Nicholas Nickleby
‘My family!’ hiccuped Mr. Squeers, raising his eye to the ceiling: ‘my
daughter, as is at that age when all the sensibilities is a-coming out
strong in blow--my son as is the young Norval of private life, and the
pride and ornament of a doting willage--here’s a shock for my family!
The coat-of-arms of the Squeerses is tore, and their sun is gone down
into the ocean wave!’
‘You have been drinking,’ said Ralph, ‘and have not yet slept yourself
sober.’
‘I haven’t been drinking YOUR health, my codger,’ replied Mr. Squeers;
‘so you have nothing to do with that.’
Ralph suppressed the indignation which the schoolmaster’s altered and
insolent manner awakened, and asked again why he had not sent to him.
‘What should I get by sending to you?’ returned Squeers. ‘To be known to
be in with you wouldn’t do me a deal of good, and they won’t take bail
till they know something more of the case, so here am I hard and fast:
and there are you, loose and comfortable.’
‘And so must you be in a few days,’ retorted Ralph, with affected
good-humour. ‘They can’t hurt you, man.’
‘Why, I suppose they can’t do much to me, if I explain how it was that I
got into the good company of that there ca-daverous old Slider,’ replied
Squeers viciously, ‘who I wish was dead and buried, and resurrected and
dissected, and hung upon wires in a anatomical museum, before ever I’d
had anything to do with her. This is what him with the powdered head
says this morning, in so many words: “Prisoner! As you have been found
in company with this woman; as you were detected in possession of
this document; as you were engaged with her in fraudulently destroying
others, and can give no satisfactory account of yourself; I shall remand
you for a week, in order that inquiries may be made, and evidence got.
And meanwhile I can’t take any bail for your appearance.” Well then,
what I say now is, that I CAN give a satisfactory account of myself;
I can hand in the card of my establishment and say, “I am the Wackford
Squeers as is therein named, sir. I am the man as is guaranteed,
by unimpeachable references, to be a out-and-outer in morals and
uprightness of principle. Whatever is wrong in this business is no fault
of mine. I had no evil design in it, sir. I was not aware that anything
was wrong. I was merely employed by a friend, my friend Mr. Ralph
Nickleby, of Golden Square. Send for him, sir, and ask him what he has
to say; he’s the man; not me!”’
‘What document was it that you had?’ asked Ralph, evading, for the
moment, the point just raised.
‘What document? Why, THE document,’ replied Squeers. ‘The Madeline
What’s-her-name one. It was a will; that’s what it was.’
‘Of what nature, whose will, when dated, how benefiting her, to what
extent?’ asked Ralph hurriedly.
‘A will in her favour; that’s all I know,’ rejoined Squeers, ‘and that’s
more than you’d have known, if you’d had them bellows on your head. It’s
all owing to your precious caution that they got hold of it. If you had
let me burn it, and taken my word that it was gone, it would have been a
heap of ashes behind the fire, instead of being whole and sound, inside
of my great-coat.’
‘Beaten at every point!’ muttered Ralph.
‘Ah!’ sighed Squeers, who, between the brandy and water and his broken
head, wandered strangely, ‘at the delightful village of Dotheboys near
Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed,
furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed
in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry,
astronomy, trigonometry--this is a altered state of trigonomics, this
is! A double 1--all, everything--a cobbler’s weapon. U-p-up, adjective,
not down. S-q-u-double e-r-s-Squeers, noun substantive, a educator of
youth. Total, all up with Squeers!’
His running on, in this way, had afforded Ralph an opportunity of
recovering his presence of mind, which at once suggested to him
the necessity of removing, as far as possible, the schoolmaster’s
misgivings, and leading him to believe that his safety and best policy
lay in the preservation of a rigid silence.
‘I tell you, once again,’ he said, ‘they can’t hurt you. You shall have
an action for false imprisonment, and make a profit of this, yet. We
will devise a story for you that should carry you through twenty times
such a trivial scrape as this; and if they want security in a thousand
pounds for your reappearance in case you should be called upon, you
shall have it. All you have to do is, to keep back the truth. You’re a
little fuddled tonight, and may not be able to see this as clearly as
you would at another time; but this is what you must do, and you’ll need
all your senses about you; for a slip might be awkward.’
‘Oh!’ said Squeers, who had looked cunningly at him, with his head stuck
on one side, like an old raven. ‘That’s what I’m to do, is it? Now then,
just you hear a word or two from me. I an’t a-going to have any stories
made for me, and I an’t a-going to stick to any. If I find matters going
again me, I shall expect you to take your share, and I’ll take care you
do. You never said anything about danger. I never bargained for being
brought into such a plight as this, and I don’t mean to take it as quiet
as you think. I let you lead me on, from one thing to another, because
we had been mixed up together in a certain sort of a way, and if you had
liked to be ill-natured you might perhaps have hurt the business, and
if you liked to be good-natured you might throw a good deal in my way.
Well; if all goes right now, that’s quite correct, and I don’t mind it;
but if anything goes wrong, then times are altered, and I shall just say
and do whatever I think may serve me most, and take advice from nobody.
