The Orange Girl

It is unfortunate for Southwark and its environs that everything seems to have conspired to give it a bad name. First of all, it was formerly outside the jurisdiction of the City, so that all the villains and criminals of the City got across the water and found refuge here. Next, the government of the place was not single, but divided by the manors, so that a rogue might pass from one manor into another and so escape: thirdly, the Sanctuary of Southwark tolerated after the Reformation at St. Mary Overies, grew to accommodate as great a number as that in Westminster where they only lately pulled down the gray old Tower which looked like a donjon keep rather than the walls enclosing two chapels. I know not whether there was such a tower at Montagu Close, but within my recollection no officer of the law dared to arrest any sanctuary man in Mint Street – their latest refuge: nor did any person with property to lose venture into that street. For first his hat would be snatched off: then his wig: then his silk handkerchief: then he would be hustled, thrown, and kicked: when he was permitted to get up it was without watch, chain, buckles, shoes, lace cravat, ruffles. Fortunate if he was allowed to escape with no more injury. The presence of these villains was alone enough to give the place a bad name. But there was more. Prisons there must be, but in Southwark there were too many. The King's Bench Prison: the Marshal-sea: the Borough Compter: the Clink: the White Lyon. So many prisons in a place so thinly populated produced a saddening effect. And, besides, there are those who live in the Rules, which are themselves a kind of prison but without walls. In another part, along the Embankment, the Show Folk used to live: those who act: those who write plays and songs: those who dance and tumble: mimes, musicians, buffoons: and those who live by the bear-baiting, badger-baiting, bull-baiting, and cock-throwing, which are the favourite sports of Southwark.

These considerations are quite sufficient to account for the evil reputation which clings to the Borough. They do not, however, prevent it from being a place of great resort for those who come up from Kent and Surrey on business, and they do not for obvious reasons prevent the place from being inhabited by the prisoners of the Rules.

When I arrived, Tom Shirley was playing on the harpsichord, his head in a white nightcap, his wig hanging on a nail. As he played, not looking at notes or keys, his face was turned upwards and his eyes were rapt. As one watched him his face changed in expression with the various emotions of the music: no man, certainly, was more moved by music than Tom Shirley. No man, also, could more certainly bring out the very soul of the music, the inner thought of the composer. He played as if he loved playing, which indeed he did whether it was a country dance, or a minuet or an oratorio or a Roman Catholic Mass. It was a fine face, delicate in outline; full of expression: the face of a musician: it lacked the firmness which belongs to one who fights: he was no gladiator in the arena: a face full of sweetness. Everyone loved Tom Shirley. As for age, he was then about five-and-twenty.

I stood at the open door and looked in, listening, for at such moments he heard nothing. There was another door opposite leading to the kitchen, where his wife was engaged in some domestic work. Presently, she lifted her head and saw me. 'Father,' she cried. 'Here is Will!'

He heard that: brought his fingers down with a splendid chord and sprang to his feet. 'Will? In the morning? What is the meaning – why this box?'

'I have come away, Tom. I have left the counting-house for good.'

'What? You have deserted the money bags? You have run away for the sake of music?'

'My father has turned me out.'

'And you have chosen music. Good – good – what could you have done better? Wife, hear this. Will has run away. He will play the fiddle in the orchestra rather than become an Alderman and Lord Mayor.'

'I want to live as you live, Tom.'

'If you can, boy, you shall.' Now it was the humour of Tom to speak of his own cottage and his manner of life as if both were stately and sumptuous. 'Very few,' he added proudly, 'can live as we live.' He looked proudly round. The room was about ten feet square: low, painted drab, without ornament, without curtains: there were a few shelves: a cupboard: a small table: two brass candlesticks, a brass pair of snuffers: four rush-bottomed chairs, and nothing more.

Tom was dressed in an old brown coat with patches on the elbows, the wrists frayed and the buttons gone. To be sure he had a finer coat for the orchestra. His stockings were of worsted, darned in many places: a woollen wrapper was round his neck. Everything proclaimed poverty: of course people who are not poor do not live in the Rules. 'Few,' he repeated, 'are privileged to live as I live.' I have never known whether this was a craze or his humour to pretend that he fared sumptuously: was lodged like a prince: and received the wages of an ambassador. Perhaps it was mere habit; a way of presenting his own life to himself by exaggeration and pretence which he had somehow grown to believe.

