Nicholas Nickleby

‘I do know,’ said the old gentleman, laying his finger on his nose, with an air of familiarity, most reprehensible, ‘that this is a sacred and enchanted spot, where the most divine charms’ – here he kissed his hand and bowed again – ‘waft mellifluousness over the neighbours’ gardens, and force the fruit and vegetables into premature existence. That fact I am acquainted with. But will you permit me, fairest creature, to ask you one question, in the absence of the planet Venus, who has gone on business to the Horse Guards, and would otherwise – jealous of your superior charms – interpose between us?’

‘Kate,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby, turning to her daughter, ‘it’s very awkward, positively. I really don’t know what to say to this gentleman. One ought to be civil, you know.’

‘Dear mama,’ rejoined Kate, ‘don’t say a word to him, but let us run away as fast as we can, and shut ourselves up till Nicholas comes home.’

Mrs. Nickleby looked very grand, not to say contemptuous, at this humiliating proposal; and, turning to the old gentleman, who had watched them during these whispers with absorbing eagerness, said:

‘If you will conduct yourself, sir, like the gentleman I should imagine you to be, from your language and – and – appearance, (quite the counterpart of your grandpapa, Kate, my dear, in his best days,) and will put your question to me in plain words, I will answer it.’

If Mrs. Nickleby’s excellent papa had borne, in his best days, a resemblance to the neighbour now looking over the wall, he must have been, to say the least, a very queer-looking old gentleman in his prime. Perhaps Kate thought so, for she ventured to glance at his living portrait with some attention, as he took off his black velvet cap, and, exhibiting a perfectly bald head, made a long series of bows, each accompanied with a fresh kiss of the hand. After exhausting himself, to all appearance, with this fatiguing performance, he covered his head once more, pulled the cap very carefully over the tips of his ears, and resuming his former attitude, said,

‘The question is – ’

Here he broke off to look round in every direction, and satisfy himself beyond all doubt that there were no listeners near. Assured that there were not, he tapped his nose several times, accompanying the action with a cunning look, as though congratulating himself on his caution; and stretching out his neck, said in a loud whisper,

‘Are you a princess?’

‘You are mocking me, sir,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, making a feint of retreating towards the house.

‘No, but are you?’ said the old gentleman.

‘You know I am not, sir,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby.

‘Then are you any relation to the Archbishop of Canterbury?’ inquired the old gentleman with great anxiety, ‘or to the Pope of Rome? Or the Speaker of the House of Commons? Forgive me, if I am wrong, but I was told you were niece to the Commissioners of Paving, and daughter-in-law to the Lord Mayor and Court of Common Council, which would account for your relationship to all three.’

‘Whoever has spread such reports, sir,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, with some warmth, ‘has taken great liberties with my name, and one which I am sure my son Nicholas, if he was aware of it, would not allow for an instant. The idea!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, drawing herself up, ‘niece to the Commissioners of Paving!’

‘Pray, mama, come away!’ whispered Kate.

‘“Pray mama!” Nonsense, Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, angrily, ‘but that’s just the way. If they had said I was niece to a piping bullfinch, what would you care? But I have no sympathy,’ whimpered Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I don’t expect it, that’s one thing.’

‘Tears!’ cried the old gentleman, with such an energetic jump, that he fell down two or three steps and grated his chin against the wall. ‘Catch the crystal globules – catch ‘em – bottle ‘em up – cork ‘em tight – put sealing wax on the top – seal ‘em with a cupid – label ‘em “Best quality” – and stow ‘em away in the fourteen binn, with a bar of iron on the top to keep the thunder off!’

Issuing these commands, as if there were a dozen attendants all actively engaged in their execution, he turned his velvet cap inside out, put it on with great dignity so as to obscure his right eye and three-fourths of his nose, and sticking his arms a-kimbo, looked very fiercely at a sparrow hard by, till the bird flew away, when he put his cap in his pocket with an air of great satisfaction, and addressed himself with respectful demeanour to Mrs. Nickleby.

‘Beautiful madam,’ such were his words, ‘if I have made any mistake with regard to your family or connections, I humbly beseech you to pardon me. If I supposed you to be related to Foreign Powers or Native Boards, it is because you have a manner, a carriage, a dignity, which you will excuse my saying that none but yourself (with the single exception perhaps of the tragic muse, when playing extemporaneously on the barrel organ before the East India Company) can parallel. I am not a youth, ma’am, as you see; and although beings like you can never grow old, I venture to presume that we are fitted for each other.’

‘Really, Kate, my love!’ said Mrs. Nickleby faintly, and looking another way.

