Walter Besant
The Orange Girl
PART II
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE
CHAPTER I
RELEASE
You have read how a certain lady came to the Prison: how she spoke with two prisoners of the baser sort in a manner familiar and yet scornful: and how she addressed me and appeared moved and astonished on hearing my name. I thought little more about her, save as an agreeable vision in the midst of the rags and sordidness of the Prison, now growing daily – alas! – more familiar and less repulsive. For this is the way in the King's Bench.
She came, however, a second time, and this time she came to visit me. It was in the morning. Alice was in my room; with her the boy, now in his second year, so strong that he could not be kept from pulling himself up by the help of a chair. She was showing me his ways and his tricks, rejoicing in the wilfulness and strength of the child. I was watching and listening, my pride and happiness in the boy dashed by the thought that he must grow up to be ashamed of his father as a prison bird. Prison has no greater sting than the thought of your children's shame. For the time went on and day after day only made release appear more impossible. How could I get out who had no friends and could save no money? I had now been in prison for nearly a year: I began to look for nothing more than to remain there for all my life.
While I was looking at the boy and sadly thinking of these things, I heard a quick, light step outside, followed by a gentle tap at the door. And lo! there entered the lady who had spoken with those two sons of Belial and with me.
'I said I would come again.' She smiled, and it was as if the sunshine poured into the room. She gave me her hand and it was like a hand dragging me out of the Slough of Despond. 'Your room,' she said, 'is not so bad, considering the place. This lady is your wife? Madam, your most respectful.'
So she curtseyed low and Alice did the like. Then she saw the child.
'Oh!' she cried. 'The pretty boy! The lovely boy!' She snatched him and tossed him crowing and laughing, and covered him with kisses. 'Oh! The light, soft, silky hair!' she cried. 'Oh! the sweet blue eyes! Oh! the pretty face. Master Will Halliday, you are to be envied even in this place. Your cousin Matthew hath no such blessing as this.'
'Matthew is not even married.'
'Indeed? Perhaps, if he is, this, as well as other blessings, has been denied him,' she replied, with a little change in her face as if a cloud had suddenly fallen. But it quickly passed.
I could observe that Alice regarded her visitor with admiration and curiosity. This was a kind of woman unknown to my girl, who knew nothing of the world or of fine ladies: they were outside her own experience. The two women wore a strange contrast to each other. Alice with her serious air of meditation, and her grave eyes, might have sat to a painter for the Spirit of Music, or for St. Cecilia herself: or indeed for any saint, or muse, or heathen goddess who must show in her face a heavenly sweetness of thought, with holy meditation. All the purity and tenderness of religion lay always in the face of Alice. Our visitor, on the other hand, would have sat more fitly for the Queen of Love, or the Spirit of Earthly Love. Truly she was more beautiful than any other woman whom I had ever seen, or imagined. I thought her beautiful on the stage, but then her face was covered with the crimson paint by which actresses have to spoil their cheeks. Off the stage, it was the beauty of Venus herself: a beauty which invited love: a beauty altogether soft: in every point soft and sweet and caressing: eyes that were limpid and soft: a blooming cheek which needed no paint, which was as soft as velvet and as delicately coloured as a peach: lips smiling, rosy red and soft: her hands: her voice: her laugh: everything about this heavenly creature, I say, invited and compelled and created love.
You think that as one already sworn to love and comfort another woman, I speak with reprehensible praise. Well, I have already confessed – it is not a confession of shame – that I loved her from the very first: from the time when she spoke to me first. I am not ashamed of loving her: Alice knows that I have always loved her: you shall hear, presently, why I need not be ashamed and why I loved her, if I may say so, as a sister. It is possible to love a woman without thoughts of earthly love: to admire her loveliness: to respect her: to worship her: yet not as an earthly lover. Such love as Petrarch felt for Laura I felt for this sweet and lovely woman.
She gave back the child to his mother. 'Mr. Will Halliday,' she said. 'It is not only for the child that thou art blessed above other men' – looking so intently upon Alice that the poor girl blushed and was confused. 'Sure,' she said, 'it is a face which I have seen in a picture.'
