The Chaplain of the Fleet

CHAPTER VII
HOW KITTY BROKE HER PROMISE

No one must think that I was sorry, or even embarrassed, when I heard that Harry Temple had joined the company at Epsom; and though the name of coquette was given me by him, and that of jilt, with such other abusive terms as the English tongue provides, by Will Levett, later on, I beg that every one will believe me when I declare that I had no knowledge at all of being betrothed, or under any kind of promise, to either of these two young men. Yet, as will have been perceived by any who have read the second chapter of this narrative, both of them had just grounds for believing me to be their promised wife. In fact, I was at the time so silly and ignorant that I did not understand what they meant; nor had I, being so much tossed about, and seeing so many changes, ever thought upon their words at all, since. And whereas there was no day in which the thought of my dear and fond Nancy did not come into my mind, there never was a day at all in which my memory dwelt upon either Will or Harry, save as companions of Nancy. And although grievous things followed upon this neglect of mine, I cannot possibly charge myself with any blame in the matter. As for Will, indeed, his conduct was such as to relieve me of any necessity for repentance; while Harry, even if he did play the fool for a while, speedily recovered his senses, and found consolation in the arms of another. Lastly, men ought not to go frantic for any woman: they should reflect that there are good wives in plenty to be had for the asking; women virtuously reared, who account it an honour (as they should) to receive the offer of an honest man’s faithful service; that no woman is so good as to have no equal among her contemporaries: while as for beauty, that is mostly matter of opinion. I am sure I cannot understand why they made me Queen of the Wells, when Nancy Levett was passed over; and I have since seen many a plain girl honoured as a beauty, while the most lovely faces were neglected.

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.

CHAPTER VIII
HOW KITTY HAD LETTERS AND VERSES

Everybody knows that a watering-place in summer is a nest of singing birds. I do not mean the birds of the air, nor the ladies who sing at the concerts, nor the virtuosos, male and female, who gather together to talk of appogiatura, sonata, and – and the rest of the musical jargon. I mean rather those epigrammatists, libellous imitators of Pasquin, and love-verse writers who abound at such places. Mostly they are anonymous, so that one cannot thank them as one would. The verses, this year at Epsom, came down upon us in showers. They were stuck up on the pillars of the porch of the Assembly Rooms, they were laid upon the table of the book-shop, they were handed about on the Terrace. Also they came to me at my lodgings, and to Nancy at hers, and very likely to Peggy Baker at hers. Here, for instance, is one set which were shown round at the Assembly —

 
“Epsom could boast no reigning Toast:
The Terrace wept for pity.
Kind Fortune said, ‘Come, lift your head;
I send you stately Kitty.’
 
 
“She came, she reigned, but still disdained
The crowd’s applause and fancy;
Quoth Fortune, ‘Then, content ye, men,
With pretty, witty Nancy.’”
 

Every morning lovers were at our feet (on paper). They wrote letters enjoining me “by those soft killing eyes” (which rhymed with “sighs”) to take pity on their misery, or to let them die. You would have thought, to read their vows, that all the men in the town were in profound wretchedness. They could not sleep: they could no longer go abroad: they were wasting and pining away: they were the victims of a passion which was rapidly devouring them: Death, they said, would be welcomed as a Deliverer. Yet it will hardly be believed that, in spite of so dreadful an epidemic of low fever, no outward signs of it were visible in the town at all: the gentlemen were certainly fat and in good case: their hearts seemed merry within them: they laughed, made jokes, sang, and were jolly to outward show: their appetites were good: they were making (apparently) no preparations for demise. Their letters and verses were, however, anonymous, so that it was impossible to point with accuracy to any sufferer who thus dissembled. From information conveyed to me by Cicely Crump, I believe that the verses and letters came in great measure from the apprentices and shopmen employed by the mercers, haberdashers, hosiers, and drapers of the town – young men whose employment brings them constantly into the presence of ladies, but whose humble positions in the world forbid them to do anything more than worship at a great distance: yet their hearts are as inflammable as their betters, and their aspirations are sometimes above their rank, as witness the gallant elopement of Joshua Crump, Cicely’s father, with Miss Jenny Medlicott, daughter of an alderman: then they find relief and assume a temporary dignity – as they fondly think – in writing anonymous love-letters. I think the letters must have come from these foolish and conceited young men, because I cannot understand how a gentleman who values his self-respect could so far humiliate himself as to write letters which he would be ashamed to sign, declaring himself the foolish victim of a foolish passion, and addressing a fellow-creature, a being like himself, with all the imperfections of humanity upon her, as an angel (which is blasphemous), and a sun of glory (which is nonsense), or a bright particular star (which is copied from the preface to the Bible). I confess that we liked the open compliments and public attentions of the gentlemen: they pleased us, and we took them in sober honesty for what they were worth – the base coin of gallantry rings as pleasantly sometimes as the guinea gold of love – but it is one thing to be called a goddess in the accepted language of exaggeration and mock humility commonly used in polite assemblies, and another to be addressed in a grovelling strain, seriously and humbly, as if one were the Lama of Thibet, or the great Bashaw, or the Pope himself. It is pleasant to see a young fellow dancing along the walk with his hat under his arm, making reverence, with his eyes full of admiration, his face lit with smiles, and compliments upon his tongue, because one knows that it is the natural homage paid by an honest fellow to a pretty girl, and that when years have robbed the beauty, the homage will be paid to some one else. But for these silly boys’ letters —

