Martin Chuzzlewit
‘Why--yes--occasionally, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, who had been standing
all this time.
‘Will you do so now?’
‘Can you ask me,’ returned Mr Pecksniff, slipping into a chair
immediately, ‘whether I will do anything that you desire?’
‘You talk confidently,’ said Martin, ‘and you mean well; but I fear you
don’t know what an old man’s humours are. You don’t know what it is to
be required to court his likings and dislikings; to adapt yourself to
his prejudices; to do his bidding, be it what it may; to bear with his
distrusts and jealousies; and always still be zealous in his service.
When I remember how numerous these failings are in me, and judge of
their occasional enormity by the injurious thoughts I lately entertained
of you, I hardly dare to claim you for my friend.’
‘My worthy sir,’ returned his relative, ‘how CAN you talk in such a
painful strain! What was more natural than that you should make one
slight mistake, when in all other respects you were so very correct, and
have had such reason--such very sad and undeniable reason--to judge of
every one about you in the worst light!’
‘True,’ replied the other. ‘You are very lenient with me.’
‘We always said, my girls and I,’ cried Mr Pecksniff with increasing
obsequiousness, ‘that while we mourned the heaviness of our misfortune
in being confounded with the base and mercenary, still we could not
wonder at it. My dears, you remember?’
Oh vividly! A thousand times!
‘We uttered no complaint,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘Occasionally we had the
presumption to console ourselves with the remark that Truth would in
the end prevail, and Virtue be triumphant; but not often. My loves, you
recollect?’
Recollect! Could he doubt it! Dearest pa, what strange unnecessary
questions!
‘And when I saw you,’ resumed Mr Pecksniff, with still greater
deference, ‘in the little, unassuming village where we take the liberty
of dwelling, I said you were mistaken in me, my dear sir; that was all,
I think?’
‘No--not all,’ said Martin, who had been sitting with his hand upon his
brow for some time past, and now looked up again; ‘you said much more,
which, added to other circumstances that have come to my knowledge,
opened my eyes. You spoke to me, disinterestedly, on behalf of--I
needn’t name him. You know whom I mean.’
Trouble was expressed in Mr Pecksniff’s visage, as he pressed his hot
hands together, and replied, with humility, ‘Quite disinterestedly, sir,
I assure you.’
‘I know it,’ said old Martin, in his quiet way. ‘I am sure of it. I said
so. It was disinterested too, in you, to draw that herd of harpies
off from me, and be their victim yourself; most other men would have
suffered them to display themselves in all their rapacity, and would
have striven to rise, by contrast, in my estimation. You felt for me,
and drew them off, for which I owe you many thanks. Although I left the
place, I know what passed behind my back, you see!’
‘You amaze me, sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff; which was true enough.
‘My knowledge of your proceedings,’ said the old man, does not stop at
this. You have a new inmate in your house.’
‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined the architect, ‘I have.’
‘He must quit it’ said Martin.
‘For--for yours?’ asked Mr Pecksniff, with a quavering mildness.
‘For any shelter he can find,’ the old man answered. ‘He has deceived
you.’
‘I hope not’ said Mr Pecksniff, eagerly. ‘I trust not. I have been
extremely well disposed towards that young man. I hope it cannot be
shown that he has forfeited all claim to my protection. Deceit--deceit,
my dear Mr Chuzzlewit, would be final. I should hold myself bound, on
proof of deceit, to renounce him instantly.’
The old man glanced at both his fair supporters, but especially at
Miss Mercy, whom, indeed, he looked full in the face, with a greater
demonstration of interest than had yet appeared in his features. His
gaze again encountered Mr Pecksniff, as he said, composedly:
‘Of course you know that he has made his matrimonial choice?’
‘Oh dear!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, rubbing his hair up very stiff upon
his head, and staring wildly at his daughters. ‘This is becoming
tremendous!’
‘You know the fact?’ repeated Martin
‘Surely not without his grandfather’s consent and approbation my dear
sir!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Don’t tell me that. For the honour of human
nature, say you’re not about to tell me that!’
‘I thought he had suppressed it,’ said the old man.
The indignation felt by Mr Pecksniff at this terrible disclosure, was
only to be equalled by the kindling anger of his daughters. What! Had
they taken to their hearth and home a secretly contracted serpent; a
crocodile, who had made a furtive offer of his hand; an imposition on
society; a bankrupt bachelor with no effects, trading with the spinster
world on false pretences! And oh, to think that he should have disobeyed
and practised on that sweet, that venerable gentleman, whose name
he bore; that kind and tender guardian; his more than father--to say
nothing at all of mother--horrible, horrible! To turn him out with
ignominy would be treatment much too good. Was there nothing else that
could be done to him? Had he incurred no legal pains and penalties?
Could it be that the statutes of the land were so remiss as to have
affixed no punishment to such delinquency? Monster; how basely had they
been deceived!
‘I am glad to find you second me so warmly,’ said the old man holding up
his hand to stay the torrent of their wrath. ‘I will not deny that it
is a pleasure to me to find you so full of zeal. We will consider that
topic as disposed of.’
‘No, my dear sir,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, ‘not as disposed of, until I have
purged my house of this pollution.’
‘That will follow,’ said the old man, ‘in its own time. I look upon that
as done.’
