advertisement of a Mr. Pecksniff, an architect, living near Salisbury,
not many miles from London, who wished a pupil to board and teach. An
architect was what Martin wanted to be, and he answered the
advertisement at once and accepted Pecksniff's terms.
Now, to tell the truth, Martin had another reason for this. Pecksniff
was his grandfather's cousin, and he knew the old man thought him the
worst hypocrite of all his relatives, and disliked him accordingly. And
Martin was so angry with his grandfather that he went to Pecksniff's
partly to vex him.
Pecksniff was just the man old Chuzzlewit thought him. He was a smooth,
sleek hypocrite, with an oily manner. He had heavy eyelids and a wide,
whiskerless throat, and when he talked he fairly oozed virtuous sayings,
for which people deemed him a most moral and upright man. He was a
widower with two daughters, Charity and Mercy, the older of whom had a
very bitter temper, which made it hard for the few students as long as
they stayed there.
After Pecksniff had once got a pupil's money in advance, he made no
pretense of teaching him. He kept him drawing designs for buildings, and
that was all. If any of the designs were good, he said nothing to the
pupil, but sold them as his own, and pocketed the money. His pupils soon
saw through him and none of them had ever stayed long except one.
This one was named Tom Pinch. He had been poor and Mr. Pecksniff had
pretended to take him in at a reduced rate. But really Pinch paid as
much as the others, beside being a clever fellow who made himself useful
in a thousand ways. He was a musician, too, and played the organ in the
village church, which was a credit to Pecksniff.
With all this, Pinch was a generous, open-hearted lad, who believed
every one honest and true, and he was so grateful to Pecksniff (whose
hypocrisy he never imagined) that he was always singing his praises
everywhere. In return for all this, Pecksniff treated him with contempt
and made him quite like a servant.
Tom Pinch, however, was a favorite with every one else. He had a sister
Ruth who loved him dearly, but he seldom saw her, for she was a
governess in the house of a brass and iron founder, who did not like her
to have company. One of Tom's greatest friends had been a pupil named
John Westlock, who in vain had tried to open the other's eyes to
Pecksniff's real character. When Westlock came into his money he had
left and gone to live in London, and it was to take his vacant place
that the new pupil Martin was now coming.
Another friend of Pinch's was Mark Tapley, a rakish, good-humored
fellow, whose one ambition was to find a position so uncomfortable and
dismal that he would get some credit for being jolly in it. Tapley was
an assistant at The Blue Dragon, the village inn, whose plump, rosy
landlady was so fond of him that he might have married her if he had
chosen to. But, as Tapley said, there was no credit in being jolly where
he was so comfortable, so he left The Blue Dragon and went off, too, to
London.
With neither Westlock nor Mark Tapley there Tom Pinch was lonely and
welcomed the arrival of Martin, with whom he soon made friends. Mr.
Pecksniff folded his new pupil to his breast, shed a crocodile tear and
set him to work designing a grammar-school.
Old Chuzzlewit soon heard where Martin his grandson was, and wrote to
Pecksniff asking him to meet him in London. Pecksniff was so anxious to
curry favor with the rich old man that, taking his daughters with him,
he left at once for London, where they put up at a boarding-house kept
by a Mrs. Todgers, while Pecksniff awaited the arrival of old
Chuzzlewit.
Mrs. Todgers's house smelled of cabbage and greens and mice, and Mrs.
Todgers herself was bony and wore a row of curls on the front of her
head like little barrels of flour. But a number of young men boarded
there, and Charity and Mercy enjoyed themselves very much.
One whom they met on this trip to London was a remote relative of
theirs, a nephew of old Chuzzlewit's, named Jonas. Jonas's father was
eighty years old and a miser, and the son, too, was so mean and grasping
that he often used to wish his father were dead so he would have his
money.
The old father, indeed, would have had no friend in his own house but
for an old clerk, Chuffey, who had been his schoolmate in boyhood and
had always lived with him. Chuffey was as old and dusty and rusty as if
he had been put away and forgotten fifty years before and some one had
just found him in a lumber closet. But in his own way Chuffey loved his
master.
Jonas called on the two Pecksniff daughters, and Charity, the elder,
determined to marry him. Jonas, however, had his own opinion, and made
up his mind to marry Mercy, her younger sister.
