Whereby the Reader will be enabled to trace thefurther course of Miss Fanny Squeer’s Love, and toascertain whether it ran smooth or otherwise.
It was a fortunate circumstance for Miss Fanny Squeers, thatwhen her worthy papa returned home on the night of thesmall tea-party, he was what the initiated term ‘too far gone’
to observe the numerous tokens of extreme vexation of spiritwhich were plainly visible in her countenance. Being, however, ofa rather violent and quarrelsome mood in his cups, it is notimpossible that he might have fallen out with her, either on this orsome imaginary topic, if the young lady had not, with a foresightand prudence highly commendable, kept a boy up, on purpose, tobear the first brunt of the good gentleman’s anger; which, havingvented itself in a variety of kicks and cuffs, subsided sufficiently toadmit of his being persuaded to go to bed. Which he did with hisboots on, and an umbrella under his arm.
The hungry servant attended Miss Squeers in her own roomaccording to custom, to curl her hair, perform the other littleoffices of her toilet, and administer as much flattery as she couldget up, for the purpose; for Miss Squeers was quite lazy enough(and sufficiently vain and frivolous withal) to have been a finelady; and it was only the arbitrary distinctions of rank and stationwhich prevented her from being one.
‘How lovely your hair do curl tonight, miss!’ said thehandmaiden. ‘I declare if it isn’t a pity and a shame to brush it out!’
‘Hold your tongue!’ replied Miss Squeers wrathfully.
Some considerable experience prevented the girl from being atall surprised at any outbreak of ill-temper on the part of MissSqueers. Having a half-perception of what had occurred in thecourse of the evening, she changed her mode of making herselfagreeable, and proceeded on the indirect tack.
‘Well, I couldn’t help saying, miss, if you was to kill me for it,’
said the attendant, ‘that I never see nobody look so vulgar as MissPrice this night.’
Miss Squeers sighed, and composed herself to listen.
‘I know it’s very wrong in me to say so, miss,’ continued the girl,delighted to see the impression she was making, ‘Miss Price beinga friend of your’n, and all; but she do dress herself out so, and goon in such a manner to get noticed, that—oh—well, if people onlysaw themselves!’
‘What do you mean, Phib?’ asked Miss Squeers, looking in herown little glass, where, like most of us, she saw—not herself, butthe reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain. ‘How youtalk!’
‘Talk, miss! It’s enough to make a Tom cat talk Frenchgrammar, only to see how she tosses her head,’ replied thehandmaid.
‘She does toss her head,’ observed Miss Squeers, with an air ofabstraction.
‘So vain, and so very—very plain,’ said the girl.
‘Poor ’Tilda!’ sighed Miss Squeers, compassionately.
‘And always laying herself out so, to get to be admired,’ pursuedthe servant. ‘Oh, dear! It’s positive indelicate.’
‘I can’t allow you to talk in that way, Phib,’ said Miss Squeers.
‘’Tilda’s friends are low people, and if she don’t know any better,it’s their fault, and not hers.’
‘Well, but you know, miss,’ said Phoebe, for which name ‘Phib’
was used as a patronising abbreviation, ‘if she was only to takecopy by a friend—oh! if she only knew how wrong she was, andwould but set herself right by you, what a nice young woman shemight be in time!’
‘Phib,’ rejoined Miss Squeers, with a stately air, ‘it’s not properfor me to hear these comparisons drawn; they make ’Tilda look acoarse improper sort of person, and it seems unfriendly in me tolisten to them. I would rather you dropped the subject, Phib; at thesame time, I must say, that if ’Tilda Price would take pattern bysomebody—not me particularly—’
‘Oh yes; you, miss,’ interposed Phib.
‘Well, me, Phib, if you will have it so,’ said Miss Squeers. ‘I mustsay, that if she would, she would be all the better for it.’
‘So somebody else thinks, or I am much mistaken,’ said the girlmysteriously.
