The Chaplain of the Fleet

Alas! there was small pride in that thought. What joy of being Lady Chudleigh, when I had to pick my way home through the dirty and crowded market, thinking of the pain and grief this wicked thing would cause my ladies when they learned it, of the shame with which my father’s soul would have been filled had he known it, and the wrath of Lady Levett when she should hear it! “Oh, Kitty!” I thought, “how miserably art thou changed in four short months! In the happy fields at home, everything (save when the rustics swore at their cattle) breathed of religion and virtue; in this dreadful place, everything leads to profligacy and crime. And what a crime! And the poor young gentleman! Did ever any one hear the like, that a young girl, not yet quite seventeen, should thus consent to marry a man whom she had never seen! Oh, shame and disgrace! And that young man, so handsome and so gallant, albeit so tipsy that he could scarcely stand. Who would have thought, four months ago, that Kitty would be that wicked creature?” Afterwards, I thought of the dreadful wickedness of marrying while still in mourning for a father not yet six months dead. But I confess that at first, so confused was I, that this thought did not oppress me. Indeed, there was almost too much to think about. Suppose I was, by a careless word, to reveal the secret! Suppose the rascal Roger were to tell it abroad in the market! Suppose the young man (whose name I did not dare to pronounce) were to see me, and find my name! Suppose the Doctor were at once to reveal to my—husband, I suppose I ought to call him—who and what I was! All these thoughts, I say, crowded into my mind together, and filled me with repentant terrors.

I went straight home, because there was no other place to go to. Mrs. Deborah reminded me, when I had taken off my hood, that we were still engaged upon the long-outstanding account between Richard Roe, gentleman, and Robert Doe, draper. It was one of the problems of the Book-keeping Treatise, how rightly to state this account to the satisfaction both of Doe (who wanted all he could get), and of Roe (who wanted to pay as little as possible). I remember that Richard Roe had not only bought extraordinary things (for a gentleman), such as ladies’ hoops and paniers, but had bought them in immense quantities, to be explained, perhaps, by the supposition that he was a benefactor to the female sex, or perhaps that he was shipping things to Madagascar, where I believe a sarsnet pinner, if in scarlet, is considered worth a diamond as big as a pigeon’s egg; and a few bottles of eau de Chypre are thought a bargain, if purchased by a ruby weighing a pound or so.

We had been engaged for a month upon a statement of the account showing the exact liabilities of Richard Roe (who used to pay in odd sums, with pence and farthings, at unexpected times); we never got it right, and then we began again. Fortunately, it costs nothing to clean a slate.

I sat down to this task with listless brain. What girl, after being so suddenly hurled into matrimony, with the possession of so great a secret, could take any interest in the debts of Richard Roe? The figures got mixed; presently, I was fain to lay the slate aside, and to declare that I could do no more that day.

Nor, indeed, could I do anything—not even hear what was said, so that my ladies thought I was sickening for some fever; which was not improbable, fever being rife at this time, owing to the smell from the vegetables, and one of the little Dunquerques in our own house down with it. Ah! could they only have guessed the truth, what sorrow and pity would have been theirs, with what righteous wrath at the sin.

When I was gone, the Doctor called back Roger, and they carried the unhappy bridegroom again to the bedroom, where they laid him on the bed and then left him to himself.

“He will sleep,” said the Doctor, experienced in these cases, “until the afternoon. Have a cup of mutton-broth for him when he wakes, with a pint of small ale.”

Then he returned, and the ordinary business of the day began. The couples came in—half-a-dozen of them. One pair gave him five guineas. They were an Irishman, who thought he was marrying a rich widow; and a woman head over ears in debt, who thought she was marrying a wealthy squire. A week afterwards the unhappy bridegroom came to the Doctor to undo the match, which was impossible. He escaped his wife’s creditors, however, and took to the road, where, after many gallant exploits, he was caught, tried, and hanged at Tyburn, making a gallant and edifying end, and ruffling it bravely to the very foot of the ladder. The day, therefore, was profitable to the Doctor.

“Well begun, Roger,” he said, “is well done. The morning’s work is worth ten guineas. I would rest this afternoon; wherefore, bring no more couples. Yet one would fain not disappoint the poor creatures. Let them come, then, Roger. We may not weary in well-doing. And, hark ye, take this guinea to Mistress Dunquerque—not the captain, mind—and bid her spend it for the children; and inquire whether Mr. Stallabras hath paid his rent lately; if not, pay it; and buy me, on Ludgate Hill, a hat and feathers for Miss Kitty; and, varlet! if thou so much as breathe of what was done here this morning—I threaten not, but I know the history of thy life. Think of the past; think of Newgate, close by; and be silent as the grave.”

At three o’clock in the afternoon, when the Doctor, after his dinner, sat over a cool pipe of Virginia, Lord Chudleigh came downstairs. He was dressed and in his right mind, although somewhat flushed of cheek and his hand shaky.

“Doctor Shovel,” he said, “I thank you for your hospitality, and am sorry that I have abused it. I am ashamed to have fallen into so drunken and helpless a condition.”

“Your lordship,” said the Doctor, rising and bowing, “is welcome to such hospitality as this poor house of a prisoner in the Liberties of the Fleet can show a nobleman of your rank. I am the more bound to show this welcome to your lordship, because, for such as is my condition, I am beholden to the late Lord Chudleigh.”

This was a speech which might have more than one meaning. His lordship made no answer, staring in some perplexity, and fearful that the punch might still be in his head.

“It was in this room,” he said presently, “that we drank last night. I remember your chair, and these walls; but I remember little more. Fie, Doctor! your way of treating guests is too generous. Yet I have had a curious and uneasy dream. Those books”—he pointed to the Register and the Prayer-book—“were those upon the table last night? They were in my dream—a very vivid and real dream. I thought I was standing here. Your man was beside me. Opposite to me was a girl, or woman, her face and figure covered with a hood, so that I knew not what she was like. Then you read the marriage-service, drew the ring from off my finger, and placed it upon hers. And you pronounced us man and wife. A strange and interesting dream!”

“What was the ring, my lord?”

“A diamond ring, set round with seven pearls; within, the crest of my house, and my initials.”

“Let me see the ring, my lord.”

He changed colour.

“I cannot find it.”

“My lord, I know where is that ring.”

