The Chaplain of the Fleet

When the dressmaker was gone, and we were left alone, Nancy began again, out of her great experience, to talk of the place we were in.

“My dear,” she said, “before one’s father one cannot say all that one would wish” – could such wisdom be possible at seventeen-and-a-half? “This is a very shocking and wicked place; we used to be taught that girls ought to sit in a corner, after they had put on their best things, and wait to be spoken to, and not to think about attracting the men; and not, indeed, to think about the men at all, save in their own room, where they might perhaps pray that if there were any men in the world not addicted to gambling, drinking, cursing, hunting, fighting, and striking, those men might be led by Heaven to cast eyes of love upon them. Oh!” – here she held up her hands and shook her head just like a woman four times her age, and steeped in experience – “in this place it is not long that the girls sit in a corner, and, indeed, I do not greatly love corners myself; but the very wives, the matrons, the married women, my dear,” – her voice rose with each word till it had mounted nearly to the top of the possible scale, – “are coquettes, who interfere with the girls, and would have the gallants dangling at their heels. As for their husbands, they are the last persons considered worthy of their notice; they put on their dresses and deck themselves out to please anybody rather than the persons whom it should be their only study to please.”

“Nancy,” I whispered, “when you are married, will you never, never dress to please anybody but your husband?”

“Why,” she replied, “my father, my mother, my children (if I have any), my friends will be pleased to see me go fine. But not for lovers – oh!”

We agreed that would-be lovers should be received and properly dealt with before marriage.

“Bashfulness, here,” continued the pretty moralist, “is – Heaven help us! – lack of breeding; what goes down is defiance of manners and modesty. Propriety is laughed at; noise is wit; laughter is repartee; most of the women gamble; nearly all are in debt; nobody reads anything serious; and we backbite each other perpetually.”

I know not what had put her in so strange a mood for moralising.

“However,” she said, “now that you are come, we shall get on better. I have made up my mind that you are to be the Toast of the season. I shall set you off, because you are brown and I am fair; you are tall, and I am short; you are grave, and I am merry; you are thoughtful, and I am silly; you have brown eyes, and I have blue. We will have none but the best men about us; we will set such an example as will shame the hoydens of girls and tame the Mohocks among the men. Miss Lamb of Hackney, who thinks herself a beauty, will then be ashamed to jump about and scream at the Assembly with nothing over her skinny shoulders. Peggy Baker shall have after her none but the married men (who are of no possible use except to spoil a girl’s reputation), although she sighs and swims and sprawls with her eyes half shut. Do you know that she sat for her portrait to Zincke, at Marylebone Gardens, as Anne Boleyn, and was painted with eyelashes down to the corners of her mouth?”

“Nancy,” I cried, “you are jealous of Miss Peggy Baker.”

She laughed, and talked of something else. From this I conjectured that Peggy had said or reported something which offended her. What had really been said, I learned afterwards, was that Nancy was running after Lord Eardesley, which was unkind as well as untrue.

“Last year,” she said, “after you went away, nothing would serve my mother but a visit to Bath. It is not so gay as Tunbridge Wells, because the company are mostly country folk, like ourselves, who stand upon their dignity; but it is better than this place, where there are so many London cits that it passes one’s patience, sometimes, to see their manners” – really, Nancy must have been seriously put out. “However, I dare say Bath is as wicked as any of the watering towns, when you come to know it. I liked the bathing. What do you think, Kitty, of everybody promenading in the water up to their chins – that is to say, the little people, like me, up to their noses (only I wore pattens to make myself higher), and the tall men up to their shoulders, in hot water? Everybody frolicking, flirting, and chattering, while japanned trays float about covered with confectionery, tea, oils, and perfumes for the ladies; and when you go away, your chair is nothing but a tub full of hot water, in which you are carried home. We stayed there all July and August, though my mother would have kept me, if she could, from the baths till I was bigger. Harry Temple was there, too, part of the time.”

“And how doth Harry?”

“He is a good honest fellow,” said Nancy, “though conceited and a prig; his mouth full of learned words, and his head full of books. He seemed to pine after your departure, Kitty, but soon recovered himself, and now eats and drinks again as before. He found some congenial spirits from Oxford at Bath, and they used to talk of Art, and pictures (when any one was listening), and bronzes, and all sorts of things that we poor people know nothing of.”