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Miss Squeers.
‘Never mind, miss,’ replied the girl; ‘I know what I know; that’sall.’
‘Phib,’ said Miss Squeers dramatically, ‘I insist upon yourexplaining yourself. What is this dark mystery? Speak.’
‘Why, if you will have it, miss, it’s this,’ said the servant girl. ‘MrJohn Browdie thinks as you think; and if he wasn’t too far gone todo it creditable, he’d be very glad to be off with Miss Price, and onwith Miss Squeers.’
‘Gracious heavens!’ exclaimed Miss Squeers, clasping her hands with great dignity. ‘What is this?’
‘Truth, ma’am, and nothing but truth,’ replied the artful Phib.
‘What a situation!’ cried Miss Squeers; ‘on the brink ofunconsciously destroying the peace and happiness of my own’Tilda. What is the reason that men fall in love with me, whether Ilike it or not, and desert their chosen intendeds for my sake?’
‘Because they can’t help it, miss,’ replied the girl; ‘the reason’splain.’ (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very plain.)‘Never let me hear of it again,’ retorted Miss Squeers. ‘Never!
Do you hear? ’Tilda Price has faults—many faults—but I wish herwell, and above all I wish her married; for I think it highlydesirable—most desirable from the very nature of her failings—that she should be married as soon as possible. No, Phib. Let herhave Mr Browdie. I may pity him, poor fellow; but I have a greatregard for ’Tilda, and only hope she may make a better wife than Ithink she will.’
With this effusion of feeling, Miss Squeers went to bed.
Spite is a little word; but it represents as strange a jumble offeelings, and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in thelanguage. Miss Squeers knew as well in her heart of hearts thatwhat the miserable serving-girl had said was sheer, coarse, lyingflattery, as did the girl herself; yet the mere opportunity of ventinga little ill-nature against the offending Miss Price, and affecting tocompassionate her weaknesses and foibles, though only in thepresence of a solitary dependant, was almost as great a relief toher spleen as if the whole had been gospel truth. Nay, more. Wehave such extraordinary powers of persuasion when they areexerted over ourselves, that Miss Squeers felt quite high-mindedand great after her noble renunciation of John Browdie’s hand, and looked down upon her rival with a kind of holy calmness andtranquillity, that had a mighty effect in soothing her ruffledfeelings.
This happy state of mind had some influence in bringing abouta reconciliation; for, when a knock came at the front-door nextday, and the miller’s daughter was announced, Miss Squeersbetook herself to the parlour in a Christian frame of spirit,perfectly beautiful to behold.
‘Well, Fanny,’ said the miller’s daughter, ‘you see I have cometo see you, although we had some words last night.’
‘I pity your bad passions, ’Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘but Ibear no malice. I am above it.’
‘Don’t be cross, Fanny,’ said Miss Price. ‘I have come to tell yousomething that I know will please you.’
‘What may that be, ’Tilda?’ demanded Miss Squeers; screwingup her lips, and looking as if nothing in earth, air, fire, or water,could afford her the slightest gleam of satisfaction.
‘This,’ rejoined Miss Price. ‘After we left here last night Johnand I had a dreadful quarrel.’
‘That doesn’t please me,’ said Miss Squeers—relaxing into asmile though.
‘Lor! I wouldn’t think so bad of you as to suppose it did,’
rejoined her companion. ‘That’s not it.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Squeers, relapsing into melancholy. ‘Go on.’
‘After a great deal of wrangling, and saying we would never seeeach other any more,’ continued Miss Price, ‘we made it up, andthis morning John went and wrote our names down to be put up,for the first time, next Sunday, so we shall be married in threeweeks, and I give you notice to get your frock made.’
