Throws some Light upon Nicholas’s Love; but whether for Good or Evil the Reader must determine
After an anxious consideration of the painful and embarrassing position in which he was placed, Nicholas decided that he ought to lose no time in frankly stating it to the kind brothers. Availing himself of the first opportunity of being alone with Mr. Charles Cheeryble at the close of next day, he accordingly related Smike’s little history, and modestly but firmly expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his father might seem, and would doubtless be represented as, a thing so repulsive and unnatural, as to render those who countenanced him in it, fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence.
‘So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be,’ said Nicholas, ‘that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of affection for him, and surely she can never err.’
‘My dear sir,’ replied brother Charles, ‘you fall into the very common mistake of charging upon Nature, matters with which she has not the smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent’s care, who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow, presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act is to signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of happiness, of consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the only friend he has ever had—which is yourself. If Nature, in such a case, put into that lad’s breast but one secret prompting which urged him towards his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an idiot.’
Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly, and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose, made no reply.
‘The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at every turn,’ said brother Charles. ‘Parents who never showed their love, complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who never showed their duty, complain of want of natural feeling in their parents; law-makers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life’s sun to develop them, are loud in their moralisings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty’s works, but like other beautiful works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. I wish we could be brought to consider this, and remembering natural obligations a little more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one.’
After this, brother Charles, who had talked himself into a great heat, stopped to cool a little, and then continued:
‘I dare say you are surprised, my dear sir, that I have listened to your recital with so little astonishment. That is easily explained. Your uncle has been here this morning.’
Nicholas coloured, and drew back a step or two.
‘Yes,’ said the old gentleman, tapping his desk emphatically, ‘here, in this room. He would listen neither to reason, feeling, nor justice. But brother Ned was hard upon him; brother Ned, sir, might have melted a paving-stone.’
‘He came to—’ said Nicholas.
‘To complain of you,’ returned brother Charles, ‘to poison our ears with calumnies and falsehoods; but he came on a fruitless errand, and went away with some wholesome truths in his ear besides. Brother Ned, my dear Mr. Nickleby—brother Ned, sir, is a perfect lion. So is Tim Linkinwater; Tim is quite a lion. We had Tim in to face him at first, and Tim was at him, sir, before you could say “Jack Robinson.”’
‘How can I ever thank you for all the deep obligations you impose upon me every day?’ said Nicholas.
‘By keeping silence upon the subject, my dear sir,’ returned brother Charles. ‘You shall be righted. At least you shall not be wronged. Nobody belonging to you shall be wronged. They shall not hurt a hair of your head, or the boy’s head, or your mother’s head, or your sister’s head. I have said it, brother Ned has said it, Tim Linkinwater has said it. We have all said it, and we’ll all do it. I have seen the father—if he is the father—and I suppose he must be. He is a barbarian and a hypocrite, Mr. Nickleby. I told him, “You are a barbarian, sir.” I did. I said, “You’re a barbarian, sir.” And I’m glad of it, I amveryglad I told him he was a barbarian, very glad indeed!’
By this time brother Charles was in such a very warm state of indignation, that Nicholas thought he might venture to put in a word, but the moment he essayed to do so, Mr. Cheeryble laid his hand softly upon his arm, and pointed to a chair.
‘The subject is at an end for the present,’ said the old gentleman, wiping his face. ‘Don’t revive it by a single word. I am going to speak upon another subject, a confidential subject, Mr. Nickleby. We must be cool again, we must be cool.’
After two or three turns across the room he resumed his seat, and drawing his chair nearer to that on which Nicholas was seated, said:
‘I am about to employ you, my dear sir, on a confidential and delicate mission.’
‘You might employ many a more able messenger, sir,’ said Nicholas, ‘but a more trustworthy or zealous one, I may be bold to say, you could not find.’
‘Of that I am well assured,’ returned brother Charles, ‘well assured. You will give me credit for thinking so, when I tell you that the object of this mission is a young lady.’
‘A young lady, sir!’ cried Nicholas, quite trembling for the moment with his eagerness to hear more.
‘A very beautiful young lady,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, gravely.
‘Pray go on, sir,’ returned Nicholas.
‘I am thinking how to do so,’ said brother Charles; sadly, as it seemed to his young friend, and with an expression allied to pain. ‘You accidentally saw a young lady in this room one morning, my dear sir, in a fainting fit. Do you remember? Perhaps you have forgotten.’
‘Oh no,’ replied Nicholas, hurriedly. ‘I—I—remember it very well indeed.’
‘Sheis the lady I speak of,’ said brother Charles. Like the famous parrot, Nicholas thought a great deal, but was unable to utter a word.
‘She is the daughter,’ said Mr. Cheeryble, ‘of a lady who, when she was a beautiful girl herself, and I was very many years younger, I—it seems a strange word for me to utter now—I loved very dearly. You will smile, perhaps, to hear a grey-headed man talk about such things. You will not offend me, for when I was as young as you, I dare say I should have done the same.’
‘I have no such inclination, indeed,’ said Nicholas.
‘My dear brother Ned,’ continued Mr. Cheeryble, ‘was to have married her sister, but she died. She is dead too now, and has been for many years. She married her choice; and I wish I could add that her after-life was as happy as God knows I ever prayed it might be!’
A short silence intervened, which Nicholas made no effort to break.
‘If trial and calamity had fallen as lightly on his head, as in the deepest truth of my own heart I ever hoped (for her sake) it would, his life would have been one of peace and happiness,’ said the old gentleman calmly. ‘It will be enough to say that this was not the case; that she was not happy; that they fell into complicated distresses and difficulties; that she came, twelve months before her death, to appeal to my old friendship; sadly changed, sadly altered, broken-spirited from suffering and ill-usage, and almost broken-hearted. He readily availed himself of the money which, to give her but one hour’s peace of mind, I would have poured out as freely as water—nay, he often sent her back for more—and yet even while he squandered it, he made the very success of these, her applications to me, the groundwork of cruel taunts and jeers, protesting that he knew she thought with bitter remorse of the choice she had made, that she had married him from motives of interest and vanity (he was a gay young man with great friends about him when she chose him for her husband), and venting in short upon her, by every unjust and unkind means, the bitterness of that ruin and disappointment which had been brought about by his profligacy alone. In those times this young lady was a mere child. I never saw her again until that morning when you saw her also, but my nephew, Frank—’
Nicholas started, and indistinctly apologising for the interruption, begged his patron to proceed.
