The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  constant state of restlessness and irritation. Will you begone?'

  Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty.

  'I tell you no,' cried the dwarf. 'No. If you dare to come here

  again unless you're sent for, I'll keep watch-dogs in the yard

  that'll growl and bite--I'll have man-traps, cunningly altered and

  improved for catching women--I'll have spring guns, that shall

  explode when you tread upon the wires, and blow you into little

  pieces. Will you begone?'

  'Do forgive me. Do come back,' said his wife, earnestly.

  'No-o-o-o-o!' roared Quilp. 'Not till my own good time, and then

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  I'll return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to

  nobody for my goings or comings. You see the door there. Will you

  go?'

  Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic

  voice, and moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture,

  indicative of an intention to spring out of his hammock, and,

  night-capped as he was, bear his wife home again through the public

  streets, that she sped away like an arrow. Her worthy lord

  stretched his neck and eyes until she had crossed the yard, and

  then, not at all sorry to have had this opportunity of carrying his

  point, and asserting the sanctity of his castle, fell into an

  immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down to sleep again.

  CHAPTER 51

  The bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor's Hall slept on

  amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog,

  and rats, until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom

  Scott to assist him to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted

  his couch, and made his toilet. This duty performed, and his

  repast ended, he again betook himself to Bevis Marks.

  This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend

  and employer Mr Sampson Brass. Both gentlemen however were from

  home, nor was the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post

  either. The fact of their joint desertion of the office was made

  known to all comers by a scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr

  Swiveller, which was attached to the bell-handle, and which, giving

  the reader no clue to the time of day when it was first posted,

  furnished him with the rather vague and unsatisfactory information

  that that gentleman would 'return in an hour.'

  'There's a servant, I suppose,' said the dwarf, knocking at the

  house-door. 'She'll do.'

  After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a

  small voice immediately accosted him with, 'Oh please will you

  leave a card or message?'

  'Eh?' said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to

  him) upon the small servant.

  To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the

  occasion of her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied,

  'Oh please will you leave a card or message?'

  'I'll write a note,' said the dwarf, pushing past her into the

  office; 'and mind your master has it directly he comes home.' So

  Mr Quilp climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note,

  and the small servant, carefully tutored for such emergencies,

  looked on with her eyes wide open, ready, if he so much as

  abstracted a wafer, to rush into the street and give the alarm to

  the police.

  As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very

  short one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant. He looked

  at her, long and earnestly.

  'How are you?' said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible

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  grimaces.

  The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no

  audible reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she

  was inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the

  note or message.

  'Do they use you ill here? is your mistress a Tartar?' said Quilp

  with a chuckle.

  In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look

  of infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very

  tight and round, and nodded violently. Whether there was anything

  in the peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or

  anything in the expression of her features at the moment which

  attracted his attention for some other reason; or whether it merely

  occurred to him as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out

  of countenance; certain it is, that he planted his elbows square

  and firmly on the desk, and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands,

  looked at her fixedly.

  'Where do you come from?' he said after a long pause, stroking his

  chin.

  'I don't know.'

  'What's your name?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Nonsense!' retorted Quilp. 'What does your mistress call you when

  she wants you?'

  'A little devil,' said the child.

  She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further

  questioning, 'But please will you leave a card or message?'

  These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more

  inquiries. Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew

  his eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully

  than before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it

  with scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly

  but very narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows. The result of

  this secret survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and

  laughed slyly and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen

  almost to bursting. Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his

  mirth and its effects, he tossed the letter to the child, and

  hastily withdrew.

  Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and

  held his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the

  dusty area railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child,

  until he was quite tired out. At last, he travelled back to the

  Wilderness, which was within rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat,

  and ordered tea in the wooden summer-house that afternoon for three

  persons; an invitation to Miss Sally Brass and her brother to

  partake of that entertainment at that place, having been the object

  both of his journey and his note.

  It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually

  take tea in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced

  state of decay, and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at

  low water. Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr

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  Quilp ordered a cold collation to be prepared, and it was beneath

  its cracked and leaky roof that he, in due course of time, received

  Mr Sampson and his sister Sally.

  'You're fond of the beauties of nature,' said Quilp with a grin.

  'Is this charming, Brass? Is it unusual, unsophisticated,

  primitive?'

  'It's delightful indeed, sir,' replied the lawyer.
r />   'Cool?' said Quilp.

  'N-not particularly so, I think, sir,' rejoined Brass, with his

  teeth chattering in his head.

  'Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?' said Quilp.

  'Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,' rejoined Brass. 'Nothing

  more, sir, nothing more.'

  'And Sally?' said the delighted dwarf. 'Does she like it?'

  'She'll like it better,' returned that strong-minded lady, 'when

  she has tea; so let us have it, and don't bother.'

  'Sweet Sally!' cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to

  embrace her. 'Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.'

  'He's a very remarkable man indeed!' soliloquised Mr Brass. 'He's

  quite a Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!'

  These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent

  and distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having

  a bad cold in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have

  willingly borne some pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted

  his present raw quarters to a warm room, and dried himself at a

  fire. Quilp, however--who, beyond the gratification of his demon

  whims, owed Sampson some acknowledgment of the part he had played

  in the mourning scene of which he had been a hidden witness, marked

  these symptoms of uneasiness with a delight past all expression,

  and derived from them a secret joy which the costliest banquet

  could never have afforded him.

