“Kitty, a nymph who fain would climb,But yet may tumble down,Her charms she tries with voice and eyesFirst on a rustic clown.“But bumpkin squire won’t serve her turnWhen gentle Harry woos her,So farewell Will, for Kitty stillWill laugh, although you lose her.“Yet higher still than Hal or WillHer thoughts, ambitious, soar’d:‘Go, Will and Hal: my promise shallBe transferred to my Lord.’”
I suppose the verses were written at the request of Peggy Baker; but after all they did me very little harm, and, indeed, nothing could do me either good or harm at Epsom any more, because my visit was brought to a sudden close by an event which, as will be seen, might have been most disastrous for us all.
The selfishness and boorish behaviour of Will Levett not only kept us from walking on the Terrace in the afternoon, but also kept poor Nancy at home altogether. She would either come to our lodgings and sit with me lamenting over her bumpkin brother, or she would sit at home when Sir Robert was testy and her ladyship querulous, throwing the blame of her son’s rudeness sometimes upon her husband, who, she said, had never whipped the boy as he ought to have been whipped, in accordance with expressed Scripture orders strictly laid down; or upon Nancy, whose pert tongue and saucy ways had driven him from the Hall to the kennel; or upon myself, who was so ungrateful, after all that had been done for me, as to refuse her son, in spite of all his protestations of affection. It was hard upon poor Nancy, the ordinary butt and victim of her brother’s ill-temper, that she should be taunted with being the cause of it; and one could not but think that had madam been more severe with her son at the beginning, things might have gone better. When a mother allows her son from the very beginning to have all his own way, it is weak in the father to suffer it: but she must not then turn round when the mischief is done, and reproach her daughter, who took no part in the first mischief, with being the cause of it; nor should she call a girl ungrateful for refusing to marry a man whose vices are so prominent and conspicuous that they actually prevent his virtues from being discerned. Beneath that smock-frock, so to speak, that village rusticity, behind that blunt speech and rough manner, there may have been the sound kind heart of a gentleman, but the girl could not take that for granted. The sequel proved indeed that she was right in refusing, even had she been free; for Will died, as he lived, a profligate and a drunkard of the village kind. So that even his poor mother was at last fain to acknowledge that he was a bad and wicked man, and but for some hope derived from his deathbed, would have gone in sorrow to her dying day.
“I must say, Kitty,” said Lady Levett to me, “that I think a little kindness from you might work wonders with our Will. And he a boy of such a good heart!”
“He wants so much of me, madam,” I replied. “With all respect, I cannot give him what he asks, because I cannot love him.”
“He says, child, that you promised him.”
“Indeed, madam, I did not. I was in sorrow and lamentation over my fathers death and my departure from kind friends, when first Harry and then Will came, and one after the other said words of which I took no heed. Yet when I saw them again, they both declared that I was promised to them. Now, madam, could a girl promise to two men within half an hour?”
“I know not. Girls will do anything,” said Lady Levett bitterly. “Yet it passes my understanding to know how the two boys could be so mistaken. And yet you will take neither. What! would nothing serve you short of a coronet?”
I made no reply.
“Tell me, then, girl, will Lord Chudleigh marry thee? It is a great condescension of him, and a great thing for a penniless young woman.”
“He will marry me, madam,” I replied, blushing, and thinking of what I had first to tell him.
She sighed.
“Well, I would he had cast his eyes on Nancy! Yet I say not, Kitty, that a coronet will be too heavy for thy head to wear. Some women are born to be great ladies. My Nancy must content herself with some simple gentleman. Go, my dear. I must try to persuade this headstrong boy to reason.”
“Persuade him, if you can, madam,” I said, “to leave Epsom and go home. He will come to harm in this place. Two or three of the gentlemen have declared that they will follow the example of Lord Chudleigh and Sir Miles Lackington, and wear swords, although that is against the rules of the Wells, in order to punish him for his rudeness should he venture again to shake his cudgel in the faces of the visitors, which he has done already to their great discomfiture.”
I know not if his mother tried to persuade him, but I do know that he did not leave Epsom, and that the evil thing which I had prophesied, not knowing how true my words might be, did actually fall upon him. This shows how careful one should be in foretelling disasters, even if they seem imminent. And indeed, having before one the experiences of maturity, it seems as if it would be well did a new order of prophets and prophetesses arise with a message of joy and comfort, instead of disaster and misery, such as the message which poor Cassandra had to deliver.
Now, when my lord had given poor Will the warning of which I have told, he retired ashamed and angry, but impenitent, to those obscure haunts where tobacco is continually offered as incense to the gods of rusticity. Here he continued to sit, smoked pipes, drank beer, and cudgelled stable-boys to his heart’s content; while we, being happily quit of him, came forth again without fear.
Nancy, however, assured me that something would happen before her brother, whose stubbornness and masterful disposition were well known to her, relinquished his pursuit and persecution of the woman on whom he had set his heart.
“My dear,” she said, “I know Will, as you do, of old. Was there ever a single thing which he desired that he did not obtain? Why, when he was a child and cried for the moon they brought him a piece of green cheese, which they told him was cut from the moon on purpose for him to eat. Was he ever crossed in anything? Has there ever been a single occasion on which he gave up any enjoyment or desire out of consideration for another person? Rather, when he has gone among his equals has he not become an object of scorn and hatred? He made no friends at school, nor any at Cambridge, from which place of learning he was, as you know, disgracefully expelled; the gentlemen of the county will not associate with him except on the hunting-field—you know all this, Kitty. Think, then, since he has made up his mind to marry a girl; since he has bragged about his condescension, as he considers it; since he has promised his pot-companions to bring home a wife, how great must be his rage and disappointment. He willdo something, Kitty. He is desperate.”
