The Chaplain of the Fleet

This was at once a sad and yet most joyful confession. For while the girl who read it was full of shame and terror in thinking of his righteous wrath and loathing, yet the tender love which filled the pages and fired her soul with wonder and rejoicing forbade her to believe that love was not stronger than wrath. She was so ignorant and inexperienced, the girl who joined in this treacherous deed; she was so dominated by the will of that masterful man, her uncle; she was so taken by surprise—surely, when he learned these things, he would forgive the past.

But should she tell him at once?

It would be better to tell him than that he should find it out. There were many ways in which he could find it out. Oh, the shame of being found out, the meanness of taking all his secrets and giving none! Roger, the Doctor’s man, might for a bribe, were the bribe heavy enough to outweigh his fear of the Doctor, tell the name of the bride; the Doctor might think the time had come when he should step forward and reveal the secret; even there was danger that his lordship might remember the name which he had seen but once, and ask me sternly if there were upon the earth two Kitty Pleydells, of the same age, the same height, and the same face. And what should I say then?

Stimulated by this thought, as by the touch of a sharp spur, I procured an inkstand and paper, and began to write a letter of confession.

What to say next?

In what words to clothe a most shameful story?

We cheat ourselves; we do one thing and call it another; we stop the voice of conscience by misrepresenting our actions; and whereas we ought to be weighed down by the burden of our sins, we carry ourselves confidently, with light hearts, as if we had done nothing to be ashamed of. It is only when our crimes are set forth in plain English that we know them for the shameful things they are. What was I to tell my lord?

A girl, brought up in the fear of God and His commandments, can be so weak as to obey a man who ordered her to do a wicked thing. Could she be, afterwards, so cowardly as not to tell the man whom she had thus injured, even when she knew that he loved her? A wicked crime and a course of deceit! How could I frame the words so as to disarm that righteous wrath!

Here I stopped, with trembling fingers, which refused to move.

“Know that”—what? That I was his wicked and unworthy wife, the creature whom most of all he must hate and despise.

I could not tell him—not then. No; it must be told by word of mouth, with such extenuating phrases and softening of details as might present themselves to my troubled mind.

I tore the letter into a thousand fragments. Was girl ever so bested? That sacred bond of union which brings happy lovers together, the crown of courtship, the end of wooing, the marriage service itself, was the thing which kept us asunder.

I would tell him—later on. There would come an opportunity. I would make the opportunity, somewhere, at some time. Yes; the best way would be to wait till we were alone; and it should be in the evening, when my face and his would be partly veiled by the night; then I could whisper the story, and ask his forgiveness.

But that opportunity never came, as will be presently seen.

After morning prayers, that day, we walked upon the Terrace, where the company were, as usual, assembled, and all talking together below the trees. I held in my hand the manuscript of my lord’s confession. Presently we saw him slowly advancing to meet us, wearing a grave and melancholy look. But then he was never one of those who think that the duties of life are to be met with a reckless laugh.

“Even in laughter,” said the Wise Man, “the heart is sorrowful: and the end of that mirth is heaviness.”

“Dear Miss Pleydell,” whispered Peggy Baker, as he appeared, “can his lordship have repented already of what he said beneath the trees last night? The poor young gentleman wears a heavy countenance this morning.”

It was best to make no answer to this raillery. Let her say what she would; I cared nothing, and was too heavy myself to made reply. I would neither help nor hinder. Then, leaving Mrs. Esther with the party, I advanced boldly and met my lord, returning him his manuscripts before the eyes of all.

Everybody stared, wondering what could be in the packet I placed in his hands; he, however, received it with a low bow, and accompanied me to my party, saying nothing for the moment.

The music was playing its loudest, and as we walked, my lord beside me, and Mrs. Esther with Lady Levett—Nancy remaining behind to exchange insinuations and pert speeches (in which the saucy damsel took great delight) with Peggy Baker. I looked back and saw their heads wagging, while the bystanders smiled, and presently Peggy fanned herself, with agitation in her face, by which it was easy to conclude that Nancy had said something more than usually biting, to which her opponent had, for the moment, no reply ready.

“You have read these papers?” asked my lord, and that in as careless a tone as if they contained nothing of importance.

“Yes,” I said, “I have read the sad story. But I pity the poor woman who was persuaded to do your lordship this grievous wrong.”

“I think she needs and deserves little of our pity,” he replied. “And as for persuasion, it could have wanted but little with a woman so designing as to join in such a plot.”

A designing woman! Poor Kitty!

Then I tried, beating about the bush, to bring his mind round to see the possibility of a more charitable view.

“Remember, my lord, two things. This Doctor Shovel could not have known of your coming. The plot, therefore, was swiftly conceived, and as quickly carried into execution. You have told me in your paper—I entreat you, my lord, burn it with all speed—that this man’s influence over you was so great as to coerce you (because your brain was not in its natural clearness) into doing and suffering what, at ordinary times, you would have rejected with scorn. Bethink you, then, with charity, that this Doctor Shovel, this so-called Chaplain of the Fleet, may have found some poor girl, over whom he had authority, and in like manner coerced and forced her to join with him in this most wicked plot.”

“You would make excuses,” he said, “for the greatest of sinners. I doubt not that. But this story is too improbable. I cannot think that any woman could be so coerced against her will.”

I sighed.

“My lord, I beg you to remember your promise to me. You will not leave Epsom without first telling me: you will not seek out this man, this Doctor Shovel, or quarrel with him, or do aught to increase his malice. Meantime, I am feeble, being only a woman, and bound in obedience and duty to my guardian and protectress. Yet I bethink me of an old fable. The lion was one day caught in the coils of a net, and released by the teeth of a——”

He started.

