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The Old Curiosity Shop.
1. CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
WHETHER Mr. Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time, or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth.
At length the day broke, and poor Mrs. Quilp, shivering with cold of early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding him by an occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her penance had been of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her; and it was not until the sun had some time risen, and the activity and noise of city day were rife in the street, that he deigned to recognize her presence by any word or sign. He might not have done so even then, but for certain impatient tapping at the door he seemed to denote that some pretty hard knuckles were actively engaged upon the other side.
“Why dear me!” he said looking round with a malicious grin, “it's day. Open the door, sweet Mrs. Quilp!”
His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.
Now, Mrs. Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for, supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her feelings by pronouncing a
Nothing escaped the hawk's eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly understanding what passed in the old lady's mind, turned uglier still in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a leer or triumph.
“Why, Betsy,” said the old woman, “you haven't been—you don't mean to say you've been a—”
“Sitting up all night?” said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the sentence. “Yes she has!”
“All night?” cried Mrs. Jiniwin.
“Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?” said Quilp, with a smile of which a frown was part. “Who says man and wife are bad company? Ha ha! The time has flown.”
“You're a brute!” exclaimed Mrs. Jiniwin.
“Come come,” said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, “you mustn't call her names. She's married now, you know. And though she did beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly careful of me as to be out of humour with her. Bless you for a dear old lady. Here's to your health!”
“I am much obliged to you,” returned the old woman, testifying by a certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her matronly fist at her son-in-law. “Oh! I'm very much obliged to you!”
“Grateful soul!” cried the dwarf. “Mrs. Quilp.”
“Yes, Quilp,” said the timid sufferer.
“Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs. Quilp. I am going to the wharf this morning—the earlier the better, so be quick.”
Mrs. Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied herself to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.
While they were in progress, Mr. Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room, and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his complexion rather more cloudy than it was before. But, while he was thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in this short process, and stood listening for any conversation in the next room, of which he might be the theme.
“Ah!” he said after a short effort of attention, “it was not the towel over my ears, I thought it wasn't. I'm a little hunchy villain and a monster, am I, Mrs. Jiniwin? Oh!”
The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.
Mr. Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs. Jiniwin happening to be behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she did so and accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye in the glass, catching her in the very act. The same glance at the mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and the next instant the dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and placid look, inquired in a tone of great affection.
“How are you now, my dear old darling?”
Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and suffered herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the breakfast-table. Here he by no means diminished the impression he had just produced, for he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature. At last, having gone through these proceedings and many others which were equally a part of his system, Mr. Quilp left them, reduced to a very obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the river-side, where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed his name.
It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat
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himself down in the ferry to cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on, some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a wrong-headed, dogged, obstinate way, bumping up against the larger craft, running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on all sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some lumbering fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands were busily engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry, taking in or discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible but two or three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to and fro upon the deck or scrambling up to look over the side and bark the louder for the view. Coming slowly on through the forests of masts was a great steamship, beating the water in short impatient strokes with her heavy paddles as though she wanted room to breathe, and advancing in her huge bulk like a sea monster among the minnows of the Thames. On either hand were long black tiers of colliers; between them vessels slowly working out of harbour with sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on board, re-echoed from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was in active motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old grey Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their chafing, restless neighbour.
Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save in so far as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused himself to be put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither through a narrow lane which, partaking of the amphibious character of its frequenters, had as much water as mud in its composition, and a very liberal supply of both. Arrived at his destination, the first object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which remarkable appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an eccentric spirit and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now standing on his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under these uncommon circumstances. He was speedily brought on his heels by the sound of his master's voice, and as soon as his head was in its right position, Mr. Quilp, to speak expresively in the absence of a better verb, “punched it” for him.
“Come, you let me alone,” said the boy, parrying Quilp's hand with both his elbows alternatively. “You'll get something you won't like if you don't and so I tell you.”
“You dog,” snarled Quilp, “I'll beat you with an iron rod, I'll scratch you with a rusty nail, I'll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me—I will.”
With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously diving in betwen the elbows and catching the boy's head as it dodged from side to side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having now carried his point and insisted on it, he left off.
“You won't do it agin,” said the boy, nodding his head and drawing back, with the elbows ready in case of the worst; “now—”
“Stand still, you dog,” said Quilp. “I won't do it again, because I've done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.”
“Why don't you hit one of your size?” said the boy approaching very slowly.
