A Peep Behind the Scenes

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

As soon as Toby had gone, Rosalie put the caravan in order, and awaited anxiously the doctor's arrival. Her father brought him in, and stayed in the caravan whilst he felt the poor woman's pulse, and asked Rosalie several questions about her cough, which from time to time was so distressing. Then they went out together, and little Rosalie was left in suspense. She had not dared to ask the doctor what he thought of her mother when her father was present, and her little heart was full of anxious fear.

Augustus came in soon after the doctor had left; and Rosalie crept up to him, and asked what he had said of her mother.

'He says she is very ill,' said her father shortly, and in a voice which told Rosalie that she must ask no more questions. And then he sat down beside the bed for about half an hour, and looked more softened than Rosalie had ever seen him before. She was sure the doctor must have told him that her mother was very bad indeed.

Rosalie's father did not speak; there was no sound in the caravan but the ticking of the little clock which was fastened to a nail in the corner, and the occasional falling of the cinders in the ashpan. Augustus' reflections were not pleasant as he sat by his wife's dying bed. For the doctor had told him she would never be better, and it was only a question of time how long she would live. And when Augustus heard that, all his cruel treatment came back to his mind—the hard words he had spoken to her, the unkind things he had said of her, and, above all, the hard-hearted way in which he had made her come on the stage the night before, when she was almost too ill to stand. All these things crowded in upon his memory, and a short fit of remorse seized him. It was this which led him, contrary to his custom, to come into the caravan and sit by her side. But his meditations became so unpleasant at length, that he could bear them no longer; he could not sit there and face the accusations of his conscience; so he jumped up hastily, and went out without saying a word to his child, slammed the little caravan door after him, and sauntered down the marketplace. Here he met some of his friends, who rallied him on his melancholy appearance, and offered to treat him to a glass in the nearest public-house. And there Augustus Joyce banished all thoughts of his wife, and stifled the loud, accusing voice of his conscience. When he returned to the theatre for dinner, he appeared as hard and selfish as ever, and never even asked how his wife was before he sat down to eat. Perhaps he dreaded to hear the answer to that question.

And that evening Rosalie was obliged to take her part in the play; her father insisted on it; it was impossible for him to spare her, he said, and to fill up both her place and her mother's also. Rosalie begged him most earnestly to excuse her, but all in vain; so with an aching heart she went to the Royal Show of Dwarfs and asked for Mother Manikin.

The good little woman was indignant when Rosalie told her she was not allowed to stay with her mother, and promised immediately to come and sit beside the poor woman in her absence. The other dwarfs rather grumbled at this arrangement; but Mother Manikin shook her little fist at them, and called them hard-hearted creatures, and declared that old age must have its liberties. She had been entertaining the company all the afternoon, and must have a little rest this evening.

'Oh, Mother Manikin!' said Rosalie; 'and you had no sleep last night.'

'Oh, my dear, I'm all right,' said the good little woman. 'I had a nap or two this morning. Don't trouble about me; and Miss Mab and Master Puck ought to be ashamed of themselves for wanting me when there's that poor dear thing so ill out there. Bless me, my dears!' said the old woman, turning to the dwarfs, 'what should you want with an ugly little thing like me? It's you lovely young creatures that the company come to see. So I wish you good-night, my dears. Take care of yourselves, and don't get into any mischief when I'm away! Where's Susannah?'

'Here, ma'am,' said the woman who had come for Mother Manikin that morning.

'Carry me to Joyce's van,' said the little old woman, jumping on a chair and holding out her arms.