Nicholas Nickleby
‘I couldn’t have understood myself better, sir.’
‘There, then,’ said Ralph, tossing the pocket-book upon the table. ‘Let
them see them if they like; and as those are the original papers, I
should recommend you to stand near while they are being examined, or you
may chance to lose some.’
With these words Ralph sat down unbidden, and compressing his lips,
which were for the moment slightly parted by a smile, folded his arms,
and looked for the first time at his nephew.
Nicholas, stung by the concluding taunt, darted an indignant glance at
him; but commanding himself as well as he could, entered upon a close
examination of the documents, at which John Browdie assisted. There was
nothing about them which could be called in question. The certificates
were regularly signed as extracts from the parish books, the first
letter had a genuine appearance of having been written and preserved
for some years, the handwriting of the second tallied with it exactly,
(making proper allowance for its having been written by a person in
extremity,) and there were several other corroboratory scraps of entries
and memoranda which it was equally difficult to question.
‘Dear Nicholas,’ whispered Kate, who had been looking anxiously over his
shoulder, ‘can this be really the case? Is this statement true?’
‘I fear it is,’ answered Nicholas. ‘What say you, John?’
John scratched his head and shook it, but said nothing at all.
‘You will observe, ma’am,’ said Ralph, addressing himself to Mrs
Nickleby, ‘that this boy being a minor and not of strong mind, we might
have come here tonight, armed with the powers of the law, and backed by
a troop of its myrmidons. I should have done so, ma’am, unquestionably,
but for my regard for the feelings of yourself, and your daughter.’
‘You have shown your regard for HER feelings well,’ said Nicholas,
drawing his sister towards him.
‘Thank you,’ replied Ralph. ‘Your praise, sir, is commendation, indeed.’
‘Well,’ said Squeers, ‘what’s to be done? Them hackney-coach horses will
catch cold if we don’t think of moving; there’s one of ‘em a sneezing
now, so that he blows the street door right open. What’s the order of
the day? Is Master Snawley to come along with us?’
‘No, no, no,’ replied Smike, drawing back, and clinging to Nicholas.
‘No. Pray, no. I will not go from you with him. No, no.’
‘This is a cruel thing,’ said Snawley, looking to his friends for
support. ‘Do parents bring children into the world for this?’
‘Do parents bring children into the world for THOT?’ said John Browdie
bluntly, pointing, as he spoke, to Squeers.
‘Never you mind,’ retorted that gentleman, tapping his nose derisively.
‘Never I mind!’ said John, ‘no, nor never nobody mind, say’st thou,
schoolmeasther. It’s nobody’s minding that keeps sike men as thou
afloat. Noo then, where be’est thou coomin’ to? Dang it, dinnot coom
treadin’ ower me, mun.’
Suiting the action to the word, John Browdie just jerked his elbow
into the chest of Mr. Squeers who was advancing upon Smike; with so much
dexterity that the schoolmaster reeled and staggered back upon Ralph
Nickleby, and being unable to recover his balance, knocked that
gentleman off his chair, and stumbled heavily upon him.
This accidental circumstance was the signal for some very decisive
proceedings. In the midst of a great noise, occasioned by the prayers
and entreaties of Smike, the cries and exclamations of the women, and
the vehemence of the men, demonstrations were made of carrying off the
lost son by violence. Squeers had actually begun to haul him out, when
Nicholas (who, until then, had been evidently undecided how to act)
took him by the collar, and shaking him so that such teeth as he had,
chattered in his head, politely escorted him to the room-door, and
thrusting him into the passage, shut it upon him.
‘Now,’ said Nicholas to the other two, ‘have the goodness to follow your
friend.’
‘I want my son,’ said Snawley.
‘Your son,’ replied Nicholas, ‘chooses for himself. He chooses to remain
here, and he shall.’
‘You won’t give him up?’ said Snawley.
‘I would not give him up against his will, to be the victim of such
brutality as that to which you would consign him,’ replied Nicholas, ‘if
he were a dog or a rat.’
‘Knock that Nickleby down with a candlestick,’ cried Mr. Squeers, through
the keyhole, ‘and bring out my hat, somebody, will you, unless he wants
to steal it.’
‘I am very sorry, indeed,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, who, with Mrs. Browdie, had
stood crying and biting her fingers in a corner, while Kate (very pale,
but perfectly quiet) had kept as near her brother as she could. ‘I am
very sorry, indeed, for all this. I really don’t know what would be best
to do, and that’s the truth. Nicholas ought to be the best judge, and I
hope he is. Of course, it’s a hard thing to have to keep other people’s
children, though young Mr. Snawley is certainly as useful and willing
as it’s possible for anybody to be; but, if it could be settled in any
friendly manner--if old Mr. Snawley, for instance, would settle to pay
something certain for his board and lodging, and some fair arrangement
was come to, so that we undertook to have fish twice a week, and a
pudding twice, or a dumpling, or something of that sort--I do think that
it might be very satisfactory and pleasant for all parties.’
