During the whole of this affectionate display she laughed to a most immoderate extent: in which hilarious indulgence even the prudent Cherry joined.
"Tut, tut," said Mr Pecksniff, pushing his latest-born away and running his fingers through his hair, as he resumed his tranquil face. "What folly is this! Let us take heed how we laugh without reason lest we cry with it. What is the domestic news since yesterday? John Westlock is gone, I hope?"
"Indeed, no," said Charity.
"And why not?" returned her father. "His term expired yesterday. And his box was packed, I know; for I saw it, in the morning, standing in the hall."
"He slept last night at the Dragon," returned the young lady, "and had Mr Pinch to dine with him. They spent the evening together, and Mr Pinch was not home till very late."
"And when I saw him on the stairs this morning, Pa," said Mercy with her usual sprightliness, "he looked, oh goodness, SUCH a monster! with his face all manner of colours, and his eyes as dull as if they had been boiled, and his head aching dreadfully, I am sure from the look of it, and his clothes smelling, oh it"s impossible to say how strong, oh"--here the young lady shuddered--"of smoke and punch."
"Now I think," said Mr Pecksniff with his accustomed gentleness, though still with the air of one who suffered under injury without complaint, "I think Mr Pinch might have done better than choose for his companion one who, at the close of a long intercourse, had endeavoured, as he knew, to wound my feelings. I am not quite sure that this was delicate in Mr Pinch. I am not quite sure that this was kind in Mr Pinch. I will go further and say, I am not quite sure that this was even ordinarily grateful in Mr Pinch."
"But what can anyone expect from Mr Pinch!" cried Charity, with as strong and scornful an emphasis on the name as if it would have given her unspeakable pleasure to express it, in an acted charade, on the calf of that gentleman"s leg.
"Aye, aye," returned her father, raising his hand mildly: "it is very well to say what can we expect from Mr Pinch, but Mr Pinch is a fellow-creature, my dear; Mr Pinch is an item in the vast total of humanity, my love; and we have a right, it is our duty, to expect in Mr Pinch some development of those better qualities, the possession of which in our own persons inspires our humble self-respect. No,"
continued Mr Pecksniff. "No! Heaven forbid that I should say, nothing can be expected from Mr Pinch; or that I should say, nothing can be expected from any man alive (even the most degraded, which Mr Pinch is not, no, really); but Mr Pinch has disappointed me; he has hurt me; I think a little the worse of him on this account, but not if human nature. Oh, no, no!"
"Hark!" said Miss Charity, holding up her finger, as a gentle rap was heard at the street door. "There is the creature! Now mark my words, he has come back with John Westlock for his box, and is going to help him to take it to the mail. Only mark my words, if that isn"t his intention!"
Even as she spoke, the box appeared to be in progress of conveyance from the house, but after a brief murmuring of question and answer, it was put down again, and somebody knocked at the parlour door.
"Come in!" cried Mr Pecksniff--not severely; only virtuously. "Come in!"
An ungainly, awkward-looking man, extremely short-sighted, and prematurely bald, availed himself of this permission; and seeing that Mr Pecksniff sat with his back towards him, gazing at the fire, stood hesitating, with the door in his hand. He was far from handsome certainly; and was drest in a snuff-coloured suit, of an uncouth make at the best, which, being shrunk with long wear, was twisted and tortured into all kinds of odd shapes; but notwithstanding his attire, and his clumsy figure, which a great stoop in his shoulders, and a ludicrous habit he had of thrusting his head forward, by no means redeemed, one would not have been disposed (unless Mr Pecksniff said so) to consider him a bad fellow by any means. He was perhaps about thirty, but he might have been almost any age between sixteen and sixty; being one of those strange creatures who never decline into an ancient appearance, but look their oldest when they are very young, and get it over at once.
Keeping his hand upon the lock of the door, he glanced from Mr Pecksniff to Mercy, from Mercy to Charity, and from Charity to Mr Pecksniff again, several times; but the young ladies being as intent upon the fire as their father was, and neither of the three taking any notice of him, he was fain to say, at last,
"Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr Pecksniff: I beg your pardon for intruding; but--"
"No intrusion, Mr Pinch," said that gentleman very sweetly, but without looking round. "Pray be seated, Mr Pinch. Have the goodness to shut the door, Mr Pinch, if you please."
"Certainly, sir," said Pinch; not doing so, however, but holding it rather wider open than before, and beckoning nervously to somebody without: "Mr Westlock, sir, hearing that you were come home--"
"Mr Pinch, Mr Pinch!" said Pecksniff, wheeling his chair about, and looking at him with an aspect of the deepest melancholy, "I did not expect this from you. I have not deserved this from you!"
"No, but upon my word, sir--" urged Pinch.
"The less you say, Mr Pinch," interposed the other, "the better. I utter no complaint. Make no defence."
"No, but do have the goodness, sir," cried Pinch, with great earnestness, "if you please. Mr Westlock, sir, going away for good and all, wishes to leave none but friends behind him. Mr Westlock and you, sir, had a little difference the other day; you have had many little differences."
"Little differences!" cried Charity.
"Little differences!" echoed Mercy.
