CHAPTER FORTY
THE PINCHES MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE, AND HAVE FRESH OCCASION FOR
SURPRISE AND WONDER
There was a ghostly air about these uninhabited chambers in the
Temple, and attending every circumstance of Tom's employment there,
which had a strange charm in it. Every morning when he shut his
door at Islington, he turned his face towards an atmosphere of
unaccountable fascination, as surely as he turned it to the London
smoke; and from that moment it thickened round and round him all day
long, until the time arrived for going home again, and leaving it,
like a motionless cloud, behind.
It seemed to Tom, every morning, that he approached this ghostly
mist, and became enveloped in it, by the easiest succession of
degrees imaginable. Passing from the roar and rattle of the streets
into the quiet court-yards of the Temple, was the first preparation.
Every echo of his footsteps sounded to him like a sound from the old
walls and pavements, wanting language to relate the histories of the
dim, dismal rooms; to tell him what lost documents were decaying in
forgotten corners of the shut-up cellars, from whose lattices such
mouldy sighs came breathing forth as he went past; to whisper of
dark bins of rare old wine, bricked up in vaults among the old
foundations of the Halls; or mutter in a lower tone yet darker
legends of the cross-legged knights, whose marble effigies were in
the church. With the first planting of his foot upon the staircase
of his dusty office, all these mysteries increased; until, ascending
step by step, as Tom ascended, they attained their full growth in
the solitary labours of the day.
Every day brought one recurring, never-failing source of
speculation. This employer; would he come to-day, and what would he
be like? For Tom could not stop short at Mr Fips; he quite believed
that Mr Fips had spoken truly, when he said he acted for another;
and what manner of man that other was, became a full-blown flower of
wonder in the garden of Tom's fancy, which never faded or got
trodden down.
At one time, he conceived that Mr Pecksniff, repenting of his
falsehood, might, by exertion of his influence with some third
person have devised these means of giving him employment. He found
this idea so insupportable after what had taken place between that
good man and himself, that he confided it to John Westlock on the
very same day; informing John that he would rather ply for hire as a
porter, than fall so low in his own esteem as to accept the smallest
obligation from the hands of Mr Pecksniff. But John assured him
that he (Tom Pinch) was far from doing justice to the character of
Mr Pecksniff yet, if he supposed that gentleman capable of
performing a generous action; and that he might make his mind quite
easy on that head until he saw the sun turn green and the moon
black, and at the same time distinctly perceived with the naked eye,
twelve first-rate comets careering round those planets. In which
unusual state of things, he said (and not before), it might become
not absolutely lunatic to suspect Mr Pecksniff of anything so
monstrous. In short he laughed the idea down completely; and Tom,
abandoning it, was thrown upon his beam-ends again, for some other
solution.
In the meantime Tom attended to his duties daily, and made
considerable progress with the books; which were already reduced to
some sort of order, and made a great appearance in his fairly-
written catalogue. During his business hours, he indulged himself
occasionally with snatches of reading; which were often, indeed, a
necessary part of his pursuit; and as he usually made bold to carry
one of these goblin volumes home at night (always bringing it back
again next morning, in case his strange employer should appear and
ask what had become of it), he led a happy, quiet, studious kind of
life, after his own heart.
But though the books were never so interesting, and never so full of
novelty to Tom, they could not so enchain him, in those mysterious
chambers, as to render him unconscious, for a moment, of the
lightest sound. Any footstep on the flags without set him listening
attentively and when it turned into that house, and came up, up, up
the stairs, he always thought with a beating heart, 'Now I am coming
face to face with him at last!' But no footstep ever passed the
floor immediately below: except his own.
