quiet, and not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you--
but I won't now.'
'Yes, do,' said Dick. 'It will amuse me.'
'Oh! would it though!' rejoined the small servant, with a horrified
look. 'I know better than that. Wait till you're better and then
I'll tell you.'
Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes,
being large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so
much, that she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think
any more about it. What had already fallen from her, however, had
not only piqued his curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore
he urged her to tell him the worst at once.
'Oh there's no worst in it,' said the small servant. 'It hasn't
anything to do with you.'
'Has it anything to do with--is it anything you heard through
chinks or keyholes--and that you were not intended to hear?' asked
Dick, in a breathless state.
'Yes,' replied the small servant.
'In--in Bevis Marks?' pursued Dick hastily. 'Conversations
between Brass and Sally?'
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'Yes,' cried the small servant again.
Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her
by the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it,
and freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being
wholly unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation.
She, seeing that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of
postponing her revelation might be much more injurious than any
that were likely to ensue from its being made at once, promised
compliance, on condition that the patient kept himself perfectly
quiet, and abstained from starting up or tossing about.
'But if you begin to do that,' said the small servant, 'I'll leave
off. And so I tell you.'
'You can't leave off, till you have gone on,' said Dick. 'And do
go on, there's a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say.
Oh tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech
you!'
Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller
poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn
and tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:
'Well! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen--where
we played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the
kitchen door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to
take away the candle and rake out the fire. When she had done
that, she left me to go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the
outside, put the key in her pocket again, and kept me locked up
till she come down in the morning--very early I can tell you--and
let me out. I was terrible afraid of being kept like this, because
if there was a fire, I thought they might forget me and only take
care of themselves you know. So, whenever I see an old rusty key
anywhere, I picked it up and tried if it would fit the door, and at
last I found in the dust cellar a key that did fit it.'
Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But
the small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided
again, and pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact,
entreated her to proceed.
'They kept me very short,' said the small servant. 'Oh! you can't
think how short they kept me! So I used to come out at night after
they'd gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit,
or sangwitches that you'd left in the office, or even pieces of
orange peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine.
Did you ever taste orange peel and water?'
Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor;
and once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her
narrative.
'If you make believe very much, it's quite nice,' said the small
servant, 'but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear
a little more seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come
out after they'd gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and
one or two nights before there was all that precious noise in the
office--when the young man was took, I mean--I come upstairs
while Mr Brass and Miss Sally was a-sittin' at the office fire; and
I tell you the truth, that I come to listen again, about the key of
the safe.'
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Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of
the bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of
the utmost concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up
her finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern
did not.
'There was him and her,' said the small servant, 'a-sittin' by the
fire, and talking softly together. Mr Brass says to Miss Sally,
"Upon my word," he says "it's a dangerous thing, and it might get
us into a world of trouble, and I don't half like it." She says--
you know her way--she says, "You're the chickenest-hearted,
feeblest, faintest man I ever see, and I think," she says, "that I
ought to have been the brother, and you the sister. Isn't Quilp,"
she says, "our principal support?" "He certainly is," says Mr
Brass, "And an't we," she says, "constantly ruining somebody or
other in the way of business?" "We certainly are," says Mr Brass.
"Then does it signify," she says, "about ruining this Kit when
Quilp desires it?" "It certainly does not signify," says Mr Brass.
Then they whispered and laughed for a long time about there being
no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass pulls out his
pocket-book, and says, "Well," he says, 'here it is--Quilp's own
five-pound note. We'll agree that way, then," he says. "Kit's
coming to-morrow morning, I know. While he's up-stairs, you'll get
out of the way, and I'll clear off Mr Richard. Having Kit alone,
I'll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat.
I'll manage so, besides," he says, 'that Mr Richard shall find it
there, and be the evidence. And if that don't get Christopher out
of Mr Quilp's way, and satisfy Mr Quilp's grudges," he says, "the
Devil's in it." Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and
as they seemed to be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any
longer, I went down-stairs again.--There!'
The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much
agitation as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain
him when he sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story
had been told to anybody.
'How could it be?' replied his nurse. 'I was almost afraid to
think about it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I
heard 'em say they had found him guilty of what he didn't do, you
was gone, and so was the lodger--though I think I should have been
frightened to tell him, even if he'd been there. Ever since I come
here, you've been out of your senses, and what would have been the
good of telling you then?'
/>
'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and
flinging it to the other end of the room; 'if you'll do me the
favour to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it
is, I'll get up.'
'You mustn't think of such a thing,' cried his nurse.
'I must indeed,' said the patient, looking round the room.
'Whereabouts are my clothes?'
'Oh, I'm so glad--you haven't got any,' replied the Marchioness.
