The World's Greatest Books_ Volume 3 Part 24

He did his best to dissuade her from coming. He was a ruined man, and the time when Little Dorrit and the prison had anything in common had long gone by.

But still she came and often read to him. And one day she told him that all her money had gone as his had gone, lost in the Merdle whirlpool, and that her sister f.a.n.n.y's was lost, too, in the same way.

"I have nothing in the world. I am as poor as when I lived here. When papa came over to England, just before his death, he confided everything he had to the same hands, and it is all swept away. Oh, my dearest and best, are you quite sure you will not share my fortune with me?"

Locked in his arms, held to his heart, she drew the slight hand round his neck, and clasped it in its fellow-hand.

Of course, when Doyce, who was a thoroughly good fellow, and successful to boot, found out his partner's plight, he came back and put things right, and the business was soon set going again.

And on the very day of his release, Arthur Clennam and Little Dorrit went into the neighbouring church of St. George, and were married, Doyce giving the bride away.

Little Dorrit and her husband walked out of the church alone when the signing of the register was done.

They paused for a moment on the steps of the portico, and then went down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed.

Martin Chuzzlewit

On its monthly publication, in 1843-44, "Martin Chuzzlewit"

was, pecuniarily, the least successful of d.i.c.kens's serials, though popular as a book. It was his first novel after his American tour, and the storm of resentment that had hailed the appearance of "American Notes," in 1842, was intensified by his merciless satire of American characteristics and inst.i.tutions in "Martin Chuzzlewit." Despite all adverse criticism, however, "Chuzzlewit" is worthy to rank with anything that ever came from the pen of the great Victorian novelist. It is a very long story, and a very full one; the canvas is crowded with a gallery of typical d.i.c.kensian people.

Through Mrs. Gamp, d.i.c.kens dealt a death-blow to the drunken nurse of the period. The name Pecksniff has become synonymous with a certain type of hypocrite, and the adjective Pecksniffian is in common use wherever the English language is spoken. Charged with exaggeration regarding Mr. Pecksniff, d.i.c.kens wrote in the preface to "Martin Chuzzlewit," "All the Pecksniff family upon earth are quite agreed, I believe, that no such character ever existed. I will not offer any plea on his behalf to so powerful and genteel a body." Mrs. Gamp, though one of the humorous types that have, perhaps, contributed most largely to the fame of d.i.c.kens, does not appear in this epitome, the character being a minor one in the development of the story.

_I.--Mr. Pecksniff's New Pupil_

Mr. Pecksniff lived in a little Wiltshire village within an easy journey of Salisbury.

The brazen plate upon his door bore the inscription, "Pecksniff, Architect," to which Mr. Pecksniff, on his cards of business, added, "and Land Surveyor." Of his architectural doings nothing was clearly known, except that he had never designed or built anything.

Mr. Pecksniff's professional engagements, indeed, were almost, if not entirely, confined to the reception of pupils. His genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians and pocketing premiums.

Mr. Pecksniff was a moral man. Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr. Pecksniff, especially in his conversation and correspondence.

Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there; but these were his enemies.

Into Mr. Pecksniff's house came young Martin Chuzzlewit, a relation of the architect's. Tom Pinch, Mr. Pecksniff's a.s.sistant, had driven over to Salisbury for the new pupil, and had already discoursed to Martin on Mr. Pecksniff and his family (for Mr. Pecksniff had two daughters--Mercy, and Charity), in whose good qualities he had a profound and pathetic belief.

Festive preparations on a rather extensive scale were already completed for Martin's benefit on the night of his arrival. There were two bottles of currant wine, white and red; a dish of sandwiches, very long, and very slim; another of apples; another of captain's biscuits; a plate of oranges cut up small and gritty with powdered sugar; and a highly geological home-made cake. The magnitude of these preparations quite took away Tom Pinch's breath, for though the new pupils were usually let down softly, particularly in the wine department, still this was a banquet, a sort of lord mayor's feast in private life, a something to think of, and hold on by afterwards.

To this entertainment Mr. Pecksniff besought the company to do full justice.

"Martin," he said, addressing his daughters, "will seat himself between you two, my dears, and Mr. Pinch will come by me. This is a mingling that repays one for much disappointment and vexation. Let us be merry."

Here he took a captain's biscuit. "It is a poor heart that never rejoices; and our hearts are not poor. No!"

The following morning Mr. Pecksniff announced that he must go to London.

"On professional business, my dear Martin; strictly on professional business; and I promised my girls long ago that they should accompany me. We shall go forth to-night by the heavy coach--like the dove of old, my dear Martin--and it will be a week before we again deposit, our olive-branches in the pa.s.sage. When I say olive branches," observed Mr.

