HOW MY LORD MADE HIS CONFESSION.
It was not a long manuscript. I kissed the dear handwriting before I
began.
"To the Queen of my Heart," it began.
"DEAREST GIRL,--Since I first had the happiness of worshipping at
your shrine I have learned from watching your movements, listening
to your voice, and looking at your face, something of what that
heavenly beauty must have been like which, we are told, captivated
and drove mad the ancients, even by mere meditation and thought
upon it."
Did ever girl read more beautiful language?
"And by conversations with you, even in the gay assembly or on the
crowded Terrace, I have learned to admire and to love that
goodness of heart which God hath bestowed upon the most virtuous
among women. I say this in no flattery or desire to pay an empty
compliment, but sincerely, and out of the respect and admiration,
as well as the love, which I have conceived for one who is, I dare
maintain, all goodness."
O Kitty, Kitty! to read this with blushing cheeks and biting
conscience! Surely it must make people good to be believed good; so
that, by a little faith, we might raise and purify all mankind!
"It is my purpose to-night, if I find an opportunity, to tell you
that I am the most wretched man in the world, because by a fatal
accident, of which I must presently force myself to speak, I am
for ever shut out from the happiness which it was, I believe, the
intention of a merciful Providence to confer upon me. Yet am I also
fortunate, and esteem myself happy in this respect, that I have for
once in my life been in the presence of as much female beauty and
virtue as was ever, I believe, found together in one human soul. To
tell you these things, to speak of my love, is an alleviation of
suffering. To tell the cause of this unhappiness is worse than to
plunge a knife into my heart. Yet must it be told to your ear alone.
"Last year, about the early summer, a rumour began to run through
the coffee-houses that there was a man of extraordinary wit,
genius, and humour to be met with in the Liberties, or Rules, of
the Fleet Prison. These Rules, of which you know nothing"--oh,
Kitty! nothing!--"are houses, or lodgings, lying in certain
streets adjacent to the Fleet Market, where prisoners for debt are
allowed, on payment of certain fees, and on finding security, to
reside outside the prison. In fact they are free, and yet being,
in the eyes of the law, still prisoners, they cannot any more be
arrested for debt. Among these prisoners of the Rules was a certain
Reverend Gregory Shovel, a man of great learning, and a Doctor
of Divinity of Cambridge, a divine of eloquence and repute, once
a fashionable preacher, who, being of extravagant and luxurious
habits, which brought him into expenditure above his means, at
last found himself a prisoner in the Fleet; and presently, through
the influence of friends, was placed in the enjoyment of the Rules.
"Here, whether because he had exhausted the generosity of his
friends, or because he craved for action, or for the baser purposes
of gain, he became that most unworthy thing, a Fleet parson--one of
a most pestilent crew who go through the form of marriage for all
comers, and illegally bind together for life those whom Heaven, in
mercy and knowledge, had designed to be kept asunder.
"I believe that, by his extraordinary ability and impudence,
coupled with the fact that he really was, what his rivals chiefly
pretended to be, a clergyman of the Established Church of England
and Ireland, he has managed to secure the principal part of this
nefarious trade to himself, and has become what he has named
himself, 'the Chaplain of the Fleet.'
"This person attracted to himself, little by little, a great
gathering of followers, admirers, or friends. No one, I suppose,
could be the friend of one who had so fallen; therefore the men
who thronged to his lodgings, nearly every night in the week, were
drawn thither by the fashion of running after a man who talked,
sang, told stories, and kept open house in so desperate a quarter
as the Fleet Market, and who yet had the manners of a gentleman,
the learning of a scholar, and the experience of a traveller.
