Of the great bespeak for Miss Snevellicci, and the first
appearance of Nicholas upon any stage
NICHOLAS was up betimes in the morning; but he had scarcely begun to dress,
notwithstanding, when he heard footsteps ascending the stairs, and was presently
saluted by the voices of Mr Folair the pantomimist, and Mr Lenville, the
tragedian.
`House, house, house!' cried Mr Folair.
`What, ho! within there" said Mr Lenville, in a deep voice.
`Confound these fellows!' thought Nicholas; `they have come to breakfast, I
suppose. I'll open the door directly, if you'll wait an instant.'
The gentlemen entreated him not to hurry himself; and, to beguile the
interval, had a fencing bout with their walking-sticks on the very small
landing-place: to the unspeakable discomposure of all the other lodgers
downstairs.
`Here, come in,' said Nicholas, when he had completed his toilet. `In the
name of all that's horrible, don't make that noise outside.'
`An uncommon snug little box this,' said Mr Lenville, stepping into the front
room, and taking his hat off, before he could get in at all. `Pernicious snug.'
`For a man at all particular in such matters, it might be a trifle too snug,'
said Nicholas; `for, although it is, undoubtedly, a great convenience to be able
to reach anything you want from the ceiling or the floor, or either side of the
room, without having to move from your chair, still these advantages can only be
had in an apartment of the most limited size.'
`It isn't a bit too confined for a single man,' returned Mr Lenville. `That
reminds me,--my wife, Mr Johnson,--I hope she'll have some good part in this
piece of yours?'
`I glanced at the French copy last night,' said Nicholas. `It looks very
good, I think.'
`What do you mean to do for me, old fellow?' asked Mr Lenville, poking the
struggling fire with his walking-stick, and afterwards wiping it on the skirt of
his coat. `Anything in the gruff and grumble way?'
`You turn your wife and child out of doors,' said Nicholas; `and, in a fit of
rage and jealousy, stab your eldest son in the library.'
`Do I though!' exclaimed Mr Lenville. `That's very good business.'
`After which,' said Nicholas, `you are troubled with remorse till the last
act, and then you make up your mind to destroy yourself. But, just as you are
raising the pistol to your head, a clock strikes--ten.'
`I see,' cried Mr Lenville. `Very good.'
`You pause,' said Nicholas; `you recollect to have heard a clock strike ten
in your infancy. The pistol falls from your hand--you are overcome--you burst
into tears, and become a virtuous and exemplary character for ever afterwards.'
`Capital!' said Mr Lenville: `that's a sure card, a sure card. Get the
curtain down with a touch of nature like that, and it'll be a triumphant
success.'
`Is there anything good for me?' inquired Mr Folair, anxiously.
`Let me see,' said Nicholas. `You play the faithful and attached servant; you
are turned out of doors with the wife and child.'
`Always coupled with that infernal phenomenon,' sighed Mr Folair; `and we go
into poor lodgings, where I won't take any wages, and talk sentiment, I
suppose?'
`Why--yes,' replied Nicholas: `that is the course of the piece.'
`I must have a dance of some kind, you know,' said Mr Folair. `You'll have to
introduce one for the phenomenon, so you'd better make a pas de deux, and save
time.'
`There's nothing easier than that,' said Mr Lenville, observing the disturbed
looks of the young dramatist.
`Upon my word I don't see how it's to be done,' rejoined Nicholas.
`Why, isn't it obvious?' reasoned Mr Lenville. `Gadzooks, who can help seeing
the way to do it?--you astonish me! You get the distressed lady, and the little
child, and the attached servant, into the poor lodgings, don't you?--Well, look
here. The distressed lady sinks into a chair, and buries her face in her
pocket-handkerchief. "What makes you weep, mamma?" says the child. "Don't weep,
mamma, or you'll make me weep too!"--"And me!" says the favourite servant,
rubbing his eyes with his arm. "What can we do to raise your spirits, dear
mamma?" says the little child. "Ay, what can we do?" says the faithful servant.
