Nicholas Nickleby
‘Yes,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘he knew she was a smart little creature--’
‘Smart!’ interposed the young lord. ‘Upon my soul, Hawk, she’s a perfect
beauty--a--a picture, a statue, a--a--upon my soul she is!’
‘Well,’ replied Sir Mulberry, shrugging his shoulders and manifesting an
indifference, whether he felt it or not; ‘that’s a matter of taste; if
mine doesn’t agree with yours, so much the better.’
‘Confound it!’ reasoned the lord, ‘you were thick enough with her that
day, anyhow. I could hardly get in a word.’
‘Well enough for once, well enough for once,’ replied Sir Mulberry; ‘but
not worth the trouble of being agreeable to again. If you seriously
want to follow up the niece, tell the uncle that you must know where she
lives and how she lives, and with whom, or you are no longer a customer
of his. He’ll tell you fast enough.’
‘Why didn’t you say this before?’ asked Lord Verisopht, ‘instead of
letting me go on burning, consuming, dragging out a miserable existence
for an a-age!’
‘I didn’t know it, in the first place,’ answered Sir Mulberry
carelessly; ‘and in the second, I didn’t believe you were so very much
in earnest.’
Now, the truth was, that in the interval which had elapsed since the
dinner at Ralph Nickleby’s, Sir Mulberry Hawk had been furtively trying
by every means in his power to discover whence Kate had so suddenly
appeared, and whither she had disappeared. Unassisted by Ralph, however,
with whom he had held no communication since their angry parting on that
occasion, all his efforts were wholly unavailing, and he had therefore
arrived at the determination of communicating to the young lord the
substance of the admission he had gleaned from that worthy. To this he
was impelled by various considerations; among which the certainty of
knowing whatever the weak young man knew was decidedly not the least,
as the desire of encountering the usurer’s niece again, and using his
utmost arts to reduce her pride, and revenge himself for her contempt,
was uppermost in his thoughts. It was a politic course of proceeding,
and one which could not fail to redound to his advantage in every point
of view, since the very circumstance of his having extorted from Ralph
Nickleby his real design in introducing his niece to such society,
coupled with his extreme disinterestedness in communicating it so freely
to his friend, could not but advance his interests in that quarter,
and greatly facilitate the passage of coin (pretty frequent and speedy
already) from the pockets of Lord Frederick Verisopht to those of Sir
Mulberry Hawk.
Thus reasoned Sir Mulberry, and in pursuance of this reasoning he
and his friend soon afterwards repaired to Ralph Nickleby’s, there to
execute a plan of operations concerted by Sir Mulberry himself, avowedly
to promote his friend’s object, and really to attain his own.
They found Ralph at home, and alone. As he led them into the
drawing-room, the recollection of the scene which had taken place there
seemed to occur to him, for he cast a curious look at Sir Mulberry, who
bestowed upon it no other acknowledgment than a careless smile.
They had a short conference upon some money matters then in progress,
which were scarcely disposed of when the lordly dupe (in pursuance of
his friend’s instructions) requested with some embarrassment to speak to
Ralph alone.
‘Alone, eh?’ cried Sir Mulberry, affecting surprise. ‘Oh, very good.
I’ll walk into the next room here. Don’t keep me long, that’s all.’
So saying, Sir Mulberry took up his hat, and humming a fragment of
a song disappeared through the door of communication between the two
drawing-rooms, and closed it after him.
‘Now, my lord,’ said Ralph, ‘what is it?’
‘Nickleby,’ said his client, throwing himself along the sofa on which
he had been previously seated, so as to bring his lips nearer to the old
man’s ear, ‘what a pretty creature your niece is!’
‘Is she, my lord?’ replied Ralph. ‘Maybe--maybe--I don’t trouble my head
with such matters.’
‘You know she’s a deyvlish fine girl,’ said the client. ‘You must know
that, Nickleby. Come, don’t deny that.’
‘Yes, I believe she is considered so,’ replied Ralph. ‘Indeed, I know
she is. If I did not, you are an authority on such points, and your
taste, my lord--on all points, indeed--is undeniable.’
Nobody but the young man to whom these words were addressed could have
been deaf to the sneering tone in which they were spoken, or blind to
the look of contempt by which they were accompanied. But Lord Frederick
Verisopht was both, and took them to be complimentary.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘p’raps you’re a little right, and p’raps you’re a
little wrong--a little of both, Nickleby. I want to know where this
beauty lives, that I may have another peep at her, Nickleby.’
‘Really--’ Ralph began in his usual tones.
‘Don’t talk so loud,’ cried the other, achieving the great point of his
lesson to a miracle. ‘I don’t want Hawk to hear.’
‘You know he is your rival, do you?’ said Ralph, looking sharply at him.
‘He always is, d-a-amn him,’ replied the client; ‘and I want to steal
a march upon him. Ha, ha, ha! He’ll cut up so rough, Nickleby, at our
talking together without him. Where does she live, Nickleby, that’s all?
Only tell me where she lives, Nickleby.’
‘He bites,’ thought Ralph. ‘He bites.’
‘Eh, Nickleby, eh?’ pursued the client. ‘Where does she live?’
‘Really, my lord,’ said Ralph, rubbing his hands slowly over each other,
‘I must think before I tell you.’
‘No, not a bit of it, Nickleby; you mustn’t think at all,’ replied
Verisopht. ‘Where is it?’
‘No good can come of your knowing,’ replied Ralph. ‘She has been
virtuously and well brought up; to be sure she is handsome, poor,
unprotected! Poor girl, poor girl.’
