CHAPTER EIGHT
ACCOMPANIES MR PECKSNIFF AND HIS CHARMING DAUGHTERS TO THE CITY OFLONDON; AND RELATES WHAT FELL OUT UPON THEIR WAY THITHER
When Mr Pecksniff and the two young ladies got into the heavy coach atthe end of the lane, they found it empty, which was a great comfort;particularly as the outside was quite full and the passengers lookedvery frosty. For as Mr Pecksniff justly observed--when he and hisdaughters had burrowed their feet deep in the straw, wrapped themselvesto the chin, and pulled up both windows--it is always satisfactory tofeel, in keen weather, that many other people are not as warm asyou are. And this, he said, was quite natural, and a very beautifularrangement; not confined to coaches, but extending itself into manysocial ramifications. 'For' (he observed), 'if every one were warm andwell-fed, we should lose the satisfaction of admiring the fortitude withwhich certain conditions of men bear cold and hunger. And if we wereno better off than anybody else, what would become of our sense ofgratitude; which,' said Mr Pecksniff with tears in his eyes, as he shookhis fist at a beggar who wanted to get up behind, 'is one of the holiestfeelings of our common nature.'
His children heard with becoming reverence these moral precepts from thelips of their father, and signified their acquiescence in the same, bysmiles. That he might the better feed and cherish that sacred flame ofgratitude in his breast, Mr Pecksniff remarked that he would troublehis eldest daughter, even in this early stage of their journey, for thebrandy-bottle. And from the narrow neck of that stone vessel he imbibeda copious refreshment.
'What are we?' said Mr Pecksniff, 'but coaches? Some of us are slowcoaches'--
'Goodness, Pa!' cried Charity.
'Some of us, I say,' resumed her parent with increased emphasis, 'areslow coaches; some of us are fast coaches. Our passions are the horses;and rampant animals too--!'
'Really, Pa,' cried both the daughters at once. 'How very unpleasant.'
'And rampant animals too' repeated Mr Pecksniff with so muchdetermination, that he may be said to have exhibited, at the moment asort of moral rampancy himself;'--and Virtue is the drag. We start fromThe Mother's Arms, and we run to The Dust Shovel.'
When he had said this, Mr Pecksniff, being exhausted, took some furtherrefreshment. When he had done that, he corked the bottle tight, with theair of a man who had effectually corked the subject also; and went tosleep for three stages.
The tendency of mankind when it falls asleep in coaches, is to wake upcross; to find its legs in its way; and its corns an aggravation.Mr Pecksniff not being exempt from the common lot of humanity foundhimself, at the end of his nap, so decidedly the victim of theseinfirmities, that he had an irresistible inclination to visit them uponhis daughters; which he had already begun to do in the shape of diversrandom kicks, and other unexpected motions of his shoes, when the coachstopped, and after a short delay the door was opened.
'Now mind,' said a thin sharp voice in the dark. 'I and my son goinside, because the roof is full, but you agree only to charge usoutside prices. It's quite understood that we won't pay more. Is it?'
'All right, sir,' replied the guard.
'Is there anybody inside now?' inquired the voice.
'Three passengers,' returned the guard.
'Then I ask the three passengers to witness this bargain, if they willbe so good,' said the voice. 'My boy, I think we may safely get in.'
In pursuance of which opinion, two people took their seats in thevehicle, which was solemnly licensed by Act of Parliament to carry anysix persons who could be got in at the door.
'That was lucky!' whispered the old man, when they moved on again. 'Anda great stroke of policy in you to observe it. He, he, he! We couldn'thave gone outside. I should have died of the rheumatism!'
Whether it occurred to the dutiful son that he had in some degreeover-reached himself by contributing to the prolongation of his father'sdays; or whether the cold had effected his temper; is doubtful. But hegave his father such a nudge in reply, that that good old gentlemanwas taken with a cough which lasted for full five minutes withoutintermission, and goaded Mr Pecksniff to that pitch of irritation, thathe said at last--and very suddenly:
'There is no room! There is really no room in this coach for anygentleman with a cold in his head!'
'Mine,' said the old man, after a moment's pause, 'is upon my chest,Pecksniff.'
The voice and manner, together, now that he spoke out; the composure ofthe speaker; the presence of his son; and his knowledge of Mr Pecksniff;afforded a clue to his identity which it was impossible to mistake.