"Oh, Pierre!" says the distressed lady; "would that I could shake off these
painful thoughts."--"Try, ma'am, try," says the faithful servant; "rouse
yourself, ma'am; be amused." -- "I will," says the lady, "I will learn to suffer
with fortitude. Do you remember that dance, my honest friend, which, in happier
days, you practised with this sweet angel? It never failed to calm my spirits
then. Oh! let me see it once again before I die!" -- There it is--cue for the
band, before I die, -- and off they go. That's the regular thing; isn't it,
Tommy?'
`That's it,' replied Mr Folair. `The distressed lady, overpowered by old
recollections, faints at the end of the dance, and you close in with a picture.'
Profiting by these and other lessons, which were the result of the personal
experience of the two actors, Nicholas willingly gave them the best breakfast he
could, and, when he at length got rid of them, applied himself to his task: by
no means displeased to find that it was so much easier than he had at first
supposed. He worked very hard all day, and did not leave his room until the
evening, when he went down to the theatre, whither Smike had repaired before him
to go on with another gentleman as a general rebellion.
Here all the people were so much changed, that he scarcely knew them. False
hair, false colour, false calves, false muscles -- they had become different
beings. Mr Lenville was a blooming warrior of most exquisite proportions; Mr
Crummles, his large face shaded by a profusion of black hair, a Highland outlaw
of most majestic bearing; one of the old gentlemen a gaoler, and the other a
venerable patriarch; the comic countryman, a fighting-man of great valour,
relieved by a touch of humour; each of the Master Crummleses a prince in his own
right; and the low-spirited lover, a desponding captive. There was a gorgeous
banquet ready spread for the third act, consisting of two pasteboard vases, one
plate of biscuits, a black bottle, and a vinegar cruet; and, in short,
everything was on a scale of the utmost splendour and preparation.
Nicholas was standing with his back to the curtain, now contemplating the
first scene, which was a Gothic archway, about two feet shorter than Mr
Crummles, through which that gentleman was to make his first entrance, and now
listening to a couple of people who were cracking nuts in the gallery, wondering
whether they made the whole audience, when the manager himself walked familiarly
up and accosted him.
`Been in front tonight?' said Mr Crummles.
`No,' replied Nicholas, `not yet. I am going to see the play.'
`We've had a pretty good Let,' said Mr Crummles. `Four front places in the
centre, and the whole of the stage-box.'
`Oh, indeed!' said Nicholas; `a family, I suppose?'
`Yes,' replied Mr Crummles, `yes. It's an affecting thing. There are six
children, and they never come unless the phenomenon plays.'
It would have been difficult for any party, family, or otherwise, to have
visited the theatre on a night when the phenomenon did not play, inasmuch as she
always sustained one, and not uncommonly two or three, characters, every night;
but Nicholas, sympathising with the feelings of a father, refrained from hinting
at this trifling circumstance, and Mr Crummles continued to talk, uninterrupted
by him.
`Six,' said that gentleman; `pa and ma eight, aunt nine, governess ten,
grandfather and grandmother twelve. Then, there's the footman, who stands
outside, with a bag of oranges and a jug of toast-and-water, and sees the play
for nothing through the little pane of glass in the box-door -- it's cheap at a
guinea; they gain by taking a box.'
`I wonder you allow so many,' observed Nicholas.
`There's no help for it,' replied Mr Crummles; `it's always expected in the
country. If there are six children, six people come to hold them in their laps.
A family-box carries double always. Ring in the orchestra, Grudden!'
That useful lady did as she was requested, and shortly afterwards the tuning
of three fiddles was heard. Which process having been protracted as long as it
was supposed that the patience of the audience could possibly bear it, was put a
stop to by another jerk of the bell, which, being the signal to begin in
earnest, set the orchestra playing a variety of popular airs, with involuntary
variations.
