Chapter Thirty-One

Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

MR PINCH IS DISCHARGED OF A DUTY WHICH HE NEVER OWED TO ANYBODY,
AND MR PECKSNIFF DISCHARGES A DUTY WHICH HE OWES TO SOCIETY

The closing words of the last chapter lead naturally to the
commencement of this, its successor; for it has to do with a church.
With the church, so often mentioned heretofore, in which Tom Pinch
played the organ for nothing.

One sultry afternoon, about a week after Miss Charity's
departure for London, Mr Pecksniff being out walking by himself, took
it into his head to stray into the churchyard. As he was lingering
among the tombstones, endeavouring to extract an available sentiment
or two from the epitaphs--for he never lost an opportunity of making
up a few moral crackers, to be let off as occasion served--Tom Pinch
began to practice. Tom could run down to the church and do so
whenever he had time to spare; for it was a simple little organ,
provided with wind by the action of the musician's feet; and he was
independent, even of a bellows-blower. Though if Tom had wanted one
at any time, there was not a man or boy in all the village, and away
to the turnpike (tollman included), but would have blown away for him
till he was black in the face.

Mr Pecksniff had no objection to music; not the least. He was
tolerant of everything; he often said so. He considered it a
vagabond kind of trifling, in general, just suited to Tom's capacity.
But in regard to Tom's performance upon this same organ, he was
remarkably lenient, singularly amiable; for when Tom played it on
Sundays, Mr Pecksniff in his unbounded sympathy felt as if he played
it himself, and were a benefactor to the congregation. So whenever
it was impossible to devise any other means of taking the value of
Tom's wages out of him, Mr Pecksniff gave him leave to cultivate this
instrument. For which mark of his consideration Tom was very
grateful.

The afternoon was remarkably warm, and Mr Pecksniff had been
strolling a long way. He had not what may be called a fine ear for
music, but he knew when it had a tranquilizing influence on his soul;
and that was the case now, for it sounded to him like a melodious
snore. He approached the church, and looking through the diamond
lattice of a window near the porch, saw Tom, with the curtains in the
loft drawn back, playing away with great expression and
tenderness.

The church had an inviting air of coolness. The old oak roof
supported by cross-beams, the hoary walls, the marble tablets, and
the cracked stone pavement, were refreshing to look at. There were
leaves of ivy tapping gently at the opposite windows; and the sun
poured in through only one; leaving the body of the church in
tempting shade. But the most tempting spot of all, was one red-
curtained and soft-cushioned pew, wherein the official dignitaries of
the place (of whom Mr Pecksniff was the head and chief) enshrined
themselves on Sundays. Mr Pecksniff's seat was in the corner; a
remarkably comfortable corner; where his very large Prayer-Book was
at that minute making the most of its quarto self upon the desk. He
determined to go in and rest.

He entered very softly; in part because it was a church; in part
because his tread was always soft; in part because Tom played a
solemn tune; in part because he thought he would surprise him when he
stopped. Unbolting the door of the high pew of state, he glided in
and shut it after him; then sitting in his usual place, and
stretching out his legs upon the hassocks, he composed himself to
listen to the music.

It is an unaccountable circumstance that he should have felt
drowsy there, where the force of association might surely have been
enough to keep him wide awake; but he did. He had not been in the
snug little corner five minutes before he began to nod. He had not
recovered himself one minute before he began to nod again. In the
very act of opening his eyes indolently, he nodded again. In the
very act of shutting them, he nodded again. So he fell out of one
nod into another until at last he ceased to nod at all, and was as
fast as the church itself.

He had a consciousness of the organ, long after he fell asleep,
though as to its being an organ he had no more idea of that than he
had of its being a bull. After a while he began to have at intervals
the same dreamy impressions of voices; and awakening to an indolent
curiosity upon the subject, opened his eyes.

He was so indolent, that after glancing at the hassocks and the
pew, he was already half-way off to sleep again, when it occurred to
him that there really were voices in the church; low voices, talking
earnestly hard by; while the echoes seemed to mutter responses. He
roused himself, and listened.

Before he had listened half a dozen seconds, he became as broad
awake as ever he had been in all his life. With eyes, and ears, and
mouth, wide open, he moved himself a very little with the utmost
caution, and gathering the curtain in his hand, peeped out.

Tom Pinch and Mary. Of course. He had recognized their voices,
and already knew the topic they discussed. Looking like the small
end of a guillotined man, with his chin on a level with the top of
the pew, so that he might duck down immediately in case of either of
them turning round, he listened. Listened with such concentrated
eagerness, that his very hair and shirt-collar stood bristling up to
help him.

'No,' cried Tom. 'No letters have ever reached me, except that
one from New York. But don't be uneasy on that account, for it's
very likely they have gone away to some far-off place, where the
posts are neither regular nor frequent. He said in that very letter
that it might be so, even in that city to which they thought of
travelling--Eden, you know.'

