0092m
To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first put an effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop. Having looked out, from among the old furniture, the handsomest and most commodious chair he could possibly find (which he reserved for his own use) and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one (which he considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend) he caused them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in great state. The apartment was very far removed from the old man’s chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it prudent, as a precaution against infection from fever, and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to smoke, himself, without cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal friend did the like. Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the tumbling boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit himself down in another chair just inside the door, continually to smoke a great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for one minute at a time, if he dared. These arrangements completed, Mr Quilp looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked that he called that comfort.
The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he could by no exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard, angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that tobacco-smoke always caused him great internal discomposure and annoyance. But as he was quite a creature of Mr Quilp’s and had a thousand reasons for conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile, and nodded his acquiescence with the best grace he could assume.
This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey. He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.
Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking very much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered when he happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly fanned the smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee.
‘Smoke away, you dog,’ said Quilp, turning to the boy; ‘fill your pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I’ll put the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon your tongue.’
Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small lime-kiln if anybody had treated him with it. Wherefore, he only muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered.
‘Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like the Grand Turk?’ said Quilp.
Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk’s feelings were by no means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no doubt he felt very like that Potentate.
‘This is the way to keep off fever,’ said Quilp, ‘this is the way to keep off every calamity of life! We’ll never leave off, all the time we stop here—smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the pipe!’
‘Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?’ inquired his legal friend, when the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition.
‘We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is dead,’ returned Quilp.
‘He he he!’ laughed Mr Brass, ‘oh! very good!’
‘Smoke away!’ cried Quilp. ‘Never stop! You can talk as you smoke. Don’t lose time.’
‘He he he!’ cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the odious pipe. ‘But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?’
‘Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,’ returned the dwarf.
‘How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!’ said Brass. ‘Some people, Sir, would have sold or removed the goods—oh dear, the very instant the law allowed ‘em. Some people, Sir, would have been all flintiness and granite. Some people, sir, would have—’
‘Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a parrot as you,’ interposed the dwarf.
‘He he he!’ cried Brass. ‘You have such spirits!’
The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without taking his pipe from his lips, growled,
‘Here’s the gal a comin’ down.’
‘The what, you dog?’ said Quilp.
‘The gal,’ returned the boy. ‘Are you deaf?’
‘Oh!’ said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he were taking soup, ‘you and I will have such a settling presently; there’s such a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear young friend! Aha! Nelly! How is he now, my duck of diamonds?’
‘He’s very bad,’ replied the weeping child.
‘What a pretty little Nell!’ cried Quilp.
‘Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,’ said Brass. ‘Quite charming.’
‘Has she come to sit upon Quilp’s knee,’ said the dwarf, in what he meant to be a soothing tone, ‘or is she going to bed in her own little room inside here? Which is poor Nelly going to do?’
‘What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!’ muttered Brass, as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; ‘upon my word it’s quite a treat to hear him.’
‘I’m not going to stay at all,’ faltered Nell. ‘I want a few things out of that room, and then I—I—won’t come down here any more.’
‘And a very nice little room it is!’ said the dwarf looking into it as the child entered. ‘Quite a bower! You’re sure you’re not going to use it; you’re sure you’re not coming back, Nelly?’
‘No,’ replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of dress she had come to remove; ‘never again! Never again.’
‘She’s very sensitive,’ said Quilp, looking after her. ‘Very sensitive; that’s a pity. The bedstead is much about my size. I think I shall make itmylittle room.’
Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any other emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try the effect. This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the bed with his pipe in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and smoking violently. Mr Brass applauding this picture very much, and the bed being soft and comfortable, Mr Quilp determined to use it, both as a sleeping place by night and as a kind of Divan by day; and in order that it might be converted to the latter purpose at once, remained where he was, and smoked his pipe out. The legal gentleman being by this time rather giddy and perplexed in his ideas (for this was one of the operations of the tobacco on his nervous system), took the opportunity of slinking away into the open air, where, in course of time, he recovered sufficiently to return with a countenance of tolerable composure. He was soon led on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into a relapse, and in that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning.
