Nicholas Nickleby
‘Weel,’ said John with a grin that even the collar could not conceal.
‘I beg your pardon,’ interposed Miss Squeers, hastening to do the
honours. ‘Mr. Nickleby--Mr. John Browdie.’
‘Servant, sir,’ said John, who was something over six feet high, with a
face and body rather above the due proportion than below it.
‘Yours to command, sir,’ replied Nicholas, making fearful ravages on the
bread and butter.
Mr. Browdie was not a gentleman of great conversational powers, so
he grinned twice more, and having now bestowed his customary mark
of recognition on every person in company, grinned at nothing in
particular, and helped himself to food.
‘Old wooman awa’, bean’t she?’ said Mr. Browdie, with his mouth full.
Miss Squeers nodded assent.
Mr. Browdie gave a grin of special width, as if he thought that really
was something to laugh at, and went to work at the bread and butter with
increased vigour. It was quite a sight to behold how he and Nicholas
emptied the plate between them.
‘Ye wean’t get bread and butther ev’ry neight, I expect, mun,’ said Mr
Browdie, after he had sat staring at Nicholas a long time over the empty
plate.
Nicholas bit his lip, and coloured, but affected not to hear the remark.
‘Ecod,’ said Mr. Browdie, laughing boisterously, ‘they dean’t put too
much intiv’em. Ye’ll be nowt but skeen and boans if you stop here long
eneaf. Ho! ho! ho!’
‘You are facetious, sir,’ said Nicholas, scornfully.
‘Na; I dean’t know,’ replied Mr. Browdie, ‘but t’oother teacher, ‘cod
he wur a learn ‘un, he wur.’ The recollection of the last teacher’s
leanness seemed to afford Mr. Browdie the most exquisite delight, for he
laughed until he found it necessary to apply his coat-cuffs to his eyes.
‘I don’t know whether your perceptions are quite keen enough, Mr
Browdie, to enable you to understand that your remarks are offensive,’
said Nicholas in a towering passion, ‘but if they are, have the goodness
to--’
‘If you say another word, John,’ shrieked Miss Price, stopping her
admirer’s mouth as he was about to interrupt, ‘only half a word, I’ll
never forgive you, or speak to you again.’
‘Weel, my lass, I dean’t care aboot ‘un,’ said the corn-factor,
bestowing a hearty kiss on Miss Matilda; ‘let ‘un gang on, let ‘un gang
on.’
It now became Miss Squeers’s turn to intercede with Nicholas, which she
did with many symptoms of alarm and horror; the effect of the double
intercession was, that he and John Browdie shook hands across the table
with much gravity; and such was the imposing nature of the ceremonial,
that Miss Squeers was overcome and shed tears.
‘What’s the matter, Fanny?’ said Miss Price.
‘Nothing, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, sobbing.
‘There never was any danger,’ said Miss Price, ‘was there, Mr. Nickleby?’
‘None at all,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Absurd.’
‘That’s right,’ whispered Miss Price, ‘say something kind to her,
and she’ll soon come round. Here! Shall John and I go into the little
kitchen, and come back presently?’
‘Not on any account,’ rejoined Nicholas, quite alarmed at the
proposition. ‘What on earth should you do that for?’
‘Well,’ said Miss Price, beckoning him aside, and speaking with some
degree of contempt--‘you ARE a one to keep company.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Nicholas; ‘I am not a one to keep company at
all--here at all events. I can’t make this out.’
‘No, nor I neither,’ rejoined Miss Price; ‘but men are always fickle,
and always were, and always will be; that I can make out, very easily.’
‘Fickle!’ cried Nicholas; ‘what do you suppose? You don’t mean to say
that you think--’
‘Oh no, I think nothing at all,’ retorted Miss Price, pettishly.
‘Look at her, dressed so beautiful and looking so well--really ALMOST
handsome. I am ashamed at you.’
