Part 3

“Sometimes,” replied my father, “but you have not seen Shakespeare’s, Mrs. Shandy. And it is for the like of you, I tell you point-blank——”

As my father pronounced the word point-blank my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles, but my father continued:—

“It is for the like of you that these Shakespeare Memorialists are sending their strolling players around the country, to set the goodwives wondering about Shakespeare, as they wondered about Diego’s nose in the tale of the learned Hafen Slawkenbergius.”

“Surely the wonderful nose was Cyrano’s?” said my mother. “Cyrano’s or Diego’s, ’tis all one,” cried my father in a passion. “Zooks! Cannot a man use a plain analogy but his wife must interrupt him with her foolish questions about it? May the eternal curse of all the devils in——”

“Our armies swore terribly in Flanders,” cried my uncle Toby, “but nothing to this.”

“As you please, Mr. Shandy,” said my mother.

“Where was I?” said my father, in some confusion, and letting his hand fall upon my uncle Toby’s shoulder in sign of repentance for his violent cursing.

“You was at Slawkenbergius,” replied my uncle Toby.

“No, no, brother, Shakespeare, I was speaking of Shakespeare, and how they were going to carry him round the country because they had not money enough to build a theatre for him in London.”

“But could they not hire one?” said my uncle Toby.

“No, for my Lord Lytton said that would be too speculative a venture.”

“’Tis a mighty strange business,” said my uncle, in much perplexity. “They buy their land, as I understand it, brother, to build a house for Shakespeare in London, but lease it for a house for young Christians instead, and spend their money on sending Shakespeare packing out of London.”

“’Tis all the fault of the Londoners,” replied my father. “They have no soul for Shakespeare, and for that matter, as I believe, no soul at all.”

“A Londoner has no soul, an’ please your honour,” whispered Corporal Trim doubtingly, and touching his Montero-cap to my uncle.

“I am not much versed, Corporal,” quoth my uncle Toby, “in things of that kind; but I suppose God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me.”

LADY CATHERINE AND MR. COLLINS

Elizabeth and Charlotte were seated one morning in the parlour at Hunsford parsonage, enjoying the prospect of Rosings from the front window, and Mr. Collins was working in his garden, which was one of his most respectable pleasures, when the peace of the household was suspended by the arrival of a letter from London:—

“THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE,

“LONDON, _December, 19—_.

“DEAR COUSIN WILLIAM,—We have long neglected to maintain a commerce of letters, but I have learned through the public prints of your recent union with an elegant female from Hertfordshire and desire to tender you and your lady my respects in what I trust will prove an agreeable form. I am directing an entertainment at this theatre, which is designed to be in harmony with the general Christmas rejoicings, and, you may rest assured, in no way offends the principles of the Church which you adorn. Will you not honour it by your presence and thus confer an innocent enjoyment upon your lady? In that hope, I enclose a box ticket for the pantomime on Monday se’nnight and remain your well-wisher and cousin,

“ARTHUR COLLINS.”

Smiling to herself, Elizabeth reflected that the two Messrs. Collins might certainly call cousins in epistolary composition, while Charlotte anxiously inquired if the proposal had her William’s approval.

“I am by no means of opinion,” said he, “that an entertainment of this kind, given by a man of character, who is also my own second cousin, to respectable people, can have any evil tendency; but, before accepting the invitation, it is, of course, proper that I should seek the countenance of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.” Accordingly, he lost no time in making his way to Rosings.

Lady Catherine, who chanced to be meditating that very morning on a visit to London for the purchase of a new bonnet and _pèlerine_, was all affability and condescension.

“To be sure, you will go, Mr. Collins,” said her ladyship. “I advise you to accept the invitation without delay. It is the duty of a clergyman of your station to refine and improve such entertainments by his presence. Nay,” she added, “Sir Lewis highly approved them and _I_ myself will go with you.” Mr. Collins was overwhelmed by civility far beyond his expectations, and hurried away to prepare Charlotte and Elizabeth for this splendid addition to their party.

