Martin Chuzzlewit

CHAPTER FOUR

FROM WHICH IT WILL APPEAR THAT IF UNION BE STRENGTH, AND FAMILY AFFECTION BE PLEASANT TO CONTEMPLATE, THE CHUZZLEWITS WERE THE STRONGEST AND MOST AGREEABLE FAMILY IN THE WORLD

That worthy man Mr Pecksniff having taken leave of his cousin in the solemn terms recited in the last chapter, withdrew to his own home, and remained there three whole days; not so much as going out for a walk beyond the boundaries of his own garden, lest he should be hastily summoned to the bedside of his penitent and remorseful relative, whom, in his ample benevolence, he had made up his mind to forgive unconditionally, and to love on any terms. But such was the obstinacy and such the bitter nature of that stern old man, that no repentant summons came; and the fourth day found Mr Pecksniff apparently much farther from his Christian object than the first.

During the whole of this interval, he haunted the Dragon at all times and seasons in the day and night, and, returning good for evil evinced the deepest solicitude in the progress of the obdurate invalid, in so much that Mrs Lupin was fairly melted by his disinterested anxiety (for he often particularly required her to take notice that he would do the same by any stranger or pauper in the like condition), and shed many tears of admiration and delight.

Meantime, old Martin Chuzzlewit remained shut up in his own chamber, and saw no person but his young companion, saving the hostess of the Blue Dragon, who was, at certain times, admitted to his presence. So surely as she came into the room, however, Martin feigned to fall asleep. It was only when he and the young lady were alone, that he would utter a word, even in answer to the simplest inquiry; though Mr Pecksniff could make out, by hard listening at the door, that they two being left together, he was talkative enough.

It happened on the fourth evening, that Mr Pecksniff walking, as usual, into the bar of the Dragon and finding no Mrs Lupin there, went straight upstairs; purposing, in the fervour of his affectionate zeal, to apply his ear once more to the keyhole, and quiet his mind by assuring himself that the hard-hearted patient was going on well. It happened that Mr Pecksniff, coming softly upon the dark passage into which a spiral ray of light usually darted through the same keyhole, was astonished to find no such ray visible; and it happened that Mr Pecksniff, when he had felt his way to the chamber-door, stooping hurriedly down to ascertain by personal inspection whether the jealousy of the old man had caused this keyhole to be stopped on the inside, brought his head into such violent contact with another head that he could not help uttering in an audible voice the monosyllable ‘Oh!’ which was, as it were, sharply unscrewed and jerked out of him by very anguish. It happened then, and lastly, that Mr Pecksniff found himself immediately collared by something which smelt like several damp umbrellas, a barrel of beer, a cask of warm brandy-and-water, and a small parlour-full of stale tobacco smoke, mixed; and was straightway led downstairs into the bar from which he had lately come, where he found himself standing opposite to, and in the grasp of, a perfectly strange gentleman of still stranger appearance who, with his disengaged hand, rubbed his own head very hard, and looked at him, Pecksniff, with an evil countenance.

The gentleman was of that order of appearance which is currently termed shabby-genteel, though in respect of his dress he can hardly be said to have been in any extremities, as his fingers were a long way out of his gloves, and the soles of his feet were at an inconvenient distance from the upper leather of his boots. His nether garments were of a bluish grey – violent in its colours once, but sobered now by age and dinginess – and were so stretched and strained in a tough conflict between his braces and his straps, that they appeared every moment in danger of flying asunder at the knees. His coat, in colour blue and of a military cut, was buttoned and frogged up to his chin. His cravat was, in hue and pattern, like one of those mantles which hairdressers are accustomed to wrap about their clients, during the progress of the professional mysteries. His hat had arrived at such a pass that it would have been hard to determine whether it was originally white or black. But he wore a moustache – a shaggy moustache too; nothing in the meek and merciful way, but quite in the fierce and scornful style; the regular Satanic sort of thing – and he wore, besides, a vast quantity of unbrushed hair. He was very dirty and very jaunty; very bold and very mean; very swaggering and very slinking; very much like a man who might have been something better, and unspeakably like a man who deserved to be something worse.

‘You were eaves-dropping at that door, you vagabond!’ said this gentleman.

