The Virginians Part 45

I have already described my present feelings as an elderly gentleman, regarding that rash jump into matrimony, which I persuaded my dear partner to take with me when we were both scarce out of our teens. As a man and a father-with a due sense of the necessity of mutton chops, and the importance of paying the baker-with a pack of rash children round about us who might be running off to Scotland to-morrow, and pleading papa's and mamma's example for their impertinence,-I know that I ought to be very cautious in narrating this early part of the married life of George Warrington, Esquire, and Theodosia his wife-to call out mea culpa, and put on a demure air, and, sitting in my comfortable easy-chair here, profess to be in a white sheet and on the stool of repentance, offering myself up as a warning to imprudent and hot-headed youth.

But, truth to say, that married life, regarding which my dear relatives prophesied so gloomily, has disappointed all those prudent and respectable people. It has had its trials; but I can remember them without bitterness-its pa.s.sionate griefs, of which time, by G.o.d's kind ordinance, has been the benign consoler-its days of poverty, which we bore, who endured it, to the wonder of our sympathising relatives looking on-its precious rewards and blessings, so great that I scarce dare to whisper them to this page; to speak of them, save with awful respect and to One Ear, to which are offered up the prayers and thanks of all men. To marry without a competence is wrong and dangerous, no doubt, and a crime against our social codes; but do not scores of thousands of our fellow-beings commit the crime every year with no other trust but in, Heaven, health, and their labour? Are young people entering into the married life not to take hope into account, nor dare to begin their housekeeping until the cottage is completely furnished, the cellar and larder stocked, the cupboard full of plate, and the strong-box of money? The increase and multiplication of the world would stop, were the laws which regulate the genteel part of it to be made universal. Our gentlefolks tremble at the brink in their silk stockings and pumps, and wait for whole years, until they find a bridge or a gilt barge to carry them across; our poor do not fear to wet their bare feet, plant them in the brook, and trust to fate and strength to bear them over. Who would like to consign his daughter to poverty? Who would counsel his son to undergo the countless risks of poor married life, to remove the beloved girl from comfort and competence, and subject her to debt, misery, privation, friendlessness, sickness, and the hundred gloomy consequences of the res angusta domi? I look at my own wife and ask her pardon for having imposed a task so fraught with pain and danger upon one so gentle. I think of the trials she endured, and am thankful for them and for that unfailing love and constancy with which G.o.d blessed her and strengthened her to bear them all. On this question of marriage, I am not a fair judge: my own was so imprudent-and has been so happy, that I must not dare to give young people counsel. I have endured poverty, but scarcely ever found it otherwise than tolerable: had I not undergone it, I never could have known the kindness of friends, the delight of grat.i.tude, the surprising joys and consolations which sometimes accompany the scanty meal and narrow fire, and cheer the long day's labour. This at least is certain, in respect of the lot of the decent poor, that a great deal of superfluous pity is often thrown away upon it. Good-natured fine folks, who sometimes stepped out of the suns.h.i.+ne of their riches into a narrow obscurity, were blinded as it were, whilst we could see quite cheerfully and clearly: they stumbled over obstacles which were none to us: they were surprised at the resignation with which we drank small beer, and that we could heartily say grace over such very cold mutton.

The good General, my father-in-law, had married his Molly, when he was a subaltern of a foot regiment, and had a purse scarce better filled than my own. They had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though my wife will never confess to this point) they had married, as people could do in their young time, without previously asking papa's and mamma's leave. [The Editor has looked through Burn's Registers of Fleet Marriages without finding the names of Martin Lambert and Mary Benson.] At all events, they were so well pleased with their own good luck in matrimony, that they did not grudge their children's, and were by no means frightened at the idea of any little hards.h.i.+ps which we in the course of our married life might be called upon to undergo. And I suppose when I made my own pecuniary statements to Mr. Lambert, I was anxious to deceive both of us. Believing me to be master of a couple of thousand pounds, he went to Jamaica quite easy in his mind as to his darling daughter's comfort and maintenance, at least for some years to come. After paying the expenses of his family's outfit, the worthy man went away not much richer than his son-in-law; and a few trinkets, and some lace of Aunt Lambert's, with twenty new guineas in a purse which her mother and sisters made for her, were my Theo's marriage portion. But in valuing my stock, I chose to count as a good debt a sum which my honoured mother never could be got to acknowledge up to the day when the resolute old lady was called to pay the last debt of all. The sums I had disbursed for her, she argued, were spent for the improvement and maintenance of the estate which was to be mine at her decease. What money she could spare was to be for my poor brother, who had nothing, who would never have spent his own means had he not imagined himself to be sole heir of the Virginian property, as he would have been-the good lady took care to emphasise this point in many of her letters-but for a half-hour's accident of birth. He was now distinguis.h.i.+ng himself in the service of his king and country. To purchase his promotion was his mother's, she should suppose his brother's duty! When I had finished my bar-studies and my dramatic amus.e.m.e.nts, Madam Esmond informed me that I was welcome to return home and take that place in our colony to which my birth ent.i.tled me. This statement she communicated to me more than once through Mountain, and before the news of my marriage had reached her.

There is no need to recall her expressions of maternal indignation when she was informed of the step I had taken. On the pacification of Canada, my dear Harry asked for leave of absence, and dutifully paid a visit to Virginia. He wrote, describing his reception at home, and the splendid entertainments which my mother made in honour of her son. Castlewood, which she had not inhabited since our departure for Europe, was thrown open again to our friends of the colony; and the friend of Wolfe, and the soldier of Quebec, was received by all our acquaintance with every becoming honour. Some dismal quarrels, to be sure, ensued, because my brother persisted in maintaining his friends.h.i.+p with Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, of Mount Vernon, whose praises Harry never was tired of singing. Indeed I allow the gentleman every virtue; and in the struggles which terminated so fatally for England a few years since, I can admire as well as his warmest friends, General Was.h.i.+ngton's glorious constancy and success.

If these battles between Harry and our mother were frequent, as, in his letters, he described them to be, I wondered, for my part, why he should continue at home? One reason naturally suggested itself to my mind, which I scarcely liked to communicate to Mrs. Warrington; for we had both talked over our dear little Hetty's romantic attachment for my brother, and wondered that he had never discovered it. I need not say, I suppose, that my gentleman had found some young lady at home more to his taste than our dear Hester, and hence accounted for his prolonged stay in Virginia.

Presently there came, in a letter from him, not a full confession but an admission of this interesting fact. A person was described, not named-a Being all beauty and perfection, like other young ladies under similar circ.u.mstances. My wife asked to see the letter: I could not help showing it, and handed it to her, with a very sad face. To my surprise she read it, without exhibiting any corresponding sorrow of her own.

"I have thought of this before, my love," I said. "I feel with you for your disappointment regarding poor Hetty."