Pecksniff, in explanation, "I mean our unpretending luggage."

"And now let me see," said Mr. Pecksniff presently, "how can you best employ yourself, Martin, while I am absent. Suppose you were to give me your idea of a monument to a Lord Mayor of London, or a tomb for a sheriff, or your notion of a cow-house to be erected in a n.o.bleman's park. A pump is a very chaste practice. I have found that a lamp-post is calculated to refine the mind and give it a cla.s.sical tendency. An ornamental turnpike has a remarkable effect upon the imagination. What do you say to beginning with an ornamental turnpike?"

"Whatever Mr. Pecksniff pleased," said Martin doubtfully.

"Stay," said that gentleman. "Come! as you're ambitious, and are a very neat draughtsman, you shall try your hand on these proposals for a grammar-school. When your mind requires to be refreshed by change of occupation, Thomas Pinch will instruct you in the art of surveying the back-garden, or in ascertaining the dead level of the road between this house and the finger-post, or in any other practical and pleasing pursuit. There is a cart-load of loose bricks, and a score or two of old flower-pots in the back-yard. If you could pile them up, my dear Martin, into any form which would remind me on my return, say, of St. Peter's at Rome, or the Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople, it would be at once improving to you and agreeable to my feelings."

The coach having rolled away, with the olive-branches in the boot and the family of doves inside, Martin Chuzzlewit and Tom Pinch were left together. Now, there was something in the very simplicity of Pinch that invited confidences, and young Martin could not refrain from telling his story.

"I must talk openly to somebody," he began, "I'll talk openly to you.

You must know, then, that I have been bred up from childhood with great expectations, and have always been taught to believe that one day I should be very rich. Certain things, however, have led to my being disinherited."

"By your father?" inquired Tom.

"By my grandfather. I have had no parents these many years. Now, my grandfather has a great many good points, but he has two very great faults, which are the staple of his bad side. He has the most confirmed obstinacy of character, and he is most abominably selfish; I have heard that these are failings of our family, and I have to be very thankful that they haven't descended to me. Now I come to the cream of my story, and the occasion of my being here. I am in love, Pinch. I am in love with one of the most beautiful girls the sun ever shone upon. But she is wholly and entirely dependent upon the pleasure of my grandfather; and if he were to know that she favoured my pa.s.sion, she would lose her home and everything she possesses in the world. My grandfather, although I had conducted myself from the first with the utmost circ.u.mspection, is full of jealousy and mistrust, and suspected me of loving her. He said nothing to her, but attacked me in private, and charged me with designing to corrupt the fidelity to himself--observe his selfishness-- of a young creature who was his only disinterested and faithful companion. The upshot of it was that I was to renounce her or be renounced by him. Of course, I was not going to yield to him, and here I am!"

Mr. Pinch, after staring at the fire, said, "Pecksniff, of course, you knew before?"

"Only by name. My grandfather kept not only himself, but me, aloof from all his relations. But our separation took place in a town in the neighbouring county. I saw Pecksniff's advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper when I was at Salisbury, and answered it, having always had some natural taste in the matters to which it referred. I was doubly bent on coming to him if possible, on account of his being--"

"Such an excellent man," interposed Tom, rubbing his hands.

"Why, not so much on that account," returned Martin, "as because my grandfather has an inveterate dislike to him, and after the old man's arbitrary treatment of me, I had a natural desire to run as directly counter to all his opinions as I could."

_II.--Mr. Pecksniff Discharges His Duty_

Mr. Pecksniff and his daughters took up their lodging in London at Mrs.

Todgers's Commercial Boarding House, and it was at that favoured abode that old Martin Chuzzlewit, whose grandson had just entered Mr.

Pecksniff's house, sought him out.

"I very much regret," said old Martin, "that you and I held such a conversation as we did when we met awhile since. The intentions that I bear towards you now are of another kind. Deserted by all in whom I have ever trusted; hoodwinked and beset by all who should help and sustain me, I fly to you for refuge. I confide in you to be my ally; to attach yourself to me by ties of interest and expectations. I regret having been severed from you so long."

Mr. Pecksniff looked up to the ceiling, and clasped his hands in rapture.

"I fear you don't know what an old man's humours are," resumed old Martin. "You don't know what it is to be required to court his likings and dislikings; to do his bidding, be it what it may. You have a new inmate in your house. He must quit it."

"For--for yours?" asked Mr. Pecksniff.

"For any shelter he can find. He has deceived you."

"I hope not," said Mr. Pecksniff eagerly, "I trust not. I have been extremely well disposed towards that young man. Deceit--deceit, my dear Mr. Chuzzlewit, would be final. I should hold myself bound, on proof of deceit, to renounce him instantly."

"Of course, you know that he has made his matrimonial choice?"