“Where is there one of my size, you dog?” returned Quilp. “Take the key, or I'll brain you with it”—indeed he gave him a smart tap with the handle as he spoke. “Now, open the counting-house.”
The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he looked round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady look. And here it may be remarked, that between this boy and the dwarf that existed a strange kind of mutual liking. How born or bred, and or nourished upon blows and threats on one side, and retorts and defiances on the other, is not to the purpose. Quilp would certainly suffer nobody to contract him but the boy, and the boy would assuredly not have submitted to be so knocked about by anybody but Quilp, when he had the power to run away at any time he chose.
“Now,” said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, “you mind the wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I'll cut one of your feet off.”
The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in, stood on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the back and stood on his head there, and then to the opposite side and repeated the performance. There were indeed four sides to the counting-house, but he avoided that one where the window was, deeming it probable that Quilp would be looking out of it. This was prudent, for in point of fact, the dwarf, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance from the sash armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and jagged and studded in many parts with broken nails, might possibly have hurt him.
It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but an old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock which hadn't gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp pulled his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top) and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with ease of an old pactitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the deprivation of last night's rest, by a long and sound nap.
Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust in his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp was a light sleeper and started up directly.
“Here's somebody for you,” said the boy.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Ask!” said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. “Ask, you dog.”
Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who now presented herself at the door.
“What, Nelly!” cried Quilp.
“Yes,” said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him and a yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to behold; it's only me, sir.”
“Come in,” said Quilp, without getting off the desk. “Come in. Stay. Just look out into the yard, and see whether there's a boy standing on his head.”
“No, sir,” replied Nell. “He's on his feet.”
“You're sure he is?” said Quilp. “Well. Now, come in and shut the door. What's your message, Nelly?”
The child handed him a letter. Mr. Quilp, without changing his position further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his chin on his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its contents.
2. The Old Curiosity Shop.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
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LITTLE NELL stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance of Mr. Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this impulse and restrained it more effectually than she could possibly have done by any efforts of her own.
That Mr. Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree, by the contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had got through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes very wide and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused him to scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when he came to the conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of surprise and dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he bit the nails of all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and taking it up sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all appearance as unsatisfactory as the first, and plunged him into a profound reverie from which he awakened to another assault upon his nails and a long stare at the child, who with her eyes turned towards the ground awaited his further pleasure.
“Halloa here!” he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness, which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her ear. “Nelly!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know what's inside this letter, Nell?”
“No, sir!”
“Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?”
“Quite sure, sir.”
“Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?” said the dwarf.
“Indeed I don't know,” returned the child.
“Well!” muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. “I believe you. Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What the devil has he done with it, that's the mystery!”
This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once more. While
“You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you tired, Nelly?”
“No, sir. I'm in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I am away.”
“There's no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,” said Quilp. “How should you like to be my number two, Nelly?”
“To be what, sir?”
“My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs. Quilp,” said the dwarf.
The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr. Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more distinctly.
“To be Mrs. Quilp the second, when Mrs. Quilp the first is dead, sweet Nell,” said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him with his bent forefinger, “to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked, red-lipped wife. Say that Mrs. Quilp lives five year, or only four, you'll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a very good girl, and see if one of these days you don't come to be Mrs. Quilp of Tower Hill.”
So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful prospect, the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled violently. Mr. Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded him a constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to contemplate the death of Mrs. Quilp number one, and the elevation of Mrs. Quilp number two to her post and title, or because he was determined from purposes of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at that particular time, only laughed and feigned to take no heed of her alarm.
“You shall home with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs. Quilp that is, directly,” said the dwarf. “She's very fond of you, Nell, though not so fond as I am. You shall come home with me.”
“I must go back indeed,” said the child. “He told me to return directly I had the answer.”
“But you haven't it, Nelly,” retorted the dwarf, “and won't have it, and can't have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your errand, you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and we'll go directly.” With that, Mr. Quilp suffered himself to roll gradually off the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when he got upon them and led the way from the counting-house to the wharf outside, when the first objects that presented themselves were the boy who had stood on his head and another young gentleman of about his own stature, rolling in the mud together, locked in a tight embrace, and cuffing each other with mutual heartiness.
“It's Kit!” cried Nelly, clasping her hand, “poor Kit who came with me! Oh, pray stop them, Mr. Quilp!”