Then she told me how Harry had made a poem upon me, after my departure, which he turned into Latin, Greek, and Italian, and had given Nancy a copy. And how Will had christened one pup Kitty, and another Pleydell, and a third Kitty Pleydell, and was casting around how to give a fourth puppy my name as well.

It seemed so long ago that I had almost forgotten poor rustic Will, with his red face, his short sturdy figure, and his determination.

“Dear Kitty,” said Nancy, “if thou couldst take a fancy for our Will – he is a brave lad, though dull of parts and slow of apprehension. As for Harry” – here she stopped, and blushed.

I remembered my secret, and blushed as well (but for guilt and shame); while poor Nancy blushed in maiden modesty.

“Dear Nancy,” I replied, kissing her, “believe me, but I could never marry your brother Will. And as for Harry – ”

“As for Harry,” she echoed, with downcast eyes.

It was easy to read her secret, though she could not guess mine.

“As for Harry,” I said, “where could he be better bestowed than – ”

Here I kissed her again, and said no more, because between two women what more need be said?

Alas! I had quite forgotten – indeed, I never suspected – that I was actually engaged to become the wife of both Harry and Will, who was at this same time the wife of Lord Chudleigh. And both men were on their way to Epsom to claim the promise.

CHAPTER IV

HOW KITTY WENT TO HER FIRST BALL

If I were to write all that Nancy said on Saturday afternoon it would fill a volume; and if I were to write down all that we four said about my dress for the Monday ball, it would take four volumes at least, so nimbly ran our tongues. It was determined, however, that the purple frock should be put in hand at once, with ribbons and everything to correspond; but that for this occasion, as time pressed, we would take my best frock, a new white satin, never before worn. Mrs. Bergamot would dress me, and the hairdresser was engaged for two o’clock.

“Everything,” said Nancy, “depends upon the first impression. Already the world is agog to see the beautiful Miss Pleydell dressed. As for me, my dear, nobody noticed my first appearance at all. And yet I thought I looked very nice. To be sure, a person of my inches cannot expect to command attention. I am feeling my way, however, and though I am little, my tongue is sharp. After Monday we will have our court, you and I, to ourselves. The men will be at our feet, and Peggy may lie all on a rock deploring.”

I asked her afterwards how she could speak so openly before this milliner, who would probably tell all the town what she had said.

“My dear,” she replied sharply, “your Nancy is not altogether a goose, and she knows what she is doing. Mrs. Bergamot is a most trustworthy person. I quite rely upon her. I have never known her fail in her duties as town-crier. She will spread it abroad that you have brought a hundred guineas and more to spend in frocks and things; she will tell everybody that you have ordered a purple velvet in the first fashion; she will not fail to repeat that you and I together mean to lead the company at the Wells; she will probably tell Peggy that she may go and sit on a rock deploring; and she will inform Miss Lamb of Hackney that her shoulders are skinny. They cannot hate us worse than they do, therefore we will make them fear us.”

What a little spitfire was this Nancy of mine!

To the religious and the sober, Sunday is a day of serious meditation as well as of rest: to me, the Sunday before the ball was a day of such worldly tumult as should afford ample room for repentance in these later years. Unhappily, we repent but seldom of these youthful sins. Yet, when we went to church, the organ seemed to play a minuet, the hymns they sang might have been a hey or a jig in a country dance, and the sermon of the preacher might have been a discourse on the pleasures and enjoyments of the world, so rapt was my mind in contemplation of these vanities.

The service over, we walked out through a lane of the godless men who had not gone to church. Nancy came after me very demure, carrying her Prayer-book, her eyes cast down as if rapt in heavenly meditation. But her thoughts were as worldly as my own, and she presently found an opportunity of whispering that Peggy Baker had thrown glances of the greatest ferocity from her pew at herself and me, that Mrs. Bergamot had already spread the news about, and that the concourse of men at the door of the sacred place was entirely on my account. “If it was not Sunday,” she added, “and if it were not for the crowd around us, I should dance and sing.”

