The Virginians Part 14

"I beg your pardon, I think you said March?" said the Colonel, looking very much surprised.

"I am the Earl of March, sir, at Colonel Wolfe's service," said the n.o.bleman, bowing. "My friend, Mr. Morris, is so intimate with me, that, after dinner, we are quite like brothers."

Why is not all Tunbridge Wells by to hear this? thought Morris. And he was so delighted that he shouted out, "Two to one on my lord!"

"Done!" calls out Mr. Warrington; and the enthusiastic Jack was obliged to cry "Done!" too.

"Take him, Colonel," Harry whispers to his friend.

But the Colonel said he could not afford to lose, and therefore could not hope to win.

"I see you have won one of our bets already, Mr. Warrington," my Lord March remarked. "I am taller than you by an inch or two, but you are broader round the shoulders."

"Pooh, my dear Will! I bet you you weigh twice as much as he does!" cries Jack Morris.

"Done, Jack!" says my lord, laughing. "The bets are all ponies. Will you take him, Mr. Warrington?"

"No, my dear fellow-one's enough," says Jack.

"Very good, my dear fellow," says my lord; "and now we will settle the other wager."

Having already arrayed himself in his best silk stockings, black satin-net breeches, and neatest pumps, Harry did not care to take off his shoes as his antagonist had done, whose heavy riding-boots and spurs were, to be sure, little calculated for leaping. They had before them a fine even green turf of some thirty yards in length, enough for a run and enough for a jump. A gravel walk ran around this green, beyond which was a wall and gate-sign-a field azure, bearing the Hanoverian White Horse rampant between two skittles proper, and for motto the name of the landlord and of the animal depicted.

My lord's friend laid a handkerchief on the ground as the mark whence the leapers were to take their jump, and Mr. Wolfe stood at the other end of the gra.s.s-plat to note the spot where each came down. "My lord went first," writes Mr. Warrington, in a letter to Mrs. Mountain, at Castlewood, Virginia, still extant. "He was for having me take the lead; but, remembering the story about the Battel of Fontanoy which my dearest George used to tell, I says, 'Monseigneur le Comte, tirez le premier, s'il vous play.' So he took his run in his stocken feet, and for the honour of Old Virginia, I had the gratafacation of beating his lords.h.i.+p by more than two feet-viz., two feet nine inches-me jumping twenty-one feet three inches, by the drawer's measured tape, and his lords.h.i.+p only eighteen six. I had won from him about my weight before (which I knew the moment I set my eye upon him). So he and Mr. Jack paid me these two betts. And with my best duty to my mother-she will not be displeased with me, for I bett for the honor of the Old Dominion, and my opponent was a n.o.bleman of the first quality, himself holding two Erldomes, and heir to a Duke. Betting is all the rage here, and the bloods and young fellows of fas.h.i.+on are betting away from morning till night.

"I told them-and that was my mischief perhaps-that there was a gentleman at home who could beat me by a good foot; and when they asked who it was, and I said Col. G. Was.h.i.+ngton, of Mount Vernon-as you know he can, and he's the only man in his county or mine that can do it-Mr. Wolfe asked me ever so many questions about Col. G. W., and showed that he had heard of him, and talked over last year's unhappy campane as if he knew every inch of the ground, and he knew the names of all our rivers, only he called the Potowmac Pottamac, at which we had a good laugh at him. My Lord of March and Ruglen was not in the least ill-humour about losing, and he and his friend handed me notes out of their pocket-books, which filled mine that was getting very empty, for the vales to the servants at my cousin Castlewood's house and buying a horse at Oakhurst have very nearly put me on the necessity of making another draft upon my honoured mother or her London or Bristol agent."

These feats of activity over, the four gentlemen now strolled out of the tavern garden into the public walk, where, by this time, a great deal of company was a.s.sembled: upon whom Mr. Jack, who was of a frank and free nature, with a loud voice, chose to make remarks that were not always agreeable. And here, if my Lord March made a joke, of which his lords.h.i.+p was not sparing, Jack roared, "Oh, ho, ho! Oh, good Gad! Oh, my dear earl! Oh, my dear lord, you'll be the death of me!" "It seemed as if he wished everybody to know," writes Harry sagaciously to Mrs. Mountain, "that his friend and companion was an Erl!"

