Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit
Page 29
Five weeks! Of all the twenty or thirty answers, not one had come. His money—even the additional stock he had raised from the disposal of his spare clothes (and that was not much, for clothes, though dear to buy, are cheap to pawn)—was fast diminishing. Yet what could he do? At times an agony came over him in which he darted forth again, though he was but newly home, and, returning to some place where he had been already twenty times, made some new attempt to gain his end, but always unsuccessfully. He was years and years too old for a cabin-boy, and years upon years too inexperienced to be accepted as a common seaman. His dress and manner, too, militated fatally against any such proposal as the latter; and yet he was reduced to making it; for even if he could have contemplated the being set down in America totally without money, he had not enough left now for a steerage passage and the poorest provisions upon the voyage.
It is an illustration of a very common tendency in the mind of man, that all this time he never once doubted, one may almost say the certainty of doing great things in the New World, if he could only get there. In proportion as he became more and more dejected by his present circumstances, and the means of gaining America receded from his grasp, the more he fretted himself with the conviction that that was the only place in which he could hope to achieve any high end, and worried his brain with the thought that men going there in the meanwhile might anticipate him in the attainment of those objects which were dearest to his heart. He often thought of John Westlock, and besides looking out for him on all occasions, actually walked about London for three days together for the express purpose of meeting with him. But although he failed in this; and although he would not have scrupled to borrow money of him; and although he believed that John would have lent it; yet still he could not bring his mind to write to Pinch and inquire where he was to be found. For although, as we have seen, he was fond of Tom after his own fashion, he could not endure the thought (feeling so superior to Tom) of making him the stepping-stone to his fortune, or being anything to him but a patron; and his pride so revolted from the idea that it restrained him even now.
It might have yielded, however; and no doubt must have yielded soon, but for a very strange and unlooked-for occurrence.
The five weeks had quite run out, and he was in a truly desperate plight, when one evening, having just returned to his lodging, and being in the act of lighting his candle at the gas jet in the bar before stalking moodily upstairs to his own room, his landlord called him by his name. Now as he had never told it to the man, but had scrupulously kept it to himself, he was not a little startled by this; and so plainly showed his agitation that the landlord, to reassure him, said “it was only a letter.”
“A letter!” cried Martin.
“For Mr Martin Chuzzlewit,” said the landlord, reading the superscription of one he held in his hand. “Noon. Chief office. Paid.”
Martin took it from him, thanked him, and walked upstairs. It was not sealed, but pasted close; the handwriting was quite unknown to him. He opened it and found enclosed, without any name, address, or other inscription or explanation of any kind whatever, a Bank of England note for Twenty Pounds.
To say that he was perfectly stunned with astonishment and delight; that he looked again and again at the note and the wrapper; that he hurried below stairs to make quite certain that the note was a good note; and then hurried up again to satisfy himself for the fiftieth time that he had not overlooked some scrap of writing on the wrapper; that he exhausted and bewildered himself with conjectures; and could make nothing of it but that there the note was, and he was suddenly enriched; would be only to relate so many matters of course to no purpose. The final upshot of the business at that time was, that he resolved to treat himself to a comfortable but frugal meal in his own chamber; and having ordered a fire to be kindled, went out to purchase it forthwith.
He bought some cold beef, and ham, and French bread, and butter, and came back with his pockets pretty heavily laden. It was somewhat of a damping circumstance to find the room full of smoke, which was attributable to two causes; firstly, to the flue being naturally vicious and a smoker; and secondly, to their having forgotten, in lighting the fire, an odd sack or two and some trifles, which had been put up the chimney to keep the rain out. They had already remedied this oversight, however; and propped up the window-sash with a bundle of firewood to keep it open; so that except in being rather inflammatory to the eyes and choking to the lungs, the apartment was quite comfortable.
Martin was in no vein to quarrel with it, if it had been in less tolerable order, especially when a gleaming pint of porter was set upon the table, and the servant-girl withdrew, bearing with her particular instructions relative to the production of something hot when he should ring the bell. The cold meat being wrapped in a playbill, Martin laid the cloth by spreading that document on the little round table with the print downwards, and arranging the collation upon it. The foot of the bed, which was very close to the fire, answered for a sideboard; and when he had completed these preparations, he squeezed an old arm-chair into the warmest corner, and sat down to enjoy himself.
He had begun to eat with great appetite, glancing round the room meanwhile with a triumphant anticipation of quitting it for ever on the morrow, when his attention was arrested by a stealthy footstep on the stairs, and presently by a knock at his chamber door, which, although it was a gentle knock enough, communicated such a start to the bundle of firewood, that it instantly leaped out of window, and plunged into the street.
“More coals, I suppose,” said Martin. “Come in!”
“It an't a liberty, sir, though it seems so,” rejoined a man's voice. “Your servant, sir. Hope you're pretty well, sir.”
Martin stared at the face that was bowing in the doorway, perfectly remembering the features and expression, but quite forgetting to whom they belonged.
“Tapley, sir,” said his visitor. “Him as formerly lived at the Dragon, sir, and was forced to leave in consequence of a want of jollity, sir.”
