Bab Bab 10 · 第10章

Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man’s house, unobserved.

In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to one of the many

passages which diverged from the main street, there lingered one, who,

having taken up his position when the twilight first came on, still

maintained it with undiminished patience, and leaning against the wall

with the manner of a person who had a long time to wait, and being well

used to it was quite resigned, scarcely changed his attitude for the

hour together.

This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those who

passed, and bestowed as little upon them. His eyes were constantly

directed towards one object; the window at which the child was

accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to

glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his

sight once more in the old quarter with increased earnestness and

attention.

It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his

place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was. But as the

time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the

clock more frequently and at the window less hopefully than before. At

length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters,

then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter

past, and then the conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that

it was no use tarrying there any longer.

That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no means

willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to quit the

spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it, still looking

over his shoulder at the same window; and from the precipitation with

which he as often returned, when a fancied noise or the changing and

imperfect light induced him to suppose it had been softly raised. At

length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless for that night, and suddenly

breaking into a run as though to force himself away, scampered off at

his utmost speed, nor once ventured to look behind him lest he should

be tempted back again.

Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this mysterious

individual dashed on through a great many alleys and narrow ways until

he at length arrived in a square paved court, when he subsided into a

walk, and making for a small house from the window of which a light was

shining, lifted the latch of the door and passed in.

‘Bless us!’ cried a woman turning sharply round, ‘who’s that? Oh!

It’s you, Kit!’

‘Yes, mother, it’s me.’

‘Why, how tired you look, my dear!’

‘Old master an’t gone out to-night,’ said Kit; ‘and so she hasn’t been

at the window at all.’ With which words, he sat down by the fire and

looked very mournful and discontented.

The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an

extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it,

nevertheless, which--or the spot must be a wretched one

indeed--cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late

as the Dutch clock showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at

work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near

the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very

wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown

very much too small for him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a

clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes, and

looking as if he had thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep

any more; which, as he had already declined to take his natural rest

and had been brought out of bed in consequence, opened a cheerful

prospect for his relations and friends. It was rather a queer-looking

family: Kit, his mother, and the children, being all strongly alike.

Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too

often--but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping soundly,

and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him

to their mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning,

and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured.

So he rocked the cradle with his foot; made a face at the rebel in the

clothes-basket, which put him in high good-humour directly; and stoutly

determined to be talkative and make himself agreeable.

‘Ah, mother!’ said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling upon a

great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for him, hours

before, ‘what a one you are! There an’t many such as you, I know.’

‘I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,’ said Mrs Nubbles;

‘and that there are, or ought to be, accordin’ to what the parson at

chapel says.’

‘Much he knows about it,’ returned Kit contemptuously. ‘Wait till he’s

a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does as much,

and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I’ll ask him what’s o’clock

and trust him for being right to half a second.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, ‘your beer’s down there by

the fender, Kit.’

‘I see,’ replied her son, taking up the porter pot, ‘my love to you,

mother. And the parson’s health too if you like. I don’t bear him any

malice, not I!’

‘Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn’t gone out to-night?’

inquired Mrs Nubbles.

‘Yes,’ said Kit, ‘worse luck!’

‘You should say better luck, I think,’ returned his mother, ‘because

Miss Nelly won’t have been left alone.’

‘Ah!’ said Kit, ‘I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I’ve been

watching ever since eight o’clock, and seen nothing of her.’

‘I wonder what she’d say,’ cried his mother, stopping in her work and

looking round, ‘if she knew that every night, when she--poor thing--is

sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for

fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place or

come home to your bed though you’re ever so tired, till such time as

you think she’s safe in hers.’

‘Never mind what she’d say,’ replied Kit, with something like a blush

on his uncouth face; ‘she’ll never know nothing, and consequently,

she’ll never say nothing.’

Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming to

the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she

rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing

until she had returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an

alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and

looking round with a smile, she observed:

‘I know what some people would say, Kit--’

‘Nonsense,’ interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to

follow.

‘No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you’d fallen in

love with her, I know they would.’

To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother ‘get out,’

and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied

by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means

the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the

bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the porter; by which

artificial aids he choked himself and effected a diversion of the

subject.

‘Speaking seriously though, Kit,’ said his mother, taking up the theme

afresh, after a time, ‘for of course I was only in joke just now, it’s

very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let

anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to know it, for

I’m sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it very much. It’s

a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there. I don’t wonder

that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.’

‘He don’t think it’s cruel, bless you,’ said Kit, ‘and don’t mean it to

be so, or he wouldn’t do it--I do consider, mother, that he wouldn’t do

it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no, that he wouldn’t.

I know him better than that.’

‘Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from

you?’ said Mrs Nubbles.

‘That I don’t know,’ returned her son. ‘If he hadn’t tried to keep it

so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was his

getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier than he

used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on. Hark!

what’s that?’

‘It’s only somebody outside.’

‘It’s somebody crossing over here,’ said Kit, standing up to listen,

‘and coming very fast too. He can’t have gone out after I left, and

the house caught fire, mother!’

The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had

conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door

was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and

breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried

into the room.

‘Miss Nelly! What is the matter!’ cried mother and son together.

‘I must not stay a moment,’ she returned, ‘grandfather has been taken

very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor--’

‘I’ll run for a doctor’--said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. ‘I’ll be

there directly, I’ll--’

‘No, no,’ cried Nell, ‘there is one there, you’re not wanted,

you--you--must never come near us any more!’

‘What!’ roared Kit.

‘Never again,’ said the child. ‘Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know.

Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry, pray don’t be vexed with

me! I have nothing to do with it indeed!’

Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut his

mouth a great many times; but couldn’t get out one word.

‘He complains and raves of you,’ said the child, ‘I don’t know what you

have done, but I hope it’s nothing very bad.’

‘I done!’ roared Kit.

‘He cried that you’re the cause of all his misery,’ returned the child

with tearful eyes; ‘he screamed and called for you; they say you must

not come near him or he will die. You must not return to us any more.

I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should come

than somebody quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you done? You, in

whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend I had!’

The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and

with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and

silent.

‘I have brought his money for the week,’ said the child, looking to the

woman and laying it on the table--‘and--and--a little more, for he was

always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well

somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very

much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be

done. Good night!’

With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling

with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had

received, the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful

and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door, and

disappeared as rapidly as she had come.

The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for

relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by

his not having advanced one word in his defence. Visions of gallantry,

knavery, robbery; and of the nightly absences from home for which he

had accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful

pursuit; flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question

him. She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping

bitterly, but Kit made no attempt to comfort her and remained quite

bewildered. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the

clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket upon him, and was

seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit,

insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter

stupefaction.