‘I have estates, ma’am,’ said the old gentleman, flourishing his right hand negligently, as if he made very light of such matters, and speaking very fast; ‘jewels, lighthouses, fish-ponds, a whalery of my own in the North Sea, and several oyster-beds of great profit in the Pacific Ocean. If you will have the kindness to step down to the Royal Exchange and to take the cocked-hat off the stoutest beadle’s head, you will find my card in the lining of the crown, wrapped up in a piece of blue paper. My walking-stick is also to be seen on application to the chaplain of the House of Commons, who is strictly forbidden to take any money for showing it. I have enemies about me, ma’am,’ he looked towards his house and spoke very low, ‘who attack me on all occasions, and wish to secure my property. If you bless me with your hand and heart, you can apply to the Lord Chancellor or call out the military if necessary – sending my toothpick to the commander-in-chief will be sufficient – and so clear the house of them before the ceremony is performed. After that, love, bliss and rapture; rapture, love and bliss. Be mine, be mine!’

Repeating these last words with great rapture and enthusiasm, the old gentleman put on his black velvet cap again, and looking up into the sky in a hasty manner, said something that was not quite intelligible concerning a balloon he expected, and which was rather after its time.

‘Be mine, be mine!’ repeated the old gentleman.

‘Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I have hardly the power to speak; but it is necessary for the happiness of all parties that this matter should be set at rest for ever.’

‘Surely there is no necessity for you to say one word, mama?’ reasoned Kate.

‘You will allow me, my dear, if you please, to judge for myself,’ said Mrs Nickleby.

‘Be mine, be mine!’ cried the old gentleman.

‘It can scarcely be expected, sir,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, fixing her eyes modestly on the ground, ‘that I should tell a stranger whether I feel flattered and obliged by such proposals, or not. They certainly are made under very singular circumstances; still at the same time, as far as it goes, and to a certain extent of course’ (Mrs. Nickleby’s customary qualification), ‘they must be gratifying and agreeable to one’s feelings.’

‘Be mine, be mine,’ cried the old gentleman. ‘Gog and Magog, Gog and Magog. Be mine, be mine!’

‘It will be sufficient for me to say, sir,’ resumed Mrs. Nickleby, with perfect seriousness – ‘and I’m sure you’ll see the propriety of taking an answer and going away – that I have made up my mind to remain a widow, and to devote myself to my children. You may not suppose I am the mother of two children – indeed many people have doubted it, and said that nothing on earth could ever make ‘em believe it possible – but it is the case, and they are both grown up. We shall be very glad to have you for a neighbour – very glad; delighted, I’m sure – but in any other character it’s quite impossible, quite. As to my being young enough to marry again, that perhaps may be so, or it may not be; but I couldn’t think of it for an instant, not on any account whatever. I said I never would, and I never will. It’s a very painful thing to have to reject proposals, and I would much rather that none were made; at the same time this is the answer that I determined long ago to make, and this is the answer I shall always give.’

These observations were partly addressed to the old gentleman, partly to Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy. Towards their conclusion, the suitor evinced a very irreverent degree of inattention, and Mrs. Nickleby had scarcely finished speaking, when, to the great terror both of that lady and her daughter, he suddenly flung off his coat, and springing on the top of the wall, threw himself into an attitude which displayed his small-clothes and grey worsteds to the fullest advantage, and concluded by standing on one leg, and repeating his favourite bellow with increased vehemence.

While he was still dwelling on the last note, and embellishing it with a prolonged flourish, a dirty hand was observed to glide stealthily and swiftly along the top of the wall, as if in pursuit of a fly, and then to clasp with the utmost dexterity one of the old gentleman’s ankles. This done, the companion hand appeared, and clasped the other ankle.

Thus encumbered the old gentleman lifted his legs awkwardly once or twice, as if they were very clumsy and imperfect pieces of machinery, and then looking down on his own side of the wall, burst into a loud laugh.

‘It’s you, is it?’ said the old gentleman.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ replied a gruff voice.

‘How’s the Emperor of Tartary?’ said the old gentleman.

‘Oh! he’s much the same as usual,’ was the reply. ‘No better and no worse.’

‘The young Prince of China,’ said the old gentleman, with much interest. ‘Is he reconciled to his father-in-law, the great potato salesman?’

‘No,’ answered the gruff voice; ‘and he says he never will be, that’s more.’

‘If that’s the case,’ observed the old gentleman, ‘perhaps I’d better come down.’

‘Well,’ said the man on the other side, ‘I think you had, perhaps.’

One of the hands being then cautiously unclasped, the old gentleman dropped into a sitting posture, and was looking round to smile and bow to Mrs. Nickleby, when he disappeared with some precipitation, as if his legs had been pulled from below.

