Mrs. Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs Pyke and Pluck, whose
Affection and Interest are beyond all Bounds
Mrs. Nickleby had not felt so proud and important for many a day, as
when, on reaching home, she gave herself wholly up to the pleasant
visions which had accompanied her on her way thither. Lady Mulberry
Hawk--that was the prevalent idea. Lady Mulberry Hawk!--On Tuesday last,
at St George’s, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the Bishop
of Llandaff, Sir Mulberry Hawk, of Mulberry Castle, North Wales, to
Catherine, only daughter of the late Nicholas Nickleby, Esquire, of
Devonshire. ‘Upon my word!’ cried Mrs. Nicholas Nickleby, ‘it sounds very
well.’
Having dispatched the ceremony, with its attendant festivities, to the
perfect satisfaction of her own mind, the sanguine mother pictured to
her imagination a long train of honours and distinctions which could
not fail to accompany Kate in her new and brilliant sphere. She would be
presented at court, of course. On the anniversary of her birthday, which
was upon the nineteenth of July [‘at ten minutes past three o’clock in
the morning,’ thought Mrs. Nickleby in a parenthesis, ‘for I recollect
asking what o’clock it was’), Sir Mulberry would give a great feast to
all his tenants, and would return them three and a half per cent on the
amount of their last half-year’s rent, as would be fully described and
recorded in the fashionable intelligence, to the immeasurable delight
and admiration of all the readers thereof. Kate’s picture, too, would be
in at least half-a-dozen of the annuals, and on the opposite page would
appear, in delicate type, ‘Lines on contemplating the Portrait of Lady
Mulberry Hawk. By Sir Dingleby Dabber.’ Perhaps some one annual, of more
comprehensive design than its fellows, might even contain a portrait
of the mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with lines by the father of Sir
Dingleby Dabber. More unlikely things had come to pass. Less interesting
portraits had appeared. As this thought occurred to the good lady, her
countenance unconsciously assumed that compound expression of simpering
and sleepiness which, being common to all such portraits, is perhaps one
reason why they are always so charming and agreeable.
With such triumphs of aerial architecture did Mrs. Nickleby occupy
the whole evening after her accidental introduction to Ralph’s titled
friends; and dreams, no less prophetic and equally promising, haunted
her sleep that night. She was preparing for her frugal dinner next day,
still occupied with the same ideas--a little softened down perhaps by
sleep and daylight--when the girl who attended her, partly for company,
and partly to assist in the household affairs, rushed into the room in
unwonted agitation, and announced that two gentlemen were waiting in the
passage for permission to walk upstairs.
‘Bless my heart!’ cried Mrs. Nickleby, hastily arranging her cap and
front, ‘if it should be--dear me, standing in the passage all this
time--why don’t you go and ask them to walk up, you stupid thing?’
While the girl was gone on this errand, Mrs. Nickleby hastily swept into
a cupboard all vestiges of eating and drinking; which she had scarcely
done, and seated herself with looks as collected as she could assume,
when two gentlemen, both perfect strangers, presented themselves.
‘How do you DO?’ said one gentleman, laying great stress on the last
word of the inquiry.
‘HOW do you do?’ said the other gentleman, altering the emphasis, as if
to give variety to the salutation.
Mrs. Nickleby curtseyed and smiled, and curtseyed again, and remarked,
rubbing her hands as she did so, that she hadn’t the--really--the honour
to--
‘To know us,’ said the first gentleman. ‘The loss has been ours, Mrs
Nickleby. Has the loss been ours, Pyke?’
‘It has, Pluck,’ answered the other gentleman.
‘We have regretted it very often, I believe, Pyke?’ said the first
gentleman.
‘Very often, Pluck,’ answered the second.
‘But now,’ said the first gentleman, ‘now we have the happiness we
have pined and languished for. Have we pined and languished for this
happiness, Pyke, or have we not?’
‘You know we have, Pluck,’ said Pyke, reproachfully.