"Ah! poor Hetty," says Theo, looking down at the carpet.

"It would never have done," says I.

"No-they would not have been happy," sighs Theo.

"How strange he never should have found out her secret!" I continued.

She looked me full in the face with an odd expression. "Pray, what does that look mean?" I asked.

"Nothing, my dear-nothing! only I am not surprised!" says Theo, blus.h.i.+ng.

"What," I ask, "can there be another?"

"I am sure I never said so, George," says the lady, hurriedly. "But if Hetty has overcome her childish folly, ought we not all to be glad? Do you gentlemen suppose that you only are to fall in love and grow tired, indeed?"

"What!" I say, with a strange commotion of my mind. "Do you mean to tell me, Theo, that you ever cared for any one but me?"

"Oh, George," she whimpers, "when I was at school, there was-there was one of the boys of Doctor Backhouse's school, who sate in the loft next to us; and I thought he had lovely eyes, and I was so shocked when I recognised him behind the counter at Mr. Grigg's the mercer's, when I went to buy a cloak for baby, and I wanted to tell you, my dear, and I didn't know how!"

I went to see this creature with the lovely eyes, having made my wife describe the fellow's dress to me, and I saw a little bandy-legged wretch in a blue camlet coat, with his red hair tied with a dirty ribbon, about whom I forbore generously even to reproach my wife; nor will she ever know that I have looked at the fellow, until she reads the confession in this page. If our wives saw us as we are, I thought, would they love us as they do? Are we as much mistaken in them, as they in us? I look into one candid face at least, and think it never has deceived me.

Lest I should encourage my young people to an imitation of my own imprudence, I will not tell them with how small a capital Mrs. Theo and I commenced life. The unfortunate tragedy brought us nothing; though the reviewers, since its publication of late, have spoken not unfavourably as to its merits, and Mr. Kemble himself has done me the honour to commend it. Our kind friend Lord Wrotham was for having the piece published by subscription, and sent me a bank-note, with a request that I would let him have a hundred copies for his friends; but I was always averse to that method of levying money, and, preferring my poverty sine dote, locked up my ma.n.u.script, with my poor girl's verses inserted at the first page. I know not why the piece should have given such offence at court, except for the fact that an actor who had run off with an earl's daughter, performed a princ.i.p.al part in the play; but I was told that sentiments which I had put into the mouths of some of the Indian characters (who were made to declaim against ambition, the British desire of rule, and so forth), were p.r.o.nounced dangerous and unconst.i.tutional; so that the little hope of royal favour, which I might have had, was quite taken away from me.

What was to be done? A few months after the failure of the tragedy, as I counted up the remains of my fortune (the calculation was not long or difficult), I came to the conclusion that I must beat a retreat out of my pretty apartments in Bloomsbury, and so gave warning to our good landlady, informing her that my wife's health required that we should have lodgings in the country. But we went no farther than Lambeth, our faithful Gumbo and Molly following us; and here, though as poor as might be, we were waited on by a maid and a lackey in livery, like any folks of condition. You may be sure kind relatives cried out against our extravagance; indeed, are they not the people who find our faults out for us, and proclaim them to the rest of the world?

Returning home from London one day, whither I had been on a visit to some booksellers, I recognised the family arms and livery on a grand gilt chariot which stood before a public-house near to our lodgings. A few loitering inhabitants were gathered round the splendid vehicle, and looking with awe at the footmen, resplendent in the sun, and quaffing blazing pots of beer. I found my Lady Castlewood seated opposite to my wife in our little apartment (whence we had a very bright, pleasant prospect of the river, covered with barges and wherries, and the ancient towers and trees of the Archbishop's palace and gardens), and Mrs. Theo, who has a very droll way of describing persons and scenes, narrated to me all the particulars of her ladys.h.i.+p's conversation, when she took her leave.

"I have been here this ever-so-long," says the Countess, "gossiping with cousin Theo, while you have been away at the coffee-house, I dare say, making merry with your friends, and drinking your punch and coffee. Guess she must find it rather lonely here, with nothing to do but work them little caps and hem them frocks. Never mind, dear; reckon you'll soon have a companion who will amuse you when cousin George is away at his coffee-house! What a nice lodging you have got here, I do declare! Our new house which we have took is twenty times as big, and covered with gold from top to bottom; but I like this quite as well. Bless you being rich is no better than being poor. When we lived to Albany, and I did most all the work myself, scoured the rooms, biled the kettle, helped the wash, and all, I was just as happy as I am now. We only had one old negro to keep the store. Why don't you sell Gumbo, cousin George? He ain't no use here idling and dawdling about, and making love to the servant-girl. Fogh! guess they ain't particular, these English people!" So she talked, rattling on with perfect good-humour, until her hour for departure came; when she produced a fine repeating watch, and said it was time for her to pay a call upon her Majesty at Buckingham House. "And mind you come to us, George," says her ladys.h.i.+p, waving a little parting hand out of the gilt coach. "Theo and I have settled all about it."

"Here, at least," said I, when the laced footmen had clambered up behind the carriage, and our magnificent little patroness had left us;-"here is one who is not afraid of our poverty, nor ashamed to remember her own."

"Ashamed!" said Theo, resuming her lilliputian needlework. "To do her justice, she would make herself at home in any kitchen or palace in the world. She has given me and Molly twenty lessons in housekeeping. She says, when she was at home to Albany, she roasted, baked, swept the house, and milked the cow." (Madam Theo p.r.o.nounced the word cow archly in our American way, and imitated her ladys.h.i.+p's accent very divertingly.) "And she has no pride," I added. "It was good-natured of her to ask us to dine with her and my lord. When will Uncle Warrington ever think of offering us a crust again, or a gla.s.s of his famous beer?"

