Nicholas Nickleby
‘Then you must go out, Mr. Noggs,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘You can easily
have been kept away by business, and must not return till nearly
midnight.’
‘Then he will come straight here,’ retorted Newman.
‘So I suppose,’ observed Miss La Creevy; ‘but he won’t find me at home,
for I’ll go straight to the city the instant you leave me, make up
matters with Mrs. Nickleby, and take her away to the theatre, so that he
may not even know where his sister lives.’
Upon further discussion, this appeared the safest and most feasible mode
of proceeding that could possibly be adopted. Therefore it was finally
determined that matters should be so arranged, and Newman, after
listening to many supplementary cautions and entreaties, took his leave
of Miss La Creevy and trudged back to Golden Square; ruminating as
he went upon a vast number of possibilities and impossibilities which
crowded upon his brain, and arose out of the conversation that had just
terminated.
CHAPTER 32
Relating chiefly to some remarkable Conversation, and some remarkable
Proceedings to which it gives rise
‘London at last!’ cried Nicholas, throwing back his greatcoat and
rousing Smike from a long nap. ‘It seemed to me as though we should
never reach it.’
‘And yet you came along at a tidy pace too,’ observed the coachman,
looking over his shoulder at Nicholas with no very pleasant expression
of countenance.
‘Ay, I know that,’ was the reply; ‘but I have been very anxious to be at
my journey’s end, and that makes the way seem long.’
‘Well,’ remarked the coachman, ‘if the way seemed long with such cattle
as you’ve sat behind, you MUST have been most uncommon anxious;’ and
so saying, he let out his whip-lash and touched up a little boy on the
calves of his legs by way of emphasis.
They rattled on through the noisy, bustling, crowded street of London,
now displaying long double rows of brightly-burning lamps, dotted here
and there with the chemists’ glaring lights, and illuminated besides
with the brilliant flood that streamed from the windows of the shops,
where sparkling jewellery, silks and velvets of the richest colours,
the most inviting delicacies, and most sumptuous articles of luxurious
ornament, succeeded each other in rich and glittering profusion. Streams
of people apparently without end poured on and on, jostling each other
in the crowd and hurrying forward, scarcely seeming to notice the riches
that surrounded them on every side; while vehicles of all shapes and
makes, mingled up together in one moving mass, like running water, lent
their ceaseless roar to swell the noise and tumult.
As they dashed by the quickly-changing and ever-varying objects, it was
curious to observe in what a strange procession they passed before the
eye. Emporiums of splendid dresses, the materials brought from every
quarter of the world; tempting stores of everything to stimulate and
pamper the sated appetite and give new relish to the oft-repeated feast;
vessels of burnished gold and silver, wrought into every exquisite form
of vase, and dish, and goblet; guns, swords, pistols, and patent engines
of destruction; screws and irons for the crooked, clothes for the
newly-born, drugs for the sick, coffins for the dead, and churchyards
for the buried--all these jumbled each with the other and flocking side
by side, seemed to flit by in motley dance like the fantastic groups of
the old Dutch painter, and with the same stern moral for the unheeding
restless crowd.
Nor were there wanting objects in the crowd itself to give new point
and purpose to the shifting scene. The rags of the squalid ballad-singer
fluttered in the rich light that showed the goldsmith’s treasures, pale
and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where was tempting food,
hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet
of brittle glass--an iron wall to them; half-naked shivering figures
stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India. There
was a christening party at the largest coffin-maker’s and a funeral
hatchment had stopped some great improvements in the bravest mansion.
Life and death went hand in hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side;
repletion and starvation laid them down together.
But it was London; and the old country lady inside, who had put her head
out of the coach-window a mile or two this side Kingston, and cried out
to the driver that she was sure he must have passed it and forgotten to
set her down, was satisfied at last.
Nicholas engaged beds for himself and Smike at the inn where the coach
stopped, and repaired, without the delay of another moment, to the
lodgings of Newman Noggs; for his anxiety and impatience had increased
with every succeeding minute, and were almost beyond control.
There was a fire in Newman’s garret; and a candle had been left burning;
the floor was cleanly swept, the room was as comfortably arranged as
such a room could be, and meat and drink were placed in order upon the
table. Everything bespoke the affectionate care and attention of Newman
Noggs, but Newman himself was not there.
‘Do you know what time he will be home?’ inquired Nicholas, tapping at
the door of Newman’s front neighbour.
‘Ah, Mr. Johnson!’ said Crowl, presenting himself. ‘Welcome, sir. How
well you’re looking! I never could have believed--’
‘Pardon me,’ interposed Nicholas. ‘My question--I am extremely anxious
to know.’
‘Why, he has a troublesome affair of business,’ replied Crowl, ‘and will
not be home before twelve o’clock. He was very unwilling to go, I can
tell you, but there was no help for it. However, he left word that you
were to make yourself comfortable till he came back, and that I was to
entertain you, which I shall be very glad to do.’