Before long old Chuzzlewit reached London, and when Pecksniff called he
told him his grandson, Martin, was an ingrate, who had left his
protection, and asked the architect not to harbor him. Pecksniff, who
worshiped the other's money and would have betrayed his best friend for
old Chuzzlewit's favor, returned home instantly, heaped harsh names upon
Martin and ordered him to leave his house at once.
Martin guessed what had caused Pecksniff to change his mind so suddenly,
and with hearty contempt for his truckling action, he left that very
hour in the rain, though he had only a single silver piece in his
pocket. Tom Pinch, in great grief for his trouble, ran after him with a
book as a parting gift, and between its leaves Martin found another
silver piece--all Tom had.
Most of the way to London Martin walked. Once there he took a cheap
lodging, and tried to find some vessel on which he could work his
passage to America, for there, as he walked, he had made up his mind to
go. But he found no such opportunity. His money gone, he pawned first
his watch and then his other belongings, one by one, until he had
nothing left, and was even in distress for food.
Yet his pride was strong, and he gave what was almost his last coin to
escape the attentions of one Montague Tigg, a dirty, jaunty, bold, mean,
swaggering, slinking vagabond of the shabby-genteel sort, whom he
recognized as one who had more than once tried to squeeze money out of
his grandfather.
At last, when he was almost in despair, a surprise came in the shape of
an envelop addressed to himself, containing no letter, but a bank-note
for a generous amount. There was no clue whatever to the sender, but the
sum was enough to pay his passage and he determined therefore to sail
next day.
While he was still wondering at this good luck, Martin chanced to come
upon Mark Tapley, the old assistant at The Blue Dragon Inn. Tapley had
found London too pleasant a place to be jolly in with any credit, and,
as he had heard America was a very dismal place, he proposed to go with
Martin.
As it happened, Tapley knew that Mary Graham was then in London, for he
had seen old Chuzzlewit going into his house. When Martin learned this
he sent a letter to her by Tapley, and she met him next morning in a
little park near by. There he told her of his leaving Pecksniff's and
of his coming voyage.
She was very sorrowful over his departure, but he cheered her by telling
her he would soon return, well and prosperous, for her. She told him
that Pecksniff seemed somehow to have made his grandfather trust him,
and that by his advice they were both to move to The Blue Dragon Inn,
near his house. Martin told her of Pecksniff's true character, warned
her against him, and begged her to trust in Tom Pinch as a true friend.
So they parted, pledging each other their love whatever befell.
Before Martin left next day Mary sent him a diamond ring, which he
thought his grandfather had given her, but for which in reality she had
paid all her savings, so that he should have with him something of value
to sell if he be in want.
So Martin and Mark Tapley took ship for America, and Mary Graham and old
Chuzzlewit went to live at The Blue Dragon, to the huge satisfaction of
the oily Pecksniff, who thought now he could easily get the rich old man
under his thumb.
II
PECKSNIFF AND OLD CHUZZLEWIT
After his first burst of anger at Martin's leaving him, old Chuzzlewit,
to Mary's eyes, seemed to grow gradually a different man. He appeared
more old and stooped and deaf, and took little interest in anything.
After they came to The Blue Dragon Inn, Pecksniff threw himself
constantly in old Chuzzlewit's way, flattering and smooth, and before
long Mary saw, to her grief, that the old man was coming more and more
under the other's influence. When she was alone with him he seemed more
his former eager self; but let Pecksniff appear and the strange dull
look would come and he would seem only anxious to ask his advice about
the smallest matters.
Little wonder Pecksniff concluded he could wind his victim around his
finger. At length he proposed that old Chuzzlewit and Mary leave The
Blue Dragon, where he said he felt sure they were not comfortable, and
come and live with him under his own roof. To Mary's dismay, the old man
consented, and they were soon settled in the architect's house.
The only thing that now seemed to stand in Pecksniff's way was Mary, and
he decided that, as old Chuzzlewit was fond of her, he himself would
marry her. Once married to her, he reasoned, with both of them to
influence old Chuzzlewit, it would be easy to do what they pleased with
him and with his money, too. With this end in view, he began to
persecute poor Mary with his attentions, squeezing her hand and throwing
kisses to her when no one else was looking.