“What does this mean! O Kitty! what can you do?”

“I do not know. Yet, perhaps I may be able to release you from the coils of this net. Have patience, my lord.”

“Kitty!”

“Let us speak no more about it for the moment,” I replied. “Perhaps, my lord, if my inquiries lead to the result you desire—it is Christian to forgive your enemies——”

“I cannot understand you,” he replied. “How should you—how should any one—release me? Truly, if deliverance came, forgiveness were a small thing to give.”

It was at this time that the company at Epsom held their masquerade, the greatest assembly of the season, to which not only the visitors at the Wells, but also the gentry from the country around, and many from London, came; so that the inns and lodging-houses overflowed, and some were fain to be content to find a bed over shops and in the mean houses of the lower sort. Nay, there were even many who put up tents on the Downs, and slept in them like soldiers on a campaign.

At other times my head would have been full of the coming festivity, but the confession of my lord and the uncertainty into which it threw my spirits, prevented my paying that attention to the subject which its importance demanded.

“Kitty,” cried Nancy, “I have talked to you for half an hour, and you have not heard one word. Oh, how a girl is spoiled the moment she falls in love! Don’t start, my dear, nor blush, unless you like, because there is no one here but ourselves. As for that, all the place knows that you and Lord Chudleigh are in love with each other, though Peggy Baker will have it that it is mostly on one side. ‘My dear,’ she said at the book-shop yesterday, ‘the woman shows her passion in a manner which makes a heart of sensibility blush for her sex.’ Don’t get angry, Kitty, because I was there, and set her down as she deserved. ‘Dear me!’ I said, ‘we have not all of us the sensibility of Miss Peggy Baker, who, if all reports are true, has had time to get over the passion she once exhibited for the handsome Lord Chudleigh.’ Why, my dear, how can any one help seeing that the women are monstrous jealous, and my lord in so deep a quagmire of love, that nothing but the marriage-ring (which cures the worst cases) can pull him out?”

I had, in verity, been thinking of my troubles, while Nancy was thinking over her frocks. Now I roused myself and listened.

“My mother will go as the Queen of Sheba. She will wear a train over her hoop, a paper crown, a sceptre, and have two black boys to walk behind her. That will show who she is. I am to go as Joan of Arc, with a sword in my hand, but not to wear it dangling at my side, lest it cause me to fall down: Peggy Baker will be Venus, the Goddess of Love. She will have a golden belt, and a little Cupid is to follow her with bow and arrows, which he is to shoot, or pretend to shoot, at the company. She will sprawl and languish in her most bewitching manner, the dear creature; but since she has failed with Lord Eardesley there is nobody at Epsom good enough for her. I hear she goes very shortly to Bath, where no doubt she will catch a nabob. I hope his liver and temper will be good. Oh! and Mr. Stallabras will go as a Greek pastoral poet, Theo something—I forget his name—with a lyre in one hand and a shepherd’s crook in the other. Harry Temple is to go as Vulcan: you will know him by his limp and by the hammer upon his shoulder. Sir Miles wants to go as the God of Cards, but no one seems to know who that Deity was. My father says he shall go as a plain English country gentleman, because he sees so few among the company that the sight may do them good.”

I was going as the Goddess of Night, because I wanted to have an excuse for wearing a domino all the evening, most of the ladies throwing them aside early in the night. My dress was a long black velvet hood, covering me from head to foot, without hoops, and my hair dressed low, so that the hood could cover the head and be even pulled down over the face. At first I wanted my lord to find out by himself the incognita who had resolved to address him; but he asked me to tell him beforehand, and to be sure I could refuse him nothing.

The splendour of the lights was even greater than that at Lord Chudleigh’s entertainment, when he lit up the lawn among the trees with coloured oil lamps. Yet the scene lacked the awful contrast of the dark and gloomy wood behind, in which, as one retired to talk, the music seemed out of place, and the laughter of the gay throng impertinent. Here was there no dark wood or shade of venerable trees to distract the thoughts from the gaiety of the moment, or sadden by a contrast of the long-lived forest with the transitory crowd who danced beneath the branches, as careless as a cloud of midges on the river-bank, born to buzz away their little hour, know hope, fear, and love, feel pain, be cut off prematurely at their twentieth minute, or wear on to a green old age and die at the protracted term of sixty minutes.

The Terrace and the New Parade were hung with festoons of coloured lamps. There must have been thousands of them in graceful arches from branch to branch: the doors of the Assembly Rooms had columns and arches of coloured lamps set up beside and over them: there were porches of coloured lamps; a temple of coloured lamps beside the watch-house at the edge of the pond, where horns were stationed to play while the music rested: in the Rooms was, of course, to be dancing: and, which was the greatest attraction, there were amusements of various kinds, almost as if one was at a country fair, without the crowding of the rustics, the fighting with quarterstaves, the grinning through horse-collars, the climbing of greasy poles, and the shouting. I have always, since that evening, longed for the impossible, namely, a country fair without the country people. Why can we not have, all to ourselves, and away from a noisy mob of ill-bred and rough people, the amusements of the fair, the stalls with the gingerbread, Richardson’s Theatre, with a piece addressed to eyes and ears of sensibility, a wax-work, dancing and riding people, and clowns?

Here the presenters of the masquerade had not, it is true, provided all these amusements; but there were some: an Italian came to exhibit dancing puppets, called fantoccini; a conjurer promised to perform tricks, and swallow red-hot coals, which is truly a most wonderful feat, and makes one believe in the power of magic, else how could the tender throat sustain the violence of the fire? a girl was to dance upon the tight-rope: and a sorcerer or magician or astrologer was to be seated in a grotto to tell the fortunes of all who chose to search into the future.

