Nicholas Nickleby
fears abated, and the general happiness was by degrees restored.
Many and many a time in after years did Nicholas look back to this
period of his life, and tread again the humble quiet homely scenes that
rose up as of old before him. Many and many a time, in the twilight of a
summer evening, or beside the flickering winter’s fire--but not so often
or so sadly then--would his thoughts wander back to these old days, and
dwell with a pleasant sorrow upon every slight remembrance which they
brought crowding home. The little room in which they had so often sat
long after it was dark, figuring such happy futures; Kate’s cheerful
voice and merry laugh; how, if she were from home, they used to sit and
watch for her return scarcely breaking silence but to say how dull it
seemed without her; the glee with which poor Smike would start from the
darkened corner where he used to sit, and hurry to admit her, and the
tears they often saw upon his face, half wondering to see them too, and
he so pleased and happy; every little incident, and even slight words
and looks of those old days little heeded then, but well remembered when
busy cares and trials were quite forgotten, came fresh and thick before
him many and many a time, and, rustling above the dusty growth of years,
came back green boughs of yesterday.
But there were other persons associated with these recollections, and
many changes came about before they had being. A necessary reflection
for the purposes of these adventures, which at once subside into their
accustomed train, and shunning all flighty anticipations or wayward
wanderings, pursue their steady and decorous course.
If the brothers Cheeryble, as they found Nicholas worthy of trust and
confidence, bestowed upon him every day some new and substantial mark
of kindness, they were not less mindful of those who depended on him.
Various little presents to Mrs. Nickleby, always of the very things
they most required, tended in no slight degree to the improvement and
embellishment of the cottage. Kate’s little store of trinkets became
quite dazzling; and for company! If brother Charles and brother Ned
failed to look in for at least a few minutes every Sunday, or one
evening in the week, there was Mr. Tim Linkinwater (who had never made
half-a-dozen other acquaintances in all his life, and who took such
delight in his new friends as no words can express) constantly coming
and going in his evening walks, and stopping to rest; while Mr. Frank
Cheeryble happened, by some strange conjunction of circumstances, to be
passing the door on some business or other at least three nights in the
week.
‘He is the most attentive young man I ever saw, Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby
to her daughter one evening, when this last-named gentleman had been the
subject of the worthy lady’s eulogium for some time, and Kate had sat
perfectly silent.
‘Attentive, mama!’ rejoined Kate.
‘Bless my heart, Kate!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, with her wonted suddenness,
‘what a colour you have got; why, you’re quite flushed!’
‘Oh, mama! what strange things you fancy!’
‘It wasn’t fancy, Kate, my dear, I’m certain of that,’ returned her
mother. ‘However, it’s gone now at any rate, so it don’t much matter
whether it was or not. What was it we were talking about? Oh! Mr. Frank.
I never saw such attention in MY life, never.’
‘Surely you are not serious,’ returned Kate, colouring again; and this
time beyond all dispute.
‘Not serious!’ returned Mrs. Nickleby; ‘why shouldn’t I be serious?
I’m sure I never was more serious. I will say that his politeness and
attention to me is one of the most becoming, gratifying, pleasant
things I have seen for a very long time. You don’t often meet with such
behaviour in young men, and it strikes one more when one does meet with
it.’
‘Oh! attention to YOU, mama,’ rejoined Kate quickly--‘oh yes.’
‘Dear me, Kate,’ retorted Mrs. Nickleby, ‘what an extraordinary girl you
are! Was it likely I should be talking of his attention to anybody else?
I declare I’m quite sorry to think he should be in love with a German
lady, that I am.’
‘He said very positively that it was no such thing, mama,’ returned
Kate. ‘Don’t you remember his saying so that very first night he came
here? Besides,’ she added, in a more gentle tone, ‘why should WE be
sorry if it is the case? What is it to us, mama?’
‘Nothing to US, Kate, perhaps,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, emphatically; ‘but
something to ME, I confess. I like English people to be thorough English
people, and not half English and half I don’t know what. I shall tell
him point-blank next time he comes, that I wish he would marry one of
his own country-women; and see what he says to that.’
‘Pray don’t think of such a thing, mama,’ returned Kate, hastily; ‘not
for the world. Consider. How very--’
‘Well, my dear, how very what?’ said Mrs. Nickleby, opening her eyes in
great astonishment.
Before Kate had returned any reply, a queer little double knock
announced that Miss La Creevy had called to see them; and when Miss La
Creevy presented herself, Mrs. Nickleby, though strongly disposed to be
argumentative on the previous question, forgot all about it in a gush
of supposes about the coach she had come by; supposing that the man who
drove must have been either the man in the shirt-sleeves or the man with
the black eye; that whoever he was, he hadn’t found that parasol she
left inside last week; that no doubt they had stopped a long while at
the Halfway House, coming down; or that perhaps being full, they had
come straight on; and, lastly, that they, surely, must have passed
Nicholas on the road.
‘I saw nothing of him,’ answered Miss La Creevy; ‘but I saw that dear
old soul Mr. Linkinwater.’
‘Taking his evening walk, and coming on to rest here, before he turns
back to the city, I’ll be bound!’ said Mrs. Nickleby.
