waiting-maid.”
And she tossed out of the room, being in one of her flighty humours then.
When she was gone, my lady looked so sad and grave, that Harry asked the cause of her disquietude. She said it was not merely what he said of Newmarket, but what she had remarked, with great anxiety and terror, that my lord, ever since his acquaintance with the Lord Mohun especially, had recurred to his fondness for play, which he had renounced since his marriage.
“But men promise more than they are able to perform in marriage,” said my lady, with a sigh. “I fear he has lost large sums; and our property, always small, is dwindling away under this reckless dissipation. I heard of him in London with very wild company. Since his return letters and lawyers are constantly coming and going: he seems to me to have a constant anxiety, though he hides it under boisterousness and laughter. I looked through—through the door last night, and—and before,” said my lady, “and saw them at cards after midnight; no estate will bear that extravagance, much less ours, which will be so diminished that my son will have nothing at all, and my poor Beatrix no portion!”
“I wish I could help you, madam,” said Harry Esmond, sighing, and wishing that unavailingly, and for the thousandth time in his life.
“Who can? Only God,” said Lady Esmond—“only God, in whose hands we are.” And so it is, and for his rule over his family, and for his conduct to wife and children—subjects over whom his power is monarchical—any one who watches the world must think with trembling sometimes of the account which many a man will have to render. For in our society there's no law to control the King of the [pg 137] Fireside. He is master of property, happiness—life almost. He is free to punish, to make happy or unhappy—to ruin or to torture. He may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned than the Grand Seignior who drowns a slave at midnight. He may make slaves and hypocrites of his children; or friends and freemen; or drive them into revolt and enmity against the natural law of love. I have heard politicians and coffee-house wiseacres talking over the newspaper, and railing at the tyranny of the French king, and the emperor, and wondered how these (who are monarchs, too, in their way) govern their own dominions at home, where each man rules absolute? When the annals of each little reign are shown to the Supreme Master, under whom we hold sovereignty, histories will be laid bare of household tyrants as cruel as Amurath, and as savage as Nero, and as reckless and dissolute as Charles.
If Harry Esmond's patron erred, 'twas in the latter way, from a disposition rather self-indulgent than cruel; and he might have been brought back to much better feelings, had time been given to him to bring his repentance to a lasting reform.
As my lord and his friend Lord Mohun were such close companions, Mistress Beatrix chose to be jealous of the latter; and the two gentlemen often entertained each other by laughing, in their rude boisterous way, at the child's freaks of anger and show of dislike. “When thou art old enough, thou shalt marry Lord Mohun,” Beatrix's father would say: on which the girl would pout and say, “I would rather marry Tom Tusher.” And because the Lord Mohun always showed an extreme gallantry to my Lady Castlewood, whom he professed to admire devotedly, one day, in answer to this old joke of her father's, Beatrix said, “I think my lord would rather marry mamma than marry me; and is waiting till you die to ask her.”
The words were said lightly and pertly by the girl one night before supper, as the family party were assembled near the great fire. The two lords, who were at cards, both gave a start; my lady turned as red as scarlet, and bade Mistress Beatrix go to her own chamber; whereupon the girl, putting on, as her wont was, the most innocent air, said, “I am sure I meant no wrong; I am sure mamma talks a great deal more to Harry Esmond than she does to papa—and she cried when Harry went away, and she never does [pg 138] when papa goes away; and last night she talked to Lord Mohun for ever so long, and sent us out of the room, and cried when we came back, and——”
“D——n!” cried out my Lord Castlewood, out of all patience. “Go out of the room, you little viper!” and he started up and flung down his cards.
“Ask Lord Mohun what I said to him, Francis,” her ladyship said, rising up with a scared face, but yet with a great and touching dignity and candour in her look and voice. “Come away with me, Beatrix.” Beatrix sprung up too; she was in tears now.
“Dearest mamma, what have I done?” she asked. “Sure I meant no harm.” And she clung to her mother, and the pair went out sobbing together.
“I will tell you what your wife said to me, Frank,” my Lord Mohun cried—“Parson Harry may hear it; and, as I hope for heaven, every word I say is true. Last night, with tears in her eyes, your wife implored me to play no more with you at dice or at cards, and you know best whether what she asked was not for your good.”
“Of course it was, Mohun,” says my lord, in a dry hard voice. “Of course, you are a model of a man: and the world knows what a saint you are.”
My Lord Mohun was separated from his wife, and had had many affairs of honour: of which women as usual had been the cause.
“I am no saint, though your wife is—and I can answer for my actions as other people must for their words,” said my Lord Mohun.
“By G——, my lord, you shall,” cried the other, starting up.
“We have another little account to settle first, my lord,” says Lord Mohun. Whereupon Harry Esmond, filled with alarm for the consequences to which this disastrous dispute might lead, broke out into the most vehement expostulations with his patron and his adversary. “Gracious Heavens!” he said, “my lord, are you going to draw a sword upon your friend in your own house? Can you doubt the honour of a lady who is as pure as Heaven, and would die a thousand times rather than do you a wrong? Are the idle words of a jealous child to set friends at variance? Has not my mistress, as much as she dared to, besought your lordship, as the truth must be told, to break your intimacy with my Lord Mohun; and to give up the habit which may bring [pg 139] ruin on your family? But for my Lord Mohun's illness, had he not left you?”
“Faith, Frank, a man with a gouty toe can't run after other men's wives,” broke out my Lord Mohun, who indeed was in that way, and with a laugh and a look at his swathed limb so frank and comical, that the other dashing his fist across his forehead was caught by that infectious good humour, and said with his oath, “—— it, Harry, I believe thee,” and so this quarrel was over, and the two gentlemen, at swords drawn but just now, dropped their points, and shook hands.
Beati pacifici. “Go, bring my lady back,” said Harry's patron. Esmond went away only too glad to be the bearer of such good news. He found her at the door; she had been listening there, but went back as he came. She took both his hands, hers were marble cold. She seemed as if she would fall on his shoulder. “Thank you, and God bless you, my dear brother Harry,” she said. She kissed his hand, Esmond felt her tears upon it: and leading her into the room, and up to my lord, the Lord Castlewood with an outbreak of feeling and affection, such as he had not exhibited for many a long day, took his wife to his heart, and bent over and kissed her and asked her pardon.
“'Tis time for me to go to roost. I will have my gruel abed,” said my Lord Mohun: and limped off comically on Harry Esmond's arm. “By George, that woman is a pearl!” he said; “and 'tis only a pig that wouldn't value her. Have you seen the vulgar trapesing orange-girl whom Esmond”—but here Mr. Esmond interrupted him, saying, that these were not affairs for him to know.
My lord's gentleman came in to wait upon his master, who was no sooner in his nightcap and dressing-gown than he had another visitor whom his host insisted on sending to him: and this was no other than the Lady Castlewood herself with the toast and gruel, which her husband bade her make and carry with her
