the joy of my second year at lysterby was mr. parker the dancing-master. was he evoked from pantomime and grotesque legend by the sympathetic genius of sister ignatius? we were all solemnly convened, in our best shoes and frocks, to a great meeting in the big hall to make the acquaintance of our dancing-master, and learn the polite steps of society. a wizen cross-looking little creature stood at the top of the long room, and as we entered in file, all agog, and ready enough, heaven knows, to shriek for nothing, from sheer animal spirits, he bowed to us, as i suppose they bowed in the good old days of queen anne. for queen anne was his weakness. i wonder why, since she was neither the queen of grace nor of beauty.
i recall the gist of his first speech: "we are now, young ladies, about to study one of the most necessary and the most serious of arts, the art of dancing. it is the art of dancing that makes ladies and gentlemen of us all. in a ball-room the awkward, those who cannot dance, are in disgrace. nobody minds them, nobody admires them. they have not the tone of society. they are poor creatures, who, for all society cares, might never have been born. what it behoves you, young ladies, is to acquire the tone of society from your earliest years, and it is only by a steady practice of the art of dancing that you may hope to acquire it. practice, young ladies, makes perfect—remember that."
ever afterwards, his first question, before beginning each week's lesson, was: "what does practice do, young ladies?" and we were all expected to reply in a single ringing voice: "makes perfect, mr. parker." children are heartless satirists, and the follies of poor little mr. parker filled us with wicked glee.
i see him still, unconscious tiny clown, gathering up in a delicate grasp the tails of his black coat to show us how a lady curtseyed in the remote days of queen anne. and mincing across the polished floor, he would say, as he daintily picked his steps: "the lady enters the ball-room on the tip of her toes—so!" picture, i pray you, the comic appearance of any woman who dared to enter a ball-room as mr. parker walked across our dancing-hall! society would stand still to gape. he minced to right, he minced to left, he minced in and out of the five positions, and then with eyes ecstatically closed, he would seize his violin, and play the homely air of "nora creina," as he chasséed up and down the floor for our delectation, singing the while—
"bend and rise-a—nora creina,
rise on your toes-a—nora creina,
chassez to the right-a—nora creina,
and then to the left-a—nora creina."
in his least inspired moments, he addressed us in the first position; but whenever he soared aloft on the wings of imagination, he stood in the glory of the fifth. in that position he never failed to recite to us the imposing tale of his successes in the "reception halls" of the duchess of leamington and the marchioness of stoke. once he went so far as to exhibit to us a new dance he had composed expressly for his illustrious friend the duchess.
"my dears, that dance will be all the rage next spring in london, you will see."
he was quite aware that we never would see, having nothing on earth to do with the london season. but the assertion mystified us, and enchanted him.
"thus my hand lightly reposes on the waist of her grace, her fingers just touch my shoulders, and, one, two, three—boom!" he was gliding round the room, clasping lightly an imaginary duchess in his arms, in beatific unconsciousness of the exquisite absurdity of his appearance and action, and we children followed his circumvolutions with glances magnified and brightened by mirth and wonderment.
the irresistible mr. parker had a knavish trick of keeping us on our good behaviour by a delusive promise persistently unfulfilled. every tuesday, after saluting us in the fashion of the eighteenth century and demanding from us an immense simultaneous curtsey of queen anne, holding our skirts in an extravagant semicircle and trailing our little bent bodies backward and upward upon the most pointed of toes, he would rap the table with his bow, clear his throat, adjust his white tie, straighten himself, and, with a hideous grin he doubtless deemed captivating, he would address us inclusively—
"young ladies, it is my intention to bring you a little confectionery next tuesday; and now, if you please, attention! and answer. what does practice do?"
in vain we shouted our customary response with more than our customary conviction; the confectionery was always for next tuesday, and never, alas! for to-day. with longing eyes we watched the slightest movement of the master towards his pocket. he never produced anything but his handkerchief, and when he doubled in two to wish us "o reevoyer," he never omitted to say—
"to-day i did not pass by the confectioner's shop; but it will certainly be for next tuesday."
for a long time he took us in, as other so-called magicians have taken in simpletons as great as we. we believed he had a secret understanding with the devil, for only to the power of evil could we attribute a quickness of apprehension such as he boasted. he would stand with his back to us, playing away at his violin, while we chasséed and croiséd and heaven knows what else—
"now, my senses are so acutely alive to the impropriety of a false step, young ladies, that even with my back turned to you, i shall be able to tell which of you has erred without seeing her."