‘—My nephew, Frank, I say,’ resumed Mr. Cheeryble, ‘encountered her by accident, and lost sight of her almost in a minute afterwards, within two days after he returned to England. Her father lay in some secret place to avoid his creditors, reduced, between sickness and poverty, to the verge of death, and she, a child,—we might almost think, if we did not know the wisdom of all Heaven’s decrees—who should have blessed a better man, was steadily braving privation, degradation, and everything most terrible to such a young and delicate creature’s heart, for the purpose of supporting him. She was attended, sir,’ said brother Charles, ‘in these reverses, by one faithful creature, who had been, in old times, a poor kitchen wench in the family, who was then their solitary servant, but who might have been, for the truth and fidelity of her heart—who might have been—ah! the wife of Tim Linkinwater himself, sir!’
Pursuing this encomium upon the poor follower with such energy and relish as no words can describe, brother Charles leant back in his chair, and delivered the remainder of his relation with greater composure.
It was in substance this: That proudly resisting all offers of permanent aid and support from her late mother’s friends, because they were made conditional upon her quitting the wretched man, her father, who had no friends left, and shrinking with instinctive delicacy from appealing in their behalf to that true and noble heart which he hated, and had, through its greatest and purest goodness, deeply wronged by misconstruction and ill report, this young girl had struggled alone and unassisted to maintain him by the labour of her hands. That through the utmost depths of poverty and affliction she had toiled, never turning aside for an instant from her task, never wearied by the petulant gloom of a sick man sustained by no consoling recollections of the past or hopes of the future; never repining for the comforts she had rejected, or bewailing the hard lot she had voluntarily incurred. That every little accomplishment she had acquired in happier days had been put into requisition for this purpose, and directed to this one end. That for two long years, toiling by day and often too by night, working at the needle, the pencil, and the pen, and submitting, as a daily governess, to such caprices and indignities as women (with daughters too) too often love to inflict upon their own sex when they serve in such capacities, as though in jealousy of the superior intelligence which they are necessitated to employ,—indignities, in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, heaped upon persons immeasurably and incalculably their betters, but outweighing in comparison any that the most heartless blackleg would put upon his groom—that for two long years, by dint of labouring in all these capacities and wearying in none, she had not succeeded in the sole aim and object of her life, but that, overwhelmed by accumulated difficulties and disappointments, she had been compelled to seek out her mother’s old friend, and, with a bursting heart, to confide in him at last.
‘If I had been poor,’ said brother Charles, with sparkling eyes; ‘if I had been poor, Mr. Nickleby, my dear sir, which thank God I am not, I would have denied myself (of course anybody would under such circumstances) the commonest necessaries of life, to help her. As it is, the task is a difficult one. If her father were dead, nothing could be easier, for then she should share and cheer the happiest home that brother Ned and I could have, as if she were our child or sister. But he is still alive. Nobody can help him; that has been tried a thousand times; he was not abandoned by all without good cause, I know.’
‘Cannot she be persuaded to—’ Nicholas hesitated when he had got thus far.
‘To leave him?’ said brother Charles. ‘Who could entreat a child to desert her parent? Such entreaties, limited to her seeing him occasionally, have been urged upon her—not by me—but always with the same result.’
‘Is he kind to her?’ said Nicholas. ‘Does he requite her affection?’
‘True kindness, considerate self-denying kindness, is not in his nature,’ returned Mr. Cheeryble. ‘Such kindness as he knows, he regards her with, I believe. The mother was a gentle, loving, confiding creature, and although he wounded her from their marriage till her death as cruelly and wantonly as ever man did, she never ceased to love him. She commended him on her death-bed to her child’s care. Her child has never forgotten it, and never will.’
‘Have you no influence over him?’ asked Nicholas.
‘I, my dear sir! The last man in the world. Such are his jealousy and hatred of me, that if he knew his daughter had opened her heart to me, he would render her life miserable with his reproaches; although—this is the inconsistency and selfishness of his character—although if he knew that every penny she had came from me, he would not relinquish one personal desire that the most reckless expenditure of her scanty stock could gratify.’
‘An unnatural scoundrel!’ said Nicholas, indignantly.
‘We will use no harsh terms,’ said brother Charles, in a gentle voice; ‘but accommodate ourselves to the circumstances in which this young lady is placed. Such assistance as I have prevailed upon her to accept, I have been obliged, at her own earnest request, to dole out in the smallest portions, lest he, finding how easily money was procured, should squander it even more lightly than he is accustomed to do. She has come to and fro, to and fro, secretly and by night, to take even this; and I cannot bear that things should go on in this way, Mr. Nickleby, I really cannot bear it.’
Then it came out by little and little, how that the twins had been revolving in their good old heads manifold plans and schemes for helping this young lady in the most delicate and considerate way, and so that her father should not suspect the source whence the aid was derived; and how they had at last come to the conclusion, that the best course would be to make a feint of purchasing her little drawings and ornamental work at a high price, and keeping up a constant demand for the same. For the furtherance of which end and object it was necessary that somebody should represent the dealer in such commodities, and after great deliberation they had pitched upon Nicholas to support this character.
‘He knows me,’ said brother Charles, ‘and he knows my brother Ned. Neither of us would do. Frank is a very good fellow—a very fine fellow—but we are afraid that he might be a little flighty and thoughtless in such a delicate matter, and that he might, perhaps—that he might, in short, be too susceptible (for she is a beautiful creature, sir; just what her poor mother was), and falling in love with her before he knew well his own mind, carry pain and sorrow into that innocent breast, which we would be the humble instruments of gradually making happy. He took an extraordinary interest in her fortunes when he first happened to encounter her; and we gather from the inquiries we have made of him, that it was she in whose behalf he made that turmoil which led to your first acquaintance.’
Nicholas stammered out that he had before suspected the possibility of such a thing; and in explanation of its having occurred to him, described when and where he had seen the young lady himself.
‘Well; then you see,’ continued brother Charles, ‘thathewouldn’t do. Tim Linkinwater is out of the question; for Tim, sir, is such a tremendous fellow, that he could never contain himself, but would go to loggerheads with the father before he had been in the place five minutes. You don’t know what Tim is, sir, when he is aroused by anything that appeals to his feelings very strongly; then he is terrific, sir, is Tim Linkinwater, absolutely terrific. Now, in you we can repose the strictest confidence; in you we have seen—or at least I have seen, and that’s the same thing, for there’s no difference between me and my brother Ned, except that he is the finest creature that ever lived, and that there is not, and never will be, anybody like him in all the world—in you we have seen domestic virtues and affections, and delicacy of feeling, which exactly qualify you for such an office. And you are the man, sir.’