This mystery and loneliness engendered fancies in Tom's mind, the
folly of which his common sense could readily discover, but which
his common sense was quite unable to keep away, notwithstanding;
that quality being with most of us, in such a case, like the old
French Police--quick at detection, but very weak as a preventive
power. Misgivings, undefined, absurd, inexplicable, that there was
some one hiding in the inner room--walking softly overhead, peeping
in through the door-chink, doing something stealthy, anywhere where
he was not--came over him a hundred times a day, making it pleasant
to throw up the sash, and hold communication even with the sparrows
who had built in the roof and water-spout, and were twittering about
the windows all day long.
He sat with the outer door wide open, at all times, that he might
hear the footsteps as they entered, and turned off into the chambers
on the lower floor. He formed odd prepossessions too, regarding
strangers in the streets; and would say within himself of such or
such a man, who struck him as having anything uncommon in his dress
or aspect, 'I shouldn't wonder, now, if that were he!' But it never
was. And though he actually turned back and followed more than one
of these suspected individuals, in a singular belief that they were
going to the place he was then upon his way from, he never got any
other satisfaction by it, than the satisfaction of knowing it was
not the case.
Mr Fips, of Austin Friars, rather deepened than illumined the
obscurity of his position; for on the first occasion of Tom's
waiting on him to receive his weekly pay, he said:
'Oh! by the bye, Mr Pinch, you needn't mention it, if you please!'
Tom thought he was going to tell him a secret; so he said that he
wouldn't on any account, and that Mr Fips might entirely depend upon
him. But as Mr Fips said 'Very good,' in reply, and nothing more,
Tom prompted him:
'Not on any account,' repeated Tom.
Mr Fips repeated: 'Very good.'
'You were going to say'--Tom hinted.
'Oh dear no!' cried Fips. 'Not at all.' However, seeing Tom
confused, he added, 'I mean that you needn't mention any particulars
about your place of employment, to people generally. You'll find it
better not.'
'I have not had the pleasure of seeing my employer yet, sir,'
observed Tom, putting his week's salary in his pocket.
'Haven't you?' said Fips. 'No, I don't suppose you have though.'
'I should like to thank him, and to know that what I have done so
far, is done to his satisfaction,' faltered Tom.
'Quite right,' said Mr Fips, with a yawn. 'Highly creditable. Very
proper.'
Tom hastily resolved to try him on another tack.
'I shall soon have finished with the books,' he said. 'I hope that
will not terminate my engagement, sir, or render me useless?'
'Oh dear no!' retorted Fips. 'Plenty to do; plen-ty to do! Be
careful how you go. It's rather dark.'
This was the very utmost extent of information Tom could ever get
out of HIM. So it was dark enough in all conscience; and if Mr Fips
expressed himself with a double meaning, he had good reason for
doing so.
But now a circumstance occurred, which helped to divert Tom's
thoughts from even this mystery, and to divide them between it and a
new channel, which was a very Nile in itself.
The way it came about was this. Having always been an early riser
and having now no organ to engage him in sweet converse every
morning, it was his habit to take a long walk before going to the
Temple; and naturally inclining, as a stranger, towards those parts
of the town which were conspicuous for the life and animation
pervading them, he became a great frequenter of the market-places,
bridges, quays, and especially the steam-boat wharves; for it was
very lively and fresh to see the people hurrying away upon their
many schemes of business or pleasure, and it made Tom glad to think
that there was that much change and freedom in the monotonous
routine of city lives.
In most of these morning excursions Ruth accompanied him. As their
landlord was always up and away at his business (whatever that might
be, no one seemed to know) at a very early hour, the habits of the
people of the house in which they lodged corresponded with their
own. Thus they had often finished their breakfast, and were out in
the summer air, by seven o'clock. After a two hours' stroll they
parted at some convenient point; Tom going to the Temple, and his
sister returning home, as methodically as you please.
