Nicholas Nickleby
ago, and that you had not the faintest clue or trace to tell you who he
was. Is that the truth?’
‘It is, worse luck!’ replied Squeers, becoming more and more easy and
familiar in his manner, as Ralph pursued his inquiries with the less
reserve. ‘It’s fourteen years ago, by the entry in my book, since a
strange man brought him to my place, one autumn night, and left him
there; paying five pound five, for his first quarter in advance. He
might have been five or six year old at that time--not more.’
‘What more do you know about him?’ demanded Ralph.
‘Devilish little, I’m sorry to say,’ replied Squeers. ‘The money was
paid for some six or eight year, and then it stopped. He had given an
address in London, had this chap; but when it came to the point, of
course nobody knowed anything about him. So I kept the lad out of--out
of--’
‘Charity?’ suggested Ralph drily.
‘Charity, to be sure,’ returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, ‘and when he
begins to be useful in a certain sort of way, this young scoundrel of
a Nickleby comes and carries him off. But the most vexatious and
aggeravating part of the whole affair is,’ said Squeers, dropping his
voice, and drawing his chair still closer to Ralph, ‘that some questions
have been asked about him at last--not of me, but, in a roundabout kind
of way, of people in our village. So, that just when I might have had
all arrears paid up, perhaps, and perhaps--who knows? such things have
happened in our business before--a present besides for putting him out
to a farmer, or sending him to sea, so that he might never turn up to
disgrace his parents, supposing him to be a natural boy, as many of our
boys are--damme, if that villain of a Nickleby don’t collar him in open
day, and commit as good as highway robbery upon my pocket.’
‘We will both cry quits with him before long,’ said Ralph, laying his
hand on the arm of the Yorkshire schoolmaster.
‘Quits!’ echoed Squeers. ‘Ah! and I should like to leave a small balance
in his favour, to be settled when he can. I only wish Mrs. Squeers could
catch hold of him. Bless her heart! She’d murder him, Mr. Nickleby--she
would, as soon as eat her dinner.’
‘We will talk of this again,’ said Ralph. ‘I must have time to think of
it. To wound him through his own affections and fancies--. If I could
strike him through this boy--’
‘Strike him how you like, sir,’ interrupted Squeers, ‘only hit him hard
enough, that’s all--and with that, I’ll say good-morning. Here!--just
chuck that little boy’s hat off that corner peg, and lift him off the
stool will you?’
Bawling these requests to Newman Noggs, Mr. Squeers betook himself to the
little back-office, and fitted on his child’s hat with parental anxiety,
while Newman, with his pen behind his ear, sat, stiff and immovable, on
his stool, regarding the father and son by turns with a broad stare.
‘He’s a fine boy, an’t he?’ said Squeers, throwing his head a little
on one side, and falling back to the desk, the better to estimate the
proportions of little Wackford.
‘Very,’ said Newman.
‘Pretty well swelled out, an’t he?’ pursued Squeers. ‘He has the fatness
of twenty boys, he has.’
‘Ah!’ replied Newman, suddenly thrusting his face into that of Squeers,
‘he has;--the fatness of twenty!--more! He’s got it all. God help that
others. Ha! ha! Oh Lord!’
Having uttered these fragmentary observations, Newman dropped upon his
desk and began to write with most marvellous rapidity.
‘Why, what does the man mean?’ cried Squeers, colouring. ‘Is he drunk?’
Newman made no reply.
‘Is he mad?’ said Squeers.
But, still Newman betrayed no consciousness of any presence save his
own; so, Mr. Squeers comforted himself by saying that he was both drunk
AND mad; and, with this parting observation, he led his hopeful son
away.
In exact proportion as Ralph Nickleby became conscious of a struggling
and lingering regard for Kate, had his detestation of Nicholas
augmented. It might be, that to atone for the weakness of inclining to
any one person, he held it necessary to hate some other more intensely
than before; but such had been the course of his feelings. And now,
to be defied and spurned, to be held up to her in the worst and most
repulsive colours, to know that she was taught to hate and despise
him: to feel that there was infection in his touch, and taint in his
companionship--to know all this, and to know that the mover of it all
was that same boyish poor relation who had twitted him in their very
first interview, and openly bearded and braved him since, wrought his
quiet and stealthy malignity to such a pitch, that there was scarcely
anything he would not have hazarded to gratify it, if he could have seen
his way to some immediate retaliation.
But, fortunately for Nicholas, Ralph Nickleby did not; and although he
cast about all that day, and kept a corner of his brain working on the
one anxious subject through all the round of schemes and business that
came with it, night found him at last, still harping on the same theme,
and still pursuing the same unprofitable reflections.
‘When my brother was such as he,’ said Ralph, ‘the first comparisons
were drawn between us--always in my disfavour. HE was open, liberal,
gallant, gay; I a crafty hunks of cold and stagnant blood, with no
passion but love of saving, and no spirit beyond a thirst for gain. I
recollected it well when I first saw this whipster; but I remember it
better now.’
He had been occupied in tearing Nicholas’s letter into atoms; and as he
spoke, he scattered it in a tiny shower about him.
‘Recollections like these,’ pursued Ralph, with a bitter smile, ‘flock
upon me--when I resign myself to them--in crowds, and from countless
quarters. As a portion of the world affect to despise the power of
money, I must try and show them what it is.’
