Chapter Forty-Six

Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

IN WHICH MISS PECKSNIFF MAKES LOVE, MR JONAS MAKES WRATH, MRS
GAMP MAKES TEA, AND MR CHUFFEY MAKES BUSINESS

On the next day's official duties coming to a close, Tom hurried
home without losing any time by the way; and after dinner and a short
rest sallied out again, accompanied by Ruth, to pay his projected
visit to Todgers's. Tom took Ruth with him, not only because it was
a great pleasure to him to have her for his companion whenever he
could, but because he wished her to cherish and comfort poor Merry;
which she, for her own part (having heard the wretched history of
that young wife from Tom), was all eagerness to do.

'She was so glad to see me,' said Tom, 'that I am sure she will
be glad to see you. Your sympathy is certain to be much more
delicate and acceptable than mine.'

'I am very far from being certain of that, Tom,' she replied;
'and indeed you do yourself an injustice. Indeed you do. But I hope
she may like me, Tom.'

'Oh, she is sure to do that!' cried Tom, confidently.

'What a number of friends I should have, if everybody was of
your way of thinking. Shouldn't I, Tom, dear?' said his little
sister pinching him upon the cheek.

Tom laughed, and said that with reference to this particular
case he had no doubt at all of finding a disciple in Merry. 'For you
women,' said Tom, 'you women, my dear, are so kind, and in your
kindness have such nice perception; you know so well how to be
affectionate and full of solicitude without appearing to be; your
gentleness of feeling is like your touch so light and easy, that the
one enables you to deal with wounds of the mind as tenderly as the
other enables you to deal with wounds of the body. You are
such--'

'My goodness, Tom!' his sister interposed. 'You ought to fall
in love immediately.'

Tom put this observation off good humouredly, but somewhat
gravely too; and they were soon very chatty again on some other
subject.

As they were passing through a street in the City, not very far
from Mrs Todgers's place of residence, Ruth checked Tom before the
window of a large Upholstery and Furniture Warehouse, to call his
attention to something very magnificent and ingenious, displayed
there to the best advantage, for the admiration and temptation of the
public. Tom had hazarded some most erroneous and extravagantly wrong
guess in relation to the price of this article, and had joined his
sister in laughing heartily at his mistake, when he pressed her arm
in his, and pointed to two persons at a little distance, who were
looking in at the same window with a deep interest in the chests of
drawers and tables.

'Hush!' Tom whispered. 'Miss Pecksniff, and the young gentleman
to whom she is going to be married.'

'Why does he look as if he was going to be buried, Tom?'
inquired his little sister.

'Why, he is naturally a dismal young gentleman, I believe,' said
Tom 'but he is very civil and inoffensive.'

'I suppose they are furnishing their house,' whispered Ruth.

'Yes, I suppose they are,' replied Tom. 'We had better avoid
speaking to them.'

They could not very well avoid looking at them, however,
especially as some obstruction on the pavement, at a little distance,
happened to detain them where they were for a few moments. Miss
Pecksniff had quite the air of having taken the unhappy Moddle
captive, and brought him up to the contemplation of the furniture
like a lamb to the altar. He offered no resistance, but was
perfectly resigned and quiet. The melancholy depicted in the turn of
his languishing head, and in his dejected attitude, was extreme; and
though there was a full-sized four-post bedstead in the window, such
a tear stood trembling in his eye as seemed to blot it out.

'Augustus, my love,' said Miss Pecksniff, 'ask the price of the
eight rosewood chairs, and the loo table.'

'Perhaps they are ordered already,' said Augustus. 'Perhaps
they are Another's.'

'They can make more like them, if they are,' rejoined Miss
Pecksniff.

'No, no, they can't,' said Moddle. 'It's impossible!'

He appeared, for the moment, to be quite overwhelmed and
stupefied by the prospect of his approaching happiness; but
recovering, entered the shop. He returned immediately, saying in a
tone of despair

'Twenty-four pound ten!'

Miss Pecksniff, turning to receive this announcement, became
conscious of the observation of Tom Pinch and his sister.

'Oh, really!' cried Miss Pecksniff, glancing about her, as if
for some convenient means of sinking into the earth. 'Upon my word,
I-- there never was such a--to think that one should be so very--Mr
Augustus Moddle, Miss Pinch!'

Miss Pecksniff was quite gracious to Miss Pinch in this
triumphant introduction; exceedingly gracious. She was more than
gracious; she was kind and cordial. Whether the recollection of the
old service Tom had rendered her in knocking Mr Jonas on the head had
wrought this change in her opinions; or whether her separation from
her parent had reconciled her to all human-kind, or to all that
interesting portion of human-kind which was not friendly to him; or
whether the delight of having some new female acquaintance to whom to
communicate her interesting prospects was paramount to every other
consideration; cordial and kind Miss Pecksniff was. And twice Miss
Pecksniff kissed Miss Pinch upon the cheek.

'Augustus--Mr Pinch, you know. My dear girl!' said Miss
Pecksniff, aside. 'I never was so ashamed in my life.'

Ruth begged her not to think of it.

'I mind your brother less than anybody else,' simpered Miss
Pecksniff. 'But the indelicacy of meeting any gentleman under such
circumstances! Augustus, my child, did you--'

Here Miss Pecksniff whispered in his ear. The suffering Moddle
repeated:

'Twenty-four pound ten!'

'Oh, you silly man! I don't mean them,' said Miss Pecksniff.
'I am speaking of the--'

Here she whispered him again.

'If it's the same patterned chintz as that in the window;
thirty- two, twelve, six,' said Moddle, with a sigh. 'And very
dear.'

Miss Pecksniff stopped him from giving any further explanation
by laying her hand upon his lips, and betraying a soft embarrassment.
She then asked Tom Pinch which way he was going.

'I was going to see if I could find your sister,' answered Tom,
'to whom I wished to say a few words. We were going to Mrs
Todgers's, where I had the pleasure of seeing her before.'

