The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

and observing him.

  It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably

  tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very

  quiet life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and

  uncertain what she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be.

  When he had sat for some little time, attentive to the ticking of

  the sober clock, he ventured to glance curiously at the dresser,

  and there, among the plates and dishes, were Barbara's little

  work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of cotton, and

  Barbara's prayer-book, and Barbara's hymn-book, and Barbara's

  Bible. Barbara's little looking-glass hung in a good light near the

  window, and Barbara's bonnet was on a nail behind the door. From

  all these mute signs and tokens of her presence, he

  naturally glanced at Barbara herself, who sat as mute as they,

  shelling peas into a dish; and just when Kit was looking at her

  eyelashes and wondering--quite in the simplicity of his heart--

  what colour her eyes might be, it perversely happened that Barbara

  raised her head a little to look at him, when both pair

  of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit leant over his plate, and

  Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme confusion at having

  been detected by the other.

  CHAPTER 23

  Mr Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such

  was the appropriate name of Quilp's choice retreat), after a

  sinuous and corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after

  stopping suddenly and staring about him, then as suddenly running

  forward for a few paces, and as suddenly halting again and shaking

  his head; doing everything with a jerk and nothing by

  premeditation;--Mr Richard Swiveller wending his way homeward

  after this fashion, which is considered by evil-minded men to be

  symbolical of intoxication, and is not held by such persons to

  denote that state of deep wisdom and reflection in which the actor

  knows himself to be, began to think that possibly he had misplaced

  his confidence and that the dwarf might not be precisely the sort

  of person to whom to entrust a secret of such delicacy and

  importance. And being led and tempted on by this remorseful thought

  into a condition which the evil-minded class before referred to

  would term the maudlin state or stage of drunkenness, it occurred

  to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the ground, and moan, crying

  aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if he had not been an

  unhappy orphan things had never come to this.

  'Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,' said Mr Swiveller,

  bewailing his hard lot, 'cast upon the world in my tenderest

  period, and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can

  wonder at my weakness! Here's a miserable orphan for you. Here,'

  said Mr Swiveller raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking

  Page 121

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  sleepily round, 'is a miserable orphan!'

  'Then,' said somebody hard by, 'let me be a father to you.'

  Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance,

  and, looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at

  last perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he

  observed after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and

  mouth. Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with

  reference to a man's face, his legs are usually to be found, he

  observed that the face had a body attached; and when he looked more

  intently he was satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed

  had been in his company all the time, but whom he had some vague

  idea of having left a mile or two behind.

  'You have deceived an orphan, Sir,' said Mr Swiveller solemnly.'

  'I! I'm a second father to you,' replied Quilp.

  'You my father, Sir!' retorted Dick. 'Being all right myself, Sir,

  I request to be left alone--instantly, Sir.'

  'What a funny fellow you are!' cried Quilp.

  'Go, Sir,' returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his

  hand. 'Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p'r'aps you'll waken, from

  pleasure's dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken. Will you

  go, Sir?'

  The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced

  with the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement. But

  forgetting his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to

  him, he seized his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring

  with an agreeable frankness that from that time forth they were

  brothers in everything but personal appearance. Then he told his

  secret over again, with the addition of being pathetic on the

  subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave Mr Quilp to understand, was

  the occasion of any slight incoherency he might observe in his

  speech at that moment, which was attributable solely to the

  strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other fermented

  liquor. And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly together.

  'I'm as sharp,' said Quilp to him, at parting, 'as sharp as a

  ferret, and as cunning as a weazel. You bring Trent to me; assure

  him that I'm his friend though i fear he a little distrusts me (I

  don't know why, I have not deserved it); and you've both of you

  made your fortunes--in perspective.'

  'That's the worst of it,' returned Dick. 'These fortunes in

  perspective look such a long way off.'

  'But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,' said

  Quilp, pressing his arm. 'You'll have no conception of the value of

  your prize until you draw close to it. Mark that.'