'You ask, Will, a thing difficult of achievement.'

'But gradually – little by little. One would never expect it all at once.'

'Ay, there we talk sense. But first, why hath Sir Peter behaved with this (apparent) harshness? I would not judge him hastily. Therefore I say, apparent.'

'Because he found out at last – my cousin Matthew told him – that I came here to play the fiddle. So he gave me the choice – either to give up the counting-house or to give up the music. And I gave up the counting-house, Tom. I don't care what happens so that I get out of the counting-house.'

'Good – lad – good.'

'And I drubbed my cousin – I paid him with his own stick. And here I am.'

He took my hand, his honest face beaming with satisfaction. At that moment, his sister Alice came back from making some purchases in the Borough High Street. 'Alice my dear,' he said, 'Will has been turned out of house and home by his father – sent out into the streets without a penny.'

Alice burst into tears.

When I think of Alice at that moment, my heart swells, my eyes grow humid. She was then fifteen, an age when the child and the woman meet, and one knows not whether to expect the one or the other. When Alice burst into tears it was the child who wept: she had always loved me with a childish unconsciousness: she was only beginning to understand that I was not her brother.

You know how sweet a flower will sometimes spring up in the most unlovely spot. Well: in this place, close to the Dog and Duck, with prodigals and rakes and painted Jezebels always before her eyes, this child grew up sweet and tender and white as the snow. I have never known any girl upon whom the continual sight – not to be concealed – of gross vice produced so little effect: it was as if the eyes of her soul involuntarily closed to the meaning of such things. Such sweetness, such purity, was stamped upon her face then as afterwards. Never, surely, was there a face that showed so plain and clear to read that the thoughts behind it were not earthly or common.

'It is the soul of music that possesses her,' said her brother once. 'She has imbibed that soul day by day. Will, 'tis a saintly child. Sometimes I fear that she may be carried away like Elijah.'

Well, when I saw those tears, I was seized with a kind of joyful compassion and, so to speak, happy shame, to think that those tears were for me. I drew her gently and kissed her.

'Why, nothing better could have happened to him. Thou little simpleton,' said her brother. Warming up with his subject, he became eloquent. 'He shall do much better – far better – than if he had stayed in the counting-house. He shall not be weighed down with a load of riches: he shall have to work in order to live – believe me, Will, Art must be forced by necessity: where there is no necessity there is no Art: when riches creep in, Art becomes a toy. Because he must work, therefore he will be stimulated to do great things. He shall never set his mind upon growing rich: he shall remain poor.'

'Not too poor,' said his wife gently. Indeed her poor shabby dress showed what she meant.

'Peace, woman. He shall be poor, I say. Happy lad! He shall be poor. He shall never have money in a stocking, and he shall never want any. He shall live like the sparrows, from day to day, fed by the bounty of the Lord.'

'Who loveth the Dog and Duck,' said his wife.

The husband frowned. 'To sum up, Will, thy lot shall be the happiest that the world can give. What?' He lifted his hand and his eyes grew brighter. 'For the musician the curse of labour is remitted: for him there is no longing after riches: for him there is no flattery of great men: for him there is no meanness; for him there are no base arts: for him there is no wriggling: for him there are no back stairs: for him there is no patron. – In a word, Will, the musician is the only free man in the world.'

'In the Rules, you mean, my dear.' This was his wife's correction.

'Will,' said Alice, 'shall you really become like Tom?'

'Truly, Alice, if I can.'

'Wife,' said Tom. 'Will shall stay with us. He can sleep in the garret. We must find a mattress somewhere.'

'Nay, but I must pay my footing. See, Tom. I have five guineas.' I showed this mine of wealth. He took one and gave it to his wife.

'Aha!' he laughed. 'Buy him a mattress and a blanket, wife. And this evening we will have a bowl of punch. Will, we shall fare like Kings and like the Great ones of the Earth.'

