The Orange Girl

'Poor mother!' said Jenny. ''Twould break her heart. But she will lose nothing. I bought her out. It is the landlord who will suffer. Now they have found candles: they light up; see, they are going all over the house in search of the landlady.' We saw lights in the rooms one after the other. 'They will not find her: nor her money: nor anything that is valuable. It is all gone, gentlemen: all provided for and stowed away in a safer place. This is not a house where a woman who values her throat should be found, after to-day's work. See – now, they have made up their minds that no one is left in the house. What next? Will they set fire to it?'

No: they did not set fire to the house. They proceeded to break up everything: all the furniture: the beds, chairs and tables and to throw fragments out of windows into the open space below where some of them collected everything and made a bonfire. When the house was emptied they began to bring out the bottles and to haul up the casks out of the cellars: upon this there was a rush of the crowd from the outside: strange as it may appear the company of revenge were going to break the bottles and to set the casks running. But the mob rushed in: there was fighting for a few minutes: someone blew a whistle and the rioters drew apart, and stood together before the house. Then one of them; their leader, spoke.

'This is the revenge of St. Giles's on the landlady of the Black Jack. Drink up all her casks and all her bottles, and be damned to ye!'

The people that rushed upon the casks were like ravenous beasts of prey: you would have thought that they had never had their fill of strong drink before: indeed for such people it is impossible to have their fill of strong drink unless insensibility means satiety. They set the casks running: they made cups of their hands: they drank with their mouths from the taps: they filled empty bottles: they fought for the full bottles: the place was covered with broken glass: their faces were bleeding with cuts from broken bottles: the bonfire lifted its fierce flame hissing and roaring: at the open windows of houses hard-by women looked on, shrieking and applauding: some, within the railings of the Church, looked on as from a place of safety: as the flames lit up their pale faces, they might have been the ghosts of the dead, called out of their quiet graves to see what was going on.

'It is not their intention to burn down the Black Jack,' said Jenny. 'Then there will be a new landlady, and the Thieves' Kitchen will go on again.'

The leader of the Company blew his whistle, and the men fell into some kind of line.

'My turn now,' said Jenny. 'Let us fly, Will. Let us fly back again.'

We ran down Denmark Street into the quiet, dark Hog's Lane before the Company reached the place. We ran through the garden door and locked it. Then we went back to the house. The old woman was half drunk by this time and half asleep. Doll was sitting upright, waiting. Jack stood by the door.

'They are coming,' said Jenny. 'They have sacked the Black Jack, Doll. They would have murdered you had you been in the house: they have broken all the furniture and made a bonfire of it: and they have brought out all the liquor. The people are drinking it up now – beer and rum and gin – and wine. Well, you have lost nothing, Doll – nothing at all. Now they are coming here.' She rang the bell, and called the servants. There were six of them. 'There is a mob on their way to this house,' she told them. 'They are going to wreck the place and to murder me, if they can. You had better get out of the house as soon as you can. Put together all that you can carry, and go out of the back way. You can go to one of the inns in Holborn for the night: if any of you have the courage to venture through the streets of Soho, you might go to the Horse Guards and call the soldiers to save the house. Now be quick. To-morrow I will pay you your wages.'

The women looked astonished, as well they might. What sort of company was Madame keeping? There was the old woman bemused with drink: there was the young country man: who were they? What did it mean?

'The mob are coming to-night, Madame?'

'They are coming now. They will be here in a few minutes. If you would escape, go put your things together and fly by the garden door.'

They looked at each other: without a word they retired: and I suppose they got away immediately, because we saw no more of them.

And then we heard a steady tramp of feet along Sutton Street.

'They are here,' said Jenny.

We heard the feet, but there was no shouting. They marched in a silence which was more threatening than any noise. I closed the wooden shutters of the room. It was as well not to show any lights.

'I suppose,' said Doll, 'that you will give us time to escape. Otherwise we shall all four have our throats cut, and perhaps this gentleman too, for whom you've taken all this trouble – and him with a wife of his own. He'd better go back to her.'

'Yes, Doll,' Jenny replied meekly, without replying to the suggestion. 'You shall have time to escape.'

