Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges. William Makepeace Thackeray
and learned it and thought of it with no small feeling of shame.
Taking Harry by the hand as soon as they were both descended from their horses, Mr. Holt led him across the court, and under a low door to rooms on a level with the ground; one of which Father Holt said was to be the boy's chamber, the other on the other side of the passage being the father's own; and as soon as the little man's face was washed, and the father's own dress arranged, Harry's guide took him once more to the door by which my lord had entered the hall, and up a stair, and through an ante-room to my lady's drawing-room—an apartment than which Harry thought he had never seen anything more grand—no, not in the Tower of London which he had just visited. Indeed the chamber was richly ornamented in the manner of Queen Elizabeth's time, with great stained windows at either end, and hangings of tapestry, which the sun shining [pg 034] through the coloured glass painted of a thousand hues; and here in state, by the fire, sat a lady to whom the priest took up Harry, who was indeed amazed by her appearance.
My lady viscountess's face was daubed with white and red up to the eyes, to which the paint gave an unearthly glare: she had a tower of lace on her head, under which was a bush of black curls—borrowed curls—so that no wonder little Harry Esmond was scared when he was first presented to her—the kind priest acting as master of the ceremonies at that solemn introduction—and he stared at her with eyes almost as great as her own, as he had stared at the player-woman who acted the wicked tragedy-queen, when the players came down to Ealing Fair. She sat in a great chair by the fire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on a little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box. She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-coloured brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury Cross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with great gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and an odour of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved or quitted the room, leaning on her tortoiseshell stick, little Fury barking at her heels.
Mrs. Tusher, the parson's wife, was with my lady. She had been waiting-woman to her ladyship in the late lord's time, and, having her soul in that business, took naturally to it when the Viscountess of Castlewood returned to inhabit her father's house.
“I present to your ladyship your kinsman and little page of honour, Master Henry Esmond,” Mr. Holt said, bowing lowly, with a sort of comical humility. “Make a pretty bow to my lady, monsieur; and then another little bow, not so low, to Madam Tusher—the fair priestess of Castlewood.”
“Where I have lived and hope to die, sir,” says Madam Tusher, giving a hard glance at the brat, and then at my lady.
Upon her the boy's whole attention was for a time directed. He could not keep his great eyes off from her. Since the Empress of Ealing he had seen nothing so awful.
“Does my appearance please you, little page?” asked the lady.
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“He would be very hard to please if it didn't,” cried Madam Tusher.
“Have done, you silly Maria,” said Lady Castlewood.
“Where I'm attached, I'm attached, madam—and I'd die rather than not say so.”
“Je meurs où je m'attache,” Mr. Holt said, with a polite grin. “The ivy says so in the picture, and clings to the oak like a fond parasite as it is.”
“Parricide, sir!” cries Mrs. Tusher.
“Hush, Tusher—you are always bickering with Father Holt,” cried my lady. “Come and kiss my hand, child,” and the oak held out a branch to little Harry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand, upon the gnarled knuckles of which there glittered a hundred rings.
“To kiss that hand would make many a pretty fellow happy!” cried Mrs. Tusher: on which my lady crying out, “Go, you foolish Tusher,” and tapping her with her great fan, Tusher ran forward to seize her hand and kiss it. Fury arose and barked furiously at Tusher; and Father Holt looked on at this queer scene, with arch grave glances.
The awe exhibited by the little boy perhaps pleased the lady to whom this artless flattery was bestowed; for having gone down on his knee (as Father Holt had directed him, and the mode then was) and performed his obeisance, she said, “Page Esmond, my groom of the chamber will inform you what your duties are, when you wait upon my lord and me; and good Father Holt will instruct you as becomes a gentleman of our name. You will pay him obedience in everything, and I pray you may grow to be as learned and as good as your tutor.”
The lady seemed to have the greatest reverence for Mr. Holt, and to be more afraid of him than of anything else in the world. If she was ever so angry, a word or look from Father Holt made her calm: indeed he had a vast power of subjecting those who came near him; and, among the rest, his new pupil gave himself up with an entire confidence and attachment to the good father, and became his willing slave almost from the first moment he saw him.
He put his small hand into the father's as he walked away from his first presentation to his mistress, and asked many questions in his artless childish way. “Who is that other woman?” he asked. “She is fat and round; she is more pretty than my Lady Castlewood.”
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“She is Madam Tusher, the parson's wife of Castlewood. She has a son of your age, but bigger than you.”
“Why does she like so to kiss my lady's hand? It is not good to kiss.”
“Tastes are different, little man. Madam Tusher is attached to my lady, having been her waiting-woman, before she was married, in the old lord's time. She married Doctor Tusher the chaplain. The English household divines often marry the waiting-women.”
“You will not marry the French woman, will you? I saw her laughing with Blaise in the buttery.”
“I belong to a church that is older and better than the English Church,” Mr. Holt said (making a sign whereof Esmond did not then understand the meaning, across his breast and forehead); “in our Church the clergy do not marry. You will understand these things better soon.”
“Was not St. Peter the head of your Church?—Dr. Rabbits of Ealing told us so.”
The father said, “Yes, he was.”
“But St. Peter was married, for we heard only last Sunday that his wife's mother lay sick of a fever.” On which the father again laughed, and said he would understand this too better soon, and talked of other things, and took away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old house which he had come to inhabit.
It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening made a great cawing. At the foot of the hill was a river with a steep ancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat, where the village of Castlewood stood and stands, with the church in the midst, the parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's forge beside it, and the sign of the “Three Castles” on the elm. The London road stretched away towards the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills and peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the same sun setting, that he now looks on thousands of miles away across the great ocean—in a new Castlewood by another stream, that bears, like the new country of wandering Aeneas, the fond names of the land of his youth.
The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only, the fountain court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered down in the Cromwellian wars. In [pg 037] the fountain court, still in good repair, was the great hall, near to the kitchen and butteries. A dozen of living-rooms looking to the north, and communicating with the little chapel that faced eastwards and the buildings stretching from that to the main gate, and with the hall (which looked to the west) into the court now dismantled. This court had been the most magnificent of the two, until the protector's cannon tore down one side of it before the place was taken and stormed. The besiegers entered at the terrace under the clock-tower, slaying every man of the garrison, and at their head my lord's brother, Francis Esmond.
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