Kate smiled through her tears as Nicholas drew this picture; but they were not tears of sorrow, although they continued to fall when he had ceased to speak.
"Am I not right, Kate?" he said, after a short silence.
"Quite, quite, dear brother; and I cannot tell you how happy I am that I have acted as you would have had me."
"You don"t regret?"
"N-n-no," said Kate timidly, tracing some pattern upon the ground with her little foot. "I don"t regret having done what was honourable and right, of course; but I do regret that this should have ever happened-at least sometimes I regret it, and sometimes I-I don"t know what I say; I am but a weak girl, Nicholas, and it has agitated me very much."
It is no vaunt to affirm that if Nicholas had had ten thousand pounds at the minute, he would, in his generous affection for the owner of the blushing cheek and downcast eye, have bestowed its utmost farthing, in perfect forgetfulness of himself, to secure her happiness. But all he could do was to comfort and console her by kind words; and words they were of such love and kindness, and cheerful encouragement, that poor Kate threw her arms about his neck, and declared she would weep no more.
"What man," thought Nicholas proudly, while on his way, soon afterwards, to the brothers" house, "would not be sufficiently rewarded for any sacrifice of fortune by the possession of such a heart as Kate"s, which, but that hearts weigh light, and gold and silver heavy, is beyond all praise? Frank has money, and wants no more. Where would it buy him such a treasure as Kate? And yet, in unequal marriages, the rich party is always supposed to make a great sacrifice, and the other to get a good bargain! But I am thinking like a lover, or like an a.s.s: which I suppose is pretty nearly the same."
Checking thoughts so little adapted to the business on which he was bound, by such self-reproofs as this and many others no less st.u.r.dy, he proceeded on his way and presented himself before Tim Linkinwater.
"Ah! Mr Nickleby!" cried Tim, "G.o.d bless you! how d"ye do? Well? Say you"re quite well and never better. Do now."
"Quite," said Nicholas, shaking him by both hands.
"Ah!" said Tim, "you look tired though, now I come to look at you. Hark! there he is, d"ye hear him? That was d.i.c.k, the blackbird. He hasn"t been himself since you"ve been gone. He"d never get on without you, now; he takes as naturally to you as he does to me."
"d.i.c.k is a far less sagacious fellow than I supposed him, if he thinks I am half so well worthy of his notice as you," replied Nicholas.
"Why, I"ll tell you what, sir," said Tim, standing in his favourite att.i.tude and pointing to the cage with the feather of his pen, "it"s a very extraordinary thing about that bird, that the only people he ever takes the smallest notice of, are Mr Charles, and Mr Ned, and you, and me."
Here, Tim stopped and glanced anxiously at Nicholas; then unexpectedly catching his eye repeated, "And you and me, sir, and you and me." And then he glanced at Nicholas again, and, squeezing his hand, said, "I am a bad one at putting off anything I am interested in. I didn"t mean to ask you, but I should like to hear a few particulars about that poor boy. Did he mention Cheeryble Brothers at all?"
"Yes," said Nicholas, "many and many a time."
"That was right of him," returned Tim, wiping his eyes; "that was very right of him."
"And he mentioned your name a score of times," said Nicholas, "and often bade me carry back his love to Mr Linkinwater."
"No, no, did he though?" rejoined Tim, sobbing outright. "Poor fellow! I wish we could have had him buried in town. There isn"t such a burying-ground in all London as that little one on the other side of the square-there are counting-houses all round it, and if you go in there, on a fine day, you can see the books and safes through the open windows. And he sent his love to me, did he? I didn"t expect he would have thought of me. Poor fellow, poor fellow! His love too!"
Tim was so completely overcome by this little mark of recollection, that he was quite unequal to any more conversation at the moment. Nicholas therefore slipped quietly out, and went to brother Charles"s room.
If he had previously sustained his firmness and fort.i.tude, it had been by an effort which had cost him no little pain; but the warm welcome, the hearty manner, the homely unaffected commiseration, of the good old man, went to his heart, and no inward struggle could prevent his showing it.
"Come, come, my dear sir," said the benevolent merchant; "we must not be cast down; no, no. We must learn to bear misfortune, and we must remember that there are many sources of consolation even in death. Every day that this poor lad had lived, he must have been less and less qualified for the world, and more and more unhappy in is own deficiencies. It is better as it is, my dear sir. Yes, yes, yes, it"s better as it is."