There was, indeed, a great variety of characters who pa.s.sed. M. Poellnitz, no finer dressed than he had been at dinner, grinned, and saluted with his great laced hat and tarnished feathers. Then came by my Lord Chesterfield, in a pearl-coloured suit, with his blue ribbon and star, and saluted the young men in his turn.

"I will back the old boy for taking his hat off against the whole kingdom, and France either," says my Lord March. "He has never changed the shape of that hat of his for twenty years. Look at it. There it goes again! Do you see that great, big, awkward, pock-marked, snuff-coloured man, who hardly touches his clumsy beaver in reply. D-- his confounded impudence-do you know who that is?"

"No, curse him! Who is it, March?" asks Jack, with an oath.

"It's one Johnson, a Dictionary-maker, about whom my Lord Chesterfield wrote some most capital papers, when his dixonary was coming out, to patronise the fellow. I know they were capital. I've heard Horry Walpole say so, and he knows all about that kind of thing. Confound the impudent schoolmaster!"

"Hang him, he ought to stand in the pillory!" roars Jack.

"That fat man he's walking with is another of your writing fellows,-a printer,-his name is Richardson; he wrote Clarissa, you know."

"Great heavens! my lord, is that the great Richardson? Is that the man who wrote Clarissa?" called out Colonel Wolfe and Mr. Warrington, in a breath.

Harry ran forward to look at the old gentleman toddling along the walk with a train of admiring ladies surrounding him.

"Indeed, my very dear sir," one was saying, "you are too great and good to live in such a world; but sure you were sent to teach it virtue!"

"Ah, my Miss Mulso! Who shall teach the teacher?" said the good, fat old man, raising a kind, round face skywards. "Even he has his faults and errors! Even his age and experience does not prevent him from stumbl--. Heaven bless my soul, Mr. Johnson! I ask your pardon if I have trodden on your corn."

"You have done both, sir. You have trodden on the corn, and received the pardon," said Mr. Johnson, and went on mumbling some verses, swaying to and fro, his eyes turned towards the ground, his hands behind him, and occasionally endangering with his great stick the honest, meek eyes of his companion-author.

"They do not see very well, my dear Mulso," he says to the young lady, "but such as they are, I would keep my lash from Mr. Johnson's cudgel. Your servant, sir." Here he made a low bow, and took off his hat to Mr. Warrington, who shrank back with many blushes, after saluting the great author. The great author was accustomed to be adored. A gentler wind never puffed mortal vanity. Enraptured spinsters flung tea-leaves round him, and incensed him with the coffee-pot. Matrons kissed the slippers they had worked for him. There was a halo of virtue round his nightcap. All Europe had thrilled, panted, admired, trembled, wept, over the pages of the immortal little, kind, honest man with the round paunch. Harry came back quite glowing and proud at having a bow from him. "Ah!" says he, "my lord, I am glad to have seen him!"

"Seen him! why, dammy, you may see him any day in his shop, I suppose?" says Jack, with a laugh.

"My brother declared that he, and Mr. Fielding, I think, was the name, were the greatest geniuses in England; and often used to say, that when we came to Europe, his first pilgrimage would be to Mr. Richardson," cried Harry, always impetuous, honest, and tender, when he spoke of the dearest friend.

"Your brother spoke like a man," cried Mr. Wolfe, too, his pale face likewise flus.h.i.+ng up. "I would rather be a man of genius, than a peer of the realm."

"Every man to his taste, Colonel," says my lord, much amused. "Your enthusiasm-I don't mean anything personal-refreshes me, on my honour it does."

"So it does me-by gad-perfectly refreshes me," cries Jack "So it does Jack-you see-it actually refreshes Jack! I say, Jack, which would you rather be?-a fat old printer, who has written a story about a confounded girl and a fellow that ruins her,-or a peer of Parliament with ten thousand a year?"

"March-my Lord March, do you take me for a fool?" says Jack, with a tearful voice. "Have I done anything to deserve this language from you?"