Very much relieved by his disappearance, Kate was turning to speak to her mama, when the dirty hands again became visible, and were immediately followed by the figure of a coarse squat man, who ascended by the steps which had been recently occupied by their singular neighbour.

‘Beg your pardon, ladies,’ said this new comer, grinning and touching his hat. ‘Has he been making love to either of you?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate.

‘Ah!’ rejoined the man, taking his handkerchief out of his hat and wiping his face, ‘he always will, you know. Nothing will prevent his making love.’

‘I need not ask you if he is out of his mind, poor creature,’ said Kate.

‘Why no,’ replied the man, looking into his hat, throwing his handkerchief in at one dab, and putting it on again. ‘That’s pretty plain, that is.’

‘Has he been long so?’ asked Kate.

‘A long while.’

‘And is there no hope for him?’ said Kate, compassionately

‘Not a bit, and don’t deserve to be,’ replied the keeper. ‘He’s a deal pleasanter without his senses than with ‘em. He was the cruellest, wickedest, out-and-outerest old flint that ever drawed breath.’

‘Indeed!’ said Kate.

‘By George!’ replied the keeper, shaking his head so emphatically that he was obliged to frown to keep his hat on. ‘I never come across such a vagabond, and my mate says the same. Broke his poor wife’s heart, turned his daughters out of doors, drove his sons into the streets; it was a blessing he went mad at last, through evil tempers, and covetousness, and selfishness, and guzzling, and drinking, or he’d have drove many others so. Hope for him, an old rip! There isn’t too much hope going, but I’ll bet a crown that what there is, is saved for more deserving chaps than him, anyhow.’

With which confession of his faith, the keeper shook his head again, as much as to say that nothing short of this would do, if things were to go on at all; and touching his hat sulkily – not that he was in an ill humour, but that his subject ruffled him – descended the ladder, and took it away.

During this conversation, Mrs. Nickleby had regarded the man with a severe and steadfast look. She now heaved a profound sigh, and pursing up her lips, shook her head in a slow and doubtful manner.

‘Poor creature!’ said Kate.

‘Ah! poor indeed!’ rejoined Mrs. Nickleby. ‘It’s shameful that such things should be allowed. Shameful!’

‘How can they be helped, mama?’ said Kate, mournfully. ‘The infirmities of nature – ’

‘Nature!’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘What! Do you suppose this poor gentleman is out of his mind?’

‘Can anybody who sees him entertain any other opinion, mama?’

‘Why then, I just tell you this, Kate,’ returned Mrs. Nickleby, ‘that, he is nothing of the kind, and I am surprised you can be so imposed upon. It’s some plot of these people to possess themselves of his property – didn’t he say so himself? He may be a little odd and flighty, perhaps, many of us are that; but downright mad! and express himself as he does, respectfully, and in quite poetical language, and making offers with so much thought, and care, and prudence – not as if he ran into the streets, and went down upon his knees to the first chit of a girl he met, as a madman would! No, no, Kate, there’s a great deal too much method in his madness; depend upon that, my dear.’

CHAPTER 42

Illustrative of the convivial Sentiment, that the best of Friends must sometimes part

The pavement of Snow Hill had been baking and frying all day in the heat, and the twain Saracens’ heads guarding the entrance to the hostelry of whose name and sign they are the duplicate presentments, looked – or seemed, in the eyes of jaded and footsore passers-by, to look – more vicious than usual, after blistering and scorching in the sun, when, in one of the inn’s smallest sitting-rooms, through whose open window there rose, in a palpable steam, wholesome exhalations from reeking coach-horses, the usual furniture of a tea-table was displayed in neat and inviting order, flanked by large joints of roast and boiled, a tongue, a pigeon pie, a cold fowl, a tankard of ale, and other little matters of the like kind, which, in degenerate towns and cities, are generally understood to belong more particularly to solid lunches, stage-coach dinners, or unusually substantial breakfasts.

Mr. John Browdie, with his hands in his pockets, hovered restlessly about these delicacies, stopping occasionally to whisk the flies out of the sugar-basin with his wife’s pocket-handkerchief, or to dip a teaspoon in the milk-pot and carry it to his mouth, or to cut off a little knob of crust, and a little corner of meat, and swallow them at two gulps like a couple of pills. After every one of these flirtations with the eatables, he pulled out his watch, and declared with an earnestness quite pathetic that he couldn’t undertake to hold out two minutes longer.

‘Tilly!’ said John to his lady, who was reclining half awake and half asleep upon a sofa.

‘Well, John!’

