Chapter Thirty-Two

Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

TREATS OF TODGER'S AGAIN; AND OF ANOTHER BLIGHTED PLANT BESIDES
THE PLANTS UPON THE LEADS

Early on the day next after that on which she bade adieu to the
halls of her youth and the scenes of her childhood, Miss Pecksniff,
arriving safely at the coach-office in London, was there received,
and conducted to her peaceful home beneath the shadow of the
Monument, by Mrs Todgers. M. Todgers looked a little worn by cares
of gravy and other such solicitudes arising out of her establishment,
but displayed her usual earnestness and warmth of manner.

'And how, my sweet Miss Pecksniff,' said she, 'how is your
princely pa?'

Miss Pecksniff signified (in confidence) that he contemplated
the introduction of a princely ma; and repeated the sentiment that
she wasn't blind, and wasn't quite a fool, and wouldn't bear it.

Mrs Todgers was more shocked by the intelligence than any one
could have expected. She was quite bitter. She said there was no
truth in man and that the warmer he expressed himself, as a general
principle, the falser and more treacherous he was. She foresaw with
astonishing clearness that the object of Mr Pecksniff's attachment
was designing, worthless, and wicked; and receiving from Charity the
fullest confirmation of these views, protested with tears in her eyes
that she loved Miss Pecksniff like a sister, and felt her injuries as
if they were her own.

'Your real darling sister, I have not seen her more than once
since her marriage,' said Mrs Todgers, 'and then I thought her
looking poorly. My sweet Miss Pecksniff, I always thought that you
was to be the lady?'

'Oh dear no!' cried Cherry, shaking her head. 'Oh no, Mrs
Todgers. Thank you. No! not for any consideration he could
offer.'

'I dare say you are right,' said Mrs Todgers with a sigh. 'I
feared it all along. But the misery we have had from that match,
here among ourselves, in this house, my dear Miss Pecksniff, nobody
would believe.'

'Lor, Mrs Todgers!'

'Awful, awful!' repeated Mrs Todgers, with strong emphasis.
'You recollect our youngest gentleman, my dear?'

'Of course I do,' said Cherry.

'You might have observed,' said Mrs Todgers, 'how he used to
watch your sister; and that a kind of stony dumbness came over him
whenever she was in company?'

'I am sure I never saw anything of the sort,' said Cherry, in a
peevish manner. 'What nonsense, Mrs Todgers!'

'My dear,' returned that lady in a hollow voice, 'I have seen
him again and again, sitting over his pie at dinner, with his spoon a
perfect fixture in his mouth, looking at your sister. I have seen
him standing in a corner of our drawing-room, gazing at her, in such
a lonely, melancholy state, that he was more like a Pump than a man,
and might have drawed tears.'

'I never saw it!' cried Cherry; 'that's all I can say.'

'But when the marriage took place,' said Mrs Todgers, proceeding
with her subject, 'when it was in the paper, and was read out here at
breakfast, I thought he had taken leave of his senses, I did indeed.
The violence of that young man, my dear Miss Pecksniff; the frightful
opinions he expressed upon the subject of self- destruction; the
extraordinary actions he performed with his tea; the clenching way in
which he bit his bread and butter; the manner in which he taunted Mr
Jinkins; all combined to form a picture never to be forgotten.'

'It's a pity he didn't destroy himself, I think,' observed Miss
Pecksniff.

'Himself!' said Mrs Todgers, 'it took another turn at night. He
was for destroying other people then. There was a little chaffing
going on--I hope you don't consider that a low expression, Miss
Pecksniff; it is always in our gentlemen's mouths--a little chaffing
going on, my dear, among 'em, all in good nature, when suddenly he
rose up, foaming with his fury, and but for being held by three would
have had Mr Jinkins's life with a bootjack.'

Miss Pecksniff's face expressed supreme indifference.

'And now,' said Mrs Todgers, 'now he is the meekest of men. You
can almost bring the tears into his eyes by looking at him. He sits
with me the whole day long on Sundays, talking in such a dismal way
that I find it next to impossible to keep my spirits up equal to the
accommodation of the boarders. His only comfort is in female
society. He takes me half-price to the play, to an extent which I
sometimes fear is beyond his means; and I see the tears a-standing in
his eyes during the whole performance--particularly if it is anything
of a comic nature. The turn I experienced only yesterday,' said Mrs
Todgers putting her hand to her side, 'when the house-maid threw his
bedside carpet out of the window of his room, while I was sitting
here, no one can imagine. I thought it was him, and that he had done
it at last!'