"I would rather win honour than honours: I would rather have genius than wealth. I would rather make my name than inherit it, though my father's, thank G.o.d, is an honest one," said the young Colonel. "But pardon me, gentlemen," and here making, them a hasty salutation, he ran across the parade towards a young and elderly lady and a gentleman, who were now advancing.

"It is the beautiful Miss Lowther. I remember now," says my lord. "See! he takes her arm! The report is, he is engaged to her."

"You don't mean to say such a fellow is engaged to any of the Lowthers of the North?" cries out Jack. "Curse me, what is the world come to, with your printers, and your half-pay ensigns, and your schoolmasters, and your infernal nonsense?"

The Dictionary-maker, who had shown so little desire to bow to my Lord Chesterfield, when that famous n.o.bleman courteously saluted him, was here seen to take off his beaver, and bow almost to the ground, before a florid personage in a large round hat, with bands and a gown, who made his appearance in the Walk. This was my Lord Bishop of Salisbury, wearing complacently the blue riband and badge of the Garter, of which n.o.ble Order his lords.h.i.+p was prelate.

Mr. Johnson stood, hat in hand, during the whole time of his conversation with Dr. Gilbert; who made many flattering and benedictory remarks to Mr. Richardson, declaring that he was the supporter of virtue, the preacher of sound morals, the mainstay of religion, of all which points the honest printer himself was perfectly convinced.

Do not let any young lady trip to her grandpapa's bookcase in consequence of this eulogium, and rashly take down Clarissa from the shelf. She would not care to read the volumes, over which her pretty ancestresses wept and thrilled a hundred years ago; which were commended by divines from pulpits and belauded all Europe over. I wonder, are our women more virtuous than their grandmothers, or only more squeamish? If the former, then Miss Smith of New York is certainly more modest than Miss Smith of London, who still does not scruple to say that tables, pianos, and animals have legs. Oh, my faithful, good old Samuel Richardson! Hath the news yet reached thee in Hades that thy sublime novels are huddled away in corners, and that our daughters may no more read Clarissa than Tom Jones? Go up, Samuel, and be reconciled with thy brother-scribe, whom in life thou didst hate so. I wonder whether a century hence the novels of to-day will be hidden behind locks and wires, and make pretty little maidens blush?

"Who is yonder queer person in the high headdress of my grandmother's time, who stops and speaks to Mr. Richardson?" asked Harry, as a fantastically dressed lady came up, and performed a curtsey and a compliment to the bowing printer.

Jack Morris nervously struck Harry a blow in the side with the b.u.t.t end of his whip. Lord March laughed.

"Yonder queer person is my gracious kinswoman, Katharine, d.u.c.h.ess of Dover and Queensberry, at your service, Mr. Warrington. She was a beauty price! She is changed now, isn't she? What an old Gorgon it is! She is a great patroness of your book-men and when that old frump was young, they actually made verses about her."

The Earl quitted his friends for a moment to make his bow to the old d.u.c.h.ess, Jack Morris explaining to Mr. Warrington how, at the Duke's death, my Lord of March and Ruglen would succeed to his cousin's dukedoms.

"I suppose," says Harry, simply, "his lords.h.i.+p is here in attendance upon the old lady?"

Jack burst into a loud laugh.

"Oh yes! very much! exactly!" says he. "Why, my dear fellow, you don't mean to say you haven't heard about the little Opera-dancer?"

"I am but lately arrived in England, Mr. Morris," said Harry, with a smile, "and in Virginia, I own, we have not heard much about the little Opera-dancer."

Luckily for us, the secret about the little Opera-dancer never was revealed, for the young men's conversation was interrupted by a lady in a cardinal cape, and a hat by no means unlike those lovely headpieces which have returned into vogue a hundred years after the date of our present history, who made a profound curtsey to the two gentlemen and received their salutation in return. She stopped opposite to Harry; she held out her hand, rather to his wonderment: "Have you so soon forgotten me, Mr. Warrington?" she said.

Off went Harry's hat in an instant. He started, blushed, stammered, and called out Good Heavens! as if there had been any celestial wonder in the circ.u.mstance! It was Lady Maria come out for a walk. He had not been thinking about her. She was, to say truth, for the moment so utterly out of the young gentleman's mind, that her sudden re-entry there and appearance in the body startled Mr. Warrington's faculties, and caused those guilty blushes to crowd into his cheeks.

