Nicholas Nickleby
I have, when men like you begin to compliment. You know I have stood by
when you fawned and flattered other people, and I remember pretty well
what THAT always led to.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands. ‘So you do, so you do,
no doubt. Not a man knows it better. Well, it’s a pleasant thing now to
think that you remember old times. Oh dear!’
‘Now then,’ said Ralph, composedly; ‘what’s in the wind, I ask again?
What is it?’
‘See that now!’ cried the other. ‘He can’t even keep from business while
we’re chatting over bygones. Oh dear, dear, what a man it is!’
‘WHICH of the bygones do you want to revive?’ said Ralph. ‘One of them,
I know, or you wouldn’t talk about them.’
‘He suspects even me!’ cried old Arthur, holding up his hands. ‘Even
me! Oh dear, even me. What a man it is! Ha, ha, ha! What a man it is! Mr
Nickleby against all the world. There’s nobody like him. A giant among
pigmies, a giant, a giant!’
Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckled on in this
strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heart sink within him as
the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter.
‘I must humour him though,’ cried old Arthur; ‘he must have his way--a
wilful man, as the Scotch say--well, well, they’re a wise people, the
Scotch. He will talk about business, and won’t give away his time for
nothing. He’s very right. Time is money, time is money.’
‘He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,’ said Ralph.
‘Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon interest by
it. Time IS money! Yes, and time costs money; it’s rather an expensive
article to some people we could name, or I forget my trade.’
In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, again
chuckled, and again ejaculated ‘What a man it is!’ which done, he
dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph’s high stool, and looking
upwards into his immovable face, said,
‘What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was--that I
was--going to be married?’
‘I should tell you,’ replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him, ‘that
for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it wasn’t the
first time and wouldn’t be the last; that I wasn’t surprised and wasn’t
to be taken in.’
‘Then I tell you seriously that I am,’ said old Arthur.
‘And I tell you seriously,’ rejoined Ralph, ‘what I told you this
minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There’s a liquorish devilry in your
face. What is this?’
‘I wouldn’t deceive YOU, you know,’ whined Arthur Gride; ‘I couldn’t do
it, I should be mad to try. I, I, to deceive Mr. Nickleby! The pigmy to
impose upon the giant. I ask again--he, he, he!--what should you say to
me if I was to tell you that I was going to be married?’
‘To some old hag?’ said Ralph.
‘No, No,’ cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his hands in an
ecstasy. ‘Wrong, wrong again. Mr. Nickleby for once at fault; out, quite
out! To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely, bewitching, and not
nineteen. Dark eyes, long eyelashes, ripe and ruddy lips that to look at
is to long to kiss, beautiful clustering hair that one’s fingers itch to
play with, such a waist as might make a man clasp the air involuntarily,
thinking of twining his arm about it, little feet that tread so lightly
they hardly seem to walk upon the ground--to marry all this, sir,
this--hey, hey!’
‘This is something more than common drivelling,’ said Ralph, after
listening with a curled lip to the old sinner’s raptures. ‘The girl’s
name?’
‘Oh deep, deep! See now how deep that is!’ exclaimed old Arthur. ‘He
knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, he knows it must all
turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already. Her name--is there
nobody within hearing?’
‘Why, who the devil should there be?’ retorted Ralph, testily.
‘I didn’t know but that perhaps somebody might be passing up or down the
stairs,’ said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the door and carefully
reclosing it; ‘or but that your man might have come back and might have
been listening outside. Clerks and servants have a trick of listening,
and I should have been very uncomfortable if Mr. Noggs--’
‘Curse Mr. Noggs,’ said Ralph, sharply, ‘and go on with what you have to
say.’
‘Curse Mr. Noggs, by all means,’ rejoined old Arthur; ‘I am sure I have
not the least objection to that. Her name is--’
‘Well,’ said Ralph, rendered very irritable by old Arthur’s pausing
again ‘what is it?’
‘Madeline Bray.’
Whatever reasons there might have been--and Arthur Gride appeared to
have anticipated some--for the mention of this name producing an effect
upon Ralph, or whatever effect it really did produce upon him, he
permitted none to manifest itself, but calmly repeated the name several
times, as if reflecting when and where he had heard it before.
‘Bray,’ said Ralph. ‘Bray--there was young Bray of--no, he never had a
daughter.’
‘You remember Bray?’ rejoined Arthur Gride.
‘No,’ said Ralph, looking vacantly at him.
‘Not Walter Bray! The dashing man, who used his handsome wife so ill?’
‘If you seek to recall any particular dashing man to my recollection
by such a trait as that,’ said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I shall
confound him with nine-tenths of the dashing men I have ever known.’
‘Tut, tut. That Bray who is now in the Rules of the Bench,’ said old
Arthur. ‘You can’t have forgotten Bray. Both of us did business with
him. Why, he owes you money!’
‘Oh HIM!’ rejoined Ralph. ‘Ay, ay. Now you speak. Oh! It’s HIS daughter,
is it?’
Naturally as this was said, it was not said so naturally but that a
kindred spirit like old Arthur Gride might have discerned a design upon
the part of Ralph to lead him on to much more explicit statements and
explanations than he would have volunteered, or that Ralph could in all
likelihood have obtained by any other means. Old Arthur, however, was so
intent upon his own designs, that he suffered himself to be overreached,
and had no suspicion but that his good friend was in earnest.