There was mingled gall and honey in this intelligence. Theprospect of the friend’s being married so soon was the gall, andthe certainty of her not entertaining serious designs upon Nicholaswas the honey. Upon the whole, the sweet greatly preponderatedover the bitter, so Miss Squeers said she would get the frock made,and that she hoped ’Tilda might be happy, though at the sametime she didn’t know, and would not have her build too muchupon it, for men were strange creatures, and a great many marriedwomen were very miserable, and wished themselves single againwith all their hearts; to which condolences Miss Squeers addedothers equally calculated to raise her friend’s spirits and promoteher cheerfulness of mind.
‘But come now, Fanny,’ said Miss Price, ‘I want to have a wordor two with you about young Mr Nickleby.’
‘He is nothing to me,’ interrupted Miss Squeers, with hystericalsymptoms. ‘I despise him too much!’
‘Oh, you don’t mean that, I am sure?’ replied her friend.
‘Confess, Fanny; don’t you like him now?’
Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once,fell into a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she was awretched, neglected, miserable castaway.
‘I hate everybody,’ said Miss Squeers, ‘and I wish thateverybody was dead—that I do.’
‘Dear, dear,’ said Miss Price, quite moved by this avowal ofmisanthropical sentiments. ‘You are not serious, I am sure.’
‘Yes, I am,’ rejoined Miss Squeers, tying tight knots in herpocket-handkerchief and clenching her teeth. ‘And I wish I wasdead too. There!’
‘Oh! you’ll think very differently in another five minutes,’ said Matilda. ‘How much better to take him into favour again, than tohurt yourself by going on in that way. Wouldn’t it be much nicer,now, to have him all to yourself on good terms, in a company-keeping, love-making, pleasant sort of manner?’
‘I don’t know but what it would,’ sobbed Miss Squeers. ‘Oh!
’Tilda, how could you have acted so mean and dishonourable! Iwouldn’t have believed it of you, if anybody had told me.’
‘Heyday!’ exclaimed Miss Price, giggling. ‘One would suppose Ihad been murdering somebody at least.’
‘Very nigh as bad,’ said Miss Squeers passionately.
‘And all this because I happen to have enough of good looks tomake people civil to me,’ cried Miss Price. ‘Persons don’t maketheir own faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good onethan it is other people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ shrieked Miss Squeers, in her shrillest tone;‘or you’ll make me slap you, ’Tilda, and afterwards I should besorry for it!’
It is needless to say, that, by this time, the temper of each younglady was in some slight degree affected by the tone of herconversation, and that a dash of personality was infused into thealtercation, in consequence. Indeed, the quarrel, from slightbeginnings, rose to a considerable height, and was assuming avery violent complexion, when both parties, falling into a greatpassion of tears, exclaimed simultaneously, that they had neverthought of being spoken to in that way: which exclamation,leading to a remonstrance, gradually brought on an explanation:
and the upshot was, that they fell into each other’s arms andvowed eternal friendship; the occasion in question making thefifty-second time of repeating the same impressive ceremony within a twelvemonth.
Perfect amicability being thus restored, a dialogue naturallyensued upon the number and nature of the garments which wouldbe indispensable for Miss Price’s entrance into the holy state ofmatrimony, when Miss Squeers clearly showed that a great manymore than the miller could, or would, afford, were absolutelynecessary, and could not decently be dispensed with. The younglady then, by an easy digression, led the discourse to her ownwardrobe, and after recounting its principal beauties at somelength, took her friend upstairs to make inspection thereof. Thetreasures of two drawers and a closet having been displayed, andall the smaller articles tried on, it was time for Miss Price to returnhome; and as she had been in raptures with all the frocks, and hadbeen stricken quite dumb with admiration of a new pink scarf,Miss Squeers said in high good humour, that she would walk partof the way with her, for the pleasure of her company; and off theywent together: Miss Squeers dilating, as they walked along, uponher father’s accomplishments: and multiplying his income by ten,to give her friend some faint notion of the vast importance andsuperiority of her family.