'It's of no use your going on, then,' said Cherry, 'for we have
not long left there; and I know she is not at home. But I'll take
you to my sister's house, if you please. Augustus--Mr Moddle, I
mean-- and myself, are on our way to tea there, now. You needn't
think of him,' she added, nodding her head as she observed some
hesitation on Tom's part. 'He is not at home.'

'Are you sure?' asked Tom.

'Oh, I am quite sure of that. I don't want any more revenge,'
said Miss Pecksniff, expressively. 'But, really, I must beg you two
gentlemen to walk on, and allow me to follow with Miss Pinch. My
dear, I never was so taken by surprise!'

In furtherance of this bashful arrangement, Moddle gave his arm
to Tom; and Miss Pecksniff linked her own in Ruth's.

'Of course, my love,' said Miss Pecksniff, 'it would be useless
for me to disguise, after what you have seen, that I am about to be
united to the gentleman who is walking with your brother. It would
be in vain to conceal it. What do you think of him? Pray, let me
have your candid opinion.'

Ruth intimated that, as far as she could judge, he was a very
eligible swain.

'I am curious to know,' said Miss Pecksniff, with loquacious
frankness, 'whether you have observed, or fancied, in this very short
space of time, that he is of a rather melancholy turn?'

'So very short a time,' Ruth pleaded.

'No, no; but don't let that interfere with your answer,'
returned Miss Pecksniff. 'I am curious to hear what you say.'

Ruth acknowledged that he had impressed her at first sight as
looking 'rather low.'

'No, really?' said Miss Pecksniff. 'Well! that is quite
remarkable! Everybody says the same. Mrs Todgers says the same; and
Augustus informs me that it is quite a joke among the gentlemen in
the house. Indeed, but for the positive commands I have laid upon
him, I believe it would have been the occasion of loaded fire-arms
being resorted to more than once. What do you think is the cause of
his appearance of depression?'

Ruth thought of several things; such as his digestion, his
tailor, his mother, and the like. But hesitating to give utterance
to any one of them, she refrained from expressing an opinion.

'My dear,' said Miss Pecksniff; 'I shouldn't wish it to be
known, but I don't mind mentioning it to you, having known your
brother for so many years--I refused Augustus three times. He is of
a most amiable and sensitive nature, always ready to shed tears if
you look at him, which is extremely charming; and he has never
recovered the effect of that cruelty. For it was cruel,' said Miss
Pecksniff, with a self-conviction candour that might have adorned the
diadem of her own papa. 'There is no doubt of it. I look back upon
my conduct now with blushes. I always liked him. I felt that he was
not to me what the crowd of young men who had made proposals had
been, but something very different. Then what right had I to refuse
him three times?'

'It was a severe trial of his fidelity, no doubt,' said Ruth.

'My dear,' returned Miss Pecksniff. 'It was wrong. But such is
the caprice and thoughtlessness of our sex! Let me be a warning to
you. Don't try the feelings of any one who makes you an offer, as I
have tried the feelings of Augustus; but if you ever feel towards a
person as I really felt towards him, at the very time when I was
driving him to distraction, let that feeling find expression, if that
person throws himself at your feet, as Augustus Moddle did at mine.
Think,' said Miss Pecksniff, 'what my feelings would have been, if I
had goaded him to suicide, and it had got into the papers!'

Ruth observed that she would have been full of remorse, no
doubt.

'Remorse!' cried Miss Pecksniff, in a sort of snug and
comfortable penitence. 'What my remorse is at this moment, even
after making reparation by accepting him, it would be impossible to
tell you! Looking back upon my giddy self, my dear, now that I am
sobered down and made thoughtful, by treading on the very brink of
matrimony; and contemplating myself as I was when I was like what you
are now; I shudder. I shudder. What is the consequence of my past
conduct? Until Augustus leads me to the altar he is not sure of me.
I have blighted and withered the affections of his heart to that
extent that he is not sure of me. I see that preying on his mind and
feeding on his vitals. What are the reproaches of my conscience,
when I see this in the man I love!'

Ruth endeavoured to express some sense of her unbounded and
flattering confidence; and presumed that she was going to be married
soon.

'Very soon indeed,' returned Miss Pecksniff. 'As soon as our
house is ready. We are furnishing now as fast as we can.'

In the same vein of confidence Miss Pecksniff ran through a
general inventory of the articles that were already bought with the
articles that remained to be purchased; what garments she intended to
be married in, and where the ceremony was to be performed; and gave
Miss Pinch, in short (as she told her), early and exclusive
information on all points of interest connected with the event.

While this was going forward in the rear, Tom and Mr Moddle
walked on, arm in arm, in the front, in a state of profound silence,
which Tom at last broke; after thinking for a long time what he could
say that should refer to an indifferent topic, in respect of which he
might rely, with some degree of certainty, on Mr Moddle's bosom being
unruffled.

'I wonder,' said Tom, 'that in these crowded streets the foot-
passengers are not oftener run over.'

Mr Moddle, with a dark look, replied:

'The drivers won't do it.'

'Do you mean?' Tom began--

'That there are some men,' interrupted Moddle, with a hollow
laugh, 'who can't get run over. They live a charmed life. Coal
waggons recoil from them, and even cabs refuse to run them down.
Ah!' said Augustus, marking Tom's astonishment. 'There are such men.
One of 'em is a friend of mine.'

'Upon my word and honour,' thought Tom, 'this young gentleman is
in a state of mind which is very serious indeed!' Abandoning all
idea of conversation, he did not venture to say another word, but he
was careful to keep a tight hold upon Augustus's arm, lest he should
fly into the road, and making another and a more successful attempt,
should get up a private little Juggernaut before the eyes of his
betrothed. Tom was so afraid of his committing this rash act, that
he had scarcely ever experienced such mental relief as when they
arrived in safety at Mrs Jonas Chuzzlewit's house.