Nothing could be gayer or more beautiful than the assemblage gathered together beneath these lighted lamps or in the Assembly Rooms in the evening. Mrs. Esther was the only lady without some disguise; Sir Robert, whose dress has been already sufficiently indicated, gave her his arm for the evening. All the dresses were as Nancy told me. I knew Venus by her golden cestus and her Cupid armed (he was, indeed, the milk-boy); and beneath the domino I could guess, without having been told, that no other than Peggy Baker swam and languished. Surely it is great presumption for a woman to call herself the Goddess of Beauty. Harry Temple was fine as Vulcan, though he generally forgot to go lame: he bore a real blacksmith’s hammer on his shoulder; but I am certain that Vulcan never wore so modish a wig with so gallant a tie behind. And his scowls, meant for me, were not out of keeping with his character. Nancy Levett was the sweetest Joan of Arc ever seen, and skipped about, to the admiration of everybody, with a cuirass and a sword, although the real Joan, who was, I believe, a village maid, probably wore a stuff frock instead of Nancy’s silk, and I dare say hoops were not in fashion in her days. Nor would she have lace mittens or silk shoes, but bare hands and wooden sandals. Nor would she powder her hair and dress it up two feet high, but rather wear it plain, blown about by the winds, washed by the rain, and curling as nature pleased. As for Mr. Stallabras, it did one good to see him as Theocritus, nose in air, shepherd’s crook on shoulder, lyre in hand, in a splendid purple coat and wig newly combed and tied behind, illustrating the dignity and grandeur of genius. The Queen of Sheba’s black pages (they were a loan from a lady in London) attracted general attention. You knew her for a queen by her crown. There were, however, other queens, all of whom wore crowns; and it was difficult sometimes to know which queen was designed if you failed to notice the symbol which distinguished one from the other. Thus Queen Elizabeth of England, who bore on a little flag the motto “Dux fæmina facti,” was greatly indignant when Harry Temple mistook her for Cleopatra, whose asp was for the moment hidden. Yet so good a scholar ought to have known, because Cleopatra ran away at Actium, and therefore could not carry such a motto, while Elizabeth conquered in the Channel. Then it was hard at first sight to distinguish between Julius Cæsar, Hannibal, Timour the Tartar, Luther, Alfred, and Caractacus, because they were all dressed very much alike, save that Luther carried a book, Alfred a sceptre, Cæsar a short sword, Timour a pike, Hannibal a marshal’s bâton, and Caractacus a bludgeon. The difficulties and mistakes, however, mattered little, because, when the first excitement of guessing a character was over, one forgot about the masquerade and remembered the ball. Yet it was vexatious when a man had dressed carefully for, say, Charles the First, to be mistaken for Don Quixote or Euripides, who wore the same wigs.

I say nothing of the grotesque dresses with masks and artificial heads, introduced by some of the young Templars. They amused as such things do, for a while, and until one became accustomed to them. Then their pranks ceased to amuse. It is a power peculiar to man that he can continue to laugh at horse-play, buffoonery, and low humour for hours, while a woman is content to laugh for five minutes if she laughs at all. I believe that the admirers of those coarse and unfeeling books, “Tom Jones” and “Humphrey Clinker,” are entirely men.

All the ladies began by wearing masks, and a few of the men. One of them personated a shepherd in lamentation for the loss of his mistress; that is to say, he wore ribbons of black and crimson tied in bows about his sleeve, and carried a pastoral hook decorated with the same colours. In this character some of the company easily recognised Lord Chudleigh; and when he led out for the first minuet a tall, hooded figure, in black velvet, some thought they recognised Kitty Pleydell.

“But why is he in mourning?” asked Peggy Baker, who understood what was meant. “She cannot have denied him. He must have another mistress for whom he has put on the black ribbons. Poor Kitty! we are all of us sorry for her. Yet pride still goes before a fall.”

No one knew what was meant except Lord Chudleigh’s partner, the figure in black velvet.

“I suppose,” continued Peggy, alluding to the absence of my hoops, “that she wants to show how a woman would look without the aid of art. I call it, for my part, odious!”

After the minuet we left the dancers and walked beneath the lighted lamps on the Terrace. Presently the music ceased for a while, and the horns outside began to play.

“Kitty,” whispered my lord, “you used strange words the other night. Were they anything but a kind hope for the impossible? Could they mean anything beyond an attempt to console a despairing man?”

“No,” I replied. “They were more than a hope. But as yet I cannot say more. Oh, my lord! let me enjoy a brief hour of happiness, if it should die away and come to nothing.”

I have said that part of the entertainment was a magician’s cave. We found ourselves opposite the entrance of this place. People were going in and coming out—or, more correctly, people were waiting outside for their turn to go in; and those who came out appeared either elated beyond measure with the prophecies they had heard, or depressed beyond measure. Some of the girls had tears in their eyes—they were those to whom he had denied a lover; some came out bounding and leaping with joy—they were the maidens to whom he had promised a husband and children dear. Some of the young men came out with head erect and smiling lips: I suppose the wizard had told them of fortune, honour, long life, health and love—things which every young man must greatly desire. Some came out with angry frowns and lips set sternly, as if resolved to meet adverse fortune with undaunted courage—which is, of course, the only true method. But I fear the evening’s happiness was destroyed for these luckless swains and nymphs: the lamps would grow dim, the music lose its gladness, the wine its sparkle.

