 Book 3, Chapter 5 of the History of Henry Esmond Esquire by William M. P. Zachary This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The History of Henry Esmond Esquire by William M. P. Zachary Book 3, Chapter 5. Moan 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 assist 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 parish embassy. But no doubt he intended that proposal should be rejected. At any rate, Esmond could not bear the thoughts of attending his mistress' father than the church door after their 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 in still night of the garter on the same day as his grace of Hamilton had received the same honour, 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 for the land forces, and received with particular honour by the Ministry, by the Queen, and the people out of doors, who hazarded 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 Stevens upon his glorious old crutch and stick, and cheered him as loud as they had ever done, Malbra. The brave Duke was utterly disgraced, and honest old Webb dated all his grace's misfortunes from Windale, and vowed that they'd serve the traitor right. Dutchess Sarah had also gone to ruin. She had been forced to give up her keys, and her places, and her pensions. Aha! 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 Windale. Our enemy, Cardinal, was turned out at the House of Commons, along with Mr Walpole. The malversation of public money. Cadigan lost his place as Lieutenant at the Tower. Malbra's daughters resigned their posts of ladies at 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, and had his half-pension as Master of the Horse taken away. But I think the lowest depth of Malbra's haul 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 anti-chamber, who could not even ask his great service condescend to write him a letter in his own hand. The notion was as eager for peace as ever it had been hot for war. The Prince of Savoy came amongst us, had his audience at the Queen, and got his famous sword of honour, and strove with all his force to form a weak 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 notion was tied at the struggle, so completely worried of it, that not even our defeat at Denane could rouse us into any anger, though such an action, so lost two years before, would have set all England in a fury. Twice easy to see that the great Malbra was not with the army. Eugene was obliged to fall back in a rage, and forego the dazzling revenge of his life. Twice 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 honour? The notion had had its valley full of fighting, nor could taunts or outcries go'd 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's side was the winning one, the popular one, and I think might have been the merciful one. Twice natural that the opposition should be peevish and cry out. Some men did so from their hearts, admiring the duke of Malbra's prodigious talents, and deploring the disgrace of the greatest general that world ever knew, twist 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, bowling broke, 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-sighted 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 illustrious, and whose works will be in all Englishman's hands in ages yet to come, Mr Esmond saw many, but at public places cheaply, never having a great intimacy with any of them, except with honest Dick 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 owned that I think Addison's politics were the right, and were my time to come over again. I would be a wick in England and not a Tory, but with people that take aside in politics, tis men rather than principles, than 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 Malbra and Houghtody, and the lieutenant fought the quarrels of his leader. Webb, coming to London, was used as a weapon by Malbra's enemies, and the true steal he was, that honest chief. Nor was his aid decad. Mr. Esmond, an unfaithful or unworthy partisan, tis strange here, an honour foreign soil, and in a land that is independent in all but the name, for that the North American colonies shall remain dependents 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 Hanover and 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 Papus King, for who 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 Whits, 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 the High Church Patriots were ready to die in defence of a Papus family that had sold us to France. The great Whith nobles, the sturdy Republican recusants who had cut off Charles Stuart's head for treason, were famed to accept a king whose title came to him through a royal grandmother whose own royal grandmother's head had fallen under Queen Bess' hatchet. And our proud English nobles sent to a petty German town for a monarch to come and reign in London, and our proletes kissed the ugly hands of his Dutch mistresses and thought it no dishonour. In England you can but belong to one party or to other, and you take the house you live in with all its encumbrances, its retainers, its antique discomforts and ruins even. You patch up but you never build up a new. Will we at the new world submit much longer even nominally to this ancient British superstition? There are signs of the times which make me think that along we shall care as little about King George here and peers temporal and peers spiritual as we do for the King Canute or the Druids. This chapter began about the wits my grandson may say and has wandered very far from their company. The pleasantest of the wits I knew were the Doctor's Garth and Arbeth Knot and Mr Gay, the author of trivia, the most charming kind soul that ever laughed at a joke or cracked a bottle. Mr Pryor I saw and he was the earthen pot swimming with the pots of brass 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 conges 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 secretaries and 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 Buttons a splendid wreck of a man magnificently attired and no 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 none prescriber long and haste. 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 humour seemed to top them all. As for the famous Dr Swift I can say of him Biddy 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 miscourt of a Sunday when 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 title 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 ripped 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 had lost his intellect now and forgotten his wrongs and his rage against mankind. I have always thought of him and of Malbra 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 I first ever had any words with him the giant stepped out of a sedan chair in the poultry whether he had come with a tipsy Irish servant parading before him who announced him bawling out of his reverence's name whilst his master below was a jet haggling with the chairman. I disliked his 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 young 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 an honest little Irish lieutenant of handy sides who owed so much money to a camp subtler then he began to make love to the man's daughter intending to pay his debt that way and at the battle of Mel Plaquette 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 subtler's daughter after all who brought him his canceled debt to her father as Paul Rogers 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 the 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 their armies 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 war and brought from the plowshare to the sword and found that a half of them under the plagues 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 particular rising? 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 English and Europe. My years are past the Hebrew's poets 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 to her had she so bitten me. What strength I had in my head I would have given her had not every man in his degree had he's on fail and delilah mine be filled me on the banks of the tents and in dear old England thou mayest find thine own byrap and hanok. To please that woman when 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 cossack 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 and on 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 chewing 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 eight or fetching him the daggers and whispering kill gondola's 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 generals against the great Duke in command of the army and more information on military matters the most writers who had never seen beyond the fire of a tobacco pipe at wills he was unable to do good service for that cause which he embarked in and for mrs and john and his party but he disdained the abuse in which some of the Tory writers indulge for instance dr swift who actually chose to doubt the Duke of mulbara's courage and was pleased to hint that his greatest military capacity was doubtful nor were asman's performances worse for the effect they were intended to produce though no doubt they could not endure the Duke of mulbara 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 ripped openly and fairly by mr asman 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 the rhapsody of the cheap the colonel then having written a paper for one of the Tory journals called the postboy a letter upon buchane that the town talked about for two whole days when the appearance of an italian singer supplied a fresh subject for conversation and having business at the exchange where mistress vetrix wanted a pair of gloves or a fan very lightly aslan went to correct his paper and was sitting at the printers when the famous dr swift came in his irish fellow with him that used to walk before his chair and bald out his master's name with great dignity mr asman was waiting for the printer