Many and many a pleasant stroll they had in Covent Garden Market;
snuffing up the perfume of the fruits and flowers, wondering at the
magnificence of the pineapples and melons; catching glimpses down
side avenues, of rows and rows of old women, seated on inverted
baskets, shelling peas; looking unutterable things at the fat bundles
of asparagus with which the dainty shops were fortified as with a
breastwork; and, at the herbalist's doors, gratefully inhaling
scents as of veal-stuffing yet uncooked, dreamily mixed up with
capsicums, brown-paper, seeds, even with hints of lusty snails and
fine young curly leeches. Many and many a pleasant stroll they had
among the poultry markets, where ducks and fowls, with necks
unnaturally long, lay stretched out in pairs, ready for cooking;
where there were speckled eggs in mossy baskets, white country
sausages beyond impeachment by surviving cat or dog, or horse or
donkey; new cheeses to any wild extent, live birds in coops and
cages, looking much too big to be natural, in consequence of those
receptacles being much too little; rabbits, alive and dead,
innumerable. Many a pleasant stroll they had among the cool,
refreshing, silvery fish-stalls, with a kind of moonlight effect
about their stock-in-trade, excepting always for the ruddy lobsters.
Many a pleasant stroll among the waggon-loads of fragrant hay,
beneath which dogs and tired waggoners lay fast asleep, oblivious of
the pieman and the public-house. But never half so good a stroll as
down among the steamboats on a bright morning.
There they lay, alongside of each other; hard and fast for ever, to
all appearance, but designing to get out somehow, and quite
confident of doing it; and in that faith shoals of passengers, and
heaps of luggage, were proceeding hurriedly on board. Little steam-
boats dashed up and down the stream incessantly. Tiers upon tiers
of vessels, scores of masts, labyrinths of tackle, idle sails,
splashing oars, gliding row-boats, lumbering barges, sunken piles,
with ugly lodgings for the water-rat within their mud-discoloured
nooks; church steeples, warehouses, house-roofs, arches, bridges,
men and women, children, casks, cranes, boxes horses, coaches,
idlers, and hard-labourers; there they were, all jumbled up
together, any summer morning, far beyond Tom's power of separation.
In the midst of all this turmoil there was an incessant roar from
every packet's funnel, which quite expressed and carried out the
uppermost emotion of the scene. They all appeared to be perspiring
and bothering themselves, exactly as their passengers did; they
never left off fretting and chafing, in their own hoarse manner,
once; but were always panting out, without any stops, 'Come along do
make haste I'm very nervous come along oh good gracious we shall
never get there how late you are do make haste I'm off directly come
along!'
Even when they had left off, and had got safely out into the
current, on the smallest provocation they began again; for the
bravest packet of them all, being stopped by some entanglement in
the river, would immediately begin to fume and pant afresh, 'oh
here's a stoppage what's the matter do go on there I'm in a hurry
it's done on purpose did you ever oh my goodness DO go on here!' and
so, in a state of mind bordering on distraction, would be last seen
drifting slowly through the mist into the summer light beyond, that
made it red.
Tom's ship, however; or, at least, the packet-boat in which Tom and
his sister took the greatest interest on one particular occasion;
was not off yet, by any means; but was at the height of its
disorder. The press of passengers was very great; another steam-
boat lay on each side of her; the gangways were choked up;
distracted women, obviously bound for Gravesend, but turning a deaf
ear to all representations that this particular vessel was about to
sail for Antwerp, persisted in secreting baskets of refreshments
behind bulk-heads, and water-casks, and under seats; and very great
confusion prevailed.
It was so amusing, that Tom, with Ruth upon his arm, stood looking
down from the wharf, as nearly regardless as it was in the nature of
flesh and blood to be, of an elderly lady behind him, who had
brought a large umbrella with her, and didn't know what to do with
it. This tremendous instrument had a hooked handle; and its
vicinity was first made known to him by a painful pressure on the
windpipe, consequent upon its having caught him round the throat.
Soon after disengaging himself with perfect good humour, he had a
sensation of the ferule in his back; immediately afterwards, of the
hook entangling his ankles; then of the umbrella generally,
wandering about his hat, and flapping at it like a great bird; and,
lastly, of a poke or thrust below the ribs, which give him such
exceeding anguish, that he could not refrain from turning round to
offer a mild remonstrance.
