JEAN PAUL’S assertion, that the past and the future are written in every
face, for what a fiendish past and what a hellish future are written in
that worst bad man’s face. HOTTEN wrote to me the other day saying that
in the memoir of THACKERAY he is bringing out, THACKERAY’S feud with Sir
L—— is alluded to, but it is stated it was subsequently arranged; but
it is not all clearly told _how_, and could I give him any particulars
on the subject? I said I could not, and that I had always respected
THACKERAY’S loathing of and utter contempt for the charlatan and arch
hypocrite, as he had never personally injured or offended THACKERAY, who
only honestly detested him for his unredeemedly infamous life, and the
intense meanness of his nature. I had never heard of any intercourse
being effected between them, but if there had been any such jobbed up,
no doubt the _vaurien_ venal literary clique to which he belonged had
concocted it (most likely that blackguard DICKENS). Well, after the S—LL—
affair, the ruffian tried his old plan of starving me out by not paying
the beggarly pittance he professed to give me, though he had been warned
by friends (if he has any, for though plenty of _cameraderie_, there is
and _can_ be no friendship among the wicked) and foes, not to drive me to
extremities. “Truly,” says RICHTER, “the devil invented seeking and his
grandmother waiting,” and I was nearly worn out with both. The month of
June, 1858, had arrived, and the Hertford election was to take place on
the 8th, a Wednesday, I think. The Sunday before I was in bed with one of
my splitting headaches, from ceaseless worry of mind and want of rest.
I got up, and in a perfect agony prayed to GOD to direct me, to send me
some help in my cruel, cruel position. I went back to bed exhausted, and
the sudden thought struck me, I would go to the Hertford election, and
publicly expose the ruffian. Aye; but how? I was penniless, and three
quarters in Mrs. C——’s debt. Never mind; she was a good woman, and I
did put her goodness to the test. I rang for her and said, “Mrs. C——, I
am deeply in your debt; but I want to get more into it. I want to go to
Hertford, and publicly expose that monster; you must lend me the money to
do so, and come with me, for I cannot go alone; it is your only chance of
being paid. I know the dastardly, cowardly villain well; public exposure
is the only thing his rottenness fears. For as long as I can beggar
myself in rascally lawyers, whom he can always ‘manage,’ or trust to the
timid, and imbecile milk and waterings of _soi-disant_ friends, who are
in reality my worst enemies, and rivet the wrong their pusillanimity
succumbs to, the Fiend only laughs at me and them.” “Very well,” said
she, “I’ll do it.” “Then, like a good soul, you must do more. I want some
giant posters printed, to placard all over the town of Hertford, with
simply these words:
“‘Lady B—— L—— requests the Electors of Herts to meet her at the
Corn Exchange this day, Wednesday, June 8, 1858, before going to the
Hustings.’”
But I told her not to get them done at a common printing office, so as
to have it talked of all over _this_ town. She said she’d have them done
at the private printing-office of my chemist, whom she could trust. On
the Tuesday, by the 3.20 p.m. train, we started, but instead of going the
direct way by London—for fear of meeting Sir LIAR or any of his gang—we
went a round which, with the usual delays of the trains, made it 11 at
night before we got to Bedford; so that the _last_ train for Hertford had
started half-an-hour before, and it was three mortal hours before post
horses could be got for love or money; which threw us out dreadfully, and
oh those mortal hours of slow crawling with jaded horses, the remaining
miles; and when at last we arrived my head was burning and I had cold
shivers in every limb; while there was the pale summer moon setting on
the one side, and the red summer sun rising on the other; so that as
usual I was between two fires, as I entered the little dirty mean town of
Hertford and drove up to the ‘Dimsdale Arms.’ Mrs. C—— I told to give the
boots of the inn a sovereign, to instantly (it was then 5 o’clock a.m.),
paste up my posters all over the town; and he worked so zealously that
before seven they _were_ all over the town.
