Nicholas Nickleby
‘It must be some mistake,’ said Nicholas, carelessly. ‘We know nobody
who would come here at this hour.’
Mrs. Nickleby surmised, however, that perhaps the counting-house was
burnt down, or perhaps ‘the Mr. Cheerybles’ had sent to take Nicholas
into partnership (which certainly appeared highly probable at that time
of night), or perhaps Mr. Linkinwater had run away with the property, or
perhaps Miss La Creevy was taken in, or perhaps--
But a hasty exclamation from Kate stopped her abruptly in her
conjectures, and Ralph Nickleby walked into the room.
‘Stay,’ said Ralph, as Nicholas rose, and Kate, making her way towards
him, threw herself upon his arm. ‘Before that boy says a word, hear me.’
Nicholas bit his lip and shook his head in a threatening manner, but
appeared for the moment unable to articulate a syllable. Kate clung
closer to his arm, Smike retreated behind them, and John Browdie,
who had heard of Ralph, and appeared to have no great difficulty in
recognising him, stepped between the old man and his young friend, as
if with the intention of preventing either of them from advancing a step
further.
‘Hear me, I say,’ said Ralph, ‘and not him.’
‘Say what thou’st gotten to say then, sir,’ retorted John; ‘and tak’
care thou dinnot put up angry bluid which thou’dst betther try to
quiet.’
‘I should know YOU,’ said Ralph, ‘by your tongue; and HIM’ (pointing to
Smike) ‘by his looks.’
‘Don’t speak to him,’ said Nicholas, recovering his voice. ‘I will not
have it. I will not hear him. I do not know that man. I cannot breathe
the air that he corrupts. His presence is an insult to my sister. It is
shame to see him. I will not bear it.’
‘Stand!’ cried John, laying his heavy hand upon his chest.
‘Then let him instantly retire,’ said Nicholas, struggling. ‘I am not
going to lay hands upon him, but he shall withdraw. I will not have him
here. John, John Browdie, is this my house, am I a child? If he stands
there,’ cried Nicholas, burning with fury, ‘looking so calmly upon those
who know his black and dastardly heart, he’ll drive me mad.’
To all these exclamations John Browdie answered not a word, but he
retained his hold upon Nicholas; and when he was silent again, spoke.
‘There’s more to say and hear than thou think’st for,’ said John. ‘I
tell’ee I ha’ gotten scent o’ thot already. Wa’at be that shadow
ootside door there? Noo, schoolmeasther, show thyself, mun; dinnot be
sheame-feaced. Noo, auld gen’l’man, let’s have schoolmeasther, coom.’
Hearing this adjuration, Mr. Squeers, who had been lingering in the
passage until such time as it should be expedient for him to enter and
he could appear with effect, was fain to present himself in a somewhat
undignified and sneaking way; at which John Browdie laughed with such
keen and heartfelt delight, that even Kate, in all the pain, anxiety,
and surprise of the scene, and though the tears were in her eyes, felt a
disposition to join him.
‘Have you done enjoying yourself, sir?’ said Ralph, at length.
‘Pratty nigh for the prasant time, sir,’ replied John.
‘I can wait,’ said Ralph. ‘Take your own time, pray.’
Ralph waited until there was a perfect silence, and then turning to Mrs
Nickleby, but directing an eager glance at Kate, as if more anxious to
watch his effect upon her, said:
‘Now, ma’am, listen to me. I don’t imagine that you were a party to a
very fine tirade of words sent me by that boy of yours, because I don’t
believe that under his control, you have the slightest will of your own,
or that your advice, your opinion, your wants, your wishes, anything
which in nature and reason (or of what use is your great experience?)
ought to weigh with him, has the slightest influence or weight whatever,
or is taken for a moment into account.’
Mrs. Nickleby shook her head and sighed, as if there were a good deal in
that, certainly.
‘For this reason,’ resumed Ralph, ‘I address myself to you, ma’am. For
this reason, partly, and partly because I do not wish to be disgraced by
the acts of a vicious stripling whom I was obliged to disown, and who,
afterwards, in his boyish majesty, feigns to--ha! ha!--to disown ME, I
present myself here tonight. I have another motive in coming: a motive
of humanity. I come here,’ said Ralph, looking round with a biting and
triumphant smile, and gloating and dwelling upon the words as if he
were loath to lose the pleasure of saying them, ‘to restore a parent his
child. Ay, sir,’ he continued, bending eagerly forward, and addressing
Nicholas, as he marked the change of his countenance, ‘to restore a
parent his child; his son, sir; trepanned, waylaid, and guarded at every
turn by you, with the base design of robbing him some day of any little
wretched pittance of which he might become possessed.’
‘In that, you know you lie,’ said Nicholas, proudly.
‘In this, I know I speak the truth. I have his father here,’ retorted
Ralph.
‘Here!’ sneered Squeers, stepping forward. ‘Do you hear that? Here!
Didn’t I tell you to be careful that his father didn’t turn up and send
him back to me? Why, his father’s my friend; he’s to come back to me
directly, he is. Now, what do you say--eh!--now--come--what do you say
to that--an’t you sorry you took so much trouble for nothing? an’t you?
an’t you?’
‘You bear upon your body certain marks I gave you,’ said Nicholas,
looking quietly away, ‘and may talk in acknowledgment of them as much
as you please. You’ll talk a long time before you rub them out, Mr
Squeers.’
The estimable gentleman last named cast a hasty look at the table, as if
he were prompted by this retort to throw a jug or bottle at the head of
Nicholas, but he was interrupted in this design (if such design he had)
by Ralph, who, touching him on the elbow, bade him tell the father that
he might now appear and claim his son.