Upon his turning round, he found the owner of the umbrella
struggling on tip-toe, with a countenance expressive of violent
animosity, to look down upon the steam-boats; from which he inferred
that she had attacked him, standing in the front row, by design, and
as her natural enemy.
'What a very ill-natured person you must be!' said Tom.
The lady cried out fiercely, 'Where's the pelisse!'--meaning the
constabulary--and went on to say, shaking the handle of the umbrella
at Tom, that but for them fellers never being in the way when they
was wanted, she'd have given him in charge, she would.
'If they greased their whiskers less, and minded the duties which
they're paid so heavy for, a little more,' she observed, 'no one
needn't be drove mad by scrouding so!'
She had been grievously knocked about, no doubt, for her bonnet was
bent into the shape of a cocked hat. Being a fat little woman, too,
she was in a state of great exhaustion and intense heat. Instead of
pursuing the altercation, therefore, Tom civilly inquired what boat
she wanted to go on board of?
'I suppose,' returned the lady, 'as nobody but yourself can want to
look at a steam package, without wanting to go a-boarding of it, can
they! Booby!'
'Which one do you want to look at then?' said Tom. 'We'll make room
for you if we can. Don't be so ill-tempered.'
'No blessed creetur as ever I was with in trying times,' returned
the lady, somewhat softened, 'and they're a many in their numbers,
ever brought it as a charge again myself that I was anythin' but
mild and equal in my spirits. Never mind a contradicting of me, if
you seem to feel it does you good, ma'am, I often says, for well you
know that Sairey may be trusted not to give it back again. But I
will not denige that I am worrited and wexed this day, and with good
reagion, Lord forbid!'
By this time, Mrs Gamp (for it was no other than that experienced
practitioner) had, with Tom's assistance, squeezed and worked
herself into a small corner between Ruth and the rail; where, after
breathing very hard for some little time, and performing a short
series of dangerous evolutions with her umbrella, she managed to
establish herself pretty comfortably.
'And which of all them smoking monsters is the Ankworks boat, I
wonder. Goodness me!' cried Mrs Gamp.
'What boat did you want?' asked Ruth.
'The Ankworks package,' Mrs Gamp replied. 'I will not deceive you,
my sweet. Why should I?'
'That is the Antwerp packet in the middle,' said Ruth.
'And I wish it was in Jonadge's belly, I do,' cried Mrs Gamp;
appearing to confound the prophet with the whale in this miraculous
aspiration.
Ruth said nothing in reply; but, as Mrs Gamp, laying her chin
against the cool iron of the rail, continued to look intently at the
Antwerp boat, and every now and then to give a little groan, she
inquired whether any child of hers was going aboard that morning?
Or perhaps her husband, she said kindly.
'Which shows,' said Mrs Gamp, casting up her eyes, 'what a little
way you've travelled into this wale of life, my dear young creetur!
As a good friend of mine has frequent made remark to me, which her
name, my love, is Harris, Mrs Harris through the square and up the
steps a-turnin' round by the tobacker shop, "Oh Sairey, Sairey,
little do we know wot lays afore us!" "Mrs Harris, ma'am," I says,
"not much, it's true, but more than you suppoge. Our calcilations,
ma'am," I says, "respectin' wot the number of a family will be,
comes most times within one, and oftener than you would suppoge,
exact." "Sairey," says Mrs Harris, in a awful way, "Tell me wot is
my indiwidgle number." "No, Mrs Harris," I says to her, "ex-cuge me,
if you please. My own," I says, "has fallen out of three-pair
backs, and had damp doorsteps settled on their lungs, and one was
turned up smilin' in a bedstead unbeknown. Therefore, ma'am," I
says, "seek not to proticipate, but take 'em as they come and as
they go." Mine,' says Mrs Gamp, 'mine is all gone, my dear young
chick. And as to husbands, there's a wooden leg gone likeways home
to its account, which in its constancy of walkin' into wine vaults,
and never comin' out again 'till fetched by force, was quite as weak
as flesh, if not weaker.'
