The Orange Girl

Now, one afternoon in the month of June, when the counting-house is more than commonly terrible, a message came to me that my father wished to speak with me.

I found him in his own room, his brother Paul sitting with him. His face showed astonishment and anger; that of his brother presented some appearance of sorrow – real or not, I cannot say. My uncle Paul was, as often happens in a family, a reduced copy of his elder brother. He was not so tall: not so portly: not so red in the face: not so swollen in the neck: yet he was tall and portly and red and swollen. He was shaking his head as I entered saying, 'Dear! dear! dear! And in our family too – in our family!'

'Son William,' said my father, 'I have heard a serious thing.'

'What is that, Sir, if I may ask?'

'I learn from my brother, who had it from Matthew – '

'From Matthew,' my uncle interposed solemnly.

'That you lose no opportunity of getting away from your desk to go on board our ships in the Pool, there to play the fiddle with the common sailors – to play the fiddle – the common fiddle – like a fellow with a bear – with the common sailors. I hear that our Captains and officers are all acquainted with this unworthy pastime of yours! I hear, further, that you have formed an acquaintance with a certain fellow named Shirley, now a prisoner in the Rules of the King's Bench, one who makes a sinful living by playing wanton music for lewd and wicked persons at what are called Pleasure Gardens, whither resort such company as no godly youth should meet. And I hear that you spend such time as you can spare under the tuition of this person.'

He stopped. My uncle took up the word.

'All these things I am assured by my son Matthew to be the case. I have informed Matthew that in my opinion it was right and even necessary that they should be brought before the notice of my brother.'

'I wait thy reply, Will,' said my father.

'It is all quite true, Sir.'

'Quite true.' I felt a little sinking of the heart because of the disappointment and sadness in his voice. 'But,' he went on, 'what is the meaning of it? For my own part I see no good purpose to be gained by music. On the other hand my grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Halliday, hath clearly shown in his book of godly discourses, that music, especially music with dancing, is the surest bait by which the devil draws souls to destruction. People, I am aware, will have music. At our Company's feasts music attends: at the Lord Mayor's banquets there is music: at the Lord Mayor's Show there is music: at many churches there is an organ: but what hast thou to do with music, Will? It is thy part to become a merchant, bent on serious work: and outside the counting-house to become a magistrate. What hast thou to do with music?'

He spoke, being much moved, kindly – because – alas! he loved his son.

'Sir,' I said, 'it is all most true. There is nothing that I love so much as music.'

'Consider,' he went on. 'There is no place for music in the life before thee. All day long learning thy work in the counting-house: some time to succeed me in this room. How is it possible for a young man who stoops to make music on catgut with a bow to become a serious merchant, respected in the City?'

'Indeed, Sir, I do not know,'

'How will it be possible for you to advance the interests of the House – nay, to maintain the interests of the House, when it is known that you are a common scraper in a crowd like a one-legged man with a Jack in the Green?'

Now I might even then have submitted and promised and given up my fiddle and so pleased my father and remained in his favour. But this was one of those moments which are turning-points in a man's life. Besides I was young; I was inexperienced. And an overwhelming disgust fell upon my soul as I thought of the counting-house and the ledgers and the long hours in the dingy place driving the quill all day long. So without understanding what the words meant, I broke out impatiently:

'Sir,' I said, 'with submission, I would ask your leave to give up my place in this office.'

'Give up? Give up?' he cried, growing purple in the face. 'Does the boy know what he means?'

'Give up?' cried my uncle. 'Is the boy mad? Give up his prospects in this House – this – the soundest House in the whole City? Nephew Will, wouldst starve?'

'I will make a living by music.'

'Make a living – a living – make a living – by music? What? To play the fiddle in a tavern? To play in the gallery while your father is feasting below?'

'Nay, sir; but there are other ways.'

'Hark ye, Will; let this stop. Back to thy desk lest something happen.' My father spoke with sudden sternness.

'Nay, sir; but I am serious.'

'Ay – ay? Serious? Then I am serious, too. Understand, then, that I own no son who disgraces the City family to which he belongs by becoming a common musician. Choose. Take thy fiddle and give up me – this office – thine inheritance – thine inheritance, mind, or lay down the fiddle and go back to thy desk. There, sir, I am, I hope, serious enough.'

He was. My father was a masterful man at all times; he was perfectly serious. Now the sons of masterful men are themselves often masterful. I walked out of the counting-house without a word.

I am conscious that there is no excuse for a disobedient son. I ought to have accepted any orders that my father might choose to lay upon me. But to part with my fiddle, to give up music: to abandon that sweet refreshment of the soul: oh! it was too much.

Moreover, no one knew better than myself the inveterate hatred with which my father and the whole of my family regarded what they called the tinkling cymbal which they thought leads souls to destruction. Had I seen any gleam of hope that there would be a relenting, I would have waited. But there was none. Therefore I cast obedience to the winds, and left the room without a word.

Had I known what awaited me: the misfortunes which were to drag me down almost unto a shameful death, in consequence of this act of disobedience, I might have given way.

But perhaps not: for in all my troubles there were two things which cheered and sustained me, I enjoyed at all times, so you shall learn, the support of love and the refreshment of music.

Had my father known of these misfortunes would he have given way? I doubt it. Misfortune does not destroy the soul, but music does. So he would say and so think, and conduct his relations with his own accordingly.

I walked out of the counting-house. At the door I met, face to face, the informer, my cousin Matthew, who had caused all this trouble.

He was attired as becomes a responsible merchant, though as yet only a clerk or factor with the other clerks. He wore a brown coat with silver buttons: white silk stockings: silver buckles in his shoes: silver braid upon his hat: a silver chain with seals hanging from his fob: with white lace ruffles and neckerchief as fine as those of his father, or of any merchant on Change.

He met me, I say, face to face, and for the first time within my knowledge, he grinned when he met me. For he knew what had been said to me. He grinned with a look of such devilish glee that I understood for the first time how much he hated me. Why? I had never crossed him. Because I was the son of the senior partner whose place I was to take and of the richer man of the two Partners. His would be the subordinate position with a third only of the profits. Therefore my cousin hated me. He, I say, noted my discomfiture. Now, at that moment, I was in no mood for mockery.

Something in my face stopped his grinning. He became suddenly grave: he dropped his eyes: he made as if he would pass by me and so into the house.

'Villain and maker of mischief!' I cried. Then I fell upon him. I had but fists: he had a stick: I was eighteen: he was five-and-twenty: he was heavier and taller: well; there is little credit, because he was a poor fighter: in two minutes I had his stick from him, and in three more I had broken it over his head and his shoulders. However, had his wind and his strength equalled his hatred and desire that the stick should be broken over my shoulders instead of his, the result would have been different.

'You shall pay – you shall pay – you shall pay for this,' he gasped, lying prostrate.

I kicked him out of my way as if he had been a dog and strode off, my cheek aflame, my hand trembling and my limbs stiffened with the joy of the fight and the victory. Come what might, I had whipped my cousin, like the cur he was. A thing to remember.

I have never repented that act of justice. The memory of it brought many woes upon me, but I have never repented or regretted it. And certain I am that to the day of his miserable death Matthew never forgot it. Nor did I.

CHAPTER II

A CITY OF REFUGE

My last recollection of the counting-house is that of Matthew lying in a heap and shaking his fist, at me, while, behind, my uncle's face looks out amazed upon the spectacle from one door, and the clerks in a crowd contemplate the discomfiture of Mr. Matthew from another door. Then I strode off, I say, like a gamecock after a victory, head erect, cheek flushed, legs straight. Ha! I am always glad that I drubbed my cousin, just once. A righteous drubbing it was, too, if ever there was one. It hanselled the new life. After it, there was no return possible.

And so home – though the house in College Street could no longer be called a home – I now had no home – I was turned into the street. However, I went upstairs to my own room – mine no longer. I looked about. In the cupboard I found a black box in which I placed everything I could call my own: my music; my linen and my clothes. On the wall hung the miniature of my mother. Happily she had not lived to see the banishment of her son: this I put in my pocket. The fiddle I laid in its case. Then with my cudgel under my arm and carrying the fiddle in one hand and the box on my shoulder I descended the stairs – now, I must confess, with a sinking heart – and found myself in the street.

I had in my purse five guineas – the son of a most solid and substantial merchant, and I had no more than five guineas in the world. What could I do to earn a living? Since I had been for two years in my father's counting house I might be supposed to know something of affairs. Alas! I knew nothing. One art or accomplishment I possessed: and one alone. I could play the fiddle. Now that I had to depend upon my playing for a livelihood, I began to ask whether I could play well enough. At all events, I could play vigorously. But the die was cast. I had made my choice, and must make the best of it. Besides, had I not drubbed my cousin Matthew and that, as they say, with authority?

You have heard how my father accused me of intimacy with a person named Shirley, a resident in the Rules of the King's Bench. That charge I could not deny. Indeed, the person named Shirley, by all his friends called Tom, had been of late my master. Every spare hour that I had was spent with him, practising with him and learning from him. He taught a finer style than I could learn from the sailors. When I went into the counting-house I had no longer any spare hours, except in the evening, and then my master was engaged earning his bread in an orchestra. Still I could manage to visit him sometimes on Sunday evenings when my father was generally occupied with friends who loved likewise to limit and make as narrow as they could the mercies of the Almighty.

At this moment I could think of no one except Tom Shirley who could help me or advise me.

I therefore lugged my box and my violin to the Three Cranes, and took boat across to Moldstrand Stairs, from which it is an easy half mile by pleasant lanes, Love Lane and Gravel Lane, past Looman's Pond to St. George's Fields where Tom Shirley lived.

It was a little after noon when I arrived at the house. It was one of three or four cottages standing in a row, every cottage consisting of four or five rooms. They are pleasing retreats, each having a small front garden where lilacs, laburnums, hollyhock, sunflowers, tulips, and other flowers and bushes grow. In front of the garden flows languidly one of the many little streams which cross the fields and meadows of Southwark: a rustic bridge with a single hand-rail crosses the stream.