Part 10

In my dreadful dilemma of being without a trustee—not to leave them any pretext for keeping the poor people out of their money, I had written to Dr. OILY GAMMON R—— to know if _he_ would be my trustee? Not certainly from choice, as I never have any but Hobson’s choice; but because he was already _au fait_ to the last Madhouse Conspiracy, and knew all the _dramatis personæ_. He wrote me back a most oleaginous letter, accepting the office, and praising Mr. L—— up to the skies, with one of those double barrelled compliments which professionally he was in the habit of bestowing upon my lord and my lady—_i.e._, saying “He is a noble fellow, worthy of the mother who bore him.” No, verily; _she_ is _not_ a coward; and for all the kingdoms of the earth could neither lie away a person’s life, repay good with evil, or cringe to infamy in high places; nor pander to treachery and injustice. Though as FALSTAFF was not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others; so Sir EDWARD is not only false, treacherous, and infamous, but is the cause of falsehood, treachery, and infamy in others. Yet, thank GOD, neither by bribery nor intimidation, has he ever, or will he ever, be able to mould me to his purposes; and hence his implacable persecution, and his poisoned treacherous arrows that always fly in _darkness_, and from an ambush. When Mr. L—— returned with his dispatch to C——, he put it into my hand, saying “Will that do?” It began: “SIR,—Lady B—— L—— having seen in _The Times_,” &c., &c. “No,” I said, “it will _not_ do; I told you to say my mother having seen, &c., &c., that he fully might know that I had a son, and therefore conclude, however erroneously, that he would protect me.” At this he left the room, and I felt so angry and heart-stricken, that I wrote him an indignant note, reproaching him with having lured and springed me abroad, merely to patch up his father’s character, which, sooth to say, was rather past mending. Upon the receipt of this, for truth to evil-doers is the most unpardonable of all crimes, _car ce n’est que la verité qui blesse_, the young gentleman having of course had his _orders_ (and when did this pious ÆNEAS ever dare to disobey any order of his loved!!! and honoured!!! father, “from pitch-and-toss up to manslaughter?”) sent for post horses and set off to Toulouse, on his return to Paris, leaving his Mother, now nothing more could be done with her, and the bubble was beginning to burst, to find her way home as she could. Certainly he did leave his man FLETCHER to attend upon me, who kept saying to WILLIAMS (my maid) the whole journey, “’Pon my soul, it’s too, too bad; I did not think Mr. L—— _could_ have acted so by his Mother—whom I know he loves—merely from fear of that old villain Sir EDWARD.” When I found Mr. L—— gone, without a word, without a line, my short dream all shattered and shimmering about me! and a cold, black, unfathomable abyss before me,—never shall I forget the first petrifying yet bewildering agony—the severing, as it were, of body and soul—that I felt, and which I am certain must be what one feels when the real severing of them by death comes. For hours I seemed turned to stone, and could not shed a tear, till I saw, sitting under the trees opposite our windows, in her little carriage, a poor little lame girl about thirteen, who used to sit there begging. She had a little, pale, melancholy face, with imploring eyes, that seemed to say, “_Pour l’amour de Dieu!_” for she never asked in words. ROBERT had given her a five-franc piece one day, and came into me with the tears streaming down his cheeks, and said, “Oh, Mother, can you give me any warm wraps for her? she is so cold and so thinly clad.” How I loved the poor fellow at that moment—so much good feeling was so _un_-Bulwerish, and so _un_-Lyttonian. I gave him all he wanted, and he then flung his arms round my neck, and said, “How good you are to me, darling; anyone else would have laughed at me.” “Then they must be thorough wretches if they did,” said I. Upon seeing his poor little _protegée_ looking up wistfully, that cold, gloomy November day, after he was gone, I put on my bonnet, and went down to her. Her first question was for “Monsieur”—for he was her idol; no one, she said, had ever been so kind, or so gentle to her. When I told her he was gone, and would not return, she cried bitterly. Her name was JEANNE HESTIER. I said, “JEANNE, would you like to be taken out of the cold and clothed, and taught, and live entirely _avec les bonnes sœurs a l’Hospice_?” She clasped her hands and said, “Oh, that would be too good—but what would my mother say?” who took all the money people gave her at the baths (and indeed I had trouble enough with the worthless, grasping mother after). “Oh, never mind, I’ll settle that,” said I, and I took the pole of her little carriage and drew her to the convent, where I consigned her to the _Mère Superieure_, paying the first year in advance, and sufficient besides for her “_necessaire_”—have done so ever since, and shall do so as long as I live; and as it is only £20 a year, I hope and trust Mr. —— won’t leave poor JEANNE to starve when I am dead, as I send the money every six months, through his old Luchon Doctor, Dr. PEJOT. It is so _pleasant_ to have his inquiries about “_le jeune homme charmant Monsieur votre