  It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in

  the character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own

  account she would have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with

  a very ill grace, and would probably, indeed, have walked off

  before the tea appeared, she no sooner beheld the latent uneasiness

  and misery of her brother than she developed a grim satisfaction,

  and began to enjoy herself after her own manner. Though the wet

  came stealing through the roof and trickling down upon their heads,

  Miss Brass uttered no complaint, but presided over the tea equipage

  with imperturbable composure. While Mr Quilp, in his uproarious

  hospitality, seated himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted the

  place as the most beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms,

  and elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that

  jovial spot; and Mr Brass, with the rain plashing down into his

  tea-cup, made a dismal attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear

  at his ease; and Tom Scott, who was in waiting at the door under an

  old umbrella, exulted in his agonies, and bade fair to split his

  sides with laughing; while all this was passing, Miss Sally Brass,

  unmindful of the wet which dripped down upon her own feminine

  person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind the tea-board, erect

  and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her brother with a

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  mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of self, to sit

  there all night, witnessing the torments which his avaricious and

  grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade him to

  resent. And this, it must be observed, or the illustration would

  be incomplete, although in a business point of view she had the

  strongest sympathy with Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond

  measure indignant if he had thwarted their client in any one

  respect.

  In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some

  pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his

  usual manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his

  hand upon the lawyer's sleeve.

  'A word,' said the dwarf, 'before we go farther. Sally, hark'ee

  for a minute.'

  Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences

  with their host which were the better for not having air.

  'Business,' said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister. 'Very

  private business. Lay your heads together when you're by

  yourselves.'

  'Certainly, sir,' returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and

  pencil. 'I'll take down the heads if you please, sir. Remarkable

  documents,' added the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling,

  'most remarkable documents. He states his points so clearly that

  it's a treat to have 'em! I don't know any act of parliament

  that's equal to him in clearness.'

  'I shall deprive you of a treat,' said Quilp. 'Put up your book.

  We don't want any documents. So. There's a lad named Kit--'

  Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.

  'Kit!' said Mr Sampson. --'Kit! Ha! I've heard the name before,

  but I don't exactly call to mind--I don't exactly--'

  'You're as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a

  rhinoceros,' returned his obliging client with an impatient

  gesture.

  'He's extremely pleasant!' cried the obsequious Sampson. 'His

  acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising. Quite a

  Buffoon, quite!'

  There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other;

  and it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said

  Buffon, but made use of a superfluous vowel. Be this as it may,

  Quilp gave him no time for correction, as he performed that office

  himself by more than tapping him on the head with the handle of his

  umbrella.

  'Don't let's have any wrangling,' said Miss Sally, staying his

  hand. 'I've showed you that I know him, and that's enough.'

  'She's always foremost!' said the dwarf, patting her on the back

  and looking contemptuously at Sampson. 'I don't like Kit, Sally.'

  'Nor I,' rejoined Miss Brass.

  'Nor I,' said Sampson.

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  'Why, that's right!' cried Quilp. 'Half our work is done already.

  This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters;

  a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double- faced, whitelivered,

  sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax

  him, and a barking yelping dog to all besides.'

  'Fearfully eloquent!' cried Brass with a sneeze. 'Quite

  appalling!'

  'Come to the point,' said Miss Sally, 'and don't talk so much.'

  'Right again!' exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at

  Sampson, 'always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent

  dog to all besides, and most of all, to me. In short, I owe him a

  grudge.'

  'That's enough, sir,' said Sampson.

  'No, it's not enough, sir,' sneered Quilp; 'will you hear me out?

  Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at

  this minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise

  prove a golden one to us all. Apart from that, I repeat that he

  crosses my humour, and I hate him. Now, you know the lad, and can

  guess the rest. Devise your own means of putting him out of my

  way, and execute them. Shall it be done?'

  'It shall, sir,' said Sampson.

  'Then give me your hand,' retorted Quilp. 'Sally, girl, yours. I

  rely as much, or more, on you than him. Tom Scott comes back.

  Lantern, pipe
s, more grog, and a jolly night of it!'

  No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the

  slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting.

  The trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to

  each other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing

  more was needed. Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease

  with which he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same

  uproarious, reckless little savage he had been a few seconds

  before. It was ten o'clock at night before the amiable Sally

  supported her beloved and loving brother from the Wilderness, by

  which time he needed the utmost support her tender frame could

  render; his walk being from some unknown reason anything but

  steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in unexpected places.

  Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the

  fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping

  to his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock. Leaving

  him to visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in

  the old church porch were not without their share, be it our task

  to rejoin them as they sat and watched.

  CHAPTER 57

  After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of

  the churchyard, and hurried towards them, Tingling in his hand, as

  he came along, a bundle of rusty keys. He was quite breathless

  with pleasure and haste when he reached the porch, and at first

  could only point towards the old building which the child had been

  contemplating so earnestly.

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  'You see those two old houses,' he said at last.

  'Yes, surely,' replied Nell. 'I have been looking at them nearly

  all the time you have been away.'

  'And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could

  have guessed what I have to tell you,' said her friend. 'One of

  those houses is mine.'

  Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the

  schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with

  exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke.

  They stopped before its low arched door. After trying several of

  the keys in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock,

  which turned back, creaking, and admitted them into the house.

  The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly