Newman, with a grim smile at this manoeuvre, beckoned the young lady to advance, and having placed a chair for her, retired; looking stealthily over his shoulder at Ralph as he limped slowly out.
‘Well,’ said Ralph, roughly enough; but still with something more of kindness in his manner than he would have exhibited towards anybody else. ‘Well, my—dear. What now?’
Kate raised her eyes, which were filled with tears; and with an effort to master her emotion strove to speak, but in vain. So drooping her head again, she remained silent. Her face was hidden from his view, but Ralph could see that she was weeping.
‘I can guess the cause of this!’ thought Ralph, after looking at her for some time in silence. ‘I can—I can—guess the cause. Well! Well!’ thought Ralph—for the moment quite disconcerted, as he watched the anguish of his beautiful niece. ‘Where is the harm? only a few tears; and it’s an excellent lesson for her, an excellent lesson.’
‘What is the matter?’ asked Ralph, drawing a chair opposite, and sitting down.
He was rather taken aback by the sudden firmness with which Kate looked up and answered him.
‘The matter which brings me to you, sir,’ she said, ‘is one which should call the blood up into your cheeks, and make you burn to hear, as it does me to tell. I have been wronged; my feelings have been outraged, insulted, wounded past all healing, and by your friends.’
‘Friends!’ cried Ralph, sternly. ‘I have no friends, girl.’
‘By the men I saw here, then,’ returned Kate, quickly. ‘If they were no friends of yours, and you knew what they were,—oh, the more shame on you, uncle, for bringing me among them. To have subjected me to what I was exposed to here, through any misplaced confidence or imperfect knowledge of your guests, would have required some strong excuse; but if you did it—as I now believe you did—knowing them well, it was most dastardly and cruel.’
Ralph drew back in utter amazement at this plain speaking, and regarded Kate with the sternest look. But she met his gaze proudly and firmly, and although her face was very pale, it looked more noble and handsome, lighted up as it was, than it had ever appeared before.
‘There is some of that boy’s blood in you, I see,’ said Ralph, speaking in his harshest tones, as something in the flashing eye reminded him of Nicholas at their last meeting.
‘I hope there is!’ replied Kate. ‘I should be proud to know it. I am young, uncle, and all the difficulties and miseries of my situation have kept it down, but I have been roused today beyond all endurance, and come what may, I will not, as I am your brother’s child, bear these insults longer.’
‘What insults, girl?’ demanded Ralph, sharply.
‘Remember what took place here, and ask yourself,’ replied Kate, colouring deeply. ‘Uncle, you must—I am sure you will—release me from such vile and degrading companionship as I am exposed to now. I do not mean,’ said Kate, hurrying to the old man, and laying her arm upon his shoulder; ‘I do not mean to be angry and violent—I beg your pardon if I have seemed so, dear uncle,—but you do not know what I have suffered, you do not indeed. You cannot tell what the heart of a young girl is—I have no right to expect you should; but when I tell you that I am wretched, and that my heart is breaking, I am sure you will help me. I am sure, I am sure you will!’
Ralph looked at her for an instant; then turned away his head, and beat his foot nervously upon the ground.
‘I have gone on day after day,’ said Kate, bending over him, and timidly placing her little hand in his, ‘in the hope that this persecution would cease; I have gone on day after day, compelled to assume the appearance of cheerfulness, when I was most unhappy. I have had no counsellor, no adviser, no one to protect me. Mama supposes that these are honourable men, rich and distinguished, and how can I—how can I undeceive her—when she is so happy in these little delusions, which are the only happiness she has? The lady with whom you placed me, is not the person to whom I could confide matters of so much delicacy, and I have come at last to you, the only friend I have at hand—almost the only friend I have at all—to entreat and implore you to assist me.’
‘How can I assist you, child?’ said Ralph, rising from his chair, and pacing up and down the room in his old attitude.
‘You have influence with one of these men, I know,’ rejoined Kate, emphatically. ‘Would not a word from you induce them to desist from this unmanly course?’
‘No,’ said Ralph, suddenly turning; ‘at least—that—I can’t say it, if it would.’
‘Can’t say it!’
‘No,’ said Ralph, coming to a dead stop, and clasping his hands more tightly behind him. ‘I can’t say it.’
Kate fell back a step or two, and looked at him, as if in doubt whether she had heard aright.
‘We are connected in business,’ said Ralph, poising himself alternately on his toes and heels, and looking coolly in his niece’s face, ‘in business, and I can’t afford to offend them. What is it after all? We have all our trials, and this is one of yours. Some girls would be proud to have such gallants at their feet.’
‘Proud!’ cried Kate.
‘I don’t say,’ rejoined Ralph, raising his forefinger, ‘but that you do right to despise them; no, you show your good sense in that, as indeed I knew from the first you would. Well. In all other respects you are comfortably bestowed. It’s not much to bear. If this young lord does dog your footsteps, and whisper his drivelling inanities in your ears, what of it? It’s a dishonourable passion. So be it; it won’t last long. Some other novelty will spring up one day, and you will be released. In the mean time—’
‘In the mean time,’ interrupted Kate, with becoming pride and indignation, ‘I am to be the scorn of my own sex, and the toy of the other; justly condemned by all women of right feeling, and despised by all honest and honourable men; sunken in my own esteem, and degraded in every eye that looks upon me. No, not if I work my fingers to the bone, not if I am driven to the roughest and hardest labour. Do not mistake me. I will not disgrace your recommendation. I will remain in the house in which it placed me, until I am entitled to leave it by the terms of my engagement; though, mind, I see these men no more. When I quit it, I will hide myself from them and you, and, striving to support my mother by hard service, I will live, at least, in peace, and trust in God to help me.’
With these words, she waved her hand, and quitted the room, leaving Ralph Nickleby motionless as a statue.
The surprise with which Kate, as she closed the room-door, beheld, close beside it, Newman Noggs standing bolt upright in a little niche in the wall like some scarecrow or Guy Faux laid up in winter quarters, almost occasioned her to call aloud. But, Newman laying his finger upon his lips, she had the presence of mind to refrain.
‘Don’t,’ said Newman, gliding out of his recess, and accompanying her across the hall. ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ Two very large tears, by-the-bye, were running down Newman’s face as he spoke.
‘I see how it is,’ said poor Noggs, drawing from his pocket what seemed to be a very old duster, and wiping Kate’s eyes with it, as gently as if she were an infant. ‘You’re giving way now. Yes, yes, very good; that’s right, I like that. It was right not to give way before him. Yes, yes! Ha, ha, ha! Oh, yes. Poor thing!’
With these disjointed exclamations, Newman wiped his own eyes with the afore-mentioned duster, and, limping to the street-door, opened it to let her out.
‘Don’t cry any more,’ whispered Newman. ‘I shall see you soon. Ha! ha! ha! And so shall somebody else too. Yes, yes. Ho! ho!’
‘God bless you,’ answered