Mr. Nickleby glanced at these frivolities with great contempt, and gave a double knock, which, having been thrice repeated, was answered by a servant girl with an uncommonly dirty face.
‘Is Mrs. Nickleby at home, girl?’ demanded Ralph sharply.
‘Her name ain’t Nickleby,’ said the girl, ‘La Creevy, you mean.’
Mr. Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on being thus corrected, and demanded with much asperity what she meant; which she was about to state, when a female voice proceeding from a perpendicular staircase at the end of the passage, inquired who was wanted.
‘Mrs. Nickleby,’ said Ralph.
‘It’s the second floor, Hannah,’ said the same voice; ‘what a stupid thing you are! Is the second floor at home?’
‘Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic which had been a cleaning of himself,’ replied the girl.
‘You had better see,’ said the invisible female. ‘Show the gentleman where the bell is, and tell him he mustn’t knock double knocks for the second floor; I can’t allow a knock except when the bell’s broke, and then it must be two single ones.’
‘Here,’ said Ralph, walking in without more parley, ‘I beg your pardon; is that Mrs. La what’s-her-name?’
‘Creevy – La Creevy,’ replied the voice, as a yellow headdress bobbed over the banisters.
‘I’ll speak to you a moment, ma’am, with your leave,’ said Ralph.
The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had walked up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was received by the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had a gown to correspond, and was of much the same colour herself. Miss La Creevy was a mincing young lady of fifty, and Miss La Creevy’s apartment was the gilt frame downstairs on a larger scale and something dirtier.
‘Hem!’ said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black silk mitten. ‘A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-marked countenance for the purpose, sir. Have you ever sat before?’
‘You mistake my purpose, I see, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, in his usual blunt fashion. ‘I have no money to throw away on miniatures, ma’am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had. Seeing you on the stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers here.’
Miss La Creevy coughed once more – this cough was to conceal her disappointment – and said, ‘Oh, indeed!’
‘I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above belongs to you, ma’am,’ said Mr. Nickleby.
Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the house belonged to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor rooms just then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, there was a lady from the country and her two children in them, at that present speaking.
‘A widow, ma’am?’ said Ralph.
‘Yes, she is a widow,’ replied the lady.
‘A poor widow, ma’am,’ said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that little adjective which conveys so much.
‘Well, I’m afraid she is poor,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy.
‘I happen to know that she is, ma’am,’ said Ralph. ‘Now, what business has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma’am?’
‘Very true,’ replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased with this implied compliment to the apartments. ‘Exceedingly true.’
‘I know her circumstances intimately, ma’am,’ said Ralph; ‘in fact, I am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you not to keep them here, ma’am.’
‘I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet the pecuniary obligations,’ said Miss La Creevy with another cough, ‘that the lady’s family would – ’
‘No they wouldn’t, ma’am,’ interrupted Ralph, hastily. ‘Don’t think it.’
‘If I am to understand that,’ said Miss La Creevy, ‘the case wears a very different appearance.’
‘You may understand it then, ma’am,’ said Ralph, ‘and make your arrangements accordingly. I am the family, ma’am – at least, I believe I am the only relation they have, and I think it right that you should know I can’t support them in their extravagances. How long have they taken these lodgings for?’
‘Only from week to week,’ replied Miss La Creevy. ‘Mrs. Nickleby paid the first week in advance.’
‘Then you had better get them out at the end of it,’ said Ralph. ‘They can’t do better than go back to the country, ma’am; they are in everybody’s way here.’
‘Certainly,’ said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands, ‘if Mrs. Nickleby took the apartments without the means of paying for them, it was very unbecoming a lady.’
‘Of course it was, ma’am,’ said Ralph.
‘And naturally,’ continued Miss La Creevy, ‘I who am, at present– hem – an unprotected female, cannot afford to lose by the apartments.’
‘Of course you can’t, ma’am,’ replied Ralph.
‘Though at the same time,’ added Miss La Creevy, who was plainly wavering between her good-nature and her interest, ‘I have nothing whatever to say against the lady, who is extremely pleasant and affable, though, poor thing, she seems terribly low in her spirits; nor against the young people either, for nicer, or better-behaved young people cannot be.’
‘Very well, ma’am,’ said Ralph, turning to the door, for these encomiums on poverty irritated him; ‘I have done my duty, and perhaps more than I ought: of course nobody will thank me for saying what I have.’
‘I am sure I am very much obliged to you at least, sir,’ said Miss La Creevy in a gracious manner. ‘Would you do me the favour to look at a few specimens of my portrait painting?’
‘You’re very good, ma’am,’ said Mr. Nickleby, making off with great speed; ‘but as I have a visit to pay upstairs, and my time is precious, I really can’t.’
‘At any other time when you are passing, I shall be most happy,’ said Miss La Creevy. ‘Perhaps you will have the kindness to take a card of terms with you? Thank you – good-morning!’
‘Good-morning, ma’am,’ said Ralph, shutting the door abruptly after him to prevent any further conversation. ‘Now for my sister-in-law. Bah!’
Climbing up another perpendicular flight, composed with great mechanical ingenuity of nothing but corner stairs, Mr. Ralph Nickleby stopped to take breath on the landing, when he was overtaken by the handmaid, whom the politeness of Miss La Creevy had dispatched to announce him, and who had apparently been making a variety of unsuccessful attempts, since their last interview, to wipe her dirty face clean, upon an apron much dirtier.
‘What name?’ said the girl.
‘Nickleby,’ replied Ralph.
‘Oh! Mrs. Nickleby,’ said the girl, throwing open the door, ‘here’s Mr Nickleby.’
A lady in deep mourning rose as Mr. Ralph Nickleby entered, but appeared incapable of advancing to meet him, and leant upon the arm of a slight