What, however, could he do? He came not near our lodgings; he made no sign of any evil intention; but he did not go away.
“He is desperate,” repeated Nancy. “He cares little about you, but he thinks of his own reputation. And, my dear, do not think because Will, poor boy, is a sot and a clown that he does not think of his reputation. His hobby is to be thought a man who can and will have his own way. He has openly bragged about the country, and even among his boozing companions at Epsom, that he will marry you. Therefore, oh! my dear, be careful. Go not forth alone, or without a gentleman or two, after dark. For I believe that Will would do anything, anything, for the sake of what he calls his honour. For, Kitty, to be laughed at would be the death-blow to his vanity. He knows that he is ignorant and boorish, but he consoles himself with the thought that he is strong.”
What, I repeated, being uneasy more than a little, could he do?
At first I thought of asking Harry Temple quietly to watch over Will and bring me news if anything was in the wind; but that would not do either, because one could not ask Harry to act the part of a spy. Next, I thought that I had only to ask for a bodyguard of the young men at the Wells to get a troop for my protection; but what a presumption would this be! Finally, I spoke my fears to Sir Robert, begging him not to tell madam what I had said.
“Courage, Kitty!” said Sir Robert Levett. “Will is a clown, for which we have to thank our own indulgence. Better had it been to break a thousand good ash-saplings over his back, than to see him as he is. Well, the wise man says: ‘The father of a fool hath no joy,’ Yet Will is of gentle blood, and I cannot doubt that he will presently yield and go away patiently.”
“Have you asked him, sir?”
“Child, I ask him daily, for his mother’s sake and for Nancy’s, to go away and leave us in peace. But I have no control over him. He doth but swear and call for more ale. His mother also daily visits him, and gets small comfort thereby. His heart is hard and against us all.”
“Then, sir, if Mrs. Esther will consent, one cause of his discontent shall be removed, for we will go away to London where he will not be able to find us.”
“Yes, Kitty,” he replied. “That will be best. Yet who would ever have thought I could wish our sweet tall Kitty to go away from us!”
The sweet tall Kitty could not but burst out crying at such tenderness from her old friend and protector.
“Forgive me, sir,” I said, while he kissed me and patted my cheek as if I was a child again. “Forgive me, sir, that I cannot marry Will, as he would wish.”
“Child!” he exclaimed, starting to his feet in a paroxysm of passion. “God forgive me for saying so, but I would rather see a girl I loved in her grave than married to my son!”
We then held a consultation, Lord Chudleigh being of the party; and it was resolved that we should return to London without delay, and without acquainting any at the Wells with our intention, which was to be carried into effect as soon as we could get our things put together; in fact, in two days’ time.
So secret were our preparations that we did not even tell Nancy, and were most careful to let no suspicion enter the head of Cicely Crump, a town-crier of the busiest and loudest, who was, besides, continually beset by the young gallants, seeking through her to convey letters, poems, and little gifts to me. Yet so faithful was the girl, as I afterwards found out, and so fond of me, that I might safely have trusted her with any secret.
(Soon after the event which I am now to relate, I took Cicely into my service as still-room maid. She remained with me for four years, being ever the same merry, faithful, and talkative wench. She then, by my advice, married the curate of the parish, to whom she made as good a wife as she had been a servant, and brought up eleven children, four of them being twins, in the fear of God and the love of duty.)
We were to depart on Friday, the evening being chosen so that Master Will should not be able to see us go. Lord Chudleigh and Sir Miles promised to ride with our coach all the way to London for protection. I have often remembered since that Friday is ever an unlucky day to begin upon. Had we made the day Thursday, for instance, we should have gotten safely away without the thing which happened.
On Thursday afternoon we repaired to the Terrace as usual, I rather sad at thinking that my reign as Queen of the Wells would soon be over, and wondering whether the future could have any days in store for me so happy as those which a kind Providence had already bestowed upon me. There was to be a dance at six, and a tea at five. About four o’clock, Nancy and I, accompanied only by Mr. Stallabras, sauntered away from the Terrace and took the road leading to the Downs. Nancy afterwards told me that she had noticed a carriage with four horses waiting under the trees between the Terrace and the King’s Head, which, on our leaving the crowd, slowly followed us along the road; but she thought nothing of this at the time.
Mr. Stallabras, with gallant and consequential air, ambled beside us, his hat under his arm, his snuff box in his left hand, and his cane dangling from his right wrist. He was, as usual, occupied with his own poetry, which, indeed, through the interest of the brewers widow (whom he subsequently married), seemed about to become the fashion. I thought, then, that it was splendid poetry, but I fear, now, that it must have been what Dr. Johnson once called a certain man’s writing, “terrible skimble skamble stuff;” in other words, poor Solomon Stallabras had the power of imitation, and would run you off rhymes as glibly as monkey can peel cocoa-nuts (according to the reports of travellers), quite in the style of Pope. Yet the curious might look in vain for any thought above the common, or any image which had not been used again and again. Such poets, though they hand down the lamp, do not, I suppose, greatly increase the poetic reputation of their country.
“It seems a pity, Mr. Stallabras,” I was saying, “that you, who are so fond of singing about the purling stream and the turtles cooing in the grove, do not know more about the familiar objects of the country. Here is this little flower”—only a humble crane’s-bill, yet a beautiful flower—“you do not, I engage, know its name?”
He did not.
“Observe, again, the spreading leaves of yonder great tree. You do not, I suppose, know its name?”
