Martin Chuzzlewit
Throwing himself back in his arm-chair, and looking at the fire, with
now and then a glance at Mark, who at such times nodded his head sagely,
to express his profound interest and attention. Martin ran over the
chief points in his history, to the same effect as he had related them,
weeks before, to Mr Pinch. But he adapted them, according to the best of
his judgment, to Mr Tapley’s comprehension; and with that view made as
light of his love affair as he could, and referred to it in very few
words. But here he reckoned without his host; for Mark’s interest was
keenest in this part of the business, and prompted him to ask sundry
questions in relation to it; for which he apologised as one in some
measure privileged to do so, from having seen (as Martin explained to
him) the young lady at the Blue Dragon.
‘And a young lady as any gentleman ought to feel more proud of being in
love with,’ said Mark, energetically, ‘don’t draw breath.’
‘Aye! You saw her when she was not happy,’ said Martin, gazing at the
fire again. ‘If you had seen her in the old times, indeed--’
‘Why, she certainly was a little down-hearted, sir, and something paler
in her colour than I could have wished,’ said Mark, ‘but none the worse
in her looks for that. I think she seemed better, sir, after she come to
London.’
Martin withdrew his eyes from the fire; stared at Mark as if he thought
he had suddenly gone mad; and asked him what he meant.
‘No offence intended, sir,’ urged Mark. ‘I don’t mean to say she was any
the happier without you; but I thought she was a-looking better, sir.’
‘Do you mean to tell me she has been in London?’ asked Martin, rising
hurriedly, and pushing back his chair.
‘Of course I do,’ said Mark, rising too, in great amazement from the
bedstead.
‘Do you mean to tell me she is in London now?’
‘Most likely, sir. I mean to say she was a week ago.’
‘And you know where?’
‘Yes!’ cried Mark. ‘What! Don’t you?’
‘My good fellow!’ exclaimed Martin, clutching him by both arms, ‘I have
never seen her since I left my grandfather’s house.’
‘Why, then!’ cried Mark, giving the little table such a blow with his
clenched fist that the slices of beef and ham danced upon it, while all
his features seemed, with delight, to be going up into his forehead, and
never coming back again any more, ‘if I an’t your nat’ral born servant,
hired by Fate, there an’t such a thing in natur’ as a Blue Dragon. What!
when I was a-rambling up and down a old churchyard in the City, getting
myself into a jolly state, didn’t I see your grandfather a-toddling to
and fro for pretty nigh a mortal hour! Didn’t I watch him into Todgers’s
commercial boarding-house, and watch him out, and watch him home to his
hotel, and go and tell him as his was the service for my money, and I
had said so, afore I left the Dragon! Wasn’t the young lady a-sitting
with him then, and didn’t she fall a-laughing in a manner as was
beautiful to see! Didn’t your grandfather say, “Come back again next
week,” and didn’t I go next week; and didn’t he say that he couldn’t
make up his mind to trust nobody no more; and therefore wouldn’t engage
me, but at the same time stood something to drink as was handsome! Why,’
cried Mr Tapley, with a comical mixture of delight and chagrin, ‘where’s
the credit of a man’s being jolly under such circumstances! Who could
help it, when things come about like this!’
For some moments Martin stood gazing at him, as if he really doubted the
evidence of his senses, and could not believe that Mark stood there, in
the body, before him. At length he asked him whether, if the young lady
were still in London, he thought he could contrive to deliver a letter
to her secretly.
‘Do I think I can?’ cried Mark. ‘THINK I can? Here, sit down, sir. Write
it out, sir!’
With that he cleared the table by the summary process of tilting
everything upon it into the fireplace; snatched some writing materials
from the mantel-shelf; set Martin’s chair before them; forced him down
into it; dipped a pen into the ink; and put it in his hand.
‘Cut away, sir!’ cried Mark. ‘Make it strong, sir. Let it be wery
pinted, sir. Do I think so? I should think so. Go to work, sir!’
Martin required no further adjuration, but went to work at a great rate;
while Mr Tapley, installing himself without any more formalities into
the functions of his valet and general attendant, divested himself
of his coat, and went on to clear the fireplace and arrange the room;
talking to himself in a low voice the whole time.
‘Jolly sort of lodgings,’ said Mark, rubbing his nose with the knob at
the end of the fire-shovel, and looking round the poor chamber; ‘that’s
a comfort. The rain’s come through the roof too. That an’t bad. A lively
old bedstead, I’ll be bound; popilated by lots of wampires, no doubt.
Come! my spirits is a-getting up again. An uncommon ragged nightcap
this. A very good sign. We shall do yet! Here, Jane, my dear,’ calling
down the stairs, ‘bring up that there hot tumbler for my master as was
a-mixing when I come in. That’s right, sir,’ to Martin. ‘Go at it as if
you meant it, sir. Be very tender, sir, if you please. You can’t make it
too strong, sir!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IN WHICH MARTIN BIDS ADIEU TO THE LADY OF HIS LOVE; AND HONOURS AN
OBSCURE INDIVIDUAL WHOSE FORTUNE HE INTENDS TO MAKE BY COMMENDING HER TO
HIS PROTECTION
The letter being duly signed, sealed, and delivered, was handed to Mark
Tapley, for immediate conveyance if possible. And he succeeded so well
in his embassy as to be enabled to return that same night, just as the
house was closing, with the welcome intelligence that he had sent it
upstairs to the young lady, enclosed in a small manuscript of his
own, purporting to contain his further petition to be engaged in Mr
Chuzzlewit’s service; and that she had herself come down and told him,
in great haste and agitation, that she would meet the gentleman at
eight o’clock to-morrow morning in St. James’s Park. It was then agreed
between the new master and the new man, that Mark should be in waiting
near the hotel in good time, to escort the young lady to the place
of appointment; and when they had parted for the night with this
understanding, Martin took up his pen again; and before he went to bed
wrote another letter, whereof more will be seen presently.