It happened that that particular time, comprising the shortdaily interval which was suffered to elapse between what waspleasantly called the dinner of Mr Squeers’s pupils, and theirreturn to the pursuit of useful knowledge, was precisely the hourwhen Nicholas was accustomed to issue forth for a melancholywalk, and to brood, as he sauntered listlessly through the village,upon his miserable lot. Miss Squeers knew this perfectly well, buthad perhaps forgotten it, for when she caught sight of that younggentleman advancing towards them, she evinced many symptoms of surprise and consternation, and assured her friend that she ‘feltfit to drop into the earth.’
‘Shall we turn back, or run into a cottage?’ asked Miss Price.
‘He don’t see us yet.’
‘No, ’Tilda,’ replied Miss Squeers, ‘it is my duty to go throughwith it, and I will!’
As Miss Squeers said this, in the tone of one who has made ahigh moral resolution, and was, besides, taken with one or twochokes and catchings of breath, indicative of feelings at a highpressure, her friend made no further remark, and they borestraight down upon Nicholas, who, walking with his eyes bentupon the ground, was not aware of their approach until they wereclose upon him; otherwise, he might, perhaps, have taken shelterhimself.
‘Good-morning,’ said Nicholas, bowing and passing by.
‘He is going,’ murmured Miss Squeers. ‘I shall choke, ’Tilda.’
‘Come back, Mr Nickleby, do!’ cried Miss Price, affecting alarmat her friend’s threat, but really actuated by a malicious wish tohear what Nicholas would say; ‘come back, Mr Nickleby!’
Mr Nickleby came back, and looked as confused as might be, ashe inquired whether the ladies had any commands for him.
‘Don’t stop to talk,’ urged Miss Price, hastily; ‘but support heron the other side. How do you feel now, dear?’
‘Better,’ sighed Miss Squeers, laying a beaver bonnet of areddish brown with a green veil attached, on Mr Nickleby’sshoulder. ‘This foolish faintness!’
‘Don’t call it foolish, dear,’ said Miss Price: her bright eyedancing with merriment as she saw the perplexity of Nicholas;‘you have no reason to be ashamed of it. It’s those who are too proud to come round again, without all this to-do, that ought to beashamed.’
‘You are resolved to fix it upon me, I see,’ said Nicholas,smiling, ‘although I told you, last night, it was not my fault.’
‘There; he says it was not his fault, my dear,’ remarked thewicked Miss Price. ‘Perhaps you were too jealous, or too hastywith him? He says it was not his fault. You hear; I think that’sapology enough.’
‘You will not understand me,’ said Nicholas. ‘Pray dispensewith this jesting, for I have no time, and really no inclination, to bethe subject or promoter of mirth just now.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Miss Price, affecting amazement.
‘Don’t ask him, ’Tilda,’ cried Miss Squeers; ‘I forgive him.’
‘Dear me,’ said Nicholas, as the brown bonnet went down on hisshoulder again, ‘this is more serious than I supposed. Allow me!
Will you have the goodness to hear me speak?’
Here he raised up the brown bonnet, and regarding with mostunfeigned astonishment a look of tender reproach from MissSqueers, shrunk back a few paces to be out of the reach of the fairburden, and went on to say:
‘I am very sorry—truly and sincerely sorry—for having been thecause of any difference among you, last night. I reproach myself,most bitterly, for having been so unfortunate as to cause thedissension that occurred, although I did so, I assure you, mostunwittingly and heedlessly.’
‘Well; that’s not all you have got to say surely,’ exclaimed MissPrice as Nicholas paused.
‘I fear there is something more,’ stammered Nicholas with ahalf-smile, and looking towards Miss Squeers, ‘it is a most awkward thing to say—but—the very mention of such asupposition makes one look like a puppy—still—may I ask if thatlady supposes that I entertain any—in short, does she think that Iam in love with her?’
‘Delightful embarrassment,’ thought Miss Squeers, ‘I havebrought him to it, at last. Answer for me, dear,’ she whispered toher friend.
