Can any moralist, bearing my previous promises in mind, excuse me for jumping into the carriage and sitting down once more by my dearest Theo? Suppose I did break "em? Will he blame me much? Reverend sir, you are welcome. I broke my promise; and if you would not do as much, good friend, you are welcome to your virtue. Not that I for a moment suspect my own children will ever be so bold as to think of having hearts of their own, and bestowing them according to their liking. No, my young people, you will let papa choose for you; be hungry when he tells you; be thirsty when he orders; and settle your children"s marriages afterwards.
And now of course you are anxious to hear what took place when papa jumped into the landau by the side of poor little mamma, propped up by her pillows. "I am come to your part of the story, my dear," says I, looking over to my wife as she is plying her needles.
"To what, pray?" says my lady. "You should skip all that part, and come to the grand battles, and your heroic defence of--"
"Of Fort Fiddlededee in the year 1778, when I pulled off Mr. Washington"s epaulet, gouged General Gates"s eye, cut off Charles Lee"s head, and pasted it on again!"
"Let us hear all about the fighting," say the boys. Even the Captain condescends to own he will listen to any military details, though only from a militia officer.
"Fair and softly, young people! Everything in its turn. I am not yet arrived at the war. I am only a young gentleman, just stepping into a landau, by the side of a young lady whom I promised to avoid. I am taking her hand, which, after a little ado, she leaves in mine. Do you remember how hot it was, the little thing, how it trembled, and how it throbbed and jumped a hundred and twenty in a minute? And as we trot on towards Hampstead, I address Miss Lambert in the following terms--"
"Ah, ah, ah!" say the girls in a chorus with mademoiselle, their French governess, who cries, "Nous ecoutons maintenant. La parole est a vous, Monsieur le Chevalier!"
Here we have them all in a circle: mamma is at her side of the fire, papa at his; Mademoiselle Eleonore, at whom the Captain looks rather sweetly (eyes off, Captain!); the two girls, listening like-like nymphas discentes to Apollo, let us say; and John and Tummas (with obtuse ears), who are bringing in the tea-trays and urns.
"Very good," says the Squire, pulling out the MS., and waving it before him. "We are going to tell your mother"s secrets and mine."
"I am sure you may, papa," cries the house matron. "There"s nothing to be ashamed of." And a blush rises over her kind face.
"But before I begin, young folks, permit me two or three questions."
"Allons, toujours des questions!" says mademoiselle, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders. (Florac has recommended her to us, and I suspect the little Chevalier has himself an eye upon this pretty Mademoiselle de Blois.) To the questions, then.
CHAPTER LXXVII. And how everybody got out again
"You, Captain Miles Warrington, have the honour of winning the good graces of a lady-of ever so many ladies-of the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, let us say, of Mrs. Crew, of Mrs. Fitzherbert, of the Queen of Prussia, of the G.o.ddess Venus, of Mademoiselle Hillisberg of the Opera-never mind of whom, in fine. If you win a lady"s good graces, do you always go to the mess and tell what happened?"
"Not such a fool, Squire!" says the Captain, surveying his side curl in the gla.s.s.
"Have you, Miss Theo, told your mother every word you said to Mr. Joe Blake, junior, in the shrubbery this morning?"
"Joe Blake, indeed!" cries Theo junior.
"And you, mademoiselle? That scented billet which came to you under Sir Thomas"s frank, have you told us all the letter contains? Look how she blushes! As red as the curtain, on my word! No, mademoiselle, we all have our secrets" (says the Squire, here making his best French bow). "No, Theo, there was nothing in the shrubbery-only nuts, my child! No, Miles, my son, we don"t tell all, even to the most indulgent of fathers-and if I tell what happened in a landau on the Hampstead Road, on the 25th of May, 1760, may the Chevalier Ruspini pull out every tooth in my head!"
"Pray tell, papa!" cries mamma: "or, as Jobson, who drove us, is in your service now, perhaps you will have him in from the stables! I insist upon your telling!"
"What is, then, this mystery?" asks mademoiselle, in her pretty French accent, of my wife.
"Eh, ma fille!" whispers the lady. "Thou wouldst ask me what I said? I said "Yes!"-behold all I said." And so "tis my wife has peached, and not I; and this was the sum of our conversation, as the carriage, all too swiftly as I thought, galloped towards Hampstead, and flew back again. Theo had not agreed to fly in the face of her honoured parents-no such thing. But we would marry no other person; no, not if we lived to be as old as Methuselah; no, not the Prince of Wales himself would she take. Her heart she had given away with her papa"s consent-nay, order-it was not hers to resume. So kind a father must relent one of these days; and, if George would keep his promise-were it now, or were it in twenty years, or were it in another world, she knew she should never break hers.
Hetty"s face beamed with delight when, my little interview over, she saw Theo"s countenance wearing a sweet tranquillity. All the doctor"s medicine has not done her so much good, the fond sister said. The girls went home after their act of disobedience. I gave up the place which I had held during a brief period of happiness by my dear invalid"s side. Hetty skipped back into her seat, and Charley on to his box. He told me in after days, that it was a very dull, stupid sermon he had heard. The little chap was too orthodox to love dissenting preachers" sermons.