‘You hear him, ma’am?’ said Mr. Pluck, looking round; ‘you hear
the unimpeachable testimony of my friend Pyke--that reminds
me,--formalities, formalities, must not be neglected in civilised
society. Pyke--Mrs. Nickleby.’
Mr. Pyke laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed low.
‘Whether I shall introduce myself with the same formality,’ said Mr
Pluck--‘whether I shall say myself that my name is Pluck, or whether
I shall ask my friend Pyke (who being now regularly introduced, is
competent to the office) to state for me, Mrs. Nickleby, that my name is
Pluck; whether I shall claim your acquaintance on the plain ground of
the strong interest I take in your welfare, or whether I shall make
myself known to you as the friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk--these, Mrs
Nickleby, are considerations which I leave to you to determine.’
‘Any friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk’s requires no better introduction to
me,’ observed Mrs. Nickleby, graciously.
‘It is delightful to hear you say so,’ said Mr. Pluck, drawing a chair
close to Mrs. Nickleby, and sitting himself down. ‘It is refreshing
to know that you hold my excellent friend, Sir Mulberry, in such high
esteem. A word in your ear, Mrs. Nickleby. When Sir Mulberry knows it, he
will be a happy man--I say, Mrs. Nickleby, a happy man. Pyke, be seated.’
‘MY good opinion,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, and the poor lady exulted in the
idea that she was marvellously sly,--‘my good opinion can be of very
little consequence to a gentleman like Sir Mulberry.’
‘Of little consequence!’ exclaimed Mr. Pluck. ‘Pyke, of what consequence
to our friend, Sir Mulberry, is the good opinion of Mrs. Nickleby?’
‘Of what consequence?’ echoed Pyke.
‘Ay,’ repeated Pluck; ‘is it of the greatest consequence?’
‘Of the very greatest consequence,’ replied Pyke.
‘Mrs. Nickleby cannot be ignorant,’ said Mr. Pluck, ‘of the immense
impression which that sweet girl has--’
‘Pluck!’ said his friend, ‘beware!’
‘Pyke is right,’ muttered Mr. Pluck, after a short pause; ‘I was not to
mention it. Pyke is very right. Thank you, Pyke.’
‘Well now, really,’ thought Mrs. Nickleby within herself. ‘Such delicacy
as that, I never saw!’
Mr. Pluck, after feigning to be in a condition of great embarrassment
for some minutes, resumed the conversation by entreating Mrs. Nickleby
to take no heed of what he had inadvertently said--to consider him
imprudent, rash, injudicious. The only stipulation he would make in his
own favour was, that she should give him credit for the best intentions.
‘But when,’ said Mr. Pluck, ‘when I see so much sweetness and beauty on
the one hand, and so much ardour and devotion on the other, I--pardon
me, Pyke, I didn’t intend to resume that theme. Change the subject,
Pyke.’
‘We promised Sir Mulberry and Lord Frederick,’ said Pyke, ‘that we’d
call this morning and inquire whether you took any cold last night.’
‘Not the least in the world last night, sir,’ replied Mrs. Nickleby,
‘with many thanks to his lordship and Sir Mulberry for doing me the
honour to inquire; not the least--which is the more singular, as I
really am very subject to colds, indeed--very subject. I had a cold
once,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I think it was in the year eighteen hundred
and seventeen; let me see, four and five are nine, and--yes, eighteen
hundred and seventeen, that I thought I never should get rid of;
actually and seriously, that I thought I never should get rid of. I
was only cured at last by a remedy that I don’t know whether you ever
happened to hear of, Mr. Pluck. You have a gallon of water as hot as
you can possibly bear it, with a pound of salt, and sixpen’orth of the
finest bran, and sit with your head in it for twenty minutes every night
just before going to bed; at least, I don’t mean your head--your feet.
It’s a most extraordinary cure--a most extraordinary cure. I used it
for the first time, I recollect, the day after Christmas Day, and by the
middle of April following the cold was gone. It seems quite a miracle
when you come to think of it, for I had it ever since the beginning of
September.’
‘What an afflicting calamity!’ said Mr. Pyke.
‘Perfectly horrid!’ exclaimed Mr. Pluck.
