him that you saw me here, and that I said I bore in mind the time we talked together in the churchyard?”
Tom promised that he would.
“Many times since then, when I have wished I had been carried there before that day, I have recalled his words. I wish that he should know how true they were, although the least acknowledgment to that effect has never passed my lips and never will.”
Tom promised this, conditionally too. He did not tell her how improbable it was that he and the old man would ever meet again, because he thought it might disturb her more.
“If he should ever know this, through your means, dear Mr Pinch,” said Mercy, “tell him that I sent the message, not for myself, but that he might be more forbearing and more patient, and more trustful to some other person, in some other time of need. Tell him that if he could know how my heart trembled in the balance that day, and what a very little would have turned the scale, his own would bleed with pity for me.”
“Yes, yes,” said Tom, “I will.”
“When I appeared to him the most unworthy of his help, I was—I know I was, for I have often, often, thought about it since—the most inclined to yield to what he showed me. Oh! if he had relented but a little more; if he had thrown himself in my way for but one other quarter of an hour; if he had extended his compassion for a vain, unthinking, miserable girl, in but the least degree; he might, and I believe he would, have saved her! Tell him that I don't blame him, but am grateful for the effort that he made; but ask him for the love of God, and youth, and in merciful consideration for the struggle which an ill-advised and unwakened nature makes to hide the strength it thinks its weakness—ask him never, never, to forget this, when he deals with one again!”
Although Tom did not hold the clue to her full meaning, he could guess it pretty nearly. Touched to the quick, he took her hand and said, or meant to say, some words of consolation. She felt and understood them, whether they were spoken or no. He was not quite certain, afterwards, but that she had tried to kneel down at his feet, and bless him.
He found that he was not alone in the room when she had left it. Mrs Todgers was there, shaking her head. Tom had never seen Mrs Todgers, it is needless to say, but he had a perception of her being the lady of the house; and he saw some genuine compassion in her eyes, that won his good opinion.
“Ah, sir! You are an old friend, I see,” said Mrs Todgers.
“Yes,” said Tom.
“And yet,” quoth Mrs Todgers, shutting the door softly, “she hasn't told you what her troubles are, I'm certain.”
Tom was struck by these words, for they were quite true. “Indeed,” he said, “she has not.”
“And never would,” said Mrs Todgers, “if you saw her daily. She never makes the least complaint to me, or utters a single word of explanation or reproach. But I know,” said Mrs Todgers, drawing in her breath, “I know!”
Tom nodded sorrowfully, “So do I.”
“I fully believe,” said Mrs Todgers, taking her pocket-handkerchief from the flat reticule, “that nobody can tell one half of what that poor young creature has to undergo. But though she comes here, constantly, to ease her poor full heart without his knowing it; and saying, “Mrs Todgers, I am very low to-day; I think that I shall soon be dead,” sits crying in my room until the fit is past; I know no more from her. And, I believe,” said Mrs Todgers, putting back her handkerchief again, “that she considers me a good friend too.”
Mrs Todgers might have said her best friend. Commercial gentlemen and gravy had tried Mrs Todgers's temper; the main chance—it was such a very small one in her case, that she might have been excused for looking sharp after it, lest it should entirely vanish from her sight—had taken a firm hold on Mrs Todgers's attention. But in some odd nook in Mrs Todgers's breast, up a great many steps, and in a corner easy to be overlooked, there was a secret door, with “Woman” written on the spring, which, at a touch from Mercy's hand, had flown wide open, and admitted her for shelter.
When boarding-house accounts are balanced with all other ledgers, and the books of the Recording Angel are made up for ever, perhaps there may be seen an entry to thy credit, lean Mrs Todgers, which shall make thee beautiful!
She was growing beautiful so rapidly in Tom's eyes; for he saw that she was poor, and that this good had sprung up in her from among the sordid strivings of her life; that she might have been a very Venus in a minute more, if Miss Pecksniff had not entered with her friend.
“Mr Thomas Pinch!” said Charity, performing the ceremony of introduction with evident pride. “Mr Moddle. Where's my sister?”
“Gone, Miss Pecksniff,” Mrs Todgers answered. “She had appointed to be home.”
“Ah!” said Charity, looking at Tom. “Oh, dear me!”
“She's greatly altered since she's been Anoth—since she's been married, Mrs Todgers!” observed Moddle.
“My dear Augustus!” said Miss Pecksniff, in a low voice. “I verily believe you have said that fifty thousand times, in my hearing. What a Prose you are!”
This was succeeded by some trifling love passages, which appeared to originate with, if not to be wholly carried on by Miss Pecksniff. At any rate, Mr Moddle was much slower in his responses than is customary with young lovers, and exhibited a lowness of spirits which was quite oppressive.
He did not improve at all when Tom and he were in the streets, but sighed so dismally that it was dreadful to hear him. As a means of cheering him up, Tom told him that he wished him joy.
“Joy!” cried Moddle. “Ha, ha!”
“What an extraordinary young man!” thought Tom.
“The Scorner has not set his seal upon you. YOU care what becomes of you?” said Moddle.
Tom admitted that it was a subject in which he certainly felt some interest.
“I don't,” said Mr Moddle. “The Elements may have me when they please. I'm ready.”
Tom inferred from these, and other expressions of the same nature, that he was jealous. Therefore he allowed him to take his own course; which was such a gloomy one, that he felt a load removed from his mind when they parted company at the gate of Furnival's Inn.
It was now a couple of hours past John Westlock's dinner-time; and he was walking up and down the room, quite anxious for Tom's safety. The table was spread; the wine was carefully decanted; and the dinner smelt delicious.
“Why, Tom, old boy, where on earth have you been? Your box is here. Get your boots off instantly, and sit down!”
“I am sorry to say I can't stay, John,” replied Tom Pinch, who was breathless with the haste he had made in running up the stairs.
“Can't stay!”
“If you'll go on with your dinner,” said Tom, “I'll tell you my reason the while. I mustn't eat myself, or I shall have no appetite for the chops.”
“There are no chops here, my food fellow.”
“No. But there are at Islington,” said Tom.
John Westlock was perfectly confounded by this reply, and vowed he would not touch a morsel until Tom had explained himself fully. So Tom sat down, and told him all; to which he listened with the greatest interest.
He knew Tom too well, and respected his delicacy too much, to ask him why he had taken these measures without communicating with him first. He quite concurred in the expediency of Tom's immediately returning to his sister, as he knew so little of the place in which he had left her, and good-humouredly proposed to ride back with him in a cab, in which he might convey his box. Tom's proposition that he should sup with them that night, he flatly rejected, but made an appointment with him for the morrow. “And now Tom,” he said, as they rode along, “I have a question to ask you to which I expect a manly and straightforward answer. Do you want any money? I am pretty sure you do.”
“I don't indeed,” said Tom.
“I believe you are deceiving me.”
“No. With many thanks to you, I am quite in earnest,” Tom replied. “My sister has some money, and so have I. If I had nothing else, John, I have a five-pound note, which that good creature, Mrs Lupin, of the Dragon, handed up to me outside the coach, in a letter begging me to borrow it; and then drove off as hard as she could go.”
