CHAPTER IV.
RECAPITULATIONS.
From such fitful lights as could be cast upon his dark history by thebroken narrative of his poor patron, torn by remorse and struggling inthe last pangs of dissolution, Mr. Esmond had been made to understandso far, that his mother was long since dead; and so there could beno question as regarded her or her honor, tarnished by her husband'sdesertion and injury, to influence her son in any steps which he mighttake either for prosecuting or relinquishing his own just claims. Itappeared from my poor lord's hurried confession, that he had been madeacquainted with the real facts of the case only two years since, whenMr. Holt visited him, and would have implicated him in one of those manyconspiracies by which the secret leaders of King James's party in thiscountry were ever endeavoring to destroy the Prince of Orange's life orpower: conspiracies so like murder, so cowardly in the means used, sowicked in the end, that our nation has sure done well in throwingoff all allegiance and fidelity to the unhappy family that could notvindicate its right except by such treachery--by such dark intrigue andbase agents. There were designs against King William that were nomore honorable than the ambushes of cut-throats and footpads. 'Tishumiliating to think that a great Prince, possessor of a great andsacred right, and upholder of a great cause, should have stooped to suchbaseness of assassination and treasons as are proved by the unfortunateKing James's own warrant and sign manual given to his supporters in thiscountry. What he and they called levying war was, in truth, no betterthan instigating murder. The noble Prince of Orange burst magnanimouslythrough those feeble meshes of conspiracy in which his enemies triedto envelop him: it seemed as if their cowardly daggers broke upon thebreast of his undaunted resolution. After King James's death, theQueen and her people at St. Germains--priests and women for the mostpart--continued their intrigues in behalf of the young Prince, James theThird, as he was called in France and by his party here (this Prince, orChevalier de St. George, was born in the same year with Esmond's youngpupil Frank, my Lord Viscount's son); and the Prince's affairs, being inthe hands of priests and women, were conducted as priests and women willconduct them, artfully, cruelly, feebly, and to a certain bad issue. Themoral of the Jesuits' story I think as wholesome a one as ever waswrit: the artfullest, the wisest, the most toilsome, and dexterousplot-builders in the world--there always comes a day when the rousedpublic indignation kicks their flimsy edifice down, and sends itscowardly enemies a-flying. Mr. Swift hath finely described that passionfor intrigue, that love of secrecy, slander, and lying, which belongs toweak people, hangers-on of weak courts. 'Tis the nature of such tohate and envy the strong, and conspire their ruin; and the conspiracysucceeds very well, and everything presages the satisfactory overthrowof the great victim; until one day Gulliver rouses himself, shakes offthe little vermin of an enemy, and walks away unmolested. Ah! the Irishsoldiers might well say after the Boyne, "Change kings with us and wewill fight it over again." Indeed, the fight was not fair between thetwo. 'Twas a weak, priest-ridden, woman-ridden man, with such punyallies and weapons as his own poor nature led him to choose, contendingagainst the schemes, the generalship, the wisdom, and the heart of ahero.
On one of these many coward's errands then, (for, as I view them now,I can call them no less,) Mr. Holt had come to my lord at Castlewood,proposing some infallible plan for the Prince of Orange's destruction,in which my Lord Viscount, loyalist as he was, had indignantly refusedto join. As far as Mr. Esmond could gather from his dying words, Holtcame to my lord with a plan of insurrection, and offer of the renewal,in his person, of that marquis's title which King James had conferred onthe preceding viscount; and on refusal of this bribe, a threat was made,on Holt's part, to upset my Lord Viscount's claim to his estate andtitle of Castlewood altogether. To back this astounding piece ofintelligence, of which Henry Esmond's patron now had the first light,Holt came armed with the late lord's dying declaration, after the affairof the Boyne, at Trim, in Ireland, made both to the Irish priest and aFrench ecclesiastic of Holt's order, that was with King James's army.Holt showed, or pretended to show, the marriage certificate of the lateViscount Esmond with my mother, in the city of Brussels, in the year1677, when the viscount, then Thomas Esmond, was serving with theEnglish army in Flanders; he could show, he said, that this Gertrude,deserted by her husband long since, was alive, and a professed nun inthe year 1685, at Brussels, in which year Thomas Esmond marriedhis uncle's daughter, Isabella, now called Viscountess Dowager ofCastlewood; and leaving him, for twelve hours, to consider thisastounding news (so the poor dying lord said), disappeared with hispapers in the mysterious way in which he came. Esmond knew how, wellenough: by that window from which he had seen the Father issue:--butthere was no need to explain to my poor lord, only to gather from hisparting lips the words which he would soon be able to utter no more.
Ere the twelve hours were over, Holt himself was a prisoner, implicatedin Sir John Fenwick's conspiracy, and locked up at Hexton first, whencehe was transferred to the Tower; leaving the poor Lord Viscount, whowas not aware of the others being taken, in daily apprehension of hisreturn, when (as my Lord Castlewood declared, calling God to witness,and with tears in his dying eyes) it had been his intention at once togive up his estate and his title to their proper owner, and to retire tohis own house at Walcote with his family. "And would to God I had doneit," the poor lord said. "I would not be here now, wounded to death, amiserable, stricken man!"
My lord waited day after day, and, as may be supposed, no messengercame; but at a month's end Holt got means to convey to him a messageout of the Tower, which was to this effect: that he should consider allunsaid that had been said, and that things were as they were.
