To this mansion Mr Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies having been all performed, they were ushered into the house; and so, by degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr Pinch's sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil; to wit, a premature little woman of thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her, which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends.
“Visitors for Miss Pinch!” said the footman. He must have been an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice discrimination between the cold respect with which he would have announced visitors to the family, and the warm personal interest with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.
“Visitors for Miss Pinch!”
Miss Pinch rose hastily; with such tokens of agitation as plainly declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time, the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take mental notes of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties concerned, very laudable, improving, and pleasant.
It is a melancholy fact; but it must be related, that Mr Pinch's sister was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face; a very mild and prepossessing face; and a pretty little figure—slight and short, but remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid trustfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else, predicted by the two Miss Pecksniffs, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to see.
Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gaiety, bore up the best against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain, expressed it pretty openly in her looks. As to Mrs Todgers, she leaned on Mr Pecksniff's arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness, suitable to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion.
“Don't be alarmed, Miss Pinch,” said Mr Pecksniff, taking her hand condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. “I have called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother, Thomas Pinch. My name—compose yourself, Miss Pinch—is Pecksniff.”
The good man emphasised these words as though he would have said, “You see in me, young person, the benefactor of your race; the patron of your house; the preserver of your brother, who is fed with manna daily from my table; and in right of whom there is a considerable balance in my favour at present standing in the books beyond the sky. But I have no pride, for I can afford to do without it!”
The poor girl felt it all as if it had been Gospel truth. Her brother writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told her so, and how much more! As Mr Pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung her head, and dropped a tear upon his hand.
“Oh very well, Miss Pinch!” thought the sharp pupil, “crying before strangers, as if you didn't like the situation!”
“Thomas is well,” said Mr Pecksniff; “and sends his love and this letter. I cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever be distinguished in our profession; but he has the will to do well, which is the next thing to having the power; and, therefore, we must bear with him. Eh?”
“I know he has the will, sir,” said Tom Pinch's sister, “and I know how kindly and considerately you cherish it, for which neither he nor I can ever be grateful enough, as we very often say in writing to each other. The young ladies too,” she added, glancing gratefully at his two daughters, “I know how much we owe to them.”
“My dears,” said Mr Pecksniff, turning to them with a smile: “Thomas's sister is saying something you will be glad to hear, I think.”
“We can't take any merit to ourselves, papa!” cried Cherry, as they both apprised Tom Pinch's sister, with a curtsey, that they would feel obliged if she would keep her distance. “Mr Pinch's being so well provided for is owing to you alone, and we can only say how glad we are to hear that he is as grateful as he ought to be.”
“Oh very well, Miss Pinch!” thought the pupil again. “Got a grateful brother, living on other people's kindness!”
“It was very kind of you,” said Tom Pinch's sister, with Tom's own simplicity and Tom's own smile, “to come here; very kind indeed; though how great a kindness you have done me in gratifying my wish to see you, and to thank you with my own lips, you, who make so light of benefits conferred, can scarcely think.”
“Very grateful; very pleasant; very proper,” murmured Mr Pecksniff.
“It makes me happy too,” said Ruth Pinch, who now that her first surprise was over, had a chatty, cheerful way with her, and a single-hearted desire to look upon the best side of everything, which was the very moral and image of Tom; “very happy to think that you will be able to tell him how more than comfortably I am situated here, and how unnecessary it is that he should ever waste a regret on my being cast upon my own resources. Dear me! So long as I heard that he was happy, and he heard that I was,” said Tom's sister, “we could both bear, without one impatient or complaining thought, a great deal more than ever we have had to endure, I am very certain.”And if ever the plain truth were spoken on this occasionally false earth, Tom's sister spoke it when she said that.
“Ah!” cried Mr Pecksniff whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to the pupil; “certainly. And how do YOU do, my very interesting child?”
“Quite well, I thank you, sir,” replied that frosty innocent.
“A sweet face this, my dears,” said Mr Pecksniff, turning to his daughters. “A charming manner!”
Both young ladies had been in ecstasies with the scion of a wealthy house (through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents might be supposed to lie) from the first. Mrs Todgers vowed that anything one quarter so angelic she had never seen. “She wanted but a pair of wings, a dear,” said that good woman, “to be a young syrup'—meaning, possibly, young sylph, or seraph.
“If you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable little friend,” said Mr Pecksniff, producing one of his professional cards, “and will say that I and my daughters—”
“And Mrs Todgers, pa,” said Merry.
“And Mrs Todgers, of London,” added Mr Pecksniff; “that I, and my daughters, and Mrs Todgers, of London, did not intrude upon them, as our object simply was to take some notice of Miss Pinch, whose brother is a young man in my employment; but that I could not leave this very chaste mansion, without adding my humble tribute, as an Architect, to the correctness and elegance of the owner's taste, and to his just appreciation of that beautiful art to the cultivation of which I have devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and advancement I have sacrified a—a fortune—I shall be very much obliged to you.”