CHAPTER III

A WAY TO LIVE

I think that Tom Shirley was the most good-natured man in the whole world: the most ready to do anything he could for anybody: always cheerful: always happy: partly, I suppose, because he looked at everything through spectacles of imagination. He joined, however, to his passion for music another which belonged to a lower world: namely, for punch. Yet he was not an intemperate man: he showed neither purple cheeks, nor a double chin, nor a swollen neck, nor a rubicund nose – all of which were common sights on Change and in the streets of London. The reason why he displayed no signs of drink was that he could seldom gratify his passion for punch by reason of his poverty, and that in eating, which, I believe, also contributes its share to the puffing out of the neck and the painting of the nose, such as may be seen on Change, he was always as moderate, although he thought every meal a feast, as became his slender means.

I do not know how he got into the King's Bench, but the thing is so easy that one marvels that so many are able to keep out. They put him in and kept him there for a time, when he was enabled to obtain the privilege of the Rules. He was, as he boasted, always rich, because he thought he was rich. His wife took from him, every week, the whole of his wages, otherwise he would have given them away.

At one o'clock Alice laid the cloth and we had dinner. Tom lifted the knife and fork and held it over the cold boiled beef as if fearing to mar that delicate dish by a false or clumsy cut. 'Is there anything,' he said, 'more delicious to the palate than cold boiled beef? It must be cut delicately and with judgment – with judgment, Will.' He proceeded to exercise judgment. There was a cabbage on the table. 'This delicacy,' he said, 'is actually grown for us – for us – in the gardens of Lambeth Marsh. Remark the crispness of it: there is a solid heart for you: there is colour: there is flavour.' All this was, I remember, the grossest flattery. 'Oat cake,' he said, breaking a piece. 'Some, I believe, prefer wheaten bread. They do wrong. Viands must not be judged by their cost but by their fitness to others on the table, and by the season. Remember, Will, that with cold boiled beef, oat cake is your only eating.' He poured out some beer into a glass and held it up to the light. 'Watch the sparkles: hear the humming: strong October this' – it was the most common small beer – 'have a care, Will, have a care.' And so on, turning the simple meal into a banquet.

His wife and sister received these extravagances without a smile. They were used to them. The latter, at least, believed that they were the simple truth. The poor girl was innocently proud of her humble home, this cottage on St. George's Fields, within the Rules.

After dinner, we talked. As the subject was Music Tom was somewhat carried away; yet there was method in his madness.

'I said, lad, that there would be no Art if there were no necessity. 'Tis Poverty alone makes men became musicians and painters and poets. Where can you find a rich man who was ever a great artist? I am no scholar, but I have asked scholars this question, and they agree with me that riches destroy Art. Hardly may Dives become even a Connoisseur. He may become a general or a statesman: we do not take all from him: we leave him something – but not the best – that we keep for ourselves – we keep Art for ourselves. As for a rich merchant becoming a musician or a painter – it is impossible: one laughs at the very thought.'

'Well, that danger is gone, Tom, so far as I am concerned.'

'Ay. The reason I take it, is that Art demands the whole man – not a bit of him – the whole man – all his soul, all his mind, all his thoughts, all his strength. You must give all that to music, Will.'

'I ask nothing better.'

'Another reason is that Art raises a man's thoughts to a higher level than is wanted for Trade. It is impossible for a man's mind to soar or to sink according as he thinks of art or trade. You will remember, Will, for your comfort, that your mind is raised above the City.'

'I will remember.'

'Well, then, let us think about what is best to be done.'

He pondered a little. Then he smiled.

'Put pride in pocket, Will. Now what would you like?'

'To write great music.'

'A worthy ambition. It has been my own. It is not for me to say whether my songs, which are nightly sung at the Dog and Duck, are great music or not. Posterity may judge. Lad, it is one thing to love music – and another thing to compose it. The latter is given to few: the former to many. It may be that it is thy gift. But I know not. Meantime, we must live.'

'I will do anything.'

'Again – put pride in pocket. Now there is a riverside tavern at Bermondsey. It is a place for sailors and their Dolls. A rough and coarse place it is, at best. They want a fiddler from six o'clock till ten every night, and later on Saturdays.'

