Walter Besant
The Orange Girl
While these preparations were going on, Jenny waited in Newgate somewhat sadly. Lord Brockenhurst came to visit her daily: she had the girl whom she had saved for a maid: the lad Jack came every day to fetch and carry and do her bidding. I said nothing to this fellow of our purpose. One day, however, while he waited in the corridor outside the cell, I called him in and spoke to him seriously. 'Jack,' I said, ''tis known to thee that Madame sails for America in a week or so?'
'Ay, Sir,' and his face dropped.
'What will you do, Jack? There is the old company of the kitchen at the Black Jack: if that is broken up they have gone to the Spotted Dog.'
'No, Sir,' he said stoutly, 'I will be a rogue no more. I have promised Madame.'
'Then there is the village. You could go home again, Jack.'
'They will not have me.'
'Then, Jack, what will you do?'
He held his hat in his hands, and then with tears rolling down his cheeks he fell on his knees to Jenny. 'Take me with you, Madame,' he said. 'I will be your faithful servant to command. Only take me with you.'
'Alas, Jack! who am I that I should have a servant with me who shall be but a servant myself. Poor lad, I cannot take thee.'
'By your leave, Jenny,' I said. 'There will be a little maid to wait upon you and you will want Jack to protect both you and her. If you consent to take him, he shall go.'
'But, Will, you know the conditions. I shall not be mistress even of myself.'
'That is provided. Did not Lord Brockenhurst promise?'
'Lord Brockenhurst will do what he can. Of that I have no doubt. But as to his power across the Atlantic, of that I have grave doubts.'
'Jenny,' I took her hand. 'Do you trust my word? Could I deceive you? Could I ever hold out hopes unless I knew that they were well grounded?'
'Why, Will, whom should I trust if not you?'
'Then, Jenny, listen and believe. It is so arranged and provided that on landing in America you will be provided with a house fit for your station and with everything, so long as you may stay in the country, that a gentlewoman can require. And all that you have or enjoy will be yours – your own – and over all you shall be mistress.'
'Dear Will – this providing is your providing.'
'A manservant you must have to begin with. Negroes there are in plenty, but an English manservant – an honest' – here I looked Jack in the face; he reddened and was confused – 'an honest, strong, capable, faithful servant, that you want, Jenny; and that you must have, and here he is.' I clapped the fellow on the shoulder as he still knelt before his mistress.
'Get up, Jack,' she said. 'Since it must be so, it must. But you must thank Mr. Halliday and not me.'
It was not a servant that she took out with her but a slave, one of those willing slaves to whom their slavery is freedom, who have no thoughts or desires of their own; none but the thought how best to please their Lords or Ladies. Such servants are rare, except those who have served in the army, where duty is taught to be the first virtue.
'At least,' said Jenny, 'I shall not be put ashore alone or among the gang of poor creatures with whom I ought to stand as a companion.' And indeed the prospect of this strong fellow to protect her at the outset caused her, I was pleased to find, no slight consolation. Yet I dared not tell her till it was too late to be altered, the resolution which we had formed to go with her as well.
Despite the injurious treatment of my two cousins, I took it greatly to heart that the unfortunate Alderman should, for no fault of his own, be condemned to imprisonment for the short remainder of his days. He was past understanding where he was. In imagination he rolled in his chariot from Clapham Common to the Wharf and Counting House: he received the Captains of the West Indiamen: he appeared on Change: he dined with his Company: he sat on the Bench: he walked in his garden: he cut pine-apples and grapes in his hothouses. He was quite happy. But there was the shame of knowing that he was there and that he was supported by the charity of his old friends.
Accordingly I sought Mr. Dewberry's advice and help. There was now but little time to be lost, a matter which made things easier, because, Mr. Dewberry said, so long as there was any chance of getting more by putting off the matter it would be put off. In a word, he called together the creditors. They were fortunately a small body: all those who had claims in respect to Jenny's liabilities were cut off by Matthew's death. The debt of Mr. Probus was also removed by his death because it was an account of monies borrowed by Matthew privately. There remained the debts of the House, and these were due to merchants and to banks. The creditors met, therefore, and I attended. Mr. Dewberry pointed out that my desire was the release of my uncle: that the creditors had no claim upon me: that anything I might offer with the view of attaining that object was a free and voluntary gift: that if the creditors refused this gift they would never get anything at all: and finally that they should consider that the poor man now in prison had not been a party to any of the transactions which led to the ruin of the House.
