Martin Chuzzlewit
but imperfectly--they were calculated to do Good; and for his (Mr
Pecksniff’s) part, if he could in any way promote them, he thought
he would be able to lay his head upon his pillow every night, with an
absolute certainty of going to sleep at once.
The transition from this accidental remark (for it was quite accidental
and had fallen from Mr Pecksniff in the openness of his soul), to the
discussion of the subject as a matter of business, was easy. Books,
papers, statements, tables, calculations of various kinds, were soon
spread out before them; and as they were all framed with one object,
it is not surprising that they should all have tended to one end. But
still, whenever Montague enlarged upon the profits of the office, and
said that as long as there were gulls upon the wing it must succeed, Mr
Pecksniff mildly said ‘Oh fie!’--and might indeed have remonstrated
with him, but that he knew he was joking. Mr Pecksniff did know he was
joking; because he said so.
There never had been before, and there never would be again, such
an opportunity for the investment of a considerable sum (the rate of
advantage increased in proportion to the amount invested), as at that
moment. The only time that had at all approached it, was the time when
Jonas had come into the concern; which made him ill-natured now, and
inclined him to pick out a doubt in this place, and a flaw in that, and
grumbling to advise Mr Pecksniff to think better of it. The sum which
would complete the proprietorship in this snug concern, was nearly equal
to Mr Pecksniff’s whole hoard; not counting Mr Chuzzlewit, that is to
say, whom he looked upon as money in the Bank, the possession of which
inclined him the more to make a dash with his own private sprats for
the capture of such a whale as Mr Montague described. The returns
began almost immediately, and were immense. The end of it was, that
Mr Pecksniff agreed to become the last partner and proprietor in the
Anglo-Bengalee, and made an appointment to dine with Mr Montague, at
Salisbury, on the next day but one, then and there to complete the
negotiation.
It took so long to bring the subject to this head, that it was nearly
midnight when they parted. When Mr Pecksniff walked downstairs to the
door, he found Mrs Lupin standing there, looking out.
‘Ah, my good friend!’ he said; ‘not a-bed yet! Contemplating the stars,
Mrs Lupin?’
‘It’s a beautiful starlight night, sir.’
‘A beautiful starlight night,’ said Mr Pecksniff, looking up. ‘Behold
the planets, how they shine! Behold the--those two persons who were here
this morning have left your house, I hope, Mrs Lupin?’
‘Yes, sir. They are gone.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Behold the wonders of the
firmament, Mrs Lupin! how glorious is the scene! When I look up at those
shining orbs, I think that each of them is winking to the other to
take notice of the vanity of men’s pursuits. My fellow-men!’ cried Mr
Pecksniff, shaking his head in pity; ‘you are much mistaken; my wormy
relatives, you are much deceived! The stars are perfectly contented (I
suppose so) in their several spheres. Why are not you? Oh! do not strive
and struggle to enrich yourselves, or to get the better of each other,
my deluded friends, but look up there, with me!’
Mrs Lupin shook her head, and heaved a sigh. It was very affecting.
‘Look up there, with me!’ repeated Mr Pecksniff, stretching out
his hand; ‘With me, a humble individual who is also an insect like
yourselves. Can silver, gold, or precious stones, sparkle like those
constellations! I think not. Then do not thirst for silver, gold, or
precious stones; but look up there, with me!’
With those words, the good man patted Mrs Lupin’s hand between his own,
as if he would have added ‘think of this, my good woman!’ and walked
away in a sort of ecstasy or rapture, with his hat under his arm.
Jonas sat in the attitude in which Mr Pecksniff had left him, gazing
moodily at his friend; who, surrounded by a heap of documents, was
writing something on an oblong slip of paper.
‘You mean to wait at Salisbury over the day after to-morrow, do you,
then?’ said Jonas.
‘You heard our appointment,’ returned Montague, without raising his
eyes. ‘In any case I should have waited to see after the boy.’
They appeared to have changed places again; Montague being in high
spirits; Jonas gloomy and lowering.
‘You don’t want me, I suppose?’ said Jonas.
‘I want you to put your name here,’ he returned, glancing at him with a
smile, ‘as soon as I have filled up the stamp. I may as well have your
note of hand for that extra capital. That’s all I want. If you wish
to go home, I can manage Mr Pecksniff now, alone. There is a perfect
understanding between us.’
Jonas sat scowling at him as he wrote, in silence. When he had
finished his writing, and had dried it on the blotting paper in his
travelling-desk; he looked up, and tossed the pen towards him.
‘What, not a day’s grace, not a day’s trust, eh?’ said Jonas bitterly.
‘Not after the pains I have taken with to-night’s work?’
‘To night’s work was a part of our bargain,’ replied Montague; ‘and so
was this.’
‘You drive a hard bargain,’ said Jonas, advancing to the table. ‘You
know best. Give it here!’
Montague gave him the paper. After pausing as if he could not make up
his mind to put his name to it, Jonas dipped his pen hastily in the
nearest inkstand, and began to write. But he had scarcely marked the
paper when he started back, in a panic.
‘Why, what the devil’s this?’ he said. ‘It’s bloody!’
