A GHOSTLY VISITANT
There is scarcely a chapter in the story of the British Peerage more
tragic and mysterious than that which chronicles the closing days of
Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, whose dissolute life had its fitting
climax of horror at the exact moment foretold to him by a ghostly
visitor. Various and somewhat conflicting accounts are given of this
singular tragedy; but in them all the chief incidents stand out so clear
and unassailable that even such a hard-headed sceptic as Dr Johnson
declared, "I am so glad to have evidence of the spiritual world that I
am willing to believe it."
Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, son of the first Baron, the distinguished
poet and historian, was the degenerate descendant of five centuries of
Lyttelton ancestors, who had held their heads among the highest in the
county of Worcester since the days of the third Henry. Unlike his
clean-living forefathers, he was famous as a debauchee in a dissolute
age.
"Of his morals," Sir Bernard Burke says, "we may judge by
the fact of his having died the victim of the coarsest
debauchery, and leaving behind him a diary more
disgustingly licentious than the pages of Aratine
himself."
William Coombe, who had been at Eton with Lyttelton, is said to have had
his old schoolfellow in mind when he dedicated his _Diaboliad_ "to the
worst man in His Majesty's Dominions," and when he penned those terrible
lines:--
"Have I not tasted every villain's part?
Have I not broke a noble parent's heart?
Do I not daily boast how I betrayed
The tender widow and the virtuous maid?"
From the days when he wore his Eton jacket the life of this perverse
lord seems to have been one long record of profligacy; at least, until
that day, but six years before its end, when, to quote his own words, "I
awoke, and behold I was a lord!"
"From the time when," Mr Stanley Makower writes,
"although no more than a youth of nineteen, his
engagement to General Warburton's daughter had been
broken off on the discovery of the vicious life he had
led in his travels in France and Italy, he had been a
source of shame and trouble to his family.... To measure
the depths of Lyttelton's vices, it is necessary to read
his own letters, in which the literary style is as
perfect as the fearless admission of fault is
bewildering."
Indeed, even more remarkable than the viciousness of his life, was the
brazen openness with which he flaunted it in the face of the world.
With this depravity were oddly allied gifts of mind and graces of
person, which, but for the handicap of vice, should have made Lord
Lyttelton one of the most eminent and useful men of his time. When he
was at Eton Dr Barnard, the headmaster, predicted a great future for the
boy, whose talents he declared were superior to those of young Fox. In
literature and art his natural endowment was such that he might easily
have won a leading place in either profession; while his gifts of
statemanship and his eloquent tongue might with equal ease have won fame
and high position in the arena of politics.
Shortly after he succeeded to his Barony he married the widow of Joseph
Peach, Governor of Calcutta, and for a time seems to have made an effort
to reform his ways; but the vice in his blood was quick to reassert
itself; he abandoned his wife under the spell of a barmaid's eyes, and
plunged again into the morass of depravity, in which alone he could find
the pleasure he loved.
Such was Lord Lyttelton at the time this story opens, when, although
still a young man (he was but thirty-five when he died), he was a
nervous and physical wreck, draining the last dregs of the cup of
pleasure.
And yet, how little he seems to have realised that he was near the end
of his tether the following story proves. One day in the last month of
his life a cousin and boon companion, Mr Fortescue, called on him at his
London home.
"He found," to quote the words of his lordship's
stepmother, "Lord Lyttelton in bed, though not ill; and
on his rallying him for it, Lord Lyttelton said: 'Well,
cousin, if you will wait in the next room a little while,
I will get up and go out with you.' He did so, and the
two young men walked out into the streets. In the course
of their walk they crossed the churchyard of St James's,
Piccadilly. Lord Lyttelton, pointing to the gravestones,
said: 'Now, look at these vulgar fellows; they die in
their youth at five-and-thirty. But you and I, who are
gentlemen, shall live to a good old age!'"
How little could he have anticipated that within a few days he, too,
would be lying among the "vulgar fellows" who die in their youth at
five-and-thirty!
And, indeed, there seemed little evidence of such a tragic possibility;
for the very next day he was charming the House of Lords with a speech
of singular eloquence and statesmanlike grasp--the speech of a man in
the prime of his powers. Such efforts as this, however, were but as the
spasmodic flickerings of a candle that is burning to its end, and were
followed by deeper plunges into the dissipations that were surely
killing him.
It was towards the close of the month of November, in 1779, that Lord
Lyttelton left London and its fatal allurements for a few days' peaceful
life at his country seat, Pit Place, at Epsom (in those days a
fashionable health resort), where he had invited a house-party,
including several ladies, to join him. And, it should be said, no host
could possibly be more charming and gracious; for, in spite of his
depraved tastes, Lord Lyttelton was a man of remarkable fascination--a
wit, a born raconteur, and a courtier to his finger-tips.
During the first day of his residence at Epsom the following
incident--which may or may not have had a bearing on the strange events
that followed--took place.
"Lord Lyttelton," to quote Sir Digby Neave, "had come to
Pit Place in very precarious health, and was ordered not
to take any but the gentlest exercise. As he was walking
in the conservatory with Lady Affleck and the Misses
Affleck, a robin perched on an orange-tree close to them.
Lord Lyttelton attempted to catch it, but failing, and
being laughed at by the ladies, he said he would catch it
even if it was the death of him. He succeeded, but he put
himself in a great heat by the exertion. He gave the bird
to Lady Affleck, who walked about with it in her hand."
On the following morning his lordship appeared at the breakfast-table so
pale and haggard that his guests, alarmed at his appearance, asked what
was the matter. For a time he evaded their enquiries, and then made the
following startling statement:--"Last night," he said, "after I had been
lying in bed awake for some time, I heard what sounded like the tapping
of a bird at my window, followed by a gentle fluttering of wings about
my chamber. I raised myself on my arm to learn the meaning of these
strange sounds, and was amazed at seeing a lovely female, dressed in
white, with a small bird perched like a falcon on her hand. Walking
towards me, the vision spoke, commanding me to prepare for death, for I
had but a short time to live. When I was able to command my speech, I
enquired how long I had to live. The vision then replied, 'Not three
days; and you will depart at the hour of twelve.'"
Such was the remarkable story with which Lord Lyttelton startled his
guests on the morning of 24th November 1779. In vain they tried to cheer
him, and to laugh away his fears. They could make no impression on the
despondency that had settled on him; they could not shake the conviction
that he was a doomed man. "You will see," was all the answer he would
vouchsafe, "I shall die at midnight on Saturday."
But in spite of this alarming experience and the gloomy forebodings to
which, in his shattered state of nerves, it gave birth, Lord Lyttelton
did not long allow it to interfere with the work he had in hand, the
preparation of a speech on the disturbed condition in Ireland which he
was to deliver in the House of Lords that very day--a speech which
should enhance his great and rapidly growing reputation as an orator. He
spent some hours absorbed in polishing and repolishing his sentences,
and in verifying his facts; and, when he rose in the House, he was as
full of confidence as of his subject.
Never, it was the common verdict, had his lordship spoken with more
eloquence and lucidity or with more powerful grasp of his subject and
his hearers.
"Cast your eyes for a moment," he declared, amid
impressive silence, "on the state of the Empire.
America, that vast Continent, with all its advantages to
us as a commercial and maritime people--lost--for ever
lost to us; the West Indies abandoned; Ireland ready to
part from us. Ireland, my lords, is armed; and what is
her language? 'Give us free trade and the free
Constitution of England as it originally was, such as we
hope it will remain, the best calculated of any in the
world for the preservation of freedom.'"
It was the speech of a far-seeing statesman; and although it proved but
the "voice of one crying in the wilderness," Lord Lyttelton felt that he
had done his duty and had crowned his growing political fame with the
laurels of the patriot and the orator.
On the following morning Fortescue met his cousin sauntering in St
James's Park, as Mr Makower tells us, "with the idleness of one who has
never known what occupation means."
"Is it because Hillsborough, the stupidest of your brother peers, paid
you such fine compliments on your speech?" he asked.
Lyttelton smiled faintly. "No, it was not of that I was thinking," he
answered. "Those are things of yesterday. Hillsborough was wrong; the
majority who voted with him were wrong; and I was right with my
minority. They don't know Ireland as I do. But a Government which can
lose America can do anything. I have done with politics. I was thinking
of something entirely different when you came upon me. I was
thinking--of death."
Fortescue laughed. But, when he had heard the story of Lyttelton's
dream, something in the manner of the narrator conveyed to him a feeling
of uneasiness.
"No man has more thoroughly enjoyed doing wrong than I have," continued
Lyttelton. "But I should not have enjoyed it so much if I believed in
nothing. With me sin has been conscientious; and I enjoyed the wrong
thing not only for itself but also because it was wrong. Suppose it be
true that I have not more than three days to live--"
"You take the thing too seriously," interposed his cousin.
"Join me at Pit Place to-morrow," said Lyttelton. "Then you shall see if
I take it too seriously."
During the intervening two days he fluctuated between profound gloom and
boisterous hilarity. One hour he was plunged into the depths of despair,
the next he was the soul of gaiety, laughing hysterically at his fears,
and exclaiming, "I shall cheat the lady yet!"
During dinner on the third and fatal day he was the maddest and merriest
at the table, convulsing all by his sallies of wit and his infectious
high spirits; and, when the cloth was removed, he exclaimed jubilantly,
"Ah, Richard is himself again!" But his gaiety was short-lived. As the
hours wore on his spirits deserted him; he lapsed into gloom and
silence, from which all the efforts of his friends could not rouse him.
