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

While he was thus occupied, his man appeared, to announce that Mr Ralph Nickleby was below, and wished to know how he was, tonight.

‘Better,’ said Sir Mulberry, impatiently.

‘Mr Nickleby wishes to know, sir—’

‘I tell you, better,’ replied Sir Mulberry, striking his hand upon the table.

The man hesitated for a moment or two, and then said that Mr Nickleby had requested permission to see Sir Mulberry Hawk, if it was not inconvenient.

‘It IS inconvenient. I can’t see him. I can’t see anybody,’ said his master, more violently than before. ‘You know that, you blockhead.’

‘I am very sorry, sir,’ returned the man. ‘But Mr Nickleby pressed so much, sir—’

The fact was, that Ralph Nickleby had bribed the man, who, being anxious to earn his money with a view to future favours, held the door in his hand, and ventured to linger still.

‘Did he say whether he had any business to speak about?’ inquired Sir Mulberry, after a little impatient consideration.

‘No, sir. He said he wished to see you, sir. Particularly, Mr Nickleby said, sir.’

‘Tell him to come up. Here,’ cried Sir Mulberry, calling the man back, as he passed his hand over his disfigured face, ‘move that lamp, and put it on the stand behind me. Wheel that table away, and place a chair there—further off. Leave it so.’

The man obeyed these directions as if he quite comprehended the motive with which they were dictated, and left the room. Lord Frederick Verisopht, remarking that he would look in presently, strolled into the adjoining apartment, and closed the folding door behind him.

Then was heard a subdued footstep on the stairs; and Ralph Nickleby, hat in hand, crept softly into the room, with his body bent forward as if in profound respect, and his eyes fixed upon the face of his worthy client.

‘Well, Nickleby,’ said Sir Mulberry, motioning him to the chair by the couch side, and waving his hand in assumed carelessness, ‘I have had a bad accident, you see.’

‘I see,’ rejoined Ralph, with the same steady gaze. ‘Bad, indeed! I should not have known you, Sir Mulberry. Dear, dear! This IS bad.’

Ralph’s manner was one of profound humility and respect; and the low tone of voice was that, which the gentlest consideration for a sick man would have taught a visitor to assume. But the expression of his face, Sir Mulberry’s being averted, was in extraordinary contrast; and as he stood, in his usual attitude, calmly looking on the prostrate form before him, all that part of his features which was not cast into shadow by his protruding and contracted brows, bore the impress of a sarcastic smile.

‘Sit down,’ said Sir Mulberry, turning towards him, as though by a violent effort. ‘Am I a sight, that you stand gazing there?’

As he turned his face, Ralph recoiled a step or two, and making as though he were irresistibly impelled to express astonishment, but was determined not to do so, sat down with well-acted confusion.

‘I have inquired at the door, Sir Mulberry, every day,’ said Ralph, ‘twice a day, indeed, at first—and tonight, presuming upon old acquaintance, and past transactions by which we have mutually benefited in some degree, I could not resist soliciting admission to your chamber. Have you—have you suffered much?’ said Ralph, bending forward, and allowing the same harsh smile to gather upon his face, as the other closed his eyes.

‘More than enough to please me, and less than enough to please some broken-down hacks that you and I know of, and who lay their ruin between us, I dare say,’ returned Sir Mulberry, tossing his arm restlessly upon the coverlet.

Ralph shrugged his shoulders in deprecation of the intense irritation with which this had been said; for there was an aggravating, cold distinctness in his speech and manner which so grated on the sick man that he could scarcely endure it.

‘And what is it in these “past transactions,” that brought you here tonight?’ asked Sir Mulberry.

‘Nothing,’ replied Ralph. ‘There are some bills of my lord’s which need renewal; but let them be till you are well. I—I— came,’ said Ralph, speaking more slowly, and with harsher emphasis, ‘I came to say how grieved I am that any relative of mine, although disowned by me, should have inflicted such punishment on you as—’

‘Punishment!’ interposed Sir Mulberry.

‘I know it has been a severe one,’ said Ralph, wilfully mistaking the meaning of the interruption, ‘and that has made me the more anxious to tell you that I disown this vagabond—that I acknowledge him as no kin of mine—and that I leave him to take his deserts from you, and every man besides. You may wring his neck if you please. I shall not interfere.’

‘This story that they tell me here, has got abroad then, has it?’ asked Sir Mulberry, clenching his hands and teeth.

‘Noised in all directions,’ replied Ralph. ‘Every club and gaming-room has rung with it. There has been a good song made about it, as I am told,’ said Ralph, looking eagerly at his questioner. ‘I have not heard it myself, not being in the way of such things, but I have been told it’s even printed—for private circulation—but that’s all over town, of course.’

‘It’s a lie!’ said Sir Mulberry; ‘I tell you it’s all a lie. The mare took fright.’

‘They SAY he frightened her,’ observed Ralph, in the same unmoved and quiet manner. ‘Some say he frightened you, but THAT’S a lie, I know. I have said that boldly—oh, a score of times! I am a peaceable man, but I can’t hear folks tell that of you. No, no.’