“Let us, my lord,” I said, little thinking of what was to happen within the cave—“Let us, too, consult the oracle, and learn the future.”

At first he refused, saying, gravely, that to inquire of wise men or wise women was the sin of Saul with the witch of Endor; that whatever might have happened in olden time, as in the case of the Delphic oracles or the High Places, where they came to inquire of Baal or Moloch, there was now no voice from the outer world nor any communication from the stars, or from good spirits or from evil.

“Therefore,” he said, “we waste our time, sweet Kitty, in idly asking questions of this man, who knows no more than we know ourselves.”

“Then,” I asked, “let us go in curiosity, because I have never seen a wizard, and I know not what he is like. You, I am sure, will keep me safe from harm, whatever frightful creature he may be.”

So, without thinking, I led the way to the Wizard’s Cave.

It stood in the Parade, beneath the trees; at the door were assembled a crowd of the masqueraders, either waiting their turn or discussing the reply of the oracle; the entrance, before which was a heavy curtain, double, was guarded by a negro, armed with an immense cutlass, which he ever and anon whirled round his head, the light falling on the bright steel, so that it seemed like a ring of fire, behind which gleamed his two eyes, as bright as a panther’s eyes, and his teeth, as white as polished ivory. The sight of him made some of the women retreat, and refuse to go in at all.

The wise man received only one couple at a time: but when the pair then with him emerged, the negro stepped forward and beckoned to us, though it was not our turn to enter the cave. I observed that the last pair came out with downcast eyes. I think I am as free from superstition as any woman, yet I needs must remark, in spite of my lord’s disbelief in magic or astrology, that the unhappy young man whose fortune this wizard told (an evil fortune, as was apparent from his face) ran away with the girl who was with him (an honest city merchant’s daughter), and having got through his whole stock, took to the road, and was presently caught, tried, sentenced, and hanged in chains on Bagshot Heath, where those who please may go and see him. With such examples before one it is hard not to believe in the conjurer and the wise woman, just as a thousand instances might be alleged from any woman’s experience to prove that it is unlucky to spill salt (without throwing some over your left shoulder), or to dream of crying children, or to cross two knives upon a plate—with many other things which are better not learned, would one wish to live a tranquil life.

What they called the Wizard’s Cave was a little building constructed specially for the occasion, of rude trunks of trees, laid one upon the other, the interstices filled up with moss, to imitate a hermitage or monkish cell; a gloomy abode, consecrated to superstition and horrid rites. The roof seemed to be made of thatch, but I think that was only an illusion produced by the red light of an oil-lamp, which hung in the middle, and gave a soft and flickering, yet lurid light, around the hut. There also hung up beside the lamp, and on the right hand, the skin of a grisly crocodile, stuffed, the sight of which filled me with a dreadful apprehension, and made me, ever after, reflect on the signal advantages possessed by those who dwell in a land where such monsters are unknown. A table stood in the middle, on which, to my horror, were three grinning skulls in a row; and in each they had placed a lamp of different colours, so that through the eye-holes of one there came a green, of another a red, and of the third a blue light, very horrible and diabolical to behold.

There was also a great book—doubtless the book of Fate—upon the table. Behind it sat the Sage himself. He was a man with a big head covered with grey hair, which hung down upon his shoulders long and unkempt, and with a tall mitre, which had mysterious characters engraved over it, and between the letters what seemed in the dim light to be flames and devils—the fit occupant of this abominable place. He wore spectacles and a great Turkish beard, frightful and Saracenic of aspect.

I thought of the witch of Endor, of those who practised divinations, and of the idolatrous practices on High Places and in groves, and I trembled lest the fate of the Prophets of Baal might also be that of the profane inquirers. Outside, the music played and the couples were dancing.

The Wizard looked up as we stood before him. Behind the blue spectacles and the great beard, even in the enormous head, I recognised nothing and suspected nothing; but when he spoke, and in deep sonorous tones called my companion by his name——

“Lord Chudleigh, what wilt thou inquire of the oracle?”——

Then indeed I turned giddy and faint, and should have fallen, but my lord caught me by the waist.

“Be soothed, Kitty,” he whispered. “Here is nothing to fright us but the mummery of a foolish masquerade or the roguery of a rascal quack. Calm yourself.”

Alas! I feared no more the crocodile, nor the horrid death’s heads, nor the Turkish beard, nor the mitre painted with devils—if they were devils. They disquieted me at first sight, it is true: but now was I in deadly terror, for I knew and feared the voice. It was no other than the voice of the Doctor, the Chaplain of the Fleet. For what trouble, what mischief, was he here?

Then I recovered, saying to myself: “Kitty, be firm. Resolve by neither act nor word to do harm to thy lover. Consent not to any snare. Be resolute and alert.”

Lord Chudleigh, seeing me thus composed, stepped forward to the table and said—

“Sir Magician, Wizard, Conjurer, or whatever name best befits you, for you and your pretended science I care not one jot, nor do I believe but that it is imposture and falsehood. Perhaps, however, you are but acting a part in the masquerade. But the young lady hath a desire to see what you do, and to ask you a question or two.”

“Your lordship must own that I know your name, in spite of your domino.”

“Tut, tut! everybody here knows my name, whether I wear a domino or take it off. That is nothing. You are probably one of the company in disguise.”

“You doubt my power? Then, without your leave, my lord, permit me to tell you a secret known to me, yourself, and one or two others only. It is a secret which no one has yet whispered about; none of the company at the Wells know it; it is a great secret: an important secret”—all this time his voice kept growing deeper and deeper. “It is a secret of the darkest. Stay—this young lady, I think, knows it.”

