Nicholas Nickleby
‘Which I declare I haven’t had since I first came down here,’ said
Miss La Creevy; ‘for I have thought of nothing but hammers, nails,
screwdrivers, and gimlets, morning, noon, and night.’
‘You never bestowed one thought upon yourself, I believe,’ returned
Kate, smiling.
‘Upon my word, my dear, when there are so many pleasanter things
to think of, I should be a goose if I did,’ said Miss La Creevy.
‘By-the-bye, I HAVE thought of somebody too. Do you know, that I observe
a great change in one of this family--a very extraordinary change?’
‘In whom?’ asked Kate, anxiously. ‘Not in--’
‘Not in your brother, my dear,’ returned Miss La Creevy, anticipating
the close of the sentence, ‘for he is always the same affectionate
good-natured clever creature, with a spice of the--I won’t say who--in
him when there’s any occasion, that he was when I first knew you. No.
Smike, as he WILL be called, poor fellow! for he won’t hear of a MR
before his name, is greatly altered, even in this short time.’
‘How?’ asked Kate. ‘Not in health?’
‘N--n--o; perhaps not in health exactly,’ said Miss La Creevy, pausing
to consider, ‘although he is a worn and feeble creature, and has that
in his face which it would wring my heart to see in yours. No; not in
health.’
‘How then?’
‘I scarcely know,’ said the miniature painter. ‘But I have watched him,
and he has brought the tears into my eyes many times. It is not a very
difficult matter to do that, certainly, for I am easily melted; still I
think these came with good cause and reason. I am sure that since he has
been here, he has grown, from some strong cause, more conscious of his
weak intellect. He feels it more. It gives him greater pain to know that
he wanders sometimes, and cannot understand very simple things. I have
watched him when you have not been by, my dear, sit brooding by himself,
with such a look of pain as I could scarcely bear to see, and then get
up and leave the room: so sorrowfully, and in such dejection, that
I cannot tell you how it has hurt me. Not three weeks ago, he was a
light-hearted busy creature, overjoyed to be in a bustle, and as
happy as the day was long. Now, he is another being--the same willing,
harmless, faithful, loving creature--but the same in nothing else.’
‘Surely this will all pass off,’ said Kate. ‘Poor fellow!’
‘I hope,’ returned her little friend, with a gravity very unusual in
her, ‘it may. I hope, for the sake of that poor lad, it may. However,’
said Miss La Creevy, relapsing into the cheerful, chattering tone, which
was habitual to her, ‘I have said my say, and a very long say it is, and
a very wrong say too, I shouldn’t wonder at all. I shall cheer him up
tonight, at all events, for if he is to be my squire all the way to the
Strand, I shall talk on, and on, and on, and never leave off, till I
have roused him into a laugh at something. So the sooner he goes, the
better for him, and the sooner I go, the better for me, I am sure, or
else I shall have my maid gallivanting with somebody who may rob the
house--though what there is to take away, besides tables and chairs,
I don’t know, except the miniatures: and he is a clever thief who can
dispose of them to any great advantage, for I can’t, I know, and that’s
the honest truth.’
So saying, little Miss La Creevy hid her face in a very flat bonnet, and
herself in a very big shawl; and fixing herself tightly into the latter,
by means of a large pin, declared that the omnibus might come as soon as
it pleased, for she was quite ready.
But there was still Mrs. Nickleby to take leave of; and long before that
good lady had concluded some reminiscences bearing upon, and appropriate
to, the occasion, the omnibus arrived. This put Miss La Creevy in a
great bustle, in consequence whereof, as she secretly rewarded the
servant girl with eighteen-pence behind the street-door, she pulled
out of her reticule ten-pennyworth of halfpence, which rolled into all
possible corners of the passage, and occupied some considerable time
in the picking up. This ceremony had, of course, to be succeeded by a
second kissing of Kate and Mrs. Nickleby, and a gathering together of the
little basket and the brown-paper parcel, during which proceedings, ‘the
omnibus,’ as Miss La Creevy protested, ‘swore so dreadfully, that it was
quite awful to hear it.’ At length and at last, it made a feint of going
away, and then Miss La Creevy darted out, and darted in, apologising
with great volubility to all the passengers, and declaring that she
wouldn’t purposely have kept them waiting on any account whatever. While
she was looking about for a convenient seat, the conductor pushed Smike
in, and cried that it was all right--though it wasn’t--and away went the
huge vehicle, with the noise of half-a-dozen brewers’ drays at least.
Leaving it to pursue its journey at the pleasure of the conductor
aforementioned, who lounged gracefully on his little shelf behind,
smoking an odoriferous cigar; and leaving it to stop, or go on, or
gallop, or crawl, as that gentleman deemed expedient and advisable; this
narrative may embrace the opportunity of ascertaining the condition of
Sir Mulberry Hawk, and to what extent he had, by this time, recovered
from the injuries consequent on being flung violently from his
cabriolet, under the circumstances already detailed.
With a shattered limb, a body severely bruised, a face disfigured by
half-healed scars, and pallid from the exhaustion of recent pain and
fever, Sir Mulberry Hawk lay stretched upon his back, on the couch to
which he was doomed to be a prisoner for some weeks yet to come. Mr. Pyke
and Mr. Pluck sat drinking hard in the next room, now and then varying
the monotonous murmurs of their conversation with a half-smothered
laugh, while the young lord--the only member of the party who was not
thoroughly irredeemable, and who really had a kind heart--sat beside his
Mentor, with a cigar in his mouth, and read to him, by the light of a
lamp, such scraps of intelligence from a paper of the day, as were most
likely to yield him interest or amusement.
