Charles Dickens - Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

He often informed Mrs Todgers that the sun had set upon him; that the billows had rolled over him; that the car of Juggernaut had crushed him, and also that the deadly Upas tree of Java had blighted him. His name was Moddle.

Towards this most unhappy Moddle, Miss Pecksniff conducted herself at first with distant haughtiness, being in no humour to be entertained with dirges in honour of her married sister. The poor young gentleman was additionally crushed by this, and remonstrated with Mrs Todgers on the subject.

“Even she turns from me, Mrs Todgers,” said Moddle.

“Then why don't you try and be a little bit more cheerful, sir?” retorted Mrs Todgers.

“Cheerful, Mrs Todgers! cheerful!” cried the youngest gentleman; “when she reminds me of days for ever fled, Mrs Todgers!”

“Then you had better avoid her for a short time, if she does,” said Mrs Todgers, “and come to know her again, by degrees. That's my advice.”

“But I can't avoid her,” replied Moddle, “I haven't strength of mind to do it. Oh, Mrs Todgers, if you knew what a comfort her nose is to me!”

“Her nose, sir!” Mrs Todgers cried.

“Her profile, in general,” said the youngest gentleman, “but particularly her nose. It's so like;” here he yielded to a burst of grief. “it's so like hers who is Another's, Mrs Todgers!”

The observant matron did not fail to report this conversation to Charity, who laughed at the time, but treated Mr Moddle that very evening with increased consideration, and presented her side face to him as much as possible. Mr Moddle was not less sentimental than usual; was rather more so, if anything; but he sat and stared at her with glistening eyes, and seemed grateful.

“Well, sir!” said the lady of the Boarding-House next day. “You held up your head last night. You're coming round, I think.”

“Only because she's so like her who is Another's, Mrs Todgers,” rejoined the youth. “When she talks, and when she smiles, I think I'm looking on HER brow again, Mrs Todgers.”

This was likewise carried to Charity, who talked and smiled next evening in her most engaging manner, and rallying Mr Moddle on the lowness of his spirits, challenged him to play a rubber at cribbage. Mr Moddle taking up the gauntlet, they played several rubbers for sixpences, and Charity won them all. This may have been partially attributable to the gallantry of the youngest gentleman, but it was certainly referable to the state of his feelings also; for his eyes being frequently dimmed by tears, he thought that aces were tens, and knaves queens, which at times occasioned some confusion in his play.

On the seventh night of cribbage, when Mrs Todgers, sitting by, proposed that instead of gambling they should play for “love,” Mr Moddle was seen to change colour. On the fourteenth night, he kissed Miss Pecksniff's snuffers, in the passage, when she went upstairs to bed; meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it.

In short, Mr Moddle began to be impressed with the idea that Miss Pecksniff's mission was to comfort him; and Miss Pecksniff began to speculate on the probability of its being her mission to become ultimately Mrs Moddle. He was a young gentleman (Miss Pecksniff was not a very young lady) with rising prospects, and “almost” enough to live on. Really it looked very well.

Besides—besides—he had been regarded as devoted to Merry. Merry had joked about him, and had once spoken of it to her sister as a conquest. He was better looking, better shaped, better spoken, better tempered, better mannered than Jonas. He was easy to manage, could be made to consult the humours of his Betrothed, and could be shown off like a lamb when Jonas was a bear. There was the rub!

In the meantime the cribbage went on, and Mrs Todgers went off; for the youngest gentleman, dropping her society, began to take Miss Pecksniff to the play. He also began, as Mrs Todgers said, to slip home “in his dinner-times,” and to get away from “the office” at unholy seasons; and twice, as he informed Mrs Todgers himself, he received anonymous letters, enclosing cards from Furniture Warehouses—clearly the act of that ungentlemanly ruffian Jinkins; only he hadn't evidence enough to call him out upon. All of which, so Mrs Todgers told Miss Pecksniff, spoke as plain English as the shining sun.

“My dear Miss Pecksniff, you may depend upon it,” said Mrs Todgers, “that he is burning to propose.”

“My goodness me, why don't he then?” cried Cherry.

“Men are so much more timid than we think “em, my dear,” returned Mrs Todgers. “They baulk themselves continually. I saw the words on Todgers's lips for months and months and months, before he said “em.”

Miss Pecksniff submitted that Todgers might not have been a fair specimen.

“Oh yes, he was. Oh bless you, yes, my dear. I was very particular in those days, I assure you,” said Mrs Todgers, bridling. “No, no. You give Mr Moddle a little encouragement, Miss Pecksniff, if you wish him to speak; and he'll speak fast enough, depend upon it.”

“I am sure I don't know what encouragement he would have, Mrs Todgers,” returned Charity. “He walks with me, and plays cards with me, and he comes and sits alone with me.”

“Quite right,” said Mrs Todgers. “That's indispensable, my dear.”

“And he sits very close to me.”

“Also quite correct,” said Mrs Todgers.

“And he looks at me.”

“To be sure he does,” said Mrs Todgers.

“And he has his arm upon the back of the chair or sofa, or whatever it is—behind me, you know.”

“I should think so,” said Mrs Todgers.

“And then he begins to cry!”

Mrs Todgers admitted that he might do better than that; and might undoubtedly profit by the recollection of the great Lord Nelson's signal at the battle of Trafalgar. Still, she said, he would come round, or, not to mince the matter, would be brought round, if Miss Pecksniff took up a decided position, and plainly showed him that it must be done.

Determining to regulate her conduct by this opinion, the young lady received Mr Moddle, on the earliest subsequent occasion, with an air of constraint; and gradually leading him to inquire, in a dejected manner, why she was so changed, confessed to him that she felt it necessary for their mutual peace and happiness to take a decided step. They had been much together lately, she observed, much together, and had tasted the sweets of a genuine reciprocity of sentiment. She never could forget him, nor could she ever cease to think of him with feelings of the liveliest friendship, but people had begun to talk, the thing had been observed, and it was necessary that they should be nothing more to each other, than any gentleman and lady in society usually are. She was glad she had had the resolution to say thus much before her feelings had been tried too far; they had been greatly tried, she would admit; but though she was weak and silly, she would soon get the better of it, she hoped.

Moddle, who had by this time become in the last degree maudlin, and wept abundantly, inferred from the foregoing avowal, that it was his mission to communicate to others the blight which had fallen on himself; and that, being a kind of unintentional Vampire, he had had Miss Pecksniff assigned to him by the Fates, as Victim Number One. Miss Pecksniff controverting this opinion as sinful, Moddle was goaded on to ask whether she could be contented with a blighted heart; and it appearing on further examination that she could be, plighted his dismal troth, which was accepted and returned.

He bore his good fortune with the utmost moderation. Instead of being triumphant, he shed more tears than he had ever been known to shed before; and, sobbing, said:

“Oh! what a day this has been! I can't go back to the office this afternoon. Oh, what a trying day this has been! Good Gracious!”