The Chaplain of the Fleet

by Walter Besant

  CHAPTER VIII.

  HOW KITTY SPENT HER TIME.

  As soon as they were settled together, and the ladies had decided intheir own minds that the girl would lighten their lives, they resolvedthat Kitty's education must not be neglected, and for this end began todevise such a comprehensive scheme as would have required the staff ofa whole university to carry it through. Everything was set down (upona slate) which it behoved a girl to know. Unfortunately the means attheir disposal did not allow of this great scheme. Thus it was fittingthat music should be taught: Mrs. Deborah had once been a proficienton the spinnet, but there was no spinnet to be had; the French tongueforms part of polite education, but though both ladies had learned itof old, their memory was defective, and they had neither dictionary norgrammar nor any book in the language; limning, both with pencil andin water-colours, should be taught, but the sisters could neither ofthem draw, and hardly knew a curve from a straight line. Calligraphy isalmost a necessary, but the handwriting of both ladies was tremulous,and of antiquated fashion; they knew not the modern Italian hand. Therewas in the Rules a professor in the art, and an attempt was made to getlessons from him. But he was already old and hastening to the grave,which speedily closed over him; his hand shook, because he drank strongwaters; his coat was stained with beer and punch; his wig smelt alwaysof tobacco.

  Mrs. Deborah undertook, as a beginning, to teach the girl book-keepingby single and double entry. How or why she ever came to learn thisscience has never been understood. Yet she knew it, and was proud of it.

  "It is a science," she said, "which controls the commerce of the world.By its means are we made rich: by the aid of book-keeping we apportionthe profit and the loss which are the rewards of the prudent or thepunishment of the thriftless. Without book-keeping, my dear, themysteries and methods of which I am about to impart to you, neither aWhittington, nor a Gresham, nor even a Pimpernel, would have risen tobe Lord Mayor of London."

  Kitty only imperfectly grasped the rudiments of this science. No doubt,had she been placed in a position of life where it was required, shewould have found it eminently useful. Mrs. Esther, for her part, taughther embroidery and sampler work. As for preserving, pickling, making ofpastry and home-made wines, cookery, distilling, and so forth, althoughthe sisters had been in their younger days notable, it was impossibleto teach these arts, because, even if there had been anything topickle or preserve, there was only one sitting-room in which to do it.Therefore, to her present sorrow, Kitty speedily forgot all that shehad formerly learned in the still-room at Lady Levett's. For there isno station so exalted in which a lady is not the better for knowingthe way in which such things should be done, if it is only that shemay keep her maids in order. And if, as the learned Dr. Johnson hathinformed us, a lady means one who dispenses gifts of hospitality andkindness, there is another reason why she should know the value of hergifts. There is something divine in the contemplation of the allotmentof duty to the two sexes; man must work, build up, invent, andacquire, for woman to distribute, administer, and divide.

  As for reading, they had a book on the history of England, with thecover off, and wanting the title-page with several chapters. There wasone of those still remaining in which the author exhorted his readers(her teachers told the girl that the admonition belonged to women aswell as men) never to grow faint or to weary in the defence of theirLiberties. She ignorantly confounded the Liberties of the country withthe Liberties of the Fleet, and could not avoid the reflection that awoman would certainly put more heart into her defence of the Libertiesif these were cleaner, and if there were fewer men who swore and gotdrunk. There were also a Bible and a Church Prayer-book; there werethree odd volumes of "Sermons;" and there were besides odd volumes ofromances, poems, and other works which Mr. Solomon Stallabras was ableto lend.

  Mrs. Deborah added to her knowledge of book-keeping some mastery overthe sublime science of astronomy. By standing on chairs at the windowwhen the west wind blew the fogs away and the sky was clear, it waspossible to learn nearly everything that she had to teach. The moonwas sometimes visible, and a great many of the stars, because, lookingover the market, the space was wide. Among them were the Pole Star, theGreat Bear, Orion's belt, and Cassiopeia's chair. It was elevating tothe soul on such occasions to watch the heavenly bodies, and to listenwhile Mrs. Deborah discoursed on the motions of the planets and thecourses of the stars.

