Tom Pinch, going astray, finds that he is not the only person
in that predicament. He retaliates upon a fallen foe
TOM'S EVIL GENIUS did not lead him into the dens of any of those preparers of
cannibalic pastry, who are represented in many standard country legends as doing
a lively retail business in the Metropolis; nor did it mark him out as the prey
of ring-droppers, pea and thimble-riggers, duffers, touters, or any of those
bloodless sharpers, who are, perhaps, a little better known to the Police. He
fell into conversation with no gentleman who took him into a public-house, where
there happened to be another gentleman who swore he had more money than any
gentleman, and very soon proved he had more money than one gentleman by taking
his away from him: neither did he fall into any other of the numerous man-traps
which are set up without notice, in the public grounds of this city. But he lost
his way. He very soon did that; and in trying to find it again he lost it more
and more.
Now Tom, in his guileless distrust of London, thought himself very knowing in
coming to the determination that he would not ask to be directed to Furnival's
Inn, if he could help it; unless, indeed, he should happen to find himself near
the Mint, or the Bank of England; in which case he would step in, and ask a
civil question or two, confiding in the perfect respectability of the concern.
So on he went, looking up all the streets he came near, and going up half of
them; and thus, by dint of not being true to Goswell Street, and filing off into
Aldermanbury, and bewildering himself in Barbican, and being constant to the
wrong point of the compass in London Wall, and then getting himself crosswise
into Thames Street, by an instinct that would have been marvellous if he had had
the least desire or reason to go there, he found himself, at last, hard by the
Monument.
The Man in the Monument was quite as mysterious a being to Tom as the Man in
the Moon. It immediately occurred to him that the lonely creature who held
himself aloof from all mankind in that pillar like some old hermit was the very
man of whom to ask his way. Cold, he might be; little sympathy he had, perhaps,
with human passion -- the column seemed too tall for that; but if Truth didn't
live in the base of the Monument, notwithstanding Pope's couplet about the
outside of it, where in London (thought Tom) was she likely to be found!
Coming close below the pillar, it was a great encouragement to Tom to find
that the Man in the Monument had simple tastes; that stony and artificial as his
residence was, he still preserved some rustic recollections; that he liked
plants, hung up bird-cages, was not wholly cut off from fresh groundsel, and
kept young trees in tubs. The Man in the Monument, himself, was sitting outside
the door -- his own door: the Monument-door: what a grand idea! -- and was
actually yawning, as if there were no Monument to stop his mouth, and give him a
perpetual interest in his own existence.
Tom was advancing towards this remarkable creature, to inquire the way to
Furnival's Inn, when two people came to see the Monument. They were a gentleman
and a lady; and the gentleman said, `How much a-piece?'
The Man in the Monument replied, `A Tanner.'
It seemed a low expression, compared with the Monument.
The gentleman put a shilling into his hand, and the Man in the Monument
opened a dark little door. When the gentleman and lady had passed out of view,
he shut it again, and came slowly back to his chair.
He sat down and laughed.
`They don't know what a many steps there is!' he said. `It's worth twice the
money to stop here. Oh, my eye!'
The Man in the Monument was a Cynic; a worldly man! Tom couldn't ask his way
of him. He was prepared to put no confidence in anything he said.
`My gracious!' cried a well-known voice behind Mr. Pinch. `Why, to be sure it
is!'
At the same time he was poked in the back by a parasol. Turning round to
inquire into this salute, he beheld the eldest daughter of his late patron.
`Miss Pecksniff!' said Tom.
`Why, my goodness, Mr. Pinch!' cried Cherry. `What are you doing here?'
`I have rather wandered from my way,' said Tom. `I--'
`I hope you have run away,' said Charity. `It would be quite spirited and
proper if you had, when my Papa so far forgets himself.'
`I have left him,' returned Tom. `But it was perfectly understood on both
sides. It was not done clandestinely.'
`Is he married?' asked Cherry, with a spasmodic shake of her chin.
`No, not yet,' said Tom, colouring: `to tell you the truth, I don't think he
is likely to be, if -- if Miss Graham is the object of his passion.'