"My loves!" said Mr Pecksniff, with the same serene upraising of his hand; "My dears!" After a solemn pause he meekly bowed to Mr Pinch, as who should say, "Proceed;" but Mr Pinch was so very much at a loss how to resume, and looked so helplessly at the two Miss Pecksniffs, that the conversation would most probably have terminated there, if a good-looking youth, newly arrived at man"s estate, had not stepped forward from the doorway and taken up the thread of the discourse.
"Come, Mr Pecksniff," he said, with a smile, "don"t let there be any ill-blood between us, pray. I am sorry we have ever differed, and extremely sorry I have ever given you offence. Bear me no ill-will at parting, sir."
"I bear," answered Mr Pecksniff, mildly, "no ill-will to any man on earth."
"I told you he didn"t," said Pinch, in an undertone; "I knew he didn"t!
He always says he don"t."
"Then you will shake hands, sir?" cried Westlock, advancing a step or two, and bespeaking Mr Pinch"s close attention by a glance.
"Umph!" said Mr Pecksniff, in his most winning tone.
"You will shake hands, sir."
"No, John," said Mr Pecksniff, with a calmness quite ethereal; "no, I will not shake hands, John. I have forgiven you. I had already forgiven you, even before you ceased to reproach and taunt me. I have embraced you in the spirit, John, which is better than shaking hands."
"Pinch," said the youth, turning towards him, with a hearty disgust of his late master, "what did I tell you?"
Poor Pinch looked down uneasily at Mr Pecksniff, whose eye was fixed upon him as it had been from the first; and looking up at the ceiling again, made no reply.
"As to your forgiveness, Mr Pecksniff," said the youth, "I"ll not have it upon such terms. I won"t be forgiven."
"Won"t you, John?" retorted Mr Pecksniff, with a smile. "You must. You can"t help it. Forgiveness is a high quality; an exalted virtue; far above YOUR control or influence, John. I WILL forgive you. You cannot move me to remember any wrong you have ever done me, John."
"Wrong!" cried the other, with all the heat and impetuosity of his age.
"Here"s a pretty fellow! Wrong! Wrong I have done him! He"ll not even remember the five hundred pounds he had with me under false pretences; or the seventy pounds a year for board and lodging that would have been dear at seventeen! Here"s a martyr!"
"Money, John," said Mr Pecksniff, "is the root of all evil. I grieve to see that it is already bearing evil fruit in you. But I will not remember its existence. I will not even remember the conduct of that misguided person"--and here, although he spoke like one at peace with all the world, he used an emphasis that plainly said "I have my eye upon the rascal now"--"that misguided person who has brought you here to-night, seeking to disturb (it is a happiness to say, in vain) the heart"s repose and peace of one who would have shed his dearest blood to serve him."
The voice of Mr Pecksniff trembled as he spoke, and sobs were heard from his daughters. Sounds floated on the air, moreover, as if two spirit voices had exclaimed: one, "Beast!" the other, "Savage!"
"Forgiveness," said Mr Pecksniff, "entire and pure forgiveness is not incompatible with a wounded heart; perchance when the heart is wounded, it becomes a greater virtue. With my breast still wrung and grieved to its inmost core by the ingrat.i.tude of that person, I am proud and glad to say that I forgive him. Nay! I beg," cried Mr Pecksniff, raising his voice, as Pinch appeared about to speak, "I beg that individual not to offer a remark; he will truly oblige me by not uttering one word, just now. I am not sure that I am equal to the trial. In a very short s.p.a.ce of time, I shall have sufficient fort.i.tude, I trust to converse with him as if these events had never happened. But not," said Mr Pecksniff, turning round again towards the fire, and waving his hand in the direction of the door, "not now."
"Bah!" cried John Westlock, with the utmost disgust and disdain the monosyllable is capable of expressing. "Ladies, good evening. Come, Pinch, it"s not worth thinking of. I was right and you were wrong.
That"s small matter; you"ll be wiser another time."
So saying, he clapped that dejected companion on the shoulder, turned upon his heel, and walked out into the pa.s.sage, whither poor Mr Pinch, after lingering irresolutely in the parlour for a few seconds, expressing in his countenance the deepest mental misery and gloom followed him. Then they took up the box between them, and sallied out to meet the mail.
That fleet conveyance pa.s.sed, every night, the corner of a lane at some distance; towards which point they bent their steps. For some minutes they walked along in silence, until at length young Westlock burst into a loud laugh, and at intervals into another, and another. Still there was no response from his companion.
"I"ll tell you what, Pinch!" he said abruptly, after another lengthened silence--"You haven"t half enough of the devil in you. Half enough! You haven"t any."
"Well!" said Pinch with a sigh, "I don"t know, I"m sure. It"s compliment to say so. If I haven"t, I suppose, I"m all the better for it."
"All the better!" repeated his companion tartly: "All the worse, you mean to say."
"And yet," said Pinch, pursuing his own thoughts and not this last remark on the part of his friend, "I must have a good deal of what you call the devil in me, too, or how could I make Pecksniff so uncomfortable? I wouldn"t have occasioned him so much distress--don"t laugh, please--for a mine of money; and Heaven knows I could find good use for it too, John. How grieved he was!"
"HE grieved!" returned the other.
"Why didn"t you observe that the tears were almost starting out of his eyes!" cried Pinch. "Bless my soul, John, is it nothing to see a man moved to that extent and know one"s self to be the cause! And did you hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?"