“There are three large wards on the common side,” Miss Peters explained. “Here the prisoners are obliged to lie on the floor if they cannot furnish themselves with bedding—this is hired out at a cost of a shilling per week. There are also two smaller wards, including an exceedingly noisome one for women. A number of rooms on the master’s side are let out at indefinite charges to occupants who can pay the warden. In some rooms persons who are sick of different distempers are obliged to lie together or on the floor and must pay two shillings ten pence per week for such lodging. But,” she hastened to add, “you may be assured we shall in no wise go near cases of smallpox or similar contagion.”
As Miss Peters turned to lead the way to the prison gate, Silas Told asked a question, “I have been given to understand that even prisoners for debt must pay garnish to the jailers.”
“Yes, that is true. James Oglethorpe who heads a reform committee has made two reports to Parliament on these abuses. We still hope for amelioration. But at present, when taken into custody and sent to the Fleet, every prisoner is expected to pay a total of five pounds, sixteen shillings and four pence in fees. This is divided between the warden, the tipstaff, and the clerk of the judge who ordered the committal.”
“But what if they can’t pay?” Catherine could think only of Mrs. Smithson’s happiness over being given a pitiful pile of laundry whereby to earn a few shillings.
“When the miserable wretch has worn out the Charity of his friends, and consumed the money which he has raised upon the sale of his clothes and bedding, and has eaten his last allowance of provisions, he soon grows weak for want of food, with the symptoms of a hectic fever. When he is no longer able to stand, if he can raise three pence to pay the fee of the common nurse of the prison, he obtains the liberty of being carried into the sick ward and lingers on for a month or two on Charity rations, and then dies.”
“But can nothing be done about it?”
“Oglethorpe’s Committee is striving with petitions to Parliament and there is hope of Parliament passing ameliorating legislation. But in the meantime, it seems most fit that we should strive for the souls of these unhappy prisoners. There is little we can do for them here but prepare them for a better world to come.” She spoke briskly, giving shocking facts with little show of emotion. Then she stopped and surveyed her band of workers. “Let us proceed.”
Sarah Peters, a seasoned warrior in this arena of graft and corruption, approached the Ordinary, a Mr. Taylor who, but for the fact that he stood without the walls, looked far meaner and more disreputable than any of his prisoners. “You shall not obstruct our entrance today, Mr. Taylor.” She faced him squarely. “The God of all compassion shall make an entrance for us so that our acts of mercy may continue.” As she accompanied her brave words with the clink of bribe money, the group was allowed to pass.
Catherine thought she was prepared for the fetid air and squalid, verminous surroundings. But as the great iron bar clanked into place across the heavy oak door behind them, and she knew herself locked inside with desperate murderers and felons as well as with the malignant diseases that ravaged the rag-covered bodies she saw on every side of her, she was gripped with panic.
“You needn't do this, Catherine. Shall I take you home?” With the sound of Phillip’s voice, the terror subsided.
“I can do it, Phillip. But stay by me.”
He ducked his head in a nod of assurance and she was almost sure she saw a flicker of an encouraging smile cross his face. It was for Catherine as if a brilliant light filled the murky room.
But she had no leisure to consider her own feelings, as the determined Miss Peters shepherded their small party forward to the cell of a prisoner named Lancaster. The turnkey opened the barred door, then closed it behind them.
Sarah encouraged Lancaster to tell his story. He was very young, just above twenty, Catherine judged, yet he told of having lived a life of great wickedness, including having robbed the Foundry of all its brass and candlesticks. “But shortly I shall be with Jesus in Paradise. This morning, about five o’clock, the Sun of Righteousness arose in my dark cell, and I am now so full of God and heaven that I am like a barrel of new wine ready to burst for vent.”
The visitors joined him in praising God, and Lancaster gave praise for Miss Peters and her workers who had shown him the way to the light he found.
