Martin Chuzzlewit
with a pompous voice and manner, and a middle-aged lady, with what may
be termed an excisable face, or one in which starch and vinegar were
decidedly employed. There was likewise present that eldest pupil of Miss
Pinch, whom Mrs Todgers, on a previous occasion, had called a syrup, and
who was now weeping and sobbing spitefully.
‘My brother, sir,’ said Ruth Pinch, timidly presenting Tom.
‘Oh!’ cried the gentleman, surveying Tom attentively. ‘You really are
Miss Pinch’s brother, I presume? You will excuse my asking. I don’t
observe any resemblance.’
‘Miss Pinch has a brother, I know,’ observed the lady.
‘Miss Pinch is always talking about her brother, when she ought to be
engaged upon my education,’ sobbed the pupil.
‘Sophia! Hold your tongue!’ observed the gentleman. ‘Sit down, if you
please,’ addressing Tom.
Tom sat down, looking from one face to another, in mute surprise.
‘Remain here, if you please, Miss Pinch,’ pursued the gentleman, looking
slightly over his shoulder.
Tom interrupted him here, by rising to place a chair for his sister.
Having done which he sat down again.
‘I am glad you chance to have called to see your sister to-day, sir,’
resumed the brass-and-copper founder. ‘For although I do not approve, as
a principle, of any young person engaged in my family in the capacity
of a governess, receiving visitors, it happens in this case to be well
timed. I am sorry to inform you that we are not at all satisfied with
your sister.’
‘We are very much DISsatisfied with her,’ observed the lady.
‘I’d never say another lesson to Miss Pinch if I was to be beat to death
for it!’ sobbed the pupil.
‘Sophia!’ cried her father. ‘Hold your tongue!’
‘Will you allow me to inquire what your ground of dissatisfaction is?’
asked Tom.
‘Yes,’ said the gentleman, ‘I will. I don’t recognize it as a right;
but I will. Your sister has not the slightest innate power of commanding
respect. It has been a constant source of difference between us.
Although she has been in this family for some time, and although the
young lady who is now present has almost, as it were, grown up under
her tuition, that young lady has no respect for her. Miss Pinch has
been perfectly unable to command my daughter’s respect, or to win my
daughter’s confidence. Now,’ said the gentleman, allowing the palm of
his hand to fall gravely down upon the table: ‘I maintain that there is
something radically wrong in that! You, as her brother, may be disposed
to deny it--’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Tom. ‘I am not at all disposed to
deny it. I am sure that there is something radically wrong; radically
monstrous, in that.’
‘Good Heavens!’ cried the gentleman, looking round the room with
dignity, ‘what do I find to be the case! what results obtrude themselves
upon me as flowing from this weakness of character on the part of
Miss Pinch! What are my feelings as a father, when, after my desire
(repeatedly expressed to Miss Pinch, as I think she will not venture to
deny) that my daughter should be choice in her expressions, genteel in
her deportment, as becomes her station in life, and politely distant to
her inferiors in society, I find her, only this very morning, addressing
Miss Pinch herself as a beggar!’
‘A beggarly thing,’ observed the lady, in correction.
‘Which is worse,’ said the gentleman, triumphantly; ‘which is worse. A
beggarly thing. A low, coarse, despicable expression!’
‘Most despicable,’ cried Tom. ‘I am glad to find that there is a just
appreciation of it here.’
‘So just, sir,’ said the gentleman, lowering his voice to be the more
impressive. ‘So just, that, but for my knowing Miss Pinch to be an
unprotected young person, an orphan, and without friends, I would, as
I assured Miss Pinch, upon my veracity and personal character, a few
minutes ago, I would have severed the connection between us at that
moment and from that time.’
‘Bless my soul, sir!’ cried Tom, rising from his seat; for he was now
unable to contain himself any longer; ‘don’t allow such considerations
as those to influence you, pray. They don’t exist, sir. She is not
unprotected. She is ready to depart this instant. Ruth, my dear, get
your bonnet on!’
‘Oh, a pretty family!’ cried the lady. ‘Oh, he’s her brother! There’s no
doubt about that!’
‘As little doubt, madam,’ said Tom, ‘as that the young lady yonder is
the child of your teaching, and not my sister’s. Ruth, my dear, get your
bonnet on!’
‘When you say, young man,’ interposed the brass-and-copper founder,
haughtily, ‘with that impertinence which is natural to you, and which I
therefore do not condescend to notice further, that the young lady, my
eldest daughter, has been educated by any one but Miss Pinch, you--I
needn’t proceed. You comprehend me fully. I have no doubt you are used
to it.’
‘Sir!’ cried Tom, after regarding him in silence for some little time.
‘If you do not understand what I mean, I will tell you. If you do
understand what I mean, I beg you not to repeat that mode of expressing
yourself in answer to it. My meaning is, that no man can expect his
children to respect what he degrades.’
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the gentleman. ‘Cant! cant! The common cant!’
‘The common story, sir!’ said Tom; ‘the story of a common mind. Your
governess cannot win the confidence and respect of your children,
forsooth! Let her begin by winning yours, and see what happens then.’
‘Miss Pinch is getting her bonnet on, I trust, my dear?’ said the
gentleman.
