Nicholas Nickleby

‘I only ask of him,’ continued Kate, whose tears fell while she spoke, ‘that he will move so little out of his way, in my behalf, as to enable me by his recommendation – only by his recommendation – to earn, literally, my bread and remain with my mother. Whether we shall ever taste happiness again, depends upon the fortunes of my dear brother; but if he will do this, and Nicholas only tells us that he is well and cheerful, I shall be contented.’

As she ceased to speak, there was a rustling behind the screen which stood between her and the door, and some person knocked at the wainscot.’

‘Come in, whoever it is!’ cried Miss La Creevy.

The person complied, and, coming forward at once, gave to view the form and features of no less an individual than Mr. Ralph Nickleby himself.

‘Your servant, ladies,’ said Ralph, looking sharply at them by turns. ‘You were talking so loud, that I was unable to make you hear.’

When the man of business had a more than commonly vicious snarl lurking at his heart, he had a trick of almost concealing his eyes under their thick and protruding brows, for an instant, and then displaying them in their full keenness. As he did so now, and tried to keep down the smile which parted his thin compressed lips, and puckered up the bad lines about his mouth, they both felt certain that some part, if not the whole, of their recent conversation, had been overheard.

‘I called in, on my way upstairs, more than half expecting to find you here,’ said Ralph, addressing his niece, and looking contemptuously at the portrait. ‘Is that my niece’s portrait, ma’am?’

‘Yes it is, Mr. Nickleby,’ said Miss La Creevy, with a very sprightly air, ‘and between you and me and the post, sir, it will be a very nice portrait too, though I say it who am the painter.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself to show it to me, ma’am,’ cried Ralph, moving away, ‘I have no eye for likenesses. Is it nearly finished?’

‘Why, yes,’ replied Miss La Creevy, considering with the pencil end of her brush in her mouth. ‘Two sittings more will – ’

‘Have them at once, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘She’ll have no time to idle over fooleries after tomorrow. Work, ma’am, work; we must all work. Have you let your lodgings, ma’am?’

‘I have not put a bill up yet, sir.’

‘Put it up at once, ma’am; they won’t want the rooms after this week, or if they do, can’t pay for them. Now, my dear, if you’re ready, we’ll lose no more time.’

With an assumption of kindness which sat worse upon him even than his usual manner, Mr. Ralph Nickleby motioned to the young lady to precede him, and bowing gravely to Miss La Creevy, closed the door and followed upstairs, where Mrs. Nickleby received him with many expressions of regard. Stopping them somewhat abruptly, Ralph waved his hand with an impatient gesture, and proceeded to the object of his visit.

‘I have found a situation for your daughter, ma’am,’ said Ralph.

‘Well,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Now, I will say that that is only just what I have expected of you. “Depend upon it,” I said to Kate, only yesterday morning at breakfast, “that after your uncle has provided, in that most ready manner, for Nicholas, he will not leave us until he has done at least the same for you.” These were my very words, as near as I remember. Kate, my dear, why don’t you thank your – ’

‘Let me proceed, ma’am, pray,’ said Ralph, interrupting his sister-in-law in the full torrent of her discourse.

‘Kate, my love, let your uncle proceed,’ said Mrs. Nickleby.

‘I am most anxious that he should, mama,’ rejoined Kate.

‘Well, my dear, if you are anxious that he should, you had better allow your uncle to say what he has to say, without interruption,’ observed Mrs Nickleby, with many small nods and frowns. ‘Your uncle’s time is very valuable, my dear; and however desirous you may be – and naturally desirous, as I am sure any affectionate relations who have seen so little of your uncle as we have, must naturally be to protract the pleasure of having him among us, still, we are bound not to be selfish, but to take into consideration the important nature of his occupations in the city.’

‘I am very much obliged to you, ma’am,’ said Ralph with a scarcely perceptible sneer. ‘An absence of business habits in this family leads, apparently, to a great waste of words before business – when it does come under consideration – is arrived at, at all.’

‘I fear it is so indeed,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby with a sigh. ‘Your poor brother – ’

‘My poor brother, ma’am,’ interposed Ralph tartly, ‘had no idea what business was – was unacquainted, I verily believe, with the very meaning of the word.’

‘I fear he was,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with her handkerchief to her eyes. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, I don’t know what would have become of him.’

What strange creatures we are! The slight bait so skilfully thrown out by Ralph, on their first interview, was dangling on the hook yet. At every small deprivation or discomfort which presented itself in the course of the four-and-twenty hours to remind her of her straitened and altered circumstances, peevish visions of her dower of one thousand pounds had arisen before Mrs. Nickleby’s mind, until, at last, she had come to persuade herself that of all her late husband’s creditors she was the worst used and the most to be pitied. And yet, she had loved him dearly for many years, and had no greater share of selfishness than is the usual lot of mortals. Such is the irritability of sudden poverty. A decent annuity would have restored her thoughts to their old train, at once.

‘Repining is of no use, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Of all fruitless errands, sending a tear to look after a day that is gone is the most fruitless.’

‘So it is,’ sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. ‘So it is.’

