Nicholas Nickleby
The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations, every
man holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his enthusiasm
have held up both legs also, if he could have conveniently accomplished
it. This done, the draft of the proposed petition was read at length:
and the petition said, as all petitions DO say, that the petitioners
were very humble, and the petitioned very honourable, and the object
very virtuous; therefore (said the petition) the bill ought to be passed
into a law at once, to the everlasting honour and glory of that most
honourable and glorious Commons of England in Parliament assembled.
Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford’s all night, and who
looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came forward
to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make in favour
of that petition whenever it should be presented, and how desperately he
meant to taunt the parliament if they rejected the bill; and to inform
them also, that he regretted his honourable friends had not inserted a
clause rendering the purchase of muffins and crumpets compulsory upon
all classes of the community, which he--opposing all half-measures,
and preferring to go the extreme animal--pledged himself to propose
and divide upon, in committee. After announcing this determination, the
honourable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-coloured
kid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there
was immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant
display of ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman
quite into the shade.
And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted, there
came forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of ardent
temperament,) with such a speech as only an Irish member can make,
breathing the true soul and spirit of poetry, and poured forth with such
fervour, that it made one warm to look at him; in the course whereof,
he told them how he would demand the extension of that great boon to his
native country; how he would claim for her equal rights in the muffin
laws as in all other laws; and how he yet hoped to see the day when
crumpets should be toasted in her lowly cabins, and muffin bells should
ring in her rich green valleys. And, after him, came the Scotch member,
with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which
increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the
speeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do, and
established in the hearers’ minds that there was no speculation
so promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United
Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company.
So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the meeting
adjourned with acclamations, and Mr. Nickleby and the other directors
went to the office to lunch, as they did every day at half-past one
o’clock; and to remunerate themselves for which trouble, (as the company
was yet in its infancy,) they only charged three guineas each man for
every such attendance.
CHAPTER 3
Mr. Ralph Nickleby receives Sad Tidings of his Brother, but bears up
nobly against the Intelligence communicated to him. The Reader is
informed how he liked Nicholas, who is herein introduced, and how kindly
he proposed to make his Fortune at once
Having rendered his zealous assistance towards dispatching the lunch,
with all that promptitude and energy which are among the most important
qualities that men of business can possess, Mr. Ralph Nickleby took a
cordial farewell of his fellow-speculators, and bent his steps westward
in unwonted good humour. As he passed St Paul’s he stepped aside into
a doorway to set his watch, and with his hand on the key and his eye
on the cathedral dial, was intent upon so doing, when a man suddenly
stopped before him. It was Newman Noggs.
‘Ah! Newman,’ said Mr. Nickleby, looking up as he pursued his occupation.
‘The letter about the mortgage has come, has it? I thought it would.’
‘Wrong,’ replied Newman.
‘What! and nobody called respecting it?’ inquired Mr. Nickleby, pausing.
Noggs shook his head.
‘What HAS come, then?’ inquired Mr. Nickleby.
‘I have,’ said Newman.
‘What else?’ demanded the master, sternly.
‘This,’ said Newman, drawing a sealed letter slowly from his pocket.
‘Post-mark, Strand, black wax, black border, woman’s hand, C. N. in the
corner.’
‘Black wax?’ said Mr. Nickleby, glancing at the letter. ‘I know something
of that hand, too. Newman, I shouldn’t be surprised if my brother were
dead.’
‘I don’t think you would,’ said Newman, quietly.
‘Why not, sir?’ demanded Mr. Nickleby.
‘You never are surprised,’ replied Newman, ‘that’s all.’
Mr. Nickleby snatched the letter from his assistant, and fixing a cold
look upon him, opened, read it, put it in his pocket, and having now hit
the time to a second, began winding up his watch.
‘It is as I expected, Newman,’ said Mr. Nickleby, while he was thus
engaged. ‘He IS dead. Dear me! Well, that’s sudden thing. I shouldn’t
have thought it, really.’ With these touching expressions of sorrow, Mr
Nickleby replaced his watch in his fob, and, fitting on his gloves to a
nicety, turned upon his way, and walked slowly westward with his hands
behind him.
‘Children alive?’ inquired Noggs, stepping up to him.
‘Why, that’s the very thing,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, as though his
thoughts were about them at that moment. ‘They are both alive.’
‘Both!’ repeated Newman Noggs, in a low voice.
‘And the widow, too,’ added Mr. Nickleby, ‘and all three in London,
confound them; all three here, Newman.’
Newman fell a little behind his master, and his face was curiously
twisted as by a spasm; but whether of paralysis, or grief, or inward
laughter, nobody but himself could possibly explain. The expression of
a man’s face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his
speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was
a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve.
