الفصل الفصل 49 · 第49章

Kit’s mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so

often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp’s thoughts than any

intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with

which they had parted. He went his way, whistling from time to time

some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed,

jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with

visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no

intelligence of him for three whole days and two nights, and having had

no previous notice of his absence, was doubtless by that time in a

state of distraction, and constantly fainting away with anxiety and

grief.

This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf’s humour, and

so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until

the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found

himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which

greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on

before him expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made

him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.

In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when,

gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried

more light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing nearer, and

listening attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest

conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his

wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.

‘Ha!’ cried the jealous dwarf, ‘What’s this! Do they entertain

visitors while I’m away!’

A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his pockets

for his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no resource but to

knock at the door.

‘A light in the passage,’ said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole. ‘A

very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you

unawares. Soho!’

A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within. But after a

second application to the knocker, no louder than the first, the door

was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom Quilp instantly

gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street with the other.

‘You’ll throttle me, master,’ whispered the boy. ‘Let go, will you.’

‘Who’s up stairs, you dog?’ retorted Quilp in the same tone. ‘Tell me.

And don’t speak above your breath, or I’ll choke you in good earnest.’

The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled

giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him

by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution, or at

least have made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy’s

nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself

behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to

catch him by the hair of the head, his master was obliged to come to a

parley.

‘Will you answer me?’ said Quilp. ‘What’s going on, above?’

‘You won’t let one speak,’ replied the boy. ‘They--ha, ha, ha!--they

think you’re--you’re dead. Ha ha ha!’

‘Dead!’ cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. ‘No. Do

they? Do they really, you dog?’

‘They think you’re--you’re drowned,’ replied the boy, who in his

malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. ‘You was last

seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over. Ha

ha!’

The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and

of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to

Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have

inspired him with. He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant,

and they both stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping and wagging

their heads at each other, on either side of the post, like an

unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.

‘Not a word,’ said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. ‘Not a

sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb.

Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp! Drowned!’

So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his

way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy of

summersets on the pavement.

The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped in,

and planted himself behind the door of communication between that

chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more

airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed

himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed enlarged with his

pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but to see distinctly,

what was passing.

Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass seated

at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum--his

own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica--convenient to his

hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things

fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible

to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of

punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a

teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of

sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable

joy. At the same table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin;

no longer sipping other people’s punch feloniously with teaspoons, but

taking deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter--not

exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but

preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow

nevertheless--was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her grief

with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid. There were also

present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them certain

machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated with a

stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish, and were

naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence

rather increased than detracted from that decided appearance of

comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.

‘If I could poison that dear old lady’s rum and water,’ murmured Quilp,

‘I’d die happy.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the

ceiling with a sigh, ‘Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now!

Who knows but he may be surveying of us from--from somewheres or

another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh Lor!’

Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed;

looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.

‘I can almost fancy,’ said the lawyer shaking his head, ‘that I see his

eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we

look upon his like again? Never, never!’ One minute we are

here’--holding his tumbler before his eyes--‘the next we are

there’--gulping down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a

little below the chest--‘in the silent tomb. To think that I should be

drinking his very rum! It seems like a dream.’

With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr

Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the

purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners.

‘The search has been quite unsuccessful then?’

‘Quite, master. But I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he’ll

come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?’

The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the

Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to receive him

whenever he arrived.

‘Then we have nothing for it but resignation,’ said Mr Brass; ‘nothing

but resignation and expectation. It would be a comfort to have his

body; it would be a dreary comfort.’

‘Oh, beyond a doubt,’ assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; ‘if we once had

that, we should be quite sure.’

‘With regard to the descriptive advertisement,’ said Sampson Brass,

taking up his pen. ‘It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his traits.

Respecting his legs now--?’

‘Crooked, certainly,’ said Mrs Jiniwin. ‘Do you think they WERE

crooked?’ said Brass, in an insinuating tone. ‘I think I see them now

coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen’ pantaloons a little

shrunk and without straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we

say crooked?’

‘I think they were a little so,’ observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.

‘Legs crooked,’ said Brass, writing as he spoke. ‘Large head, short

body, legs crooked--’

‘Very crooked,’ suggested Mrs Jiniwin.

‘We’ll not say very crooked, ma’am,’ said Brass piously. ‘Let us not

bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone, ma’am, to

where his legs will never come in question.--We will content ourselves

with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.’

‘I thought you wanted the truth,’ said the old lady. ‘That’s all.’

‘Bless your eyes, how I love you,’ muttered Quilp. ‘There she goes

again. Nothing but punch!’

‘This is an occupation,’ said the lawyer, laying down his pen and

emptying his glass, ‘which seems to bring him before my eyes like the

Ghost of Hamlet’s father, in the very clothes that he wore on

work-a-days. His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his

trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all

come before me like visions of my youth. His linen!’ said Mr Brass

smiling fondly at the wall, ‘his linen which was always of a particular

colour, for such was his whim and fancy--how plain I see his linen now!’

‘You had better go on, sir,’ said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.

‘True, ma’am, true,’ cried Mr Brass. ‘Our faculties must not freeze

with grief. I’ll trouble you for a little more of that, ma’am. A

question now arises, with relation to his nose.’

‘Flat,’ said Mrs Jiniwin.

‘Aquiline!’ cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the

feature with his fist. ‘Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you

call this flat? Do you? Eh?’

‘Oh capital, capital!’ shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit.

‘Excellent! How very good he is! He’s a most remarkable man--so

extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by

surprise!’

Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the dubious

and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually subsided, nor to

the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to the latter’s running

from the room, nor to the former’s fainting away. Keeping his eye

fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the table, and beginning with

his glass, drank off the contents, and went regularly round until he

had emptied the other two, when he seized the case-bottle, and hugging

it under his arm, surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer.

‘Not yet, Sampson,’ said Quilp. ‘Not just yet!’

‘Oh very good indeed!’ cried Brass, recovering his spirits a little.

‘Ha ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! There’s not another man alive who

could carry it off like that. A most difficult position to carry off.

But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!’

‘Good night,’ said the dwarf, nodding expressively.

‘Good night, sir, good night,’ cried the lawyer, retreating backwards

towards the door. ‘This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful.

Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed, remarkably so!’

Waiting until Mr Brass’s ejaculations died away in the distance (for he

continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp advanced

towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid amazement.

‘Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?’ said the dwarf,

holding the door open with great politeness.

‘And yesterday too, master.’

‘Dear me, you’ve had a deal of trouble. Pray consider everything yours

that you find upon the--upon the body. Good night!’

The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to argue

the point just then, and shuffled out of the room. The speedy

clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still embracing the

case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded arms, stood looking

at his insensible wife like a dismounted nightmare.