Chapter 1 of 16 · 3888 words · ~19 min read

Part 1

A BLIGHTED LIFE.

BY THE RIGHT HON. LADY LYTTON.

A True Story.

WITH THREE ILLUSTRATIONS.

London: THE LONDON PUBLISHING OFFICE, 3, Falcon Court; 32, Fleet Street, E.C. 1880.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

EDWARD, LORD LYTTON. ROSINA, LADY LYTTON.—(COPYRIGHT.) ROBERT, LORD LYTTON.

PREFACE.

“THE BLIGHTED LIFE,” by the Rt. Hon. ROSINA, Lady LYTTON, with the Supplemental Notes which seemed necessary to make it complete, is now presented to the world in a perfect form; and the Editor hopes, that as it is one of the most interesting, so it will prove likewise one of the most useful of books. It details, in a highly graphic manner, a narrative of persecution of the most base and unmanly kind, practised by a wicked Man of great talent and resources, upon a Noble Lady, who had hardly anything to defend her but a high spirit, a consciousness of innocence, and a resolve not to be crushed. This man had all the help that Power, and the Plots of guilty Associates could give him; he was himself false, cruel, cunning, and unscrupulous; and yet he was foiled by Lady LYTTON, alone and almost unaided, except by the Voice of Public Opinion, which conquered the devices of both Court and Cabinet—for we believe that each was implicated in this most foul transaction.

The Volume contains Three Portraits; one of Lady LYTTON, which is now for the first time given to the world; but which hardly does justice to her beauty, intellect, and grace: a Portrait of her husband, highly flattered; for almost every low and evil passion was traced indelibly on that odious countenance; and it was impossible to look upon him for any time without feelings of disgust and even horror: the third is that of her Son, the present Lord LYTTON, on whose conduct in this business we forbear to comment; we leave the consideration of it entirely to the public. As the handwriting of Nature developes in the features, the eyes, the forehead, and the mouth, the true character of the soul and spirit within, we recommend a careful contemplation of these Portraits to all students in physiognomy, and think they will find, as they examine, a confirmation of their own best experience in this most interesting branch of science. Lord LYTTON the First hid his mouth with his moustache and beard, because he was too conscious of its frightful expression to let it be seen.

The most saddening thought that arises after the perusal of this Volume, is, that no change has yet been made in the infamous Lunacy Laws, for which, in the main, we have to thank our Whig Rulers. Never was a more criminal or despotic Law passed than that which now enables a Husband to lock up his Wife in a Madhouse on the certificate of two medical men, who often in haste, frequently for a bribe, certify to madness where none exists. We believe that under these Statutes thousands of persons, perfectly sane, are now imprisoned in private asylums throughout the Kingdom; while strangers are in possession of their property; and the miserable prisoner is finally brought to a state of actual lunacy or imbecility—however rational he may have been when first immured. The Keepers of these Madhouse Dens, from long study in their diabolical art, can reduce, by certain drugs, the clearest brain to a state of stupor; and the Lunacy Commissioners take all for granted that they hear over the luxurious lunch with which the Mad Doctor regales them.

Let us hope that this Volume may again call public attention to the monstrous crimes that are perpetrated under this dreadful system; and that it may help to unrivet only one of the brazen fetters which now bind down our People in bondage.

The character of the main Figure in this Volume has been often drawn in flattering colours—most usually, we fancy, by his own descriptive pen. He has been called Poet, Novelist, Orator, Statesman, and we know not what; but if his Wife’s Narrative, as contained in these pages, be correct, he was assuredly about as complete a Scoundrel as ever walked in shoe leather. And that the Narrative is strictly accurate and absolutely true, we entertain no doubt whatever. And if so, how odious was his conduct to that injured Lady. We believe that the man who would immure a perfectly sane Wife in the prisons of a Madhouse would not hesitate at her murder, if he thought himself safe. And it was in that horrible crime that Lord LYTTON was detected, and fortunately was foiled. How well we recollect the universal horror which the news of the deed occasioned. _The Daily Telegraph_ was then on its last legs. It had hardly a circulation of 3,000 a day. As each new morning dawned we expected to hear of its death. In a happy moment for the LEVY-LAWSON-LEVIS, Lady LYTTON was betrayed, seized, and immured. The Editor saw his chance, and made the Metropolis ring with the outrage. LEVI was saved; so also was Lady LYTTON. She was released, as described in “THE BLIGHTED LIFE;” but to the horror and indignation of all decent people, her betrayer and most brutal torturer was nevertheless retained in office as Colonial Minister by the QUEEN, who, soon after, in order to mark her high sense of his conduct, elevated him, and his equally-infamous brother HENRY, to the peerage. A more shameful insult, either to the People or to the House of Lords, was never committed; but insult now seems to be the lot of us all, and so VIVAT REGINA!

