Chapter Thirty-Seven

Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

TOM PINCH, GOING ASTRAY, FINDS THAT HE IS NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN
THAT PREDICAMENT. HE RETALIATES UPON A FALLEN FOE

Tom's evil genius did not lead him into the dens of any of those
preparers of cannibalic pastry, who are represented in many standard
country legends as doing a lively retail business in the Metropolis;
nor did it mark him out as the prey of ring-droppers, pea and
thimble-riggers, duffers, touters, or any of those bloodless
sharpers, who are, perhaps, a little better known to the Police. He
fell into conversation with no gentleman who took him into a public-
house, where there happened to be another gentleman who swore he had
more money than any gentleman, and very soon proved he had more money
than one gentleman by taking his away from him; neither did he fall
into any other of the numerous man-traps which are set up without
notice, in the public grounds of this city. But he lost his way. He
very soon did that; and in trying to find it again he lost it more
and more.

Now, Tom, in his guileless distrust of London, thought himself
very knowing in coming to the determination that he would not ask to
be directed to Furnival's Inn, if he could help it; unless, indeed,
he should happen to find himself near the Mint, or the Bank of
England; in which case he would step in, and ask a civil question or
two, confiding in the perfect respectability of the concern. So on
he went, looking up all the streets he came near, and going up half
of them; and thus, by dint of not being true to Goswell Street, and
filing off into Aldermanbury, and bewildering himself in Barbican,
and being constant to the wrong point of the compass in London Wall,
and then getting himself crosswise into Thames Street, by an instinct
that would have been marvellous if he had had the least desire or
reason to go there, he found himself, at last, hard by the
Monument.

The Man in the Monument was quite as mysterious a being to Tom
as the Man in the Moon. It immediately occurred to him that the
lonely creature who held himself aloof from all mankind in that
pillar like some old hermit was the very man of whom to ask his way.
Cold, he might be; little sympathy he had, perhaps, with human
passion--the column seemed too tall for that; but if Truth didn't
live in the base of the Monument, notwithstanding Pope's couplet
about the outside of it, where in London (thought Tom) was she likely
to be found!

Coming close below the pillar, it was a great encouragement to
Tom to find that the Man in the Monument had simple tastes; that
stony and artificial as his residence was, he still preserved some
rustic recollections; that he liked plants, hung up bird-cages, was
not wholly cut off from fresh groundsel, and kept young trees in
tubs. The Man in the Monument, himself, was sitting outside the
door--his own door: the Monument-door: what a grand idea!--and was
actually yawning, as if there were no Monument to stop his mouth, and
give him a perpetual interest in his own existence.

Tom was advancing towards this remarkable creature, to inquire
the way to Furnival's Inn, when two people came to see the Monument.
They were a gentleman and a lady; and the gentleman said, 'How much
a-piece?'

The Man in the Monument replied, 'A Tanner.'

It seemed a low expression, compared with the Monument.

The gentleman put a shilling into his hand, and the Man in the
Monument opened a dark little door. When the gentleman and lady had
passed out of view, he shut it again, and came slowly back to his
chair.

He sat down and laughed.

'They don't know what a many steps there is!' he said. 'It's
worth twice the money to stop here. Oh, my eye!'

The Man in the Monument was a Cynic; a worldly man! Tom
couldn't ask his way of him. He was prepared to put no confidence in
anything he said.

'My gracious!' cried a well-known voice behind Mr Pinch. 'Why,
to be sure it is!'

At the same time he was poked in the back by a parasol. Turning
round to inquire into this salute, he beheld the eldest daughter of
his late patron.

'Miss Pecksniff!' said Tom.

'Why, my goodness, Mr Pinch!' cried Cherry. 'What are you doing
here?'

'I have rather wandered from my way,' said Tom. 'I--'

'I hope you have run away,' said Charity. 'It would be quite
spirited and proper if you had, when my Papa so far forgets
himself.'

'I have left him,' returned Tom. 'But it was perfectly
understood on both sides. It was not done clandestinely.'

'Is he married?' asked Cherry, with a spasmodic shake of her
chin.

