第289章

The crisis of the project, and its result T HERE ARE NOT many men who lie abed too late, or oversleep themselves, on their wedding morning. A legend there is of somebody remarkable for absence of mind, who opened his eyes upon the day which was to give him a young wife, and forgetting all about the matter, rated his servants for providing him with such fine clothes as had been prepared for the festival. There is also a legend of a young gentleman, who, not having before his eyes the fear of the canons of the church for such cases made and provided, conceived a passion for his grandmother. Both cases are of a singular and special kind and it is very doubtful whether either can be considered as a precedent likely to be extensively followed by succeeding generations.

Arthur Gride had enrobed himself in his marriage garments of bottle-green, a full hour before Mrs Sliderskew, shaking off her more heavy slumbers, knocked at his chamber door; and he had hobbled downstairs in full array and smacked his lips over a scanty taste of his favourite cordial, ere that delicate piece of antiquity enlightened the kitchen with her presence.

`Faugh!' said Peg, grubbing, in the discharge of her domestic functions, among a scanty heap of ashes in the rusty grate. `Wedding indeed! A precious wedding! He wants somebody better than his old Peg to take care of him, does he? And what has he said to me, many and many a time, to keep me content with short food, small wages, and little fire? "My will, Peg! my will!"says he: "I'm a bachelor--no friends--no relations, Peg." Lies! And now he's to bring home a new mistress, a baby-faced chit of a girl! If he wanted a wife, the fool, why couldn't he have one suitable to his age, and that knew his ways? She won't come in my way, he says. No, that she won't, but you little think why, Arthur boy!'

While Mrs Sliderskew, influenced possibly by some lingering feelings of disappointment and personal slight, occasioned by her old master's preference for another, was giving loose to these grumblings below-stairs, Arthur Gride was cogitating in the parlour upon what had taken place last night.

`I can't think how he can have picked up what he knows,' said Arthur, `unless I have committed myself--let something drop at Bray's, for instance, which has been overheard. Perhaps I may. I shouldn't be surprised if that was it. Mr Nickleby was often angry at my talking to him before we got outside the door. I mustn't tell him that part of the business, or he'll put me out of sorts, and make me nervous for the day.'

Ralph was universally looked up to, and recognised among his fellows as a superior genius, but upon Arthur Gride his stern unyielding character and consummate art had made so deep an impression, that he was actually afraid of him. Cringing and cowardly to the core by nature, Arthur Gride humbled himself in the dust before Ralph Nickleby, and, even when they had not this stake in common, would have licked his shoes and crawled upon the ground before him rather than venture to return him word for word, or retort upon him in any other spirit than one of the most slavish and abject sycophancy.

To Ralph Nickleby's, Arthur Gride now betook himself according to appointment;and to Ralph Nickleby he related how, last night, some young blustering blade, whom he had never seen, forced his way into his house, and tried to frighten him from the proposed nuptials:--told, in short, what Nicholas had said and done, with the slight reservation upon which he had determined.

`Well, and what then?' said Ralph.

`Oh! nothing more,' rejoined Gride.

`He tried to frighten you,' said Ralph, `and you were frightened I suppose; is that it?'

`I frightened him by crying thieves and murder,' replied Gride. `Once I was in earnest, I tell you that, for I had more than half a mind to swear he uttered threats, and demanded my life or my money.'

`Oho!' said Ralph, eyeing him askew. `Jealous too!'

`Dear now see that!' cried Arthur, rubbing his hands and affecting to laugh.

`Why do you make those grimaces, man?' said Ralph; `you are jealous--and with good cause I think.'

`No, no, no,--not with good cause, hey? You don't think with good cause, do you?' cried Arthur, faltering. `Do you though--hey?'

`Why, how stands the fact?' returned Ralph. `Here is an old man about to be forced in marriage upon a girl; and to this old man there comes a handsome young fellow--you said he was handsome, didn't you?'

`No!' snarled Arthur Gride.

`Oh!' rejoined Ralph, `I thought you did. Well! Handsome or not handsome, to this old man there comes a young fellow who casts all manner of fierce defiances in his teeth--gums I should rather say--and tells him in plain terms that his mistress hates him. What does he do that for? Philanthropy's sake?'

`Not for love of the lady,' replied Gride, `for he said that no word of love--his very words--had ever passed between 'em.'

`He said!' repeated Ralph, contemptuously. `But I like him for one thing, and that is, his giving you this fair warning to keep your--what is it?--Tit-tit or dainty chick--which?--under lock and key. Be careful, Gride, be careful.

It's a triumph, too, to tear her away from a gallant young rival: a great triumph for an old man! It only remains to keep her safe when you have her--that's all.'

`What a man it is!' cried Arthur Gride, affecting, in the extremity of his torture, to be highly amused. And then he added, anxiously, `Yes;to keep her safe, that's all. And that isn't much, is it?'

`Much!' said Ralph, with a sneer. `Why, everybody knows what easy things to understand and to control, women are. But come, it's very nearly time for you to be made happy. You'll pay the bond now, I suppose, to save us trouble afterwards.'

`Oh what a man you are!' croaked Arthur.

`Why not?' said Ralph. `Nobody will pay you interest for the money, I suppose, between this and twelve o'clock, will they?'

`But nobody would pay you interest for it either, you know,' returned Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the cunning and slyness he could throw into his face.