Nicholas Nickleby
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Mrs. Browdie, ‘what a state I was in that night!’
‘Were they at all disposed to give you credit for assisting in the
escape?’ inquired Nicholas of John Browdie.
‘Not a bit,’ replied the Yorkshireman, extending his mouth from ear
to ear. ‘There I lay, snoog in schoolmeasther’s bed long efther it was
dark, and nobody coom nigh the pleace. “Weel!” thinks I, “he’s got a
pretty good start, and if he bean’t whoam by noo, he never will be; so
you may coom as quick as you loike, and foind us reddy”--that is, you
know, schoolmeasther might coom.’
‘I understand,’ said Nicholas.
‘Presently,’ resumed John, ‘he DID coom. I heerd door shut doonstairs,
and him a warking, oop in the daark. “Slow and steddy,” I says to
myself, “tak’ your time, sir--no hurry.” He cooms to the door, turns the
key--turns the key when there warn’t nothing to hoold the lock--and ca’s
oot “Hallo, there!”--“Yes,” thinks I, “you may do thot agean, and
not wakken anybody, sir.” “Hallo, there,” he says, and then he stops.
“Thou’d betther not aggravate me,” says schoolmeasther, efther a little
time. “I’ll brak’ every boan in your boddy, Smike,” he says, efther
another little time. Then all of a soodden, he sings oot for a loight,
and when it cooms--ecod, such a hoorly-boorly! “Wa’at’s the matter?”
says I. “He’s gane,” says he,--stark mad wi’ vengeance. “Have you heerd
nought?” “Ees,” says I, “I heerd street-door shut, no time at a’ ago.
I heerd a person run doon there” (pointing t’other wa’--eh?) “Help!” he
cries. “I’ll help you,” says I; and off we set--the wrong wa’! Ho! ho!
ho!’
‘Did you go far?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Far!’ replied John; ‘I run him clean off his legs in quarther of an
hoor. To see old schoolmeasther wi’out his hat, skimming along oop to
his knees in mud and wather, tumbling over fences, and rowling into
ditches, and bawling oot like mad, wi’ his one eye looking sharp out for
the lad, and his coat-tails flying out behind, and him spattered wi’ mud
all ower, face and all! I tho’t I should ha’ dropped doon, and killed
myself wi’ laughing.’
John laughed so heartily at the mere recollection, that he communicated
the contagion to both his hearers, and all three burst into peals of
laughter, which were renewed again and again, until they could laugh no
longer.
‘He’s a bad ‘un,’ said John, wiping his eyes; ‘a very bad ‘un, is
schoolmeasther.’
‘I can’t bear the sight of him, John,’ said his wife.
‘Coom,’ retorted John, ‘thot’s tidy in you, thot is. If it wa’nt along
o’ you, we shouldn’t know nought aboot ‘un. Thou know’d ‘un first,
Tilly, didn’t thou?’
‘I couldn’t help knowing Fanny Squeers, John,’ returned his wife; ‘she
was an old playmate of mine, you know.’
‘Weel,’ replied John, ‘dean’t I say so, lass? It’s best to be
neighbourly, and keep up old acquaintance loike; and what I say is,
dean’t quarrel if ‘ee can help it. Dinnot think so, Mr. Nickleby?’
‘Certainly,’ returned Nicholas; ‘and you acted upon that principle when
I meet you on horseback on the road, after our memorable evening.’
‘Sure-ly,’ said John. ‘Wa’at I say, I stick by.’
‘And that’s a fine thing to do, and manly too,’ said Nicholas, ‘though
it’s not exactly what we understand by “coming Yorkshire over us” in
London. Miss Squeers is stopping with you, you said in your note.’
‘Yes,’ replied John, ‘Tilly’s bridesmaid; and a queer bridesmaid she be,
too. She wean’t be a bride in a hurry, I reckon.’
‘For shame, John,’ said Mrs. Browdie; with an acute perception of the
joke though, being a bride herself.
‘The groom will be a blessed mun,’ said John, his eyes twinkling at the
idea. ‘He’ll be in luck, he will.’
