CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DOES BUSINESS WITH THE HOUSE OF ANTHONY CHUZZLEWIT AND SON, FROM WHICHONE OF THE PARTNERS RETIRES UNEXPECTEDLY
Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated toa narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels,step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure fromthe monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance, wouldseem to be the signal for instant confusion. As if, in the gap he hadleft, the wedge of change were driven to the head, rending what was asolid mass to fragments, things cemented and held together by the usagesof years, burst asunder in as many weeks. The mine which Time has slowlydug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rockbefore, becomes but sand and dust.
Most men, at one time or other, have proved this in some degree. Theextent to which the natural laws of change asserted their supremacyin that limited sphere of action which Martin had deserted, shall befaithfully set down in these pages.
'What a cold spring it is!' whimpered old Anthony, drawing near theevening fire, 'It was a warmer season, sure, when I was young!'
'You needn't go scorching your clothes into holes, whether it was ornot,' observed the amiable Jonas, raising his eyes from yesterday'snewspaper, 'Broadcloth ain't so cheap as that comes to.'
'A good lad!' cried the father, breathing on his cold hands, and feeblychafing them against each other. 'A prudent lad! He never deliveredhimself up to the vanities of dress. No, no!'
'I don't know but I would, though, mind you, if I could do it fornothing,' said his son, as he resumed the paper.
'Ah!' chuckled the old man. 'IF, indeed!--But it's very cold.'
'Let the fire be!' cried Mr Jonas, stopping his honoured parent's handin the use of the poker. 'Do you mean to come to want in your old age,that you take to wasting now?'
'There's not time for that, Jonas,' said the old man.
'Not time for what?' bawled his heir.
'For me to come to want. I wish there was!'
'You always were as selfish an old blade as need be,' said Jonas in avoice too low for him to hear, and looking at him with an angry frown.'You act up to your character. You wouldn't mind coming to want,wouldn't you! I dare say you wouldn't. And your own flesh and bloodmight come to want too, might they, for anything you cared? Oh youprecious old flint!'
After this dutiful address he took his tea-cup in his hand--for thatmeal was in progress, and the father and son and Chuffey were partakersof it. Then, looking steadfastly at his father, and stopping now andthen to carry a spoonful of tea to his lips, he proceeded in the sametone, thus:
'Want, indeed! You're a nice old man to be talking of want at this timeof day. Beginning to talk of want, are you? Well, I declare! There isn'ttime? No, I should hope not. But you'd live to be a couple of hundred ifyou could; and after all be discontented. I know you!'
The old man sighed, and still sat cowering before the fire. Mr Jonasshook his Britannia-metal teaspoon at him, and taking a loftierposition, went on to argue the point on high moral grounds.
'If you're in such a state of mind as that,' he grumbled, but in thesame subdued key, 'why don't you make over your property? Buy an annuitycheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody elsethat watches the speculation. But no, that wouldn't suit YOU. That wouldbe natural conduct to your own son, and you like to be unnatural, and tokeep him out of his rights. Why, I should be ashamed of myself if I wasyou, and glad to hide my head in the what you may call it.'
Possibly this general phrase supplied the place of grave, or tomb,or sepulchre, or cemetery, or mausoleum, or other such word which thefilial tenderness of Mr Jonas made him delicate of pronouncing. Hepursued the theme no further; for Chuffey, somehow discovering, fromhis old corner by the fireside, that Anthony was in the attitude of alistener, and that Jonas appeared to be speaking, suddenly cried out,like one inspired:
'He is your own son, Mr Chuzzlewit. Your own son, sir!'
Old Chuffey little suspected what depth of application these words had,or that, in the bitter satire which they bore, they might have sunk intothe old man's very soul, could he have known what words here hanging onhis own son's lips, or what was passing in his thoughts. But the voicediverted the current of Anthony's reflections, and roused him.