‘But it’s worth the pain of hearing, only to know that Mrs. Nickleby
recovered it, isn’t it, Pluck?’ cried Mr. Pyke.
‘That is the circumstance which gives it such a thrilling interest,’
replied Mr. Pluck.
‘But come,’ said Pyke, as if suddenly recollecting himself; ‘we must
not forget our mission in the pleasure of this interview. We come on a
mission, Mrs. Nickleby.’
‘On a mission,’ exclaimed that good lady, to whose mind a definite
proposal of marriage for Kate at once presented itself in lively
colours.
‘From Sir Mulberry,’ replied Pyke. ‘You must be very dull here.’
‘Rather dull, I confess,’ said Mrs. Nickleby.
‘We bring the compliments of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and a thousand
entreaties that you’ll take a seat in a private box at the play
tonight,’ said Mr. Pluck.
‘Oh dear!’ said Mrs. Nickleby, ‘I never go out at all, never.’
‘And that is the very reason, my dear Mrs. Nickleby, why you should go
out tonight,’ retorted Mr. Pluck. ‘Pyke, entreat Mrs. Nickleby.’
‘Oh, pray do,’ said Pyke.
‘You positively must,’ urged Pluck.
‘You are very kind,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, hesitating; ‘but--’
‘There’s not a but in the case, my dear Mrs. Nickleby,’ remonstrated Mr
Pluck; ‘not such a word in the vocabulary. Your brother-in-law joins us,
Lord Frederick joins us, Sir Mulberry joins us, Pyke joins us--a refusal
is out of the question. Sir Mulberry sends a carriage for you--twenty
minutes before seven to the moment--you’ll not be so cruel as to
disappoint the whole party, Mrs. Nickleby?’
‘You are so very pressing, that I scarcely know what to say,’ replied
the worthy lady.
‘Say nothing; not a word, not a word, my dearest madam,’ urged Mr. Pluck.
‘Mrs. Nickleby,’ said that excellent gentleman, lowering his voice,
‘there is the most trifling, the most excusable breach of confidence
in what I am about to say; and yet if my friend Pyke there overheard
it--such is that man’s delicate sense of honour, Mrs. Nickleby--he’d have
me out before dinner-time.’
Mrs. Nickleby cast an apprehensive glance at the warlike Pyke, who had
walked to the window; and Mr. Pluck, squeezing her hand, went on:
‘Your daughter has made a conquest--a conquest on which I may
congratulate you. Sir Mulberry, my dear ma’am, Sir Mulberry is her
devoted slave. Hem!’
‘Hah!’ cried Mr. Pyke at this juncture, snatching something from the
chimney-piece with a theatrical air. ‘What is this! what do I behold!’
‘What DO you behold, my dear fellow?’ asked Mr. Pluck.
‘It is the face, the countenance, the expression,’ cried Mr. Pyke,
falling into his chair with a miniature in his hand; ‘feebly
portrayed, imperfectly caught, but still THE face, THE countenance, THE
expression.’
‘I recognise it at this distance!’ exclaimed Mr. Pluck in a fit of
enthusiasm. ‘Is it not, my dear madam, the faint similitude of--’
‘It is my daughter’s portrait,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, with great pride. And
so it was. And little Miss La Creevy had brought it home for inspection
only two nights before.
Mr. Pyke no sooner ascertained that he was quite right in his conjecture,
than he launched into the most extravagant encomiums of the divine
original; and in the warmth of his enthusiasm kissed the picture a
thousand times, while Mr. Pluck pressed Mrs. Nickleby’s hand to his heart,
and congratulated her on the possession of such a daughter, with so much
earnestness and affection, that the tears stood, or seemed to stand,
in his eyes. Poor Mrs. Nickleby, who had listened in a state of enviable
complacency at first, became at length quite overpowered by these tokens
of regard for, and attachment to, the family; and even the servant
girl, who had peeped in at the door, remained rooted to the spot in
astonishment at the ecstasies of the two friendly visitors.
