No lady is a lady without having a box at the Opera: so my Jemmy, who
knew as much about music,—bless her!—as I do about sanscrit, algebra, or
any other foreign language, took a prime box on the second tier. It was
what they called a double box; it really _could_ hold two, that is, very
comfortably; and we got it a great bargain—for five hundred a year!
Here, Tuesdays and Saturdays we used regularly to take our places, Jemmy
and Jemimarann sitting in front; me, behind: but as my dear wife used to
wear a large fantail gauze hat, with ostrich feathers, birds of
paradise, artificial flowers, and tags of muslin or satin, scattered all
over it, I'm blest if she didn't fill the whole of the front of the box;
and it was only by jumping and dodging, three or four times in the
course of the night, that I could manage to get a sight of the actors.
By kneeling down, and looking steady under my darling Jemmy's sleeve, I
_did_ contrive, every now and then, to have a peep of Senior Lablash's
boots, in the Puritanny, and once saw Madame Greasi's crown and
head-dress in Annybalony.
What a place that Opera is, to be sure! and what enjoyments us
aristocracy used to have! Just as you have swallowed down your three
courses (three curses I used to call them; for so, indeed, they are,
causing a deal of heartburns, headaches, doctor's bills, pills, want of
sleep, and such like)—just, I say, as you get down your three courses,
which I defy any man to enjoy properly, unless he has two hours of drink
and quiet afterwards, up comes the carriage, in bursts my Jemmy, as fine
as a duchess, and scented like our shop. "Come, my dear," says she,
"it's Normy to-night (or Annybalony, or the Nosey di Figaro, or the
Gazzylarder, as the case may be); Mr. Coster strikes off punctually at
eight, and you know it's the fashion to be always present at the very
first bar of the aperture;" and so off we budge, to be miserable for
five hours, and to have a headache for the next twelve, and all because
it's the fashion!
After the aperture, as they call it, comes the opera, which, as I am
given to understand, is the Italian for singing. Why they should sing in
Italian, I can't conceive; or why they should do nothing _but_ sing:
bless us, how I used to long for the wooden magpie in the Gazzylarder,
to fly up to the top of the church-steeple, and see the chaps with the
pitchforks to come in and carry off that wicked Don June. Not that I
don't admire Lablash, and Rubini, and his brother, Tomrubini, him who
has that fine bass voice, I mean, and acts the Corporal in the first
piece, and Don June in the second; but three hours is a _little_ too
much, for you can't sleep on those little rickety seats in the boxes.
The opera is bad enough; but what is that to the bally? You _should_
have seen my Jemmy the first night when she stopped to see it; and when
Madamsalls Fanny and Theresa Hustler came forward, along with a
gentleman, to dance, you should have seen how Jemmy stared, and our girl
blushed, when Madamsall Fanny, coming forward, stood on the tips of only
five of her toes, and raising up the other five, and the foot belonging
to them, almost to her shoulder, twirled round, and round, and round,
like a teetotum, for a couple of minutes or more; and as she settled
down, at last, on both feet, in a natural decent posture, you should
have heard how the house roared with applause, the boxes clapping with
all their might, and waving their handkerchiefs; the pit shouting,
"Bravo!" Some people, who, I suppose, were rather angry at such an
exhibition, threw bunches of flowers at her; and what do you think she
did? why, hang me, if she did not come forward, as though nothing had
happened, gather up the things they had thrown at her, smile, press them
to her heart, and began whirling round again, faster than ever!—Talk
about coolness, _I_ never saw such in all _my_ born days.
"Nasty thing!" says Jemmy, starting up in a fury; "if women _will_ act
so, it serves them right to be treated so."
"O, yes! she acts beautifully," says our friend, his Excellency, who,
along with Baron von Punter, and Tagrag, used very seldom to miss coming
to our box.
"She may act very beautifully, Munseer, but she don't dress so; and I am
very glad they threw that orange-peel and all those things at her, and
that the people waved to her to get off."
Here his Excellency, and the Baron, and Tag, set up a roar of laughter.
