The Old Curiosity Shop

C >> Charles Dickens >> The Old Curiosity Shop

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48

'But by G--, sir, there is offence,' said the other, interrupting
him, 'when you intrude yourself upon a couple of gentlemen who are
particularly engaged.'

'I had no intention to offend,' said the old man, looking anxiously
at the cards. 'I thought that--'

'But you had no right to think, sir,' retorted the other. 'What
the devil has a man at your time of life to do with thinking?'

'Now bully boy,' said the stout man, raising his eyes from his
cards for the first time, 'can't you let him speak?'

The landlord, who had apparently resolved to remain neutral until
he knew which side of the question the stout man would espouse,
chimed in at this place with 'Ah, to be sure, can't you let him
speak, Isaac List?'

'Can't I let him speak,' sneered Isaac in reply, mimicking as
nearly as he could, in his shrill voice, the tones of the landlord.
'Yes, I can let him speak, Jemmy Groves.'

'Well then, do it, will you?' said the landlord.

Mr List's squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to
threaten a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion,
who had been looking sharply at the old man, put a timely stop to
it.

'Who knows,' said he, with a cunning look, 'but the gentleman may
have civilly meant to ask if he might have the honour to take a
hand with us!'

'I did mean it,' cried the old man. 'That is what I mean. That is
what I want now!'

'I thought so,' returned the same man. 'Then who knows but the
gentleman, anticipating our objection to play for love, civilly
desired to play for money?'

The old man replied by shaking the little purse in his eager hand,
and then throwing it down upon the table, and gathering up the
cards as a miser would clutch at gold.

'Oh! That indeed,' said Isaac; 'if that's what the gentleman
meant, I beg the gentleman's pardon. Is this the gentleman's
little purse? A very pretty little purse. Rather a light purse,'
added Isaac, throwing it into the air and catching it dexterously,
'but enough to amuse a gentleman for half an hour or so.'

'We'll make a four-handed game of it, and take in Groves,' said the
stout man. 'Come, Jemmy.'

The landlord, who conducted himself like one who was well used to
such little parties, approached the table and took his seat. The
child, in a perfect agony, drew her grandfather aside, and implored
him, even then, to come away.

'Come; and we may be so happy,' said the child.

'We WILL be happy,' replied the old man hastily. 'Let me go, Nell.
The means of happiness are on the cards and the dice. We must rise
from little winnings to great. There's little to be won here; but
great will come in time. I shall but win back my own, and it's all
for thee, my darling.'

'God help us!' cried the child. 'Oh! what hard fortune brought us
here?'

'Hush!' rejoined the old man laying his hand upon her mouth,
'Fortune will not bear chiding. We must not reproach her, or she
shuns us; I have found that out.'

'Now, mister,' said the stout man. 'If you're not coming yourself,
give us the cards, will you?'

'I am coming,' cried the old man. 'Sit thee down, Nell, sit thee
down and look on. Be of good heart, it's all for thee--all--
every penny. I don't tell them, no, no, or else they wouldn't
play, dreading the chance that such a cause must give me. Look at
them. See what they are and what thou art. Who doubts that we
must win!'

'The gentleman has thought better of it, and isn't coming,' said
Isaac, making as though he would rise from the table. 'I'm sorry
the gentleman's daunted--nothing venture, nothing have--but the
gentleman knows best.'

'Why I am ready. You have all been slow but me,' said the old man.
'I wonder who is more anxious to begin than I.'

As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three
closing round it at the same time, the game commenced.

The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind.
Regardless of the run of luck, and mindful only of the desperate
passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains
were to her alike. Exulting in some brief triumph, or cast down by
a defeat, there he sat so wild and restless, so feverishly and
intensely anxious, so terribly eager, so ravenous for the paltry
stakes, that she could have almost better borne to see him dead.
And yet she was the innocent cause of all this torture, and he,
gambling with such a savage thirst for gain as the most insatiable
gambler never felt, had not one selfish thought!