‘I trust she is,’ said Tom, forestalling the reply. ‘I have no doubt
she is. In the meantime I address myself to you, sir. You made your
statement to me, sir; you required to see me for that purpose; and I
have a right to answer it. I am not loud or turbulent,’ said Tom, which
was quite true, ‘though I can scarcely say as much for you, in your
manner of addressing yourself to me. And I wish, on my sister’s behalf,
to state the simple truth.’
‘You may state anything you like, young man,’ returned the gentleman,
affecting to yawn. ‘My dear, Miss Pinch’s money.’
‘When you tell me,’ resumed Tom, who was not the less indignant for
keeping himself quiet, ‘that my sister has no innate power of commanding
the respect of your children, I must tell you it is not so; and that she
has. She is as well bred, as well taught, as well qualified by nature
to command respect, as any hirer of a governess you know. But when you
place her at a disadvantage in reference to every servant in your house,
how can you suppose, if you have the gift of common sense, that she is
not in a tenfold worse position in reference to your daughters?’
‘Pretty well! Upon my word,’ exclaimed the gentleman, ‘this is pretty
well!’
‘It is very ill, sir,’ said Tom. ‘It is very bad and mean, and wrong and
cruel. Respect! I believe young people are quick enough to observe and
imitate; and why or how should they respect whom no one else respects,
and everybody slights? And very partial they must grow--oh, very
partial!--to their studies, when they see to what a pass proficiency in
those same tasks has brought their governess! Respect! Put anything the
most deserving of respect before your daughters in the light in which
you place her, and you will bring it down as low, no matter what it is!’
‘You speak with extreme impertinence, young man,’ observed the
gentleman.
‘I speak without passion, but with extreme indignation and contempt
for such a course of treatment, and for all who practice it,’ said
Tom. ‘Why, how can you, as an honest gentleman, profess displeasure or
surprise at your daughter telling my sister she is something beggarly
and humble, when you are for ever telling her the same thing yourself in
fifty plain, outspeaking ways, though not in words; and when your very
porter and footman make the same delicate announcement to all comers? As
to your suspicion and distrust of her; even of her word; if she is not
above their reach, you have no right to employ her.’
‘No right!’ cried the brass-and-copper founder.
‘Distinctly not,’ Tom answered. ‘If you imagine that the payment of an
annual sum of money gives it to you, you immensely exaggerate its power
and value. Your money is the least part of your bargain in such a case.
You may be punctual in that to half a second on the clock, and yet
be Bankrupt. I have nothing more to say,’ said Tom, much flushed and
flustered, now that it was over, ‘except to crave permission to stand in
your garden until my sister is ready.’
Not waiting to obtain it, Tom walked out.
Before he had well begun to cool, his sister joined him. She was crying;
and Tom could not bear that any one about the house should see her doing
that.
‘They will think you are sorry to go,’ said Tom. ‘You are not sorry to
go?’
‘No, Tom, no. I have been anxious to go for a very long time.’
‘Very well, then! Don’t cry!’ said Tom.
‘I am so sorry for YOU, dear,’ sobbed Tom’s sister.
‘But you ought to be glad on my account,’ said Tom. ‘I shall be twice as
happy with you for a companion. Hold up your head. There! Now we go
out as we ought. Not blustering, you know, but firm and confident in
ourselves.’
The idea of Tom and his sister blustering, under any circumstances, was
a splendid absurdity. But Tom was very far from feeling it to be so,
in his excitement; and passed out at the gate with such severe
determination written in his face that the porter hardly knew him again.
It was not until they had walked some short distance, and Tom found
himself getting cooler and more collected, that he was quite restored to
himself by an inquiry from his sister, who said in her pleasant little
voice:
‘Where are we going, Tom?’
‘Dear me!’ said Tom, stopping, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you--don’t you live anywhere, dear?’ asked Tom’s sister looking
wistfully in his face.
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Not at present. Not exactly. I only arrived this
morning. We must have some lodgings.’
He didn’t tell her that he had been going to stay with his friend John,
and could on no account think of billeting two inmates upon him, of whom
one was a young lady; for he knew that would make her uncomfortable,
and would cause her to regard herself as being an inconvenience to him.
Neither did he like to leave her anywhere while he called on John, and
told him of this change in his arrangements; for he was delicate of
seeming to encroach upon the generous and hospitable nature of his
friend. Therefore he said again, ‘We must have some lodgings, of
course;’ and said it as stoutly as if he had been a perfect Directory
and Guide-Book to all the lodgings in London.
‘Where shall we go and look for ‘em?’ said Tom. ‘What do you think?’
Tom’s sister was not much wiser on such a topic than he was. So she
squeezed her little purse into his coat-pocket, and folding the little
hand with which she did so on the other little hand with which she
clasped his arm, said nothing.
‘It ought to be a cheap neighbourhood,’ said Tom, ‘and not too far from
London. Let me see. Should you think Islington a good place?’
‘I should think it was an excellent place, Tom.’
‘It used to be called Merry Islington, once upon a time,’ said Tom.
‘Perhaps it’s merry now; if so, it’s all the better. Eh?’
‘If it’s not too dear,’ said Tom’s sister.
‘Of course, if it’s not too dear,’ assented Tom. ‘Well, where IS
Islington? We can’t do better than go there, I should think. Let’s go.’
Tom’s sister would have gone anywhere with him; so they walked off, arm
in arm, as comfortably as possible. Finding, presently, that Islington
was not in that neighbourhood, Tom made inquiries respecting a public
conveyance thither; which they soon obtained. As they rode along they
were very full of conversation indeed, Tom relating what had happened