He only sighed and shook his head.
“Wait half a minute,” said Mark cheerily, “till I run up to one of our neighbours and ask what's best to be took, and borrow a little of it to give you; and to-morrow you'll find yourself as strong as ever again. I won't be gone a minute. Don't give in while I'm away, whatever you do!”
Throwing down his hatchet, he sped away immediately, but stopped when he had got a little distance, and looked back; then hurried on again.
“Now, Mr Tapley,” said Mark, giving himself a tremendous blow in the chest by way of reviver, “just you attend to what I've got to say. Things is looking about as bad as they CAN look, young man. You'll not have such another opportunity for showing your jolly disposition, my fine fellow, as long as you live. And therefore, Tapley, Now's your time to come out strong; or Never!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
REPORTS PROGRESS IN CERTAIN HOMELY MATTERS OF LOVE, HATRED, JEALOUSY, AND REVENGE
“Hallo, Pecksniff!” cried Mr Jonas from the parlour. “Isn't somebody a-going to open that precious old door of yours?”
“Immediately, Mr Jonas. Immediately.”
“Ecod,” muttered the orphan, “not before it's time neither. Whoever it is, has knocked three times, and each one loud enough to wake the—” he had such a repugnance to the idea of waking the Dead, that he stopped even then with the words upon his tongue, and said, instead, “the Seven Sleepers.”
“Immediately, Mr Jonas; immediately,” repeated Pecksniff. “Thomas Pinch'—he couldn't make up his mind, in his great agitation, whether to call Tom his dear friend or a villain, so he shook his fist at him PRO TEM—'go up to my daughters” room, and tell them who is here. Say, Silence. Silence! Do you hear me, sir?
“Directly, sir!” cried Tom, departing, in a state of much amazement, on his errand.
“You'll—ha, ha, ha!—you'll excuse me, Mr Jonas, if I close this door a moment, will you?” said Pecksniff. “This may be a professional call. Indeed I am pretty sure it is. Thank you.”Then Mr Pecksniff, gently warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized a spade, and opened the street door; calmly appearing on the threshold, as if he thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was not quite certain.
Seeing a gentleman and lady before him, he started back in as much confusion as a good man with a crystal conscience might betray in mere surprise. Recognition came upon him the next moment, and he cried:
“Mr Chuzzlewit! Can I believe my eyes! My dear sir; my good sir! A joyful hour, a happy hour indeed. Pray, my dear sir, walk in. You find me in my garden-dress. You will excuse it, I know. It is an ancient pursuit, gardening. Primitive, my dear sir. Or, if I am not mistaken, Adam was the first of our calling. MY Eve, I grieve to say is no more, sir; but'—here he pointed to his spade, and shook his head as if he were not cheerful without an effort—'but I do a little bit of Adam still.”
He had by this time got them into the best parlour, where the portrait by Spiller, and the bust by Spoker, were.
“My daughters,” said Mr Pecksniff, “will be overjoyed. If I could feel weary upon such a theme, I should have been worn out long ago, my dear sir, by their constant anticipation of this happiness and their repeated allusions to our meeting at Mrs Todgers's. Their fair young friend, too,” said Mr Pecksniff, “whom they so desire to know and love—indeed to know her, is to love—I hope I see her well. I hope in saying, “Welcome to my humble roof!” I find some echo in her own sentiments. If features are an index to the heart, I have no fears of that. An extremely engaging expression of countenance, Mr Chuzzlewit, my dear sir—very much so!”
“Mary,” said the old man, “Mr Pecksniff flatters you. But flattery from him is worth the having. He is not a dealer in it, and it comes from his heart. We thought Mr—”
“Pinch,” said Mary.
“Mr Pinch would have arrived before us, Pecksniff.”
“He did arrive before you, my dear sir,” retorted Pecksniff, raising his voice for the edification of Tom upon the stairs, “and was about, I dare say, to tell me of your coming, when I begged him first to knock at my daughters” chamber, and inquire after Charity, my dear child, who is not so well as I could wish. No,” said Mr Pecksniff, answering their looks, “I am sorry to say, she is not. It is merely an hysterical affection; nothing more, I am not uneasy. Mr Pinch! Thomas!” exclaimed Pecksniff, in his kindest accents. “Pray come in. I shall make no stranger of you. Thomas is a friend of mine, of rather long-standing, Mr Chuzzlewit, you must know.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Tom. “You introduce me very kindly, and speak of me in terms of which I am very proud”
“Old Thomas!” cried his master, pleasantly “God bless you!”
