My Lord Castlewood had a house in Kensington Square spacious enough to accommodate the several members of his noble family, and convenient for their service at the palace hard by, when his Majesty dwelt there. Her ladyship had her evenings, and gave her card-parties here for such as would come; but Kensington was a long way from London a hundred years since, and George Selwyn said he for one was afraid to go, for fear of being robbed of a night — whether by footpads with crape over their faces, or by ladies in rouge at the quadrille-table, we have no means of saying. About noon on the day after Harry had made his reappearance at White’s, it chanced that all his virtuous kinsfolks partook of breakfast together, even Mr. Will being present, who was to go into waiting in the afternoon.
The ladies came first to their chocolate: them Mr. Will joined in his court suit; finally, my lord appeared, languid, in his bedgown and nightcap, having not yet assumed his wig for the day. Here was news which Will had brought home from the Star and Garter last night, when he supped in company with some men who had heard it at White’s and seen it at Ranelagh!
“Heard what? seen what?” asked the head of the house, taking up his Daily Advertiser.
“Ask Maria!” says Lady Fanny. My lord turns to his elder sister, who wears a face of portentous sadness, and looks as pale as a tablecloth.
“’Tis one of Will’s usual elegant and polite inventions,” says Maria.
“No,” swore Will, with several of his oaths; “it was no invention of his. Tom Claypool of Norfolk saw ’em both at Ranelagh; and Jack Morris came out of White’s, where he heard the story from Harry Warrington’s own lips. Curse him, I’m glad of it!” roars Will, slapping the table. “What do you think of your Fortunate Youth, your Virginian, whom your lordship made so much of, turning out to be a second son?”
“The elder brother not dead?” says my lord.
“No more dead than you are. Never was. It’s my belief that it was a cross between the two.”
“Mr. Warrington is incapable of such duplicity!” cries Maria.
“I never encouraged the fellow, I am sure you will do me justice there,” says my lady. “Nor did Fanny: not we, indeed!”
“Not we, indeed!” echoes my Lady Fanny.
“The fellow is only a beggar, and, I dare say, has not paid for the clothes on his back,” continues Will. “I’m glad of it, for, hang him, I hate him!”
“You don’t regard him with favourable eyes; especially since he blacked yours, Will!” grins my lord. “So the poor fellow has found his brother, and lost his estate!” And here he turned towards his sister Maria, who, although she looked the picture of woe, must have suggested something ludicrous to the humourist near whom she sate; for his lordship, having gazed at her for a minute, burst into a shrill laugh, which caused the poor lady’s face to flush, and presently her eyes to pour over with tears. “It’s a shame! it’s a shame!” she sobbed out, and hid her face in her handkerchief. Maria’s stepmother and sister looked at each other. “We never quite understand your lordship’s humour,” the former lady remarked, gravely.
“I don’t see there is the least reason why you should,” said my lord, coolly. “Maria, my dear, pray excuse me if I have said — that is, done anything, to hurt your feelings.”
“Done anything! You pillaged the poor lad in his prosperity, and laugh at him in his ruin!” says Maria, rising from table, and glaring round at all her family.
“Excuse me, my dear sister, I was not laughing at him,” said my lord, gently.
“Oh, never mind at what or whom else, my lord! You have taken from him all he had to lose. All the world points at you as the man who feeds on his own flesh and blood. And now you have his all, you make merry over his misfortune!” And away she rustled from the room, flinging looks of defiance at all the party there assembled.
“Tell us what has happened, or what you have heard, Will, and my sister’s grief will not interrupt us.” And Will told, at great length, and with immense exultation at Harry’s discomfiture, the story now buzzed through all London, of George Warrington’s sudden apparition. Lord Castlewood was sorry for Harry: Harry was a good, brave lad, and his kinsman liked him, as much as certain worldly folks like each other. To be sure he played Harry at cards, and took the advantage of the market upon him; but why not? The peach which other men would certainly pluck, he might as well devour. Eh! if that were all my conscience had to reproach me with, I need not be very uneasy! my lord thought. “Where does Mr. Warrington live?”
