Lady Barbarity: A Romance

I was very mystified by the manner of my papa. When I tripped into his presence, I was met with that wonderful sweet politeness that was so much in the marrow of the man that at his decease a tale was put about in town that his death was delayed ten minutes by the elaborate courtesies with which he introduced himself to the Old Gentleman’s attention.

Having paid me a compliment or two and discovered the good condition of my shoulder, he congratulated me on that fact, and then took a chair with such comical solemnity that I burst into laughing at the picture that he made.

“Mr. J. P.,” says I, “that’s excellent. Mr. Custos Rutulorum, my devoir to you! And I am sure your worship hath only to strike that attitude at the Petty Sessions to reform every poacher in the shire.”

I rose and swept three curtseys at him, but he sat more serious than ever.

“Bab,” says he, “there hath been an accident; and, my dear child, I would have given much to have prevented it.”

There was a depth and brevity about these words that startled me out of my lightheartedness. I had never guessed that this old barbarian kept such a chord locked up in his heart. In five-and-twenty years I had not touched it till this instant, and why or how I had done so now I did not know.

Meantime I sat in silent fascination at the fine and sorrowful power that had come into his voice, and hearkened with all my ears to everything he had to say.

“Bab,” says he, with a gentle smile that was intended to conceal his unaccustomed gravity, “man is a whimsical animal, I am aware. But there is one thing in him that even a woman must deal with mercifully. You have perhaps not heard of what he calls his honour. The omission is not yours, my pretty lady; your angelic sex rises superior to honour and little flippancies of that kind. But your papa suffers from his sex, and is, therefore, tainted with their foolish heresies. He hath also what he calls his honour; and a certain young person whom I will not blame, but who, I may say, is as greatly celebrated for her beauty as her wit, hath quite unconsciously put her foot upon it. And that spot is so tender that she must forgive the victim if he groans.”

He smiled a charming, melancholy smile, and made me think of those noble velvet gentlemen by Vandyck upon the walls of our state chambers, whom I would stand and look at hours together and make love with all my heart to when I was a little girl. To watch him smile and to hear him speaking like a most tender music, none could have discerned what his emotion was, unless one had the experience of a lifetime to bear upon his ways. And for myself, ’twas only the misgivings of my heart that told me he was in great pain.

“What is it that I’ve done, my lord?” cries I, feeling that he must have been furnished with a very highly coloured picture of my deeds.

“I gave my word to the King,” he answered me, “that I would succour his soldiers here at Cleeby for a night, and take the prisoner that they held into my keeping faithfully. Instead of that I send my maid to drug the sentry; I go out in a pair of carpet slippers in the middle of the night; I set a ladder up against the hayloft; I climb up there, and, by means of dropping through a trap into a manger, I get into the prisoner’s cell and let the prisoner out; I furnish that prisoner with a pistol; I disarm an officer of the King, and cause him to be shot severely in the knee, and enable the prisoner to escape. It is in this manner that I redeem my promise to the Government of His Majesty the King.”

“You, my lord!” cries I, aghast, and doubting whether he had the proper enjoyment of his mind. “Pray shatter those delusions! I, my lord—I, your daughter Bab, did that, and I can show you the wound upon my shoulder that I got.” And here I chanced to sneeze, and turned it into evidence.

“And that, my lord,” says I, “is the mortal cold I’ve caught from those carpet slippers. I put them on for fear of waking you, sir.”

“Bab,” says he, in a wooing voice, “was it you who made that promise to the King?”

“Certainly not,” says I, in triumph, “for do you suppose that I would have thus amused myself had I done so? I told the Captain I was a rebel from the first.”

“Then that confirms all that I have said,” says he, “and I have informed the Captain that you count for nothing in this matter, and ’twas I who let the prisoner out.”

“Which, under your pardon, you never did,” says I, misunderstanding him. “I took the risks and I’ll have the glory. ’Twill be published in the Courier that that audacious wretch Bab Gossiter let out a dangerous rebel in the middle of the night, at her father’s country seat, by outwitting nimbly a well-known officer of His Majesty. They will put me in a ballad, and sell ’em two a penny in the Strand. Sylvanus Urban will have a full and particular account of me in the Gentleman’s Magazine, and for a whole nine days I shall be as variously known as Joan of Arc or wicked Mrs. Molly Cutpurse.”

