Chapter 12

Nicholas Nickleby

by Charles Dickens

Whereby the Reader will be enabled to trace the further course of
Miss Fanny Squeer's Love, and to ascertain whether it ran smooth or
otherwise.

It was a fortunate circumstance for Miss Fanny Squeers, that
when her worthy papa returned home on the night of the small
tea-party, he was what the initiated term 'too far gone' to observe
the numerous tokens of extreme vexation of spirit which were plainly
visible in her countenance. Being, however, of a rather violent and
quarrelsome mood in his cups, it is not impossible that he might have
fallen out with her, either on this or some imaginary topic, if the
young lady had not, with a foresight and prudence highly commendable,
kept a boy up, on purpose, to bear the first brunt of the good
gentleman's anger; which, having vented itself in a variety of kicks
and cuffs, subsided sufficiently to admit of his being persuaded to
go to bed. Which he did with his boots on, and an umbrella under his
arm.

The hungry servant attended Miss Squeers in her own room
according to custom, to curl her hair, perform the other little
offices of her toilet, and administer as much flattery as she could
get up, for the purpose; for Miss Squeers was quite lazy enough (and
sufficiently vain and frivolous withal) to have been a fine lady; and
it was only the arbitrary distinctions of rank and station which
prevented her from being one.

'How lovely your hair do curl tonight, miss!' said the
handmaiden. 'I declare if it isn't a pity and a shame to brush it
out!'

'Hold your tongue!' replied Miss Squeers wrathfully.

Some considerable experience prevented the girl from being at
all surprised at any outbreak of ill-temper on the part of Miss
Squeers. Having a half-perception of what had occurred in the course
of the evening, she changed her mode of making herself agreeable, and
proceeded on the indirect tack.

'Well, I couldn't help saying, miss, if you was to kill me for
it,' said the attendant, 'that I never see nobody look so vulgar as
Miss Price this night.'

Miss Squeers sighed, and composed herself to listen.

'I know it's very wrong in me to say so, miss,' continued the
girl, delighted to see the impression she was making, 'Miss Price
being a friend of your'n, and all; but she do dress herself out so,
and go on in such a manner to get noticed, that--oh--well, if people
only saw themselves!'

'What do you mean, Phib?' asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own
little glass, where, like most of us, she saw--not herself, but the
reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain. 'How you
talk!'

'Talk, miss! It's enough to make a Tom cat talk French grammar,
only to see how she tosses her head,' replied the handmaid.

'She does toss her head,' observed Miss Squeers, with an air of
abstraction.

'So vain, and so very--very plain,' said the girl.

'Poor 'Tilda!' sighed Miss Squeers, compassionately.

'And always laying herself out so, to get to be admired,'
pursued the servant. 'Oh, dear! It's positive indelicate.'

'I can't allow you to talk in that way, Phib,' said Miss
Squeers. ''Tilda's friends are low people, and if she don't know any
better, it's their fault, and not hers.'

'Well, but you know, miss,' said Phoebe, for which name 'Phib'
was used as a patronising abbreviation, 'if she was only to take copy
by a friend--oh! if she only knew how wrong she was, and would but
set herself right by you, what a nice young woman she might be in
time!'

'Phib,' rejoined Miss Squeers, with a stately air, 'it's not
proper for me to hear these comparisons drawn; they make 'Tilda look
a coarse improper sort of person, and it seems unfriendly in me to
listen to them. I would rather you dropped the subject, Phib; at the
same time, I must say, that if 'Tilda Price would take pattern by
somebody--not me particularly--'

'Oh yes; you, miss,' interposed Phib.

'Well, me, Phib, if you will have it so,' said Miss Squeers. 'I
must say, that if she would, she would be all the better for it.'

'So somebody else thinks, or I am much mistaken,' said the girl
mysteriously.

'What do you mean?' demanded Miss Squeers.

'Never mind, miss,' replied the girl; 'I know what I know;
that's all.'

'Phib,' said Miss Squeers dramatically, 'I insist upon your
explaining yourself. What is this dark mystery? Speak.'

'Why, if you will have it, miss, it's this,' said the servant
girl. 'Mr John Browdie thinks as you think; and if he wasn't too far
gone to do it creditable, he'd be very glad to be off with Miss
Price, and on with Miss Squeers.'

'Gracious heavens!' exclaimed Miss Squeers, clasping her hands
with great dignity. 'What is this?'

'Truth, ma'am, and nothing but truth,' replied the artful
Phib.

'What a situation!' cried Miss Squeers; 'on the brink of
unconsciously destroying the peace and happiness of my own 'Tilda.
What is the reason that men fall in love with me, whether I like it
or not, and desert their chosen intendeds for my sake?'