Such were Mr Quilp’s first proceedings on entering upon his new property. He was, for some days, restrained by business from performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well occupied between taking, with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute inventory of all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his other concerns which happily engaged him for several hours at a time. His avarice and caution being, now, thoroughly awakened, however, he was never absent from the house one night; and his eagerness for some termination, good or bad, to the old man’s disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time passed by, soon began to vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations of impatience.
Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf’s advances towards conversation, and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were the lawyer’s smiles less terrible to her than Quilp’s grimaces. She lived in such continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them on the stairs or in the passages if she stirred from her grandfather’s chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment, until late at night, when the silence encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer air of some empty room.
One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting there very sorrowfully—for the old man had been worse that day—when she thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the street. Looking down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to attract her attention had roused her from her sad reflections.
‘Miss Nell!’ said the boy in a low voice.
‘Yes,’ replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old favourite still; ‘what do you want?’
‘I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,’ the boy replied, ‘but the people below have driven me away and wouldn’t let me see you. You don’t believe—I hope you don’t really believe—that I deserve to be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?’
‘I must believe it,’ returned the child. ‘Or why would grandfather have been so angry with you?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Kit. ‘I’m sure I never deserved it from him, no, nor from you. I can say that, with a true and honest heart, any way. And then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how old master was—!’
‘They never told me that,’ said the child. ‘I didn’t know it indeed. I wouldn’t have had them do it for the world.’
‘Thank’ee, miss,’ returned Kit, ‘it’s comfortable to hear you say that. I said I never would believe that it was your doing.’
'That was right!’ said the child eagerly.
‘Miss Nell,’ cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in a lower tone, ‘there are new masters down stairs. It’s a change for you.’
‘It is indeed,’ replied the child.
‘And so it will be for him when he gets better,’ said the boy, pointing towards the sick room.
‘—If he ever does,’ added the child, unable to restrain her tears.
‘Oh, he’ll do that, he’ll do that,’ said Kit. ‘I’m sure he will. You mustn’t be cast down, Miss Nell. Now don’t be, pray!’
These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said, but they affected the child and made her, for the moment, weep the more.
‘He’ll be sure to get better now,’ said the boy anxiously, ‘if you don’t give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would make him worse and throw him back, just as he was recovering. When he does, say a good word—say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!’
‘They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time,’ rejoined the child, ‘I dare not; and even if I might, what good would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor. We shall scarcely have bread to eat.’
‘It’s not that I may be taken back,’ said the boy, ‘that I ask the favour of you. It isn’t for the sake of food and wages that I’ve been waiting about so long in hopes to see you. Don’t think that I’d come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.’
The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he might speak again.
‘No, it’s not that,’ said Kit hesitating, ‘it’s something very different from that. I haven’t got much sense, I know, but if he could be brought to believe that I’d been a faithful servant to him, doing the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn’t—’
Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out, and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window.
‘Perhaps he mightn’t think it over venturesome of me to say—well then, to say this,’ cried Kit with sudden boldness. ‘This home is gone from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, but that’s better than this with all these people here; and why not come there, till he’s had time to look about, and find a better!’
The child did not speak. Kit, in the relief of having made his proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour with his utmost eloquence.
‘You think,’ said the boy, ‘that it’s very small and inconvenient. So it is, but it’s very clean. Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but there’s not a quieter court than ours in all the town. Don’t be afraid of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very good—besides, I’d mind ‘em. They wouldn’t vex you much, I’m sure. Do try, Miss Nell, do try. The little front room up stairs is very pleasant. You can see a piece of the church-clock, through the chimneys, and almost tell the time; mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would, and you’d have her to wait upon you both, and me to run of errands. We don’t mean money, bless you; you’re not to think of that! Will you try him, Miss Nell? Only say you’ll try him. Do try to make old master come, and ask him first what I have done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?’
Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the street-door opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped head called in a surly voice, ‘Who’s there!’ Kit immediately glided away, and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room.
Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the house, from the opposite side. Finding that there was nobody in sight, he presently returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting (as the child heard from the staircase), that there was a league and plot against him; that he was in danger of being robbed and plundered by a band of conspirators who prowled about the house at all seasons; and that he would delay no longer but take immediate steps for disposing of the property and returning to his own peaceful roof. Having growled forth these, and a great many other threats of the same nature, he coiled himself once more in the child’s little bed, and Nell crept softly up the stairs.
It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with Kit should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her dreams that night and her recollections for a long, long time. Surrounded by unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little regard or sympathy even from the women about her, it is not surprising that the affectionate heart of the child should have been touched to the quick by one kind and generous spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it dwelt. Thank Heaven that the temples of such spirits are not made with hands, and that they may be even more worthily hung with poor patch-work than with purple and fine linen!
At length, the crisis of the old man’s disorder was past, and he began to mend. By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness came back; but the mind was weakened and its functions were impaired. He was patient, and quiet; often sat brooding, but not despondently, for a long space; was easily amused, even by a sun-beam on the wall or ceiling; made no complaint that the days were long, or the nights tedious; and appeared indeed to have lost all count of time, and every sense of care or weariness. He would sit, for hours together, with Nell’s small hand in his, playing with the fingers and stopping sometimes to smooth her hair or kiss her brow; and, when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes, would look, amazed, about him for the cause, and forget his wonder even while he looked.
The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and the child beside him. They were hand in hand as usual. The noise and motion in the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was not surprised, or curious, or pleased, or irritated. He was asked if he remembered this, or that. ‘O yes,’ he said, ‘quite well—why not?’ Sometimes he turned his head, and looked, with earnest gaze and outstretched neck, after some stranger in the crowd, until he disappeared from sight; but, to the question why he did this, he answered not a word.
He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool beside him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter. ‘Yes,’ he said without emotion, ‘it was Quilp, he knew. Quilp was master there. Of course he might come in.’ And so he did.
‘I’m glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, sitting down opposite him. ‘You’re quite strong now?’
‘Yes,’ said the old man feebly, ‘yes.’
‘I don’t want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,’ said the dwarf, raising his voice, for the old man’s senses were duller than they had been; ‘but, as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings, the better.’
‘Surely,’ said the old man. ‘The better for all parties.’
‘You see,’ pursued Quilp after a short pause, ‘the goods being once removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.’
‘You say true,’ returned the old man. ‘Poor Nell too, what would she do?’
‘Exactly,’ bawled the dwarf nodding his head; ‘that’s very well observed. Then will you consider about it, neighbour?’
‘I will, certainly,’ replied the old man. ‘We shall not stop here.’
‘So I supposed,’ said the dwarf. ‘I have sold the things. They have not yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty well—pretty well. To-day’s Tuesday. When shall they be moved? There’s no hurry—shall we say this afternoon?’
‘Say Friday morning,’ returned the old man.
‘Very good,’ said the dwarf. ‘So be it—with the understanding that I can’t go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.’
‘Good,’ returned the old man. ‘I shall remember it.’
Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way in which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and repeated ‘on Friday morning. I shall remember it,’ he had no excuse for dwelling on the subject any further, and so took a friendly leave with many expressions of good-will and many compliments to his friend on his looking so remarkably well; and went below stairs to report progress to Mr Brass.
All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state. He wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various rooms, as if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he referred neither by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the interview of the morning or the necessity of finding some other shelter. An indistinct idea he had, that the child was desolate and in want of help; for he often drew her to his bosom and bade her be of good cheer, saying that they would not desert each other; but he seemed unable to contemplate their real position more distinctly, and was still the listless, passionless creature that suffering of mind and body had left him.
We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come? Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.
Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man. But a change came upon him that evening as he and the child sat silently together.
In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree—green and flourishing enough, for such a place—and as the air stirred among its leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall. The old man sat watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of light, until the sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon was slowly rising, he still sat in the same spot.