“For Heaven’s sake——” I cried, but was interrupted by my lord.

“Tell me your secret,” he said calmly. “Let us know this wonderful secret.”

The Doctor leaned forward over the table and whispered in his ear a few words. Lord Chudleigh started back and gazed at him with dismay.

“So!” he cried; “it is already becoming town talk, is it?”

The Magician shook his head.

“Not so, my lord. No one knows it yet except the persons concerned in it. No one will ever know it if your lordship so pleases. I told you but to show the power of the Black Art.”

“I wonder, then, how you know.”

“The Wizard, by his Art, learns as much of the past as he desires to know; he reads the present around him, still by aid of this great Art; he can foretell the future, not by the gift of prophecy, but by studying the stars.”

“Tell me, then,” said Lord Chudleigh, as if in desperation, “the future. Yet this is idle folly and imposture.”

“That which is done”—the Sage opened the book and turned over the pages, speaking in low, deep tones—“cannot be undone, whatever your lordship might ignorantly wish. That which is loved may still be loved. That which is hoped may yet come to pass.”

“Is that all you have to say to me?”

“Is it not enough, my lord? Would any king’s counsel or learned serjeant give you greater comfort? Good-night. Leave, now, this young lady with me, alone.”

“First read me the oracle of her future, as you have told me mine; though still, I say, this is folly and imposture.”

The Magician gravely turned over his pages, without resenting this imputation, and read, or seemed to read—

“Good heavens!” cried Lord Chudleigh, pressing his hand to his forehead. “Am I dreaming? Are we mad?”

“Now, my lord,” said the pretended Wizard, “go to the door; leave this young lady with me. I have more to tell her for her own ears. She is quite safe. She is not the least afraid. At the smallest fright she will cry aloud for your help. You will remain without the door, within earshot.”

“Yes,” I murmured, terrified, yet resolute. “Leave me a few moments alone. Let me hear what he has to say to me.”

Then my lord left me alone with the Doctor.

When the heavy curtain fell before the door, the Wizard took off the great mitre and laughed silently and long, though I felt no cause for merriment.

“Confess, child,” he said, “that I am an oracle of Dodona, a sacred oak. Lord Chudleigh is well and properly deceived. But we have little time for speech. I came here, Kitty, to see you, and no one else. By special messengers and information gained from letters, I learned, as I wrote to you (to my great joy), that this young lord is deeply enamoured. You are already, it is true, in some sort—nay, in reality, his bride, though he knows it not. Yet I might waive my own dignity in the matter, for the sake of thy happiness; and, if you like to wed him, why, nothing is easier than to let him know that his Fleet wife is dead. They die of drink daily. Roger, my man, will swear what I tell him to swear. This I have the less compunction in persuading him to do, because, in consequence of his horrid thieving, robbing, fighting, and blaspheming, his soul is already irretrievably lost, his conscience seared with a hot iron, and his heart impenitent as the nether millstone. Also the evidence of the marriage, the register, is in my hands, and may be kept or destroyed, as I please. Therefore it matters nothing what this rogue may swear. I think, child, the best thing would be to accept my lord’s proposals; to let him know, through me, that his former wife, whose name he knows not, is dead; he may be told, so that he may remain ashamed of himself, and anxious to bury the thing in silence, that she died of gin. He would then be free to marry you; and, should he not redeem his promise and give you honourable marriage, it will be time to reduce him to submission—with the register.”

Shall I confess that, at the first blush, this proposal was welcome to me? It seemed so easy a relief from all our troubles. The supposed death of his wife, the destruction of the register—what could be better?

“Be under no fear,” continued the Doctor, “of my fellow Roger. He dares not speak. By Heaven! I have plenty to hang him with a dozen times over, if I wished. He would murder me, if he dared, and would carry me up to Holborn Bridge, where I could be safely dropped into the Fleet Ditch; but he dares not try. Why, if he proclaimed this marriage on Fleet Bridge (but that he dares not do), no one would believe it on his word, such a reputation has he, while I have the register safely locked up. Whereas, did they come forward to give evidence for me, at my bidding, so clear is my case, and so abundant my proofs, that no counsel could shake them.”

This speech afforded me a little space wherein to collect my thoughts. Love makes a woman strong. Time was when I should have trembled before the Doctor’s eyes, and obeyed him in the least particular. But now I had to consider another beside myself.

What I thought was this. Suppose the plot carried out, and myself married to my lord again. There would be this dreadful story on my mind. I should not dare to own my relationship with this famous Doctor; I should be afraid lest my husband should find it out. I should be afraid of his getting on the scent, as children say; therefore I should be obliged to hide all that part of my life which was spent in the Fleet. Yet there were many persons—Mrs. Esther, Sir Miles, Solomon Stallabras, beside my uncle—who knew all of it, except that one story. Why, any day, any moment, a chance word, an idle recollection, might make my husband suspicious and jealous. Then farewell to all my happiness! Better none at all than to have it snatched from me in that way.

“There is a second plan,” he went on. “We may tell him exactly who and what you are.”

“Oh, sir!” I cried, “do nothing yet. Leave it all with me for a little—I beg, I implore you! I love him, and he loves me. Should I harm him, therefore, by deceiving him and marrying him, while I hid the shameful story of the past? You cannot ask me to do that. I will not do it. And should you, against my will, acquaint him with what has happened, I swear that, out of the love I bear him, I will refuse and deny all your allegations—yea, the very fact itself, with the register and the evidence of those two rogues. Sir, which would the court believe? the daughter of the Rev. Lawrence Pleydell, or the rascal runner of a—of yourself?”

