The Old Curiosity Shop
abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he
withdrew with his family, shot out after him. In fine, he traced them
to the notary’s house; learnt the destination of the carriage from one
of the postilions; and knowing that a fast night-coach started for the
same place, at the very hour which was on the point of striking, from a
street hard by, darted round to the coach-office without more ado, and
took his seat upon the roof. After passing and repassing the carriage
on the road, and being passed and repassed by it sundry times in the
course of the night, according as their stoppages were longer or
shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they reached the town
almost together. Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the
crowd, learnt the single gentleman’s errand, and its failure, and
having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried
off, reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed,
and shut himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all
these occurrences.
‘You are there, are you, my friend?’ he repeated, greedily biting his
nails. ‘I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit’s the confidential
agent, is he? I shall have to dispose of him, I fear. If we had come
up with them this morning,’ he continued, after a thoughtful pause, ‘I
was ready to prove a pretty good claim. I could have made my profit.
But for these canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get
this fiery gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend--our
mutual friend, ha! ha!--and chubby, rosy Nell. At the worst, it’s a
golden opportunity, not to be lost. Let us find them first, and I’ll
find means of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while
there are prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or
kinsman safely. I hate your virtuous people!’ said the dwarf, throwing
off a bumper of brandy, and smacking his lips, ‘ah! I hate ‘em every
one!’
This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real
sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little
come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined
client:--the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him
and elude his vigilance--the child, because she was the object of Mrs
Quilp’s commiseration and constant self-reproach--the single gentleman,
because of his unconcealed aversion to himself--Kit and his mother,
most mortally, for the reasons shown. Above and beyond that general
feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from
his ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances,
Daniel Quilp hated them every one.
In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with
more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure
alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible
inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man and his
grandchild. But all was in vain. Not the slightest trace or clue
could be obtained. They had left the town by night; no one had seen
them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no coach, cart,
or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their description; nobody
had fallen in with them, or heard of them. Convinced at last that for
the present all such attempts were hopeless, he appointed two or three
scouts, with promises of large rewards in case of their forwarding him
any intelligence, and returned to London by next day’s coach.
It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place
upon the roof, that Kit’s mother was alone inside; from which
circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness
of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify
her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side
of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great
goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being
upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another;
getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head
in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had
such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time
to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and
embody that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little
Bethel, and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley’s
and oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.
Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother’s intended return,
was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise
when he saw, leering over the coachman’s shoulder like some familiar
demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp.
‘How are you, Christopher?’ croaked the dwarf from the coach-top. ‘All
right, Christopher. Mother’s inside.’
‘Why, how did he come here, mother?’ whispered Kit.
‘I don’t know how he came or why, my dear,’ rejoined Mrs Nubbles,
dismounting with her son’s assistance, ‘but he has been a terrifying of
me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.’
‘He has?’ cried Kit.
‘You wouldn’t believe it, that you wouldn’t,’ replied his mother, ‘but
don’t say a word to him, for I really don’t believe he’s human. Hush!
Don’t turn round as if I was talking of him, but he’s a squinting at me
now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!’
In spite of his mother’s injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look.
Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial
contemplation.
‘Oh, he’s the artfullest creetur!’ cried Mrs Nubbles. ‘But come away.
Don’t speak to him for the world.’
‘Yes I will, mother. What nonsense. I say, sir--’
Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.
‘You let my mother alone, will you?’ said Kit. ‘How dare you tease a
poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she
hadn’t got enough to make her so, without you. An’t you ashamed of
yourself, you little monster?’
‘Monster!’ said Quilp inwardly, with a smile. ‘Ugliest dwarf that
could be seen anywhere for a penny--monster--ah!’
‘You show her any of your impudence again,’ resumed Kit, shouldering
the bandbox, ‘and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won’t bear with you any
more. You have no right to do it; I’m sure we never interfered with
you. This isn’t the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her
again, you’ll oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on
account of your size) to beat you.’
Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring
his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him,
retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached
again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in
a phantasmagoria. Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an
immediate assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures,
snapped his fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as
fast as she could, and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob
and the baby, looking anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were
following.
CHAPTER 49
Kit’s mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so
often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp’s thoughts than any
intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with
which they had parted. He went his way, whistling from time to time
some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed,
jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with
visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no
intelligence of him for three whole days and two nights, and having had
no previous notice of his absence, was doubtless by that time in a
state of distraction, and constantly fainting away with anxiety and
grief.
This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf’s humour, and
so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until
the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found
himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which
greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on
before him expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made
him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.
In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when,
gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried
more light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing nearer, and
listening attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest
conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his
wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.
‘Ha!’ cried the jealous dwarf, ‘What’s this! Do they entertain
visitors while I’m away!’
A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his pockets
for his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no resource but to
knock at the door.
‘A light in the passage,’ said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole. ‘A
very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you
unawares. Soho!’
A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within. But after a
second application to the knocker, no louder than the first, the door
was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom Quilp instantly
gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street with the other.
‘You’ll throttle me, master,’ whispered the boy. ‘Let go, will you.’
‘Who’s up stairs, you dog?’ retorted Quilp in the same tone. ‘Tell me.
And don’t speak above your breath, or I’ll choke you in good earnest.’
The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled
giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him
by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution, or at
least have made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy’s
nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself
behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to
catch him by the hair of the head, his master was obliged to come to a
parley.
‘Will you answer me?’ said Quilp. ‘What’s going on, above?’
‘You won’t let one speak,’ replied the boy. ‘They--ha, ha, ha!--they
think you’re--you’re dead. Ha ha ha!’
‘Dead!’ cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. ‘No. Do
they? Do they really, you dog?’
‘They think you’re--you’re drowned,’ replied the boy, who in his
malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. ‘You was last
seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over. Ha
ha!’
The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and
of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to
Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have
inspired him with. He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant,
and they both stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping and wagging
their heads at each other, on either side of the post, like an
unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.
‘Not a word,’ said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. ‘Not a
sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb.
Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp! Drowned!’
So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his
way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy of
summersets on the pavement.
The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped in,
and planted himself behind the door of communication between that
chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more
airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed