HAS AN INFLUENCE ON THE FORTUNES OF SEVERAL PEOPLE. MR PECKSNIFF IS EXHIBITED IN THE PLENITUDE OF POWER; AND WIELDS THE SAME WITH FORTITUDE AND MAGNANIMITY On the night of the storm, Mrs Lupin, hostess of the Blue Dragon, sat by herself in her little bar. Her solitary condition, or the bad weather, or both united, made Mrs Lupin thoughtful, not to say sorrowful. As she sat with her chin upon her hand, looking out through a low back lattice, rendered dim in the brightest day-time by clustering vine-leaves, she shook her head very often, and said, ‘Dear me! Oh, dear, dear me!’
It was a melancholy time, even in the snugness of the Dragon bar. The rich expanse of corn-field, pasture-land, green slope, and gentle undulation, with its sparkling brooks, its many hedgerows, and its clumps of beautiful trees, was black and dreary, from the diamond panes of the lattice away to the far horizon, where the thunder seemed to roll along the hills. The heavy rain beat down the tender branches of vine and jessamine, and trampled on them in its fury; and when the lightning gleamed it showed the tearful leaves shivering and cowering together at the window, and tapping at it urgently, as if beseeching to be sheltered from the dismal night.
As a mark of her respect for the lightning, Mrs Lupin had removed her candle to the chimney-piece. Her basket of needle-work stood unheeded at her elbow; her supper, spread on a round table not far off, was untasted; and the knives had been removed for fear of attraction. She had sat for a long time with her chin upon her hand, saying to herself at intervals, ‘Dear me! Ah, dear, dear me!’
She was on the eve of saying so, once more, when the latch of the house-door (closed to keep the rain out), rattled on its well-worn catch, and a traveller came in, who, shutting it after him, and walking straight up to the half-door of the bar, said, rather gruffly:
‘A pint of the best old beer here.’
He had some reason to be gruff, for if he had passed the day in a waterfall, he could scarcely have been wetter than he was. He was wrapped up to the eyes in a rough blue sailor’s coat, and had an oil-skin hat on, from the capacious brim of which the rain fell trickling down upon his breast, and back, and shoulders. Judging from a certain liveliness of chin—he had so pulled down his hat, and pulled up his collar, to defend himself from the weather, that she could only see his chin, and even across that he drew the wet sleeve of his shaggy coat, as she looked at him—Mrs Lupin set him down for a good-natured fellow, too.
‘A bad night!’ observed the hostess cheerfully.
The traveller shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and said it was, rather.
‘There’s a fire in the kitchen,’ said Mrs Lupin, ‘and very good company there. Hadn’t you better go and dry yourself?’
‘No, thankee,’ said the man, glancing towards the kitchen as he spoke; he seemed to know the way.
‘It’s enough to give you your death of cold,’ observed the hostess.
‘I don’t take my death easy,’ returned the traveller; ‘or I should most likely have took it afore to-night. Your health, ma’am!’
Mrs Lupin thanked him; but in the act of lifting the tankard to his mouth, he changed his mind, and put it down again. Throwing his body back, and looking about him stiffly, as a man does who is wrapped up, and has his hat low down over his eyes, he said:
‘What do you call this house? Not the Dragon, do you?’
Mrs Lupin complacently made answer, ‘Yes, the Dragon.’
‘Why, then, you’ve got a sort of a relation of mine here, ma’am,’ said the traveller; ‘a young man of the name of Tapley. What! Mark, my boy!’ apostrophizing the premises, ‘have I come upon you at last, old buck!’
This was touching Mrs Lupin on a tender point. She turned to trim the candle on the chimney-piece, and said, with her back towards the traveller:
‘Nobody should be made more welcome at the Dragon, master, than any one who brought me news of Mark. But it’s many and many a long day and month since he left here and England. And whether he’s alive or dead, poor fellow, Heaven above us only knows!’
She shook her head, and her voice trembled; her hand must have done so too, for the light required a deal of trimming.
‘Where did he go, ma’am?’ asked the traveller, in a gentler voice.
‘He went,’ said Mrs Lupin, with increased distress, ‘to America. He was always tender-hearted and kind, and perhaps at this moment may be lying in prison under sentence of death, for taking pity on some miserable black, and helping the poor runaway creetur to escape. How could he ever go to America! Why didn’t he go to some of those countries where the savages eat each other fairly, and give an equal chance to every one!’
Quite subdued by this time, Mrs Lupin sobbed, and was retiring to a chair to give her grief free vent, when the traveller caught her in his arms, and she uttered a glad cry of recognition.