Hetty was not the only one of the family who remarked her sister"s altered countenance and improved spirits. I am told that on the girls" return home their mother embraced both of them, especially the invalid, with more than common ardour of affection. "There was nothing like a country ride," Aunt Lambert said, "for doing her dear Theo good. She had been on the road to Hampstead, had she? She must have another ride to-morrow. Heaven be blessed, my Lord Wrotham"s horses were at their orders three or four times a week, and the sweet child might have the advantage of them!" As for the idea that Mr. Warrington might have happened to meet the children on their drive, Aunt Lambert never once entertained it,-at least spoke of it. I leave anybody who is interested in the matter to guess whether Mrs. Lambert could by any possibility have supposed that her daughter and her sweetheart could ever have come together again. Do women help each other in love perplexities? Do women scheme, intrigue, make little plans, tell little fibs, provide little amorous opportunities, hang up the rope-ladder, coax, wheedle, mystify the guardian or Abigail, and turn their attention away while Strephon and Chloe are billing and cooing in the twilight, or whisking off in the postchaise to Gretna Green? My dear young folks, some people there are of this nature; and some kind souls who have loved tenderly and truly in their own time, continue ever after to be kindly and tenderly disposed towards their young successors, when they begin to play the same pretty game.
Miss Prim doesn"t. If she hears of two young persons attached to each other, it is to snarl at them for fools, or to imagine of them all conceivable evil. Because she has a hump-back herself, she is for biting everybody else"s. I believe if she saw a pair of turtles cooing in a wood, she would turn her eyes down, or fling a stone to frighten them; but I am speaking, you see, young ladies, of your grandmother, Aunt Lambert, who was one great syllabub of human kindness; and, besides, about the affair at present under discussion, how am I ever to tell whether she knew anything regarding it or not?
So, all she says to Theo on her return home is, "My child, the country air has done you all the good in the world, and I hope you will take another drive to-morrow, and another, and another, and so on."
"Don"t you think, papa, the ride has done the child most wonderful good, and must not she be made to go out in the air?" Aunt Lambert asks of the General, when he comes in for supper.
"Yes, sure, if a coach-and-six will do his little Theo good, she shall have it," Lambert says, "or he will drag the landau up Hampstead Hill himself, if there are no horses;" and so the good man would have spent, freely, his guineas, or his breath, or his blood, to give his child pleasure. He was charmed at his girl"s altered countenance; she picked a bit of chicken with appet.i.te: she drank a little negus, which he made for her: indeed it did seem to be better than the kind doctor"s best medicine, which hitherto, G.o.d wot, had been of little benefit. Mamma was gracious and happy. Hetty was radiant and rident. It was quite like an evening at home at Oakhurst. Never for months past, never since that fatal, cruel day, that no one spoke of, had they spent an evening so delightful.
But, if the other women chose to coax and cajole the good, simple father, Theo herself was too honest to continue for long even that sweet and fond delusion. When, for the third or fourth time, he comes back to the delightful theme of his daughter"s improved health, and asks, "What has done it? Is it the country air? is it the Jesuit"s bark? is it the new medicine?"
"Can"t you think, dear, what it is?" she says, laying a hand upon her father"s, with a tremor in her voice, perhaps, but eyes that are quite open and bright.
"And what is it, my child?" asks the General.
"It is because I have seen him again, papa!" she says.
The other two women turned pale, and Theo"s heart too begins to palpitate, and her cheek to whiten, as she continues to look in her father"s scared face.
"It was not wrong to see him," she continues, more quickly; "it would have been wrong not to tell you."
"Great G.o.d!" groans the father, drawing his hand back, and with such a dreadful grief in his countenance, that Hetty runs to her almost swooning sister, clasps her to her heart, and cries out, rapidly, "Theo knew nothing of it, sir! It was my doing-it was all my doing!"
Theo lies on her sister"s neck, and kisses it twenty, fifty times.
"Women, women! are you playing with my honour?" cries the father, bursting out with a fierce exclamation.
Aunt Lambert sobs, wildly, "Martin! Martin! Don"t say a word to her!" again calls out Hetty, and falls back herself staggering towards the wall, for Theo has fainted on her shoulder.
I was taking my breakfast next morning, with what appet.i.te I might, when my door opens, and my faithful black announces, "General Lambert." At once I saw, by the General"s face, that the yesterday"s transaction was known to him. "Your accomplices did not confess," the General said, as soon as my servant had left us, "but sided with you against their father-a proof how desirable clandestine meetings are. It was from Theo herself I heard that she had seen you."
"Accomplices, sir!" I said (perhaps not unwilling to turn the conversation from the real point at issue). "You know how fondly and dutifully your young people regard their father. If they side against you in this instance, it must be because justice is against you. A man like you is not going to set up sic volo sic jubeo as the sole law in his family!"
"Psha, George!" cries the General. "For though we are parted, G.o.d forbid I should desire that we should cease to love each other. I had your promise that you would not seek to see her."
"Nor did I go to her, sir," I said, turning red, no doubt; for though this was truth, I own it was untrue.
"You mean she was brought to you?" says Theo"s father, in great agitation. "Is it behind Hester"s petticoat that you will shelter yourself? What a fine defence for a gentleman!"
