Nicholas Nickleby
suppose, between this and twelve o’clock; will they?’
‘But nobody would pay you interest for it either, you know,’ returned
Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the cunning and slyness he could throw
into his face.
‘Besides which,’ said Ralph, suffering his lip to curl into a smile,
‘you haven’t the money about you, and you weren’t prepared for this, or
you’d have brought it with you; and there’s nobody you’d so much like to
accommodate as me. I see. We trust each other in about an equal degree.
Are you ready?’
Gride, who had done nothing but grin, and nod, and chatter, during this
last speech of Ralph’s, answered in the affirmative; and, producing from
his hat a couple of large white favours, pinned one on his breast, and
with considerable difficulty induced his friend to do the like. Thus
accoutred, they got into a hired coach which Ralph had in waiting, and
drove to the residence of the fair and most wretched bride.
Gride, whose spirits and courage had gradually failed him more and more
as they approached nearer and nearer to the house, was utterly dismayed
and cowed by the mournful silence which pervaded it. The face of the
poor servant girl, the only person they saw, was disfigured with tears
and want of sleep. There was nobody to receive or welcome them; and they
stole upstairs into the usual sitting-room, more like two burglars than
the bridegroom and his friend.
‘One would think,’ said Ralph, speaking, in spite of himself, in a low
and subdued voice, ‘that there was a funeral going on here, and not a
wedding.’
‘He, he!’ tittered his friend, ‘you are so--so very funny!’
‘I need be,’ remarked Ralph, drily, ‘for this is rather dull and
chilling. Look a little brisker, man, and not so hangdog like!’
‘Yes, yes, I will,’ said Gride. ‘But--but--you don’t think she’s coming
just yet, do you?’
‘Why, I suppose she’ll not come till she is obliged,’ returned Ralph,
looking at his watch, ‘and she has a good half-hour to spare yet. Curb
your impatience.’
‘I--I--am not impatient,’ stammered Arthur. ‘I wouldn’t be hard with
her for the world. Oh dear, dear, not on any account. Let her take her
time--her own time. Her time shall be ours by all means.’
While Ralph bent upon his trembling friend a keen look, which showed
that he perfectly understood the reason of this great consideration and
regard, a footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Bray himself came into
the room on tiptoe, and holding up his hand with a cautious gesture, as
if there were some sick person near, who must not be disturbed.
‘Hush!’ he said, in a low voice. ‘She was very ill last night. I thought
she would have broken her heart. She is dressed, and crying bitterly in
her own room; but she’s better, and quite quiet. That’s everything!’
‘She is ready, is she?’ said Ralph.
‘Quite ready,’ returned the father.
‘And not likely to delay us by any young-lady weaknesses--fainting, or
so forth?’ said Ralph.
‘She may be safely trusted now,’ returned Bray. ‘I have been talking to
her this morning. Here! Come a little this way.’
He drew Ralph Nickleby to the further end of the room, and pointed
towards Gride, who sat huddled together in a corner, fumbling nervously
with the buttons of his coat, and exhibiting a face, of which every
skulking and base expression was sharpened and aggravated to the utmost
by his anxiety and trepidation.
‘Look at that man,’ whispered Bray, emphatically. ‘This seems a cruel
thing, after all.’
‘What seems a cruel thing?’ inquired Ralph, with as much stolidity of
face, as if he really were in utter ignorance of the other’s meaning.
‘This marriage,’ answered Bray. ‘Don’t ask me what. You know as well as
I do.’
Ralph shrugged his shoulders, in silent deprecation of Bray’s
impatience, and elevated his eyebrows, and pursed his lips, as men do
when they are prepared with a sufficient answer to some remark, but wait
for a more favourable opportunity of advancing it, or think it scarcely
worth while to answer their adversary at all.
‘Look at him. Does it not seem cruel?’ said Bray.
‘No!’ replied Ralph, boldly.
‘I say it does,’ retorted Bray, with a show of much irritation. ‘It is a
cruel thing, by all that’s bad and treacherous!’
When men are about to commit, or to sanction the commission of some
injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object
either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at
the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those
who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above
works, and is very comfortable. To do Ralph Nickleby justice, he seldom
practised this sort of dissimulation; but he understood those who
did, and therefore suffered Bray to say, again and again, with great
vehemence, that they were jointly doing a very cruel thing, before he
again offered to interpose a word.
‘You see what a dry, shrivelled, withered old chip it is,’ returned
Ralph, when the other was at length silent. ‘If he were younger, it
might be cruel, but as it is--harkee, Mr. Bray, he’ll die soon, and leave
her a rich young widow! Miss Madeline consults your tastes this time;
let her consult her own next.’
‘True, true,’ said Bray, biting his nails, and plainly very ill at ease.
‘I couldn’t do anything better for her than advise her to accept these
proposals, could I? Now, I ask you, Nickleby, as a man of the world;
could I?’
‘Surely not,’ answered Ralph. ‘I tell you what, sir; there are a hundred
fathers, within a circuit of five miles from this place; well off; good,
rich, substantial men; who would gladly give their daughters, and their
own ears with them, to that very man yonder, ape and mummy as he looks.’
‘So there are!’ exclaimed Bray, eagerly catching at anything which
seemed a justification of himself. ‘And so I told her, both last night
and today.’