They visited another cell where six prisoners, all under sentence of death, seemed assured of their acceptance by the Saviour. The workers were about to leave when another prisoner, having bribed the turnkey, entered the cell. His sullen countenance, though, clearly showed he had not come to praise God with them. “Come to scoff at us, are ye? Come to turn us into milksops ’afore we face the hangman? I’ll none of your pap!” And his words became abusive.
Phillip stepped forward and in the softest of voices, addressed the man. “My friend, let us tell you what we have come to tell any who will hear.”
The prisoner continued to mutter, but seemed less violent, so Phillip continued. “We have come to invite you to the Lord Jesus. To invite you to come as a lost and undone sinner, because Jesus is the sinner’s only friend. Jesus, the King of heaven, laid down His life for the chief of sinners, and He died for you too.”
As Phillip spoke, the man’s countenance softened and his behavior became calm. But there was time for no more as the iron door clanked open and the warden stood before them, filling the passage with his straddle-legged stance, his size increased by the heavy boots and leather jerkin he wore and the black, greasy hair which fell to his shoulders. His hand on his sword hilt, he growled, “The report has been made and the dead warrant just come down. Four of you are ordered for execution. Look to your souls.”
As the visitors were ushered from the cell, Sarah Peters assured the condemned men she would return to see them again before they departed this life.
They were almost to the outer door, passing the largest and, therefore, dirtiest and noisiest of the common cells, when Catherine recognized a woman in the corridor before them. “Elmira, I didn’t think to see you here.” She hurried to Mrs. Smithson.
“I must come to bring Dick ’is loaf.” She held up a small hunk of bread. “Some weeks ’tis all ’e ’as to eat if the rations is withheld.”
Catherine dug in the pocket she wore tied under her skirt for a coin with which to bribe the turnkey. “Allow me a few minutes longer with my friend.”
He jerked his head in assent.
Phillip joined her, as they stood beside the cell bars with Mrs. Smithson. As unobtrusively as possible she slipped the loaf through to her husband and introduced Catherine and Phillip.
Their reception was less than gracious. “What the devil possesses you, Elmiry? Bringin’ canters to see me. I ’ope you’ve not been among the Methodists! I’d sacrifice what’s left of my soul rather than you shall go among those miscreants.” He shook his fist through the bars. “You’re the ones wot filled Isey’s ’ead so full of larnin’ 'e ain’t no good t’ sweep."
Elmira moved the visitors to the other side of the passage. “Tis th’ gin talkin’, ’e didn’t use to drink bad, but there’s naught else to do ’ere.”
“Gin? But where do they get it?” Catherine asked.
Phillip answered. “What isn’t smuggled in under the skirts of female visitors is sold right here.”
“What? In the gaol?”
“I have read some of the accounts of Oglethorpe’s Committee. Upwards of thirty gin shops operate inside the Fleet alone.”
Back in her carriage in the fresh air, Catherine knew that never had the sun shown more golden, the flowers bloomed more brightly, nor the trees waved greener in the breeze. She took in great gulps of air, as if she had been holding her breath the entire time she was behind the high stone walls of the Fleet. “Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever truly appreciated freedom before!”
Her companions agreed with her, and spoke of their determination to work harder in their own fields—Phillip the preacher,
who sought to free people from the prison of sin, and Silas Told the schoolmaster, who fought the prison of ignorance. But the metaphor Catherine was living in was the sunshine and the light that had dawned in her world in the darkness of the prison. And that light was Phillip Ferrar.
For weeks now Phillip had been central in her thinking—as a dear friend, as a special person in the Society work. But now, from the blackness of the Fleet had dawned a new light. The light of love.
He had said nothing any gentleman of casual acquaintance might not have said, he had not even touched her, but the simple fact of his presence had been all.