“I'll stop 'em,” cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and returning with a thick stick, “I'll stop 'em. Now, my boys, fight away. I'll fight you both. I'll take both of you, both together, both together!”
With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing round the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on the other, in a most desperate manner, always aiming at their heads and dealing such blows as none but the veriest little savage would have inflicted. This being warmer work than they had calculated upon, speedily cooled the courage of the belligerents, who scrambled to their feet and called for quarter.
“I'll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,” said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to get near either of them for a parting blow. “I'll bruise you until you're copper-coloured, I'll break your faces till you haven't a profile between you, I will.”
“Come, you drop that stick or it'll be worse for you,” said his boy, dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; “you drop that stick.”
“Come a little nearer, and I'll drop it on your skull, you dog,” said Quilp, with gleaming eyes; “a little nearer—nearer yet.”
But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power, when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he fell violently upon his head. the success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr. Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as at a most irresistible jest.
“Never mind,” said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the same time; “you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because they say you're an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a penny, that's all.”
“Do you mean to say, I'm not, you dog?” returned Quilp.
“No!” retorted the boy.
“Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?” said Quilp.
“Because he said so,” replied to boy, pointing to Kit, “not because you an't.”
“Then why did he say,” bawled Kit, “that Miss Nelly was ugly, and that she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked? Why did he say that?”
“He said what he did because he's a fool, and you said what you did because you're very wise and clever—almost too clever to live, unless you're very careful of yourself, Kit.” said Quilp, with great suavity in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes and mouth. “Here's sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth. At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring me the key.”
The other boy, to whom this order was addresed, did as he was told, and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then Mr. Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed the river.
There was only Mrs. Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the return of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing slumber when the sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely time to seem to be occupied in some needle-work, when he entered, accompanied by the child; having left Kit downstairs.
“Here's Nelly Trent, dear Mrs. Quilp,” said her husband. “A glass of wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She'll sit with you, my soul, while I write a letter.”
Mrs. Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse's face to know what this unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she saw in his gesture, followed him into the next room.
“Mind what I say to you,” whispered Quilp. “See if you can get out of her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live, or what he tells her. I've my reasons for knowing, if I can. You women talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you have a soft, mild way with you that'll win upon her. Do you hear?”
“Yes, Quilp.”
“Go then. What's the matter now?”
“Dear Quilp,” faltered his wife. “I love the child—if you could do without making me deceive her—”
The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some weapon with which to inflict condign punishment upon his disobedient wife. the submissive little woman hurriedly entreated him not to be angry, and promised to do as he bade her.
“Do you hear me,” whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; “worm yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I'm listening, recollect. If you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and woe betide you if I have to creak it much. Go!”
Mrs. Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband, ensconcing himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his ear close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and attention.
Poor Mrs. Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or what kind of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door, creaking in a very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without further consideration, that the sound of her voice was heard.
“How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to Mr. Quilp, my dear.”
“I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,” returned Nell innocently.
“And what has he said to that?”
“Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched that if you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you could not have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!”
“It often does.” returned Mrs. Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards it. “But your grandfather—he used not to be so wretched?”
“Oh, no!” said the child eagerly, “so different! We were once so happy and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad change has fallen on us since.”
“I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!” said Mrs. Quilp. And she spoke the truth.
“Thank you,” returned the child, kissing her cheek, “you are always kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one else about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me sometimes to see him alter so.”
“He'll alter again, Nelly,” said Mrs. Quilp, “and be what he was before.”
“Oh, if God would only let that come about!” said the child with streaming eyes; “but it is a long time now, since he
“It's the wind,” said Mrs. Quilp, fainly. “Began to —”
“To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way ot spending the time in the long evenings,” said the child. “I used to read to him by the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped and we began to talk, he told me about my mother, and how she once looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then he used to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that she was not lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky where nothing died or ever grew old—we were very happy once!”
“Nelly, Nelly!” said the poor woman, “I can't bear to see one as young as you so sorrowful. Pray don't cry.”
“I do so very seldom,” said Nell, “but I have kept this to myself a long time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into my eyes and I cannot keep them back. I don't mind telling you my grief, for I know you will not tell it to any one again.”
Mrs. Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.
“Then,” said the child, “we often walked in the fields and among the green trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark and rather dull, we used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only made us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look forward to our next one. But now we never have these walks, and though it is the same house it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be, indeed!”