‘Curse those hounds!’ said the invalid, turning his head impatiently
towards the adjoining room; ‘will nothing stop their infernal throats?’
Messrs Pyke and Pluck heard the exclamation, and stopped immediately:
winking to each other as they did so, and filling their glasses to the
brim, as some recompense for the deprivation of speech.
‘Damn!’ muttered the sick man between his teeth, and writhing
impatiently in his bed. ‘Isn’t this mattress hard enough, and the room
dull enough, and pain bad enough, but THEY must torture me? What’s the
time?’
‘Half-past eight,’ replied his friend.
‘Here, draw the table nearer, and let us have the cards again,’ said Sir
Mulberry. ‘More piquet. Come.’
It was curious to see how eagerly the sick man, debarred from any change
of position save the mere turning of his head from side to side, watched
every motion of his friend in the progress of the game; and with what
eagerness and interest he played, and yet how warily and coolly. His
address and skill were more than twenty times a match for his adversary,
who could make little head against them, even when fortune favoured him
with good cards, which was not often the case. Sir Mulberry won every
game; and when his companion threw down the cards, and refused to play
any longer, thrust forth his wasted arm and caught up the stakes with a
boastful oath, and the same hoarse laugh, though considerably lowered in
tone, that had resounded in Ralph Nickleby’s dining-room, months before.
While he was thus occupied, his man appeared, to announce that Mr. Ralph
Nickleby was below, and wished to know how he was, tonight.
‘Better,’ said Sir Mulberry, impatiently.
‘Mr. Nickleby wishes to know, sir--’
‘I tell you, better,’ replied Sir Mulberry, striking his hand upon the
table.
The man hesitated for a moment or two, and then said that Mr. Nickleby
had requested permission to see Sir Mulberry Hawk, if it was not
inconvenient.
‘It IS inconvenient. I can’t see him. I can’t see anybody,’ said his
master, more violently than before. ‘You know that, you blockhead.’
‘I am very sorry, sir,’ returned the man. ‘But Mr. Nickleby pressed so
much, sir--’
The fact was, that Ralph Nickleby had bribed the man, who, being anxious
to earn his money with a view to future favours, held the door in his
hand, and ventured to linger still.
‘Did he say whether he had any business to speak about?’ inquired Sir
Mulberry, after a little impatient consideration.
‘No, sir. He said he wished to see you, sir. Particularly, Mr. Nickleby
said, sir.’
‘Tell him to come up. Here,’ cried Sir Mulberry, calling the man back,
as he passed his hand over his disfigured face, ‘move that lamp, and
put it on the stand behind me. Wheel that table away, and place a chair
there--further off. Leave it so.’
The man obeyed these directions as if he quite comprehended the motive
with which they were dictated, and left the room. Lord Frederick
Verisopht, remarking that he would look in presently, strolled into the
adjoining apartment, and closed the folding door behind him.
Then was heard a subdued footstep on the stairs; and Ralph Nickleby, hat
in hand, crept softly into the room, with his body bent forward as if in
profound respect, and his eyes fixed upon the face of his worthy client.
‘Well, Nickleby,’ said Sir Mulberry, motioning him to the chair by the
couch side, and waving his hand in assumed carelessness, ‘I have had a
bad accident, you see.’
‘I see,’ rejoined Ralph, with the same steady gaze. ‘Bad, indeed! I
should not have known you, Sir Mulberry. Dear, dear! This IS bad.’
Ralph’s manner was one of profound humility and respect; and the low
tone of voice was that, which the gentlest consideration for a sick man
would have taught a visitor to assume. But the expression of his face,
Sir Mulberry’s being averted, was in extraordinary contrast; and as
he stood, in his usual attitude, calmly looking on the prostrate form
before him, all that part of his features which was not cast into shadow
by his protruding and contracted brows, bore the impress of a sarcastic
smile.
‘Sit down,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning towards him, as though by a
violent effort. ‘Am I a sight, that you stand gazing there?’
As he turned his face, Ralph recoiled a step or two, and making as
though he were irresistibly impelled to express astonishment, but was
determined not to do so, sat down with well-acted confusion.
‘I have inquired at the door, Sir Mulberry, every day,’ said Ralph,
‘twice a day, indeed, at first--and tonight, presuming upon old
acquaintance, and past transactions by which we have mutually benefited
in some degree, I could not resist soliciting admission to your chamber.
Have you--have you suffered much?’ said Ralph, bending forward, and
allowing the same harsh smile to gather upon his face, as the other
closed his eyes.
‘More than enough to please me, and less than enough to please some
broken-down hacks that you and I know of, and who lay their ruin between
us, I dare say,’ returned Sir Mulberry, tossing his arm restlessly upon
the coverlet.
Ralph shrugged his shoulders in deprecation of the intense irritation
with which this had been said; for there was an aggravating, cold
distinctness in his speech and manner which so grated on the sick man
that he could scarcely endure it.
‘And what is it in these “past transactions,” that brought you here
tonight?’ asked Sir Mulberry.
‘Nothing,’ replied Ralph. ‘There are some bills of my lord’s which need
renewal; but let them be till you are well. I--I--came,’ said Ralph,
speaking more slowly, and with harsher emphasis, ‘I came to say how
grieved I am that any relative of mine, although disowned by me, should