Nicholas Nickleby

‘No,’ replied Squeers, ‘that he wasn’t!’

‘And a young lover come and carried off the bride, eh?’ said Peg.

‘From under his very nose,’ replied Squeers; ‘and I’m told the young chap cut up rough besides, and broke the winders, and forced him to swaller his wedding favour which nearly choked him.’

‘Tell me all about it again,’ cried Peg, with a malicious relish of her old master’s defeat, which made her natural hideousness something quite fearful; ‘let’s hear it all again, beginning at the beginning now, as if you’d never told me. Let’s have it every word – now – now – beginning at the very first, you know, when he went to the house that morning!’

Mr. Squeers, plying Mrs. Sliderskew freely with the liquor, and sustaining himself under the exertion of speaking so loud by frequent applications to it himself, complied with this request by describing the discomfiture of Arthur Gride, with such improvements on the truth as happened to occur to him, and the ingenious invention and application of which had been very instrumental in recommending him to her notice in the beginning of their acquaintance. Mrs. Sliderskew was in an ecstasy of delight, rolling her head about, drawing up her skinny shoulders, and wrinkling her cadaverous face into so many and such complicated forms of ugliness, as awakened the unbounded astonishment and disgust even of Mr. Squeers.

‘He’s a treacherous old goat,’ said Peg, ‘and cozened me with cunning tricks and lying promises, but never mind. I’m even with him. I’m even with him.’

‘More than even, Slider,’ returned Squeers; ‘you’d have been even with him if he’d got married; but with the disappointment besides, you’re a long way ahead. Out of sight, Slider, quite out of sight. And that reminds me,’ he added, handing her the glass, ‘if you want me to give you my opinion of them deeds, and tell you what you’d better keep and what you’d better burn, why, now’s your time, Slider.’

‘There an’t no hurry for that,’ said Peg, with several knowing looks and winks.

‘Oh! very well!’ observed Squeers, ‘it don’t matter to me; you asked me, you know. I shouldn’t charge you nothing, being a friend. You’re the best judge of course. But you’re a bold woman, Slider.’

‘How do you mean, bold?’ said Peg.

‘Why, I only mean that if it was me, I wouldn’t keep papers as might hang me, littering about when they might be turned into money – them as wasn’t useful made away with, and them as was, laid by somewheres, safe; that’s all,’ returned Squeers; ‘but everybody’s the best judge of their own affairs. All I say is, Slider, I wouldn’t do it.’

‘Come,’ said Peg, ‘then you shall see ‘em.’

‘I don’t want to see ‘em,’ replied Squeers, affecting to be out of humour; ‘don’t talk as if it was a treat. Show ‘em to somebody else, and take their advice.’

Mr. Squeers would, very likely, have carried on the farce of being offended a little longer, if Mrs. Sliderskew, in her anxiety to restore herself to her former high position in his good graces, had not become so extremely affectionate that he stood at some risk of being smothered by her caresses. Repressing, with as good a grace as possible, these little familiarities – for which, there is reason to believe, the black bottle was at least as much to blame as any constitutional infirmity on the part of Mrs. Sliderskew – he protested that he had only been joking: and, in proof of his unimpaired good-humour, that he was ready to examine the deeds at once, if, by so doing, he could afford any satisfaction or relief of mind to his fair friend.

‘And now you’re up, my Slider,’ bawled Squeers, as she rose to fetch them, ‘bolt the door.’

Peg trotted to the door, and after fumbling at the bolt, crept to the other end of the room, and from beneath the coals which filled the bottom of the cupboard, drew forth a small deal box. Having placed this on the floor at Squeers’s feet, she brought, from under the pillow of her bed, a small key, with which she signed to that gentleman to open it. Mr. Squeers, who had eagerly followed her every motion, lost no time in obeying this hint: and, throwing back the lid, gazed with rapture on the documents which lay within.

‘Now you see,’ said Peg, kneeling down on the floor beside him, and staying his impatient hand; ‘what’s of no use we’ll burn; what we can get any money by, we’ll keep; and if there’s any we could get him into trouble by, and fret and waste away his heart to shreds, those we’ll take particular care of; for that’s what I want to do, and what I hoped to do when I left him.’

‘I thought,’ said Squeers, ‘that you didn’t bear him any particular good-will. But, I say, why didn’t you take some money besides?’

‘Some what?’ asked Peg.

‘Some money,’ roared Squeers. ‘I do believe the woman hears me, and wants to make me break a wessel, so that she may have the pleasure of nursing me. Some money, Slider, money!’