'No, not yet,' said Tom, colouring; 'to tell you the truth, I
don't think he is likely to be, if--if Miss Graham is the object of
his passion.'

'Tcha, Mr Pinch!' cried Charity, with sharp impatience, 'you're
very easily deceived. You don't know the arts of which such a
creature is capable. Oh! it's a wicked world.'

'You are not married?' Tom hinted, to divert the
conversation.

'N--no!' said Cherry, tracing out one particular paving-stone in
Monument Yard with the end of her parasol. 'I--but really it's quite
impossible to explain. Won't you walk in?'

'You live here, then?' said Tom

'Yes,' returned Miss Pecksniff, pointing with her parasol to
Todgers's; 'I reside with this lady, at present.'

The great stress on the two last words suggested to Tom that he
was expected to say something in reference to them. So he said.

'Only at present! Are you going home again soon?'

'No, Mr Pinch,' returned Charity. 'No, thank you. No! A
mother-in- law who is younger than--I mean to say, who is as nearly
as possible about the same age as one's self, would not quite suit my
spirit. Not quite!' said Cherry, with a spiteful shiver.

'I thought from your saying "at present"'--Tom observed.

'Really, upon my word! I had no idea you would press me so very
closely on the subject, Mr Pinch,' said Charity, blushing, 'or I
should not have been so foolish as to allude to--oh really!--won't
you walk in?'

Tom mentioned, to excuse himself, that he had an appointment in
Furnival's Inn, and that coming from Islington he had taken a few
wrong turnings, and arrived at the Monument instead. Miss Pecksniff
simpered very much when he asked her if she knew the way to
Furnival's Inn, and at length found courage to reply.

'A gentleman who is a friend of mine, or at least who is not
exactly a friend so much as a sort of acquaintance--Oh upon my word,
I hardly know what I say, Mr Pinch; you mustn't suppose there is any
engagement between us; or at least if there is, that it is at all a
settled thing as yet--is going to Furnival's Inn immediately, I
believe upon a little business, and I am sure he would be very glad
to accompany you, so as to prevent your going wrong again. You had
better walk in. You will very likely find my sister Merry here,' she
said with a curious toss of her head, and anything but an agreeable
smile.

'Then, I think, I'll endeavour to find my way alone,' said Tom,
'for I fear she would not be very glad to see me. That unfortunate
occurrence, in relation to which you and I had some amicable words
together, in private, is not likely to have impressed her with any
friendly feeling towards me. Though it really was not my fault.'

'She has never heard of that, you may depend,' said Cherry,
gathering up the corners of her mouth, and nodding at Tom. 'I am far
from sure that she would bear you any mighty ill will for it, if she
had.'

'You don't say so?' cried Tom, who was really concerned by this
insinuation.

'I say nothing,' said Charity. 'If I had not already known what
shocking things treachery and deceit are in themselves, Mr Pinch, I
might perhaps have learnt it from the success they meet with--from
the success they meet with.' Here she smiled as before. 'But I
don't say anything. On the contrary, I should scorn it. You had
better walk in!'

There was something hidden here, which piqued Tom's interest and
troubled his tender heart. When, in a moment's irresolution, he
looked at Charity, he could not but observe a struggle in her face
between a sense of triumph and a sense of shame; nor could he but
remark how, meeting even his eyes, which she cared so little for, she
turned away her own, for all the splenetic defiance in her manner.

An uneasy thought entered Tom's head; a shadowy misgiving that
the altered relations between himself and Pecksniff were somehow to
involve an altered knowledge on his part of other people, and were to
give him an insight into much of which he had had no previous
suspicion. And yet he put no definite construction upon Charity's
proceedings. He certainly had no idea that as he had been the
audience and spectator of her mortification, she grasped with eager
delight at any opportunity of reproaching her sister with his
presence in her far deeper misery; for he knew nothing of it, and
only pictured that sister as the same giddy, careless, trivial
creature she always had been, with the same slight estimation of
himself which she had never been at the least pains to conceal. In
short, he had merely a confused impression that Miss Pecksniff was
not quite sisterly or kind; and being curious to set it right,
accompanied her as she desired.