Mrs. C—— persuaded me to go to bed for a few hours, I was so ill; the
doing so, and my bath, together, brought it to half-past eleven, too late
to go to the Mayor to ask for the use of the Corn Exchange or Town Hall,
or do anything but order a brougham to drive to the hustings, where the
speechifying and public virtue had already begun. And another provoking
delay was Mrs. C—— making the discovery that she had blue ribbons in her
bonnet, and stopping at a milliner’s to change them for white, saying:
“_Blue_ is that infamous man’s colour, and I won’t wear it.” As we
drove into the field where the humbug was going on, the postillions of
Sir LIAR’S carriage, whom I did not know (as of course they were long
since my time) stood up in their stirrups and took off their hats as
I drove past. Around in front of the semi-circle of carriages before
the hustings, I pulled the check and got out. For a moment I was in a
perfect fever, for though I hope I shall never become that sponge of all
iniquity, a human being without _moral_ courage, I am fearfully afraid
physically of a mob. But seeing their cowardly brute of a county member
on the hustings before me, with that intensely, vulgar-looking personage,
Lord and Lady PALMERSTON’S bastard, the _soi-disant_ Mr. W—— C—— for his
bottle holder—so much for the political thimble-rig of the present day—I
made one great effort over myself to do properly what I had come to do,
and from a high fever that I was in the minute before, I became deadly
cold and pale, and with it superhumanly calm and collected. So touching
with my large green fan the arm of the first man near me, while Mrs. C——
followed closely holding my dress, I said in a loud clear voice, “My good
people, make way for your member’s wife, and let me pass, for I have
something to say to him,” whereupon the mob began to cheer and cry, “Make
way for Lady L——; that we will, GOD bless her, poor lady.” And instantly
a clear passage was made for me up to the very scaffolding of the
hustings. “Thank you, friends,” said I. And then steadily fixing my eyes
upon the cold, pale, fiendish, lack-lustre eyes of the electioneering
baronet, I said, “Sir EDWARD EARLE BULWER L——, after turning me and my
children out of our house to run an unexampled career of vice, you have
spent years in promulgating every lie of me, and hunting me through
the world with every species of persecution and outrage, your last
gentlemanlike and manly attempt having been to try and starve me out:
therefore, in return for your _lies_, I have come here to-day to say the
_truths_ I have to say of you, _to you_, openly and publicly. If you
can deny _one_ of the charges I shall bring against you, do so, but to
_disprove_ them I defy you.”
Here, as the papers said, his jaw fell like that of a man suddenly struck
with paralysis, and he made a rush from the hustings, valiantly trampling
down the flower-beds of the house of Mr. STEPHEN AUSTIN, the editor of
_The Hertford Mercury_, which was close at hand, by jumping over the
pailings, and _heroically_ locking himself into the dining-room. The
moment the cowardly brute took to flight, the mob began to hiss and yell
and vociferate, “Ah! he’s guilty, he’s guilty; he dare not face her.
Three cheers for her ladyship.” As soon as silence was restored, I turned
to the crowd, who roared, “Silence, listen to what Lady L—— has to say.”
Whereupon I said, “Men of Herts, if you have the hearts of men, hear
me.” “We will, we will—speak up.” Here a voice cried, “Stop, where is
the _Times’_ reporter?” to which several voices from the hustings cried
out, “Oh, oh, he’s been bundled off fast enough.” Cries of “Shame.” I
then went on to tell them that their member’s last conspiracy was to make
out—because I dared to resent, having no brother to horsewhip him for his
dastardly persecutions, and sending his infamous street-walkers to insult
me—that I was quite mad, in order to incarcerate me in a Madhouse. Cries
of “Cowardly villain, but that won’t do, after to-day, now that we have
seen and heard you.” I spoke for more than an hour. But I need not bore
you with my speech, nor their plaudits, or the way in which they cheered
and wanted to draw me back to the Hotel, which, thanking them cordially—I
implored them not to do; as I had to go by the 3 o’clock train. Nor need
I tell you how the roofs of the houses were covered with people, as well
as the windows, waving handkerchiefs, and crying, “GOD bless you,” when I
went.
