Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket, and cried out in a rapture:

  ‘Why, it’s hot!’

  ‘It’s burning hot!’ cried Meg. ‘Ha, ha, ha! It’s scalding hot!’

  ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ roared Toby, with a sort of kick. ‘It’s scalding hot!’

  ‘But what is it, father?’ said Meg. ‘Come! You haven’t guessed what it is. And you must guess what it is. I can’t think of taking it out, till you guess what it is. Don’t be in such a hurry! Wait a minute! A little bit more of the cover. Now guess!’

  Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess right too soon; shrinking away, as she held the basket towards him; curling up her pretty shoulders; stopping her ear with her hand, as if by so doing she could keep the right word out of Toby’s lips; and laughing softly the whole time.

  Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent down his nose to the basket, and took a long inspiration at the lid; the grin upon his withered face expanding in the process, as if he were inhaling laughing gas.

  ‘Ah! It’s very nice,’ said Toby. ‘It an’t – I suppose it an’t Polonies?’

  ‘No, no, no!’ cried Meg, delighted. ‘Nothing like Polonies!’

  ‘No,’ said Toby, after another sniff. ‘It’s – it’s mellower than Polonies. It’s very nice. It improves every moment. It’s too decided for Trotters. An’t it?’

  Meg was in an ecstasy. He could not have gone wider of the mark than Trotters – except Polonies.

  ‘Liver?’ said Toby, communing with himself. ‘No. There’s a mildness about it that don’t answer to liver. Pettitoes? No. It an’t faint enough for pettitoes. It wants the stringiness of Cocks’ heads. And I know it an’t sausages. I’ll tell you what it is. It’s chitterlings!’

  ‘No, it an’t!’ cried Meg, in a burst of delight. ‘No, it an’t!’

  ‘Why, what am I a thinking of!’ said Toby, suddenly recovering a position as near the perpendicular as it was possible for him to assume. ‘I shall forget my own name next. It’s tripe!’

  Tripe it was; and Meg, in high joy, protested he should say, in half a minute more, it was the best tripe ever stewed.

  ‘And so,’ said Meg, busying herself exultingly with the basket, ‘I’ll lay the cloth at once, father; for I have brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the basin up in a pocket handkerchief; and if I like to be proud for once, and spread that for a cloth, and call it a cloth, there’s no law to prevent me; is there, father?’

  ‘Not that I know of, my dear,’ said Toby. ‘But they’re always a bringing up some new law or other.’

  ‘And according to what I was reading you in the paper the other day, father; what the Judge said, you know; we poor people are supposed to know them all. Ha, ha! What a mistake! My goodness me, how clever they think us!’

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ said Trotty; ‘and they’d be very fond of any one of us that did know ’em all. He’d grow fat upon the work he’d get, that man, and be popular with the gentlefolks in his neighborhood. Very much so!’

  ‘He’d eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he was, if it smelt like this,’ said Meg cheerfully. ‘Make haste, for there’s a hot potatoe besides, and half a pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. Where will you dine, father? On the Post, or on the Steps? Dear, dear, how grand we are. Two places to choose from!’

  ‘The steps today, my Pet,’ said Trotty. ‘Steps in dry weather. Post in wet. There’s a greater conveniency in the steps at all times, because of the sitting down; but they’re rheumatic in the damp.’

  ‘Then here,’ said Meg, clapping her hands, after a moment’s bustle; ‘here it is, all ready! And beautiful it looks! Come, father. Come!’

  Since his discovery of the contents of the basket, Trotty had been standing looking at her – and had been speaking too – in an abstracted manner, which showed that though she was the object of his thoughts and eyes, to the exclusion even of tripe, he neither saw nor thought about her as she was at that moment, but had before him some imaginary rough sketch or drama of her future life. Roused, now, by her cheerful summons, he shook off a melancholy shake of the head which was just coming upon him, and trotted to her side. As he was stooping to sit down, the Chimes rang.

  ‘Amen!’ said Trotty, pulling off his hat and looking up towards them.

  ‘Amen to the Bells, father?’ cried Meg.

  ‘They broke in like a grace, my dear,’ said Trotty, taking his seat. ‘They’d say a good one, I am sure, if they could. Many’s the kind thing they say to me.’

  ‘The Bells do, father?’ laughed Meg, as she set the basin, and a knife and fork before him. ‘Well!’

  ‘Seem to, my Pet,’ said Trotty, falling to with great vigour. ‘And where’s the difference? If I hear ’em, what does it matter whether they speak it or not? Why bless you, my dear,’ said Toby, pointing at the tower with his fork, and becoming more animated under the influence of dinner, ‘how often have I heard them bells say, ‘Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!’ A million times? More!’

  ‘Well, I never!’ cried Meg.

  She had, though – over and over again. For it was Toby’s constant topic.

