Walter Besant
The Orange Girl
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FALLEN ALDERMAN
Let me return to the wretched man who had caused this trouble. I learned that, although his two fellow-prisoners declared openly that Mr. Merridew's power was gone and that he would never again have the power to hang anybody, some of his credit was still maintained: he pretended that the books – of which he spoke often and with pride, were still kept up, and that every man's life and liberty were in his hands: and many poor rogues, thinking to curry favour, waited upon him daily, bringing him presents of wine, tobacco and (secretly) rum, so that he was able to be drunk and to forget his anxieties for the greater part of the day. The two rebels against his authority, the Bishop and the Captain, carried themselves bravely: there is, indeed, in the profession of the rogue something of the soldier, in that they both brave dangers without fear. The battle field is covered with the dead and wounded: but there are plenty left standing unhurt: every soldier thinks he will escape: the rogue's field of honour is covered with whipping-posts, stocks, pillory, and gallows. It is far more dangerous than the field of battle. Yet every rogue hopes to escape, and carries himself accordingly. Perhaps it is better so. One would not wish such a crew to be whining and snivelling and pretending repentance and imploring pity.
One day I met, coming out of the prison, one whose face and appearance I knew. He was old and bent, and in rags: his woollen stockings were in holes: the elbows of his coat were gone: his hat was too limp to preserve its shape: his buttons were off his coat – he wore the old jasey with a broken pigtail. I touched him on the shoulder.
'You are Mr. Probus's clerk?' I said.
'If I am, Sir,' he replied, 'is that a crime?'
'No – no – no. But you remember me? You bade me once go throw myself into the river with a stone about my neck.'
'Ay – ay,' he replied. 'Yes, I remember you now. I did, I did. Was it good advice, young man?'
'It was, doubtless, very good advice. But I did not take it. What are you doing here?'
'I come to look after my master,' he replied simply.
'Your master? He has kept you in rags and wretchedness. He has given you a starvation wage.'
'Yet he is my master. I have eaten his bread, though it was bitter. I come every day to look after him.'
'Has he no friends? No wife or children to do this for him?'
'His friends were his money bags till he lost them. They were his wife and children as well.'
'Has he no relations – cousins – nephews?'
'Perhaps – he has driven them all away long ago.'
'You are his friend at least.'
'I am his clerk,' he repeated. 'Sir, since my master found that all his money had been thrown away and lost, he has not been himself. He has been mad with rage and grief. That is why he hatched that unfortunate plot. I was in Court and heard it. Ah! he was not himself, Sir, I assure you. Common tricks he practised daily, because he knew how far he could go. But not such a big job as this conspiracy. In his sober senses he would not have been so mad. Have you seen him, Sir? Have you observed the change in him? 'Twould bring tears to a flint. He moans and laments all day long.'
'Yes, I have seen him.'
'Sir, he thinks about nothing else. Sir, I verily believe that he does not know even that he is in Newgate. All the money he had in the world is gone – lent to Mr. Matthew and lost by Mr. Matthew. Terrible! Terrible!'
'Was there not some lent to the man Merridew?'
'A trifle, Sir: a few hundreds only. No: it is all gone. My master and I must become beggars and go together into the workhouse.' He shook his poor old head and went his way.
Now this man had received the treatment of a dog. How long he had been with Probus: what was his previous history I never knew: it matters not: he had received the treatment of a dog and the wages of a galley slave: yet he was faithful and stood by his master – the only living thing who did – in his adversity as in his prosperity.
I next heard from Mr. Ramage that the Counting House was closed and the gates of the Quay locked: that Matthew had run away. Then that the unfortunate Alderman, partner in the House, had been arrested for debt and was taken to the Fleet Prison. After this, that Matthew had been arrested: that he was bankrupt: that he had been taken to the same prison: and that the whole amount of the liabilities was now so great that this meant certain imprisonment for life. By the custom of London, too, a creditor may, before the day of payment, arrest his debtor and oblige him to find sureties to pay the money on the day it shall become due. By this custom the whole of Jenny's liabilities became the cause of new detainers, so that I believe the total amount for which Matthew was imprisoned was not far short of £150,000. I conveyed this intelligence to my mistress.
