No answer.
Another knock, and still no answer.
“He can’t be here,” thought Nicholas. “I’ll lay it on his table.”
So, Nicholas opened the door and walked in; and very quickly he turned to walk out again, when he saw, to his great astonishment and discomfiture, a young lady upon her knees at Mr. Cheeryble’s feet, and Mr. Cheeryble beseeching her to rise, and entreating a third person, who had the appearance of the young lady’s female attendant, to add her persuasions to his to induce her to do so.
Nicholas stammered out an awkward apology, and was precipitately retiring, when the young lady, turning her head a little, presented to his view the features of the lovely girl whom he had seen at the register-office on his first visit long before. Glancing from her to the attendant, he recognised the same clumsy servant who had accompanied her then; and between his admiration of the young lady’s beauty, and the confusion and surprise of this unexpected recognition, he stood stock-still, in such a bewildered state of surprise and embarrassment that, for the moment, he was quite bereft of the power either to speak or move.
“My dear ma’am—my dear young lady,” cried brother Charles in violent agitation, “pray don’t—not another word, I beseech and entreat you! I implore you—I beg of you—to rise. We—we—are not alone.”
As he spoke, he raised the young lady, who staggered to a chair and swooned away.
“She has fainted, sir,” said Nicholas, darting eagerly forward.
“Poor dear, poor dear!” cried brother Charles “Where is my brother Ned? Ned, my dear brother, come here pray.”
“Brother Charles, my dear fellow,” replied his brother, hurrying into the room, “what is the—ah! what—”
“Hush! hush!—not a word for your life, brother Ned,” returned the other. “Ring for the housekeeper, my dear brother—call Tim Linkinwater! Here, Tim Linkinwater, sir—Mr. Nickleby, my dear sir, leave the room, I beg and beseech of you.”
“I think she is better now,” said Nicholas, who had been watching the patient so eagerly, that he had not heard the request.
“Poor bird!” cried brother Charles, gently taking her hand in his, and laying her head upon his arm. “Brother Ned, my dear fellow, you will be surprised, I know, to witness this, in business hours; but—” here he was again reminded of the presence of Nicholas, and shaking him by the hand, earnestly requested him to leave the room, and to send Tim Linkinwater without an instant’s delay.
Nicholas immediately withdrew and, on his way to the countinghouse, met both the old housekeeper and Tim Linkinwater, jostling each other in the passage, and hurrying to the scene of action with extraordinary speed. Without waiting to hear his message, Tim Linkinwater darted into the room, and presently afterwards Nicholas heard the door shut and locked on the inside.
He had abundance of time to ruminate on this discovery, for Tim Linkinwater was absent during the greater part of an hour, during the whole of which time Nicholas thought of nothing but the young lady, and her exceeding beauty, and what could possibly have brought her there, and why they made such a mystery of it. The more he thought of all this, the more it perplexed him, and the more anxious he became to know who and what she was. “I should have known her among ten thousand,” thought Nicholas. And with that he walked up and down the room, and recalling her face and figure (of which he had a peculiarly vivid remembrance), discarded all other subjects of reflection and dwelt upon that alone.
At length Tim Linkinwater came back—provokingly cool, and with papers in his hand, and a pen in his mouth, as if nothing had happened.
“Is she quite recovered?” said Nicholas, impetuously.
“Who?” returned Tim Linkinwater.
“Who!” repeated Nicholas. “The young lady.”
“What do you make, Mr. Nickleby,” said Tim, taking his pen out of his mouth, “what do you make of four hundred and twenty-seven times three thousand two hundred and thirty-eight?”
“Nay,” returned Nicholas, “what do you make of my question first? I asked you—”
“About the young lady,” said Tim Linkinwater, putting on his spectacles. “To be sure. Yes. Oh! she’s very well.”
“Very well, is she?” returned Nicholas.
“Very well,” replied Mr. Linkinwater, gravely.
“Will she be able to go home today?” asked Nicholas.
“She’s gone,” said Tim.
“Gone!”
“Yes.”
“I hope she has not far to go?” said Nicholas, looking earnestly at the other.
“Ay,” replied the immovable Tim, “I hope she hasn’t.”
Nicholas hazarded one or two further remarks, but it was evident that Tim Linkinwater had his own reasons for evading the subject, and that he was determined to afford no further information respecting the fair unknown, who had awakened so much curiosity in the breast of his young friend. Nothing daunted by this repulse, Nicholas returned to the charge next day, emboldened by the circumstance of Mr. Linkinwater being in a very talkative and communicative mood; but, directly he resumed the theme, Tim relapsed into a state of most provoking taciturnity, and from answering in monosyllables, came to returning no answers at all, save such as were to be inferred from several grave nods and shrugs, which only served to whet that appetite for intelligence in Nicholas, which had already attained a most unreasonable height.
Foiled in these attempts, he was fain to content himself with watching for the young lady’s next visit, but here again he was disappointed. Day after day passed, and she did not return. He looked eagerly at the superscription of all the notes and letters, but there was not one among them which he could fancy to be in her handwriting. On two or three occasions he was employed on business which took him to a distance, and had formerly been transacted by Tim Linkinwater. Nicholas could not help suspecting that, for some reason or other, he was sent out of the way on purpose, and that the young lady was there in his absence. Nothing transpired, however, to confirm this suspicion, and Tim
