Nicholas Nickleby
‘Ha! ha! demmit,’ cried the gentleman; when, wheeling round to laugh
with greater elegance, he encountered Kate Nickleby, who was standing
near.
‘My niece,’ said Ralph.
‘I remember,’ said the gentleman, striking his nose with the knuckle
of his forefinger as a chastening for his forgetfulness. ‘Demmit, I
remember what you come for. Step this way, Nickleby; my dear, will you
follow me? Ha! ha! They all follow me, Nickleby; always did, demmit,
always.’
Giving loose to the playfulness of his imagination, after this fashion,
the gentleman led the way to a private sitting-room on the second floor,
scarcely less elegantly furnished than the apartment below, where the
presence of a silver coffee-pot, an egg-shell, and sloppy china for one,
seemed to show that he had just breakfasted.
‘Sit down, my dear,’ said the gentleman: first staring Miss Nickleby out
of countenance, and then grinning in delight at the achievement.
‘This cursed high room takes one’s breath away. These infernal sky
parlours--I’m afraid I must move, Nickleby.’
‘I would, by all means,’ replied Ralph, looking bitterly round.
‘What a demd rum fellow you are, Nickleby,’ said the gentleman, ‘the
demdest, longest-headed, queerest-tempered old coiner of gold and silver
ever was--demmit.’
Having complimented Ralph to this effect, the gentleman rang the bell,
and stared at Miss Nickleby until it was answered, when he left off to
bid the man desire his mistress to come directly; after which, he began
again, and left off no more until Madame Mantalini appeared.
The dressmaker was a buxom person, handsomely dressed and rather
good-looking, but much older than the gentleman in the Turkish trousers,
whom she had wedded some six months before. His name was originally
Muntle; but it had been converted, by an easy transition, into
Mantalini: the lady rightly considering that an English appellation
would be of serious injury to the business. He had married on his
whiskers; upon which property he had previously subsisted, in a genteel
manner, for some years; and which he had recently improved, after
patient cultivation by the addition of a moustache, which promised
to secure him an easy independence: his share in the labours of
the business being at present confined to spending the money, and
occasionally, when that ran short, driving to Mr. Ralph Nickleby to
procure discount--at a percentage--for the customers’ bills.
‘My life,’ said Mr. Mantalini, ‘what a demd devil of a time you have
been!’
‘I didn’t even know Mr. Nickleby was here, my love,’ said Madame
Mantalini.
‘Then what a doubly demd infernal rascal that footman must be, my soul,’
remonstrated Mr. Mantalini.
‘My dear,’ said Madame, ‘that is entirely your fault.’
‘My fault, my heart’s joy?’
‘Certainly,’ returned the lady; ‘what can you expect, dearest, if you
will not correct the man?’
‘Correct the man, my soul’s delight!’
‘Yes; I am sure he wants speaking to, badly enough,’ said Madame,
pouting.
‘Then do not vex itself,’ said Mr. Mantalini; ‘he shall be horse-whipped
till he cries out demnebly.’ With this promise Mr. Mantalini kissed
Madame Mantalini, and, after that performance, Madame Mantalini pulled
Mr. Mantalini playfully by the ear: which done, they descended to
business.
‘Now, ma’am,’ said Ralph, who had looked on, at all this, with such
scorn as few men can express in looks, ‘this is my niece.’
‘Just so, Mr. Nickleby,’ replied Madame Mantalini, surveying Kate from
head to foot, and back again. ‘Can you speak French, child?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied Kate, not daring to look up; for she felt that the
eyes of the odious man in the dressing-gown were directed towards her.
‘Like a demd native?’ asked the husband.
Miss Nickleby offered no reply to this inquiry, but turned her back upon
the questioner, as if addressing herself to make answer to what his wife
might demand.
‘We keep twenty young women constantly employed in the establishment,’
said Madame.
‘Indeed, ma’am!’ replied Kate, timidly.
‘Yes; and some of ‘em demd handsome, too,’ said the master.
‘Mantalini!’ exclaimed his wife, in an awful voice.
‘My senses’ idol!’ said Mantalini.
‘Do you wish to break my heart?’
‘Not for twenty thousand hemispheres populated with--with--with little
ballet-dancers,’ replied Mantalini in a poetical strain.
‘Then you will, if you persevere in that mode of speaking,’ said his
wife. ‘What can Mr. Nickleby think when he hears you?’
‘Oh! Nothing, ma’am, nothing,’ replied Ralph. ‘I know his amiable
nature, and yours,--mere little remarks that give a zest to your daily
intercourse--lovers’ quarrels that add sweetness to those domestic joys
which promise to last so long--that’s all; that’s all.’
If an iron door could be supposed to quarrel with its hinges, and to
make a firm resolution to open with slow obstinacy, and grind them to
powder in the process, it would emit a pleasanter sound in so doing,
than did these words in the rough and bitter voice in which they were
uttered by Ralph. Even Mr. Mantalini felt their influence, and turning
affrighted round, exclaimed: ‘What a demd horrid croaking!’
‘You will pay no attention, if you please, to what Mr. Mantalini says,’
observed his wife, addressing Miss Nickleby.
‘I do not, ma’am,’ said Kate, with quiet contempt.
‘Mr. Mantalini knows nothing whatever about any of the young women,’
continued Madame, looking at her husband, and speaking to Kate. ‘If he
has seen any of them, he must have seen them in the street, going to, or
returning from, their work, and not here. He was never even in the room.