She was a witch: she drew all hearts to her: yet not, like Circe, to their ruin and undoing. And if she was soft and kind of speech, she was also generous of heart. She was always, as I was afterwards to find out, helping others. How she helped me you shall hear. Meantime I must not forget that her face showed a most remarkable virginal innocence. It seemed natural to her face: a part of it, that it should proclaim a perfect maidenly innocence of soul. I know that many things have been said about her; for my own part I care to know nothing more about her than she herself has been pleased to tell me. I choose to believe that the innocence in her face proclaimed the innocence of her life. And, with this innocence, a face which was always changing with every mood that crossed her mind: moved by every touch of passion: sensitive as an Aeolian harp to every breath of wind.
She sat down on the bed. 'I told you that I would come again,' she said. 'Do not take me for a curious and meddlesome person. Madam,' she turned to Alice, 'I come because I know something about your husband's cousin, Matthew. If you will favour me, I should like to know the meaning of this imprisonment, and what Matthew has to do with it.'
So I told the whole story: the clause in my father's will: the attempt made to persuade me to sell my chance of the succession: the threats used by Mr. Probus: the alleged debt for his harpsichord: and the alleged debt to one John Merridew.
She heard the whole patiently. Then she nodded her head.
'Probus I know, though he does not, happily, know me. Of the man Merridew also I know something. He is a sheriff's officer by trade; but he has more trades than one. Probus is an attorney; but he, too, has more trades than one. My friends, this is the work of Probus. I see Probus in it from the beginning. I conjecture that Merridew, for some consideration, has borrowed money from Probus more than he can repay. Therefore, he has to do whatever Probus orders.'
'Mr. Probus is Matthew's attorney.'
'Yes. An attorney does not commit crimes for his client, unless he is well paid for it. I do not know what it means except that Matthew wants money, which does not surprise me – '
'Matthew is a partner in the House of Halliday Brothers. He has beside a large fortune which should have been mine.'
'Yet Matthew may want money. I am not a lawyer, but I suppose that if you sell your chance to him, he can raise money on the succession.'
'I suppose so.'
'Probus must want money too. Else he would not have committed the crime of imprisoning you on a false charge of debt. Well, we need not waste time in asking why. The question is, first of all, how to get you out.'
Alice clutched her little one to her heart and her colour vanished, by which I understood the longing that was in her.
'To get me out? Madam; I have no friends in the world who could raise ten pounds.'
'Nevertheless, Mr. Will, a body may ask how much is wanted to get you out.'
'There is the alleged debt for the harpsichord of fifty-five pounds: there is also the alleged debt due to Mr. John Merridew of fifty pounds: there are the costs: and there are the fines or garnish without which one cannot leave the place.'
'Say, perhaps in all, a hundred and fifty pounds. It is not much. I think I can find a man' – she laughed – 'who, out of his singular love to you, will give the money to take you out.'
'You know a man? Madame, I protest – there is no one, in the whole world – who would do such a thing.'
'Yet if I assure you – '
'Oh! Madame! Will!' Alice fell on her knees and clasped her hand. 'See! It is herself! herself!'
'But why? – why?' I asked incredulous.
'Because she is all goodness,' Alice cried, the tears rolling down her face.
'All goodness!' Madame laughed. 'Yes, I am indeed all goodness. Get up dear woman. And go on thinking that, if you can. All goodness!' And she laughed scornfully. 'A hundred and fifty pounds,' she repeated. 'Yes, I think I know where to get this money.'
'Are we dreaming?' I asked.
'But, Will,' she became very serious, 'I must be plain with you. It is certain to me that the man Probus has got some hold over your cousin. Otherwise he would not be so impatient for you to sell your reversion. Some day I will show you why I think this. Learn, moreover, that the man Probus is a man of one passion only. He wants money: he wants nothing else: it is his only desire to get money. If anybody interferes with his money getting, he will grind that man to powder. You have interfered with him: he has thrust you into prison. Do not believe that when you are out he will cease to persecute you.'
'What am I to do, then?'
'If you come to terms with him he will at once cease his persecution.'
'Come to terms with him?'
'His terms must mean a great sum of money for himself, not for you – or for your cousin. Else he would not be so eager.'
'I can never accept his terms,' I said.
'He will go on, then. If it is a very large sum of money he will stick at nothing.'
'Then what am I to do?'
'Keep out of his way. For, believe me, there is nothing that he will not attempt to get you once more in his power. Consider: he put you in here, knowing that you are penniless. He calculates that the time will come when you will be so broken by imprisonment that you will be ready to make any terms. Nay – he thinks that the prison air will kill you.'
'The Lord will protect us,' said Alice.