  "The moon, my dear," she would say, "originally hung in the heavensby the hand of the Creator, goes regularly every four weeks round thesun, while the sun goeth daily round the earth: when the sun is betweenthe earth and the moon (which happens accidentally once a month orthereabouts), part of the latter body is eclipsed: wherefore it is thenof a crescent-shape: the earth itself goes round something--I forgetwhat--every year: while the planets, according to Addison's hymn, goonce a year, or perhaps he meant once a month, round the moon. Thisis the reason why they are seen in different positions in the sky. AndI believe I am right in saying that if you look steadily at the GreatBear, you may plainly see that every night it travels once about theearth at least, or it may be oftener at different seasons. When wereflect"--here she quoted from recollection--"that these bodies are sofar distant from us, that we cannot measure the space between; thatsome of them are supposed to be actually greater than our own world;that they are probably inhabited by men and women like ourselves;that all their movements round each other are regular, uniform, neverintermittent--how ought we to admire the wisdom and strength of theAlmighty Hand which placed them there!"

  Then she repeated, with becoming reverence, the words of Mr. Addison,the Christian poet, beginning:

  "Soon as the evening shades prevail The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth. While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole."

  In such meditations and exercises did these imprisoned ladies seek toraise their souls above the miseries of their lot. Indeed, one maythink there is nothing which more tends to make the mind contented andto prevent repining, than to feel the vastness of nature, the depthand height of knowledge open to man's intellect, the smallness ofone's self, and the wisdom of God. And although poor Mrs. Deborah'sastronomy was, as has been seen, a jumble; although she knew so little,indeed, of constellations or of planets, that the child did not learnto distinguish Jupiter from the Pole Star, and never could understand(until that ingenious gentleman, who lately exhibited an orrery inPiccadilly, taught her) how the planets and stars could go round themoon, and the moon round the sun, and the sun round the earth, withoutknocking against and destroying one another, she must be, and is,deeply grateful for the thoughts which the good lady awakened.

  In all things the sisters endeavoured to keep up the habits and mannersof gentlefolk. The dinner was at times scanty, yet was it served on afair white cloth, with plates and knives orderly placed: a grace beforethe meat, and a grace after.

  In the afternoon, when the dinner was eaten, the cloth removed, andthe plates washed, they were able sometimes to sally forth and takea walk. In the summer afternoons it was, it has been said, pleasantto walk to the gardens of Gray's Inn. But when they ventured to passthrough the market there was great choice for them. The daily servicein the afternoons at St. Paul's was close at hand: here, while the bodywas refreshed with the coolness of the air, the mind was calmed withthe peace of the church, and the soul elevated by the chanting of thewhite-robed choristers and the canons, while the organ echoed in theroof. After the service they would linger among the tombs, of whichthere are not many; and read the famous Latin inscription over the doorof the cathedral, "_Si monumentum requiris, circumspice_."

  "I knew him," Mrs. Esther would whisper, standing before the greatman's monument. "He was a friend of my father's, and he often came andtalked, my sister and myself being then but little, on the greatnessof astronomy, geometry, and architecture. In the l
atter years of hislife he would sit in the sunshine, gazing on the noble cathedral hehad built. Yet, grand as he is, he would still lament that his earlierplans, which were grander still, had not been accepted."

  Then out into the noisy street again: back to the shouts of chairmen,waggon-drivers, coachmen, the bawling of those who cried up and downpavements, the cries of flying piemen, newsmen, boys with broadsheets,dying confessions, and ballads--back to the clamour of Fleet Market.

  Another excursion, which could only be undertaken when the days werelong, was that to Westminster Abbey.

  The way lay along the Strand, which, when the crowded houses behindSt. Clement's and St. Mary's were passed, was a wide and pleasantthoroughfare, convenient for walking, occupied by stately palaces likeNorthumberland and Somerset Houses, and by great shops. At CharingCross one might cross over into Spring Gardens, where, Mrs. Esthersaid, there was much idle talk among young people, with drinking ofRhenish wine. Beyond the gardens was St. James's Park: Kitty saw itonce in those days, being taken by Sir Miles Lackington; but so crowdedwas it with gallant gentlemen, whose wigs and silken coats were aproper set-off to the hoops and satins of the ladies, that she wasashamed of her poor stuff frock, and bade Sir Miles lead her away,which he did, being that day sorrowful and in a repentant mood.