Charity, Pecksniff's older daughter, was not blind to his plan. She was
in a sour temper because the miserly Jonas, who came from London often
now to see them, had begun to make love to Mercy instead of to her. To
see her father now paying so much attention to Mary Graham made Charity
angry, and she left her father's house and went to live in London at
Mrs. Todgers's boarding-house, where she set her cap to catch a young
man, whether he wanted to be caught or not. As for Mercy, the younger
sister, she was leading Jonas such a dance that she thought very little
of her father's schemes.
His vinegary daughter Charity out of the way, Pecksniff began to
persecute Mary more and more. One day he made her so angry by holding
her hand and kissing it that she threatened to complain to old
Chuzzlewit. Pecksniff told her that if she did he would use all his
influence to turn the old man still more against his grandson. The poor
girl was in great trouble then, for she loved Martin and feared
Pecksniff's growing power with old Chuzzlewit. And seeing that this
threat frightened her, Pecksniff continued his annoyances.
According to Martin's parting advice, Mary had learned to like and to
trust Tom Pinch, in spite of his mistaken worship of Pecksniff. One day
while Tom was practising the organ at the church she came to him and,
confiding in him, told all that she had endured.
In his simple-heartedness he had admired and looked up to Pecksniff all
his life, but this evidence opened Tom Pinch's eyes. At last he saw the
pompous hypocrite in his true light. He agreed with her that the
architect was a scoundrel, and comforted her, and asked her always to
trust in his own friendship.
Unluckily while they talked there was an eavesdropper near. It was
Pecksniff himself. He had gone into the church to rest, and lying down
in one of the high-back pews, had gone to sleep, and now the voices of
Tom and Mary had awakened him. He listened and waited till they had both
gone; then he stole out and went home by a roundabout way.
That night he went to old Chuzzlewit and, pretending to shed tears of
sorrow, told him he had overheard Tom Pinch, the pauper pupil, whom he
had trusted and befriended, making love to Mary, the old man's ward, in
the church. Making a great show of his respect and regard for old
Chuzzlewit, he told him this villain should not remain under his roof
one night longer. Then he called in Tom Pinch and, abusing and insulting
him in Chuzzlewit's presence, sent him away as he had sent away Martin.
Tom was feeling so bad over his loss of faith in his idol, Pecksniff,
that he did not greatly mind this last blow. In fact, he had about
concluded he could not live any longer with such a wicked hypocrite
anyway. He packed his things and set off for London, feeling almost as
if the world had come to an end.
Once there, however, he plucked up spirit and felt better. First of all
he looked up Westlock, the former pupil of Pecksniff's, and found him
the same friendly, clever fellow now in his riches as he was of old.
Westlock was glad Tom had at last found his master out, and began at
once to plan for his future. Next Tom went to see his sister Ruth at the
house where she was governess.
He arrived there at a fortunate time, for the vulgar brass and iron
founder who had hired her to try to teach his spoiled little daughter
was at that moment scolding Ruth harshly for what was not her fault at
all.
Tom had been gaining a spirit of his own since he had parted from
Pecksniff, and, now, at sight of his gentle little sister's tears, his
honest indignation rose. He gave her unjust employer a lecture that left
him much astonished, and then, drawing Ruth's arm through his, he led
her from the house for ever.
It was not long before each had told the other all that had happened.
Tom decided that they should part no more, and they set out together to
find a lodging. They took some rooms in a quiet neighborhood and settled
down together till Tom could find something to do.
Ruth was a neat housekeeper, but she had to learn to cook, and they had
great fun over their first meal. While she was making her first
beefsteak pudding Westlock called with a great piece of news. An agent
had come to him asking him to offer to his friend Tom Pinch a position
as a librarian at a good salary. Who the employer was Tom was not to
know. Here was a rare mystery, and Ruth in her mingled excitement and
pie-making looked so sweet and charming that then and there Westlock
fell in love with her.
Tom and he went at once to the agent who had made this extraordinary
offer, and he took them to an unoccupied house, to a dusty room whose
floor was covered all over with books. Tom, he said, was to arrange and
make a list of these. Then he gave him the key, told him to come to him
each week for his salary, and disappeared.
Still wondering, the two friends went back together, for of course
Westlock had to taste the beefsteak pudding. Ruth had supper waiting for
them. Every minute Westlock thought she grew more lovely, and as he
walked home he knew he was in love at last.