  'D'ye think not?' said Dick.

  'Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that's better,'

  returned the dwarf. 'You bring Trent to me. Tell him I am his

  friend and yours--why shouldn't I be?'

  'There's no reason why you shouldn't, certainly,' replied Dick,

  'and perhaps there are a great many why you should--at least there

  would be nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you

  Page 122

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  were a choice spirit, but then you know you're not a choice

  spirit.'

  'I not a choice spirit?' cried Quilp.

  'Devil a bit,sir,' returned Dick. 'A man of your appearance

  couldn't be. If you're any spirit at all,sir, you're an evil

  spirit. Choice spirits,' added Dick, smiting himself on the breast,

  'are quite a different looking sort of people, you may take your

  oath of that,sir.'

  Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression

  of cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same

  moment, declared that he was an uncommon character and had his

  warmest esteem. With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the

  best of his way home and sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate

  upon the discovery he had made, and exult in the prospect of the

  rich field of enjoyment and reprisal it opened to him.

  It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr

  Swiveller, next morning, his head racked by the fumes of the


  renowned Schiedam, repaired to the lodging of his friend Trent

  (which was in the roof of an old house in an old ghostly inn), and

  recounted by very slow degrees what had yesterday taken place

  between him and Quilp. Nor was it without great surprise and much

  speculation on Quilp's probable motives, nor without many bitter

  comments on Dick Swiveller's folly, that his friend received the

  tale.

  'I don't defend myself, Fred,' said the penitent Richard; 'but the

  fellow has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog,

  that first of all he set me upon thinking whether there was any

  harm in telling him, and while I was thinking, screwed it out of

  me. If you had seen him drink and smoke, as I did, you couldn't

  have kept anything from him. He's a Salamander you know, that's

  what he is.'

  Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good

  confidential agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of

  course trustworthy, Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair,

  and, burying his head in his hands, endeavoured to fathom the

  motives which had led Quilp to insinuate himself into Richard

  Swiveller's confidence;--for that the disclosure was of his

  seeking, and had not been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was

  sufficiently plain from Quilp's seeking his company and enticing

  him away.

  The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to

  obtain intelligence of the fugitives. This, perhaps, as he had not

  shown any previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken

  suspicion in the breast of a creature so jealous and distrustful by

  nature, setting aside any additional impulse to curiosity that he

  might have derived from Dick's incautious manner. But knowing the

  scheme they had planned, why should he offer to assist it? This was

  a question more difficult of solution; but as knaves generally

  overreach themselves by imputing their own designs to others, the

  idea immediately presented itself that some circumstances of

  irritation between Quilp and the old man, arising out of their

  secret transactions and not unconnected perhaps with his sudden

  disappearance, now rendered the former desirous of revenging

  himself upon him by seeking to entrap the sole object of his love

  and anxiety into a connexion of which he knew he had a dread and

  hatred. As Frederick Trent himself, utterly regardless of his

  sister, had this object at heart, only second to the hope of gain,

  Page 123

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  it seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp's main principle of

  action. Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in

  abetting them, which the attainment of their purpose would serve,

  it was easy to believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as

  there could be no doubt of his proving a powerful and useful

  auxiliary, Trent determined to accept his invitation and go to his

  house that night, and if what he said and did confirmed him in the

  impression he had formed, to let him share the labour of their

  plan, but not the profit.

  Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this

  conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his

  meditations as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly

  satisfied with less), and giving him the day to recover himself

  from his late salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr

  Quilp's house.

  Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to

  be; and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs jiniwin;

  and very sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she

  was affected by the recognition of young Trent. Mrs Quilp was as

  innocent as her own mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant,

  which the sight of him awakened, but as her husband's glance made

  her timid and confused, and uncertain what to do or what was

  required of her, Mr Quilp did not fail to assign her embarrassment

  to the cause he had in his mind, and while he chuckled at his

  penetration was secretly exasperated by his jealousy.

