 Book 1 Chapter 9. I have the smallpox, and prepare to leave Castlewood. When Harry Esmond passed through the crisis of that malady, and returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered and rallied after the disease, and the lady his mother was down with it, with a couple more of the household. It was a providence, for which we all ought to be thankful, Dr. Tusher said, that my lady and her son were spared, while death carried off the poor domestics of the house, and rebuked Harry for asking, in his simple way, for which we ought to be thankful, that the servants were killed, or the gentle folks were saved. Nor could young Esmond agree, in the doctor's vehement protestations to my lady, when he visited her during her convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her charms, and had not been churl enough to injure the fair features of the vicountess of Castlewood. Whereas in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her ladyship's beauty was very much injured by the smallpox. When the marks of the disease cleared away, they did not, it is true, leave furrows or scars on her face, except one, perhaps, on her forehead over her left eyebrow. But the delicacy of her rosy color and complexion was gone. Her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her hair fell, and her face looked older. It was as if a coarse hand had rubbed off the delicate tints of that sweet picture, and brought it, as one has seen unskillful painting-cleaners do, to the dead color. Also it must be owned, that for a year or two after the malady, her ladyship's nose was swollen and redder. There would be no need to mention these trivialities, but that they actually influenced many lives. As trifles will in the world, where a gnat often plays a greater part than an elephant, and a mole-hill, as we know in King William's case, can upset an empire. In Tusher, in his courtly way, at which Harry Esmond always chafed and spoke scornfully, vowed and protested that my lady's face was none the worse, the lad broke out and said, It is worse, and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was. On which poor Lady Castlewood gave a rueful smile and a look into a little Venice glass she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass, and her eyes filled with tears. The sight of these in Esmond's heart always created a sort of rage of pity, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the young blunderer sank down on his knees, and besought her to pardon him, saying that he was a fool, and an idiot, that he was a brute to make such a speech, he who had caused her malady, and Dr. Tusher told him what a bear he was indeed, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor young Esmond was so dumb-stricken, that he did not even growl. He is my bear, and I will not have him baited, Dr.—my lady said, patting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at her feet. How your hair has come off, and mine too! she added with another sigh. It is not for myself that I cared, my lady said to Harry, when the parson had taken his leave. But am I very much changed? Alas! I feared his too true. Madam, you have the dearest and kindest and sweetest face in the world, I think, the lad said, and indeed he thought and thinks so. Will my lord think so when he comes back? The lady asked with a sigh, and another look at her venous glass. Suppose he should think as you do, sir, that I am hideous—yes, you said, hideous. He will cease to care for me. To his all men care for in women our little beauty. Why did he select me from among my sisters? It was only for that. We reign but for a day or two, and be sure that Voshti knew Esther was coming. Madam, said Mr. Esmond, a hosieress was the grand Turk, and to change was the manner of his country, and according to his law. You are all grand Turks for that matter, said my lady, or would be if you could. Come, Frank, come, my child, you are well praised be heaven. Your locks are not thinned by this dreadful smallpox, nor your poor face scarred, is it, my angel? Frank began to shout and whimper at the idea of such a misfortune. From the very earliest time the young lord had been taught to admire his beauty by his mother, and esteemed it as highly as any reigning toast valued hers. One day, as he himself was recovering from his fever and illness, a pang of something like shame shot across young Esmond's breast, as he remembered that he had never once during his illness given a thought to the poor girl at the smithy, whose red cheeks but a month ago he had been so eager to see. Poor Nancy! Her cheeks had shared the fate of roses, and were withered now. She had taken the illness on the same day with Esmond. She and her brother were both dead of the smallpox, and buried under the castle-wood yew-trees. There was no bright face looking now from the garden, or to tear the old smith at his lonely fireside. Esmond would have liked to have kissed her in her shroud, like the lass in Mr. Pryor's pretty poem, but she rested many a foot below the ground when Esmond, after his malady, first trod on it. Mr. Tusher brought the news of this calamity, about which Harry Esmond longed to ask but did not like. He said almost the whole village had been stricken with the pestilence. Seventeen persons were dead of it, among them mentioning the names of poor Nancy and her little brother. He did not fail to say how thankful we survivors ought to be. It being this man's business to flatter and make sermons, it must be owned he was most industrious in it, and was doing the one or the other all day. And so Nancy was gone, and Harry Esmond blushed that he had not a single tear for her, and fell to composing an elegy in Latin verses over the rustic little beauty. He bade the dryads mourn, and the river nymphs deplore her. As her father followed the calling of Vulcan, he said that surely she was like a daughter of Venus, though Severeit's wife was an ugly shrew, as he remembered to have heard afterwards. He made a long face, but in truth felt scarcely more sorrowful than a mute at a funeral. These first passions of men and women are mostly abortive, and are dead almost before they are born. And could repeat to his last day some of the doggerel lines in which his muse bewailed his pretty lass. Not without shame to remember how bad the verses were, and how good he thought them, how false the grief, and yet how he was rather proud of it. Tis an error, surely, to talk of the simplicity of youth. I think no persons are more hypocritical, and have a more affected behaviour to one another than the young. They deceive themselves and each other with artifices that do not impose upon men of the world. And so we get to understand truth better, and grow simpler as we grow older. When my lady heard of the fate which had befallen poor Nancy, she said nothing, so long as Tusher was by. But when he was gone she took Harry Esmond's hand and said, Harry, I beg your pardon for those cruel words I used on the night you were taken ill. I am shocked at the fate of the poor creature, and am sure that nothing had happened of that with which in my anger I charged you. And the very first day we go out you must take me to the blacksmith, and we must see if there is anything I can do to console the poor old man. Poor man, to lose both his children, what should I do without mine? And this was indeed the very first walk which my lady took, leaning on Esmond's arm after her illness. But her visit brought no consolation to the old father, and he showed no softness or desire to speak. The Lord gave and took away, he said, and he knew what his servant's duty was. He wanted for nothing, less now than ever before, as there were fewer mouths to feed. He wished her ladyship and Master Esmond good morning. He had grown tall in his illness, and was but very little marked, and with this and a surly bow he went in from the smithy to the house, leaving my lady somewhat silenced and shame-faced at the door. He had a handsome stone put up for his two children, which may be seen in Castlewood churchyard to this very day. And before a year was out his own name was upon the stone. In the presence of death that sovereign ruler, a woman's coquetry is seared, and her jealousy will hardly pass the boundaries of that grim kingdom. Tis entirely of the earth that passion, and expires in the cold blue air beyond our sphere. At length, when the danger was quite over, it was announced that my Lord and his daughter would return. Esmond Well remembered the day. The lady his mistress was in a flurry of fear before my Lord came. She went into her room, and returned from it with reddened cheeks. Her fate was about to be decided. Her beauty was gone. Was her reign too over? A minute would say. My Lord came riding over the bridge. He could be seen from the great window, clad in scarlet, and mounted on his gray hackney. His little daughter ambled by him in a bright riding dress of blue, on a shining chestnut horse. My lady leaned against the great mantelpiece, looking on, with one hand on her heart. She seemed only the more pale for those red marks on either cheek. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and withdrew it, laughing hysterically. The cloth was quite red with the rouge when she took it away. She ran to her room again, and came back with pale cheeks and red eyes. Her son in her hand, just as my Lord entered, accompanied by young Esmond, who had gone out to meet his protector, and to hold his stirrup as he descended from horseback. What, hairy boy! My Lord said, good-naturedly. You look as gaunt as a greyhound. The smallpox hasn't improved your beauty, and your side of the house hadn't never too much of it, ha-ho! Auntie laughed, and sprang to the ground with no small agility, looking handsome and red, within a jolly face and brown hair, like a beef-eater. Esmond kneeling again, as soon as his patron had descended, performed his homage, and then went to greet the little Beatrix, and help her from her horse. Why, how yellow you look! She said, and there are one, two red holes in your face! Which indeed was very true. Harry Esmond's harsh countenance bearing, as long as it continued to be a human face, the marks of the disease. My Lord laughed again in high good humor. Damn it! Said he, with one of his usual oaths. The little slutch sees everything. She saw the Dowager's paint to the other day, and asked her why she wore that red stuff, didn't you, Trix? And the tower, and St. James's, and the play, and the Prince George, and the Princess Anne, didn't you, Trix? They are both very fat, and smelt of brandy, the child said. The paw roared with laughing. Brandy, he said. And how do you know, Miss Pert? Because your lordship smells of it after supper when I embrace you before you go to bed. Said the young lady, who indeed was as Pert as her father said, and looked as beautiful a little gypsy as eyes