My moral influence with them lads,’ added Mr. Squeers, with deeper
gravity, ‘is a tottering to its basis. The images of Mrs. Squeers, my
daughter, and my son Wackford, all short of vittles, is perpetually
before me; every other consideration melts away and vanishes, in front
of these; the only number in all arithmetic that I know of, as a husband
and a father, is number one, under this here most fatal go!’
How long Mr. Squeers might have declaimed, or how stormy a discussion his
declamation might have led to, nobody knows. Being interrupted, at this
point, by the arrival of the coach and an attendant who was to bear
him company, he perched his hat with great dignity on the top of the
handkerchief that bound his head; and, thrusting one hand in his pocket,
and taking the attendant’s arm with the other, suffered himself to be
led forth.
‘As I supposed from his not sending!’ thought Ralph. ‘This fellow, I
plainly see through all his tipsy fooling, has made up his mind to turn
upon me. I am so beset and hemmed in, that they are not only all struck
with fear, but, like the beasts in the fable, have their fling at me
now, though time was, and no longer ago than yesterday too, when they
were all civility and compliance. But they shall not move me. I’ll not
give way. I will not budge one inch!’
He went home, and was glad to find his housekeeper complaining of
illness, that he might have an excuse for being alone and sending her
away to where she lived: which was hard by. Then, he sat down by the
light of a single candle, and began to think, for the first time, on all
that had taken place that day.
He had neither eaten nor drunk since last night, and, in addition to the
anxiety of mind he had undergone, had been travelling about, from place
to place almost incessantly, for many hours. He felt sick and exhausted,
but could taste nothing save a glass of water, and continued to sit with
his head upon his hand; not resting nor thinking, but laboriously
trying to do both, and feeling that every sense but one of weariness and
desolation, was for the time benumbed.
It was nearly ten o’clock when he heard a knocking at the door, and
still sat quiet as before, as if he could not even bring his thoughts to
bear upon that. It had been often repeated, and he had, several times,
heard a voice outside, saying there was a light in the window (meaning,
as he knew, his own candle), before he could rouse himself and go
downstairs.
‘Mr. Nickleby, there is terrible news for you, and I am sent to beg you
will come with me directly,’ said a voice he seemed to recognise. He
held his hand above his eyes, and, looking out, saw Tim Linkinwater on
the steps.
‘Come where?’ demanded Ralph.
‘To our house, where you came this morning. I have a coach here.’
‘Why should I go there?’ said Ralph.
‘Don’t ask me why, but pray come with me.’
‘Another edition of today!’ returned Ralph, making as though he would
shut the door.
‘No, no!’ cried Tim, catching him by the arm and speaking most
earnestly; ‘it is only that you may hear something that has occurred:
something very dreadful, Mr. Nickleby, which concerns you nearly. Do you
think I would tell you so or come to you like this, if it were not the
case?’
Ralph looked at him more closely. Seeing that he was indeed greatly
excited, he faltered, and could not tell what to say or think.
‘You had better hear this now, than at any other time,’ said Tim; ‘it
may have some influence with you. For Heaven’s sake come!’
Perhaps, at, another time, Ralph’s obstinacy and dislike would have
been proof against any appeal from such a quarter, however emphatically
urged; but now, after a moment’s hesitation, he went into the hall for
his hat, and returning, got into the coach without speaking a word.
Tim well remembered afterwards, and often said, that as Ralph Nickleby
went into the house for this purpose, he saw him, by the light of the
candle which he had set down upon a chair, reel and stagger like a
drunken man. He well remembered, too, that when he had placed his foot
upon the coach-steps, he turned round and looked upon him with a face so
ashy pale and so very wild and vacant that it made him shudder, and for
the moment almost afraid to follow. People were fond of saying that
he had some dark presentiment upon him then, but his emotion might,
perhaps, with greater show of reason, be referred to what he had
undergone that day.
A profound silence was observed during the ride. Arrived at their place
of destination, Ralph followed his conductor into the house, and into a
room where the two brothers were. He was so astounded, not to say awed,
by something of a mute compassion for himself which was visible in their
manner and in that of the old clerk, that he could scarcely speak.
Having taken a seat, however, he contrived to say, though in broken
words, ‘What--what have you to say to me--more than has been said
already?’
The room was old and large, very imperfectly lighted, and terminated in
a bay window, about which hung some heavy drapery. Casting his eyes in
this direction as he spoke, he thought he made out the dusky figure of
a man. He was confirmed in this impression by seeing that the object
moved, as if uneasy under his scrutiny.
‘Who’s that yonder?’ he said.
‘One who has conveyed to us, within these two hours, the intelligence
which caused our sending to you,’ replied brother Charles. ‘Let him be,
sir, let him be for the present.’
‘More riddles!’ said Ralph, faintly. ‘Well, sir?’
In turning his face towards the brothers he was obliged to avert it from
the window; but, before either of them could speak, he had looked round
again. It was evident that he was rendered restless and uncomfortable by
the presence of the unseen person; for he repeated this action several
times, and at length, as if in a nervous state which rendered him
positively unable to turn away from the place, sat so as to have it
opposite him, muttering as an excuse that he could not bear the light.