The Doctor spoke gravely, bending his great eyebrows. Lord Chudleigh was a man of fine presence, being at least five feet ten inches in height, without counting the heels of his boots and the foretop of his wig. Yet the Doctor, whose heels were thicker and his toupee higher, was six feet two without those advantages. Therefore he towered over his guest as he repeated—

“I know where to find that ring!”

“You cannot mean, Doctor——” cried Lord Chudleigh, all the blood flying to his face.

“I mean, my lord, simply this, that at eight o’clock this morning, or thereabouts, you rose, came downstairs, met a young lady who was waiting for you, and were by me, in presence of trustworthy witnesses, duly and properly married.”

“But it was a dream!” he cried, catching at the table.

“No dream at all, my lord. A fact, which you will find it difficult to contradict. Your marriage is entered in my Register; I have the lines on a five-shilling stamp. I am an ordained minister of the Church of England; the hours were canonical. It is true that I may be fined a hundred pounds for consenting to perform the ceremony; but it will be hard to collect that money. Meanwhile, those who would inflict the fine would be the last to maintain that sacerdotal powers, conferred upon me at ordination, can suffer any loss by residence in the Rules of the Fleet. Ponder this, my lord.”

“Married!” cried Lord Chudleigh. “Married? It is impossible.”

“Your dream, my lord, was no dream at all, but sober truth, believe me.”

“Married?” he repeated.

“Married,” said Doctor Shovel. “I fear that your state of mind, during the performance of the ceremony, was not such as a clergyman could altogether wish to see. Still who am I, to decide when a gentleman is too drunk to marry?”

“Married! Oh, this is some dreadful dream! Where is my bride? Show me my wife!”

“She is gone, Lord Chudleigh.”

“Gone! Where is she gone?”

The Doctor shook his head for an answer.

“Who is she? What is her name? How came she here?”

“I am sorry that I cannot answer your lordship in these particulars. She came—she was married—she went away! In her own good time she will doubtless appear again.”

“But who is she?” he repeated. “What is she like? Why did she marry me?”

“Why did your lordship marry her? That, methinks, would be the proper question.”

“Show me your Register, man!” Lord Chudleigh was sober enough now, and brought his fist down upon the table in peremptory fashion. “Show me your Register and your certificate!”

“Ta! ta! ta!” cried the Doctor. “Softly, young man, softly! We are not used to threats in this chapel-of-ease, where I am archbishop, bishop, and chaplain, all in one. For the Register, it is securely locked up; for the certificate, it is perhaps in the hands of Lady Chudleigh.”

“Lady Chudleigh!”

“Perhaps her ladyship hath consigned it to my keeping. In either case, you shall not see it.”

“This is a conspiracy,” cried Lord Chudleigh. “I have been deceived by rogues and knaves! This is no true marriage.”

“You would say that I am lying. Say so, but, at your peril, think so. You are as truly married as if you had been united in your own parish church, by your own bishop. Believe that, for your own safety, if you believe nothing else. At the right time, her ladyship will be revealed to you. And remember, my lord”—here the Doctor, towering over him, shook his great forefinger in warning or menace—“should you attempt another marriage in the lifetime of your present wife, you shall be brought to your trial for bigamy as sure as my name is Gregory Shovel. Laws, in this country, are not altogether made for the punishment of the poor, and even a peer may not marry more than one woman.”

“I will have this wickedness exposed,” cried his lordship hotly.

“Alas! my lord,” said the Doctor, “the name of Gregory Shovel is already well known. I am but what your father caused me to be.”

“My father! Then there is revenge… The benefits which my father conferred upon you——”

“They were greater than any I can confer upon you. He kept me with him as his private jester. I found him wit: he fed me upon promises. He turned me forth, to be flung into a debtor’s prison. That, however, was nothing. Your lordship will own”—here the Doctor laughed, but without merriment—“that I have returned good for evil; for, whereas your father robbed me of a wife, I have presented you with one.”

“O villain!” cried my lord. “To revenge the wrongs of the father upon the son—and this wretch continues to wear the gown of a clergyman!”

“Say what you please. So rejoiced am I with this day’s work that I allow you to cast at me what names come readiest to your tongue. But remember that curses sometimes come home.”

“Where is my wife, then?” he demanded furiously.

“I shall not tell you. Meantime, choose. Either let this matter be known to all the world, or let it remain, for the present, a secret between you and me. As for the lady, she will be silent. As for the rogue, my clerk, if he so much as breathes the secret to the cabbage-stalks, I have that which will hang him.”

“I want to see the woman who calls herself my wife,” he persisted.

“That shall you not. But perhaps, my lord, you would like to go home to St. James’s Square with such a wedding-party as we could provide for you: a dozen of Fleet parsons fuddled; the bride’s friends, who might be called from their stalls in the market; the music of the butchers, with salt-boxes, marrow-bones, and cleavers; the bride herself. Look out of the window, my lord. Which of the ragged baggages and trollops among the market-women most takes your lordship’s fancy?”

Lord Chudleigh looked and shuddered.

“Go your way,” the Doctor went on, “and always remember you have a spouse. Some day, for the better glorifying of your noble name, I will produce her. But not yet. Be under no immediate apprehension. Not yet. At some future time, when you are happy in the applause of a nation and the honours of a sovereign, when your way is clear before you and your conscience gives you the sweet balm of approbation, when you have forgotten this morning, we shall come, your wife and I, with ‘Room for my Lady Chudleigh! Way there for her ladyship and Doctor Gregory Shovel from the Rules of the Fleet!’”

“Man,” replied Lord Chudleigh, “I believe you are a devil. Do what you will; do your worst. Yet know that the woman may proclaim her infamy and your own; as for me, I will not speak to her, nor listen to her, nor own her.”

“Good!” said the Doctor, rubbing his hands. “We talk in vain. I now bid farewell to your lordship. Those convivial evenings which you desired to witness will still continue. Let me hope to welcome your lordship again on the scene of your unexpected triumphs. Many, indeed, is the man who hath come to this house single and gone out of it double; but none for whom awaits a future of such golden promise. My most hearty congratulations on this auspicious and joyful event! What can come out of this place but youth, beauty, birth, and virtue? And yet, my lord, there is one singularity in the case. One moment, I pray”—for Lord Chudleigh was already outside the door—“you are the only man I ever knew who spent his honeymoon—alone!”