"Well, I won"t screen myself behind the poor child," I replied. "To speak as I did was to make an attempt at evasion, and I am ill-accustomed to dissemble. I did not infringe the letter of my agreement, but I acted against the spirit of it. From this moment I annul it altogether."
"You break your word given to me!" cries Mr. Lambert.
"I recall a hasty promise made on a sudden at a moment of extreme excitement and perturbation. No man can be for ever bound by words uttered at such a time; and, what is more, no man of honour or humanity, Mr. Lambert, would try to bind him."
"Dishonour to me! sir," exclaims the General.
"Yes, if the phrase is to be shuttlec.o.c.ked between us!" I answered, hotly. "There can be no question about love, or mutual regard, or difference of age, when that word is used: and were you my own father-and I love you better than a father, Uncle Lambert,-I would not bear it! What have I done? I have seen the woman whom I consider my wife before G.o.d and man, and if she calls me I will see her again. If she comes to me, here is my home for her, and the half of the little I have. "Tis you, who have no right, having made me the gift, to resume it. Because my mother taunts you unjustly, are you to visit Mrs. Esmond"s wrong upon this tender, innocent creature? You profess to love your daughter, and you can"t bear a little wounded pride for her sake. Better she should perish away in misery, than an old woman in Virginia should say that Mr. Lambert had schemed to marry one of his daughters. Say that to satisfy what you call honour and I call selfishness, we part, we break our hearts well nigh, we rally, we try to forget each other, we marry elsewhere? Can any man be to my dear as I have been? G.o.d forbid! Can any woman be to me what she is? You shall marry her to the Prince of Wales to-morrow, and it is a cowardice and treason. How can we, how can you, undo the promises we have made to each other before Heaven? You may part us: and she will die as surely as if she were Jephthah"s daughter. Have you made any vow to Heaven to compa.s.s her murder? Kill her if you conceive your promise so binds you: but this I swear, that I am glad you have come, so that I may here formally recall a hasty pledge which I gave, and that, call me when she will, I will come to her!"
No doubt this speech was made with the flurry and agitation belonging to Mr. Warrington"s youth, and with the firm conviction that death would infallibly carry off one or both of the parties, in case their worldly separation was inevitably decreed. Who does not believe his first pa.s.sion eternal? Having watched the world since, and seen the rise, progress, and-alas, that I must say it!-decay of other amours, I may smile now as I think of my own youthful errors and ardours; but, if it be a superst.i.tion, I had rather hold it; I had rather think that neither of us could have lived with any other mate, and that, of all its innumerable creatures, Heaven decreed these special two should be joined together.
"We must come, then, to what I had fain have spared myself," says the General, in reply to my outbreak; "to an unfriendly separation. When I meet you, Mr. Warrington, I must know you no more. I must order-and they will not do other than obey me-my family and children not to recognise you when they see you, since you will not recognise in your intercourse with me the respect due to my age, the courtesy of gentlemen. I had hoped so far from your sense of honour, and the idea I had formed of you, that, in my present great grief and perplexity, I should have found you willing to soothe and help me as far as you might-for, G.o.d knows, I have need of everybody"s sympathy. But, instead of help, you fling obstacles in my way. Instead of a friend-a gracious Heaven pardon me!-I find in you an enemy! An enemy to the peace of my home and the honour of my children, sir! And as such I shall treat you, and know how to deal with you, when you molest me!"
And, waving his hand to me, and putting on his hat, Mr. Lambert hastily quitted my apartment.
I was confounded, and believed, indeed, there was war between us. The brief happiness of yesterday was clouded over and gone, and I thought that never since the day of the first separation had I felt so exquisitely unhappy as now, when the bitterness of quarrel was added to the pangs of parting, and I stood not only alone but friendless. In the course of one year"s constant intimacy I had come to regard Lambert with a reverence and affection which I had never before felt for any mortal man except my dearest Harry. That his face should be turned from me in anger was as if the sun had gone out of my sphere, and all was dark around me. And yet I felt sure that in withdrawing the hasty promise I had made not to see Theo, I was acting rightly-that my fidelity to her, as hers now to me, was paramount to all other ties of duty or obedience, and that, ceremony or none, I was hers, first and before all. Promises were pa.s.sed between us, from which no parent could absolve either; and all the priests in Christendom could no more than attest and confirm the sacred contract which had tacitly been ratified between us.
I saw Jack Lambert by chance that day, as I went mechanically to my not unusual haunt, the library of the new Museum; and with the impetuousness of youth, and eager to impart my sorrow to some one, I took him out of the room and led him about the gardens, and poured out my grief to him. I did not much care for Jack (who in truth was somewhat of a prig, and not a little pompous and wearisome with his Latin quotations) except in the time of my own sorrow, when I would fasten upon him or any one; and having suffered himself in his affair with the little American, being haud ignarus mali (as I knew he would say), I found the college gentleman ready to compa.s.sionate another"s misery. I told him, what has here been represented at greater length, of my yesterday"s meeting with his sister; of my interview with his father in the morning; of my determination at all hazards never to part with Theo. When I found from the various quotations from the Greek and Latin authors which he uttered that he leaned to my side in the dispute, I thought him a man of great sense, clung eagerly to his elbow, and bestowed upon him much more affection than he was accustomed at other times to have from me. I walked with him up to his father"s lodgings in Dean Street; saw him enter at the dear door; surveyed the house from without with a sickening desire to know from its exterior appearance how my beloved fared within; and called for a bottle at the coffee-house where I waited Jack"s return. I called him Brother when I sent him away. I fondled him as the condemned wretch at Newgate hangs about the jailor or the parson, or any one who is kind to him in his misery. I drank a whole bottle of wine at the coffee-house-by the way, Jack"s Coffee-House was its name-called another. I thought Jack would never come back.
