THE READER IS ALREADY ACQUAINTED, AND SHOWS HOW MONKS AND THE JEW
LAID THEIR WORTHY HEADS TOGETHER
On the evening following that upon which the three worthies
mentioned in the last chapter, disposed of their little matter of
business as therein narrated, Mr. William Sikes, awakening from a
nap, drowsily growled forth an inquiry what time of night it was.
The room in which Mr. Sikes propounded this question, was not one of
those he had tenanted, previous to the Chertsey expedition, although
it was in the same quarter of the town, and was situated at no great
distance from his former lodgings. It was not, in appearance,
so desirable a habitation as his old quarters: being a mean and
badly-furnished apartment, of very limited size; lighted only by one
small window in the shelving roof, and abutting on a close and
dirty lane. Nor were there wanting other indications of the good
gentleman’s having gone down in the world of late: for a great
scarcity of furniture, and total absence of comfort, together with
the disappearance of all such small moveables as spare clothes and
linen, bespoke a state of extreme poverty; while the meagre and
attenuated condition of Mr. Sikes himself would have fully confirmed
these symptoms, if they had stood in any need of corroboration.
The housebreaker was lying on the bed, wrapped in his white
great-coat, by way of dressing-gown, and displaying a set of
features in no degree improved by the cadaverous hue of illness,
and the addition of a soiled nightcap, and a stiff, black beard of
a week’s growth. The dog sat at the bedside: now eyeing his master
with a wistful look, and now pricking his ears, and uttering a
low growl as some noise in the street, or in the lower part of the
house, attracted his attention. Seated by the window, busily engaged
in patching an old waistcoat which formed a portion of the robber’s
ordinary dress, was a female: so pale and reduced with watching and
privation, that there would have been considerable difficulty in
recognising her as the same Nancy who has already figured in
this tale, but for the voice in which she replied to Mr. Sikes’s
question.
‘Not long gone seven,’ said the girl. ‘How do you feel to-night,
Bill?’
‘As weak as water,’ replied Mr. Sikes, with an imprecation on his
eyes and limbs. ‘Here; lend us a hand, and let me get off this
thundering bed anyhow.’
Illness had not improved Mr. Sikes’s temper; for, as the girl raised
him up and led him to a chair, he muttered various curses on her
awkwardness, and struck her.
‘Whining are you?’ said Sikes. ‘Come! Don’t stand snivelling there.
If you can’t do anything better than that, cut off altogether. D’ye
hear me?’
‘I hear you,’ replied the girl, turning her face aside, and forcing
a laugh. ‘What fancy have you got in your head now?’
‘Oh! you’ve thought better of it, have you?’ growled Sikes, marking
the tear which trembled in her eye. ‘All the better for you, you
have.’
‘Why, you don’t mean to say, you’d be hard upon me to-night, Bill,’
said the girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder.
‘No!’ cried Mr. Sikes. ‘Why not?’
‘Such a number of nights,’ said the girl, with a touch of woman’s
tenderness, which communicated something like sweetness of tone,
even to her voice: ‘such a number of nights as I’ve been patient
with you, nursing and caring for you, as if you had been a child:
and this the first that I’ve seen you like yourself; you wouldn’t
have served me as you did just now, if you’d thought of that, would
you? Come, come; say you wouldn’t.’
‘Well, then,’ rejoined Mr. Sikes, ‘I wouldn’t. Why, damme, now, the
girls’s whining again!’
‘It’s nothing,’ said the girl, throwing herself into a chair. ‘Don’t
you seem to mind me. It’ll soon be over.’
‘What’ll be over?’ demanded Mr. Sikes in a savage voice. ‘What
foolery are you up to, now, again? Get up and bustle about, and
don’t come over me with your woman’s nonsense.’
