Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

  Chapter IV. Recapitulations

  From such fitful lights as could be cast upon his dark history by thebroken narrative of his poor patron, torn by remorse and struggling in thelast pangs of dissolution, Mr. Esmond had been made to understand so far,that his mother was long since dead; and so there could be no question asregarded her or her honour, tarnished by her husband's desertion andinjury, to influence her son in any steps which he might take either forprosecuting or relinquishing his own just claims. It appeared from my poorlord's hurried confession, that he had been made acquainted with the realfacts of the case only two years since, when Mr. Holt visited him, andwould have implicated him in one of those many conspiracies by which thesecret leaders of King James's party in this country were everendeavouring to destroy the Prince of Orange's life or power; conspiraciesso like murder, so cowardly in the means used, so wicked in the end, thatour nation has sure done well in throwing off all allegiance and fidelityto the unhappy family that could not vindicate its right except by suchtreachery--by such dark intrigue and base agents. There were designsagainst King William that were no more honourable than the ambushes ofcut-throats and footpads. 'Tis humiliating to think that a great prince,possessor of a great and sacred right, and upholder of a great cause,should have stooped to such baseness of assassination and treasons as areproved by the unfortunate King James's own warrant and sign-manual givento his supporters in this country. What he and they called levying warwas, in truth, no better than instigating murder. The noble Prince ofOrange burst magnanimously through those feeble meshes of conspiracy inwhich his enemies tried to envelop him: it seemed as if their cowardlydaggers broke upon the breast of his undaunted resolution. After KingJames's death, the queen and her people at St. Germains--priests and womenfor the most part--continued their intrigues in behalf of the young prince,James the Third, as he was called in France and by his party here (thisprince, or Chevalier de St. George, was born in the same year withEsmond's young pupil Frank, my lord viscount's son): and the prince'saffairs, being in the hands of priests and women, were conducted aspriests and women will conduct them, artfully, cruelly, feebly, and to acertain bad issue. The moral of the Jesuit's story I think as wholesome aone as ever was writ: the artfullest, the wisest, the most toilsome, anddexterous plot-builders in the world--there always comes a day when theroused public indignation kicks their flimsy edifice down, and sends itscowardly enemies a-flying. Mr. Swift hath finely described that passionfor intrigue, that love of secrecy, slander, and lying, which belongs toweak people, hangers-on of weak courts. 'Tis the nature of such to hateand envy the strong, and conspire their ruin; and the conspiracy succeedsvery well, and everything presages the satisfactory overthrow of the greatvictim; until one day Gulliver rouses himself, shakes off the littlevermin of an enemy, and walks away unmolested. Ah! the Irish soldiersmight well say after the Boyne, "Change kings with us, and we will fightit over again." Indeed, the fight was not fair between the two. 'Twas aweak priest-ridden, woman-ridden man, with such puny allies and weapons ashis own poor nature led him to choose, contending against the schemes, thegeneralship, the wisdom, and the heart of a hero.

  On one of these many coward's errands, then (for, as I view them now, Ican call them no less), Mr. Holt had come to my lord at Castlewood,proposing some infallible plan for the Prince of Orange's destruction, inwhich my lord viscount, loyalist as he was, had indignantly refused tojoin. As far as Mr. Esmond could gather from his dying words, Holt came tomy lord with a plan of insurrection, and offer of the renewal, in hisperson, of that marquis's title which King James had conferred on thepreceding viscount; and on refusal of this bribe, a threat was made, onHolt's part, to upset my lord viscount's claim to his estate and title ofCastlewood altogether. To back this astounding piece of intelligence, ofwhich Henry Esmond's patron now had the first light, Holt came armed withthe late lord's dying declaration, after the affair of the Boyne, at Trim,in Ireland, made both to the Irish priest and a French ecclesiastic ofHolt's order, that was with King James's army. Holt showed, or pretendedto show, the marriage certificate of the late Viscount Esmond with mymother, in the city of Brussels, in the year 1677, when the viscount, thenThomas Esmond, was serving with the English army in Flanders; he couldshow, he said, that this Gertrude, deserted by her husband long since, wasalive, and a professed nun in the year 1685, at Brussels, in which yearThomas Esmond married his uncle's daughter, Isabella, now calledViscountess Dowager of Castlewood; and leaving him, for twelve hours, toconsider this astounding news (so the poor dying lord said), disappearedwith his papers in the mysterious way in which he came. Esmond knew how,well enough: by that window from which he had seen the father issue:--butthere was no need to explain to my poor lord, only to gather from hisparting lips the words which he would soon be able to utter no more.

  Ere the twelve hours were over, Holt himself was a prisoner, implicated inSir John Fenwick's conspiracy, and locked up at Hexton first, whence hewas transferred to the Tower; leaving the poor lord viscount, who was notaware of the others being taken, in daily apprehension of his return, when(as my Lord Castlewood declared, calling God to witness, and with tears inhis dying eyes) it had been his intention at once to give up his estateand his title to their proper owner, and to retire to his own house atWalcote with his family. "And would to God I had done it," the poor lordsaid; "I would not be here now, wounded to death, a miserable, strickenman!"

  My lord waited day after day, and, as may be supposed, no messenger came;but at a month's end Holt got means to convey to him a message out of theTower, which was to this effect: that he should consider all unsaid thathad been said, and that things were as they were.

