Mr. Folair having obligingly confided these particulars to Nicholas, left him to mingle with his fellows; the work of personal introduction was completed by Mr. Vincent Crummles, who publicly heralded the new actor as a prodigy of genius and learning.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Miss Snevellicci, sidling towards Nicholas, ‘but did you ever play at Canterbury?’
‘I never did,’ replied Nicholas.
‘I recollect meeting a gentleman at Canterbury,’ said Miss Snevellicci, ‘only for a few moments, for I was leaving the company as he joined it, so like you that I felt almost certain it was the same.’
‘I see you now for the first time,’ rejoined Nicholas with all due gallantry. ‘I am sure I never saw you before; I couldn’t have forgotten it.’
‘Oh, I’m sure – it’s very flattering of you to say so,’ retorted Miss Snevellicci with a graceful bend. ‘Now I look at you again, I see that the gentleman at Canterbury hadn’t the same eyes as you – you’ll think me very foolish for taking notice of such things, won’t you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Nicholas. ‘How can I feel otherwise than flattered by your notice in any way?’
‘Oh! you men are such vain creatures!’ cried Miss Snevellicci. Whereupon, she became charmingly confused, and, pulling out her pocket-handkerchief from a faded pink silk reticule with a gilt clasp, called to Miss Ledrook —
‘Led, my dear,’ said Miss Snevellicci.
‘Well, what is the matter?’ said Miss Ledrook.
‘It’s not the same.’
‘Not the same what?’
‘Canterbury – you know what I mean. Come here! I want to speak to you.’
But Miss Ledrook wouldn’t come to Miss Snevellicci, so Miss Snevellicci was obliged to go to Miss Ledrook, which she did, in a skipping manner that was quite fascinating; and Miss Ledrook evidently joked Miss Snevellicci about being struck with Nicholas; for, after some playful whispering, Miss Snevellicci hit Miss Ledrook very hard on the backs of her hands, and retired up, in a state of pleasing confusion.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mr. Vincent Crummles, who had been writing on a piece of paper, ‘we’ll call the Mortal Struggle tomorrow at ten; everybody for the procession. Intrigue, and Ways and Means, you’re all up in, so we shall only want one rehearsal. Everybody at ten, if you please.’
‘Everybody at ten,’ repeated Mrs. Grudden, looking about her.
‘On Monday morning we shall read a new piece,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘the name’s not known yet, but everybody will have a good part. Mr. Johnson will take care of that.’
‘Hallo!’ said Nicholas, starting. ‘I – ’
‘On Monday morning,’ repeated Mr. Crummles, raising his voice, to drown the unfortunate Mr. Johnson’s remonstrance; ‘that’ll do, ladies and gentlemen.’
The ladies and gentlemen required no second notice to quit; and, in a few minutes, the theatre was deserted, save by the Crummles family, Nicholas, and Smike.
‘Upon my word,’ said Nicholas, taking the manager aside, ‘I don’t think I can be ready by Monday.’
‘Pooh, pooh,’ replied Mr. Crummles.
‘But really I can’t,’ returned Nicholas; ‘my invention is not accustomed to these demands, or possibly I might produce – ’
‘Invention! what the devil’s that got to do with it!’ cried the manager hastily.
‘Everything, my dear sir.’
‘Nothing, my dear sir,’ retorted the manager, with evident impatience. ‘Do you understand French?’
‘Perfectly well.’
‘Very good,’ said the manager, opening the table drawer, and giving a roll of paper from it to Nicholas. ‘There! Just turn that into English, and put your name on the title-page. Damn me,’ said Mr. Crummles, angrily, ‘if I haven’t often said that I wouldn’t have a man or woman in my company that wasn’t master of the language, so that they might learn it from the original, and play it in English, and save all this trouble and expense.’
Nicholas smiled and pocketed the play.
‘What are you going to do about your lodgings?’ said Mr. Crummles.
Nicholas could not help thinking that, for the first week, it would be an uncommon convenience to have a turn-up bedstead in the pit, but he merely remarked that he had not turned his thoughts that way.
‘Come home with me then,’ said Mr. Crummles, ‘and my boys shall go with you after dinner, and show you the most likely place.’
The offer was not to be refused; Nicholas and Mr. Crummles gave Mrs Crummles an arm each, and walked up the street in stately array. Smike, the boys, and the phenomenon, went home by a shorter cut, and Mrs. Grudden remained behind to take some cold Irish stew and a pint of porter in the box-office.
Mrs. Crummles trod the pavement as if she were going to immediate execution with an animating consciousness of innocence, and that heroic fortitude which virtue alone inspires. Mr. Crummles, on the other hand, assumed the look and gait of a hardened despot; but they both attracted some notice from many of the passers-by, and when they heard a whisper of ‘Mr. and Mrs Crummles!’ or saw a little boy run back to stare them in the face, the severe expression of their countenances relaxed, for they felt it was popularity.