"I have thought of all that, sir," replied Nicholas, clearing his throat. "I feel it, I a.s.sure you."
"Yes, that"s well," replied Mr Cheeryble, who, in the midst of all his comforting, was quite as much taken aback as honest old Tim; "that"s well. Where is my brother Ned? Tim Linkinwater, sir, where is my brother Ned?"
"Gone out with Mr Trimmers, about getting that unfortunate man into the hospital, and sending a nurse to his children," said Tim.
"My brother Ned is a fine fellow, a great fellow!" exclaimed brother Charles as he shut the door and returned to Nicholas. "He will be overjoyed to see you, my dear sir. We have been speaking of you every day."
"To tell you the truth, sir, I am glad to find you alone," said Nicholas, with some natural hesitation; "for I am anxious to say something to you. Can you spare me a very few minutes?"
"Surely, surely," returned brother Charles, looking at him with an anxious countenance. "Say on, my dear sir, say on."
"I scarcely know how, or where, to begin," said Nicholas. "If ever one mortal had reason to be penetrated with love and reverence for another: with such attachment as would make the hardest service in his behalf a pleasure and delight: with such grateful recollections as must rouse the utmost zeal and fidelity of his nature: those are the feelings which I should entertain for you, and do, from my heart and soul, believe me!"
"I do believe you," replied the old gentleman, "and I am happy in the belief. I have never doubted it; I never shall. I am sure I never shall."
"Your telling me that so kindly," said Nicholas, "emboldens me to proceed. When you first took me into your confidence, and dispatched me on those missions to Miss Bray, I should have told you that I had seen her long before; that her beauty had made an impression upon me which I could not efface; and that I had fruitlessly endeavoured to trace her, and become acquainted with her history. I did not tell you so, because I vainly thought I could conquer my weaker feelings, and render every consideration subservient to my duty to you."
"Mr Nickleby," said brother Charles, "you did not violate the confidence I placed in you, or take an unworthy advantage of it. I am sure you did not."
"I did not," said Nicholas, firmly. "Although I found that the necessity for self-command and restraint became every day more imperious, and the difficulty greater, I never, for one instant, spoke or looked but as I would have done had you been by. I never, for one moment, deserted my trust, nor have I to this instant. But I find that constant a.s.sociation and companionship with this sweet girl is fatal to my peace of mind, and may prove destructive to the resolutions I made in the beginning, and up to this time have faithfully kept. In short, sir, I cannot trust myself, and I implore and beseech you to remove this young lady from under the charge of my mother and sister without delay. I know that to anyone but myself-to you, who consider the immeasurable distance between me and this young lady, who is now your ward, and the object of your peculiar care-my loving her, even in thought, must appear the height of rashness and presumption. I know it is so. But who can see her as I have seen, who can know what her life has been, and not love her? I have no excuse but that; and as I cannot fly from this temptation, and cannot repress this pa.s.sion, with its object constantly before me, what can I do but pray and beseech you to remove it, and to leave me to forget her?"
"Mr Nickleby," said the old man, after a short silence, "you can do no more. I was wrong to expose a young man like you to this trial. I might have foreseen what would happen. Thank you, sir, thank you. Madeline shall be removed."
"If you would grant me one favour, dear sir, and suffer her to remember me with esteem, by never revealing to her this confession-"
"I will take care," said Mr Cheeryble. "And now, is this all you have to tell me?"
"No!" returned Nicholas, meeting his eye, "it is not."
"I know the rest," said Mr Cheeryble, apparently very much relieved by this prompt reply. "When did it come to your knowledge?"
"When I reached home this morning."
"You felt it your duty immediately to come to me, and tell me what your sister no doubt acquainted you with?"
"I did," said Nicholas, "though I could have wished to have spoken to Mr Frank first."
"Frank was with me last night," replied the old gentleman. "You have done well, Mr Nickleby-very well, sir-and I thank you again."
Upon this head, Nicholas requested permission to add a few words. He ventured to hope that nothing he had said would lead to the estrangement of Kate and Madeline, who had formed an attachment for each other, any interruption of which would, he knew, be attended with great pain to them, and, most of all, with remorse and pain to him, as its unhappy cause. When these things were all forgotten, he hoped that Frank and he might still be warm friends, and that no word or thought of his humble home, or of her who was well contented to remain there and share his quiet fortunes, would ever again disturb the harmony between them. He recounted, as nearly as he could, what had pa.s.sed between himself and Kate that morning: speaking of her with such warmth of pride and affection, and dwelling so cheerfully upon the confidence they had of overcoming any selfish regrets and living contented and happy in each other"s love, that few could have heard him unmoved. More moved himself than he had been yet, he expressed in a few hurried words-as expressive, perhaps, as the most eloquent phrases-his devotion to the brothers, and his hope that he might live and die in their service.
