The Orange Girl Part 6

We found good places in the Boxes: the House was not yet half full and the candles were not all lighted: many of the seats were occupied by footmen waiting for their mistresses to take them: in the Pit the gentlemen, who seemed to know each other, were standing about in little knots conversing with the utmost gravity. One would have thought that affairs of state were being discussed: on the contrary, we were a.s.sured, they were arguing as to the merits or the blemishes of the piece, now in its third night.

Presently the musicians came in and the cheerful sound of tuning up began: then the House began to fill up rapidly; and the orange girls made their way about the Pit with their baskets, and walked about the back of the boxes calling out their 'fine Chaney orange--fine Chaney orange.' Why do I note these familiar things? Because they were not familiar to me: because they are always connected in my mind with what followed.

The play was 'The Country Girl.' The story is about an innocent Country Girl, an heiress, who knows nothing of London, or of the world. Her guardian wants to marry her himself for the sake of her money, though he is fifty and she is twenty: as he cannot do so without certain papers being drawn up, he makes her believe that they are married by breaking a sixpence, and brings her to London with him. How she deceives him, pretends this and that, makes appointments and writes love-letters under his very nose, wrings his consent to a subterfuge and marries the man she loves--these things compose the whole play.

The first Act, I confess, touched me little. The young fellow, the lover, talks about the girl he loves: her guardian is introduced: there is no action: and there were no women. I felt no interest in the talk of the men: there was an old rake and a young rake; the soured and gloomy guardian, and the lover. They did not belong to my world, either of the City or of St. George's Fields.

But in the second Act the Country Girl herself appeared and with her as a foil and for companion the town woman. Now the Country Girl, Peggy by name, instantly, on her very first appearance, ravished all hearts. For she was so lovely, with her light hair hardly dressed at all, hanging in curls over her neck and shoulders, her bright eyes, her quick movements, that no one could resist her. She brought with her on the stage the air of the country; one seemed to breathe the perfumes of roses and jessamine. And she was so curious and so ignorant and so innocent. She had been taken, the evening before, to the Play: she found the actors 'the goodliest, properest men': she liked them 'hugeously': she wants to go out and see the streets and the people. Her curmudgeon of a guardian comes in and treats her with the barbarity of a natural bad temper irritated by jealousy. There was a charming scene in which the Country Girl is dressed as a boy so that she may walk in the Park without being recognised by her lover--but she is recognised and is kissed by the very man whom her guardian dreads. There is another in which she is made to write a letter forbidding her lover ever to see her again: this is dictated by the guardian: when he goes to fetch sealing-wax she writes another exactly the opposite and subst.i.tutes it. Now all this was done with so much apparent artlessness and so much real feminine cunning that the play was charming whenever the Country Girl was on the stage.

It was over too soon.

'Oh!' cried Alice. 'She is an angel, sure. How fortunate was the exchange of letters! And how lucky that he was made, without knowing it, to grant his consent. I hope that her lover will treat her well. She will be a fond wife, Will, do you not think?'

And so she went on as if the play was real and the Country Girl came really from the country and the thing really happened. The name of the actress, I saw on the Play Bill, was Miss Jenny Wilmot. I am not surprised looking back on that evening. The wit and sparkle of her words seemed, by the way she spoke them, invented by herself on the spot. She held the House in a spell: when she left the stage the place became instantly dull and stupid: when she returned the stage became once more bright.

We went back by water: it was a fine evening: a thousand stars were gleaming in the sky and in the water: we were all silent, as happens when people have pa.s.sed a day of emotions. At my brother-in-law's cottage we made a supper out of the remains of the dinner, and after supper Alice and I went away to the house we had taken at Lambeth, beside the church. And so our wedded life began.

There was another incident connected with my wedding which turned out to be the innocent cause of a great deal that happened afterwards.

Among my former friends in the City was a certain Mr. David Camlet who had a shop in Bucklersbury for the sale of musical instruments. He allowed me the run of the place and to try different instruments; it was he who first taught me to play the harpsicord and suffered me to practise in his back parlour overlooking the little churchyard of St.

Pancras. The good old man would also converse with me--say, rather, instruct me in the history of composers and their works. Of the latter he had a fine collection. In brief he was a musician born and, as we say, to the finger tips; a bachelor who wanted no wife or mistress; one who lived a simple happy life among his instruments and with his music.

Whether he was rich or not, I do not know.

He knew the difficulties which surrounded me: I used to tell him all: my father's prejudice against music: my own dislike of figures and accounts: my refuge in the highest garret when I wished to practice--only at such times when my father was out of the house: my beloved teacher in the King's Bench Rules: he encouraged me and warned me: he took the most kindly interest in my position, counselling always obedience and submission even if by so doing I was forbidden to practise at all for a time: offering his own parlour as a place of retreat where I could without fear of discovery practise as much as I pleased.

When I was turned out of the house, I made haste to inform him what had happened. He lifted up his hands in consternation. 'What?' he cried.

'You, the only son of Sir Peter Halliday, Knight, Alderman, ex-Lord Mayor, the greatest merchant in the City: the heir to a plum--what do I say? Three or four plums at the least: the future partner of so great a business: the future owner of a fleet, and the finest and best appointed fleet on the seas--and you throw all this away----'

'But,' I said, 'I will be nothing but a musician.'

'Thou shalt be a musician, lad. Wait--thou shalt have music for a hobby.

It is good and useful to be a patron of music: to encourage musicians.'

'But I would be a musician by profession.'

'It is a poor profession, Will. Believe me, it is a beggarly profession.

If you think of making money by it--give up that hope.'

That day I had ringing in my ears certain glowing words of Tom s.h.i.+rley upon the profession and I laughed.

