Martin Chuzzlewit
at last, to marry the person I love. But there is a much higher justice
than poetical justice, my dear, and it does not order events upon the
same principle. Accordingly, people who read about heroes in books, and
choose to make heroes of themselves out of books, consider it a very
fine thing to be discontented and gloomy, and misanthropical, and
perhaps a little blasphemous, because they cannot have everything
ordered for their individual accommodation. Would you like me to become
one of that sort of people?’
‘No, Tom. But still I know,’ she added timidly, ‘that this is a sorrow
to you in your own better way.’
Tom thought of disputing the position. But it would have been mere
folly, and he gave it up.
‘My dear,’ said Tom, ‘I will repay your affection with the Truth and all
the Truth. It is a sorrow to me. I have proved it to be so sometimes,
though I have always striven against it. But somebody who is precious to
you may die, and you may dream that you are in heaven with the departed
spirit, and you may find it a sorrow to wake to the life on earth, which
is no harder to be borne than when you fell asleep. It is sorrowful to
me to contemplate my dream which I always knew was a dream, even when
it first presented itself; but the realities about me are not to blame.
They are the same as they were. My sister, my sweet companion, who makes
this place so dear, is she less devoted to me, Ruth, than she would
have been, if this vision had never troubled me? My old friend John, who
might so easily have treated me with coldness and neglect, is he less
cordial to me? The world about me, is there less good in that? Are my
words to be harsh and my looks to be sour, and is my heart to grow cold,
because there has fallen in my way a good and beautiful creature, who
but for the selfish regret that I cannot call her my own, would, like
all other good and beautiful creatures, make me happier and better!
No, my dear sister. No,’ said Tom stoutly. ‘Remembering all my means of
happiness, I hardly dare to call this lurking something a sorrow; but
whatever name it may justly bear, I thank Heaven that it renders me more
sensible of affection and attachment, and softens me in fifty ways. Not
less happy. Not less happy, Ruth!’
She could not speak to him, but she loved him, as he well deserved. Even
as he deserved, she loved him.
‘She will open Martin’s eyes,’ said Tom, with a glow of pride, ‘and that
(which is indeed wrong) will be set right. Nothing will persuade her, I
know, that I have betrayed him. It will be set right through her, and he
will be very sorry for it. Our secret, Ruth, is our own, and lives and
dies with us. I don’t believe I ever could have told it you,’ said Tom,
with a smile, ‘but how glad I am to think you have found it out!’
They had never taken such a pleasant walk as they took that night. Tom
told her all so freely and so simply, and was so desirous to return
her tenderness with his fullest confidence, that they prolonged it far
beyond their usual hour, and sat up late when they came home. And
when they parted for the night there was such a tranquil, beautiful
expression in Tom’s face, that she could not bear to shut it out, but
going back on tiptoe to his chamber-door, looked in and stood there till
he saw her, and then embracing him again, withdrew. And in her prayers
and in her sleep--good times to be remembered with such fervour,
Tom!--his name was uppermost.
When he was left alone, Tom pondered very much on this discovery of
hers, and greatly wondered what had led her to it. ‘Because,’ thought
Tom, ‘I have been so very careful. It was foolish and unnecessary in
me, as I clearly see now, when I am so relieved by her knowing it; but I
have been so very careful to conceal it from her. Of course I knew that
she was intelligent and quick, and for that reason was more upon my
guard; but I was not in the least prepared for this. I am sure her
discovery has been sudden too. Dear me!’ said Tom. ‘It’s a most singular
instance of penetration!’
Tom could not get it out of his head. There it was, when his head was on
his pillow.
‘How she trembled when she began to tell me she knew it!’ thought Tom,
recalling all the little incidents and circumstances; ‘and how her
face flushed! But that was natural! Oh, quite natural! That needs no
accounting for.’
Tom little thought how natural it was. Tom little knew that there was
that in Ruth’s own heart, but newly set there, which had helped her to
the reading of his mystery. Ah, Tom! He didn’t understand the whispers
of the Temple Fountain, though he passed it every day.
Who so lively and cheerful as busy Ruth next morning! Her early tap at
Tom’s door, and her light foot outside, would have been music to him
though she had not spoken. But she said it was the brightest morning
ever seen; and so it was; and if it had been otherwise, she would have
made it so to Tom.
She was ready with his neat breakfast when he went downstairs, and had
her bonnet ready for the early walk, and was so full of news, that Tom
was lost in wonder. She might have been up all night, collecting it for
his entertainment. There was Mr Nadgett not come home yet, and there was
bread down a penny a loaf, and there was twice as much strength in this
tea as in the last, and the milk-woman’s husband had come out of the
hospital cured, and the curly-headed child over the way had been lost
all yesterday, and she was going to make all sorts of preserves in a
desperate hurry, and there happened to be a saucepan in the house which
was the very saucepan for the purpose; and she knew all about the last
book Tom had brought home, all through, though it was a teaser to read;
and she had so much to tell him that she had finished breakfast first.