'It is a great weight upon my mind,' said Mary.

'Oh, but you mustn't let it be,' said Tom. 'There's a true
saying that nothing travels so fast as ill news; and if the slightest
harm had happened to Martin, you may be sure you would have heard of
it long ago. I have often wished to say this to you,' Tom continued
with an embarrassment that became him very well, 'but you have never
given me an opportunity.'

'I have sometimes been almost afraid,' said Mary, 'that you
might suppose I hesitated to confide in you, Mr Pinch.'

'No,' Tom stammered, 'I--I am not aware that I ever supposed
that. I am sure that if I have, I have checked the thought directly,
as an injustice to you. I feel the delicacy of your situation in
having to confide in me at all,' said Tom, 'but I would risk my life
to save you from one day's uneasiness; indeed I would!'

Poor Tom!

'I have dreaded sometimes,' Tom continued, 'that I might have
displeased you by--by having the boldness to try and anticipate your
wishes now and then. At other times I have fancied that your
kindness prompted you to keep aloof from me.'

'Indeed!'

'It was very foolish; very presumptuous and ridiculous, to think
so,' Tom pursued; 'but I feared you might suppose it possible that
I--I--should admire you too much for my own peace; and so denied
yourself the slight assistance you would otherwise have accepted from
me. If such an idea has ever presented itself to you,' faltered Tom,
'pray dismiss it. I am easily made happy; and I shall live contented
here long after you and Martin have forgotten me. I am a poor, shy,
awkward creature; not at all a man of the world; and you should think
no more of me, bless you, than if I were an old friar!'

If friars bear such hearts as thine, Tom, let friars multiply;
though they have no such rule in all their stern arithmetic.

'Dear Mr Pinch!' said Mary, giving him her hand; 'I cannot tell
you how your kindness moves me. I have never wronged you by the
lightest doubt, and have never for an instant ceased to feel that you
were all--much more than all--that Martin found you. Without the
silent care and friendship I have experienced from you, my life here
would have been unhappy. But you have been a good angel to me;
filling me with gratitude of heart, hope, and courage.'

'I am as little like an angel, I am afraid,' replied Tom,
shaking his head, 'as any stone cherubim among the grave-stones; and
I don't think there are many real angels of that pattern. But I
should like to know (if you will tell me) why you have been so very
silent about Martin.'

'Because I have been afraid,' said Mary, 'of injuring you.'

'Of injuring me!' cried Tom.

'Of doing you an injury with your employer.'

The gentleman in question dived.

'With Pecksniff!' rejoined Tom, with cheerful confidence. 'Oh
dear, he'd never think of us! He's the best of men. The more at
ease you were, the happier he would be. Oh dear, you needn't be
afraid of Pecksniff. He is not a spy.'

Many a man in Mr Pecksniff's place, if he could have dived
through the floor of the pew of state and come out at Calcutta or any
inhabited region on the other side of the earth, would have done it
instantly. Mr Pecksniff sat down upon a hassock, and listening more
attentively than ever, smiled.

Mary seemed to have expressed some dissent in the meanwhile, for
Tom went on to say, with honest energy:

'Well, I don't know how it is, but it always happens, whenever I
express myself in this way to anybody almost, that I find they won't
do justice to Pecksniff. It is one of the most extraordinary
circumstances that ever came within my knowledge, but it is so.
There's John Westlock, who used to be a pupil here, one of the best-
hearted young men in the world, in all other matters--I really
believe John would have Pecksniff flogged at the cart's tail if he
could. And John is not a solitary case, for every pupil we have had
in my time has gone away with the same inveterate hatred of him.
There was Mark Tapley, too, quite in another station of life,' said
Tom; 'the mockery he used to make of Pecksniff when he was at the
Dragon was shocking. Martin too: Martin was worse than any of 'em.
But I forgot. He prepared you to dislike Pecksniff, of course. So
you came with a prejudice, you know, Miss Graham, and are not a fair
witness.'

Tom triumphed very much in this discovery, and rubbed his hands
with great satisfaction.

'Mr Pinch,' said Mary, 'you mistake him.'

'No, no!' cried Tom. 'You mistake him. But,' he added, with a
rapid change in his tone, 'what is the matter? Miss Graham, what is
the matter?'

Mr Pecksniff brought up to the top of the pew, by slow degrees,
his hair, his forehead, his eyebrow, his eye. She was sitting on a
bench beside the door with her hands before her face; and Tom was
bending over her.

'What is the matter?' cried Tom. 'Have I said anything to hurt
you? Has any one said anything to hurt you? Don't cry. Pray tell me
what it is. I cannot bear to see you so distressed. Mercy on us, I
never was so surprised and grieved in all my life!'

