Walter Besant
The Orange Girl
On Sundays we had morning service, which I read. The overseers were present and after the blacks grew to like the music they sat about the door while we chanted the Psalms and sang our Hymns. In the evening I read a sermon or a discourse on some godly subject.
At these religious exercises Madame would always be present; sitting in her carved armchair, her head resting on her hand, expressing in her face neither interest nor weariness. Remember that never had anyone taught her a word of religion. She looked on and listened; sometimes she did not listen; her eyes were fixed and far away; she was back on the stage of Drury Lane.
Who can tell how they all loved and worshipped her? Even the overseers, commonly the most brutal of men, some of whom pride themselves at being able to cut a lump of flesh from a negro's leg at a distance of ten feet and more, were softened by the gracious presence. The worst cruelties were abandoned on our estate; as for floggings; of course there must be flogging so long as there are slaves; and of course there must be slaves so long as there are negroes. The clergy of Virginia are united in this opinion; I wish they were also united in the opinion that even a slave should be protected by the law from inhuman treatment.
This our quiet mode of life was broken into one day when there appeared unexpectedly Lord Brockenhurst himself. It was about six months after our arrival. He dismounted; he threw his reins to his servant and mounted the steps of the veranda.
It was late in the afternoon – about six; the autumn sun was getting low; Jenny was sitting with Alice and Tom's wife talking of household affairs. She rose quietly with a pretty blush and stepped forward.
'Good Heavens, Jenny!' his Lordship cried, 'you are more beautiful than ever, I swear.'
'Welcome, my Lord, to Virginia. You are come, I trust, to accept the hospitality of this poor house?'
'Madame, you honour me. It is a lovely house with a view the most charming in the world. I knew not that Virginia was half so fine a country.'
'Indeed, if English people did know – they would all come over. I pray your Lordship not to speak too well of us. There are some people in the old country that we would not willingly welcome in the New.'
So she led him into the inner room and sent for Madeira to refresh him.
'Your Lordship has something to tell me,' she said, beginning to shiver and shake. 'You did not come all the way from England only to wish me Good-morning.'
'I bring you, Jenny, what I promised, your full pardon and release. It is in the hands of the Governor. You can return, now, whenever you please.'
'I was beginning to forget, my Lord, that I am but a prisoner still and a convict. These people with whom I live, the best people, I very believe, in the whole world, have almost made me forget that fact. But I thank your Lordship all the same. I thank you most humbly and most gratefully. Except my Cousin Will – my husband's cousin – there is no more loyal and faithful gentleman than my Lord Brockenhurst.'
'I have done what I can. I could do no more.'
'My lord, you have ridden thirty miles. You are tired? No? Then – let me ask you one more favour. Tell me about this matter to-morrow. Sleep first upon it,' for she saw his purpose in his eyes. 'Think, I pray you, partly of what I am and of what you are; partly of your own dignity; partly of how one such as I am should behave towards one such as you.'
She rose.
'I will now,' she said, 'if you are not tired, show you our gardens and our tobacco-fields.'
His Lordship took supper with us. I saw that he was pleased at the little state and ceremony with which we surrounded Jenny. I saw, as well, the love in his eyes, which he could not tear away from her face.
After supper, we had a little concert Tom took the harpsichord, and I took the violin. First we played a piece, as a duet; then Tom played while Alice sang; then we all, with Jack our Butler, who had an excellent bass, while Tom sang alto and I the tenor, sang four-part songs, and I saw how his Lordship watched the negroes sitting about outside and crowding up the doorway. I am sure he took home the belief that we were a happy household, blacks and all; and that Jenny was the mistress over all.
After breakfast in the morning Jenny bade Alice and me come with her while she received his Lordship.
She took her place at the window, sitting in her high chair. Lord Brockenhurst entered, bearing certain papers in his hand.
'My lord,' she said, 'you can speak with perfect freedom. I entreat you to use perfect freedom before my cousins. I have no secrets from them; they can tell you perhaps more about myself than I ever will speak – for myself.'
Lord Brockenhurst coloured and was confused, but only for a little. 'Dear Madame,' he said, 'since you will not give an interview alone I must make the best of the presence of others.'
'They know everything,' said Madame.
He bowed. 'I have told you,' he said, 'that I have brought out and delivered over to the Governor your full pardon and release. These papers are a copy.'
Jenny pushed them aside. 'I do not want to see them,' she said, 'let me never be reminded of their existence. Take them, Will, and lock them up.'
I received them and placed them in my pocket.
'That done, Madame,' he went on, 'I have only to invite your remembrance of a certain proposal that – I believe you have not forgotten it. Since your worthy cousins know what that proposal was I have only to say that once more, most divine woman, I offer myself – my name and rank – my fortune and possessions – at your feet.' He fell on his knees and took her hand.
Jenny turned away her face. 'Answer him, Alice – tell him what I have so often told you. Rise, my Lord. Do not pain me by kneeling at my unworthy feet.'
'My Lord,' said Alice solemnly, 'there is no one in the world – believe me – whom Jenny regards with greater respect and gratitude than yourself.'
'Respect and gratitude are but cold words,' he said.
'Let me add with greater love. Your Lordship is the only man in the world whom she has ever loved or could love. That also, believe me, is most true.'
'Why, then – ' He held out his hand.
'Nay, my Lord. Jenny loves you so well that nothing would induce her to accept the honour of your proposal.'
'How? Loves me so well?'
'Jenny bids me tell you that the time would come when your children would ask who was their mother, and who were her mother's friends. They would learn her history, I need not remind you of her history. You know it all. Jenny loves you too well to bring shame and discredit on a noble House. Your children, she says, must have a mother worthy of yourself.'
'There is no more worthy woman in the world than Jenny!'
'Their mother must have an unblemished name, my Lord, worthy of your own. She knows you to be so good and loyal that you could never reproach her with the past. But it belongs to her. And, my Lord, it must not belong to you.'
'It must not; it shall not,' Jenny repeated through her tears.
'Is this your answer, Jenny? Oh! Jenny, will you cast me off for such a scruple?'
'I must – I must. Go, my Lord. Think of me no more. Why' – she sprang to her feet – 'what could I expect? I – the Orange Girl – the daughter of the Black Jack – the friend of thieves; the Newgate Prisoner; the transported convict? A coronet? For me? the hand of a noble gentleman? the name of a noble house? For me? Fie upon you, my Lord, for thinking of such a thing! Remember what is due to a gentleman. And I thank you – oh! I thank you – you can never know how much – for thinking – you the only one – of nothing less or lower. Go, my Lord. Tempt me no more. I know what I must do. Farewell.'
He seized her in his arms; he kissed her – forehead and cheek and lips and hands. He ceased to urge his suit. He saw that she was fixed, and in his heart he knew that she was right. 'I obey,' he said. 'Oh! noblest of women, I obey.'
So he rushed away, and Jenny fell into Alice's arms.
I sit on my own estate in the pleasant land of Virginia; outside the veranda the hot sun ripens the corn and fruit: I did my duty in the great and glorious war which set our country free: my sons will do theirs if the occasion should again arise: we have taught our cousins across the seas that we can fight for freedom: but there will be no more fighting for that. It is won, once for all – I am now old, but as I sit alone, my eyes resting on as fair a landscape of river and forest and orchard and garden as the world can show, I suddenly wander away and gaze beyond the ocean, beyond the years, upon that abode of despair and wretchedness, where Jenny sits like a flower in a pigsty, talking of what she should do when she came out of prison, but unable to read in the future any return to the world at all. As for fear or doubt, or any anxiety about the future, the poor soul had none. She was going to continue for ever beautiful, to win that worship of men which she loved so much. I have now lost all the friends of my youth: they pass before me sometimes in a long procession. It is the consolation of age to live in the past: but in all the array of ghosts there is none that brings tears except the figure of Jenny in her wondrous beauty and her soft and lovely eyes.
She lived with us for more than thirty years. She grew gray – but she was as lovely in her age as in her youth. She was mistress unquestioned to the end and never more than in her old age. But always with the same kindness: the same grace: the same sweetness of look, and the same softness of eye.
She died at last of some fever caught of a young negress whom she visited in the infirmary. She was ill for three days only, and she died lying in the veranda, looking out upon the woods and mountains on the golden sunshine that she loved.
'Alice, dear,' she said, 'you have told me, often, that we are led, we know not how, to things that are best for us, though by ways that we would not choose. I have not forgotten what you said. I never forget, my dear, what you say.'
Alice kissed her fingers.
'I understand now what you mean. I have been led. I have been led – My dear, I am going to die. Bury me as one of yourselves – not in a ditch like my own people – who, perhaps, are not led. Bury me in the burial-ground where your baby lies. Put no stone upon my grave, but plant white flowers over it. Let my abode, at least, look lovely after death. I have been led, Alice – I have been led – I understand it now.'
After a little. 'Alice, I have been proud of what men called my loveliness. It makes every woman happy when men call her lovely. My Lord called me lovely. Send him, Alice, a lock of my hair. Tell him that I have never loved any other man.'
She died. We buried her in the little burial-ground where lay the child we lost. We put up no headstone, but we planted the grave with white flowers.
There is now another grave beside hers with more white flowers. It bears the name of Alice.
To me it has been given to love two women at the same time, and that with equal love and equal respect and without blame or sin.
