The Chaplain of the Fleet

by Walter Besant

  CHAPTER I.

  HOW WE RETURNED TO THE POLITE WORLD.

  We love those places most where we lived when we were young, and wherewe were wooed and won, and where we had those sweet dreams, which canonly come to the very young, of a happy future, impossible in thistransitory and fleeting life. Dear to me and romantic are the sceneswhich to many are associated with disease and infirmity, or at bestwith the mad riot of the race, the assembly, and the ball.

  Truly there is no time, for a woman, like the time when she is youngand beautiful, and is courted by a troop of lovers. She feels herpower, though she does not understand it; she remembers it long afterthe power has gone, with the witchery of bright eyes, soft cheeks, andblooming youth. I think there can never be any faith or hope in thefuture so strong as to resist the sigh over the past, the feeling thatit is better to be young than to be old: to blossom than to wither.

  When we went to Epsom Wells we had managed between us, by silence asto the past and a tacit understanding, to forget the Rules altogether.Forgetting, indeed, is easy. Surely the butterfly forgets the days whenit was a mere crawling grub; Cophetua's queen no doubt soon learnedto believe that she had royal blood, or blue blood at least, in herpeasant veins (for my own part, I think the king should have matedwith one nearer his own rank). There is little difficulty in puttingout of sight what we wish forgotten. There was a man, for instance,about the Fleet market, running odd jobs, who actually had forgottenthat he was once hanged. The people used to go there on purpose tosee the wretch, who was, I remember, bow-legged and long-armed, withbroad shoulders; his face was marked with smallpox; he squinted; he hada great scar upon his cheek; the bridge of his nose was broken; hehad no forehead visible; his ears projected on either side, and werelong, like the ears of a mule; his eye-teeth were like tusks; and asfor his expression, it was that which John Bunyan may have had in hismind when he wrote about the mob in Vanity Fair, or the ill-favouredones who got over the wall and accosted Christiana--an expression whichone may briefly describe as indicating a mind not set upon spiritualthings. Now this man had actually once been hanged, but being takenaway after the hanging to Barber Surgeons' Hall, near St. Giles'sChurch, Cripplegate, was then restored to life by one who thought todissect him. That was why everybody looked after him, and would haveasked him questions if they had dared accost such a ruffian. For itseemed to the unthinking as if he, alone among living men, had, likeDante and Virgil, gone into the regions of the dead, conversed with thespirits of the unjust (being himself a monstrous criminal), and, afterwitnessing their tortures, had returned to the living. To those whobribed him with rum and then put questions, he replied that as for thehanging, it might be as the gentleman said, but he had forgotten it. Asfor what he saw between his hanging and his restoration to life, he hadforgotten that too. Now if a man can forget having been hung, it standsto reason that he can forget anything.

  At all events, without the insensibility of this wretch, we speedilyagreed to forget the Fleet Rules, and in all our conversations to makeas if we had never been there at all, and knew of the place, if at all,then only by hearsay and common bruit and rumour. As for the Chaplainof the Fleet, the great promoter of those marriages which made theplace infamous and the chief performer of them notorious, we agreedthat we were only to think of him as our benefactor.

  Not that we put these resolutions into words, but we arrived at themin the manner common among women, with whom a smile or a glance is asintelligible as many words (with a bottle of wine) among men.

  It was due to this desire to forget the past that we never even readthrough the "Farewell to the Fleet," presented to us by Mr. SolomonStallabras on the morning of our departure. The first four lines, whichwas as far as I got, ran as follows:

  "With easy air of conscious worth expressed, Fair Pimpernel her sorrows oft addressed; The listening echoes poured her sighs abroad, Which all unheard by men, were heard by God."

  He handed the verses to us with a low bow as we stepped into the coach,leaving him behind still--poor wretch!--"enjoying" the Liberties.

  We first repaired, with the view of spending a period of retirement, toa convenient lodging in Red Lion Street, where Mrs. Esther set herselfseriously to resume the dress, manner, language, and feelings of agentlewoman.

  "We have been," she said, "like the sun in eclipse. It is true that onedoes not cease to enjoy, under all circumstances, the pride of gentlebirth, which has been my chief consolation during all our troubles.But if one cannot illustrate to the eyes of the world the dignifieddeportment and genteel appearance due to that position, the possessionof the privilege is a mere private grace, like the gift of good temper,patience, or hope."

