Part 5

But this I will tell you, that, calling at the Mayor’s before I went (for the people had asked me to address them in the Town Hall in the evening), as I wanted him to explain to them that I was tied to time and could not go; his wife told me that as I drove past to go to the hustings an old woman of 85, who lived in the village of Knebworth, and was a tenant of Sir LIAR’S, and had been one of his grandfather’s, and who came into Hertford occasionally to sell poultry, and who happened to be in the hall at the Mayor’s house when I drove by, upon hearing it was I, and that I was going to the hustings, fell upon her knees and said, “Thank GOD! thank GOD! that I have lived to see this day, and that villain will be exposed at last, and poor dear Miss L——’s death avenged.” I can only say that if the horrible opinion that _all_ classes in the town of Hertford have of him be any criterion of that of those in the country (except that they, to be sure, belong to our putrescently rotten and profligate Aristocracy), it _is_ a miracle how any amount of political jobbery or party bribery can get him returned.

Well, the journey back from Hertford being as hurried as the journey there, and I having been so ill when I set out, I was on my return, with all the painful excitement in addition, quite knocked up. And on the second day after my return, being in bed about 11 o’clock a.m., a card was brought to me with Mr. F—— H—— T——, 4, C—— Street, Piccadilly, on it, accompanied by a message that that gentleman wanted to see me particularly. “Why did you not say I was ill in bed, and could not see any one?” “HENRY told him so, my lady.” “Then go and tell him so again.” “The gentleman says he _must_ see your ladyship, as it is for your advantage,” was the answer to my message. “If he has any business, he can write,” said I. “He can be no gentleman to persist in attempting to see a lady who is ill in bed, and a total stranger to him.” Shortly after this I heard several voices loud in altercation outside my bedroom door, and Mrs. C——’s above them all, saying, “You shall _not_ force your way in, unless you cut me down first.” Whereupon I rang my bell, and Mrs. C—— came round the other way, through the drawing room, in a very excited state, and I said, “What on earth is the matter?” “A pack of wretches,” said she, “evidently some of that villain Sir EDWARD’S emissaries.” “Let them in,” said I, “and if they should attempt to carry me off bodily, send for the police. Now,” added I, sitting up in bed, arranging the frills of my night things, and settling myself down to freezing point on the score of calmness and impassibility, as is my wont in every crisis that must be met, “unbolt the door, or rather unlock it” (for she had carried off the key that they should not force their way in during her absence), “and let them in.” She did so; and in walked a little very dark man, with very black hair and eyes, of about 60, followed by a Patagonian woman of six feet high, who was a keeper from the Madhouse at Fairwater, near this, conducted by a Dr. W——. The giantess he told to sit down at one side of my bed, while he came round to the other, but followed by Mrs. C——. “Pray, Lady L——,” said he, pulling out an election skit on blue paper, purporting to be Sir LIAR’S address to his constituents, saying that one of the first measures he should propose in Parliament would be about “the social evil,” to which he had always so largely contributed, and that as family ties and domestic duties had always been held so sacred by him, he regretted that his loved and honoured wife was not there to share his triumphs upon that occasion, as, although it might be considered a weakness in him, ambition had no charms for him but as it contributed to the happiness of his _alter ego_ and those who blest his own fireside!!! and a great deal of similar _persiflage_ and more pungent satire. Before I could reply, Mrs. C—— cried out, “No, I can answer for _that_, for I it was who, in great haste, got Lady L——’s placards printed—those on white paper pasted on the walls.”

“No,” said I, very quietly, “upon my honour I never saw that effusion before; but GOD bless the honest man who wrote it, whoever he be.” “Your word is quite sufficient” said T——, who then, feeling my pulse the whole time—which he remarked was one of the most quiet and even he had ever felt—began divers florid panegyrics upon Sir LIAR’S brilliant talents, success in life, and everything else that was exasperating, with the evident intention of exasperating me, in which he did _not_ succeed. After an hour spent in this work, he went out of the room to consult with some one in another room, leaving the gaunt keeper in possession, and this round of going backwards and forwards he repeated till nine at night; for, of course, he had to earn the £100, which was his fee, for coming down here. Had I _then_ known what Mrs. C—— told me after, _i.e._, that the wretch L—— was the person in the other room, with whom he went to consult, and that there was a carriage with the horses to waiting _all_ day at the other (Castle) Hotel, ready to carry me off to W——’s Madhouse, at Fairwater, I don’t think I _could_ have had sufficient control over myself to have retained my imperturbable calmness as I did.