“To be sure!” cried Martin. “Why, how did you come here?”
“Right through the passage, and up the stairs, sir,” said Mark.
“How did you find me out, I mean?” asked Martin.
“Why, sir,” said Mark, “I've passed you once or twice in the street, if I'm not mistaken; and when I was a-looking in at the beef-and-ham shop just now, along with a hungry sweep, as was very much calculated to make a man jolly, sir—I see you a-buying that.”
Martin reddened as he pointed to the table, and said, somewhat hastily:
“Well! What then?”
“Why, then, sir,” said Mark, “I made bold to foller; and as I told “em downstairs that you expected me, I was let up.”
“Are you charged with any message, that you told them you were expected?” inquired Martin.
“No, sir, I an't,” said Mark. “That was what you may call a pious fraud, sir, that was.”
Martin cast an angry look at him; but there was something in the fellow's merry face, and in his manner—which with all its cheerfulness was far from being obtrusive or familiar—that quite disarmed him. He had lived a solitary life too, for many weeks, and the voice was pleasant in his ear.
“Tapley,” he said, “I'll deal openly with you. From all I can judge and from all I have heard of you through Pinch, you are not a likely kind of fellow to have been brought here by impertinent curiosity or any other offensive motive. Sit down. I'm glad to see you.”
“Thankee, sir,” said Mark. “I'd as lieve stand.”
“If you don't sit down,” retorted Martin, “I'll not talk to you.”
“Very good, sir,” observed Mark. “Your will's a law, sir. Down it is;” and he sat down accordingly upon the bedstead.
“Help yourself,” said Martin, handing him the only knife.
“Thankee, sir,” rejoined Mark. “After you've done.”
“If you don't take it now, you'll not have any,” said Martin.
“Very good, sir,” re
joined Mark. “That being your desire—now it is.”With which reply he gravely helped himself and went on eating. Martin having done the like for a short time in silence, said abruptly:
“What are you doing in London?”
“Nothing at all, sir,” rejoined Mark.
“How's that?” asked Martin.
“I want a place,” said Mark.
“I'm sorry for you,” said Martin.
“—To attend upon a single gentleman,” resumed Mark. “If from the country the more desirable. Makeshifts would be preferred. Wages no object.”
He said this so pointedly, that Martin stopped in his eating, and said:
“If you mean me—”
“Yes, I do, sir,” interposed Mark.
“Then you may judge from my style of living here, of my means of keeping a man-servant. Besides, I am going to America immediately.”
“Well, sir,” returned Mark, quite unmoved by this intelligence “from all that ever I heard about it, I should say America is a very likely sort of place for me to be jolly in!”
Again Martin looked at him angrily; and again his anger melted away in spite of himself.
“Lord bless you, sir,” said Mark, “what is the use of us a-going round and round, and hiding behind the corner, and dodging up and down, when we can come straight to the point in six words? I've had my eye upon you any time this fortnight. I see well enough there's a screw loose in your affairs. I know'd well enough the first time I see you down at the Dragon that it must be so, sooner or later. Now, sir here am I, without a sitiwation; without any want of wages for a year to come; for I saved up (I didn't mean to do it, but I couldn't help it) at the Dragon—here am I with a liking for what's wentersome, and a liking for you, and a wish to come out strong under circumstances as would keep other men down; and will you take me, or will you leave me?”
“How can I take you?” cried Martin.
“When I say take,” rejoined Mark, “I mean will you let me go? and when I say will you let me go, I mean will you let me go along with you? for go I will, somehow or another. Now that you've said America, I see clear at once, that that's the place for me to be jolly in. Therefore, if I don't pay my own passage in the ship you go in, sir, I'll pay my own passage in another. And mark my words, if I go alone it shall be, to carry out the principle, in the rottenest, craziest, leakingest tub of a wessel that a place can be got in for love or money. So if I'm lost upon the way, sir, there'll be a drowned man at your door—and always a-knocking double knocks at it, too, or never trust me!”
“This is mere folly,” said Martin.
“Very good, sir,” returned Mark. “I'm glad to hear it, because if you don't mean to let me go, you'll be more comfortable, perhaps, on account of thinking so. Therefore I contradict no gentleman. But all I say is, that if I don't emigrate to America in that case, in the beastliest old cockle-shell as goes out of port, I'm—”
“You don't mean what you say, I'm sure,” said Martin.
“Yes I do,” cried Mark.
“I tell you I know better,” rejoined Martin.
“Very good, sir,” said Mark, with the same air of perfect satisfaction. “Let it stand that way at present, sir, and wait and see how it turns out. Why, love my heart alive! the only doubt I have is, whether there's any credit in going with a gentleman like you, that's as certain to make his way there as a gimlet is to go through soft deal.”
This was touching Martin on his weak point, and having him at a great advantage. He could not help thinking, either, what a brisk fellow this Mark was, and how great a change he had wrought in the atmosphere of the dismal little room already.
“Why, certainly, Mark,” he said, “I have hopes of doing well there, or I shouldn't go. I may have the qualifications for doing well, perhaps.”
“Of course you have, sir,” returned Mark Tapley. “Everybody knows that.”
