Nicholas Nickleby
Snevellicci’s mama on his right hand, and Miss Snevellicci’s papa over
the way. In short, he was the hero of the feast; and when the table was
cleared and something warm introduced, Miss Snevellicci’s papa got up
and proposed his health in a speech containing such affecting allusions
to his coming departure, that Miss Snevellicci wept, and was compelled
to retire into the bedroom.
‘Hush! Don’t take any notice of it,’ said Miss Ledrook, peeping in from
the bedroom. ‘Say, when she comes back, that she exerts herself too
much.’
Miss Ledrook eked out this speech with so many mysterious nods and
frowns before she shut the door again, that a profound silence came upon
all the company, during which Miss Snevellicci’s papa looked very
big indeed--several sizes larger than life--at everybody in turn, but
particularly at Nicholas, and kept on perpetually emptying his tumbler
and filling it again, until the ladies returned in a cluster, with Miss
Snevellicci among them.
‘You needn’t alarm yourself a bit, Mr. Snevellicci,’ said Mrs. Lillyvick.
‘She is only a little weak and nervous; she has been so ever since the
morning.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, ‘that’s all, is it?’
‘Oh yes, that’s all. Don’t make a fuss about it,’ cried all the ladies
together.
Now this was not exactly the kind of reply suited to Mr. Snevellicci’s
importance as a man and a father, so he picked out the unfortunate Mrs
Snevellicci, and asked her what the devil she meant by talking to him in
that way.
‘Dear me, my dear!’ said Mrs. Snevellicci.
‘Don’t call me your dear, ma’am,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, ‘if you please.’
‘Pray, pa, don’t,’ interposed Miss Snevellicci.
‘Don’t what, my child?’
‘Talk in that way.’
‘Why not?’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I hope you don’t suppose there’s
anybody here who is to prevent my talking as I like?’
‘Nobody wants to, pa,’ rejoined his daughter.
‘Nobody would if they did want to,’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I am not
ashamed of myself, Snevellicci is my name; I’m to be found in Broad
Court, Bow Street, when I’m in town. If I’m not at home, let any man
ask for me at the stage-door. Damme, they know me at the stage-door
I suppose. Most men have seen my portrait at the cigar shop round the
corner. I’ve been mentioned in the newspapers before now, haven’t I?
Talk! I’ll tell you what; if I found out that any man had been tampering
with the affections of my daughter, I wouldn’t talk. I’d astonish him
without talking; that’s my way.’
So saying, Mr. Snevellicci struck the palm of his left hand three smart
blows with his clenched fist; pulled a phantom nose with his right thumb
and forefinger, and swallowed another glassful at a draught. ‘That’s my
way,’ repeated Mr. Snevellicci.
Most public characters have their failings; and the truth is that Mr
Snevellicci was a little addicted to drinking; or, if the whole truth
must be told, that he was scarcely ever sober. He knew in his cups three
distinct stages of intoxication,--the dignified--the quarrelsome--the
amorous. When professionally engaged he never got beyond the dignified;
in private circles he went through all three, passing from one to
another with a rapidity of transition often rather perplexing to those
who had not the honour of his acquaintance.
Thus Mr. Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glassful than he
smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of having exhibited
symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed ‘The ladies! Bless their hearts!’ in
a most vivacious manner.
‘I love ‘em,’ said Mr. Snevellicci, looking round the table, ‘I love ‘em,
every one.’
‘Not every one,’ reasoned Mr. Lillyvick, mildly.
‘Yes, every one,’ repeated Mr. Snevellicci.
‘That would include the married ladies, you know,’ said Mr. Lillyvick.
‘I love them too, sir,’ said Mr. Snevellicci.
The collector looked into the surrounding faces with an aspect of grave
astonishment, seeming to say, ‘This is a nice man!’ and appeared a
little surprised that Mrs. Lillyvick’s manner yielded no evidences of
horror and indignation.
‘One good turn deserves another,’ said Mr. Snevellicci. ‘I love them
and they love me.’ And as if this avowal were not made in sufficient
disregard and defiance of all moral obligations, what did Mr. Snevellicci
do? He winked--winked openly and undisguisedly; winked with his right
eye--upon Henrietta Lillyvick!
The collector fell back in his chair in the intensity of his
astonishment. If anybody had winked at her as Henrietta Petowker, it
would have been indecorous in the last degree; but as Mrs. Lillyvick!
While he thought of it in a cold perspiration, and wondered whether
it was possible that he could be dreaming, Mr. Snevellicci repeated the
wink, and drinking to Mrs. Lillyvick in dumb show, actually blew her a
kiss! Mr. Lillyvick left his chair, walked straight up to the other
end of the table, and fell upon him--literally fell upon
him--instantaneously. Mr. Lillyvick was no light weight, and consequently
when he fell upon Mr. Snevellicci, Mr. Snevellicci fell under the table.
Mr. Lillyvick followed him, and the ladies screamed.
‘What is the matter with the men! Are they mad?’ cried Nicholas, diving
under the table, dragging up the collector by main force, and thrusting
him, all doubled up, into a chair, as if he had been a stuffed figure.
‘What do you mean to do? What do you want to do? What is the matter with
you?’
While Nicholas raised up the collector, Smike had performed the same
office for Mr. Snevellicci, who now regarded his late adversary in tipsy
amazement.
‘Look here, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, pointing to his astonished
wife, ‘here is purity and elegance combined, whose feelings have been
outraged--violated, sir!’
