rather vacantly at the dying embers, whilst her ladyship busied herself with her tambour-frame and needles.
“I am sorry,” she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice—“I repeat I am sorry that I showed myself so ungrateful for the safety of my son. It was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you must perceive, Mr. Esmond, that at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can [pg 087] continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family. You have wished to go to the University, and I think 'tis quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press this matter, thinking you a child, as you are, indeed, in years—quite a child; and I should never have thought of treating you otherwise until—until these circumstances came to light. And I shall beg my lord to dispatch you as quick as possible: and will go on with Frank's learning as well as I can (I owe my father thanks for a little grounding, and you, I'm sure, for much that you have taught me)—and—and I wish you a good night, Mr. Esmond.”
And with this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained for ever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading until afterwards he remembered the appearance of the letters of the book (it was in Montaigne's Essays), and the events of the day passed before him—that is, of the last hour of the day; for as for the morning, and the poor milkmaid yonder, he never so much as once thought. And he could not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache, and quite unrefreshed.
He had brought the contagion with him from the “Three Castles” sure enough, and was presently laid up with the small-pox, which spared the Hall no more than it did the cottage.
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Chapter IX. I Have The Small-Pox, 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,” Doctor 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 gentlefolks 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 Viscountess 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 colour and complexion were 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 unskilful painting-cleaners do, to the dead colour. 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. When 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 Esmond gave a rueful smile, and a look into a [pg 089] 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 Doctor Tusher told him that 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, doctor,” 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 fear 'tis 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 Venice glass. “Suppose he should think as you do, sir, that I am hideous—yes, you said hideous—he will cease to care for me. 'Tis all men care for in women, our little beauty. Why did he select me from among my sisters? 'Twas only for that. We reign but for a day or two: and be sure that Vashti knew Esther was coming.”
“Madam,” said Mr. Esmond, “Ahasuerus 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 small-pox: 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 [pg 090] 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 small-pox, and buried under the Castlewood yew-trees. There was no bright face looking now from the garden, or to cheer the old smith at his lonely fireside. Esmond would have liked to have kissed her in her shroud (like the lass in Mr. Prior's pretty poem), but she rested many foot below the ground, when Esmond after his malady first trod on it.
Doctor 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