At any other time, this remonstrance, and the tone in which it was
delivered, would have had the desired effect; but the girl being
really weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the
chair, and fainted, before Mr. Sikes could get out a few of
the appropriate oaths with which, on similar occasions, he was
accustomed to garnish his threats. Not knowing, very well, what
to do, in this uncommon emergency; for Miss Nancy’s hysterics were
usually of that violent kind which the patient fights and struggles
out of, without much assistance; Mr. Sikes tried a little blasphemy:
and finding that mode of treatment wholly ineffectual, called for
assistance.
‘What’s the matter here, my dear?’ said Fagin, looking in.
‘Lend a hand to the girl, can’t you?’ replied Sikes impatiently.
‘Don’t stand chattering and grinning at me!’
With an exclamation of surprise, Fagin hastened to the girl’s
assistance, while Mr. John Dawkins (otherwise the Artful Dodger),
who had followed his venerable friend into the room, hastily
deposited on the floor a bundle with which he was laden; and
snatching a bottle from the grasp of Master Charles Bates who came
close at his heels, uncorked it in a twinkling with his teeth,
and poured a portion of its contents down the patient’s throat:
previously taking a taste, himself, to prevent mistakes.
‘Give her a whiff of fresh air with the bellows, Charley,’ said
Mr. Dawkins; ‘and you slap her hands, Fagin, while Bill undoes the
petticuts.’
These united restoratives, administered with great energy:
especially that department consigned to Master Bates, who appeared
to consider his share in the proceedings, a piece of unexampled
pleasantry: were not long in producing the desired effect. The girl
gradually recovered her senses; and, staggering to a chair by the
bedside, hid her face upon the pillow: leaving Mr. Sikes to
confront the new comers, in some astonishment at their unlooked-for
appearance.
‘Why, what evil wind has blowed you here?’ he asked Fagin.
‘No evil wind at all, my dear, for evil winds blow nobody any good;
and I’ve brought something good with me, that you’ll be glad to see.
Dodger, my dear, open the bundle; and give Bill the little trifles
that we spent all our money on, this morning.’
In compliance with Mr. Fagin’s request, the Artful untied this
bundle, which was of large size, and formed of an old table-cloth;
and handed the articles it contained, one by one, to Charley Bates:
who placed them on the table, with various encomiums on their rarity
and excellence.
‘Sitch a rabbit pie, Bill,’ exclaimed that young gentleman,
disclosing to view a huge pasty; ‘sitch delicate creeturs, with
sitch tender limbs, Bill, that the wery bones melt in your mouth,
and there’s no occasion to pick ‘em; half a pound of seven and
six-penny green, so precious strong that if you mix it with biling
water, it’ll go nigh to blow the lid of the tea-pot off; a pound and
a half of moist sugar that the niggers didn’t work at all at,
afore they got it up to sitch a pitch of goodness,--oh no! Two
half-quartern brans; pound of best fresh; piece of double Glo’ster;
and, to wind up all, some of the richest sort you ever lushed!’
Uttering this last panegyric, Master Bates produced, from one of his
extensive pockets, a full-sized wine-bottle, carefully corked; while
Mr. Dawkins, at the same instant, poured out a wine-glassful of raw
spirits from the bottle he carried: which the invalid tossed down
his throat without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Ah!’ said Fagin, rubbing his hands with great satisfaction. ‘You’ll
do, Bill; you’ll do now.’
‘Do!’ exclaimed Mr. Sikes; ‘I might have been done for, twenty times
over, afore you’d have done anything to help me. What do you mean by
leaving a man in this state, three weeks and more, you false-hearted
wagabond?’
‘Only hear him, boys!’ said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. ‘And us
come to bring him all these beau-ti-ful things.’
‘The things is well enough in their way,’ observed Mr. Sikes: a
little soothed as he glanced over the table; ‘but what have you
got to say for yourself, why you should leave me here, down in the
mouth, health, blunt, and everything else; and take no more notice
of me, all this mortal time, than if I was that ‘ere dog.--Drive him
down, Charley!’