I heard with a shiver. To play in a sailors' tavern! It was my father's prophecy.

'Everybody must begin, Will. What? A sailors' tavern is no place for the son of a City merchant, is it? But that is gone. Thou art now nobody's son – a child of the gutter – the world is thine oyster – free of all ties – with neither brother nor cousin to say thee nay. Lucky dog! What? We must make a beginning – I say – in the gutter.'

His eyes twinkled and smiled, and I perceived without being told that he meant to try my courage. So, with a rueful countenance and a foolish sense of shame, I consented to sit in the corner of a sanded room in a common riverside tavern and to make music for common sailors and their sweethearts.

'Why,' said Tom, 'that is well. And now, my lad, remember. There are no better judges of a fiddle than sailors. They love their music as they love their lobscouse, hot and strong and plenty. Give it elbow, Will. They are not for fine fingering or for cunning strokes and effects – they like the tune to come out full and sweet. They will be thy masters. As for dancing, they like the time to be marked as well as the tune. Find out how they like to take it. There is one time for a hornpipe and another for a jig. As for pay – '

I will not complete the sentence. For such as myself there must be a Day of Small Things. But one need not confess how very small these things have been.

Thus it was that I found an Asylum – a City of Refuge – in the Rules of the King's Bench, when I was turned out by my own people. And in this way I became that despised and contemptible object, a Common Fiddler. I played, not without glory, every night, to a company as low as could be found. At least, I thought so at the time. Later on, it is true, I found a lower company still. And I dare say there are assemblies of men and women even lower. My fellows, at least, were honest, and their companions were, at least, what the men had made them.

We settled the business that very afternoon, walking over to Bermondsey. The landlord said I was very young, but if I could fiddle he did not mind that, only it must be remembered in the pay. So I was engaged to begin the next day. In the evening I went with Tom to the Dog and Duck where he played first fiddle in the Orchestra, and sat in the musicians' gallery. About this place more anon. At twelve o'clock the music ceased and I walked home with Tom. I remember, it was then a fine clear night in September: the wind blew chill across the marshes: it had come up with the flow of the river: the moon was riding high: a strange elation possessed my soul: for my independence was beginning: four guineas in my pocket: and a place with so many shillings a week to live upon: nothing to do but to work at music: and to live with the best-hearted man in the whole world.

We got home. Alice had gone to bed. Tom's wife was sitting up for us, the bowl of punch was ready for us, not too big a bowl, because Tom's weakness where punch was concerned was well known. He drank my success in one glass: my future operas and oratorios in the second: my joyful independence in the third: and my happy release in the fourth. That finished the bowl and we went to bed.

CHAPTER IV

LOVE AND MUSIC

You need not be told how I lived for the next three or four years. I took what came. Pride remained in pocket. I fiddled a wedding-party to church and home again. I fiddled the Company of Fellowship Porters through the streets when they held their yearly feast. I fiddled for sailors; I fiddled at beanfeasts; I fiddled for Free Masons; I fiddled in taverns; I fiddled here and there and everywhere, quite unconcerned, even though I was playing in the gallery of a City company's hall, and actually saw my cousin sitting in state among the guests at the feast below, and knew that he saw me and rejoiced at the sight, in his ignorance of the consolations of music.

Nothing in those days came amiss to me. One who makes music for his livelihood has no cause to be ashamed of playing for anyone. It does not seem an occupation such as one would choose, to spend the evening in a chair, stuck in a corner out of the way, in a stinking room, for rough fellows to dance hornpipes: the work does not lift up the soul to the level which Tom Shirley claimed for the musician. But this was only the pot-boiling work. I had the mornings to myself, when I could practise and attempt composition. Besides, at eighteen, the present, if one belongs to a calling which has a career, is of very little importance: the real life lies before: the boy lives for the future. I was going, in those days, to be a great composer like Handel. I was going to write oratorios such as his: majestic, where majesty was wanted: tender, where love and pity must be depicted: devout, where piety was called for. I would write, besides, in my ambition, such things as were written by Purcell and Arne: anthems for the church: songs and madrigals and rounds and catches such as those with which my patron Tom Shirley delighted his world.

