Nicholas Nickleby
Mr. Kenwigs remembered that he had had his suspicions, but did not wonder
why Mrs. Kenwigs had not had hers, as she was all chastity, purity, and
truth, and Henrietta all baseness, falsehood, and deceit. And Mr. and
Mrs. Kenwigs both said, with strong feelings and tears of sympathy, that
everything happened for the best; and conjured the good collector not to
give way to unavailing grief, but to seek consolation in the society
of those affectionate relations whose arms and hearts were ever open to
him.
‘Out of affection and regard for you, Susan and Kenwigs,’ said Mr
Lillyvick, ‘and not out of revenge and spite against her, for she is
below it, I shall, tomorrow morning, settle upon your children, and make
payable to the survivors of them when they come of age of marry, that
money that I once meant to leave ‘em in my will. The deed shall be
executed tomorrow, and Mr. Noggs shall be one of the witnesses. He hears
me promise this, and he shall see it done.’
Overpowered by this noble and generous offer, Mr. Kenwigs, Mrs. Kenwigs,
and Miss Morleena Kenwigs, all began to sob together; and the noise of
their sobbing, communicating itself to the next room, where the children
lay a-bed, and causing them to cry too, Mr. Kenwigs rushed wildly in,
and bringing them out in his arms, by two and two, tumbled them down in
their nightcaps and gowns at the feet of Mr. Lillyvick, and called upon
them to thank and bless him.
‘And now,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, when a heart-rending scene had ensued and
the children were cleared away again, ‘give me some supper. This took
place twenty mile from town. I came up this morning, and have being
lingering about all day, without being able to make up my mind to come
and see you. I humoured her in everything, she had her own way, she
did just as she pleased, and now she has done this. There was twelve
teaspoons and twenty-four pound in sovereigns--I missed them first--it’s
a trial--I feel I shall never be able to knock a double knock again,
when I go my rounds--don’t say anything more about it, please--the
spoons were worth--never mind--never mind!’
With such muttered outpourings as these, the old gentleman shed a few
tears; but, they got him into the elbow-chair, and prevailed upon him,
without much pressing, to make a hearty supper, and by the time he had
finished his first pipe, and disposed of half-a-dozen glasses out of a
crown bowl of punch, ordered by Mr. Kenwigs, in celebration of his return
to the bosom of his family, he seemed, though still very humble, quite
resigned to his fate, and rather relieved than otherwise by the flight
of his wife.
‘When I see that man,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, with one hand round Mrs
Kenwigs’s waist: his other hand supporting his pipe (which made him wink
and cough very much, for he was no smoker): and his eyes on Morleena,
who sat upon her uncle’s knee, ‘when I see that man as mingling, once
again, in the spear which he adorns, and see his affections deweloping
themselves in legitimate sitiwations, I feel that his nature is as
elewated and expanded, as his standing afore society as a public
character is unimpeached, and the woices of my infant children purvided
for in life, seem to whisper to me softly, “This is an ewent at which
Evins itself looks down!”’
CHAPTER 53
Containing the further Progress of the Plot contrived by Mr. Ralph
Nickleby and Mr. Arthur Gride
With that settled resolution, and steadiness of purpose to which extreme
circumstances so often give birth, acting upon far less excitable and
more sluggish temperaments than that which was the lot of Madeline
Bray’s admirer, Nicholas started, at dawn of day, from the restless
couch which no sleep had visited on the previous night, and prepared
to make that last appeal, by whose slight and fragile thread her only
remaining hope of escape depended.
Although, to restless and ardent minds, morning may be the fitting
season for exertion and activity, it is not always at that time that
hope is strongest or the spirit most sanguine and buoyant. In trying
and doubtful positions, youth, custom, a steady contemplation of
the difficulties which surround us, and a familiarity with them,
imperceptibly diminish our apprehensions and beget comparative
indifference, if not a vague and reckless confidence in some relief,
the means or nature of which we care not to foresee. But when we come,
fresh, upon such things in the morning, with that dark and silent gap
between us and yesterday; with every link in the brittle chain of
hope, to rivet afresh; our hot enthusiasm subdued, and cool calm reason
substituted in its stead; doubt and misgiving revive. As the traveller
sees farthest by day, and becomes aware of rugged mountains and
trackless plains which the friendly darkness had shrouded from his sight
and mind together, so, the wayfarer in the toilsome path of human life
sees, with each returning sun, some new obstacle to surmount, some new
height to be attained. Distances stretch out before him which, last
night, were scarcely taken into account, and the light which gilds
all nature with its cheerful beams, seems but to shine upon the weary
obstacles that yet lie strewn between him and the grave.
So thought Nicholas, when, with the impatience natural to a situation
like his, he softly left the house, and, feeling as though to remain in
bed were to lose most precious time, and to be up and stirring were
in some way to promote the end he had in view, wandered into London;
perfectly well knowing that for hours to come he could not obtain speech
with Madeline, and could do nothing but wish the intervening time away.
