CHAPTER XXII.

I AM INTRODUCED TO A THEATRICAL FAMILY.

I think if I had been suddenly plunged into Aladdin's cave, I should not have been more amazed. There I should have expected to see the rich treasures of gold and precious stones and the magic fruit growing on magic trees with which that cave is filled, but for the strange wonders by which I was here surrounded I was totally unprepared. These loomed upon me only gradually, for the two tallow candles which threw light upon the scene were but a dim illumination. The kitchen, which comprised nearly the whole of the basement, was irregularly shaped, and so large that the distant corners were almost completely in shade. Lurking, as it were, in one of these distant corners was a man strangely accoutred, whom I expected would presently step forward and join our party, but not a motion did the figure make. I subsequently discovered that it was a dummy man, in chain armour, which had once played a famous part (the armour, not the man) in a famous drama of the middle ages. Hanging upon the walls were numberless articles of male and female attire, some mentionable, some un-ditto; but with rare exceptions the dresses were not such as I was accustomed to rub against in my daily walks. These that I saw hanging around the room, covering every inch of available space from ceiling to floor, were theatrical dresses of different fashions and degrees; many were of silk and satin, very much faded, for persons of quality, and some were of commoner stuff for commoner folks--which latter, from their appearance, seemed to have worn better. Here the dress of a noble Roman fraternised with the kilts of a canny Scotchman, and here the satin cloak and trunks of a fashionable melodramatic nobleman contemplated (doubtless with sinister designs) the modest bodice which covered the breast of female virtue. High life and low life, in every description of ancient, mediæval, and modern fashion, were here represented, and to an eye more practised and fanciful than mine, the room might have been supposed to be furnished with all the cardinal vices and virtues in allegory. Here were long boots whose character could not be mistaken--they represented villainy of the very deepest dye, and they frowned upon the heavy hobnails of a model peasantry. Here were the woollen garments and broad-buckled belt which had played their parts in a hundred smuggling adventures; and here the breeches, stockings, and natty shoes which had danced hundreds of jigs amidst uproarious applause. Here was a harlequin's dress ready to flash into life and play strange antics at the mere waving of the wand which hung above the mask; and clinging to it on either side, as if in fond memory of old triumphs, were the short skirts of dainty columbines. Here was the dress of Wah-no-tee, feathers, bald scalp, moccasins, and hatchet, all complete, side by side with the fripperies of my Lord Foppington. Among the pots and pans on the dresser were polished breastplates and gauntlets and shields of various patterns. There were other dresses, very much bespangled and be-jewelled, and pasteboard helmets and crowns of priceless value, and masks that had had a hard life of it, being dented here and bulged there and puffed up and bunged up in tender places, worse than any prizefighter's face after the severest encounter. A donkey's head and shoulders hung immediately above me, and by its side the plaster cast of a face without the slightest expression in it, and which is popularly supposed to represent an important branch of the histrionic art. Whichever way I turned, these and a hundred other strange articles most incongruously mixed together met my gaze.

'Well, what do you think of us?' asked Miss West. 'We're a queer bunch, ain't we?'

'It's a strange place,' I said, thinking it best to avoid personalities. 'I never saw anything like it.'

'We're a theatrical family, my dear,' said Miss West complacently, 'born in the profession every one of us. Are you fond of theatres?'

As a matter of fact, I had only been twice to a theatre, but it was a place of enchantment to me, and I said as much to Miss West.

'Ah!' she mused. 'It looks so from the front, I daresay; and a good job for us that it does. But it is bright, and it _does_ carry you away.'

A familiar voice behind the curtain caused a diversion, and I turned eagerly in that direction. Miss West gave me another of her sharp looks.

'Don't you wish you had eyes in your ears?' she said. 'You're one of the bashful ones, I can see. Could you play the part of the Bashful Lover do you think?' (This question was accompanied by a significant dig in the ribs and a merry laugh.)

'I don't think,' I stammered, very red and confused, 'that I should ever be able to act.'