In proof of his extreme readiness to exert himself for the general
entertainment, Mr. Crowl drew a chair to the table as he spoke, and
helping himself plentifully to the cold meat, invited Nicholas and Smike
to follow his example.
Disappointed and uneasy, Nicholas could touch no food, so, after he had
seen Smike comfortably established at the table, he walked out (despite
a great many dissuasions uttered by Mr. Crowl with his mouth full), and
left Smike to detain Newman in case he returned first.
As Miss La Creevy had anticipated, Nicholas betook himself straight to
her house. Finding her from home, he debated within himself for some
time whether he should go to his mother’s residence, and so compromise
her with Ralph Nickleby. Fully persuaded, however, that Newman would not
have solicited him to return unless there was some strong reason which
required his presence at home, he resolved to go there, and hastened
eastwards with all speed.
Mrs. Nickleby would not be at home, the girl said, until past twelve, or
later. She believed Miss Nickleby was well, but she didn’t live at home
now, nor did she come home except very seldom. She couldn’t say where
she was stopping, but it was not at Madame Mantalini’s. She was sure of
that.
With his heart beating violently, and apprehending he knew not what
disaster, Nicholas returned to where he had left Smike. Newman had not
been home. He wouldn’t be, till twelve o’clock; there was no chance of
it. Was there no possibility of sending to fetch him if it were only for
an instant, or forwarding to him one line of writing to which he might
return a verbal reply? That was quite impracticable. He was not at
Golden Square, and probably had been sent to execute some commission at
a distance.
Nicholas tried to remain quietly where he was, but he felt so nervous
and excited that he could not sit still. He seemed to be losing time
unless he was moving. It was an absurd fancy, he knew, but he was wholly
unable to resist it. So, he took up his hat and rambled out again.
He strolled westward this time, pacing the long streets with hurried
footsteps, and agitated by a thousand misgivings and apprehensions
which he could not overcome. He passed into Hyde Park, now silent and
deserted, and increased his rate of walking as if in the hope of leaving
his thoughts behind. They crowded upon him more thickly, however, now
there were no passing objects to attract his attention; and the one idea
was always uppermost, that some stroke of ill-fortune must have occurred
so calamitous in its nature that all were fearful of disclosing it to
him. The old question arose again and again--What could it be? Nicholas
walked till he was weary, but was not one bit the wiser; and indeed he
came out of the Park at last a great deal more confused and perplexed
than when he went in.
He had taken scarcely anything to eat or drink since early in the
morning, and felt quite worn out and exhausted. As he returned
languidly towards the point from which he had started, along one of the
thoroughfares which lie between Park Lane and Bond Street, he passed a
handsome hotel, before which he stopped mechanically.
‘An expensive place, I dare say,’ thought Nicholas; ‘but a pint of wine
and a biscuit are no great debauch wherever they are had. And yet I
don’t know.’
He walked on a few steps, but looking wistfully down the long vista of
gas-lamps before him, and thinking how long it would take to reach the
end of it and being besides in that kind of mood in which a man is most
disposed to yield to his first impulse--and being, besides, strongly
attracted to the hotel, in part by curiosity, and in part by some
odd mixture of feelings which he would have been troubled to
define--Nicholas turned back again, and walked into the coffee-room.
It was very handsomely furnished. The walls were ornamented with the
choicest specimens of French paper, enriched with a gilded cornice of
elegant design. The floor was covered with a rich carpet; and two superb
mirrors, one above the chimneypiece and one at the opposite end of the
room reaching from floor to ceiling, multiplied the other beauties and
added new ones of their own to enhance the general effect. There was
a rather noisy party of four gentlemen in a box by the fire-place, and
only two other persons present--both elderly gentlemen, and both alone.
Observing all this in the first comprehensive glance with which a
stranger surveys a place that is new to him, Nicholas sat himself down
in the box next to the noisy party, with his back towards them, and
postponing his order for a pint of claret until such time as the waiter
and one of the elderly gentlemen should have settled a disputed
question relative to the price of an item in the bill of fare, took up a
newspaper and began to read.
He had not read twenty lines, and was in truth himself dozing, when he
was startled by the mention of his sister’s name. ‘Little Kate Nickleby’
were the words that caught his ear. He raised his head in amazement, and
as he did so, saw by the reflection in the opposite glass, that two of
the party behind him had risen and were standing before the fire. ‘It
must have come from one of them,’ thought Nicholas. He waited to hear
more with a countenance of some indignation, for the tone of speech had
been anything but respectful, and the appearance of the individual whom
he presumed to have been the speaker was coarse and swaggering.
This person--so Nicholas observed in the same glance at the mirror which
had enabled him to see his face--was standing with his back to the fire
conversing with a younger man, who stood with his back to the company,
wore his hat, and was adjusting his shirt-collar by the aid of the
glass. They spoke in whispers, now and then bursting into a loud laugh,
but Nicholas could catch no repetition of the words, nor anything
sounding at all like the words, which had attracted his attention.
At length the two resumed their seats, and more wine being ordered, the