‘Yes, I will!’ cried Mark, ‘another—one more—twenty more! You didn’t know me in that hat and coat? I thought you would have known me anywheres! Ten more!’
‘So I should have known you, if I could have seen you; but I couldn’t, and you spoke so gruff. I didn’t think you could speak gruff to me, Mark, at first coming back.’
‘Fifteen more!’ said Mr Tapley. ‘How handsome and how young you look! Six more! The last half-dozen warn’t a fair one, and must be done over again. Lord bless you, what a treat it is to see you! One more! Well, I never was so jolly. Just a few more, on account of there not being any credit in it!’
When Mr Tapley stopped in these calculations in simple addition, he did it, not because he was at all tired of the exercise, but because he was out of breath. The pause reminded him of other duties.
‘Mr Martin Chuzzlewit’s outside,’ he said. ‘I left him under the cartshed, while I came on to see if there was anybody here. We want to keep quiet to-night, till we know the news from you, and what it’s best for us to do.’
‘There’s not a soul in the house, except the kitchen company,’ returned the hostess. ‘If they were to know you had come back, Mark, they’d have a bonfire in the street, late as it is.’
‘But they mustn’t know it to-night, my precious soul,’ said Mark; ‘so have the house shut, and the kitchen fire made up; and when it’s all ready, put a light in the winder, and we’ll come in. One more! I long to hear about old friends. You’ll tell me all about ‘em, won’t you; Mr Pinch, and the butcher’s dog down the street, and the terrier over the way, and the wheelwright’s, and every one of ‘em. When I first caught sight of the church to-night, I thought the steeple would have choked me, I did. One more! Won’t you? Not a very little one to finish off with?’
‘You have had plenty, I am sure,’ said the hostess. ‘Go along with your foreign manners!’
‘That ain’t foreign, bless you!’ cried Mark. ‘Native as oysters, that is! One more, because it’s native! As a mark of respect for the land we live in! This don’t count as between you and me, you understand,’ said Mr Tapley. ‘I ain’t a-kissing you now, you’ll observe. I have been among the patriots; I’m a-kissin’ my country.’
It would have been very unreasonable to complain of the exhibition of his patriotism with which he followed up this explanation, that it was at all lukewarm or indifferent. When he had given full expression to his nationality, he hurried off to Martin; while Mrs Lupin, in a state of great agitation and excitement, prepared for their reception.
The company soon came tumbling out; insisting to each other that the Dragon clock was half an hour too fast, and that the thunder must have affected it. Impatient, wet, and weary though they were, Martin and Mark were overjoyed to see these old faces, and watched them with delighted interest as they departed from the house, and passed close by them.
‘There’s the old tailor, Mark!’ whispered Martin.
‘There he goes, sir! A little bandier than he was, I think, sir, ain’t he? His figure’s so far altered, as it seems to me, that you might wheel a rather larger barrow between his legs as he walks, than you could have done conveniently when we know’d him. There’s Sam a-coming out, sir.’
‘Ah, to be sure!’ cried Martin; ‘Sam, the hostler. I wonder whether that horse of Pecksniff’s is alive still?’
‘Not a doubt on it, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘That’s a description of animal, sir, as will go on in a bony way peculiar to himself for a long time, and get into the newspapers at last under the title of “Sing’lar Tenacity of Life in a Quadruped.” As if he had ever been alive in all his life, worth mentioning! There’s the clerk, sir—wery drunk, as usual.’
‘I see him!’ said Martin, laughing. ‘But, my life, how wet you are, Mark!’
‘I am! What do you consider yourself, sir?’
‘Oh, not half as bad,’ said his fellow-traveller, with an air of great vexation. ‘I told you not to keep on the windy side, Mark, but to let us change and change about. The rain has been beating on you ever since it began.’
‘You don’t know how it pleases me, sir,’ said Mark, after a short silence, ‘if I may make so bold as say so, to hear you a-going on in that there uncommon considerate way of yours; which I don’t mean to attend to, never, but which, ever since that time when I was floored in Eden, you have showed.’
‘Ah, Mark!’ sighed Martin, ‘the less we say of that the better. Do I see the light yonder?’
‘That’s the light!’ cried Mark. ‘Lord bless her, what briskness she possesses! Now for it, sir. Neat wines, good beds, and first-rate entertainment for man or beast.’
