“They kept me very short,” said the small servant. “Oh! you can’t think how short they kept me. So I used to come out at night after they’d gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or sangwitches that you’d left in the office, or even pieces of orange peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine. Did you ever taste orange peel and water?”
Mr. Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative.
“If you make believe very much, it’s quite nice,” said the small servant; “but if you don’t, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come out after they’d gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or two nights before there was all that precious noise in the office—when the young man was took, I mean—I come upstairs while Mr. Brass and Miss Sally was a sittin’ at the office fire; and I’ll tell you the truth, that I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.”
Mr. Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the utmost concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up her finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not.
“There was him and her,” said the small servant, “a sittin’ by the fire, and talking softly together. Mr. Brass says to Miss Sally, ‘Upon my word,’ he says, ‘it’s a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a world of trouble, and I don’t half like it.’ She says—you know her way—she says, ‘You’re the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I ever see, and I think,’ she says, ‘that I ought to have been the brother, and you the sister. Isn’t Quilp,’ she says, ‘our principal support?’ ‘He certainly is,’ says Mr. Brass. ‘And an’t we,’ she says, ‘constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?’ ‘We certainly are,’ says Mr. Brass. ‘Then does it signify,’ she says, ‘about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires it?’ ‘It certainly does not signify,’ says Brass. Then they whispered and laughed for a long time about there being no danger if it was well done, and then Mr. Brass pulls out his pocketbook, and says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘here it is—Quilp’s own five-pound note. We’ll agree that way, then,’ he says. ‘Kit’s coming tomorrow morning, I know. While he’s upstairs, you’ll get out of the way, and I’ll clear off Mr. Richard. Having Kit alone, I’ll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat. I’ll manage so, besides,’ he says, ‘that Mr. Richard shall find it there, and be the evidence. And if that don’t get Christopher out of Mr. Quilp’s way, and satisfy Mr. Quilp’s grudges,’ he says, ‘the Devil’s in it.’ Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went downstairs again.—There!”
The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation as Mr. Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to anybody.
“How could it be?” replied his nurse. “I was almost afraid to think about it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I heard ’em say they had found him guilty of what he didn’t do, you was gone, and so was the lodger—though I think I should have been frightened to tell him, even if he’d been there. Ever since I come here, you’ve been out of your senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then?”
“Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and flinging it to the other end of the room; “if you’ll do me the favour to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I’ll get up.”
“You mustn’t think of such a thing,” cried his nurse.
“I must indeed,” said the patient, looking round the room. “Whereabouts are my clothes?”
“Oh I’m so glad—you haven’t got any,” replied the Marchioness.
“Ma’am!” said Mr. Swiveller, in great astonishment.
“I’ve been obliged to sell them every one, to get the things that was ordered for you. But don’t take on about that,” urged the Marchioness, as Dick fell back upon his pillow. “You’re too weak to stand, indeed.”
“I am afraid,” said Richard dolefully, “that you’re right. What ought I to do! what is to be done!”
It naturally occurred to him upon very little reflection, that the first step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr. Garlands instantly. It was very possible that Mr. Abel had not yet left the office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of father and son, which would enable her to recognise either without difficulty; and a special caution to be shy of Mr. Chuckster, in consequence of that gentleman’s known antipathy to Kit. Armed with these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either old Mr. Garland or Mr. Abel, bodily, to that apartment.
“I suppose,” said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into the room again to make sure that he was comfortable, “I suppose there’s nothing left—not so much as a waistcoat even?”
“No, nothing.”
“It’s embarrassing,” said Mr. Swiveller, “in case of fire—even an umbrella would be something—but you did quite right, dear Marchioness. I should have died without you.”
LXV
It was well for the small servant that she was