Mr Pecksniff kept his eye in the same place. He could have
moved it now for nothing short of a gimlet or a red-hot wire.

'I wouldn't have told you, Mr Pinch,' said Mary, 'if I could
have helped it; but your delusion is so absorbing, and it is so
necessary that we should be upon our guard; that you should not be
compromised; and to that end that you should know by whom I am beset;
that no alternative is left me. I came here purposely to tell you,
but I think I should have wanted courage if you had not chanced to
lead me so directly to the object of my coming.'

Tom gazed at her steadfastly, and seemed to say, 'What else?'
But he said not a word.

'That person whom you think the best of men,' said Mary, looking
up, and speaking with a quivering lip and flashing eye.

'Lord bless me!' muttered Tom, staggering back. 'Wait a moment.
That person whom I think the best of men! You mean Pecksniff, of
course. Yes, I see you mean Pecksniff. Good gracious me, don't
speak without authority. What has he done? If he is not the best of
men, what is he?'

'The worst. The falsest, craftiest, meanest, cruellest, most
sordid, most shameless,' said the trembling girl--trembling with her
indignation.

Tom sat down on a seat, and clasped his hands.

'What is he,' said Mary, 'who receiving me in his house as his
guest; his unwilling guest; knowing my history, and how defenceless
and alone I am, presumes before his daughters to affront me so, that
if I had a brother but a child, who saw it, he would instinctively
have helped me?'

'He is a scoundrel!' exclaimed Tom. 'Whoever he may be, he is a
scoundrel.'

Mr Pecksniff dived again.

'What is he,' said Mary, 'who, when my only friend--a dear and
kind one, too--was in full health of mind, humbled himself before
him, but was spurned away (for he knew him then) like a dog. Who, in
his forgiving spirit, now that that friend is sunk into a failing
state, can crawl about him again, and use the influence he basely
gains for every base and wicked purpose, and not for one--not
one--that's true or good?'

'I say he is a scoundrel!' answered Tom.

'But what is he--oh, Mr Pinch, what is he--who, thinking he
could compass these designs the better if I were his wife, assails me
with the coward's argument that if I marry him, Martin, on whom I
have brought so much misfortune, shall be restored to something of
his former hopes; and if I do not, shall be plunged in deeper ruin?
What is he who makes my very constancy to one I love with all my
heart a torture to myself and wrong to him; who makes me, do what I
will, the instrument to hurt a head I would heap blessings on! What
is he who, winding all these cruel snares about me, explains their
purpose to me, with a smooth tongue and a smiling face, in the broad
light of day; dragging me on, the while, in his embrace, and holding
to his lips a hand,' pursued the agitated girl, extending it, 'which
I would have struck off, if with it I could lose the shame and
degradation of his touch?'

'I say,' cried Tom, in great excitement, 'he is a scoundrel and
a villain! I don't care who he is, I say he is a double-dyed and
most intolerable villain!'

Covering her face with her hands again, as if the passion which
had sustained her through these disclosures lost itself in an
overwhelming sense of shame and grief, she abandoned herself to
tears.

Any sight of distress was sure to move the tenderness of Tom,
but this especially. Tears and sobs from her were arrows in his
heart. He tried to comfort her; sat down beside her; expended all his
store of homely eloquence; and spoke in words of praise and hope of
Martin. Aye, though he loved her from his soul with such a self-
denying love as woman seldom wins; he spoke from first to last of
Martin. Not the wealth of the rich Indies would have tempted Tom to
shirk one mention of her lover's name.

When she was more composed, she impressed upon Tom that this man
she had described, was Pecksniff in his real colours; and word by
word and phrase by phrase, as well as she remembered it, related what
had passed between them in the wood: which was no doubt a source of
high gratification to that gentleman himself, who in his desire to
see and his dread of being seen, was constantly diving down into the
state pew, and coming up again like the intelligent householder in
Punch's Show, who avoids being knocked on the head with a cudgel.
When she had concluded her account, and had besought Tom to be very
distant and unconscious in his manner towards her after this
explanation, and had thanked him very much, they parted on the alarm
of footsteps in the burial-ground; and Tom was left alone in the
church again.

And now the full agitation and misery of the disclosure came
rushing upon Tom indeed. The star of his whole life from boyhood had
become, in a moment, putrid vapour. It was not that Pecksniff, Tom's
Pecksniff, had ceased to exist, but that he never had existed. In his
death Tom would have had the comfort of remembering what he used to
be, but in this discovery, he had the anguish of recollecting what he
never was. For, as Tom's blindness in this matter had been total and
not partial, so was his restored sight. His Pecksniff could never
have worked the wickedness of which he had just now heard, but any
other Pecksniff could; and the Pecksniff who could do that could do
anything, and no doubt had been doing anything and everything except
the right thing, all through his career. From the lofty height on
which poor Tom had placed his idol it was tumbled down headlong,
and

Not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men,
Could have set Mr Pecksniff up again. Legions of Titans couldn't
have got him out of the mud; and serve him right! But it was not he
who suffered; it was Tom. His compass was broken, his chart
destroyed, his chronometer had stopped, his masts were gone by the
board; his anchor was adrift, ten thousand leagues away.

