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CHAPTER 47
Kit's mother and the single gentlemanóupon whose track it is expedient to follow with
hurried steps, lest this history should be chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence
of leaving its characters in situations of uncertainty and doubtóKit's mother and the
single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four whose departure from the Notary's door we
have already witnessed, soon left the town behind them, and struck fire from the flints
of the broad highway.
The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of her situation, and certain
material apprehensions that perhaps by this time little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had
fallen into the fire, or tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or had
scalded their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst at the spouts of tea-kettles,
preserved an uneasy silence; and meeting from the window the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers,
and others, felt in the new dignity of her position like a mourner at a funeral, who,
not being greatly afflicted by the loss of the departed, recognizes his every-day acquaintance
from the window of the mourning coach, but is constrained to preserve a decent solemnity,
and the appearance of being indifferent to all external objects.
To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single gentleman would have been tantamount
to being gifted with nerves of steel. Never did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a
restless gentleman as he. He never sat in the same position for two minutes together,
but was perpetually tossing his arms and legs about, pulling up the sashes and letting them
violently down, or thrusting his head out of one window to draw it in again and thrust
it out of another. He carried in his pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious and unknown
construction; and as sure as ever Kit's mother closed her eyes, so surelyówhisk, rattle,
fizzóthere was the single gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of fire, and letting
the sparks fall down among the straw as if there were no such thing as a possibility
of himself and Kit's mother being roasted alive before the boys could stop their horses.
Whenever they halted to change, there he wasóout of the carriage without letting down the steps,
bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling out his watch by lamp-light
and forgetting to look at it before he put it up again, and in short committing so many
extravagances that Kit's mother was quite afraid of him. Then, when the horses were
to, in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile, out came the watch and
the fire-box together, and Kit's mother as wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of
sleep for that stage.
'Are you comfortable?' the single gentleman would say after one of these exploits, turning
sharply round.
'Quite, Sir, thank you.'
'Are you sure? An't you cold?'
'It is a little chilly, Sir,' Kit's mother would reply.
'I knew it!' cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the front glasses. 'She wants
some brandy and water! Of course she does. How could I forget it? Hallo! Stop at the
next inn, and call out for a glass of hot brandy and water.'
It was in vain for Kit's mother to protest that she stood in need of nothing of the kind.
The single gentleman was inexorable; and whenever he had exhausted all other modes and fashions
of restlessness, it invariably occurred to him that Kit's mother wanted brandy and water.
In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they stopped to supper, for which meal
the single gentleman ordered everything eatable that the house contained; and because Kit's
mother didn't eat everything at once, and eat it all, he took it into his head that
she must be ill.
'You're faint,' said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself but walk about the
room. 'I see what's the matter with you, ma'am. You're faint.'
'Thank you, sir, I'm not indeed.'
'I know you are. I'm sure of it. I drag this poor woman from the *** of her family at
a minute's notice, and she goes on getting fainter and fainter before my eyes. I'm a
pretty fellow! How many children have you got, ma'am?'
'Two, sir, besides Kit.'
'Boys, ma'am?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Are they christened?'
'Only half baptised as yet, sir.'
'I'm godfather to both of 'em. Remember that, if you please, ma'am. You had better have
some mulled wine.'
'I couldn't touch a drop indeed, sir.'
'You must,' said the single gentleman. 'I see you want it. I ought to have thought of
it before.'
Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as impetuously as if it had
been wanted for instant use in the recovery of some person apparently drowned, the single
gentleman made Kit's mother swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature that the
tears ran down her face, and then hustled her off to the chaise again, whereónot impossibly
from the effects of this agreeable sedativeóshe soon became insensible to his restlessness,
and fell fast asleep. Nor were the happy effects of this prescription of a transitory nature,
as, notwithstanding that the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the
single gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad day, and they
were clattering over the pavement of a town.
'This is the place!' cried her companion, letting down all the glasses. 'Drive to the
wax-work!'