'Because they can't help it, miss,' replied the girl; 'the
reason's plain.' (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very
plain.)

'Never let me hear of it again,' retorted Miss Squeers. 'Never!
Do you hear? 'Tilda Price has faults--many faults--but I wish her
well, and above all I wish her married; for I think it highly
desirable--most desirable from the very nature of her failings--that
she should be married as soon as possible. No, Phib. Let her have
Mr Browdie. I may pity him, poor fellow; but I have a great regard
for 'Tilda, and only hope she may make a better wife than I think she
will.'

With this effusion of feeling, Miss Squeers went to bed.

Spite is a little word; but it represents as strange a jumble of
feelings, and compound of discords, as any polysyllable in the
language. Miss Squeers knew as well in her heart of hearts that what
the miserable serving-girl had said was sheer, coarse, lying
flattery, as did the girl herself; yet the mere opportunity of
venting a little ill-nature against the offending Miss Price, and
affecting to compassionate her weaknesses and foibles, though only in
the presence of a solitary dependant, was almost as great a relief to
her spleen as if the whole had been gospel truth. Nay, more. We
have such extraordinary powers of persuasion when they are exerted
over ourselves, that Miss Squeers felt quite high-minded and great
after her noble renunciation of John Browdie's hand, and looked down
upon her rival with a kind of holy calmness and tranquillity, that
had a mighty effect in soothing her ruffled feelings.

This happy state of mind had some influence in bringing about a
reconciliation; for, when a knock came at the front-door next day,
and the miller's daughter was announced, Miss Squeers betook herself
to the parlour in a Christian frame of spirit, perfectly beautiful to
behold.

'Well, Fanny,' said the miller's daughter, 'you see I have come
to see you, although we had some words last night.'

'I pity your bad passions, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, 'but I
bear no malice. I am above it.'

'Don't be cross, Fanny,' said Miss Price. 'I have come to tell
you something that I know will please you.'

'What may that be, 'Tilda?' demanded Miss Squeers; screwing up
her lips, and looking as if nothing in earth, air, fire, or water,
could afford her the slightest gleam of satisfaction.

'This,' rejoined Miss Price. 'After we left here last night
John and I had a dreadful quarrel.'

'That doesn't please me,' said Miss Squeers--relaxing into a
smile though.

'Lor! I wouldn't think so bad of you as to suppose it did,'
rejoined her companion. 'That's not it.'

'Oh!' said Miss Squeers, relapsing into melancholy. 'Go on.'

'After a great deal of wrangling, and saying we would never see
each other any more,' continued Miss Price, 'we made it up, and this
morning John went and wrote our names down to be put up, for the
first time, next Sunday, so we shall be married in three weeks, and I
give you notice to get your frock made.'

There was mingled gall and honey in this intelligence. The
prospect of the friend's being married so soon was the gall, and the
certainty of her not entertaining serious designs upon Nicholas was
the honey. Upon the whole, the sweet greatly preponderated over the
bitter, so Miss Squeers said she would get the frock made, and that
she hoped 'Tilda might be happy, though at the same time she didn't
know, and would not have her build too much upon it, for men were
strange creatures, and a great many married women were very
miserable, and wished themselves single again with all their hearts;
to which condolences Miss Squeers added others equally calculated to
raise her friend's spirits and promote her cheerfulness of mind.

'But come now, Fanny,' said Miss Price, 'I want to have a word
or two with you about young Mr Nickleby.'

'He is nothing to me,' interrupted Miss Squeers, with hysterical
symptoms. 'I despise him too much!'

'Oh, you don't mean that, I am sure?' replied her friend.
'Confess, Fanny; don't you like him now?'

Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once,
fell into a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she was a
wretched, neglected, miserable castaway.

'I hate everybody,' said Miss Squeers, 'and I wish that
everybody was dead--that I do.'

'Dear, dear,' said Miss Price, quite moved by this avowal of
misanthropical sentiments. 'You are not serious, I am sure.'

'Yes, I am,' rejoined Miss Squeers, tying tight knots in her
pocket- handkerchief and clenching her teeth. 'And I wish I was dead
too. There!'

'Oh! you'll think very differently in another five minutes,'
said Matilda. 'How much better to take him into favour again, than
to hurt yourself by going on in that way. Wouldn't it be much nicer,
now, to have him all to yourself on good terms, in a company-
keeping, love-making, pleasant sort of manner?'