'Yes, yes, Chuffey, Jonas is a chip of the old block. It is a veryold block, now, Chuffey,' said the old man, with a strange look ofdiscomposure.
'Precious old,' assented Jonas
'No, no, no,' said Chuffey. 'No, Mr Chuzzlewit. Not old at all, sir.'
'Oh! He's worse than ever, you know!' cried Jonas, quite disgusted.'Upon my soul, father, he's getting too bad. Hold your tongue, willyou?'
'He says you're wrong!' cried Anthony to the old clerk.
'Tut, tut!' was Chuffey's answer. 'I know better. I say HE'S wrong.I say HE'S wrong. He's a boy. That's what he is. So are you, MrChuzzlewit--a kind of boy. Ha! ha! ha! You're quite a boy to many I haveknown; you're a boy to me; you're a boy to hundreds of us. Don't mindhim!'
With which extraordinary speech--for in the case of Chuffey this was aburst of eloquence without a parallel--the poor old shadow drew throughhis palsied arm his master's hand, and held it there, with his ownfolded upon it, as if he would defend him.
'I grow deafer every day, Chuff,' said Anthony, with as much softness ofmanner, or, to describe it more correctly, with as little hardness as hewas capable of expressing.
'No, no,' cried Chuffey. 'No, you don't. What if you did? I've been deafthis twenty year.'
'I grow blinder, too,' said the old man, shaking his head.
'That's a good sign!' cried Chuffey. 'Ha! ha! The best sign in theworld! You saw too well before.'
He patted Anthony upon the hand as one might comfort a child, anddrawing the old man's arm still further through his own, shook histrembling fingers towards the spot where Jonas sat, as though he wouldwave him off. But, Anthony remaining quite still and silent, he relaxedhis hold by slow degrees and lapsed into his usual niche in the corner;merely putting forth his hand at intervals and touching his old employergently on the coat, as with the design of assuring himself that he wasyet beside him.
Mr Jonas was so very much amazed by these proceedings that he could donothing but stare at the two old men, until Chuffey had fallen into hisusual state, and Anthony had sunk into a doze; when he gave some ventto his emotions by going close up to the former personage, and making asthough he would, in vulgar parlance, 'punch his head.'
'They've been carrying on this game,' thought Jonas in a brown study,'for the last two or three weeks. I never saw my father take so muchnotice of him as he has in that time. What! You're legacy hunting, areyou, Mister Chuff? Eh?'
But Chuffey was as little conscious of the thought as of the bodilyadvance of Mr Jonas's clenched fist, which hovered fondly about his ear.When he had scowled at him to his heart's content, Jonas took the candlefrom the table, and walking into the glass office, produced a bunch ofkeys from his pocket. With one of these he opened a secret drawer in thedesk; peeping stealthily out, as he did so, to be certain that the twoold men were still before the fire.
'All as right as ever,' said Jonas, propping the lid of the desk openwith his forehead, and unfolding a paper. 'Here's the will, MisterChuff. Thirty pound a year for your maintenance, old boy, and all therest to his only son, Jonas. You needn't trouble yourself to be tooaffectionate. You won't get anything by it. What's that?'
It WAS startling, certainly. A face on the other side of the glasspartition looking curiously in; and not at him but at the paper in hishand. For the eyes were attentively cast down upon the writing, and wereswiftly raised when he cried out. Then they met his own, and were as theeyes of Mr Pecksniff.
Suffering the lid of the desk to fall with a loud noise, but notforgetting even then to lock it, Jonas, pale and breathless, gazed uponthis phantom. It moved, opened the door, and walked in.
'What's the matter?' cried Jonas, falling back. 'Who
is it? Where do youcome from? What do you want?'
'Matter!' cried the voice of Mr Pecksniff, as Pecksniff in the fleshsmiled amiably upon him. 'The matter, Mr Jonas!'
'What are you prying and peering about here for?' said Jonas, angrily.'What do you mean by coming up to town in this way, and taking oneunawares? It's precious odd a man can't read the--the newspaper--in hisown office without being startled out of his wits by people coming inwithout notice. Why didn't you knock at the door?'
'So I did, Mr Jonas,' answered Pecksniff, 'but no one heard me. I wascurious,' he added in his gentle way as he laid his hand upon the youngman's shoulder, 'to find out what part of the newspaper interested youso much; but the glass was too dim and dirty.'
Jonas glanced in haste at the partition. Well. It wasn't very clean. Sofar he spoke the truth.
'Was it poetry now?' said Mr Pecksniff, shaking the forefinger of hisright hand with an air of cheerful banter. 'Or was it politics? Or wasit the price of stock? The main chance, Mr Jonas, the main chance, Isuspect.'
'You ain't far from the truth,' answered Jonas, recovering himself andsnuffing the candle; 'but how the deuce do you come to be in Londonagain? Ecod! it's enough to make a man stare, to see a fellow looking athim all of a sudden, who he thought was sixty or seventy mile away.'
'So it is,' said Mr Pecksniff. 'No doubt of it, my dear Mr Jonas. Forwhile the human mind is constituted as it is--'
'Oh, bother the human mind,' interrupted Jonas with impatience 'whathave you come up for?'
'A little matter of business,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'which has arisenquite unexpectedly.'
'Oh!' cried Jonas, 'is that all? Well. Here's father in the next room.Hallo father, here's Pecksniff! He gets more addle-pated every dayhe lives, I do believe,' muttered Jonas, shaking his honoured parentroundly. 'Don't I tell you Pecksniff's here, stupid-head?'
The combined effects of the shaking and this loving remonstrance soonawoke the old man, who gave Mr Pecksniff a chuckling welcome which wasattributable in part to his being glad to see that gentleman, and inpart to his unfading delight in the recollection of having called him ahypocrite. As Mr Pecksniff had not yet taken tea (indeed he had, but anhour before, arrived in London) the remains of the late collation, witha rasher of bacon, were served up for his entertainment; and as Mr Jonashad a business appointment in the next street, he stepped out to keepit; promising to return before Mr Pecksniff could finish his repast.
'And now, my good sir,' said Mr Pecksniff to Anthony; 'now that weare alone, pray tell me what I can do for you. I say alone, because Ibelieve that our dear friend Mr Chuffey is, metaphysically speaking,a--shall I say a dummy?' asked Mr Pecksniff with his sweetest smile, andhis head very much on one side.
'He neither hears us,' replied Anthony, 'nor sees us.'
'Why, then,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I will be bold to say, with the utmostsympathy for his afflictions, and the greatest admiration of thoseexcellent qualities which do equal honour to his head and to his heart,that he is what is playfully termed a dummy. You were going to observe,my dear sir--?'
'I was not going to make any observation that I know of,' replied theold man.
'I was,' said Mr Pecksniff, mildly.
'Oh! YOU were? What was it?'
'That I never,' said Mr Pecksniff, previously rising to see that thedoor was shut, and arranging his chair when he came back, so that itcould not be opened in the least without his immediately becoming awareof the circumstance; 'that I never in my life was so astonished as bythe receipt of your letter yesterday. That you should do me the honourto wish to take counsel with me on any matter, amazed me; but that youshould desire to do so, to the exclusion even of Mr Jonas, showed anamount of confidence in one to whom you had done a verbal injury--merelya verbal injury, you were anxious to repair--which gratified, whichmoved, which overcame me.'
He was always a glib speaker, but he delivered this short address veryglibly; having been at some pains to compose it outside the coach.
Although he paused for a reply, and truly said that he was there atAnthony's request, the old man sat gazing at him in profound silence andwith a perfectly blank face. Nor did he seem to have the least desire orimpulse to pursue the conversation, though Mr Pecksniff looked towardsthe door, and pulled out his watch, and gave him many other hints thattheir time was short, and Jonas, if he kept his word, would soon return.But the strangest incident in all this strange behaviour was, that of asudden, in a moment, so swiftly that it was impossible to trace how,or to observe any process of change, his features fell into their oldexpression, and he cried, striking his hand passionately upon the tableas if no interval at all had taken place:
'Will you hold your tongue, sir, and let me speak?'