to whose wife had gone to the tavern to fetch him and was meantime engaged in drawing a picture of a soldier on horseback for a dirty little pretty boy at the printer's wife whom she had left behind her i presume you are the editor of the postboy sir says the doctor in a grating voice that had an irish twang and he looked at the colonel from under his two bushy eyebrows with a pair of very clear blue eyes his complexion was muddy his figure rather fat his chin double he wore a shabby castle and a shabby hat over his black wig and he pulled out a great gold watch at which he looks very fierce i am but a contributor dr swift says edmund with the little boy still on his name he was sitting with his back in the window so that the doctor could not see him who told you i was dr swift says the doctor i'm the other very haughtily your references ballet pulled out your name says the colonel i should judge you brought him from island and pray sir what right of you to judge whether my servant came from island or no i want to speak with your employer mr leach oh thank you go fetch him where's your papa tommy asked the colonel of the child a smutty little rich in a crock instead of answering the child begins to cry the doctor's appearance had no doubt frightened the poor little limp send that squalling little brat about his business and do what i bid you sir says the doctor i must finish the picture first for tommy says the colonel laughing here tommy will you have your panel with whiskers or without whiskers says tommy quite intent on the picture who the devil are you sir cries the doctor are you a printer's man or are you not he pronounced it like nought your reverence needn't raise the devil to ask who i am says colonel edmund did you ever hear of dr force this little tommy or fryer bacon who invented gunpowder and set the thames on fire mr swift turned quite red almost purple i did not intend any offense sir says him i dare say sir you offended without meaning says the other dryly who are you sir do you know who i am sir you are one of the pack of grubs through scribblers that my friend mr secretary have laid by the heels how dare you sir speak to me in this tone cries the doctor in a great tune i beg your honors humble pardon if i have offended your honor says esmond in a tone of great humility rather than be sent to the comter or be put in the pillory there's nothing i wouldn't do that mrs leach the printer's lady told me to mind tommy while she went for her husband to the tavern and i didn't leave the child let he should fall into the fire but if your reverence will hold him i take the little beast says the doctor starting back i'm engaged to your letters fellow tell mr leach that when he makes an appointment with dr swift he had best keep it do you hear and keep a respectful tongue in your head sir when you address a person like me i'm better poor broken down soldier says the colonel and i've seen better days though i am forced now to turn my hand to writing we can't help our fate sir you're the only person that mr leach had spoken to me i presume had the goodness to speak civilly when you are spoken to and tell leach to call up my lodgings in very street and bring the papers with him tonight at 10 o'clock and the next time you see me you'll know me and be civil mr camp poor camp who had been a lieutenant at the beginning of the war and fallen into misfortune was the writer of the post boy and now took honors mr leach's pay in place of her majesties esmond had seen this gentleman and a very ingenuous hardworking honest fellow he was toiling to give bread to a great family and watching up many a long winter night to keep the wolf from his door and mr st john who had liberty always on his tongue had just sent a dozen of the opposition writers into prison and one actually into pillory for what he calls libels but libels not half so violent as those writ on our side with regard to this very piece of tyranny esmond had remonstrated strongly with the secretary who laughed and said the rascals were served quite right and told esmond a joke of squits regarding the matter no more disirishment when st john was about to pardon a poor wretch condemned to death for a rape absolutely prevented the secretary from exercising this act of good nature and boasted that he had had the man hung and great as the doctor's genius might be and splendid his ability esmond for one would affect no love for him and never desired to make his acquaintance the doctor was at court every sunday assiduously enough a place the colonel frequented but rarely though he had a great inducement to go there in the person of a fair maid of honor of her majesties and the heirs and patronage mr swift gave himself the getting gentleman of his country whom he knew perfectly his loud talk at once insolent and survive no perhaps his very intimacy with lord treasurer and the secretary who indulged all these freaks and calling jonathan you may be sure we're remarked by many a person of whom the proud priest himself took no note during that time of his vanity and triumph twice but three days after the 15th of november 1712 esmond minds him well at the date then he went by invitation to dine with his general the foot of whose table he used to take on these festive occasions as he had done at many a board hard and plentiful during the campaign this was a great feast and of the latter sort the honest old gentleman loved to treat his friends splendidly his grace of all month before he joined his army as general ismo my lord by count bolling broke one of her majesties secretaries of state my lord orkney that had served with us abroad being with the party his grace of hamilton master of the ordinance and in whose honor the feast had been given upon his approaching departure as ambassador to paris had sent an excuse to general web at two o'clock but an hour before the dinner nothing but the most immediate business his grace said should have prevented him having the pleasure of drinking a parting glass to the health of general web his absence disappointed esmond's old chief who suffered much from his wounds besides and though the company was grand it was rather gloomy since john came last and brought a friend with him i'm sure says my general bowing very politely my table half always a place for dr swift mr resmond went up to the doctor with a bow and a smile i gave dr swift's message says he to the printer i hope he brought your pamphlet to your lodgings in time indeed paul each had come to his house very soon after the doctor left being brought away rather tipsy from the tavern by his thrifty wife and he talked of cousin swift in a mordland way though of course mr resmond did not allude to his relationship dr swift scowl blushed and was much confused and said scarce a word during the whole of dinner a very little stone will sometimes knock down these the lives of wit and this one was often disconfited when met by a man of any spirit he took his place subtly put water in his wine that the others drunk plentifully and scarce said a word the talk was about the affairs of the day or rather about persons than affairs my lady marlboro's fury her daughters in all clothes and mop taps looking out from their windows and seeing the company pass to the dooring room the gentleman ushers horror when the prince of savoy was introduced to her majesty in a tie week no man out of full bottom periweek ever having kissed the royal hand before about the male hawks and the damage they were doing rushing through the town killing and murdering someone said the ill omen face of mullen had been seen at the theater the night before and mccartney meredith with him meant to be a feast and meeting in spite of drink and talk was as dismal as a funeral every topic started subsided into gloom his grace of all men went away because the conversation got upon denying where we had been defeated in the last campaign esmond's general was affected at the illusion to this action too but his comrade of windale the count of nassau wouldn't move had been slain there mr swift when esmond pledged him said he drunk no wine and took his hat from the pig and went away beckoning my lord bologna to follow him but the other bait him take his chariot and save his coach higher he had to speak with colonel esmond and when the rest of the company withdrew to cards these two remained behind in the dark bowling broke always spoke freely when he had drunk freely his enemies could get any secret out of him in that condition women were even employed to apply him and take his words down i have heard that my lord stare three years after when the secretary fled to france and became the pretenders minister got all the information he wanted by putting female spies over st john in his cups he spoke freely now jonathan knows nothing of this for certain though he suspects it and by george wed will take an archbishop rick and jonathan and no dan jonathan will take an archbishop rick from james i warrant me clearly enough your duke have the string of the whole matter in his hand the secretary went on we have that which will force mulbrough to keep his distance and he goes out of london in a fortnight prior have this business he left me this morning and marked me harry should fate carry off our august our beloved our most gouty and plethora queen and defender of the fate love on cause trio fear ala santa dealer bond cause everything good comes from france wine comes from france give us another bumper to the bond cause we drunk it together will the bond cause turn protestant ask mr isman no hang it says the other he'll defend our fate as in duty bound but he'll stick by his own the hind and the panther shall run in the same car by joe righteousness and peace shall kiss each other and we'll have father mesalon to walk down the aisle of st paul's cheek by jail with dr satra will give us more wine here's a health to the bond cause kneeling damn let's drink it kneeling he was quite flushed and wild with wine as he was