Nicholas Nickleby
his bed, and all the post-obits fell in. I’ll be married in the
bottle-green. Peg. Peg Sliderskew--I’ll wear the bottle-green!’
This call, loudly repeated twice or thrice at the room-door, brought
into the apartment a short, thin, weasen, blear-eyed old woman,
palsy-stricken and hideously ugly, who, wiping her shrivelled face upon
her dirty apron, inquired, in that subdued tone in which deaf people
commonly speak:
‘Was that you a calling, or only the clock a striking? My hearing gets
so bad, I never know which is which; but when I hear a noise, I know it
must be one of you, because nothing else never stirs in the house.’
‘Me, Peg, me,’ said Arthur Gride, tapping himself on the breast to
render the reply more intelligible.
‘You, eh?’ returned Peg. ‘And what do YOU want?’
‘I’ll be married in the bottle-green,’ cried Arthur Gride.
‘It’s a deal too good to be married in, master,’ rejoined Peg, after
a short inspection of the suit. ‘Haven’t you got anything worse than
this?’
‘Nothing that’ll do,’ replied old Arthur.
‘Why not do?’ retorted Peg. ‘Why don’t you wear your every-day clothes,
like a man--eh?’
‘They an’t becoming enough, Peg,’ returned her master.
‘Not what enough?’ said Peg.
‘Becoming.’
‘Becoming what?’ said Peg, sharply. ‘Not becoming too old to wear?’
Arthur Gride muttered an imprecation on his housekeeper’s deafness, as
he roared in her ear:
‘Not smart enough! I want to look as well as I can.’
‘Look?’ cried Peg. ‘If she’s as handsome as you say she is, she won’t
look much at you, master, take your oath of that; and as to how you look
yourself--pepper-and-salt, bottle-green, sky-blue, or tartan-plaid will
make no difference in you.’
With which consolatory assurance, Peg Sliderskew gathered up the chosen
suit, and folding her skinny arms upon the bundle, stood, mouthing, and
grinning, and blinking her watery eyes, like an uncouth figure in some
monstrous piece of carving.
‘You’re in a funny humour, an’t you, Peg?’ said Arthur, with not the
best possible grace.
‘Why, isn’t it enough to make me?’ rejoined the old woman. ‘I shall,
soon enough, be put out, though, if anybody tries to domineer it over
me: and so I give you notice, master. Nobody shall be put over Peg
Sliderskew’s head, after so many years; you know that, and so I needn’t
tell you! That won’t do for me--no, no, nor for you. Try that once, and
come to ruin--ruin--ruin!’
‘Oh dear, dear, I shall never try it,’ said Arthur Gride, appalled by
the mention of the word, ‘not for the world. It would be very easy to
ruin me; we must be very careful; more saving than ever, with another
mouth to feed. Only we--we mustn’t let her lose her good looks, Peg,
because I like to see ‘em.’
‘Take care you don’t find good looks come expensive,’ returned Peg,
shaking her forefinger.
‘But she can earn money herself, Peg,’ said Arthur Gride, eagerly
watching what effect his communication produced upon the old woman’s
countenance: ‘she can draw, paint, work all manner of pretty things for
ornamenting stools and chairs: slippers, Peg, watch-guards, hair-chains,
and a thousand little dainty trifles that I couldn’t give you half the
names of. Then she can play the piano, (and, what’s more, she’s got
one), and sing like a little bird. She’ll be very cheap to dress and
keep, Peg; don’t you think she will?’
‘If you don’t let her make a fool of you, she may,’ returned Peg.
‘A fool of ME!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘Trust your old master not to be
fooled by pretty faces, Peg; no, no, no--nor by ugly ones neither, Mrs
Sliderskew,’ he softly added by way of soliloquy.
‘You’re a saying something you don’t want me to hear,’ said Peg; ‘I know
you are.’
‘Oh dear! the devil’s in this woman,’ muttered Arthur; adding with an
ugly leer, ‘I said I trusted everything to you, Peg. That was all.’
‘You do that, master, and all your cares are over,’ said Peg
approvingly.
‘WHEN I do that, Peg Sliderskew,’ thought Arthur Gride, ‘they will be.’
Although he thought this very distinctly, he durst not move his lips
lest the old woman should detect him. He even seemed half afraid that
she might have read his thoughts; for he leered coaxingly upon her, as
he said aloud:
‘Take up all loose stitches in the bottle-green with the best black
silk. Have a skein of the best, and some new buttons for the coat,
and--this is a good idea, Peg, and one you’ll like, I know--as I have
never given her anything yet, and girls like such attentions, you shall
polish up a sparking necklace that I have got upstairs, and I’ll give
it her upon the wedding morning--clasp it round her charming little neck
myself--and take it away again next day. He, he, he! I’ll lock it up for
her, Peg, and lose it. Who’ll be made the fool of there, I wonder, to
begin with--eh, Peg?’
Mrs. Sliderskew appeared to approve highly of this ingenious scheme, and
expressed her satisfaction by various rackings and twitchings of
her head and body, which by no means enhanced her charms. These she
prolonged until she had hobbled to the door, when she exchanged them
for a sour malignant look, and twisting her under-jaw from side to side,
muttered hearty curses upon the future Mrs. Gride, as she crept slowly
down the stairs, and paused for breath at nearly every one.
‘She’s half a witch, I think,’ said Arthur Gride, when he found himself
again alone. ‘But she’s very frugal, and she’s very deaf. Her living
costs me next to nothing; and it’s no use her listening at keyholes; for
she can’t hear. She’s a charming woman--for the purpose; a most discreet
old housekeeper, and worth her weight in--copper.’
Having extolled the merits of his domestic in these high terms, old
Arthur went back to the burden of his song. The suit destined to grace
his approaching nuptials being now selected, he replaced the others with
no less care than he had displayed in drawing them from the musty nooks
where they had silently reposed for many years.