Tom reported that the young ladies would appear directly, and that the best refreshments which the house afforded were even then in preparation, under their joint superintendence. While he was speaking, the old man looked at him intently, though with less harshness than was common to him; nor did the mutual embarrassment of Tom and the young lady, to whatever cause he attributed it, seem to escape his observation.
“Pecksniff,” he said after a pause, rising and taking him aside towards the window, “I was much shocked on hearing of my brother's death. We had been strangers for many years. My only comfort is that he must have lived the happier and better man for having associated no hopes or schemes with me. Peace to his memory! We were play-fellows once; and it would have been better for us both if we had died then.”
Finding him in this gentle mood, Mr Pecksniff began to see another way out of his difficulties, besides the casting overboard of Jonas.
“That any man, my dear sir, could possibly be the happier for not knowing you,” he returned, “you will excuse my doubting. But that Mr Anthony, in the evening of his life, was happier in the affection of his excellent son—a pattern, my dear sir, a pattern to all sons —and in the care of a distant relation who, however lowly in his means of serving him, had no bounds to his inclination; I can inform you.”
“How's this?” said the old man. “You are not a legatee?”
“You don't,” said Mr Pecksniff, with a melancholy pressure of his hand, “quite understand my nature yet, I find. No, sir, I am not a legatee. I am proud to say I am not a legatee. I am proud to say that neither of my children is a legatee. And yet, sir, I was with him at his own request. HE understood me somewhat better, sir. He wrote and said, “I am sick. I am sinking. Come to me!” I went to him. I sat beside his bed, sir, and I stood beside his grave. Yes, at the risk of offending even you, I did it, sir. Though the avowal should lead to our instant separation, and to the severing of those tender ties between us which have recently been formed, I make it. But I am not a legatee,” said Mr Pecksniff, smiling dispassionately; “and I never expected to be a legatee. I knew better!”
“His son a pattern!” cried old Martin. “How can you tell me that? My brother had in his wealth the usual doom of wealth, and root of misery. He carried his corrupting influence with him, go where he would; and shed it round him, even on his hearth. It made of his own child a greedy expectant, who measured every day and hour the lessening distance between his father and the grave, and cursed his tardy progress on that dismal road.”
“No!” cried Mr Pecksniff, boldly. “Not at all, sir!”
“But I saw that shadow in his house,” said Martin Chuzzlewit, “the last time we met, and warned him of its presence. I know it when I see it, do I not? I, who have lived within it all these years!”
“I deny it,” Mr Pecksniff answered, warmly. “I deny it altogether. That bereaved young man is now in this house, sir, seeking in change of scene the peace of mind he has lost. Shall I be backward in doing justice to that young man, when even undertakers and coffin-makers have been moved by the conduct he has exhibited; when even mutes have spoken in his praise, and the medical man hasn't known what to do with himself in the excitement of his feelings! There is a person of the name of Gamp, sir—Mrs Gamp—ask her. S
he saw Mr Jonas in a trying time. Ask HER, sir. She is respectable, but not sentimental, and will state the fact. A line addressed to Mrs Gamp, at the BirdShop, Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, London, will meet with every attention, I have no doubt. Let her be examined, my good sir. Strike, but hear! Leap, Mr Chuzzlewit, but look! Forgive me, my dear sir,” said Mr Pecksniff, taking both his hands, “if I am warm; but I am honest, and must state the truth.”
In proof of the character he gave himself, Mr Pecksniff suffered tears of honesty to ooze out of his eyes.
The old man gazed at him for a moment with a look of wonder, repeating to himself, “Here now! In this house!” But he mastered his surprise, and said, after a pause:
“Let me see him.”
“In a friendly spirit, I hope?” said Mr Pecksniff. “Forgive me, sir but he is in the receipt of my humble hospitality.”