But this I will tell you, that, calling at the Mayor’s before I went (for
the people had asked me to address them in the Town Hall in the evening),
as I wanted him to explain to them that I was tied to time and could not
go; his wife told me that as I drove past to go to the hustings an old
woman of 85, who lived in the village of Knebworth, and was a tenant of
Sir LIAR’S, and had been one of his grandfather’s, and who came into
Hertford occasionally to sell poultry, and who happened to be in the hall
at the Mayor’s house when I drove by, upon hearing it was I, and that
I was going to the hustings, fell upon her knees and said, “Thank GOD!
thank GOD! that I have lived to see this day, and that villain will be
exposed at last, and poor dear Miss L——’s death avenged.” I can only say
that if the horrible opinion that _all_ classes in the town of Hertford
have of him be any criterion of that of those in the country (except
that they, to be sure, belong to our putrescently rotten and profligate
Aristocracy), it _is_ a miracle how any amount of political jobbery or
party bribery can get him returned.
Well, the journey back from Hertford being as hurried as the journey
there, and I having been so ill when I set out, I was on my return,
with all the painful excitement in addition, quite knocked up. And on
the second day after my return, being in bed about 11 o’clock a.m., a
card was brought to me with Mr. F—— H—— T——, 4, C—— Street, Piccadilly,
on it, accompanied by a message that that gentleman wanted to see me
particularly. “Why did you not say I was ill in bed, and could not
see any one?” “HENRY told him so, my lady.” “Then go and tell him so
again.” “The gentleman says he _must_ see your ladyship, as it is for
your advantage,” was the answer to my message. “If he has any business,
he can write,” said I. “He can be no gentleman to persist in attempting
to see a lady who is ill in bed, and a total stranger to him.” Shortly
after this I heard several voices loud in altercation outside my bedroom
door, and Mrs. C——’s above them all, saying, “You shall _not_ force your
way in, unless you cut me down first.” Whereupon I rang my bell, and Mrs.
C—— came round the other way, through the drawing room, in a very excited
state, and I said, “What on earth is the matter?” “A pack of wretches,”
said she, “evidently some of that villain Sir EDWARD’S emissaries.” “Let
them in,” said I, “and if they should attempt to carry me off bodily,
send for the police. Now,” added I, sitting up in bed, arranging the
frills of my night things, and settling myself down to freezing point on
the score of calmness and impassibility, as is my wont in every crisis
that must be met, “unbolt the door, or rather unlock it” (for she had
carried off the key that they should not force their way in during her
absence), “and let them in.” She did so; and in walked a little very dark
man, with very black hair and eyes, of about 60, followed by a Patagonian
woman of six feet high, who was a keeper from the Madhouse at Fairwater,
near this, conducted by a Dr. W——. The giantess he told to sit down at
one side of my bed, while he came round to the other, but followed by
Mrs. C——. “Pray, Lady L——,” said he, pulling out an election skit on blue
paper, purporting to be Sir LIAR’S address to his constituents, saying
that one of the first measures he should propose in Parliament would be
about “the social evil,” to which he had always so largely contributed,
and that as family ties and domestic duties had always been held so
sacred by him, he regretted that his loved and honoured wife was not
there to share his triumphs upon that occasion, as, although it might be
considered a weakness in him, ambition had no charms for him but as it
contributed to the happiness of his _alter ego_ and those who blest his
own fireside!!! and a great deal of similar _persiflage_ and more pungent
satire. Before I could reply, Mrs. C—— cried out, “No, I can answer
for _that_, for I it was who, in great haste, got Lady L——’s placards
printed—those on white paper pasted on the walls.”
“No,” said I, very quietly, “upon my honour I never saw that effusion
before; but GOD bless the honest man who wrote it, whoever he be.” “Your
word is quite sufficient” said T——, who then, feeling my pulse the whole
time—which he remarked was one of the most quiet and even he had ever
felt—began divers florid panegyrics upon Sir LIAR’S brilliant talents,
success in life, and everything else that was exasperating, with the
evident intention of exasperating me, in which he did _not_ succeed.
