The party of prisoners lived very well in Newgate, and with comforts very different to those which were awarded to the poor wretches there (his insensibility to their misery, their gayety still more frightful, their curses and blasphemy, hath struck with a kind of shame since—as proving how selfish, during his imprisonment, his own particular grief was, and how entirely the thoughts of it absorbed him): if the three gentlemen lived well under the care of the Warden of Newgate, it was because they paid well: and indeed the cost at the dearest ordinary or the grandest tavern in London could not have furnished a longer reckoning, than our host of the Handcuff Inn—as Colonel Westbury called it. Our rooms were the three in the gate over Newgate—on the second story looking up Newgate Street towards Cheapside and Paul’s Church. And we had leave to walk on the roof, and could see thence Smithfield and the Bluecoat Boys’ School, Gardens, and the Chartreux, where, as Harry Esmond remembered, Dick the Scholar, and his friend Tom Tusher, had had their schooling.
Harry could never have paid his share of that prodigious heavy reckoning which my landlord brought to his guests once a week: for he had but three pieces in his pockets that fatal night before the duel, when the gentlemen were at cards, and offered to play five. But whilst he was yet ill at the Gatehouse, after Lady Castlewood had visited him there, and before his trial, there came one in an orange-tawny coat and blue lace, the livery which the Esmonds always wore, and brought a sealed packet for Mr. Esmond, which contained twenty guineas, and a note saying that a counsel had been appointed for him, and that more money would be forthcoming whenever he needed it.
’Twas a queer letter from the scholar as she was, or as she called herself: the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood, written in the strange barbarous French which she and many other fine ladies of that time—witness her Grace of Portsmouth—employed. Indeed, spelling was not an article of general commodity in the world then, and my Lord Marlborough’s letters can show that he, for one, had but a little share of this part of grammar:—
“Mong Coussin,”
my Lady Viscountess Dowager wrote,
“je scay que vous vous etes bravement batew et grievement blessay—du coste de feu M. le Vicomte. M. le Compte de Varique ne se playt qua parlay de vous: M. de Moon aucy. Il di que vous avay voulew vous bastre avecque luy—que vous estes plus fort que luy fur l’ayscrimme—quil’y a surtout certaine Botte que vous scavay quil n’a jammay sceu pariay: et que c’en eut ete fay de luy si vouseluy vous vous fussiay battews ansamb. Aincy ce pauv Vicompte est mort. Mort et pontayt—Mon coussin, mon coussin! jay dans la tayste que vous n’estes quung pety Monst—angcy que les Esmonds ong tousjours este. La veuve est chay moy. J’ay recuilly cet’ pauve famme. Elle est furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher ley Roy (d’icy) demandant a gran cri revanche pour son Mary. Elle ne veux voyre ni entende parlay de vous: pourtant elle ne fay qu’en parlay milfoy par jour. Quand vous seray hor prison venay me voyre. J’auray soing de vous. Si cette petite Prude veut se defaire de song pety Monste (Helas je craing quil ne soy trotar!) je m’on chargeray. J’ay encor quelqu interay et quelques escus de costay.
“La Veuve se raccommode avec Miladi Marlboro qui est tout puicante avecque la Reine Anne. Cet dam senteraysent pour la petite prude; qui pourctant a un fi du mesme asge que vous savay.
“En sortant de prisong venez icy. Je ne puy vous recevoir chaymoy a cause des mechansetes du monde, may pre du moy vous aurez logement.
Marchioness of Esmond this lady sometimes called herself, in virtue of that patent which had been given by the late King James to Harry Esmond’s father; and in this state she had her train carried by a knight’s wife, a cup and cover of assay to drink from, and fringed cloth.
He who was of the same age as little Francis, whom we shall henceforth call Viscount Castlewood here, was H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, born in the same year and month with Frank, and just proclaimed at Saint Germains, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.
III
I Take the Queen’s Pay in Quin’s Regiment
The fellow in the orange-tawny livery with blue lace and facings was in waiting when Esmond came out of prison, and, taking the young gentleman’s slender baggage, led the way out of that odious Newgate, and by Fleet Conduit, down to the Thames, where a pair of oars was called, and they went up the river to Chelsey. Esmond thought the sun had never shone so bright; nor the air felt so fresh and exhilarating. Temple Garden, as they rowed by, looked like the garden of Eden to him, and the aspect of the quays, wharves, and buildings by the river, Somerset House, and Westminster (where the splendid new bridge was just beginning), Lambeth tower and palace, and that busy shining scene of the Thames swarming with boats and barges, filled his heart with pleasure and cheerfulness—as well such a beautiful scene might to one who had been a prisoner so long, and with so many dark thoughts deepening the gloom of his captivity. They rowed up at length to the pretty village of Chelsey, where the nobility have many handsome country-houses; and so came to my Lady Viscountess’s house, a cheerful new house in the row facing the river, with a handsome garden behind it, and a pleasant lookout both towards Surrey and Kensington, where stands the noble ancient palace of the Lord Warwick, Harry’s reconciled adversary.
Here in her ladyship’s saloon, the young man
