The Old Curiosity Shop

Chapter 14

As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house
was in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his
passing it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable
necessity, quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he
could not choose but yield. It is not uncommon for people who are
much better fed and taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been,
to make duties of their inclinations in matters of more doubtful
propriety, and to take great credit for the self-denial with which
they gratify themselves.

There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being
detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp's
boy. The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy
as if it had been so for months. A rusty padlock was fastened on
the door, ends of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily
against the half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in
the closed shutters below, were black with the darkness of the
inside. Some of the glass in the window he had so often watched,
had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning, and that room
looked more deserted and dull than any. A group of idle urchins had
taken possession of the door-steps; some were plying the knocker
and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread
through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the
keyhole, watching half in jest and half in earnest for 'the ghost,'
which an hour's gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the
late inhabitants, had already raised. Standing all alone in the
midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house looked a
picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the cheerful
fire that used to burn there on a winter's night and the no less
cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite
mournfully away.

It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was
by no means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that
adjective in all his life. He was only a soft-hearted grateful
fellow, and had nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently,
instead of going home again, in his grief, to kick the children and
abuse his mother (for, when your finely strung people are out of
sorts, they must have everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned
his thoughts to the vulgar expedient of making them more
comfortable if he could.

Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding
up and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held! A good
city speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to
a fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of
money was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding
horses alone. And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one,
if only a twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had
occasion to alight; but they had not; and it is often an
ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most ingenious
estimate in the world.

Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now
lingering as some rider slackened his horse's pace and looked about
him; and now darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a
glimpse of some distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of
the road, and promising to stop, at every door. But on they all
went, one after another, and there was not a penny stirring. 'I
wonder,' thought the boy, 'if one of these gentlemen knew there was
nothing in the cupboard at home, whether he'd stop on purpose, and
make believe that he wanted to call somewhere, that I might earn a
trifle?'

He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of
repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest,
when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling
four-wheeled chaise' drawn by a little obstinate-looking
rough-coated pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old
gentleman. Beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady,
plump and placid like himself, and the pony was coming along at his
own pace and doing exactly as he pleased with the whole concern. If
the old gentleman remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony
replied by shaking his head. It was plain that the utmost the pony
would consent to do, was to go in his own way up any street that
the old gentleman particularly wished to traverse, but that it was
an understanding between them that he must do this after his own
fashion or not at all.

As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little
turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him. Kit rising and
putting his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the
pony that he wished to stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom
objected to that part of his duty) graciously acceded.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Kit. 'I'm sorry you stopped, sir. I
only meant did you want your horse minded.'

'I'm going to get down in the next street,' returned the old
gentleman. 'If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.'

Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed. The pony ran off at a sharp
angle to inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and
then went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side.
Having satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and
materials, he came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation.
'Will you go on, sir,' said the old gentleman, gravely, 'or are we
to wait here for you till it's too late for our appointment?'

The pony remained immoveable.

'Oh you naughty Whisker,' said the old lady. 'Fie upon you! I'm
ashamed of such conduct.'

The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for
he trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no
more until he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the
words 'Witherden--Notary.' Here the old gentleman got out and
helped out the old lady, and then took from under the seat a
nosegay resembling in shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan
with the handle cut short off. This, the old lady carried into the
house with a staid and stately air, and the old gentleman (who had
a club-foot) followed close upon her.

They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices,
into the front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office. The
day being very warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were
wide open; and it was easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all
that passed inside.

At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet,
succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed
by the listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to
exclaim a great many times, 'oh, delicious!' 'oh, fragrant,
indeed!' and a nose, also supposed to be the property of that
gentleman, was heard to inhale the scent with a snuffle of
exceeding pleasure.

'I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,' said the old lady.

'Ah! an occasion indeed, ma'am, an occasion which does honour to
me, ma'am, honour to me,' rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary. 'I
have had many a gentleman articled to me, ma'am, many a one. Some
of them are now rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion
and friend, ma'am, others are in the habit of calling upon me to
this day and saying, "Mr Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours
I ever spent in my life were spent in this office--were spent,
Sir, upon this very stool"; but there was never one among the
number, ma'am, attached as I have been to many of them, of whom I
augured such bright things as I do of your only son.'

