“No!” cried Mr. Pecksniff, boldly. “Not at all, sir!”
“But I saw that shadow in his house,” said Martin Chuzzlewit, “the last time we met, and warned him of its presence. I know it when I see it, do I not? I, who have lived within it all these years!”
“I deny it,” Mr. Pecksniff answered, warmly. “I deny it altogether. That bereaved young man is now in this house, sir, seeking in change of scene the peace of mind he has lost. Shall I be backward in doing justice to that young man, when even undertakers and coffin-makers have been moved by the conduct he has exhibited; when even mutes have spoken in his praise, and the medical man hasn’t known what to do with himself in the excitement of his feelings! There is a person of the name of Gamp, sir—Mrs. Gamp—ask her. She saw Mr. Jonas in a trying time. Ask her, sir. She is respectable, but not sentimental, and will state the fact. A line addressed to Mrs. Gamp, at the Bird Shop, Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, London, will meet with every attention, I have no doubt. Let her be examined, my good sir. Strike, but hear! Leap, Mr. Chuzzlewit, but look! Forgive me, my dear sir,” said Mr. Pecksniff, taking both his hands, “if I am warm; but I am honest, and must state the truth.”
In proof of the character he gave himself, Mr. Pecksniff suffered tears of honesty to ooze out of his eyes.
The old man gazed at him for a moment with a look of wonder, repeating to himself, “Here now! In this house!” But he mastered his surprise, and said, after a pause:
“Let me see him.”
“In a friendly spirit, I hope?” said Mr. Pecksniff. “Forgive me, sir but he is in the receipt of my humble hospitality.”
“I said,” replied the old man, “let me see him. If I were disposed to regard him in any other than a friendly spirit, I should have said keep us apart.”
“Certainly, my dear sir. So you would. You are frankness itself, I know. I will break this happiness to him,” said Mr. Pecksniff, as he left the room, “if you will excuse me for a minute, gently.”
He paved the way to the disclosure so very gently, that a quarter of an hour elapsed before he returned with Mr. Jonas. In the meantime the young ladies had made their appearance, and the table had been set out for the refreshment of the travellers.
Now, however well Mr. Pecksniff, in his morality, had taught Jonas the lesson of dutiful behaviour to his uncle, and however perfectly Jonas, in the cunning of his nature, had learnt it, that young man’s bearing, when presented to his father’s brother, was anything but manly or engaging. Perhaps, indeed, so singular a mixture of defiance and obsequiousness, of fear and hardihood, of dogged sullenness and an attempt at enraging and propitiation, never was expressed in any one human figure as in that of Jonas, when, having raised his downcast eyes to Martin’s face, he let them fall again, and uneasily closing and unclosing his hands without a moment’s intermission, stood swinging himself from side to side, waiting to be addressed.
“Nephew,” said the old man. “You have been a dutiful son, I hear.”
“As dutiful as sons in general, I suppose,” returned Jonas, looking up and down once more. “I don’t brag to have been any better than other sons; but I haven’t been any worse, I dare say.”
“A pattern to all sons, I am told,” said the old man, glancing towards Mr. Pecksniff.
“Ecod!” said Jonas, looking up again for a moment, and shaking his head, “I’ve been as good a son as ever you were a brother. It’s the pot and the kettle, if you come to that.”
“You speak bitterly, in the violence of your regret,” said Martin, after a pause. “Give me your hand.”
Jonas did so, and was almost at his ease. “Pecksniff,” he whispered, as they drew their chairs about the table; “I gave him as good as he brought, eh? He had better look at home, before he looks out of window, I think?”
Mr. Pecksniff only answered by a nudge of the elbow, which might either be construed into an indignant remonstrance or a cordial assent; but which, in any case, was an emphatic admonition to his chosen son-in-law to be silent. He then proceeded to do the honours of the house with his accustomed ease and amiability.
But not even Mr. Pecksniff’s guileless merriment could set such a party at their ease, or reconcile materials so utterly discordant and conflicting as those with which he had to deal. The unspeakable jealously and hatred which that night’s explanation had sown in Charity’s breast, was not to be so easily kept down; and more than once it showed itself in such intensity, as seemed to render a full disclosure of all the circumstances then and there, impossible to be avoided. The beauteous Merry, too, with all the glory of her conquest fresh upon her, so probed and lanced the rankling disappointment of her sister by her capricious airs and thousand little trials of Mr. Jonas’s obedience, that she almost goaded her into a fit of madness, and obliged her to retire from table in a burst of passion, hardly less vehement than that to which she had abandoned herself in the first tumult of her wrath. The constraint imposed upon the family by the presence among them for the first time of Mary Graham (for by that name old Martin Chuzzlewit had introduced her) did not at all improve this state of things; gentle and quiet though her manner was. Mr. Pecksniff’s situation was peculiarly trying; for, what with having constantly to keep the peace between his daughters; to maintain a reasonable show of affection and unity in