The house-door being opened, she went in before Tom, requesting
him to follow her; and led the way to the parlour door.

'Oh, Merry!' she said, looking in, 'I am so glad you have not
gone home. Who do you think I have met in the street, and brought to
see you! Mr Pinch! There. Now you are surprised, I am sure!'

Not more surprised than Tom was, when he looked upon her. Not
so much. Not half so much.

'Mr Pinch has left Papa, my dear,' said Cherry, 'and his
prospects are quite flourishing. I have promised that Augustus, who
is going that way, shall escort him to the place he wants. Augustus,
my child, where are you?'

With these words Miss Pecksniff screamed her way out of the
parlour, calling on Augustus Moddle to appear; and left Tom Pinch
alone with her sister.

If she had always been his kindest friend; if she had treated
him through all his servitude with such consideration as was never
yet received by struggling man; if she had lightened every moment of
those many years, and had ever spared and never wounded him; his
honest heart could not have swelled before her with a deeper pity, or
a purer freedom from all base remembrance than it did then.

'My gracious me! You are really the last person in the world I
should have thought of seeing, I am sure!'

Tom was sorry to hear her speaking in her old manner. He had
not expected that. Yet he did not feel it a contradiction that he
should be sorry to see her so unlike her old self, and sorry at the
same time to hear her speaking in her old manner. The two things
seemed quite natural.

'I wonder you find any gratification in coming to see me. I
can't think what put it in your head. I never had much in seeing
you. There was no love lost between us, Mr Pinch, at any time, I
think.'

Her bonnet lay beside her on the sofa, and she was very busy
with the ribbons as she spoke. Much too busy to be conscious of the
work her fingers did.

'We never quarrelled,' said Tom.--Tom was right in that, for one
person can no more quarrel without an adversary, than one person can
play at chess, or fight a duel. 'I hoped you would be glad to shake
hands with an old friend. Don't let us rake up bygones,' said Tom.
'If I ever offended you, forgive me.'

She looked at him for a moment; dropped her bonnet from her
hands; spread them before her altered face, and burst into tears.

'Oh, Mr Pinch!' she said, 'although I never used you well, I did
believe your nature was forgiving. I did not think you could be
cruel.'

She spoke as little like her old self now, for certain, as Tom
could possibly have wished. But she seemed to be appealing to him
reproachfully, and he did not understand her.

'I seldom showed it--never--I know that. But I had that belief
in you, that if I had been asked to name the person in the world
least likely to retort upon me, I would have named you,
confidently.'

'Would have named me!' Tom repeated.

'Yes,' she said with energy, 'and I have often thought so.'

After a moment's reflection, Tom sat himself upon a chair beside
her.

'Do you believe,' said Tom, 'oh, can you think, that what I said
just now, I said with any but the true and plain intention which my
words professed? I mean it, in the spirit and the letter. If I ever
offended you, forgive me; I may have done so, many times. You never
injured or offended me. How, then, could I possibly retort, if even
I were stern and bad enough to wish to do it!'

After a little while she thanked him, through her tears and
sobs, and told him she had never been at once so sorry and so
comforted, since she left home. Still she wept bitterly; and it was
the greater pain to Tom to see her weeping, from her standing in
especial need, just then, of sympathy and tenderness.

'Come, come!' said Tom, 'you used to be as cheerful as the day
was long.'

'Ah! used!' she cried, in such a tone as rent Tom's heart.

'And will be again,' said Tom.

'No, never more. No, never, never more. If you should talk
with old Mr Chuzzlewit, at any time,' she added, looking hurriedly
into his face--'I sometimes thought he liked you, but suppressed
it--will you promise me to tell him that you saw me here, and that I
said I bore in mind the time we talked together in the
churchyard?'

Tom promised that he would.

'Many times since then, when I have wished I had been carried
there before that day, I have recalled his words. I wish that he
should know how true they were, although the least acknowledgment to
that effect has never passed my lips and never will.'

Tom promised this, conditionally too. He did not tell her how
improbable it was that he and the old man would ever meet again,
because he thought it might disturb her more.

