The Chaplain of the Fleet

It was a clear, bright evening, the sun yet pretty high. The time was about half-past five; before long the minuets would be beginning in the Assembly Rooms; yet Lady Levett would know – I hoped that she already knew – the dreadful wickedness of her son. Would not, indeed, all the company know it? Would not the assault on Mr. Stallabras and on Nancy be noised abroad?

Indeed, the news had already sped abroad.

Long before I reached the edge of the Downs. I became aware of a crowd of people. They consisted of the whole company, all the visitors at Epsom, who came forth, leaving the public tea and the dance, to meet the girl who had been thus carried away by force.

Harry Temple came forward as soon as I was in sight to meet me. He was very grave.

“Kitty,” he said, “this is a bad day’s work.”

“How is Will? You have seen Will?”

“I fear he is already dead. The doctor to whom you sent him declares that he is dying fast. His mother is with him.”

“O Harry!” I sighed; “I gave him no encouragement. There was not the least encouragement to believe that I would marry him.”

“No one thinks you did, Kitty; not even his mother. Yet others have been carried away by admiration of your charms to think – ”

“Oh! my charms, my charms! Harry, with poor Will at death’s door, let us at least be spared the language of compliment.”

By this time we had reached the stream of people. Among them, I am happy to say, was not Peggy Baker. She, at least, did not come out to gaze upon her unhappy rival, for whose sake one gallant gentleman lay bleeding to death, and two others were riding away to hide themselves until the first storm should be blown over. The rest parted, right and left, and made a lane through which we passed in silence. As I went through, I heard voices whispering: “Where is Lord Chudleigh? where is Sir Miles? How pale she looks!” and so forth; comments of the crowd which has no heart, no pity, no sympathy. It came out to-day to look upon a woman to whom a great insult had been offered with as little pity as to-morrow it would go to see a criminal flogged from Newgate to Tyburn, or a woman whipped at Bridewell, or a wretched thief beaten before the Alderman, or a batch of rogues hanged. They came to be amused. Amusement, to most people, is the contemplation of other folks’ sufferings. If tortures were to be introduced again, if, as happened, we are told, in the time of Nero, Christians could be wrapped in pitch and then set fire to, thus becoming living candles, I verily believe the crowd would rush to see, and would enjoy the spectacle the more, the longer the sufferings of the poor creatures were prolonged.

Solomon Stallabras, Harry told me, was comfortably put into bed, his ribs being set and his collar-bone properly put in place: there was no doubt that he would do well. Nancy, too, was in bed, sick with the fright she had received, but not otherwise much hurt. Mrs. Esther was wringing her hands and crying at home, with Cicely to look after her. Sir Robert and Lady Levett were at the doctor’s. It was, I have said, the same doctor who had undertaken the temporary charge of Harry Temple. As we drew near the house – I observed that most of the people remained behind upon the Downs in hopes of seeing the return of Lord Chudleigh, in which hope they were disappointed – Harry became silent.

“Come, Harry,” I said, reading his thoughts, “you must forgive me for saving your life or from preventing you from killing Lord Chudleigh. Be reasonable, dear Harry.”

He smiled.

“I have forgiven you long since,” he replied. “You acted like a woman; that is, you did just what you thought best at the moment. But I cannot, and will not, forgive the man with his impudent smile and his buckets of water.”

“Nay, Harry,” I said, “he acted according to his profession. Come with me to the house. I cannot even go to Mrs. Esther until I have seen or heard about poor Will.”

The doctor was coming from the sick man’s chamber when we came to the house. They had placed Will in one of the private rooms, away from the dreadful gallery where the madmen were chained to the wall. With him were Lady Levett and Sir Robert.

The doctor coughed in his most important manner.

“Your obedient servant, Miss Pleydell. Sir, your most obedient, humble servant. You are come, no doubt, to inquire after the victim of this most unhappy affair. Poor Mr. William Levett, I grieve to say, is in a most precarious condition.”

“Can nothing save him? O doctor!”

“Nothing can save him, young lady,” he replied, “but a miracle. That miracle – I call it nothing short – is sometimes granted by beneficent Providence to youth and strength only when – I say only when – their possession is aided by the very highest medical skill that the country can produce. I say the very highest; no mere pretender will avail.”

“Indeed, doctor, we have that skill, I doubt not, in yourself.”

“I say nothing,” – he bowed and spread his hands – “I say nothing. It is not for me to speak.”

“And, sir,” said Harry, “you are doubtless aware that Sir Robert is a gentleman of a considerable estate, and that – in fact – you may expect – ”

“Sir Robert,” he replied, with a smile which speedily, in spite of all his efforts, broadened into a grin of satisfaction, “has already promised that no expense shall be spared, no honorarium be considered too large if I give him back his son. Yet we can but do our best. Science is strong, but a poke of cold steel in the inwards is, if you please, stronger still.”

“Will you let me see Sir Robert?” I asked.

The doctor stole back to the room, and presently Sir Robert came forth.

He kissed me on the forehead while his tears fell upon my head.