'Ma'am!' said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.
'I've been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that
was ordered for you. But don't take on about that,' urged the
Marchioness, as Dick fell back upon his pillow. 'You're too weak
to stand, indeed.'
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'I am afraid,' said Richard dolefully, 'that you're right. What
ought I to do! what is to be done!'
It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the
first step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr
Garlands instantly. It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet
left the office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the
small servant had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a
verbal description of father and son, which would enable her to
recognise either, without difficulty; and a special caution to be
shy of Mr Chuckster, in consequence of that gentleman's known
antipathy to Kit. Armed with these slender powers, she hurried
away, commissioned to bring either old Mr Garland or Mr Abel,
bodily, to that apartment.
'I suppose,' said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped
into the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, 'I
suppose there's nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat even?'
'No, nothing.'
'It's embarrassing,' said Mr Swiveller, 'in case of fire--even an
umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear
Marchioness. I should have died without you!'
CHAPTER 65
It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick
nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very
neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear,
would probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the
supreme authority over her person. Not unmindful of the risk she
ran, however, the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she
dived into the first dark by-way that presented itself, and,
without any present reference to the point to which her journey
tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of brick
and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.
When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her
course for the notary's office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of
apple-women and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than
in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of
attracting notice--she easily procured a direction. As carrierpigeons,
on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air
at random for a short time before darting off towards the spot for
which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and
round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly
down upon the port for which she was bound.
She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in
some old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in
head-dresses was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was
rather retarded than assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely
large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult
to find again, among the crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor
little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having
to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and
suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing, squeezing
and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the
street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out and
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exhausted, and could not refrain from tears.
But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as
there were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore
some hope that she was not too late. So the Marchioness dried her
eyes with the backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the
steps, peeped in through the glass door.
Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such
preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down
his wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck
more gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers
by the aid of a little triangular bit of looking glass. Before the
ashes of the fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly
judged to be the notary, and the other (who was buttoning his
great-coat and was evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel
Garland.
Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with
herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out,
as there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr
Chuckster, and less difficulty in delivering her message. With
this purpose she slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down
upon a door-step just opposite.
She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the
street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns,
a pony. This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in
it; but neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the
least, as he reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or
stood still again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the
smallest reference to them--just as the fancy seized him, and as
if he were the freest animal in creation. When they came to the
notary's door, the man called out in a very respectful manner, 'Woa
then'--intimating that if he might venture to express a wish, it
would be that they stopped there. The pony made a moment's pause;
but, as if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required
might be to establish an inconvenient and dangerous precedent, he
immediately started off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street
corner, wheeled round, came back, and then stopped of his own
accord.
'Oh! you're a precious creatur!' said the man--who didn't venture
by the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the
pavement. 'I wish I had the rewarding of you--I do.'
'What has he been doing?' said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his
neck as he came down the steps.
'He's enough to fret a man's heart out,' replied the hostler. 'He
is the most wicious rascal--Woa then, will you?'
'He'll never stand still, if you call him names,' said Mr Abel,
getting in, and taking the reins. 'He's a very good fellow if you
know how to manage him. This is the first time he has been out,
this long while, for he has lost his old driver and wouldn't stir
for anybody else, till this morning. The lamps are right, are
they? That's well. Be here to take him to-morrow, if you please.
Good night!'
And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention,
the pony yielded to Mr Abel's mildness, and trotted gently off.
All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the
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small servant had been afraid to approach. She had nothing for it
now, therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel
to stop. Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was
unable to make him hear. The case was desperate; for the pony was
quickening his pace. The Marchioness hung on behind for a few
moments, and, feeling that she could go no farther, and must soon
yield, clambered by a vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in
so doing lost one of the shoes for ever.
Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite
enough to do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without
looking round: little dreaming of the strange figure that was close
behind him, until the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered
her breath, and the loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her
position, uttered close into his ear, the words--'I say, Sir'--
He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony,
cried, with some trepidation, 'God bless me, what is this!'
'Don't be frightened, Sir,' replied the still panting messenger.
'Oh I've run such a way after you!'
'What do you want with me?' said Mr Abel. 'How did you come here?'
'I got in behind,' replied the Marchioness. 'Oh please drive on,
sir--don't stop--and go towards the City, will you? And oh do
please make haste, because it's of consequence. There's somebody
wants to see you there. He sent me to say would you come directly,
and that he knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove
his innocence.'
'What do you tell me, child?'
'The truth, upon my word and honour I do. But please to drive on--
quick, please! I've been such a time gone, he'll think I'm
lost.'
Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward. The pony, impelled
by some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great
pace, and neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric
performances, until they arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller's
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