Early on the Monday se’nnight they set out for London in one of her ladyship’s carriages, for, as Mr. Collins took the opportunity of remarking, she had several, drawn by four post-horses, which they changed at the “Bell” at Bromley. On the way her ladyship examined the young ladies’ knotting-work and advised them to do it differently, instructed Elizabeth in the humility of deportment appropriate to the front seat of a carriage, and determined what the weather was to be to-morrow.

When they were at last arrived and seated in their box Lady Catherine approved the spacious dignity of the baronial hall, which, she said, reminded her of the great gallery at Pemberley, but was shocked at the familiarities which passed between the Baron and Baroness Beauxchamps and their page-boy. “These foreign nobles,” she exclaimed, “adventurers, I daresay! It was Sir Lewis’s opinion that _all_ foreigners were adventurers. No English baron, it is certain, would talk so familiarly to a common domestic, a person of inferior birth, and of no importance in the world. Honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. With such manners, I do not wonder that the domestic arrangements are in disorder, the very stair-carpet unfastened, and a machine for cleaning knives actually brought into a reception room! See, they cannot even lay a table-cloth!” And her ladyship advised Charlotte on the proper way of laying table-cloths, especially in clergymen’s families.

After a song of Miss Florence Smithson’s Charlotte talked in a low tone with Elizabeth, and her ladyship called out:—“What is that you are saying, Mrs. Collins? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.”

“We are speaking of music, madam,” said Charlotte.

“Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.”

When Cinderella set out for the ball in her coach-and-six with a whole train of running-footmen Lady Catherine signified her approbation. “Young women should always be properly guarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her having two men-servants go with her. I am excessively attentive to all those things.”

But now they were at the ball, and the box party was all attention. The Prince, dignified and a little stiff, reminded Elizabeth of Mr. Darcy. But guests so strange as Mutt and Jeff, she thought, would never be allowed to pollute the shades of Pemberley. Mr. Collins’s usually cold composure forsook him at the sight of the Baroness playing cards with the Baron on one of her _paniers_ as a table, and felt it his duty to apologize to Lady Catherine for the unseemly incident. “If your ladyship will warrant me,” he began, “I will point out to my cousin that neither a person of your high station nor a clergyman of the Church of England ought to be asked to witness this licentiousness of behaviour.” “And advise him,” said her ladyship, “on the authority of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, that _paniers_ were never used for this disgraceful purpose. There is no one in England who knows more about _paniers_ than myself, for my grandmother, Lady Anne, wore them, and some day Mrs. Jennings, the housekeeper, shall show them to Miss Bennet,” for Elizabeth could not forbear a smile, “at Rosings.”

The party retired early, for Elizabeth had to be conveyed to her uncle’s as far as Gracechurch Street, and Lady Catherine desired the interval of a long night before choosing her new bonnet. It was not until Mr. Collins was once more in his parsonage that he sent his cousin an acknowledgment of the entertainment afforded at Drury Lane, as follows:—

“HUNSFORD, _near_ WESTERHAM, KENT,

“_January, 19—_.

“DEAR SIR,—We withdrew from your Christmas entertainment on Monday last with mingled feelings of gratification and reprobation. When I say ‘we’ I should tell you that my Charlotte and I not only brought with us a Miss Elizabeth Bennet, one of the friends of her maiden state, but were honoured by the company of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence have, as you know, preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. It is as a clergyman that I feel it my duty to warn you against the sinful game of cards exhibited in the scene of the Prince’s ball. If it had been family whist, I could have excused it, for there can be little harm in whist, at least among players who are not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. But the Baroness Beauxchamps is manifestly engaged in a game of sheer chance, if not of downright cheating. The admission of this incident to your stage cannot but have proceeded, you must allow me to tell you, from a faulty degree of indulgence. And I am to add, on the high authority of Lady Catherine, probably the highest on this as on many other subjects, that there is no instance on record of the _paniers_ once worn by ladies being used as card-tables. With respectful compliments to your lady and family,

“I remain, dear sir, your cousin,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

MR. PICKWICK AT THE PLAY

“And now,” said Mr. Pickwick, looking round on his friends with a good-humoured smile, and a sparkle in the eye which no spectacles could dim or conceal, “the question is, Where shall we go to-night?”