If Nicholas had been astonished at the alteration for the better which the
gentlemen displayed, the transformation of the ladies was still more
extraordinary. When, from a snug corner of the manager's box, he beheld Miss
Snevellicci in all the glories of white muslin with a golden hem, and Mrs
Crummles in all the dignity of the outlaw's wife, and Miss Bravassa in all the
sweetness of Miss Snevellicci's confidential friend, and Miss Belvawney in the
white silks of a page doing duty everywhere and swearing to live and die in the
service of everybody, he could scarcely contain his admiration, which testified
itself in great applause, and the closest possible attention to the business of
the scene. The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age,
people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as
nobody's previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would
ever come of it. An outlaw had been very successful in doing something
somewhere, and came home, in triumph, to the sound of shouts and fiddles, to
greet his wife--a lady of masculine mind, who talked a good deal about her
father's bones, which it seemed were unburied, though whether from a peculiar
taste on the part of the old gentleman himself, or the reprehensible neglect of
his relations, did not appear. This outlaw's wife was, somehow or other, mixed
up with a patriarch, living in a castle a long way off, and this patriarch was
the father of several of the characters, but he didn't exactly know which, and
was uncertain whether he had brought up the right ones in his castle, or the
wrong ones; he rather inclined to the latter opinion, and, being uneasy,
relieved his mind with a banquet, during which solemnity somebody in a clock
said `Beware!' which somebody was known by nobody (except the audience) to be
the outlaw himself, who had come there, for reasons unexplained, but possibly
with an eye to the spoons. There was an agreeable little surprise in the way of
certain love passages between the desponding captive and Miss Snevellicci, and
the comic fighting-man and Miss Bravassa; besides which, Mr Lenville had several
very tragic scenes in the dark, while on throat-cutting expeditions, which were
all baffled by the skill and bravery of the comic fighting-man (who overheard
whatever was said all through the piece) and the intrepidity of Miss
Snevellicci, who adopted tights, and therein repaired to the prison of her
captive lover, with a small basket of refreshments and a dark lantern. At last,
it came out that the patriarch was the man who had treated the bones of the
outlaw's father-in-law with so much disrespect, for which cause and reason the
outlaw's wife repaired to his castle to kill him, and so got into a dark room,
where, after a good deal of groping in the dark, everybody got hold of everybody
else, and took them for somebody besides, which occasioned a vast quantity of
confusion, with some pistolling, loss of life, and torchlight; after which, the
patriarch came forward, and observing, with a knowing look, that he knew all
about his children now, and would tell them when they got inside, said that
there could not be a more appropriate occasion for marrying the young people
than that; and therefore he joined their hands, with the full consent of the
indefatigable page, who (being the only other person surviving) pointed with his
cap into the clouds, and his right hand to the ground; thereby invoking a
blessing and giving the cue for the curtain to come down, which it did, amidst
general applause.
`What did you think of that?' asked Mr Crummles, when Nicholas went round to
the stage again. Mr Crummles was very red and hot, for your outlaws are
desperate fellows to shout.
`I think it was very capital indeed,' replied Nicholas; `Miss Snevellicci in
particular was uncommonly good.'
`She's genius,' said Mr Crummles; `quite a genius, that girl. By-the-bye,
I've been thinking of bringing out that piece of yours on her bespeak night.'
`When?' asked Nicholas.
`The night of her bespeak. Her benefit night, when her friends and patrons
bespeak the play,' said Mr Crummles.
`Oh! I understand,' replied Nicholas.
`You see,' said Mr. Crummles, `it's sure to go, on such an occasion, and even
if it should not work up quite as well as we expect, why it will be her risk,
you know, and not ours.'
`Yours, you mean,' said Nicholas.
`I said mine, didn't I?' returned Mr Crummles. `Next Monday week. What do you
say? You'll have done it, and are sure to be up in the lover's part, long before
that time.'
`I don't know about "long before,"' replied Nicholas; `but by that time I
think I can undertake to be ready.'
`Very good,' pursued Mr Crummles, `then we'll call that settled. Now, I want
to ask you something else. There's a little--what shall I call it?--a little
canvassing takes place on these occasions.'
`Among the patrons, I suppose?' said Nicholas.
`Among the patrons; and the fact is, that Snevellicci has had so many
bespeaks in this place, that she wants an attraction. She had a bespeak when her
mother-in-law died, and a bespeak when her uncle died; and Mrs Crummles and
myself have had bespeaks on the anniversary of the phenomenon's birthday, and
our wedding-day, and occasions of that description, so that, in fact, there's
some difficulty in getting a good one. Now, won't you help this poor girl, Mr
Johnson?' said Crummles, sitting himself down on a drum, and taking a great
pinch of snuff, as he looked him steadily in the face.
`How do you mean?' rejoined Nicholas.
