Nicholas Nickleby
‘’Tilda’s friends are low people, and if she don’t know any better, it’s
their fault, and not hers.’
‘Well, but you know, miss,’ said Phoebe, for which name ‘Phib’ was
used as a patronising abbreviation, ‘if she was only to take copy by
a friend--oh! if she only knew how wrong she was, and would but set
herself right by you, what a nice young woman she might be in time!’
‘Phib,’ rejoined Miss Squeers, with a stately air, ‘it’s not proper
for me to hear these comparisons drawn; they make ‘Tilda look a coarse
improper sort of person, and it seems unfriendly in me to listen to
them. I would rather you dropped the subject, Phib; at the same time,
I must say, that if ‘Tilda Price would take pattern by somebody--not me
particularly--’
‘Oh yes; you, miss,’ interposed Phib.
‘Well, me, Phib, if you will have it so,’ said Miss Squeers. ‘I must
say, that if she would, she would be all the better for it.’
‘So somebody else thinks, or I am much mistaken,’ said the girl
mysteriously.
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Miss Squeers.
‘Never mind, miss,’ replied the girl; ‘I know what I know; that’s all.’
‘Phib,’ said Miss Squeers dramatically, ‘I insist upon your explaining
yourself. What is this dark mystery? Speak.’
‘Why, if you will have it, miss, it’s this,’ said the servant girl. ‘Mr
John Browdie thinks as you think; and if he wasn’t too far gone to do
it creditable, he’d be very glad to be off with Miss Price, and on with
Miss Squeers.’
‘Gracious heavens!’ exclaimed Miss Squeers, clasping her hands with
great dignity. ‘What is this?’
‘Truth, ma’am, and nothing but truth,’ replied the artful Phib.
‘What a situation!’ cried Miss Squeers; ‘on the brink of unconsciously
destroying the peace and happiness of my own ‘Tilda. What is the reason
that men fall in love with me, whether I like it or not, and desert
their chosen intendeds for my sake?’
‘Because they can’t help it, miss,’ replied the girl; ‘the reason’s
plain.’ (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very plain.)
‘Never let me hear of it again,’ retorted Miss Squeers. ‘Never! Do you
hear? ‘Tilda Price has faults--many faults--but I wish her well, and
above all I wish her married; for I think it highly desirable--most
desirable from the very nature of her failings--that she should be
married as soon as possible. No, Phib. Let her have Mr. Browdie. I may
pity HIM, poor fellow; but I have a great regard for ‘Tilda, and only
hope she may make a better wife than I think she will.’
With this effusion of feeling, Miss Squeers went to bed.
Spite is a little word; but it represents as strange a jumble of
feelings, and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in the language.
Miss Squeers knew as well in her heart of hearts that what the miserable
serving-girl had said was sheer, coarse, lying flattery, as did the girl
herself; yet the mere opportunity of venting a little ill-nature against
the offending Miss Price, and affecting to compassionate her weaknesses
and foibles, though only in the presence of a solitary dependant, was
almost as great a relief to her spleen as if the whole had been gospel
truth. Nay, more. We have such extraordinary powers of persuasion
when they are exerted over ourselves, that Miss Squeers felt quite
high-minded and great after her noble renunciation of John Browdie’s
hand, and looked down upon her rival with a kind of holy calmness and
tranquillity, that had a mighty effect in soothing her ruffled feelings.
This happy state of mind had some influence in bringing about a
reconciliation; for, when a knock came at the front-door next day, and
the miller’s daughter was announced, Miss Squeers betook herself to the
parlour in a Christian frame of spirit, perfectly beautiful to behold.
‘Well, Fanny,’ said the miller’s daughter, ‘you see I have come to see
you, although we HAD some words last night.’
‘I pity your bad passions, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘but I bear no
malice. I am above it.’
‘Don’t be cross, Fanny,’ said Miss Price. ‘I have come to tell you
something that I know will please you.’
‘What may that be, ‘Tilda?’ demanded Miss Squeers; screwing up her lips,
and looking as if nothing in earth, air, fire, or water, could afford
her the slightest gleam of satisfaction.
‘This,’ rejoined Miss Price. ‘After we left here last night John and I
had a dreadful quarrel.’
‘That doesn’t please me,’ said Miss Squeers--relaxing into a smile
though.
‘Lor! I wouldn’t think so bad of you as to suppose it did,’ rejoined her
companion. ‘That’s not it.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Squeers, relapsing into melancholy. ‘Go on.’
‘After a great deal of wrangling, and saying we would never see each
other any more,’ continued Miss Price, ‘we made it up, and this morning
John went and wrote our names down to be put up, for the first time,
next Sunday, so we shall be married in three weeks, and I give you
notice to get your frock made.’
There was mingled gall and honey in this intelligence. The prospect of
the friend’s being married so soon was the gall, and the certainty of
her not entertaining serious designs upon Nicholas was the honey. Upon
the whole, the sweet greatly preponderated over the bitter, so Miss
Squeers said she would get the frock made, and that she hoped ‘Tilda
might be happy, though at the same time she didn’t know, and would not
have her build too much upon it, for men were strange creatures, and
a great many married women were very miserable, and wished themselves
single again with all their hearts; to which condolences Miss Squeers
added others equally calculated to raise her friend’s spirits and
promote her cheerfulness of mind.
‘But come now, Fanny,’ said Miss Price, ‘I want to have a word or two
with you about young Mr. Nickleby.’
‘He is nothing to me,’ interrupted Miss Squeers, with hysterical
symptoms. ‘I despise him too much!’
‘Oh, you don’t mean that, I am sure?’ replied her friend. ‘Confess,
Fanny; don’t you like him now?’
Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once, fell into
a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she was a wretched,
neglected, miserable castaway.
‘I hate everybody,’ said Miss Squeers, ‘and I wish that everybody was
dead--that I do.’
‘Dear, dear,’ said Miss Price, quite moved by this avowal of
misanthropical sentiments. ‘You are not serious, I am sure.’
‘Yes, I am,’ rejoined Miss Squeers, tying tight knots in her
pocket-handkerchief and clenching her teeth. ‘And I wish I was dead too.
There!’
‘Oh! you’ll think very differently in another five minutes,’ said
Matilda. ‘How much better to take him into favour again, than to hurt
yourself by going on in that way. Wouldn’t it be much nicer, now,
to have him all to yourself on good terms, in a company-keeping,
love-making, pleasant sort of manner?’
‘I don’t know but what it would,’ sobbed Miss Squeers. ‘Oh! ‘Tilda, how
could you have acted so mean and dishonourable! I wouldn’t have believed
it of you, if anybody had told me.’
‘Heyday!’ exclaimed Miss Price, giggling. ‘One would suppose I had been
murdering somebody at least.’
‘Very nigh as bad,’ said Miss Squeers passionately.
‘And all this because I happen to have enough of good looks to make
people civil to me,’ cried Miss Price. ‘Persons don’t make their own
faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good one than it is other
people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ shrieked Miss Squeers, in her shrillest tone; ‘or
you’ll make me slap you, ‘Tilda, and afterwards I should be sorry for
it!’
It is needless to say, that, by this time, the temper of each young lady
was in some slight degree affected by the tone of her conversation,
and that a dash of personality was infused into the altercation, in
consequence. Indeed, the quarrel, from slight beginnings, rose to a
considerable height, and was assuming a very violent complexion,
when both parties, falling into a great passion of tears, exclaimed
simultaneously, that they had never thought of being spoken to in that
way: which exclamation, leading to a remonstrance, gradually brought
on an explanation: and the upshot was, that they fell into each other’s
arms and vowed eternal friendship; the occasion in question making the
fifty-second time of repeating the same impressive ceremony within a
twelvemonth.
Perfect amicability being thus restored, a dialogue naturally ensued
upon the number and nature of the garments which would be indispensable
for Miss Price’s entrance into the holy state of matrimony, when Miss
Squeers clearly showed that a great many more than the miller could,
or would, afford, were absolutely necessary, and could not decently
be dispensed with. The young lady then, by an easy digression, led
the discourse to her own wardrobe, and after recounting its principal
beauties at some length, took her friend upstairs to make inspection
thereof. The treasures of two drawers and a closet having been
displayed, and all the smaller articles tried on, it was time for Miss
Price to return home; and as she had been in raptures with all the
frocks, and had been stricken quite dumb with admiration of a new pink
scarf, Miss Squeers said in high good humour, that she would walk part
of the way with her, for the pleasure of her company; and off they went
together: Miss Squeers dilating, as they walked along, upon her father’s
accomplishments: and multiplying his income by ten, to give her friend
some faint notion of the vast importance and superiority of her family.
It happened that that particular time, comprising the short daily
interval which was suffered to elapse between what was pleasantly called
the dinner of Mr. Squeers’s pupils, and their return to the pursuit of
useful knowledge, was precisely the hour when Nicholas was accustomed
to issue forth for a melancholy walk, and to brood, as he sauntered
listlessly through the village, upon his miserable lot. Miss Squeers
knew this perfectly well, but had perhaps forgotten it, for when she
caught sight of that young gentleman advancing towards them, she evinced
many symptoms of surprise and consternation, and assured her friend that
she ‘felt fit to drop into the earth.’
‘Shall we turn back, or run into a cottage?’ asked Miss Price. ‘He don’t
see us yet.’
‘No, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘it is my duty to go through with
it, and I will!’
As Miss Squeers said this, in the tone of one who has made a high moral
resolution, and was, besides, taken with one or two chokes and catchings
of breath, indicative of feelings at a high pressure, her friend made no
further remark, and they bore straight down upon Nicholas, who, walking
with his eyes bent upon the ground, was not aware of their approach
until they were close upon him; otherwise, he might, perhaps, have taken
shelter himself.
‘Good-morning,’ said Nicholas, bowing and passing by.
‘He is going,’ murmured Miss Squeers. ‘I shall choke, ‘Tilda.’
‘Come back, Mr. Nickleby, do!’ cried Miss Price, affecting alarm at her
friend’s threat, but really actuated by a malicious wish to hear what
Nicholas would say; ‘come back, Mr. Nickleby!’
Mr. Nickleby came back, and looked as confused as might be, as he
inquired whether the ladies had any commands for him.
‘Don’t stop to talk,’ urged Miss Price, hastily; ‘but support her on the
other side. How do you feel now, dear?’
‘Better,’ sighed Miss Squeers, laying a beaver bonnet of a reddish brown
with a green veil attached, on Mr. Nickleby’s shoulder. ‘This foolish
faintness!’
‘Don’t call it foolish, dear,’ said Miss Price: her bright eye dancing
with merriment as she saw the perplexity of Nicholas; ‘you have no
reason to be ashamed of it. It’s those who are too proud to come round
again, without all this to-do, that ought to be ashamed.’