Mr Pecksniff deferred to him with a submissive bow; and said withinhimself, 'I knew his hand was changed, and that his writing staggered. Isaid so yesterday. Ahem! Dear me!'
'Jonas is sweet upon your daughter, Pecksniff,' said the old man, in hisusual tone.
'We spoke of that, if you remember, sir, at Mrs Todgers's,' replied thecourteous architect.
'You needn't speak so loud,' retorted Anthony. 'I'm not so deaf asthat.'
Mr Pecksniff had certainly raised his voice pretty high; not so muchbecause he thought Anthony was deaf, as because he felt convinced thathis perceptive faculties were waxing dim; but this quick resentment ofhis considerate behaviour greatly disconcerted him, and, not knowingwhat tack to shape his course upon, he made another inclination of thehead, yet more submissive that the last.
'I have said,' repeated the old man, 'that Jonas is sweet upon yourdaughter.'
'A charming girl, sir,' murmured Mr Pecksniff, seeing that he waitedfor an answer. 'A dear girl, Mr Chuzzlewit, though I say it, who shouldnot.'
'You know better,' cried the old man, advancing his weazen face at leasta yard, and starting forward in his chair to do it. 'You lie! What, youWILL be a hypocrite, will you?'
'My good sir,' Mr Pecksniff began.
'Don't call me a good sir,' retorted Anthony, 'and don't claim to beone yourself. If your daughter was what you would have me believe, shewouldn't do for Jonas. Being what she is, I think she will. He might bedeceived in a wife. She might run riot, contract debts, and waste hissubstance. Now when I am dead--'
His face altered so horribly as he said the word, that Mr Pecksniffreally was fain to look another way.
'--It will be worse for me to know of such doings, than if I was alive;for to be tormented for getting that together, which even while I sufferfor its acquisition, is flung into the very kennels of the streets,would be insupportable torture. No,' said the old man, hoarsely, 'letthat be saved at least; let there be something gained, and kept fasthold of, when so much is lost.'
'My dear Mr Chuzzlewit,' said Pecksniff, 'these are unwholesome fancies;quite unnecessary, sir, quite uncalled for, I am sure. The truth is, mydear sir, that you are not well!'
'Not dying though!' cried Anthony, with something like the snarl of awild animal. 'Not yet! There are years of life in me. Why, look at him,'pointing to his feeble clerk. 'Death has no right to leave him standing,and to mow me down!'
Mr Pecksniff was so much afraid of the old man, and so completely takenaback by the state in which he found him, that he had not even presenceof mind enough to call up a scrap of morality from the great storehousewithin his own breast. Therefore he stammered out that no doubt it was,in fairness and decency, Mr Chuffey's turn to expire; and that fromall he had heard of Mr Chuffey, and the little he had the pleasure ofknowing of that gentleman, personally, he felt convinced in his ownmind that he would see the propriety of expiring with as little delay aspossible.
'Come here!' said the old man, beckoning him to draw nearer. 'Jonaswill be my heir, Jonas will be rich, and a great catch for you. You knowthat. Jonas is sweet upon your daughter.'
'I know that too,' thought Mr Pecksniff, 'for you have said it oftenenough.'
'He might get more money than with her,' said the old man, 'but shewill
help him to take care of what they have. She is not too young orheedless, and comes of a good hard griping stock. But don't you playtoo fine a game. She only holds him by a thread; and if you draw it tootight (I know his temper) it'll snap. Bind him when he's in the mood,Pecksniff; bind him. You're too deep. In your way of leading him on,you'll leave him miles behind. Bah, you man of oil, have I no eyes tosee how you have angled with him from the first?'
