第 6 页

quite a--what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young man neither,

which might be a little excuse for him if anything could be; whereas

his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman--which is the

greatest thing after all.'

This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a

corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the lady

went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and unreasonable

with such a wife, then--

'If he is!' interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and

brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn

declaration. 'If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she

daren't call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and

even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn't the spirit

to give him a word back, no, not a single word.'

Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all the

tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every

tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this

official communication was no sooner made than they all began to talk

at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility. Mrs

George remarked that people would talk, that people had often said this

to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had told her so

twenty times, that she had always said, 'No, Henrietta Simmons, unless

I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears, I never will

believe it.' Mrs Simmons corroborated this testimony and added strong

evidence of her own. The lady from the Minories recounted a successful

course of treatment under which she had placed her own husband, who,

from manifesting one month after marriage unequivocal symptoms of the

tiger, had by this means become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another

lady recounted her own personal struggle and final triumph, in the

course whereof she had found it necessary to call in her mother and two

aunts, and to weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third,

who in the general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened

herself upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst

them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and

happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the

weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole

thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The noise

was at its height, and half the company had elevated their voices into

a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other half, when

Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her forefinger

stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not until then,

Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this clamour, was

observed to be in the room, looking on and listening with profound

attention.

'Go on, ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to

stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and

palatable.'

'I--I--didn't ask them to tea, Quilp,' stammered his wife. 'It's quite

an accident.'

'So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always the

pleasantest,' said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he seemed

to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they were

encrusted, little charges for popguns. 'What! Not going, ladies, you

are not going, surely!'

His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their

respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs

Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a faint

struggle to sustain the character.

'And why not stop to supper, Quilp,' said the old lady, 'if my daughter

had a mind?'

'To be sure,' rejoined Daniel. 'Why not?'

'There's nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?' said Mrs

Jiniwin.

'Surely not,' returned the dwarf. 'Why should there be? Nor anything

unwholesome, either, unless there's lobster-salad or prawns, which I'm

told are not good for digestion.'

'And you wouldn't like your wife to be attacked with that, or anything

else that would make her uneasy would you?' said Mrs Jiniwin.

'Not for a score of worlds,' replied the dwarf with a grin. 'Not even

to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time--and what a blessing

that would be!'

'My daughter's your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,' said the old lady with

a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be

reminded of the fact; 'your wedded wife.'

'So she is, certainly. So she is,' observed the dwarf.

'And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,' said the

old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of

her impish son-in-law.

'Hope she has!' he replied. 'Oh! Don't you know she has? Don't you know

she has, Mrs Jiniwin?

'I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my way

of thinking.'

'Why an't you of your mother's way of thinking, my dear?' said the

dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, 'why don't you always

imitate your mother, my dear? She's the ornament of her sex--your

father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.'

'Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty thousand of

some people,' said Mrs Jiniwin; 'twenty hundred million thousand.'

'I should like to have known him,' remarked the dwarf. 'I dare say he

was a blessed creature then; but I'm sure he is now. It was a happy

release. I believe he had suffered a long time?'

The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with

the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his

tongue.

'You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too

much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to

bed.'

'I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.'

'But please to do now. Do please to go now,' said the dwarf.

The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and

falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and

bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding

downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a

corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted

himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a

long time without speaking.

'Mrs Quilp,' he said at last.

'Yes, Quilp,' she replead meekly.

Instead of pursuing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms

again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted

her eyes and kept them on the ground.

'Mrs Quilp.'

'Yes, Quilp.'

'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'

With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave

him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her

clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before

him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship's

locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face

squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted on the table.

'Now, Mrs Quilp,' he said; 'I feel in a smoking humour, and shall

probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in

case I want you.'

His wife returned no other reply than the necessary 'Yes, Quilp,' and

the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first

glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower

turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the

room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red,

but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position,

and staring listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on

his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of

restlessness or fatigue; and then it expanded into a grin of delight.

CHAPTER 5

Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time,

or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is

that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the

ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the

assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after

hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural

desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he

showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a

suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like

one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth.

At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of

early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered

sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute

appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding

him by an occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her

penance had been of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked

his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her; and it was not until

the sun had some time risen, and the activity and noise of city day

were rife in the street, that he deigned to recognize her presence by

any word or sign. He might not have done so even then, but for certain

impatient tapping at the door he seemed to denote that some pretty hard

knuckles were actively engaged upon the other side.

'Why dear me!' he said looking round with a malicious grin, 'it's day.

Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!'

His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.

Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for,

supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her

feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and

character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room

appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on the

previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.

Nothing escaped the hawk's eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly

understanding what passed in the old lady's mind, turned uglier still

in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a

leer or triumph.

'Why, Betsy,' said the old woman, 'you haven't been--you don't mean to

say you've been a--'

'Sitting up all night?' said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the

sentence. 'Yes she has!'

'All night?' cried Mrs Jiniwin.

'Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?' said Quilp, with a smile of

which a frown was part. 'Who says man and wife are bad company? Ha ha!

The time has flown.'

'You're a brute!' exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.

'Come come,' said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, 'you

mustn't call her names. She's married now, you know. And though she did

beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly

careful of me as to be out of humour with her. Bless you for a dear

old lady. Here's to your health!'

'I am much obliged to you,' returned the old woman, testifying by a

certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her

matronly fist at her son-in-law. 'Oh! I'm very much obliged to you!'

'Grateful soul!' cried the dwarf. 'Mrs Quilp.'

'Yes, Quilp,' said the timid sufferer.

'Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the wharf

this morning--the earlier the better, so be quick.'

Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in

a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute

determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her

daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt

faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next

apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied herself

to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.

While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room,

and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance

with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his

complexion rather more cloudy than it was before. But, while he was

thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for

with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in

this short process, and stood listening for any conversation in the

next room, of which he might be the theme.

'Ah!' he said after a short effort of attention, 'it was not the towel

over my ears, I thought it wasn't. I'm a little hunchy villain and a

monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!'

The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full

force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very

doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.

Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing

there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin happening to be

behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist

at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she

did so and accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye

in the glass, catching her in the very act. The same glance at the

mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and

distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and the next instant the

dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and placid look, inquired