He was up before daybreak, and came upon the Park with the morning,
which was clad in the least engaging of the three hundred and sixty-five
dresses in the wardrobe of the year. It was raw, damp, dark, and dismal;
the clouds were as muddy as the ground; and the short perspective
of every street and avenue was closed up by the mist as by a filthy
curtain.
‘Fine weather indeed,’ Martin bitterly soliloquised, ‘to be wandering
up and down here in, like a thief! Fine weather indeed, for a meeting of
lovers in the open air, and in a public walk! I need be departing, with
all speed, for another country; for I have come to a pretty pass in
this!’
He might perhaps have gone on to reflect that of all mornings in the
year, it was not the best calculated for a young lady’s coming forth
on such an errand, either. But he was stopped on the road to this
reflection, if his thoughts tended that way, by her appearance at a
short distance, on which he hurried forward to meet her. Her squire,
Mr Tapley, at the same time fell discreetly back, and surveyed the fog
above him with an appearance of attentive interest.
‘My dear Martin,’ said Mary.
‘My dear Mary,’ said Martin; and lovers are such a singular kind of
people that this is all they did say just then, though Martin took her
arm, and her hand too, and they paced up and down a short walk that was
least exposed to observation, half-a-dozen times.
‘If you have changed at all, my love, since we parted,’ said Martin at
length, as he looked upon her with a proud delight, ‘it is only to be
more beautiful than ever!’
Had she been of the common metal of love-worn young ladies, she would
have denied this in her most interesting manner; and would have told him
that she knew she had become a perfect fright; or that she had wasted
away with weeping and anxiety; or that she was dwindling gently into an
early grave; or that her mental sufferings were unspeakable; or would,
either by tears or words, or a mixture of both, have furnished him with
some other information to that effect, and made him as miserable as
possible. But she had been reared up in a sterner school than the minds
of most young girls are formed in; she had had her nature strengthened
by the hands of hard endurance and necessity; had come out from her
young trials constant, self-denying, earnest, and devoted; had acquired
in her maidenhood--whether happily in the end, for herself or him, is
foreign to our present purpose to inquire--something of that nobler
quality of gentle hearts which is developed often by the sorrows and
struggles of matronly years, but often by their lessons only. Unspoiled,
unpampered in her joys or griefs; with frank and full, and deep
affection for the object of her early love; she saw in him one who for
her sake was an outcast from his home and fortune, and she had no
more idea of bestowing that love upon him in other than cheerful and
sustaining words, full of high hope and grateful trustfulness, than she
had of being unworthy of it, in her lightest thought or deed, for any
base temptation that the world could offer.
‘What change is there in YOU, Martin,’ she replied; ‘for that concerns
me nearest? You look more anxious and more thoughtful than you used.’
‘Why, as to that, my love,’ said Martin as he drew her waist within his
arm, first looking round to see that there were no observers near,
and beholding Mr Tapley more intent than ever on the fog; ‘it would be
strange if I did not; for my life--especially of late--has been a hard
one.’
‘I know it must have been,’ she answered. ‘When have I forgotten to
think of it and you?’
‘Not often, I hope,’ said Martin. ‘Not often, I am sure. Not often, I
have some right to expect, Mary; for I have undergone a great deal of
vexation and privation, and I naturally look for that return, you know.’
‘A very, very poor return,’ she answered with a fainter smile. ‘But you
have it, and will have it always. You have paid a dear price for a poor
heart, Martin; but it is at least your own, and a true one.’
‘Of course I feel quite certain of that,’ said Martin, ‘or I shouldn’t
have put myself in my present position. And don’t say a poor heart,
Mary, for I say a rich one. Now, I am about to break a design to you,
dearest, which will startle you at first, but which is undertaken for
your sake. I am going,’ he added slowly, looking far into the deep
wonder of her bright dark eyes, ‘abroad.’
‘Abroad, Martin!’
‘Only to America. See now. How you droop directly!’
‘If I do, or, I hope I may say, if I did,’ she answered, raising her
head after a short silence, and looking once more into his face, ‘it was
for grief to think of what you are resolved to undergo for me. I would
not venture to dissuade you, Martin; but it is a long, long distance;
there is a wide ocean to be crossed; illness and want are sad calamities
in any place, but in a foreign country dreadful to endure. Have you
thought of all this?’
‘Thought of it!’ cried Martin, abating, in his fondness--and he WAS very
fond of her--hardly an iota of his usual impetuosity. ‘What am I to do?
It’s very well to say, “Have I thought of it?” my love; but you should
ask me in the same breath, have I thought of starving at home; have I
thought of doing porter’s work for a living; have I thought of holding
horses in the streets to earn my roll of bread from day to day? Come,
come,’ he added, in a gentler tone, ‘do not hang down your head, my