Ten Girls from Dickens Part 10

For the rest, she had never murmured or complained, but with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered--save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them--faded like the light upon a summer's evening.

They carried her to an old nook, where she had many and many a time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light streamed on it through the colored window--a window where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling changing light would fall upon her grave.

One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky. Another told how she had loved to linger in the church when all was quiet, and even to climb the tower stair with no more light than that of the moon's rays stealing through the loopholes in the thick old wall. A whisper went about among the oldest that she had seen and talked with angels. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with G.o.d.

Oh, it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach; but let no man reject it, for it is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations to defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to heaven.

THE INFANT PHENOMENON

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INFANT PHENOMENON]

THE INFANT PHENOMENON

Mr. Vincent Crummles was manager of a theatrical company, and also the head of a most remarkable family indeed, each member of which was gifted with an extraordinary combination of talent and attractiveness, and most remarkable of all the family was the Infant Phenomenon.

After Nicholas Nickleby, teacher at Dotheboys Hall, quitted that wretched inst.i.tution in disgrace, because he had resented injuries inflicted upon the scholars in general, and upon the poor half-starved, ill-used drudge, Smike, in particular, Smike stole away from the place where he had been so cruelly used, to follow his defender, and the two journeyed on together towards Portsmouth, resting for the night at a roadside inn some miles from their destination. At the inn they met Mr.

Crummles who, upon discovering them to be dest.i.tute of money, and desirous of obtaining employment as soon as possible, offered them both engagements in his company, which offer, after a brief deliberation, Nicholas decided to accept, until something more to his liking should be available.

Accordingly they journeyed to Portsmouth, together with Mr. Crummles and the master Crummleses, and accompanied the manager through the town on his way to the theatre.

They pa.s.sed a great many bills pasted against the wall, and displayed in windows, wherein the names of Mr. Vincent Crummles, Mrs. Vincent Crummles, Master Crummles, Master Peter Crummles, and Miss Crummles, were printed in large letters, and everything else in very small letters; and turning at length into an entry in which was a strong smell of orange-peel and lamp-oil, with an under-current of saw-dust, groping their way through a dark pa.s.sage, and descending a step or two, emerged upon the stage of the Portsmouth theatre.

It was not very light, and as Nicholas looked about him, ceiling, pit, boxes, gallery, orchestra, fittings, and decorations of every kind,--all looked coa.r.s.e, cold, gloomy and wretched.

"Is this a theatre?" whispered Smike, in amazement; "I thought it was a blaze of light and finery."

"Why, so it is," replied Nicholas, hardly less surprised; "But not by day, Smike,--not by day."

At this moment the manager's voice was heard, introducing the new-comers, under the stage names of Johnson and Digby, to Mrs.

Crummles, a portly lady in a tarnished silk cloak, with her bonnet dangling by the strings, and with a quant.i.ty of hair braided in a large festoon over each temple; who greeted them with great cordiality.

While they were chatting with her, there suddenly bounded on to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty white frock, with tucks up to the knees, short trousers, sandalled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil and curl papers, who turned a pirouette, then looking off in the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded forward to within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a beautiful att.i.tude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair of buff slippers came in at one powerful slide, and chattering his teeth fiercely, brandished a walking-stick.

"They are going through, 'The Indian Savage and the Maiden,'" said Mrs.

Crummles.

"Oh!" said the manager, "the little ballet interlude. Very good. Go on.

A little this way, if you please, Mr. Johnson. That'll do. Now!"

