The History of Henry Esmond, Esq Part 17

"Hus.h.!.+" says my poor Lord Viscount, lifting himself on his elbow and speaking faintly. "'Twas a dispute about the cards--the cursed cards.

Harry my boy, are you wounded, too? G.o.d help thee! I loved thee, Harry, and thou must watch over my little Frank--and--and carry this little heart to my wife."

And here my dear lord felt in his breast for a locket he wore there, and, in the act, fell back fainting.

We were all at this terrified, thinking him dead; but Esmond and Colonel Westbury bade the chairmen come into the field; and so my lord was carried to one Mr. Aimes, a surgeon, in Long Acre, who kept a bath, and there the house was wakened up, and the victim of this quarrel carried in.

My Lord Viscount was put to bed, and his wound looked to by the surgeon, who seemed both kind and skilful. When he had looked to my lord, he bandaged up Harry Esmond's hand (who, from loss of blood, had fainted too, in the house, and may have been some time unconscious); and when the young man came to himself, you may be sure he eagerly asked what news there were of his dear patron; on which the surgeon carried him to the room where the Lord Castlewood lay; who had already sent for a priest; and desired earnestly, they said, to speak with his kinsman. He was lying on a bed, very pale and ghastly, with that fixed, fatal look in his eyes, which betokens death; and faintly beckoning all the other persons away from him with his hand, and crying out "Only Harry Esmond,"

the hand fell powerless down on the coverlet, as Harry came forward, and knelt down and kissed it.

"Thou art all but a priest, Harry," my Lord Viscount gasped out, with a faint smile, and pressure of his cold hand. "Are they all gone? Let me make thee a death-bed confession."

And with sacred Death waiting, as it were, at the bed-foot, as an awful witness of his words, the poor dying soul gasped out his last wishes in respect of his family;--his humble profession of contrition for his faults;--and his charity towards the world he was leaving. Some things he said concerned Harry Esmond as much as they astonished him. And my Lord Viscount, sinking visibly, was in the midst of these strange confessions, when the ecclesiastic for whom my lord had sent, Mr.

Atterbury, arrived.

This gentleman had reached to no great church dignity as yet, but was only preacher at St. Bride's, drawing all the town thither by his eloquent sermons. He was G.o.dson to my lord, who had been pupil to his father; had paid a visit to Castlewood from Oxford more than once; and it was by his advice, I think, that Harry Esmond was sent to Cambridge, rather than to Oxford, of which place Mr. Atterbury, though a distinguished member, spoke but ill.

Our messenger found the good priest already at his books at five o'clock in the morning, and he followed the man eagerly to the house where my poor Lord Viscount lay--Esmond watching him, and taking his dying words from his mouth.

My lord, hearing of Mr. Atterbury's arrival, and squeezing Esmond's hand, asked to be alone with the priest; and Esmond left them there for this solemn interview. You may be sure that his own prayers and grief accompanied that dying benefactor. My lord had said to him that which confounded the young man--informed him of a secret which greatly concerned him. Indeed, after hearing it, he had had good cause for doubt and dismay; for mental anguish as well as resolution. While the colloquy between Mr. Atterbury and his dying penitent took place within, an immense contest of perplexity was agitating Lord Castlewood's young companion.

At the end of an hour--it may be more--Mr. Atterbury came out of the room, looking very hard at Esmond, and holding a paper.

"He is on the brink of G.o.d's awful judgment," the priest whispered. "He has made his breast clean to me. He forgives and believes, and makes rest.i.tution. Shall it be in public? Shall we call a witness to sign it?"

"G.o.d knows," sobbed out the young man, "my dearest lord has only done me kindness all his life."

The priest put the paper into Esmond's hand. He looked at it. It swam before his eyes.

"'Tis a confession," he said.

"'Tis as you please," said Mr. Atterbury.

There was a fire in the room where the cloths were drying for the baths, and there lay a heap in a corner saturated with the blood of my dear lord's body. Esmond went to the fire, and threw the paper into it. 'Twas a great chimney with glazed Dutch tiles. How we remember such trifles at such awful moments!--the sc.r.a.p of the book that we have read in a great grief--the taste of that last dish that we have eaten before a duel, or some such supreme meeting or parting. On the Dutch tiles at the Bagnio was a rude picture representing Jacob in hairy gloves, cheating Isaac of Esau's birthright. The burning paper lighted it up.

"'Tis only a confession, Mr. Atterbury," said the young man. He leaned his head against the mantel-piece: a burst of tears came to his eyes.

They were the first he had shed as he sat by his lord, scared by this calamity, and more yet by what the poor dying gentleman had told him, and shocked to think that he should be the agent of bringing this double misfortune on those he loved best.

"Let us go to him," said Mr. Esmond. And accordingly they went into the next chamber, where by this time, the dawn had broke, which showed my lord's poor pale face and wild appealing eyes, that wore that awful fatal look of coming dissolution. The surgeon was with him. He went into the chamber as Atterbury came out thence. My Lord Viscount turned round his sick eyes towards Esmond. It choked the other to hear that rattle in his throat.

"My Lord Viscount," says Mr. Atterbury, "Mr. Esmond wants no witnesses, and hath burned the paper."

"My dearest master!" Esmond said, kneeling down, and taking his hand and kissing it.

My Lord Viscount sprang up in his bed, and flung his arms round Esmond.

"G.o.d bl--bless--" was all he said. The blood rushed from his mouth, deluging the young man. My dearest lord was no more. He was gone with a blessing on his lips, and love and repentance and kindness in his manly heart.

"Benedicti benedicentes," says Mr. Atterbury, and the young man, kneeling at the bedside, groaned out an "Amen."

