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Chapter 49
Kit's mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back
so often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp's thoughts than any
intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with
which they had parted. He went his way, whistling from time to
time some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and
composed, jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as
he went with visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who,
having received no intelligence of him for three whole days and two
nights, and having had no previous notice of his absence, was
doubtless by that time in a state of distraction, and constantly
fainting away with anxiety and grief.
This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf's humour,
and so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along
until the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he
found himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill
scream, which greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened
to be walking on before him expecting nothing so little, increased
his mirth, and made him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.
In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when,
gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he
descried more light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing
nearer, and listening attentively, he could hear several voices in
earnest conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only
those of his wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.
'Ha!' cried the jealous dwarf, 'What's this! Do they entertain
visitors while I'm away!'
A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his
pockets for his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no
resource but to knock at the door.
'A light in the passage,' said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole.
'A very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal
upon you unawares. Soho!'
A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within. But
after a second application to the knocker, no louder than the
first, the door was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom
Quilp instantly gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street
with the other.
'You'll throttle me, master,' whispered the boy. 'Let go, will
you.'
'Who's up stairs, you dog?' retorted Quilp in the same tone. 'Tell
me. And don't speak above your breath, or I'll choke you in good
earnest.'
The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled
giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched
him by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution,
or at least have made very good progress towards that end, but for
the boy's nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying
himself behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless
attempts to catch him by the hair of the head, his master was
obliged to come to a parley.
'Will you answer me?' said Quilp. 'What's going on, above?'
'You won't let one speak,' replied the boy. 'They--ha, ha, ha!--
they think you're--you're dead. Ha ha ha!'
'Dead!' cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. 'No. Do
they? Do they really, you dog?'
'They think you're--you're drowned,' replied the boy, who in his
malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. 'You was
last seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled
over. Ha ha!'
The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances,
and of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more
delight to Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could
possibly have inspired him with. He was no less tickled than his
hopeful assistant, and they both stood for some seconds, grinning
and gasping and wagging their heads at each other, on either side
of the post, like an unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.
'Not a word,' said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. 'Not
a sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a
cobweb. Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp! Drowned!'
So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped
his way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy
of summersets on the pavement.
The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped
in, and planted himself behind the door of communication between
that chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render
both more airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had
often availed himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed
enlarged with his pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but
to see distinctly, what was passing.
Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass
seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle
of rum--his own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica--
convenient to his hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump
sugar, and all things fitting; from which choice materials,
Sampson, by no means insensible to their claims upon his attention,
had compounded a mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at
that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating
with looks in which a faint assumption of sentimental regret,
struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy. At the same
table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; no longer
sipping other people's punch feloniously with teaspoons, but taking
deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter--not
exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but
preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow
nevertheless--was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her
grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid. There were
also present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them
certain machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated
with a stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish,
and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look,
their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided
appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the
party.
'If I could poison that dear old lady's rum and water,' murmured
Quilp, 'I'd die happy.'
'Ah!' said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to
the ceiling with a sigh, 'Who knows but he may be looking down upon
us now! Who knows but he may be surveying of us from--from
somewheres or another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye!
Oh Lor!'
Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed;
looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.
'I can almost fancy,' said the lawyer shaking his head, 'that I see
his eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When
shall we look upon his like again? Never, never!' One minute we
are here' --holding his tumbler before his eyes--'the next we are
there'-- gulping down its contents, and striking himself
emphatically a little below the chest--'in the silent tomb. To
think that I should be drinking his very rum! It seems like a
dream.'
With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr
Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the
purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant
mariners.
'The search has been quite unsuccessful then?'
'Quite, master. But I should say that if he turns up anywhere,
he'll come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide,
eh, mate?'
The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the
Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to
receive him whenever he arrived.
'Then we have nothing for it but resignation,' said Mr Brass;
'nothing but resignation and expectation. It would be a comfort to
have his body; it would be a dreary comfort.'
'Oh, beyond a doubt,' assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; 'if we once had
that, we should be quite sure.'
'With regard to the descriptive advertisement,' said Sampson Brass,
taking up his pen. 'It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his
traits. Respecting his legs now--?'
'Crooked, certainly,' said Mrs Jiniwin.
'Do you think they WERE crooked?' said Brass, in an insinuating
tone. 'I think I see them now coming up the street very wide
apart, in nankeen' pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps.
Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we say crooked?'
'I think they were a little so,' observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.
'Legs crooked,' said Brass, writing as he spoke. 'Large head,
short body, legs crooked--'
Very crooked,' suggested Mrs Jiniwin.
'We'll not say very crooked, ma'am,' said Brass piously. 'Let us
not bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone,
ma'am, to where his legs will never come in question. --We will
content ourselves with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.'
'I thought you wanted the truth,' said the old lady. 'That's all.'
'Bless your eyes, how I love you,' muttered Quilp. 'There she goes
again. Nothing but punch!'
'This is an occupation,' said the lawyer, laying down his pen and
emptying his glass, 'which seems to bring him before my eyes like
the Ghost of Hamlet's father, in the very clothes that he wore on
work-a-days. His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his
trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella,
all come before me like visions of my youth. His linen!' said Mr
Brass smiling fondly at the wall, 'his linen which was always of a
particular colour, for such was his whim and fancy--how plain I
see his linen now!'
'You had better go on, sir,' said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.
'True, ma'am, true,' cried Mr Brass. 'Our faculties must not
freeze with grief. I'll trouble you for a little more of that,
ma'am. A question now arises, with relation to his nose.'
'Flat,' said Mrs Jiniwin.
'Aquiline!' cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the
feature with his fist. 'Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you
call this flat? Do you? Eh?'
'Oh capital, capital!' shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit.
'Excellent! How very good he is! He's a most remarkable man--so
extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by
surprise!'
Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the
dubious and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually
subsided, nor to the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to
the latter's running from the room, nor to the former's fainting
away. Keeping his eye fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the
table, and beginning with his glass, drank off the contents, and
went regularly round until he had emptied the other two, when he
seized the case-bottle, and hugging it under his arm, surveyed him
with a most extraordinary leer.
'Not yet, Sampson,' said Quilp. 'Not just yet!'
'Oh very good indeed!' cried Brass, recovering his spirits a
little. 'Ha ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! There's not another man
alive who could carry it off like that. A most difficult position
to carry off. But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an
amazing flow!'
'Good night,' said the dwarf, nodding expressively.
'Good night, sir, good night,' cried the lawyer, retreating
backwards towards the door. 'This is a joyful occasion indeed,
extremely joyful. Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed,
remarkably so!'
Waiting until Mr Brass's ejaculations died away in the distance
(for he continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp
advanced towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid
amazement.
'Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?' said the
dwarf, holding the door open with great politeness.
'And yesterday too, master.'
'Dear me, you've had a deal of trouble. Pray consider everything
yours that you find upon the--upon the body. Good night!'
The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to
argue the point just then, and shuffled out of the room. The
speedy clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still
embracing the case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded
arms, stood looking at his insensible wife like a dismounted
nightmare.
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