Martin Chuzzlewit
trembled to such a degree, that he found it difficult to hold the
lantern. How much more difficult when, at the old man’s bidding she drew
her hand through his--Tom Pinch’s--arm!
‘And so, Mr Pinch,’ said Martin, on the way, ‘you are very comfortably
situated here; are you?’
Tom answered, with even more than his usual enthusiasm, that he was
under obligations to Mr Pecksniff which the devotion of a lifetime would
but imperfectly repay.
‘How long have you known my nephew?’ asked Martin.
‘Your nephew, sir?’ faltered Tom.
‘Mr Jonas Chuzzlewit,’ said Mary.
‘Oh dear, yes,’ cried Tom, greatly relieved, for his mind was running
upon Martin. ‘Certainly. I never spoke to him before to-night, sir!’
‘Perhaps half a lifetime will suffice for the acknowledgment of HIS
kindness,’ observed the old man.
Tom felt that this was a rebuff for him, and could not but understand it
as a left-handed hit at his employer. So he was silent. Mary felt that
Mr Pinch was not remarkable for presence of mind, and that he could not
say too little under existing circumstances. So SHE was silent. The
old man, disgusted by what in his suspicious nature he considered a
shameless and fulsome puff of Mr Pecksniff, which was a part of Tom’s
hired service and in which he was determined to persevere, set him down
at once for a deceitful, servile, miserable fawner. So HE was silent.
And though they were all sufficiently uncomfortable, it is fair to say
that Martin was perhaps the most so; for he had felt kindly towards Tom
at first, and had been interested by his seeming simplicity.
‘You’re like the rest,’ he thought, glancing at the face of the
unconscious Tom. ‘You had nearly imposed upon me, but you have lost
your labour. You are too zealous a toad-eater, and betray yourself, Mr
Pinch.’
During the whole remainder of the walk, not another word was spoken.
First among the meetings to which Tom had long looked forward with
a beating heart, it was memorable for nothing but embarrassment
and confusion. They parted at the Dragon door; and sighing as he
extinguished the candle in the lantern, Tom turned back again over the
gloomy fields.
As he approached the first stile, which was in a lonely part, made very
dark by a plantation of young firs, a man slipped past him and went on
before. Coming to the stile he stopped, and took his seat upon it.
Tom was rather startled, and for a moment stood still, but he stepped
forward again immediately, and went close up to him.
It was Jonas; swinging his legs to and fro, sucking the head of a stick,
and looking with a sneer at Tom.
‘Good gracious me!’ cried Tom, ‘who would have thought of its being you!
You followed us, then?’
‘What’s that to you?’ said Jonas. ‘Go to the devil!’
‘You are not very civil, I think,’ remarked Tom.
‘Civil enough for YOU,’ retorted Jonas. ‘Who are you?’
‘One who has as good a right to common consideration as another,’ said
Tom mildly.
‘You’re a liar,’ said Jonas. ‘You haven’t a right to any consideration.
You haven’t a right to anything. You’re a pretty sort of fellow to talk
about your rights, upon my soul! Ha, ha!--Rights, too!’
‘If you proceed in this way,’ returned Tom, reddening, ‘you will oblige
me to talk about my wrongs. But I hope your joke is over.’
‘It’s the way with you curs,’ said Mr Jonas, ‘that when you know a man’s
in real earnest, you pretend to think he’s joking, so that you may turn
it off. But that won’t do with me. It’s too stale. Now just attend to me
for a bit, Mr Pitch, or Witch, or Stitch, or whatever your name is.’
‘My name is Pinch,’ observed Tom. ‘Have the goodness to call me by it.’
‘What! You mustn’t even be called out of your name, mustn’t you!’ cried
Jonas. ‘Pauper’ prentices are looking up, I think. Ecod, we manage ‘em a
little better in the city!’
‘Never mind what you do in the city,’ said Tom. ‘What have you got to
say to me?’
‘Just this, Mister Pinch,’ retorted Jonas, thrusting his face so close
to Tom’s that Tom was obliged to retreat a step. ‘I advise you to keep
your own counsel, and to avoid title-tattle, and not to cut in where
you’re not wanted. I’ve heard something of you, my friend, and your
meek ways; and I recommend you to forget ‘em till I am married to one
of Pecksniff’s gals, and not to curry favour among my relations, but
to leave the course clear. You know, when curs won’t leave the course
clear, they’re whipped off; so this is kind advice. Do you understand?
Eh? Damme, who are you,’ cried Jonas, with increased contempt, ‘that
you should walk home with THEM, unless it was behind ‘em, like any other
servant out of livery?’
‘Come!’ cried Tom, ‘I see that you had better get off the stile, and let
me pursue my way home. Make room for me, if you please.’
‘Don’t think it!’ said Jonas, spreading out his legs. ‘Not till I
choose. And I don’t choose now. What! You’re afraid of my making you
split upon some of your babbling just now, are you, Sneak?’
‘I am not afraid of many things, I hope,’ said Tom; ‘and certainly not
of anything that you will do. I am not a tale-bearer, and I despise all
meanness. You quite mistake me. Ah!’ cried Tom, indignantly. ‘Is this
manly from one in your position to one in mine? Please to make room for
me to pass. The less I say, the better.’
‘The less you say!’ retorted Jonas, dangling his legs the more, and
taking no heed of this request. ‘You say very little, don’t you? Ecod, I
should like to know what goes on between you and a vagabond member of my
family. There’s very little in that too, I dare say!’
‘I know no vagabond member of your family,’ cried Tom, stoutly.
‘You do!’ said Jonas.
