Lady Barbarity: A Romance

On arriving at our town residence in Bloomsbury it was easy to ascertain that the family of Long Acre had fallen on an evil time. The troops of friends that formerly were so willing to receive and to be received now kept aloof, and avoided me in every way possible, as though I were a very leper. At first I felt disposed to accept this calmly, and in an amused but not uncharitable spirit. I persuaded myself that I could surely dispense with the favour of these shallow persons. But one week of it corrected this impression. For I soon discovered that flattery, admiration, and wholesale triumphs in the social sphere were indispensable to a life in town. Nature, in endowing me with a smile that, as young Anthony once remarked, was “sufficient to sweeten sour cream,” and a beauty of person that provoked more odes than a successful campaign, also cursed me with a craving for its appreciation. Therefore in a day or two, when the novelty was outworn, disfavour and neglect became terribly irksome to support. And however proud a face I might put upon the matter when I went abroad, my pain was not thereby made the softer.

It seems that the story had flown across the town with the quickness peculiar to a scandal, that our family had been so active in the cause of the Pretender Charles, that it had gone the length of harbouring rebels at our place in Yorkshire, and had even plucked them from the custody of the Hanoverian’s troops. Further, it was known that the King had refused the entrée to my father and myself, and soon a sinister rumour crept abroad to the effect that the Earl’s name was to be cited in the House of Lords, he being guilty of a capital offence. Truly I found things in London to be dark indeed. It was evident from the first that it would be impossible to seek in high places for aid for the man lying under sentence of death in Newgate. It was this ulterior assistance that I had relied on wholly; and now for it to be quite beyond my reach, was a great aggravation to my miseries. Shorn of this privilege of the powerful, I knew not which way I must turn, and in a week or less was at my wits’ end for an expedient. At that time my lover had only ten days to live, and here was I with nothing done. Where were my promises? The agony that was mine during those fast-slipping days I do not care to dwell on. Every hour that passed was a reproach to my futility. The suspense, the misery, the vain repinings as I searched for a means and could not find one, whilst the days all too rapidly escaped, fretted me almost to the fever-state. By night I could not sleep; yet by day I could accomplish nothing. Shunned and scorned by all who had the power to help me; fretted by the horrid disabilities of petticoats, and the most sheer ignorance of how to achieve so grave and dangerous a consummation, there seemed nothing left for me to do, other than to await, with what fortitude I might, the rebel’s awful end. But this I could not do.

To farther aggravate my woes, some dear friend of mine contrived that the news should be borne to my ears that the town was in full possession of the fact that I was deeply in love with a certain tattered adventurer and rogue lying under sentence of death in Newgate, and that I was surely sickening with the thoughts of his impending doom. Although I deeply doubt whether this story was actually accepted, it was not the less industriously circulated because there happened to be a doubt about it. I laughed bitterly when I reflected how unwittingly near they had approached the truth.

When I rose, weary and unrefreshed one morning, and reflected that there were only nine days left, I grew utterly desperate. But in the course of that night’s intolerable vigil, I had conceived the semblance of an idea. Therefore, while Mrs. Polly ministered to me, I proceeded to put it into a somewhat more palpable shape.

“Emblem,” says I, “I have been wondering lately whether there is a rogue in all this city, who, if liberally paid for his devotion, would render me some honest services.”

“Would not a man of rectitude be able to perform these services?” says she.

“That’s the rub, for he would be unwilling,” I replied, and when I went a point farther and explained the nature of them, Mrs. Emblem agreed with this opinion.

“Well, your la’ship,” says she, with a brave fidelity for which I was truly grateful; “if such a one is to be found, you can take it that I’ll find him.”

“Then you are a dear, good soul,” I told her, warmly, for surely it was encouraging to know that I had one friend in a world of enemies.

I never enquired too deeply into the means that were adopted to procure the services of the celebrated Mr. Snark. How Mrs. Polly Emblem came to hear of him at all, or in what manner she contrived to coax him from his remote and modest lodging in the Ratcliffe Highway, from whence for years he had defied the whole of Bow Street to dislodge him, history hath not deponed unto this present. Yet from the moment the dear, devoted Mrs. Polly made that promise to me on that morning of culminating miseries, she never ceased to strive to make herself the equal of her resolution. Some hours later she came to me and said:

“I’ve just heard of the very man, your la’ship. He’s not a very religious man, your la’ship, but he’s an awful knowing one, they say.”

Thereupon she dispatched more than one emissary to scour the most questionable haunts in London for him, and every hour or so the honest creature brought me very excellent reports to restore me to a cheerful spirit.

