THE PORTRAIT PAINTER
The Newfoundland dog soon found that the smell of my burned clothes and
scorched skin was not the same as a broiled bone; and that, in fact, I
was not good to eat. But he still continued to hold me in his great,
warm, red mouth, because he was used to fetch and carry; and, as he
felt no wish to taste me, he thought he would take me, just as I was,
to his young mistress, who was not far off. He had merely wandered
about Hanover Square to amuse himself, as he knew the neighborhood very
well.
The dog ran through the doorway of some private stables into a passage
that led into the square; and turning down, first one street, then
another, he soon stopped at a door, upon which was written, ‘J. C.
Johnson, Portrait Painter.’
The door was shut, but the area gate happened to be open; so down ran
the dog into the area, and into the front kitchen, and across that to
the stairs, and up the stairs (three flights) till he came to the front
room of the second floor, which was ajar, and in he bounced. There sat
a little girl and her aunt; and Mr. J. C. Johnson was painting the
aunt’s portrait, in a great white turban.
The dog ran at once to the little girl, and laying me at her feet,
sprang back a step or two, and began wagging and swishing his tail
about, and hanging out a long crimson tongue, and breathing very fast,
and waiting to be praised and patted, and called a good dog, for what
he had brought.
‘Oh, Nep!’ cried the aunt to the dog, ‘what horrid thing have you
brought? Some dirty old bone!’
‘It is an Indian idol, I believe,’ said Mr. Johnson, taking me up from
the carpet; ‘an Indian image of ebony, much defaced by time.’
‘I think,’ said the little girl, to whom Mr. Johnson handed me, ‘I
think it looks very like a wooden doll, with a burned frock and
scorched face.’
‘Well, so it is, I do believe,’ said the aunt.
‘Let me examine the figure once more,’ said the portrait painter,
laying down his palette of colors, but keeping his brush in the other
hand. ‘Yes, yes, I fancy, madam, your niece is correct. It is not a
work of Indian art, nor of Egyptian, nor of Grecian art; it is the
work of a London doll-maker.’
I expected he was, of course, about to say, ‘by the celebrated Mr.
Sprat,’ but he did not.
‘Oh, you poor London doll!’ said the little girl, ‘what a pity you were
not made in India, or somewhere a wonderful way off, then Mr. Johnson
would have taken pity on you, and painted you all over.’
Mr. Johnson laughed at this; and then gave such a droll look at the
little girl, and such a good-natured look at me. ‘Well,’ said he to
her, ‘well, my little dear, leave this black doll with me; and when you
come again with your aunt, you shall see what I have done.’
The aunt thanked Mr. Johnson for his pleasant promise, while she was
taking off her turban to depart; and away they went, the Newfoundland
dog, Nep, leaping downstairs before them, to show the way. They were
from Buckinghamshire, and had lodgings only a few streets distant. The
aunt was Mrs. Brown, her niece was Mary Hope. Mary Hope’s father was a
clerk in the Bank; but she chiefly lived with her aunt in the country,
as her father had seven other daughters, and a small salary.
As soon as they were gone, Mr. Johnson told his son to tear off all my
burned clothes, scrape me all over with the back of a knife, and then
wash me well with soap and water. When this was done, the good-natured
artist painted me all over from head to foot. When I was dry, he again
painted me all over with a warmer color, like flesh; and when that also
was dry, he painted my cheeks, and lips, and eyebrows; and finally he
gave me a complete skin of the most delicate varnish. My beautiful hair
was entirely burned off; and Mr. Johnson said this was a sad pity, as
he did not know how to supply it. But his son told him there was a
doll’s wig-shop very near the Temple, where a new head of hair could be
got. So the kind Mr. Johnson took the measure of my head; and when he
went out for his evening walk, he went to the shop and bought me a most
lovely, dark, auburn wig, with long ringlets, and his son glued it on.
When all was done, they hung me up in a safe place to dry.
The hanging up to dry immediately reminded me of my infancy in the shop
of Mr. Sprat, when I first dangled from the beam and looked round upon
all my fellow-creature dolls, who were dangling and staring and smiling
on all sides. The recollection was, on the whole, pleasing. I seemed
to have lived a long time since that day. How much I had to recollect!
There was the doll-shop in Holborn--and little Emmy, who used to
read little books in the back room--the Marcett books, the Harriet
Myrtle books, the Mary Howitt books, and the delightful story of ‘The
Good-natured Bear,’--in short, all the different stories and histories,
and voyages, and travels, and fairy tales she had read--and there was
the master of the shop in his brown paper cocked hat--and Thomas Plummy
and the cake--and Ellen Plummy, and Twelfth-night in the pastry-cook’s
shop--and the different scenes that I had witnessed among the little
milliners; and the making of my first frock and trousers under the
tent, upon Ellen Plummy’s bed; and my life in Hanover Square, during
which I saw so many great places in great London, and had been taught
by Lady Flora’s governess to write, and had fallen headlong from a box
at the opera into a gentleman’s hat; and where, after having beautiful
ball-dresses made, my little lady mamma and I had both caught fire;
and, lastly, there was my tumble over the wall into the passage, where
the Newfoundland dog had fancied I was a broiled bone, and caught me up
in his mouth. Here was a biography to recollect; while, for the second
time in my life, I was hanging up for my paint and varnish to dry.
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