‘I knew you couldn’t forget him, when you came to think for a moment,’
he said.
‘You were right,’ answered Ralph. ‘But old Arthur Gride and matrimony
is a most anomalous conjunction of words; old Arthur Gride and dark
eyes and eyelashes, and lips that to look at is to long to kiss, and
clustering hair that he wants to play with, and waists that he wants to
span, and little feet that don’t tread upon anything--old Arthur Gride
and such things as these is more monstrous still; but old Arthur Gride
marrying the daughter of a ruined “dashing man” in the Rules of the
Bench, is the most monstrous and incredible of all. Plainly, friend
Arthur Gride, if you want any help from me in this business (which of
course you do, or you would not be here), speak out, and to the purpose.
And, above all, don’t talk to me of its turning to my advantage, for I
know it must turn to yours also, and to a good round tune too, or you
would have no finger in such a pie as this.’
There was enough acerbity and sarcasm not only in the matter of Ralph’s
speech, but in the tone of voice in which he uttered it, and the looks
with which he eked it out, to have fired even the ancient usurer’s
cold blood and flushed even his withered cheek. But he gave vent to no
demonstration of anger, contenting himself with exclaiming as before,
‘What a man it is!’ and rolling his head from side to side, as if in
unrestrained enjoyment of his freedom and drollery. Clearly observing,
however, from the expression in Ralph’s features, that he had best
come to the point as speedily as might be, he composed himself for
more serious business, and entered upon the pith and marrow of his
negotiation.
First, he dwelt upon the fact that Madeline Bray was devoted to the
support and maintenance, and was a slave to every wish, of her only
parent, who had no other friend on earth; to which Ralph rejoined that
he had heard something of the kind before, and that if she had known a
little more of the world, she wouldn’t have been such a fool.
Secondly, he enlarged upon the character of her father, arguing, that
even taking it for granted that he loved her in return with the utmost
affection of which he was capable, yet he loved himself a great deal
better; which Ralph said it was quite unnecessary to say anything more
about, as that was very natural, and probable enough.
And, thirdly, old Arthur premised that the girl was a delicate and
beautiful creature, and that he had really a hankering to have her for
his wife. To this Ralph deigned no other rejoinder than a harsh smile,
and a glance at the shrivelled old creature before him, which were,
however, sufficiently expressive.
‘Now,’ said Gride, ‘for the little plan I have in my mind to bring
this about; because, I haven’t offered myself even to the father yet, I
should have told you. But that you have gathered already? Ah! oh dear,
oh dear, what an edged tool you are!’
‘Don’t play with me then,’ said Ralph impatiently. ‘You know the
proverb.’
‘A reply always on the tip of his tongue!’ cried old Arthur, raising his
hands and eyes in admiration. ‘He is always prepared! Oh dear, what a
blessing to have such a ready wit, and so much ready money to back it!’
Then, suddenly changing his tone, he went on: ‘I have been backwards and
forwards to Bray’s lodgings several times within the last six months.
It is just half a year since I first saw this delicate morsel, and, oh
dear, what a delicate morsel it is! But that is neither here nor there.
I am his detaining creditor for seventeen hundred pounds!’
‘You talk as if you were the only detaining creditor,’ said Ralph,
pulling out his pocket-book. ‘I am another for nine hundred and
seventy-five pounds four and threepence.’
‘The only other, Mr. Nickleby,’ said old Arthur, eagerly. ‘The only
other. Nobody else went to the expense of lodging a detainer, trusting
to our holding him fast enough, I warrant you. We both fell into the
same snare; oh dear, what a pitfall it was; it almost ruined me! And
lent him our money upon bills, with only one name besides his own, which
to be sure everybody supposed to be a good one, and was as negotiable
as money, but which turned out you know how. Just as we should have come
upon him, he died insolvent. Ah! it went very nigh to ruin me, that loss
did!’
‘Go on with your scheme,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s of no use raising the cry of
our trade just now; there’s nobody to hear us!’
‘It’s always as well to talk that way,’ returned old Arthur, with a
chuckle, ‘whether there’s anybody to hear us or not. Practice makes
perfect, you know. Now, if I offer myself to Bray as his son-in-law,
upon one simple condition that the moment I am fast married he shall be
quietly released, and have an allowance to live just t’other side the
water like a gentleman (he can’t live long, for I have asked his
doctor, and he declares that his complaint is one of the Heart and it
is impossible), and if all the advantages of this condition are properly
stated and dwelt upon to him, do you think he could resist me? And if
he could not resist ME, do you think his daughter could resist HIM?
Shouldn’t I have her Mrs. Arthur Gride--pretty Mrs. Arthur Gride--a
tit-bit--a dainty chick--shouldn’t I have her Mrs. Arthur Gride in a
week, a month, a day--any time I chose to name?’
‘Go on,’ said Ralph, nodding his head deliberately, and speaking in
a tone whose studied coldness presented a strange contrast to the
rapturous squeak to which his friend had gradually mounted. ‘Go on. You
didn’t come here to ask me that.’
‘Oh dear, how you talk!’ cried old Arthur, edging himself closer still
to Ralph. ‘Of course I didn’t, I don’t pretend I did! I came to ask what
you would take from me, if I prospered with the father, for this debt of