So that to every lover the old language, with its musty tropes and rusty figures, is new and fresh, just as any other delight in life when first tasted. I say nothing for that poor weakling, that hothouse plant, the passion affected by beaux at a watering-place for fashionable beauties, which may use the strong language of real love, and yet is so fragile as to be in danger of perishing with every cold blast and frosty air.
I would not laugh at these simple poets, because I have learned since then that there are youths who, too bashful to speak, may yet conceive such a pure and noble passion for a woman—who certainly does not deserve it—as may serve for them as a stimulus and goad to great actions. For no creature, whether man or woman, can do fit suit and service to another, whether in thought or action, without endeavouring to make himself fit and worthy to be her servant. And if he be but one of a hundred following in a crowd of worshippers, it is good for him to mark and obey the laws of gallantry and knightly service, and to lay aside for a while the talk of barrack, stable, coffee-house, and gaming-room.
“Pretty moralist,” said Nancy, “you would like the young fellows at your heel, doing suit and service; and you would like to feel that their attendance is doing good to their innocent souls. Now, for my part, I think only how they may be doing good to myself, and when I see them figuring and capering, hat under arm, one foot valiantly stuck out—so—the ties of their wigs wagging behind them, and their canes bobbing at their wrists. I feel, my dear, as if I was not born in vain. All this posturing, all this capering, like a French dancing-master or a bear with a hurdy-gurdy, is meant for me—that is, except what is meant for you, which is the larger half. It may do good to the men: I am sure I wish from my heart it does, because the poor profligates want so much good done to them; but I rather love to think of the honour it confers upon us women, and the envy, hatred, and malice it awakens in the breast of our sisters. My dear Peggy Baker is turning positively green with this hateful passion of jealousy. To be a Toast, even a second Toast, like me, when your superior charms—I am not a bit jealous, Kitty, my dear—have had their due acknowledgment, is a very great honour. In years to come, say about the beginning of the nineteenth century, if I live so long, I shall say to my grandchildren, who will then be about eighteen or nineteen, and as beautiful as the day, ‘My dears,’ I shall say, ‘your grandmother, though you will find it difficult to believe, was not always toothless, nor did her hands always shake, nor were her cheeks wrinkled, nor were her chin and nose close together. Look in the glass, girls, and you may guess what your poor old grandmother once was, in the days when she was pretty Nancy Levett, a Toast when the beautiful Kitty Pleydell was Queen of the Wells. Kitty Pleydell, who married——,’ no, my dear, I will not say it, because it might bring you bad luck.”
I told Nancy about Harry Temple’s strange mistake; she grew very serious over it, and reflected what was best to be done. I warned her to say nothing herself, but to leave him to his own reflections. First he sulked, that is to say, he avoided me in public, and did not even pay his respects to Mrs. Pimpernel in private; then he implored me to give him another hearing. I gave him what he asked, I heard him tell his story over again, then I assured him once more that it was impossible. He behaved very strangely, refused to take my answer as final, and vexed us by betraying in public the discontent and anger which, had he possessed any real regard for me, he ought to have kept a secret in his own breast. Some of the backbiters, as Lord Chudleigh told me, put it about that I had thrown over my former lover. Allusion to this calumny was made, as has already been shown, in the anonymous letters.
Lord Chudleigh paid me no compliments and wrote me no verses, nor did he often join in our train upon the Terrace. But he distinguished us by frequently paying a visit to our lodgings in the morning, when he would sit and read, or talk, and sometimes share our simple dinner.
“We who belong to the great City houses,” said Mrs. Esther after one of these visits, “are accustomed from infancy to familiarity with Nobility. My father, when Worshipful Master of the Scourers’ Company, or in his year of office as Lord Mayor, would sometimes have a peer on one side and a bishop on the other. Baronets and simple knights we hardly valued. Therefore these visits of his lordship, which are no doubt a great distinction for both of us, seem like a return of my childhood.”
We learned from Lord Chudleigh that it was his intention (afterwards fully carried out) to take that active part in the administration of state affairs to which his exalted rank naturally called him.
“I am ever of opinion,” he said, “that a gentleman in this country owes it to his birth and position to do his utmost for the preservation of our liberties and the maintenance of sound government.”
And he once told us, to our astonishment, that had he lived in the days of Charles the First, he should have joined the party of the Parliament.
It seemed to me, who watched him narrowly and with trembling, that he was desirous, in these visits, to find out what manner of person I was, and whether I possessed any virtues, to illustrate that external comeliness which had already taken his fancy. Alas! I thought continually with shame of the time when I should have to throw myself at his feet and implore his mercy and forgiveness.
Then he encouraged me to talk about my childhood and my father, taking pleasure, I thought, in the contemplation of a life given up to heaven and learning, and smiling at the picture of Lady Levett, who ruled us all, the two boys who came home to tease the girls, and little Nancy, so fond and so pretty. I wondered then that he should care to hear about the way I lived, the books I read, the death of my honoured father, and the little things which make up a country maid’s life, wherein the ripples and the gentle breezes are as important to her as great storms and gales to men and women of the world. I know, now, that when a man loves a girl there is nothing concerned with her that he does not want to know, so that her image may be present to him from the beginning, and that he may feel that there has been no year of her life, no action of hers at all, that he does not know, with what she thought, what she did, who were her friends, and what she was like.
Thus he told me about his own country house, which was a very fine place indeed, and his gardens, stables, library, pictures, and all the splendid things which he had inherited.
Two things we hid from each other, the one that I was the girl whom he had married: the other, that he was already married.
“Child,” said Nancy, “the young lord hath plainly bewitched thee. Remember, my dear, that a woman must not be won too easily. Can we not break his heart a little?”
Lady Levett took occasion to speak to me to the same effect.
