The Orange Girl Part 54

'Yes--you are quite safe.'

'Will,' he held out his hand. 'Don't bear malice. Don't give information against me.'

'I am not going to give any information against you.' But I could not take his hand, for which I was afterwards sorry.

'The information ought to be worth fifty pounds at least and a Tyburn ticket--a Tyburn ticket,' he went on repeating the words over one after the other, which showed the weakness of his condition.

It is useless setting down all the nonsense he talked. After a while I left him and looked about for someone who would attend to him. Presently I found an old man in rags, almost as bad as Matthew's, who undertook to look after him and give him some food from time to time. So I went away and repaired to my daily post at Newgate again, saying nothing to Jenny about this illness.

I repeat that I had no thought of anything but what they call a feverish cold, which would be checked by the warmth and the food. You may therefore imagine my surprise when I went to visit the sick man in the morning to learn that he was dead.

'He talked a lot of nonsense,' said the old man, his nurse; 'all day long he talked nonsense about murdering and hanging, and dividing thousands. Now and then I gave him a bit and a sup and he went on talking. There was no candle and I lay down beside him with a corner of his blanket over me, and in the middle of the night I woke up and found that he had left off talking and was quite still and cold. So I went to sleep again.' The insensate wretch had actually finished his sleep beside the corpse.

Matthew was dead.

They showed me his body lying in a small shed against the wall. It was laid in a sh.e.l.l of pinewood roughly painted black, with no name or plate upon it. It was to be taken across to the churchyard of St. George's that afternoon, to be laid in a pauper's grave without mourners or friends, and with a service hurriedly gabbled over his coffin.

The old man who had nursed him was now comfortably wrapped in the blanket and clothed in the coat and stockings which Alice had sent for the use of the dead man. I hope the things kept him warm.

Matthew was dead. At first I did not understand the difference it made to me. I asked if he had left anything behind him; any letters or papers or anything at all that his sisters might desire to have. There was nothing; absolutely nothing was left of him at all.

Most of our lives are like the stones thrown in the water; it makes circles widening and growing indistinct; presently these signs vanish altogether. Then the stone is clean forgotten. So the man and his life are clean forgotten, never to be brought to mind again. Matthew left no circles even; his was a stone that fell into the water silently and made no splash and left no mark upon the surface even for a minute. He lived for eight-and-twenty years: he ruined an old and n.o.ble House of trade; he lost all the wealth and possessions and money of the House; he lost all the money he could borrow; he plotted against me continually in order to get some of the money which might be mine; he wilfully and deliberately deceived the woman who married him; he died in a debtors'

prison without a single friend in the world or a single possession to bequeath to a single friend, if he had one. To die lying on the floor--it would have been on the bare planks but for Alice; in the dark room without fire or light; what more wretched end could one desire for his worst enemy? What more miserable record could one set down against a man?

I could do nothing more. I left the poor sh.e.l.l in the shed and pa.s.sed over to the other side. If my uncle could understand anything I had to communicate the sad news to him. His only son was dead--What a son! What a life! What a death!

The alderman was sitting before the fire. With him sat his two daughters. The guinea a week which was meant for him alone procured food for the two girls as well. They pa.s.sed the whole day, I believe, sitting thus before the fire in gloom and bitterness; their bitterness was mostly directed against myself as the supposed cause of all their troubles.

'Cousin,' said one of them looking up, 'you are not wanted here.'

'Perhaps not. I have come, however, to bring you news. It is not good news, I am sorry to say.'

'That one can see by the joy expressed in your face.' Yet I did not feel joyful.

'Sir,' I addressed my uncle. 'I bring you bad news.'

He looked up and smiled vacuously. 'You will find my brother, sir, on Change, I believe.'

'Yes, Sir. I would speak to you of Matthew.'

'He is in the counting-house, or perhaps on board one of the s.h.i.+ps. Or on the Quay.'

I turned to the daughters. 'I see that he understands nothing.'

'No. He eats and sleeps. He talks nonsense. It is no use speaking to him. You have seen us in our shame and misery. Give us your news and go.'

'It is about Matthew.'

'Matthew? Where is he? We heard he had escaped.'

'You do not know? Matthew has been in this prison for some weeks.'

'Here? In this prison? And we have not see him?'

'He has been on the Common side; on the Poor side. Perhaps that is the reason; perhaps he did not know that.

They looked at each other. Then they burst into tears. I thought they were natural tears such as a sister might shed over the loss of her brother. But they were not. 'Oh!' they cried. 'Oh! Oh! Oh! And now you will have the whole of that great fortune. And we thought that you would die and that Matthew would have it. What a misfortune! What a dreadful thing!' They wept and lamented, capping each other in lamentations all to the effect that the fortune had fallen to the undeserving one. 'And after all his plots and after his shameful trial before all the world!

And after his highway robbery! And after the things that have been done to us! and now that people will say that Matthew died a Pauper--on the Common side! On the Poor side! We can never hold up our heads again.'

So I left these dear creatures. Never could I understand why they attributed any one of their misfortunes to me; nor of what nature were the plots to which they referred; nor why my trial was shameful.

However, I left these poor ladies. The reduction in their circ.u.mstances; their precarious condition; their having nothing but the guinea a week given by the Alderman's old friend; the uncertainty of his life; all should be considered when we think of their bitterness.

For my own part it was not until my cousins reminded me that I understood the great difference which the event made to me.

I was the survivor: and my succession came to me in less than three years after my father's death.

I was the survivor. At a single step I rose from the condition of a simple fiddler, at twenty-five or thirty s.h.i.+llings a week, to the possession of a fortune of over a hundred thousand pounds.

I hastened to our trusty attorney, Mr. Dewberry. I apprised him of what had happened; he undertook to present my claims and to transfer the money to my name, which he faithfully effected, and without difficulty.

Then I went on to Newgate.

'What is the matter, Will?' cried Jenny, 'you look strangely agitated.'

'Jenny'--I took her hand and held it--'you told me the other day that you were in no anxiety about money.'

'I never am, Will. For people of parts there is always plenty of money.'

'You are a Prophetess, Jenny. You will never want for money so long as you live. For all that I have is yours, and I am rich.'

'You are rich?' Over her face, so quick to change, there pa.s.sed a cloud.

'You are rich? Then--Will ... then ... if you are rich--I must be--a widow. Is Matthew dead?'

'He is dead, Jenny.'

She sank into a chair. She shed no tears: she expressed no sorrow.

'Matthew is dead. I wish I had never met him--Matthew is dead.'

'He is dead, Jenny. He died in the prison.'

'And I am a widow. I am free again. I am a widow who never was a wife.

Will, I would not speak ill of the dead--of the unburied: but ... alas!

I can find no good words to speak of him. He can do no more harm--either to you or to me.'

'Let us not speak of him, then.'

'No--we must forget him. As for this money, Will, it is yours--your own--yours and Alice's--and the lovely boy's.'