'I don't know but what it would,' sobbed Miss Squeers. 'Oh!
'Tilda, how could you have acted so mean and dishonourable! I
wouldn't have believed it of you, if anybody had told me.'

'Heyday!' exclaimed Miss Price, giggling. 'One would suppose I
had been murdering somebody at least.'

'Very nigh as bad,' said Miss Squeers passionately.

'And all this because I happen to have enough of good looks to
make people civil to me,' cried Miss Price. 'Persons don't make
their own faces, and it's no more my fault if mine is a good one than
it is other people's fault if theirs is a bad one.'

'Hold your tongue,' shrieked Miss Squeers, in her shrillest
tone; 'or you'll make me slap you, 'Tilda, and afterwards I should be
sorry for it!'

It is needless to say, that, by this time, the temper of each
young lady was in some slight degree affected by the tone of her
conversation, and that a dash of personality was infused into the
altercation, in consequence. Indeed, the quarrel, from slight
beginnings, rose to a considerable height, and was assuming a very
violent complexion, when both parties, falling into a great passion
of tears, exclaimed simultaneously, that they had never thought of
being spoken to in that way: which exclamation, leading to a
remonstrance, gradually brought on an explanation: and the upshot
was, that they fell into each other's arms and vowed eternal
friendship; the occasion in question making the fifty-second time of
repeating the same impressive ceremony within a twelvemonth.

Perfect amicability being thus restored, a dialogue naturally
ensued upon the number and nature of the garments which would be
indispensable for Miss Price's entrance into the holy state of
matrimony, when Miss Squeers clearly showed that a great many more
than the miller could, or would, afford, were absolutely necessary,
and could not decently be dispensed with. The young lady then, by an
easy digression, led the discourse to her own wardrobe, and after
recounting its principal beauties at some length, took her friend
upstairs to make inspection thereof. The treasures of two drawers
and a closet having been displayed, and all the smaller articles
tried on, it was time for Miss Price to return home; and as she had
been in raptures with all the frocks, and had been stricken quite
dumb with admiration of a new pink scarf, Miss Squeers said in high
good humour, that she would walk part of the way with her, for the
pleasure of her company; and off they went together: Miss Squeers
dilating, as they walked along, upon her father's accomplishments:
and multiplying his income by ten, to give her friend some faint
notion of the vast importance and superiority of her family.

It happened that that particular time, comprising the short
daily interval which was suffered to elapse between what was
pleasantly called the dinner of Mr Squeers's pupils, and their return
to the pursuit of useful knowledge, was precisely the hour when
Nicholas was accustomed to issue forth for a melancholy walk, and to
brood, as he sauntered listlessly through the village, upon his
miserable lot. Miss Squeers knew this perfectly well, but had
perhaps forgotten it, for when she caught sight of that young
gentleman advancing towards them, she evinced many symptoms of
surprise and consternation, and assured her friend that she 'felt fit
to drop into the earth.'

'Shall we turn back, or run into a cottage?' asked Miss Price.
'He don't see us yet.'

'No, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, 'it is my duty to go through
with it, and I will!'

As Miss Squeers said this, in the tone of one who has made a
high moral resolution, and was, besides, taken with one or two chokes
and catchings of breath, indicative of feelings at a high pressure,
her friend made no further remark, and they bore straight down upon
Nicholas, who, walking with his eyes bent upon the ground, was not
aware of their approach until they were close upon him; otherwise, he
might, perhaps, have taken shelter himself.

'Good-morning,' said Nicholas, bowing and passing by.

'He is going,' murmured Miss Squeers. 'I shall choke,
'Tilda.'

'Come back, Mr Nickleby, do!' cried Miss Price, affecting alarm
at her friend's threat, but really actuated by a malicious wish to
hear what Nicholas would say; 'come back, Mr Nickleby!'

Mr Nickleby came back, and looked as confused as might be, as he
inquired whether the ladies had any commands for him.

'Don't stop to talk,' urged Miss Price, hastily; 'but support
her on the other side. How do you feel now, dear?'

'Better,' sighed Miss Squeers, laying a beaver bonnet of a
reddish brown with a green veil attached, on Mr Nickleby's shoulder.
'This foolish faintness!'

'Don't call it foolish, dear,' said Miss Price: her bright eye
dancing with merriment as she saw the perplexity of Nicholas; 'you
have no reason to be ashamed of it. It's those who are too proud to
come round again, without all this to-do, that ought to be
ashamed.'

'You are resolved to fix it upon me, I see,' said Nicholas,
smiling, 'although I told you, last night, it was not my fault.'

'There; he says it was not his fault, my dear,' remarked the
wicked Miss Price. 'Perhaps you were too jealous, or too hasty with
him? He says it was not his fault. You hear; I think that's apology
enough.'