“Kitty,” she said, “I have eyes in my head and can see. Do not encourage the man too much. Yet it would be a grand match, and I should be well content to see a coronet on that pretty head. Still, be not too ready. But he is a handsome fellow, and I believe as good as we can expect of any man in this profligate age. Nay, child, do not change colour: I know nothing against his character, except that he has a town house and that he has lived much in London. But make him feel a little the pangs of love. Listen, or pretend to listen, to the addresses of another man. When my husband came courting me, do you think I said yes all at once? Not so. There were other suitors in the field, let me tell thee, Kitty, as young and as rich as Sir Robert, and of as good a family. To be sure, there was none so good in my eyes. As for one, he rode to hounds all day, and in the evening slept in his chair. He broke his neck jumping a brook when he was but thirty. Another, he drank October all day long, and at night was carried to bed like a log. When he was forty he was taken with a seizure, being still a bachelor, all for love of me and his brown jug, which I think he loved still more. And a third, he was choleric, and used to beat his grooms. Now, my dear, a man who beats his grooms is just as likely to beat his wife. Wherefore, beware of strikers. And a fourth, he was a gambler, and all night over his cards, so that I would have none of him. He lost his estate and went into the Austrian service. There he was run through the body and killed in a duel by a French chevalier, who had first robbed him at faro. But do not think I let my true love know my resolution. I plagued him first, and teased him until he was humble. Then I bade him be happy, and the good man hath been happy ever since.”
Alas! I could not tease my lord or plague him: I could not coquet with other men, even though Peggy went about saying—
“The silly wretch is in love with him: she shows it in her eyes. Oh the impudence!”
Without telling any one of his intention, Lord Chudleigh posted one morning to town. I was acquainted with this news by Miss Peggy Baker, who informed me of it in her kindest manner.
“Dear Miss Pleydell,” she said, after morning service, as we were coming out of church, “have you heard the dreadful news?”
“I have heard no news,” I replied.
“We have lost the chief ornament of the company. Yes; you may well turn pale”—I am sure I did nothing of the kind—“Lord Chudleigh has left Epsom—some say for the season: some say on account of some distaste he has conceived for the place: some say on account of previous engagements.”
“What kind of engagements?”
“I thought you would ask that. It is rumoured that he is shortly to be married to a young lady of good birth and with a fortune equal to his own. It is certain that he will not return.”
“Really!” said Nancy, who had now come to my aid, “how shall you be able to exist, dear Miss Peggy, without him?”
“I? Oh, indeed, I am not concerned with Lord Chudleigh.”
“I mean, how can you exist when the principal subject for scandalous talk, and the chief cause of anonymous letters, is removed?”
She blushed and bit her lips.
“I think, Miss Levett,” she gasped, “that you allow your tongue greater liberties than are consistent with good-breeding.”
“Better the tongue than the pen, dear Miss Baker,” replied Nancy. “Come, Kitty, we will go weep the absence of this truant lord.”
“The Temple still remains—he! he!” said Miss Baker.
This was a conversation at which I could laugh, spiteful though it was. I knew not that my lord was gone away, nor why. But one thing I knew very well. He was not gone to marry any one. If that can be called ease which was mostly shame, I felt easy, because ordinary jealousy was not possible with me. He could not marry, if he wished. Poor lad! his fate was sealed with mine.
Yet, thinking over what might happen, I resolved that night upon a thing which would perhaps incense my uncle, the Doctor, beyond all measure. I resolved that should that thing happen which most I dreaded, that my lord should fall in love with another woman, I would myself, without his ever knowing who had done it, release him from his ties. I knew where the Doctor kept his registers: I would subtract the leaf which certified our union, and would send it to my lord; or should the Doctor, as was possible, propose any legal action, I would refuse to appear or to act. Now without me the Doctor was powerless.
Lord Chudleigh went to town, in fact, to see the Doctor. He drove to his town house in St. James’s Square, and in the morning he sallied forth and walked to the Fleet Market.
The Reverend Doctor Shovel was doing a great and splendid business. Already there were rumours of the intention of Government to bring in a bill for the suppression of these lawless Fleet marriages. Therefore, in order to stimulate the lagging, he had sent his messengers, touters, and runners abroad in every part of the city, calling on all those who wished to be married secretly, or to avoid wedding expenses, feasts, and junketings, and to be securely married, to make haste, while there was yet time. Therefore there was a throng every day from seven in the morning, of prentices with their masters’ daughters, old men with their cooks, tradesmen who would avoid the feasting, sailors home for a few weeks, as eager to marry a wife as if they were to be home for the whole of their natural lives, officers who wanted to secure an heiress, and many honest folk who saw in a Fleet wedding the easiest way of avoiding the expenses of their friends’ congratulations, with the foolish charges of music, bells, dancing, and rejoicing which often cripple a young married couple for years. Why, the parents connived with the girls, and when these ran away early in the morning, and came home falling upon their knees to confess the truth, the play had been arranged and rehearsed beforehand, and the forgiveness took the form of money for furniture instead of for feasting. But still the parents went about holding up their hands and calling Heaven to witness that they could not have believed their daughter so sly and deceitful a puss.
Hither came Lord Chudleigh, heavy of heart.
The Doctor at eleven in the morning was in the full swing of his work. Two couples of the lower class were being married in the house. Outside, the place was beset with wedding parties, couples coming shyly and timidly, and couples coming openly and without shame. The touters and runners of the rival Fleet parsons were fighting, swearing, cajoling and inviting people to stop with them, holding out offers of cheapness, safe marriage, expedition, secrecy, and rum punch. Strangers to London, who had never heard of Doctor Shovel’s greatness, were led away to those pretenders whose canonical orders were so doubtful. I believe the world at large entertains contempt for all Fleet parsons as a body (happily no longer existent), but, for my own part, while I hold the memory of the Doctor in mingled shame and respect, I despise the rest because he himself held them in such low esteem.
Roger, the touter, recognised his lordship, as he made his way slowly through the mob along the side of the market.
