“As to Mr Pecksniff himself,” observed the hostess in conclusion, spreading out the skirts of her gown with both hands, and nodding her head a great many times as she did so, “I don't know what to say. Somebody must have poisoned his mind, or influenced him in some extraordinary way. I cannot believe that such a noble-spoken gentleman would go and do wrong of his own accord!”
A noble-spoken gentleman! How many people are there in the world, who, for no better reason, uphold their Pecksniffs to the last and abandon virtuous men, when Pecksniffs breathe upon them!
“As to Mr Pinch,” pursued the landlady, “if ever there was a dear, good, pleasant, worthy soul alive, Pinch, and no other, is his name. But how do we know that old Mr Chuzzlewit himself was not the cause of difference arising between him and Mr Pecksniff? No one but themselves can tell; for Mr Pinch has a proud spirit, though he has such a quiet way; and when he left us, and was so sorry to go, he scorned to make his story good, even to me.”
“Poor old Tom!” said Martin, in a tone that sounded like remorse.
“It's a comfort to know,” resumed the landlady, “that he has his sister living with him, and is doing well. Only yesterday he sent me back, by post, a little'—here the colour came into her cheeks— “a little trifle I was bold enough to lend him when he went away; saying, with many thanks, that he had good employment, and didn't want it. It was the same note; he hadn't broken it. I never thought I could have been so little pleased to see a bank-note come back to me as I was to see that.”
“Kindly said, and heartily!” said Martin. “Is it not, Mark?”
“She can't say anything as does not possess them qualities,” returned Mr Tapley; “which as much belongs to the Dragon as its licence. And now that we have got quite cool and fresh, to the subject again, sir; what will you do? If you're not proud, and can make up your mind to go through with what you spoke of, coming along, that's the course for you to take. If you started wrong with your grandfather (which, you'll excuse my taking the liberty of saying, appears to have been the case), up with you, sir, and tell him so, and make an appeal to his affections. Don't stand out. He's a great deal older than you, and if he was hasty, you was hasty too. Give way, sir, give way.”
The eloquence of Mr Tapley was not without its effect on Martin but he still hesitated, and expressed his reason thus:
“That's all very true, and perfectly correct, Mark; and if it were a mere question of humbling myself before HIM, I would not consider it twice. But don't you see, that being wholly under this hypocrite's government, and having (if what we hear be true) no mind or will of his own, I throw myself, in fact, not at his feet, but at the feet of Mr Pecksniff? And when I am rejected and spurned away,” said Martin, turning crimson at the thought, “it is not by him; my own blood stirred against me; but by Pecksniff—Pecksniff, Mark!”
“Well, but we know beforehand,” returned the politic Mr Tapley, “that Pecksniff is a wagabond, a scoundrel, and a willain.”
“A most pernicious villain!” said Martin.
“A most pernicious willain. We know that beforehand, sir; and, consequently, it's no shame to be defeated by Pecksniff. Blow Pecksniff!” cried Mr Tapley, in the fervour of his eloquence. “Who's he! It's not in the natur of Pecksniff to shame US, unless he agreed with us, or done us a service; and, in case he offered any audacity of that description, we could express our sentiments in the English language, I hope. Pecksniff!” repeated Mr Tapley, with ineffable disdain. “What's Pecksniff, who's Pecksniff, where's Pecksniff, that he's to be so much considered? We're not acalculating for ourselves;” he laid uncommon emphasis on the last syllable of that word, and looked full in Martin's face; “we're making a effort for a young lady likewise as has undergone her share; and whatever little hope we have, this here Pecksniff is not to stand in its way, I expect. I never heard of any act of Parliament, as was made by Pecksniff. Pecksniff! Why, I wouldn't see the man myself; I wouldn't hear him; I wouldn't choose to know he was in company. I'd scrape my shoes on the scraper of the door, and call that Pecksniff, if you liked; but I wouldn't condescend no further.”
The amazement of Mrs Lupin, and indeed of Mr Tapley himself for that matter, at this impassioned flow of language, was immense. But Martin, after looking thoughtfully at the fire for a short time, said:
“You are right, Mark. Right or wrong, it shall be done. I'll do it.”