talking and suppose says esmond who always had this gloomy apprehension the bond cause should give us up the french as his father and uncle did before him give us up the french starts up bollingbroke is there any english gentleman that fears that you who have seen blenheim and ramaley's afraid of the french your ancestors and mine and brave old webs yonder have met them in a hundred fields and our children will be ready to do the like who he that wishes for more men from england my cousin westmoreland give us up to the french his uncle did says mr esmond and what happened to his grandfather broke out st john filling out another bumper he's to the greatest monarch england ever saw he's to the englishman the major kingdom of her our great king came from huntington not handover our fathers didn't look for a dutchman to rule us let him come and we'll keep him and we'll show him might all if he's a traitor let us have him here to deal with him and then there are spirits here as great as any other have gone before there are men here that can look at danger in the face and not be frightened at it traitor treason what names are these to scare you and me are all oliver's men dead always glorious name forgotten in 50 years are there no men equal to him thank you as good ay as good god save the king and if the monarchy fails us god save the british republic he filled another great bumper and tossed it up and drowned it wildly just as the noise of rapid carriage wheels approaching we stopped at our door and after a hurried knock and a moment's interval mr swift came into the hall ran upstairs to the room we were dining in and entered it with a perturbed face st john excited with drink was making some wild quotation out of mcbeth but swift stopped him drink no more my lord for god's sake says he i've come with the most dreadful news is the queen dead cried out bollingbroke seizing on a water glass no to camelton is dead he was murdered an hour ago by moan and mccartney they had a quarrel this morning they gave him not so much time as to write a letter he went for a couple of these friends and he is dead and moan too the bloody villain who was set on him they fought in hide park just before sunset the duke killed moan and mccartney came up and stabbed him and the dog is fled i have your chariot below send to every part of the country and apprehend that villain come to the duke's house and see if any life be left in him oh betris betris lord esmond and here ends my poor girl's ambition end a book three chapter five section 35 of henry esmond this is a liber vox recording all liber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liber vox dot org henry esmond by william make peace that gray book three chapter six poor be a tricks there had been no need to urge upon esmond the necessity of a separation between him and be a tricks fate had done that completely and i think from the very moment poor be a tricks had accepted the duke's offer she began to assume the majestic era of a duchess nay queen elect and to carry herself as one sacred and removed from us common people her mother and kinsman both fell into her ways the latter scornfully perhaps and uttering his usual jibes at her vanity and his own there was a certain charm about this girl of which neither colonel husband nor his fond mistress could forego the fascination in spite of her faults and her pride and willfulness they were forced to love her and indeed might be set down as the two chief flatterers of the brilliant creatures court who in the course of his life have not been so bewitched and worshiped some idol or another years after this passion have been dead and buried along with a thousand other worldly cares and ambitions he who felt it can recall it out of its grave and admire almost as fondly as he did in his youth that lovely queenly creature i invoke that beautiful spirit from the shades and love her still or rather i should say such a past is always present to a man such a passion once felt forms a part of his whole being and cannot be separated from it it becomes a portion of the man of today just as any great faith or conviction the discovery of poetry the awakening of religion ever afterwards influence him just as the wound i had at blunnum of which i wear the scar hath become part of my frame and influenced my whole body nay spirit subsequently though it was gotten healed forty years ago parting and forgetting what faithful heart can do these our great thoughts our great afflictions the truths of our life never leave us surely they cannot separate from our consciousness shall follow it with or so ever that she'll go and are of their nature divine and immortal with the horrible news of this catastrophe which was confirmed by the weeping domestics at the duke's own door esmond rode homewards as quickly as his lazy coach would carry him devising all the time how he should break the intelligence to the person most concerned in it and if a satire upon human vanity could be needed that poor soul afforded it in the altered company and occupations in which esmond found her for days before her chariot had been rolling the street from mercer to toy shop from goldsmith to lazeman her taste was perfect or at least the fond bridegroom had thought so and had given her entire authority over all tradesmen and for all the plate furniture and equipages with which his grace the ambassador wished to adorn his splendid mission she must have her picture by Neller a duchess not being complete without a portrait and a noble one he made an actually sketched in on a cushion a coronet which she was about to wear she vowed she would wear it at king james the third's coronation and never a princess in the land would have become urban better esmond found the antechamber crowded with milliners and toy shop women obsequious goldsmiths with jewels salvers and tankards and mercers men with hangings velvets and brocades my lady duchess elect was giving audience to one famous silversmith from exer change who brought with him a great chaste salver of which he was pointing out the beauties as colonel esmond entered comes as she cousin and admire the taste of this pretty thing i think mars and venus were lying in the golden bower that one guilt cupid carried off the war god's cask another his sword another his great buckler upon which my lord duke hamilton's arms with ours were to be engraved and a fourth was kneeling down to the reclining goddess with the duchal coronet in her hands god help us the next time mr. esmond saw that piece of plate the arms were changed the duchal coronet had been replaced by a bicounts it formed part of the fortune of the thrifty goldsmith's own daughter when she married my lord bicount squanderfield two years after isn't this a beautiful piece had be a tricks examining it and she pointed out the arch graces of the cupids and the fine carving of the lingward prostrate mars esmond sickened as he thought of the warrior dead in his chamber his servants and children weeping around him and of this smiling creature retiring herself as it were for the nuptial dead bed it is a pretty piece of vanity says he looking gloomily at the beautiful creature there were flambos in the room lighting up the brilliant mistress of it she lifted up the great gold salver with her fair arms vanity says she haughtily what is vanity and usur is propriety and me you ask a jewish price for it mr. graves but have a tie well if only despite mr. esmond oh be a tricks lay it down said mr. edmund herodious you know not what you carry in the charger she dropped it with a clang the eager goldsmith running to seize his fallen wear the lady's face caught the fright from esmond's pale countenance and her eyes shown out like beacons of alarm what is it Henry says she running to him and seizing both of his hands what do you mean by your pale face and gloomy tones come away come away says esmond leading her she clung frightened to him and he supported her on his heart bidding the scared goldsmith leave them the man went into the next department staring with surprise and hugging his precious charger oh my be a tricks my sister said esmond still holding in his arms the pallet and a frightened creature you have the greatest courage of any woman in the world prepare to show it now for you have a dreadful trial to bear she sprang away from the friend who would have protected her have he left me said she we had words this morning he was very gloomy and i angered him but he dared not he dared not as she spoke a burning blush flushed over her whole face and bosom esmond saw it reflected in the glass by which she stood with clenched hands pressing her swelling heart he has left you said esmond wondering that rage rather than sorrow was in her looks and he is alive cried be a tricks and you bring me this commission he has left me and you haven't dared to avenge me you that pretend to be the champion of our house have let me suffer this insult where's castle would i will go to my brother the duke is not alive be a tricks said esmond she looked at her cousin wildly and fell back to the wall as though shot in the breast and you come here and you killed him no thank heaven her kisman said the blood of that noble heart does not stain my sword and its last hour it was faithful to the be a tricks esmond vain and cruel woman kneel and thank the awful heaven which awards life and death and chastises pride that the noble hamilton died true to you at least that it was not your quarrel or your pride or your wicked vanity that drove him to his fate he died by the bloody sword which had already drank your own father's blood oh woman oh sister to that sad field where two corpses are lying for the murderer died too by the hand of the man he slew can you bring no mourners but your revenge and your vanity god help and pardon me be a tricks as he brings this awful punishment to your heart and rebellious heart esmond had scarce done speaking when his mistress came in the colloquy between him and be