And as she tried to make sense of this, to understand what it would mean in the days ahead, the darkness of the prison experience offered another metaphor. She recognized the inability to see into the future as a kind of blindness. “We see through a glass darkly,” as the Scripture said. But now she realized that God had so ordained this in order to develop faith—that one must rely on the heavenly guide as a blind man relies on an earthly guide. But someday it would all be known and all knowledge—even knowledge of the future—would be as clear as knowledge of the past now was. Clearer, really, because His perfect light would illumine the whole.
She shuddered at the thought of what life without God would be like—like one physically blind walking without a guide. She had experienced a little of that in the days after her crushing disappointment, when she had lost faith in God’s guidance. She had been blind, and in a way, she still was. She had no more ability to see the future than before, but she did have faith in her Guide.
Seventeen
CATHERINE HOPED THAT THE TALL, quiet man on the carriage seat beside her would have a place in that future. The thought of his being taken from her as Charles Wesley had been was more than she could bear.
“Shall you mind that very much?”
Phillip’s words so nearly echoing those in her head made Catherine jump. “I beg your pardon. What did you say?”
“I said I have been commanded to bring you and Edward to Lady Huntingdon’s drawing room to hear Whitefield preach tomorrow afternoon.” He turned his head away from Silas Told who was sitting beside him reading, and spoke quietly. “Charles and Sally Wesley shall be there. I thought you would want to know.”
“You are thoughtful to warn me, but I shall be fine. And you?”
For a moment he looked puzzled, then the level blue eyes so close to hers cleared. “Absolutely fine.”
The next day gathering storm clouds darkened patches of London’s sky as Catherine and Edward Perronet and Phillip Ferrar set out from the Foundry for Park Lane. It was the first time the three of them had traveled together since their circuit ride and almost the first time Edward had been abroad since Durial’s desperate illness. So, whatever the clouds might do to the sky, the renewal of old times and the strong sense of companionship in the carriage could not be dimmed.
The crush of coaches with armorial bearings outside number 14 Park Lane facing on Hyde Park, told the new arrivals that they were hardly alone in their obedience to the Countess’ summons. A select circle of aristocratic acquaintances had frequently accompanied the Countess to hear Whitefield’s sermons in London churches years before; but Lady Huntingdon’s long retirement from society after her husband’s death and her own bouts of illness had prevented any further such activity on her part in the great city until now, when Whitefield’s return and the renewal of her energies coincided in perfect timing.
At the top of the pillared portico the door was opened by a liveried butler who announced their arrival, but once into the high-ceilinged, marble-floored reception room, they made no more progress, as the aged widow of the Duke of Marlborough stood in front of them, clasping the hand of her hostess. “My dear Lady Huntingdon, I really do feel so very sensibly all your kindness and attention, that I must accept your very obliging invitation to hear Mr. Whitefield, though I am still suffering from the effects of a severe cold.” She waved a white lace handkerchief as supporting evidence.
“My dear Duchess.”
The Duchess not only outranked Lady Huntingdon—she was also the only woman Catherine knew of who could outtalk her. “Your concern for my improvement in religious knowledge is very obliging. God knows we all need mending, and none more than myself.”
“Won’t you come into the drawing room, your Grace?”
The Duchess took two steps at her hostess’ bidding, then paused again. “The Duchess of Ancaster, Lady Townshend, and Lady Cobham were exceedingly pleased with many observations in Mr. Whitefield’s sermon at St. Sepulchre’s Church, which made me lament ever since that I did not hear it, as it might have been the means of doing me some good—for good, alas! I do want.”
“As we all do, your Grace. And there is the ill-used Lady Anne Frankland.” The Countess pointed her fan in the direction of a wan-looking woman. “The poor thing is so unhappy in her new marriage. To think that a great-grandson of Oliver Cromwell could abuse his wife so. Do see if you can comfort her.” With that, Lady Huntingdon dispatched her garrulous guest and turned to Catherine. “So you are come. I have been in town these three days. You must call on me more often.”
“I should be happy to, my Lady. Of late, I have been much engaged in calling on the sick and imprisoned.”