To all this, brother Charles listened in profound silence, and with his chair so turned from Nicholas that his face could not be seen. He had not spoken either, in his accustomed manner, but with a certain stiffness and embarra.s.sment very foreign to it. Nicholas feared he had offended him. He said, "No, no, he had done quite right," but that was all.
"Frank is a heedless, foolish fellow," he said, after Nicholas had paused for some time; "a very heedless, foolish fellow. I will take care that this is brought to a close without delay. Let us say no more upon the subject; it"s a very painful one to me. Come to me in half an hour; I have strange things to tell you, my dear sir, and your uncle has appointed this afternoon for your waiting upon him with me."
"Waiting upon him! With you, sir!" cried Nicholas.
"Ay, with me," replied the old gentleman. "Return to me in half an hour, and I"ll tell you more."
Nicholas waited upon him at the time mentioned, and then learnt all that had taken place on the previous day, and all that was known of the appointment Ralph had made with the brothers; which was for that night; and for the better understanding of which it will be requisite to return and follow his own footsteps from the house of the twin brothers. Therefore, we leave Nicholas somewhat rea.s.sured by the restored kindness of their manner towards him, and yet sensible that it was different from what it had been (though he scarcely knew in what respect): so he was full of uneasiness, uncertainty, and disquiet.
CHAPTER 62
Ralph makes one last Appointment-and keeps it
Creeping from the house, and slinking off like a thief; groping with his hands, when first he got into the street, as if he were a blind man; and looking often over his shoulder while he hurried away, as though he were followed in imagination or reality by someone anxious to question or detain him; Ralph Nickleby left the city behind him, and took the road to his own home.
The night was dark, and a cold wind blew, driving the clouds, furiously and fast, before it. There was one black, gloomy ma.s.s that seemed to follow him: not hurrying in the wild chase with the others, but lingering sullenly behind, and gliding darkly and stealthily on. He often looked back at this, and, more than once, stopped to let it pa.s.s over; but, somehow, when he went forward again, it was still behind him, coming mournfully and slowly up, like a shadowy funeral train.
He had to pa.s.s a poor, mean burial-ground-a dismal place, raised a few feet above the level of the street, and parted from it by a low parapet-wall and an iron railing; a rank, unwholesome, rotten spot, where the very gra.s.s and weeds seemed, in their frouzy growth, to tell that they had sprung from paupers" bodies, and had struck their roots in the graves of men, sodden, while alive, in steaming courts and drunken hungry dens. And here, in truth, they lay, parted from the living by a little earth and a board or two-lay thick and close-corrupting in body as they had in mind-a dense and squalid crowd. Here they lay, cheek by jowl with life: no deeper down than the feet of the throng that pa.s.sed there every day, and piled high as their throats. Here they lay, a grisly family, all these dear departed brothers and sisters of the ruddy clergyman who did his task so speedily when they were hidden in the ground!
As he pa.s.sed here, Ralph called to mind that he had been one of a jury, long before, on the body of a man who had cut his throat; and that he was buried in this place. He could not tell how he came to recollect it now, when he had so often pa.s.sed and never thought about him, or how it was that he felt an interest in the circ.u.mstance; but he did both; and stopping, and clasping the iron railings with his hands, looked eagerly in, wondering which might be his grave.
While he was thus engaged, there came towards him, with noise of shouts and singing, some fellows full of drink, followed by others, who were remonstrating with them and urging them to go home in quiet. They were in high good-humour; and one of them, a little, weazen, hump-backed man, began to dance. He was a grotesque, fantastic figure, and the few bystanders laughed. Ralph himself was moved to mirth, and echoed the laugh of one who stood near and who looked round in his face. When they had pa.s.sed on, and he was left alone again, he resumed his speculation with a new kind of interest; for he recollected that the last person who had seen the suicide alive, had left him very merry, and he remembered how strange he and the other jurors had thought that at the time.