She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs Quilp said nothing.
“Mind you don't suppose,” said the child earnestly, “that grandfather is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day, and is kinder and more afectionate than he was the day before. You do not know how fond he is of me!”
“I am sure he loves you dearly,” said Mrs. Quilp.
“Indeed, indeed he does!” cried Nell, “as dearly as I love him. But I have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never breathe again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he takes by day in his easy chair; for every night and neary all night long he is away from home.”
“Nelly!”
“Hush!” said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking round. “When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just before day, I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were bloodshot, and that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone to bed again, I heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him, and heard him say, before he knew that I was there, that he could not bear his life much longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish to die. What shall I do! Oh! What shall I do!”
The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by the weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she had ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been received, hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst into a passion of tears.
In a few minutes Mr. Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost surprise to find her in this condtiion, which he did very naturally and with admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it.
“She's tired you see, Mrs. Quilp,” said the dwarf, squinting in a hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. “It's a long way from her home to the wharf, and then she was alrmed to see a couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the water besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor Nell!”
Mr. Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the head. Such an application from any other hand might not have produced a remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from his touch and felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach, that she rose directly and declared herself ready to return.
“But you'd better wait, and dine with Mrs. Quilp and me.” said the dwarf.
“I have been away too long, sir, already,” returned Nell, drying her eyes.
“Well,” said Mr. Quilp, “if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here's the note. It's only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next day, and that I couldn't do that little business for him this morning. Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d'ye hear?”
Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so needless an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening manner, as if he doubted whether
“You're a keen questioner, an't you, Mrs. Quilp?” said the dwarf, turning upon her as soon as they were left alone.
“What more could I do?” returned his wife mildly?
“What more could you do!” sneered Quilp, “couldn't you have done something less? Couldn't you have done what you had to do, without appearing in your favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?”
“I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,” said his wife. “Surely I've done enough. I've led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were alone; and you were by, God forgive me.”
“You led her on! You did a great deal truly!” said Quilp. “What did I tell you about making me creak the door? It's lucky for you that from what she let fall, I've got the clue I want, for if I hadn't, I'd have visited the failure upon you, I can tell you.”
Mrs. Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband added with some exultation,
“But you may thank your fortunate stars—the same stars that made you Mrs. Quilp—you may thank them that I'm upon the old gentleman's track, and have got a new light. So let me hear no more about this matter now or at any other time, and don't get anything too nice for dinner, for I shan't be home to it.”
So saying, Mr. Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quilp, who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less tender-hearted persons would have mourned a much greater offence; for, in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management and leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense with it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue.
3. CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
“FRED,” said Mr. Swiveller, “remember the once popular melody of Begone dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.”
Mr. Richard Swiveller's apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the advantage of being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr. Swiveller made use of the expressions above recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his desponding friend; and it may not be uninteresting or improper to remark that even these brief observations partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetical character of Mr. Swiveller's mind, as the rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, which was replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon the table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers which, as Mr. Swiveller's was a bachelor's establishment, may be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as “apartments” for a single gentleman, and Mr. Swiveller, following up the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers, conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leaving their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls, at pleasure.
In this flight of fancy, Mr. Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr. Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more, that he closed
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his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he cherished it.
“Fred!” said Mr. Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been productive of no effect. “Pass the rosy.”
Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and fell again in the the moddy attitude from which he had been unwillingly roused.
“I'll give you, Fred,” said his friend, stirring the mixture, “a little sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here's May the —”
“Pshaw!” interposed the other. “You worry me to death with your chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.”
“Why, Mr. Trent,” returned Dick, “there is a proverb which talks about being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can't be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can't be merry. I'm one of the first sort. If the proverb's a good 'un, I supose it's better to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I'd rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one nor t'other.”
“Bah!” muttered his friend, peevishly.
“With all my heart,” said Mr. Swiveller. “In the polite circles I believe this sort of thing isn't usually said to a gentleman in his own apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,” adding to this retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be rather “cranky” in point of temper, Richards Swiveller finished the rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an imaginary company.
“Gentlemen, I'll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr. Richard in particular—Mr. Richard, gentlemen,” said Dick with great emphasis, “who spends all his money on his friends and is Bah!'d for his pains. Hear, hear!”
“Dick!” said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the room twice or thrice, “will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?”
“You've shown me so many,” returned Dick; “and nothing has come of any one of 'em but empty pockets —”
“You'll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is over,” said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. “You saw my sister Nell?”
“What about her?” returned Dick.
“She has a pretty face, has she not?”
“Why, certainly,” replied Dick. “I must say for her that there's not any very
“Has she a pretty face?” repeated his friend impatiently.
“Yes,” said Dick, “she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of that?”
“I'll tell you,” returned his friend. “It's very plain that the old man and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?”
“A bat might see that, with the sun shining,” said Dick.
“It's equally plain that the money which the old flint—rot him—first taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all be hers, is it not?”
“I should said it was,” replied Dick; “unless the way in which I put the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was powerful, Fred. 'Here is a jolly old grandfather'—that was strong, I thought—very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?”
“It didn't strike him,” returned the other, “so we needn't discuss it. Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.”
“Fine girl of her age, but small,” observed Richard Swiveller parenthetically.
“If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,” returned Trent, fretting at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation. “Now I'm coming to the point.”
“That's right,” said Dick.
“The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may, at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme would take a week to tell) what's to prevent your marrying her?”
Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the monosyllable:
“What!”
“I say, what's to prevent,” repeated the other with a steadiness of manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured by long experience, “what's to prevent your marrying her?”
“And she ‘nearly fourteen’!” cried Dick.
“I don't mean marrying her now”—returned the brother angrily; “say in two year's time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a long-liver?”
“He don't look like it,” said Dick shaking his head, “but these old people—there's no trusting them, Fred. There's an aunt of mind down in Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years old, and hasn't kept her word yet. They're so aggravating, so unprincipled, so spiteful—unless there's apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can't calculate upon 'em, and even then they deceive you just as often as not.”
“Look at the worst side of the question then,” said Trent as steadily as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. “Suppose he lives.”
“To be sure,” said Dick. “There's the rub.”
“I say,” resumed his friend, “suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with you. What do you think would come of that?”
“A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep 'em on,” said Richard Swiveller after some reflection.
“I tell you,” returned the other with an increased earnestness, which, whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion, “that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do it. You or any other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he chooses.”
“It seems improbable certainly,” said Dick, musing.
“It seems improbable because it is improbable,” his friend returned. “If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you, let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between you and me—let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of course—and he'll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks, that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a beautiful young wife.”
“I suppose there's no doubt about his being rich”—said Dick.
“Doubt! Did you hear what he left fall the other day when we were there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?”
It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of Richard Swiveller was
The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to their own development, require no present elucidation. the negotiation was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr. Swiveller was in the act of stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying “Come in.”
The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a servant-girl, who being then and there engaged in cleaning the stars had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception of surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.
Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction, and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it was one of the inconveniences of being a lady's man, and that it was very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten her.
“Her. Who?” demanded Trent.
“Sophy Wackles,” said Dick.
“Who's she?”
“She's all my fancy painted her, sir, that's what she is,” said Mr. Swiveller, taking a long pull at “the rosy” and looking gravely at his friend. “She's lovely, she's divine. You know her.”
“I remember,” said his companion carelessly. “What of her?”
“Why, sir,” returned Dick, “between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase, is not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell you that.”
“Am I to believe there's anything real in what you say?” demandedd his friend; “you don't mean to say that any love-making has been going on?”
“Love-making, yes. Promising, no,” said Dick. “There can be no action for breach, that's one comfort. I've never committed myself in writing, Fred.”
“And what's in the letter, pray?”
“A reminder, Fred, for to-night—a small party of twenty, making two hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman to have the proper complement. It must go, if it's only to begin breaking off the affair—I'll do it, don't you be afraid. I should like to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any bar to her happiness, it's affecting, Fred.”
To solve this question, Mr. Swiveller summoned the handmaid and ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum's sake no doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr. Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she was extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr Swiveller heard this account with a degree of admiration not altogether consistent with the project in which he had just concurred, but his friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this respect, probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to control Richard Swiveller's proceedings in this or any other matter, whenever he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes, to exert it.
4. The Old Curiosity Shop.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
BUSINESS disposed of, Mr. Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be endangered by longer abstinence, dispached a message to the nearest eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having experience of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending back for answer that if Mr. Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps he would be so obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with him, as grace before meat, the amount of a certin small account which had long been outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this rebuff, but rather sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr. Swiveller forwarded the same message to another and more distant eating-house, adding to it by way of rider that the gentleman was induced to send so far, not only by the great fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurant cook's shop, which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The good effect of this politic course was demonstrated by the speedy arrive of a small pewter pyramid, curously constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being resolved into its component parts afforded all things requisite and necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr. Swiveller and his friend applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.