He did not. A common beech it was, yet as stately as any of those which may be seen near Farnham Royal, or in Windsor Forest.
“And listen! there is a bird whose note, I dare swear, you do not know?”
He did not. Would you believe that it was actually the voice of the very turtle-dove of which he was so fond?
“The Poet,” he explained, not at all abashed by the display of so much ignorance—“the Poet should not fetter his mind with the little details of nature: he dwells in his thought remote from their consideration: a flower is to him a flower, which is associated with the grove and the purling stream: a shepherd gathers a posy of flowers for his nymph: a tree is a tree which stands beside the stream to shelter the swain and his goddess: the song of one bird is as good as the song of another, provided it melodiously echoes the sighs of the shepherd. As for——”
Here we were interrupted. The post-chaise drove rapidly up the road and overtook us. As we turned to look, it stopped, and two men jumped out of it, armed with cudgels. Nancy seized my arm: “Kitty! Will is in the carriage!” I will do Solomon Stallabras justice. He showed himself, though small of stature and puny of limb, as courageous as a lion. He was armed with nothing but his cane, but with this he flew upon the ruffians who rushed to seize me, and beat, struck, clung, and kicked in my defence. Nancy threw herself upon me and shrieked, crying, that if they carried me away they should drag her too. While we struggled, I saw the evil face of Will looking out of the carriage: it was distorted by every evil passion: he cried to the men to murder Solomon: he threatened his sister to kill her unless she let go: he called to me that it would be the worse for me unless I came quiet. Then he sprang from the carriage himself, having originally purposed, I suppose, to take no part in the fray, and with his cudgel dealt Solomon such a blow upon his head that he fell senseless in the road. After this he seized Nancy, his own sister, dragged her from me, swore at the men for being cowardly lubbers, and while they threw me into the carriage, he hurled his sister shrieking and crying on the prostrate form of the poor poet, and sprang into the carriage after me.
“Run!” he cried to the two men; “off with you both, different ways. If you get caught, it will be the worse for you.”
We were half-way up the hill which leads from the town to the Downs; in fact, we were not very far above the doctor’s house, but there was a wind in the road, so that had his men been looking out of his doors they could not have seen what was being done, though they might have heard almost on the Terrace the cries, the dreadful imprecations, and the shrieks of Nancy and myself.
They had thrown me upon the seat with such violence that I was breathless for a few moments, as well as sick and giddy with the dreadful scene—it lasted but half a minute—which I had witnessed. Yet as Will leaped in after me and gave the word to drive on, I saw lying in the dust of the road the prostrate and insensible form of poor Solomon and my faithful, tender Nancy, who had so fought and wrestled with the villains, not with any hope that she could beat them off, but in order to gain time, lying half over the body of the poet, half on the open road. Alas! the road at this time was generally deserted; there was no one to rescue, though beyond the tall elms upon the right lay the gardens and park of Durdans, where my lord was walking at that moment, perhaps, meditating upon his wretched Kitty.
As for my companion, his face resembled that of some angry devil, moved by every evil passion at once. If I were asked to depict the worst face I ever saw, I should try to draw the visage of this poor boy. He could not speak for passion. He was in such a rage that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He could not even swear. He could only splutter. For a while he sat beside me ejaculating at intervals disjointed words, while his angry eyes glared about the coach, and his red cheeks flamed with wrath.
The Downs were quite deserted: not even a shepherd was in sight. We drove along a road which I knew well, a mere track across the grass: the smooth turf was easy for the horses, and we were travelling at such a pace that it seemed impossible for any one to overtake us.
My heart sank, yet I bade myself keep up courage. With this wild beast at my side it behoved me to show no sign of terror.
Every woman has got two weapons, one provided by Nature, the other by Art. The first is the one which King Solomon had ever in his mind when he wrote the Book of Proverbs (which should be the guide and companion of every young man). Certainly he had so many wives that he had more opportunities than fall to the lot of most husbands (who have only the experience of one) of knowing the power of a woman’s tongue. He says he would rather dwell in the wilderness than with an angry woman: in the corner of the house-top than with a brawling woman. (Yet the last chapter of the book is in praise of the wise woman.) I had, therefore, my tongue. Next I had a pair of scissors, so that if my fine gentleman attempted the least liberty, I could, and would, give him such a stab with the sharp points as would admonish him to good purpose. But mostly I relied upon my tongue, knowing of old that with this weapon Will was easily discomfited.
Presently, the cool air of the Downs blowing upon his cheeks, Will became somewhat soothed, and his ejaculations became less like angry words used as interjections. I sat silent, taking no notice of what he said, and answering nothing to any of his wild speeches. But be sure that I kept one eye upon the window, ready to shriek if any passer-by appeared.
The angry interjections settled down into sentences, and Will at last became able to put some of his thoughts into words.
He began a strange, wild, rambling speech, during which I felt somewhat sorry for him. It was such a speech as an Indian savage might have made when roused to wrath by the loss of his squaw.
He bade me remember that he had known me from infancy, that he had always been brought up with me. I had therefore a first duty to perform in the shape of gratitude to him (for being a child with him in the same village). Next he informed me that having made up his mind to marry me, nothing should stop him, because nothing ever did stop him in anything he proposed to do, and if any one tried to stop him, he always knocked down that man first, and when he had left him for dead, he then went and did the thing. This, he said, was well known. Very well, then. Did I dare, then, he asked, knowing as I did full well this character of his for resolution, to fly in the face of that knowledge and throw him over? What made the matter, he argued, a case of the blackest ingratitude, was that I had thrown him over for a lord: a poor, chicken-hearted, painted lord, whom he, for his own part, could knock down at a single blow. He would now, therefore, show me what my new friends were worth. Here I was, boxed up in the carriage with him, safe and sound, not a soul within hail, being driven merrily across country to a place he knew of, where I should find a house, a parson, and a prayer-book. With these before me I might, if I pleased, yelp and cry for my lord and his precious friend, Sir Miles Lackington. They would be far enough away, with their swords and their mincing ways. When I was married they might come and—what was I laughing at?
