The men are, as usual, utterly puzzled by the hysteria they’ve engendered.
Among the women who have a right to appear in Dickens’ Women are the actresses whom he affectionately satirises in Nicholas Nickleby. As actresses ourselves, we know of no better description of a group of actresses than this one, from Nicholas Nickleby.
The ladies were gathered in a little knot by themselves round the rickety table before mentioned. There was Miss Snevellicci – who could do anything, from a medley dance to Lady Macbeth, and also always played some part in blue silk knee-smalls at her benefit – glancing, from the depths of her coal-scuttle straw bonnet, at Nicholas, and affecting to be absorbed in the recital of a diverting story to her friend Miss Ledrook, who had brought her work, and was making up a ruff in the most natural manner possible. There was Miss Belvawney – who seldom aspired to speaking parts, and usually went on as a page in white silk hose, to stand with one leg bent, and contemplate the audience, or to go in and out after Mr Crummles in stately tragedy – twisting up the ringlets of the beautiful Miss Bravassa, who had once had her likeness taken ‘in character’ by an engraver’s apprentice, whereof impressions were hung up for sale in the pastry-cook’s window, and the greengrocer’s, and at the circulating library, and the box-office, whenever the announce bills came out for her annual night. There was Mrs Lenville, in a very limp bonnet and veil, decidedly in that way in which she would wish to be if she truly loved Mr Lenville; there was Miss Gazingi, with an imitation ermine boa tied in a loose knot round her neck, flogging Mr Crummles, junior, with both ends, in fun. Lastly, there was Mrs Grudden in a brown cloth pelisse and a beaver bonnet, who assisted Mrs Crummles in her domestic affairs, and took money at the doors, and dressed the ladies, and swept the house, and held the prompt book when everybody else was on for the last scene, and acted any kind of part on any emergency without ever learning it, and was put down in the bills under any name or names whatever, that occurred to Mr Crummles as looking well in print.
Mr Folair having obligingly confided these particulars to Nicholas, left him to mingle with his fellows; the work of personal introduction was completed by Mr Vincent Crummles, who publicly heralded the new actor as a prodigy of genius and learning.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Miss Snevellicci, sidling towards Nicholas, ‘but did you ever play at Canterbury?’
‘I never did,’ replied Nicholas.
‘I recollect meeting a gentleman at Canterbury,’ said Miss Snevellicci, ‘only for a few moments, for I was leaving the company as he joined it, so like you that I felt almost certain it was the same.’
‘I see you now for the first time,’ rejoined Nicholas with all due gallantry. ‘I am sure I never saw you before; I couldn’t have forgotten it.’
‘Oh, I’m sure – it’s very flattering of you to say so,’ retorted Miss Snevellicci with a graceful bend. ‘Now I look at you again, I see that the gentleman at Canterbury hadn’t the same eyes as you – you’ll think me very foolish for taking notice of such things, won’t you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Nicholas. ‘How can I feel otherwise than flattered by your notice in any way?’
‘Oh! you men are such vain creatures!’ cried Miss Snevellicci. Whereupon, she became charmingly confused, and, pulling out her pocket-handkerchief from a faded pink silk reticule with a gilt clasp, called to Miss Ledrook – ‘Led, my dear,’ said Miss Snevellicci.
‘Well, what is the matter?’ said Miss Ledrook.
‘It’s not the same.’
‘Not the same what?’
‘Canterbury – you know what I mean. Come here! I want to speak to you.’
But Miss Ledrook wouldn’t come to Miss Snevellicci, so Miss Snevellicci was obliged to go to Miss Ledrook, which she did, in a skipping manner that was quite fascinating; and Miss Ledrook evidently joked Miss Snevellicci about being struck with Nicholas; for, after some playful whispering, Miss Snevellicci hit Miss Ledrook very hard on the backs of her hands, and retired up, in a state of pleasing confusion.
I cannot resist the Infant Phenomenon, a prominent member of the Vincent Crummles Theatre Company, in Portsmouth.
As Mrs Vincent Crummles recrossed back to the table, there bounded on to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty white frock with tucks up to the knees, short trousers, sandaled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil and curl papers; who turned a pirouette, cut twice in the air, turned another pirouette, then, looking off at the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded forward to within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a beautiful attitude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair of buff slippers came in at one powerful slide, and chattering his teeth, fiercely brandished a walking-stick.
‘Bravo!’ cried Nicholas, resolved to make the best of everything. ‘Beautiful!’
‘This, sir,’ said Mr Vincent Crummles, bringing the maiden forward, ‘this is the infant phenomenon – Miss Ninetta Crummles.’
‘Your daughter?’ inquired Nicholas.
‘My daughter – my daughter,’ replied Mr Vincent Crummles; ‘the idol of every place we go into, sir. We have had complimentary letters about this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry of almost every town in England.’
‘I am not surprised at that,’ said Nicholas; ‘she must be quite a natural genius.’