“But ’twill be said,” says he, “that Mrs. Rumour hath lied as usual, and that she hath been quite put out of countenance by the fact that the Earl of Longacre, her peerless ladyship’s papa, hath confessed in his own person to this treason; that he hath stood his trial upon it at Old Bailey; hath been found guilty, and therefore stands committed to the Tower.”

“Papa,” says I, severely, “you are become profane. Do not jest with such sacred names as ‘High Treason,’ ‘Old Bailey,’ and the ‘Tower.’”

“Bab,” says he, “a woman’s head is far too pretty to understand these ugly matters. But ’tis enough that ’twas I that let that prisoner out in the middle of the night; ’tis my name that Captain Grantley has done me the special favour of inserting in his dispatches to the Minister of War, and it will be my body that will be committed in dishonour to the Tower. And now, my pretty Bab, suppose we wash our hands of these dirty politics, and solace ourselves with a little game of backgammon and a dish of tea?”

There was only one person in the world that this delightful mirror of the graces could not deceive with his urbanity. She chanced to be his daughter Bab. That young person’s eyes could penetrate his embroidered vest and look into his heart, or any substitute that he wore for that important organ. His countenance I never saw more easy and serene, and was good enough to cheat the devil with, but behind that mask his every nerve was quivering with an agony of shame. His sensibility to politics astonished me. This worldly man, this polished heathen, this ancient fop, this hard-bit roué, who feared not God nor anybody; this scandalous Court chronicle of sixty years of Stuartry to be laid prone and bleeding by a frolic of his daughter Bab’s. ’Twas impossible, you’ll say, and that is what I also said, but there it was.

“Oh, these politics!” cries I, in a passion. “A pestilence upon ’em! Confound these politics! And what in the world is there to make so wry a face about, my lord? The matter might be serious. Do I not repeat, sir, that the thing was but a piece of mischief? Call it fun, my lord, bravado, diablerie, what you will, but I want you to understand that ’twas a piece of mischief.”

“’Tis perfectly correct,” says he; “an infernal piece of mischief.”

“Then might I ask, my lord, what there is to make a song about? True, the rebel is escaped, but I’m not sorry in the least for that; indeed, betwixt ourselves, I am somewhat glad of it. He is a very handsome lad, and will make a prettier man than any that I’ve seen. But what is there to make a ballad of, I ask? Is he the only rebel in the world then? There are thousands of rebels up and down the earth, and I’m sure not a man jack of ’em’s so handsome as that lad. Why,” laughs I, “he hath an eye that is a rival to my own. No, ’twould not be truthful of me to say that I am sorry for it. As for the bullet that traversed Captain Grantley’s knee, I do indeed regret that very deeply, but I ask you, my lord, is his the first knee that hath had a bullet through it? And is it going to be the last? Why, at that same instant a portion of the same discharge hit my shoulder, too, so he is not the only sufferer. Pah! ’twas only a piece of mischief, and my maid Emblem will tell you quite the same, and she should know, for she put my cloak on and saw me down the stairs. Why, if it comes to argument, my lord, the King, nor you, nor politics, nor precious Captain Grantley hath a leg to stand on, and ’tis argument they say that is the only thing that is considered in a court of justice. Come, tell me is it not so, Mr. Custos Rutulorum?”

“Faith, that is so!” laughed his lordship, heartily, and he hath been on four occasions High Sheriff of the County; “and if they shall find a lawyer who may prevail against this argument of yours, my delightful criminal, it will have to be a woman, a second Portia let us say, for the man hath not been fashioned yet who could possibly chop logic with you; nay, if it comes to that,” and my papa stood up and bowed to the bright buckles of his shoes in the most flattering fashion, “the combined genius of our sex could never hope to overcome in argument the dialectics of you fair, unfathomable, amazing ladies.”