‘You see, Mr. Nickleby,’ said his wife, ‘that it was in consequence of
her being here, that John wrote to you and fixed tonight, because we
thought that it wouldn’t be pleasant for you to meet, after what has
passed.’
‘Unquestionably. You were quite right in that,’ said Nicholas,
interrupting.
‘Especially,’ observed Mrs. Browdie, looking very sly, ‘after what we
know about past and gone love matters.’
‘We know, indeed!’ said Nicholas, shaking his head. ‘You behaved rather
wickedly there, I suspect.’
‘O’ course she did,’ said John Browdie, passing his huge forefinger
through one of his wife’s pretty ringlets, and looking very proud of
her. ‘She wur always as skittish and full o’ tricks as a--’
‘Well, as a what?’ said his wife.
‘As a woman,’ returned John. ‘Ding! But I dinnot know ought else that
cooms near it.’
‘You were speaking about Miss Squeers,’ said Nicholas, with the view of
stopping some slight connubialities which had begun to pass between Mr
and Mrs. Browdie, and which rendered the position of a third party in
some degree embarrassing, as occasioning him to feel rather in the way
than otherwise.
‘Oh yes,’ rejoined Mrs. Browdie. ‘John ha’ done. John fixed tonight,
because she had settled that she would go and drink tea with her father.
And to make quite sure of there being nothing amiss, and of your being
quite alone with us, he settled to go out there and fetch her home.’
‘That was a very good arrangement,’ said Nicholas, ‘though I am sorry to
be the occasion of so much trouble.’
‘Not the least in the world,’ returned Mrs. Browdie; ‘for we have
looked forward to see you--John and I have--with the greatest possible
pleasure. Do you know, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Mrs. Browdie, with her archest
smile, ‘that I really think Fanny Squeers was very fond of you?’
‘I am very much obliged to her,’ said Nicholas; ‘but upon my word, I
never aspired to making any impression upon her virgin heart.’
‘How you talk!’ tittered Mrs. Browdie. ‘No, but do you know that
really--seriously now and without any joking--I was given to understand
by Fanny herself, that you had made an offer to her, and that you two
were going to be engaged quite solemn and regular.’
‘Was you, ma’am--was you?’ cried a shrill female voice, ‘was you given
to understand that I--I--was going to be engaged to an assassinating
thief that shed the gore of my pa? Do you--do you think, ma’am--that I
was very fond of such dirt beneath my feet, as I couldn’t condescend to
touch with kitchen tongs, without blacking and crocking myself by the
contract? Do you, ma’am--do you? Oh! base and degrading ‘Tilda!’
With these reproaches Miss Squeers flung the door wide open, and
disclosed to the eyes of the astonished Browdies and Nicholas, not only
her own symmetrical form, arrayed in the chaste white garments before
described (a little dirtier), but the form of her brother and father,
the pair of Wackfords.
‘This is the hend, is it?’ continued Miss Squeers, who, being excited,
aspirated her h’s strongly; ‘this is the hend, is it, of all my
forbearance and friendship for that double-faced thing--that viper,
that--that--mermaid?’ (Miss Squeers hesitated a long time for this
last epithet, and brought it out triumphantly at last, as if it quite
clinched the business.) ‘This is the hend, is it, of all my bearing with
her deceitfulness, her lowness, her falseness, her laying herself out to
catch the admiration of vulgar minds, in a way which made me blush for
my--for my--’
‘Gender,’ suggested Mr. Squeers, regarding the spectators with a
malevolent eye--literally A malevolent eye.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Squeers; ‘but I thank my stars that my ma is of the
same--’
‘Hear, hear!’ remarked Mr. Squeers; ‘and I wish she was here to have a
scratch at this company.’
‘This is the hend, is it,’ said Miss Squeers, tossing her head, and
looking contemptuously at the floor, ‘of my taking notice of that
rubbishing creature, and demeaning myself to patronise her?’
‘Oh, come,’ rejoined Mrs. Browdie, disregarding all the endeavours of
her spouse to restrain her, and forcing herself into a front row, ‘don’t
talk such nonsense as that.’
‘Have I not patronised you, ma’am?’ demanded Miss Squeers.