fils_.” Oh, what a bitter! bitter! sting, life is to some of us. Well, when I arrived in Paris, I still made a last effort to save this wretched young victim from himself. I sent a note to the hotel, where he always put up, to tell him not, after what _he_ and _he_ alone (for no one else could have done it) had trapped me into, to let us part in such a manner; for if he did, nothing should induce me ever to see him again. He came, but the hideous KATE R—— was in the room, and his manner was cold and constrained. To get rid of her (for she always stuck to us like a leech), I sent her off on a wild goose chase to GALIGNANI’S. I then implored him only to be candid with me, and tell me all, no matter how bad it was, or what his orders were to do against me; I would not only freely forgive him, but help him, for, as I said before, I could bear all things; but to feel _he_ was deceiving me, and I should not at all mind what I suffered, or even try to get redress for any outrages or insults from his father, and his father’s tools; if I could be only _certain_ that my own child was merely playing a part against me, and _not_ doing so in his own heart; much as I deprecated such expedient duplicity, and which, to save my life, I could not resort to myself. He flung himself at my feet, hiding his face in my lap, and in such an agony of hysterical sobs, that I really was quite frightened. But not one word could I get out of him. As there is no courage like a coward’s for rashness, when pushed to desperation, so I suppose there is no obstinacy like a weak vacillator’s, when they have been pushed to take the Curtius’ leap into the gulf of determination. At dinner, the Spy being there, he again congealed into a proper B—— L——ish degree of frigidity, and talked of this, that and the other, _sachant sans doute, que la bete noire R——, etait la faisant son courier, et dressant son procès verbal—pour son barbe bleu de pere_. Then he said how sorry he was to leave beautiful Luchon, which was the most lovely place he had ever seen. And that poor little lame girl—her face haunted him—he must send her something, “You need not, at least just now,” said I, “for I thought you would be glad of it, so I’ve provided for your child.” “Provided for her! how?” I then told him I had deposited her with my friends, the Sisters of Charity, at the Hospice, where both she and her health would be taken care of. At this he drew up, with an air of pomposity that was almost worthy of “my father,” and said—while Miss R——’s hideous, toad-like eyes were fixed upon him, “Those sort of things are all very well, if people have large fortunes.” “Well,” I broke in, “it will neither come out of your father’s private fortune (whatever that may really be, it is so magnified to the public, and so contradicted to his family), nor out of his £5,000 a year as Colonial Secretary; and, by doing without something else, I have no doubt I shall be able to manage £20 a year, even out of my splendid income.”

But all my pleasures were still to come! The good people of Taunton, when they heard I was to return safe and sound, wanted to give me a triumphal entry from the station. But upon my unhappy son’s account, I wrote to Mrs. CLARKE to say how grateful I felt, and always should feel, to them for their great kindness and zeal on my behalf; but that they would greatly add to their kindness, if they would allow me to return to them as quietly as possible, as I was far from well. On my return, I found duplicates of the intercepted letters, which had not reached me abroad; they were all to the same purport, and in the same strain, viz., that it was natural for me to believe in my son, but imploring me not to _trust_ him; as “the world paints him in the same colours as his father—black, and very black.” And in confirmation of this, they enclosed me two infamous letters, tissues of the _grossest_ falsehoods, which had appeared in _The Times_ on Saturday, July the 17th, 1858, the very day I was taken from H——’s stronghold, and hurried off without breathing time to Dover, which letters bore my son’s signature! But knowing the unscrupulous use his Ruffian of a Father made of his name, I tried to hope that they were a concoction of his and L——’s, and wrote of course to JUDAS H——, and my OILY GAMMON of a trustee, Dr. R——, about them. Mr. H—— of course “very much disapproved” of these letters! but thought it better—no doubt he was paid for so doing—to let them die away, by not taking any notice of them! a nice way of defending a client truly! While Dr. OILY GAMMON “was quite shocked and startled at them, and would certainly have contradicted every false statement contained in them, _had he been my trustee at the time(!!!)_ and he had quite dreaded the effect they would have on me when they came to my knowledge!” Yet the sneaking toady and loathsome double-dealer, being perfectly cognisant of them at the time, could, with all his pretended friendship and sympathy! let me leave England with this mine of cowardly lies exploding after me, and continue his horrible hypocrisy by writing to me that my son “was a noble fellow”! _Il parint en ce cas la que, noblesse! n’obligéant pas!_ I was also sent some Hertford Papers with a letter from that vile wretch, Miss R——, saying that “she was bound to say (no doubt of it) that Sir EDWARD —— had never been unkind to me! and that from the _representations made to him (!!!!!!)