a tricks had lasted but a few minutes during which time esmond's servant had carried the disastrous news through the household the army of vanity fair waiting without gathered up all their fripperies and fled aghast tender lady castle would had been in talk above with dean atterbury the pious creatures almaner and director and the dean had entered with her as a physician whose place was at a sickbed be a tricks his mother looked at esmond and ran toward her daughter with a pale face and open heart and hands all kindness and pity but be a tricks pastor by nor would she have in any of the medicaments of the spiritual physician i bested my own room and by myself she said her eyes were quite dry nor did esmond ever see them otherwise saved once in respect to that grief she gave him a cold hand as she went out thank you brother she said in a low voice and with a simplicity more touching than tears all you've said is true and kind and i would go away and ask pardon the three others remained behind and talked over the dreadful story it affected doctor atterbury more even than us as it seemed the death of moan her husband's murderer was more awful to my mistress than even the duke's unhappy end esmond gave at length what particulars he knew of their quarrel and the cause of it the two noblemen had long been at war with respect to the lord gerard's property whose two daughters my lord duke and moan had married they had met by appointment that day at the lawyers and lincoln's infields had words which though they appeared very trifling to those who heard them were not so to men exasperated by long and previous enmity moan asked my lord duke where he could see his grace's friends and within an hour had sent two of his own to arrange this deadly duel it was pursued with such fierceness and sprung from so trifling a cause that all men agreed at the time that there was a party of which these three notorious brawlers were petagians who desired to take duke hamilton's life away they fought three on the side as in that tragic meeting twelve years back which had been recounted already and which moan performed his second murderer they rushed in and closed upon each other at once without any faints or crossing of swords even and stabbed at one another desperately each receiving many wounds and moan having his death wound and my lord duke lying by him mccartney gave up and stabbed his grace as he lay on the ground and gave him the blow of which he died colonel mccartney denied this of which the horror and indignation of the whole kingdom would nevertheless have him guilty and fled the country wither he never returned what was the real cause of the duke hamilton's death a paltry quarrel that might easily have been made up and with a ruffian so low base profgott and degraded with former crimes and repeated murders that a man of such renown and princely rank as my lord duke might have disdained to sully his sword with the blood of such a villain but his spirit was so high that those who wished his death knew that his courage was like his charity and never turned any man away and he died by the hands of moan and the two other cutthroats that were set on him the queen's ambassador to paris died the loyal and devoted servant of the house of steward and a royal prince of scotland himself and carrying the confidence the repentance of queen and along with his own open devotion and the goodwill of millions in this country more to the queen's exiled brother and sovereign that party to which lord moan belonged had the benefit of his service and now we're well rid of such a ruffian he and meredith and mccartney were the duke of marlboro's men and the two kernels had been broke but the year before for drinking perdition to the tories his grace was a wig now and a henna variant and as eager for war is Prince Eugene himself I say not that he was privy to do camelton's death I say that his party was profited by it and that three desperate and bloody instruments were found to affect that murder as Esmond and the dean walked away from Kensington discoursing of this tragedy and how fatal it was to the cause which they both had at heart the street criers were already out with their broadsides shouting through the town the full true and horrible account of the death of lord moan and do camelton in a duel a fellow had got to Kensington and was crying it in the square there at the very early morning when mr. Esmond happened to pass by he drove the man from under Beatrix's very window where the casement had been set open the sun was shining though it was November he had seen the market carts rolling into London the guards relieved at the palace the laborers trudging to their work in the gardens between Kensington in the city the wandering merchants and hawkers filling the air with their cries the world was going to its business again although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them and kings very likely lost their chances so night and day pass away and tomorrow comes and our place knows us not Esmond thought of the courier now galloping on the north road to inform him who was Duke of Aaron yesterday that he was Duke of Hamilton today and of a thousand great schemes hopes ambitions that were alive in the gallant heart beating a few hours since and now in a little dust quiescent end of section 35 book 3 chapter 7 of the history of Henry Esmond this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the history of Henry Esmond by William Makepeace Thackeray book 3 the end of Mr. Esmond's adventures in England chapter 7 I visit Castlewood once more thus for the third time Beatrix ambitious hopes were circumvented and she might well believe that a special malignant fate watched and pursued her 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 her feelings might have been of anger or of sorrow and I fear me that the former emotion was that which tore her heart she would take no confidant as people of softer natures would have done under such a calamity her mother and her kinsmen knew that she would disdain their pity and that to offer it would be but to infuriate the cruel wound which fortune had inflicted we knew that her pride was awfully humbled and punished by this sudden and terrible blow she wanted no teaching of ours to point out the sad moral of her story her fond mother could give but her prayers and her kinsmen his faithful friendship and patience to the unhappy stricken creature and it was only by hints and a word or two uttered months afterwards that Beatrix showed that she understood their silent commissuration and on her part was secretly thankful for their forbearance the people about the court said there was that in her manner which frightened away scoffing and condolence she was above their triumph and their pity and acted her part in that dreadful tragedy greatly and courageously so that those who liked her least were yet forced to admire her we who watched her after her disaster could not but respect the indomitable courage and majestic calm with which she bore 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 and to receive them as the stroke of God with an awful submission and meekness but Beatrix's nature was different to that tender parents she seemed to accept her grief and to defy it nor would she allow it I believe not even in private and in her own chamber to extort from her the confession of even a tear of humiliation or a cry of pain friends and children of our race who come after me in which way will you bear your trials I know one that praise God will give you love rather than pride and that the I all seeing shall find you in the humble place not that we should judge proud spirits otherwise than charitably his nature hath fashioned some for ambition and dominion as it hath formed others for obedience and gentle submission the leopard follows his nature as the lamb does and acts after leopard law she can neither help her beauty nor her courage nor her cruelty nor a single spot on her shining coat nor the conquering spirit which impels her nor the shot which brings her down during that well founded panic the wigs had lest the queen should forsake their Hanoverian prince bound by oaths and treaties as she was to him and recall her brother who was allied to her by yet stronger ties of nature and duty the prince of Savoy and the boldest of that party of the wigs were fought bringing the young Duke of Cambridge over in spite of the queen and the outcry of her Tory servants arguing that the electoral prince appear and prince of the blood royal of this realm too and in the line of succession to the crown had a right to sit in the parliament whereof he was a member and to dwell in the country which he one day was to govern nothing but the strongest ill will expressed by the queen and the people about her and menaces of the royal resentment should this scheme be persisted in prevented it from being carried into effect the boldest on our side were in like manner for having our prince into the country the undoubted inheritor of the right divine the feelings of more than half the nation of almost all the clergy of the gentry of England and Scotland with him entirely innocent of the crime for which his father suffered brave young handsome unfortunate who in England would dare to molest the prince should he come among us and fling himself upon British generosity hospitality and honour an invader with an army of French men behind him English men of spirit would resist to the 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 his people was sure many of his friends argued of welcome or at least of safety among us the hand of his sister the queen of the people his subjects never could be raised to do him a wrong but the queen was timid by nature and the successive ministers she had had private causes for their irresolution the bolder and honest or men who had at heart the illustrious young exiles cause had no scheme of interest of their own to prevent them from seeing the right done and provided