The kitchen fire burnt clear and red, the table was spread out, the kettle boiled; the slippers were there, the boot-jack too, sheets of ham were there, cooking on the gridiron; half-a-dozen eggs were there, poaching in the frying-pan; a plethoric cherry-brandy bottle was there, winking at a foaming jug of beer upon the table; rare provisions were there, dangling from the rafters as if you had only to open your mouth, and something exquisitely ripe and good would be glad of the excuse for tumbling into it. Mrs Lupin, who for their sakes had dislodged the very cook, high priestess of the temple, with her own genial hands was dressing their repast.
It was impossible to help it—a ghost must have hugged her. The Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea being, in that respect, all one, Martin hugged her instantly. Mr Tapley (as if the idea were quite novel, and had never occurred to him before), followed, with much gravity, on the same side.
‘Little did I ever think,’ said Mrs Lupin, adjusting her cap and laughing heartily; yes, and blushing too; ‘often as I have said that Mr Pecksniff’s young gentlemen were the life and soul of the Dragon, and that without them it would be too dull to live in—little did I ever think I am sure, that any one of them would ever make so free as you, Mr Martin! And still less that I shouldn’t be angry with him, but should be glad with all my heart to be the first to welcome him home from America, with Mark Tapley for his—’
‘For his friend, Mrs Lupin,’ interposed Martin.
‘For his friend,’ said the hostess, evidently gratified by this distinction, but at the same time admonishing Mr Tapley with a fork to remain at a respectful distance. ‘Little did I ever think that! But still less, that I should ever have the changes to relate that I shall have to tell you of, when you have done your supper!’
‘Good Heaven!’ cried Martin, changing colour, ‘what changes?’
‘She,’ said the hostess, ‘is quite well, and now at Mr Pecksniff’s. Don’t be at all alarmed about her. She is everything you could wish. It’s of no use mincing matters, or making secrets, is it?’ added Mrs Lupin. ‘I know all about it, you see!’
‘My good creature,’ returned Martin, ‘you are exactly the person who ought to know all about it. I am delighted to think you do know about that! But what changes do you hint at? Has any death occurred?’
‘No, no!’ said the hostess. ‘Not as bad as that. But I declare now that I will not be drawn into saying another word till you have had your supper. If you ask me fifty questions in the meantime, I won’t answer one.’
She was so positive, that there was nothing for it but to get the supper over as quickly as possible; and as they had been walking a great many miles, and had fasted since the middle of the day, they did no great violence to their own inclinations in falling on it tooth and nail. It took rather longer to get through than might have been expected; for, half-a-dozen times, when they thought they had finished, Mrs Lupin exposed the fallacy of that impression triumphantly. But at last, in the course of time and nature, they gave in. Then, sitting with their slippered feet stretched out upon the kitchen hearth (which was wonderfully comforting, for the night had grown by this time raw and chilly), and looking with involuntary admiration at their dimpled, buxom, blooming hostess, as the firelight sparkled in her eyes and glimmered in her raven hair, they composed themselves to listen to her news.
Many were the exclamations of surprise which interrupted her, when she told them of the separation between Mr Pecksniff and his daughters, and between the same good gentleman and Mr Pinch. But these were nothing to the indignant demonstrations of Martin, when she related, as the common talk of the neighbourhood, what entire possession he had obtained over the mind and person of old Mr Chuzzlewit, and what high honour he designed for Mary. On receipt of this intelligence, Martin’s slippers flew off in a twinkling, and he began pulling on his wet boots with that indefinite intention of going somewhere instantly, and doing something to somebody, which is the first safety-valve of a hot temper.
‘He!’ said Martin, ‘smooth-tongued villain that he is! He! Give me that other boot, Mark?’
‘Where was you a-thinking of going to, sir?’ inquired Mr Tapley drying the sole at the fire, and looking coolly at it as he spoke, as if it were a slice of toast.
‘Where!’ repeated Martin. ‘You don’t suppose I am going to remain here, do you?’
The imperturbable Mark confessed that he did.
You do!’ retorted Martin angrily. ‘I am much obliged to you. What do you take me for?’
‘I take you for what you are, sir,’ said Mark; ‘and, consequently, am quite sure that whatever you do will be right and sensible. The boot, sir.’
Martin darted an impatient look at him, without taking it, and walked rapidly up and down the kitchen several times, with one boot and a stocking on. But, mindful of his Eden resolution, he had already gained many victories over himself when Mark was in the case, and he resolved to conquer now. So he came back to the book-jack, laid his hand on Mark’s shoulder to steady himself, pulled the boot off, picked up his slippers, put them on, and sat down again. He could not help thrusting his hands to the very bottom of his pockets, and muttering at intervals, ‘Pecksniff too! That fellow! Upon my soul! In-deed! What next?’ and so forth; nor could he help occasionally shaking his fist at the chimney, with a very threatening countenance; but this did not last long; and he heard Mrs Lupin out, if not with composure, at all events in silence.
