Martin Chuzzlewit
he fastened on me to-night; here, upon my coat; like a savage dog. Old
as he is, and feeble as he is usually, I had some trouble to shake him
off. You--Hush!--It’s nothing. You told me the other woman’s name. I
forget it.’
‘I mentioned Betsey Prig,’ said Mrs Gamp.
‘She is to be trusted, is she?’
‘That she ain’t!’ said Mrs Gamp; ‘nor have I brought her, Mr Chuzzlewit.
I’ve brought another, which engages to give every satigefaction.’
‘What is her name?’ asked Jonas.
Mrs Gamp looked at him in an odd way without returning any answer, but
appeared to understand the question too.
‘What is her name?’ repeated Jonas.
‘Her name,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘is Harris.’
It was extraordinary how much effort it cost Mrs Gamp to pronounce the
name she was commonly so ready with. She made some three or four gasps
before she could get it out; and, when she had uttered it, pressed her
hand upon her side, and turned up her eyes, as if she were going to
faint away. But, knowing her to labour under a complication of internal
disorders, which rendered a few drops of spirits indispensable at
certain times to her existence, and which came on very strong when that
remedy was not at hand, Jonas merely supposed her to be the victim of
one of these attacks.
‘Well!’ he said, hastily, for he felt how incapable he was of confining
his wandering attention to the subject. ‘You and she have arranged to
take care of him, have you?’
Mrs Gamp replied in the affirmative, and softly discharged herself of
her familiar phrase, ‘Turn and turn about; one off, one on.’ But
she spoke so tremulously that she felt called upon to add, ‘which
fiddle-strings is weakness to expredge my nerves this night!’
Jonas stopped to listen. Then said, hurriedly:
‘We shall not quarrel about terms. Let them be the same as they were
before. Keep him close, and keep him quiet. He must be restrained.
He has got it in his head to-night that my wife’s dead, and has been
attacking me as if I had killed her. It’s--it’s common with mad people
to take the worst fancies of those they like best. Isn’t it?’
Mrs Gamp assented with a short groan.
‘Keep him close, then, or in one of his fits he’ll be doing me a
mischief. And don’t trust him at any time; for when he seems most
rational, he’s wildest in his talk. But that you know already. Let me
see the other.’
‘The t’other person, sir?’ said Mrs Gamp.
‘Aye! Go you to him and send the other. Quick! I’m busy.’
Mrs Gamp took two or three backward steps towards the door, and stopped
there.
‘It is your wishes, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ she said, in a sort of quavering
croak, ‘to see the t’other person. Is it?’
But the ghastly change in Jonas told her that the other person was
already seen. Before she could look round towards the door, she was put
aside by old Martin’s hand; and Chuffey and John Westlock entered with
him.
‘Let no one leave the house,’ said Martin. ‘This man is my brother’s
son. Ill-met, ill-trained, ill-begotten. If he moves from the spot on
which he stands, or speaks a word above his breath to any person here,
open the window, and call for help!’
‘What right have you to give such directions in this house?’ asked Jonas
faintly.
‘The right of your wrong-doing. Come in there!’
An irrepressible exclamation burst from the lips of Jonas, as Lewsome
entered at the door. It was not a groan, or a shriek, or a word, but was
wholly unlike any sound that had ever fallen on the ears of those who
heard it, while at the same time it was the most sharp and terrible
expression of what was working in his guilty breast, that nature could
have invented.
He had done murder for this! He had girdled himself about with perils,
agonies of mind, innumerable fears, for this! He had hidden his secret
in the wood; pressed and stamped it down into the bloody ground; and
here it started up when least expected, miles upon miles away; known to
many; proclaiming itself from the lips of an old man who had renewed his
strength and vigour as by a miracle, to give it voice against him!
He leaned his hand on the back of a chair, and looked at them. It was
in vain to try to do so scornfully, or with his usual insolence. He
required the chair for his support. But he made a struggle for it.
‘I know that fellow,’ he said, fetching his breath at every word, and
pointing his trembling finger towards Lewsome. ‘He’s the greatest liar
alive. What’s his last tale? Ha, ha! You’re rare fellows, too! Why, that
uncle of mine is childish; he’s even a greater child than his brother,
my father, was, in his old age; or than Chuffey is. What the devil do
you mean,’ he added, looking fiercely at John Westlock and Mark Tapley
(the latter had entered with Lewsome), ‘by coming here, and bringing
two idiots and a knave with you to take my house by storm? Hallo, there!
Open the door! Turn these strangers out!’
‘I tell you what,’ cried Mr Tapley, coming forward, ‘if it wasn’t
for your name, I’d drag you through the streets of my own accord, and
single-handed I would! Ah, I would! Don’t try and look bold at me.
You can’t do it! Now go on, sir,’ this was to old Martin. ‘Bring the
murderin’ wagabond upon his knees! If he wants noise, he shall have
enough of it; for as sure as he’s a shiverin’ from head to foot I’ll
raise a uproar at this winder that shall bring half London in. Go on,
sir! Let him try me once, and see whether I’m a man of my word or not.’
With that, Mark folded his arms, and took his seat upon the
window-ledge, with an air of general preparation for anything, which
seemed to imply that he was equally ready to jump out himself, or to
throw Jonas out, upon receiving the slightest hint that it would be
agreeable to the company.
Old Martin turned to Lewsome:
‘This is the man,’ he said, extending his hand towards Jonas. ‘Is it?’