I laughed, in fact, because I remembered another weapon. As a last resource I could proclaim to the clergyman that I was already a wife, the wife of Lord Chudleigh. I knew enough of the clergy to be certain that although a man might be here and there found among them capable of marrying a woman against her will, just as men are found among them who, to please their patrons, will drink with them, go cock-fighting with them, and in every other way forget the sacred duties of their calling, yet not one among them all, however bad, would dare to marry again a woman already married. Therefore I laughed.
A London profligate would, perhaps, have got a man to personate a clergyman; but this wickedness, I was sure, would not enter into the head of simple Will Levett. It was as much as he could devise—and that was surely a good deal—to bribe some wretched country curate to be waiting for us at our journey’s end, to marry us on the spot. When I understood this I laughed again, thinking what a fool Will would look when he was thwarted again.
“Zounds, madam! I see no cause for laughing.”
“I laugh, Will,” I said, “because you are such a fool. As for you, unless you order your horses’ heads to be turned round, and drive me instantly back to Epsom, you will not laugh, but cry.”
To this he made no reply, but whistled. Now to whistle when a person gives you serious advice, is in Kent considered a contemptuous reply.
“Ah!” he went on, “sly as you were, I have been too many for you. It was you who set the two bullies, your great lord and your baronet, on me with their swords—made all the people laugh at me. You shall pay for it all. It was you set Nancy crying and scolding upon me enough to give a man a fit; it was you, I know, set my father on to me. Says if he cannot cut me off with a shilling, he will sell the timber, ruin the estate, and let me starve so long as he lives. Let ’un! let ’un! let ’un, I say! All of you do your worst. Honest Will Levett will do what he likes, and have what he likes. Bull-dog Will! Holdfast Will! Tear-’em Will! By the Lord! there isn’t a man in the country can get the better of him. Oh, I know your ways! Wait till I’ve married you. Then butter wont melt in your mouth. Then it will be, ‘Dear Will! kind Will! sweet Will! best of husbands and of men!’—oh! I know what you are well enough. Why—after all—what is one woman that she should set herself above other women? Take off your powder and your patches and your hoops, how are you better than Blacksmith’s Sue? Answer me that. And why do I take all this trouble about you, to anger my father and spite my mother, when Blacksmith’s Sue would make as good a wife—ay! a thousand times better—because she can bake and brew, and shoe a horse, and mend a cracked crown, and fight a game-cock, and teach a ferret, and train a terrier or a bull-pup, whereas you—what are you good for, but to sit about and look grand, and come over the fellows with your make-pretence, false, lying, whimsy-flimsy ways, your smilin’ looks when a lord is at your heels, and your ‘Oh, fie! Will,’ if it’s only an old friend. Why, I say? Because I’ve told my friends that I’m going to bring you home my wife, and my honour’s at stake. Because I am one as will have his will, spite of ’em all. Because I don’t love you, not one bit, since I found you out for what you are, a false, jiltin’ jade; and I value the little finger of Sue more than your whole body, tall as you are, and fine as you think yourself. Oh! by the Lord——”
I am sorry I cannot give the whole of his speech, which was too coarse and profane to be written down for polite eyes to read. Suffice it to say that it included every form of wicked word or speech known to the rustics of Kent, and that he threatened me, in the course of it, with every kind of cruelty that he could think of, counting as nothing a horsewhipping every day until I became cheerful. Now, to horsewhip your wife every day, in order to make her cheerful, seems like starving your horse in order to make him more spirited; or to flog an ignorant boy in order to make him learned; or to kick your dog in order to make him love you. Perhaps he did not mean quite all that he said; but one cannot tell, because his friends were chiefly in that rank of life where it is considered a right and honourable thing to beat a wife, cuff a son, and kick a daughter, and even the coarsest boor of a village will have obedience from the wretched woman at his beck and call. I think that Will would have belaboured his wife with the greatest contentment, and as a pious duty, in order to make her satisfied with her lot, cheerful over her duties, and merry at heart at the contemplation of so good a husband. “A wife, a dog, and a walnut-tree, the harder you flog them, the better they be.” There are plenty of Solomon’s Proverbs in favour of flogging a child, but none, that I know of, which recommend the flogging of a wife.
Blacksmith Sam, Will said, in his own village, the father of the incomparable Sue, used this method to tame his wife, with satisfactory results; and Pharaoh, his own keeper, was at that very time engaged upon a similar course of discipline with his partner. What, he explained, is good for such as those women is good for all. “Beat ’em and thrash ’em till they follow to heel like a well-bred retriever. Keep the stick over ’em till such times as they become as meek as an old cow, and as obedient as a sheep-dog.”
While he was still pouring forth these maxims for my information and encouragement my heart began to beat violently, because I heard (distantly at first) the hoofs of horses behind us. Will went on, hearing and suspecting nothing, growing louder and louder in his denunciation of women, and the proper treatment of them.
The hoofs drew nearer. Presently they came alongside. I looked out. One on each side of our carriage, there rode Lord Chudleigh and Sir Miles Lackington.