I do not allow it. What hours of work have you been accustomed to?’
‘I have never yet been accustomed to work at all, ma’am,’ replied Kate,
in a low voice.
‘For which reason she’ll work all the better now,’ said Ralph, putting
in a word, lest this confession should injure the negotiation.
‘I hope so,’ returned Madame Mantalini; ‘our hours are from nine to
nine, with extra work when we’re very full of business, for which I
allow payment as overtime.’
Kate bowed her head, to intimate that she heard, and was satisfied.
‘Your meals,’ continued Madame Mantalini, ‘that is, dinner and tea, you
will take here. I should think your wages would average from five to
seven shillings a week; but I can’t give you any certain information on
that point, until I see what you can do.’
Kate bowed her head again.
‘If you’re ready to come,’ said Madame Mantalini, ‘you had better begin
on Monday morning at nine exactly, and Miss Knag the forewoman shall
then have directions to try you with some easy work at first. Is there
anything more, Mr. Nickleby?’
‘Nothing more, ma’am,’ replied Ralph, rising.
‘Then I believe that’s all,’ said the lady. Having arrived at this
natural conclusion, she looked at the door, as if she wished to be
gone, but hesitated notwithstanding, as though unwilling to leave to Mr
Mantalini the sole honour of showing them downstairs. Ralph relieved
her from her perplexity by taking his departure without delay: Madame
Mantalini making many gracious inquiries why he never came to see them;
and Mr. Mantalini anathematising the stairs with great volubility as he
followed them down, in the hope of inducing Kate to look round,--a hope,
however, which was destined to remain ungratified.
‘There!’ said Ralph when they got into the street; ‘now you’re provided
for.’
Kate was about to thank him again, but he stopped her.
‘I had some idea,’ he said, ‘of providing for your mother in a pleasant
part of the country--(he had a presentation to some almshouses on the
borders of Cornwall, which had occurred to him more than once)--but as
you want to be together, I must do something else for her. She has a
little money?’
‘A very little,’ replied Kate.
‘A little will go a long way if it’s used sparingly,’ said Ralph. ‘She
must see how long she can make it last, living rent free. You leave your
lodgings on Saturday?’
‘You told us to do so, uncle.’
‘Yes; there is a house empty that belongs to me, which I can put you
into till it is let, and then, if nothing else turns up, perhaps I shall
have another. You must live there.’
‘Is it far from here, sir?’ inquired Kate.
‘Pretty well,’ said Ralph; ‘in another quarter of the town--at the East
end; but I’ll send my clerk down to you, at five o’clock on Saturday, to
take you there. Goodbye. You know your way? Straight on.’
Coldly shaking his niece’s hand, Ralph left her at the top of Regent
Street, and turned down a by-thoroughfare, intent on schemes of
money-getting. Kate walked sadly back to their lodgings in the Strand.
CHAPTER 11
Newman Noggs inducts Mrs. and Miss Nickleby into their New Dwelling in
the City
Miss Nickleby’s reflections, as she wended her way homewards, were of
that desponding nature which the occurrences of the morning had been
sufficiently calculated to awaken. Her uncle’s was not a manner likely
to dispel any doubts or apprehensions she might have formed, in the
outset, neither was the glimpse she had had of Madame Mantalini’s
establishment by any means encouraging. It was with many gloomy
forebodings and misgivings, therefore, that she looked forward, with a
heavy heart, to the opening of her new career.
If her mother’s consolations could have restored her to a pleasanter and
more enviable state of mind, there were abundance of them to produce the
effect. By the time Kate reached home, the good lady had called to mind
two authentic cases of milliners who had been possessed of considerable
property, though whether they had acquired it all in business, or had
had a capital to start with, or had been lucky and married to advantage,
she could not exactly remember. However, as she very logically remarked,
there must have been SOME young person in that way of business who had
made a fortune without having anything to begin with, and that being
taken for granted, why should not Kate do the same? Miss La Creevy, who
was a member of the little council, ventured to insinuate some doubts
relative to the probability of Miss Nickleby’s arriving at this happy
consummation in the compass of an ordinary lifetime; but the good lady
set that question entirely at rest, by informing them that she had a
presentiment on the subject--a species of second-sight with which she
had been in the habit of clenching every argument with the deceased
Mr. Nickleby, and, in nine cases and three-quarters out of every ten,
determining it the wrong way.
‘I am afraid it is an unhealthy occupation,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘I
recollect getting three young milliners to sit to me, when I first began
to paint, and I remember that they were all very pale and sickly.’
‘Oh! that’s not a general rule by any means,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby;
‘for I remember, as well as if it was only yesterday, employing one that
I was particularly recommended to, to make me a scarlet cloak at the
time when scarlet cloaks were fashionable, and she had a very red
face--a very red face, indeed.’
‘Perhaps she drank,’ suggested Miss La Creevy.
‘I don’t know how that may have been,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby: ‘but I
know she had a very red face, so your argument goes for nothing.’
In this manner, and with like powerful reasoning, did the worthy matron
meet every little objection that presented itself to the new scheme of
the morning. Happy Mrs. Nickleby! A project had but to be new, and it
came home to her mind, brightly varnished and gilded as a glittering
toy.
This question disposed of, Kate communicated her uncle’s desire about
the empty house, to which Mrs. Nickleby assented with equal readiness,
characteristically remarking, that, on the fine evenings, it would be a
pleasant amusement for her to walk to the West end to fetch her daughter