‘I never see such a jolly dog as that,’ cried Master Bates, doing
as he was desired. ‘Smelling the grub like a old lady a going to
market! He’d make his fortun’ on the stage that dog would, and
rewive the drama besides.’
‘Hold your din,’ cried Sikes, as the dog retreated under the bed:
still growling angrily. ‘What have you got to say for yourself, you
withered old fence, eh?’
‘I was away from London, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,’
replied the Jew.
‘And what about the other fortnight?’ demanded Sikes. ‘What about
the other fortnight that you’ve left me lying here, like a sick rat
in his hole?’
‘I couldn’t help it, Bill. I can’t go into a long explanation before
company; but I couldn’t help it, upon my honour.’
‘Upon your what?’ growled Sikes, with excessive disgust. ‘Here! Cut
me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of
that out of my mouth, or it’ll choke me dead.’
‘Don’t be out of temper, my dear,’ urged Fagin, submissively. ‘I
have never forgot you, Bill; never once.’
‘No! I’ll pound it that you han’t,’ replied Sikes, with a bitter
grin. ‘You’ve been scheming and plotting away, every hour that I
have laid shivering and burning here; and Bill was to do this; and
Bill was to do that; and Bill was to do it all, dirt cheap, as
soon as he got well: and was quite poor enough for your work. If it
hadn’t been for the girl, I might have died.’
‘There now, Bill,’ remonstrated Fagin, eagerly catching at the word.
‘If it hadn’t been for the girl! Who but poor ould Fagin was the
means of your having such a handy girl about you?’
‘He says true enough there!’ said Nancy, coming hastily forward.
‘Let him be; let him be.’
Nancy’s appearance gave a new turn to the conversation; for the
boys, receiving a sly wink from the wary old Jew, began to ply
her with liquor: of which, however, she took very sparingly; while
Fagin, assuming an unusual flow of spirits, gradually brought Mr.
Sikes into a better temper, by affecting to regard his threats as a
little pleasant banter; and, moreover, by laughing very heartily at
one or two rough jokes, which, after repeated applications to the
spirit-bottle, he condescended to make.
‘It’s all very well,’ said Mr. Sikes; ‘but I must have some blunt
from you to-night.’
‘I haven’t a piece of coin about me,’ replied the Jew.
‘Then you’ve got lots at home,’ retorted Sikes; ‘and I must have
some from there.’
‘Lots!’ cried Fagin, holding up is hands. ‘I haven’t so much as
would--’
‘I don’t know how much you’ve got, and I dare say you hardly know
yourself, as it would take a pretty long time to count it,’ said
Sikes; ‘but I must have some to-night; and that’s flat.’
‘Well, well,’ said Fagin, with a sigh, ‘I’ll send the Artful round
presently.’
‘You won’t do nothing of the kind,’ rejoined Mr. Sikes. ‘The
Artful’s a deal too artful, and would forget to come, or lose his
way, or get dodged by traps and so be perwented, or anything for an
excuse, if you put him up to it. Nancy shall go to the ken and fetch
it, to make all sure; and I’ll lie down and have a snooze while
she’s gone.’
After a great deal of haggling and squabbling, Fagin beat down the
amount of the required advance from five pounds to three pounds four
and sixpence: protesting with many solemn asseverations that that
would only leave him eighteen-pence to keep house with; Mr.
Sikes sullenly remarking that if he couldn’t get any more he
must accompany him home; with the Dodger and Master Bates put
the eatables in the cupboard. The Jew then, taking leave of his
affectionate friend, returned homeward, attended by Nancy and
the boys: Mr. Sikes, meanwhile, flinging himself on the bed, and
composing himself to sleep away the time until the young lady’s
return.
In due course, they arrived at Fagin’s abode, where they found
Toby Crackit and Mr. Chitling intent upon their fifteenth game at
cribbage, which it is scarcely necessary to say the latter gentleman
lost, and with it, his fifteenth and last sixpence: much to the
amusement of his young friends. Mr. Crackit, apparently somewhat
ashamed at being found relaxing himself with a gentleman so much
his inferior in station and mental endowments, yawned, and inquiring
after Sikes, took up his hat to go.