‘Does she think so?’ rejoined Miss Price; ‘of course she does.’
‘She does!’ exclaimed Nicholas with such energy of utterance asmight have been, for the moment, mistaken for rapture.
‘Certainly,’ replied Miss Price‘If Mr Nickleby has doubted that, ’Tilda,’ said the blushing MissSqueers in soft accents, ‘he may set his mind at rest. Hissentiments are recipro—’
‘Stop,’ cried Nicholas hurriedly; ‘pray hear me. This is thegrossest and wildest delusion, the completest and most signalmistake, that ever human being laboured under, or committed. Ihave scarcely seen the young lady half-a-dozen times, but if I hadseen her sixty times, or am destined to see her sixty thousand, itwould be, and will be, precisely the same. I have not one thought,wish, or hope, connected with her, unless it be—and I say this, notto hurt her feelings, but to impress her with the real state of myown—unless it be the one object, dear to my heart as life itself, ofbeing one day able to turn my back upon this accursed place,never to set foot in it again, or think of it—even think of it—butwith loathing and disgust.’
With this particularly plain and straightforward declaration,which he made with all the vehemence that his indignant andexcited feelings could bring to bear upon it, Nicholas waiting to hear no more, retreated.
But poor Miss Squeers! Her anger, rage, and vexation; therapid succession of bitter and passionate feelings that whirledthrough her mind; are not to be described. Refused! refused by ateacher, picked up by advertisement, at an annual salary of fivepounds payable at indefinite periods, and ‘found’ in food andlodging like the very boys themselves; and this too in the presenceof a little chit of a miller’s daughter of eighteen, who was going tobe married, in three weeks’ time, to a man who had gone down onhis very knees to ask her. She could have choked in right goodearnest, at the thought of being so humbled.
But, there was one thing clear in the midst of her mortification;and that was, that she hated and detested Nicholas with all thenarrowness of mind and littleness of purpose worthy a descendantof the house of Squeers. And there was one comfort too; and thatwas, that every hour in every day she could wound his pride, andgoad him with the infliction of some slight, or insult, ordeprivation, which could not but have some effect on the mostinsensible person, and must be acutely felt by one so sensitive asNicholas. With these two reflections uppermost in her mind, MissSqueers made the best of the matter to her friend, by observingthat Mr Nickleby was such an odd creature, and of such a violenttemper, that she feared she should be obliged to give him up; andparted from her.
And here it may be remarked, that Miss Squeers, havingbestowed her affections (or whatever it might be that, in theabsence of anything better, represented them) on NicholasNickleby, had never once seriously contemplated the possibility ofhis being of a different opinion from herself in the business. Miss Squeers reasoned that she was prepossessing and beautiful, andthat her father was master, and Nicholas man, and that her fatherhad saved money, and Nicholas had none, all of which seemed toher conclusive arguments why the young man should feel only toomuch honoured by her preference. She had not failed to recollect,either, how much more agreeable she could render his situation ifshe were his friend, and how much more disagreeable if she werehis enemy; and, doubtless, many less scrupulous young gentlementhan Nicholas would have encouraged her extravagance had itbeen only for this very obvious and intelligible reason. However,he had thought proper to do otherwise, and Miss Squeers wasoutrageous.
‘Let him see,’ said the irritated young lady, when she hadregained her own room, and eased her mind by committing anassault on Phib, ‘if I don’t set mother against him a little morewhen she comes back!’
It was scarcely necessary to do this, but Miss Squeers was asgood as her word; and poor Nicholas, in addition to bad food, dirtylodging, and the being compelled to witness one dull unvaryinground of squalid misery, was treated with every special indignitythat malice could suggest, or the most grasping cupidity put uponhim.
Nor was this all. There was another and deeper system ofannoyance which made his heart sink, and nearly drove him wild,by its injustice and cruelty.