The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his horse, to the end that
they might go in brilliantly, all four broke into a smart canter, and dashed through the
streets with a noise that brought the good folks wondering to their doors and windows,
and drowned the sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out half-past eight. They drove
up to a door round which a crowd of persons were collected, and there stopped.
'What's this?' said the single gentleman thrusting out his head. 'Is anything the matter here?'
'A wedding Sir, a wedding!' cried several voices. 'Hurrah!'
The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre of this noisy throng,
alighted with the assistance of one of the postilions, and handed out Kit's mother, at
sight of whom the populace cried out, 'Here's another wedding!' and roared and leaped for
joy.
'The world has gone mad, I think,' said the single gentleman, pressing through the concourse
with his supposed bride. 'Stand back here, will you, and let me knock.'
Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. A score of dirty hands were raised
directly to knock for him, and seldom has a knocker of equal powers been made to produce
more deafening sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question. Having
rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little, preferring that
the single gentleman should bear their consequences alone.
'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at his button-hole, opening
the door, and confronting him with a very stoical aspect.
'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.
'I have.'
'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'
'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from top to toe.
'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's mother more tightly
through his own, for that good woman evidently had it in contemplation to run away. 'A right
you little dream of. Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minorótut,
tut, that can't be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call her Nell.
Where is she?'
As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody in a room near at
hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white dress came running to the
door, and supported herself upon the bridegroom's arm.
'Where is she!' cried this lady. 'What news have you brought me? What has become of her?'
The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs Jarley (that
morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum
the poet), with looks of conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length
he stammered out,
'I ask YOU where she is? What do you mean?'
'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any good, why weren't you here
a week ago?'
'She is notónot dead?' said the person to whom she addressed herself, turning very pale.
'No, not so bad as that.'
'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly. 'Let me come in.'
They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.
'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-married couple, 'one to whom
life itself is not dearer than the two persons whom I seek. They would not know me. My features
are strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with
you, and let them see her first, for her they both know. If you deny them from any mistaken
regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their
old humble friend.'
'I always said it!' cried the bride, 'I knew she was not a common child! Alas, sir! we
have no power to help you, for all that we could do, has been tried in vain.'
With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment, all that they knew of Nell
and her grandfather, from their first meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden
disappearance; adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible effort to
trace them, but without success; having been at first in great alarm for their safety,
as well as on account of the suspicions to which they themselves might one day be exposed
in consequence of their abrupt departure. They dwelt upon the old man's imbecility of
mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always testified when he was absent, upon the company
he had been supposed to keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually crept
over her and changed her both in health and spirits. Whether she had missed the old man
in the night, and knowing or conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in
pursuit, or whether they had left the house together, they had no means of determining.
Certain they considered it, that there was but slender prospect left of hearing of them
again, and that whether their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there
was now no hope of their return. To all this, the single gentleman listened with the air
of a man quite borne down by grief and disappointment. He shed tears when they spoke of the grandfather,
and appeared in deep affliction.
Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short work of a long story, let
it be briefly written that before the interview came to a close, the single gentleman deemed
he had sufficient evidence of having been told the truth, and that he endeavoured to
force upon the bride and bridegroom an acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child,
which, however, they steadily declined accepting. In the end, the happy couple jolted away in
the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a country excursion; and the single gentleman
and Kit's mother stood ruefully before their carriage-door.
'Where shall we drive you, sir?' said the post-boy.
'You may drive me,' said the single gentleman, 'to theó' He was not going to add 'inn,'
but he added it for the sake of Kit's mother; and to the inn they went.
Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to show the wax-work, was the
child of great people who had been stolen from her parents in infancy, and had only
just been traced. Opinion was divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a duke,
an earl, a viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main fact, and that the single gentleman
was her father; and all bent forward to catch a glimpse, though it were only of the tip
of his noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.
What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been saved if he had only
known, that at that moment both child and grandfather were seated in the old church
porch, patiently awaiting the schoolmaster's return!