The Chaplain of the Fleet. Walter Besant

in the room was close, and smelt of tobacco and rum: the floor was sanded: the wainscoting of the walls was broken in places; walls, floors, and ceiling were all alike unwashed and dirty: the only furniture was a table, half-a-dozen cushions or hassocks, and one great chair with arms and back of carved wood. On the table was a large volume. It was the Prayer-book of the Established Church of England and Ireland, and it was lying open, I could plainly see, at the Marriage Service.

      At the head of the table, a reflection of the sunlight from the window falling full upon his face, sat a man of middle age, about fifty-five years or so, who rose when we came in, and bowed with great gravity. Could this be my uncle?

      He was a very big and stout man – one of the biggest men I have ever seen. He was clad in a rich silk gown, flowing loosely and freely about him, white bands, clean and freshly starched, and a very full wig. He had the reddest face possible: it was of a deep crimson colour, tinged with purple, and the colour extended even to the ears, and the neck – so much of it as could be seen – was as crimson as the cheeks. He had a full nose, long and broad, a nose of great strength and very deep in colour; but his eyes, which were large, reminded me of that verse in the Psalms, wherein the divine poet speaks of those whose eyes swell out with fatness: his lips were gross and protruded; he had a large square forehead and a great amplitude of cheek. He was broad in the shoulders, deep-chested and portly – a man of great presence; when he stood upright he not only seemed almost to touch the ceiling, but also to fill up the breadth of the room. My heart sank as I looked at him; for he was not the manner of man I expected, and I was afraid. Where were the outward signs and tokens of that piety which my father had led me to expect in my uncle? I had looked for a gentle scholar, a grave and thoughtful bearing. But, even to my inexperienced eyes, the confident carriage of the Doctor appeared braggart: the roll of his eyes when we entered the room could not be taken even by a simple country girl for the grave contemplation of a humble and fervent Christian: the smell of the room was inconsistent with the thought of religious meditation: there were no books or papers, or any other outward signs of scholarship; and even the presence of the Prayer-book on the table, with the hassocks, seemed a mockery of sacred things.

      “So, good Roger,” he said, in a voice loud and sonorous, yet musical as the great bell of St. Paul’s, so deep was it and full – “So, good Roger, whom have we here?”

      “A young lady, sir, whom I had the good fortune to meet on Ludgate Hill. She was on her way to your reverence’s, to ask your good offices. She is – ahem! – fully acquainted with the customary fees of the Establishment.”

      “That is well,” he replied. “My dear young lady, I am fortunate in being the humble instrument of making so sweet a creature happy. But I do not see … in fact … the other party.”

      “The young lady expects the gentleman every minute,” said the excellent Roger.

      “Oh!” cried Mrs. Gambit, “the man is stark mad – staring mad!”

      “Sir,” I faltered – “there is, I fear, some mistake.”

      He waved both of his hands with a gesture reassuring and grand.

      “No mistake, madam, at all. I am that Dr. Shovel before whom the smaller pretenders in these Liberties give place and hide diminished heads. If by any unlucky accident your lover has fallen a prey to some of those (self-styled) clerical gentry, who are in fact impostors and sharpers, we will speedily rescue him from their talons. Describe the gentleman, madam, and my messenger shall go and seek him at the Pen and Hand, or at some other notorious place.”

      The clerk, meanwhile, had placed himself beside his master, and now produced a greasy Prayer-book, with the aid of which, I suppose, he meant to give the responses of the Church. At the mention of the word “mistake” a look of doubt and anxiety crossed his face.

      “There is, indeed, some mistake, sir,” I repeated. “My errand here is not of the kind you think.”

      “Then, madam, your business with me must be strange indeed. Sirrah!” he addressed his clerk, in a voice of thunder, “hast thou been playing the fool? What was it this young lady sought of you?”

      “Oh, sir! this good person is not to blame, perhaps. Are you indeed the Rev. Gregory Shovel, Doctor of Divinity?”

      “No other, madam.” He spread out both his arms, proudly lifting his gown, so that he really seemed to cover the whole of the end of the room. “No other: I assure you I am Dr. Gregory Shovel, known and beloved by many a happy pair.”

      “And the brother-in-law of the late Reverend Lawrence Pleydell, late vicar of – ”

      He interrupted me. “Late vicar? Is, then, my brother-in-law dead? or have they, which is a thing incredible, conferred preferment upon sheer piety?”

      “Alas! sir,” I cried, with tears, “my father is dead.”

      “Thy father, child!”

      “Yes, sir; I am Kitty Pleydell, at your service.”

      “Kitty Pleydell!” He bent over me across the table, and looked into my face not unkindly. “My sister’s child! then how – ” He turned upon his clerk, who now stood with staring eyes and open mouth, chapfallen and terrified. “Fool!“ he thundered. “Get thee packing, lest I do thee a mischief!”

      CHAPTER V

      HOW KITTY WITNESSED A FLEET WEDDING

      Then I pulled out my father’s letter, and gave it to him to read.

      He took it, read it carefully, nodding gravely over each sentence, and then returned it to me.

      “Lawrence, then,” he said softly, “Lawrence is dead! Lawrence Pleydell is dead! And I am living. Lawrence! He hath, without reasonable doubt, passed away in full assurance. He hath exchanged this world for a better. He hath gone to happiness. Nay, if such as he die not in faith, what hope remains for such sinners as ourselves? Then would it be better for those who dwell in the Liberties of the Fleet if they had never been born. So. My sister’s child. Hold up thy face, my dear.” He kissed me as he spoke, and held his hand under my chin so that he could look at me well. “There is more Pleydell than Shovel here. That is well, because the Pleydells are of gentle blood. And the daughter doth ever favour the father more than the mother. Favour him in thy life, child, as well as in thy features.

      “Lawrence is dead!” he went on. “The gentlest soul, the most pious and religious creature that the world has ever seen. He, for one, could think upon his Maker without the terror of a rebellious and prodigal son. The world and the flesh had no temptations for him. A good man, indeed. It is long since I saw him, and he knew not where I live, nor how. Yet he, who knew me when I was young, trusted still in me – whom no one else will trust. This it is to start in life with goodly promise of virtue, scholarship, and religion.”

      He cleared his throat, and was silent awhile.

      “Thy father did well, child. I will treat thee as my own daughter. Yet I know not, indeed, where to bestow thee, for this house is not fit for girls, and I have none other. Still, I would fain take thy father’s place, so far as in me lies. He, good man, lived in the country, where virtue, like fresh butter and new-laid eggs, flourishes easily and at the cost of a little husbandry in the way of prayer and meditation. As for us who live in great cities, and especially in the Rules or Liberties of the Fleet, we may say with the Psalmist, having examples to the contrary continually before us, with temptations such as dwellers in the fields wot not of, ‘He that keepeth the Law, happy is he!’ I have neither wife nor child to greet thee, Kitty. I must bestow thee somewhere. What shall we do?”

      He paused to think.

      “I might find a lodging – but no, that would not do. Or in – but the house is full of men. There is the clerk of St. Sepulchre’s, whose wife would take thee; but the rector bears me a heavy grudge. Ho! ho!” he laughed low down in his chest. “There is not a parish round London, from Limehouse to Westminster, and from Southwark to Highgate, where the niece of Dr. Shovel would not find herself flouted, out of the singular hatred which the clergy bear to me. For I undersell them all. And if they pass an Act to prevent my marrying, then will I bury for nothing and undersell