Nicholas Nickleby
myself. We’ll drink a toast. Shall we drink a toast, Mr. Noggs?’
‘Ah!’ said Newman, eyeing his little glass impatiently. ‘Look sharp.
Bearer waits.’
‘Why, then, I’ll tell you what,’ tittered Arthur, ‘we’ll drink--he, he,
he!--we’ll drink a lady.’
‘THE ladies?’ said Newman.
‘No, no, Mr. Noggs,’ replied Gride, arresting his hand, ‘A lady. You
wonder to hear me say A lady. I know you do, I know you do. Here’s
little Madeline. That’s the toast. Mr. Noggs. Little Madeline!’
‘Madeline!’ said Newman; inwardly adding, ‘and God help her!’
The rapidity and unconcern with which Newman dismissed his portion of
the golden water, had a great effect upon the old man, who sat upright
in his chair, and gazed at him, open-mouthed, as if the sight had taken
away his breath. Quite unmoved, however, Newman left him to sip his own
at leisure, or to pour it back again into the bottle, if he chose,
and departed; after greatly outraging the dignity of Peg Sliderskew
by brushing past her, in the passage, without a word of apology or
recognition.
Mr. Gride and his housekeeper, immediately on being left alone, resolved
themselves into a committee of ways and means, and discussed the
arrangements which should be made for the reception of the young bride.
As they were, like some other committees, extremely dull and prolix in
debate, this history may pursue the footsteps of Newman Noggs; thereby
combining advantage with necessity; for it would have been necessary
to do so under any circumstances, and necessity has no law, as all the
world knows.
‘You’ve been a long time,’ said Ralph, when Newman returned.
‘HE was a long time,’ replied Newman.
‘Bah!’ cried Ralph impatiently. ‘Give me his note, if he gave you one:
his message, if he didn’t. And don’t go away. I want a word with you,
sir.’
Newman handed in the note, and looked very virtuous and innocent while
his employer broke the seal, and glanced his eye over it.
‘He’ll be sure to come,’ muttered Ralph, as he tore it to pieces; ‘why
of course, I know he’ll be sure to come. What need to say that? Noggs!
Pray, sir, what man was that, with whom I saw you in the street last
night?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Newman.
‘You had better refresh your memory, sir,’ said Ralph, with a
threatening look.
‘I tell you,’ returned Newman boldly, ‘that I don’t know. He came here
twice, and asked for you. You were out. He came again. You packed him
off, yourself. He gave the name of Brooker.’
‘I know he did,’ said Ralph; ‘what then?’
‘What then? Why, then he lurked about and dogged me in the street. He
follows me, night after night, and urges me to bring him face to face
with you; as he says he has been once, and not long ago either. He
wants to see you face to face, he says, and you’ll soon hear him out, he
warrants.’
‘And what say you to that?’ inquired Ralph, looking keenly at his
drudge.
‘That it’s no business of mine, and I won’t. I told him he might catch
you in the street, if that was all he wanted, but no! that wouldn’t do.
You wouldn’t hear a word there, he said. He must have you alone in a
room with the door locked, where he could speak without fear, and you’d
soon change your tone, and hear him patiently.’
‘An audacious dog!’ Ralph muttered.
‘That’s all I know,’ said Newman. ‘I say again, I don’t know what man
he is. I don’t believe he knows himself. You have seen him; perhaps YOU
do.’
‘I think I do,’ replied Ralph.
‘Well,’ retored Newman, sulkily, ‘don’t expect me to know him too;
that’s all. You’ll ask me, next, why I never told you this before. What
would you say, if I was to tell you all that people say of you? What
do you call me when I sometimes do? “Brute, ass!” and snap at me like a
dragon.’
This was true enough; though the question which Newman anticipated, was,
in fact, upon Ralph’s lips at the moment.
‘He is an idle ruffian,’ said Ralph; ‘a vagabond from beyond the sea
where he travelled for his crimes; a felon let loose to run his neck
into the halter; a swindler, who has the audacity to try his schemes on
me who know him well. The next time he tampers with you, hand him over
to the police, for attempting to extort money by lies and threats,--d’ye
hear?--and leave the rest to me. He shall cool his heels in jail a
little time, and I’ll be bound he looks for other folks to fleece, when
he comes out. You mind what I say, do you?’
‘I hear,’ said Newman.
‘Do it then,’ returned Ralph, ‘and I’ll reward you. Now, you may go.’
Newman readily availed himself of the permission, and, shutting himself
up in his little office, remained there, in very serious cogitation,
all day. When he was released at night, he proceeded, with all the
expedition he could use, to the city, and took up his old position
behind the pump, to watch for Nicholas. For Newman Noggs was proud in
his way, and could not bear to appear as his friend, before the brothers
Cheeryble, in the shabby and degraded state to which he was reduced.
He had not occupied this position many minutes, when he was rejoiced to
see Nicholas approaching, and darted out from his ambuscade to meet him.
Nicholas, on his part, was no less pleased to encounter his friend, whom
he had not seen for some time; so, their greeting was a warm one.
‘I was thinking of you, at that moment,’ said Nicholas.
‘That’s right,’ rejoined Newman, ‘and I of you. I couldn’t help coming
up, tonight. I say, I think I am going to find out something.’
‘And what may that be?’ returned Nicholas, smiling at this odd
communication.
‘I don’t know what it may be, I don’t know what it may not be,’ said
Newman; ‘it’s some secret in which your uncle is concerned, but
what, I’ve not yet been able to discover, although I have my strong
suspicions. I’ll not hint ‘em now, in case you should be disappointed.’