On the contrary, the other three--knaves and gamesters by their
trade--while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as
if every virtue had been centered in their breasts. Sometimes one
would look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle,
or to glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window
and fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder
than the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put
him out; but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything
but their cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no
greater show of passion or excitement than if they had been
made of stone.

The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown
fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and
break above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse
distance; and still the game went on, and still the anxious child
was quite forgotten.

CHAPTER 30

At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only
winner. Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional
fortitude. Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had
quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised
nor pleased.

Nell's little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his
side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old
man sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt
before, and turning up the different hands to see what each man
would have held if they had still been playing. He was quite
absorbed in this occupation, when the child drew near and laid her
hand upon his shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.

'See the curse of poverty, Nell,' he said, pointing to the packs he
had spread out upon the table. 'If I could have gone on a little
longer, only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my
side. Yes, it's as plain as the marks upon the cards. See here--
and there--and here again.'

'Put them away,' urged the child. 'Try to forget them.'

'Try to forget them!' he rejoined, raising his haggard face to
hers, and regarding her with an incredulous stare. 'To forget
them! How are we ever to grow rich if I forget them?'

The child could only shake her head.

'No, no, Nell,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'they must not
be forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can.
Patience--patience, and we'll right thee yet, I promise thee.
Lose to-day, win to-morrow. And nothing can be won without anxiety
and care--nothing. Come, I am ready.'

'Do you know what the time is?' said Mr Groves, who was smoking
with his friends. 'Past twelve o'clock--'

'--And a rainy night,' added the stout man.

'The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap
entertainment for man and beast,' said Mr Groves, quoting his
sign-board. 'Half-past twelve o'clock.'

'It's very late,' said the uneasy child. 'I wish we had gone
before. What will they think of us! It will be two o'clock by the
time we get back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?'

'Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling;
total two shillings and sixpence,' replied the Valiant Soldier.

Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when
she came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent
habits of Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in
which they would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up
in the middle of the night--and when she reflected, on the other
hand, that if they remained where they were, and rose early in the
morning, they might get back before she awoke, and could plead the
violence of the storm by which they had been overtaken, as a good
apology for their absence--she decided, after a great deal of
hesitation, to remain. She therefore took her grandfather aside,
and telling him that she had still enough left to defray the cost
of their lodging, proposed that they should stay there for the
night.

'If I had had but that money before--If I had only known of it a
few minutes ago!' muttered the old man.

'We will decide to stop here if you please,' said Nell, turning
hastily to the landlord.

'I think that's prudent,' returned Mr Groves. 'You shall have your
suppers directly.'

Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out
the ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place,
with the bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and
beer, with many high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his
guests fall to, and make themselves at home. Nell and her
grandfather ate sparingly, for both were occupied with their own
reflections; the other gentlemen, for whose constitutions beer was
too weak and tame a liquid, consoled themselves with spirits and
tobacco.

As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child
was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to
bed. But as she felt the necessity of concealing her
little hoard from her grandfather, and had to change the piece of
gold, she took it secretly from its place of concealment, and
embraced an opportunity of following the landlord when he went out
of the room, and tendered it to him in the little bar.

'Will you give me the change here, if you please?' said the child.

Mr James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money,
and rang it, and looked at the child, and at the money again, as
though he had a mind to inquire how she came by it. The coin being
genuine, however, and changed at his house, he probably felt, like
a wise landlord, that it was no business of his. At any rate, he
counted out the change, and gave it her. The child was returning
to the room where they had passed the evening, when she fancied she
saw a figure just gliding in at the door. There was nothing but a
long dark passage between this door and the place where she had
changed the money, and, being very certain that no person had
passed in or out while she stood there, the thought struck her that
she had been watched.

But by whom? When she re-entered the room, she found its inmates
exactly as she had left them. The stout fellow lay upon two
chairs, resting his head on his hand, and the squinting man reposed
in a similar attitude on the opposite side of the table. Between
them sat her grandfather, looking intently at the winner with a
kind of hungry admiration, and hanging upon his words as if he were
some superior being. She was puzzled for a moment, and looked
round to see if any else were there. No. Then she asked her
grandfather in a whisper whether anybody had left the room while
she was absent. 'No,' he said, 'nobody.'

