第 80 页

Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion. He was gone in an

instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him down-stairs,

reported that the pony, without any preliminary objection whatever, had

dashed away at full gallop.

'That's right!' said Dick; 'and hearty of him; and I honour him from

this time. But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am sure you

must be tired. Do have a mug of beer. It will do me as much good to

see you take it as if I might drink it myself.'

Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small nurse to

indulge in such a luxury. Having eaten and drunk to Mr Swiveller's

extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put everything in neat

order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug

before the fire.

Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, 'Strew then, oh

strew, a bed of rushes. Here will we stay, till morning blushes. Good

night, Marchioness!'

CHAPTER 66

On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by slow

degrees, of whispering voices in his room. Looking out between the

curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary, and the single

gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and talking to her with

great earnestness but in very subdued tones--fearing, no doubt, to

disturb him. He lost no time in letting them know that this precaution

was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen directly approached his

bedside. Old Mr Garland was the first to stretch out his hand, and

inquire how he felt.

Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as weak

as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside and

pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their interference, set

his breakfast before him, and insisted on his taking it before he

underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being spoken to. Mr Swiveller,

who was perfectly ravenous, and had had, all night, amazingly distinct

and consistent dreams of mutton chops, double stout, and similar

delicacies, felt even the weak tea and dry toast such irresistible

temptations, that he consented to eat and drink on one condition.

'And that is,' said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland's hand,

'that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit or drop.

Is it too late?'

'For completing the work you began so well last night?' returned the

old gentleman. 'No. Set your mind at rest on that point. It is not,

I assure you.'

Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his food

with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest in the

eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat. The manner

of this meal was this:--Mr Swiveller, holding the slice of toast or cup

of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or drink, as the case might

be, constantly kept, in his right, one palm of the Marchioness tight

locked; and to shake, or even to kiss this imprisoned hand, he would

stop every now and then, in the very act of swallowing, with perfect

seriousness of intention, and the utmost gravity. As often as he put

anything into his mouth, whether for eating or drinking, the face of

the Marchioness lighted up beyond all description; but whenever he gave

her one or other of these tokens of recognition, her countenance became

overshadowed, and she began to sob. Now, whether she was in her

laughing joy, or in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help

turning to the visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say,

'You see this fellow--can I help this?'--and they, being thus made, as

it were, parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look,

'No. Certainly not.' This dumb-show, taking place during the whole

time of the invalid's breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and

emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly

questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was spoken

from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in themselves

so slight and unimportant.

At length--and to say the truth before very long--Mr Swiveller had

despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his recovery it

was discreet to let him have. But the cares of the Marchioness did not

stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and presently returning

with a basin of fair water, she laved his face and hands, brushed his

hair, and in short made him as spruce and smart as anybody under such

circumstances could be made; and all this, in as brisk and

business-like a manner, as if he were a very little boy, and she his

grown-up nurse. To these various attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in

a kind of grateful astonishment beyond the reach of language. When

they were at last brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn

into a distant corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by

that time), he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook

hands heartily with the air.

'Gentlemen,' said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and turning

round again, 'you'll excuse me. Men who have been brought so low as I

have been, are easily fatigued. I am fresh again now, and fit for

talking. We're short of chairs here, among other trifles, but if

you'll do me the favour to sit upon the bed--'

'What can we do for you?' said Mr Garland, kindly.

'If you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real,

sober earnest,' returned Dick, 'I'd thank you to get it done off-hand.

But as you can't, and as the question is not what you will do for me,

but what you will do for somebody else who has a better claim upon you,

pray sir let me know what you intend doing.'

'It's chiefly on that account that we have come just now,' said the

single gentleman, 'for you will have another visitor presently. We

feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what steps

we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we stirred in the

matter.'

'Gentlemen,' returned Dick, 'I thank you. Anybody in the helpless

state that you see me in, is naturally anxious. Don't let me interrupt

you, sir.'

'Then, you see, my good fellow,' said the single gentleman, 'that while

we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure, which has so

providentially come to light--'

'Meaning hers?' said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.

'--Meaning hers, of course. While we have no doubt of that, or that a

proper use of it would procure the poor lad's immediate pardon and

liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable

us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany. I should tell you

that this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly

approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in

this short space of time, to take upon the subject. You'll agree with

us, that to give him even the most distant chance of escape, if we

could help it, would be monstrous. You say with us, no doubt, if

somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.'

'Yes,' returned Dick, 'certainly. That is if somebody must--but upon

my word, I'm unwilling that anybody should. Since laws were made for

every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me--and so forth

you know--doesn't it strike you in that light?'

The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller had

put the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to

explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem in the first

instance; and that their design was to endeavour to extort a confession

from the gentle Sarah.

'When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,' he said, 'and

that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without strong

hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the other two

effectually. If we could do that, she might go scot-free for aught I

cared.'

Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner,

representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing,

that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to

manage than Quilp himself--that, for any tampering, terrifying, or

cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject--that she

was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape--in

short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally defeated.

But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other course. The single

gentleman has been described as explaining their joint intentions, but

it should have been written that they all spoke together; that if any

one of them by chance held his peace for a moment, he stood gasping and

panting for an opportunity to strike in again: in a word, that they had

reached that pitch of impatience and anxiety where men can neither be

persuaded nor reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to

turn the most impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to

reconsider their determination. So, after telling Mr Swiveller how

they had not lost sight of Kit's mother and the children; how they had

never once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in

their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they had

been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his guilt, and

their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller,

might keep his mind at rest, for everything should be happily adjusted

between that time and night;--after telling him all this, and adding a

great many kind and cordial expressions, personal to himself, which it

is unnecessary to recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single

gentleman, took their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard

Swiveller must assuredly have been driven into another fever, whereof

the results might have been fatal.

Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the

room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the

setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a

porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made

the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly

this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the

door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a

mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently

unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and coffee, and wine, and

rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls ready trussed for boiling,

and calves'-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and sago, and other delicate

restoratives, that the small servant, who had never thought it possible

that such things could be, except in shops, stood rooted to the spot in

her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power

of speech quite gone. But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man who

emptied the hamper, big as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the nice

old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the

hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about on

tiptoe and without noise--now here, now there, now everywhere at

once--began to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken

broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to

cut them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses

of wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat could

be prepared for her refreshment. The whole of which appearances were

so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller, when he had taken two

oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the strong man walk off with

the empty basket, plainly leaving all that abundance for his use and

benefit, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer

inability to entertain such wonders in his mind.

Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland, repaired

to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and sent a

letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious and

brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to consult her, with her

company there, as speedily as possible. The communication performed

its errand so well, that within ten minutes of the messenger's return

and report of its delivery, Miss Brass herself was announced.

'Pray ma'am,' said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the

room, 'take a chair.'

Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and

seemed--as indeed she was--not a little astonished to find that the

lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person.

'You did not expect to see me?' said the single gentleman.

'I didn't think much about it,' returned the beauty. 'I supposed it

was business of some kind or other. If it's about the apartments, of

course you'll give my brother regular notice, you know--or money.

That's very easily settled. You're a responsible party, and in such a

case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty much the same.'

'I am obliged to you for your good opinion,' retorted the single

gentleman, 'and quite concur in these sentiments. But that is not the

subject on which I wish to speak with you.'

'Oh!' said Sally. 'Then just state the particulars, will you? I

suppose it's professional business?'

'Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.'

'Very well,' returned Miss Brass. 'My brother and I are just the same.

I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.'

'As there are other parties interested besides myself,' said the single

gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, 'we had better

confer together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.'

Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and, drawing up