`Tcha, Mr. Pinch!' cried Charity, with sharp impatience, `you're very easily
deceived. You don't know the arts of which such a creature is capable. Oh! it's
a wicked world.'
`You are not married?' Tom hinted, to divert the conversation.
`N--no!' said Cherry, tracing out one particular paving-stone in Monument
Yard with the end of her parasol. `I -- but really it's quite impossible to
explain. Won't you walk in?'
`You live here, then?' said Tom
`Yes,' returned Miss Pecksniff, pointing with her parasol to Todgers's: `I
reside with this lady, at present.'
The great stress on the two last words suggested to Tom that he was expected
to say something in reference to them. So he said.
`Only at present! Are you going home again soon?'
`No, Mr. Pinch,' returned Charity. `No, thank you. No! A mother-in-law who is
younger than -- I mean to say, who is as nearly as possible about the same age
as one's self, would not quite suit my spint. Not quite!' said Cherry, with a
spiteful shiver.
`I thought from your saying "at present"' -- Tom observed.
`Really, upon my word! I had no idea you would press me so very closely on
the subject, Mr. Pinch,' said Charity, blushing, `or I should not have been so
foolish as to allude to -- oh really! -- won't you walk in?'
Tom mentioned, to excuse himself, that he had an appointment in Furnival's
Inn, and that coming from Islington he had taken a few wrong turnings, and
arrived at the Monument instead. Miss Pecksniff simpered very much when he asked
her if she knew the way to Furnival's Inn, and at length found courage to reply.
`A gentleman who is a friend of mine, or at least who is not exactly a friend
so much as a sort of acquaintance -- oh upon my word, I hardly know what I say,
Mr. Pinch. you mustn't suppose there is any engagement between us; or at least
if there is, that it is at all a settled thing as yet -- is going to Furnival's
Inn immediately, I believe upon a little business, and I am sure he would be
very glad to accompany you, so as to prevent your going wrong again. You had
better walk in. You will very likely find my sister Merry here,' she said with a
curious toss of her head, and anything but an agreeable smile.
`Then, I think, I'll endeavour to find my way alone,' said Tom: `for I fear
she would not be very glad to see me. That unfortunate occurrence, in relation
to which you and I had some amicable words together, in private, is not likely
to have impressed her with any friendly feeling towards me. Though it really was
not my fault.'
`She has never heard of that, you may depend,' said Cherry, gathering up the
corners of her mouth, and nodding at Tom. `I am far from sure that she would
bear you any mighty ill will for it, if she had.'
`You don't say so?' cried Tom, who was really concerned by this insinuation.
`I say nothing,' said Charity. `If I had not already known what shocking
things treachery and deceit are in themselves, Mr. Pinch, I might perhaps have
learnt it from the success they meet with -- from the success they meet with.'
Here she smiled as before. `But I don't say anything. On the contrary, I should
scorn it. You had better walk in!'
There was something hidden here, which piqued Tom's interest and troubled his
tender heart. When, in a moment's irresolution, he looked at Charity, he could
not but observe a struggle in her face between a sense of triumph and a sense of
shame; nor could he but remark how, meeting even his eyes, which she cared so
little for, she turned away her own, for all the splenetic defiance in her
manner.
An uneasy thought entered Tom's head; a shadowy misgiving that the altered
relations between himself and Pecksniff were somehow to involve an altered
knowledge on his part of other people, and were to give him an insight into much
of which he had had no previous suspicion. And yet he put no definite
construction upon Charity's proceedings. He certainly had no idea that as he had
been the audience and spectator of her mortification, she grasped with eager
delight at any opportunity of reproaching her sister with his presence in her
far deeper misery; for he knew nothing of it, and only pictured that sister as
the same giddy, careless, trivial creature she always had been, with the same
slight estimation of himself which she had never been at the least pains to
conceal. In short, he had merely a confused impression that Miss Pecksniff was
not quite sisterly or kind; and being curious to set it right, accompanied her
as she desired.