He appeared at length with rather a scared face; and, coming to my box, poured out for himself two or three b.u.mpers from my second bottle, and then fell to his story, which, to me at least, was not a little interesting. My poor Theo was keeping her room, it appeared, being much agitated by the occurrences of yesterday; and Jack had come home in time to find dinner on table; after which his good father held forth upon the occurrences of the morning, being anxious and able to speak more freely, he said, because his eldest son was present and Theodosia was not in the room. The General stated what had happened at my lodgings between me and him. He bade Hester be silent, who indeed was as dumb as a mouse, poor thing! he told Aunt Lambert (who was indulging in that madefaction of pocket-handkerchiefs which I have before described), and with something like an imprecation, that the women were all against him, and pimps (he called them) for one another; and frantically turning round to Jack, asked what was his view in the matter?
To his father"s surprise and his mother"s and sister"s delight, Jack made a speech on my side. He ruled with me (citing what ancient authorities I don"t know), that the matter had gone out of the hands of the parents on either side; that having given their consent, some months previously, the elders had put themselves out of court. Though he did not hold with a great, a respectable, he might say a host of divines, those sacramental views of the marriage-ceremony-for which there was a great deal to be said-yet he held it, if possible, even more sacredly than they; conceiving that though marriages were made before the civil magistrate, and without the priest, yet they were, before Heaven, binding and indissoluble.
"It is not merely, sir," says Jack, turning to his father, "those whom I, John Lambert, Priest, have joined, let no man put asunder; it is those whom G.o.d has joined let no man separate." (Here he took off his hat, as he told the story to me.) "My views are clear upon the point, and surely these young people were joined, or permitted to plight themselves to each other by the consent of you, the priest of your own family. My views, I say, are clear, and I will lay them down at length in a series of two or three discourses which, no doubt, will satisfy you. Upon which," says Jack, "my father said, "I am satisfied already, my dear boy," and my lively little Het (who has much archness) whispers to me, "Jack, mother and I will make you a dozen shirts, as sure as eggs is eggs.""
"Whilst we were talking," Mr. Lambert resumed, "my sister Theodosia made her appearance, I must say very much agitated and pale, kissed our father, and sate down at his side, and took a sippet of toast-(my dear George, this port is excellent, and I drink your health)-and took a sippet of toast and dipped it in his negus.
""You should have been here to hear Jack"s sermon!" says Hester. "He has been preaching most beautifully."
""Has he?" asks Theodosia, who is too languid and weak, poor thing, much to care for the exercises of eloquence, or the display of authorities, such as I must own," says Jack, "it was given to me this afternoon to bring forward.
""He has talked for three quarters of an hour by Shrewsbury clock," says my father, though I certainly had not talked so long or half so long by my own watch. "And his discourse has been you, my dear," says papa, playing with Theodosia"s hand.
""Me, papa?"
""You and-and Mr. Warrington-and-and George, my love," says papa. Upon which" (says Mr. Jack). "my sister came closer to the General, and laid her head upon him, and wept upon his shoulder.
""This is different, sir," says I, "to a pa.s.sage I remember in Pausanias."
""In Pausanias? Indeed!" said the General. "And pray who was he?"
"I smiled at my father"s simplicity in exposing his ignorance before his children. "When Ulysses was taking away Penelope from her father, the king hastened after his daughter and bridegroom, and besought his darling to return. Whereupon, it is related, Ulysses offered her her choice,-whether she would return, or go on with him? Upon which the daughter of Icarius covered her face with her veil. For want of a veil my sister has taken refuge in your waistcoat, sir," I said, and we all laughed; though my mother vowed that if such a proposal had been made to her, or Penelope had been a girl of spirit, she would have gone home with her father that instant.
""But I am not a girl of any spirit, dear mother!" says Theodosia, still in gremio patris. I do not remember that this habit of caressing was frequent in my own youth," continues Jack. "But after some more discourse, Brother Warrington! bethought me of you, and left my parents insisting upon Theodosia returning to bed. The late transactions have, it appears, weakened and agitated her much. I myself have experienced, in my own case, how full of solliciti timoris is a certain pa.s.sion; how it racks the spirits; and I make no doubt, if carried far enough, or indulged to the extent to which women who have little philosophy will permit it to go-I make no doubt, I say, is ultimately injurious to the health. My service to you, brother!"
From grief to hope, how rapid the change was! What a flood of happiness poured into my soul, and glowed in my whole being! Landlord, more port! Would honest Jack have drunk a binful I would have treated him; and, to say truth, Jack"s sympathy was large in this case, and it had been generous all day. I decline to score the bottles of port: and place to the fabulous computations of interested waiters, the amount scored against me in the reckoning. Jack was my dearest, best of brothers. My friendship for him I swore should be eternal. If I could do him any service, were it a bishopric, by George! he should have it. He says I was interrupted by the watchman rhapsodising verses beneath the loved one"s window. I know not. I know I awoke joyfully and rapturously, in spite of a racking headache the next morning.