ever gazed on. And now for my lady, said my lord, going up the stairs and passing under the tapestry curtain that hung before the drawing-oom door. Esmond remembered that noble figure, handsomely arrayed in scarlet. Within the last few months he himself had grown from a boy to be a man, and with his figure his thoughts had shot up and grown manly. My lady's countenance, of which Harry Esmond was accustomed to watch the changes, and with a solicitous affection to note and interpret the signs of gladness or care, wore a sad and depressed look for many weeks after her lord's return. During which it seemed as if, by caresses and in treaties, she strove to win him back from some ill-humour he had, and which he did not choose to throw off. In her eagerness to please him she practised a hundred of those arts which had formerly charmed him, but which seemed now to have lost their potency. Her songs did not amuse him, and she hushed them and the children when in his presence. My lord sat silent at his dinner, drinking greatly, his lady opposite to him, looking furtively at his face, though also speechless. Her silence annoyed him as much as her speech, and he would peevishly, and with an oath, ask her why she held her tongue and looked so glum, or he would roughly check her when speaking, and bid her not talk nonsense. It seemed as if, since his return, nothing she could do or say could please him. When a master and mistress are at strife in a house, the subordinates in the family take the one side or the other. Harry Esmond stood in so great fear of my lord, that he would run a league barefoot to do a message for him. But his attachment for Lady Esmond was such a passion of grateful regard, that to spare her a grief, or to do her a service, he would have given his life daily. And it was by the very depth and intensity of this regard, that he began to divine how unhappy his adored lady's life was, and that a secret care, for she never spoke of her anxieties, was weighing upon her. Can anyone, who has passed through the world and watched the nature of men and women there, doubt what had befallen her? I have seen, to be sure, some people carry down with them into old age the actual bloom of their youthful love, and I know that Mr. Thomas Parr lived to be a hundred and sixty years old. But for all that, three score and ten is the age of men, and few get beyond it, and to certain that a man who marries for mere beau-ye, as my lord did, considers this part of the contract at an end, when the woman ceases to fulfill hers, and his love does not survive her beauty. I know, to as often otherwise, I say, and can think, as most men in their own experience may, of many a house where, lighted in early years, the sainted lamp of love hath never been extinguished. But so there is, Mr. Parr, and so there is the great giant at the fair that is eight feet high, exceptions to men, and that poor lamp whereof I speak, that lights at first the nuptial chamber, is extinguished by a hundred winds and draughts down the chimney, or sputters out for want of feeding, and then, and then it is chloe, in the dark, stark awake, and struffan snoring unheeding, or vice versa, to his poor struffan that has married a heartless jilt, and awoke out of that absurd vision of conjugal felicity, which was to last for ever, and is over, like any other dream. One and other has made his bed, and so must lie in it, until that final day when life ends, and they sleep separate. About this time young Esmond, who had a knack of stringing verses, turned some of Ovid's epistles into rhymes, and brought them to his lady for her delectation. Those which treated of forsaken women touched her immensely. Harry remarked, and when Owenone called after Paris, and Medea Bade Jason come back again, the lady of Castlewood sighed, and said she thought that part of the verses was the most pleasing. She would have chopped up the dean, her old father, in order to bring her husband back again. But her beautiful Jason was gone, as beautiful Jason's will go, and the poor Enchantress had never a spell to keep him. My lord was only sulky as long as his wife's anxious face, or behavior seemed to upbraid him. When she had got to master these, and to show an outwardly cheerful countenance and behavior, her husband's good humor returned partially, and he swore and stormed no longer at dinner, but laughed sometimes, and yawned unrestrainedly, absenting himself often from home, inviting more company thither, passing the greater part of his days in the hunting field, or over the bottle as before. But with this difference, that the poor wife could no longer see now, as she had done formerly, the light of love kindled in his eyes. He was with her, but that flame was out, and that once welcome beacon no more shone there. What were this lady's feelings when forced to admit the truth whereof her foreboding glass had given her only two true warning, that within her beauty her reign had ended, and the days of her love were over? What does a seaman do in a storm if mast and rudder are carried away? He ships a jury-mast, and steers as he best can with an oar. What happens if your roof falls in a tempest? After the first stun of the calamity the sufferer starts up, grubs around to see that the children are safe, and puts them under a shed out of the rain. If the palace burns down, you take shelter in the barn. What man's life is not overtaken by one or more of these tornadoes that send us out of the course, and fling us on rocks to shelter as best we may? When Lady Castle would found that her great ship had gone down, she began as best she might after she had rallied from the effects of the loss, to put out small ventures of happiness, and hope for little gains and returns, as a merchant unchanged. Indokulis papariam pati, having lost his thousands, embarks a few guineas upon the next ship. She laid out her all upon her children, indulging them beyond all measure, as was inevitable, with one of her kindness of disposition, giving all her thoughts to their welfare, learning that she might teach them, and improving her own many natural gifts and feminine accomplishments, that she might impart them to her young ones. To be doing good for someone else is the life of most good women. They are exuberant of kindness, as it were, and must impart it to some one. She made herself a good scholar of French, Italian, and Latin, having been grounded in these by her father in her youth, hiding these gifts from her husband out of fear, perhaps that they should offend him, for my lord was no bookman, pitched and shod at the notion of learned ladies, and would have been angry that his wife could construe out of a Latin book of which he could scarce understand two words. Young Esmond was usher, or house-tutor, under her or over her as it might happen. During my lord's many absences, these school days would go on uninterruptedly. The mother and daughter learning with surprising quickness, the latter by fits and starts only, and as suited her wayward humor. As for the little lord, it must be owned that he took after his father in the matter of learning, like marbles and play, and the great horse and the little one which his father brought him, and on which he took him out hunting, a great deal better than Cordarius and Lily. Marshalled the village boys, and had a little court of them, already flogging them and domineering over them with a fine, imperious spirit, that made his father laugh when he beheld it, and his mother fondly warned him. To cook had a son, the woodman had two, the big lad at the Porter's Lodge took his cuffs and his orders. Dr. Tusher said he was a young nobleman of gallant spirit, and Harry Esmond, who was his tutor, and eight years his little lordship senior, had hard work sometimes to keep his own temper, and hold his authority over his rebellious little chief and kinsman. Within a couple of years after that calamity had befallen, which had robbed Lady Castlewood of a little, a very little, of her beauty, and her careless husband's heart, if the truth must be told, my lady had found not only that her reign was over, but that her successor was appointed, a princess of a noble house in Drury Lane, somewhere, who was installed and visited by my lord at the town eight miles off. Pudet Hayek Aprobria di Crei Nobis. A great change had taken place in her mind, which by struggles only known to herself, at least never mentioned to any one, and unsuspected by the person who caused the pain she endured, had been schooled into such a condition as she could not very likely have imagined possible a score of months since, before her misfortunes had begun. She had oldened in that time as people do, who suffer silently great mental pain, and learned much that she had never suspected before. She was taught by that bitter teacher, misfortune. A child the mother of other children, but two years back her lord was a god to her. His words her law. His smile her sunshine. His lazy commonplaces listened to too eagerly, as if they were words of wisdom. All his wishes and freaks obeyed with a servile devotion. She had been my lord's chief slave and blind worshiper. Some women bear farther than this, and submit not only to neglect, but to unfaithfulness too. But here this lady's allegiance had failed her. Her spirit rebelled and disowned any more obedience. First she had to bear in secret the passion of losing the adored object. Then to get further initiation, and to find this worshipped being was but a clumsy idol. Then to admit the silent truth, that it was she was superior, and not the monarch her master, that she had thoughts which his brains could never master, and was the better of the two. It separate from my lord, although tied to him, and bound, as almost all people, save a very happy few, to work all her life alone. My lord sat in his chair, laughing his laugh, cracking his joke, his face flushing with wine, my lady in her place over against him. He never suspecting that his superior was there. In the calm, resigned lady, cold of manner, with downcast eyes. When he was merry in his cups, he would make jokes about her coldness, and— Damn it! Now my lady is gone, we will have to their bottle! He would say. He was frank enough in telling his thoughts, such as they were. There was little mystery about my lord's words or actions. His fair Rosamond did not live in a labyrinth, like the lady of Mr. Addison's opera, but paraded with painted cheeks and a tipsy retinue in the country town. Had she a mind to be revenged, Lady Castlewood could have found the way to her rival's house easily enough, and if she had come with bowl and dagger, would have been routed off the ground by the enemy with a volley of billings-gate, which the fair person always kept by her. Meanwhile, it has been said that for Harry Esmond his benefactress's sweet face had lost none of its charms. It had always the kindest of looks and smiles for him. Trials not so gay and artless perhaps, as those which Lady Castlewood had formerly worn, when a child herself, playing with her children, her husband's pleasure and authority were all she thought of. But out of her griefs and cares, as will happen I think when these trials fall upon a kindly heart, and are not too unbearable, grew up a number of thoughts and excellences which had never come into existence, had not her sorrow and misfortunes engendered them. Sure, occasion is the father of most that is good in us, and as you have seen the awakened fingers and clumsy tools of a prisoner cut and fashion the most delicate little pieces of carved work, or achieve the most prodigious underground labours, and cut through walls of masonry, and saw iron bars and fetters, tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life, but for the circumstance which gave them a being. Twas after Jason left her no doubt, Lady Castlewood once said, with one of her smiles to young Esmond, who was reading to her a version of certain lines out of Euripides, that Medea became a learned woman and a great enchantress, and she could conjure the stars out of heaven, the young tutor added, but she could not bring Jason back again. What do you mean?" asked my lady, very angry. Indeed I mean nothing," said the other, save what I've read in books. What should I know about such matters? I have seen no woman save you and little Beatrix, and the parson's wife and my late mistress, and your ladyship's woman here. The men who wrote your books," says my lady, your horuses and ovates and virgals, as far as I know of them, all thought ill of us, as all the heroes they wrote about used us basely. We were bred to be slaves always, and even of our own times. As you are still the only law-givers, I think our sermons seem to say that the best woman is she who bears her master's chains most gracefully. It is a pity there are no nunneries permitted by our church. Beatrix and I would fly to one, and end our days in peace there away from you. "'And is there no slavery in a convent?' says Esmond. "'At least if women are slaves there no one sees them,' answered the lady. They don't work in street gangs with the public to jeer them. But if they suffer, suffer in private. Here comes my lord, home from hunting. Take away the books. My lord does not love to see them. Lessons are over for to-day, Mr. Tudor." And with a curtsy and a smile she would end this sort of colloquy. Indeed, Mr. Tudor, as my lady called Esmond, had now business enough on his hands in Castlewood House. He had three pupils, his lady and her two children, at whose lessons she would always be present, besides writing my lord's letters and arranging his accounts for him, when these could be got from Esmond's indolent patron. Of the pupils the two young people were but lazy scholars, and as my lady would admit no discipline, such as was then in use, my lord's son only learned what he liked, which was but little, and never to his life's end could be got to construe more than six lines of Virgil. Miss Beatrix chattered French pritally, from a very early age, and sang sweetly. But this was from her mother's teaching, not Harry Esmond's, who could scarce distinguish between green-sleeves and Lily Bolero, although he had no greater delight in life than to hear the ladies sing. When he sees them now, will he ever forget them? As they used to sit together of the summer evenings, the two golden heads over the page, the child's little hand, and the mother's beating the time, with their voices rising and falling in unison. But if the children were careless, it was a wonder how eagerly the mother learned from her young tutor, and taught him too. The happiest instinct of faculty was this ladies, a faculty for discerning latent beauties and hidden graces of books, especially books of poetry, as in a walk she would spy out field-flowers and make posies of them, such as no other hand could. She was a critic, not by reason, but by feeling, the sweetest commentator of those books they read together, and the happiest hours of young Esmond's life, perhaps, were those passed in the company of this kind mistress and her children. These happy days were to end soon, however, and it was by the Lady Castlewood's own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It happened about Christmas time, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen years of age, that his old comrade, adversary, and friend, Tom Tusher, returned from his school in London, a fair, well-grown and sturdy lad, who was about to enter college, with an exhibition from his school and a prospect of after promotion in the church. Tom Tusher's talk was of nothing but Cambridge now, and the boys, who were good friends, examined each other eagerly about their progress in books. Tom had learned some Greek and Hebrew, besides Latin, in which he was pretty well skilled, and also had given himself to mathematical studies under his father's guidance, who was a proficient in those sciences of which Esmond knew nothing. Nor could he write Latin so well as Tom, though he could talk it better, having been taught by his dear friend, the Jesuit father, for whose memory the lad ever retained the warmest affection, reading his books, keeping his swords clean in the little crypt where the father had shown them to Esmond on the night of his visit, and often of a night sitting in the chaplain's room, which he inhabited over his books, his verses, and rubbish, with which the lad occupied himself. He would look up at the window, thinking he wished it might open and let in the good father. He had come and passed away like a dream. But for the swords and books Harry might almost think the father was an imagination of his mind, and for two letters which had come to him, one from a rod, full of advice and affection, another soon after he had been confirmed by the Bishop of Hexton in which Father Holt deplored his falling away. But Harry Esmond felt so confident now of his being in the right, and of his own powers as a cause-wist, that he thought he was able to face the father himself in argument and possibly convert him. To work upon the faith of her young pupil, Esmond's kind mistress sent to the library of her father the dean, who had been distinguished in the disputes of the late King's reign, and, an old soldier now, had hung up his weapons of controversy. These he took down from his shelves willingly for young Esmond, whom he benefited by his own personal advice and instruction. It did not require much persuasion to induce the boy to worship with his beloved mistress. And the good old non-juring dean flattered himself with a conversion which, in truth, was owing to a much gentler and fairer persuader. Under her ladyship's kind eyes, my lords being sealed in sleep pretty generally, Esmond read many volumes of the works of the famous British divines of the last age, and was familiar with Wake and Sherlock, with Stillingfleet and Patrick. His mistress never tired to listen or to read, to pursue the texts with fond comments, to urge those points which her fancy dwelt on most, or her reason deemed most important. Since the death of her father the dean, this lady hath admitted a certain latitude of theological reading which her orthodox father would never have allowed. His favorite writers appealing more to reason and antiquity than to the passions or imaginations of their readers, so that the works of Bishop Taylor, Nay, those of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Law, have in reality found more favor with my Lady Castlewood than the severer volumes of our great English schoolmen. In later life, at the university, Esmond reopened the controversy and pursued it in a very different manner, when his patrons had determined for him that he was to embrace the ecclesiastical life. But though his mistress's heart was in this calling, his own never was much. After that first fervor of simple devotion, which his beloved Jesuit priest had inspired in him, speculative theology took but little hold upon the young man's mind. When his early credulity was disturbed, and his saints and virgins taken out of his worship to rank little higher than the divinities of Olympus, his belief became acquiescence rather than ardor, and he made his mind up to assume the cassock and bands, as another man does to wear a breastplate and jack boots, or to mount a merchant's desk for a livelihood, and from obedience and necessity rather than from choice. There were scores of such men in Esmond's time at the universities, who were going to the church with no better calling than his. When Thomas Tusher was gone, a feeling of no small depression and disquiet fell upon young Esmond, of which, though he did not complain, his kind mistress must have divined the cause, for soon after she showed not only that she understood the reason of Harry's melancholy, but could provide a remedy for it. Her habit was thus to watch, unobservedly, those to whom duty or affection bound her, and to prevent their designs or to fulfill them, when she had the power. It was this lady's disposition to think kindnesses and devise silent bounties, and to scheme benevolence for those about her. We take such goodness for the most part, as if it was our due. The marries who bring ointment for our feet get but little thanks. Some of us never feel this devotion at all, or are moved by it to gratitude or acknowledgment. Others only recall it years after, when the days are past in which those sweet kindnesses were spent on us, and we offer back our return for the debt by a poor, tardy payment of tears. Then forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past. O so bright and clear, O so longed for! Then forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past, O so bright and clear, O so longed after! Because they are out of reach, as holiday music from within side a prison wall, or sunshine seen through the bars, more prized because unattainable, more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape. All the notice then, which Lady Castlewood seemed to take of Harry Esmond's melancholy upon Tom Tushar's departure, was by a gaiety unusual to her to attempt to dispel his gloom. She made his three scholars, herself being the Chief One, more cheerful than ever they had been before, and more docile, too, all of them learning and reading much more than they had been accustomed to do. For, who knows, said the Lady, what may happen, and whether we may be able to keep such a learned tutor long? Frank Esmond, said he, for his part, did not want to learn any more, and Cousin Harry might shut up his book whenever he liked, if he would come out of fishing, and little Beatrix declared she would send for Tom Tushar, and he would be glad enough to come to Castlewood if Harry chose to go away. At last comes a messenger from Winchester