Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

  Chapter III. Whither In The Time Of Thomas, Third Viscount, I Had PrecededHim As Page To Isabella

  Coming up to London again some short time after this retreat, the LordCastlewood dispatched a retainer of his to a little cottage in the villageof Ealing, near to London, where for some time had dwelt an old Frenchrefugee, by name Mr. Pastoureau, one of those whom the persecution of theHuguenots by the French king had brought over to this country. With thisold man lived a little lad, who went by the name of Henry Thomas. Heremembered to have lived in another place a short time before, near toLondon, too, amongst looms and spinning-wheels, and a great deal ofpsalm-singing and church-going, and a whole colony of Frenchmen.

  There he had a dear, dear friend, who died and whom he called aunt. Sheused to visit him in his dreams sometimes; and her face, though it washomely, was a thousand times dearer to him than that of Mrs. Pastoureau,Bon Papa Pastoureau's new wife, who came to live with him after aunt wentaway. And there, at Spittlefields, as it used to be called, lived UncleGeorge, who was a weaver too, but used to tell Harry that he was a littlegentleman, and that his father was a captain, and his mother an angel.

  When he said so, Bon Papa used to look up from the loom, where he wasembroidering beautiful silk flowers, and say, "Angel! she belongs to theBabylonish Scarlet Woman." Bon Papa was always talking of the ScarletWoman. He had a little room where he always used to preach and sing hymnsout of his great old nose. Little Harry did not like the preaching; heliked better the fine stories which aunt used to tell him. Bon Papa's wifenever told him pretty stories; she quarrelled with Uncle George, and hewent away.

  After this Harry's Bon Papa, and his wife and two children of her own thatshe brought with her, came to live at Ealing. The new wife gave herchildren the best of everything, and Harry many a whipping, he knew notwhy. Besides blows, he got ill names from her, which need not be set downhere, for the sake of old Mr. Pastoureau, who was still kind sometimes.The unhappiness of those days is long forgiven, though they cast a shadeof melancholy over the child's youth, which will accompany him, no doubt,to the end of his days: as those tender twigs are bent the trees growafterward; and he, at least, who has suffered as a child, and is not quiteperverted in that early school of unhappiness, learns to be gentle andlong-suffering with little children.

  Harry was very glad when a gentleman dressed in black, on horseback, witha mounted servant behind him, came to fetch him away from Ealing. The_noverca_, or unjust stepmother, who had neglected him for her own twochildren, gave him supper enough the night before he went away, and plentyin the morning. She did not beat him once, and told the children to keeptheir hands off him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear to strikea girl; and the other was a boy, whom he could easily have beat, but healways cried out, when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the rescue witharms like a flail. She only washed Harry's face the day he went away; norever so much as once boxed his ears. She whimpered rather when thegentleman in black came for the boy; and old Mr. Pastoureau, as he gavethe child his blessing, scowled over his shoulder at the strangegentleman, and grumbled out something about Babylon and the scarlet lady.He was grown quite old, like a child almost. Mrs. Pastoureau used to wipehis nose as she did to the children. She was a great, big, handsome youngwoman; but, though she pretended to cry, Harry thought 'twas only a sham,and sprung quite delighted upon the horse upon which the lackey helpedhim.

  He was a Frenchman; his name was Blaise. The child could talk to him inhis own language perfectly well: he knew it better than English indeed:having lived hitherto chiefly among French people: and being called thelittle Frenchman by other boys on Ealing Green. He soon learnt to speakEnglish perfectly, and to forget some of his French: children forgeteasily. Some earlier and fainter recollections the child had, of adifferent country; and a town with tall white houses; and a ship. Butthese were quite indistinct in the boy's mind, as indeed the memory ofEaling soon became, at least of much that he suffered there.