“Good morning, my lord,” he said—his face was bloody and bruised, his tie-wig was awry, his coat was torn, so fierce had been the struggle of the morning—“good-morning, my lord. We have not seen your lordship this long while. Would your lordship like speech with the Doctor? He is busy now, and six couples wait him. Warm work it is now! But I think he will see your lordship. We should be glad to drink your lordship’s health.”
The fellow made his way through the crowd, and presently returned, saying that the Doctor was very near the benediction, after which he would give his lordship ten minutes, but no longer, and should lose a guinea for every minute.
The Doctor, in fact, was dismissing a pair of couples with a few words of advice. They were respectable young city people, getting the secret marriage for the reasons which I have already described.
“You are now,” he said, “married according to the rites of holy Mother Church. You are tied to each other for life. I hope you will thank and continually bless my name for tying the knot this morning. Remember what the Church charges her children in the words of the service. Go: be honest in your dealings, thrifty in your habits, cautious in your trusts, careful of small gains; so shall you prosper. Let the husband avoid the tavern in the morning, and the conventicle on the Sunday; let the wife study plain, roast, and boiled, make her own dresses, pretend not to be a fine madam, and have no words with gallants from the west of Temple Bar.
“If, on the other hand,” he went on, knitting his brows, “the husband spends his money in clubs, among the freemasons, and in taverns; if he do not stick to business, if he cheat in his transactions; or if the wife go finely dressed, and talk with pretty fellows when she ought to be cleaning the furniture; if they both go not to church regularly and obey the instruction of their rector, vicar, or curate—then, I say, the fate of that couple shall be a signal example. For the husband shall be hanged at Tyburn Tree, and the wife be flogged at Bridewell. Go.”
They bowed, being overwhelmed with the terrors of this parting advice, and departed. Outside, they were greeted with a roar of rough congratulation, and were followed by the shouts of the market till they reached Fleet Bridge, where they were quickly lost in the crowd.
Then the Doctor turned to Lord Chudleigh.
“Your lordship has come, I suppose,” he asked, “to inquire after the health of her ladyship?”
“I come, Doctor Shovel,” replied my lord gravely, “to know from your own lips, before I commit the affair to counsel, how far I am compromised by the disgraceful trick you played upon me about a year ago.”
“Your lordship is married,” said the Doctor simply. “So far are you compromised, and no further. Nay, we seek no further complication in this business.”
He sat down in his wooden arm-chair, and, with his elbow on the table, knitted his bushy eyebrows, frowned and shook his great forefinger in his visitor’s face.
“Your lordship is married,” he repeated. “Of that have no doubt; no doubt whatever is possible. Tell your lawyer all; refer him to me.”
“The story,” said Lord Chudleigh, “is this. I come here, out of curiosity, to see you—a man of whom I had heard much, though little to your credit. I am received by you with courtesy and hospitality. There is much drinking, and I (for which I have no defence to offer) drink too much. I awake in the morning still half unconscious. I am taken downstairs by you, and married, while in that condition, to some woman I had never before seen. After this I am again put to bed. When I awake, I am informed by you what has taken place.”
“That is a story neatly told,” said the Doctor. “If I had to tell it, however, the details would assume another complexion. What brought your lordship to spend the night in such a place as the Liberties of the Fleet? A common parson of the Fleet? Nay, that is improbable; my modesty forbids me to believe so incredible a circumstance. But we may suppose an appointment for the morning; an appointment made and kept; a secret marriage——”
“Would you dare to tell such a story as that?” Lord Chudleigh interrupted the Doctor with vehemence. “Would you dare, sir, to hint that I, Lord Chudleigh, had designed a Fleet marriage?”
“My lord, where a member of your family, where your father’s son is concerned, I dare a great deal, I assure you.”
“And the woman—who is she? Produce me this wretch, this creature who became an accomplice in the plot.”
“All in good time. Be assured, my lord, that we shall produce her in good time—at the right time. Also, be resigned to the inevitable. Nothing can unmarry you now.”
“I think,” said his lordship, “that thou art the greatest villain in England.”
“Ta, ta, ta!” The Doctor lay back in his chair with his arms extended and a genial laugh. “Your lordship is not complimentary. Still, I make allowances. I cannot fight you, because I am a clergyman; you can therefore say what you please. And I own that it certainly is a vexatious thing for a gentleman of your rank and position to have a wife and yet to have no wife: not to know her name and parentage. Why, she may be in the soap-suds over the family linen in the Fleet Liberties, or selling hot furmety on Fleet Bridge, or keeping a farthing sausage-stall in the Fleet Market, or making the rooms for the gentlemen in the Fleet Prison, or frying beefsteaks in Butcher Row; or she may be picking pockets in St. Paul’s Churchyard, or she may be beating hemp in Bridewell, or she may be under the Alderman’s rod in Newgate. Nay, my lord, do not swear in this place, which is, as one may say, a chapel-of-ease. Then her parents: your lordship’s father and mother-in-law. Roger, my touter—say—may be her parent; or she may come of a dishonest stock in Turnmill Lane; or she may be ignorant of father and mother, and may belong to the numerous family of those who sleep in the baskets of Covent Garden and the ashes of the glass-houses. I repeat, my lord, that to swear in such a place, and before such a man, a reverend divine, is impious. Avoid the habit of swearing altogether; but, if you must swear, let it be outside this house.”
“You will not, then, even tell me where she is, this wife of mine?”
“I will not, my lord.”
“You will not even let me know the depth of my degradation?”
“My lord, I will tell you nothing. As for her ladyship, I will say not a word. But as I have shown you the possibilities on one side, so I would show them to you on the other. She may be the wretched creature you fear. She may also be a gentlewoman by birth, young, beautiful, accomplished; fit, my lord, to bear your name and to be your wife.”
“No,” he cried; “that is impossible. What gentlewoman would consent to such a marriage?”
The Doctor laughed.
“There are many things in this world,” he said, “that even Lord Chudleigh cannot understand. Now, my lord, if you have nothing more to say, you may leave me. There are already half a dozen expectant brides upon the threshold. One would not, sure, keep the poor things waiting. I am generally at home, my lord, in the evening, and should you feel inclined for another social night with punch, and a song over the bowl, your lordship will be welcome, in spite of hard words.”