'Hem! I thought,' said Mr Pecksniff, returning to his usual mildness,'that I addressed a stranger. I find that I address a relative, MrAnthony Chuzzlewit and his son Mr Jonas--for they, my dear children,are our travelling companions--will excuse me for an apparently harshremark. It is not MY desire to wound the feelings of any person withwhom I am connected in family bonds. I may be a Hypocrite,' said MrPecksniff, cuttingly; 'but I am not a Brute.'
'Pooh, pooh!' said the old man. 'What signifies that word, Pecksniff?Hypocrite! why, we are all hypocrites. We were all hypocrites t'otherday. I am sure I felt that to be agreed upon among us, or I shouldn'thave called you one. We should not have been there at all, if we had notbeen hypocrites. The only difference between you and the rest was--shallI tell you the difference between you and the rest now, Pecksniff?'
'If you please, my good sir; if you please.'
'Why, the annoying quality in YOU, is,' said the old man, 'that younever have a confederate or partner in YOUR juggling; you would deceiveeverybody, even those who practise the same art; and have a way withyou, as if you--he, he, he!--as if you really believed yourself. I'dlay a handsome wager now,' said the old man, 'if I laid wagers, whichI don't and never did, that you keep up appearances by a tacitunderstanding, even before your own daughters here. Now I, when I havea business scheme in hand, tell Jonas what it is, and we discuss itopenly. You're not offended, Pecksniff?'
'Offended, my good sir!' cried that gentleman, as if he had received thehighest compliments that language could convey.
'Are you travelling to London, Mr Pecksniff?' asked the son.
'Yes, Mr Jonas, we are travelling to London. We shall have the pleasureof your company all the way, I trust?'
'Oh! ecod, you had better ask father that,' said Jonas. 'I am nota-going to commit myself.'
Mr Pecksniff was, as a matter of course, greatly entertained by thisretort. His mirth having subsided, Mr Jonas gave him to understandthat himself and parent were in fact travelling to their home in themetropolis; and that, since the memorable day of the great familygathering, they had been tarrying in that part of the country, watchingthe sale of certain eligible investments, which they had had in theircopartnership eye when they came down; for it was their custom, Mr Jonassaid, whenever such a thing was practicable, to kill two birds with onestone, and never to throw away sprats, but as bait for whales. When hehad communicated to Mr Pecksniff these pithy scraps of intelligence,he said, 'That if it was all the same to him, he would turn him overto father, and have a chat with the gals;' and in furtherance ofthis polite scheme, he vacated his seat adjoining that gentleman, andestablished himself in the opposite corner, next to the fair Miss Mercy.
The education of Mr Jonas had been conducted from his cradle on thestrictest principles of the main chance. The very first word he learntto spell was 'gain,' and the second (when he got into two syllables),'money.' But for two results, which were not clearly foreseen perhaps byhis watchful parent in the beginning, his training may be said to havebeen unexceptionable. One of these flaws was, that having been longtaught by his father to over-reach everybody, he had imperceptiblyacquired a love of over-reaching that venerable monitor himself.The other, that from his early habits of considering everything as aquestion of property, he had gradually come to look, with impatience,on his parent as a certain amount of personal estate, which had noright whatever to be going at large, but ought to be secured in thatparticular description of iron safe
which is commonly called a coffin,and banked in the grave.
'Well, cousin!' said Mr Jonas--'Because we ARE cousins, you know, a fewtimes removed--so you're going to London?'
Miss Mercy replied in the affirmative, pinching her sister's arm at thesame time, and giggling excessively.
'Lots of beaux in London, cousin!' said Mr Jonas, slightly advancing hiselbow.
'Indeed, sir!' cried the young lady. 'They won't hurt us, sir, I daresay.' And having given him this answer with great demureness she was soovercome by her own humour, that she was fain to stifle her merriment inher sister's shawl.
'Merry,' cried that more prudent damsel, 'really I am ashamed of you.How can you go on so? You wild thing!' At which Miss Merry only laughedthe more, of course.
'I saw a wildness in her eye, t'other day,' said Mr Jonas, addressingCharity. 'But you're the one to sit solemn! I say--You were regularlyprim, cousin!'
'Oh! The old-fashioned fright!' cried Merry, in a whisper. 'Cherry mydear, upon my word you must sit next him. I shall die outright if hetalks to me any more; I shall, positively!' To prevent which fatalconsequence, the buoyant creature skipped out of her seat as she spoke,and squeezed her sister into the place from which she had risen.
'Don't mind crowding me,' cried Mr Jonas. 'I like to be crowded by gals.Come a little closer, cousin.'
'No, thank you, sir,' said Charity.
