In those days she talked to me more freely than before and a great deal about herself. She was forced to talk and to think about herself, for the first time in her life. Her thoughts went back to the past when all she could expect was to become such as the poor creatures with her in the prison. Yet these poor women, whom I found so terrible to look upon and to hear, she regarded with a tenderness which I thought excessive. I now understand that it was more humane than at that time was within my comprehension.
'They are not terrible to me,' she said. 'I know them—what they are and what has made them so. I can speak their language, but I must not let them know that I understand. It is the Thieves' tongue made up of Gipsy and of Tinkers' talk. They talk about me all day—even when I am in their midst. Poor wretches! They are not so bad as they look.'
'Nay, Jenny, but to see them beside you!'
'If we grow up among people, Will, and are used to them, we do not think much of their manners and their looks. When I was a child I played among them. Many a cuff have I had: many a slap for getting in their way: but many a bit of gingerbread and many an apple. You think them terrible. If they were clean and had their hair dressed they would not be terrible any longer. Oh! Will, they are not very far from the fine ladies—no—nor so very much below the best of good women, even Alice. They are women, though you flog them at Bridewell and hang them at Tyburn—they are still women. And they love—in their poor fond faithful way—the very hand that knocks them down and the very foot that kicks them. They love—Oh! the poor women—they love.'
She broke off, with a sob in her voice. I marvelled at the time because I had always looked upon the creatures as something below humanity: as belonging to a tribe of savages such as Swift called the Yahoos. Afterwards, I understood; and then I marvelled more.
Another time she talked about her profession as an actress. 'Acting,' she said, 'cannot be otherwise than delightful—but it takes an actor away from himself. When one has been two or three years on the stage nothing is left but the stage and the dressing-room: the company behind the scenes and the audience in front. Nothing is real. Everything that happens is but a scene in a play. When the curtain drops upon this Act, that is, when they let me go, I shall rest for five minutes while the next Act is getting ready: the play of Clarinda, or the Orange Girl, has some excellent scenes. You remember that scene when the mob wrecked the house: and the scene when the mob pelted Mr. Merridew—well, I should not be in the least surprised to meet Mr. Merridew himself walking along Holborn with one eye on a young thief in training for a shoplifter: and I might look in at the Black Jack and see my mother taking her morning dram and Doll adding up the scores upon the slate. In five minutes after the curtain has dropped what has happened is little more to me than the last scene in the play at Drury. Why, if I were put into the cart and carried out to Tyburn I should still be the heroine playing my part to a breathless house. And I believe I should enjoy that part of the performance as much as anything. You saw how I played the Virgin Martyr in Court.'
'Yet this is real enough, God knows,' I said, looking round the place.
'I dare say it looks so to you. To me, it is part of the Play. Will, the Play is nearly over. I knew all along that disaster was coming upon me. But the worst is over—the worst is over. I know that the worst is over. I can now foretell what is coming next.' She looked straight before her, her eyes luminous in the dark cell. 'I can see,' she said, 'a time of peace and calm. Well, Will, reality or not, that scene will be pleasant. I shall go out of this place very soon—But I know not when, and I cannot see myself at any time again upon the boards of Drury. I am certain that I shall never go back there. I cannot see myself in Soho Square either. I shall never go back there. I see fields and hills and woods'—she shuddered and with a gesture pushed the vision from her. 'Will—it is strange, all is strange: it is a beautiful country, but I know it not—I cannot understand it.'
It was not the first time, as you have seen, that she showed this strange power of peering into the future. Whether this fair-haired and blue-eyed woman was really a child of the gipsies, or, as Lord Brockenhurst conjectured, a stolen child, she had the powers that we commonly find in gipsy women who are fortune-tellers all the world over. That she compelled all men to become her servants you have seen: that she could also compel women to follow and obey her was proved by what she did during that three or four weeks which she spent in the condemned cell: the same magic arts—yet she was no witch: and she could read the future—a gift which is marvellous in our eyes.
Her power over others, even the most savage people, was shown by the changed behaviour of the poor girl waiting for execution. I have mentioned her: she was at first a wild creature: she fled to the darkest corner of the cell and there crouched with eyes of suspicion and terror: she snatched her food and ran into her corner to eat it: she was altogether unwashed and altogether in rags: she was bare-footed, bare-legged and bare-armed: her hair which should have been light—like Jenny's own hair, was matted with dirt: it looked as if it had never known a comb: yet long and beautiful hair: her eyes were blue, large and limpid. She had never known kindness, or love, or care since the day when her mother was marched away to Newgate wearing handcuffs. She was, I say, a mere savage. The child might have been sixteen, but she looked thirteen. Still, sixteen is young for Tyburn. Jenny found this child in her cell: condemned like herself; and she tamed her. Not in a single day, but in a few days. She tamed her with kindness; with soft words in the language which the child understood best: with soft touches: with gifts of pretty things: I suppose she gave her sweetmeats—I know not what she did, but in a few days I found the savage wild creature converted into a shy, timid girl—clinging to Jenny and following her about like a favourite spaniel. She was washed and combed and dressed from head to foot: she wore stockings and shoes: her hair, just confined by a ribbon, hung over her shoulders in lovely tresses: she had become an interesting child who promised to grow into a lovely maiden. And yet she was to be carried out to Tyburn and there hanged.