Part 21 (2/2)

What hope is there for them? See,' she took one of the pictures out and gave it to me. By the firelight I made out a little girl standing in the street. In her carriage there was something of the freedom of a gipsy in the woods: her hair blew loose in the wind, her scanty petticoat clung to her little figure: she was bare-legged, bare-footed, bare-headed.

'Can you see it, Will? Well--when I had got all the pictures together, I asked the artist to sit down, as I have asked you to-day. And when he was sat down, I had the bundle of pictures in my hand, and I said to him, ”My Lord, this is a very pretty sketch--I like it all the better because it shows what I was like at that age.” ”You, Jenny?” ”Yes, my Lord, I myself. That little girl is myself.” ”Well!” he cried out on the impossibility of the thing. But I a.s.sured him of the truth of what I said. Then I took up the next picture. It represented the entrance of a court in Soho. Round this entrance were gathered a collection of men and women with the most evil faces possible. ”These, my Lord,” I said, ”are the people who were once my companions when they and I were young together.” ”But not now?” he asked. ”Not now,” I told him, ”save that they all remember me and consider me as one of themselves and come to the Theatre in order to applaud me: the highwaymen going to the pit; the petty thieves and pickpockets and footpads to the gallery.” Well, at first he looked serious. Then he cleared up and kissed my hand: he loved me for myself, he said, and as regards the highwaymen and such fellows, he would very soon take me out of their way.'

'But, Jenny----'

'Will, I am telling you what I told his Lords.h.i.+p. Believe me, it does not cost me to tell you half as much as it did to tell that n.o.ble heart. For he loved me, Will, and I loved him.' Again her eyes glistened by the red light of the fire.

She took up a third picture. It represented a public-house. Over the door swung the sign of a Black Jack: the first story projected over the ground-floor, and the second story over the first: beside the public-house stood a tall church.

'This,' I told my Lord, 'is the Black Jack tavern. It is the House of Call for most of the rogues and thieves of Soho. The church is St.

Giles's Church. As for my own interest in the house, I was born there: my mother and sister still keep the place between them: it is in good repute among the gentry who frequent it for its kitchen, where there is always a fire for those who cook their own suppers, and for the drinks, which are excellent, if not cheap. What is the use of keeping cheap things for thieves? Lightly got, lightly spent. There is nothing cheap at that House. My mother enjoys a reputation for being a Receiver of Stolen Goods--a reputation well deserved, as I have reason to believe.

The Goods are all stowed away in a stone vault or cellar once belonging to some kind of house--I know not what.'

I groaned.

'That is how my Lord behaved. Then he kissed my hand again. ”Jenny,” he said, ”it is not the landlady of the Black Jack that I am marrying, but Jenny Wilmot.” He asked me to tell him more. Will you hear more?'

'I will hear all you desire to tell me, Jenny.'

'Once I had a father. He was a gipsy, but since he had fair hair and blue eyes, he was not a proper gipsy. I do not know how he got into the caravan with the gipsies. Perhaps he was stolen in infancy: or picked up on a doorstep. However, I do not remember him. My mother speaks of him with pride, but I do not know why. By profession he was a footpad and--and'--she faltered for a moment--'he met the fate that belongs to that calling. See!' She showed me a drawing representing the Triumphal March to Tyburn. 'My mother speaks of it as if it was the fitting end of a n.o.ble career. I have never been quite able to think so too, and Will, if I must confess, I would rather that my father had not been----'

'Not formed the leading figure in that procession,' I interposed. 'But go on, Jenny.'

She took up another picture and handed it to me. It was a spirited sketch representing a small crowd; a pump; and a boy held under the pump.

'I had two brothers. This was one. He was a pickpocket. What could be expected? He was caught in the act and held under a pump. But they kept him so long that it brought on a chill and he died. The other brother is now in the Plantations of Jamaica.'

She produced another picture. It represented an Orange Girl at Drury Lane. She carried her basket of oranges on her arm: she had a white kerchief over her neck and shoulders and another over her head: her face was full of impudence, cleverness and wit.

'That, Will, is the first step upwards of your cousin's wife. From the gutter to the pit of Drury Lane as an Orange girl. There was a step for me! Yes. I looked like that: I behaved like that: I was as shameless as that: I used to talk to the men in the Pit as they talk--you know the kind of talk. And now, Will, confess: you are heartily ashamed of me.'

'Jenny!' Like the n.o.ble Lord, I kissed her fingers. 'Believe me, I am not in the least ashamed of you.'

'The next step was to the stage. That, Will, was pure luck. The Manager heard me imitating the actors and actresses--and himself. He saw me dancing to please the other girls--I used to dance to please the people in the Black Jack. He took a fancy in his head that I was clever. He took me from among the other girls: he gave me instruction: and presently a speaking part. That is the whole history. I have told you all--I never told these things to Matthew--why should I? But to my Lord, I told all----'

'Yes--and he was not ashamed.'

'No--but he did not like the applause of the rogues, and the orange girls. While the highwaymen applauded in the pit and the pickpockets in the Gallery, the Orange Girls were telling all the people that once I was one of them with my basket of oranges like the rest--and so it was agreed that I was to leave the stage and go away into the country out of the way of all the old set.'

'And then.'

'Then I could no longer oblige my Lord. I left it to oblige myself and to marry Matthew.'

She sat down and buried her face in her hands. 'But I loved my Lord,'

she said. 'I loved my Lord.'

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