The Old Curiosity Shop
that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of postponing her
revelation might be much more injurious than any that were likely to
ensue from its being made at once, promised compliance, on condition
that the patient kept himself perfectly quiet, and abstained from
starting up or tossing about.
‘But if you begin to do that,’ said the small servant, ‘I’ll leave off.
And so I tell you.’
‘You can’t leave off, till you have gone on,’ said Dick. ‘And do go
on, there’s a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say. Oh
tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you!’
Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller
poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and
tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:
‘Well! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen--where we
played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen
door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the
candle and rake out the fire. When she had done that, she left me to
go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in
her pocket again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the
morning--very early I can tell you--and let me out. I was terrible
afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought
they might forget me and only take care of themselves you know. So,
whenever I see an old rusty key anywhere, I picked it up and tried if
it would fit the door, and at last I found in the dust cellar a key
that did fit it.’
Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But the
small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and
pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to
proceed.
‘They kept me very short,’ said the small servant. ‘Oh! you can’t
think how short they kept me! So I used to come out at night after
they’d gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or
sangwitches that you’d left in the office, or even pieces of orange
peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine. Did you ever
taste orange peel and water?’
Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and
once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative.
‘If you make believe very much, it’s quite nice,’ said the small
servant, ‘but if you don’t, you know, it seems as if it would bear a
little more seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come out
after they’d gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or
two nights before there was all that precious noise in the office--when
the young man was took, I mean--I come upstairs while Mr Brass and Miss
Sally was a-sittin’ at the office fire; and I tell you the truth, that
I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.’
Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the
bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the
utmost concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up her
finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not.
‘There was him and her,’ said the small servant, ‘a-sittin’ by the
fire, and talking softly together. Mr Brass says to Miss Sally, “Upon
my word,” he says “it’s a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a
world of trouble, and I don’t half like it.” She says--you know her
way--she says, “You’re the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I
ever see, and I think,” she says, “that I ought to have been the
brother, and you the sister. Isn’t Quilp,” she says, “our principal
support?” “He certainly is,” says Mr Brass, “And an’t we,” she says,
“constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?” “We
certainly are,” says Mr Brass. “Then does it signify,” she says,
“about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires it?” “It certainly does not
signify,” says Mr Brass. Then they whispered and laughed for a long
time about there being no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass
pulls out his pocket-book, and says, “Well,” he says, “here it
is--Quilp’s own five-pound note. We’ll agree that way, then,” he says.
“Kit’s coming to-morrow morning, I know. While he’s up-stairs, you’ll
get out of the way, and I’ll clear off Mr Richard. Having Kit alone,
I’ll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat. I’ll
manage so, besides,” he says, “that Mr Richard shall find it there, and
be the evidence. And if that don’t get Christopher out of Mr Quilp’s
way, and satisfy Mr Quilp’s grudges,” he says, “the Devil’s in it.”
Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to
be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went down-stairs
again.--There!’
The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation
as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he
sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to
anybody.
‘How could it be?’ replied his nurse. ‘I was almost afraid to think
about it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I heard ‘em
say they had found him guilty of what he didn’t do, you was gone, and
so was the lodger--though I think I should have been frightened to tell
him, even if he’d been there. Ever since I come here, you’ve been out
of your senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then?’
‘Marchioness,’ said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and
flinging it to the other end of the room; ‘if you’ll do me the favour
to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I’ll
get up.’
‘You mustn’t think of such a thing,’ cried his nurse.
‘I must indeed,’ said the patient, looking round the room.
‘Whereabouts are my clothes?’
‘Oh, I’m so glad--you haven’t got any,’ replied the Marchioness.
‘Ma’am!’ said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.
‘I’ve been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was
ordered for you. But don’t take on about that,’ urged the Marchioness,
as Dick fell back upon his pillow. ‘You’re too weak to stand, indeed.’
‘I am afraid,’ said Richard dolefully, ‘that you’re right. What ought
I to do! what is to be done!’
It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the first
step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr Garlands
instantly. It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet left the
office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant
had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of
father and son, which would enable her to recognise either, without
difficulty; and a special caution to be shy of Mr Chuckster, in
consequence of that gentleman’s known antipathy to Kit. Armed with
these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either
old Mr Garland or Mr Abel, bodily, to that apartment.
‘I suppose,’ said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into
the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, ‘I suppose
there’s nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat even?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘It’s embarrassing,’ said Mr Swiveller, ‘in case of fire--even an
umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear Marchioness.
I should have died without you!’
CHAPTER 65
It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick
nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very
neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would
probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme
authority over her person. Not unmindful of the risk she ran, however,
the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she dived into the first
dark by-way that presented itself, and, without any present reference
to the point to which her journey tended, made it her first business to
put two good miles of brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.
When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course
for the notary’s office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of apple-women
and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or
of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice--she easily
procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in
a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting
off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the
Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in
safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was
bound.
She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some
old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses
was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was rather retarded than
assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew
off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the
crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so
much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress
in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling,
pushing, squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she
reached the street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out
and exhausted, and could not refrain from tears.
But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as there
were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore some hope
that she was not too late. So the Marchioness dried her eyes with the
backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the steps, peeped in
through the glass door.
Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such
preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down his
wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck more
gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers by the aid
of a little triangular bit of looking glass. Before the ashes of the
fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly judged to be the
notary, and the other (who was buttoning his great-coat and was
evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel Garland.
Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with
herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out, as
there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr Chuckster, and
less difficulty in delivering her message. With this purpose she
slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down upon a door-step
just opposite.
She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the
street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns, a
pony. This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in it; but
neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the least, as he
reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or stood still
again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the smallest reference to
them--just as the fancy seized him, and as if he were the freest animal
in creation. When they came to the notary’s door, the man called out
in a very respectful manner, ‘Woa then’--intimating that if he might
venture to express a wish, it would be that they stopped there. The
pony made a moment’s pause; but, as if it occurred to him that to stop
when he was required might be to establish an inconvenient and
dangerous precedent, he immediately started off again, rattled at a
fast trot to the street corner, wheeled round, came back, and then
stopped of his own accord.
‘Oh! you’re a precious creatur!’ said the man--who didn’t venture by
the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the
pavement. ‘I wish I had the rewarding of you--I do.’
‘What has he been doing?’ said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his neck as
he came down the steps.