Martin Chuzzlewit
overlooking them did to rustic gardens, there were trees; tall trees;
still putting forth their leaves in each succeeding year, with such a
languishing remembrance of their kind (so one might fancy, looking on
their sickly boughs) as birds in cages have of theirs. Here, paralysed
old watchmen guarded the bodies of the dead at night, year after year,
until at last they joined that solemn brotherhood; and, saving that they
slept below the ground a sounder sleep than even they had ever known
above it, and were shut up in another kind of box, their condition can
hardly be said to have undergone any material change when they, in turn,
were watched themselves.
Among the narrow thoroughfares at hand, there lingered, here and there,
an ancient doorway of carved oak, from which, of old, the sounds of
revelry and feasting often came; but now these mansions, only used
for storehouses, were dark and dull, and, being filled with wool, and
cotton, and the like--such heavy merchandise as stifles sound and stops
the throat of echo--had an air of palpable deadness about them which,
added to their silence and desertion, made them very grim. In like
manner, there were gloomy courtyards in these parts, into which few but
belated wayfarers ever strayed, and where vast bags and packs of goods,
upward or downward bound, were for ever dangling between heaven and
earth from lofty cranes There were more trucks near Todgers’s than
you would suppose whole city could ever need; not active trucks, but
a vagabond race, for ever lounging in the narrow lanes before
their masters’ doors and stopping up the pass; so that when a stray
hackney-coach or lumbering waggon came that way, they were the cause of
such an uproar as enlivened the whole neighbourhood, and made the bells
in the next churchtower vibrate again. In the throats and maws of dark
no-thoroughfares near Todgers’s, individual wine-merchants and wholesale
dealers in grocery-ware had perfect little towns of their own; and, deep
among the foundations of these buildings, the ground was undermined and
burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by rats, might be
heard on a quiet Sunday rattling their halters, as disturbed spirits in
tales of haunted houses are said to clank their chains.
To tell of half the queer old taverns that had a drowsy and secret
existence near Todgers’s, would fill a goodly book; while a second
volume no less capacious might be devoted to an account of the quaint
old guests who frequented their dimly lighted parlours. These were, in
general, ancient inhabitants of that region; born, and bred there from
boyhood, who had long since become wheezy and asthmatical, and short of
breath, except in the article of story-telling; in which respect they
were still marvellously long-winded. These gentry were much opposed to
steam and all new-fangled ways, and held ballooning to be sinful, and
deplored the degeneracy of the times; which that particular member
of each little club who kept the keys of the nearest church,
professionally, always attributed to the prevalence of dissent and
irreligion; though the major part of the company inclined to the belief
that virtue went out with hair-powder, and that Old England’s greatness
had decayed amain with barbers.
As to Todgers’s itself--speaking of it only as a house in that
neighbourhood, and making no reference to its merits as a commercial
boarding establishment--it was worthy to stand where it did. There was
one staircase-window in it, at the side of the house, on the ground
floor; which tradition said had not been opened for a hundred years at
least, and which, abutting on an always dirty lane, was so begrimed and
coated with a century’s mud, that no one pane of glass could possibly
fall out, though all were cracked and broken twenty times. But the grand
mystery of Todgers’s was the cellarage, approachable only by a little
back door and a rusty grating; which cellarage within the memory of man
had had no connection with the house, but had always been the freehold
property of somebody else, and was reported to be full of wealth; though
in what shape--whether in silver, brass, or gold, or butts of wine,
or casks of gun-powder--was matter of profound uncertainty and supreme
indifference to Todgers’s and all its inmates.
The top of the house was worthy of notice. There was a sort of terrace
on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once intended to
dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests out there,
full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking-sticks.
Whoever climbed to this observatory, was stunned at first from having
knocked his head against the little door in coming out; and after that,
was for the moment choked from having looked perforce, straight down the
kitchen chimney; but these two stages over, there were things to gaze
at from the top of Todgers’s, well worth your seeing too. For first
and foremost, if the day were bright, you observed upon the house-tops,
stretching far away, a long dark path; the shadow of the Monument; and
turning round, the tall original was close beside you, with every hair
erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him.
Then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes, and masts of
ships; a very forest. Gables, housetops, garret-windows, wilderness upon
wilderness. Smoke and noise enough for all the world at once.
After the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of this
crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as
it were, and took hold of the attention whether the spectator would or
no. Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings
seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then, and
whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going
on below. Others, of a crook-backed shape, appeared to be maliciously
holding themselves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and
baffle Todgers’s. The man who was mending a pen at an upper window over
the way, became of paramount importance in the scene, and made a blank
in it, ridiculously disproportionate in its extent, when he retired. The
gambols of a piece of cloth upon the dyer’s pole had far more interest
for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd. Yet even while
the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was,
the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken
and expand a hundredfold, and after gazing round him, quite scared, he
turned into Todgers’s again, much more rapidly than he came out; and ten
to one he told M. Todgers afterwards that if he hadn’t done so, he would
certainly have come into the street by the shortest cut; that is to say,
head-foremost.
