Miss Nickleby, rendered desperate by the Persecution of Sir Mulberry
Hawk, and the Complicated Difficulties and Distresses which surround
her, appeals, as a last resource, to her Uncle for Protection
The ensuing morning brought reflection with it, as morning usually
does; but widely different was the train of thought it awakened in the
different persons who had been so unexpectedly brought together on the
preceding evening, by the active agency of Messrs Pyke and Pluck.
The reflections of Sir Mulberry Hawk--if such a term can be applied to
the thoughts of the systematic and calculating man of dissipation, whose
joys, regrets, pains, and pleasures, are all of self, and who would seem
to retain nothing of the intellectual faculty but the power to debase
himself, and to degrade the very nature whose outward semblance he
wears--the reflections of Sir Mulberry Hawk turned upon Kate Nickleby,
and were, in brief, that she was undoubtedly handsome; that her coyness
MUST be easily conquerable by a man of his address and experience, and
that the pursuit was one which could not fail to redound to his credit,
and greatly to enhance his reputation with the world. And lest this last
consideration--no mean or secondary one with Sir Mulberry--should sound
strangely in the ears of some, let it be remembered that most men live
in a world of their own, and that in that limited circle alone are they
ambitious for distinction and applause. Sir Mulberry’s world was peopled
with profligates, and he acted accordingly.
Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most
extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It
is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief
actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the
world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they
do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take
place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement.
The reflections of Mrs. Nickleby were of the proudest and most complacent
kind; and under the influence of her very agreeable delusion she
straightway sat down and indited a long letter to Kate, in which she
expressed her entire approval of the admirable choice she had made, and
extolled Sir Mulberry to the skies; asserting, for the more complete
satisfaction of her daughter’s feelings, that he was precisely the
individual whom she (Mrs. Nickleby) would have chosen for her son-in-law,
if she had had the picking and choosing from all mankind. The good lady
then, with the preliminary observation that she might be fairly supposed
not to have lived in the world so long without knowing its ways,
communicated a great many subtle precepts applicable to the state of
courtship, and confirmed in their wisdom by her own personal experience.
Above all things she commended a strict maidenly reserve, as being
not only a very laudable thing in itself, but as tending materially
to strengthen and increase a lover’s ardour. ‘And I never,’ added Mrs
Nickleby, ‘was more delighted in my life than to observe last night,
my dear, that your good sense had already told you this.’ With which
sentiment, and various hints of the pleasure she derived from the
knowledge that her daughter inherited so large an instalment of her own
excellent sense and discretion (to nearly the full measure of which she
might hope, with care, to succeed in time), Mrs. Nickleby concluded a
very long and rather illegible letter.
Poor Kate was well-nigh distracted on the receipt of four
closely-written and closely-crossed sides of congratulation on the very
subject which had prevented her closing her eyes all night, and kept her
weeping and watching in her chamber; still worse and more trying was the
necessity of rendering herself agreeable to Mrs. Wititterly, who, being
in low spirits after the fatigue of the preceding night, of course
expected her companion (else wherefore had she board and salary?) to be
in the best spirits possible. As to Mr. Wititterly, he went about all day
in a tremor of delight at having shaken hands with a lord, and having
actually asked him to come and see him in his own house. The lord
himself, not being troubled to any inconvenient extent with the power
of thinking, regaled himself with the conversation of Messrs Pyke and
Pluck, who sharpened their wit by a plentiful indulgence in various
costly stimulants at his expense.
It was four in the afternoon--that is, the vulgar afternoon of the sun
and the clock--and Mrs. Wititterly reclined, according to custom, on the
drawing-room sofa, while Kate read aloud a new novel in three volumes,
entitled ‘The Lady Flabella,’ which Alphonse the doubtful had procured
from the library that very morning. And it was a production admirably
suited to a lady labouring under Mrs. Wititterly’s complaint, seeing that
there was not a line in it, from beginning to end, which could, by the
most remote contingency, awaken the smallest excitement in any person
breathing.
Kate read on.
‘“Cherizette,” said the Lady Flabella, inserting her mouse-like feet
in the blue satin slippers, which had unwittingly occasioned the
half-playful half-angry altercation between herself and the youthful
Colonel Befillaire, in the Duke of Mincefenille’s SALON DE DANSE on the
previous night. “CHERIZETTE, MA CHERE, DONNEZ-MOI DE L’EAU-DE-COLOGNE,
S’IL VOUS PLAIT, MON ENFANT.”
