The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (classic novels txt) 📖

Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his Spirits again, and determines to attempt it. Domestic Intelligence of the Kenwigses and Lillyvicks

Finding that Newman was determined to arrest his progress at any hazard, and apprehensive that some well-intentioned passenger, attracted by the cry of ‘Stop thief,’ might lay violent hands upon his person, and place him in a disagreeable predicament from which he might have some difficulty in extricating himself, Nicholas soon slackened his pace, and suffered Newman Noggs to come up with him: which he did, in so breathless a condition, that it seemed impossible he could have held out for a minute longer.

‘I will go straight to Bray’s,’ said Nicholas. ‘I will see this man. If there is a feeling of humanity lingering in his breast, a spark of consideration for his own child, motherless and friendless as she is, I will awaken it.’

‘You will not,’ replied Newman. ‘You will not, indeed.’

‘Then,’ said Nicholas, pressing onward, ‘I will act upon my first impulse, and go straight to Ralph Nickleby.’

‘By the time you reach his house he will be in bed,’ said Newman.

‘I’ll drag him from it,’ cried Nicholas.

‘Tut, tut,’ said Noggs. ‘Be yourself.’

‘You are the best of friends to me, Newman,’ rejoined Nicholas after a pause, and taking his hand as he spoke. ‘I have made head against many trials; but the misery of another, and such misery, is involved in this one, that I declare to you I am rendered desperate, and know not how to act.’

In truth, it did seem a hopeless case. It was impossible to make any use of such intelligence as Newman Noggs had gleaned, when he lay concealed in the closet. The mere circumstance of the compact between Ralph Nickleby and Gride would not invalidate the marriage, or render Bray averse to it, who, if he did not actually know of the existence of some such understanding, doubtless suspected it. What had been hinted with reference to some fraud on Madeline, had been put, with sufficient obscurity by Arthur Gride, but coming from Newman Noggs, and obscured still further by the smoke of his pocket-pistol, it became wholly unintelligible, and involved in utter darkness.

‘There seems no ray of hope,’ said Nicholas.

‘The greater necessity for coolness, for reason, for consideration, for thought,’ said Newman, pausing at every alternate word, to look anxiously in his friend’s face. ‘Where are the brothers?’

‘Both absent on urgent business, as they will be for a week to come.’

‘Is there no way of communicating with them? No way of getting one of them here by tomorrow night?’

‘Impossible!’ said Nicholas, ‘the sea is between us and them. With the fairest winds that ever blew, to go and return would take three days and nights.’

‘Their nephew,’ said Newman, ‘their old clerk.’

‘What could either do, that I cannot?’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘With reference to them, especially, I am enjoined to the strictest silence on this subject. What right have I to betray the confidence reposed in me, when nothing but a miracle can prevent this sacrifice?’

‘Think,’ urged Newman. ‘Is there no way.’

‘There is none,’ said Nicholas, in utter dejection. ‘Not one. The father urges, the daughter consents. These demons have her in their toils; legal right, might, power, money, and every influence are on their side. How can I hope to save her?’

‘Hope to the last!’ said Newman, clapping him on the back. ‘Always hope; that’s a dear boy. Never leave off hoping; it don’t answer. Do you mind me, Nick? It don’t answer. Don’t leave a stone unturned. It’s always something, to know you’ve done the most you could. But, don’t leave off hoping, or it’s of no use doing anything. Hope, hope, to the last!’

Nicholas needed encouragement. The suddenness with which intelligence of the two usurers’ plans had come upon him, the little time which remained for exertion, the probability, almost amounting to certainty itself, that a few hours would place Madeline Bray for ever beyond his reach, consign her to unspeakable misery, and perhaps to an untimely death; all this quite stunned and overwhelmed him. Every hope connected with her that he had suffered himself to form, or had entertained unconsciously, seemed to fall at his feet, withered and dead. Every charm with which his memory or imagination had surrounded her, presented itself before him, only to heighten his anguish and add new bitterness to his despair. Every feeling of sympathy for her forlorn condition, and of admiration for her heroism and fortitude, aggravated the indignation which shook him in every limb, and swelled his heart almost to bursting.