And then we made the sad discovery, by comparing our letters, that they were not even original. Many of them were, word for word, the same, showing that they had been copied from the same model. If it be true that passion makes the most tongue-tied lover eloquent, then this discovery proved that the violence of the passion was as feigned as the letters were false, unless Nancy’s supposition was true.

“Fie!” cried she, “the wretch has written the same letters to both of us. Can he be in love with two maids at the same time?”

Then she took both letters and showed them about among the company.

There was another kind of letter which I received: it was filled with slander and abuse, and was written in disguised handwriting. Several of them came to me, and I was foolish enough to be vexed over them, even to shed tears of vexation. My anonymous correspondent gave me, in fact, such information and advice as the following, which was not conveyed to me all at once, but in several letters.

“Your Lord Chudleigh is very well known to be a gambler who hath already dipped more than half his estate; do you think it possible that he should marry the daughter of that poor thing – a country parson – with no more fortune to her back than what a city madam may chance to give her? Be not deceived. Your triumph is to walk the Terrace with him at your elbow: your disgrace will be when he leaves you to lament alone…”

“Do not think that any other gentleman will stoop to pick up the cast-off fancy of Lord Chudleigh. When he leaves you, expect nothing but general desertion and contempt. This advice comes from a well-wisher.”

“Lord Chudleigh is, as is very well known, the falsest and the most fickle of men. When he hath added you to the list of women whom he hath deceived, he will go away to Bath or town, there to boast of what he hath done. He belongs to the Seven Devils’ Club, whose boast it is to spare no man in play and no woman in love. Be warned in time.”

“Poor Kitty Pleydell! Your reputation is now, indeed, cracked, if not broken altogether. Better retire to the obscurity of your town lodging, where, with Mrs. Pimpernel, you may weep over the chances that you think to have lost, but have never really possessed. Better take up, while is yet time, with Harry Temple. All the Wells is talking of your infatuation about Lord Chudleigh. He, for his part, is amused. With his friends he laughs and makes sport.”

And so on, and so on: words which, like the buzzing of a fly or the sting of a gnat, annoy for a while and are then forgotten. For the moment one is angry: then one remembers things and words which show how false are these charges: one reflects that the writer is more to be pitied than the receiver: and one forgives. Perhaps I was the readier to forgive because I saw a letter written by no other (from the similarity of the t’s and k’s) than Miss Peggy Baker, and was fully persuaded that the writer of these unsigned letters was that angry nymph herself.

As for the verses which were left at the door, and brought by boys who delivered them and ran away – Nancy said they had no clothes on except a quiver and a pair of wings, and so ran away for shame lest Cicely should see them – they bore a marvellous resemblance to those which the ingenious Mr. Stallabras was wont to manufacture; they spoke of nymphs and doves and bosky groves; of kids and swains on verdant plains; of shepherds’ reeds and flowery meads, of rustic flutes and rural fruits.

“The fashion of verses,” said Mrs. Esther, “seems little changed since we were here in 1720. Doubtless the English language has never been able to achieve a greater excellence than that arrived at by Dryden, Pope, Addison, and Steele.”

Perhaps the language of love is always the same, and when a man feels that tender emotion he naturally desires to quit the garish town and the artificial restraints of society, and with his inamorata to seek the simple delights of the meadows and the fields, there to be together:

 
“Come, live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove – ”
 

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.