Mr Pecksniff watched him with a lively interest, for he divined
the purpose of Tom's ruminations, and was curious to see how he
conducted himself. For some time, Tom wandered up and down the aisle
like a man demented, stopping occasionally to lean against a pew and
think it over; then he stood staring at a blank old monument bordered
tastefully with skulls and cross-bones, as if it were the finest work
of Art he had ever seen, although at other times he held it in
unspeakable contempt; then he sat down; then walked to and fro again;
then went wandering up into the organ-loft, and touched the keys.
But their minstrelsy was changed, their music gone; and sounding one
long melancholy chord, Tom drooped his head upon his hands and gave
it up as hopeless.

'I wouldn't have cared,' said Tom Pinch, rising from his stool
and looking down into the church as if he had been the Clergyman, 'I
wouldn't have cared for anything he might have done to Me, for I have
tried his patience often, and have lived upon his sufferance and have
never been the help to him that others could have been. I wouldn't
have minded, Pecksniff,' Tom continued, little thinking who heard
him, 'if you had done Me any wrong; I could have found plenty of
excuses for that; and though you might have hurt me, could have still
gone on respecting you. But why did you ever fall so low as this in
my esteem! Oh Pecksniff, Pecksniff, there is nothing I would not
have given, to have had you deserve my old opinion of you;
nothing!'

Mr Pecksniff sat upon the hassock pulling up his shirt-collar,
while Tom, touched to the quick, delivered this apostrophe. After a
pause he heard Tom coming down the stairs, jingling the church keys;
and bringing his eye to the top of the pew again, saw him go slowly
out and lock the door.

Mr Pecksniff durst not issue from his place of concealment; for
through the windows of the church he saw Tom passing on among the
graves, and sometimes stopping at a stone, and leaning there as if he
were a mourner who had lost a friend. Even when he had left the
churchyard, Mr Pecksniff still remained shut up; not being at all
secure but that in his restless state of mind Tom might come
wandering back. At length he issued forth, and walked with a
pleasant countenance into the vestry; where he knew there was a
window near the ground, by which he could release himself by merely
stepping out.

He was in a curious frame of mind, Mr Pecksniff; being in no
hurry to go, but rather inclining to a dilatory trifling with the
time, which prompted him to open the vestry cupboard, and look at
himself in the parson's little glass that hung within the door.
Seeing that his hair was rumpled, he took the liberty of borrowing
the canonical brush and arranging it. He also took the liberty of
opening another cupboard; but he shut it up again quickly, being
rather startled by the sight of a black and a white surplice dangling
against the wall; which had very much the appearance of two curates
who had committed suicide by hanging themselves. Remembering that he
had seen in the first cupboard a port-wine bottle and some biscuits,
he peeped into it again, and helped himself with much deliberation;
cogitating all the time though, in a very deep and weighty manner, as
if his thoughts were otherwise employed.

He soon made up his mind, if it had ever been in doubt; and
putting back the bottle and biscuits, opened the casement. He got
out into the churchyard without any difficulty; shut the window after
him; and walked straight home.

'Is Mr Pinch indoors?' asked Mr Pecksniff of his
serving-maid.

'Just come in, sir.'

'Just come in, eh?' repeated Mr Pecksniff, cheerfully. 'And
gone upstairs, I suppose?'

'Yes sir. Gone upstairs. Shall I call him, sir?'

'No,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'no. You needn't call him, Jane.
Thank you, Jane. How are your relations, Jane?'

'Pretty well, I thank you, sir.'

'I am glad to hear it. Let them know I asked about them, Jane.
Is Mr Chuzzlewit in the way, Jane?'

'Yes, sir. He's in the parlour, reading.'

'He's in the parlour, reading, is he, Jane?' said Mr Pecksniff.
'Very well. Then I think I'll go and see him, Jane.'

Never had Mr Pecksniff been beheld in a more pleasant humour!

But when he walked into the parlour where the old man was
engaged as Jane had said; with pen and ink and paper on a table close
at hand (for Mr Pecksniff was always very particular to have him well
supplied with writing materials), he became less cheerful. He was
not angry, he was not vindictive, he was not cross, he was not moody,
but he was grieved; he was sorely grieved. As he sat down by the old
man's side, two tears--not tears like those with which recording
angels blot their entries out, but drops so precious that they use
them for their ink--stole down his meritorious cheeks.

'What is the matter?' asked old Martin. 'Pecksniff, what ails
you, man?'

