บทที่ บทที่ 28 · 第28章

Sleep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she awoke,

Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and actively

engaged in preparing breakfast. She received Nell’s apology for being

so late with perfect good humour, and said that she should not have

roused her if she had slept on until noon.

‘Because it does you good,’ said the lady of the caravan, ‘when you’re

tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue quite off;

and that’s another blessing of your time of life--you can sleep so very

sound.’

‘Have you had a bad night, ma’am?’ asked Nell.

‘I seldom have anything else, child,’ replied Mrs Jarley, with the air

of a martyr. ‘I sometimes wonder how I bear it.’

Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the

caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night,

Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake.

However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal account

of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down with her

grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast. The meal finished, Nell

assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper

places, and these household duties performed, Mrs Jarley arrayed

herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose of making a

progress through the streets of the town.

‘The wan will come on to bring the boxes,’ said Mrs Jarley, and you had

better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my

will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can’t be

their own masters and mistresses in such matters as these. How do I

look, child?’

Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a

great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several

abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last

satisfied with her appearance, and went forth majestically.

The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting through

the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind

of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the

dreaded face of Quilp. It was a pretty large town, with an open square

which they were crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was

the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock. There were

houses of stone, houses of red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of

lath and plaster; and houses of wood, many of them very old, with

withered faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the street.

These had very little winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in

some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement. The streets

were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few idle men

lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the

tradesmen’s doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an

alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going

anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some

straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for

minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and

they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked

voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were

all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop,

forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners

of the window.

Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at

the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an admiring group

of children, who evidently supposed her to be an important item of the

curiosities, and were fully impressed with the belief that her

grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out

with all convenient despatch, and taken in to be unlocked by Mrs

Jarley, who, attended by George and another man in velveteen shorts and

a drab hat ornamented with turnpike tickets, were waiting to dispose

their contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental devices

in upholstery work) to the best advantage in the decoration of the room.

They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were. As

the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the

envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred herself to

assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also

was of great service. The two men being well used to it, did a great

deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks from a

linen pocket like a toll-collector’s which she wore for the purpose,

and encouraged her assistants to renewed exertion.

While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose and

black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the

sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over, but was

now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare--dressed too in

ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps

in the winter of their existence--looked in at the door and smiled

affably. Mrs Jarley’s back being then towards him, the military

gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her myrmidons were not to

apprise her of his presence, and stealing up close behind her, tapped

her on the neck, and cried playfully ‘Boh!’

‘What, Mr Slum!’ cried the lady of the wax-work. ‘Lot! who’d have

thought of seeing you here!’

‘’Pon my soul and honour,’ said Mr Slum, ‘that’s a good remark. ‘Pon

my soul and honour that’s a wise remark. Who would have thought it!

George, my faithful feller, how are you?’

George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing that

he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering lustily all

the time.

‘I came here,’ said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley--‘’pon

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.