[Illustration]

A BLIGHTED LIFE.

The following is a true Woman’s Record of sad suffering. Her wrongs have driven her half mad, and we do not wonder that it should be so, for she has sought redress in vain from almost every source. Her trampler and her tyrant was always victorious in every conflict. The QUEEN, as she most usually does with all criminals, took him by the hand; petted, favoured and promoted him; while his Victim was driven from Society into poverty and exile, and was for years the unceasing object of abuse, slander and libel. God pity her! May God protect and avenge her! Excuse her language, O Reader, whenever it seems “strong,” for it is the cry of an indignant and broken heart—it is the wild shriek of Right, crushed under the heel of insolent and guilty Might.

SIR,—Time was, ere I grew too sick of fiction, or rather of the hollow unprincipled _vaux rien_, who for the most part trade upon it, that your and THACKERAY’S works were the only _novels_ that I read; because they were the only ones independent of their indisputable talent[1] that bore the Hall mark of sincerity, and of conveying the real feelings and opinions of the writers; and not written up to the market standard, whether the twaddle was to be about very little children, which costs nothing—on paper—or underfed and overbirched boys; to say nothing of that great charm, that intellectual aroma of their being written by educated _gentlemen_. But your Novel I have not read, having a horror of all things that emanate from or appear under the auspices of that patent Humbug, Mr. CHARLES DICKENS, or any of his clique, and it is only the having seen in the “Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine” for this month, a review of your Novel, and an extract of your Notice, and requesting all persons in various ranks of life, who by letter or _viva voce_, during the last five years have told you of some persons incarcerated in asylums, &c., &c., &c., and inviting fresh communications, &c., &c., &c., which induces me to furnish you with a few additional facts as to the incarceration—villainy—so much in vogue. But don’t mistake my motive in so doing. _I want you to do nothing for me_; for nothing can _now_ be done, and if it could, _je connais mon Angleterre trop bien_ not to know that the English to a man are _the_ most sordid, selfish, time-serving tuft-hunters in the whole world; Mammon being their only god, and Self high priest: and moreover I am also too fully aware, after 25 years’ bitter experience, that wherever the literary element enters, there _cameraderie_, expediency, clap-trap, treachery, moral cowardice and concrete meanness are _sure_ to follow. There _is_ such a thing as cheap chivalry, as well as cheap philanthropy, which are the only sorts _à la porte de Messieurs les litterateurs Anglais_. And it makes all the difference in the world to make a _cheval de bataille_ (and become a hero upon it) of a poor man’s wrongs, who has _no_ powerful foes to bring their masked batteries to bear upon his champion—aye, or in the event of the victim’s being a chimney sweep’s wife—for the _same_ reason there is nothing easier than for chivalry to make a desperate and victorious onslaught upon Soot, as psychologically as well as horticulturally that pulverised darkness would only make the laurels flourish the more luxuriantly. But change the venue and let the victim only be in the upper sphere of life, without father, mother, or _money_, while her infamous husband not only having with his brother done dirty work for _every_ government for the last 30 years, and being moreover a _litterateur_ whose grossly immoral plagiaries had been be-puffed by a venal press as immortal works, for value received in government interest, and invitations to their vulgar wives—shew me the man in England who would move a finger that might make this Infernal Machine of occult power _explode against himself_ to save any woman from being incarcerated in fifty mad-houses and _bechameled_ afterwards in minced meat, as small as that into which Puss in Boots threatened to cut the reapers, and to save the lurch of your _true_ motto.