'Not _that_ part!' exclaimed my good-natured tormentor. 'Well, then, you _could_ play "The Good-for-nothing."'

Which was an allusion I did not at all understand. Miss West proceeded:

'All you've got to do, my dear, is to stick to nature. Turk gets mad with me when I tell him that. "Stick to nature!" he cries. "Why, then every fool could act." I say to him, every fool _could_ act if he stuck to nature. Then he rolls his eyes and glares, does Turk.'

'Why does he do that?' I inquire.

'He plays the heavy villains, my dear, at the Royal Columbia Theatre; and what's a heavy villain without his glare? You should see him in _The Will and the Way!_ It's a sight.'

'I should like to see him; but you haven't told me who Turk is.'

'Turk is my brother.'

'He is not here?' I ask, with another glance at the curtain.

'Oh, no; he is playing a new part to-night Poor Turk! the new school of acting depresses him. Say, O.'

'O,' I said, with a smile.

'Ah, you should hear Turk say it! It would fill a large page. Do you remember when you first learnt to write?'

'Yes.'

'And how, with your left arm sprawling over the table, and your left ear listening for something you never heard, and your eyes as staring wide open as ever they could be, and your tongue half out of your mouth, you dug your pen into the copy-book to produce your first O, which took about five minutes in the making, and then came out squabbled? That's the way Gus says his O's. He takes a long time over them. Now Brinsley's different.'

'Brinsley?'

'My brother. He's sensible. He plays walking gentlemen in the new style, and rattles off what he has to say quite in the elegant way--as if he didn't care a bit for it, you know. Turk sneers at him (dramatically, my dear), and says that the new school of acting is the ruin of the profession. But to come back to the Bashful Lover. You shall play it, my dear. Gus shall write the piece.'

'Gus?'

'One of my brothers. Gus can write anything--tragedies, melodramas, farces--and he shall write _The Bashful Lover_, after the style of _The Conjugal Lesson_. One scene, and only two performers--you and Jessie. That would be nice, as Jessie says. You shall quarrel, of course, and make it up, and quarrel again, and snub each other, and sulk, and say spiteful things (Gus will see to all that), but--don't look so glum!--it shall all come right in the end. You shall drop into each other's arms and kiss, and while you are folding her to your heart (that's the style nowadays, my dear), the curtain shall fall. We'll have a select audience--none of the boys, for that would spoil it, eh? but Gus--he must be present as the author. There'll be me, and Florry, and Matty, and Rosy, and Nelly, and Sophy, and we'll all applaud at the right places, you may be sure.'

Miss West counted the names on her fingers as she went over them; the young ladies who bore them were all seated round the table and about the room, engaged in various ways. One was cutting-out stars of paper tinsel, and gluing them on to a gauze dress; another was making dancing shoes; another was amusing herself with a cardboard stage and cardboard characters, which she drew on and off by means of tin slides. Miss West, who also had an article of female attire, in an unfinished state, in her lap, which she worked upon in the intervals of her conversation, called these young ladies by name, one by one, and desired each to perform a magnificent curtsy to me, which the little misses, the eldest of whom could not have been more than fourteen years of age, did in grand style, worthy of the finest ladies in the land. I was somewhat bewildered at the extent of Miss West's family, and I asked if there were any more of them.

'Heaps, my dear,' she complacently replied; 'there are nineteen of us altogether--eleven boys and eight girls, and all straight made, with the exception of me. I'm crooked. My legs are wrong. But I've been on the stage too. I played an old witch for an entire season, and got great applause. People in the house wondered how I could keep doubled up almost for such a long time together; I was on in one scene for twenty minutes; they didn't know I was doubled up naturally.'

In proof of her words Miss West rose, and hobbled to the end of the kitchen as if in search of something, and hobbled back, the most genial and good-humoured of old witches. She was barely four feet in height, and was a queer little figure indeed, but her face was bright, and her eyes were bright I could not help liking the little woman, and I told her so.

'That's right, Master Christopher. We'll be friends, you and me. Well, but to come back.' (This was evidently one of her favourite figures of speech.) got two pound five a week for playing the old witch; it lasted for twenty-two weeks, and it was almost the death of me. I had to do it though.'