'Misfortune,' she said, gravely, 'is falling upon all of us. Thou alone wilt survive – the triumph of virtue. Go, however, take the man something, or he will starve. Give it him from me, Will. Tell him – tell him' – She considered for a little. 'Tell him – as soon as I can forget, I will forgive. Not that he cares whether he is forgiven or not. A man, Will, I very truly believe, may be anything he pleases – drunkard – murderer – highwayman: yet something may still survive in him of human kindness. There will still be a place, perhaps, for compassion or for love. But for a gambler there is no compassion left. He is more hardened than the worst villain in this wretched place: he has neither sense, nor pity, nor affection, nor anything. He is all gambler.'
'I will give him your money, Jenny. But not your message.'
She smiled sadly. 'Go, Will. The money will solace him as long as it lasts. Perhaps a quarter of an hour.'
I repaired without delay to the Fleet Prison. Those who walk up and down the Fleet market know of the open window in the wall and the grating, behind which stands a man holding a tin box which he rattles to attract attention while he repeats his parrot cry, 'Pity the Poor Prisoners! Pity the Poor Prisoners!' This humiliation is imposed upon those of the Common side: they must beg or they must starve. What was my surprise and shame – who could believe that one of my family should fall so low? – to recognise in the prisoner behind these bars, my cousin Matthew! None other. His face was pale – it had always been pale: now it was white: his hand shook: he was unshaven and uncombed: I pretended not to notice him. I entered the prison and was told that he was holding the plate, but would be free in half an hour. So I waited in the yard until he came out, being relieved of his task. I now saw that he was in rags. How can a man dressed as a substantial merchant fall into rags in a few days? There was but one answer. The gambler can get rid of everything: Matthew had played for his clothes and lost.
I accosted him. At sight of me he fell into a paroxysm of rage. He reviled and cursed me. I had been the cause of all his misfortunes: he wept and sobbed, being weak for want of food and cold. So I let him go on until he stopped and sank exhausted upon the bench.
Then I told him that I had come to him from his wife. He began again to curse and to swear. It was Jenny now who was the cause of all his troubles: it was Jenny who refused to obey him: her liabilities alone had prevented him from weathering the storm: he should certainly have weathered the storm: and so on – foolish recrimination that meant nothing.
I made no answer until he had again exhausted his strength, but not his bitterness.
'Matthew,' I said, 'the woman against whom you have been railing sends you money. Here it is. Use it for living and not for gambling,' The money I gave him was five guineas.
The moment he had it in his hand he hurried away as fast as he could go. I thought he ran away in order to conceal his agitation or shame at receiving these coals of fire. Not so, it was in order to find out someone who would sit down to play with him. Oh! It was a madness.
I watched him. He ran to the kitchen and bought some food. He swallowed it eagerly. Then he bent his steps to the coffee-room. I followed and looked in. He was already at a table opposite another man, and in his hands was a pack of cards. In a few hours or a few minutes – it mattered not which – Jenny's present of five guineas would be gone, and the man would be destitute again. Poor wretch! One forgave him all considering this madness that had fallen upon him.
'But,' said Jenny, 'he was bad before he was mad. He was bad when he married me: he is only worse: nothing more is the matter with him.'
But my uncle, the Alderman, also involved in the bankruptcy, had been carried to the same place, while his great house on Clapham Common, with all his plate and fine furniture, had been sold for the benefit of the creditors. Matthew had ruined all. I went to see him. He was on the Masters', not the common side. It was a most melancholy spectacle. For my own part I bore the poor man no kind of malice. He had but believed things told him concerning me. He gave me his hand.
'Nephew,' he said, his voice breaking, 'this is but a poor place for an Alderman: yet it is to be my portion for the brief remainder of my days. What would my brother – your father – have said if he had known? But he could not even suspect: no one could suspect – '
'Nay, Sir,' I said, 'I hope that your creditors will give you a speedy release.'
'I doubt it, Will. They are incensed – and justly so – at their treatment by – by – Matthew. They reproach me with not knowing what was doing – why, Will, I trusted my son' – he sobbed – 'my son – Absalom, my son – the steady sober son, for whom I have thanked God so often: Will, he made me believe evil things of thee: he accused thee of such profligacy as we dare not speak of in the City: profligacy such as young men of Quality may practise but not young men of the City. I dared not tell my brother all that he told me.'