Lord Chudleigh answered not a word, but walked away.
Small comfort had he got from the Doctor.
Now was he in a sad plight indeed; for his heart was altogether filled with the image of Kitty Pleydell. Yet how hope to win her? And how stand by and let her be won by another man?
To be married in such a way, not to know who or what your wife might be, is, surely, a thing quite beyond any history ever told.
The Doctor’s letter had informed us of the liberation of Mr. Stallabras and Sir Miles Lackington; but we were not prepared for their arrival at Epsom. They came, however, travelling together by the coach, their object being not so much, I believe, to visit the watering-place of Epsom or to enjoy its amusements, as to renew certain honourable proposals, formerly made in less happy times, to Kitty Pleydell.
Naturally, we were at first somewhat perturbed, fearing the scandal should certain tongues spread abroad the truth as to our residence in the Fleet.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Esther, with a little sigh, “my mind is made up. We will go to Tunbridge out of their way.”
This was impossible, because they would follow us. For my own part, I looked upon the Fleet Rules with less shame than poor Mrs. Esther. To her, the memory of the long degradation was infinitely painful. For everybody, certainly, a time of degradation, however unmerited, is never a pleasant thing to remember. I think that the whole army of martyrs must agree together in forgetting the last scenes of their earthly pilgrimage. The buffetings, strippings, scourgings, roastings, burnings, and hangings, the long time of prison, the starvation, the expectancy and fear—the going forth to meet the hungry lion and the ruthless tiger—surely it cannot be comfortable to remember these? No martyr on the roll had ever been more innocent or undeserving of punishment than Mrs. Esther Pimpernel: no sufferer ever complained less: but she loved not to think of the past, nor to be reminded of it by the arrival of one whom she had known there.
Nevertheless, when Sir Miles Lackington presented himself at our lodging, he was received with a gracious friendliness.
His newly recovered liberty made little alteration in the appearance of this prodigal son. His dress was worn in the same easy disorder, the ruffles being limp, his wig tied carelessly, the lace upon his hat torn, as if in some scuffle, and the buckles of his shoes were an odd pair. His face preserved the same jolly content, as if the gifts of Fortune were to be regarded no more than her buffeting.
“We are always,” said my guardian, with a little hesitation, “we are always glad to welcome old friends—even friends in common misfortune. But, Sir Miles, it is not well to remind us—or—or to talk to others of those unhappy days.”
He laughed.
“I remember them not,” he said. “I never remember any day but the present. Why should we remember disagreeable things? Formerly we borrowed; now we lend: let us go on lending till we have to borrow again. Do you remember Mr. Stallabras the poet?”
Surely, we remembered Solomon.
“He goes abroad now in a silk-lined coat with lace ruffles. He has bought a new wig and started a subscription list for a new poem, having eaten up the last before the poem was written. I subscribed for three copies yesterday, and we pretended, both of us, he that he did not want the money, and I that I had always had it. Without forgetting and pretending, where should we be?”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Esther, “one would not willingly either forget or pretend. But some things are best remembered in silence. The memory of them should keep us humble, Sir Miles.”
“I do not wish to be humble,” replied the baronet. “Humble people do not sing and drink, nor gamble, nor make love. They go in sadness and with hanging heads. I would still go proud.”
While he was with us came Solomon himself, bravely dressed indeed, with about an ell of ribbon tied around his throat, a new and fashionable wig, and bearing himself with all the dignity possible in a poet of five-feet-three. His chin was in the air and his hat under his arm when he marched into the little room.
I shook hands with him, and whispered to him not to mention the word Fleet. Thereupon he advanced to Mrs. Esther with such a bow as would have graced a court, saying—
“Madam, I have had the honour of being presented to you in London, but I know not if I am still distinguished by your recollection.”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Esther, “that person must indeed be blind to merit who can forget Mr. Stallabras, the favourite of the Muses.”
“O madam! this compliment——”
“O sir! our hearts are not so insensible as to forget those delightful verses, which should be the glory of an unthinking age.”
I asked him then if he had received a bequest.
“I have found what is better,” he said, “a female Mæcenas. The virtues of antiquity linger only in the breasts of the fair. She is a person of singularly cold and calm judgment. Despréaux himself had not a cooler head or a sounder critical faculty. Therefore, when such a lady prophesies immortal renown to a poet, that poet may congratulate himself. I am poet laureate to Lady Tamarind, relict of Sir Joseph Tamarind, brewer and sometime sheriff in the City of London. Her ladyship’s taste is considered infallible in all subjects, whether china, tulips, plays, pictures, fans, snuff-boxes, black boys, or poets.”
His eyes twinkled so brightly, his turn-up nose seemed so joyfully to sniff the incense of praise, prosperity had already made his cheeks so sleek and fat, that we could hardly recognise our starveling poet.
“The taste,” said Mrs. Esther, “of a woman who recognises the merit of your verses, Mr. Stallabras, is beyond a doubt.”
He rubbed his hands and laughed.
“I was already out—” he began, but as we all manifested the greatest confusion at the beginning of this confession, he stopped and turned red. “I mean I was—I was——”
“You were beginning, I think,” I interrupted, “to open a new subscription.”
“Thank you, Miss Kitty,” he replied. “I was—as soon as I left the Ru—I mean, as soon as I could, I went round among my patrons with my project. This lady immediately bought all my previous poems, including the translation of ‘Lucretius,’ which the rascal publisher declared had been his ruin, when he went bankrupt, and presented me with a hundred guineas, with which I was enabled”—here he surveyed his person with satisfaction, and raised one leg to get a better view of his stockings and shoe-buckles—“I was enabled to procure garments more suitable to a personage of ambition, and to present myself to the honourable company assembled at Epsom on a footing of easy equality.”