  At first and for some weeks we held daily conversations andconsultations on the subject of dress. We were, as may be guessed,somewhat like Pocahontas, of Virginia, when she left the savages andcame into the polite world--because we had to begin from the veryfirst, having hardly anything in which a lady could go abroad, andvery little in which she could sit at home. Truly delightful was itto receive every day the packages of brocades, lace, satins, silks,sarsnets, besides chintzes, muslins, woollen things, and fine linenwherewith to deck ourselves, and to talk with the dressmaker over thelatest fashion, the most proper style for madam, a lady no longeryoung, and for me, who, as a girl, should be dressed modestly and yetfashionably.

  "We must go fine, child," said Mrs. Esther. "I, for my part, because afine appearance is due to my position: you, because you are young andbeautiful. The gallants, to do them justice, are never slow in runningafter a pretty face; but they are only fixed by a pretty face in apretty setting."

  Alas! to think that my face, pretty or not, already belonged,willy-nilly, to a man who had never run after it.

  Mrs. Esther found that not only the fashions of dress, but those offurniture, of language, of manners, and of thought, were changed sinceher long imprisonment began. We therefore made it our endeavour byreading papers, by watching people, and by going to such places as theMall, the Park, and even the fashionable churches, to catch as far aspossible, the mode. Mrs. Esther never quite succeeded, retaining to thelast a touch of antiquated manners, an old-fashioned bearing and trickof speech, which greatly became her, though she knew it not. Meanwhilewe held long and serious talk about the rust of thirty years, and thebest way to wear it off.

  In one of the sermons of the Reverend Melchior Smallbrook, a divinenow forgotten, but formerly much read, the learned clergyman statesthat the sunshine of prosperity is only dangerous to that soul inwhich tares are as ready to spring as wheat: adducing as a remarkableexample and proof of this opinion, the modern prelates of the Churchof England, whose lives (he said) are always models to less fortunateChristians, although their fortunes are so great. Now in Mrs. Esther'ssoul were no tares at all, so that the sunshine of prosperity causedno decrease or diminution of her virtues. She only changed for thebetter, and especially in point of cheerfulness and confidence. Forinstance, whereas we were formerly wont, being poorly clad, to creephumbly to church, sit in the seats reserved for the poor (which haveno backs to them, because the bishops consider the backs of the poorto be specially strengthened by Providence, which hath laid such heavyburdens upon them), and afterwards spend the day sadly over Hervey's"Meditations among the Tombs," we now went in hoops, laces, mantles, orcardinals, with faces patched, to the new church in Queen Square, wherewe had front seats in the gallery, and after church we dined off roastmeat, with pudding, and after dinner read such discourses as presented,instead of penitential meditations, a thankful, nay, a cheerful viewof life. I am sure, for my own part, I found the change greatly forthe better. But we made no new friends, because Mrs. Esther wished toremain in strict retirement until she had recovered what she called thePimpernel Manner.

  "It is a Manner, my dear, as you will perceive when I recover it, atonce dignified and modest. My father and my grandfather, both LordMayors, possessed it to an eminent degree, and were justly celebratedfor it. My poor sister would
never have acquired it, being by naturetoo sprightly. I was gradually learning it when our misfortunes came.Naturally afterwards it would have been absurd to cultivate itsfurther development. The Pimpernel Manner would have been thrownaway in----such a place as that to which we retired."

  I am so stupid that I never clearly understood the Pimpernel Manner,even when Mrs. Esther afterwards assured me that she had now fullyrecovered it.

  Meantime, my education was resumed in the lighter departments. No girlwho had once tackled book-keeping, by single and double entry, couldwant any more solid instruction. My guardian played the harpsichordfor me, while my dancing-master gave me lessons in the minuet; or shepersonated a duchess, a countess, or even the most exalted lady in theland, while the master, a pink of courtesy, who had once danced on theboards of Drury Lane, presented me dressed in hoops and a train. I wasso diligent in dancing that I was soon ready, he assured me, to makea figure at any assembly, whether at Bath, Epsom, Tunbridge Wells,Vauxhall, or Ranelagh. But for the present these gaieties had to bepostponed, partly because the Pimpernel Manner was slow in developing,and without it my guardian would not stir abroad, partly because wehad no gentleman to go with us. Sir Miles Lackington would, I am sure,have gone with us, had we asked him to take us. But he was not to bedepended upon if a bottle of wine came in the way. Solomon Stallabraswould have gone, but the poor poet had no clothes fit for a politeassembly. Moreover, there was an objection, Mrs. Esther said, to boththose gentlemen, that the fact of their being in the enjoyment of theLiberties of the Fleet might have been thrown in our teeth at a politeassembly.

