Nicholas Nickleby
it is--but I don’t understand it, that’s all; and what’s more, I don’t
care if I never do. It’s my way to speak my mind, Kenwigs, and that is
my mind; and if you don’t like it, it’s past my regular time for going
to bed, and I can find my way home without making it later.’
Here was an untoward event! The collector had sat swelling and fuming
in offended dignity for some minutes, and had now fairly burst out. The
great man--the rich relation--the unmarried uncle--who had it in his
power to make Morleena an heiress, and the very baby a legatee--was
offended. Gracious Powers, where was this to end!
‘I am very sorry, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, humbly.
‘Don’t tell me you’re sorry,’ retorted Mr. Lillyvick, with much
sharpness. ‘You should have prevented it, then.’
The company were quite paralysed by this domestic crash. The
back-parlour sat with her mouth wide open, staring vacantly at the
collector, in a stupor of dismay; the other guests were scarcely less
overpowered by the great man’s irritation. Mr. Kenwigs, not being skilful
in such matters, only fanned the flame in attempting to extinguish it.
‘I didn’t think of it, I am sure, sir,’ said that gentleman. ‘I didn’t
suppose that such a little thing as a glass of punch would have put you
out of temper.’
‘Out of temper! What the devil do you mean by that piece of
impertinence, Mr. Kenwigs?’ said the collector. ‘Morleena, child--give me
my hat.’
‘Oh, you’re not going, Mr. Lillyvick, sir,’ interposed Miss Petowker,
with her most bewitching smile.
But still Mr. Lillyvick, regardless of the siren, cried obdurately,
‘Morleena, my hat!’ upon the fourth repetition of which demand, Mrs
Kenwigs sunk back in her chair, with a cry that might have softened a
water-butt, not to say a water-collector; while the four little girls
(privately instructed to that effect) clasped their uncle’s drab shorts
in their arms, and prayed him, in imperfect English, to remain.
‘Why should I stop here, my dears?’ said Mr. Lillyvick; ‘I’m not wanted
here.’
‘Oh, do not speak so cruelly, uncle,’ sobbed Mrs. Kenwigs, ‘unless you
wish to kill me.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder if some people were to say I did,’ replied Mr
Lillyvick, glancing angrily at Kenwigs. ‘Out of temper!’
‘Oh! I cannot bear to see him look so, at my husband,’ cried Mrs
Kenwigs. ‘It’s so dreadful in families. Oh!’
‘Mr. Lillyvick,’ said Kenwigs, ‘I hope, for the sake of your niece, that
you won’t object to be reconciled.’
The collector’s features relaxed, as the company added their entreaties
to those of his nephew-in-law. He gave up his hat, and held out his
hand.
‘There, Kenwigs,’ said Mr. Lillyvick; ‘and let me tell you, at the same
time, to show you how much out of temper I was, that if I had gone away
without another word, it would have made no difference respecting that
pound or two which I shall leave among your children when I die.’
‘Morleena Kenwigs,’ cried her mother, in a torrent of affection. ‘Go
down upon your knees to your dear uncle, and beg him to love you all
his life through, for he’s more a angel than a man, and I’ve always said
so.’
Miss Morleena approaching to do homage, in compliance with this
injunction, was summarily caught up and kissed by Mr. Lillyvick; and
thereupon Mrs. Kenwigs darted forward and kissed the collector, and
an irrepressible murmur of applause broke from the company who had
witnessed his magnanimity.
The worthy gentleman then became once more the life and soul of the
society; being again reinstated in his old post of lion, from which high
station the temporary distraction of their thoughts had for a moment
dispossessed him. Quadruped lions are said to be savage, only when they
are hungry; biped lions are rarely sulky longer than when their appetite
for distinction remains unappeased. Mr. Lillyvick stood higher than ever;
for he had shown his power; hinted at his property and testamentary
intentions; gained great credit for disinterestedness and virtue; and,
in addition to all, was finally accommodated with a much larger tumbler
of punch than that which Newman Noggs had so feloniously made off with.
‘I say! I beg everybody’s pardon for intruding again,’ said Crowl,
looking in at this happy juncture; ‘but what a queer business this is,
isn’t it? Noggs has lived in this house, now going on for five years,
and nobody has ever been to see him before, within the memory of the
oldest inhabitant.’
‘It’s a strange time of night to be called away, sir, certainly,’ said
the collector; ‘and the behaviour of Mr. Noggs himself, is, to say the
least of it, mysterious.’
‘Well, so it is,’ rejoined Crowl; ‘and I’ll tell you what’s more--I
think these two geniuses, whoever they are, have run away from
somewhere.’
‘What makes you think that, sir?’ demanded the collector, who seemed, by
a tacit understanding, to have been chosen and elected mouthpiece to
the company. ‘You have no reason to suppose that they have run away from
anywhere without paying the rates and taxes due, I hope?’
Mr. Crowl, with a look of some contempt, was about to enter a general
protest against the payment of rates or taxes, under any circumstances,
when he was checked by a timely whisper from Kenwigs, and several frowns
and winks from Mrs. K., which providentially stopped him.
‘Why the fact is,’ said Crowl, who had been listening at Newman’s door
with all his might and main; ‘the fact is, that they have been talking
so loud, that they quite disturbed me in my room, and so I couldn’t
help catching a word here, and a word there; and all I heard, certainly
seemed to refer to their having bolted from some place or other. I don’t
wish to alarm Mrs. Kenwigs; but I hope they haven’t come from any jail or
hospital, and brought away a fever or some unpleasantness of that sort,
which might be catching for the children.’
