Part 9

Well, it appears that with E—— J—— had come down Mr. L——, and Dr. F—— W——, who, I was told, was come on my behalf to counteract—that is, contradict—the statements made by that precious pair of rascals, R—— and H—— T——. “But how,” said I, “can he possibly do that when he knows nothing about me—has never seen me, and will only do so for a few minutes?” Verily they are a nice set, one and all of them, ready to swear a poor victim mad or sane, at a moment’s notice, for value received! Shame! shame! That disgusting Miss R—— then began screaming out in her peacock voice, “Now your son wants you to go abroad with him to-morrow.” “But I won’t and can’t,” said I; “I must at least have a week to get some clothes and things.” And then this horrid creature made me quite ill with her vulgar bullying manner, and I begged she would leave the room. The dulcifluous Dr. F—— W—— was then sent up to me, as he with more tact than truth expressed it, to know my wishes. I told him that I thought I had done quite enough in yielding to my son’s wishes in going abroad at all; and that I did not see why I was to be hurried off in this life and death way, as if _I_ had committed a crime, and was to be smuggled out of the country. “Very true,” said the amiable Doctor, “and I am sure nothing can be more reasonable than your wish to have a few days to prepare for the journey.” He then added, “You are to have, or they are getting you (I don’t remember the exact words) a thousand a year, and a house to be furnished for you in town;” which flourishing promise ended in £500, but the solemn assurance from Sir LIAR, E—— J——, and HYDE, that all my debts should be immediately paid, and my debts of honour, before I could get across the Channel was never kept. The dulciferous Dr. W——, after so perfectly agreeing in all I said, then went down, to as perfectly agree with all the opposition said; and was again sent back to urge _their_ suit; telling me confidentially that the fact was, that the place was in such an uproar that Sir E—— was terrified; and there would be no peace till the public was assured I was at liberty, and really gone abroad with my son. I may as well here tell you, that such was the honourable estimation Sir L—— was held in by the said public, that people fully believed I was sent abroad to be made away with; and hence, among _many others_, the atrocious lie, that I was accompanied by a _relation of my own! M—— R——, by my own special request!_ Whereas, as I discovered, like all the rest, too late, this wretch was only sent as a Spy on me and my Son—upon the Jesuitical plan _of triplets_, and as “own correspondent” to Sir LIAR, to whom she used to write _every_ day from the programme _he_ had given her, the blackest lies, for him to read to people:—such for instance, as that I had been very violent and unmanageable till I had arrived in Paris, when I became calmer! the real truth being, that I was _so_ exhausted, in body and mind from all I had gone through, that I could scarcely move or speak, but used to say, lying down, while my son sat beside me, my hand clasped in his, that I felt so grateful to GOD for his being restored to me that I could almost forgive the relentless author of my life-long misery, and cruelly exceptional persecutions; but that at all events now I’d try and forget him and them, and think of nothing but the present and the future. Well, Dr. F—— W——, finding he could not move me from my resolve of not being smuggled out of the country like a felon, sent up the only person who could fool me, my son. And when he told me what it would entail upon him, if he could not succeed in doing his father’s bidding, why then I yielded; and having been brought to Mr. H——’s stronghold on Wednesday the 22nd of June, 1858, at 7 p.m., I left it on Saturday, July the 17th, 1858, at 3 p.m., by almost an equal degree of treachery, falsehood, and springeing. Poor little MARY H—— cried so violently, that I was really grieved to leave her, and felt quite selfish in going (as I then thought) to be happy, when she who had been for three weeks my one sole Star in the Desert was left so unhappy. Mrs. H—— said the whole affair had made her _us_band _hill_; I said I thought he had been always HILL; while _he_ said he had never suffered so much in his life; the uproar that had been made had played the deuce with him. “I told you it would, Mr. H——, the day you _forced_ me to come here; why did you not listen to me?” “And then,” said he, “my daughter MARY is breaking her heart, and I have got, I’m sure, a confirmed liver complaint from it.” “Then,” said I, “you must leave off ‘_shugger_,’ it is the worst thing in the world for the liver.” Dr. OILY GAMMON R—— told me, after my return, that H—— had been on his knees, imploring him to have pity on his ten children, and not ruin him. The valiant Doctor, who literally could not, or would not say Boo! to a goose, or he might have had _beau jeu_ with H——, pretends he said to him, “You should have thought of these before. You had no mercy upon Lady L—— when you dragged her to your asylum in that iniquitous manner.” However, after my departure Brentford became too hot for him, and he removed to London, where, between him and the _rest_ in whose power he, of course, was completely, I understand Sir LIAR was completely beggared with hush-money; not with my tremendous debts, which, at the end of 20 years’ _ceaseless_ persecutions, and consequent onerous law expenses, amounted to the mighty sum of £4,500, which, when at last at the point of the sword, _alias_ the _writ_, that generous and honourable man was _compelled_ to pay; he did so by disgorging some of my own money. Upon this memorable and broiling 17th of July, 1858, from 3 to 7 p.m., I had to drive all over London in quest of ready-made things, and then go to ‘Farrance’s Hotel’ to eat a hurried dinner, and after from Belgrave-square to the London Bridge Station, so that I was really quite worn out when at 11 o’clock at night I found myself in bed at the ‘Lord Warden Hotel,’ Dover, from whence we did not cross to Calais till Monday, the 19th, all _newspapers_ being _carefully_ kept _out of my way_; and, indeed, I was both too happy and too tired to ask for any, which, of course, was _precisely_ what was calculated upon. Abroad, I can only suppose that all my letters were intercepted by that vile Miss R—— in her capacity of own correspondent to Sir LIAR, as Mrs. CLARKE told me she had forwarded innumerable ones; and, on my return, I found duplicates, recapitulating their painful contents, and alas! too late warnings, as warnings generally are. “For I told thee so” the Fiend ever whispers, when the deed is done! At Bordeaux I got a letter from JUDAS H——, in which the following audacious and asinine passage occurred, “Sir EDWARD is _quite_ changed, his only wish is to render your life in future as happy as possible.” To which I replied, “Yes, no doubt, for it is a patent fact in natural history that the leopard is in the habit of changing its spots at a moment’s notice.” A few nights after this H—— humbug, ROBERT was brought some letters from England at the Opera, one of which he no sooner read than bursting into a perfect agony of tears, he rushed out of the box. I, of course, went after him, when that beast, Miss R——, caught hold of my dress to prevent my following him, saying, “Augh, shure, he’s often in dat way,” as if she had known him all her life, and had been his _bonne d’enfant_. I could not find him; and when that night I went to kiss him, and wish him good-night, I found him pacing his room in a state of distraction, with his hands to his head, exclaiming, “What _does_ my father think I’m made of! what can he suppose I am?” And upon another occasion, though not so fearfully shaken, he appeared in a greater rage; his vile father had written him a furious letter about the scandalous expenses of our journey! “As if,” said ROBERT, “I was a dishonest courier; and talks of withdrawing his patronage! from me, as if I was some beggar he had picked up in the street!” “Well dear,” said I, “you should keep a strict account of the expenditure; enclose your father all the bills, and ask him if he knows of any way in which five persons can travel for nothing in a country where everything now is fabulously dear?” For even at Luchon at the _end_ of the season, after leaving the _Hotel de Bonne Maison_ as being too expensive, they made us pay 500 francs a week for the Châlet we had, for which in the season Mme. DE ROTHSCHILD had paid 1000. Often and often, when I saw the poor boy in these dreadful paroxysms of mingled rage and despair, I implored him on my knees to confide in me, and I would _help_ him, if it were even against myself, for I could bear anything and everything, but to feel and find out that my own child, for whom I had sacrificed everything, and in whom I had garnered up all my hopes, was deceiving me! And who _can_ you trust if not your own mother? But no, the chronic habits of terror and subterfuge were too strong! even when stung or goaded into making me little half-confidences, from which no one, as I told him, could give sound advice, as the very point that is kept from them is in all probability the turning one, which would alter their whole opinion and counsel. But his terror of his vile father was so great, and now added to it, that of that “beastly disgusting old Spy,” as he called her, that even in the heart of the Pyrenees, if he did unburden himself in the least to me, it was in a whisper; and he would turn pale, and look furtively around, as if the very birds of the air would carry his words back to Park-lane, or Downing-street. Poor young martyr! poor young martyr! But all the tortures he was then enduring were worthy of the Fiend-Father, who when the poor boy had had a fearful, and nearly fatal, fever at Lucca—took no note of