_ he could not have done otherwise than send me to Mr. H——’s _establishment!_ which had been done solely for the benefit of my health.” The attorney H——, signing himself “Lady BULWER LYTTON’S Solicitor,” was, of course, _bound_ to tell the same lies. But the Hertford Papers opened a perfect battery of indignation upon that vile Miss R——, saying—who could have but the worst opinion of a person who, for ten days had printed statements in not only the Hertford but London papers, that _nothing_ could exceed Sir EDWARD ——’s cruelty to, and persecution of me for years, which she could vouch for before his culminating Conspiracy of the Madhouse, and that out of Hell there were not two other such demons as he and L——. And then! in the short space of half an hour after her first interview with these men, she writes to say he had never been unkind to me! Why, they _could_ only say that she was a bribed perjurer, and that if anything _could_ damage Sir EDWARD more in public opinion, it would be her present sudden and contradictory statements respecting him. As for Mr. H——! solicitors are a proverb for _their_ elastic consciences. But it is the old story in all cases of the wicked strong against the innocent weak. Sir WALTER RALEIGH, it was arranged _beforehand_, was to be condemned; therefore, vain were his cloud of witnesses, his legions of facts, and his eloquence of truth. Just as, of course, Prime Ministers never are, under the most glaring and palpable of facts, to be found guilty in cases of _crim. con._ Why should they, with secret service money and unlimited patronage at their command? I remember that very clever, but intensely unprincipled literary man, Dr. MAGINN, as most literary men that I have had the misfortune to know _are_, telling me the clever dirty work he did in Lord MELBOURNE’S and that vile Mrs. NORTON’S Trial; how _he_ packed the Jury, and how _he_ invalidated the testimony of the only witness they were afraid of—a footman, by worming out all his evidence, and sending it to her Counsel, and making the man so beastly drunk at the eleventh hour at a public house, “The Chequer’s” at Westminster, that when he was called into Court it completely invalidated his evidence! And he also gave me chapters and verses of the _exact_ sums of money—Baronetcies and civil service appointments—he had had to distribute in the higher quarters; old MELBOURNE sticking out more about the money than anything, but sending Sir JOSEPH YORKE to close with his demands at 7 o’clock on the morning of the Trial. But _because_ MAGINN was a high Tory, the sapient public of course would never suspect _him_ of doing dirty work for a Whig Premier. Yet this unscrupulous fellow, dining at my house at Bath at the time, showed me two articles he had written upon this Trial simultaneously, one, for the Tory _John Bull_ and _Standard_, making Mrs. NORTON out ten times more scarlet than the Lady of Babylon; the other for a Whig organ _proving_ her to be purer than unturned snow! which is the way Literature and Politics are conducted in this country. And my miserable lot in life having thrown me chiefly among Political and Literary Magnates, I have no hesitation in saying that _all_ the misery and crime in this country (where—despite sermons—schools—refuges and reformatories they are _ever frightfully on the increase_), originate in the Stygian vices and blasphemous hypocrisy! of these two great motive powers. And have we not just been edified with another signal example of English virtue! and above all, English justice! in high places, in the Trial of “O’KANE _versus_ O’KANE and PALMERSTON,” where you perceive it was _Mr. O’Kane’s friends!!_ that negotiated the compromise! as poor dear Lord PALMERSTON _could_ have no possible interest in the matter!—Oh dear no! so it was solely for Mr. O’KANE’S interest that he should accept Lord PALMERSTON’S money, offered by _his_ O’KANE’S friends! and as Mrs. O’KANE had been a maid of Lady JOCELYN’S, and therefore had the run of Cambridge House, it’s not likely that a man of Lord PALMERSTON’S Cato-like virtue ever even looked at her. So the superannuated Joseph came out pure and spotless! (as most men are) amid the plaudits of a properly crammed court, dear COCKBURN having no doubt, _sub rosa_, played the manager, and “animated the whole,” even to inspiring _Mr. O’Kane’s friends_ with the ways and means to inspire O’KANE with a suitable idea of his own interests! Verily the force of humbug can no farther go! On my return to all these agreeable, perhaps not exactly, surprises, I had also the pleasure of finding that none of my debts of honour were paid, despite the solemn promises of all concerned that they were to be, before I crossed the Channel. Only JUDAS H—— had been sent down in hot haste to Taunton to throw dust in the people’s eyes by paying the _tradespeople_ here, who were in no hurry to be paid, and whom I would much rather have paid myself on my return, when cordially thanking them all for their unanimous and active zeal, for they had even felt in their _pockets_ for me, and told Mrs. CLARKE that two or three thousand pounds, or more, should be instantly raised if wanted for law expenses. The only person who had _not_ sent in his bill was a Quaker upholsterer, who was