Yet despite his smiling speeches the hard-wrought look still sat in his eyes. Then I grew Tower-haunted. Could it be possible that my frolic had so greatly shocked old, indignant, sober-sided Politics? But if any proof were needed to the Earl’s assertion that my night’s work was criminal, it was at my elbow. On the table I saw a sheet of the official blue with a brief statement of the prisoner’s escape upon it. It was a rather garbled version, for the name of me, prime agent and offender, was not allowed to once appear; nor were the inconvenient details set down at any length, but in the sum it said that the whole of the responsibility rested with my papa, the Earl, and he had affixed the peculiar scrawl that was his signature upon this preposterous indictment. The familiar way in which this was irresolutely writ, in his trembling, old, and gouty hand, affected me most strangely. There seemed a sort of nobility about the behaviour of this old barbarian; and a strain of the hero in a man delights me more than anything, and generally fills me with a sort of emulation.

“This means the Tower!” says I, brandishing the paper.

“It does,” my lord says, inclined to be amused at my impetuosity.

“Then, sir,” says I, “I will be mentioned in it fully as is my due. I did the deed, and I will take the recompense. If its reward is to be the Tower, I will claim it as my own. Therefore erase your name from this document, my lord, and insert the name of her who hath duly earned her place there.”

“Nay, Bab, not so,” says he. “I gave the soldiers of the King my hospitality, and now they must give me his.”

“Which they never shall,” cries I, with my cheeks a-flaming. “I will go and see the Captain and insist upon his keeping to the truth. Oh, these politics! ’Tis well said that there is no such thing as rectitude in politics. But in the meantime I will draw the teeth out of this wicked document to prevent it committing harm.”

And under the nose of its custodian I screwed the paper into a ball, and planted it calmly in the blaze. Having watched it thoroughly consumed, I swept from the room to beard the Captain, and left “laughter holding both his sides” in the person of his lordship, who quoted Horace at me or some other, whom I have not sufficient Latin to locate or to determine. ’Twas about the Sun-God Apollo and his tender sentiments towards some deity with a cheek of fire.

I found my worshipful friend the Captain in occupation of the library. He was dressed rakishly in lavender and in a peruke that flourishes most in Chelsey and such-like Southern places. His shattered knee was strapped upon a board, and though his face was pinched with pain, it was anything but woeful when he gazed up from the writing-table at which he sat, and beheld me glide into the room.

He was monstrous busy with a full-feathered quill upon a page of foolscap, the twin to the one to which my papa had signed his name, and that had been so considerately burned.

I asked him of his hurt, and he questioned me of mine. Both, it seemed, were recovering excellently well. Then says I with that simplicity which is perhaps the most insidious weapon of all that I possess:

“My dear Captain, I have just seen a paper identical to the one you are now engaged upon, in the room of my papa. I call it very thoughtful of you to suppress my name in the manner that you do. Am I to suppose?” I inquired, with an eagerness that he noticed with a gleam of pleasure, “that you have treated my part in last night’s affair as kindly in this document that you are now preparing?”

“Look, my dear lady, for yourself!” cries he, happy in his own adroitness. “I will wager that you shall not find your name once mentioned in it.”

My gentleman handed five close-writ sheets of foolscap to me to examine for myself. I scanned every page, and saw that it was even as he said, and that the case, a black one in all conscience from the point of view of politics, and quite enough to hang even a peer of the realm upon, was made out entirely to the prejudice of his poor old lordship.

“’Tis true, Captain,” says I, “that there is not a word of me within it. And last night at Cleeby without Bab Gossiter is like the tragedy of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. ’Tis utterly worthless, sir. As a truthful narrative it is inadequate, but is none the less a very pretty fairy-tale. But in this cold and unromantic age of Politics, pleasing fictions are popular. Therefore, dear Captain, I think it better that it were suppressed. And I do not doubt if it be any consolation to you, sir, for the futile pains you have spent upon this document, that one day all the Prime Ministers and Privy Councillors, and stout Whigs and arrant Tories, and every kind of politician that ever was or ever will be, will fizzle just as briskly and completely together in another hemisphere, as these five papers this instant do in this.”

And in the course of this decisive statement I tucked the five papers deeply in the grate, saw them turn black in a twinkling, and then turned round to enjoy the industrious writer’s countenance.

To prove how little this summary deed affected him he selected another sheet without granting me a word of any sort, took a new dip of ink, and calmly re-began his labour.

“Come, sir,” says I, tartly, “do you not see the nonsense of it? You know quite well, Captain, it was I who wrought the mischief of last night; and if it hath earned Old Bailey and the Tower, I am determined not to flinch from my deserts.”