This being purely a labour of love, Mr. Squeers readily complied,
and leaving the room for the purpose, almost immediately returned,
supporting a sleek personage with an oily face, who, bursting from him,
and giving to view the form and face of Mr. Snawley, made straight up
to Smike, and tucking that poor fellow’s head under his arm in a most
uncouth and awkward embrace, elevated his broad-brimmed hat at arm’s
length in the air as a token of devout thanksgiving, exclaiming,
meanwhile, ‘How little did I think of this here joyful meeting, when I
saw him last! Oh, how little did I think it!’
‘Be composed, sir,’ said Ralph, with a gruff expression of sympathy,
‘you have got him now.’
‘Got him! Oh, haven’t I got him! Have I got him, though?’ cried Mr
Snawley, scarcely able to believe it. ‘Yes, here he is, flesh and blood,
flesh and blood.’
‘Vary little flesh,’ said John Browdie.
Mr. Snawley was too much occupied by his parental feelings to notice this
remark; and, to assure himself more completely of the restoration of his
child, tucked his head under his arm again, and kept it there.
‘What was it,’ said Snawley, ‘that made me take such a strong interest
in him, when that worthy instructor of youth brought him to my house?
What was it that made me burn all over with a wish to chastise him
severely for cutting away from his best friends, his pastors and
masters?’
‘It was parental instinct, sir,’ observed Squeers.
‘That’s what it was, sir,’ rejoined Snawley; ‘the elevated feeling, the
feeling of the ancient Romans and Grecians, and of the beasts of the
field and birds of the air, with the exception of rabbits and tom-cats,
which sometimes devour their offspring. My heart yearned towards him. I
could have--I don’t know what I couldn’t have done to him in the anger
of a father.’
‘It only shows what Natur is, sir,’ said Mr. Squeers. ‘She’s rum ‘un, is
Natur.’
‘She is a holy thing, sir,’ remarked Snawley.
‘I believe you,’ added Mr. Squeers, with a moral sigh. ‘I should like
to know how we should ever get on without her. Natur,’ said Mr. Squeers,
solemnly, ‘is more easier conceived than described. Oh what a blessed
thing, sir, to be in a state of natur!’
Pending this philosophical discourse, the bystanders had been quite
stupefied with amazement, while Nicholas had looked keenly from Snawley
to Squeers, and from Squeers to Ralph, divided between his feelings of
disgust, doubt, and surprise. At this juncture, Smike escaping from his
father fled to Nicholas, and implored him, in most moving terms, never
to give him up, but to let him live and die beside him.
‘If you are this boy’s father,’ said Nicholas, ‘look at the wreck he is,
and tell me that you purpose to send him back to that loathsome den from
which I brought him.’
‘Scandal again!’ cried Squeers. ‘Recollect, you an’t worth powder and
shot, but I’ll be even with you one way or another.’
‘Stop,’ interposed Ralph, as Snawley was about to speak. ‘Let us
cut this matter short, and not bandy words here with hare-brained
profligates. This is your son, as you can prove. And you, Mr. Squeers,
you know this boy to be the same that was with you for so many years
under the name of Smike. Do you?’
‘Do I!’ returned Squeers. ‘Don’t I?’
‘Good,’ said Ralph; ‘a very few words will be sufficient here. You had a
son by your first wife, Mr. Snawley?’
‘I had,’ replied that person, ‘and there he stands.’
‘We’ll show that presently,’ said Ralph. ‘You and your wife were
separated, and she had the boy to live with her, when he was a year old.
You received a communication from her, when you had lived apart a year
or two, that the boy was dead; and you believed it?’
‘Of course I did!’ returned Snawley. ‘Oh the joy of--’
‘Be rational, sir, pray,’ said Ralph. ‘This is business, and
transports interfere with it. This wife died a year and a half ago, or
thereabouts--not more--in some obscure place, where she was housekeeper
in a family. Is that the case?’
‘That’s the case,’ replied Snawley.
‘Having written on her death-bed a letter or confession to you, about
this very boy, which, as it was not directed otherwise than in your
name, only reached you, and that by a circuitous course, a few days
since?’
‘Just so,’ said Snawley. ‘Correct in every particular, sir.’
‘And this confession,’ resumed Ralph, ‘is to the effect that his
death was an invention of hers to wound you--was a part of a system
of annoyance, in short, which you seem to have adopted towards each
other--that the boy lived, but was of weak and imperfect intellect--that
she sent him by a trusty hand to a cheap school in Yorkshire--that she
had paid for his education for some years, and then, being poor, and
going a long way off, gradually deserted him, for which she prayed
forgiveness?’
Snawley nodded his head, and wiped his eyes; the first slightly, the
last violently.
‘The school was Mr. Squeers’s,’ continued Ralph; ‘the boy was left there
in the name of Smike; every description was fully given, dates tally
exactly with Mr. Squeers’s books, Mr. Squeers is lodging with you at this
time; you have two other boys at his school: you communicated the whole
discovery to him, he brought you to me as the person who had recommended
to him the kidnapper of his child; and I brought you here. Is that so?’
‘You talk like a good book, sir, that’s got nothing in its inside but
what’s the truth,’ replied Snawley.
‘This is your pocket-book,’ said Ralph, producing one from his coat;
‘the certificates of your first marriage and of the boy’s birth, and
your wife’s two letters, and every other paper that can support these
statements directly or by implication, are here, are they?’
‘Every one of ‘em, sir.’
‘And you don’t object to their being looked at here, so that these
people may be convinced of your power to substantiate your claim at once
in law and reason, and you may resume your control over your own son
without more delay. Do I understand you?’