The Orange Girl Part 45

'The judges can't send me to prison. They can't do it, I say. Why--of course--of course----' Again his voice sank to a whisper.

I looked at the man with amazement. He was evidently seeking consolation by delusive a.s.surances. At heart he was filled with terror. For beside the prison, there was the dread of pillory. They might be set in pillory. He knew, none better, that the thief-taker who is also the thief-maker, has not a single friend in the whole world. What would be done to him if he should stand in pillory?

'Let me get out as soon as possible,' he went on, appealing to me. 'Why, Sir, unless I go out the whole criminal procedure of this country will be thrown out of gear. I am the only man--the only man, Sir--ask d.i.c.k, here.' The turnkey shook his keys and nodded.

'But they'll give you a heavy sentence, my friend,' he said.

'The only man that can't be spared--the only man--the only man----'

Again his voice dropped to a whisper. He turned away babbling and shaking his head, all the insolence gone out of him.

'His power is gone,' said the Bishop. 'He won't get my more rewards.'

'Yes,' said the turnkey. 'But he has had a long innings. Why, he must be nearly fifty. There's a many would envy Merridew.'

The Bishop once more addressed himself to me. 'Sir,' he said, 'I grieve to hear that our friends wrecked the Black Jack and Madame's house. I fear these acts of violence may make you vindictive.'

'Madame herself was brought in yesterday--for receiving stolen goods.'

'Madame? Madame brought here? On a charge----?' The Bishop's face expressed the liveliest concern.

'Why,' said the Captain. 'It's----' A motion of his fingers to his throat showed what he meant.

'Nothing could have been more disastrous,' said the Bishop. 'Believe me, Sir, we have nothing to do with the wreck of the houses, and we were ignorant of this charge, I a.s.sure you, Sir. Oh! This is a great misfortune!'

The misfortune, it appeared, lay in the danger--nay, the certainty, that this persecution would make both Madame and myself more vindictive. Now the events of the Trial, when at a word, as it seemed, from Madame--witnesses sprang up in a cloud to confront them with their villainy, made them believe that she had friends everywhere.

'It cannot be,' said the Bishop, 'but she will get off. Who is the princ.i.p.al evidence?'

'Ask the Captain. And that is enough.'

I stepped across the yard and laid my finger on Probus's shoulder as he sat with bowed form and hanging head. He looked up with lack-l.u.s.tre eyes. I believe that the loss of his money and the result of his conspiracy had affected his brain, for he seemed to pay no heed to anything.

'Mr. Probus,' I said. 'I must tell you that my cousin is now bankrupt.'

He stared without any look of recognition.

'Mr. Probus,' I repeated, 'my cousin Matthew is a bankrupt. I tell you, in order that you may send in your claim with those of the other creditors.'

'Ay--ay--' he replied. 'Very like.'

'Bankrupt!' I said again. 'Even had you succeeded in your plot you would have been too late.'

He nodded without attention.

'And another ma.s.s of debts has been added. His wife's house has been wrecked by the mob and all her property destroyed. Therefore her liabilities have been presented to her husband.'

'All gone!' he moaned. 'All gone! The work of an honest lifetime wasted and thrown away. Nothing will ever be recovered.'

'Mr. Probus,' I said, 'the money is gone. That is most true. But more than that is gone. Your character--your honour--it is all gone--wasted and thrown away--none of it will be recovered.'

'All gone--all gone,' he repeated.

The turnkey stood beside me. 'Queer, isn't it?' he said. 'He's lost his money and his wits have gone after it. A money lender, he was. He's put more poor folk into the Fleet and the King's Bench than his friend Merridew has put prisoners here. And he ought to be thinking of something else--his trial and his sentence.'

'His sentence?'

'Well--you see, Merridew, he knows. This one doesn't. The Bishop, he knows--and the Captain--and they don't like it. This man doesn't care.

For you see they will certainly have to stand in Pillory--and if the mob don't love money lenders they love thief takers less, and Merridew's the most notorious thief taker in town. Well--it's a wonderful country for Law and Justice. Now, I suppose they poor French would be content to hang up a man at once. We don't. We give 'em an hour's ride in a cart where they sometimes gets roses but more often gets addled eggs. Or we put 'em in pillory where they may get dead cats or they may get flints and broken bottles.'

I came away. The heavy gate closed: the key turned in the lock; the four wretches were shut in once more, there, at least, the prey to the keenest terrors, dying a thousand deaths before they should be taken out for the dead cats and the addled eggs and perhaps the flints and broken bottles.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CASE OF CLARINDA

The town has notoriously a short memory, yet I doubt if there be any still living who remember the year 1760 and have forgotten the case of Jenny Wilmot. For, indeed, no one for some time talked of anything else.

There were armies in the field: these were forgotten; there were fleets and naval battles and expeditions: these were forgotten; there was the strife of party: that was forgotten; there were the anxieties of trade: they were forgotten; there were scandals among the aristocracy: they were forgotten; there was the new play; the new poem: all were clean forgotten and neglected while the town talked at my Lady's breakfast or Moll King's tavern of Jenny Wilmot; Jenny Wilmot; Jenny Wilmot. The world at first could find nothing too bad to say or think of her. At the clubs they suspended their play while they listened to the latest rumour about Jenny. At the coffee-houses every quidnunc and gobemouche brought a new story which he had heard and transmitted with embroideries; or else a trifling variation in the old story to communicate.