“Yes, indeed. Very worthy work. You must tell me more of it. But we must also carry our message to the wealthy and aristocratic, if the work is to be a lasting one. The influence of money and society is too much overlooked by John Wesley.”
The arrival at that moment of two women sumptuously clad in ribbed silk embroidered with silver thread, their skirts spread wide over flattened hoops, provided evidence of the success of the Countess’ campaign.
“The Dowager Duchess of Buckingham,” the butler announced. “And the Duchess of Queensberry.”
“Well, Selina, I have brought Eleanor with me to hear your favorite preacher,” the Dowager Duchess announced, with a flip of her ivory fan.
The Duchess of Queensberry managed to nod at her introduction, while still keeping her nose in the air. “La, I am exceedingly fatigued. I trust he will not tire me beyond endurance.”
Catherine and her escorts started to follow the newcomers up the stairs to the drawing room, but at the entrance of another party the Countess halted them and made her own announcement even before the butler could. “Catherine, this is Sally Wesley; Charles you already know,” she dismissed the husband. “You young ladies are to become great friends.” And with that decree she waved them up the stairs.
But Catherine could not so easily dispense with the arrival of Charles Wesley. Her first glimpse of the glowing brown eyes, and fair features most frequently described as “angelic” that had so long held preeminence in Catherine’s heart and mind, made her catch her breath. But a second, more considered, look told her that the far from classic features of the gaunt man beside Charles had become much dearer to her.
“I am most happy to meet you, Miss Perronet,” Sally Wesley acknowledged the introduction, as the ladies led the way up the stairs. “Your brother was so kind in supporting our cause in Garth.”
“Yes, Ned has told me of your wedding. I am happy to meet you too.” And as she spoke the words, Catherine realized how very much she meant them. Sally was short and vivacious, with dark curls bouncing beneath her lace cap, and snapping dark eyes that made her appear even younger than her twenty-one years. And every time those black eyes fell on her husband of three months, their special glow bespoke how much she loved him.
They barely had time to find seats in the green and rose room when the Countess called on Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wesley to provide music for her guests. Sally, in a flowered dimity dress over a pink petticoat, looked the perfect part of the happy new bride as she seated herself at the harpsichord and filled the room with its delicate music. And then her husband stood by her side, as together they sang,
Rejoice, the Lord is King; Your Lord and king adore!
Rejoice, give thank
s, and sing and triumph evermore.
Lift up your heart; lift up your voice!
Rejoice; again I say, Rejoice!
And it was so obvious that the musicians were rejoicing in their life together, and in the grace they sang of, that the hearts of their hearers were lifted with them. Sunshine streamed through the tall windows of the room as they sang their next song,
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!
Catherine’s heart could sing along with the musicians—Charles and Sally were so right for each other. After all her struggles over the matter of God’s guiding, it was still impossible to know where He was leading her; but that these two were right for each other was indisputable. She must simply trust that God had an equally right answer in store for her life. And seeing that God had led so graciously in the lives of others could help her believe that He would make His way straight before her.
And then George Whitefield stood at the end of the room, beside the east windows. He was of middle height, slender, fair, and good-looking except for a squint in one eye. Nothing about his appearance would predispose his audience to pick out this young man as the one who had brought thousands to Christ on both sides of the Atlantic.
But when he began to speak, they understood. What was remarkable was that he could speak rapidly and yet have every word distinctly heard. “We are all dead in sin and cannot save ourselves. We are saved by the free grace of God, without the assistance of good works which have no share in the matter, though it is impossible for us to have this free grace applied to us without its being followed by good works.
“Good works are, however, the sure tokens of our being born again. By the sin of Adam we are all under sin, and must have been damned but for the free and gracious sufferings of Christ; but though this be our condition, yet everybody that pleases may obtain this free grace by simply praying for it. It is therefore by faith in Christ alone that we are saved, not by our good works.”
Where Love Begins (Where There is Love Book 1) Page 13