"I had a sore temptation," said my poor lord. "Since I had come intothis cursed title of Castlewood, which hath never prospered with me, Ihave spent far more than the income of that estate, and my paternal one,too. I calculated all my means down to the last shilling, and found Inever could pay you back, my poor Harry, whose fortune I had had fortwelve years. My wife and children must have gone out of the housedishonored, and beggars. God knows, it hath been a miserable one for meand mine. Like a coward, I clung to that respite which Holt gave me. Ikept the truth from Rachel and you. I tried to win money of Mohun, andonly plunged deeper into debt; I scarce dared look thee in the face whenI saw thee. This sword hath been hanging over my head these two years. Iswear I felt happy when Mohun's blade entered my side."
After lying ten months in the Tower, Holt, against whom nothing couldbe found except that he was a Jesuit priest, known to be in King James'sinterest, was put on shipboard by the incorrigible forgiveness of KingWilliam, who promised him, however, a hanging if ever he should againset foot on English shore. More than once, whilst he was in prisonhimself, Esmond had thought where those papers could be, which theJesuit had shown to his patron, and which had such an interest forhimself. They were not found on Mr. Holt's person when that Father wasapprehended, for had such been the case my Lords of the Council had seenthem, and this family history had long since been made public. However,Esmond cared not to seek the papers. His resolution being taken; hispoor mother dead; what matter to him that documents existed proving hisright to a title which he was determined not to claim, and of which hevowed never to deprive that family which he loved best in the world?Perhaps he took a greater pride out of his sacrifice than he would havehad in those honors which he was resolved to forego. Again, as long asthese titles were not forthcoming, Esmond's kinsman, dear young Francis,was the honorable and undisputed owner of the Castlewood estate andtitle. The mere word of a Jesuit could not overset Frank's right ofoccupancy, and so Esmond's mind felt actually at ease to think thepapers were missing, and in their absence his dear mistress and her sonthe lawful Lady and Lord of Castlewood.
Very soon after his liberation, Mr. Esmond made it his business to rideto that village of Ealing where he had passed his earliest years inthis country, and to see if his old guardians were still alive andinhabitants of that place. But the only relique w
hich he found of oldM. Pastoureau was a stone in the churchyard, which told that AthanasiusPastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. Theold man's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden(where in his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie,and had many a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), werenow in the occupation of quite a different family; and it was withdifficulty that he could learn in the village what had come ofPastoureau's widow and children. The clerk of the parish recollectedher--the old man was scarce altered in the fourteen years that hadpassed since last Esmond set eyes on him. It appeared she had prettysoon consoled herself after the death of her old husband, whom she ruledover, by taking a new one younger than herself, who spent her moneyand ill-treated her and her children. The girl died; one of the boys'listed; the other had gone apprentice. Old Mr. Rogers, the clerk, saidhe had heard that Mrs. Pastoureau was dead too. She and her husband hadleft Ealing this seven year; and so Mr. Esmond's hopes of gaining anyinformation regarding his parentage from this family were brought to anend. He gave the old clerk a crown-piece for his news, smiling to thinkof the time when he and his little playfellows had slunk out of thechurchyard or hidden behind the gravestones, at the approach of thisawful authority.
Who was his mother? What had her name been? When did she die? Esmondlonged to find some one who could answer these questions to him, andthought even of putting them to his aunt the Viscountess, who hadinnocently taken the name which belonged of right to Henry's mother.But she knew nothing, or chose to know nothing, on this subject, nor,indeed, could Mr. Esmond press her much to speak on it. Father Holt wasthe only man who could enlighten him, and Esmond felt he must wait untilsome fresh chance or new intrigue might put him face to face with hisold friend, or bring that restless indefatigable spirit back to Englandagain.
The appointment to his ensigncy, and the preparations necessary for thecampaign, presently gave the young gentleman other matters to think of.His new patroness treated him very kindly and liberally; she promisedto make interest and pay money, too, to get him a company speedily; shebade him procure a handsome outfit, both of clothes and of arms, andwas pleased to admire him when he made his first appearance in his lacedscarlet coat, and to permit him to salute her on the occasion of thisinteresting investiture. "Red," says she, tossing up her old head, "hathalways been the color worn by the Esmonds." And so her ladyship woreit on her own cheeks very faithfully to the last. She would have him bedressed, she said, as became his father's son, and paid cheerfully forhis five-pound beaver, his black buckled periwig, and his fine hollandshirts, and his swords, and his pistols, mounted with silver. Since theday he was born, poor Harry had never looked such a fine gentleman: hisliberal step-mother filled his purse with guineas, too, some of whichCaptain Steele and a few choice spirits helped Harry to spend in anentertainment which Dick ordered (and, indeed, would have paid for, butthat he had no money when the reckoning was called for; nor would thelandlord give him any more credit) at the "Garter," over against thegate of the Palace, in Pall Mall.
The old Viscountess, indeed, if she had done Esmond any wrong formerly,seemed inclined to repair it by the present kindness of her behavior:she embraced him copiously at parting, wept plentifully, bade him writeby every packet, and gave him an inestimable relic, which she besoughthim to wear round his neck--a medal, blessed by I know not what pope,and worn by his late sacred Majesty King James. So Esmond arrived at hisregiment with a better equipage than most young officers could afford.He was older than most of his seniors, and had a further advantage whichbelonged but to very few of the army gentlemen in his day--many of whomcould do little more than write their names--that he had read much, bothat home and at the University, was master of two or three languages, andhad that further education which neither books nor years will give, butwhich some men get from the silent teaching of adversity. She is a greatschoolmistress, as many a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand outto her ferule, and whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair.
The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne Page 21