Nicholas Nickleby
his borrowing twenty pounds of her poor dear papa the very moment
afterwards.’
Having quoted this extraordinary and most disinterested testimony to her
daughter’s excellence, Mrs. Nickleby stopped to breathe; and Miss Knag,
finding that the discourse was turning upon family greatness, lost no
time in striking in, with a small reminiscence on her own account.
‘Don’t talk of lending money, Mrs. Nickleby,’ said Miss Knag, ‘or you’ll
drive me crazy, perfectly crazy. My mama--hem--was the most lovely and
beautiful creature, with the most striking and exquisite--hem--the most
exquisite nose that ever was put upon a human face, I do believe, Mrs
Nickleby (here Miss Knag rubbed her own nose sympathetically); the most
delightful and accomplished woman, perhaps, that ever was seen; but she
had that one failing of lending money, and carried it to such an extent
that she lent--hem--oh! thousands of pounds, all our little fortunes,
and what’s more, Mrs. Nickleby, I don’t think, if we were to live
till--till--hem--till the very end of time, that we should ever get them
back again. I don’t indeed.’
After concluding this effort of invention without being interrupted,
Miss Knag fell into many more recollections, no less interesting than
true, the full tide of which, Mrs. Nickleby in vain attempting to stem,
at length sailed smoothly down by adding an under-current of her own
recollections; and so both ladies went on talking together in perfect
contentment; the only difference between them being, that whereas Miss
Knag addressed herself to Kate, and talked very loud, Mrs. Nickleby kept
on in one unbroken monotonous flow, perfectly satisfied to be talking
and caring very little whether anybody listened or not.
In this manner they walked on, very amicably, until they arrived at Miss
Knag’s brother’s, who was an ornamental stationer and small circulating
library keeper, in a by-street off Tottenham Court Road; and who let
out by the day, week, month, or year, the newest old novels, whereof
the titles were displayed in pen-and-ink characters on a sheet of
pasteboard, swinging at his door-post. As Miss Knag happened, at the
moment, to be in the middle of an account of her twenty-second offer
from a gentleman of large property, she insisted upon their all going in
to supper together; and in they went.
‘Don’t go away, Mortimer,’ said Miss Knag as they entered the shop.
‘It’s only one of our young ladies and her mother. Mrs. and Miss
Nickleby.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ said Mr. Mortimer Knag. ‘Ah!’
Having given utterance to these ejaculations with a very profound
and thoughtful air, Mr. Knag slowly snuffed two kitchen candles on the
counter, and two more in the window, and then snuffed himself from a box
in his waistcoat pocket.
There was something very impressive in the ghostly air with which
all this was done; and as Mr. Knag was a tall lank gentleman of solemn
features, wearing spectacles, and garnished with much less hair than
a gentleman bordering on forty, or thereabouts, usually boasts, Mrs
Nickleby whispered her daughter that she thought he must be literary.
‘Past ten,’ said Mr. Knag, consulting his watch. ‘Thomas, close the
warehouse.’
Thomas was a boy nearly half as tall as a shutter, and the warehouse was
a shop about the size of three hackney coaches.
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Knag once more, heaving a deep sigh as he restored to its
parent shelf the book he had been reading. ‘Well--yes--I believe supper
is ready, sister.’
With another sigh Mr. Knag took up the kitchen candles from the counter,
and preceded the ladies with mournful steps to a back-parlour, where a
charwoman, employed in the absence of the sick servant, and remunerated
with certain eighteenpences to be deducted from her wages due, was
putting the supper out.
‘Mrs. Blockson,’ said Miss Knag, reproachfully, ‘how very often I have
begged you not to come into the room with your bonnet on!’
‘I can’t help it, Miss Knag,’ said the charwoman, bridling up on the
shortest notice. ‘There’s been a deal o’cleaning to do in this house,
and if you don’t like it, I must trouble you to look out for somebody
else, for it don’t hardly pay me, and that’s the truth, if I was to be
hung this minute.’
‘I don’t want any remarks if YOU please,’ said Miss Knag, with a strong
emphasis on the personal pronoun. ‘Is there any fire downstairs for some
hot water presently?’
‘No there is not, indeed, Miss Knag,’ replied the substitute; ‘and so I
won’t tell you no stories about it.’
‘Then why isn’t there?’ said Miss Knag.
‘Because there arn’t no coals left out, and if I could make coals I
would, but as I can’t I won’t, and so I make bold to tell you, Mem,’
replied Mrs. Blockson.
‘Will you hold your tongue--female?’ said Mr. Mortimer Knag, plunging
violently into this dialogue.
‘By your leave, Mr. Knag,’ retorted the charwoman, turning sharp round.
‘I’m only too glad not to speak in this house, excepting when and where
I’m spoke to, sir; and with regard to being a female, sir, I should wish
to know what you considered yourself?’
‘A miserable wretch,’ exclaimed Mr. Knag, striking his forehead. ‘A
miserable wretch.’
‘I’m very glad to find that you don’t call yourself out of your name,
sir,’ said Mrs. Blockson; ‘and as I had two twin children the day before
yesterday was only seven weeks, and my little Charley fell down a airy
and put his elber out, last Monday, I shall take it as a favour if
you’ll send nine shillings, for one week’s work, to my house, afore the
clock strikes ten tomorrow.’
With these parting words, the good woman quitted the room with great
ease of manner, leaving the door wide open; Mr. Knag, at the same moment,
flung himself into the ‘warehouse,’ and groaned aloud.