With the faithful Sam in attendance behind his chair, he was seated at the head of his own table, with Mr. Snodgrass on his left and Mr. Winkle on his right and Mr. Alfred Jingle opposite him; his face was rosy with jollity, for they had just dispatched a hearty meal of chops and tomato sauce, with bottled ale and Madeira, and a special allowance of milk punch for the host.

Mr. Jingle proposed Mr. Pickwick; and Mr. Pickwick proposed Mr. Jingle. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr. Winkle; and Mr. Winkle proposed Mr. Snodgrass; while Sam, taking a deep pull at the stone bottle of milk punch behind his master’s chair, silently proposed himself.

“And where,” said Mr. Pickwick, “shall we go to-night?” Mr. Snodgrass, as modest as all great geniuses are, was silent. Mr. Winkle, who had been thinking of Arabella, started violently, looked knowing, and was beginning to stammer something, when he was interrupted by Mr. Jingle—“A musical comedy, old boy—no plot—fine women—gags—go by-by—wake up for chorus—entertaining, very.”

“And lyrics,” said Mr. Snodgrass, with poetic rapture.

“I was just going to suggest it,” said Mr. Winkle, “when this individual” (scowling at Mr. Jingle, who laid his hand on his heart, with a derisive smile), “when, I repeat, this individual interrupted me.”

“A musical comedy, with all my heart,” said Mr. Pickwick. “Sam, give me the paper. H’m, h’m, what’s this? _The Eclipse_, a farce with songs—will that do?”

“But is a farce with songs a musical comedy?” objected Mr. Winkle.

“Bless my soul,” said Mr. Pickwick, “this is very puzzling.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” said Sam, touching his forelock, “it’s a distinction without a difference—as the pork pieman remarked when they asked him if his pork wasn’t kittens.”

“Then,” said Mr. Pickwick, with a benevolent twinkle, “by all means let us go to _The Eclipse_.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Sam again, doubtfully, “there ain’t no astrongomies in it, is there?” Sam had not forgotten his adventure with the scientific gentleman at Clifton. But, as nobody knew, they set off for the Garrick Theatre, and were soon ensconced in a box.

They found the stage occupied by a waiter, who was the very image of the waiter Mr. Pickwick had seen at the Old Royal Hotel at Birmingham, except that he didn’t imperceptibly melt away. Waiters, in general, never walk or run; they have a peculiar and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms which other mortals possess not. But this waiter, unlike his kind, couldn’t “get off” anyhow. He explained that it was because the composer had given him no music to “get off” with.

“Poor fellow,” said Mr. Pickwick, greatly distressed; “will he have to stop there all night?”

“Not,” muttered Sam to himself, “if I wos behind ’im with a bradawl.”

However, the waiter did at last get off, and then came on again and sang another verse, amid loud hoorays, until Mr. Pickwick’s eyes were wet with gratification at the universal jollity.

“Fine fellow, fine fellow,” cried Mr. Pickwick; “what is his name?”

“Hush-h-h, my dear sir,” whispered a charming young man of not much more than fifty in the next box, in whom Mr. Pickwick, abashed, recognized Mr. Angelo Cyrus Bantam, “_that_ is Mr. Alfred Lester.”

“A born waiter,” interjected Mr. Jingle, “once a waiter always a waiter—stage custom—Medes and Persians—wears his napkin for a nightcap—droll fellow, very.”

By and by there was much talk of a mysterious Tubby Haig, and they even sang a song about him; but he did not appear on the stage, and Mr. Pickwick, whose curiosity was excited, asked who this Tubby Haig was.

Sam guessed he might be own brother to Mr. Wardle’s Fat Boy, Joe, or perhaps “the old gen’l’m’n as wore the pigtail—reg’lar fat man, as hadn’t caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty year,” but Mr. Bantam again leaned over from his box and whispered:—

“Hush-h-h, my dear sir, nobody is fat or old in Ba-a——I mean in literary circles. Mr. Tubby Haig is a popular author of detective stories, much prized, along with alleytors and commoneys, by the youth of this town.”

