Martin Chuzzlewit
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 When she had withdrawn he paced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.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CONCLUSION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND
Did no men passing through the dim streets shrink without knowing why,
when he came stealing up behind them? As he glided on, had no child in
its sleep an indistinct perception of a guilty shadow falling on its
bed, that troubled its innocent rest? Did no dog howl, and strive to
break its rattling chain, that it might tear him; no burrowing rat,
scenting the work he had in hand, essay to gnaw a passage after him,
that it might hold a greedy revel at the feast of his providing? When he
looked back, across his shoulder, was it to see if his quick footsteps
still fell dry upon the dusty pavement, or were already moist and
clogged with the red mire that stained the naked feet of Cain!
He shaped his course for the main western road, and soon reached it;
riding a part of the way, then alighting and walking on again. He
travelled for a considerable distance upon the roof of a stage-coach,
which came up while he was afoot; and when it turned out of his road,