  It seemed to me then, being ignorant of the extreme wickedness of men,a grievous thing that gentlewomen cannot go whithersoever they pleasewithout the protection of a man. What sort of an age, I asked, isthis, which pretends to have cast aside Gothic barbarism, yet cannotsuffer its ladies to go unprotected for fear of insult or damage totheir reputation? Scourers and Mohocks, I said, no longer infest thestreets, which are for the most part secure even from footpads andpurse-cutters. I was as yet, however, unacquainted with that class ofman which loves to follow a woman, to stare at her, and to make hertremble with fear, being no better, but rather worse, than so manyhighwaymen, common bullies, and professed rogues.

  Sir Miles Lackington did not desert us. Neither my cruelty, he said,nor his own unworthiness could persuade him to do that; he must needsfollow and worship at the shrine of his unattainable sun and shiningstar--with such nonsense as men will still be talking even when theyknow that the woman is not for them.

  On the occasion of the first visit I privately informed him thatwe wished to have no mention made of the place where we were onceresiding. He very kindly agreed to silence on this point, and wesustained between us a conversation after the manner of polite circles.Sir Miles would ask us, with a pinch of snuff, if we liked our presentlodging--which was, as I have said, in Red Lion Street, not far fromthe fields and the Foundling Hospital--better than those to be obtainedin Hill Street and Bruton Street, or some other place frequented bythe best families. Madam, with a fashionable bow, would reply that wewere favourably placed as regards air, that of Bloomsbury being goodfor persons like herself, of delicate chests; and that concerningeducational conveniences for miss, she found the quarter superior tothat mentioned by Sir Miles. Then the honest baronet would relate,without yawning or showing any signs of fatigue, such stories offashionable life as he had learned from those who had lately come tothe Fleet, or remembered from his short career among the world offashion. We agreed, always without unnecessary waste of words, toconsider him as a gentleman about town, familiar with the Great.

  The Doctor came but rarely. He brought wise counsel. He was a miracleof wisdom. No one is ever so wise in the conduct of his friends'affairs as he who has wrecked his own. Have we not seen far-seeing andprudent ministers of state, who have conducted the business of thenation with skill and success, yet cannot manage their own far moresimple business?

  Mrs. Esther talked to no one but to him about the past. She had nosecrets from him. She even wished him, if possible, to share in hergood fortune, and wanted him to appease his creditors with half of allthat was hers. But he refused.

  "My imprisonment," he said, "is also my freedom. While I am lying inthe Fleet I can go abroad as I please; I fear no arrest: my consciencedoes not reproach me when I pass a shop and think of what I owe thetradesman who keeps it, because my creditors have paid themselves bycapture of my body. Your purse, dear madam, were it ten times as long,would not appease the hungry maw of all my creditors and lawyers.Of old, before I took refuge among the offal and off-scouring ofhumanity, the prodigal sons, and the swine, there was no street west ofTemple Bar where I did not fear the voice of a creditor or expect theunfriendly shoulder-tap of a bailiff. Besides, were I free, what coursewould be open to me? Now I live in state, with the income of a dean:outside I should live in meanness, with the income of a curate. I willretire from my present position--call it cure of souls, madam--whenthe Church recognises merit by translating me from the Fleet market toa fat prebendal stall. And, believe me, Virtue may find a home evenbeside those stalls, and among those grunting swine."