'I am sorry to interrupt you, my dear sir, and I am still more
sorry for the cause. My good, my worthy friend, I am deceived.'

'You are deceived!'

'Ah!' cried Mr Pecksniff, in an agony, 'deceived in the
tenderest point. Cruelly deceived in that quarter, sir, in which I
placed the most unbounded confidence. Deceived, Mr Chuzzlewit, by
Thomas Pinch.'

'Oh! bad, bad, bad!' said Martin, laying down his book. 'Very
bad! I hope not. Are you certain?'

'Certain, my good sir! My eyes and ears are witnesses. I
wouldn't have believed it otherwise. I wouldn't have believed it, Mr
Chuzzlewit, if a Fiery Serpent had proclaimed it from the top of
Salisbury Cathedral. I would have said,' cried Mr Pecksniff, 'that
the Serpent lied. Such was my faith in Thomas Pinch, that I would
have cast the falsehood back into the Serpent's teeth, and would have
taken Thomas to my heart. But I am not a Serpent, sir, myself, I
grieve to say, and no excuse or hope is left me.'

Martin was greatly disturbed to see him so much agitated, and to
hear such unexpected news. He begged him to compose himself, and
asked upon what subject Mr Pinch's treachery had been developed.

'That is almost the worst of all, sir,' Mr Pecksniff answered.
'on a subject nearly concerning you. Oh! is it not enough,' said Mr
Pecksniff, looking upward, 'that these blows must fall on me, but
must they also hit my friends!'

'You alarm me,' cried the old man, changing colour. 'I am not
so strong as I was. You terrify me, Pecksniff!'

'Cheer up, my noble sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, taking courage,
'and we will do what is required of us. You shall know all, sir, and
shall be righted. But first excuse me, sir, excuse me. I have a
duty to discharge, which I owe to society.'

He rang the bell, and Jane appeared. 'Send Mr Pinch here, if
you please, Jane.'

Tom came. Constrained and altered in his manner, downcast and
dejected, visibly confused; not liking to look Pecksniff in the
face.

The honest man bestowed a glance on Mr Chuzzlewit, as who should
say 'You see!' and addressed himself to Tom in these terms:

'Mr Pinch, I have left the vestry-window unfastened. Will you
do me the favour to go and secure it; then bring the keys of the
sacred edifice to me!'

'The vestry-window, sir?' cried Tom.

'You understand me, Mr Pinch, I think,' returned his patron.
'Yes, Mr Pinch, the vestry-window. I grieve to say that sleeping in
the church after a fatiguing ramble, I overheard just now some
fragments,' he emphasised that word, 'of a dialogue between two
parties; and one of them locking the church when he went out, I was
obliged to leave it myself by the vestry-window. Do me the favour to
secure that vestry-window, Mr Pinch, and then come back to me.'

No physiognomist that ever dwelt on earth could have construed
Tom's face when he heard these words. Wonder was in it, and a mild
look of reproach, but certainly no fear or guilt, although a host of
strong emotions struggled to display themselves. He bowed, and
without saying one word, good or bad, withdrew.

'Pecksniff,' cried Martin, in a tremble, 'what does all this
mean? You are not going to do anything in haste, you may regret!'

'No, my good sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, firmly, 'No. But I have a
duty to discharge which I owe to society; and it shall be discharged,
my friend, at any cost!'

Oh, late-remembered, much-forgotten, mouthing, braggart duty,
always owed, and seldom paid in any other coin than punishment and
wrath, when will mankind begin to know thee! When will men
acknowledge thee in thy neglected cradle, and thy stunted youth, and
not begin their recognition in thy sinful manhood and thy desolate
old age! Oh, ermined Judge whose duty to society is, now, to doom
the ragged criminal to punishment and death, hadst thou never, Man, a
duty to discharge in barring up the hundred open gates that wooed him
to the felon's dock, and throwing but ajar the portals to a decent
life! Oh, prelate, prelate, whose duty to society it is to mourn in
melancholy phrase the sad degeneracy of these bad times in which thy
lot of honours has been cast, did nothing go before thy elevation to
the lofty seat, from which thou dealest out thy homilies to other
tarriers for dead men's shoes, whose duty to society has not begun!
Oh! magistrate, so rare a country gentleman and brave a squire, had
you no duty to society, before the ricks were blazing and the mob
were mad; or did it spring up, armed and booted from the earth, a
corps of yeomanry full-grown!

Mr Pecksniff's duty to society could not be paid till Tom came
back. The interval which preceded the return of that young man, he
occupied in a close conference with his friend; so that when Tom did
arrive, he found the two quite ready to receive him. Mary was in her
own room above, whither Mr Pecksniff, always considerate, had
besought old Martin to entreat her to remain some half-hour longer,
that her feelings might be spared.