The house-door being opened, she went in before Tom, requesting him to follow
her. and led the way to the parlour door.
`Oh, Merry!' she said, looking in, `I am so glad you have not gone home. Who
do you think I have met in the street, and brought to see you! Mr. Pinch! There.
Now you are surprised, I am sure!'
Not more surprised than Tom was, when he looked upon her. Not so much. Not
half so much.
`Mr. Pinch has left Papa, my dear,' said Cherry, `and his prospects are quite
flourishing. I have promised that Augustus, who is going that way, shall escort
him to the place he wants. Augustus, my child, where are you?'
With these words Miss Pecksniff screamed her way out of the parlour, calling
on Augustus Moddle to appear; and left Tom Pinch alone with her sister.
If she had always been his kindest friend; if she had treated him through all
his servitude with such consideration as was never yet received by struggling
man; if she had lightened every moment of those many years, and had ever spared
and never wounded him; his honest heart could not have swelled before her with a
deeper pity, or a purer freedom from all base remembrance, than it did then.
`My gracious me! You are really the last person in the world I should have
thought of seeing, I am sure!'
Tom was sorry to hear her speaking in her old manner. He had not expected
that. Yet he did not feel it a contradiction that he should be sorry to see her
so unlike her old self, and sorry at the same time to hear her speaking in her
old manner. The two things seemed quite natural.
`I wonder you find any gratification in coming to see me. I can't think what
put it in your head. I never had much in seeing you. There was no love lost
between us, Mr. Pinch, at any time, I think.'
Her bonnet lay beside her on the sofa, and she was very busy with the ribbons
as she spoke. Much too busy to be conscious of the work her fingers did.
`We never quarrelled,' said Tom. -- Tom was right in that, for one person can
no more quarrel without an adversary, than one person can play at chess, or
fight a duel. `I hoped you would be glad to shake hands with an old friend.
Don't let us rake up bygones,' said Tom. `If I ever offended you, forgive me.'
She looked at him for a moment; dropped her bonnet from her hands; spread
them before her altered face, and burst into tears.
`Oh, Mr. Pinch!' she said, `although I never used you well, I did believe
your nature was forgiving. I did not think you could be cruel.'
She spoke as little like her old self now, for certain, as Tom could possibly
have wished. But she seemed to be appealing to him reproachfully, and he did not
understand her.
`I seldom showed it -- never -- I know that. But I had that belief in you,
that if I had been asked to name the person in the world least likely to retort
upon me, I would have named you, confidently.'
`Would have named me!' Tom repeated.
`Yes,' she said with energy, `and I have often thought so.'
After a moment's reflection, Tom sat himself upon a chair beside her.
`Do you believe,' said Tom, `oh, can you think, that what I said just now, I
said with any but the true and plain intention which my words professed? I mean
it, in the spirit and the letter. If I ever offended you, forgive me; I may have
done so, many times. You never injured or offended me. How, then, could I
possibly retort, if even I were stern and bad enough to wish to do it!'
After a little while she thanked him, through her tears and sobs, and told
him she had never been at once so sorry and so comforted, since she left home.
Still she wept bitterly; and it was the greater pain to Tom to see her weeping,
from her standing in especial need, just then, of sympathy and tenderness.
`Come, come!' said Tom, `you used to be as cheerful as the day was long.'
`Ah! used!' she cried, in such a tone as rent Tom's heart.
`And will be again,' said Tom.
`No, never more. No, never, never more. If you should talk with old Mr.
Chuzzlewit, at any time,' she added, looking hurriedly into his face -- `I
sometimes thought he liked you, but suppressed it -- will you promise me to tell
him that you saw me here, and that I said I bore in mind the time we talked
together in the churchyard?'
Tom promised that he would.
`Many times since then, when I have wished I had been carried their before
that day, I have recalled his words. I wish that he should know how true they
were, although the least acknowledgment to that effect has never passed my lips
and never will.'
Tom promised this, conditionally too. He did not tell her how improbable it
was that he and the old man would ever meet again, because he thought it might
disturb her more.
