The Chaplain of the Fleet

CHAPTER XII

HOW HARRY TEMPLE PROVED HIS VALOUR

Thus were poet and baronet reduced to submission. The third suitor was harder to manage, because he turned sulky. Sportsmen have said that a fish, or a bird, or a fox, when he sulks, is then most difficult to secure. Thus, to be captured or cajoled, the victim must be in a good temper.

Now Harry Temple went in gloomy indignation, as was visible to all eyes. He walked alone upon the Terrace, or sat alone in the Assembly Room, a Killjoy to behold. That would not have mattered, because no girl feels much sorrow for a man who foolishly sulks because he cannot marry her; but everybody knew, or thought they knew, the cause of his heavy looks. Peggy Baker said I had thrown him over for the sake of a lord, who, she added kindly, would certainly throw me over in turn. Some of the company cried shame on the flinty-hearted woman who could let so pretty a fellow go love-sick.

“Kitty,” his melancholy seemed to say, “you left us a simple country girl: you would have been proud of my addresses had you understood my meaning” – this was quite true: “you are now a woman of fashion, and you have ambition: your head is turned with flattery: you aspire to nothing short of a coronet. In those days you were satisfied with the approval of your looking-glass and your conscience: now you would draw all men to your heels, and are not happy unless you make them all miserable.” But that was not true at all; I did not wish to make men miserable; and it was nothing to me whether they were miserable or happy. I thought of one man only, as is natural to a woman in love.

“If,” I said to him one day, being tired by such exhibition of temper, “if you do not like the place, why make yourself unhappy by staying here? Cambridge, methinks, would be a more fitting abode for you, where there are books and scholars; not a watering-place, where people come together to amuse themselves and be merry.”

“I shall stay here,” he replied, “until I find there is no hope for me.”

“Oh, silly Harry!” I said; “is there no other woman in the world who will make you happy, except poor Kitty Pleydell?”

“No – none,” he shook his melancholy wig, the tie at the back of his head wagging sorrowfully.

How was it possible to have any sympathy with so rueful a lover? Why, it made one ridiculous. Everybody said that Harry Temple was in love with me, that I, for the worst of motives, viz., to catch a coronet, refused him, and that he was an excellent match, especially for one who was nothing better than a country parson’s daughter.

“I believe only a curate, my dear,” Peggy Baker would say. “No doubt she lived on bacon fat and oatmeal, and knitted her own stockings. And yet she refuses Harry Temple, a pretty fellow, though studious, and a man whom any of us, gentlewomen born, would be glad to encourage.”

“Oh!” I said to him, “why do you not go? Why do you look reproaches on me?”

“Because,” he replied, “I still love you, unworthy as you are.”

“Unworthy? Mr. Temple, methinks that a little civility – ”

“Yes, unworthy. I say that a girl who throws over her oldest friends with the almost avowed intention of securing a title, without knowing anything of the character of the man who bears it – ”

“This is too much!” I said. “First, sir, let me know what there is against Lord Chudleigh’s character. Tell me, upon your word, sir, do you know anything at all? Is he not a man of principle and honour?”

“I know nothing against him. I dare say that he is what you think.”

“Well, sir; and, in the next place, how dare you accuse me of deliberately trying to attract my lord? Do you know me so well as to read my soul? Do you know me so well as to be justified to yourself when you attribute such a motive to me?”

“What other motive can I attribute to you?” he asked bitterly. “Is he not a peer? Is he not rich?”

“O Harry!” I cried, “you will drive me mad between you. Cannot a peer be a good man? Cannot a girl – I say – may not a girl – Harry, you force me to say it – is it not possible for a girl to fall in love with a man who is even a peer and a rich man? Go sir! you have humbled me, and made me say words of which I am ashamed. Go, if you please, and tell all the world what I have said.”

Then he fell to asking my forgiveness. He was, he said, wretched indeed: he had long lost my love.

“Man!” I said, “you never had it!” – and now he was like to lose my friendship.