  The lackey before whom he rode was very lively and voluble, and informedthe boy that the gentleman riding before him was my lord's chaplain,Father Holt--that he was now to be called Master Harry Esmond--that my LordViscount Castlewood was his _parrain_--that he was to live at the greathouse of Castlewood, in the province of ----shire, where he would see madamethe viscountess, who was a grand lady. And so, seated on a cloth beforeBlaise's saddle, Harry Esmond was brought to London, and to a fine squarecalled Covent Garden, near to which his patron lodged.

  Mr. Holt the priest took the child by the hand, and brought him to thisnobleman, a grand languid nobleman in a great cap and floweredmorning-gown, sucking oranges. He patted Harry on the head and gave him anorange.

  "_C'est bien ca_," he said to the priest after eyeing the child, and thegentleman in black shrugged his shoulders.

  "Let Blaise take him out for a holiday," and out for a holiday the boy andthe valet went. Harry went jumping along; he was glad enough to go.

  He will remember to his life's end the delights of those days. He wastaken to see a play by Monsieur Blaise, in a house a thousand timesgreater and finer than the booth at Ealing Fair--and on the next happy daythey took water on the river, and Harry saw London Bridge, with the housesand booksellers' shops thereon, looking like a street, and the Tower ofLondon, with the armour, and the great lions and bears in the moats--allunder company of Monsieur Blaise.

  Presently, of an early morning, all the party set forth for the country,namely, my lord viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise, andHarry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols leadingthe baggage-horses. And all along the road the Frenchman told little Harrystories of brigands, which made the child's hair stand on end, andterrified him; so that at the great gloomy inn on the road where they lay,he besought to be allowed to sleep in a room with one of the servants, andwas compassionated by Mr. Holt, the gentleman who travelled with my lord,and who gave the child a little bed in his chamber.

  His artless talk and answers very likely inclined this gentleman in theboy's favour, for next day Mr. Holt said Harry should ride behind him, andnot with the French lacky; and all along the journey put a thousandquestions to the child--as to his foster-brother and relations at Ealing;what his old grandfather had taught him; what languages he knew; whetherhe could read and write, and sing, and so forth. And Mr. Holt found thatHarry could read and write, and possessed the two languages of French andEnglish very well; and when he asked Harry about singing, the lad brokeout with a hymn to the tune of Dr. Martin Luther, which set Mr. Holta-laughing; and even caused his _grand parrain_ in the laced hat andperiwig to laugh too when Holt told him what the child was singing. For itappeared that Dr. Martin Luther's hymns were not sung in the churches Mr.Holt preached at.

  "You must never sing that song any more, do you hear, little manikin?"says my lord viscount, holding up a finger.

  "But we will try and teach you a better, Harry." Mr. Holt said; and thechild answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature,"That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything thegentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by histalk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged himin his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the daybefore, waited upon him now.

  "'Tis well, 'tis well!" said Blaise, that night (in his own language) whenthey lay again at an inn. "We are a little lord here; we are a little lordnow: we shall see what we are when we come to Castlewood where my ladyis."

  "When shall we come to Castlewood, Monsieur Blaise?" says Harry.

  "_Parbleu!_ my lord does not press himself." Blaise says, with a grin;and, indeed, it seemed as if his lordship was not in a great hurry, for hespent three days on that journey, which Harry Esmond hath often sinceridden in a dozen hours. For the last two of the days, Harry rode with thepriest, who was so kind to him, that the child had grown to be quite fondand familiar with him by the journey's end, and had scarce a thought inhis little heart which by that time he
had not confided to his new friend.

  At length on the third day, at evening, they came to a village standing ona green with elms round it, very pretty to look at; and the people thereall took off their hats, and made curtsies to my lord viscount, who bowedto them all languidly; and there was one portly person that wore a cassockand a broad-leafed hat, who bowed lower than any one--and with this oneboth my lord and Mr. Holt had a few words. "This, Harry, is Castlewoodchurch," says Mr. Holt, "and this is the pillar thereof, learned DoctorTusher. Take off your hat, sirrah, and salute Doctor Tusher."

