Nicholas Nickleby
Notwithstanding all that has been said and sung to the contrary,
there is no well-established case of morning having either deferred
or hastened its approach by the term of an hour or so for the mere
gratification of a splenetic feeling against some unoffending lover:
the sun having, in the discharge of his public duty, as the books
of precedent report, invariably risen according to the almanacs, and
without suffering himself to be swayed by any private considerations.
So, morning came as usual, and with it business-hours, and with them Mr
Frank Cheeryble, and with him a long train of smiles and welcomes from
the worthy brothers, and a more grave and clerk-like, but scarcely less
hearty reception from Mr. Timothy Linkinwater.
‘That Mr. Frank and Mr. Nickleby should have met last night,’ said
Tim Linkinwater, getting slowly off his stool, and looking round the
counting-house with his back planted against the desk, as was his custom
when he had anything very particular to say: ‘that those two young men
should have met last night in that manner is, I say, a coincidence, a
remarkable coincidence. Why, I don’t believe now,’ added Tim, taking off
his spectacles, and smiling as with gentle pride, ‘that there’s such a
place in all the world for coincidences as London is!’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Mr. Frank; ‘but--’
‘Don’t know about it, Mr. Francis!’ interrupted Tim, with an obstinate
air. ‘Well, but let us know. If there is any better place for such
things, where is it? Is it in Europe? No, that it isn’t. Is it in Asia?
Why, of course it’s not. Is it in Africa? Not a bit of it. Is it in
America? YOU know better than that, at all events. Well, then,’ said
Tim, folding his arms resolutely, ‘where is it?’
‘I was not about to dispute the point, Tim,’ said young Cheeryble,
laughing. ‘I am not such a heretic as that. All I was going to say was,
that I hold myself under an obligation to the coincidence, that’s all.’
‘Oh! if you don’t dispute it,’ said Tim, quite satisfied, ‘that’s
another thing. I’ll tell you what though. I wish you had. I wish you
or anybody would. I would so put that man down,’ said Tim, tapping the
forefinger of his left hand emphatically with his spectacles, ‘so put
that man down by argument--’
It was quite impossible to find language to express the degree of mental
prostration to which such an adventurous wight would be reduced in the
keen encounter with Tim Linkinwater, so Tim gave up the rest of his
declaration in pure lack of words, and mounted his stool again.
‘We may consider ourselves, brother Ned,’ said Charles, after he had
patted Tim Linkinwater approvingly on the back, ‘very fortunate in
having two such young men about us as our nephew Frank and Mr. Nickleby.
It should be a source of great satisfaction and pleasure to us.’
‘Certainly, Charles, certainly,’ returned the other.
‘Of Tim,’ added brother Ned, ‘I say nothing whatever, because Tim is
a mere child--an infant--a nobody that we never think of or take into
account at all. Tim, you villain, what do you say to that, sir?’
‘I am jealous of both of ‘em,’ said Tim, ‘and mean to look out for
another situation; so provide yourselves, gentlemen, if you please.’
Tim thought this such an exquisite, unparalleled, and most extraordinary
joke, that he laid his pen upon the inkstand, and rather tumbling off
his stool than getting down with his usual deliberation, laughed till he
was quite faint, shaking his head all the time so that little particles
of powder flew palpably about the office. Nor were the brothers at all
behind-hand, for they laughed almost as heartily at the ludicrous idea
of any voluntary separation between themselves and old Tim. Nicholas
and Mr. Frank laughed quite boisterously, perhaps to conceal some other
emotion awakened by this little incident, (and so, indeed, did the three
old fellows after the first burst,) so perhaps there was as much keen
enjoyment and relish in that laugh, altogether, as the politest assembly
ever derived from the most poignant witticism uttered at any one
person’s expense.
‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said brother Charles, calling him aside, and taking him
kindly by the hand, ‘I--I--am anxious, my dear sir, to see that you are
properly and comfortably settled in the cottage. We cannot allow those
who serve us well to labour under any privation or discomfort that it is
in our power to remove. I wish, too, to see your mother and sister: to
know them, Mr. Nickleby, and have an opportunity of relieving their minds
by assuring them that any trifling service we have been able to do
them is a great deal more than repaid by the zeal and ardour you
display.--Not a word, my dear sir, I beg. Tomorrow is Sunday. I shall
make bold to come out at teatime, and take the chance of finding you at
home; if you are not, you know, or the ladies should feel a delicacy in
being intruded on, and would rather not be known to me just now, why
I can come again another time, any other time would do for me. Let it
remain upon that understanding. Brother Ned, my dear fellow, let me have
a word with you this way.’
The twins went out of the office arm-in-arm, and Nicholas, who saw in
this act of kindness, and many others of which he had been the subject
that morning, only so many delicate renewals on the arrival of their
nephew of the kind assurance which the brothers had given him in his
absence, could scarcely feel sufficient admiration and gratitude for
such extraordinary consideration.