This talk about friendship between a man and woman when both are young seems to me a mighty foolish thing. For if the woman is in love with some one else her friendship is, to be sure, worth just nothing at all, because she must needs be for ever thinking of the man she loves. There is but one man in all the world for her, and that man not he who would fain be her friend. Therefore she gives not a thought to him. Now if a man be in love with one woman and “in friendship” with another, I think that either his love for one must be a poor lukewarm passion, which I, for one, would not be anxious to receive, or his friendship for the other must be a chilly sort of thing.

However, one must not be angry for ever: Harry Temple had made me say a thing which I could not have said to any woman – not even Nancy – and was ashamed of having said: yet when he begged forgiveness I accorded it to him. Harry, I was sure, would not repeat what I had said.

Somebody about this time wrote another of those little worthless epigrams or poems, and handed it about:

“Do not be angry, Kitty,” said Nancy. “This is the penalty of greatness. What would Peggy Baker give to be lampooned? Harry is a fool, my dear. Any woman could tell, with half an eye, that you are not the least in love with him. What are the eyes of men like? Are they so blinded by vanity as not to be able to see, without being told, when they are disagreeable objects for a woman’s contemplation?”

“I condole with you, Miss Pleydell,” said Peggy Baker. “To be the victim of an irreligious and even impious epigram must be truly distressing to one, like yourself, brought up in the bosom of the Church.”

“Thank you, dear Miss Peggy,” I replied, returning her smiling courtesy. “The epigram’s wound is easily healed. Is it true that you are yourself the author?”

“O Lord, no!” she replied. “I am but a poor poet, and could not for the world write or say anything to wound another woman’s feelings.”

“She would not, indeed, dear Kitty,” cried Nancy, who was with me. “It is not true – though you may hear it so stated – that Miss Peggy said yesterday on the Parade that your father was only a curate, and that you made your own stockings. She is the kindest and most generous of women. We think so, truly, dear Miss Peggy. We would willingly, if we could, send you half-a-dozen or so of our swains to swell your train. But they will not leave us.”

Was there ever so saucy a girl?

Miss Peggy bit her lips, and I think she would have liked to box Nancy’s ears there and then, had she dared. But a few gentlemen were standing round us, laughing at Nancy’s sally. So she refrained.

“O Miss Nancy!” she replied, trying to laugh, “you are indeed kind. But I love not the attentions of men at second-hand. You are welcome to all my cast-off lovers. Pray, Miss Pleydell, may I ask when we may expect his lordship back again?”

“I do not know,” I replied. “Lord Chudleigh does not send me letters as to his movements or intentions.”

“I said so,” she replied, triumphant for the moment. “I said so this morning at the book-shop, when they were asking each other what news of Lord Chudleigh. Some said Miss Pleydell would surely know: I said that I did not think there was anything between his lordship and Miss Pleydell: and I ventured to predict that you knew no more about his movements than myself.”

“Indeed,” said Nancy, coming to my assistance. “I should have thought you were likely to know more than Kitty.”

“Indeed, why?”

“Because,” said Nancy, laughing, “his lordship, who is, I believe, one of your cast-off lovers, might perhaps have written to you for old acquaintance’ sake.”

Miss Peggy had no reason for loving me, who had dethroned her, but she had reason for hating Nancy, who always delighted in bringing her to open shame.

“What have I done to you, Miss Levett?” she asked her once, when they were alone. “You are not the reigning Toast: I am not jealous of you: you have done no harm to me, nor I to you. Yet you delight in saying the most ill-natured things.”

“You have done nothing to me, Miss Peggy,” Nancy told her. “But you have done a great deal to my poor Kitty, who is innocence itself. You have slandered her: you have traduced her family, which everybody knows is as good as your own, though her father was a country clergyman and a younger son: you have denied her beauty: you have written anonymous letters to her, calumniating a young nobleman who, I verily believe, is a paragon of peers. No doubt, too, you have written letters to him calumniating her character. Truly, with the best intentions, you could not do much to hurt her, for my Kitty is above suspicion.”

“Very well, miss,” said Miss Peggy; “very well: we understand each other. As for your charges about anonymous letters – ”

“We keep them all,” said Nancy; “and with them a letter written and signed by yourself. And I think I shall show the letters about on the Terrace.”