The contempt with which Miss Charity received this pathetic
account of the state to which the youngest gentleman in company was
reduced, did not say much for her power of sympathising with that
unfortunate character. She treated it with great levity, and went on
to inform herself, then and afterwards, whether any other changes had
occurred in the commercial boarding-house.

Mr Bailey was gone, and had been succeeded (such is the decay of
human greatness!) by an old woman whose name was reported to be
Tamaroo--which seemed an impossibility. Indeed it appeared in the
fullness of time that the jocular boarders had appropriated the word
from an English ballad, in which it is supposed to express the bold
and fiery nature of a certain hackney coachman; and that it was
bestowed upon Mr Bailey's successor by reason of her having nothing
fiery about her, except an occasional attack of that fire which is
called St. Anthony's. This ancient female had been engaged, in
fulfillment of a vow, registered by Mrs Todgers, that no more boys
should darken the commercial doors; and she was chiefly remarkable
for a total absence of all comprehension upon every subject whatever.
She was a perfect Tomb for messages and small parcels; and when
dispatched to the Post Office with letters, had been frequently seen
endeavouring to insinuate them into casual chinks in private doors,
under the delusion that any door with a hole in it would answer the
purpose. She was a very little old woman, and always wore a very
coarse apron with a bib before and a loop behind, together with
bandages on her wrists, which appeared to be afflicted with an
everlasting sprain. She was on all occasions chary of opening the
street door, and ardent to shut it again; and she waited at table in
a bonnet.

This was the only great change over and above the change which
had fallen on the youngest gentleman. As for him, he more than
corroborated the account of Mrs Todgers; possessing greater
sensibility than even she had given him credit for. He entertained
some terrible notions of Destiny, among other matters, and talked
much about people's 'Missions'; upon which he seemed to have some
private information not generally attainable, as he knew it had been
poor Merry's mission to crush him in the bud. He was very frail and
tearful; for being aware that a shepherd's mission was to pipe to his
flocks, and that a boatswain's mission was to pipe all hands, and
that one man's mission was to be a paid piper, and another man's
mission was to pay the piper, so he had got it into his head that his
own peculiar mission was to pipe his eye. Which he did
perpetually.

He often informed Mrs Todgers that the sun had set upon him;
that the billows had rolled over him; that the car of Juggernaut had
crushed him, and also that the deadly Upas tree of Java had blighted
him. His name was Moddle.

Towards this most unhappy Moddle, Miss Pecksniff conducted
herself at first with distant haughtiness, being in no humour to be
entertained with dirges in honour of her married sister. The poor
young gentleman was additionally crushed by this, and remonstrated
with Mrs Todgers on the subject.

'Even she turns from me, Mrs Todgers,' said Moddle.

'Then why don't you try and be a little bit more cheerful, sir?'
retorted Mrs Todgers.

'Cheerful, Mrs Todgers! cheerful!' cried the youngest gentleman;
'when she reminds me of days for ever fled, Mrs Todgers!'

'Then you had better avoid her for a short time, if she does,'
said Mrs Todgers, 'and come to know her again, by degrees. That's my
advice.'

'But I can't avoid her,' replied Moddle, 'I haven't strength of
mind to do it. Oh, Mrs Todgers, if you knew what a comfort her nose
is to me!'

'Her nose, sir!' Mrs Todgers cried.

'Her profile, in general,' said the youngest gentleman, 'but
particularly her nose. It's so like;' here he yielded to a burst of
grief. 'it's so like hers who is Another's, Mrs Todgers!'

The observant matron did not fail to report this conversation to
Charity, who laughed at the time, but treated Mr Moddle that very
evening with increased consideration, and presented her side face to
him as much as possible. Mr Moddle was not less sentimental than
usual; was rather more so, if anything; but he sat and stared at her
with glistening eyes, and seemed grateful.

'Well, sir!' said the lady of the Boarding-House next day. 'You
held up your head last night. You're coming round, I think.'

'Only because she's so like her who is Another's, Mrs Todgers,'
rejoined the youth. 'When she talks, and when she smiles, I think
I'm looking on her brow again, Mrs Todgers.'

This was likewise carried to Charity, who talked and smiled next
evening in her most engaging manner, and rallying Mr Moddle on the
lowness of his spirits, challenged him to play a rubber at cribbage.
Mr Moddle taking up the gauntlet, they played several rubbers for
sixpences, and Charity won them all. This may have been partially
attributable to the gallantry of the youngest gentleman, but it was
certainly referable to the state of his feelings also; for his eyes
being frequently dimmed by tears, he thought that aces were tens, and
knaves queens, which at times occasioned some confusion in his
play.

