Lizard World (31 page)

Chapter XIX.

A most affecting chapter, being a letter written by a Lady

imprisoned in a brothel.

 
My dearest Sophie,

  
I scarce know where to begin to acquaint you with the depths of my misfortune -- nor indeed whether this letter will ever come into your hands. For if my one confidante in this prison prove false (which, alas, I fear she will), then all my letters will miscarry. And yet she hath promised me to post them, and (by way of barter for my ring and the assurance of my future favour) brought me cheese and crusts of bread which I would far willinger eat than dine below and witness the open and exceeding brutish indecencies of the parlour. Indeed, the abominable Mistress of this house hath informed me that she purposes to starve me out of the “maidenish modesty” of my chamber and once again lure me to the dining-table belowstairs -- in order that I might there, by degrees, become inured to these riots of immodesty and to the brazen effronteries of her customers. But already I run ahead of myself and must abate of my pace and begin at the outset of my tale.

      
’Tis, then, hard upon a week since my Aunt Chommeley and I, whilst coaching it to Bath, were stopt and broke in upon by a brace of barbarous footpads. Or footpads, at the first, we did suppose them until, my Aunt having proferred them her necklace and I upon the point to do the like, they did enforce me to drink down a dram of bitter drugge. I can but ill convey the paralytick horror. For in the sleepy swoon which now ensued (as one churl did shoulder me to their cart) I did hear him debating with his fellow:

      
“Would it be safe,” says he, “to take a liberty?”

      
“Nay,” says the other, “we dare not risk the ire of the gentle-man.”

      
Of a certainty I must then have slept some several hours. For upon at length awakening in this very chamber, I could see through my barred window that ’twas the dead of night. The remembrance of these footpads now rushing back upon me, I arose at once in terror and endeavoured to unlatch the door. But finding the bolt locked fast, I could not -- in the frantic despair of my enclosure -- refrain from crying out. Alas, I should have held my tongue. For presently I heard their hastening footsteps:

      
“ ’Twill do no good to fuss now, miss: there’s nothing to be done.”

      
“Get on, get on, draw the bolt,” now says a female voice, and anon there burst into my chamber my two odious captors and a mannish, vile bawd.

      
“My uncle, the Viscount Chommeley, will hear of this.”

      
“Your uncle,” says this detestable creature, tearing the handkercher off my bosom, feasting on my blushing bareness with her wanton eyes and straightways commencing to importune me with her horrid, foul-breathed kisses, “gives not a fart for your fine honour.”

      
“Unhand me,” said I, struggling from her grasp.

      
“All your pretty tears will not avail you.”

      
“Madam, I beg you . . .”

      
“Nay, nor all your piteous entreaties.”

      
“By whose design hath this been done?”

      
“By him who will have your maidenhead, my girl. Till then,” said she, turning to leave, “Smythe and Squibb will guard your door.”

      
“Please, may I at the least have somewhat to eat? I am hungry.”

      
“Then you will dine belowstairs with all the other girls. I have broken in,” says she, “more skittish fillies than you -- and now they are as apt for riding as any hackney jade.”

Such,
then, my dearest friend, was the commencement of
my captivity. Yet even then I suspected not the utter infamy and license of my prison. Far too soon, however, did exceeding hunger -- sharpened by the savoury odours of the kitchen -- compel me to venture from my chamber.

      
But even after my jailers had companied me downstairs, I saw nought in open view of this establishment’s scandalous depravity. Indeed I did hear sounds, yet of these I took but little notice. And some few ill-mannered men there were who did greet me with the effrontery of their looks. But to them, too, I paid scant heed, being more (in my dire hunger) engross’d by the fragrance of the cookery and the sumptuous delicacies of the dining-table -- brown-roasted birds and gold-baked custards and crimson jellies that would tempt the jaded palate of an epicure. Nor, as I sat down at table, did I much regard the unfortunate girls who there sat with me, now and again accosted by one or another of these men who lingered here to eat their fill and drink their wine and indulge the drowsy pleasure of their pipes.

      
’Twas not, forsooth, until Mistress Felsham (for so is this abominable procuress named) strode into the room, that I did feel a sick foreboding.

      
“Zooks!” says she, staring straightly at me, “don’t your face colour up all nice and proper. No, don’t you look away from me, my girl. Now that you have eat your vittle, you must needs have a look at how we do our business.”

      
Even at this present I blush to speak of it -- the scene of unbridled beastliness and luxury the which this villainous bawd (opening the double door into the parlor) now suddenly discovered to my sight. I shan’t say more than that this . . . this spectacle of so many creatures -- breechless and smockless -- entangled upon settees and on the very carpet, was of such shocking indecency that -- at once -- I shut my eyes. Thinking only to flee, I endeavoured to rise and quit the table -- but did find my knee restrained by the clutching of a hand. Turning to see who had done me this rudeness, I did presently find myself yet more impudently seized upon and kissed and, in a word, . . . bestrode by a most nauseously decrepit libertine.

      
For some moments was I fain to struggle against these loathsome familiarities. Yet fortunately this horrid man was so much enfeebled by his age and the stenchful surfeit of his drink that at length I did make a shift to wrest me from his grasp -- and run unhindered from the room.

      
Far too soon, however, upon finding the hall-door to this house of utmost ill-repute locked fast, I did hear the hue and cry of my two jailers searching after me. Thus, O my best-beloved friend, was I cruelly beset -- in an amaze of terror and despair -- when I did hear the click of a latch and the creak of a hinge behind me.

      
“Come hither!” now said a voice. “Make haste!” -- and in a trice did I find myself pulled into the safety of a darksome bedchamber.

      
“Poor, poor thing! I fear they will find you out soon enough,” said my new-found friend.