But I laughed no longer, for I saw before me the advent of some terrible thing, and a dreadful trembling seized me. My lord’s face was stern, and Sir Miles, for the first time in my recollection, was grave and serious, as one who hath a hard duty to perform. So mad was poor headstrong Will that he neither heard them nor, for a while, saw them, but continued his swearing and raving.
They called aloud to the postillions to stop the horses. This it was that roused Will, and he sprang to his feet with a yell of rage, and thrusting his head out of the window, bawled to the boys to drive faster, faster! They whipped and spurred their horses. My lord said nothing, but rode on, keeping up with the carriage.
“Stop!” cried Sir Miles.
“Go on!” cried Will.
Sir Miles drew a pistol and deliberately cocked it.
“If you will not stop,” he cried, holding his pistol to the post-boy’s head, “I will fire!”
“Go on!” cried Will. “Go on; he dares not fire.”
The fellow—I knew him for a stable-boy whose life at the Hall had been one long series of kicks, cuffs, abuse, and horsewhippings at the hands of his young master—ducked his head between his shoulders, and put up his elbows, as if that which had so often protected him when Will was enforcing discipline by the help of Father Stick, would avail him against a pistol-shot. But he obeyed his master, mostly from force of habit, and spurred his horse.
Sir Miles changed the direction of the pistol, and leaning forward, discharged the contents in the head of the horse which the boy was riding. The poor creature bounded forward and fell dead.
There was a moment of confusion; the flying horses stumbled and fell, the boys were thrown from their saddles: the carriage was stopped suddenly.
Then, what followed happened all in a moment. Yet it is a moment which to me is longer than any day of my life, because the terror of it has never left me, and because in dreams it often comes back to me. Ah! what a prophetess was Nancy when she said that some dreadful thing would happen before all was over, unless Will went away.
Sir Miles and my lord sprang to their feet. Will, with a terrible oath, leaped forth from the carriage. For a moment he stood glaring from one to the other like a wild beast brought to bay. Hewasa wild beast. Then he raised his great cudgel and rushed at my lord.
“You!” he cried; “you are the cause of it. I will beat out your brains!”
Lord Chudleigh leaped lightly aside, and avoided the blow which would have killed him had it struck his head. Then I saw the bright blade in his hand glisten for a moment in the sunlight, and then Will fell backwards with a cry, and lay lifeless on the green turf, while my lord stood above him, drops of red blood trickling down his sword.
“I fear, my lord,” said Sir Miles, “that you have killed him. Fortunately, I am witness that it was in self-defence.”
“You have killed him! You have killed my master!” cried the stable boy, whose left arm, which was broken by his fall from the horse, hung helpless at his side. “You have killed the best master in all the world! Lord or no lord, you shall hang!”
He rushed with his one hand to seize the slayer of his master, this poor faithful slave, whose affections had only grown firmer with every beating. Sir Miles caught him by the coat-collar and dragged him back.
“Quiet, fool! Attend to your master. He is not dead—yet.”
He looked dead. The rage was gone out of his eyes, which were closed, and the blood had left the cheeks, which were pallid. Poor Will never looked so handsome as when he lay, to all seeming, dead.
Lord Chudleigh looked on his prostrate form with a kind of stern sadness. The taking of life, even in such a cause and in self-defence, is a dreadful thing. Like Lamech (who also might have been defending his own life), he had slain a man to his wounding, and a young man to his hurt.
“Kitty,” he said, in a low voice, taking my hand, “this is a grievous day’s work. Yet I regret it not, since I have saved your honour!”
“My lord,” I replied, “I had the saving of that in my own hands. But you have rescued me from a wild beast, whose end I grieve over because I knew him when he was yet an innocent boy.”
“Come,” said Sir Miles, “we must take measures. Here, fellows! come, lift your master.”
The two boys, with his help, lifted Will, who, as they moved him, groaned heavily, into the carriage.
“Now,” said Sir Miles, “one of you get inside. Lift his head. If—but that is impossible—you come across water, pour a little into his mouth. The other mount, and drive home as quickly as you can.”
I bethought me of my friend the mad doctor, and bade them take their master to his house, which was, as I have said, on the road between the town and the Downs, so that he might be carried there quietly, without causing an immediate scandal in the town.
The fellows were now quite obedient and subdued. Sir Miles, who seemed to know what was to be done, made some sort of splint with a piece of poor Will’s cudgel, for the broken arm, which he tied up roughly, and bade the boy be careful to get attended to as soon as his master was served. In that class of life, as is well known, wounds, broken bones, and even the most cruel surgical operations, are often endured with patience which would equal the most heroic courage, if it were not due to a stupid insensibility. The most sensitive of men are often the most courageous, because they know what it is they are about to suffer.
However, they did as they were told, and presently drove back, the third horse following with a rope.
Then we were left alone, with the blood upon the grass and the dead horse lying beside us.
Sir Miles took my lord’s sword from him, wiped it on the turf, and restored it to him.
“Come,” he said, “we must consider what to do.”
“There is nothing to do,” said Lord Chudleigh, “except to take Miss Pleydell home again.”
“Pardon me, my lord,” Sir Miles interposed; “if ever I saw mischief written on any man’s face, it was written on the face of that boy. A brave lad, too, and would have driven to the death at his master’s command.”
“How can he do harm?” I asked. “Why, Sir Miles, you are witness; you saw Will Levett with his cudgel rush upon his lordship, who but drew in self-defence. I am another witness. I hope the simple words of such as you and I would be believed before the oath of a stable-lad.”