"Yes, it was not ill-natured to invite us," says Theo, slily. "But, my dear, you don't know all the conditions!" And then my wife, still imitating the Countess's manner, laughingly informed me what these conditions were. "She took out her pocket-book, and told me," says Theo, "what days she was engaged abroad and at home. On Monday she received a Duke and a d.u.c.h.ess, with several other members of my lord's house, and their ladies. On Tuesday came more earls, two bishops, and an amba.s.sador. 'Of course you won't come on them days?' says the Countess. 'Now you are so poor, you know, that fine company ain't no good for you. Lord bless you! father never dines on our company days! he don't like it; he takes a bit of cold meat anyways.' On which," says Theo, laughing, "I told her that Mr. Warrington did not care for any but the best of company, and proposed that she should ask us on some day when the Archbishop of Canterbury dined with her, and his Grace must give us a lift home in his coach to Lambeth. And she is an economical little person, too," continues Theo. "'I thought of bringing with me some of my baby's caps and things, which his lords.h.i.+p has outgrown 'em, but they may be wanted again, you know, my dear.' And so we lose that addition to our wardrobe," says Theo, smiling, "and Molly and I must do our best without her ladys.h.i.+p's charity. 'When people are poor, they are poor,' the Countess said, with her usual outspokenness, 'and must get on the best they can. What we shall do for that poor Maria, goodness only knows! we can't ask her to see us as we can you, though you are so poor: but an earl's daughter to marry a play-actor! La, my dear, it's dreadful: his Majesty and the Princess have both spoken of it! Every other n.o.ble family in this kingdom as has ever heard of it pities us; though I have a plan for helping those poor unhappy people, and have sent down Simons, my groom of the chambers, to tell them on it.' This plan was, that Hagan, who had kept almost all his terms at Dublin College, should return thither and take his degree, and enter into holy orders, 'when we will provide him with a chaplaincy at home, you know,' Lady Castlewood added." And I may mention here, that this benevolent plan was executed a score of months later; when I was enabled myself to be of service to Mr. Hagan, who was one of the kindest and best of our friends during our own time of want and distress. Castlewood then executed his promise loyally enough, got orders and a colonial appointment for Hagan, who distinguished himself both as soldier and preacher, as we shall presently hear; but not a guinea did his lords.h.i.+p spare to aid either his sister or his kinsman in their trouble. I never asked him, thank Heaven, to a.s.sist me in my own; though, to do him justice, no man could express himself more amiably, and with a joy which I believe was quite genuine, when my days of poverty were ended.

As for my Uncle Warrington, and his virtuous wife and daughters, let me do them justice likewise, and declare that throughout my period of trial, their sorrow at my poverty was consistent and unvarying. I still had a few acquaintances who saw them, and of course (as friends will) brought me a report of their opinions and conversation; and I never could hear that my relatives had uttered one single good word about me or my wife. They spoke even of my tragedy as a crime-I was accustomed to hear that sufficiently maligned-of the author as a miserable reprobate, for ever reeling about Grub Street, in rags and squalor. They held me out no hand of help. My poor wife might cry in her pain, but they had no twopence to bestow upon her. They went to church a half-dozen times in the week. They subscribed to many public charities. Their tribe was known eighteen hundred years ago, and will flourish as long as men endure. They will still thank Heaven that they are not as other folks are; and leave the wounded and miserable to other succour.

I don't care to recall the dreadful doubts and anxieties which began to beset me; the plan after plan which I tried, and in which I failed, for procuring work and adding to our dwindling stock of money. I bethought me of my friend Mr. Johnson, and when I think of the eager kindness with which he received me, am ashamed of some pert speeches which I own to have made regarding his manners and behaviour. I told my story and difficulties to him, the circ.u.mstance of my marriage, and the prospects before me. He would not for a moment admit they were gloomy, or, si male nunc, that they would continue to be so. I had before me the chances, certainly very slender, of a place in England; the inheritance which must be mine in the course of nature, or at any rate would fall to the heir I was expecting. I had a small stock of money for present actual necessity-a possibility, "though, to be free with you, sir" (says he), "after the performance of your tragedy, I doubt whether nature has endowed you with those peculiar qualities which are necessary for achieving a remarkable literary success"-and finally a submission to the maternal rule, and a return to Virginia, where plenty and a home were always ready for me. "Why, sir!" he cried, "such a sum as you mention would have been a fortune to me when I began the world, and my friend Mr. Goldsmith would set up a coach-and-six on it. With youth, hope, to-day, and a couple of hundred pounds in cash-no young fellow need despair. Think, sir, you have a year at least before you, and who knows what may chance between now and then. Why, sir, your relatives here may provide for you, or you may succeed to your Virginian property, or you may come into a fortune!" I did not in the course of that year, but he did. My Lord Bute gave Mr. Johnson a pension, which set all Grub Street in a fury against the recipient, who, to be sure, had published his own not very flattering opinion upon pensions and pensioners.

Nevertheless, he did not altogether discourage my literary projects, promised to procure me work from the booksellers, and faithfully performed that kind promise. "But," says he, "sir, you must not appear amongst them in forma pauperis.-Have you never a friend's coach, in which we can ride to see them? You must put on your best laced hat and waistcoat; and we must appear, sir, as if we were doing them a favour." This stratagem answered, and procured me respect enough at the first visit or two; but when the booksellers knew that I wanted to be paid for my work, their backs refused to bend any more, and they treated me with a familiarity which I could ill stomach. I overheard one of them, who had been a footman, say, "Oh, it's Pocahontas, is it? let him wait." And he told his boy to say as much to me. "Wait, sir?" says I, fuming with rage and putting my head into his parlour, "I'm not accustomed to waiting, but I have heard you are." And I strode out of the shop into Pall Mall in a mighty fl.u.s.ter.

And yet Mr. D. was in the right. I came to him, if not to ask a favour, at any rate to propose a bargain, and surely it was my business to wait his time and convenience. In more fortunate days I asked the gentleman's pardon, and the kind author of the Muse in Livery was instantly appeased.

I was more prudent, or Mr. Johnson more fortunate, in an application elsewhere, and Mr. Johnson procured me a little work from the booksellers in translating from foreign languages, of which I happen to know two or three. By a hard day's labour I could earn a few s.h.i.+llings; so few that a week's work would hardly bring me a guinea: and that was flung to me with insolent patronage by the low hucksters who employed me. I can put my finger upon two or three magazine articles written at this period, and paid for with a few wretched s.h.i.+llings, which papers as I read them awaken in me the keenest pangs of bitter remembrance. [Mr. George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, says he remembers a book, containing his grandfather's book-plate, in which were pasted various extracts from reviews and newspapers in an old type, and lettered outside Les Chains de l'Esclavage. These were no doubt the contributions above mentioned; but the volume has not been found, either in the town-house or in the library at Warrington Manor. The Editor, by the way, is not answerable for a certain inconsistency, which may be remarked in the narrative. The writer says earlier, that he speaks without bitterness of past times, and presently falls into a fury with them. The same manner of forgiving our enemies is not uncommon in the present century.] I recall the doubts and fears which agitated me, see the dear wife nursing her infant and looking up into my face with hypocritical smiles that vainly try to mask her alarm: the struggles of pride are fought over again: the wounds under which I smarted re-open. There are some acts of injustice committed against me which I don't know how to forgive; and which, whenever I think of them, awaken in me the same feelings of revolt and indignation. The gloom and darkness gather over me-till they are relieved by a reminiscence of that love and tenderness which through all gloom and darkness have been my light and consolation.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xII. Miles's Moidore

Little Miles made his appearance in this world within a few days of the gracious Prince who commands his regiment. Illuminations and cannonading saluted the Royal George's birth, mult.i.tudes were admitted to see him as he lay behind a gilt railing at the Palace with n.o.ble nurses watching over him. Few nurses guarded the cradle of our little Prince; no courtiers, no faithful retainers saluted it, except our trusty Gumbo and kind Molly, who to be sure loved and admired the little heir of my poverty as loyally as our hearts could desire. Why was our boy not named George like the other paragon just mentioned, and like his father? I gave him the name of a little scapegrace of my family, a name which many generations of Warringtons had borne likewise; but my poor little Miles's love and kindness touched me at a time when kindness and love were rare from those of my own blood, and Theo and I agreed that our child should be called after that single little friend of my paternal race.

We wrote to acquaint our royal parents with the auspicious event, and bravely inserted the child's birth in the Daily Advertiser, and the place, Church Street, Lambeth, where he was born. "My dear," says Aunt Bernstein, writing to me in reply to my announcement, "how could you point out to all the world that you live in such a trou as that in which you have buried yourself? I kiss the little mamma, and send a remembrance for the child." This remembrance was a fine silk coverlid, with a lace edging fit for a prince. It was not very useful: the price of the lace would have served us much better, but Theo and Molly were delighted with the present, and my eldest son's cradle had a cover as fine as any n.o.bleman's.

Good Dr. Heberden came over several times to visit my wife, and see that all things went well. He knew and recommended to us a surgeon in the vicinage, who took charge of her; luckily, my dear patient needed little care, beyond that which our landlady and her own trusty attendant could readily afford her. Again our humble precinct was adorned with the gilded apparition of Lady Castlewood's chariot wheels; she brought a pot of jelly, which she thought Theo might like, and which, no doubt, had been served at one of her ladys.h.i.+p's banquets on a previous day. And she told us of all the ceremonies at court, and of the splendour and festivities attending the birth of the august heir to the crown; Our good Mr. Johnson happened to pay me a visit on one of those days when my lady countess's carriage flamed up to our little gate. He was not a little struck by her magnificence, and made her some bows, which were more respectful than graceful. She called me cousin very affably, and helped to transfer the present of jelly from her silver dish into our crockery pan with much benignity. The Doctor tasted the sweetmeat, and p.r.o.nounced it to be excellent. "The great, sir," says he, "are fortunate in every way. They can engage the most skilful pract.i.tioners of the culinary art, as they can a.s.semble the most amiable wits round their table. If, as you think, sir, and, from the appearance of the dish, your suggestion at least is plausible, this sweetmeat may have appeared already at his lords.h.i.+p's table, it has been there in good company. It has quivered under the eyes of celebrated beauties, it has been tasted by ruby lips, it has divided the attention of the distinguished company, with fruits, tarts, and creams, which I make no doubt were like itself delicious." And so saying, the good Doctor absorbed a considerable portion of Lady Castlewood's benefaction; though as regards the epithet delicious I am bound to say, that my poor wife, after tasting the jelly, put it away from her as not to her liking; and Molly, flinging up her head, declared it was mouldy.

My boy enjoyed at least the privilege of having an earl's daughter for his G.o.dmother; for this office was performed by his cousin, our poor Lady Maria, whose kindness and attention to the mother and the infant were beyond all praise; and who, having lost her own solitary chance for maternal happiness, yearned over our child in a manner not a little touching to behold. Captain Miles is a mighty fine gentleman, and his uniforms of the Prince's Hussars as splendid as any that ever bedizened a soldier of fas.h.i.+on; but he hath too good a heart, and is too true a gentleman, let us trust, not to be thankful when he remembers that his own infant limbs were dressed in some of the little garments which had been prepared for the poor player's child. Sampson christened him in that very chapel in Southwark, where our marriage ceremony had been performed. Never were the words of the Prayer-book more beautifully and impressively read than by the celebrant of the service; except at its end, when his voice failed him, and he and the rest of the little congregation were fain to wipe their eyes. "Mr. Garrick himself, sir," says Hagan, "could not have read those words so n.o.bly. I am sure little innocent never entered the world accompanied by wishes and benedictions more tender and sincere."

And now I have not told how it chanced that the Captain came by his name of Miles. A couple of days before his christening, when as yet I believe it was intended that our firstborn should bear his father's name, a little patter of horse's hoofs comes galloping up to our gate; and who should pull at the bell but young Miles, our cousin? I fear he had disobeyed his parents when he galloped away on that undutiful journey.

"You know," says he, "cousin Harry gave me my little horse; and I can't help liking you, because you are so like Harry, and because they're always saying things of you at home, and it's a shame; and I have brought my whistle and coral that my G.o.dmamma Lady Suckling gave me, for your little boy; and if you're so poor, cousin George, here's my gold moidore, and it's worth ever so much, and it's no use to me, because I mayn't spend it, you know."

We took the boy up to Theo in her room (he mounted the stair in his little tramping boots, of which he was very proud); and Theo kissed him, and thanked him; and his moidore has been in her purse from that day.

My mother, writing through her amba.s.sador as usual, informed me of her royal surprise and displeasure on learning that my son had been christened Miles-a name not known, at least in the Esmond family. I did not care to tell the reason at the time; but when, in after years, I told Madam Esmond how my boy came by his name, I saw a tear roll down her wrinkled cheek, and I heard afterwards that she had asked Gumbo many questions about the boy who gave his name to our Miles-our Miles Gloriosus of Pall Mall, Valenciennes, Almack's, Brighton.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xIII. Troubles and Consolations

In our early days at home, when Harry and I used to be so undutiful to our tutor, who would have thought that Mr. Esmond Warrington of Virginia would turn Bearleader himself? My mother (when we came together again) never could be got to speak directly of this period of my life; but would allude to it as "that terrible time, my love, which I can't bear to think of," "those dreadful years when there was difference between us," and so forth; and though my pupil, a worthy and grateful man, sent me out to Jamestown several barrels of that liquor by which his great fortune was made, Madam Esmond spoke of him as "your friend in England," "your wealthy Lambeth friend," etc., but never by his name; nor did she ever taste a drop of his beer. We brew our own too at Warrington Manor, but our good Mr. Foker never fails to s.h.i.+p to Ipswich every year a couple of b.u.t.ts of his entire. His son is a young sprig of fas.h.i.+on, and has married an earl's daughter; the father is a very worthy and kind gentleman, and it is to the luck of making his acquaintance that I owe the receipt of some of the most welcome guineas that ever I received in my life.