‘I don’t,’ said Tom. ‘Your uncle’s namesake, if you mean him, is no
vagabond. Any comparison between you and him’--Tom snapped his fingers
at him, for he was rising fast in wrath--‘is immeasurably to your
disadvantage.’
‘Oh indeed!’ sneered Jonas. ‘And what do you think of his deary--his
beggarly leavings, eh, Mister Pinch?’
‘I don’t mean to say another word, or stay here another instant,’
replied Tom.
‘As I told you before, you’re a liar,’ said Jonas, coolly. ‘You’ll stay
here till I give you leave to go. Now, keep where you are, will you?’
He flourished his stick over Tom’s head; but in a moment it was spinning
harmlessly in the air, and Jonas himself lay sprawling in the ditch. In
the momentary struggle for the stick, Tom had brought it into violent
contact with his opponent’s forehead; and the blood welled out profusely
from a deep cut on the temple. Tom was first apprised of this by seeing
that he pressed his handkerchief to the wounded part, and staggered as
he rose, being stunned.
‘Are you hurt?’ said Tom. ‘I am very sorry. Lean on me for a moment.
You can do that without forgiving me, if you still bear me malice. But I
don’t know why; for I never offended you before we met on this spot.’
He made him no answer; not appearing at first to understand him, or even
to know that he was hurt, though he several times took his handkerchief
from the cut to look vacantly at the blood upon it. After one of these
examinations, he looked at Tom, and then there was an expression in
his features, which showed that he understood what had taken place, and
would remember it.
Nothing more passed between them as they went home. Jonas kept a little
in advance, and Tom Pinch sadly followed, thinking of the grief which
the knowledge of this quarrel must occasion his excellent benefactor.
When Jonas knocked at the door, Tom’s heart beat high; higher when Miss
Mercy answered it, and seeing her wounded lover, shireked aloud; higher,
when he followed them into the family parlour; higher than at any other
time, when Jonas spoke.
‘Don’t make a noise about it,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing worth mentioning.
I didn’t know the road; the night’s very dark; and just as I came up
with Mr Pinch’--he turned his face towards Tom, but not his eyes--‘I ran
against a tree. It’s only skin deep.’
‘Cold water, Merry, my child!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Brown paper!
Scissors! A piece of old linen! Charity, my dear, make a bandage. Bless
me, Mr Jonas!’
‘Oh, bother YOUR nonsense,’ returned the gracious son-in-law elect. ‘Be
of some use if you can. If you can’t, get out!’
Miss Charity, though called upon to lend her aid, sat upright in one
corner, with a smile upon her face, and didn’t move a finger. Though
Mercy laved the wound herself; and Mr Pecksniff held the patient’s head
between his two hands, as if without that assistance it must inevitably
come in half; and Tom Pinch, in his guilty agitation, shook a bottle of
Dutch Drops until they were nothing but English Froth, and in his other
hand sustained a formidable carving-knife, really intended to reduce the
swelling, but apparently designed for the ruthless infliction of another
wound as soon as that was dressed; Charity rendered not the least
assistance, nor uttered a word. But when Mr Jonas’s head was bound up,
and he had gone to bed, and everybody else had retired, and the house
was quiet, Mr Pinch, as he sat mournfully on his bedstead, ruminating,
heard a gentle tap at his door; and opening it, saw her, to his great
astonishment, standing before him with her finger on her lip.
‘Mr Pinch,’ she whispered. ‘Dear Mr Pinch! Tell me the truth! You did
that? There was some quarrel between you, and you struck him? I am sure
of it!’
It was the first time she had ever spoken kindly to Tom, in all the many
years they had passed together. He was stupefied with amazement.
‘Was it so, or not?’ she eagerly demanded.
‘I was very much provoked,’ said Tom.
‘Then it was?’ cried Charity, with sparkling eyes.
‘Ye-yes. We had a struggle for the path,’ said Tom. ‘But I didn’t mean
to hurt him so much.’
‘Not so much!’ she repeated, clenching her hand and stamping her foot,
to Tom’s great wonder. ‘Don’t say that. It was brave of you. I honour
you for it. If you should ever quarrel again, don’t spare him for the
world, but beat him down and set your shoe upon him. Not a word of this
to anybody. Dear Mr Pinch, I am your friend from tonight. I am always
your friend from this time.’
She turned her flushed face upon Tom to confirm her words by its
kindling expression; and seizing his right hand, pressed it to her
breast, and kissed it. And there was nothing personal in this to render
it at all embarrassing, for even Tom, whose power of observation was by
no means remarkable, knew from the energy with which she did it that she
would have fondled any hand, no matter how bedaubed or dyed, that had
broken the head of Jonas Chuzzlewit.
Tom went into his room, and went to bed, full of uncomfortable thoughts.
That there should be any such tremendous division in the family as he
knew must have taken place to convert Charity Pecksniff into his friend,
for any reason, but, above all, for that which was clearly the real one;
that Jonas, who had assailed him with such exceeding coarseness, should
have been sufficiently magnanimous to keep the secret of their quarrel;
and that any train of circumstances should have led to the commission of
an assault and battery by Thomas Pinch upon any man calling himself
the friend of Seth Pecksniff; were matters of such deep and painful
cogitation that he could not close his eyes. His own violence, in
particular, so preyed upon the generous mind of Tom, that coupling it
with the many former occasions on which he had given Mr Pecksniff pain
and anxiety (occasions of which that gentleman often reminded him), he
really began to regard himself as destined by a mysterious fate to be
the evil genius and bad angel of his patron. But he fell asleep at last,
and dreamed--new source of waking uneasiness--that he had betrayed his
trust, and run away with Mary Graham.