Will expressed himself ready to enter upon a state of reprobation if he knew or cared.
“He shall be invited here, and treated with every respect,” said my lord.
“Including piquet, I suppose!” growls Will.
“Or will you take him to the stables, and sell him one of your bargains of horseflesh, Will?” asks Lord Castlewood. “You would have won of Harry Warrington fast enough, if you could; but you cheat so clumsily at your game that you got paid with a cudgel. I desire, once more, that every attention may be paid to our cousin Warrington.”
“And that you are not to be disturbed, when you sit down to play, of course, my lord!” cries Lady Castlewood.
“Madam, I desire fair play, for Mr. Warrington, and for myself, and for every member of this amiable family,” retorted Lord Castlewood, fiercely.
“Heaven help the poor gentleman if your lordship is going to be kind to him,” said the stepmother, with a curtsey; and there is no knowing how far this family dispute might have been carried, had not, at this moment, a phaeton driven up to the house, in which were seated the two young Virginians.
It was the carriage which our young Prodigal had purchased in the days of his prosperity. He drove it still: George sate in it by his side; their negroes were behind them. Harry had been for meekly giving the whip and reins to his brother, and ceding the whole property to him. “What business has a poor devil like me with horses and carriages, Georgy?” Harry had humbly said. “Beyond the coat on my back, and the purse my aunt gave me, I have nothing in the world. You take the driving-seat, brother; it will ease my mind if you will take the driving-seat.” George laughingly said he did not know the way, and Harry did; and that, as for the carriage, he would claim only a half of it, as he had already done with his brother’s wardrobe. “But a bargain is a bargain; if I share thy coats, thou must divide my breeches’ pocket, Harry; that is but fair dealing!” Again and again Harry swore there never was such a brother on earth. How he rattled his horses over the road! How pleased and proud he was to drive such a brother! They came to Kensington in famous high spirits; and Gumbo’s thunder upon Lord Castlewood’s door was worthy of the biggest footman in all St. James’s.
Only my Lady Castlewood and her daughter Lady Fanny were in the room into which our young gentlemen were ushered. Will had no particular fancy to face Harry, my lord was not dressed, Maria had her reasons for being away, at least till her eyes were dried. When we drive up to friends’ houses nowadays in our coaches-and-six, when John carries up our noble names, when, finally, we enter the drawing-room with our best hat and best Sunday smile foremost, does it ever happen that we interrupt a family row! that we come simpering and smiling in, and stepping over the delusive ashes of a still burning domestic heat? that in the interval between the hall-door and the drawing-room, Mrs., Mr., and the Misses Jones have grouped themselves in a family tableau; this girl artlessly arranging flowers in a vase, let us say; that one reclining over an illuminated work of devotion; mamma on the sofa, with the butcher’s and grocer’s book pushed under the cushion, some elegant work in her hand, and a pretty little foot pushed out advantageously; while honest Jones, far from saying, “Curse that Brown, he is always calling here!” holds out a kindly hand, shows a pleased face, and exclaims, “What, Brown my boy, delighted to see you! Hope you’ve come to lunch!” I say, does it ever happen to us to be made the victims of domestic artifices, the spectators of domestic comedies got up for our special amusement? Oh, let us be thankful, not only for faces, but for masks! not only for honest welcome, but for hypocrisy, which hides unwelcome things from us! Whilst I am talking, for instance, in this easy, chatty way, what right have you, my good sir, to know what is really passing in my mind? It may be that I am racked with gout, or that my eldest son has just sent me in a thousand pounds’ worth of college-bills, or that I am writhing under an attack of the Stoke Pogis Sentinel, which has just been sent me under cover, or that there is a dreadfully scrappy dinner, the evident remains of a party to which I didn’t invite you, and yet I conceal my agony, I wear a merry smile; I say, “What! come to take pot-luck with us, Brown my boy! Betsy! put a knife and fork for Mr. Brown. Eat! Welcome! Fall to! It’s my best!” I say that humbug which I am performing is beautiful self-denial — that hypocrisy is true virtue. Oh, if every man spoke his mind what an intolerable society ours would be to live in!
