Nicholas Nickleby
announced, and then they were thrown into fresh ecstasies by a similar
cause; for Sir Mulberry Hawk, in an excess of humour, shot dexterously
past Lord Frederick Verisopht who was about to lead Kate downstairs, and
drew her arm through his up to the elbow.
‘No, damn it, Verisopht,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘fair play’s a jewel, and
Miss Nickleby and I settled the matter with our eyes ten minutes ago.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the honourable Mr. Snobb, ‘very good, very good.’
Rendered additionally witty by this applause, Sir Mulberry Hawk leered
upon his friends most facetiously, and led Kate downstairs with an
air of familiarity, which roused in her gentle breast such burning
indignation, as she felt it almost impossible to repress. Nor was the
intensity of these feelings at all diminished, when she found herself
placed at the top of the table, with Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord
Frederick Verisopht on either side.
‘Oh, you’ve found your way into our neighbourhood, have you?’ said Sir
Mulberry as his lordship sat down.
‘Of course,’ replied Lord Frederick, fixing his eyes on Miss Nickleby,
‘how can you a-ask me?’
‘Well, you attend to your dinner,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘and don’t mind
Miss Nickleby and me, for we shall prove very indifferent company, I
dare say.’
‘I wish you’d interfere here, Nickleby,’ said Lord Frederick.
‘What is the matter, my lord?’ demanded Ralph from the bottom of the
table, where he was supported by Messrs Pyke and Pluck.
‘This fellow, Hawk, is monopolising your niece,’ said Lord Frederick.
‘He has a tolerable share of everything that you lay claim to, my lord,’
said Ralph with a sneer.
‘’Gad, so he has,’ replied the young man; ‘deyvle take me if I know
which is master in my house, he or I.’
‘I know,’ muttered Ralph.
‘I think I shall cut him off with a shilling,’ said the young nobleman,
jocosely.
‘No, no, curse it,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘When you come to the
shilling--the last shilling--I’ll cut you fast enough; but till then,
I’ll never leave you--you may take your oath of it.’
This sally (which was strictly founded on fact) was received with a
general roar, above which, was plainly distinguishable the laughter
of Mr. Pyke and Mr. Pluck, who were, evidently, Sir Mulberry’s toads in
ordinary. Indeed, it was not difficult to see, that the majority of the
company preyed upon the unfortunate young lord, who, weak and silly as
he was, appeared by far the least vicious of the party. Sir Mulberry
Hawk was remarkable for his tact in ruining, by himself and his
creatures, young gentlemen of fortune--a genteel and elegant profession,
of which he had undoubtedly gained the head. With all the boldness of an
original genius, he had struck out an entirely new course of treatment
quite opposed to the usual method; his custom being, when he had gained
the ascendancy over those he took in hand, rather to keep them down
than to give them their own way; and to exercise his vivacity upon
them openly, and without reserve. Thus, he made them butts, in a double
sense, and while he emptied them with great address, caused them to ring
with sundry well-administered taps, for the diversion of society.
The dinner was as remarkable for the splendour and completeness of its
appointments as the mansion itself, and the company were remarkable
for doing it ample justice, in which respect Messrs Pyke and Pluck
particularly signalised themselves; these two gentlemen eating of every
dish, and drinking of every bottle, with a capacity and perseverance
truly astonishing. They were remarkably fresh, too, notwithstanding
their great exertions: for, on the appearance of the dessert, they broke
out again, as if nothing serious had taken place since breakfast.
‘Well,’ said Lord Frederick, sipping his first glass of port, ‘if this
is a discounting dinner, all I have to say is, deyvle take me, if it
wouldn’t be a good pla-an to get discount every day.’
‘You’ll have plenty of it, in your time,’ returned Sir Mulberry Hawk;
‘Nickleby will tell you that.’
‘What do you say, Nickleby?’ inquired the young man; ‘am I to be a good
customer?’
‘It depends entirely on circumstances, my lord,’ replied Ralph.
‘On your lordship’s circumstances,’ interposed Colonel Chowser of the
Militia--and the race-courses.
The gallant colonel glanced at Messrs Pyke and Pluck as if he thought
they ought to laugh at his joke; but those gentlemen, being only engaged
to laugh for Sir Mulberry Hawk, were, to his signal discomfiture, as
grave as a pair of undertakers. To add to his defeat, Sir Mulberry,
considering any such efforts an invasion of his peculiar privilege,
eyed the offender steadily, through his glass, as if astonished at his
presumption, and audibly stated his impression that it was an ‘infernal
liberty,’ which being a hint to Lord Frederick, he put up HIS glass,
and surveyed the object of censure as if he were some extraordinary wild
animal then exhibiting for the first time. As a matter of course, Messrs
Pyke and Pluck stared at the individual whom Sir Mulberry Hawk stared
at; so, the poor colonel, to hide his confusion, was reduced to the
necessity of holding his port before his right eye and affecting to
scrutinise its colour with the most lively interest.
All this while, Kate had sat as silently as she could, scarcely daring
to raise her eyes, lest they should encounter the admiring gaze of Lord
Frederick Verisopht, or, what was still more embarrassing, the bold
looks of his friend Sir Mulberry. The latter gentleman was obliging
enough to direct general attention towards her.
‘Here is Miss Nickleby,’ observed Sir Mulberry, ‘wondering why the deuce
somebody doesn’t make love to her.’
‘No, indeed,’ said Kate, looking hastily up, ‘I--’ and then she stopped,
feeling it would have been better to have said nothing at all.
‘I’ll hold any man fifty pounds,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘that Miss Nickleby
can’t look in my face, and tell me she wasn’t thinking so.’