_Dict sans faict,_ _A Dieu deplait._

The Chivalric Philanthropist in question would immediately and most conveniently feel that “no man had a _right_ to interfere between another man and his wife, as this, of course, came under the category of strictly private and family affairs.” To say nothing of the _real_ gist of the matter, to wit the Freemasonry which exists among “gentlemen,” (?) that each gentleman’s vices should be held sacred by any other gentleman, as there is no knowing when their _own_ turn may come. So the non-intervention plan is by far the best, alias the safest, both for Parliamentary and Philanthropic humbug. How well my meanest of all villains, and most unlimited of all blackguards knew this, when years ago, after one of his brutal outbursts of personal violence, the cowardly reptile said to me: “_Remember, Madame, you have neither father nor brother, and therefore you are completely in my power._” When, 23 years ago, I and my then infant children were turned out of our home, to make room for one of this loathsome brute’s then strumpets, Miss LAURA DEACON, Serjeant TALFOURD had just cooked up _his_ sham popularity-catching Custody of Infants’ Bill. A silly friend of mine persuaded me to send my case to him, as one of the _strongest_ and _most flagrant_ that could possibly be. I pointed out to her that he also wrote Plays and Poems; and knowing what utter blackguards you “literary men” are in this country—for as old LANDOR says, “there is a spice of the scoundrel in them all”—and therefore _he_ was not likely to risk either the puffery or the persecution of that literary political ruffian. And I was the Cassandra as I always am, for the “learned Serjeant” kept my papers a few days and then returned them to me, saying, “he was very sorry he had not _time_ to look at them.” A pretty person to bring a Bill into Parliament, who had not _time_ to look into the most flagrant abuses that necessitated the change in the law. True, GOD’S judgment overtook _this_ hypocrite at last; for he who _never_ went to bed sober, after a most eloquent diatribe against drunkenness the Bacchanalian Judge fell back stone dead, instead of _a son ordinaire_ dead drunk. But how _could_ this country be anything but the Land of Cant and Crime it is, when we see the irredeemably infamous men who occupy the highest places in literature and politics in England at the present day? Men whose triumphant vices and poisonous example are enough to breed rottenness in the very marrow of the nation. And they _have_ done so; more especially their impious hypocrisy. When GOD was on earth the _only_ sin he had _no_ mercy on was hypocrisy. And why? Because it is a rank and blasphemous forgery on Heaven. When the late Sir ROBERT PEEL wanted to make Lord LYNDHURST Lord Chancellor, he could not do so because of the £15,000 unpaid damages hanging on him about his crim.-con. with Lady SYKES, whereupon Mr. BARING, the present Lord ASHBURTON said, “I’ll pay the damages for COPLEY if you’ll give me a peerage,” and this _creditable_ guardian of the public morals (which, of _course_ are only preserved by private debauchery) had not been six months Lord Chancellor before he had another crim.-con. with Lady G., during the trial for which, poor Lord G. cut his throat. But he, the moral cause of the tragedy, lived to concoct at the instigation of one of _the_ most infamous of our extensive aristocratic Traviataocracy, MESSALINA NORTON, our present job Divorce Court, and to die, puffed by a venal press as if he had been a saint or a demi-god. Faugh! how sick it all makes one. Then see we not still living, to false-weight the scales of justice, that other precious legal DON JUAN and doer of dirty work _dessous les cartes_, for his old college chum, the Chief Justice Sir ALEXANDER COCKBURN, who, as DENISON, the law reporter of the _Times_, said the other day, was “about the most unprincipled scoundrel in England,” passing his whole time in debauching the wife or daughter of every man who came in his way. So with all this _Diabolus ex machina_ up the _backstairs_, like the onions in SYDNEY SMITH’S salad, “unsuspected, animating the whole,” you may imagine the fearful odds a poor legal Victim with “neither Father, Brother, nor Money” has against her! But never mind, “wait for the end.” _Dieu et mon droit_, and the indomitable hatred and colossal contempt of them _all_ with which I am nerved makes me feel that, single-handed and alone as I have before partially been, I shall yet effectually be more than a match for these immund reptiles. This is a long Proem, but it was almost necessary to make you comprehend this of necessity condensed and therefore not over-clear because not categorical _résumé_ of such a tissue of complex and chronic iniquity before coming to the culminating atrocity of Sir ——’s mad-house conspiracy; which, beyond the details you have _asked_ to be supplied with from all quarters, of course can have no earthly interest for you, who once truly remarked in a note I received from you, that “for the most part the fine feelings or rather fine sentiments of Authors were all fused in their inkstands for general circulation, which left them none for their own personal use.” And yet verily, I think LAMARTINE is right, when he says, “_Si l’on savait tout on ne serait indifferent a rien._”