‘As to Mr Pecksniff himself,’ observed the hostess in conclusion, spreading out the skirts of her gown with both hands, and nodding her head a great many times as she did so, ‘I don’t know what to say. Somebody must have poisoned his mind, or influenced him in some extraordinary way. I cannot believe that such a noble-spoken gentleman would go and do wrong of his own accord!’
A noble-spoken gentleman! How many people are there in the world, who, for no better reason, uphold their Pecksniffs to the last and abandon virtuous men, when Pecksniffs breathe upon them!
‘As to Mr Pinch,’ pursued the landlady, ‘if ever there was a dear, good, pleasant, worthy soul alive, Pinch, and no other, is his name. But how do we know that old Mr Chuzzlewit himself was not the cause of difference arising between him and Mr Pecksniff? No one but themselves can tell; for Mr Pinch has a proud spirit, though he has such a quiet way; and when he left us, and was so sorry to go, he scorned to make his story good, even to me.’
‘Poor old Tom!’ said Martin, in a tone that sounded like remorse.
‘It’s a comfort to know,’ resumed the landlady, ‘that he has his sister living with him, and is doing well. Only yesterday he sent me back, by post, a little’—here the colour came into her cheeks—‘a little trifle I was bold enough to lend him when he went away; saying, with many thanks, that he had good employment, and didn’t want it. It was the same note; he hadn’t broken it. I never thought I could have been so little pleased to see a bank-note come back to me as I was to see that.’
‘Kindly said, and heartily!’ said Martin. ‘Is it not, Mark?’
‘She can’t say anything as does not possess them qualities,’ returned Mr Tapley; ‘which as much belongs to the Dragon as its licence. And now that we have got quite cool and fresh, to the subject again, sir; what will you do? If you’re not proud, and can make up your mind to go through with what you spoke of, coming along, that’s the course for you to take. If you started wrong with your grandfather (which, you’ll excuse my taking the liberty of saying, appears to have been the case), up with you, sir, and tell him so, and make an appeal to his affections. Don’t stand out. He’s a great deal older than you, and if he was hasty, you was hasty too. Give way, sir, give way.’
The eloquence of Mr Tapley was not without its effect on Martin but he still hesitated, and expressed his reason thus:
‘That’s all very true, and perfectly correct, Mark; and if it were a mere question of humbling myself before him, I would not consider it twice. But don’t you see, that being wholly under this hypocrite’s government, and having (if what we hear be true) no mind or will of his own, I throw myself, in fact, not at his feet, but at the feet of Mr Pecksniff? And when I am rejected and spurned away,’ said Martin, turning crimson at the thought, ‘it is not by him; my own blood stirred against me; but by Pecksniff—Pecksniff, Mark!’
‘Well, but we know beforehand,’ returned the politic Mr Tapley, ‘that Pecksniff is a wagabond, a scoundrel, and a willain.’
‘A most pernicious villain!’ said Martin.
‘A most pernicious willain. We know that beforehand, sir; and, consequently, it’s no shame to be defeated by Pecksniff. Blow Pecksniff!’ cried Mr Tapley, in the fervour of his eloquence. ‘Who’s he! It’s not in the natur of Pecksniff to shame us, unless he agreed with us, or done us a service; and, in case he offered any audacity of that description, we could express our sentiments in the English language, I hope. Pecksniff!’ repeated Mr Tapley, with ineffable disdain. ‘What’s Pecksniff, who’s Pecksniff, where’s Pecksniff, that he’s to be so much considered? We’re not a-calculating for ourselves;’ he laid uncommon emphasis on the last syllable of that word, and looked full in Martin’s face; ‘we’re making a effort for a young lady likewise as has undergone her share; and whatever little hope we have, this here Pecksniff is not to stand in its way, I expect. I never heard of any act of Parliament, as was made by Pecksniff. Pecksniff! Why, I wouldn’t see the man myself; I wouldn’t hear him; I wouldn’t choose to know he was in company. I’d scrape my shoes on the scraper of the door, and call that Pecksniff, if you liked; but I wouldn’t condescend no further.’
The amazement of Mrs Lupin, and indeed of Mr Tapley himself for that matter, at this impassioned flow of language, was immense. But Martin, after looking thoughtfully at the fire for a short time, said:
‘You are right, Mark. Right or wrong, it shall be done. I’ll do it.’