'Why?'

Her voice grew quieter and she spoke in subdued tones, so that the little misses should not hear.

'Mother and father died within a month of each other, and there were the doctor's bills and the funeral expenses to be provided for. Then there's a large family of us, Master Christopher, and taking us altogether in a lump, we're no joke. The boys wouldn't hear of my going on the stage again, and I don't see myself how I could do it regularly, for there's a deal of business to look after indoors, letting alone the household affairs. Though I like it! If anybody--that is, anybody who's somebody--would write me a strong one-part piece, I could make a big hit with my figure. 'Tisn't every day you see such a figure as mine; it's worth a mint of money on the stage if it was properly worked. They're all on the stage but me; little Sophy there--she's the youngest, four years--spoke two lines in the pantomime last year to rounds of applause. The people love to see a clever child on the stage, though the papers write against it. But what are the papers? as Turk says, with a glare.'

'Of course,' I repeated, with a foolish air of wisdom, 'what are the papers?'

'Turk says, if they were what they ought to be, somebody that he knows (that's himself, my dear) would be at the top of the tree.'

'Turk is very clever, then?'

He's the best murderer to slow music that _I've_ ever seen. But Gus is the genius of the family. In the matter of that, we're all geniuses. But blighted, my dear, blighted!'

She gave me the merriest look, as little like a blighted being as can well be imagined.

'We're all of us very conceited, my dear, and very vain. What was that thing in the fable that tried to blow itself out, and came to grief?'

'The frog.'

'We're all of us frogs, my dear. If people would only give us as much room as we think we ought to have, the world wouldn't be big enough for a quarter of us. And of all the conceited creatures in this topsy-turvy world, actors and actresses are the worst. We're good enough in our way, but we _do_ think such a deal of ourselves.'

'Is Mr. Gus a good actor?'

'Plays leading business; he's out of an engagement just now, He's behind the curtain with Jessie.'

I was burning to ask what they were doing there, but the words hung on my tongue, and an inquiry of another description came forth. It was concerning the wonderful collection of dresses and theatrical properties with which the kitchen was filled. I wanted to know if they were used solely for the adornment of the persons of the Wests.

'Bless your heart, my dear, no,' was the reply. This is the 'stock-in-trade of our theatrical wardrobe business. We lend them out for private theatricals and bal masques. It was a good business once, but it has fallen off dreadfully. When bal masques were in fashion, mother used to lend as many as twenty and thirty dresses a night sometimes. If ever you want a dress for a bal masque--though there's scarcely one a year now, worse luck!--come to me, and make you a nobleman, or a chimney sweep, or a brigand, or the Emperor of Russia, in the twinkling of a bedpost, and all for the small charge of--nothing, to you. But to come back. You wanted to ask just now what Gus and Jessie are doing behind that curtain. They're rehearsing a scene, my dear, out of _As You Like It_. Not that she wants teaching; Jessie's a born actress, and if she were on the stage, she'd make a fortune with her face and voice. And as for her laugh--there, listen! I never _did_ hear Mrs. Nesbit laugh--I'm not old enough to have seen her act, my dear--but if her laugh was as sweet and musical as Jessie's, I'll eat my stock-in-trade down to the last feather. And there's another reason, Master Christopher--Gus is in love with her. Bless my soul! how the boy changes colour! Why, they're all in love with her. Turk is mad about her, and Brinsley is pining away before our eyes. He doesn't mind it so much, because a slim figure suits his line of acting. It wouldn't do for a walking gentleman to be fat.' Miss West placed her hand upon mine, and said, with sagacious nods, 'My dear, if Jessie was on the stage, she would have ten thousand lovers. Hark! there's the bell. They're going to play the scene. Are you ready, Jessie?'

'Yes,' cried Jessie, 'but we want some one for Celia; she only speaks twice.'

'Florry will do Celia,' replied Miss West. 'Go behind, Florry; we'll commence the scene properly, and I'll read Jacques. Now, then. Act four, scene one: The Forest of Arden. Up with the curtain.'