one day, bearer of a letter, with a great black seal, from the Dean there, to say that his sister was dead, and had left her fortune of two thousand pounds among her six nieces, the Dean's daughters. And many a time since, has Harry Esmond recalled the flushed face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind Lady regarded him. She did not pretend to any grief about the deceased relative, from whom she and her family had been many years parted. When my Lord heard of the news, he also did not make any very long face. The money will come very handy to furnish the music room and the cellar, which is getting low, and buy your ladyship a coach, and a couple of horses that will do indifferent to ride or for the coach. And B. Tricks, you shall have a spinnet, and Frank, you shall have a little horse from Hexton Fair, and Harry, you shall have five pounds to buy some books. Said my Lord, who was generous with his own, and indeed with other folks' money. I wish your aunt would die once a year, Rachel. We could spend your money, and all your sisters, too. I have but one aunt, and— And I have another use for the money, my Lord, says my Lady, turning very red. Another use, my dear, and what do you know about money, cries my Lord, and what the devil is there that I don't give you which you want. I intend to give this money. Can't you fancy how, my Lord? My Lord swore, one of his large oaths, that he did not know, in the least, what she meant. I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. "'Cuz in Harry,' says my Lady, "'you mustn't stay longer in this dull place, but make a name to yourself, and for us, too, Harry.' "'Damn it! Harry's well enough here,' says my Lord, for a moment looking rather sulky. Is Harry going away? You don't mean to say you will go away?' cry out Frank and Beatrix at one breath. But he will come back, and this will always be his home, cries my Lady, with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness, and his scholars will always love him, won't they? "'By God, Rachel, you're a good woman,' says my Lord, seizing my Lady's hand, at which she blushed very much, and shrank back, putting her children before her. "'I wish you joy,' my kinsman,' he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "'I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy, and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if you are not better provided by that time. You'll furnish the dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out of the stable. Take any one except my hack and the bagelding and the coat-horses. And God speed thee, my boy!' "'Have the sorrel, Harry, tis a good one. Father says tis the best in the stable,' says little Frank, clapping his hands and jumping up. Let's come and see him in the stable. And the other, in his delight and eagerness, was for leaving the room that instant to arrange about his journey. The Lady Castlewood looked after him with sad penetrating glances. "'He wishes to be gone already, my Lord,' said she, to her husband. The young man hung back, abashed, "'Indeed, I would stay forever if your ladyship bade me,' he said. And thou wouldst be a fool for thy pains, kinsman,' said my Lord. "'Tot-tot, man, go and see the world. So thy wild oats, and take the best luck that fate sends thee. I wish I were a boy again, that I might go to college, and taste the trumpington ale.' "'Hours, indeed, is but a dull home,' cries my Lady, with a little of sadness and maybe of satire in her voice. An old glum house, half ruined, and the rest only half furnished. A woman and two children are but poor company, for men that are accustomed to better. We are only fit to be your worship's handmaids, and your pleasures must of necessity lie elsewhere than at home.' "'Curse me, Rachel. If I know now whether thou art in earnest or not,' said my Lord. "'In earnest,' my Lord,' says she, still clinging by one of her children. Is there much subject here for joke?' And she made him a grand curtsy, and giving a stately look to Harry Esmond, which seemed to say, "'Remember, you understand me, though he does not.' She left the room with her children. As she found out that confounded Hexton business, my Lord said, and behanged to them that told her, she has not been the same woman. She, who used to be as humble as a milkmaid, is as proud as a princess, says my Lord. Take my counsel, Harry Esmond, and keep clear of women. Since I have had anything to do with the jades, they have given me nothing but disgust. I had a wife at Tangier, with whom, as she couldn't speak a word of my language, you'd have thought I might lead a quiet life. But she tried to poison me, because she was jealous of a Jew girl. There was your aunt, for aunt she is—aunt Jezebel—a pretty life your father led with her. And here's my lady. When I saw her on a pillion, riding behind the dean her father, she looked, and was, such a baby, that a six-penny doll might have pleased her. And now you see what she is. Hands off, hidey-tidey, high and mighty, an empress couldn't be grander. Pass us the tankard, Harry, my boy. A mug of beer and a toast at Morn, says my host. A toast and a mug of beer at noon, says my dear. Damn it! Polly loves a mug of ale, too, and laced with brandy by Jove. Indeed, I suppose they drank it together, for my lord was often thick in his speech at midday dinner, and at night at supper, speechless, altogether. Harry Esmond's departure resolved upon. It seemed as if the lady, Castlewood, too, rejoiced to lose him. For more than once, when the lad, ashamed perhaps at his own secret eagerness to go away, at any rate stricken with sadness at the idea of leaving those from whom he had received so many proofs of love and kindness inestimable, tried to express to his mistress his sense of gratitude to her, and his sorrow at quitting those who had so sheltered and tended a nameless and houseless orphan. Indeed, Castlewood cut short his protests of love and his lamentations, and would hear of no grief, but only look forward to Harry's fame and prospects in life. Our little legacy will keep you for four years like a gentleman. Heaven's providence, your own genius, industry, honor, must do the rest for you. Castlewood will always be a home for you, and these children, whom you have taught and loved, will not forget to love you. And Harry, said she, and this was the only time when she spoke with a tear in her eye, or a tremor in her voice. It may happen, in the course of nature, that I shall be called away from them, and their father, and they will need true friends and protectors. Promise me that you will be true to them as, as I think I have been to you, and a mother's fond prayer and blessing go with you. So help me, God, madam, I will, said Harry Esmond, falling on his knees, and kissing the hand of his dearest mistress. If you will have me stay now, I will. What matters whether or no I make my way in life, or whether a poor bastard dies as unknown as he is now, tis enough that I have your love and kindness surely, and to make you happy is duty enough for me. Happy, says she, but indeed I ought to be, with my children, and— Not happy, cried Esmond, for he knew what her life was, though he and his mistress never spoke a word concerning it. If not happiness, it may be ease. Let me stay, and work for you. Let me stay, and be your servant. Indeed, you are best away, said my lady, laughing, as she put her hand on the boy's head for a moment. You shall stay in no such dull place. You shall go to college, and distinguish yourself as becomes your name. That is how you shall please me best, and— And if my children want you, or I want you, you shall come to us, and I know we may count on you. May heaven forsake me, if you may not, Harry said, getting up from his knee. And my night longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight, said my lady, laughing. Which speech made Harry Esmond start, and turn red? For indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like that some chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his devotion. And it pleased him to think that his lady had called him her night. And often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed that he might be her true night, too. My lady's bed-chamber window looked out over the country, and you could see from it the purple hills beyond Castlewood Village. The green common betwixt that and the hall, and the old bridge which crossed over the river. When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran alongside his horse as far as the bridge. And there Harry stopped for a moment, and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had been passed. It lay before him, with its gray familiar towers, a pinnacle or two shining in the sun, the buttresses and terraced walls casting great blue shades on the grass. And Harry remembered, all his life after, how he saw his mistress at the window, looking out on him in a white robe, the little Beatrix's chestnut curls resting at her mother's side. Both waved farewell to him, and little Frank sobbed to leave him. Yes, he would be his lady's true night. He vowed in his heart. He waved her an adieu with his hat. The village people had good-bye to say to him, too. All knew that Master Harry was going to college, and most of them had a kind word and a look of farewell. I do not stop to say what adventures he began to imagine, or what career to devise for himself before he had ridden three miles from home. He had not read Monsieur Galan's ingenious Arabian tales as yet. But be sure that there are other folks who build castles in the air, and have fine hopes, and kick them down, too, besides Honest Al-Naskar. End of Book 1, Chapter 9. Book 1, Chapter 10 of the History of Henry Esmond Esquire by William Makepeace 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 Esmond Esquire by William Makepeace Thackeray. Book 1, Chapter 10. I go to Cambridge, and do but little good there. My lord, who said he should like to revisit the old haunts of his youth, kindly accompanied Harry Esmond in his first journey to Cambridge. Their road lay through London, where my lord Viscount would also have Harry stay a few days to show him the pleasures of the town before he entered upon his university studies, and whilst here Harry's patron conducted the young man to my lady Dowager's house at Chelsea near London. The kind lady at Castlewood, having specially ordered that the young gentleman and the old should pay a respectful visit in that quarter. Her ladyship, the Viscountess Dowager, occupied a handsome new house in Chelsea with a garden behind it and facing the river, always a bright and animated sight with its swarms of sailors, chargers, and warries. Harry laughed at recognizing in the parlor the well-remembered old piece of Sir Peter Lelley, wherein his father's widow was represented as a virgin huntress, armed with a gilt bow and arrow, and encumbered only with that small quantity of drapery which it would seem the virgins in King Charles Day were accustomed to wear. My lady Dowager had left off this peculiar habit of huntress when she married. But though she was now considerably past sixty years of age, I believe she thought that airy nymph of the picture could still be easily recognized in the venerable personage who gave an audience to Harry and his patron. She received the young man with even more favor than she showed to the elder, for she chose to carry on the conversation in French in which my Lord Castlewood was no great proficient and expressed her satisfaction at finding that Mr. Esmond could speak fluently in that language. It was the only one fit for polite conversation, she condescended to say, and suitable to persons of high breeding. My Lord laughed afterwards as the gentleman went away at his kin's woman's behavior. He said he remembered the time when she could speak English fast enough, and joked in his jolly way at the loss he had had of such a lovely wife as that. My lady Viscountess Dane, to ask his lordship news of his wife and children, she had heard that Lady Castlewood had had the smallpox. She hoped she was not so very much disfigured as people said. At this remark about his wife's malady, my Lord Viscount winched and turned red, but the dowager, in speaking of the disfigurement of the young lady, turned to her looking glass and examined her old wrinkled countenance in it with such a grin of satisfaction that it was all her guests could do to refrain from laughing in her ancient face. She asked Harry what his profession was to be, and my Lord saying that the lad was to take orders and have the living of Castlewood when Old Doctor Tussier vacated it, she did not seem to show any particular anger at the notion of Harry's becoming a Church of England clergyman. Naye was rather glad than otherwise that the youth should be so provided for. She bade Mr. Esmond not to forget to pay her a visit whenever he passed through London, and carried her graciousness so far as to send a purse with twenty guineas for him to the tavern at which my Lord put up, the Greyhound in Sharing Cross. And along with this welcome gift for her kinsman she sent a little doll for a present to my Lord's little daughter, Beatrix, who was growing beyond the age of dolls by this time, and was as tall almost as her venerable relative. After seeing the town and going to the place, my Lord Castlewood and Esmond rode together to Cambridge, spending two pleasant days upon the journey. Those rapid new coaches were not established yet that performed the whole journey between London and the University in a single day. However, the road was pleasant and short enough to Harry Esmond, and he always gratefully remembered that happy holiday which his kind patron gave him. Mr. Esmond was entered a pensioner of Trinity College in Cambridge, to which famous college my Lord had also in his youth belonged. Dr. Montague was master at this time, and received my Lord Viscount with great politeness. So did Mr. Bridge, who was appointed to be Harry's tutor. Tom Tussier, who was of Immanuel College, and was by this time a junior saw, came to wait upon my Lord and to take Harry under his protection, in comfortable rooms being provided for him in the great court close by the gate and near to the famous Mr. Newton's lodgings. Harry's patron took leave of him with many kind words and blessings and an admonition to him to behave better at the University than my Lord himself had ever done. It is needless in these memoirs to go at any length into the particulars of Harry Esmond's college career. It was like that of a hundred young gentlemen of that day. But he had the ill fortune to be older by a couple of years than most of his fellow students, and by his previous solitary mode of bringing up the circumstances of his life and the peculiar thoughtfulness in melancholy that had naturally engendered, he was in a great measure cut off from the society of comrades who were much younger and higher-spirited than he. His tutor, who had bowed down to the ground as he walked my Lord over the college grass-plats, changed his behavior as soon as the nobleman's back was turned, and was, at least Harry thought so, harsh and overbearing. When the lads used to assemble in their greetious sin hall, Harry found himself alone in the midst of that little flock of boys. They raised a great laugh at him when he was set on to read Latin, which he did with the foreign pronunciation taught to him by his old master, the Jesuit, than which he knew no other. Mr. Bridge as the tutor made him the object of clumsy jokes in which he was fond of indulging. The young man's spirit was chafed, and his vanity mortified, and he found himself for some time as lonely in this place as every had been at Castlewood, wither he longed to return. His birth was a source of shame to him, and he fancied a hundred slights and sneers from young and old who, no doubt, had treated him better had he met them himself, more frankly. And as he looks back in calmer days upon this period of his life, which he thought so unhappy, he can see that his own pride and vanity caused no small part of the mortifications which he attributed to others ill-will. The world deals good-naturedly with good-natured people, and I never knew a sulky, misanthropist too quarreled with it, but it was he and not it that was in the wrong. Tom Tussier gave Harry plenty of good advice on this subject, for Tom had both good sense and good humor. But Mr. Harry chose to treat his senior with a great deal of superfluous disdain and absurd scorn, and would by no means part from his darling injuries in which, very likely, no man believed but himself. As for Honest Doctor Bridge the Tutter found, after a few trials of wit with the pupil, that the young man was an ugly subject for wit, and that the laugh was often turned against him. This did not make Tutter and Pupil any better friends, but had, so far, an advantage for Esmond that Mr. Bridge was induced to leave him alone, and so long as he kept his chapels and did the college exercises required of him, Bridge was content not to see Harry's glum face in his class and to leave him to read and sulk for himself in his own chamber. A poem or two in Latin and English, which were pronounced to have some merit and a Latin oration, for Mr. Esmond could write that language better than pronounce it, got him a little reputation both with the authorities of the university and amongst the young men with whom he began to pass for more than he was worth. A few victories over their common enemy, Mr. Bridge, made them incline towards him, and look upon him as the champion of their order against the seniors. Such of the lads as he took into his confidence found him not so gloomy and haughty as his appearance led them to believe. And Don DiSmalo, as he was called, became presently a person of some little importance in his college, and was, as he believed, set down by the seniors there as rather a dangerous character. Don DiSmalo was a staunch young Jacobite, like the rest of his family, gave himself many absurd heirs of loyalty, used to invite young friends to Burgundy and give the king's health on King James' birthday, wore black on the day of his abdication, fasted on the anniversary of King William's coronation, and performed a thousand absurd antics of which he smiles now to think. These follies caused many remonstrances on Tom Toucher's part, who was always a friend to the powers that be as Esmond was always in opposition to them. Tom was a wig, while Esmond was a tory. Tom never missed a lecture and kept the proctor with the profoundest of bows. No wonder he sighed over Harry's insubordinate courses and was angry when the others laughed at him. But that Harry was known to have my Lord Viscount's protection, Tom no doubt would have broken with him altogether. But honest Tom never gave up a comrade as long as he was the friend of a great man. This was not out of scheming on Tom's part, but a natural inclination towards the great. It was no hypocrisy in him to flatter, but the bent of his mind which was always perfectly good-humored, obliging, and servile. Harry had very liberal allowances for his dear mistress of Castlewood not only regularly supplied him, but the Dowager of Chelsea made her donation annual, and received Esmond at her house near London every Christmas. But in spite of these benefactions Esmond was constantly poor, whilst was a wonder with how small a stipend from his father Tom Tusher contrived to make a good figure. It is true that Harry both spent, gave, and lent his money very freely, which Thomas never did. I think he was like the famous Duke of Marlborough in this instance, who, getting a present of fifty pieces when a young man from some foolish woman who fell in love with his good looks, showed the money to Cadigan in a drawer-scores of year's laughter, where it had lain ever since he had sold his beardless honour to procure it. I do not mean to say that Tom ever let out his good looks so profitably. For nature had not endowed him with any particular charms of person, and he ever was a pattern of moral behaviour, losing no opportunity of giving the very best advice to his younger comrade, with which article to do him justice he parted very freely. Not but that he was a merry fellow too in his way. He loved a joke, if by good fortune he understood it, and took his share generously of a bottle if another paid for it, and especially if there was a young lord in company to drink it. In these cases there was not a harder drinker in the university than Mr. Tusher could be, and it was edifying to behold him, fresh-shaved and with smug face singing out, "'Amen!' at every chapel in the morning. In his reading poor Harry permitted himself to go a-gatting after all the nine muses, and so very likely had but little favour from any one of them. Whereas Tom Tusher, who had no more turn for poetry than a plow-boy, nevertheless by a dogged perseverance and obsequiousness in courting the divine Calliope, got himself a prize, and some credit in the university and a fellowship at his college as a reward for his scholarship. In this time of Mr. Edmund's life he got the little reading which he ever could boast of, and passed a good part of his days greedily devouring all the books on which he could lay hand. In this desultory way the works of most of the English, French, and Italian poets came under his eyes, and he had a smattering of the Spanish tongue likewise, besides the ancient languages of which at least of Latin he was a tolerable master. Then about midway in his university career he fell to reading for the profession to which world he prudence rather than inclination called him, and was perfectly bewildered in the theological controversy. In the course of his reading, which was neither