“May the present moment,” said Dick, sticking his fork into a large carbuncular potato, “be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of sending 'em with the peel on; there's a charm in drawing a poato from its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and powerful are strangers. Ah! ‘Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long!’ How true that it!—after dinner.“
“I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may not want that little long,” returned his companion; “but I suspect you've no means of paying for this!”
“I shall be passing present, and I'll call,” said Dick, winking his eye significantly. “The waiter's quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred, and there's an end of it.”
In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was informed by Mr. Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would call and setle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some pertubation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about “payment on delivery” and “no trust,” and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the beef , greens, and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time. Mr. Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety, replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven minutes past; and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation, Richards Swiveller took a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket and made an entry therein.
“Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?” said Trent with a sneer.
“Not exactly, Fred,” replied the imperturable Richard, continuing to write with a businesslike air. “I enter in this little book the names of the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There's only one avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every direction, that in a month's time, unless my aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get over the way.”
“There's no fear of failing, in the end?” said Trent.
“Why, I hope not,” returned Mr. Swiveller, “but the average number of letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far as eight without any effect at all. I'll write another to-morrow morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. ‘I'm in such a state of mind that I hardly know what I write’—blot—‘ if you could see me at this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct’—pepper-castor— ‘my hand trembles when I think’—blot again—if that don't produce the effect, it's all over.”
By this time, Mr. Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.
“It's rather sudden,” said Dick shaking his head with a look of infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; “when the heart of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss Wackles appears; she's a very nice girl. She's like the red red rose that's newly sprung in June—there's no denying that—she's also like a melody that's sweetly played in tune. It's really very sudden. Not that there's any need, on account of Fred's little sister, to turn cool directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I must begin at once, I see that. There's the chance of an action for breach, that's another. There's the chance of—no, there's no chance of that, but it's as well to be on the safe side.”
This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller sought to conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by linking his fortunes to hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further their notable scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting about for a pretext determined in favour of groundless jealousy. Having made up his mind on this important point, he circulated the glass (from his right hand to left, and back again) pretty freely, to enable him to act his part with the greater discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of his meditations.
The spot was at Chesea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions; a circumstance which was made known to the neighbourhood by an oval board over the front first-floor windows, whereupon appeared in circumbmbient flourishes the words “Ladies' Seminary;” and which was further published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitrary young lady of tender years standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts to reach the knocker with spelling-book. The several duties of instruction in this establishment were this discharged. English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arthmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work, marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs. Wackles. Miss Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty summers or thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal; Miss Sophy was a fresh, good humoured, busom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs. Wackles was an excellent but rather vemenous old lady of three-score.
To this Ladies' Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin white, embelished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted curls of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole of the preceding day screwed up tight in a yellow play-bill; and the solemn gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and her eldest daughter, which struck Mr. Swiveller as being uncommon but made no further impression upon him.
The truth is—and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste so strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a wilful and malicious invention—the truth is that neither Mrs. Wackles nor her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the pretensions of Mr. Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of him as “a gay young man” and to sigh and shake their heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr. Swiveller's conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of that vague and dilitory kind which is usuaully looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be
But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own sister, which would have served his turn as well, when the company came, and among them the market-gardener, whose name was Cheggs. But Mr. Cheggs came not alone or unsupported, for he prudently brought along with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who making straight to Miss Sophy and taking her by both hands, and kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an audible whisper that they had not come too early.
“Too early, no!” replied Miss Sophy.
“Oh, my dear,” rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before, “I've been so tormented, so worried, that it's a mercy we were not here at four o'clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state of impatience to come! You'd hardly believe that he was dressed before dinner-time and has been looking at the clock and teasing me ever since. It's all your fault, you naughty thing.”
Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr. Cheggs (who was bashful before ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy's mother and sisters, to prevent Mr. Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and attentions upon him, and left Richard Swiveller to take care of himself. Here was the very thing he wanted, here was good cause reason and foundation for pretending to be angry; but having this cause reason and foundation which he had come expressly to seek, not expecting to find, Richard Swiveller was angry in sound earnest, and wondered what the devil Cheggs meant by his impudence.