To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these few green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished among chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things. They suggested quiet places afar off, and rest, and peace. The child thought, more than once that he was moved: and had forborne to speak. But now he shed tears—tears that it lightened her aching heart to see—and making as though he would fall upon his knees, besought her to forgive him.
‘Forgive you—what?’ said Nell, interposing to prevent his purpose. ‘Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?’
‘All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was done in that uneasy dream,’ returned the old man.
‘Do not talk so,’ said the child. ‘Pray do not. Let us speak of something else.’
‘Yes, yes, we will,’ he rejoined. ‘And it shall be of what we talked of long ago—many months—months is it, or weeks, or days? which is it Nell?’
‘I do not understand you,’ said the child.
‘It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we have been sitting here. I bless thee for it, Nell!’
‘For what, dear grandfather?’
‘For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell. Let us speak softly. Hush! for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they would cry that I was mad and take thee from me. We will not stop here another day. We will go far away from here.’
‘Yes, let us go,’ said the child earnestly. ‘Let us begone from this place, and never turn back or think of it again. Let us wander barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.’
‘We will,’ answered the old man, ‘we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God in the places where He dwells. It is far better to lie down at night beneath an open sky like that yonder—see how bright it is—than to rest in close rooms which are always full of care and weary dreams. Thou and I together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy yet, and learn to forget this time, as if it had never been.’
‘We will be happy,’ cried the child. ‘We never can be here.’
‘No, we never can again—never again—that’s truly said,’ rejoined the old man. ‘Let us steal away to-morrow morning—early and softly, that we may not be seen or heard—and leave no trace or track for them to follow by. Poor Nell! Thy cheek is pale, and thy eyes are heavy with watching and weeping for me—I know—for me; but thou wilt be well again, and merry too, when we are far away. To-morrow morning, dear, we’ll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds.’
And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in a few broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up and down together, and never part more until Death took one or other of the twain.
The child’s heart beat high with hope and confidence. She had no thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. She saw in this, but a return of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed, a relief from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape from the heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her late time of trial, the restoration of the old man’s health and peace, and a life of tranquil happiness. Sun, and stream, and meadow, and summer days, shone brightly in her view, and there was no dark tint in all the sparkling picture.
The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she was yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight. There were a few articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him; old garments, such as became their fallen fortunes, laid out to wear; and a staff to support his feeble steps, put ready for his use. But this was not all her task; for now she must visit the old rooms for the last time.
And how different the parting with them was, from any she had expected, and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured to herself. How could she ever have thought of bidding them farewell in triumph, when the recollection of the many hours she had passed among them rose to her swelling heart, and made her feel the wish a cruelty: lonely and sad though many of those hours had been! She sat down at the window where she had spent so many evenings—darker far than this—and every thought of hope or cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place came vividly upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful associations in an instant.
Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and prayed at night—prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning now—the little room where she had slept so peacefully, and dreamed such pleasant dreams! It was hard not to be able to glance round it once more, and to be forced to leave it without one kind look or grateful tear. There were some trifles there—poor useless things—that she would have liked to take away; but that was impossible.
This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet. She wept bitterly for the loss of this little creature—until the idea occurred to her—she did not know how, or why, it came into her head—that it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit who would keep it for her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had left it behind in the hope that he might have it, and as an assurance that she was grateful to him. She was calmed and comforted by the thought, and went to rest with a lighter heart.
From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but with some vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through them all, she awoke to find that it was yet night, and that the stars were shining brightly in the sky. At length, the day began to glimmer, and the stars to grow pale and dim. As soon as she was sure of this, she arose, and dressed herself for the journey.
The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb him, she left him to slumber on, until the sun rose. He was anxious that they should leave the house without a minute’s loss of time, and was soon ready.
The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and cautiously down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and often stopping to listen. The old man had forgotten a kind of wallet which contained the light burden he had to carry; and the going back a few steps to fetch it seemed an interminable delay.
At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the snoring of Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in their ears than the roars of lions. The bolts of the door were rusty, and difficult to unfasten without noise. When they were all drawn back, it was found to be locked, and worst of all, the key was gone. Then the child remembered, for the first time, one of the nurses having told her that Quilp always locked both the house-doors at night, and kept the keys on the table in his bedroom.