'Indeed, Sir, I know how he persuaded not only you but my father as well – to my injury. In the end it was my own act and deed that drove me forth, because I would not give up my music.'
'If not that, then something else would have served his purpose. Alas! Will. Here come your cousins. Heed them not. They are bitter with me. Heed them not.'
The girls, whom I had not seen since my father's funeral, marched along with disdainful airs pulling their hoops aside, as once before, to prevent the contamination of a touch. They reddened when they saw me, but not with friendliness.
'Oh!' said one, 'he comes to gloat over our misfortunes.'
'Ah! No doubt they make him happy.'
'Cousins,' I said, 'I am in no mood to rejoice over anything except my own escape from grievous peril. The hand of the Lord is heavy upon this family. We are all afflicted. As for your brother Matthew, it is best to call him mad.'
'Who hath driven him mad?' asked Amelia, the elder. 'The revengeful spirit of his cousin!'
This was their burden. Women may be the most unreasonable of all creatures. These girls could not believe that their brother was guilty: the bankruptcy of the House: the stories of his gambling: his marriage with an actress: his evidence in the Court: were all set down as instigated, suggested, encouraged, or invented, by his wicked cousin, Will. It matters not: I have no doubt that the legend had grown in their minds until it was an article of their creed: if they ever mention the Prodigal Son – who is now far away – it is to deplore the wicked wiles by which he ruined their martyred Saint: their brother Matthew.
'It is of no use,' I said to my uncle, 'to protest, to ask what my cousins mean, or how I could have injured Matthew, had I desired. I may tell you, Sir, that I learned only a short time ago that Matthew was a gambler: that the affairs of the House were desperate: and that an attempt was to be made upon my life – an attempt of which Matthew was cognizant – even if he did not formally consent. So, Sir, I take my leave.'
They actually did not know that Matthew was within the same walls. – Father and son: the father on the Masters' side, dignified at least with the carriage of fallen authority: the son a ragged, shambling creature, with no air at all save that of decay and ruin. Unfortunate indeed was our House: dismal indeed was its fall: shameful was its end.
CHAPTER XIX
THE END OF THE CONSPIRACY
The trial of our four friends for conspiracy took place in the middle of January. For my own part, I had to relate in open Court the whole history with which you are already acquainted: the clause in my father's will giving me a chance of obtaining a large fortune if I should survive my cousin: the attempts made by Mr. Probus to persuade me to sell the chance of succession: the trumping up of a debt which never existed: my imprisonment in a debtors' Prison: my release by Jenny's assistance: the renewed attempts of Mr. Probus to gain my submission: his threats: and the truth about the alleged robbery. I also stated that two of the defendants had been imprisoned in the King's Bench at the same time as myself and that they were at that time close companions.
The Counsel for the defence cross-examined me rigorously but with no effect. My story was plain and simple. It was, in a word, so much to the interest of Mr. Probus to get me to renounce my chance that he stuck at nothing in order to effect this purpose – or my death.
I sat down and looked about me. Heavens! with what a different mind from that with which I stood in the dock now occupied by my enemies. I should have been more than human had I not felt a great satisfaction at the sight of these four men standing in a row. Let me call it gratitude, not satisfaction. The spectacle of the chief offender, the contriver of the villainy, Mr. Probus, was indeed enough to move one's heart to terror, if not to pity. The wretched man had lost, with the whole of his money, the whole of his wits. The money was his God, his Religion, his Heaven: he had lost the harvest of a life: he was old: he would get no more clients: he would save no more money. He would probably have to make a living, as others of his kind have done, by advising and acting as an attorney for the rabble of St. Giles's and Clerkenwell. He stood with rounded shoulders and bowed head: he clutched at the iron spikes before him: he pulled the sprigs of rue to pieces: he appeared to pay no attention at all to the evidence.
Mr. Merridew, on the other hand, showed in his bearing the greatest possible terror and anxiety: he gasped when his Counsel seemed to make a point in his favour: he shivered and shook when his part in the plot was exposed. He who had given evidence in so many hanging cases unconcerned, now stood in the dock himself. He was made to feel – what he had never before considered – the natural horror of the prisoner and the dreadful terror of the sentence.