They asked half an hour to consider. At the end of that time, they offered to accept in full discharge of all claims, two shillings in the pound. I was advised to accept this offer. It took nearly £20,000 out of my fortune; in fact, all the accumulations. But I had the satisfaction before I left of releasing my uncle from his chamber in the loathed King's Bench.
I knew how I should be received by my cousins: but words break no bones. Besides, I wished to release him, so to speak, with my own hands.
'You are come again then,' said my elder cousin, who for some reason unknown, was much the more bitter of the two. There is your handiwork. Gaze upon it,' she pointed to her father, 'and exult! Exult!'
'On the whole,' I said, 'I can, this day at least, exult in my work.'
'It is your doing. None but yours. If you had signed what he wished this misery would have been saved. And you would have had quite as much as one in your beggarly trade could desire.'
'Thank you, cousin. You are always kind to me.'
'You are my brother's murderer. You have ruined my father,' she added.
'I am anything you wish. Indeed, I have no reply to make to such charges as these. Meantime I have come here to-day in order to release your father. Down below waits the attorney with his discharge in due form. He is free. You can take him out of the Prison.'
'Out of prison?'
They both stared at me. Their eyes flashed: the sudden joy of liberty seized them: they sprang to their feet.
'Free? He is free?' cried the younger. 'Father, you are free – do you hear?'
'Free?' he replied. I have been free of the City for six-and-thirty years.'
'Free!' echoed the elder. 'What is the good of freedom without the means of getting a living? Free? Let us stay here, where at least we have a guinea a week.'
'Your livelihood is provided for. You will receive during your three lives the sum of three guineas paid weekly.'
'Three guineas?' The younger caught my hand, 'Cousin Will! Oh! It is our living. It is everything to us poor paupers. Will, I doubt we have misjudged you.'
Her sister snatched her hand away. 'Don't touch him!' she cried. 'Don't speak to him! Three guineas a week! The miserable pittance! and he has thousands – thousands – thousands a year' – her voice rose to a shriek – 'which ought to have been our murdered brother's and our own!'
One must never look for gratitude or even for reasonable recognition: or for the courtesy of thanks: but these words were really more shrewish and more bitter than one can endure. However, I made no reply and left them, pleased at least that one of them could be moved to confessing her prejudice. I know not what became of them, nor have I ever heard tidings of them since that day.
One more addition was made to our party.
My brother-in-law, Tom Shirley, came to me one morning with a serious face – serious at least, for him. 'Will,' he said, 'I have been thinking about my own concerns, that is, my wife has been thinking about them for me. It is a great advantage for a man to give over that part of his business to his wife.'
'Well, Tom?'
'She says, if I remember right, because she has been saying a good deal, that so long as I am content to play first fiddle at the Dog and Duck for thirty shillings a week it matters not, as we shall never get on, and shall have to live in the Rules all our life. Well, Will, I would as lief live in the Rules as out of them. There is very good company in the Rules, almost as good as in the King's Bench itself.'
'She is not content that you should always play the fiddle at that place, and you are. Is that so?'
'For the patronage of aristocracy and the esteem of an audience of taste there is no equal to the Dog and Duck,' he replied gravely, as if he meant what he said of the dirty disreputable haunt of 'prentices and their kind. 'But I confess, Will, that there are times when I consider my musical compositions and when I long for a wider popularity. I think that I should like an opportunity to get my name better known. At the Dog and Duck the noble audience doth not ask the name of the composer.'
'You would leave the Rules if you could, and go live at Westminster, where there are concerts and rich patrons? Well, Tom, we are now rich. We might manage that for you I believe.'
He shook his head. 'No. Best not waste good money. I should only get back here again in a month or two. My dear Will, if you only knew how difficult it is to refuse when things are offered on credit. Now, in the Rules no one has any credit, so that we save all our money.'
I never heard of Tom's saving any money. However, I asked him what he would have.