“One word more, sir,” returned Mark. “Only think of him so far as not to give him a handle against you. Don't you do anything secret that he can report before you get there. Don't you even see Miss Mary in the morning, but let this here dear friend of ours'—Mr Tapley bestowed a smile upon the hostess—'prepare her for what's agoing to happen, and carry any little message as may be agreeable. She knows how. Don't you?” Mrs Lupin laughed and tossed her head. “Then you go in, bold and free as a gentleman should. “I haven't done nothing under-handed,” says you. “I haven't been skulking about the premises, here I am, for-give me, I ask your pardon, God Bless You!”
Martin smiled, but felt that it was good advice notwithstanding, and resolved to act upon it. When they had ascertained from Mrs Lupin that Pecksniff had already returned from the great ceremonial at which they had beheld him in his glory; and when they had fully arranged the order of their proceedings; they went to bed, intent upon the morrow.
In pursuance of their project as agreed upon at this discussion, Mr Tapley issued forth next morning, after breakfast, charged with a letter from Martin to his grandfather, requesting leave to wait upon him for a few minutes. And postponing as he went along the congratulations of his numerous friends until a more convenient season, he soon arrived at Mr Pecksniff's house. At that gentleman's door; with a face so immovable that it would have been next to an impossibility for the most acute physiognomist to determine what he was thinking about, or whether he was thinking at all; he straightway knocked.
A person of Mr Tapley's observation could not long remain insensible to the fact that Mr Pecksniff was making the end of his nose very blunt against the glass of the parlour window, in an angular attempt to discover who had knocked at the door. Nor was Mr Tapley slow to baffle this movement on the part of the enemy, by perching himself on the top step, and presenting the crown of his hat in that direction. But possibly Mr Pecksniff had already seen him, for Mark soon heard his shoes creaking, as he advanced to open the door with his own hands.
Mr Pecksniff was as cheerful as ever, and sang a little song in the passage.
“How d'ye do, sir?” said Mark.
“Oh!” cried Mr Pecksniff. “Tapley, I believe? The Prodigal returned! We don't want any beer, my friend.”
“Thankee, sir,” said Mark. “I couldn't accommodate you if you did. A letter, sir. Wait for an answer.”
“For me?” cried Mr Pecksniff. “And an answer, eh?”
“Not for you, I think, sir,” said Mark, pointing out the direction. “Chuzzlewit, I believe the name is, sir.”
“Oh!” returned Mr Pecksniff. “Thank you. Yes. Who's it from, my good young man?”
“The gentleman it comes from wrote his name inside, sir,” returned Mr Tapley with extreme politeness. “I see him a-signing of it at the end, while I was a-waitin”.”
“And he said he wanted an answer, did he?” asked Mr Pecksniff in his most persuasive manner.
Mark replied in the affirmative.
“He shall have an answer. Certainly,” said Mr Pecksniff, tearing the letter into small pieces, as mildly as if that were the most flattering attention a correspondent could receive. “Have the goodness to give him that, with my compliments, if you please. Good morning!” Whereupon he handed Mark the scraps; retired, and shut the door.
Mark thought it prudent to subdue his personal emotions, and return to Martin at the Dragon. They were not unprepared for such a reception, and suffered an hour or so to elapse before making another attempt. When this interval had gone by, they returned to Mr Pecksniff's house in company. Martin knocked this time, whil
e Mr Tapley prepared himself to keep the door open with his foot and shoulder, when anybody came, and by that means secure an enforced parley. But this precaution was needless, for the servant-girl appeared almost immediately. Brushing quickly past her as he had resolved in such a case to do, Martin (closely followed by his faithful ally) opened the door of that parlour in which he knew a visitor was most likely to be found; passed at once into the room; and stood, without a word of notice or announcement, in the presence of his grandfather.
Mr Pecksniff also was in the room; and Mary. In the swift instant of their mutual recognition, Martin saw the old man droop his grey head, and hide his face in his hands.
It smote him to the heart. In his most selfish and most careless day, this lingering remnant of the old man's ancient love, this buttress of a ruined tower he had built up in the time gone by, with so much pride and hope, would have caused a pang in Martin's heart. But now, changed for the better in his worst respect; looking through an altered medium on his former friend, the guardian of his childhood, so broken and bowed down; resentment, sullenness, self-confidence, and pride, were all swept away, before the starting tears upon the withered cheeks. He could not bear to see them. He could not bear to think they fell at sight of him. He could not bear to view reflected in them, the reproachful and irrevocable Past.