‘You are very good, sir,’ answered Mr Pecksniff, shaking his hand. ‘You
do me honour. You MAY look upon it as done, I assure you.’
‘There is another topic,’ said Martin, ‘on which I hope you will assist
me. You remember Mary, cousin?’
‘The young lady that I mentioned to you, my dears, as having interested
me so very much,’ remarked Mr Pecksniff. ‘Excuse my interrupting you,
sir.’
‘I told you her history?’ said the old man.
‘Which I also mentioned, you will recollect, my dears,’ cried Mr
Pecksniff. ‘Silly girls, Mr Chuzzlewit--quite moved by it, they were!’
‘Why, look now!’ said Martin, evidently pleased; ‘I feared I should have
had to urge her case upon you, and ask you to regard her favourably for
my sake. But I find you have no jealousies! Well! You have no cause
for any, to be sure. She has nothing to gain from me, my dears, and she
knows it.’
The two Miss Pecksniffs murmured their approval of this wise
arrangement, and their cordial sympathy with its interesting object.
‘If I could have anticipated what has come to pass between us four,’
said the old man thoughfully; ‘but it is too late to think of that. You
would receive her courteously, young ladies, and be kind to her, if need
were?’
Where was the orphan whom the two Miss Pecksniffs would not have
cherished in their sisterly bosom! But when that orphan was commended to
their care by one on whom the dammed-up love of years was gushing forth,
what exhaustless stores of pure affection yearned to expend themselves
upon her!
An interval ensued, during which Mr Chuzzlewit, in an absent frame of
mind, sat gazing at the ground, without uttering a word; and as it was
plain that he had no desire to be interrupted in his meditations, Mr
Pecksniff and his daughters were profoundly silent also. During the
whole of the foregoing dialogue, he had borne his part with a cold,
passionless promptitude, as though he had learned and painfully
rehearsed it all a hundred times. Even when his expressions were warmest
and his language most encouraging, he had retained the same manner,
without the least abatement. But now there was a keener brightness in
his eye, and more expression in his voice, as he said, awakening from
his thoughtful mood:
‘You know what will be said of this? Have you reflected?’
‘Said of what, my dear sir?’ Mr Pecksniff asked.
‘Of this new understanding between us.’
Mr Pecksniff looked benevolently sagacious, and at the same time far
above all earthly misconstruction, as he shook his head, and observed
that a great many things would be said of it, no doubt.
‘A great many,’ rejoined the old man. ‘Some will say that I dote in my
old age; that illness has shaken me; that I have lost all strength of
mind, and have grown childish. You can bear that?’
Mr Pecksniff answered that it would be dreadfully hard to bear, but he
thought he could, if he made a great effort.
‘Others will say--I speak of disappointed, angry people only--that you
have lied and fawned, and wormed yourself through dirty ways into my
favour; by such concessions and such crooked deeds, such meannesses and
vile endurances, as nothing could repay; no, not the legacy of half the
world we live in. You can bear that?’
Mr Pecksniff made reply that this would be also very hard to bear, as
reflecting, in some degree, on the discernment of Mr Chuzzlewit. Still
he had a modest confidence that he could sustain the calumny, with the
help of a good conscience, and that gentleman’s friendship.
‘With the great mass of slanderers,’ said old Martin, leaning back in
his chair, ‘the tale, as I clearly foresee, will run thus: That to mark
my contempt for the rabble whom I despised, I chose from among them the
very worst, and made him do my will, and pampered and enriched him at
the cost of all the rest. That, after casting about for the means of a
punishment which should rankle in the bosoms of these kites the most,
and strike into their gall, I devised this scheme at a time when the
last link in the chain of grateful love and duty, that held me to
my race, was roughly snapped asunder; roughly, for I loved him well;
roughly, for I had ever put my trust in his affection; roughly, for that
he broke it when I loved him most--God help me!--and he without a pang
could throw me off, while I clung about his heart! Now,’ said the old
man, dismissing this passionate outburst as suddenly as he had yielded
to it, ‘is your mind made up to bear this likewise? Lay your account
with having it to bear, and put no trust in being set right by me.’
‘My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,’ cried Pecksniff in an ecstasy, ‘for such a man
as you have shown yourself to be this day; for a man so injured, yet so
very humane; for a man so--I am at a loss what precise term to use--yet
at the same time so remarkably--I don’t know how to express my meaning;
for such a man as I have described, I hope it is no presumption to say
that I, and I am sure I may add my children also (my dears, we perfectly
agree in this, I think?), would bear anything whatever!’
‘Enough,’ said Martin. ‘You can charge no consequences on me. When do
you retire home?’
‘Whenever you please, my dear sir. To-night if you desire it.’
‘I desire nothing,’ returned the old man, ‘that is unreasonable. Such a
request would be. Will you be ready to return at the end of this week?’
The very time of all others that Mr Pecksniff would have suggested if
it had been left to him to make his own choice. As to his daughters--the
words, ‘Let us be at home on Saturday, dear pa,’ were actually upon
their lips.
‘Your expenses, cousin,’ said Martin, taking a folded slip of paper from
his pocketbook, ‘may possibly exceed that amount. If so, let me know the
balance that I owe you, when we next meet. It would be useless if I told
you where I live just now; indeed, I have no fixed abode. When I have,
you shall know it. You and your daughters may expect to see me
before long; in the meantime I need not tell you that we keep our own