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

giving us an invitation to visit him at his regiment. Let my poor brother go and listen to his darling music of fife and drum! He bade me tell the ladies that they should hear from him. I kiss their hands, and go to dress for dinner, at the Star and Garter, in Pall Mall. We are to have Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Walpole, possibly, if he is not too fine to dine in a tavern; a young Irishman, a Mr. Bourke, who they say is a wonder of eloquence and learning—in fine, all the wits of Mr. Dodsley's shop. Quick, Gumbo, a coach, and my French grey suit! And if gentlemen ask me, 'Who gave you that sprig of lilac you wear on your heart-side?' I shall call a bumper, and give Lilac for a toast.'”

I fear there is no more rest for Hetty on this night than on the previous one, when she had behaved so mutinously to poor Harry Warrington. Some secret resolution must have inspired that gentleman, for, after leaving Mr. Lambert's table, he paced the streets for a while, and appeared at a late hour in the evening at Madame de Bernstein's house in Clarges Street. Her ladyship's health had been somewhat ailing of late, so that even her favourite routs were denied her, and she was sitting over a quiet game of ecarte, with a divine of whom our last news were from a lock-up house hard by that in which Harry Warrington had been himself confined. George, at Harry's request, had paid the little debt under which Mr. Sampson had suffered temporarily. He had been at his living for a year. He may have paid and contracted ever so many debts, have been in and out of jail many times since we saw him. For some time past he had been back in London stout and hearty as usual, and ready for any invitation to cards or claret. Madame de Bernstein did not care to have her game interrupted by her nephew, whose conversation had little interest now for the fickle old woman. Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy? How fared it with those patriarchs of old who lived for their nine centuries, and when were life's conditions so changed that, after threescore years and ten, it became but a vexation and a burden?

Getting no reply but Yes and No to his brief speeches, poor Harry sat a while on a couch opposite his aunt, who shrugged her shoulders, had her back to her nephew, and continued her game with the chaplain. Sampson sat opposite Mr. Warrington, and could see that something disturbed him. His face was very pale, and his countenance disturbed and full of gloom. “Something has happened to him, ma'am,” he whispered to the Baroness.

“Bah!” She shrugged her shoulders again, and continued to deal her cards. “What is the matter with you, sir,” she at last said, at a pause in the game, “that you have such a dismal countenance? Chaplain, that last game makes us even, I think!”

Harry got up from his place. “I am going on a journey: I am come to bid you good-bye, aunt,” he said, in a very tragical voice.

“On a journey! Are you going home to America? I mark the king, Chaplain, and play him.”

No, Harry said: he was not going to America yet going to the Isle of Wight for the present.

“Indeed!—a lovely spot!” says the Baroness. “Bon jour, mon ami, et bon voyage!” And she kissed a hand to her nephew.

“I mayn't come back for some time, aunt,” he groaned out.

“Indeed! We shall be inconsolable without you! Unless you have a spade, Mr. Sampson, the game is mine. Good-bye, my child! No more about your journey at present: tell us about it when you come back!” And she gaily bade him farewell. He looked for a moment piteously at her, and was gone.

“Something grave has happened, madam,” says the chaplain.

“Oh! The boy is always getting into scrapes! I suppose he has been falling in love with one of those country girls—what are their names, Lamberts?—with whom he is ever dawdling about. He has been doing no good here for some time. I am disappointed in him, really quite grieved about him—I will take two cards, if you please—again?—quite grieved. What do you think they say of his cousin—the Miss Warrington who made eyes at him when she thought he was a prize—they say the King has remarked her, and the Yarmouth is creving with rage. He, be!—those methodistical Warringtons! They are not a bit less worldly than their neighbours; and, old as he is, if the Grand Seignior throws his pocket-handkerchief, they will jump to catch it!”

“Ah, madam; how your ladyship knows the world!” sighs the chaplain. “I propose, if you please!”

“I have lived long enough in it, Mr. Sampson, to know something of it. 'Tis sadly selfish, my dear sir, sadly selfish; and everybody is struggling to pass his neighbour! No, I can't give you any more cards. You haven't the king? I play queen, knave, and a ten,—a sadly selfish world, indeed. And here comes my chocolate!”

The more immediate interest of the cards entirely absorbs the old woman. The door shuts out her nephew and his cares. Under his hat, he bears them into the street, and paces the dark town for a while.

“Good God!” he thinks, “what a miserable fellow I am, and what a spendthrift of my life I have been! I sit silent with George and his friends. I am not clever and witty as he is. I am only a burthen to him; and, if I would help him ever so much, don't know how. My dear Aunt Lambert's kindness never tires, but I begin to be ashamed of trying it. Why, even Hetty can't help turning on me; and when she tells me I am idle and should be doing something, ought I to be angry? The rest have left me. There's my cousins and uncle and my lady my aunt, they have shown me the cold shoulder this long time. They didn't even ask me to Norfolk when they went down to the country, and offer me so much as a day's partridge-shooting. I can't go to Castlewood—after what has happened; I should break that scoundrel William's bones; and, faith, am well out of the place altogether.”

He laughs a fierce laugh as he recalls his adventures since he has been in Europe. Money, friends, pleasure, all have passed away, and he feels the past like a dream. He strolls into White's Chocolate-House, where the waiters have scarce seen him for a year. The parliament is up. Gentlemen are away; there is not even any play going on:—not that he would join it, if there were.

He has but a few pieces in his pocket; George's drawer is open, and he may take what money he likes thence; but very, very sparingly will he avail himself of his brother's repeated invitation. He sits and drinks his glass in moody silence. Two or three officers of the Guards enter from St. James's. He knew them in former days, and the young men, who have been already dining and drinking on guard, insist on more drink at the club. The other battalion of their regiment is at Winchester: it is going on this great expedition, no one knows whither, which everybody is talking about. Cursed fate that they do not belong to the other battalion; and