  "I had a sore temptation," said my poor lord. "Since I had come into thiscursed title of Castlewood, which hath never prospered with me, I havespent far more than the income of that estate and my paternal one, too. Icalculated all my means down to the last shilling, and found I never couldpay you back, my poor Harry, whose fortune I had had for twelve years. Mywife and children must have gone out of the house dishonoured, andbeggars. God knows, it hath been a miserable one for me and mine. Like acoward, I clung to that respite which Holt gave me. I kept the truth fromRachel and you. I tried to win money of Mohun, and only plunged deeperinto debt; I scarce dared look thee in the face when I saw thee. Thissword hath been hanging over my head these two years. I swear I felt happywhen Mohun's blade entered my side."

  After lying ten months in the Tower, Holt, against whom nothing could befound except that he was a Jesuit priest, known to be in King James'sinterest, was put on shipboard by the incorrigible forgiveness of KingWilliam, who promised him, however, a hanging if ever he should again setfoot on English shore. More than once, whilst he was in prison himself,Esmond had thought where those papers could be, which the Jesuit had shownto his patron, and which had such an interest for himself. They were notfound on Mr. Holt's person when that father was apprehended, for had suchbeen the case my lords of the council had seen them, and this familyhistory had long since been made public. However, Esmond cared not to seekthe papers. His resolution being taken; his poor mother dead; what matterto him that documents existed proving his right to a title which he wasdetermined not to claim, and of which he vowed never to deprive thatfamily which he loved best in the world? Perhaps he took a greater prideout of his sacrifice than he would have had in those honours which he wasresolved to forgo. Again, as long as these titles were not forthcoming,Esmond's kinsman, dear young Francis, was the honourable and undisputedowner of the Castlewood estate and title. The mere word of a Jesuit couldnot overset Frank's right of occupancy, and so Esmond's mind felt actuallyat ease to think the papers were missing, and in their absence his dearmistress and her son the lawful lady and lord of Castlewood.

  Very soon after his liberation, Mr. Esmond made it his business to ride tothat village of Ealing where he had passed his earliest years in thiscountry, and to see if his old guardians were still alive and inhabitantsof that place. But the only relic which he found
of old MonsieurPastoureau was a stone in the churchyard, which told that AthanasiusPastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. The oldman's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden (wherein his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie, and hadmany a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), were now in theoccupation of quite a different family; and it was with difficulty that hecould learn in the village what had come of Pastoureau's widow andchildren. The clerk of the parish recollected her--the old man was scarcealtered in the fourteen years that had passed since last Esmond set eyeson him. It appeared she had pretty soon consoled herself after the deathof her old husband, whom she ruled over, by taking a new one younger thanherself, who spent her money and ill-treated her and her children. Thegirl died; one of the boys 'listed; the other had gone apprentice. Old Mr.Rogers, the clerk, said he had heard that Mrs. Pastoureau was dead too.She and her husband had left Ealing this seven year; and so Mr. Esmond'shopes of gaining any information regarding his parentage from this family,were brought to an end. He gave the old clerk a crown-piece for his news,smiling to think of the time when he and his little playfellows had slunkout of the churchyard, or hidden behind the gravestones, at the approachof this awful authority.

  Who was his mother? What had her name been? When did she die? Esmondlonged to find some one who could answer these questions to him, andthought even of putting them to his aunt the viscountess, who hadinnocently taken the name which belonged of right to Henry's mother. Butshe knew nothing, or chose to know nothing, on this subject, nor, indeed,could Mr. Esmond press her much to speak on it. Father Holt was the onlyman who could enlighten him, and Esmond felt he must wait until some freshchance or new intrigue might put him face to face with his old friend, orbring that restless indefatigable spirit back to England again.

  The appointment to his ensigncy, and the preparations necessary for thecampaign, presently gave the young gentleman other matters to think of.His new patroness treated him very kindly and liberally; she promised tomake interest and pay money, too, to get him a company speedily; she badehim procure a handsome outfit, both of clothes and of arms, and waspleased to admire him when he made his first appearance in his lacedscarlet coat, and to permit him to salute her on the occasion of thisinteresting investiture. "Red," says she, tossing up her old head, "hathalways been the colour worn by the Esmonds." And so her ladyship wore iton her own cheeks very faithfully to the last. She would have him bedressed, she said, as became his father's son, and paid cheerfully for hisfive-pound beaver, his black buckled periwig, and his fine holland shirts,and his swords, and his pistols, mounted with silver. Since the day he wasborn, poor Harry had never looked such a fine gentleman: his liberalstepmother filled his purse with guineas, too, some of which CaptainSteele and a few choice spirits helped Harry to spend in an entertainmentwhich Dick ordered (and, indeed, would have paid for, but that he had nomoney when the reckoning was called for; nor would the landlord give himany more credit) at the "Garter", over against the gate of the Palace, inPall Mall.

  The old viscountess, indeed, if she had done Esmond any wrong formerly,seemed inclined to repair it by the present kindness of her behaviour: sheembraced him copiously at parting, wept plentifully, bade him write byevery packet, and gave him an inestimable relic, which she besought him towear round his neck--a medal, blessed by I know not what Pope, and worn byhis late sacred Majesty King James. So Esmond arrived at his regiment witha better equipage than most young officers could afford. He was older thanmost of his seniors, and had a further advantage which belonged but tovery few of the army gentlemen in his day--many of whom could do littlemore than write their names--that he had read much, both at home and at theUniversity, was master of two or three languages, and had that furthereducation which neither books nor years will give, but which some men getfrom the silent teaching of adversity. She is a great schoolmistress, asmany a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand out to her ferule, andwhimpered over his lesson before her awful chair.