When she had delivered this oration, Mrs Gamp leaned her chin upon
the cool iron again; and looking intently at the Antwerp packet,
shook her head and groaned.
'I wouldn't,' said Mrs Gamp, 'I wouldn't be a man and have such a
think upon my mind!--but nobody as owned the name of man, could do
it!'
Tom and his sister glanced at each other; and Ruth, after a moment's
hesitation, asked Mrs Gamp what troubled her so much.
'My dear,' returned that lady, dropping her voice, 'you are single,
ain't you?'
Ruth laughed blushed, and said 'Yes.'
'Worse luck,' proceeded Mrs Gamp, 'for all parties! But others is
married, and in the marriage state; and there is a dear young
creetur a-comin' down this mornin' to that very package, which is no
more fit to trust herself to sea, than nothin' is!'
She paused here to look over the deck of the packet in question, and
on the steps leading down to it, and on the gangways. Seeming to
have thus assured herself that the object of her commiseration had
not yet arrived, she raised her eyes gradually up to the top of the
escape-pipe, and indignantly apostrophised the vessel:
'Oh, drat you!' said Mrs Gamp, shaking her umbrella at it, 'you're a
nice spluttering nisy monster for a delicate young creetur to go and
be a passinger by; ain't you! YOU never do no harm in that way, do
you? With your hammering, and roaring, and hissing, and lamp-iling,
you brute! Them Confugion steamers,' said Mrs Gamp, shaking her
umbrella again, 'has done more to throw us out of our reg'lar work
and bring ewents on at times when nobody counted on 'em (especially
them screeching railroad ones), than all the other frights that ever
was took. I have heerd of one young man, a guard upon a railway,
only three years opened--well does Mrs Harris know him, which indeed
he is her own relation by her sister's marriage with a master
sawyer--as is godfather at this present time to six-and-twenty
blessed little strangers, equally unexpected, and all on 'um named
after the Ingeines as was the cause. Ugh!' said Mrs Gamp, resuming
her apostrophe, 'one might easy know you was a man's inwention,
from your disregardlessness of the weakness of our naturs, so
one might, you brute!'
It would not have been unnatural to suppose, from the first part of
Mrs Gamp's lamentations, that she was connected with the
stage-coaching or post-horsing trade. She had no means of judging of
the effect of her concluding remarks upon her young companion; for
she interrupted herself at this point, and exclaimed:
'There she identically goes! Poor sweet young creetur, there she
goes, like a lamb to the sacrifige! If there's any illness when that
wessel gets to sea,' said Mrs Gamp, prophetically, 'it's murder, and
I'm the witness for the persecution.'
She was so very earnest on the subject, that Tom's sister (being as
kind as Tom himself) could not help saying something to her in
reply.
'Pray, which is the lady,' she inquired, 'in whom you are so much
interested?'
'There!' groaned Mrs Gamp. 'There she goes! A-crossin' the little
wooden bridge at this minute. She's a-slippin' on a bit of
orangepeel!' tightly clutching her umbrella. 'What a turn it give
me.'
'Do you mean the lady who is with that man wrapped up from head to
foot in a large cloak, so that his face is almost hidden?'
'Well he may hide it!' Mrs Gamp replied. 'He's good call to be
ashamed of himself. Did you see him a-jerking of her wrist, then?'
'He seems to be hasty with her, indeed.'
'Now he's a-taking of her down into the close cabin!' said Mrs Gamp,
impatiently. 'What's the man about! The deuce is in him, I think.
Why can't he leave her in the open air?'
He did not, whatever his reason was, but led her quickly down and
disappeared himself, without loosening his cloak, or pausing on the
crowded deck one moment longer than was necessary to clear their way
to that part of the vessel.