When Tom came back, he found old Martin sitting by the window,
and Mr Pecksniff in an imposing attitude at the table. On one side
of him was his pocket-handkerchief; and on the other a little heap (a
very little heap) of gold and silver, and odd pence. Tom saw, at a
glance, that it was his own salary for the current quarter.

'Have you fastened the vestry-window, Mr Pinch?' said
Pecksniff.

'Yes, sir.'

'Thank you. Put down the keys if you please, Mr Pinch.'

Tom placed them on the table. He held the bunch by the key of
the organ-loft (though it was one of the smallest), and looked hard
at it as he laid it down. It had been an old, old friend of Tom's; a
kind companion to him, many and many a day.

'Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, shaking his head; 'oh, Mr Pinch! I
wonder you can look me in the face!'

Tom did it though; and notwithstanding that he has been
described as stooping generally, he stood as upright then as man
could stand.

'Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, taking up his handkerchief, as if he
felt that he should want it soon, 'I will not dwell upon the past. I
will spare you, and I will spare myself, that pain at least.'

Tom's was not a very bright eye, but it was a very expressive
one when he looked at Mr Pecksniff, and said:

'Thank you, sir. I am very glad you will not refer to the
past.'

'The present is enough,' said Mr Pecksniff, dropping a penny,
'and the sooner that is past, the better. Mr Pinch, I will not
dismiss you without a word of explanation. Even such a course would
be quite justifiable under the circumstances; but it might wear an
appearance of hurry, and I will not do it; for I am,' said Mr
Pecksniff, knocking down another penny, 'perfectly self-possessed.
Therefore I will say to you, what I have already said to Mr
Chuzzlewit.'

Tom glanced at the old gentleman, who nodded now and then as
approving of Mr Pecksniff's sentences and sentiments, but interposed
between them in no other way.

'From fragments of a conversation which I overheard in the
church, just now, Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff, 'between yourself and
Miss Graham--I say fragments, because I was slumbering at a
considerable distance from you, when I was roused by your voices--and
from what I saw, I ascertained (I would have given a great deal not
to have ascertained, Mr Pinch) that you, forgetful of all ties of
duty and of honour, sir; regardless of the sacred laws of
hospitality, to which you were pledged as an inmate of this house;
have presumed to address Miss Graham with unreturned professions of
attachment and proposals of love.'

Tom looked at him steadily.

'Do you deny it, sir?' asked Mr Pecksniff, dropping one pound
two and fourpence, and making a great business of picking it up
again.

'No, sir,' replied Tom. 'I do not.'

'You do not,' said Mr Pecksniff, glancing at the old gentleman.
'Oblige me by counting this money, Mr Pinch, and putting your name to
this receipt. You do not?'

No, Tom did not. He scorned to deny it. He saw that Mr
Pecksniff having overheard his own disgrace, cared not a jot for
sinking lower yet in his contempt. He saw that he had devised this
fiction as the readiest means of getting rid of him at once, but that
it must end in that any way. He saw that Mr Pecksniff reckoned on
his not denying it, because his doing so and explaining would incense
the old man more than ever against Martin and against Mary; while
Pecksniff himself would only have been mistaken in his 'fragments.'
Deny it! No.

'You find the amount correct, do you, Mr Pinch?' said
Pecksniff.

'Quite correct, sir,' answered Tom.

'A person is waiting in the kitchen,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'to
carry your luggage wherever you please. We part, Mr Pinch, at once,
and are strangers from this time.'

Something without a name; compassion, sorrow, old tenderness,
mistaken gratitude, habit; none of these, and yet all of them; smote
upon Tom's gentle heart at parting. There was no such soul as
Pecksniff's in that carcase; and yet, though his speaking out had not
involved the compromise of one he loved, he couldn't have denounced
the very shape and figure of the man. Not even then.

'I will not say,' cried Mr Pecksniff, shedding tears, 'what a
blow this is. I will not say how much it tries me; how it works upon
my nature; how it grates upon my feelings. I do not care for that.
I can endure as well as another man. But what I have to hope, and
what you have to hope, Mr Pinch (otherwise a great responsibility
rests upon you), is, that this deception may not alter my ideas of
humanity; that it may not impair my freshness, or contract, if I may
use the expression, my Pinions. I hope it will not; I don't think it
will. It may be a comfort to you, if not now, at some future time,
to know that I shall endeavour not to think the worse of my
fellow-creatures in general, for what has passed between us.
Farewell!'

Tom had meant to spare him one little puncturation with a
lancet, which he had it in his power to administer, but he changed
his mind on hearing this, and said:

'I think you left something in the church, sir.'

'Thank you, Mr Pinch,' said Pecksniff. 'I am not aware that I
did.'

'This is your double eye-glass, I believe?' said Tom.

'Oh!' cried Pecksniff, with some degree of confusion. 'I am
obliged to you. Put it down, if you please.'

