The Virginians

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER LXXV. The Course of True Love

  Had your father, young folks, possessed the commonest share of prudence,not only would this chapter of his history never have been written, butyou yourselves would never have appeared in the world to plague him ina hundred ways to shout and laugh in the passages when he wants to bequiet at his books; to wake him when he is dozing after dinner, as ahealthy country gentleman should: to mislay his spectacles for him,and steal away his newspaper when he wants to read it; to ruin him withtailors' bills, mantua-makers' bills, tutors' bills, as you all of youdo: to break his rest of nights when you have the impudence to fallill, and when he would sleep undisturbed but that your silly mother willnever be quiet for half an hour; and when Joan can't sleep, what use,pray, is there in Darby putting on his nightcap? Every trifling ailmentthat any one of you has had, has scared her so that I protest I havenever been tranquil; and, were I not the most long-suffering creature inthe world, would have liked to be rid of the whole pack of you. Andnow, forsooth, that you have grown out of childhood, long petticoats,chicken-pox, small-pox, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and the otherdelectable accidents of puerile life, what must that unconscionablewoman propose but to arrange the south rooms as a nursery for possiblegrandchildren, and set up the Captain with a wife, and make him marryearly because we did! He is too fond, she says, of Brookes's andGoosetree's when he is in London. She has the perversity to hint that,though an entree to Carlton House may be very pleasant, 'tis verydangerous for a young gentleman: and she would have Miles live away fromtemptation, and sow his wild oats, and marry, as we did. Marry! my dearcreature, we had no business to marry at all! By the laws of commonprudence and duty, I ought to have backed out of my little engagementwith Miss Theo (who would have married somebody else), and taken a richwife. Your Uncle John was a parson and couldn't fight, poor Charley wasa boy at school, and your grandfather was too old a man to call me toaccount with sword and pistol. I repeat there never was a more foolishmatch in the world than ours, and our relations were perfectly rightin being angry with us. What are relations made for, indeed, but to beangry and find fault? When Hester marries, do you mind, Master George,to quarrel with her if she does not take a husband of your selecting.When George has got his living, after being senior wrangler and fellowof his college, Miss Hester, do you toss up your little nose at theyoung lady he shall fancy. As for you, my little Theo, I can't part withyour. You must not quit your old father; for he likes you to play Haydnto him, and peel his walnuts after dinner.

  [On the blank leaf opposite this paragraph is written, in a large,girlish hand:

  "I never intend to go.--THEODOSIA."

  "Nor I.--HESTER."

  They both married, as I see by the note in the family Bible--MissTheodosia Warrington to Joseph Clinton, son of the Rev. Joseph Blake,and himself subsequently Master of Rodwell Regis Grammar School; andMiss Hester Mary, in 1804, to Captain F. Handyman, R.N.--ED.]

  Whilst they had the blessing (forsooth!) of meeting, and billing andcooing every day, the two young people, your parents, went on in afool's paradise, little heeding the world round about them, and all itstattling and meddling. Rinaldo was as brave a warrior as ever slew Turk,but you know he loved dangling in Armida's garden. Pray, my Lady Armida,what did you mean by flinging your spells over me in youth, so that notglory, not fashion, not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit inwhose way I fell, could keep me long from your apron-strings, or out ofreach of your dear simple prattle? Pray, my dear, what used we to say toeach other during those endless hours of meeting? I never went to sleepafter dinner then. Which of us was so witty? Was it I or you? And howcame it our conversations were so delightful? I remember that year I didnot even care to go and see my Lord Ferrers tried and hung, when all theworld was running after his lordship. The King of Prussia's capitalwas taken; had the Austrians and Russians been encamped round the Towerthere could scarce have been more stir in London: yet Miss Theo and heryoung gentleman felt no inordinate emotion of pity or indignation. Whatto us was the fate of Leipzig or Berlin? The truth is, that dear oldhouse in Dean Street was an enchanted garden of delights. I have been asidle since, but never as happy. Shall we order the postchaise, my dear,leave the children to keep house; and drive up to London and see if theold lodgings are still to be let? And you shall sit at your old place inthe window, and wave a little handkerchief as I walk up the street. Saywhat we did was imprudent. Would we not do it over again? My good folks,if Venus had walked into the room and challenged the apple, I was soinfatuated, I would have given it your mother. And had she had thechoice, she would have preferred her humble servant in a threadbare coatto my Lord Clive with all his diamonds.

