Nicholas Nickleby

‘Why, if you will have it, miss, it’s this,’ said the servant girl. ‘Mr John Browdie thinks as you think; and if he wasn’t too far gone to do it creditable, he’d be very glad to be off with Miss Price, and on with Miss Squeers.’

‘Gracious heavens!’ exclaimed Miss Squeers, clasping her hands with great dignity. ‘What is this?’

‘Truth, ma’am, and nothing but truth,’ replied the artful Phib.

‘What a situation!’ cried Miss Squeers; ‘on the brink of unconsciously destroying the peace and happiness of my own ‘Tilda. What is the reason that men fall in love with me, whether I like it or not, and desert their chosen intendeds for my sake?’

‘Because they can’t help it, miss,’ replied the girl; ‘the reason’s plain.’ (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very plain.)

‘Never let me hear of it again,’ retorted Miss Squeers. ‘Never! Do you hear? ‘Tilda Price has faults – many faults – but I wish her well, and above all I wish her married; for I think it highly desirable – most desirable from the very nature of her failings – that she should be married as soon as possible. No, Phib. Let her have Mr. Browdie. I may pity him, poor fellow; but I have a great regard for ‘Tilda, and only hope she may make a better wife than I think she will.’

With this effusion of feeling, Miss Squeers went to bed.

Spite is a little word; but it represents as strange a jumble of feelings, and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in the language. Miss Squeers knew as well in her heart of hearts that what the miserable serving-girl had said was sheer, coarse, lying flattery, as did the girl herself; yet the mere opportunity of venting a little ill-nature against the offending Miss Price, and affecting to compassionate her weaknesses and foibles, though only in the presence of a solitary dependant, was almost as great a relief to her spleen as if the whole had been gospel truth. Nay, more. We have such extraordinary powers of persuasion when they are exerted over ourselves, that Miss Squeers felt quite high-minded and great after her noble renunciation of John Browdie’s hand, and looked down upon her rival with a kind of holy calmness and tranquillity, that had a mighty effect in soothing her ruffled feelings.

This happy state of mind had some influence in bringing about a reconciliation; for, when a knock came at the front-door next day, and the miller’s daughter was announced, Miss Squeers betook herself to the parlour in a Christian frame of spirit, perfectly beautiful to behold.

‘Well, Fanny,’ said the miller’s daughter, ‘you see I have come to see you, although we had some words last night.’

‘I pity your bad passions, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘but I bear no malice. I am above it.’

‘Don’t be cross, Fanny,’ said Miss Price. ‘I have come to tell you something that I know will please you.’

‘What may that be, ‘Tilda?’ demanded Miss Squeers; screwing up her lips, and looking as if nothing in earth, air, fire, or water, could afford her the slightest gleam of satisfaction.

‘This,’ rejoined Miss Price. ‘After we left here last night John and I had a dreadful quarrel.’

‘That doesn’t please me,’ said Miss Squeers – relaxing into a smile though.

‘Lor! I wouldn’t think so bad of you as to suppose it did,’ rejoined her companion. ‘That’s not it.’

‘Oh!’ said Miss Squeers, relapsing into melancholy. ‘Go on.’

‘After a great deal of wrangling, and saying we would never see each other any more,’ continued Miss Price, ‘we made it up, and this morning John went and wrote our names down to be put up, for the first time, next Sunday, so we shall be married in three weeks, and I give you notice to get your frock made.’

There was mingled gall and honey in this intelligence. The prospect of the friend’s being married so soon was the gall, and the certainty of her not entertaining serious designs upon Nicholas was the honey. Upon the whole, the sweet greatly preponderated over the bitter, so Miss Squeers said she would get the frock made, and that she hoped ‘Tilda might be happy, though at the same time she didn’t know, and would not have her build too much upon it, for men were strange creatures, and a great many married women were very miserable, and wished themselves single again with all their hearts; to which condolences Miss Squeers added others equally calculated to raise her friend’s spirits and promote her cheerfulness of mind.

‘But come now, Fanny,’ said Miss Price, ‘I want to have a word or two with you about young Mr. Nickleby.’

‘He is nothing to me,’ interrupted Miss Squeers, with hysterical symptoms. ‘I despise him too much!’

‘Oh, you don’t mean that, I am sure?’ replied her friend. ‘Confess, Fanny; don’t you like him now?’

Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once, fell into a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she was a wretched, neglected, miserable castaway.

‘I hate everybody,’ said Miss Squeers, ‘and I wish that everybody was dead – that I do.’

‘Dear, dear,’ said Miss Price, quite moved by this avowal of misanthropical sentiments. ‘You are not serious, I am sure.’

‘Yes, I am,’ rejoined Miss Squeers, tying tight knots in her pocket-handkerchief and clenching her teeth. ‘And I wish I was dead too. There!’

‘Oh! you’ll think very differently in another five minutes,’ said Matilda. ‘How much better to take him into favour again, than to hurt yourself by going on in that way. Wouldn’t it be much nicer, now, to have him all to yourself on good terms, in a company-keeping, love-making, pleasant sort of manner?’

‘I don’t know but what it would,’ sobbed Miss Squeers. ‘Oh! ‘Tilda, how could you have acted so mean and dishonourable! I wouldn’t have believed it of you, if anybody had told me.’

‘Heyday!’ exclaimed Miss Price, giggling. ‘One would suppose I had been murdering somebody at least.’

‘Very nigh as bad,’ said Miss Squeers passionately.

‘And all this because I happen to have enough of good looks to make people civil to me,’ cried Miss Price. ‘Persons don’t make their own faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good one than it is other people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.’

‘Hold your tongue,’ shrieked Miss Squeers, in her shrillest tone; ‘or you’ll make me slap you, ‘Tilda, and afterwards I should be sorry for it!’

It is needless to say, that, by this time, the temper of each young lady was in some slight degree affected by the tone of her conversation, and that a dash of personality was infused into the altercation, in consequence. Indeed, the quarrel, from slight beginnings, rose to a considerable height, and was assuming a very violent complexion, when both parties, falling into a great passion of tears, exclaimed simultaneously, that they had never thought of being spoken to in that way: which exclamation, leading to a remonstrance, gradually brought on an explanation: and the upshot was, that they fell into each other’s arms and vowed eternal friendship; the occasion in question making the fifty-second time of repeating the same impressive ceremony within a twelvemonth.

Perfect amicability being thus restored, a dialogue naturally ensued upon the number and nature of the garments which would be indispensable for Miss Price’s entrance into the holy state of matrimony, when Miss Squeers clearly showed that a great many more than the miller could, or would, afford, were absolutely necessary, and could not decently be dispensed with. The young lady then, by an easy digression, led the discourse to her own wardrobe, and after recounting its principal beauties at some length, took her friend upstairs to make inspection thereof. The treasures of two drawers and a closet having been displayed, and all the smaller articles tried on, it was time for Miss Price to return home; and as she had been in raptures with all the frocks, and had been stricken quite dumb with admiration of a new pink scarf, Miss Squeers said in high good humour, that she would walk part of the way with her, for the pleasure of her company; and off they went together: Miss Squeers dilating, as they walked along, upon her father’s accomplishments: and multiplying his income by ten, to give her friend some faint notion of the vast importance and superiority of her family.

It happened that that particular time, comprising the short daily interval which was suffered to elapse between what was pleasantly called the dinner of Mr. Squeers’s pupils, and their return to the pursuit of useful knowledge, was precisely the hour when Nicholas was accustomed to issue forth for a melancholy walk, and to brood, as he sauntered listlessly through the village, upon his miserable lot. Miss Squeers knew this perfectly well, but had perhaps forgotten it, for when she caught sight of that young gentleman advancing towards them, she evinced many symptoms of surprise and consternation, and assured her friend that she ‘felt fit to drop into the earth.’

‘Shall we turn back, or run into a cottage?’ asked Miss Price. ‘He don’t see us yet.’

‘No, ‘Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘it is my duty to go through with it, and I will!’

As Miss Squeers said this, in the tone of one who has made a high moral resolution, and was, besides, taken with one or two chokes and catchings of breath, indicative of feelings at a high pressure, her friend made no further remark, and they bore straight down upon Nicholas, who, walking with his eyes bent upon the ground, was not aware of their approach until they were close upon him; otherwise, he might, perhaps, have taken shelter himself.

‘Good-morning,’ said Nicholas, bowing and passing by.

‘He is going,’ murmured Miss Squeers. ‘I shall choke, ‘Tilda.’

‘Come back, Mr. Nickleby, do!’ cried Miss Price, affecting alarm at her friend’s threat, but really actuated by a malicious wish to hear what Nicholas would say; ‘come back, Mr. Nickleby!’

Mr. Nickleby came back, and looked as confused as might be, as he inquired whether the ladies had any commands for him.

‘Don’t stop to talk,’ urged Miss Price, hastily; ‘but support her on the other side. How do you feel now, dear?’

‘Better,’ sighed Miss Squeers, laying a beaver bonnet of a reddish brown with a green veil attached, on Mr. Nickleby’s shoulder. ‘This foolish faintness!’

‘Don’t call it foolish, dear,’ said Miss Price: her bright eye dancing with merriment as she saw the perplexity of Nicholas; ‘you have no reason to be ashamed of it. It’s those who are too proud to come round again, without all this to-do, that ought to be ashamed.’

‘You are resolved to fix it upon me, I see,’ said Nicholas, smiling, ‘although I told you, last night, it was not my fault.’

‘There; he says it was not his fault, my dear,’ remarked the wicked Miss Price. ‘Perhaps you were too jealous, or too hasty with him? He says it was not his fault. You hear; I think that’s apology enough.’

‘You will not understand me,’ said Nicholas. ‘Pray dispense with this jesting, for I have no time, and really no inclination, to be the subject or promoter of mirth just now.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Miss Price, affecting amazement.

‘Don’t ask him, ‘Tilda,’ cried Miss Squeers; ‘I forgive him.’