'Now I wonder,' thought Mr Pecksniff, looking at him with a wistfulface, 'whether this is all he has to say?'
Old Anthony rubbed his hands and muttered to himself; complained againthat he was cold; drew his chair before the fire; and, sitting with hisback to Mr Pecksniff, and his chin sunk down upon his breast, was, inanother minute, quite regardless or forgetful of his presence.
Uncouth and unsatisfactory as this short interview had been, it hadfurnished Mr Pecksniff with a hint which, supposing nothing furtherwere imparted to him, repaid the journey up and home again. For the goodgentleman had never (for want of an opportunity) dived into the depthsof Mr Jonas's nature; and any recipe for catching such a son-in-law(much more one written on a leaf out of his own father's book) was worththe having. In order that he might lose no chance of improving so fairan opportunity by allowing Anthony to fall asleep before he had finishedall he had to say, Mr Pecksniff, in the disposal of the refreshments onthe table, a work to which he now applied himself in earnest, resortedto many ingenious contrivances for attracting his attention; such ascoughing, sneezing, clattering the teacups, sharpening the knives,dropping the loaf, and so forth. But all in vain, for Mr Jonas returned,and Anthony had said no more.
'What! My father asleep again?' he cried, as he hung up his hat, andcast a look at him. 'Ah! and snoring. Only hear!'
'He snores very deep,' said Mr Pecksniff.
'Snores deep?' repeated Jonas. 'Yes; let him alone for that. He'll snorefor six, at any time.'
'Do you know, Mr Jonas,' said Pecksniff, 'that I think your fatheris--don't let me alarm you--breaking?'
'Oh, is he though?' replied Jonas, with a shake of the head whichexpressed the closeness of his dutiful observation. 'Ecod, you don'tknow how tough he is. He ain't upon the move yet.'
'It struck me that he was changed, both in his appearance and manner,'said Mr Pecksniff.
'That's all you know about it,' returned Jonas, seating himself with amelancholy air. 'He never was better than he is now. How are they all athome? How's Charity?'
'Blooming, Mr Jonas, blooming.'
'And the other one; how's she?'
'Volatile trifler!' said Mr Pecksniff, fondly musing. 'She is well, sheis well. Roving from parlour to bedroom, Mr Jonas, like a bee, skimmingfrom post to pillar, like the butterfly; dipping her young beak into ourcurrant wine, like the humming-bird! Ah! were she a little less giddythan she is; and had she but the sterling qualities of Cherry, my youngfriend!'
'Is she so very giddy, then?' asked Jonas.
'Well, well!' said Mr Pecksniff, with great feeling; 'let me not be hardupon my child. Beside her sister Cherry she appears so. A strange noisethat, Mr Jonas!'
'Something wrong in the clock, I suppose,' said Jonas, glancing towardsit. 'So the other one ain't your favourite, ain't she?'
The fond father was about to reply, and had already summoned into hisface a look of most intense sensibility, when the sound he had alreadynoticed was repeated.
'Upon my word, Mr Jonas, that is a very extraordinary clock,' saidPecksniff.
It would have been, if it had made the noise which startled them; butanother kind of time-piece was fast running down, and from that thesound proceeded. A scream from Chuffey, rendered a hundred times moreloud and formidable by his silent habits, made the house ring from roofto cellar; and, looking round, they saw Anthony Chuzzlewit extended onthe floor, with the old clerk upon his knees beside him.
He had fallen from his chair in a fit, and lay there, battling for eachgasp of breath, with every shrivelled vein and sinew starting in itsplace, as if it were bent on bearing witness to his age, and sternlypleading with Nature against his recovery. It was frightful to see howthe principle of life, shut up within his withered frame, fought like astrong devil, mad to be released, and rent its ancient prison-house.A young man in the fullness of his vigour, struggling with so muchstrength of desperation, would have been a dismal sight; but an old,old, shrunken body, endowed with preternatural might, and giving the liein every motion of its every limb and joint to its enfeebled aspect, wasa hideous spectacle indeed.
