Martin Chuzzlewit

CHAPTER NINE

Surely there never was, in any other borough, city, or hamlet in the world, such a singular sort of a place as Todgers’s. And surely London, to judge from that part of it which hemmed Todgers’s round and hustled it, and crushed it, and stuck its brick-and-mortar elbows into it, and kept the air from it, and stood perpetually between it and the light, was worthy of Todgers’s, and qualified to be on terms of close relationship and alliance with hundreds and thousands of the odd family to which Todgers’s belonged.

You couldn’t walk about Todgers’s neighbourhood, as you could in any other neighbourhood. You groped your way for an hour through lanes and byways, and court-yards, and passages; and you never once emerged upon anything that might be reasonably called a street. A kind of resigned distraction came over the stranger as he trod those devious mazes, and, giving himself up for lost, went in and out and round about and quietly turned back again when he came to a dead wall or was stopped by an iron railing, and felt that the means of escape might possibly present themselves in their own good time, but that to anticipate them was hopeless. Instances were known of people who, being asked to dine at Todgers’s, had travelled round and round for a weary time, with its very chimney-pots in view; and finding it, at last, impossible of attainment, had gone home again with a gentle melancholy on their spirits, tranquil and uncomplaining. Nobody had ever found Todgers’s on a verbal direction, though given within a few minutes’ walk of it. Cautious emigrants from Scotland or the North of England had been known to reach it safely, by impressing a charity-boy, town-bred, and bringing him along with them; or by clinging tenaciously to the postman; but these were rare exceptions, and only went to prove the rule that Todgers’s was in a labyrinth, whereof the mystery was known but to a chosen few.

Several fruit-brokers had their marts near Todgers’s; and one of the first impressions wrought upon the stranger’s senses was of oranges – of damaged oranges – with blue and green bruises on them, festering in boxes, or mouldering away in cellars. All day long, a stream of porters from the wharves beside the river, each bearing on his back a bursting chest of oranges, poured slowly through the narrow passages; while underneath the archway by the public-house, the knots of those who rested and regaled within, were piled from morning until night. Strange solitary pumps were found near Todgers’s hiding themselves for the most part in blind alleys, and keeping company with fire-ladders. There were churches also by dozens, with many a ghostly little churchyard, all overgrown with such straggling vegetation as springs up spontaneously from damp, and graves, and rubbish. In some of these dingy resting-places which bore much the same analogy to green churchyards, as the pots of earth for mignonette and wall-flower in the windows overlooking them did to rustic gardens, there were trees; tall trees; still putting forth their leaves in each succeeding year, with such a languishing remembrance of their kind (so one might fancy, looking on their sickly boughs) as birds in cages have of theirs. Here, paralysed old watchmen guarded the bodies of the dead at night, year after year, until at last they joined that solemn brotherhood; and, saving that they slept below the ground a sounder sleep than even they had ever known above it, and were shut up in another kind of box, their condition can hardly be said to have undergone any material change when they, in turn, were watched themselves.

Among the narrow thoroughfares at hand, there lingered, here and there, an ancient doorway of carved oak, from which, of old, the sounds of revelry and feasting often came; but now these mansions, only used for storehouses, were dark and dull, and, being filled with wool, and cotton, and the like – such heavy merchandise as stifles sound and stops the throat of echo – had an air of palpable deadness about them which, added to their silence and desertion, made them very grim. In like manner, there were gloomy courtyards in these parts, into which few but belated wayfarers ever strayed, and where vast bags and packs of goods, upward or downward bound, were for ever dangling between heaven and earth from lofty cranes There were more trucks near Todgers’s than you would suppose whole city could ever need; not active trucks, but a vagabond race, for ever lounging in the narrow lanes before their masters’ doors and stopping up the pass; so that when a stray hackney-coach or lumbering waggon came that way, they were the cause of such an uproar as enlivened the whole neighbourhood, and made the bells in the next churchtower vibrate again. In the throats and maws of dark no-thoroughfares near Todgers’s, individual wine-merchants and wholesale dealers in grocery-ware had perfect little towns of their own; and, deep among the foundations of these buildings, the ground was undermined and burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by rats, might be heard on a quiet Sunday rattling their halters, as disturbed spirits in tales of haunted houses are said to clank their chains.

