The Orange Girl

  CHAPTER I

  RELEASE

  You have read how a certain lady came to the Prison: how she spoke withtwo prisoners of the baser sort in a manner familiar and yet scornful:and how she addressed me and appeared moved and astonished on hearing myname. I thought little more about her, save as an agreeable vision inthe midst of the rags and sordidness of the Prison, now growingdaily--alas!--more familiar and less repulsive. For this is the way inthe King's Bench.

  She came, however, a second time, and this time she came to visit me. Itwas in the morning. Alice was in my room; with her the boy, now in hissecond year, so strong that he could not be kept from pulling himself upby the help of a chair. She was showing me his ways and his tricks,rejoicing in the wilfulness and strength of the child. I was watchingand listening, my pride and happiness in the boy dashed by the thoughtthat he must grow up to be ashamed of his father as a prison bird.Prison has no greater sting than the thought of your children's shame.For the time went on and day after day only made release appear moreimpossible. How could I get out who had no friends and could save nomoney? I had now been in prison for nearly a year: I began to look fornothing more than to remain there for all my life.

  While I was looking at the boy and sadly thinking of these things, Iheard a quick, light step outside, followed by a gentle tap at the door.And lo! there entered the lady who had spoken with those two sons ofBelial and with me.

  'I said I would come again.' She smiled, and it was as if the sunshinepoured into the room. She gave me her hand and it was like a handdragging me out of the Slough of Despond. 'Your room,' she said, 'is notso bad, considering the place. This lady is your wife? Madam, your mostrespectful.'

  So she curtseyed low and Alice did the like. Then she saw the child.

  'Oh!' she cried. 'The pretty boy! The lovely boy!' She snatched him andtossed him crowing and laughing, and covered him with kisses. 'Oh! Thelight, soft, silky hair!' she cried. 'Oh! the sweet blue eyes! Oh! thepretty face. Master Will Halliday, you are to be envied even in thisplace. Your cousin Matthew hath no such blessing as this.'

  'Matthew is not even married.'

  'Indeed? Perhaps, if he is, this, as well as other blessings, has beendenied him,' she replied, with a little change in her face as if a cloudhad suddenly fallen. But it quickly passed.

  I could observe that Alice regarded her visitor with admiration andcuriosity. This was a kind of woman unknown to my girl, who knew nothingof the world or of fine ladies: they were outside her own experience.The two women wore a strange contrast to each other. Alice with herserious air of meditation, and her grave eyes, might have sat to apainter for the Spirit of Music, or for St. Cecilia herself: or indeedfor any saint, or muse, or heathen goddess who must show in her face aheavenly sweetness of thought, with holy meditation. All the purity andtenderness of religion lay always in the face of Alice. Our visitor, onthe other hand, would have sat more fitly for the Queen of Love, or theSpirit of Earthly Love. Truly she was more beautiful than any otherwoman whom I had ever seen, or imagined. I thought her beautiful on thestage, but then her face was covered with the crimson paint by whichactresses have to spoil their cheeks. Off the stage, it was the beautyof Venus herself: a beauty which invited love: a beauty altogether soft:in every point soft and sweet and caressing: eyes that were limpid andsoft: a blooming cheek which needed no paint, which was as soft asvelvet and as delicately coloured as a peach: lips smiling, rosy red andsoft: her hands: her voice: her laugh: everything about this heavenlycreature, I say, invited and compelled and created love.

  You think that as one already sworn to love and comfort another woman, Ispeak with reprehensible praise. Well, I have already confessed--it isnot a confession of shame--that I loved her from the very first: fromthe time when she spoke to me first. I am not ashamed of loving her:Alice knows that I have always loved her: you shall hear, presently, whyI need not be ashamed and why I loved her, if I may say so, as a sister.It is possible to love a woman without thoughts of earthly love: toadmire her loveliness: to respect her: to worship her: yet not as anearthly lover. Such love as Petrarch felt for Laura I felt for thissweet and lovely woman.

  She gave back the child to his mother. 'Mr. Will Halliday,' she said.'It is not only for the child that thou art blessed above othermen'--looking so intently upon Alice that the poor girl blushed and wasconfused. 'Sure,' she said, 'it is a face which I have seen in apicture.'

  She was a witch: she drew all hearts to her: yet not, like Circe, totheir ruin and undoing. And if she was soft and kind of speech, she wasalso generous of heart. She was always, as I was afterwards to find out,helping others. How she helped me you shall hear. Meantime I must notforget that her face showed a most remarkable virginal innocence. Itseemed natural to her face: a part of it, that it should proclaim aperfect maidenly innocence of soul. I know that many things have beensaid about her; for my own part I care to know nothing more about herthan she herself has been pleased to tell me. I choose to believe thatthe innocence in her face proclaimed the innocence of her life. And,with this innocence, a face which was always changing with every moodthat crossed her mind: moved by every touch of passion: sensitive as anAeolian harp to every breath of wind.

  She sat down on the bed. 'I told you that I would come again,' she said.'Do not take me for a curious and meddlesome person. Madam,' she turnedto Alice, 'I come because I know something about your husband's cousin,Matthew. If you will favour me, I should like to know the meaning ofthis imprisonment, and what Matthew has to do with it.'

  So I told the whole story: the clause in my father's will: the attemptmade to persuade me to sell my chance of the succession: the threatsused by Mr. Probus: the alleged debt for his harpsichord: and thealleged debt to one John Merridew.

  She heard the whole patiently. Then she nodded her head.