Mr Pecksniff cast him off, as Saint George might have repudiated the Dragon in that animal’s last moments, and said:

‘Where is Mrs Lupin, I wonder! can the good woman possibly be aware that there is a person here who – ’

‘Stay!’ said the gentleman. ‘Wait a bit. She does know. What then?’

‘What then, sir?’ cried Mr Pecksniff. ‘What then? Do you know, sir, that I am the friend and relative of that sick gentleman? That I am his protector, his guardian, his – ’

‘Not his niece’s husband,’ interposed the stranger, ‘I’ll be sworn; for he was there before you.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Mr Pecksniff, with indignant surprise. ‘What do you tell me, sir?’

‘Wait a bit!’ cried the other, ‘Perhaps you are a cousin – the cousin who lives in this place?’

‘I am the cousin who lives in this place,’ replied the man of worth.

‘Your name is Pecksniff?’ said the gentleman.

‘It is.’

‘I am proud to know you, and I ask your pardon,’ said the gentleman, touching his hat, and subsequently diving behind his cravat for a shirt-collar, which however he did not succeed in bringing to the surface. ‘You behold in me, sir, one who has also an interest in that gentleman upstairs. Wait a bit.’

As he said this, he touched the tip of his high nose, by way of intimation that he would let Mr Pecksniff into a secret presently; and pulling off his hat, began to search inside the crown among a mass of crumpled documents and small pieces of what may be called the bark of broken cigars; whence he presently selected the cover of an old letter, begrimed with dirt and redolent of tobacco.

‘Read that,’ he cried, giving it to Mr Pecksniff.

‘This is addressed to Chevy Slyme, Esquire,’ said that gentleman.

‘You know Chevy Slyme, Esquire, I believe?’ returned the stranger.

Mr Pecksniff shrugged his shoulders as though he would say ‘I know there is such a person, and I am sorry for it.’

‘Very good,’ remarked the gentleman. ‘That is my interest and business here.’ With that he made another dive for his shirt-collar and brought up a string.

‘Now, this is very distressing, my friend,’ said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his head and smiling composedly. ‘It is very distressing to me, to be compelled to say that you are not the person you claim to be. I know Mr Slyme, my friend; this will not do; honesty is the best policy you had better not; you had indeed.’

‘Stop’ cried the gentleman, stretching forth his right arm, which was so tightly wedged into his threadbare sleeve that it looked like a cloth sausage. ‘Wait a bit!’

He paused to establish himself immediately in front of the fire with his back towards it. Then gathering the skirts of his coat under his left arm, and smoothing his moustache with his right thumb and forefinger, he resumed:

‘I understand your mistake, and I am not offended. Why? Because it’s complimentary. You suppose I would set myself up for Chevy Slyme. Sir, if there is a man on earth whom a gentleman would feel proud and honoured to be mistaken for, that man is my friend Slyme. For he is, without an exception, the highest-minded, the most independent-spirited, most original, spiritual, classical, talented, the most thoroughly Shakspearian, if not Miltonic, and at the same time the most disgustingly-unappreciated dog I know. But, sir, I have not the vanity to attempt to pass for Slyme. Any other man in the wide world, I am equal to; but Slyme is, I frankly confess, a great many cuts above me. Therefore you are wrong.’

‘I judged from this,’ said Mr Pecksniff, holding out the cover of the letter.

‘No doubt you did,’ returned the gentleman. ‘But, Mr Pecksniff, the whole thing resolves itself into an instance of the peculiarities of genius. Every man of true genius has his peculiarity. Sir, the peculiarity of my friend Slyme is, that he is always waiting round the corner. He is perpetually round the corner, sir. He is round the corner at this instant. Now,’ said the gentleman, shaking his forefinger before his nose, and planting his legs wider apart as he looked attentively in Mr Pecksniff’s face, ‘that is a remarkably curious and interesting trait in Mr Slyme’s character; and whenever Slyme’s life comes to be written, that trait must be thoroughly worked out by his biographer or society will not be satisfied. Observe me, society will not be satisfied!’

Mr Pecksniff coughed.

‘Slyme’s biographer, sir, whoever he may be,’ resumed the gentleman, ‘must apply to me; or, if I am gone to that what’s-his-name from which no thingumbob comes back, he must apply to my executors for leave to search among my papers. I have taken a few notes in my poor way, of some of that man’s proceedings – my adopted brother, sir, – which would amaze you. He made use of an expression, sir, only on the fifteenth of last month when he couldn’t meet a little bill and the other party wouldn’t renew, which would have done honour to Napoleon Bonaparte in addressing the French army.’