So said the two Miss Pecksniffs, when they retired with Mrs Todgers from
this place of espial, leaving the youthful porter to close the door
and follow them downstairs; who, being of a playful temperament, and
contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of life, any
chance of dashing himself into small fragments, lingered behind to walk
upon the parapet.
It being the second day of their stay in London, the Miss Pecksniffs
and Mrs Todgers were by this time highly confidential, insomuch that the
last-named lady had already communicated the particulars of three early
disappointments of a tender nature; and had furthermore possessed her
young friends with a general summary of the life, conduct, and character
of Mr Todgers. Who, it seemed, had cut his matrimonial career rather
short, by unlawfully running away from his happiness, and establishing
himself in foreign countries as a bachelor.
‘Your pa was once a little particular in his attentions, my dears,’ said
Mrs Todgers, ‘but to be your ma was too much happiness denied me. You’d
hardly know who this was done for, perhaps?’
She called their attention to an oval miniature, like a little blister,
which was tacked up over the kettle-holder, and in which there was a
dreamy shadowing forth of her own visage.
‘It’s a speaking likeness!’ cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.
‘It was considered so once,’ said Mrs Todgers, warming herself in a
gentlemanly manner at the fire; ‘but I hardly thought you would have
known it, my loves.’
They would have known it anywhere. If they could have met with it in
the street, or seen it in a shop window, they would have cried ‘Good
gracious! Mrs Todgers!’
‘Presiding over an establishment like this, makes sad havoc with the
features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘The gravy alone,
is enough to add twenty years to one’s age, I do assure you.’
‘Lor’!’ cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.
‘The anxiety of that one item, my dears,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘keeps the
mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human
nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen. It’s
nothing to say a joint won’t yield--a whole animal wouldn’t yield--the
amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. And what I have
undergone in consequence,’ cried Mrs Todgers, raising her eyes and
shaking her head, ‘no one would believe!’
‘Just like Mr Pinch, Merry!’ said Charity. ‘We have always noticed it in
him, you remember?’
‘Yes, my dear,’ giggled Merry, ‘but we have never given it him, you
know.’
‘You, my dears, having to deal with your pa’s pupils who can’t help
themselves, are able to take your own way,’ said Mrs Todgers; ‘but in
a commercial establishment, where any gentleman may say any Saturday
evening, “Mrs Todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the
cheese,” it is not so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding. Your pa
was kind enough,’ added the good lady, ‘to invite me to take a ride with
you to-day; and I think he mentioned that you were going to call upon
Miss Pinch. Any relation to the gentleman you were speaking of just now,
Miss Pecksniff?’
‘For goodness sake, Mrs Todgers,’ interposed the lively Merry, ‘don’t
call him a gentleman. My dear Cherry, Pinch a gentleman! The idea!’
‘What a wicked girl you are!’ cried Mrs Todgers, embracing her with
great affection. ‘You are quite a quiz, I do declare! My dear Miss
Pecksniff, what a happiness your sister’s spirits must be to your pa and
self!’
‘He’s the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, Mrs Todgers, in
existence,’ resumed Merry: ‘quite an ogre. The ugliest, awkwardest
frightfullest being, you can imagine. This is his sister, so I leave you
to suppose what SHE is. I shall be obliged to laugh outright, I know
I shall!’ cried the charming girl, ‘I never shall be able to keep my
countenance. The notion of a Miss Pinch presuming to exist at all is
sufficient to kill one, but to see her--oh my stars!’
Mrs Todgers laughed immensely at the dear love’s humour, and declared
she was quite afraid of her, that she was. She was so very severe.
‘Who is severe?’ cried a voice at the door. ‘There is no such thing as
severity in our family, I hope!’ And then Mr Pecksniff peeped smilingly
into the room, and said, ‘May I come in, Mrs Todgers?’
Mrs Todgers almost screamed, for the little door of communication
between that room and the inner one being wide open, there was a full
disclosure of the sofa bedstead in all its monstrous impropriety. But
she had the presence of mind to close this portal in the twinkling of an
eye; and having done so, said, though not without confusion, ‘Oh yes, Mr
Pecksniff, you can come in, if you please.’
‘How are we to-day,’ said Mr Pecksniff, jocosely, ‘and what are our
plans? Are we ready to go and see Tom Pinch’s sister? Ha, ha, ha! Poor
Thomas Pinch!’
‘Are we ready,’ returned Mrs Todgers, nodding her head with mysterious
intelligence, ‘to send a favourable reply to Mr Jinkins’s round-robin?