Madame looked up with surprise. 'They say that on the stage,' she said. 'What does it mean?'
'It means that we are all in the hands of the Lord. Without His will not even a sparrow falleth to the ground.'
Madame shook her head. 'At least,' she said, 'we must do what we can to protect ourselves.' She rose. 'I am going now to get that money. You shall hear from me in a day or two. Perhaps it may take a week before you are finally released. But keep up your hearts.'
She took the child again and kissed him. Then she gave him back to his mother.
'You are a good woman,' she said. 'Your face is good: your voice is good: what you say is good. But, remember. Add to what you call the protection of the Lord a few precautions. To stand between such an one as Probus and the money that he is hunting is like standing between a tigress and her prey. He will have no mercy: there is no wickedness that he will hesitate to devise: what he will do next, I know not, but it will be something that belongs to his master, the Devil.'
'The Lord will protect us,' Alice repeated, laying her hand on the flaxen hair of her child.
We stared at each other, when she was gone. 'Will,' asked Alice, with suffused eyes and dropping voice. 'Is she an angel from Heaven?'
'An angel, doubtless – but not from Heaven – yet. My dear, it is the actress who charmed us when we went to the Play – on our wedding-day. It is Miss Jenny Wilmot herself.'
'Oh! If all actresses are like her! Yet they say – Will, she shall have, at least, our prayers – '
Three or four days later – the time seemed many years – an attorney came to see me. Not such an attorney as Mr. Probus: a gentleman of open countenance and pleasant manners. He came to tell me that my business was done, and that after certain dues were paid – which were provided for – I could walk out of the prison.
'Sir,' I said, I beg you to convey to Miss Jenny Wilmot, my benefactress, my heartfelt gratitude.'
'I will, Mr. Halliday. I perceive that you know her name. Let me beg you not to wait upon her in person. To be sure, she has left Drury Lane and you do not know her present address. It is enough that she has been able to benefit you, and that you have sent her a becoming message of gratitude. But, Sir, one word of caution. She bids you remember that you have an implacable enemy. Take care, therefore, take care.'
CHAPTER II
HOW I GOT A NEW PLACE
So I was free. For twenty-four hours I was like a boy on the first day of his holidays. I exulted in my liberty: I ran about the meadows and along the Embankment: I got into a boat and rowed up and down the river. But when the first rapture of freedom was spent I remembered that free or within stone walls, I had still to earn a living. I had but one way: I must find a place in an Orchestra. At the Dog and Duck, where my brother-in-law still led, there was no place for me.
There are, however, a great many taverns with gardens and dancing and singing places and bands of music. I set off to find one where they wanted a fiddle. I went, I believe, the whole round of them – from the Temple of Flora to the White Conduit House, and from Bermondsey Spa to the Assembly Rooms at Hampstead. Had all the world turned fiddler? Everywhere the same reply – 'No vacancy.' Meantime we were living on the bounty of my brother-in-law whose earnings were scanty for his own modest house.
Then I thought of the organ. Of course my place at St. George's Borough was filled up. There are about a hundred churches in London, however: most of them have organs. I tried every one: and always with the same result: the place was filled. I thought of my old trade of fiddling to the sailors. Would you believe it? There was not even a tavern parlour where they wanted a fiddle to make the sailors dance and drink. Had Mr. Probus been able to keep me out of everything?
Alice did her best to sustain my courage. She preserved a cheerful countenance: she brushed my coat and hat in the morning with a word of encouragement: she welcomed me home when I returned footsore and with an aching heart. Why, even in the far darker time that presently followed she preserved the outward form of cheerfulness and the inner heart of faith.
The weeks passed on: my bad luck remained: I could hear of no work, not even temporary work: I began to think that even the Prison where I could at least earn my two or three shillings a day was better than freedom: I began also to think that Mr. Probus must have all the orchestras and music-galleries in his own power, together with all the churches that had organs. My shoes wore out and could not be replaced: my appearance was such as might be expected when for most of the time I had nothing between bread and cheese and beer for breakfast, and bread and cheese and beer for supper. And I think that the miserable figure I presented was often the cause of rejection.
Chance – say Providence – helped me. I was walking, sadly enough, by Charing Cross, one afternoon, being weary, hungry, and dejected, when I heard a voice cry out, 'Will Halliday! Will Halliday! Are you deaf?'
I turned round. It was Madame, my benefactress, my patroness. She was in a hackney coach.