But a sudden start of Mr. Winkle’s and a rapturous exclamation from Mr. Snodgrass again directed Mr. Pickwick’s attention to the scene. He almost fainted with dismay. Standing in the middle of the stage, in the full glare of the lights, was a lady with her shoulders and back (which she kept turning to the lights) bare to the waist!

“Bless my soul,” cried Mr. Pickwick, shrinking behind the curtain of the box, “what a dreadful thing!”

He mustered up courage, and looked out again. The lady was still there, not a bit discomposed.

“Most extraordinary female, this,” thought Mr. Pickwick, popping in again.

She still remained, however, and even threw an arch glance in Mr. Pickwick’s direction, as much as to say, “You old dear.”

“But—but—” cried Mr. Pickwick, in an agony, “won’t she catch cold?”

“Bless your heart, no, sir,” said Sam, “she’s quite used to it, and it’s done with the very best intentions, as the gen’l’man said ven he run away from his wife, ’cos she seemed unhappy with him.”

If Mr. Pickwick was distressed, very different was the effect of the lovely vision upon Mr. Winkle. Alas for the weakness of human nature! he forgot for the moment all about Arabella. Suddenly grasping his hat, he rose from his seat, said “Good-night, my dear sir,” to Mr. Pickwick between his set teeth, added brokenly, “My friend, my benefactor, my honoured companion, do not judge me harshly”—and dashed out of the box.

“Very extraordinary,” said Mr. Pickwick to himself, “what _can_ that young man be going to do?”

Meanwhile, for Mr. Winkle to rush downstairs, into the street, round the corner, as far as the stage-door, was the work of a moment. Taking out a card engraved “NATHANIEL WINKLE, M.P.C.,” he hastily pencilled a few fervent words on it and handed it to the door-keeper, requiring him instantly to convey it to Miss Teddie Gerard.

“What now, imperence,” said the man, roughly pushing him from the door and knocking his hat over his eyes.

At the same moment Mr. Winkle found his arms pinioned from behind by Sam Weller, who led him, crestfallen, back into the street and his senses. The public were now leaving the theatre, and Mr. Pickwick, beckoning Mr. Winkle to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and uttered in a low, but distinct and emphatic, tone these remarkable words:—

“You’re a humbug, sir.”

“A what!” said Mr. Winkle, starting.

“A humbug, sir.”

With these words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined his friends.

MR. CRICHTON AND MR. LITTIMER

They were seated together, Mr. and Mrs. Crichton in the bar-parlour of their little public-house in the Harrow Road, at the more fashionable end, for which Mr. Crichton had himself invented the sign (in memory of his past experiences) of “The Case is Altered.” Mr. Crichton, too, was altered and yet the same. He wore one of the Earl’s old smoking-jackets, with a coronet still embroidered on the breast pocket—not, he said, out of anything so vulgar as ostentation, but as a sort of last link with the Upper House—but his patent leather boots had given place to carpet slippers, and his trousers, once so impeccable, were now baggy at the knees. Altogether he was an easier, more relaxed Crichton, freed as he was from the restraining, if respectful, criticism of the servants’ hall. Indeed, Miss Fisher, who had always hated him, hinted that he had become slightly Rabelaisian—a reference which she owed to mademoiselle—though she would not have dared to repeat the hint to Mrs. Crichton (_née_ Tweeny). For marriage had in no degree abated Tweeny’s reverence for her Crichton, or rather, as old habit still impelled her to call him, her Guv.

The Guv. was at this moment comforting himself with a glass of port (from the wood) and thinking of that bin of ’47 he had helped the Earl to finish in past days. And now he was inhabiting a road where (at least at the other, the unfashionable, end) port was invariably “port wine.” Such are the vicissitudes of human affairs. Tweeny herself was guilty of the solecism, as was perhaps to be expected from a lady who, for her own drinking, preferred swipes. Though she had made great strides in her education under the Guv.’s guidance (she was now nearly into quadratic equations, and could say the dates of accession of the kings of England down to James II.), she still made sad havoc of her nominatives and verbs in the heat of conversation.

