Graymarsh.’
Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over the letter as before.
‘Graymarsh’s maternal aunt,’ said Squeers, when he had possessed himself of the contents, ‘is very glad to hear he’s so well and happy, and sends her respectful compliments to Mrs. Squeers, and thinks she must be an angel. She likewise thinks Mr. Squeers is too good for this world; but hopes he may long be spared to carry on the business. Would have sent the two pair of stockings as desired, but is short of money, so forwards a tract instead, and hopes Graymarsh will put his trust in Providence. Hopes, above all, that he will study in everything to please Mr. and Mrs Squeers, and look upon them as his only friends; and that he will love Master Squeers; and not object to sleeping five in a bed, which no Christian should. Ah!’ said Squeers, folding it up, ‘a delightful letter. Very affecting indeed.’
It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh’s maternal aunt was strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be no other than his maternal parent; Squeers, however, without alluding to this part of the story (which would have sounded immoral before boys), proceeded with the business by calling out ‘Mobbs,’ whereupon another boy rose, and Graymarsh resumed his seat.
‘Mobbs’s step-mother,’ said Squeers, ‘took to her bed on hearing that he wouldn’t eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. She wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects to go to, if he quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up his nose at the cow’s-liver broth, after his good master had asked a blessing on it. This was told her in the London newspapers – not by Mr. Squeers, for he is too kind and too good to set anybody against anybody – and it has vexed her so much, Mobbs can’t think. She is sorry to find he is discontented, which is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr. Squeers will flog him into a happier state of mind; with which view, she has also stopped his halfpenny a week pocket-money, and given a double-bladed knife with a corkscrew in it to the Missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for him.’
‘A sulky state of feeling,’ said Squeers, after a terrible pause, during which he had moistened the palm of his right hand again, ‘won’t do. Cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up. Mobbs, come to me!’
Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in anticipation of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards retired by the side-door, with as good cause as a boy need have.
Mr. Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collection of letters; some enclosing money, which Mrs. Squeers ‘took care of;’ and others referring to small articles of apparel, as caps and so forth, all of which the same lady stated to be too large, or too small, and calculated for nobody but young Squeers, who would appear indeed to have had most accommodating limbs, since everything that came into the school fitted him to a nicety. His head, in particular, must have been singularly elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions were alike to him.
This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed, and Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to take care of the boys in the school-room, which was very cold, and where a meal of bread and cheese was served out shortly after dark.
There was a small stove at that corner of the room which was nearest to the master’s desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, so depressed and self-degraded by the consciousness of his position, that if death could have come upon him at that time, he would have been almost happy to meet it. The cruelty of which he had been an unwilling witness, the coarse and ruffianly behaviour of Squeers even in his best moods, the filthy place, the sights and sounds about him, all contributed to this state of feeling; but when he recollected that, being there as an assistant, he actually seemed – no matter what unhappy train of circumstances had brought him to that pass – to be the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and felt, for the moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present situation must, through all time to come, prevent his raising his head again.
But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolution he had formed on the preceding night remained undisturbed. He had written to his mother and sister, announcing the safe conclusion of his journey, and saying as little about Dotheboys Hall, and saying that little as cheerfully, as he possibly could. He hoped that by remaining where he was, he might do some good, even there; at all events, others depended too much on his uncle’s favour, to admit of his awakening his wrath just then.
One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish considerations arising out of his own position. This was the probable destination of his sister Kate. His uncle had deceived him, and might he not consign her to some miserable place where her youth and beauty would prove a far greater curse than ugliness and decrepitude? To a caged man, bound hand and foot, this was a terrible idea – but no, he thought, his mother was by; there was the portrait-painter, too – simple enough, but still living in the world, and of it. He was willing to believe that Ralph Nickleby had conceived a personal dislike to himself. Having pretty good reason, by this time, to reciprocate it, he had no great difficulty in arriving at this conclusion, and tried to persuade himself that the feeling extended no farther than between them.
As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at once encountered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove, picking a few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the fire. He had paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was observed, shrunk back, as if expecting a blow.
‘You need not fear me,’ said Nicholas kindly. ‘Are you cold?’
‘N-n-o.’
‘You are shivering.’
‘I am not cold,’ replied Smike quickly. ‘I am used to it.’
There was such an obvious fear of giving offence in his manner, and he was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could not help exclaiming, ‘Poor fellow!’
If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away without a word. But, now, he burst into tears.
‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ he cried, covering his face with his cracked and horny hands. ‘My heart will break. It will, it will.’
‘Hush!’ said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. ‘Be a man; you are nearly one by years, God help you.’
‘By years!’ cried Smike. ‘Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How many of them since I was a little child, younger than any that are here now! Where are they all!’
‘Whom do you speak of?’ inquired Nicholas, wishing to rouse the poor half-witted creature to reason. ‘Tell me.’
‘My friends,’ he replied, ‘myself – my – oh! what sufferings mine have been!’
‘There is always hope,’ said Nicholas; he knew not what to say.
‘No,’ rejoined the other, ‘no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that died here?’
‘I was not here, you know,’ said Nicholas gently; ‘but what of him?’
‘Why,’ replied the youth, drawing closer to his questioner’s side, ‘I was with him at night, and when it was all silent he cried no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see faces round his bed that came from home; he said they smiled, and talked to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you hear?’
‘Yes, yes,’ rejoined Nicholas.
‘What faces will smile on me when I die!’ cried his companion, shivering. ‘Who will talk to me in those long nights! They cannot come from home; they would frighten me, if they did, for I don’t know what it is, and shouldn’t know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive or dead. No hope, no hope!’
The bell rang to bed: and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards – no, not retired; there was no retirement there – followed – to his dirty and crowded dormitory.
CHAPTER 9
Of Miss Squeers, Mrs. Squeers, Master Squeers, and Mr. Squeers; and of various