They drew up, apparently in very good order before the house, without any shouting, because most of the crowd that had followed them to the Black Jack were still on the spot drinking what they could get in the general scramble. There were some, however, who came with them and hung outside and behind the company of revenge who began to assemble and to shout 'Huzzah' after the way of the Londoners. But I believe they knew not what was intended save that it was revenge of some kind: there would most certainly be the breaking of windows and the smashing of doors: there would be the pleasant spectacle of revenge with more bonfires of broken furniture: perhaps more casks and bottles of strong drink: in all probability women would be turned out into the street with every kind of insult and ill-usage, as had happened, indeed, only a week before in the Strand when a company of sailors wrecked a house and turned the women out of doors with blows and curses.

First they knocked loudly at the door, shouting for the door to be opened or it would be the worse for everybody inside. Then they pushed the door which yielded not.

'They will not force the door easily,' said Jenny. 'Who will run downstairs and see that the area door is secure?'

I volunteered for this duty. The kitchen windows were provided with strong iron bars which would keep the people off for a time: the area door was strong and was barred within: for further precaution I locked and barred the kitchen door and a strong door at the head of the staircase: we should thus gain time.

Crash – smash – crash! Were you ever in a house while the mob outside were breaking the windows? Perhaps not. 'Tis like a field of battle with the rattle of musquetry. At one moment half the windows in the house were broken: at the next moment the other half went: and still crash – crash – the stones flew into the windows tearing out what little glass remained.

Then there was silence again.

'Our time is nearly up,' said Jenny. 'Doll, wake up mother. Tie her hat under her chin, wrap her handkerchief round her neck – so. What will they do next? Jack, are you afraid to reconnoitre? Go up to the first floor, and look out of window.'

I went with him. The stones were still flying thickly through the windows. We made our way along the wall till we came to the window. Then we went on hands and knees and crept to the window. I wrapped one hand in a curtain and held it before my face while I looked out.

They were lighting torches and conferring together. By the torchlight I could make out their faces. They were of the type which I had had a recent opportunity of studying in Newgate: the type which means both the hunter and the hunted. It is a cruel and hard type: a relentless type: the faces all had the same expression – it meant 'Revenge.' 'We have been betrayed,' said the faces, 'by our friends, by the very people we trusted: we will have revenge. As we have sacked the Black Jack, so we will sack the Assembly Rooms. As we would have killed the landlady of the Black Jack: so we will kill her daughter, the Orange Girl, if we find her.' That is what the faces seemed to say.

They were conferring what to do next. One of them I could see, advocated breaking down the iron railings: but they had no instruments: another wanted to use a battering ram against the front door but they had no battering-ram: a third proposed a ladder and entering by the first floor windows. But they had no ladder.

While they were thus debating a man came into the Square who brought a ladder for them. There was no further hesitation. 'Come, Jack,' I said. 'There is no time to be lost: we must get away as quickly as possible.'

'You go on,' said Jack, 'I will follow.'

He waited. The ladder was raised to the window at which he watched. A fellow ran up quickly. Jack sprang to his feet, threw up the sash and hurled him headlong off the ladder. The poor wretch fell on the spikes. He groaned but only once. He was killed. There was silence for a moment. Then there arose a mighty scream – I say it was like the screaming of a woman. The mob had tasted blood. It was their own – but it was blood. They yelled and roared. Some of them ran to hold the ladder while a dozen men ran up. Jack prudently retired, but locked the door behind him.

'I believe I have killed him,' he said quickly. 'The one who ran up the ladder. I think he fell on the spikes.'

'Come,' said Jenny. 'We must go at once if we mean to go at all. Wake up mother again, Doll. Farewell to my greatness. Will, I grudge not any cost – remember – whatever it is. Take me with you, to your own home for awhile, till I am able to look round again. These devils! they are overhead, I hear them falling over the furniture. Pray that they break their shins. Come, everybody.'

She blew out the candles and led the way. The old woman half awake was led out by Jack and Doll. I followed last. As we passed out into the garden, we could hear the cursing of the fellows overhead and the smashing of the door which Jack had locked.

