CHAPTER V.

THE WAX-WORK SHOW.

WHEN the cavalcade was ready to move on again, Lizzie found she was not to occupy the parlour caravan where she had been all day, but was to sleep in another van, on some sacks of straw that were stowed in odd nooks between the wooden horses and swans of the steam roundabout.

In fact, it seemed that the whole company stowed themselves away for the night among the various portions of the show and shooting gallery that were packed in the wagons. Two or three other girls about her own age shared the strange bed-room with Lizzie, one of whom had a bad cough, and kept the rest awake a good deal.

Foolish Lizzie was too miserable to sleep. Her rough bed was not like the comfortable one she had hitherto had, neither was she used to sleep in her clothes as it seemed was the custom among her new friends. Then her companions were rough, and jeered at her when they found she was crying, so that altogether she really had very much to pity herself over now.

But the rudest shock came when all was quiet, and when apparently the rest were asleep. Lizzie was lying near the door of the van, and it seemed as though one or two persons were smoking outside, from the smell that came through the cracks of the door. They were moving at a slow pace over a tolerably smooth road, so that there was not much jolting, and Lizzie could hear pretty distinctly what was said by those sitting outside.

"Well, missis, what do yer think o' this gal now?" asked a man's voice.

"Just what I thought before—she'll be worth her weight in gold to us by and by, when she's broke in a bit."

"Ah! How do you make that out?" asked the man between the slow puffs of tobacco smoke he emitted from his mouth.

"How? Why, just this way. Our Tottie is well-nigh broke up with being among the wax-works so much, an' if she ain't soon took out of it, she'll be ill. But took out now, as I mean she shall be, she'll soon pick up enough of what I can teach her from the cards, and the lines on the hand, to tell a good fortune, and that'll pay better than all the wax-works, specially among the gents at the races, for Tottie'll pick up good looks when once she's out o' that beastly wax-work van."

"Eh! You're a deep un, Mother Stanley," said the man with a short admiring laugh.

"You've got to be in these days," said the woman.

"An' so you persuaded the little fool to join our company to release Tottie."

"Ah! But I didn't tell her that," put in Mrs. Stanley.

Lizzie knew her voice now, and sat up on her sack of straw to listen more intently. "I told her she'd be worth her weight in gold, but I didn't tell her I should have the handling of it, and of course she thought it would be for herself. I knew my lady the moment I set eyes on her. I could see by the way she looked that Sunday night, she'd be ready to do anything for the chance of getting away from steady work, so I laid my plans according. Bless you, it wasn't much trouble to persuade her, she was ready to swallow any bait and—"

"But I've heard you say you'd never take a gal away from her mother. Ain't this one got no friends?" asked the man.

"None as she cares for, or she'd ha' been none so ready to run away," said the woman.

"And you think there ain't no fear o' them making a fuss about her?" said the man a little cautiously.

"I didn't say that, now. If you asks me what I think, I say, keep a sharp eye on her these races, and then we'll get as far off as we can before we stops at another fair, and then we'll have to keep our eyes open. My belief is, after looking over all her clothes, she's got a good mother, and one as'll take no end of trouble to get her back, though she don't deserve it."

"How do you know that, Mother Stanley?" asked the man.

"How do I know it? Did she ever once say she couldn't go away 'cos of worrying her mother; not a bit of it. She thought more about the fine duds I talked of than ever she did about her mother; and when I see that, I thought to myself I'll have you, my lady, to save my poor Tottie, and teach you a lesson too before I've done with you."

"There ain't no fear but what you'll do that," said the man laughing again.

"No, there ain't; and you'll have to help me. You'll keep your eyes on her when she's talking about the wax figgers, and see she ain't up to no sly tricks with anybody. I've took care of her money, and I'll look sharp after her," concluded Mrs. Stanley.

Lizzie sat and listened in horror-struck amazement to this revelation. It was too dreadful to be believed at first. She felt sure Mrs. Stanley must be joking, and then tried to persuade herself she was telling her husband this tale just to induce him to let her remain with them for a little while.

But although she whispered to herself half aloud, "It can't—it can't be true," something spoke with more convincing power in the depths of her own spirit, and a sickening sense that the woman had spoken the truth stole over her, and well-nigh benumbed her faculties. She was too wretched to cry and sob, or indulge in any outward manifestation of sorrow, but her heart ached with a sense of desolation that well-nigh overwhelmed her.

The voices ceased outside, and her companions snored, and groaned sometimes as the clumsy vehicle lurched on one side as they passed over an extra rough piece of the road; but smooth or rough, it made no difference to Lizzie. The blessed relief of sleep came not to her that night.