It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell slipped off her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old curiosities, where Mr Brass—the ugliest piece of goods in all the stock—lay sleeping on a mattress, passed into her own little chamber.
Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at the sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he almost seemed to be standing on his head, and who, either from the uneasiness of this posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was gasping and growling with his mouth wide open, and the whites (or rather the dirty yellows) of his eyes distinctly visible. It was no time, however, to ask whether anything ailed him; so, possessing herself of the key after one hasty glance about the room, and repassing the prostrate Mr Brass, she rejoined the old man in safety. They got the door open without noise, and passing into the street, stood still.
‘Which way?’ said the child.
The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then to the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head. It was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. The child felt it, but had no doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in his, led him gently away.
It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. The streets were, as yet, nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping town.
The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate with hope and pleasure. They were alone together, once again; every object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind; church towers and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now shone in the sun; each humble nook and corner rejoiced in light; and the sky, dimmed only by excessive distance, shed its placid smile on everything beneath.
Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.
0103m
Daniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the city of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty’s attornies of the Courts of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious and unsuspicious of any mischance, until a knocking on the street door, often repeated and gradually mounting up from a modest single rap to a perfect battery of knocks, fired in long discharges with a very short interval between, caused the said Daniel Quilp to struggle into a horizontal position, and to stare at the ceiling with a drowsy indifference, betokening that he heard the noise and rather wondered at the same, and couldn’t be at the trouble of bestowing any further thought upon the subject.
As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his lazy state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if in earnest remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that he had once opened his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to comprehend the possibility of there being somebody at the door; and thus he gradually came to recollect that it was Friday morning, and he had ordered Mrs Quilp to be in waiting upon him at an early hour.
Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes, and often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that which is usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the season, was by this time awake also. Seeing that Mr Quilp invested himself in his every-day garments, he hastened to do the like, putting on his shoes before his stockings, and thrusting his legs into his coat sleeves, and making such other small mistakes in his toilet as are not uncommon to those who dress in a hurry, and labour under the agitation of having been suddenly roused.
While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was groping under the table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and mankind in general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to Mr Brass the question, ‘what’s the matter?’
‘The key,’ said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, ‘the door-key—that’s the matter. D’ye know anything of it?’
‘How should I know anything of it, sir?’ returned Mr Brass.
‘How should you?’ repeated Quilp with a sneer. ‘You’re a nice lawyer, an’t you? Ugh, you idiot!’
Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that the loss of a key by another person could scarcely be said to affect his (Brass’s) legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr Brass humbly suggested that it must have been forgotten over night, and was, doubtless, at that moment in its native key-hole. Notwithstanding that Mr Quilp had a strong conviction to the contrary, founded on his recollection of having carefully taken it out, he was fain to admit that this was possible, and therefore went grumbling to the door where, sure enough, he found it.
Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with great astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking came again with the most irritating violence, and the daylight which had been shining through the key-hole was intercepted on the outside by a human eye. The dwarf was very much exasperated, and wanting somebody to wreak his ill-humour upon, determined to dart out suddenly, and favour Mrs Quilp with a gentle acknowledgment of her attention in making that hideous uproar.
0105m
With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the other side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another application, and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his hands and feet together, and biting the air in the fulness of his malice.
So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no resistance and implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the arms of the individual whom he had taken for his wife than he found himself complimented with two staggering blows on the head, and two more, of the same quality, in the chest; and closing with his assailant, such a shower of buffets rained down upon his person as sufficed to convince him that he was in skilful and experienced hands. Nothing daunted by this reception, he clung tight to his opponent, and bit and hammered away with such good-will and heartiness, that it was at least a couple of minutes before he was dislodged. Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp found himself, all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the street, with Mr Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him and requiring to know ‘whether he wanted any more?’
