Martin Chuzzlewit
that it suggested hardly less alarm than his actual endurance had done.
It was in one of his intervals of repose, when, looking round with
great caution, and reaching uneasily out of his nest of pillows, he
endeavoured, with a strange air of secrecy and distrust, to make use
of the writing materials which he had ordered to be placed on a table
beside him, that the young lady and the mistress of the Blue Dragon
found themselves sitting side by side before the fire in the sick
chamber.
The mistress of the Blue Dragon was in outward appearance just what a
landlady should be: broad, buxom, comfortable, and good looking, with a
face of clear red and white, which, by its jovial aspect, at once bore
testimony to her hearty participation in the good things of the larder
and cellar, and to their thriving and healthful influences. She was a
widow, but years ago had passed through her state of weeds, and burst
into flower again; and in full bloom she had continued ever since; and
in full bloom she was now; with roses on her ample skirts, and roses
on her bodice, roses in her cap, roses in her cheeks,--aye, and roses,
worth the gathering too, on her lips, for that matter. She had still a
bright black eye, and jet black hair; was comely, dimpled, plump, and
tight as a gooseberry; and though she was not exactly what the world
calls young, you may make an affidavit, on trust, before any mayor or
magistrate in Christendom, that there are a great many young ladies in
the world (blessings on them one and all!) whom you wouldn’t like half
as well, or admire half as much, as the beaming hostess of the Blue
Dragon.
As this fair matron sat beside the fire, she glanced occasionally with
all the pride of ownership, about the room; which was a large apartment,
such as one may see in country places, with a low roof and a sunken
flooring, all downhill from the door, and a descent of two steps on
the inside so exquisitely unexpected, that strangers, despite the
most elaborate cautioning, usually dived in head first, as into a
plunging-bath. It was none of your frivolous and preposterously bright
bedrooms, where nobody can close an eye with any kind of propriety or
decent regard to the association of ideas; but it was a good, dull,
leaden, drowsy place, where every article of furniture reminded you
that you came there to sleep, and that you were expected to go to sleep.
There was no wakeful reflection of the fire there, as in your modern
chambers, which upon the darkest nights have a watchful consciousness of
French polish; the old Spanish mahogany winked at it now and then, as
a dozing cat or dog might, nothing more. The very size and shape, and
hopeless immovability of the bedstead, and wardrobe, and in a minor
degree of even the chairs and tables, provoked sleep; they were plainly
apoplectic and disposed to snore. There were no staring portraits
to remonstrate with you for being lazy; no round-eyed birds upon the
curtains, disgustingly wide awake, and insufferably prying. The
thick neutral hangings, and the dark blinds, and the heavy heap
of bed-clothes, were all designed to hold in sleep, and act as
nonconductors to the day and getting up. Even the old stuffed fox upon
the top of the wardrobe was devoid of any spark of vigilance, for his
glass eye had fallen out, and he slumbered as he stood.
The wandering attention of the mistress of the Blue Dragon roved to
these things but twice or thrice, and then for but an instant at a time.
It soon deserted them, and even the distant bed with its strange burden,
for the young creature immediately before her, who, with her downcast
eyes intently fixed upon the fire, sat wrapped in silent meditation.
She was very young; apparently no more than seventeen; timid and
shrinking in her manner, and yet with a greater share of self possession
and control over her emotions than usually belongs to a far more
advanced period of female life. This she had abundantly shown, but now,
in her tending of the sick gentleman. She was short in stature; and her
figure was slight, as became her years; but all the charms of youth and
maidenhood set it off, and clustered on her gentle brow. Her face was
very pale, in part no doubt from recent agitation. Her dark brown hair,
disordered from the same cause, had fallen negligently from its bonds,
and hung upon her neck; for which instance of its waywardness no male
observer would have had the heart to blame it.
Her attire was that of a lady, but extremely plain; and in her manner,
even when she sat as still as she did then, there was an indefinable
something which appeared to be in kindred with her scrupulously
unpretending dress. She had sat, at first looking anxiously towards the
bed; but seeing that the patient remained quiet, and was busy with his
writing, she had softly moved her chair into its present place; partly,
as it seemed, from an instinctive consciousness that he desired to avoid
observation; and partly that she might, unseen by him, give some vent to
the natural feelings she had hitherto suppressed.
Of all this, and much more, the rosy landlady of the Blue Dragon took
as accurate note and observation as only woman can take of woman. And at
length she said, in a voice too low, she knew, to reach the bed:
‘You have seen the gentleman in this way before, miss? Is he used to
these attacks?’
‘I have seen him very ill before, but not so ill as he has been
tonight.’
‘What a Providence!’ said the landlady of the Dragon, ‘that you had the
prescriptions and the medicines with you, miss!’
‘They are intended for such an emergency. We never travel without them.’
‘Oh!’ thought the hostess, ‘then we are in the habit of travelling, and
of travelling together.’
She was so conscious of expressing this in her face, that meeting
the young lady’s eyes immediately afterwards, and being a very honest
hostess, she was rather confused.
‘The gentleman--your grandpapa’--she resumed, after a short pause,
‘being so bent on having no assistance, must terrify you very much,
miss?’
‘I have been very much alarmed to-night. He--he is not my grandfather.’
