Why, she changed even the women in the Prison Yard. There was great suffering among them. Many of them had no friends to bring them food: they had nothing but the daily dole of the penny loaf. Presently, I observed that they looked more contented and better fed: they were less noisy: there was less quarrelling and fighting: they were even cleaner to look at. All this was Jenny's doing. She fed them first: then when their craving for food, which made them quarrelsome, was allayed, she went among them and talked to them one at a time. I have seen her, I have seen how the rough coarse common creatures would respond, little by little, to words of kindness. She advised them about their affairs: she made them confess what they had done: why, was she not one of themselves?
'I knew you,' she said to one, 'long ago in Hog's Lane: you lived in the Old Bell Alley: we were girls together. Come into my cell and I will find you something more to put on; and your hair wants to be combed and put up, doesn't it? And your face would look so much better if it were washed. Come with me——' and so on with one after the other: not the least case being the girl who had laid information and committed perjury against her. It was what Jenny said—though the saying was then too hard for me. They are women: as are all men and women, whether we call some Yahoos or not: they are women: there is not such very great difference between the greatest lady and the lowest woman: both are women: both are ruled by the same irresistible forces of love. Some day, perhaps, some gentlewoman will put the part of the Christian religion—I mean the Law of Charity—into practice. It is strange that a woman who was not a Christian, and had no religion, should first teach me that Charity means more than the giving of alms.
'Let me,' said Jenny, 'do something for these poor creatures while I am among them. That will not be for long. Then they will fall back again into their own ways.'
'But, Jenny, you are spending all your money.'
'An actress never wants money. When I get out of this place I have made up my mind what to do. I will not return to Drury Lane: I will go over to Dublin. That is the strange country with hills and woods which I see before me always. It is Ireland. I will go on the Dublin stage. As for the money, I brought with me all there was in the house when I left it: and all my jewels—but they are not worth much. These women have had some of the money, and the turnkeys have had some, and Mr. Dewberry has had some: and I think there is not much left.'
The question of money pressed hard because I had none, and as yet no new situation, and when Jenny was released she would certainly want money to carry her on.
She laughed, seeing my seriousness. 'Oh! Will—Will,' she said. 'You are a musician and yet you are anxious about money. But you were born in the City. Now in a theatre nobody thinks about money. When the money is plenty it is freely lent: when there is none it is freely borrowed. Believe me, Will, I shall want no money: I never have wanted money. Did I ever tell you, Will, my own fortune? An old gipsy woman told me. "What others envy she shall have: what she would have she shall lack. She shall pass through dangers without harm: she shall be happy in the end. Yet not in the way she would most desire." That is a strange fortune, is it not? Now I am in the midst of dangers, yet nothing will do me harm. What do I most desire? What do all women most desire? You were born in the City, Will, where they do not study the human heart. Therefore you know not. The old woman was a witch, as they all are—all the gipsy women—so far I have had what others envy—and—alas! Will, I still lack what most I desire.'
'What is it, Jenny?'
'Ask your violin, Will. Ask your music. Ask the play upon the stage what women most desire. Oh! Foolish youth! they ask what you have given to Alice—they ask the happiness of love.'
If the time was long to those who watched and waited, it was worse for her who suffered. I believe if I remember aright that our poor Jenny spent five or perhaps six weeks in that noisome cell; her cheek, as I have said, grew thin and pale from the bad air and the confinement; but her courage she never lost for a single day. She asked for no consolations and desired no soothing to alleviate the weariness of her prison. Of those fine ladies who called before she was tried not one came now: nor did any of the actresses, her old friends and rivals, visit her. They came before the trial, just as they visit a notorious robber, because it is interesting to gape upon a person who stands in the great danger of a trial for his life, or has done some daring act of villainy, or is about to undergo some terrible ordeal. When her trial was over and it became certain in everybody's mind that, although the woman had pleaded guilty: although she was condemned: she would not suffer the capital sentence, the interest of the public in the case rapidly declined and in a few days ceased wholly: the great ladies ran after other excitements: they sent letters to the new singer: they sent rings to their favourite actor: they crowded the prison of the fashionable highwaymen: the actresses, for their part, reflected that they would probably have Jenny back among them before long casting them all in the shade: so they left off calling: the portrait painters went elsewhere after studies likely to be popular. Truly it was a lamentable instance of the breath of popular favour fickle and uncertain. 'The Case of Clarinda' was forgotten as soon as people had made up their minds that Clarinda was not to be hanged, although she had screened her mother and pleaded guilty and received sentence of death.