'Walk up, pray, Mr Pinch,' said Miss Pecksniff. For Tom halted,
irresolutely, at the door.

'I am doubtful whether I should be welcome,' replied Tom, 'or, I
ought rather to say, I have no doubt about it. I will send up a
message, I think.'

'But what nonsense that is!' returned Miss Pecksniff, speaking
apart to Tom. 'He is not at home, I am certain. I know he is not;
and Merry hasn't the least idea that you ever--'

'No,' interrupted Tom. 'Nor would I have her know it, on any
account. I am not so proud of that scuffle, I assure you.'

'Ah, but then you are so modest, you see,' returned Miss
Pecksniff, with a smile. 'But pray walk up. If you don't wish her
to know it, and do wish to speak to her, pray walk up. Pray walk up,
Miss Pinch. Don't stand here.'

Tom still hesitated for he felt that he was in an awkward
position. But Cherry passing him at this juncture, and leading his
sister upstairs, and the house-door being at the same time shut
behind them, he followed without quite knowing whether it was well or
ill- judged so to do.

'Merry, my darling!' said the fair Miss Pecksniff, opening the
door of the usual sitting-room. 'Here are Mr Pinch and his sister
come to see you! I thought we should find you here, Mrs Todgers!
How do you do, Mrs Gamp? And how do you do, Mr Chuffey, though it's
of no use asking you the question, I am well aware.'

Honouring each of these parties, as she severally addressed
them, with an acid smile, Miss Charity presented 'Mr Moddle.'

'I believe you have seen him before,' she pleasantly observed.
'Augustus, my sweet child, bring me a chair.'

The sweet child did as he was told; and was then about to retire
into a corner to mourn in secret, when Miss Charity, calling him in
an audible whisper a 'little pet,' gave him leave to come and sit
beside her. It is to be hoped, for the general cheerfulness of
mankind, that such a doleful little pet was never seen as Mr Moddle
looked when he complied. So despondent was his temper, that he
showed no outward thrill of ecstasy when Miss Pecksniff placed her
lily hand in his, and concealed this mark of her favour from the
vulgar gaze by covering it with a corner of her shawl. Indeed, he
was infinitely more rueful then than he had been before; and, sitting
uncomfortably upright in his chair, surveyed the company with watery
eyes, which seemed to say, without the aid of language, 'Oh, good
gracious! look here! Won't some kind Christian help me!'

But the ecstasies of Mrs Gamp were sufficient to have furnished
forth a score of young lovers; and they were chiefly awakened by the
sight of Tom Pinch and his sister. Mrs Gamp was a lady of that happy
temperament which can be ecstatic without any other stimulating cause
than a general desire to establish a large and profitable connection.
She added daily so many strings to her bow, that she made a perfect
harp of it; and upon that instrument she now began to perform an
extemporaneous concerto.

'Why, goodness me!' she said, 'Mrs Chuzzlewit! To think as I
should see beneath this blessed 'ouse, which well I know it, Miss
Pecksniff, my sweet young lady, to be a 'ouse as there is not a many
like, worse luck, and wishin' it were not so, which then this tearful
walley would be changed into a flowerin' guardian, Mr Chuffey; to
think as I should see beneath this indiwidgle roof, identically
comin', Mr Pinch (I take the liberty, though almost unbeknown), and
do assure you of it, sir, the smilinest and sweetest face as ever,
Mrs Chuzzlewit, I see exceptin' yourn, my dear good lady, and your
good lady's too, sir, Mr Moddle, if I may make so bold as speak so
plain of what is plain enough to them as needn't look through
millstones, Mrs Todgers, to find out wot is wrote upon the wall
behind. Which no offence is meant, ladies and gentlemen; none bein'
took, I hope. To think as I should see that smilinest and sweetest
face which me and another friend of mine, took notice of among the
packages down London Bridge, in this promiscous place, is a surprige
in-deed!'

Having contrived, in this happy manner, to invest every member
of her audience with an individual share and immediate personal
interest in her address, Mrs Gamp dropped several curtseys to Ruth,
and smilingly shaking her head a great many times, pursued the thread
of her discourse:

'Now, ain't we rich in beauty this here joyful arternoon, I'm
sure. I knows a lady, which her name, I'll not deceive you, Mrs
Chuzzlewit, is Harris, her husband's brother bein' six foot three,
and marked with a mad bull in Wellington boots upon his left arm, on
account of his precious mother havin' been worrited by one into a
shoemaker's shop, when in a sitiwation which blessed is the man as
has his quiver full of sech, as many times I've said to Gamp when
words has roge betwixt us on account of the expense--and often have I
said to Mrs Harris, "Oh, Mrs Harris, ma'am! your countenance is quite
a angel's!" Which, but for Pimples, it would be. "No, Sairey Gamp,"
says she, "you best of hard-working and industrious creeturs as ever
was underpaid at any price, which underpaid you are, quite diff'rent.
Harris had it done afore marriage at ten and six," she says, "and
wore it faithful next his heart "till the colour run, when the money
was declined to be give back, and no arrangement could be come to.
But he never said it was a angel's, Sairey, wotever he might have
thought." If Mrs Harris's husband was here now,' said Mrs Gamp,
looking round, and chuckling as she dropped a general curtsey, 'he'd
speak out plain, he would, and his dear wife would be the last to
blame him! For if ever a woman lived as know'd not wot it was to
form a wish to pizon them as had good looks, and had no reagion give
her by the best of husbands, Mrs Harris is that ev'nly
dispogician!'

With these words the worthy woman, who appeared to have dropped
in to take tea as a delicate little attention, rather than to have
any engagement on the premises in an official capacity, crossed to Mr
Chuffey, who was seated in the same corner as of old, and shook him
by the shoulder.

'Rouge yourself, and look up! Come!' said Mrs Gamp. 'Here's
company, Mr Chuffey.'

