Blushing to be forced to bear such an errand, Esmond had to go to the prince and warn him that the girl whom his highness was bribing, was John Lockwood's sweetheart, an honest resolute man, who had served in six campaigns, and feared nothing, and who knew that the person, calling himself Lord Castlewood, was not his young master: and the colonel besought the prince to consider what the effect of a single man's jealousy might be, and to think of other designs he had in hand, more important than the seduction of a waiting-maid, and the humiliation of a brave man. [pg 419] Ten times, perhaps, in the course of as many days, Mr. Esmond had to warn the royal young adventurer of some imprudence or some freedom. He received these remonstrances very testily, save perhaps in this affair of poor Lockwood's, when he deigned to burst out a-laughing, and said, “What! the soubrette has peached to the amoureux, and Crispin is angry, and Crispin has served, and Crispin has been a corporal, has he? Tell him we will reward his valour with a pair of colours, and recompense his fidelity.”
Colonel Esmond ventured to utter some other words of entreaty, but the prince, stamping imperiously, cried out, “Assez, milord: je m'ennuye à la prêche; I am not come to London to go to the sermon.” And he complained afterwards to Castlewood, that “le petit jaune, le noir colonel, le Marquis Misanthrope” (by which facetious names his royal highness was pleased to designate Colonel Esmond), “fatigued him with his grand airs and virtuous homilies.”
The Bishop of Rochester, and other gentlemen engaged in the transaction which had brought the prince over, waited upon his royal highness, constantly asking for my Lord Castlewood on their arrival at Kensington, and being openly conducted to his royal highness in that character, who received them either in my lady's drawing-room below, or above in his own apartment; and all implored him to quit the house as little as possible, and to wait there till the signal should be given for him to appear. The ladies entertained him at cards, over which amusement he spent many hours in each day and night. He passed many hours more in drinking, during which time he would rattle and talk very agreeably, and especially if the colonel was absent, whose presence always seemed to frighten him; and the poor “Colonel Noir” took that hint as a command accordingly, and seldom intruded his black face upon the convivial hours of this august young prisoner. Except for those few persons of whom the porter had the list, Lord Castlewood was denied to all friends of the house who waited on his lordship. The wound he had received had broke out again from his journey on horseback, so the world and the domestics were informed. And Doctor A——,[17] his physician (I shall not mention his name, but he was physician to the Queen, of the Scots nation, and a man remarkable [pg 420] for his benevolence as well as his wit), gave orders that he should be kept perfectly quiet until the wound should heal. With this gentleman, who was one of the most active and influential of our party, and the others before spoken of, the whole secret lay; and it was kept with so much faithfulness, and the story we told so simple and natural, that there was no likelihood of a discovery except from the imprudence of the prince himself, and an adventurous levity that we had the greatest difficulty to control. As for Lady Castlewood, although she scarce spoke a word, 'twas easy to gather from her demeanour, and one or two hints she dropped, how deep her mortification was at finding the hero whom she had chosen to worship all her life (and whose restoration had formed almost the most sacred part of her prayers), no more than a man, and not a good one. She thought misfortune might have chastened him; but that instructress had rather rendered him callous than humble. His devotion, which was quite real, kept him from no sin he had a mind to. His talk showed good-humour, gaiety, even wit enough; but there was a levity in his acts and words that he had brought from among those libertine devotees with whom he had been bred, and that shocked the simplicity and purity of the English lady, whose guest he was. Esmond spoke his mind to Beatrix pretty freely about the prince, getting her brother to put in a word of warning. Beatrix was entirely of their opinion; she thought he was very light, very light and reckless; she could not even see the good looks Colonel Esmond had spoken of. The prince had bad teeth, and a decided squint. How could we say he did not squint? His eyes were fine, but there was certainly a cast in them. She rallied him at table with wonderful wit; she spoke of him invariably as of a mere boy; she was more fond of Esmond than ever, praised him to her brother, praised him to the prince, when his royal highness was pleased to sneer at the colonel, and warmly espoused his cause: “And if your Majesty does not give him the Garter his father had, when the Marquis of Esmond comes to your Majesty's Court, I will hang myself in my own garters, or will cry my eyes out.” “Rather than lose those,” says the prince, “he shall be made archbishop and colonel of the Guard” (it was Frank Castlewood who told me of this conversation over their supper).
“Yes,” cries she, with one of her laughs,—(I fancy I hear [pg 421] it now; thirty years afterwards I hear that delightful music)—“yes, he shall be Archbishop of Esmond and Marquis of Canterbury.”
“And what will your ladyship be?” says the prince; “you have but to choose your place.”
“I,” says Beatrix, “will be mother of the maids to the queen of his Majesty King James the Third—Vive le Roy!” and she made him a great curtsy, and drank a part of a glass of wine in his honour.
“The prince seized hold of the glass and drank the last drop of it,” Castlewood said, “and my mother, looking very anxious, rose up and asked leave to retire. But that 'Trix is my mother's daughter, Harry,” Frank continued, “I don't know what a horrid fear I should have of her. I wish—I wish this business were over. You are older than I am, and wiser, and better, and I owe you everything, and would die for you—before George I would; but I wish the end of this were come.”
Neither of us very likely passed a tranquil night; horrible doubts and torments racked Esmond's soul; 'twas a scheme of personal ambition, a daring stroke for a selfish end—he knew it. What cared he, in his heart, who was king? Were not his very sympathies and secret convictions on the other side—on the side of People, Parliament, Freedom? And here was he, engaged for a prince, that had scarce heard the word “liberty”; that priests and women, tyrants by nature both, made a tool of. The misanthrope was in no better humour after hearing that story, and his grim face more black and yellow than ever.