“My Lady Barbara,” says he, with an elegance that disarmed my anger, “it is the desire of his lordship and my humble self to spare so much wit and beauty these indignities. Besides, one really must be considerate of the Justices. Assuming that the Court found you guilty of this crime, there is not a Judge upon the Bench with sufficient tenacity of mind to pass a sentence on you.”

“Why, of course there’s not,” says I, complacently. “I foresaw that all along.”

But there was indeed a conspiracy between these gentlemen, and I tried very hard to break up this cabal, that I might stand or fall upon the consequences of my act. Now when I was a very little girl I had only to stamp my foot, and dart a fiery glance or two, to obtain my way with any man, beginning with my papa, the Earl. And from that time, either in London or the country, whether the unresisting male was a marquis or a hosier, I had only to grow imperious to bend him to my will. But now old Politics, that square-toed Puritan, was here, and a pretty game he played. For the first time in my history I could not persuade, direct, or browbeat my papa, who was the best-brought-up parent of any girl’s in England. And then there was this foppish officer, who would have died for me in Kensington, as inflexible as steel before my downright anger.

“Captain,” says I, for the tenth time, “I never saw such monstrous fables as are put into these papers. And I give you warning, sir, that if these falsehoods are sent to London, and the soldiers come for my papa, the Earl, I will post to town myself, and tell the judges all about it privately.”

“I suppose you mean the Government?” says he, smiling for some reason.

“Judges, Government, and King, I’ll see ’em all!” cries I, fiercely, “for they’re all tainted with the same disease, and that disease is Politics. And I’ll accost every power in the kingdom rather than my lord shall go to prison in the room of me. And Captain, I would have you prepare yourself, as you are the person I shall call in evidence to prove ’twas I who let the prisoner out.”

“Madam does me great honour,” says the silken villain, “but all I know of last night is that the prisoner escaped. I do not know who enabled him to do so, and I do not greatly care. But ’twas a member or members of his lordship’s household, and the entire responsibility rests with that gentleman.”

As the Captain desired to continue with his writing, I thought it the more graceful to withdraw. This I did, and shut myself up in privacy, for my mind was filled with grave considerations. In a day and a few hours over, my existence had become a terribly complicated matter. There was the prisoner. My life had long been waiting for a man to step into it. A man last night had done so, and I wished that he had not. For in spite of myself, all my thoughts were just now centred in his fortunes. Would he escape? And if he were retaken? That second question sent a new idea into my head, and straight I went and consulted the Captain on it.

“If,” says I, “the prisoner is brought back by your men, sir, you will not need to report the matter of his escape to the Government?”

He looked at me quickly with a keen twinkle in his eye that appeared to spring from pleasure, and then answered, glib as possible:

“That event will indeed supply an abrogation of this unpleasing duty. But he must be retaken within a week. Understand that, my Lady Barbara. If he is not in my hands within that period there is nothing for it but to dispatch these papers to the King.”

My question seemed so exactly to his mind that he could hardly restrain a chuckle. But I soon provided a bitter antidote to his satisfaction.

“Captain,” says I, “I hate you. I would rather have one hand cut off than that poor prisoner lad should be brought back and hanged at Tyburn in his shame. And I would sooner the other hand should perish too than that the Earl, my father, should be committed in his age in dishonour to a gaol. Captain, I repeat, I hate you!”

I meant every word of what I said, and my voice made no disguise of its sincerity. And at last I had found a tender place in the Captain’s armour. My words left him livid as his wig. At once I saw why he was affected so. The Captain was in love, and the object of his passion had just told him in the frankest terms how much she was prepared to sacrifice for the sake of another man. I will admit that my handling of the Captain was not too tender. But let us grant full deserts, even to the devil. I had hit the Captain pretty hard, but beyond a slight betrayal of its immediate shock, the blow was accepted beautifully. Without a word he went on writing, and in despite of the cruel situation he had put me in, and the hatred that I bore towards him, he forced me to admire his nature in its silken strength. And for that night at least I could not rid my brain of the picture that he made, as he sat writing his dispatches in the library with the lamp and firelight playing on his livid face and his increasing labours. I began to fear that a second man had come into my life.