pursued with that seriousness or that devout mind which such a study requires, the youth found himself at the end of one month a papest and was about to proclaim his faith, the next month a protestant with Chillingworth, and the third a septic with Hobbes and Bale, where as honest Tom Tusher never permitted his mind astray out of the prescribed university path, accepted the thirty-nine articles with all his art, and would have signed and sworn to other nine and thirty with the entire obedience. Harry's willfulness in this matter, and disorderly thoughts and conversation so shocked and deflected his senior that there grew up a coldness and distrangement between them, so that they became scarce more than mere acquaintances from having been intimate friends when they came to college first. Politics ran high too at the university, and here also the young men were at variance. Tom professed himself, albeit a high churchman, a strong King Williams man, whereas Harry brought his family Tory politics to college with him, to which he must add a dangerous admiration for Oliver Cromwell, whose side, or King James by turns he often chose to take in the disputes which the young gentlemen used to hold in each other's rooms, where they debated on the state of the nation, crowned and deposed kings, and toasted past and present heroes and beauties in flagans of college ale. Thus, either from the circumstances of his birth, or the natural melancholy of his disposition, Esmond came to live very much by himself during his stay at the university, having neither ambition enough to distinguish himself in the college career, nor caring to mingle with the mere pleasures and boyish frolics of the students who were, for the most part, two or three years younger than he. He fancied that the gentlemen of the common room of his college cited him on account of his birth, and hence kept aloof from their society. It may be that he made the ill will which he imagined came from them by his own behavior, which, as he looked back on it in afterlife, he now seized was morose and haughty. At any rate, he was as tenderly grateful for kindness as he was susceptible of slight and wrong, and lonely as he was generally, yet had one or two very warm friendships for his companions of those days. One of these was a queer gentleman that resided in the university, though he was no member of it, and was the professor of a science scarce recognized in the common course of college education. This was a French refugee officer who had been driven out of his native country at the time of the Protestant persecutions there, and who came to Cambridge where he taught the science of the small sword and set up a saloon of arms. Though he declared himself a Protestant, T'was said Mr. Moreau was a Jesuit in disguise. Indeed, he brought very strong recommendations to the Tory party, which was pretty strong in that university, and very likely was one of the many agents whom King James had in this country. Esmond found this gentleman's conversation very much more agreeable and to his taste in the talk of the college divines in the common room. He never worried of Moreau's stories of the wars of Turin and Condi, in which he had borne a part, and being familiar with the French tongue from his youth and in a place where but few spoke it, his company became very agreeable to the brave old professor of arms, whose favourite pupil he was, and who made Mr. Esmond a very tolerable proficient in the noble science of Escrime. At the next term Esmond was to take his degree a bachelor of arts, and afterwards in proper season to assume the cassock and bands which his fawn mistress would have him wear. Tom Toucher himself was a parson and a fellow of his college by this time, and Harry felt that he would very gladly cede his right to the living of Castlewood to Tom, and that his own calling was in no way to the pulpit. But as he was bound before all things in the world to his dear mistress at home, and knew that a refusal on his part would grieve her, he determined to give her no hint of his unwillingness to the clerical office, and it was in this unsatisfactory mood of mind that he went to spend the last vacation he should have at Castlewood before he took orders. The History of Henry Esmond Esquire by William Makepeace Thackeray Book 1, Chapter 11. I come home for a holiday to Castlewood and find a skeleton in the house. At his third long vacation Esmond came as usual to Castlewood, always feeling an eager thrill of pleasure when he found himself once more in the house where he had passed so many years and beheld the kind familiar eyes of his mistress looking upon him. She and her children, out of whose company she scarce ever saw him, came to greet him. Miss Beatrix was grown so tall that Harry did not quite know whether he might kiss her or no, and she blushed and held back when he offered that salutation, though she took it and even courted it when they were alone. The young Lord was shooting up to be like his gallant father in look, though with his mother's kind eyes. The Lady of Castlewood herself seemed grown too since Harry saw her, in her look more stately, in her person fuller, in her face still as ever most tender and friendly, a greater air of command and decision than had appeared in that guileless sweet countenance which Harry remembered so gratefully. The tone of her voice was so much deeper and sadder when she spoke and welcomed him that it quite startled Esmond who looked up at her surprised as she spoke when she withdrew her eyes from him, nor did she ever look at him afterwards when his own eyes were gazing upon her. A something hinting at grief and secret and filling his mind with alarm undefinable seemed to speak with that low thrilling voice of hers and look out of those clear sad eyes. Her greeting to Esmond was so cold that it almost pained the lad who would have liked to fall on his knees and kiss the skirt of her robe so fond and ardent was his respect and regard for her, and he faltered in answering the questions which she, hesitating on her side, began to put to him. Was he happy at Cambridge? Did he study too hard? She hoped not. He had grown very tall and looked very well. He has got a mustache, cries out Master Esmond. Why does he not wear a peruque like my Lord Mohan asked Miss Beatrix? My Lord says that nobody wears their own hair. I believe you will have to occupy your old chamber says my lady. I hope the housekeeper has got it ready. Why Mama, you have been there ten times these three days yourself, exclaims Frank, and she cut some flowers which you planted in my garden. Do you remember ever so many years ago when I was quite a little girl, cries out Miss Beatrix on tiptoe, and Mama put them in your window. I remember when you grew well after you were ill, that you used to like roses, said the lady, blushing like one of them. They all conducted Harry Esmond to his chamber, the children running before Harry, walking by his mistress hand in hand. The old room had been ornamented and beautified, not a little, to receive him. The flowers were in the window in a china vase, and there was a fine new counterpane on the bed, which chatterbox Beatrix said Mama had made too. A fire was crackling on the hearth, although it was June. My lady thought the room wanted warming. Everything was done to make him happy and welcome. And you are not to be a page any longer, but a gentleman and kinsman, and to walk with Papa and Mama, said the children. And as soon as his dear mistress and children had left him to himself, it was with a heart overflowing with love and gratefulness that he flung himself down on his knees by the side of the little bed and asked the blessing upon those who were so kind to him. The children who are always house tell tales soon made him acquainted with the little history of the house and family. Papa had been to London twice. Papa often went away now. Papa had taken Beatrix to Westlands where she was taller than Sir George Harper's second daughter, though she was two years older. Papa had taken Beatrix and Frank both to Bellminster, where Frank had got the better of Lord Bellminster's son in a boxing match. My lord laughing told Harry afterwards. Many gentlemen came to stop with Papa, and Papa had gotten a new game from London, a French game called a billiard, that the French king played it very well, and the dowager Lady Castlewood had set Miss Beatrix a present, and Papa had gotten a new chase with two little horses, which he drove himself beside the coach, which Mama went in. And Dr. Tusha was a cross old plague, and they did not like to learn from him at all, and Papa did not care about them learning and laughed when they were at their books, but Mama liked them to learn and taught them. And I don't think Papa is fond of Mama, said Miss Beatrix with her great eyes. She had come quite close up to Harry Esmond by the time this prattle took place, and was on his knee, and had examined all the points of his dress and all the good or bad features of his homely face. You shouldn't say that Papa is not fond of Mama, said the boy at this confession. Mama never said so, and Mama forbade you to say it, Miss Beatrix. To assist no doubt that accounted for the sadness in Lady Castlewood's eyes and the plaintive vibrations of her voice. Who does not know of eyes lighted by love once where the flame shines no more, of lamps extinguished once properly trimmed and tended. Every man has such in his house. Such mementos make our splendidest chambers look blank and sad. Such face is seen in a day cast in a gloom upon our sunshine. So oaths, mutually sworn, and invocations of heaven and priestly ceremonies and fond belief and love, so fond and faithful that it never doubted but that it should live forever, are all of no avail towards making love eternal. It dies in spite of the bands and the priest, and I have often thought there should be a visitation of the sick for it, and a funeral service, and an extreme unction, and an abbey in pace. It has its course like all mortal things. It's beginning, progress, and decay. It buds and blooms out into sunshine, and it withers and ends. Streffen and Chloe languish apart, join in a rapture, and presently you hear that Chloe is crying, and Streffen has broken his crook across her back. Can you mend it so as to show no marks of rapture? Not all the priests of Hyman, not all the incantations to the gods can make it whole. Waking up from dreams, books, and visions of college honors in which for two years Harry Esmond had been immersed, he found himself instantly on his return home in the midst of this actual tragedy of life which absorbed and interested him more than all his tutor had taught him. The persons whom he loved best in the world, and to whom he owed most, were living unhappily together. The gentlest and kindest of women was suffering ill usage, and shedding tears in