And, even now, as he paced the streets, and listlessly looked round on
the gradually increasing bustle and preparation for the day, everything
appeared to yield him some new occasion for despondency. Last night, the
sacrifice of a young, affectionate, and beautiful creature, to such
a wretch, and in such a cause, had seemed a thing too monstrous to
succeed; and the warmer he grew, the more confident he felt that some
interposition must save her from his clutches. But now, when he thought
how regularly things went on, from day to day, in the same unvarying
round; how youth and beauty died, and ugly griping age lived tottering
on; how crafty avarice grew rich, and manly honest hearts were poor and
sad; how few they were who tenanted the stately houses, and how many of
those who lay in noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down each
night, and lived and died, father and son, mother and child, race upon
race, and generation upon generation, without a home to shelter them or
the energies of one single man directed to their aid; how, in seeking,
not a luxurious and splendid life, but the bare means of a most wretched
and inadequate subsistence, there were women and children in that one
town, divided into classes, numbered and estimated as regularly as the
noble families and folks of great degree, and reared from infancy to
drive most criminal and dreadful trades; how ignorance was punished and
never taught; how jail-doors gaped, and gallows loomed, for thousands
urged towards them by circumstances darkly curtaining their very
cradles’ heads, and but for which they might have earned their honest
bread and lived in peace; how many died in soul, and had no chance of
life; how many who could scarcely go astray, be they vicious as they
would, turned haughtily from the crushed and stricken wretch who could
scarce do otherwise, and who would have been a greater wonder had he
or she done well, than even they had they done ill; how much injustice,
misery, and wrong, there was, and yet how the world rolled on, from year
to year, alike careless and indifferent, and no man seeking to remedy or
redress it; when he thought of all this, and selected from the mass the
one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he felt, indeed, that
there was little ground for hope, and little reason why it should not
form an atom in the huge aggregate of distress and sorrow, and add one
small and unimportant unit to swell the great amount.
But youth is not prone to contemplate the darkest side of a picture
it can shift at will. By dint of reflecting on what he had to do, and
reviving the train of thought which night had interrupted, Nicholas
gradually summoned up his utmost energy, and when the morning was
sufficiently advanced for his purpose, had no thought but that of using
it to the best advantage. A hasty breakfast taken, and such affairs of
business as required prompt attention disposed of, he directed his steps
to the residence of Madeline Bray: whither he lost no time in arriving.
It had occurred to him that, very possibly, the young lady might be
denied, although to him she never had been; and he was still pondering
upon the surest method of obtaining access to her in that case,
when, coming to the door of the house, he found it had been left
ajar--probably by the last person who had gone out. The occasion was
not one upon which to observe the nicest ceremony; therefore, availing
himself of this advantage, Nicholas walked gently upstairs and knocked
at the door of the room into which he had been accustomed to be shown.
Receiving permission to enter, from some person on the other side, he
opened the door and walked in.
Bray and his daughter were sitting there alone. It was nearly three
weeks since he had seen her last, but there was a change in the lovely
girl before him which told Nicholas, in startling terms, how much mental
suffering had been compressed into that short time. There are no words
which can express, nothing with which can be compared, the perfect
pallor, the clear transparent whiteness, of the beautiful face which
turned towards him when he entered. Her hair was a rich deep brown,
but shading that face, and straying upon a neck that rivalled it in
whiteness, it seemed by the strong contrast raven black. Something of
wildness and restlessness there was in the dark eye, but there was the
same patient look, the same expression of gentle mournfulness which he
well remembered, and no trace of a single tear. Most beautiful--more
beautiful, perhaps, than ever--there was something in her face which
quite unmanned him, and appeared far more touching than the wildest
agony of grief. It was not merely calm and composed, but fixed and
rigid, as though the violent effort which had summoned that composure
beneath her father’s eye, while it mastered all other thoughts, had
prevented even the momentary expression they had communicated to the
features from subsiding, and had fastened it there, as an evidence of
its triumph.
The father sat opposite to her; not looking directly in her face, but
glancing at her, as he talked with a gay air which ill disguised
the anxiety of his thoughts. The drawing materials were not on their
accustomed table, nor were any of the other tokens of her usual
occupations to be seen. The little vases which Nicholas had always
seen filled with fresh flowers were empty, or supplied only with a few
withered stalks and leaves. The bird was silent. The cloth that covered
his cage at night was not removed. His mistress had forgotten him.
There are times when, the mind being painfully alive to receive
impressions, a great deal may be noted at a glance. This was one, for
Nicholas had but glanced round him when he was recognised by Mr. Bray,
who said impatiently:
‘Now, sir, what do you want? Name your errand here, quickly, if you
please, for my daughter and I are busily engaged with other and more
important matters than those you come about. Come, sir, address yourself
to your business at once.’
Nicholas could very well discern that the irritability and impatience of
this speech were assumed, and that Bray, in his heart, was rejoiced at