Tom had not heard this little dialogue; for his attention had been
engaged in an unexpected manner. A hand upon his sleeve had caused
him to look round, just when Mrs Gamp concluded her apostrophe to
the steam-engine; and on his right arm, Ruth being on his left, he
found their landlord, to his great surprise.
He was not so much surprised at the man's being there, as at his
having got close to him so quietly and swiftly; for another person
had been at his elbow one instant before; and he had not in the
meantime been conscious of any change or pressure in the knot of
people among whom he stood. He and Ruth had frequently remarked how
noiselessly this landlord of theirs came into and went out of his
own house; but Tom was not the less amazed to see him at his elbow
now.
'I beg your pardon, Mr Pinch,' he said in his ear. 'I am rather
infirm, and out of breath, and my eyes are not very good. I am not
as young as I was, sir. You don't see a gentleman in a large cloak
down yonder, with a lady on his arm; a lady in a veil and a black
shawl; do you?'
If HE did not, it was curious that in speaking he should have
singled out from all the crowd the very people whom he described;
and should have glanced hastily from them to Tom, as if he were
burning to direct his wandering eyes.
'A gentleman in a large cloak!' said Tom, 'and a lady in a black
shawl! Let me see!'
'Yes, yes!' replied the other, with keen impatience. 'A gentleman
muffled up from head to foot--strangely muffled up for such a
morning as this--like an invalid, with his hand to his face at this
minute, perhaps. No, no, no! not there,' he added, following Tom's
gaze; 'the other way; in that direction; down yonder.' Again he
indicated, but this time in his hurry, with his outstretched finger,
the very spot on which the progress of these persons was checked at
that moment.
'There are so many people, and so much motion, and so many objects,'
said Tom, 'that I find it difficult to--no, I really don't see
a gentleman in a large cloak, and a lady in a black shawl.
There's a lady in a red shawl over there!'
'No, no, no!' cried his landlord, pointing eagerly again, 'not
there. The other way; the other way. Look at the cabin steps. To
the left. They must be near the cabin steps. Do you see the cabin
steps? There's the bell ringing already! DO you see the steps?'
'Stay!' said Tom, 'you're right. Look! there they go now. Is that
the gentleman you mean? Descending at this minute, with the folds
of a great cloak trailing down after him?'
'The very man!' returned the other, not looking at what Tom pointed
out, however, but at Tom's own face. 'Will you do me a kindness,
sir, a great kindness? Will you put that letter in his hand? Only
give him that! He expects it. I am charged to do it by my
employers, but I am late in finding him, and, not being as young as
I have been, should never be able to make my way on board and off
the deck again in time. Will you pardon my boldness, and do me that
great kindness?'
His hands shook, and his face bespoke the utmost interest and
agitation, as he pressed the letter upon Tom, and pointed to its
destination, like the Tempter in some grim old carving.
To hesitate in the performance of a good-natured or compassionate
office was not in Tom's way. He took the letter; whispered Ruth to
wait till he returned, which would be immediately; and ran down the
steps with all the expedition he could make. There were so many
people going down, so many others coming up, such heavy goods in
course of transit to and fro, such a ringing of bell, blowing-off of
steam, and shouting of men's voices, that he had much ado to force
his way, or keep in mind to which boat he was going. But he reached
the right one with good speed, and going down the cabin-stairs
immediately, described the object of his search standing at the
upper end of the saloon, with his back towards him, reading some
notice which was hung against the wall. As Tom advanced to give him
the letter, he started, hearing footsteps, and turned round.
What was Tom's astonishment to find in him the man with whom he had
had the conflict in the field--poor Mercy's husband. Jonas!
Tom understood him to say, what the devil did he want; but it was
not easy to make out what he said; he spoke so indistinctly.
'I want nothing with you for myself,' said Tom; 'I was asked, a
moment since, to give you this letter. You were pointed out to me,
but I didn't know you in your strange dress. Take it!'
