The Old Curiosity Shop

Chapter 28

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.