Richard Marsh - Confessions of a Young Lady - Her Doings and Misdoings

"What's your name?"

"Molly Boyes."

"Where d'ye live?"

"West Marden."

"You ain't come all the way from West Marden here?"

"I've come from Miss Pritchard's school."

The statement seemed to fill the man with illuminating light.

"Ah, that's just what I thought! D'rectly I see her that's just what I thought. Miss Pritchard's-that's the girls' school on the Brighton road, house is inside a wall. I went there to try to get them for Uncle Tom's Cabin . First the lady said there wasn't to be no flogging, then that she couldn't possibly bring her pupils if there wasn't any chairs for them to sit up. I told Mr Biffin what she said. And he said, well there wasn't any chairs, and there was an end of it."

The woman with the baby interposed an observation.

"We should do better if there was chairs. It isn't likely that the front seat people will want to sit on boards."

The big woman proffered a reminder.

"On the front seats there's baize."

Which the woman with the baby spurned.

"What's baize?"

The man addressed himself to me. He was a thin man, with iron-grey hair, and there was something about his face which made me think that though he was untidy, and I wished he would not wear such a very greasy cap, I might induce myself in time to like him. Never once did he remove his pipe from his mouth, nor his hands from his trouser pockets.

"Well, Miss Boyes, it's a pity you should have come to act, seeing that there's a good many of us here that does that sort of thing already. The difficulty is to get people to come and see us do it. Do you think that many of your friends would come and see you act?"

"Well, not many of my friends."

"That, again, is unfortunate."

"But strangers would."

"It's that way with you, is it? With us it's different. We look to friends for our support. Strangers are sometimes disagreeable. What plays were you thinking of acting?"

"I don't know any plays as yet. But I soon could."

"Of course. That's easy enough. Hamlet , I suppose, and that kind of thing. And what sort of part were you thinking of playing?"

"I really haven't thought."

"No, you wouldn't, such a trifle being of no consequence. You weren't thinking of playing old women?"

"Well, I don't think I could act old women. But I might try. Young Betty acted an old man."

"Young Betty did. Is that so? And who might young Betty be? A friend of yours? That young lady over there, her name's Betty."

He jerked his elbow towards the woman with the baby. I was shocked, although, having already taken their ignorance for granted, I was able to conceal my feelings with comparative ease.

"He was a boy."

"A boy? With a name like Betty? What was his father and mother up to then?"

"His name was William Henry West Betty. He was the Infant Roscius."

"Was he?"

"He was The Wonderful Boy. I am going to be a Wonderful Girl."

"You're that already. Seeing that you are a Wonderful Girl, what might have put it into your head to come here?"

"You are very poor, aren't you?"

"Poor? That's what you might call a leading question. We're not rich. Who told you we were poor?"

"Didn't you only take one and ninepence at the door one night?"

By this time general interest was being roused in our conversation. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I was aware that they had been heard with more attention than anything I yet had said. Though why that should be the case was beyond my capacity of perception.

"Only took one and ninepence at the door one night, did we? Oh! Looks as if someone had been talking. From whom might you have heard that piece of news?"

"And one week weren't there less than two pounds to divide among seven? You could not live on that. No one could. It's not to be done. It simply means starvation."

I merely repeated, with all the earnestness of which I was capable, what I had heard the governesses saying. My remarks were followed by what even I felt was a significant silence. My interlocutor, bringing forward with his foot what looked like an empty egg-box, placed himself upon a corner. It creaked under his weight.

"It would seem as if somebody knows almost as much about this temple of the drama as it knows about itself. And it certainly is true that, regarded as a week's earnings, two pounds isn't much between seven. So you thought-?"

"I thought I'd come and help you."

"Come and help us? By acting?"

"If I'm going to be a Wonderful Girl-and I am going to be-it's quite time I was beginning. Young Betty was at the height of his fame when he was twelve. So I thought I would commence by making a lot of money for you here, which would keep you all from starving; and then, of course, I shall go on to London and make the rest of my fortune there."

"I see. Well, this bangs Banagher. Banagher it bangs."

What he meant I could not say. But he should have been a capital actor, because not a muscle of his face moved. A man behind him laughed-stinging me as with the lash of a whip.

The big woman delivered herself of her former ejaculation.

"Poor dear!"

The potato washer remarked, -

"Strikes me, my girl, that you've a good opinion of yourself."

The grey-headed man had his eyes upon what I had in my hand.

"What might you happen to have there?"

"It's some food which I have brought for you."

"For me in particular, or for all the lot of us?"

"It's for the seven."

"The seven? I see. The seven who divided those two sovereigns."

"Yes. It's some German sausage. I hope you like German sausage."

"It's my favourite joint."

I endeavoured to correct what I imagined to be a still further display of his ignorance.

"I don't think that German sausage is a joint. It's not generally looked upon as such. It's a long, round, cold thing, off which, you know, they cut it in slices."

I passed him the parcel, he removing-for the first time-one of his hands from his pockets for the purpose of taking it, balancing it on his open palm as if on a scale. It was a pretty grimy piece of newspaper, and was not of a size to suggest extensive contents. I became more and more conscious of its wretched smallness as, with every outward appearance of care and gravity, he slowly unwrapped it. The others gathered closer round, as if agog with curiosity. Finally there were revealed three or four attenuated slices. He held them out at arm's length in front of them.

"For seven!"

"There isn't much," I managed to murmur, oppressed, all at once, by the discovery of what a dreadful little there really was. "But I had only twopence."

"You had only twopence, so you purchased two pennyworths of German sausage-for seven."

"Of course I'll earn a deal of money for you besides."

A girl came rushing into the tent behind me. The interruption was welcome, for I instinctively felt that matters had reached a point at which a diversion of any sort was to be desired. But I was far from being prepared for the proclamation which she instantly made.

"Here's the lady come! – I've been and fetched her!"

To my blank astonishment there appeared-Miss Pritchard. That intelligent young woman, having a shrewd eye for a possible reward, had availed herself of the information which had been extracted from me to rush off to the school to proclaim my whereabouts, receiving, as I afterwards learnt, a shilling for her pains. Never before had I seen Miss Pritchard in such a state of agitation; and no wonder, considering the pace at which she must have torn along the road.

"Molly! – Molly Boyes, what is the meaning of this?"

The sight of her had driven me speechless. I could not have told her for everything the world contained. My interlocutory friend explained instead-in a fashion of his own.