He hurriedly advanced to seize the old man's hand in his, when Mr Pecksniff interposed himself between them.
“No, young man!” said Mr Pecksniff, striking himself upon the breast, and stretching out his other arm towards his guest as if it were a wing to shelter him. “No, sir. None of that. Strike here, sir, here! Launch your arrows at me, sir, if you'll have the goodness; not at Him!”
“Grandfather!” cried Martin. “Hear me! I implore you, let me speak!”
“Would you, sir? Would you?” said Mr Pecksniff, dodging about, so as to keep himself always between them. “Is it not enough, sir, that you come into my house like a thief in the night, or I should rather say, for we can never be too particular on the subject of Truth, like a thief in the day-time; bringing your dissolute companions with you, to plant themselves with their backs against the insides of parlour doors, and prevent the entrance or issuing forth of any of my household'—Mark had taken up this position, and held it quite unmoved—'but would you also strike at venerable Virtue? Would you? Know that it is not defenceless. I will be its shield, young man. Assail me. Come on, sir. Fire away!”
“Pecksniff,” said the old man, in a feeble voice. “Calm yourself. Be quiet.”
“I can't be calm,” cried Mr Pecksniff, “and I won't be quiet. My benefactor and my friend! Shall even my house be no refuge for your hoary pillow!”
“Stand aside!” said the old man, stretching out his hand; “and let me see what it is I used to love so dearly.”
“It is right that you should see it, my friend,” said Mr Pecksniff. “It is well that you should see it, my noble sir. It is desirable that you should contemplate it in its true proportions. Behold it! There it is, sir. There it is!”
Martin could hardly be a mortal man, and not express in his face something of the anger and disdain with which Mr Pecksniff inspired him. But beyond this he evinced no knowledge whatever of that gentleman's presence or existence. True, he had once, and that at first, glanced at him involuntarily, and with supreme contempt; but for any other heed he took of him, there might have been nothing in his place save empty air.
As Mr Pecksniff withdrew from between them, agreeably to the wish just now expressed (which he did during the delivery of the observations last recorded), old Martin, who had taken Mary Graham's hand in his, and whispered kindly to her, as telling her she had no cause to be alarmed, gently pushed her from him, behind his chair; and looked steadily at his grandson.
“And that,” he said, “is he. Ah! that is he! Say what you wish to say. But come no nearer,”
“His sense of justice is so fine,” said Mr Pecksniff, “that he will hear even him, although he knows beforehand that nothing can come of it. Ingenuous mind!” Mr Pecksniff did not address himself immediately to any person in saying this, but assuming the position of the Chorus in a Greek Tragedy, delivered his opinion as a commentary on the proceedings.
“Grandfather!” said Martin, with great earnestness. “From a painful journey, from a hard life, from a sick-bed, from privation and distress, from gloom and disappointment, from almost hopelessness and despair, I have come back to you.”
“Rovers of this sort,” observed Mr Pecksniff, as Chorus, “very commonly come back when they find they don't meet with the success they expected in their marauding ravages.”
“But for this faithful man,” said Martin, turning towards Mark, “whom I first knew in this place, and who went away with me voluntarily, as a servant, but has been, throughout, my zealous and devoted friend; but for him, I must have died abroad. Far from home, far from any help or consolation; far from the probability even of my wretched fate being ever known to any one who cared to hear it—oh, that you would let me say, of being known to you!”
The old man looked at Mr Pecksniff. Mr Pecksniff looked at him. “Did you speak, my worthy sir?” said Mr Pecksniff, with a smile. The old man answered in the negative. “I know what you thought,” said Mr Pecksniff, with another smile. “Let him go on my friend. The development of self-interest in the human mind is always a curious study. Let him go on, sir.”
“Go on!” observed the old man; in a mechanical obedience, it appeared, to Mr Pecksniff's suggestion.
