The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (online e book reader .TXT) 📖

Mr Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this was the secret which was never to be disclosed.

Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who had waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries that this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit was the recovery of his old client and the child. Burning with curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce upon Kit’s mother as the person least able to resist his arts, and consequently the most likely to be entrapped into such revelations as he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her house. The good woman being from home, he made inquiries of a neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and being directed to the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay her, at the conclusion of the service.

He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over the joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared. Watchful as a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business. Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he withdrew with his family, shot out after him. In fine, he traced them to the notary’s house; learnt the destination of the carriage from one of the postilions; and knowing that a fast night-coach started for the same place, at the very hour which was on the point of striking, from a street hard by, darted round to the coach-office without more ado, and took his seat upon the roof. After passing and repassing the carriage on the road, and being passed and repassed by it sundry times in the course of the night, according as their stoppages were longer or shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they reached the town almost together. Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the crowd, learnt the single gentleman’s errand, and its failure, and having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried off, reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed, and shut himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all these occurrences.

‘You are there, are you, my friend?’ he repeated, greedily biting his nails. ‘I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit’s the confidential agent, is he? I shall have to dispose of him, I fear. If we had come up with them this morning,’ he continued, after a thoughtful pause, ‘I was ready to prove a pretty good claim. I could have made my profit. But for these canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get this fiery gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend—our mutual friend, ha! ha!—and chubby, rosy Nell. At the worst, it’s a golden opportunity, not to be lost. Let us find them first, and I’ll find means of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while there are prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or kinsman safely. I hate your virtuous people!’ said the dwarf, throwing off a bumper of brandy, and smacking his lips, ‘ah! I hate ‘em every one!’

This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client: —the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him and elude his vigilance —the child, because she was the object of Mrs Quilp’s commiseration and constant self-reproach —the single gentleman, because of his unconcealed aversion to himself —Kit and his mother, most mortally, for the reasons shown. Above and beyond that general feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from his ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances, Daniel Quilp hated them every one.

In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man and his grandchild. But all was in vain. Not the slightest trace or clue could be obtained. They had left the town by night; no one had seen them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no coach, cart, or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their description; nobody had fallen in with them, or heard of them. Convinced at last that for the present all such attempts were hopeless, he appointed two or three scouts, with promises of large rewards in case of their forwarding him any intelligence, and returned to London by next day’s coach.

It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place upon the roof, that Kit’s mother was alone inside; from which circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another; getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and embody that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little Bethel, and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley’s and oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.

Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother’s intended return, was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise when he saw, leering over the coachman’s shoulder like some familiar demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp.

‘How are you, Christopher?’ croaked the dwarf from the coach-top. ‘All right, Christopher. Mother’s inside.’

‘Why, how did he come here, mother?’ whispered Kit.

‘I don’t know how he came or why, my dear,’ rejoined Mrs Nubbles, dismounting with her son’s assistance, ‘but he has been a terrifying of me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.’

‘He has?’ cried Kit.

‘You wouldn’t believe it, that you wouldn’t,’ replied his mother, ‘but don’t say a word to him, for I really don’t believe he’s human. Hush! Don’t turn round as if I was talking of him, but he’s a squinting at me now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!’

In spite of his mother’s injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look. Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial contemplation.

‘Oh, he’s the artfullest creetur!’ cried Mrs Nubbles. ‘But come away. Don’t speak to him for the world.’

‘Yes I will, mother. What nonsense. I say, sir—’

Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.

‘You let my mother alone, will you?’ said Kit. ‘How dare you tease a poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she hadn’t got enough to make her so, without you. An’t you ashamed of yourself, you little monster?’

‘Monster!’ said Quilp inwardly, with a smile. ‘Ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywhere for a penny—monster—ah!’

‘You show her any of your impudence again,’ resumed Kit, shouldering the bandbox, ‘and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won’t bear with you any more. You have no right to do it; I’m sure we never interfered with you. This isn’t the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her again, you’ll oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on account of your size) to beat you.’

Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him, retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in a phantasmagoria. Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an immediate assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures, snapped his fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as fast as she could, and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob and the baby, looking anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were following.