The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  they passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of

  the opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome

  as that in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company

  to see her sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and

  draw in their heads again. There was a crooked stack of chimneys on

  one of the roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had

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  fancied ugly faces that were frowning over at her and trying to

  peer into the room; and she felt glad when it grew too dark to make

  them out, though she was sorry too, when the man came to light the

  lamps in the street--for it made it late, and very dull inside.

  Then, she would draw in her head to look round the room and see

  that everything was in its place and hadn't moved; and looking out

  into the street again, would perhaps see a man passing with a

  coffin on his back, and two or three others silently following him

  to a house where somebody lay dead; which made her shudder and

  think of such things until they suggested afresh the old man's

  altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and speculations.

  If he were to die--if sudden illness had happened to him, and he

  were never to come home again, alive--if, one night, he should

  come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had gone

  to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly,

  and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come

  creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door! These

  thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have

  recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and

  more silent than before. The shops were closing fast, and lights

  began to shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to

  bed. By degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were

  replaced, here and there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn

  all night. Still, there was one late shop at no great distance

  which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the pavement even yet, and

  looked bright and companionable. But, in a little time, this

  closed, the light was extinguished, and all was gloomy and quiet,

  except when some stray footsteps sounded on the pavement, or a

  neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at his

  house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates.

  When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had)

  the child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs,

  thinking as she went that if one of those hideous faces below,

  which often mingled with her dreams, were to meet her by the way,

  rendering itself visible by some strange light of its own, how

  terrified she would be. But these fears vanished before a

  well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect of her own room. After

  praying fervently, and with many bursting tears, for the old man,

  and the restoration of his peace of mind and the happiness they had

  once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the pillow and sob

  herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the day-light

  came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary summons

  which had roused her from her slumber.

  One night, the third after Nelly's interview with Mrs Quilp, the

  old man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not

  leave home. The child's eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her

  joy subsided when they reverted to his worn and sickly face.

  'Two days,' he said, 'two whole, clear, days have passed, and there

  is no reply. What did he tell thee, Nell?'

  'Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.'

  'True,' said the old man, faintly. 'Yes. But tell me again, Nell.

  My head fails me. What was it that he told thee? Nothing more than

  that he would see me to-morrow or next day? That was in the note.'

  'Nothing more,' said the child. 'Shall I go to him again tomorrow,

  dear grandfather? Very early? I will be there and back,

  before breakfast.'

  The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her

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  towards him.

  ''Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use. But if he deserts

  me, Nell, at this moment--if he deserts me now, when I should,

  with his assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I

  have lost, and all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes

  me what you see, I am ruined, and--worse, far worse than that--

  have ruined thee, for whom I ventured all. If we are beggars--!'

  'What if we are?' said the child boldly. 'Let us be beggars, and be

  happy.'

  'Beggars--and happy!' said the old man. 'Poor child!'

  'Dear grandfather,' cried the girl with an energy which shone in

  her flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, 'I am

  not a child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that

  we may beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty

  living, rather than live as we do now.'

  'Nelly!' said the old man.

  'Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,' the child repeated, more

  earnestly than before. 'If you are sorrowful, let me know why and

  be sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every

  day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor,

  let us be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with

  you; do not let me see such change and not know why, or I shall

  break my heart and die. Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad

  place to-morrow, and beg our way from door to door.'

  The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the

  pillow of the couch on which he lay.

  'Let us be beggars,' said the child passing an arm round his neck,

  'I have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall. Let

  us walk through country places, and sleep in fields and under

  trees, and never think of money again, or anything that can make

  you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind upon our

  faces in the day, and thank God together! Let us never set foot in

  dark rooms or melancholy houses, any more, but wander up and down

  wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you shall stop to

  rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and

  beg for both.'

  The child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old

  man's neck; nor did she weep alone.

  These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other

  eyes. And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in

  all that passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no

  less a person than Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when

  the child first placed herself at the old man's side, refrained--

  actuated, no doubt, by motives of the purest delicacy--from

  interrupting the conversation, and stood looking on with his

  accustomed grin. Standing, however, being a tiresome attitude to a

  gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the dwarf being one of


  that kind of persons who usually make themselves at home, he soon

  cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon

  agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon the

  seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort

  to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for

  doing something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions

  had strong possession of him. Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked

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  carelessly over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his

  hand, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features

  twisted into a complacent grimace. And in this position the old

  man, happening in course of time to look that way, at length

  chanced to see him: to his unbounded astonishment.

  The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable

  figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not

  knowing what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked

  shrinkingly at it. Not at all disconcerted by this reception,

  Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude, merely nodding twice or

  thrice with great condescension. At length, the old man pronounced

  his name, and inquired how he came there.

  'Through the door,' said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his

  thumb. 'I'm not quite small enough to get through key-holes. I

  wish I was. I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in

  private. With nobody present, neighbour. Good-bye, little Nelly.'

  Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed

  her cheek.

  'Ah!' said the dwarf, smacking his lips, 'what a nice kiss that was--

  just upon the rosy part. What a capital kiss!'

  Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark. Quilp

  looked after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the

  door, fell to complimenting the old man upon her charms.

  'Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,' said Quilp,

  nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; 'such

  a chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!'

  The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling

  with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience. It was

  not lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed

  anybody else, when he could.

  'She's so,' said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be

  quite absorbed in the subject, 'so small, so compact, so

  beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a

  transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways--

  but bless me, you're nervous! Why neighbour, what's the matter? I

  swear to you,' continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and

  sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very

  different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, 'I

  swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so

  warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite

  cool. I am pretty sure it ought to be. Yours must be out of order,

  neighbour.'

  'I believe it is,' groaned the old man, clasping his head with both

  hands. 'There's burning fever here, and something now and then to

  which I fear to give a name.'

  The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced

  restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his

  seat. Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for

  some time, and then suddenly raising it, said,

  'Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?'

  'No!' returned Quilp.

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  'Then,' said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and

  looking upwards, 'the child and I are lost!'

  'Neighbour,' said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his

  hand twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering

  attention, 'let me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than

  when you held all the cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing

  more. You have no secret from me now.'

  The old man looked up, trembling.

  'You are surprised,' said Quilp. 'Well, perhaps that's natural. You

  have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one. For now, I know,

  that all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and

  supplies that you have had from me, have found their way to--shall

  I say the word?'

  'Aye!' replied the old man, 'say it, if you will.'

  'To the gaming-table,' rejoined Quilp, 'your nightly haunt. This

  was the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the

  secret certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my

  money (if I had been the fool you took me for); this was your

  inexhaustible mine of gold, your El Dorado, eh?'

  'Yes,' cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, 'it

  was. It is. It will be, till I die.'

  'That I should have been blinded,' said Quilp looking

  contemptuously at him, 'by a mere shallow gambler!'

  'I am no gambler,' cried the old man fiercely. 'I call Heaven to

  witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that

  at every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan's name

  and called on Heaven to bless the venture;--which it never did.

  Whom did it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who

  lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in

  doing ill, and propagating vice and evil. My winnings would have

  been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed to the last

  farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have

  sweetened and made happy. What would they have contracted? The

  means of corruption, wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have

  hoped in such a cause? Tell me that! Who would not have hoped as I

  did?'

  'When did you first begin this mad career?' asked Quilp, his

  taunting inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man's grief

  and wildness.

  'When did I first begin?' he rejoined, passing his hand across his

  brow. 'When was it, that I first began? When should it be, but when

  I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to

  save at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and

  how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with

  barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty;

  then it was that I began to think about it.'

  'After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed

  off to sea?' said Quilp.

  'Shortly after that,' replied the old man. 'I thought of it a long

  time, and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no

  pleasure in it, I expected none. What has it ever brought me but

  anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of

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  mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!'

  'You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me.

  While I thought you were making your fortune (as y
ou said you were)

  you were making yourself a beggar, eh? Dear me! And so it comes to

  pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a

  bill of sale upon the--upon the stock and property,' said Quilp

  standing up and looking about him, as if to assure himself that

  none of it had been taken away. 'But did you never win?'

  'Never!' groaned the old man. 'Never won back my loss!'

  'I thought,' sneered the dwarf, 'that if a man played long enough

  he was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a

  loser.'

  'And so he is,' cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from

  his state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent

  excitement, 'so he is; I have felt that from the first, I have

  always known it, I've seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as

  I feel it now. Quilp, I have dreamed, three nights, of winning the

  same large sum, I never could dream that dream before, though I

  have often tried. Do not desert me, now I have this chance. I have

  no resource but you, give me some help, let me try this one last

  hope.'

  The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

  'See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,' said the old man, drawing

  some scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and

  clasping the dwarf's arm, 'only see here. Look at these figures,

  the result of long calculation, and painful and hard experience. I

  MUST win. I only want a little help once more, a few pounds, but

  two score pounds, dear Quilp.'

  'The last advance was seventy,' said the dwarf; 'and it went in one

  night.'

  'I know it did,' answered the old man, 'but that was the very worst

  fortune of all, and the time had not come then. Quilp, consider,

  consider,' the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the

  papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind,

  'that orphan child! If I were alone, I could die with gladness--

  perhaps even anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally:

  coming, as it does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and

  shunning the needy and afflicted, and all who court it in their

  despair--but what I have done, has been for her. Help me for her

  sake I implore you; not for mine; for hers!'

  'I'm sorry I've got an appointment in the city,' said Quilp,

  looking at his watch with perfect self-possession, 'or I should

  have been very glad to have spent half an hour with you while you