He would go with me. But did they want music in Virginia?
'Perhaps not now. Wait, however, till they have heard and seen me. I believe there is no musical composer, yet, in the Province. I will be the first Virginian musician. I will be the Handel of Virginia.'
'Well, Tom, why not?' The knowledge of my great income made me yielding. Was there not enough for a dozen Toms? 'I dare say we could pay out your detaining creditors with no great difficulty.'
'Not for the world, my dear brother-in-law. Even from you I could not accept such a favour. Pay me out? Why, it would be no favour: it would be a crime. Do you know that my only detaining creditor is an attorney? Pay an attorney? Never. Remember Probus. Surely you have had enough of attorneys.'
'Indeed I am not likely to forget Probus as long as I live. But then, if you are not paid out, Tom, how will you get out?'
'I shall walk out, Mr. William Halliday. If you let us go out with you I shall send the wife on board with Alice and I shall then walk out with my violin in one hand and a bundle of music in the other on the evening before the ship sails. I shall go on board. When my creditor finds out that I have taken my departure, which may take weeks – or it may take months – that honest attorney will be pained no doubt, for he is of a revengeful spirit. He will then do exactly what he pleases. But I believe he will not venture out to Virginia. If he should dare that attempt I will give him to friendly Indians in order to be – carbonadoed, as I believe you Americans call it. That attorney, Will, shall be carbonadoed over a slow fire.'
Tom, then, was to come with us. So with Jenny, her maid, and her man: Tom Shirley and his wife: Alice, the boy and myself we should make up as pleasant a family party as ever sailed across the Atlantic.
The time approached when we were to go on board. The ship was to drop down with the ebb on Saturday morning at nine with the turn of the tide. Everything was on board; on the forecastle on deck my live stock was gathered: sheep, pigs, turkeys (all of which died in the Channel) geese and poultry: our furniture, books and music were stowed away in the hold: our wine and liquors were laid in bunks around the cabin: the Captain and the mate were to take meals with us: they were also so obliging as to drink up our rum and our wine. We had no leavetakings: on Friday afternoon Alice and her sister-in-law went on board. Tom joined them after sundown. At eight o'clock or thereabouts I was to bring Jenny and her party on board. Lord Brockenhurst had expressed his desire to say farewell to her on the quarterdeck.
A little after seven I repaired to the Gaol. At the gates I saw waiting three large waggons which the people were filling with boxes and bundles tied up in sacking and canvas. I thought nothing of these waggons at the moment: they did not concern me, and I entered the Lodge. There was waiting for me Jenny herself, dressed in splendour as if for a wedding. Surely no prisoner sentenced to transportation ever went on board ship in such a guise. She was taking an affectionate leave of the Governor, who was moved almost to tears by her departure.
'Indeed, Sir,' she said, 'I am grieved to have put you to so much trouble.' So she shook hands, smiling sweetly: then she turned to the turnkeys. 'I am also very much in your debt, my friends,' and walked along the whole line distributing guineas. 'God bless your Ladyship!' they uttered fervently. 'We shall never see the likes of your Ladyship here again.'
Indeed I am sure that they never will.
She mounted the steps of the coach which waited outside, she was followed by the girl, by myself, and by the lad called Jack.
'I am glad,' she said, 'that this child goes out with me to Virginia.' The child – she looked little more – took Jenny's hand and kissed it. 'She is an affectionate little fool,' said Jenny, 'and loves me much. And to think what they were going to do with her! Oh! Fools! Fools!' she cried. 'Oh! monstrous Fools!'
We were now rolling slowly along Ludgate Hill. There was a rumbling after us which continued. I looked out. They were the three waggons I had observed at the Gate.
'What are those waggons?' I asked.
'They contain my baggage. Did you think I was going abroad with nothing?'
'But in those waggons you must have the whole wardrobe of Drury Lane.'
She laughed. 'Will, you understand nothing. Did I not tell you that I would have all those turnkeys at my feet in a day or two? Well, I succeeded.'
'But what has that got to do with your baggage?'
