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CHAPTER 32
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!'
Content of CHAPTER 32 [Charles Dickens' novel: The Old Curiosity Shop]
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