Nicholas Nickleby
him. No, no no.’
‘No, no, no,’ returned the other, nodding his head gravely. ‘Very right,
my dear brother, very right.’
‘He will tell me I’m wrong, if I make a mistake,’ said Nicholas’s
friend. ‘But whether I do or not, you’ll be very much affected, brother
Ned, remembering the time when we were two friendless lads, and earned
our first shilling in this great city.’
The twins pressed each other’s hands in silence; and in his own homely
manner, brother Charles related the particulars he had heard from
Nicholas. The conversation which ensued was a long one, and when it was
over, a secret conference of almost equal duration took place between
brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater in another room. It is no disparagement
to Nicholas to say, that before he had been closeted with the two
brothers ten minutes, he could only wave his hand at every fresh
expression of kindness and sympathy, and sob like a little child.
At length brother Ned and Tim Linkinwater came back together, when Tim
instantly walked up to Nicholas and whispered in his ear in a very brief
sentence (for Tim was ordinarily a man of few words), that he had taken
down the address in the Strand, and would call upon him that evening,
at eight. Having done which, Tim wiped his spectacles and put them on,
preparatory to hearing what more the brothers Cheeryble had got to say.
‘Tim,’ said brother Charles, ‘you understand that we have an intention
of taking this young gentleman into the counting-house?’
Brother Ned remarked that Tim was aware of that intention, and quite
approved of it; and Tim having nodded, and said he did, drew himself up
and looked particularly fat, and very important. After which, there was
a profound silence.
‘I’m not coming an hour later in the morning, you know,’ said Tim,
breaking out all at once, and looking very resolute. ‘I’m not going to
sleep in the fresh air; no, nor I’m not going into the country either. A
pretty thing at this time of day, certainly. Pho!’
‘Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater,’ said brother Charles, looking at
him without the faintest spark of anger, and with a countenance radiant
with attachment to the old clerk. ‘Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater,
what do you mean, sir?’
‘It’s forty-four year,’ said Tim, making a calculation in the air with
his pen, and drawing an imaginary line before he cast it up, ‘forty-four
year, next May, since I first kept the books of Cheeryble, Brothers.
I’ve opened the safe every morning all that time (Sundays excepted) as
the clock struck nine, and gone over the house every night at half-past
ten (except on Foreign Post nights, and then twenty minutes before
twelve) to see the doors fastened, and the fires out. I’ve never slept
out of the back-attic one single night. There’s the same mignonette box
in the middle of the window, and the same four flower-pots, two on each
side, that I brought with me when I first came. There an’t--I’ve said it
again and again, and I’ll maintain it--there an’t such a square as this
in the world. I KNOW there an’t,’ said Tim, with sudden energy, and
looking sternly about him. ‘Not one. For business or pleasure, in
summer-time or winter--I don’t care which--there’s nothing like it.
There’s not such a spring in England as the pump under the archway.
There’s not such a view in England as the view out of my window; I’ve
seen it every morning before I shaved, and I ought to know something
about it. I have slept in that room,’ added Tim, sinking his voice a
little, ‘for four-and-forty year; and if it wasn’t inconvenient, and
didn’t interfere with business, I should request leave to die there.’
‘Damn you, Tim Linkinwater, how dare you talk about dying?’ roared the
twins by one impulse, and blowing their old noses violently.
‘That’s what I’ve got to say, Mr. Edwin and Mr. Charles,’ said Tim,
squaring his shoulders again. ‘This isn’t the first time you’ve talked
about superannuating me; but, if you please, we’ll make it the last, and
drop the subject for evermore.’
With these words, Tim Linkinwater stalked out, and shut himself up
in his glass case, with the air of a man who had had his say, and was
thoroughly resolved not to be put down.
The brothers interchanged looks, and coughed some half-dozen times
without speaking.
‘He must be done something with, brother Ned,’ said the other, warmly;
‘we must disregard his old scruples; they can’t be tolerated, or borne.
He must be made a partner, brother Ned; and if he won’t submit to it
peaceably, we must have recourse to violence.’
‘Quite right,’ replied brother Ned, nodding his head as a man thoroughly
determined; ‘quite right, my dear brother. If he won’t listen to reason,
we must do it against his will, and show him that we are determined to
exert our authority. We must quarrel with him, brother Charles.’
‘We must. We certainly must have a quarrel with Tim Linkinwater,’ said
the other. ‘But in the meantime, my dear brother, we are keeping our
young friend; and the poor lady and her daughter will be anxious for his
return. So let us say goodbye for the present, and--there, there--take
care of that box, my dear sir--and--no, no, not a word now; but be
careful of the crossings and--’
And with any disjointed and unconnected words which would prevent
Nicholas from pouring forth his thanks, the brothers hurried him
out: shaking hands with him all the way, and affecting very
unsuccessfully--they were poor hands at deception!--to be wholly
unconscious of the feelings that completely mastered him.
Nicholas’s heart was too full to allow of his turning into the street
until he had recovered some composure. When he at last glided out of the
dark doorway corner in which he had been compelled to halt, he caught
a glimpse of the twins stealthily peeping in at one corner of the glass
case, evidently undecided whether they should follow up their late
attack without delay, or for the present postpone laying further siege
to the inflexible Tim Linkinwater.
