Nicholas Nickleby
knife into Mr. Mantalini’s dressing-gown pocket, while Mr. Mantalini’s
eyes rolled wildly, and his hair floating in wild disorder, mingled with
his whiskers.
‘Alfred,’ cried his wife, flinging her arms about him, ‘I didn’t mean to
say it, I didn’t mean to say it!’
‘Ruined!’ cried Mr. Mantalini. ‘Have I brought ruin upon the best and
purest creature that ever blessed a demnition vagabond! Demmit, let
me go.’ At this crisis of his ravings Mr. Mantalini made a pluck at the
breakfast knife, and being restrained by his wife’s grasp, attempted to
dash his head against the wall--taking very good care to be at least six
feet from it.
‘Compose yourself, my own angel,’ said Madame. ‘It was nobody’s fault;
it was mine as much as yours, we shall do very well yet. Come, Alfred,
come.’
Mr. Mantalini did not think proper to come to, all at once; but, after
calling several times for poison, and requesting some lady or gentleman
to blow his brains out, gentler feelings came upon him, and he wept
pathetically. In this softened frame of mind he did not oppose the
capture of the knife--which, to tell the truth, he was rather glad to be
rid of, as an inconvenient and dangerous article for a skirt pocket--and
finally he suffered himself to be led away by his affectionate partner.
After a delay of two or three hours, the young ladies were informed that
their services would be dispensed with until further notice, and at the
expiration of two days, the name of Mantalini appeared in the list of
bankrupts: Miss Nickleby received an intimation per post, on the same
morning, that the business would be, in future, carried on under
the name of Miss Knag, and that her assistance would no longer be
required--a piece of intelligence with which Mrs. Nickleby was no sooner
made acquainted, than that good lady declared she had expected it all
along and cited divers unknown occasions on which she had prophesied to
that precise effect.
‘And I say again,’ remarked Mrs. Nickleby (who, it is scarcely necessary
to observe, had never said so before), ‘I say again, that a milliner’s
and dressmaker’s is the very last description of business, Kate, that
you should have thought of attaching yourself to. I don’t make it
a reproach to you, my love; but still I will say, that if you had
consulted your own mother--’
‘Well, well, mama,’ said Kate, mildly: ‘what would you recommend now?’
‘Recommend!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, ‘isn’t it obvious, my dear, that of all
occupations in this world for a young lady situated as you are, that
of companion to some amiable lady is the very thing for which your
education, and manners, and personal appearance, and everything else,
exactly qualify you? Did you never hear your poor dear papa speak of the
young lady who was the daughter of the old lady who boarded in the same
house that he boarded in once, when he was a bachelor--what was her name
again? I know it began with a B, and ended with g, but whether it was
Waters or--no, it couldn’t have been that, either; but whatever her name
was, don’t you know that that young lady went as companion to a married
lady who died soon afterwards, and that she married the husband, and had
one of the finest little boys that the medical man had ever seen--all
within eighteen months?’
Kate knew, perfectly well, that this torrent of favourable recollection
was occasioned by some opening, real or imaginary, which her mother had
discovered, in the companionship walk of life. She therefore waited,
very patiently, until all reminiscences and anecdotes, bearing or not
bearing upon the subject, had been exhausted, and at last ventured
to inquire what discovery had been made. The truth then came out. Mrs
Nickleby had, that morning, had a yesterday’s newspaper of the very
first respectability from the public-house where the porter came from;
and in this yesterday’s newspaper was an advertisement, couched in the
purest and most grammatical English, announcing that a married lady was
in want of a genteel young person as companion, and that the married
lady’s name and address were to be known, on application at a certain
library at the west end of the town, therein mentioned.
‘And I say,’ exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby, laying the paper down in triumph,
‘that if your uncle don’t object, it’s well worth the trial.’
Kate was too sick at heart, after the rough jostling she had already had
with the world, and really cared too little at the moment what fate was
reserved for her, to make any objection. Mr. Ralph Nickleby offered none,
but, on the contrary, highly approved of the suggestion; neither did he
express any great surprise at Madame Mantalini’s sudden failure, indeed
it would have been strange if he had, inasmuch as it had been procured
and brought about chiefly by himself. So, the name and address were
obtained without loss of time, and Miss Nickleby and her mama went off
in quest of Mrs. Wititterly, of Cadogan Place, Sloane Street, that same
forenoon.
Cadogan Place is the one slight bond that joins two great extremes; it
is the connecting link between the aristocratic pavements of Belgrave
Square, and the barbarism of Chelsea. It is in Sloane Street, but not of
it. The people in Cadogan Place look down upon Sloane Street, and think
Brompton low. They affect fashion too, and wonder where the New Road
is. Not that they claim to be on precisely the same footing as the high
folks of Belgrave Square and Grosvenor Place, but that they stand, with
reference to them, rather in the light of those illegitimate children of
the great who are content to boast of their connections, although their
connections disavow them. Wearing as much as they can of the airs
and semblances of loftiest rank, the people of Cadogan Place have the
realities of middle station. It is the conductor which communicates to
the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit, the shock of pride of
birth and rank, which it has not within itself, but derives from a
fountain-head beyond; or, like the ligament which unites the Siamese
twins, it contains something of the life and essence of two distinct
bodies, and yet belongs to neither.