      
Think, my dear -- friendless and persecuted as I was -- how affecting must have been this sudden kindness by another of my sex! Indeed, the fulness of my heart could not chuse but overflow in tears.

      
“Nay, nay, we haven’t time for that now, miss,” said she and did thereupon reveal the hideous truth -- that ’twas none other than my Uncle Chommeley who -- imagine my horror and despair -- having conceived a criminal and monstrous passion for my person, had consigned me to this hell-house for his pleasure.

      
“Thou’d best come out, young lady! Thou’d best come out!” called my jailers, knocking of doors as they approached along the hall. “Cause we’ll find thee willy-nilly. It won’t do no good to hide!”

      
“We must hasten!” said my friend. She would do her best endeavour to compass my escape, and yet (my jailers being fell and powerful ruffians) she could not contrive it all alone. But if I gave her something of worth -- my ring would do -- she did not doubt but that
she could hire some jacks to assist her.

      
“Quickly!” said she. She did say, moreover, that her name is Charity Flower -- one of the many poor creatures doomed by penury to get her livelihood in this infamous establishment. And yet I cannot but think that -- had her life been less misfortunate -- she might have been bred to more virtuous pursuits. At all events this, my dear, was the sum of the confidences exchanged in those few minutes ere my jailers did find me out and remand me to the confine of my chamber.

And
here, I am afeard, must I needs remain. For maugre my mother’s ring, no one has yet -- these six days past -- come hither to set me free. Charity assures me she hath exceedingly attempted to look out some men to do this business -- but that none of them will upon any terms hazard to undertake it. She says they dare not beard my uncle. But indeed I much misdoubt she hath not a mind to it herself.

      
And worser still, I have heard some verily abominable rumours which I am altogether loth to credit. For albeit Charity lays all my troubles at my uncle’s door, yet certain of the sweet but unhappy girls who live here do withal impute them to the Earl of Griswold. They do say my Lord Griswold hath won me from my uncle at the gaming table and that my uncle, in order to the paying off his debt, hath agreed to enforce me to submit to a most dishonourable and beastly intimacy. But moreover than this, they do speak that my Lord Griswold hath, since his return from the colonies, been afflicted by a strange and cankerous distemper. And ’tis upon this account, they say, that he hath sought out irreputable chirurgeons and low companions who desecrate the dead.

      
But Charity says the girls who do discourse of these horrors are
but silly jackdaws and that I mustn’t listen to their prattle. Nor, by my troth, would I willingly believe aught ill of my Lord Griswold. For, as you well know, when I did first make his acquaintance in our garden, he did have such a touchingly bewilder’d air -- such a blighted grace and confounded sweetness in his countenance -- that I have oftentimes since then most foolishly thought I might be brought to love him. And ’tis owing to this, forsooth, that I am now quite especially wretched.

      
I cannot say how much my heart is sick with it. Indeed, ’tis upon this account that I have not agreed to wed the estimable Lord Fawncey. Nor is this the whole of my unhappiness. I cannot bear to think on the connivance of my uncle. I dare not quit my chamber to dine belowstairs. In faith I dare not so much as (pray forgive my sisterly unreserve) change my stockings or doff my clothes ere lying down to sleep for fear of Smythe and Squibb ever and again looking thro’ my keyhole.

      
I have, furthermore, waited so exceeding long for Charity to find out some men to free me from this prison, that at last I am fain to give over the expectation of it. Indeed, my one hope now is that Charity at the very least will post this letter and that, upon its receit, you will do me the kindness to beseech, on my behalf, the protection of your mother and inquire after the welfare of my aunt. For ever since my poor Aunt Chommeley and I were accosted in our chariot by these ruffians (whom I cannot rate above the wantonest of brutes), I have been in the most dreadful of disquiets on her acccount. For I have, I fear, but too well observed their best behaviour to doubt of what they might have done in the unrestrained indulgence of their appetites.

      
But -- alack -- even now I do hear them in the hall and so must hasten to conclude and hide this letter. And yet ere I make an end of it, I cannot forbear to add how exceedingly much I do hope this letter finds you well and how very fondly I look forward to the unimaginable pleasure of seeing you once again -- until which time believe me to be,
my dear, ever your most devoted and withal most wretchedly unhappy friend,

                           
Lenore

Chapter XX.

Wherein his Lordship postpones pleasure for the sake of filial solicitude.

This letter
being pilfered and newly sent me by the harlot Charity Flower, one of Mistress Felsham’s creatures whom I had hired with a view to procuring me intelligences and furthering my interests with the maiden, I did now divert the tedium of my journey with reading it o’er and smelling of the excellency of its odour. And yet this enchanting aroma -- a salty smell of tears commingled with an exceeding floral sweetness -- did but the more vexatiously put me in mind that each jounce of my coach, each farmer’s dungheap and hovel passing by outside my window, did bring me even farther from the most exquisite pleasures of my charmer. These thirteen execrable days following upon the receit of my block-headed brother’s letter had I thus discomfortably journeyed and suffered the delay of my enjoyment. Nor were the sullenness of Potter, the foulness of the horses, the shivering inside my coach and the endless vistas of frozen fields the whole of it. Indeed the discomforts of my days were succeeded by the horrors of my lodgings by night. For notwithstanding the bows of country innkeepers and the curtsies of their slattern wives, these boorish civilities did nowise compensate the unutterable meannness of their inns -- their flea-bitten beds, their beggarly plate and napery, their blood puddings and most exceeding vile mutton pasties, their sorry parlors replete with the atrocious smells and over-nigh bustle of low company. Nor should I ever have set foot into these inns, nor indeed undertaken this most disagreeable journey nor brooked one more irksome deferment of taking due possession of my charmer, had I not been saluted by my scurvy brother’s letter.