'What do I care about poverty, if I can only be a musician? Mr. Camlet, you have been so kind to me always, do not dissuade me. I have chosen my path,' I added with the grandeur that belongs to ignorance, 'and I abide by my lot.'

He sighed. 'Nay, lad, I will not dissuade thee. Poverty is easy to face, when one is young: it is hard to bear when one is old.'

'Then we shall be friends still, and I may come to see you sometimes when I am a great composer.'

He took my hand. 'Will,' he said, with humid eyes, 'Music is a capricious G.o.ddess. It is not her most pious votary whom she most often rewards. Be a musician if she permits. If not, be a player only. Many are called but few are chosen. Of great composers, there are but one or two in a generation. 'Tis an eager heart, and an eager face. The Lord be good to thee, Will Halliday!'

From time to time I visited this kind old man, telling him all that I did and hiding nothing. At the thought of my playing at the riverside tavern for the sailors to dance he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. 'Why,' he said, 'it was but yesterday that I looked in at Change, because it does one good sometimes to gaze upon those who, like the pillars of St. Paul's bear up and sustain this great edifice of London. Among the merchants, Will, I saw thy respected father. Truly there was so much dignity upon his brow: so much authority in his walk: so much mastery in his voice: so much consideration in his reception: that I marvelled how a stripling like thyself should dare to rebel. And to think that his son plays the fiddle in a sanded tavern for ragged Jack tars to dance with their Polls and Molls. I cannot choose but laugh. Pray Heaven, he never learn!'

But he did learn. My good cousin kept himself informed of my doings somehow, and was careful to let my father know.

'Sir Peter looks well,' Mr. Camlet went on. 'He is perhaps stouter than is good for him: his cheeks are red, but that is common: and his neck is swollen more than I should like my own to be. Yet he walks st.u.r.dily and will wear yet, no doubt many a long year. London is a healthy place.'

Presently I was able to tell him that I was about to be married, being in a position which seemed to promise a sufficiency. He wished me hearty congratulations, and begged to know the happy day and the place of our abode.

On the morning after our wedding, before we had had time to look around us in our three-roomed cottage--it was designed for one of the Thames fisherman: hardly had I found time to talk over the disposition of the furniture, I perceived, from the cas.e.m.e.nt window, marching valiantly down the lane from St. George's Fields, my old friend Mr. David Camlet.

The day was warm and he carried his wig and hat in one hand, mopping his head with a handkerchief.

'He comes to visit us, my dear,' I said. 'It is Mr. Camlet. What is he bringing with him?'

For beside him a man dragged a hand-cart in which lay something large and square, covered with matting.

'He is the maker of musical instruments,' I explained. 'Alice, what if--in the cart----'

'Oh, Will--if it were----'

Know that my great desire was to possess a harpsichord, which for purposes of composition is almost a necessity. But such an instrument was altogether beyond my hopes. I might as well have yearned for an organ.

He stopped where the houses began and looked about him. He made straight for our door which was open and knocked gently with his knuckles.

Alice went out to meet him. By this time he had put on his wig and stood with his hat under his arm.

'The newly married lady of my young friend, Master Will Halliday?' he asked. 'I knew it. In such a matter I am never wrong. Virtue, Madam, sits on thy brow, Love upon thy lips. Permit an old man--yet a friend of thy worthy husband'--so saying he kissed her with great ceremony. Then at length, the room being rather dark after the bright suns.h.i.+ne, he perceived me, and shaking hands wished me every kind of happiness.

'I am old,' he said, 'and it is too late for me to become acquainted with Love. Yet I am a.s.sured that if two people truly love one another, to the bearing of each other's burdens: to working for each other: then may life be stripped of half its terrors. I say nothing of the blessing of children, the support and prop of old age. My children, love each other always,' Alice took my hand. 'For better for worse; in poverty and in riches: love each other always.'

I drew my girl closer and kissed her. The old man coughed huskily. 'Twas a tender heart, even at seventy.

Alice gave him a chair: she also brought out the wedding cake (which she made herself--a better cake was never made) and she opened the bottle of cherry brandy we had laid in for occasions. He took a gla.s.s of the cordial to the health of the bride, and ate a piece of bride cake to our good luck.

'This fellow ought to be fortunate,' he said, nodding at me. 'He has given up all for the sake of music. He ought to be rewarded. He might have been the richest merchant on Change. But he preferred to be a musician, and to begin at the lowest part of the ladder. It is wonderful devotion.'

'Sir, I have never regretted my decision.'

'That is still more wonderful. No--no--I am wrong'--he laughed--'quite wrong. If you were to regret it, now, you would be the most thankless dog in the world. Aha! The recompense begins--in full measure--overflowing--with such a bride.'

'Oh! Sir,' murmured Alice blus.h.i.+ng.

He took a second gla.s.s of cherry brandy and began a speech of some length of which I only remember the conclusion.

'Wherefore, my friends, since life is short, resolve to enjoy all that it has to give--together: and to suffer all that it has to inflict--together. There is much to enjoy that is lawful and innocent.

The Lord is mindful of His own--Love is lawful, and innocent: there is abiding comfort in love: trust in each other raises the soul of him who trusts and of him who is trusted: sweet music is lawful and innocent: if there is ever any doubt: if there is any trouble: if any fail in love: if the world becomes like a threatening sea: you shall find in music new strength and comfort. But why do I speak of the solace of music to Will Halliday and the sister of Tom s.h.i.+rley? Therefore, I say no more.'

He stopped and rose. Alice poured out another gla.s.s of cherry brandy for him.

'I nearly forgot what I came for. Such is the effect of contemplating happiness. Will, I have thought for a long time that you wanted a harpsichord.'