  Nothing of this appeared, however. On the contrary, Mr Quilp was

  all blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum

  with extraordinary open-heartedness.

  'Why, let me see,' said Quilp. 'It must be a matter of nearly two

  years since we were first acquainted.'

  'Nearer three, I think,' said Trent.

  'Nearer three!' cried Quilp. 'How fast time flies. Does it seem as

  long as that to you, Mrs Quilp?'

  'Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,' was the

  unfortunate reply.

  'Oh indeed, ma'am,' thought Quilp, 'you have been pining, have you?

  Very good, ma'am.'

  'It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the

  Mary Anne,' said Quilp; 'but yesterday, I declare. Well, I like a

  little wildness. I was wild myself once.'

  Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink,

  indicative of old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was

  indignant, and could not forbear from remarking under her breath

  that he might at least put off his confessions until his wife was

  absent; for which act of boldness and insubordination Mr Quilp

  first stared her out of countenance and then drank her health

  ceremoniously.

  'I thought you'd come back directly, Fred. I always thought that,'

  said Quilp setting down his glass. 'And when the Mary Anne returned

  with you on board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart

  you had, and how happy you were in the situation that had been

  provided for you, I was amused--exceedingly amused. Ha ha ha!'

  Page 124

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most

  agreeable one that could have been selected for his entertainment;

  and for that reason Quilp pursued it.

  'I always will say,' he resumed, 'that when a rich relation having

  two young people--sisters or brothers, or brother and sister--

  dependent on him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts

  off the other, he does wrong.'

  The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as

  calmly as if he were discussing some abstract question in which

  nobody present had the slightest personal interest.

  'It's very true,' said Quilp, 'that your grandfather urged repeated

  forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but

  as I told him "these are common faults." "But he's a scoundrel,"

  said he. "Granting that," said I (for the sake of argument of

  course), "a great many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels

  too!" But he wouldn't be convinced.'

  'I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,' said the young man sarcastically.

  'Well, so did I at the time,' returned Quilp, 'but he was always

  obstinate. He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always

  obstinate and wrong-headed. Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming

  girl, but you're her brother, Frederick. You're her brother after

>   all; as you told him the last time you met, he can't alter that.'

  'He would if he could, confound him for that and all other

  kindnesses,' said the young man impatiently. 'But nothing can come

  of this subject now, and let us have done with it in the Devil's

  name.'

  'Agreed,' returned Quilp, 'agreed on my part readily. Why have I

  alluded to it? Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always

  stood your friend. You little knew who was your friend, and who

  your foe; now did you? You thought I was against you, and so there

  has been a coolness between us; but it was all on your side,

  entirely on your side. Let's shake hands again, Fred.'

  With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin

  over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short

  arm across the table. After a moment's hesitation, the young man

  stretched out his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip

  that for the moment stopped the current of the blood within them,

  and pressing his other hand upon his lip and frowning towards the

  unsuspicious Richard, released them and sat down.

  This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard

  Swiveller was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his

  designs than he thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf

  perfectly understood their relative position, and fully entered

  into the character of his friend. It is something to be

  appreciated, even in knavery. This silent homage to his superior

  abilities, no less than a sense of the power with which the dwarf's

  quick perception had already invested him, inclined the young man

  towards that ugly worthy, and determined him to profit by his aid.

  It being now Mr Quilp's cue to change the subject with all

  convenient expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness

  should reveal anything which it was inexpedient for the women to

  know, he proposed a game at four-handed cribbage, and partners

  being cut for, Mrs Quilp fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself

  to Quilp. Mrs Jiniwin being very fond of cards was carefully

  Page 125

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  excluded by her son-in-law from any participation in the game, and

  had assigned to her the duty of occasionally replenishing the

  glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp from that moment keeping one

  eye constantly upon her, lest she should by any means procure a