And the morning dawned and they drew up at the corner of a common to give the tired horses some refreshment, and prepare a hasty breakfast for those who had been up all night.

No notice was taken of Lizzie. She was allowed to wander about among the dogs, horses, and children; but she knew she was being watched by more than one pair of deep dark eyes, and that it would be useless for her to try to escape even if she knew her road home again.

No; she could not escape in these ragged garments. She must wait and watch, and try to get some of her own clothes back again. Ah! What a fool she had been to give these up so readily. What would she not have given to have the last few days of her life over again? She wrung her hands in anguish as she walked up and down the common and thought of it all.

They did not make a long halt at this place. Only long enough to refresh the tired beasts, and the men who had been driving them all night, and then they were on the road again; for they were to reach the race-course by ten o'clock, and they still had several miles to travel. If Lizzie had cherished any lingering hope that the words she had heard in the night were not true in actual fact, she was quickly undeceived; for just before they started on their journey again she was summoned to the parlour van, where she found Mrs. Stanley busily sewing at the old pink tarlatan dress previously worn by Tottie, but which the woman now proceeded to try on her.

"Didn't I tell you that you'd be wearing a smart frock soon?" she said with a grim smile as she proceeded to fasten the soiled tumbled dress, which she had been enlarging so as to make it fit Lizzie's plump figure.

The girl looked at it with disgust. "I don't call this a fine dress," she said; "and it isn't the sort—"

A ringing box of the ears cut short this speech. "Take that," said the woman, as she sent the girl reeling across the room from the blow. "If your mother had given you a few tastes of this sort of thing, I shouldn't be bothered with you."

Lizzie checked the tears that rose to her eyes, and was about to say she need not be bothered with her, she would go home again, but a look at the woman's face convinced her that it would be more prudent to hold her tongue about this; and so she resolutely kept silent, and was careful to stand still while the woman finished the work of fitting on the dirty-fine frock.

When the race-course was reached, everybody set to work to help get the shows set up, and the steam roundabout set going, and as soon as the wax figures were dusted and set in their places, Lizzie was dressed in the pink frock, and received her first lesson in the duties of her new office.

Mrs. Stanley went round the show with a cane in her hand, with which she pointed at the different figures ranged along each side, making Lizzie repeat each sentence after her.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," bawled the woman, "this is Lady Jane Grey, who had her head cut off for trying to kill Queen Mary, and this is Mrs. Manning who murdered another man in London. What!" she exclaimed, as Lizzie touched her on the shoulder to suggest that the historical information concerning Lady Jane Grey was not quite accurate.

"Lady Jane didn't try to kill Queen Mary," repeated Lizzie, who began to think her lot might not be quite so hard.

"Perhaps you'll tell me Mrs. Manning didn't try to kill a man in London, and wasn't hung in a black satin dress afterwards," said the woman scornfully.

"I don't know anything about Mrs. Manning," said Lizzie shrinkingly, as she caught sight of the angry glare in the woman's eyes.

"No, nor you ain't wanted to know anything," retorted Mrs. Stanley. "You ain't wanted to teach them as has been in the show business nigh on twenty year, but just do as you're told, and learn the lesson as it's taught yer."

And then she resumed her march round the show, giving the various figures names and characters in a jumbled-up fashion that perfectly amazed Lizzie. For she could read, while no one else in the company had ever mastered its difficulties beyond spelling words of three letters; and so the account of those the figures were intended to represent had been received verbally by Mrs. Stanley, when she bought them second-hand of a man who was going out of the business. Whether the original accounts at all agreed with those she now gave out, it would be hard to decide. She stuck to it that her version was the only correct one.

While Lizzie, who had read a good many of the books from the Sunday-school library, had learned a very different account of the various historical personages who were supposed to be represented at this wax-work exhibition, and it was difficult to disentangle the true from the false when it came to her turn to go round and repeat the lesson she had received.

"Lady Jane Grey was beheaded on Tower Hill for—"

"There ain't nothing about Tower Hill in it," roared Mrs. Stanley. "You nasty obstinate hussy, I'll give you such a taste of horsewhip, if you don't mind what I say to you, that you'll be one big ache all over when you go to bed to-night."

Lizzie looked at her tyrannical mistress and shivered, for she knew she would not hesitate to put her threat into execution, and so she tried harder to remember the garbled accounts delivered by Mrs. Stanley. In the case of Mrs. Manning and other murderers, who figured largely in the show, she had little difficulty in giving the exact account delivered by her mistress, because she had no preconceived ideas to get rid of, never having heard their names before, but when "Bloody Mary" was credited with cutting the disputed child in halves, it was so clear that the figure of Solomon had somehow disappeared from this scene, that Lizzie once more ventured a remonstrance.

