Nicholas Nickleby
‘There is something missing, you say,’ said Ralph, shaking him furiously
by the collar. ‘What is it?’
‘Papers, deeds. I am a ruined man. Lost, lost! I am robbed, I am ruined!
She saw me reading it--reading it of late--I did very often--She watched
me, saw me put it in the box that fitted into this, the box is gone, she
has stolen it. Damnation seize her, she has robbed me!’
‘Of WHAT?’ cried Ralph, on whom a sudden light appeared to break, for
his eyes flashed and his frame trembled with agitation as he clutched
Gride by his bony arm. ‘Of what?’
‘She don’t know what it is; she can’t read!’ shrieked Gride, not heeding
the inquiry. ‘There’s only one way in which money can be made of it, and
that is by taking it to her. Somebody will read it for her, and tell her
what to do. She and her accomplice will get money for it and be let off
besides; they’ll make a merit of it--say they found it--knew it--and be
evidence against me. The only person it will fall upon is me, me, me!’
‘Patience!’ said Ralph, clutching him still tighter and eyeing him with
a sidelong look, so fixed and eager as sufficiently to denote that he
had some hidden purpose in what he was about to say. ‘Hear reason.
She can’t have been gone long. I’ll call the police. Do you but give
information of what she has stolen, and they’ll lay hands upon her,
trust me. Here! Help!’
‘No, no, no!’ screamed the old man, putting his hand on Ralph’s mouth.
‘I can’t, I daren’t.’
‘Help! help!’ cried Ralph.
‘No, no, no!’ shrieked the other, stamping on the ground with the energy
of a madman. ‘I tell you no. I daren’t, I daren’t!’
‘Daren’t make this robbery public?’ said Ralph.
‘No!’ rejoined Gride, wringing his hands. ‘Hush! Hush! Not a word of
this; not a word must be said. I am undone. Whichever way I turn, I am
undone. I am betrayed. I shall be given up. I shall die in Newgate!’
With frantic exclamations such as these, and with many others in which
fear, grief, and rage, were strangely blended, the panic-stricken wretch
gradually subdued his first loud outcry, until it had softened down into
a low despairing moan, chequered now and then by a howl, as, going over
such papers as were left in the chest, he discovered some new loss.
With very little excuse for departing so abruptly, Ralph left him, and,
greatly disappointing the loiterers outside the house by telling them
there was nothing the matter, got into the coach, and was driven to his
own home.
A letter lay on his table. He let it lie there for some time, as if he
had not the courage to open it, but at length did so and turned deadly
pale.
‘The worst has happened,’ he said; ‘the house has failed. I see. The
rumour was abroad in the city last night, and reached the ears of those
merchants. Well, well!’
He strode violently up and down the room and stopped again.
‘Ten thousand pounds! And only lying there for a day--for one day! How
many anxious years, how many pinching days and sleepless nights, before
I scraped together that ten thousand pounds!--Ten thousand pounds! How
many proud painted dames would have fawned and smiled, and how many
spendthrift blockheads done me lip-service to my face and cursed me in
their hearts, while I turned that ten thousand pounds into twenty! While
I ground, and pinched, and used these needy borrowers for my pleasure
and profit, what smooth-tongued speeches, and courteous looks, and civil
letters, they would have given me! The cant of the lying world is,
that men like me compass our riches by dissimulation and treachery:
by fawning, cringing, and stooping. Why, how many lies, what mean and
abject evasions, what humbled behaviour from upstarts who, but for my
money, would spurn me aside as they do their betters every day, would
that ten thousand pounds have brought me in! Grant that I had doubled
it--made cent. per cent.--for every sovereign told another--there would
not be one piece of money in all the heap which wouldn’t represent ten
thousand mean and paltry lies, told, not by the money-lender, oh no!
but by the money-borrowers, your liberal, thoughtless, generous, dashing
folks, who wouldn’t be so mean as save a sixpence for the world!’
Striving, as it would seem, to lose part of the bitterness of his
regrets in the bitterness of these other thoughts, Ralph continued to
pace the room. There was less and less of resolution in his manner as
his mind gradually reverted to his loss; at length, dropping into his
elbow-chair and grasping its sides so firmly that they creaked again, he
said:
‘The time has been when nothing could have moved me like the loss of
this great sum. Nothing. For births, deaths, marriages, and all
the events which are of interest to most men, have (unless they are
connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me. But now, I
swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it. If he had
brought it about,--I almost feel as if he had,--I couldn’t hate him
more. Let me but retaliate upon him, by degrees, however slow--let me
but begin to get the better of him, let me but turn the scale--and I can
bear it.’
His meditations were long and deep. They terminated in his dispatching
a letter by Newman, addressed to Mr. Squeers at the Saracen’s Head, with
instructions to inquire whether he had arrived in town, and, if so, to
wait an answer. Newman brought back the information that Mr. Squeers had
come by mail that morning, and had received the letter in bed; but
that he sent his duty, and word that he would get up and wait upon Mr
Nickleby directly.
The interval between the delivery of this message, and the arrival of Mr
Squeers, was very short; but, before he came, Ralph had suppressed every
sign of emotion, and once more regained the hard, immovable, inflexible
manner which was habitual to him, and to which, perhaps, was ascribable
no small part of the influence which, over many men of no very strong
prejudices on the score of morality, he could exert, almost at will.
‘Well, Mr. Squeers,’ he said, welcoming that worthy with his accustomed
smile, of which a sharp look and a thoughtful frown were part and
parcel: ‘how do YOU do?’