‘The young lady, sir,’ said Nicholas, who felt so embarrassed that he had no small difficulty in saying anything at all—‘Does—is—is she a party to this innocent deceit?’
‘Yes, yes,’ returned Mr. Cheeryble; ‘at least she knows you come from us; she doesnotknow, however, but that we shall dispose of these little productions that you’ll purchase from time to time; and, perhaps, if you did it very well (that is,verywell indeed), perhaps she might be brought to believe that we—that we made a profit of them. Eh? Eh?’
In this guileless and most kind simplicity, brother Charles was so happy, and in this possibility of the young lady being led to think that she was under no obligation to him, he evidently felt so sanguine and had so much delight, that Nicholas would not breathe a doubt upon the subject.
All this time, however, there hovered upon the tip of his tongue a confession that the very same objections which Mr. Cheeryble had stated to the employment of his nephew in this commission applied with at least equal force and validity to himself, and a hundred times had he been upon the point of avowing the real state of his feelings, and entreating to be released from it. But as often, treading upon the heels of this impulse, came another which urged him to refrain, and to keep his secret to his own breast. ‘Why should I,’ thought Nicholas, ‘why should I throw difficulties in the way of this benevolent and high-minded design? What if I do love and reverence this good and lovely creature. Should I not appear a most arrogant and shallow coxcomb if I gravely represented that there was any danger of her falling in love with me? Besides, have I no confidence in myself? Am I not now bound in honour to repress these thoughts? Has not this excellent man a right to my best and heartiest services, and should any considerations of self deter me from rendering them?’
Asking himself such questions as these, Nicholas mentally answered with great emphasis ‘No!’ and persuading himself that he was a most conscientious and glorious martyr, nobly resolved to do what, if he had examined his own heart a little more carefully, he would have found he could not resist. Such is the sleight of hand by which we juggle with ourselves, and change our very weaknesses into stanch and most magnanimous virtues!
Mr. Cheeryble, being of course wholly unsuspicious that such reflections were presenting themselves to his young friend, proceeded to give him the needful credentials and directions for his first visit, which was to be made next morning; and all preliminaries being arranged, and the strictest secrecy enjoined, Nicholas walked home for the night very thoughtfully indeed.
The place to which Mr. Cheeryble had directed him was a row of mean and not over-cleanly houses, situated within ‘the Rules’ of the King’s Bench Prison, and not many hundred paces distant from the obelisk in St George’s Fields. The Rules are a certain liberty adjoining the prison, and comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who can raise money to pay large fees, from which their creditors donotderive any benefit, are permitted to reside by the wise provisions of the same enlightened laws which leave the debtor who can raise no money to starve in jail, without the food, clothing, lodging, or warmth, which are provided for felons convicted of the most atrocious crimes that can disgrace humanity. There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.
To the row of houses indicated to him by Mr. Charles Cheeryble, Nicholas directed his steps, without much troubling his head with such matters as these; and at this row of houses—after traversing a very dirty and dusty suburb, of which minor theatricals, shell-fish, ginger-beer, spring vans, greengrocery, and brokers’ shops, appeared to compose the main and most prominent features—he at length arrived with a palpitating heart. There were small gardens in front which, being wholly neglected in all other respects, served as little pens for the dust to collect in, until the wind came round the corner and blew it down the road. Opening the rickety gate which, dangling on its broken hinges before one of these, half admitted and half repulsed the visitor, Nicholas knocked at the street door with a faltering hand.
It was in truth a shabby house outside, with very dim parlour windows and very small show of blinds, and very dirty muslin curtains dangling across the lower panes on very loose and limp strings. Neither, when the door was opened, did the inside appear to belie the outward promise, as there was faded carpeting on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage; in addition to which discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking hard in the front parlour (though it was not yet noon), while the lady of the house was busily engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at the door of the back parlour, as if in preparation for the reception of some new lodger who had been fortunate enough to engage it.
Nicholas had ample time to make these observations while the little boy, who went on errands for the lodgers, clattered down the kitchen stairs and was heard to scream, as in some remote cellar, for Miss Bray’s servant, who, presently appearing and requesting him to follow her, caused him to evince greater symptoms of nervousness and disorder than so natural a consequence of his having inquired for that young lady would seem calculated to occasion.
Upstairs he went, however, and into a front room he was shown, and there, seated at a little table by the window, on which were drawing materials with which she was occupied, sat the beautiful girl who had so engrossed his thoughts, and who, surrounded by all the new and strong interest which Nicholas attached to her story, seemed now, in his eyes, a thousand times more beautiful than he had ever yet supposed her.
But how the graces and elegancies which she had dispersed about the poorly-furnished room went to the heart of Nicholas! Flowers, plants, birds, the harp, the old piano whose notes had sounded so much sweeter in bygone times; how many struggles had it cost her to keep these two last links of that broken chain which bound her yet to home! With every slender ornament, the occupation of her leisure hours, replete with that graceful charm which lingers in every little tasteful work of woman’s hands, how much patient endurance and how many gentle affections were entwined! He felt as though the smile of Heaven were on the little chamber; as though the beautiful devotion of so young and weak a creature had shed a ray of its own on the inanimate things around, and made them beautiful as itself; as though the halo with which old painters surround the bright angels of a sinless world played about a being akin in spirit to them, and its light were visibly before him.
And yet Nicholas was in the Rules of the King’s Bench Prison! If he had been in Italy indeed, and the time had been sunset, and the scene a stately terrace! But, there is one broad sky over all the world, and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond it; so, perhaps, he had no need of compunction for thinking as he did.
It is not to be supposed that he took in everything at one glance, for he had as yet been unconscious of the presence of a sick man propped up with pillows in an easy-chair, who, moving restlessly and impatiently in his seat, attracted his attention.
He was scarce fifty, perhaps, but so emaciated as to appear much older. His features presented the remains of a handsome countenance, but one in which the embers of strong and impetuous passions were easier to be traced than any expression which would have rendered a far plainer face much more prepossessing. His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone, but there was something of the old fire in the large sunken eye notwithstanding, and it seemed to kindle afresh as he struck a thick stick, with which he seemed to have supported himself in his seat, impatiently on the floor twice or thrice, and called his daughter by her name.
‘Madeline, who is this? What does anybody want here? Who told a stranger we could be seen? What is it?’
0624m
‘I believe—’ the young lady began, as she inclined her head with an air of some confusion, in reply to the salutation of Nicholas.