To begin at the beginning of the Mad-house Conspiracy episode, for the Ruffian long ago began his lies in Paris, having put an infamous libel in his lick-dust _ame damnée_, the _Court Journal_, about my having insulted his brother at a ball at Lady AYLMER’S, to which Lord AYLMER had forbidden the brother to be asked, and to which, therefore, he was _not_ asked. For this gross lie and libel, my solicitor, a Mr. —— ——, _then_ and ever a red-hot Tory, instantly brought an action against Sir ——’s tools, as Sir L. _then_ called himself a Whig, and got me for my counsel Sir F. POLLOCK, the present Chief Baron. The defence the dastardly wretches set up in court was that _I_ had fabricated this gross libel against myself, to bring myself before the public!!! Whereupon my counsel remarked that even in a Court of Justice I was not free from the base calumnies of my unscrupulous enemies. _Bref_, I gained this action, costs and damages against them, but pray bear in mind the name of my (as I thought) devoted attorney, Mr. —— ——, who, as the sequel will show, was only a devoted and unscrupulous jobber to the Tory faction. Well, as I said before, to begin at the beginning of the Mad-house Conspiracy episode, I had taken a cottage in the Fulham-road in 1852, but being very poor I was obliged to furnish it by degrees, and after the drawing-rooms and library, had only furnished my own bed-room and dressing-room, when, with my usual good luck, a most—to me—loathsomely disgusting person, from her extreme personal dirt, hideousness, and inanity, came down to me crying one cold wet November day, saying her relation, Mrs. LOUDON (Mrs. CORN-LAW LOUDON, who says COBDEN stole all her fame from her), had literally turned her into the streets, that she had not a _sou_, knew no one in London but me, who she thought would have compassion on her, and both her brothers were away. What could I do? Had I had ready money to pay for a lodging I would have done so; but I had not a farthing till a publisher’s (of the name of SHOBERL) bills for between £400 and £500 became due. Then my poor pretty furniture, among which I would rather have let loose a whole litter of pigs! Oh! it was a horrible dilemma; but not being made of stone cemented with mud, as I ought to be, with the infamous name I had the irreparable misfortune to be branded with at the matrimonial galleys, I gulped all my difficulties and disgusts, and sent for an upholsterer in hot haste to furnish at a year’s credit a bedroom (which should have been a sty for this biped swine), and as my intention was to let my cottage whenever I left town, there was no use in furnishing it less well than the rest of my little gem of a house, which I had done cheaply enough, picking up the things by degrees for ready money. Alas, in one week the housemaid came to me with tears in her eyes to come and see the wreck; and truly the Augean stable must have been the _beau ideal_ of neatness and cleanliness to it. The honest creature stayed with me a year in my poor cottage, I finding her not only in evening dresses, but in clothes from head to foot, as I did for three years after in other places, being, of course, therefrom obliged to do without essentials for myself. At the end of that year, my swindling publisher, SHOBERL, went smash, and I did not get a penny; but the obliging upholsterer came down upon me with an exorbitant fancy bill for the furnishing Miss R——’s room, more in amount than any three other rooms in the house. I really felt stunned, or rather crushed, as if an elephant had trodden down my heart. I was for four months ineffectually trying to let my cottage, and as ineffectually (tied up as I was on a beggarly pittance of £400 a year for that monster’s life, irregularly paid) trying to borrow money. At length a good Samaritan at the Stock Exchange, a stranger of course, and his good, excellent unattorney-like lawyer, poor Mr. HODGSON, now also dead, said he had heard such a good character of my honesty from the best judges, or at least the most impartial ones, the creditors, that he most humanely and generously lent me £1000 at £5 per cent. for 10 years, and paying £100 a year off the principal, and insuring both Sir ——’s and my own life. With this fearful drain upon my already disgraceful pittance, as you may suppose, I could not stay in London. My friends, by way of economising, asked me to go on visits to them; so I went first to Lady HOTHAM at Brighton, and then to other friends there, but soon found out that there is nothing _so_ expensive as visiting in great houses, and dressing and going out, &c., &c., &c. So after a short trip to Paris with Lady HOTHAM, I went to bury myself in a little village in Wales (Llangollen), where the people about the country were good enough to come and see me, but I honestly told them I could not afford to go and see them, as I was even obliged to give up my maid, which to me was indeed a bitter, bitter privation. Then it was, being at a village _inn alone_, that that cowardly brute Sir —— thought he had _beau jeu_; and sent down first a vulgar old woman calling herself Mrs. P—— with her “darter” and one of Sir ——’s bastards (of whom I could give you an incident quite fit for a novel, but too long to insert here), the said P—— scraping an acquaintance with me upon the plea of her being an American, which she acted to the life by obtruding herself upon me at all hours, breakfast and dinner, and in my bedroom before I was up of a morning, and of course she had as good a right to be in the _hotel_ as I had. One day, before I came into the dining-room, she had helped me to soup. I found her with her bonnet on, and before I had time to eat the soup, she pretended she had had a sudden summons to London and was off. I had no sooner eaten the soup than before dinner was over I was seized with the most agonizing pains and violent retchings. My Doctor gave me antidotes; and said some attempt had been made to poison me, but the dose had not been sufficient. This seemed to be confirmed by my (in about three weeks) getting a letter from old P—— (_which letter I have got_), with another from another old adventuress, calling herself Mme. S——, who, being at K—— with some more of Sir ——’s elegant acquaintances, says she overheard the whole plot to incarcerate me in a Mad-house, and so have me _gradually_ made away with. She also sent me a copy of a letter, which she says(?) she sent to Sir ——, after I _was_ incarcerated, saying if a hair of mine was injured she would denounce him publicly as the black villain he was. Well, to return to old P——’s letter. In it she seemed seized with a remorse of conscience—her grandchild having died suddenly, and that she was off to Paris, but could not go without _warning me_ “for GOD’S sake to be upon my guard, as a person would be sent down whose name would begin with G, and to attract my attention, in order to scrape acquaintance with me, she would have a little black King Charles dog,” _as old P—— herself had had_.