‘Why, sir,’ said Mr. Squeers, ‘I’m pretty well. So’s the family, and so’s
the boys, except for a sort of rash as is a running through the school,
and rather puts ‘em off their feed. But it’s a ill wind as blows no good
to nobody; that’s what I always say when them lads has a wisitation. A
wisitation, sir, is the lot of mortality. Mortality itself, sir, is a
wisitation. The world is chock full of wisitations; and if a boy repines
at a wisitation and makes you uncomfortable with his noise, he must have
his head punched. That’s going according to the Scripter, that is.’
‘Mr. Squeers,’ said Ralph, drily.
‘Sir.’
‘We’ll avoid these precious morsels of morality if you please, and talk
of business.’
‘With all my heart, sir,’ rejoined Squeers, ‘and first let me say--’
‘First let ME say, if you please.--Noggs!’
Newman presented himself when the summons had been twice or thrice
repeated, and asked if his master called.
‘I did. Go to your dinner. And go at once. Do you hear?’
‘It an’t time,’ said Newman, doggedly.
‘My time is yours, and I say it is,’ returned Ralph.
‘You alter it every day,’ said Newman. ‘It isn’t fair.’
‘You don’t keep many cooks, and can easily apologise to them for the
trouble,’ retorted Ralph. ‘Begone, sir!’
Ralph not only issued this order in his most peremptory manner, but,
under pretence of fetching some papers from the little office, saw
it obeyed, and, when Newman had left the house, chained the door, to
prevent the possibility of his returning secretly, by means of his
latch-key.
‘I have reason to suspect that fellow,’ said Ralph, when he returned
to his own office. ‘Therefore, until I have thought of the shortest and
least troublesome way of ruining him, I hold it best to keep him at a
distance.’
‘It wouldn’t take much to ruin him, I should think,’ said Squeers, with
a grin.
‘Perhaps not,’ answered Ralph. ‘Nor to ruin a great many people whom I
know. You were going to say--?’
Ralph’s summary and matter-of-course way of holding up this example,
and throwing out the hint that followed it, had evidently an effect (as
doubtless it was designed to have) upon Mr. Squeers, who said, after a
little hesitation and in a much more subdued tone:
‘Why, what I was a-going to say, sir, is, that this here business
regarding of that ungrateful and hard-hearted chap, Snawley senior,
puts me out of my way, and occasions a inconveniency quite unparalleled,
besides, as I may say, making, for whole weeks together, Mrs. Squeers a
perfect widder. It’s a pleasure to me to act with you, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Ralph, drily.
‘Yes, I say of course,’ resumed Mr. Squeers, rubbing his knees, ‘but at
the same time, when one comes, as I do now, better than two hundred
and fifty mile to take a afferdavid, it does put a man out a good deal,
letting alone the risk.’
‘And where may the risk be, Mr. Squeers?’ said Ralph.
‘I said, letting alone the risk,’ replied Squeers, evasively.
‘And I said, where was the risk?’
‘I wasn’t complaining, you know, Mr. Nickleby,’ pleaded Squeers. ‘Upon my
word I never see such a--’
‘I ask you where is the risk?’ repeated Ralph, emphatically.
‘Where the risk?’ returned Squeers, rubbing his knees still harder.
‘Why, it an’t necessary to mention. Certain subjects is best awoided.
Oh, you know what risk I mean.’
‘How often have I told you,’ said Ralph, ‘and how often am I to tell
you, that you run no risk? What have you sworn, or what are you asked to
swear, but that at such and such a time a boy was left with you in the
name of Smike; that he was at your school for a given number of years,
was lost under such and such circumstances, is now found, and has been
identified by you in such and such keeping? This is all true; is it
not?’
‘Yes,’ replied Squeers, ‘that’s all true.’
‘Well, then,’ said Ralph, ‘what risk do you run? Who swears to a lie but
Snawley; a man whom I have paid much less than I have you?’
‘He certainly did it cheap, did Snawley,’ observed Squeers.
‘He did it cheap!’ retorted Ralph, testily; ‘yes, and he did it well,
and carries it off with a hypocritical face and a sanctified air, but
you! Risk! What do you mean by risk? The certificates are all genuine,
Snawley HAD another son, he HAS been married twice, his first wife IS
dead, none but her ghost could tell that she didn’t write that letter,
none but Snawley himself can tell that this is not his son, and that his
son is food for worms! The only perjury is Snawley’s, and I fancy he is
pretty well used to it. Where’s your risk?’
‘Why, you know,’ said Squeers, fidgeting in his chair, ‘if you come to
that, I might say where’s yours?’
‘You might say where’s mine!’ returned Ralph; ‘you may say where’s mine.
I don’t appear in the business, neither do you. All Snawley’s interest
is to stick well to the story he has told; and all his risk is, to
depart from it in the least. Talk of YOUR risk in the conspiracy!’
‘I say,’ remonstrated Squeers, looking uneasily round: ‘don’t call it
that! Just as a favour, don’t.’
‘Call it what you like,’ said Ralph, irritably, ‘but attend to me. This
tale was originally fabricated as a means of annoyance against one who
hurt your trade and half cudgelled you to death, and to enable you to
obtain repossession of a half-dead drudge, whom you wished to regain,
because, while you wreaked your vengeance on him for his share in the
business, you knew that the knowledge that he was again in your power
would be the best punishment you could inflict upon your enemy. Is that
so, Mr. Squeers?’
‘Why, sir,’ returned Squeers, almost overpowered by the determination