Two mornings after that supper, it being the 27th day of July, the Bishop of Rochester breakfasting with Lady Castlewood and her family, and the meal scarce over, Dr. A——'s coach drove up to our house at Kensington, and the doctor appeared amongst the party there, enlivening a rather gloomy company; for the mother and daughter had had words in the morning in respect to the transactions of that supper, and other adventures perhaps, and on the day succeeding. Beatrix's haughty spirit brooked remonstrances from no superior, much less from her mother, the gentlest of creatures, whom the girl commanded rather than obeyed. And feeling she was wrong, and that by a thousand coquetries (which she could no more help exercising on every man that came near her, than the sun can help shining on great and small) she had provoked the prince's dangerous admiration, and allured him to the expression of it, she was only the more wilful and imperious the more she felt her error.
To this party, the prince being served with chocolate in his bedchamber, where he lay late sleeping away the fumes of his wine, the doctor came, and by the urgent and startling nature of his news, dissipated instantly that private and minor unpleasantry under which the family of Castlewood was labouring.
He asked for the guest; the guest was above in his own apartment: he bade Monsieur Baptiste go up to his master instantly, and requested that my Lord Viscount Castlewood would straightway put his uniform on, and come away in the doctor's coach now at the door.
He then informed Madam Beatrix what her part of the comedy was to be:—“In half an hour,” says he, “her Majesty and her favourite lady will take the air in the cedar-walk behind the new banqueting-house. Her Majesty will be drawn in a garden-chair, Madam Beatrix Esmond and her brother, my Lord Viscount Castlewood, will be [pg 427] walking in the private garden (here is Lady Masham's key), and will come unawares upon the royal party. The man that draws the chair will retire, and leave the queen, the favourite, and the maid of honour and her brother together; Mrs. Beatrix will present her brother, and then!—and then, my lord bishop will pray for the result of the interview, and his Scots clerk will say Amen! Quick, put on your hood, Madam Beatrix; why doth not his Majesty come down? Such another chance may not present itself for months again.”
The prince was late and lazy, and indeed had all but lost that chance through his indolence. The queen was actually about to leave the garden just when the party reached it; the doctor, the bishop, the maid of honour and her brother went off together in the physician's coach, and had been gone half an hour when Colonel Esmond came to Kensington Square.
The news of this errand, on which Beatrix was gone, of course for a moment put all thoughts of private jealousy out of Colonel Esmond's head. In half an hour more the coach returned; the bishop descended from it first, and gave his arm to Beatrix, who now came out. His lordship went back into the carriage again, and the maid of honour entered the house alone. We were all gazing at her from the upper window, trying to read from her countenance the result of the interview from which she had just come.
She came into the drawing-room in a great tremor and very pale; she asked for a glass of water as her mother went to meet her, and after drinking that and putting off her hood, she began to speak:—“We may all hope for the best,” says she; “it has cost the queen a fit. Her Majesty was in her chair in the cedar-walk accompanied only by Lady ——, when we entered by the private wicket from the west side of the garden, and turned towards her, the doctor following us. They waited in a side-walk hidden by the shrubs, as we advanced towards the chair. My heart throbbed so I scarce could speak; but my prince whispered, ‘Courage, Beatrix’, and marched on with a steady step. His face was a little flushed, but he was not afraid of the danger. He who fought so bravely at Malplaquet fears nothing.” Esmond and Castlewood looked at each other at this compliment, neither liking the sound of it.
“The prince uncovered,” Beatrix continued, “and I saw the queen turning round to Lady Masham, as if asking who these two were. Her Majesty looked very pale and ill, and then flushed up; the favourite made us a signal to advance, and I went up, leading my prince by the hand, quite close to the chair: ‘Your Majesty will give my lord viscount your hand to kiss,’ says her lady, and the queen put out her hand, which the prince kissed, kneeling on his knee, he who should kneel to no mortal man or woman.
“ ‘You have been long from England, my lord,’ says the queen: ‘why were you not here to give a home to your mother and sister?’
“ ‘I am come, madam, to stay now, if the queen desires me,’ says the prince, with another low bow.