`If he should ever know this, through your means, dear Mr. Pinch,' said
Mercy, `tell him that I sent the message, not for myself, but that he might be
more forbearing and more patient, and more trustful to some other person, in
some other time of need. Tell him that if he could know how my heart trembled in
the balance that day, and what a very little would have turned the scale, his
own would bleed with pity for me.'
`Yes, yes,' said Tom, `I will.'
`When I appeared to him the most unworthy of his help, I was -- I know I was,
for I have often, often, thought about it since -- the most inclined to yield to
what he showed me. Oh! if he had relented but a little more; if he had thrown
himself in my way for but one other quarter of an hour; if he had extended his
compassion for a vain, unthinking, miserable girl, in but the least degree; he
might, and I believe he would, have saved her! Tell him that I don't blame him,
but am grateful for the effort that he made; but ask him for the love of God,
and youth, and in merciful consideration for the struggle which an ill-advised
and unwakened nature makes to hide the strength it thinks its weakness -- ask
him never, never, to forget this, when he deals with one again!'
Although Tom did not hold the clue to her full meaning, he could guess it
pretty nearly. Touched to the quick, he took her hand and said, or meant to say,
some words of consolation. She felt and understood them, whether they were
spoken or no. He was not quite certain, afterwards, but that she had tried to
kneel down at his feet, and bless him.
He found that he was not alone in the room when she had left it. Mrs. Todgers
was there, shaking her head. Tom had never seen Mrs. Todgers, it is needless to
say, but he had a perception of her being the lady of the house; and he saw some
genuine compassion in her eyes, that won his good opinion.
`Ah, sir! You are an old friend, I see,' said Mrs. Todgers.
`Yes,' said Tom.
`And yet,' quoth Mrs. Todgers, shutting the door softly, `she hasn't told you
what her troubles are, I'm certain.'
Tom was struck by these words, for they were quite true. `Indeed,' he said,
`she has not.'
`And never would,' said Mrs. Todgers, `if you saw her daily. She never makes
the least complaint to me, or utters a single word of explanation or reproach.
But I know,' said Mrs. Todgers, drawing in her breath, `I know!'
Tom nodded sorrowfully, `so do I.'
`I fully believe,' said Mrs. Todgers, taking her pocket-handkerchief from the
flat reticule, `that nobody can tell one half of what that poor young creature
has to undergo. But though she comes here, constantly, to ease her poor full
heart without his knowing it. and saying, "Mrs. Todgers, I am very low to-day; I
think that I shall soon be dead," sits crying in my room until the fit is past;
I know no more from her. And, I believe,' said Mrs. Todgers, putting back her
handkerchief again, `that she considers me a good friend too.'
Mrs. Todgers might have said her best friend. Commercial gentlemen and gravy
had tried Mrs. Todgers's temper; the main chance -- it was such a very small one
in her case, that she might have been excused for looking sharp after it, lest
it should entirely vanish from her sight -- had taken a firm hold on Mrs.
Todgers's attention. But in some odd nook in Mrs. Todgers's breast, up a great
many steps, and in a corner easy to be overlooked, there was a secret door, with
`Woman' written on the spring, which, at a touch from Mercy's hand, had flown
wide open, and admitted her for shelter.
When boarding-house accounts are balanced with all other ledgers, and the
books of the Recording Angel are made up for ever, perhaps there may be seen an
entry to thy credit, lean Mrs. Todgers, which shall make thee beautiful!
She was growing beautiful so rapidly in Tom's eyes; for he saw that she was
poor, and that this good had sprung up in her from among the sordid strivings of
her life; that she might have been a very Venus in a minute more, if Miss
Pecksniff had not entered with her friend.
`Mr. Thomas Pinch!' said Charity, performing the ceremony of introduction
with evident pride. `Mr. Moddle. Where's my sister?'
`Gone, Miss Pecksniff,' Mrs. Todgers answered. `She had appointed to be
home.'
`Ah!' said Charity, looking at Tom. `Oh, dear me!'
`She's greatly altered since she's been Anoth -- since she's been married,
Mrs. Todgers!' observed Moddle.
