The Orange Girl Part 40

We left her with her daughter Doll and the young fellow they called Jack, at the White Hart Inn. It appeared that a waggon was going on in the morning to Horsham in Suss.e.x. They might as well stay at Horsham for a time as anywhere else. There was very little fear that the St.

Giles's company of revenge would make any further inquiries about them.

So they left us and I saw the pair no more--and cannot tell you what became of them in the end. As for the young fellow, you will hear more about him. The hackney coach took us to our cottage on the Bank where, after so many emotions and surprises, I, for one, slept well.

Let us return to the house in the Square. The rioters finding no one within, quickly pulled away the barricade of the front door and threw it open. Then the work of wrecking the place began. When you remember that supper was sometimes provided for two thousand people, you will understand the prodigious quant.i.ty of plates, dishes, knives, forks, tables, benches, and things that were stored in the pantries and kitchens. You have heard of the hangings, the curtains, the candelabra, the sconces, the musical instruments, the plants, the vases, the paintings, the coloured lamps, the card-tables, the candlesticks, the stores of candles--in a word the immense collection of all kinds necessary for carrying on the entertainments. It is true that the suppers were cooked at a tavern and sent in, cold; but they had to be served in dishes and provided with plates. There was no wine to speak of in the house, because the wine was sent in for the night from the tavern which supplied it. Everything in the house was broken. The company of revenge did its work thoroughly. Everything was broken: everything was thrown out of the windows: the centre of the Square was made the site of a huge bonfire which, I believe, must be remembered yet: all the furniture was piled up on this bonfire: the flames ascended to the skies: that of the Black Jack was a mere boy's bonfire compared to this, while the piles of broken gla.s.s and china rendered walking in the Square dangerous for many a day to come.

You have heard that Jenny recommended her women-servants to call out the soldiers. One of them dared to run through the dark streets to the Horse Guards. Half an hour, however, elapsed before the soldiers could be turned out. At last they started with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed: when they arrived, the work was nearly finished: it would have been better for poor Jenny had it been completely finished, as you will presently discover: the furniture was all broken and, with the hangings, curtains and carpets, was burning on the bonfire. The soldiers drew up before the door: the mob began throwing stones: the soldiers fired into them. Four or five fell--of whom two were killed on the spot: the rest were wounded. The mob soon ran away. Some of the soldiers proceeded to search the house: they found a dozen or twenty fellows engaged in smas.h.i.+ng the mirrors and the candelabra in the dancing-hall: they secured them: and then, the mob all gone, and the bonfire dying away they left a guard of four or five and marched back with their prisoners and the wounded men. In the morning the soldiers fastened up the broken door somehow and left the empty house. Alas! If only the mob had been able to fire the house and to burn down and gut the place from cellar to garret.

This was the first act of revenge on the part of St. Giles's. There was to be another and a more deadly act.

CHAPTER XIV

AN UNEXPECTED CHARGE

The joy of the acquittal and the release was certainly dashed by the wild revenge of the mob in the evening. The wreck of the great house with all its costly fittings and decorations could be nothing short of ruin to poor Jenny. Still it was with heartfelt grat.i.tude that I returned to my own roof with character unblemished. Alice had a little feast prepared, not so joyful as it might have been, though Jenny made a brave attempt to be cheerful. Tom was with us: the punch-bowl was filled: the gla.s.ses went round: Tom played and sang--n.o.body could sing more movingly than he when he was in that vein; that is, when he sat with a cheerful company round the steaming punch-bowl.

More revenge, however, was to follow. Next morning, about eight or nine of the clock, Jenny came out with me to walk upon the Bank. For the time of year the weather was fine, the sun, still warm, though it was now low down, and had a wintry aspect, shone upon the river: the wind tossed up the water in little waves; the boats rocked; the swans rolled about and threatened to capsize.

Jenny carried the boy, who laughed and played with her hair and impudently planted his fingers upon her cheek.

'Will,' she said, 'I must now contrive some other means of existence.

The a.s.sembly Rooms of Soho Square are wrecked and destroyed. That is certain. They are very likely burned down as well. All my furniture, all my property is destroyed. Of that I am quite certain. The villains would make short work once inside. Well, I can never recover credit enough to refit them. Besides, the mob might break in again, though I do not think they would. I am sorry for my creditors. They will be much more injured than I myself,' she laughed.

'Who are your creditors, Jenny?'

'Upholsterers, painters, furniture-makers, cooks, wine-merchants, bakers, grocers, drapers--half London, Will. There was never anybody a greater benefactor to trade. They let me go on, because you see, they thought the profits of the winter season would clear them. Poor dear confiding people!'

'Well, but Jenny, since they trusted you before, will they not trust you again?'

'They cannot, possibly. Consider what it would take to refit that great place. By this time all the mirrors and the paintings have been destroyed. Most likely the house is burned down as well; unless the soldiers came in time, which I doubt. They generally march up when the mischief is done.' So she began to toss and to dandle the boy, singing to it. 'Will,' she said, 'the happiest lot for a woman is to live retired and bring up her brats. If Matthew had been what he promised and taken me away from London and into the country!'

'Do you know how much you owe?'

'I heard, some time ago, that it was over 30,000. Masquerades, I fear, cannot be made to pay. They say I give them too much wine and too good.

As for giving them too much, that is impossible. The men would drink, every night, a three-decker full; their throats are like the vasty deep.'

'But--is it possible? 30,000? Jenny, you can never pay that enormous sum.'

'My dear Will, I never thought I should be able to pay it. Unfortunately while it is unpaid the good people are not likely to give me any more money. No, Will, that chapter is finished. Exit Madame Vallance. Who comes next?'