No one would be interested to read more of my shame and repentance at that time; nor does it help to tell how the Doctor was asked by my ladies if I was subject to any kind of illness for which I might be sickening. The reply of the Doctor to them, and his private admonitions to myself, may be partly passed over; it was true, no doubt, as he said while I trembled before him, that a young girl, ignorant and untaught, would do well to trust her conscience into the spiritual direction of a regularly-ordained clergyman of the Church of England like himself. As for the marriage, I was to remember that it was done and could not be undone. He hung round my neck by a black ribbon the diamond ring, my wedding-ring, by which to keep my condition ever before myself; to be sure it was not likely that I should forget it, without the glitter and sparkle of the brilliants, which I used to look at night and morning in secret. What did he think of me, this husband of mine, the young man with the handsome face, the white hands, and the fixed, strange eyes? Did he, night and morning, every day curse his unknown wife?

“Let him curse,” said the Doctor. “Words break no bones; curses go home again; deeds cannot be undone. Patience, Kitty! before long thou shalt be confessed by all the world, the Lady Chudleigh. Come, cheer up, child!” he concluded kindly. “As for what is done, it is done. Partly I did it to clear off an old score, whereof I may perhaps tell thee at another time, and partly for thy honour and glory. Thy father, Kitty, was proud of his name and family, though he married my sister, the daughter of a tenant farmer; but never a Pleydell yet has been lifted up so high as thou shalt be: while as to the Shovels, I am myself the only great man they have yet sent into the world, and they are not likely to go beyond the Chaplain of the Fleet.”

Then he held up his great forefinger, as long and thick as a school ruler, bent his shaggy eyebrows, and pushed out his lips.

“Remember, child, silence! And go no more moping and sorrowful, because thou shalt soon sit in thine own coach, with the world at thy feet, singing the praises of the beautiful Lady Chudleigh. Such a girl as my Kitty for Sir Miles Lackington? Why, he hath eyes for the beauty of a glass of Bordeaux—he hath sense to rejoice over a bowl of punch; but from Helen of Troy or Cleopatra of Egypt he would turn away for a bottle of port. Or Stallabras, now—should such a creature as he presume to think of such a woman? Let poets sing of women at a distance—the farther off the better they sing—that is right. Why, child, such curls as thine, such roses of red and white, such brown eyes, such lips and cheek and chin, such a figure as thou canst show to dazzle the eyes of foolish boys—Lord Chudleigh should go on his knees before me in gratitude and transport. And, believe me, some day he will.”

We are all alike, we women. Call us beautiful, and you please us. It was almost the first time that any one had called me beautiful save Sir Miles Lackington when in his cups, or Solomon Stallabras in his poetic way. Yet every pretty girl knows that she is pretty. There are a thousand things to tell her: the whispers of the women, the sidelong looks of the folk in the streets, the envy of envious girls, the praise of kindly girls, her glass, the deference paid by men of all classes and all ages to beauty, the warnings of teachers, nurses, governesses, and matrons that beauty is but skin-deep, virtue is better than looks, handsome is as handsome does, ’tis better to be good than pretty, comeliness lasts but a year, while goodness lasts for ever, and so on—all these things make a girl on whom heaven has bestowed this most excellent gift of beauty know quite as well as other people what she possesses, though she knows not yet the power of the gift.

“You are pretty, child,” said Mrs. Esther to me on the very same day as the Doctor. “You will be a beautiful woman.”

“Which is no good to a girl in the Rules,” said Mrs. Deborah, “but rather a snare and a danger.”

“Nay, sister,” said Mrs. Esther, “it is a consolation to be beautiful. You, dear, when we were thirty years younger, were beautiful enough to melt the heart even of the monster Bambridge.”

“A beautiful face and person,” Mrs. Deborah added with a smile on her poor face as she thought of the past, “should belong to a good and virtuous soul. In the better world I have no doubt that the spirits of the just will arise in such beauty of face and form as shall be unto themselves and their friends an abiding joy.”

Let us think so: when I die it may be a consolation to me that a return to the beauty of my youth is nigh at hand. I am but a woman, and there is nothing in the world—except the love of my husband and my children—that I think more precious than my past beauty.

Soothed, then, by my uncle’s flatteries, comforted by his promises, and terrified by his admonitions, I fell in a very few days into the dreams by which youth beguiles the cares of the present. My husband, Lord Chudleigh, would go his own way and never ask after me; I should go mine as if he did not exist; some time or other we should leave the Liberties of the Fleet, and go to live near Lady Levett and my dear Nancy. As for the coronet and the rank, I was too ignorant to think much about them. They were so high above me, I knew so little what they meant, that I no more thought of getting them than of getting David’s harp and crown. I waited, therefore, being a wife and yet no wife, married and yet never seen by my husband; sacrificed to the wrath of the Doctor, as that poor Greek maiden in the story told me by my father, murdered at Aulis to appease the wrath of a goddess.

Two events happened which, between them, quite drove the marriage out of my mind, and for awhile made me forget it altogether.

The first of these was the illness of Mrs. Deborah.

There was fever about the market, as I have said; one of the little girls of Mrs. Dunquerque, in our house, was laid down with it. In autumn there was always fever in the place, caused, my ladies said, by the chill and fog of the season, by the stench of the vegetables and fruit of the market, and perhaps by the proximity of Newgate, where gaol fever was always cheating the gallows. One day, therefore, Mrs. Deborah lay down, and said she would rather not get up again any more. She would not eat, nor would she have any medicine except a little tar-water which seemed to do her no good. When she got very ill indeed, she consented to see an apothecary; he prescribed blood-letting, which, contrary to expectation, made her only weaker. Then we went to the old woman who kept a herb shop at the other end of Fleet Lane, and was more skilful than any physician. She gave us feverfew, camomile, and dandelion, of which we made hot drinks. As the patient grew worse instead of better, she made an infusion of shepherd’s-purse, pennycress, and pepperwort, to stimulate the system; she brought a tansy-pudding, which poor Mrs. Deborah refused to eat; and when gentian water failed, the old woman could do no more.

On the fifth day, Mrs. Deborah gave herself up, and contemplated her end in a becoming spirit of cheerfulness. She comforted her sister with the hope that she, too, would before long join her in a world “where there is no noise, my dear, no fighting, no profane swearing, no dirt, no confusion, no bawling, no starving, no humiliation. There shall we sit in peace and quiet, enjoying the dignity and respect which will be no doubt paid to two Christian gentlewomen.”

