Nicholas Nickleby
was lighter and our hair not grey, we may be even thankful for the
trials that so endeared us to each other, and turned our lives into that
current, down which we shall have glided so peacefully and calmly. And
having caught some inkling of our story, the young people about us--as
young as you and I are now, Kate--may come to us for sympathy, and pour
distresses which hope and inexperience could scarcely feel enough for,
into the compassionate ears of the old bachelor brother and his maiden
sister.’
Kate smiled through her tears as Nicholas drew this picture; but they
were not tears of sorrow, although they continued to fall when he had
ceased to speak.
‘Am I not right, Kate?’ he said, after a short silence.
‘Quite, quite, dear brother; and I cannot tell you how happy I am that I
have acted as you would have had me.’
‘You don’t regret?’
‘N--n--no,’ said Kate timidly, tracing some pattern upon the ground with
her little foot. ‘I don’t regret having done what was honourable
and right, of course; but I do regret that this should have ever
happened--at least sometimes I regret it, and sometimes I--I don’t know
what I say; I am but a weak girl, Nicholas, and it has agitated me very
much.’
It is no vaunt to affirm that if Nicholas had had ten thousand pounds
at the minute, he would, in his generous affection for the owner of the
blushing cheek and downcast eye, have bestowed its utmost farthing, in
perfect forgetfulness of himself, to secure her happiness. But all he
could do was to comfort and console her by kind words; and words they
were of such love and kindness, and cheerful encouragement, that poor
Kate threw her arms about his neck, and declared she would weep no more.
‘What man,’ thought Nicholas proudly, while on his way, soon afterwards,
to the brothers’ house, ‘would not be sufficiently rewarded for any
sacrifice of fortune by the possession of such a heart as Kate’s, which,
but that hearts weigh light, and gold and silver heavy, is beyond all
praise? Frank has money, and wants no more. Where would it buy him such
a treasure as Kate? And yet, in unequal marriages, the rich party is
always supposed to make a great sacrifice, and the other to get a good
bargain! But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose
is pretty nearly the same.’
Checking thoughts so little adapted to the business on which he was
bound, by such self-reproofs as this and many others no less sturdy, he
proceeded on his way and presented himself before Tim Linkinwater.
‘Ah! Mr. Nickleby!’ cried Tim, ‘God bless you! how d’ye do? Well? Say
you’re quite well and never better. Do now.’
‘Quite,’ said Nicholas, shaking him by both hands.
‘Ah!’ said Tim, ‘you look tired though, now I come to look at you. Hark!
there he is, d’ye hear him? That was Dick, the blackbird. He hasn’t been
himself since you’ve been gone. He’d never get on without you, now; he
takes as naturally to you as he does to me.’
‘Dick is a far less sagacious fellow than I supposed him, if he thinks I
am half so well worthy of his notice as you,’ replied Nicholas.
‘Why, I’ll tell you what, sir,’ said Tim, standing in his favourite
attitude and pointing to the cage with the feather of his pen, ‘it’s a
very extraordinary thing about that bird, that the only people he ever
takes the smallest notice of, are Mr. Charles, and Mr. Ned, and you, and
me.’
Here, Tim stopped and glanced anxiously at Nicholas; then unexpectedly
catching his eye repeated, ‘And you and me, sir, and you and me.’ And
then he glanced at Nicholas again, and, squeezing his hand, said, ‘I am
a bad one at putting off anything I am interested in. I didn’t mean to
ask you, but I should like to hear a few particulars about that poor
boy. Did he mention Cheeryble Brothers at all?’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘many and many a time.’
‘That was right of him,’ returned Tim, wiping his eyes; ‘that was very
right of him.’
‘And he mentioned your name a score of times,’ said Nicholas, ‘and often
bade me carry back his love to Mr. Linkinwater.’
‘No, no, did he though?’ rejoined Tim, sobbing outright. ‘Poor fellow!
I wish we could have had him buried in town. There isn’t such a
burying-ground in all London as that little one on the other side of the
square--there are counting-houses all round it, and if you go in there,
on a fine day, you can see the books and safes through the open windows.
And he sent his love to me, did he? I didn’t expect he would have
thought of me. Poor fellow, poor fellow! His love too!’
Tim was so completely overcome by this little mark of recollection, that
he was quite unequal to any more conversation at the moment. Nicholas
therefore slipped quietly out, and went to brother Charles’s room.
If he had previously sustained his firmness and fortitude, it had been
by an effort which had cost him no little pain; but the warm welcome,
the hearty manner, the homely unaffected commiseration, of the good old
man, went to his heart, and no inward struggle could prevent his showing
it.
‘Come, come, my dear sir,’ said the benevolent merchant; ‘we must not
be cast down; no, no. We must learn to bear misfortune, and we must
remember that there are many sources of consolation even in death.
Every day that this poor lad had lived, he must have been less and
less qualified for the world, and more and more unhappy in is own
deficiencies. It is better as it is, my dear sir. Yes, yes, yes, it’s
better as it is.’
‘I have thought of all that, sir,’ replied Nicholas, clearing his
throat. ‘I feel it, I assure you.’
‘Yes, that’s well,’ replied Mr. Cheeryble, who, in the midst of all his
comforting, was quite as much taken aback as honest old Tim; ‘that’s
well. Where is my brother Ned? Tim Linkinwater, sir, where is my brother
Ned?’