But a sharp cut with the cane that Mrs. Stanley still carried, soon reduced her historical knowledge to a quiet acquiescence in the dictum of its latest exponent, and the next being murderers again, Lizzie got on better.

One more round, and then Mrs. Stanley, with a critical eye to Lady Jane Grey and Bloody Mary, pronounced her deliverance "pretty well."

These two, however, had to be repeated, and then Lizzie was left to make a further acquaintance with the hideous waxen effigies, while Mrs. Stanley went off to superintend the preparations for dinner.

Lizzie had had nothing but a few slices of bread and dripping by way of food since the previous Saturday, but to-day she had a good dinner of beef-steak and new bread, and felt better prepared for the opening of the show after she had eaten it.

This corner of the race-course, where they had taken up their quarters, was just like the fair-ground she had visited the previous week. She recalled the disgust she had felt when standing outside the faded red curtain across the doorway, and first smelt the sawdust and paraffin fumes with which the atmosphere was charged. Now that the lamps were all alight, and the back door closed, and the show ready for business to commence, the recollections of that scene was brought forcibly back to her recollection by the smell that almost immediately pervaded the place.

What a fool she had been! She did not need anyone else to tell her, that in trying to escape from the duties of her own station in life, she had thrown herself into a slavery that was ten times worse than anything she could have imagined possible when she was in a comfortable place of domestic service.

She might have relapsed into tears of self-pity over the plight she had brought herself into, but there was Stanley at the door, and if he took a less active part in the management of affairs than his wife, he would not fail to tell her of anything Lizzie might do that was not calculated to promote the "business."

Now, tears in the attendant at a wax-work show, whose lot in life is supposed to be as rosy as her gaudy dress, would never do; and when the man, thrusting his head behind the curtain, saw Lizzie sitting down in one corner looking very woe-begone and tired, he roared out:

"Come now, that won't do! Just jump up and be brisk, and look lively, not like a monkey going to be hung!"

Then the curtain dropped, and above the loud bawling of, "Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and see the best sight at the races," she could hear the clatter of feet outside, and the rattle of halfpence, and the next minute a little knot of rough boys, laughing and chaffing each other, pushed their way into the show, and Lizzie's work began. But her voice trembled now that she was in the actual presence of her first audience, and she faltered so much that one of them called out:

"Come, speak up, young woman."

The next minute, Stanley's head was pushed in, and he said sharply: "Come, be brisk there, and show the gentlemen round the show."

"I am," gasped Lizzie; but she was obliged to seize hold of the rail behind which the figures were ranged, to support herself for a minute or two. But the faintness went off, and Lizzie went on with her description until this party of visitors had gazed their fill at the glass-eyed, wooden-faced monstrosities, and by the time they had departed, another party had gathered and were waiting to be admitted, and when they had filed in, Lizzie began again, and once more detailed how Lady Jane Grey tried to kill Queen Mary, and "Bloody Mary" ordered the child brought before Solomon to be divided.

She could see a grim smile on the faces of one or two visitors as they listened to these wonderful details, but she did not dare alter her statements in the least, for fear of the horsewhipping that would certainly follow upon such a breach of discipline, and so she repeated the words at last in the same mechanical tone Tottie had adopted, and scarcely knew what she was saying before the weary day came to an end.

Round and round she went, repeating the words to various parties of visitors; for they were new-comers to this race meeting, and the wax-work show was a novelty that everybody wanted to see. So business was brisk all day, and far into the night, to Mrs. Stanley's great satisfaction and her victim's intolerable disgust.

Her head ached, her back ached, her feet ached, her throat was sore and parched from bawling incessantly amid the fumes of paraffin, and when at last, the hour of release came, and she could take off her tawdry finery and lie down on the sack of straw that was thrown in at the back door as soon as the last visitor had departed, she could only stretch out her arms and sob out:

"Oh, mother! I wish I had died before I ran away from you."

Mrs. Stanley was well pleased with her day's work and the store of pence that had been collected at the entrance, and she set open the back door that Lizzie might have some share in the feasting and merry-making that always went on among themselves after a good day's business.

But Lizzie had no heart for merry-making, and the coarse jests and riotous laughter would rather have disgusted than pleased her, even if she had been well. Neither did she care for the bountiful supper of tripe and onions that was handed up to her. She felt too sick and sore to eat; she only longed for rest, and to be able to go back to her mother and the situation she had so rashly left.

But the next day, the same dreary round had to be gone through, and the next, and the next, for a sort of fair was held after the races were over, and then they journeyed on again, farther and farther from the spot to which the runaway was longing to return.