‘Quite a –!’ Mr Crummles stopped: language was not powerful enough to describe the infant phenomenon. ‘I’ll tell you what, sir,’ he said; ‘the talent of this child is not to be imagined. She must be seen, sir – seen – to be ever so faintly appreciated. There; go to your mother, my dear.’
‘May I ask how old she is?’ inquired Nicholas.
‘You may, sir,’ replied Mr Crummles, looking steadily in his questioner’s face, as some men do when they have doubts about being implicitly believed in what they are going to say. ‘She is ten years of age, sir.’
‘Not more!’
‘Not a day.’
‘Dear me!’ said Nicholas, ‘it’s extraordinary.’
It was; for the infant phenomenon, though of short stature, had a comparatively aged countenance, and had moreover been precisely the same age – not perhaps to the full extent of the memory of the oldest inhabitant, but certainly for five good years. But she had been kept up late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of gin-and-water from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and perhaps this system of training had produced in the infant phenomenon, these additional phenomena.
Miss Ninetta Crummles is a miniature harridan. But Dickens also specialised in the adult variety and his exploration of the truly evil aspect of the Feminine is fully realised by Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities.
Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way.
Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the mud, and round the corner of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appr
eciative of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments.
There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her.
It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who sent her there.
Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets.
Dickens hasn’t created a real woman. It’s as if he’s dragged from the depths of his own fears an iconic distillation of feminine power, misdirected and distorted.
There is a problem with Charles Dickens, as there is with all geniuses whose lives seem to betray the gifts they own. We want a good writer to be a good man.
But when I read him and most especially when I perform him, I cannot but be delighted, enriched and continually surprised. His humanity transcends his cruelty; the prejudice, the sense of grievance of which he is occasionally guilty seem to fade and, at the end, I am left with the triumph of his imagination and I am happy to settle for that.
Charles Dickens’ Bibliography
The Pickwick Papers: Monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837
The Adventures of Oliver Twist: Monthly serial in Bentley’s Miscellany, February 1837 to April 1839
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby: Monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839
The Old Curiosity Shop: Weekly serial in Master Humphrey’s Clock, 25 April 1840 to 6 February 1841
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty’: Weekly serial in Master Humphrey’s Clock, 13 February 1841 to 27 November 1841
A Christmas Carol 1843: The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: Monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844
The Chimes: 1844
The Cricket on the Hearth: 1845
The Battle of Life: 1846
Dombey and Son: Monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848
The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain: 1848
David Copperfield: Monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850
Bleak House: Monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853
Hard Times: For These Times: Weekly serial in Household Words, 1 April 1854 to 12 August 1854
Little Dorrit: Monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857
A Tale of Two Cities: Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 30 April 1859 to 26 November 1859
Great Expectations: Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861
Our Mutual Friend: Monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865
The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Monthly serial, April 1870 to September 1870. Only six of twelve planned numbers completed.
Acknowledgments
With grateful thanks to F.R. Leavis, Q.D. Leavis, Michael Slater, Claire Tomalin and Angus Wilson.
Biographical Note
Sonia Fraser trained as an actress at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. As an actress she worked with several major theatre companies, including two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was twice a member of the BBC Radio Drama Rep. and it was when they were both working in Radio that she and Miriam Margolyes first met. Her career as a director began when she ran the Studio Theatre at Colchester Mercury Theatre. She has always been interested in new writing, and has won three Fringe First Awards at the Edinburgh Festival. She has co-written a television series, which is about the contemporary life of an English village, and which is filled with Dickensian characters. (www.soniafraser.co.uk)
Miriam Margolyes was born in Oxford and read English Literature at Newnham College, Cambridge. She joined the BBC Radio Drama Repertory Company in 1965, and since then has worked continuously in theatre, television and films, playing everything from Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard to Lady Whiteadder in Blackadder. Dickens’ Women was created for the Edinburgh Festival of 1989, and was nominated for an Olivier Award in 1991. Her distinguished film career was crowned with a BAFTA Best Supporting Actress for The Age of Innocence in 1991, and she was awarded the OBE for her services to drama in 2001. Margolyes will be touring the world in 2012, celebrating in performance the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth.
Copyright
Published by Hesperus Press Limited
28 Mortimer Street, London W1W 7RD
www.hesperuspress.com
First published by Hesperus Press Limited, 2011.
This ebook edition first published in 2012.
All rights reserved
‘Dickens’ Women’ © Miriam Margolyes and Sonia Fraser, 1989.
Introduction © Miriam Margolyes, 2011.
‘The Women in the Boxes’ © Miriam Margolyes and Sonia Fraser, 2011.
The right of Miriam Margolyes and Sonia Fraser to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance, etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsals to United Agents Ltd, 12-26 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LE and MacFarlane Chard Associates Limited, 33 Percy Street, London W1T 2DF. No performance may be given unless a license has been obtained and no alterations may be made in the title or text of the play without the Co-authors’ prior written consent.
Images reproduced with grateful thanks to Philip V. Allingham.
Incidental piano music for the play was arranged from contemporary sources by Michael Haslam.
Typeset by Bookcraft Ltd, Stroud, UK.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 978–1–78094–086–1
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