Mrs. Kenwigs was so overpowered by this supposition, that it needed all
the tender attentions of Miss Petowker, of the Theatre Royal, Drury
Lane, to restore her to anything like a state of calmness; not to
mention the assiduity of Mr. Kenwigs, who held a fat smelling-bottle to
his lady’s nose, until it became matter of some doubt whether the tears
which coursed down her face were the result of feelings or SAL VOLATILE.
The ladies, having expressed their sympathy, singly and separately,
fell, according to custom, into a little chorus of soothing expressions,
among which, such condolences as ‘Poor dear!’--‘I should feel just the
same, if I was her’--‘To be sure, it’s a very trying thing’--and ‘Nobody
but a mother knows what a mother’s feelings is,’ were among the most
prominent, and most frequently repeated. In short, the opinion of the
company was so clearly manifested, that Mr. Kenwigs was on the point of
repairing to Mr. Noggs’s room, to demand an explanation, and had indeed
swallowed a preparatory glass of punch, with great inflexibility and
steadiness of purpose, when the attention of all present was diverted by
a new and terrible surprise.
This was nothing less than the sudden pouring forth of a rapid
succession of the shrillest and most piercing screams, from an upper
story; and to all appearance from the very two-pair back, in which
the infant Kenwigs was at that moment enshrined. They were no sooner
audible, than Mrs. Kenwigs, opining that a strange cat had come in, and
sucked the baby’s breath while the girl was asleep, made for the door,
wringing her hands, and shrieking dismally; to the great consternation
and confusion of the company.
‘Mr. Kenwigs, see what it is; make haste!’ cried the sister, laying
violent hands upon Mrs. Kenwigs, and holding her back by force. ‘Oh don’t
twist about so, dear, or I can never hold you.’
‘My baby, my blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed baby!’ screamed Mrs
Kenwigs, making every blessed louder than the last. ‘My own darling,
sweet, innocent Lillyvick--Oh let me go to him. Let me go-o-o-o!’
Pending the utterance of these frantic cries, and the wails and
lamentations of the four little girls, Mr. Kenwigs rushed upstairs to the
room whence the sounds proceeded; at the door of which, he encountered
Nicholas, with the child in his arms, who darted out with such violence,
that the anxious father was thrown down six stairs, and alighted on the
nearest landing-place, before he had found time to open his mouth to ask
what was the matter.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ cried Nicholas, running down; ‘here it is; it’s all
out, it’s all over; pray compose yourselves; there’s no harm done;’
and with these, and a thousand other assurances, he delivered the baby
(whom, in his hurry, he had carried upside down), to Mrs. Kenwigs, and
ran back to assist Mr. Kenwigs, who was rubbing his head very hard, and
looking much bewildered by his tumble.
Reassured by this cheering intelligence, the company in some degree
recovered from their fears, which had been productive of some most
singular instances of a total want of presence of mind; thus, the
bachelor friend had, for a long time, supported in his arms Mrs
Kenwigs’s sister, instead of Mrs. Kenwigs; and the worthy Mr. Lillyvick
had been actually seen, in the perturbation of his spirits, to kiss Miss
Petowker several times, behind the room-door, as calmly as if nothing
distressing were going forward.
‘It is a mere nothing,’ said Nicholas, returning to Mrs. Kenwigs; ‘the
little girl, who was watching the child, being tired I suppose, fell
asleep, and set her hair on fire.’
‘Oh you malicious little wretch!’ cried Mrs. Kenwigs, impressively
shaking her forefinger at the small unfortunate, who might be thirteen
years old, and was looking on with a singed head and a frightened face.
‘I heard her cries,’ continued Nicholas, ‘and ran down, in time to
prevent her setting fire to anything else. You may depend upon it that
the child is not hurt; for I took it off the bed myself, and brought it
here to convince you.’
This brief explanation over, the infant, who, as he was christened after
the collector! rejoiced in the names of Lillyvick Kenwigs, was partially
suffocated under the caresses of the audience, and squeezed to his
mother’s bosom, until he roared again. The attention of the company was
then directed, by a natural transition, to the little girl who had had
the audacity to burn her hair off, and who, after receiving sundry small
slaps and pushes from the more energetic of the ladies, was mercifully
sent home: the ninepence, with which she was to have been rewarded,
being escheated to the Kenwigs family.
‘And whatever we are to say to you, sir,’ exclaimed Mrs. Kenwigs,
addressing young Lillyvick’s deliverer, ‘I am sure I don’t know.’
‘You need say nothing at all,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I have done nothing to
found any very strong claim upon your eloquence, I am sure.’
‘He might have been burnt to death, if it hadn’t been for you, sir,’
simpered Miss Petowker.
‘Not very likely, I think,’ replied Nicholas; ‘for there was abundance
of assistance here, which must have reached him before he had been in
any danger.’
‘You will let us drink your health, anyvays, sir!’ said Mr. Kenwigs
motioning towards the table.
‘--In my absence, by all means,’ rejoined Nicholas, with a smile.
‘I have had a very fatiguing journey, and should be most indifferent
company--a far greater check upon your merriment, than a promoter of it,
even if I kept awake, which I think very doubtful. If you will allow
me, I’ll return to my friend, Mr. Noggs, who went upstairs again, when he
found nothing serious had occurred. Good-night.’
Excusing himself, in these terms, from joining in the festivities,
Nicholas took a most winning farewell of Mrs. Kenwigs and the other
ladies, and retired, after making a very extraordinary impression upon
the company.
‘What a delightful young man!’ cried Mrs. Kenwigs.