‘There’s plenty more of it at the same shop,’ said Mr Swiveller, by turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, ‘a large and extensive assortment always on hand—country orders executed with promptitude and despatch—will you have a little more, Sir—don’t say no, if you’d rather not.’
‘I thought it was somebody else,’ said Quilp, rubbing his shoulders, ‘why didn’t you say who you were?’
‘Why didn’t you say whoyouwere?’ returned Dick, ‘instead of flying out of the house like a Bedlamite?’
‘It was you that—that knocked,’ said the dwarf, getting up with a short groan, ‘was it?’
‘Yes, I am the man,’ replied Dick. ‘That lady had begun when I came, but she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.’ As he said this, he pointed towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little distance.
‘Humph!’ muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, ‘I thought it was your fault! And you, sir—don’t you know there has been somebody ill here, that you knock as if you’d beat the door down?’
‘Damme!’ answered Dick, ‘that’s why I did it. I thought there was somebody dead here.’
‘You came for some purpose, I suppose,’ said Quilp. ‘What is it you want?’
‘I want to know how the old gentleman is,’ rejoined Mr Swiveller, ‘and to hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a little talk. I’m a friend of the family, sir—at least I’m the friend of one of the family, and that’s the same thing.’
‘You’d better walk in then,’ said the dwarf. ‘Go on, sir, go on. Now, Mrs Quilp—after you, ma’am.’
Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted. And it was not a contest of politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she knew very well that her husband wished to enter the house in this order, that he might have a favourable opportunity of inflicting a few pinches on her arms, which were seldom free from impressions of his fingers in black and blue colours. Mr Swiveller, who was not in the secret, was a little surprised to hear a suppressed scream, and, looking round, to see Mrs Quilp following him with a sudden jerk; but he did not remark on these appearances, and soon forgot them.
‘Now, Mrs Quilp,’ said the dwarf when they had entered the shop, ‘go you up stairs, if you please, to Nelly’s room, and tell her that she’s wanted.’
‘You seem to make yourself at home here,’ said Dick, who was unacquainted with Mr Quilp’s authority.
‘Iamat home, young gentleman,’ returned the dwarf.
Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what the presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying down stairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty.
‘Empty, you fool!’ said the dwarf.
‘I give you my word, Quilp,’ answered his trembling wife, ‘that I have been into every room and there’s not a soul in any of them.’
‘And that,’ said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an emphasis, ‘explains the mystery of the key!’
Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and frowningly at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment from any of them, hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down again, confirming the report which had already been made.
‘It’s a strange way of going,’ he said, glancing at Swiveller, ‘very strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and intimate friend of his! Ah! he’ll write to me no doubt, or he’ll bid Nelly write—yes, yes, that’s what he’ll do. Nelly’s very fond of me. Pretty Nell!’
Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment. Still glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and observed, with assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere with the removal of the goods.
‘For indeed,’ he added, ‘we knew that they’d go away to-day, but not that they’d go so early, or so quietly. But they have their reasons, they have their reasons.’
‘Where in the devil’s name are they gone?’ said the wondering Dick.
Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which implied that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say.
‘And what,’ said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, ‘what do you mean by moving the goods?’
‘That I have bought ‘em, Sir,’ rejoined Quilp. ‘Eh? What then?’
‘Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a tranquil cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing sea?’ said Dick, in great bewilderment.
‘Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be visited too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted friends, eh?’ added the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; ‘I say nothing, but is that your meaning?’
Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration of circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the project in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip his prospects in the bud. Having only received from Frederick Trent, late on the previous night, information of the old man’s illness, he had come upon a visit of condolence and inquiry to Nell, prepared with the first instalment of that long train of fascinations which was to fire her heart at last. And here, when he had been thinking of all kinds of graceful and insinuating approaches, and meditating on the fearful retaliation which was slowly working against Sophy Wackles—here were Nell, the old man, and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he knew not whither, as if with a fore-knowledge of the scheme and a resolution to defeat it in the very outset, before a step was taken.