“I might have known it,” sighed poor Mrs. Esther in her tears. “Only a week ago a strange dog howled all night below our window. I should have known it for a warning, sent for you, my dear, or me, or for Kitty. It cannot have been meant for Sir Miles, for the poor gentleman, being in his cups, would not notice it: nor to Mr. Stallabras, for he sets no store by such warnings.”

“It was for me,” said Mrs. Deborah with resignation, while Mrs. Esther went on recollecting omens.

“Last night I heard the death-watch. Then, indeed, sister, I gave you up.”

“It was a message for me,” said the sick woman, as if she had been Christiana in the story.

“And this morning I heard a hen crow in the market—a hen in a basket. Alas! who can have any doubt?”

“It is but six weeks,” said Mrs. Deborah, feebly, “since a hearse on its way to a funeral stopped before our door. I remember now, but we little thought then, what that meant.”

“I saw, only a fortnight ago,” continued Mrs. Esther, “a winding-sheet in the tallow. I thought it pointed at Kitty, but would not frighten the child. Sister, we are but purblind mortals.”

Far be it from me to laugh at beliefs which have so deep a root in Englishwomen’s hearts: nor is it incredible to those who believe in the divine interference, that signs and warnings of death should be sent beforehand, if only to turn the thoughts heavenward and lead sinners to repent. But this I think, that if poor Mrs. Deborah had not accepted these warnings for herself, she might have lived on to a green old age, as did her sister. Being, therefore, convinced in her mind that her time was come, she was only anxious to make due preparation. She would have been disappointed at getting well, as one who has packed her boxes for a long journey, but is told at the last moment that she must wait.

As she grew weaker, her brain began to wander. She talked of Bagnigge Wells, of Cupid’s Garden, the entertainments of her father’s company, and the childish days when everything was hopeful. While she talked, Mrs. Esther wept and whispered to me—

“She was so pretty and merry! Oh! child, if you could have seen us both in our young days—if you could have seen my Deborah with her pretty saucy ways; her roguish smile, her ready wit made all to love her! Ah! me—me—those happy days! and now! My dear Deborah, it is well that thou shouldst go.”

This was on the morning of Mrs. Deborah’s last day in life. In the afternoon her senses returned to her, and we propped her up, pale and weak, and listened while she spoke words of love and farewell to be kept sacred in the memory of those who had to go on living.

“For thirty years, dear sister,” she murmured, while their two thin hands were held in each other’s clasp—“for thirty years we have prayed daily unto the Lord to have pity upon all prisoners and captives, meaning more especially, ourselves. Now, unto me hath He shown this most excellent mercy, and calleth me away to a much better place than we can imagine or deserve. I had thought it would be well if He would lead us out of this ward to some place where, in green lanes and fields, we might meditate for a space in quiet before we died. I should like to have heard the song of the lark and seen the daisies. But God thinks otherwise.”

“Oh, sister—sister!” cried Mrs. Esther.

“’There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,’” said Mrs. Deborah. “Kitty, child,” she turned her pale face to me, “be kind to my sister.”

We wept together. Outside there was the usual tumult of the market—men buying and selling, with shouts and cries; within, three women weeping, and one dying.

“Go, dear,” said she who was dying; “call the Doctor. He hath been very generous to us. Tell him I would receive the last offices from his hands.”

The Doctor came. He read the appointed service in that deep voice of his, which was surely given him for the conversion of the wicked. The tears streamed down his face as he bent over the bed, saying in the words of the Epistle appointed—“’My daughter, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth; and scourgeth every child whom He receiveth.’”

In the evening the poor lady died, being released from her long imprisonment by that Royal Mandate, the Will of God.

We buried her in the green and pleasant churchyard of Islington. It is a sweet spot, far removed from the noise of London; and though her poor remains feel nothing, nor can hear any more the tumult of crowds, it is good to think that round her are no streets, only the few houses of the village. She lies surrounded by fields and trees; the daisies grow over her grave, the lark sings above the church; she is at rest and in peace.

After poor Mrs. Deborah’s death my lessons came to a sudden stop, and have never been resumed. Some of that perspicacity of style which I have often admired in our modern divines might have fallen to my lot, to enrich this narrative, had I continued in my course of single and double book-keeping.

“I am not clever,” said Mrs. Esther, “like Deborah. She was always the clever one as well as the beauty. That gave her a right to her little temper, poor dear. I cannot teach astronomy, because one star is to me exactly like another. Nor do I know aught about book-keeping, except that it is a very useful and necessary science. Therefore, Kitty, thou must go untaught. For that matter, I think you know as much as a woman need ever know, which is to read, to write—but one ought not to expect of a woman such exactness in spelling as of a scholar—and to cipher to such a moderate degree as may enable her to add up her bills. But it grieves me to think you are growing up so tall and straight without learning how to make so much as a single cordial, or any strong waters. And with our means, what chance of teaching you to toss a pancake, fold an omelette, or dish a Yorkshire pudding?”

It was then that we began to console ourselves for my ignorance, our troubles, and even, I bear mind, for our late loss, by reading “Clarissa,” a book which the Doctor, ever watchful in the interests of virtue, presented to Mrs. Esther with a speech of condolence. He said that it was a work whose perusal could not fail most strongly to console her spirit and to dispose her for resignation; while for purity of morals, for justice of observation, and for knowledge of the human heart, it was unequalled in any language. He then made a digression, and compared the work with the ancient Greek romances. Adventure, he said, was to be found in Heliodorus, and the story told by Apuleius of Cupid and Psyche was exquisitely pathetic; yet none of the earlier writers could be compared, or even named in the same breath, with Mr. Richardson, who reminded him especially of Sophocles, in the tenderness with which he prepared the minds of his audience for the impending tragedy which he could not alter or abate, seeing that it was the will of Necessity. There was nothing, he went on to say, more calculated to inspire or to strengthen sentiments of virtue in the breasts of the young—and especially in the young of the feminine sex—than a contemplation of Clarissa’s virtue and Lovelace’s wickedness. We were greatly edified by these praises, coming from so great a scholar and one so eminently fitted to discourse on virtue. We received the work, prepared (so far as I was concerned) to partake of food for reflection of the satisfying kind (so that the reader quickly lays aside the work while he meditates for a few days on what he has read) which is supplied by the pious “Drelincourt on Death.” Hervey’s “Meditations among the Tombs,” or Young’s “Night Thoughts.”

