“Where shall we sup, sir?” says Harry.
“We! Let some gentlemen wait till they are asked,” says my Lord Viscount with a laugh. “You go to Duke Street, and see Mr. Betterton. You love the play, I know. Leave me to follow my own devices: and in the morning we’ll breakfast together, with what appetite we may, as the play says.”
“By G⸺! my lord, I will not leave you this night,” says Harry Esmond. “I think I know the cause of your dispute. I swear to you ’tis nothing. On the very day the accident befell Lord Mohun, I was speaking to him about it. I know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry on his part.”
“You know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry between Lord Mohun and my wife,” says my lord, in a thundering voice—“you knew of this and did not tell me?”
“I knew more of it than my dear mistress did herself, sir—a thousand times more. How was she, who was as innocent as a child, to know what was the meaning of the covert addresses of a villain?”
“A villain he is, you allow, and would have taken my wife away from me.”
“Sir, she is as pure as an angel,” cried young Esmond.
“Have I said a word against her?” shrieks out my lord. “Did I ever doubt that she was pure? It would have been the last day of her life when I did. Do you fancy I think that she would go astray? No, she hasn’t passion enough for that. She neither sins nor forgives. I know her temper—and now I’ve lost her, by heaven I love her ten thousand times more than ever I did—yes, when she was as young and as beautiful as an angel—when she smiled at me in her old father’s house, and used to lie in wait for me there as I came from hunting—when I used to fling my head down on her little knees and cry like a child on her lap—and swear I would reform, and drink no more and play no more, and follow women no more; when all the men of the Court used to be following her—when she used to look with her child more beautiful, by George, than the Madonna in the Queen’s Chapel. I am not good like her, I know it. Who is—by heaven, who is? I tired and wearied her, I know that very well. I could not talk to her. You men of wit and books could do that, and I couldn’t—I felt I couldn’t. Why, when you was but a boy of fifteen I could hear you two together talking your poetry and your books till I was in such a rage that I was fit to strangle you. But you were always a good lad, Harry, and I loved you, you know I did. And I felt she didn’t belong to me: and the children don’t. And I besotted myself, and gambled and drank, and took to all sorts of deviltries out of despair and fury. And now comes this Mohun, and she likes him, I know she likes him.”
“Indeed, and on my soul, you are wrong, sir,” Esmond cried.
“She takes letters from him,” cries my lord—“look here, Harry,” and he pulled out a paper with a brown stain of blood upon it. “It fell from him that day he wasn’t killed. One of the grooms picked it up from the ground and gave it me. Here it is in their d⸺d comedy jargon. ‘Divine Gloriana—Why look so coldly on your slave who adores you? Have you no compassion on the tortures you have seen me suffering? Do you vouchsafe no reply to billets that are written with the blood of my heart.’ She had more letters from him.”
“But she answered none,” cries Esmond.
“That’s not Mohun’s fault,” says my lord, “and I will be revenged on him, as God’s in heaven, I will.”
“For a light word or two, will you risk your lady’s honor and your family’s happiness, my lord?” Esmond interposed beseechingly.
“Psha—there shall be no question of my wife’s honor,” said my lord; “we can quarrel on plenty of grounds beside. If I live, that villain will be punished; if I fall, my family will be only the better: there will only be a spendthrift the less to keep in the world: and Frank has better teaching than his father. My mind is made up, Harry Esmond, and whatever the event is, I am easy about it. I leave my wife and you as guardians to the children.”
Seeing that my lord was bent upon pursuing this quarrel, and that no entreaties would draw him from it, Harry Esmond (then of a hotter and more impetuous nature than now, when care, and reflection, and gray hairs have calmed him) thought it was his duty to stand by his kind, generous patron, and said, “My lord, if you are determined upon war, you must not go into it alone. ’Tis the duty of our house to stand by its chief; and I should neither forgive myself nor you if you did not call me, or I should be absent from you at a moment of danger.”
“Why, Harry, my poor boy, you are bred for a parson,” says my lord, taking Esmond by the hand very kindly; “and it were a great pity that you should meddle in the matter.”
“Your lordship thought of being a churchman once,” Harry answered, “and your father’s orders did not prevent him fighting at Castlewood against the Roundheads. Your enemies are mine, sir; I can use the foils, as you have seen, indifferently well, and don’t think I shall be afraid when the buttons are taken off ’em.” And then Harry explained, with some blushes and hesitation (for the matter was delicate, and he feared lest, by having put himself forward in the quarrel, he might have offended his patron), how he had himself expostulated with the Lord Mohun, and proposed to measure swords with