‘Has nobody been, Toby?’ asked Fagin.
‘Not a living leg,’ answered Mr. Crackit, pulling up his collar;
‘it’s been as dull as swipes. You ought to stand something handsome,
Fagin, to recompense me for keeping house so long. Damme, I’m
as flat as a juryman; and should have gone to sleep, as fast as
Newgate, if I hadn’t had the good natur’ to amuse this youngster.
Horrid dull, I’m blessed if I an’t!’
With these and other ejaculations of the same kind, Mr. Toby Crackit
swept up his winnings, and crammed them into his waistcoat pocket
with a haughty air, as though such small pieces of silver were
wholly beneath the consideration of a man of his figure; this done,
he swaggered out of the room, with so much elegance and gentility,
that Mr. Chitling, bestowing numerous admiring glances on his legs
and boots till they were out of sight, assured the company that he
considered his acquaintance cheap at fifteen sixpences an interview,
and that he didn’t value his losses the snap of his little finger.
‘Wot a rum chap you are, Tom!’ said Master Bates, highly amused by
this declaration.
‘Not a bit of it,’ replied Mr. Chitling. ‘Am I, Fagin?’
‘A very clever fellow, my dear,’ said Fagin, patting him on the
shoulder, and winking to his other pupils.
‘And Mr. Crackit is a heavy swell; an’t he, Fagin?’ asked Tom.
‘No doubt at all of that, my dear.’
‘And it is a creditable thing to have his acquaintance; an’t it,
Fagin?’ pursued Tom.
‘Very much so, indeed, my dear. They’re only jealous, Tom, because
he won’t give it to them.’
‘Ah!’ cried Tom, triumphantly, ‘that’s where it is! He has cleaned
me out. But I can go and earn some more, when I like; can’t I,
Fagin?’
‘To be sure you can, and the sooner you go the better, Tom; so make
up your loss at once, and don’t lose any more time. Dodger! Charley!
It’s time you were on the lay. Come! It’s near ten, and nothing done
yet.’
In obedience to this hint, the boys, nodding to Nancy, took up
their hats, and left the room; the Dodger and his vivacious friend
indulging, as they went, in many witticisms at the expense of Mr.
Chitling; in whose conduct, it is but justice to say, there was
nothing very conspicuous or peculiar: inasmuch as there are a great
number of spirited young bloods upon town, who pay a much higher
price than Mr. Chitling for being seen in good society: and a great
number of fine gentlemen (composing the good society aforesaid)
who established their reputation upon very much the same footing as
flash Toby Crackit.
‘Now,’ said Fagin, when they had left the room, ‘I’ll go and get you
that cash, Nancy. This is only the key of a little cupboard where
I keep a few odd things the boys get, my dear. I never lock up my
money, for I’ve got none to lock up, my dear--ha! ha! ha!--none to
lock up. It’s a poor trade, Nancy, and no thanks; but I’m fond of
seeing the young people about me; and I bear it all, I bear it all.
Hush!’ he said, hastily concealing the key in his breast; ‘who’s
that? Listen!’
The girl, who was sitting at the table with her arms folded,
appeared in no way interested in the arrival: or to care whether the
person, whoever he was, came or went: until the murmur of a man’s
voice reached her ears. The instant she caught the sound, she tore
off her bonnet and shawl, with the rapidity of lightning, and thrust
them under the table. The Jew, turning round immediately afterwards,
she muttered a complaint of the heat: in a tone of languor that
contrasted, very remarkably, with the extreme haste and violence of
this action: which, however, had been unobserved by Fagin, who had
his back towards her at the time.
‘Bah!’ he whispered, as though nettled by the interruption; ‘it’s
the man I expected before; he’s coming downstairs. Not a word
about the money while he’s here, Nance. He won’t stop long. Not ten
minutes, my dear.’