`Don't you think you could spare half an hour tomorrow morning, to call with
her at the houses of one or two of the principal people?' murmured the manager
in a persuasive tone.
`Oh dear me,' said Nicholas, with an air of very strong objection, `I
shouldn't like to do that.'
`The infant will accompany her,' said Mr Crummles. `The moment it was
suggested to me, I gave permission for the infant to go. There will not be the
smallest impropriety--Miss Snevellicci, sir, is the very soul of honour. It
would be of material service--the gentleman from London--author of the new
piece--actor in the new piece--first appearance on any boards--it would lead to
a great bespeak, Mr Johnson.'
`I am very sorry to throw a damp upon the prospects of anybody, and more
especially a lady,' replied Nicholas; `but really I must decidedly object to
making one of the canvassing party.'
`What does Mr Johnson say, Vincent?' inquired a voice close to his ear; and,
looking round, he found Mrs Crummles and Miss Snevellicci herself standing
behind him.
`He has some objection, my dear,' replied Mr Crummles, looking at Nicholas.
`Objection!' exclaimed Mrs Crummles. `Can it be possible?'
`Oh, I hope not!' cried Miss Snevellicci. `You surely are not so cruel--oh,
dear me!--Well, I--to think of that now, after all one's looking forward to it!'
`Mr Johnson will not persist, my dear,' said Mrs Crummles. `Think better of
him than to suppose it. Gallantry, humanity, all the best feelings of his
nature, must be enlisted in this interesting cause.'
`Which moves even a manager,' said Mr Crummles, smiling.
`And a manager's wife,' added Mrs Crummles, in her accustomed tragedy tones.
`Come, come, you will relent, I know you will.'
`It is not in my nature,' said Nicholas, moved by these appeals, `to resist
any entreaty, unless it is to do something positively wrong; and, beyond a
feeling of pride, I know nothing which should prevent my doing this. I know
nobody here, and nobody knows me. So be it then. I yield.'
Miss Snevellicci was at once overwhelmed with blushes and expressions of
gratitude, of which latter commodity neither Mr nor Mrs Crummles was by any
means sparing. It was arranged that Nicholas should call upon her, at her
lodgings, at eleven next morning, and soon after they parted: he to return home
to his authorship: Miss Snevellicci to dress for the after-piece: and the
disinterested manager and his wife to discuss the probable gains of the
forthcoming bespeak, of which they were to have two-thirds of the profits by
solemn treaty of agreement.
At the stipulated hour next morning, Nicholas repaired to the lodgings of
Miss Snevellicci, which were in a place called Lombard Street, at the house of a
tailor. A strong smell of ironing pervaded the little passage; and the tailor's
daughter, who opened the door, appeared in that flutter of spirits which is so
often attendant upon the periodical getting up of a family's linen.
`Miss Snevellicci lives here, I believe?' said Nicholas, when the door was
opened.
The tailor's daughter replied in the affirmative.
`Will you have the goodness to let her know that Mr Johnson is here?' said
Nicholas.
`Oh, if you please, you're to come upstairs,' replied the tailor's daughter,
with a smile.
Nicholas followed the young lady, and was shown into a small apartment on the
first floor, communicating with a back-room; in which, as he judged from a
certain half-subdued clinking sound, as of cups and saucers, Miss Snevellicci
was then taking her breakfast in bed.
`You're to wait, if you please,' said the tailor's daughter, after a short
period of absence, during which the clinking in the back-room had ceased, and
been succeeded by whispering--`She won't be long.'
As she spoke, she pulled up the window-blind, and having by this means (as
she thought) diverted Mr Johnson's attention from the room to the street, caught
up some articles which were airing on the fender, and had very much the
appearance of stockings, and darted off.
As there were not many objects of interest outside the window, Nicholas
looked about the room with more curiosity than he might otherwise have bestowed
upon it. On the sofa lay an old guitar, several thumbed pieces of music, and a
scattered litter of curl-papers: together with a confused heap of play-bills,
and a pair of soiled white satin shoes with large blue rosettes. Hanging over
the back of a chair was a half-finished muslin apron with little pockets
ornamented with red ribbons, such as waiting-women wear on the stage, and (by
consequence) are never seen with anywhere else. In one corner stood the
diminutive pair of top-boots in which Miss Snevellicci was accustomed to enact
the little jockey, and, folded on a chair hard by, was a small parcel, which
bore a very suspicious resemblance to the companion smalls.
