_
CHAPTER 47
Kit's mother and the single gentleman--upon whose track it is
expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be
chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its
characters in situations of uncertainty and doubt--Kit's mother
and the single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-
and-four whose departure from the Notary's door we have already
witnessed, soon left the town behind them, and struck fire from the
flints of the broad highway.
The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of
her situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by
this time little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the
fire, or tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or
had scalded their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst
at the spouts of tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and
meeting from the window the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers,
and others, felt in the new dignity of her position like a mourner
at a funeral, who, not being greatly afflicted by the loss of the
departed, recognizes his every-day acquaintance from the window of
the mourning coach, but is constrained to preserve a decent
solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent to all external
objects.
To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single
gentleman would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of
steel. Never did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless
gentleman as he. He never sat in the same position for two minutes
together, but was perpetually tossing his arms and legs about,
pulling up the sashes and letting them violently down, or thrusting
his head out of one window to draw it in again and thrust it out of
another. He carried in his pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious
and unknown construction; and as sure as ever Kit's mother closed
her eyes, so surely--whisk, rattle, fizz--there was the single
gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of fire, and letting the
sparks fall down among the straw as if there were no such thing as
a possibility of himself and Kit's mother being roasted alive
before the boys could stop their horses. Whenever they halted to
change, there he was--out of the carriage without letting down the
steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling
out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before he
put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that
Kit's mother was quite afraid of him. Then, when the horses were
to, in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile,
out came the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit's mother as
wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage.
'Are you comfortable?' the single gentleman would say after one of
these exploits, turning sharply round.
'Quite, Sir, thank you.'
'Are you sure? An't you cold?'
'It is a little chilly, Sir,' Kit's mother would reply.
'I knew it!' cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the
front glasses. 'She wants some brandy and water! Of course she
does. How could I forget it? Hallo! Stop at the next inn, and
call out for a glass of hot brandy and water.'
It was in vain for Kit's mother to protest that she stood in need
of nothing of the kind. The single gentleman was inexorable; and
whenever he had exhausted all other modes and fashions of
restlessness, it invariably occurred to him that Kit's mother
wanted brandy and water.
In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they
stopped to supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered
everything eatable that the house contained; and because Kit's
mother didn't eat everything at once, and eat it all, he took it
into his head that she must be ill.
'You're faint,' said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself
but walk about the room. 'I see what's the matter with you, ma'am.
You're faint.'
'Thank you, sir, I'm not indeed.'
'I know you are. I'm sure of it. I drag this poor woman from the
bosom of her family at a minute's notice, and she goes on getting
fainter and fainter before my eyes. I'm a pretty fellow! How many
children have you got, ma'am?'
'Two, sir, besides Kit.'
'Boys, ma'am?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Are they christened?'
'Only half baptised as yet, sir.'
'I'm godfather to both of 'em. Remember that, if you please,
ma'am. You had better have some mulled wine.'
'I couldn't touch a drop indeed, sir.'
'You must,' said the single gentleman. 'I see you want it. I
ought to have thought of it before.'
Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as
impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the
recovery of some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman
made Kit's mother swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature
that the tears ran down her face, and then hustled her off to the
chaise again, where--not impossibly from the effects of this
agreeable sedative--she soon became insensible to his
restlessness, and fell fast asleep. Nor were the happy effects of
this prescription of a transitory nature, as, notwithstanding that
the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the single
gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad
day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town.
'This is the place!' cried her companion, letting down all the
glasses. 'Drive to the wax-work!'
The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his
horse, to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke
into a smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise
that brought the good folks wondering to their doors and windows,
and drowned the sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out
half-past eight. They drove up to a door round which a crowd of
persons were collected, and there stopped.
'What's this?' said the single gentleman thrusting out his head.
'Is anything the matter here?'
'A wedding Sir, a wedding!' cried several voices. 'Hurrah!'
The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the
centre of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of
the postilions, and handed out Kit's mother, at sight of whom the
populace cried out, 'Here's another wedding!' and roared and leaped
for joy.
'The world has gone mad, I think,' said the single gentleman,
pressing through the concourse with his supposed bride. 'Stand
back here, will you, and let me knock.'
Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. A score of
dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has
a knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening
sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question.
Having rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly
retired a little, preferring that the single gentleman should bear
their consequences alone.
'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at
his button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very
stoical aspect.
'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.
'I have.'
'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'
'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him
from top to toe.
'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's
mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently
had it in contemplation to run away. 'A right you little dream of.
Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor--tut,
tut, that can't be. Where is the child you have here, my good
fellow. You call her Nell. Where is she?'
As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody
in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in
a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon
the bridegroom's arm.
'Where is she!' cried this lady. 'What news have you brought me?
What has become of her?'
The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the
late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to
the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of
conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At
length he stammered out,
'I ask YOU where she is? What do you mean?'
'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any
good, why weren't you here a week ago?'
'She is not--not dead?' said the person to whom she addressed
herself, turning very pale.
'No, not so bad as that.'
'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly. 'Let me come
in.'
They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the
door.
'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-
married couple, 'one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two
persons whom I seek. They would not know me. My features are
strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this
good woman with you, and let them see her first, for her they both
know. If you deny them from any mistaken regard or fear for them,
judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their
old humble friend.'
'I always said it!' cried the bride, 'I knew she was not a common
child! Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we
could do, has been tried in vain.'
With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment,
all that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first
meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance;
adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible
effort to trace them, but without success; having been at first in
great alarm for their safety, as well as on account of the
suspicions to which they themselves might one day be exposed in
consequence of their abrupt departure. They dwelt upon the old
man's imbecility of mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always
testified when he was absent, upon the company he had been supposed
to keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually
crept over her and changed her both in health and spirits. Whether
she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing or
conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or
whether they had left the house together, they had no means of
determining. Certain they considered it, that there was but
slender prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether
their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there
was now no hope of their return.
To all this, the single gentleman listened with the air of a man
quite borne down by grief and disappointment. He shed tears when
they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep affliction.
Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short
work of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the
interview came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had
sufficient evidence of having been told the truth, and that he
endeavoured to force upon the bride and bridegroom an
acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child, which,
however, they steadily declined accepting. In the end, the happy
couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a
country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit's mother stood
ruefully before their carriage-door.
'Where shall we drive you, sir?' said the post-boy.
'You may drive me,' said the single gentleman, 'to the--' He was
not going to add 'inn,' but he added it for the sake of Kit's
mother; and to the inn they went.
Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to
show the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been
stolen from her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced.
Opinion was divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a
duke, an earl, a viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main
fact, and that the single gentleman was her father; and all bent
forward to catch a glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his
noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.
What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been
saved if he had only known, that at that moment both child and
grandfather were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting
the schoolmaster's return!
Content of CHAPTER 47 [Charles Dickens' novel: The Old Curiosity Shop]
_