Martin Chuzzlewit Part 148

'In what?' asked Mr Chuzzlewit.

'Meaning him, sir?'

'Meaning both him and me.'

'Well, sir,' said Mr Tapley. 'In your old opinions of each other. As to him, sir, and his opinions, I know he's a altered man. I know it.

I know'd it long afore he spoke to you t'other day, and I must say it.

n.o.body don't know half as much of him as I do. n.o.body can't. There was always a deal of good in him, but a little of it got crusted over, somehow. I can't say who rolled the paste of that 'ere crust myself, but--'

'Go on,' said Martin. 'Why do you stop?'

'But it--well! I beg your pardon, but I think it may have been you, sir.

Unintentional I think it may have been you. I don't believe that neither of you gave the other quite a fair chance. There! Now I've got rid on it,' said Mr Tapley in a fit of desperation: 'I can't go a-carryin' it about in my own mind, bustin' myself with it; yesterday was quite long enough. It's out now. I can't help it. I'm sorry for it. Don't wisit on him, sir, that's all.'

It was clear that Mark expected to be ordered out immediately, and was quite prepared to go.

'So you think,' said Martin, 'that his old faults are, in some degree, of my creation, do you?'

'Well, sir,' retorted Mr Tapley, 'I'm werry sorry, but I can't unsay it.

It's hardly fair of you, sir, to make a ignorant man conwict himself in this way, but I DO think so. I am as respectful disposed to you, sir, as a man can be; but I DO think so.'

The light of a faint smile seemed to break through the dull steadiness of Martin's face, as he looked attentively at him, without replying.

'Yet you are an ignorant man, you say,' he observed after a long pause.

'Werry much so,' Mr Tapley replied.

'And I a learned, well-instructed man, you think?'

'Likewise wery much so,' Mr Tapley answered.

The old man, with his chin resting on his hand, paced the room twice or thrice before he added:

'You have left him this morning?'

'Come straight from him now, sir.'

'For what does he suppose?'

'He don't know what to suppose, sir, no more than myself. I told him jest wot pa.s.sed yesterday, sir, and that you had said to me, "Can you be here by seven in the morning?" and that you had said to him, through me, "Can you be here by ten in the morning?" and that I had said "Yes" to both. That's all, sir.'

His frankness was so genuine that it plainly WAS all.

'Perhaps,' said Martin, 'he may think you are going to desert him, and to serve me?'

'I have served him in that sort of way, sir,' replied Mark, without the loss of any atom of his self-possession; 'and we have been that sort of companions in misfortune, that my opinion is, he don't believe a word on it. No more than you do, sir.'

'Will you help me to dress, and get me some breakfast from the hotel?'

asked Martin.

'With pleasure, sir,' said Mark.

'And by-and-bye,' said Martin, 'remaining in the room, as I wish you to do, will you attend to the door yonder--give admission to visitors, I mean, when they knock?'

'Certainly, sir,' said Mr Tapley.

'You will not find it necessary to express surprise at their appearance,' Martin suggested.

'Oh dear no, sir!' said Mr Tapley, 'not at all.'

Although he pledged himself to this with perfect confidence, he was in a state of unbounded astonishment even now. Martin appeared to observe it, and to have some sense of the ludicrous bearing of Mr Tapley under these perplexing circ.u.mstances; for, in spite of the composure of his voice and the gravity of his face, the same indistinct light flickered on the latter several times. Mark bestirred himself, however, to execute the offices with which he was entrusted; and soon lost all tendency to any outward expression of his surprise, in the occupation of being brisk and busy.

