“Then, sir, you ought to eat, if only to please her, by keeping well and strong.”
“Well, well! I dare say I shall be hungry to-morrow. You can take away the things, Phœbe, if that is what they call you.”
I could say no more, but was fain to obey. Then as I could do no more for him, I took up the tray and resolved to go and see the Doctor, with whom I had much to say. Therefore I put off my servant’s garb, with the apron and cap, and drew the hood over my face again.
The Doctor’s busy time was in the morning. In the afternoon, after dinner, he mostly slept in his arm-chair, over a pipe of tobacco. I found him alone thus enjoying himself. I know not whether he slept or meditated, for the tobacco was still burning, though his eyes were closed.
There is this peculiarity about noise in London, that people who live in it and sleep in it do not notice it. Thus while there was a horrible altercation outside his very windows – a thing which happened every day, and all day long – the Doctor regarded it not at all. Yet he heard me open and shut the door, and was awake instantly.
“Kitty!” he cried. “Why, child, what dost thou here?”
“I hope, sir,” I said, “that I find you in good health and spirits.”
“Reasonable good, Kitty. A man of my years, be he never so temperate and regular in his habits, finds the slow tooth of time gnawing upon him. Let me look at thy face. Humph! one would say that the air of Epsom is good for young maids’ cheeks. But why in Fleet Market, child?”
“Partly, sir, I came to see you, and partly – ”
“To see some one else, of whose lodging in the Rules I have been told by Sir Miles Lackington. Tell me – the young man whom he wounded, is he dead?”
“Nay, sir, not dead, but grievously wounded, and in a high fever.”
“So. A man in early manhood, who has been wounded by a sword running through his vitals, who four days after the event is still living, though in a high fever – that man, methinks, is likely to recover, unless his physician, as is generally the case, is an ass. For, my dear, there are as many incompetent physicians as there are incapable preachers. Their name is Legion. Well, Kitty, you came about Lord Chudleigh. Have you seen him?”
“Yes; but, sir, he does not know that I am here. I saw him” – here I blushed again – “in disguise as a housemaid.”
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed the Doctor. “Why, girl, thou hast more spirit than I gave thee credit for. Thou deservest him, and shalt have him, too. The time is come.” He rose and folded his gown about him, and put on his wig, which for coolness’ sake he had laid aside. “I will go to him and say, ‘My lord, the person to whom you were married is no other than – ’”
“Oh! no, sir. I pray you do not speak to him in such fashion. Pray hear me first.”
“Well – well. Let us hear this little baggage.” The Doctor was in very good spirits, and eager to unfold this tale. He sat down again, however, and took up his pipe. “Go on, then, Kitty; go on – I am listening.”
This was, indeed, a very critical moment of my life. For on this moment depended, I foresaw, all my happiness. I therefore hesitated a little, thinking what to say and how to say it. Then I began.
I reminded my uncle that, when I first came under his protection, I was a young girl fresh from the country, who knew but little evil, suspected none, and in all things had been taught to respect and fear my betters. I then reminded him how, while in this discipline of mind, I was one morning called away by him, and ordered to go through a certain form which (granting that I well knew it to be the English form of marriage service) I could not really believe to mean that I was married. And though my uncle assured me afterwards that such was the case, I so little comprehended that it could be possible, that I had almost forgotten the whole event. Then, I said, we had gone away from the Rules of the Fleet, and found ourselves under happier circumstances, where new duties made me still more forget this strange thing. Presently we went to Epsom, whither, in the strangest way, repaired the very man I had married.
After this, I told him, the most wonderful thing in the world happened to me. For not only did my lord fall in love with me, his legal wife, but he gave me to understand that the only obstacle to his marrying me was that business in the Fleet, of which he informed me at length.
“Very good,” said the Doctor. “Things could not go better. If the man has fallen in love with the girl, he ought to be pleased that she is his wife.”
Nay: that would not do either; for here another thing of which the Doctor had no experience, being a man. For when a woman falls in love with a man she must needs make herself as virtuous and pure in mind as she is brave in her dress, in order the more to please him and fix his affection. And what sort of love would that be where a woman should glory, as it were, in deception?
Why, his love would be changed, if not into loathing, then into a lower kind of love, in which admiration of a woman’s beauty forms the whole part. Now, if beauty is everything, even Helen of Troy would be a miserable woman, a month after marriage, when her husband would grow tired of her.
“Alas!” I cried, “I love him. If you tell him, as he must now be told, that I was the woman who took a part in that shameful business – yes, sir, even to your face I must needs call it shameful – you may tell him at once that I release him so far as I can. I will not acknowledge the marriage. I will go into no court of law, nor will I give any evidence to establish my rights – ”
“Whom God hath joined – ” the Doctor began.
“Oh! I know – I know. And you are a clergyman of the Church, with power and authority by laying on of hands. Yet I cannot think, I cannot feel that any blessing of heaven could rest upon a union performed in such a place. Is this room, nightly desecrated by revellers, a church? Is your profligate wretch Roger a clerk? Where were the banns put up? What bells were rung?”
“Banns are no longer fashionable,” he replied. “But let me think.” He was not angry with my plainness of speech, but rather the contrary. “Let me think.” He went to his cupboard, took out his great register, and turned over the leaves. “Ay! here it is, having a page to itself: Geoffrey Lord Chudleigh to Catherine Pleydell. Your ladyship is as truly Lady Chudleigh as his mother was before him. But if you will give up that title and dignity” – here he smiled and tore out the page, but carefully – “I will not baulk thee, child. Here is the register, and here the certificate of the wedding.” He put both together, and laid them carefully aside. “Come to me to-morrow, and I will then go with you to his lordship and give him these papers to deal with as he pleases.”