‘Why, what a man you are to ask!’ cried Peg, with some contempt. ‘If I had taken money from Arthur Gride, he’d have scoured the whole earth to find me – aye, and he’d have smelt it out, and raked it up, somehow, if I had buried it at the bottom of the deepest well in England. No, no! I knew better than that. I took what I thought his secrets were hid in: and them he couldn’t afford to make public, let’em be worth ever so much money. He’s an old dog; a sly, old, cunning, thankless dog! He first starved, and then tricked me; and if I could I’d kill him.’

‘All right, and very laudable,’ said Squeers. ‘But, first and foremost, Slider, burn the box. You should never keep things as may lead to discovery. Always mind that. So while you pull it to pieces (which you can easily do, for it’s very old and rickety) and burn it in little bits, I’ll look over the papers and tell you what they are.’

Peg, expressing her acquiescence in this arrangement, Mr. Squeers turned the box bottom upwards, and tumbling the contents upon the floor, handed it to her; the destruction of the box being an extemporary device for engaging her attention, in case it should prove desirable to distract it from his own proceedings.

‘There!’ said Squeers; ‘you poke the pieces between the bars, and make up a good fire, and I’ll read the while. Let me see, let me see.’ And taking the candle down beside him, Mr. Squeers, with great eagerness and a cunning grin overspreading his face, entered upon his task of examination.

If the old woman had not been very deaf, she must have heard, when she last went to the door, the breathing of two persons close behind it: and if those two persons had been unacquainted with her infirmity, they must probably have chosen that moment either for presenting themselves or taking to flight. But, knowing with whom they had to deal, they remained quite still, and now, not only appeared unobserved at the door – which was not bolted, for the bolt had no hasp – but warily, and with noiseless footsteps, advanced into the room.

As they stole farther and farther in by slight and scarcely perceptible degrees, and with such caution that they scarcely seemed to breathe, the old hag and Squeers little dreaming of any such invasion, and utterly unconscious of there being any soul near but themselves, were busily occupied with their tasks. The old woman, with her wrinkled face close to the bars of the stove, puffing at the dull embers which had not yet caught the wood; Squeers stooping down to the candle, which brought out the full ugliness of his face, as the light of the fire did that of his companion; both intently engaged, and wearing faces of exultation which contrasted strongly with the anxious looks of those behind, who took advantage of the slightest sound to cover their advance, and, almost before they had moved an inch, and all was silent, stopped again. This, with the large bare room, damp walls, and flickering doubtful light, combined to form a scene which the most careless and indifferent spectator (could any have been present) could scarcely have failed to derive some interest from, and would not readily have forgotten.

Of the stealthy comers, Frank Cheeryble was one, and Newman Noggs the other. Newman had caught up, by the rusty nozzle, an old pair of bellows, which were just undergoing a flourish in the air preparatory to a descent upon the head of Mr. Squeers, when Frank, with an earnest gesture, stayed his arm, and, taking another step in advance, came so close behind the schoolmaster that, by leaning slightly forward, he could plainly distinguish the writing which he held up to his eye.

Mr. Squeers, not being remarkably erudite, appeared to be considerably puzzled by this first prize, which was in an engrossing hand, and not very legible except to a practised eye. Having tried it by reading from left to right, and from right to left, and finding it equally clear both ways, he turned it upside down with no better success.

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ chuckled Peg, who, on her knees before the fire, was feeding it with fragments of the box, and grinning in most devilish exultation. ‘What’s that writing about, eh?’

‘Nothing particular,’ replied Squeers, tossing it towards her. ‘It’s only an old lease, as well as I can make out. Throw it in the fire.’

Mrs. Sliderskew complied, and inquired what the next one was.

‘This,’ said Squeers, ‘is a bundle of overdue acceptances and renewed bills of six or eight young gentlemen, but they’re all MPs, so it’s of no use to anybody. Throw it in the fire!’ Peg did as she was bidden, and waited for the next.

‘This,’ said Squeers, ‘seems to be some deed of sale of the right of presentation to the rectory of Purechurch, in the valley of Cashup. Take care of that, Slider, literally for God’s sake. It’ll fetch its price at the Auction Mart.’

‘What’s the next?’ inquired Peg.

‘Why, this,’ said Squeers, ‘seems, from the two letters that’s with it, to be a bond from a curate down in the country, to pay half a year’s wages of forty pound for borrowing twenty. Take care of that, for if he don’t pay it, his bishop will very soon be down upon him. We know what the camel and the needle’s eye means; no man as can’t live upon his income, whatever it is, must expect to go to heaven at any price. It’s very odd; I don’t see anything like it yet.’