'There's that other one a-laughing again,' said Mr Jonas; 'she'sa-laughing at my father, I shouldn't wonder. If he puts on that oldflannel nightcap of his, I don't know what she'll do! Is that my fathera-snoring, Pecksniff?'
'Yes, Mr Jonas.'
'Tread upon his foot, will you be so good?' said the young gentleman.'The foot next you's the gouty one.'
Mr Pecksniff hesitating to perform this friendly office, Mr Jonas did ithimself; at the same time crying:
'Come, wake up, father, or you'll be having the nightmare, andscreeching out, I know.--Do you ever have the nightmare, cousin?' heasked his neighbour, with characteristic gallantry, as he dropped hisvoice again.
'Sometimes,' answered Charity. 'Not often.'
'The other one,' said Mr Jonas, after a pause. 'Does SHE ever have thenightmare?'
'I don't know,' replied Charity. 'You had better ask her.'
'She laughs so,' said Jonas; 'there's no talking to her. Only hark howshe's a-going on now! You're the sensible one, cousin!'
'Tut, tut!' cried Charity.
'Oh! But you are! You know you are!'
'Mercy is a little giddy,' said Miss Charity. But she'll sober down intime.'
'It'll be a very long time, then, if she does at all,' rejoined hercousin. 'Take a little more room.'
'I am afraid of crowding you,' said Charity. But she took itnotwithstanding; and after one or two remarks on the extreme heavinessof the coach, and the number of places it stopped at, they fell intoa silence which remained unbroken by any member of the party untilsupper-time.
Although Mr Jonas conducted Charity to the hotel and sat himself besideher at the board, it was pretty clear that he had an eye to 'the otherone' also, for he often glanced across at Mercy, and seemed to drawcomparisons between the personal appearance of the two, which were notunfavourable to the superior plumpness of the younger sister. He allowedhimself no great leisure for this kind of observation, however, beingbusily engaged with the supper, which, as he whispered in his faircompanion's ear, was a contract business, and therefore the more sheate, the better the bargain was. His father and Mr Pecksniff, probablyacting on the same wise principle, demolished everything that camewithin their reach, and by that means acquired a greasy expression ofcountenance, indicating contentment, if not repletion, which it was verypleasant to contemplate.
When they could eat no more, Mr Pecksniff and Mr Jonas subscribed fortwo sixpenny-worths of hot brandy-and-water, which the latter gentlemanconsidered a more politic order than one shillingsworth; there beinga chance of their getting more spirit out of the innkeeper under thisarrangement than if it were all in one glass. Having swallowed his shareof the enlivening fluid, Mr Pecksniff, under pretence of going to see ifthe coach were ready, went secretly to the bar, and had his own littlebottle filled, in order that he might refresh himself at leisure in thedark coach without being observed.
These arrangements concluded, and the coach being ready, they got intotheir old places and jogged on again. But before he composed himselffor a nap, Mr Pecksniff delivered a kind of grace after meat, in thesewords:
'The process of digestion, as I have been informed by anatomicalfriends, is one of the most wonderful works of nature. I do not knowhow it may be with others, but it is a great satisfaction to me to know,when regaling on my humble fare, that I am putting in motion the mostbeautiful machinery with which we have any acquaintance. I really feelat such times as if I was doing a public service. When I have woundmyself up, if I may employ such a term,' said Mr Pecksniff withexquisite tenderness, 'and know that I am Going, I feel that in thelesson afforded by the works within me, I am a Benefactor to my Kind!'
As nothing could be added to this, nothing was said; and Mr Pecksniff,exulting, it may be presumed, in his moral utility, went to sleep again.
The rest of the night wore away in the usual manner. Mr Pecksniffand Old Anthony kept tumbling against each other and waking up muchterrified, or crushed their heads in opposite corners of the coach andstrangely tattooed the surface of their faces--Heaven knows how--intheir sleep. The coach stopped and went on, and went on and stopped,times out of number. Passengers got up and passengers got down, andfresh horses came and went and came again, with scarcely any intervalbetween each team as it seemed to those who were dozing, and with a gapof a whole night between every one as it seemed to those who were broadawake. At length they began to jolt and rumble over horribly unevenstones, and Mr Pecksniff looking out of window said it was to-morrowmorning, and they were there.
Very soon afterwards the coach stopped at the office in the city; andthe street in which it was situated was already in a bustle, that fullybore out Mr Pecksniff's words about its being morning, though for anysigns of day yet appearing in the sky it might have been midnight. Therewas a dense fog too; as if it were a city in the clouds, which they hadbeen travelling to all night up a magic beanstalk; and there was a thickcrust upon the pavement like oilcake; which, one of the outsides (mad,no doubt) said to another (his keeper, of course), was Snow.