Nor did I know the extent of my happiness quite, or the entire conversion of my dear n.o.ble enemy of the previous morning. It must have been galling to the pride of an elder man to have to yield to representations and objections couched in language so little dutiful as that I had used towards Mr. Lambert. But the true Christian gentleman, retiring from his talk with me, mortified and wounded by my asperity of remonstrance, as well as by the pain which he saw his beloved daughter suffer, went thoughtfully and sadly to his business, as he subsequently told me, and in the afternoon (as his custom not unfrequently was) into a church which was open for prayers. And it was here, on his knees, submitting his case in the quarter whither he frequently, though privately, came for guidance and comfort, that it seemed to him that his child was right in her persistent fidelity to me, and himself wrong in demanding her utter submission. Hence Jack"s cause was won almost before he began to plead it; and the brave, gentle heart, which could bear no rancour, which bled at inflicting pain on those it loved, which even shrank from a.s.serting authority or demanding submission, was only too glad to return to its natural pulses of love and affection.
CHAPTER LXXVIII. Pyramus and Thisbe
In examining the old papers at home, years afterwards, I found, docketed and labelled with my mother"s well-known neat handwriting, "From London, April, 1760. My son"s dreadful letter." When it came to be mine I burnt the doc.u.ment, not choosing that that story of domestic grief and disunion should remain amongst our family annals for future Warringtons to gaze on, mayhap, and disobedient sons to hold up as examples of foregone domestic rebellions. For similar reasons, I have destroyed the paper which my mother despatched to me at this time of tyranny, revolt, annoyance, and irritation.
Maddened by the pangs of separation from my mistress, and not unrightly considering that Mrs. Esmond was the prime cause of the greatest grief and misery which had ever befallen me in the world, I wrote home to Virginia a letter, which might have been more temperate, it is true, but in which I endeavoured to maintain the extremest respect and reticence. I said I did not know by what motives she had been influenced, but that I held her answerable for the misery of my future life, which she had chosen wilfully to mar and render wretched. She had occasioned a separation between me and a virtuous and innocent young creature, whose own hopes, health, and happiness were cast down for ever by Mrs. Esmond"s interference. The deed was done, as I feared, and I would offer no comment upon the conduct of the perpetrator, who was answerable to G.o.d alone; but I did not disguise from my mother that the injury which she had done me was so dreadful and mortal, that her life or mine could never repair it; that the tie of my allegiance was broken towards her, and that I never could be, as heretofore, her dutiful and respectful son.
Madam Esmond replied to me in a letter of very great dignity (her style and correspondence were extraordinarily elegant and fine). She uttered not a single reproach or hard word, but coldly gave me to understand that it was before that awful tribunal of G.o.d she had referred the case between us, and asked for counsel; that, in respect of her own conduct, as a mother, she was ready, in all humility, to face it. Might I, as a son, be equally able to answer for myself, and to show, when the Great Judge demanded the question of me, whether I had done my own duty, and honoured my father and mother! O popoi! My grandfather has quoted in his memoir a line of Homer, showing how in our troubles and griefs the G.o.ds are always called in question. When our pride, our avarice, our interest, our desire to domineer, are worked upon, are we not for ever pestering Heaven to decide in their favour? In our great American quarrel, did we not on both sides appeal to the skies as to the justice of our causes, sing Te Deum for victory, and boldly express our confidence that the right should prevail? Was America right because she was victorious? Then I suppose Poland was wrong because she was defeated?-How am I wandering into this digression about Poland, America, and what not, and all the while thinking of a little woman now no more, who appealed to Heaven and confronted it with a thousand texts out of its own book, because her son wanted to make a marriage not of her liking? We appeal, we imprecate, we go down on our knees, we demand blessings, we shriek out for sentence according to law; the great course of the great world moves on; we pant, and strive, and struggle; we hate; we rage; we weep pa.s.sionate tears; we reconcile; we race and win; we race and lose; we pa.s.s away, and other little strugglers succeed; our days are spent; our night comes, and another morning rises, which shines on us no more.
My letter to Madam Esmond, announcing my revolt and disobedience (perhaps I myself was a little proud of the composition of that doc.u.ment), I showed in duplicate to Mr. Lambert, because I wished him to understand what my relations to my mother were, and how I was determined, whatever of threats or quarrels the future might bring, never for my own part to consider my separation from Theo as other than a forced one. Whenever I could see her again I would. My word given to her was in secula seculorum, or binding at least as long as my life should endure. I implied that the girl was similarly bound to me, and her poor father knew indeed as much. He might separate us; as he might give her a dose of poison, and the gentle, obedient creature would take it and die; but the death or separation would be his doing: let him answer them. Now he was tender about his children to weakness, and could not have the heart to submit any one of them-this one especially-to torture. We had tried to part: we could not. He had endeavoured to separate us: it was more than was in his power. The bars were up, but the young couple-the maid within and the knight without-were loving each other all the same. The wall was built, but Pyramus and Thisbe were whispering on either side. In the midst of all his grief and perplexity, Uncle Lambert had plenty of humour, and could not but see that his role was rather a sorry one. Light was beginning to show through that lime and rough plaster of the wall: the lovers were getting their hands through, then their heads through-indeed, it was wall"s best business to retire.