  "Come up to supper, doctor," says my lord; at which the doctor madeanother low bow, and the party moved on towards a grand house that wasbefore them, with many grey towers, and vanes on them, and windows flamingin the sunshine; and a great army of rooks, wheeling over their heads,made for the woods behind the house, as Harry saw; and Mr. Holt told himthat they lived at Castlewood too.

  They came to the house, and passed under an arch into a courtyard, with afountain in the centre, where many men came and held my lord's stirrup ashe descended, and paid great respect to Mr. Holt likewise. And the childthought that the servants looked at him curiously, and smiled to oneanother--and he recalled what Blaise had said to him when they were inLondon, and Harry had spoken about his godpapa, when the Frenchman said,"_Parbleu!_ one sees well that my lord is your godfather"; words whereofthe poor lad did not know the meaning then, though he apprehended thetruth in a very short time afterwards, and learned it and thought of itwith no small feeling of shame.

  Taking Harry by the hand as soon as they were both descended from theirhorses, Mr. Holt led him across the court, and under a low door to roomson a level with the ground; one of which Father Holt said was to be theboy's chamber, the other on the other side of the passage being thefather's own; and as soon as the little man's face was washed, and thefather's own dress arranged, Harry's guide took him once more to the doorby which my lord had entered the hall, and up a stair, and through anante-room to my lady's drawing-room--an apartment than which Harry thoughthe had never seen anything more grand--no, not in the Tower of London whichhe had just visited. Indeed the chamber was richly ornamented in themanner of Queen Elizabeth's time, with great stained windows at eitherend, and hangings of tapestry, which the sun shining through the colouredglass painted of a thousand hues; and here in state, by the fire, sat alady to whom the priest took up Harry, who was indeed amazed by herappearance.

  My lady viscountess's face was daubed with white and red up to the eyes,to which the paint gave an unearthly glare: she had a tower of lace on herhead, under which was a bush of black curls--borrowed curls--so that nowonder little Harry Esmond was scared when he was first presented toher--the kind priest acting as master of the ceremonies at that solemnintroduction--and he stared at her with eyes almost as great as her own, ashe had stared at the player-woman who acted the wicked tragedy-queen, whenthe players came down to Ealing Fair. She sat in a great chair by thefire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on alittle table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box.She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-colouredbrocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of BanburyCross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with greatgold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and anodour of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved or quittedthe room, leaning on her tortoiseshell stick, little Fury barking at herheels.

  Mrs. Tusher, the parson's wife, was with my lady. She had beenwaiting-woman to her ladyship in the late lord's time, and, having hersoul in that business, took naturally to it when the Viscountess ofCastlewood returned to inhabit her father's house.

  "I present to your ladyship your kinsman and little page of honour, MasterHenry Esmond," Mr. Holt said, bowing lowly, with a sort of comicalhumility. "Make a pretty bow to my lady, monsieur; and then another littlebow, not so low, to Madam Tusher--the fair priestess of Castlewood."

  "Where I have lived and hope to die, sir," says Madam Tusher, giving ahard glance at the brat, and then at my lady.

  Upon her the boy's whole attention was for a time directed. He could notkeep his great eyes off from her. Since the Empress of Ealing he had seennothing so awful.

  "Does my appearance please you, little page?" asked the lady.

  "He would be very hard to please if it didn't," cried Madam Tusher.

  "Have done, you silly Maria," said Lady Castlewood.

  "Where I'm attached, I'm attached, madam--and I'd die rather than not sayso."

  "_Je meurs ou je m'attache_," Mr. Holt said, with a polite grin. "The ivysays so in the picture, and clings to the oak like a fond parasite as itis."

  "Parricide, sir!" cries Mrs. Tusher.

  "Hush, Tusher--you are always bickering with Father Holt," cried my lady."Come and kiss my hand, child," and the oak held out a _branch_ to littleHarry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand, upon thegnarled knuckles of which there glittered a hundred rings.

