"Always loved you as a son--haven't I, Molly?" he mutters hurriedly. "Broke my heart nearly when I quarrelled with you about this little--What, all down on your knees! In heaven's name, tell me what has happened!"
What had happened was, that George Esmond Warrington and Theodosia Lambert had been married in Southwark Church that morning.
I pass over the scenes of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of final separation when the ship sailed away before us, leaving me and Theo on the shore. And there is no need to recall her expressions of maternal indignation when my mother was informed of the step I had taken. On the pacification of Canada, my dear Harry dutifully paid a visit to Virginia, and wrote describing his reception at home.
Many were the doubts and anxieties which, for my last play had been a failure, now beset us, and plan after plan I tried for procuring work and adding to our dwindling stock of money. By a hard day's labour at translating from foreign languages for the booksellers, I could earn a few shillings--so few that a week's work would hardly bring me a guinea. Hard times were not over with us till some time after the Baroness Bernstein's death (she left everything she had to her dear nephew, Henry Esmond Warrington), when my uncle Sir Miles procured me a post as one of his Majesty's commissioners for licensing hackney coaches. His only child was dead, and I was now heir to the Baronetcy.
Then one morning, before almost I had heard of my uncle's illness, a lawyer waits upon me at my lodgings in Bloomsbury, and salutes me by the name of Sir George Warrington.
The records of a prosperous country life are easily told. Obedient tenants bowed and curtsied as we went to church, and we drove to visit our neighbours in the great family coach.
Shall I ever see the old mother again, I wonder! When Hal was in England, we sent her pictures of both her sons painted by the admirable Sir Joshua Reynolds. We never let Harry rest until he had asked Hetty in marriage. He obeyed, and it was she who declined. "She had always," she wrote, "the truest regard for him from the dear old time when they had met almost children together. But she would never leave her father. When it pleased God to take him, she hoped she would be too old to think of bearing any other name but her own."
My brother Hal is still a young man, being little more than 50, and Hetty is now a staid little lady. There are days when she looks surprisingly young and blooming. Why should Theo and I have been so happy, and thou so lonely?