The Orange Girl

Every one breathed relief. No one, then, of that company was wanted. The Captain sat down and drank off a whole glass of punch: the rest of the men looked at each other as sailors might look whose ship has just scraped 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 glass 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 glass 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 passed 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 glass after glass, 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 glass: 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!

CHAPTER VI

A WARNING AND ANOTHER OFFER

As soon as we had once more found the means of keeping ourselves we went back to our former abode under the shadow of Lambeth Church on the Bank looking over the river on one side and over the meadows and orchards of Lambeth Marsh on the other. The air which sweeps up the river with every tide is fresh and strong and pure; good for the child, not to speak of the child's mother, while the people, few in number, are generally honest though humble: for the most part they are fishermen.

Here I should have been happy but for the thought, suggested by Jenny, that my cousin and his attorney Probus were perhaps devising some new means of persecution, and that the man Merridew, who had perjured himself concerning me already, whose sinister face I had gazed upon with terror, so visibly was the mark of Cain stamped upon it, was but a tool of the attorney.

Yet what could they devise? If they swore between them another debt, my patron Jenny promised to provide me with the help of a lawyer. What else could they do? It is a most miserable feeling that someone in the world is plotting your destruction, you know not how.

However, on Sunday afternoon – it was in November, when the days are already short, we had a visit from my father's old clerk, Ramage.

He was restless in his manner: he was evidently in some anxiety of mind. After a few words he began:

'Mr. Will,' he said, 'I have much to say. I have come, I fear, to tell you something that will make you uneasy.'

'I will leave you alone,' said Alice, taking up the child.

'No, Madam, no, I would rather that you heard. You may advise. Oh! Madam, I never thought the day would come that I should reveal my master's secrets. I eat his bread; I take his wages: and I am come here to betray his most private affairs.'

'Then do not betray them, Mr. Ramage,' said Alice. 'Follow your own conscience.'

'It ought to be your bread and your wages, Mr. Will, and would have been but for tales and inventions. Sir, in a word, there is villainy afloat – '

'What kind of villainy?'

'I know all they do. Sir, there is that sum of one hundred thousand pounds in the hands of trustees, payable to the survivor of you two. That is the bottom of the whole villainy. Well, they are mad to make you sell your chance.'

'I know that.'

'Mr. Matthew, more than a year ago, offered Mr. Probus a thousand pounds if he could persuade you to sell it for three thousand.'

'That is why he was so eager.' This was exactly how Jenny read the business.

'Yes, he reported that you would not sell, he said that if it was made worth his while, he would find a way to make you.'

'That is why he put me in the King's Bench, I suppose?'

'That was agreed upon between them. Sir, if ever there was an infamous conspiracy, this was one. Probus invented it. He said that he would keep you there till you rotted; he said that when you had been there four or five months you would be glad to get out on any terms. You were there for a year or more. Probus sent people to report how you were looking. He told Mr. Matthew with sorrow that you were looking strong and hearty. Then you were taken out. They were furious. They knew not who was the friend. An attorney named Dewberry had done it. That was all they could find out. I know not what this Mr. Dewberry said to Mr. Probus, but certain I am that they will not try that plan any more.'

'I am glad to hear so much.'

'Mr. Will, there is more behind. I know very well what goes on, I say. A little while after the death of your father, when the Alderman retired and Mr. Matthew was left sole active partner, he began to borrow money of Mr. Probus, who came often to see him. I could hear all they said from my desk in the corner of the outer counting-house.'

'Ay! Ay! I remember your desk.'

'Sitting there I heard every word. And I am glad, Mr. Will – I ought to be ashamed, but I am glad that I listened. Well. He began to borrow money of Mr. Probus at 15 per cent, on the security of the business. Anyone would lend money to such a house at 10 per cent. He said he wanted to put the money into the business; to buy new ships and to develop it. This made me suspicious. Why? Because our House, in your father's time, Sir, wanted no fresh capital; it developed and grew on its own capital. This I knew. The business wanted no new capital. What did he borrow the money for then?'

'I know not, indeed.'

'He bought no new ships: he never meant to buy any. Mr. Will, to my certain knowledge' – here his voice deepened to a whisper, 'he wanted for some reason or other more ready money. I am certain that he has got through all the money that your father left him: I know that he has sold some of the ships: he has mortgaged the rest; the business of the House decays and sinks daily; he has got rid of all the money that Mr. Probus advanced him. It was £25,000, for which he is to pay 15 per cent. on £40,000. 'Tis a harpy – a shark – a common rogue!'

'How has he lost this money?' I pretended not to know: but, as you have heard, I knew, perfectly well.

'That, Sir, I cannot tell you. I have no knowledge how a man can, in three years, get through such an amazing amount of money and do so much mischief to an old established business. But the case is as I tell you.'

'This is very serious, Ramage. Does my uncle know?'

'He does not, Sir. That poor man will be a bankrupt in his old age. It will kill him. It will kill him. And I must not tell him. Remember that most of what I tell you is what I overheard.'

'I think that my uncle ought to know.' I remembered Jenny's advice. Here was another opportunity. I should have told him. But I neglected this chance as well.