With these words, uttered with great emphasis and emotion, brother Charles put on his broad-brimmed hat, and, passing Ralph Nickleby without any other remark, trotted nimbly into the street. Ralph looked after him, but neither moved nor spoke for some time: when he broke what almost seemed the silence of stupefaction, by a scornful laugh.
“This,” he said, “from its wildness, should be another of those dreams that have so broken my rest of late. In mercy to me! Pho! The old simpleton has gone mad.”
Although he expressed himself in this derisive and contemptuous manner, it was plain that, the more Ralph pondered, the more ill at ease he became, and the more he laboured under some vague anxiety and alarm, which increased as the time passed on and no tidings of Newman Noggs arrived. After waiting until late in the afternoon, tortured by various apprehensions and misgivings, and the recollection of the warning which his nephew had given him when they last met: the further confirmation of which now presented itself in one shape of probability, now in another, and haunted him perpetually: he left home, and, scarcely knowing why, save that he was in a suspicious and agitated mood, betook himself to Snawley’s house. His wife presented herself; and, of her, Ralph inquired whether her husband was at home.
“No,” she said sharply, “he is not indeed, and I don’t think he will be at home for a very long time; that’s more.”
“Do you know who I am?” asked Ralph.
“Oh yes, I know you very well; too well, perhaps, and perhaps he does too, and sorry am I that I should have to say it.”
“Tell him that I saw him through the window-blind above, as I crossed the road just now, and that I would speak to him on business,” said Ralph. “Do you hear?”
“I hear,” rejoined Mrs. Snawley, taking no further notice of the request.
“I knew this woman was a hypocrite, in the way of psalms and Scripture phrases,” said Ralph, passing quietly by, “but I never knew she drank before.”
“Stop! You don’t come in here,” said Mr. Snawley’s better-half, interposing her person, which was a robust one, in the doorway. “You have said more than enough to him on business, before now. I always told him what dealing with you and working out your schemes would come to. It was either you or the schoolmaster—one of you, or the two between you—that got the forged letter done; remember that! That wasn’t his doing, so don’t lay it at his door.”
“Hold your tongue, you Jezebel,” said Ralph, looking fearfully round.
“Ah, I know when to hold my tongue, and when to speak, Mr. Nickleby,” retorted the dame. “Take care that other people know when to hold theirs.”
“You jade,” said Ralph, “if your husband has been idiot enough to trust you with his secrets, keep them; keep them, she-devil that you are!”
“Not so much his secrets as other people’s secrets, perhaps,” retorted the woman; “not so much his secrets as yours. None of your black looks at me! You’ll want ’em all, perhaps, for another time. You had better keep ’em.”
“Will you,” said Ralph, suppressing his passion as well as he could, and clutching her tightly by the wrist; “will you go to your husband and tell him that I know he is at home, and that I must see him? And will you tell me what it is that you and he mean by this new style of behaviour?”
“No,” replied the woman, violently disengaging herself, “I’ll do neither.”
“You set me at defiance, do you?” said Ralph.
“Yes,” was the answer. “I do.”
For an instant Ralph had his hand raised, as though he were about to strike her; but, checking himself, and nodding his head and muttering as though to assure her he would not forget this, walked away.
Thence, he went straight to the inn which Mr. Squeers frequented, and inquired when he had been there last; in the vague hope that, successful or unsuccessful, he might, by this time, have returned from his mission and be able to assure him that all was safe. But Mr. Squeers had not been there for ten days, and all that the people could tell about him was, that he had left his luggage and his bill.
Disturbed by a thousand fears and surmises, and bent upon ascertaining whether Squeers had any suspicion of Snawley, or was, in any way, a party to this altered behaviour, Ralph determined to hazard the extreme step of inquiring for him at the Lambeth lodging, and having an interview with him even there. Bent upon this purpose, and in that mood in which delay is insupportable, he repaired at once to the place; and being, by description, perfectly acquainted with the situation of his room, crept upstairs and knocked gently at the door.
Not one, nor two, nor three, nor yet a dozen knocks, served to convince Ralph, against his wish, that there was nobody inside. He reasoned that he might be asleep; and, listening, almost persuaded himself that he could hear him breathe. Even when he was satisfied that he could not be there, he sat patiently on a broken stair and waited; arguing, that he had gone out upon some slight errand, and must soon return.
Many feet came up the creaking stairs; and the step of some seemed to his listening ear so like that of the man for whom he waited, that Ralph often stood up to be ready to address
