第222章

`You see, Mr Nickleby,' said his wife, `that it was in consequence of her being here, that John wrote to you and fixed tonight, because we thought that it wouldn't be pleasant for you to meet, after what has passed--'

`Unquestionably. You were quite right in that,' said Nicholas, interrupting.

`Especially,' observed Mrs Browdie, looking very sly, `after what we know about past and gone love matters.'

`We know, indeed!' said Nicholas, shaking his head. `You behaved rather wickedly there, I suspect.'

`O' course she did,' said John Browdie, passing his huge forefinger through one of his wife's pretty ringlets, and looking very proud of her.

`She wur always as skittish and full o' tricks as a--'

`Well, as a what?' said his wife.

`As a woman,' returned John. `Ding! But I dinnot know ought else that cooms near it.'

`You were speaking about Miss Squeers,' said Nicholas, with the view of stopping some slight connubialities which had begun to pass between Mr and Mrs Browdie, and which rendered the position of a third party in some degree embarrassing, as occasioning him to feel rather in the way than otherwise.

`Oh yes,' rejoined Mrs Browdie. `John ha' done--John fixed tonight, because she had settled that she would go and drink tea with her father.

And to make quite sure of there being nothing amiss, and of your being quite alone with us, he settled to go out there and fetch her home.'

`That was a very good arrangement,' said Nicholas, `though I am sorry to be the occasion of so much trouble.'

`Not the least in the world,' returned Mrs Browdie; `for we have looked forward to see you--John and I have--with the greatest possible pleasure.

Do you know, Mr Nickleby,' said Mrs Browdie, with her archest smile, `that I really think Fanny Squeers was very fond of you?'

`I am very much obliged to her,' said Nicholas; `but upon my word, Inever aspired to making any impression upon her virgin heart.'

`How you talk!' tittered Mrs Browdie. `No, but do you know that really--seriously now and without any joking--I was given to understand by Fanny herself, that you had made an offer to her, and that you two were going to be engaged quite solemn and regular.'

`Was you, ma'am--was you?' cried a shrill female voice, `was you given to understand that I--I--was going to be engaged to an assassinating thief that shed the gore of my pa? Do you--do you think, ma'am--that I was very fond of such dirt beneath my feet, as I couldn't condescend to touch with kitchen tongs, without blacking and crocking myself by the contract? Do you, ma'am--do you? Oh! base and degrading 'Tilda!'

With these reproaches Miss Squeers flung the door wide open, and disclosed to the eyes of the astonished Browdies and Nicholas, not only her own symmetrical form, arrayed in the chaste white garments before described (a little dirtier), but the form of her brother and father, the pair of Wackfords.

`This is the hend, is it?' continued Miss Squeers, who, being excited, aspirated her h's strongly; `this is the hend, is it, of all my forbearance and friendship for that double-faced thing--that viper, that--that--mermaid?'

(Miss Squeers hesitated a long time for this last epithet, and brought it out triumphantly as last, as if it quite clinched the business.) `This is the hend, is it, of all my bearing with her deceitfulness, her lowness, her falseness, her laying herself out to catch the admiration of vulgar minds, in a way which made me blush for my--for my--'

`Gender,' suggested Mr Squeers, regarding the spectators with a malevolent eye--literally a malevolent eye.

`Yes,' said Miss Squeers; `but I thank my stars that my ma is of the same--'

`Hear, hear!' remarked Mr Squeers; `and I wish she was here to have a scratch at this company.'

`This is the hend, is it,' said Miss Squeers, tossing her head, and looking contemptuously at the floor, `of my taking notice of that rubbishing creature, and demeaning myself to patronise her?'

`Oh, come,' rejoined Mrs Browdie, disregarding all the endeavours of her spouse to restrain her, and forcing herself into a front row, `don't talk such nonsense as that.'

`Have I not patronised you, ma'am?' demanded Miss Squeers.

`No,' returned Mrs Browdie.

`I will not look for blushes in such a quarter,' said Miss Squeers, haughtily, `for that countenance is a stranger to everything but hignominiousness and red-faced boldness.'

`I say,' interposed John Browdie, nettled by these accumulated attacks on his wife, `dra' it mild, dra' it mild.'

`You, Mr Browdie,' said Miss Squeers, taking him up very quickly, `Ipity. I have no feeling for you, sir, but one of unliquidated pity.'

`Oh!' said John.

`No,' said Miss Squeers, looking sideways at her parent, `although I am a queer bridesmaid, and shan't be a bride in a hurry, and although my husband will be in luck, I entertain no sentiments towards you, sir, but sentiments of pity.'

Here Miss Squeers looked sideways at her father again, who looked sideways at her, as much as to say, `There you had him.'

` I know what you've got to go through,' said Miss Squeers, shaking her curls violently. ` I know what life is before you, and if you was my bitterest and deadliest enemy, I could wish you nothing worse.'

`Couldn't you wish to be married to him yourself, if that was the case?'

inquired Mrs Browdie, with great suavity of manner.

`Oh, ma'am, how witty you are,' retorted Miss Squeers with a low curtsy, `almost as witty, ma'am, as you are clever. How very clever it was in you, ma'am, to choose a time when I had gone to tea with my pa, and was sure not to come back without being fetched! What a pity you never thought that other people might be as clever as yourself and spoil your plans!'

`You won't vex me, child, with such airs as these,' said the late Miss Price, assuming the matron.

`Don't Missis me, ma'am, if you please,' returned Miss Squeers, sharply. `I'll not bear it. Is this the hend--'

`Dang it a',' cried John Browdie, impatiently. `Say thee say out, Fanny, and mak' sure it's the end, and dinnot ask nobody whether it is or not.'