Then she had her little bonnet on, and the tea and sugar locked up, and
the keys in her reticule, and the flower, as usual, in Tom’s coat, and
was in all respects quite ready to accompany him, before Tom knew she
had begun to prepare. And in short, as Tom said, with a confidence in
his own assertion which amounted to a defiance of the public in general,
there never was such a little woman.
She made Tom talkative. It was impossible to resist her. She put such
enticing questions to him; about books, and about dates of churches,
and about organs and about the Temple, and about all kinds of things.
Indeed, she lightened the way (and Tom’s heart with it) to that degree,
that the Temple looked quite blank and solitary when he parted from her
at the gate.
‘No Mr Fips’s friend to-day, I suppose,’ thought Tom, as he ascended the
stairs.
Not yet, at any rate, for the door was closed as usual, and Tom opened
it with his key. He had got the books into perfect order now, and
had mended the torn leaves, and had pasted up the broken backs, and
substituted neat labels for the worn-out letterings. It looked a
different place, it was so orderly and neat. Tom felt some pride in
comtemplating the change he had wrought, though there was no one to
approve or disapprove of it.
He was at present occupied in making a fair copy of his draught of
the catalogue; on which, as there was no hurry, he was painfully
concentrating all the ingenious and laborious neatness he had ever
expended on map or plan in Mr Pecksniff’s workroom. It was a very marvel
of a catalogue; for Tom sometimes thought he was really getting his
money too easily, and he had determined within himself that this
document should take a little of his superfluous leisure out of him.
So with pens and ruler, and compasses and india-rubber, and pencil, and
black ink, and red ink, Tom worked away all the morning. He thought a
good deal about Martin, and their interview of yesterday, and would have
been far easier in his mind if he could have resolved to confide it
to his friend John, and to have taken his opinion on the subject.
But besides that he knew what John’s boiling indignation would be, he
bethought himself that he was helping Martin now in a matter of great
moment, and that to deprive the latter of his assistance at such a
crisis of affairs, would be to inflict a serious injury upon him.
‘So I’ll keep it to myself,’ said Tom, with a sigh. ‘I’ll keep it to
myself.’
And to work he went again, more assiduously than ever, with the pens,
and the ruler, and the india-rubber, and the pencils, and the red ink,
that he might forget it.
He had laboured away another hour or more, when he heard a footstep in
the entry, down below.
‘Ah!’ said Tom, looking towards the door; ‘time was, not long ago
either, when that would have set me wondering and expecting. But I have
left off now.’
The footstep came on, up the stairs.
‘Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,’ said Tom, counting. ‘Now
you’ll stop. Nobody ever comes past the thirty-eighth stair.’
The person did, certainly, but only to take breath; for up the footstep
came again. Forty, forty-one, forty-two, and so on.
The door stood open. As the tread advanced, Tom looked impatiently and
eagerly towards it. When a figure came upon the landing, and arriving
in the doorway, stopped and gazed at him, he rose up from his chair, and
half believed he saw a spirit.
Old Martin Chuzzlewit! The same whom he had left at Mr Pecksniff’s, weak
and sinking!
The same? No, not the same, for this old man, though old, was strong,
and leaned upon his stick with a vigorous hand, while with the other
he signed to Tom to make no noise. One glance at the resolute face, the
watchful eye, the vigorous hand upon the staff, the triumphant purpose
in the figure, and such a light broke in on Tom as blinded him.
‘You have expected me,’ said Martin, ‘a long time.’
‘I was told that my employer would arrive soon,’ said Tom; ‘but--’
‘I know. You were ignorant who he was. It was my desire. I am glad it
has been so well observed. I intended to have been with you much sooner.
I thought the time had come. I thought I could know no more, and no
worse, of him, than I did on that day when I saw you last. But I was
wrong.’
He had by this time come up to Tom, and now he grasped his hand.
‘I have lived in his house, Pinch, and had him fawning on me days and
weeks and months. You know it. I have suffered him to treat me like
his tool and instrument. You know it; you have seen me there. I have
undergone ten thousand times as much as I could have endured if I had
been the miserable weak old man he took me for. You know it. I have seen
him offer love to Mary. You know it; who better--who better, my true
heart! I have had his base soul bare before me, day by day, and have not
betrayed myself once. I never could have undergone such torture but for
looking forward to this time.’
He stopped, even in the passion of his speech--if that can be called
passion which was so resolute and steady--to press Tom’s hand again.
Then he said, in great excitement:
‘Close the door, close the door. He will not be long after me, but
may come too soon. The time now drawing on,’ said the old man,
hurriedly--his eyes and whole face brightening as he spoke--‘will make
amends for all. I wouldn’t have him die or hang himself, for millions of
golden pieces! Close the door!’
Tom did so; hardly knowing yet whether he was awake or in a dream.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
SHEDS NEW AND BRIGHTER LIGHT UPON THE VERY DARK PLACE; AND CONTAINS THE
SEQUEL OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND
The night had now come, when the old clerk was to be delivered over
to his keepers. In the midst of his guilty distractions, Jonas had not
forgotten it.
It was a part of his guilty state of mind to remember it; for on his
persistence in the scheme depended one of his precautions for his own
safety. A hint, a word, from the old man, uttered at such a moment in