Martin Chuzzlewit

‘Is she come home?’ inquired the old man.

‘She’ll be here directly minit,’ returned Mrs Gamp. ‘Come with Sairey, Mr Chuffey. Come with your own Sairey!’

The good woman had no reference to any female in the world in promising this speedy advent of the person for whom Mr Chuffey inquired, but merely threw it out as a means of pacifying the old man. It had its effect, for he permitted her to lead him away; and they quitted the room together.

Jonas looked out of the window again. They were still reading the printed paper in the shop opposite, and a third man had joined in the perusal. What could it be, to interest them so?’

A dispute or discussion seemed to arise among them, for they all looked up from their reading together, and one of the three, who had been glancing over the shoulder of another, stepped back to explain or illustrate some action by his gestures.

Horror! How like the blow he had struck in the wood!

It beat him from the window as if it had lighted on himself. As he staggered into a chair, he thought of the change in Mrs Gamp exhibited in her new-born tenderness to her charge. Was that because it was found? – because she knew of it? – because she suspected him?

‘Mr Chuffey is a-lyin’ down,’ said Mrs Gamp, returning, ‘and much good may it do him, Mr Chuzzlewit, which harm it can’t and good it may; be joyful!’

‘Sit down,’ said Jonas, hoarsely, ‘and let us get this business done. Where is the other woman?’

‘The other person’s with him now,’ she answered.

‘That’s right,’ said Jonas. ‘He is not fit to be left to himself. Why, he fastened on me to-night; here, upon my coat; like a savage dog. Old as he is, and feeble as he is usually, I had some trouble to shake him off. You – Hush! – It’s nothing. You told me the other woman’s name. I forget it.’

‘I mentioned Betsey Prig,’ said Mrs Gamp.

‘She is to be trusted, is she?’

‘That she ain’t!’ said Mrs Gamp; ‘nor have I brought her, Mr Chuzzlewit. I’ve brought another, which engages to give every satigefaction.’

‘What is her name?’ asked Jonas.

Mrs Gamp looked at him in an odd way without returning any answer, but appeared to understand the question too.

‘What is her name?’ repeated Jonas.

‘Her name,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘is Harris.’

It was extraordinary how much effort it cost Mrs Gamp to pronounce the name she was commonly so ready with. She made some three or four gasps before she could get it out; and, when she had uttered it, pressed her hand upon her side, and turned up her eyes, as if she were going to faint away. But, knowing her to labour under a complication of internal disorders, which rendered a few drops of spirits indispensable at certain times to her existence, and which came on very strong when that remedy was not at hand, Jonas merely supposed her to be the victim of one of these attacks.

‘Well!’ he said, hastily, for he felt how incapable he was of confining his wandering attention to the subject. ‘You and she have arranged to take care of him, have you?’

Mrs Gamp replied in the affirmative, and softly discharged herself of her familiar phrase, ‘Turn and turn about; one off, one on.’ But she spoke so tremulously that she felt called upon to add, ‘which fiddle-strings is weakness to expredge my nerves this night!’

Jonas stopped to listen. Then said, hurriedly:

‘We shall not quarrel about terms. Let them be the same as they were before. Keep him close, and keep him quiet. He must be restrained. He has got it in his head to-night that my wife’s dead, and has been attacking me as if I had killed her. It’s – it’s common with mad people to take the worst fancies of those they like best. Isn’t it?’

Mrs Gamp assented with a short groan.

‘Keep him close, then, or in one of his fits he’ll be doing me a mischief. And don’t trust him at any time; for when he seems most rational, he’s wildest in his talk. But that you know already. Let me see the other.’

‘The t’other person, sir?’ said Mrs Gamp.

‘Aye! Go you to him and send the other. Quick! I’m busy.’

Mrs Gamp took two or three backward steps towards the door, and stopped there.

‘It is your wishes, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ she said, in a sort of quavering croak, ‘to see the t’other person. Is it?’

But the ghastly change in Jonas told her that the other person was already seen. Before she could look round towards the door, she was put aside by old Martin’s hand; and Chuffey and John Westlock entered with him.

‘Let no one leave the house,’ said Martin. ‘This man is my brother’s son. Ill-met, ill-trained, ill-begotten. If he moves from the spot on which he stands, or speaks a word above his breath to any person here, open the window, and call for help!’

‘What right have you to give such directions in this house?’ asked Jonas faintly.

‘The right of your wrong-doing. Come in there!’

An irrepressible exclamation burst from the lips of Jonas, as Lewsome entered at the door. It was not a groan, or a shriek, or a word, but was wholly unlike any sound that had ever fallen on the ears of those who heard it, while at the same time it was the most sharp and terrible expression of what was working in his guilty breast, that nature could have invented.

He had done murder for this! He had girdled himself about with perils, agonies of mind, innumerable fears, for this! He had hidden his secret in the wood; pressed and stamped it down into the bloody ground; and here it started up when least expected, miles upon miles away; known to many; proclaiming itself from the lips of an old man who had renewed his strength and vigour as by a miracle, to give it voice against him!

He leaned his hand on the back of a chair, and looked at them. It was in vain to try to do so scornfully, or with his usual insolence. He required the chair for his support. But he made a struggle for it.

‘I know that fellow,’ he said, fetching his breath at every word, and pointing his trembling finger towards Lewsome. ‘He’s the greatest liar alive. What’s his last tale? Ha, ha! You’re rare fellows, too! Why, that uncle of mine is childish; he’s even a greater child than his brother, my father, was, in his old age; or than Chuffey is. What the devil do you mean,’ he added, looking fiercely at John Westlock and Mark Tapley (the latter had entered with Lewsome), ‘by coming here, and bringing two idiots and a knave with you to take my house by storm? Hallo, there! Open the door! Turn these strangers out!’

‘I tell you what,’ cried Mr Tapley, coming forward, ‘if it wasn’t for your name, I’d drag you through the streets of my own accord, and single-handed I would! Ah, I would! Don’t try and look bold at me. You can’t do it! Now go on, sir,’ this was to old Martin. ‘Bring the murderin’ wagabond upon his knees! If he wants noise, he shall have enough of it; for as sure as he’s a shiverin’ from head to foot I’ll raise a uproar at this winder that shall bring half London in. Go on, sir! Let him try me once, and see whether I’m a man of my word or not.’

With that, Mark folded his arms, and took his seat upon the window-ledge, with an air of general preparation for anything, which seemed to imply that he was equally ready to jump out himself, or to throw Jonas out, upon receiving the slightest hint that it would be agreeable to the company.

Old Martin turned to Lewsome:

‘This is the man,’ he said, extending his hand towards Jonas. ‘Is it?’

‘You need do no more than look at him to be sure of that, or of the truth of what I have said,’ was the reply. ‘He is my witness.’

‘Oh, brother!’ cried old Martin, clasping his hands and lifting up his eyes. ‘Oh, brother, brother! Were we strangers half our lives that you might breed a wretch like this, and I make life a desert by withering every flower that grew about me! Is it the natural end of your precepts and mine, that this should be the creature of your rearing, training, teaching, hoarding, striving for; and I the means of bringing him to punishment, when nothing can repair the wasted past!’

He sat down upon a chair as he spoke, and turning away his face, was silent for a few moments. Then with recovered energy he proceeded:

‘But the accursed harvest of our mistaken lives shall be trodden down. It is not too late for that. You are confronted with this man, you monster there; not to be spared, but to be dealt with justly. Hear what he says! Reply, be silent, contradict, repeat, defy, do what you please. My course will be the same. Go on! And you,’ he said to Chuffey, ‘for the love of your old friend, speak out, good fellow!’

‘I have been silent for his love!’ cried the old man. ‘He urged me to it. He made me promise it upon his dying bed. I never would have spoken, but for your finding out so much. I have thought about it ever since; I couldn’t help that; and sometimes I have had it all before me in a dream; but in the day-time, not in sleep. Is there such a kind of dream?’ said Chuffey, looking anxiously in old Martin’s face.

As Martin made him an encouraging reply, he listened attentively to his voice, and smiled.

‘Ah, aye!’ he cried. ‘He often spoke to me like that. We were at school together, he and I. I couldn’t turn against his son, you know – his only son, Mr Chuzzlewit!’

‘I would to Heaven you had been his son!’ said Martin.

‘You speak so like my dear old master,’ cried the old man with a childish delight, ‘that I almost think I hear him. I can hear you quite as well as I used to hear him. It makes me young again. He never spoke unkindly to me, and I always understood him. I could always see him too, though my sight was dim. Well, well! He’s dead, he’s dead. He was very good to me, my dear old master!’