The Old Curiosity Shop
‘Am I going!’ echoed Dick bitterly. ‘Yes, I am. What then?’
‘Nothing, except that it’s very early,’ said Miss Sophy; ‘but you are
your own master, of course.’
‘I would that I had been my own mistress too,’ said Dick, ‘before I had
ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true,
and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e’er I knew, a
girl so fair yet so deceiving.’
Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after
Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.
‘I came here,’ said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he
had really come, ‘with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my
sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that
may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that
desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a
stifler!’
‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,’ said Miss Sophy
with downcast eyes. ‘I’m very sorry if--’
‘Sorry, Ma’am!’ said Dick, ‘sorry in the possession of a Cheggs! But I
wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that
there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has
not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has
requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a
regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise.
It’s a gratifying circumstance which you’ll be glad to hear, that a
young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account,
and is now saving up for me. I thought I’d mention it. I have now
merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention. Good
night.’
‘There’s one good thing springs out of all this,’ said Richard
Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the
candle with the extinguisher in his hand, ‘which is, that I now go
heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about
little Nelly, and right glad he’ll be to find me so strong upon it. He
shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the meantime, as it’s
rather late, I’ll try and get a wink of the balmy.’
‘The balmy’ came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few
minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married
Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power
was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it into a
brick-field.
CHAPTER 9
The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly described
the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud
which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth. Besides
that it was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately
acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and
loneliness, a constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the
old man to whom she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even
in the midst of her heart’s overflowing, and made her timid of allusion
to the main cause of her anxiety and distress.
For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and
uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary
evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every
slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the
knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded
spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell. To see the old man struck
down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering
and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that
his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning
of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of
these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might,
they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care
about them--these were causes of depression and anxiety that might have
sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer
and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom
they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that
could keep such thoughts in restless action!
And yet, to the old man’s vision, Nell was still the same. When he
could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted
and brooded on it always, there was his young companion with the same
smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same
love and care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been
present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to
read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little
dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and
murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy.
She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and
moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making
them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and
cheerful presence. But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and
when she left her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and
sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate
occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes--hoarse from their
long silence--with her voice.
In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the
child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night,
alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait;
at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds.
She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as they
passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the
opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that
in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her
sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their
heads again. There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the
roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had fancied ugly faces
that were frowning over at her and trying to peer into the room; and
she felt glad when it grew too dark to make them out, though she was
sorry too, when the man came to light the lamps in the street--for it
made it late, and very dull inside. Then, she would draw in her head
to look round the room and see that everything was in its place and
hadn’t moved; and looking out into the street again, would perhaps see
a man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others
silently following him to a house where somebody lay dead; which made
her shudder and think of such things until they suggested afresh the
old man’s altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and
speculations. If he were to die--if sudden illness had happened to
him, and he were never to come home again, alive--if, one night, he
should come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had
gone to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly,
and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come
creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door! These
thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have
recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and more
silent than before. The shops were closing fast, and lights began to
shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to bed. By
degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were replaced, here and
there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn all night. Still,
there was one late shop at no great distance which sent forth a ruddy
glare upon the pavement even yet, and looked bright and companionable.
But, in a little time, this closed, the light was extinguished, and all
was gloomy and quiet, except when some stray footsteps sounded on the
pavement, or a neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at
his house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates.
When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had) the
child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs, thinking as
she went that if one of those hideous faces below, which often mingled
with her dreams, were to meet her by the way, rendering itself visible
by some strange light of its own, how terrified she would be. But
these fears vanished before a well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect
of her own room. After praying fervently, and with many bursting
tears, for the old man, and the restoration of his peace of mind and
the happiness they had once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the
pillow and sob herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the
day-light came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary
summons which had roused her from her slumber.
One night, the third after Nelly’s interview with Mrs Quilp, the old
man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not leave home.
The child’s eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her joy subsided
when they reverted to his worn and sickly face.
‘Two days,’ he said, ‘two whole, clear, days have passed, and there is
no reply. What did he tell thee, Nell?’
‘Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.’
‘True,’ said the old man, faintly. ‘Yes. But tell me again, Nell. My
head fails me. What was it that he told thee? Nothing more than that
he would see me to-morrow or next day? That was in the note.’
‘Nothing more,’ said the child. ‘Shall I go to him again to-morrow,
dear grandfather? Very early? I will be there and back, before
breakfast.’
The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her towards
him.
‘’Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use. But if he deserts me,
Nell, at this moment--if he deserts me now, when I should, with his
assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I have lost, and
all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes me what you see, I
am ruined, and--worse, far worse than that--have ruined thee, for whom
I ventured all. If we are beggars--!’
‘What if we are?’ said the child boldly. ‘Let us be beggars, and be
happy.’
‘Beggars--and happy!’ said the old man. ‘Poor child!’
‘Dear grandfather,’ cried the girl with an energy which shone in her
flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, ‘I am not a
child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that we may
beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty living, rather
than live as we do now.’
‘Nelly!’ said the old man.
‘Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,’ the child repeated, more
earnestly than before. ‘If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be
sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every day,
let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us
be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with you; do not
let me see such change and not know why, or I shall break my heart and
die. Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg
our way from door to door.’
The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow
of the couch on which he lay.
‘Let us be beggars,’ said the child passing an arm round his neck, ‘I
have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall. Let us walk
through country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never
think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at
nights, and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank
God together! Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy
houses, any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go; and
when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place
that we can find, and I will go and beg for both.’