The time for opening the ball was six, at which time dancing began, and was continued until eleven, according to the laws wisely laid down by that public benefactor and accomplished Amphitryon, Mr. Nash, who effected so much improvement for Bath and Tunbridge that his rules were adopted for all other watering-places. Before his time there were no fixed hours or fixed prices, the laws of precedence were badly observed, the gentlemen wore their swords, and disputes, which sometimes ended in duels, were frequent and unseemly. Now, however, nothing could be more orderly than the manner of conducting the entertainment. The charge for admission was half-a-crown for gentlemen, and one shilling for ladies; no swords were permitted, and the ball was opened by the gentleman of the highest rank in the room. At Epsom, a country squire or a city knight was generally the best that could be procured, whereas at Bath an earl was not uncommon, and even a duke was sometimes seen.

My hairdresser, who was, on these occasions, engaged from six o’clock in the morning until six in the evening, was fortunately able to give me half an hour at two o’clock, so that I had not more than four hours or so to sit without moving my head. This was a very happy circumstance, many ladies having to be dressed early in the morning, so that for the whole day they could neither walk about nor move for fear of the structure toppling over altogether. Mrs. Bergamot herself dressed me. I wore my white satin frock over a great hoop with fine new point-lace for tuckers; my kerchief and ruffles were in lace, and I had on a pearl and coral necklace, presented to me by Mrs. Esther, who was contented to wear a black ribbon round her neck in order that I might go the finer. As for herself, she wore a rich brocade, which greatly became her and made her look like a countess.

“Nay, child,” she said, “not a countess, but like a gentlewoman, as hath ever been my simple ambition, and the daughter of a great London merchant.”

But to think that in every house in Epsom there was one girl, at least, or perhaps two, who were spending as much time and thought as myself upon the decoration of our persons for this ball! And what chance had I of distinction among so many fine women of less rustic breeding?

“She will do, Mrs. Bergamot, I think,” said Mrs. Esther.

“Madam,” replied the dressmaker, who no doubt considered it part of her business to flatter her customers, “Madam, I dare swear that there hath not appeared – I do not say at Epsom alone, but at Tunbridge and at Bath – so beautiful a creature in the memory of man. Mr. Walsingham, who remembers all the beauties for fifty years, declares that Miss Kitty surpasses all. Straight as a lance, madam, and shapely as a statue, with such a face as will deal havoc and destruction among the men.”

Mrs. Esther nodded her head and laughed. Then she shook her head and looked grave.

“We must not become vain, Kitty,” she said. “Beauty is but skin-deep; it fades like the flowers: think only of virtue and goodness, which never fade. And yet, child, thou art young: thou art beautiful: be happy in the sunshine, as is meet. Thank Heaven for sunshine!”

She pressed my hand in hers, and the tears rose to her eyes. Was she thinking of her own youth, which had been so unhappy?

When Mrs. Bergamot left us, she confessed to me that, like me, she had been in a strange agitation of spirit at the contemplation of this assembly.

“It is thirty years,” she said, “since I have been in a gay crowd. I thought that such a thing as the sight of youth and happiness would never come to me again. And to think that, after all these years, I should go back to the very room where, in 1720, amid a crowd of adventurers, speculators, and gamblers, who were going to ruin us all, I attended my last ball!”

This was while we were waiting for the chairs.

“I think,” she went on, in her soft voice, which was like the rippling of a stream, “that my child will do credit to herself. I am glad that you have kept your neck covered, my dear. I would rather see you go modest than fine. I hope that Lady Levett will be there before us. In such cases as this the sight of a friend gives us, as it were, an encouragement: it is like a prop to lean against. I hope the chairs will not be late. On the other hand, one would not, surely, arrive too early. My dear, I am trembling all over. Are you sure you have forgotten none of your steps? Ah! if no one were to ask you to dance, I should die of shame and mortification! But they will – oh! they will. My Kitty is too beautiful to sit among the crowd of lookers-on.”

Here came Cicely, running to tell us that the chairs were below, and that the men swore they could not wait.

“A minute – one minute only. Dear, dear, how quick the girl is! Cicely, take one last look at Miss Kitty. Do you think, child, she has got everything, and is properly dressed?”

“Quite properly, madam. No lady in the assembly will shine like Miss Pleydell.”

“Good girl. And, Cicely, if you see that anything is wanting in my dress, do not scruple to tell me. Young eyes are sometimes quicker than old ones.”

