Nicholas Nickleby
and be able to assure him that all was safe. But Mr. Squeers had not been
there for ten days, and all that the people could tell about him was,
that he had left his luggage and his bill.
Disturbed by a thousand fears and surmises, and bent upon ascertaining
whether Squeers had any suspicion of Snawley, or was, in any way, a
party to this altered behaviour, Ralph determined to hazard the
extreme step of inquiring for him at the Lambeth lodging, and having an
interview with him even there. Bent upon this purpose, and in that mood
in which delay is insupportable, he repaired at once to the place; and
being, by description, perfectly acquainted with the situation of his
room, crept upstairs and knocked gently at the door.
Not one, nor two, nor three, nor yet a dozen knocks, served to convince
Ralph, against his wish, that there was nobody inside. He reasoned that
he might be asleep; and, listening, almost persuaded himself that he
could hear him breathe. Even when he was satisfied that he could not be
there, he sat patiently on a broken stair and waited; arguing, that he
had gone out upon some slight errand, and must soon return.
Many feet came up the creaking stairs; and the step of some seemed to
his listening ear so like that of the man for whom he waited, that Ralph
often stood up to be ready to address him when he reached the top; but,
one by one, each person turned off into some room short of the place
where he was stationed: and at every such disappointment he felt quite
chilled and lonely.
At length he felt it was hopeless to remain, and going downstairs again,
inquired of one of the lodgers if he knew anything of Mr. Squeers’s
movements--mentioning that worthy by an assumed name which had been
agreed upon between them. By this lodger he was referred to another, and
by him to someone else, from whom he learnt, that, late on the previous
night, he had gone out hastily with two men, who had shortly afterwards
returned for the old woman who lived on the same floor; and that,
although the circumstance had attracted the attention of the informant,
he had not spoken to them at the time, nor made any inquiry afterwards.
This possessed him with the idea that, perhaps, Peg Sliderskew had been
apprehended for the robbery, and that Mr. Squeers, being with her at the
time, had been apprehended also, on suspicion of being a confederate. If
this were so, the fact must be known to Gride; and to Gride’s house he
directed his steps; now thoroughly alarmed, and fearful that there were
indeed plots afoot, tending to his discomfiture and ruin.
Arrived at the usurer’s house, he found the windows close shut, the
dingy blinds drawn down; all was silent, melancholy, and deserted. But
this was its usual aspect. He knocked--gently at first--then loud and
vigorously. Nobody came. He wrote a few words in pencil on a card, and
having thrust it under the door was going away, when a noise above, as
though a window-sash were stealthily raised, caught his ear, and looking
up he could just discern the face of Gride himself, cautiously peering
over the house parapet from the window of the garret. Seeing who was
below, he drew it in again; not so quickly, however, but that Ralph let
him know he was observed, and called to him to come down.
The call being repeated, Gride looked out again, so cautiously that no
part of the old man’s body was visible. The sharp features and white
hair appearing alone, above the parapet, looked like a severed head
garnishing the wall.
‘Hush!’ he cried. ‘Go away, go away!’
‘Come down,’ said Ralph, beckoning him.
‘Go a--way!’ squeaked Gride, shaking his head in a sort of ecstasy of
impatience. ‘Don’t speak to me, don’t knock, don’t call attention to the
house, but go away.’
‘I’ll knock, I swear, till I have your neighbours up in arms,’ said
Ralph, ‘if you don’t tell me what you mean by lurking there, you whining
cur.’
‘I can’t hear what you say--don’t talk to me--it isn’t safe--go away--go
away!’ returned Gride.
‘Come down, I say. Will you come down?’ said Ralph fiercely.
‘No--o--o--oo,’ snarled Gride. He drew in his head; and Ralph, left
standing in the street, could hear the sash closed, as gently and
carefully as it had been opened.
‘How is this,’ said he, ‘that they all fall from me, and shun me like
the plague, these men who have licked the dust from my feet? IS my
day past, and is this indeed the coming on of night? I’ll know what it
means! I will, at any cost. I am firmer and more myself, just now, than
I have been these many days.’
Turning from the door, which, in the first transport of his rage, he had
meditated battering upon until Gride’s very fears should impel him
to open it, he turned his face towards the city, and working his way
steadily through the crowd which was pouring from it (it was by this
time between five and six o’clock in the afternoon) went straight to the
house of business of the brothers Cheeryble, and putting his head into
the glass case, found Tim Linkinwater alone.
‘My name’s Nickleby,’ said Ralph.
‘I know it,’ replied Tim, surveying him through his spectacles.
‘Which of your firm was it who called on me this morning?’ demanded
Ralph.
‘Mr. Charles.’
‘Then, tell Mr. Charles I want to see him.’
‘You shall see,’ said Tim, getting off his stool with great agility,
‘you shall see, not only Mr. Charles, but Mr. Ned likewise.’
Tim stopped, looked steadily and severely at Ralph, nodded his head
once, in a curt manner which seemed to say there was a little more
behind, and vanished. After a short interval, he returned, and, ushering
Ralph into the presence of the two brothers, remained in the room
himself.
‘I want to speak to you, who spoke to me this morning,’ said Ralph,
pointing out with his finger the man whom he addressed.
‘I have no secrets from my brother Ned, or from Tim Linkinwater,’
observed brother Charles quietly.
‘I have,’ said Ralph.