“But a hundred guineas will not last for ever,” I said, thinking of the sums of money which I had already spent on frocks and ribbons since we came from London.
“That is not all,” he said; “I have my new volume of poems, which has been subscribed by Lady Tamarind and her friends. This is a change, is it not, Miss Kitty? Formerly, when I was in the Ru—I mean, before my good fortune came—a sixpenny ordinary was beyond me: I have lived upon half-a-crown for a week: I have written lines on a ‘Christian’s Joys’ when starving: and I have composed the ‘Lamentations of a Sinner’ when contemplating suicide as the only relief from my troubles. Now—now—how different! Fortune’s wheel has turned—Fame is mine. And as for poems, I can write as many as I please to give the world, and always find a subscription list ready to my hand. This brain, Miss Kitty, like the Fountain of Helicon, will run for ever: that is, while life and Lady Tamarind remain.”
“The stream may get muddy sometimes,” said Sir Miles, with a smile.
Fate, which condemns poets to poverty, also compensates them with hope. If they are in present sunshine, it will last for ever: if in cold neglect, the future will give what the past has refused: posterity will continue to wave the censing-pot and send up wreaths of spicy smoke, a continual flow, grateful to the blessed Spirit above: so that, fortunate or in neglect, they dwell in a perpetual dream, which keeps them ever happy.
Then the sanguine bard drew forth his new subscription list.
“I call it,” he said, “by the modest title of a ‘Project for the Publication of a New Collection of Odes and Heroic Pieces,’ by Solomon Stallabras, Esquire. I am aware that my birth gives no warrant for the assumption of the rank of Esquire, but Lady Tamarind is good enough to say that the possession of genius lifts a man to the level of the gentry, if not the nobility of the country.”
“It does, Solomon; it does,” said Sir Miles.
“I venture, ladies, therefore,” he said, taking a pencil from his pocket, “to solicit your honoured names as subscribers for this poor effort of a (perhaps) too ambitious brain. The poems, when completed, will be printed in royal quarto, with the portrait of the author as he appears crowned by Fame, while the Graces (draped for the occasion in the modern taste) stand behind him: Cupid will raise aloft the trumpet of Fame: the Muses will be seen admiring from a gentle eminence which represents Parnassus: Apollo will be figured presenting the poet with his own lyre, and the sacred stream will flow at his feet—my own design. In the distance the skin of Marsyas will hang upon a tree, as a warning to the presumption of rivals. The work will be bound in calf, and will be issued at the price of two guineas. For that small sum, ladies, Solomon Stallabras offers a copy of his poems.”
“O Mr. Stallabras!” cried Mrs. Esther, “for so charming a picture I would give not two but twenty guineas, to say nothing of the poems. Go on, dear sir; raise our thoughts to virtue, and strengthen our inclinations in the path of duty. Poets, indeed, make the way to heaven a path of roses.”
Now here was a change from old times! Solomon flourishing a subscription list in lace and silk, and Mrs. Esther offering guineas by the dozen! Sir Miles, who was leaning by the window just as he had been wont to do in our poor lodging, nodded and laughed, unseen by Mrs. Esther.
“Permit me, sir,” she said, “if you will be so good, to put my name down for——”
“O madam!”
The poet bowed low and brandished his pencil.
“For ten copies of this immortal work, in one of which I would ask you to write your name, in your own hand, for the enrichment of the volume and the admiration of posterity.”
“Madam,” said Solomon, with emotion, “I will write my name in the whole ten.”
“And, dear sir, one copy for Miss Kitty.”
“Such generosity! such princessly, noble patronage of the Poetical Art!” he fairly chuckled as he wrote down the names. “Eleven copies! Twenty-two guineas! This is indeed to realise fame.”
He received the money, which Mrs. Esther paid him with a countenance all smiles, although he vainly tried to throw into his expression the pride of the poet, to whom money is but filthy lucre.
We then conversed on Epsom and its beauties, and as the gentlemen had as yet seen none of them, I proposed to lead them to the Downs, whence I promised them such a landscape as should infinitely rejoice their eyes. They accepted with expressions of gratitude, and we started. When, however, we came to the doors of the Spread Eagle, Sir Miles recollected that at twelve he always took a tankard of cool October for the good of his health. He therefore left us, promising to follow. But as he did not come, and we saw him no more that day, I suppose he found the society of the tankard more enchanting than that of Kitty Pleydell. We therefore walked up the hill alone, and presently stood upon the open down, which commands so noble a view. The place was quite deserted that day, save for a single group of gentlemen, who were conducting a match, but so far off that we heard not their voices.
I took advantage of this solitude to convey to the poet an instruction that it would be better not to talk freely at Epsom concerning such vicissitudes of fortune as we had experienced. I pointed out to him that until Mrs. Esther’s position was securely fixed it might do her injury to have her story garbled by censorious tongues; that, for his own sake, his late connection with the Liberties of the Fleet would be better concealed; and that, for myself, although it mattered less, because I was never a prisoner while yet an inmate of the Rules, I did not wish my story, such as it was, to be passed about the Wells, and mangled in the telling.
Mr. Stallabras declared stoutly that he would not for worlds reveal one word about the past—for my sake.
“Nay,” I said, “not for mine, but for the sake of that dear lady to whom you owe so much.”
“It is true,” he said; “I owe her even life. She hath fed me from her slender stores when I was starving. And when no one would even read my verses she would learn them by heart and repeat them with tears. For her sake, then, if not for yours.”
Then his face assumed an expression like unto that with which he had once before made me an offer of his hand, and I knew that he was going to do it again. If such a thing is going to be done, the sooner it is over the better. Therefore I waited with calmness, hoping that the paroxysm would be short and not violent.
“Miss Kitty,” he began, turning very red, “some time ago I was penniless, almost starving, and detained in the (absurdly called) Liberties of the Fleet for the amount of forty pounds sixteen shillings and eightpence—a sum so small that it made me blush to confess it, most of my friends in the same place being incarcerated for substantial sums of hundreds and even thousands. In this difficult position, which required the philosophy of a Stoic to endure with resignation, I had the temerity to offer my hand to the most beautiful woman in the world. I have often, since, wondered at my own audacity and her gentleness while she refused so presumptuous a proposal.”