When this T—— returned from a two hours’ conference with the vile _Unknown_ in the other room (during which time I had been very civil to the giantess, offering her luncheon), he again began feeling my pulse, and touching upon every irritating topic he could devise, and then upon European politics and other topics of the day; and then as a charming little variation he made me put out my tongue, looked at my teeth, and raised up my eyelids, in short, investigated me as minutely as if I had been a 500 guinea horse he was going to buy; after which, turning himself to the gaunt keeper, he said, “Well, I don’t know. I think I never saw any one in sounder mind or body. What do _you_ think?” “Why, really, sir,” said the giantess, wiping her eyes, for which touch of human feeling I felt very grateful to her, “I _do_ think _this_ is one of the cruellest outrages I ever witnessed or heard of.” “Humph,” said T——, going out for another season of two hours’ duration, which brought it to 5 o’clock before he returned, and when he did so, he was accompanied by Dr. W—— who pursued his plan of irritating topics, but with more provincial coarseness and vulgarity, culminating it all by saying in a sort of jibing way, “I must really say, Lady L——, that I think you are unreasonable to Sir EDWARD, for £400 a year is a very good allowance.” “It might be for a mad Doctor or attorney’s wife,” I replied. “Ah! true—yes—a—certainly, that makes a difference.” “And even then,” added I, “they _might_ be so _very_ unreasonable as to want it _paid_ in coin instead of _promissory_ notes.” Here ensued a series of telegrams of nods and winks between the two M.D.’s. So he again left the room, and I heard T—— mutter, “It won’t do.” When he returned again (without W——), it was 8 at night, so you may suppose what a day of _rest_ I had after that horrid journey.

“Now, Lady L——,” said T——, “I want you to oblige me by writing me a note, stating _what_ terms you will accept from Sir EDWARD, to never again expose him as you did at Hertford on Wednesday.” “It’s no use,” said I, “it has been urged upon him for years to give me a decent and punctual allowance; he would rather part with his life than his money, and, moreover, neither honour, nor oaths can bind him.” “Well, but what would you accept?” “Why, as one might as well expect to get blood out of a stone as money out of him, if I asked for an adequate income, I _know_ he would never even _promise_ it; so if he will _really_ give, that is, _pay_ me £500 a-year for _my_ life; instead of a mythological £400 for his;—I’ll not again _publicly_ expose him”—(were you here, I would _tell_ you _how_ I came to be put off upon the original swindle of this disgraceful £400 a-year; but it is too long to write). “Well, _do_ write me a note to that effect, and I’ll go into your drawing-room while you’re writing it.” “And what guarantee have _I_, pray Mr. T——, that the gross outrage of to-day, so long hatching, shall not be repeated?” “_My word of honour as a gentleman_ (??) Lady L——,” said he, laying his hand upon his left side as he walked into the drawing-room. “Do write the note,” whispered Mrs. C—— hurriedly,—“that man’s your friend;—I’ll tell you all by-and-by.” I shook my head and said, “I don’t believe in any _man’s_ friendship; more especially in a mad Doctor’s, employed by Sir EDWARD.” When the note was finished, it was 9 o’clock! I asked him when I should hear from him in reply to that note? “In four days, at furthest,” said he, as at length he rid me of his presence. When he was gone, poor Mrs. C—— sank down exhausted (as well she might be) into a chair. She then told me the reason she had said he was my friend was, that L—— had stormed, foamed, and stamped to _make_ him and W—— sign a certificate of my insanity. T—— said he _could_ not; and W—— he dare not. The latter moreover said, down in the Bar—as he went away, “Mad! Lady L—— is no more mad than I am; I’m afraid Sir EDWARD will find her only too sane.”

