take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged.”
The conclusion of this affecting narrative brought them to the house. In the passage they encountered Mr Mould the undertaker; a little elderly gentleman, bald, and in a suit of black; with a notebook in his hand, a massive gold watch-chain dangling from his fob, and a face in which a queer attempt at melancholy was at odds with a smirk of satisfaction; so that he looked as a man might, who, in the very act of smacking his lips over choice old wine, tried to make believe it was physic.
“Well, Mrs Gamp, and how are YOU, Mrs Gamp?” said this gentleman, in a voice as soft as his step.
“Pretty well, I thank you, sir,” dropping a curtsey.
“You'll be very particular here, Mrs Gamp. This is not a common case, Mrs Gamp. Let everything be very nice and comfortable, Mrs Gamp, if you please,” said the undertaker, shaking his head with a solemn air.
“It shall be, sir,” she replied, curtseying again. “You knows me of old, sir, I hope.”
“I hope so, too, Mrs Gamp,” said the undertaker. “and I think so also.”Mrs Gamp curtseyed again. “This is one of the most impressive cases, sir,” he continued, addressing Mr Pecksniff, “that I have seen in the whole course of my professional experience.”
“Indeed, Mr Mould!” cried that gentleman.
“Such affectionate regret, sir, I never saw. There is no limitation, there is positively NO limitation'—opening his eyes wide, and standing on tiptoe—'in point of expense! I have orders, sir, to put on my whole establishment of mutes; and mutes come very dear, Mr Pecksniff; not to mention their drink. To provide silverplated handles of the very best description, ornamented with angels” heads from the most expensive dies. To be perfectly profuse in feathers. In short, sir, to turn out something absolutely gorgeous.”
“My friend Mr Jonas is an excellent man,” said Mr Pecksniff.
“I have seen a good deal of what is filial in my time, sir,” retorted Mould, “and what is unfilial too. It is our lot. We come into the knowledge of those secrets. But anything so filial as this; anything so honourable to human nature; so calculated to reconcile all of us to the world we live in; never yet came under my observation. It only proves, sir, what was so forcibly observed by the lamented theatrical poet—buried at Stratford —that there is good in everything.”
“It is very pleasant to hear you say so, Mr Mould,” observed Pecksniff.
“You are very kind, sir. And what a man Mr Chuzzlewit was, sir! Ah! what a man he was. You may talk of your lord mayors,” said Mould, waving his hand at the public in general, “your sheriffs, your common councilmen, your trumpery; but show me a man in this city who is worthy to walk in the shoes of the departed Mr Chuzzlewit. No, no,” cried Mould, with bitter sarcasm. “Hang “em up, hang “em up; sole “em and heel “em, and have “em ready for his son against he's old enough to wear “em; but don't try “em on yourselves, for they won't fit you. We knew him,” said Mould, in the same biting vein, as he pocketed his note-book; “we knew him, and are not to be caught with chaff. Mr Pecksniff, sir, good morning.”
Mr Pecksniff returned the compliment; and Mould, sensible of having distinguished himself, was going away with a brisk smile, when he fortunately remembered the occasion. Quickly becoming depressed again, he sighed; looked into the crown of his hat, as if for comfort; put it on without finding any; and slowly departed.
Mrs Gamp and Mr Pecksniff then ascended the staircase; and the former, having been shown to the chamber in which all that remained of Anthony Chuzzlewit lay covered up, with but one loving heart, and that a halting one, to mourn it, left the latter free to enter the darkened room below, and rejoin Mr Jonas, from whom he had now been absent nearly two hours.
He found that example to bereaved sons, and pattern in the eyes of all performers of funerals, musing over a fragment of writing-paper on the desk, and scratching figures on it with a pen. The old man's chair, and hat, and walking-stick, were removed from their accustomed places, and put out of sight; the window-blinds as yellow as November fogs, were drawn down close; Jonas himself was so subdued, that he could scarcely be heard to speak, and only seen to walk across the room.
“Pecksniff,” he said, in a whisper, “you shall have the regulation of it all, mind! You shall be able to tell anybody who talks about it that everything was correctly and nicely done. There isn't any one you'd like to ask to the funeral, is there?”