“After dinner, my dear,” said Mrs. Esther, “you shall read it aloud to me. Do not stop if I shut my eyes in order to hear the better. These good books should be carefully listened to, and read very slowly. Otherwise their lessons may be overlooked, and this would be a sad pity after all the good Doctor’s trouble in first reading the book for us. What scholarship, Kitty! and what a passion, nay, what an ardour, for virtue animates that reverend heart!”

I cannot but pause here to ask whether if Mr. Richardson had chosen to depict to the life the character of a clergyman, who had fallen into such ways as my uncle, with his sins, his follies, his degradation, the Doctor would himself have laid it to heart? Alas! I fear not. We know not ourselves as we are: we still go dreaming we are something better than we seem to others: we have a second and unreal self: the shafts of the satirist seem to pierce the hearts of others. I am sure that many a Lovelace, fresh from the ruin of another Clarissa (if, indeed, there could be another creature so incomparable), must have read this great romance with tears of pity and indignation. Otherwise the race of Lovelaces would long since have become extinct.

We received, therefore, “Clarissa,” expecting edification, but not joy. We even put it aside for a week, because Mrs. Esther hardly felt herself, at first, strong enough to begin a new book, which might flood her mind with new ideas and make her unsettled. At last, however, she felt that we must no longer postpone obeying the Doctor.

“Only a short chapter, my dear, to begin with. Heavens! how shall we struggle through eight long volumes?”

I shall be ever thankful that it was my duty to read these dear delightful pages of this great romance. You may judge of our joy when we read on, day after day, hurrying over household work in the morning, neglecting our walks abroad, and wasting candlelight in the evening the more to enjoy it. We laid aside the book from time to time while we wept over the author’s pathetic scenes. Oh, the horrid usage of poor Clarissa! Was ever girl more barbarously served? Was ever man so wicked as her lover? Were parents ever so blinded by prejudice? Had girl ever so unkind a brother—ever so perverse a sister? I thought of her all day long, and at night I dreamed of her: the image of Clarissa was never absent from my brain.

Everything in the book was as real to me as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, or those of Christian on his pilgrimage from the City of Destruction. So long as the reading of this immortal book lasted—we read page after page twice, thrice, or four times over, to get out of them the fullest measure of sympathy, sorrow, and delight—we loved with Clarissa: her sorrows were ours: we breathed and talked Clarissa: Mrs. Esther even prayed, I believe—though the book was already printed, and therefore it was too late for prayer—that the poor, sweet innocent, might escape the clutches of her wicked lover, who, sure, was more a demon than a man: we carried the thought of Clarissa even to church with us.

We invited our friends to share with us this new-found joy. Solomon Stallabras was always ready to weep with us over a dish of tea. Never any man had a heart more formed for the tenderest sensibility. Pity that his nose was so broad and so much turned up, otherwise this natural tenderness might have been manifested in his countenance. While I read he gazed upon my face, and was fain, from time to time, to draw forth his handkerchief and wipe the tears from his streaming eyes.

“Stop, Miss Kitty!” he would say: “let us pause awhile: let us come back to virtue and ourselves. It is too much: the spectacle of so much youth and beauty, so much innocence—the fate of our poor Clarissa—read by a nymph whose lot is so below her merits—it is too much, Mrs. Pimpernel—it is indeed!”

In some way, while I read, this poet, whose imagination, as became his profession, was strong, mixed up Clarissa with myself, and imagined that my ending might be in some way similar to that of the heroine. Now, with Solomon Stallabras, to think was to believe. Nothing was wanting but a Lovelace. I believe that he waited about the market in hopes of finding him lurking in some corner. Perhaps he even suspected poor Sir Miles. Had he found him, he assured Mrs. Esther, he fully intended to pierce him to the heart with a spit or skewer from one of the butcher’s stalls; adding that it would be sweet for him to die, even from the cart at Tyburn, for my sake. But no Lovelace was trying to make me leave my shelter with Mrs. Esther.

Sometimes Sir Miles Lackington came to join in the reading, but we found him wanting in sensibility. Without that quality, Richardson’s novels cannot be enjoyed. He inclined rather to the low humour which makes men enjoy Fielding’s “Tom Jones,” or Smollett’s “Peregrine Pickle”—works full, no doubt, of a coarse vitality which some men like, but quite wanting in the delicate shades of feeling that commend an author to the delicacy of gentlewomen. And to think that old Samuel Richardson was nothing but a printer by trade! Heaven, which denied this most precious gift of creation to such tender and poetic souls as that of Solomon Stallabras, vouchsafed to bestow it upon a printer—a mechanical printer, who, if he was not paid for setting up type himself, yet employed common workmen, superintended their labours, paid them their wages, and put profits into his purse. It seems incredible, but then Shakespeare was only an actor.

“The sunshine of genius,” said Solomon, “falls upon the children of the lowly as well as those of the rich. I am myself a scion of Fetter Lane.”

Sometimes, indeed, Sir Miles Lackington was so wanting in delicacy and so rude as to laugh at us for our tears.

“You cry over Richardson,” he said; “but if I were to bring you ‘Tom Jones’ I warrant you would laugh.”

“’Tom Jones,’” said Mrs. Esther, “is clearly a work of coarseness. Ladies do not wish to laugh. The laws of decorum forbid unrestrained mirth to females of good breeding. Fielding may suit the pewter pots of the tavern; Richardson goes best with the silver service of the mansion.”

We looked about us as if our room was the mansion and our cupboard was lined with silver dishes.

Sir Miles laughed again.

“Give me a pewter mug well filled and often filled,” he said, “with ‘Tom Jones’ to bear it company, and I ask no more. ‘Clarissa,’ and the silver service may remain with you, ladies. Strange, however, that folk should prefer a printer to a gentleman. Why, Fielding comes of an honourable house.”

“Gentle blood,” replied Mrs. Esther, “does not, unfortunately, always bring the gifts of poetry and sensibility. You are yourself of gentle birth, Sir Miles, yet you own that you love not Richardson. Many great authors have been of lowly extraction, and Mr. Stallabras was saying finely but yesterday, that the sunshine of genius falls upon the children of the poor as often as upon those of the rich.”

Solomon inclined his head and coloured; Sir Miles laughed again in his easy fashion.