No. He was not even thinking of her! A week ago-a year, a hundred years ago it seemed-he would not have been surprised to meet her anywhere. Appearing from amidst darkling shrubberies, gliding over green garden terraces, loitering on stairs or corridors, hovering even in his dreams, all day or all night, bodily or spiritually, he had been accustomed to meet her. A week ago his heart used to beat. A week ago, and at the very instant when he jumped out of his sleep, there was her idea smiling on him. And it was only last Tuesday that his love was stabbed and slain, and he not only had left off mourning for her, but had forgotten her!

"You will come and walk with me a little?" she said. "Or would you like the music best? I dare say you will like the music best."

"You know," said Harry, "I don't care about any music much, except"-he was thinking of the evening hymn-"except of your playing." He turned very red again as he spoke, he felt he was perjuring himself horribly.

The poor lady was agitated herself by the flutter and agitation which she saw in her young companion. Gracious Heaven! Could that tremor and excitement mean that she was mistaken, and that the lad was still faithful? "Give me your arm, and let us take a little walk," she said, waving round a curtsey to the other two gentlemen: "my aunt is asleep after her dinner." Harry could not but offer the arm, and press the hand that lay against his heart. Maria made another fine curtsey to Harry's bowing companions, and walked off with her prize. In her griefs, in her rages, in the pains and anguish of wrong and desertion, how a woman remembers to smile, curtsey, caress, dissemble! How resolutely they discharge the social proprieties; how they have a word, or a hand, or a kind little speech or reply for the pa.s.sing acquaintance who crosses unknowing the path of the tragedy, drops a light airy remark or two (happy self-satisfied rogue!) and pa.s.ses on. He pa.s.ses on, and thinks that woman was rather pleased with what I said. "That joke I made was rather neat. I do really think Lady Maria looks rather favourably at me, and she's a dev'lish fine woman, begad she is!" O you wiseacre! Such was Jack Morris's observation and case as he walked away leaning on the arm of his n.o.ble friend, and thinking the whole Society of the Wells was looking at him. He had made some exquisite remarks about a particular run of cards at Lady Flus.h.i.+ngton's the night before, and Lady Maria had replied graciously and neatly, and so away went Jack perfectly happy.

The absurd creature! I declare we know nothing of anybody (but that for my part I know better and better every day). You enter smiling to see your new acquaintance, Mrs. A. and her charming family. You make your bow in the elegant drawing-room of Mr. and Mrs. B.? I tell you that in your course through life you are for ever putting your great clumsy foot upon the mute invisible wounds of bleeding tragedies. Mrs. B.'s closets for what you know are stuffed with skeletons. Look there under the sofa-cus.h.i.+on. Is that merely Missy's doll, or is it the limb of a stifled Cupid peeping out? What do you suppose are those ashes smouldering in the grate?-Very likely a suttee has been offered up there just before you came in: a faithful heart has been burned out upon a callous corpse, and you are looking on the cineri doloso. You see B. and his wife receiving their company before dinner. Gracious powers! Do you know that that bouquet which she wears is a signal to Captain C., and that he will find a note under the little bronze Shakespeare on the mantelpiece in the study? And with all this you go up and say some uncommonly neat thing (as you fancy) to Mrs. B. about the weather (clever dog!), or about Lady E.'s last party (fas.h.i.+onable buck!), or about the dear children in the nursery (insinuating rogue!). Heaven and earth, my good sir, how can you tell that B. is not going to pitch all the children out of the nursery window this very night, or that his lady has not made an arrangement for leaving them, and running off with the Captain? How do you know that those footmen are not disguised bailiffs?-that yonder large-looking butler (really a skeleton) is not the p.a.w.nbroker's man? and that there are not skeleton rotis and entrees under every one of the covers? Look at their feet peeping from under the tablecloth. Mind how you stretch out your own lovely little slippers, madam, lest you knock over a rib or two. Remark the death's-head moths fluttering among the flowers. See, the pale winding-sheets gleaming in the wax-candles! I know it is an old story, and especially that this preacher has yelled vanitas vanitatum five hundred times before. I can't help always falling upon it, and cry out with particular loudness and wailing, and become especially melancholy, when I see a dead love tied to a live love. Ha! I look up from my desk, across the street: and there come in Mr. and Mrs. D. from their walk in Kensington Gardens. How she hangs on him! how jolly and happy he looks, as the children frisk round! My poor dear benighted Mrs. D., there is a Regent's Park as well as a Kensington Gardens in the world. Go in, fond wretch! Smilingly lay before him what you know he likes for dinner. Show him the children's copies and the reports of their masters. Go with Missy to the piano, and play your artless duet together; and fancy you are happy!