By degrees these raptures subsided, and Mrs. Nickleby went on to
entertain her guests with a lament over her fallen fortunes, and a
picturesque account of her old house in the country: comprising a full
description of the different apartments, not forgetting the little
store-room, and a lively recollection of how many steps you went down to
get into the garden, and which way you turned when you came out at the
parlour door, and what capital fixtures there were in the kitchen. This
last reflection naturally conducted her into the wash-house, where she
stumbled upon the brewing utensils, among which she might have wandered
for an hour, if the mere mention of those implements had not, by an
association of ideas, instantly reminded Mr. Pyke that he was ‘amazing
thirsty.’
‘And I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr. Pyke; ‘if you’ll send round to the
public-house for a pot of milk half-and-half, positively and actually
I’ll drink it.’
And positively and actually Mr. Pyke DID drink it, and Mr. Pluck
helped him, while Mrs. Nickleby looked on in divided admiration of the
condescension of the two, and the aptitude with which they accommodated
themselves to the pewter-pot; in explanation of which seeming marvel it
may be here observed, that gentlemen who, like Messrs Pyke and Pluck,
live upon their wits (or not so much, perhaps, upon the presence
of their own wits as upon the absence of wits in other people) are
occasionally reduced to very narrow shifts and straits, and are at such
periods accustomed to regale themselves in a very simple and primitive
manner.
‘At twenty minutes before seven, then,’ said Mr. Pyke, rising, ‘the coach
will be here. One more look--one little look--at that sweet face. Ah!
here it is. Unmoved, unchanged!’ This, by the way, was a very
remarkable circumstance, miniatures being liable to so many changes of
expression--‘Oh, Pluck! Pluck!’
Mr. Pluck made no other reply than kissing Mrs. Nickleby’s hand with a
great show of feeling and attachment; Mr. Pyke having done the same, both
gentlemen hastily withdrew.
Mrs. Nickleby was commonly in the habit of giving herself credit for a
pretty tolerable share of penetration and acuteness, but she had never
felt so satisfied with her own sharp-sightedness as she did that day.
She had found it all out the night before. She had never seen Sir
Mulberry and Kate together--never even heard Sir Mulberry’s name--and
yet hadn’t she said to herself from the very first, that she saw how the
case stood? and what a triumph it was, for there was now no doubt
about it. If these flattering attentions to herself were not sufficient
proofs, Sir Mulberry’s confidential friend had suffered the secret
to escape him in so many words. ‘I am quite in love with that dear Mr
Pluck, I declare I am,’ said Mrs. Nickleby.
There was one great source of uneasiness in the midst of this good
fortune, and that was the having nobody by, to whom she could confide
it. Once or twice she almost resolved to walk straight to Miss La
Creevy’s and tell it all to her. ‘But I don’t know,’ thought Mrs
Nickleby; ‘she is a very worthy person, but I am afraid too much beneath
Sir Mulberry’s station for us to make a companion of. Poor thing!’
Acting upon this grave consideration she rejected the idea of taking the
little portrait painter into her confidence, and contented herself
with holding out sundry vague and mysterious hopes of preferment to the
servant girl, who received these obscure hints of dawning greatness with
much veneration and respect.
Punctual to its time came the promised vehicle, which was no hackney
coach, but a private chariot, having behind it a footman, whose legs,
although somewhat large for his body, might, as mere abstract legs,
have set themselves up for models at the Royal Academy. It was quite
exhilarating to hear the clash and bustle with which he banged the door
and jumped up behind after Mrs. Nickleby was in; and as that good lady
was perfectly unconscious that he applied the gold-headed end of his
long stick to his nose, and so telegraphed most disrespectfully to the
coachman over her very head, she sat in a state of much stiffness and
dignity, not a little proud of her position.
