“What a man it is!” cried Arthur Gride, affecting, in the extremity of his torture, to be highly amused. And then he added, anxiously, “Yes; to keep her safe, that’s all. And that isn’t much, is it?”
“Much!” said Ralph, with a sneer. “Why, everybody knows what easy things to understand and to control, women are. But come, it’s very nearly time for you to be made happy. You’ll pay the bond now, I suppose, to save us trouble afterwards.”
“Oh what a man you are!” croaked Arthur.
“Why not?” said Ralph. “Nobody will pay you interest for the money, I suppose, between this and twelve o’clock; will they?”
“But nobody would pay you interest for it either, you know,” returned Arthur, leering at Ralph with all the cunning and slyness he could throw into his face.
“Besides which,” said Ralph, suffering his lip to curl into a smile, “you haven’t the money about you, and you weren’t prepared for this, or you’d have brought it with you; and there’s nobody you’d so much like to accommodate as me. I see. We trust each other in about an equal degree. Are you ready?”
Gride, who had done nothing but grin, and nod, and chatter, during this last speech of Ralph’s, answered in the affirmative; and, producing from his hat a couple of large white favours, pinned one on his breast, and with considerable difficulty induced his friend to do the like. Thus accoutred, they got into a hired coach which Ralph had in waiting, and drove to the residence of the fair and most wretched bride.
Gride, whose spirits and courage had gradually failed him more and more as they approached nearer and nearer to the house, was utterly dismayed and cowed by the mournful silence which pervaded it. The face of the poor servant girl, the only person they saw, was disfigured with tears and want of sleep. There was nobody to receive or welcome them; and they stole upstairs into the usual sitting-room, more like two burglars than the bridegroom and his friend.
“One would think,” said Ralph, speaking, in spite of himself, in a low and subdued voice, “that there was a funeral going on here, and not a wedding.”
“He, he!” tittered his friend, “you are so—so very funny!”
“I need be,” remarked Ralph, drily, “for this is rather dull and chilling. Look a little brisker, man, and not so hangdog like!”
“Yes, yes, I will,” said Gride. “But—but—you don’t think she’s coming just yet, do you?”
“Why, I suppose she’ll not come till she is obliged,” returned Ralph, looking at his watch, “and she has a good half-hour to spare yet. Curb your impatience.”
“I—I—am not impatient,” stammered Arthur. “I wouldn’t be hard with her for the world. Oh dear, dear, not on any account. Let her take her time—her own time. Her time shall be ours by all means.”
While Ralph bent upon his trembling friend a keen look, which showed that he perfectly understood the reason of this great consideration and regard, a footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Bray himself came into the room on tiptoe, and holding up his hand with a cautious gesture, as if there were some sick person near, who must not be disturbed.
“Hush!” he said, in a low voice. “She was very ill last night. I thought she would have broken her heart. She is dressed, and crying bitterly in her own room; but she’s better, and quite quiet. That’s everything!”
“She is ready, is she?” said Ralph.
“Quite ready,” returned the father.
“And not likely to delay us by any young-lady weaknesses—fainting, or so forth?” said Ralph.
“She may be safely trusted now,” returned Bray. “I have been talking to her this morning. Here! Come a little this way.”
He drew Ralph Nickleby to the further end of the room, and pointed towards Gride, who sat huddled together in a corner, fumbling nervously with the buttons of his coat, and exhibiting a face, of which every skulking and base expression was sharpened and aggravated to the utmost by his anxiety and trepidation.
“Look at that man,” whispered Bray, emphatically. “This seems a cruel thing, after all.”
“What seems a cruel thing?” inquired Ralph, with as much stolidity of face, as if he really were in utter ignorance of the other’s meaning.
“This marriage,” answered Bray. “Don’t ask me what. You know as well as I do.”
Ralph shrugged his shoulders, in silent deprecation of Bray’s impatience, and elevated his eyebrows, and pursed his lips, as men do when they are prepared with a sufficient answer to some remark, but wait for a more favourable opportunity of advancing it, or think it scarcely worth while to answer their adversary at all.
“Look at him. Does it not seem cruel?” said Bray.
“No!” replied Ralph, boldly.
“I say it does,” retorted Bray, with a show of much irritation. “It is a cruel thing, by all that’s bad and treacherous!”
When men are about to commit, or to sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable. To do Ralph Nickleby justice, he seldom practised this sort of dissimulation; but he understood those who did, and therefore suffered Bray to say, again and again, with great vehemence, that they were jointly doing a very cruel thing, before he again offered to interpose a word.
“You see what a dry, shrivelled, withered old chip it is,” returned Ralph, when the other was at length silent. “If he were younger, it might be cruel, but as it is—harkee, Mr. Bray, he’ll die soon, and leave her a rich young widow! Miss Madeline consults your tastes
