She was hurrying past Nicholas, when he threw himself before her, and implored her to think, but once again, upon the fate to which she was precipitately hastening.
“There is no retreat,” said Nicholas, in an agony of supplication; “no withdrawing! All regret will be unavailing, and deep and bitter it must be. What can I say, that will induce you to pause at this last moment? What can I do to save you?”
“Nothing,” she incoherently replied. “This is the hardest trial I have had. Have mercy on me, sir, I beseech, and do not pierce my heart with such appeals as these. I—I hear him calling. I—I—must not, will not, remain here for another instant.”
“If this were a plot,” said Nicholas, with the same violent rapidity with which she spoke, “a plot, not yet laid bare by me, but which, with time, I might unravel; if you were (not knowing it) entitled to fortune of your own, which, being recovered, would do all that this marriage can accomplish, would you not retract?”
“No, no, no! It is impossible; it is a child’s tale. Time would bring his death. He is calling again!”
“It may be the last time we shall ever meet on earth,” said Nicholas, “it may be better for me that we should never meet more.”
“For both, for both,” replied Madeline, not heeding what she said. “The time will come when to recall the memory of this one interview might drive me mad. Be sure to tell them, that you left me calm and happy. And God be with you, sir, and my grateful heart and blessing!”
She was gone. Nicholas, staggering from the house, thought of the hurried scene which had just closed upon him, as if it were the phantom of some wild, unquiet dream. The day wore on; at night, having been enabled in some measure to collect his thoughts, he issued forth again.
That night, being the last of Arthur Gride’s bachelorship, found him in tiptop spirits and great glee. The bottle-green suit had been brushed, ready for the morrow. Peg Sliderskew had rendered the accounts of her past housekeeping; the eighteen-pence had been rigidly accounted for (she was never trusted with a larger sum at once, and the accounts were not usually balanced more than twice a day); every preparation had been made for the coming festival; and Arthur might have sat down and contemplated his approaching happiness, but that he preferred sitting down and contemplating the entries in a dirty old vellum-book with rusty clasps.
“Well-a-day!” he chuckled, as sinking on his knees before a strong chest screwed down to the floor, he thrust in his arm nearly up to the shoulder, and slowly drew forth this greasy volume. “Well-a-day now, this is all my library, but it’s one of the most entertaining books that were ever written! It’s a delightful book, and all true and real—that’s the best of it—true as the Bank of England, and real as its gold and silver. Written by Arthur Gride. He, he, he! None of your storybook writers will ever make as good a book as this, I warrant me. It’s composed for private circulation, for my own particular reading, and nobody else’s. He, he, he!”
Muttering this soliloquy, Arthur carried his precious volume to the table, and, adjusting it upon a dusty desk, put on his spectacles, and began to pore among the leaves.
“It’s a large sum to Mr. Nickleby,” he said, in a dolorous voice. “Debt to be paid in full, nine hundred and seventy-five, four, three. Additional sum as per bond, five hundred pound. One thousand, four hundred and seventy-five pounds, four shillings, and threepence, tomorrow at twelve o’clock. On the other side, though, there’s the per contra, by means of this pretty chick. But, again, there’s the question whether I mightn’t have brought all this about, myself. ‘Faint heart never won fair lady.’ Why was my heart so faint? Why didn’t I boldly open it to Bray myself, and save one thousand four hundred and seventy-five, four, three?”
These reflections depressed the old usurer so much, as to wring a feeble groan or two from his breast, and cause him to declare, with uplifted hands, that he would die in a workhouse. Remembering on further cogitation, however, that under any circumstances he must have paid, or handsomely compounded for, Ralph’s debt, and being by no means confident that he would have succeeded had he undertaken his enterprise alone, he regained his equanimity, and chattered and mowed over more satisfactory items, until the entrance of Peg Sliderskew interrupted him.
“Aha, Peg!” said Arthur, “what is it? What is it now, Peg?”
“It’s the fowl,” replied Peg, holding up a plate containing a little, a very little one. Quite a phenomenon of a fowl. So very small and skinny.
“A beautiful bird!” said Arthur, after inquiring the price, and finding it proportionate to the size. “With a rasher of ham, and an egg made into sauce, and potatoes, and greens, and an apple pudding, Peg, and a little bit of cheese, we shall have a dinner for an emperor. There’ll only be she and me—and you, Peg, when we’ve done.”
“Don’t you complain of the expense afterwards,” said Mrs. Sliderskew, sulkily.
“I am afraid we must live expensively for the first week,” returned Arthur, with a groan, “and then we must make up for it. I won’t eat more than I can help, and I know you love your old master too much to eat more than you can help, don’t you, Peg?”
“Don’t I what?” said Peg.
“Love your old master too much—”
“No, not a bit too much,” said Peg.
“Oh, dear, I wish the devil had this woman!” cried Arthur: “love him too much to eat more than you can help at his expense.”
“At his what?” said Peg.
“Oh dear! she can never hear the most important word, and hears all the others!” whined Gride. “At his expense—you catamaran!”
The last-mentioned tribute to the charms of Mrs. Sliderskew being uttered in a