There go Harry and Maria taking their evening walk on the common, away from the village which is waking up from its after-dinner siesta, and where the people are beginning to stir and the music to play. With the music Maria knows Madame de Bernstein will waken: with the candles she must be back to the tea-table and the cards. Never mind. Here is a minute. It may be my love is dead, but here is a minute to kneel over the grave and pray by it. He certainly was not thinking about her: he was startled and did not even know her. He was laughing and talking with Jack Morris and my Lord March. He is twenty years younger than she. Never mind. To-day is to-day in which we are all equal. This moment is ours. Come, let us walk a little way over the heath, Harry. She will go, though she feels a deadly a.s.surance that he will tell her all is over between them, and that he loves the dark-haired girl at Oakhurst.

CHAPTER XXVII. Plenus Opus Aleae

"Let me hear about those children, child, whom I saw running about at the house where they took you in, poor dear boy, after your dreadful fall?" says Maria, as they paced the common. "Oh, that fall, Harry! I thought I should have died when I saw it! You needn't squeeze one's arm so. You know you don't care for me?"

"The people are the very best, kindest, dearest people I have ever met in the world," cries Mr. Warrington. "Mrs. Lambert was a friend of my mother when she was in Europe for her education. Colonel Lambert is a most accomplished gentleman, and has seen service everywhere. He was in Scotland with his Royal Highness, in Flanders, at Minorca. No natural parents could be kinder than they were to me. How can I show my grat.i.tude to them? I want to make them a present: I must make them a present," says Harry, clapping his hand into his pocket, which was filled with the crisp spoils of Morris and March.

"We can go to the toy-shop, my dear, and buy a couple of dolls for the children," says Lady Maria. "You would offend the parents by offering anything like payment for their kindness."

"Dolls for Hester and Theo! Why, do you think a woman is not woman till she is forty, Maria?" (The arm under Harry's here gave a wince perhaps,-ever so slight a wince.) "I can tell you Miss Hester by no means considers herself a child, and Miss Theo is older than her sister. They know ever so many languages. They have read books-oh! piles and piles of books! They play on the harpsichord and sing together admirable; and Theo composes, and sings songs of her own."

"Indeed! I scarcely saw them. I thought they were children. They looked quite childish. I had no idea they had all these perfections, and were such wonders of the world."

"That's just the way with you women! At home, if me or George praised a woman, Mrs. Esmond, and Mountain, too, would be sure to find fault with her!" cries Harry.

"I am sure I would find fault with no one who is kind to you, Mr. Warrington," sighed Maria, "though you are not angry with me for envying them because they had to take care of you when you were wounded and ill-whilst I-I had to leave you?"

"You dear good Maria!"

"No, Harry! I am not dear and good. There, sir, you needn't be so pressing in your attentions. Look! There is your black man walking with a score of other wretches in livery. The horrid creatures are going to fuddle at the tea-garden, and get tipsy like their masters. That dreadful Mr. Morris was perfectly tipsy when I came to you, and frightened you so."

"I had just won great bets from both of them. What shall I buy for you, my dear cousin?" And Harry narrated the triumphs which he had just achieved. He was in high spirits: he laughed, he bragged a little. "For the honour of Virginia I was determined to show them what jumping was," he said. "With a little practice I think I could leap two foot farther."

Maria was pleased with the victories of her young champion. "But you must beware about play, child," she said. "You know it hath been the ruin of our family. My brother Castlewood, Will, our poor father, our aunt, Lady Castlewood herself, they have all been victims to it: as for my Lord March, he is the most dreadful gambler and the most successful of all the n.o.bility."