‘“MERCIE--thank you,” said the Lady Flabella, as the lively but devoted
Cherizette plentifully besprinkled with the fragrant compound the Lady
Flabella’s MOUCHOIR of finest cambric, edged with richest lace, and
emblazoned at the four corners with the Flabella crest, and gorgeous
heraldic bearings of that noble family. “MERCIE--that will do.”
‘At this instant, while the Lady Flabella yet inhaled that
delicious fragrance by holding the MOUCHOIR to her exquisite, but
thoughtfully-chiselled nose, the door of the BOUDOIR (artfully concealed
by rich hangings of silken damask, the hue of Italy’s firmament) was
thrown open, and with noiseless tread two VALETS-DE-CHAMBRE, clad in
sumptuous liveries of peach-blossom and gold, advanced into the room
followed by a page in BAS DE SOIE--silk stockings--who, while they
remained at some distance making the most graceful obeisances, advanced
to the feet of his lovely mistress, and dropping on one knee presented,
on a golden salver gorgeously chased, a scented BILLET.
‘The Lady Flabella, with an agitation she could not repress, hastily
tore off the ENVELOPE and broke the scented seal. It WAS from
Befillaire--the young, the slim, the low-voiced--HER OWN Befillaire.’
‘Oh, charming!’ interrupted Kate’s patroness, who was sometimes taken
literary. ‘Poetic, really. Read that description again, Miss Nickleby.’
Kate complied.
‘Sweet, indeed!’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a sigh. ‘So voluptuous, is it
not--so soft?’
‘Yes, I think it is,’ replied Kate, gently; ‘very soft.’
‘Close the book, Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I can hear
nothing more today; I should be sorry to disturb the impression of that
sweet description. Close the book.’
Kate complied, not unwillingly; and, as she did so, Mrs. Wititterly
raising her glass with a languid hand, remarked, that she looked pale.
‘It was the fright of that--that noise and confusion last night,’ said
Kate.
‘How very odd!’ exclaimed Mrs. Wititterly, with a look of surprise. And
certainly, when one comes to think of it, it WAS very odd that anything
should have disturbed a companion. A steam-engine, or other ingenious
piece of mechanism out of order, would have been nothing to it.
‘How did you come to know Lord Frederick, and those other delightful
creatures, child?’ asked Mrs. Wititterly, still eyeing Kate through her
glass.
‘I met them at my uncle’s,’ said Kate, vexed to feel that she was
colouring deeply, but unable to keep down the blood which rushed to her
face whenever she thought of that man.
‘Have you known them long?’
‘No,’ rejoined Kate. ‘Not long.’
‘I was very glad of the opportunity which that respectable person, your
mother, gave us of being known to them,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, in a lofty
manner. ‘Some friends of ours were on the very point of introducing us,
which makes it quite remarkable.’
This was said lest Miss Nickleby should grow conceited on the honour
and dignity of having known four great people (for Pyke and Pluck were
included among the delightful creatures), whom Mrs. Wititterly did not
know. But as the circumstance had made no impression one way or other
upon Kate’s mind, the force of the observation was quite lost upon her.
‘They asked permission to call,’ said Mrs. Wititterly. ‘I gave it them of
course.’
‘Do you expect them today?’ Kate ventured to inquire.
Mrs. Wititterly’s answer was lost in the noise of a tremendous rapping at
the street-door, and before it had ceased to vibrate, there drove up a
handsome cabriolet, out of which leaped Sir Mulberry Hawk and his friend
Lord Verisopht.
‘They are here now,’ said Kate, rising and hurrying away.
‘Miss Nickleby!’ cried Mrs. Wititterly, perfectly aghast at a companion’s
attempting to quit the room, without her permission first had and
obtained. ‘Pray don’t think of going.’
‘You are very good!’ replied Kate. ‘But--’
‘For goodness’ sake, don’t agitate me by making me speak so much,’ said
Mrs. Wititterly, with great sharpness. ‘Dear me, Miss Nickleby, I beg--’
It was in vain for Kate to protest that she was unwell, for the
footsteps of the knockers, whoever they were, were already on the
stairs. She resumed her seat, and had scarcely done so, when the
doubtful page darted into the room and announced, Mr. Pyke, and Mr. Pluck,
and Lord Verisopht, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, all at one burst.