“I suppose they would,” he replied. “Meantime, there is the fact, known to all the company at the Wells, that both you and I, Lord Chudleigh, had publicly informed this unhappy young man, that, under certain circumstances, we would run him through. The circumstanceshavehappened, and wehaverun him through. This complication may be unfortunate as regards the minds of that pig-headed institution, a coroner’s inquest.”
“Sir!” cried my lord, “do you suppose—would you have me believe—that this affair might be construed into anything but an act of self-defence?”
“I do indeed,” he replied gravely; “and so deeply do I feel it, that I would counsel a retreat into some place where we shall not be suspected, for such a time as may be necessary. If the worst happens, and the man dies, your lordship may surrender yourself—but in London—not to a country bench. If the man recovers, well and good; you can go abroad again.”
At first my lord would hear nothing of such a plan. Why should he run away? Was it becoming for a man to fly from the laws of his country? Then I put in a word, pointing out that it was one thing for a case to be tried before a jury of ignorant, prejudiced men upon an inquest, and another thing altogether for the case to be tried by a dispassionate and unprejudiced jury. I said, too, that away from this place, the circumstances of the case, the brutal assault upon Solomon Stallabras, whose ribs, it appeared, were broken, as well as his collar-bone, the ferocious treatment of Nancy by her own brother, and my forcible abduction in open daylight, would certainly be considered provocation enough for anything, and a justification (combined with the other circumstances) of the homicide, if unhappily Will should die.
This moved my lord somewhat.
Where, he asked, could he go, so as to lieperdufor a few days, or a few weeks, if necessary?
“I have thought upon that,” replied Sir Miles, looking at me with a meaning eye (but I blushed and turned pale, and reddened again). “I have just now thought of a plan. Your lordship has been there once already; I mean the Rules of the Fleet. Here will I find you lodgings, where no one will look for you; where, if you please to lie hidden for awhile, you may do so in perfect safety; where you may have any society you please, from a baronet out at elbows to a baker in rags, or no society at all, if you please to lie quiet.”
“I like not the place,” said his lordship. “I have been there it is true once, and it was once too often. Find me another place.”
“I know no other,” Sir Miles replied. “You must be in London; you must be in some place where no one will suspect you. As for me, I will stay near you, but not with you. There will be some noise over this affair; it will be well for us to be separated, yet not so far but that I can work for you. Come, my lord, be reasonable. The place is dirty and noisy; but what signify dirt and noise when safety is concerned?”
He wavered. The recollection of the place was odious to him. Yet the case was pressing.
He gave way.
“Have it,” he said, “your own way. Kitty,” he took my hand, “hopeless as is my case, desperate as is my condition, I am happy in having rescued you, no matter at what cost.”
“Your lordship’s case is not so hopeless as mine,” said Sir Miles; “yet I, too, am happy in having helped to rescue this, the noblest creature in the world.”
The tears were in my eyes as these two men spoke of me in such terms. How could I deserve this worship? By what act, or thought, or prayer, could I raise myself to the level where my lord’s imagination had planted me? O Love divine, since it makes men and women long to be angels!
“I mean,” Sir Miles continued bluntly, “that since your lordship has found favour in her eyes, your case cannot be hopeless.”
Lord Chudleigh raised my hand to his lips, with a sadness in his eyes of which I alone could discern the cause.
“Gentlemen,” I cried, “we waste the time in idle compliments. Mount and ride off as quickly as you may. As for me, it is but three miles across the Downs. I have no fear. I shall meet no one. Mount, I say, and ride to London without more ado.”
They obeyed; they left me standing alone. As my eyes turned from following them, they lighted on the pool of blood—Will’s blood, which reddened the turf—and upon the poor dead horse. Then I hastened back across the Downs.
It was a clear, bright evening, the sun yet pretty high. The time was about half-past five; before long the minuets would be beginning in the Assembly Rooms; yet Lady Levett would know—I hoped that she already knew—the dreadful wickedness of her son. Would not, indeed, all the company know it? Would not the assault on Mr. Stallabras and on Nancy be noised abroad?
Indeed, the news had already sped abroad.
Long before I reached the edge of the Downs. I became aware of a crowd of people. They consisted of the whole company, all the visitors at Epsom, who came forth, leaving the public tea and the dance, to meet the girl who had been thus carried away by force.
Harry Temple came forward as soon as I was in sight to meet me. He was very grave.
“Kitty,” he said, “this is a bad day’s work.”
“How is Will? You have seen Will?”
“I fear he is already dead. The doctor to whom you sent him declares that he is dying fast. His mother is with him.”
“O Harry!” I sighed; “I gave him no encouragement. There was not the least encouragement to believe that I would marry him.”
“No one thinks you did, Kitty; not even his mother. Yet others have been carried away by admiration of your charms to think——”
“Oh! my charms, my charms! Harry, with poor Will at death’s door, let us at least be spared the language of compliment.”
By this time we had reached the stream of people. Among them, I am happy to say, was not Peggy Baker. She, at least, did not come out to gaze upon her unhappy rival, for whose sake one gallant gentleman lay bleeding to death, and two others were riding away to hide themselves until the first storm should be blown over. The rest parted, right and left, and made a lane through which we passed in silence. As I went through, I heard voices whispering: “Where is Lord Chudleigh? where is Sir Miles? How pale she looks!” and so forth; comments of the crowd which has no heart, no pity, no sympathy. It came out to-day to look upon a woman to whom a great insult had been offered with as little pity as to-morrow it would go to see a criminal flogged from Newgate to Tyburn, or a woman whipped at Bridewell, or a wretched thief beaten before the Alderman, or a batch of rogues hanged. They came to be amused. Amusement, to most people, is the contemplation of other folks’ sufferings. If tortures were to be introduced again, if, as happened, we are told, in the time of Nero, Christians could be wrapped in pitch and then set fire to, thus becoming living candles, I verily believe the crowd would rush to see, and would enjoy the spectacle the more, the longer the sufferings of the poor creatures were prolonged.