On the seventh night of cribbage, when Mrs Todgers, sitting by,
proposed that instead of gambling they should play for 'love,' Mr
Moddle was seen to change colour. On the fourteenth night, he kissed
Miss Pecksniff's snuffers, in the passage, when she went upstairs to
bed; meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it.

In short, Mr Moddle began to be impressed with the idea that
Miss Pecksniff's mission was to comfort him; and Miss Pecksniff began
to speculate on the probability of its being her mission to become
ultimately Mrs Moddle. He was a young gentleman (Miss Pecksniff was
not a very young lady) with rising prospects, and 'almost' enough to
live on. Really it looked very well.

Besides--besides--he had been regarded as devoted to Merry.
Merry had joked about him, and had once spoken of it to her sister as
a conquest. He was better looking, better shaped, better spoken,
better tempered, better mannered than Jonas. He was easy to manage,
could be made to consult the humours of his Betrothed, and could be
shown off like a lamb when Jonas was a bear. There was the rub!

In the meantime the cribbage went on, and Mrs Todgers went off;
for the youngest gentleman, dropping her society, began to take Miss
Pecksniff to the play. He also began, as Mrs Todgers said, to slip
home 'in his dinner-times,' and to get away from 'the office' at
unholy seasons; and twice, as he informed Mrs Todgers himself, he
received anonymous letters, enclosing cards from Furniture
Warehouses--clearly the act of that ungentlemanly ruffian Jinkins;
only he hadn't evidence enough to call him out upon. All of which,
so Mrs Todgers told Miss Pecksniff, spoke as plain English as the
shining sun.

'My dear Miss Pecksniff, you may depend upon it,' said Mrs
Todgers, 'that he is burning to propose.'

'My goodness me, why don't he then?' cried Cherry.

'Men are so much more timid than we think 'em, my dear,'
returned Mrs Todgers. 'They baulk themselves continually. I saw the
words on Todgers's lips for months and months and months, before he
said 'em.'

Miss Pecksniff submitted that Todgers might not have been a fair
specimen.

'Oh yes, he was. Oh bless you, yes, my dear. I was very
particular in those days, I assure you,' said Mrs Todgers, bridling.
'No, no. You give Mr Moddle a little encouragement, Miss Pecksniff,
if you wish him to speak; and he'll speak fast enough, depend upon
it.'

'I am sure I don't know what encouragement he would have, Mrs
Todgers,' returned Charity. 'He walks with me, and plays cards with
me, and he comes and sits alone with me.'

'Quite right,' said Mrs Todgers. 'That's indispensable, my
dear.'

'And he sits very close to me.'

'Also quite correct,' said Mrs Todgers.

'And he looks at me.'

'To be sure he does,' said Mrs Todgers.

'And he has his arm upon the back of the chair or sofa, or
whatever it is--behind me, you know.'

'I should think so,' said Mrs Todgers.

'And then he begins to cry!'

Mrs Todgers admitted that he might do better than that; and
might undoubtedly profit by the recollection of the great Lord
Nelson's signal at the battle of Trafalgar. Still, she said, he
would come round, or, not to mince the matter, would be brought
round, if Miss Pecksniff took up a decided position, and plainly
showed him that it must be done.

Determining to regulate her conduct by this opinion, the young
lady received Mr Moddle, on the earliest subsequent occasion, with an
air of constraint; and gradually leading him to inquire, in a
dejected manner, why she was so changed, confessed to him that she
felt it necessary for their mutual peace and happiness to take a
decided step. They had been much together lately, she observed, much
together, and had tasted the sweets of a genuine reciprocity of
sentiment. She never could forget him, nor could she ever cease to
think of him with feelings of the liveliest friendship, but people
had begun to talk, the thing had been observed, and it was necessary
that they should be nothing more to each other, than any gentleman
and lady in society usually are. She was glad she had had the
resolution to say thus much before her feelings had been tried too
far; they had been greatly tried, she would admit; but though she was
weak and silly, she would soon get the better of it, she hoped.

Moddle, who had by this time become in the last degree maudlin,
and wept abundantly, inferred from the foregoing avowal, that it was
his mission to communicate to others the blight which had fallen on
himself; and that, being a kind of unintentional Vampire, he had had
Miss Pecksniff assigned to him by the Fates, as Victim Number One.
Miss Pecksniff controverting this opinion as sinful, Moddle was
goaded on to ask whether she could be contented with a blighted
heart; and it appearing on further examination that she could be,
plighted his dismal troth, which was accepted and returned.

He bore his good fortune with the utmost moderation. Instead of
being triumphant, he shed more tears than he had ever been known to
shed before; and, sobbing, said:

'Oh! what a day this has been! I can't go back to the office
this afternoon. Oh, what a trying day this has been! Good
Gracious!'