Memoirs of a London doll

by R. H. Horne

The moment Columbine entered her room she held me up to a good-natured old lady, who was dressing herself like a scaly green dragon for the last scene, and cried out, ‘Here’s a pretty doll I have just found on the stage!’

‘Where did you get it?’ said the good-natured old lady, going to a looking-glass to fit on the dragon’s head.

‘Oh, grandmother,’ said Columbine, ‘I’ve no time to tell you now, as I have to dance a hornpipe in the next scene. Take care of her.’ Saying which, away ran the pretty Columbine.

As soon as the old lady had tied the strings of the dragon’s head under her chin, so that her face could look through the large red throat and open mouth of the dragon, she held her head on one side before the glass and said, ‘There! I think that does very nicely.’ She then folded me up in a handkerchief, and placed me with their bonnets and shawls.

Here I lay hearing all sorts of noises of trumpets and drums, and singing and dancing, and tumbling about, and calling out, and laughing, and fireworks, and the great rolling of many wheels, and loud sounds of distant applause from the audience. When all was over, I was taken home by the Columbine and her grandmother. It was a wet night, and they walked through the rain in shawls and clogs, and holding up a great umbrella with three slits in the top. They lived in the back parlor of a small green-grocer’s, near Covent Garden. The bed and the rest of the furniture were very humble, the hangings of the bed being of grey draft-board pattern, and the coverlid of the bed of patch-work; but all looking as clean as it was poor.

I now saw that the pleasant old grandmother, who had acted the green dragon, was dressed all in brown, even with a brown bonnet and brown stockings; the umbrella was brown too. Columbine was dressed in a high frock of grey checked gingham, but very neatly made, and she wore a small straw cottage bonnet. Under one arm, however, she had a bundle from which shining things peeped out, and she took a pair of silver slippers out of her pocket, folded them up in a bit of newspaper, and placed them in a little band-box, into which I peeped and saw it was full of precious things. Then down they sat to a supper of boiled eggs, followed by bread and cheese and porter, and endive and beet-root, and then they laughed and talked about the Pantomime, and looked at me and examined my gold bracelet; and then went to bed.

I was placed away very carefully the next morning, as the pretty little Columbine had too much to do to attend to me. I was therefore, during all the time of the Pantomime, left quite alone. I, however, employed my time by thinking very much over my past life, and going over everything in my own mind from the day of my birth in the room of the celebrated Mr. Sprat, down to the present time.

When the Christmas Pantomime was over in London, the little Columbine and her grandmother went into the country, to act at a small theatre there, and they took me with them. After the performances had gone on for three weeks, Columbine had a benefit night. The first piece was the tragedy of ‘Douglas,’ and, as no green dragon was wanted in it, the grandmother acted Lady Randolph. The little Columbine acted Norval, with his bow and quiver; she had taken the part, I suppose, on account of its resemblance to Cupid.

Near the town in which the theatre was, there stood a large country mansion, called Ashbourn Hall, and the lady of this mansion was very kind, and took so many tickets for Columbine’s benefit that her party filled all the three front boxes.

The next morning the pretty little Columbine took me out of the drawer in which I was lying in the dark, and feeling very dull. I saw that she looked smiling and happy, and was nicely dressed in a neatly made blue frock with white sprigs on it, and a new bonnet. ‘Come with me, Maria Poppet,’ said she, ‘and we shall see if we cannot give them a little pleasure in return for all their kindness;’—so she wrapped me up in silver paper, all but my head. I was still dressed in my pretty muslin frock with pink roses. Away she walked, with me in her hand, to Ashbourn Hall.