“I said,” replied the old man, “let me see him. If I were disposed to regard him in any other than a friendly spirit, I should have said keep us apart.”
“Certainly, my dear sir. So you would. You are frankness itself, I know. I will break this happiness to him,” said Mr Pecksniff, as he left the room, “if you will excuse me for a minute—gently.”
He paved the way to the disclosure so very gently, that a quarter of an hour elapsed before he returned with Mr Jonas. In the meantime the young ladies had made their appearance, and the table had been set out for the refreshment of the travellers.
Now, however well Mr Pecksniff, in his morality, had taught Jonas the lesson of dutiful behaviour to his uncle, and however perfectly Jonas, in the cunning of his nature, had learnt it, that young man's bearing, when presented to his father's brother, was anything but manly or engaging. Perhaps, indeed, so singular a mixture of defiance and obsequiousness, of fear and hardihood, of dogged sullenness and an attempt at enraging and propitiation, never was expressed in any one human figure as in that of Jonas, when, having raised his downcast eyes to Martin's face, he let them fall again, and uneasily closing and unclosing his hands without a moment's intermission, stood swinging himself from side to side, waiting to be addressed.
“Nephew,” said the old man. “You have been a dutiful son, I hear.”
“As dutiful as sons in general, I suppose,” returned Jonas, looking up and down once more. “I don't brag to have been any better than other sons; but I haven't been any worse, I dare say.”
“A pattern to all sons, I am told,” said the old man, glancing towards Mr Pecksniff.
“Ecod!” said Jonas, looking up again for a moment, and shaking his head, “I've been as good a son as ever you were a brother. It's the pot and the kettle, if you come to that.”
“You speak bitterly, in the violence of your regret,” said Martin, after a pause. “Give me your hand.”
Jonas did so, and was almost at his ease. “Pecksniff,” he whispered, as they drew their chairs about the table; “I gave him as good as he brought, eh? He had better look at home, before he looks out of window, I think?”
Mr Pecksniff only answered by a nudge of the elbow, which might either be construed into an indignant remonstrance or a cordial assent; but which, in any case, was an emphatic admonition to his chosen son-in-law to be silent. He then proceeded to do the honours of the house with his accustomed ease and amiability.
But not even Mr Pecksniff's guileless merriment could set such a party at their ease, or reconcile materials so utterly discordant and conflicting as those with which he had to deal. The unspeakable jealously and hatred which that night's explanation had sown in Charity's breast, was not to be so easily kept down; and more than once it showed itself in such intensity, as seemed to render a full disclosure of all the circumstances then and there, impossible to be avoided. The beauteous Merry, too, with all the glory of her conquest fresh upon her, so probed and lanced the rankling disappointment of her sister by her capricious airs and thousand little trials of Mr Jonas's obedience, that she almost goaded her into a fit of madness, and obliged her to retire from table in a burst of passion, hardly less vehement than that to which she had abandoned herself in the first tumult of her wrath. The constraint imposed upon the family by the presence among them for the first time of Mary Graham (for by that name old Martin Chuzzlewit had introduced her) did not at all improve this state of things; gentle and quiet though her manner was. Mr Pecksniff's situation was peculiarly trying; for, what with having constantly to keep the peace between his daughters; to maintain a reasonable show of affection and unity in his household; to curb the growing ease and gaiety of Jonas, which vented itself in sundry insolences towards Mr Pinch, and an indefinable coarseness of manner in reference to Mary (they being the two dependants); to make no mention at all of his having perpetually to conciliate his rich old relative, and to smooth down, or explain away, some of the ten thousand bad appearances and combinations of bad appearances, by which they were surrounded on that unlucky evening—what with having to do this, and it would be difficult to sum up how much more, without the least relief or assistance from anybody, it may be easily imagined that Mr Pecksniff had in his enjoyment something more than that usual portion of alloy which is mixed up with the best of men's delights. Perhaps he had never in his life felt such relief as when old Martin, looking at his watch, announced that it was time to go.
“We have rooms,” he said, “at the Dragon, for the present. I have a fancy for the evening walk. The nights are dark just now; perhaps Mr Pinch would not object to light us home?”