Solomon Stallabras, Harry told me, was comfortably put into bed, his ribs being set and his collar-bone properly put in place: there was no doubt that he would do well. Nancy, too, was in bed, sick with the fright she had received, but not otherwise much hurt. Mrs. Esther was wringing her hands and crying at home, with Cicely to look after her. Sir Robert and Lady Levett were at the doctor’s. It was, I have said, the same doctor who had undertaken the temporary charge of Harry Temple. As we drew near the house—I observed that most of the people remained behind upon the Downs in hopes of seeing the return of Lord Chudleigh, in which hope they were disappointed—Harry became silent.
“Come, Harry,” I said, reading his thoughts, “you must forgive me for saving your life or from preventing you from killing Lord Chudleigh. Be reasonable, dear Harry.”
He smiled.
“I have forgiven you long since,” he replied. “You acted like a woman; that is, you did just what you thought best at the moment. But I cannot, and will not, forgive the man with his impudent smile and his buckets of water.”
“Nay, Harry,” I said, “he acted according to his profession. Come with me to the house. I cannot even go to Mrs. Esther until I have seen or heard about poor Will.”
The doctor was coming from the sick man’s chamber when we came to the house. They had placed Will in one of the private rooms, away from the dreadful gallery where the madmen were chained to the wall. With him were Lady Levett and Sir Robert.
The doctor coughed in his most important manner.
“Your obedient servant, Miss Pleydell. Sir, your most obedient, humble servant. You are come, no doubt, to inquire after the victim of this most unhappy affair. Poor Mr. William Levett, I grieve to say, is in a most precarious condition.”
“Can nothing save him? O doctor!”
“Nothing can save him, young lady,” he replied, “but a miracle. That miracle—I call it nothing short—is sometimes granted by beneficent Providence to youth and strength only when—I say only when—their possession is aided by the very highest medical skill that the country can produce. I say the very highest; no mere pretender will avail.”
“Indeed, doctor, we have that skill, I doubt not, in yourself.”
“I say nothing,”—he bowed and spread his hands—“I say nothing. It is not for me to speak.”
“And, sir,” said Harry, “you are doubtless aware that Sir Robert is a gentleman of a considerable estate, and that—in fact—you may expect——”
“Sir Robert,” he replied, with a smile which speedily, in spite of all his efforts, broadened into a grin of satisfaction, “has already promised that no expense shall be spared, no honorarium be considered too large if I give him back his son. Yet we can but do our best. Science is strong, but a poke of cold steel in the inwards is, if you please, stronger still.”
“Will you let me see Sir Robert?” I asked.
The doctor stole back to the room, and presently Sir Robert came forth.
He kissed me on the forehead while his tears fell upon my head.
“My dear,” he said, “I ask your pardon in the name of my headstrong son. We have held an honourable name for five hundred years and more: in all that time no deed so dastardly has been attempted by any one of our house. Yet the poor wretch hath paid dearly for his wickedness.”
“Oh, sir!” I cried, “there is no reason why you should speak of forgiveness, who have ever been so kind to me. Poor Will will repent and be very good when he recovers.”
“I think,” said his father sadly, “that he will not recover. Go, child. Ask not to see the boy’s mother, because women are unreasonable in their grief, and she might perchance say things of which she would afterwards be ashamed. Go to Mrs. Pimpernel, and tell her of thy safety.”
This was, indeed, all that could be done. Yet after allaying the terrors and soothing the agitated spirits of Mrs. Esther, whose imagination had conjured up, already, the fate of Clarissa, and who saw in headstrong Will another Lovelace, without, to be sure, the graces and attractions of that dreadful monster, I went to inquire after my gallant little Poet.
He was lying on his bed, with orders not to move, and wrapped up like a baby.
I thanked him for his brave defence, which I said would have been certainly efficacious, had it not been for the cowardly blow on the back of his head. I further added, that no man in the world could have behaved more resolutely, or with greater courage.
“This day,” he said, “has been the reward for a Poet’s devotion. In those bowers, Miss Kitty, when first we met”—the bower was the Fleet Market—“beside that stream”—the Fleet Ditch—“where the woodland choir was held”—the clack of the poultry about to be killed—“and the playful lambs frisked”—on their way to the butchers of Newgate Street—“I dared to love a goddess who was as much too high for me as ever Beatrice was for her Italian worshipper. I refer not to the disparity of birth, because (though brought up in a hosier’s shop) the Muse, you have acknowledged, confers nobility. An attorney is by right of his calling styled a gentleman; but a Poet, by right of his genius, is equal of—ay, even of Lord Chudleigh.”
“Surely, dear sir,” I replied, “no one can refuse the highest title of distinction to a gentleman of merit and genius.”
“But I think,” he went on, “of that disparity which consists in virtue and goodness. That can never be removed. How happy, therefore, ought I to be in feeling that I have helped to preserve an angel from the hands of those barbarous monsters who would have violated such a sanctuary. What are these wounds!—a broken rib—a cracked collar bone—a bump on the back of the head? I wish they had been broken legs and arms in your service.”