secret. The man who made her wretched by neglect, if not by violence, was Harry's benefactor and patron. In houses where, in place of that sacred inmost flame of love, there is discord at the center, the whole household becomes hypocritical and each lies to his neighbor. The husband, or it may be the wife, lies when the visitor comes in and wears a grin of reconciliation or politeness before him. The wife lies, indeed her business is to do that and to smile however much she is beaten, swallows her tears and lies to her lord and master, lies in bidding little Jackie respect, dear papa, lies in assuring grand papa that she is perfectly happy. The servants lie, wearing grave faces behind their master's chair and pretending to be unconscious of the fighting. And so from morning till bedtime, life is passed in falsehood, and wise acres call this a proper regard of morals and point out bosses and funnymen as examples of a good life. If my lady did not speak of her griefs to Harry Esmond, my lord was by no means reserved when in his cups and spoke his mind very freely, bidding Harry in his coarse way and with his blunt language, beware of all women as cheats, jades, jilts, and using other unmistakable monosyllables and speaking of them. Indeed, twist the fashion of the day as I must own, and there's not a writer of my time of any note, with the exception of poor Dick Steele, that does not speak of a woman as of a slave and scorn and use her as such. Mr. Pope, Mr. Congreve, Mr. Addison, Mr. Gay, every one of them sing in this key each according to his nature and politeness, and louder and fowler than all in abuse is Dr. Swift, who spoke of them as he treated them worst of all. Much of the quarrels and hatred which arise between married people come in my mind from the husband's rage and revolt at discovering that his slave and bedfellow who is to minister to all his wishes and his church sworn to honor and obey him is his superior, and that he and not she ought to be the subordinate of the twain, and in these controversies I think lay the cause of my Lord's anger against his lady. When he left her she began to think for herself, and her thoughts were not in his favor. After the illumination, when the love lamp is put out that anon we spoke of, and by the common daylight we look at the picture, what a daub it looks, what a clumsy effigy. How many man and wives come to this knowledge, thank you? And if it be painful to a woman to find herself mated for life to abhor, and ordered to love and honor a dullard, it is worse still for the man himself, perhaps, whenever in his dim comprehension the idea dawns that his slave and drudge yonder is in truth his superior, that the woman who does his bidding and submits to his humor should be his Lord, that she can think a thousand things beyond the power of his muddled brains, and that in yonder head on the pillow opposite to him lie a thousand feelings, mysteries of thought, latent scorns and rebellions, whereof he only dimly perceives the existence as they look out furtively from her eyes. Treasures of love doomed to perish without a hand to gather them, sweet fancies and images of beauty that would grow and unfold themselves into flower, bright wit that would shine like diamonds could it be brought into the sun, and the tyrant in possession crushes the outbreak of all these, drives them back like slaves into the dungeon and darkness, and chafes without that his prisoner is rebellious, and his sworn subject undutiful and refractory. So the lamp was out in Castle Wood Hall, and the Lord and Lady there saw each other as they were. With her illness and altered beauty, my Lord's fire for his wife disappeared. With his selfishness and faithlessness, her foolish fiction of love and reverence was rent away. Love, who is to love what is base and unlovely? Respect, who is to respect what is gross and sensual? Not all the marriage oaths sworn before all the parson's, cardinals, ministers, mufties, and rabbins in the world, combined to that monstrous allegiance. This couple was living apart then. The woman, happy to be allowed to love and tend her children, who were never of her own good will away from her, and thankful to have saved such treasures as these out of the wreck in which the better part of her heart went down. These young ones had had no instructors save their mother, and Dr. Tusha for their theology occasionally, and had made more progress than might have been expected under a tutor so indulgent and fond as Lady Castlewood. Beatrix could sing and dance like a nymph. Her voice was her father's delight after dinner. She ruled over the house with little imperial ways which her parents coaxed and laughed at. She had long learned the value of her bright eyes and tried experiments in coquetry, in Corpore Vili, upon rustics in country squires, until she should prepare to conquer the world in the fashion. She put on a new ribbon to welcome Harry Esmond, made eyes at him and directed her young smiles at him, not a little to the amusement of the young man, and the joy of her father, who laughed his great laugh and encouraged her in her thousand antics. Lady Castlewood watched the child gravely and sadly. The little one was pert in her replies to her mother, yet eager in her protestations of love and promises of amendment, and is ready to cry after a little quarrel brought on by her own giddiness, until she had won back her mama's favor as she was to risk the kind lady's displeasure by fresh outbreaks of restless vanity. From her mother's sad looks she fled to her father's chair and boozy laughter. She already set the one against the other, and the little rogue was delighted in the mischief which she knew how to make so early. The young heir of Castlewood was spoiled by father and mother both. He took their caresses as men do, and as if they were his right. He had his hawks and his spaniel dog, his little horse and his beagles. He had learned to ride and to drink and to shoot flying, and he had a small court, the sons of the huntsmen and woodsmen, as became the heir apparent, making after the example of my lord his father. If he had a headache, his mother was as much frightened as if the plague were in the house. My lord laughed and jeered in his abrupt way, indeed, twist on the day after New Year's Day and in excess of mince pie, and said with some of his usual oaths, damn it, Harry Esmond, you see how my lady takes on about Frank's meagre,m she used to be sorry about me, my boy, passed the tankard, Harry, and to be frightened if I had a headache once. She don't care about my head now, they're like that, women are, all the same, Harry, all jilt in their hearts, stick to college, stick to punch and buttery ale, and never see a woman that's handsomer than an old cinder-faced bedmaker. That's my counsel. It was my lord's custom to fling out many jokes of this nature in presence of his wife and children at meals, clumsy sarcasms, which my lady turned many a time, or which sometimes she affected not to hear, or which now and again would hit their mark and make the poor victim wince, as you could see by her flushing face and eyes filling with tears, or which again worked her up to anger and retort when in answer to one of these heavy bolts she would flash back with a quivering reply. The pair were not happy, nor indeed was it happy to be with them. Alas, that youthful love and truth should end in bitterness and bankruptcy. To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder, but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all. Harry Esmond became the confidant of one and the other, that is, my lord told the lad all his griefs and wrongs, which were indeed of Lord Castlewood's own making, and Harry divined my ladies, his affection leading him easily to penetrate the hypocrisy under which Lady Castlewood generally chose to go disguised, and see her heart aching whilst her face wore a smile. It is a hard task for women in life, that mask which the world bids them wear, but there is no greater crime than for a woman who is ill used and unhappy to show that she is so. The world is quite relentless about bidding her to keep a cheerful face, and our women, like the Malabar wives, are forced to go smiling and painted to sacrifice themselves with their husbands, their relations being the most eager to push them onto their duty, and under their shouts and applause to smother and hush their cries of pain. So into the sad secret of his patron's household, Harry Esmond became initiated. He scarce knew how. It had passed under his eyes two years before when he could not understand it, but reading and thought and experience of men had oldened him, and one of the deepest sorrows of a life which had never in truth been very happy came upon him now when he was compelled to understand and pity a grief which he stood quite powerless to relieve. It hath been said my Lord would never take the oath of allegiance, nor his seat as a peer of the Kingdom of Ireland, where indeed he had but a nominal estate, and refused an English peerage which King William's government offered him as a bribe to secure his loyalty. He might have accepted this and would doubtless, but for the earnest remonstrances of his wife, who ruled her husband's opinions better than she could govern his conduct, and who, being a simple-hearted woman with but one rule of faith and right, never thought of swerving from her fidelity to the exiled family or of recognizing any other sovereign but King James. And though she acquiesced on the doctrine of obedience to the reigning power, no temptations she thought could induce her to acknowledge the Prince of Orange as rightful monarch, nor to let her Lord so acknowledge him. So my Lord Castle would remain a non-jurer all his life nearly, though his self-denial caused him many a pang and left him sulky and out of humor. The year after the Revolution and all through King William's life, tis known there were constant intrigues for the restoration of the exiled family. But if my Lord Castle would took any share of these, as is probable, was only for a short time, and when Harry Esmond was too young to be introduced into such important secrets. But in the year 1695, when that conspiracy of Sir John Finwick, Colonel Lowick and others was set on foot for way-laying King William as he came from Hampton Court to London, and a secret plot was formed in which a vast number of the nobility and people of honor were engaged, Father Holt appeared at Castlewood and brought a young friend with him, a gentleman whom twist easy to see that both my Lord and the Father treated with uncommon deference. Harry Esmond saw this gentleman and knew and recognized him in afterlife as shall be shown in its place, and he has little doubt now that my Lord Viscount was implicated somewhat in the transactions which always kept Father Holt employed in traveling hither and thither under