sure enough he always pounced on the bungler, and never failed to switch round his bow violently and hit her toes. how was it done? simply enough, one of us discovered quite by accident. there was a big mahogany press, as finely polished as a mirror, and in front of this the master planted himself. the rows of dancers, from crown to heel, were as clear to him as in a glass. by such simple means may a terrible reputation be acquired. for months had mr. parker shabbily usurped the fame of a magician.
in his quality of master he could permit himself a brutality of candour not usually shown by his sex to us without the strictest limits of intimacy. there was a big girl of sixteen, very stout, very tall, squarely built, with poultry-yard writ in broad letters over her whole dull and earthly form. an excellent creature, i have no doubt, though i knew nothing whatever about her, being half her age, which in school constitutes a difference of something approaching half a century. her name was janet twycross, and she came from shakespeare's town. as befits a master of the graceful art, mr. parker's preference was, given to the slim and lovely nymph, and such a square emblem of the soil as janet twycross would naturally provoke his impatient contempt. possibly she merited all the vicious rage he showered on her poor big feet, pathetically evident, emerging from skirts that just reached her ankles. but with my larger experience and knowledge of his sex, i am inclined to doubt it, and attribute his vindictiveness to a mere masculine hatred of ugliness in woman rather than to the teacher's legitimate wrath. hardly a tuesday went by but he sent the inoffensive, great, meek creature into floods of tears; and while she wept and sobbed, looking less lovely than ever in her sorrow, he would snarl and snicker at her, imitate her jeeringly, and cast obloquy on her unshapely feet.
"a ploughboy would be disgraced by such feet as miss twycross's," he would hiss across at her, and then rap them wickedly with his bow.
the art of dancing, mr. parker proved to us, is insufficient to make a gentleman of its adept. once his unsleeping fury against the unhappy girl carried him to singular lengths. he bade us all be seated, and then, with his customary inflated and foolish air began to address us upon the power of art. with art you can achieve anything, you can even lend grace to the ungraceful.
"i will now chose from your ranks the most awkward, the most pitiable and clumsy of her sex. the young lady unassisted cannot dance a single step; but such is my consummate skill, so finished is my art, that i shall actually succeed in bestowing some of my own grace as a dancer upon her. advance, miss twycross."
i leave you to picture the sensations of the unfortunate so addressed and so described. she advanced slowly, square and sodden, but with an unmistakable look of anguish in her poor harassed eyes, of a blue as dull and troubled as her complexion; and a certain twitching of her thin tight lips was eloquent enough of her unprovoked hurt.
mr. parker, with his simpering disgusted air of ill-natured little dandy, flourished a perfumed handkerchief about her face, to sustain his affronted nerves, no doubt, placed an arm gingerly about the flat square waist, clasped her outer hand in evident revulsion, and began to scamper and drag her round the room in the steps of a wild schottische. most of us tittered—could we be expected to measure the misery of the girl, while nature made us excruciatingly alive to the absurdity of her tormentor?
as a girl myself i have often laughed in recalling the incident; but i own that the brute should have been kicked out of the establishment for such an object-lesson in the art of communicating grace. as for his boasted achievement, even we babies could perfectly understand that there was not much to choose between his jerky waxwork steps and the heavy stamp of his partner. she at least was true to nature and moved as she looked, an honest cow-like creature, whom you were at liberty not to admire, but who offered you no reason to despise her. while he, her vindictive enemy, mean unnatural little body, sheathing a base, affected, silly little soul, fiddling and scraping away his days which were neither dignified nor manly, he offered himself to the unlimited contempt of even such microscopic humanity as ours. we felt he was not a man with the large capacity of manhood, but a disgraced and laughable thing, a puppet moving upon springs and speaking artificially, manufactured as dolls are, for the delectation of little folk.
we enjoyed mr. parker, but we never regarded him as more human than the clown or the harlequin of the pantomime. we imitated him together; we played at him, as we played at soldiers or fairies or social entertainment. had we learnt that he was dead or ill, or driven to the poorhouse, it would have been just as if we had heard such news of harlequin, or heard that peeping tom had fallen from his window and smashed his head. mr. parker was not a person at the ivies; he was a capital joke.