The curtain was drawn aside, and disclosed a roughly constructed stage, and absolutely an old scene representing a wood.

'We have three scenes,' whispered Miss West: 'a chamber scene, a street scene, and a wood. You'll see how beautifully Gus will play Orlando. He'll be dressed for the part. Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Jacques. Look over the book with me. Florry knows her part. I commence: "I prithee, pretty youth--"'

I looked up, and saw Jessie and Florry on the stage. Jessie, looking towards us, did not appear to recognise me; her face was flushed, and her eyes were brilliant with excitement.

Miss West (as Jacques): 'I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.'

Jessie (as Rosalind): 'They say you are a very melancholy fellow.'

Miss West: 'I am so; I do love it better than laughing.'

Jessie: 'Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.'

Miss West: 'Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.'

Jessie: 'Why, then, 'tis good to be a post!'

The raillery of the tone was perfect, and I was aglow with admiration. I had never in my life heard anything more exquisitely intoned, and this was but a foretaste of what was to follow.

Jessie (to Miss West): 'A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then, to have seen much, and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.'

Miss West: 'Yes, I have gained my experience.'

Jessie: 'And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it, too!'

Here Gus West entered, dressed as Orlando. Very noble and handsome he looked, and in the love scene that followed between him and Jessie, he played much too well for my peace of mind. When Jessie said, 'Ask me what you will, I will grant it;' and he answered, 'Then love me, Rosalind,' he spoke in so natural a tone, and with so much eagerness, that I could not believe he was acting, especially with Miss West's words in my mind that he really was in love with her. I was heartily glad when the scene was at an end. But I was somewhat comforted at Jessie's unfeigned delight that I had at last found my way to the Wests'.

'I thought at first that I had you to thank for being here,' I said; 'but Miss West sent me an invitation without you knowing anything of it, it seems.'

'Miss West is a meddlesome--dear delightful creature! She's as good as gold! And I'm a little bit glad that it has happened so; it was manly in you not to give in, and I had a good mind to commence coaxing you again to come.'

'And I was beginning to be so miserable,' I said, adding my confession to hers, 'at not being able to be where you were, that I was on the point of giving way myself, and asking you if I might come without an invitation.'

'So the best thing you can do,' cried Miss West, who had overheard us, 'is to kiss and make friends.'

Jessie laughed, and said, 'I didn't see you while I was acting, Chris. I was so excited that I couldn't see a face in the room.'

Not even Orlando's?' I suggested, with a furtive look at Jessie.

'Oh, yes; his of course, but then we were acting to each other.'

'Only acting, Jessie?' I inquired, with much anxiety.

'Only acting, Jessie!' mimicked Miss West, whose sharp ears lost not a word. 'Why, what else _should_ it be? Or else she's married to Gus--Scotch fashion, my dear. "I take thee, Rosalind (meaning Jessie), for wife," says Gus. "I do take thee, Orlando (meaning Gus), for my husband," says Jessie. But she'd say that to any man who played Orlando as well as Gus does--wouldn't you, Jessie?'

'Of course I would,' replied Jessie, entering into her friend's humour.

'Why, my dear, I knew a young lady who was married a dozen times a week (in two pieces every night) for more than six months. And her sweetheart was the stage carpenter, and saw it all from the wings--imagine his sufferings, my dear! Ah, but such marriages are often a good deal happier than real ones; there's more fun in them, certainly. Jessie, there's ten o'clock striking; it's time for you to go. Now mind,' concluded Miss West, addressing me, 'no more standing on ceremony; you're welcome to come and go when you like; we shall look on you as we look on Jessie, as one of the family.'

I promised to come very often, and Miss West said I could not come too often. There was no mistaking the hearty sincerity of the invitation. Jessie and I walked very slowly home, and she listened delightedly to my praises of her acting.

'I don't want them at home to know about it, Chris,' she said; 'at least, not till I tell them.'

'Very well, Jessie;' and we entered the little parlour together in a very happy mood.