'If he should ever know this, through your means, dear Mr
Pinch,' said Mercy, 'tell him that I sent the message, not for
myself, but that he might be more forbearing and more patient, and
more trustful to some other person, in some other time of need. Tell
him that if he could know how my heart trembled in the balance that
day, and what a very little would have turned the scale, his own
would bleed with pity for me.'

'Yes, yes,' said Tom, 'I will.'

'When I appeared to him the most unworthy of his help, I was--I
know I was, for I have often, often, thought about it since--the most
inclined to yield to what he showed me. Oh! if he had relented but a
little more; if he had thrown himself in my way for but one other
quarter of an hour; if he had extended his compassion for a vain,
unthinking, miserable girl, in but the least degree; he might, and I
believe he would, have saved her! Tell him that I don't blame him,
but am grateful for the effort that he made; but ask him for the love
of God, and youth, and in merciful consideration for the struggle
which an ill-advised and unwakened nature makes to hide the strength
it thinks its weakness--ask him never, never, to forget this, when he
deals with one again!'

Although Tom did not hold the clue to her full meaning, he could
guess it pretty nearly. Touched to the quick, he took her hand and
said, or meant to say, some words of consolation. She felt and
understood them, whether they were spoken or no. He was not quite
certain, afterwards, but that she had tried to kneel down at his
feet, and bless him.

He found that he was not alone in the room when she had left it.
Mrs Todgers was there, shaking her head. Tom had never seen Mrs
Todgers, it is needless to say, but he had a perception of her being
the lady of the house; and he saw some genuine compassion in her
eyes, that won his good opinion.

'Ah, sir! You are an old friend, I see,' said Mrs Todgers.

'Yes,' said Tom.

'And yet,' quoth Mrs Todgers, shutting the door softly, 'she
hasn't told you what her troubles are, I'm certain.'

Tom was struck by these words, for they were quite true.
'Indeed,' he said, 'she has not.'

'And never would,' said Mrs Todgers, 'if you saw her daily. She
never makes the least complaint to me, or utters a single word of
explanation or reproach. But I know,' said Mrs Todgers, drawing in
her breath, 'I know!'

Tom nodded sorrowfully, 'So do I.'

'I fully believe,' said Mrs Todgers, taking her
pocket-handkerchief from the flat reticule, 'that nobody can tell one
half of what that poor young creature has to undergo. But though she
comes here, constantly, to ease her poor full heart without his
knowing it; and saying, "Mrs Todgers, I am very low to-day; I think
that I shall soon be dead," sits crying in my room until the fit is
past; I know no more from her. And, I believe,' said Mrs Todgers,
putting back her handkerchief again, 'that she considers me a good
friend too.'

Mrs Todgers might have said her best friend. Commercial
gentlemen and gravy had tried Mrs Todgers's temper; the main
chance--it was such a very small one in her case, that she might have
been excused for looking sharp after it, lest it should entirely
vanish from her sight--had taken a firm hold on Mrs Todgers's
attention. But in some odd nook in Mrs Todgers's breast, up a great
many steps, and in a corner easy to be overlooked, there was a secret
door, with 'Woman' written on the spring, which, at a touch from
Mercy's hand, had flown wide open, and admitted her for shelter.

When boarding-house accounts are balanced with all other
ledgers, and the books of the Recording Angel are made up for ever,
perhaps there may be seen an entry to thy credit, lean Mrs Todgers,
which shall make thee beautiful!

She was growing beautiful so rapidly in Tom's eyes; for he saw
that she was poor, and that this good had sprung up in her from among
the sordid strivings of her life; that she might have been a very
Venus in a minute more, if Miss Pecksniff had not entered with her
friend.

'Mr Thomas Pinch!' said Charity, performing the ceremony of
introduction with evident pride. 'Mr Moddle. Where's my sister?'

'Gone, Miss Pecksniff,' Mrs Todgers answered. 'She had
appointed to be home.'

'Ah!' said Charity, looking at Tom. 'Oh, dear me!'

'She's greatly altered since she's been Anoth--since she's been
married, Mrs Todgers!' observed Moddle.

'My dear Augustus!' said Miss Pecksniff, in a low voice. 'I
verily believe you have said that fifty thousand times, in my
hearing. What a Prose you are!'

This was succeeded by some trifling love passages, which
appeared to originate with, if not to be wholly carried on by Miss
Pecksniff. At any rate, Mr Moddle was much slower in his responses
than is customary with young lovers, and exhibited a lowness of
spirits which was quite oppressive.

He did not improve at all when Tom and he were in the streets,
but sighed so dismally that it was dreadful to hear him. As a means
of cheering him up, Tom told him that he wished him joy.

'Joy!' cried Moddle. 'Ha, ha!'

'What an extraordinary young man!' thought Tom.

'The Scorner has not set his seal upon you. You care what
becomes of you?' said Moddle.

Tom admitted that it was a subject in which he certainly felt
some interest.

'I don't,' said Mr Moddle. 'The Elements may have me when they
please. I'm ready.'

Tom inferred from these, and other expressions of the same
nature, that he was jealous. Therefore he allowed him to take his
own course; which was such a gloomy one, that he felt a load removed
from his mind when they parted company at the gate of Furnival's
Inn.

It was now a couple of hours past John Westlock's dinner-time;
and he was walking up and down the room, quite anxious for Tom's
safety. The table was spread; the wine was carefully decanted; and
the dinner smelt delicious.

'Why, Tom, old boy, where on earth have you been? Your box is
here. Get your boots off instantly, and sit down!'

'I am sorry to say I can't stay, John,' replied Tom Pinch, who
was breathless with the haste he had made in running up the
stairs.

'Can't stay!'

'If you'll go on with your dinner,' said Tom, 'I'll tell you my
reason the while. I mustn't eat myself, or I shall have no appetite
for the chops.'

'There are no chops here, my food fellow.'

'No. But there are at Islington,' said Tom.

John Westlock was perfectly confounded by this reply, and vowed
he would not touch a morsel until Tom had explained himself fully.
So Tom sat down, and told him all; to which he listened with the
greatest interest.

He knew Tom too well, and respected his delicacy too much, to
ask him why he had taken these measures without communicating with
him first. He quite concurred in the expediency of Tom's immediately
returning to his sister, as he knew so little of the place in which
he had left her, and good-humouredly proposed to ride back with him
in a cab, in which he might convey his box. Tom's proposition that
he should sup with them that night, he flatly rejected, but made an
appointment with him for the morrow. 'And now Tom,' he said, as they
rode along, 'I have a question to ask you to which I expect a manly
and straightforward answer. Do you want any money? I am pretty sure
you do.'

'I don't indeed,' said Tom.

'I believe you are deceiving me.'

'No. With many thanks to you, I am quite in earnest,' Tom
replied. 'My sister has some money, and so have I. If I had nothing
else, John, I have a five-pound note, which that good creature, Mrs
Lupin, of the Dragon, handed up to me outside the coach, in a letter
begging me to borrow it; and then drove off as hard as she could
go.'

'And a blessing on every dimple in her handsome face, say I!'
cried John, 'though why you should give her the preference over me, I
don't know. Never mind. I bide my time, Tom.'

'And I hope you'll continue to bide it,' returned Tom, gayly.
'For I owe you more, already, in a hundred other ways, than I can
ever hope to pay.'

They parted at the door of Tom's new residence. John Westlock,
sitting in the cab, and, catching a glimpse of a blooming little busy
creature darting out to kiss Tom and to help him with his box, would
not have had the least objection to change places with him.

Well! she was a cheerful little thing; and had a quaint, bright
quietness about her that was infinitely pleasant. Surely she was the
best sauce for chops ever invented. The potatoes seemed to take a
pleasure in sending up their grateful steam before her; the froth
upon the pint of porter pouted to attract her notice. But it was all
in vain. She saw nothing but Tom. Tom was the first and last thing
in the world.

As she sat opposite to Tom at supper, fingering one of Tom's pet
tunes upon the table-cloth, and smiling in his face, he had never
been so happy in his life.