"My dear Mrs. Coxe," says Tag, "those are the most famous dancers in the
world; and we throw myrtle, geraniums, and lilies, and roses, at them,
in token of our immense admiration!"
"Well, I never!" said my wife; and poor Jemimarann slunk behind the
curtain, and looked as red as it almost. After the one had done, the
next begun; but when, all of a sudden, a somebody came skipping and
bounding in, like an Indian-rubber ball, flinging itself up at least six
feet from the stage, and there shaking about its legs like mad, we were
more astonished than ever!
"That's Anatole," says one of the gentlemen.
"Anna who?" says my wife, and she might well be mistaken; for this
person had a hat and feathers, a bare neck and arms, great black
ringlets, and a little calico frock, which came down to the knees.
"Anatole; you would not think he was sixty-three years old, he's as
active as a man of twenty."
"_He!_" shrieked out my wife; "what, is that there a man? For shame!
Munseer. Jemimarann, dear, get your cloak, and come along; and I'll
thank you, my dear, to call our people and let us go home."
You wouldn't think, after this, that my Jemmy, who had shown such a
horror at the bally, as they call it, should ever grow accustomed to it;
but she liked to hear her name shouted out in the crush-room, and so
would stop till the end of everything; and, law bless you! in three
weeks from that time she could look at the ballet as she would at a
dancing-dog in the streets, and would bring her double-barrelled
opera-glass up to her eyes as coolly as if she had been a born duchess.
As for me, I did at Rome as Rome does, and precious fun it used to be,
sometimes.
My friend the Baron insisted, one night, on my going behind the scenes,
where, being a subscriber, he said I had what they call my _ontray_.
Behind then I went; and such a place you never saw nor heard of! Fancy
lots of young and old gents, of the fashion, crowding round and staring
at the actresses practising their steps. Fancy yellow, snuffy
foreigners, chattering always, and smelling fearfully of tobacco. Fancy
scores of Jews, with hooked noses, and black muzzles, covered with
rings, chains, sham diamonds, and gold waistcoats. Fancy old men,
dressed in old night-gowns, with knock-knees, and dirty flesh-coloured
cotton stockings and dabs of brickdust on their wrinkled old chops, and
tow wigs (such wigs!) for the bald ones, and great tin spears in their
hands, mayhap, or else shepherd's crooks, and fusty garlands of flowers,
made of red and green baize! Fancy troops of girls, giggling,
chattering, pushing to and fro, amidst old black canvas, Gothic halls,
thrones, pasteboard Cupids, dragons, and such like; such dirt, darkness,
crowd, confusion, and gabble of all conceivable languages was never
known!
If you _could_ but have seen Munseer Anatole! Instead of looking twenty,
he looked a thousand. The old man's wig was off, and a barber was giving
it a touch with the tongs; Munseer was taking snuff himself, and a boy
was standing by, with a pint of beer from the public-house at the corner
of Charles-street.
I met with a little accident, during the three-quarters of an hour which
they allow for the entertainment of us men of fashion on the stage,
before the curtain draws up for the bally, while the ladies in the boxes
are gaping, and the people in the pit are drumming with their feet and
canes in the rudest manner possible, as though they couldn't wait.
Just at the moment before the little bell rings, and the curtain flies
up, and we scuffle off to the sides (for we always stay till the very
last moment), I was in the middle of the stage, making myself very
affable to the fair figgerantys which was spinning and twirling about
me, and asking them if they wasn't cold, and such like politeness, in
the most condescending way possible, when a bolt was suddenly withdrawn,
and down I popped, through a trap in the stage, into the place below.
Luckily, I was stopped by a piece of machinery, consisting of a heap of
green blankets, and a young lady coming up as Venus rising from the sea.
If I had not fallen so soft, I don't know what might have been the
consequence of the collusion. I never told Mrs. Coxe, for she can't bear
to hear of my paying the least attention to the fair sex.
[Illustration:
JUNE—Striking a balance.
]
[Illustration]