He did so, opened it, and read the writing on the inside. The
contents were evidently very brief; not more perhaps than one line;
but they struck upon him like a stone from a sling. He reeled back
as he read.
His emotion was so different from any Tom had ever seen before that
he stopped involuntarily. Momentary as his state of indecision was,
the bell ceased while he stood there, and a hoarse voice calling
down the steps, inquired if there was any to go ashore?
'Yes,' cried Jonas, 'I--I am coming. Give me time. Where's that
woman! Come back; come back here.'
He threw open another door as he spoke, and dragged, rather than
led, her forth. She was pale and frightened, and amazed to see her
old acquaintance; but had no time to speak, for they were making a
great stir above; and Jonas drew her rapidly towards the deck.
'Where are we going? What is the matter?'
'We are going back,' said Jonas. 'I have changed my mind. I can't
go. Don't question me, or I shall be the death of you, or some one
else. Stop there! Stop! We're for the shore. Do you hear? We're
for the shore!'
He turned, even in the madness of his hurry, and scowling darkly
back at Tom, shook his clenched hand at him. There are not many
human faces capable of the expression with which he accompanied that
gesture.
He dragged her up, and Tom followed them. Across the deck, over the
side, along the crazy plank, and up the steps, he dragged her
fiercely; not bestowing any look on her, but gazing upwards all the
while among the faces on the wharf. Suddenly he turned again, and
said to Tom with a tremendous oath:
'Where is he?'
Before Tom, in his indignation and amazement, could return an answer
to a question he so little understood, a gentleman approached Tom
behind, and saluted Jonas Chuzzlewit by name. He has a gentleman of
foreign appearance, with a black moustache and whiskers; and
addressed him with a polite composure, strangely different from his
own distracted and desperate manner.
'Chuzzlewit, my good fellow!' said the gentleman, raising his hat in
compliment to Mrs Chuzzlewit, 'I ask your pardon twenty thousand
times. I am most unwilling to interfere between you and a domestic
trip of this nature (always so very charming and refreshing, I know,
although I have not the happiness to be a domestic man myself, which
is the great infelicity of my existence); but the beehive, my dear
friend, the beehive--will you introduce me?'
'This is Mr Montague,' said Jonas, whom the words appeared to choke.
'The most unhappy and most penitent of men, Mrs Chuzzlewit,' pursued
that gentleman, 'for having been the means of spoiling this
excursion; but as I tell my friend, the beehive, the beehive. You
projected a short little continental trip, my dear friend, of
course?'
Jonas maintained a dogged silence.
'May I die,' cried Montague, 'but I am shocked! Upon my soul I am
shocked. But that confounded beehive of ours in the city must be
paramount to every other consideration, when there is honey to be
made; and that is my best excuse. Here is a very singular old
female dropping curtseys on my right,' said Montague, breaking off
in his discourse, and looking at Mrs Gamp, 'who is not a friend of
mine. Does anybody know her?'
'Ah! Well they knows me, bless their precious hearts!' said Mrs
Gamp, 'not forgettin' your own merry one, sir, and long may it be
so! Wishin' as every one' (she delivered this in the form of a toast
or sentiment) 'was as merry, and as handsome-lookin', as a little
bird has whispered me a certain gent is, which I will not name for
fear I give offence where none is doo! My precious lady,' here she
stopped short in her merriment, for she had until now affected to be
vastly entertained, 'you're too pale by half!'
'YOU are here too, are you?' muttered Jonas. 'Ecod, there are
enough of you.'
'I hope, sir,' returned Mrs Gamp, dropping an indignant curtsey, 'as
no bones is broke by me and Mrs Harris a-walkin' down upon a public
wharf. Which was the very words she says to me (although they was
the last I ever had to speak) was these: "Sairey," she says, "is it
a public wharf?" Mrs Harris," I makes answer, "can you doubt it?