‘The most extraordinary thing in the world,’ said Mr. Pluck, saluting
both ladies with the utmost cordiality; ‘the most extraordinary thing.
As Lord Frederick and Sir Mulberry drove up to the door, Pyke and I had
that instant knocked.’
‘That instant knocked,’ said Pyke.
‘No matter how you came, so that you are here,’ said Mrs. Wititterly,
who, by dint of lying on the same sofa for three years and a half, had
got up quite a little pantomime of graceful attitudes, and now threw
herself into the most striking of the whole series, to astonish the
visitors. ‘I am delighted, I am sure.’
‘And how is Miss Nickleby?’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, accosting Kate, in
a low voice--not so low, however, but that it reached the ears of Mrs
Wititterly.
‘Why, she complains of suffering from the fright of last night,’ said
the lady. ‘I am sure I don’t wonder at it, for my nerves are quite torn
to pieces.’
‘And yet you look,’ observed Sir Mulberry, turning round; ‘and yet you
look--’
‘Beyond everything,’ said Mr. Pyke, coming to his patron’s assistance. Of
course Mr. Pluck said the same.
‘I am afraid Sir Mulberry is a flatterer, my lord,’ said Mrs. Wititterly,
turning to that young gentleman, who had been sucking the head of his
cane in silence, and staring at Kate.
‘Oh, deyvlish!’ replied Verisopht. Having given utterance to which
remarkable sentiment, he occupied himself as before.
‘Neither does Miss Nickleby look the worse,’ said Sir Mulberry, bending
his bold gaze upon her. ‘She was always handsome, but upon my soul,
ma’am, you seem to have imparted some of your own good looks to her
besides.’
To judge from the glow which suffused the poor girl’s countenance after
this speech, Mrs. Wititterly might, with some show of reason, have been
supposed to have imparted to it some of that artificial bloom which
decorated her own. Mrs. Wititterly admitted, though not with the best
grace in the world, that Kate DID look pretty. She began to think, too,
that Sir Mulberry was not quite so agreeable a creature as she had
at first supposed him; for, although a skilful flatterer is a most
delightful companion if you can keep him all to yourself, his taste
becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.
‘Pyke,’ said the watchful Mr. Pluck, observing the effect which the
praise of Miss Nickleby had produced.
‘Well, Pluck,’ said Pyke.
‘Is there anybody,’ demanded Mr. Pluck, mysteriously, ‘anybody you know,
that Mrs. Wititterly’s profile reminds you of?’
‘Reminds me of!’ answered Pyke. ‘Of course there is.’
‘Who do you mean?’ said Pluck, in the same mysterious manner. ‘The D. of
B.?’
‘The C. of B.,’ replied Pyke, with the faintest trace of a grin
lingering in his countenance. ‘The beautiful sister is the countess; not
the duchess.’
‘True,’ said Pluck, ‘the C. of B. The resemblance is wonderful!’
‘Perfectly startling,’ said Mr. Pyke.
Here was a state of things! Mrs. Wititterly was declared, upon the
testimony of two veracious and competent witnesses, to be the very
picture of a countess! This was one of the consequences of getting into
good society. Why, she might have moved among grovelling people for
twenty years, and never heard of it. How could she, indeed? what did
THEY know about countesses?
The two gentlemen having, by the greediness with which this little
bait was swallowed, tested the extent of Mrs. Wititterly’s appetite for
adulation, proceeded to administer that commodity in very large doses,
thus affording to Sir Mulberry Hawk an opportunity of pestering Miss
Nickleby with questions and remarks, to which she was absolutely obliged
to make some reply. Meanwhile, Lord Verisopht enjoyed unmolested the
full flavour of the gold knob at the top of his cane, as he would have
done to the end of the interview if Mr. Wititterly had not come home, and
caused the conversation to turn to his favourite topic.
‘My lord,’ said Mr. Wititterly, ‘I am delighted--honoured--proud. Be
seated again, my lord, pray. I am proud, indeed--most proud.’
It was to the secret annoyance of his wife that Mr. Wititterly said all
this, for, although she was bursting with pride and arrogance, she would
have had the illustrious guests believe that their visit was quite a
common occurrence, and that they had lords and baronets to see them
every day in the week. But Mr. Wititterly’s feelings were beyond the
power of suppression.
‘It is an honour, indeed!’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘Julia, my soul, you will
suffer for this tomorrow.’
‘Suffer!’ cried Lord Verisopht.