I may as well tell you _here_ before you have the pleasure of meeting him again at his own house in Clarges-street, this H—— T——’s antecedents, which of course I did not learn until long after. To begin with, he was a friend of L——’s, which comprises every other infamy,—and to show himself worthy of so being, he had been dismissed from some Hospital, to which he was surgeon. Not only the stipulated four days, but nine, had elapsed, without my hearing from Mr. T—— the result of the note he had made me write. I then wrote to him to enquire the reason of this? His reply did not even allude to the subject, but was a rigmarole about the weather; as if he had been writing to an idiot, who did not require a rational answer to any question they had asked. So I again wrote to say—that having been so grossly outraged I was not going to be insulted and fooled by him, and that if he did not send me a definite and explicit reply to the note I had written at his urgent request before the following Tuesday, or the following Wednesday, I should call at his house, and according to the answer I then received, should know how to act. Now my plan was, that in case of again being fooled by these wretches, to take two of Sir LIAR’S infamous letters with me, which he has denied upon oath; the one, a threat before the publication of my first book, saying, “_he would ruin me if I published that, or any other book_”—the other a letter he had written me after one of his tigerish onslaughts, in which he had frightfully bitten my cheek, in which he says, “You have been to me perfection as a wife, I have eternally disgraced myself, I shall go abroad, change a name which is odious to me,—take £200 a year, and leave you all the rest.” Fancy that selfish, pompous Sybarite, profligate brute, on £200 a year! But saying is _one_ thing and doing another, as his friend DIZZY and my Lord DERBY know. By these letters I was determined to seek the only redress left to me that could not in the _onset_ be tampered with, that of a common woman; by going to a London Police office, letting the Magistrate read them, and stating my Lord DERBY’S _creditable_ Colonial Secretary’s recent persecutions, which statement he could not prevent being taken down by the reporters, and appearing in all the next day’s papers. This was my plan, in case that loathsome ruffian, Sir L——, was insane enough not to accede to the ridiculously moderate and lenient terms I had offered him, after his life-long, dastardly, and fiendish rascality. Well, on the Tuesday evening, having heard nothing further from T——, Mrs. CLARK and I set off for London. With my usual good fortune, the Great Western, and all the neighbouring Hotels, were full, and we could only get rooms at a horrid dirty hole, opposite the Marble-arch, where we arrived at 8 in the morning. After washing, dressing, and breakfasting, we set off for C—— street, getting out at the corner of Piccadilly, and telling the brougham to wait there; and as St. James’s clock was striking 12 on Wednesday, 22nd of June, 1858—for GOD knows I never can forget the day!—I knocked at Mr. H—— T——’s door. We were shown up into the drawing-room. Presently the fellow came to us—holding out _both_ his hands (which, of course, I did not see, but retained mine to hold my parasol;) saying he was delighted to see me (no doubt), and hoped I was come to dine with him!!! “Mr. T——,” said I, “I have neither come to dine with you nor to be fooled by you. I come to know what you have done with that note, which you so entreated me to write, proposing terms to Sir EDWARD L——.” “That note! that note!—let me see,” said he, tapping his forehead, as if he had to go back into the night of ages to find out _what_ note I alluded to. And after this piece of by-play—he said, suddenly, “Oh! oh! that note you wrote at Taunton. I gave it to L——.” I now knew what to expect. “But you had better, in his interest, communicate with Sir EDWARD L——, and tell him I _must_ have a definite answer one way or the other, for which I shall call at six o’clock this evening. Good morning.” I then went to call upon Miss R——, and she asked to come with me, to be present when I returned to T——’s; and fortunately I gave her Sir LIAR’S two infamous letters to take care of, lest I, in my agitation, should drop or mislay them. At six, she, Mrs. CLARKE, and I, again drove to the corner of C—— street, and there got out. As we did so, I observed an impudent-looking, snub-nosed man, who was walking up and down, and stared at me in the most impudent and determined manner, as if he had been watching