In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled by the flight which had been made. It had not escaped his keen eye that some indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the fugitives, and knowing the old man’s weak state of mind, he marvelled what that course of proceeding might be in which he had so readily procured the concurrence of the child. It must not be supposed (or it would be a gross injustice to Mr Quilp) that he was tortured by any disinterested anxiety on behalf of either. His uneasiness arose from a misgiving that the old man had some secret store of money which he had not suspected; and the idea of its escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him with mortification and self-reproach.
In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that Richard Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated and disappointed by the same cause. It was plain, thought the dwarf, that he had come there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole or frighten the old man out of some small fraction of that wealth of which they supposed him to have an abundance. Therefore, it was a relief to vex his heart with a picture of the riches the old man hoarded, and to expatiate on his cunning in removing himself even beyond the reach of importunity.
‘Well,’ said Dick, with a blank look, ‘I suppose it’s of no use my staying here.’
‘Not the least in the world,’ rejoined the dwarf.
‘You’ll mention that I called, perhaps?’ said Dick.
Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time he saw them.
‘And say,’ added Mr Swiveller, ‘say, sir, that I was wafted here upon the pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake of friendship, the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and to sow in their place, the germs of social harmony. Will you have the goodness to charge yourself with that commission, Sir?’
‘Certainly!’ rejoined Quilp.
‘Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,’ said Dick, producing a very small limp card, ‘that that is my address, and that I am to be found at home every morning. Two distinct knocks, sir, will produce the slavey at any time. My particular friends, Sir, are accustomed to sneeze when the door is opened, to give her to understand that theyaremy friends and have no interested motives in asking if I’m at home. I beg your pardon; will you allow me to look at that card again?’
‘Oh! by all means,’ rejoined Quilp.
‘By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,’ said Dick, substituting another in its stead, ‘I had handed you the pass-ticket of a select convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of which I have the honour to be Perpetual Grand. That is the proper document, Sir. Good morning.’
Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it carelessly on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a flourish.
By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the goods, and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of drawers and other trifles of that nature upon their heads, and performing muscular feats which heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood upon the door-steps to answer all the inquiries of curious neighbours, which was his department. His presence and example diffused such alacrity among the persons employed, that, in a few hours, the house was emptied of everything, but pieces of matting, empty porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw.
Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was prying in at the outer door. Assured that it was Kit, though he saw little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon Kit came in and demanded what he wanted.
‘Come here, you sir,’ said the dwarf. ‘Well, so your old master and young mistress have gone?’
‘Where?’ rejoined Kit, looking round.
‘Do you mean to say you don’t know where?’ answered Quilp sharply. ‘Where have they gone, eh?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kit.
‘Come,’ retorted Quilp, ‘let’s have no more of this! Do you mean to say that you don’t know they went away by stealth, as soon as it was light this morning?’
‘No,’ said the boy, in evident surprise.
‘You don’t know that?’ cried Quilp. ‘Don’t I know that you were hanging about the house the other night, like a thief, eh? Weren’t you told then?’
‘No,’ replied the boy.
‘You were not?’ said Quilp. ‘What were you told then; what were you talking about?’
Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter secret now, related the purpose for which he had come on that occasion, and the proposal he had made.
‘Oh!’ said the dwarf after a little consideration. ‘Then, I think they’ll come to you yet.’
‘Do you think they will?’ cried Kit eagerly.
‘Aye, I think they will,’ returned the dwarf. ‘Now, when they do, let me know; d’ye hear? Let me know, and I’ll give you something. I want to do ‘em a kindness, and I can’t do ‘em a kindness unless I know where they are. You hear what I say?’
Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been agreeable to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf, who had been skulking about the room in search of anything that might have been left about by accident, had not happened to cry, ‘Here’s a bird! What’s to be done with this?’
‘Wring its neck,’ rejoined Quilp.
‘Oh no, don’t do that,’ said Kit, stepping forward. ‘Give it to me.’
‘Oh yes, I dare say,’ cried the other boy. ‘Come! You let the cage alone, and let me wring its neck will you? He said I was to do it. You let the cage alone will you.’