He could not fix upon the spot among such a heap of graves, but he conjured up a strong and vivid idea of the man himself, and how he looked, and what had led him to do it; all of which he recalled with ease. By dint of dwelling upon this theme, he carried the impression with him when he went away; as he remembered, when a child, to have had frequently before him the figure of some goblin he had once seen chalked upon a door. But as he drew nearer and nearer home he forgot it again, and began to think how very dull and solitary the house would be inside.
This feeling became so strong at last, that when he reached his own door, he could hardly make up his mind to turn the key and open it. When he had done that, and gone into the pa.s.sage, he felt as though to shut it again would be to shut out the world. But he let it go, and it closed with a loud noise. There was no light. How very dreary, cold, and still it was!
Shivering from head to foot, he made his way upstairs into the room where he had been last disturbed. He had made a kind of compact with himself that he would not think of what had happened until he got home. He was at home now, and suffered himself to consider it.
His own child, his own child! He never doubted the tale; he felt it was true; knew it as well, now, as if he had been privy to it all along. His own child! And dead too. Dying beside Nicholas, loving him, and looking upon him as something like an angel. That was the worst!
They had all turned from him and deserted him in his very first need. Even money could not buy them now; everything must come out, and everybody must know all. Here was the young lord dead, his companion abroad and beyond his reach, ten thousand pounds gone at one blow, his plot with Gride overset at the very moment of triumph, his after-schemes discovered, himself in danger, the object of his persecution and Nicholas"s love, his own wretched boy; everything crumbled and fallen upon him, and he beaten down beneath the ruins and grovelling in the dust.
If he had known his child to be alive; if no deceit had been ever practised, and he had grown up beneath his eye; he might have been a careless, indifferent, rough, harsh father-like enough-he felt that; but the thought would come that he might have been otherwise, and that his son might have been a comfort to him, and they two happy together. He began to think now, that his supposed death and his wife"s flight had had some share in making him the morose, hard man he was. He seemed to remember a time when he was not quite so rough and obdurate; and almost thought that he had first hated Nicholas because he was young and gallant, and perhaps like the stripling who had brought dishonour and loss of fortune on his head.
But one tender thought, or one of natural regret, in his whirlwind of pa.s.sion and remorse, was as a drop of calm water in a stormy maddened sea. His hatred of Nicholas had been fed upon his own defeat, nourished on his interference with his schemes, fattened upon his old defiance and success. There were reasons for its increase; it had grown and strengthened gradually. Now it attained a height which was sheer wild lunacy. That his, of all others, should have been the hands to rescue his miserable child; that he should have been his protector and faithful friend; that he should have shown him that love and tenderness which, from the wretched moment of his birth, he had never known; that he should have taught him to hate his own parent and execrate his very name; that he should now know and feel all this, and triumph in the recollection; was gall and madness to the usurer"s heart. The dead boy"s love for Nicholas, and the attachment of Nicholas to him, was insupportable agony. The picture of his deathbed, with Nicholas at his side, tending and supporting him, and he breathing out his thanks, and expiring in his arms, when he would have had them mortal enemies and hating each other to the last, drove him frantic. He gnashed his teeth and smote the air, and looking wildly round, with eyes which gleamed through the darkness, cried aloud: "I am trampled down and ruined. The wretch told me true. The night has come! Is there no way to rob them of further triumph, and spurn their mercy and compa.s.sion? Is there no devil to help me?"
Swiftly, there glided again into his brain the figure he had raised that night. It seemed to lie before him. The head was covered now. So it was when he first saw it. The rigid, upturned, marble feet too, he remembered well. Then came before him the pale and trembling relatives who had told their tale upon the inquest-the shrieks of women-the silent dread of men-the consternation and disquiet-the victory achieved by that heap of clay, which, with one motion of its hand, had let out the life and made this stir among them- He spoke no more; but, after a pause, softly groped his way out of the room, and up the echoing stairs-up to the top-to the front garret-where he closed the door behind him, and remained.
It was a mere lumber-room now, but it yet contained an old dismantled bedstead; the one on which his son had slept; for no other had ever been there. He avoided it hastily, and sat down as far from it as he could.