I laughed—but this devotion, more than half of it being real, touched my heart. The little Poet, conceited, vain, sometimes foolish, was ennobled, not by his genius, of which he thought so much, but by his great belief in goodness and virtue. Women should be humble when they remember, that if a good man loves them it is not in very truth, the woman (who is a poor creature full of imperfections) that they love, but the soul—the noble, pure, exalted soul, as high as their own grandest conception of goodness and piety, which they believe to be in her. How can we rise to so great a height? How can we, without abasement, pretend to such virtue? How can we be so wicked and so cruel as, after marriage, to betray to our husbands the real littleness of our souls? As my lord believed me to be, so might I (then I prayed) rise to heaven in very truth, and even soar to higher flights.
Now, when I reached home, a happy thought came to me. I knew the name of Solomon’s latest patron, the brewer’s widow. I sat down and wrote her a letter. I said that I thought it my simple duty to inform her, although I had not the honour of her friendship, that the Poet whom she had distinguished with her special favour and patronage, was not in a position to pay her his respects, either by letter, or by verse, or in person, being at that time ill in bed with ribs and other bones broken in defence of a lady. And to this I added, so that she might not grow jealous, which one must always guard against in dealing with women, that he was walking with two ladies, not one, and that the gallantry he showed in defence of her who was attacked was so great that not even a lover could have displayed more courage for his mistress than he did for this lady (myself), who was promised to another gentleman. Nor was it, I added, until he was laid senseless on the field that the ravishers were able to carry off the lady, who was immediately afterwards rescued by two friends of the Poet, Lord Chudleigh and Sir Miles Lackington.
This crafty letter, which was all true, and yet designedly exaggerated, as when I called my lord Solomon’s friend, produced more than the effect which I desired. For the widow, who was in London, came down to Epsom the next day, in a carriage and four, to see the hero. Now, she was still young, and comely as well as rich. Therefore, when she declared to him that no woman could resist such a combination of genius and heroic courage, Solomon could only reply that he would rush into her arms with all a lover’s rapture, as soon as his ribs permitted an embrace. In short, within a month they were married at Epsom Church, and Solomon, though he wrote less poetry in after years than his friends desired, lived in great comfort and happiness, having a wife of sweet temper, who thought him the noblest and most richly endowed of men, and a brewery whose vats produced him an income far beyond his wants, though these expanded as time went on.
As for Nancy, she was little hurt, save for the fright and the shame of it. Yet her brother, the cause of all, was lying dangerously wounded, and she could not for very pity speak her mind upon his wickedness.
The company, I learned from Cicely, were greatly moved about it: the public Tea had been broken up in confusion, while all sallied forth to the scene of the outrage; nor was the assembly resumed when it was discovered that Will Levett had been run through the body by Lord Chudleigh, and was now lying at the point of death.
In the morning Cicely went early to inquire at the Doctor’s. Alas! Will was in a high fever; Lady Levett had been sitting with him all night; it was not thought that he would live through the day. I put on my hood and went to see Nancy.
“Oh, my dear, dear Kitty!” she cried, “sure we shall all go distracted. You have heard what they say. Poor Will is in a bad way indeed; the fever is so high that the doctor declares his life to be in hourly danger. He is delirious, and in his dreams he knows not what he says, so that you would fancy him among his dogs or in his stables—where, indeed, it hath been his chief delight to dwell—or with the rustics with whom he would drink. It is terrible, my father says, that one so near his end, who must shortly appear before his Maker, should thus blaspheme and swear such horrid oaths. If we could only ensure him half an hour of sense, even with pain, so that the clergyman might exhort him. Alas! our Will hath led so shocking a life—my dear, I know more of his ways than he thinks—that I doubt his conscience and his heart are hardened. O Kitty! to think that yesterday we were happy, and that this evil thing had not befallen us! And now I can never go abroad again without thinking that the folk are saying: ‘There goes the sister of the man who was killed while trying to carry off the beautiful Miss Pleydell.’”
No comfort can be found for one who sits expectant of a brothers death. I bade poor Nancy keep up her heart and hope for the best.
The fever increased during the day, we heard, and the delirium. We stirred not out of the house save for morning prayers, sending Cicely from time to time to ask the news. And all the company gathered together on the Terrace, not to talk scandal or tell idle stories of each other, but to whisper that Will Levett was certainly dying, and that it would go hard with Lord Chudleigh, who would without doubt be tried for murder, the two grooms protesting stoutly that their master had not struck a blow.
In the evening Sir Robert Levett came to our lodging. He was heavily afflicted with the prospect of losing his only son, albeit not a son of whom a parent could be proud. Yet a child cannot be replaced, and the line of the Levetts would be extinguished.
“My dear,” he said, “I come to say a thing which has been greatly on my mind. My son was run through by Lord Chudleigh. Tell me, first, what there is between you and my lord? Doth he propose to marry you?”
“Dear sir,” I replied, “Lord Chudleigh has offered me his hand.”
“And you have taken it?”
“Unworthy as I am, dear sir, I have promised, should certain obstacles be removed, to marry him.”
“His sword has caused my Will’s death. Yet the act was done in defence of the woman he loved, the woman whom Will designed to ruin——”
“And in self-defence as well. Had he not drawn, Will would have beaten out his brains.”
“Tell him, from Will’s father, my dear, that I forgive him. Let not such a homicide dwell upon his conscience. Where is he?”
“He has gone away with Sir Miles Lackington to await the finding of an inquest, if——”
“Tell him that I will not sanction any proceedings, and if there is to be an inquest my evidence shall be, though it bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, that my lord is innocent, and drew his sword to defend his own life.”
He left me—poor man!—to return to the sick bedside.
He had been gone but a short time when a post-boy rode to the door, blowing a horn. It was a special messenger, who had ridden from Temple Bar with a letter from Sir Miles.