The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne by - (free children's online books TXT) 📖

own house. I'm to be the humble servant of that parson's daughter. By Jove! I'd rather she should fling the dish at my head than sneer at me as she does. She puts me to shame before the children with her d—d airs; and, I'll swear, tells Frank and Beaty that papa's a reprobate, and that they ought to despise me.”

“Indeed and indeed, sir, I never heard her say a word but of respect regarding you,” Harry Esmond interposed.

“No, curse it! I wish she would speak. But she never does. She scorns me, and holds her tongue. She keeps off from me, as if I was a pestilence. By George! she was fond enough of her pestilence once. And when I came a-courting, you would see miss blush—blush red, by George! for joy. Why, what do you think she said to me, Harry? She said herself, when I joked with her about her d—d smiling red cheeks: ''Tis as they do at St. James's; I put up my red flag when my king comes.' I was the king, you see, she meant. But now, sir, look at her! I believe she would be glad if I was dead; and dead I've been to her these five years—ever since you all of you had the small-pox: and she never forgave me for going away.”

“Indeed, my lord, though 'twas hard to forgive, I think my mistress forgave it,” Harry Esmond said; “and remember how eagerly she watched your lordship's return, and how sadly she turned away when she saw your cold looks.”

“Damme!” cries out my lord; “would you have had me wait and catch the small-pox? Where the deuce had been the good of that? I'll bear danger with any man—but not useless danger—no, no. Thank you for nothing. And—you nod your head, and I know very well, Parson Harry, what you mean. There was the—the other affair to make her angry. But is a woman never to forgive a husband who goes a-tripping? Do you take me for a saint?”

“Indeed, sir, I do not,” says Harry, with a smile.

“Since that time my wife's as cold as the statue at Charing Cross. I tell thee she has no forgiveness in her, Henry. Her coldness blights my whole life, and sends me to the punch-bowl, or driving about the country. My children are not mine, but hers, when we are together. 'Tis only when she is out of sight with her abominable cold glances, that run through me, that they'll come to me, and that I dare to give them so much as a kiss; and that's why I take 'em and love 'em in other people's houses, Harry. I'm killed by the very virtue of that proud woman. Virtue! give me the virtue that can forgive; give me the virtue that thinks not of preserving itself, but of making other folks happy. Damme, what matters a scar or two if 'tis got in helping a friend in ill fortune?”

And my lord again slapped the table, and took a great draught from the tankard. Harry Esmond admired as he listened to him, and thought how the poor preacher of this self-sacrifice had fled from the small-pox, which the lady had borne so cheerfully, and which had been the cause of so much disunion in the lives of all in this house. “How well men preach,” thought the young man, “and each is the example in his own sermon. How each has a story in a dispute, and a true one, too, and both are right or wrong as you will!” Harry's heart was pained within him, to watch the struggles and pangs that tore the breast of this kind, manly friend and protector.

“Indeed, sir,” said he, “I wish to God that my mistress could hear you speak as I have heard you; she would know much that would make her life the happier, could she hear it.” But my lord flung away with one of his oaths, and a jeer; he said that Parson Harry was a good fellow; but that as for women, all women were alike—all jades and heartless. So a man dashes a fine vase down, and despises it for being broken. It may be worthless—true: but who had the keeping of it, and who shattered it?

Harry, who would have given his life to make his benefactress and her husband happy, bethought him, now that he saw what my lord's state of mind was, and that he really had a great deal of that love left in his heart, and ready for his wife's acceptance if she would take it, whether he could not be a means of reconciliation between these two persons, whom he revered the most in the world. And he cast about how he should break a part of his mind to his mistress, and warn her that in his, Harry's opinion, at least, her husband was still her admirer, and even her lover.

But he found the subject a very difficult one to handle, when he ventured to remonstrate, which he did in the very gravest tone, (for long confidence and reiterated proofs of devotion and loyalty had given him a sort of authority in the house, which he resumed as soon as ever he returned to it,) and with a speech that should have some effect, as, indeed, it was uttered with the speaker's own heart, he ventured most gently to hint to his adored mistress that she was doing her husband harm by her ill opinion of him, and that the happiness of all the family depended upon setting her right.

She, who was ordinarily calm and most gentle, and full of smiles and soft attentions, flushed up when young Esmond so spoke to her, and rose from her chair, looking at him with a haughtiness and indignation that he had never before known her to display. She was quite an altered being for that moment; and looked an angry princess insulted by a vassal.

“Have you ever heard me utter a word in my lord's disparagement?” she asked hastily, hissing out her words, and stamping her foot.

“Indeed, no,” Esmond said, looking down.

“Are you come to me as his ambassador—YOU?” she continued.

“I would sooner see peace between you than anything else in the world,” Harry answered, “and would go of any embassy that had that end.”

“So YOU are my lord's go-between?” she went on, not regarding this speech. “You are sent to bid me back into slavery again, and inform me that my lord's favor is graciously restored to his handmaid? He is weary of Covent Garden, is he, that he comes home and would have the fatted calf killed?”

“There's good authority for it, surely,” said Esmond.

“For a son, yes; but my lord is not my son. It was he who cast me away from him. It was he who broke our happiness down, and he bids me to repair it. It was he who showed himself to me at last, as he was, not as I had thought him. It is he who comes before my children stupid and senseless with wine—who leaves our company for that of frequenters of taverns and bagnios—who goes from his home to the City yonder and his friends there, and when he is tired of them returns hither, and expects that I shall kneel and welcome him. And he sends YOU as his chamberlain! What a proud embassy! Monsieur, I make you my compliment of the new place.”

“It would be a proud embassy, and a happy embassy too, could I bring you and my lord together,” Esmond replied.

“I presume you have fulfilled your mission now, sir. 'Twas a pretty one for you to undertake. I don't know whether 'tis your Cambridge philosophy,