The manager clapped his hands as a signal to proceed, and the Savage, becoming ferocious, made a slide towards the Maiden; but the Maiden avoided him in six twirls, and came down, at the end of the last one, upon the very points of her toes. This seemed to make some impression upon the Savage, for after a little more ferocity and chasing of the Maiden into corners, he began to relent, and stroked his face several times with his right thumb and forefingers, thereby intimating that he was struck with admiration of the Maiden's beauty. Acting upon the impulse of this pa.s.sion, he began to hit himself severe thumps in the chest, and to exhibit other indications of being desperately in love, which, being rather a prosy proceeding, was very likely the cause of the Maiden's falling asleep; whether it was or no, asleep she did fall, sound as a church, on a sloping bank, and the Savage, perceiving it, leant his left ear on his left hand, and nodded sideways, to intimate to all whom it might concern that she _was_ asleep, and no shamming. Being left to himself, the Savage had a dance all alone. Just as he left off, the Maiden woke up, rubbed her eyes, got off the bank, and had a dance all alone too--such a dance that the Savage looked on in ecstacy all the while, and when it was done, plucked from a neighboring tree some botanical curiosity, resembling a small pickled cabbage, and offered it to the Maiden, who at first wouldn't have it, but on the Savage shedding tears, relented. Then the Savage jumped for joy; then the Maiden jumped for rapture at the sweet smell of the pickled cabbage; then the Savage and the Maiden danced violently together, and finally the Savage dropped down on one knee, and the Maiden stood on one leg upon his other knee; thus concluding the ballet, and leaving the spectators in a state of pleasing uncertainty whether she would ultimately marry the Savage, or return to her friends.

"Bravo!" cried Nicholas, resolved to make the best of everything.

"Beautiful!"

"This, sir," said Mr. Vincent Crummles, bringing the Maiden forward, "This is the Infant Phenomenon--Miss Ninetta Crummles."

"Your daughter?" inquired Nicholas.

"My daughter--my daughter," replied Mr. Crummles; "the idol of every place we go into, sir. We have had complimentary letters about this girl, sir, from the n.o.bility and gentry of almost every town in England."

"I am not surprised at that," said Nicholas; "she must be quite a natural genius."

"Quite a--!" Mr. Crummles stopped: language was not powerful enough to describe the Infant Phenomenon. "I'll tell you what, sir," he said; "the talent of this child is not to be imagined. She must be seen, sir--seen--to be ever so faintly appreciated. There; go to your mother, my dear."

"May I ask how old she is?" inquired Nicholas.

"You may, sir," replied Mr. Crummles, "She is ten years of age, sir,"

"Not more?"

"Not a day."

"Dear me," said Nicholas, "it's extraordinary."

It was; for the Infant Phenomenon certainly looked older, and had moreover, been precisely the same age for certainly five years. But she had been kept up late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of gin and water from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and perhaps this system of training had produced in the Infant Phenomenon these additional phenomena.

When this dialogue was concluded, another member of the company, Mr.

Folair, joined Nicholas, and confided to him the contempt of the entire troupe for the Infant Phenomenon. "Infant Humbug sir!" he said. "There isn't a female child of common sharpness in a charity school that couldn't do better than that. She may thank her stars she was born a manager's daughter."

"You seem to take it to heart," observed Nicholas with a smile.

"Yes, by Jove, and well I may," said Mr. Folair testily "isn't it enough to make a man crusty, to see the little sprawler put up in the best business every night, and actually keeping money out of the house by being forced down the people's throats while other people are pa.s.sed over? Why, I know of fifteen-and-sixpence that came to Southampton last month to see me dance the Highland Fling, and what's the consequence?

I've never been put up at it since--never once--while the 'Infant Phenomenon' has been grinning through artificial flowers at five people and a baby in the pit, and two boys in the gallery, every night."

From these bitter remarks, it may be inferred that there were two ways of looking at the performances of the Infant Phenomenon, but as jealousy is well known to be unjust in its criticism, and as the Infant was too highly praised by her own band of admirers to be much affected by such remarks, if any of them reached her ears, there is no evidence that her joy was diminished by reason of the complaints of captious fault-finders.

At the first evening performance which Nicholas witnessed, he found the various members of the company very much changed; by reason of false hair, false color, false calves, false muscles, they had become different beings; the stage also was set in the most elaborate fashion,--in short everything was on a scale of the utmost splendor and preparation.

Nicholas was standing contemplating the first scene when the manager accosted him.

"Been in front to-night?" 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. "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 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, sympathizing with the feelings of a father, refrained from hinting at this trifling circ.u.mstance, and Mr. Crummies continued: