Nicholas Nickleby
When Nicholas began, Arthur Gride’s impression was, that Ralph Nickleby
had betrayed him; but, as he proceeded, he felt convinced that however
he had come by the knowledge he possessed, the part he acted was a
genuine one, and that with Ralph he had no concern. All he seemed to
know, for certain, was, that he, Gride, paid Ralph’s debt; but that,
to anybody who knew the circumstances of Bray’s detention--even to Bray
himself, on Ralph’s own statement--must be perfectly notorious. As to
the fraud on Madeline herself, his visitor knew so little about its
nature or extent, that it might be a lucky guess, or a hap-hazard
accusation. Whether or no, he had clearly no key to the mystery, and
could not hurt him who kept it close within his own breast. The
allusion to friends, and the offer of money, Gride held to be mere empty
vapouring, for purposes of delay. ‘And even if money were to be had,’
thought Arthur Gride, as he glanced at Nicholas, and trembled with
passion at his boldness and audacity, ‘I’d have that dainty chick for my
wife, and cheat YOU of her, young smooth-face!’
Long habit of weighing and noting well what clients said, and nicely
balancing chances in his mind and calculating odds to their faces,
without the least appearance of being so engaged, had rendered Gride
quick in forming conclusions, and arriving, from puzzling, intricate,
and often contradictory premises, at very cunning deductions. Hence
it was that, as Nicholas went on, he followed him closely with his own
constructions, and, when he ceased to speak, was as well prepared as if
he had deliberated for a fortnight.
‘I hear you,’ he cried, starting from his seat, casting back the
fastenings of the window-shutters, and throwing up the sash. ‘Help here!
Help! Help!’
‘What are you doing?’ said Nicholas, seizing him by the arm.
‘I’ll cry robbers, thieves, murder, alarm the neighbourhood, struggle
with you, let loose some blood, and swear you came to rob me, if
you don’t quit my house,’ replied Gride, drawing in his head with a
frightful grin, ‘I will!’
‘Wretch!’ cried Nicholas.
‘YOU’LL bring your threats here, will you?’ said Gride, whom jealousy
of Nicholas and a sense of his own triumph had converted into a perfect
fiend. ‘You, the disappointed lover? Oh dear! He! he! he! But you shan’t
have her, nor she you. She’s my wife, my doting little wife. Do you
think she’ll miss you? Do you think she’ll weep? I shall like to see her
weep, I shan’t mind it. She looks prettier in tears.’
‘Villain!’ said Nicholas, choking with his rage.
‘One minute more,’ cried Arthur Gride, ‘and I’ll rouse the street with
such screams, as, if they were raised by anybody else, should wake me
even in the arms of pretty Madeline.’
‘You hound!’ said Nicholas. ‘If you were but a younger man--’
‘Oh yes!’ sneered Arthur Gride, ‘If I was but a younger man it wouldn’t
be so bad; but for me, so old and ugly! To be jilted by little Madeline
for me!’
‘Hear me,’ said Nicholas, ‘and be thankful I have enough command over
myself not to fling you into the street, which no aid could prevent my
doing if I once grappled with you. I have been no lover of this lady’s.
No contract or engagement, no word of love, has ever passed between us.
She does not even know my name.’
‘I’ll ask it for all that. I’ll beg it of her with kisses,’ said Arthur
Gride. ‘Yes, and she’ll tell me, and pay them back, and we’ll laugh
together, and hug ourselves, and be very merry, when we think of the
poor youth that wanted to have her, but couldn’t because she was bespoke
by me!’
This taunt brought such an expression into the face of Nicholas, that
Arthur Gride plainly apprehended it to be the forerunner of his putting
his threat of throwing him into the street in immediate execution; for
he thrust his head out of the window, and holding tight on with both
hands, raised a pretty brisk alarm. Not thinking it necessary to abide
the issue of the noise, Nicholas gave vent to an indignant defiance,
and stalked from the room and from the house. Arthur Gride watched him
across the street, and then, drawing in his head, fastened the window as
before, and sat down to take breath.
‘If she ever turns pettish or ill-humoured, I’ll taunt her with that
spark,’ he said, when he had recovered. ‘She’ll little think I know
about him; and, if I manage it well, I can break her spirit by this
means and have her under my thumb. I’m glad nobody came. I didn’t call
too loud. The audacity to enter my house, and open upon me! But I shall
have a very good triumph tomorrow, and he’ll be gnawing his fingers off:
perhaps drown himself or cut his throat! I shouldn’t wonder! That would
make it quite complete, that would: quite.’
When he had become restored to his usual condition by these and other
comments on his approaching triumph, Arthur Gride put away his book,
and, having locked the chest with great caution, descended into the
kitchen to warn Peg Sliderskew to bed, and scold her for having afforded
such ready admission to a stranger.
The unconscious Peg, however, not being able to comprehend the offence
of which she had been guilty, he summoned her to hold the light, while
he made a tour of the fastenings, and secured the street-door with his
own hands.
‘Top bolt,’ muttered Arthur, fastening as he spoke, ‘bottom bolt, chain,
bar, double lock, and key out to put under my pillow! So, if any more
rejected admirers come, they may come through the keyhole. And now I’ll
go to sleep till half-past five, when I must get up to be married, Peg!’
With that, he jocularly tapped Mrs. Sliderskew under the chin, and
appeared, for the moment, inclined to celebrate the close of his
bachelor days by imprinting a kiss on her shrivelled lips. Thinking
better of it, however, he gave her chin another tap, in lieu of that
warmer familiarity, and stole away to bed.