  "I have myself worn those silk waistcoats and that silver lace," hesaid with a sigh. "My place should be amongst them now, were it not forHazard. Thy own fit station, pretty pauper, is with those ladies. ButHeaven forbid you should learn what they know! Alas! I knew not when Iought to stop in the path of pleasure."

  "Fie!" said she. "Young men ought not to find their pleasure ingambling."

  "Humanity," said Sir Miles, becoming more cheerful when the Park wasleft, "has with one consent resolved to follow pleasure. The reverenddivines bid us (on Sunday) be content to forego pleasure; in the weekthey, too, get what pleasure they can out of a punch-bowl. I am contentto follow with other men. Come, little Puritan, what is thy idea ofpleasure?"

  That seemed simple enough to answer.

  "I would live in the country," said she readily, "away from thisdreadful town; I would have enough money to drink tea every day (ofcourse I would have a good dinner, too), and to buy books, to visit andbe visited, and make my ladies happy, and all be gentlewomen together."

  "And never a man among you all?"

  "No--we should want no man. You men do but eat, drink, devour,and waste. The Rules are full of unhappy women, ruined by yourextravagances. Go live all together and carry each other home at night,where no woman can see or hear."

  He shook his head with a laugh, and answered nothing. That same night,however, he was led home at midnight, bawling some drinking song at thetop of his voice; so that the girl's admonition had no effect upon him.Perhaps profligate men feel a pleasure not only in their intemperancebut also in repentance. It always seemed to me as if Sir Miles enjoyedthe lamentations of a sinner the morning after a debauch.

  On the few occasions when their journey was prolonged beyond CharingCross, the ladies were generally attended and protected by Mr. SolomonStallabras, who, though little in stature, was brave, and would havecudgelled a porter, or cuffed a guardsman, in the defence of ladies, aswell as the strongest and biggest gentleman.

  There are many other things to see in Westminster Abbey--the coronationthrone, Henry the Seventh's Chapel, the monuments of kings, queens,great lords, and noble generals--but Mr. Stallabras had an eye to onespot only.

  "There," he said, "is the Poet's Corner: with Dryden, Ben Jonson, andthe glorious dead of this spot, shall, perhaps, my ashes be mixed.Ladies, immortality is the poet's meed."

  The poor man needed some solace in these days, when his poverty wasexcessive. Later on he found a little success: obtained an order fora volume of "Travels in Cashmere" (whither he had never been), whichbrought him in eight guineas. He afterwards added "A Romantic Tale,"the scene of which was laid in the same sweet abode of Sensibility.It was interspersed with verses, as full of delicacy as the taleitself. But the publisher, who gave him five guineas for it, complainedafterwards that he had lost by his bargain. Mr. Stallabras oftenboasted of the great things he could do were there no publishers, andregretted the invention of printing, which rendered this class, whoprey upon the very vitals of poor poets, a necessity.

  These holidays, these after-hours of rest in the tranquil aisles of St.Paul's, or the awful Gothic shades of Westminster, were far between.Mostly the three sat together over their work, while the tumult ragedbelow.

  "Patience, child," said Mrs. Deborah. "Patience, awhile. We have borneit for nigh thirty years. Can you, who have hope, not bear it a littlelonger?"

  Said Mrs. Esther: "Providence wisely orders every event, so that eachyear or each day shall add something to the education of the soul. Itis doubtless for some wise purpose we have been kept in scarcenessamong runagates and spendthrifts."

