Martin Chuzzlewit
sweet. Why should I?’
‘That is the Antwerp packet in the middle,’ said Ruth.
‘And I wish it was in Jonadge’s belly, I do,’ cried Mrs Gamp; appearing
to confound the prophet with the whale in this miraculous aspiration.
Ruth said nothing in reply; but, as Mrs Gamp, laying her chin against
the cool iron of the rail, continued to look intently at the Antwerp
boat, and every now and then to give a little groan, she inquired
whether any child of hers was going aboard that morning? Or perhaps her
husband, she said kindly.
‘Which shows,’ said Mrs Gamp, casting up her eyes, ‘what a little way
you’ve travelled into this wale of life, my dear young creetur! As a
good friend of mine has frequent made remark to me, which her name,
my love, is Harris, Mrs Harris through the square and up the steps
a-turnin’ round by the tobacker shop, “Oh Sairey, Sairey, little do we
know wot lays afore us!” “Mrs Harris, ma’am,” I says, “not much, it’s
true, but more than you suppoge. Our calcilations, ma’am,” I says,
“respectin’ wot the number of a family will be, comes most times within
one, and oftener than you would suppoge, exact.” “Sairey,” says Mrs
Harris, in a awful way, “Tell me wot is my indiwidgle number.” “No, Mrs
Harris,” I says to her, “ex-cuge me, if you please. My own,” I says,
“has fallen out of three-pair backs, and had damp doorsteps settled
on their lungs, and one was turned up smilin’ in a bedstead unbeknown.
Therefore, ma’am,” I says, “seek not to proticipate, but take ‘em as
they come and as they go.” Mine,’ says Mrs Gamp, ‘mine is all gone, my
dear young chick. And as to husbands, there’s a wooden leg gone likeways
home to its account, which in its constancy of walkin’ into wine vaults,
and never comin’ out again ‘till fetched by force, was quite as weak as
flesh, if not weaker.’
When she had delivered this oration, Mrs Gamp leaned her chin upon the
cool iron again; and looking intently at the Antwerp packet, shook her
head and groaned.
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘I wouldn’t be a man and have such a think
upon my mind!--but nobody as owned the name of man, could do it!’
Tom and his sister glanced at each other; and Ruth, after a moment’s
hesitation, asked Mrs Gamp what troubled her so much.
‘My dear,’ returned that lady, dropping her voice, ‘you are single,
ain’t you?’
Ruth laughed blushed, and said ‘Yes.’
‘Worse luck,’ proceeded Mrs Gamp, ‘for all parties! But others is
married, and in the marriage state; and there is a dear young creetur
a-comin’ down this mornin’ to that very package, which is no more fit to
trust herself to sea, than nothin’ is!’
She paused here to look over the deck of the packet in question, and on
the steps leading down to it, and on the gangways. Seeming to have
thus assured herself that the object of her commiseration had not yet
arrived, she raised her eyes gradually up to the top of the escape-pipe,
and indignantly apostrophised the vessel:
‘Oh, drat you!’ said Mrs Gamp, shaking her umbrella at it, ‘you’re a
nice spluttering nisy monster for a delicate young creetur to go and
be a passinger by; ain’t you! YOU never do no harm in that way, do
you? With your hammering, and roaring, and hissing, and lamp-iling, you
brute! Them Confugion steamers,’ said Mrs Gamp, shaking her umbrella
again, ‘has done more to throw us out of our reg’lar work and bring
ewents on at times when nobody counted on ‘em (especially them
screeching railroad ones), than all the other frights that ever was
took. I have heerd of one young man, a guard upon a railway, only three
years opened--well does Mrs Harris know him, which indeed he is her own
relation by her sister’s marriage with a master sawyer--as is godfather
at this present time to six-and-twenty blessed little strangers, equally
unexpected, and all on ‘um named after the Ingeines as was the cause.
Ugh!’ said Mrs Gamp, resuming her apostrophe, ‘one might easy know you
was a man’s inwention, from your disregardlessness of the weakness of
our naturs, so one might, you brute!’
It would not have been unnatural to suppose, from the first part of Mrs
Gamp’s lamentations, that she was connected with the stage-coaching or
post-horsing trade. She had no means of judging of the effect of her
concluding remarks upon her young companion; for she interrupted herself
at this point, and exclaimed:
‘There she identically goes! Poor sweet young creetur, there she goes,
like a lamb to the sacrifige! If there’s any illness when that wessel
gets to sea,’ said Mrs Gamp, prophetically, ‘it’s murder, and I’m the
witness for the persecution.’
She was so very earnest on the subject, that Tom’s sister (being as kind
as Tom himself) could not help saying something to her in reply.
‘Pray, which is the lady,’ she inquired, ‘in whom you are so much
interested?’
‘There!’ groaned Mrs Gamp. ‘There she goes! A-crossin’ the little wooden
bridge at this minute. She’s a-slippin’ on a bit of orangepeel!’ tightly
clutching her umbrella. ‘What a turn it give me.’
‘Do you mean the lady who is with that man wrapped up from head to foot
in a large cloak, so that his face is almost hidden?’
‘Well he may hide it!’ Mrs Gamp replied. ‘He’s good call to be ashamed
of himself. Did you see him a-jerking of her wrist, then?’
‘He seems to be hasty with her, indeed.’
‘Now he’s a-taking of her down into the close cabin!’ said Mrs Gamp,
impatiently. ‘What’s the man about! The deuce is in him, I think. Why
can’t he leave her in the open air?’