“Missis's compliments to Miss Pinch,” said the footman, suddenly appearing, and speaking in exactly the same key as before, “and begs to know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now.”
“Oh!” said Mr Pecksniff, “Here is the young man. HE will take the card. With my compliments, if you please, young man. My dears, we are interrupting the studies. Let us go.”
Some confusion was occasioned for an instant by Mrs Todgers's unstrapping her little flat hand-basket, and hurriedly entrusting the “young man” with one of her own cards, which, in addition to certain detailed information relative to the terms of the commercial establishment, bore a foot-note to the effect that M. T. took that opportunity of thanking those gentlemen who had honoured her with their favours, and begged they would have the goodness, if satisfied with the table, to recommend her to their friends. But Mr Pecksniff, with admirable presence
of mind, recovered this document, and buttoned it up in his own pocket.
Then he said to Miss Pinch—with more condescension and kindness than ever, for it was desirable the footman should expressly understand that they were not friends of hers, but patrons:
“Good morning. Good-bye. God bless you! You may depend upon my continued protection of your brother Thomas. Keep your mind quite at ease, Miss Pinch!”
“Thank you,” said Tom's sister heartily; “a thousand times.”
“Not at all,” he retorted, patting her gently on the head. “Don't mention it. You will make me angry if you do. My sweet child'—to the pupil—'farewell! That fairy creature,” said Mr Pecksniff, looking in his pensive mood hard at the footman, as if he meant him, “has shed a vision on my path, refulgent in its nature, and not easily to be obliterated. My dears, are you ready?”
They were not quite ready yet, for they were still caressing the pupil. But they tore themselves away at length; and sweeping past Miss Pinch with each a haughty inclination of the head and a curtsey strangled in its birth, flounced into the passage.
The young man had rather a long job in showing them out; for Mr Pecksniff's delight in the tastefulness of the house was such that he could not help often stopping (particularly when they were near the parlour door) and giving it expression, in a loud voice and very learned terms. Indeed, he delivered, between the study and the hall, a familiar exposition of the whole science of architecture as applied to dwelling-houses, and was yet in the freshness of his eloquence when they reached the garden.
“If you look,” said Mr Pecksniff, backing from the steps, with his head on one side and his eyes half-shut that he might the better take in the proportions of the exterior: “If you look, my dears, at the cornice which supports the roof, and observe the airiness of its construction, especially where it sweeps the southern angle of the building, you will feel with me—How do you do, sir? I hope you're well?”
Interrupting himself with these words, he very politely bowed to a middle-aged gentleman at an upper window, to whom he spoke—not because the gentleman could hear him (for he certainly could not), but as an appropriate accompaniment to his salutation.
“I have no doubt, my dears,” said Mr Pecksniff, feigning to point out other beauties with his hand, “that this is the proprietor. I should be glad to know him. It might lead to something. Is he looking this way, Charity?”
“He is opening the window pa!”
“Ha, ha!” cried Mr Pecksniff softly. “All right! He has found I'm professional. He heard me inside just now, I have no doubt. Don't look! With regard to the fluted pillars in the portico, my dears—”
“Hallo!” cried the gentleman.
“Sir, your servant!” said Mr Pecksniff, taking off his hat. “I am proud to make your acquaintance.”
“Come off the grass, will you!” roared the gentleman.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mr Pecksniff, doubtful of his having heard aright. “Did you—?”
“Come off the grass!” repeated the gentleman, warmly.
“We are unwilling to intrude, sir,” Mr Pecksniff smilingly began.
“But you ARE intruding,” returned the other, “unwarrantably intruding. Trespassing. You see a gravel walk, don't you? What do you think it's meant for? Open the gate there! Show that party out!”
With that he clapped down the window again, and disappeared.
Mr Pecksniff put on his hat, and walked with great deliberation and in profound silence to the fly, gazing at the clouds as he went, with great interest. After helping his daughters and Mrs Todgers into that conveyance, he stood looking at it for some moments, as if he were not quite certain whether it was a carriage or a temple; but having settled this point in his mind, he got into his place, spread his hands out on his knees, and smiled upon the three beholders.
But his daughters, less tranquil-minded, burst into a torrent of indignation. This came, they said, of cherishing such creatures as the Pinches. This came of lowering themselves to their level. This came of putting themselves in the humiliating position of seeming to know such bold, audacious, cunning, dreadful girls as that. They had expected this. They had predicted it to Mrs Todgers, as she (Todgers) could depone, that very morning. To this, they added, that the owner of the house, supposing them to be Miss Pinch's friends, had acted, in their opinion, quite correctly, and had done no more than, under such circumstances, might reasonably have been expected. To that they added (with a trifling inconsistency), that he was a brute and a bear; and then they merged into a flood of tears, which swept away all wandering epithets before it.