Startled by a ring at the door, he hastily concluded this operation, and
locked the press; but there was no need for any particular hurry, as the
discreet Peg seldom knew the bell was rung unless she happened to cast
her dim eyes upwards, and to see it shaking against the kitchen ceiling.
After a short delay, however, Peg tottered in, followed by Newman Noggs.
‘Ah! Mr. Noggs!’ cried Arthur Gride, rubbing his hands. ‘My good friend,
Mr. Noggs, what news do you bring for me?’
Newman, with a steadfast and immovable aspect, and his fixed eye very
fixed indeed, replied, suiting the action to the word, ‘A letter. From
Mr. Nickleby. Bearer waits.’
‘Won’t you take a--a--’
Newman looked up, and smacked his lips.
‘--A chair?’ said Arthur Gride.
‘No,’ replied Newman. ‘Thankee.’
Arthur opened the letter with trembling hands, and devoured its contents
with the utmost greediness; chuckling rapturously over it, and reading
it several times, before he could take it from before his eyes. So
many times did he peruse and re-peruse it, that Newman considered it
expedient to remind him of his presence.
‘Answer,’ said Newman. ‘Bearer waits.’
‘True,’ replied old Arthur. ‘Yes--yes; I almost forgot, I do declare.’
‘I thought you were forgetting,’ said Newman.
‘Quite right to remind me, Mr. Noggs. Oh, very right indeed,’ said
Arthur. ‘Yes. I’ll write a line. I’m--I’m--rather flurried, Mr. Noggs.
The news is--’
‘Bad?’ interrupted Newman.
‘No, Mr. Noggs, thank you; good, good. The very best of news. Sit down.
I’ll get the pen and ink, and write a line in answer. I’ll not detain
you long. I know you’re a treasure to your master, Mr. Noggs. He speaks
of you in such terms, sometimes, that, oh dear! you’d be astonished. I
may say that I do too, and always did. I always say the same of you.’
‘That’s “Curse Mr. Noggs with all my heart!” then, if you do,’ thought
Newman, as Gride hurried out.
The letter had fallen on the ground. Looking carefully about him for an
instant, Newman, impelled by curiosity to know the result of the design
he had overheard from his office closet, caught it up and rapidly read
as follows:
‘GRIDE.
‘I saw Bray again this morning, and proposed the day after tomorrow (as
you suggested) for the marriage. There is no objection on his part, and
all days are alike to his daughter. We will go together, and you must be
with me by seven in the morning. I need not tell you to be punctual.
‘Make no further visits to the girl in the meantime. You have been
there, of late, much oftener than you should. She does not languish for
you, and it might have been dangerous. Restrain your youthful ardour for
eight-and-forty hours, and leave her to the father. You only undo what
he does, and does well.
‘Yours,
‘RALPH NICKLEBY.’
A footstep was heard without. Newman dropped the letter on the same spot
again, pressed it with his foot to prevent its fluttering away, regained
his seat in a single stride, and looked as vacant and unconscious as
ever mortal looked. Arthur Gride, after peering nervously about him,
spied it on the ground, picked it up, and sitting down to write, glanced
at Newman Noggs, who was staring at the wall with an intensity so
remarkable, that Arthur was quite alarmed.
‘Do you see anything particular, Mr. Noggs?’ said Arthur, trying to
follow the direction of Newman’s eyes--which was an impossibility, and a
thing no man had ever done.
‘Only a cobweb,’ replied Newman.
‘Oh! is that all?’
‘No,’ said Newman. ‘There’s a fly in it.’
‘There are a good many cobwebs here,’ observed Arthur Gride.
‘So there are in our place,’ returned Newman; ‘and flies too.’
Newman appeared to derive great entertainment from this repartee, and
to the great discomposure of Arthur Gride’s nerves, produced a series of
sharp cracks from his finger-joints, resembling the noise of a distant
discharge of small artillery. Arthur succeeded in finishing his reply
to Ralph’s note, nevertheless, and at length handed it over to the
eccentric messenger for delivery.
‘That’s it, Mr. Noggs,’ said Gride.
Newman gave a nod, put it in his hat, and was shuffling away, when
Gride, whose doting delight knew no bounds, beckoned him back again, and
said, in a shrill whisper, and with a grin which puckered up his whole
face, and almost obscured his eyes:
‘Will you--will you take a little drop of something--just a taste?’
In good fellowship (if Arthur Gride had been capable of it) Newman would
not have drunk with him one bubble of the richest wine that was ever
made; but to see what he would be at, and to punish him as much as he
could, he accepted the offer immediately.
Arthur Gride, therefore, again applied himself to the press, and from a
shelf laden with tall Flemish drinking-glasses, and quaint bottles:
some with necks like so many storks, and others with square Dutch-built
bodies and short fat apoplectic throats: took down one dusty bottle of
promising appearance, and two glasses of curiously small size.
‘You never tasted this,’ said Arthur. ‘It’s EAU-D’OR--golden water. I
like it on account of its name. It’s a delicious name. Water of gold,
golden water! O dear me, it seems quite a sin to drink it!’
As his courage appeared to be fast failing him, and he trifled with the
stopper in a manner which threatened the dismissal of the bottle to its
old place, Newman took up one of the little glasses, and clinked it,
twice or thrice, against the bottle, as a gentle reminder that he
had not been helped yet. With a deep sigh, Arthur Gride slowly filled
it--though not to the brim--and then filled his own.
‘Stop, stop; don’t drink it yet,’ he said, laying his hand on Newman’s;
‘it was given to me, twenty years ago, and when I take a little taste,
which is ve--ry seldom, I like to think of it beforehand, and tease