CHAPTER 54
The Crisis of the Project and its Result
There are not many men who lie abed too late, or oversleep themselves,
on their wedding morning. A legend there is of somebody remarkable for
absence of mind, who opened his eyes upon the day which was to give him
a young wife, and forgetting all about the matter, rated his servants
for providing him with such fine clothes as had been prepared for the
festival. There is also a legend of a young gentleman, who, not having
before his eyes the fear of the canons of the church for such cases made
and provided, conceived a passion for his grandmother. Both cases are of
a singular and special kind and it is very doubtful whether either
can be considered as a precedent likely to be extensively followed by
succeeding generations.
Arthur Gride had enrobed himself in his marriage garments of
bottle-green, a full hour before Mrs. Sliderskew, shaking off her
more heavy slumbers, knocked at his chamber door; and he had hobbled
downstairs in full array and smacked his lips over a scanty taste of his
favourite cordial, ere that delicate piece of antiquity enlightened the
kitchen with her presence.
‘Faugh!’ said Peg, grubbing, in the discharge of her domestic functions,
among a scanty heap of ashes in the rusty grate. ‘Wedding indeed! A
precious wedding! He wants somebody better than his old Peg to take care
of him, does he? And what has he said to me, many and many a time, to
keep me content with short food, small wages, and little fire? “My will,
Peg! my will!” says he: “I’m a bachelor--no friends--no relations, Peg.”
Lies! And now he’s to bring home a new mistress, a baby-faced chit of a
girl! If he wanted a wife, the fool, why couldn’t he have one suitable
to his age, and that knew his ways? She won’t come in MY way, he says.
No, that she won’t, but you little think why, Arthur boy!’
While Mrs. Sliderskew, influenced possibly by some lingering feelings
of disappointment and personal slight, occasioned by her old master’s
preference for another, was giving loose to these grumblings below
stairs, Arthur Gride was cogitating in the parlour upon what had taken
place last night.
‘I can’t think how he can have picked up what he knows,’ said Arthur,
‘unless I have committed myself--let something drop at Bray’s, for
instance--which has been overheard. Perhaps I may. I shouldn’t be
surprised if that was it. Mr. Nickleby was often angry at my talking to
him before we got outside the door. I mustn’t tell him that part of
the business, or he’ll put me out of sorts, and make me nervous for the
day.’
Ralph was universally looked up to, and recognised among his fellows as
a superior genius, but upon Arthur Gride his stern unyielding character
and consummate art had made so deep an impression, that he was actually
afraid of him. Cringing and cowardly to the core by nature, Arthur Gride
humbled himself in the dust before Ralph Nickleby, and, even when they
had not this stake in common, would have licked his shoes and crawled
upon the ground before him rather than venture to return him word
for word, or retort upon him in any other spirit than one of the most
slavish and abject sycophancy.
To Ralph Nickleby’s, Arthur Gride now betook himself according to
appointment; and to Ralph Nickleby he related how, last night, some
young blustering blade, whom he had never seen, forced his way into his
house, and tried to frighten him from the proposed nuptials. Told, in
short, what Nicholas had said and done, with the slight reservation upon
which he had determined.
‘Well, and what then?’ said Ralph.
‘Oh! nothing more,’ rejoined Gride.
‘He tried to frighten you,’ said Ralph, ‘and you WERE frightened I
suppose; is that it?’
‘I frightened HIM by crying thieves and murder,’ replied Gride. ‘Once
I was in earnest, I tell you that, for I had more than half a mind to
swear he uttered threats, and demanded my life or my money.’
‘Oho!’ said Ralph, eyeing him askew. ‘Jealous too!’
‘Dear now, see that!’ cried Arthur, rubbing his hands and affecting to
laugh.
‘Why do you make those grimaces, man?’ said Ralph; ‘you ARE jealous--and
with good cause I think.’
‘No, no, no; not with good cause, hey? You don’t think with good cause,
do you?’ cried Arthur, faltering. ‘Do you though, hey?’
‘Why, how stands the fact?’ returned Ralph. ‘Here is an old man about
to be forced in marriage upon a girl; and to this old man there comes a
handsome young fellow--you said he was handsome, didn’t you?’
‘No!’ snarled Arthur Gride.
‘Oh!’ rejoined Ralph, ‘I thought you did. Well! Handsome or not
handsome, to this old man there comes a young fellow who casts all
manner of fierce defiances in his teeth--gums I should rather say--and
tells him in plain terms that his mistress hates him. What does he do
that for? Philanthropy’s sake?’
‘Not for love of the lady,’ replied Gride, ‘for he said that no word of
love--his very words--had ever passed between ‘em.’
‘He said!’ repeated Ralph, contemptuously. ‘But I like him for one
thing, and that is, his giving you this fair warning to keep your--what
is it?--Tit-tit or dainty chick--which?--under lock and key. Be careful,
Gride, be careful. It’s a triumph, too, to tear her away from a gallant
young rival: a great triumph for an old man! It only remains to keep her
safe when you have her--that’s all.’
‘What a man it is!’ cried Arthur Gride, affecting, in the extremity of
his torture, to be highly amused. And then he added, anxiously, ‘Yes; to
keep her safe, that’s all. And that isn’t much, is it?’
‘Much!’ said Ralph, with a sneer. ‘Why, everybody knows what easy things
to understand and to control, women are. But come, it’s very nearly time
for you to be made happy. You’ll pay the bond now, I suppose, to save us
trouble afterwards.’
‘Oh what a man you are!’ croaked Arthur.
‘Why not?’ said Ralph. ‘Nobody will pay you interest for the money, I