The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (books to read this summer txt) 📕

‘I can’t help it, Miss Knag,’ said the charwoman, bridling up on the shortest notice. ‘There’s been a deal o’cleaning to do in this house, and if you don’t like it, I must trouble you to look out for somebody else, for it don’t hardly pay me, and that’s the truth, if I was to be hung this minute.’

‘I don’t want any remarks if YOU please,’ said Miss Knag, with a strong emphasis on the personal pronoun. ‘Is there any fire downstairs for some hot water presently?’

‘No there is not, indeed, Miss Knag,’ replied the substitute; ‘and so I won’t tell you no stories about it.’

‘Then why isn’t there?’ said Miss Knag.

‘Because there arn’t no coals left out, and if I could make coals I would, but as I can’t I won’t, and so I make bold to tell you, Mem,’ replied Mrs Blockson.

‘Will you hold your tongue—female?’ said Mr Mortimer Knag, plunging violently into this dialogue.

‘By your leave, Mr Knag,’ retorted the charwoman, turning sharp round. ‘I’m only too glad not to speak in this house, excepting when and where I’m spoke to, sir; and with regard to being a female, sir, I should wish to know what you considered yourself?’

‘A miserable wretch,’ exclaimed Mr Knag, striking his forehead. ‘A miserable wretch.’

‘I’m very glad to find that you don’t call yourself out of your name, sir,’ said Mrs Blockson; ‘and as I had two twin children the day before yesterday was only seven weeks, and my little Charley fell down a airy and put his elber out, last Monday, I shall take it as a favour if you’ll send nine shillings, for one week’s work, to my house, afore the clock strikes ten tomorrow.’

With these parting words, the good woman quitted the room with great ease of manner, leaving the door wide open; Mr Knag, at the same moment, flung himself into the ‘warehouse,’ and groaned aloud.

‘What is the matter with that gentleman, pray?’ inquired Mrs Nickleby, greatly disturbed by the sound.

‘Is he ill?’ inquired Kate, really alarmed.

‘Hush!’ replied Miss Knag; ‘a most melancholy history. He was once most devotedly attached to—hem—to Madame Mantalini.’

‘Bless me!’ exclaimed Mrs Nickleby.

‘Yes,’ continued Miss Knag, ‘and received great encouragement too, and confidently hoped to marry her. He has a most romantic heart, Mrs Nickleby, as indeed—hem—as indeed all our family have, and the disappointment was a dreadful blow. He is a wonderfully accomplished man—most extraordinarily accomplished—reads—hem— reads every novel that comes out; I mean every novel that—hem—that has any fashion in it, of course. The fact is, that he did find so much in the books he read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and did find himself in every respect so much like the heroes—because of course he is conscious of his own superiority, as we all are, and very naturally—that he took to scorning everything, and became a genius; and I am quite sure that he is, at this very present moment, writing another book.’

‘Another book!’ repeated Kate, finding that a pause was left for somebody to say something.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Knag, nodding in great triumph; ‘another book, in three volumes post octavo. Of course it’s a great advantage to him, in all his little fashionable descriptions, to have the benefit of my—hem—of my experience, because, of course, few authors who write about such things can have such opportunities of knowing them as I have. He’s so wrapped up in high life, that the least allusion to business or worldly matters—like that woman just now, for instance— quite distracts him; but, as I often say, I think his disappointment a great thing for him, because if he hadn’t been disappointed he couldn’t have written about blighted hopes and all that; and the fact is, if it hadn’t happened as it has, I don’t believe his genius would ever have come out at all.’

How much more communicative Miss Knag might have become under more favourable circumstances, it is impossible to divine, but as the gloomy one was within ear-shot, and the fire wanted making up, her disclosures stopped here. To judge from all appearances, and the difficulty of making the water warm, the last servant could not have been much accustomed to any other fire than St Anthony’s; but a little brandy and water was made at last, and the guests, having been previously regaled with cold leg of mutton and bread and cheese, soon afterwards took leave; Kate amusing herself, all the way home, with the recollection of her last glimpse of Mr Mortimer Knag deeply abstracted in the shop; and Mrs Nickleby by debating within herself whether the dressmaking firm would ultimately become ‘Mantalini, Knag, and Nickleby’, or ‘Mantalini, Nickleby, and Knag’.

At this high point, Miss Knag’s friendship remained for three whole days, much to the wonderment of Madame Mantalini’s young ladies who had never beheld such constancy in that quarter, before; but on the fourth, it received a check no less violent than sudden, which thus occurred.

It happened that an old lord of great family, who was going to marry a young lady of no family in particular, came with the young lady, and the young lady’s sister, to witness the ceremony of trying on two nuptial bonnets which had been ordered the day before, and Madame Mantalini announcing the fact, in a shrill treble, through the speaking-pipe, which communicated with the workroom, Miss Knag darted hastily upstairs with a bonnet in each hand, and presented herself in the show-room, in a charming state of palpitation, intended to demonstrate her enthusiasm in the cause. The bonnets were no sooner fairly on, than Miss Knag and Madame Mantalini fell into convulsions of admiration.

‘A most elegant appearance,’ said Madame Mantalini.

‘I never saw anything so exquisite in all my life,’ said Miss Knag.