  ‘When things is very bad,’ said Trotty; ‘very bad indeed, I mean; almost at the worst; then it’s “Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby!” That way.’

  ‘And it comes – at last, father,’ said Meg, with a touch of sadness in her pleasant voice.

  ‘Always,’ answered the unconscious Toby. ‘Never fails.’

  While this discourse was holding, Trotty made no pause in his attack upon the savoury meat before him, but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and cut and chewed, and dodged about, from tripe to hot potatoe, and from hot potatoe back again to tripe, with an unctuous and unflagging relish. But happening now to look all round the street – in case anybody should be beckoning from any door or window for a porter – his eyes, in coming back again, encountered Meg: sitting opposite to him, with her arms folded: and only busy in watching his progress with a smile of happiness.

  ‘Why, Lord forgive me!’ said Trotty, dropping his knife and fork. ‘My dove! Meg! why didn’t you tell me what a beast I was?’

  ‘Father?’

  ‘Sitting here,’ said Trotty, in penitent explanation, ‘cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself; and you before me there, never so much as breaking your precious fast, nor wanting to, when –’

  ‘But I have broken it, father,’ interposed his daughter, laughing, ‘all to bits. I have had my dinner.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Trotty. ‘Two dinners in one day! It an’t possible! You might as well tell me that two New Year’s Days will come together, or that I have had a gold head all my life, and never changed it.’

  ‘I have had my dinner, father, for all that,’ said Meg, coming nearer to him. ‘And if you’ll go on with yours, I’ll tell you how and where; and how your dinner came to be brought; and – and something else besides.’

  Toby still appeared incredulous; but she looked into his face with her clear eyes, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, motioned him to go on while the meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and fork again, and went to work. But much more slowly than before, and shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with himself.

  ‘I had my dinner, father,’ said Meg, after a little hesitation, ‘with – with Richard. His dinner-time was early; and as he brought his dinner with him when he came to see me, we – we had it together, father.’

  Trotty took a little beer, and smacked his lips. Then he said, ‘Oh!’ – because she waited.

  ‘And Richard says, father –’ Meg resumed. Then stopped.

  ‘What does Richard say, Meg?’ asked Toby.

  ‘Richard says, father –’ Another stoppage.

  ‘Richard’s a long time saying it,’ said Toby.

  ‘He says then, father,’ Meg continued, lifting up her eyes at last
, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly; ‘another years is nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now? He says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor then; but we are young now, and years will make us old before we know it. He says that if we wait: people in our condition: until we see our way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed – the common way – the Grave, father.’

  A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty held his peace.

  ‘And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and think we might have cheered and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to love each other; and to grieve, apart, to see each other working, changing, growing old and grey. Even if I got the better of it, and forgot him (which I never could), oh father dear, how hard to have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop, without the recollection of one happy moment of a woman’s life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make me better!’

  Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily: that is to say, with here a laugh, and there a sob, and here a laugh and sob together:

  ‘So Richard says, father; as his work was yesterday made certain for some time to come, and as I love him, and have loved him full three years – ah! longer than that, if he knew it! – will I marry him on New Year’s Day; the best and happiest day, he says, in the whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring good fortune with it. It’s a short notice, father – isn’t it? – but I haven’t my fortune to be settled, or my wedding dresses to be made, like the great ladies, father – have I? And he said so much, and said it in his way; so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind and gentle; that I said I’d come and talk to you, father. And as they paid the money for that work of mine this morning (unexpectedly, I am sure!), and as you have fared very poorly for a whole week, and as I couldn’t help wishing there should be something to make this day a sort of holiday to you as well as a dear and happy day to me father, I made a little treat and brought it to surprise you.’

  ‘And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!’ said another voice.

  It was the voice of this same Richard, who had come upon them unobserved, and stood before the father and daughter: looking down upon them with a face as glowing as the iron on which his stout sledge-hammer daily rung. A handsome, well-made, powerful youngster he was; with eyes that sparkled like the red-hot droppings from a furnace fire; black hair that curled about his swarthy temples rarely; and a smile – a smile that bore out Meg’s eulogium on his style of conversation.

  ‘See how he leaves it cooling on the step!’ said Richard. ‘Meg don’t know what he likes. Not she!’

  Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately reached up his hand to Richard, and was going to address him in a great hurry, when the house-door opened without any warning, and a footman very nearly put his foot in the tripe.

  ‘Out of the vays here, will you! You must always go and be a settin on our steps, must you! You can’t go and give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can’t you! Will you clear the road, or won’t you?’

  Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant, as they had already done it.

  ‘What’s the matter, what’s the matter!’ said the gentleman for whom the door was opened: coming out of the house at that kind of light-heavy pace – that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-trot – with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-hill of life, wearing creaking boots, a watch-chain, and clean linen, may come out of his house: not only without any abatement of his dignity, but with an expression of having important and wealthy engagements elsewhere. ‘What’s the matter! What’s the matter!’

