Part 7 (1/2)
”Very good, f.a.n.n.y! then I speak to my lord, and we return to Kensington. If I can't bring you to reason, your brother will.”
At this juncture the conversation between mother and daughter stopped, or Madame de Bernstein's informer had no further means of hearing or reporting it.
It was only in after days that she told Harry Warrington a part of what she knew. At present he but saw that his kinsfolks received him not unkindly. Lady Castlewood was perfectly civil to him; the young ladies pleasant and pleased; my Lord Castlewood, a man of cold and haughty demeanour, was not more reserved towards Harry than to any of the rest of the family; Mr. William was ready to drink with him, to ride with him, to go to races with him, and to play cards with him. When he proposed to go away, they one and all pressed him to stay. Madame de Bernstein did not tell him how it arose that he was the object of such eager hospitality. He did not know what schemes he was serving or disarranging, whose or what anger he was creating. He fancied he was welcome because those around him were his kinsmen, and never thought that those could be his enemies out of whose cup he was drinking, and whose hand he was pressing every night and morning.
CHAPTER XV. A Sunday at Castlewood
The second day after Harry's arrival at Castlewood was a Sunday. The chapel appertaining to the castle was the village church. A door from the house communicated with a great state pew which the family occupied, and here after due time they all took their places in order, whilst a rather numerous congregation from the village filled the seats below. A few ancient dusty banners hung from the church roof; and Harry pleased himself in imagining that they had been borne by retainers of his family in the Commonwealth wars, in which, as he knew well, his ancestors had taken a loyal and distinguished part. Within the altar-rails was the effigy of the Esmond of the time of King James the First, the common forefather of all the group a.s.sembled in the family pew. Madame de Bernstein, in her quality of Bishop's widow, never failed in attendance, and conducted her devotions with a gravity almost as exemplary as that of the ancestor yonder, in his square beard and red gown, for ever kneeling on his stone ha.s.sock before his great marble desk and book, under his emblazoned s.h.i.+eld of arms. The clergyman, a tall, high-coloured, handsome young man, read the service in a lively, agreeable voice, giving almost a dramatic point to the chapters of Scripture which he read. The music was good-one of the young ladies of the family touching the organ-and would have been better but for an interruption and something like a burst of laughter from the servants' pew, which was occasioned by Mr. Warrington's lacquey Gumbo, who, knowing the air given out for the psalm, began to sing it in a voice so exceedingly loud and sweet, that the whole congregation turned towards the African warbler; the parson himself put his handkerchief to his mouth, and the liveried gentlemen from London were astonished out of all propriety. Pleased, perhaps, with the sensation which he had created, Mr. Gumbo continued his performance until it became almost a solo, and the voice of the clerk himself was silenced. For the truth is, that though Gumbo held on to the book, along with pretty Molly, the porter's daughter, who had been the first to welcome the strangers to Castlewood, he sang and recited by ear and not by note, and could not read a syllable of the verses in the book before him.
This choral performance over, a brief sermon in due course followed, which, indeed, Harry thought a deal too short. In a lively, familiar, striking discourse the clergyman described a scene of which he had been witness the previous week-the execution of a horse-stealer after a.s.sizes. He described the man and his previous good character, his family, the love they bore one another, and his agony at parting from them. He depicted the execution in a manner startling, terrible, and picturesque. He did not introduce into his sermon the Scripture phraseology, such as Harry had been accustomed to hear it from those somewhat Calvinistic preachers whom his mother loved to frequent, but rather spoke as one man of the world to other sinful people, who might be likely to profit by good advice. The unhappy man just gone, had begun as a farmer of good prospects; he had taken to drinking, card-playing, horse-racing, c.o.c.k-fighting, the vices of the age; against which the young clergyman was generously indignant. Then he had got to poaching and to horse-stealing, for which he suffered. The divine rapidly drew striking and fearful pictures of these rustic crimes. He startled his hearers by showing that the Eye of the Law was watching the poacher at midnight, and setting traps to catch the criminal. He galloped the stolen horse over highway and common, and from one county into another, but showed Retribution ever galloping after, seizing the malefactor in the country fair, carrying him before the justice, and never unlocking his manacles till he dropped them at the gallows-foot. Heaven be pitiful to the sinner! The clergyman acted the scene. He whispered in the criminal's ear at the cart. He dropped his handkerchief on the clerk's head. Harry started back as that handkerchief dropped. The clergyman had been talking for more than twenty minutes. Harry could have heard him for an hour more, and thought he had not been five minutes in the pulpit. The gentlefolks in the great pew were very much enlivened by the discourse. Once or twice, Harry, who could see the pew where the house servants sate, remarked these very attentive; and especially Gumbo, his own man, in an att.i.tude of intense consternation. But the smockfrocks did not seem to heed, and clamped out of church quite unconcerned. Gaffer Brown and Gammer Jones took the matter as it came, and the rosy-cheeked, red-cloaked village la.s.ses sate under their broad hats entirely unmoved. My lord, from his pew, nodded slightly to the clergyman in the pulpit, when that divine's head and wig surged up from the cus.h.i.+on.
”Sampson has been strong to-day,” said his lords.h.i.+p. ”He has a.s.saulted the Philistines in great force.”
”Beautiful, beautiful!” says Harry.
”Bet five to four it was his a.s.size sermon. He has been over to Winton to preach, and to see those dogs,” cries William.