I forget what happened stage by stage and day by day; nor, for the instruction of future ages, does it much matter. When my descendants have love sc.r.a.pes of their own, they will find their own means of getting out of them. I believe I did not go back to Dean Street, but that practice of driving in the open air was considered most healthful for Miss Lambert. I got a fine horse, and rode by the side of her carriage. The old woman at Tottenham Court came to know both of us quite well, and nod and wink in the most friendly manner when we pa.s.sed by. I fancy the old goody was not unaccustomed to interest herself in young couples, and has dispensed the hospitality of her roadside cottage to more than one pair.
The doctor and the country air effected a prodigious cure upon Miss Lambert. Hetty always attended as duenna, and sometimes of his holiday, Master Charley rode my horse when I got into the carriage. What a deal of love-making Miss Hetty heard!-with what exemplary patience she listened to it! I do not say she went to hear the Methodist sermons any more, but "tis certain that when we had a closed carriage she would very kindly and considerately look out of the window. Then, what heaps of letters there were!-what running to and fro! Gumbo"s bandy legs were for ever on the trot from my quarters to Dean Street; and, on my account or her own, Mrs. Molly, the girl"s maid, was for ever bringing back answers to Bloomsbury. By the time when the autumn leaves began to turn pale, Miss Theo"s roses were in full bloom again, and my good Doctor Heberden"s cure was p.r.o.nounced to be complete. What else happened during this blessed period? Mr. Warrington completed his great tragedy of Pocahontas, which was not only accepted by Mr. Garrick this time (his friend Dr. Johnson having spoken not unfavourably of the work), but my friend and cousin, Hagan, was engaged by the manager to perform the part of the hero, Captain Smith. Hagan"s engagement was not made before it was wanted. I had helped him and his family with means disproportioned, perhaps, to my power, especially considering my feud with Madam Esmond, whose answer to my angry missive of April came to me towards autumn, and who wrote back from Virginia with war for war, controlment for controlment. These menaces, however, frightened me little: my poor mother"s thunder could not reach me; and my conscience, or casuistry, supplied me with other interpretations for her texts of Scripture, so that her oracles had not the least weight with me in frightening me from my purpose. How my new loves speeded I neither informed her, nor any other members of my maternal or paternal family, who, on both sides, had been bitter against my marriage. Of what use wrangling with them? It was better to carpere diem and its sweet loves and pleasures, and to leave the railers to grumble, or the seniors to advise, at their ease.
Besides Madam Esmond I had, it must be owned, in the frantic rage of my temporary separation, addressed notes of wondrous sarcasm to my Uncle Warrington, to my Aunt Madame de Bernstein, and to my Lord or Lady of Castlewood (I forget to which individually), thanking them for the trouble which they had taken in preventing the dearest happiness of my life, and promising them a corresponding grat.i.tude from their obliged relative. Business brought the jovial Baronet and his family to London somewhat earlier than usual, and Madame de Bernstein was never sorry to get back to Clarges Street and her cards. I saw them. They found me perfectly well. They concluded the match was broken off, and I did not choose to undeceive them. The Baroness took heart at seeing how cheerful I was, and made many sly jokes about my philosophy, and my prudent behaviour as a man of the world. She was, as ever, bent upon finding a rich match for me: and I fear I paid many compliments at her house to a rich young soap-boiler"s daughter from Mile End, whom the worthy Baroness wished to place in my arms.
"You court her with infinite wit and esprit, my dear," says my pleased kinswoman, "but she does not understand half you say, and the other half, I think, frightens her. This ton de persiflage is very well in our society, but you must be sparing of it, my dear nephew, amongst these roturiers."
Miss Badge married a young gentleman of royal dignity, though shattered fortunes, from a neighbouring island; and I trust Mrs. Mackshane has ere this pardoned my levity. There was another person besides Miss at my aunt"s house, who did not understand my persiflage much better than Miss herself; and that was a lady who had seen James the Second"s reign, and who was alive and as worldly as ever in King George"s. I loved to be with her: but that my little folks have access to this volume, I could put down a hundred stories of the great old folks whom she had known in the great old days-of George the First and his ladies, of St. John and Marlborough, of his reigning Majesty and the late Prince of Wales, and the causes of the quarrel between them-but my modest muse pipes for boys and virgins. Son Miles does not care about court stories, or if he doth, has a fresh budget from Carlton House, quite as bad as the worst of our old Baroness. No, my dear wife, thou hast no need to shake thy powdered locks at me! Papa is not going to scandalise his nursery with old-world gossip, nor bring a blush over our chaste bread-and-b.u.t.ter.