But the most interesting object of all was, perhaps, the open scrapbook,
displayed in the midst of some theatrical duodecimos that were strewn upon the
table; and pasted into which scrapbook were various critical notices of Miss
Snevellicci's acting, extracted from different provincial journals, together
with one poetic address in her honour, commencing-- Sing, God of Love, and tell
me in what dearth Thrice-gifted SNEVELLICCI came on earth, To thrill us with her
smile, her tear, her eye, Sing, God of Love, and tell me quickly why.
Besides this effusion, there were innumerable complimentary allusions, also
extracted from newspapers, such as--`We observe from an advertisement in another
part of our paper of today, that the charming and highly-talented Miss
Snevellicci takes her benefit on Wednesday, for which occasion she has put forth
a bill of fare that might kindle exhilaration in the breast of a misanthrope. In
the confidence that our fellow-townsmen have not lost that high appreciation of
public utility and private worth, for which they have long been so pre-eminently
distinguished, we predict that this charming actress will be greeted with a
bumper.' `To Correspondents.--J.S. is misinformed when he supposes that the
highly-gifted and beautiful Miss Snevellicci, nightly captivating all hearts at
our pretty and commodious little theatre, is not the same lady to whom the young
gentleman of immense fortune, residing within a hundred miles of the good city
of York, lately made honourable proposals. We have reason to know that Miss
Snevellicci is the lady who was implicated in that mysterious and romantic
affair, and whose conduct on that occasion did no less honour to her head and
heart, than do her histrionic triumphs to her brilliant genius.' A copious
assortment of such paragraphs as these, with long bills of benefits all ending
with COME EARLY, in large capitals, formed the principal contents of Miss
Snevellicci's scrapbook.
Nicholas had read a great many of these scraps, and was absorbed in a
circumstantial and melancholy account of the train of events which had led to
Miss Snevellicci's spraining her ankle by slipping on a piece of orange-peel
flung by a monster in human form, (so the paper said,) upon the stage at
Winchester,--when that young lady herself, attired in the coal--scuttle bonnet
and walking-dress complete, tripped into the room, with a thousand apologies for
having detained him so long after the appointed time.
`But really,' said Miss Snevellicci, `my darling Led, who lives with me here,
was taken so very ill in the night that I thought she would have expired in my
arms.'
`Such a fate is almost to be envied,' returned Nicholas, `but I am very sorry
to hear it nevertheless.'
`What a creature you are to flatter!' said Miss Snevellicci, buttoning her
glove in much confusion.
`If it be flattery to admire your charms and accomplishments,' rejoined
Nicholas, laying his hand upon the scrapbook, `you have better specimens of it
here.'
`Oh you cruel creature, to read such things as those! I'm almost ashamed to
look you in the face afterwards, positively I am,' said Miss Snevellicci,
seizing the book and putting it away in a closet. `How careless of Led! How
could she be so naughty!'
`I thought you had kindly left it here, on purpose for me to read,' said
Nicholas. And really it did seem possible.
`I wouldn't have had you see it for the world!' rejoined Miss Snevellicci. `I
never was so vexed--never! But she is such a careless thing, there's no trusting
her.'
The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the phenomenon, who
had discreetly remained in the bedroom up to this moment, and now presented
herself, with much grace and lightness, bearing in her hand a very little green
parasol with a broad fringe border, and no handle. After a few words of course,
they sallied into the street.
The phenomenon was rather a troublesome companion, for first the right sandal
came down, and then the left, and these mischances being repaired, one leg of
the little white trousers was discovered to be longer than the other; besides
these accidents, the green parasol was dropped down an iron grating, and only
fished up again with great difficulty and by dint of much exertion. However, it
was impossible to scold her, as she was the manager's daughter, so Nicholas took
it all in perfect good humour, and walked on, with Miss Snevellicci, arm-in-arm
on one side, and the offending infant on the other.