It was not so much the sum, as the occupation and hope given me by the office of Governor, which I took on myself, which were then so precious to me. Mr. F.'s Brewery (the site has since been changed) then stood near to Pedlar's Acre in Lambeth and the surgeon who attended my wife in her confinement, likewise took care of the wealthy brewer's family. He was a Bavarian, originally named Voelker. Mr. Lance, the surgeon, I suppose, made him acquainted with my name and history. The worthy doctor would smoke many a pipe of Virginia in my garden, and had conceived an attachment for me and my family. He brought his patron to my house; and when Mr. F. found that I had a smattering of his language, and could sing "Prinz Eugen the n.o.ble Ritter" (a song that my grandfather had brought home from the Marlborough wars), the German conceived a great friends.h.i.+p for me: his lady put her chair and her chariot at Mrs. Warrington's service: his little daughter took a prodigious fancy to our baby (and to do him justice, the Captain, who is as ugly a fellow now as ever wore a queue, was beautiful as an infant) [The very image of the Squire at 30, everybody says so. M. W. (Note in the MS.)]: and his son and heir, Master Foker, being much maltreated at Westminster School because of his father's profession of brewer, the parents asked if I would take charge of him; and paid me a not insufficient sum for superintending his education.

Mr. F. was a shrewd man of business, and as he and his family really interested themselves in me and mine, I laid all my pecuniary affairs pretty unreservedly before him; and my statement, he was pleased to say, augmented the respect and regard which he felt for me. He laughed at our stories of the aid which my n.o.ble relatives had given me-my aunt's coverlid, my Lady Castlewood's mouldy jelly, Lady Warrington's contemptuous treatment of us. But he wept many tears over the story of little Miles's moidore; and as for Sampson and Hagan, "I wow," says he, "dey shall have so much beer als ever dey can drink." He sent his wife to call upon Lady Maria, and treated her with the utmost respect and obsequiousness, whenever she came to visit him. It was with Mr. Foker that Lady Maria stayed when Hagan went to Dublin to complete his college terms; and the good brewer's purse also ministered to our friend's wants and supplied his outfit.

When Mr. Foker came fully to know my own affairs and position, he was pleased to speak of me with terms of enthusiasm, and as if my conduct showed some extraordinary virtue. I have said how my mother saved money for Harry, and how the two were in my debt. But when Harry spent money, he spent it fancying it to be his; Madam Esmond never could be made to understand she was dealing hardly with me-the money was paid and gone, and there was an end of it. Now, at the end of '62, I remember Harry sent over a considerable remittance for the purchase of his promotion, begging me at the same time to remember that he was in my debt, and to draw on his agents if I had any need. He did not know how great the need was, or how my little capital had been swallowed.

Well, to take my brother's money would delay his promotion, and I naturally did not draw on him, though I own I was tempted; nor, knowing my dear General Lambert's small means, did I care to impoverish him by asking for supplies. These simple acts of forbearance my worthy brewer must choose to consider as instances of exalted virtue. And what does my gentleman do but write privately to my brother in America, lauding me and my wife as the most admirable of human beings, and call upon Madame de Bernstein, who never told me of his visit indeed, but who, I perceived, about this time treated us with singular respect and gentleness, that surprised me in one whom I could not but consider as selfish and worldly. In after days I remember asking him how he had gained admission to the Baroness? He laughed: "De Baroness!" says he. "I knew de Baron when he was a walet at Munich, and I was a brewer-apprentice." I think our family had best not be too curious about our uncle the Baron.

Thus, the part of my life which ought to have been most melancholy was in truth made pleasant by many friends, happy circ.u.mstances, and strokes of lucky fortune. The bear I led was a docile little cub, and danced to my piping very readily. Better to lead him about, than to hang round booksellers' doors, or wait the pleasure or caprice of managers! My wife and I, during our exile, as we may call it, spent very many pleasant evenings with these kind friends and benefactors. Nor were we without intellectual enjoyments; Mrs. Foker and Mrs. Warrington sang finely together; and sometimes when I was in the mood, I read my own play of Pocahontas, to this friendly audience, in a manner better than Hagan's own, Mr. Foker was pleased to say.

After that little escapade of Miles Warrington, junior, I saw nothing of him, and heard of my paternal relatives but rarely. Sir Miles was a.s.siduous at court (as I believe he would have been at Nero's), and I laughed one day when Mr. Foker told me that he had heard on 'Change "that they were going to make my uncle a Beer."-"A Beer?" says I in wonder. "Can't you understand de vort, ven I say it?" says the testy old gentleman. "Vell, veil, a Lort!" Sir, Miles indeed was the obedient humble servant of the Minister, whoever he might be. I am surprised he did not speak English with a Scotch accent during the first favourite's brief reign. I saw him and his wife coming from court, when Mrs. Claypool was presented to her Majesty on her marriage. I had my little boy on my shoulder. My uncle and aunt stared resolutely at me from their gilt coach window. The footmen looked blank over their nosegays. Had I worn the Fairy's cap and been invisible, my father's brother could not have pa.s.sed me with less notice.

We did not avail ourselves much, or often, of that queer invitation of Lady Castlewood, to go and drink tea and sup with her ladys.h.i.+p when there was no other company. Old Van den Bosch, however shrewd his intellect, and great his skill in making a fortune, was not amusing in conversation, except to his daughter, who talked household and City matters, bulling and bearing, raising and selling farming-stock, and so forth, quite as keenly and shrewdly as her father. Nor was my Lord Castlewood often at home, or much missed by his wife when absent, or very much at ease in the old father's company. The Countess told all this to my wife in her simple way. "Guess," says she, "my lord and father don't pull well together nohow. Guess my lord is always wanting money, and father keeps the key of the box and quite right, too. If he could have the fingering of all our money, my lord would soon make away with it, and then what's to become of our n.o.ble family? We pay everything, my dear (except play-debts, and them we won't have nohow). We pay cooks, horses, wine-merchants, tailors, and everybody-and lucky for them too-reckon my lord wouldn't pay 'em! And we always take care that he has a guinea in his pocket, and goes out like a real n.o.bleman. What that man do owe to us: what he did before we come-gracious goodness only knows! Me and father does our best to make him respectable: but it's no easy job, my dear. Law! he'd melt the plate, only father keeps the key of the strong-room; and when we go to Castlewood, my father travels with me, and papa is armed too, as well as the people."

"Gracious heavens!" cries my wife, "your ladys.h.i.+p does not mean to say you suspect your own husband of a desire to--"

"To what?-Oh no, nothing, of course! And I would trust our brother Will with untold money, wouldn't I? As much as I'd trust the cat with the cream-pan! I tell you, my dear, it's not all pleasure being a woman of rank and fas.h.i.+on: and if I have bought a countess's coronet, I have paid a good price for it-that I have!"

And so had my Lord Castlewood paid a large price for having his estate freed from inc.u.mbrances, his houses and stables furnished, and his debts discharged. He was the slave of the little wife and her father. No wonder the old man's society was not pleasant to the poor victim, and that he gladly slunk away from his own fine house, to feast at the club when he had money, or at least to any society save that which he found at home. To lead a bear, as I did, was no very pleasant business, to be sure: to wait in a bookseller's anteroom until it should please his honour to finish his dinner and give me audience, was sometimes a hard task for a man of my name and with my pride; but would I have exchanged my poverty against Castlewood's ignominy, or preferred his miserable dependence to my own? At least I earned my wage, such as it was; and no man can say that I ever flattered my patrons, or was servile to them; or indeed, in my dealings with them, was otherwise than sulky, overbearing, and, in a word, intolerable.

