The Orange Girl

by Walter Besant

'Good-evening all,' she cried with a loud coarse laugh; she added, as a finishing 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 assumed, 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 cassock: 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 snatched from the passengers 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: buttons 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 glass 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?

'Who's your man?' repeated the Bishop. 'We are not going to have strangers here spying on us for what we do. Who is he?'

'Who is he? What's that to you? I shall bring anybody I like to the Black Jack. If you don't like your Company, Bishop, get up and go.' He growled, but made no attempt to rise. 'If'—she appealed to the Company generally—'I choose to bring my fancy man here, am I to ask the Bishop's leave?' Then before there was time for a reply: 'Mother, bustle about. Let every man call for what he wants. Score it to me. This evening I pay for all.'

Her mother, a fat old woman of fifty, red faced, with the look of callous indifference that belongs to such a woman, sat behind the Bar, a piece of knitting in her hand. She got up grumbling.

'Oh! ay,' she said. 'When Jenny comes you must all get drunk at her expense. She'd better give me the money to keep for her. Well—what shall it be? Doll, stir about: stir about—you leave it all to me. Ask the gentlemen what they will take. And the ladies too. Whatever they like. Jenny pays to-night. Whatever they like—that's Jenny's way—whatever they like so that it ruins my poor girl.'

Doll, the other daughter, made no response. She was continually occupied with the slate, and I suppose she was slow at calculation for she kept adding up over and over again, wiping out with her wet finger and adding up again. The Black Jack refused credit as a rule: most of the company had to pay for what they called for on the spot; but there were a few to whom limited credit was granted, as a privilege.

The girl called Doll, I remarked, was not in the least like her sister. She had black hair and a somewhat swarthy complexion and appeared to belong, as indeed she did, to the people called gipsies. The mother had also the same black hair and dark skin. Strange, that a girl of Jenny's complexion with her fair hair, blue eyes, and peach-like skin, should come of the same stock. I sought in vain for any likeness between Jenny and this girl. I thought that she might present the same features with a difference: debased: but I could find none. She wore a red kerchief tied round her head, a red ribbon tied round her neck: a red scarf tied round her waist. In her way she was a handsome girl: in her manners she showed no inclination to oblige the company or to be civil to them. She paid no heed when her mother bade her stir about. On the contrary, she went on with her sums on the slate.

It was Jenny who ran round laughing and joking with the men, ordering punch for one and gin for another. Most of the company regarded her with bewilderment. It was long since she had been among them: they knew something about her: she was the daughter of the house: she had been an orange girl at Drury: she had been an actress at the same theatre: some of them had seen her there: then she disappeared, and no one knew where she was.

One young fellow there was who sat on the bench with hanging head. He had apparently no friends among the company. 'Here,' cried Jenny, 'is a lad half awake. What art doing here, friend?' The lad shook his head mournfully. 'Hast any money?' He shook his head again. Jenny pulled out a piece of silver. 'Go,' she said. 'Get food, and'—she whispered—'come back here no more. Go—get thee home again.' And so, let me believe, she saved one lad that night from the gallows. For he got up slowly and walked out.