You have know'd me now, ma'am, eight and thirty year; and did you
ever know me go, or wish to go, where I was not made welcome, say
the words." "No, Sairey," Mrs Harris says, "contrairy quite." And
well she knows it too. I am but a poor woman, but I've been sought
after, sir, though you may not think it. I've been knocked up at
all hours of the night, and warned out by a many landlords, in
consequence of being mistook for Fire. I goes out workin' for my
bread, 'tis true, but I maintains my independency, with your kind
leave, and which I will till death. I has my feelins as a woman,
sir, and I have been a mother likeways; but touch a pipkin as
belongs to me, or make the least remarks on what I eats or drinks,
and though you was the favouritest young for'ard hussy of a servant-
gal as ever come into a house, either you leaves the place, or me.
My earnins is not great, sir, but I will not be impoged upon. Bless
the babe, and save the mother, is my mortar, sir; but I makes so
free as add to that, Don't try no impogician with the Nuss, for she
will not abear it!'
Mrs Gamp concluded by drawing her shawl tightly over herself with
both hands, and, as usual, referring to Mrs Harris for full
corroboration of these particulars. She had that peculiar trembling
of the head which, in ladies of her excitable nature, may be taken
as a sure indication of their breaking out again very shortly; when
Jonas made a timely interposition.
'As you ARE here,' he said, 'you had better see to her, and take her
home. I am otherwise engaged.' He said nothing more; but looked at
Montague as if to give him notice that he was ready to attend him.
'I am sorry to take you away,' said Montague.
Jonas gave him a sinister look, which long lived in Tom's memory,
and which he often recalled afterwards.
'I am, upon my life,' said Montague. 'Why did you make it
necessary?'
With the same dark glance as before, Jonas replied, after a moment's
silence:
'The necessity is none of my making. You have brought it about
yourself.'
He said nothing more. He said even this as if he were bound, and in
the other's power, but had a sullen and suppressed devil within him,
which he could not quite resist. His very gait, as they walked away
together, was like that of a fettered man; but, striving to work out
at his clenched hands, knitted brows, and fast-set lips, was the
same imprisoned devil still.
They got into a handsome cabriolet which was waiting for them and
drove away.
The whole of this extraordinary scene had passed so rapidly and the
tumult which prevailed around as so unconscious of any impression
from it, that, although Tom had been one of the chief actors, it was
like a dream. No one had noticed him after they had left the
packet. He had stood behind Jonas, and so near him, that he could
not help hearing all that passed. He had stood there, with his
sister on his arm, expecting and hoping to have an opportunity of
explaining his strange share in this yet stranger business. But
Jonas had not raised his eyes from the ground; no one else had even
looked towards him; and before he could resolve on any course of
action, they were all gone.
He gazed round for his landlord. But he had done that more than
once already, and no such man was to be seen. He was still pursuing
this search with his eyes, when he saw a hand beckoning to him from
a hackney-coach; and hurrying towards it, found it was Merry's. She
addressed him hurriedly, but bent out of the window, that she might
not be overheard by her companion, Mrs Gamp.
'What is it?' she said. 'Good heaven, what is it? Why did he tell
me last night to prepare for a long journey, and why have you
brought us back like criminals? Dear Mr Pinch!' she clasped her
hands distractedly, 'be merciful to us. Whatever this dreadful
secret is, be merciful, and God will bless you!'
'If any power of mercy lay with me,' cried Tom, 'trust me, you
shouldn't ask in vain. But I am far more ignorant and weak than
you.'
She withdrew into the coach again, and he saw the hand waving
towards him for a moment; but whether in reproachfulness or
incredulity or misery, or grief, or sad adieu, or what else, he
could not, being so hurried, understand. SHE was gone now; and Ruth
and he were left to walk away, and wonder.
Had Mr Nadgett appointed the man who never came, to meet him upon
London Bridge that morning? He was certainly looking over the
parapet, and down upon the steamboat-wharf at that moment. It could
not have been for pleasure; he never took pleasure. No. He must
have had some business there.