But, if Nicholas’s own heart embarrassed him, Newman’s came to his relief. There was so much earnestness in his remonstrance, and such sincerity and fervour in his manner, odd and ludicrous as it always was, that it imparted to Nicholas new firmness, and enabled him to say, after he had walked on for some little way in silence:

‘You read me a good lesson, Newman, and I will profit by it. One step, at least, I may take—am bound to take indeed—and to that I will apply myself tomorrow.’

‘What is that?’ asked Noggs wistfully. ‘Not to threaten Ralph? Not to see the father?’

‘To see the daughter, Newman,’ replied Nicholas. ‘To do what, after all, is the utmost that the brothers could do, if they were here, as Heaven send they were! To reason with her upon this hideous union, to point out to her all the horrors to which she is hastening; rashly, it may be, and without due reflection. To entreat her, at least, to pause. She can have had no counsellor for her good. Perhaps even I may move her so far yet, though it is the eleventh hour, and she upon the very brink of ruin.’

‘Bravely spoken!’ said Newman. ‘Well done, well done! Yes. Very good.’

‘And I do declare,’ cried Nicholas, with honest enthusiasm, ‘that in this effort I am influenced by no selfish or personal considerations, but by pity for her, and detestation and abhorrence of this scheme; and that I would do the same, were there twenty rivals in the field, and I the last and least favoured of them all.’

‘You would, I believe,’ said Newman. ‘But where are you hurrying now?’

‘Homewards,’ answered Nicholas. ‘Do you come with me, or I shall say good-night?’

‘I’ll come a little way, if you will but walk: not run,’ said Noggs.

‘I cannot walk tonight, Newman,’ returned Nicholas, hurriedly. ‘I must move rapidly, or I could not draw my breath. I’ll tell you what I’ve said and done tomorrow.’

Without waiting for a reply, he darted off at a rapid pace, and, plunging into the crowds which thronged the street, was quickly lost to view.

‘He’s a violent youth at times,’ said Newman, looking after him; ‘and yet like him for it. There’s cause enough now, or the deuce is in it. Hope! I SAID hope, I think! Ralph Nickleby and Gride with their heads together! And hope for the opposite party! Ho! ho!’

It was with a very melancholy laugh that Newman Noggs concluded this soliloquy; and it was with a very melancholy shake of the head, and a very rueful countenance, that he turned about, and went plodding on his way.

This, under ordinary circumstances, would have been to some small tavern or dram-shop; that being his way, in more senses than one. But, Newman was too much interested, and too anxious, to betake himself even to this resource, and so, with many desponding and dismal reflections, went straight home.

It had come to pass, that afternoon, that Miss Morleena Kenwigs had received an invitation to repair next day, per steamer from Westminster Bridge, unto the Eel-pie Island at Twickenham: there to make merry upon a cold collation, bottled beer, shrub, and shrimps, and to dance in the open air to the music of a locomotive band, conveyed thither for the purpose: the steamer being specially engaged by a dancing-master of extensive connection for the accommodation of his numerous pupils, and the pupils displaying their appreciation of the dancing-master’s services, by purchasing themselves, and inducing their friends to do the like, divers light-blue tickets, entitling them to join the expedition. Of these light-blue tickets, one had been presented by an ambitious neighbour to Miss Morleena Kenwigs, with an invitation to join her daughters; and Mrs Kenwigs, rightly deeming that the honour of the family was involved in Miss Morleena’s making the most splendid appearance possible on so short a notice, and testifying to the dancing-master that there were other dancing-masters besides him, and to all fathers and mothers present that other people’s children could learn to be genteel besides theirs, had fainted away twice under the magnitude of her preparations, but, upheld by a determination to sustain the family name or perish in the attempt, was still hard at work when Newman Noggs came home.

Now, between the italian-ironing of frills, the flouncing of trousers, the trimming of frocks, the faintings and the comings-to again, incidental to the occasion, Mrs Kenwigs had been so entirely occupied, that she had not observed, until within half an hour before, that the flaxen tails of Miss Morleena’s hair were, in a manner, run to seed; and that, unless she were put under the hands of a skilful hairdresser, she never could achieve that signal triumph over the daughters of all other people, anything less than which would be tantamount to defeat. This discovery drove Mrs Kenwigs to despair; for the hairdresser lived three streets and eight dangerous crossings off; Morleena could not be