‘My dear girl, what have I got to do with her dressing beautifully or
looking well?’ inquired Nicholas.
‘Come, don’t call me a dear girl,’ said Miss Price--smiling a little
though, for she was pretty, and a coquette too in her small way, and
Nicholas was good-looking, and she supposed him the property of somebody
else, which were all reasons why she should be gratified to think she
had made an impression on him,--‘or Fanny will be saying it’s my fault.
Come; we’re going to have a game at cards.’ Pronouncing these last words
aloud, she tripped away and rejoined the big Yorkshireman.
This was wholly unintelligible to Nicholas, who had no other distinct
impression on his mind at the moment, than that Miss Squeers was an
ordinary-looking girl, and her friend Miss Price a pretty one; but he
had not time to enlighten himself by reflection, for the hearth being
by this time swept up, and the candle snuffed, they sat down to play
speculation.
‘There are only four of us, ‘Tilda,’ said Miss Squeers, looking slyly at
Nicholas; ‘so we had better go partners, two against two.’
‘What do you say, Mr. Nickleby?’ inquired Miss Price.
‘With all the pleasure in life,’ replied Nicholas. And so saying, quite
unconscious of his heinous offence, he amalgamated into one common heap
those portions of a Dotheboys Hall card of terms, which represented his
own counters, and those allotted to Miss Price, respectively.
‘Mr. Browdie,’ said Miss Squeers hysterically, ‘shall we make a bank
against them?’
The Yorkshireman assented--apparently quite overwhelmed by the new
usher’s impudence--and Miss Squeers darted a spiteful look at her
friend, and giggled convulsively.
The deal fell to Nicholas, and the hand prospered.
‘We intend to win everything,’ said he.
‘’Tilda HAS won something she didn’t expect, I think, haven’t you,
dear?’ said Miss Squeers, maliciously.
‘Only a dozen and eight, love,’ replied Miss Price, affecting to take
the question in a literal sense.
‘How dull you are tonight!’ sneered Miss Squeers.
‘No, indeed,’ replied Miss Price, ‘I am in excellent spirits. I was
thinking YOU seemed out of sorts.’
‘Me!’ cried Miss Squeers, biting her lips, and trembling with very
jealousy. ‘Oh no!’
‘That’s well,’ remarked Miss Price. ‘Your hair’s coming out of curl,
dear.’
‘Never mind me,’ tittered Miss Squeers; ‘you had better attend to your
partner.’
‘Thank you for reminding her,’ said Nicholas. ‘So she had.’
The Yorkshireman flattened his nose, once or twice, with his clenched
fist, as if to keep his hand in, till he had an opportunity of
exercising it upon the features of some other gentleman; and Miss
Squeers tossed her head with such indignation, that the gust of wind
raised by the multitudinous curls in motion, nearly blew the candle out.
‘I never had such luck, really,’ exclaimed coquettish Miss Price, after
another hand or two. ‘It’s all along of you, Mr. Nickleby, I think. I
should like to have you for a partner always.’
‘I wish you had.’
‘You’ll have a bad wife, though, if you always win at cards,’ said Miss
Price.
‘Not if your wish is gratified,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I am sure I shall
have a good one in that case.’
To see how Miss Squeers tossed her head, and the corn-factor flattened
his nose, while this conversation was carrying on! It would have been
worth a small annuity to have beheld that; let alone Miss Price’s
evident joy at making them jealous, and Nicholas Nickleby’s happy
unconsciousness of making anybody uncomfortable.
‘We have all the talking to ourselves, it seems,’ said Nicholas, looking
good-humouredly round the table as he took up the cards for a fresh
deal.
‘You do it so well,’ tittered Miss Squeers, ‘that it would be a pity to
interrupt, wouldn’t it, Mr. Browdie? He! he! he!’
‘Nay,’ said Nicholas, ‘we do it in default of having anybody else to
talk to.’
‘We’ll talk to you, you know, if you’ll say anything,’ said Miss Price.