only he came as an Englishman were ready to venture their all to welcome and defend him St. John and Harley both had kind words and plenty for the prince's adherents and gave him endless promises of future support but hints and promises were all they could be got to give and some of his friends were for measures much bolder more efficacious and more open with a party of these some of whom aren't yet alive and some of whose names Mr. Esmond has no right to mention he found himself engaged the year after that miserable death of Duke Hamilton which deprived the prince of his most courageous ally in this country Dean Atterbury was one of the friends whom Esmond may mention as the brave bishop is now beyond exile and persecution and to him and one or two more the Colonel opened himself of a scheme of his own that backed by a little resolution on the prince's part could not fail of bringing about the accomplishment of their dearest wishes my Lord young Viscount Castlewood had not come to England to keep his majority and had now been absent from the country for several years the year in which his sister was to be married and Duke Hamilton died my Lord was kept at Brussels by his wife's lying in the gentle Clotilda could not bear her husband out of her sight perhaps she mistrusted the young scapegrace should he ever get a loose from her leading strings and she kept him by her side to nurse the baby and administer posset to the gossips many a laugh poor Beatrix had had about Frank's exoriasness his mother would have gone to Clotilda when her time was coming but that the mother-in-law was already in possession and the negotiations for poor Beatrix's marriage were begun a few months after the horrid catastrophe in Hyde Park my mistress and her daughter retired to Castlewood where my Lord it was expected would soon join them but to say truth their quiet household was little to his taste he could be got to come to Walcoat but once after his first campaign and then the young rogue spent more than half his time in London not appearing at court or in public under his own name and title but frequenting plays banjoes and the very worst company under the name of Captain Esmond whereby his innocent kinsmen got more than once into trouble and so under various pretexts and in pursuit of all sorts of pleasures until he plunged into the lawful one of marriage Frank Castlewood had remained away from this country and was unknown save amongst the gentlemen of the army with whom he had served abroad the font heart of his mother was pained by this long absence it was all that Henry Esmond could do to soothe her natural mortification and find excuses for his kinsmen's levity in the autumn of the year seventeen thirteen Lord Castlewood thought of returning home his first child had been a daughter Clotilde was in the way of gratifying his lordship with a second and the pious young thought that by bringing his wife to his ancestral home by prayers to St. Philip of Castlewood and what not heaven might be induced to bless him with a son this time for whose coming the expectant mama was very anxious the long debated peace had been proclaimed this year at the end of March and France was open to us just as Frank's poor mother had made all things ready for Lord Castlewood's reception and was eagerly expecting her son it was by Colonel Esmond's means that the kind lady was disappointed of her longing and obliged to defer once more the darling hope of her heart Esmond took courses to Castlewood he had not seen its ancient gray towers and well remembered woods for nearly fourteen years and since he rode thence with my lord to whom his mistress with her young children by her side waved an adieu what ages seemed to have passed since then what years of action and passion of care love hope disaster the children were grown up now and had stories of their own as for Esmond he felt to be a hundred years old his dear mistress only seemed unchanged she looked and welcomed him quite as of old there was the fountain in the court babbling its familiar music the old hall and its furniture the carved chair my late lord used the very flag and he drank from Esmond's mistress knew he would like to sleep in the little room he used to occupy it was made ready for him and wall flowers and sweet herbs sat in the adjoining chamber the chaplain's room in tears of not unmanly emotion with prayers of submission to the awful dispenser of death and life of evil and good fortune Mr. Esmond passed apart of that first night at Castlewood lying awake for many hours as the clock kept tolling in tones so well remembered looking back as all men will that revisit their home of childhood over the great gulf of time and surveying himself on the distant bank yonder a sad little melancholy 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 night he had made a vow to be faithful and never desert her dear service had he kept that fond boyish promise yes before heaven yes praise be to God his life had been hers his blood his fortune his name his whole heart ever since had been hers and her children's all night long he was dreaming his boyhood over again and waking fitfully he half fancied he heard Father Holt calling to him from the next chamber and that he was coming in and out from the mysterious window as men rose up before the dawn passed into the next room where the air was heavy with the odor of the wall flowers looked into the brazier where the papers had been burnt into the old presses where Holt's books and papers had been kept and tried the spring and whether the window worked still the spring had not been touched for years but yielded at length and the whole fabric of the window sank down he lifted it and it relapsed into its frame no one had ever passed thence since Holt used 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 and knew that the father liked these mysteries and practiced such secret disguises entrances and exits this was the way the ghost came and went his pupil had always conjectured Esmond closed the casement up again as the dawn was rising over Castlewood Village he could hear the clinking at the blacksmith's forge yonder among the trees across the green and past the river on which a mist still lay sleeping next Esmond opened that long cupboard over the woodwork of the mantelpiece big enough to hold a man and in which Mr. Holt used to keep sundry's secret properties of his the two swords he remembered so well as a boy lay actually there still and Esmond took them out and wiped them with a strange curiosity of emotion there were a bundle of papers here too which no doubt had been left at Holt's last visit to the place in my Lord Viscount's life that very day when the priest had been arrested and taken to Hexham Castle Esmond made free with these papers and found treasonable matter of King William's reign the names of Charnoch and Perkins Sir John Fenwick and Sir John Friend Rookwood and Lodwick Lords Montgomery and Owlsbury Clarenton and Yarmouth that had all been engaged in plots against the usurper a letter from the Duke of Burwick too and one from the King at Saint Germain offering to confer upon his trusty and well beloved Francis Viscount Castlewood the titles of Earl and Marquis of Esmond bestowed by Patent Royal and in the fourth year of his reign upon Thomas Viscount Castlewood and the heirs mail of his body in default of which issue the ranks and dignities were to pastor Francis aforesaid. This was the paper whereof my Lord had spoken which Holt showed to him in the very day he was arrested and for an answer to which he would come back in a week's time. I put these papers hastily into the crypt whence I had taken them, being interrupted by a tapping of a light finger at the ring of the chamber-door, it was my kind mistress, with her face full of love and welcome. She too had passed the night wakefully no doubt, but neither asked the other how the hours had been spent. There are things we divine without speaking and know though they happen out of our sight. This fond lady hath told me that she knew both days when I was wounded abroad, who shall say how far sympathy reaches, and how truly 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 the gentle creature kissed him. They walked out, hand in hand, through the old court, and to the terrace-walk where the grass was glistening with dew, and the birds in the green woods above were singing their delicious choruses under the blushing morning sky. How well all things were remembered! The ancient towers and gables of the hall darkling against the east, the purple shadows on the green slopes, the quaint devices and carvings of the dial, the forest-crowned heights, the fair yellow plain cheerful with crops and corn, the shining river rolling through it towards the pearly hills beyond. All these were before us, along with a thousand beautiful memories of our youth, beautiful and sad, but as real and vivid in our minds as that fair and always remembered seen our eyes beheld once more. We forgot nothing. The memory sleeps, but wakens again. I often think how it shall be when, after the last sleep of death, the revelies should arouse us for ever, and the past, in one flash of self-consciousness, rush back, like the soul revivified. The house would not be up for some hours yet. It was July, and the dawn was only just awake, and here Esmond opened himself to his mistress, of the business he had in hand, and what part Frank was to play in it. He knew he could confide anything to her, and that the fond soul would die rather than reveal it, and bidding her keep the secret from all, he laid it entirely before his mistress, always as staunch or little loyalist as any in the kingdom, and indeed was quite sure that any plan of his was secure of her applause and sympathy. Never was such a glorious scheme to her partial mind, never such a devoted knight to execute it. An hour or two may have passed whilst they were having their colloquy. Beatrix came out to them just as their talk was