‘You always believe,’ returned her father, petulantly. ‘What is it?’
By this time Nicholas had recovered sufficient presence of mind to speak for himself, so he said (as it had been agreed he should say) that he had called about a pair of hand-screens, and some painted velvet for an ottoman, both of which were required to be of the most elegant design possible, neither time nor expense being of the smallest consideration. He had also to pay for the two drawings, with many thanks, and, advancing to the little table, he laid upon it a bank note, folded in an envelope and sealed.
‘See that the money is right, Madeline,’ said the father. ‘Open the paper, my dear.’
‘It’s quite right, papa, I’m sure.’
‘Here!’ said Mr. Bray, putting out his hand, and opening and shutting his bony fingers with irritable impatience. ‘Let me see. What are you talking about, Madeline? You’re sure? How can you be sure of any such thing? Five pounds—well, isthatright?’
‘Quite,’ said Madeline, bending over him. She was so busily employed in arranging the pillows that Nicholas could not see her face, but as she stooped he thought he saw a tear fall.
‘Ring the bell, ring the bell,’ said the sick man, with the same nervous eagerness, and motioning towards it with such a quivering hand that the bank note rustled in the air. ‘Tell her to get it changed, to get me a newspaper, to buy me some grapes, another bottle of the wine that I had last week—and—and—I forget half I want just now, but she can go out again. Let her get those first, those first. Now, Madeline, my love, quick, quick! Good God, how slow you are!’
‘He remembers nothing that she wants!’ thought Nicholas. Perhaps something of what he thought was expressed in his countenance, for the sick man, turning towards him with great asperity, demanded to know if he waited for a receipt.
‘It is no matter at all,’ said Nicholas.
‘No matter! what do you mean, sir?’ was the tart rejoinder. ‘No matter! Do you think you bring your paltry money here as a favour or a gift; or as a matter of business, and in return for value received? D—n you, sir, because you can’t appreciate the time and taste which are bestowed upon the goods you deal in, do you think you give your money away? Do you know that you are talking to a gentleman, sir, who at one time could have bought up fifty such men as you and all you have? What do you mean?’
‘I merely mean that as I shall have many dealings with this lady, if she will kindly allow me, I will not trouble her with such forms,’ said Nicholas.
‘Then I mean, if you please, that we’ll have as many forms as we can, returned the father. ‘My daughter, sir, requires no kindness from you or anybody else. Have the goodness to confine your dealings strictly to trade and business, and not to travel beyond it. Every petty tradesman is to begin to pity her now, is he? Upon my soul! Very pretty. Madeline, my dear, give him a receipt; and mind you always do so.’
While she was feigning to write it, and Nicholas was ruminating upon the extraordinary but by no means uncommon character thus presented to his observation, the invalid, who appeared at times to suffer great bodily pain, sank back in his chair and moaned out a feeble complaint that the girl had been gone an hour, and that everybody conspired to goad him.
‘When,’ said Nicholas, as he took the piece of paper, ‘when shall I call again?’
This was addressed to the daughter, but the father answered immediately.
‘When you’re requested to call, sir, and not before. Don’t worry and persecute. Madeline, my dear, when is this person to call again?’
‘Oh, not for a long time, not for three or four weeks; it is not necessary, indeed; I can do without,’ said the young lady, with great eagerness.
‘Why, how are we to do without?’ urged her father, not speaking above his breath. ‘Three or four weeks, Madeline! Three or four weeks!’
‘Then sooner, sooner, if you please,’ said the young lady, turning to Nicholas.
‘Three or four weeks!’ muttered the father. ‘Madeline, what on earth—do nothing for three or four weeks!’
‘It is a long time, ma’am,’ said Nicholas.
‘Youthink so, do you?’ retorted the father, angrily. ‘If I chose to beg, sir, and stoop to ask assistance from people I despise, three or four months would not be a long time; three or four years would not be a long time. Understand, sir, that is if I chose to be dependent; but as I don’t, you may call in a week.’
Nicholas bowed low to the young lady and retired, pondering upon Mr. Bray’s ideas of independence, and devoutly hoping that there might be few such independent spirits as he mingling with the baser clay of humanity.
He heard a light footstep above him as he descended the stairs, and looking round saw that the young lady was standing there, and glancing timidly towards him, seemed to hesitate whether she should call him back or no. The best way of settling the question was to turn back at once, which Nicholas did.
‘I don’t know whether I do right in asking you, sir,’ said Madeline, hurriedly, ‘but pray, pray, do not mention to my poor mother’s dear friends what has passed here today. He has suffered much, and is worse this morning. I beg you, sir, as a boon, a favour to myself.’
‘You have but to hint a wish,’ returned Nicholas fervently, ‘and I would hazard my life to gratify it.’
‘You speak hastily, sir.’
‘Truly and sincerely,’ rejoined Nicholas, his lips trembling as he formed the words, ‘if ever man spoke truly yet. I am not skilled in disguising my feelings, and if I were, I could not hide my heart from you. Dear madam, as I know your history, and feel as men and angels must who hear and see such things, I do entreat you to believe that I would die to serve you.’
The young lady turned away her head, and was plainly weeping.
‘Forgive me,’ said Nicholas, with respectful earnestness, ‘if I seem to say too much, or to presume upon the confidence which has been intrusted to me. But I could not leave you as if my interest and sympathy expired with the commission of the day. I am your faithful servant, humbly devoted to you from this hour, devoted in strict truth and honour to him who sent me here, and in pure integrity of heart, and distant respect for you. If I meant more or less than this, I should be unworthy his regard, and false to the very nature that prompts the honest words I utter.’
She waved her hand, entreating him to be gone, but answered not a word. Nicholas could say no more, and silently withdrew. And thus ended his first interview with Madeline Bray.
Mr. Ralph Nickleby has some confidential Intercourse with another old Friend. They concert between them a Project, which promises well for both
‘There go the three-quarters past!’ muttered Newman Noggs, listening to the chimes of some neighbouring church ‘and my dinner time’s two. He does it on purpose. He makes a point of it. It’s just like him.’
It was in his own little den of an office and on the top of his official stool that Newman thus soliloquised; and the soliloquy referred, as Newman’s grumbling soliloquies usually did, to Ralph Nickleby.
‘I don’t believe he ever had an appetite,’ said Newman, ‘except for pounds, shillings, and pence, and with them he’s as greedy as a wolf. I should like to have him compelled to swallow one of every English coin. The penny would be an awkward morsel—but the crown—ha! ha!’