But this piece of scandal I cannot help. My aunt used to tell it with infinite gusto; for, to do her justice, she hated your would-be good people, and sn.i.g.g.e.red over the faults of the self-styled righteous with uncommon satisfaction. In her later days she had no hypocrisy, at least; and in so far was better than some whitewashed... Well, to the story. My Lady Warrington, one of the tallest and the most virtuous of her s.e.x, who had goodness for ever on her lips and "Heaven in her eye," like the woman in Mr. Addison"s tedious tragedy (which has kept the stage, from which some others, which shall be nameless, have disappeared), had the world in her other eye, and an exceedingly shrewd desire of pushing herself in it. What does she do, when my marriage with your ladyship yonder was supposed to be broken off, but attempt to play off on me those arts which she had tried on my poor Harry with such signal ill success, and which failed with me likewise! It was not the Beauty-Miss Flora was for my master-(and what a master! I protest I take off my hat at the idea of such an ill.u.s.trious connexion!)-it was Dora, the Muse, was set upon me to languish at me and to pity me, and to read even my G.o.dless tragedy, and applaud me and console me. Meanwhile, how was the Beauty occupied? Will it be believed that my severe aunt gave a great entertainment to my Lady Yarmouth, presented her boy to her, and placed poor little Miles under her ladyship"s august protection? That, so far, is certain; but can it be that she sent her daughter to stay at my lady"s house, which our gracious lord and master daily visited, and with the views which old Aunt Bernstein attributed to her? "But for that fit of apoplexy, my dear," Bernstein said, "that aunt of yours intended there should have been a Countess in her own right in the Warrington family!" [Compare Walpole"s letters in Mr. Cunningham"s excellent new edition. See the story of the supper at N. House, to show what great n.o.blemen would do for a king"s mistress, and the pleasant account of the waiting for the Prince of Wales before Holland House.-EDITOR.] My neighbour and kinswoman, my Lady Claypole, is dead and buried. Grow white, ye daisies, upon Flora"s tomb! I can see my pretty Miles, in a gay little uniform of the Norfolk Militia, led up by his parent to the lady whom the King delighted to honour, and the good-natured old Jezebel laying her hand upon the boy"s curly pate. I am accused of being but a lukewarm royalist; but sure I can contrast those times with ours, and acknowledge the difference between the late sovereign and the present, who, born a Briton, has given to every family in the empire an example of decorum and virtuous life. [The Warrington MS. is dated 1793.-ED.]
Thus my life sped in the pleasantest of all occupation; and, being so happy myself, I could afford to be reconciled to those who, after all, had done me no injury, but rather added to the zest of my happiness by the brief obstacle which they had placed in my way. No specific plans were formed, but Theo and I knew that a day would come when we need say Farewell no more. Should the day befall a year hence-ten years hence-we were ready to wait. Day after day we discussed our little plans, with Hetty for our confidante. On our drives we spied out pretty cottages that we thought might suit young people of small means; we devised all sorts of delightful schemes and childish economies. We were Strephon and Chloe to be sure. A cot and a brown loaf should content us! Gumbo and Molly should wait upon us (as indeed they have done from that day until this). At twenty, who is afraid of being poor? Our trials would only confirm our attachment. The "sweet sorrow" of every day"s parting but made the morrow"s meeting more delightful; and when we separated we ran home and wrote each other those precious letters which we and other young gentlemen and ladies write under such circ.u.mstances; but though my wife has them all in a great tin sugar-box in the closet in her bedroom, and, I own, I myself have looked at them once, and even thought some of them pretty,-I hereby desire my heirs and executors to burn them all, unread, at our demise; specially desiring my son the Captain (to whom I know the perusal of MSS. is not pleasant) to perform this duty. Those secrets whispered to the penny-post, or delivered between Molly and Gumbo, were intended for us alone, and no ears of our descendants shall overhear them.
We heard in successive brief letters how our dear Harry continued with the army, as Mr. General Amherst"s aide-de-camp, after the death of his own glorious general. By the middle of October there came news of the Capitulation of Montreal and the whole of Canada, and a brief postscript in which Hal said he would ask for leave now, and must go and see the old lady at home, who wrote as sulky as a bare, Captain Warrington remarked. I could guess why, though the claws could not reach me. I had written pretty fully to my brother how affairs were standing with me in England.
Then, on the 25th October, comes the news that his Majesty has fallen down dead at Kensington, and that George III. reigned over us. I fear we grieved but little. What do those care for the Atridae whose hearts are strung only to erota mounon? A modest, handsome, brave new Prince, we gladly accept the common report that he is endowed with every virtue; and we cry huzzay with the loyal crowd that hails his accession: it could make little difference to us, as we thought, simple young sweethearts, whispering our little love-stories in our corner.
But who can say how great events affect him? Did not our little Charley, at the Chartreux, wish impiously for a new king immediately, because on his gracious Majesty"s accession Doctor Crusius gave his boys a holiday? He and I, and Hetty, and Theo (Miss Theo was strong enough to walk many a delightful mile now), heard the Heralds proclaim his new Majesty before Savile House in Leicester Fields, and a pickpocket got the watch and chain of a gentleman hard by us, and was caught and carried to Bridewell, all on account of his Majesty"s accession. Had the king not died, the gentleman would not have been in the crowd; the chain would not have been seized; the thief would not have been caught and soundly whipped: in this way many of us, more or less remotely, were implicated in the great change which ensued, and even we humble folks were affected by it presently.
As thus. My Lord Wrotham was a great friend of the august family of Savile House, who knew and esteemed his many virtues. Now, of all living men, my Lord Wrotham knew and loved best his neighbour and old fellow-soldier, Martin Lambert, declaring that the world contained few better gentlemen. And my Lord Bute, being all potent, at first, with his Majesty, and a n.o.bleman, as I believe, very eager at the commencement of his brief and luckless tenure of power, to patronise merit wherever he could find it, was strongly prejudiced in Mr. Lambert"s favour by the latter"s old and constant friend.