When Sir Mulberry found coherent words to utter, Ralph bent forward with his hand to his ear, and a face as calm as if its every line of sternness had been cast in iron.

‘When I am off this cursed bed,’ said the invalid, actually striking at his broken leg in the ecstasy of his passion, ‘I’ll have such revenge as never man had yet. By God, I will. Accident favouring him, he has marked me for a week or two, but I’ll put a mark on him that he shall carry to his grave. I’ll slit his nose and ears, flog him, maim him for life. I’ll do more than that; I’ll drag that pattern of chastity, that pink of prudery, the delicate sister, through—’

It might have been that even Ralph’s cold blood tingled in his cheeks at that moment. It might have been that Sir Mulberry remembered, that, knave and usurer as he was, he must, in some early time of infancy, have twined his arm about her father’s neck. He stopped, and menacing with his hand, confirmed the unuttered threat with a tremendous oath.

‘It is a galling thing,’ said Ralph, after a short term of silence, during which he had eyed the sufferer keenly, ‘to think that the man about town, the rake, the ROUE, the rook of twenty seasons should be brought to this pass by a mere boy!’

Sir Mulberry darted a wrathful look at him, but Ralph’s eyes were bent upon the ground, and his face wore no other expression than one of thoughtfulness.

‘A raw, slight stripling,’ continued Ralph, ‘against a man whose very weight might crush him; to say nothing of his skill in—I am right, I think,’ said Ralph, raising his eyes, ‘you WERE a patron of the ring once, were you not?’

The sick man made an impatient gesture, which Ralph chose to consider as one of acquiescence.

‘Ha!’ he said, ‘I thought so. That was before I knew you, but I was pretty sure I couldn’t be mistaken. He is light and active, I suppose. But those were slight advantages compared with yours. Luck, luck! These hangdog outcasts have it.’

‘He’ll need the most he has, when I am well again,’ said Sir Mulberry Hawk, ‘let him fly where he will.’

‘Oh!’ returned Ralph quickly, ‘he doesn’t dream of that. He is here, good sir, waiting your pleasure, here in London, walking the streets at noonday; carrying it off jauntily; looking for you, I swear,’ said Ralph, his face darkening, and his own hatred getting the upper hand of him, for the first time, as this gay picture of Nicholas presented itself; ‘if we were only citizens of a country where it could be safely done, I’d give good money to have him stabbed to the heart and rolled into the kennel for the dogs to tear.’

As Ralph, somewhat to the surprise of his old client, vented this little piece of sound family feeling, and took up his hat preparatory to departing, Lord Frederick Verisopht looked in.

‘Why what in the deyvle’s name, Hawk, have you and Nickleby been talking about?’ said the young man. ‘I neyver heard such an insufferable riot. Croak, croak, croak. Bow, wow, wow. What has it all been about?’

‘Sir Mulberry has been angry, my Lord,’ said Ralph, looking towards the couch.

‘Not about money, I hope? Nothing has gone wrong in business, has it, Nickleby?’

‘No, my Lord, no,’ returned Ralph. ‘On that point we always agree. Sir Mulberry has been calling to mind the cause of—’

There was neither necessity nor opportunity for Ralph to proceed; for Sir Mulberry took up the theme, and vented his threats and oaths against Nicholas, almost as ferociously as before.

Ralph, who was no common observer, was surprised to see that as this tirade proceeded, the manner of Lord Frederick Verisopht, who at the commencement had been twirling his whiskers with a most dandified and listless air, underwent a complete alteration. He was still more surprised when, Sir Mulberry ceasing to speak, the young lord angrily, and almost unaffectedly, requested never to have the subject renewed in his presence.

‘Mind that, Hawk!’ he added, with unusual energy. ‘I never will be a party to, or permit, if I can help it, a cowardly attack upon this young fellow.’

‘Cowardly!’ interrupted his friend.

‘Ye-es,’ said the other, turning full upon him. ‘If you had told him who you were; if you had given him your card, and found out, afterwards, that his station or character prevented your fighting him, it would have been bad enough then; upon my soul it would have been bad enough then. As it is, you did wrong. I did wrong too, not to interfere, and I am sorry for it. What happened to you afterwards, was as much the consequence of accident as design, and more your fault than his; and it shall not, with my knowledge, be cruelly visited upon him, it shall not indeed.’

With this emphatic repetition of his concluding words, the young lord turned upon his heel; but before he had reached the adjoining room he turned back again, and said, with even greater vehemence than he had displayed before,

‘I do believe, now; upon my honour I do believe, that the sister is as virtuous and modest a young lady as she is a handsome one; and of the brother, I say this, that he acted as her brother should, and in a manly and spirited manner. And I only wish, with all my heart and soul, that any one of us came out of this matter half as well as he does.’

So saying, Lord Frederick Verisopht walked out of the room, leaving Ralph Nickleby and Sir Mulberry in most unpleasant astonishment.

‘Is this your pupil?’ asked Ralph, softly, ‘or has he come fresh from some country parson?’

‘Green fools take these fits sometimes,’ replied Sir Mulberry Hawk, biting his lip, and pointing to the door. ‘Leave him to me.’

Ralph exchanged a familiar look with his old acquaintance; for they had suddenly grown confidential again