The Chaplain of the Fleet

The first, then, of my two lovers – or promised husbands – who arrived at Epsom was Harry Temple.

We were walking on the New Parade in the afternoon, making a grand display; I in my new purple velvet with purple ribbons, a purple mantle and purple trimmings to my hat, very grand indeed. Mr. Walsingham was talking like a lover in a novel – I mean of the old-fashioned and romantic school of novel, now gone out. The art of saying fine things now too much neglected by the young, was then studied by old and young.

“Ladies,” he was saying, “should never be seen save in the splendour of full dress: they should not eat in public, unless it be chocolates and Turkish sweets: nor drink, unless it be a dish of tea: they should not laugh, lest they derange the position of the patch or the nice adjustment of the coiffure: they may smile, however, upon their lovers; all their movements should be trim and evenly balanced, according to rules of grace: in fact, just as a woman was the last and most finished work in Nature, so a lady dressed, taught, and cultivated, should be the last and most finished work in Art. The power of beauty – Miss Pleydell will approve this – should be assisted by the insinuation of polite address: rank should be enhanced by the assumption of a becoming dignity: dishabille should hide at home: nor should she show herself abroad until she has heightened and set off her charms, by silk and satin, ribbons and lace, paint, powder, and patches.”

“I suppose, sir,” said Nancy, pointing to an absurd creature whose follies were the diversion of the whole company, “the dress of the lady over there in the short sack would please you. Her body a state-bed running upon castors, and her head-dress made up of trimmings taken from the tester. She is, sir, I take it, a finished work of Art.”

Then she screamed: “O Kitty! here is Harry Temple.” And then she blushed, so that Mr. Walsingham looked at both of us with a meaning smile. He came sauntering along the walk, looking about him carelessly, for as yet he knew none of the company. His manner was improved since last I saw him, a year and more ago: that was doubtless due to a visit to the Continent. He was a handsome fellow certainly, though not so tall or so handsome as Lord Chudleigh: his features were smaller and his air less distinguished; but still a pretty fellow. I thought of Nancy’s secret and laughed to myself, as yet never suspecting what he would say. The great difference at first sight between Harry Temple and Lord Chudleigh was that the former looked as if he was ready to take the place which the world would assign to him, while the latter would step to the front and stand there as if in his proper place. It is a grand thing to be a leader of men.

Suddenly he saw us, and stood still with such a look of bewilderment and astonishment as I never saw.

“Nancy!” – he had his eyes upon me all the time – “I knew you were here, but – but – ”

Here Nancy burst out laughing.

“Harry does not remember you, Kitty. Oh the inconstancy of men!”

“Kitty?” It was his turn to look confused now. “Is it possible? Kitty Pleydell? Yet, surely – ”

“I am sorry that Mr. Temple so easily forgets his old friends,” I said.

“No, no. Forget? not at all.” He was so disconcerted that he spoke in single words. “But such a change!”

“A year ago,” I said, “I was in russet and brown holland, with a straw hat. But this watering-place is not my native village, and I wear brown holland frocks no longer.”

“Save in a pastoral,” said Mr. Walsingham. “A shepherdess should always wear brown holland, with ribbons and patches, powder and paint; and a crook beautifully wreathed with green ribbons.”

“Gentlemen,” I said to my followers, “this is my old friend, Mr. Harry Temple, of Wootton Hampstead, Kent, whom you will, I doubt not, welcome among you. But what punishment shall be inflicted upon him for forgetting a lady’s face?”

This gave rise to a dispute on an abstract point of gallantry. One held that under no circumstances, and during no time of absence, however prolonged, should a gentleman forget the face of his mistress; another, that if the lady changed, say from a child to a woman, the forgetfulness of her face must not be charged as a crime. We argued the point with great solemnity. Nancy gave it as her opinion that the rest of a woman’s face might be forgotten, but not the eyes, because they never change. Mr. Walsingham combated this opinion. He said that the eyes of ladies change when they marry.

“What change?” I asked.

“The eyes of a woman who is fancy free,” said he gravely, “are like stars: when she marries, they are planets.”

“Nay,” said Nancy; “a woman does not wait to be married before her eyes undergo that change. As soon as she falls in love they become planets. For whereas, before that time, they go twinkle, twinkle, upon every pretty fellow who has the good taste to fall in love with her, as mine do when I look upon Lord Eardesley” – the young fellow blushed – “so after she is in love, they burn with a steady light upon the face of the man she loves, as mine do when I turn them upon Mr. Walsingham.”

She gazed with so exaggerated an ardour into the old beau’s wrinkled and crows’-footed face, that the rest of us laughed. He, for his part, made a profound salute, and declared that the happiness of his life was now achieved, and that he had nothing left to live for.

In the evening, a private ball was given in the Assembly Rooms by some of the gentlemen, Lord Chudleigh among the number, to a circle of the most distinguished ladies at the Wells. In right of my position as Queen, I opened the ball (of course with his lordship). Afterwards, I danced with Harry. When the country dances began, I danced again with Harry, who kept looking in my eyes and squeezing my hand in a ridiculous fashion. At first I set it down to rejoicing and fraternal affection. But he quickly undeceived me when the dance was over, for while we stood aside to let others have their turn, he began about the promise which we know of.

“Little did I think, sweet Kitty,” he said, with half-shut eyes, “that when I made that promise to bring you back into Kent, you would grow into so wonderful a beauty.”

“Well, Harry,” I replied, “it was kindly meant of you, and I thank you for your promise – which I now return you.”

“You return me my promise?” he asked, as if surprised, whereas he ought most certainly to have considered what had been my country ignorance and my maidenly innocence when he gave me his promise.

“Certainly,” I said; “seeing that I am now under the protection of Mrs. Esther Pimpernel, and have no longer any need for your services.”

“My services?” as if still more surprised. I am convinced that he was only acting astonishment, because he must have known the truth had he reflected at all. “Why, Kitty, I do not understand. You are not surely going to throw me over?”

Then I understood at last.

“Harry,” I said, “there has been, I fear, some mistake.”

“No,” he replied; “no mistake – no mistake at all. How could there be a mistake? You promised that you would return with me, never to go away again.”

“Why, so I did. But, Harry, I never thought – ”

“You must have known what I meant, Kitty! Do not pretend that you did not. Oh! you may open your eyes as wide as you like, but I shall believe it, nevertheless.”

“You have made a great mistake,” I said; “that is very certain. Now let us have no more talk of such things, Harry.”

Lord Chudleigh came at that moment to lead me in to supper. I thought very little of what had passed, being only a little vexed that Harry had made so great a blunder.

The supper was pleasant too, with plenty of wax candles, cold chickens, capons, wheat-ears, ice-creams, and champagne, which is certainly the most delicious wine ever made.

After supper, my lord asked me if there was any friend of mine whom I would especially like to be invited to his party at Durdans?

I named Harry Temple, whom my lord immediately sought out, and invited in my name. Harry bowed sulkily, but accepted.

“Is there any person,” Lord Chudleigh asked next, “whom you would like not to be asked?”

“No,” I said; “I have no enemies.”

“As if the Queen of the Wells could avoid having enemies?” he laughed. “But there are none who can do you harm, even by the venom of spiteful tongues.”

He was silent for a minute or two, and then he went on, with hesitation —

“Pardon me, Miss Pleydell: I have no right to speak of these things to you; my interest is greater than my politeness, and I venture to ask you a question.”

“Pray speak, my lord.”

“A spiteful tongue has whispered it abroad that you have to-day given your plighted lover a cold reception.”

“Who is my plighted lover?”

“Mr. Harry Temple. Tell me, Miss Pleydell, if there is any promise between you and this gentleman?”

He looked at me in such a way as made me both rejoice and tremble.

“No, my lord,” I said, blushing against my will, and to my great confusion; “I am not promised to Mr. Temple. Will your lordship take me to the dancing-room?”

It was a bright moonlight night when we came away. We walked home, escorted by some of the gentlemen. Lord Chudleigh, as he stooped to take my hand, raised it rapidly to his lips and pressed my fingers. The action was not seen, I think, by the others.

That night I tried to put the case plainly to myself.