“But,” he said, “Mr. Richardson knows nothing about the polite ton. His men are master tradesmen disguised in swords and scarlet coats; they are religious tradesmen, wicked tradesmen, and so forth; but they are not gentlemen; they cannot talk, think, or walk, write, or act like gentlemen. If we want to read about polite society, let us at least ask gentlemen to write for us.”

Sir Miles read little, yet his judgment was generally right, and since I have seen the society of which Richardson wrote, I have learned that he was right in this case; for Richardson, pathetic and powerful as he is, had certainly never been among the class whose manners and conversation he attempted to portray.

Presently we finished “Clarissa,” with floods of tears. I believe that no book was ever written which has caused so many tears as this work. Just then it was about the end of the year: we had already eaten our Christmas plum porridge in the darkest and deadest time of the year, the time when fogs fall over the town by day and stop all work: when nights are long and days short: when the market was quiet at night because it was too cold to stand about or to lie in the open: when all the fighting and brawling were over before five o’clock, and the evenings were tranquil though they were long. It was just after we ended our book, and were still tearful under its influence, that our deliverance came to us.

I think it was on the 31st of December in that same year of grace, seventeen hundred and fifty, in which I had come to the Liberties, and twenty-nine full years with some eleven months since the poor ladies had been incarcerated. I well remember the day, though not certain of the date. It was evening: we had finished work: supper was on the table when we should care to take it—bread and an excellent Dutch cheese; the candle was extinguished, and we were sitting before the fire. Mrs. Esther was talking, as women love sometimes to talk, about the little things they remember: she was telling me—not for the first time—of the great frost of 1714, when she was a young girl, and of the fair which they held upon the ice; of the dreadful scare there was in 1718 from the number of highwaymen and footpads, for whose apprehension the Government offered as much as £100 a head; of Orator Henley, who began to preach in Clare Market shortly after the ladies came to the Fleet; of the dreadful storm in 1739, which killed the famous colony of sparrows in the Mile End Road; of the long frost of 1739, when from Christmas unto February the poor watermen and fishermen could not earn a single penny; of the fever of 1741; of the banishment of papists before the Pretender’s landing, in 1744; of the great Rebellion of 1745, when the city so nobly did its duty.

“My dear,” she said, “we, that is the citizens, because the prisoners of the Fleet and the persons who enjoy the Liberties could hardly be expected to contribute money or aught but prayers—and most of the poor creatures but little used to praying!—raised twelve thousand shirts with as many garments to correspond, ten thousand woollen caps (to serve, I suppose, as nightcaps for our brave fellows when they slept in the open air), ten thousand pairs of stockings, twelve thousand gloves, a thousand blankets—which only makes one blanket for twelve men, but I hope they took turns about—and nine thousand spatterdashes. There was a camp on Finchley Common, of which we heard but did not visit; the militia were kept in readiness—a double watch was set at every one of the city gates; there were some in the Liberties, who thought that a successful invasion of England might lead to the burning of account-books, registers, ledgers, and warrants, in which case we might all get out and keep out. For my own part, my dear, and for my sister Deborah’s part, I am happy to say that we preferred the Protestant succession even to our own freedom, and wished for no such lawless ending to a captivity however unjust, but prayed night and day for the confusion of the young Pretender. Happily our prayers were answered, and great George preserved.”

Then we talked of the past year, how it had brought Mrs. Esther a daughter—as she was good enough to say—and taken away a sister. She cried a little over her loss, but presently recovered, and taking my hand in hers, said many kind and undeserved things to me, who had been often petulant and troublesome: as that we must not part, who had been so strangely brought together, unless my happiness should take me away from the Fleet (I thought, then, of my husband, and wondered if he would ever come to take me away), and then said that as we were at New Year’s Eve, we should make good resolutions for the next year, which were to be kept resolutely, not broken and thrown away; that for her part, she designed, if I agreed and consented to the change, to call me niece, and I should call her aunt, by which mutual adoption of each other our affection and duty one towards the other would be strengthened and founded, as it were, on a sure and stable basis.

“Not, my dear,” she added, “that you can ever call yourself a Pimpernel—an honour granted to few—or that you should ever wish to change your name; but in all other respects you shall be the same as if you were indeed my own niece, the daughter of my brother (but I never had one) or sister (but I had only one, and she was as myself). Truly the Pleydells are a worthy family, of whom we have no need to be ashamed.”

I was assuring her that nothing could alter my love and gratitude for her exceeding kindness, when we heard footsteps and voices on the stairs, and presently a knock at the door, and the Doctor stood before us. Behind him were Sir Miles Lackington and Solomon Stallabras.

“Madam,” said the Doctor, “I wish you a good evening, with the compliments of the season. Merry as well as happy may you be next year.”

I declare that directly I saw his face, my heart leaped into my mouth. I knew that he was come with great and glorious news. For his eyes glowed with the light of some suppressed knowledge, and a capacious smile began with his lips and glowed over the vast expanse of his ruddy cheeks.

“Merry, Doctor—no. But happy if God will.”

“Ta! ta! ta! we shall see,” he replied. “Now, madam, I have a thing to say which will take some time to say. I have taken the liberty of bringing with me a bottle of good old port, the best to be procured, which strengthens the nerves and acts as a sovereign cordial in cases of sudden excitement. Besides, it is to-night New Year’s Eve, when all should rejoice.” He produced the bottle from under his gown and placed it on the table. “I have also taken the liberty to bring with me our friends and well-wishers, Sir Miles Lackington and Mr. Stallabras, partly to—to—” here he remembered that a corkscrew was not likely to be among our possessions—“to draw the cork of the bottle, a thing which Sir Miles does with zeal and propriety.” The Baronet with great gravity advanced and performed the operation by a dexterous handling of the poker, which detached the upper part of the neck. “So,” continued the Doctor; “and partly that they too, who have been so long our true and faithful friends, may hear what I have to say, and so that we may all rejoice together, and if need be, sing psalms with merry hearts.”

Merry hearts? Were we to sing psalms with merry hearts in the place where for thirty years every day had brought with it its own suffering and disgrace to this poor lady?

Yet, what news could the Doctor have which made his purple face so glad, as if the sunlight instead of our fire of cannel coal was shining full upon it?