“Mr. Anthony’s as good as delivered,” she would say in the most optimistic manner. “I am most positively certain of it, yes, I am! I’m told that this Mr. Snark’s a perfect wonder. They say he is as clever as the devil, only that he charges rather more. But I know it’s not money that you will begrudge him!”

“Rather not,” says I. “Let him but deliver my dearest Anthony, and I’ll give him my estate in Berkshire.”

I can well recall this celebrated person and the mode of his appearance. It was somewhat late in the evening of the sixteenth of the month that he came in great privacy to visit me. He was ushered into my boudoir and presented by the triumphant Mrs. Polly Emblem.

“This be the gentleman, your la’ship,” says she, whilst the gentleman in question ducked and grinned.

In the dimness of the lamp I could just discern a man, extraordinary small, drest with a plain respectability, and had a pair of eyes set very close, and small and hard and twinkling as chips of glass. And such was the peril of my state of mind, and so precarious was the deed with which I was about to charge him, that I was quite rejoiced when I saw that Mr. Snark had a face of the most finished and perfect villainy. Here was a man that I might trust instinctively with any crime.

At first I was uncertain as to the precise fashion of my address, because the affair demanded something of delicacy on the side of both. But in regard to talk it was plain that I must look for no assistance from my visitor, who appeared to be of the essence of discretion. Besides he was far too occupied in running his eyes about the room, apparently with the object of making a complete inventory of all the articles therein. At last I spoke:

“You are Mr. Snark, I understand?” I said, somewhat clumsily, I fear.

“Call me plain Snark,” says he, with his horrid little eyes glistening at a golden candlestick.

“Well, Mr. Plain Snark,” I nervously began, and then stopped and whispered urgently to Mrs. Emblem: “For heaven’s sake stay here and keep your eye upon him! If I were to be left alone with him I’m certain that inside twenty minutes he would strangle me, pawn the furniture, and sell my body to the surgeons!”

The ears of my visitor were so acute, it seemed that they must have caught a hint of what I said, for he looked at me and remarked with considerable emphasis and pride:

“Snark mayn’t be a picture-book to look at, not a Kneller as it were, but he’s a bit of a hartiss in ’is ’umble way. And modest too is good old Snark. He’d no more use cold cream and lavender for to beautify his skin than he’d rob an orphing boy.”

Yet as he spoke his eyes still travelled over me and my belongings in a fashion that made me wish already that I could forget him as one does an evil dream. But there was most instant business to transact, and to fail to do it now was to forfeit the life of one exceeding dear. Therefore this thought gave me the courage to say:

“I have sent for you, Mr. Snark, in the hope that you will undertake a delicate matter on my behalf; a most delicate matter, I might say.”

“A reg’lar tantaliser, as it were?” says Mr. Snark.

“Yes,” says I, “a regular tantaliser, Mr. Snark.”

“Well, now you know,” says Mr. Snark, “Snark’s blue death on tantalisers—a plain job’s not a bit o’ good to Snark. There’s lots o’ the perfession can undertake a plain job just as well as Snark, and charges lesser. But in the higher branches, as they says at Bow Street, there’s none like good old Snark. Why, that man fair takes a pride in the higher branches. Just look at the case o’ William Milligan. Talk about hartistic! Why, Miss, the case of William Milligan was the wonder o’ the age.”

“And, pray, who was William Milligan?” I asked in my hasty ignorance.

“Never heard o’ William Milligan? Stop my vitals, is this England?”

And then he turned to Emblem.

“Now then, Mary Jane, pipe up, just for to tell the lady who was William Milligan!”

The luckless Mrs. Polly shook her head, turned pale, and clutched a chair.

“What, never heard o’ William Milligan?” says he. “Come, now, I call that good. Strike me purple, you’ll tell me next that you’ve never heard o’ Peter Pearce and Johnny Margitts, and Joe the Tinker, and Ridin’ Phipps o’ Finsbury. Every mother’s son on ’em in ‘Newgate Calendar,’ wi’ their picters draw’d from the life fair, speakin’ natural and all their pedigrees beneath. And you never to ’a’ heard of William Milligan? What, never heard o’ Bagshot Bill—old Bully William—wot in his prime would stop a beautiful fat bishop on the Heath and strip him of his duds. Why, Snark, you’re learnin’.”

“Oh, a highwayman, was he?” said I, most inadvisedly.

“Well, Miss,” says he, “I should rather think he were. He was a reg’lar poet at it, William was. Not a very big man, Miss, William wasn’t, mind you, but by crumbs! see him on his mare wi’ the moon arisin’ and a coach a-comin’ down the hill. They can talk about their hartisses, and their Shakespeares, and their Drydens too, but, Miss, that’s what I calls a poet and a man. And William were that modest too. Not a smell o’ pride about him. ’Ud take his pot and have his jest wi’ me and you just as if he were a common person.”