'I am sorry for it,' cried the old man, looking humbly round the
room. 'I know I'm in the way. I ask pardon, but I've nowhere else
to go to. Where is she?'

Merry went to him.

'Ah!' said the old man, patting her on the check. 'Here she is.
Here she is! She's never hard on poor old Chuffey. Poor old
Chuff!'

As she took her seat upon a low chair by the old man's side, and
put herself within the reach of his hand, she looked up once at Tom.
It was a sad look that she cast upon him, though there was a faint
smile trembling on her face. It was a speaking look, and Tom knew
what it said. 'You see how misery has changed me. I can feel for a
dependant now, and set some value on his attachment.'

'Aye, aye!' cried Chuffey in a soothing tone. 'Aye, aye, aye!
Never mind him. It's hard to hear, but never mind him. He'll die
one day. There are three hundred and sixty-five days in the
year--three hundred and sixty-six in leap year--and he may die on any
one of 'em.'

'You're a wearing old soul, and that's the sacred truth,' said
Mrs Gamp, contemplating him from a little distance with anything but
favour, as he continued to mutter to himself. 'It's a pity that you
don't know wot you say, for you'd tire your own patience out if you
did, and fret yourself into a happy releage for all as knows you.'

'His son,' murmured the old man, lifting up his hand. 'His
son!'

'Well, I'm sure!' said Mrs Gamp, 'you're a-settlin' of it, Mr
Chuffey. To your satigefaction, sir, I hope. But I wouldn't lay a
new pincushion on it myself, sir, though you are so well informed.
Drat the old creetur, he's a-layin' down the law tolerable confident,
too! A deal he knows of sons! or darters either! Suppose you was to
favour us with some remarks on twins, sir, would you be so good!'

The bitter and indignant sarcasm which Mrs Gamp conveyed into
these taunts was altogether lost on the unconscious Chuffey, who
appeared to be as little cognizant of their delivery as of his having
given Mrs Gamp offence. But that high-minded woman being sensitively
alive to any invasion of her professional province, and imagining
that Mr Chuffey had given utterance to some prediction on the subject
of sons, which ought to have emanated in the first instance from
herself as the only lawful authority, or which should at least have
been on no account proclaimed without her sanction and concurrence,
was not so easily appeased. She continued to sidle at Mr Chuffey
with looks of sharp hostility, and to defy him with many other
ironical remarks, uttered in that low key which commonly denotes
suppressed indignation; until the entrance of the teaboard, and a
request from Mrs Jonas that she would make tea at a side-table for
the party that had unexpectedly assembled, restored her to herself.
She smiled again, and entered on her ministration with her own
particular urbanity.

'And quite a family it is to make tea for,' said Mrs Gamp; 'and
wot a happiness to do it! My good young 'ooman'--to the
servant-girl-- 'p'raps somebody would like to try a new-laid egg or
two, not biled too hard. Likeways, a few rounds o' buttered toast,
first cuttin' off the crust, in consequence of tender teeth, and not
too many of 'em; which Gamp himself, Mrs Chuzzlewit, at one blow,
being in liquor, struck out four, two single, and two double, as was
took by Mrs Harris for a keepsake, and is carried in her pocket at
this present hour, along with two cramp-bones, a bit o' ginger, and a
grater like a blessed infant's shoe, in tin, with a little heel to
put the nutmeg in; as many times I've seen and said, and used for
candle when required, within the month.'

As the privileges of the side-table--besides including the small
prerogatives of sitting next the toast, and taking two cups of tea to
other people's one, and always taking them at a crisis, that is to
say, before putting fresh water into the tea-pot, and after it had
been standing for some time--also comprehended a full view of the
company, and an opportunity of addressing them as from a rostrum, Mrs
Gamp discharged the functions entrusted to her with extreme
good-humour and affability. Sometimes resting her saucer on the palm
of her outspread hand, and supporting her elbow on the table, she
stopped between her sips of tea to favour the circle with a smile, a
wink, a roll of the head, or some other mark of notice; and at those
periods her countenance was lighted up with a degree of intelligence
and vivacity, which it was almost impossible to separate from the
benignant influence of distilled waters.

But for Mrs Gamp, it would have been a curiously silent party.
Miss Pecksniff only spoke to her Augustus, and to him in whispers.
Augustus spoke to nobody, but sighed for every one, and occasionally
gave himself such a sounding slap upon the forehead as would make Mrs
Todgers, who was rather nervous, start in her chair with an
involuntary exclamation. Mrs Todgers was occupied in knitting, and
seldom spoke. Poor Merry held the hand of cheerful little Ruth
between her own, and listening with evident pleasure to all she said,
but rarely speaking herself, sometimes smiled, and sometimes kissed
her on the cheek, and sometimes turned aside to hide the tears that
trembled in her eyes. Tom felt this change in her so much, and was
so glad to see how tenderly Ruth dealt with her, and how she knew and
answered to it, that he had not the heart to make any movement
towards their departure, although he had long since given utterance
to all he came to say.

The old clerk, subsiding into his usual state, remained
profoundly silent, while the rest of the little assembly were thus
occupied, intent upon the dreams, whatever they might be, which
hardly seemed to stir the surface of his sluggish thoughts. The bent
of these dull fancies combining probably with the silent feasting
that was going on about him, and some struggling recollection of the
last approach to revelry he had witnessed, suggested a strange
question to his mind. He looked round upon a sudden, and said:

'Who's lying dead upstairs?'

'No one,' said Merry, turning to him. 'What is the matter? We
are all here.'

'All here!' cried the old man. 'All here! Where is he then--my
old master, Mr Chuzzlewit, who had the only son? Where is he?'

'Hush! Hush!' said Merry, speaking kindly to him. 'That
happened long ago. Don't you recollect?'

'Recollect!' rejoined the old man, with a cry of grief. 'As if
I could forget! As if I ever could forget!'

He put his hand up to his face for a moment; and then repeated
turning round exactly as before:

'Who's lying dead upstairs?'

