Old Arthur Gride moved his lips, but they only formed an ugly smile and were motionless again.
“You think,” said Nicholas, “that the price would not be paid. Miss Bray has wealthy friends who would coin their very hearts to save her in such a strait as this. Name your price, defer these nuptials for but a few days, and see whether those I speak of, shrink from the payment. Do you hear me?”
When Nicholas began, Arthur Gride’s impression was, that Ralph Nickleby had betrayed him; but, as he proceeded, he felt convinced that however he had come by the knowledge he possessed, the part he acted was a genuine one, and that with Ralph he had no concern. All he seemed to know, for certain, was, that he, Gride, paid Ralph’s debt; but that, to anybody who knew the circumstances of Bray’s detention—even to Bray himself, on Ralph’s own statement—must be perfectly notorious. As to the fraud on Madeline herself, his visitor knew so little about its nature or extent, that it might be a lucky guess, or a haphazard accusation. Whether or no, he had clearly no key to the mystery, and could not hurt him who kept it close within his own breast. The allusion to friends, and the offer of money, Gride held to be mere empty vapouring, for purposes of delay. “And even if money were to be had,” thought Arthur Gride, as he glanced at Nicholas, and trembled with passion at his boldness and audacity, “I’d have that dainty chick for my wife, and cheat you of her, young smooth-face!”
Long habit of weighing and noting well what clients said, and nicely balancing chances in his mind and calculating odds to their faces, without the least appearance of being so engaged, had rendered Gride quick in forming conclusions, and arriving, from puzzling, intricate, and often contradictory premises, at very cunning deductions. Hence it was that, as Nicholas went on, he followed him closely with his own constructions, and, when he ceased to speak, was as well prepared as if he had deliberated for a fortnight.
“I hear you,” he cried, starting from his seat, casting back the fastenings of the window-shutters, and throwing up the sash. “Help here! Help! Help!”
“What are you doing?” said Nicholas, seizing him by the arm.
“I’ll cry robbers, thieves, murder, alarm the neighbourhood, struggle with you, let loose some blood, and swear you came to rob me, if you don’t quit my house,” replied Gride, drawing in his head with a frightful grin, “I will!”
“Wretch!” cried Nicholas.
“You’ll bring your threats here, will you?” said Gride, whom jealousy of Nicholas and a sense of his own triumph had converted into a perfect fiend. “You, the disappointed lover? Oh dear! He! he! he! But you shan’t have her, nor she you. She’s my wife, my doting little wife. Do you think she’ll miss you? Do you think she’ll weep? I shall like to see her weep, I shan’t mind it. She looks prettier in tears.”
“Villain!” said Nicholas, choking with his rage.
“One minute more,” cried Arthur Gride, “and I’ll rouse the street with such screams, as, if they were raised by anybody else, should wake me even in the arms of pretty Madeline.”
“You hound!” said Nicholas. “If you were but a younger man—”
“Oh yes!” sneered Arthur Gride, “If I was but a younger man it wouldn’t be so bad; but for me, so old and ugly! To be jilted by little Madeline for me!”
“Hear me,” said Nicholas, “and be thankful I have enough command over myself not to fling you into the street, which no aid could prevent my doing if I once grappled with you. I have been no lover of this lady’s. No contract or engagement, no word of love, has ever passed between us. She does not even know my name.”
“I’ll ask it for all that. I’ll beg it of her with kisses,” said Arthur Gride. “Yes, and she’ll tell me, and pay them back, and we’ll laugh together, and hug ourselves, and be very merry, when we think of the poor youth that wanted to have her, but couldn’t because she was bespoke by me!”
This taunt brought such an expression into the face of Nicholas, that Arthur Gride plainly apprehended it to be the forerunner of his putting his threat of throwing him into the street in immediate execution; for he thrust his head out of the window, and holding tight on with both hands, raised a pretty brisk alarm. Not thinking it necessary to abide the issue of the noise, Nicholas gave vent to an indignant defiance, and stalked from the room and from the house. Arthur Gride watched him across the street, and then, drawing in his head, fastened the window as before, and sat down to take breath.
“If she ever turns pettish or ill-humoured, I’ll taunt her with that spark,” he said, when he had recovered. “She’ll little think I know about him; and, if I manage it well, I can break her spirit by this means and have her under my thumb. I’m glad nobody came. I didn’t call too loud. The audacity to enter my house, and open upon me! But I shall have a very good triumph tomorrow, and he’ll be gnawing his fingers off: perhaps drown himself or cut his throat! I shouldn’t wonder! That would make it quite complete, that would: quite.”
When he had become restored to his usual condition by these and other comments on his approaching triumph, Arthur Gride put away his book, and, having locked the chest with great caution, descended into the kitchen to warn Peg Sliderskew to bed, and scold her for having afforded such ready admission to a stranger.
The unconscious Peg, however, not being able to comprehend the offence of which she had been guilty, he summoned her to hold the light, while he made a tour of the fastenings, and secured
