"I have my own ideas what"s good for Jenny."
"But ain"t she going to have a say in the matter, so to speak?"
"My dear man, she isn"t seven yet."
"None too early to start dancing."
"I"d rather not, thank you, and please don"t start putting fancies in the child"s head."
"Of course, I shouldn"t. Of course not. That ain"t to be thought of."
But the very next day Mr. Walter Vergoe invited Jenny to come and see some pretty picture-books, and Jenny, with much finger and pinafore sucking and buried cheeks, followed him through the door near which she had always been commanded not to loiter.
"Come in, my dear, and look at Mr. Vergoe"s pretty pictures. Don"t be shy. Here"s a bag of lollipops," he said, holding up a pennyworth of bull"s-eyes.
On the jolly June morning the room where the old clown had elected to spend his frequently postponed retirement was exceedingly pleasant. The sun streamed in through the big bay-window: the sparrows cheeped and twittered outside, and on the window-sill a box of round-faced pansies danced in the merry June breeze. The walls were hung with silhouettes of the great dead and tinsel pictures of bygone dramas and harlequinades and tragedies. There were daguerreotypes of beauties in crinolines, of ruddy-cheeked actors and apple-faced old actresses. There was a pinchbeck crown and scepter hung below a small sword with guard of cut steel. There were framed letters and testimonials on paper gradually rusting, written with ink that was every day losing more and more of its ancient blackness. There were steel engravings of this or that pillared Theatre Royal, stuck round with _menus_ of long-digested suppers; and on the mantlepiece was a row of champagne corks whose glad explosions happened years ago. There was a rosewood piano, whose ivory keys were the color of coffee, whose fretwork displayed a pleated silk that once was crimson as wine. But the most remarkable thing in the room was a clown"s dress hanging below a wreath of sausages from a hook on the door. It used, in the days of the clown"s activity, to hang thus in his dressing-room, and when he came out of the stage door for the last time and went home to stewed tripe and c.o.c.kles with two old friends, he took the dress with him in a brown-paper parcel and hung it up after supper.
It confronted him now like a disembodied joy whose race was over.
Rheumatic were the knees that once upon a time were bent in the wide laugh of welcome, while in the corner a red-hot poker"s vermilion fire was harmless forevermore. Dreaming on winter eves near Christmas time, Mr. Vergoe would think of those ample pockets that once held inexhaustible supplies of crackers. Dreaming on winter eves by the fireside, he would hear out of the past the laughter of children and the flutter of the footlights, and would murmur to himself in whistling accents: "Here we are again."
There he was again, indeed, an old man by a dying fire, sitting among the ashes of burnt-out jollities.
But on the morning of Jenny"s visit the clown was very much awake. For all Mrs. Raeburn"s exhortations not to put fancies in the child"s head, Mr. Vergoe was very sure in his own mind of Jenny"s ultimate destiny. He was not concerned with the propriety of Clapton aunts, with the respectability of drapers" wives. He was not haunted by the severe ghost of Frederick Horner, the chemist. As he watched Jenny dancing to the sugared melodies of "Cavalleria," he beheld an artist in the making: that was enough for Mr. Vergoe. He owed no obligations to anything except Art, and no responsibleness to anybody except the public.
"Here"s a lot of pretty things, ain"t there, my dear?"
"Yes," Jenny agreed, with eyes buried deep in a scarlet sleeve.
"Come along now and sit on this chair, which belonged, so they say, so they told me in Red Lion Court where I bought it, to the great Joseph Grimaldi. But then, you never heard of Grimaldi. Ah, well, he must have been a very wonderful clown, by all accounts, though I never saw him myself. Perhaps you don"t even know what a clown is? Do you? What"s a clown, my dear?"
"I dunno."
"Well, he"s a figure of fun, so to speak, a clown is. He"s a cove dressed all in white with a white face."
"Was it a clown in Punch and Judy?"
"That"s right. That"s it. My stars and garters, if you ain"t a knowing one. Well, I was a clown once."
"When you was a little boy?"
"No, when I was a man, as you might say."
"Are clowns good?" inquired Jenny.
"Good as gold--so to speak--good as gold, clowns are. A bit high-spirited when they come on in the harlequinade, but all in good part. I suppose, taking him all round, you wouldn"t find a better fellow than a clown. Only a bit high-spirited, I"d have you understand. "Oh, what a lark," that"s their motto, as it were."
Ensconced in the great Grimaldi"s chair, Jenny regarded the ancient Mischief with wondering glances and, as she sucked one of his lollipops, thoroughly approved of him.
"Look at this pretty lady," he said, placing before her a colored print of some famous Columbine of the past.
"Why is she on her toes?" asked Jenny.
"Light as a fairy, she was," commented Mr. Vergoe, with a bouquet of admiration in his voice.
"Is she trying to reach on to the mantlepiece?" Jenny wanted to know.
"My stars and garters, not she! She"s dancing--toe-dancing, as they call it."
"I don"t dance like that," said Jenny.
"Of course you don"t, but you could with practice. With practice, I wouldn"t say as you mightn"t be as light as a pancake, so to speak."
"I can stand on my toes," declared Jenny proudly.
"Can you now?" said Mr. Vergoe admiringly.
"To reach fings off of the table."
"Ah, but then you"d be holding on to it, eh? Tight as wax, you"d be holding on to it. That won"t do, that won"t. You must be able to dance all over the room on your toes."
"Can you?"
"Not now, my dear, not now. I could once, though. But I never cared for playing Harlequin."
"Eh?"
"That"s a fellow you haven"t met yet."
"Is he good?"
"Good--in a manner of speaking--but an awkward sort of a laddie with his saber and all. But no malice at bottom, I"m sure of that."
"Can I be a C"mbine?"
"Why not?" exclaimed the old man. "Why not?" And he thumped the table to mark the question"s emphasis.
Jenny became very thoughtful and wished she had a petticoat all silver and pink, like the pretty lady on her toes.
"Would I be pretty?" she asked at length.
"Wonderfully pretty, I should say."
"Would all the people say--"pretty Jenny"?"
"No more wouldn"t that surprise me," declared Mr. Vergoe.
"Would I be good?"
The old man looked puzzled.