After an hour spent in this work, he went out of the room to consult
with some one in another room, leaving the gaunt keeper in possession,
and this round of going backwards and forwards he repeated till nine
at night; for, of course, he had to earn the £100, which was his fee,
for coming down here. Had I _then_ known what Mrs. C—— told me after,
_i.e._, that the wretch L—— was the person in the other room, with whom
he went to consult, and that there was a carriage with the horses to
waiting _all_ day at the other (Castle) Hotel, ready to carry me off to
W——’s Madhouse, at Fairwater, I don’t think I _could_ have had sufficient
control over myself to have retained my imperturbable calmness as I did.
When this T—— returned from a two hours’ conference with the vile
_Unknown_ in the other room (during which time I had been very civil to
the giantess, offering her luncheon), he again began feeling my pulse,
and touching upon every irritating topic he could devise, and then upon
European politics and other topics of the day; and then as a charming
little variation he made me put out my tongue, looked at my teeth, and
raised up my eyelids, in short, investigated me as minutely as if I
had been a 500 guinea horse he was going to buy; after which, turning
himself to the gaunt keeper, he said, “Well, I don’t know. I think I
never saw any one in sounder mind or body. What do _you_ think?” “Why,
really, sir,” said the giantess, wiping her eyes, for which touch of
human feeling I felt very grateful to her, “I _do_ think _this_ is one of
the cruellest outrages I ever witnessed or heard of.” “Humph,” said T——,
going out for another season of two hours’ duration, which brought it
to 5 o’clock before he returned, and when he did so, he was accompanied
by Dr. W—— who pursued his plan of irritating topics, but with more
provincial coarseness and vulgarity, culminating it all by saying in a
sort of jibing way, “I must really say, Lady L——, that I think you are
unreasonable to Sir EDWARD, for £400 a year is a very good allowance.”
“It might be for a mad Doctor or attorney’s wife,” I replied. “Ah!
true—yes—a—certainly, that makes a difference.” “And even then,” added
I, “they _might_ be so _very_ unreasonable as to want it _paid_ in coin
instead of _promissory_ notes.” Here ensued a series of telegrams of nods
and winks between the two M.D.’s. So he again left the room, and I heard
T—— mutter, “It won’t do.” When he returned again (without W——), it was 8
at night, so you may suppose what a day of _rest_ I had after that horrid
journey.
“Now, Lady L——,” said T——, “I want you to oblige me by writing me a
note, stating _what_ terms you will accept from Sir EDWARD, to never
again expose him as you did at Hertford on Wednesday.” “It’s no use,”
said I, “it has been urged upon him for years to give me a decent and
punctual allowance; he would rather part with his life than his money,
and, moreover, neither honour, nor oaths can bind him.” “Well, but what
would you accept?” “Why, as one might as well expect to get blood out
of a stone as money out of him, if I asked for an adequate income, I
_know_ he would never even _promise_ it; so if he will _really_ give,
that is, _pay_ me £500 a-year for _my_ life; instead of a mythological
£400 for his;—I’ll not again _publicly_ expose him”—(were you here, I
would _tell_ you _how_ I came to be put off upon the original swindle of
this disgraceful £400 a-year; but it is too long to write). “Well, _do_
write me a note to that effect, and I’ll go into your drawing-room while
you’re writing it.” “And what guarantee have _I_, pray Mr. T——, that the
gross outrage of to-day, so long hatching, shall not be repeated?” “_My
word of honour as a gentleman_ (??) Lady L——,” said he, laying his hand
upon his left side as he walked into the drawing-room. “Do write the
note,” whispered Mrs. C—— hurriedly,—“that man’s your friend;—I’ll tell
you all by-and-by.” I shook my head and said, “I don’t believe in any
_man’s_ friendship; more especially in a mad Doctor’s, employed by Sir
EDWARD.” When the note was finished, it was 9 o’clock! I asked him when I
should hear from him in reply to that note? “In four days, at furthest,”
said he, as at length he rid me of his presence. When he was gone, poor
Mrs. C—— sank down exhausted (as well she might be) into a chair. She
then told me the reason she had said he was my friend was, that L—— had
stormed, foamed, and stamped to _make_ him and W—— sign a certificate of
my insanity. T—— said he _could_ not; and W—— he dare not. The latter
moreover said, down in the Bar—as he went away, “Mad! Lady L—— is no more
mad than I am; I’m afraid Sir EDWARD will find her only too sane.”