“Indeed, Mr. Stallabras,” I said, “you conferred great honour upon me.”
He bowed.
“The position of affairs,” he went on, “is now changed. The poet’s brows are crowned with bays by the hand of a lady as skilled in poets as she is in pug-dogs; his pockets are lined with guineas; as for the Fleet Rules—I whistle the memory of the place to the winds. Phew! it is gone, never to return: I see before me a long and great future, when booksellers will compete for the honour of publishing me, and the greatest lords and ladies in the land will rush to subscribe for copies. Like Shakespeare, I shall amass a fortune: like Prior, I shall receive offers of embassies: like Addison and Chaucer, I shall be placed in posts of honour and profit.”
“I hope, Mr. Stallabras,” I said, “that such will indeed be your future.”
“Do you really hope so, Miss Kitty?” His face flushed again, and I was quite sorry for him, knowing the pain I was about to inflict upon him. “Do you hope so? Then that emboldens me to say—Fairest of your sex, divine nymph, accept the homage of a poet: be celebrated for ever in his immortal verse. Be my Laura! Let me be thy Petrarch!”
“I will,” I replied. “I accept that offer joyfully. I will be to you what Laura was to Petrarch, if that will content you.”
I gave him my hand, which he seized with rapture.
“Oh, beautiful Kitty!” he cried, with such joy in his eyes that I repented having said so much, “fortune has now bestowed upon me all I ask. When, goddess, wilt thou crown my happiness!”
“It is already crowned,” I replied. “I have given you, Mr. Stallabras, all you asked for. Let me remind you that you yourself told me the story of Petrarch’s love. I will be your Laura, but I must have the liberty of doing what Laura did—namely, the right to marry some one else.”
His face fell.
“Oh!” he murmured. “Why did I not say Heloïse?”
“Because she was shut up in a convent. Come, Mr. Stallabras, let us remain friends, which is far better for both of us, and less trying to the temper than being lovers. And I will help you with your subscription-book. As for being married, you would tire of me in a week.”
Upon this he fell to protesting that it was impossible for any man to tire of such a paragon among women, and I dare say the poor deluded creature really meant what he said, because men in love are blind. When this failed to move me, he lamented his ill-fortune in having placed his hopes upon the heart of a beautiful statue as cold as Dian. Nor was it until he had prophesied death to himself and prayed for ruin and loss of his fame, both of which, he said, were now useless, or comparatively useless to him, that I succeeded in making him, to a certain extent, reasonable, and calming his anger. He really had thought that so grand an offer of marriage with a poet, whom he placed on about the same level with Homer, would tempt any woman. According to some detractors of the fair sex, every woman believes that every man must fall in love with her: but I am sure that there is no man who does not believe that he is irresistible when once he begins to show a preference or an inclination.
I then persuaded him, with honeyed words, to believe in my sorrow that I was not able to accept his proposals; and I added that as he had by this time sufficiently admired the beauties of the landscape, we might return to the town, when I should have the honour of presenting him to some of the better sort among the visitors.
He came down the hill with me, sighing after the manner of poets in love, and panting a little, because he was fat and short of breath, and I walked fast.
We found the Terrace crowded with people congregated for the morning talk; the breakfasts being all eaten, the tea-drinking over, morning prayers finished, and the music playing merrily.
I presented the poet to Lady Levett as an ingenious gentleman whose verses, known all over town, were doubtless already well known to her ladyship. She had not the hardness of heart to deny knowledge of the poet, and gave him a kindly welcome to Epsom, where, she said, she had no doubt whatever but that he would meet with the reception due to qualities of such distinction.
Then I ventured to suggest that Mr. Stallabras was receiving names for a subscription edition of his new poems. Lady Levett added hers, and begged the poet to visit her at her lodging, where she would discharge her debt.
In the course of an hour I presented Stallabras to young Lord Eardesley, Harry Temple, and half the gentlemen at the Wells, asking of each a subscription to the poems, so that the fortunate poet found himself some fifty guineas the richer by his morning’s work.
“Miss Kitty,” he said humbly, “I knew not, indeed, that you were so great a lady. The ‘Queen of the Wells,’ I am told. Not but all who know your worth and kindness must rejoice at this signal triumph. I now plainly see why I must be content with the lot of Petrarch.”
Once launched in society, the poet became quickly a kind of celebrity. Just as, in some years, a watering-place would boast of having among its visitors such famous men as Dr. Johnson, Mr. Garrick, or Mr. Richardson, so now it pointed to Mr. Stallabras, and said to strangers, “See! The great Mr. Stallabras! The illustrious poet!”
He, like all men born in London, was equal to the opportunity, and rose on the wave of fashion; his subscription-list kept mounting up; he sent his poems to the press; he received proofs and read them beneath the portico, which he compared to the columns where the Roman poets had been accustomed to read their compositions. We gathered round and listened; we cried, with our handkerchiefs to our eyes: “O Mr. Stallabras, how fine! how wondrous pathetic! how just!” Then would he bow and twist, and wave his hand, and wag his head.
He became an oracle, and, like all oracles in the matter of taste, he quickly learned to give the law. He affected to understand pictures, and talked about the “brio” of one painter, and the “three-lights” rule of another; he was very sarcastic in the matter of poetry, and would allow but two good poets in the century—himself and Mr. Alexander Pope; in the region of romance he would allow little credit to Fielding, but claimed immortality for Richardson.
“Oh, sir, pardon me,” he said to one who attributed the greater merit to the former writer. “Pardon me. The characters and the situations of Fielding are so wretchedly low and dirty that I cannot imagine any one being interested in them. There is, I admit, some strength of humour in him, but he hath over-written himself. I doubt he is a strong hulking sort of man.”
