Volume Ii Part 8 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]
SHREWSBURY, _Thursday, Aug. 12th, 1858._
A wonderful audience last night at Wolverhampton. If such a thing can be, they were even quicker and more intelligent than the audience I had in Edinburgh. They were so wonderfully good and were so much on the alert this morning by nine o'clock for another reading, that we are going back there at about our Bradford time. I never saw such people.
And the local agent would take no money, and charge no expenses of his own.
This place looks what Plorn would call ”ortily” dull. Local agent predicts, however, ”great satisfaction to Mr. d.i.c.kens, and excellent attendance.” I have just been to look at the hall, where everything was wrong, and where I have left Arthur making a platform for me out of dining-tables.
If he comes back in time, I am not quite sure but that he is himself going to write to Gad's Hill. We talk of coming up from Chester _in the night to-morrow, after the reading_; and of showing our precious selves at an apparently impossibly early hour in the Gad's Hill breakfast-room on Sat.u.r.day morning.
I have not felt the fatigue to any extent worth mentioning; though I get, every night, into the most violent heats. We are going to dine at three o'clock (it wants a quarter now) and have not been here two hours, so I have seen nothing of Clement.
Tell Georgy with my love, that I read in the same room in which we acted, but at the end opposite to that where our stage was. We are not at the inn where the amateur company put up, but at The Lion, where the fair Miss Mitch.e.l.l was lodged alone. We have the strangest little rooms (sitting-room and two bed-rooms all together), the ceilings of which I can touch with my hand. The windows bulge out over the street, as if they were little stern-windows in a s.h.i.+p. And a door opens out of the sitting-room on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one leans over a queer old rail, and looks all downhill and slant-wise at the crookedest black and yellow old houses, all manner of shapes except straight shapes. To get into this room we come through a china closet; and the man in laying the cloth has actually knocked down, in that repository, two geraniums and Napoleon Bonaparte.
I think that's all I have to say, except that at the Wolverhampton theatre they played ”Oliver Twist” last night (Mr. Toole the Artful Dodger), ”in consequence of the ill.u.s.trious author honouring the town with his presence.” We heard that the device succeeded very well, and that they got a good many people.
John's spirits have been equable and good since we rejoined him. Berry has always got something the matter with his digestion--seems to me the male gender of Maria Jolly, and ought to take nothing but Revalenta Arabica. Bottled ale is not to be got in these parts, and Arthur is thrown upon draught.
My dearest love to Georgy and to Katey, also to Marguerite. Also to all the boys and the n.o.ble Plorn.
Ever your affectionate Father.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C., _Wednesday Morning, Aug. 18th, 1858._
I write this hurried line before starting, to report that my cold is decidedly better, thank G.o.d (though still bad), and that I hope to be able to stagger through to-night. After dinner yesterday I began to recover my voice, and I think I sang half the Irish Melodies to myself, as I walked about to test it. I got home at half-past ten, and mustard-poulticed and barley-watered myself tremendously.
Love to the dear girls, and to all.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: The same.]
ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday Night, Aug. 20th, 1858._
I received your welcome and interesting letter to-day, and I write you a very hurried and bad reply; but it is _after the reading_, and you will take the will for the deed under these trying circ.u.mstances, I know.
We have had a tremendous night; the largest house I have ever had since I first began--two thousand three hundred people. To-morrow afternoon, at three, I read again.
My cold has been oppressive, and is not yet gone. I have been very hard to sleep too, and last night I was all but sleepless. This morning I was very dull and seedy; but I got a good walk, and picked up again. It has been blowing all day, and I fear we shall have a sick pa.s.sage over to Dublin to-morrow night.
Tell Mamie (with my dear love to her and Katie) that I will write to her from Dublin--probably on Sunday. Tell her too that the stories she told me in her letter were not only capital stories in themselves, but _excellently told_ too.
What Arthur's state has been to-night--he, John, Berry, and Boylett, all taking money and going mad together--you _cannot_ imagine. They turned away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing. He has kept quite well, I am happy to say, and sends a hundred loves.
In great haste and fatigue.
Ever affectionately.