‘Thank you, ‘Tilda, dear,’ retorted Miss Squeers, majestically.
‘Or you can talk to each other, if you don’t choose to talk to us,’
said Miss Price, rallying her dear friend. ‘John, why don’t you say
something?’
‘Say summat?’ repeated the Yorkshireman.
‘Ay, and not sit there so silent and glum.’
‘Weel, then!’ said the Yorkshireman, striking the table heavily with his
fist, ‘what I say’s this--Dang my boans and boddy, if I stan’ this ony
longer. Do ye gang whoam wi’ me, and do yon loight an’ toight young
whipster look sharp out for a brokken head, next time he cums under my
hond.’
‘Mercy on us, what’s all this?’ cried Miss Price, in affected
astonishment.
‘Cum whoam, tell ‘e, cum whoam,’ replied the Yorkshireman, sternly. And
as he delivered the reply, Miss Squeers burst into a shower of tears;
arising in part from desperate vexation, and in part from an impotent
desire to lacerate somebody’s countenance with her fair finger-nails.
This state of things had been brought about by divers means and
workings. Miss Squeers had brought it about, by aspiring to the high
state and condition of being matrimonially engaged, without good grounds
for so doing; Miss Price had brought it about, by indulging in three
motives of action: first, a desire to punish her friend for laying
claim to a rivalship in dignity, having no good title: secondly, the
gratification of her own vanity, in receiving the compliments of a smart
young man: and thirdly, a wish to convince the corn-factor of the great
danger he ran, in deferring the celebration of their expected nuptials;
while Nicholas had brought it about, by half an hour’s gaiety and
thoughtlessness, and a very sincere desire to avoid the imputation of
inclining at all to Miss Squeers. So the means employed, and the end
produced, were alike the most natural in the world; for young ladies
will look forward to being married, and will jostle each other in the
race to the altar, and will avail themselves of all opportunities of
displaying their own attractions to the best advantage, down to the very
end of time, as they have done from its beginning.
‘Why, and here’s Fanny in tears now!’ exclaimed Miss Price, as if in
fresh amazement. ‘What can be the matter?’
‘Oh! you don’t know, miss, of course you don’t know. Pray don’t trouble
yourself to inquire,’ said Miss Squeers, producing that change of
countenance which children call making a face.
‘Well, I’m sure!’ exclaimed Miss Price.
‘And who cares whether you are sure or not, ma’am?’ retorted Miss
Squeers, making another face.
‘You are monstrous polite, ma’am,’ said Miss Price.
‘I shall not come to you to take lessons in the art, ma’am!’ retorted
Miss Squeers.
‘You needn’t take the trouble to make yourself plainer than you
are, ma’am, however,’ rejoined Miss Price, ‘because that’s quite
unnecessary.’
Miss Squeers, in reply, turned very red, and thanked God that she
hadn’t got the bold faces of some people. Miss Price, in rejoinder,
congratulated herself upon not being possessed of the envious feeling of
other people; whereupon Miss Squeers made some general remark touching
the danger of associating with low persons; in which Miss Price entirely
coincided: observing that it was very true indeed, and she had thought
so a long time.
‘’Tilda,’ exclaimed Miss Squeers with dignity, ‘I hate you.’
‘Ah! There’s no love lost between us, I assure you,’ said Miss Price,
tying her bonnet strings with a jerk. ‘You’ll cry your eyes out, when
I’m gone; you know you will.’
‘I scorn your words, Minx,’ said Miss Squeers.
‘You pay me a great compliment when you say so,’ answered the miller’s
daughter, curtseying very low. ‘Wish you a very good-night, ma’am, and
pleasant dreams attend your sleep!’
With this parting benediction, Miss Price swept from the room, followed
by the huge Yorkshireman, who exchanged with Nicholas, at parting, that
peculiarly expressive scowl with which the cut-and-thrust counts, in
melodramatic performances, inform each other they will meet again.