第216章

`Well, I will say,' observed Mrs Nickleby, as she took her seat, `that there never was such a good creature as Smike. Upon my word, the pains he has taken in putting this little arbour to rights, and training the sweetest flowers about it, are beyond anything I could have--I wish he wouldn't put all the gravel on your side, Kate, my dear, though, and leave nothing but mould for me.'

`Dear mamma,' returned Kate, hastily, `take this seat--do--to oblige me, mamma.'

`No, indeed, my dear. I shall keep my own side,' said Mrs Nickleby.

`Well! I declare!'

Kate looked up inquiringly.

`If he hasn't been,' said Mrs Nickleby, `and got, from somewhere orother, a couple of roots of those flowers that I said I was so fond of, the other night, and asked you if you were not--no, that you said you were so fond of, the other night, and asked me if I wasn't--it's the same thing. Now, upon my word, I take that as very kind and attentive indeed!

I don't see,' added Mrs Nickleby, looking narrowly about her, `any of them on my side, but I suppose they grow best near the gravel. You may depend upon it they do, Kate, and that's the reason they are all near you, and he has put the gravel there, because it's the sunny side. Upon my word, that's very clever now! I shouldn't have had half as much thought myself!'

`Mamma,' said Kate, bending over her work so that her face was almost hidden, `before you were married--'

`Dear me, Kate,' interrupted Mrs Nickleby, `what in the name of goodness graciousness makes you fly off to the time before I was married, when I'm talking to you about his thoughtfulness and attention to me? You don't seem to take the smallest interest in the garden.'

`Oh! mamma,' said Kate, raising her face again, `you know I do.'

`Well then, my dear, why don't you praise the neatness and prettiness with which it's kept?' said Mrs Nickleby. `How very odd you are, Kate!'

`I do praise it, mamma,' answered Kate, gently. `Poor fellow!'

`I scarcely ever hear you, my dear,' retorted Mrs Nickleby; `that's all I've got to say.' By this time the good lady had been a long while upon one topic, so she fell at once into her daughter's little trap--if trap it were--and inquired what she had been going to say.

`About what, mamma?' said Kate, who had apparently quite forgotten her diversion.

`Lor, Kate, my dear,' returned her mother, `why, you're asleep or stupid!

About the time before I was married.'

`Oh yes!' said Kate, `I remember. I was going to ask, mamma, before you were married, had you many suitors?'

`Suitors, my dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, with a smile of wonderful complacency.

`First and last, Kate, I must have had a dozen at least.'

`Mamma!' returned Kate, in a tone of remonstrance.

`I had indeed, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby; `not including your poor papa, or a young gentleman who used to go, at that time, to the same dancing school, and who would send gold watches and bracelets to our house in gilt-edged paper, (which were always returned,) and who afterwards unfortunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet ship--a convict ship I mean--and escaped into a bush and killed sheep, (I don't know how they got there,) and was going to be hung, only he accidentally choked himself, and the government pardoned him. Then there was young Lukin,' said Mrs Nickleby, beginning with her left thumb and checking off the names on her fingers--Mogley--Tipslark--Cabbery--Smifser--'

Having now reached her little finger, Mrs Nickleby was carrying the account over to the other hand, when a loud `Hem!' which appeared to come from the very foundation of the garden-wall, gave both herself and her daughter a violent start.

`Mamma! what was that?' said Kate, in a low tone of voice.

`Upon my word, my dear,' returned Mrs Nickleby, considerably startled, `unless it was the gentleman belonging to the next house, I don't know what it could possibly--'

`A--hem!' cried the same voice; and that, not in the tone of an ordinary clearing of the throat, but in a kind of bellow, which woke up all the echoes in the neighbourhood, and was prolonged to an extent which must have made the unseen bellower quite black in the face.

`I understand it now, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, laying her hand on Kate's; `don't be alarmed, my love, it's not directed to you, and is not intended to frighten anybody. Let us give everybody their due, Kate; Iam bound to say that.'

So saying, Mrs Nickleby nodded her head, and patted the back of her daughter's hand, a great many times, and looked as if she could tell something vastly important if she chose, but had self-denial, thank Heaven; and wouldn't do it.

`What do you mean, mamma?' demanded Kate, in evident surprise.

`Don't be flurried, my dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby, looking towards the garden-wall, `for you see I 'm not, and if it would be excusable in anybody to be flurried, it certainly would--under all the circumstances--be excusable in me, but I am not, Kate--not at all.'

`It seems designed to attract our attention, mamma,' said Kate.

`It is designed to attract our attention, my dear--at least,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby, drawing herself up, and patting her daughter's hand more blandly than before, `to attract the attention of one of us. Hem! you needn't be at all uneasy, my dear.'

Kate looked very much perplexed, and was apparently about to ask for further explanation, when a shouting and scuffling noise, as of an elderly gentleman whooping, and kicking up his legs on loose gravel, with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as the former sounds;and before they had subsided, a large cucumber was seen to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket, whence it descended, tumbling over and over, until it fell at Mrs Nickleby's feet.