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 doorchink, 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
pine-apples 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 Ankw-orks 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, in 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 lampiling, 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 Ingeins 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 stagecoaching 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 and
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 baldness, 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 bee-hive--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 bee-hive, the bee-hive. 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 bee-hive 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 indepency, 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 workout 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.
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