Charles Dickens - Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

Before they could enter at the door, Mrs Lupin came running out; and beckoning them to the carriage showed them a portmanteau with the name of CHUZZLEWIT upon it.

“Miss Pecksniff's husband that was,” said the good woman to Martin. “I didn't know what terms you might be on, and was quite in a worry till you came back.”

“He and I have never interchanged a word yet,” observed Martin; “and as I have no wish to be better or worse acquainted with him, I will not put myself in his way. We passed him on the road, I have no doubt. I am glad he timed his coming as he did. Upon my word! Miss Pecksniff's husband travels gayly!”

“A very fine-looking gentleman with him—in the best room now,” whispered Mrs Lupin, glancing up at the window as they went into the house. “He has ordered everything that can be got for dinner; and has the glossiest moustaches and whiskers ever you saw.”

“Has he?” cried Martin, “why then we'll endeavour to avoid him too, in the hope that our self-denial may be strong enough for the sacrifice. It is only for a few hours,” said Martin, dropping wearily into a chair behind the little screen in the bar. “Our visit has met with no success, my dear Mrs Lupin, and I must go to London.”

“Dear, dear!” cried the hostess.

“Yes, one foul wind no more makes a winter, than one swallow makes a summer. I'll try it again. Tom Pinch has succeeded. With his advice to guide me, I may do the same. I took Tom under my protection once, God save the mark!” said Martin, with a melancholy smile; “and promised I would make his fortune. Perhaps Tom will take me under HIS protection now, and teach me how to earn my bread.”

It was a special quality, among the many admirable qualities possessed by Mr Pecksniff, that the more he was found out, the more hypocrisy he practised. Let him be discomfited in one quarter, and he refreshed and recompensed himself by carrying the war into another. If his workings and windings were detected by A, so much the greater reason was there for practicing without loss of time on B, if it were only to keep his hand in. He had never been such a saintly and improving spectacle to all about him, as after his detection by Thomas Pinch. He had scarcely ever been at once so tender in his humanity, and so dignified and exalted in his virtue, as when young Martin's scorn was fresh and hot upon him.

Having this large stock of superfluous sentiment and morality on hand which must positively be cleared off at any sacrifice, Mr Pecksniff no sooner heard his son-in-law announced, than he regarded him as a kind of wholesale or general order, to be immediately executed. Descending, therefore, swiftly to the parlour, and clasping the young man in his arms, he exclaimed, with looks and gestures that denoted the perturbation of his spirit:

“Jonas. My child—she is well! There is nothing the matter?”

“What, you're at it again, are you?” replied his son-in-law. “Even with me? Get away with you, will you?”

“Tell me she is well then,” said Mr Pecksniff. “Tell me she is well my boy!”

“She's well enough,” retorted Jonas, disengaging himself. “There's nothing the matter with HER.”

“There is nothing the matter with her!” cried Mr Pecksniff, sitting down in the nearest chair, and rubbing up his hair. “Fie upon my weakness! I cannot help it, Jonas. Thank you. I am better now. How is my other child; my eldest; my Cherrywerrychigo?” said Mr Pecksniff, inventing a playful little name for her, in the restored lightness of his heart.

“She's much about the same as usual,” returned Jonas. “She sticks pretty close to the vinegar-bottle. You know she's got a sweetheart, I suppose?”

“I have heard of it,” said Mr Pecksniff, “from headquarters; from my child herself I will not deny that it moved me to contemplate the loss of my remaining daughter, Jonas—I am afraid we parents are selfish, I am afraid we are—but it has ever been the study of my life to qualify them for the domestic hearth; and it is a sphere which Cherry will adorn.”

“She need adorn some sphere or other,” observed the son-in-law, for she ain't very ornamental in general.”

“My girls are now provided for,” said Mr Pecksniff. “They are now happily provided for, and I have not laboured in vain!”

This is exactly what Mr Pecksniff would have said, if one of his daughters had drawn a prize of thirty thousand pounds in the lottery, or if the other had picked up a valuable purse in the street, which nobody appeared to claim. In either of these cases he would have invoked a patriarchal blessing on the fortunate head, with great solemnity, and would have taken immense credit to himself, as having meant it from the infant's cradle.

“Suppose we talk about something else, now,” observed Jonas, drily. “just for a change. Are you quite agreeable?”

“Quite,” said Mr Pecksniff. “Ah, you wag, you naughty wag! You laugh at poor old fond papa. Well! He deserves it. And he don't mind it either, for his feelings are their own reward. You have come to stay with me, Jonas?”

“No. I've got a friend with me,” said Jonas.

“Bring your friend!” cried Mr Pecksniff, in a gush of hospitality. “Bring any number of your friends!”

“This ain't the sort of man to be brought,” said Jonas, contemptuously. “I think I see myself “bringing” him to your house, for a treat! Thank'ee all the same; but he's a little too near the top of the tree for that, Pecksniff.”

The good man pricked up his ears; his interest was awakened. A position near the top of the tree was greatness, virtue, goodness, sense, genius; or, it should rather be said, a dispensation from all, and in itself something immeasurably better than all; with Mr Pecksniff. A man who was able to look down upon Mr Pecksniff could not be looked up at, by that gentleman, with too great an amount of deference, or from a position of too much humility. So it always is with great spirits.

“I'll tell you what you may do, if you like,” said Jonas; “you may come and dine with us at the Dragon. We were forced to come down to Salisbury last night, on some business, and I got him to bring me over here this morning, in his carriage; at least, not his own carriage, for we had a breakdown in the night, but one we hired instead; it's all the same. Mind what you're about, you know. He's not used to all sorts; he only mixes with the best!”

“Some young nobleman who has been borrowing money of you at good interest, eh?” said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his forefinger facetiously. “I shall be delighted to know the gay sprig.”

“Borrowing!” echoed Jonas. “Borrowing! When you're a twentieth part as rich as he is, you may shut up shop! We should be pretty well off if we could buy his furniture, and plate, and pictures, by clubbing together. A likely man to borrow: Mr Montague! Why since I was lucky enough (come! and I'll say, sharp enough, too) to get a share in the Assurance office that he's President of, I've made—never mind what I've made,” said Jonas, seeming to recover all at once his usual caution. “You know me pretty well, and I don't blab about such things. But, Ecod, I've made a trifle.”

“Really, my dear Jonas,” cried Mr Pecksniff, with much warmth, “a gentleman like this should receive some attention. Would he like to see the church? or if he has a taste for the fine arts—which I have no doubt he has, from the description you give of his circumstances—I can send him down a few portfolios. Salisbury Cathedral, my dear Jonas,” said Mr Pecksniff; the mention of the portfolios and his anxiety to display himself to advantage, suggesting his usual phraseology in that regard, “is an edifice replete with venerable associations, and strikingly suggestive of the loftiest emotions. It is here we contemplate the work of bygone ages. It is here we listen to the swelling organ, as we stroll through the reverberating aisles. We have drawings of this celebrated structure from the North, from the South, from the East, from the West, from the South-East, from the Nor'West—”