In Sutton Street, over the garden wall, everything seemed quiet: that is, there were no footsteps as of a crowd. Yet in the Square the crowd roared and yelled, and from St. Giles's was still heard the clamour of the people fighting over the drink. We looked out of the garden door cautiously. No one was in Hog Lane, which was as deserted as a city in the Desert. We closed the door and turned to the right, and so making our way by streets which I knew well, either by day or by night, we got to St. Martin's Lane and then to Charing Cross where we found a hackney coach.

'Jenny,' I said in the coach, taking her hand. 'The evening spoils the day. All this you have suffered for my sake. What can I say? What can I feel?'

'Oh! Will, what are a few sticks of furniture and curtains compared to your safety and to Alice's happiness? I care not a straw. I am ruined, it is true; but – for the first time in my life, I am thankful for it – I am a married woman. My debts will all be transferred to Matthew. Will! Think of it! The first effect of the victory will be to make Matthew a bankrupt at once. After what he owned in Court, after he receives the news of my debts: there can be no delay. Henceforth, my dear Will, you will be safe from Mr. Probus.'

I was, indeed, to be safe from him, but in a way which she could not expect.

'Meantime,' she added, with a sigh, 'they have not done with me, yet.'

'Why, what further harm can they do you?'

'I know not. You asked the same question before. There is no end to the ways of a revengeful spirit. They will murder me, perhaps: or they will contrive some other way.'

'Then go out of their reach.'

'The only place of safety for me is with my own folks. I should be safe in a gipsy camp. They have their camps everywhere, but I do not want to live with them. No, Will. I shall remain. After all, the revenge of people like these soon passes away. They will wreck my house to-night. That very likely will seem to them enough. I should have thought so, but for the things that mother saw in the coals. She is a witch, indeed. I say, mother, you are a proper witch.' But the good lady was fast asleep.

We left her with her daughter Doll and the young fellow they called Jack, at the White Hart Inn. It appeared that a waggon was going on in the morning to Horsham in Sussex. They might as well stay at Horsham for a time as anywhere else. There was very little fear that the St. Giles's company of revenge would make any further inquiries about them. So they left us and I saw the pair no more – and cannot tell you what became of them in the end. As for the young fellow, you will hear more about him. The hackney coach took us to our cottage on the Bank where, after so many emotions and surprises, I, for one, slept well.

Let us return to the house in the Square. The rioters finding no one within, quickly pulled away the barricade of the front door and threw it open. Then the work of wrecking the place began. When you remember that supper was sometimes provided for two thousand people, you will understand the prodigious quantity of plates, dishes, knives, forks, tables, benches, and things that were stored in the pantries and kitchens. You have heard of the hangings, the curtains, the candelabra, the sconces, the musical instruments, the plants, the vases, the paintings, the coloured lamps, the card-tables, the candlesticks, the stores of candles – in a word the immense collection of all kinds necessary for carrying on the entertainments. It is true that the suppers were cooked at a tavern and sent in, cold; but they had to be served in dishes and provided with plates. There was no wine to speak of in the house, because the wine was sent in for the night from the tavern which supplied it. Everything in the house was broken. The company of revenge did its work thoroughly. Everything was broken: everything was thrown out of the windows: the centre of the Square was made the site of a huge bonfire which, I believe, must be remembered yet: all the furniture was piled up on this bonfire: the flames ascended to the skies: that of the Black Jack was a mere boy's bonfire compared to this, while the piles of broken glass and china rendered walking in the Square dangerous for many a day to come.

You have heard that Jenny recommended her women-servants to call out the soldiers. One of them dared to run through the dark streets to the Horse Guards. Half an hour, however, elapsed before the soldiers could be turned out. At last they started with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed: when they arrived, the work was nearly finished: it would have been better for poor Jenny had it been completely finished, as you will presently discover: the furniture was all broken and, with the hangings, curtains and carpets, was burning on the bonfire. The soldiers drew up before the door: the mob began throwing stones: the soldiers fired into them. Four or five fell – of whom two were killed on the spot: the rest were wounded. The mob soon ran away. Some of the soldiers proceeded to search the house: they found a dozen or twenty fellows engaged in smashing the mirrors and the candelabra in the dancing-hall: they secured them: and then, the mob all gone, and the bonfire dying away they left a guard of four or five and marched back with their prisoners and the wounded men. In the morning the soldiers fastened up the broken door somehow and left the empty house. Alas! If only the mob had been able to fire the house and to burn down and gut the place from cellar to garret.