‘Well, John!’ retorted her husband, impatiently. ‘Dost thou feel hoongry, lass?’

‘Not very,’ said Mrs. Browdie.

‘Not vary!’ repeated John, raising his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Hear her say not vary, and us dining at three, and loonching off pasthry thot aggravates a mon ‘stead of pacifying him! Not vary!’

‘Here’s a gen’l’man for you, sir,’ said the waiter, looking in.

‘A wa’at for me?’ cried John, as though he thought it must be a letter, or a parcel.

‘A gen’l’man, sir.’

‘Stars and garthers, chap!’ said John, ‘wa’at dost thou coom and say thot for? In wi’ ‘un.’

‘Are you at home, sir?’

‘At whoam!’ cried John, ‘I wish I wur; I’d ha tea’d two hour ago. Why, I told t’oother chap to look sharp ootside door, and tell ‘un d’rectly he coom, thot we war faint wi’ hoonger. In wi’ ‘un. Aha! Thee hond, Misther Nickleby. This is nigh to be the proodest day o’ my life, sir. Hoo be all wi’ ye? Ding! But, I’m glod o’ this!’

Quite forgetting even his hunger in the heartiness of his salutation, John Browdie shook Nicholas by the hand again and again, slapping his palm with great violence between each shake, to add warmth to the reception.

‘Ah! there she be,’ said John, observing the look which Nicholas directed towards his wife. ‘There she be – we shan’t quarrel about her noo – eh? Ecod, when I think o’ thot – but thou want’st soom’at to eat. Fall to, mun, fall to, and for wa’at we’re aboot to receive – ’

No doubt the grace was properly finished, but nothing more was heard, for John had already begun to play such a knife and fork, that his speech was, for the time, gone.

‘I shall take the usual licence, Mr. Browdie,’ said Nicholas, as he placed a chair for the bride.

‘Tak’ whatever thou like’st,’ said John, ‘and when a’s gane, ca’ for more.’

Without stopping to explain, Nicholas kissed the blushing Mrs. Browdie, and handed her to her seat.

‘I say,’ said John, rather astounded for the moment, ‘mak’ theeself quite at whoam, will ‘ee?’

‘You may depend upon that,’ replied Nicholas; ‘on one condition.’

‘And wa’at may thot be?’ asked John.

‘That you make me a godfather the very first time you have occasion for one.’

‘Eh! d’ye hear thot?’ cried John, laying down his knife and fork. ‘A godfeyther! Ha! ha! ha! Tilly – hear till ‘un – a godfeyther! Divn’t say a word more, ye’ll never beat thot. Occasion for ‘un – a godfeyther! Ha! ha! ha!’

Never was man so tickled with a respectable old joke, as John Browdie was with this. He chuckled, roared, half suffocated himself by laughing large pieces of beef into his windpipe, roared again, persisted in eating at the same time, got red in the face and black in the forehead, coughed, cried, got better, went off again laughing inwardly, got worse, choked, had his back thumped, stamped about, frightened his wife, and at last recovered in a state of the last exhaustion and with the water streaming from his eyes, but still faintly ejaculating, ‘A godfeyther – a godfeyther, Tilly!’ in a tone bespeaking an exquisite relish of the sally, which no suffering could diminish.

‘You remember the night of our first tea-drinking?’ said Nicholas.

‘Shall I e’er forget it, mun?’ replied John Browdie.

‘He was a desperate fellow that night though, was he not, Mrs. Browdie?’ said Nicholas. ‘Quite a monster!’

‘If you had only heard him as we were going home, Mr. Nickleby, you’d have said so indeed,’ returned the bride. ‘I never was so frightened in all my life.’

‘Coom, coom,’ said John, with a broad grin; ‘thou know’st betther than thot, Tilly.’

‘So I was,’ replied Mrs. Browdie. ‘I almost made up my mind never to speak to you again.’

‘A’most!’ said John, with a broader grin than the last. ‘A’most made up her mind! And she wur coaxin’, and coaxin’, and wheedlin’, and wheedlin’ a’ the blessed wa’. “Wa’at didst thou let yon chap mak’ oop tiv’ee for?” says I. “I deedn’t, John,” says she, a squeedgin my arm. “You deedn’t?” says I. “Noa,” says she, a squeedgin of me agean.’

‘Lor, John!’ interposed his pretty wife, colouring very much. ‘How can you talk such nonsense? As if I should have dreamt of such a thing!’

