Part 12

It would appear that E—— J——, not having told lies enough, and done dirty work enough in the country, must needs re-commence after his outlawry; for it is only last year, in America, that upon a woman being tried for the murder of her husband, and the defence set up being his barbarous usage of her, that the Judge said, “If brutal usage and persecution was an excuse for committing murder, _I_ ought to have murdered Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON long ago, if only _half_ the papers had stated about his brutal treatment and persecutions of me was true.” Whereupon, that model of all honour and truth! Mr. E—— J——, rose up in Court and said, “He must beg to set the Judge right on that point, for that Lady LYTTON had never complained (!!) of unkindness from Sir EDWARD, and _could_ not!!! and that it was only last year, just before he (E—— J——) quitted England, that Sir EDWARD, having been left a large fortune by a relation” (Oh!! Mr. J——! what next? and next?) “he had _generously_ doubled his wife’s income”!!!!! There! let his Satanic Majesty beat _that_ if he can! I of course instantly wrote to the _New York Times_ (as these most infamous and barefaced lies had appeared in that beastly _Daily Telegraph_), refuting them, and saying, “that for the many colossal falsehoods, for which Mr. E—— J—— was proverbial, never had he dared to utter any equal in magnitude to these!” But as my doing so had of course been anticipated, and the Press of all countries is equally corrupt and venal, “_The Editor of the New York Times could not publish my letter, as its contents referred to strictly private and family matters!!_” This is quite England over again, where the most horrible lies and calumnies by a husband (in power) are to be given full and world-wide publicity! but if the victim wife dares to refute them, ah! _then_ they become strictly private, and personal affairs, and _no_ newspaper, for fear of the Law of Libel, will give any refutations admission into their columns! And so this meanest and cruellest of all Villains and Cowards! Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, who has not even the courage of his loathsome vices, goes on for ever, strutting over the ruins of the moral Carthage _he_ has razed, and heralding forth to posterity, through the brazen trumpet of mendacity, all the inverse virtues of his hideous and manifold vices. But let the wretch beware! The last time, a wave of my fan drove the cowardly reptile from the Hertford hustings, but only let him _dare_ ever again to parade his physical and moral leprosy upon any hustings; and he shall find his escape shall not be so _easy_. After I had declined any further intercourse with my _useful_, and honourable, and veracious trustee, Dr. R——, his petty spite was to keep me each quarter two or three weeks out of my beggarly pittance, a most _serious_ inconvenience to me; but their calculation was, no doubt, that I should, as of old, eat it all up in paying lawyers to obtain it, _Pas si bete_. So, pondering the matter a little while, a bright thought struck me. I went down to FODEN LAWRENCE the Quaker, and asked him “if he would each quarter, _on the day it was due_, pay me this beggarly £125, and send Dr. R—— my receipt for it, making him repay him. He said “with pleasure,” and wrote to Dr. R——: “As I think it a most scandalous shame that, used as she has already been, Lady LYTTON should be kept one hour out of so scandalously inadequate a pittance, I have this day paid her the £125 due to her; and _shall continue to do so punctually_, every quarter when it becomes due, and I enclose thee her receipt for the £125 paid this day, and will thank thee to send me a cheque by _return of post_ for the amount.—FODEN LAWRENCE.”

And as, like all knaves, these cowardly wretches are mortally afraid of an honest, straightforward, and _resolute_ man, and of my fighting Quaker in particular, he has ever since, now four years, paid me to the day, and got the money from them by return of post. Meanwhile that dastardly villain, Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, is comfortably playing out his game of lies; his victim buried alive, too poor to mix in the society to which she belongs, and too proud to go upon sponging visits she cannot repay by invitations in return, to say nothing of _this_ being the _only_ place I could ever feel _safe_ in while that monster lives, as _here_, after the uproar there was, he never dare attempt any fresh villainy. I am doubly crippled by that trapped journey abroad, having done much, which having known all I _now_ know, I should _not_ have done. I don’t mean about poor little JEANNE HESTIER, for that is a drop in the sea, and, moreover, having told good Mrs. CLARKE that as long as I live, whether here or not, I shall always pay her the same, which I thought was the least I could do after her kindness and fidelity to me, you may suppose I have no money to go about with; so being all the same as if I were buried dead, instead of only being buried alive, of course the outer public believe (as Sir LIAR has worked _so_ hard for them to do) that I _really am_ mad, or imbecile, or something, or else I of _course_ should have brought an action for false imprisonment and conspiracy against those villainous mad doctors long ago, or got a divorce from that monster, or been seen or heard of somewhere. It is little matter what they think—GOD and my own conscience know the truth. But it is hard, bitterly cruelly hard! Still I would not change with one of the wretches, more especially H—— H——, and H——, who have now gone to their fearful account! A lady was here the other day, furious! at that vile wretch, Sir L., having dared to come so near me as Bath. “Pooh! never mind,” said I, “He can’t be more near than he has always been.” About six months after my return from that trapped journey, I heard that Mr. ROBERT LYTTON’S marriage was broken off, his father having broken faith with him (as I told him he would), and given him nothing to marry on; and that he had quarrelled with his father. He was then first paid _attaché_ at Vienna; despite my having written to him to say all intercourse must cease between us, when he was trying with that vile Miss R—— to purloin those letters; now that he was in such deep misery, and I know in such deep humiliation, at the unworthy part he had acted when so noble a one was before him, I felt I was still his mother; and wrote to him a letter, which, if he had had a heart of stone, provided it were only in the shape of a heart! and a conscience, even if no bigger than a midje’s egg, he would have answered! but he never has. I then thought that if he could not trust the Embassy bag, and was equally afraid of the post with such a father, whose Jesuitical influence he believes to be ubiquitous—that as he was at Copenhagen when his great friend Sir AUGUSTUS PAGET came over here for the Prince of Wales’s marriage, that surely he might have trusted him;—but no—nothing. Never mind, he’ll want me, before I want.

And now, sir, I ought to, and would make you many apologies for inflicting upon you such a long, and to you—necessarily uninteresting history—but that I read and _believed_ the “Notice” appended to your last (_every_ one says) “masterly work,” and have done you the honour of taking you for an honest man. And hence this otherwise unwarrantable infliction. As I told you at the commencement of this letter, I want you to do nothing for me; for nothing _can_ now be done; and yet for three things in your power to do, without in any way compromising yourself, I should be _very_ grateful to you:—

Firstly. To _tell_ the facts herein contained as far, and as wide as you can.

Secondly. In telling them, to say nothing of, or _nothing against_ my truly unfortunate son, who, GOD knows, is _well_ punished! for the fearful weakness in which he has been _purposely_ trained, by his relentless and unscrupulous father, that he _might_ effectually crush by moulding him resistlessly to his will.

Thirdly. As a man of real genius, as you are, you must be in the habit of analysing human nature, by a sort of psychological vivisection, or you never could produce the photographs of characters you do. Can you then conjecture, or suggest any clue, to my unhappy son’s contradictory conduct? Emanating as it were from two distinctly _opposite natures_; the one almost angelic, the other almost the reverse. But putting his weakness, and more than Hamletish _dreamy irresolution_ out of the analysis; you must not seek a solution of his unworthy conduct in the equally unworthy and mundane fear of being disinherited. No doubt his vile father! _would_ leave him a beggar, if he could, but that he might not immolate all to his own Juggernaut selfishness, Knebworth is not only strictly entailed upon his son, but luckily, stringently 12 deep after him, or Sir L. might have got his poor weak victim to cut off the entail. If you can solve this enigma, I should be so grateful.

I have the honour to be, sir,

Your obedient servant,

ROSINA BULWER LYTTON.

Wednesday, February 10th, 1864.

P.S.—One thing I forgot to mention to you, which was, that the last time I saw that double-dealing sneak, Dr. R——, which was the day that upon leaving town I asked him to write to Mr. IRONSIDE about the swindle of my book; he said suddenly, _apropos de bottes_, “the fact is we have been _completely sold_!” which solitary truth from him was, as you may suppose, a great consolation to me, seeing how indefatigably _he_ had assisted in selling me. He then added, clenching his hand, and muttering to himself, “Well, I think I’d have begged my bread before I could have used _my_ mother so!” It is _he_ that would! But it is _so_ easy always to _say_ the right and _do_ the wrong thing, which is the compromise most men make with the Devil.—R.B.L.

Appendix.

