The Old Curiosity Shop
‘Can’t I let him speak,’ sneered Isaac in reply, mimicking as nearly as
he could, in his shrill voice, the tones of the landlord. ‘Yes, I can
let him speak, Jemmy Groves.’
‘Well then, do it, will you?’ said the landlord.
Mr List’s squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to
threaten a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion, who
had been looking sharply at the old man, put a timely stop to it.
‘Who knows,’ said he, with a cunning look, ‘but the gentleman may have
civilly meant to ask if he might have the honour to take a hand with
us!’
‘I did mean it,’ cried the old man. ‘That is what I mean. That is
what I want now!’
‘I thought so,’ returned the same man. ‘Then who knows but the
gentleman, anticipating our objection to play for love, civilly desired
to play for money?’
The old man replied by shaking the little purse in his eager hand, and
then throwing it down upon the table, and gathering up the cards as a
miser would clutch at gold.
‘Oh! That indeed,’ said Isaac; ‘if that’s what the gentleman meant, I
beg the gentleman’s pardon. Is this the gentleman’s little purse? A
very pretty little purse. Rather a light purse,’ added Isaac, throwing
it into the air and catching it dexterously, ‘but enough to amuse a
gentleman for half an hour or so.’
‘We’ll make a four-handed game of it, and take in Groves,’ said the
stout man. ‘Come, Jemmy.’
The landlord, who conducted himself like one who was well used to such
little parties, approached the table and took his seat. The child, in
a perfect agony, drew her grandfather aside, and implored him, even
then, to come away.
‘Come; and we may be so happy,’ said the child.
‘We WILL be happy,’ replied the old man hastily. ‘Let me go, Nell.
The means of happiness are on the cards and the dice. We must rise
from little winnings to great. There’s little to be won here; but
great will come in time. I shall but win back my own, and it’s all for
thee, my darling.’
‘God help us!’ cried the child. ‘Oh! what hard fortune brought us
here?’
‘Hush!’ rejoined the old man laying his hand upon her mouth, ‘Fortune
will not bear chiding. We must not reproach her, or she shuns us; I
have found that out.’
‘Now, mister,’ said the stout man. ‘If you’re not coming yourself,
give us the cards, will you?’
‘I am coming,’ cried the old man. ‘Sit thee down, Nell, sit thee down
and look on. Be of good heart, it’s all for thee--all--every penny.
I don’t tell them, no, no, or else they wouldn’t play, dreading the
chance that such a cause must give me. Look at them. See what they
are and what thou art. Who doubts that we must win!’
‘The gentleman has thought better of it, and isn’t coming,’ said Isaac,
making as though he would rise from the table. ‘I’m sorry the
gentleman’s daunted--nothing venture, nothing have--but the gentleman
knows best.’
‘Why I am ready. You have all been slow but me,’ said the old man. ‘I
wonder who is more anxious to begin than I.’
As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three closing
round it at the same time, the game commenced.
The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind.
Regardless of the run of luck, and mindful only of the desperate
passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains were
to her alike. Exulting in some brief triumph, or cast down by a
defeat, there he sat so wild and restless, so feverishly and intensely
anxious, so terribly eager, so ravenous for the paltry stakes, that she
could have almost better borne to see him dead. And yet she was the
innocent cause of all this torture, and he, gambling with such a savage
thirst for gain as the most insatiable gambler never felt, had not one
selfish thought!
On the contrary, the other three--knaves and gamesters by their
trade--while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as if
every virtue had been centered in their breasts. Sometimes one would
look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle, or to
glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window and
fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder than
the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put him out;
but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their
cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of
passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone.
The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown
fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and break
above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse distance;
and still the game went on, and still the anxious child was quite
forgotten.
CHAPTER 30
At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only
winner. Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional
fortitude. Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had
quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised nor
pleased.
Nell’s little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his
side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old man
sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt before,
and turning up the different hands to see what each man would have held
if they had still been playing. He was quite absorbed in this
occupation, when the child drew near and laid her hand upon his
shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.
‘See the curse of poverty, Nell,’ he said, pointing to the packs he had
spread out upon the table. ‘If I could have gone on a little longer,
only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my side. Yes, it’s
as plain as the marks upon the cards. See here--and there--and here
again.’