He had dipped the pen, as another moment showed, into red ink. But he
attached a strange degree of importance to the mistake. He asked how it
had come there, who had brought it, why it had been brought; and looked
at Montague, at first, as if he thought he had put a trick upon him.
Even when he used a different pen, and the right ink, he made some
scratches on another paper first, as half believing they would turn red
also.
‘Black enough, this time,’ he said, handing the note to Montague.
‘Good-bye.’
‘Going now! how do you mean to get away from here?’
‘I shall cross early in the morning to the high road, before you are out
of bed; and catch the day-coach, going up. Good-bye!’
‘You are in a hurry!’
‘I have something to do,’ said Jonas. ‘Good-bye!’
His friend looked after him as he went out, in surprise, which gradually
gave place to an air of satisfaction and relief.
‘It happens all the better. It brings about what I wanted, without any
difficulty. I shall travel home alone.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
IN WHICH TOM PINCH AND HIS SISTER TAKE A LITTLE PLEASURE; BUT QUITE IN A
DOMESTIC WAY, AND WITH NO CEREMONY ABOUT IT
Tom Pinch and his sister having to part, for the dispatch of the
morning’s business, immediately after the dispersion of the other actors
in the scene upon the wharf with which the reader has been already made
acquainted, had no opportunity of discussing the subject at that time.
But Tom, in his solitary office, and Ruth, in the triangular parlour,
thought about nothing else all day; and, when their hour of meeting in
the afternoon approached, they were very full of it, to be sure.
There was a little plot between them, that Tom should always come out
of the Temple by one way; and that was past the fountain. Coming through
Fountain Court, he was just to glance down the steps leading into Garden
Court, and to look once all round him; and if Ruth had come to meet him,
there he would see her; not sauntering, you understand (on account of
the clerks), but coming briskly up, with the best little laugh upon her
face that ever played in opposition to the fountain, and beat it all to
nothing. For, fifty to one, Tom had been looking for her in the wrong
direction, and had quite given her up, while she had been tripping
towards him from the first; jingling that little reticule of hers (with
all the keys in it) to attract his wandering observation.
Whether there was life enough left in the slow vegetation of Fountain
Court for the smoky shrubs to have any consciousness of the brightest
and purest-hearted little woman in the world, is a question for
gardeners, and those who are learned in the loves of plants. But, that
it was a good thing for that same paved yard to have such a delicate
little figure flitting through it; that it passed like a smile from the
grimy old houses, and the worn flagstones, and left them duller, darker,
sterner than before; there is no sort of doubt. The Temple fountain
might have leaped up twenty feet to greet the spring of hopeful
maidenhood, that in her person stole on, sparkling, through the dry and
dusty channels of the Law; the chirping sparrows, bred in Temple
chinks and crannies, might have held their peace to listen to imaginary
skylarks, as so fresh a little creature passed; the dingy boughs, unused
to droop, otherwise than in their puny growth, might have bent down in
a kindred gracefulness to shed their benedictions on her graceful head;
old love letters, shut up in iron boxes in the neighbouring offices, and
made of no account among the heaps of family papers into which they had
strayed, and of which, in their degeneracy, they formed a part, might
have stirred and fluttered with a moment’s recollection of their ancient
tenderness, as she went lightly by. Anything might have happened that
did not happen, and never will, for the love of Ruth.
Something happened, too, upon the afternoon of which the history treats.
Not for her love. Oh no! quite by accident, and without the least
reference to her at all.
Either she was a little too soon, or Tom was a little too late--she was
so precise in general, that she timed it to half a minute--but no Tom
was there. Well! But was anybody else there, that she blushed so deeply,
after looking round, and tripped off down the steps with such unusual
expedition?
Why, the fact is, that Mr Westlock was passing at that moment. The
Temple is a public thoroughfare; they may write up on the gates that it
is not, but so long as the gates are left open it is, and will be; and
Mr Westlock had as good a right to be there as anybody else. But why did
she run away, then? Not being ill dressed, for she was much too neat for
that, why did she run away? The brown hair that had fallen down beneath
her bonnet, and had one impertinent imp of a false flower clinging to
it, boastful of its licence before all men, THAT could not have been the
cause, for it looked charming. Oh! foolish, panting, frightened little
heart, why did she run away!
Merrily the tiny fountain played, and merrily the dimples sparkled on
its sunny face. John Westlock hurried after her. Softly the whispering
water broke and fell; as roguishly the dimples twinkled, as he stole
upon her footsteps.
Oh, foolish, panting, timid little heart, why did she feign to be
unconscious of his coming! Why wish herself so far away, yet be so
flutteringly happy there!
‘I felt sure it was you,’ said John, when he overtook her in the
sanctuary of Garden Court. ‘I knew I couldn’t be mistaken.’
She was SO surprised.
‘You are waiting for your brother,’ said John. ‘Let me bear you
company.’
So light was the touch of the coy little hand, that he glanced down to
assure himself he had it on his arm. But his glance, stopping for
an instant at the bright eyes, forgot its first design, and went no
farther.
They walked up and down three or four times, speaking about Tom and his
mysterious employment. Now that was a very natural and innocent subject,
surely. Then why, whenever Ruth lifted up her eyes, did she let them
fall again immediately, and seek the uncongenial pavement of the court?
They were not such eyes as shun the light; they were not such eyes