Ralph ran over this brief summary of Kate’s condition as if it were
merely passing through his own mind, and he had no intention to speak
aloud; but the shrewd sly look which he directed at his companion as he
delivered it, gave this poor assumption the lie.
‘I tell you I only want to see her,’ cried his client. ‘A ma-an may look
at a pretty woman without harm, mayn’t he? Now, where DOES she live?
You know you’re making a fortune out of me, Nickleby, and upon my soul
nobody shall ever take me to anybody else, if you only tell me this.’
‘As you promise that, my lord,’ said Ralph, with feigned reluctance,
‘and as I am most anxious to oblige you, and as there’s no harm in
it--no harm--I’ll tell you. But you had better keep it to yourself, my
lord; strictly to yourself.’ Ralph pointed to the adjoining room as he
spoke, and nodded expressively.
The young lord, feigning to be equally impressed with the necessity of
this precaution, Ralph disclosed the present address and occupation of
his niece, observing that from what he heard of the family they appeared
very ambitious to have distinguished acquaintances, and that a lord
could, doubtless, introduce himself with great ease, if he felt
disposed.
‘Your object being only to see her again,’ said Ralph, ‘you could effect
it at any time you chose by that means.’
Lord Verisopht acknowledged the hint with a great many squeezes of
Ralph’s hard, horny hand, and whispering that they would now do well to
close the conversation, called to Sir Mulberry Hawk that he might come
back.
‘I thought you had gone to sleep,’ said Sir Mulberry, reappearing with
an ill-tempered air.
‘Sorry to detain you,’ replied the gull; ‘but Nickleby has been so
ama-azingly funny that I couldn’t tear myself away.’
‘No, no,’ said Ralph; ‘it was all his lordship. You know what a witty,
humorous, elegant, accomplished man Lord Frederick is. Mind the step, my
lord--Sir Mulberry, pray give way.’
With such courtesies as these, and many low bows, and the same cold
sneer upon his face all the while, Ralph busied himself in showing his
visitors downstairs, and otherwise than by the slightest possible motion
about the corners of his mouth, returned no show of answer to the look
of admiration with which Sir Mulberry Hawk seemed to compliment him on
being such an accomplished and most consummate scoundrel.
There had been a ring at the bell a few minutes before, which was
answered by Newman Noggs just as they reached the hall. In the ordinary
course of business Newman would have either admitted the new-comer in
silence, or have requested him or her to stand aside while the gentlemen
passed out. But he no sooner saw who it was, than as if for some private
reason of his own, he boldly departed from the established custom of
Ralph’s mansion in business hours, and looking towards the respectable
trio who were approaching, cried in a loud and sonorous voice, ‘Mrs
Nickleby!’
‘Mrs. Nickleby!’ cried Sir Mulberry Hawk, as his friend looked back, and
stared him in the face.
It was, indeed, that well-intentioned lady, who, having received an
offer for the empty house in the city directed to the landlord, had
brought it post-haste to Mr. Nickleby without delay.
‘Nobody YOU know,’ said Ralph. ‘Step into the office, my--my--dear. I’ll
be with you directly.’
‘Nobody I know!’ cried Sir Mulberry Hawk, advancing to the astonished
lady. ‘Is this Mrs. Nickleby--the mother of Miss Nickleby--the delightful
creature that I had the happiness of meeting in this house the very last
time I dined here? But no;’ said Sir Mulberry, stopping short. ‘No, it
can’t be. There is the same cast of features, the same indescribable air
of--But no; no. This lady is too young for that.’
‘I think you can tell the gentleman, brother-in-law, if it concerns
him to know,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, acknowledging the compliment with a
graceful bend, ‘that Kate Nickleby is my daughter.’
‘Her daughter, my lord!’ cried Sir Mulberry, turning to his friend.
‘This lady’s daughter, my lord.’
‘My lord!’ thought Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Well, I never did--’
‘This, then, my lord,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘is the lady to whose obliging
marriage we owe so much happiness. This lady is the mother of sweet
Miss Nickleby. Do you observe the extraordinary likeness, my lord?
Nickleby--introduce us.’
Ralph did so, in a kind of desperation.
‘Upon my soul, it’s a most delightful thing,’ said Lord Frederick,
pressing forward. ‘How de do?’
Mrs. Nickleby was too much flurried by these uncommonly kind salutations,
and her regrets at not having on her other bonnet, to make any immediate
reply, so she merely continued to bend and smile, and betray great
agitation.
‘A--and how is Miss Nickleby?’ said Lord Frederick. ‘Well, I hope?’
‘She is quite well, I’m obliged to you, my lord,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby,
recovering. ‘Quite well. She wasn’t well for some days after that day
she dined here, and I can’t help thinking, that she caught cold in that
hackney coach coming home. Hackney coaches, my lord, are such nasty
things, that it’s almost better to walk at any time, for although I
believe a hackney coachman can be transported for life, if he has a
broken window, still they are so reckless, that they nearly all have
broken windows. I once had a swelled face for six weeks, my lord, from
riding in a hackney coach--I think it was a hackney coach,’ said Mrs
Nickleby reflecting, ‘though I’m not quite certain whether it wasn’t
a chariot; at all events I know it was a dark green, with a very long
number, beginning with a nought and ending with a nine--no, beginning
with a nine, and ending with a nought, that was it, and of course the
stamp-office people would know at once whether it was a coach or a
chariot if any inquiries were made there--however that was, there it
was with a broken window and there was I for six weeks with a swelled
face--I think that was the very same hackney coach, that we found out
afterwards, had the top open all the time, and we should never even have