He said nothing. He looked surprised.

“No,” I went on; “I will have no more deception. Every day I suffer remorse from my sin. There shall be no more. My mind, sir, is made up. I will confess to him everything. Not to-night; I cannot, to-night. And then, if he sends me away with hatred, I will never—never—stand in his way; I will be as one dead.”

“This,” said the Doctor, “it is to be young and to be in love. I was once like that myself. Go, child; thou shalt hear from me again.”

He put on his mitre and beckoned me to the door. I went out without another word. Without stood a crowd, including Peggy Baker.

“Oh!” she cried. “She looks frightened, yet exulting. Dear Miss Pleydell, I hope he prophesied great things for you! A title perhaps, an estate in the country, a young and handsome lover, as generous as he is constant. But we know the course of true love never——”

Here my lord took my hand and led me away from the throng. Another pair went in, and the great negro before the door began again to flash his cutlass in the lights, to show his white teeth, and to turn those white eyes about which looked so fierce and terrible.

The agitation of spirits into which I was thrown by this interview with the Doctor, blinded me for the moment to the fact that Harry Temple, of whose pretensions I thought I had disposed, was still an angry and rejected suitor. Indeed, for a few days he had ceased to persecute me. But to-night he manifested a jealousy which was inexcusable, after all I had said to him. No one, as I had gone so far as almost to explain to him, had a better right to give me his hand for the evening than my lord; yet this young man, as jealous as the blacksmith god whom he personated, must needs cross our steps at every turn, throwing angry glances both upon me and my partner. He danced with no one; he threw away his hammer, left off limping, consorted with none of the gay company, but nursed his wrath in silence.

Now the last dance of the evening, which took place at two o’clock in the morning, was to be one in which all the ladies threw their fans upon the table, and the gentlemen danced each with her whose fan he picked from the pile. My lord whispered to me that I was first to let him see my fan, whereupon, when the fans lay upon the table, he deliberately chose my own and brought it to me.

I took off my domino, which was now useless, because all the company knew the disguise. Everybody laughed, and we took our places to lead off the country-dance.

It was three o’clock when we finished dancing and prepared to go home.

Harry Temple here came up to me and asked if he might have the honour of escorting me to my lodgings. I answered that I had already promised that favour to Lord Chudleigh.

“Every dance, the whole evening: the supper, the promenade: all given to this happy gentleman! Surely, Kitty, the Queen of the Wells might dispense her favours more generously.”

“The Queen,” said Lord Chudleigh, “is the fountain of honour. We have only to accept and be grateful.”

I laughed and bade Harry good-night, and offered him my hand, which he refused sullenly; and murmuring something about pride and old friends, turned aside and let us go.

Everybody, it seems, noticed the black looks of Harry Temple all the evening, and expected, though in my happiness I thought not of such a thing, that high words would pass between this sulky young gentleman and his favoured rival, to whom he was so rude and unmannerly. Now, by the laws of the Wells, as laid down strictly in the rules of the great Mr. Nash for Tunbridge Wells and Bath, and adopted at all watering-places, the gentlemen wore no swords on the Parade and in the card-rooms; yet it was impossible to prevent altogether the quarrels of hot-blooded men, and the green grass of the Downs had been stained with the blood of more than one poor fellow, run through as the consequence of a foolish brawl. When will men cease to fight duels, and seek to kill each other for a trifling disagreement, or a quarrel?

Generally, it takes two to make a quarrel, and few men are so perverse as deliberately to force a duel upon another against his will. Yet this was what Harry Temple, my old schoolfellow, my old friend, of whom I once held so high an opinion, so great a respect, actually did with Lord Chudleigh. He forced the quarrel upon him. My lord was always a gentleman of singular patience, forbearance, and sweetness, and one who would take, unprovoked, a great deal of provocation, never showing the usual sign of resentment or anger, although he might be forced to take up the quarrel. He held, indeed, the maxim that a man should always think so well of himself as to make an insult impossible, unless it be deliberate, open, and clearly intended. As for his courage, he went on to say that it was a matter of self-respect: if a man’s own conscience approve (which is the ultimate judge for all but those whose consciences are deadened by an evil life), let him fear not what men say, knowing full well that if they dare say more than the customs of the polite world allow, it is easy for every man to prove that he is no coward.

Lord Chudleigh, then, having led us to the door of our own lodging, unfortunately returned to the Assembly Rooms, where—and outside upon the Terrace—some of the gentlemen yet lingered. I say unfortunately, because, as for what followed, I cannot believe but that poor Harry, whose disposition was not naturally quarrelsome, might have been inflamed by drinking wine with them when he ought to have gone to bed. Now wine, to one who is jealous, is like oil upon fire. And had my lord, for his part, retired to Durdans—as he might very properly have done, seeing the lateness of the hour—the morning’s reflection would, I am sure, have persuaded Harry that he had been a fool, and had no reasonable ground for quarrel with his lordship or with me.

The sun was already rising, for it was nearly four o’clock in the morning; the ladies were all gone off to bed; those who lay about the benches yawned and stretched themselves; some were for bed, some for another bottle; some were talking of an early gallop on the Downs; the lamps yet glimmered in their sockets; the Terrace looked, with its oil lamps still burning in the brightness of the morning sunshine, with the odds and ends of finery, the tattered bravery of torn dresses, gold and silver lace, tinfoil, broken paper crowns and helmets, as sad as a theatre the morning after a performance; the stalls of the Wizard, the Italian performers, and the dancing girl, were empty and open; their hangings were already torn down, the stand for the horses beside the pond was broken in parts.