The first house to which they bent their steps, was situated in a terrace of
respectable appearance. Miss Snevellicci's modest double-knock was answered by a
foot-boy, who, in reply to her inquiry whether Mrs Curdle was at home, opened
his eyes very wide, grinned very much, and said he didn't know, but he'd
inquire. With this he showed them into a parlour where he kept them waiting,
until the two women-servants had repaired thither, under false pretences, to see
the play-actors; and having compared notes with them in the passage, and joined
in a vast quantity of whispering and giggling, he at length went upstairs with
Miss Snevellicci's name.
Now, Mrs Curdle was supposed, by those who were best informed on such points,
to possess quite the London taste in matters relating to literature and the
drama; and as to Mr Curdle, he had written a pamphlet of sixty-four pages, post
octavo, on the character of the Nurse's deceased husband in Romeo and Juliet,
with an inquiry whether he really had been a `merry man' in his lifetime, or
whether it was merely his widow's affectionate partiality that induced her so to
report him. He had likewise proved, that by altering the received mode of
punctuation, any one of Shakespeare's plays could be made quite different, and
the sense completely changed; it is needless to say, therefore, that he was a
great critic, and a very profound and most original thinker.
`Well, Miss Snevellicci,' said Mrs Curdle, entering the parlour, `and how do
you do?'
Miss Snevellicci made a graceful obeisance, and hoped Mrs Curdle was well, as
also Mr Curdle, who at the same time appeared. Mrs Curdle was dressed in a
morning wrapper, with a little cap stuck upon the top of her head. Mr Curdle
wore a loose robe on his back, and his right forefinger on his forehead after
the portraits of Sterne, to whom somebody or other had once said he bore a
striking resemblance.
`I venture to call, for the purpose of asking whether you would put your name
to my bespeak, ma'am,' said Miss Snevellicci, producing documents.
`Oh! I really don't know what to say,' replied Mrs Curdle. `It's not as if
the theatre was in its high and palmy days--you needn't stand, Miss
Snevellicci--the drama is gone, perfectly gone.'
`As an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions, and a realisation of human
intellectuality, gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying
open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly
gone,' said Mr Curdle.
`What man is there, now living, who can present before us all those changing
and prismatic colours with which the character of Hamlet is invested?' exclaimed
Mrs Curdle.
`What man indeed--upon the stage,' said Mr Curdle, with a small reservation
in favour of himself. `Hamlet! Pooh! ridiculous! Hamlet is gone, perfectly
gone.'
Quite overcome by these dismal reflections, Mr and Mrs Curdle sighed, and sat
for some short time without speaking. At length, the lady, turning to Miss
Snevellicci, inquired what play she proposed to have.
`Quite a new one,' said Miss Snevellicci, `of which this gentleman is the
author, and in which he plays; being his first appearance on any stage. Mr
Johnson is the gentleman's name.'
`I hope you have preserved the unities, sir?' said Mr Curdle.
`The original piece is a French one,' said Nicholas. `There is abundance of
incident, sprightly dialogue, strongly-marked characters--'
`--All unavailing without a strict observance of the unities, sir,' returned
Mr Curdle. `The unities of the drama, before everything.'
`Might I ask you,' said Nicholas, hesitating between the respect he ought to
assume, and his love of the whimsical, `might I ask you what the unities are?'
Mr Curdle coughed and considered. `The unities, sir,' he said, `are a
completeness--a kind of universal dovetailedness with regard to place and
time--a sort of a general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an
expression. I take those to be the dramatic unities, so far as I have been
enabled to bestow attention upon them, and I have read much upon the subject,
and thought much. I find, running through the performances of this child,' said
Mr Curdle, turning to the phenomenon, `a unity of feeling, a breadth, a light
and shade, a warmth of colouring, a tone, a harmony, a glow, an artistical
development of original conceptions, which I look for, in vain, among older
performers--I don't know whether I make myself understood?'
`Perfectly,' replied Nicholas.
`Just so,' said Mr Curdle, pulling up his neckcloth. `That is my definition
of the unities of the drama.'
Mrs Curdle had sat listening to this lucid explanation with great
complacency. It being finished, she inquired what Mr Curdle thought, about
putting down their names.