As the young gentlemen are announced, Lady Castlewood advances towards them with perfect ease and good-humour. “We have heard, Harry,” she says, looking at the latter with a special friendliness, “of this most extraordinary circumstance. My Lord Castlewood said at breakfast that he should wait on you this very day, Mr. Warrington, and, cousin Harry, we intend not to love you any the less because you are poor.”
“We shall be able to show now that it is not for your acres that we like you, Harry!” says Lady Fanny, following her mamma’s lead,
“And I to whom the acres have fallen?” says Mr. George, with a smile and a bow.
“Oh, cousin, we shall like you for being like Harry!” replies the arch Lady Fanny.
Ah! who that has seen the world, has not admired that astonishing ease with which fine ladies drop you and pick you up again? Both the ladies now addressed themselves almost exclusively to the younger brother. They were quite civil to Mr. George: but with Mr. Harry they were fond, they were softly familiar, they were gently kind, they were affectionately reproachful. Why had Harry not been for days and days to see them?
“Better to have had a dish of tea and a game at piquet with them than with some other folks,” says Lady Castlewood. “If we had won enough to buy a paper of pins from you we should have been content; but young gentlemen don’t know what is for their own good,” says mamma.
“Now you have no more money to play with, you can come and play with us, cousin!” cries fond Lady Fanny, lifting up a finger, “and so your misfortune will be good fortune to us.”
George was puzzled. This welcome of his brother was very different from that to which he had looked. All these compliments and attentions paid to the younger brother, though he was without a guinea! Perhaps the people were not so bad as they were painted? The Blackest of all Blacks is said not to be of quite so dark a complexion as some folks describe him.
This affectionate conversation continued for some twenty minutes, at the end of which period my Lord Castlewood made his appearance, wig on head, and sword by side. He greeted both the young men with much politeness: one not more than the other. “If you were to come to us — and I, for one, cordially rejoice to see you — what a pity it is you did not come a few months earlier! A certain evening at piquet would then most likely never have taken place. A younger son would have been more prudent.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Harry.
“Or a kinsman more compassionate. But I fear that love of play runs in the blood of all of us. I have it from my father, and it has made me the poorest peer in England. Those fair ladies whom you see before you are not exempt. My poor brother Will is a martyr to it; and what I, for my part, win on one day, I lose on the next. ’Tis shocking, positively, the rage for play in England. All my poor cousin’s bank-notes parted company from me within twenty-four hours after I got them.”
“I have played, like other gentlemen, but never to hurt myself, and never indeed caring much for the sport,” remarked Mr. Warrington.
“When we heard that my lord had played with Harry, we did so scold him,” cried the ladies.
“But if it had not been I, thou knowest, cousin Warrington, some other person would have had thy money. ’Tis a poor consolation, but as such Harry must please to take it, and be glad that friends won his money, who wish him well, not strangers, who cared nothing for him, and fleeced him.”
“Eh! a tooth out is a tooth out, though it be your brother who pulls it, my lord!” said Mr. George, laughing. “Harry must bear the penalty of his faults, and pay his debts, like other men.”
“I am sure I have never said or thought otherwise. ’Tis not like an Englishman to be sulky because he is beaten,” says Harry.
“Your hand, cousin! You speak like a man!” cries my lord, with delight. The ladies smiled to each other.
“My sister, in Virginia, has known how to bring up her sons as gentlemen!” exclaims Lady Castlewood, enthusiastically.
“I protest you must not be growing so amiable now you are poor, cousin Harry!” cries cousin Fanny. “Why, mamma, we did not know half his good qualities when he was only Fortunate Youth and Prince of Virginia! You are exactly like him, cousin George, but I vow you can’t be as amiable as your brother!”
“I am the Prince of Virginia, but I fear I am not the Fortunate Youth,” said George, gravely.
Harry was beginning, “By Jove, he is the best ——” when the noise of a harpsichord was heard from the upper room. The lad blushed: the ladies smiled.
“’Tis Maria, above,” said Lady Castlewood. “Let some of us go up to her.”
The ladies rose, and made way towards the door; and H............