Now, the old lord, who was a VERY old lord, said nothing, but mumbled and chuckled in a state of great delight, no less with the nuptial bonnets and their wearers, than with his own address in getting such a fine woman for his wife; and the young lady, who was a very lively young lady, seeing the old lord in this rapturous condition, chased the old lord behind a cheval-glass, and then and there kissed him, while Madame Mantalini and the other young lady looked, discreetly, another way.

But, pending the salutation, Miss Knag, who was tinged with curiosity, stepped accidentally behind the glass, and encountered the lively young lady’s eye just at the very moment when she kissed the old lord; upon which the young lady, in a pouting manner, murmured something about ‘an old thing,’ and ‘great impertinence,’ and finished by darting a look of displeasure at Miss Knag, and smiling contemptuously.

‘Madame Mantalini,’ said the young lady.

‘Ma’am,’ said Madame Mantalini.

‘Pray have up that pretty young creature we saw yesterday.’

‘Oh yes, do,’ said the sister.

‘Of all things in the world, Madame Mantalini,’ said the lord’s intended, throwing herself languidly on a sofa, ‘I hate being waited upon by frights or elderly persons. Let me always see that young creature, I beg, whenever I come.’

‘By all means,’ said the old lord; ‘the lovely young creature, by all means.’

‘Everybody is talking about her,’ said the young lady, in the same careless manner; ‘and my lord, being a great admirer of beauty, must positively see her.’

‘She IS universally admired,’ replied Madame Mantalini. ‘Miss Knag, send up Miss Nickleby. You needn’t return.’

‘I beg your pardon, Madame Mantalini, what did you say last?’ asked Miss Knag, trembling.

‘You needn’t return,’ repeated the superior, sharply. Miss Knag vanished without another word, and in all reasonable time was replaced by Kate, who took off the new bonnets and put on the old ones: blushing very much to find that the old lord and the two young ladies were staring her out of countenance all the time.

‘Why, how you colour, child!’ said the lord’s chosen bride.

‘She is not quite so accustomed to her business, as she will be in a week or two,’ interposed Madame Mantalini with a gracious smile.

‘I am afraid you have been giving her some of your wicked looks, my lord,’ said the intended.

‘No, no, no,’ replied the old lord, ‘no, no, I’m going to be married, and lead a new life. Ha, ha, ha! a new life, a new life! ha, ha, ha!’

It was a satisfactory thing to hear that the old gentleman was going to lead a new life, for it was pretty evident that his old one would not last him much longer. The mere exertion of protracted chuckling reduced him to a fearful ebb of coughing and gasping; it was some minutes before he could find breath to remark that the girl was too pretty for a milliner.

‘I hope you don’t think good looks a disqualification for the business, my lord,’ said Madame Mantalini, simpering.

‘Not by any means,’ replied the old lord, ‘or you would have left it long ago.’

‘You naughty creature,’ said the lively lady, poking the peer with her parasol; ‘I won’t have you talk so. How dare you?’

This playful inquiry was accompanied with another poke, and another, and then the old lord caught the parasol, and wouldn’t give it up again, which induced the other lady to come to the rescue, and some very pretty sportiveness ensued.

‘You will see that those little alterations are made, Madame Mantalini,’ said the lady. ‘Nay, you bad man, you positively shall go first; I wouldn’t leave you behind with that pretty girl, not for half a second. I know you too well. Jane, my dear, let him go first, and we shall be quite sure of him.’

The old lord, evidently much flattered by this suspicion, bestowed a grotesque leer upon Kate as he passed; and, receiving another tap with the parasol for his wickedness, tottered downstairs to the door, where his sprightly body was hoisted into the carriage by two stout footmen.

‘Foh!’ said Madame Mantalini, ‘how he ever gets into a carriage without thinking of a hearse, I can’t think. There, take the things away, my dear, take them away.’

Kate, who had remained during the whole scene with her eyes modestly fixed upon the ground, was only too happy to avail herself of the permission to retire, and hasten joyfully downstairs to Miss Knag’s dominion.

The circumstances of the little kingdom had greatly changed, however, during the short period of her absence. In place of Miss Knag being stationed in her accustomed seat, preserving all the dignity and greatness of Madame Mantalini’s representative, that worthy soul was reposing on a large box, bathed in tears, while three or four of the young ladies in close attendance upon her, together with the presence of hartshorn, vinegar, and other restoratives, would have borne ample testimony, even without the derangement of the headdress and front row of curls, to her having fainted desperately.

‘Bless me!’ said Kate, stepping hastily forward, ‘what is the matter?’

This inquiry produced in Miss Knag violent symptoms of a relapse; and several young ladies, darting angry looks at Kate, applied more vinegar and hartshorn, and said it was ‘a shame.’

‘What is a shame?’ demanded Kate. ‘What is the matter? What has happened? tell me.’

‘Matter!’ cried Miss Knag, coming, all at once, bolt upright, to the great consternation of the assembled maidens; ‘matter! Fie upon you, you nasty creature!’

‘Gracious!’ cried Kate, almost paralysed by the violence with which the adjective had been jerked out from between Miss Knag’s closed teeth; ‘have I offended you?’

‘YOU offended me!’ retorted Miss Knag, ‘YOU! a chit, a child, an upstart nobody! Oh, indeed! Ha, ha!’

Now, it was evident, as Miss Knag laughed, that something struck her as being exceedingly funny; and as the young ladies took their tone from Miss Knag—she being