"It was for this reason, solely for curiosity, that on one fatal
evening last year I entreated Sir Miles Lackington, a former friend
of my father's and myself, to present me to the Doctor. You have
made the acquaintance of Sir Miles. He was once, though perhaps
the fact has not been made known to you by him, also a prisoner of
the Rules. To this had he been brought by his inordinate love of
gambling, by which he had stripped himself, in six months, of as
fine an estate as ever fell to the lot of an English gentleman,
and brought himself to a debtor's prison. Sir Miles, who, when he
could no longer gamble, showed signs of possessing virtues hitherto
unsuspected in him, offered, on the occasion of borrowing a few
guineas of me, to conduct me, if I wished to spend an evening with
the Doctor, as he is called, to the house which this Doctor either
owns or frequents.
"I am not a lover of that low humour and those coarse scenes
depicted by Mr. Fielding and Dr. Smollet. I do not delight in
seeing drunken men sprawl in the gutter, nor women fight upon Fleet
Bridge, nor bears baited, nor pickpockets and rogues pilloried or
flogged. But I was promised something very different from these
scenes. I was to meet, Sir Miles told me, a remarkable man, who
could narrate, declaim, preach, or sing a drinking song, just as he
was in the vein.
"I accepted the invitation, the strangeness of which affected
my curiosity rather than excited my hopes. I was to witness, I
thought, the spectacle of a degraded wretch who lived by breaking
the law, for each offence being liable to a penalty of not less
than a hundred pounds. It would be, I expected, such a sight as
that which the drunken Helot once presented to the virtuous Spartan
youth.
"We made our way through a mean and filthy neighbourhood, by the
side of a market heaped with cabbage-stalks, past houses where,
through the common panes of green glass set in leaden frames, one
might see a rushlight or a tallow candle feebly glimmering, for a
crew of drunken men to shout songs and drink beside.
"The room into which I was led opened off the street, and was of
fair proportions, but low. In it was a table, at the head of which,
in a vast wooden chair, sat a man who looked, though perhaps he
was not, the biggest man I had ever seen. Some tall men have small
hands, or narrow shoulders, or small heads; Doctor Shovel is great
all over, with a large and red face, a silk cassock, a full and
flowing wig, clean bands, and a flowered morning-gown very large
and comfortable.
"He seemed struck with some astonishment on hearing my name, but
presently recovered, and invited me to sit at his right hand. Sir
Miles sat at his left. The room was pretty full, and we found that
the evening had already begun by the exhaustion of the first bowl
of punch. The guests consisted of gentlemen who came, like myself,
to see and converse with the famous Doctor: and of prisoners who,
like Sir Miles, were living in the Rules.
"As the punch went round, the talk grew more jovial. That is to
say, the talk of the Doctor, because no one else said anything. He
talked continuously; he talked of everything. He seemed to know
everything, and to have been everywhere. When he was not talking
he was singing. At intervals he smoked a pipe of tobacco, which
did not interrupt his talk; and he never ceased sending round the
punch. I found that the visitors were expected to provide this part
of the entertainment.
"I am sure that the kindest-hearted of women will believe me when
I tell her that I am no drunkard. Yet there are times when, owing
to the foolish custom of calling for toasts, no heeltaps, and a
brimming glass, the most careful head may be affected. Nor can I
plead inexperience in the dangers of the bottle, after three years
at St. John's, Cambridge, where the Fellows of the Society, and the
noblemen and gentlemen commoners on the Foundation, drank freely
at every college feast of the college port and the punch sent up
from the butteries. I had been like other young men, but I trust
that your imagination will not picture Lord Chudleigh carried away
from the combination-room and put to bed by a couple of the college
gyps. Yet, worse still, I have to present that spectacle before
your eyes, not at a grave and reverend college feast, but in the
dissolute Liberties of the Fleet.
"The atmosphere of the room was close and hot, with the smell of
the tobacco and the fumes of the punch bowl. Presently I found that
my eyes were beginning to swim and my head to reel. I half rose to
go, but the Doctor, laying his hand upon me, cried, with a great
oath, that we should not part yet.
