Part 22 (1/2)

CHAPTER V

THE BLACK JACK

Jenny finished her story, much as you have heard it, though some has been forgotten.

'And now,' she said, 'I will take you to the very place where I was born. You shall see for yourself the house, and my mother and my sister and the company among whom I was brought up. Wait for a moment while I change my dress. I cannot go like this. And I do not want all of them to learn where I now live.'

She returned in a few minutes dressed in the garb of an orange girl of Drury. Everybody knows how these girls are attired; a frock of the commonest linsey-woolsey; a kerchief over her head tied under her chin: another kerchief round her neck and bosom; her sleeves coming down to her elbows; on her arm a round deep basket filled with oranges. But no orange girl ever had so sweet a face; so fine a carriage; hands and arms so white. Nor could any disguise deprive this lovely creature of her beauty or rob her face of its pure and virginal expression. That such a being should come out of the Black Jack! But then we find the white lily growing beside a haystack or a pigsty and none the less white and delicate and fragrant.

The tavern called the Black Jack stands over against the west front of St. Giles's Church, at the corner of Denmark Street, with a double entrance which has proved useful, I believe, on the appearance of constables or Bow Street runners. The Church which is large and handsome, worthy of better paris.h.i.+oners, stands in the midst of a quarter famous for harbouring, producing and encouraging the most audacious rogues and the most impudent drabs that can be found in the whole of London. As for the Church, of course they never enter it: as for religion, they have never learned any: as for morals, they know of none; as for the laws, they defy them; as for hanging, whipping and imprisonment, they heed them no more than other folk heed the necessity of death or the chances of pain and suffering, before death releases them.

Every man must die, they say. Few people among them live naturally more than forty years or so. Fever, small-pox, ague, carry off most of their cla.s.s before forty. If, therefore, one takes part in the march to Tyburn at five-and-thirty one does but lose two or three years of life. Then, again, there is the punishment of the lash--that seems very terrible.

But every man, rich or poor, has to endure pain; very often pain worse than that of the lash. Certainly, the agony of the whip is not worse than that of rheumatism or gout: it is sooner over: it makes no man any the older: it does not unfit him for his work: after a day or two, he is none the worse for it. As for imprisonment; a prison, if your friends look after you, may be made, with the help of a few companions, as cheerful a place as the kitchen of the Black Jack with drinking and singing and tobacco. This kind of talk is the religion of Roguedom, and since it is so, we may cease to wonder why these people are not deterred by the severity of their punishments. For no punishment can deter when it is not feared: that is beyond question: and since after punishment, the rogue is still regarded as a rogue, whom no one will employ, punishment does not convert. Nor does the prison chaplain effect any miracles in conversion, because no one listens to his exhortations.

Over against the church of St. Giles's, the tavern of the Black Jack lifts its shameless head: the projecting upper windows bend threatening brows against the west end of the Church with its pillars of white stone: the house has villainy written large over all the front: it is covered with yellow places breaking away in lumps and showing the black timbers behind: the roof, of red tiles, is sunken in parts: many of the windows are broken and stuffed with rags.

The ground floor consists of a long low room: at one end is a bar with a counter, behind it casks of beer and rum and shelves with bottles containing cordials: there is a door behind the bar opening to a cellar staircase: and is said to communicate with a subterranean pa.s.sage leading one knows not whither. It is also rumoured that the cellar, into which no one but the landlady of the Black Jack and her daughter has ever penetrated, is a large stone vault with pillars and arches, the remains of some Roman Catholic building. The kitchen, or public room, is on the ground floor about twelve inches below the level of the street: it is entered by two steps: the window is garnished with red curtains, which on wintry evenings give the place a warm and cheerful look: the bright colour promises a roaring fire and lights and drink. Both in the summer and winter the place is always cheerful because it is always filled with company.

Three or four candles in sconces light up the room, and, in addition, a generous fire always burning every night, adds to the light of the place. The fire is kept up partly for warmth: partly for the convenience of those who bring their suppers with them and cook them on the fire.

Also, for their convenience, frying-pans and gridirons are lying ready beside the fireplace: and for the convenience of the punch-drinkers a huge kettle bubbles on the hob. Two tables stand for those who take their supper here. As the food princ.i.p.ally in favour consists of bloaters, red herrings, sprats, mackerel, pig's fry, pork, fat bacon, beefsteak and onions, liver and lights and other coa.r.s.e but savoury dishes, the mingled fragrance makes the air delightful and refres.h.i.+ng.

As the windows are never open the air is never free from this fragrance, added to which is the reek, or stench of old beer, rum, gin, and rank tobacco taken in the horrid manner of the lower cla.s.ses, by means of a clay pipe, not in the more courtly fas.h.i.+on of snuff. Nor must one forget the--pah!--the company--the people themselves, the men and women, the boys and girls who frequent this tavern nightly. Taking all into account, I think it would be difficult, outside Newgate, to find a more noisome den than the kitchen or bar-room of the Black Jack.