At the theatre entrance there was more banging and more bustle, and
there were also Messrs Pyke and Pluck waiting to escort her to her box;
and so polite were they, that Mr. Pyke threatened with many oaths to
‘smifligate’ a very old man with a lantern who accidentally stumbled
in her way--to the great terror of Mrs. Nickleby, who, conjecturing
more from Mr. Pyke’s excitement than any previous acquaintance with the
etymology of the word that smifligation and bloodshed must be in
the main one and the same thing, was alarmed beyond expression, lest
something should occur. Fortunately, however, Mr. Pyke confined himself
to mere verbal smifligation, and they reached their box with no more
serious interruption by the way, than a desire on the part of the same
pugnacious gentleman to ‘smash’ the assistant box-keeper for happening
to mistake the number.
Mrs. Nickleby had scarcely been put away behind the curtain of the box in
an armchair, when Sir Mulberry and Lord Verisopht arrived, arrayed from
the crowns of their heads to the tips of their gloves, and from the
tips of their gloves to the toes of their boots, in the most elegant and
costly manner. Sir Mulberry was a little hoarser than on the previous
day, and Lord Verisopht looked rather sleepy and queer; from which
tokens, as well as from the circumstance of their both being to a
trifling extent unsteady upon their legs, Mrs. Nickleby justly concluded
that they had taken dinner.
‘We have been--we have been--toasting your lovely daughter, Mrs
Nickleby,’ whispered Sir Mulberry, sitting down behind her.
‘Oh, ho!’ thought that knowing lady; ‘wine in, truth out.--You are very
kind, Sir Mulberry.’
‘No, no upon my soul!’ replied Sir Mulberry Hawk. ‘It’s you that’s kind,
upon my soul it is. It was so kind of you to come tonight.’
‘So very kind of you to invite me, you mean, Sir Mulberry,’ replied Mrs
Nickleby, tossing her head, and looking prodigiously sly.
‘I am so anxious to know you, so anxious to cultivate your good opinion,
so desirous that there should be a delicious kind of harmonious family
understanding between us,’ said Sir Mulberry, ‘that you mustn’t think
I’m disinterested in what I do. I’m infernal selfish; I am--upon my soul
I am.’
‘I am sure you can’t be selfish, Sir Mulberry!’ replied Mrs. Nickleby.
‘You have much too open and generous a countenance for that.’
‘What an extraordinary observer you are!’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk.
‘Oh no, indeed, I don’t see very far into things, Sir Mulberry,’ replied
Mrs. Nickleby, in a tone of voice which left the baronet to infer that
she saw very far indeed.
‘I am quite afraid of you,’ said the baronet. ‘Upon my soul,’ repeated
Sir Mulberry, looking round to his companions; ‘I am afraid of Mrs
Nickleby. She is so immensely sharp.’
Messrs Pyke and Pluck shook their heads mysteriously, and observed
together that they had found that out long ago; upon which Mrs. Nickleby
tittered, and Sir Mulberry laughed, and Pyke and Pluck roared.
‘But where’s my brother-in-law, Sir Mulberry?’ inquired Mrs. Nickleby. ‘I
shouldn’t be here without him. I hope he’s coming.’
‘Pyke,’ said Sir Mulberry, taking out his toothpick and lolling back in
his chair, as if he were too lazy to invent a reply to this question.
‘Where’s Ralph Nickleby?’
‘Pluck,’ said Pyke, imitating the baronet’s action, and turning the lie
over to his friend, ‘where’s Ralph Nickleby?’
Mr. Pluck was about to return some evasive reply, when the hustle caused
by a party entering the next box seemed to attract the attention of all
four gentlemen, who exchanged glances of much meaning. The new party
beginning to converse together, Sir Mulberry suddenly assumed the
character of a most attentive listener, and implored his friends not to
breathe--not to breathe.
‘Why not?’ said Mrs. Nickleby. ‘What is the matter?’
‘Hush!’ replied Sir Mulberry, laying his hand on her arm. ‘Lord
Frederick, do you recognise the tones of that voice?’
‘Deyvle take me if I didn’t think it was the voice of Miss Nickleby.’
‘Lor, my lord!’ cried Miss Nickleby’s mama, thrusting her head round the
curtain. ‘Why actually--Kate, my dear, Kate.’
‘YOU here, mama! Is it possible!’
‘Possible, my dear? Yes.’
