The Orange Girl Part 51

So with the veil of Death falling over her spotless robes of Innocence she stepped down from the dock and followed the men in blue back to the prison. 'Ye G.o.ds!' cried one of the barristers, 'she is nothing less than the Virgin Martyr!' Indeed she seemed nothing less than one of the Christian martyrs, the confessors faithful to the end whom no tortures and no punishment could turn aside from the path of martyrdom.

I hurried round to the prison. 'Ah! Sir,' sighed a turnkey, 'she must now go to the condemned cell. Pity! Pity!' They were all her friends--every one of these officers, hardened by years of daily contact with the sc.u.m of the people. 'But they won't hang her. They can't.'

'And all for her mother,' said another. 'I remember old Sal of the Black Jack, also her sister Dolly. All to save that fat old carrion carca.s.s.

Well, well. You can go in, sir.'

Jenny was standing by the table. She greeted me with a sad smile. 'It is all over at last,' she said. 'It is harder to play a part on a real stage than in a theatre. Did I play well, Will?'

'You left a House in tears, Jenny. Oh!' I cried impatiently, 'Is this what you wanted?'

'Yes, I am quite satisfied. I really was afraid at one time that the Counsel would throw up the case because his leading witness was so gross and impudent a liar. Didst ever hear a woman perjure herself so roundly and so often? What next?'

'Yes, Jenny. What next?'

'I don't know, Will. The a.s.sembly Rooms which are taken in my name are seized, I hear, by my husband's creditors. But all the furniture and fittings have been destroyed already. That is done with, then. Am I to begin again in order to have everything seized again?' She talked as if her immediate enlargement was certain. I could not have the heart to whisper discouragement.

'There is still the stage, Jenny. The world will welcome you back again.'

'Do you think so? The Orange Girl they could stand; it pleased the Pit to remember how they used to buy my oranges. But the woman who has come out of a condemned cell? The woman who pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods? I doubt it will.'

'What does that matter? Everybody knows why you pleaded Guilty. You are Clarinda.'

'An audience at a theatre, Will, sometimes shows neither pity nor consideration for an actress. They say what they like: they shout what they like: they insult her as they please--an actress is fair game: to make an actress run off the stage in a flood of tears is what they delight in. They would be pleased to ask what I have done with the stolen goods.'

'What will you do then, Jenny?'

There came along, at this point, another visitor. It was none other than the Counsel for the Prosecution. He stood at the door of the cell, but seeing me, he hesitated.

'Come in, Sir,' said Jenny. 'You wish to speak to me. Speak. This gentleman, my husband's first cousin, can hear all that you have to ask or I to reply.'

'Madame,' he bowed as to a Countess. 'This is a wretched place for you.

I trust, however that it will not be for long. The recommendation of the Jury will certainly have weight: the Judge is benevolently disposed: you have many friends.'

'I hope, Sir, that I have some friends who will not believe that I have bought a parcel of stolen petticoats?'

'Your friends will stand by you: of that I am certain. Madame, I venture here to ask you, if I may do so without the charge of impertinent curiosity--believe me--I am not so actuated----'

'Surely, Sir. Ask what you will.'

'I would ask you then, why you pleaded Guilty. The case was certain from the outset to break down. I might have pressed the witness as to the property itself, but I refrained because her perjuries were manifest.

Why then, Madame--if I may ask--why?'

'Perhaps I had learned that certain things had been sent to my garrets, but I paid no thought to any risk or danger----'

'That might have been pleaded.'

'The case being over, that property can bring no other person into trouble, I believe?'

'I should think not. The case is ended.'

'Then, Sir, I pray you to consider this question. If some person very closely connected with yourself were actually guilty of this crime: if you yourself were charged with it: if your acquittal would lead to that person's conviction, what would you do?'

'That is what they whisper,' he replied. 'Madame, I hope that such a choice may never be made to me. Is this true--what you suggest--what people whisper?'

'Many things are whispered concerning me,' said Jenny proudly. 'I do not heed those whispers. Well, Sir, such a choice has been presented to me.

It is part of the penalty of my birth that such a choice could be possible.'

'Then it is true?' he insisted; 'the "Case of Clarinda" is true?'

'Sir, it is true in many points. I was once an Orange Girl of Drury Lane. My people were residents of St. Giles's in the Fields. I was brought up in the courts and lanes of that quarter. You, Sir, are a lawyer. Need I explain further the nature of that choice?'

'Madam,' said the lawyer, 'I think you are the best woman in the world as you are the loveliest.' So saying he lifted her hand to his lips, bowing low, and left us.

'Well,' said Jenny, 'I think I have done pretty well for my mother and for Doll. Their slate is clean again. They can begin fair. Receiving has been her princ.i.p.al trade so long that she is not likely to be satisfied with drawing beer. But the past is wiped out. And as for myself----'

She sighed. 'What next? Matthew is where the wicked can no longer trouble. Merridew, poor wretch! has also ceased from troubling. My friends of St. Giles's will be satisfied because I have now done what I told you I should do, and gone through the fiery furnace. Why,' she looked around the bare and narrow walls, 'I believe I am in it still.

