Boys and Girls from Thackeray

by Kate Dickinson Sweetser

"I won't run the risk," said my lord; "I am as bold as any man, but I'll not bear that."

"Take Beatrix with you and go," said my lady. "For us the mischief is done."

Then my lord, calling away Tusher, bade him come to the oak parlour and have a pipe. When my lady and Harry Esmond were alone there was a silence of some moments, after which her ladyship spoke in a hard, dry voice of her objections to his intimacy with the blacksmith's daughter, and she added, "Under all the circumstances I shall beg my lord to despatch you from this house as quick as possible; and will go on with Frank's learning as well as I can. I owe my father thanks for a little grounding, and you, I am sure, for much that you have taught me. And—I wish you a good-night."

And with this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went away through the tapestry door which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading. And he could not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache, and quite unrefreshed.

He had brought the contagion with him from the Inn, sure enough, and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the Hall no more than it did the cottage.

When Harry Esmond passed through the crisis of that malady, and returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered and rallied after the disease, and that Lady Castlewood was down with it, with a couple more of the household. "It was a Providence, for which we all ought to be thankful," Dr. Tusher said, "that my lady and her son were spared, while death carried off the poor domestics of the house;" and he rebuked Harry for asking in his simply way, for which we ought to be thankful; that the servants were killed or the gentlefolk were saved? Nor could young Esmond agree with the Doctor that the malady had not in the least impaired my lady's charms, for Harry thought that her ladyship's beauty was very much injured by the smallpox. When the marks of the disease cleared away, they did not, it is true, leave scars on her face, except one on her forehead, but the delicacy of her complexion was gone, her eyes had lost their brilliancy and her face looked older. When Tusher vowed and protested that this was not so, in the presence of my lady, the lad broke out impulsively, and said, "It is true; my mistress is not near so handsome as she was!" On which poor Lady Castlewood gave a rueful smile, and a look into a little glass she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass, and her eyes filled with tears.

The sight of these on the face of the lady whom he loved best filled Esmond's heart with a soft of rage of pity, and the young blunderer sank down on his knees and besought her to pardon him, saying that he was a fool and an idiot, that he was a brute to make such a speech, he, who caused her malady; and Dr. Tusher told him that he was a bear indeed, and a bear he would remain, after which speech poor young Esmond was so dumb-stricken that he did not even growl.

"He is my bear, and I will not have him baited, Doctor," my lady said, patting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at her feet. "How your hair has come off!—and mine, too," she added, with another sigh.

"Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the world, I think," the lad said.

"Will my lord think so when he comes back?" the lady asked with a sigh, and another look at her glass. Then turning to her young son she said, "Come, Frank, come, my child. You are well, praised be Heaven. Your locks are not thinned by this dreadful smallpox; nor your poor face scarred—is it, my angel?"