“Oh, no; surely not?” says I, in an earnest accent.

“Lord, he would, Miss! That’s what’s so grand about true greatness. All the real Number One men are as mild and silken as a clergyman. Perky Niblick treated me to a pot o’ porter the day afore he so gloriously died. And Jackson, too; look at Jackson, the very height of the perfession, but as meek in private as a child. Used to bring lollipops for my younkers every time he come to sup. But to return to Snark. It was that benevolent individual wot delivered William Milligan when they was a-cartin’ him to Tyburn Tree. An’ he did it out o’ love alone, did excellent old Snark; never took a penny for the delivery o’ William, for it’s wonderful what tenderness one true hartiss has towards a brother.”

“I’ve always noticed that,” says I; “truly a very noble trait.”

“Now don’t you talk like that, Miss,” says the recipient of this flattery, “for Snark’s that modest that it makes him blush up like a girl.”

“Well, Mr. Snark,” says I, to stay the tide of his loquacity and to rid myself of the embarrassment of his presence, “please let me tell you in as few words as I can what I have sent for you to do.”

It was remarkable to observe the change that then came over him. He listened to all I said with the most polite attention, his small eyes twinkling, and his wicked face keen and tense, with a concentrated interest. When I had finished he put a few sharp questions as to the status of the prisoner.

“Who is this rebel?” he began. “Important man at all? Done much? Any reppitation? Never know’d at all in the Highway or the Lane.”

“He is very young at present,” I replied, “but you will doubtless one day hear of him as Prime Minister of England. For he’s a wonderful fine fellow, and of a very alert intelligence.”

“Hum, on’y a Prime Minister!” says Mr. Snark. “But will they put him in the Calendar? And do you think he’s worth my time and trouble, Miss?”

“Why, my dear man,” says I, “I can surely make it worth your time and trouble. You have merely to name the sum.”

Herein it was that I committed an unpardonable crime.

“Pah! and pish!” he cried, and waved his hand with magnificent disdain. “Do you suppose that it is your dirty money that I’ve come for? It’s not guineas that can make a Snark, young lady, nor guineas that can command him. There’s on’y one Snark as they knows at Bow Street, and he’s not the man to interest hisself in small fry. His very last deliverance was no less than Jimmy Finch. All the world has heard o’ Bos-eyed Jimmy, but this here rebel-man o’ yours has got his name to make. An’ Jimmy’s was a job an’ all. I never seed a cleaner. Four deep o’ soldiers round the scaffle, an’ a blessed barricade. An’ James was prayin’ white as cheese, but awful full o’ pluck. An’ there, there was the topsman a-fingering the noose. By gum, Miss, it was beautiful! And when my boys had done the job, you should just a’ heard the crowd a whispering: ‘This is a bit o’ Snark’s work. Marvellous man, old Snark!’ And then you comes to Snark, Miss, and says you can make it worth his trouble! Why, Snark’s that stiff, Miss, that he wouldn’t deliver the King of England if he hadn’t the desire.”

Now it was pretty plain that I had not adopted a sufficient humility of tone towards the celebrated Mr. Snark. Therefore did I speed to change my tactics, and now besought his aid with great and meek solicitude. This so far succeeded that, presently, he unbent sufficiently to say that three hundred pounds would be his fee, payable forthwith. This latter clause was something of a shock. To trust persons of his kidney with their pay before they earn it, is generally fatal to their promises. Yet Mr. Snark’s high reputation had made him in every way so jealous of it, and so sensitive to any slight upon his pride, that it was impossible to demur to his demand and yet keep him in an accommodating humour. Therefore with a sinking heart did I conclude the bargain, and repose my faith in that incalculable Providence that presides over all natural affairs. So soon as the money was jingling in his hands he prepared to take his leave.

“Thank ye, Miss,” says he; “but don’t forget that Snark conducts this matter at a sacrifice. He likes your solid hearty buxom face, which is the reason for his kindness. For it’s Snark’s opinion that this young rebel man o’ yours is on’y a beginner, and that his picter won’t be put into the Calendar. But let me see now. The execution is fixed up for the twenty-sixth at ten o’clock in the morning. Well, that’ll suit Snark handsomely. An’ I daresay it’ll be a pretty fashionable thing. Shall you be present, Miss?”

“Yes,” says I, “I have engaged the second floor of No. 14 in the Square.”