The wretched creature, Smike, since the night Nicholas hadspoken kindly to him in the schoolroom, had followed him to andfro, with an ever-restless desire to serve or help him; anticipatingsuch little wants as his humble ability could supply, and content only to be near him. He would sit beside him for hours, lookingpatiently into his face; and a word would brighten up his careworn visage, and call into it a passing gleam, even of happiness.
He was an altered being; he had an object now; and that objectwas, to show his attachment to the only person—that person astranger—who had treated him, not to say with kindness, but likea human creature.
Upon this poor being, all the spleen and ill-humour that couldnot be vented on Nicholas were unceasingly bestowed. Drudgerywould have been nothing—Smike was well used to that. Buffetingsinflicted without cause, would have been equally a matter ofcourse; for to them also he had served a long and wearyapprenticeship; but it was no sooner observed that he had becomeattached to Nicholas, than stripes and blows, stripes and blows,morning, noon, and night, were his only portion. Squeers wasjealous of the influence which his man had so soon acquired, andhis family hated him, and Smike paid for both. Nicholas saw it,and ground his teeth at every repetition of the savage andcowardly attack.
He had arranged a few regular lessons for the boys; and onenight, as he paced up and down the dismal schoolroom, hisswollen heart almost bursting to think that his protection andcountenance should have increased the misery of the wretchedbeing whose peculiar destitution had awakened his pity, hepaused mechanically in a dark corner where sat the object of histhoughts.
The poor soul was poring hard over a tattered book, with thetraces of recent tears still upon his face; vainly endeavouring tomaster some task which a child of nine years old, possessed of ordinary powers, could have conquered with ease, but which, tothe addled brain of the crushed boy of nineteen, was a sealed andhopeless mystery. Yet there he sat, patiently conning the pageagain and again, stimulated by no boyish ambition, for he was thecommon jest and scoff even of the uncouth objects thatcongregated about him, but inspired by the one eager desire toplease his solitary friend.
Nicholas laid his hand upon his shoulder.
‘I can’t do it,’ said the dejected creature, looking up with bitterdisappointment in every feature. ‘No, no.’
‘Do not try,’ replied Nicholas.
The boy shook his head, and closing the book with a sigh,looked vacantly round, and laid his head upon his arm. He wasweeping.
‘Do not for God’s sake,’ said Nicholas, in an agitated voice; ‘Icannot bear to see you.’
‘They are more hard with me than ever,’ sobbed the boy.
‘I know it,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘They are.’
‘But for you,’ said the outcast, ‘I should die. They would kill me;they would; I know they would.’
‘You will do better, poor fellow,’ replied Nicholas, shaking hishead mournfully, ‘when I am gone.’
‘Gone!’ cried the other, looking intently in his face.
‘Softly!’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Yes.’
‘Are you going?’ demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper.
‘I cannot say,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I was speaking more to my ownthoughts, than to you.’
‘Tell me,’ said the boy imploringly, ‘oh do tell me, will you go—will you?’
‘I shall be driven to that at last!’ said Nicholas. ‘The world isbefore me, after all.’
‘Tell me,’ urged Smike, ‘is the world as bad and dismal as thisplace?’
‘Heaven forbid,’ replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of his ownthoughts; ‘its hardest, coarsest toil, were happiness to this.’
‘Should I ever meet you there?’ demanded the boy, speakingwith unusual wildness and volubility.
‘Yes,’ replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him.
‘No, no!’ said the other, clasping him by the hand. ‘Should I—should I—tell me that again. Say I should be sure to find you.’
‘You would,’ replied Nicholas, with the same humane intention,‘and I would help and aid you, and not bring fresh sorrow on youas I have done here.’
The boy caught both the young man’s hands passionately in his,and, hugging them to his breast, uttered a few broken soundswhich were unintelligible. Squeers entered at the moment, and heshrunk back into his old corner.
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