This was the first act of revenge on the part of St. Giles's. There was to be another and a more deadly act.

CHAPTER XIV

AN UNEXPECTED CHARGE

The joy of the acquittal and the release was certainly dashed by the wild revenge of the mob in the evening. The wreck of the great house with all its costly fittings and decorations could be nothing short of ruin to poor Jenny. Still it was with heartfelt gratitude that I returned to my own roof with character unblemished. Alice had a little feast prepared, not so joyful as it might have been, though Jenny made a brave attempt to be cheerful. Tom was with us: the punch-bowl was filled: the glasses went round: Tom played and sang – nobody could sing more movingly than he when he was in that vein; that is, when he sat with a cheerful company round the steaming punch-bowl.

More revenge, however, was to follow. Next morning, about eight or nine of the clock, Jenny came out with me to walk upon the Bank. For the time of year the weather was fine, the sun, still warm, though it was now low down, and had a wintry aspect, shone upon the river: the wind tossed up the water in little waves; the boats rocked; the swans rolled about and threatened to capsize.

Jenny carried the boy, who laughed and played with her hair and impudently planted his fingers upon her cheek.

'Will,' she said, 'I must now contrive some other means of existence. The Assembly Rooms of Soho Square are wrecked and destroyed. That is certain. They are very likely burned down as well. All my furniture, all my property is destroyed. Of that I am quite certain. The villains would make short work once inside. Well, I can never recover credit enough to refit them. Besides, the mob might break in again, though I do not think they would. I am sorry for my creditors. They will be much more injured than I myself,' she laughed.

'Who are your creditors, Jenny?'

'Upholsterers, painters, furniture-makers, cooks, wine-merchants, bakers, grocers, drapers – half London, Will. There was never anybody a greater benefactor to trade. They let me go on, because you see, they thought the profits of the winter season would clear them. Poor dear confiding people!'

'Well, but Jenny, since they trusted you before, will they not trust you again?'

'They cannot, possibly. Consider what it would take to refit that great place. By this time all the mirrors and the paintings have been destroyed. Most likely the house is burned down as well; unless the soldiers came in time, which I doubt. They generally march up when the mischief is done.' So she began to toss and to dandle the boy, singing to it. 'Will,' she said, 'the happiest lot for a woman is to live retired and bring up her brats. If Matthew had been what he promised and taken me away from London and into the country!'

'Do you know how much you owe?'

'I heard, some time ago, that it was over £30,000. Masquerades, I fear, cannot be made to pay. They say I give them too much wine and too good. As for giving them too much, that is impossible. The men would drink, every night, a three-decker full; their throats are like the vasty deep.'

'But – is it possible? £30,000? Jenny, you can never pay that enormous sum.'

'My dear Will, I never thought I should be able to pay it. Unfortunately while it is unpaid the good people are not likely to give me any more money. No, Will, that chapter is finished. Exit Madame Vallance. Who comes next?'

'But there are the creditors to consider.' I began to have fears of a Debtors' Prison for Jenny.

'Oh! The creditors? The creditors, my dear Will, will be handed over to Matthew. You are a good musician but an indifferent lawyer. Matthew – Matthew – is responsible for his wife's liabilities. This is the only point which reconciles me to marriage with such a man. I am provided with a person who must take over all my debts. Dear Matthew! Kind Matthew! That worthy man, that incomparable husband will now, for the first time, understand the full felicities of the married state.'

'But Matthew can never pay this enormous sum of money.'

'I do not suppose he can. Then he will retreat to the Prison where he put you, and, as long as he lives, will have opportunity of blessing first the day when he married a wife, and next the day when he made it impossible for her to live with him. If I can no longer carry on my Assembly Rooms, what remains?'

