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

far as the poet is concerned, who huzzas for his young couple till the postchaise turns the corner; or fetches the hearse and plumes, and shovels them underground. But when Mr. Random and Mr. Thomas Jones are married, is all over? Are there no quarrels at home? Are there no Lady Bellastons abroad? are there no constables to be outrun? no temptations to conquer us, or be conquered by us? The Sirens sang after Ulysses long after his marriage, and the suitors whispered in Penelope's ear, and he and she had many a weary day of doubt and care, and so have we all. As regards money I was put out of trouble by the inheritance I made: but does not Atra Cura sit behind baronets as well as equites? My friends in London used to congratulate me on my happiness. Who would not like to be master of a good house and a good estate? But can Gumbo shut the hall-door upon blue devils, or lay them always in a red sea of claret? Does a man sleep the better who has four-and-twenty hours to doze in? Do his intellects brighten after a sermon from the dull old vicar; a ten minutes' cackle and flattery from the village apothecary; or the conversation of Sir John and Sir Thomas with their ladies, who come ten moonlight muddy miles to eat a haunch, and play a rubber? 'Tis all very well to have tradesmen bowing to your carriage-door, room made for you at quarter-sessions, and my lady wife taken down the second or the third to dinner: but these pleasures fade—nay, have their inconveniences. In our part of the country, for seven years after we came to Warrington Manor, our two what they called best neighbours were my Lord Tutbury and Sir John Mudbrook. We are of an older date than the Mudbrooks; consequently, my Lady Tutbury always fell to my lot, when we dined together, who was deaf and fell asleep after dinner; or if I had Lady Mudbrook, she chattered with a folly so incessant and intense, that even my wife could hardly keep her complacency (consummate hypocrite as her ladyship is), knowing the rage with which I was fuming at the other's clatter. I come to London. I show my tongue to Dr. Heberden. I pour out my catalogue of complaints. “Psha, my dear Sir George!” says the unfeeling physician. “Headaches, languor, bad sleep, bad temper—” (“Not bad temper: Sir George has the sweetest temper in the world, only he is sometimes a little melancholy,” says my wife.) “—Bad sleep, bad temper,” continues the implacable doctor. “My dear lady, his inheritance has been his ruin, and a little poverty and a great deal of occupation would do him all the good in life.”

No, my brother Harry ought to have been the squire, with remainder to my son Miles, of course. Harry's letters were full of gaiety and good spirits. His estate prospered: his negroes multiplied; his crops were large; he was a member of our House of Burgesses; he adored his wife; could he but have a child his happiness would be complete. Had Hal been master of Warrington Manor-house, in my place, he would have been beloved through the whole country; he would have been steward at all the races, the gayest of all the jolly huntsmen, the bien venu at all the mansions round about, where people scarce cared to perform the ceremony of welcome at sight of my glum face. As for my wife, all the world liked her, and agreed in pitying her. I don't know how the report got abroad, but 'twas generally agreed that I treated her with awful cruelty, and that for jealousy I was a perfect Bluebeard. Ah me! And so it is true that I have had many dark hours; that I pass days in long silence; that the conversation of fools and whipper-snappers makes me rebellious and peevish, and that, when I feel contempt, I sometimes don't know how to conceal it, or I should say did not. I hope as I grow older I grow more charitable. Because I do not love bawling and galloping after a fox, like the captain yonder, I am not his superior; but, in this respect, humbly own that he is mine. He has perceptions which are denied me; enjoyments which I cannot understand. Because I am blind the world is not dark. I try now and listen with respect when Squire Codgers talks of the day's run. I do my best to laugh when Captain Rattleton tells his garrison stories. I step up to the harpsichord with old Miss Humby (our neighbour from Beccles) and try and listen as she warbles her ancient ditties. I play whist laboriously. Am I not trying to do the duties of life? and I have a right to be garrulous and egotistical, because I have been reading Montaigne all the morning.

I was not surprised, knowing by what influences my brother was led, to find his name in the list of Virginia burgesses who declared that the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is now, and ever hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the House of Burgesses, and called upon the other colonies to pray for the Royal interposition in favour of the violated rights of America. And it was now, after we had been some three years settled in our English home, that a correspondence between us and Madam Esmond began to take place. It was my wife who (upon some pretext such as women always know how to find) re-established the relations between us. Mr. Miles must need have the small-pox, from which he miraculously recovered without losing any portion of his beauty; and on his recovery the mother writes her prettiest little wheedling letter to the grandmother of the fortunate babe. She coaxes her with all sorts of modest phrases and humble offerings of respect and goodwill. She narrates anecdotes of the precocious genius of the lad (what hath subsequently happened, I wonder, to stop the growth of that gallant young officer's brains?), and she must have sent over to his grandmother a lock of the darling boy's hair, for the old lady, in her reply, acknowledged the receipt of some such present. I wonder, as it came from England, they allowed it to pass our custom-house at Williamsburg. In return for these peace-offerings and smuggled tokens of submission, comes a tolerably gracious letter from my Lady of Castlewood. She inveighs against the dangerous spirit pervading the colony: she laments to think that her unhappy son is consorting with people who, she fears, will be no better than rebels and traitors. She does not wonder, considering who his friends and advisers are. How can a wife taken from an almost menial situation be expected to sympathise with persons of rank and dignity who have the honour of the Crown at heart? If evil times were coming for the monarchy (for the folks in America appeared to be disinclined to pay taxes, and required that everything should be done for them without cost), she remembered how to monarchs in misfortune, the Esmonds—her father the Marquis especially—had ever been faithful. She knew not what opinions (though she might judge from my newfangled Lord Chatham) were in fashion in England. She prayed, at least, she might hear that one of her sons was not on the side of rebellion. When we came, in after days, to look over old family papers in Virginia, we found “Letters from my daughter Lady Warrington,” neatly tied up with a ribbon. My Lady Theo insisted I should not open them; and the truth, I believe, is, that they were so full of praises of her husband that she thought my vanity would suffer from reading them.

When Madam began to write, she gave us brief notices of Harry and his wife. “The two women,” she wrote, “still govern everything with my poor boy at Fannystown (as he chooses to call his house). They must save money there, for I hear but a shabby account of their manner of entertaining. The Mount Vernon gentleman continues to be his great friend, and he votes in the House of Burgesses very much as his guide advises him. Why he should be so sparing of his money I cannot understand: I heard, of five negroes who went with his equipages to my Lord Bottetourt's, only two