It must have been her fancy then; and yet it was strange, that,
without anything in her previous thoughts to lead to it, she should
have imagined this figure so very distinctly. She was still
wondering and thinking of it, when a girl came to light her to bed.

The old man took leave of the company at the same time, and they
went up stairs together. It was a great, rambling house, with dull
corridors and wide staircases which the flaring candles seemed to
make more gloomy. She left her grandfather in his chamber, and
followed her guide to another, which was at the end of a passage,
and approached by some half-dozen crazy steps. This was prepared
for her. The girl lingered a little while to talk, and tell her
grievances. She had not a good place, she said; the wages were
low, and the work was hard. She was going to leave it in a
fortnight; the child couldn't recommend her to another, she
supposed? Instead she was afraid another would be difficult to
get after living there, for the house had a very indifferent
character; there was far too much card-playing, and such like.
She was very much mistaken if some of the people who
came there oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she
wouldn't have it known that she had said so, for the world. Then
there were some rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who
had threatened to go a soldiering--a final promise of knocking at
the door early in the morning--and 'Good night.'

The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She
could not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage
down stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure
her. The men were very ill-looking. They might get their living
by robbing and murdering travellers. Who could tell?

Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for
a little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of
the night gave rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in
her grandfather's breast, and to what further distraction it might
tempt him Heaven only knew. What fears their absence might have
occasioned already! Persons might be seeking for them even then.
Would they be forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again! Oh!
why had they stopped in that strange place? It would have been
better, under any circumstances, to have gone on!

At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep,
troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a
start and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this--and
then--What! That figure in the room.

A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the
light when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the
bed and the dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its
way with noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no
voice to cry for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching
it.

On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the bed's head. The
breath so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those
wandering hands should light upon her face. Back again it stole to
the window--then turned its head towards her.

The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the
room, but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how
the eyes looked and the ears listened. There it remained,
motionless as she. At length, still keeping the face towards her,
it busied its hands in something, and she heard the chink of money.

Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and
replacing the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon
its hands and knees, and crawled away. How slowly it seemed to
move, now that she could hear but not see it, creeping along the
floor! It reached the door at last, and stood upon its feet. The
steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it was gone.

The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being
by herself in that room--to have somebody by--not to be alone--
and then her power of speech would be restored. With no
consciousness of having moved, she gained the door.

There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.

She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the
darkness without being seized, but her blood curdled at the
thought. The figure stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly,
but of necessity; for going back into the room was hardly less
terrible than going on.

The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing
streams from the thatched roof. Some summer insect, with no escape
into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the
walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs. The
figure moved again. The child involuntarily did the same. Once in
her grandfather's room, she would be safe.

It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she
longed so ardently to reach. The child, in the agony of being so
near, had almost darted forward with the design of bursting into
the room and closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.

The idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if it entered there, and
had a design upon the old man's life! She turned faint and sick.
It did. It went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now
within the chamber, and she, still dumb--quite dumb, and almost
senseless--stood looking on.

The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but
meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward
and looked in.

What sight was that which met her view!

The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a
table sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his
white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his
eyes unnaturally bright--counting the money of which his hands had
robbed her.

CHAPTER 31

With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she
had approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and
groped her way back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately
felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. No
strange robber, no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his
guests, or stealing to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no
nightly prowler, however terrible and cruel, could have awakened in
her bosom half the dread which the recognition of her silent
visitor inspired. The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost
into her room and acting the thief while he supposed her fast
asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the
ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse--immeasurably
worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon--
than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested. If he should
return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if,
distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come
back to seek for more--a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea
of his slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face
toward the empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to
avoid his touch, which was almost insupportable. She sat and
listened. Hark! A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was
slowly opening. It was but imagination, yet imagination had all
the terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would
have come and gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was
always coming, and never went away.