Now there was a certain person with whom Fate had thrown me into a life-partners.h.i.+p, who bore her poverty with such a smiling sweetness and easy grace, that n.i.g.g.ard Fortune relented before her, and, like some savage Ogre in the fairy tales, melted at the constant goodness and cheerfulness of that uncomplaining, artless, innocent creature. However poor she was, all who knew her saw that here was a fine lady; and the little tradesmen and humble folks round about us treated her with as much respect as the richest of our neighbours. "I think, my dear," says good-natured Mrs. Foker, when they rode out in the latter's chariot, "you look like the mistress of the carriage, and I only as your maid." Our landladies adored her; the tradesfolk executed her little orders as eagerly as if a d.u.c.h.ess gave them, or they were to make a fortune by waiting on her. I have thought often of the lady in Comus, and how, through all the rout and rabble, she moves, entirely serene and pure.

Several times, as often as we chose indeed, the good-natured parents of my young bear lent us their chariot to drive abroad or to call on the few friends we had. If I must tell the truth, we drove once to the Protestant Hero and had a syllabub in the garden there: and the hostess would insist upon calling my wife her ladys.h.i.+p during the whole afternoon. We also visited Mr. Johnson, and took tea with him (the ingenious Mr. Goldsmith was of the company); the Doctor waited upon my wife to her coach. But our most frequent visits were to Aunt Bernstein, and I promise you I was not at all jealous because my aunt presently professed to have a wonderful liking for Theo.

This liking grew so that she would have her most days in the week, or to stay altogether with her, and thought that Theo's child and husband were only plagues to be sure, and hated us in the most amusing way for keeping her favourite from her. Not that my wife was unworthy of anybody's favour; but her many forced absences, and the constant difficulty of intercourse with her, raised my aunt's liking for a while to a sort of pa.s.sion. She poured in notes like love-letters; and her people were ever about our kitchen. If my wife did not go to her, she wrote heartrending appeals, and scolded me severely when I saw her; and, the child being ill once (it hath pleased Fate to spare our Captain to be a prodigious trouble to us, and a wholesome trial for our tempers), Madame Bernstein came three days running to Lambeth; vowed there was nothing the matter with the baby;-nothing at all;-and that we only pretended his illness, in order to vex her.

The reigning Countess of Castlewood was just as easy and affable with her old aunt, as with other folks great and small. "What air you all about, sc.r.a.ping and bowing to that old woman, I can't tell, noways!" her ladys.h.i.+p would say. "She a fine lady! Nonsense! She ain't no more fine than any other lady: and I guess I'm as good as any of 'em with their high heels and their grand airs! She a beauty once! Take away her wig, and her rouge, and her teeth; and what becomes of your beauty, I'd like to know? Guess you'd put it all in a bandbox, and there would be nothing left but a shrivelled old woman!" And indeed the little homilist only spoke too truly. All beauty must at last come to this complexion; and decay, either underground or on the tree. Here was old age, I fear, without reverence. Here were grey hairs, that were hidden or painted. The world was still here, and she tottering on it, and clinging to it with her crutch. For fourscore years she had moved on it, and eaten of the tree, forbidden and permitted. She had had beauty, pleasure, flattery: but what secret rages, disappointments, defeats, humiliations! what thorns under the roses! what stinging bees in the fruit! "You are not a beauty, my dear," she would say to my wife: "and may thank your stars that you are not." (If she contradicted herself in her talk, I suppose the rest of us occasionally do the like.) "Don't tell me that your husband is pleased with your face, and you want no one else's admiration! We all do. Every woman would rather be beautiful than be anything else in the world-ever so rich, or ever so good, or have all the gifts of the fairies! Look at that picture, though I know 'tis but a bad one, and that stupid vapouring Kneller could not paint my eyes, nor my hair, nor my complexion. What a shape I had then-and look at me now, and this wrinkled old neck! Why have we such a short time of our beauty? I remember Mademoiselle de l'Enclos at a much greater age than mine, quite fresh and well-conserved. We can't hide our ages. They are wrote in Mr. Collins's books for us. I was born in the last year of King James's reign. I am not old yet. I am but seventy-six. But what a wreck, my dear: and isn't it cruel that our time should be so short?"

Here my wife has to state the incontrovertible proposition, that the time of all of us is short here below.

"Ha!" cries the Baroness. "Did not Adam live near a thousand years, and was not Eve beautiful all the time? I used to perplex Mr. Tusher with that-poor creature! What have we done since, that our lives are so much lessened, I say?"

"Has your life been so happy that you would prolong it ever so much more?" asks the Baroness's auditor. "Have you, who love wit, never read Dean Swift's famous description of the deathless people in Gulliver? My papa and my husband say 'tis one of the finest and most awful sermons ever wrote. It were better not to live at all, than to live without love; and I'm sure," says my wife, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, "should anything happen to my dearest George, I would wish to go to Heaven that moment."

"Who loves me in Heaven? I am quite alone, child-that is why I had rather stay here," says the Baroness, in a frightened and rather piteous tone. "You are kind to me, G.o.d bless your sweet face! Though I scold, and have a frightful temper, my servants will do anything to make me comfortable, and get up at any hour of the night, and never say a cross word in answer. I like my cards still. Indeed, life would be a blank without 'em. Almost everything is gone except that. I can't eat my dinner now, since I lost those last two teeth. Everything goes away from us in old age. But I still have my cards-thank Heaven, I still have my cards!" And here she would begin to doze: waking up, however, if my wife stirred or rose, and imagining that Theo was about to leave her. "Don't go away, I can't bear to be alone. I don't want you to talk. But I like to see your face, my dear! It is much pleasanter than that horrid old Brett's, that I have had scowling about my bedroom these ever so long years."

"Well, Baroness! still at your cribbage?" (We may fancy a n.o.ble Countess interrupting a game at cards between Theo and Aunt Bernstein.) "Me and my Lord Esmond have come to see you! Go and shake hands with grandaunt, Esmond! and tell her ladys.h.i.+p that your lords.h.i.+p's a good boy!"

"My lords.h.i.+p's a good boy," says the child. (Madam Theo used to act these scenes for me in a very lively way.) "And if he is, I guess he don't take after his father," shrieks out Lady Castlewood. She chose to fancy that Aunt Bernstein was deaf, and always bawled at the old lady.

"Your ladys.h.i.+p chose my nephew for better or for worse," says Aunt Bernstein, who was now always very much flurried in the presence of the young Countess.