`My dear Augustus!' said Miss Pecksniff, in a low voice. `I verily believe
you have said that fifty thousand times, in my hearing. What a Prose you are!'
This was succeeded by some trifling love passages, which appeared to
originate with, if not to be wholly carried on by Miss Pecksniff. At any rate,
Mr. Moddle was much slower in his responses than is customary with young lovers,
and exhibited a lowness of spirits which was quite oppressive.
He did not improve at all when Tom and he were in the streets, but sighed so
dismally that it was dreadful to hear him. As a means of cheering him up, Tom
told him that he wished him joy.
`Joy!' cried Moddle. `Ha, ha!'
`What an extraordinary young man!' thought Tom.
`The Scorner has not set his seal upon you. You care what becomes of you?'
said Moddle.
Tom admitted that it was a subject in which he certainly felt some interest.
`I don't,' said Mr. Moddle. `The Elements may have me when they please. I'm
ready.'
Tom inferred from these, and other expressions of the same nature, that he
was jealous. Therefore he allowed him to take his own course; which was such a
gloomy one, that he felt a load removed from his mind when they parted company
at the gate of Furnival's Inn.
It was now a couple of hours past John Westlock's dinner-time; and he was
walking up and down the room, quite anxious for Tom's safety. The table was
spread; the wine was carefully decanted; and the dinner smelt delicious.
`Why, Tom, old boy, where on earth have you been? Your box is here. Get your
boots off instantly, and sit down!'
`I am sorry to say I can't stay, John,' replied Tom Pinch, who was breathless
with the haste he had made in running up the stairs.
`Can't stay!'
`If you'll go on with your dinner,' said Tom, `I'll tell you my reason the
while. I mustn't eat myself, or I shall have no appetite for the chops.'
`There are no chops here, my food fellow.'
`No. But there are at Islington,' said Tom.
John Westlock was perfectly confounded by this reply, and vowed he would not
touch a morsel until Tom had explained himself fully. So Tom sat down, and told
him all; to which he listened with the greatest interest.
He knew Tom too well, and respected his delicacy too much, to ask him why he
had taken these measures without communicating with him first. He quite
concurred in the expediency of Tom's immediately returning to his sister, as he
knew so little of the place. in which he had left her, and good-humouredly
proposed to ride back with him in a cab, in which he might convey his box. Tom's
proposition that he should sup with them that night, he flatly rejected, but
made an appointment with him for the morrow. `And now Tom,' he said, as they
rode along, `I have a question to ask you to which I expect a manly and
straightforward answer. Do you want any money? I am pretty sure you do.'
`I don't indeed,' said Tom.
`I believe you are deceiving me.'
`No. With many thanks to you, I am quite in earnest,' Tom replied. `My sister
has some money, and so have I. If I had nothing else, John, I have a five-pound
note, which that good creature, Mrs. Lupin, of the Dragon, handed up to me
outside the coach, in a letter begging me to borrow it; and then drove off as
hard as she could go.'
`And a blessing on every dimple in her handsome face, say I!' cried John,
`though why you should give her the preference over me, I don't know. Never
mind. I bide my time, Tom.'
`And I hope you'll continue to bide it,' returned Tom, gaily. `For I owe you
more, already, in a hundred other ways, than I can ever hope to pay.'
They parted at the door of Tom's new residence. John Westlock, sitting in the
cab, and, catching a glimpse of a blooming little busy creature darting out to
kiss Tom and to help him with his box, would not have had the least objection to
change places with him.
Well! she was a cheerful little thing; and had a quaint, bright quietness
about her that was infinitely pleasant. Surely she was the best sauce for chops
ever invented. The potatoes seemed to take a pleasure in sending up their
grateful steam before her; the froth upon the pint of porter pouted to attract
her notice. But it was all in vain. She saw nothing but Tom. Tom was the first
and last thing in the world.
As she sat opposite to Tom at supper, fingering one of Tom's pet tunes upon
the table-cloth, and smiling in his face, he had never been so happy in his
life.
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