‘Beyond putting a very excellent client out of humour, Miss Nickleby has not done anything very remarkable today—that I am aware of, at least,’ said Madame Mantalini in reply.
‘Oh, dear!’ said Miss Knag; ‘but you must allow a great deal for inexperience, you know.’
‘And youth?’ inquired Madame.
‘Oh, I say nothing about that, Madame Mantalini,’ replied Miss Knag, reddening; ‘because if youth were any excuse, you wouldn’t have—’
‘Quite so good a forewoman as I have, I suppose,’ suggested Madame.
‘Well, I never did know anybody like you, Madame Mantalini,’ rejoined Miss Knag most complacently, ‘and that’s the fact, for you know what one’s going to say, before it has time to rise to one’s lips. Oh, very good! Ha, ha, ha!’
‘For myself,’ observed Madame Mantalini, glancing with affected carelessness at her assistant, and laughing heartily in her sleeve, ‘I consider Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl I ever saw in my life.’
‘Poor dear thing,’ said Miss Knag, ‘it’s not her fault. If it was, we might hope to cure it; but as it’s her misfortune, Madame Mantalini, why really you know, as the man said about the blind horse, we ought to respect it.’
‘Her uncle told me she had been considered pretty,’ remarked Madame Mantalini. ‘I think her one of the most ordinary girls I ever met with.’
‘Ordinary!’ cried Miss Knag with a countenance beaming delight; ‘and awkward! Well, all I can say is, Madame Mantalini, that I quite love the poor girl; and that if she was twice as indifferent-looking, and twice as awkward as she is, I should be only so much the more her friend, and that’s the truth of it.’
In fact, Miss Knag had conceived an incipient affection for Kate Nickleby, after witnessing her failure that morning, and this short conversation with her superior increased the favourable prepossession to a most surprising extent; which was the more remarkable, as when she first scanned that young lady’s face and figure, she had entertained certain inward misgivings that they would never agree.
‘But now,’ said Miss Knag, glancing at the reflection of herself in a mirror at no great distance, ‘I love her—I quite love her—I declare I do!’
Of such a highly disinterested quality was this devoted friendship, and so superior was it to the little weaknesses of flattery or ill-nature, that the kind-hearted Miss Knag candidly informed Kate Nickleby, next day, that she saw she would never do for the business, but that she need not give herself the slightest uneasiness on this account, for that she (Miss Knag), by increased exertions on her own part, would keep her as much as possible in the background, and that all she would have to do, would be to remain perfectly quiet before company, and to shrink from attracting notice by every means in her power. This last suggestion was so much in accordance with the timid girl’s own feelings and wishes, that she readily promised implicit reliance on the excellent spinster’s advice: without questioning, or indeed bestowing a moment’s reflection upon, the motives that dictated it.
‘I take quite a lively interest in you, my dear soul, upon my word,’ said Miss Knag; ‘a sister’s interest, actually. It’s the most singular circumstance I ever knew.’
Undoubtedly it was singular, that if Miss Knag did feel a strong interest in Kate Nickleby, it should not rather have been the interest of a maiden aunt or grandmother; that being the conclusion to which the difference in their respective ages would have naturally tended. But Miss Knag wore clothes of a very youthful pattern, and perhaps her feelings took the same shape.
‘Bless you!’ said Miss Knag, bestowing a kiss upon Kate at the conclusion of the second day’s work, ‘how very awkward you have been all day.’
‘I fear your kind and open communication, which has rendered me more painfully conscious of my own defects, has not improved me,’ sighed Kate.
‘No, no, I dare say not,’ rejoined Miss Knag, in a most uncommon flow of good humour. ‘But how much better that you should know it at first, and so be able to go on, straight and comfortable! Which way are you walking, my love?’
‘Towards the city,’ replied Kate.
‘The city!’ cried Miss Knag, regarding herself with great favour in the glass as she tied her bonnet. ‘Goodness gracious me! now do you really live in the city?’
‘Is it so very unusual for anybody to live there?’ asked Kate, half smiling.
‘I couldn’t have believed it possible that any young woman could have lived there, under any circumstances whatever, for three days together,’ replied Miss Knag.
‘Reduced—I should say poor people,’ answered Kate, correcting herself hastily, for she was afraid of appearing proud, ‘must live where they can.’
‘Ah! very true, so they must; very proper indeed!’ rejoined Miss Knag with that sort of half-sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society; ‘and that’s what I very often tell my brother, when our servants go away ill, one after another, and he thinks the back-kitchen’s rather too damp for ‘em to sleep in. These sort of people, I tell him, are glad to sleep anywhere! Heaven suits the back to the burden. What a nice thing it is to think that it should be so, isn’t it?’
‘Very,’ replied Kate.
‘I’ll walk with you part of the way, my dear,’ said Miss Knag, ‘for you must go very near our house; and as it’s quite dark, and our last servant went to the hospital a week ago, with St Anthony’s fire in her face, I shall be glad of your company.’
Kate would willingly have excused herself from this flattering companionship; but Miss Knag having adjusted her bonnet to her entire satisfaction, took her arm with an air which plainly showed how much she felt the compliment she was conferring, and they were in the street before she could say another word.
‘I fear,’ said Kate, hesitating, ‘that mama—my mother, I mean—is waiting for me.’
‘You needn’t make the least apology, my dear,’ said Miss Knag, smiling sweetly as she spoke; ‘I dare say she is a very respectable old person, and I shall be quite—hem—quite pleased to know her.’
As poor Mrs. Nickleby was cooling—not her heels alone, but her limbs generally at the street corner, Kate had no alternative but to make her known to Miss Knag, who, doing the last new carriage customer at second-hand, acknowledged the introduction with condescending politeness. The three then walked away, arm in arm: with Miss Knag in the middle, in a special state of amiability.
‘I have taken such a fancy to your daughter, Mrs. Nickleby, you can’t think,’ said Miss Knag, after she had proceeded a little distance in dignified silence.
‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said Mrs. Nickleby; ‘though it is nothing new to me, that even strangers should like Kate.’
‘Hem!’ cried Miss Knag.
‘You will like her better when you know how good she is,’ said Mrs Nickleby. ‘It is a great blessing to me, in my misfortunes, to have a child, who knows neither pride nor vanity, and whose bringing-up might very well have excused a little of both at first. You don’t