whether he lived or died, only to storm about the expense of the Doctors!!! Yet this is the loathsome wretch! to whom he allowed the impious dedication to “Lucile” to appear, and blaspheme about his “loved! and honoured name!! and his _gentle_ kindness to him as a child!!” And this is the Father for whom he could so cruelly and treacherously sacrifice the Mother who _had_ sacrificed everything, and every chance of redress for him, and whom he professed to adore, in a way that might have deceived the Recording Angel himself. And worse still! Miss R——, whom he so loathed and detested, that old Spy, as he called her—was the parasite he could afterwards cabal with against his Mother, to steal those letters of his infamous Father’s, which I had entrusted to that creature the day I was kidnapped at H—— T——’s; but in _that_ they did not succeed, as you shall hear presently. So much for that paralysis of the conscience, moral cowardice, which is at once the germ and hotbed of every vice. It was not until I had been thus far springed upon, and thus far on the journey, that after writing to know if all my debts of honour had been paid, as so _solemnly promised_ before I could get across the channel, and the deed drawn up, settling that beggarly £500 a year on me for _my_ life, that I got a letter from that precious rascal, Mr. —— ——, coolly telling me that everything was at a standstill, _till_ I had appointed a trustee!!! I sent for Mr. L——, and pointing to the paragraph, said “What does this fresh shuffle mean? did you not explicitly tell me at Inverness Lodge that Lord SHAFTESBURY had consented to be my trustee? and that you _yourself_ took my note of thanks to him? to which I have never from that day to this received any answer?” He turned red and pale alternately, stuttered, stammered, and said, “Did not H—— tell you?” “Tell me what?” said I; “when and where could I have seen him, to tell me anything?—when I was hurried out of the country like a condemned felon. Of course, that your father, and Mr. —— ——, might have the whole arena to themselves, to concoct their unscrupulous lies and plots.” _This_ was the first terrible wrench my affection, that is my esteem for, and confidence in, my son got. A few days after, I saw an advertisement in the _Times_, from that low swindling publisher ——, of Paternoster-row, of a cheap railway edition of a book of mine called ‘—— ——,’ which at the time it came out, two years before, Sir LIAR had left no stone unturned to get crushed and abused. Now a Mr. IRONSIDE had undertaken to sell _one_ of my books to —— for a re-issue, and knowing the apathetic hand-over-head way English people do other people’s business, I gave Mr. IRONSIDE a list of the books he was _not_ to allow to go into a railway edition, and another list of books of which I had _not_ the copyrights, and ‘—— ——,’ was _first_ upon the interdicted list. Seeing this barefaced swindle, I sent for Mr. L——, knowing how potential a man’s name always is with English blackguards, and I said, “Will you just write two lines to that fellow ——, saying, ‘Sir,—My mother having seen in the _Times_ of the 26th of September (1858), an advertisement of yours re-issuing a novel of hers, entitled “—— ——,” which Mr. IRONSIDE had so expressly forbidden you to do, she wishes to know by whose, and what authority you have now done so?—I am, sir, your obedient servant,

“‘R—— B—— L——.’”

“Ah!” said the young gentleman, “my father has written to me about this re-issue, and says you have broken faith with him about that book in re-issuing it.” “How broken faith with him?” said I. “How could that be when I have never had any communication with him upon that or any other subject? I merely interdicted ——’s re-issuing that book, because I could get better terms for it elsewhere. So pray ask your father _how_ I could have broken faith with _him_ about it; and how angry I am at ——’s barefaced swindle! and pray go and write that letter to —— directly.” I may as well here tell you while I think of it, that part of their plan was to get me to go back and live with Sir LIAR for a short time to patch up his character, and throw dust in the eyes of the public, which is all that is ever required on the score of English morality. Had I been such a glorious fool as to do this, of course he could have poisoned me off comfortably out of hand, and then written a touching _In Memoriam_ on me in Mr. HUMBUG DICKENS’S “_All the Year Round_.” For that vile Miss R——, one day at Luchon, had the imbecility and the effrontery to bring me a letter from her employer, from which that meanest of all villains had ordered her to read out the following _unique_ in the annals of humbug paragraph: “Try and soften Lady L——’s heart, by reminding her of the time when I was so devoted to her”!!!

“Dear, now, do _tink_ of your own interest, and tell me what I shall write back to Sir EDWARD.” “One word will do,” said I, “the word ‘When?’”