Nicholas Nickleby
feelings of the purest and most disinterested charity. The gentleman
next door had been vilified by Nicholas; rudely stigmatised as a dotard
and an idiot; and for these attacks upon his understanding, Mrs. Nickleby
was, in some sort, accountable. She might have felt that it was the act
of a good Christian to show by all means in her power, that the abused
gentleman was neither the one nor the other. And what better means could
she adopt, towards so virtuous and laudable an end, than proving to
all men, in her own person, that his passion was the most rational and
reasonable in the world, and just the very result, of all others, which
discreet and thinking persons might have foreseen, from her incautiously
displaying her matured charms, without reserve, under the very eye, as
it were, of an ardent and too-susceptible man?
‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, gravely shaking her head; ‘if Nicholas knew
what his poor dear papa suffered before we were engaged, when I used to
hate him, he would have a little more feeling. Shall I ever forget the
morning I looked scornfully at him when he offered to carry my parasol?
Or that night, when I frowned at him? It was a mercy he didn’t emigrate.
It very nearly drove him to it.’
Whether the deceased might not have been better off if he had emigrated
in his bachelor days, was a question which his relict did not stop to
consider; for Kate entered the room, with her workbox, in this stage of
her reflections; and a much slighter interruption, or no interruption at
all, would have diverted Mrs. Nickleby’s thoughts into a new channel at
any time.
‘Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘I don’t know how it is, but a fine
warm summer day like this, with the birds singing in every direction,
always puts me in mind of roast pig, with sage and onion sauce, and made
gravy.’
‘That’s a curious association of ideas, is it not, mama?’
‘Upon my word, my dear, I don’t know,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Roast pig;
let me see. On the day five weeks after you were christened, we had a
roast--no, that couldn’t have been a pig, either, because I recollect
there were a pair of them to carve, and your poor papa and I could
never have thought of sitting down to two pigs--they must have been
partridges. Roast pig! I hardly think we ever could have had one, now
I come to remember, for your papa could never bear the sight of them
in the shops, and used to say that they always put him in mind of very
little babies, only the pigs had much fairer complexions; and he had a
horror of little babies, too, because he couldn’t very well afford any
increase to his family, and had a natural dislike to the subject. It’s
very odd now, what can have put that in my head! I recollect dining
once at Mrs. Bevan’s, in that broad street round the corner by the
coachmaker’s, where the tipsy man fell through the cellar-flap of an
empty house nearly a week before the quarter-day, and wasn’t found till
the new tenant went in--and we had roast pig there. It must be that, I
think, that reminds me of it, especially as there was a little bird in
the room that would keep on singing all the time of dinner--at least,
not a little bird, for it was a parrot, and he didn’t sing exactly, for
he talked and swore dreadfully: but I think it must be that. Indeed I am
sure it must. Shouldn’t you say so, my dear?’
‘I should say there was not a doubt about it, mama,’ returned Kate, with
a cheerful smile.
‘No; but DO you think so, Kate?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with as much gravity
as if it were a question of the most imminent and thrilling interest.
‘If you don’t, say so at once, you know; because it’s just as well to be
correct, particularly on a point of this kind, which is very curious and
worth settling while one thinks about it.’
Kate laughingly replied that she was quite convinced; and as her mama
still appeared undetermined whether it was not absolutely essential that
the subject should be renewed, proposed that they should take their
work into the summer-house, and enjoy the beauty of the afternoon.
Mrs. Nickleby readily assented, and to the summer-house they repaired,
without further discussion.
‘Well, I will say,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby, as she took her seat, ‘that
there never was such a good creature as Smike. Upon my word, the pains
he has taken in putting this little arbour to rights, and training the
sweetest flowers about it, are beyond anything I could have--I wish he
wouldn’t put ALL the gravel on your side, Kate, my dear, though, and
leave nothing but mould for me.’
‘Dear mama,’ returned Kate, hastily, ‘take this seat--do--to oblige me,
mama.’
‘No, indeed, my dear. I shall keep my own side,’ said Mrs. Nickleby.
‘Well! I declare!’
Kate looked up inquiringly.
‘If he hasn’t been,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘and got, from somewhere or
other, a couple of roots of those flowers that I said I was so fond of,
the other night, and asked you if you were not--no, that YOU said YOU
were so fond of, the other night, and asked me if I wasn’t--it’s the
same thing. Now, upon my word, I take that as very kind and attentive
indeed! I don’t see,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, looking narrowly about her,
‘any of them on my side, but I suppose they grow best near the gravel.
You may depend upon it they do, Kate, and that’s the reason they are all
near you, and he has put the gravel there, because it’s the sunny side.
Upon my word, that’s very clever now! I shouldn’t have had half as much
thought myself!’
‘Mama,’ said Kate, bending over her work so that her face was almost
hidden, ‘before you were married--’
‘Dear me, Kate,’ interrupted Mrs. Nickleby, ‘what in the name of goodness
graciousness makes you fly off to the time before I was married, when
I’m talking to you about his thoughtfulness and attention to me? You
don’t seem to take the smallest interest in the garden.’
‘Oh! mama,’ said Kate, raising her face again, ‘you know I do.’
‘Well then, my dear, why don’t you praise the neatness and prettiness
with which it’s kept?’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘How very odd you are, Kate!’