Now, the mystery of Tom's library, and of the bank-note that Martin had
received when his money was all gone, would have been a very joyful one
to them both if they could have guessed it. Old Chuzzlewit, whom they
believed so harsh, and whom the wily Pecksniff thought he had got under
his thumb, was a very deep and knowing old man indeed. He had never
ceased to love Martin, his grandson, though he had misunderstood him at
first, but he had seen very plainly that the lad was growing selfish and
he wished to save him from this. He had longed for nothing more than
that Martin and Mary should marry, but he wished to try their love for
each other as well as Martin's affection for him. It was to test
Pecksniff that old Chuzzlewit had asked the architect to send Martin
from his house, and when he saw that Pecksniff was fawning hound enough
to do it, he determined to punish him in the end. It was old Chuzzlewit
who had found where Martin lodged in London, and had sent him the
bank-note. And, won by Tom Pinch's goodness and honor, it was he who
now, secretly, made him this position. If Pecksniff had guessed all
this, he would probably have had a stroke of apoplexy.
III
JONAS GETS RID OF AN ENEMY
Jonas, meanwhile, in his miserly soul, had been wishing that his old
father would hurry and die. He wanted the money and he wanted to marry
Mercy Pecksniff, and to do both he preferred the old man out of his way.
He thought of this and wished it so long that at last he began to think
of helping the matter along.
His father kept in a drawer some cough lozenges which he constantly
used. Jonas at last bought some poison from a dissipated man who needed
money badly, and made some lozenges like them. These he put in his
father's drawer instead of the others.
His father, however, and Chuffey, the old clerk, noticed that the
lozenges were not the same, and they guessed what Jonas had done. The
shock of discovering that his own son had tried to murder him proved the
old man's death. He made Chuffey promise not to betray Jonas, then fell
in a fit and never spoke again.
Jonas naturally thought the poison had done the work, and was at first
in dreadful fear of discovery. He made a fine funeral, with four-horse
coaches, velvet trappings and silver plate, so that people would think
he loved his father, and not till the body was buried did he forget his
dread.
Chuffey, however, seemed to go almost daft. He would walk and cry and
wring his hands and talk so strangely about his master's death that
Jonas feared he would cause suspicion that all was not right. So he
hired a nurse to come and keep him in his room.
This nurse went by the name of "Sairey" Gamp. She was a fat old woman,
with a red face, a husky voice and a moist eye, which often turned up so
as to show only the white. Wherever she went she carried a faded
umbrella with a round white patch on top, and she always smelled of
whisky. Mrs. Gamp was fond of talking of a certain "Mrs. Harris," whom
she spoke of as a dear friend, but whom nobody else had ever seen. When
she wanted to say something nice of herself she would put it in the
mouth of Mrs. Harris. She was always quoting, "I says to Mrs. Harris,"
or "Mrs. Harris says to me." People used to say there was no such person
at all, but this never failed to make Mrs. Gamp very angry.
She was a cruel nurse, and her way of making a sick man swallow a dose
of medicine was by choking him till he gasped and then putting the spoon
down his throat.
Such was the guardian Jonas chose to keep old Chuffey quiet in London,
while he himself courted Pecksniff's daughter at her father's house. And
it was not very long before he proposed to Mercy and they were married.
If Pecksniff had searched London he could not have found a worse man for
his daughter to marry. But Pecksniff cared for nothing but money, and,
as Jonas was now rich, he pretended great love for his new son-in-law
and went around with his hands clasped and his eyes lifted to Heaven in
pious thankfulness. As for Jonas, he began to treat Mercy brutally and
soon she was miserable.
Jonas, meanwhile, had fallen in with a very prosperous individual. This
was none other than Montague Tigg, the bold, jaunty, swaggering,
shabby-genteel Tigg, who had once been glad to beg a coin from any one
he knew. Now he had changed in both appearance and name. His face was
covered with glossy black whiskers, his clothes were the costliest and
his jewelry the most expensive. He was known now as "Mr. Tigg Montague,"
and was president of the great "Anglo-Bengalee Company."