To recount all the delight and wonder which the circumstances just
detailed awakened at Miss La Creevy’s, and all the things that were
done, said, thought, expected, hoped, and prophesied in consequence,
is beside the present course and purpose of these adventures. It is
sufficient to state, in brief, that Mr. Timothy Linkinwater arrived,
punctual to his appointment; that, oddity as he was, and jealous, as
he was bound to be, of the proper exercise of his employers’ most
comprehensive liberality, he reported strongly and warmly in favour of
Nicholas; and that, next day, he was appointed to the vacant stool in
the counting-house of Cheeryble, Brothers, with a present salary of one
hundred and twenty pounds a year.
‘And I think, my dear brother,’ said Nicholas’s first friend, ‘that
if we were to let them that little cottage at Bow which is empty, at
something under the usual rent, now? Eh, brother Ned?’
‘For nothing at all,’ said brother Ned. ‘We are rich, and should be
ashamed to touch the rent under such circumstances as these. Where is
Tim Linkinwater?--for nothing at all, my dear brother, for nothing at
all.’
‘Perhaps it would be better to say something, brother Ned,’ suggested
the other, mildly; ‘it would help to preserve habits of frugality, you
know, and remove any painful sense of overwhelming obligations. We might
say fifteen pound, or twenty pound, and if it was punctually paid, make
it up to them in some other way. And I might secretly advance a small
loan towards a little furniture, and you might secretly advance another
small loan, brother Ned; and if we find them doing well--as we shall;
there’s no fear, no fear--we can change the loans into gifts. Carefully,
brother Ned, and by degrees, and without pressing upon them too much;
what do you say now, brother?’
Brother Ned gave his hand upon it, and not only said it should be done,
but had it done too; and, in one short week, Nicholas took possession of
the stool, and Mrs. Nickleby and Kate took possession of the house, and
all was hope, bustle, and light-heartedness.
There surely never was such a week of discoveries and surprises as
the first week of that cottage. Every night when Nicholas came home,
something new had been found out. One day it was a grapevine, and
another day it was a boiler, and another day it was the key of the
front-parlour closet at the bottom of the water-butt, and so on through
a hundred items. Then, this room was embellished with a muslin curtain,
and that room was rendered quite elegant by a window-blind, and such
improvements were made, as no one would have supposed possible. Then
there was Miss La Creevy, who had come out in the omnibus to stop a day
or two and help, and who was perpetually losing a very small brown-paper
parcel of tin tacks and a very large hammer, and running about with
her sleeves tucked up at the wrists, and falling off pairs of steps and
hurting herself very much--and Mrs. Nickleby, who talked incessantly, and
did something now and then, but not often--and Kate, who busied herself
noiselessly everywhere, and was pleased with everything--and Smike, who
made the garden a perfect wonder to look upon--and Nicholas, who helped
and encouraged them every one--all the peace and cheerfulness of home
restored, with such new zest imparted to every frugal pleasure, and such
delight to every hour of meeting, as misfortune and separation alone
could give!
In short, the poor Nicklebys were social and happy; while the rich
Nickleby was alone and miserable.
CHAPTER 36
Private and confidential; relating to Family Matters. Showing how Mr
Kenwigs underwent violent Agitation, and how Mrs. Kenwigs was as well as
could be expected
It might have been seven o’clock in the evening, and it was growing dark
in the narrow streets near Golden Square, when Mr. Kenwigs sent out for
a pair of the cheapest white kid gloves--those at fourteen-pence--and
selecting the strongest, which happened to be the right-hand one, walked
downstairs with an air of pomp and much excitement, and proceeded to
muffle the knob of the street-door knocker therein. Having executed this
task with great nicety, Mr. Kenwigs pulled the door to, after him, and
just stepped across the road to try the effect from the opposite side
of the street. Satisfied that nothing could possibly look better in its
way, Mr. Kenwigs then stepped back again, and calling through the keyhole
to Morleena to open the door, vanished into the house, and was seen no
longer.
Now, considered as an abstract circumstance, there was no more obvious
cause or reason why Mr. Kenwigs should take the trouble of muffling this
particular knocker, than there would have been for his muffling the
knocker of any nobleman or gentleman resident ten miles off; because,
for the greater convenience of the numerous lodgers, the street-door
always stood wide open, and the knocker was never used at all. The first
floor, the second floor, and the third floor, had each a bell of its
own. As to the attics, no one ever called on them; if anybody wanted
the parlours, they were close at hand, and all he had to do was to walk
straight into them; while the kitchen had a separate entrance down the
area steps. As a question of mere necessity and usefulness, therefore,
this muffling of the knocker was thoroughly incomprehensible.
But knockers may be muffled for other purposes than those of mere
utilitarianism, as, in the present instance, was clearly shown. There
are certain polite forms and ceremonies which must be observed in
civilised life, or mankind relapse into their original barbarism. No
genteel lady was ever yet confined--indeed, no genteel confinement
can possibly take place--without the accompanying symbol of a muffled
knocker. Mrs. Kenwigs was a lady of some pretensions to gentility; Mrs