over. Her tall, beautiful form robed in sable, which she wore without ostentation never since last year's catastrophe, sweeping over the green terrace and casting its shadows before her across the grass. She made us one of her grand curtsies, smiling, and called us the young people. She was older, paler, and more majestic than in the year before. Her mother seemed the youngest of the two. She never once spoke of her grief, Lady Castlewood told Esmond, or eluded, safe by a quiet word or two, to the death of her hopes. When Beatrix came back to Castlewood she took to visiting all the cottages and all the sick. She set up a school of children and taught singing to some of them. We had a pair of beautiful old organs in Castlewood Church, on which she played admirably, so that the music there came to be known in the country for many miles around, and no doubt people came to see the fair organist as well as to hear her. Parson Tusher and his wife were established at the vicarage, but his wife had brought him no children wherewith Tom might meet his enemies at the gate. Honest Tom took care not to have many such, his great shovel hat was in his hand for everybody. He was profuse of bows and compliments. He behaved to Esmond as if the Colonel had been a commander-in-chief. He dined at the hall that day, being Sunday, and would not partake of pudding except under extreme pressure. He deplored my 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 hand calling him away and out of the country. There he went he saw Beatrix but 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, into the adjoining chamber that had been Viscontess Isabel's sleeping apartment, and where Esmond perfectly well remembered seeing the old lady sitting up in the bed, in her night rail, that morning when the troop of guard came to fetch her. The most beautiful woman in England lay in that bed now, whereof the great Damasque hangings were scarce-faded since Esmond saw them last. Here stood Beatrix in her black robes, holding a box in her hand, to as that which Esmond had given her before her marriage, stamped with a coronet which the disappointed girl was never to wear, and containing his aunt's legacy of diamonds. "'You had best take these with you, Harry,' says she, "'I have no need of diamonds any more.' There was not the least token of emotion in her quiet, low voice. She held out the black chagrin case with her fair arm, that did not shake in the least. Esmond saw she wore a black velvet bracelet on it, with my Lord Duke's picture in enamel. He had given it her but three days before he fell. Esmond said the stones were his no longer, and strove to turn off that proffered restoration with a laugh. Of what goods, says he, are they to me? The diamond loop to his hat did not set off Prince Eugene, and will not make my yellow face look any handsomer. "'You will give them to your wife, cousin,' says she. "'My cousin, your wife has a lovely complexion and shape.' "'Beatrix!' Esmond burst out, the old fire flaming out as it would at times. Will you wear those trinkets at your marriage? You whispered once you did not know me. You know me better now. How I sought! What I have sighed for! For ten years! What foregone!' "'A price for your constancy, my Lord,' says she. Such a prouche of allier wants to be paid. Oh, fi, 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 with which 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 hear me. Say you will hear me a year hence. If I come back to you and bring you fame, will that please you? If I do what you desire most, what he who 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 bring back 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 away those trinkets. Keep them. It shall not be at my marriage. It shall not be at yours. But if man can do it, I swear a day shall come when there shall be a feast in your house, and you shall be proud to wear them. I say no more now. Put aside these words, and lock away yonder box until the day when I shall remind you of both. All I pray of you now is to wait, and 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. It was the hand on which she wore the Duke's bracelet. "'Stay, Harry,' continued she, with a tone that had more despondency in it than she was accustomed to show. Hear a last word. I do love you. I do admire you. Who would not that has known such love as yours has been for us all? But I think I 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 a private soldier, or to see, like one of those buccaneers you used to read to us about when you were children. I would do anything for such a man, bear anything for him. But I never found one. You were ever too much 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 after our engagement, and was too vain to break it. Oh, Harry, I cried once or twice, not for him, but with tears of rage because I could not be sorry for him. I was frightened to find I was glad of his death. And where I joined to you I should have the same sense of servitude, the same longing to escape. We should both be unhappy, and you the most, who are as jealous as the Duke was himself. I tried to love him. I tried indeed I did. Affected gladness when he came, submitted to hear when he was by me, and tried the wife's part I thought I was to play for the rest of my days. But half an hour of that complacence wearied me, and what would a lifetime be? My thoughts were away when he was speaking, and I was thinking, oh, that this man would drop my hand and rise up from before my feet. I knew his great and noble qualities greater and nobler than nine a thousand times, as yours are, cousin, I tell you a million and a million times better. But it was not for these I took him. I took him to have a great place in the world, and I lost it. I lost it, and do not deplore him, and I often thought as I listened to his faunt vows and ardent words, oh, if I yield to this man and meet the other I shall hate him and leave him. I am not good, Harry. My mother is gentle and good like an angel. I wonder how she should have had such a child. She is weak, but she would die rather than do a wrong. I am stronger than she, but I would do it out of defiance. I do not care for what the Parsons tell me with their droning sermons. I used to see them at court as mean and as worthless as the meanest woman there. Oh, I am sick and weary of the world! I wait but for one thing, and when it is done, I will take Frank's religion and your poor mothers, and go into a nunnery, and end like her. Shall I wear the diamonds then? They say the nuns wear their best trinkets the day they take the veil. I will put them away as you bid me. Farewell, cousin. Mama is pacing the next room, racking her little head, to know what we have been saying. She is jealous, all women are. I sometimes think that is the only womanly quality I have. Farewell, farewell, brother. She gave him her cheek as a brotherly privilege. The cheek was as cold as marble. Esmond's mistress showed no signs of jealousy when he returned to the room where she was. She had schooled herself so as to look quite inscrutably, when she had a mind. Amongst her other feminine qualities she had that of being a perfect dissimbler. He rode away from Castlewood to attempt the task he was bound on, and stand or fall by it. In truth his state of mind was such that he was eager for some outward excitement to counteract that gnawing malady which he was inwardly enduring. CHAPTER VIII. OF THE HISTORY OF HENRY EZEMAN, ESQUIRE by William Make-Peace Thackeray. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. RECORDING BY RALPH SNELSON. THE HISTORY OF HENRY EZEMAN, ESQUIRE by William Make-Peace Thackeray. BOOK III. CHAPTER VIII. I travel to France and bring home a portrait of Regal. Mr. Ezman did not think fit to take leave at court or to inform all the world of Paul Mall and the coffee-houses that he was about to quit England, and chose to depart in the most private manner possible. He procured a pass as for a Frenchman through Dr. Atterbury, who did that business for him, getting the signature, even from Lord Bullingbroke's office, without any personal application to the secretary. Lockwood, his faithful servant, he took with him to Castlewood and left behind there. Giving out air he left London that he himself was sick and gone to Hampshire for country air, and so departed as silently as might be upon his business. As Frank Castlewood's aid was indispensable for Mr. Ezman's scheme, his first visit was to Brussels, passing by way of Antwerp, where the Duke of Marlborough was in exile. And in the first name-place Harry found his dear young Benedict, the married man, who appeared to be rather out of humor with his matrimonial chain, and clogged with the obstinate embraces which Clotilde kept around his neck. Mr. Ezman was not presented to her, but Mr. Simone was a gentleman of the royal cravat. Ezman bethought him of the regimen of his honest Irishman, whom he had seen that day after Malplacay when he first set eyes on the young king. And Mr. Simone was introduced to the Viscountess Castlewood, knee, comptice, worth him, to the numerous counts, the Lady Clotilde's tall brothers, to her father, the Chamberlain, and to the Lady his wife, Frank's mother-in-law, a tall and majestic person of large proportions, such as became the mother of such a company of grenadiers as her warlike sons formed. The whole race were at free quarters in the little castle, nigh to Brussels, which Frank had taken, rode his horses, drank his wine, and lived easily at the poor lad's charges. Mr. Ezman had always maintained a perfect fluency in the French, which was his mother tongue. And if this family, that spoke French with the twang, which the Fleming Jews, discovered any inaccuracy in Mr. Simone's pronunciation, it was to be attributed to the latter's long residence in England, where he had married and remained ever since he was taken prisoner at Blenheim. His story was perfectly pat. There were none there to doubt it, save