Martin Chuzzlewit
That’s the first question, Mr Pecksniff.’
‘Why Mr Jinkins’s robin, my dear madam?’ asked Mr Pecksniff, putting one
arm round Mercy, and the other round Mrs Todgers, whom he seemed, in the
abstraction of the moment, to mistake for Charity. ‘Why Mr Jinkins’s?’
‘Because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in the
house,’ said Mrs Todgers, playfully. ‘That’s why, sir.’
‘Jinkins is a man of superior talents,’ observed Mr Pecksniff. ‘I have
conceived a great regard for Jinkins. I take Jinkins’s desire to pay
polite attention to my daughters, as an additional proof of the friendly
feeling of Jinkins, Mrs Todgers.’
‘Well now,’ returned that lady, ‘having said so much, you must say the
rest, Mr Pecksniff; so tell the dear young ladies all about it.’
With these words she gently eluded Mr Pecksniff’s grasp, and took Miss
Charity into her own embrace; though whether she was impelled to this
proceeding solely by the irrepressible affection she had conceived for
that young lady, or whether it had any reference to a lowering, not to
say distinctly spiteful expression which had been visible in her face
for some moments, has never been exactly ascertained. Be this as it may,
Mr Pecksniff went on to inform his daughters of the purport and history
of the round-robin aforesaid, which was in brief, that the commercial
gentlemen who helped to make up the sum and substance of that noun of
multitude signifying many, called Todgers’s, desired the honour of their
presence at the general table, so long as they remained in the house,
and besought that they would grace the board at dinner-time next
day, the same being Sunday. He further said, that Mrs Todgers being a
consenting party to this invitation, he was willing, for his part, to
accept it; and so left them that he might write his gracious answer, the
while they armed themselves with their best bonnets for the utter defeat
and overthrow of Miss Pinch.
Tom Pinch’s sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps
the wealthiest brass and copper founders’ family known to mankind.
They lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce, that its mere
outside, like the outside of a giant’s castle, struck terror into vulgar
minds and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate; with a
great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a
great lodge; which being close to the house, rather spoilt the look-out
certainly but made the look-in tremendous. At this entry, a great porter
kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high leave
to pass, he rang a second great bell, responsive to whose note a great
footman appeared in due time at the great halldoor, with such great
tags upon his liveried shoulder that he was perpetually entangling and
hooking himself among the chairs and tables, and led a life of torment
which could scarcely have been surpassed, if he had been a blue-bottle
in a world of cobwebs.
To this mansion Mr Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs
Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies
having been all performed, they were ushered into the house; and so, by
degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr
Pinch’s sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil; to wit,
a premature little woman of thirteen years old, who had already arrived
at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish
about her, which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations
and friends.
‘Visitors for Miss Pinch!’ said the footman. He must have been
an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice
discrimination between the cold respect with which he would have
announced visitors to the family, and the warm personal interest with
which he would have announced visitors to the cook.
‘Visitors for Miss Pinch!’
Miss Pinch rose hastily; with such tokens of agitation as plainly
declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time,
the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take
mental notes of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the
establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the
animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon
whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties
concerned, very laudable, improving, and pleasant.
It is a melancholy fact; but it must be related, that Mr Pinch’s sister
was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face; a very mild
and prepossessing face; and a pretty little figure--slight and short,
but remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother,
much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look
of timid trustfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or
a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else, predicted by the two Miss
Pecksniffs, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great
indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to
see.
Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gaiety, bore up the best
against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at
least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain,
expressed it pretty openly in her looks. As to Mrs Todgers, she leaned
on Mr Pecksniff’s arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness, suitable
to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion.
‘Don’t be alarmed, Miss Pinch,’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking her hand
condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. ‘I have
called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother,
Thomas Pinch. My name--compose yourself, Miss Pinch--is Pecksniff.’
The good man emphasised these words as though he would have said, ‘You
see in me, young person, the benefactor of your race; the patron of your
house; the preserver of your brother, who is fed with manna daily from
my table; and in right of whom there is a considerable balance in my
favour at present standing in the books beyond the sky. But I have no
pride, for I can afford to do without it!’
The poor girl felt it all as if it had been Gospel truth. Her brother
writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told her so, and
how much more! As Mr Pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung her head, and
dropped a tear upon his hand.
‘Oh very well, Miss Pinch!’ thought the sharp pupil, ‘crying before
strangers, as if you didn’t like the situation!’
‘Thomas is well,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘and sends his love and this
letter. I cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever be distinguished in
our profession; but he has the will to do well, which is the next thing
to having the power; and, therefore, we must bear with him. Eh?’
‘I know he has the will, sir,’ said Tom Pinch’s sister, ‘and I know how
kindly and considerately you cherish it, for which neither he nor I can
ever be grateful enough, as we very often say in writing to each
other. The young ladies too,’ she added, glancing gratefully at his two
daughters, ‘I know how much we owe to them.’
‘My dears,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning to them with a smile: ‘Thomas’s
sister is saying something you will be glad to hear, I think.’
‘We can’t take any merit to ourselves, papa!’ cried Cherry, as they
both apprised Tom Pinch’s sister, with a curtsey, that they would
feel obliged if she would keep her distance. ‘Mr Pinch’s being so well
provided for is owing to you alone, and we can only say how glad we are
to hear that he is as grateful as he ought to be.’
‘Oh very well, Miss Pinch!’ thought the pupil again. ‘Got a grateful
brother, living on other people’s kindness!’
‘It was very kind of you,’ said Tom Pinch’s sister, with Tom’s own
simplicity and Tom’s own smile, ‘to come here; very kind indeed; though
how great a kindness you have done me in gratifying my wish to see you,
and to thank you with my own lips, you, who make so light of benefits
conferred, can scarcely think.’
‘Very grateful; very pleasant; very proper,’ murmured Mr Pecksniff.
‘It makes me happy too,’ said Ruth Pinch, who now that her first
surprise was over, had a chatty, cheerful way with her, and a
single-hearted desire to look upon the best side of everything, which
was the very moral and image of Tom; ‘very happy to think that you will
be able to tell him how more than comfortably I am situated here, and
how unnecessary it is that he should ever waste a regret on my being
cast upon my own resources. Dear me! So long as I heard that he was
happy, and he heard that I was,’ said Tom’s sister, ‘we could both bear,
without one impatient or complaining thought, a great deal more than
ever we have had to endure, I am very certain.’ And if ever the plain
truth were spoken on this occasionally false earth, Tom’s sister spoke
it when she said that.
‘Ah!’ cried Mr Pecksniff whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to the
pupil; ‘certainly. And how do YOU do, my very interesting child?’
‘Quite well, I thank you, sir,’ replied that frosty innocent.
‘A sweet face this, my dears,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning to his
daughters. ‘A charming manner!’
Both young ladies had been in ecstasies with the scion of a wealthy
house (through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents
might be supposed to lie) from the first. Mrs Todgers vowed that
anything one quarter so angelic she had never seen. ‘She wanted but
a pair of wings, a dear,’ said that good woman, ‘to be a young
syrup’--meaning, possibly, young sylph, or seraph.
‘If you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable little
friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff, producing one of his professional cards,
‘and will say that I and my daughters--’
‘And Mrs Todgers, pa,’ said Merry.
‘And Mrs Todgers, of London,’ added Mr Pecksniff; ‘that I, and my
daughters, and Mrs Todgers, of London, did not intrude upon them, as our
object simply was to take some notice of Miss Pinch, whose brother is a
young man in my employment; but that I could not leave this very chaste
mansion, without adding my humble tribute, as an Architect, to
the correctness and elegance of the owner’s taste, and to his just
appreciation of that beautiful art to the cultivation of which I have
devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and advancement I
have sacrified a--a fortune--I shall be very much obliged to you.’
‘Missis’s compliments to Miss Pinch,’ said the footman, suddenly
appearing, and speaking in exactly the same key as before, ‘and begs to
know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now.’
‘Oh!’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘Here is the young man. HE will take the
card. With my compliments, if you please, young man. My dears, we are
interrupting the studies. Let us go.’
Some confusion was occasioned for an instant by Mrs Todgers’s
unstrapping her little flat hand-basket, and hurriedly entrusting the
‘young man’ with one of her own cards, which, in addition to
certain detailed information relative to the terms of the commercial
establishment, bore a foot-note to the effect that M. T. took that
opportunity of thanking those gentlemen who had honoured her with their
favours, and begged they would have the goodness, if satisfied with
the table, to recommend her to their friends. But Mr Pecksniff, with
admirable presence of mind, recovered this document, and buttoned it up
in his own pocket.
Then he said to Miss Pinch--with more condescension and kindness than
ever, for it was desirable the footman should expressly understand that
they were not friends of hers, but patrons:
‘Good morning. Good-bye. God bless you! You may depend upon my continued
protection of your brother Thomas. Keep your mind quite at ease, Miss
Pinch!’
‘Thank you,’ said Tom’s sister heartily; ‘a thousand times.’