The Old Curiosity Shop
‘Go on, ladies, go on,’ said Daniel. ‘Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to
stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and
palatable.’
‘I--I--didn’t ask them to tea, Quilp,’ stammered his wife. ‘It’s quite
an accident.’
‘So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always the
pleasantest,’ said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he seemed
to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they were
encrusted, little charges for popguns. ‘What! Not going, ladies, you
are not going, surely!’
His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their
respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs
Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a faint
struggle to sustain the character.
‘And why not stop to supper, Quilp,’ said the old lady, ‘if my daughter
had a mind?’
‘To be sure,’ rejoined Daniel. ‘Why not?’
‘There’s nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?’ said Mrs
Jiniwin.
‘Surely not,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Why should there be? Nor anything
unwholesome, either, unless there’s lobster-salad or prawns, which I’m
told are not good for digestion.’
‘And you wouldn’t like your wife to be attacked with that, or anything
else that would make her uneasy would you?’ said Mrs Jiniwin.
‘Not for a score of worlds,’ replied the dwarf with a grin. ‘Not even
to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time--and what a blessing
that would be!’
‘My daughter’s your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,’ said the old lady with
a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be
reminded of the fact; ‘your wedded wife.’
‘So she is, certainly. So she is,’ observed the dwarf.
‘And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,’ said the
old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of
her impish son-in-law.
‘Hope she has!’ he replied. ‘Oh! Don’t you know she has? Don’t you know
she has, Mrs Jiniwin?
‘I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my way
of thinking.’
‘Why an’t you of your mother’s way of thinking, my dear?’ said the
dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, ‘why don’t you always
imitate your mother, my dear? She’s the ornament of her sex--your
father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.’
‘Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty thousand of
some people,’ said Mrs Jiniwin; ‘twenty hundred million thousand.’
‘I should like to have known him,’ remarked the dwarf. ‘I dare say he
was a blessed creature then; but I’m sure he is now. It was a happy
release. I believe he had suffered a long time?’
The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with
the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his
tongue.
‘You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too
much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to
bed.’
‘I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.’
‘But please to do now. Do please to go now,’ said the dwarf.
The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and
falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and
bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding
downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a
corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted
himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a
long time without speaking.
‘Mrs Quilp,’ he said at last.
‘Yes, Quilp,’ she replead meekly.
Instead of pursuing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms
again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted
her eyes and kept them on the ground.
‘Mrs Quilp.’
‘Yes, Quilp.’
‘If ever you listen to these beldames again, I’ll bite you.’
With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave
him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her
clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before
him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship’s
locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face
squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted on the table.
‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ he said; ‘I feel in a smoking humour, and shall
probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in
case I want you.’
His wife returned no other reply than the necessary ‘Yes, Quilp,’ and
the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first
glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower
turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the
room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red,
but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position,
and staring listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on
his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of
restlessness or fatigue; and then it expanded into a grin of delight.
CHAPTER 5
Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time,
or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is
that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the
ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the
assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after
hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural
desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he
showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a
suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like
one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth.
At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of
early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered
sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute
appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding
him by an occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her
penance had been of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked
his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her; and it was not until
the sun had some time risen, and the activity and noise of city day
were rife in the street, that he deigned to recognize her presence by
any word or sign. He might not have done so even then, but for certain
impatient tapping at the door he seemed to denote that some pretty hard
knuckles were actively engaged upon the other side.
‘Why dear me!’ he said looking round with a malicious grin, ‘it’s day.
Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!’
His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.
Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for,
supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her
feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and
character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room
appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on the
previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.
Nothing escaped the hawk’s eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly
understanding what passed in the old lady’s mind, turned uglier still
in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a
leer or triumph.
‘Why, Betsy,’ said the old woman, ‘you haven’t been--you don’t mean to
say you’ve been a--’
‘Sitting up all night?’ said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the
sentence. ‘Yes she has!’
‘All night?’ cried Mrs Jiniwin.
‘Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?’ said Quilp, with a smile of
which a frown was part. ‘Who says man and wife are bad company? Ha ha!
The time has flown.’
‘You’re a brute!’ exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.
‘Come come,’ said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, ‘you
mustn’t call her names. She’s married now, you know. And though she did
beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly
careful of me as to be out of humour with her. Bless you for a dear
old lady. Here’s to your health!’
‘I am much obliged to you,’ returned the old woman, testifying by a
certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her
matronly fist at her son-in-law. ‘Oh! I’m very much obliged to you!’
‘Grateful soul!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Mrs Quilp.’
‘Yes, Quilp,’ said the timid sufferer.
‘Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the wharf
this morning--the earlier the better, so be quick.’
Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in
a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute
determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her
daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt
faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next
apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied herself
to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.
While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room,
and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance
with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his
complexion rather more cloudy than it was before. But, while he was
thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for
with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in
this short process, and stood listening for any conversation in the
next room, of which he might be the theme.
‘Ah!’ he said after a short effort of attention, ‘it was not the towel
over my ears, I thought it wasn’t. I’m a little hunchy villain and a
monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!’
The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full
force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very
doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.
Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing
there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin happening to be
behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist
at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she
did so and accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye
in the glass, catching her in the very act. The same glance at the
mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and
distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and the next instant the
dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and placid look, inquired
in a tone of great affection.
‘How are you now, my dear old darling?’
Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a
little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old
woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and suffered
herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the breakfast-table.
Here he by no means diminished the impression he had just produced, for
he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the
heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time
and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking,
bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so
many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened
out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human
creature. At last, having gone through these proceedings and many
others which were equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them,
reduced to a very obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the
river-side, where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed
his name.
It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to
cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on,