‘Done!’ cried the noble gull. ‘Within ten minutes.’
‘Done!’ responded Sir Mulberry. The money was produced on both sides,
and the Honourable Mr. Snobb was elected to the double office of
stake-holder and time-keeper.
‘Pray,’ said Kate, in great confusion, while these preliminaries were
in course of completion. ‘Pray do not make me the subject of any bets.
Uncle, I cannot really--’
‘Why not, my dear?’ replied Ralph, in whose grating voice, however,
there was an unusual huskiness, as though he spoke unwillingly, and
would rather that the proposition had not been broached. ‘It is done in
a moment; there is nothing in it. If the gentlemen insist on it--’
‘I don’t insist on it,’ said Sir Mulberry, with a loud laugh. ‘That is,
I by no means insist upon Miss Nickleby’s making the denial, for if she
does, I lose; but I shall be glad to see her bright eyes, especially as
she favours the mahogany so much.’
‘So she does, and it’s too ba-a-d of you, Miss Nickleby,’ said the noble
youth.
‘Quite cruel,’ said Mr. Pyke.
‘Horrid cruel,’ said Mr. Pluck.
‘I don’t care if I do lose,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘for one tolerable look
at Miss Nickleby’s eyes is worth double the money.’
‘More,’ said Mr. Pyke.
‘Far more,’ said Mr. Pluck.
‘How goes the enemy, Snobb?’ asked Sir Mulberry Hawk.
‘Four minutes gone.’
‘Bravo!’
‘Won’t you ma-ake one effort for me, Miss Nickleby?’ asked Lord
Frederick, after a short interval.
‘You needn’t trouble yourself to inquire, my buck,’ said Sir Mulberry;
‘Miss Nickleby and I understand each other; she declares on my side, and
shows her taste. You haven’t a chance, old fellow. Time, Snobb?’
‘Eight minutes gone.’
‘Get the money ready,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘you’ll soon hand over.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Pyke.
Mr. Pluck, who always came second, and topped his companion if he could,
screamed outright.
The poor girl, who was so overwhelmed with confusion that she scarcely
knew what she did, had determined to remain perfectly quiet; but fearing
that by so doing she might seem to countenance Sir Mulberry’s boast,
which had been uttered with great coarseness and vulgarity of manner,
raised her eyes, and looked him in the face. There was something so
odious, so insolent, so repulsive in the look which met her, that,
without the power to stammer forth a syllable, she rose and hurried from
the room. She restrained her tears by a great effort until she was alone
upstairs, and then gave them vent.
‘Capital!’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, putting the stakes in his pocket.
‘That’s a girl of spirit, and we’ll drink her health.’
It is needless to say, that Pyke and Co. responded, with great warmth of
manner, to this proposal, or that the toast was drunk with many
little insinuations from the firm, relative to the completeness of Sir
Mulberry’s conquest. Ralph, who, while the attention of the other guests
was attracted to the principals in the preceding scene, had eyed them
like a wolf, appeared to breathe more freely now his niece was gone; the
decanters passing quickly round, he leaned back in his chair, and turned
his eyes from speaker to speaker, as they warmed with wine, with looks
that seemed to search their hearts, and lay bare, for his distempered
sport, every idle thought within them.
Meanwhile Kate, left wholly to herself, had, in some degree, recovered
her composure. She had learnt from a female attendant, that her uncle
wished to see her before she left, and had also gleaned the satisfactory
intelligence, that the gentlemen would take coffee at table. The
prospect of seeing them no more, contributed greatly to calm her
agitation, and, taking up a book, she composed herself to read.
She started sometimes, when the sudden opening of the dining-room door
let loose a wild shout of noisy revelry, and more than once rose in
great alarm, as a fancied footstep on the staircase impressed her
with the fear that some stray member of the party was returning
alone. Nothing occurring, however, to realise her apprehensions, she
endeavoured to fix her attention more closely on her book, in which
by degrees she became so much interested, that she had read on through
several chapters without heed of time or place, when she was terrified
by suddenly hearing her name pronounced by a man’s voice close at her
ear.
The book fell from her hand. Lounging on an ottoman close beside her,
was Sir Mulberry Hawk, evidently the worse--if a man be a ruffian at
heart, he is never the better--for wine.
‘What a delightful studiousness!’ said this accomplished gentleman. ‘Was
it real, now, or only to display the eyelashes?’
Kate, looking anxiously towards the door, made no reply.
‘I have looked at ‘em for five minutes,’ said Sir Mulberry. ‘Upon my
soul, they’re perfect. Why did I speak, and destroy such a pretty little
picture?’
‘Do me the favour to be silent now, sir,’ replied Kate.
‘No, don’t,’ said Sir Mulberry, folding his crushed hat to lay his elbow
on, and bringing himself still closer to the young lady; ‘upon my life,
you oughtn’t to. Such a devoted slave of yours, Miss Nickleby--it’s an
infernal thing to treat him so harshly, upon my soul it is.’
‘I wish you to understand, sir,’ said Kate, trembling in spite of
herself, but speaking with great indignation, ‘that your behaviour
offends and disgusts me. If you have a spark of gentlemanly feeling
remaining, you will leave me.’
‘Now why,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘why will you keep up this appearance of
excessive rigour, my sweet creature? Now, be more natural--my dear Miss
Nickleby, be more natural--do.’
Kate hastily rose; but as she rose, Sir Mulberry caught her dress, and
forcibly detained her.
‘Let me go, sir,’ she cried, her heart swelling with anger. ‘Do you
hear? Instantly--this moment.’
‘Sit down, sit down,’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘I want to talk to you.’