“But, sir,” said Lady Levett, “we ladies like men to be strong and hearty as becomes a man. You surely do not mean that every big man must have low tastes.”
“The mind and the body are united,” said the little poet, “they influence one another. Thus, in a weak frame we find delicacy, and in a strong frame, bluntness. Softness and tenderness of mind are often remarkable in a body possessed of the same qualities. Tom Jones could get drunk on the night of his uncle’s recovery—no doubt Mr. Fielding would manifest his joy in the same manner.”
He went on to assure us that Lady Bellaston was an intimate friend of Mr. Fielding’s; that Booth was himself; Tom Jones, again, himself; Amelia his first wife; his brawls, gaols, sponging-houses, and quarrels all drawn from his own personal experience.
“He who associates with low companions, ladies,” concluded the ex-prisoner of the Fleet, “must needs himself be low. Taste consorts only with tasteful persons.”
“Should not a lady be beautiful, Mr. Stallabras?” asked a bystander. “I always supposed so, but since a man is not to be strong, perhaps I was wrong.”
“Sir!” Mr. Stallabras drew himself up to his fall height, and his fingers closed upon the roll of proof-sheets as if it had been a sword-hilt. “Sir! all ladies—who have taste—are beautiful. I am ready to be the champion of the sex. Some are more beautiful than others,”—here he raised his eyes to me and sighed. “Some flowers are more beautiful than others. The man of taste loves to let his eyes rest on such a pleasing object,”—here two young gentlemen winked at each other—“she is a credit to her sex. When goodness is joined to such beauty, as is the case with——” Here he looked at me and hesitated.
“Oh!” cried Nancy, “say with me, Mr. Stallabras, or Miss Peggy Baker.”
“May I say Miss Pleydell?” he asked, with a comprehensive smile. “There, indeed, is all Clarissa, and the heart of sensibility, in contemplating her perfections, reverts to the scenes of our divine Richardson.”
Thus did I get rid of one suitor, knowing that there were still two more in the field, and anxious about my lord’s absence, which, I doubted not, was concerned in some way with me. Heavens! if he should find out the secret! If the Doctor should communicate to him the thing which I desired to tell at my own time and place.
The Evil One, at this juncture, suggested a temptation of his own.
Suppose a message, which my lord could trust, were to reach him, stating that there would be no attempt to follow up the so-called marriage in the Rules, that he could go his own way, unmolested; that the very certificate and the leaf of the register containing the proof of the marriage would be restored to him—how would that be?
Yet, what sort of happiness could a wife expect who every day had to fear the chance of detection and exposure? Some time or other he would learn that I was the niece of the man who had dealt him this blow; some day he would learn the whole story. Why, there was not only the Doctor, but his man Roger, the villain with the pale face, the scarred cheeks, and the red nose. If the Doctor were dead, what would prevent such a man from telling the story abroad and proclaiming it to all comers?
For poor Kitty there was only one course open; she must work her way to happiness through shame and confession. Yet with all the shame and confession there was no certainty that the happiness would follow. A man vehemently loves and desires a woman, but a woman vehemently desires the love and desire of a man. I desired, with all my strength and with all my might, the affections of my lord. His image, his idea, were with me always. For me there was no other man in the world.
But first I had to deal with my present suitors.
Solomon dismissed, and made happy with praises and guineas (a poet is a creature whose vanity seems always to outweigh all other qualities), I had next to reckon with Sir Miles, who was more reasonable and yet more persistent.
I knew that he had come to Epsom on purpose to seek me out. That was borne in upon me with a force not to be resisted. He always did me the honour of showing me a preference when we lived under the same roof, and when he would lie in wait for me at the foot of the sanded stairs. And, of course, I liked him. He was good-natured, he had the air noble; he would not, certainly, beat his wife or treat her unkindly, although he would probably spend all the money in drink and play. And whether he was rich or poor, in the Rules or in the Prison, or wandering free, he would still be the same easy, careless creature, happy in the sunshine, happier by candlelight over a bowl of punch.
On the Terrace, where we met him in the afternoon, he was the same, save that his clothes were newer, as when, just as he lounged now beneath the trees, he had then lounged among the bulkheads and stalls of the market, till evening came with the joys of the day. Always with the carriage of a gentleman. Most of the beaux of Epsom were such gentlemen as claim the title of Esquire by right of their profession as attorneys, barristers, officers, nabobs, rich merchants, and the like. As for their manners, they were easy so long as they were natural, and then they were somewhat barbarous; when they endeavoured to assume the manners of such as Lord Chudleigh, they were awkward. As for the young fellows from the country estates, they were always clowns; they came clowns to the Wells; they put on fine clothes; laughed and grimaced; lost their money at horse-racing and lansquenet, and went home clowns. But Sir Miles was always, even when drunk, a gentleman.
I suppose he had the impudence, at first, to suppose that I was going to seek him out and distinguish him before all the company with my particular regard. When he discovered that it was difficult to get speech with the Queen of the Wells unless you joined her court, he came along with the rest, and was speedily as ready with his compliment, his innuendo, his jest, and his anecdote. He was more ready than most, because he had seen the great world in his youth, and had caught their manner. The general run of gallants were, it seemed to me, afraid of him. To be sure, he was a big, strong man, could have crunched two or three of the slender beaux between his arms; yet he was the most kind-hearted fellow in the world.
Three days after his arrival, Lord Chudleigh having then been away for a week, and I beginning to wonder what business kept him so long from the apron strings of Kitty, he invited me to go with him to the Downs to see a match. I would go with him, though well I knew what he meant; and, of course, when we got to the Downs, the match was over and the people going home.
“Egad, Miss Kitty,” he said, “there is always such a plaguy crowd after your ladyship’s heels, that a man gets never a chance of a word with you, save edgeways with the pretty little beaux. Well, I have told Solomon to go to the house and take care of Mrs. Esther. There they are, cheek by jowl, and her handkerchief up to her eyes over his sentimental poetry. You and I can have a talk to ourselves. It is only a quarter of a mile from here to your lodging, but, if you like to come with me by way of the old well and Banstead, we can make it half a mile.”