The profession of music is one which can only be followed by those who have the gift of music. That is the definition of any Art: it can only be followed by those who have the gift of that Art. In any other calling a man may serve after a fashion, who hath not been called thereto. Many men, for example, are divines who have neither learning nor eloquence nor – the Lord help them! – religion. Many lawyers have no love for the law. Many merchants hate the counting-house. But in music no one can serve at all unless he is a musician born. He who, without the gift, would try to enter the profession breaks down at the outset, seeing that he cannot even learn to play an instrument with feeling, ease, or judgment. Nay, there are distinct ranks of music, to each of which one is raised by Nature, as much as by study. Thus, you have at the bottom, the rank and file, namely, those who can play a single instrument: next, those who can compose and make simple music for songs, in which all that is wanted is a tuneful and spirited air with an ordinary accompaniment: next those who understand harmony and can make music of a higher character, such as anthems, part-songs, and so forth. Lastly, you have the composer in whose brains lies the knowledge of every instrument in the orchestra. He is the King of musicians: from him come the noble oratorios which delight our age and lift our souls to Heaven: from him come the masses which are sung – I have the scores of several – in Cathedrals of Roman Catholic countries. It is not for an Englishman to admire aught that belongs to Rome: but we must at least concede to the Roman Catholic the possession of noble music.

This, then, was my ambition. For four years I continued to live with my friend Tom Shirley. I held no communication with my father or any of my own people. None of them made any attempt at reconciliation. I believe they were honestly ashamed of me. The new friends I made were good and faithful: musical people have ever kindly hearts, and are loyal to each other: they do not backbite: there is no room for envy where one man plays the fiddle and another the cornet: we are all a company of brothers.

The time came when it was no longer necessary for me to play at taverns for the sailors: when I was no longer compelled to attend weddings. I obtained, one after the other, two posts, neither of which was a very great thing, but both together made it possible for me to live in some comfort. The first was that of organist at St. George's in the Borough. I had to attend the service and to play the organ twice on Sunday: the week day services and the Gift Lectures were conducted without any singing. The Church contains, I believe, the most fashionable congregation of South London, and therefore the most critical. I do not think, however, that, while I sat in the organ-loft, they had any reason to complain either of music or of choir. There sat with me in the organ-loft, Alice, who possessed a sweet, clear, and strong voice: her brother Tom, who brought into the choir an excellent tenor: Mr. Ramage, one of my father's clerks, who lodged behind the Marshal-sea, gave us a bass of indifferent quality, though he was now past fifty. Half a dozen boys and girls from the Charity School, of no great account for voices, made up our choir. I believe it was better than the average, and I think that people came on Sunday morning on purpose to hear the organ and the singing.

Mr. Ramage, or Ramage, as he was called in the Counting-house, where no title is allowed to any below the rank of partner or partner's son, kept me acquainted with events in College Street and on the wharf. My father, it was understood, never mentioned my name: the business of the Firm was never more flourishing: Mr. Matthew was constantly called in for consultations. 'And oh! Master Will,' my old friend always concluded, 'be reconciled. What is it – to give up playing the organ at Church? Why – it is nothing. Someone else will play while you sit in state in your red velvet pew below. Give way to your father. He is a hard man, but he is just.'

It also appeared from Mr. Ramage's information that it was perfectly well known by the clerks and by Mr. Matthew, who doubtless told my father, the ways by which I had been making a living: I had been seen by one marching ahead of a sailor's wedding-party: by another fiddling in the Bermondsey Tavern: by a third in the Gallery of a City Company Hall. The Counting-house down to the messengers was humiliated: there was but one feeling among the clerks: I had brought disgrace upon the House.

'They are sorry, Master Will, for your father's sake. It is hard for him: so proud a man – with so much to be proud of – a quarter of a million, some say. Think how hard it is for him.'

'It is harder for me Ramage,' I replied, 'to be driven to fiddle for sailors, when all I ask is to be allowed to follow music in peace. However, tell the clerks that I am sorry to have disgraced them.'