'Why, you see, the officers that went to search my house for stolen property began with the garrets. And there they stopped. Now when my mother agreed to give evidence it was on conditions as I told you. I gave her money for compensation and I bought the whole of her stock of stolen property. It had been stored in the stone vaults under the Black Jack. They carried it over to the cellars of my house, and when there was no room left there, they used the garrets.'
'Oh! They took the garrets first.'
'Where there was very little to see. Now you understand why there was such a paltry show. Could a woman in my position brave such a fate for things so miserable?'
'Jenny! Jenny! You are wonderful.'
'No, Will, only I have my wits about me.'
'You have actually converted Newgate – Newgate Prison – into a Receiving House for stolen property.'
'Five guineas apiece for the turnkeys was what it cost. I thought it the safest and the simplest plan, Will.'
'Safest and simplest!'
Before I recovered the surprise of this information we reached the stairs. On the Quarter deck was Alice with the boy.
'You dear good woman,' Jenny cried. 'You are come to see the last of the transported convict: the end of the Orange Girl!'
Yet beside my wife in her homely dress, Jenny looked like a Countess. Alice kissed her. 'We are not going to leave you, Jenny. We are going with you, your servants as long as we live.'
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LAST TEMPTATION
'We are waiting,' said the Captain, 'for our passengers.'
While he spoke there came alongside the ship a dozen boats or more laden with the passengers for whose sake the good ship was about to cross the Atlantic. There were, I remember – it is not possible for me to forget anything that happened on this voyage – one hundred and eight of them who came on board, men and women. They were brought down from Blackfriars Stairs in a closed lighter.
'Jenny,' I said, 'go into the cabin. Do not look at them.'
'Why, Will, I ought to be among them. I am one of them. Suffer me to look at my brothers and sisters in misfortune.'
Of these poor wretches we had seen the greater part already in Newgate. Within those walls: in the bad air; among those companions; where everything was sordid and wretched; they did not present an appearance so horrible as they did in the open air; on the bright river; in the sunshine; under the flying clouds; among the sailors; where everything spoke of freedom. The pallor of their faces; their wretched rags blowing about in the breeze; their pinched faces; the unnatural brightness of their eyes; their tottering limbs; their meek submissiveness to order; proclaimed their long detention in prison while they were waiting for the ship. As they climbed up the companion painfully; as they stepped down upon the deck; as they stood huddled together like sheep, my heart sank within me for thinking that Jenny, too, was reckoned as one of these. I glanced at her; she was thinking the same thing; her cheek was aflame; her eyes, glowed; her lips trembled.
'Will,' said she; 'we are a proper company. Virginia will welcome us.'
They brought with them – faugh! the prison reek and stench. But we saw them for a few moments only. Then they were bundled down below to their own quarters and we saw the poor creatures no more.
It has been said that these poor convicts are cruelly ill-used on board the transport ships. I can speak only of what I saw; I know that our Captain was a humane man. I can testify to the fact that there were seldom more than two or three floggings a day, and of the women not so many; I know that our convicts were a gang of hardened wretches whom nothing but the fear of the lash kept in order; I know that when they came on board they were for the most part in a wretched condition; of low habits from long confinement, poor food, and bad drink; that many of them lay down directly the ship got into open water and, what with sea-sickness, fever, and weakness, never got up again. The truth is that the contractors, who receive £5 a head for a voyage which takes about two months, do honestly provide the convicts the rations prescribed by the Government. These rations are sufficient but not luxurious; they consist of beef, pork, biscuits and cheese once a week; to keep up their spirits they are served a ration of gin. The beef may have been tough and the pork rusty, but such as it was the Captain served it out among them. Yet, on the voyage of seven weeks we buried forty-seven, or nearly one every day. It seems a large number; those who died were nearly all men; very few of them were women. They were unfit to face the fatigues of the voyage and the rolling of the ship; some of them were even consumptive; some were asthmatic; some were in fevers; some had other diseases; they died; perhaps they would have died at home in prison. At Newgate scarce a day passes that some poor wretch does not succumb to privation and bad air. If so many of them died on board the ship that is no proof of inhumanity.