Laying his skinny forefinger upon his lip, the Jew carried a candle
to the door, as a man’s step was heard upon the stairs without. He
reached it, at the same moment as the visitor, who, coming hastily
into the room, was close upon the girl before he observed her.
It was Monks.
‘Only one of my young people,’ said Fagin, observing that Monks drew
back, on beholding a stranger. ‘Don’t move, Nancy.’
The girl drew closer to the table, and glancing at Monks with an
air of careless levity, withdrew her eyes; but as he turned towards
Fagin, she stole another look; so keen and searching, and full of
purpose, that if there had been any bystander to observe the change,
he could hardly have believed the two looks to have proceeded from
the same person.
‘Any news?’ inquired Fagin.
‘Great.’
‘And--and--good?’ asked Fagin, hesitating as though he feared to vex
the other man by being too sanguine.
‘Not bad, any way,’ replied Monks with a smile. ‘I have been prompt
enough this time. Let me have a word with you.’
The girl drew closer to the table, and made no offer to leave the
room, although she could see that Monks was pointing to her. The
Jew: perhaps fearing she might say something aloud about the money,
if he endeavoured to get rid of her: pointed upward, and took Monks
out of the room.
‘Not that infernal hole we were in before,’ she could hear the man
say as they went upstairs. Fagin laughed; and making some reply
which did not reach her, seemed, by the creaking of the boards, to
lead his companion to the second story.
Before the sound of their footsteps had ceased to echo through the
house, the girl had slipped off her shoes; and drawing her gown
loosely over her head, and muffling her arms in it, stood at the
door, listening with breathless interest. The moment the noise
ceased, she glided from the room; ascended the stairs with
incredible softness and silence; and was lost in the gloom above.
The room remained deserted for a quarter of an hour or more; the
girl glided back with the same unearthly tread; and, immediately
afterwards, the two men were heard descending. Monks went at once
into the street; and the Jew crawled upstairs again for the money.
When he returned, the girl was adjusting her shawl and bonnet, as if
preparing to be gone.
‘Why, Nance!’ exclaimed the Jew, starting back as he put down the
candle, ‘how pale you are!’
‘Pale!’ echoed the girl, shading her eyes with her hands, as if to
look steadily at him.
‘Quite horrible. What have you been doing to yourself?’
‘Nothing that I know of, except sitting in this close place for I
don’t know how long and all,’ replied the girl carelessly. ‘Come!
Let me get back; that’s a dear.’
With a sigh for every piece of money, Fagin told the amount into her
hand. They parted without more conversation, merely interchanging a
‘good-night.’
When the girl got into the open street, she sat down upon a
doorstep; and seemed, for a few moments, wholly bewildered and
unable to pursue her way. Suddenly she arose; and hurrying on, in
a direction quite opposite to that in which Sikes was awaiting her
returned, quickened her pace, until it gradually resolved into a
violent run. After completely exhausting herself, she stopped to
take breath: and, as if suddenly recollecting herself, and deploring
her inability to do something she was bent upon, wrung her hands,
and burst into tears.
It might be that her tears relieved her, or that she felt the full
hopelessness of her condition; but she turned back; and hurrying
with nearly as great rapidity in the contrary direction; partly to
recover lost time, and partly to keep pace with the violent current
of her own thoughts: soon reached the dwelling where she had left
the housebreaker.
If she betrayed any agitation, when she presented herself to Mr.
Sikes, he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had
brought the money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he
uttered a growl of satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the
pillow, resumed the slumbers which her arrival had interrupted.
It was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him
so much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking; and
withal had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities
of his temper; that he had neither time nor inclination to be very
critical upon her behaviour and deportment. That she had all the
abstracted and nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold
and hazardous step, which it has required no common struggle to
resolve upon, would have been obvious to the lynx-eyed Fagin, who
would most probably have taken the alarm at once; but Mr. Sikes
lacking the niceties of discrimination, and being troubled with no
more subtle misgivings than those which resolve themselves into
a dogged roughness of behaviour towards everybody; and being,
furthermore, in an unusually amiable condition, as has been already
observed; saw nothing unusual in her demeanor, and indeed, troubled
himself so little about her, that, had her agitation been far more
perceptible than it was, it would have been very unlikely to have
awakened his suspicions.