To tell of half the queer old taverns that had a drowsy and secret existence near Todgers’s, would fill a goodly book; while a second volume no less capacious might be devoted to an account of the quaint old guests who frequented their dimly lighted parlours. These were, in general, ancient inhabitants of that region; born, and bred there from boyhood, who had long since become wheezy and asthmatical, and short of breath, except in the article of story-telling; in which respect they were still marvellously long-winded. These gentry were much opposed to steam and all new-fangled ways, and held ballooning to be sinful, and deplored the degeneracy of the times; which that particular member of each little club who kept the keys of the nearest church, professionally, always attributed to the prevalence of dissent and irreligion; though the major part of the company inclined to the belief that virtue went out with hair-powder, and that Old England’s greatness had decayed amain with barbers.

As to Todgers’s itself – speaking of it only as a house in that neighbourhood, and making no reference to its merits as a commercial boarding establishment – it was worthy to stand where it did. There was one staircase-window in it, at the side of the house, on the ground floor; which tradition said had not been opened for a hundred years at least, and which, abutting on an always dirty lane, was so begrimed and coated with a century’s mud, that no one pane of glass could possibly fall out, though all were cracked and broken twenty times. But the grand mystery of Todgers’s was the cellarage, approachable only by a little back door and a rusty grating; which cellarage within the memory of man had had no connection with the house, but had always been the freehold property of somebody else, and was reported to be full of wealth; though in what shape – whether in silver, brass, or gold, or butts of wine, or casks of gun-powder – was matter of profound uncertainty and supreme indifference to Todgers’s and all its inmates.

The top of the house was worthy of notice. There was a sort of terrace on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once intended to dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests out there, full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking-sticks. Whoever climbed to this observatory, was stunned at first from having knocked his head against the little door in coming out; and after that, was for the moment choked from having looked perforce, straight down the kitchen chimney; but these two stages over, there were things to gaze at from the top of Todgers’s, well worth your seeing too. For first and foremost, if the day were bright, you observed upon the house-tops, stretching far away, a long dark path; the shadow of the Monument; and turning round, the tall original was close beside you, with every hair erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him. Then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes, and masts of ships; a very forest. Gables, housetops, garret-windows, wilderness upon wilderness. Smoke and noise enough for all the world at once.

After the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of this crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as it were, and took hold of the attention whether the spectator would or no. Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then, and whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going on below. Others, of a crook-backed shape, appeared to be maliciously holding themselves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and baffle Todgers’s. The man who was mending a pen at an upper window over the way, became of paramount importance in the scene, and made a blank in it, ridiculously disproportionate in its extent, when he retired. The gambols of a piece of cloth upon the dyer’s pole had far more interest for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd. Yet even while the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was, the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken and expand a hundredfold, and after gazing round him, quite scared, he turned into Todgers’s again, much more rapidly than he came out; and ten to one he told M. Todgers afterwards that if he hadn’t done so, he would certainly have come into the street by the shortest cut; that is to say, head-foremost.

So said the two Miss Pecksniffs, when they retired with Mrs Todgers from this place of espial, leaving the youthful porter to close the door and follow them downstairs; who, being of a playful temperament, and contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of life, any chance of dashing himself into small fragments, lingered behind to walk upon the parapet.

It being the second day of their stay in London, the Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers were by this time highly confidential, insomuch that the last-named lady had already communicated the particulars of three early disappointments of a tender nature; and had furthermore possessed her young friends with a general summary of the life, conduct, and character of Mr Todgers. Who, it seemed, had cut his matrimonial career rather short, by unlawfully running away from his happiness, and establishing himself in foreign countries as a bachelor.

‘Your pa was once a little particular in his attentions, my dears,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘but to be your ma was too much happiness denied me. You’d hardly know who this was done for, perhaps?’