‘I disappointed!’ cried Nicholas; ‘am I interested?’
‘I think you are,’ replied Newman. ‘I have a crotchet in my head that it
must be so. I have found out a man, who plainly knows more than he cares
to tell at once. And he has already dropped such hints to me as puzzle
me--I say, as puzzle me,’ said Newman, scratching his red nose into
a state of violent inflammation, and staring at Nicholas with all his
might and main meanwhile.
Admiring what could have wound his friend up to such a pitch of mystery,
Nicholas endeavoured, by a series of questions, to elucidate the cause;
but in vain. Newman could not be drawn into any more explicit statement
than a repetition of the perplexities he had already thrown out, and
a confused oration, showing, How it was necessary to use the utmost
caution; how the lynx-eyed Ralph had already seen him in company with
his unknown correspondent; and how he had baffled the said Ralph by
extreme guardedness of manner and ingenuity of speech; having prepared
himself for such a contingency from the first.
Remembering his companion’s propensity,--of which his nose, indeed,
perpetually warned all beholders like a beacon,--Nicholas had drawn him
into a sequestered tavern. Here, they fell to reviewing the origin and
progress of their acquaintance, as men sometimes do, and tracing out the
little events by which it was most strongly marked, came at last to Miss
Cecilia Bobster.
‘And that reminds me,’ said Newman, ‘that you never told me the young
lady’s real name.’
‘Madeline!’ said Nicholas.
‘Madeline!’ cried Newman. ‘What Madeline? Her other name. Say her other
name.’
‘Bray,’ said Nicholas, in great astonishment.
‘It’s the same!’ cried Newman. ‘Sad story! Can you stand idly by, and
let that unnatural marriage take place without one attempt to save her?’
‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Nicholas, starting up; ‘marriage! are you
mad?’
‘Are you? Is she? Are you blind, deaf, senseless, dead?’ said Newman.
‘Do you know that within one day, by means of your uncle Ralph, she will
be married to a man as bad as he, and worse, if worse there is? Do you
know that, within one day, she will be sacrificed, as sure as you stand
there alive, to a hoary wretch--a devil born and bred, and grey in
devils’ ways?’
‘Be careful what you say,’ replied Nicholas. ‘For Heaven’s sake be
careful! I am left here alone, and those who could stretch out a hand to
rescue her are far away. What is it that you mean?’
‘I never heard her name,’ said Newman, choking with his energy. ‘Why
didn’t you tell me? How was I to know? We might, at least, have had some
time to think!’
‘What is it that you mean?’ cried Nicholas.
It was not an easy task to arrive at this information; but, after a
great quantity of extraordinary pantomime, which in no way assisted it,
Nicholas, who was almost as wild as Newman Noggs himself, forced the
latter down upon his seat and held him down until he began his tale.
Rage, astonishment, indignation, and a storm of passions, rushed through
the listener’s heart, as the plot was laid bare. He no sooner understood
it all, than with a face of ashy paleness, and trembling in every limb,
he darted from the house.
‘Stop him!’ cried Newman, bolting out in pursuit. ‘He’ll be doing
something desperate; he’ll murder somebody. Hallo! there, stop him. Stop
thief! stop thief!’
CHAPTER 52
Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his Spirits
again, and determines to attempt it. Domestic Intelligence of the
Kenwigses and Lillyvicks
Finding that Newman was determined to arrest his progress at any hazard,
and apprehensive that some well-intentioned passenger, attracted by the
cry of ‘Stop thief,’ might lay violent hands upon his person, and
place him in a disagreeable predicament from which he might have some
difficulty in extricating himself, Nicholas soon slackened his pace,
and suffered Newman Noggs to come up with him: which he did, in so
breathless a condition, that it seemed impossible he could have held out
for a minute longer.
‘I will go straight to Bray’s,’ said Nicholas. ‘I will see this man.
If there is a feeling of humanity lingering in his breast, a spark of
consideration for his own child, motherless and friendless as she is, I
will awaken it.’
‘You will not,’ replied Newman. ‘You will not, indeed.’
‘Then,’ said Nicholas, pressing onward, ‘I will act upon my first
impulse, and go straight to Ralph Nickleby.’
‘By the time you reach his house he will be in bed,’ said Newman.
‘I’ll drag him from it,’ cried Nicholas.
‘Tut, tut,’ said Noggs. ‘Be yourself.’
‘You are the best of friends to me, Newman,’ rejoined Nicholas after a
pause, and taking his hand as he spoke. ‘I have made head against many
trials; but the misery of another, and such misery, is involved in this
one, that I declare to you I am rendered desperate, and know not how to
act.’
In truth, it did seem a hopeless case. It was impossible to make any use
of such intelligence as Newman Noggs had gleaned, when he lay concealed
in the closet. The mere circumstance of the compact between Ralph
Nickleby and Gride would not invalidate the marriage, or render Bray
averse to it, who, if he did not actually know of the existence of some
such understanding, doubtless suspected it. What had been hinted with
reference to some fraud on Madeline, had been put, with sufficient
obscurity by Arthur Gride, but coming from Newman Noggs, and obscured
still further by the smoke of his pocket-pistol, it became wholly
unintelligible, and involved in utter darkness.
‘There seems no ray of hope,’ said Nicholas.
‘The greater necessity for coolness, for reason, for consideration,
for thought,’ said Newman, pausing at every alternate word, to look
anxiously in his friend’s face. ‘Where are the brothers?’
‘Both absent on urgent business, as they will be for a week to come.’
‘Is there no way of communicating with them? No way of getting one of
them here by tomorrow night?’