“He wants to go to the alehouse—let him go,” cried my lady.
“I’m d⸺d if he shall,” said my lord. “I didn’t think you could be so d⸺d ungrateful, Rachel.”
Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with a rapid glance at Harry Esmond—as my lord, not heeding them, and still in great good-humor, raised up his young client from his kneeling posture (for a thousand kindnesses had caused the lad to revere my lord as a father), and put his broad hand on Harry Esmond’s shoulder.
“She was always so,” my lord said; “the very notion of a woman drives her mad. I took to liquor on that very account, by Jove, for no other reason than that; for she can’t be jealous of a beer-barrel or a bottle of rum, can she, Doctor? D⸺ it, look at the maids—just look at the maids in the house” (my lord pronounced all the words together—just-look-at-the-maze-in-the-house: jever-see-such-maze?) “You wouldn’t take a wife out of Castlewood now, would you, Doctor?” and my lord burst out laughing.
The Doctor, who had been looking at my Lord Castlewood from under his eyelids, said, “But joking apart, and, my lord, as a divine, I cannot treat the subject in a jocular light, nor, as a pastor of this congregation, look with anything but sorrow at the idea of so very young a sheep going astray.”
“Sir,” said young Esmond, bursting out indignantly, “she told me that you yourself were a horrid old man, and had offered to kiss her in the dairy.”
“For shame, Henry,” cried Doctor Tusher, turning as red as a turkey-cock, while my lord continued to roar with laughter. “If you listen to the falsehoods of an abandoned girl—”
“She is as honest as any woman in England, and as pure for me,” cried out Henry, “and, as kind, and as good. For shame on you to malign her!”
“Far be it from me to do so,” cried the Doctor. “Heaven grant I may be mistaken in the girl, and in you, sir, who have a truly precocious genius; but that is not the point at issue at present. It appears that the smallpox broke out in the little boy at the Three Castles; that it was on him when you visited the alehouse, for your own reasons; and that you sat with the child for some time, and immediately afterwards with my young lord.” The Doctor raised his voice as he spoke, and looked towards my lady, who had now come back, looking very pale, with a handkerchief in her hand.
“This is all very true, sir,” said Lady Esmond, looking at the young man.
“ ’Tis to be feared that he may have brought the infection with him.”
“From the alehouse—yes,” said my lady.
“D⸺ it, I forgot when I collared you, boy,” cried my lord, stepping back. “Keep off, Harry my boy; there’s no good in running into the wolf’s jaws, you know.”
My lady looked at him with some surprise, and instantly advancing to Henry Esmond, took his hand. “I beg your pardon, Henry,” she said; “I spoke very unkindly. I have no right to interfere with you—with your—”
My lord broke out into an oath. “Can’t you leave the boy alone, my lady?” She looked a little red, and faintly pressed the lad’s hand as she dropped it.
“There is no use, my lord,” she said; “Frank was on his knee as he was making pictures, and was running constantly from Henry to me. The evil is done, if any.”
“Not with me, damme,” cried my lord. “I’ve been smoking,”—and he lighted his pipe again with a coal—“and it keeps off infection; and as the disease is in the village—plague take it—I would have you leave it. We’ll go tomorrow to Walcote, my lady.”
“I have no fear,” said my lady; “I may have had it as an infant: it broke out in our house then; and when four of my sisters had it at home, two years before our marriage, I escaped it, and two of my dear sisters died.”
“I won’t run the risk,” said my lord; “I’m as bold as any man, but I’ll not bear that.”
“Take Beatrix with you and go,” said my lady. “For us the mischief is done; and Tucker can wait upon us, who has had the disease.”
“You take care to choose ’em ugly enough,” said my lord, at which her ladyship hung down her head and looked foolish: and my lord, calling away Tusher, bade him come to the oak parlor and have a pipe. The Doctor made a low bow to her ladyship (of which salaams he was profuse), and walked off on his creaking square toes after his patron.
When the lady and the young man were alone, there was a silence of some moments, during which he stood at the fire, looking rather vacantly at the dying embers, whilst her ladyship busied herself with the tambour-frame and needles.
“I am sorry,” she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice—“I repeat I am sorry that I showed myself so ungrateful for the safety of my son. It was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you must perceive, Mr. Esmond, that at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family. You have wished to go to the University, and I think ’tis quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press this matter, thinking you a child, as you are, indeed, in years—quite