“Kitty child,” he went on, “light candles: not one candle—two candles, three candles, four candles—all the candles you have in the place; we will have an illumination. Sir Miles, will you please to sit? Mr. Stallabras, will you take Kitty’s chair? She will be occupied in serving. Glasses, child, for this honourable company. Why”—he banged his fist upon the table, but with consideration, for it was not so strong as his own great table—“why, I am happier this night than ever I have been before, I think, in all my life. Such a story as I have to tell!”

I placed on the table the three candlesticks which formed all our stock, and set candles in them and lit them. I put out such glasses as we had, and then I stood beside Mrs. Esther’s chair and took her hand in mine. I knew not what to expect, yet I was certain that it was something very good for Mrs. Esther. Had it been for me, the Doctor would have sent for me; or for himself, he would have told it without this prodigality of joy. Surely it must be for my good patron and protector! My pulses were bounding, and I could see that Mrs. Esther, too, was rapidly rising to the same excitement.

“Certain I am,” said Sir Miles, “that something has happened. Doctor, let us quickly congratulate you. Let us drink your health. I burn to drink some one’s health.”

“Should something have happened,” said the poet, “I would it were something good for ladies who shall be nameless.”

“Stay,” said the Doctor. He stood while the rest were sitting. He thus increased the natural advantage of his great proportions. “We are not yet come to the drinking of healths. But, Mrs. Pimpernel, I must first invite you, before I go on with what I have to say, to take a glass of this most generous vintage. The grapes which produced it grew fat and strong in thinking of the noble part they were about to fulfil: the sunshine of Spain passed into their juices and filled them with the spirit of strength and confidence: that spirit lies imprisoned in the bottle before us——”

“It does—it does!” murmured Sir Miles, gazing thoughtfully at the bottle.

“He ought to have been a poet!” whispered Solomon.

The Doctor looked round impatiently, and swept the folds of his gown behind him with a large gesture.

“For what did the grapes rejoice? Why was the vintage more than commonly rich? Because in the fulness of time it was destined to comfort the heart and to strengthen the courage of a most worthy and cruelly tried lady. Indeed, Mrs. Pimpernel, wonderful are the decrees of heaven! Drink, madam.”

He poured out a glass of wine and handed it to her. She stared in his face almost stupidly: she was trying to repress a wild thought which seized her: her lips were parted, her gaze fixed, her hands trembling.

“Drink it, madam,” ordered the Doctor.

“What is it? oh! what is it?” she cried.

“Drink the wine, madam,” said Sir Miles kindly. “Believe me, the wine will give you courage.”

I took the glass and held it to her lips, while she drank submissively.

“With a bottle of port before him,” said Sir Miles encouragingly, “a man may have patience for anything. With the help of such a friend, would I receive with resignation and joy, good fortune for myself or disasters to all my cousins, male and female. Go on, Doctor. The lady hath taken one glass to prepare her palate for the next.”

“Patience, now,” said the Doctor, “and silence, all of you. Solomon Stallabras, if you liken me again to a poet, you shall leave this room, and lose the joy of hearing what I have to tell.”

“It is now some three months that the thought came into my mind of investigating the case of certain prisoners lying forgotten in the prison or dragging along a wretched existence in the Rules. It matters not what these cases were, or how I have sped in my search. One case, however, has filled me with gratitude and joy because—madam,” he turned suddenly on poor Mrs. Esther, “you will please to listen patiently. This case concerns the unhappy fate of two poor ladies. Their history, gentlemen”—oh! why could he not get on faster?—“is partly known to you. They were daughters of a most worthy and respected city merchant who, in his time, served many civic offices with dignity and usefulness, including the highest. He was a benefactor to his parish, beautified his church, and died leaving behind him two young daughters, the youngest of whom came of age in the year 1720. To each of them he left a large fortune, no less than twenty thousand pounds. Alas! gentlemen, this money, placed in the hands of their guardian and trustee, a friend as honourable as the late Lord Mayor himself, the ladies’ father, namely, Alderman Medlicott, was in the year 1720 shamefully pillaged and stolen by the alderman’s clerk, one Christopher March, insomuch that (the alderman having gone mad by reason of his losses) the poor girls had no longer any fortune or any friends to help, for in that bad time most all the merchants were hit, and every one had to look after himself as best he could. Also this plundering villain had so invested part of their money, in their own name by forgeries, as to make them liable for large sums which they had not the means of paying. They were therefore arrested and confined in the prison hard by, where under the rule of the rogue Bambridge they suffered many things which it is painful to recall or to think about. Presently, however, that tormentor and plague of the human race—captivorum flagellum—scourge of innocent captives and languishing debtors, having been mercifully removed and having hung himself like Judas and so gone to his own place, these ladies found the necessary security which ensures for all of us this partial liberty, with the opportunity, should we embrace it, of improving the golden hours. In other words, gentlemen, they came out of the prison, and have ever since dwelt amongst us in this place.

“Gentlemen, we have with us here many improvident and foolish persons who have mostly by their own misconduct reduced themselves to our unhappy condition. It needs not that in this place, which is not a pulpit, I should speak of those who have gambled away their property”—Sir Miles shook his head—“or drank it away”—Sir Miles stared straight at the ceiling—“or have missed their chances, or been forgotten by Fortune”—Mr. Stallabras groaned. “Of these things I will not speak. But it is a thing notorious to all of us that the Liberties are not the chosen home of virtue. Here temperance, sobriety, morality, gentle words, courteous bearing, truth, honour, kindness of thought, and charity—which seeketh not her own—are rarely illustrated and discourteously entreated. Wherefore, I say, that for two ladies to have steadfastly resisted all the temptations of this place, and to have exhibited, so that all might copy, the exemplar of a perfect Christian life during thirty years, is a fact which calls for the gratitude as well as the astonishment of the wondering Rules.”

“He ought to have been a——” began Solomon Stallabras, wiping a sympathetic tear, but caught the Doctor’s frowning eye and stopped; “an—an Archbishop,” he added presently, with a little hesitation.

“Sir,” said the Doctor, “you are right. I ought to have been an archbishop. Many an archbishop’s Latin verses have been poor indeed compared with mine. But to proceed. Madam, I would fain not be tedious.”

“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Esther, whose brain seemed confused with this strange exordium.