“Nothing, madam. Your ladyship is dressed in the fashion.”

Then the chairmen, who, like all their tribe, were unmannerly fellows, bellowed that they would wait no longer, and we descended the stairs. One would have been ashamed to confess the fact, but it actually was the very first time I had ever sat in a chair. The shaking was extremely disagreeable, and one could not, at the beginning, feel anything but pity for the poor men who made their living by carrying about the heavy bodies of people too fine or too lazy to walk. However, that feeling soon wore off: just as the West Indian and Virginian planters learn by degrees to believe that their negro slaves like to work in the fields, are thankful for the lash, and prefer digging under a hot sun to sleeping in the shade.

We arrived at the Assembly Rooms a few minutes before six. The rooms were already crowded: the curtains were drawn, and the light of day excluded. But in its place there was a ravishing display of wax candles, arranged upon the walls on sconces, or hanging from the ceiling. The musicians in the gallery were already beginning, as is their wont, to tune their instruments, twanging and blowing, just as a preacher begins with a preliminary hem.

My eyes swam as I surveyed the brilliant gathering; for a moment I held Mrs. Esther by the wrist, and could say nothing nor move. I felt like an actress making her appearance for the first time upon the stage, and terrified, for the moment, by the faces looking up, curious and critical, from the crowded pit and glittering boxes.

At that moment Lady Levett arrived with her party. I think Sir Robert saw our distress and my guardian’s anxiety to appear at her ease, for he kindly took Mrs. Esther by the hand, and led her, as if she were the greatest lady in the assembly, to the upper end, while Nancy and I followed after.

“O Kitty!” she whispered; “there is no one half so beautiful as you – no one in all the room! How the men stare! Did they never see a pretty woman before? Wait in patience for a little, ye would-be lovers, till your betters are served. Peggy Baker, my dear, you will burst with envy. Look! Here she comes with her courtiers.”

In fact, Miss Baker herself here appeared with her mother, surrounded by three or four gentlemen, who hovered about her, and she languidly advanced up the room.

She came straight to us, and, after saluting Lady Levett and Mrs. Esther, held out her hand to Nancy and curtseyed to me.

“You look charming to-night, dear Miss Nancy. That frock of yours – one is never tired of it.”

“And you – oh, dear Miss Peggy!”

Nancy turned white, because her frock was really rather an old one.

“It is good wearing stuff,” said Miss Peggy. “Yet I had thought that mode gone out.”

“So it had, my dear,” said Nancy sharply; “and I believe it went out five seasons ago. That is longer than I can recollect. But it has come back again. Fashions do revive, sometimes.”

This was a very ill-natured thing to say, and made poor Miss Peggy wince and colour, and she did not retaliate, because, I suppose, she could think of nothing to say.

Then old Mr. Walsingham, who had constituted himself the director of the ceremonies, appeared. He was dressed in the most beautiful crimson silk coat, lined with white, and purple waistcoat, and he came slowly up the hall, with a gentleman whose bearing was as great as his own, but whose years were less.

“It is young Lord Chudleigh,” whispered Peggy Baker, fanning herself anxiously. “He has come from Durdans with his party.”

Lord Chudleigh!

Heavens! To meet in such a manner, in such a place, my own husband!

“What is the matter, Kitty dear?” asked Nancy. “You turned quite pale. Bite your lips, my dear, to get the colour back.”

“It is nothing. I am faint with the heat and the lights, I suppose. Do not take notice of me.”

Peggy Baker assumed an air of languor and sensibility, which, though extremely fine, was perhaps over-acted.

“Lord Chudleigh,” she said, “is of course the person of the highest distinction in the room. He will invite, I presume, Lady Levett to open the ball with the first minuet. If Lady Levett declines, he will be free to select another partner.”

In fact, Mr. Walsingham conducted Lord Chudleigh to Lady Levett, and presented him to her. Her ladyship excused herself on the ground that her dancing days were over, which was of course expected. His lordship then said a few words to Mr. Walsingham, who nodded, smiled, and conducted him to the little group composed of Nancy, Peggy Baker, and myself. But he presented his lordship – to me!