  On Sundays they generally went to the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate.It was a long way from the Rules, but the ladies liked it because itwas the church where their father lay buried. From the place where theysat in the seats of the poor, which have neither cushions nor backs,they could read the tablet to the memory of the late Joshua Pimpernel,once Lord Mayor of London, and Alderman of Portsoken Ward. The greatchurch was full of City memories, dear to them from their childhood:when they were girls they used to sit in a stately pew with red sergeseats and hassocks; now, they worshipped in the same church, but on thebenches among the poor women and the children. Yet there was the sameservice, with the rector and the clerk in their desks, the schoolboysof the Charity along the left, and the schoolgirls of the Charity alongthe right; the beadles and vergers, the old women who swept the church,opened the pew doors, curtsied to the quality and remained behind fordoles--all brought back their childhood. They were as poor themselvesas these old trots, but they could not stay for doles. It is a largeand handsome church, filled with grave citizens, responsible men, whoseventures are abroad on many seas, respected for wealth and uprightconduct, good men and true, such as was, in his day, my Lord MayorPimpernel himself; with the citizens sit their wives bravely attired,and their daughters making gallant show in hoops, patches, lace,sarsnet, and muslin. Outside the church a graveyard, piled and full,still with a tree or two upon it, whose boughs in June are covered withbright green leaves, among which the sparrows twitter and fly about.There is also a great round tower of antique look, which once had beenpart of the Roman wall of London.

  Here they went to worship. When the minister came to the words in theLitany--

  "Lord have mercy upon all prisoners and captives,"

  the sisters would catch each other by the hand, and audibly follow thereader in prayer as well as response. For thirty years, for fifty-twoSundays in each year, they had made that prayer in the same words, formost of the time in the same church. Yet what answer?

  Kitty took the prayer, presently, for herself as well. If these ladieswere prisoners, why, what was she? If they might not sleep abroad, andonly walk in the streets by permission and licence of the law, howwas she different from them, since she could not, being but a maid,and young and penniless, go abroad at all without them or some otherprotection?

  The sight of the leaves on the trees outside; the fluttering and flyingof the sparrows, now and then the buzzing of a foolish bee who hadfound his way into the church, carried the girl's thoughts away tothe quiet place in the country where, between Hall and Vicarage, shehad been brought up. Would the sweet country never more be seen? Washer life to be, like that of these poor ladies, one long prison amongreprobates and profligates?

  The summer came on apace: it grew hot in June; in July it was sohot that they were fain to sit all day and to sleep all night, withopen windows. The air was cooler, perhaps, at night, but it wasladen with the odours of decaying cabbages, trodden peas and beans,rotten strawberries, bruised cherries, broken gooseberries, with thenauseous breath of the butcher's stall, and the pestilential smellof the poulterer's sho
p. Moreover, they could not but hear the oathsand ribaldries of those who sat and lounged about the market, stayingin the open air because it was warm and because it was cheap. Thebulkheads, bunks, booths, stalls, and counters of the market were freeand open to the world: a log of wood for a pillow, a hard plank for abed; this was the reward of a free and lawless life. On most nightsit seemed best to lie with windows closed and endure the heat. Yetclosed windows could not altogether keep out the noise, for on thesesummer nights all the knaves and thieves unhung in this great townseemed to be gathered here, pleased to be all together, a Parliament ofrogues, under the pent-houses and on the stalls of the market. And asin some Roman Catholic countries nuns and monks maintain a perpetualadoration to the Blessed Virgin, whom they ignorantly worship, so didthese reprobates maintain a perpetual litany of ribaldry and foulconversation. It never ceased. When one grew tired he lay down andslept: his friends carried on the talk; the drinking booths were openall night long, so that those who talked might slake their thirst, andif any waked and felt thirsty he too might have a drain and so lie downagain. Day and night there was a never-ending riot: the ladies, as thehot days continued, grew thinner and paler, but they bore it patiently;they had borne it for thirty years.

  Between two and three in the morning there generally came a littlerespite; most of the brawlers were then asleep, drunk, or tired out;only at corners, where there was drink to be had, men and women stillgathered together, talking and joking. At four, or thereabouts, themarket-carts began to arrive, and noise of another kind began.