Mr. Crummles lived in St Thomas’s Street, at the house of one Bulph, a pilot, who sported a boat-green door, with window-frames of the same colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on his parlour mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities. He displayed also a brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-handle, all very bright and shining; and had a mast, with a vane on the top of it, in his back yard.
‘You are welcome,’ said Mrs. Crummles, turning round to Nicholas when they reached the bow-windowed front room on the first floor.
Nicholas bowed his acknowledgments, and was unfeignedly glad to see the cloth laid.
‘We have but a shoulder of mutton with onion sauce,’ said Mrs. Crummles, in the same charnel-house voice; ‘but such as our dinner is, we beg you to partake of it.’
‘You are very good,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I shall do it ample justice.’
‘Vincent,’ said Mrs. Crummles, ‘what is the hour?’
‘Five minutes past dinner-time,’ said Mr. Crummles.
Mrs. Crummles rang the bell. ‘Let the mutton and onion sauce appear.’
The slave who attended upon Mr. Bulph’s lodgers, disappeared, and after a short interval reappeared with the festive banquet. Nicholas and the infant phenomenon opposed each other at the pembroke-table, and Smike and the master Crummleses dined on the sofa bedstead.
‘Are they very theatrical people here?’ asked Nicholas.
‘No,’ replied Mr. Crummles, shaking his head, ‘far from it – far from it.’
‘I pity them,’ observed Mrs. Crummles.
‘So do I,’ said Nicholas; ‘if they have no relish for theatrical entertainments, properly conducted.’
‘Then they have none, sir,’ rejoined Mr. Crummles. ‘To the infant’s benefit, last year, on which occasion she repeated three of her most popular characters, and also appeared in the Fairy Porcupine, as originally performed by her, there was a house of no more than four pound twelve.’
‘Is it possible?’ cried Nicholas.
‘And two pound of that was trust, pa,’ said the phenomenon.
‘And two pound of that was trust,’ repeated Mr. Crummles. ‘Mrs. Crummles herself has played to mere handfuls.’
‘But they are always a taking audience, Vincent,’ said the manager’s wife.
‘Most audiences are, when they have good acting – real good acting – the regular thing,’ replied Mr. Crummles, forcibly.
‘Do you give lessons, ma’am?’ inquired Nicholas.
‘I do,’ said Mrs. Crummles.
‘There is no teaching here, I suppose?’
‘There has been,’ said Mrs. Crummles. ‘I have received pupils here. I imparted tuition to the daughter of a dealer in ships’ provision; but it afterwards appeared that she was insane when she first came to me. It was very extraordinary that she should come, under such circumstances.’
Not feeling quite so sure of that, Nicholas thought it best to hold his peace.
‘Let me see,’ said the manager cogitating after dinner. ‘Would you like some nice little part with the infant?’
‘You are very good,’ replied Nicholas hastily; ‘but I think perhaps it would be better if I had somebody of my own size at first, in case I should turn out awkward. I should feel more at home, perhaps.’
‘True,’ said the manager. ‘Perhaps you would. And you could play up to the infant, in time, you know.’
‘Certainly,’ replied Nicholas: devoutly hoping that it would be a very long time before he was honoured with this distinction.
‘Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘You shall study Romeo when you’ve done that piece – don’t forget to throw the pump and tubs in by-the-bye – Juliet Miss Snevellicci, old Grudden the nurse. – Yes, that’ll do very well. Rover too; – you might get up Rover while you were about it, and Cassio, and Jeremy Diddler. You can easily knock them off; one part helps the other so much. Here they are, cues and all.’
With these hasty general directions Mr. Crummles thrust a number of little books into the faltering hands of Nicholas, and bidding his eldest son go with him and show where lodgings were to be had, shook him by the hand, and wished him good night.
There is no lack of comfortable furnished apartments in Portsmouth, and no difficulty in finding some that are proportionate to very slender finances; but the former were too good, and the latter too bad, and they went into so many houses, and came out unsuited, that Nicholas seriously began to think he should be obliged to ask permission to spend the night in the theatre, after all.
Eventually, however, they stumbled upon two small rooms up three pair of stairs, or rather two pair and a ladder, at a tobacconist’s shop, on the Common Hard: a dirty street leading down to the dockyard. These Nicholas engaged, only too happy to have escaped any request for payment of a week’s rent beforehand.
‘There! Lay down our personal property, Smike,’ he said, after showing young Crummles downstairs. ‘We have fallen upon strange times, and Heaven only knows the end of them; but I am tired with the events of these three days, and will postpone reflection till tomorrow – if I can.’
CHAPTER 24
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, mama?” says the child. “Don’t weep, mama, 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 mama?” 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 jailer, 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 cloak 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 a 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.