'There is always the stage. Your friends desire nothing so much as your return to Drury Lane.'

'Yes, the stage. I might return to Drury Lane. But, Will, those good people who sacked the Black Jack and wrecked the house in the Square yesterday, they were my friends of old; some of them, I believe, are my cousins: they formerly came to applaud. Do you think they would come to applaud after what has happened? Not so. They would come with baskets full of rotten apples and addled eggs: they would salute me with those missiles; there would be frantic cursings and hissings; they would drive me off the stage with every brutal insult that their filthy minds could invent. Oh! I know my own people – my cousins. I know them.'

'They will forget you, Jenny.'

'Yes, if I keep quiet. If I put myself forward the old rancour will be revived. Who betrayed her old friends? Who sent the Bishop and the Captain to Newgate? Who got them put in pillory – where they will most certainly have to stand? Who caused all the addled eggs in London to fly in their innocent faces? I tell you, Will, I know my people. Are they not my people? And have I not betrayed them? You lovely boy – tell your Dada that Jenny will never repent or regret what she did for his sake: she would do it again, she would – she would – she would.'

'Oh! Jenny, you cut me to the heart. What can I do for you?'

'You can look happy again: and you can get the Newgate paleness out of your cheeks – that is what you can do, Will.'

At this point of our discourse I observed, without paying any attention to them, a little company of two men and a woman, walking across the Marsh in the direction of the Palace or the Church or perhaps the cottages. I looked at them without suspicion. Otherwise it would have been easy for Jenny to have jumped into a boat and to have escaped – for a time at least. But at this juncture we were singularly unfortunate. The house in Soho Square had not been burned; otherwise there would have been no further trouble. But you shall hear. I went back to the question of the liabilities. How could anyone be easy who owed £30,000?

'Since there is no help, Jenny, for the creditors, and since you are not responsible, why then, Jenny, you shall live with us, and it will be our pride and happiness to work for you.'

She laughed. No: that would not do either.

Meantime the people I had seen crossing the Marsh were drawing nearer. I now observed that the woman with the two men was none other than the girl I had seen at the Black Jack, sitting on the Captain's knee.

'Jenny,' I said, 'Quick! Here comes a woman who owes you no goodwill. Are you afraid of her? If so, let us take boat and escape across the river.'

'Is it one of the St. Giles's company? No, Will, I am not afraid of the woman, and you, I am sure, are not afraid of the men.'

They were within fifty feet of us. The woman broke away from the men and ran towards us. 'Here she is!' she cried. 'This is the woman. Make her prisoner. Quick! She will run away. I told you she would be here. Oh! Make her prisoner. Quick! Put on the handcuffs. Tie her hand and foot – she's a devil – bring out the chains. She is desperate. She will claw some of you with her nails. Once she bit off a man's ear. That was when she was an orange girl. Make her prisoner, good gentlemen, as quick as you can. Take care of her. She'll tear your eyes out for you.'

Jenny flushed scarlet and stood still. But she caught my hand. 'Don't leave me, Will,' she murmured. Leave her? But a terrible sinking of the heart warned me that something horrible and dreadful was falling upon us. What was it? 'I have felt it coming,' said Jenny. 'Come with me whatever they do.'

The woman was within six feet of us, standing on the Bank. A wild figure she was, bare-headed save for her hair which streamed out in the fresh breeze: she wore a black leather corset and a frock of some thick stuff with a woollen shawl or kerchief round her neck. Her red arms were bare to the elbow; she had a black eye and a disfiguring scratch across her cheek. Her bosom heaved; her lips trembled; her eyes were bright; her cheeks were flaming. I knew her now! She was the girl I had seen sitting on the Captain's knee. And I understood. This was more revenge.

The two men then approached. I knew them, too, alas! I had good reason to know them. They were officers of Bow Street Court.

'By your leave, Madame,' said one, 'I have an order to arrest the body of Madame Vallance, otherwise called Jenny Wilmot, otherwise Mrs. Matthew Halliday.' He produced his emblem of office, the short wand with a brass crown upon it.