Druids.
This chapter began about the wits, my grandson may say, and hath wandered very far from their company. The pleasantest of the wits I knew were the Doctors Garth and Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gay, the author of "Trivia," the most charming kind soul that ever laughed at a joke or cracked a bottle. Mr. Prior I saw, and he was the earthen pot swimming with the pots of bra.s.s down the stream, and always and justly frightened lest he should break in the voyage. I met him both at London and Paris, where he was performing piteous congees to the Duke of Shrewsbury, not having courage to support the dignity which his undeniable genius and talent had won him, and writing coaxing letters to Secretary St. John, and thinking about his plate and his place, and what on earth should become of him should his party go out. The famous Mr. Congreve I saw a dozen of times at b.u.t.ton"s, a splendid wreck of a man, magnificently attired, and though gouty, and almost blind, bearing a brave face against fortune.
The great Mr. Pope (of whose prodigious genius I have no words to express my admiration) was quite a puny lad at this time, appearing seldom in public places. There were hundreds of men, wits, and pretty fellows frequenting the theatres and coffee-houses of that day--whom "nunc perscribere longum est." Indeed I think the most brilliant of that sort I ever saw was not till fifteen years afterwards, when I paid my last visit in England, and met young Harry Fielding, son of the Fielding that served in Spain and afterwards in Flanders with us, and who for fun and humor seemed to top them all. As for the famous Dr. Swift, I can say of him, "Vidi tantum." He was in London all these years up to the death of the Queen; and in a hundred public places where I saw him, but no more; he never missed Court of a Sunday, where once or twice he was pointed out to your grandfather. He would have sought me out eagerly enough had I been a great man with a t.i.tle to my name, or a star on my coat. At Court the Doctor had no eyes but for the very greatest. Lord Treasurer and St. John used to call him Jonathan, and they paid him with this cheap coin for the service they took of him. He writ their lampoons, fought their enemies, flogged and bullied in their service, and it must be owned with a consummate skill and fierceness. "Tis said he hath lost his intellect now, and forgotten his wrongs and his rage against mankind. I have always thought of him and of Marlborough as the two greatest men of that age. I have read his books (who doth not know them?) here in our calm woods, and imagine a giant to myself as I think of him, a lonely fallen Prometheus, groaning as the vulture tears him.
Prometheus I saw, but when first I ever had any words with him, the giant stepped out of a sedan chair in the Poultry, whither he had come with a tipsy Irish servant parading before him, who announced him, bawling out his Reverence"s name, whilst his master below was as yet haggling with the chairman. I disliked this Mr. Swift, and heard many a story about him, of his conduct to men, and his words to women. He could flatter the great as much as he could bully the weak; and Mr. Esmond, being younger and hotter in that day than now, was determined, should he ever meet this dragon, not to run away from his teeth and his fire.
Men have all sorts of motives which carry them onwards in life, and are driven into acts of desperation, or it may be of distinction, from a hundred different causes. There was one comrade of Esmond"s, an honest little Irish lieutenant of Handyside"s, who owed so much money to a camp sutler, that he began to make love to the man"s daughter, intending to pay his debt that way; and at the battle of Malplaquet, flying away from the debt and lady too, he rushed so desperately on the French lines, that he got his company; and came a captain out of the action, and had to marry the sutler"s daughter after all, who brought him his cancelled debt to her father as poor Roger"s fortune. To run out of the reach of bill and marriage, he ran on the enemy"s pikes; and as these did not kill him he was thrown back upon t"other horn of his dilemma. Our great Duke at the same battle was fighting, not the French, but the Tories in England; and risking his life and the army"s, not for his country but for his pay and places; and for fear of his wife at home, that only being in life whom he dreaded. I have asked about men in my own company, (new drafts of poor country boys were perpetually coming over to us during the wars, and brought from the ploughshare to the sword,) and found that a half of them under the flags were driven thither on account of a woman: one fellow was jilted by his mistress and took the shilling in despair; another jilted the girl, and fled from her and the parish to the tents where the law could not disturb him. Why go on particularizing? What can the sons of Adam and Eve expect, but to continue in that course of love and trouble their father and mother set out on? Oh, my grandson! I am drawing nigh to the end of that period of my history, when I was acquainted with the great world of England and Europe; my years are past the Hebrew poet"s limit, and I say unto thee, all my troubles and joys too, for that matter, have come from a woman; as thine will when thy destined course begins. "Twas a woman that made a soldier of me, that set me intriguing afterwards; I believe I would have spun smocks for her had she so bidden me; what strength I had in my head I would have given her; hath not every man in his degree had his Omphale and Delilah? Mine befooled me on the banks of the Thames, and in dear old England; thou mayest find thine own by Rappahannock.
To please that woman then I tried to distinguish myself as a soldier, and afterwards as a wit and a politician; as to please another I would have put on a black ca.s.sock and a pair of bands, and had done so but that a superior fate intervened to defeat that project. And I say, I think the world is like Captain Esmond"s company I spoke of anon; and could you see every man"s career in life, you would find a woman clogging him; or clinging round his march and stopping him; or cheering him and goading him: or beckoning him out of her chariot, so that he goes up to her, and leaves the race to be run without him or bringing him the apple, and saying "Eat;" or fetching him the daggers and whispering "Kill! yonder lies Duncan, and a crown, and an opportunity."
Your grandfather fought with more effect as a politician than as a wit: and having private animosities and grievances of his own and his General"s against the great Duke in command of the army, and more information on military matters than most writers, who had never seen beyond the fire of a tobacco-pipe at "Wills"s," he was enabled to do good service for that cause which he embarked in, and for Mr. St. John and his party. But he disdained the abuse in which some of the Tory writers indulged; for instance, Dr. Swift, who actually chose to doubt the Duke of Marlborough"s courage, and was pleased to hint that his Grace"s military capacity was doubtful: nor were Esmond"s performances worse for the effect they were intended to produce, (though no doubt they could not injure the Duke of Marlborough nearly so much in the public eyes as the malignant attacks of Swift did, which were carefully directed so as to blacken and degrade him,) because they were writ openly and fairly by Mr. Esmond, who made no disguise of them, who was now out of the army, and who never attacked the prodigious courage and talents, only the selfishness and rapacity, of the chief.