‘Go home!’ said Mr. Nickleby, after they had walked a few paces: looking
round at the clerk as if he were his dog. The words were scarcely
uttered when Newman darted across the road, slunk among the crowd, and
disappeared in an instant.
‘Reasonable, certainly!’ muttered Mr. Nickleby to himself, as he walked
on, ‘very reasonable! My brother never did anything for me, and I never
expected it; the breath is no sooner out of his body than I am to be
looked to, as the support of a great hearty woman, and a grown boy and
girl. What are they to me! I never saw them.’
Full of these, and many other reflections of a similar kind, Mr. Nickleby
made the best of his way to the Strand, and, referring to his letter as
if to ascertain the number of the house he wanted, stopped at a private
door about half-way down that crowded thoroughfare.
A miniature painter lived there, for there was a large gilt frame
screwed upon the street-door, in which were displayed, upon a black
velvet ground, two portraits of naval dress coats with faces looking
out of them, and telescopes attached; one of a young gentleman in a very
vermilion uniform, flourishing a sabre; and one of a literary character
with a high forehead, a pen and ink, six books, and a curtain. There
was, moreover, a touching representation of a young lady reading a
manuscript in an unfathomable forest, and a charming whole length of a
large-headed little boy, sitting on a stool with his legs fore-shortened
to the size of salt-spoons. Besides these works of art, there were a
great many heads of old ladies and gentlemen smirking at each other out
of blue and brown skies, and an elegantly written card of terms with an
embossed border.
Mr. Nickleby glanced at these frivolities with great contempt, and gave
a double knock, which, having been thrice repeated, was answered by a
servant girl with an uncommonly dirty face.
‘Is Mrs. Nickleby at home, girl?’ demanded Ralph sharply.
‘Her name ain’t Nickleby,’ said the girl, ‘La Creevy, you mean.’
Mr. Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on being thus
corrected, and demanded with much asperity what she meant; which she
was about to state, when a female voice proceeding from a perpendicular
staircase at the end of the passage, inquired who was wanted.
‘Mrs. Nickleby,’ said Ralph.
‘It’s the second floor, Hannah,’ said the same voice; ‘what a stupid
thing you are! Is the second floor at home?’
‘Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic which had been
a cleaning of himself,’ replied the girl.
‘You had better see,’ said the invisible female. ‘Show the gentleman
where the bell is, and tell him he mustn’t knock double knocks for the
second floor; I can’t allow a knock except when the bell’s broke, and
then it must be two single ones.’
‘Here,’ said Ralph, walking in without more parley, ‘I beg your pardon;
is that Mrs. La what’s-her-name?’
‘Creevy--La Creevy,’ replied the voice, as a yellow headdress bobbed
over the banisters.
‘I’ll speak to you a moment, ma’am, with your leave,’ said Ralph.
The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had walked
up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was received by
the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had a gown to correspond, and
was of much the same colour herself. Miss La Creevy was a mincing
young lady of fifty, and Miss La Creevy’s apartment was the gilt frame
downstairs on a larger scale and something dirtier.
‘Hem!’ said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black silk
mitten. ‘A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-marked countenance for
the purpose, sir. Have you ever sat before?’
‘You mistake my purpose, I see, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, in his
usual blunt fashion. ‘I have no money to throw away on miniatures,
ma’am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had. Seeing you on the
stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers here.’
Miss La Creevy coughed once more--this cough was to conceal her
disappointment--and said, ‘Oh, indeed!’
‘I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above
belongs to you, ma’am,’ said Mr. Nickleby.
Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the house belonged
to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor rooms just
then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, there was a lady
from the country and her two children in them, at that present speaking.
‘A widow, ma’am?’ said Ralph.
‘Yes, she is a widow,’ replied the lady.
‘A POOR widow, ma’am,’ said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that
little adjective which conveys so much.
‘Well, I’m afraid she IS poor,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy.
‘I happen to know that she is, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Now, what business
has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma’am?’
‘Very true,’ replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased with this
implied compliment to the apartments. ‘Exceedingly true.’
‘I know her circumstances intimately, ma’am,’ said Ralph; ‘in fact, I
am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you not to keep them
here, ma’am.’
‘I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet the pecuniary
obligations,’ said Miss La Creevy with another cough, ‘that the lady’s
family would--’
‘No they wouldn’t, ma’am,’ interrupted Ralph, hastily. ‘Don’t think it.’
‘If I am to understand that,’ said Miss La Creevy, ‘the case wears a
very different appearance.’
‘You may understand it then, ma’am,’ said Ralph, ‘and make your
arrangements accordingly. I am the family, ma’am--at least, I believe
I am the only relation they have, and I think it right that you should
know I can’t support them in their extravagances. How long have they