Ralph Nickleby, baffled by his Nephew in his lateDesign, hatches a Scheme of Retaliation whichAccident suggests to him, and takes into hisCounsels a tried Auxiliary.
The course which these adventures shape out forthemselves, and imperatively call upon the historian toobserve, now demands that they should revert to the pointthey attained previously to the commencement of the last chapter,when Ralph Nickleby and Arthur Gride were left together in thehouse where death had so suddenly reared his dark and heavybanner.
With clenched hands, and teeth ground together so firm andtight that no locking of the jaws could have fixed and riveted themmore securely, Ralph stood, for some minutes, in the attitude inwhich he had last addressed his nephew: breathing heavily, but asrigid and motionless in other respects as if he had been a brazenstatue. After a time, he began, by slow degrees, as a man rousinghimself from heavy slumber, to relax. For a moment he shook hisclasped fist towards the door by which Nicholas had disappeared;and then thrusting it into his breast, as if to repress by force eventhis show of passion, turned round and confronted the less hardyusurer, who had not yet risen from the ground.
The cowering wretch, who still shook in every limb, and whosefew grey hairs trembled and quivered on his head with abjectdismay, tottered to his feet as he met Ralph’s eye, and, shielding 1030his face with both hands, protested, while he crept towards thedoor, that it was no fault of his.
‘Who said it was, man?’ returned Ralph, in a suppressed voice.
‘Who said it was?’
‘You looked as if you thought I was to blame,’ said Gride,timidly.
‘Pshaw!’ Ralph muttered, forcing a laugh. ‘I blame him for notliving an hour longer. One hour longer would have been longenough. I blame no one else.’
‘N—n—no one else?’ said Gride.
‘Not for this mischance,’ replied Ralph. ‘I have an old score toclear with that young fellow who has carried off your mistress; butthat has nothing to do with his blustering just now, for we shouldsoon have been quit of him, but for this cursed accident.’
There was something so unnatural in the calmness with whichRalph Nickleby spoke, when coupled with his face, the expressionof the features, to which every nerve and muscle, as it twitchedand throbbed with a spasm whose workings no effort couldconceal, gave, every instant, some new and frightful aspect—therewas something so unnatural and ghastly in the contrast betweenhis harsh, slow, steady voice (only altered by a certain halting ofthe breath which made him pause between almost every word likea drunken man bent upon speaking plainly), and these evidencesof the most intense and violent passion, and the struggle he madeto keep them under; that if the dead body which lay above hadstood, instead of him, before the cowering Gride, it could scarcelyhave presented a spectacle which would have terrified him more.
‘The coach,’ said Ralph after a time, during which he hadstruggled like some strong man against a fit. ‘We came in a coach.
1031Is it waiting?’
Gride gladly availed himself of the pretext for going to thewindow to see. Ralph, keeping his face steadily the other way, toreat his shirt with the hand which he had thrust into his breast, andmuttered in a hoarse whisper:
‘Ten thousand pounds! He said ten thousand! The precise sumpaid in but yesterday for the two mortgages, and which wouldhave gone out again, at heavy interest, tomorrow. If that house hasfailed, and he the first to bring the news!—Is the coach there?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gride, startled by the fierce tone of the inquiry.
‘It’s here. Dear, dear, what a fiery man you are!’
‘Come here,’ said Ralph, beckoning to him. ‘We mustn’t make ashow of being disturbed. We’ll go down arm in arm.’
‘But you pinch me black and blue,’ urged Gride.
Ralph let him go impatiently, and descending the stairs with hisusual firm and heavy tread, got into the coach. Arthur Gridefollowed. After looking doubtfully at Ralph when the man askedwhere he was to drive, and finding that he remained silent, andexpressed no wish upon the subject, Arthur mentioned his ownhouse, and thither they proceeded.
On their way, Ralph sat in the furthest corner with folded arms,and uttered not a word. With his chin sunk upon his breast, andhis downcast eyes quite hidden by the contraction of his knottedbrows, he might have been asleep for any sign of consciousness hegave until the coach stopped, when he raised his head, andglancing through the window, inquired what place that was.
‘My house,’ answered the disconsolate Gride, affected perhapsby its loneliness. ‘Oh dear! my house.’
‘True,’ said Ralph ‘I have not observed the way we came. I 1032should like a glass of water. You have that in the house, Isuppose?’