The case might have been strengthened by the evidence of the landlady of the Black Jack. She, worthy soul, was out of the way, and no one inquired after her. Nor was her daughter Doll present on the occasion. But there was evidence enough. The gaolers and masters of the country prisons proved the real character of the two witnesses who called themselves respectively a clergyman and a country gentleman. Ramage, the clerk, proved, as before, that Probus brought Merridew to the Counting House. Jack, the country lad, proved the consultations at the Black Jack between Probus, Merridew, and the two others. These two, indeed, behaved with some manliness. They had given up all hope of an acquittal and could only hope that the sentence would be comparatively light. They therefore made a creditable appearance of undaunted courage, a thing which is as popular in their profession as in any other.
I do not suppose their crime was capital. Otherwise the Judge would most certainly have sent them all to the gallows.
'Many,' he said at the end, 'are justly executed for offences mild indeed, in comparison with the detestable crime of which you stand convicted.'
When the case was completed and all the evidence heard, the Judge asked the prisoners, one after the other, what they had to say in their own defence.
'Ezekiel Probus, you have now to lay before the Court whatever you have to urge in your own defence.'
Mr. Probus, still with hanging head, appeared not to hear. The warder touched him on the shoulder and whispered. He held up his head for a moment: looked round the court, and murmured:
'No – no – it is all gone.'
Nothing more could be got from him.
'John Merridew, you have now the opportunity of stating your own case.'
He began in a trembling voice. He said that he had been long a sheriff's officer: that he had incurred great odium by his zeal in the arrest of criminals: that it was not true that he had concocted any plot either with Mr. Probus or with the other prisoners: that he was a man of consideration whose evidence had frequently been received with respect in that very court: that it was not true, further, as had been stated by the Prosecution, that he had ever encouraged thieves or advised them to become highwaymen: that, if he went to such places as the Black Jack, it was to arrest villains in the cause of Justice: that he deposed at the last trial, what he saw or thought he saw – namely a scuffle: he might have been in too great a hurry to conclude that the late prisoner Halliday was the assaulting party: the night was dark: he only knew the two witnesses as two rogues whom he intended to bring to justice on a dozen capital charges for each, as soon as he was out of Newgate: and that he was a person – this he earnestly begged the Court to consider – without whom the criminal Courts would be empty and Justice would be rendered impossible. With more to the same effect, and all with such servile cringings and entreaties for special consideration as did him, I am convinced, more harm than good.
When it came to the Doctor's turn, he boldly declared that if the verdict of the Jury went against him – 'And gentlemen,' he said, 'I must own that the evidence has certainly placed me in a strange, and unexpected and most painful position' – he would bring over the Archbishop of Dublin: the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral: and the Provost of Trinity College: besides noblemen of the Irish Peerage and many of his old parishioners in order to prove that he was what he pretended to be. 'The assurance, gentlemen, that I shall be thus supported, enables me to bear up even against your possible view of the case and his Lordship's possible opinion. To a Divine of unblemished life it is, I confess, inexpressibly painful to be confused with forgers and highwaymen.'
Lastly, the gallant Captain spoke of himself. 'This,' he said with a front of brass, 'is a case of most unfortunate resemblance. It appears that I bear some likeness to a certain notorious robber and highwayman called, it is said, the Captain.' Here the whole Court burst into laughter, so unabashed was the villain when he pronounced these words. He looked round him with affected wonder. 'The event of this trial, however,' he went on, 'matters but little because in two or three weeks I can bring to town the Mayor and Alderman, the Town Clerk, the Rector of the Church and the Master of the Grammar School of my native town to testify that I am what I have declared myself to be. This being so, gentlemen, you may proceed, if you please, to do your duty.'
The Judge then summed up. He went through the whole case, adopting the views of the Counsel for the Prosecution. He said that the evidence before him was practically unshaken. It showed that these men, who had pretended to know nothing of each other were in fact banded and allied together – in short he gave the whole weight of his opinion against the prisoners. Indeed, I cannot think what else he would do seeing the nature of the evidence. So he left the jury to find their verdict.
