The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby

by Charles Dickens

  'HOW do you do?' said the other gentleman, altering the emphasis, as if to give variety to the salutation.

  Mrs Nickleby curtseyed and smiled, and curtseyed again, and remarked, rubbing her hands as she did so, that she hadn't the— really—the honour to—

  'To know us,' said the first gentleman. 'The loss has been ours, Mrs Nickleby. Has the loss been ours, Pyke?'

  'It has, Pluck,' answered the other gentleman.

  'We have regretted it very often, I believe, Pyke?' said the first gentleman.

  'Very often, Pluck,' answered the second.

  'But now,' said the first gentleman, 'now we have the happiness we have pined and languished for. Have we pined and languished for this happiness, Pyke, or have we not?'

  'You know we have, Pluck,' said Pyke, reproachfully.

  'You hear him, ma'am?' said Mr Pluck, looking round; 'you hear the unimpeachable testimony of my friend Pyke—that reminds me,— formalities, formalities, must not be neglected in civilised society. Pyke—Mrs Nickleby.'

  Mr Pyke laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed low.

  'Whether I shall introduce myself with the same formality,' said Mr Pluck—'whether I shall say myself that my name is Pluck, or whether I shall ask my friend Pyke (who being now regularly introduced, is competent to the office) to state for me, Mrs Nickleby, that my name is Pluck; whether I shall claim your acquaintance on the plain ground of the strong interest I take in your welfare, or whether I shall make myself known to you as the friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk— these, Mrs Nickleby, are considerations which I leave to you to determine.'

  'Any friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk's requires no better introduction

  to me,' observed Mrs Nickleby, graciously.

  'It is delightful to hear you say so,' said Mr Pluck, drawing a

  chair close to Mrs Nickleby, and sitting himself down. 'It is refreshing to know that you hold my excellent friend, Sir Mulberry, in such high esteem. A word in your ear, Mrs Nickleby. When Sir Mulberry knows it, he will be a happy man—I say, Mrs Nickleby, a happy man. Pyke, be seated.'

  'MY good opinion,' said Mrs Nickleby, and the poor lady exulted in the idea that she was marvellously sly,—'my good opinion can be of very little consequence to a gentleman like Sir Mulberry.'

  'Of little consequence!' exclaimed Mr Pluck. 'Pyke, of what consequence to our friend, Sir Mulberry, is the good opinion of Mrs Nickleby?'

  'Of what consequence?' echoed Pyke.

  'Ay,' repeated Pluck; 'is it of the greatest consequence?'

  'Of the very greatest consequence,' replied Pyke.

  'Mrs Nickleby cannot be ignorant,' said Mr Pluck, 'of the immense impression which that sweet girl has—'

  'Pluck!' said his friend, 'beware!'

  'Pyke is right,' muttered Mr Pluck, after a short pause; 'I was not to mention it. Pyke is very right. Thank you, Pyke.'

  'Well now, really,' thought Mrs Nickleby within herself. 'Such delicacy as that, I never saw!'

  Mr Pluck, after feigning to be in a condition of great embarrassment for some minutes, resumed the conversation by entreating Mrs Nickleby to take no heed of what he had inadvertently said—to consider him imprudent, rash, injudicious. The only stipulation he would make in his own favour was, that she should give him credit for the best intentions.

  'But when,' said Mr Pluck, 'when I see so much sweetness and beauty on the one hand, and so much ardour and devotion on the other, I— pardon me, Pyke, I didn't intend to resume that theme. Change the subject, Pyke.'

  'We promised Sir Mulberry and Lord Frederick,' said Pyke, 'that we'd call this morning and inquire whether you took any cold last night.'

  'Not the least in the world last night, sir,' replied Mrs Nickleby, 'with many thanks to his lordship and Sir Mulberry for doing me the honour to inquire; not the least—which is the more singular, as I really am very subject to colds, indeed—very subject. I had a cold once,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I think it was in the year eighteen hundred and seventeen; let me see, four and five are nine, and—yes, eighteen hundred and seventeen, that I thought I never should get rid of; actually and seriously, that I thought I never should get rid of. I was only cured at last by a remedy that I don't know whether you ever happened to hear of, Mr Pluck. You have a gallon of water as hot as you can possibly bear it, with a pound of salt, and sixpen'orth of the finest bran, and sit with your head in it for twenty minutes every night just before going to bed; at least, I don't mean your head—your feet. It's a most extraordinary cure—a most extraordinary cure. I used it for the first time, I recollect, the day after Christmas Day, and by the middle of April following the cold was gone. It seems quite a miracle when you come to think of it, for I had it ever since the beginning of September.'

  'What an afflicting calamity!' said Mr Pyke.

  'Perfectly horrid!' exclaimed Mr Pluck.

  'But it's worth the pain of hearing, only to know that Mrs Nickleby recovered it, isn't it, Pluck?' cried Mr Pyke.

  'That is the circumstance which gives it such a thrilling interest,' replied Mr Pluck.

  'But come,' said Pyke, as if suddenly recollecting himself; 'we must not forget our mission in the pleasure of this interview. We come on a mission, Mrs Nickleby.'

  'On a mission,' exclaimed that good lady, to whose mind a definite proposal of marriage for Kate at once presented itself in lively colours.

  'From Sir Mulberry,' replied Pyke. 'You must be very dull here.'

  'Rather dull, I confess,' said Mrs Nickleby.

  'We bring the compliments of Sir Mulberry Hawk, and a thousand entreaties that you'll take a seat in a private box at the play tonight,' said Mr Pluck.

  'Oh dear!' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I never go out at all, never.'

  'And that is the very reason, my dear Mrs Nickleby, why you should go out tonight,' retorted Mr Pluck. 'Pyke, entreat Mrs Nickleby.'

  'Oh, pray do,' said Pyke.

  'You positively must,' urged Pluck.

  'You are very kind,' said Mrs Nickleby, hesitating; 'but—'

  'There's not a but in the case, my dear Mrs Nickleby,' remonstrated Mr Pluck; 'not such a word in the vocabulary. Your brother-in-law joins us, Lord Frederick joins us, Sir Mulberry joins us, Pyke joins us—a refusal is out of the question. Sir Mulberry sends a carriage for you—twenty minutes before seven to the moment—you'll not be so cruel as to disappoint the whole party, Mrs Nickleby?'

  'You are so very pressing, that I scarcely know what to say,' replied the worthy lady.

  'Say nothing; not a word, not a word, my dearest madam,' urged Mr Pluck. 'Mrs Nickleby,' said that excellent gentleman, lowering his voice, 'there is the most trifling, the most excusable breach of confidence in what I am about to say; and yet if my friend Pyke there overheard it—such is that man's delicate sense of honour, Mrs Nickleby—he'd have me out before dinner-time.'

  Mrs Nickleby cast an apprehensive glance at the warlike Pyke, who had walked to the window; and Mr Pluck, squeezing her hand, went on:

  'Your daughter has made a conquest—a conquest on which I may congratulate you. Sir Mulberry, my dear ma'am, Sir Mulberry is her devoted slave. Hem!'

  'Hah!' cried Mr Pyke at this juncture, snatching something from the chimney-piece with a theatrical air. 'What is this! what do I behold!'

  'What DO you behold, my dear fellow?' asked Mr Pluck.

  'It is the face, the countenance, the expression,' cried Mr Pyke, falling into his chair with a miniature in his hand; 'feebly portrayed, imperfectly caught, but still THE face, THE countenance, THE expression.'

  'I recognise it at this distance!' exclaimed Mr Pluck in a fit of enthusiasm. 'Is it not, my dear madam, the faint similitude of—'

  'It is my daughter's portrait,' said Mrs Nickleby, with great pride. And so it was. And little Miss La Creevy had brought it home for inspection only two nights before.

  Mr Pyke no sooner ascertained that he was quite right in his conjecture, than he launched into the most extravagant encomiums of the divine original; and in the warmth o
f his enthusiasm kissed the picture a thousand times, while Mr Pluck pressed Mrs Nickleby's hand to his heart, and congratulated her on the possession of such a daughter, with so much earnestness and affection, that the tears stood, or seemed to stand, in his eyes. Poor Mrs Nickleby, who had listened in a state of enviable complacency at first, became at length quite overpowered by these tokens of regard for, and attachment to, the family; and even the servant girl, who had peeped in at the door, remained rooted to the spot in astonishment at the ecstasies of the two friendly visitors.

  By degrees these raptures subsided, and Mrs Nickleby went on to entertain her guests with a lament over her fallen fortunes, and a picturesque account of her old house in the country: comprising a full description of the different apartments, not forgetting the little store-room, and a lively recollection of how many steps you went down to get into the garden, and which way you turned when you came out at the parlour door, and what capital fixtures there were in the kitchen. This last reflection naturally conducted her into the wash-house, where she stumbled upon the brewing utensils, among which she might have wandered for an hour, if the mere mention of those implements had not, by an association of ideas, instantly reminded Mr Pyke that he was 'amazing thirsty.'