‘No,’ returned Mrs. Browdie.
‘I will not look for blushes in such a quarter,’ said Miss Squeers,
haughtily, ‘for that countenance is a stranger to everything but
hignominiousness and red-faced boldness.’
‘I say,’ interposed John Browdie, nettled by these accumulated attacks
on his wife, ‘dra’ it mild, dra’ it mild.’
‘You, Mr. Browdie,’ said Miss Squeers, taking him up very quickly, ‘I
pity. I have no feeling for you, sir, but one of unliquidated pity.’
‘Oh!’ said John.
‘No,’ said Miss Squeers, looking sideways at her parent, ‘although I AM
a queer bridesmaid, and SHAN’T be a bride in a hurry, and although my
husband WILL be in luck, I entertain no sentiments towards you, sir, but
sentiments of pity.’
Here Miss Squeers looked sideways at her father again, who looked
sideways at her, as much as to say, ‘There you had him.’
‘I know what you’ve got to go through,’ said Miss Squeers, shaking her
curls violently. ‘I know what life is before you, and if you was my
bitterest and deadliest enemy, I could wish you nothing worse.’
‘Couldn’t you wish to be married to him yourself, if that was the case?’
inquired Mrs. Browdie, with great suavity of manner.
‘Oh, ma’am, how witty you are,’ retorted Miss Squeers with a low curtsy,
‘almost as witty, ma’am, as you are clever. How very clever it was in
you, ma’am, to choose a time when I had gone to tea with my pa, and
was sure not to come back without being fetched! What a pity you never
thought that other people might be as clever as yourself and spoil your
plans!’
‘You won’t vex me, child, with such airs as these,’ said the late Miss
Price, assuming the matron.
‘Don’t MISSIS me, ma’am, if you please,’ returned Miss Squeers, sharply.
‘I’ll not bear it. Is THIS the hend--’
‘Dang it a’,’ cried John Browdie, impatiently. ‘Say thee say out, Fanny,
and mak’ sure it’s the end, and dinnot ask nobody whether it is or not.’
‘Thanking you for your advice which was not required, Mr. Browdie,’
returned Miss Squeers, with laborious politeness, ‘have the goodness not
to presume to meddle with my Christian name. Even my pity shall never
make me forget what’s due to myself, Mr. Browdie. ‘Tilda,’ said Miss
Squeers, with such a sudden accession of violence that John started in
his boots, ‘I throw you off for ever, miss. I abandon you. I renounce
you. I wouldn’t,’ cried Miss Squeers in a solemn voice, ‘have a child
named ‘Tilda, not to save it from its grave.’
‘As for the matther o’ that,’ observed John, ‘it’ll be time eneaf to
think aboot neaming of it when it cooms.’
‘John!’ interposed his wife, ‘don’t tease her.’
‘Oh! Tease, indeed!’ cried Miss Squeers, bridling up. ‘Tease, indeed!
He, he! Tease, too! No, don’t tease her. Consider her feelings, pray!’
‘If it’s fated that listeners are never to hear any good of themselves,’
said Mrs. Browdie, ‘I can’t help it, and I am very sorry for it. But I
will say, Fanny, that times out of number I have spoken so kindly of you
behind your back, that even you could have found no fault with what I
said.’
‘Oh, I dare say not, ma’am!’ cried Miss Squeers, with another curtsy.
‘Best thanks to you for your goodness, and begging and praying you not
to be hard upon me another time!’
‘I don’t know,’ resumed Mrs. Browdie, ‘that I have said anything very bad
of you, even now. At all events, what I did say was quite true; but if I
have, I am very sorry for it, and I beg your pardon. You have said much
worse of me, scores of times, Fanny; but I have never borne any malice
to you, and I hope you’ll not bear any to me.’
Miss Squeers made no more direct reply than surveying her former friend
from top to toe, and elevating her nose in the air with ineffable
disdain. But some indistinct allusions to a ‘puss,’ and a ‘minx,’ and a
‘contemptible creature,’ escaped her; and this, together with a severe
biting of the lips, great difficulty in swallowing, and very frequent