“A gent as wants to see the Guv.,” said the potboy, popping his head in at the bar-parlour door—the potboy, for Tweeny knew better than to have a barmaid about the place for the Guv. to cast a favourable eye on.

A not very clean card was handed in, inscribed:—

“MR. LITTIMER,”

and the owner walked in after it. Or, rather, glided softly in, shutting the door after entry as delicately as though the inmates had just fallen into a sweet sleep on which their life depended. Mr. Littimer was an old-fashioned looking man, with mutton-chop whiskers, a “stock,” tied in a large bow, a long frock-coat, and tight trousers—the whole suggesting nothing of recent or even modern date, but, say, 1850. It was an appearance of intense respectability, of super-respectability, of that 1850 respectability which was so infinitely more respectable than any respectability of our own day. Mr. Crichton stared, as well he might, and washed his hands with invisible soap. Though, in fact, now middle-aged, he felt in this man’s presence extremely young. He clean forgot that he had been a King in Babylon. Indeed, for the first time in his life he, the consummate, the magisterial, the admirable Crichton, felt almost green.

“Mr. Crichton, sir,” said the visitor, with an apologetic inclination of the head, “I have ventured to take the great liberty of calling upon you, if you please, sir, and,” he added with another inclination of the head to Mrs. Crichton (who felt what she would herself have called flabbergasted), “if _you_ please, ma’am, as an old friend of your worthy father. He was butler at Mrs. Steerforth’s when I valeted poor Mr. James.” His eye fell, respectably, on Mr. Crichton’s port. “Ah!” he said, “_his_ wine was Madeira, but——” A second glass of port was thereupon placed on the table, and he sipped it respectably.

Mr. Crichton could only stare, speechless. All his _aplomb_ had gone. He gazed at a ship’s bucket, his most cherished island relic, which hung from the ceiling (as a shade for the electric light—one of his little mechanical ingenuities), and wondered whether he ever _could_ have put anybody’s head in it. His philosophy was, for once, at fault. He knew, none better, that “nature” had made us all unequal, dividing us up into earls and butlers and tweenies, but now for the first time it dawned upon him that “nature” had made us unequally respectable. Here was something more respectable, vastly more respectable, than himself; respectable not in the grand but in the sublime manner.

He could not guess his visitor’s thoughts, and it was well for his peace of mind that he could not. For Mr. Littimer’s thoughts were, respectably, paternal. He thought of Mr. Crichton, sen., and still more of the senior Mrs. Crichton, once “own woman” to Mrs. Steerforth. Ah! those old days and those old loves! How sad and bad and mad it was—for Mr. Littimer’s poet was Browning, as his host’s was Henley, as suited the difference in their dates—and how they had deceived old Crichton between them! So this was _his_ boy, his, Littimer’s, though no one knew it save himself and the dead woman! And as he gazed, with respectable fondness, at this image, modernized, modified, subdued, of his own respectability, he reflected that there was something in heredity, after all. And he smiled, respectably, as he remembered his boy’s opinion that the union of butler and lady’s maid was perhaps the happiest of all combinations. Perhaps, yes; but without any perhaps, if the combination included the valet.

Unhappy, on the other hand, were those combinations from which valets were pointedly excluded. There was that outrageous young person whom Mr. James left behind at Naples and who turned upon him, the respectable Littimer, like a fury, when he was prepared to overlook her past in honourable marriage.

His meditations were interrupted by Mrs. Crichton, who had been mentally piecing together her recollections of “David Copperfield”—her Guv. had given her a Dickens course—and had now arrived at a conclusion. “Axin’ yer pardon, mister,” she said (being still, as we have stated, a little vulgar when excited), “but if you was valet to Mr. James Steerforth, you’re the man as ’elped ’im to ruin that pore gal, and as afterwards went to quod for stealin’. I blushes”—here her eye fell on the Guv., who quietly dropped the correction “blush”—“I _blush_ for yer, Mr. Littimer.” “Ah, ma’am,” Mr. Littimer respectably apologized, “I attribute my past follies entirely to having lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men; and to having allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses, which I had not the strength to resist.”