‘As you feel so keenly, in your own purse and person, the consequences of inattention to business, ma’am,’ said Ralph, ‘I am sure you will impress upon your children the necessity of attaching themselves to it early in life.’

‘Of course I must see that,’ rejoined Mrs. Nickleby. ‘Sad experience, you know, brother-in-law. – Kate, my dear, put that down in the next letter to Nicholas, or remind me to do it if I write.’

Ralph paused for a few moments, and seeing that he had now made pretty sure of the mother, in case the daughter objected to his proposition, went on to say:

‘The situation that I have made interest to procure, ma’am, is with – with a milliner and dressmaker, in short.’

‘A milliner!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby.

‘A milliner and dressmaker, ma’am,’ replied Ralph. ‘Dressmakers in London, as I need not remind you, ma’am, who are so well acquainted with all matters in the ordinary routine of life, make large fortunes, keep equipages, and become persons of great wealth and fortune.’

Now, the first idea called up in Mrs. Nickleby’s mind by the words milliner and dressmaker were connected with certain wicker baskets lined with black oilskin, which she remembered to have seen carried to and fro in the streets; but, as Ralph proceeded, these disappeared, and were replaced by visions of large houses at the West end, neat private carriages, and a banker’s book; all of which images succeeded each other with such rapidity, that he had no sooner finished speaking, than she nodded her head and said ‘Very true,’ with great appearance of satisfaction.

‘What your uncle says is very true, Kate, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I recollect when your poor papa and I came to town after we were married, that a young lady brought me home a chip cottage-bonnet, with white and green trimming, and green persian lining, in her own carriage, which drove up to the door full gallop; – at least, I am not quite certain whether it was her own carriage or a hackney chariot, but I remember very well that the horse dropped down dead as he was turning round, and that your poor papa said he hadn’t had any corn for a fortnight.’

This anecdote, so strikingly illustrative of the opulence of milliners, was not received with any great demonstration of feeling, inasmuch as Kate hung down her head while it was relating, and Ralph manifested very intelligible symptoms of extreme impatience.

‘The lady’s name,’ said Ralph, hastily striking in, ‘is Mantalini – Madame Mantalini. I know her. She lives near Cavendish Square. If your daughter is disposed to try after the situation, I’ll take her there directly.’

‘Have you nothing to say to your uncle, my love?’ inquired Mrs. Nickleby.

‘A great deal,’ replied Kate; ‘but not now. I would rather speak to him when we are alone; – it will save his time if I thank him and say what I wish to say to him, as we walk along.’

With these words, Kate hurried away, to hide the traces of emotion that were stealing down her face, and to prepare herself for the walk, while Mrs. Nickleby amused her brother-in-law by giving him, with many tears, a detailed account of the dimensions of a rosewood cabinet piano they had possessed in their days of affluence, together with a minute description of eight drawing-room chairs, with turned legs and green chintz squabs to match the curtains, which had cost two pounds fifteen shillings apiece, and had gone at the sale for a mere nothing.

These reminiscences were at length cut short by Kate’s return in her walking dress, when Ralph, who had been fretting and fuming during the whole time of her absence, lost no time, and used very little ceremony, in descending into the street.

‘Now,’ he said, taking her arm, ‘walk as fast as you can, and you’ll get into the step that you’ll have to walk to business with, every morning.’ So saying, he led Kate off, at a good round pace, towards Cavendish Square.

‘I am very much obliged to you, uncle,’ said the young lady, after they had hurried on in silence for some time; ‘very.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Ralph. ‘I hope you’ll do your duty.’

‘I will try to please, uncle,’ replied Kate: ‘indeed I – ’

‘Don’t begin to cry,’ growled Ralph; ‘I hate crying.’

‘It’s very foolish, I know, uncle,’ began poor Kate.

‘It is,’ replied Ralph, stopping her short, ‘and very affected besides. Let me see no more of it.’

Perhaps this was not the best way to dry the tears of a young and sensitive female, about to make her first entry on an entirely new scene of life, among cold and uninterested strangers; but it had its effect notwithstanding. Kate coloured deeply, breathed quickly for a few moments, and then walked on with a firmer and more determined step.

It was a curious contrast to see how the timid country girl shrunk through the crowd that hurried up and down the streets, giving way to the press of people, and clinging closely to Ralph as though she feared to lose him in the throng; and how the stern and hard-featured man of business went doggedly on, elbowing the passengers aside, and now and then exchanging a gruff salutation with some passing acquaintance, who turned to look back upon his pretty charge, with looks expressive of surprise, and seemed to wonder at the ill-assorted companionship. But, it would have been a stranger contrast still, to have read the hearts that were beating side by side; to have laid bare the gentle innocence of the one, and the rugged villainy of the other; to have hung upon the guileless thoughts of the affectionate girl, and been amazed that, among all the wily plots and calculations of the old man, there should not be one word or figure denoting thought of death or of the grave. But so it was; and stranger still – though this is a thing of every day – the warm young heart palpitated with a thousand anxieties and apprehensions, while that of the old worldly man lay rusting in its cell, beating only as a piece of cunning mechanism, and yielding no one throb of hope, or fear, or love, or care, for any living thing.