'No one!' said Merry.

At first he gazed angrily upon her, as upon a stranger who
endeavoured to deceive him; but peering into her face, and seeing
that it was indeed she, he shook his head in sorrowful compassion.

'You think not. But they don't tell you. No, no, poor thing!
They don't tell you. Who are these, and why are they merry-making
here, if there is no one dead? Foul play! Go see who it is!'

She made a sign to them not to speak to him, which indeed they
had little inclination to do; and remained silent herself. So did he
for a short time; but then he repeated the same question with an
eagerness that had a peculiar terror in it.

'There's some one dead,' he said, 'or dying; and I want to knows
who it is. Go see, go see! Where's Jonas?'

'In the country,' she replied.

The old man gazed at her as if he doubted what she said, or had
not heard her; and, rising from his chair, walked across the room and
upstairs, whispering as he went, 'Foul play!' They heard his
footsteps overhead, going up into that corner of the room in which
the bed stood (it was there old Anthony had died); and then they
heard him coming down again immediately. His fancy was not so strong
or wild that it pictured to him anything in the deserted bedchamber
which was not there; for he returned much calmer, and appeared to
have satisfied himself.

'They don't tell you,' he said to Merry in his quavering voice,
as he sat down again, and patted her upon the head. 'They don't tell
me either; but I'll watch, I'll watch. They shall not hurt you;
don't be frightened. When you have sat up watching, I have sat up
watching too. Aye, aye, I have!' he piped out, clenching his weak,
shrivelled hand. 'Many a night I have been ready!'

He said this with such trembling gaps and pauses in his want of
breath, and said it in his jealous secrecy so closely in her ear,
that little or nothing of it was understood by the visitors. But
they had heard and seen enough of the old man to be disquieted, and
to have left their seats and gathered about him; thereby affording
Mrs Gamp, whose professional coolness was not so easily disturbed, an
eligible opportunity for concentrating the whole resources of her
powerful mind and appetite upon the toast and butter, tea and eggs.
She had brought them to bear upon those viands with such vigour that
her face was in the highest state of inflammation, when she now
(there being nothing left to eat or drink) saw fit to interpose.

'Why, highty tighty, sir!' cried Mrs Gamp, 'is these your
manners? You want a pitcher of cold water throw'd over you to bring
you round; that's my belief, and if you was under Betsey Prig you'd
have it, too, I do assure you, Mr Chuffey. Spanish Flies is the only
thing to draw this nonsense out of you; and if anybody wanted to do
you a kindness, they'd clap a blister of 'em on your head, and put a
mustard poultige on your back. 'Who's dead, indeed! It wouldn't be
no grievous loss if some one was, I think!'

'He's quiet now, Mrs Gamp,' said Merry. 'Don't disturb him.'

'Oh, bother the old wictim, Mrs Chuzzlewit,' replied that
zealous lady, 'I ain't no patience with him. You give him his own
way too much by half. A worritin' wexagious creetur!'

No doubt with the view of carrying out the precepts she
enforced, and 'bothering the old wictim' in practice as well as in
theory, Mrs Gamp took him by the collar of his coat, and gave him
some dozen or two of hearty shakes backward and forward in his chair;
that exercise being considered by the disciples of the Prig school of
nursing (who are very numerous among professional ladies) as
exceedingly conducive to repose, and highly beneficial to the
performance of the nervous functions. Its effect in this instance
was to render the patient so giddy and addle-headed, that he could
say nothing more; which Mrs Gamp regarded as the triumph of her
art.

'There!' she said, loosening the old man's cravat, in
consequence of his being rather black in the face, after this
scientific treatment. 'Now, I hope, you're easy in your mind. If you
should turn at all faint we can soon rewive you, sir, I promige you.
Bite a person's thumbs, or turn their fingers the wrong way,' said
Mrs Gamp, smiling with the consciousness of at once imparting
pleasure and instruction to her auditors, 'and they comes to,
wonderful, Lord bless you!'

As this excellent woman had been formerly entrusted with the
care of Mr Chuffey on a previous occasion, neither Mrs Jonas nor
anybody else had the resolution to interfere directly with her mode
of treatment; though all present (Tom Pinch and his sister
especially) appeared to be disposed to differ from her views. For
such is the rash boldness of the uninitiated, that they will
frequently set up some monstrous abstract principle, such as
humanity, or tenderness, or the like idle folly, in obstinate
defiance of all precedent and usage; and will even venture to
maintain the same against the persons who have made the precedents
and established the usage, and who must therefore be the best and
most impartial judges of the subject.

'Ah, Mr Pinch!' said Miss Pecksniff. 'It all comes of this
unfortunate marriage. If my sister had not been so precipitate, and
had not united herself to a Wretch, there would have been no Mr
Chuffey in the house.'

'Hush!' cried Tom. 'She'll hear you.'

'I should be very sorry if she did hear me, Mr Pinch,' said
Cherry, raising her voice a little; 'for it is not in my nature to
add to the uneasiness of any person; far less of my own sister. I
know what a sister's duties are, Mr Pinch, and I hope I always showed
it in my practice. Augustus, my dear child, find my pocket-
handkerchief, and give it to me.'

Augustus obeyed, and took Mrs Todgers aside to pour his griefs
into her friendly bosom.

'I am sure, Mr Pinch,' said Charity, looking after her betrothed
and glancing at her sister, 'that I ought to be very grateful for the
blessings I enjoy, and those which are yet in store for me. When I
contrast Augustus'--here she was modest and embarrased--'who, I don't
mind saying to you, is all softness, mildness, and devotion, with the
detestable man who is my sister's husband; and when I think, Mr
Pinch, that in the dispensations of this world, our cases might have
been reversed; I have much to be thankful for, indeed, and much to
make me humble and contented.'

Contented she might have been, but humble she assuredly was not.
Her face and manner experienced something so widely different from
humility, that Tom could not help understanding and despising the
base motives that were working in her breast. He turned away, and
said to Ruth, that it was time for them to go.