"But he is a precious deal worse than ever I thought he was. I am speaking of your Pa, Ezzy. If it wasn't for your mother, my son, Lord knows what would become of you! We are a-going to see his little Royal Highness. Sorry to see your ladys.h.i.+p not looking quite so well to-day. We can't always remain young and law! how we do change as we grow old! Go up and kiss that lady, Ezzy. She has got a little boy, too. Why, bless us! have you got the child downstairs?" Indeed, Master Miles was down below, for special reasons accompanying his mother on her visits to Aunt Bernstein sometimes; and our aunt desired the mother's company so much, that she was actually fain to put up with the child. "So you have got the child here? Oh, you slyboots!" says the Countess. "Guess you come after the old lady's money! Law bless you! Don't look so frightened. She can't hear a single word I say. Come, Ezzy. Good-bye, aunt!" And my lady Countess rustles out of the room.

Did Aunt Bernstein hear her or not? Where was the wit for which the old lady had been long famous? and was that fire put out, as well as the brilliancy of her eyes? With other people-she was still ready enough, and unsparing of her sarcasms. When the Dowager of Castlewood and Lady f.a.n.n.y visited her (these exalted ladies treated my wife with perfect indifference and charming good breeding),-the Baroness, in their society, was stately, easy, and even commanding. She would mischievously caress Mrs. Warrington before them; in her absence, vaunt my wife's good breeding; say that her nephew had made a foolish match, perhaps, but that I certainly had taken a charming wife. "In a word, I praise you so to them, my dear," says she, "that I think they would like to tear your eyes out." But, before the little American, 'tis certain that she was uneasy and trembled. She was so afraid, that she actually did not dare to deny her door; and, the Countess's back turned, did not even abuse her. However much they might dislike her, my ladies did not tear out Theo's eyes. Once-they drove to our cottage at Lambeth, where my wife happened to be sitting at the open window, holding her child on her knee, and in full view of her visitors. A gigantic footman strutted through our little garden, and delivered their ladys.h.i.+ps' visiting tickets at our door. Their hatred hurt us no more than their visit pleased us. When next we had the loan of our friend the Brewer's carriage Mrs. Warrington drove to Kensington, and Gumbo handed over to the giant our cards in return for those which his n.o.ble mistresses had bestowed on us.

The Baroness had a coach, but seldom thought of giving it to us: and would let Theo and her maid and baby start from Clarges Street in the rain, with a faint excuse that she was afraid to ask her coachman to take his horses out. But, twice on her return home, my wife was frightened by rude fellows on the other side of Westminster Bridge; and I fairly told my aunt that I should forbid Mrs. Warrington to go to her, unless she could be brought home in safety; so grumbling Jehu had to drive his horses through the darkness. He grumbled at my s.h.i.+llings: he did not know how few I had. Our poverty wore a pretty decent face. My relatives never thought of relieving it, nor I of complaining before them. I don't know how Sampson got a windfall of guineas; but, I remember, he brought me six once; and they were more welcome than any money I ever had in my life. He had been looking into Mr. Miles's crib, as the child lay asleep; and, when the parson went away, I found the money in the baby's little rosy hand. Yes, Love is best of all. I have many such benefactions registered in my heart-precious welcome fountains springing up in desert places, kind, friendly lights cheering our despondency and gloom.

This worthy divine was willing enough to give as much of his company as she chose to Madame de Bernstein, whether for cards or theology. Having known her ladys.h.i.+p for many years now, Sampson could see, and averred to us, that she was breaking fast; and as he spoke of her evidently increasing infirmities, and of the probability of their fatal termination, Mr. S. would discourse to us in a very feeling manner of the necessity for preparing for a future world; of the vanities of this, and of the hope that in another there might be happiness for all repentant sinners.

"I have been a sinner for one," says the chaplain, bowing his head. "G.o.d knoweth, and I pray Him to pardon me. I fear, sir, your aunt, the Lady Baroness, is not in such a state of mind as will fit her very well for the change which is imminent. I am but a poor weak wretch, and no prisoner in Newgate could confess that more humbly and heartily. Once or twice of late, I have sought to speak on this matter with her ladys.h.i.+p, but she has received me very roughly. 'Parson,' says she, 'if you come for cards, 'tis mighty well, but I will thank you to spare me your sermons.' What can I do, sir? I have called more than once of late, and Mr. Case hath told me his lady was unable to see me." In fact Madame Bernstein told my wife, whom she never refused, as I said, that the poor chaplain's ton was unendurable, and as for his theology, "Haven't I been a Bishop's wife?" says she, "and do I want this creature to teach me?"

The old lady was as impatient of doctors as of divines; pretending that my wife was ailing, and that it was more convenient for our good Doctor Heberden to visit her in Clarges Street than to travel all the way to our Lambeth lodgings, we got Dr. H. to see Theo at our aunt's house, and prayed him if possible to offer his advice to the Baroness: we made Mrs. Brett, her woman, describe her ailments, and the doctor confirmed our opinion that they were most serious, and might speedily end. She would rally briskly enough of some evenings, and entertain a little company; but of late she scarcely went abroad at all. A somnolence, which we had remarked in her, was attributable in part to opiates which she was in the habit of taking; and she used these narcotics to smother habitual pain. One night, as we two sat with her (Mr. Miles was weaned by this time, and his mother could leave him to the charge of our faithful Molly), she fell asleep over her cards. We hushed the servants who came to lay out the supper-table (she would always have this luxurious, nor could any injunction of ours or the Doctor's teach her abstinence), and we sat a while as we had often done before, waiting in silence till she should arouse from her doze.

When she awoke, she looked fixedly at me for a while, fumbled with the cards, and dropt them again in her lap, and said, "Henry, have I been long asleep?" I thought at first that it was for my brother she mistook me; but she went on quickly, and with eyes fixed as upon some very far distant object, and said, "My dear, 'tis of no use, I am not good enough for you. I love cards, and play, and court; and oh, Harry, you don't know all!" Here her voice changed, and she flung her head up. "His father married Anne Hyde, and sure the Esmond blood is as good as any that's not royal. Mamma, you must please to treat me with more respect. Vos sermons me fatiguent; entendez-vous?-faites place a mon Altesse royale: mesdames, me connaissez-vous? je suis la--" Here she broke out into frightful hysterical shrieks and laughter, and as we ran up to her, alarmed, "Oui, Henri," she says, "il a jure de m'epouser et les princes tiennent parole-n'est-ce pas? O oui! ils tiennent parole; si non, tu le tueras, cousin; tu le-ah! que je suis folle!" And the pitiful shrieks and laughter recommenced. Ere her frightened people had come up to her summons, the poor thing had pa.s.sed out of this mood into another; but always labouring under the same delusion-that I was the Henry of past times, who had loved her and had been forsaken by her, whose bones were lying far away by the banks of the Potomac.

