第 35 页

my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It would

puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little inspiration,

a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and-- 'Pon my soul

and honour,' said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking

round the room, 'what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it's

quite Minervian.'

'It'll look well enough when it comes to be finished,' observed Mrs

Jarley.

'Well enough!' said Mr Slum. 'Will you believe me when I say it's the

delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've

exercised my pen upon this charming theme? By the way--any orders? Is

there any little thing I can do for you?'

'It comes so very expensive, sir,' replied Mrs Jarley, 'and I really

don't think it does much good.'

'Hush! No, no!' returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand. 'No fibs. I'll

not hear it. Don't say it don't do good. Don't say it. I know

better!'

'I don't think it does,' said Mrs Jarley.

'Ha, ha!' cried Mr Slum, 'you're giving way, you're coming down. Ask

the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old

lottery-office-keepers--ask any man among 'em what my poetry has done

for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum. If he's an

honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of

Slum--mark that! You are acquainted with Westminster Abbey, Mrs

Jarley?'

'Yes, surely.'

'Then upon my soul and honour, ma'am, you'll find in a certain angle of

that dreary pile, called Poets' Corner, a few smaller names than Slum,'

retorted that gentleman, tapping himself expressively on the forehead

to imply that there was some slight quantity of brain behind it. 'I've

got a little trifle here, now,' said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which

was full of scraps of paper, 'a little trifle here, thrown off in the

heat of the moment, which I should say was exactly the thing you wanted

to set this place on fire with. It's an acrostic--the name at this

moment is Warren, and the idea's a convertible one, and a positive

inspiration for Jarley. Have the acrostic.'

'I suppose it's very dear,' said Mrs Jarley.

'Five shillings,' returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a toothpick.

'Cheaper than any prose.'

'I couldn't give more than three,' said Mrs Jarley.

'--And six,' retorted Slum. 'Come. Three-and-six.'

Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet's insinuating manner, and Mr

Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a three-and-sixpenny

one. Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, after taking a most

affectionate leave of his patroness, and promising to return, as soon

as he possibly could, with a fair copy for the printer.

As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the

preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed shortly

after his departure. When the festoons were all put up as tastily as

they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were

displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from the floor, running

round the room and parted from the rude public by a crimson rope breast

high, divers sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, singly and in

groups, clad in glittering dresses of various climes and times, and

standing more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very

wide open, and their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of

their legs and arms very strongly developed, and all their countenances

expressing great surprise. All the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted

and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies were miraculous

figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking

intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at

nothing.

When Nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight, Mrs

Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child,

and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre, formally

invested Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out

the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty.

'That,' said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a

figure at the beginning of the platform, 'is an unfortunate Maid of

Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her

finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood

which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the

period, with which she is at work.'

All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and the

needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.

'That, ladies and gentlemen,' said Mrs Jarley, 'is Jasper Packlemerton

of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and

destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were

sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue. On being

brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done,

he replied yes, he was sorry for having let 'em off so easy, and hoped

all Christian husbands would pardon him the offence. Let this be a

warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the

gentlemen of their choice. Observe that his fingers are curled as if

in the act of tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink,

as he appeared when committing his barbarous murders.'

When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without

faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin

man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a

hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who

poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical

characters and interesting but misguided individuals. And so well did

Nell profit by her instructions, and so apt was she to remember them,

that by the time they had been shut up together for a couple of hours,

she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment,

and perfectly competent to the enlightenment of visitors.

Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result,

and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining

arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage had been

already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with the inscription

she had already seen (Mr Slum's productions), and a highly ornamented

table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley herself, at which she was

to preside and take the money, in company with his Majesty King George

the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots, an anonymous

gentleman of the Quaker persuasion, and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a

correct model of the bill for the imposition of the window duty. The

preparations without doors had not been neglected either; a nun of

great personal attractions was telling her beads on the little portico

over the door; and a brigand with the blackest possible head of hair,

and the clearest possible complexion, was at that moment going round

the town in a cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.

It now only remained that Mr Slum's compositions should be judiciously

distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all

private houses and tradespeople; and that the parody commencing 'If I

know'd a donkey,' should be confined to the taverns, and circulated

only among the lawyers' clerks and choice spirits of the place. When

this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had waited upon the boarding-schools

in person, with a handbill composed expressly for them, in which it was

distinctly proved that wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste,

and enlarged the sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable

lady sat down to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a

flourishing campaign.

CHAPTER 29

Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of the

various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition, little Nell

was not forgotten. The light cart in which the Brigand usually made

his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and streamers, and

the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the miniature of his beloved

as usual, Nell was accommodated with a seat beside him, decorated with

artificial flowers, and in this state and ceremony rode slowly through

the town every morning, dispersing handbills from a basket, to the

sound of drum and trumpet. The beauty of the child, coupled with her

gentle and timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little

country place. The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest

in the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be

important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief

attraction. Grown-up folks began to be interested in the bright-eyed

girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in love, and

constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed in small-text,

at the wax-work door.

This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest Nell

should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone again, and

kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the figures every

half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring audiences. And these

audiences were of a very superior description, including a great many

young ladies' boarding-schools, whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at

great pains to conciliate, by altering the face and costume of Mr

Grimaldi as clown to represent Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when

engaged in the composition of his English Grammar, and turning a

murderess of great renown into Mrs Hannah More--both of which

likenesses were admitted by Miss Monflathers, who was at the head of

the head Boarding and Day Establishment in the town, and who

condescended to take a Private View with eight chosen young ladies, to

be quite startling from their extreme correctness. Mr Pitt in a

nightcap and bedgown, and without his boots, represented the poet

Cowper with perfect exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig,

white shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord

Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it. Miss

Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to

reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select:

observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite

incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a Dean

and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.

Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the lady

of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not only a

peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for making everybody

about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it may be remarked, is,

even in persons who live in much finer places than caravans, a far more

rare and uncommon one than the first, and is not by any means its

necessary consequence. As her popularity procured her various little

fees from the visitors on which her patroness never demanded any toll,

and as her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, she had no

cause of anxiety in connexion with the wax-work, beyond that which

sprung from her recollection of Quilp, and her fears that he might

return and one day suddenly encounter them.

Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was

constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure.

She slept, for their better security, in the room where the wax-work

figures were, and she never retired to this place at night but she

tortured herself--she could not help it--with imagining a resemblance,

in some one or other of their death-like faces, to the dwarf, and this

fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she would almost believe he

had removed the figure and stood within the clothes. Then there were

so many of them with their great glassy eyes--and, as they stood one

behind the other all about her bed, they looked so like living

creatures, and yet so unlike in their grim stillness and silence, that

she had a kind of terror of them for their own sakes, and would often

lie watching their dusky figures until she was obliged to rise and

light a candle, or go and sit at the open window and feel a

companionship in the bright stars. At these times, she would recall

the old house and the window at which she used to sit alone; and then

she would think of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came

into her eyes, and she would weep and smile together.

Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her

grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of their

former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the change in

their condition and of their late helplessness and destitution. When

they were wandering about, she seldom thought of this, but now she

could not help considering what would become of them if he fell sick,

or her own strength were to fail her. He was very patient and willing,

happy to execute any little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in

the same listless state, with no prospect of improvement--a mere

child--a poor, thoughtless, vacant creature--a harmless fond old man,

susceptible of tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant and

painful impressions, but alive to nothing more. It made her very sad

to know that this was so--so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat

idly by, smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he

caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was fond of

doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple questions, yet

patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost conscious of it

too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant--so sad it made her