‘The reaction, my lord, the reaction,’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘This violent
strain upon the nervous system over, my lord, what ensues? A sinking, a
depression, a lowness, a lassitude, a debility. My lord, if Sir Tumley
Snuffim was to see that delicate creature at this moment, he would
not give a--a--THIS for her life.’ In illustration of which remark, Mr
Wititterly took a pinch of snuff from his box, and jerked it lightly
into the air as an emblem of instability.
‘Not THAT,’ said Mr. Wititterly, looking about him with a serious
countenance. ‘Sir Tumley Snuffim would not give that for Mrs
Wititterly’s existence.’
Mr. Wititterly told this with a kind of sober exultation, as if it were
no trifling distinction for a man to have a wife in such a desperate
state, and Mrs. Wititterly sighed and looked on, as if she felt the
honour, but had determined to bear it as meekly as might be.
‘Mrs. Wititterly,’ said her husband, ‘is Sir Tumley Snuffim’s favourite
patient. I believe I may venture to say, that Mrs. Wititterly is the
first person who took the new medicine which is supposed to have
destroyed a family at Kensington Gravel Pits. I believe she was. If I am
wrong, Julia, my dear, you will correct me.’
‘I believe I was,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, in a faint voice.
As there appeared to be some doubt in the mind of his patron how he
could best join in this conversation, the indefatigable Mr. Pyke threw
himself into the breach, and, by way of saying something to the point,
inquired--with reference to the aforesaid medicine--whether it was nice.
‘No, sir, it was not. It had not even that recommendation,’ said Mr. W.
‘Mrs. Wititterly is quite a martyr,’ observed Pyke, with a complimentary
bow.
‘I THINK I am,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, smiling.
‘I think you are, my dear Julia,’ replied her husband, in a tone which
seemed to say that he was not vain, but still must insist upon their
privileges. ‘If anybody, my lord,’ added Mr. Wititterly, wheeling
round to the nobleman, ‘will produce to me a greater martyr than Mrs
Wititterly, all I can say is, that I shall be glad to see that martyr,
whether male or female--that’s all, my lord.’
Pyke and Pluck promptly remarked that certainly nothing could be fairer
than that; and the call having been by this time protracted to a very
great length, they obeyed Sir Mulberry’s look, and rose to go. This
brought Sir Mulberry himself and Lord Verisopht on their legs also.
Many protestations of friendship, and expressions anticipative of the
pleasure which must inevitably flow from so happy an acquaintance, were
exchanged, and the visitors departed, with renewed assurances that at
all times and seasons the mansion of the Wititterlys would be honoured
by receiving them beneath its roof.
That they came at all times and seasons--that they dined there one day,
supped the next, dined again on the next, and were constantly to and
fro on all--that they made parties to visit public places, and met by
accident at lounges--that upon all these occasions Miss Nickleby was
exposed to the constant and unremitting persecution of Sir Mulberry
Hawk, who now began to feel his character, even in the estimation of his
two dependants, involved in the successful reduction of her pride--that
she had no intervals of peace or rest, except at those hours when she
could sit in her solitary room, and weep over the trials of the day--all
these were consequences naturally flowing from the well-laid plans of
Sir Mulberry, and their able execution by the auxiliaries, Pyke and
Pluck.
And thus for a fortnight matters went on. That any but the weakest and
silliest of people could have seen in one interview that Lord Verisopht,
though he was a lord, and Sir Mulberry Hawk, though he was a baronet,
were not persons accustomed to be the best possible companions, and were
certainly not calculated by habits, manners, tastes, or conversation, to
shine with any very great lustre in the society of ladies, need scarcely
be remarked. But with Mrs. Wititterly the two titles were all sufficient;
coarseness became humour, vulgarity softened itself down into the most
charming eccentricity; insolence took the guise of an easy absence of
reserve, attainable only by those who had had the good fortune to mix
with high folks.
If the mistress put such a construction upon the behaviour of her new
friends, what could the companion urge against them? If they accustomed
themselves to very little restraint before the lady of the house, with
how much more freedom could they address her paid dependent! Nor was
even this the worst. As the odious Sir Mulberry Hawk attached himself
to Kate with less and less of disguise, Mrs. Wititterly began to grow
jealous of the superior attractions of Miss Nickleby. If this feeling
had led to her banishment from the drawing-room when such company was
there, Kate would have been only too happy and willing that it should
have existed, but unfortunately for her she possessed that native
grace and true gentility of manner, and those thousand nameless
accomplishments which give to female society its greatest charm; if
these be valuable anywhere, they were especially so where the lady of
the house was a mere animated doll. The consequence was, that Kate had
the double mortification of being an indispensable part of the circle
when Sir Mulberry and his friends were there, and of being exposed, on
that very account, to all Mrs. Wititterly’s ill-humours and caprices when
they were gone. She became utterly and completely miserable.
