“I am afraid, sir,” continued the landlady, first looking round to assure herself that there was nobody within hearing, and then looking down upon the floor. “I am very much afraid, sir, that his conscience is troubled by his not being related to—or—or even married to—a very young lady—”
“Mrs Lupin!” said Mr Pecksniff, holding up his hand with something in his manner as nearly approaching to severity as any expression of his, mild being that he was, could ever do. “Person! young person?”
“A very young person,” said Mrs Lupin, curtseying and blushing; “—I beg your pardon, sir, but I have been so hurried to-night, that I don't know what I say—who is with him now.”
“Who is with him now,” ruminated Mr Pecksniff, warming his back (as he had warmed his hands) as if it were a widow's back, or an orphan's back, or an enemy's back, or a back that any less excellent man would have suffered to be cold. “Oh dear me, dear me!”
“At the same time I am bound to say, and I do say with all my heart,” observed the hostess, earnestly, “that her looks and manner almost disarm suspicion.”
“Your suspicion, Mrs Lupin,” said Mr Pecksniff gravely, “is very natural.”
Touching which remark, let it be written down to their confusion, that the enemies of this worthy man unblushingly maintained that he always said of what was very bad, that it was very natural; and that he unconsciously betrayed his own nature in doing so.
“Your suspicion, Mrs Lupin,” he repeated, “is very natural, and I have no doubt correct. I will wait upon these travellers.”
With that he took off his great-coat, and having run his fingers through his hair, thrust one hand gently in the bosom of his waistcoat and meekly signed to her to lead the way.
“Shall I knock?” asked Mrs Lupin, when they reached the chamber door.
“No,” said Mr Pecksniff, “enter if you please.”
They went in on tiptoe; or rather the hostess took that precaution for Mr Pecksniff always walked softly. The old gentleman was still asleep, and his young companion still sat reading by the fire.
“I am afraid,” said Mr Pecksniff, pausing at the door, and giving his head a melancholy roll, “I am afraid that this looks artful. I am afraid, Mrs Lupin, do you know, that this looks very artful!”
As he finished this whisper, he advanced before the hostess; and at the same time the young lady, hearing footsteps, rose. Mr Pecksniff glanced at the volume she held, and whispered Mrs Lupin again; if possible, with increased despondency.
“Yes, ma'am,” he said, “it is a good book. I was fearful of that beforehand. I am apprehensive that this is a very deep thing indeed!”
“What gentleman is this?” inquired the object of his virtuous doubts.
“Hush! don't trouble yourself, ma'am,” said Mr Pecksniff, as the landlady was about to answer. “This young'—in spite of himself he hesitated when “person” rose to his lips, and substituted another word: “this young stranger, Mrs Lupin, will excuse me for replying briefly, that I reside in this village; it may be in an influential manner, however, undeserved; and that I have been summoned here by you. I am here, as I am everywhere, I hope, in sympathy for the sick and sorry.”
With these impressive words, Mr Pecksniff passed over to the bedside, where, after patting the counterpane once or twice in a very solemn manner, as if by that means he gained a clear insight into the patient's disorder, he took his seat in a large arm-chair, and in an attitude of some thoughtfulness and much comfort, waited for his waking. Whatever objection the young lady urged to Mrs Lupin went no further, for nothing more was said to Mr Pecksniff, and Mr Pecksniff said nothing more to anybody else.
Full half an hour elapsed before the old man stirred, but at length he turned himself in bed, and, though not yet awake, gave tokens that his sleep was drawing to an end. By little and little he removed the bed-clothes from about his head, and turned still more towards the side where Mr Pecksniff sat. In course of time his eyes opened; and he lay for a few moments as people newly roused sometimes will, gazing indolently at his visitor, without any distinct consciousness of his presence.