“If you dare – ” but here she checked herself, though in a great rage. “You will do as you please, Miss Levett. I shall know, some day, how to revenge myself for your insults. As for your curate’s girl, I warrant her innocence and her being ‘above suspicion’ – indeed! – to be pretty hypocrisy and pretence. As if any woman was above suspicion!”

“Oh!” said Nancy, as a parting shot, “nobody, I assure you, ever thought Miss Peggy Baker or any of her friends above suspicion. Let us do you, dear miss, so much justice. You shall not find us ungrateful or unmindful of the benefits you have conferred, or are about to confer, upon us. Malice and spite, when they are impotent, are amusing, like the tricks of a monkey in a cage, or a bear dancing at a stake.”

Such angry passions as these disturbed the peaceful atmosphere of the Wells. What use was it for Mr. Nash of Bath, to deprive the gentlemen of their swords when he left the ladies their tongues? “The tongue can no man tame: it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”

The accident which followed, a day or two after this, may or may not have been instigated by an enemy. Nancy always declared it was, but then she may have been prejudiced, and we never got at the truth.

Every Friday or Saturday there came down from London a coach full of gentlemen from the City or the Inns of Court, to spend two or three days at the Wells. These were our most noisy visitors: they pushed into the coteries, and endeavoured to form parts of the trains of the beauties in vogue: they drank too much wine: gambled fiercely for small sums; and turned the quiet decorum of the assembly into a babel of riot, noise, loud laughter, coarse jokes, and ill-breeding. The Sunday was thus spoiled: those of us who loved quiet stayed, for the most part, at home when we were not in church, or wandered on the quiet Downs, where we were undisturbed. Solomon Stallabras attended us on these occasions, and we turned our conversation on grave matters. I exhorted him, for instance, to direct his splendid genius to the creation of a sacred epic, which should be to the eighteenth century what Milton’s “Paradise Lost” was to the seventeenth. He promised to think of it, and we talked over various plans. The Deluge, St. Paul, the Apocalypse, were discussed in turn; for my own part, I thought that the Book of Revelation would prove a subject too sublime for our poet’s strength, and recommended, as a fitter subject for his easy and graceful verses, the life and travels of St. Paul. In these considerations we forgot, for awhile, the calumnies of our enemy, and each put aside, for a time, his own private anxieties.

One Saturday evening, while Lord Chudleigh was still away, a noisier party than usual were in the Assembly Rooms, and although there was no dancing, the talk and quarrelling of the gamblers were incessant, while lights were hung out among the trees, and the walk was crowded with people. Neither Nancy nor I was present, having little desire to be stared at by ill-bred young citizens or pushing templars. Unfortunately, Harry Temple was among them.

While he was idling among the trees there passed him a group of three young fellows, all talking together noisily. I suppose they had been drinking. One of them, unfortunately, caught sight of Harry, and began to laugh. Then they stopped, and then one stepped forward and made Harry a profound bow.

“We welcome,” he said, “the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. We condole with your misfortune.

Harry was not only melancholy, but also, as some such men are, he was choleric; and he was strong, being bred and brought up to country pursuits. In a moment his cane was in one hand and his assailant’s cravat was in his other. Then he began to beat the man with his cane.

The others stood stupid with amazement. Sir Miles, who was on his way to the tables, and had seen the beginning of the fray, stepped to the front.

“Who interferes with Mr. Temple has to do with me,” he shouted. “Fair play, gentlemen. Let them fight it out with fists like men, first – and stick each other afterwards with rapiers like Frenchmen, if they like. Gentlemen, I am Sir Miles Lackington, Baronet, at your service, if any one wants a little breathing.”

He held his cane in readiness, but the other gentlemen kept aloof. When Harry had spent his rage, because, so far as I can learn, there was no resistance, he shook off his opponent, adjusted his wig, which was a little deranged, and turned quietly to Sir Miles —

“You will oblige me, Sir Miles? Thank you, gentlemen all – your servant.”

He resumed his walk, lounging among the trees, the women looking after him with a mixture of fright and admiration, as calm as if nothing had happened.

The man who was beaten was followed off the field by his friends. Nor could Sir Miles get speech of them that evening. In the morning, when he went to make his murderous appointment, he found they were gone. Fighting, it would seem, was not to their liking; though an insult to a harmless gentleman was quite in their way.

