The Chaplain of the Fleet

by Walter Besant; James Rice

If I had been afraid to raise my eyes, Nancy was not; she looked in my lord’s face and laughed; she talked and prattled all the time she was dancing; and she danced as if the music was too slow for her, as if she would fain have been spinning round like a school-girl when she makes cheeses, as if her limbs were springs, as if she would gladly have taken her partner by both hands and run round and round with him as she had so often done with me when we were children together, playing in the meadows beside the Hall. All the people looked on and laughed and clapped their hands; never was so merry a minuet, if that stately dance could ever be made merry. As for me, I was able to look at his face again, though that was only to begin the punishment of my crime.

What did I remember of him? A tall young man of slender figure; with cheeks red and puffed, a forehead on which the veins stood out ready to burst, a hand that shook, eyes that looked wildly round him; a dreadful, terrible, and shameful memory. But now, how changed! As for his features, I hardly recognised them at all. Yet I knew him for the same man.

Go get a cunning limner and painter. Make him draw you a face stamped with some degrading vice, or taken at the moment of committing some grievous sin against the conscience. Suppose, for instance, that the cheeks swell out with gluttony; or let the lips tremble with intemperance; or let the eyes grow keen and hawk-like with gambling: let any vice he pleases be stamped upon that face. Then let him go away and draw that face (which before was dark with sin and marked with the seal of the Devil) as it should be, pure, wise, and noble as God, who hath somewhere laid by the model and type of every created face, intended it to be. You will know it and you will know it not.

The face which I had seen was not the face of a drunkard, but of a drunken man, of a man heavy and stupid with unaccustomed drink. I had always thought of him as of a creature of whose violence (in his cups) I should go in daily terror, when it should please the Doctor to take me to my husband. Now that I saw the face again, the spirit of drunkenness gone out of it, it seemed as if the man could never stoop to weakness or folly, so strong were the features, so noble were the eyes. How could such a man, with such a face and such a bearing, go about with such a secret? But perhaps, like me, he did not suffer himself to think about it. For his face was as that of David when he was full of his great mission, or of Apollo the sun-god, or of Adonis whom the Syrian women weep, or of Troilus when he believed that Cressida was true.

To be sure, he never thought of the thing at all. He put it behind him as an evil dream: he would take no steps until he wished to be married, when he would instruct his lawyers, and they would break the bonds—which were no true bonds—asunder. If he thought at all, he would think that he was married—if that was indeed a marriage—to some poor unworthy wretch who might be set aside at pleasure: why should his thoughts ever dwell—so I said to myself with jealous bitterness—on the girl who stood before him for ten minutes, her face muffled in a hood, her eyes cast down, who placed a trembling and wicked hand in his and swore to follow his fortunes for better for worse?

Alas poor Kitty! Her case seemed sad indeed.

Then my lord finished his minuet with Nancy, and other couples advanced into the arena, and the dancing became general. Of course there was nothing but minuets until eight o’clock.

Nancy was merry. She said that her partner was delightful to dance with, partly because he was a lord—and a title, she said, gives an air of grace to any block—partly because he danced well and talked amiably.

“He is a pretty fellow, my dear,” she said, “though of position too exalted for one so humble as myself. He had exhausted all his compliments upon the Queen and had none for a simple maid of honour, which I told him at parting, and it made him blush like a girl. How I love to see a man blush; it is a sign that there is yet left some remains of grace. Perhaps Lord Chudleigh is not so hardened as his fellows. Look at Peggy’s languid airs: she thinks a minuet should be danced as if you were going to die the very next minute; and she rolls her eyes about as if she were fainting for a man to kiss her. My dear, Lord Chudleigh, I fear, is above us both; yet he is but a man, and all men are made of tinder, and a woman is the spark. I think he may be on fire before long, think not upon him until you find out how his affections are disposed, and whether he is free. A roving lord, at the watering-places, who is young and handsome, is as dangerous to us poor damsels, and plays as much havoc among our hearts, as Samson when he had got that jawbone, among the Philistines. A truly dreadful thing it would be”—it was wonderful that she should be saying all this in ignorance, how every word went home—“to set your affections upon a lord, and to find out afterwards that he was pledged to somebody else. Hateful thing she would be!”

While the minuets were dancing we stood and watched the gay throng. Never had I dreamed of anything so gay and animated. There were three hundred people, at least as many men as women, and all dressed in their very best. As for the ladies, it was the fashion when I was a girl for all to be powdered, but there were many modes of dressing the head. For some wore aigrettes of jewels (who could afford them) some false flowers, and some true flowers, which were pretty and becoming for a young girl: and some had coiffures à la culbutte, some en dorlotte, some en papillon, or en vergette, en équivoque, en désespoir, or en tête de mouton. The last was the commonest, in which there were curls all over the back of the head. And there were French curls, which looked something like eggs strung on a wire round the head, and Italian curls or scallop-shells. The petticoats were ornamented with falbalas and pretantailles; most ladies wore criardes, and all had hoops, but some wore hoops en coupole and some small hoops, and some looked like a state-bed on castors, and as if they had robbed the valance for the skirt and the tester for the trimmings. But there is no end to the changes of fashion. As for the gentlemen, their vanities were mostly in the wig, for though the full wig was now gone out of fashion, having given place to the neat and elegant tie-wig with a broad black ribbon and a little bag, or a queue, yet there was not wanting the full-bottomed periwig, the large flowing grizzle, and the great wig with three tails. And every kind of face, the vacant, the foolish, the sensual, the envious, the eager, the pert, the dignified, the brave, the anxious, the confident—but none so noble as that face of my lord.