He did not, whatever his reason was, but led her quickly down and
disappeared himself, without loosening his cloak, or pausing on the
crowded deck one moment longer than was necessary to clear their way to
that part of the vessel.
Tom had not heard this little dialogue; for his attention had been
engaged in an unexpected manner. A hand upon his sleeve had caused
him to look round, just when Mrs Gamp concluded her apostrophe to the
steam-engine; and on his right arm, Ruth being on his left, he found
their landlord, to his great surprise.
He was not so much surprised at the man’s being there, as at his having
got close to him so quietly and swiftly; for another person had been
at his elbow one instant before; and he had not in the meantime been
conscious of any change or pressure in the knot of people among whom he
stood. He and Ruth had frequently remarked how noiselessly this landlord
of theirs came into and went out of his own house; but Tom was not the
less amazed to see him at his elbow now.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Pinch,’ he said in his ear. ‘I am rather infirm,
and out of breath, and my eyes are not very good. I am not as young as I
was, sir. You don’t see a gentleman in a large cloak down yonder, with a
lady on his arm; a lady in a veil and a black shawl; do you?’
If HE did not, it was curious that in speaking he should have singled
out from all the crowd the very people whom he described; and should
have glanced hastily from them to Tom, as if he were burning to direct
his wandering eyes.
‘A gentleman in a large cloak!’ said Tom, ‘and a lady in a black shawl!
Let me see!’
‘Yes, yes!’ replied the other, with keen impatience. ‘A gentleman
muffled up from head to foot--strangely muffled up for such a morning
as this--like an invalid, with his hand to his face at this minute,
perhaps. No, no, no! not there,’ he added, following Tom’s gaze; ‘the
other way; in that direction; down yonder.’ Again he indicated, but this
time in his hurry, with his outstretched finger, the very spot on which
the progress of these persons was checked at that moment.
‘There are so many people, and so much motion, and so many objects,’
said Tom, ‘that I find it difficult to--no, I really don’t see a
gentleman in a large cloak, and a lady in a black shawl. There’s a lady
in a red shawl over there!’
‘No, no, no!’ cried his landlord, pointing eagerly again, ‘not there.
The other way; the other way. Look at the cabin steps. To the left. They
must be near the cabin steps. Do you see the cabin steps? There’s the
bell ringing already! DO you see the steps?’
‘Stay!’ said Tom, ‘you’re right. Look! there they go now. Is that the
gentleman you mean? Descending at this minute, with the folds of a great
cloak trailing down after him?’
‘The very man!’ returned the other, not looking at what Tom pointed out,
however, but at Tom’s own face. ‘Will you do me a kindness, sir, a great
kindness? Will you put that letter in his hand? Only give him that!
He expects it. I am charged to do it by my employers, but I am late in
finding him, and, not being as young as I have been, should never be
able to make my way on board and off the deck again in time. Will you
pardon my boldness, and do me that great kindness?’
His hands shook, and his face bespoke the utmost interest and agitation,
as he pressed the letter upon Tom, and pointed to its destination, like
the Tempter in some grim old carving.
To hesitate in the performance of a good-natured or compassionate office
was not in Tom’s way. He took the letter; whispered Ruth to wait till
he returned, which would be immediately; and ran down the steps with all
the expedition he could make. There were so many people going down, so
many others coming up, such heavy goods in course of transit to and
fro, such a ringing of bell, blowing-off of steam, and shouting of men’s
voices, that he had much ado to force his way, or keep in mind to which
boat he was going. But he reached the right one with good speed, and
going down the cabin-stairs immediately, described the object of his
search standing at the upper end of the saloon, with his back towards
him, reading some notice which was hung against the wall. As Tom
advanced to give him the letter, he started, hearing footsteps, and
turned round.
What was Tom’s astonishment to find in him the man with whom he had had
the conflict in the field--poor Mercy’s husband. Jonas!
Tom understood him to say, what the devil did he want; but it was not
easy to make out what he said; he spoke so indistinctly.
‘I want nothing with you for myself,’ said Tom; ‘I was asked, a moment
since, to give you this letter. You were pointed out to me, but I didn’t
know you in your strange dress. Take it!’
He did so, opened it, and read the writing on the inside. The contents
were evidently very brief; not more perhaps than one line; but they
struck upon him like a stone from a sling. He reeled back as he read.
His emotion was so different from any Tom had ever seen before that he
stopped involuntarily. Momentary as his state of indecision was, the
bell ceased while he stood there, and a hoarse voice calling down the
steps, inquired if there was any to go ashore?
‘Yes,’ cried Jonas, ‘I--I am coming. Give me time. Where’s that woman!
Come back; come back here.’
He threw open another door as he spoke, and dragged, rather than led,
her forth. She was pale and frightened, and amazed to see her old
acquaintance; but had no time to speak, for they were making a great
stir above; and Jonas drew her rapidly towards the deck.
‘Where are we going? What is the matter?’
‘We are going back,’ said Jonas. ‘I have changed my mind. I can’t go.
Don’t question me, or I shall be the death of you, or some one else.
Stop there! Stop! We’re for the shore. Do you hear? We’re for the
shore!’
He turned, even in the madness of his hurry, and scowling darkly back
at Tom, shook his clenched hand at him. There are not many human faces
capable of the expression with which he accompanied that gesture.
He dragged her up, and Tom followed them. Across the deck, over the
side, along the crazy plank, and up the steps, he dragged her fiercely;
not bestowing any look on her, but gazing upwards all the while among
the faces on the wharf. Suddenly he turned again, and said to Tom with a