The intelligence that they were to have a visitor--and such a
visitor--next day, awakened in the breast of Mrs. Nickleby mingled
feelings of exultation and regret; for whereas on the one hand she
hailed it as an omen of her speedy restoration to good society and the
almost-forgotten pleasures of morning calls and evening tea-drinkings,
she could not, on the other, but reflect with bitterness of spirit on
the absence of a silver teapot with an ivory knob on the lid, and a
milk-jug to match, which had been the pride of her heart in days of
yore, and had been kept from year’s end to year’s end wrapped up in
wash-leather on a certain top shelf which now presented itself in lively
colours to her sorrowing imagination.
‘I wonder who’s got that spice-box,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, shaking her
head. ‘It used to stand in the left-hand corner, next but two to the
pickled onions. You remember that spice-box, Kate?’
‘Perfectly well, mama.’
‘I shouldn’t think you did, Kate,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, in a severe
manner, ‘talking about it in that cold and unfeeling way! If there
is any one thing that vexes me in these losses more than the losses
themselves, I do protest and declare,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, rubbing her
nose with an impassioned air, ‘that it is to have people about me who
take things with such provoking calmness.’
‘My dear mama,’ said Kate, stealing her arm round her mother’s neck,
‘why do you say what I know you cannot seriously mean or think, or why
be angry with me for being happy and content? You and Nicholas are left
to me, we are together once again, and what regard can I have for a few
trifling things of which we never feel the want? When I have seen all
the misery and desolation that death can bring, and known the lonesome
feeling of being solitary and alone in crowds, and all the agony of
separation in grief and poverty when we most needed comfort and support
from each other, can you wonder that I look upon this as a place of such
delicious quiet and rest, that with you beside me I have nothing to
wish for or regret? There was a time, and not long since, when all
the comforts of our old home did come back upon me, I own, very
often--oftener than you would think perhaps--but I affected to care
nothing for them, in the hope that you would so be brought to regret
them the less. I was not insensible, indeed. I might have felt happier
if I had been. Dear mama,’ said Kate, in great agitation, ‘I know no
difference between this home and that in which we were all so happy
for so many years, except that the kindest and gentlest heart that ever
ached on earth has passed in peace to heaven.’
‘Kate my dear, Kate,’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, folding her in her arms.
‘I have so often thought,’ sobbed Kate, ‘of all his kind words--of the
last time he looked into my little room, as he passed upstairs to bed,
and said “God bless you, darling.” There was a paleness in his face,
mama--the broken heart--I know it was--I little thought so--then--’
A gush of tears came to her relief, and Kate laid her head upon her
mother’s breast, and wept like a little child.
It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that when the
heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate
feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and
irresistibly. It would almost seem as though our better thoughts and
sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold
some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom
we dearly loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may those patient
angels hover above us, watching for the spell which is so seldom
uttered, and so soon forgotten!
Poor Mrs. Nickleby, accustomed to give ready utterance to whatever
came uppermost in her mind, had never conceived the possibility of her
daughter’s dwelling upon these thoughts in secret, the more especially
as no hard trial or querulous reproach had ever drawn them from her. But
now, when the happiness of all that Nicholas had just told them, and
of their new and peaceful life, brought these recollections so strongly
upon Kate that she could not suppress them, Mrs. Nickleby began to have
a glimmering that she had been rather thoughtless now and then, and was
conscious of something like self-reproach as she embraced her daughter,
and yielded to the emotions which such a conversation naturally
awakened.
There was a mighty bustle that night, and a vast quantity of preparation
for the expected visitor, and a very large nosegay was brought from a
gardener’s hard by, and cut up into a number of very small ones, with
which Mrs. Nickleby would have garnished the little sitting-room, in
a style that certainly could not have failed to attract anybody’s
attention, if Kate had not offered to spare her the trouble, and
arranged them in the prettiest and neatest manner possible. If the
cottage ever looked pretty, it must have been on such a bright and
sunshiny day as the next day was. But Smike’s pride in the garden,
or Mrs. Nickleby’s in the condition of the furniture, or Kate’s in
everything, was nothing to the pride with which Nicholas looked at Kate
herself; and surely the costliest mansion in all England might have
found in her beautiful face and graceful form its most exquisite and
peerless ornament.
About six o’clock in the afternoon Mrs. Nickleby was thrown into a great
flutter of spirits by the long-expected knock at the door, nor was this
flutter at all composed by the audible tread of two pair of boots in the
passage, which Mrs. Nickleby augured, in a breathless state, must be ‘the
two Mr. Cheerybles;’ as it certainly was, though not the two Mrs. Nickleby
expected, because it was Mr. Charles Cheeryble, and his nephew, Mr. Frank,
who made a thousand apologies for his intrusion, which Mrs. Nickleby
(having tea-spoons enough and to spare for all) most graciously
received. Nor did the appearance of this unexpected visitor occasion
the least embarrassment, (save in Kate, and that only to the extent of
a blush or two at first,) for the old gentleman was so kind and cordial,
and the young gentleman imitated him in this respect so well, that the
usual stiffness and formality of a first meeting showed no signs of
appearing, and Kate really more than once detected herself in the very