‘Mr. Nickleby, sir,’ said brother Ned, ‘the matter upon which my brother
Charles called upon you this morning is one which is already perfectly
well known to us three, and to others besides, and must unhappily
soon become known to a great many more. He waited upon you, sir, this
morning, alone, as a matter of delicacy and consideration. We feel, now,
that further delicacy and consideration would be misplaced; and, if we
confer together, it must be as we are or not at all.’
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Ralph with a curl of the lip, ‘talking in
riddles would seem to be the peculiar forte of you two, and I suppose
your clerk, like a prudent man, has studied the art also with a view to
your good graces. Talk in company, gentlemen, in God’s name. I’ll humour
you.’
‘Humour!’ cried Tim Linkinwater, suddenly growing very red in the face.
‘He’ll humour us! He’ll humour Cheeryble Brothers! Do you hear that? Do
you hear him? DO you hear him say he’ll humour Cheeryble Brothers?’
‘Tim,’ said Charles and Ned together, ‘pray, Tim, pray now, don’t.’
Tim, taking the hint, stifled his indignation as well as he could,
and suffered it to escape through his spectacles, with the additional
safety-valve of a short hysterical laugh now and then, which seemed to
relieve him mightily.
‘As nobody bids me to a seat,’ said Ralph, looking round, ‘I’ll take
one, for I am fatigued with walking. And now, if you please, gentlemen,
I wish to know--I demand to know; I have the right--what you have to
say to me, which justifies such a tone as you have assumed, and that
underhand interference in my affairs which, I have reason to suppose,
you have been practising. I tell you plainly, gentlemen, that little as
I care for the opinion of the world (as the slang goes), I don’t choose
to submit quietly to slander and malice. Whether you suffer yourselves
to be imposed upon too easily, or wilfully make yourselves parties to
it, the result to me is the same. In either case, you can’t expect from
a plain man like myself much consideration or forbearance.’
So coolly and deliberately was this said, that nine men out of ten,
ignorant of the circumstances, would have supposed Ralph to be really
an injured man. There he sat, with folded arms; paler than usual,
certainly, and sufficiently ill-favoured, but quite collected--far more
so than the brothers or the exasperated Tim--and ready to face out the
worst.
‘Very well, sir,’ said brother Charles. ‘Very well. Brother Ned, will
you ring the bell?’
‘Charles, my dear fellow! stop one instant,’ returned the other. ‘It
will be better for Mr. Nickleby and for our object that he should remain
silent, if he can, till we have said what we have to say. I wish him to
understand that.’
‘Quite right, quite right,’ said brother Charles.
Ralph smiled, but made no reply. The bell was rung; the room-door
opened; a man came in, with a halting walk; and, looking round, Ralph’s
eyes met those of Newman Noggs. From that moment, his heart began to
fail him.
‘This is a good beginning,’ he said bitterly. ‘Oh! this is a good
beginning. You are candid, honest, open-hearted, fair-dealing men! I
always knew the real worth of such characters as yours! To tamper with a
fellow like this, who would sell his soul (if he had one) for drink, and
whose every word is a lie. What men are safe if this is done? Oh, it’s a
good beginning!’
‘I WILL speak,’ cried Newman, standing on tiptoe to look over
Tim’s head, who had interposed to prevent him. ‘Hallo, you sir--old
Nickleby!--what do you mean when you talk of “a fellow like this”? Who
made me “a fellow like this”? If I would sell my soul for drink, why
wasn’t I a thief, swindler, housebreaker, area sneak, robber of pence
out of the trays of blind men’s dogs, rather than your drudge and
packhorse? If my every word was a lie, why wasn’t I a pet and favourite
of yours? Lie! When did I ever cringe and fawn to you. Tell me that!
I served you faithfully. I did more work, because I was poor, and took
more hard words from you because I despised you and them, than any
man you could have got from the parish workhouse. I did. I served you
because I was proud; because I was a lonely man with you, and there were
no other drudges to see my degradation; and because nobody knew, better
than you, that I was a ruined man: that I hadn’t always been what I
am: and that I might have been better off, if I hadn’t been a fool and
fallen into the hands of you and others who were knaves. Do you deny
that?’
‘Gently,’ reasoned Tim; ‘you said you wouldn’t.’
‘I said I wouldn’t!’ cried Newman, thrusting him aside, and moving his
hand as Tim moved, so as to keep him at arm’s length; ‘don’t tell me!
Here, you Nickleby! Don’t pretend not to mind me; it won’t do; I know
better. You were talking of tampering, just now. Who tampered with
Yorkshire schoolmasters, and, while they sent the drudge out, that he
shouldn’t overhear, forgot that such great caution might render him
suspicious, and that he might watch his master out at nights, and might
set other eyes to watch the schoolmaster? Who tampered with a selfish
father, urging him to sell his daughter to old Arthur Gride, and
tampered with Gride too, and did so in the little office, WITH A CLOSET
IN THE ROOM?’
Ralph had put a great command upon himself; but he could not have
suppressed a slight start, if he had been certain to be beheaded for it
next moment.
‘Aha!’ cried Newman, ‘you mind me now, do you? What first set this fag
to be jealous of his master’s actions, and to feel that, if he hadn’t
crossed him when he might, he would have been as bad as he, or worse?
That master’s cruel treatment of his own flesh and blood, and vile
designs upon a young girl who interested even his broken-down, drunken,
miserable hack, and made him linger in his service, in the hope of doing