They found it, without leaving the box. It was a verdict of 'Guilty' against all four prisoners. I looked to see the Judge assume the black cap. To my surprise, he did not. He began by commenting in the strongest terms on the diabolical wickedness of the conspiracy. He said that he could find no difference as to the respective guilt of one or the other. The prisoner Probus, a member of a learned profession, was the contriver or designer of the deed: perhaps he might be thought the worst. Indeed, his was a depth of infamy to which it was difficult to find a rival or an equal. He would be punished worse than the rest because he would infallibly lose by his disgrace his profession and his practice. The infamy of the prisoner Merridew, when one considered the hold that he had over a large number of criminals and rogues, was very close to that of the prisoner Probus. He had apparently forced the other two into carrying out the plot, on threat of informing against them. In short, he pronounced the sentence of the court; namely, that the prisoners should stand in pillory for an hour and then be imprisoned for the space of four years.
On hearing the sentence Mr. Merridew shrieked aloud. 'My Lord!' he cried. 'My Lord! Have mercy! They will murder me!'
They led him off crying that he was a murdered man. The Doctor swelled out his cassock. 'The Archbishop,' he said, 'will arrive, I believe, next week. There will still be time for his Grace to procure my release.' So rolling his head and squaring his sleeves, he followed along the passage which leads to the Prison.
I left the Court and made my way through the crowd to the gates of Newgate in order to tell Jenny.
'Four years,' she said, 'will more than suffice to ruin the man Merridew. His companies of thieves will be broken up; he will no longer have any hold over them. He will have to turn rogue himself. When all has been said, this is the greatest villain of them all. I hope they will not maltreat the prisoners in pillory; because there they are defenceless. But a thief-taker – a thief-taker, they cannot abide. If I were Mr. Merridew I should wish the job well over.'
While we were discoursing there came a message from the Captain. Would Madame grant him the favour of speech with her?
He came in, walking with his heavy clanking irons. He had lost the braggart swagger which he assumed at the trial, and now looked as humble as any pickpocket about to undergo the discipline of the pump.
'Madame,' he said, 'I thank you for this favour.'
'Your trial is over, Captain, I hear.'
'It is over,' he sighed. 'Mr. Halliday, Sir, I hope you are satisfied.'
'I desire no revenge,' I said. 'I want safety and peace – nothing more. These blessings you and your friends denied me.'
'It is quite true, Sir. It was a most damnable plot. The only excuse for me is that I had no choice but to comply and obey, or be hanged.'
'Captain, I do not desire more of your company than is necessary. Will you tell me what you want of me?'
'The sentence is' – he made a wry face – 'Pillory, Pillory, Madame. And four years' imprisonment. But the four years will pass – what I fear is Pillory.'
'I have heard of a man's friends protecting him.'
'Mine will do what they can. But, Madame, my fear is not so much on my own account as that I may be put up on the same scaffold with Mr. Merridew or Mr. Probus. There isn't a rogue in London who will not come out with something for the thief-taker. Madame, no one knows the terror in which we poor robbers live. The world envies us our lot; they think it is glorious to ride out of a moonlight night and stop the coach all alone. They don't know that the thief-taker is always behind the highwayman. He lays his hand on the largest share of the swag; he encourages lads to take the roads, and whenever he wants money he says that the time is up and then he takes the reward. My time was up.'
'I know all this – unhappily – as well as you. What do you want me to do?'
'Mr. Probus – he will prove quite as unpopular as Merridew. They thirst for his blood. There will be murder done in the pillory. Madame, for the love of God, do something for me.'
'What?'
'You have great influence. Everybody knows what powerful friends you have. Make them put the two unpopular prisoners on the same scaffold. They will share the flints between them. Let me stand up beside the Bishop. Nobody will give us much more than a dead cat or two and a basket of rotten eggs. But the other two' – he shivered with cold terror – 'I know not what will happen to them.'
'Well, Captain, perhaps if Merridew gives up the profession, you may possibly turn honest man again when you go out of this place.'
He shook his head. 'No, that is impossible.'
'Well, I will do this. The Governor of the Prison is civil to me. I will ask him as a special favour to place you as you desire. I hope that you both – the Bishop as well as yourself – will enjoy your short hour on that elevated position. Will, give the Captain a bottle of wine to take away with him. You can go, sir.'