honest Frank, and he was charmed with his kinsman's scheme when he became acquainted with it. And in truth always admired Colonel Ezman with an affectionate fidelity, and thought his cousin the wisest and best of all cousins and men. Frank entered heart and soul into the plan, and liked it the better, as it was to take him to Paris out of reach of his brothers, his father, and his mother-in-law, whose attentions rather fatigued him. Castlewood, I have said, was born in the same year as the Prince of Wales, had not a little of the Prince's air, height, and figure, and especially since he had seen the Chevalier de Saint-George on the occasion, before named, took no small pride in his resemblance to a person so illustrious, which likeness he increased by all means in his power, wearing fair brown periwigs such as the Prince's wore, and ribbons, and so forth, of the Chevalier's color. This resemblance was, in truth, the circumstance on which Mr. Ezman's scheme was founded, and having secured Frank's secrecy and enthusiasm, he left him to continue his journey and see the other personages on whom its success depended. The place, whether Mr. Simone next traveled, was Barre in Lorraine, where that merchant arrived with a consignment of broadcloths, valuable laces for Malines, and letters for his correspondent there. Would you know how a Prince, heroic from misfortunes, and descended from a line of kings, whose race seemed to be doomed like the atre d'etre of old, would you know how he was employed, when the envoy who came to him through danger and difficulty beheld him for the first time? The young king, in a flannel jacket, was at tennis with the gentleman of his suite, crying out after the balls and swearing like the meanest of his subjects. The next time Mr. Ezman saw him, it was when Monsieur Simone took a packet of laces to Miss Oglethorpe, the Prince's anti-chamber, in those days at which ignoble doorman were forced to knock for admission to his majesty. The admission was given, the envoy found the king and the mistress together. The pair were at cards, and his majesty was in liquor. He cared more for three honours than three kingdoms, and a half dozen glasses of ratofia made him forget all his woes and his losses, his father's crown and his grandfather's head. Mr. Ezman did not open himself to the prince then. His majesty was scarce in a condition to hear him, and he doubted whether a king who drank so much could keep a secret in his fuddled head, or whether a hand that shook so was strong enough to grasp at a crown. However at last and after taking counsel with the prince's advisors, amongst whom were many gentlemen honest and faithful, Ezman's plan was laid before the king, and her actual majesty, Queen Oglethorpe, in counsel. The prince liked the scheme well enough, it was easy and daring and suited to his reckless gaiety and lively youthful spirit. In the morning after he had slept his wine off he was very gay, lively and agreeable. His manner had an extreme charm of archness and a kind simplicity, and to do her justice her Oglethorpean majesty was kind, acute, resolute and of good counsel. She gave the prince much good advice that he was too weak to follow and loved him with a fidelity which he returned with an ingratitude quite royal. Having his own forebodings regarding his scheme, should it ever be fulfilled, and his usual septic doubts as to the benefit which might accrue to the country by bringing a tipsy young monarch back to it, Colonel Ezman had his audience of leave and quiet. M. Simone took his departure. At any rate the youth at Bar was as good as the older pretender at Hanover. If the worst came to the worst the Englishman could be dealt with as easy as the German. M. Simone trotted on that long journey from Nancy to Paris and saw that famous town stealthily and like a spy, as in truth he was, and where sure more magnificence and more misery is heaped together, more rags and lace, more filth and gilding than in any city in this world. Here he was put in communication with the king's best friend, his half-brother, the famous Duke of Berwick. Ezman recognized him as the stranger who had visited Castlewood now nearly twenty years ago. His grace opened to him when he found that Mr. Ezman was one of Webb's brave regiment that had once been his grace's own. He was the sword and buckler indeed of the Stuart cause. There was no stain on his shield except the bar across it which Marlborough's sister left him. Had Berwick been his father's heir, James III had assuredly sat on the English throne. He could dare, endure, strike, speak, be silent. The fire and genius perhaps he had not, that were given to the baser men, but except these he had some of the best qualities of a leader. His grace knew Ezman's father and history, and hinted at the latter in such a way as made the Colonel to think he was aware of the particulars of that story. But Ezman did not choose to enter on it, nor did the Duke press him. Mr. Ezman said, no doubt he should come by his name if ever greater people came by theirs. What confirmed Ezman in his notion that the Duke of Berwick knew of his case was that when the Colonel went to pay his duty at St. Germain's, Her Majesty once addressed him by the title of Marquis. He took the Queen the dutiful remembrances of her goddaughter, and the lady whom in the days of her prosperity Her Majesty had befriended. The Queen remembered Rachel Ezman perfectly well, had heard of my Lord Castlewood's conversion, and was much edified by that act of heaven in his favour. She knew that others of that family had been of the only true church too. Your father and your mother, Emily Marquis, Her Majesty said, that was the only time she used the phrase, Mr. Simon bowed very low and said he had found other parents than his own, who had taught him differently. But these had only one king, on which Her Majesty was pleased to give him a medal blessed by the Pope, which had been found very efficacious in cases similar to his own, and to promise she would offer up prayers for his conversion and that of the family, which no doubt this pious lady did, though up to the present moment, and after twenty-seven years Colonel Ezman is bound to say that neither the medal nor the prayers have had the slightest known effect upon his religious convictions. As for the splendours of Versailles, Monsieur Simon, the merchant, only beheld him as a humble and distant spectator, seeing the old king but once, when he went to feed his carps and asking for no presentation at His Majesty's court. By this time my Lord Viscount Castlewood was got to Paris, where, as the London Prince presently announced, her ladyship was brought to bed of a sun and air. For a long while afterwards he was in a delicate state of health and ordered by the physicians not to travel. Otherwise it was well known that the Viscount Castlewood proposed returning to England and taking up his residence at his own seat. Whilst he remained at Paris, my Lord Castlewood had his picture done by the famous French painter Monsieur Regault, a present for his mother in London, and this piece Monsieur Simon took back with him when he returned to that city, which he reached about May in the year 1714, very soon after which time my Lady Castlewood and her daughter and their kinsmen, Colonel Esmond, who had been at Castlewood all this time, likewise returned to London. Her ladyship occupying her house at Kensington, Mr. Esmond returning to his lodgings at Knightsbridge near the town, and once more making his appearance at all public places, his health greatly improved by his long stay in the country. The portrait of my Lord in a handsome gilt frame was hung up in the place of honour in her ladyship's drawing-room. His lordship was represented in his scarlet uniform of Captain of the Guard, with a light brown periweg, a cura under his coat, a blue ribbon, and a fall of Bruxelles lace. Many of her ladyship's friends admired the piece beyond measure and flocked to see it. Bishop Atterbury, Mr. Leslie, good old Mr. Collier, and others amongst the clergy were delighted with the performance, and many among the first quality examined and praised it. Only I must own that Dr. Tussier happening to come up to London and seeing the picture. It was ordinarily covered by a curtain, but on this day Miss Beatrix happened to be looking at it when the doctor arrived. The vicar of Castlewood vowed he could not see any resemblance in the piece to his old pupil, except perhaps a little about the chin and the periweg. But we all of us convinced him that he had not seen Frank for five years or more, that he knew no more about the fine arts than a plow boy, and that he must be mistaken, and we sent him home assured that the piece was an excellent likeness. As for my Lord Bullingbroke, who honoured her ladyship with a visit occasionally, when Colonel Esmond showed him the picture he burst out laughing and asked what devilry he was engaged on, Esmond owned simply that the portrait was not that of Biscount Castlewood. He sought the secretary on his honour to keep the secret, said that the ladies of the house were enthusiastic Jacobites, as was well known, and confessed that the picture was that of the Chevalier St. George. The truth is that Mr. Simone, waiting upon Lord Castlewood one day at mature regaules whilst his lordship was sitting for his picture, affected to be much struck with a piece representing the Chevalier, whereof the head only was finished, and purchased it of the painter for a hundred crowns. It had been intended, the artist said, for Miss Oglethorpe, the Prince's mistress, but that young lady quitting Paris had left the work on the artist's hands, and taking this piece home when my Lord's portrait arrived, Colonel Esmond, alias Monsieur Simone, had copied the uniform and other accessories from my Lord's picture to fill up Regaules' incomplete canvas. The Colonel, all his life having been a practitioner of painting, and especially followed it during his long