Taking a confused leave of Anthony and his son, and leaving the luggageof himself and daughters at the office to be called for afterwards, MrPecksniff, with one of the young ladies under each arm, dived across thestreet, and then across other streets, and so up the queerest courts,and down the strangest alleys and under the blindest archways, in a kindof frenzy; now skipping over a kennel, now running for his life from acoach and horses; now thinking he had lost his way, now thinking he hadfound it; now in a state of the highest confidence, now despondent tothe last degree, but always in a great perspiration and flurry; until atlength they stopped in a kind of paved yard near the Monument. That isto say, Mr Pecksniff told them so; for as to anything they could seeof the Monument, or anything else but the buildings close at hand, theymight as well have been playing blindman's buff at Salisbury.
Mr Pecksniff looked about him for a moment, and then knocked at thedoor of a very dingy edifice, even among the choice collection of dingyedifices at hand; on the front of which was a little oval board likea tea-tray, with this inscription--'Commercial Boarding-House: M.Todgers.'
It seemed that M. Todgers was not up yet, for Mr Pecksniff knocked twiceand rang thrice, without making any impression on anything but a dogover the way. At last a chain and some bolts were withdrawn with a rustynoise, as if the weather had made the very fastenings hoarse, and asmall boy with a large red head, and no nose to speak of, and a verydirty Wellington boot on his left arm, appeared; who (being surprised)rubbed the nose just mentioned with the back of a shoe-brush, and saidnothing.
'Still a-bed my man?' asked Mr Pe
cksniff.
'Still a-bed!' replied the boy. 'I wish they wos still a-bed. They'revery noisy a-bed; all calling for their boots at once. I thought youwas the Paper, and wondered why you didn't shove yourself through thegrating as usual. What do you want?'
Considering his years, which were tender, the youth may be said to havepreferred this question sternly, and in something of a defiant manner.But Mr Pecksniff, without taking umbrage at his bearing put a cardin his hand, and bade him take that upstairs, and show them in themeanwhile into a room where there was a fire.
'Or if there's one in the eating parlour,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I canfind it myself.' So he led his daughters, without waiting for anyfurther introduction, into a room on the ground-floor, where atable-cloth (rather a tight and scanty fit in reference to the table itcovered) was already spread for breakfast; displaying a mighty dish ofpink boiled beef; an instance of that particular style of loaf whichis known to housekeepers as a slack-baked, crummy quartern; a liberalprovision of cups and saucers; and the usual appendages.
Inside the fender were some half-dozen pairs of shoes and boots, ofvarious sizes, just cleaned and turned with the soles upwards to dry;and a pair of short black gaiters, on one of which was chalked--insport, it would appear, by some gentleman who had slipped down for thepurpose, pending his toilet, and gone up again--'Jinkins's Particular,'while the other exhibited a sketch in profile, claiming to be theportrait of Jinkins himself.
M. Todgers's Commercial Boarding-House was a house of that sort which islikely to be dark at any time; but that morning it was especially dark.There was an odd smell in the passage, as if the concentrated essence ofall the dinners that had been cooked in the kitchen since the house wasbuilt, lingered at the top of the kitchen stairs to that hour, and likethe Black Friar in Don Juan, 'wouldn't be driven away.' In particular,there was a sensation of cabbage; as if all the greens that had everbeen boiled there, were evergreens, and flourished in immortal strength.The parlour was wainscoted, and communicated to strangers a magneticand instinctive consciousness of rats and mice. The staircase was verygloomy and very broad, with balustrades so thick and heavy that theywould have served for a bridge. In a sombre corner on the first landing,stood a gruff old giant of a clock, with a preposterous coronet of threebrass balls on his head; whom few had ever seen--none ever looked in theface--and who seemed to continue his heavy tick for no other reason thanto warn heedless people from running into him accidentally. It had notbeen papered or painted, hadn't Todgers's, within the memory of man. Itwas very black, begrimed, and mouldy. And, at the top of the staircase,was an old, disjointed, rickety, ill-favoured skylight, patchedand mended in all kinds of ways, which looked distrustfully down ateverything that passed below, and covered Todgers's up as if it were asort of human cucumber-frame, and only people of a peculiar growth werereared there.
Mr Pecksniff and his fair daughters had not stood warming themselves atthe fire ten minutes, when the sound of feet was heard upon the stairs,and the presiding deity of the establishment came hurrying in.