“My dear sir!” cried Pecksniff, “I shall be delighted. Merry, my child, the lantern.”
“The lantern, if you please, my dear,” said Martin; “but I couldn't think of taking your father out of doors to-night; and, to be brief, I won't.”
Mr Pecksniff already had his hat in his hand, but it was so emphatically said that he paused.
“I take Mr Pinch, or go alone,” said Martin. “Which shall it be?”
“It shall be Thomas, sir,” cried Pecksniff, “since you are so resolute upon it. Thomas, my friend, be very careful, if you please.”
Tom was in some need of this injunction, for he felt so nervous, and trembled to such a degree, that he found it difficult to hold the lantern. How much more difficult when, at the old man's bidding she drew her hand through his—Tom Pinch's—arm!
“And so, Mr Pinch,” said Martin, on the way, “you are very comfortably situated here; are you?”
Tom answered, with even more than his usual enthusiasm, that he was under obligations to Mr Pecksniff which the devotion of a lifetime would but imperfectly repay.
“How long have you known my nephew?” asked Martin.
“Your nephew, sir?” faltered Tom.
“Mr Jonas Chuzzlewit,” said Mary.
“Oh dear, yes,” cried Tom, greatly relieved, for his mind was running upon Martin. “Certainly. I never spoke to him before tonight, sir!”
“Perhaps half a lifetime will suffice for the acknowledgment of HIS kindness,” observed the old man.
Tom felt that this was a rebuff for him, and could not but understand it as a left-handed hit at his employer. So he was silent. Mary felt that Mr Pinch was not remarkable for presence of mind, and that he could not say too little under existing circumstances. So SHE was silent. The old man, disgusted by what in his suspicious nature he considered a shameless and fulsome puff of Mr Pecksniff, which was a part of Tom's hired service and in which he was determined to persevere, set him down at once for a deceitful, servile, miserable fawner. So HE was silent. And though they were all sufficiently uncomfortable, it is fair to say that Martin was perhaps the most so; for he had felt kindly towards Tom at first, and had been interested by his seeming simplicity.
“You're like the rest,” he thought, glancing at the face of the unconscious Tom. “You had nearly imposed upon me, but you have lost your labour. You are too zealous a toad-eater, and betray yourself, Mr Pinch.”
During the whole remainder of the walk, not another word was spoken. First
among the meetings to which Tom had long looked forward with a beating heart, it was memorable for nothing but embarrassment and confusion. They parted at the Dragon door; and sighing as he extinguished the candle in the lantern, Tom turned back again over the gloomy fields.
As he approached the first stile, which was in a lonely part, made very dark by a plantation of young firs, a man slipped past him and went on before. Coming to the stile he stopped, and took his seat upon it. Tom was rather startled, and for a moment stood still, but he stepped forward again immediately, and went close up to him.
It was Jonas; swinging his legs to and fro, sucking the head of a stick, and looking with a sneer at Tom.
“Good gracious me!” cried Tom, “who would have thought of its being you! You followed us, then?”
“What's that to you?” said Jonas. “Go to the devil!”
“You are not very civil, I think,” remarked Tom.
“Civil enough for YOU,” retorted Jonas. “Who are you?”
“One who has as good a right to common consideration as another,” said Tom mildly.
“You're a liar,” said Jonas. “You haven't a right to any consideration. You haven't a right to anything. You're a pretty sort of fellow to talk about your rights, upon my soul! Ha, ha!— Rights, too!”
“If you proceed in this way,” returned Tom, reddening, “you will oblige me to talk about my wrongs. But I hope your joke is over.”
“It's the way with you curs,” said Mr Jonas, “that when you know a man's in real earnest, you pretend to think he's joking, so that you may turn it off. But that won't do with me. It's too stale. Now just attend to me for a bit, Mr Pitch, or Witch, or Stitch, or whatever your name is.”
“My name is Pinch,” observed Tom. “Have the goodness to call me by it.”
“What! You mustn't even be called out of your name, mustn't you!” cried Jonas. “Pauper” prentices are looking up, I think. Ecod, we manage “em a little better in the city!”
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit Page 48