“Since,” he said, while the room went round with me, “since Lady Levett will not condescend to open the ball with your lordship, I beg to present you to Miss Kitty Pleydell, who appears to-night, for the first time, at our assembly; and, I am assured, for the first time in any assembly. My lord, the sun, when he rises in splendour, dims the light of the moon and stars. Miss Kitty, I would I were fifty years younger, that I might challenge this happy young gentleman for the honour of the dance.”

Then Lord Chudleigh spoke. I remembered his voice: a deep shame fell upon my soul, thinking where and how I had heard that voice before.

“Miss Pleydell,” he said, bowing low, “I humbly desire the honour of opening the ball with you.”

It was time to rally my spirits, for the eyes of all the company were upon us. There was only one thing to do – to forget for the moment what was past, and address myself to the future.

I can look back upon the evening with pride, because I remember how I was able to push away shame and remembrance, and to think, for the moment, about my steps and my partner.

Twang, twang, twang, went the fiddles. The conductor raised his wand. The music crashed and rang about the room.

“Courage, Kitty!” whispered Nancy. “Courage! Think you are at home.”

The hall was cleared now, and the people stood round in a triple circle, watching, while my lord, his hat beneath his arm, offered me his hand, and led me into the middle of the room.

The last things I observed as I went with him were Mrs. Esther, wiping away what looked like a little tear of pride, and Peggy Baker, with red face, fanning herself violently. Poor Peggy! Last year it was she who would have taken the place of the most distinguished lady in the company!

They told me afterwards that I acquitted myself creditably. I would not permit myself to think under what different circumstances that hand had once before held mine. I would not break down before the eyes of so many people, and with Peggy Baker standing by, ready to condole with me on my discomfiture. But I could not bring myself to look in the face of my partner: and that dance was accomplished with eyes down-dropped.

Oh! it was over at last; the dance which was to me the most anxious, the most delightful, the most painful, that ever girl danced in all this world! And what do you think strengthened my heart the while? It was the strangest thing: but I thought of a certain verse in a certain old history, and I repeated to myself, as one says things when one is troubled:

“Now the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight: so that he set the royal crown upon her head.”

“Child,” whispered Mrs. Esther, her face aglow with pleasure and pride, “we are all proud of you.”

“Kitty,” said Lady Levett, who was more critical, because she knew more of the polite world, “you acquitted yourself creditably. Next time, do not be afraid to look your partner in the face. My lord, I trust that Miss Pleydell’s performance has made you congratulate yourself on my declining the honour of the minuet?”

“Your ladyship,” said Lord Chudleigh, “may be assured that, if anything could compensate for that disappointment, the grace and beauty of my fair partner have effected that object.”

“Gadzooks!” cried Sir Robert. “Here is a beating about the bush! Kitty, my pretty maid, no duchess could have danced better, and never a queen in Christendom is more beautiful! Say I well, my lord?”

“Excellently well, Sir Robert. You have said more than I dared; not more than I thought.”

Then Mr. Walsingham came bustling to congratulate me.

“But one opinion – only one opinion, Miss Pleydell! Lady Levett, your obedient servant. Mrs. Pimpernel, I offer my congratulations on this young lady’s success. I would it had been Bath, or even Tunbridge, whence the rumour of such beauty and such grace would have been more quickly carried about the country. But it will be spread abroad. There are three hundred tongues here to-night, who will talk, and three hundred pens who will write. Miss Kitty, once more I salute your Majesty – Queen of the Wells!”

Then Lord Chudleigh, and Sir Robert Levett, and the gentlemen standing round sank on one knee and bowed almost to the ground, crying —

“Queen of the Wells! Queen of the Wells!”

And Nancy, in her pretty, saucy way, ran and stood beside me laughing.

“And I am her Majesty’s maid of honour. Remember that, gentlemen all!”

“The saucy baggage!” cried Sir Robert.

And Peggy Baker, for whom in this hour of triumph one felt a little pity, came too, with a curtsey and a smile which looked more like a frown.

“Miss Pleydell must accept my homage, too,” she said. “We are fortunate in having one so inimitably lovely for our Queen. It makes one wonder where so much beauty could have been hidden.”

I suppose she meant this as an innuendo that I was not, therefore, accustomed to such good company. I thought of Fleet Lane and the Market, and I laughed aloud.