His good-humour being in some degree restored by the vision of Ralph Nickleby swallowing, perforce, a five-shilling piece, Newman slowly brought forth from his desk one of those portable bottles, currently known as pocket-pistols, and shaking the same close to his ear so as to produce a rippling sound very cool and pleasant to listen to, suffered his features to relax, and took a gurgling drink, which relaxed them still more. Replacing the cork, he smacked his lips twice or thrice with an air of great relish, and, the taste of the liquor having by this time evaporated, recurred to his grievance again.
‘Five minutes to three,’ growled Newman; ‘it can’t want more by this time; and I had my breakfast at eight o’clock, andsucha breakfast! and my right dinner-time two! And I might have a nice little bit of hot roast meat spoiling at home all this time—how doesheknow I haven’t? “Don’t go till I come back,” “Don’t go till I come back,” day after day. What do you always go out at my dinner-time for then—eh? Don’t you know it’s nothing but aggravation—eh?’
These words, though uttered in a very loud key, were addressed to nothing but empty air. The recital of his wrongs, however, seemed to have the effect of making Newman Noggs desperate; for he flattened his old hat upon his head, and drawing on the everlasting gloves, declared with great vehemence, that come what might, he would go to dinner that very minute.
Carrying this resolution into instant effect, he had advanced as far as the passage, when the sound of the latch-key in the street door caused him to make a precipitate retreat into his own office again.
‘Here he is,’ growled Newman, ‘and somebody with him. Now it’ll be “Stop till this gentleman’s gone.” But I won’t. That’s flat.’
So saying, Newman slipped into a tall empty closet which opened with two half doors, and shut himself up; intending to slip out directly Ralph was safe inside his own room.
‘Noggs!’ cried Ralph, ‘where is that fellow, Noggs?’
But not a word said Newman.
‘The dog has gone to his dinner, though I told him not,’ muttered Ralph, looking into the office, and pulling out his watch. ‘Humph!’ You had better come in here, Gride. My man’s out, and the sun is hot upon my room. This is cool and in the shade, if you don’t mind roughing it.’
‘Not at all, Mr. Nickleby, oh not at all! All places are alike to me, sir. Ah! very nice indeed. Oh! very nice!’
The parson who made this reply was a little old man, of about seventy or seventy-five years of age, of a very lean figure, much bent and slightly twisted. He wore a grey coat with a very narrow collar, an old-fashioned waistcoat of ribbed black silk, and such scanty trousers as displayed his shrunken spindle-shanks in their full ugliness. The only articles of display or ornament in his dress were a steel watch-chain to which were attached some large gold seals; and a black ribbon into which, in compliance with an old fashion scarcely ever observed in these days, his grey hair was gathered behind. His nose and chin were sharp and prominent, his jaws had fallen inwards from loss of teeth, his face was shrivelled and yellow, save where the cheeks were streaked with the colour of a dry winter apple; and where his beard had been, there lingered yet a few grey tufts which seemed, like the ragged eyebrows, to denote the badness of the soil from which they sprung. The whole air and attitude of the form was one of stealthy cat-like obsequiousness; the whole expression of the face was concentrated in a wrinkled leer, compounded of cunning, lecherousness, slyness, and avarice.
Such was old Arthur Gride, in whose face there was not a wrinkle, in whose dress there was not one spare fold or plait, but expressed the most covetous and griping penury, and sufficiently indicated his belonging to that class of which Ralph Nickleby was a member. Such was old Arthur Gride, as he sat in a low chair looking up into the face of Ralph Nickleby, who, lounging upon the tall office stool, with his arms upon his knees, looked down into his; a match for him on whatever errand he had come.
‘And how have you been?’ said Gride, feigning great interest in Ralph’s state of health. ‘I haven’t seen you for—oh! not for—’
‘Not for a long time,’ said Ralph, with a peculiar smile, importing that he very well knew it was not on a mere visit of compliment that his friend had come. ‘It was a narrow chance that you saw me now, for I had only just come up to the door as you turned the corner.’
‘I am very lucky,’ observed Gride.
‘So men say,’ replied Ralph, drily.
The older money-lender wagged his chin and smiled, but he originated no new remark, and they sat for some little time without speaking. Each was looking out to take the other at a disadvantage.
‘Come, Gride,’ said Ralph, at length; ‘what’s in the wind today?’
‘Aha! you’re a bold man, Mr. Nickleby,’ cried the other, apparently very much relieved by Ralph’s leading the way to business. ‘Oh dear, dear, what a bold man you are!’
‘Why, you have a sleek and slinking way with you that makes me seem so by contrast,’ returned Ralph. ‘I don’t know but that yours may answer better, but I want the patience for it.’
‘You were born a genius, Mr. Nickleby,’ said old Arthur. ‘Deep, deep, deep. Ah!’
‘Deep enough,’ retorted Ralph, ‘to know that I shall need all the depth I have, when men like you begin to compliment. You know I have stood by when you fawned and flattered other people, and I remember pretty well whatthatalways led to.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ rejoined Arthur, rubbing his hands. ‘So you do, so you do, no doubt. Not a man knows it better. Well, it’s a pleasant thing now to think that you remember old times. Oh dear!’
‘Now then,’ said Ralph, composedly; ‘what’s in the wind, I ask again? What is it?’
0631m
‘See that now!’ cried the other. ‘He can’t even keep from business while we’re chatting over bygones. Oh dear, dear, what a man it is!’
‘Whichof the bygones do you want to revive?’ said Ralph. ‘One of them, I know, or you wouldn’t talk about them.’
‘He suspects even me!’ cried old Arthur, holding up his hands. ‘Even me! Oh dear, even me. What a man it is! Ha, ha, ha! What a man it is! Mr Nickleby against all the world. There’s nobody like him. A giant among pigmies, a giant, a giant!’
Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckled on in this strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heart sink within him as the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter.
‘I must humour him though,’ cried old Arthur; ‘he must have his way—a wilful man, as the Scotch say—well, well, they’re a wise people, the Scotch. He will talk about business, and won’t give away his time for nothing. He’s very right. Time is money, time is money.’
‘He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,’ said Ralph. ‘Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon interest by it. Timeismoney! Yes, and time costs money; it’s rather an expensive article to some people we could name, or I forget my trade.’
In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, again chuckled, and again ejaculated ‘What a man it is!’ which done, he dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph’s high stool, and looking upwards into his immovable face, said,
‘What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was—that I was—going to be married?’