‘One word more, sir,’ returned Mark. ‘Only think of him so far as not to give him a handle against you. Don’t you do anything secret that he can report before you get there. Don’t you even see Miss Mary in the morning, but let this here dear friend of ours’—Mr Tapley bestowed a smile upon the hostess—‘prepare her for what’s a-going to happen, and carry any little message as may be agreeable. She knows how. Don’t you?’ Mrs Lupin laughed and tossed her head. ‘Then you go in, bold and free as a gentleman should. “I haven’t done nothing under-handed,” says you. “I haven’t been skulking about the premises, here I am, for-give me, I ask your pardon, God Bless You!”’
Martin smiled, but felt that it was good advice notwithstanding, and resolved to act upon it. When they had ascertained from Mrs Lupin that Pecksniff had already returned from the great ceremonial at which they had beheld him in his glory; and when they had fully arranged the order of their proceedings; they went to bed, intent upon the morrow.
In pursuance of their project as agreed upon at this discussion, Mr Tapley issued forth next morning, after breakfast, charged with a letter from Martin to his grandfather, requesting leave to wait upon him for a few minutes. And postponing as he went along the congratulations of his numerous friends until a more convenient season, he soon arrived at Mr Pecksniff’s house. At that gentleman’s door; with a face so immovable that it would have been next to an impossibility for the most acute physiognomist to determine what he was thinking about, or whether he was thinking at all; he straightway knocked.
A person of Mr Tapley’s observation could not long remain insensible to the fact that Mr Pecksniff was making the end of his nose very blunt against the glass of the parlour window, in an angular attempt to discover who had knocked at the door. Nor was Mr Tapley slow to baffle this movement on the part of the enemy, by perching himself on the top step, and presenting the crown of his hat in that direction. But possibly Mr Pecksniff had already seen him, for Mark soon heard his shoes creaking, as he advanced to open the door with his own hands.
Mr Pecksniff was as cheerful as ever, and sang a little song in the passage.
‘How d’ye do, sir?’ said Mark.
‘Oh!’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘Tapley, I believe? The Prodigal returned! We don’t want any beer, my friend.’
‘Thankee, sir,’ said Mark. ‘I couldn’t accommodate you if you did. A letter, sir. Wait for an answer.’
‘For me?’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘And an answer, eh?’
‘Not for you, I think, sir,’ said Mark, pointing out the direction. ‘Chuzzlewit, I believe the name is, sir.’
‘Oh!’ returned Mr Pecksniff. ‘Thank you. Yes. Who’s it from, my good young man?’
‘The gentleman it comes from wrote his name inside, sir,’ returned Mr Tapley with extreme politeness. ‘I see him a-signing of it at the end, while I was a-waitin’.’
‘And he said he wanted an answer, did he?’ asked Mr Pecksniff in his most persuasive manner.
Mark replied in the affirmative.
‘He shall have an answer. Certainly,’ said Mr Pecksniff, tearing the letter into small pieces, as mildly as if that were the most flattering attention a correspondent could receive. ‘Have the goodness to give him that, with my compliments, if you please. Good morning!’ Whereupon he handed Mark the scraps; retired, and shut the door.
Mark thought it prudent to subdue his personal emotions, and return to Martin at the Dragon. They were not unprepared for such a reception, and suffered an hour or so to elapse before making another attempt. When this interval had gone by, they returned to Mr Pecksniff’s house in company. Martin knocked this time, while Mr Tapley prepared himself to keep the door open with his foot and shoulder, when anybody came, and by that means secure an enforced parley. But this precaution was needless, for the servant-girl appeared almost immediately. Brushing quickly past her as he had resolved in such a case to do, Martin (closely followed by his faithful ally) opened the door of that parlour in which he knew a visitor was most likely to be found; passed at once into the room; and stood, without a word of notice or announcement, in the presence of his grandfather.
Mr Pecksniff also was in the room; and Mary. In the swift instant of their mutual recognition, Martin saw the old man droop his grey head, and hide his face in his hands.
It smote him to the heart. In his most selfish and most careless day, this lingering remnant of the old man’s ancient love, this buttress of a ruined tower he had built up in the time gone by, with so much pride and hope, would have caused a pang in Martin’s heart. But now, changed for the better in his worst respect; looking through an altered medium on his former friend, the guardian of his childhood, so broken and bowed down; resentment, sullenness, self-confidence, and pride, were all swept away, before the starting tears upon the withered cheeks. He could not bear to see them. He could not bear to think they fell at sight of him. He could not bear to view reflected in them, the reproachful and irrevocable Past.
He hurriedly advanced to seize the old man’s hand in his, when Mr Pec............