'Come in,' she cried, stopping her driver. 'Come in with me.'
I obeyed, nothing loth.
'Why,' she said looking at me. 'What is the matter? Your cheeks are hollow: your face is pale: your limbs are shaking: worse still – you are shabby. What has happened?'
I could make no reply.
'Your sweet wife – and the lovely boy. They are well?'
When a man has been living for many weeks on insufficient food: when he has been turned away at every application, he may be forgiven if he loses, on small provocation, his self-control. I am not ashamed to say that her kind words and her kind looks were too much for me in my weak condition. I burst into tears.
She laid her hand on my arm, 'Will,' she said, as if she were a sister, 'you shall tell me all – but you shall go home with me and we will talk.'
I observed that the coachman drove up St. Martin's Lane and through a collection of streets which I had never seen before. It was the part called St. Giles's; a place which is a kind of laystall into which are shot every day quantities of the scum, dirt, and refuse of this huge and overgrown city. I looked out of the window upon a crowd of faces more villainous than one could conceive possible, stamped with the brand of Cain. They were lying about in the doorways, at the open windows, for it was the month of September and a warm day and on the doorsteps and in the unpaved, unlit, squalid streets. Never did I see so many ragged and naked brats; never did I see so many cripples, so many hunchbacks, so many deformed people: they were of all kinds – bandy-legged, knock-kneed, those whose shins curve outward like a bow, round-backed, one-eyed, blind, lame.
'They are the beggars,' said my companion. 'Their deformities mean drink: they mean the mothers who drink and drop the babies about. Beggars and thieves – they are the people of St. Giles's.'
'I wonder you come this way. Are you not afraid?'
'They will not hurt me. I wish they would,' she added with a sigh.
A strange wish. I was soon, however, to understand what she meant.
Certainly, no one molested us, or stopped the coach: we passed through these streets into High Street, Holborn, and to St. Giles's Church where the criminal on his way to Tyburn receives his last drink. Then, by another turn, into a noble square with a garden surrounded by great houses, of which the greatest was built for the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. The coachman stopped before one of these houses on the East side of the Square. It was a very fine and noble mansion indeed.
I threw open the door of the coach and handed Madame down the steps.
'This is my house,' she said. 'Will you come in with me?'
I followed marvelling how an actress could be so great a lady: but still I remembered how she spoke familiarly to those two villains in the King's Bench Prison. The doors flew open. Within, a row of a dozen tall hulking fellows in livery stood up to receive Madame. She walked through them with an air that belonged to a Duchess. Then she turned into a small room on the left hand and threw herself into a chair. 'So,' she said, 'with these varlets I am a great lady. Here, and in your company, Will, I am nothing but…' She paused and sighed. 'I will tell you another time.'
I think I was more surprised at the familiarity with which she addressed me than with the splendour of the place. This room, for instance, though but little, was lofty and its walls were painted with flowers and birds: silver candlesticks each with two branches, stood on the mantelshelf which was a marvel of fine carving: a rich carpet covered the floor: there were two or three chairs and a table in white and gold. A portrait of Madame hung over the fireplace.
'Forgive me, my friend,' She sprang from the chair and pulled the bell rope. 'Before we talk you must take some dinner.'
She gave her orders in a quick peremptory tone as one accustomed to be obeyed. In a few minutes the table was spread with a white cloth and laid out with a cold chicken, a noble ham, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of Madeira. You may imagine that I made very little delay in sitting down to these good things. Heavens! How good they were after the prolonged diet of bread and cheese!
Madame looked on and waited, her chin in her hand. When I desisted at length, she poured out another glass of Madeira. 'Tell me,' she said. 'Your sweet wife and the lovely boy – are they as hungry as you?'
I shook my head sadly.
'We shall see, presently, what we can do. Meantime, tell me the whole story.'
I told her, briefly, that my story was nothing at all but the story of a man out of employment who could not find any and was slowly dropping into shabbiness of appearance and weakness of body.
'No work? Why, I supposed you would go back to – to – to something in the City.'
'Though my father was a Knight and a Lord Mayor, I am a simple musician by trade. I am not a gentleman.'
'I like you all the better,' she replied, smiling. 'I am not a gentlewoman either. The actress is a rogue and a vagabond. So is the musician I suppose.'
I stared. Was she, then, still an actress – and living in this stately Palace?
'You are a musician. Do you, then, want to find work as a fiddler?'