They raised him up, and fetched a surgeon with all haste, who bled thepatient and applied some remedies; but the fits held him so long thatit was past midnight when they got him--quiet now, but quite unconsciousand exhausted--into bed.
'Don't go,' said Jonas, putting his ashy lips to Mr Pecksniff's ear andwhispered across the bed. 'It was a mercy you were present when he wastaken ill. Some one might have said it was my doing.'
'YOUR doing!' cried Mr Pecksniff.
'I don't know but they might,' he replied, wiping the moisture from hiswhite face. 'People say such things. How does he look now?'
Mr Pecksniff shook his head.
'I used to joke, you know,' said. Jonas: 'but I--I never wished himdead. Do you think he's very bad?'
'The doctor said he was. You heard,' was Mr Pecksniff's answer.
'Ah! but he might say that to charge us more, in case of his gettingwell' said Jonas. 'You mustn't go away, Pecksniff. Now it's come tothis, I wouldn't be without a witness for a thousand pound.'
Chuffey said not a word, and heard not a word. He had sat himself downin a chair at the bedside, and there he remained, motionless; exceptthat he sometimes bent his head over the pillow, and seemed to listen.He never changed in this. Though once in the dreary night Mr Pecksniff,having dozed, awoke with a confused impression that he had heardhim praying, and strangely mingling figures--not of speech, butarithmetic--with his broken prayers.
Jonas sat there, too, all night; not where his father could have seenhim, had his consciousness returned, but hiding, as it were, behind him,and only reading how he looked, in Mr Pecksniff's eyes. HE, the coarseupstart, who had ruled the house so long--that craven cur, who wasafraid to move, and shook so, that his very shadow fluttered on thewall!
It was broad, bright, stirring day when, leaving the old clerk to watchhim, they went down to breakfast. People hurried up and down the street;windows and doors were opened; thieves and beggars took their usualposts; workmen bestirred themselves; tradesmen set forth their shops;bailiffs and constables were on the watch; all kinds of human creaturesstrove, in their several ways, as hard to live, as the one sick oldman who combated for every grain of sand in his fast-emptying glass, aseagerly as if it were an empire.
'If anything happens Pecksniff,' said Jonas, 'you must promise me tostop here till it's all over. You shall see that I do what's right.'
'I know that you will do what's right, Mr Jonas,' said Pecksniff.
'Yes, yes, but I won't be doubted. No one shall have it in his power tosay a syllable against me,' he returned. 'I know how people will talk.Just as if he wasn't old, or I had the secret of keeping him alive!'
Mr Pecksniff promised that he would remain, if circumstances shouldrender it, in his esteemed friend's opinion, desirable; they werefinishing their meal in silence, when suddenly an apparition stoodbefore them, so ghastly to the view that Jonas shrieked aloud, and bothrecoiled in horror.
Old Anthony, dressed in his usual clothes, was in the room--beside thetable. He leaned upon the shoulder of his solitary friend; and on hislivid face, and on his horny hands, and in his glassy eyes, and tracedby an eternal finger in the very drops of sweat upon his brow, was oneword--Death.
He spoke to them--in something of his own voice too, but sharpened andmade hollow, like a dead man's face. What he would have said, God knows.He seemed to utter words, but they were such as man had never heard.And this was the most fearful circumstance of all, to see him standingthere, gabbling in an uneart
hly tongue.
'He's better now,' said Chuffey. 'Better now. Let him sit in his oldchair, and he'll be well again. I told him not to mind. I said so,yesterday.'
They put him in his easy-chair, and wheeled it near the window; then,swinging open the door, exposed him to the free current of morning air.But not all the air that is, nor all the winds that ever blew 'twixtHeaven and Earth, could have brought new life to him.
Plunge him to the throat in golden pieces now, and his heavy fingersshall not close on one!