‘What is the matter with that gentleman, pray?’ inquired Mrs. Nickleby,
greatly disturbed by the sound.
‘Is he ill?’ inquired Kate, really alarmed.
‘Hush!’ replied Miss Knag; ‘a most melancholy history. He was once most
devotedly attached to--hem--to Madame Mantalini.’
‘Bless me!’ exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby.
‘Yes,’ continued Miss Knag, ‘and received great encouragement too,
and confidently hoped to marry her. He has a most romantic heart,
Mrs. Nickleby, as indeed--hem--as indeed all our family have, and the
disappointment was a dreadful blow. He is a wonderfully accomplished
man--most extraordinarily accomplished--reads--hem--reads every novel
that comes out; I mean every novel that--hem--that has any fashion in
it, of course. The fact is, that he did find so much in the books he
read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and did find himself in every
respect so much like the heroes--because of course he is conscious of
his own superiority, as we all are, and very naturally--that he took to
scorning everything, and became a genius; and I am quite sure that he
is, at this very present moment, writing another book.’
‘Another book!’ repeated Kate, finding that a pause was left for
somebody to say something.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Knag, nodding in great triumph; ‘another book, in three
volumes post octavo. Of course it’s a great advantage to him, in all his
little fashionable descriptions, to have the benefit of my--hem--of my
experience, because, of course, few authors who write about such things
can have such opportunities of knowing them as I have. He’s so wrapped
up in high life, that the least allusion to business or worldly
matters--like that woman just now, for instance--quite distracts him;
but, as I often say, I think his disappointment a great thing for him,
because if he hadn’t been disappointed he couldn’t have written about
blighted hopes and all that; and the fact is, if it hadn’t happened as
it has, I don’t believe his genius would ever have come out at all.’
How much more communicative Miss Knag might have become under more
favourable circumstances, it is impossible to divine, but as the gloomy
one was within ear-shot, and the fire wanted making up, her disclosures
stopped here. To judge from all appearances, and the difficulty of
making the water warm, the last servant could not have been much
accustomed to any other fire than St Anthony’s; but a little brandy and
water was made at last, and the guests, having been previously regaled
with cold leg of mutton and bread and cheese, soon afterwards took
leave; Kate amusing herself, all the way home, with the recollection of
her last glimpse of Mr. Mortimer Knag deeply abstracted in the shop; and
Mrs. Nickleby by debating within herself whether the dressmaking firm
would ultimately become ‘Mantalini, Knag, and Nickleby’, or ‘Mantalini,
Nickleby, and Knag’.
At this high point, Miss Knag’s friendship remained for three whole
days, much to the wonderment of Madame Mantalini’s young ladies who had
never beheld such constancy in that quarter, before; but on the fourth,
it received a check no less violent than sudden, which thus occurred.
It happened that an old lord of great family, who was going to marry a
young lady of no family in particular, came with the young lady, and the
young lady’s sister, to witness the ceremony of trying on two nuptial
bonnets which had been ordered the day before, and Madame Mantalini
announcing the fact, in a shrill treble, through the speaking-pipe,
which communicated with the workroom, Miss Knag darted hastily upstairs
with a bonnet in each hand, and presented herself in the show-room, in a
charming state of palpitation, intended to demonstrate her enthusiasm
in the cause. The bonnets were no sooner fairly on, than Miss Knag and
Madame Mantalini fell into convulsions of admiration.
‘A most elegant appearance,’ said Madame Mantalini.
‘I never saw anything so exquisite in all my life,’ said Miss Knag.
Now, the old lord, who was a VERY old lord, said nothing, but mumbled
and chuckled in a state of great delight, no less with the nuptial
bonnets and their wearers, than with his own address in getting such a
fine woman for his wife; and the young lady, who was a very lively young
lady, seeing the old lord in this rapturous condition, chased the old
lord behind a cheval-glass, and then and there kissed him, while Madame
Mantalini and the other young lady looked, discreetly, another way.
But, pending the salutation, Miss Knag, who was tinged with curiosity,
stepped accidentally behind the glass, and encountered the lively young
lady’s eye just at the very moment when she kissed the old lord; upon
which the young lady, in a pouting manner, murmured something about ‘an
old thing,’ and ‘great impertinence,’ and finished by darting a look of
displeasure at Miss Knag, and smiling contemptuously.
‘Madame Mantalini,’ said the young lady.
‘Ma’am,’ said Madame Mantalini.
‘Pray have up that pretty young creature we saw yesterday.’
‘Oh yes, do,’ said the sister.
‘Of all things in the world, Madame Mantalini,’ said the lord’s
intended, throwing herself languidly on a sofa, ‘I hate being waited
upon by frights or elderly persons. Let me always see that young
creature, I beg, whenever I come.’
‘By all means,’ said the old lord; ‘the lovely young creature, by all
means.’
‘Everybody is talking about her,’ said the young lady, in the same
careless manner; ‘and my lord, being a great admirer of beauty, must
positively see her.’
‘She IS universally admired,’ replied Madame Mantalini. ‘Miss Knag, send
up Miss Nickleby. You needn’t return.’
‘I beg your pardon, Madame Mantalini, what did you say last?’ asked Miss
Knag, trembling.
‘You needn’t return,’ repeated the superior, sharply. Miss Knag vanished
without another word, and in all reasonable time was replaced by Kate,
who took off the new bonnets and put on the old ones: blushing very much
to find that the old lord and the two young ladies were staring her out
of countenance all the time.