Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (ebooks children's books free TXT) 📕

thought of it?” my love; but you should ask me in the same breath, have I thought of starving at home; have I thought of doing porter’s work for a living; have I thought of holding horses in the streets to earn my roll of bread from day to day? Come, come,’ he added, in a gentler tone, ‘do not hang down your head, my dear, for I need the encouragement that your sweet face alone can give me. Why, that’s well! Now you are brave again.’

‘I am endeavouring to be,’ she answered, smiling through her tears.

‘Endeavouring to be anything that’s good, and being it, is, with you, all one. Don’t I know that of old?’ cried Martin, gayly. ‘So! That’s famous! Now I can tell you all my plans as cheerfully as if you were my little wife already, Mary.’

She hung more closely on his arm, and looking upwards in his face, bade him speak on.

‘You see,’ said Martin, playing with the little hand upon his wrist, ‘that my attempts to advance myself at home have been baffled and rendered abortive. I will not say by whom, Mary, for that would give pain to us both. But so it is. Have you heard him speak of late of any relative of mine or his, called Pecksniff? Only tell me what I ask you, no more.’

‘I have heard, to my surprise, that he is a better man than was supposed.’

‘I thought so,’ interrupted Martin.

‘And that it is likely we may come to know him, if not to visit and reside with him and—I think—his daughters. He HAS daughters, has he, love?’

‘A pair of them,’ Martin answered. ‘A precious pair! Gems of the first water!’

‘Ah! You are jesting!’

‘There is a sort of jesting which is very much in earnest, and includes some pretty serious disgust,’ said Martin. ‘I jest in reference to Mr Pecksniff (at whose house I have been living as his assistant, and at whose hands I have received insult and injury), in that vein. Whatever betides, or however closely you may be brought into communication with this family, never forget that, Mary; and never for an instant, whatever appearances may seem to contradict me, lose sight of this assurance—Pecksniff is a scoundrel.’

‘Indeed!’

‘In thought, and in deed, and in everything else. A scoundrel from the topmost hair of his head, to the nethermost atom of his heel. Of his daughters I will only say that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, they are dutiful young ladies, and take after their father closely. This is a digression from the main point, and yet it brings me to what I was going to say.’

He stopped to look into her eyes again, and seeing, in a hasty glance over his shoulder, that there was no one near, and that Mark was still intent upon the fog, not only looked at her lips, too, but kissed them into the bargain.

‘Now I am going to America, with great prospects of doing well, and of returning home myself very soon; it may be to take you there for a few years, but, at all events, to claim you for my wife; which, after such trials, I should do with no fear of your still thinking it a duty to cleave to him who will not suffer me to live (for this is true), if he can help it, in my own land. How long I may be absent is, of course, uncertain; but it shall not be very long. Trust me for that.’

‘In the meantime, dear Martin—’

‘That’s the very thing I am coming to. In the meantime you shall hear, constantly, of all my goings-on. Thus.’

He paused to take from his pocket the letter he had written overnight, and then resumed:

‘In this fellow’s employment, and living in this fellow’s house (by fellow, I mean Mr Pecksniff, of course), there is a certain person of the name of Pinch. Don’t forget; a poor, strange, simple oddity, Mary; but thoroughly honest and sincere; full of zeal; and with a cordial regard for me. Which I mean to return one of these days, by setting him up in life in some way or other.’

‘Your old kind nature, Martin!’

‘Oh!’ said Martin, ‘that’s not worth speaking of, my love. He’s very grateful and desirous to serve me; and I am more than repaid. Now one night I told this Pinch my history, and all about myself and you; in which he was not a little interested, I can tell you, for he knows you! Aye, you may look surprised—and the longer the better for it becomes you—but you have heard him play the organ in the church of that village before now; and he has seen you listening to his music; and has caught his inspiration from you, too!’

‘Was HE the organist?’ cried Mary. ‘I thank him from my heart!’

‘Yes, he was,’ said Martin, ‘and is, and gets nothing for it either. There never was such a simple fellow! Quite an infant! But a very good sort of creature, I assure you.’

‘I am sure of that,’ she said with great earnestness. ‘He must be!’

‘Oh, yes, no doubt at all about it,’ rejoined Martin, in his usual careless way. ‘He is. Well! It has occurred to me—but stay. If I read you what I have written and intend sending to him by post tonight it will explain itself. “My dear Tom Pinch.” That’s rather familiar perhaps,’ said Martin, suddenly remembering that he was proud when they had last met, ‘but I call him my dear Tom Pinch because he likes it, and it pleases him.’

‘Very right, and very kind,’ said Mary.

