'Then, Madame, I can only ask you for anything you may say in defence.'
'Sir, I shall say nothing.'
This reply amazed me beyond anything. I expected her to deny indignantly any knowledge of the matter, and to declare that the things had been brought into the house without her knowledge. She would say nothing. Then Sir John committed her for trial. I placed her in a coach with such heaviness of heart as you may imagine and we drove to Newgate. Jenny was well remembered by the turnkeys, to whom she had been generous and even profuse, in my case. Turnkeys are never astonished, but the appearance of Madame was perhaps an exception to this general rule. However, on payment of certain guineas she was placed, alone, in the best cell that the woman's side could boast.
'Jenny!' I cried when we were alone. 'For God's sake what does it mean? Why did you not deny knowledge of the whole business? What have you to do with stolen goods? Even supposing that your mother took them there, what has that got to do with you?'
'I shall tell the whole truth to you, Will, and only to you. But you may tell Alice. From you I will keep no secrets.'
'Oh! Jenny, it is for me—for me—that you have fallen into all this trouble. What shall I do? What shall I do?' I looked round the mean, bare, and ugly walls of the cell. 'Twas a poor exchange from the private room in the Square. And all for me!
'What did your boy tell you this morning, Will? That Jenny never regrets—never repents—what she has done for you. She would do it all over again—over again—a hundred thousand times over again.' She buried her face in her hands for a moment. 'Twas not in woman's nature to restrain the tears. Then she sprang to her feet. 'What? you think I am going to cry because the woman has done this? At least she is coming to Newgate as well. Now, Will. I must tell you the truth. It was most important to get the evidence of my mother and of Doll. They connected Probus with the conspiracy. They helped to identify the two principal witnesses. Well, I had to buy their evidence. They made me pay a pretty price for it. As for Doll, you wouldn't believe what a grasping creature she is. That comes of keeping the slate. I had to compensate them for the loss of their daily takings at the Black Jack. I paid them for their stock of liquors—we saw the mob drinking it up last night: I paid them for their furniture and their clothes. I gave them money to get out of London with, and to keep them until they can get another tavern; they got money from me on one pretence or the other till I thought they were resolved on taking all I had. And when I had paid for everything and thought they were settled and done with there arose the question of the stolen goods. And I really thought the whole business was ruined and undone.'
'What question?'
'Why, my parent, Will, had got under the old house a spacious stone vault quite dry, built up with arches and paved with stone; there isn't a finer store-room in all London: it belonged once to some people—I don't know—religious people who liked shutting themselves up in the dark. I suppose that mother couldn't bear waste or the throwing away of good opportunities for she turned the vault into a cellar for stolen goods; she bought the goods; she stored them down below; she sold them to people who carried them about the country. Everybody knew it; and she was pretty safe because she had a good name for the prices she gave, and even Merridew had to let her alone. Well, what was to be done with the things in the vault? There was enough to hang them both a hundred times. They took me down to see them. I never suspected there was anything like the quantity of things. Plain silver melted down; gold melted down; precious stones picked out of rings; and snuff-boxes; patch boxes; rolls of silk; boxes of gloves; handkerchiefs; frocks and gowns and embroidered petticoats and mantles; ribbons of all kinds; the place was like a wonderful shop. Time was pressing. It was impossible for mother to sell everything at once; things have to be taken into the country and sold cautiously to the Squire's' lady, who knows very well what she is buying, just as her husband knows that he is buying smuggled brandy.'
'So you bought the things?'