'You will not understand me,' said Nicholas. 'Pray dispense
with this jesting, for I have no time, and really no inclination, to
be the subject or promoter of mirth just now.'

'What do you mean?' asked Miss Price, affecting amazement.

'Don't ask him, 'Tilda,' cried Miss Squeers; 'I forgive him.'

'Dear me,' said Nicholas, as the brown bonnet went down on his
shoulder again, 'this is more serious than I supposed. Allow me!
Will you have the goodness to hear me speak?'

Here he raised up the brown bonnet, and regarding with most
unfeigned astonishment a look of tender reproach from Miss Squeers,
shrunk back a few paces to be out of the reach of the fair burden,
and went on to say:

'I am very sorry--truly and sincerely sorry--for having been the
cause of any difference among you, last night. I reproach myself,
most bitterly, for having been so unfortunate as to cause the
dissension that occurred, although I did so, I assure you, most
unwittingly and heedlessly.'

'Well; that's not all you have got to say surely,' exclaimed
Miss Price as Nicholas paused.

'I fear there is something more,' stammered Nicholas with a
half- smile, and looking towards Miss Squeers, 'it is a most awkward
thing to say--but--the very mention of such a supposition makes one
look like a puppy--still--may I ask if that lady supposes that I
entertain any--in short, does she think that I am in love with
her?'

'Delightful embarrassment,' thought Miss Squeers, 'I have
brought him to it, at last. Answer for me, dear,' she whispered to
her friend.

'Does she think so?' rejoined Miss Price; 'of course she
does.'

'She does!' exclaimed Nicholas with such energy of utterance as
might have been, for the moment, mistaken for rapture.

'Certainly,' replied Miss Price

'If Mr Nickleby has doubted that, 'Tilda,' said the blushing
Miss Squeers in soft accents, 'he may set his mind at rest. His
sentiments are recipro--'

'Stop,' cried Nicholas hurriedly; 'pray hear me. This is the
grossest and wildest delusion, the completest and most signal
mistake, that ever human being laboured under, or committed. I have
scarcely seen the young lady half-a-dozen times, but if I had seen
her sixty times, or am destined to see her sixty thousand, it would
be, and will be, precisely the same. I have not one thought, wish,
or hope, connected with her, unless it be--and I say this, not to
hurt her feelings, but to impress her with the real state of my own
--unless it be the one object, dear to my heart as life itself, of
being one day able to turn my back upon this accursed place, never to
set foot in it again, or think of it--even think of it--but with
loathing and disgust.'

With this particularly plain and straightforward declaration,
which he made with all the vehemence that his indignant and excited
feelings could bring to bear upon it, Nicholas waiting to hear no
more, retreated.

But poor Miss Squeers! Her anger, rage, and vexation; the rapid
succession of bitter and passionate feelings that whirled through her
mind; are not to be described. Refused! refused by a teacher, picked
up by advertisement, at an annual salary of five pounds payable at
indefinite periods, and 'found' in food and lodging like the very
boys themselves; and this too in the presence of a little chit of a
miller's daughter of eighteen, who was going to be married, in three
weeks' time, to a man who had gone down on his very knees to ask her.
She could have choked in right good earnest, at the thought of being
so humbled.

But, there was one thing clear in the midst of her
mortification; and that was, that she hated and detested Nicholas
with all the narrowness of mind and littleness of purpose worthy a
descendant of the house of Squeers. And there was one comfort too;
and that was, that every hour in every day she could wound his pride,
and goad him with the infliction of some slight, or insult, or
deprivation, which could not but have some effect on the most
insensible person, and must be acutely felt by one so sensitive as
Nicholas. With these two reflections uppermost in her mind, Miss
Squeers made the best of the matter to her friend, by observing that
Mr Nickleby was such an odd creature, and of such a violent temper,
that she feared she should be obliged to give him up; and parted from
her.

And here it may be remarked, that Miss Squeers, having bestowed
her affections (or whatever it might be that, in the absence of
anything better, represented them) on Nicholas Nickleby, had never
once seriously contemplated the possibility of his being of a
different opinion from herself in the business. Miss Squeers
reasoned that she was prepossessing and beautiful, and that her
father was master, and Nicholas man, and that her father had saved
money, and Nicholas had none, all of which seemed to her conclusive
arguments why the young man should feel only too much honoured by her
preference. She had not failed to recollect, either, how much more
agreeable she could render his situation if she were his friend, and
how much more disagreeable if she were his enemy; and, doubtless,
many less scrupulous young gentlemen than Nicholas would have
encouraged her extravagance had it been only for this very obvious
and intelligible reason. However, he had thought proper to do
otherwise, and Miss Squeers was outrageous.