‘Why who--who on earth is that you have with you, mama?’ said Kate,
shrinking back as she caught sight of a man smiling and kissing his
hand.
‘Who do you suppose, my dear?’ replied Mrs. Nickleby, bending towards Mrs
Wititterly, and speaking a little louder for that lady’s edification.
‘There’s Mr. Pyke, Mr. Pluck, Sir Mulberry Hawk, and Lord Frederick
Verisopht.’
‘Gracious Heaven!’ thought Kate hurriedly. ‘How comes she in such
society?’
Now, Kate thought thus SO hurriedly, and the surprise was so great, and
moreover brought back so forcibly the recollection of what had passed at
Ralph’s delectable dinner, that she turned extremely pale and appeared
greatly agitated, which symptoms being observed by Mrs. Nickleby, were
at once set down by that acute lady as being caused and occasioned by
violent love. But, although she was in no small degree delighted by
this discovery, which reflected so much credit on her own quickness of
perception, it did not lessen her motherly anxiety in Kate’s behalf; and
accordingly, with a vast quantity of trepidation, she quitted her own
box to hasten into that of Mrs. Wititterly. Mrs. Wititterly, keenly
alive to the glory of having a lord and a baronet among her visiting
acquaintance, lost no time in signing to Mr. Wititterly to open the door,
and thus it was that in less than thirty seconds Mrs. Nickleby’s party
had made an irruption into Mrs. Wititterly’s box, which it filled to the
very door, there being in fact only room for Messrs Pyke and Pluck to
get in their heads and waistcoats.
‘My dear Kate,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, kissing her daughter affectionately.
‘How ill you looked a moment ago! You quite frightened me, I declare!’
‘It was mere fancy, mama,--the--the--reflection of the lights perhaps,’
replied Kate, glancing nervously round, and finding it impossible to
whisper any caution or explanation.
‘Don’t you see Sir Mulberry Hawk, my dear?’
Kate bowed slightly, and biting her lip turned her head towards the
stage.
But Sir Mulberry Hawk was not to be so easily repulsed, for he advanced
with extended hand; and Mrs. Nickleby officiously informing Kate of this
circumstance, she was obliged to extend her own. Sir Mulberry detained
it while he murmured a profusion of compliments, which Kate, remembering
what had passed between them, rightly considered as so many aggravations
of the insult he had already put upon her. Then followed the recognition
of Lord Verisopht, and then the greeting of Mr. Pyke, and then that of Mr
Pluck, and finally, to complete the young lady’s mortification, she
was compelled at Mrs. Wititterly’s request to perform the ceremony
of introducing the odious persons, whom she regarded with the utmost
indignation and abhorrence.
‘Mrs. Wititterly is delighted,’ said Mr. Wititterly, rubbing his hands;
‘delighted, my lord, I am sure, with this opportunity of contracting an
acquaintance which, I trust, my lord, we shall improve. Julia, my dear,
you must not allow yourself to be too much excited, you must not.
Indeed you must not. Mrs. Wititterly is of a most excitable nature, Sir
Mulberry. The snuff of a candle, the wick of a lamp, the bloom on a
peach, the down on a butterfly. You might blow her away, my lord; you
might blow her away.’
Sir Mulberry seemed to think that it would be a great convenience if the
lady could be blown away. He said, however, that the delight was mutual,
and Lord Verisopht added that it was mutual, whereupon Messrs Pyke and
Pluck were heard to murmur from the distance that it was very mutual
indeed.
‘I take an interest, my lord,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a faint smile,
‘such an interest in the drama.’
‘Ye--es. It’s very interesting,’ replied Lord Verisopht.
‘I’m always ill after Shakespeare,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I scarcely
exist the next day; I find the reaction so very great after a tragedy,
my lord, and Shakespeare is such a delicious creature.’
‘Ye--es!’ replied Lord Verisopht. ‘He was a clayver man.’
‘Do you know, my lord,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, after a long silence, ‘I
find I take so much more interest in his plays, after having been to
that dear little dull house he was born in! Were you ever there, my
lord?’
‘No, nayver,’ replied Verisopht.