"I don't intend to be afraid of him, nor of his friend Mr. Jack Morris neither," says Harry, again fingering the delightful notes. "What do you play at Aunt Bernstein's? Cribbage, all-fours, brag, whist, commerce, piquet, quadrille? I'm ready at any of 'em. What o'clock is that striking-sure 'tis seven!"

"And you want to begin now," said the plaintive Maria. "You don't care about walking with your poor cousin. Not long ago you did."

"Hey! Youth is youth, cousin!" cried Mr. Harry, tossing up his head, "and a young fellow must have his fling!" and he strutted by his partner's side, confident, happy, and eager for pleasure. Not long ago he did like to walk with her. Only yesterday, he liked to be with Theo and Hester, and good Mrs. Lambert; but pleasure, life, gaiety, the desire to s.h.i.+ne and to conquer, had also their temptations for the lad, who seized the cup like other lads, and did not care to calculate on the headache in store for the morning. Whilst he and his cousin were talking, the fiddles from the open orchestra on the Parade made a great tuning and squeaking, preparatory to their usual evening concert. Maria knew her aunt was awake again, and that she must go back to her slavery. Harry never asked about that slavery, though he must have known it, had he taken the trouble to think. He never pitied his cousin. He was not thinking about her at all. Yet when his mishap befell him, she had been wounded far more cruelly than he was. He had scarce ever been out of her thoughts, which of course she had had to bury under smiling hypocrisies, as is the way with her s.e.x. I know, my dear Mrs. Grundy, you think she was an old fool? Ah! do you suppose fools' caps do not cover grey hair, as well as jet or auburn? Bear gently with our elderly fredaines, O you Minerva of a woman! Or perhaps you are so good and wise that you don't read novels at all. This I know, that there are late crops of wild oats, as well as early harvests of them; and (from observation of self and neighbour) I have an idea that the avena fatua grows up to the very last days of the year.

Like worldly parents anxious to get rid of a troublesome child, and go out to their evening party, Madame Bernstein and her attendants had put the sun to bed, whilst it was as yet light, and had drawn the curtains over it, and were busy about their cards and their candles, and their tea and negus, and other refreshments. One chair after another landed ladies at the Baroness's door, more or less painted, patched, brocaded. To these came gentlemen in gala raiment. Mr. Poellnitz's star was the largest, and his coat the most embroidered of all present. My Lord of March and Ruglen, when he made his appearance, was quite changed from the individual with whom Harry had made acquaintance at the White Horse. His tight brown scratch was exchanged for a neatly curled feather top, with a bag and grey powder, his jockey-dress and leather breeches replaced by a rich and elegant French suit. Mr. Jack Morris had just such another wig and a suit of stuff as closely as possible resembling his lords.h.i.+p's. Mr. Wolfe came in attendance upon his beautiful mistress, Miss Lowther, and her aunt who loved cards, as all the world did. When my Lady Maria Esmond made her appearance, 'tis certain that her looks belied Madame Bernstein's account of her. Her shape was very fine, and her dress showed a great deal of it. Her complexion was by nature exceeding fair, and a dark frilled ribbon, clasped by a jewel, round her neck, enhanced its snowy whiteness. Her cheeks were not redder than those of other ladies present, and the roses were pretty openly purchased by everybody at the perfumery-shops. An artful patch or two, it was supposed, added to the l.u.s.tre of her charms. Her hoop was not larger than the iron contrivances which ladies of the present day hang round their persons; and we may p.r.o.nounce that the costume, if absurd in some points, was pleasing altogether. Suppose our ladies took to wearing of bangles and nose-rings? I dare say we should laugh at the ornaments, and not dislike them, and lovers would make no difficulty about lifting up the ring to be able to approach the rosy lips underneath.