My (and Harry"s) old friend Parson Sampson, who had been in and out of gaol I don"t know how many times of late years, and retained an ever-enduring hatred for the Esmonds of Castlewood, and as lasting a regard for me and my brother, was occupying poor Hal"s vacant bed at my lodgings at this time (being, in truth, hunted out of his own by the bailiffs). I liked to have Sampson near me, for a more amusing Jack-friar never walked in ca.s.sock; and, besides, he entered into all my rhapsodies about Miss Theo; was never tired (so he vowed) of hearing me talk of her; admired Pocahontas and Carpezan with, I do believe, an honest enthusiasm; and could repeat whole pa.s.sages of those tragedies with an emphasis and effect that Barry or cousin Hagan himself could not surpa.s.s. Sampson was the go-between between Lady Maria and such of her relations as had not disowned her; and, always in debt himself, was never more happy than in drinking a pot, or mingling his tears with his friends in similar poverty. His acquaintance with p.a.w.nbrokers" shops was prodigious. He could procure more money, he boasted, on an article than any gentleman of his cloth. He never paid his own debts, to be sure, but he was ready to forgive his debtors. Poor as he was, he always found means to love and help his needy little sister, and a more prodigal, kindly, amiable rogue never probably grinned behind bars. They say that I love to have parasites about me. I own to have had a great liking for Sampson, and to have esteemed him much better than probably much better men.
When he heard how my Lord Bute was admitted into the cabinet, Sampson vowed and declared that his lordship-a great lover of the drama, who had been to see Carpezan, who had admired it, and who would act the part of the king very finely in it-he vowed, by George! that my lord must give me a place worthy of my birth and merits. He insisted upon it that I should attend his lordship"s levee. I wouldn"t? The Esmonds were all as proud as Lucifer; and, to be sure, my birth was as good as that of any man in Europe. Demmy! Where was my lord himself when the Esmonds were lords of great counties, warriors, and Crusaders? Where were they? Beggarly Scotchmen, without a rag to their backs-by George! tearing raw fish in their islands. But now the times were changed. The Scotchmen were in luck. Mum"s the word! "I don"t envy him," says Sampson, "but he shall provide for you and my dearest, n.o.blest, heroic captain! He SHALL, by George!" would my worthy parson roar out. And when, in the month after his accession, his Majesty ordered the play of Richard III. at Drury Lane, my chaplain cursed, vowed, swore, but he would have him to Covent Garden to see Carpezan too. And now, one morning, he bursts into my apartment, where I happened to lie rather late, waving the newspaper in his hand, and singing "Huzza!" with all his might.
"What is it, Sampson?" says I. "Has my brother got his promotion?"
"No, in truth: but some one else has. Huzzay! huzzay! His Majesty has appointed Major-General Martin Lambert to be Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Island of Jamaica."
I started up. Here was news, indeed! Mr. Lambert would go to his government: and who would go with him? I had been supping with some genteel young fellows at the Cocoa-Tree. The rascal Gumbo had a note for me from my dear mistress on the night previous, conveying the same news to me, and had delayed to deliver it. Theo begged me to see her at the old place at midday the next day without fail. [In the Warrington MS. there is not a word to say what the "old place" was. Perhaps some obliging reader of Notes and Queries will be able to inform me, and who Mrs. Goodison was.-ED.]
There was no little trepidation in our little council when we reached our place of meeting. Papa had announced his acceptance of the appointment, and his speedy departure. He would have a frigate given him, and take his family with him. Merciful powers! and were we to be parted? My Theo"s old deathly paleness returned to her. Aunt Lambert thought she would have swooned; one of Mrs. Goodison"s girls had a bottle of salts, and ran up with it from the workroom. "Going away? Going away in a frigate, Aunt Lambert? Going to tear her away from me? Great G.o.d! Aunt Lambert, I shall die!" She was better when mamma came up from the workroom with the young lady"s bottle of salts. You see the women used to meet me: knowing dear Theo"s delicate state, how could they refrain from compa.s.sionating her! But the General was so busy with his levees and his waiting on Ministers, and his outfit, and the settlement of his affairs at home, that they never happened to tell him about our little walks and meetings; and even when orders for the outfit of the ladies were given, Mrs. Goodison, who had known and worked for Miss Molly Benson as a schoolgirl (she remembered Miss Esmond of Virginia perfectly, the worthy lady told me, and a dress she made for the young lady to be presented at her Majesty"s Ball)-"even when the outfit was ordered for the three ladies," says Mrs. Goodison, demurely, "why, I thought I could do no harm in completing the order."
Now I need not say in what perturbation of mind Mr. Warrington went home in the evening to his lodgings, after the discussion with the ladies of the above news. No, or at least a very few, more walks; no more rides to dear, dear Hampstead or beloved Islington; no more fetching and carrying of letters for Gumbo and Molly! The former blubbered so, that Mr. Warrington was quite touched by his fidelity, and gave him a crown-piece to go to supper with the poor girl, who turned out to be his sweetheart. What, you too unhappy, Gumbo, and torn from the maid you love? I was ready to mingle with him tear for tear.