‘Then really you ought to go, my lord,’ returned Mrs. Wititterly, in very
languid and drawling accents. ‘I don’t know how it is, but after you’ve
seen the place and written your name in the little book, somehow or
other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire within one.’
‘Ye--es!’ replied Lord Verisopht, ‘I shall certainly go there.’
‘Julia, my life,’ interposed Mr. Wititterly, ‘you are deceiving his
lordship--unintentionally, my lord, she is deceiving you. It is
your poetical temperament, my dear--your ethereal soul--your fervid
imagination, which throws you into a glow of genius and excitement.
There is nothing in the place, my dear--nothing, nothing.’
‘I think there must be something in the place,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, who
had been listening in silence; ‘for, soon after I was married, I went
to Stratford with my poor dear Mr. Nickleby, in a post-chaise
from Birmingham--was it a post-chaise though?’ said Mrs. Nickleby,
considering; ‘yes, it must have been a post-chaise, because I recollect
remarking at the time that the driver had a green shade over his
left eye;--in a post-chaise from Birmingham, and after we had seen
Shakespeare’s tomb and birthplace, we went back to the inn there, where
we slept that night, and I recollect that all night long I dreamt of
nothing but a black gentleman, at full length, in plaster-of-Paris,
with a lay-down collar tied with two tassels, leaning against a post
and thinking; and when I woke in the morning and described him to Mr
Nickleby, he said it was Shakespeare just as he had been when he was
alive, which was very curious indeed. Stratford--Stratford,’ continued
Mrs. Nickleby, considering. ‘Yes, I am positive about that, because I
recollect I was in the family way with my son Nicholas at the time,
and I had been very much frightened by an Italian image boy that very
morning. In fact, it was quite a mercy, ma’am,’ added Mrs. Nickleby, in
a whisper to Mrs. Wititterly, ‘that my son didn’t turn out to be a
Shakespeare, and what a dreadful thing that would have been!’
When Mrs. Nickleby had brought this interesting anecdote to a close,
Pyke and Pluck, ever zealous in their patron’s cause, proposed the
adjournment of a detachment of the party into the next box; and with so
much skill were the preliminaries adjusted, that Kate, despite all
she could say or do to the contrary, had no alternative but to suffer
herself to be led away by Sir Mulberry Hawk. Her mother and Mr. Pluck
accompanied them, but the worthy lady, pluming herself upon her
discretion, took particular care not so much as to look at her daughter
during the whole evening, and to seem wholly absorbed in the jokes and
conversation of Mr. Pluck, who, having been appointed sentry over Mrs
Nickleby for that especial purpose, neglected, on his side, no possible
opportunity of engrossing her attention.
Lord Frederick Verisopht remained in the next box to be talked to by Mrs
Wititterly, and Mr. Pyke was in attendance to throw in a word or two when
necessary. As to Mr. Wititterly, he was sufficiently busy in the body of
the house, informing such of his friends and acquaintance as happened
to be there, that those two gentlemen upstairs, whom they had seen
in conversation with Mrs. W., were the distinguished Lord Frederick
Verisopht and his most intimate friend, the gay Sir Mulberry Hawk--a
communication which inflamed several respectable house-keepers with the
utmost jealousy and rage, and reduced sixteen unmarried daughters to the
very brink of despair.
The evening came to an end at last, but Kate had yet to be handed
downstairs by the detested Sir Mulberry; and so skilfully were the
manoeuvres of Messrs Pyke and Pluck conducted, that she and the baronet
were the last of the party, and were even--without an appearance of
effort or design--left at some little distance behind.
‘Don’t hurry, don’t hurry,’ said Sir Mulberry, as Kate hastened on, and
attempted to release her arm.
She made no reply, but still pressed forward.
‘Nay, then--’ coolly observed Sir Mulberry, stopping her outright.
‘You had best not seek to detain me, sir!’ said Kate, angrily.
‘And why not?’ retorted Sir Mulberry. ‘My dear creature, now why do you
keep up this show of displeasure?’