'I will write to your husband,' said Tom to Merry, 'and explain
to him, as I would have done if I had met him here, that if he has
sustained any inconvenience through my means, it is not my fault; a
postman not being more innocent of the news he brings, than I was
when I handed him that letter.'

'I thank you!' said Merry. 'It may do some good.'

She parted tenderly from Ruth, who with her brother was in the
act of leaving the room, when a key was heard in the lock of the door
below, and immediately afterwards a quick footstep in the passage.
Tom stopped, and looked at Merry.

It was Jonas, she said timidly.

'I had better not meet him on the stairs, perhaps,' said Tom,
drawing his sister's arm through his, and coming back a step or two.
'I'll wait for him here, a moment.'

He had scarcely said it when the door opened, and Jonas entered.
His wife came forward to receive him; but he put her aside with his
hand, and said in a surly tone:

'I didn't know you'd got a party.'

As he looked, at the same time, either by accident or design,
towards Miss Pecksniff; and as Miss Pecksniff was only too delighted
to quarrel with him, she instantly resented it.

'Oh dear!' she said, rising. 'Pray don't let us intrude upon
your domestic happiness! That would be a pity. We have taken tea
here, sir, in your absence; but if you will have the goodness to send
us a note of the expense, receipted, we shall be happy to pay it.
Augustus, my love, we will go, if you please. Mrs Todgers, unless
you wish to remain here, we shall be happy to take you with us. It
would be a pity, indeed, to spoil the bliss which this gentleman
always brings with him, especially into his own home.'

'Charity! Charity!' remonstrated her sister, in such a
heartfelt tone that she might have been imploring her to show the
cardinal virtue whose name she bore.

'Merry, my dear, I am much obliged to you for your advice,'
returned Miss Pecksniff, with a stately scorn--by the way, she had
not been offered any--'but I am not his slave--'

'No, nor wouldn't have been if you could,' interrupted Jonas.
'We know all about it.'

'What did you say, sir?' cried Miss Pecksniff, sharply.

'Didn't you hear?' retorted Jonas, lounging down upon a chair.
'I am not a-going to say it again. If you like to stay, you may
stay. If you like to go, you may go. But if you stay, please to be
civil.'

'Beast!' cried Miss Pecksniff, sweeping past him. 'Augustus!
He is beneath your notice!' Augustus had been making some faint and
sickly demonstration of shaking his fist. 'Come away, child,'
screamed Miss Pecksniff, 'I command you!'

The scream was elicited from her by Augustus manifesting an
intention to return and grapple with him. But Miss Pecksniff giving
the fiery youth a pull, and Mrs Todgers giving him a push they all
three tumbled out of the room together, to the music of Miss
Pecksniff's shrill remonstrances.

All this time Jonas had seen nothing of Tom and his sister; for
they were almost behind the door when he opened it, and he had sat
down with his back towards them, and had purposely kept his eyes upon
the opposite side of the street during his altercation with Miss
Pecksniff, in order that his seeming carelessness might increase the
exasperation of that wronged young damsel. His wife now faltered out
that Tom had been waiting to see him; and Tom advanced.

The instant he presented himself, Jonas got up from his chair,
and swearing a great oath, caught it in his grasp, as if he would
have felled Tom to the ground with it. As he most unquestionably
would have done, but that his very passion and surprise made him
irresolute, and gave Tom, in his calmness, an opportunity of being
heard.

'You have no cause to be violent, sir,' said Tom. 'Though what
I wish to say relates to your own affairs, I know nothing of them,
and desire to know nothing of them.'

Jonas was too enraged to speak. He held the door open; and
stamping his foot upon the ground, motioned Tom away.

'As you cannot suppose,' said Tom, 'that I am here with any view
of conciliating you or pleasing myself, I am quite indifferent to
your reception of me, or your dismissal of me. Hear what I have to
say, if you are not a madman! I gave you a letter the other day,
when you were about to go abroad.'

'You Thief, you did!' retorted Jonas. 'I'll pay you for the
carriage of it one day, and settle an old score besides. I will!'

'Tut, tut,' said Tom, 'you needn't waste words or threats. I
wish you to understand--plainly because I would rather keep clear of
you and everything that concerns you: not because I have the least
apprehension of your doing me any injury: which would be weak
indeed--that I am no party to the contents of that letter. That I
know nothing of it. That I was not even aware that it was to be
delivered to you; and that I had it from--'

'By the Lord!' cried Jonas, fiercely catching up the chair,
'I'll knock your brains out, if you speak another word.'

Tom, nevertheless, persisting in his intention, and opening his
lips to speak again, Jonas set upon him like a savage; and in the
quickness and ferocity of his attack would have surely done him some
grievous injury, defenceless as he was, and embarrassed by having his
frightened sister clinging to his arm, if Merry had not run between
them, crying to Tom for the love of Heaven to leave the house. The
agony of this poor creature, the terror of his sister, the
impossibility of making himself audible, and the equal impossibility
of bearing up against Mrs Gamp, who threw herself upon him like a
feather-bed, and forced him backwards down the stairs by the mere
oppression of her dead weight, prevailed. Tom shook the dust of that
house off his feet, without having mentioned Nadgett's name.

If the name could have passed his lips; if Jonas, in the
insolence of his vile nature, had never roused him to do that old act
of manliness, for which (and not for his last offence) he hated him
with such malignity; if Jonas could have learned, as then he could
and would have learned, through Tom's means, what unsuspected spy
there was upon him; he would have been saved from the commission of a
Guilty Deed, then drawing on towards its black accomplishment. But
the fatality was of his own working; the pit was of his own digging;
the gloom that gathered round him was the shadow of his own life.

His wife had closed the door, and thrown herself before it, on
the ground, upon her knees. She held up her hands to him now, and
besought him not to be harsh with her, for she had interposed in fear
of bloodshed.