  Once, to be sure, and for a brief time in that year, I had a notion ofgoing on the highway in order to be caught and hung as my Lord Ferrers:or of joining the King of Prussia, and requesting some of his Majesty'senemies to knock my brains out; or of enlisting for the India service,and performing some desperate exploit which should end in my bodilydestruction. Ah me! that was indeed a dreadful time! Your mother scarcedares speak of it now, save in a whisper of terror; or think of it--itwas such cruel pain. She was unhappy years after on the anniversary ofthe day, until one of you was born on it. Suppose we had been parted:what had come to us? What had my lot been without her? As I think ofthat possibility, the whole world is a blank. I do not say were weparted now. It has pleased God to give us thirty years of union. We havereached the autumn season. Our successors are appointed and ready; andthat one of us who is first called away, knows the survivor will followere long. But we were actually parted in our youth; and I trembleto think what might have been, had not a dearest friend brought ustogether.

  Unknown to myself, and very likely meaning only my advantage, myrelatives in England had chosen to write to Madam Esmond in Virginia,and represent what they were pleased to call the folly of the engagementI had contracted. Every one of them sang the same song: and I saw theletters, and burned the whole cursed pack of them years afterwards whenmy mother showed them to me at home in Virginia. Aunt Bernstein wasforward with her advice. A young person, with no wonderful good looks,of no family, with no money;--was ever such an imprudent connexion, andought it not for dear George's sake to be broken off? She had severaleligible matches in view for me. With my name and prospects, 'twas ashame I should throw myself away on this young lady; her sister ought tointerpose--and so forth.

  My Lady Warrington must write, too, and in her peculiar manner. Herladyship's letter was garnished with scripture texts.

  She dressed her worldliness out in phylacteries. She pointed out how Iwas living in an unworthy society of player-folks, and the like people,who she could not say were absolutely without religion (Heaven forbid!),but who were deplorably worldly. She would not say an artful woman hadinveigled me for her daughter, having in vain tried to captivate myyounger brother. She was far from saying any harm of the young woman Ihad selected; but at least this was certain, Miss L. had no fortune orexpectations, and her parents might naturally be anxious to compromiseme. She had taken counsel, etc. etc. She had sought for guidance whereit was, etc. Feeling what her duty was, she had determined to speak. SirMiles, a man of excellent judgment in the affairs of this world (thoughhe knew and sought a better), fully agreed with her in opinion, nay,desired her to write, and entreat her sister to interfere, that theill-advised match should not take place.

  And who besides must put a little finger into the pie but the newCountess of Castlewood? She wrote a majestic letter to Madam Esmond, andstated, that having been placed by Providence at the head of the Esmondfamily, it was her duty to communicate with her kinswoman and warn herto break off this marriage. I believe the three women laid their headstogether previously; and, packet after packet, sent off their warningsto the Virginian lady.

  One raw April morning, as Corydon goes to pay his usual duty to Phillis,he finds, not his charmer with her dear smile as usual ready to welcomehim, but Mrs. Lambert, with very red eyes, and the General as pale asde
ath. "Read this, George Warrington!" says he, as his wife's head dropsbetween her hands; and he puts a letter before me, of which I recognisedthe handwriting. I can hear now the sobs of the good Aunt Lambert, andto this day the noise of fire-irons stirring a fire in a room overheadgives me a tremor. I heard such a noise that day in the girls' roomwhere the sisters were together. Poor, gentle child! Poor Theo!

  "What can I do after this, George, my poor boy?" asks the General,pacing the room with desperation in his face.

  I did not quite read the whole of Madam Esmond's letter, for a kind ofsickness and faintness came over me; but I fear I could say some of itnow by heart. Its style was good, and its actual words temperate enough,though they only implied that Mr. and Mrs. Lambert had inveigled me intothe marriage; that they knew such an union was unworthy of me; that (asMadam E. understood) they had desired a similar union for her youngerson, which project, not unluckily for him, perhaps, was given up whenit was found that Mr. Henry Warrington was not the inheritor of theVirginian property. If Mr. Lambert was a man of spirit and honour, ashe was represented to be, Madam Esmond scarcely supposed that, after herrepresentations, he would persist in desiring this match. She would notlay commands upon her son, whose temper she knew; but for the sakeof Miss Lambert's own reputation and comfort, she urged that thedissolution of the engagement should come from her family, and not fromthe just unwillingness of Rachel Esmond Warrington of Virginia.

  "God help us, George!" the General said, "and give us all strength tobear this grief, and these charges which it has pleased your motherto bring! They are hard, but they don't matter now. What is of mostimportance, is to spare as much sorrow as we can to my poor girl. I knowyou love her so well, that you will help me and her mother to make theblow as tolerable as we may to that poor gentle heart. Since she wasborn she has never given pain to a soul alive, and 'tis cruel that sheshould be made to suffer." And as he spoke he passed his hand across hisdry eyes.