Upon this doubtful ground, lived Mrs. Wititterly, and at Mrs. Wititterly’s
door Kate Nickleby knocked with trembling hand. The door was opened by
a big footman with his head floured, or chalked, or painted in some way
(it didn’t look genuine powder), and the big footman, receiving the card
of introduction, gave it to a little page; so little, indeed, that his
body would not hold, in ordinary array, the number of small buttons
which are indispensable to a page’s costume, and they were consequently
obliged to be stuck on four abreast. This young gentleman took the card
upstairs on a salver, and pending his return, Kate and her mother were
shown into a dining-room of rather dirty and shabby aspect, and so
comfortably arranged as to be adapted to almost any purpose rather than
eating and drinking.
Now, in the ordinary course of things, and according to all authentic
descriptions of high life, as set forth in books, Mrs. Wititterly ought
to have been in her BOUDOIR; but whether it was that Mr. Wititterly was
at that moment shaving himself in the BOUDOIR or what not, certain it
is that Mrs. Wititterly gave audience in the drawing-room, where was
everything proper and necessary, including curtains and furniture
coverings of a roseate hue, to shed a delicate bloom on Mrs. Wititterly’s
complexion, and a little dog to snap at strangers’ legs for Mrs
Wititterly’s amusement, and the afore-mentioned page, to hand chocolate
for Mrs. Wititterly’s refreshment.
The lady had an air of sweet insipidity, and a face of engaging
paleness; there was a faded look about her, and about the furniture, and
about the house. She was reclining on a sofa in such a very unstudied
attitude, that she might have been taken for an actress all ready for
the first scene in a ballet, and only waiting for the drop curtain to go
up.
‘Place chairs.’
The page placed them.
‘Leave the room, Alphonse.’
The page left it; but if ever an Alphonse carried plain Bill in his face
and figure, that page was the boy.
‘I have ventured to call, ma’am,’ said Kate, after a few seconds of
awkward silence, ‘from having seen your advertisement.’
‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Wititterly, ‘one of my people put it in the
paper--Yes.’
‘I thought, perhaps,’ said Kate, modestly, ‘that if you had not
already made a final choice, you would forgive my troubling you with an
application.’
‘Yes,’ drawled Mrs. Wititterly again.
‘If you have already made a selection--’
‘Oh dear no,’ interrupted the lady, ‘I am not so easily suited. I really
don’t know what to say. You have never been a companion before, have
you?’
Mrs. Nickleby, who had been eagerly watching her opportunity, came
dexterously in, before Kate could reply. ‘Not to any stranger, ma’am,’
said the good lady; ‘but she has been a companion to me for some years.
I am her mother, ma’am.’
‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Wititterly, ‘I apprehend you.’
‘I assure you, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that I very little thought,
at one time, that it would be necessary for my daughter to go out into
the world at all, for her poor dear papa was an independent gentleman,
and would have been at this moment if he had but listened in time to my
constant entreaties and--’
‘Dear mama,’ said Kate, in a low voice.
‘My dear Kate, if you will allow me to speak,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I
shall take the liberty of explaining to this lady--’
‘I think it is almost unnecessary, mama.’
And notwithstanding all the frowns and winks with which Mrs. Nickleby
intimated that she was going to say something which would clench the
business at once, Kate maintained her point by an expressive look, and
for once Mrs. Nickleby was stopped upon the very brink of an oration.
‘What are your accomplishments?’ asked Mrs. Wititterly, with her eyes
shut.
Kate blushed as she mentioned her principal acquirements, and Mrs
Nickleby checked them all off, one by one, on her fingers; having
calculated the number before she came out. Luckily the two calculations
agreed, so Mrs. Nickleby had no excuse for talking.
‘You are a good temper?’ asked Mrs. Wititterly, opening her eyes for an
instant, and shutting them again.
‘I hope so,’ rejoined Kate.
‘And have a highly respectable reference for everything, have you?’
Kate replied that she had, and laid her uncle’s card upon the table.
‘Have the goodness to draw your chair a little nearer, and let me look
at you,’ said Mrs. Wititterly; ‘I am so very nearsighted that I can’t
quite discern your features.’
Kate complied, though not without some embarrassment, with this request,
and Mrs. Wititterly took a languid survey of her countenance, which
lasted some two or three minutes.
‘I like your appearance,’ said that lady, ringing a little bell.
‘Alphonse, request your master to come here.’
The page disappeared on this errand, and after a short interval, during
which not a word was spoken on either side, opened the door for an
important gentleman of about eight-and-thirty, of rather plebeian
countenance, and with a very light head of hair, who leant over Mrs
Wititterly for a little time, and conversed with her in whispers.
‘Oh!’ he said, turning round, ‘yes. This is a most important matter. Mrs
Wititterly is of a very excitable nature; very delicate, very fragile; a
hothouse plant, an exotic.’
‘Oh! Henry, my dear,’ interposed Mrs. Wititterly.
‘You are, my love, you know you are; one breath--’ said Mr. W., blowing
an imaginary feather away. ‘Pho! you’re gone!’
The lady sighed.
‘Your soul is too large for your body,’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘Your
intellect wears you out; all the medical men say so; you know that there