“Past ten,” said Mr. Knag, consulting his watch. “Thomas, close the warehouse.”
Thomas was a boy nearly half as tall as a shutter, and the warehouse was a shop about the size of three hackney coaches.
“Ah!” said Mr. Knag once more, heaving a deep sigh as he restored to its parent shelf the book he had been reading. “Well—yes—I believe supper is ready, sister.”
With another sigh Mr. Knag took up the kitchen candles from the counter, and preceded the ladies with mournful steps to a back-parlour, where a charwoman, employed in the absence of the sick servant, and remunerated with certain eighteen-pences to be deducted from her wages due, was putting the supper out.
“Mrs. Blockson,” said Miss Knag, reproachfully, “how very often I have begged you not to come into the room with your bonnet on!”
“I can’t help it, Miss Knag,” said the charwoman, bridling up on the shortest notice. “There’s been a deal o’cleaning to do in this house, and if you don’t like it, I must trouble you to look out for somebody else, for it don’t hardly pay me, and that’s the truth, if I was to be hung this minute.”
“I don’t want any remarks if you please,” said Miss Knag, with a strong emphasis on the personal pronoun. “Is there any fire downstairs for some hot water presently?”
“No there is not, indeed, Miss Knag,” replied the substitute; “and so I won’t tell you no stories about it.”
“Then why isn’t there?” said Miss Knag.
“Because there arn’t no coals left out, and if I could make coals I would, but as I can’t I won’t, and so I make bold to tell you, Mem,” replied Mrs. Blockson.
“Will you hold your tongue—female?” said Mr. Mortimer Knag, plunging violently into this dialogue.
“By your leave, Mr. Knag,” retorted the charwoman, turning sharp round. “I’m only too glad not to speak in this house, excepting when and where I’m spoke to, sir; and with regard to being a female, sir, I should wish to know what you considered yourself?”
“A miserable wretch,” exclaimed Mr. Knag, striking his forehead. “A miserable wretch.”
“I’m very glad to find that you don’t call yourself out of your name, sir,” said Mrs. Blockson; “and as I had two twin children the day before yesterday was only seven weeks, and my little Charley fell down a airy and put his elber out, last Monday, I shall take it as a favour if you’ll send nine shillings, for one week’s work, to my house, afore the clock strikes ten tomorrow.”
With these parting words, the good woman quitted the room with great ease of manner, leaving the door wide open; Mr. Knag, at the same moment, flung himself into the “warehouse,” and groaned aloud.
“What is the matter with that gentleman, pray?” inquired Mrs. Nickleby, greatly disturbed by the sound.
“Is he ill?” inquired Kate, really alarmed.
“Hush!” replied Miss Knag; “a most melancholy history. He was once most devotedly attached to—hem—to Madame Mantalini.”
“Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs. Nickleby.
“Yes,” continued Miss Knag, “and received great encouragement too, and confidently hoped to marry her. He has a most romantic heart, Mrs. Nickleby, as indeed—hem—as indeed all our family have, and the disappointment was a dreadful blow. He is a wonderfully accomplished man—most extraordinarily accomplished—reads—hem—reads every novel that comes out; I mean every novel that—hem—that has any fashion in it, of course. The fact is, that he did find so much in the books he read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and did find himself in every respect so much like the heroes—because of course he is conscious of his own superiority, as we all are, and very naturally—that he took to scorning everything, and became a genius; and I am quite sure that he is, at this very present moment, writing another book.”
“Another book!” repeated Kate, finding that a pause was left for somebody to say something.
“Yes,” said Miss Knag, nodding in great triumph; “another book, in three volumes post octavo. Of course it’s a great advantage to him, in all his little fashionable descriptions, to have the benefit of my—hem—of my experience, because, of course, few authors who write about such things can have such opportunities of knowing them as I have. He’s so wrapped up in high life, that the least allusion to business or worldly matters—like that woman just now, for instance—quite distracts him; but, as I often say, I think his disappointment a great thing for him, because if he hadn’t been disappointed he couldn’t have written about blighted hopes and all that; and the fact is, if it hadn’t happened as it has, I don’t believe his genius would ever have come out at all.”
How much more communicative Miss Knag might have become under more favourable circumstances, it is impossible to divine, but as the gloomy one was within earshot, and the fire wanted making up, her disclosures stopped here. To judge from all appearances, and the difficulty of making the water warm, the last servant could not have been much accustomed to any other fire than St. Anthony’s; but a little brandy and water was made at last, and the guests, having been previously regaled with cold leg of mutton and bread and cheese, soon afterwards took leave; Kate amusing herself, all the way home, with the recollection of her last glimpse of Mr. Mortimer Knag deeply abstracted in the shop; and Mrs. Nickleby by debating within herself whether the dressmaking firm would ultimately become “Mantalini, Knag, and Nickleby,” or “Mantalini, Nickleby, and Knag.”
At this high point, Miss Knag’s friendship remained for three whole days, much to the wonderment of Madame Mantalini’s young ladies who had never beheld such constancy in that quarter, before; but on the fourth, it received a check no less violent than sudden, which thus occurred.
It happened that an old lord of great family, who was going to marry a young lady of no family in particular, came with the young lady, and the young lady’s sister, to witness the ceremony of trying on two nuptial bonnets