Mrs. Wititterly had never thrown off the mask with regard to Sir
Mulberry, but when she was more than usually out of temper, attributed
the circumstance, as ladies sometimes do, to nervous indisposition.
However, as the dreadful idea that Lord Verisopht also was somewhat
taken with Kate, and that she, Mrs. Wititterly, was quite a secondary
person, dawned upon that lady’s mind and gradually developed itself,
she became possessed with a large quantity of highly proper and most
virtuous indignation, and felt it her duty, as a married lady and a
moral member of society, to mention the circumstance to ‘the young
person’ without delay.
Accordingly Mrs. Wititterly broke ground next morning, during a pause in
the novel-reading.
‘Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, ‘I wish to speak to you very
gravely. I am sorry to have to do it, upon my word I am very sorry, but
you leave me no alternative, Miss Nickleby.’ Here Mrs. Wititterly tossed
her head--not passionately, only virtuously--and remarked, with some
appearance of excitement, that she feared that palpitation of the heart
was coming on again.
‘Your behaviour, Miss Nickleby,’ resumed the lady, ‘is very far from
pleasing me--very far. I am very anxious indeed that you should do well,
but you may depend upon it, Miss Nickleby, you will not, if you go on as
you do.’
‘Ma’am!’ exclaimed Kate, proudly.
‘Don’t agitate me by speaking in that way, Miss Nickleby, don’t,’ said
Mrs. Wititterly, with some violence, ‘or you’ll compel me to ring the
bell.’
Kate looked at her, but said nothing.
‘You needn’t suppose,’ resumed Mrs. Wititterly, ‘that your looking at me
in that way, Miss Nickleby, will prevent my saying what I am going
to say, which I feel to be a religious duty. You needn’t direct your
glances towards me,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a sudden burst of spite;
‘I am not Sir Mulberry, no, nor Lord Frederick Verisopht, Miss Nickleby,
nor am I Mr. Pyke, nor Mr. Pluck either.’
Kate looked at her again, but less steadily than before; and resting her
elbow on the table, covered her eyes with her hand.
‘If such things had been done when I was a young girl,’ said Mrs
Wititterly (this, by the way, must have been some little time before),
‘I don’t suppose anybody would have believed it.’
‘I don’t think they would,’ murmured Kate. ‘I do not think anybody would
believe, without actually knowing it, what I seem doomed to undergo!’
‘Don’t talk to me of being doomed to undergo, Miss Nickleby, if you
please,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a shrillness of tone quite surprising
in so great an invalid. ‘I will not be answered, Miss Nickleby. I am not
accustomed to be answered, nor will I permit it for an instant. Do
you hear?’ she added, waiting with some apparent inconsistency FOR an
answer.
‘I do hear you, ma’am,’ replied Kate, ‘with surprise--with greater
surprise than I can express.’
‘I have always considered you a particularly well-behaved young person
for your station in life,’ said Mrs. Wititterly; ‘and as you are a person
of healthy appearance, and neat in your dress and so forth, I have taken
an interest in you, as I do still, considering that I owe a sort of duty
to that respectable old female, your mother. For these reasons, Miss
Nickleby, I must tell you once for all, and begging you to mind what I
say, that I must insist upon your immediately altering your very forward
behaviour to the gentlemen who visit at this house. It really is not
becoming,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, closing her chaste eyes as she spoke;
‘it is improper--quite improper.’
‘Oh!’ cried Kate, looking upwards and clasping her hands; ‘is not this,
is not this, too cruel, too hard to bear! Is it not enough that I should
have suffered as I have, night and day; that I should almost have sunk
in my own estimation from very shame of having been brought into contact
with such people; but must I also be exposed to this unjust and most
unfounded charge!’
‘You will have the goodness to recollect, Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs
Wititterly, ‘that when you use such terms as “unjust”, and “unfounded”,
you charge me, in effect, with stating that which is untrue.’