‘I should tell you,’ replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him, ‘that for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last; that I wasn’t surprised and wasn’t to be taken in.’
‘Then I tell you seriously that I am,’ said old Arthur.
‘And I tell you seriously,’ rejoined Ralph, ‘what I told you this minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There’s a liquorish devilry in your face. What is this?’
‘I wouldn’t deceiveyou, you know,’ whined Arthur Gride; ‘I couldn’t do it, I should be mad to try. I, I, to deceive Mr. Nickleby! The pigmy to impose upon the giant. I ask again—he, he, he!—what should you say to me if I was to tell you that I was going to be married?’
‘To some old hag?’ said Ralph.
‘No, No,’ cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his hands in an ecstasy. ‘Wrong, wrong again. Mr. Nickleby for once at fault; out, quite out! To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely, bewitching, and not nineteen. Dark eyes, long eyelashes, ripe and ruddy lips that to look at is to long to kiss, beautiful clustering hair that one’s fingers itch to play with, such a waist as might make a man clasp the air involuntarily, thinking of twining his arm about it, little feet that tread so lightly they hardly seem to walk upon the ground—to marry all this, sir, this—hey, hey!’
‘This is something more than common drivelling,’ said Ralph, after listening with a curled lip to the old sinner’s raptures. ‘The girl’s name?’
‘Oh deep, deep! See now how deep that is!’ exclaimed old Arthur. ‘He knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, he knows it must all turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already. Her name—is there nobody within hearing?’
‘Why, who the devil should there be?’ retorted Ralph, testily.
‘I didn’t know but that perhaps somebody might be passing up or down the stairs,’ said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the door and carefully reclosing it; ‘or but that your man might have come back and might have been listening outside. Clerks and servants have a trick of listening, and I should have been very uncomfortable if Mr. Noggs—’
‘Curse Mr. Noggs,’ said Ralph, sharply, ‘and go on with what you have to say.’
‘Curse Mr. Noggs, by all means,’ rejoined old Arthur; ‘I am sure I have not the least objection to that. Her name is—’
‘Well,’ said Ralph, rendered very irritable by old Arthur’s pausing again ‘what is it?’
‘Madeline Bray.’
Whatever reasons there might have been—and Arthur Gride appeared to have anticipated some—for the mention of this name producing an effect upon Ralph, or whatever effect it really did produce upon him, he permitted none to manifest itself, but calmly repeated the name several times, as if reflecting when and where he had heard it before.
‘Bray,’ said Ralph. ‘Bray—there was young Bray of—no, he never had a daughter.’
‘You remember Bray?’ rejoined Arthur Gride.
‘No,’ said Ralph, looking vacantly at him.
‘Not Walter Bray! The dashing man, who used his handsome wife so ill?’
‘If you seek to recall any particular dashing man to my recollection by such a trait as that,’ said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I shall confound him with nine-tenths of the dashing men I have ever known.’
‘Tut, tut. That Bray who is now in the Rules of the Bench,’ said old Arthur. ‘You can’t have forgotten Bray. Both of us did business with him. Why, he owes you money!’
‘Ohhim!’ rejoined Ralph. ‘Ay, ay. Now you speak. Oh! It’shisdaughter, is it?’
Naturally as this was said, it was not said so naturally but that a kindred spirit like old Arthur Gride might have discerned a design upon the part of Ralph to lead him on to much more explicit statements and explanations than he would have volunteered, or that Ralph could in all likelihood have obtained by any other means. Old Arthur, however, was so intent upon his own designs, that he suffered himself to be overreached, and had no suspicion but that his good friend was in earnest.
‘I knew you couldn’t forget him, when you came to think for a moment,’ he said.
‘You were right,’ answered Ralph. ‘But old Arthur Gride and matrimony is a most anomalous conjunction of words; old Arthur Gride and dark eyes and eyelashes, and lips that to look at is to long to kiss, and clustering hair that he wants to play with, and waists that he wants to span, and little feet that don’t tread upon anything—old Arthur Gride and such things as these is more monstrous still; but old Arthur Gride marrying the daughter of a ruined “dashing man” in the Rules of the Bench, is the most monstrous and incredible of all. Plainly, friend Arthur Gride, if you want any help from me in this business (which of course you do, or you would not be here), speak out, and to the purpose. And, above all, don’t talk to me of its turning to my advantage, for I know it must turn to yours also, and to a good round tune too, or you would have no finger in such a pie as this.’
There was enough acerbity and sarcasm not only in the matter of Ralph’s speech, but in the tone of voice in which he uttered it, and the looks with which he eked it out, to have fired even the ancient usurer’s cold blood and flushed even his withered cheek. But he gave vent to no demonstration of anger, contenting himself with exclaiming as before, ‘What a man it is!’ and rolling his head from side to side, as if in unrestrained enjoyment of his freedom and drollery. Clearly observing, however, from the expression in Ralph’s features, that he had best come to the point as speedily as might be, he composed himself for more serious business, and entered upon the pith and marrow of his negotiation.
First, he dwelt upon the fact that Madeline Bray was devoted to the support and maintenance, and was a slave to every wish, of her only parent, who had no other friend on earth; to which Ralph rejoined that he had heard something of the kind before, and that if she had known a little more of the world, she wouldn’t have been such a fool.
Secondly, he enlarged upon the character of her father, arguing, that even taking it for granted that he loved her in return with the utmost affection of which he was capable, yet he loved himself a great deal better; which Ralph said it was quite unnecessary to say anything more about, as that was very natural, and probable enough.
And, thirdly, old Arthur premised that the girl was a delicate and beautiful creature, and that he had really a hankering to have her for his wife. To this Ralph deigned no other rejoinder than a harsh smile, and a glance at the shrivelled old creature before him, which were, however, sufficiently expressive.
‘Now,’ said Gride, ‘for the little plan I have in my mind to bring this about; because, I haven’t offered myself even to the father yet, I should have told you. But that you have gathered already? Ah! oh dear, oh dear, what an edged tool you are!’
‘Don’t play with me then,’ said Ralph impatiently. ‘You know the proverb.’
‘A reply always on the tip of his tongue!’ cried old Arthur, raising his hands and eyes in admiration. ‘He is always prepared! Oh dear, what a blessing to have such a ready wit, and so much ready money to back it!’ Then, suddenly changing his tone, he went on: ‘I have been backwards and forwards to Bray’s lodgings several times within the last six months. It is just half a year since I first saw this delicate morsel, and, oh dear, what a delicate morsel it is! But that is neither here nor there. I am his detaining creditor for seventeen hundred pounds!’