People remembered how she disappeared mysteriously from the stage a year or two before this catastrophe!--Ha! what a proof of wickedness was that! Why, it was now known that she was none other than Madame Vallance who provided the masquerades and the a.s.semblies in Soho Square and was never seen by the company except in a domino. There was another ill.u.s.tration of her wicked disposition! It was also recalled, for the benefit of those who did not remember the fact, that she had been an Orange Girl at Drury before she was promoted to the stage. What could be expected of an Orange Girl? And now it was actually brought to light--could one believe it!--it was actually discovered--had she not herself confessed it?--that her mother and sister kept a tavern in St.

Giles's, a place of resort for the lowest; a mere thieves' kitchen; the rendezvous of highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets and rogues of every description.

It was certain that Jenny had been born and brought up in this vile receptacle or Temple of Vice. Many people were found who had recollections of Jenny as a child playing in the gutter, or on the steps of St. Giles's Church. These recollections were of an edifying nature.

One gentleman, of an aspect which we call smug--somewhat resembling, in fact, my cousin Matthew at his earliest and best--related in my hearing that he had addressed the child, and on hearing that her ambition was to become an Orange Girl at Drury Lane Theatre, had warned her against the perils of that path; unhappily without effect, except that while he was exhorting her to a G.o.dly life, his tears were checked by the theft of his pocket-handkerchief. And so on: and so on; because the occasion gave an opportunity for securing a momentary distinction, and when the imagination is fired the tongue is loosed.

Again, there is in the English mind something particularly repellant in the life and the acts of the informer. Now it cannot be denied that in my Trial, Jenny figured as one who had turned against her old friends and a.s.sociates; had used her knowledge to secure their arrest; and had induced her mother and sister and at least one of the rogues of the Black Jack, to join her in giving evidence against the conspirators. So that when the news was spread abroad that her house, as well as the Black Jack, had been wrecked and the contents destroyed there was at first a strong feeling among many that this was a kind of wild justice which she deserved, because she ought not to have turned against her friends. As for the man for whose sake she did it, you may be sure that the motive commonly attributed to her was such as would naturally commend itself to the majority. That any woman should be so deeply moved by generosity of heart, by love of justice, by honest indignation against so foul a conspiracy as to resolve, at all risks and hazards, to defeat the object of the villains, and to prevent the destruction of an innocent man, required too high a flight to make it possible to be considered by the common sort--I mean, not the poor, but the common sort of 'respectable' burgesses; the folk of the coffee-house and the club.

The world always accepts the worst where it ought to believe the best.

And the wickedness of the natural man is never so strongly demonstrated as when he is searching for motives. In a word, it was pretended and believed, that in order to rescue her lover--a broken-down gentleman and a highwayman--from the charge of robbery, which could only be proved by the witnesses taking false names, in order to protect themselves, being unfortunately rogues themselves, she brought a charge against them of conspiracy and exposed their true names and their history, which she could only effect by the knowledge she got from the Black Jack and the a.s.sistance of her mother: that her lover, it was true, was cast loose upon the world again; but that the innocence of those four persons, including one most respectable attorney would be established as the noonday clear at the ensuing Criminal Court at the Old Bailey.

Further, it was spread abroad that Jenny had been arrested, at her lover's house in the Rules of the King's Bench, that she had been brought before Sir John Fielding and had been by him committed to Newgate on a charge of receiving stolen goods. Receiving stolen goods!

What, however, could one expect from St. Giles's and the daughter of the Black Jack? She who must needs expose the crimes of her friends was now in prison on a charge far more serious than theirs. Receiving stolen goods! Monstrous! And one who entertained even R-- P--s at her a.s.semblies! And she was all the time acting with her mother in receiving stolen goods! After this, what pity could one feel even for a woman so beautiful and so engaging as Jenny Wilmot? But was she so beautiful?

Some of the men raised this question. Painted for the stage: all artificial. Was she engaging? She played as she was taught: she smiled and laughed as she was told to smile and laugh. That is not true acting.

Alas! Poor Jenny! Poor favourite of the town, how wert thou fallen! And certainly for a day or two the reputation of Jenny was very low indeed.

Suddenly, however, there came a change--to me most welcome, because without doubt the mind of the town was poisoned and prejudiced against Jenny, in whose favour no one ventured to speak.

The first cause of the change was due to a paper--I think, if my memory serves me right, in the _Connoisseur_. In this paper the 'Case of Clarinda' put forth with great skill and power thinly disguised the history of Jenny. I venture to quote a portion of that paper. As soon as people understood that it was her history that was told the paper flew from hand to hand: everybody in the coffee-houses and the taverns cried out for it when they entered the house. And when it was read a silence fell upon the room and shame upon all hearts. The author, I have always understood, I know not why, was my Lord Brockenhurst, though he never confessed it.

The mottoes--there were two--were as follows:

'Non tali auxilio, non defensoribus istis Tempus eget;'

and

'Tandem desine matrem.... sequi.'