All my Lord LYTTON’S infamy, and my fame as a patient Grizzle was pretty well established—and even acknowledged by the wretch who benefitted by it—for one day at a dinner at our house, when some vituperative humbug was going on about poor Lord BYRON, and someone said, “No woman could have lived with such a man,” my Lord LYTTON pointed to me, and said, “There is one that could, for she has lived with me.” And in that letter he wrote about his going abroad and changing his name (why the—Lady SYKES didn’t he)—all of which is from beginning to end as usual—after biting my cheek, though of course he began it with a well-studied colossal lie about the “visible restraint he had tried to put upon himself, and his doubting whether it was humane to goad a man with his terrible infirmity (to wit, a diabolical and unbridled temper), but being himself to blame, God forbid he should judge others.” Sweet, patient, virtuous, just creature! Now the goading and provocation I had given him was this. Having asked him before dinner for a little money to pay some of the housebills left owing before we went to Italy—where he had so beggared himself _on himself_ buying statues, &c., &c., that he had to retrench in every way upon me and the children, and began by taking away my carriage horses—and I had been ordered to stand sponsor to that vulgar Mrs. FONBLANQUE’S child, I had to ask Lady STEPNEY to take me! He said at dinner, How are you going to FONBLANQUE’S to-night? I told him, whereupon he began with a sardonic grin, and repeating a dozen times, humming, “My mother calls Lady STEPNEY that ugly old woman.” I made no reply, when he thundered out, “Do you hear me, madame?” “Yes, of course I hear you.” “Then why the d——l in h—ll” (which being _his_ strong language, of course that concrete ass, the British public, would consider as fine writing!) “Then why the d——l in h—ll don’t you answer me?” “I did not consider it required an answer.” Whereupon he rose, seizing a carving knife, and crying as he darted at me, “D——n your soul, madam, I’ll have you to know that whenever _I_ do you the honour of addressing you it requires an answer.” Seeing the glitter of the knife, I cried out “For GOD’S sake, EDWARD, take care of what you are about,” at which he dropped the knife, and springing on me like a tiger, made his hideous teeth meet in my left cheek. My screams brought the servants back into the room, one of whom tried to collar him, but he broke from him, and putting on one of the footmen’s hats! rushed down Piccadilly, and from thence betook himself to Richmond, from whence four days after he wrote me that letter, which from being read and re-read is in too worn a state to be trusted to the casualties of the Post. Well, in _that_ letter, occurs the following paragraph _underlined_, “You have for the last six years” (the whole time of our marriage), “_been to me an incomparable wife_, and if for the last year, you have judged my character too harshly,” &c., &c., &c., &c., &c. Now this too harsh judgment here alluded to rose from a mere trifle, which of course a “ladylike,” feminine, lachrymose, clever woman carrying on her _own_ game, would have thought nothing of. He had been intriguing with a Mrs. ROBERT STANHOPE, and exhibiting himself and her in every drawing-room. But it was not I, patient Grizzle, who made the scandal about it—but her husband’s relations—Lady TAVISTOCK at the head, whereupon that charming man gave me his solemn oath (his! or his son’s oath!!) that everything was at an end between them, and went on his knees to me, to go to Italy with him. When I did so, the vessel had not sailed an hour, when who should I see but Mrs. ROBERT STANHOPE sitting wrapped up—my Lord LYTTON at her feet, and her contemptible little wretch of a husband (who my Lord LYTTON afterwards told me used to sell her to men[2]) looking on. Nor was this enough—I was forced by brutal threats, and personal violence—to offer this woman a seat in my carriage to Paris—and the brutality I endured there—it would take reams of paper to describe. Oh! oh! oh! cries manly, and “ladylike” conventionality. “You should have returned to England, instantly from Calais.” “Very true, my dear madam, there was only one little, but still _insurmountable_ impediment, viz., the same which at this moment prevents my leaving Taunton, and freeing myself from one of the cruel and degrading tortures I am enduring, and which are so truly, though, alas! so slowly killing me—that all-powerful one of not having a shilling!” Many years ago—two or three after it was written, I showed that cheek-biting letter to Dr. LUSHINGTON, who was, of course, too busy to give a pauper anything but the English parish order of verbal sympathy; but never so long as I live shall I forget the probing, searching, expression of those keen analytic eyes of his, as looking up from the very first page of that letter, he said, “This man has been in the habit of ill-using you?” “What makes you think so?” said I. “Two circumstances. First, the great and palpably artful pains he takes to convey the idea—knowing, of course, such a letter would be read—that he put every possible restraint upon himself, as—if you had been exasperating him—he proves rather too much there. The second is: the equally artful pains he takes to talk of this outrage, as a first and _solitary_ one! Now, _no_ man ever got to such a pitch of brutality at a _first_ essay.” And yet, what was all this, compared to his perversion of the only child his brutality had left me—oh! the black, fiendish cruelty of it! As this great genius (?) has nothing original about him but his sin, and therefore must always plagiarise from someone, I can fancy him giving his instructions to his son, and when I was entrapped abroad in 1858, saying to him, with a sardonic grin, which it is to be hoped his worthy pupil reflected—as he borrowed ISAAC WALTON’S receipt for impaling a wretched frog—only substituting her for him, “Use her as though you loved her!” And so the hook was baited with my own heart.

