Nicholas Nickleby
emblazoned at the four corners with the Flabella crest, and gorgeous
heraldic bearings of that noble family. “MERCIE--that will do.”
‘At this instant, while the Lady Flabella yet inhaled that
delicious fragrance by holding the MOUCHOIR to her exquisite, but
thoughtfully-chiselled nose, the door of the BOUDOIR (artfully concealed
by rich hangings of silken damask, the hue of Italy’s firmament) was
thrown open, and with noiseless tread two VALETS-DE-CHAMBRE, clad in
sumptuous liveries of peach-blossom and gold, advanced into the room
followed by a page in BAS DE SOIE--silk stockings--who, while they
remained at some distance making the most graceful obeisances, advanced
to the feet of his lovely mistress, and dropping on one knee presented,
on a golden salver gorgeously chased, a scented BILLET.
‘The Lady Flabella, with an agitation she could not repress, hastily
tore off the ENVELOPE and broke the scented seal. It WAS from
Befillaire--the young, the slim, the low-voiced--HER OWN Befillaire.’
‘Oh, charming!’ interrupted Kate’s patroness, who was sometimes taken
literary. ‘Poetic, really. Read that description again, Miss Nickleby.’
Kate complied.
‘Sweet, indeed!’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a sigh. ‘So voluptuous, is it
not--so soft?’
‘Yes, I think it is,’ replied Kate, gently; ‘very soft.’
‘Close the book, Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I can hear
nothing more today; I should be sorry to disturb the impression of that
sweet description. Close the book.’
Kate complied, not unwillingly; and, as she did so, Mrs. Wititterly
raising her glass with a languid hand, remarked, that she looked pale.
‘It was the fright of that--that noise and confusion last night,’ said
Kate.
‘How very odd!’ exclaimed Mrs. Wititterly, with a look of surprise. And
certainly, when one comes to think of it, it WAS very odd that anything
should have disturbed a companion. A steam-engine, or other ingenious
piece of mechanism out of order, would have been nothing to it.
‘How did you come to know Lord Frederick, and those other delightful
creatures, child?’ asked Mrs. Wititterly, still eyeing Kate through her
glass.
‘I met them at my uncle’s,’ said Kate, vexed to feel that she was
colouring deeply, but unable to keep down the blood which rushed to her
face whenever she thought of that man.
‘Have you known them long?’
‘No,’ rejoined Kate. ‘Not long.’
‘I was very glad of the opportunity which that respectable person, your
mother, gave us of being known to them,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, in a lofty
manner. ‘Some friends of ours were on the very point of introducing us,
which makes it quite remarkable.’
This was said lest Miss Nickleby should grow conceited on the honour
and dignity of having known four great people (for Pyke and Pluck were
included among the delightful creatures), whom Mrs. Wititterly did not
know. But as the circumstance had made no impression one way or other
upon Kate’s mind, the force of the observation was quite lost upon her.
‘They asked permission to call,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I gave it them of
course.’
‘Do you expect them today?’ Kate ventured to inquire.
Mrs. Wititterly’s answer was lost in the noise of a tremendous rapping at
the street-door, and before it had ceased to vibrate, there drove up a
handsome cabriolet, out of which leaped Sir Mulberry Hawk and his friend
Lord Verisopht.
‘They are here now,’ said Kate, rising and hurrying away.
‘Miss Nickleby!’ cried Mrs. Wititterly, perfectly aghast at a companion’s
attempting to quit the room, without her permission first had and
obtained. ‘Pray don’t think of going.’
‘You are very good!’ replied Kate. ‘But--’
‘For goodness’ sake, don’t agitate me by making me speak so much,’ said
Mrs. Wititterly, with great sharpness. ‘Dear me, Miss Nickleby, I beg--’
It was in vain for Kate to protest that she was unwell, for the
footsteps of the knockers, whoever they were, were already on the
stairs. She resumed her seat, and had scarcely done so, when the
doubtful page darted into the room and announced, Mr. Pyke, and Mr. Pluck,
and Lord Verisopht, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, all at one burst.
‘The most extraordinary thing in the world,’ said Mr. Pluck, saluting
both ladies with the utmost cordiality; ‘the most extraordinary thing.
As Lord Frederick and Sir Mulberry drove up to the door, Pyke and I had
that instant knocked.’
‘That instant knocked,’ said Pyke.
‘No matter how you came, so that you are here,’ said Mrs. Wititterly,
who, by dint of lying on the same sofa for three years and a half, had
got up quite a little pantomime of graceful attitudes, and now threw
herself into the most striking of the whole series, to astonish the
visitors. ‘I am delighted, I am sure.’
‘And how is Miss Nickleby?’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, accosting Kate, in
a low voice--not so low, however, but that it reached the ears of Mrs
Wititterly.
‘Why, she complains of suffering from the fright of last night,’ said
the lady. ‘I am sure I don’t wonder at it, for my nerves are quite torn
to pieces.’
‘And yet you look,’ observed Sir Mulberry, turning round; ‘and yet you
look--’
‘Beyond everything,’ said Mr. Pyke, coming to his patron’s assistance. Of
course Mr. Pluck said the same.
‘I am afraid Sir Mulberry is a flatterer, my lord,’ said Mrs. Wititterly,
turning to that young gentleman, who had been sucking the head of his
cane in silence, and staring at Kate.
‘Oh, deyvlish!’ replied Verisopht. Having given utterance to which
remarkable sentiment, he occupied himself as before.
‘Neither does Miss Nickleby look the worse,’ said Sir Mulberry, bending
his bold gaze upon her. ‘She was always handsome, but upon my soul,
ma’am, you seem to have imparted some of your own good looks to her
besides.’
To judge from the glow which suffused the poor girl’s countenance after
this speech, Mrs. Wititterly might, with some show of reason, have been
supposed to have imparted to it some of that artificial bloom which
decorated her own. Mrs. Wititterly admitted, though not with the best
grace in the world, that Kate DID look pretty. She began to think, too,
that Sir Mulberry was not quite so agreeable a creature as she had
at first supposed him; for, although a skilful flatterer is a most
delightful companion if you can keep him all to yourself, his taste
becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.
‘Pyke,’ said the watchful Mr. Pluck, observing the effect which the
praise of Miss Nickleby had produced.
‘Well, Pluck,’ said Pyke.
‘Is there anybody,’ demanded Mr. Pluck, mysteriously, ‘anybody you know,
that Mrs. Wititterly’s profile reminds you of?’
‘Reminds me of!’ answered Pyke. ‘Of course there is.’
‘Who do you mean?’ said Pluck, in the same mysterious manner. ‘The D. of
B.?’
‘The C. of B.,’ replied Pyke, with the faintest trace of a grin
lingering in his countenance. ‘The beautiful sister is the countess; not
the duchess.’
‘True,’ said Pluck, ‘the C. of B. The resemblance is wonderful!’
‘Perfectly startling,’ said Mr. Pyke.
Here was a state of things! Mrs. Wititterly was declared, upon the
testimony of two veracious and competent witnesses, to be the very
picture of a countess! This was one of the consequences of getting into
good society. Why, she might have moved among grovelling people for
twenty years, and never heard of it. How could she, indeed? what did
THEY know about countesses?
The two gentlemen having, by the greediness with which this little
bait was swallowed, tested the extent of Mrs. Wititterly’s appetite for
adulation, proceeded to administer that commodity in very large doses,
thus affording to Sir Mulberry Hawk an opportunity of pestering Miss
Nickleby with questions and remarks, to which she was absolutely obliged
to make some reply. Meanwhile, Lord Verisopht enjoyed unmolested the
full flavour of the gold knob at the top of his cane, as he would have
done to the end of the interview if Mr. Wititterly had not come home, and
caused the conversation to turn to his favourite topic.
‘My lord,’ said Mr. Wititterly, ‘I am delighted--honoured--proud. Be
seated again, my lord, pray. I am proud, indeed--most proud.’
It was to the secret annoyance of his wife that Mr. Wititterly said all
this, for, although she was bursting with pride and arrogance, she would
have had the illustrious guests believe that their visit was quite a
common occurrence, and that they had lords and baronets to see them
every day in the week. But Mr. Wititterly’s feelings were beyond the
power of suppression.
‘It is an honour, indeed!’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘Julia, my soul, you will
suffer for this tomorrow.’
‘Suffer!’ cried Lord Verisopht.
‘The reaction, my lord, the reaction,’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘This violent
strain upon the nervous system over, my lord, what ensues? A sinking, a
depression, a lowness, a lassitude, a debility. My lord, if Sir Tumley
Snuffim was to see that delicate creature at this moment, he would
not give a--a--THIS for her life.’ In illustration of which remark, Mr
Wititterly took a pinch of snuff from his box, and jerked it lightly
into the air as an emblem of instability.
‘Not THAT,’ said Mr. Wititterly, looking about him with a serious
countenance. ‘Sir Tumley Snuffim would not give that for Mrs
Wititterly’s existence.’
Mr. Wititterly told this with a kind of sober exultation, as if it were
no trifling distinction for a man to have a wife in such a desperate
state, and Mrs. Wititterly sighed and looked on, as if she felt the
honour, but had determined to bear it as meekly as might be.
‘Mrs. Wititterly,’ said her husband, ‘is Sir Tumley Snuffim’s favourite
patient. I believe I may venture to say, that Mrs. Wititterly is the
first person who took the new medicine which is supposed to have
destroyed a family at Kensington Gravel Pits. I believe she was. If I am
wrong, Julia, my dear, you will correct me.’
‘I believe I was,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, in a faint voice.
As there appeared to be some doubt in the mind of his patron how he
could best join in this conversation, the indefatigable Mr. Pyke threw
himself into the breach, and, by way of saying something to the point,
inquired--with reference to the aforesaid medicine--whether it was nice.
‘No, sir, it was not. It had not even that recommendation,’ said Mr. W.
‘Mrs. Wititterly is quite a martyr,’ observed Pyke, with a complimentary
bow.
‘I THINK I am,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, smiling.
‘I think you are, my dear Julia,’ replied her husband, in a tone which
seemed to say that he was not vain, but still must insist upon their
privileges. ‘If anybody, my lord,’ added Mr. Wititterly, wheeling
round to the nobleman, ‘will produce to me a greater martyr than Mrs
Wititterly, all I can say is, that I shall be glad to see that martyr,
whether male or female--that’s all, my lord.’
Pyke and Pluck promptly remarked that certainly nothing could be fairer
than that; and the call having been by this time protracted to a very
great length, they obeyed Sir Mulberry’s look, and rose to go. This
brought Sir Mulberry himself and Lord Verisopht on their legs also.
Many protestations of friendship, and expressions anticipative of the
pleasure which must inevitably flow from so happy an acquaintance, were
exchanged, and the visitors departed, with renewed assurances that at
all times and seasons the mansion of the Wititterlys would be honoured
by receiving them beneath its roof.
That they came at all times and seasons--that they dined there one day,
supped the next, dined again on the next, and were constantly to and
fro on all--that they made parties to visit public places, and met by
accident at lounges--that upon all these occasions Miss Nickleby was
exposed to the constant and unremitting persecution of Sir Mulberry