The Orange Girl Part 23

'I don't know, I don't know. Since she left off the orange line, Jenny hasn't been the same to her old mother: not to tell her things, I mean, and to take her advice. I should have made her rich by this time if she had taken my advice.'

'Many people like to have their own way, don't they?'

'They do, Sir--they do--to their loss.' She took another pull at the punch and began to get maudlin and to shed tears--while she enlarged upon what she would have done had Jenny only listened to her. I gathered from her discourse that the old gipsy woman, like the whole of her tribe, was without a gleam or a spark of virtue or goodness. Her nature was sordid and depraved through and through. With such a mother--poor Jenny!

Suddenly the old woman stopped short and sat upright with a look of terror.

'Good Lord!' she murmured. 'It's Mr. Merridew!'

At sight of the new-comer standing on the steps a dead silence fell upon the whole Company. All knew him by name: those who knew his face whispered to each other: all quailed before him; down to the meanest little pickpocket, they knew him and feared him. Every face became white; even the faces of the women who shook with terror on account of the men. I observed the girl on the Captain's knee catch him by the hand and place herself in front of him, as if to save him. Then his arm left her waist and she slipped down and sat humbly on the bench beside her man. Thus there was some human affection among these poor things. But the Captain's face blanched with terror and the gla.s.s that he was lifting to his lips remained halfway on its journey. The Bishop's face could not turn white, in any extremity of fear, but it became yellow--while his eyes rolled about and he grasped the table beside him in his agitation. Doll, I observed, after a glance to learn the cause of the sudden silence went on sucking her fingers, rubbing out the figures on the slate and adding them up again.

'Who is it?' I whispered to Jenny.

'Hush! It's the thief-taker: they are all afraid that their time has come. If he wants one of them he will have to get up and go.'

'Won't they fight, then? Do they sit still to be taken?'

'Fight Mr. Merridew? As well walk straight to Tyburn.'

The man was a large and heavy creature, having something of the look of a prosperous farmer. His face, however, was coa.r.s.e and brutal. And he looked round the terrified room as if he was selecting a pig from a herd, with as much pity and no more! This was the man whose perjuries had added a new detainer to my imprisonment. I could have fallen upon him with the first weapon handy, but refrained.

He came into the room. 'Your place stinks, Mother,' he said, 'and it's so thick with tobacco and the steam of the punch that a body can't see across.'

'To be sure, Mr. Merridew,' the old woman apologised. 'If we'd known you were coming----'

'There would have been a large company, would there not?'

'Well, Sir, you see us here, as we are, as orderly and peaceful a house as your Worship would desire.'

The fellow grinned. 'Orderly, truly, mother. It is a quiet and a well-conducted company, isn't it? These are quiet and well-conducted girls are they not?' He chucked one of the girls under the chin.

'As much as you like--there,' said the girl, impudently, 'so long as you keep your fingers off my neck.'

At this playful allusion to his profession, that of sending people to the gallows, Mr. Merridew laughed and patted the girl on the cheek. 'My dear,' he said, 'if you were on my list you should get rich and you should have the longest rope of any one.'

'The man,' Jenny told me afterwards, 'is the greatest villain in the whole world. He is a thief-taker by profession.'

'You mean, he informs and takes the reward.'

'Yes: but he makes the thing which he sells. He lays traps for pickpockets and such small fry and while he has them in his power he encourages them to become bigger rogues who will be worth more to him.

Do you understand? A highwayman is worth about eighty pounds' reward to him: a man returned from transportation before his time is worth no more than forty. He does not therefore give up the returned convict until he has returned to his highway robberies. All those fellows you saw last night are in his power. The Captain is a returned convict whose time must before long be up, for Merridew only allows a certain amount of rope. He says he cannot afford more. As for the Bishop, he will go on longer: he is useful in many other ways: he can write letters and forge things and invent villainies: he persuades the young fellows to take to the road. I think he will be suffered to go on as long as his powers last.'

'Why was your mother so terrified?'

Jenny hesitated. 'Because--I told you, but you do not understand--because she, too, is in his power for receiving stolen goods. My mother is what they call a fence. Oh!' she shook herself impatiently: 'they are all rogues together. I wonder I can ever hold up my head. To think of the Black Jack and the Company there!'

The Captain sprang to his feet with an effort at ease and politeness.

'What will your Honour think of us?' he cried. 'Gentlemen, Mr. Merridew is thirsty and no one offers him a drink. Call for it, sir--call for the best this house affords.'

'Punch, mother,' the great man replied. 'Thank you, Captain.'