‘I should think he was,’ returned Miss La Creevy; ‘especially as young
Mr. Cheeryble was with him.’
‘Surely that is no reason why Mr. Linkinwater should be coming here,’
said Kate.
‘Why I think it is, my dear,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘For a young man, Mr
Frank is not a very great walker; and I observe that he generally falls
tired, and requires a good long rest, when he has come as far as this.
But where is my friend?’ said the little woman, looking about, after
having glanced slyly at Kate. ‘He has not been run away with again, has
he?’
‘Ah! where is Mr. Smike?’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘he was here this instant.’
Upon further inquiry, it turned out, to the good lady’s unbounded
astonishment, that Smike had, that moment, gone upstairs to bed.
‘Well now,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘he is the strangest creature! Last
Tuesday--was it Tuesday? Yes, to be sure it was; you recollect, Kate, my
dear, the very last time young Mr. Cheeryble was here--last Tuesday night
he went off in just the same strange way, at the very moment the knock
came to the door. It cannot be that he don’t like company, because he is
always fond of people who are fond of Nicholas, and I am sure young Mr
Cheeryble is. And the strangest thing is, that he does not go to bed;
therefore it cannot be because he is tired. I know he doesn’t go to bed,
because my room is the next one, and when I went upstairs last Tuesday,
hours after him, I found that he had not even taken his shoes off; and
he had no candle, so he must have sat moping in the dark all the time.
Now, upon my word,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘when I come to think of it,
that’s very extraordinary!’
As the hearers did not echo this sentiment, but remained profoundly
silent, either as not knowing what to say, or as being unwilling to
interrupt, Mrs. Nickleby pursued the thread of her discourse after her
own fashion.
‘I hope,’ said that lady, ‘that this unaccountable conduct may not be
the beginning of his taking to his bed and living there all his life,
like the Thirsty Woman of Tutbury, or the Cock-lane Ghost, or some of
those extraordinary creatures. One of them had some connection with
our family. I forget, without looking back to some old letters I have
upstairs, whether it was my great-grandfather who went to school with
the Cock-lane Ghost, or the Thirsty Woman of Tutbury who went to school
with my grandmother. Miss La Creevy, you know, of course. Which was it
that didn’t mind what the clergyman said? The Cock-lane Ghost or the
Thirsty Woman of Tutbury?’
‘The Cock-lane Ghost, I believe.’
‘Then I have no doubt,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that it was with him my
great-grandfather went to school; for I know the master of his school
was a dissenter, and that would, in a great measure, account for the
Cock-lane Ghost’s behaving in such an improper manner to the clergyman
when he grew up. Ah! Train up a Ghost--child, I mean--’
Any further reflections on this fruitful theme were abruptly cut short
by the arrival of Tim Linkinwater and Mr. Frank Cheeryble; in the hurry
of receiving whom, Mrs. Nickleby speedily lost sight of everything else.
‘I am so sorry Nicholas is not at home,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Kate, my
dear, you must be both Nicholas and yourself.’
‘Miss Nickleby need be but herself,’ said Frank. ‘I--if I may venture to
say so--oppose all change in her.’
‘Then at all events she shall press you to stay,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby.
‘Mr. Linkinwater says ten minutes, but I cannot let you go so soon;
Nicholas would be very much vexed, I am sure. Kate, my dear!’
In obedience to a great number of nods, and winks, and frowns of extra
significance, Kate added her entreaties that the visitors would remain;
but it was observable that she addressed them exclusively to Tim
Linkinwater; and there was, besides, a certain embarrassment in her
manner, which, although it was as far from impairing its graceful
character as the tinge it communicated to her cheek was from diminishing
her beauty, was obvious at a glance even to Mrs. Nickleby. Not being of
a very speculative character, however, save under circumstances when her
speculations could be put into words and uttered aloud, that discreet
matron attributed the emotion to the circumstance of her daughter’s
not happening to have her best frock on: ‘though I never saw her look
better, certainly,’ she reflected at the same time. Having settled the
question in this way, and being most complacently satisfied that in
this, and in all other instances, her conjecture could not fail to be
the right one, Mrs. Nickleby dismissed it from her thoughts, and inwardly
congratulated herself on being so shrewd and knowing.
Nicholas did not come home nor did Smike reappear; but neither
circumstance, to say the truth, had any great effect upon the little
party, who were all in the best humour possible. Indeed, there sprung up
quite a flirtation between Miss La Creevy and Tim Linkinwater, who said
a thousand jocose and facetious things, and became, by degrees, quite
gallant, not to say tender. Little Miss La Creevy, on her part, was in
high spirits, and rallied Tim on having remained a bachelor all his life
with so much success, that Tim was actually induced to declare, that
if he could get anybody to have him, he didn’t know but what he might
change his condition even yet. Miss La Creevy earnestly recommended a
lady she knew, who would exactly suit Mr. Linkinwater, and had a very
comfortable property of her own; but this latter qualification had very
little effect upon Tim, who manfully protested that fortune would be
no object with him, but that true worth and cheerfulness of disposition
were what a man should look for in a wife, and that if he had these, he
could find money enough for the moderate wants of both. This avowal was
considered so honourable to Tim, that neither Mrs. Nickleby nor Miss La
Creevy could sufficiently extol it; and stimulated by their praises,