  'And I'll tell you what,' said Mr Pyke; 'if you'll send round to the public-house for a pot of milk half-and-half, positively and actually I'll drink it.'

  And positively and actually Mr Pyke DID drink it, and Mr Pluck helped him, while Mrs Nickleby looked on in divided admiration of the condescension of the two, and the aptitude with which they accommodated themselves to the pewter-pot; in explanation of which seeming marvel it may be here observed, that gentlemen who, like Messrs Pyke and Pluck, live upon their wits (or not so much, perhaps, upon the presence of their own wits as upon the absence of wits in other people) are occasionally reduced to very narrow shifts and straits, and are at such periods accustomed to regale themselves in a very simple and primitive manner.

  'At twenty minutes before seven, then,' said Mr Pyke, rising, 'the coach will be here. One more look—one little look—at that sweet face. Ah! here it is. Unmoved, unchanged!' This, by the way, was a very remarkable circumstance, miniatures being liable to so many changes of expression—'Oh, Pluck! Pluck!'

  Mr Pluck made no other reply than kissing Mrs Nickleby's hand with a great show of feeling and attachment; Mr Pyke having done the same, both gentlemen hastily withdrew.

  Mrs Nickleby was commonly in the habit of giving herself credit for a pretty tolerable share of penetration and acuteness, but she had never felt so satisfied with her own sharp-sightedness as she did that day. She had found it all out the night before. She had never seen Sir Mulberry and Kate together—never even heard Sir Mulberry's name—and yet hadn't she said to herself from the very first, that she saw how the case stood? and what a triumph it was, for there was now no doubt about it. If these flattering attentions to herself were not sufficient proofs, Sir Mulberry's confidential friend had suffered the secret to escape him in so many words. 'I am quite in love with that dear Mr Pluck, I declare I am,' said Mrs Nickleby.

  There was one great source of uneasiness in the midst of this good fortune, and that was the having nobody by, to whom she could confide it. Once or twice she almost resolved to walk straight to Miss La Creevy's and tell it all to her. 'But I don't know,' thought Mrs Nickleby; 'she is a very worthy person, but I am afraid too much beneath Sir Mulberry's station for us to make a companion of. Poor thing!' Acting upon this grave consideration she rejected the idea of taking the little portrait painter into her confidence, and contented herself with holding out sundry vague and mysterious hopes of preferment to the servant girl, who received these obscure hints of dawning greatness with much veneration and respect.

  Punctual to its time came the promised vehicle, which was no hackney coach, but a private chariot, having behind it a footman, whose legs, although somewhat large for his body, might, as mere abstract legs, have set themselves up for models at the Royal Academy. It was quite exhilarating to hear the clash and bustle with which he banged the door and jumped up behind after Mrs Nickleby was in; and as that good lady was perfectly unconscious that he applied the gold-headed end of his long stick to his nose, and so telegraphed most disrespectfully to the coachman over her very head, she sat in a state of much stiffness and dignity, not a little proud of her position.

  At the theatre entrance there was more banging and more bustle, and there were also Messrs Pyke and Pluck waiting to escort her to her box; and so polite were they, that Mr Pyke threatened with many oaths to 'smifligate' a very old man with a lantern who accidentally stumbled in her way—to the great terror of Mrs Nickleby, who, conjecturing more from Mr Pyke's excitement than any previous acquaintance with the etymology of the word that smifligation and bloodshed must be in the main one and the same thing, was alarmed beyond expression, lest something should occur. Fortunately, however, Mr Pyke confined himself to mere verbal smifligation, and they reached their box with no more serious interruption by the way, than a desire on the part of the same pugnacious gentleman to 'smash' the assistant box-keeper for happening to mistake the number.

  Mrs Nickleby had scarcely been put away behind the curtain of the box in an armchair, when Sir Mulberry and Lord Verisopht arrived, arrayed from the crowns of their heads to the tips of their gloves, and from the tips of their gloves to the toes of their boots, in the most elegant and costly manner. Sir Mulberry was a little hoarser than on the previous day, and Lord Verisopht looked rather sleepy and queer; from which tokens, as well as from the circumstance of their both being to a trifling extent unsteady upon their legs, Mrs Nickleby justly concluded that they had taken dinner.

  'We have been—we have been—toasting your lovely daughter, Mrs Nickleby,' whispered Sir Mulberry, sitting down behind her.

