The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  unconscious though it might have been--to her own trials awoke

  this sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys of others can

  strongly move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature, have one

  source of pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!

  By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's gentle

  light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy

  intercourse of these two sisters which forbade her to approach and

  say a thankful word, although she yearned to do so, followed them

  at a distance in their walks and rambles, stopping when they

  stopped, sitting on the grass when they sat down, rising when they

  went on, and feeling it a companionship and delight to be so near

  them. Their evening walk was by a river's side. Here, every

  night, the child was too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded;

  but feeling as if they were her friends, as if they had confidences

  Page 170

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  and trusts together, as if her load were lightened and less hard to

  bear; as if they mingled their sorrows, and found mutual

  consolation. It was a weak fancy perhaps, the childish fancy of a

  young and lonely creature; but night after night, and still the

  sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child followed

  with a mild and softened heart.

  She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that

  Mrs Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the

  effect that the stupendous collection would only remain in its

  present quarters one day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for

  all announcements connected with public amusements are well known

  to be irrevocable and most exact), the stupendous collection shut

  up next day.

  'Are we going from this place directly, ma'am?' said Nell.

  'Look here, child,' returned Mrs Jarley. 'That'll inform you.'

  And so saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it

  was stated, that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the

  wax-work door, and in consequence of crowds having been

  disappointed in obtaining admission, the Exhibition would be

  continued for one week longer, and would re-open next day.

  'For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers

  exhausted,' said Mrs Jarley, 'we come to the General Public, and

  they want stimulating.'

  Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself

  behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished

  effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open

  for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public. But

  the first day's operations were by no means of a successful

  character, inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested

  a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen

  satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected by any

  impulses moving them to the payment of sixpence a head. Thus,

  notwithstanding that a great many people continued to stare at the

  entry and the figures therein displayed; and remained there with

  great perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ

  played and to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were

  kind enough to recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition

  in the like manner, until the door-way was regularly blockaded by

  half the population of the town, who, when they went off duty, were

  relieved by the other half; it was not found that the treasury was

  any the richer, or that the prospects of the establishment were at

  all encouraging.

  In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made

  extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the

  popular curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the

  leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the

  figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great

  admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way,

  who looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the

  degrading effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of

  the Romish Church and discoursed upon that theme with great

  eloquence and morality. The two carters constantly passed in and

  out of the exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting

  aloud that the sight was better worth the money than anything they

  had beheld in all their lives, and urging the bystanders, with

  tears in their eyes, not to neglect such a brilliant gratification.

  Mrs Jarley sat in the pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon

  till night, and solemnly calling upon the crowd to take notice that

  Page 171

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  the price of admission was only sixpence, and that the departure of

  the whole collection, on a short tour among the Crowned Heads of

  Europe, was positively fixed for that day week.

  'So be in time, be in time, be in time,' said Mrs Jarley at the

  close of every such address. 'Remember that this is Jarley's

  stupendous collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that

  it is the only collection in the world; all others being imposters

  and deceptions. Be in time, be in time, be in time!'

  CHAPTER 33

  As the course of this tale requires that we should become

  acquainted, somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected

  with the domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more

  convenient place than the present is not likely to occur for that

  purpose, the historian takes the friendly reader by the hand, and

  springing with him into the air, and cleaving the same at a greater

  rate than ever Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar

  travelled through that pleasant region in company, alights with him

  upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.

  The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the

  residence of Mr Sampson Brass.

  In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close

  upon the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the

  dim glass with his coat sleeve--much to its improvement, for it is

  very dirty--in this parlour window in the days of its occupation

  by Sampson Brass, there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured

  by the sun, a curtain of faded green, so threadbare from long

  service as by no means to intercept the view of the little dark

  room, but rather to afford a favourable medium through which to

  observe it accurately. There was not much to look at. A rickety

  table, with spare bundles of papers, yellow and ragged from long

  carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a

  couple of stools set face to face on opposite sides of this crazy

  piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the fire-place,

  whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and helped to

  squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository for

  blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the

  sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged

>   to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common

  books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted

  hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with

  the tightness of desperation to its tacks--these, with the yellow

  wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and

  cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of

  Mr Sampson Brass.

  But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the

  plate, 'BRASS, Solicitor,' upon the door, and the bill, 'First

  floor to let to a single gentleman,' which was tied to the knocker.

  The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to

  the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest

  and more particular concern.

  Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in

  these pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper,

  secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of

  Page 172

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  cost increaser, Miss Brass--a kind of amazon at common law, of

  whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.

  Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts,

  of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it

  repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a

  distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts

  of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her. In

  face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson--so

  exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted

  with Miss Brass's maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have

  assumed her brother's clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him,

  it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to

  determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady

  carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which,

  if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been

  mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in all probability,

  nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss

  Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies. In

  complexion Miss Brass was sallow--rather a dirty sallow, so to

  speak--but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow

  which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her voice

  was exceedingly impressive--deep and rich in quality, and, once

  heard, not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in

  colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to

  the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened

  behind by a peculiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no

  doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss

  Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was

  invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of

  the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened

  to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress.

  Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and

  vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with

  uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations

  upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively

  through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it

  commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great

  intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where

  practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross,

  fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in

  short, transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a

  skin of parchment or mending a pen. It is difficult to understand

  how, possessed of these combined attractions, she should remain

  Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart against mankind,

  or whether those who might have wooed and won her, were deterred by

  fears that, being learned in the law, she might have too near her

  fingers' ends those particular statutes which regulate what are

  familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she was

  still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her

  old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson. And equally

  certain it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great

  many people had come to the ground.

  One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal

  process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if

  he were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it

  was directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new

  pen preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her

  favourite occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time,

  until Miss Brass broke silence.

  'Have you nearly done, Sammy?' said Miss Brass; for in her mild and

  Page 173

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened

  down.

  'No,' returned her brother. 'It would have been all done though,

  if you had helped at the right time.'

  'Oh yes, indeed,' cried Miss Sally; 'you want my help, don't you? --

  YOU, too, that are going to keep a clerk!'

  'Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my

  own wish, you provoking rascal!' said Mr Brass, putting his pen in

  his mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister. 'What do you

  taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?'

  It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling

  a lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that

  he was so habituated to having her near him in a man's capacity,

  that he had gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though

  she were really a man. And this feeling was so perfectly

  reciprocal, that not only did Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a

  rascal, or even put an adjective before the rascal, but Miss Brass

  looked upon it as quite a matter of course, and was as little moved

  as any other lady would be by being called an angel.

  'What do you taunt me, after three hours' talk last night, with

  going to keep a clerk for?' repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with

  the pen in his mouth, like some nobleman's or gentleman's crest.

  Is it my fault?'

  'All I know is,' said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted

  in nothing so much as irritating her brother, 'that if every one of

  your clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or

  not, you had better leave off business, strike yourself off the

  roll, and get taken in execution, as soon as you can.'

  'Have we got any other client like him?' said Brass. 'Have we got

  another client like him now--will you answer me that?'

  'Do you mean in the face!' said his sister.

  'Do I mean in the face!' sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to

  take up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly. 'Look

  here--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--
Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp,

  Esquire--all through. Whether should I take a clerk that he

  recommends, and says, "this is the man for you," or lose all this,

  eh?'

  Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on

  with her work.

  'But I know what it is,' resumed Brass after a short silence.

  'You're afraid you won't have as long a finger in the business as

  you've been used to have. Do you think I don't see through that?'

  'The business wouldn't go on very long, I expect, without me,'

  returned his sister composedly. 'Don't you be a fool and provoke

  me, Sammy, but mind what you're doing, and do it.'

  Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister,

  sulkily bent over his writing again, and listened as she said:

  'If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he

  wouldn't be allowed to come. You know that well enough, so don't

  talk nonsense.'

  Page 174

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely

  remarking, under his breath, that he didn't like that kind of

  joking, and that Miss Sally would be 'a much better fellow' if she

  forbore to aggravate him. To this compliment Miss Sally replied,

  that she had a relish for the amusement, and had no intention to

  forego its gratification. Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to

  pursue the subject any further, they both plied their pens at a

  great pace, and there the discussion ended.

  While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as

  by some person standing close against it. As Mr Brass and Miss

  Sally looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly

  lowered from without, and Quilp thrust in his head.

  'Hallo!' he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and

  looking down into the room. 'is there anybody at home? Is there

  any of the Devil's ware here? Is Brass at a premium, eh?'

  'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy. 'Oh, very

  good, Sir! Oh, very good indeed! Quite eccentric! Dear me, what

  humour he has!'

  'Is that my Sally?' croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass.

  'Is it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword

  and scales? Is it the Strong Arm of the Law? Is it the Virgin of

  Bevis?'

  'What an amazing flow of spirits!' cried Brass. 'Upon my word,