‘I do,’ said Kate with honest indignation. ‘Whether you make this
accusation of yourself, or at the prompting of others, is alike to me. I
say it IS vilely, grossly, wilfully untrue. Is it possible!’ cried Kate,
‘that anyone of my own sex can have sat by, and not have seen the misery
these men have caused me? Is it possible that you, ma’am, can have been
present, and failed to mark the insulting freedom that their every look
bespoke? Is it possible that you can have avoided seeing, that these
libertines, in their utter disrespect for you, and utter disregard
of all gentlemanly behaviour, and almost of decency, have had but one
object in introducing themselves here, and that the furtherance of their
designs upon a friendless, helpless girl, who, without this humiliating
confession, might have hoped to receive from one so much her senior
something like womanly aid and sympathy? I do not--I cannot believe it!’
If poor Kate had possessed the slightest knowledge of the world, she
certainly would not have ventured, even in the excitement into which she
had been lashed, upon such an injudicious speech as this. Its effect
was precisely what a more experienced observer would have foreseen.
Mrs. Wititterly received the attack upon her veracity with exemplary
calmness, and listened with the most heroic fortitude to Kate’s account
of her own sufferings. But allusion being made to her being held in
disregard by the gentlemen, she evinced violent emotion, and this blow
was no sooner followed up by the remark concerning her seniority, than
she fell back upon the sofa, uttering dismal screams.
‘What is the matter?’ cried Mr. Wititterly, bouncing into the room.
‘Heavens, what do I see? Julia! Julia! look up, my life, look up!’
But Julia looked down most perseveringly, and screamed still louder; so
Mr. Wititterly rang the bell, and danced in a frenzied manner round
the sofa on which Mrs. Wititterly lay; uttering perpetual cries for Sir
Tumley Snuffim, and never once leaving off to ask for any explanation of
the scene before him.
‘Run for Sir Tumley,’ cried Mr. Wititterly, menacing the page with both
fists. ‘I knew it, Miss Nickleby,’ he said, looking round with an air of
melancholy triumph, ‘that society has been too much for her. This is all
soul, you know, every bit of it.’ With this assurance Mr. Wititterly took
up the prostrate form of Mrs. Wititterly, and carried her bodily off to
bed.
Kate waited until Sir Tumley Snuffim had paid his visit and looked in
with a report, that, through the special interposition of a merciful
Providence (thus spake Sir Tumley), Mrs. Wititterly had gone to sleep.
She then hastily attired herself for walking, and leaving word that she
should return within a couple of hours, hurried away towards her uncle’s
house.
It had been a good day with Ralph Nickleby--quite a lucky day; and as he
walked to and fro in his little back-room with his hands clasped behind
him, adding up in his own mind all the sums that had been, or would be,
netted from the business done since morning, his mouth was drawn into a
hard stern smile; while the firmness of the lines and curves that made
it up, as well as the cunning glance of his cold, bright eye, seemed to
tell, that if any resolution or cunning would increase the profits, they
would not fail to be excited for the purpose.
‘Very good!’ said Ralph, in allusion, no doubt, to some proceeding of
the day. ‘He defies the usurer, does he? Well, we shall see. “Honesty is
the best policy,” is it? We’ll try that too.’
He stopped, and then walked on again.
‘He is content,’ said Ralph, relaxing into a smile, ‘to set his known
character and conduct against the power of money--dross, as he calls it.
Why, what a dull blockhead this fellow must be! Dross to, dross! Who’s
that?’
‘Me,’ said Newman Noggs, looking in. ‘Your niece.’
‘What of her?’ asked Ralph sharply.
‘She’s here.’
‘Here!’
Newman jerked his head towards his little room, to signify that she was
waiting there.
‘What does she want?’ asked Ralph.
‘I don’t know,’ rejoined Newman. ‘Shall I ask?’ he added quickly.
‘No,’ replied Ralph. ‘Show her in! Stay.’ He hastily put away a
padlocked cash-box that was on the table, and substituted in its stead
an empty purse. ‘There,’ said Ralph. ‘NOW she may come in.’
Newman, with a grim smile at this manoeuvre, beckoned the young lady to
advance, and having placed a chair for her, retired; looking stealthily
over his shoulder at Ralph as he limped slowly out.
‘Well,’ said Ralph, roughly enough; but still with something more of
kindness in his manner than he would have exhibited towards anybody
else. ‘Well, my--dear. What now?’