As that day closed in, the girl’s excitement increased; and, when
night came on, and she sat by, watching until the housebreaker
should drink himself asleep, there was an unusual paleness in
her cheek, and a fire in her eye, that even Sikes observed with
astonishment.
Mr. Sikes being weak from the fever, was lying in bed, taking hot
water with his gin to render it less inflammatory; and had pushed
his glass towards Nancy to be replenished for the third or fourth
time, when these symptoms first struck him.
‘Why, burn my body!’ said the man, raising himself on his hands as
he stared the girl in the face. ‘You look like a corpse come to life
again. What’s the matter?’
‘Matter!’ replied the girl. ‘Nothing. What do you look at me so hard
for?’
‘What foolery is this?’ demanded Sikes, grasping her by the arm,
and shaking her roughly. ‘What is it? What do you mean? What are you
thinking of?’
‘Of many things, Bill,’ replied the girl, shivering, and as she
did so, pressing her hands upon her eyes. ‘But, Lord! What odds in
that?’
The tone of forced gaiety in which the last words were spoken,
seemed to produce a deeper impression on Sikes than the wild and
rigid look which had preceded them.
‘I tell you wot it is,’ said Sikes; ‘if you haven’t caught the
fever, and got it comin’ on, now, there’s something more than usual
in the wind, and something dangerous too. You’re not a-going to--.
No, damme! you wouldn’t do that!’
‘Do what?’ asked the girl.
‘There ain’t,’ said Sikes, fixing his eyes upon her, and muttering
the words to himself; ‘there ain’t a stauncher-hearted gal going, or
I’d have cut her throat three months ago. She’s got the fever coming
on; that’s it.’
Fortifying himself with this assurance, Sikes drained the glass
to the bottom, and then, with many grumbling oaths, called for his
physic. The girl jumped up, with great alacrity; poured it quickly
out, but with her back towards him; and held the vessel to his lips,
while he drank off the contents.
‘Now,’ said the robber, ‘come and sit aside of me, and put on your
own face; or I’ll alter it so, that you won’t know it agin when you
do want it.’
The girl obeyed. Sikes, locking her hand in his, fell back upon the
pillow: turning his eyes upon her face. They closed; opened again;
closed once more; again opened. He shifted his position restlessly;
and, after dozing again, and again, for two or three minutes, and as
often springing up with a look of terror, and gazing vacantly about
him, was suddenly stricken, as it were, while in the very attitude
of rising, into a deep and heavy sleep. The grasp of his hand
relaxed; the upraised arm fell languidly by his side; and he lay
like one in a profound trance.
‘The laudanum has taken effect at last,’ murmured the girl, as she
rose from the bedside. ‘I may be too late, even now.’
She hastily dressed herself in her bonnet and shawl: looking
fearfully round, from time to time, as if, despite the sleeping
draught, she expected every moment to feel the pressure of Sikes’s
heavy hand upon her shoulder; then, stooping softly over the bed,
she kissed the robber’s lips; and then opening and closing the
room-door with noiseless touch, hurried from the house.
A watchman was crying half-past nine, down a dark passage through
which she had to pass, in gaining the main thoroughfare.
‘Has it long gone the half-hour?’ asked the girl.
‘It’ll strike the hour in another quarter,’ said the man: raising
his lantern to her face.
‘And I cannot get there in less than an hour or more,’ muttered
Nancy: brushing swiftly past him, and gliding rapidly down the
street.
Many of the shops were already closing in the back lanes and avenues
through which she tracked her way, in making from Spitalfields
towards the West-End of London. The clock struck ten, increasing
her impatience. She tore along the narrow pavement: elbowing the
passengers from side to side; and darting almost under the horses’
heads, crossed crowded streets, where clusters of persons were
eagerly watching their opportunity to do the like.
