The Old Curiosity Shop

Chapter 10

Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man's house,
unobserved. In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to
one of the many passages which diverged from the main street, there
lingered one, who, having taken up his position when the twilight
first came on, still maintained it with undiminished patience, and
leaning against the wall with the manner of a person who had a long
time to wait, and being well used to it was quite resigned,
scarcely changed his attitude for the hour together.

This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those
who passed, and bestowed as little upon them. His eyes were
constantly directed towards one object; the window at which the
child was accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it
was only to glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then
to strain his sight once more in the old quarter with increased
earnestness and attention.

It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in
his place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was. But
as the time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise,
glancing at the clock more frequently and at the window less
hopefully than before. At length, the clock was hidden from his
sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed
eleven at night, then the quarter past, and then the conviction
seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use tarrying
there any longer.

That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no
means willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to
quit the spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it,
still looking over his shoulder at the same window; and from the
precipitation with which he as often returned, when a fancied noise
or the changing and imperfect light induced him to suppose it had
been softly raised. At length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless
for that night, and suddenly breaking into a run as though to force
himself away, scampered off at his utmost speed, nor once ventured
to look behind him lest he should be tempted back again.

Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this
mysterious individual dashed on through a great many alleys and
narrow ways until he at length arrived in a square paved court,
when he subsided into a walk, and making for a small house from the
window of which a light was shining, lifted the latch of the door
and passed in.

'Bless us!' cried a woman turning sharply round, 'who's that? Oh!
It's you, Kit!'

'Yes, mother, it's me.'

'Why, how tired you look, my dear!'

'Old master an't gone out to-night,' said Kit; 'and so she hasn't
been at the window at all.' With which words, he sat down by the
fire and looked very mournful and discontented.

The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an
extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about
it, nevertheless, which--or the spot must be a wretched one indeed--
cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as
the Dutch clock' showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at
work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle
near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old,
very wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a
night-gown very much too small for him on his body, was sitting
bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his
great round eyes, and looking as if he had thoroughly made up his
mind never to go to sleep any more; which, as he had already
declined to take his natural rest and had been brought out of bed
in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and
friends. It was rather a queer-looking family: Kit, his mother, and
the children, being all strongly alike.

Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too
often--but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping
soundly, and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket,
and from him to their mother, who had been at work without
complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and
kinder thing to be good-humoured. So he rocked the cradle with his
foot; made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him
in high good-humour directly; and stoutly determined to be
talkative and make himself agreeable.

'Ah, mother!' said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling
upon a great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for
him, hours before, 'what a one you are! There an't many such as
you, I know.'

'I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,' said Mrs Nubbles;
'and that there are, or ought to be, accordin' to what the parson
at chapel says.'

'Much he knows about it,' returned Kit contemptuously. 'Wait till
he's a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does
as much, and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I'll ask him
what's o'clock and trust him for being right to half a second.'

'Well,' said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, 'your beer's down
there by the fender, Kit.'

'I see,' replied her son, taking up the porter pot, 'my love to
you, mother. And the parson's health too if you like. I don't bear
him any malice, not I!'

'Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn't gone out
to-night?' inquired Mrs Nubbles.

'Yes,' said Kit, 'worse luck!'

'You should say better luck, I think,' returned his mother,
'because Miss Nelly won't have been left alone.'

'Ah!' said Kit, 'I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I've
been watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her.'

'I wonder what she'd say,' cried his mother, stopping in her work
and looking round, 'if she knew that every night, when she--poor
thing--is sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the
open street for fear any harm should come to her, and that you
never leave the place or come home to your bed though you're ever
so tired, till such time as you think she's safe in hers.'

'Never mind what she'd say,' replied Kit, with something like a
blush on his uncouth face; 'she'll never know nothing, and
consequently, she'll never say nothing.'

Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming
to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while
she rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said
nothing until she had returned to her table again: when, holding
the iron at an alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test
its temperature, and looking round with a smile, she observed:

'I know what some people would say, Kit--'

'Nonsense,' interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was
to follow.

'No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you'd fallen
in love with her, I know they would.'

To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother 'get
out,' and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms,
accompanied by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving
from these means the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense
mouthful from the bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the
porter; by which artificial aids he choked himself and effected a
diversion of the subject.

'Speaking seriously though, Kit,' said his mother, taking up the
theme afresh, after a time, 'for of course I was only in joke just
now, it's very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and
never let anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to
know it, for I'm sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it
very much. It's a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there.
I don't wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.'

'He don't think it's cruel, bless you,' said Kit, 'and don't mean
it to be so, or he wouldn't do it--I do consider, mother, that he
wouldn't do it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no,
that he wouldn't. I know him better than that.'

'Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from
you?' said Mrs Nubbles.

'That I don't know,' returned her son. 'If he hadn't tried to keep
it so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was
his getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier
than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going
on. Hark! what's that?'

'It's only somebody outside.'

'It's somebody crossing over here,' said Kit, standing up to
listen, 'and coming very fast too. He can't have gone out after I
left, and the house caught fire, mother!'

The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he
had conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer,
the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale
and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments,
hurried into the room.

'Miss Nelly! What is the matter!' cried mother and son together.

'I must not stay a moment,' she returned, 'grandfather has been
taken very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor--'

'I'll run for a doctor'--said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. 'I'll
be there directly, I'll--'

'No, no,' cried Nell, 'there is one there, you're not wanted, you--
you--must never come near us any more!'

'What!' roared Kit.

'Never again,' said the child. 'Don't ask me why, for I don't know.
Pray don't ask me why, pray don't be sorry, pray don't be vexed
with me! I have nothing to do with it indeed!'

Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut
his mouth a great many times; but couldn't get out one word.

'He complains and raves of you,' said the child, 'I don't know what
you have done, but I hope it's nothing very bad.'

'I done!' roared Kit.

'He cries that you're the cause of all his misery,' returned the
child with tearful eyes; 'he screamed and called for you; they say
you must not come near him or he will die. You must not return to
us any more. I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that
I should come than somebody quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you
done? You, in whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only
friend I had!'

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder,
and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless
and silent.

'I have brought his money for the week,' said the child, looking to
the woman and laying it on the table--'and--and--a little more,
for he was always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and
do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It
grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no
help. It must be done. Good night!'

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure
trembling with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock
she had received, the errand she had just discharged, and a
thousand painful and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to
the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every
reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered,
notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his
defence. Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery; and of the nightly
absences from home for which he had accounted so strangely, having
been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit; flocked into her brain
and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a
chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit made no
attempt to comfort her and remained quite bewildered. The baby in
the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell
over on his back with the basket upon him, and was seen no more;
the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible
to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.