Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/392

384 cruel stage-manager had put their names down for shilling fines in a horrible book which was to be seen on the treasury table every Saturday morning. The old cleaners of the theatre told Mr. Thornton about their rheumatic knee-joints, and came to him for sympathy after dreary hours of scouring. He had patience with and compassion for every one. People knew that he was kind and tender-hearted, for his pencil initials always appeared in some obscure corner of every subscription list against a sum which was bulky when taken in relation to the amount of his salary. People knew that he was brave, for he had once threatened to fling Mr. Spavin into the pit, when that gentleman had made some insinuation impeaching Richard’s honour as to the unfair use of gold-leaf in the Enchanted Caves of Azure Deep. They knew that he was dutiful, and kind, and true to the old music-mistress with whom he lived, and whom he helped to support. They knew that when other men made light of sacred things, and were witty and philosophical upon very solemn subjects, Richard Thornton would leave the assembly gravely and quietly, how eloquent or lively soever he might have been before. People knew all this, and were respectful to the young scene-painter, in spite of the rainbow smears of paint upon his shabby coat, and the occasional fringe of mud upon the frayed edges of his trousers.

Upon this august morning Mr. Thornton made very short work of his toilet.

“I won’t go out to breakfast,” he thought, “though I can get two courses and a dessert in the Palais Royal, to say nothing of half a bottle of sour claret, for fifteen pence. I’ll get some coffee and rolls, and go to work at some of the scenes for ‘Raoul. ”

He rang a bell near his bed, pushed a table to the window which looked out into the quadrangle of the hotel, and sat down with a battered tin box of water-colours and a few squares of Bristol board before him. He had to ring several times before one of the waiters condescended to answer his summons, but he worked away cheerily, smoking as he worked, at a careful water-coloured copy of a rough pencil-sketch which he had made a couple of nights before in the pit of the theatre.

He didn’t leave off to eat his breakfast when it came, by-and-by, but buttered his rolls and drank his coffee in the pauses of his work, only laying down his brush for a minute or so at a time. The scene was a street in old Paris, the houses very dark and brown, with over-hanging latticed windows, exterior staircases, practicable bridges, and all sorts of devices which called for the employment of a great deal of glue and pasteboard in Richard’s model. This scene was only one out of eight, and the young scene-painter wanted to take perfect models of all the eight scenes back to the Phœnix. He had M. Michel Lévy’s sixty centimes edition of the new play spread open before him, and referred to it now and again as he painted.

“Humph! Enter Raoul down staircase in flat. Raoul’s a doctor, and the house with the staircase is his. The house at the corner belongs to Gobemouche, the comic barber, and the practicable lattice is Madeline’s. She’ll come to her window by-and-by to talk to the doctor, whom she thinks a very excellent man; though he’s been giving her mild doses of aqua tofana for the last three weeks. Catherine de’ Medicis comes over the practicable bridge, presently, disguised as a nun. I wonder how many melodramas poor Catherine has appeared in since she left this mortal stage. Did she ever do anything except poison people, I wonder, while she was alive? She never does at the Porte Saint Martin, or on the Surrey side of the Thames. I must sketch the costumes, by-and-bye. Raoul in black velvet and scarlet tights, a pointed beard, straight eyebrows, short black hair,—austere and dignified. Cromshaw will do Raoul, of course, and Spavin will play the light-comedy soldier who gets drunk, and tears off Catherine’s velvet mask in the last scene. Yes, that’ll be a great scene on our side of the water. Charles the Ninth—he’s a muff, so anybody can play him—has just finished reading the arsenicated edition of a treatise on hawking, closes the last page of the book, feels the first spasm. Catherine, disguised as a nun, has been followed by Spavin—by the comedy-soldier, I mean—to the Louvre, after a conversation having been overheard between her and Raoul. The King, in the agonies of spasmodic affection, asks who has murdered him. ‘That woman—that sorceress—that fiend in human form!’ cries the soldier, snatching the mask from Catherine’s face.—‘Merciful Heaven, it is my mother!’ shrieks the King, falling dead with a final spasm. That ‘it is my mother!’ ought to be good for three rounds of applause, at least. I dare say Spavin will have the speech transferred from the King’s part to his own. ‘Merciful Heaven, it is his mother!’ would do just as well.”

Poor Richard Thornton, not having risen very early, worked on till past five o’clock in the afternoon before his model was finished. He got up with a sigh of relief when the pasteboard presentment of the old Parisian street stood out upon the little table, square and perfect.

He filled his pipe and walked up and down before the table, smoking and admiring his work in an innocent rapture.

“Poor Nelly,” he thought presently. “I promised I would call in the Rue l’Archevêque to-day, to pay my respects to the old chap. Not that he’d particularly care to see me, I dare say; but Nell is such a darling. If she asked me to stand on my head, and do poor old Goffie’s gnome-fly business, I think I should try and do it. However, it is too late to call upon Mr. Vandeleur Vane to-day, so I must put that off till to-morrow. I must drop in again at half-price at the Porte Saint Martin, to have another look at the scene in eight compartments. That’ll be rather a poser for the machinist at the Phœnix, I flatter myself. Yes, I must have one more look at it, and—Ah! by-the-bye, there’s the Morgue!”

Mr. Thornton finished his pipe and rubbed his chin with a reflective air.

“Yes, I must have a look at the Morgue before I go,” he thought; “I promised that old nuisance J. T. Jumballs that I’d refresh my memory about