lady went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and
unreasonable with such a wife, then--
'If he is!' interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and
brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn
declaration. 'If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she
daren't call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and
even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn't the spirit
to give him a word back, no, not a single word.'
Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all
the tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every
tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this
official communication was no sooner made than they all began to
talk at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility.
Mrs George remarked that people would talk, that people had often
said this to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had
told her so twenty times, that she had always said, 'No, Henrietta
Simmons, unless I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own
ears, I never will believe it.' Mrs Simmons corroborated this
testimony and added strong evidence of her own. The lady from the
Minories recounted a successful course of treatment under which she
had placed her own husband, who, from manifesting one month after
marriage unequivocal symptoms of the tiger, had by this means
become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another lady recounted her
own personal struggle and final triumph, in the course whereof she
had found it necessary to call in her mother and two aunts, and to
weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third, who in the
general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened herself
upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst
them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and
happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the
weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole
thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The
noise was at its height, and half the company had elevated their
voices into a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other
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Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
half, when Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her
forefinger stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not
until then, Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this
clamour, was observed to be in the room, looking on and listening
with profound attention.
'Go on, ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies
to stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light
and palatable.'
'I--I--didn't ask them to tea, Quilp,' stammered his wife. It's quite an
accident.'
'So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always
the pleasantest,' said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he
seemed to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they
were encrusted, little charges for popguns. 'What! Not going, ladies,
you are not going, surely!'
His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their
respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs
Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a
faint struggle to sustain the character.
'And why not stop to supper, Quilp,' said the old lady, 'if my
daughter had a mind?'
'To be sure,' rejoined Daniel. 'Why not?'
'There's nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?' said Mrs
Jiniwin.
'Surely not,' returned the dwarf. 'Why should there be? Nor
anything unwholesome, either, unless there's lobster-salad or
prawns, which I'm told are not good for digestion.'
'And you wouldn't like your wife to be attacked with that, or
anything else that would make her uneasy would you?' said Mrs
Jiniwin.
'Not for a score of worlds,' replied the dwarf with a grin. 'Not even
to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time--and what a
blessing that would be!'
with a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be
reminded of the fact; 'your wedded wife.'
'So she is, certainly. So she is,' observed the dwarf.
'And she has has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,' said the
old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of
her impish son-in-law.
'Hope she has!' he replied. 'Oh! Don't you know she has? Don't you
know she has, Mrs Jiniwin?
'I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my
way of thiniking.'
'Why an't you of your mother's way of thinking, my dear?' said the
dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, 'why don't you always
imitate your mother, my dear? She's the ornament of her sex--your
father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.'
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Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
'Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty
thousand of some people,' said Mrs Jiniwin; 'twenty hundred million
thousand.'
'I should like to have known him,' remarked the dwarf. 'I dare say
he was a blessed creature then; but I'm sure he is now. It was a
happy release. I believe he had suffered a long time?'
The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed,
with the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on
his tongue.
'You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself
too much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go
to bed.'
'I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.'
'But please to do now. Do please to go now,' said the dwarf.
The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced,
and falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her
and bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding
downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a
corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted
himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a
long time without speaking.
'Mrs Quilp,' he said at last.
'Yes, Quilp,' she replead meekly.
Instead of pursing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his
arms again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she
averted her eyes and kept them on the ground.
'Mrs Quilp.'
'Yes, Quilp.'
'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'
With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave
him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade
her clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set
before him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of
some ship's locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his lar
ge
head and face squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted
on the table.
'Now, Mrs Quilp,' he said; 'I feel in a smoking humour, and shall
probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please,
in case I want you.'
His wife returned no other reply than the necessary 'Yes, Quilp,' and
the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first
glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the
Tower turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to
black, the room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a
deep fiery red, but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in
the same position, and staring listlessly out of window with the
doglike smile always on his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some
involuntary movement of restlessness or fatigue; and then it
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Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
expanded into a grin of delight.
CHAPTER 5
Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a
time, or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long,
certain it is that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one
from the ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring
the assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour
after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any
natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness,
which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the
night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his
shoulders, like one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and
by stealth.
At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of
early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was
discovered sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals
in mute appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and
gently reminding him by an occasion cough that she was still
unpardoned and that her penance had been of long duration. But her
dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank his rum without
heeding her; and it was not until the sun had some time risen, and
the activity and noise of city day were rife in the street, that he
deigned to recognize her presence by any word or sign. He might not
have done so even then, but for certain impatient tapping at the door
he seemed to denote that some pretty hard knuckles were actively
engaged upon the other side.
'Why dear me!' he said looking round with a malicious grin, 'it's
day. Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!'
His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.
Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity;
for, supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to
relieve her feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general
conduct and character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that
the room appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on
the previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.
Nothing escaped the hawk's eye of the ugly little man, who,
perfectly understanding what passed in the old lady's mind, turned
uglier still in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good
morning, with a leer or triumph.
'Why, Betsy,' said the old woman, 'you haven't been--you don't
mean to say you've been a--'
'Sitting up all night?' said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the
sentence. 'Yes she has!'
'All night?' cried Mrs Jiniwin.
'Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?' said Quilp, with a smile of
which a frown was part. 'Who says man and wife are bad company?
Ha ha! The time has flown.'
'You're a brute!' exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.
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Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
'Come come,' said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course,
'you mustn't call her names. She's married now, you know. And
though she did beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must
not be so tenderly careful of me as to be out of humour with her.
Bless you for a dear old lady. Here's to your health!'
'I am much obliged to you,' returned the old woman, testifying by a
certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her
matronly fist at her son-in-law. 'Oh! I'm very much obliged to you!'
'Grateful soul!' cried the dwarf. 'Mrs Quilp.'
'Yes, Quilp,' said the timid sufferer.
'Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the
wharf this morning--the earlier the better, so be quick.'
Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down
in a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute
determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her
daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt
faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next
apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied
herself to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.
While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining
room, and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his
countenance with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance,
which made his complexion rather more cloudy than it was before.
But, while he was thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did
not forsake him, for with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he
often stopped, even in this short process, and stood listening for any
conversation in the next room, of which he might be the theme.
'Ah!' he said after a short effort of attention, 'it was not the towel
over my ears, I thought it wasn't. I'm a little hunchy villain and a
monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!'
The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full
force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very
doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.
Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was
standing there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin
happening to be behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt
to shake her fist at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an
instant, but as she did so and accompanied the action with a
menacing look, she met his eye in the glass, catching her in the very
act. The same glance at the mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a
horribly grotesque and distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and
the next instant the dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and
placid look, inquired in a tone of great affection.
'How are you now, my dear old darling?'
Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a
little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old
woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and
suffered herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the
breakfast-table. Here he by no means diminished the impression he
had
just produced, for he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured
gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and
water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness,
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Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they
bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and
uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their
wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature. At last,
having gone through these proceedings and many others which were
equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them, reduced to a very
obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the river-side,
where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed his
name.
It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to
cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on,
some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a wrong-headed,
dogged, obstinate
way, bumping up against the larger craft,
running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of
nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on
all sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long
sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some
lumbering fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands
were busily engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry,
taking in or discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible
but two or three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to
and fro upon the deck or scrambling up to look over the side and
bark the louder for the view. Coming slowly on through the forests
of masts was a great steamship, beating the water in short impatient
strokes with her heavy paddles as though she wanted room to
breathe, and advancing in her huge bulk like a sea monster among
the minnows of the Thames. On either hand were long black tiers of
colliers; between them vessels slowly working out of harbour with
sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on board, re-echoed
from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was in active
motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old grey
Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire
shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their