However, Mr. Swiveller had Miss Sophy's hand for the first quadrille (country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved through the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr. Swiveller had of the market-gardener, for determining to show the family what quality of man they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls as filled the company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs. Wackles forgot for the moment to snubb three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy, and could not repress a rising thought that to have such a dancer as that in the family would be a pride indeed.
At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous and useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles a contempt for Mr. Swiveller's accomplishments, she took every opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy's ear expressions of condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a ridiculous creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest Alick should fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and entreating Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick gleamed with love and fury; passions, it may be observed, which being too much for his eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it with a crimson glow.
“You must dance with Miss Chegs,” said Miss Sophy to Dick Swiviller, after she had herself danced twice with Mr. Cheggs and made great show of encouraging his advances. “She's a nice girl—and her brother's quite delightful.”
“Quite delightful, is he?” muttered Dick. “Quite delighted too, I should say, from the manner in which he's looking this way.”
Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr. Cheggs was.
“Jealous! Like his impudence!” said Richard Swiviller.
“His impudence, Mr. Swiviller!” said Miss Jane, tossing her head. “Take care he don't hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.”
“Oh, pray, Jane —” said Miss Sophy.
“Nonsense!” replied her sister. “Why shouldn't Mr. Cheggs be jealous if he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr. Cheggs has a good a right to be jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon if he hasn't already. You know best about that, Sophy!”
Though this was a concerted plot between
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Miss Sophy and her sister, originating in humane intenions and having for its object the inducing Mr. Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are premeturely shrill and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr. Swiviller retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr. Cheggs and converying a definance into his looks which that gentleman indignantly returned.
“Did you speak to me, sir?” said Mr. Cheggs, following him into a corner. “Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be suspected. Did you speak to me, sir”?
Mr. Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr. Chegg's toes, then raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin, from that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg, until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up the middle of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said abruptly,
“No, sir, I didn't.”
“Hem!” said Mr. Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, “have the goodness to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me, sir.”
“No, sir, I didn't do that, either.”
“Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,” said Mr. Cheggs fiercely.
At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr. Chegg's face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and carefully surveyed him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up the other legt and thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his eyes, “No sir, I haven't.”
“Oh, indeed, sir!” said Mr. Cheggs. “I'm glad to hear it. You know where I'm to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to say to me?”
“I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.”
“There's nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?”
“Nothing more, sir”—With that they closed the tremendous dialog by frowning mutually. Mr. Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophy, and Mr. Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state.
Hard by this corner, Mrs. Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking on at the dance; and unto Mrs. and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the figure, and made some remark or other which was gall and wormword to Richard Swiviller's soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs. and Miss Wackles for encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable
“I've got such news for you,” said Miss Cheggs approaching once more, “Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word, you know, it's quite serious and in earnest, that's clear.”
“What's he been saying, my dear?” demanded Mrs. Wackles.
“All manner of things,” replied Miss Cheggs, “you can't think how out he has been speaking!”
Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr. Cheggs to pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was holding a flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had) with a feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr Cheggs, and by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few parting words.
“My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass this door I will say farewell to thee,” murmured Dick, looking gloomily upon her.
“Are you going?” said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at the result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference notwithstanding.
“Am I going!” echoed Dick bitterly. “Yes, I am. What then?”
“Nothing, except that it's very early,” said Miss Sophy; “but you are your own master, of course.”
“I would that I had been my own mistress too,” said Dick, “before I had ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true, and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e'er I knew, a girl so fair yet so deceiving.”
Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after Mr. Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.
“I came here,” said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he had really come, “with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a stifler!”
“I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr. Swiviller,” said Miss Sophy with downcast eyes. “I'm very sorry if—”
“Sorry, Ma'am!” said Dick, “sorry in the possession of a Cheegs! But I wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise. It's a gratifying circumstance which you'll be glad to hear, that a young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account, and is now saving up for me. I thought I'd mention it. I have now merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention. Good night.”
“There's one good thing springs out of all this,” said Richard Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the candle with the extinguisher in his hand, “which is, that I now go heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about little Nelly, and right glad he'll be to find me so strong upon it. He shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the mean time, as it's rather late, I'll try and get a wink of the balmy.”
“The balmy” came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few minutes Mr. Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr. Cheggs and turn it into a brick-field.
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