‘And pray,’ asked Mr Pecksniff, obviously not quite at his ease, ‘what may be Mr Slyme’s business here, if I may be permitted to inquire, who am compelled by a regard for my own character to disavow all interest in his proceedings?’

‘In the first place,’ returned the gentleman, ‘you will permit me to say, that I object to that remark, and that I strongly and indignantly protest against it on behalf of my friend Slyme. In the next place, you will give me leave to introduce myself. My name, sir, is Tigg. The name of Montague Tigg will perhaps be familiar to you, in connection with the most remarkable events of the Peninsular War?’

Mr Pecksniff gently shook his head.

‘No matter,’ said the gentleman. ‘That man was my father, and I bear his name. I am consequently proud – proud as Lucifer. Excuse me one moment. I desire my friend Slyme to be present at the remainder of this conference.’

With this announcement he hurried away to the outer door of the Blue Dragon, and almost immediately returned with a companion shorter than himself, who was wrapped in an old blue camlet cloak with a lining of faded scarlet. His sharp features being much pinched and nipped by long waiting in the cold, and his straggling red whiskers and frowzy hair being more than usually dishevelled from the same cause, he certainly looked rather unwholesome and uncomfortable than Shakspearian or Miltonic.

‘Now,’ said Mr Tigg, clapping one hand on the shoulder of his prepossessing friend, and calling Mr Pecksniff’s attention to him with the other, ‘you two are related; and relations never did agree, and never will; which is a wise dispensation and an inevitable thing, or there would be none but family parties, and everybody in the world would bore everybody else to death. If you were on good terms, I should consider you a most confoundedly unnatural pair; but standing towards each other as you do, I took upon you as a couple of devilish deep-thoughted fellows, who may be reasoned with to any extent.’

Here Mr Chevy Slyme, whose great abilities seemed one and all to point towards the sneaking quarter of the moral compass, nudged his friend stealthily with his elbow, and whispered in his ear.

‘Chiv,’ said Mr Tigg aloud, in the high tone of one who was not to be tampered with. ‘I shall come to that presently. I act upon my own responsibility, or not at all. To the extent of such a trifling loan as a crownpiece to a man of your talents, I look upon Mr Pecksniff as certain;’ and seeing at this juncture that the expression of Mr Pecksniff’s face by no means betokened that he shared this certainty, Mr Tigg laid his finger on his nose again for that gentleman’s private and especial behoof; calling upon him thereby to take notice that the requisition of small loans was another instance of the peculiarities of genius as developed in his friend Slyme; that he, Tigg, winked at the same, because of the strong metaphysical interest which these weaknesses possessed; and that in reference to his own personal advocacy of such small advances, he merely consulted the humour of his friend, without the least regard to his own advantage or necessities.

‘Oh, Chiv, Chiv!’ added Mr Tigg, surveying his adopted brother with an air of profound contemplation after dismissing this piece of pantomime. ‘You are, upon my life, a strange instance of the little frailties that beset a mighty mind. If there had never been a telescope in the world, I should have been quite certain from my observation of you, Chiv, that there were spots on the sun! I wish I may die, if this isn’t the queerest state of existence that we find ourselves forced into without knowing why or wherefore, Mr Pecksniff! Well, never mind! Moralise as we will, the world goes on. As Hamlet says, Hercules may lay about him with his club in every possible direction, but he can’t prevent the cats from making a most intolerable row on the roofs of the houses, or the dogs from being shot in the hot weather if they run about the streets unmuzzled. Life’s a riddle; a most infernally hard riddle to guess, Mr Pecksniff. My own opinions, that like that celebrated conundrum, “Why’s a man in jail like a man out of jail?” there’s no answer to it. Upon my soul and body, it’s the queerest sort of thing altogether – but there’s no use in talking about it. Ha! Ha!’

With which consolatory deduction from the gloomy premises recited, Mr Tigg roused himself by a great effort, and proceeded in his former strain.

