Horror Stories by E Nesbit

Author:E Nesbit
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241977231
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

2

It did go. The whole picture – graduated houses, the little figures of wood, and wax, and paper, the ingenious lanterns that lighted, the tinsel flames that gleamed – all was taken to London, and set up in a big attic in Fitzroy Street. Mr Diehl brought men to see it. Men with shiny hats and fur coats, and cigars like his own. And when they had seen, they went away and drank brandy and soda at marble-topped tables, while Morris Diehl talked. And they ‘came into it’ with him, as he had known they would. April Vane was shy and moody at first; would have no help; but when he saw the life-sized body, produced by a trained workman from one of his own little models, he drew a long breath. ‘You may go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll have more time for the faces.’

It cost the enterprising Mr Diehl a great deal of patience, and his enterprising friends a great deal of money. The big fight was over the subject of the tableau. Vane wanted to reproduce the village scene, exactly as it had been burnt on his mind. Diehl wanted the Great Fire of London, with old London Bridge, and the heads of the traitors above the gate. But though Vane had been the other man’s slave, since the night he had thought he had seen the other man’s heart, he was obstinate till Diehl said: ‘More people will come to the Great Fire of London than just to a village fire; you’ve got more chance of seeing him.’

Then Vane yielded.

No expense was spared. The best scene-painters and carpenters that the Syndicate could buy for money were bought. An eminent archaeologist was fee’d to advise; an expert in acoustics solved the problem of the roar of fire triumphant. The thing was boomed a month in advance by all the venal press. A big place in the West End, that had failed as an Art Gallery, was hired for this that should not fail. Vane was often wearied, often disheartened.

‘I like the other best,’ he said; ‘that was mine. This will be everybody’s.’

‘Wait till you see the real thing all put together,’ Diehl urged continually. He was very gentle and patient. It was important to him to keep the old man’s adoration alive. ‘That will be yours, and you’ll never be able to leave it. You mark my words.’

The old man marked them, and they came true.

The thing caught on. ‘Have you seen the Great Fire of London?’ people asked each other between dances and during dinners, in the train and on the tops of omnibuses. ‘Like Madame Tussaud’s? Oh, no, not in the least. It’s absolutely thrilling. Just for the moment, you can hardly believe it’s not real. You must go!’

And everybody went. And it was not like Madame Tussaud’s, nor like any waxwork show that ever was before. To the making of Madame Tussaud’s goes, perhaps, talent. To the making of the Musée Grévin, certainly, genius. But to the making of this went the heart and soul of a man.

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