Nicholas Nickleby
places, frightened at the solitude. One had a dead bird in a little
cage; he had wandered nearly twenty miles, and when his poor favourite
died, lost courage, and lay down beside him. Another was discovered in a
yard hard by the school, sleeping with a dog, who bit at those who came
to remove him, and licked the sleeping child’s pale face.
They were taken back, and some other stragglers were recovered, but
by degrees they were claimed, or lost again; and, in course of time,
Dotheboys Hall and its last breaking-up began to be forgotten by the
neighbours, or to be only spoken of as among the things that had been.
CHAPTER 65
Conclusion
When her term of mourning had expired, Madeline gave her hand and
fortune to Nicholas; and, on the same day and at the same time, Kate
became Mrs. Frank Cheeryble. It was expected that Tim Linkinwater and
Miss La Creevy would have made a third couple on the occasion, but
they declined, and two or three weeks afterwards went out together one
morning before breakfast, and, coming back with merry faces, were found
to have been quietly married that day.
The money which Nicholas acquired in right of his wife he invested in
the firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which Frank had become a partner.
Before many years elapsed, the business began to be carried on in the
names of ‘Cheeryble and Nickleby,’ so that Mrs. Nickleby’s prophetic
anticipations were realised at last.
The twin brothers retired. Who needs to be told that THEY were happy?
They were surrounded by happiness of their own creation, and lived but
to increase it.
Tim Linkinwater condescended, after much entreaty and brow-beating, to
accept a share in the house; but he could never be prevailed upon to
suffer the publication of his name as a partner, and always persisted in
the punctual and regular discharge of his clerkly duties.
He and his wife lived in the old house, and occupied the very bedchamber
in which he had slept for four-and-forty years. As his wife grew older,
she became even a more cheerful and light-hearted little creature; and
it was a common saying among their friends, that it was impossible
to say which looked the happier, Tim as he sat calmly smiling in his
elbow-chair on one side of the fire, or his brisk little wife chatting
and laughing, and constantly bustling in and out of hers, on the other.
Dick, the blackbird, was removed from the counting-house and promoted
to a warm corner in the common sitting-room. Beneath his cage hung two
miniatures, of Mrs. Linkinwater’s execution; one representing herself,
and the other Tim; and both smiling very hard at all beholders. Tim’s
head being powdered like a twelfth cake, and his spectacles copied with
great nicety, strangers detected a close resemblance to him at the first
glance, and this leading them to suspect that the other must be his
wife, and emboldening them to say so without scruple, Mrs. Linkinwater
grew very proud of these achievements in time, and considered them
among the most successful likenesses she had ever painted. Tim had
the profoundest faith in them, likewise; for on this, as on all
other subjects, they held but one opinion; and if ever there were a
‘comfortable couple’ in the world, it was Mr. and Mrs. Linkinwater.
Ralph, having died intestate, and having no relations but those with
whom he had lived in such enmity, they would have become in legal course
his heirs. But they could not bear the thought of growing rich on money
so acquired, and felt as though they could never hope to prosper with
it. They made no claim to his wealth; and the riches for which he had
toiled all his days, and burdened his soul with so many evil deeds, were
swept at last into the coffers of the state, and no man was the better
or the happier for them.
Arthur Gride was tried for the unlawful possession of the will, which
he had either procured to be stolen, or had dishonestly acquired and
retained by other means as bad. By dint of an ingenious counsel, and
a legal flaw, he escaped; but only to undergo a worse punishment;
for, some years afterwards, his house was broken open in the night by
robbers, tempted by the rumours of his great wealth, and he was found
murdered in his bed.
Mrs. Sliderskew went beyond the seas at nearly the same time as Mr
Squeers, and in the course of nature never returned. Brooker died
penitent. Sir Mulberry Hawk lived abroad for some years, courted and
caressed, and in high repute as a fine dashing fellow. Ultimately,
returning to this country, he was thrown into jail for debt, and there
perished miserably, as such high spirits generally do.
The first act of Nicholas, when he became a rich and prosperous
merchant, was to buy his father’s old house. As time crept on, and there
came gradually about him a group of lovely children, it was altered and
enlarged; but none of the old rooms were ever pulled down, no old tree
was ever rooted up, nothing with which there was any association of
bygone times was ever removed or changed.
Within a stone’s throw was another retreat, enlivened by children’s
pleasant voices too; and here was Kate, with many new cares and
occupations, and many new faces courting her sweet smile (and one so
like her own, that to her mother she seemed a child again), the same
true gentle creature, the same fond sister, the same in the love of all
about her, as in her girlish days.
Mrs. Nickleby lived, sometimes with her daughter, and sometimes with her
son, accompanying one or other of them to London at those periods when
the cares of business obliged both families to reside there, and always
preserving a great appearance of dignity, and relating her experiences
(especially on points connected with the management and bringing-up of
children) with much solemnity and importance. It was a very long time
before she could be induced to receive Mrs. Linkinwater into favour, and
it is even doubtful whether she ever thoroughly forgave her.
There was one grey-haired, quiet, harmless gentleman, who, winter and
summer, lived in a little cottage hard by Nicholas’s house, and, when
he was not there, assumed the superintendence of affairs. His chief
pleasure and delight was in the children, with whom he was a child
himself, and master of the revels. The little people could do nothing
without dear Newman Noggs.
The grass was green above the dead boy’s grave, and trodden by feet
so small and light, that not a daisy drooped its head beneath their
pressure. Through all the spring and summertime, garlands of fresh
flowers, wreathed by infant hands, rested on the stone; and, when the
children came to change them lest they should wither and be pleasant
to him no longer, their eyes filled with tears, and they spoke low and
softly of their poor dead cousin.