Nicholas Nickleby
‘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.’