‘Lor, what nonsense he talks!’ exclaimed Mrs. Lillyvick in answer to the
inquiring look of Nicholas. ‘Nobody has said anything to me.’
‘Said, Henrietta!’ cried the collector. ‘Didn’t I see him--’ Mr
Lillyvick couldn’t bring himself to utter the word, but he counterfeited
the motion of the eye.
‘Well!’ cried Mrs. Lillyvick. ‘Do you suppose nobody is ever to look at
me? A pretty thing to be married indeed, if that was law!’
‘You didn’t mind it?’ cried the collector.
‘Mind it!’ repeated Mrs. Lillyvick contemptuously. ‘You ought to go down
on your knees and beg everybody’s pardon, that you ought.’
‘Pardon, my dear?’ said the dismayed collector.
‘Yes, and mine first,’ replied Mrs. Lillyvick. ‘Do you suppose I ain’t
the best judge of what’s proper and what’s improper?’
‘To be sure,’ cried all the ladies. ‘Do you suppose WE shouldn’t be the
first to speak, if there was anything that ought to be taken notice of?’
‘Do you suppose THEY don’t know, sir?’ said Miss Snevellicci’s papa,
pulling up his collar, and muttering something about a punching of
heads, and being only withheld by considerations of age. With which Miss
Snevellicci’s papa looked steadily and sternly at Mr. Lillyvick for some
seconds, and then rising deliberately from his chair, kissed the ladies
all round, beginning with Mrs. Lillyvick.
The unhappy collector looked piteously at his wife, as if to see whether
there was any one trait of Miss Petowker left in Mrs. Lillyvick, and
finding too surely that there was not, begged pardon of all the company
with great humility, and sat down such a crest-fallen, dispirited,
disenchanted man, that despite all his selfishness and dotage, he was
quite an object of compassion.
Miss Snevellicci’s papa being greatly exalted by this triumph, and
incontestable proof of his popularity with the fair sex, quickly grew
convivial, not to say uproarious; volunteering more than one song of
no inconsiderable length, and regaling the social circle between-whiles
with recollections of divers splendid women who had been supposed to
entertain a passion for himself, several of whom he toasted by name,
taking occasion to remark at the same time that if he had been a little
more alive to his own interest, he might have been rolling at that
moment in his chariot-and-four. These reminiscences appeared to awaken
no very torturing pangs in the breast of Mrs. Snevellicci, who was
sufficiently occupied in descanting to Nicholas upon the manifold
accomplishments and merits of her daughter. Nor was the young lady
herself at all behind-hand in displaying her choicest allurements; but
these, heightened as they were by the artifices of Miss Ledrook, had no
effect whatever in increasing the attentions of Nicholas, who, with the
precedent of Miss Squeers still fresh in his memory, steadily resisted
every fascination, and placed so strict a guard upon his behaviour that
when he had taken his leave the ladies were unanimous in pronouncing him
quite a monster of insensibility.
Next day the posters appeared in due course, and the public were
informed, in all the colours of the rainbow, and in letters afflicted
with every possible variation of spinal deformity, how that Mr. Johnson
would have the honour of making his last appearance that evening, and
how that an early application for places was requested, in consequence
of the extraordinary overflow attendant on his performances,--it being
a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established
beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavour to attract people to a
theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never
get into it.
Nicholas was somewhat at a loss, on entering the theatre at night,
to account for the unusual perturbation and excitement visible in the
countenances of all the company, but he was not long in doubt as to the
cause, for before he could make any inquiry respecting it Mr. Crummles
approached, and in an agitated tone of voice, informed him that there
was a London manager in the boxes.
‘It’s the phenomenon, depend upon it, sir,’ said Crummles, dragging
Nicholas to the little hole in the curtain that he might look through at
the London manager. ‘I have not the smallest doubt it’s the fame of the
phenomenon--that’s the man; him in the great-coat and no shirt-collar.
She shall have ten pound a week, Johnson; she shall not appear on the
London boards for a farthing less. They shan’t engage her either, unless
they engage Mrs. Crummles too--twenty pound a week for the pair; or I’ll
tell you what, I’ll throw in myself and the two boys, and they shall
have the family for thirty. I can’t say fairer than that. They must take
us all, if none of us will go without the others. That’s the way some of
the London people do, and it always answers. Thirty pound a week--it’s
too cheap, Johnson. It’s dirt cheap.’
Nicholas replied, that it certainly was; and Mr. Vincent Crummles taking
several huge pinches of snuff to compose his feelings, hurried away to
tell Mrs. Crummles that he had quite settled the only terms that could be
accepted, and had resolved not to abate one single farthing.
When everybody was dressed and the curtain went up, the excitement
occasioned by the presence of the London manager increased a
thousand-fold. Everybody happened to know that the London manager had
come down specially to witness his or her own performance, and all were
in a flutter of anxiety and expectation. Some of those who were not
on in the first scene, hurried to the wings, and there stretched their
necks to have a peep at him; others stole up into the two little private
boxes over the stage-doors, and from that position reconnoitred the
London manager. Once the London manager was seen to smile--he smiled
at the comic countryman’s pretending to catch a blue-bottle, while Mrs
Crummles was making her greatest effect. ‘Very good, my fine fellow,’
said Mr. Crummles, shaking his fist at the comic countryman when he came
off, ‘you leave this company next Saturday night.’