“No. 14, is it?” says he, with so acute a promptness that it was a proof that he was competent in all the details of his trade. “No. 14—why, that’s a Providence! It’s passage goes through to Piper’s Alley. Now if you take my advice, Miss, you’ll have the best horse in London waiting there at ten o’clock in Piper’s Alley. You can leave the rest to Snark, Miss.”

“Will you engage the Dover boat?” I asked.

“Yes,” says he, “that’s all in the three hundred, and the blessed crew that’s a-going for to sail it. An’ there’s no need to look so white about it either. Your rebel’s just as good as saved. It’s mere nut-cracking to old Snark. He’s effected twenty-nine deliverances in all parts o’ the world.”

“But pray don’t forget, sir,” says I, anxiously, “that he is sure to be guarded dreadful strong. The Government consider him as highly dangerous, and they know that he hath some influential friends.”

“Well, I reckon, Miss,” says he, “that they’ll want three full regiments o’ the line to keep him clear o’ Snark.”

A short time afterwards my whimsical visitor took his leave. When he had gone, my meditations were remarkable. It was impossible to place an absolute reliance in this ingenious person, yet none the less his character and appearance had inspired me with confidence enough to repose some hope in his professions. And verily, for better or for worse the die was cast, and if at the last this Mr. Snark should leave me in the lurch, the rebel would inevitably perish. This was the only source that I might look to for his merciful deliverance. Every other door was absolutely shut.

It was quite a painful thing to observe the cheerfulness that possessed poor Mrs. Polly. From this time until the execution day she was never tired of informing me of her firm conviction that dear, kind Mr. Snark would not fail us, and that sweet, young Mr. Anthony was as good as free. But it was absurd to see the creature’s red and swollen eyes, which her invincible smiling altogether failed to hide. And presently this parody of courage grew so intolerable to my nerves, that even allowing for the tenderness of her intentions, I was fain to cry out upon her for a cheat, and recommended her to desist from these malpractices.

This was a time, indeed, which I hope Heaven in its mercy will not again inflict upon me. What I endured, would, I can assert, have wrecked a woman of less fibre and tenacity. Nearly all my thoughts were centred in the cell of the condemned; and at least their concentration spared them something of the bitterness of another matter, which must otherwise have keenly hurt them—I mean the cruel behaviour of the world in which I dwelt. No equipages drove up to our house in Bloomsbury. No chairmen laid their burdens down before our doors. If I took a short excursion in the park, the most intimate of my acquaintances either saw me not, or, seeing me, bowed stiffly and passed on in a studied silence. In particular my kind women friends appeared to derive a sincere happiness from what they pleased to call my downfall. The scornful gladness of their looks was wonderful, and yet also terrible; for alas! what could be the condition of the stony hearts from which they did proceed? Then it was that I remembered how short a time ago I was one of these contemptibles.

“Emblem,” says I, on the execution eve, with hope born apparently of misery’s excesses, “I have done with town and the Court, and all this ridiculous world of fashion. They are very barbarous affairs! When I wed my Anthony I will be the pattern of an attentive spouse. I will be his cheerful slave and his most devoted friend. But I’ll not forego ambition neither. I will train and educate him until he doth become a veritable power in the realm. For I mean to be the wife of my Lord Secretary Dare, and then, my Emblem, I’ll turn all these dear women friends of mine just green with jealousy. Yet, in my pride, I will not trample on them, as they trample now on me, but will deal with ’em graciously, and ask ’em to my routs among the ambassadors and potentates, and prove thereby that I am not a cherisher of malice, but a creature of a gentler temper than themselves.”

Yet here, having indulged these harmless speculations to the full, I recalled with terror the most horrid condition of my case. What would the morrow bring? Death, perhaps, and the shattering of my hopes. But these cold forebodings I determined to avoid, and contrived to do so in a measure, for a new matter had come lately to my ears which wooed my mind a little from its dark premonitions. The fact that I had been a supreme favourite, and a trifle arrogant, perhaps, in the hour of my pride, had caused the whole town to exult at my disfavour. The cause of that disfavour was well known to be rooted in my behaviour towards the desperate rebel whom on the morrow the King was going to hang. And it was further argued that his death of shame would aggravate my humiliation.

Judge, then, of the sensation that was created when it was positively known that I had engaged the largest and most adjacent window in the square that I might be present at the execution! Yea, and in the desperation of the hour I even went a point farther. I issued invitations to as many of my friends as the window would accommodate to come and share the gruesome sight with me. This was a very thunderbolt. And though they said among themselves: “The brazenness of Lady Bab really is incredible,” they were quite unable to resist the fascination and delightfulness of the whole affair. Therefore they accepted with alacrity. And though I knew this to be by far the boldest stroke I had ever played, not for an instant did I falter, nor doubt my native resolution.