“My dear,” he said, “I ask your pardon in the name of my headstrong son. We have held an honourable name for five hundred years and more: in all that time no deed so dastardly has been attempted by any one of our house. Yet the poor wretch hath paid dearly for his wickedness.”

“Oh, sir!” I cried, “there is no reason why you should speak of forgiveness, who have ever been so kind to me. Poor Will will repent and be very good when he recovers.”

“I think,” said his father sadly, “that he will not recover. Go, child. Ask not to see the boy’s mother, because women are unreasonable in their grief, and she might perchance say things of which she would afterwards be ashamed. Go to Mrs. Pimpernel, and tell her of thy safety.”

This was, indeed, all that could be done. Yet after allaying the terrors and soothing the agitated spirits of Mrs. Esther, whose imagination had conjured up, already, the fate of Clarissa, and who saw in headstrong Will another Lovelace, without, to be sure, the graces and attractions of that dreadful monster, I went to inquire after my gallant little Poet.

He was lying on his bed, with orders not to move, and wrapped up like a baby.

I thanked him for his brave defence, which I said would have been certainly efficacious, had it not been for the cowardly blow on the back of his head. I further added, that no man in the world could have behaved more resolutely, or with greater courage.

“This day,” he said, “has been the reward for a Poet’s devotion. In those bowers, Miss Kitty, when first we met” – the bower was the Fleet Market – “beside that stream” – the Fleet Ditch – “where the woodland choir was held” – the clack of the poultry about to be killed – “and the playful lambs frisked” – on their way to the butchers of Newgate Street – “I dared to love a goddess who was as much too high for me as ever Beatrice was for her Italian worshipper. I refer not to the disparity of birth, because (though brought up in a hosier’s shop) the Muse, you have acknowledged, confers nobility. An attorney is by right of his calling styled a gentleman; but a Poet, by right of his genius, is equal of – ay, even of Lord Chudleigh.”

“Surely, dear sir,” I replied, “no one can refuse the highest title of distinction to a gentleman of merit and genius.”

“But I think,” he went on, “of that disparity which consists in virtue and goodness. That can never be removed. How happy, therefore, ought I to be in feeling that I have helped to preserve an angel from the hands of those barbarous monsters who would have violated such a sanctuary. What are these wounds! – a broken rib – a cracked collar bone – a bump on the back of the head? I wish they had been broken legs and arms in your service.”

I laughed – but this devotion, more than half of it being real, touched my heart. The little Poet, conceited, vain, sometimes foolish, was ennobled, not by his genius, of which he thought so much, but by his great belief in goodness and virtue. Women should be humble when they remember, that if a good man loves them it is not in very truth, the woman (who is a poor creature full of imperfections) that they love, but the soul – the noble, pure, exalted soul, as high as their own grandest conception of goodness and piety, which they believe to be in her. How can we rise to so great a height? How can we, without abasement, pretend to such virtue? How can we be so wicked and so cruel as, after marriage, to betray to our husbands the real littleness of our souls? As my lord believed me to be, so might I (then I prayed) rise to heaven in very truth, and even soar to higher flights.

Now, when I reached home, a happy thought came to me. I knew the name of Solomon’s latest patron, the brewer’s widow. I sat down and wrote her a letter. I said that I thought it my simple duty to inform her, although I had not the honour of her friendship, that the Poet whom she had distinguished with her special favour and patronage, was not in a position to pay her his respects, either by letter, or by verse, or in person, being at that time ill in bed with ribs and other bones broken in defence of a lady. And to this I added, so that she might not grow jealous, which one must always guard against in dealing with women, that he was walking with two ladies, not one, and that the gallantry he showed in defence of her who was attacked was so great that not even a lover could have displayed more courage for his mistress than he did for this lady (myself), who was promised to another gentleman. Nor was it, I added, until he was laid senseless on the field that the ravishers were able to carry off the lady, who was immediately afterwards rescued by two friends of the Poet, Lord Chudleigh and Sir Miles Lackington.

This crafty letter, which was all true, and yet designedly exaggerated, as when I called my lord Solomon’s friend, produced more than the effect which I desired. For the widow, who was in London, came down to Epsom the next day, in a carriage and four, to see the hero. Now, she was still young, and comely as well as rich. Therefore, when she declared to him that no woman could resist such a combination of genius and heroic courage, Solomon could only reply that he would rush into her arms with all a lover’s rapture, as soon as his ribs permitted an embrace. In short, within a month they were married at Epsom Church, and Solomon, though he wrote less poetry in after years than his friends desired, lived in great comfort and happiness, having a wife of sweet temper, who thought him the noblest and most richly endowed of men, and a brewery whose vats produced him an income far beyond his wants, though these expanded as time went on.

As for Nancy, she was little hurt, save for the fright and the shame of it. Yet her brother, the cause of all, was lying dangerously wounded, and she could not for very pity speak her mind upon his wickedness.

The company, I learned from Cicely, were greatly moved about it: the public Tea had been broken up in confusion, while all sallied forth to the scene of the outrage; nor was the assembly resumed when it was discovered that Will Levett had been run through the body by Lord Chudleigh, and was now lying at the point of death.