The Anglo-Bengalee Company was a business which pretended to insure
people's lives. It had fine offices with new furniture, new paper and a
big brass plate on the door. It looked most solid and respectable, but
it was really a trap, for Tigg and its other officers were only waiting
until they had taken in enough money to run away with it to a foreign
country. Jonas, sharp as he was, was deceived into believing it an
honest enterprise. He came there to get his wife's life insured, and so
he met Tigg.
Tigg, however, knowing Jonas of old, knew he had a great deal of money
of his own, and thought, too, that he might influence Mr. Pecksniff, now
his father-in-law. Tigg flattered Jonas accordingly, telling him what a
sharp man he was and offered to make him a director in the company. He
assured Jonas that there would be enormous profits and showed him how,
by putting his own money into it, he could cheat other people out of
much more. This idea tickled Jonas and he agreed.
Having got thus far, Tigg hired a spy named Nadgett to see if he could
discover whether Jonas had ever committed any crime, the knowledge of
which would put him in their power. Nadgett began his work, got on the
right side of Sairey Gamp, the nurse, found out that old Chuffey was
locked up for fear he might talk, and soon had a suspicion that Jonas
had been concerned in his father's death.
As an experiment Tigg boldly charged him with it one day, and knew in an
instant, by the way Jonas's face whitened with fear, that he had
stumbled on the truth. He then told Jonas he not only must put into the
company more of his own money, but must persuade Pecksniff to do
likewise.
Jonas dared not now refuse. He thought of escaping to some other
country, but wherever he turned he found Tigg's spies watching, and at
last, he determined on a second murder to hide the first--the murder of
Tigg, who knew his secret.
Tigg did not forget his plan to ensnare Pecksniff. To do this he took
Jonas by carriage from London to Salisbury and, mile by mile, as they
sped, the latter laid his plans. Near their destination accident came
near assisting him. In the storm the carriage was upset and Tigg was
thrown under the horses' feet. Jonas lashed the struggling horses,
hoping they would trample and kill his companion, but the driver pulled
him out just in time.
They finally reached The Blue Dragon Inn, and there, the next day, Jonas
brought Pecksniff to dine with Tigg, and the latter told the architect
all about his wonderful company. Though Pecksniff pretended he took the
idea as a joke, yet the thought of cheating other people for big profits
was very attractive to him. Before the evening was over he had fallen
into the trap and had promised next day to give Tigg his money.
Jonas, his part of the bargain finished, hurried back to London. There,
after telling Mercy not to disturb him, as he expected to sleep all next
day, he locked himself into his room. When it was dark he dressed
himself in a rough suit that he had prepared for disguise, let himself
out by a rear way and took the stage back again to the village where he
had left Tigg with Pecksniff.
He lay in wait in a wood through which Tigg passed after his last call
on the architect, and there he killed him with a club. Then he went
swiftly back to London and let himself into his room again, thinking no
one had noticed his absence.
But there had been an eye at the shutter of the window in the house
opposite that did not fail to observe Jonas when he went and when he
came. And this eye belonged to Nadgett, the spy.
IV
WHAT CAME OF MARTIN'S TRIP TO AMERICA
While these things were occurring, much had happened to Martin and Mark
Tapley far away in America.
The sailing vessel on which they crossed was crowded and dirty, and in
order to save their money they had taken passage in the steerage. For a
long time Martin was very seasick, and even when he grew better he was
so ashamed at having to travel in the worst and cheapest part of the
vessel that he would not go on deck.
But Tapley had none of this false pride. He made friends with all,
helped every one he could and soon became such a general favorite that
(as he thought sadly) he was having much too good a time for him to be
jolly with any credit.
The long voyage of so many weeks came to an end at last, and they
reached New York. They found it a strange place indeed, and met many
strange characters in it. Only one they met pleased them: a gentleman
named Bevan, and from him they got much information and advice. There
seemed, however, to be little opening for an architect in New York, and
Martin at length decided to go West and settle in some newer region.
In the western town where they left the train they found a land agent
who was selling lots in a new settlement, on the Mississippi River,
called Eden. To buy their railway tickets Martin had already sold the
ring Mary Graham had given him, and he had just enough to purchase a
tract of land in Eden and to pay their fare there.
Martin looked at the agent's splendid plans of the new town, showing
wharves, churches and public buildings, and thought it a capital place
for a young architect; so they closed the bargain without more ado and
took the next steamer down the desolate Mississippi.