My wife and the women put the poor lady to bed as I ran myself for medical aid. She rambled, still talking wildly, through the night, with her nurses and the surgeon sitting by her. Then she fell into a sleep, brought on by more opiate. When she awoke, her mind did not actually wander; but her speech was changed, and one arm and side were paralysed.

'Tis needless to relate the progress and termination of her malady, or watch that expiring flame of life as it gasps and flickers. Her senses would remain with her for a while (and then she was never satisfied unless Theo was by her bedside), or again her mind would wander, and the poor decrepit creature, lying upon her bed, would imagine herself young again, and speak incoherently of the scenes and incidents of her early days. Then she would address me as Henry again, and call upon me to revenge some insult or slight, of which (whatever my suspicions might be) the only record lay in her insane memory. "They have always been so," she would murmur: "they never loved man or woman but they forsook them. Je me vengerai, O oui, je me vengerai! I know them all: I know them all: and I will go to my Lord Stair with the list. Don't tell me! His religion can't be the right one. I will go back to my mother's though she does not love me. She never did. Why don't you, mother? Is it because I am too wicked? Ah! Pitie, pitie. O mon pere! I will make my confession"-and here the unhappy paralysed lady made as if she would move in her bed.

Let us draw the curtain round it. I think with awe still, of those rapid words, uttered in the shadow of the canopy, as my pallid wife sits by her, her Prayer-book on her knee; as the attendants move to and fro noiselessly; as the clock ticks without, and strikes the fleeting hours; as the sun falls upon the Kneller picture of Beatrix in her beauty, with the blus.h.i.+ng cheeks, the smiling lips, the waving auburn tresses, and the eyes which seem to look towards the dim figure moaning in the bed. I could not for a while understand why our aunt's attendants were so anxious that we should quit it. But towards evening, a servant stole in, and whispered her woman; and then Brett, looking rather disturbed, begged us to go downstairs, as the-as the Doctor was come to visit the Baroness. I did not tell my wife, at the time, who "the Doctor" was; but as the gentleman slid by us, and pa.s.sed upstairs, I saw at once that he was a Catholic ecclesiastic. When Theo next saw our poor lady, she was speechless; she never recognised any one about her, and so pa.s.sed unconsciously out of life. During her illness her relatives had called a.s.siduously enough, though she would see none of them save us. But when she was gone, and we descended to the lower rooms after all was over, we found Castlewood with his white face, and my lady from Kensington, and Mr. Will already a.s.sembled in the parlour. They looked greedily at us as we appeared. They were hungry for the prey.

When our aunt's will was opened, we found it dated five years back, and everything she had was left to her dear nephew, Henry Esmond Warrington, of Castlewood, in Virginia, "in affectionate love and remembrance of the name which he bore." The property was not great. Her revenue had been derived from pensions from the Crown as it appeared (for what services I cannot say), but the pension of course died with her, and there were only a few hundred pounds, besides jewels, trinkets, and the furniture of the house in Clarges Street, of which all London came to the sale. Mr. Walpole bid for her portrait, but I made free with Harry's money so far as to buy the picture in: and it now hangs over the mantelpiece of the chamber in which I write. What with jewels, laces, trinkets, and old china which she had gathered-Harry became possessed of more than four thousand pounds by his aunt's legacy. I made so free as to lay my hand upon a hundred, which came, just as my stock was reduced to twenty pounds; and I procured bills for the remainder, which I forwarded to Captain Henry Esmond in Virginia. Nor should I have scrupled to take more (for my brother was indebted to me in a much greater sum), but he wrote me there was another wonderful opportunity for buying an estate and negroes in our neighbourhood at home; and Theo and I were only too glad to forgo our little claim, so as to establish our brother's fortune. As to mine, poor Harry at this time did not know the state of it. My mother had never informed him that she had ceased remitting to me. She helped him with a considerable sum, the result of her savings, for the purchase of his new estate; and Theo and I were most heartily thankful at his prosperity.

And how strange ours was! By what curious good fortune, as our purse was emptied, was it filled again! I had actually come to the end of our stock, when poor Sampson brought me his six pieces-and with these I was enabled to carry on, until my half-year's salary, as young Mr. Foker's Governor, was due: then Harry's hundred, on which I laid main ba.s.se, helped us over three months (we were behindhand with our rent, or the money would have lasted six good weeks longer): and when this was pretty near expended, what should arrive but a bill of exchange for a couple of hundred pounds from Jamaica, with ten thousand blessings, from the dear friends there, and fond scolding from the General that we had not sooner told him of our necessity-of which he had only heard through our friend, Mr. Foker, who spoke in such terms of Theo and myself as to make our parents more than ever proud of their children. Was my quarrel with my mother irreparable? Let me go to Jamaica. There was plenty there for all, and employment which his Excellency as Governor would immediately procure for me. "Come to us!" writes Hetty. "Come to us!" writes Aunt Lambert. "Have my children been suffering poverty, and we rolling in our Excellency's coach, with guards to turn out whenever we pa.s.s? Has Charley been home to you for ever so many holidays, from the Chartreux, and had ever so many of my poor George's half-crowns in his pocket, I dare say?" (this was indeed the truth, for where was he to go for holidays but to his sister? and was there any use in telling the child how scarce half-crowns were with us?). "And you always treating him with such goodness, as his letters tell me, which are brimful of love for George and little Miles! Oh, how we long to see Miles!" wrote Hetty and her mother; "and as for his G.o.dfather" (writes Het), "who has been good to my dearest and her child, I promise him a kiss whenever I see him!"

Our young benefactor was never to hear of our family's love and grat.i.tude to him. That glimpse of his bright face over the railings before our house at Lambeth, as he rode away on his little horse, was the last we ever were to have of him. At Christmas a basket comes to us, containing a great turkey, and three brace of partridges, with a card, and "shot by M. W." wrote on one of them. And on receipt of this present, we wrote to thank the child and gave him our sister's message.

To this letter, there came a reply from Lady Warrington, who said she was bound to inform me, that in visiting me her child had been guilty of disobedience, and that she learned his visit to me now for the first time. Knowing my views regarding duty to my parents (which I had exemplified in my marriage), she could not wish her son to adopt them. And fervently hoping that I might be brought to see the errors of my present course, she took leave of this most unpleasant subject, subscribing herself, etc. etc. And we got this pretty missive as sauce for poor Miles's turkey, which was our family feast for New Year's Day. My Lady Warrington's letter choked our meal, though Sampson and Charley rejoiced over it.

Ah me! Ere the month was over, our little friend was gone from amongst us. Going out shooting, and dragging his gun through a hedge after him, the trigger caught in a bush, and the poor little man was brought home to his father's house, only to live a few days and expire in pain and torture. Under the yew-trees yonder, I can see the vault which covers him, and where my bones one day no dou