An astute, unscrupulous Villain, who from the hour I was turned out of my house, has been working _systematically_ to starve me out by _never_ having given me enough to live on! He _premeditated this_ before we married, when then not having an acre of land in the world—(for it was my little pittance of £350 a year that gave him a qualification for Parliament), he settled the munificent sum of £1,030 on me to _bar dower_. Soon his necessity made him want what little land I had, and though strictly tied upon me, I gave it up,—the sole surviving trustee to my marriage settlement being _then_ his brother WILLIAM BULWER. Soon after this he again wanted money. I said, You know I have no more,—“Yes, you have that £1,000 I settled upon you to bar dower.” Oh! I said that is neither worth giving or refusing. Now this reminds me to answer your other questions. The sum my Lord LYTTON paid for my 25 years’ debts, to patch up the Madhouse conspiracy, was £3,500, and Mr. HYDE told me, and I think he also wrote it in one of his letters while I was abroad: “Sir EDWARD boasts that he has generously given you back all your own money, to pay your debts; and I’m sure you would rather feel this than be beholden to him.”

Supplemental Notes.

THE CASE OF LADY BULWER LYTTON.

From the _Somerset County Gazette and West of England Advertiser_, July 13th, 1858.

For some three years past a lady, rather above middle age, of somewhat portly figure and handsome countenance, has occupied apartments in the quiet, comfortable, and pleasant establishment at Taunton, known as CLARKE’S Hotel. Her appearance, manners, and habits, so far as the latter were known, did not cause her to be particularly noticed as she walked in public; for she was much like ordinary ladies—plainly and becomingly dressed—conducted herself with propriety, remarked objects that were likely to attract attention, and passed without notice those that were not so. She sometimes did a little “shopping,” as ladies generally are fond of doing, and when she asked for any particular article, she did so in ordinary terms, and answered questions in a rational manner, though at times with haughtiness. In her country walks she was occasionally accompanied by a female friend, though generally in these her only companion was a little dog, for which she always showed great fondness. Sometimes also she has been seen at public entertainments, though but seldom, and there her attire has been similarly becoming to that in her walks in town or country. In a place like Taunton, a person of any note does not long reside before he or she becomes known to many of the inhabitants; and soon after the arrival of the lady we have been describing she was generally known to be Lady BULWER LYTTON, wife of the eminent novelist, who now holds the distinguished position of Colonial Secretary in her Majesty’s Government.

Persons who are in a state of madness give indications of their misfortunes at home and abroad. They

“Bend their eyes on vacancy, And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse; Their words are loose As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense;”

But Lady LYTTON during the three years she was at Taunton never did aught that we are aware of (and we have taken pains to ascertain the truth) to cause in any one with whom she had communication the slightest suspicion that in her case reason had been dethroned, or that her brain was in any degree affected with lunacy. Yet this lady has been taken from the quiet retreat she had chosen in this fair town of Somerset—perhaps we might say to which she was driven—and carried to one of those miserable abodes of the most hapless of human beings—a “Madhouse.”

The circumstances under which Taunton has lost one of its inhabitants, are so extraordinary and so shocking, that, as may be supposed, they have greatly excited the minds of the people generally. Upon those persons who were on terms of intimacy with Lady LYTTON (they were only few, for she evinced little inclination to mix in society, and it was pretty well known that her pecuniary means were too limited to allow of her doing so), upon her personal friends the first mention of the fact fell like a clap of thunder, when the skies give no sign of an approaching storm. They could not credit such strange information with truth; but when convinced of its veracity their exclamation has been, “Good Heavens! Lady LYTTON in a _Madhouse_. For what? Who can have sent her there? She is no more mad than I am, or any one else.” And those who have merely seen her as she passed them in the streets or other public highways, have been hardly less startled by the intelligence. There is on all hands a firm belief that this unfortunate lady—we say unfortunate in allusion only to her present lamentable position, and without reference to circumstances which have given both to herself and her husband an unenviable notoriety—there is, we say, a firm belief that Lady LYTTON is the subject of a horrible and appalling injustice and wrong; that while perfectly sane she has been shut up in a lunatic asylum, merely in order that a woman who has, no doubt, been a constant source of annoyance to her husband, may be prevented for ever, from again giving him similar trouble, or again molesting him in any way. In ascribing to her the character we have given, we desire to avoid the indication of any opinion as to her conduct towards Sir Edward, or as to his general treatment of her. We only state a fact, that people among whom she has resided during a period of three years—to many of whom she is well and intimately known, and most of whom have had frequent opportunities of seeing her—believe that though sent to an asylum for lunatics, her intellect is perfectly sound, and therefore that she has been made, for some reason or other, the victim of an atrocity which a hundred years ago might have excited no great attention beyond the circle of the doomed one’s own relatives, but which cannot be overlooked in the present age without danger to “that liberty of the subject” which has been since achieved, and which is the highest boast and most glorious privilege of the people of this country.