She called their attention to an oval miniature, like a little blister, which was tacked up over the kettle-holder, and in which there was a dreamy shadowing forth of her own visage.

‘It’s a speaking likeness!’ cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.

‘It was considered so once,’ said Mrs Todgers, warming herself in a gentlemanly manner at the fire; ‘but I hardly thought you would have known it, my loves.’

They would have known it anywhere. If they could have met with it in the street, or seen it in a shop window, they would have cried ‘Good gracious! Mrs Todgers!’

‘Presiding over an establishment like this, makes sad havoc with the features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘The gravy alone, is enough to add twenty years to one’s age, I do assure you.’

‘Lor’!’ cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.

‘The anxiety of that one item, my dears,’ said Mrs Todgers, ‘keeps the mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen. It’s nothing to say a joint won’t yield – a whole animal wouldn’t yield – the amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. And what I have undergone in consequence,’ cried Mrs Todgers, raising her eyes and shaking her head, ‘no one would believe!’

‘Just like Mr Pinch, Merry!’ said Charity. ‘We have always noticed it in him, you remember?’

‘Yes, my dear,’ giggled Merry, ‘but we have never given it him, you know.’

‘You, my dears, having to deal with your pa’s pupils who can’t help themselves, are able to take your own way,’ said Mrs Todgers; ‘but in a commercial establishment, where any gentleman may say any Saturday evening, “Mrs Todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the cheese,” it is not so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding. Your pa was kind enough,’ added the good lady, ‘to invite me to take a ride with you to-day; and I think he mentioned that you were going to call upon Miss Pinch. Any relation to the gentleman you were speaking of just now, Miss Pecksniff?’

‘For goodness sake, Mrs Todgers,’ interposed the lively Merry, ‘don’t call him a gentleman. My dear Cherry, Pinch a gentleman! The idea!’

‘What a wicked girl you are!’ cried Mrs Todgers, embracing her with great affection. ‘You are quite a quiz, I do declare! My dear Miss Pecksniff, what a happiness your sister’s spirits must be to your pa and self!’

‘He’s the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, Mrs Todgers, in existence,’ resumed Merry: ‘quite an ogre. The ugliest, awkwardest frightfullest being, you can imagine. This is his sister, so I leave you to suppose what she is. I shall be obliged to laugh outright, I know I shall!’ cried the charming girl, ‘I never shall be able to keep my countenance. The notion of a Miss Pinch presuming to exist at all is sufficient to kill one, but to see her – oh my stars!’

Mrs Todgers laughed immensely at the dear love’s humour, and declared she was quite afraid of her, that she was. She was so very severe.

‘Who is severe?’ cried a voice at the door. ‘There is no such thing as severity in our family, I hope!’ And then Mr Pecksniff peeped smilingly into the room, and said, ‘May I come in, Mrs Todgers?’

Mrs Todgers almost screamed, for the little door of communication between that room and the inner one being wide open, there was a full disclosure of the sofa bedstead in all its monstrous impropriety. But she had the presence of mind to close this portal in the twinkling of an eye; and having done so, said, though not without confusion, ‘Oh yes, Mr Pecksniff, you can come in, if you please.’

‘How are we to-day,’ said Mr Pecksniff, jocosely, ‘and what are our plans? Are we ready to go and see Tom Pinch’s sister? Ha, ha, ha! Poor Thomas Pinch!’

‘Are we ready,’ returned Mrs Todgers, nodding her head with mysterious intelligence, ‘to send a favourable reply to Mr Jinkins’s round-robin? That’s the first question, Mr Pecksniff.’

‘Why Mr Jinkins’s robin, my dear madam?’ asked Mr Pecksniff, putting one arm round Mercy, and the other round Mrs Todgers, whom he seemed, in the abstraction of the moment, to mistake for Charity. ‘Why Mr Jinkins’s?’

‘Because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in the house,’ said Mrs Todgers, playfully. ‘That’s why, sir.’