  "To kiss that hand would make many a pretty fellow happy!" cried Mrs.Tusher: on which my lady crying out, "Go, you foolish Tusher," and tappingher with her great fan, Tusher ran forward to seize her hand and kiss it.Fury arose and barked furiously at Tusher; and Father Holt looked on atthis queer scene, with arch grave glances.

  The awe exhibited by the little boy perhaps pleased the lady to whom thisartless flattery was bestowed; for having gone down on his knee (as FatherHolt had directed him, and the mode then was) and performed his obeisance,she said, "Page Esmond, my groom of the chamber will inform you what yourduties are, when you wait upon my lord and me; and good Father Holt willinstruct you as becomes a gentleman of our name. You will pay himobedience in everything, and I pray you may grow to be as learned and asgood as your tutor."

  The lady seemed to have the greatest reverence for Mr. Holt, and to bemore afraid of him than of anything else in the world. If she was ever soangry, a word or look from Father Holt made her calm: indeed he had a vastpower of subjecting those who came near him; and, among the rest, his newpupil gave himself up with an entire confidence and attachment to the goodfather, and became his willing slave almost from the first moment he sawhim.

  He put his small hand into the father's as he walked away from his firstpresentation to his mistress, and asked many questions in his artlesschildish way. "Who is that other woman?" he asked. "She is fat and round;she is more pretty than my Lady Castlewood."

  "She is Madam Tusher, the parson's wife of Castlewood. She has a son ofyour age, but bigger than you."

  "Why does she like so to kiss my lady's hand? It is not good to kiss."

  "Tastes are different, little man. Madam Tusher is attached to my lady,having been her waiting-woman, before she was married, in the old lord'stime. She married Doctor Tusher the chaplain. The English householddivines often marry the waiting-women."

  "You will not marry the French woman, will you? I saw her laughing withBlaise in the buttery."

  "I belong to a church that is older and better than the English Church,"Mr. Holt said (making a sign whereof Esmond did not then understand themeaning, across his breast and forehead); "in our Church the clergy do notmarry. You will understand these things better soon."

  "Was not St. Peter the head of your Church?--Dr. Rabbits of Ealing told usso."

  The father said, "Yes, he was."

  "But St. Peter was married, for we heard only last Sunday that his wife'smother lay sick of a fever." On which the father again laughed, and saidhe would understand this too better soon, and talked of other things, andtook away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old house which he hadcome to inhabit.

  It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which wererooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at eveningmade a great cawing. At the foot of the hill was a river with a steepancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat,where the village of Castlewood stood and stands, with the
church in themidst, the parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's forgebeside it, and the sign of the "Three Castles" on the elm. The London roadstretched away towards the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hillsand peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the same sun setting,that he now looks on thousands of miles away across the great ocean--in anew Castlewood by another stream, that bears, like the new country ofwandering Aeneas, the fond names of the land of his youth.

  The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only, thefountain court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered down inthe Cromwellian wars. In the fountain court, still in good repair, was thegreat hall, near to the kitchen and butteries. A dozen of living-roomslooking to the north, and communicating with the little chapel that facedeastwards and the buildings stretching from that to the main gate, andwith the hall (which looked to the west) into the court now dismantled.This court had been the most magnificent of the two, until the protector'scannon tore down one side of it before the place was taken and stormed.The besiegers entered at the terrace under the clock-tower, slaying everyman of the garrison, and at their head my lord's brother, Francis Esmond.

  The Restoration did not bring enough money to the Lord Castlewood torestore this ruined part of his house; where were the morning parlours,above them the long music-gallery, and before which stretched thegarden-terrace, where, however, the flowers grew again, which the boots ofthe Roundheads had trodden in their assault, and which was restoredwithout much cost, and only a little care, by both ladies who succeededthe second viscount in the government of this mansion. Round theterrace-garden was a low wall with a wicket leading to the wooded heightbeyond, that is called Cromwell's battery to this day.

