“Take Beatrix with you and go,” said my Lady. “For us the mischief is done.”
My Lord, calling away Doctor Tusher, bade him come in the oak parlor and have a pipe.
When the lady and the boy were alone, there was a silence of some moments, during which he stood looking at the fire whilst her Ladyship busied herself with the [v]tambour frame and needles.
“I am sorry,” she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice—“I repeat I am sorry that I said what I said. It was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you must see that, at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family. You have wished to go to college, and I think ’tis quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press the matter, thinking you a child, as you are indeed in years—quite a child. But now I shall beg my Lord to despatch you as quick as possible; and will go on with Frank’s learning as well as I can. And—and I wish you a good night, Harry.”
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, but could not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache.
He had brought the contagion with him from the alehouse, sure enough, and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall no more than it did the cottage.
When Harry Esmond had passed through the [v]crisis of the [v]malady and returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered and rallied from the disease, and that his mother was down with it. Nor could young Esmond agree in Doctor Tusher’s [v]vehement protestations to my Lady, when he visited her during her [v]convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her charms; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her Ladyship’s beauty was very much injured by the smallpox. The delicacy of her rosy complexion was gone; her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her hair fell, and she looked older. When Tusher in his courtly way vowed and protested that my Lady’s face was none the worse, the lad broke out and said, “It is worse, and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was.” On this poor Lady Castlewood gave a [v]rueful smile and a look into a little mirror 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 always created a sort of rage of pity in Esmond’s heart, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the young blunderer sank down on his knees and besought her to pardon him, saying that he was a fool and an idiot. Doctor Tusher told him that he was a bear, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor Harry was so dumb-stricken that he did not even growl.
“He is my bear, and I will not have him baited, doctor,” said my Lady, putting 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.
“It is not for myself that I care,” my Lady said to Harry, when the parson had taken his leave; “but am I very much changed! Alas! I fear ’tis too true.”