“After thirty years or thereabouts of most undeserved captivity and forced retirement from the polite world—which they were born to adorn—these ladies found themselves by the will of Providence forced to separate. One of them winged her glad flight to heaven, the other was permitted to remain awhile below. It was then that I began to investigate the conditions of their imprisonment. Madam,” he turned suddenly to Mrs. Esther, so that she started in her chair and trembled violently, “think of what you would most wish: name no trifling matter; it is not a gift of a guinea or two, the bettering of a meal, the purchase of a blanket, the helping of a poor family; no boon or benefit of a day or two. Let your imagination rove, set her free, think boldly, aim high, think of the best and most desirable thing of all.”

She tried to speak, her lips parted; she half rose, catching at my hand: but her words were refused utterance; her cheek grew so pale and white that I thought she would have swooned and seized her in my arms, being so much stronger and bigger. Then I ventured to speak, being moved myself to a flood of tears.

“Oh, madam! dear madam! the Doctor is not jesting with you; he hath in his hands the thing that we desire most of all. He brings you, I am sure, great news—the greatest. Oh, sir”—I spoke now for her who was struck dumb with hope, fear, and astonishment—“what can this poor lady want but her release from this dreadful place? What can she pray for, what can she ask, morning and night, after all these years of companionship with profligates, spendthrifts, rogues, and villains, the noisy market people, the poor suffering women and children of this den of infamy, but her deliverance? Sir, if you have brought her that, tell her so at once, to ease her mind.”

“Well said, Kitty,” cried Sir Miles. “Doctor, speak out.”

“No poet—not even Alexander Pope—could have spoken more eloquently,” cried Solomon Stallabras.

As for Mrs. Esther, she drew herself gently from me, and stood with her handkerchief in her hand, and tears in her eyes, her poor thin figure trembling.

“I have brought with me,” said the Doctor, taking her hand and kissing it, “the release of the most innocent prisoner in the world.”

She steadied herself for a few moments. Then she spoke clearly and calmly.

“That,” she said, “has ever been the utmost of my desire. I have desired it so long and so vehemently (with my sister Deborah, to whom it has been granted) that it has become part of my very being. I have desired it, I think, even more than my sister. Thirty years have I been a prisoner in the Fleet, though for twenty-six in the enjoyment of these (so-called) Liberties. Gentlemen, you know full well what manner of life has been ours; you know the sights, the sounds, the wickednesses of this place.” Here Sir Miles hung his head. “I am, as the Doctor most kindly hath told you, a gentlewoman born; my father, besides being a great and honourable merchant of this most noble city of London, once Lord Mayor, an Alderman of Portsoken Ward, and Worshipful Master of the Company of Armour Scourers, was also a true Christian man, and taught us early the doctrines and virtues of the true faith. We were educated as heiresses; we were delicately brought up in the love of duty and religion; too delicately for women fated to herd with the worst and bear the worst. It is, therefore, no merit of ours if we have behaved, according to our lights, as Christian gentlewomen. Yet, sirs, kind friends, it has been great unhappiness to us; bear with me a little, for when I think of my sister’s sufferings, and my own, I fain must weep. It has been, believe me, great, great unhappiness.”

I think we all wept with her. Yet it was astonishing to see with what quiet dignity she spoke, resuming, at a moment’s notice, the air not only of a gentlewoman, which she had never lost, but of one who is no longer troubled by being in a false position, and can command, as well as receive, respect. I saw before me a great city lady, as she had been trained and brought up to be. Small though she was, her dignity made her tall—as her unmerited sufferings and patience made her great.

Sir Miles laid his hand on the poet’s shoulder.

“Great heaven!” he cried. “Canst thou weep any more over the misfortunes of Clarissa, with this poor lady’s sorrows in thy recollection?”

The Doctor wiped his eyes. But for those backslidings which we have already lamented, what an admirable character, how full of generosity, how full of sympathy, how kind of heart, was my uncle!

“Pray, madam,” he said, “be seated again. Will you take another glass of wine?”

“No, Doctor,” she replied. “This is now no case for the help of wine. Pray finish the story of your benevolent care.”

“Why, madam, as for benevolence,” he said, “I have but done what Sir Miles Lackington or Solomon Stallabras”—the poet spread his arms and tapped his breast—“would have done, had they possessed the power of doing; what, indeed, this crying slip of a girl would have done had she known how. Benevolence! Are we, then, Old Bailey prisoners, chained by the leg until the time comes for us to go forth to Tyburn Tree? Are we common rogues and vagabonds, that have no bowels? Can such a life as yours be contemplated with unmoved eyes? Is Sir Miles a Lovelace for hardness of heart? or Solomon Stallabras a salamander? Am I a Nero? Nay, madam, speak no more of benevolence. Know, then, that of all the people whom the conduct of the villain Christopher March with regard to your affairs injured, but two are left alive. The heirs of the rest are scattered and dispersed. These two have prospered, and are generous as well as old; their hearts melted at the tale of suffering; they have agreed together to give back to you, not only the security which keeps you here, but also a formal release of your debt to them; you can go whenever you please.”

“Why, then,” shouted Sir Miles, grasping the bottle, “we can drink her——”

“Stay,” said the Doctor. “There is one thing more. This generous gift restores to you, not only liberty, but also your father’s country estate in Hertfordshire, worth six hundred pounds a year. And here, madam, are the papers which vouch for all. You have now your own estate, and are once more a gentlewoman of fortune and position.”

She took the papers, and held them grasped tightly in her lap.

“And now, gentlemen,” said the Doctor, gently taking the bottle from the baronet’s hand, “we will drink—you, too, Kitty, my dear, must join—a happy new year to Mrs. Esther Pimpernel.”

They drank it with no more words; and Sir Miles fell on his knees and kissed her hand, but without speaking aught.

Mrs. Esther sat still and quiet, trying to recover herself; but the first eloquence would not return, and she could not speak for crying and sobbing. In broken words she said, while she caught the Doctor’s great hand and held it, that he had been, in very sooth, her guardian angel; that it was he who had rescued her sister and herself from the monster Bambridge and the horrors of the prison; that, but for him, they would long ago have starved: that, but for him, she should have languished for the rest of her days in the Rules. Then she prayed that God would reward the protector and defender of the poor.

The Doctor drew away his hand, and, without a word, walked out of the room with hanging head, followed by Sir Miles and Mr. Stallabras.

“We shall go, my sweet Kitty; together we shall leave this dreadful place,” she murmured when we were alone. “What is mine is yours, my child. Let us humbly to our knees.”