“Thank you, Sir Miles,” I said; “I am not anxious to double that quarter of a mile. Consider, if you please, that I have to get home, dine, and dress for the day.”
“Very good. Have it your own way. That, to be sure, you always will have. I think, for my part, that you never looked so nice as when you wore your hair in curls, and a holland frock. Miss Kitty, do you remember a certain day when a baronet, out at elbows, offered you his hand—with nothing in it?”
“I remember it perfectly.” I laughed at the recollection. “And oh, Sir Miles, to think of how you looked when you made that condescending proposal. It was after a most disgraceful evening—you best know where. You had been brought home singing. Your neck-ribbon was untied, your wig awry, your hand shaky, your cheeks red, and in your left hand a brown mug full of old October. What a suitor!”
“Yes,” he replied, laughing, without the least appearance of being offended by my picture. “When in the Rules, I behaved according to the custom of the place. I am no longer in the Rules, but at the Wells. I remember that tankard. Considering that the day is sultry, I wish I had one in my hand this very moment.”
“I am sure, Sir Miles, that your conduct under these happier circumstances will reflect greater credit upon you.”
“Happier circumstances?” he said. “Well, I suppose so. In the Fleet I could borrow of my cousins a guinea a week or thereabout; yet borrowing is uncertain and undignified: the manner of living was cheap, but it was rude. Drink there was—more than one had a right to expect; drink was plentiful, but only the Doctor got good punch; no morals were expected of a Fleet Rules Christian. I know not that things are happier now than then. However, you might think so. Girls never have any philosophy. I have come into a small estate of six hundred pounds a year. It is not so much, by five times six hundred, as what I started with; still, with six hundred a year, one can live. Do you not think so?”
“It seems to me a very handsome provision,” I replied, thinking that Mrs. Esther had about the same.
“Yes, it will do.”
He fanned his face with his hat, and begged me to sit down on the grass and listen to him for a moment. Men, even the most careless, like Sir Miles, have a way of becoming suddenly solemn when they ask a woman to become their wife. I know not whether their gravity springs from a sense of their own great worth, or from a feeling of unworthiness; whether it is a compliment to the woman they woo, or to themselves. Or it may be a confession of the holiness of the state of matrimony, which one would fain hope to be the case.
Sir Miles then, blushing and confused, offered me, for the second time, his hand.
“You see,” he said, “the right hand doth no longer shake, nor doth the left hand hold a pot of October. I no longer am carried home at night.” He sighed, as if the reminiscence of past times was pleasing but saddening. “I am not any more the man that once I was. Will you, sweet Kitty—will you be Lady Lackington?”
“I cannot,” I said.
“There is an income of six hundred pounds a year,” he went on. “I believe there is a small house somewhere; we could live in it rent-free. You were always fond of hens and pigs, and milk, flowers, apples, and all these things. I will keep two hundred pounds for myself, and give you four. With two hundred I shall have to manage, once a week or so, a little hazard, or a trifling lansquenet.”
“What?” I asked. “Marry a gamester?”
“What matter as to that, when he will settle his money on his wife? Think of it, Kitty. I am a baronet, though a poor one, and of as good a family as any in Norfolk. Why the Lackingtons, as everybody knows, were on their lands before the Conqueror.”
“And if it is not enough to be a gamester, you are also—O Sir Miles! the shame of it——”
“We gentlemen of Norfolk,” he replied, without any appearance of shame, “are honest topers all. I deny it not. Yet what matters such a trifle in the habits of a man? Did any gentlemen in the county drink harder than my father? Yet he was hale and tough at sixty, and would have lived to eighty but for a fall he got riding home one night after dinner, having a cask, or thereabouts, of port inside him, by reason of which he mistook an open quarry for the lane which should have led him home, and therefore broke his neck.”
“So that, if his wife loved him, as no doubt she did, it was the drink that robbed her of a husband. Your tale hath a useful moral, Sir Miles.”
“Come, pretty Puritan, look at me. I am twenty-nine—in my thirtieth year; strong and hearty, if I do get drunk of an evening. What then? Do you want to talk to your husband all night? Better know that he is safe asleep, and likely to remain asleep till the drink is gone out of his head.”
“Oh, the delights of wedlock! To have your husband brought home every night by four stout fellows!”
“Evening drink hurts no man. Have I a bottle nose? Do my hands shake? Are my cheeks fat and pale? Look at me, Kitty.” He held out his arms and laughed.
“Yes, Sir Miles,” I replied; “I think you are a very lusty fellow, and, in a wrestling-bout, I should think few could stand against you. But as a husband, for the reasons I have stated, I say—No!”
“Take the four hundred, Kitty, and make me happy. I love thee, my girl, with all my heart.”
“Sir Miles, I cannot do it honestly. Perhaps I wish I could.”
“You won’t?” He looked me full in the face. “I see you won’t. You have such a telltale, straightforward face, Kitty, that it proclaims the truth always. I believe you are truth itself. They pulled you out of a well, down in your country place, in a bucket, and then went about saying you had been born.”
“Thank you, Sir Miles.”
“Am I, therefore, to go hang myself in my garters, or yours, if you will give them to me?”
“If you do, I shall be the first to run and cut you down.”
“Sweet it were,” he murmured, “to be even cut down by your fair hand. If one was sure that you would come in time——”
“You will be reasonable, dear sir, and you will neither say nor do anything silly.”
“I do not suppose I shall pine away in despair; nor shall I hang my head; nor shall I go about saying that there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, because, when we fished you, we fished the best. And I swear. Kitty”—here he did swear after men’s profane way, but he needed not to have sworn so loudly or so long—“that truly, sweet Kitty, thou art the fairest, the loveliest, and the best fish that ever came out of any sea—a bewitching mermaid! I wish thee a good husband.