'So, so!' said Jonas, looking down upon her, as he fetched his
breath. 'These are your friends, are they, when I am away? You plot
and tamper with this sort of people, do you?'

'No, indeed! I have no knowledge of these secrets, and no clue
to their meaning. I have never seen him since I left home but once--
but twice--before to-day.'

'Oh!' sneered Jonas, catching at this correction. 'But once,
but twice, eh? Which do you mean? Twice and once, perhaps. Three
times! How many more, you lying jade?'

As he made an angry motion with his hand, she shrunk down
hastily. A suggestive action! Full of a cruel truth!

'How many more times?' he repeated.

'No more. The other morning, and to-day, and once besides.'

He was about to retort upon her, when the clock struck. He
started stopped, and listened; appearing to revert to some
engagement, or to some other subject, a secret within his own breast,
recalled to him by this record of the progress of the hours.

'Don't lie there! Get up!'

Having helped her to rise, or rather hauled her up by the arm,
he went on to say:

'Listen to me, young lady; and don't whine when you have no
occasion, or I may make some for you. If I find him in my house
again, or find that you have seen him in anybody else's house, you'll
repent it. If you are not deaf and dumb to everything that concerns
me, unless you have my leave to hear and speak, you'll repent it. If
you don't obey exactly what I order, you'll repent it. Now, attend.
What's the time?'

'It struck eight a minute ago.'

He looked towards her intently; and said, with a laboured
distinctness, as if he had got the words off by heart:

'I have been travelling day and night, and am tired. I have
lost some money, and that don't improve me. Put my supper in the
little off-room below, and have the truckle-bed made. I shall sleep
there to-night, and maybe to-morrow night; and if I can sleep all day
to- morrow, so much the better, for I've got trouble to sleep off, if
I can. Keep the house quiet, and don't call me. Mind! Don't call
me. Don't let anybody call me. Let me lie there.'

She said it should be done. Was that all?

'All what? You must be prying and questioning!' he angrily
retorted. 'What more do you want to know?'

'I want to know nothing, Jonas, but what you tell me. All hope
of confidence between us has long deserted me!'

'Ecod, I should hope so!' he muttered.

'But if you will tell me what you wish, I will be obedient and
will try to please you. I make no merit of that, for I have no
friend in my father or my sister, but am quite alone. I am very
humble and submissive. You told me you would break my spirit, and
you have done so. Do not break my heart too!'

She ventured, as she said these words, to lay her hand upon his
shoulder. He suffered it to rest there, in his exultation; and the
whole mean, abject, sordid, pitiful soul of the man, looked at her,
for the moment, through his wicked eyes.

For the moment only; for, with the same hurried return to
something within himself, he bade her, in a surly tone, show her
obedience by executing his commands without delay. When she had
withdrawn he paced up and down the room several times; but always
with his right hand clenched, as if it held something; which it did
not, being empty. When he was tired of this, he threw himself into a
chair, and thoughtfully turned up the sleeve of his right arm, as if
he were rather musing about its strength than examining it; but, even
then, he kept the hand clenched.

He was brooding in this chair, with his eyes cast down upon the
ground, when Mrs Gamp came in to tell him that the little room was
ready. Not being quite sure of her reception after interfering in
the quarrel, Mrs Gamp, as a means of interesting and propitiating her
patron, affected a deep solicitude in Mr Chuffey.

'How is he now, sir?' she said.

'Who?' cried Jonas, raising his head, and staring at her.

'To be sure!' returned the matron with a smile and a curtsey.
'What am I thinking of! You wasn't here, sir, when he was took so
strange. I never see a poor dear creetur took so strange in all my
life, except a patient much about the same age, as I once nussed,
which his calling was the custom-'us, and his name was Mrs Harris's
own father, as pleasant a singer, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd,
with a voice like a Jew's-harp in the bass notes, that it took six
men to hold at sech times, foaming frightful.'

'Chuffey, eh?' said Jonas carelessly, seeing that she went up to
the old, clerk, and looked at him. 'Ha!'

'The creetur's head's so hot,' said Mrs Gamp, 'that you might
heat a flat-iron at it. And no wonder I am sure, considerin' the
things he said!'

'Said!' cried Jonas. 'What did he say?'

Mrs Gamp laid her hand upon her heart, to put some check upon
its palpitations, and turning up her eyes replied in a faint
voice:

'The awfulest things, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever I heerd! Which Mrs
Harris's father never spoke a word when took so, some does and some
don't, except sayin' when he come round, "Where is Sairey Gamp?" But
raly, sir, when Mr Chuffey comes to ask who's lyin' dead upstairs,
and--'

'Who's lying dead upstairs!' repeated Jonas, standing aghast.

Mrs Gamp nodded, made as if she were swallowing, and went on.

'Who's lying dead upstairs; sech was his Bible language; and
where was Mr Chuzzlewit as had the only son; and when he goes
upstairs a- looking in the beds and wandering about the rooms, and
comes down again a-whisperin' softly to his-self about foul play and
that; it gives me sech a turn, I don't deny it, Mr Chuzzlewit, that I
never could have kep myself up but for a little drain o' spirits,
which I seldom touches, but could always wish to know where to find,
if so dispoged, never knowin' wot may happen next, the world bein' so
uncertain.'

'Why, the old fool's mad!' cried Jonas, much disturbed.

'That's my opinion, sir,' said Mrs Gamp, 'and I will not deceive
you. I believe as Mr Chuffey, sir, rekwires attention (if I may make
so bold), and should not have his liberty to wex and worrit your
sweet lady as he does.'

'Why, who minds what he says?' retorted Jonas.

'Still he is worritin' sir,' said Mrs Gamp. 'No one don't mind
him, but he is a ill conwenience.'

'Ecod you're right,' said Jonas, looking doubtfully at the
subject of this conversation. 'I have half a mind to shut him
up.'