But when he had put Mr Chuzzlewit's clothes in good order for dressing, and when that gentleman was dressed and sitting at his breakfast, Mr Tapley's feelings of wonder began to return upon him with great violence; and, standing beside the old man with a napkin under his arm (it was as natural and easy to joke to Mark to be a butler in the Temple, as it had been to volunteer as cook on board the Screw), he found it difficult to resist the temptation of casting sidelong glances at him very often. Nay, he found it impossible; and accordingly yielded to this impulse so often, that Martin caught him in the fact some fifty times. The extraordinary things Mr Tapley did with his own face when any of these detections occurred; the sudden occasions he had to rub his eyes or his nose or his chin; the look of wisdom with which he immediately plunged into the deepest thought, or became intensely interested in the habits and customs of the flies upon the ceiling, or the sparrows out of doors; or the overwhelming politeness with which he endeavoured to hide his confusion by handing the m.u.f.fin; may not unreasonably be a.s.sumed to have exercised the utmost power of feature that even Martin Chuzzlewit the elder possessed.

But he sat perfectly quiet and took his breakfast at his leisure, or made a show of doing so, for he scarcely ate or drank, and frequently lapsed into long intervals of musing. When he had finished, Mark sat down to his breakfast at the same table; and Mr Chuzzlewit, quite silent still, walked up and down the room.

Mark cleared away in due course, and set a chair out for him, in which, as the time drew on towards ten o'clock, he took his seat, leaning his hands upon his stick, and clenching them upon the handle, and resting his chin on them again. All his impatience and abstraction of manner had vanished now; and as he sat there, looking, with his keen eyes, steadily towards the door, Mark could not help thinking what a firm, square, powerful face it was; or exulting in the thought that Mr Pecksniff, after playing a pretty long game of bowls with its owner, seemed to be at last in a very fair way of coming in for a rubber or two.

Mark's uncertainty in respect of what was going to be done or said, and by whom to whom, would have excited him in itself. But knowing for a certainty besides, that young Martin was coming, and in a very few minutes must arrive, he found it by no means easy to remain quiet and silent. But, excepting that he occasionally coughed in a hollow and unnatural manner to relieve himself, he behaved with great decorum through the longest ten minutes he had ever known.

A knock at the door. Mr Westlock. Mr Tapley, in admitting him, raised his eyebrows to the highest possible pitch, implying thereby that he considered himself in an unsatisfactory position. Mr Chuzzlewit received him very courteously.

Mark waited at the door for Tom Pinch and his sister, who were coming up the stairs. The old man went to meet them; took their hands in his; and kissed her on the cheek. As this looked promising, Mr Tapley smiled benignantly.

Mr Chuzzlewit had resumed his chair before young Martin, who was close behind them, entered. The old man, scarcely looking at him, pointed to a distant seat. This was less encouraging; and Mr Tapley's spirits fell again.

He was quickly summoned to the door by another knock. He did not start, or cry, or tumble down, at sight of Miss Graham and Mrs Lupin, but he drew a very long breath, and came back perfectly resigned, looking on them and on the rest with an expression which seemed to say that nothing could surprise him any more; and that he was rather glad to have done with that sensation for ever.

The old man received Mary no less tenderly than he had received Tom Pinch's sister. A look of friendly recognition pa.s.sed between himself and Mrs Lupin, which implied the existence of a perfect understanding between them. It engendered no astonishment in Mr Tapley; for, as he afterwards observed, he had retired from the business, and sold off the stock.

Not the least curious feature in this a.s.semblage was, that everybody present was so much surprised and embarra.s.sed by the sight of everybody else, that n.o.body ventured to speak. Mr Chuzzlewit alone broke silence.

'Set the door open, Mark!' he said; 'and come here.'

Mark obeyed.

The last appointed footstep sounded now upon the stairs. They all knew it. It was Mr Pecksniff's; and Mr Pecksniff was in a hurry too, for he came bounding up with such uncommon expedition that he stumbled twice or thrice.

'Where is my venerable friend?' he cried upon the upper landing; and then with open arms came darting in.

Old Martin merely looked at him; but Mr Pecksniff started back as if he had received the charge from an electric battery.

'My venerable friend is well?' cried Mr Pecksniff.

'Quite well.'

It seemed to rea.s.sure the anxious inquirer. He clasped his hands and, looking upwards with a pious joy, silently expressed his grat.i.tude.

He then looked round on the a.s.sembled group, and shook his head reproachfully. For such a man severely, quite severely.