for us, as afterwards turned out to be the case. We were again shown up into the drawing-room at T——’s, but _this_ time the folding-doors were closed between the two rooms, and we heard the murmuring of low voices in the back room. After being kept waiting more than half an hour, I rang the bell and told the servant to say, “That if I could not see Mr. T——, I must go.” The wretch then soon after made his appearance, saying he had been detained by patients; and soon after him stalked into the room a tall, raw-boned, hay-coloured-hair Scotchman, who I subsequently learned was an apothecary of the name of R——, keeping a druggist’s shop in Fenchurch-street (another friend of L——’s, of course, and the second with T——, who signed the certificate of my insanity!—he never having seen me, or I him before, and I never having once spoken to him!). This fellow, like all the other employees, began talking of—quite _a propos de bottes_—Sir LIAR’S extraordinary cleverness! Whereupon, Miss R——, in a passion, took his cheek-biting letter out of her pocket, and read it to him, adding, “Perhaps you” think this brutality another proof of his cleverness?” “Evidently a man of great sensibility!!” said the lean apothecary when she had finished. I could not stand this, and finding I was to get no answer about the letter from T——, I said to Miss R—— and Mrs. CLARKE, “Come, don’t let us waste any more time in being fooled and insulted here, we’ll go.” Easier said than done, for upon reaching the hall we found it literally filled with two mad Doctors, that fellow, his assistant, the impudent snub-nosed man who had stared so when I got out of the brougham—two women keepers, one a great Flanders mare of six feet high, the other a moderate-sized, and nice-looking woman, and a very idiotic-looking footman of T——’s, with his head against the hall door, to bar egress, and who seemed to have acquired as an _amateur_ that horrible Mad Doctor’s trick of rolling his head and never looking _at_ any one, but over _their_ heads, as if he saw some strange phantasmagoria in the air above them; and which that fellow had to such a degree, that I am _certain_ any nervous or weak-minded person would, from sheer physical irritation, have been driven mad _really_ in a very short time; and no doubt that is what it is done for. Seeing this blockade, I exclaimed, “What a set of blackguards;” to which Mr. H——, wagging his head, and phantom-hunting over mine, with his pale, poached egg-unspeculative eyes—said, “I beg you’ll speak like a lady—Lady L——.” “I am treated so like one, that I certainly ought,” I replied. Hearing a loud talking in the dining-room, into which Mrs. C—— had been summoned by T——, I walked into it, in time to hear her very energetically saying, “I wont,” to some proposition they were making to her, and seeing a side door that led into a back room again, I looked in, and there saw that precious brace of scoundrels, Sir LIAR, COWARD, SWINDLER himself, and “that sublime of rascals, his Attorney—listening! for the dastardly brute always fights shy,” with his vizor down, from behind an ambush; but from the stabs in the back, and the force of the blows, there is no mistaking one’s antagonists. So, boldly advancing towards him, “You cowardly villain,” said I, “this is the second time I have confronted you this month; _why_ do you always do your dirty work by deputy, except when you used to leave the marks of your horse teeth in my flesh; and boldly strike a defenceless woman.” At this, the reptile rushed, as he had done at the Hertford hustings, but this time not into Mr. AUSTIN’S flower garden, but down Mr. H—— T——’s kitchen stairs! and up his area steps! into the open street. I turned to Miss R——, who had followed me, and said, “See, the contemptible wretch has taken to his heels.” Whereupon, going into the hall, she pushed the idiotic footman aside and said, “Whatever villainy you are paid to practise towards Lady L——, you have no _right_ to detain _me_.” T—— ordered the hall door to be unchained and unlocked, and she rushed out into the street. Talk of novels! She told me after, that at the corner of Piccadilly, she stumbled up against a young man, and said—“Oh sir, for GOD’S sake, get me a cab, they are taking in the most iniquitous manner a friend of mine to an asylum, the best friend I ever had, to whom I owe everything, Lady L——, and she is no more mad than you are.” The young man turned deadly pale, staggered against the wall, and said in a voice scarcely audible, “I am very sorry I can’t interfere.”—The young man was my own wretched son!