Mrs Gamp rubbed her hands, and smiled, and shook her head, and
sniffed expressively, as scenting a job.

'Could you--could you take care of such an idiot, now, in some
spare room upstairs?' asked Jonas.

'Me and a friend of mine, one off, one on, could do it, Mr
Chuzzlewit,' replied the nurse; 'our charges not bein' high, but
wishin' they was lower, and allowance made considerin' not strangers.
Me and Betsey Prig, sir, would undertake Mr Chuffey reasonable,'
said Mrs Gamp, looking at him with her head on one side, as if he had
been a piece of goods, for which she was driving a bargain; 'and give
every satigefaction. Betsey Prig has nussed a many lunacies, and
well she knows their ways, which puttin' 'em right close afore the
fire, when fractious, is the certainest and most compoging.'

While Mrs Gamp discoursed to this effect, Jonas was walking up
and down the room again, glancing covertly at the old clerk, as he
did so. He now made a stop, and said:

'I must look after him, I suppose, or I may have him doing some
mischief. What say you?'

'Nothin' more likely!' Mrs Gamp replied. 'As well I have
experienged, I do assure you, sir.'

'Well! Look after him for the present, and--let me see--three
days from this time let the other woman come here, and we'll see if
we can make a bargain of it. About nine or ten o'clock at night,
say. Keep your eye upon him in the meanwhile, and don't talk about
it. He's as mad as a March hare!'

'Madder!' cried Mrs Gamp. 'A deal madder!'

'See to him, then; take care that he does no harm; and recollect
what I have told you.'

Leaving Mrs Gamp in the act of repeating all she had been told,
and of producing in support of her memory and trustworthiness, many
commendations selected from among the most remarkable opinions of the
celebrated Mrs Harris, he descended to the little room prepared for
him, and pulling off his coat and his boots, put them outside the
door before he locked it. In locking it, he was careful so to adjust
the key as to baffle any curious person who might try to peep in
through the key-hole; and when he had taken these precautions, he sat
down to his supper.

'Mr Chuff,' he muttered, 'it'll be pretty easy to be even with
you. It's of no use doing things by halves, and as long as I stop
here, I'll take good care of you. When I'm off you may say what you
please. But it's a d--d strange thing,' he added, pushing away his
untouched plate, and striding moodily to and fro, 'that his
drivellings should have taken this turn just now.'

After pacing the little room from end to end several times, he
sat down in another chair.

'I say just now, but for anything I know, he may have been
carrying on the same game all along. Old dog! He shall be
gagged!'

He paced the room again in the same restless and unsteady way;
and then sat down upon the bedstead, leaning his chin upon his hand,
and looking at the table. When he had looked at it for a long time,
he remembered his supper; and resuming the chair he had first
occupied, began to eat with great rapacity; not like a hungry man,
but as if he were determined to do it. He drank too, roundly;
sometimes stopping in the middle of a draught to walk, and change his
seat and walk again, and dart back to the table and fall to, in a
ravenous hurry, as before.

It was now growing dark. As the gloom of evening, deepening
into night, came on, another dark shade emerging from within him
seemed to overspread his face, and slowly change it. Slowly, slowly;
darker and darker; more and more haggard; creeping over him by little
and little, until it was black night within him and without.

The room in which he had shut himself up, was on the ground
floor, at the back of the house. It was lighted by a dirty skylight,
and had a door in the wall, opening into a narrow covered passage or
blind-alley, very little frequented after five or six o'clock in the
evening, and not in much use as a thoroughfare at any hour. But it
had an outlet in a neighbouring street.

The ground on which this chamber stood had, at one time, not
within his recollection, been a yard; and had been converted to its
present purpose for use as an office. But the occasion for it died
with the man who built it; and saving that it had sometimes served as
an apology for a spare bedroom, and that the old clerk had once held
it (but that was years ago) as his recognized apartment, it had been
little troubled by Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son. It was a blotched,
stained, mouldering room, like a vault; and there were water-pipes
running through it, which at unexpected times in the night, when
other things were quiet, clicked and gurgled suddenly, as if they
were choking.

The door into the court had not been open for a long, long time;
but the key had always hung in one place, and there it hung now. He
was prepared for its being rusty; for he had a little bottle of oil
in his pocket and the feather of a pen, with which he lubricated the
key and the lock too, carefully. All this while he had been without
his coat, and had nothing on his feet but his stockings. He now got
softly into bed in the same state, and tossed from side to side to
tumble it. In his restless condition that was easily done.

When he arose, he took from his portmanteau, which he had caused
to be carried into that place when he came home, a pair of clumsy
shoes, and put them on his feet; also a pair of leather leggings,
such as countrymen are used to wear, with straps to fasten them to
the waistband. In these he dressed himself at leisure. Lastly, he
took out a common frock of coarse dark jean, which he drew over his
own under-clothing; and a felt hat--he had purposely left his own
upstairs. He then sat himself down by the door, with the key in his
hand, waiting.

He had no light; the time was dreary, long, and awful. The
ringers were practicing in a neighbouring church, and the clashing of
the bells was almost maddening. Curse the clamouring bells, they
seemed to know that he was listening at the door, and to proclaim it
in a crowd of voices to all the town! Would they never be still?

They ceased at last, and then the silence was so new and
terrible that it seemed the prelude to some dreadful noise.
Footsteps in the court! Two men. He fell back from the door on
tiptoe, as if they could have seen him through its wooden panels.

They passed on, talking (he could make out) about a skeleton
which had been dug up yesterday, in some work of excavation near at
hand, and was supposed to be that of a murdered man. 'So murder is
not always found out, you see,' they said to one another as they
turned the corner.

Hush!

He put the key into the lock, and turned it. The door resisted
for a while, but soon came stiffly open; mingling with the sense of
fever in his mouth, a taste of rust, and dust, and earth, and rotting
wood. He looked out; passed out; locked it after him.

All was clear and quiet, as he fled away.