‘Put them away,’ urged the child. ‘Try to forget them.’
‘Try to forget them!’ he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers,
and regarding her with an incredulous stare. ‘To forget them! How are
we ever to grow rich if I forget them?’
The child could only shake her head.
‘No, no, Nell,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘they must not be
forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can.
Patience--patience, and we’ll right thee yet, I promise thee. Lose
to-day, win to-morrow. And nothing can be won without anxiety and
care--nothing. Come, I am ready.’
‘Do you know what the time is?’ said Mr Groves, who was smoking with
his friends. ‘Past twelve o’clock--’
‘--And a rainy night,’ added the stout man.
‘The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap entertainment
for man and beast,’ said Mr Groves, quoting his sign-board. ‘Half-past
twelve o’clock.’
‘It’s very late,’ said the uneasy child. ‘I wish we had gone before.
What will they think of us! It will be two o’clock by the time we get
back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?’
‘Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total
two shillings and sixpence,’ replied the Valiant Soldier.
Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when she
came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent habits of
Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in which they
would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up in the middle
of the night--and when she reflected, on the other hand, that if they
remained where they were, and rose early in the morning, they might get
back before she awoke, and could plead the violence of the storm by
which they had been overtaken, as a good apology for their absence--she
decided, after a great deal of hesitation, to remain. She therefore
took her grandfather aside, and telling him that she had still enough
left to defray the cost of their lodging, proposed that they should
stay there for the night.
‘If I had had but that money before--If I had only known of it a few
minutes ago!’ muttered the old man.
‘We will decide to stop here if you please,’ said Nell, turning hastily
to the landlord.
‘I think that’s prudent,’ returned Mr Groves. ‘You shall have your
suppers directly.’
Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out the
ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place, with the
bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and beer, with many
high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his guests fall to, and
make themselves at home. Nell and her grandfather ate sparingly, for
both were occupied with their own reflections; the other gentlemen, for
whose constitutions beer was too weak and tame a liquid, consoled
themselves with spirits and tobacco.
As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child was
anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to bed. But
as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her
grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it secretly
from its place of concealment, and embraced an opportunity of following
the landlord when he went out of the room, and tendered it to him in
the little bar.
‘Will you give me the change here, if you please?’ said the child.
Mr James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money, and
rang it, and looked at the child, and at the money again, as though he
had a mind to inquire how she came by it. The coin being genuine,
however, and changed at his house, he probably felt, like a wise
landlord, that it was no business of his. At any rate, he counted out
the change, and gave it her. The child was returning to the room where
they had passed the evening, when she fancied she saw a figure just
gliding in at the door. There was nothing but a long dark passage
between this door and the place where she had changed the money, and,
being very certain that no person had passed in or out while she stood
there, the thought struck her that she had been watched.
But by whom? When she re-entered the room, she found its inmates
exactly as she had left them. The stout fellow lay upon two chairs,
resting his head on his hand, and the squinting man reposed in a
similar attitude on the opposite side of the table. Between them sat
her grandfather, looking intently at the winner with a kind of hungry
admiration, and hanging upon his words as if he were some superior
being. She was puzzled for a moment, and looked round to see if any
else were there. No. Then she asked her grandfather in a whisper
whether anybody had left the room while she was absent. ‘No,’ he said,
‘nobody.’
It must have been her fancy then; and yet it was strange, that, without
anything in her previous thoughts to lead to it, she should have
imagined this figure so very distinctly. She was still wondering and
thinking of it, when a girl came to light her to bed.
The old man took leave of the company at the same time, and they went
up stairs together. It was a great, rambling house, with dull
corridors and wide staircases which the flaring candles seemed to make
more gloomy. She left her grandfather in his chamber, and followed her
guide to another, which was at the end of a passage, and approached by
some half-dozen crazy steps. This was prepared for her. The girl
lingered a little while to talk, and tell her grievances. She had not
a good place, she said; the wages were low, and the work was hard. She
was going to leave it in a fortnight; the child couldn’t recommend her
to another, she supposed? Instead she was afraid another would be
difficult to get after living there, for the house had a very
indifferent character; there was far too much card-playing, and such
like. She was very much mistaken if some of the people who came there
oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she wouldn’t have
it known that she had said so, for the world. Then there were some