Then the Bishop, not to be outdone, got up too. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'let us all drink to the health of Mr. Merridew. He is our truest friend. Now, gentlemen. Together. After me.' He held up his hand. They watched the sign and all together drank and shouted--hollow shouts they were--to the health of the man who was going to sell them all to the hangman. I wondered that they had not run upon him with their knives and despatched him as he stood before them, unarmed. But this they dared not do.

Mr. Merridew acknowledged the compliment. 'Boys and gallant riders,' he said, 'I thank you. There was a friend of ours whom I expected to find here, but I do not see him.' He looked round the room curiously. I think he enjoyed the general terror. 'No matter, I shall find him at the Spotted Dog.'

Every one breathed relief. No one, then, of that company was wanted. The Captain sat down and drank off a whole gla.s.s of punch: the rest of the men looked at each other as sailors might look whose ship has just sc.r.a.ped the rock.

'I like to look in, friendly, as it might be,' Mr. Merridew went on, 'especially when I don't want anybody--just to see you enjoying yourselves, happy and comfortable together, as you should be. There's no profession more happy and comfortable, is there? That's what I always say, even to the ungrateful. Plenty to eat: no work to do: no masters over you: girls, and drink, and music, and dancing, every night. Find me another trade half so prosperous. Mother, I'll take a second gla.s.s of punch. I drink your healths--all of you--Bless you!' The fellow looked so brutal, and so cunning that I longed to kill him as one would kill a noxious beast.

'A long rope and a merry life,' he went on. 'It is not my fault, gentlemen, that the rope is not longer. The expenses are great and the profits are small. Meantime, go on and prosper. You are all safe under my care. Without me, who knows what would happen to all this goodly company? A long rope, I say, and a merry life.'

He tossed off his gla.s.s and went out.

When he was gone, the talk began again, but it was flat. The mirth had gone out of the party. It was as if the Angel of Death himself had pa.s.sed through the room.

I played to them, but only the boys would dance: Jenny asked them to sing, but only the girls would sing, and, truth to say, the poor creatures' efforts were not musical. They drank, but moodily. The Captain took gla.s.s after gla.s.s, but his arm had left the girl's waist: she now sat neglected on the bench beside him. The Bishop, sobered by the fright, said nothing, but sat with his eyes fixed upon the sanded floor, shuddering. He thought his time had come, and the shock made him for the moment reflect. Yet what was the good of reflecting? They were in the hands of a relentless monster: he would sell them when it was worth his while to put younger men in their place. They tried to forget this, but from time to time, his presence, or the absence of one of their Company, reminded them and then they were subdued for a time. It filled me with pity: it made me think a little better of them that they should be capable of being thus affected.

Jenny touched my arm. 'Come,' she said. 'Let us be gone.' So without any farewells she led the way out. The old woman, by this time, was sound asleep beside her half finished gla.s.s: and Doll was still adding up the figures on her slate, putting her finger in her mouth, rubbing out and adding up again.

Outside, the tall white spire of St. Giles's looked down upon us. In the churchyard the white tombs stood in peace, and overhead the moon sailed in splendour.

Jenny drew a long breath: she caught one of the rails of the churchyard and looked in curiously.

'Will,' she said shuddering, 'I am ashamed of myself because the manners and the talk come back to me so easily. Once I am with them, I become one of them again. I tremble when the man Merridew appears. It is as if he will do me, too, a mischief some day. I cannot forget the old times and the old talk. Yet I know how dreadful it is. Look at the graves, Will. Under them they sleep so quiet; they never move: they don't hear anything: and beside them every night collects this company of gaol-birds and Tyburn birds. Why, they don't shiver and shake when Mr.

Merridew looks in.'

'Let us get back, Jenny.' I shuddered, like all the rest.

'Will, I have seen that man--that monster--that wretch--for whom no punishment is enough--three times. Each time I have felt that, like the rest of those poor rogues, my own life was in his hands. Do you think he can do me a mischief? Why do I ask? I know that he will. I am never wrong.'

'What mischief, Jenny, could he do?'

'I don't know. It is a prophetic feeling. But who knows what such a villain may be concocting? Good-night, you happy people in the graves.

Good-night.'

I drew her away, and walked with her to her own door in the Square.

'Will?' she asked, 'what do you think of me now?'

'Whatever I think, Jenny, I am all wonder and admiration that you are--what you are--when I see--what you might have been.'

She burst into tears. She flung her empty basket out into the road.

'Oh,' she cried, 'if I could escape from them! If I could only escape from them for ever! I should think nothing too terrible if only I could escape from them!'

A month or two later I remembered those words. Nothing too terrible if only she could escape from them!