"By this time Sir Miles was lying with his head on the table. Some
of the guests were lying on the floor; some were singing, some
crying; some kissing each other. It was, in short, one of those
scenes of debauchery which may be witnessed whenever a party of
men meet together to drink. I sat down; it was plain that I could
not escape from these hogs without myself becoming a hog. I sat
still, therefore, while the Doctor still talked, still laughed,
still waved his monstrous great hand in the air as he talked, and
the punch still went briskly round among the few who sat upright.
"In the morning I was awakened by no other than my host of the
preceding evening, in whose bed I had spent the rest of the night
unconscious.
"He stood over me with grave face, and, in reproachful accents,
asked me how I fared, and for what purpose I had come to him? I
was still half-drunk; I could not remember for what purpose. He
assisted me to dress; and then, because I could not stand, he gave
me a mug of small ale with which to clear my brain.
"Being thus partly restored to my senses, I listened while he
answered his own question, and told me why I had come to him.
"'You came,' he said, 'to be married.'
"I stared. He repeated the words--
"'You came to be married.'
"It seems incredible that a man should hear a statement so utterly
false and not cry out upon the liar. Yet I did not. My brain was
confused, that is my excuse. Also, this great man seemed to hold me
like a wizard, while he held up his forefinger and, with wrinkled
brow, shook it in my face.
"'You came to be married.'
"Good heavens! What did this mean? I was drunk, horribly drunk the
night before--I could not remember--so drunk was I--how I came to
the house, with whom, with what intent.
"'She waits below,' he told me.
"She? Who?
"He gave me his arm to support me down the stairs. I descended,
curious and agitated. I remember a figure with a hood. While I
looked, this Chaplain of the Devil began the marriage service, his
eyes still fixed on me while he recited, and seemed to read.
"When he had finished, I was married.
"After we had signed a book, he gave me another great mug of ale,
which I drank to the bottom.
"Then, I suppose, I rolled over, and was carried upstairs, for I
remember nothing more until the evening, when I was again awakened
by this rogue and common cheat, who, sitting by my bedside,
congratulated me calmly on the day's work.
"I will not go on to tell you all the things he said. I discovered
that in some way, I know not how, but can guess, my father had once
done this man an injury. This conspiracy was his revenge.
"Who was my wife?
"He would not tell me.
"What was her position, her birth, her name? Was she some wretched
creature who could be bought off to keep silence while she lived,
although she was a thing to be ashamed of and to hide? Was she some
person who would trade on her title, parade her infamy, and declare
herself to the world as Lady Chudleigh by her lord's marriage in
the Fleet? A hundred things I asked. He gave me no reply.
"Her name? I had forgotten it. The register? it had been put away.
I seemed to know the name, somehow; yet it escaped me. In the night
it came back to me in a dream; yet in the morning it was gone
again. Once, after my first evening with you, the name came to
me once more in a dream; yet it was gone when I awoke, and could
remember no other name than yours. It is nearly a year ago. I know
not yet whom I married. She hath made no sign. Yet I know full well
that the day will come when she will confess herself and demand
acknowledgment.
"One hope remains: that the marriage is not valid. It is a slender
hope, for the man is an ordained clergyman of the Established
Church. I am going to London to see him, to implore his pity, to
humble myself if necessary.
* * * * *
"It is of no avail. I have gone. I have humbled myself, and then,
flying into the opposite extreme, I have cursed him. He enjoyed
both the wrath and the humility.
"I have no longer any hope; I have taken the advice of my lawyers,
who tell me that an Act of Parliament alone can set me free; this
Act--how can it be got when I do not know the name of the woman?
"Even if there were any reasonable chance that so dreadful a place
could produce a woman of virtue and honour, which there is not, I
could never look upon that woman with any but feelings of loathing
and horror. For not only is her idea black beyond compare, but my
heart is full, and will remain for ever full of Kitty Pleydell.
"Strange to say, as I wrote the words, it seemed as if I had
touched at last the chord of memory. The name was on my lips.
No--it was an illusion; I have forgotten it again, and can only
murmur Kitty Pleydell, sweet Kitty, divine Kitty, on whom may all
the blessings of Heaven rest for ever!"