owed £5. This turned out a very fortunate circumstance for me, as you will hear presently. After this homœopathic gold-dust throwing at Taunton, Sir LIAR began _a son ordinaire_, going back from _every_ promise, when he thought the storm had a little blown over, and what he more particularly stood out about most resolutely, was insisting that that beggarly £500 a year should not be settled upon me for my life, but only for _his_. Whereupon the admirable Mr. E—— J—— told him that if that at least was not done, I should of course proclaim the whole affair, and bring an action for false imprisonment, &c., &c. So that it was at the eleventh hour, four days after my return, that it was at length done; upon which Dr. OILY GAMMON R——, my valiant trustee, wrote me a most heroic piece of braggadocia, that he would not leave the room till the deed was executed, signed, and duly attested. But by this time, not believing one word any of them said, I sent my copy of this deed to a barrister of my acquaintance, Mr. HENRY COLE, to know if it were a quibble or a fresh _swindle_. He said no, it was stringent and _en regle_, and about a month after its execution JUDAS H—— wrote to me saying Miss R—— and E—— J—— had written, and called innumerable times on him at his office in Ely-place, to try and make him give up the original of that document _to them_; no doubt E—— J—— having promised his friend Sir LIAR that if he’d _only_ sign that deed, to humbug me and the public a little more, he (E—— J——) would swindle H—— out of it in some way or other, under pretence of looking at it, and then destroy it. And JUDAS H—— made a tremendous merit to me of his fidelity in not giving it up; to which I wrote him back word: “Clearly not, Mr. H——; you have got all you were to get for selling me, and for your lies to the Hertford and other papers about being _bound_ to say that infamous man, Sir EDWARD H——, had never been unkind to me. And of course you were not such a fool as to risk being struck off the Rolls for such an overt breach of trust as the giving up the original of that deed would have been.” This reminded me to tell Dr. R—— to get my two letters (those two letters of Sir LIAR’S) from that vile Miss R——. When I told him about my going abroad in the full belief that Lord SHAFTESBURY was my trustee, he, who is Lord SHAFTESBURY’S Physician, said that in the first place he had never been asked, and never got my note, and in the next, if he had, he would have declined, his horror of Sir EDWARD —— was so great. So much for his philanthropy. Mr. L—— having returned to England about his own business with his father, and finding that after solemnly promising poor Lady BLACKBURNE the interest of the £400 she had generously lent me when I was starved out at the Revolution of Geneva in 1846, which interest she never would accept from me, I wrote to Mr. L—— to know if it were possible that in the teeth of all truth he had written those two letters, with his signature to them, which had appeared in the _Times_ the day I left England, and which such care was taken I should not see. And also as he had so solemnly promised that I should appeal to _him_ if anything went wrong in future; and I found Dr. R—— (as was his bounden duty), though always more than agreeing with me in everything, never saw, or insisted upon any compact being fulfilled, and was worse than none as a trustee. I must depend upon him in common honour and common decency to see that Lady BLACKBURNE, who had acted so kindly and generously by me, should be paid the interest of her money, and all my other debts of honour also _immediately_ paid. To this, the young gentleman, who now had his papa, and his papa’s cane! to lean over him, and see that he did his lessons properly (what in mathematics is called a _Crocodile_, I suppose), boldly replied, that “he _had_ written those letters,—and that as for Lady BLACKBURNE, she must recollect that in _law!_ she could claim _nothing_, and must therefore be contented with the principal without the interest! (though bear in mind the interest had been solemnly promised to her by _the whole gang_)—and as to taking any proceeding against his father, if I _had no respect for family ties_ (_this_ from _him_ to _me_), that at all events he hoped that I would at least have some respect for the name he (Mr. L——) inherited”! To which I wrote back—“GOD forgive you—you poor unfortunate young man, but as you have every reason to be heartily ashamed of ‘the name you inherit’! take my advice, and say as little about it as possible, and try before it is too late to act so that _your_ children may not have equal cause to be ashamed of the name _they_ inherit.” You may suppose that by this time I had my quietus! and could not be more wounded and disgusted. After that contemptible sneak and double-dealer Dr. R—— had been for _weeks_ writing me lying excuses about Miss R—— not returning me that cheek-biting and other letter, which he _knew_ to be lies; I received the following charming effusion from Mr. L——, and to rejoice my mother’s heart the more it came on New Year’s Day! and showed me _he_ was still doing his father’s dirty work in concert with that vile wretch Miss R——, whom I had forbidden to ever again darken my doors, if she was fifty times turned penniless into the streets of London, or any other place.