  'Oh, ho!' thought that knowing lady; 'wine in, truth out.—You are very kind, Sir Mulberry.'

  'No, no upon my soul!' replied Sir Mulberry Hawk. 'It's you that's kind, upon my soul it is. It was so kind of you to come tonight.'

  'So very kind of you to invite me, you mean, Sir Mulberry,' replied Mrs Nickleby, tossing her head, and looking prodigiously sly.

  'I am so anxious to know you, so anxious to cultivate your good opinion, so desirous that there should be a delicious kind of harmonious family understanding between us,' said Sir Mulberry, 'that you mustn't think I'm disinterested in what I do. I'm infernal selfish; I am—upon my soul I am.'

  'I am sure you can't be selfish, Sir Mulberry!' replied Mrs Nickleby. 'You have much too open and generous a countenance for that.'

  'What an extraordinary observer you are!' said Sir Mulberry Hawk.

  'Oh no, indeed, I don't see very far into things, Sir Mulberry,' replied Mrs Nickleby, in a tone of voice which left the baronet to infer that she saw very far indeed.

  'I am quite afraid of you,' said the baronet. 'Upon my soul,' repeated Sir Mulberry, looking round to his companions; 'I am afraid of Mrs Nickleby. She is so immensely sharp.'

  Messrs Pyke and Pluck shook their heads mysteriously, and observed together that they had found that out long ago; upon which Mrs Nickleby tittered, and Sir Mulberry laughed, and Pyke and Pluck roared.

  'But where's my brother-in-law, Sir Mulberry?' inquired Mrs Nickleby. 'I shouldn't be here without him. I hope he's coming.'

  'Pyke,' said Sir Mulberry, taking out his toothpick and lolling back in his chair, as if he were too lazy to invent a reply to this question. 'Where's Ralph Nickleby?'

  'Pluck,' said Pyke, imitating the baronet's action, and turning the lie over to his friend, 'where's Ralph Nickleby?'

  Mr Pluck was about to return some evasive reply, when the hustle caused by a party entering the next box seemed to attract the attention of all four gentlemen, who exchanged glances of much meaning. The new party beginning to converse together, Sir Mulberry suddenly assumed the character of a most attentive listener, and implored his friends not to breathe—not to breathe.

  '
Why not?' said Mrs Nickleby. 'What is the matter?'

  'Hush!' replied Sir Mulberry, laying his hand on her arm. 'Lord Frederick, do you recognise the tones of that voice?'

  'Deyvle take me if I didn't think it was the voice of Miss Nickleby.'

  'Lor, my lord!' cried Miss Nickleby's mama, thrusting her head round the curtain. 'Why actually—Kate, my dear, Kate.'

  'YOU here, mama! Is it possible!'

  'Possible, my dear? Yes.'

  'Why who—who on earth is that you have with you, mama?' said Kate, shrinking back as she caught sight of a man smiling and kissing his hand.

  'Who do you suppose, my dear?' replied Mrs Nickleby, bending towards Mrs Wititterly, and speaking a little louder for that lady's edification. 'There's Mr Pyke, Mr Pluck, Sir Mulberry Hawk, and Lord Frederick Verisopht.'

  'Gracious Heaven!' thought Kate hurriedly. 'How comes she in such society?'

  Now, Kate thought thus SO hurriedly, and the surprise was so great, and moreover brought back so forcibly the recollection of what had passed at Ralph's delectable dinner, that she turned extremely pale and appeared greatly agitated, which symptoms being observed by Mrs Nickleby, were at once set down by that acute lady as being caused and occasioned by violent love. But, although she was in no small degree delighted by this discovery, which reflected so much credit on her own quickness of perception, it did not lessen her motherly anxiety in Kate's behalf; and accordingly, with a vast quantity of trepidation, she quitted her own box to hasten into that of Mrs Wititterly. Mrs Wititterly, keenly alive to the glory of having a lord and a baronet among her visiting acquaintance, lost no time in signing to Mr Wititterly to open the door, and thus it was that in less than thirty seconds Mrs Nickleby's party had made an irruption into Mrs Wititterly's box, which it filled to the very door, there being in fact only room for Messrs Pyke and Pluck to get in their heads and waistcoats.

  'My dear Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby, kissing her daughter affectionately. 'How ill you looked a moment ago! You quite frightened me, I declare!'

  'It was mere fancy, mama,—the—the—reflection of the lights perhaps,' replied Kate, glancing nervously round, and finding it impossible to whisper any caution or explanation.