'Let him see,' said the irritated young lady, when she had
regained her own room, and eased her mind by committing an assault on
Phib, 'if I don't set mother against him a little more when she comes
back!'

It was scarcely necessary to do this, but Miss Squeers was as
good as her word; and poor Nicholas, in addition to bad food, dirty
lodging, and the being compelled to witness one dull unvarying round
of squalid misery, was treated with every special indignity that
malice could suggest, or the most grasping cupidity put upon him.

Nor was this all. There was another and deeper system of
annoyance which made his heart sink, and nearly drove him wild, by
its injustice and cruelty.

The wretched creature, Smike, since the night Nicholas had
spoken kindly to him in the schoolroom, had followed him to and fro,
with an ever-restless desire to serve or help him; anticipating such
little wants as his humble ability could supply, and content only to
be near him. He would sit beside him for hours, looking patiently
into his face; and a word would brighten up his care-worn visage, and
call into it a passing gleam, even of happiness. He was an altered
being; he had an object now; and that object was, to show his
attachment to the only person--that person a stranger--who had
treated him, not to say with kindness, but like a human creature.

Upon this poor being, all the spleen and ill-humour that could
not be vented on Nicholas were unceasingly bestowed. Drudgery would
have been nothing--Smike was well used to that. Buffetings inflicted
without cause, would have been equally a matter of course; for to
them also he had served a long and weary apprenticeship; but it was
no sooner observed that he had become attached to Nicholas, than
stripes and blows, stripes and blows, morning, noon, and night, were
his only portion. Squeers was jealous of the influence which his man
had so soon acquired, and his family hated him, and Smike paid for
both. Nicholas saw it, and ground his teeth at every repetition of
the savage and cowardly attack.

He had arranged a few regular lessons for the boys; and one
night, as he paced up and down the dismal schoolroom, his swollen
heart almost bursting to think that his protection and countenance
should have increased the misery of the wretched being whose peculiar
destitution had awakened his pity, he paused mechanically in a dark
corner where sat the object of his thoughts.

The poor soul was poring hard over a tattered book, with the
traces of recent tears still upon his face; vainly endeavouring to
master some task which a child of nine years old, possessed of
ordinary powers, could have conquered with ease, but which, to the
addled brain of the crushed boy of nineteen, was a sealed and
hopeless mystery. Yet there he sat, patiently conning the page again
and again, stimulated by no boyish ambition, for he was the common
jest and scoff even of the uncouth objects that congregated about
him, but inspired by the one eager desire to please his solitary
friend.

Nicholas laid his hand upon his shoulder.

'I can't do it,' said the dejected creature, looking up with
bitter disappointment in every feature. 'No, no.'

'Do not try,' replied Nicholas.

The boy shook his head, and closing the book with a sigh, looked
vacantly round, and laid his head upon his arm. He was weeping.

'Do not for God's sake,' said Nicholas, in an agitated voice; 'I
cannot bear to see you.'

'They are more hard with me than ever,' sobbed the boy.

'I know it,' rejoined Nicholas. 'They are.'

'But for you,' said the outcast, 'I should die. They would kill
me; they would; I know they would.'

'You will do better, poor fellow,' replied Nicholas, shaking his
head mournfully, 'when I am gone.'

'Gone!' cried the other, looking intently in his face.

'Softly!' rejoined Nicholas. 'Yes.'

'Are you going?' demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper.

'I cannot say,' replied Nicholas. 'I was speaking more to my
own thoughts, than to you.'

'Tell me,' said the boy imploringly, 'oh do tell me, will you
go-- will you?'

'I shall be driven to that at last!' said Nicholas. 'The world
is before me, after all.'

'Tell me,' urged Smike, 'is the world as bad and dismal as this
place?'

'Heaven forbid,' replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of his own
thoughts; 'its hardest, coarsest toil, were happiness to this.'

'Should I ever meet you there?' demanded the boy, speaking with
unusual wildness and volubility.

'Yes,' replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him.

'No, no!' said the other, clasping him by the hand. 'Should I--
should I--tell me that again. Say I should be sure to find you.'

'You would,' replied Nicholas, with the same humane intention,
'and I would help and aid you, and not bring fresh sorrow on you as I
have done here.'

The boy caught both the young man's hands passionately in his,
and, hugging them to his breast, uttered a few broken sounds which
were unintelligible. Squeers entered at the moment, and he shrunk
back into his old corner.