The Old Curiosity Shop. Чарльз ДиккенсЧитать онлайн книгу.
circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he cherished it.
‘Fred!’ said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been productive of no effect. ‘Pass the rosy.’
Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly roused.
‘I’ll give you, Fred,’ said his friend, stirring the mixture, ‘a little sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here’s May the – ’
‘Pshaw!’ interposed the other. ‘You worry me to death with your chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.’
‘Why, Mr Trent,’ returned Dick, ‘there is a proverb which talks about being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can’t be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can’t be merry. I’m one of the first sort. If the proverb’s a good ‘un, I suppose it’s better to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I’d rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one nor t’other.’
‘Bah!’ muttered his friend, peevishly.
‘With all my heart,’ said Mr Swiveller. ‘In the polite circles I believe this sort of thing isn’t usually said to a gentleman in his own apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,’ adding to this retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be rather ‘cranky’ in point of temper, Richard Swiveller finished the rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an imaginary company.
‘Gentlemen, I’ll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular – Mr Richard, gentlemen,’ said Dick with great emphasis, ‘who spends all his money on his friends and is Bah!’d for his pains. Hear, hear!’
‘Dick!’ said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the room twice or thrice, ‘will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?’
‘You’ve shown me so many,’ returned Dick; ‘and nothing has come of any one of ‘em but empty pockets – ’
‘You’ll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is over,’ said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. ‘You saw my sister Nell?’
‘What about her?’ returned Dick.
‘She has a pretty face, has she not?’
‘Why, certainly,’ replied Dick. ‘I must say for her that there’s not any very strong family likeness between her and you.’
‘Has she a pretty face,’ repeated his friend impatiently.
‘Yes,’ said Dick, ‘she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of that?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ returned his friend. ‘It’s very plain that the old man and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?’
‘A bat might see that, with the sun shining,’ said Dick.
‘It’s equally plain that the money which the old flint – rot him – first taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all be hers, is it not?’
‘I should said it was,’ replied Dick; ‘unless the way in which I put the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was powerful, Fred. ‘Here is a jolly old grandfather’ – that was strong, I thought – very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?’
‘It didn’t strike him,’ returned the other, ‘so we needn’t discuss it. Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.’
‘Fine girl of her age, but small,’ observed Richard Swiveller parenthetically.
‘If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,’ returned Trent, fretting at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation. ‘Now I’m coming to the point.’
‘That’s right,’ said Dick.
‘The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may, at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme would take a week to tell) what’s to prevent your marrying her?’
Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the monosyllable:
‘What!’
‘I say, what’s to prevent,’ repeated the other with a steadiness of manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured by long experience, ‘what’s to prevent your marrying her?’
‘And she “nearly fourteen”!’ cried Dick.
‘I don’t mean marrying her now’ – returned the brother angrily; ‘say in two year’s time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a long-liver?’
‘He don’t look like it,’ said Dick shaking his head, ‘but these old people – there’s no trusting them, Fred. There’s an aunt of mine down in Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years old, and hasn’t kept her word yet. They’re so aggravating, so unprincipled, so spiteful – unless there’s apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can’t calculate upon ‘em, and even then they deceive you just as often as not.’
‘Look at the worst side of the question then,’ said Trent as steadily as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. ‘Suppose he lives.’
‘To be sure,’ said Dick. ‘There’s the rub.’
‘I say,’ resumed his friend, ‘suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with you. What do you think would come of that?’
‘A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep ‘em on,’ said Richard Swiveller after some reflection.
‘I tell you,’ returned the other with an increased earnestness, which, whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion, ‘that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do it. You or any other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he chooses.’
‘It seems improbable certainly,’ said Dick, musing.
‘It seems improbable because it is improbable,’ his friend returned. ‘If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you, let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between you and me – let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of course – and he’ll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks, that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a beautiful young wife.’
‘I suppose there’s no doubt about his being rich’ – said Dick.
‘Doubt! Did you hear what he let fall the other day when we were there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?’
It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity, interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition stepped in and still weighed down the scale