The Old Curiosity Shop

Mrs Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and

  the child, and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre,

  formally invested Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for

  pointing out the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her

  in her duty.

  'That,' said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a

  figure at the beginning of the platform, 'is an unfortunate Maid of

  Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her

  finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood

  which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of

  the period, with which she is at work.'

  All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and

  the needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.

  'That, ladies and gentlemen,' said Mrs Jarley, 'is jasper

  Packlemerton of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen

  wives, and destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet

  when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and

  virtue. On being brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry

  for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let

  'em off so easy, and hoped all Christian husbands would pardon him

  the offence. Let this be a warning to all young ladies to be

  particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice.

  Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling,

  and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared when

  committing his barbarous murders.'

  When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without

  faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the

  thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of

  dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the

  woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and

  other historical characters and interesting but misguided

  individuals. And so well did Nell profit by her instructions, and

  so apt was she to remember them, that by the time they had been

  shut up together for a couple of hours, she was in full possession

  of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly competent

  to the enlightenment of visitors.

  Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy

  result, and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the

  remaining arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage

  had been already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with

  the inscription she had already seen (Mr Slum's productions), and

  a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley

  herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company

  with his Majesty King George the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary

  Queen of Scots, an anonymous gentleman of the Quaker persuasion,

  and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the bill for the

  imposition of the window duty. The preparations without doors had

  not been neglected either; a nun of great personal attractions was

  telling her beads on the little portico over the door; and a

  brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest

  possible complexion, was at that moment going round the town in a

  cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.

  It now only remained that Mr Slum's compositions should be

  Page 151

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  judiciously distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find

  their way to all private houses and tradespeople; and that the

  parody commencing 'If I know'd a donkey,' should be confined to the

  taverns, and circulated only among the lawyers' clerks and choice

  spirits of the place. When this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had

  waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill

  composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly proved that

  wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged the

  sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable lady sat down

  to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing

  campaign.

  CHAPTER 29

  Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of

  the various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition,

  little Nell was not forgotten. The light cart in which the Brigand

  usually made his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and

  streamers, and the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the

  miniature of his beloved as usual, Nell was accommodated with a

  seat beside him, decorated with artificial flowers, and in this

  state and ceremony rode slowly through the town every morning,

  dispersing handbills from a basket, to the sound of drum and

  trumpet. The beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and

  timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country

  place. The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest in

  the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be

  important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief

  attraction. Grown-up folks began to be interested in the

  bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in

  love, and constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed

  in small-text, at the wax-work door.

  This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest

  Nell should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone

  again, and kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the

  figures every half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring

  audiences. And these audiences were of a very superior

  description, including a great many young ladies' boarding-schools,

  whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at great pains to conciliate, by

  altering the face and costume of Mr Grimaldi as clown to represent

  Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when engaged in the composition of

  his English Grammar, and turning a murderess of great renown into

  Mrs Hannah More--both of which likenesses were admitted by Miss

  Monflathers, who was at the head of the head Boarding and Day

  Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private

  View with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from

  their extreme correctness. Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and

  without his boots, represented the poet Cowper with perfect

  exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, white

  shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord

  Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it. Miss

  Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to

  reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select:

  observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite

  incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a

  Dean and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.

  Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the

  lady of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not

  Page 152

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

&n
bsp; only a peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for

  making everybody about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it

  may be remarked, is, even in persons who live in much finer places

  than caravans, a far more rare and uncommon one than the first, and

  is not by any means its necessary consequence. As her popularity

  procured her various little fees from the visitors on which her

  patroness never demanded any toll, and as her grandfather too was

  well-treated and useful, she had no cause of anxiety in connexion

  with the wax-work, beyond that which sprung from her recollection

  of Quilp, and her fears that he might return and one day suddenly

  encounter them.

  Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was

  constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure.

  She slept, for their better security, in the room where the

  wax-work figures were, and she never retired to this place at night

  but she tortured herself--she could not help it--with imagining

  a resemblance, in some one or other of their death-like faces, to

  the dwarf, and this fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she

  would almost believe he had removed the figure and stood within the

  clothes. Then there were so many of them with their great glassy

  eyes--and, as they stood one behind the other all about her bed,

  they looked so like living creatures, and yet so unlike in their

  grim stillness and silence, that she had a kind of terror of them

  for their own sakes, and would often lie watching their dusky

  figures until she was obliged to rise and light a candle, or go and

  sit at the open window and feel a companionship in the bright

  stars. At these times, she would recall the old house and the

  window at which she used to sit alone; and then she would think of

  poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes,

  and she would weep and smile together.

  Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to

  her grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of

  their former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the

  change in their condition and of their late helplessness and

  destitution. When they were wandering about, she seldom thought of

  this, but now she could not help considering what would become of

  them if he fell sick, or her own strength were to fail her. He was

  very patient and willing, happy to execute any little task, and

  glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state, with no

  prospect of improvement--a mere child--a poor, thoughtless,

  vacant creature--a harmless fond old man, susceptible of tender

  love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions,

  but alive to nothing more. It made her very sad to know that this

  was so--so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat idly by,

  smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he

  caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was

  fond of doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple

  questions, yet patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost

  conscious of it too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant--

  so sad it made her to see him thus, that she would burst into

  tears, and, withdrawing into some secret place, fall down upon her

  knees and pray that he might be restored.

  But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this

  condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her

  solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials

  for a young heart. Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to

  come.

  One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather

  went out to walk. They had been rather closely confined for some

  days, and the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance.

  Page 153

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  Clear of the town, they took a footpath which struck through some

  pleasant fields, judging that it would terminate in the road they

  quitted and enable them to return that way. It made, however, a

  much wider circuit than they had supposed, and thus they were

  tempted onward until sunset, when they reached the track of which

  they were in search, and stopped to rest.

  It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark

  and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up

  masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed

  here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon

  the earth. The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun

  went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds

  coming up against it, menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops

  of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing

  onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over

  all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder,

  then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour

  seemed to have gathered in an instant.

  Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and

  the child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in

  which they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst

  forth in earnest, and every moment increased in violence. Drenched

  with the pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and

  bewildered by the glare of the forked lightning, they would have

  passed a solitary house without being aware of its vicinity, had

  not a man, who was standing at the door, called lustily to them to

  enter.

  'Your ears ought to be better than other folks' at any rate, if you

  make so little of the chance of being struck blind,' he said,

  retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the

  jagged lightning came again. 'What were you going past for, eh?'

  he added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to

  a room behind.

  'We didn't see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,' Nell

  replied.

  'No wonder,' said the man, 'with this lightning in one's eyes,

  by-the-by. You had better stand by the fire here, and dry

  yourselves a bit. You can call for what you like if you want

  anything. If you don't want anything, you are not obliged to give

  an order. Don't be afraid of that. This is a public-house, that's

  all. The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.'

  'Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?' asked Nell.

  'I thought everybody knew that,' replied the landlord. 'Where have

  you come from, if you don't know the Valiant Soldier as well as the

  church catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves--

  Jem Groves--honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral

  character, and has a good dry skittle-ground. If any man has got

  anything to say again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and

  Jem Groves can accommodate him with a customer on any terms from

  four pound a side to forty.

  With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to


  intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred

  scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at

  society in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and,

  applying a half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips,

  drank Jem Groves's health.

  Page 154

  Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop

  The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the

  room, for a barrier against the heat of the fire. It seemed as if

  somebody on the other side of this screen had been insinuating

  doubts of Mr Groves's prowess, and had thereby given rise to these

  egotistical expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by

  giving a loud knock upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a

  reply from the other side.

  'There an't many men,' said Mr Groves, no answer being returned,

  'who would ventur' to cross Jem Groves under his own roof. There's

  only one man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that

  man's not a hundred mile from here neither. But he's worth a dozen

  men, and I let him say of me whatever he likes in consequence--he

  knows that.'

  In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice

  bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.' And the same

  voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in

  brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was

  made of.'

  'Nell, they're--they're playing cards,' whispered the old man,

  suddenly interested. 'Don't you hear them?'

  'Look sharp with that candle,' said the voice; 'it's as much as I

  can do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter

  closed as quick as you can, will you? Your beer will be the worse

  for to-night's thunder I expect. --Game! Seven-and-sixpence to

  me, old Isaac. Hand over.'

  'Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?' whispered the old man again,

  with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.

  'I haven't seen such a storm as this,' said a sharp cracked voice

  of most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had

  died away, 'since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen

  times running on the red. We all said he had the Devil's luck and

  his own, and as it was the kind of night for the Devil to be out

  and busy, I suppose he was looking over his shoulder, if anybody