  I understand now, being much older and abler to take a just view ofthings, that if my uncle could have obtained his discharge he wouldhave been unwilling to take it. For, granted that he was a learned andeloquent man, that he would have attracted multitudes to hear him,learning and eloquence, in the Church, do not always obtain for aclergyman the highest preferment; the Doctor, who was no longer young,might have had to languish as a curate on forty or perhaps sixty pounds_per annum_, even though it became the fashion to attend his sermons.And, besides, his character was for ever gone, among his brethren ofthe cloth. A man who has been a Fleet parson is like one who has passeda morning in hedging and ditching. He must needs wash all over. Truly,I think that the Doctor was right. To exercise the functions of hissacred calling all the morning for profit, to drink with his friendsall the evening, to spend a large portion of his gains in deeds ofcharity and generosity among a poor, necessitous, prodigal, greedy,spendthrift, hungry, thirsty, and shameful folk, who rewarded hisliberality by a profusion of thanks, blessings, and good wishes, wasmore in accordance with the Doctor's habits of thought. He persuadedhimself, or tried to persuade others, that he was doing a good work inthe morning; in the afternoon he performed works of charity; in theevening he abandoned himself to the tempter who led him to sing, drink,and jest among the rabble rout of Comus.

  One morning he bade me put on my hat and walk with him, because he hada thing to say. I obeyed with fear, being certain he was going to speakabout my unknown husband.

  "Girl!" he said, as we walked past the last house in Red Lion Streetand along the pathway which leads to the Foundling Hospital. "Girl, Ihave to remind you and to warn you."

  I knew well what was to be the warning.

  "Remember, you are now seventeen and more; you are no longer a youngand silly girl, you are a young woman; thanks to your friends, you havetaken the position of a young gentlewoman, even an heiress. You willsoon leave this quiet lodging and go where you will meet society andthe great world; you are pretty and well-mannered; you will have beauxand gallants dangling their clouded canes at your heels and asking yourfavours. But you are married. Remember that: you are married. You mustbe careful not to let a single stain rest upon your reputation."

  "Oh, sir!" I cried, "I have endeavoured to forget that morning. Wasthat marriage real? The poor young gentleman was tipsy. Can a tipsy manbe married?"

  "Real?" The Doctor stood and gazed at me with angry eyes and puffedcheeks, so that the old terror seized me in spite of my fine frockand hoop. "Real? Is the girl mad? Am I not Gregory Shovel, Doctor ofDivinity of Christ's College, Cambridge? Not even the King's mostsacred Majesty is married in more workmanlike fashion. Let your husbandtry to escape the bond. Know that he shall be watched: let him try toset it aside: he shall learn by the intervention of learned lawyers,if he do not trust my word, tha
t he is as much married as St. Peterhimself."

  "Alas!" I said. "But how shall my husband love me?"

  "Tut! tut! what is love? You young people think of nothing butlove--the fond inclination of one person for another. Are you a pinthe worse, supposing he never loves you? Love or no love, make up thymind, child, that happy shall be thy lot. Be contented, patient, andsilent. When the right day comes, thou shalt step forth to the world asCatherine, Lady Chudleigh."

  That day he said no more to me. But he showed that the subject was notout of his thoughts by inquiries into the direction and progress of mystudies, which, he hinted, should be such as would befit my rank andposition. Madam thought he meant my rank as her heiress, a positionwhich could not be illustrated with too much assiduity.

  Soon after we went to Red Lion Street, my uncle gave madam my bag ofguineas.

  "Here is the child's fortune," he said. "Let her spend it, but withmoderation, in buying the frocks, fal-lals, and trifles which a younggentlewoman of fortune should wear. Grudge not the spending. Shouldmore be wanting, more shall be found. In everything, my dear lady, makemy niece an accomplished woman, a woman of _ton_, a woman who can holdher own, a woman who can go into any society, a woman fit to become thewife--well--the wife of a lord."

  It was on New Year's Day that we left the Fleet; it was in the summer,at the end of June, when we decided that enough had been done to ruboff the rust of that unfashionable place.

  "You, my dear," said Mrs. Esther, "have the sprightly graces of awell-born and well-bred young woman: I can present you in any society.I, for my part, have recovered the Pimpernel Manner. I can now make anappearance worthy of my father."

  I assured my kind lady that although, to be sure, I had never been ableto witness the great original and model from which the Pimpernel Mannerwas derived, yet that no lady had so fine an air as herself; which wascertainly true, madam being at once dignified and gifted with a formalcondescension very pretty and uncommon.