‘I do praise it, mama,’ answered Kate, gently. ‘Poor fellow!’
‘I scarcely ever hear you, my dear,’ retorted Mrs. Nickleby; ‘that’s all
I’ve got to say.’ By this time the good lady had been a long while upon
one topic, so she fell at once into her daughter’s little trap, if trap
it were, and inquired what she had been going to say.
‘About what, mama?’ said Kate, who had apparently quite forgotten her
diversion.
‘Lor, Kate, my dear,’ returned her mother, ‘why, you’re asleep or
stupid! About the time before I was married.’
‘Oh yes!’ said Kate, ‘I remember. I was going to ask, mama, before you
were married, had you many suitors?’
‘Suitors, my dear!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, with a smile of wonderful
complacency. ‘First and last, Kate, I must have had a dozen at least.’
‘Mama!’ returned Kate, in a tone of remonstrance.
‘I had indeed, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘not including your poor
papa, or a young gentleman who used to go, at that time, to the same
dancing school, and who WOULD send gold watches and bracelets to
our house in gilt-edged paper, (which were always returned,) and who
afterwards unfortunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet ship--a
convict ship I mean--and escaped into a bush and killed sheep, (I don’t
know how they got there,) and was going to be hung, only he accidentally
choked himself, and the government pardoned him. Then there was young
Lukin,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, beginning with her left thumb and checking
off the names on her fingers--‘Mogley--Tipslark--Cabbery--Smifser--’
Having now reached her little finger, Mrs. Nickleby was carrying the
account over to the other hand, when a loud ‘Hem!’ which appeared to
come from the very foundation of the garden-wall, gave both herself and
her daughter a violent start.
‘Mama! what was that?’ said Kate, in a low tone of voice.
‘Upon my word, my dear,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, considerably startled,
‘unless it was the gentleman belonging to the next house, I don’t know
what it could possibly--’
‘A--hem!’ cried the same voice; and that, not in the tone of an ordinary
clearing of the throat, but in a kind of bellow, which woke up all the
echoes in the neighbourhood, and was prolonged to an extent which must
have made the unseen bellower quite black in the face.
‘I understand it now, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, laying her hand on
Kate’s; ‘don’t be alarmed, my love, it’s not directed to you, and is not
intended to frighten anybody. Let us give everybody their due, Kate; I
am bound to say that.’
So saying, Mrs. Nickleby nodded her head, and patted the back of her
daughter’s hand, a great many times, and looked as if she could tell
something vastly important if she chose, but had self-denial, thank
Heaven; and wouldn’t do it.
‘What do you mean, mama?’ demanded Kate, in evident surprise.
‘Don’t be flurried, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, looking towards
the garden-wall, ‘for you see I’m not, and if it would be excusable
in anybody to be flurried, it certainly would--under all the
circumstances--be excusable in me, but I am not, Kate--not at all.’
‘It seems designed to attract our attention, mama,’ said Kate.
‘It is designed to attract our attention, my dear; at least,’ rejoined
Mrs. Nickleby, drawing herself up, and patting her daughter’s hand more
blandly than before, ‘to attract the attention of one of us. Hem! you
needn’t be at all uneasy, my dear.’
Kate looked very much perplexed, and was apparently about to ask for
further explanation, when a shouting and scuffling noise, as of an
elderly gentleman whooping, and kicking up his legs on loose gravel,
with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as the
former sounds; and before they had subsided, a large cucumber was seen
to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket, whence it
descended, tumbling over and over, until it fell at Mrs. Nickleby’s feet.
This remarkable appearance was succeeded by another of a precisely
similar description; then a fine vegetable marrow, of unusually large
dimensions, was seen to whirl aloft, and come toppling down; then,
several cucumbers shot up together; and, finally, the air was darkened
by a shower of onions, turnip-radishes, and other small vegetables,
which fell rolling and scattering, and bumping about, in all directions.
As Kate rose from her seat, in some alarm, and caught her mother’s hand
to run with her into the house, she felt herself rather retarded than
assisted in her intention; and following the direction of Mrs. Nickleby’s
eyes, was quite terrified by the apparition of an old black velvet cap,
which, by slow degrees, as if its wearer were ascending a ladder or pair
of steps, rose above the wall dividing their garden from that of the
next cottage, (which, like their own, was a detached building,) and was
gradually followed by a very large head, and an old face, in which were
a pair of most extraordinary grey eyes: very wild, very wide open, and
rolling in their sockets, with a dull, languishing, leering look, most
ugly to behold.
‘Mama!’ cried Kate, really terrified for the moment, ‘why do you stop,
why do you lose an instant? Mama, pray come in!’
‘Kate, my dear,’ returned her mother, still holding back, ‘how can you
be so foolish? I’m ashamed of you. How do you suppose you are ever to
get through life, if you’re such a coward as this? What do you want,
sir?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, addressing the intruder with a sort of
simpering displeasure. ‘How dare you look into this garden?’
‘Queen of my soul,’ replied the stranger, folding his hands together,
‘this goblet sip!’
‘Nonsense, sir,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Kate, my love, pray be quiet.’
‘Won’t you sip the goblet?’ urged the stranger, with his head