  "It was my fault, Martin! It was my fault!" weeps the poor mother.

  "Your mother spoke us fair, and gave her promise," said the father.

  "And do you think I will withdraw mine?" cried I; and protested, witha thousand frantic vows, what they knew full well, that I was bound toTheo before Heaven, and that nothing should part me from her."

  "She herself will demand the parting. She is a good girl, God help me!and a dutiful. She will not have her father and mother called schemers,and treated with scorn. Your mother knew not, very likely, what she wasdoing, but 'tis done. You may see the child, and she will tell you asmuch. Is Theo dressed, Molly? I brought the letter home from my officelast evening after you were gone. The women have had a bad night. Sheknew at once by my face that there was bad news from America. She readthe letter quite firmly. She said she would like to see you and saygood-bye. Of course, George, you will give me your word of honour not totry and see her afterwards. As soon as my business will let me we willget away from this, but mother and I think we are best all together.'Tis you, perhaps, had best go. But give me your word, at any rate, thatyou will not try and see her. We must spare her pain, sir! We must spareher pain!" And the good man sate down in such deep anguish himself thatI, who was not yet under the full pressure of my own grief, actuallyfelt his, and pitied it. It could not be that the dear lips I had kissedyesterday were to speak to me only once more. We were all here together;loving each other, sitting in the room where we met every day; mydrawing on the table by her little workbox; she was in the chamberupstairs; she must come down presently.

  Who is this opens the door? I see her sweet face. It was like our littleMary's when we thought she would die of the fever. There was evena smile upon her lips. She comes up and kisses me. "Good-bye, dearGeorge!" she says. Great Heaven! An old man sitting in this room,--withmy wife's workbox opposite, and she but five minutes away, my eyesgrow so dim and full that I can't see the book before me. I amthree-and-twenty years old again. I go through every stage of thatagony. I once had it sitting in my own postchaise, with my wife actuallyby my side. Who dared to sully her sweet love with suspicion? Who had aright to stab such a soft bosom? Don't you see my ladies getting theirknives ready, and the poor child baring it? My wife comes in. She hasbeen serving out tea or tobacco to some of her pensioners. "What is itmakes you look so angry, papa?" she says. "My love!" I say, "it is thethirteenth of April." A pang of pain shoots across her face, followed bya tender smile. She has undergone the martyrdom, and in the midst of thepang comes a halo of forgiveness. I can't forgive; not until my daysof dotage come, and I cease remembering anything. "Hal will be homefor Easter; he will bring two or three of his friends with him fromCambridge," she says. And straightway she falls to devising schemes foramusing the boys. When is she ever occupied, but with plans for makingothers happy?

  A gentleman sitting in spectacles before an old ledger, and writing downpitiful remembrances of his own condition, is a quaint and ridiculousobject. My corns hurt me, I know, but I suspect my neighbour's shoespinch him too. I am not going to howl much over my own grief, or enlargeat any great length on this one. Many another man, I dare say, has hadthe light of his day suddenly put out, the joy of his life extinguished,and has been left to darkness and vague torture. I have a book I triedto read at this time of grief--Howel's Letters--and when I come to thepart about Prince Charles in Spain, up starts the whole tragedy aliveagain. I went to Brighthelmstone, and there, at the inn, had a roomfacing the east, and saw the sun get up ever so many mornings, afterblank nights of wakefulness, and smoked my pipe of Virginia in his face.When I am in that place by chance, and see the sun rising now, I shakemy fist at him, thinking, O orient Phoebus, what horrible grief andsavage wrath have you not seen me suffer! Though my wife is mine ever solong, I say I am angry just the same. Who dared, I want to know, tomake us suffer so? I was forbidden to see her. I kept my promise, andremained away from the house: that is, after that horrible meeting andparting. But at night I would go and look at her window, and watch thelamp burning there; I would go to the Chartreux (where I knewanother boy), and call for her brother, and gorge him with cakes andhalf-crowns. I would meanly have her elder brother to dine, and almostkiss him when he went away. I used to breakfast at a coffee-house inWhitehall, in order to see Lambert go to his office; and we would saluteeach other sadly, and pass on without speaking. Why did not the womencome out? They never did. They were practising on her, and persuadingher to try and forget me. Oh, the weary, weary days! Oh, the maddeningtime! At last a doctor's chariot used to draw up before the General'shouse every day. Was she ill? I fear I was rather glad she was ill. Myown suffering was so infernal, that I greedily wanted her to sharemy pain. And would she not? What grief of mine has it not felt, thatgentlest and most compassionate of hearts? What pain would it not sufferto spare mine a pang?