`I don't know, my dear; upon my word I don't know,' said Mr Curdle. `If we
do, it must be distinctly understood that we do not pledge ourselves to the
quality of the performances. Let it go forth to the world, that we do not give
them the sanction of our names, but that we confer the distinction merely upon
Miss Snevellicci. That being clearly stated, I take it to be, as it were, a
duty, that we should extend our patronage to a degraded stage, even for the sake
of the associations with which it is entwined. Have you got two-and-sixpence for
half-a-crown, Miss Snevellicci?' said Mr Curdle, turning over four of those
pieces of money.
Miss Snevellicci felt in all the corners of the pink reticule, but there was
nothing in any of them. Nicholas murmured a jest about his being an author, and
thought it best not to go through the form of feeling in his own pockets at all.
`Let me see,' said Mr Curdle; `twice four's eight--four shillings apiece to
the boxes, Miss Snevellicci, is exceedingly dear in the present state of the
drama--three half-crowns is seven-and-six; we shall not differ about sixpence, I
suppose? Sixpence will not part us, Miss Snevellicci?'
Poor Miss Snevellicci took the three half-crowns, with many smiles and bends,
and Mrs Curdle, adding several supplementary directions relative to keeping the
places for them, and dusting the seat, and sending two clean bills as soon as
they came out, rang the bell, as a signal for breaking up the conference.
`Odd people those,' said Nicholas, when they got clear of the house.
`I assure you,' said Miss Snevellicci, taking his arm, `that I think myself
very lucky they did not owe all the money instead of being sixpence short. Now,
if you were to succeed, they would give people to understand that they had
always patronised you; and if you were to fail, they would have been quite
certain of that from the very beginning.'
At the next house they visited, they were in great glory; for, there, resided
the six children who were so enraptured with the public actions of the
phenomenon, and who, being called down from the nursery to be treated with a
private view of that young lady, proceeded to poke their fingers into her eyes,
and tread upon her toes, and show her many other little attentions peculiar to
their time of life.
`I shall certainly persuade Mr Borum to take a private box,' said the lady of
the house, after a most gracious reception. `I shall only take two of the
children, and will make up the rest of the party, of gentlemen--your admirers,
Miss Snevellicci. Augustus, you naughty boy, leave the little girl alone.'
This was addressed to a young gentleman who was pinching, the phenomenon
behind, apparently with a view of ascertaining whether she was real.
`I am sure you must be very tired,' said the mamma, turning to Miss
Snevellicci. `I cannot think of allowing you to go, without first taking a glass
of wine. Fie, Charlotte, I am ashamed of you! Miss Lane, my dear, pray see to
the children.'
Miss Lane was the governess, and this entreaty was rendered necessary by the
abrupt behaviour of the youngest Miss Borum, who, having filched the
phenomenon's little green parasol, was now carrying it bodily off, while the
distracted infant looked helplessly on.
`I am sure, where you ever learnt to act as you do,' said good-natured Mrs
Borum, turning again to Miss Snevellicci, `I cannot understand (Emma, don't
stare so); laughing in one piece, and crying in the next, and so natural in
all--oh, dear!'
`I am very happy to hear you express so favourable an opinion,' said Miss
Snevellicci. `It's quite delightful to think you like it.'
`Like it!' cried Mrs Borum. `Who can help liking it? I would go to the play,
twice a week if I could: I dote upon it--only you're too affecting sometimes.
You do put me in such a state--into such fits of crying! Goodness gracious me,
Miss Lane, how can you let them torment that poor child so!'
The phenomenon was really in a fair way of being torn limb from limb; for two
strong little boys, one holding on by each of her hands, were dragging her in
different directions as a trial of strength. However, Miss Lane (who had herself
been too much occupied in contemplating the grown-up actors, to pay the
necessary attention to these proceedings) rescued the unhappy infant at this
juncture, who, being recruited with a glass of wine, was shortly afterwards
taken away by her friends, after sustaining no more serious damage than a
flattening of the pink gauze bonnet, and a rather extensive creasing of the
white frock and trousers.
It was a trying morning; for there were a great many calls to make, and
everybody wanted a different thing. Some wanted tragedies, and others comedies;
some objected to dancing; some wanted scarcely anything else. Some thought the
comic singer decidedly low, and others hoped he would have more to do than he
usually had. Some people wouldn't promise to go, because other people wouldn't
promise to go; and other people wouldn't go at all, because other people went.