“I am sorry, Harry,” I said honestly, because a woman cannot help respecting a man who is brave and strong, “that the taking of my name has caused you this trouble.”

“I am sorry, too,” he said sadly. “Yet I blame them not, Kitty.”

“But you do blame me,” I replied. “Harry, if, in a little while – somehow – I am able to show that I could not, even if I wished, grant the thing you want – if – I say – I can make that quite clear and plain to you – will you promise to be reconciled to what cannot – cannot be avoided?”

“If, Kitty – what an if? But you ask the impossible. There is no reason – there cannot be. Why, such a thing is impossible.”

“But again – if – Harry, promise me so much.”

He laughed grimly.

“Well, I promise.”

“Give me your hand upon it,” I said. “Now we shall be friends indeed. Why, you silly Harry, you let the days go by, and you neglect the most beautiful girls who could perhaps make you a hundred times as happy as Kitty, all because you deck her out with imaginary virtues which she doth not possess. Foolish Harry! Open your eyes and look about you. What do you see?”

I, for my part, saw pretty Nancy running along the walk to meet us. Love was in her eyes, grace in her action; youth, beauty, sweetness in her comely shape, her rosy cheeks, her pretty smile, her winning tongue, her curly locks. She was in morning dress, without hoop or patch. Through the leaves of the trees the sun shone softly upon her, covering her with a soft light which might have been that in which Venus stole along the shore in a golden mist to meet her son – of which my father had read to me. She was pretty, she was sweet; far prettier than I, who was so tall; far sweeter than I, who was full of evil passions and shame, being a great sinner.

“Foolish Harry!” I said. “What do you see?”

He only looked me in the face and replied —

“I see nothing but the beautiful Kitty.”

“Oh, blind, blind!”

CHAPTER XIII

HOW DURDANS WAS ILLUMINATED

While these things were proceeding, Lord Chudleigh being still absent from Durdans, I received a second letter from the Doctor.

After the usual compliments to Mrs. Esther, he proceeded to the important part of his communication —

“For your private eye only.

“I have to tell you that yesterday I saw and conversed with Lord Chudleigh. He sought me in order to find out, if possible, the name, character, and condition of a certain person. I refused to grant him that information; I also assured him that he would find it impossible to break the alliance with which I had provided him. This I did with the greater pleasure, having heard from a sure source that he hath lately paid addresses to you of so particular a kind as to make the whole company at Epsom Wells believe that they mean honourable proposals. I presume, therefore, that could he destroy the evidence of his former marriage he would be prepared to offer his hand. This is every way better than I could expect or wish, because when the moment arrives for informing him of the truth, I can point out to his lordship that his opinion and mine of what a wife should be exactly agree. Our triumph will then be complete.”

Our triumph! This was what he called it. I was to be the consenting party to inflict shame and humiliation upon my lord. This was too much. Humiliation for him? Why, it was for myself, and my whole thoughts were how to save him, how to set him free. The Doctor expected me to triumph over him. Why, what did he know of a woman in love? To triumph over a man for whose dear sake she would lay down her life to save him from humiliation!

It was certain to my heart that my lord already felt for me that warmth of affection which impels a man to make a woman his wife. I was sure of this. I was so sure that I already gave myself in imagination entirely to him, and placed his interests above my own.

In short, before I ventured to confess the fact to myself, and before he spoke to me – for as yet he had said no word except in compliment and common gallantry – I loved him. There was, for me, but one thing wanting to make me happy; there was, for me, nothing to think of, to hope for, to pray for, but the welfare of that one man. And to such a woman did the Doctor send such a letter, proposing that I should join him in covering him with shame and indignation. Would I thus let him choose the moment to confess my shameful sin? Would I assist in covering the man I loved with confusion, who would have clothed him in purple and placed a chain about his neck, and helped him to ride forth in bravery and triumph? Forbid the thought, kind Heaven! Oh, that a man should have such a mind, so thick and cloudy as not to perceive that no woman but the basest and worst could join a conspiracy so hateful! Unhappy girl, to be made the victim of a plot in which the punishment would fall upon herself, while the wickedness would rest with the man who devised it, and he against whom the plot was designed would be its sole avenger!