residence in the cities of Flanders, among the masterpieces of Van Dyck and Rubens, my grandson hath the piece, such as it is in Virginia now. At the commencement of the month of June, Miss Beatrix Esmond and my Lady Viscountess, her mother, arrived from Castlewood, the former to resume her services at court, which had been interrupted by the fatal catastrophe of Duke Hamilton's death. She once more took her place, then, in her Majesty's suite, and at the mage's table, being always a favourite with Mrs. Mosham, the Queen's chief woman, partly perhaps on account of their bitterness against the Duchess of Marlborough, whom Miss Beatrix loved no better than her rival did. The gentleman about the court, my Lord Bolingbroke, amongst others, owned that the young lady had come back handsomerer than ever, and that the serious and tragic air which her face now involuntarily wore became her better than her former smiles and archesness. All the old domestics at the little house of Kensington Square were changed. The old steward that had served the family any time these five and twenty years, since the birth of the children of the house, was dispatched into the Kingdom of Ireland to see my Lord's estate there, the housekeeper who had been my lady's woman time out of mind, and the attendant of the young children, was sent away grumbling to Walcote to see to the new painting and preparing of that house, which my Lady Dowager intended to occupy for the future, giving up Castlewood to her daughter-in-law that might be expected daily from France. Another servant the Viscountess had was dismissed, too, with the gratuity on the pretext that her ladyship's train of domestics must be diminished. So finally there was not left in the household a single person who had belonged to it during the time my young Lord Castlewood was yet at home. For the plan which Colonel Esmond had in view and the stroke he intended, it was necessary that this very smallest number of persons should be put in possession of his secret. Its scarce was known except a three or four out of his family, and it was kept to a wonder. On the 10th of June, 1714, there came by Mr. Pryor's messenger from Paris a letter from my Lord Viscount Castlewood to his mother, saying that he had been foolish in regard of money-matters, that he was ashamed to own he had lost at play and by other extravagances, and that instead of having great entertainments as he had hoped at Castlewood this year he must live as quiet as he could and make every effort to be saving. So far every word of poor Frank's letter was true, nor was there a doubt that he and his tall brothers-in-law had spent a great deal more than they ought and engaged the revenues of the Castlewood property which the fawn mother had husbanded and improved so carefully during the time of her guardianship. His quotilda, Castlewood went on to say, was still delicate and her physicians thought her lying in had best take place at Paris. He should come without her ladyship and be at his mother's house about the 17th or 18th of June, proposing to take horse from Paris immediately, and bringing but a single servant with him, and he requested that the lawyers of Grey's Inn might be invited to meet him with their account, and the land steward come from Castlewood with his so that he might settle with them speedily, raise a sum of money whereof he stood in need, and be back to his Viscountess by the time of her lying in. Then his lordship gave some of the news of the town, sent his remembrance to Kinsfolk, and so the letter ended. It was put in the common post, and no doubt the French police and the English there had a copy of it, to which they were exceeding welcome. Two days after another letter was dispatched by the public post of France in the same open way, and this, after giving news of the fashion at court there, ended by the following sentences, in which but for those that had the key it would be difficult for any man to find any secret lurked at all. The king will take medicine on Thursday. His majesty is better than he hath been of late, though incommodated by indigestion from his two great appetite. Madame Maintononne continues well. They have performed a play of mons, race seen at Saint's here. The Duke of Shrewsbury and Mr. Pryor, our envoy, and all the English nobility here were present at it. The Viscount Castlewood's passports were refused to him to have said, his lordship being sued by a goldsmith for his baissée plate, and a pearl necklace supplied to Mlle. Merure of the French comedy. To the pity such news should get abroad, and travel to England about our young nobility here, Mlle. Merure has been sent to the fort Eleve. They say she has ordered not only plate, but furniture, and a chariot, and horses, under that lord's name, of which extravagance his unfortunate Viscountess knows nothing. His majesty will be eighty-two years of age on his next birthday. The court prepares to celebrate it with a great feast. Mr. Pryor is in a sad way about their refusing at home to send him his plate. All here admired my lord Viscount's portrait, and said it was a masterpiece of regal. Have you seen it? It is, at the Lady Castlewood's house in Kensington Square. I think no English painter could produce such a piece. Our poorer friend, the Abbey, hath been at the Bastille, but is now transported to the Consurgere, where his friends may visit him. They are to ask for a remission of his sentence soon. Let us hope the poor rogue will have repented in prison. The Lord Castlewood has had the affair of the plate made up and departs for England. Is not this a dull letter? I have a cursed headache with drinking with Matt, and some more overnight and tipsy or sober and buying ever. All this letter, save some dozen of words which I have put above between brackets, was mere idle talk, though the substance of the letter was as important as any letter well could be. It told those that had the key that the king will take the Viscount Castlewood's passports and travel to England under that Lord's name. His Majesty will be at the Lady Castlewood's house in Kensington Square, where his friends may visit him. They are to ask for the Lord Castlewood. This note may have passed under Mr. Pryor's eyes, and those of our new allies, the French, and taught them nothing, though it explained sufficiently to persons in London what the event was which was about to happen, as to show those who read my memoirs a hundred years hence what was that errand on which Colonel Esmond, of late, had been busy. Silently and swiftly to do that about which others were conspiring, and thousands of Jacobites all over the country clumsily caballing, alone to affect that which the leaders here were only talking about. To bring the Prince of Wales into the country openly in the face of all, under Bullingbroke's very eyes, the walls placarded with the proclamation signed with the Secretary's name, and offering five hundred pounds, reward for his apprehension, this was a stroke, the playing and winning of which might well give any adventurous spirit pleasure. The loss of the stake might involve a heavy penalty, but all our family were eager to risk that for the glorious chance of winning the game. Nor shall it be called a game, say perhaps with the chief player who was not more or less skeptical than most public men with whom he had acquaintance in that age. Is there ever a public man in England that altogether believes in his party? Is there one, however doubtful, that will not fight for it? Young Frank was ready to fight without much thinking. He was a Jacobite as his father before him was. All the Esmonds were royalists. Give him but the word he would cry, God save King James, before the palace guard or at the maypole in the Strand, and with respect to the women, as a usual with them, it was not a question of party, but of faith. Their belief was a passion. Either Esmonds mistress or her daughter would have died for it cheerfully. I have laughed often talking of King William's reign, and said I thought Lady Castlewood was disappointed the King did not persecute the family more, and those who know the nature of women may fancy for themselves what needs not here be written down, the rapture with which these neophytes receive the mystery when made known to them, the eagerness with which they look forward to its completion, the reverence which they paid the minister who initiated them into that secret truth, now known only to a few, but presently to reign over the world. Sure, there is no bound to the trustiness of women. Look at Aria, worshiping the drunken Claude paid of a husband who beats her. Look at Cornelia, treasuring as a jewel in her maternal heart, the oaf, her son. I have known a woman preached Jeswick's bark, and afterwards Dr. Berkeley's tar-water, as though to swallow them were a divine decree, and to refuse them no better than blasphemy. On his return from France, Colonel Esmond put himself at the head of this little knot of fond conspirators. No death or torture he knew would frighten them out of their constant tendency. When he detailed his plan for bringing the king back, his elder mistress thought that the restoration was to be attributed under heaven to the Castlewood family and to its chief, and she worshipped and loved Esmond, if that could be more than ever she had done. She doubted not, for one moment, the success of his scheme, to mistrust which would have seemed impious in her eyes. And as for Beatrix, when she became acquainted with the plan, and joined it, as she did with all her heart, she gave Esmond one of her searching bright looks. Ah, Harry, says she, why were you not the head of our house? You are the only one fit to raise it. Why do you give that silly boy the name and the honour? But is so in the world. And she went away, shaking her head mournfully, but always it seemed to Esmond that her liking and respect for him was greatly increased, since she knew what capability he had both to act and bear, to do and to forego.