Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Mrs Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs Pyke and Pluck, whose
Affection and Interest are beyond all Bounds

Mrs Nickleby had not felt so proud and important for many a day, as
when, on reaching home, she gave herself wholly up to the pleasant
visions which had accompanied her on her way thither. Lady Mulberry
Hawk--that was the prevalent idea. Lady Mulberry Hawk!--On Tuesday
last, at St George's, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the
Bishop of Llandaff, Sir Mulberry Hawk, of Mulberry Castle, North
Wales, to Catherine, only daughter of the late Nicholas Nickleby,
Esquire, of Devonshire. 'Upon my word!' cried Mrs Nicholas
Nickleby, 'it sounds very well.'

Having dispatched the ceremony, with its attendant festivities, to
the perfect satisfaction of her own mind, the sanguine mother
pictured to her imagination a long train of honours and distinctions
which could not fail to accompany Kate in her new and brilliant
sphere. She would be presented at court, of course. On the
anniversary of her birthday, which was upon the nineteenth of July
('at ten minutes past three o'clock in the morning,' thought Mrs
Nickleby in a parenthesis, 'for I recollect asking what o'clock it
was'), Sir Mulberry would give a great feast to all his tenants, and
would return them three and a half per cent on the amount of their
last half-year's rent, as would be fully described and recorded in
the fashionable intelligence, to the immeasurable delight and
admiration of all the readers thereof. Kate's picture, too, would
be in at least half-a-dozen of the annuals, and on the opposite page
would appear, in delicate type, 'Lines on contemplating the Portrait
of Lady Mulberry Hawk. By Sir Dingleby Dabber.' Perhaps some one
annual, of more comprehensive design than its fellows, might even
contain a portrait of the mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with lines
by the father of Sir Dingleby Dabber. More unlikely things had come
to pass. Less interesting portraits had appeared. As this thought
occurred to the good lady, her countenance unconsciously assumed
that compound expression of simpering and sleepiness which, being
common to all such portraits, is perhaps one reason why they are
always so charming and agreeable.

With such triumphs of aerial architecture did Mrs Nickleby occupy
the whole evening after her accidental introduction to Ralph's
titled friends; and dreams, no less prophetic and equally promising,
haunted her sleep that night. She was preparing for her frugal
dinner next day, still occupied with the same ideas--a little
softened down perhaps by sleep and daylight--when the girl who
attended her, partly for company, and partly to assist in the
household affairs, rushed into the room in