All round the room ran a bench: the company sat on the bench, every man with a pipe of tobacco and a mug of drink: the walls were streaming: one felt inclined to run away--out into the fresh air for breath. The s.p.a.ce in the middle was mostly kept open for a fight, perhaps: for a dance, perhaps, if a fiddler could be found. Every evening, I believe, there was a fight either between two men, or between two women: or between two boys. What would an Englishman of the baser sort become if he were forbidden to fight?

I describe what I saw after we entered. When Jenny pushed open the door and the breath of that tavern ascended to my nostrils I trembled and hesitated.

'Strong, at first, isn't it?' said Jenny. 'Cousin Will, to stand here and breathe the air that comes up carries me back to my childhood. You are ready to face it? After a little one grows accustomed. They like it, the people inside.' She stood with the handle of the half opened door in her hand. 'Now,' she said. 'You shall visit the Rogues' Delight: the Thieves' Kitchen: the Black Jack: the favourite House of Call for the gallows bird. You shall see what manner of woman is the old lady my mother: and what sort of woman is the young lady my sister.'

'I am ready, Jenny,' I replied, with an effort. One would join a forlorn hope almost as readily.

'Don't mind me. Take no notice whatever I say or do,' she whispered. 'I must humour the wretches. It is more than twelve months since I have been among them. They may resent my absence. However, you keep quiet, and say nothing. Call for drink if you like, and pretend to be an old hand in the place.'

Jenny threw up her head: opened her lips: laughed loudly and impudently: looked round her with an impudent stare: became, in a word, once more, one of the brazen young queans who sell oranges and exchange rude jokes with the gentlemen in the Pit of Drury Lane Theatre. It was a wonderful change. I saw a girl who would perhaps be beautiful if she had preserved any rags or the least appearance of feminine modesty: as for Jenny's sweet and attractive look of innocence, that had vanished. She had, in fact, resumed her former self, and more than her former self. I saw her as she had been. Was there ever before known such a thing that a girl who had never been taught what was meant by feminine modesty should be able to a.s.sume, at will, the look of one brought up in a convent--all innocence and ignorance--and, at will, be able to put it off and go back to her former self? No--it is impossible: the innocence of Jenny's face proclaimed the innocence of Jenny's soul.

'Follow me,' she said. 'Keep close, or expect a pewter plate or a pot hurled at your head. They love not strangers.'

She pushed open the door: she descended the steps: I followed. The room was quite full, and the reek of it made me sick and faint for a moment.

But to the worst of stinks one quickly grows hardened.

'By----!' cried a voice from out of the smoke. 'It's Madame.'

'Lawks, Mother'--this was a girl's voice-”tis Jenny. Why, Jenny, we all thought you was grown too proud for the Black Jack.'

'Good-evening all,' she cried with a loud coa.r.s.e laugh; she added, as a finis.h.i.+ng stroke of art, a certain click or choking in the middle of the laugh such as one may hear among the lowest sort of women as they walk along the street. 'How are you, mother? You did not expect me to come in to-night, did you? How's business? How are you, Doll? Adding up the figures on the slate as usual? How are you, boys? I haven't seen any of you at the Theatre for a spell. That's because I've been resting.

Actresses must rest sometimes. Where have I been? That's my business.

Who with? That's my business, too. Now'--she brandished her basket, and walked about among them shaking her petticoats in the way of the impudent orange girls--'choose a fine Chaney orange! Choose a fine Chaney orange! One for your sweetheart, my curly boy? Here is a fine one: pay me when I come again. Doll, chalk up to the gentleman an orange for his girl. One for this pretty country girl? Take it, my beauty. I will tell your fortune presently--a lover and a pile of gold and babies as sweet as this orange.' So she got rid of her oranges, offering and presenting them here and there with the impudence of the craft she a.s.sumed, yet with something of her own inimitable grace which she could not quite put off. Then she turned to me. 'Sit down here,' she ordered.

'Lads,' she said, 'I've brought you a friend of mine. He's a fiddler by trade. If you like he will fiddle for you till he puts fire into your toes and springs into your heels.'

'Who is he?' cried a voice. Through the smoke I now recognised the Bishop, formerly of the King's Bench Prison. The reverend gentleman's face was redder and his cheek fuller than when last I saw him. He seemed, however, in better case: he had gotten a new ca.s.sock: his bands and his cuffs were of whiter hue: his wig was better shaped and better dressed: it came, I make no doubt, from some place where are deposited the wigs s.n.a.t.c.hed from the pa.s.sengers in hackney coaches or even in the streets. His looks, however, were certainly more prosperous than when I had seen him last. He did not recognise me, which was as well. Beside him sat the Captain, also more prosperous to all appearance. He wore a purple coat and a fawn-coloured waistcoat: he had rings on his fingers, and his hat was laced with gold: he wore gold buckles: b.u.t.tons silver gilt and white silk stockings. He looked what he was--a ruffian, a robber, and a swashbuckler. He had a girl on his knee, and one arm round her waist: she was a handsome, red-faced wench dressed up in all kinds of finery, somewhat decayed and second hand. A pipe was between the gallant Captain's lips and a gla.s.s of punch was in his right hand. 'Twas a picture of Rogues' Paradise: warmth, light, fire, clothes, drink, tobacco, good company, and a fine girl. What more can a man want?