Let us forget these poor sinners. It is easy to say that they deserved all they got. No doubt they did. And what do we deserve? And when a man like myself has gone through that gate and mouth of Hell called Newgate, he looks on the poor creatures who go there to be flogged and branded and pilloried and hanged and transported with some compassion because he knows that such as they are, such they have been made. Mr. Merridew is always with them: the landlady of the Black Jack is always ready to buy what they offer her for sale: no respectable person will employ them; they have never been taught anything. The Divine and the schoolmaster dare not venture within their streets, which are the very Sanctuary of Wickedness; our charities are all for the deserving; we have no bowels, no compassion, for those we call the undeserving. Let us forget them. Better to lie at the bottom of the ocean, where at least it is peaceful, than to face the cruel whip of the overseer, and the burning fields of the American Plantations.
Our voyage lasted, I say, little more than seven weeks; we were wafted across a smooth sea by favouring breezes. After leaving the Channel we got into a warmer air; we began to sit on the quarterdeck. Tom and I got out our violins and played. We played for our party; we played for the sailors; we sang those part-songs which he made so well. Jenny, for her part, was silent. Now and then she spoke to me about herself.
'Will,' she said, 'if I receive that permission to return which my Lord promises, what will you do? Will you come home with me?'
'I do not know,' I told her. 'If the place pleases us, why should we go home again? My memories of home will be full of wrongs for many a year to come. I can never get back to my old friends in the City. Although, thanks to you, I was fully acquitted, I am a Newgate bird and a bird of the King's Bench. People look askance upon such a man. I must think of Alice, too, and of the boy. We must not let these memories haunt the mother and make the boy ashamed.'
'To go back,' she answered without heeding me, 'to stand on the stage at Drury Lane once more. Have they forgotten me already, do you think? The Orange Girls will remember, I am sure, and the natives of St. Giles's,' she laughed, 'I don't think they will bear malice.'
'You must not go back to Drury Lane, Jenny.'
'I can do better than Drury Lane, Will,' she said. 'I have but to consent and I shall be – a Countess. And oh! how proud will my children be of their mother, proud indeed of their mother. Oh! Will, to think how one's birth clings round and hampers us all our lives. I might be happy; I might make a good and faithful man happy; but the time would come when the children would grow up and would ask who and what was their mother and where she was born. Could I take them to the ruins of the Black Jack? Could I take them to the Tyburn Tree of Glory and tell them how how their grandfather died?' Then she relapsed into silence and so remained for awhile.
She had none of the common accomplishments of women; she could not sew or embroider or make things as women used. She could do nothing; she could not cook or make cordials; she understood no household work of any kind: she could read, but she had read nothing beyond the plays in which she had acted; she knew no history or geography or politics; she knew nothing but what she had learned for her own purposes; the scaffolding, so to speak, on which the actor builds his playing; the art of fine dress; and how to wear it; the art of dancing with an admirable grace of manner and of carriage; the art of courtesy and graciousness, in which she was a Princess; the art of making herself even more beautiful than Nature intended; and the art of bringing all men to her feet. Before we had been a day at sea, the Captain was her servant to command; by the second day, the mate was her slave; by the third day the sailors worshipped her. She brought good luck to the ship; every sailor will tell you that passengers may, and often do, resemble Jonah, who was pursued by a tempest; Jenny brought fair weather and a balmy breeze always from the right quarter.
She did not forget our fellow-passengers. When she heard that they were dying fast she would have gone below to visit them but the Captain refused his leave; the noisome quarters where they herded together, day and night, was not a proper place for any decent woman to visit. Let her send down what she pleased, and they should have it. She sent down from our stores daily drams of cordial and of rum; if she did not save many lives she made death less terrible.
The voyage came to an end all too quickly. On a certain day at the beginning of April we put into port and presently landed on the shores of the New World. There are certain forms. The bodies of Jenny Halliday and Pamela St. Giles's – I called the girl Pamela for obvious reasons – were duly delivered to the officer representing the Governor and as duly handed over to me as their master for five years. This proceeding was performed without Jenny's presence or knowledge. I then found a lodging not far from the Port and sought the merchants to whom I had letters of introduction and credit.
