第210章

`His father lives there, I believe,' replied Tim, `and other people too; but no one seems to care much for the poor sickly cripple. I have asked him, very often, if I can do nothing for him; his answer is always the same, -- "Nothing." His voice is growing weak of late, but I can see that he makes the old reply. He can't leave his bed now, so they have moved it close beside the window, and there he lies, all day: now looking at the sky, and now at his flowers, which he still makes shift to trim and water, with his own thin hands. At night, when he sees my candle, he draws back his curtain, and leaves it so, till I am in bed. It seems such company to him to know that I am there, that I often sit at my window for an hour or more, that he may see I am still awake; and sometimes I get up in the night to look at the dull melancholy light in his little room, and wonder whether he is awake or sleeping.

`The night will not be long coming,' said Tim, `when he will sleep, and never wake again on earth. We have never so much as shaken hands in all our lives; and yet I shall miss him like an old friend. Are there any country flowers that could interest me like these, do you think? Or do you suppose that the withering of a hundred kinds of the choicest flowers that blow, called by the hardest Latin names that were ever invented, would give me one fraction of the pain that I shall feel when these old jugs and bottles are swept away as lumber? Country!' cried Tim, with a contemptuous emphasis; `don't you know that I couldn't have such a court under my bedroom window, anywhere, but in London?'

With which inquiry, Tim turned his back, and pretending to be absorbed in his accounts, took an opportunity of hastily wiping his eyes when he supposed Nicholas was looking another way.

Whether it was that Tim's accounts were more than usually intricate that morning, or whether it was that his habitual serenity had been a little disturbed by these recollections, it so happened that when Nicholas returned from executing some commission, and inquired whether Mr Charles Cheeryble was alone in his room, Tim promptly, and without the smallest hesitation, replied in the affirmative, although somebody had passed into the room not ten minutes before, and Tim took especial and particular pride in preventing any intrusion on either of the brothers when they were engaged with any visitor whatever.

`I'll take this letter to him at once,' said Nicholas, `if that's the case.' And with that, he walked to the room and knocked at the door.

No answer.

Another knock, and still no answer.

`He can't be here,' thought Nicholas. `I'll lay it on his table.'

So, Nicholas opened the door and walked in; and very quickly he turned to walk out again, when he saw, to his great astonishment and discomfiture, a young lady upon her knees at Mr Cheeryble's feet, and Mr Cheeryble beseeching her to rise, and entreating a third person, who had the appearance of the young, lady's female attendant, to add her persuasions to his to induce her to do so.

Nicholas stammered out an awkward apology, and was precipitately retiring, when the young lady, turning her head a little, presented to his view the features of the lovely girl whom he had seen at the register-office on his first visit long before. Glancing from her to the attendant, he recognised the same clumsy servant who had accompanied her then; and between his admiration of the young lady's beauty, and the confusion and surprise of this unexpected recognition, he stood stock-still, in such a bewildered state of surprise and embarrassment that, for the moment, he was quite bereft of the power either to speak or move.

`My dear ma'am -- my dear young lady,' cried brother Charles in violent agitation, `pray don't -- not another word, I beseech and entreat you!

I implore you -- I beg of you -- to rise. We -- we -- are not alone.'

As he spoke, he raised the young lady, who staggered to a chair and swooned away.

`She has fainted, sir,' said Nicholas, darting eagerly forward.

`Poor dear, poor dear!' cried brother Charles `Where is my brother Ned?

Ned, my dear brother, come here pray.'

`Brother Charles, my dear fellow,' replied his brother, hurrying into the room, `what is the -- ah! what --'

`Hush! hush! -- not a word for your life, brother Ned,' returned the other. `Ring for the housekeeper, my dear brother -- call Tim Linkinwater!

Here, Tim Linkinwater, sir -- Mr Nickleby, my dear sir, leave the room, I beg and beseech of you.'

`I think she is better now,' said Nicholas, who had been watching the patient so eagerly, that he had not heard the request.

`Poor bird!' cried brother Charles, gently taking her hand in his, and laying her head upon his arm. `Brother Ned, my dear fellow, you will be surprised, I know, to witness this, in business hours; but --' Here he was again reminded of the presence of Nicholas, and shaking him by the hand, earnestly requested him to leave the room, and to send Tim Linkinwater without an instant's delay.

Nicholas immediately withdrew and, on his way to the counting-house, met both the old housekeeper and Tim Linkinwater, jostling each other in the passage, and hurrying to the scene of action with extraordinary speed.

Without waiting to hear his message, Tim Linkinwater darted into the room, and presently afterwards Nicholas heard the door shut and locked on the inside.

He had abundance of time to ruminate on this discovery, for Tim Linkinwater was absent during the greater part of an hour, during the whole of which time Nicholas thought of nothing but the young lady, and her exceeding beauty, and what could possibly have brought her there, and why they made such a mystery of it. The more he thought of all this, the more it perplexed him, and the more anxious he became to know who and what she was. `I should have known her among ten thousand,' thought Nicholas. And with that he walked up and down the room, and recalling her face and figure (of which he had a peculiarly vivid remembrance), discarded all other subjects of reflection and dwelt upon that alone.