Charles Dickens - Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

She said it should be done. Was that all?

“All what? You must be prying and questioning!” he angrily retorted. “What more do you want to know?”

“I want to know nothing, Jonas, but what you tell me. All hope of confidence between us has long deserted me!”

“Ecod, I should hope so!” he muttered.

“But if you will tell me what you wish, I will be obedient and will try to please you. I make no merit of that, for I have no friend in my father or my sister, but am quite alone. I am very humble and submissive. You told me you would break my spirit, and you have done so. Do not break my heart too!”

She ventured, as she said these words, to lay her hand upon his shoulder. He suffered it to rest there, in his exultation; and the whole mean, abject, sordid, pitiful soul of the man, looked at her, for the moment, through his wicked eyes.

For the moment only; for, with the same hurried return to something within himself, he bade her, in a surly tone, show her obedience by executing his commands without delay. When she had withdrawn he paced up and down the room several times; but always with his right hand clenched, as if it held something; which it did not, being empty. When he was tired of this, he threw himself into a chair, and thoughtfully turned up the sleeve of his right arm, as if he were rather musing about its strength than examining it; but, even then, he kept the hand clenched.

He was brooding in this chair, with his eyes cast down upon the ground, when Mrs Gamp came in to tell him that the little room was ready. Not being quite sure of her reception after interfering in the quarrel, Mrs Gamp, as a means of interesting and propitiating her patron, affected a deep solicitude in Mr Chuffey.

“How is he now, sir?” she said.

“Who?” cried Jonas, raising his head, and staring at her.

“To be sure!” returned the matron with a smile and a curtsey. “What am I thinking of! You wasn't here, sir, when he was took so strange. I never see a poor dear creetur took so strange in all my life, except a patient much about the same age, as I once nussed, which his calling was the custom-'us, and his name was Mrs Harris's own father, as pleasant a singer, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd, with a voice like a Jew's-harp in the bass notes, that it took six men to hold at sech times, foaming frightful.”

“Chuffey, eh?” said Jonas carelessly, seeing that she went up to the old, clerk, and looked at him. “Ha!”

“The creetur's head's so hot,” said Mrs Gamp, “that you might heat a flat-iron at it. And no wonder I am sure, considerin” the things he said!”

“Said!” cried Jonas. “What did he say?”

Mrs Gamp laid her hand upon her heart, to put some check upon its palpitations, and turning up her eyes replied in a faint voice:

“The awfulest things, Mr Chuzzlewit, as ever I heerd! Which Mrs Harris's father never spoke a word when took so, some does and some don't, except sayin” when he come round, “Where is Sairey Gamp?” But raly, sir, when Mr Chuffey comes to ask who's lyin” dead upstairs, and—”

“Who's lying dead upstairs!” repeated Jonas, standing aghast.

Mrs Gamp nodded, made as if she were swallowing, and went on.

“Who's lying dead upstairs; sech was his Bible language; and where was Mr Chuzzlewit as had the only son; and when he goes upstairs alooking in the beds and wandering about the rooms, and comes down again a-whisperin” softly to his-self about foul play and that; it gives me sech a turn, I don't deny it, Mr Chuzzlewit, that I never could have kep myself up but for a little drain o” spirits, which I seldom touches, but could always wish to know where to find, if so dispoged, never knowin” wot may happen next, the world bein” so uncertain.”

“Why, the old fool's mad!” cried Jonas, much disturbed.

“That's my opinion, sir,” said Mrs Gamp, “and I will not deceive you. I believe as Mr Chuffey, sir, rekwires attention (if I may make so bold), and should not have his liberty to wex and worrit your sweet lady as he does.”

“Why, who minds what he says?” retorted Jonas.

“Still he is worritin” sir,” said Mrs Gamp. “No one don't mind him, but he IS a ill conwenience.”

“Ecod you're right,” said Jonas, looking doubtfully at the subject of this conversation. “I have half a mind to shut him up.”

Mrs Gamp rubbed her hands, and smiled, and shook her head, and sniffed expressively, as scenting a job.

“Could you—could you take care of such an idiot, now, in some spare room upstairs?” asked Jonas.

“Me and a friend of mine, one off, one on, could do it, Mr Chuzzlewit,” replied the nurse; “our charges not bein” high, but wishin” they was lower, and allowance made considerin” not strangers. Me and Betsey Prig, sir, would undertake Mr Chuffey reasonable,” said Mrs Gamp, looking at him with her head on one side, as if he had been a piece of goods, for which she was driving a bargain; “and give every satigefaction. Betsey Prig has nussed a many lunacies, and well she knows their ways, which puttin” “em right close afore the fire, when fractious, is the certainest and most compoging.”

While Mrs Gamp discoursed to this effect, Jonas was walking up and down the room again, glancing covertly at the old clerk, as he did so. He now made a stop, and said:

“I must look after him, I suppose, or I may have him doing some mischief. What say you?”

“Nothin” more likely!” Mrs Gamp replied. “As well I have experienged, I do assure you, sir.”

“Well! Look after him for the present, and—let me see—three days from this time let the other woman come here, and we'll see if we can make a bargain of it. About nine or ten o'clock at night, say. Keep your eye upon him in the meanwhile, and don't talk about it. He's as mad as a March hare!”

“Madder!” cried Mrs Gamp. “A deal madder!”

“See to him, then; take care that he does no harm; and recollect what I have told you.”

Leaving Mrs Gamp in the act of repeating all she had been told, and of producing in support of her memory and trustworthiness, many commendations selected from among the most remarkable opinions of the celebrated Mrs Harris, he descended to the little room prepared for him, and pulling off his coat and his boots, put them outside the door before he locked it. In locking it, he was careful so to adjust the key as to baffle any curious person who might try to peep in through the key-hole; and when he had taken these precautions, he sat down to his supper.

“Mr Chuff,” he muttered, “it'll be pretty easy to be even with YOU. It's of no use doing things by halves, and as long as I stop here, I'll take good care of you. When I'm off you may say what you please. But it's a d—d strange thing,” he added, pushing away his untouched plate, and striding moodily to and fro, “that his drivellings should have taken this turn just now.”

After pacing the little room from end to end several times, he sat down in another chair.

“I say just now, but for anything I know, he may have been carrying on the same game all along. Old dog! He shall be gagged!”

He paced the room again in the same restless and unsteady way; and then sat down upon the bedstead, leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking at the table. When he had looked at it for a long time, he remembered his supper; and resuming the chair he had first occupied, began to eat with great rapacity; not like a hungry man, but as if he were determined to do it. He drank too, roundly; sometimes stopping in the middle of a draught to walk, and change his seat and walk again, and dart back to the table and fall to, in a ravenous hurry, as before.

It was now growing dark. As the gloom of evening, deepening into night, came on, another dark shade emerging from within him seemed to overspread his face, and slowly change it. Slowly, slowly; darker and darker; more and more haggard; creeping over him by little and little, until it was black night within him and without.