‘I dinnot know whether thou’d ever dreamt of it, though I think that’s loike eneaf, mind,’ retorted John; ‘but thou didst it. “Ye’re a feeckle, changeable weathercock, lass,” says I. “Not feeckle, John,” says she. “Yes,” says I, “feeckle, dom’d feeckle. Dinnot tell me thou bean’t, efther yon chap at schoolmeasther’s,” says I. “Him!” says she, quite screeching. “Ah! him!” says I. “Why, John,” says she – and she coom a deal closer and squeedged a deal harder than she’d deane afore – “dost thou think it’s nat’ral noo, that having such a proper mun as thou to keep company wi’, I’d ever tak’ opp wi’ such a leetle scanty whipper-snapper as yon?” she says. Ha! ha! ha! She said whipper-snapper! “Ecod!” I says, “efther thot, neame the day, and let’s have it ower!” Ha! ha! ha!’

Nicholas laughed very heartily at this story, both on account of its telling against himself, and his being desirous to spare the blushes of Mrs. Browdie, whose protestations were drowned in peals of laughter from her husband. His good-nature soon put her at her ease; and although she still denied the charge, she laughed so heartily at it, that Nicholas had the satisfaction of feeling assured that in all essential respects it was strictly true.

‘This is the second time,’ said Nicholas, ‘that we have ever taken a meal together, and only third I have ever seen you; and yet it really seems to me as if I were among old friends.’

‘Weel!’ observed the Yorkshireman, ‘so I say.’

‘And I am sure I do,’ added his young wife.

‘I have the best reason to be impressed with the feeling, mind,’ said Nicholas; ‘for if it had not been for your kindness of heart, my good friend, when I had no right or reason to expect it, I know not what might have become of me or what plight I should have been in by this time.’

‘Talk aboot soom’at else,’ replied John, gruffly, ‘and dinnot bother.’

‘It must be a new song to the same tune then,’ said Nicholas, smiling. ‘I told you in my letter that I deeply felt and admired your sympathy with that poor lad, whom you released at the risk of involving yourself in trouble and difficulty; but I can never tell you how grateful he and I, and others whom you don’t know, are to you for taking pity on him.’

‘Ecod!’ rejoined John Browdie, drawing up his chair; ‘and I can never tell you hoo gratful soom folks that we do know would be loikewise, if they know’d I had takken pity on him.’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Mrs. Browdie, ‘what a state I was in that night!’

‘Were they at all disposed to give you credit for assisting in the escape?’ inquired Nicholas of John Browdie.

‘Not a bit,’ replied the Yorkshireman, extending his mouth from ear to ear. ‘There I lay, snoog in schoolmeasther’s bed long efther it was dark, and nobody coom nigh the pleace. “Weel!” thinks I, “he’s got a pretty good start, and if he bean’t whoam by noo, he never will be; so you may coom as quick as you loike, and foind us reddy” – that is, you know, schoolmeasther might coom.’

‘I understand,’ said Nicholas.

‘Presently,’ resumed John, ‘he did coom. I heerd door shut doonstairs, and him a warking, oop in the daark. “Slow and steddy,” I says to myself, “tak’ your time, sir – no hurry.” He cooms to the door, turns the key – turns the key when there warn’t nothing to hoold the lock – and ca’s oot “Hallo, there!” – “Yes,” thinks I, “you may do thot agean, and not wakken anybody, sir.” “Hallo, there,” he says, and then he stops. “Thou’d betther not aggravate me,” says schoolmeasther, efther a little time. “I’ll brak’ every boan in your boddy, Smike,” he says, efther another little time. Then all of a soodden, he sings oot for a loight, and when it cooms – ecod, such a hoorly-boorly! “Wa’at’s the matter?” says I. “He’s gane,” says he, – stark mad wi’ vengeance. “Have you heerd nought?” “Ees,” says I, “I heerd street-door shut, no time at a’ ago. I heerd a person run doon there” (pointing t’other wa’ – eh?) “Help!” he cries. “I’ll help you,” says I; and off we set – the wrong wa’! Ho! ho! ho!’

‘Did you go far?’ asked Nicholas.

‘Far!’ replied John; ‘I run him clean off his legs in quarther of an hoor. To see old schoolmeasther wi’out his hat, skimming along oop to his knees in mud and wather, tumbling over fences, and rowling into ditches, and bawling oot like mad, wi’ his one eye looking sharp out for the lad, and his coat-tails flying out behind, and him spattered wi’ mud all ower, face and all! I tho’t I should ha’ dropped doon, and killed myself wi’ laughing.’

John laughed so heartily at the mere recollection, that he communicated the contagion to both his hearers, and all three burst into peals of laughter, which were renewed again and again, until they could laugh no longer.

‘He’s a bad ‘un,’ said John, wiping his eyes; ‘a very bad ‘un, is schoolmeasther.’