The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

“Nay, we have lost the game, and I am speaking sans rancune. It is not for you, who have won, to bear malice,” says my lord, with a bow.

Madame de Bernstein protested she was never in her life in better humour. “Confess, now, Eugene, that visit of Maria to Harry at the spunging-house—that touching giving up of all his presents to her, was a stroke of thy invention?”

“Pity for the young man, and a sense of what was due from Maria to her friend—her affianced lover—in misfortune, sure these were motives sufficient to make her act as she did,” replies Lord Castlewood, demurely.

“But 'twas you advised her, my good nephew?”

Castlewood, with a shrug of his shoulders, owned that he did advise his sister to see Mr. Henry Warrington. “But we should have won, in spite of your ladyship,” he continued, “had not the elder brother made his appearance. And I have been trying to console my poor Maria by showing her what a piece of good fortune it is after all, that we lost.”

“Suppose she had married Harry, and then cousin George had made his appearance?” remarks the Baroness.

“Effectivement,” cries Eugene, taking snuff. “As the grave was to give up its dead, let us be thankful to the grave for disgorging in time! I am bound to say, that Mr. George Warrington seems to be a man of sense, and not more selfish than other elder sons and men of the world. My poor Molly fancied that he might be a—what shall I say?—a greenhorn perhaps is the term—like his younger brother. She fondly hoped that he might be inclined to go share and share alike with Twin junior; in which case, so infatuated was she about the young fellow, that I believe she would have taken him. 'Harry Warrington, with half a loaf, might do very well,' says I, 'but Harry Warrington with no bread, my dear!'”

“How no bread?” asks the Baroness.

“Well, no bread except at his brother's side-table. The elder said as much.”

“What a hard-hearted wretch!” cries Madame de Bernstein.

“Ah, bah! I play with you, aunt, cartes sur table! Mr. George only did what everybody else would do; and we have no right to be angry with him, really we haven't. Molly herself acknowledged as much, after her first burst of grief was over, and I brought her to listen to reason. The silly old creature! to be so wild about a young lad at her time of life!”

“'Twas a real passion, I almost do believe,” said Madame de Bernstein.

“You should have heard her take leave of him. C'etait touchant, ma parole d'honneur! I cried. Before George, I could not help myself. The young fellow with muddy stockings, and his hair about his eyes, flings himself amongst us when we were at dinner; makes his offer to Molly in a very frank and noble manner, and in good language too; and she replies. Begad, it put me in mind of Mrs. Woffington in the new Scotch play, that Lord Bute's man has wrote—Douglas—what d'ye call it? She clings round the lad: she bids him adieu in heartrending accents. She steps out of the room in a stately despair—no more chocolate, thank you. If she had made a mauvais pas no one could retire from it with more dignity. 'Twas a masterly retreat after a defeat. We were starved out of our position, but we retired with all the honours of war.”

“Molly won't die of the disappointment!” said my lord's aunt, sipping her cup.

My lord snarled a grin, and showed his yellow teeth. “He, he!” he said, “she hath once or twice before had the malady very severely, and recovered perfectly. It don't kill, as your ladyship knows, at Molly's age.”

How should her ladyship know? She did not marry Doctor Tusher until she was advanced in life. She did not become Madame de Bernstein until still later. Old Dido, a poet remarks, was not ignorant of misfortune, and hence learned to have compassion on the wretched.

People in the little world, as I have been told, quarrel and fight, and go on abusing each other, and are not reconciled for ever so long. But people in the great world are surely wiser in their generation. They have differences; they cease seeing each other. They make it up and come together again, and no questions are asked. A stray prodigal, or a stray puppy-dog, is thus brought in under the benefit of an amnesty, though you know he has been away in ugly company. For six months past, ever since the Castlewoods and Madame de Bernstein had been battling for possession of poor Harry Warrington, these two branches of the Esmond family had remained apart. Now, the question being settled, they were free to meet again, as though no difference ever had separated them: and Madame de Bernstein drove in her great coach to Lady Castlewood's rout, and the Esmond ladies appeared smiling at Madame de Bernstein's drums, and loved each other just as much as they previously had done.

“So, sir, I hear you have acted like a hard-hearted monster about your poor brother Harry!” says the Baroness, delighted, and menacing George with her stick.

“I acted but upon your ladyship's hint, and desired to see whether it was for himself or his reputed money that his kinsfolk wanted to have him,” replies George, turning rather red.

“Nay, Maria could not marry a poor fellow who was utterly penniless, and whose elder brother said he would give him nothing!”

“I did it for the best, madam,” says George, still blushing.

“And so thou didst, O thou hypocrite!” cries the old lady.

“Hypocrite, madam! and why?” asks Mr. Warrington, drawing himself up in much state.

“I know all, my infant!” says the Baroness in French. “Thou art very like thy grandfather. Come, that I embrace thee! Harry has told me all, and that thou hast divided thy little patrimony with him!”

“It was but natural, madam. We have had common hearts and purses since we were born. I but feigned hard-heartedness in order to try those people yonder,” says George, with filling eyes.

“And thou wilt divide Virginia with him too?” asks the Bernstein.

“I don't say so. It were not just,” replied Mr. Warrington. “The land must go to the eldest born, and Harry would not have it otherwise: and it may be I shall die, or my mother outlive the pair of us. But half of what is mine is his: and he, it must be remembered, only was extravagant because he was mistaken as to his position.”

“But it is a knight of old, it is a Bayard, it is the grandfather come to life!” cried Madame de Bernstein to her attendant, as she was retiring for the night. And that evening, when the lads left her, it was to poor Harry she gave the two fingers, and to George the rouged cheek, who blushed, for his part, almost as deep as that often-dyed rose, at such a mark of his old kinswoman's favour.

Although Harry Warrington was the least envious of men, and did honour to his brother as in all respects his chief, guide, and superior, yet no