‘What’s the matter?’ said Peg.

‘Nothing,’ replied Squeers, ‘only I’m looking for – ’

Newman raised the bellows again. Once more, Frank, by a rapid motion of his arm, unaccompanied by any noise, checked him in his purpose.

‘Here you are,’ said Squeers, ‘bonds – take care of them. Warrant of attorney – take care of that. Two cognovits – take care of them. Lease and release – burn that. Ah! “Madeline Bray – come of age or marry – the said Madeline” – here, burn that!’

Eagerly throwing towards the old woman a parchment that he caught up for the purpose, Squeers, as she turned her head, thrust into the breast of his large coat, the deed in which these words had caught his eye, and burst into a shout of triumph.

‘I’ve got it!’ said Squeers. ‘I’ve got it! Hurrah! The plan was a good one, though the chance was desperate, and the day’s our own at last!’

Peg demanded what he laughed at, but no answer was returned. Newman’s arm could no longer be restrained; the bellows, descending heavily and with unerring aim on the very centre of Mr. Squeers’s head, felled him to the floor, and stretched him on it flat and senseless.

CHAPTER 58

In which one Scene of this History is closed

Dividing the distance into two days’ journey, in order that his charge might sustain the less exhaustion and fatigue from travelling so far, Nicholas, at the end of the second day from their leaving home, found himself within a very few miles of the spot where the happiest years of his life had been passed, and which, while it filled his mind with pleasant and peaceful thoughts, brought back many painful and vivid recollections of the circumstances in which he and his had wandered forth from their old home, cast upon the rough world and the mercy of strangers.

It needed no such reflections as those which the memory of old days, and wanderings among scenes where our childhood has been passed, usually awaken in the most insensible minds, to soften the heart of Nicholas, and render him more than usually mindful of his drooping friend. By night and day, at all times and seasons: always watchful, attentive, and solicitous, and never varying in the discharge of his self-imposed duty to one so friendless and helpless as he whose sands of life were now fast running out and dwindling rapidly away: he was ever at his side. He never left him. To encourage and animate him, administer to his wants, support and cheer him to the utmost of his power, was now his constant and unceasing occupation.

They procured a humble lodging in a small farmhouse, surrounded by meadows where Nicholas had often revelled when a child with a troop of merry schoolfellows; and here they took up their rest.

At first, Smike was strong enough to walk about, for short distances at a time, with no other support or aid than that which Nicholas could afford him. At this time, nothing appeared to interest him so much as visiting those places which had been most familiar to his friend in bygone days. Yielding to this fancy, and pleased to find that its indulgence beguiled the sick boy of many tedious hours, and never failed to afford him matter for thought and conversation afterwards, Nicholas made such spots the scenes of their daily rambles: driving him from place to place in a little pony-chair, and supporting him on his arm while they walked slowly among these old haunts, or lingered in the sunlight to take long parting looks of those which were most quiet and beautiful.

It was on such occasions as these, that Nicholas, yielding almost unconsciously to the interest of old associations, would point out some tree that he had climbed, a hundred times, to peep at the young birds in their nest; and the branch from which he used to shout to little Kate, who stood below terrified at the height he had gained, and yet urging him higher still by the intensity of her admiration. There was the old house too, which they would pass every day, looking up at the tiny window through which the sun used to stream in and wake him on the summer mornings – they were all summer mornings then – and climbing up the garden-wall and looking over, Nicholas could see the very rose-bush which had come, a present to Kate, from some little lover, and she had planted with her own hands. There were the hedgerows where the brother and sister had so often gathered wild flowers together, and the green fields and shady paths where they had so often strayed. There was not a lane, or brook, or copse, or cottage near, with which some childish event was not entwined, and back it came upon the mind – as events of childhood do – nothing in itself: perhaps a word, a laugh, a look, some slight distress, a passing thought or fear: and yet more strongly and distinctly marked, and better remembered, than the hardest trials or severest sorrows of a year ago.

One of these expeditions led them through the churchyard where was his father’s grave. ‘Even here,’ said Nicholas softly, ‘we used to loiter before we knew what death was, and when we little thought whose ashes would rest beneath; and, wondering at the silence, sit down to rest and speak below our breath. Once, Kate was lost, and after an hour of fruitless search, they found her, fast asleep, under that tree which shades my father’s grave. He was very fond of her, and said when he took her up in his arms, still sleeping, that whenever he died he would wish to be buried where his dear little child had laid her head. You see his wish was not forgotten.’