‘SHOW!’ repeated Kate, indignantly. ‘How dare you presume to speak to
me, sir--to address me--to come into my presence?’
‘You look prettier in a passion, Miss Nickleby,’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk,
stooping down, the better to see her face.
‘I hold you in the bitterest detestation and contempt, sir,’ said Kate.
‘If you find any attraction in looks of disgust and aversion, you--let
me rejoin my friends, sir, instantly. Whatever considerations may have
withheld me thus far, I will disregard them all, and take a course that
even YOU might feel, if you do not immediately suffer me to proceed.’
Sir Mulberry smiled, and still looking in her face and retaining her
arm, walked towards the door.
‘If no regard for my sex or helpless situation will induce you to desist
from this coarse and unmanly persecution,’ said Kate, scarcely knowing,
in the tumult of her passions, what she said,--‘I have a brother who
will resent it dearly, one day.’
‘Upon my soul!’ exclaimed Sir Mulberry, as though quietly communing with
himself; passing his arm round her waist as he spoke, ‘she looks more
beautiful, and I like her better in this mood, than when her eyes are
cast down, and she is in perfect repose!’
How Kate reached the lobby where her friends were waiting she never
knew, but she hurried across it without at all regarding them, and
disengaged herself suddenly from her companion, sprang into the coach,
and throwing herself into its darkest corner burst into tears.
Messrs Pyke and Pluck, knowing their cue, at once threw the party into
great commotion by shouting for the carriages, and getting up a violent
quarrel with sundry inoffensive bystanders; in the midst of which tumult
they put the affrighted Mrs. Nickleby in her chariot, and having got her
safely off, turned their thoughts to Mrs. Wititterly, whose attention
also they had now effectually distracted from the young lady, by
throwing her into a state of the utmost bewilderment and consternation.
At length, the conveyance in which she had come rolled off too with its
load, and the four worthies, being left alone under the portico, enjoyed
a hearty laugh together.
‘There,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning to his noble friend. ‘Didn’t I tell
you last night that if we could find where they were going by bribing a
servant through my fellow, and then established ourselves close by with
the mother, these people’s honour would be our own? Why here it is, done
in four-and-twenty hours.’
‘Ye--es,’ replied the dupe. ‘But I have been tied to the old woman all
ni-ight.’
‘Hear him,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning to his two friends. ‘Hear this
discontented grumbler. Isn’t it enough to make a man swear never to help
him in his plots and schemes again? Isn’t it an infernal shame?’
Pyke asked Pluck whether it was not an infernal shame, and Pluck asked
Pyke; but neither answered.
‘Isn’t it the truth?’ demanded Verisopht. ‘Wasn’t it so?’
‘Wasn’t it so!’ repeated Sir Mulberry. ‘How would you have had it? How
could we have got a general invitation at first sight--come when you
like, go when you like, stop as long as you like, do what you like--if
you, the lord, had not made yourself agreeable to the foolish mistress
of the house? Do I care for this girl, except as your friend? Haven’t I
been sounding your praises in her ears, and bearing her pretty sulks and
peevishness all night for you? What sort of stuff do you think I’m made
of? Would I do this for every man? Don’t I deserve even gratitude in
return?’
‘You’re a deyvlish good fellow,’ said the poor young lord, taking his
friend’s arm. ‘Upon my life you’re a deyvlish good fellow, Hawk.’
‘And I have done right, have I?’ demanded Sir Mulberry.
‘Quite ri-ght.’
‘And like a poor, silly, good-natured, friendly dog as I am, eh?’
‘Ye--es, ye--es; like a friend,’ replied the other.
‘Well then,’ replied Sir Mulberry, ‘I’m satisfied. And now let’s go and
have our revenge on the German baron and the Frenchman, who cleaned you
out so handsomely last night.’
With these words the friendly creature took his companion’s arm and led
him away, turning half round as he did so, and bestowing a wink and
a contemptuous smile on Messrs Pyke and Pluck, who, cramming their
handkerchiefs into their mouths to denote their silent enjoyment of
the whole proceedings, followed their patron and his victim at a little
distance.