Perhaps Miss Pinch was scarcely so much to blame in the matter as the Seraph, who, immediately on the withdrawal of the visitors, had hastened to report them at head-quarters, with a full account of their having presumptuously charged her with the delivery of a message afterwards consigned to the footman; which outrage, taken in conjunction with Mr Pecksniff's unobtrusive remarks on the establishment, might possibly have had some share in their dismissal. Poor Miss Pinch, however, had to bear the brunt of it with both parties; being so severely taken to task by the Seraph's mother for having such vulgar acquaintances, that she was fain to retire to her own room in tears, which her natural cheerfulness and submission, and the delight of having seen Mr Pecksniff, and having received a letter from her brother, were at first insufficient to repress.
As to Mr Pecksniff, he told them in the fly, that a good action was its own reward; and rather gave them to understand, that if he could have been kicked in such a cause, he would have liked it all the better. But this was no comfort to the young ladies, who scolded violently the whole way back, and even exhibited, more than once, a keen desire to attack the devoted Mrs Todgers; on whose personal appearance, but particularly on whose offending card and handbasket, they were secretly inclined to lay the blame of half their failure.
Todgers's was in a great bustle that evening, partly owing to some additional domestic preparations for the morrow, and partly to the excitement always inseparable in that house from Saturday night, when every gentleman's linen arrived at a different hour in its own little bundle, with his private account pinned on the outside. There was always a great clinking of pattens downstairs, too, until midnight or so, on Saturdays; together with a frequent gleaming of mysterious lights in the area; much working at the pump; and a constant jangling of the iron handle of the pail. Shrill altercations from time to time arose between Mrs Todgers and unknown females in remote back kitchens; and sounds were occasionally heard, indicative of small articles of iron mongery and hardware being thrown at the boy. It was the custom of that youth on Saturdays, to roll up his shirt sleeves to his shoulders, and pervade all parts of the house in an apron of coarse green baize; moreover, he was more strongly tempted on Saturdays than on other days (it being a busy time), to make excursive bolts into the neighbouring alleys when he answered the door, and there to play at leap-frog and other sports with vagrant lads, until pursued and brought back by the hair of his head or the lobe of his ear; thus he was quite a conspicuous feature among the peculiar incidents of the last day in the week at Todgers's.
He was especially so on this particular Saturday evening, and honoured the Miss Pecksniffs with a deal of notice; seldom passing the door of Mrs Todgers's private room, where they sat alone before the fire, working by the light of a solitary candle, without putting in his head and greeting them with some such compliments as, “There you are agin!” “An't it nice?'—and similar humorous attentions.
“I say,” he whispered, stopping in one of his journeys to and fro, “young ladies, there's soup to-morrow. She's a-making it now. An't she a-putting in the water? Oh! not at all neither!”
In the course of answering another knock, he thrust in his head again.
“I say! There's fowls to-morrow. Not skinny ones. Oh no!”
Presently he called through the key-hole:
“There's a fish to-morrow. Just come. Don't eat none of him!” A
nd, with this special warning, vanished again.
By-and-bye, he returned to lay the cloth for supper; it having been arranged between Mrs Todgers and the young ladies, that they should partake of an exclusive veal-cutlet together in the privacy of that apartment. He entertained them on this occasion by thrusting the lighted candle into his mouth, and exhibiting his face in a state of transparency; after the performance of which feat, he went on with his professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron already mentioned. When he had completed his preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and expressed his belief that the approaching collation would be of “rather a spicy sort.”
“Will it be long, before it's ready, Bailey?” asked Mercy.
“No,” said Bailey, “it IS cooked. When I come up, she was dodging among the tender pieces with a fork, and eating of “em.”
But he had scarcely achieved the utterance of these words, when he received a manual compliment on the head, which sent him staggering against the wall; and Mrs Todgers, dish in hand, stood indignantly before him.
“Oh you little villain!” said that lady. “Oh you bad, false boy!”
“No worse than yerself,” retorted Bailey, guarding his head, on a principle invented by Mr Thomas Cribb. “Ah! Come now! Do that again, will yer?”
“He's the most dreadful child,” said Mrs Todgers, setting down the dish, “I ever had to deal with. The gentlemen spoil him to that extent, and teach him such things, that I'm afraid nothing but hanging will ever do him any good.”
“Won't it!” cried Bailey. “Oh! Yes! Wot do you go a-lowerin the table-beer for then, and destroying my constitooshun?”
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit Page 18