“I have been so wretched and so poor,” said Martin, “that I am indebted to the charitable help of a stranger, in a land of strangers, for the means of returning here. All this tells against me in your mind, I know. I have given you cause to think I have been driven here wholly by want, and have not been led on, in any degree, by affection or regret. When I parted from you, Grandfather, I deserved that suspicion, but I do not now. I do not now.”
The Chorus put its hand in its waistcoat, and smiled. “Let him go on, my worthy sir,” it said. “I know what you are thinking of, but don't express it prematurely.”
Old Martin raised his eyes to Mr Pecksniff's face, and appearing to derive renewed instruction from his looks and words, said, once again:
“Go on!”
“I have little more to say,” returned Martin. “And as I say it now, with little or no hope, Grandfather; whatever dawn of hope I had on entering the room; believe it to be true. At least, believe it to be true.”
“Beautiful Truth!” exclaimed the Chorus, looking upward. “How is your name profaned by vicious persons! You don't live in a well, my holy principle, but on the lips of false mankind. It is hard to bear with mankind, dear sir'—addressing the elder Mr Chuzzlewit; “but let us do so meekly. It is our duty so to do. Let us be among the Few who do their duty. If,” pursued the Chorus, soaring up into a lofty flight, “as the poet informs us, England expects Every man to do his duty, England is the most sanguine country on the face of the earth, and will find itself continually disappointed.”
“Upon that subject,” said Martin, looking calmly at the old man as he spoke, but glancing once at Mary, whose face was now buried in her hands, upon the back of his easy-chair; “upon that subject which first occasioned a division between us, my mind and heart are incapable of change. Whatever influence they have undergone, since that unhappy time, has not been one to weaken but to strengthen me. I cannot profess sorrow for that, nor irresolution in that, nor shame in that. Nor would you wish me, I know. But that I might have trusted to your love, if I had thrown myself manfully upon it; that I might have won you over with ease, if I had been more yielding and more considerate; that I should have best remembered myself in forgetting myself, and recollecting you; reflection, solitude, and misery, have taught me. I came resolved to say this, and to ask your forgiveness; not so much in hope for the future, as in regret for the past; for all that I would ask of you is, that you would aid me to live. Help me to get honest work to do
, and I would do it. My condition places me at the disadvantage of seeming to have only my selfish ends to serve, but try if that be so or not. Try if I be self-willed, obdurate, and haughty, as I was; or have been disciplined in a rough school. Let the voice of nature and association plead between us, Grandfather; and do not, for one fault, however thankless, quite reject me!”
As he ceased, the grey head of the old man drooped again; and he concealed his face behind his outspread fingers.
“My dear sir,” cried Mr Pecksniff, bending over him, “you must not give way to this. It is very natural, and very amiable, but you must not allow the shameless conduct of one whom you long ago cast off, to move you so far. Rouse yourself. Think,” said Pecksniff, “think of Me, my friend.”
“I will,” returned old Martin, looking up into his face. “You recall me to myself. I will.”
“Why, what,” said Mr Pecksniff, sitting down beside him in a chair which he drew up for the purpose, and tapping him playfully on the arm, “what is the matter with my strong-minded compatriot, if I may venture to take the liberty of calling him by that endearing expression? Shall I have to scold my coadjutor, or to reason with an intellect like this? I think not.”
“No, no. There is no occasion,” said the old man. “A momentary feeling. Nothing more.”
“Indignation,” observed Mr Pecksniff, “WILL bring the scalding tear into the honest eye, I know'—he wiped his own elaborately. “But we have highest duties to perform than that. Rouse yourself, Mr Chuzzlewit. Shall I give expression to your thoughts, my friend?”
“Yes,” said old Martin, leaning back in his chair, and looking at him, half in vacancy and half in admiration, as if he were fascinated by the man. “Speak for me, Pecksniff, Thank you. You are true to me. Thank you!”
“Do not unman me, sir,” said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his hand vigorously, “or I shall be unequal to the task. It is not agreeable to my feelings, my good sir, to address the person who is now before us, for when I ejected him from this house, after hearing of his unnatural conduct from your lips, I renounced communication with him for ever. But you desire it; and that is sufficient. Young man! The door is immediately behind the companion of your infamy. Blush if you can; begone without a blush, if you can't.”
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit Page 81