'Oh dear!' said the old lady. 'How happy you do make us when you
tell us that, to be sure!'

'I tell you, ma'am,' said Mr Witherden, 'what I think as an honest
man, which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God. I
agree with the poet in every particular, ma'am. The mountainous
Alps on the one hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing,
in point of workmanship, to an honest man--or woman--or woman.'

'Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,' observed a small quiet
voice, 'I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.'

'It's a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,' said the
Notary, 'to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and
I hope I know how to appreciate it. I trust, Mr Garland, my dear
Sir, that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this
auspicious occasion.'

To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might.
There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and
when it was over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it
who should not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort
to his parents than Abel Garland had been to his.

'Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting
for a great many years, until we were well enough off--coming
together when we were no longer young, and then being blessed with
one child who has always been dutiful and affectionate--why, it's
a source of great happiness to us both, sir.'

'Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,' returned the Notary in a
sympathising voice. 'It's the contemplation of this sort of thing,
that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor. There was a
young lady once, sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of
the first respectability--but that's a weakness. Chuckster, bring
in Mr Abel's articles.'

'You see, Mr Witherden,' said the old lady, 'that Abel has not been
brought up like the run of young men. He has always had a pleasure
in our society, and always been with us. Abel has never been absent
from us, for a day; has he, my dear?'

'Never, my dear,' returned the old gentleman, 'except when he went
to Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher
at that school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he
was very ill after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a
dissipation.'

'He was not used to it, you know,' said the old lady, 'and he
couldn't bear it, that's the truth. Besides he had no comfort in
being there without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself
with.'

'That was it, you know,' interposed the same small quiet voice that
had spoken once before. 'I was quite abroad, mother, quite
desolate, and to think that the sea was between us--oh, I never
shall forget what I felt when I first thought that the sea was
between us!'

'Very natural under the circumstances,' observed the Notary. 'Mr
Abel's feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your
nature, ma'am, and his father's nature, and human nature. I trace
the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive
proceedings.---I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot
of the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my
finger upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am
constrained to remark in a distinct tone of voice--don't be
alarmed, ma'am, it is merely a form of law--that I deliver this,
as my act and deed. Mr Abel will place his name against the other
wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is
over. Ha ha ha! You see how easily these things are done!'

There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through
the prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of
feet were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of
wine-glasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody. In
about a quarter of an hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear
and his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and
condescending to address Kit by the jocose appellation of 'Young
Snob,' informed him that the visitors were coming out.

Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby,
fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with
extreme politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in
arm. Mr Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked
nearly of the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful
resemblance to him in face and figure, though wanting something of
his full, round, cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a
timid reserve. In all other respects, in the neatness of the dress,
and even in the club-foot, he and the old gentleman were precisely
alike.

Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the
arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an
indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little
box behind which had evidently been made for his express
accommodation, and smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning
with his mother and ending with the pony. There was then a great
to-do to make the pony hold up his head that the bearing-rein might
be fastened; at last even this was effected; and the old gentleman,
taking his seat and the reins, put his hand in his pocket to find
a sixpence for Kit.

He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the
Notary, nor Mr Chuckster. The old gentleman thought a shilling too
much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he
gave it to the boy.

'There,' he said jokingly, 'I'm coming here again next Monday at
the same time, and mind you're here, my lad, to work it out.'

'Thank you, Sir,' said Kit. 'I'll be sure to be here.'

He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying
so, especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to
relish the joke amazingly. As the pony, with a presentiment that he
was going home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere
else (which was the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had
no time to justify himself, and went his way also. Having expended
his treasure in such purchases as he knew would be most acceptable
at home, not forgetting some seed for the wonderful bird, he
hastened back as fast as he could, so elated with his success and
great good fortune, that he more than half expected Nell and the
old man would have arrived before him.