The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens [ebook offline reader TXT] 📗

your cruel conduct, four pints of malt liquor a day is hardly able to sustain her.’

‘I am glad,’ said the poor collector meekly, ‘that the baby is a healthy one. I am very glad of that.’

This was touching the Kenwigses on their tenderest point. Mrs Kenwigs instantly burst into tears, and Mr Kenwigs evinced great emotion.

‘My pleasantest feeling, all the time that child was expected,’ said Mr Kenwigs, mournfully, ‘was a thinking, “If it’s a boy, as I hope it may be; for I have heard its uncle Lillyvick say again and again he would prefer our having a boy next, if it’s a boy, what will his uncle Lillyvick say? What will he like him to be called? Will he be Peter, or Alexander, or Pompey, or Diorgeenes, or what will he be?” And now when I look at him; a precious, unconscious, helpless infant, with no use in his little arms but to tear his little cap, and no use in his little legs but to kick his little self—when I see him a lying on his mother’s lap, cooing and cooing, and, in his innocent state, almost a choking hisself with his little fist—when I see him such a infant as he is, and think that that uncle Lillyvick, as was once a-going to be so fond of him, has withdrawed himself away, such a feeling of wengeance comes over me as no language can depicter, and I feel as if even that holy babe was a telling me to hate him.’

This affecting picture moved Mrs Kenwigs deeply. After several imperfect words, which vainly attempted to struggle to the surface, but were drowned and washed away by the strong tide of her tears, she spake.

‘Uncle,’ said Mrs Kenwigs, ‘to think that you should have turned your back upon me and my dear children, and upon Kenwigs which is the author of their being—you who was once so kind and affectionate, and who, if anybody had told us such a thing of, we should have withered with scorn like lightning—you that little Lillyvick, our first and earliest boy, was named after at the very altar! Oh gracious!’

‘Was it money that we cared for?’ said Mr Kenwigs. ‘Was it property that we ever thought of?’

‘No,’ cried Mrs Kenwigs, ‘I scorn it.’

‘So do I,’ said Mr Kenwigs, ‘and always did.’

‘My feelings have been lancerated,’ said Mrs Kenwigs, ‘my heart has been torn asunder with anguish, I have been thrown back in my confinement, my unoffending infant has been rendered uncomfortable and fractious, Morleena has pined herself away to nothing; all this I forget and forgive, and with you, uncle, I never can quarrel. But never ask me to receive HER, never do it, uncle. For I will not, I will not, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!’

‘Susan, my dear,’ said Mr Kenwigs, ‘consider your child.’

‘Yes,’ shrieked Mrs Kenwigs, ‘I will consider my child! I will consider my child! My own child, that no uncles can deprive me of; my own hated, despised, deserted, cut-off little child.’ And, here, the emotions of Mrs Kenwigs became so violent, that Mr Kenwigs was fain to administer hartshorn internally, and vinegar externally, and to destroy a staylace, four petticoat strings, and several small buttons.

Newman had been a silent spectator of this scene; for Mr Lillyvick had signed to him not to withdraw, and Mr Kenwigs had further solicited his presence by a nod of invitation. When Mrs Kenwigs had been, in some degree, restored, and Newman, as a person possessed of some influence with her, had remonstrated and begged her to compose herself, Mr Lillyvick said in a faltering voice:

‘I never shall ask anybody here to receive my—I needn’t mention the word; you know what I mean. Kenwigs and Susan, yesterday was a week she eloped with a half-pay captain!’

Mr and Mrs Kenwigs started together.

‘Eloped with a half-pay captain,’ repeated Mr Lillyvick, ‘basely and falsely eloped with a half-pay captain. With a bottle-nosed captain that any man might have considered himself safe from. It was in this room,’ said Mr Lillyvick, looking sternly round, ‘that I first see Henrietta Petowker. It is in this room that I turn her off, for ever.’

This declaration completely changed the whole posture of affairs. Mrs Kenwigs threw herself upon the old gentleman’s neck, bitterly reproaching herself for her late harshness, and exclaiming, if she had suffered, what must his sufferings have been! Mr Kenwigs grasped his hand, and vowed eternal friendship and remorse. Mrs Kenwigs was horror-stricken to think that she should ever have nourished in her bosom such a snake, adder, viper, serpent, and base crocodile as Henrietta Petowker. Mr Kenwigs argued that she must have been bad indeed not to have improved by so long a contemplation of Mrs Kenwigs’s virtue. Mrs Kenwigs remembered that Mr Kenwigs had often said that he was not quite satisfied of the propriety of Miss Petowker’s conduct, and wondered how it was that she could have been blinded by such a wretch. Mr Kenwigs remembered that he had had his suspicions, but did not wonder why Mrs Kenwigs had not had hers, as she was all chastity, purity, and truth, and Henrietta all baseness, falsehood, and deceit. And Mr and Mrs Kenwigs both said, with strong feelings and tears of sympathy, that everything happened for the best; and conjured the good collector not to give way to unavailing grief, but to seek consolation in the society of those affectionate relations whose arms and hearts were ever open to him.

‘Out of affection and regard for you, Susan and Kenwigs,’ said Mr Lillyvick, ‘and not out of revenge and spite against her, for she is below it, I shall, tomorrow morning, settle upon your children, and make payable to the survivors of them when they come of age of marry, that money that I once meant to leave ‘em in my will. The deed shall be executed tomorrow, and Mr Noggs shall be one of the witnesses. He hears me promise this, and he shall see it done.’

Overpowered by this noble and generous offer, Mr Kenwigs, Mrs Kenwigs, and Miss Morleena Kenwigs, all began to sob together; and the noise of their sobbing, communicating itself to the next room, where the children lay a-bed, and causing them to cry too, Mr Kenwigs rushed wildly in, and bringing them out in his arms, by two and two, tumbled them down in their nightcaps and gowns at the feet of Mr Lillyvick, and called upon them to thank and bless him.

‘And now,’ said Mr Lillyvick, when a heart-rending scene had ensued and the children were cleared away again, ‘give me some supper. This took place twenty mile from town. I came up this morning, and have being lingering about all day, without being able to make up my mind to come and see you. I humoured her in everything, she had her own way, she did just as she pleased, and now she has done this. There was twelve teaspoons and twenty-four pound in sovereigns—I missed them first—it’s a trial—I feel I shall never be able to knock a double knock again, when I go my rounds—don’t say anything more about it, please—the spoons were worth—never mind—never mind!’

With such muttered outpourings as these, the old gentleman shed a few tears; but, they got him into the elbow-chair, and prevailed upon him, without much pressing, to make a hearty supper, and by the time he had finished his first pipe, and disposed of half-a-dozen glasses out of a crown bowl of punch, ordered by Mr Kenwigs, in celebration of his return to the bosom of his family, he seemed, though still very humble, quite resigned to his fate, and rather relieved than otherwise by the flight of his wife.

‘When I see that man,’ said Mr Kenwigs, with one hand round Mrs Kenwigs’s waist: his other hand supporting his pipe (which made him wink and cough very much, for he was no smoker): and his eyes on Morleena, who sat upon her uncle’s knee, ‘when I see that man as mingling, once again, in the spear which he adorns, and see his affections deweloping themselves in legitimate sitiwations, I feel that his nature is as elewated and expanded, as his standing afore society as a public character is unimpeached, and the woices of my infant children purvided for in life, seem to whisper to me softly, “This is an ewent at which Evins itself looks down!”’