Kate raised her eyes, which were filled with tears; and with an effort
to master her emotion strove to speak, but in vain. So drooping her head
again, she remained silent. Her face was hidden from his view, but Ralph
could see that she was weeping.
‘I can guess the cause of this!’ thought Ralph, after looking at her
for some time in silence. ‘I can--I can--guess the cause. Well! Well!’
thought Ralph--for the moment quite disconcerted, as he watched the
anguish of his beautiful niece. ‘Where is the harm? only a few tears;
and it’s an excellent lesson for her, an excellent lesson.’
‘What is the matter?’ asked Ralph, drawing a chair opposite, and sitting
down.
He was rather taken aback by the sudden firmness with which Kate looked
up and answered him.
‘The matter which brings me to you, sir,’ she said, ‘is one which should
call the blood up into your cheeks, and make you burn to hear, as it
does me to tell. I have been wronged; my feelings have been outraged,
insulted, wounded past all healing, and by your friends.’
‘Friends!’ cried Ralph, sternly. ‘I have no friends, girl.’
‘By the men I saw here, then,’ returned Kate, quickly. ‘If they were no
friends of yours, and you knew what they were,--oh, the more shame on
you, uncle, for bringing me among them. To have subjected me to what
I was exposed to here, through any misplaced confidence or imperfect
knowledge of your guests, would have required some strong excuse; but
if you did it--as I now believe you did--knowing them well, it was most
dastardly and cruel.’
Ralph drew back in utter amazement at this plain speaking, and regarded
Kate with the sternest look. But she met his gaze proudly and firmly,
and although her face was very pale, it looked more noble and handsome,
lighted up as it was, than it had ever appeared before.
‘There is some of that boy’s blood in you, I see,’ said Ralph, speaking
in his harshest tones, as something in the flashing eye reminded him of
Nicholas at their last meeting.
‘I hope there is!’ replied Kate. ‘I should be proud to know it. I am
young, uncle, and all the difficulties and miseries of my situation have
kept it down, but I have been roused today beyond all endurance, and
come what may, I WILL NOT, as I am your brother’s child, bear these
insults longer.’
‘What insults, girl?’ demanded Ralph, sharply.
‘Remember what took place here, and ask yourself,’ replied Kate,
colouring deeply. ‘Uncle, you must--I am sure you will--release me from
such vile and degrading companionship as I am exposed to now. I do not
mean,’ said Kate, hurrying to the old man, and laying her arm upon his
shoulder; ‘I do not mean to be angry and violent--I beg your pardon if
I have seemed so, dear uncle,--but you do not know what I have suffered,
you do not indeed. You cannot tell what the heart of a young girl
is--I have no right to expect you should; but when I tell you that I am
wretched, and that my heart is breaking, I am sure you will help me. I
am sure, I am sure you will!’
Ralph looked at her for an instant; then turned away his head, and beat
his foot nervously upon the ground.
‘I have gone on day after day,’ said Kate, bending over him, and timidly
placing her little hand in his, ‘in the hope that this persecution would
cease; I have gone on day after day, compelled to assume the appearance
of cheerfulness, when I was most unhappy. I have had no counsellor, no
adviser, no one to protect me. Mama supposes that these are honourable
men, rich and distinguished, and how CAN I--how can I undeceive
her--when she is so happy in these little delusions, which are the only
happiness she has? The lady with whom you placed me, is not the person
to whom I could confide matters of so much delicacy, and I have come at
last to you, the only friend I have at hand--almost the only friend I
have at all--to entreat and implore you to assist me.’
‘How can I assist you, child?’ said Ralph, rising from his chair, and
pacing up and down the room in his old attitude.
‘You have influence with one of these men, I KNOW,’ rejoined Kate,
emphatically. ‘Would not a word from you induce them to desist from this
unmanly course?’
‘No,’ said Ralph, suddenly turning; ‘at least--that--I can’t say it, if
it would.’
‘Can’t say it!’
‘No,’ said Ralph, coming to a dead stop, and clasping his hands more
tightly behind him. ‘I can’t say it.’
Kate fell back a step or two, and looked at him, as if in doubt whether
she had heard aright.
‘We are connected in business,’ said Ralph, poising himself alternately
on his toes and heels, and looking coolly in his niece’s face, ‘in
business, and I can’t afford to offend them. What is it after all? We
have all our trials, and this is one of yours. Some girls would be proud
to have such gallants at their feet.’
‘Proud!’ cried Kate.