‘Exactly so!’ cried Martin. ‘It’s as well to be kind whenever one can; and, as I said before, he really is an excellent fellow. “My dear Tom Pinch—I address this under cover to Mrs Lupin, at the Blue Dragon, and have begged her in a short note to deliver it to you without saying anything about it elsewhere; and to do the same with all future letters she may receive from me. My reason for so doing will be at once apparent to you”—I don’t know that it will be, by the bye,’ said Martin, breaking off, ‘for he’s slow of comprehension, poor fellow; but he’ll find it out in time. My reason simply is, that I don’t want my letters to be read by other people; and particularly by the scoundrel whom he thinks an angel.’

‘Mr Pecksniff again?’ asked Mary.

‘The same,’ said Martin ‘—will be at once apparent to you. I have completed my arrangements for going to America; and you will be surprised to hear that I am to be accompanied by Mark Tapley, upon whom I have stumbled strangely in London, and who insists on putting himself under my protection’—meaning, my love,’ said Martin, breaking off again, ‘our friend in the rear, of course.’

She was delighted to hear this, and bestowed a kind glance upon Mark, which he brought his eyes down from the fog to encounter and received with immense satisfaction. She said in his hearing, too, that he was a good soul and a merry creature, and would be faithful, she was certain; commendations which Mr Tapley inwardly resolved to deserve, from such lips, if he died for it.

‘“Now, my dear Pinch,”’ resumed Martin, proceeding with his letter; ‘“I am going to repose great trust in you, knowing that I may do so with perfect reliance on your honour and secrecy, and having nobody else just now to trust in.”’

‘I don’t think I would say that, Martin.’

‘Wouldn’t you? Well! I’ll take that out. It’s perfectly true, though.’

‘But it might seem ungracious, perhaps.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind Pinch,’ said Martin. ‘There’s no occasion to stand on any ceremony with HIM. However, I’ll take it out, as you wish it, and make the full stop at “secrecy.” Very well! “I shall not only”—this is the letter again, you know.’

‘I understand.’

‘“I shall not only enclose my letters to the young lady of whom I have told you, to your charge, to be forwarded as she may request; but I most earnestly commit her, the young lady herself, to your care and regard, in the event of your meeting in my absence. I have reason to think that the probabilities of your encountering each other—perhaps very frequently—are now neither remote nor few; and although in our position you can do very little to lessen the uneasiness of hers, I trust to you implicitly to do that much, and so deserve the confidence I have reposed in you.” You see, my dear Mary,’ said Martin, ‘it will be a great consolation to you to have anybody, no matter how simple, with whom you can speak about ME; and the very first time you talk to Pinch, you’ll feel at once that there is no more occasion for any embarrassment or hesitation in talking to him, than if he were an old woman.’

‘However that may be,’ she returned, smiling, ‘he is your friend, and that is enough.’

‘Oh, yes, he’s my friend,’ said Martin, ‘certainly. In fact, I have told him in so many words that we’ll always take notice of him, and protect him; and it’s a good trait in his character that he’s grateful—very grateful indeed. You’ll like him of all things, my love, I know. You’ll observe very much that’s comical and old-fashioned about Pinch, but you needn’t mind laughing at him; for he’ll not care about it. He’ll rather like it indeed!’

‘I don’t think I shall put that to the test, Martin.’

‘You won’t if you can help it, of course,’ he said, ‘but I think you’ll find him a little too much for your gravity. However, that’s neither here nor there, and it certainly is not the letter; which ends thus: “Knowing that I need not impress the nature and extent of that confidence upon you at any greater length, as it is already sufficiently established in your mind, I will only say, in bidding you farewell and looking forward to our next meeting, that I shall charge myself from this time, through all changes for the better, with your advancement and happiness, as if they were my own. You may rely upon that. And always believe me, my dear Tom Pinch, faithfully your friend, Martin Chuzzlewit. P.S.—I enclose the amount which you so kindly”—Oh,’ said Martin, checking himself, and folding up the letter, ‘that’s nothing!’

At this crisis Mark Tapley interposed, with an apology for remarking that the clock at the Horse Guards was striking.

‘Which I shouldn’t have said nothing about, sir,’ added Mark, ‘if the young lady hadn’t begged me to be particular in mentioning it.’

‘I did,’ said Mary. ‘Thank you. You are quite right. In another minute I shall be ready to return. We have time for a very few words more, dear Martin, and although I had much to say, it must remain unsaid until the happy time of our next meeting. Heaven send it may come speedily and prosperously! But I have no fear of that.’

‘Fear!’ cried Martin. ‘Why, who has? What are a few months? What is a whole year? When I come gayly back, with a road through life hewn out before me, then indeed, looking back upon this parting, it may seem a dismal one. But now! I swear I wouldn’t have it happen under more favourable auspices, if I could; for then I should be less inclined to go, and less impressed with the necessity.’

‘Yes, yes. I feel that too. When do you go?’

‘Tonight. We leave for Liverpool tonight. A vessel sails from that port, as I hear, in three days. In a month, or less, we shall be there. Why, what’s a month!