As for the Baroness de Bernstein, when that lady took the pains of making a grand toilette, she appeared as an object, handsome still, and magnificent, but melancholy, and even somewhat terrifying to behold. You read the past in some old faces, while some others lapse into mere meekness and content. The fires go quite out of some eyes, as the crow's-feet pucker round them; they flash no longer with scorn, or with anger, or love; they gaze, and no one is melted by their sapphire glances; they look, and no one is dazzled. My fair young reader, if you are not so perfect a beauty as the peerless Lindamira, Queen of the Ball; if, at the end of it, as you retire to bed, you meekly own that you have had but two or three partners, whilst Lindamira has had a crowd round her all night-console yourself with thinking that, at fifty, you will look as kind and pleasant as you appear now at eighteen. You will not have to lay down your coach-and-six of beauty and see another step into it, and walk yourself through the rest of life. You will have to forgo no long-accustomed homage; you will not witness and own the depreciation of your smiles. You will not see fas.h.i.+on forsake your quarter; and remain all dust, gloom, cobwebs within your once splendid saloons, and placards in your sad windows, gaunt, lonely, and to let! You may not have known any grandeur, but you won't feel any desertion. You will not have enjoyed millions, but you will have escaped bankruptcy. "Our hostess," said my Lord Chesterfield to his friend in a confidential whisper, of which the utterer did not in the least know the loudness, "puts me in mind of Covent Garden in my youth. Then it was the court end of the town, and inhabited by the highest fas.h.i.+on. Now, a n.o.bleman's house is a gaming-house, or you may go in with a friend and call for a bottle."

"Hey! a bottle and a tavern are good things in their way," says my Lord March, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I was not born before the Georges came in, though I intend to live to a hundred. I never knew the Bernstein but as an old woman; and if she ever had beauty, hang me if I know how she spent it."

"No, hang me, how did she spend it?" laughs out Jack Morris.

"Here's a table! Shall we sit down and have a game?-Don't let the Frenchman come in. He won't pay. Mr. Warrington, will you take a card?" Mr. Warrington and my Lord Chesterfield found themselves partners against Mr. Morris and the Earl of March. "You have come too late, Baron," says the elder n.o.bleman to the other n.o.bleman who was advancing. "We have made our game. What, have you forgotten Mr. Warrington of Virginia-the young gentleman whom you met in London?"

"The young gentleman whom I met at Arthur's Chocolate House had black hair, a little c.o.c.ked nose, and was by no means so fortunate in his personal appearance as Mr. Warrington," said the Baron, with much presence of mind. "Warrington, Dorrington, Harrington? We of the continent cannot retain your insular names. I certify that this gentleman is not the individual of whom I spoke at dinner." And, glancing kindly upon him, the old beau sidled away to a farther end of the room, where Mr. Wolfe and Miss Lowther were engaged in deep conversation in the embrasure of a window. Here the Baron thought fit to engage the Lieutenant-Colonel upon the Prussian manual exercise, which had lately been introduced into King George II.'s army-a subject with which Mr. Wolfe was thoroughly familiar, and which no doubt would have interested him at any other moment but that. Nevertheless the old gentleman uttered his criticisms and opinions, and thought he perfectly charmed the two persons to whom he communicated them.

At the commencement of the evening the Baroness received her guests personally, and as they arrived engaged them in talk and introductory courtesies. But as the rooms and tables filled, and the parties were made up, Madame de Bernstein became more and more restless, and finally retreated with three friends to her own corner, where a table specially reserved for her was occupied by her major-domo. And here the old lady sate down resolutely, never changing her place or quitting her game till c.o.c.k-crow. The charge of receiving the company devolved now upon my Lady Maria, who did not care for cards, but dutifully did the honours of the house to her aunt's guests, and often rustled by the table where her young cousin was engaged with his three friends.

"Come and cut the cards for us," said my Lord March to her ladys.h.i.+p as she pa.s.sed on one of her wistful visits. "Cut the cards and bring us luck, Lady Maria! We have had none to-night, and Mr. Warrington is winning everything."

"I hope you are not playing high, Harry?" said the lady, timidly.

"Oh no, only sixpences," cried my lord, dealing.

"Only sixpences," echoed Mr. Morris, who was Lord March's partner. But Mr. Morris must have been very keenly alive to the value of sixpence, if the loss of a few such coins could make his round face look so dismal. My Lord Chesterfield sate opposite Mr. Warrington, sorting his cards. No one could say, by inspecting that calm physiognomy, whether good or ill fortune was attending his lords.h.i.+p.

