Volume Iii Part 69 (2/2)
You should have seen the ruins of Covent Garden Theatre. I went in the moment I got to London--four days after the fire. Although the audience part and the stage were so tremendously burnt out that there was not a piece of wood half the size of a lucifer-match for the eye to rest on, though nothing whatever remained but bricks and smelted iron lying on a great black desert, the theatre still looked so wonderfully like its old self grown gigantic that I never saw so strange a sight. The wall dividing the front from the stage still remained, and the iron pa.s.s-doors stood ajar in an impossible and inaccessible frame. The arches that supported the stage were there, and the arches that supported the pit; and in the centre of the latter lay something like a t.i.tanic grape-vine that a hurricane had pulled up by the roots, twisted, and flung down there; this was the great chandelier. Gye had kept the men's wardrobe at the top of the house over the great entrance staircase; when the roof fell in it came down bodily, and all that part of the ruins was like an old Babylonic pavement, bright rays tesselating the black ground, sometimes in pieces so large that I could make out the clothes in the ”Trovatore.”
I should run on for a couple of hours if I had to describe the spectacle as I saw it, wherefore I will immediately muzzle myself. All here unite in kindest loves to dear Miss Macready, to Katie, Lillie, Benvenuta, my G.o.dson, and the n.o.ble Johnny. We are charmed to hear such happy accounts of w.i.l.l.y and Ned, and send our loving remembrance to them in the next letters. All Parisian novelties you shall see and hear for yourself.
Ever, my dearest Macready, Your affectionate Friend.
P.S.--Mr. F.'s aunt sends her defiant respects.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSeES, PARIS, _Thursday Night, March 27th, 1856 (after post time)._
MY DEAREST MACREADY,
If I had had any idea of your coming (see how naturally I use the word when I am three hundred miles off!) to London so soon, I would never have written one word about the jump over next week. I am vexed that I did so, but as I did I will not now propose a change in the arrangements, as I know how methodical you tremendously old fellows are.
That's your secret I suspect. That's the way in which the blood of the Mirabels mounts in your aged veins, even at your time of life.
How charmed I shall be to see you, and we all shall be, I will not attempt to say. On that expected Sunday you will lunch at Amiens but not dine, because we shall wait dinner for you, and you will merely have to tell that driver in the glazed hat to come straight here. When the Whites left I added their little apartment to this little apartment, consequently you shall have a snug bedroom (is it not waiting expressly for you?) overlooking the Champs Elysees. As to the arm-chair in my heart, no man on earth----but, good G.o.d! you know all about it.
You will find us in the queerest of little rooms all alone, except that the son of Collins the painter (who writes a good deal in ”Household Words”) dines with us every day. Scheffer and Scribe shall be admitted for one evening, because they know how to appreciate you. The Emperor we will not ask unless you expressly wish it; it makes a fuss.
If you have no appointed hotel at Boulogne, go to the Hotel des Bains, there demand ”Marguerite,” and tell her that I commended you to her special care. It is the best house within my experience in France; Marguerite the best housekeeper in the world.
I shall charge at ”Little Dorrit” to-morrow with new spirits. The sight of you is good for my boyish eyes, and the thought of you for my dawning mind. Give the enclosed lines a welcome, then send them on to Sherborne.
Ever yours most affectionately and truly.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
49, CHAMPS ELYSeES, PARIS, _Sunday, April 6th, 1856._
MY DEAR WILLS,
CHRISTMAS.
Collins and I have a mighty original notion (mine in the beginning) for another play at Tavistock House. I propose opening on Twelfth Night the theatrical season of that great establishment. But now a tremendous question.
Is
MRS. WILLS!
game to do a Scotch housekeeper, in a supposed country-house, with Mary, Katey, Georgina, etc.? If she can screw her courage up to saying ”Yes,”
that country-house opens the piece in a singular way, and that Scotch housekeeper's part shall flow from the present pen. If she says ”No”
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