Chapter I: DO not think that I should devote a chapter in The Children of (3)

Giving the child an encouraging look, intended to reassure her and let her know that, although she stood in the presence of the original Jarley, she must not allow herself to be utterly overwhelmed and borne down, the lady of the caravan unfolded another scroll, whereon was the inscription, “One hundred figures the full size of life,” and then another scroll, on which was written, “The only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the world,” and then several smaller scrolls with such inscriptions as, “Now exhibiting within”--“The genuine and only Jarley”--“Jarley’s unrivalled collection”--“Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and Gentry”--“The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.” When she had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in the shape of handbills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies on popular melodies; as, “Believe me if all Jarley’s wax-work so rare”--“I saw thy show in youthful prime”--“Over the water to Jarley”; while, to consult all tastes, others were composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody on the favorite air of “If I had a donkey,” beginning:

If I know’d a donkey wot wouldn’t go
To see Mrs. JARLEY’S wax-work show,
Do you think I’d acknowledge him?
Oh no no!
Then run to Jarley’s----

--besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all having the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to Jarley’s, and that children and servants were admitted at half-price. When she had brought all these testimonials of her important position in society to bear upon her young companion, Mrs. Jarley rolled them up and, having put them carefully away, sat down again, and looked at the child in triumph.

“Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,” said Mrs. Jarley, “after this.”

“I never saw any wax-work, ma’am,” said Nell. “Is it funnier than Punch?”

“Funnier!” said Mrs. Jarley in a shrill voice. “It is not funny at all.”

“Oh!” said Nell, with all possible humility.

“It isn’t funny at all,” repeated Mrs. Jarley. “It’s calm and--what’s that word again--critical?--no--classical, that’s it--it’s calm and classical. No low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the same, with a constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility; and so like life, that if wax-work only spoke and walked about, you’d hardly know the difference. I won’t go so far as to say, that, as it is, I’ve seen wax-work quite like life, but I’ve certainly seen some life that was exactly like wax-work.”

“Is it here, ma’am?” asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by this description.

“Is what here, child?”

“The wax-work, ma’am.”

“Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of? How could such a collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of one little cupboard and a few boxes? It’s gone on in the other wans to the assembly-rooms, and there it’ll be exhibited the day after to-morrow. You are going to the same town, and you’ll see it, I dare say. It’s natural to expect that you’ll see it, and I’ve no doubt you will. I suppose you couldn’t stop away if you was to try ever so much.”

“I shall not be in the town, I think, ma’am,” said the child.

“Not there!” cried Mrs. Jarley. “Then where will you be?”

“I--I--don’t quite know. I am not certain.”

“You don’t mean to say that you’re travelling about the country without knowing where you’re going to?” said the lady of the caravan. “What curious people you are! What line are you in? You looked to me at the races, child, as if you were quite out of your element, and had got there by accident.”

“We were there quite by accident,” returned Nell, confused by this abrupt questioning. “We are poor people, ma’am, and are only wandering about. We have nothing to do;--I wish we had.”

“You amaze me more and more,” said Mrs. Jarley, after remaining for some time as mute as one of her own figures. “Why, what do you call yourselves? Not beggars?”

“Indeed, ma’am, I don’t know what else we are,” returned the child.

“Lord bless me,” said the lady of the caravan. “I never heard of such a thing. Who’d have thought it!”

She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell feared she felt her having been induced to bestow her protection and conversation upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her dignity that nothing could repair. This persuasion was rather confirmed than otherwise by the tone in which she at length broke silence, and said:

“And yet you can read. And write too, I shouldn’t wonder?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the child, fearful of giving new offense by the confession.

“Well, and what a thing that is,” returned Mrs. Jarley. “_I_ can’t.”

Mrs. Jarley’s wax-works were carried in other wagons to the town where they were to be exhibited, and little Nell was engaged to point to each wax figure, and explain to the audience what it represented. Dozens of figures of noted persons, all with wax faces, and all dressed in brilliant clothes, stood stiffly in a row.

Dickens describes the scene where Mrs. Jarley instructs Nell as to her duties:

* * * * *

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 armchair in the centre, formally invested her 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 Honor 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 offense. 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 inscriptions 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; for 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 the compositions in praise of the wax-works 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 hand-bill 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 lady sat down to dinner.

THE KENWIGSES

XV

THE KENWIGSES