From a hopeless chase like that Nick shrank back like a snail into its shell. He was not too young to know that there were worse things than to be locked in Gaston Carew’s house. It were better to be a safe-kept prisoner there than to be lost in the sinks of London. And so, knowing this, he made the best of it.
But Master Shakspere was come back to town, and that was something. It seemed somehow less lonely just to think of it.
Yet in truth he had but little time to think of it; for the master-player kept him closely at his strange, new work, and taught him daily with the most amazing patience.
He had Nick learn no end of stage parts off by heart, with their cues and “business,” entrances and exits; and worked fully as hard as his pupil, reading over every sentence twenty times until Nick had the accent perfectly. He would have him stamp, too, and turn about, and gesture in accordance with the speech, until the boy’s arms ached, going with him through the motions one by one, over and over again, unsatisfied, but patient to the last, until Nick wondered. “Nick, my lad,” he would often say, with a tired but determined smile, “one little thing done wrong may spoil the finest play, as one bad apple rots the barrelful. We’ll have it right, or not at all, if it takes a month of Sundays.”
So, often, he kept Nick before a mirror for an hour at a time, making faces while he spoke his lines, smiling, frowning, or grimacing as best seemed to fit the part, until the boy grew fairly weary of his own looks. Then sometimes, more often as the time slipped by, Carew would clap his hands with a boyish laugh, and have a pie brought and a cup of Spanish cordial for them both, declaring that he loved the lad with all his heart, upon the remnant of his honour: from which Nick knew that he was coming on.
Cicely Carew’s governess was a Mistress Agnes Anstey. By birth she had been a Harcourt of Ankerwyke, and she was therefore everywhere esteemed fit by birth and breeding to teach the young mind when to bow and when to beckon. She came each morning to the house, and Carew paid her double shillings to see to it that Nick learned such little tricks of cap and cloak as a lady’s page need have, the carriage best fitted for his place, and how to come into a room where great folks were. Moreover, how to back out again, bowing, and not fall over the stools—which was no little art, until Nick caught the knack of peeping slyly between his legs when he bowed.
His hair, too, was allowed to grow long, and was combed carefully every day by the tiring-woman; and soon, as it was naturally curly, it fell in rolling waves about his neck.
On the heels of the governess came M’sieu de Fleury, who, it was said, had been dancing-master to Hatton, the late Lord Chancellor of England, and had taught him those tricks with his nimble heels which had capered him into the Queen’s good graces, and so got him the chancellorship. M’sieu spoke dreadful English, but danced like the essence of agility, and taught both Nick and Cicely the latest Italian coranto, playing the tune upon his queer little pochette.
Cicely already danced like a pixy, and laughed merrily at her comrade’s first awkward antics, until he flushed with embarrassment. At that she instantly became grave, and, when M’sieu had gone, came across the room, and putting her arm about Nick, said repentantly, “Don’t thou mind me, Nick. Father saith the French all laugh too soon at nothing; and I have caught it from my mother’s blood. A boy is not good friends with his feet as a girl is; but thou wilt do beautifully, I know; and M’sieu shall teach us the galliard together.”
And often, after the lesson was over and M’sieu departed, she would have Nick try his steps over and over again in the great room, while she stood upon the stool to make her tall, and cried, “Sa—sa!” as the master did, scolding and praising him by turns, or jumping down in pretty impatience to tuck up her little silken skirts and show him the step herself; while the cook’s knave and the scullery-maids peeped at the door and cried: “La, now, look ’e, Moll!” at every coupee.