M. Todgers was a lady, rather a bony and hard-featured lady, with a rowof curls in front of her head, shaped like little barrels of beer;and on the top of it something made of net--you couldn't call it a capexactly--which looked like a black cobweb. She had a little basket onher arm, and in it a bunch of keys that jingled as she came. In herother hand she bore a flaming tallow candle, which, after surveying MrPecksniff for one instant by its light, she put down upon the table, tothe end that she might receive him with the greater cordiality.
'Mr Pecksniff!' cried Mrs Todgers. 'Welcome to London! Who would havethought of such a visit as this, after so--dear, dear!--so many years!How do you DO, Mr Pecksniff?'
'As well as ever; and as glad to see you, as ever;' Mr Pecksniff maderesponse. 'Why, you are younger than you used to be!'
'YOU are, I am sure!' said Mrs Todgers. 'You're not a bit changed.'
'What do you say to this?' cried Mr Pecksniff, stretching out his handtowards the young ladies. 'Does this make me no older?'
'Not your daughters!' exclaimed the lady, raising her hands and claspingthem. 'Oh, no, Mr Pecksniff! Your second, and her bridesmaid!'
Mr Pecksniff smiled complacently; shook his head; and said, 'Mydaughters, Mrs Todgers. Merely my daughters.'
'Ah!' sighed the good lady, 'I must believe you, for now I look at 'emI think I should have known 'em anywhere. My dear Miss Pecksniffs, howhappy your Pa has made me!'
She hugged them both; and being by this time overpowered by her feelingsor the inclemency of the morning, jerked a little pocket handkerchiefout of the little basket, and applied the same to her face.
'Now, my good madam,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I know the rules of yourestablishment, and that you only receive gentlemen boarders. Butit occurred to me, when I left home, that perhaps you would give mydaughters house room, and make an exception in their favour.'
'Perhaps?' cried Mrs Todgers ecstatically. 'Perhaps?'
'I may say then, that I was sure you would,' said Mr Pecksniff. 'Iknow that you have a little room of your own, and that they can becomfortable there, without appearing at the general table.'
'Dear girls!' said Mrs Todgers. 'I must take that liberty once more.'
Mrs Todgers meant by this that she must embrace them once more, whichshe accordingly did with great ardour. But the truth was that the housebeing full with the exception of one bed, which would now be occupiedby Mr Pecksniff, she wanted time for consideration; and so much time too(for it was a knotty point how to dispose of them), that even whenthis second embrace was over, she stood for some moments gazing at thesisters, with affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining outof the other.
'I think I know how to arrange it,' said Mrs Todgers, at length. 'A sofabedstead in the little third room which opens from my own parlour.--Oh,you dear girls!'
Thereupon she embraced them once more, observing that she could notdecide which was most like their poor mother (which was highly probable,seeing that she had never beheld that lady), but that she rather thoughtthe youngest was; and then she said that as the gentlemen would be downdirectly, and the ladies were fatigued with travelling, would they stepinto her room at once?
It was on the same floor; being, in fact, the back parlour; and had,as Mrs Todgers said, the great advantage (in London) of not beingoverlooked; as they would see when the fog cleared off. Nor was thisa vainglorious boast, for it commanded at a perspective of two feet,a brown wall with a black cistern on the top. The sleeping apartmentdesigned for the young ladies was approached from this chamber by amightily convenient little door, which would only open when fallenagainst by a strong person. It commanded from a similar point of sightanother angle of the wall, and another side of the cistern. 'Not thedamp side,' said Mrs Todgers. 'THAT is Mr Jinkins's.'
In the first of these sanctuaries a fire was speedily kindled by theyouthful porter, who, whistling at his work in the absence of MrsTodgers (not to mention his sketching figures on his corduroys withburnt firewood), and being afterwards taken by that lady in the fact,was dismissed with a box on his ears. Having prepared breakfast for theyoung ladies with her own hands, she withdrew to preside in the otherroom; where the joke at Mr Jinkins's expense seemed to be proceedingrather noisily.
'I won't ask you yet, my dears,' said Mr Pecksniff, looking in at thedoor, 'how you like London. Shall I?'
'We haven't seen much of it, Pa!' cried Merry.
'Nothing, I hope,' said Cherry. (Both very miserably.)
'Indeed,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'that's true. We have our pleasure, and ourbusiness too, before us. All in good time. All in good time!'
Whether Mr Pecksniff's business in London was as strictly professionalas he had given his new pupil to understand, we shall see, to adopt thatworthy man's phraseology, 'all in good time.'
Martin Chuzzlewit Page 10