This compromise, which was proposed with abundance of tears and sighs,
not exactly meeting the point at issue, nobody took any notice of it;
and poor Mrs. Nickleby accordingly proceeded to enlighten Mrs. Browdie
upon the advantages of such a scheme, and the unhappy results flowing,
on all occasions, from her not being attended to when she proffered her
advice.
‘You, sir,’ said Snawley, addressing the terrified Smike, ‘are an
unnatural, ungrateful, unlovable boy. You won’t let me love you when I
want to. Won’t you come home, won’t you?’
‘No, no, no,’ cried Smike, shrinking back.
‘He never loved nobody,’ bawled Squeers, through the keyhole. ‘He
never loved me; he never loved Wackford, who is next door but one to
a cherubim. How can you expect that he’ll love his father? He’ll never
love his father, he won’t. He don’t know what it is to have a father. He
don’t understand it. It an’t in him.’
Mr. Snawley looked steadfastly at his son for a full minute, and then
covering his eyes with his hand, and once more raising his hat in the
air, appeared deeply occupied in deploring his black ingratitude. Then
drawing his arm across his eyes, he picked up Mr. Squeers’s hat, and
taking it under one arm, and his own under the other, walked slowly and
sadly out.
‘Your romance, sir,’ said Ralph, lingering for a moment, ‘is destroyed,
I take it. No unknown; no persecuted descendant of a man of high degree;
but the weak, imbecile son of a poor, petty tradesman. We shall see how
your sympathy melts before plain matter of fact.’
‘You shall,’ said Nicholas, motioning towards the door.
‘And trust me, sir,’ added Ralph, ‘that I never supposed you would give
him up tonight. Pride, obstinacy, reputation for fine feeling, were all
against it. These must be brought down, sir, lowered, crushed, as they
shall be soon. The protracted and wearing anxiety and expense of the law
in its most oppressive form, its torture from hour to hour, its weary
days and sleepless nights, with these I’ll prove you, and break your
haughty spirit, strong as you deem it now. And when you make this house
a hell, and visit these trials upon yonder wretched object (as you will;
I know you), and those who think you now a young-fledged hero, we’ll
go into old accounts between us two, and see who stands the debtor, and
comes out best at last, even before the world.’
Ralph Nickleby withdrew. But Mr. Squeers, who had heard a portion of this
closing address, and was by this time wound up to a pitch of impotent
malignity almost unprecedented, could not refrain from returning to the
parlour door, and actually cutting some dozen capers with various wry
faces and hideous grimaces, expressive of his triumphant confidence in
the downfall and defeat of Nicholas.
Having concluded this war-dance, in which his short trousers and large
boots had borne a very conspicuous figure, Mr. Squeers followed his
friends, and the family were left to meditate upon recent occurrences.
CHAPTER 46
Throws some Light upon Nicholas’s Love; but whether for Good or Evil the
Reader must determine
After an anxious consideration of the painful and embarrassing position
in which he was placed, Nicholas decided that he ought to lose no time
in frankly stating it to the kind brothers. Availing himself of the
first opportunity of being alone with Mr. Charles Cheeryble at the close
of next day, he accordingly related Smike’s little history, and modestly
but firmly expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under
such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the
extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding
the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his
father might seem, and would doubtless be represented as, a thing so
repulsive and unnatural, as to render those who countenanced him in it,
fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence.
‘So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be,’ said
Nicholas, ‘that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature
does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of
affection for him, and surely she can never err.’
‘My dear sir,’ replied brother Charles, ‘you fall into the very common
mistake of charging upon Nature, matters with which she has not the
smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men
talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural
while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent’s care,
who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow,
presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act
is to signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of
happiness, of consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the
only friend he has ever had--which is yourself. If Nature, in such a
case, put into that lad’s breast but one secret prompting which urged
him towards his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an
idiot.’
Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly,
and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose,
made no reply.
‘The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at
every turn,’ said brother Charles. ‘Parents who never showed their love,
complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who
never showed their duty, complain of want of natural feeling in their
parents; law-makers who find both so miserable that their affections
have never had enough of life’s sun to develop them, are loud in their
moralisings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of
nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir,
are the most beautiful of the Almighty’s works, but like other beautiful
works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that
they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp
their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left
untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. I wish we could be
brought to consider this, and remembering natural obligations a little
more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one.’
After this, brother Charles, who had talked himself into a great heat,
stopped to cool a little, and then continued:
‘I dare say you are surprised, my dear sir, that I have listened to