a dozen of different names and disguises. The Father's companion went by the name of Captain James and it was under a very different name and appearance that Harry Esmond afterwards saw him. It was the next year that the Finwick conspiracy blew up, which is a matter of public history now, and which ended in the execution of Sir John and many more who suffered manfully for their treason, and who were attended to Tyburn by my lady's father, Dean Armstrong, Mr. Collier, and other stout nuns during clergymen who absolved them at the gallows foot. Tis known that when Sir John was apprehended, discovery was made of a great number of names of gentlemen engaged in the conspiracy, when with the noble wisdom and clemency the Prince burned the list of conspirators furnished to him and said he would know no more. Now it was after this that Lord Castlewood swore his great oath that he would never so help him heaven be engaged in any transaction against that brave and merciful man, and so he told Holt when the indefatigable priest visited him and would have had him engaged in a father conspiracy. After this my lord ever spoke of King William as he was, as one of the wisest, the bravest, and the greatest of men. My lady Esmond, for her part, said she could never pardon a king, first for ousting his father-in-law from his throne, and secondly for not being constant to his wife, the Princess Mary. Indeed I think if Nero were to rise again and be king of England and a good family man, the ladies would pardon him. My lord laughed at his wife's objections, the standard of virtue did not fit him much. The last conference which Mr. Holt had with his lordship took place when Harry was come home for his first vacation from college. Harry saw his old tutor but for a half hour and exchanged no private words with him. And their talk, whatever it might be, left my lord Viscount very much disturbed in mind, so much so that his wife and his young kinsmen Henry Esmond could not but observe his disquiet. After Holt was gone my lord rebuffed Esmond and again treated him with the greatest deference. He shunned his wife's questions in company and looked at his children with such a face of gloom and anxiety, muttering poor children, poor children, in a way that could not but fill those whose life it was to watch him and obey him with great alarm, for which gloom each person interested in the Lord Castle would framed in his or her own mind an interpretation. My lady with a laugh of cruel bitterness said, I suppose the person at Hexton has been ill or has scolded him, for my lord's infatuation about Mrs. Marwood was known only too well. Young Esmond feared for his money affairs into the condition of which he had been initiated and that the expenses always greater than his revenue had caused Lord Castlewood disquiet. One of the causes why my lord Viscount had taken young Esmond into his special favor was a trivial one that hath not before been mentioned, though it was a very lucky accident in Henry Esmond's life. A very few months after my lord's coming to Castlewood in the winter time, the little boy being a child in a petticoat trotting about, it happened that little Frank was with his father after dinner, who fell asleep over his wine heedless of the child, who crawled to the fire. And as good fortune would have it, Esmond was sent by his mistress for the boy, just as the poor little screaming urchin's coat was set on fire by a log, when Esmond rushing forward tore the dress off the infant so that his own hands were burned more than the child's who was frightened rather than hurt by this accident. But certainly it was providential that a resolute person should have come in at that instant, or the child had been burned to death probably, my lord sleeping very heavily after drinking and not waking so cool as a man should who had a danger to face. Ever after this the father, loud in his expressions of remorse and humility for being a tipsy good for nothing, and of admiration for Harry Esmond, whom his lordship would style a hero for doing a very trifling service, had the tenderest regard for his son's preserver, and Harry became quite as one of the family. His burns were tended with the greatest care by his kind mistress, who said that heaven had sent him to be the guardian of her children, and that she would love him all her life. And it was after this, and from the very great love and tenderness which had grown up in this little household, rather than from the exhortations of Dean Armstrong, though these had no small weight with him, that Harry came to be quite of the religion of his house and his dear mistress, of which he has ever since been a professing member. As for Dr. Tushar's boasts that he was the cause of this conversion, even in these young days Mr. Esmond had such a contempt for the doctor that had Tushar made him believe anything which he did not, never meddling at all. Harry would that instant have questioned the truth, aunt. My lady seldom drank wine, but on certain days of the year, such as birthdays, poor Harry had never a one, and anniversaries she took a little, and this day the 29th December was one. At the end, then, of this year, 96, it might have been a fortnight after Mr. Holt's last visit, Lord Castlewood being still very gloomy in mind and sitting at table. My lady bidding a servant bring her a glass of wine, and looking at her husband with one of her sweet smiles said, My Lord, will you not fill a mump or two and let me call a toast? What is it, Rachel, says he, holding out his empty glass to be filled? Tis the 29th of December, says my lady, with her fond look of gratitude, and my toast is, Harry and God bless him who saved my boy's life. My Lord looked at Harry hard and drank the glass, but clapped it down on the table in a moment, and with a sort of groan, rose up and went out of the room. What was the matter? We all knew that some great grief was over him. Whether my Lord's prudence had made him richer or legacies had fallen to him, which enabled him to support a greater establishment than that frugal one which had been too much for his small means, Harry Esmond knew not, but the House of Castlewood was now on a scale much more costly than it had been during the first years of his Lordships coming to the title. There were more horses in the stable and more servants in the hall and many more guests coming and going now than formerly, when it was found difficult enough by the strictest economy to keep the House as befitted one of his Lordships rank and the estate out of debt. And it did not require very much penetration to find that many of the new acquaintances at Castlewood were not agreeable to the lady there. Not that she ever treated them or any mortal with anything but courtesy, but there were persons who could not be welcomed to her, and whose society a lady so refined and reserved could scarce desire for her children. There came fuddling squires from the country round who balled their songs under her windows and drank themselves tipsy with my Lord's punch and ale. There came officers from Hexton in whose company our little Lord was made to hear talk and to drink and swear, too, in a way that made the delicate lady tremble for her son. Esmond tried to console her by saying what he knew of his college experience, that with this sort of company and conversation a man must fall in sooner or later in his course through the world, and it mattered very little whether he heard it at twelve years old or twenty. The youths who quitted mother's apron strings the latest being not uncommonly the wildest rakes, but it was about her daughter that Lady Castlewood was the most anxious and the danger which she thought menaced the little Beatrix from the indulgences which her father gave her. It must be owned that my Lord, since these unhappy domestic differences especially, was at once violent in his language to the children when angry as he was too familiar not to say coarse when he was in a good humor, and from the company into which the careless Lord brought the child. Not very far off from Castlewood is Sarc Castle, where the Marschianus of Sarc lived, who was known to have been a mistress of the late King Charles, and to this house wither indeed a great part of the country gentry went. My Lord insisted upon going, not only himself, but on taking his little daughter and son to play with the children there. The children were nothing loath, for the house was splendid and the welcome kind enough. But my Lady, justly no doubt, thought that the children of such a mother as that noted Lady Sarc had been, could be no good company for her too, and spoke her mind to her Lord. His own language when he was thwarted was not indeed of the gentlest. To be brief, there was a family dispute on this, as there had been on many other points, and the Lady was not only forced to give in, for the other's will was law, nor could she, on account of their tender age, tell her children what was the nature of her objection to their visit of pleasure, or indeed mention to them any objection at all. But she had the additional secret mortification to find them returning delighted with their new friends, loaded with presents from them, and eager to be allowed to go back to a place of such delights as Sarc Castle. Every year she thought the company there would be more dangerous to her daughter, as from a child Beatrix grew to a woman, and her daily increasing beauty and many faults of character too expanded. It was Harry Esmond's lot to see one of the visits, which the old Lady of Sarc paid to the Lady of Castle Wood Hall, with her she came in state with six chestnut horses and blue ribbons, a page on each carriage step, a gentleman of the horse, and armed servants riding before and behind her. And but that it was unpleasant to see Lady Castle Wood's face, it was amusing to watch the behavior of the two enemies, the frigid patience of the younger Lady, and the unconquerable good humor of the elder, who would see no offense whatever her rival intended, and who never ceased to smile and to laugh and to coax the children and to pay compliments to every man, woman, child, nay, dog, or chair and table in Castle Wood, so bent was she upon admiring everything there. She lauded the children and wished, as indeed she well might, that her own family had been brought up as well as those cherubs. She had never seen such a complexion as Dear Beatrix's, though to be sure she had a right to it from father and mother. Lady Castle Wood's was indeed a wonder of freshness, and Lady Sarc sighed to think she had not been born a fair woman. And remarking Harry Esmond with a fascinating superannuated smile, she complimented him on his wit, which she said she could see from his eyes and forehead, and vowed that she would never have him at Sarc until her daughter were out of the way. End of book one, chapter eleven, read by Debra Lynn.