In the morning Cicely went early to inquire at the Doctor’s. Alas! Will was in a high fever; Lady Levett had been sitting with him all night; it was not thought that he would live through the day. I put on my hood and went to see Nancy.

“Oh, my dear, dear Kitty!” she cried, “sure we shall all go distracted. You have heard what they say. Poor Will is in a bad way indeed; the fever is so high that the doctor declares his life to be in hourly danger. He is delirious, and in his dreams he knows not what he says, so that you would fancy him among his dogs or in his stables – where, indeed, it hath been his chief delight to dwell – or with the rustics with whom he would drink. It is terrible, my father says, that one so near his end, who must shortly appear before his Maker, should thus blaspheme and swear such horrid oaths. If we could only ensure him half an hour of sense, even with pain, so that the clergyman might exhort him. Alas! our Will hath led so shocking a life – my dear, I know more of his ways than he thinks – that I doubt his conscience and his heart are hardened. O Kitty! to think that yesterday we were happy, and that this evil thing had not befallen us! And now I can never go abroad again without thinking that the folk are saying: ‘There goes the sister of the man who was killed while trying to carry off the beautiful Miss Pleydell.’”

No comfort can be found for one who sits expectant of a brothers death. I bade poor Nancy keep up her heart and hope for the best.

The fever increased during the day, we heard, and the delirium. We stirred not out of the house save for morning prayers, sending Cicely from time to time to ask the news. And all the company gathered together on the Terrace, not to talk scandal or tell idle stories of each other, but to whisper that Will Levett was certainly dying, and that it would go hard with Lord Chudleigh, who would without doubt be tried for murder, the two grooms protesting stoutly that their master had not struck a blow.

In the evening Sir Robert Levett came to our lodging. He was heavily afflicted with the prospect of losing his only son, albeit not a son of whom a parent could be proud. Yet a child cannot be replaced, and the line of the Levetts would be extinguished.

“My dear,” he said, “I come to say a thing which has been greatly on my mind. My son was run through by Lord Chudleigh. Tell me, first, what there is between you and my lord? Doth he propose to marry you?”

“Dear sir,” I replied, “Lord Chudleigh has offered me his hand.”

“And you have taken it?”

“Unworthy as I am, dear sir, I have promised, should certain obstacles be removed, to marry him.”

“His sword has caused my Will’s death. Yet the act was done in defence of the woman he loved, the woman whom Will designed to ruin – ”

“And in self-defence as well. Had he not drawn, Will would have beaten out his brains.”

“Tell him, from Will’s father, my dear, that I forgive him. Let not such a homicide dwell upon his conscience. Where is he?”

“He has gone away with Sir Miles Lackington to await the finding of an inquest, if – ”

“Tell him that I will not sanction any proceedings, and if there is to be an inquest my evidence shall be, though it bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, that my lord is innocent, and drew his sword to defend his own life.”

He left me – poor man! – to return to the sick bedside.

He had been gone but a short time when a post-boy rode to the door, blowing a horn. It was a special messenger, who had ridden from Temple Bar with a letter from Sir Miles.

“Sweet Kitty,” wrote the Baronet, “I write this to tell thee that we have taken up quarters in London. I have bestowed my lord in certain lodgings, which you know, above the room where once I lay.”

Heavens! my lord was in my own old lodging beside the Fleet Market.

“He is downhearted, thinking of the life he has taken. I tell him that he should think no more of running through such a madman in defence of his own life than of killing a pig. Pig, and worse than pig, was the creature who dared to carry off the lovely Kitty. To think that such a rustic clown should be brother of pretty Nancy! I have sent to my lord’s lodging an agreeable dinner and a bottle of good wine, with which I hope my lord will comfort his heart. Meantime, they know not, in the house, the rank and quality of their guest. I suppose the fellow is dead by this time. If there is an inquest, I shall attend to give my evidence, and the verdict can be none other than justifiable homicide or even felo-de-se, for if ever man rushed upon his death it was Will Levett. I have also sent him paper and pens with which to write to you, and some books and a pack of cards. Here is enough to make a lonely man happy. If he wants more he can look out of the window and see the porters and fishwives of the market fight, which was a spectacle daily delighted me for two years and more. The doctor is well. I have informed him privately of the circumstances of the case, and Lord Chudleigh’s arrival. He seemed pleased, but I took the liberty of warning him against betraying to my lord a relationship, the knowledge of which might be prejudicial to your interests.”

Prejudicial to my interests!

Sir Miles was in league, with me, to hide this thing from a man who believed, like Solomon Stallabras, that I was all truth and goodness.

I had borne so much from this wicked concealment that I was resolved to bear it no longer. I said to myself, almost in the words of the Prayer-book: “I will arise and go unto my lord. I will say, Forgive me, for thus and thus have I done, and so am I guilty.”

Oh, my noble lord! Oh, great heart and true! what am I, wicked and deceitful woman, that I should hope to keep thy love? Let it go; tell me that you can never love again one who has played this wicked part; let hatred and loathing take the place of love; let all go, and leave me a despairing wretch – so that I have confessed my sin and humbled myself even to the ground before him whom I have so deeply wronged.