‘The woman is mad!’ said the people, turning to look after her as
she rushed away.
When she reached the more wealthy quarter of the town, the streets
were comparatively deserted; and here her headlong progress excited
a still greater curiosity in the stragglers whom she hurried past.
Some quickened their pace behind, as though to see whither she was
hastening at such an unusual rate; and a few made head upon her, and
looked back, surprised at her undiminished speed; but they fell off
one by one; and when she neared her place of destination, she was
alone.
It was a family hotel in a quiet but handsome street near Hyde Park.
As the brilliant light of the lamp which burnt before its door,
guided her to the spot, the clock struck eleven. She had loitered
for a few paces as though irresolute, and making up her mind to
advance; but the sound determined her, and she stepped into the
hall. The porter’s seat was vacant. She looked round with an air of
incertitude, and advanced towards the stairs.
‘Now, young woman!’ said a smartly-dressed female, looking out from
a door behind her, ‘who do you want here?’
‘A lady who is stopping in this house,’ answered the girl.
‘A lady!’ was the reply, accompanied with a scornful look. ‘What
lady?’
‘Miss Maylie,’ said Nancy.
The young woman, who had by this time, noted her appearance, replied
only by a look of virtuous disdain; and summoned a man to answer
her. To him, Nancy repeated her request.
‘What name am I to say?’ asked the waiter.
‘It’s of no use saying any,’ replied Nancy.
‘Nor business?’ said the man.
‘No, nor that neither,’ rejoined the girl. ‘I must see the lady.’
‘Come!’ said the man, pushing her towards the door. ‘None of this.
Take yourself off.’
‘I shall be carried out if I go!’ said the girl violently; ‘and I
can make that a job that two of you won’t like to do. Isn’t there
anybody here,’ she said, looking round, ‘that will see a simple
message carried for a poor wretch like me?’
This appeal produced an effect on a good-tempered-faced man-cook,
who with some of the other servants was looking on, and who stepped
forward to interfere.
‘Take it up for her, Joe; can’t you?’ said this person.
‘What’s the good?’ replied the man. ‘You don’t suppose the young
lady will see such as her; do you?’
This allusion to Nancy’s doubtful character, raised a vast quantity
of chaste wrath in the bosoms of four housemaids, who remarked,
with great fervour, that the creature was a disgrace to her sex; and
strongly advocated her being thrown, ruthlessly, into the kennel.
‘Do what you like with me,’ said the girl, turning to the men again;
‘but do what I ask you first, and I ask you to give this message for
God Almighty’s sake.’
The soft-hearted cook added his intercession, and the result was
that the man who had first appeared undertook its delivery.
‘What’s it to be?’ said the man, with one foot on the stairs.
‘That a young woman earnestly asks to speak to Miss Maylie alone,’
said Nancy; ‘and that if the lady will only hear the first word she
has to say, she will know whether to hear her business, or to have
her turned out of doors as an impostor.’
‘I say,’ said the man, ‘you’re coming it strong!’
‘You give the message,’ said the girl firmly; ‘and let me hear the
answer.’
The man ran upstairs. Nancy remained, pale and almost breathless,
listening with quivering lip to the very audible expressions of
scorn, of which the chaste housemaids were very prolific; and of
which they became still more so, when the man returned, and said the
young woman was to walk upstairs.
‘It’s no good being proper in this world,’ said the first housemaid.
‘Brass can do better than the gold what has stood the fire,’ said
the second.
The third contented herself with wondering ‘what ladies was made
of’; and the fourth took the first in a quartette of ‘Shameful!’
with which the Dianas concluded.
Regardless of all this: for she had weightier matters at
heart: Nancy followed the man, with trembling limbs, to a small
ante-chamber, lighted by a lamp from the ceiling. Here he left her,
and retired.