'I found it,' said Tom, slowly--'when I went to bolt the vestry-
window--in the pew.'

So he had. Mr Pecksniff had taken it off when he was bobbing up
and down, lest it should strike against the panelling; and had
forgotten it. Going back to the church with his mind full of having
been watched, and wondering very much from what part, Tom's attention
was caught by the door of the state pew standing open. Looking into
it he found the glass. And thus he knew, and by returning it gave Mr
Pecksniff the information that he knew, where the listener had been;
and that instead of overhearing fragments of the conversation, he
must have rejoiced in every word of it.

'I am glad he's gone,' said Martin, drawing a long breath when
Tom had left the room.

'It is a relief,' assented Mr Pecksniff. 'It is a great relief.
But having discharged--I hope with tolerable firmness--the duty which
I owed to society, I will now, my dear sir, if you will give me
leave, retire to shed a few tears in the back garden, as an humble
individual.'

Tom went upstairs; cleared his shelf of books; packed them up
with his music and an old fiddle in his trunk; got out his clothes
(they were not so many that they made his head ache); put them on the
top of his books; and went into the workroom for his case of
instruments. There was a ragged stool there, with the horsehair all
sticking out of the top like a wig: a very Beast of a stool in
itself; on which he had taken up his daily seat, year after year,
during the whole period of his service. They had grown older and
shabbier in company. Pupils had served their time; seasons had come
and gone. Tom and the worn-out stool had held together through it
all. That part of the room was traditionally called 'Tom's Corner.'
It had been assigned to him at first because of its being situated in
a strong draught, and a great way from the fire; and he had occupied
it ever since. There were portraits of him on the walls, with all
his weak points monstrously portrayed. Diabolical sentiments,
foreign to his character, were represented as issuing from his mouth
in fat balloons. Every pupil had added something, even unto fancy
portraits of his father with one eye, and of his mother with a
disproportionate nose, and especially of his sister; who always being
presented as extremely beautiful, made full amends to Tom for any
other jokes. Under less uncommon circumstances, it would have cut
Tom to the heart to leave these things and think that he saw them for
the last time; but it didn't now. There was no Pecksniff; there
never had been a Pecksniff; and all his other griefs were swallowed
up in that.

So, when he returned into the bedroom, and, having fastened his
box and a carpet-bag, put on his walking gaiters, and his great-coat,
and his hat, and taken his stick in his hand, looked round it for the
last time. Early on summer mornings, and by the light of private
candle-ends on winter nights, he had read himself half blind in this
same room. He had tried in this same room to learn the fiddle under
the bedclothes, but yielding to objections from the other pupils, had
reluctantly abandoned the design. At any other time he would have
parted from it with a pang, thinking of all he had learned there, of
the many hours he had passed there; for the love of his very dreams.
But there was no Pecksniff; there never had been a Pecksniff, and the
unreality of Pecksniff extended itself to the chamber, in which,
sitting on one particular bed, the thing supposed to be that Great
Abstraction had often preached morality with such effect that Tom had
felt a moisture in his eyes, while hanging breathless on the
words.

The man engaged to bear his box--Tom knew him well: a Dragon
man-- came stamping up the stairs, and made a roughish bow to Tom (to
whom in common times he would have nodded with a grin) as though he
were aware of what had happened, and wished him to perceive it made
no difference to him. It was clumsily done; he was a mere waterer of
horses; but Tom liked the man for it, and felt it more than going
away.

Tom would have helped him with the box, but he made no more of
it, though it was a heavy one, than an elephant would have made of a
castle; just swinging it on his back and bowling downstairs as if,
being naturally a heavy sort of fellow, he could carry a box
infinitely better than he could go alone. Tom took the carpet-bag,
and went downstairs along with him. At the outer door stood Jane,
crying with all her might; and on the steps was Mrs Lupin, sobbing
bitterly, and putting out her hand for Tom to shake.

'You're coming to the Dragon, Mr Pinch?'

'No,' said Tom, 'no. I shall walk to Salisbury to-night. I
couldn't stay here. For goodness' sake, don't make me so unhappy,
Mrs Lupin.'

'But you'll come to the Dragon, Mr Pinch. If it's only for
tonight. To see me, you know; not as a traveller.'

'God bless my soul!' said Tom, wiping his eyes. 'The kindness
of people is enough to break one's heart! I mean to go to Salisbury
to-night, my dear good creature. If you'll take care of my box for
me till I write for it, I shall consider it the greatest kindness you
can do me.'

'I wish,' cried Mrs Lupin, 'there were twenty boxes, Mr Pinch,
that I might have 'em all.'

'Thank'ee,' said Tom. 'It's like you. Good-bye. Good-bye.'

There were several people, young and old, standing about the
door, some of whom cried with Mrs Lupin; while others tried to keep
up a stout heart, as Tom did; and others were absorbed in admiration
of Mr Pecksniff--a man who could build a church, as one may say, by
squinting at a sheet of paper; and others were divided between that
feeling and sympathy with Tom. Mr Pecksniff had appeared on the top
of the steps, simultaneously with his old pupil, and while Tom was
talking with Mrs Lupin kept his hand stretched out, as though he said
'Go forth!' When Tom went forth, and had turned the corner Mr
Pecksniff shook his head, shut his eyes, and heaving a deep sigh,
shut the door. On which, the best of Tom's supporters said he must
have done some dreadful deed, or such a man as Mr Pecksniff never
could have felt like that. If it had been a common quarrel (they
observed), he would have said something, but when he didn't, Mr Pinch
must have shocked him dreadfully.

Tom was out of hearing of their shrewd opinions, and plodded on
as steadily as he could go, until he came within sight of the
turnpike where the tollman's family had cried out 'Mr Pinch!' that
frosty morning, when he went to meet young Martin. He had got
through the village, and this toll-bar was his last trial; but when
the infant toll-takers came screeching out, he had half a mind to run
for it, and make a bolt across the country.

'Why, deary Mr Pinch! oh, deary sir!' cried the tollman's wife.
'What an unlikely time for you to be a-going this way with a bag!'

'I am going to Salisbury,' said Tom.

'Why, goodness, where's the gig, then?' cried the tollman's
wife, looking down the road, as if she thought Tom might have been
upset without observing it.

'I haven't got it,' said Tom. 'I--' he couldn't evade it; he
felt she would have him in the next question, if he got over this
one. 'I have left Mr Pecksniff.'

The tollman--a crusty customer, always smoking solitary pipes in
a Windsor chair, inside, set artfully between two little windows that
looked up and down the road, so that when he saw anything coming up
he might hug himself on having toll to take, and when he saw it going
down, might hug himself on having taken it--the tollman was out in an
instant.

'Left Mr Pecksniff!' cried the tollman.

'Yes,' said Tom, 'left him.'

The tollman looked at his wife, uncertain whether to ask her if
she had anything to suggest, or to order her to mind the children.
Astonishment making him surly, he preferred the latter, and sent her
into the toll-house with a flea in her ear.

'You left Mr Pecksniff!' cried the tollman, folding his arms,
and spreading his legs. 'I should as soon have thought of his head
leaving him.'

'Aye!' said Tom, 'so should I, yesterday. Good night!'

If a heavy drove of oxen hadn't come by immediately, the tollman
would have gone down to the village straight, to inquire into it. As
things turned out, he smoked another pipe, and took his wife into his
confidence. But their united sagacity could make nothing of it, and
they went to bed--metaphorically--in the dark. But several times
that night, when a waggon or other vehicle came through, and the
driver asked the tollkeeper 'What news?' he looked at the man by the
light of his lantern, to assure himself that he had an interest in
the subject, and then said, wrapping his watch-coat round his
legs:

'You've heerd of Mr Pecksniff down yonder?'

'Ah! sure-ly!'

'And of his young man Mr Pinch, p'raps?'

'Ah!'

'They've parted.'

After every one of these disclosures, the tollman plunged into
his house again, and was seen no more, while the other side went on
in great amazement.

But this was long after Tom was abed, and Tom was now with his
face towards Salisbury, doing his best to get there. The evening was
beautiful at first, but it became cloudy and dull at sunset, and the
rain fell heavily soon afterwards. For ten long miles he plodded on,
wet through, until at last the lights appeared, and he came into the
welcome precincts of the city.

He went to the inn where he had waited for Martin, and briefly
answering their inquiries after Mr Pecksniff, ordered a bed. He had
no heart for tea or supper, meat or drink of any kind, but sat by
himself before an empty table in the public room while the bed was
getting ready, revolving in his mind all that had happened that
eventful day, and wondering what he could or should do for the
future. It was a great relief when the chambermaid came in, and said
the bed was ready.

It was a low four-poster, shelving downward in the centre like a
trough, and the room was crowded with impracticable tables and
exploded chests of drawers, full of damp linen. A graphic
representation in oil of a remarkably fat ox hung over the fireplace,
and the portrait of some former landlord (who might have been the
ox's brother, he was so like him) stared roundly in, at the foot of
the bed. A variety of queer smells were partially quenched in the
prevailing scent of very old lavender; and the window had not been
opened for such a long space of time that it pleaded immemorial
usage, and wouldn't come open now.

These were trifles in themselves, but they added to the
strangeness of the place, and did not induce Tom to forget his new
position. Pecksniff had gone out of the world--had never been in
it--and it was as much as Tom could do to say his prayers without
him. But he felt happier afterwards, and went to sleep, and dreamed
about him as he Never Was.