  One morning in July Kitty awoke--it was a hot and close night--justwhen all the City clocks were striking three; it was broad daylight;she sprang from bed, and drawing the blind aside a little, looked outupon the market below and the City around. In the clear and cloudlessair, before the new day had charged it with a fresh covering orheadpiece of smoke, she saw the beautiful spires of St. Bride's, St.Dunstan's, St. Andrew's, St. Mary's, and St. Clement's rising onebeyond the other into the clear blue sky, their weather-cocks touchedby the morning sun; on the south, over the river, were visible thegreen hills of Surrey, the sun shining on their hanging woods, as plainas if they were half a mile away. On the north there were the low hillsof Highgate, Hampstead, and Hornsey, the paradise of cits, and yetplaces most beautiful, wooded and retired. Everywhere, north, west,and south, spires of churches rising up to the heavens, as if prayingfor the folk beneath. And under her eyes, the folk themselves!

  They were human ruins of the past, the present, and the future.

  Old men were among them who lay with curled up limbs, shaking withcold, warm though the night was, and old women, huddled up in scantypetticoats, lying with tremulous lips and clasped hands. The cheeksboth of the old men and the old women were swollen with drink. What wasthe record of their lives? Some of them had been rogues and vagabondsfrom the very first, though how they managed to scape the gallows wouldbe hard to tell. Doubtless their backs were well scarred with thefustigations of the alderman's whip, and they could remember the slowtread of the cart behind which they had marched from Newgate to Tyburn,the cruel cat falling at every step upon their naked and bleedingshoulders. Yet what help? They must starve or they must steal; and,being taken, they must be hanged or must be flogged.

  Why, these poor old men and poor old women should, had they not missedthe meaning of their lives, have been sitting in high places, with thestate and reverence due to honoured age, with the memory of a life wellfought, hung with chains of gold, draped with cloth of silver and lace.Yet they were here, crouched in this filthy, evil-smelling place, eyesshut, backs bent, lips trembling, cheeks twitching, and minds hardenedto iniquity. Did any of them, perchance, remember how one who knewdeclared that never had he seen the righteous forsaken or the good manbeg his bread?

  A dreadful shivering seized the girl. What plank of safety, whatharbour of refuge was open to her that she too might escape this fate?What assurance had she that her end might not be like unto the end ofthese? Truly none, save that faith by which, as Paul hath taught, theonly way to heaven itself is opened.

  Then there were young men with red and swollen faces, thieves andvagabonds by profession, who found the air of the market more pleasantthan that of Turnmill or Chick Street. Yet it was an ominous andsuspicious place to sleep in; a place full of bad dreams for thieves,criminals, and debtors, since close at hand was the Fleet Prison,its wards crowded with the careless, who lounged and jested, and thehopeless, who sat in despair; since but a hundred yards from them stoodthe black and gloomy Newgate, its condemned cells full of wretches, noworse than themselves, waiting to be hanged, its courts full of otherwretches, no worse than themselves, waiting to be tried, sentenced,and cast for execution, and its gaol-fever hanging over all alike,delivering the wards from their prisoners, cheating the hangman,hurrying to death judge, jury, counsel, prisoner, and warders together.But they never think upon such things, these poor rogues; each hopesthat while his neighbour is hanged, he will escape. They cannot stopto think, they cannot turn back: behind them is the devil driving themdownwards; before them, if they dare to lift their eyes, the horridmachinery of justice with pillory, whip, and gallows. Among them, hereand there, pretty boys and girls, lying asleep side by side upon thehard wooden stalls; boys with curly hair and rosy faces, girls withlong eyelashes, parted lips, and ruddy cheeks--pity, pity, that whenthey woke they should begin again the only trade they knew: to thieve,filch, and pick pockets, with the reward of ducking, pumping, flogging,and hanging.

  So clear was the air, so bright the morning, that what she saw wasimpressed upon her memory clearly, so that she can never forget it.The old men and old women are dead; the young men and women are, onesupposes, hanged; what else could be their fate? And as for the boysand girls, the little rogues and thieves, who had no conscience andtook all, except the whippings, for frolic, are any left still to sleepon hot nights in that foul place, or are all hanged, whipped at thecart-tail, burnt in the hand, or at best, transported to labour underthe lash in the plantations?

  Sinner succeeds unto sinner as the year follows year; the crop ofgallows fruit increases day by day; but the criminals do not seem tobecome fewer.