When Lord Chudleigh came back he found waiting for him, among the latest of the revellers, Harry Temple, his face pale, his lips set, his manner agitated, as of one who contemplates a rash act.

My lord threw himself upon a bench under the trees, his head upon his hand, pensive, thinking to calm the agitation of his spirits by the freshness of the morning air. Harry began walking up and down in front of him, casting angry glances at him, but as yet speaking not. Now, within the deserted card-room when the lights had all burned out, and the windows were wide open, sat all by himself Sir Miles Lackington, turning over a pack of cards at one of the empty tables, and thinking over the last night’s play, at which he had won some money, and regretted to have been stopped just when he was in luck. There were now only a few gentlemen left, and these were one by one dropping off.

Presently, with an effort, Harry Temple stopped in front of his lordship and spoke to him.

I declare that up to this time poor Harry had always been the most peaceful of creatures, though strong, and well accustomed to hold bouts with Will, in which he proved almost equal to that stalwart competitor, at wrestling, singlestick, quarterstaff, or boxing. Also, as was proved by the affray of the Saturday evening, already related, not unready on occasion. But a bookish youth, and not one who sought to fix quarrels upon any man, or to commit murder in the name of honour. And this shows how dangerous a passion is thwarted love, which can produce in a peaceful man’s bosom jealousy, hatred, rage, and forgetfulness of that most sacred commandment which enjoins us not to slay.

“I trust, my lord,” he said, laughing and blushing, as if uncertain of himself, “that your lordship hath passed a pleasant evening with the Queen of the Wells.”

Lord Chudleigh looked up, surprised. Then he rose, for there was a look in Harry’s eyes which meant mischief. The unlucky love-sick swain went on—

“Lord Chudleigh and Miss Kitty Pleydell. The very names seem made for one another; no doubt his lordship is as fine a gentleman as the lady is beautiful.”

“Sir!” said Lord Chudleigh quietly, “you have perhaps been drinking. This is the only excuse for such an association of my name with that young lady’s in a public assembly.”

“Oh!” he said, “I want no excuse for addressing your lordship. The Temples were gentlefolk before the Chudleighs were heard of.”

“Well, Mr. Temple, so be it. Enjoy that superiority. Shall we close this discussion?”

“No, my lord; there is more to be said.”

He spoke hotly, and with an anger which ought surely to have been simulated, such small provocation as he had received.

“Then, sir, in Heaven’s name, let us say it and have done with it.”

“You have offended me, my lord—you best know how.”

“I believe I know, Mr. Temple. You also know what grounds you have for believing that to be an offence.”

“I say, my lord,” his voice rose and his eyes flashed, “that you have offended me.”

“Had I done so wittingly,” returned Lord Chudleigh, “I should willingly ask pardon. But I deny your right to take offence.”

“You have offended me highly,” he repeated, “and that in a manner which makes an apology only a deeper insult. You have offended me in a manner which only one thing can satisfy.”

“Before we go any farther, Mr. Temple,” said my lord, sitting down again calmly and without heat, “I would know exactly the nature of my offence, and your reasonable right to regard it as such.”

“It needs not, my lord. You know well enough what I mean.”

“I know that, of course; I would wish to know, as well, your right to be offended.”

“I say, my lord, that it is enough.”

Harry, being in the wrong, spoke still more loudly, and those who were left drew near to see the quarrel.

“You need not raise your voice, sir,” said Lord Chudleigh; “I like any altercation in which I may be unhappily engaged to be conducted like the rest of my business in life, namely, with the decorum and quietness which become gentlemen like the Temples, and those of that younger family the Chudleighs. You have, I believe, travelled. You have, therefore, without doubt, had opportunities of observing the well-bred and charming quietness with which gentlemen in France arrange these little matters, particularly when, as now, the dispute threatens to involve the name of a lady. Now, sir, that we understand each other, I must inform you that unless I know the exact nature of my offence to you, which I have the right to demand, this affair will proceed no further. I would as soon accept a quarrel from a mad Malay running amuck at all he meets.”

“My lord!” cried Harry, with red face and trembling fingers.

“Of course I do not pretend to be unable to form a guess,” Lord Chudleigh went on gravely; “but I must beg you to instruct me exactly what you mean. You will observe, sir, that I am here, as a visitor, previously unknown to yourself. It is therefore strange to learn that one has offended a gentleman towards whom my behaviour has been neither less nor more guarded than towards others.”

“My lord, you have offended me by the attentions you have paid to a young lady.”

“Indeed, sir! So I believed. But permit me to ask if the young lady is connected with you or with your house by any ties of relationship or otherwise?”

“She is not, my lord.”

“Further: have you any right of guardianship over this young lady?”

“None, my lord. But yet you have offended me.”

“The young lady is free to accept the attention of any man she may prefer; to show her preference as openly as she considers proper. I conclude this to be the case. And, if so, I am unable to perceive in what way I can wilfully have offended you.”

“Your lordship,” said Harry Temple, enraged by his adversary’s calmness, but yet with sufficient self-command to speak in lower tones, “has offended me in this: that if you had not paid those attentions to Miss Pleydell, she might have accepted those courtesies which I was prepared to offer her.”

“Indeed, sir! that is a circumstance with which I am wholly unconcerned. No doubt the same thing might be said by other gentlemen in this company.”

“I knew that young lady, my lord, long before you did. It was my deliberate purpose, long ago, to make her my wife when the opportunity arrived——”

“The time has come,” resumed Lord Chudleigh, “but not the man——”

“I say, it was my fixed intention to marry Miss Pleydell. I did not, my lord, form these resolutions lightly, nor abandon them without sufficient reason. It is still my resolution. I say that you shall not stand between me and my future wife!”