‘Gone out with Mr. Trimmers, about getting that unfortunate man into the
hospital, and sending a nurse to his children,’ said Tim.
‘My brother Ned is a fine fellow, a great fellow!’ exclaimed brother
Charles as he shut the door and returned to Nicholas. ‘He will be
overjoyed to see you, my dear sir. We have been speaking of you every
day.’
‘To tell you the truth, sir, I am glad to find you alone,’ said
Nicholas, with some natural hesitation; ‘for I am anxious to say
something to you. Can you spare me a very few minutes?’
‘Surely, surely,’ returned brother Charles, looking at him with an
anxious countenance. ‘Say on, my dear sir, say on.’
‘I scarcely know how, or where, to begin,’ said Nicholas. ‘If ever one
mortal had reason to be penetrated with love and reverence for another:
with such attachment as would make the hardest service in his behalf a
pleasure and delight: with such grateful recollections as must rouse the
utmost zeal and fidelity of his nature: those are the feelings which I
should entertain for you, and do, from my heart and soul, believe me!’
‘I do believe you,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘and I am happy in
the belief. I have never doubted it; I never shall. I am sure I never
shall.’
‘Your telling me that so kindly,’ said Nicholas, ‘emboldens me to
proceed. When you first took me into your confidence, and dispatched me
on those missions to Miss Bray, I should have told you that I had seen
her long before; that her beauty had made an impression upon me which I
could not efface; and that I had fruitlessly endeavoured to trace her,
and become acquainted with her history. I did not tell you so, because
I vainly thought I could conquer my weaker feelings, and render every
consideration subservient to my duty to you.’
‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said brother Charles, ‘you did not violate the confidence
I placed in you, or take an unworthy advantage of it. I am sure you did
not.’
‘I did not,’ said Nicholas, firmly. ‘Although I found that the necessity
for self-command and restraint became every day more imperious, and the
difficulty greater, I never, for one instant, spoke or looked but as I
would have done had you been by. I never, for one moment, deserted my
trust, nor have I to this instant. But I find that constant association
and companionship with this sweet girl is fatal to my peace of mind, and
may prove destructive to the resolutions I made in the beginning, and up
to this time have faithfully kept. In short, sir, I cannot trust myself,
and I implore and beseech you to remove this young lady from under the
charge of my mother and sister without delay. I know that to anyone but
myself--to you, who consider the immeasurable distance between me and
this young lady, who is now your ward, and the object of your peculiar
care--my loving her, even in thought, must appear the height of rashness
and presumption. I know it is so. But who can see her as I have seen,
who can know what her life has been, and not love her? I have no excuse
but that; and as I cannot fly from this temptation, and cannot repress
this passion, with its object constantly before me, what can I do but
pray and beseech you to remove it, and to leave me to forget her?’
‘Mr. Nickleby,’ said the old man, after a short silence, ‘you can do no
more. I was wrong to expose a young man like you to this trial. I might
have foreseen what would happen. Thank you, sir, thank you. Madeline
shall be removed.’
‘If you would grant me one favour, dear sir, and suffer her to remember
me with esteem, by never revealing to her this confession--’
‘I will take care,’ said Mr. Cheeryble. ‘And now, is this all you have to
tell me?’
‘No!’ returned Nicholas, meeting his eye, ‘it is not.’
‘I know the rest,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, apparently very much relieved by
this prompt reply. ‘When did it come to your knowledge?’
‘When I reached home this morning.’
‘You felt it your duty immediately to come to me, and tell me what your
sister no doubt acquainted you with?’
‘I did,’ said Nicholas, ‘though I could have wished to have spoken to Mr
Frank first.’
‘Frank was with me last night,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘You have
done well, Mr. Nickleby--very well, sir--and I thank you again.’
Upon this head, Nicholas requested permission to add a few words. He
ventured to hope that nothing he had said would lead to the estrangement
of Kate and Madeline, who had formed an attachment for each other, any
interruption of which would, he knew, be attended with great pain to
them, and, most of all, with remorse and pain to him, as its unhappy
cause. When these things were all forgotten, he hoped that Frank and he
might still be warm friends, and that no word or thought of his humble
home, or of her who was well contented to remain there and share his
quiet fortunes, would ever again disturb the harmony between them. He
recounted, as nearly as he could, what had passed between himself
and Kate that morning: speaking of her with such warmth of pride and
affection, and dwelling so cheerfully upon the confidence they had of
overcoming any selfish regrets and living contented and happy in each
other’s love, that few could have heard him unmoved. More moved
himself than he had been yet, he expressed in a few hurried words--as
expressive, perhaps, as the most eloquent phrases--his devotion to the
brothers, and his hope that he might live and die in their service.
To all this, brother Charles listened in profound silence, and with his
chair so turned from Nicholas that his face could not be seen. He
had not spoken either, in his accustomed manner, but with a certain
stiffness and embarrassment very foreign to it. Nicholas feared he had
offended him. He said, ‘No, no, he had done quite right,’ but that was
all.
‘Frank is a heedless, foolish fellow,’ he said, after Nicholas had
paused for some time; ‘a very heedless, foolish fellow. I will take care
that this is brought to a close without delay. Let us say no more upon