‘You shall have a glass of—of anything you like,’ answeredGride, with a groan. ‘It’s no use knocking, coachman. Ring thebell!’
The man rang, and rang, and rang again; then, knocked untilthe street re-echoed with the sounds; then, listened at the keyholeof the door. Nobody came. The house was silent as the grave.
‘How’s this?’ said Ralph impatiently.
‘Peg is so very deaf,’ answered Gride with a look of anxiety andalarm. ‘Oh dear! Ring again, coachman. She sees the bell.’
Again the man rang and knocked, and knocked and rang again.
Some of the neighbours threw up their windows, and called acrossthe street to each other that old Gride’s housekeeper must havedropped down dead. Others collected round the coach, and gavevent to various surmises; some held that she had fallen asleep;some, that she had burnt herself to death; some, that she had gotdrunk; and one very fat man that she had seen something to eatwhich had frightened her so much (not being used to it) that shehad fallen into a fit. This last suggestion particularly delighted thebystanders, who cheered it rather uproariously, and were, withsome difficulty, deterred from dropping down the area andbreaking open the kitchen door to ascertain the fact. Nor was thisall. Rumours having gone abroad that Arthur was to be marriedthat morning, very particular inquiries were made after the bride,who was held by the majority to be disguised in the person of MrRalph Nickleby, which gave rise to much jocose indignation at thepublic appearance of a bride in boots and pantaloons, and calledforth a great many hoots and groans. At length, the two money- 1033lenders obtained shelter in a house next door, and, beingaccommodated with a ladder, clambered over the wall of the backyard—which was not a high one—and descended in safety on theother side.
‘I am almost afraid to go in, I declare,’ said Arthur, turning toRalph when they were alone. ‘Suppose she should be murdered.
Lying with her brains knocked out by a poker, eh?’
‘Suppose she were,’ said Ralph. ‘I tell you, I wish such thingswere more common than they are, and more easily done. You maystare and shiver. I do!’
He applied himself to a pump in the yard; and, having taken adeep draught of water and flung a quantity on his head and face,regained his accustomed manner and led the way into the house:
Gride following close at his heels.
It was the same dark place as ever: every room dismal andsilent as it was wont to be, and every ghostly article of furniture inits customary place. The iron heart of the grim old clock,undisturbed by all the noise without, still beat heavily within itsdusty case; the tottering presses slunk from the sight, as usual, intheir melancholy corners; the echoes of footsteps returned thesame dreary sound; the long-legged spider paused in his nimblerun, and, scared by the sight of men in that his dull domain, hungmotionless on the wall, counterfeiting death until they should havepassed him by.
From cellar to garret went the two usurers, opening everycreaking door and looking into every deserted room. But no Pegwas there. At last, they sat them down in the apartment whichArthur Gride usually inhabited, to rest after their search.
‘The hag is out, on some preparation for your wedding 1034festivities, I suppose,’ said Ralph, preparing to depart. ‘See here! Idestroy the bond; we shall never need it now.’
Gride, who had been peering narrowly about the room, fell, atthat moment, upon his knees before a large chest, and uttered aterrible yell.
‘How now?’ said Ralph, looking sternly round.
‘Robbed! robbed!’ screamed Arthur Gride.
‘Robbed! of money?’
‘No, no, no. Worse! far worse!’
‘Of what then?’ demanded Ralph.
‘Worse than money, worse than money!’ cried the old man,casting the papers out of the chest, like some beast tearing up theearth. ‘She had better have stolen money—all my money—Ihaven’t much! She had better have made me a beggar than havedone this!’
‘Done what?’ said Ralph. ‘Done what, you devil’s dotard?’
Still Gride made no answer, but tore and scratched among thepapers, and yelled and screeched like a fiend in torment.
‘There is something missing, you say,’ said Ralph, shaking himfuriously by the collar. ‘What is it?’
‘Papers, deeds. I am a ruined man. Lost, lost! I am robbed, I amruined! She saw me reading it—reading it of late—I did veryoften—She watched me, saw me put it in the box that fitted intothis, the box is gone, she has stolen it. Damnation seize her, shehas robbed me!’
‘Of what?’ cried Ralph, on whom a sudden light appeared tobreak, for his eyes flashed and his frame trembled with agitationas he clutched Gride by his bony arm. ‘Of what?’
