"Tell me, Jenny," I said, "how you became his wife?"
"Yes, Will, I will tell you," she replied humbly. "Don"t think that I ever loved him--nor could I endure his caresses--but he never offered any--the only man who never wanted to caress me was my husband--to be sure he did not love me--or anyone else--he is incapable of love. He is a worm. His hand is slimy and cold: his face is slimy: his voice is slimy. But I thought I could live with him, perhaps. If not, I could always leave him."
She paused a little as if to collect herself.
"Every actress," she went on, "has troops of lovers. There are the gentlemen first who would fain make her their mistress for a month: those who would make her their mistress for a year: and those who desire only the honour and glory of pretending that she is their mistress: and then there are the men who would like nothing better than to marry the actress and to live upon her salary--believe me, of all these there are plenty. Lastly, there is the gentleman who would really marry the actress, all for love of her, and for no other consideration. I thought, at first, that your cousin Matthew was one of these."
"How did you know him?"
"He was brought into the Green Room one night by some gambling acquaintance. I remarked his long serious face, I thought he was a man who might be trusted. He asked permission to wait upon me----"
"Well?" For she stopped.
"I thought, I say, that he was a man to be trusted. He did not look like one who drank: he did not follow other actresses about with his eyes: I say, Will, that I thought I could trust him. He came to my lodging. He told me that he was a rich City merchant: he asked me what I should like if I would marry him and he promised to give it to me--that--and anything else----"
"If you did not love him--Jenny----"
"I did not love him. I will tell you. I wanted to get away from the man I did love; and so I wanted, above all, to be taken away from London and the Theatre into the country, never to hear anything more about the stage. Had he done what he promised, Will, I would have made a good wife to him, although he is a slimy worm. But he did not. He broke his word on the very morning when we came out of church----"
"How?"
"He began by saying that he had a little explanation to offer. He said that when he told me he was a rich merchant--that, indeed, was his reputation: but his position was embarra.s.sed: he wanted money: he wished not to borrow any: he therefore thought that if he married an actress--that cla.s.s of persons being notorious for having no honour--his very words to me, actually, his very words an hour after leaving the church--he intended to open a gaming-house at which I was to be the decoy. Now you understand why I call him a villain, and a wretch, and a slimy worm."
"Jenny!"
"I left him on the spot after telling him what he was--I left him--I left the Theatre as well. I had a friend who found me the money to take this place under another name. I have seen the man many times here--last night--and once I called upon him and I made him give me the money to get you out of the Prison, Will."
"Matthew found that money?"
"Of course, he did. I had none--I went to him and reminded him that he had contributed nothing to the maintenance of his wife, and that he must give me whatever the sum was. He was obliged to give it, otherwise I should have informed the clerks of the Counting-house who I was."
I laughed. "Well, but Jenny, there was another man----"
"You are persistent, Sir. Why should I tell you? Well, I will confess.
This man protested a great deal less than the others. He was a n.o.ble Lord, if that matters. He was quite different from all the rest: he never came to the Green Room drunk: he never cursed and swore: he never shook his cane in the face of footman or chairman: he was a gentle creature--and he loved me and would have married me: well--I told him who and what I was--I will tell you presently--that mattered nothing. He would carry me away from them all. I would have married him, Will: and we should have been happy: but his sister came to see me and she went on her knees crying and imploring me to refuse him because in the history of their family there had never been any such alliance as that with an actress of no family. Would I bring disgrace into a n.o.ble family? If I refused, he would forget me, and she would do all in her power for me, if ever I wanted a friend. It was for his sake--if I loved him I would not injure him. And so she went on: and she persuaded me, Will--because, you see, when people pride themselves about their families it is a pity to bring the gutter into it--with Newgate and Tyburn, isn"t it?"
"Jenny, what has Newgate got to do with it?"
"Wait and I will tell you. I gave way. It cost me a great deal, Will--more than you would believe--because I had never loved anyone before--and when a woman does love a man----" The tears rose in her eyes,--"and then it was that your cousin came to the Theatre."
Poor Jenny! And she always seemed so cheerful, so lively, so happy! Her face might have been drawn to ill.u.s.trate Milton"s "L"Allegra." How could she look so happy when she had this unhappy love story and this unhappy marriage to think upon?"
"Will," she cried pa.s.sionately, "I am the most unhappy woman in the world."
I made no reply. Indeed I knew not what there was to say. Matthew was a villain: there can be few worse villains: Jenny was in truth a most injured and a most unhappy woman.
It was growing twilight. What followed was told, or most of it, because I have set down the result of two or three conversations in one, by the light of the fire, in a low voice, a low musical voice--that seemed to rob the naked truth of much of its horrors.
"I told my Lord, Will," she said, "what I am going to tell you because I would not have him ignorant of anything, or find out anything--afterwards--but there was no afterwards--which he might think I should have told him before. He has a pretty gift of drawing: he makes pictures of things and people with a pencil and a box of water-colours. I made him take certain sketches for me. He did so, wondering what they might mean." Here she rose, opened a drawer in a cabinet and took out a little packet tied up with a ribbon. "First I begged him to sketch me one of the little girls who run about the streets in Soho. There are hundreds of them: they are bare-footed: bare-headed: dressed in a sack, in a flannel petticoat: in anything: they have no schooling: they are not taught anything at all: their parents and their brothers and sisters and their cousins and their grandparents are all thieves and rogues together: what can they become?
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 Lordship. 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."