‘You talk as if you were the only detaining creditor,’ said Ralph, pulling out his pocket-book. ‘I am another for nine hundred and seventy-five pounds four and threepence.’
‘The only other, Mr. Nickleby,’ said old Arthur, eagerly. ‘The only other. Nobody else went to the expense of lodging a detainer, trusting to our holding him fast enough, I warrant you. We both fell into the same snare; oh dear, what a pitfall it was; it almost ruined me! And lent him our money upon bills, with only one name besides his own, which to be sure everybody supposed to be a good one, and was as negotiable as money, but which turned out you know how. Just as we should have come upon him, he died insolvent. Ah! it went very nigh to ruin me, that loss did!’
‘Go on with your scheme,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s of no use raising the cry of our trade just now; there’s nobody to hear us!’
‘It’s always as well to talk that way,’ returned old Arthur, with a chuckle, ‘whether there’s anybody to hear us or not. Practice makes perfect, you know. Now, if I offer myself to Bray as his son-in-law, upon one simple condition that the moment I am fast married he shall be quietly released, and have an allowance to live just t’other side the water like a gentleman (he can’t live long, for I have asked his doctor, and he declares that his complaint is one of the Heart and it is impossible), and if all the advantages of this condition are properly stated and dwelt upon to him, do you think he could resist me? And if he could not resistme, do you think his daughter could resisthim? Shouldn’t I have her Mrs. Arthur Gride—pretty Mrs. Arthur Gride—a tit-bit—a dainty chick—shouldn’t I have her Mrs. Arthur Gride in a week, a month, a day—any time I chose to name?’
‘Go on,’ said Ralph, nodding his head deliberately, and speaking in a tone whose studied coldness presented a strange contrast to the rapturous squeak to which his friend had gradually mounted. ‘Go on. You didn’t come here to ask me that.’
‘Oh dear, how you talk!’ cried old Arthur, edging himself closer still to Ralph. ‘Of course I didn’t, I don’t pretend I did! I came to ask what you would take from me, if I prospered with the father, for this debt of yours. Five shillings in the pound, six and-eightpence, ten shillings? Iwouldgo as far as ten for such a friend as you, we have always been on such good terms, but you won’t be so hard upon me as that, I know. Now, will you?’
‘There’s something more to be told,’ said Ralph, as stony and immovable as ever.
‘Yes, yes, there is, but you won’t give me time,’ returned Arthur Gride. ‘I want a backer in this matter; one who can talk, and urge, and press a point, which you can do as no man can. I can’t do that, for I am a poor, timid, nervous creature. Now, if you get a good composition for this debt, which you long ago gave up for lost, you’ll stand my friend, and help me. Won’t you?’
‘There’s something more,’ said Ralph.
‘No, no, indeed,’ cried Arthur Gride.
‘Yes, yes, indeed. I tell you yes,’ said Ralph.
‘Oh!’ returned old Arthur feigning to be suddenly enlightened. ‘You mean something more, as concerns myself and my intention. Ay, surely, surely. Shall I mention that?’
‘I think you had better,’ rejoined Ralph, drily.
‘I didn’t like to trouble you with that, because I supposed your interest would cease with your own concern in the affair,’ said Arthur Gride. ‘That’s kind of you to ask. Oh dear, how very kind of you! Why, supposing I had a knowledge of some property—some little property—very little—to which this pretty chick was entitled; which nobody does or can know of at this time, but which her husband could sweep into his pouch, if he knew as much as I do, would that account for—’
‘For the whole proceeding,’ rejoined Ralph, abruptly. ‘Now, let me turn this matter over, and consider what I ought to have if I should help you to success.’
‘But don’t be hard,’ cried old Arthur, raising his hands with an imploring gesture, and speaking, in a tremulous voice. ‘Don’t be too hard upon me. It’s a very small property, it is indeed. Say the ten shillings, and we’ll close the bargain. It’s more than I ought to give, but you’re so kind—shall we say the ten? Do now, do.’
Ralph took no notice of these supplications, but sat for three or four minutes in a brown study, looking thoughtfully at the person from whom they proceeded. After sufficient cogitation he broke silence, and it certainly could not be objected that he used any needless circumlocution, or failed to speak directly to the purpose.
‘If you married this girl without me,’ said Ralph, ‘you must pay my debt in full, because you couldn’t set her father free otherwise. It’s plain, then, that I must have the whole amount, clear of all deduction or incumbrance, or I should lose from being honoured with your confidence, instead of gaining by it. That’s the first article of the treaty. For the second, I shall stipulate that for my trouble in negotiation and persuasion, and helping you to this fortune, I have five hundred pounds. That’s very little, because you have the ripe lips, and the clustering hair, and what not, all to yourself. For the third and last article, I require that you execute a bond to me, this day, binding yourself in the payment of these two sums, before noon of the day of your marriage with Madeline Bray. You have told me I can urge and press a point. I press this one, and will take nothing less than these terms. Accept them if you like. If not, marry her without me if you can. I shall still get my debt.’
To all entreaties, protestations, and offers of compromise between his own proposals and those which Arthur Gride had first suggested, Ralph was deaf as an adder. He would enter into no further discussion of the subject, and while old Arthur dilated upon the enormity of his demands and proposed modifications of them, approaching by degrees nearer and nearer to the terms he resisted, sat perfectly mute, looking with an air of quiet abstraction over the entries and papers in his pocket-book. Finding that it was impossible to make any impression upon his staunch friend, Arthur Gride, who had prepared himself for some such result before he came, consented with a heavy heart to the proposed treaty, and upon the spot filled up the bond required (Ralph kept such instruments handy), after exacting the condition that Mr. Nickleby should accompany him to Bray’s lodgings that very hour, and open the negotiation at once, should circumstances appear auspicious and favourable to their designs.
In pursuance of this last understanding the worthy gentlemen went out together shortly afterwards, and Newman Noggs emerged, bottle in hand, from the cupboard, out of the upper door of which, at the imminent risk of detection, he had more than once thrust his red nose when such parts of the subject were under discussion as interested him most.
‘I have no appetite now,’ said Newman, putting the flask in his pocket. ‘I’ve hadmydinner.’
Having delivered this observation in a very grievous and doleful tone, Newman reached the door in one long limp, and came back again in another.
