Chapter 55

CHAPTER 55

Of Family Matters, Cares, Hopes, Disappointments, and Sorrows

Although Mrs Nickleby had been made acquainted by her son and
daughter with every circumstance of Madeline Bray's history which
was known to them; although the responsible situation in which
Nicholas stood had been carefully explained to her, and she had been
prepared, even for the possible contingency of having to receive the
young lady in her own house, improbable as such a result had
appeared only a few minutes before it came about, still, Mrs
Nickleby, from the moment when this confidence was first reposed in
her, late on the previous evening, had remained in an unsatisfactory
and profoundly mystified state, from which no explanations or
arguments could relieve her, and which every fresh soliloquy and
reflection only aggravated more and more.

'Bless my heart, Kate!' so the good lady argued; 'if the Mr
Cheerybles don't want this young lady to be married, why don't they
file a bill against the Lord Chancellor, make her a Chancery ward,
and shut her up in the Fleet prison for safety?--I have read of such
things in the newspapers a hundred times. Or, if they are so very
fond of her as Nicholas says they are, why don't they marry her
themselves--one of them I mean? And even supposing they don't want
her to be married, and don't want to marry her themselves, why in
the name of wonder should Nicholas go about the world, forbidding
people's banns?'

'I don't think you quite understand,' said Kate, gently.

'Well I am sure, Kate, my dear, you're very polite!' replied Mrs
Nickleby. 'I have been married myself I hope, and I have seen other
people married. Not understand, indeed!'

'I know you have had great experience, dear mama,' said Kate; 'I
mean that perhaps you don't quite understand all the circumstances
in this instance. We have stated them awkwardly, I dare say.'

'That I dare say you have,' retorted her mother, briskly. 'That's
very likely. I am not to be held accountable for that; though, at
the same time, as the circumstances speak for themselves, I shall
take the liberty, my love, of saying that I do understand them, and
perfectly well too; whatever you and Nicholas may choose to think to
the contrary. Why is such a great fuss made because this Miss
Magdalen is going to marry somebody who is older than herself? Your
poor papa was older than I was, four years and a half older. Jane
Dibabs--the Dibabses lived in the beautiful little thatched white
house one story high, covered all over with ivy and creeping plants,
with an exquisite little porch with twining honysuckles and all
sorts of things: where the earwigs used to fall into one's tea on a
summer evening, and always fell upon their