“ ‘Beatrix, this is Mr. Steele, gentleman-usher to the prince's highness. When does your new comedy appear, Mr. Steele?’ I hope thou wilt be out of prison for the first night, Harry.”
The sentimental captain concluded his sad tale, saying, “Faith, the beauty of Filia pulcrior drove pulcram matrem out of my head; and yet as I came down the river, and thought about the pair, the pallid dignity and exquisite grace of the matron had the uppermost, and I thought her even more noble than the virgin!”
The party of prisoners lived very well in Newgate, and with comforts very different to those which were awarded to the poor wretches there (his insensibility to their misery, their gaiety still more frightful, their curses and blasphemy, hath struck with a kind of shame since—as proving how selfish, during his imprisonment, his own particular grief was, and how entirely the thoughts of it absorbed him): if the three gentlemen lived well under the care of the warden of Newgate, it was because they paid well: and indeed the cost at the dearest ordinary or the grandest tavern in London could not have furnished a longer reckoning, than our host of the “Handcuff Inn”—as Colonel Westbury called it. Our rooms were the three in the gate over Newgate—on the second story looking up Newgate Street towards Cheapside and Paul's Church. And we had leave to walk on the roof, and could see thence Smithfield and the Bluecoat Boys' School, Gardens, and the Chartreux, where, as Harry Esmond remembered, Dick the Scholar, and his friend Tom Tusher, had had their schooling.
Harry could never have paid his share of that prodigious heavy reckoning which my landlord brought to his guests once a week: for he had but three pieces in his pockets that fatal night before the duel, when the gentlemen were at cards, and offered to play five. But whilst he was yet ill at the Gatehouse, after Lady Castlewood had visited him there, and before his trial, there came one in an orange-tawny [pg 182] coat and blue lace, the livery which the Esmonds always wore, and brought a sealed packet for Mr. Esmond, which contained twenty guineas, and a note saying that a counsel had been appointed for him, and that more money would be forthcoming whenever he needed it.
'Twas a queer letter from the scholar as she was, or as she called herself: the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood, written in the strange barbarous French which she and many other fine ladies of that time—witness Her Grace of Portsmouth—employed. Indeed, spelling was not an article of general commodity in the world then, and my Lord Marlborough's letters can show that he, for one, had but a little share of this part of grammar.
Mong Coussin (my lady viscountess dowager wrote), je scay que vous vous etes bravement batew et grievement bléssay—du costé de feu M. le Vicomte. M. le Compte de Varique ne se playt qua parlay de vous: M. de Moon auçy. Il di que vous avay voulew vous bastre avecque luy—que vous estes plus fort que luy sur l'ayscrimme—quil'y a surtout certaine Botte que vous scavay quil n'a jammay sceu pariay: et que c'en eut été fay de luy si vouseluy vous vous fussiay battews ansamb. Aincy ce pauv Vicompte est mort. Mort et peutayt—Mon coussin, mon coussin! jay dans la tayste que vous n'estes quung pety Monst—angcy que les Esmonds ong tousjours esté. La veuve est chay moy. J'ay recuilly cet' pauve famme. Elle est furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher le Roy (d'icy) démandant à gran cri revanche pour son Mary. Elle ne veux voyre ni entende parlay de vous: pourtant elle ne fay qu'en parlay milfoy par jour. Quand vous seray hor prison venay me voyre. J'auray soing de vous. Si cette petite Prude veut se défaire de song pety Monste (Hélas je craing qùil ne soy trotar!) je m'en chargeray. J'ay encor quelqu interay et quelques escus de costay.
La Veuve se raccommode avec Miladi Marlboro qui est tout puiçante avecque la Reine Anne. Cet dam sentéraysent pour la petite prude; qui pourctant a un fi du mesme asge que vous savay.
En sortant de prisong venez icy. Je ne puy vous recevoir chay-moy à cause des méchansetés du monde, may pre du moy vous aurez logement.
Isabelle Vicomptesse d'Esmond.