But the flames do not burn, nor does the hot air scorch--believe me, dear Will--oh! believe me--I would do it all again--all again--I regret nothing--Will, nothing. a.s.sure Alice that I would do it all again--exactly as I have done.'

With a full heart I left her. What next? What next?

CHAPTER XXII

FROM THE CONDEMNED CELL

And now, indeed, began the time of endurance and suspense. To the bravest of women came moments of depression--what else could be expected when her days and nights were spent in a condemned cell? In this gloomy apartment Jenny was now compelled to live. The place lies in a corner of the women's yard or Court; it contains two rooms, one of them a small bedroom, the other, when there are only one or two in residence, a living room. One other prisoner was already in this cell, awaiting her time for execution. Alas! she was a mere child, not more than sixteen, and looking younger: a poor, ignorant creature who had never learned the difference between right and wrong: who had been brought up, as was Jenny herself, among children of rogues, themselves rogues from infancy.

The law was going to kill this child because the law itself had found no way to protect her. Alas for our humanity! Alas for our statesmen! Alas for our Church! Will there never arise a Prophet in the land to show us how much better it is to teach than to kill?

Outside, the yard was all day long filled with women either convicted or waiting to be tried: some of them were in prison for short sentences: some were waiting to be whipped: some were waiting for s.h.i.+ps to carry them to the plantations: all alike were foul in language; unwashed, uncombed and draggled; rough and coa.r.s.e and common. Such women, gathered together in one place, make each other worse: they swear like men: they fight like men: they drink like men: their hair hangs loose over their shoulders: the 'loose jumps' of leather which they use for stays are never changed: the ragged kerchief over their shoulders is never washed: the linsey-woolsey frock is foul with every kind of stain: their loud harsh voices have no feminine softness: their red brawny arms terrify the spectator: in their faces, even of the youngest, is no look of Venus.

Taken to this place, Jenny had to wait, expectant, for the relief that was promised her by Lord Brockenhurst. Her cheek grew pale and thin: her eyes became unnaturally bright: I feared gaol fever but happily she was spared this dreadful malady. Yet she kept up the appearance of cheerfulness, and greeted me every day with a smile that was never forced, and a grasp that was never chilled.

For exercise Jenny had the crowded yard. There, with no one to protect her, she walked a little every morning, the women falling back, right and left, to let her pa.s.s. They offered her no molestation. To save her fancy man--so ran the legend--she had compa.s.sed the ruin of her old friends: with this object ('twas the only one they could understand) she put up her mother to bear witness against her own customers. Well: it was to save her fancy man--the same came every day to see her in the prison: that was some excuse for her: would not any woman do as much for her man? And now she was herself condemned all through the other woman whose man she had put in prison and in pillory. So far, then, they were quits, and might all become friends again. And they remembered as a point in Jenny's favour that the n.o.ble welcome with which the thief-taker was received--a thing at which all Roguery rejoiced--was entirely due to her exertions. These things pa.s.sed from one to the other clothed in the language peculiar to such people.

Jenny took two or three turns in the yard, every morning when the prison air is freshest, and then went back to her cell, where she remained for the rest of the day.

In those days she talked to me more freely than before and a great deal about herself. She was forced to talk and to think about herself, for the first time in her life. Her thoughts went back to the past when all she could expect was to become such as the poor creatures with her in the prison. Yet these poor women, whom I found so terrible to look upon and to hear, she regarded with a tenderness which I thought excessive. I now understand that it was more humane than at that time was within my comprehension.

'They are not terrible to me,' she said. 'I know them--what they are and what has made them so. I can speak their language, but I must not let them know that I understand. It is the Thieves' tongue made up of Gipsy and of Tinkers' talk. They talk about me all day--even when I am in their midst. Poor wretches! They are not so bad as they look.'

'Nay, Jenny, but to see them beside you!'

'If we grow up among people, Will, and are used to them, we do not think much of their manners and their looks. When I was a child I played among them. Many a cuff have I had: many a slap for getting in their way: but many a bit of gingerbread and many an apple. You think them terrible. If they were clean and had their hair dressed they would not be terrible any longer. Oh! Will, they are not very far from the fine ladies--no--nor so very much below the best of good women, even Alice.

They are women, though you flog them at Bridewell and hang them at Tyburn--they are still women. And they love--in their poor fond faithful way--the very hand that knocks them down and the very foot that kicks them. They love--Oh! the poor women--they love.'

She broke off, with a sob in her voice. I marvelled at the time because I had always looked upon the creatures as something below humanity: as belonging to a tribe of savages such as Swift called the Yahoos.

Afterwards, I understood; and then I marvelled more.