“Indeed! But suppose Miss Pleydell refuses to give her consent to this arrangement? Surely such a resolve, however laudable, demands the consent of the other party.”

“Miss Pleydell will not refuse my hand when you have left her. Abandon a field, my lord, which never belonged to yourself——”

“Tut, tut!” said Lord Chudleigh. “This, sir, is idle talk. You cannot seriously imagine——”

“I seriously imagine that, if necessary, I will make my way to that young lady over your lordship’s body, if you stand in my way.”

Lord Chudleigh took off his hat and bowed low.

“Then, sir, the sooner you take the first step in the pursuance of your resolution the better. I will bar your way upon the Downs at any time you may appoint.”

Harry returned the obeisance.

“I wait your lordship’s convenience,” he said.

“My convenience shall be yours, Mr. Temple. For it is you who desire to run me through, not I you. Have your own way.”

“It is late to-night,” said Harry, now quite calm, though with a hot flush upon his cheek. “Your lordship would like to rest. Perhaps to-morrow, after breakfast, while the ladies are at morning prayer.”

Oh, the bloodthirsty wretch!

Lord Chudleigh bowed again.

“That time, Mr. Temple, will I dare say suit the convenience of my second.”

The code of honour, be it observed, does not allow the exhibition of any emotion of horror, remorse, or repugnance, when you arrange to commit that private murder which gentlemen call a duel.

Lord Chudleigh bowed once more, and left his adversary. He walked across the Terrace to the card-room, where Sir Miles was alone with the scattered packs of cards. When he came out, he bowed a third time, and walked slowly away. I hope that, in his own chamber, he reflected on the wickedness of the appointment he had made, and on its possible consequences.

Sir Miles threw away the cards, and came out rubbing his eyes.

“Ods my life, sir!” he said, addressing Harry Temple, who, now that the mischief was done, looked somewhat sheepish, though dignified.

The few gentlemen who were left drew nearer, anxious to lose nothing of what might happen. English people of all ranks love above all things to watch a quarrel or a fight, whatever be the weapons.

“Ods my life, sir!” repeated Sir Miles. “This is a pretty kettle of fish! Here we have all spent a pleasant night—dancing, playing, and making love, every one happy, even though some gentlemen did lose their mistresses or their money, and here you spoil sport by quarrelling at the end of it. What the Devil, sir, does it concern you whether my lord talks gallantry with one young lady or another?”

“That, Sir Miles, allow me to tell you, is my business. If you are his lordship’s second, let us arrange accordingly. If a principal, let us fight afterwards.”

“No, sir,” replied the baronet. “It is everybody’s business. It concerns the cheerfulness, the security, the happiness of all this honourable company. What! if I amuse myself, and a young lady too, by writing poems on her dainty fingers, must I needs go out and measure swords with every young hot-head who would fain be doing the same? Seconds and principals? Have we nothing to do but to fight duels? Mr. Temple, I thought better things from a gentleman of your rank and family. What! any jackanapes lawyer—any pert young haberdasher—might think it fine thus to insult and challenge a harmless nobleman of great name and excellent qualities! But for you, Mr. Temple! you, sir, a gentleman of your county, and of ancient and most honourable stock——Fie, sir, fie!”

“I think, Sir Miles,” said Harry, who wished now to have the preliminaries settled without more ado, “that things having so far advanced, these reproaches may be spared. Let us proceed to business.”

“A girl can choose, I suppose,” Sir Miles went on, “without the interference or the objection of a man who is neither her father, her guardian, her brother, nor her cousin? Why, as for this young lady, whose name, I say, it is not respectful to name in this business—I myself, sir, I myself paid her attentions till she bade me go about my business. What, sir! do you think I should have suffered any man to question my right to make a Lady Lackington where I choose, and where I could! She laughed in my face. Mighty pretty laughing lips she has, and teeth as white as pearls; and a roguish eye when she chooses, for all she goes so grave. Did I, then, go snivelling in the dumps? Did I take it ill that she showed a liking for Lord Chudleigh, who is worth ten of me, and a dozen of you? Did I hang my chops and wipe my eyes? Did I, therefore, insult his Lordship, and call him out?”

“All this, Sir Miles,” Harry replied impatiently, “has nothing to do with the question which lies between Lord Chudleigh and myself.”

“What I argued, for my own comfort, when sweet Kitty said me nay, was this: that the marriage condition hath many drawbacks, as is abundantly evident from history and poetry, while freedom hath many sweets—that a man may tire of a Beauty and a Toast in a month, but he never tired of liberty—that children often come after matrimony, and they are expensive—that, as for the lady’s good looks, why, as many pretty women are in the sea as ever came out of it. And as for my wounded feelings, why, what is it but so much vanity? Granted that she is the Toast this year: prithee who will be the Toast next? Last year, they tell me, it was Peggy Baker—and a monstrous pretty woman, too, though not to compare with Kitty. Now her nose is out of joint. Who next? Some little miss now getting rapped over the knuckles in the nursery, Mr. Temple; and she will be, in her turn, quite as fine a woman as we shall live to see. That is to say, as I shall live to see, because you, of course, will be no more. At eleven o’clock upon the Downs you will get your quietus; when my lord’s sword has once made daylight through your fine waistcoat. ’Tis pity, but yet what help? Mighty little looking after pretty women where you are going to, Mr. Temple. I advise you to consider your earthly concerns before you go out. Well, ’tis a shame, it is, a well-set-up man like you, with a likely face and pretty fortune, to throw all away because a woman says nay: