The History of Henry Esmond

miles off, before his comrades had got to their supper after the play. He bade his man give no hint to my Lady Dowager’s household of the expedition on which he was going; and as Chelsey was distant from London, the roads bad, and infested by footpads, and Esmond often in the habit, when engaged in a party of pleasure, of lying at a friend’s lodging in town, there was no need that his old aunt should be disturbed at his absence⁠—indeed, nothing more delighted the old lady than to fancy that mon cousin, the incorrigible young sinner, was abroad boxing the watch, or scouring St. Giles’s. When she was not at her books of devotion, she thought Etheridge and Sedley very good reading. She had a hundred pretty stories about Rochester, Harry Jermyn, and Hamilton; and if Esmond would but have run away with the wife even of a citizen, ’tis my belief she would have pawned her diamonds (the best of them went to our Lady of Chaillot) to pay his damages.

My lord’s little house of Walcote⁠—which he inhabited before he took his title and occupied the house of Castlewood⁠—lies about a mile from Winchester, and his widow had returned to Walcote after my lord’s death as a place always dear to her, and where her earliest and happiest days had been spent, cheerfuller than Castlewood, which was too large for her straitened means, and giving her, too, the protection of the ex-dean, her father. The young Viscount had a year’s schooling at the famous college there, with Mr. Tusher as his governor. So much news of them Mr. Esmond had had during the past year from the old Viscountess, his own father’s widow; from the young one there had never been a word.

Twice or thrice in his benefactor’s lifetime, Esmond had been to Walcote; and now, taking but a couple of hours’ rest only at the inn on the road, he was up again long before daybreak, and made such good speed that he was at Walcote by two o’clock of the day. He rid to the end of the village, where he alighted and sent a man thence to Mr. Tusher, with a message that a gentleman from London would speak with him on urgent business. The messenger came back to say the Doctor was in town, most likely at prayers in the Cathedral. My Lady Viscountess was there, too; she always went to Cathedral prayers every day.

The horses belonged to the post-house at Winchester. Esmond mounted again and rode on to the George; whence he walked, leaving his grumbling domestic at last happy with a dinner, straight to the Cathedral. The organ was playing: the winter’s day was already growing gray: as he passed under the street-arch into the Cathedral yard, and made his way into the ancient solemn edifice.

VI

The 29th December

There was scarce a score of persons in the Cathedral beside the Dean and some of his clergy, and the choristers, young and old, that performed the beautiful evening prayer. But Mr. Tusher was one of the officiants, and read from the eagle in an authoritative voice, and a great black periwig; and in the stalls, still in her black widow’s hood, sat Esmond’s dear mistress, her son by her side, very much grown, and indeed a noble-looking youth, with his mother’s eyes, and his father’s curling brown hair, that fell over his point de Venise⁠—a pretty picture such as Van Dyck might have painted. Mons. Rigaud’s portrait of my Lord Viscount, done at Paris afterwards, gives but a French version of his manly, frank, English face. When he looked up there were two sapphire beams out of his eyes such as no painter’s palette has the color to match, I think. On this day there was not much chance of seeing that particular beauty of my young lord’s countenance; for the truth is, he kept his eyes shut for the most part, and, the anthem being rather long, was asleep.

But the music ceasing, my lord woke up, looking about him, and his eyes lighting on Mr. Esmond, who was sitting opposite him, gazing with no small tenderness and melancholy upon two persons who had so much of his heart for so many years, Lord Castlewood, with a start, pulled at his mother’s sleeve (her face had scarce been lifted from her book), and said, “Look, mother!” so loud, that Esmond could hear on the other side of the church, and the old Dean on his throned stall. Lady Castlewood looked for an instant as her son bade her, and held up a warning finger to Frank; Esmond felt his whole face flush, and his heart throbbing, as that dear lady beheld him once more. The rest of the prayers were speedily over; Mr. Esmond did not hear them; nor did his mistress, very likely, whose hood went more closely over her face, and who never lifted her head again until the service was over, the blessing given, and Mr. Dean, and his procession of ecclesiastics, out of the inner chapel.

Young Castlewood came clambering over the stalls before the clergy were fairly gone, and running up to Esmond, eagerly embraced him. “My dear, dearest old Harry!” he said, “are you come back? Have you been to the wars? You’ll take me with you when you go again? Why didn’t you write to us? Come to mother.”

Mr. Esmond could hardly say more than a “God bless you, my boy,” for his heart was very full and grateful at all this tenderness on the lad’s part; and he was as much moved at seeing Frank as he was fearful about that other interview which was now to take place: for he knew not if the widow would reject him as she had done so cruelly a year ago.

“It was kind of you to come back to us, Henry,” Lady Esmond said. “I thought you might come.”

“We read of the fleet coming