'That is what I am looking for.'
'Let us consider. Do you play like a – a – gentleman or like one of the calling?'
'I am one of the calling. When I tell you that I used to live by fiddling for sailors to dance – '
'Say no more – say no more. They are the finest critics in the world. If you please them it is enough. Why should I not engage you, myself?'
'You – engage – me? You – Madame?'
'Friend Will,' she laid her hand on mine, 'there are reasons why I wish you well and would stand by you if I could. I will tell you, another day, what those reasons are. Let me treat you as a friend. When we are alone, I am not Madame: I am Jenny.'
There are some women who if they said such a thing as this, would be taken as declaring the passion of love. No one could look at Jenny's face which was all simplicity and candour and entertain the least suspicion of such a thing.
'Nay, I can only marvel,' I said. For I still thought that I was talking to some great lady. 'I think that I must be dreaming.'
'Since you know not where you are, this is the Soho Assembly and I am Madame Vallance.'
I seemed to have heard of Madame Vallance.
'You know nothing. That is because you have been in the King's Bench. I will now tell you, what nobody else knows, that Madame Vallance is Jenny Wilmot. I have left the stage, for a time, to avoid a certain person. Here, if I go among the company, I can wear a domino and remain unknown. Do you know nothing about us? We have masquerades, galas, routs – everything. Come with me. I will show you my Ball Room.'
She led me up the grand staircase from the Hall into a most noble room. On the walls were hung many mirrors: between the mirrors were painted Cupids and flowers: rout seats were placed all round the room: the hanging candelabra contained hundreds of candles: at one end stood a music gallery.
'Will,' she said, 'go upstairs and play me something.'
I obeyed.
I found an instrument, which I tuned. Then I stood up in the gallery and played.
She stood below listening. 'Well played!' she cried. 'Now play me a dance tune. See if you can make me dance.'
I played a tune which I had often played to the jolly sailors. I know not what it is called. It is one of those tunes which run in at the ears and down to the heels which it makes as light as a feather and as quick silver for nimbleness. In a minute she was dancing – with such grace, such spirit, such quickness of motion, as if every limb was without weight. And her fair face smiling and her blue eyes dancing! – never was there such a figure of grace: as for the step, it was as if invented on the spot, but I believe that she had learned it. Afraid of tiring her, I laid down the violin and descended into the hall.
She gave me both her hands. 'Will,' she said. 'You will make my fortune if you consent to join my orchestra. There never was such playing. Those sailors! How could they let you go? Now listen. I can pay you thirty shillings. Will you come? The Treasury pays every Saturday morning. You shall have, besides, four weeks in advance. Spend it in generous food after your long Lent. Say – Will you accept?'
'It is too much, Jenny.' I took her hand and kissed it. 'First you take me out of prison: then you give me the means of living. How can I thank you sufficiently? How repay – '
'There is nothing to repay. I will tell you another time why I take an interest in you.'
'When the most beautiful woman in the world – '
'Stop, Will. I warn you. There must be no love-making.' I suppose she saw the irresistible admiration in my eyes. 'Oh! I am not angry. But compliments of that kind generally lead to love-making. They all try it, but it is quite useless – now,' she added with a sigh. 'And you, of all men, must not.'
I made no reply, not knowing what to say.
'There is another face in your home, Will, that is far more beautiful than mine. Think of that face. Enough said.'
'I protest – ' I began.
She laid her hand upon my lips. 'There must be no compliments,' she said. Her voice was severe but her smiling eyes forgave.
I left her and hastened home with dancing feet.
I was returning with an engagement of thirty shillings a week: I had four weeks' pay in my pocket: Fortune once more smiled upon me: I ran in and kissed my wife with an alacrity and a cheerfulness which rejoiced her as much as it astonished her. I threw down the money. 'Take it, my dear,' I said. 'There is more to come. We are saved again. Oh! Alice – we are saved – and by the same hand as before.'
'I have heard of Madame Vallance,' said Tom, presently. 'She comes from no one knows where: she keeps herself secluded: at the Assemblies she always wears a mask: the people say she is generous: some think she is rich: others that the expense of the place must break her.'
'I hope she is another Crœsus,' I said. 'I hope that the River of Pactolus will flow into her lap. I hope she will inherit the mines of Golgonda. I hope she will live a thousand years and marry a Prince. And we will drink her health in a bowl of punch this very night.'