‘I don’t say,’ rejoined Ralph, raising his forefinger, ‘but that you do
right to despise them; no, you show your good sense in that, as indeed
I knew from the first you would. Well. In all other respects you are
comfortably bestowed. It’s not much to bear. If this young lord does dog
your footsteps, and whisper his drivelling inanities in your ears, what
of it? It’s a dishonourable passion. So be it; it won’t last long. Some
other novelty will spring up one day, and you will be released. In the
mean time--’
‘In the mean time,’ interrupted Kate, with becoming pride and
indignation, ‘I am to be the scorn of my own sex, and the toy of the
other; justly condemned by all women of right feeling, and despised by
all honest and honourable men; sunken in my own esteem, and degraded in
every eye that looks upon me. No, not if I work my fingers to the bone,
not if I am driven to the roughest and hardest labour. Do not mistake
me. I will not disgrace your recommendation. I will remain in the house
in which it placed me, until I am entitled to leave it by the terms of
my engagement; though, mind, I see these men no more. When I quit it, I
will hide myself from them and you, and, striving to support my mother
by hard service, I will live, at least, in peace, and trust in God to
help me.’
With these words, she waved her hand, and quitted the room, leaving
Ralph Nickleby motionless as a statue.
The surprise with which Kate, as she closed the room-door, beheld, close
beside it, Newman Noggs standing bolt upright in a little niche in the
wall like some scarecrow or Guy Faux laid up in winter quarters, almost
occasioned her to call aloud. But, Newman laying his finger upon his
lips, she had the presence of mind to refrain.
‘Don’t,’ said Newman, gliding out of his recess, and accompanying
her across the hall. ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ Two very large tears,
by-the-bye, were running down Newman’s face as he spoke.
‘I see how it is,’ said poor Noggs, drawing from his pocket what seemed
to be a very old duster, and wiping Kate’s eyes with it, as gently as if
she were an infant. ‘You’re giving way now. Yes, yes, very good; that’s
right, I like that. It was right not to give way before him. Yes, yes!
Ha, ha, ha! Oh, yes. Poor thing!’
With these disjointed exclamations, Newman wiped his own eyes with the
afore-mentioned duster, and, limping to the street-door, opened it to
let her out.
‘Don’t cry any more,’ whispered Newman. ‘I shall see you soon. Ha! ha!
ha! And so shall somebody else too. Yes, yes. Ho! ho!’
‘God bless you,’ answered Kate, hurrying out, ‘God bless you.’
‘Same to you,’ rejoined Newman, opening the door again a little way to
say so. ‘Ha, ha, ha! Ho! ho! ho!’
And Newman Noggs opened the door once again to nod cheerfully, and
laugh--and shut it, to shake his head mournfully, and cry.
Ralph remained in the same attitude till he heard the noise of the
closing door, when he shrugged his shoulders, and after a few turns
about the room--hasty at first, but gradually becoming slower, as he
relapsed into himself--sat down before his desk.
It is one of those problems of human nature, which may be noted down,
but not solved;--although Ralph felt no remorse at that moment for his
conduct towards the innocent, true-hearted girl; although his libertine
clients had done precisely what he had expected, precisely what he most
wished, and precisely what would tend most to his advantage, still he
hated them for doing it, from the very bottom of his soul.
‘Ugh!’ said Ralph, scowling round, and shaking his clenched hand as the
faces of the two profligates rose up before his mind; ‘you shall pay for
this. Oh! you shall pay for this!’
As the usurer turned for consolation to his books and papers, a
performance was going on outside his office door, which would have
occasioned him no small surprise, if he could by any means have become
acquainted with it.
Newman Noggs was the sole actor. He stood at a little distance from the
door, with his face towards it; and with the sleeves of his coat
turned back at the wrists, was occupied in bestowing the most vigorous,
scientific, and straightforward blows upon the empty air.
At first sight, this would have appeared merely a wise precaution in
a man of sedentary habits, with the view of opening the chest and
strengthening the muscles of the arms. But the intense eagerness and
joy depicted in the face of Newman Noggs, which was suffused with
perspiration; the surprising energy with which he directed a constant
succession of blows towards a particular panel about five feet eight
from the ground, and still worked away in the most untiring and
persevering manner, would have sufficiently explained to the attentive
observer, that his imagination was thrashing, to within an inch of his
life, his body’s most active employer, Mr. Ralph Nickleby.