At length, and by little and little, omitting something in this place, and
adding something in that, Miss Snevellicci pledged herself to a bill of fare
which was comprehensive enough, if it had no other merit (it included among
other trifles, four pieces, divers songs, a few combats, and several dances);
and they returned home, pretty well exhausted with the business of the day.
Nicholas worked away at the piece, which was speedily put into rehearsal, and
then worked away at his own part, which he studied with great perseverance and
acted--as the whole company said--to perfection. And at length the great day
arrived. The crier was sent round, in the morning, to proclaim the
entertainments with the sound of bell in all the thoroughfares; and extra bills
of three feet long by nine inches wide, were dispersed in all directions, flung
down all the areas, thrust under all the knockers, and developed in all the
shops. They were placarded on all the walls too, though not with complete
success, for an illiterate person having undertaken this office during the
indisposition of the regular bill-sticker, a part were posted sideways, and the
remainder upside down.
At half-past five, there was a rush of four people to the gallery-door; at a
quarter before six, there were at least a dozen; at six o'clock the kicks were
terrific; and when the elder Master Crummles opened the door, he was obliged to
run behind it for his life. Fifteen shillings were taken by Mrs Grudden in the
first ten minutes.
Behind the scenes, the same unwonted excitement prevailed. Miss Snevellicci
was in such a perspiration that the paint would scarcely stay on her face. Mrs
Crummles was so nervous that she could hardly remember her part. Miss Bravassa's
ringlets came out of curl with the heat and anxiety; even Mr Crummles himself
kept peeping through the hole in the curtain, and running back, every now and
then, to announce that another man had come into the pit.
At last, the orchestra left off, and the curtain rose upon the new piece. The
first scene, in which there was nobody particular, passed off calmly enough, but
when Miss Snevellicci went on in the second, accompanied by the phenomenon as
child, what a roar of applause broke out! The people in the Borum box rose as
one man, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and uttering shouts of `bravo!'
Mrs Borum and the governess cast wreaths upon the stage, of which, some
fluttered into the lamps, and one crowned the temples of a fat gentleman in the
pit, who, looking eagerly towards the scene, remained unconscious of the honour;
the tailor and his family kicked at the panels of the upper boxes till they
threatened to come out altogether; the very ginger-beer boy remained transfixed
in the centre of the house; a young officer, supposed to entertain a passion for
Miss Snevellicci, stuck his glass in his eye as though to hide a tear. Again and
again Miss Snevellicci curtseyed lower and lower, and again and again the
applause came down, louder and louder. At length, when the phenomenon picked up
one of the smoking wreaths and put it on, sideways, over Miss Snevellicci's eye,
it reached its climax, and the play proceeded.
But when Nicholas came on for his crack scene with Mrs Crummles, what a
clapping of hands there was! When Mrs Crummles (who was his unworthy mother),
sneered, and called him `presumptuous boy,' and he defied her, what a tumult of
applause came on! When he quarrelled with the other gentleman about the young
lady, and producing a case of pistols, said, that if he was a gentleman, he
would fight him in that drawing-room, until the furniture was sprinkled with the
blood of one, if not of two--how boxes, pit, and gallery, joined in one most
vigorous cheer! When he called his mother names, because she wouldn't give up
the young lady's property, and she relenting, caused him to relent likewise, and
fall down on one knee and ask her blessing, how the ladies in the audience
sobbed! When he was hid behind the curtain in the dark, and the wicked relation
poked a sharp sword in every direction, save where his legs were plainly
visible, what a thrill of anxious fear ran through the house! His air, his
figure, his walk, his look, everything he said or did, was the subject of
commendation. There was a round of applause every time he spoke. And when, at
last, in the pump-and-tub scene, Mrs Grudden lighted the blue fire, and all the
unemployed members of the company came in, and tumbled down in various
directions--not because that had anything to do with the plot, but in order to
finish off with a tableau--the audience (who had by this time increased
considerably) gave vent to such a shout of enthusiasm as had not been heard in
those walls for many and many a day.
In short, the success both of new piece and new actor was complete, and when
Miss Snevellicci was called for at the end of the play, Nicholas led her on, and
divided the applause.
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