‘She don’t know what it is; she can’t read!’ shrieked Gride, not 1035heeding the inquiry. ‘There’s only one way in which money can bemade of it, and that is by taking it to her. Somebody will read it forher, and tell her what to do. She and her accomplice will getmoney for it and be let off besides; they’ll make a merit of it—saythey found it—knew it—and be evidence against me. The onlyperson it will fall upon is me, me, me!’
‘Patience!’ said Ralph, clutching him still tighter and eyeinghim with a sidelong look, so fixed and eager as sufficiently todenote that he had some hidden purpose in what he was about tosay. ‘Hear reason. She can’t have been gone long. I’ll call thepolice. Do you but give information of what she has stolen, andthey’ll lay hands upon her, trust me. Here! Help!’
‘No, no, no!’ screamed the old man, putting his hand on Ralph’smouth. ‘I can’t, I daren’t.’
‘Help! help!’ cried Ralph.
‘No, no, no!’ shrieked the other, stamping on the ground withthe energy of a madman. ‘I tell you no. I daren’t, I daren’t!’
‘Daren’t make this robbery public?’ said Ralph.
‘No!’ rejoined Gride, wringing his hands. ‘Hush! Hush! Not aword of this; not a word must be said. I am undone. Whicheverway I turn, I am undone. I am betrayed. I shall be given up. I shalldie in Newgate!’ With frantic exclamations such as these, and withmany others in which fear, grief, and rage, were strangelyblended, the panic-stricken wretch gradually subdued his firstloud outcry, until it had softened down into a low despairingmoan, chequered now and then by a howl, as, going over suchpapers as were left in the chest, he discovered some new loss. Withvery little excuse for departing so abruptly, Ralph left him, and,greatly disappointing the loiterers outside the house by telling 1036them there was nothing the matter, got into the coach, and wasdriven to his own home.
A letter lay on his table. He let it lie there for some time, as if hehad not the courage to open it, but at length did so and turneddeadly pale.
‘The worst has happened,’ he said; ‘the house has failed. I see.
The rumour was abroad in the city last night, and reached the earsof those merchants. Well, well!’
He strode violently up and down the room and stopped again.
‘Ten thousand pounds! And only lying there for a day—for oneday! How many anxious years, how many pinching days andsleepless nights, before I scraped together that ten thousandpounds!—Ten thousand pounds! How many proud painted dameswould have fawned and smiled, and how many spendthriftblockheads done me lip-service to my face and cursed me in theirhearts, while I turned that ten thousand pounds into twenty!
While I ground, and pinched, and used these needy borrowers formy pleasure and profit, what smooth-tongued speeches, andcourteous looks, and civil letters, they would have given me! Thecant of the lying world is, that men like me compass our riches bydissimulation and treachery: by fawning, cringing, and stooping.
Why, how many lies, what mean and abject evasions, whathumbled behaviour from upstarts who, but for my money, wouldspurn me aside as they do their betters every day, would that tenthousand pounds have brought me in! Grant that I had doubledit—made cent. per cent.—for every sovereign told another—therewould not be one piece of money in all the heap which wouldn’trepresent ten thousand mean and paltry lies, told, not by themoney-lender, oh no! but by the money-borrowers, your liberal, 1037thoughtless, generous, dashing folks, who wouldn’t be so mean assave a sixpence for the world!’
Striving, as it would seem, to lose part of the bitterness of hisregrets in the bitterness of these other thoughts, Ralph continuedto pace the room. There was less and less of resolution in hismanner as his mind gradually reverted to his loss; at length,dropping into his elbow-chair and grasping its sides so firmly thatthey creaked again, he said:
‘The time has been when nothing could have moved me like theloss of this great sum. Nothing. For births, deaths, marriages, andall the events which are of interest to most men, have (unless theyare connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me. Butnow, I swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it. If hehad brought it about,—I almost feel as if he had,—I couldn’t hatehim more. Let me but retaliate upon him, by degrees, howeverslow—let me but begin to get the better of him, let me but turn thescale—and I can bear it.’
His meditations were long and deep. They terminated in hisdispatching a letter by Newman, addressed to Mr Squeers at theSaracen’s Head, with instructions to inquire whether he hadarrived in town, and, if so, to wait an an............