‘Now I’ll tell you what it is. I’m a most confoundedly soft-hearted kind of fellow in my way, and I cannot stand by, and see you two blades cutting each other’s throats when there’s nothing to be got by it. Mr Pecksniff, you’re the cousin of the testator upstairs and we’re the nephew – I say we, meaning Chiv. Perhaps in all essential points you are more nearly related to him than we are. Very good. If so, so be it. But you can’t get at him, neither can we. I give you my brightest word of honour, sir, that I’ve been looking through that keyhole with short intervals of rest, ever since nine o’clock this morning, in expectation of receiving an answer to one of the most moderate and gentlemanly applications for a little temporary assistance – only fifteen pounds, and my security – that the mind of man can conceive. In the meantime, sir, he is perpetually closeted with, and pouring his whole confidence into the bosom of, a stranger. Now I say decisively with regard to this state of circumstances, that it won’t do; that it won’t act; that it can’t be; and that it must not be suffered to continue.’

‘Every man,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘has a right, an undoubted right, (which I, for one, would not call in question for any earthly consideration; oh no!) to regulate his own proceedings by his own likings and dislikings, supposing they are not immoral and not irreligious. I may feel in my own breast, that Mr Chuzzlewit does not regard – me, for instance; say me – with exactly that amount of Christian love which should subsist between us. I may feel grieved and hurt at the circumstance; still I may not rush to the conclusion that Mr Chuzzlewit is wholly without a justification in all his coldnesses. Heaven forbid! Besides; how, Mr Tigg,’ continued Pecksniff even more gravely and impressively than he had spoken yet, ‘how could Mr Chuzzlewit be prevented from having these peculiar and most extraordinary confidences of which you speak; the existence of which I must admit; and which I cannot but deplore – for his sake? Consider, my good sir – ’ and here Mr Pecksniff eyed him wistfully – ‘how very much at random you are talking.’

‘Why, as to that,’ rejoined Tigg, ‘it certainly is a difficult question.’

‘Undoubtedly it is a difficult question,’ Mr Pecksniff answered. As he spoke he drew himself aloft, and seemed to grow more mindful, suddenly, of the moral gulf between himself and the creature he addressed. ‘Undoubtedly it is a very difficult question. And I am far from feeling sure that it is a question any one is authorized to discuss. Good evening to you.’

‘You don’t know that the Spottletoes are here, I suppose?’ said Mr Tigg.

‘What do you mean, sir? what Spottletoes?’ asked Pecksniff, stopping abruptly on his way to the door.

‘Mr and Mrs Spottletoe,’ said Chevy Slyme, Esquire, speaking aloud for the first time, and speaking very sulkily; shambling with his legs the while. ‘Spottletoe married my father’s brother’s child, didn’t he? And Mrs Spottletoe is Chuzzlewit’s own niece, isn’t she? She was his favourite once. You may well ask what Spottletoes.’

‘Now upon my sacred word!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, looking upwards. ‘This is dreadful. The rapacity of these people is absolutely frightful!’

‘It’s not only the Spottletoes either, Tigg,’ said Slyme, looking at that gentleman and speaking at Mr Pecksniff. ‘Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son have got wind of it, and have come down this afternoon. I saw ‘em not five minutes ago, when I was waiting round the corner.’

‘Oh, Mammon, Mammon!’ cried Mr Pecksniff, smiting his forehead.

‘So there,’ said Slyme, regardless of the interruption, ‘are his brother and another nephew for you, already.’

‘This is the whole thing, sir,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘this is the point and purpose at which I was gradually arriving when my friend Slyme here, with six words, hit it full. Mr Pecksniff, now that your cousin (and Chiv’s uncle) has turned up, some steps must be taken to prevent his disappearing again; and, if possible, to counteract the influence which is exercised over him now, by this designing favourite. Everybody who is interested feels it, sir. The whole family is pouring down to this place. The time has come when individual jealousies and interests must be forgotten for a time, sir, and union must be made against the common enemy. When the common enemy is routed, you will all set up for yourselves again; every lady and gentleman who has a part in the game, will go in on their own account and bowl away, to the best of their ability, at the testator’s wicket, and nobody will be in a worse position than before. Think of it. Don’t commit yourself now. You’ll find us at the Half Moon and Seven Stars in this village, at any time, and open to any reasonable proposition. Hem! Chiv, my dear fellow, go out and see what sort of a night it is.’