‘Father, I should have said,’ returned the hostess, sensible of having
made an awkward mistake.
‘Nor my father’ said the young lady. ‘Nor,’ she added, slightly smiling
with a quick perception of what the landlady was going to add, ‘Nor my
uncle. We are not related.’
‘Oh dear me!’ returned the landlady, still more embarrassed than before;
‘how could I be so very much mistaken; knowing, as anybody in their
proper senses might that when a gentleman is ill, he looks so much older
than he really is? That I should have called you “Miss,” too, ma’am!’
But when she had proceeded thus far, she glanced involuntarily at the
third finger of the young lady’s left hand, and faltered again; for
there was no ring upon it.
‘When I told you we were not related,’ said the other mildly, but not
without confusion on her own part, ‘I meant not in any way. Not even by
marriage. Did you call me, Martin?’
‘Call you?’ cried the old man, looking quickly up, and hurriedly drawing
beneath the coverlet the paper on which he had been writing. ‘No.’
She had moved a pace or two towards the bed, but stopped immediately,
and went no farther.
‘No,’ he repeated, with a petulant emphasis. ‘Why do you ask me? If I
had called you, what need for such a question?’
‘It was the creaking of the sign outside, sir, I dare say,’ observed the
landlady; a suggestion by the way (as she felt a moment after she had
made it), not at all complimentary to the voice of the old gentleman.
‘No matter what, ma’am,’ he rejoined: ‘it wasn’t I. Why how you stand
there, Mary, as if I had the plague! But they’re all afraid of me,’ he
added, leaning helplessly backward on his pillow; ‘even she! There is a
curse upon me. What else have I to look for?’
‘Oh dear, no. Oh no, I’m sure,’ said the good-tempered landlady, rising,
and going towards him. ‘Be of better cheer, sir. These are only sick
fancies.’
‘What are only sick fancies?’ he retorted. ‘What do you know about
fancies? Who told you about fancies? The old story! Fancies!’
‘Only see again there, how you take one up!’ said the mistress of the
Blue Dragon, with unimpaired good humour. ‘Dear heart alive, there is
no harm in the word, sir, if it is an old one. Folks in good health have
their fancies, too, and strange ones, every day.’
Harmless as this speech appeared to be, it acted on the traveller’s
distrust, like oil on fire. He raised his head up in the bed, and,
fixing on her two dark eyes whose brightness was exaggerated by the
paleness of his hollow cheeks, as they in turn, together with his
straggling locks of long grey hair, were rendered whiter by the tight
black velvet skullcap which he wore, he searched her face intently.
‘Ah! you begin too soon,’ he said, in so low a voice that he seemed to
be thinking it, rather than addressing her. ‘But you lose no time. You
do your errand, and you earn your fee. Now, who may be your client?’
The landlady looked in great astonishment at her whom he called Mary,
and finding no rejoinder in the drooping face, looked back again at him.
At first she had recoiled involuntarily, supposing him disordered in
his mind; but the slow composure of his manner, and the settled purpose
announced in his strong features, and gathering, most of all, about his
puckered mouth, forbade the supposition.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘tell me who is it? Being here, it is not very hard for
me to guess, you may suppose.’
‘Martin,’ interposed the young lady, laying her hand upon his arm;
‘reflect how short a time we have been in this house, and that even your
name is unknown here.’
‘Unless,’ he said, ‘you--’ He was evidently tempted to express a
suspicion of her having broken his confidence in favour of the landlady,
but either remembering her tender nursing, or being moved in some sort
by her face, he checked himself, and changing his uneasy posture in the
bed, was silent.
‘There!’ said Mrs Lupin; for in that name the Blue Dragon was licensed
to furnish entertainment, both to man and beast. ‘Now, you will be well
again, sir. You forgot, for the moment, that there were none but friends
here.’
‘Oh!’ cried the old man, moaning impatiently, as he tossed one restless
arm upon the coverlet; ‘why do you talk to me of friends! Can you or
anybody teach me to know who are my friends, and who my enemies?’
‘At least,’ urged Mrs Lupin, gently, ‘this young lady is your friend, I
am sure.’
‘She has no temptation to be otherwise,’ cried the old man, like one
whose hope and confidence were utterly exhausted. ‘I suppose she is.
Heaven knows. There, let me try to sleep. Leave the candle where it is.’
As they retired from the bed, he drew forth the writing which had
occupied him so long, and holding it in the flame of the taper burnt
it to ashes. That done, he extinguished the light, and turning his face
away with a heavy sigh, drew the coverlet about his head, and lay quite
still.
This destruction of the paper, both as being strangely inconsistent with
the labour he had devoted to it, and as involving considerable danger of
fire to the Dragon, occasioned Mrs Lupin not a little consternation. But
the young lady evincing no surprise, curiosity, or alarm, whispered her,
with many thanks for her solicitude and company, that she would remain
there some time longer; and that she begged her not to share her watch,
as she was well used to being alone, and would pass the time in reading.
Mrs Lupin had her full share and dividend of that large capital of
curiosity which is inherited by her sex, and at another time it might
have been difficult so to impress this hint upon her as to induce her to
take it. But now, in sheer wonder and amazement at these mysteries, she