And being, by this time, in a pleasant frame of mind for slumber, Ralph
Nickleby went to bed.
CHAPTER 35
Smike becomes known to Mrs. Nickleby and Kate. Nicholas also meets with
new Acquaintances. Brighter Days seem to dawn upon the Family
Having established his mother and sister in the apartments of the
kind-hearted miniature painter, and ascertained that Sir Mulberry Hawk
was in no danger of losing his life, Nicholas turned his thoughts to
poor Smike, who, after breakfasting with Newman Noggs, had remained, in
a disconsolate state, at that worthy creature’s lodgings, waiting, with
much anxiety, for further intelligence of his protector.
‘As he will be one of our own little household, wherever we live,
or whatever fortune is in reserve for us,’ thought Nicholas, ‘I must
present the poor fellow in due form. They will be kind to him for his
own sake, and if not (on that account solely) to the full extent I could
wish, they will stretch a point, I am sure, for mine.’
Nicholas said ‘they’, but his misgivings were confined to one person.
He was sure of Kate, but he knew his mother’s peculiarities, and was
not quite so certain that Smike would find favour in the eyes of Mrs
Nickleby.
‘However,’ thought Nicholas as he departed on his benevolent errand;
‘she cannot fail to become attached to him, when she knows what a
devoted creature he is, and as she must quickly make the discovery, his
probation will be a short one.’
‘I was afraid,’ said Smike, overjoyed to see his friend again, ‘that you
had fallen into some fresh trouble; the time seemed so long, at last,
that I almost feared you were lost.’
‘Lost!’ replied Nicholas gaily. ‘You will not be rid of me so easily,
I promise you. I shall rise to the surface many thousand times yet,
and the harder the thrust that pushes me down, the more quickly I shall
rebound, Smike. But come; my errand here is to take you home.’
‘Home!’ faltered Smike, drawing timidly back.
‘Ay,’ rejoined Nicholas, taking his arm. ‘Why not?’
‘I had such hopes once,’ said Smike; ‘day and night, day and night,
for many years. I longed for home till I was weary, and pined away with
grief, but now--’
‘And what now?’ asked Nicholas, looking kindly in his face. ‘What now,
old friend?’
‘I could not part from you to go to any home on earth,’ replied Smike,
pressing his hand; ‘except one, except one. I shall never be an old man;
and if your hand placed me in the grave, and I could think, before I
died, that you would come and look upon it sometimes with one of your
kind smiles, and in the summer weather, when everything was alive--not
dead like me--I could go to that home almost without a tear.’
‘Why do you talk thus, poor boy, if your life is a happy one with me?’
said Nicholas.
‘Because I should change; not those about me. And if they forgot me,
I should never know it,’ replied Smike. ‘In the churchyard we are all
alike, but here there are none like me. I am a poor creature, but I know
that.’
‘You are a foolish, silly creature,’ said Nicholas cheerfully. ‘If
that is what you mean, I grant you that. Why, here’s a dismal face for
ladies’ company!--my pretty sister too, whom you have so often asked me
about. Is this your Yorkshire gallantry? For shame! for shame!’
Smike brightened up and smiled.
‘When I talk of home,’ pursued Nicholas, ‘I talk of mine--which is yours
of course. If it were defined by any particular four walls and a roof,
God knows I should be sufficiently puzzled to say whereabouts it lay;
but that is not what I mean. When I speak of home, I speak of the place
where--in default of a better--those I love are gathered together; and
if that place were a gypsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it by the
same good name notwithstanding. And now, for what is my present home,
which, however alarming your expectations may be, will neither terrify
you by its extent nor its magnificence!’
So saying, Nicholas took his companion by the arm, and saying a great
deal more to the same purpose, and pointing out various things to amuse
and interest him as they went along, led the way to Miss La Creevy’s
house.
‘And this, Kate,’ said Nicholas, entering the room where his sister sat
alone, ‘is the faithful friend and affectionate fellow-traveller whom I
prepared you to receive.’
Poor Smike was bashful, and awkward, and frightened enough, at first,
but Kate advanced towards him so kindly, and said, in such a sweet
voice, how anxious she had been to see him after all her brother
had told her, and how much she had to thank him for having comforted
Nicholas so greatly in their very trying reverses, that he began to be
very doubtful whether he should shed tears or not, and became still more
flurried. However, he managed to say, in a broken voice, that Nicholas
was his only friend, and that he would lay down his life to help him;
and Kate, although she was so kind and considerate, seemed to be so
wholly unconscious of his distress and embarrassment, that he recovered
almost immediately and felt quite at home.
Then, Miss La Creevy came in; and to her Smike had to be presented also.
And Miss La Creevy was very kind too, and wonderfully talkative: not to
Smike, for that would have made him uneasy at first, but to Nicholas and
his sister. Then, after a time, she would speak to Smike himself now and
then, asking him whether he was a judge of likenesses, and whether he
thought that picture in the corner was like herself, and whether he
didn’t think it would have looked better if she had made herself ten
years younger, and whether he didn’t think, as a matter of general
observation, that young ladies looked better not only in pictures, but
out of them too, than old ones; with many more small jokes and facetious
remarks, which were delivered with such good-humour and merriment, that
Smike thought, within himself, she was the nicest lady he had ever seen;
even nicer than Mrs. Grudden, of Mr. Vincent Crummles’s theatre; and she