"Who shall take the news to her?" was Mr. Esmond's next thought. And on this he besought Mr. Atterbury to bear the tidings to Castlewood.

He could not face his mistress himself with those dreadful news. Mr.

Atterbury complying kindly, Esmond writ a hasty note on his table-book to my lord's man, bidding him get the horses for Mr. Atterbury, and ride with him, and send Esmond's own valise to the Gatehouse prison, whither he resolved to go and give himself up.

BOOK II.

CONTAINS MR. ESMOND'S MILITARY LIFE, AND OTHER MATTERS APPERTAINING TO THE ESMOND FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

I AM IN PRISON, AND VISITED, BUT NOT CONSOLED THERE.

Those may imagine, who have seen death untimely strike down persons revered and beloved, and know how unavailing consolation is, what was Harry Esmond's anguish after being an actor in that ghastly midnight scene of blood and homicide. He could not, he felt, have faced his dear mistress, and told her that story. He was thankful that kind Atterbury consented to break the sad news to her; but, besides his grief, which he took into prison with him, he had that in his heart which secretly cheered and consoled him.

A great secret had been told to Esmond by his unhappy stricken kinsman, lying on his death-bed. Were he to disclose it, as in equity and honor he might do, the discovery would but bring greater grief upon those whom he loved best in the world, and who were sad enough already. Should he bring down shame and perplexity upon all those beings to whom he was attached by so many tender ties of affection and grat.i.tude? degrade his father's widow? impeach and sully his father's and kinsman's honor? and for what? for a barren t.i.tle, to be worn at the expense of an innocent boy, the son of his dearest benefactress. He had debated this matter in his conscience, whilst his poor lord was making his dying confession. On one side were ambition, temptation, justice even; but love, grat.i.tude, and fidelity, pleaded on the other. And when the struggle was over in Harry's mind, a glow of righteous happiness filled it; and it was with grateful tears in his eyes that he returned thanks to G.o.d for that decision which he had been enabled to make.

"When I was denied by my own blood," thought he, "these dearest friends received and cherished me. When I was a nameless orphan myself, and needed a protector, I found one in yonder kind soul, who has gone to his account repenting of the innocent wrong he has done."

And with this consoling thought he went away to give himself up at the prison, after kissing the cold lips of his benefactor.

It was on the third day after he had come to the Gatehouse prison, (where he lay in no small pain from his wound, which inflamed and ached severely,) and with those thoughts and resolutions that have been just spoke of, to depress, and yet to console him, that H. Esmond's keeper came and told him that a visitor was asking for him, and though he could not see her face, which was enveloped in a black hood, her whole figure, too, being veiled and covered with the deepest mourning, Esmond knew at once that his visitor was his dear mistress.

He got up from his bed, where he was lying, being very weak; and advancing towards her as the retiring keeper shut the door upon him and his guest in that sad place, he put forward his left hand (for the right was wounded and bandaged), and he would have taken that kind one of his mistress, which had done so many offices of friends.h.i.+p for him for so many years.

But the Lady Castlewood went back from him, putting back her hood, and leaning against the great stanchioned door which the gaoler had just closed upon them. Her face was ghastly white, as Esmond saw it, looking from the hood; and her eyes, ordinarily so sweet and tender, were fixed on him with such a tragic glance of woe and anger, as caused the young man, unaccustomed to unkindness from that person, to avert his own glances from her face.

"And this, Mr. Esmond," she said, "is where I see you; and 'tis to this you have brought me!"

"You have come to console me in my calamity, madam," said he (though, in truth, he scarce knew how to address her, his emotions at beholding her so overpowered him).

She advanced a little, but stood silent and trembling, looking out at him from her black draperies, with her small white hands clasped together, and quivering lips and hollow eyes.

"Not to reproach me," he continued after a pause. "My grief is sufficient as it is."

"Take back your hand--do not touch me with it!" she cried. "Look!

there's blood on it!"

"I wish they had taken it all," said Esmond; "if you are unkind to me."

"Where is my husband?" she broke out. "Give me back my husband, Henry.

Why did you stand by at midnight and see him murdered? Why did the traitor escape who did it? You, the champion of your house, who offered to die for us! You that he loved and trusted, and to whom I confided him--you that vowed devotion and grat.i.tude, and I believed you--yes, I believed you--why are you here, and my n.o.ble Francis gone? Why did you come among us? You have only brought us grief and sorrow; and repentance, bitter, bitter repentance, as a return for our love and kindness. Did I ever do you a wrong, Henry? You were but an orphan child when I first saw you--when HE first saw you, who was so good, and n.o.ble, and trusting. He would have had you sent away, but, like a foolish woman, I besought him to let you stay. And you pretended to love us, and we believed you--and you made our house wretched, and my husband's heart went from me: and I lost him through you--I lost him--the husband of my youth, I say. I wors.h.i.+pped him: you know I wors.h.i.+pped him--and he was changed to me. He was no more my Francis of old--my dear, dear soldier.

He loved me before he saw you; and I loved him. Oh, G.o.d is my witness how I loved him! Why did he not send you from among us? 'Twas only his kindness, that could refuse me nothing then. And, young as you were--yes, and weak and alone--there was evil, I knew there was evil in keeping you. I read it in your face and eyes. I saw that they boded harm to us--and it came, I knew it would. Why did you not die when you had the small-pox--and I came myself and watched you, and you didn't know me in your delirium--and you called out for me, though I was there at your side? All that has happened since, was a just judgment on my wicked heart--my wicked jealous heart. Oh, I am punished--awfully punished!