The organist had played the little congregation out into the suns.h.i.+ne. Only Sir Francis Esmond, temp. Jac. I., still knelt on his marble ha.s.sock, before his prayer-book of stone. Mr. Sampson came out of his vestry in his ca.s.sock, and nodded to the gentlemen still lingering in the great pew.
”Come up, and tell us about those dogs,” says Mr. William, and the divine nodded a laughing a.s.sent.
The gentlemen pa.s.sed out of the church into the gallery of their house, which connected them with that sacred building. Mr. Sampson made his way through the court, and presently joined them. He was presented by my lord to the Virginian cousin of the family, Mr. Warrington: the chaplain bowed very profoundly, and hoped Mr. Warrington would benefit by the virtuous example of his European kinsmen. Was he related to Sir Miles Warrington of Norfolk? Sir Miles was Mr. Warrington's father's elder brother. What a pity he had a son! 'Twas a pretty estate, and Mr. Warrington looked as if he would become a baronetcy, and a fine estate in Norfolk.
”Tell me about my uncle,” cried Virginian Harry.
”Tell us about those dogs!” said English Will, in a breath.
”Two more jolly dogs, two more drunken dogs, saving your presence, Mr. Warrington, than Sir Miles and his son, I never saw. Sir Miles was a staunch friend and neighbour of Sir Robert's. He can drink down any man in the county, except his son and a few more. The other dogs about which Mr. William is anxious, for Heaven hath made him a prey to dogs and all kinds of birds, like the Greeks in the Iliad--”
”I know that line in the Iliad,” says Harry, blus.h.i.+ng. ”I only know five more, but I know that one.” And his head fell. He was thinking, ”Ah, my dear brother George knew all the Iliad and all the Odyssey, and almost every book that was ever written besides!”
”What on earth” (only he mentioned a place under the earth) ”are you talking about now?” asked Will of his reverence.
The chaplain reverted to the dogs and their performance. He thought Mr. William's dogs were more than a match for them. From dogs they went off to horses. Mr. William was very eager about the Six Year Old Plate at Huntingdon. ”Have you brought any news of it, Parson?”
”The odds are five to four on Brilliant against the field,” says the parson, gravely, ”but, mind you, Jason is a good horse.”
”Whose horse?” asks my lord.
”Duke of Ancaster's. By Cartouche out of Miss Langley,” says the divine. ”Have you horse-races in Virginia, Mr. Warrington?”
”Haven't we!” cries Harry; ”but oh! I long to see a good English race!”
”Do you-do you-bet a little?” continues his reverence.
”I have done such a thing,” replies Harry with a smile.
”I'll take Brilliant even against the field, for ponies with you, cousin!” shouts out Mr. William.
”I'll give or take three to one against Jason!” says the clergyman.
”I don't bet on horses I don't know,” said Harry, wondering to hear the chaplain now, and remembering his sermon half an hour before.
”Hadn't you better write home, and ask your mother?” says Mr. William, with a sneer.
”Will, Will!” calls out my lord, ”our cousin Warrington is free to bet, or not, as he likes. Have a care how you venture on either of them, Harry Warrington. Will is an old file, in spite of his smooth face, and as for Parson Sampson, I defy our ghostly enemy to get the better of him.”
”Him and all his works, my lord!” said Mr. Sampson, with a bow.
Harry was highly indignant at this allusion to his mother. ”I'll tell you what, cousin Will,” he said, ”I am in the habit of managing my own affairs in my own way, without asking any lady to arrange them for me. And I'm used to make my own bets upon my own judgment, and don't need any relations to select them for me, thank you. But as I am your guest, and, no doubt, you want to show me hospitality, I'll take your bet-there. And so Done and Done.”
”Done,” says Will, looking askance.
”Of course it is the regular odds that's in the paper which you give me, cousin?”
”Well, no, it isn't,” growled Will. ”The odds are five to four, that's the fact, and you may have 'em, if you like.”
”Nay, cousin, a bet is a bet; and I take you, too, Mr. Sampson.”
”Three to one against Jason. I lay it. Very good,” says Mr. Sampson.
”Is it to be ponies too, Mr. Chaplain?” asks Harry with a superb air, as if he had Lombard Street in his pocket.
”No, no. Thirty to ten. It is enough for a poor priest to win.”
”Here goes a great slice out of my quarter's hundred,” thinks Harry. ”Well, I shan't let these Englishmen fancy that I am afraid of them. I didn't begin, but for the honour of Old Virginia I won't go back.”
These pecuniary transactions arranged, William Esmond went away scowling towards the stables, where he loved to take his pipe with the grooms; the brisk parson went off to pay his court to the ladies, and partake of the Sunday dinner which would presently be served. Lord Castlewood and Harry remained for a while together. Since the Virginian's arrival my lord had scarcely spoken with him. In his manners he was perfectly friendly, but so silent that he would often sit at the head of his table, and leave it without uttering a word.
”I suppose yonder property of yours is a fine one by this time?” said my lord to Harry.
”I reckon it's almost as big as an English county,” answered Harry, ”and the land's as good, too, for many things.” Harry would not have the Old Dominion, nor his share in it, underrated.
”Indeed!” said my lord, with a look of surprise. ”When it belonged to my father it did not yield much.”
”Pardon me, my lord. You know how it belonged to your father,” cried the youth, with some spirit. ”It was because my grandfather did not choose to claim his right.” [This matter is discussed in the Author's previous work, The Memoirs of Colonel Esmond.]
”Of course, of course,” says my lord, hastily.
”I mean, cousin, that we of the Virginian house owe you nothing but our own,” continued Harry Warrington; ”but our own, and the hospitality which you are now showing me.”