I said: “Kitty, my dear, the man you want above all other men to fall in love with you has done it; at least, it seems so. He seeks you perpetually; he talks to you; he singles you out from the rest; he is jealous; his eyes follow you about; he sends fruit and flowers to you; he gives an entertainment, and calls you the Queen of the Feast; he presses your hand and kisses your fingers. What more, Kitty, would you have?”

On the other hand, I thought: “If he falls in love with you, being already married, as he believes, to another woman, he commits a sin against his marriage vows. Yet what sin can there be in breaking vows pronounced in such a state as he was in, and in such a way? Why, they seem to me no vows at all, in spite of the validity of the Doctor’s orders and the so-called blessing of the Church. Yet he cannot part from his wife by simply wishing; and, knowing that, he does actually commit the sin of deceit in loving another woman.

“Kitty, what would you have? For, if he doth not love you, then are you miserable above all women; and if he does, then are you grieved, for his own sake, for it is a sin – and ashamed for your own, because your confession will be a bitter thing to say. Yet must it be made, soon or late. Oh! with what face will you say to him: ‘My lord, I am that wife of the Fleet wedding’? Or, ‘My lord, you need not woo me, for I was won before I was wooed’? Or perhaps, worst thing of all, ‘My lord, the girl who caught your fickle fancy for a moment at Epsom, whom you passed over, after a day or two, for another, who was not pretty enough to fix your affections, is your lawful wife’?

“Kitty, I fear that the case is hopeless indeed. For, should he really love you, what forelook or expectancy is there but that the love will turn to hatred when he finds that he has been deceived?”

Then I could not but remember how a great lord, with a long rent-roll, of illustrious descent, might think it pleasant for a day or two to dance attendance upon a pretty girl, by way of sport, meaning nothing further, but that he could not think seriously of so humble a girl as myself in marriage. It would matter little to him that she was descended from a long line of gentlemen, although but a vicars daughter; the Pleydells were only simply country gentlefolk. I was a simple country clergyman’s daughter, whose proper place would be in his mother’s still-room; a daughter of one of those men whose very vocation, for the most part, awakens a smile of pity or contempt, according as they are the sycophants of the squire whose living they enjoy, or the drudges of their master the rector whose work they do. It was not in reason to think that Lord Chudleigh – Would to Heaven he had not come to Epsom Wells at all! Then, when the Doctor chose the day for revealing the truth, I might have borne the hatred and scorn which now, I thought, would kill me.

Oh, if one could fix him! By what arts do girls draw to themselves the love of men, and then keep that love for ever, so that they never seek to wander elsewhere, and the world is for them like the Garden of Eden, with but one man and one woman in it? I would have all his heart, and that so firmly and irrevocably given to me, that forgiveness should follow confession, and the heart remain still in my keeping when he knew all my wickedness and shame.

Then a sudden thought struck me.

Long ago, when I was a child, I had learned, or taught myself, a thing which I could fain believe was not altogether superstitious. One day my father, who would still be talking of ancient things, and cared for little of more modern date than the Gospels, told me of a practice among the ancients by which they thought to look into the future. It was an evil practice, he said, because if these oracles were favourable, they advanced with blind confidence; and, if unfavourable, with a heart already prepared for certain defeat and death. Their method was nothing in the world but the opening of a Virgil anywhere, and accepting the first line which offered itself as a prophecy of the event of their undertaking. I was but a little thing when he told me this, but I pondered it in my mind, and I reasoned in this way (nothing doubting that the ancients did really in this manner read the future) —

“If these pagans could tell the event by consulting the words of Virgil, a heathen like unto themselves, how much more readily ought we to learn what is going to happen by consulting the actual Word of God?”

Thereupon, without telling any one, I used to consult this oracle, probably by myself, in every little childish thing which interested me.

It was a thing presumptuous, though in my childhood I did not know that it was a sin. Yet I did it on this very night – a grown-up woman – trying to get a help to soothe my mind.

The moonlight was so bright that I could read at the open window without a candle. I had long since extinguished mine.

I opened the Bible at random, kept my finger on a verse, and took the book to the casement.

There I read —

“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage; and He shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.”

Now these words I thankfully accepted as a solemn message from Heaven, an answer to my prayer.

So I laid me down, and presently fell fast asleep.