'But there are the creditors to consider.' I began to have fears of a Debtors' Prison for Jenny.

'Oh! The creditors? The creditors, my dear Will, will be handed over to Matthew. You are a good musician but an indifferent lawyer.

Matthew--Matthew--is responsible for his wife's liabilities. This is the only point which reconciles me to marriage with such a man. I am provided with a person who must take over all my debts. Dear Matthew!

Kind Matthew! That worthy man, that incomparable husband will now, for the first time, understand the full felicities of the married state.'

'But Matthew can never pay this enormous sum of money.'

'I do not suppose he can. Then he will retreat to the Prison where he put you, and, as long as he lives, will have opportunity of blessing first the day when he married a wife, and next the day when he made it impossible for her to live with him. If I can no longer carry on my a.s.sembly Rooms, what remains?'

'There is always the stage. Your friends desire nothing so much as your return to Drury Lane.'

'Yes, the stage. I might return to Drury Lane. But, Will, those good people who sacked the Black Jack and wrecked the house in the Square yesterday, they were my friends of old; some of them, I believe, are my cousins: they formerly came to applaud. Do you think they would come to applaud after what has happened? Not so. They would come with baskets full of rotten apples and addled eggs: they would salute me with those missiles; there would be frantic cursings and hissings; they would drive me off the stage with every brutal insult that their filthy minds could invent. Oh! I know my own people--my cousins. I know them.'

'They will forget you, Jenny.'

'Yes, if I keep quiet. If I put myself forward the old rancour will be revived. Who betrayed her old friends? Who sent the Bishop and the Captain to Newgate? Who got them put in pillory--where they will most certainly have to stand? Who caused all the addled eggs in London to fly in their innocent faces? I tell you, Will, I know my people. Are they not my people? And have I not betrayed them? You lovely boy--tell your Dada that Jenny will never repent or regret what she did for his sake: she would do it again, she would--she would--she would.'

'Oh! Jenny, you cut me to the heart. What can I do for you?'

'You can look happy again: and you can get the Newgate paleness out of your cheeks--that is what you can do, Will.'

At this point of our discourse I observed, without paying any attention to them, a little company of two men and a woman, walking across the Marsh in the direction of the Palace or the Church or perhaps the cottages. I looked at them without suspicion. Otherwise it would have been easy for Jenny to have jumped into a boat and to have escaped--for a time at least. But at this juncture we were singularly unfortunate.

The house in Soho Square had not been burned; otherwise there would have been no further trouble. But you shall hear. I went back to the question of the liabilities. How could anyone be easy who owed 30,000?

'Since there is no help, Jenny, for the creditors, and since you are not responsible, why then, Jenny, you shall live with us, and it will be our pride and happiness to work for you.'

She laughed. No: that would not do either.

Meantime the people I had seen crossing the Marsh were drawing nearer. I now observed that the woman with the two men was none other than the girl I had seen at the Black Jack, sitting on the Captain's knee.

'Jenny,' I said, 'Quick! Here comes a woman who owes you no goodwill.

Are you afraid of her? If so, let us take boat and escape across the river.'

'Is it one of the St. Giles's company? No, Will, I am not afraid of the woman, and you, I am sure, are not afraid of the men.'

They were within fifty feet of us. The woman broke away from the men and ran towards us. 'Here she is!' she cried. 'This is the woman. Make her prisoner. Quick! She will run away. I told you she would be here. Oh!

Make her prisoner. Quick! Put on the handcuffs. Tie her hand and foot--she's a devil--bring out the chains. She is desperate. She will claw some of you with her nails. Once she bit off a man's ear. That was when she was an orange girl. Make her prisoner, good gentlemen, as quick as you can. Take care of her. She'll tear your eyes out for you.'

Jenny flushed scarlet and stood still. But she caught my hand. 'Don't leave me, Will,' she murmured. Leave her? But a terrible sinking of the heart warned me that something horrible and dreadful was falling upon us. What was it? 'I have felt it coming,' said Jenny. 'Come with me whatever they do.'

The woman was within six feet of us, standing on the Bank. A wild figure she was, bare-headed save for her hair which streamed out in the fresh breeze: she wore a black leather corset and a frock of some thick stuff with a woollen shawl or kerchief round her neck. Her red arms were bare to the elbow; she had a black eye and a disfiguring scratch across her cheek. Her bosom heaved; her lips trembled; her eyes were bright; her cheeks were flaming. I knew her now! She was the girl I had seen sitting on the Captain's knee. And I understood. This was more revenge.

The two men then approached. I knew them, too, alas! I had good reason to know them. They were officers of Bow Street Court.

'By your leave, Madame,' said one, 'I have an order to arrest the body of Madame Vallance, otherwise called Jenny Wilmot, otherwise Mrs.

Matthew Halliday.' He produced his emblem of office, the short wand with a bra.s.s crown upon it.

'I am the person Sir. I suppose you have some reason--some charge--against me?'

'Receiving stolen goods, knowing the same to have been stolen.'

'Oh!' she caught at my arm. 'I had forgotten that danger--Will, do not leave me--not yet--not yet.' Then she recovered her self-possession.

'Well, gentlemen, I am your prisoner. This gentleman, my friend and cousin, may, I suppose, come with me?' Alice came to the door and looked out astonished to see two officers. 'Take your child, Alice,' said Jenny, 'I must go with these gentlemen. Not content with destroying my property, they are now trying to destroy my character. Will goes with me to see what it means. He will report to you later on!'