As the night advanced he began to grow restless. He could not sit still,
but paced to and fro, with terror-haunted eyes, muttering incoherently
to himself, and taking out his watch every few moments to note the
passage of time. At last, when his watch pointed to half-past eleven, he
retired, without a word of farewell to his guests, to his bedroom, not
knowing that not only his own watch, but every clock and watch in the
house had been put forward half-an-hour by his anxious friends, "to
deceive him into comfort."
Having undressed and gone to bed, he ordered his valet to draw the
curtains at the foot, as if to screen him from a second sight of the
mysterious lady, and, sitting up in bed, watch in hand, he awaited the
fatal hour of midnight. As the minute hand slowly but surely drew near
to twelve he asked to see his valet's watch, and was relieved to find
that it marked the same time as his own. With beating heart and
straining eyes he watched the hand draw nearer and nearer. A minute more
to go--half a minute. Now it pointed to the fateful twelve--and nothing
happened. It crept slowly past. The crisis was over. He put down the
watch with a deep sigh of relief, and then broke into a peal of
laughter--discordant, jubilant, defiant.
"This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find," he said to his
valet, after spending a few minutes in further mirthful waiting. "And
now give me my medicine; I will wait no longer." The valet proceeded to
mix his usual medicine, a dose of rhubarb, stirring it, as no spoon was
at hand, with a tooth-brush lying on the table. "You dirty fellow!" his
lordship exclaimed. "Go down and fetch a spoon."
When the servant returned a few minutes later he found, to his horror,
his master lying back on the pillow, unconscious and breathing heavily.
He ran downstairs again, shouting, "Help! Help! My lord is dying!" The
alarmed guests rushed frantically to the chamber, only to find their
host almost at his last gasp. A few moments later he was dead, with the
watch still clutched in his hand, pointing to half-past twelve. He had
died at the very stroke of midnight, as foretold by his ghostly visitant
of three nights previously.
Thus strangely and dramatically died Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton,
statesman, wit, and debauchee, precisely as he had been warned that he
would die in a dream or vision of the night. How far his death was due
to natural causes, to the effect of fear on a diseased heart, none can
say with certainty. That his heart was diseased, that he had had many
former seizures, during which his life seemed in danger, is beyond
question; but if it was merely coincidence, it was surely the most
remarkable coincidence on record, that his death should come at the
exact moment foretold by the lady of his vision, as related by himself
three days before the event.
Such a happening was strange and weird enough in all conscience; but it
was no more inexplicable on natural grounds than what follows. Among
Lord Lyttelton's boon companions was a Mr Andrews, with whom he had
often discussed the possibilities of a future life. On one such occasion
his lordship had said: "Well, if I die first, and am allowed, I will
come and inform you."
The words were probably spoken more in jest than in earnest, and Mr
Andrews no doubt little dreamt how the promise would be fulfilled. On
the night of Lord Lyttelton's death Mr Andrews, who expected his
lordship to pay him a visit on the following day, had retired to bed at
his house at Dartford, in Kent.
When in bed, to quote from Mr Plumer Ward's "Illustrations of Human
Life," he fell into a sound sleep, but was waked between eleven and
twelve o'clock by somebody opening his curtains. It was Lord Lyttelton,
in a nightgown and cap which Andrews recognised. He also spoke plainly
to him, saying that he was come to tell him all was over. It seems that
Lord Lyttelton was fond of horseplay; and, as he had often made Andrews
the subject of it, the latter had threatened his lordship with physical
chastisement the very next time that it should occur. On the present
occasion, thinking that the annoyance was being renewed, he threw at
Lord Lyttelton's head the first thing that he could find--his slippers.
The figure retreated towards a dressing-room, which had no ingress or
egress except through the bed-chamber; and Andrews, very angry, leaped
out of bed in order to follow it into the dressing-room. It was not
there, however.
Surprised and amazed, he returned at once to the bedroom, which he
strictly searched. _The door was locked on the inside_, yet no Lord
Lyttelton was to be found. In his perplexity, Mr Andrews rang for his
servant, and asked if Lord Lyttelton had not arrived. The man answered:
"No, sir." "You may depend upon it," said Mr Andrews, thoroughly
mystified and out of humour, "that he is somewhere in the house. He was
here just now, and he is playing some trick or other. However, you can
tell him that he won't get a bed here; he can sleep in the stable or at
the inn if he likes."
After a further vain search of the bed-chamber and the dressing-room, Mr
Andrews returned to bed and to sleep, having no doubt whatever that his
too jocular friend was in hiding somewhere near. On the afternoon of the
following day news came to him that Lord Lyttelton had died the previous
night at the very time that he (Mr Andrews) was searching for his
midnight visitant, and abusing him roundly for what he considered his
ill-timed practical joke. On hearing the news, we are told, Mr Andrews
swooned away, and such was its effect on him that, to use his own words,
"he was not himself or a man again for three years."