‘I don’t know who she may be, or what she may be,’ he said: ‘but I pity her with all my heart and soul; and I can’t help her, nor can I any of the people against whom a hundred tricks, but none so vile as this, are plotted every day! Well, that adds to my pain, but not to theirs. The thing is no worse because I know it, and it tortures me as well as them. Gride and Nickleby! Good pair for a curricle. Oh roguery! roguery! roguery!’
With these reflections, and a very hard knock on the crown of his unfortunate hat at each repetition of the last word, Newman Noggs, whose brain was a little muddled by so much of the contents of the pocket-pistol as had found their way there during his recent concealment, went forth to seek such consolation as might be derivable from the beef and greens of some cheap eating-house.
Meanwhile the two plotters had betaken themselves to the same house whither Nicholas had repaired for the first time but a few mornings before, and having obtained access to Mr. Bray, and found his daughter from home, had by a train of the most masterly approaches that Ralph’s utmost skill could frame, at length laid open the real object of their visit.
‘There he sits, Mr. Bray,’ said Ralph, as the invalid, not yet recovered from his surprise, reclined in his chair, looking alternately at him and Arthur Gride. ‘What if he has had the ill-fortune to be one cause of your detention in this place? I have been another; men must live; you are too much a man of the world not to see that in its true light. We offer the best reparation in our power. Reparation! Here is an offer of marriage, that many a titled father would leap at, for his child. Mr. Arthur Gride, with the fortune of a prince. Think what a haul it is!’
‘My daughter, sir,’ returned Bray, haughtily, ‘as I have brought her up, would be a rich recompense for the largest fortune that a man could bestow in exchange for her hand.’
‘Precisely what I told you,’ said the artful Ralph, turning to his friend, old Arthur. ‘Precisely what made me consider the thing so fair and easy. There is no obligation on either side. You have money, and Miss Madeline has beauty and worth. She has youth, you have money. She has not money, you have not youth. Tit for tat, quits, a match of Heaven’s own making!’
‘Matches are made in Heaven, they say,’ added Arthur Gride, leering hideously at the father-in-law he wanted. ‘If we are married, it will be destiny, according to that.’
‘Then think, Mr. Bray,’ said Ralph, hastily substituting for this argument considerations more nearly allied to earth, ‘think what a stake is involved in the acceptance or rejection of these proposals of my friend.’
‘How can I accept or reject,’ interrupted Mr. Bray, with an irritable consciousness that it really rested with him to decide. ‘It is for my daughter to accept or reject; it is for my daughter. You know that.’
‘True,’ said Ralph, emphatically; ‘but you have still the power to advise; to state the reasons for and against; to hint a wish.’
‘To hint a wish, sir!’ returned the debtor, proud and mean by turns, and selfish at all times. ‘I am her father, am I not? Why should I hint, and beat about the bush? Do you suppose, like her mother’s friends and my enemies—a curse upon them all!—that there is anything in what she has done for me but duty, sir, but duty? Or do you think that my having been unfortunate is a sufficient reason why our relative positions should be changed, and that she should command and I should obey? Hint a wish, too! Perhaps you think, because you see me in this place and scarcely able to leave this chair without assistance, that I am some broken-spirited dependent creature, without the courage or power to do what I may think best for my own child. Still the power to hint a wish! I hope so!’
‘Pardon me,’ returned Ralph, who thoroughly knew his man, and had taken his ground accordingly; ‘you do not hear me out. I was about to say that your hinting a wish, even hinting a wish, would surely be equivalent to commanding.’
‘Why, of course it would,’ retorted Mr. Bray, in an exasperated tone. ‘If you don’t happen to have heard of the time, sir, I tell you that there was a time, when I carried every point in triumph against her mother’s whole family, although they had power and wealth on their side, by my will alone.’
‘Still,’ rejoined Ralph, as mildly as his nature would allow him, ‘you have not heard me out. You are a man yet qualified to shine in society, with many years of life before you; that is, if you lived in freer air, and under brighter skies, and chose your own companions. Gaiety is your element, you have shone in it before. Fashion and freedom for you. France, and an annuity that would support you there in luxury, would give you a new lease of life, would transfer you to a new existence. The town rang with your expensive pleasures once, and you could blaze up on a new scene again, profiting by experience, and living a little at others’ cost, instead of letting others live at yours. What is there on the reverse side of the picture? What is there? I don’t know which is the nearest churchyard, but a gravestone there, wherever it is, and a date, perhaps two years hence, perhaps twenty. That’s all.’
Mr. Bray rested his elbow on the arm of his chair, and shaded his face with his hand.
‘I speak plainly,’ said Ralph, sitting down beside him, ‘because I feel strongly. It’s my interest that you should marry your daughter to my friend Gride, because then he sees me paid—in part, that is. I don’t disguise it. I acknowledge it openly. But what interest have you in recommending her to such a step? Keep that in view. She might object, remonstrate, shed tears, talk of his being too old, and plead that her life would be rendered miserable. But what is it now?’
Several slight gestures on the part of the invalid showed that these arguments were no more lost upon him, than the smallest iota of his demeanour was upon Ralph.
‘What is it now, I say,’ pursued the wily usurer, ‘or what has it a chance of being? If you died, indeed, the people you hate would make her happy. But can you bear the thought of that?’
‘No!’ returned Bray, urged by a vindictive impulse he could not repress.
‘I should imagine not, indeed!’ said Ralph, quietly. ‘If she profits by anybody’s death,’ this was said in a lower tone, ‘let it be by her husband’s. Don’t let her have to look back to yours, as the event from which to date a happier life. Where is the objection? Let me hear it stated. What is it? That her suitor is an old man? Why, how often do men of family and fortune, who haven’t your excuse, but have all the means and superfluities of life within their reach, how often do they marry their daughters to old men, or (worse still) to young men without heads or hearts, to tickle some idle vanity, strengthen some family interest, or secure some seat in Parliament! Judge for her, sir, judge for her. You must know best, and she will live to thank you.’
‘Hush! hush!’ cried Mr. Bray, suddenly starting up, and covering Ralph’s mouth with his trembling hand. ‘I hear her at the door!’
There was a gleam of conscience in the shame and terror of this hasty action, which, in one short moment, tore the thin covering of sophistry from the cruel design, and laid it bare in all its meanness and heartless deformity. The father fell into his chair pale and trembling; Arthur Gride plucked and fumbled at his hat, and durst not raise his eyes from the floor; even Ralph crouched for the moment like a beaten hound, cowed by the presence of one young innocent girl!
The effect was almost as brief as sudden. Ralph was the first to recover himself, and observing Madeline’s looks of alarm, entreated the poor girl to be composed, assuring her that there was no cause for fear.