The weakened glare of the lights in the street below, shining through the window which had no blind or curtain to intercept it, was enough to show the character of the room, though not sufficient fully to reveal the various articles of lumber, old corded trunks and broken furniture, which were scattered about. It had a shelving roof; high in one part, and at another descending almost to the floor. It was towards the highest part that Ralph directed his eyes; and upon it he kept them fixed steadily for some minutes, when he rose, and dragging thither an old chest upon which he had been seated, mounted on it, and felt along the wall above his head with both hands. At length, they touched a large iron hook, firmly driven into one of the beams.
At that moment, he was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door below. After a little hesitation he opened the window, and demanded who it was.
"I want Mr Nickleby," replied a voice.
"What with him?"
"That"s not Mr Nickleby"s voice, surely?" was the rejoinder.
It was not like it; but it was Ralph who spoke, and so he said.
The voice made answer that the twin brothers wished to know whether the man whom he had seen that night was to be detained; and that although it was now midnight they had sent, in their anxiety to do right.
"Yes," cried Ralph, "detain him till tomorrow; then let them bring him here-him and my nephew-and come themselves, and be sure that I will be ready to receive them."
"At what hour?" asked the voice.
"At any hour," replied Ralph fiercely. "In the afternoon, tell them. At any hour, at any minute. All times will be alike to me."
He listened to the man"s retreating footsteps until the sound had pa.s.sed, and then, gazing up into the sky, saw, or thought he saw, the same black cloud that had seemed to follow him home, and which now appeared to hover directly above the house.
"I know its meaning now," he muttered, "and the restless nights, the dreams, and why I have quailed of late. All pointed to this. Oh! if men by selling their own souls could ride rampant for a term, for how short a term would I barter mine tonight!"
The sound of a deep bell came along the wind. One.
"Lie on!" cried the usurer, "with your iron tongue! Ring merrily for births that make expectants writhe, and marriages that are made in h.e.l.l, and toll ruefully for the dead whose shoes are worn already! Call men to prayers who are G.o.dly because not found out, and ring chimes for the coming in of every year that brings this cursed world nearer to its end. No bell or book for me! Throw me on a dunghill, and let me rot there, to infect the air!"
With a wild look around, in which frenzy, hatred, and despair were horribly mingled, he shook his clenched hand at the sky above him, which was still dark and threatening, and closed the window.
The rain and hail pattered against the gla.s.s; the chimneys quaked and rocked; the crazy cas.e.m.e.nt rattled with the wind, as though an impatient hand inside were striving to burst it open. But no hand was there, and it opened no more.
"How"s this?" cried one. "The gentleman say they can"t make anybody hear, and have been trying these two hours."
"And yet he came home last night," said another; "for he spoke to somebody out of that window upstairs."
They were a little knot of men, and, the window being mentioned, went out into the road to look up at it. This occasioned their observing that the house was still close shut, as the housekeeper had said she had left it on the previous night, and led to a great many suggestions: which terminated in two or three of the boldest getting round to the back, and so entering by a window, while the others remained outside, in impatient expectation.
They looked into all the rooms below: opening the shutters as they went, to admit the fading light: and still finding n.o.body, and everything quiet and in its place, doubted whether they should go farther. One man, however, remarking that they had not yet been into the garret, and that it was there he had been last seen, they agreed to look there too, and went up softly; for the mystery and silence made them timid.
After they had stood for an instant, on the landing, eyeing each other, he who had proposed their carrying the search so far, turned the handle of the door, and, pushing it open, looked through the c.h.i.n.k, and fell back directly.
"It"s very odd," he whispered, "he"s hiding behind the door! Look!"
They pressed forward to see; but one among them thrusting the others aside with a loud exclamation, drew a clasp-knife from his pocket, and dashing into the room, cut down the body.
He had torn a rope from one of the old trunks, and hung himself on an iron hook immediately below the trap-door in the ceiling-in the very place to which the eyes of his son, a lonely, desolate, little creature, had so often been directed in childish terror, fourteen years before.
CHAPTER 63
The Brothers Cheeryble make various Declarations for themselves and others. Tim Linkinwater makes a Declaration for himself Some weeks had pa.s.sed, and the first shock of these events had subsided. Madeline had been removed; Frank had been absent; and Nicholas and Kate had begun to try in good earnest to stifle their own regrets, and to live for each other and for their mother-who, poor lady, could in nowise be reconciled to this dull and altered state of affairs-when there came one evening, per favour of Mr Linkinwater, an invitation from the brothers to dinner on the next day but one: comprehending, not only Mrs Nickleby, Kate, and Nicholas, but little Miss La Creevy, who was most particularly mentioned.