The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror.
She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose
love for her this disease of the brain had been engendered; but the
man she had seen that night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking
in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed
like another creature in his shape, a monstrous distortion of his
image, a something to recoil from, and be the more afraid of,
because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as he
did. She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion,
save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him.
She had wept to see him dull and quiet. How much greater cause she
had for weeping now!

The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the
phantom in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt
it would be a relief to hear the old man's voice, or, if he were
asleep, even to see him, and banish some of the fears that
clustered round his image. She stole down the stairs and passage
again. The door was still ajar as she had left it, and the candle
burning as before.

She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were
waking, that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see
if his were still alight. Looking into the room, she saw him lying
calmly on his bed, and so took courage to enter.

Fast asleep. No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no
wild desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace. This was not the
gambler, or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and
jaded man whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning
light; this was her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-
traveller, her good, kind grandfather.

She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she
had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.

'God bless him!' said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid
cheek. 'I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they
found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky.
He has only me to help him. God bless us both!'

Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come,
and, gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of
that long, long, miserable night.

At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep.
She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed;
and, as soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down
to her grandfather. But first she searched her pocket and found
that her money was all gone--not a sixpence remained.

The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their
road. The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to
expect that she would tell him of her loss. She felt she must do
that, or he might suspect the truth.

'Grandfather,' she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked
about a mile in silence, 'do you think they are honest people at
the house yonder?'

'Why?' returned the old man trembling. 'Do I think them honest--
yes, they played honestly.'

'I'll tell you why I ask,' rejoined Nell. 'I lost some money last
night--out of my bedroom, I am sure. Unless it was taken by
somebody in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make
me laugh heartily if I could but know it--'

'Who would take money in jest?' returned the old man in a hurried manner.
'Those who take money, take it to keep. Don't talk of jest.'

'Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,' said the child, whose
last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.

'But is there no more, Nell?' said the old man; 'no more anywhere?
Was it all taken--every farthing of it--was there nothing left?'

'Nothing,' replied the child.

'We must get more,' said the old man, 'we must earn it, Nell, hoard
it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow. Never mind this
loss. Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don't ask
how;--we may regain it, and a great deal more;--but tell nobody,
or trouble may come of it. And so they took it out of thy room,
when thou wert asleep!' he added in a compassionate tone, very
different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken
until now. 'Poor Nell, poor little Nell!'

The child hung down her head and wept. The sympathising tone in
which he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that. It was not
the lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.

'Not a word about it to any one but me,' said the old man, 'no, not
even to me,' he added hastily, 'for it can do no good. All the
losses that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling.
Why should they be, when we will win them back?'

'Let them go,' said the child looking up. 'Let them go, once and
for ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had
been a thousand pounds.'

'Well, well,' returned the old man, checking himself as some
impetuous answer rose to his lips, 'she knows no better. I ought
to be thankful of it.'

'But listen to me,' said the child earnestly, 'will you listen to me?'

'Aye, aye, I'll listen,' returned the old man, still without
looking at her; 'a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to
me. It always had when it was her mother's, poor child.'

'Let me persuade you, then--oh, do let me persuade you,' said the
child, 'to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune
but the fortune we pursue together.'

'We pursue this aim together,' retorted her grandfather, still
looking away and seeming to confer with himself. 'Whose image
sanctifies the game?'

'Have we been worse off,' resumed the child, 'since you forgot
these cares, and we have been travelling on together? Have we not
been much better and happier without a home to shelter us, than
ever we were in that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?'

'She speaks the truth,' murmured the old man in the same tone as
before. 'It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it
is.'

'Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we
turned our backs upon it for the last time,' said Nell, 'only
remember what we have been since we have been free of all those
miseries--what peaceful days and quiet nights we have had--what
pleasant times we have known--what happiness we have enjoyed. If
we have been tired or hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and
slept the sounder for it. Think what beautiful things we have
seen, and how contented we have felt. And why was this blessed
change?'