“How are we today,” said Mr. Pecksniff, jocosely, “and what are our plans? Are we ready to go and see Tom Pinch’s sister? Ha, ha, ha! Poor Thomas Pinch!”
“Are we ready,” returned Mrs. Todgers, nodding her head with mysterious intelligence, “to send a favourable reply to Mr. Jinkins’s round-robin? That’s the first question, Mr. Pecksniff.”
“Why Mr. Jinkins’s robin, my dear madam?” asked Mr. Pecksniff, putting one arm round Mercy, and the other round Mrs. Todgers, whom he seemed, in the abstraction of the moment, to mistake for Charity. “Why Mr. Jinkins’s?”
“Because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in the house,” said Mrs. Todgers, playfully. “That’s why, sir.”
“Jinkins is a man of superior talents,” observed Mr. Pecksniff. “I have conceived a great regard for Jinkins. I take Jinkins’s desire to pay polite attention to my daughters, as an additional proof of the friendly feeling of Jinkins, Mrs. Todgers.”
“Well now,” returned that lady, “having said so much, you must say the rest, Mr. Pecksniff; so tell the dear young ladies all about it.”
With these words she gently eluded Mr. Pecksniff’s grasp, and took Miss Charity into her own embrace; though whether she was impelled to this proceeding solely by the irrepressible affection she had conceived for that young lady, or whether it had any reference to a lowering, not to say distinctly spiteful expression which had been visible in her face for some moments, has never been exactly ascertained. Be this as it may, Mr. Pecksniff went on to inform his daughters of the purport and history of the round-robin aforesaid, which was in brief, that the commercial gentlemen who helped to make up the sum and substance of that noun of multitude or signifying many, called Todgers’s, desired the honour of their presence at the general table, so long as they remained in the house, and besought that they would grace the board at dinnertime next day, the same being Sunday. He further said, that Mrs. Todgers being a consenting party to this invitation, he was willing, for his part, to accept it; and so left them that he might write his gracious answer, the while they armed themselves with their best bonnets for the utter defeat and overthrow of Miss Pinch.
Tom Pinch’s sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founders’ family known to mankind. They lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce, that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant’s castle, struck terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate; with a great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a great lodge; which being close to the house, rather spoilt the lookout certainly but made the look-in tremendous. At this entry, a great porter kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high leave to pass, he rang a second great bell, responsive to whose note a great footman appeared in due time at the great halldoor, with such great tags upon his liveried shoulder that he was perpetually entangling and hooking himself among the chairs and tables, and led a life of torment which could scarcely have been surpassed, if he had been a bluebottle in a world of cobwebs.
To this mansion Mr. Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs. Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies having been all performed, they were ushered into the house; and so, by degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr. Pinch’s sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil; to wit, a premature little woman of thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her, which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends.
“Visitors for Miss Pinch!” said the footman. He must have been an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice discrimination between the cold respect with which he would have announced visitors to the family, and the warm personal interest with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.
“Visitors for Miss Pinch!”
Miss Pinch rose hastily; with such tokens of agitation as plainly declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time, the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take mental notes of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties concerned, very laudable, improving, and pleasant.
It is a melancholy fact; but it must be related, that Mr. Pinch’s sister was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face; a very mild and prepossessing face; and a pretty little figure—slight and short, but remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid trustfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else, predicted by the two Miss Pecksniffs, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to see.
Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gaiety, bore up the best against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain, expressed it pretty openly in her