There was nothing remarkable in these proceedings, except the influence they worked on Mr Pecksniff, which could hardly have been surpassed by the most marvellous of natural phenomena. Gradually his hands became tightly clasped upon the elbows of the chair, his eyes dilated with surprise, his mouth opened, his hair stood more erect upon his forehead than its custom was, until, at length, when the old man rose in bed, and stared at him with scarcely less emotion than he showed himself, the Pecksniff doubts were all resolved, and he exclaimed aloud:
“You ARE Martin Chuzzlewit!”
His consternation of surprise was so genuine, that the old man, with all the disposition that he clearly entertained to believe it assumed, was convinced of its reality.
“I am Martin Chuzzlewit,” he said, bitterly: “and Martin Chuzzlewit wishes you had been hanged, before you had come here to disturb him in his sleep. Why, I dreamed of this fellow!” he said, lying down again, and turning away his face, “before I knew that he was near me!”
“My good cousin—” said Mr Pecksniff.
“There! His very first words!” cried the old man, shaking his grey head to and fro upon the pillow, and throwing up his hands. “In his very first words he asserts his relationship! I knew he would; they all do it! Near or distant, blood or water, it's all one. Ugh! What a calendar of deceit, and lying, and false-witnessing, the sound of any word of kindred opens before me!”
“Pray do not be hasty, Mr Chuzzlewit,” said Pecksniff, in a tone that was at once in the sublimest degree compassionate and dispassionate; for he had by this time recovered from his surprise, and was in full possession of his virtuous self. “You will regret being hasty, I know you will.”
“You know!” said Martin, contemptuously.
“Yes,” retorted Mr Pecksniff. “Aye, aye, Mr Chuzzlewit; and don't imagine that I mean to court or flatter you; for nothing is further from my intention. Neither, sir, need you entertain the least misgiving that I shall repeat that obnoxious word which has given you so much offence already. Why should I? What do I expect or want from you? There is nothing in your possession that I know of, Mr Chuzzlewit, which is much to be coveted for the happiness it brings you.”
“That's true enough,” muttered the old man.
“Apart from that consideration,” said Mr Pecksniff, watchful of the effect he made, “it must be plain to you (I am sure) by this time, that if I had wished to insinuate myself into your good opinion, I should have been, of all things, careful not to address you as a relative; knowing your humour, and being quite certain beforehand that I could not have a worse letter of recommendation.”
Martin made not any verbal answer; but he as clearly implied though only by a motion of his legs beneath the bed-clothes, that there was reason in this, and that he could not dispute it, as if he had said as much in good set terms.
“No,” said Mr Pecksniff, keeping his hand in his waistcoat as though he were ready, on the shortest notice, to produce his heart for Martin Chuzzlewit's inspection, “I came here to offer my services to a stranger. I make no offer of them to you, because I know you would distrust me if I did. But lying on that bed, sir, I regard you as a stranger, and I have just that amount of interest in you which I hope I should feel in any stranger, circumstanced as you are. Beyond that, I am quite as indifferent to you, Mr Chuzzlewit, as you are to me.”
Having said which, Mr Pecksniff threw himself back in the easy-chair; so radiant with ingenuous honesty, that Mrs Lupin almost wondered not to see a stained-glass Glory, such as the Saint wore in the church, shining about his head.
A long pause succeeded. The old man, with increased restlessness, changed his posture several times. Mrs Lupin and the young lady gazed in silence at the counterpane. Mr Pecksniff toyed abstractedly with his eye-glass, and kept his eyes shut, that he might ruminate the better.
“Eh?” he said at last, opening them suddenly, and looking towards the bed. “I beg your pardon. I thought you spoke. Mrs Lupin,” he continued, slowly rising “I am not aware that I can be of any service to you here. The gentleman is better, and you are as good a nurse as he can have. Eh?”
This last note of interrogation bore reference to another change of posture on the old man's part, which brought his face towards Mr Pecksniff for the first time since he had turned away from him.
“If you desire to speak to me before I go, sir,” continued that gentleman, after another pause, “you may command my leisure; but I must stipulate, in justice to myself, that you do so as to a stranger, strictly as to a stranger.”
