Chapter 32

The Old Curiosity Shop

by Charles Dickens

Mrs Jarley's wrath on first learning that she had been threatened
with the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description. The
genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by children,
and flouted by beadles! The delight of the Nobility and Gentry shorn
of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to wear, and
arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification and
humility! And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who presumed,
even in the dimmest and remotest distance of her imagination, to
conjure up the degrading picture, 'I am a'most inclined,' said Mrs
Jarley, bursting with the fulness of her anger and the weakness of
her means of revenge, 'to turn atheist when I think of it!'

But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley,
on second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering
glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a
chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them several
times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had received. This
done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to drink; then
laughed, then cried, then took a little sip herself, then laughed and
cried again, and took a little more; and so, by degrees, the worthy
lady went on, increasing in smiles and decreasing in tears, until at
last she could not laugh enough at Miss Monflathers, who, from being
an object of dire vexation, became one of sheer ridicule and
absurdity.

'For which of us is best off, I wonder,' quoth Mrs Jarley, 'she
or me! It's only talking, when all is said and done, and if she
talks of me in the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which
is a good deal funnier if we come to that. Lord, what does it
matter, after all!'

Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she
had been greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of
the philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind
words, and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought
of Miss Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her, all
the days of her life.

So ended Mrs Jarley's wrath, which subsided long before the
going down of the sun. Nell's anxieties, however, were of a deeper
kind, and the checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so
easily removed.

That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away,
and did not come back until the night was far spent. Worn out as she
was, and fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the
minutes, until he returned--penniless, broken-spirited, and wretched,
but still hotly bent upon his infatuation.

'Get me money,' he said wildly, as they parted for the night.
'I must have money, Nell. It shall be paid thee back with gallant
interest one day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must
be mine--not for myself, but to use for thee. Remember, Nell, to use
for thee!'

What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him
every penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to
rob their benefactress? If she told the truth (so thought the child)
he would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with
money, he would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that
burnt him up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery. Distracted by
these thoughts, borne down by the weight of the sorrow which she
dared not tell, tortured by a crowd of apprehensions whenever the old
man was absent, and dreading alike his stay and his return, the
colour forsook her cheek, her eye grew dim, and her heart was
oppressed and heavy. All her old sorrows had come back upon her,
augmented by new fears and doubts; by day they were ever present to
her mind; by night they hovered round her pillow, and haunted her in
dreams.

It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should
often revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a
hasty glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief
action, dwelt in her memory like the kindnesses of years. She would
often think, if she had such a friend as that to whom to tell her
griefs, how much lighter her heart would be--that if she were but
free to hear that voice, she would be happier. Then she would wish
that she were something better, that she were not quite so poor and
humble, that she dared address her without fearing a repulse; and
then feel that there was an immeasurable distance between them, and
have no hope that the young lady thought of her any more.

It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had
gone home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in
London, and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but nobody
said anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home, or
whether she had any home to go to, whether she was still at the
school, or anything about her. But one evening, as Nell was
returning from a lonely walk, she happened to pass the inn where the
stage-coaches stopped, just as one drove up, and there was the
beautiful girl she so well remembered, pressing forward to embrace a
young child whom they were helping down from the roof.

Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than
Nell, whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five
years, and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had been
saving her poor means all that time. Nell felt as if her heart would
break when she saw them meet. They went a little apart from the knot
of people who had congregated about the coach, and fell upon each
other's neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy. Their plain and simple
dress, the distance which the child had come alone, their agitation
and delight, and the tears they shed, would have told their history
by themselves.

They became a little more composed in a short time, and went
away, not so much hand in hand as clinging to each other. 'Are you
sure you're happy, sister?' said the child as they passed where Nell
was standing. 'Quite happy now,' she answered. 'But always?' said
the child. 'Ah, sister, why do you turn away your face?'

Nell could not help following at a little distance. They went
to the house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a
bed-room for the child. 'I shall come to you early every morning,'
she said, 'and we can be together all the day.-'-'Why not at
night-time too? Dear sister, would they be angry with you for
that?'

Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears
like those of the two sisters? Why did she bear a grateful heart
because they had met, and feel it pain to think that they would
shortly part? Let us not believe that any selfish reference--
unconscious though it might have been--to her own trials awoke this
sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys of others can strongly
move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature, have one source of
pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!

By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's
gentle light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy
intercourse of these two sisters which forbade her to approach and
say a thankful word, although she yearned to do so, followed them at
a distance in their walks and rambles, stopping when they stopped,
sitting on the grass when they sat down, rising when they went on,
and feeling it a companionship and delight to be so near them. Their
evening walk was by a river's side. Here, every night, the child was
too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded; but feeling as if they
were her friends, as if they had confidences and trusts together, as
if her load were lightened and less hard to bear; as if they mingled
their sorrows, and found mutual consolation. It was a weak fancy
perhaps, the childish fancy of a young and lonely creature; but night
after night, and still the sisters loitered in the same place, and
still the child followed with a mild and softened heart.

She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that
Mrs Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the
effect that the stupendous collection would only remain in its
present quarters one day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for
all announcements connected with public amusements are well known to
be irrevocable and most exact), the stupendous collection shut up
next day.

'Are we going from this place directly, ma'am?' said Nell.

'Look here, child,' returned Mrs Jarley. 'That'll inform you.'
And so saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it
was stated, that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the
wax-work door, and in consequence of crowds having been disappointed
in obtaining admission, the Exhibition would be continued for one
week longer, and would re-open next day.

'For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers
exhausted,' said Mrs Jarley, 'we come to the General Public, and they
want stimulating.'

Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself
behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished
effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open
for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public. But the
first day's operations were by no means of a successful character,
inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested a lively
interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen satellites
as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected by any impulses
moving them to the payment of sixpence a head. Thus, notwithstanding
that a great many people continued to stare at the entry and the
figures therein displayed; and remained there with great
perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ played
and to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were kind enough
to recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition in the like
manner, until the door-way was regularly blockaded by half the
population of the town, who, when they went off duty, were relieved
by the other half; it was not found that the treasury was any the
richer, or that the prospects of the establishment were at all
encouraging.

In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made
extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the
popular curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the
leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the
figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great
admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way,
who looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the degrading
effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of the Romish
Church and discoursed upon that theme with great eloquence and
morality. The two carters constantly passed in and out of the
exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting aloud that the
sight was better worth the money than anything they had beheld in all
their lives, and urging the bystanders, with tears in their eyes, not
to neglect such a brilliant gratification. Mrs Jarley sat in the
pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon till night, and solemnly
calling upon the crowd to take notice that the price of admission was
only sixpence, and that the departure of the whole collection, on a
short tour among the Crowned Heads of Europe, was positively fixed
for that day week.

'So be in time, be in time, be in time,' said Mrs Jarley at the
close of every such address. 'Remember that this is Jarley's
stupendous collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that it
is the only collection in the world; all others being imposters and
deceptions. Be in time, be in time, be in time!'