The Old Curiosity Shop
rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who had threatened to go a
soldiering--a final promise of knocking at the door early in the
morning--and ‘Good night.’
The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She could
not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage down
stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure her. The
men were very ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and
murdering travellers. Who could tell?
Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a
little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the
night gave rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in her
grandfather’s breast, and to what further distraction it might tempt
him Heaven only knew. What fears their absence might have occasioned
already! Persons might be seeking for them even then. Would they be
forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again! Oh! why had they
stopped in that strange place? It would have been better, under any
circumstances, to have gone on!
At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep,
troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start
and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this--and then--What!
That figure in the room.
A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light
when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the
dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with
noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry
for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it.
On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the bed’s head. The breath
so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those wandering
hands should light upon her face. Back again it stole to the
window--then turned its head towards her.
The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the room,
but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how the eyes
looked and the ears listened. There it remained, motionless as she.
At length, still keeping the face towards her, it busied its hands in
something, and she heard the chink of money.
Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and replacing
the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon its hands and
knees, and crawled away. How slowly it seemed to move, now that she
could hear but not see it, creeping along the floor! It reached the
door at last, and stood upon its feet. The steps creaked beneath its
noiseless tread, and it was gone.
The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being by
herself in that room--to have somebody by--not to be alone--and then
her power of speech would be restored. With no consciousness of having
moved, she gained the door.
There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.
She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the darkness
without being seized, but her blood curdled at the thought. The figure
stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly, but of necessity; for
going back into the room was hardly less terrible than going on.
The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing
streams from the thatched roof. Some summer insect, with no escape
into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the
walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs. The
figure moved again. The child involuntarily did the same. Once in her
grandfather’s room, she would be safe.
It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she longed so
ardently to reach. The child, in the agony of being so near, had
almost darted forward with the design of bursting into the room and
closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.
The idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if it entered there, and had a
design upon the old man’s life! She turned faint and sick. It did.
It went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now within the
chamber, and she, still dumb--quite dumb, and almost senseless--stood
looking on.
The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but
meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and
looked in. What sight was that which met her view!
The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a table
sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face
pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally
bright--counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.
CHAPTER 31
With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had
approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her
way back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately felt was
nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. No strange robber,
no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing
to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however
terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread
which the recognition of her silent visitor inspired. The grey-headed
old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while
he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging
over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was
worse--immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to
reflect upon--than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested.
If he should return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if,
distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come back
to seek for more--a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea of his
slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face toward the
empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to avoid his touch,
which was almost insupportable. She sat and listened. Hark! A
footstep on the stairs, and now the door was slowly opening. It was
but imagination, yet imagination had all the terrors of reality; nay,
it was worse, for the reality would have come and gone, and there an
end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never went away.
The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror. She
had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this
disease of the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that
night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting
the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his
shape, a monstrous distortion of his image, a something to recoil from,
and be the more afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept
close about her, as he did. She could scarcely connect her own
affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like
yet so unlike him. She had wept to see him dull and quiet. How much
greater cause she had for weeping now!
The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom
in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be
a relief to hear the old man’s voice, or, if he were asleep, even to
see him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image.
She stole down the stairs and passage again. The door was still ajar
as she had left it, and the candle burning as before.
She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking,
that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were
still alight. Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his
bed, and so took courage to enter.
Fast asleep. No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild
desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace. This was not the gambler,
or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man
whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning light; this was
her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind
grandfather.
She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had
a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.
‘God bless him!’ said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid
cheek. ‘I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they
found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. He
has only me to help him. God bless us both!’
Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and,
gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that
long, long, miserable night.
At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep.
She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed; and, as
soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather. But
first she searched her pocket and found that her money was all
gone--not a sixpence remained.
The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road.
The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to expect
that she would tell him of her loss. She felt she must do that, or he
might suspect the truth.
‘Grandfather,’ she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked
about a mile in silence, ‘do you think they are honest people at the
house yonder?’
‘Why?’ returned the old man trembling. ‘Do I think them honest--yes,
they played honestly.’
‘I’ll tell you why I ask,’ rejoined Nell. ‘I lost some money last
night--out of my bedroom, I am sure. Unless it was taken by somebody
in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh
heartily if I could but know it--’
‘Who would take money in jest?’ returned the old man in a hurried
manner. ‘Those who take money, take it to keep. Don’t talk of jest.’
‘Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,’ said the child, whose last
hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.
‘But is there no more, Nell?’ said the old man; ‘no more anywhere? Was
it all taken--every farthing of it--was there nothing left?’
‘Nothing,’ replied the child.
‘We must get more,’ said the old man, ‘we must earn it, Nell, hoard it
up, scrape it together, come by it somehow. Never mind this loss.
Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don’t ask how;--we
may regain it, and a great deal more;--but tell nobody, or trouble may
come of it. And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert
asleep!’ he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the
secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now. ‘Poor Nell, poor
little Nell!’
The child hung down her head and wept. The sympathising tone in which
he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that. It was not the
lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.
‘Not a word about it to any one but me,’ said the old man, ‘no, not
even to me,’ he added hastily, ‘for it can do no good. All the losses
that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling. Why should
they be, when we will win them back?’
‘Let them go,’ said the child looking up. ‘Let them go, once and for
ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had been a
thousand pounds.’
‘Well, well,’ returned the old man, checking himself as some impetuous
answer rose to his lips, ‘she knows no better. I ought to be thankful
of it.’
‘But listen to me,’ said the child earnestly, ‘will you listen to me?’
‘Aye, aye, I’ll listen,’ returned the old man, still without looking at
her; ‘a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to me. It always
had when it was her mother’s, poor child.’
‘Let me persuade you, then--oh, do let me persuade you,’ said the
child, ‘to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but
the fortune we pursue together.’
‘We pursue this aim together,’ retorted her grandfather, still looking
away and seeming to confer with himself. ‘Whose image sanctifies the
game?’