“No, Mr Jonas, I think not.”
“Because if there is, you know,” said Jonas, “ask him. We don't want to make a secret of it.”
“No,” repeated Mr Pecksniff, after a little reflection. “I am not the less obliged to you on that account, Mr Jonas, for your liberal hospitality; but there really is no one.”
“Very well,” said Jonas; “then you, and I, and Chuffey, and the doctor, will be just a coachful. We'll have the doctor, Pecksniff, because he knows what was the matter with him, and that it couldn't be helped.”
“Where is our dear friend, Mr Chuffey?” asked Pecksniff, looking round the chamber, and winking both his eyes at once—for he was overcome by his feelings.
But here he was interrupted by Mrs Gamp, who, divested of her bonnet and shawl, came sidling and bridling into the room; and with some sharpness demanded a conference outside the door with Mr Pecksniff.
“You may say whatever you wish to say here, Mrs Gamp,” said that gentleman, shaking his head with a melancholy expression.
“It is not much as I have to say when people is a-mourning for the dead and gone,” said Mrs Gamp; “but what I have to say is TO the pint and purpose, and no offence intended, must be so considered. I have been at a many places in my time, gentlemen, and I hope I knows what my duties is, and how the same should be performed; in course, if I did not, it would be very strange, and very wrong in sich a gentleman as Mr Mould, which has undertook the highest families in this land, and given every satisfaction, so to recommend me as he does. I have seen a deal of trouble my own self,” said Mrs Gamp, laying greater and greater stress upon her words, “and I can feel for them as has their feelings tried, but I am not a Rooshan or a Prooshan, and consequently cannot suffer Spies to be set over me.”
Before it was possible that an answer could be returned, Mrs Gamp, growing redder in the face, went on to say:
“It is not a easy matter, gentlemen, to live when you are left a widder woman; particular when your feelings works upon you to that extent that you often find yourself a-going out on terms which is a certain loss, and never can repay. But in whatever way you earns your bread, you may have rules and regulations of your own which cannot be broke through. Some people,” said Mrs Gamp, again entrenching herself behind her strong point, as if it were not assailable by human ingenuity, “may be Rooshans, and others may be Prooshans; they are born so, and will please themselves. Them which is of other naturs thinks different.”
“If I understand this good lady,” said Mr Pecksniff, turning to Jonas, “Mr Chuffey is troublesome to her. Shall I fetch him down?”
“Do,” said Jonas. “I was going to tell you he was up there, when she came in. I'd go myself and bring him down, only—only I'd rather you went, if you don't mind.”
Mr Pecksniff promptly departed, followed by Mrs Gamp, who, seeing that he took a bottle and glass from the cupboard, and carried it in his hand, was much softened.
“I am sure,” she said, “that if it wasn't for his own happiness, I should no more mind him being there, poor dear, than if he was a fly. But them as isn't used to these things, thinks so much of “em afterwards, that it's a kindness to “em not to let “em have their wish. And even,” said Mrs Gamp, probably in reference to some flowers of speech she had already strewn on Mr Chuffey, “even if one calls “em names, it's only done to rouse “em.”
Whatever epithets she had bestowed on the old clerk, they had not roused HIM. He sat beside the bed, in the chair he had occupied all the previous night, with his hands folded before him, and his head bowed down; and neither looked up, on their entrance, nor gave any sign of consciousness, until Mr Pecksniff took him by the arm, when he meekly rose.
“Three score and ten,” said Chuffey, “ought and carry seven. Some men are so strong that they live to four score—four times ought's an ought, four times two's an eight—eighty. Oh! why—why—why didn't he live to four times ought's an ought, and four times two's an eight, eighty?”
“Ah! what a wale of grief!” cried Mrs Gamp, possessing herself of the bottle and glass.
“Why did he die before his poor old crazy servant?” said Chuffey, clasping his hands and looking up in anguish. “Take him from me, and what remains?”
“Mr Jonas,” returned Pecksniff, “Mr Jonas, my good friend.”