  ‘You’re always a being begged, and prayed, upon your bended knees you are,’ said the footman with great emphasis to Trotty Veck, ‘to let our door-steps be. Why don’t you let ’em be? CAN’T you let ’em be?’

  ‘There! That’ll do, that’ll do!’ said the gentleman. ‘Halloa there! Porter!’ beckoning with his head to Trotty Veck. ‘Come here. What’s that? Your dinner?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a corner.

  ‘Don’t leave it there,’ exclaimed the gentleman. ‘Bring it here, bring it here. So! This is your dinner, is it?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ repeated Trotty, looking, with a fixed eye and a watery mouth, at the piece of tripe he had reserved for a last delicious tit-bit; which the gentleman was now turning over and over on the end of the fork.

  Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog’s-eared from that custom; and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The other, a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in a blue coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were squeezed up into his head; which perhaps accounted for his having also the appearance of being rather cold about the heart.

  He who had Toby’s meat upon the fork, called to the first one by the name of Filer; and they both drew near together. Mr Filer being exceedingly short-sighted, was obliged to go so close to the remnant of Toby’s dinner before he could make out what it was, that Toby’s heart leaped up into his mouth. But Mr Filer didn’t eat it.

  ‘This is a description of animal food, Alderman,’ said Filer, making little punches in it, with a pencil-case, ‘commonly known to the labouring population of this country, by the name of tripe.’

  The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a merry fellow, Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow, too! A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to be imposed upon. Deep in the people’s hearts! He knew them, Cute did. I believe you!

  ‘But who eats tripe?’ said Mr Filer, looking round. ‘Tripe is without an exception the least economical, and the most wasteful article of consumption that the markets of this country can by possibility produce. The loss upon a pound of tripe has been found to be, in the boiling, seven eighths of a fifth more than the loss upon a pound of any other animal substance whatever. Tripe is more expensive, properly understood, than the hothouse pine-apple. Taking into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly within the bills of mortality alone; and forming a low estimate of the quantity of tripe which the carcases of those animals, reasonably well butchered, would yield; I find that the waste on that amount of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison of five hundred men for five months of thirty-one days each, and a February over. The Waste, the Waste!’

  Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred men with his own hand.

  ‘Who eats tripe?’ said Mr Filer, warmly. ‘Who eats tripe?’

  Trotty made a miserable bow.

  ‘You do, do you?’ said Mr Filer. ‘Then I’ll tell you something. You snatch your tripe, my friend, out of the mouths of widows and orphans.’

  ‘I hope not, sir,’ said Trotty, faintly. ‘I’d sooner die of want!’

  ‘Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned, Alderman,’ said Mr Filer, ‘by the estimated number of existing widows and orphans, and the result will be one penny-weight of tripe to each. Not a grain is left for that man. Consequently, he’s a robber.’

  Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern to see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a relief to get rid of it, anyhow.

  ‘And what do you say?’ asked the Alderman, jocosely, of the red-faced gentleman in the blue coat. ‘You have heard friend Filer. What do you say?’

  ‘What’s it possible to say?’ returned the gentleman. ‘What is to be said? Who can take any interest in a fellow like this,’ meaning Trotty; ‘in such degenerate times as these? Look at him! What an object! The good old times, the grand old times, the great old times! Those were the time
s for a bold peasantry, and all that sort of thing. Those were the times for every sort of thing, in fact. There’s nothing now-a-days. Ah!’ sighed the red-faced gentleman. ‘The good old times, the good old times!’

  The gentleman didn’t specify what particular times he alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected to the present times, from a disinterested consciousness that they had done nothing very remarkable in producing himself.

  ‘The good old times, the good old times,’ repeated the gentleman. ‘What times they were! They were the only times. It’s of no use talking about any other times, or discussing what the people are in these times. You don’t call these, times, do you? I don’t. Look into Strutt’s Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, in any of the good old English reigns.’

  ‘He hadn’t, in his very best circumstances, a shirt to his back, or a stocking to his foot; and there was scarcely a vegetable in all England for him to put into his mouth,’ said Mr Filer. ‘I can prove it, by tables.’

  But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old times, the grand old times, the great old times. No matter what anybody else said, he still went turning round and round in one set form of words concerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in its revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and trick of which, it has probably quite as distinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of his deceased Millennium.

  It is possible that poor Trotty’s faith in these very vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt vague enough, at that moment. One thing, however, was plain to him, in the midst of his distress; to wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in details, his misgivings of that morning, and of many other mornings, were well founded. ‘No, no. We can’t go right or do right,’ thought Trotty in despair. ‘There is no good in us. We are born bad!’

  But Trotty had a father’s heart within him; which had somehow got into his breast in spite of this decree; and he could not bear that Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, should have her fortune read by these wise gentlemen. ‘God help her,’ thought poor Trotty. ‘She will know it soon enough.’