  'Probus I know, though he does not, happily, know me. Of the manMerridew also I know something. He is a sheriff's officer by trade; buthe has more trades than one. Probus is an attorney; but he, too, hasmore trades than one. My friends, this is the work of Probus. I seeProbus in it from the beginning. I conjecture that Merridew, for someconsideration, has borrowed money from Probus more than he can repay.Therefore, he has to do whatever Probus orders.'

  'Mr. Probus is Matthew's attorney.'

  'Yes. An attorney does not commit crimes for his client, unless he iswell paid for it. I do not know what it means except that Matthew wantsmoney, which does not surprise me----'

  'Matthew is a partner in the House of Halliday Brothers. He has beside alarge fortune which should have been mine.'

  'Yet Matthew may want money. I am not a lawyer, but I suppose that ifyou sell your chance to him, he can raise money on the succession.'

  'I suppose so.'

  'Probus must want money too. Else he would not have committed the crimeof imprisoning you on a false charge of debt. Well, we need not wastetime in asking why. The question is, first of all, how to get you out.'

  Alice clutched her little one to her heart and her colour vanished, bywhich I understood the longing that was in her.

  'To get me out? Madam; I have no friends in the world who could raiseten pounds.'

  'Nevertheless, Mr. Will, a body may ask how much is wanted to get youout.'

  'There is the alleged debt for the harpsichord of fifty-five pounds:there is also the alleged debt due to Mr. John Merridew of fifty pounds:there are the costs: and there are the fines or garnish without whichone cannot leave the place.'

  'Say, perhaps in all, a hundred and fifty pounds. It is not much. Ithink I can find a man'--she laughed--'who, out of his singular love toyou, will give the money to take you out.'

  'You know a man? Madame, I protest--there is no one, in the wholeworld--who would do such a thing.'

  'Yet if I assure you----'

  'Oh! Madame! Will!' Alice fell on her knees and clasped her hand. 'See!It is herself! herself!'

  "ALICE FELL ON HER KNEES AND CLASPED HER HAND."]

  'But why?--why?' I aske
d incredulous.

  'Because she is all goodness,' Alice cried, the tears rolling down herface.

  'All goodness!' Madame laughed. 'Yes, I am indeed all goodness. Get updear woman. And go on thinking that, if you can. All goodness!' And shelaughed scornfully. 'A hundred and fifty pounds,' she repeated. 'Yes, Ithink I know where to get this money.'

  'Are we dreaming?' I asked.

  'But, Will,' she became very serious, 'I must be plain with you. It iscertain to me that the man Probus has got some hold over your cousin.Otherwise he would not be so impatient for you to sell your reversion.Some day I will show you why I think this. Learn, moreover, that the manProbus is a man of one passion only. He wants money: he wants nothingelse: it is his only desire to get money. If anybody interferes with hismoney getting, he will grind that man to powder. You have interferedwith him: he has thrust you into prison. Do not believe that when youare out he will cease to persecute you.'

  'What am I to do, then?'

  'If you come to terms with him he will at once cease his persecution.'

  'Come to terms with him?'

  'His terms must mean a great sum of money for himself, not for you--orfor your cousin. Else he would not be so eager.'

  'I can never accept his terms,' I said.

  'He will go on, then. If it is a very large sum of money he will stickat nothing.'

  'Then what am I to do?'

  'Keep out of his way. For, believe me, there is nothing that he will notattempt to get you once more in his power. Consider: he put you in here,knowing that you are penniless. He calculates that the time will comewhen you will be so broken by imprisonment that you will be ready tomake any terms. Nay--he thinks that the prison air will kill you.'

  'The Lord will protect us,' said Alice.

  Madame looked up with surprise. 'They say that on the stage,' she said.'What does it mean?'

  'It means that we are all in the hands of the Lord. Without His will noteven a sparrow falleth to the ground.'

  Madame shook her head. 'At least,' she said, 'we must do what we can toprotect ourselves.' She rose. 'I am going now to get that money. Youshall hear from me in a day or two. Perhaps it may take a week beforeyou are finally released. But keep up your hearts.'

  She took the child again and kissed him. Then she gave him back to hismother.

  'You are a good woman,' she said. 'Your face is good: your voice isgood: what you say is good. But, remember. Add to what you call theprotection of the Lord a few precautions. To stand between such an oneas Probus and the money that he is hunting is like standing between atigress and her prey. He will have no mercy: there is no wickedness thathe will hesitate to devise: what he will do next, I know not, but itwill be something that belongs to his master, the Devil.'

  'The Lord will protect us,' Alice repeated, laying her hand on theflaxen hair of her child.

  We stared at each other, when she was gone. 'Will,' asked Alice, withsuffused eyes and dropping voice. 'Is she an angel from Heaven?'

  'An angel, doubtless--but not from Heaven--yet. My dear, it is theactress who charmed us when we went to the Play--on our wedding-day. Itis Miss Jenny Wilmot herself.'

  'Oh! If all actresses are like her! Yet they say----Will, she shallhave, at least, our prayers----'

  * * * * *

  Three or four days later--the time seemed many years--an attorney cameto see me. Not such an attorney as Mr. Probus: a gentleman of opencountenance and pleasant manners. He came to tell me that my businesswas done, and that after certain dues were paid--which were providedfor--I could walk out of the prison.

  'Sir,' I said, I beg you to convey to Miss Jenny Wilmot, mybenefactress, my heartfelt gratitude.'

  'I will, Mr. Halliday. I perceive that you know her name. Let me beg younot to wait upon her in person. To be sure, she has left Drury Lane andyou do not know her present address. It is enough that she has been ableto benefit you, and that you have sent her a becoming message ofgratitude. But, Sir, one word of caution. She bids you remember that youhave an implacable enemy. Take care, therefore, take care.'