‘You told her truth,’ said Ralph, ‘and did well to do so; though I
must say, at the same time, that if I had a daughter, and my freedom,
pleasure, nay, my very health and life, depended on her taking a husband
whom I pointed out, I should hope it would not be necessary to advance
any other arguments to induce her to consent to my wishes.’
Bray looked at Ralph as if to see whether he spoke in earnest, and
having nodded twice or thrice in unqualified assent to what had fallen
from him, said:
‘I must go upstairs for a few minutes, to finish dressing. When I come
down, I’ll bring Madeline with me. Do you know, I had a very strange
dream last night, which I have not remembered till this instant. I
dreamt that it was this morning, and you and I had been talking as we
have been this minute; that I went upstairs, for the very purpose
for which I am going now; and that as I stretched out my hand to take
Madeline’s, and lead her down, the floor sunk with me, and after falling
from such an indescribable and tremendous height as the imagination
scarcely conceives, except in dreams, I alighted in a grave.’
‘And you awoke, and found you were lying on your back, or with your head
hanging over the bedside, or suffering some pain from indigestion?’ said
Ralph. ‘Pshaw, Mr. Bray! Do as I do (you will have the opportunity, now
that a constant round of pleasure and enjoyment opens upon you), and,
occupying yourself a little more by day, have no time to think of what
you dream by night.’
Ralph followed him, with a steady look, to the door; and, turning to the
bridegroom, when they were again alone, said,
‘Mark my words, Gride, you won’t have to pay HIS annuity very long. You
have the devil’s luck in bargains, always. If he is not booked to make
the long voyage before many months are past and gone, I wear an orange
for a head!’
To this prophecy, so agreeable to his ears, Arthur returned no answer
than a cackle of great delight. Ralph, throwing himself into a chair,
they both sat waiting in profound silence. Ralph was thinking, with a
sneer upon his lips, on the altered manner of Bray that day, and
how soon their fellowship in a bad design had lowered his pride and
established a familiarity between them, when his attentive ear caught
the rustling of a female dress upon the stairs, and the footstep of a
man.
‘Wake up,’ he said, stamping his foot impatiently upon the ground, ‘and
be something like life, man, will you? They are here. Urge those dry old
bones of yours this way. Quick, man, quick!’
Gride shambled forward, and stood, leering and bowing, close by Ralph’s
side, when the door opened and there entered in haste--not Bray and his
daughter, but Nicholas and his sister Kate.
If some tremendous apparition from the world of shadows had suddenly
presented itself before him, Ralph Nickleby could not have been more
thunder-stricken than he was by this surprise. His hands fell powerless
by his side, he reeled back; and with open mouth, and a face of
ashy paleness, stood gazing at them in speechless rage: his eyes so
prominent, and his face so convulsed and changed by the passions which
raged within him, that it would have been difficult to recognise in him
the same stern, composed, hard-featured man he had been not a minute
ago.
‘The man that came to me last night,’ whispered Gride, plucking at his
elbow. ‘The man that came to me last night!’
‘I see,’ muttered Ralph, ‘I know! I might have guessed as much before.
Across my every path, at every turn, go where I will, do what I may, he
comes!’
The absence of all colour from the face; the dilated nostril; the
quivering of the lips which, though set firmly against each other, would
not be still; showed what emotions were struggling for the mastery
with Nicholas. But he kept them down, and gently pressing Kate’s arm
to reassure her, stood erect and undaunted, front to front with his
unworthy relative.
As the brother and sister stood side by side, with a gallant bearing
which became them well, a close likeness between them was apparent,
which many, had they only seen them apart, might have failed to remark.
The air, carriage, and very look and expression of the brother were all
reflected in the sister, but softened and refined to the nicest limit
of feminine delicacy and attraction. More striking still was some
indefinable resemblance, in the face of Ralph, to both. While they had
never looked more handsome, nor he more ugly; while they had never held
themselves more proudly, nor he shrunk half so low; there never had been
a time when this resemblance was so perceptible, or when all the worst
characteristics of a face rendered coarse and harsh by evil thoughts
were half so manifest as now.
‘Away!’ was the first word he could utter as he literally gnashed his
teeth. ‘Away! What brings you here? Liar, scoundrel, dastard, thief!’
‘I come here,’ said Nicholas in a low deep voice, ‘to save your victim
if I can. Liar and scoundrel you are, in every action of your life;
theft is your trade; and double dastard you must be, or you were not
here today. Hard words will not move me, nor would hard blows. Here I
stand, and will, till I have done my errand.’
‘Girl!’ said Ralph, ‘retire! We can use force to him, but I would not
hurt you if I could help it. Retire, you weak and silly wench, and leave
this dog to be dealt with as he deserves.’
‘I will not retire,’ cried Kate, with flashing eyes and the red blood
mantling in her cheeks. ‘You will do him no hurt that he will not repay.
You may use force with me; I think you will, for I AM a girl, and that
would well become you. But if I have a girl’s weakness, I have a woman’s
heart, and it is not you who in a cause like this can turn that from its
purpose.’
‘And what may your purpose be, most lofty lady?’ said Ralph.
‘To offer to the unhappy subject of your treachery, at this last