“You see,” said Martin, leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking at the fire, “ornamental architecture applied to domestic purposes, can hardly fail to be in great request in that country; for men are constantly changing their residences there, and moving further off; and it's clear they must have houses to live in.”
“I should say, sir,” observed Mark, “that that's a state of things as opens one of the jolliest look-outs for domestic architecture that ever I heerd tell on.”
Martin glanced at him hastily, not feeling quite free from a suspicion that this remark implied a doubt of the successful issue of his plans. But Mr Tapley was eating the boiled beef and bread with such entire good faith and singleness of purpose expressed in his visage that he could not but be satisfied. Another doubt arose in his mind however, as this one disappeared. He produced the blank cover in which the note had been enclosed, and fixing his eyes on Mark as he put it in his hands, said:
“Now tell me the truth. Do you know anything about that?”
Mark turned it over and over; held it near his eyes; held it away from him at arm's length; held it with the superscription upwards and with the superscription downwards; and shook his head with such a genuine expression of astonishment at being asked the question, that Martin said, as he took it from him again:
“No, I see you don't. How should you! Though, indeed, your knowing about it would not be more extraordinary than its being here. Come, Tapley,” he added, after a moment's thought, “I'll trust you with my history, such as it is, and then you'll see more clearly what sort of fortunes you would link yourself to, if you followed me.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mark; “but afore you enter upon it will you take me if I choose to go? Will you turn off me—Mark Tapley—formerly of the Blue Dragon, as can be well recommended by Mr Pinch, and as wants a gentleman of your strength of mind to look up to; or will you, in climbing the ladder as you're certain to get to the top of, take me along with you at a respectful dutance? Now, sir,” said Mark, “it's of very little importance to you, I know. there's the difficulty; but it's of very great importance to me, and will you be so good as to consider of it?”
If this were meant as a second appeal to Martin's weak side, founded on his observation of the effect of the first, Mr Tapley was a skillful and shrewd observer. Whether an intentional or an accidental shot, it hit the mark fully for Martin, relenting more and more, said with a condescension which was inexpressibly delicious to him, after his recent humiliation:
“We'll see about it, Tapley. You shall tell me in what disposition you find yourself to-morrow.”
“Then, sir,” said Mark, rubbing his hands, “the job's done. Go on, sir, if you please. I'm all attention.”
Throwing himself back in his arm-chair, and looking at the fire, with now and then a glance at Mark, who at such times nodded his head sagely, to express his profound interest and attention. Martin ran over the chief points in his history, to the same effect as he had related them, weeks before, to Mr Pinch. But he adapted them, according to the best of his judgment, to Mr Tapley's comprehension; and with that view made as light of his love affair as he could, and referred to it in very few words. But here he reckoned without his host; for Mark's interest was keenest in this part of the business, and prompted him to ask sundry questions in relation to it; for which he apologised as one in some measure privileged to do so, from having seen (as Martin explained to him) the young lady at the Blue Dragon.
“And a young lady as any gentleman ought to feel more proud of being in love with,” said Mark, energetically, “don't draw breath.”
“Aye! You saw her when she was not happy,” said Martin, gazing at the fire again. “If you had seen her in the old times, indeed—”
“Why, she certainly was a little down-hearted, sir, and something paler in her colour than I could have wished,” said Mark, “but none the worse in her looks for that. I think she seemed better, sir, after she come to London.”
Martin withdrew his eyes from the fire; stared at Mark as if he thought he had suddenly gone mad; and asked him what he meant.
“Do you mean to tell me she has been in London?” asked Martin, rising hurriedly, and pushing back his chair.
“Of course I do,” said Mark, rising too, in great amazement from the bedstead.
“Do you mean to tell me she is in London now?”
“Most likely, sir. I mean to say she was a week ago.”
“And you know where?”
“Yes!” cried Mark. “What! Don't you?”
“My good fellow!” exclaimed Martin, clutching him by both arms, “I have never seen her since I left my grandfather's house.”
“Why, then!” cried Mark, giving the little table such a blow with his clenched fist that the slices of beef and ham danced upon it, while all his features seemed, with delight, to be going up into his forehead, and never coming back again any more, “if I an't your nat'ral born servant, hired by Fate, there an't such a thing in natur” as a Blue Dragon. What! when I was a-rambling up and down a old churchyard in the City, getting myself into a jolly state, didn't I see your grandfather a-toddling to and fro for pretty nigh a mortal hour! Didn't I watch him into Todgers's commercial boarding-house, and watch him out, and watch him home to his hotel, and go and tell him as his was the service for my money, and I had said so, afore I left the Dragon! Wasn't the young lady a-sitting with him then, and didn't she fall a-laughing in a manner as was beautiful to see! Didn't your grandfather say, “Come back again next week,” and didn't I go next week; and didn't he say that he couldn't make up his mind to trust nobody no more; and therefore wouldn't engage me, but at the same time stood something to drink as was handsome! Why,” cried Mr Tapley, with a comical mixture of delight and chagrin, “where's the credit of a man's being jolly under such circumstances! Who could help it, when things come about like this!”