The Old Curiosity Shop
It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful
windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of
Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity,
interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to
look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other
inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition
stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same side. To these
impulses must be added the complete ascendancy which his friend had
long been accustomed to exercise over him--an ascendancy exerted in the
beginning sorely at the expense of his friend’s vices, and was in nine
cases out of ten looked upon as his designing tempter when he was
indeed nothing but his thoughtless, light-headed tool.
The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which
Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to
their own development, require no present elucidation. The negotiation
was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in the act of
stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to
marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could
be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by
a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying ‘Come in.’
The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a
strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop
downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a
servant-girl, who being then and there engaged in cleaning the stairs
had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter
she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception
of surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.
Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction,
and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it
was one of the inconveniences of being a lady’s man, and that it was
very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten
her.
‘Her. Who?’ demanded Trent.
‘Sophy Wackles,’ said Dick.
‘Who’s she?’
‘She’s all my fancy painted her, sir, that’s what she is,’ said Mr
Swiveller, taking a long pull at ‘the rosy’ and looking gravely at his
friend. ‘She’s lovely, she’s divine. You know her.’
‘I remember,’ said his companion carelessly. ‘What of her?’
‘Why, sir,’ returned Dick, ‘between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble
individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender
sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and
inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase,
is not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell
you that.’
‘Am I to believe there’s anything real in what you say?’ demanded his
friend; ‘you don’t mean to say that any love-making has been going on?’
‘Love-making, yes. Promising, no,’ said Dick. ‘There can be no action
for breach, that’s one comfort. I’ve never committed myself in writing,
Fred.’
‘And what’s in the letter, pray?’
‘A reminder, Fred, for to-night--a small party of twenty, making two
hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman
to have the proper complement. I must go, if it’s only to begin
breaking off the affair--I’ll do it, don’t you be afraid. I should like
to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any
bar to her happiness, it’s affecting, Fred.’
To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and
ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her
own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum’s sake no
doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr
Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she was
extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr Swiveller
heard this account with a degree of admiration not altogether
consistent with the project in which he had just concurred, but his
friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this respect,
probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to control
Richard Swiveller’s proceedings in this or any other matter, whenever
he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes, to
exert it.
CHAPTER 8
Business disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being
nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be
endangered by longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest
eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens
for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having experience
of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending back for answer
that if Mr Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps he would be so
obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with him, as grace
before meat, the amount of a certain small account which had long been
outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this rebuff, but rather
sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swiveller forwarded the same message
to another and more distant eating-house, adding to it by way of rider
that the gentleman was induced to send so far, not only by the great
fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the
extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurant cook’s shop,
which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for
any human consumption. The good effect of this politic course was
demonstrated by the speedy arrival of a small pewter pyramid, curiously
constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates
formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being
resolved into its component parts afforded all things requisite and
necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his friend
applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.
‘May the present moment,’ said Dick, sticking his fork into a large
carbuncular potato, ‘be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of
sending ‘em with the peel on; there’s a charm in drawing a potato from
its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and
powerful are strangers. Ah! “Man wants but little here below, nor wants
that little long!” How true that is!--after dinner.’
‘I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may
not want that little long,’ returned his companion; but I suspect
you’ve no means of paying for this!’
‘I shall be passing present, and I’ll call,’ said Dick, winking his eye
significantly. ‘The waiter’s quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred,
and there’s an end of it.’
In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome
truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was
informed by Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would call
and settle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some
perturbation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about ‘payment on
delivery’ and ‘no trust,’ and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain
to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the
gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the
beef, greens, and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time.
Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety,
replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven
minutes past; and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation,
Richard Swiveller took a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket and
made an entry therein.
‘Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?’ said Trent
with a sneer.
‘Not exactly, Fred,’ replied the imperturbable Richard, continuing to
write with a businesslike air. ‘I enter in this little book the names
of the streets that I can’t go down while the shops are open. This
dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen
Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There’s only one
avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that
to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every
direction, that in a month’s time, unless my aunt sends me a
remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get
over the way.’
‘There’s no fear of failing, in the end?’ said Trent.
‘Why, I hope not,’ returned Mr Swiveller, ‘but the average number of
letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far
as eight without any effect at all. I’ll write another to-morrow
morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out
of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. “I’m in such a state of
mind that I hardly know what I write”--blot--“if you could see me at
this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct”--pepper-castor--“my
hand trembles when I think”--blot again--if that don’t produce the
effect, it’s all over.’
By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced
his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly
grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time
for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was
accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own
meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.
‘It’s rather sudden,’ said Dick shaking his head with a look of
infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with
scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; ‘when the heart
of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss
Wackles appears; she’s a very nice girl. She’s like the red red rose
that’s newly sprung in June--there’s no denying that--she’s also like a
melody that’s sweetly played in tune. It’s really very sudden. Not that
there’s any need, on account of Fred’s little sister, to turn cool
directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I
must begin at once, I see that. There’s the chance of an action for
breach, that’s another. There’s the chance of--no, there’s no chance of
that, but it’s as well to be on the safe side.’
This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller sought to
conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of
Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by linking his fortunes to
hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further their
notable scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these
reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay,
and casting about for a pretext determined in favour of groundless
jealousy. Having made up his mind on this important point, he
circulated the glass (from his right hand to left, and back again)
pretty freely, to enable him to act his part with the greater
discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his
toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of
his meditations.
The spot was at Chelsea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her
widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained
a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions; a
circumstance which was made known to the neighbourhood by an oval board
over the front first-floor windows, whereupon appeared in circumambient
flourishes the words ‘Ladies’ Seminary’; and which was further
published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past
nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of
tender years standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making
futile attempts to reach the knocker with a spelling-book. The several
duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged.