第314章

`Mr Nickleby, sir,' returned brother Charles: no less mildly than before, but firmly too: `I come here against my will--sorely and grievously against my will. I have never been in this house before; and, to speak my mind, sir, I don't feel at home or easy in it, and have no wish ever to be here again. You do not guess the subject on which I come to speak to you; you do not indeed. I am sure of that, or your manner would be a very different one.'

Ralph glanced keenly at him, but the clear eye and open countenance of the honest old merchant underwent no change of expression, and met his look without reserve.

`Shall I go on?' said Mr Cheeryble.

`Oh, by all means, if you please,' returned Ralph drily. `Here are walls to speak to, sir, a desk, and two stools--most attentive auditors, and certain not to interrupt you. Go on, I beg; make my house yours, and perhaps by the time I return from my walk, you will have finished what you have to say, and will yield me up possession again.'

So saying, he buttoned his coat, and turning into the passage, took down his hat. The old gentleman followed, and was about to speak, when Ralph waved him off impatiently, and said:

`Not a word. I tell you, sir, not a word. Virtuous as you are, you are not an angel yet, to appear in men's houses whether they will or no, and pour your speech into unwilling ears. Preach to the walls I tell you--not to me!'

`I am no angel, Heaven knows,' returned brother Charles, shaking his head, `but an erring and imperfect man; nevertheless, there is one quality which all men have, in common with the angels, blessed opportunities of exercising, if they will--mercy. It is an errand of mercy that brings me here. Pray let me discharge it.'

`I show no mercy,' retorted Ralph with a triumphant smile, `and I ask none. Seek no mercy from me, sir, in behalf of the fellow who has imposed upon your childish credulity, but let him expect the worst that I can do.'

` He ask mercy at your hands!' exclaimed the old merchant warmly;`ask it at his, sir; ask it at his. If you will not hear me now, when you may, hear me when you must, or anticipate what I would say, and take measures to prevent our ever meeting again. Your nephew is a noble lad, sir, an honest, noble lad. What you are, Mr Nickleby, I will not say; but what you have done, I know. Now, sir, when you go about the business in which you have been recently engaged, and find it difficult of pursuing, come to me and my brother Ned, and Tim Linkinwater, sir, and we'll explain it for you--and come soon, or it may be too late, and you may have it explained with a little more roughness, and a little less delicacy--and never forget, sir, that I came here this morning, in mercy to you, and am still ready to talk to you in the same spirit.'

With these words, uttered with great emphasis and emotion, brother Charles put on his broad-brimmed hat, and, passing Ralph Nickleby without any other remark, trotted nimbly into the street. Ralph looked after him, but neither moved nor spoke for some time: when he broke what almost seemed the silence of stupefaction, by a scornful laugh.

`This,' he said, `from its wildness, should be another of those dreams that have so broken my rest of late. In mercy to me!--Pho! The old simpleton has gone mad.'

Although he expressed himself in this derisive and contemptuous manner, it was plain that, the more Ralph pondered, the more ill at ease he became, and the more he laboured under some vague anxiety and alarm, which increased as the time passed on and no tidings of Newman Noggs arrived. After waiting until late in the afternoon, tortured by various apprehensions and misgivings, and the recollection of the warning which his nephew had given him when they last met: the further confirmation of which now presented itself in one shape of probability, now in another, and haunted him perpetually:

he left home, and, scarcely knowing why, save that he was in a suspicious and agitated mood, betook himself to Snawley's house. His wife presented herself; and, of her, Ralph inquired whether her husband was at home.

`No,' she said sharply, `he is not indeed, and I don't think he will be at home for a very long time; that's more.'

`Do you know who I am?' asked Ralph.

`Oh yes, I know you very well--too well, perhaps, and perhaps he does too, and sorry am I that I should have to say it.'

`Tell him that I saw him through the window-blind above, as I crossed the road just now, and that I would speak to him on business,' said Ralph.

`Do you hear?'

`I hear,' rejoined Mrs Snawley, taking no further notice of the request.

`I knew this woman was a hypocrite, in the way of psalms and Scripture phrases,' said Ralph, passing quietly by, `but I never knew she drank before.'

`Stop! You don't come in here,' said Mr Snawley's better-half, interposing her person, which was a robust one, in the doorway. `You have said more than enough to him on business, before now. I always told him what dealing with you and working out your schemes would come to. It was either you or the schoolmaster--one of you, or the two between you--that got the forged letter done; remember that! That wasn't his doing, so don't lay it at his door.'

`Hold your tongue, you Jezebel,' said Ralph, looking fearfully round.

`Ah, I know when to hold my tongue, and when to speak, Mr Nickleby,'

retorted the dame. `Take care that other people know when to hold theirs.'

`You jade,' said Ralph, `if your husband has been idiot enough to trust you with his secrets, keep them--keep them, she-devil that you are!'

`Not so much his secrets as other people's secrets, perhaps,' retorted the woman; `not so much his secrets as yours. None of your black looks at me! You'll want 'em all, perhaps, for another time. You had better keep 'em.'

`Will you,' said Ralph, suppressing his passion as well as he could, and clutching her tightly by the wrist; `will you go to your husband and tell him that I know he is at home, and that I must see him? And will you tell me what it is that you and he mean by this new style of behaviour?'