‘Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,’ roared Quilp. ‘Fight for it, you dogs, or I’ll wring its neck myself!’
Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other, tooth and nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and chopping the ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by his taunts and cries to fight more fiercely. They were a pretty equal match, and rolled about together, exchanging blows which were by no means child’s play, until at length Kit, planting a well-directed hit in his adversary’s chest, disengaged himself, sprung nimbly up, and snatching the cage from Quilp’s hands made off with his prize.
He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl dreadfully.
‘Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been doing?’ cried Mrs Nubbles.
‘Never you mind, mother,’ answered her son, wiping his face on the jack-towel behind the door. ‘I’m not hurt, don’t you be afraid for me. I’ve been a fightin’ for a bird and won him, that’s all. Hold your noise, little Jacob. I never see such a naughty boy in all my days!’
‘You have been fighting for a bird!’ exclaimed his mother.
‘Ah! Fightin’ for a bird!’ replied Kit, ‘and here he is—Miss Nelly’s bird, mother, that they was agoin’ to wring the neck of! I stopped that though—ha ha ha! They wouldn’t wring his neck and me by, no, no. It wouldn’t do, mother, it wouldn’t do at all. Ha ha ha!’
Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking out of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother laughed, and then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and then they all laughed in concert: partly because of Kit’s triumph, and partly because they were very fond of each other. When this fit was over, Kit exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and precious rarity—it was only a poor linnet—and looking about the wall for an old nail, made a scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with great exultation.
‘Let me see,’ said the boy, ‘I think I’ll hang him in the winder, because it’s more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there, if he looks up very much. He’s such a one to sing, I can tell you!’
So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the poker for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to the immeasurable delight of the whole family. When it had been adjusted and straightened a great many times, and he had walked backwards into the fire-place in his admiration of it, the arrangement was pronounced to be perfect.
‘And now, mother,’ said the boy, ‘before I rest any more, I’ll go out and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.’
As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house was in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his passing it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable necessity, quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he could not choose but yield. It is not uncommon for people who are much better fed and taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been, to make duties of their inclinations in matters of more doubtful propriety, and to take great credit for the self-denial with which they gratify themselves.
There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp’s boy. The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy as if it had been so for months. A rusty padlock was fastened on the door, ends of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily against the half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in the closed shutters below, were black with the darkness of the inside. Some of the glass in the window he had so often watched, had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning, and that room looked more deserted and dull than any. A group of idle urchins had taken possession of the door-steps; some were plying the knocker and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the keyhole, watching half in jest and half in earnest for ‘the ghost,’ which an hour’s gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the late inhabitants, had already raised. Standing all alone in the midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house looked a picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the cheerful fire that used to burn there on a winter’s night and the no less cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite mournfully away.
It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was by no means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that adjective in all his life. He was only a soft-hearted grateful fellow, and had nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently, instead of going home again, in his grief, to kick the children and abuse his mother (for, when your finely strung people are out of sorts, they must have everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned his thoughts to the vulgar expedient of making them more comfortable if he could.
Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding up and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held! A good city speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to a fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of money was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding horses alone. And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one, if only a twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had occasion to alight; but they had not; and it is often an ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most ingenious estimate in the world.
Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now lingering as some rider slackened his horse’s pace and looked about him; and now darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a glimpse of some distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of the road, and promising to stop, at every door. But on they all went, one after another, and there was not a penny stirring. ‘I wonder,’ thought the boy, ‘if one of these gentlemen knew there was nothing in the cupboard at home, whether he’d stop on purpose, and make believe that he wanted to call somewhere, that I might earn a trifle?’
He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest, when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling four-wheeled chaise, drawn by a little obstinate-looking rough-coated pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old gentleman. Beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady, plump and placid like himself, and the pony was coming along at his own pace and doing exactly as he pleased with the whole concern. If the old gentleman remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony replied by shaking his head. It was plain that the utmost the pony would consent to do, was to go in his own way up any street that the old gentleman particularly wished to traverse, but that it was an understanding between them that he must do this after his own fashion or not at all.