My tale draws to an end. Let it not grow tedious in its last pages. In one word, in a week or so after our landing we started on a short journey of thirty miles or so over a somewhat rough road. Our journey took us five hours. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when we arrived. First there was a large wooden house of two storeys painted white; in the front a long and deep veranda – meaning a place covered over and protected from the sun by the roof and hangings at the side and in the front. Before the house was a flower-garden; at the back was a kitchen garden and orchard; the house was well and solidly furnished; all round the house lay fields of tobacco on which black people were working; on the steps of the veranda; in the garden; under the trees played in the warm sun the little naked negro children.
'Where are we?' asked Jenny, looking round her.
I assisted her to get out of the waggon – it was little better – in which we had made our journey.
I led her into the house. In the principal room there was a long table laid as if for dinner. At the head was an armchair carved, I should think, in the sixteenth century, or earlier; it was a kind of throne with a coat of arms carved, gilded, and coloured upon it; the shield of the late occupant of the estate, recently dead.
I led Jenny to the head of the table. I placed her in the throne.
'Madame,' I said, 'this house is yours; these gardens are yours; this estate is yours; and we, if you please, are your most humble servants to command.' So I bent one knee and kissed her hand.
'Your most humble, obedient and grateful servants,' said Alice, following my example.
So we all did homage, but our Queen and mistress hid her face in her handkerchief and for a while she could not speak.
Thus began our new life, in which we all vied with each other in making Jenny feel that she was our mistress. We called her Madame; we made way for her; we flew to obey her; the overseers were instructed to report to her, personally, as to the condition of the field and the conduct of the slaves – there were no white servants on the estate; the slaves themselves looked to Madame as their owner, their mistress, and their friend.
For a time Jenny's mind remained still with the events of the past: the thought of Lord Brockenhurst; of the danger and the horrors which she had escaped; indeed she could never forget these things. Little by little, as I hoped, the sense of power and authority returned. She never asked how this lovely property came to her, or if it truly belonged to her; she began quietly, as she had done in the Assembly Rooms at Soho Square, to direct, administrate, and improve. She mitigated the floggings; she improved the slaves' rations; she gave them days of rejoicing; she made the poor ignorant blacks who for the most part understand little but the whip and the stick and the cuff, feel that they were in kindly hands; their children rolled about at her feet taking their childish liberties; she learned the business of tobacco-growing in all the stages; she walked about the fields in the morning before the sun was high, and noted how the plants were looking and whether the weeds were kept down.
Our neighbours – we had neighbours in all directions at two or three miles' distance – for some time hesitated to call. Things were variously reported; that Madame had come out for the help of her cousin, a convict; that Madame had brought out a large fortune; that the cousin had certainly letters of credit for a very large amount; that Madame was herself a convict; that we were all convicts – political prisoners – sent out for some kind of treason – Jacobite conspirators; friends of the Young Pretender; there was no end to the rumours and reports which were spread abroad concerning us. Nor was it until Lord Brockenhurst himself came all the way from England to visit us and stay with us, as you shall hear, that the neighbours made up their minds that we could be visited. I believe people think that Colonial society is open to all comers without question – perhaps they think it is composed of convicts. On the other hand the Colonials are more careful than the English at home whom they admit into their houses on friendly or intimate terms.
Our method of life was simple and uniform. We assembled on the veranda at seven, when I read prayers and a chapter. This done we took breakfast, not the petty meal of thin bread and butter and tea which satisfies the man about town, but a plentiful repast with many dishes containing vegetables and fruits unknown in London. After breakfast came the duties of the day. My own part was the keeping of the accounts. I called myself the steward. Alice directed the household; Jack was butler in command over the negroes of the house; and Pamela St. Giles's was in charge of the stillroom. Outside, the blacks were busy in the fields. At twelve a bell rang which brought them all back to camp where they took their dinner. At half past twelve we dined. For our eating I declare that we had the choicest birds; the finest mutton; the best beef; the most excellent fish that you can imagine; all things cheap; all plentiful; and for drink our cellars were full of such Canary, Madeira and Port as few gentlemen could show at home. In the evening we had supper at six; after supper I read prayers and another chapter. Then we played cards; or we had in the violins; or Tom played on the harpischord; or we sang glees and Madrigals. And every night all to bed by nine.