  Young Harry Esmond learned the domestic part of his duty, which was easyenough, from the groom of her ladyship's chamber: serving the countess, asthe custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page, waiting at her chair,bringing her scented water and the silver basin after dinner--sitting onher carriage step on state occasions, or on public days introducing hercompany to her. This was chiefly of the Catholic gentry, of whom therewere a pretty many in the country and neighbouring city; and who rode notseldom to Castlewood to partake of the hospitalities there. In the secondyear of their residence the company seemed especially to increase. My lordand my lady were seldom without visitors, in whose society it was curiousto contrast the difference of behaviour between Father Holt, the directorof the family, and Doctor Tusher, the rector of the parish--Mr. Holt movingamongst the very highest as quite their equal, and as commanding them all;while poor Doctor Tusher, whose position was indeed a difficult one,having been chaplain once to the Hall, and still to the Protestantservants there, seemed more like an usher than an equal, and always roseto go away after the first course.

  Also there came in these times to Father Holt many private visitors, whomafter a little, Henry Esmond had little difficulty in recognizing asecclesiastics of the father's persuasion; whatever their dresses (and theyadopted all) might be. These were closeted with the father constantly, andoften came and rode away without paying their devoirs to my lord andlady--to the lady and lord rather--his lordship being little more than acipher in the house, and entirely under his domineering partner. A littlefowling, a little hunting, a great deal of sleep, and a long time at cardsand table, carried through one day after another with his lordship. Whenmeetings took place in this second year, which often would happen withclosed doors, the page found my lord's sheet of paper scribbled over withdogs and horses, and 'twas said he had much ado to keep himself awake atthese councils: the countess ruling over them, and he acting as littlemore than her secretary.

  Father Holt began speedily to be so much occupied with these meetings asrather to neglect the education of the little lad who so gladly puthimself under the kind priest's orders. At first they read much andregularly, both in Latin and French; the father not neglecting in anythingto impress his faith upon his pupil, but not forcing him violently, andtreating him with a delicacy and kindness which surprised and attached thechild; always more easily won by these methods than by any severe exerciseof authority. And his delight in our walks was to tell Harry of theglories of his order, of its martyrs and heroes, of its brethrenconverting the heathen by myriads, traversing the desert, facing thestake, ruling the courts and councils, or braving the tortures of kings;so that Harry Esmond thought that to belong to the Jesuits was thegreatest prize of life and bravest end of ambition; the greatest careerhere, and in heaven the surest reward; and began to long for the day, notonly when he should enter into the one Church and receive his firstcommunion, but when he might join that wonderful brotherhood, which waspresent throughout all the world, and which numbered the wisest, thebravest, the highest born, the most eloquent of men among its members.Father Holt bade him keep his views secret, and to hide them as a greattreasure which would escape him if it was revealed; and proud of thisconfidence and secret vested in him, the lad became fondly attached to themaster who initiated him into a mystery so wonderful and awful. And whenlittle Tom Tusher, his neighbour, came from school for his holiday, andsaid how he, too, was to be bred up for an English priest, and would getwhat he called an exhibition from his school, and then a collegescholarship and fellowship, and then a good living--it tasked young HarryEsmond's powers of reticence not to say to his young companion, "Church!priesthood! fat living! My dear Tommy, do you call yours a Church and apriesthood? What is a fat living compared to converting a hundred thousandheathens by a single sermon? What is a scholarship at Trinity by the sideof a crown of martyrdom, with angels awaiting you as your head is takenoff? Could your master at school sail over the Thames on his gown? Haveyou statues in your church that can bleed, speak, walk, and cry? My goodTommy, in dear Father Holt's Church these things take place every day. Youknow St. Philip of the Willows appeared to Lord Castlewood and caused himto turn to the one true Church. No saints ever come to you." And HarryEsmond, because of his promise to Father Holt, hiding away these treasuresof faith from T. Tusher, delivered himself of them nevertheless simply toFather Holt, who stroked his head, smiled at him with his inscrutablelook, and told him that he did well to meditate on these great things, andnot to talk of them except under direction.