  I sought that doctor out. I had an interview with him. I told my story,and laid bare my heart to him, with an outburst of passionate sincerity,which won his sympathy. My confession enabled him to understand hisyoung patient's malady; for which his drugs had no remedy or anodyne. Ihad promised not to see her, or to go to her: I had kept my promise. Ihad promised to leave London: I had gone away. Twice, thrice I went backand told my sufferings to him. He would take my fee now and again, andalways receive me kindly, and let me speak. Ah, how I clung to him! Isuspect he must have been unhappy once in his own life, he knew so welland gently how to succour the miserable.

  He did not tell me how dangerously, though he did not disguise fromme how gravely and seriously, my dearest girl had been ill. I told himeverything--that I would marry her and brave every chance and danger;that, without her, I was a man utterly wrecked and ruined, and cared notwhat became of me. My mother had once consented, and had now chosen towithdraw her consent, when the tie between us had been, as I held, drawnso closely together, as to be paramount to all filial duty.

  "I think, sir, if your mother heard you, and saw Miss Lambert, she wouldrelent," said the doctor. Who was my mother to hold me in bondage; toclaim a right of mi
sery over me; and to take this angel out of my arms?

  "He could not," he said, "be a message-carrier between young ladies whowere pining and young lovers on whom the sweethearts' gates were shut:but so much he would venture to say, that he had seen me, and wasprescribing for me, too." Yes, he must have been unhappy once, himself.I saw him, you may be sure, on the very day when he had kept his promiseto me. He said she seemed to be comforted by hearing news of me.

  "She bears her suffering with an angelical sweetness. I prescribeJesuit's bark, which she takes; but I am not sure the hearing of you hasnot done more good than the medicine." The women owned afterwards thatthey had never told the General of the doctor's new patient.

  I know not what wild expressions of gratitude I poured out to the gooddoctor for the comfort he brought me. His treatment was curing twounhappy sick persons. 'Twas but a drop of water, to be sure; but thena drop of water to a man raging in torment. I loved the ground he trodupon, blessed the hand that took mine, and had felt her pulse. I had aring with a pretty cameo head of a Hercules on it. 'Twas too small forhis finger, nor did the good old man wear such ornaments. I madehim hang it to his watch-chain, in hopes that she might see it, andrecognise that the token came from me. How I fastened upon Spencerat this time (my friend of the Temple who also had an unfortunatelove-match), and walked with him from my apartments to the Temple, andhe back with me to Bedford Gardens, and our talk was for ever about ourwomen! I dare say I told everybody my grief. My good landlady and Bettythe housemaid pitied me. My son Miles, who, for a wonder, has beenreading in my MS., says, "By Jove, sir, I didn't know you and my motherwere took in this kind of way. The year I joined, I was hit very badmyself. An infernal little jilt that threw me over for Sir Craven Oaksof our regiment. I thought I should have gone crazy." And he gives amelancholy whistle, and walks away.

  The General had to leave London presently on one of his militaryinspections, as the doctor casually told me; but, having given myword that I would not seek to present myself at his house, I kept it,availing myself, however, as you may be sure, of the good physician'sleave to visit him, and have news of his dear patient. His accounts ofher were, far from encouraging. "She does not rally," he said. "We mustget her back to Kent again, or to the sea." I did not know then that thepoor child had begged and prayed so piteously not to be moved, thather parents, divining, perhaps, the reason of her desire to linger inLondon, and feeling that it might be dangerous not to humour her, hadyielded to her entreaty, and consented to remain in town.

  At last one morning I came, pretty much as usual, and took my place inmy doctor's front parlour, whence his patients were called in their turnto his consulting-room. Here I remained, looking heedlessly over thebooks on the table and taking no notice of any person in the room, whichspeedily emptied itself of all, save me and one lady who sate with herveil down. I used to stay till the last, for Osborn, the doctor's man,knew my business, and that it was not my own illness I came for.

  When the room was empty of all save me and the lady, she puts out twolittle hands, cries in a voice which made me start "Don't you know me,George?" And the next minute I have my arms round her, and kissed heras heartily as ever I kissed in my life, and gave way to a passionateoutgush of emotion the most refreshing, for my parched soul had been inrage and torture for six weeks past, and this was a glimpse of Heaven.

  Who was it, children? You think it was your mother whom the doctor hadbrought to me? No. It was Hetty.