‘You need do no more than look at him to be sure of that, or of the
truth of what I have said,’ was the reply. ‘He is my witness.’
‘Oh, brother!’ cried old Martin, clasping his hands and lifting up his
eyes. ‘Oh, brother, brother! Were we strangers half our lives that you
might breed a wretch like this, and I make life a desert by withering
every flower that grew about me! Is it the natural end of your precepts
and mine, that this should be the creature of your rearing, training,
teaching, hoarding, striving for; and I the means of bringing him to
punishment, when nothing can repair the wasted past!’
He sat down upon a chair as he spoke, and turning away his face, was
silent for a few moments. Then with recovered energy he proceeded:
‘But the accursed harvest of our mistaken lives shall be trodden down.
It is not too late for that. You are confronted with this man, you
monster there; not to be spared, but to be dealt with justly. Hear what
he says! Reply, be silent, contradict, repeat, defy, do what you please.
My course will be the same. Go on! And you,’ he said to Chuffey, ‘for
the love of your old friend, speak out, good fellow!’
‘I have been silent for his love!’ cried the old man. ‘He urged me to
it. He made me promise it upon his dying bed. I never would have spoken,
but for your finding out so much. I have thought about it ever since;
I couldn’t help that; and sometimes I have had it all before me in
a dream; but in the day-time, not in sleep. Is there such a kind of
dream?’ said Chuffey, looking anxiously in old Martin’s face.
As Martin made him an encouraging reply, he listened attentively to his
voice, and smiled.
‘Ah, aye!’ he cried. ‘He often spoke to me like that. We were at school
together, he and I. I couldn’t turn against his son, you know--his only
son, Mr Chuzzlewit!’
‘I would to Heaven you had been his son!’ said Martin.
‘You speak so like my dear old master,’ cried the old man with a
childish delight, ‘that I almost think I hear him. I can hear you quite
as well as I used to hear him. It makes me young again. He never spoke
unkindly to me, and I always understood him. I could always see him too,
though my sight was dim. Well, well! He’s dead, he’s dead. He was very
good to me, my dear old master!’
He shook his head mournfully over the brother’s hand. At this moment
Mark, who had been glancing out of the window, left the room.
‘I couldn’t turn against his only son, you know,’ said Chuffey. ‘He has
nearly driven me to do it sometimes; he very nearly did tonight. Ah!’
cried the old man, with a sudden recollection of the cause. ‘Where is
she? She’s not come home!’
‘Do you mean his wife?’ said Mr Chuzzlewit.
‘Yes.’
‘I have removed her. She is in my care, and will be spared the present
knowledge of what is passing here. She has known misery enough, without
that addition.’
Jonas heard this with a sinking heart. He knew that they were on his
heels, and felt that they were resolute to run him to destruction. Inch
by inch the ground beneath him was sliding from his feet; faster and
faster the encircling ruin contracted and contracted towards himself,
its wicked centre, until it should close in and crush him.
And now he heard the voice of his accomplice stating to his face,
with every circumstance of time and place and incident; and openly
proclaiming, with no reserve, suppression, passion, or concealment; all
the truth. The truth, which nothing would keep down; which blood
would not smother, and earth would not hide; the truth, whose terrible
inspiration seemed to change dotards into strong men; and on whose
avenging wings, one whom he had supposed to be at the extremest corner
of the earth came swooping down upon him.
He tried to deny it, but his tongue would not move. He conceived some
desperate thought of rushing away, and tearing through the streets; but
his limbs would as little answer to his will as his stark, stiff staring
face. All this time the voice went slowly on, denouncing him. It was as
if every drop of blood in the wood had found a voice to jeer him with.
When it ceased, another voice took up the tale, but strangely; for the
old clerk, who had watched, and listened to the whole, and had wrung his
hands from time to time, as if he knew its truth and could confirm it,
broke in with these words:
‘No, no, no! you’re wrong; you’re wrong--all wrong together! Have
patience, for the truth is only known to me!’
‘How can that be,’ said his old master’s brother, ‘after what you have
heard? Besides, you said just now, above-stairs, when I told you of the
accusation against him, that you knew he was his father’s murderer.’
‘Aye, yes! and so he was!’ cried Chuffey, wildly. ‘But not as you
suppose--not as you suppose. Stay! Give me a moment’s time. I have
it all here--all here! It was foul, foul, cruel, bad; but not as you
suppose. Stay, stay!’
He put his hands up to his head, as if it throbbed or pained him. After
looking about him in a wandering and vacant manner for some moments, his
eyes rested upon Jonas, when they kindled up with sudden recollection
and intelligence.
‘Yes!’ cried old Chuffey, ‘yes! That’s how it was. It’s all upon me now.
He--he got up from his bed before he died, to be sure, to say that he
forgave him; and he came down with me into this room; and when he saw
him--his only son, the son he loved--his speech forsook him; he had
no speech for what he knew--and no one understood him except me. But I
did--I did!’
Old Martin regarded him in amazement; so did his companions. Mrs Gamp,
who had said nothing yet; but had kept two-thirds of herself behind the
door, ready for escape, and one-third in the room, ready for siding with
the strongest party; came a little further in and remarked, with a sob,
that Mr Chuffey was ‘the sweetest old creetur goin’.’
‘He bought the stuff,’ said Chuffey, stretching out his arm towards
Jonas while an unwonted fire shone in his eye, and lightened up his