Some word, not altogether indicative of delight, slipped out of Mr. Morris's lips, on which his partner cried out, "Hang it, Morris, play your cards, and hold your tongue!" Considering they were only playing for sixpences, his lords.h.i.+p, too, was strangely affected.

Maria, still fondly lingering by Harry's chair, with her hand at the back of it, could see his cards, and that a whole covey of trumps was ranged in one corner. She had not taken away his luck. She was pleased to think she had cut that pack which had dealt him all those pretty trumps. As Lord March was dealing, he had said in a quiet voice to Mr. Warrington, "The bet as before, Mr. Warrington, or shall we double it?"

"Anything you like, my lord," said Mr. Warrington, very quietly.

"We will say, then,-s.h.i.+llings."

"Yes, s.h.i.+llings," says Mr. Warrington, and the game proceeded.

The end of the day's, and some succeeding days' sport may be gathered from the following letter, which was never delivered to the person to whom it was addressed, but found its way to America in the papers of Mr. Henry Warrington: "TUNBRIDGE WELLS, August 10, 1756.

"DEAR GEORGE-As White's two bottles of Burgundy and a pack of cards const.i.tute all the joys of your life, I take for granted that you are in London at this moment, preferring smoke and faro to fresh air and fresh haystacks. This will be delivered to you by a young gentleman with whom I have lately made acquaintance, and whom you will be charmed to know. He will play with you at any game for any stake, up to any hour of the night, and drink any reasonable number of bottles during the play. Mr. Warrington is no other than the Fortunate Youth about whom so many stories have been told in the Public Advertiser and other prints. He has an estate in Virginia as big as Yorks.h.i.+re, with the inc.u.mbrance of a mother, the reigning Sovereign; but, as the country is unwholesome, and fevers plentiful, let us hope that Mrs. Esmond will die soon, and leave this virtuous lad in undisturbed possession. She is aunt of that polisson of a Castlewood, who never pays his play-debts, unless he is more honourable in his dealings with you than he has been with me. Mr. W. is de bonne race. We must have him of our society, if it be only that I may win my money back from him.

"He has had the devil's luck here, and has been winning everything, whilst his old card-playing beldam of an aunt has been losing. A few nights ago, when I first had the ill-luck to make his acquaintance, he beat me in jumping (having practised the art amongst the savages, and running away from bears in his native woods); he won bets off me and Jack Morris about my weight; and at night, when we sat down to play, at old Bernstein's, he won from us all round. If you can settle our last Epsom account please hand over to Mr. Warrington 350 pounds, which I still owe him, after pretty well emptying my pocket-book. Chesterfield has dropped six hundred to him, too; but his lords.h.i.+p does not wish to have it known, having sworn to give up play and live cleanly. Jack Morris, who has not been hit as hard as either of us, and can afford it quite as well, for the fat chuff has no houses nor train to keep up, and all his misbegotten father's money in hand, roars like a bull of Bashan about his losses. We had a second night's play, en pet.i.t comite, and Barbeau served us a fair dinner in a private room. Mr. Warrington holds his tongue like a gentleman, and none of us have talked about our losses; but the whole place does, for us. Yesterday the Cattarina looked as sulky as thunder, because I would not give her a diamond necklace, and says I refuse her because I have lost five thousand to the Virginian. My old d.u.c.h.ess of Q. has the very same story, besides knowing to a fraction what Chesterfield and Jack have lost.

"Warrington treated the company to breakfast and music at the rooms; and you should have seen how the women tore him to pieces. That fiend of a Cattarina ogled him out of my vis-a-vis, and under my very nose, yesterday, as we were driving to Penshurst, and I have no doubt has sent him a billet-doux ere this. He shot Jack Morris all to pieces at a mark: we shall try him with partridges when the season comes.

"He is a fortunate fellow, certainly. He has youth (which is not deboshed by evil courses in Virginia, as ours is in England); he has good health, good looks, and good luck.

"In a word, Mr. Warrington has won our money in a very gentlemanlike manner; and, as I like him, and wish to win some of it back again, I put him under your wors.h.i.+p's saintly guardians.h.i.+p. Adieu! I am going to the North, and shall be back for Doncaster.

"Yours ever, dear George, "M. et R."

"To George Augustus Selwyn, Esq., at White's Chocolate House, St. James's Street."