‘Jinkins is a man of superior talents,’ observed Mr Pecksniff. ‘I have conceived a great regard for Jinkins. I take Jinkins’s desire to pay polite attention to my daughters, as an additional proof of the friendly feeling of Jinkins, Mrs Todgers.’

‘Well now,’ returned that lady, ‘having said so much, you must say the rest, Mr Pecksniff; so tell the dear young ladies all about it.’

With these words she gently eluded Mr Pecksniff’s grasp, and took Miss Charity into her own embrace; though whether she was impelled to this proceeding solely by the irrepressible affection she had conceived for that young lady, or whether it had any reference to a lowering, not to say distinctly spiteful expression which had been visible in her face for some moments, has never been exactly ascertained. Be this as it may, Mr Pecksniff went on to inform his daughters of the purport and history of the round-robin aforesaid, which was in brief, that the commercial gentlemen who helped to make up the sum and substance of that noun of multitude signifying many, called Todgers’s, desired the honour of their presence at the general table, so long as they remained in the house, and besought that they would grace the board at dinner-time next day, the same being Sunday. He further said, that Mrs Todgers being a consenting party to this invitation, he was willing, for his part, to accept it; and so left them that he might write his gracious answer, the while they armed themselves with their best bonnets for the utter defeat and overthrow of Miss Pinch.

Tom Pinch’s sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founders’ family known to mankind. They lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce, that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant’s castle, struck terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate; with a great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a great lodge; which being close to the house, rather spoilt the look-out certainly but made the look-in tremendous. At this entry, a great porter kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high leave to pass, he rang a second great bell, responsive to whose note a great footman appeared in due time at the great halldoor, with such great tags upon his liveried shoulder that he was perpetually entangling and hooking himself among the chairs and tables, and led a life of torment which could scarcely have been surpassed, if he had been a blue-bottle in a world of cobwebs.

To this mansion Mr Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies having been all performed, they were ushered into the house; and so, by degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr Pinch’s sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil; to wit, a premature little woman of thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her, which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends.

‘Visitors for Miss Pinch!’ said the footman. He must have been an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice discrimination between the cold respect with which he would have announced visitors to the family, and the warm personal interest with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.

‘Visitors for Miss Pinch!’

Miss Pinch rose hastily; with such tokens of agitation as plainly declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time, the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take mental notes of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties concerned, very laudable, improving, and pleasant.

It is a melancholy fact; but it must be related, that Mr Pinch’s sister was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face; a very mild and prepossessing face; and a pretty little figure – slight and short, but remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid trustfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else, predicted by the two Miss Pecksniffs, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to see.

Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gaiety, bore up the best against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain, expressed it pretty openly in her looks. As to Mrs Todgers, she leaned on Mr Pecksniff’s arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness, suitable to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion.

‘Don’t be alarmed, Miss Pinch,’ said Mr Pecksniff, taking her hand condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. ‘I have called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother, Thomas Pinch. My name – compose yourself, Miss Pinch – is Pecksniff.’

The good man emphasised these words as though he would have said, ‘You see in me, young person, the benefactor of your race; the patron of your house; the preserver of your brother, who is fed with manna daily from my table; and in right of whom there is a considerable balance in my favour at present standing in the books beyond the sky. But I have no pride, for I can afford to do without it!’

The poor girl felt it all as if it had been Gospel truth. Her brother writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told her so, and how much more! As Mr Pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung her head, and dropped a tear upon his hand.

‘Oh very well, Miss Pinch!’ thought the sharp pupil, ‘crying before strangers, as if you didn’t like the situation!’

‘Thomas is well,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘and sends his love and this letter. I cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever be distinguished in our profession; but he has the will to do well, which is the next thing to having the power; and, therefore, we must bear with him. Eh?’

‘I know he has the will, sir,’ said Tom Pinch’s sister, ‘and I know how kindly and considerately you cherish it, for which neither he nor I can ever be grateful enough, as we very often say in writing to each other. The young ladies too,’ she added, glancing gratefully at his two daughters, ‘I know how much we owe to them.’