Some clothes were bought for me that same dayand marked "Trotwood Copperfield," for my aunt wished to call me by her name.
Now I felt my troubles were over, and I began quite a new life, well cared for and kindly treated. I was sent to a very nice school in Canterbury, where my aunt left me with these words, which I never forgot:
"Trot, be a credit to yourself, to me, and Mr. Dick, and heaven be with you. Never be mean in anything, never be false, never be cruel. Avoid these three vices, Trot, and I shall always be hopeful of you?"
I did my best to show my gratitude to my dear aunt by studying hard, and trying to be all she could wish.
When you are older you can read how Little David Copperfield grew up to be a good, clever man, and met again all his old friends, and made many new ones.
Also, what became of Steerforth, Traddles, the Peggottys, little Em'ly, and the Micawbers.
WALKING into the city one holiday, a great many years ago, a gentleman ran up the steps of a tall house in the neighborhood of St. Mary Axe. The lower windows were those of a counting-house but the blinds, like those of the entire front of the house, were drawn down.
The gentleman knocked and rang several times before any one came, but at last an old man opened the door. "What were you up to that you did not hear me?" said Mr. Fledgeby irritably.
"I was taking the air at the top of the house, sir," said the old man meekly, "it being a holiday. What might you please to want, sir?"
"Humph! Holiday indeed," grumbled his master, who was a toy merchant amongst other things. He then seated himself in the counting-house and gave the old man—a Jew and Riah by name—directions about the dressing of some dolls about which he had come to speak, and, as he rose to go, exclaimed—
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"By-the-by, howdoyou take the air? Do you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?"
"No, sir, I have made a little garden on the leads."
"Let's look it at," said Mr. Fledgeby.
"Sir, I have company there," returned Riah hesitating, "but will you please come up and see them?"
Mr. Fledgeby nodded, and, passing his master with a bow, the old man led the way up flight after flight of stairs, till they arrived at the house-top. Seated on a carpet, and leaning against a chimney-stack, were two girls bending over books. Some humble creepers were trained round the chimney-pots, and evergreens were placed round the roof, and a few more books, a basket of gaily colored scraps, and bits of tinsel, and another of common print stuff lay near. One of the girls rose on seeing that Riah had brought a visitor, but the other remarked, "I'm the person of the house down-stairs, but I can't get up, whoever you are, because my back is bad and my legs are queer."
"This is my master," said Riah, speaking to the two girls, "and this," he added, turning to Mr. Fledgeby, "is Miss Jenny Wren; she lives in this house, and is a clever little dressmaker for littlepeople. Her friend Lizzie," continued Riah, introducing the second girl. "They are good girls, both, and as busy as they are good; in spare moments they come up here and take to book learning."
"We are glad to come up here for rest, sir," said Lizzie, with a grateful look at the old Jew. "No one can tell the rest what this place is to us."
"Humph!" said Mr. Fledgeby, looking round, "Humph!" He was so much surprised that apparently he couldn't get beyond that word, and as he went down again the old chimney-pots in their black cowls seemed to turn round and look after him as if they were saying "Humph" too.
Lizzie, the elder of these two girls, was strong and handsome, but little Jenny Wren, whom she so loved and protected, was small and deformed, though she had a beautiful little face, and the longest and loveliest golden hair in the world, which fell about her like a cloak of shining curls, as though to hide the poor little mis-shapen figure.
The Jew Riah, as well as Lizzie, was always kind and gentle to Jenny Wren, who called him her godfather. She had a father, who shared her poor little rooms, whom she called her child; for he was a bad, drunken, worthless old man, andthe poor girl had to care for him, and earn money to keep them both. She suffered a great deal, for the poor little bent back always ached sadly, and was often weary from constant work but it was only on rare occasions, when alone or with her friend Lizzie, who often brought her work and sat in Jenny's room, that the brave child ever complained of her hard lot. Sometimes the two girls Jenny helping herself along with a crutch, would go and walk about the fashionable streets, in order to note how the grand folks were dressed. As they walked along, Jenny would tell her friend of the fancies she had when sitting alone at her work. "I imagine birds till I can hear them sing," she said one day, "and flowers till I can smell them. And oh! the beautiful children that come to me in the early mornings! They are quite different to other children, not like me, never cold, or anxious, or tired, or hungry, never any pain; they come in numbers, in long bright slanting rows, all dressed in white, and with shiny heads. 'Who is this in pain?' they say, and they sweep around and about me, take me up in their arms, and I feel so light, and all the pain goes. I know when they are coming a long way off, by hearing them say, 'Who is this in pain?' and I answer, 'Oh my blessed children, it's poor me! have pityon me, and take me up and then the pain will go."
Lizzie sat stroking and brushing the beautiful hair, whilst the tired little dressmaker leant against her when they were at home again, and as she kissed her good-night, a miserable old man stumbled into the room. "How's my Jenny Wren, best of children?" he mumbled, as he shuffled unsteadily towards her, but Jenny pointed her small finger towards him, exclaiming—"Go along with you, you bad, wicked old child, you troublesome, wicked old thing,Iknow where you have been,Iknow your tricks and your manners." The wretched man began to whimper like a scolded child. "Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night," went on Jenny, still shaking her finger at him, "and all for this; ain't you ashamed of yourself, you disgraceful boy?"
"Yes; my dear, yes," stammered the tipsy old father, tumbling into a corner. Thus was the poor little dolls' dressmaker dragged down day by day by the very hands that should have cared for and held her up; poor, poor little dolls' dressmaker! One day when Jenny was on her way home with Riah, who had accompanied her on one of her walks to the West End, they came on a small crowd of people. A tipsy man had beenknocked down and badly hurt. "Let us see what it is!" said Jenny, coming swiftly forward on her crutches. The next moment she exclaimed—"Oh, gentlemen—gentlemen, he is my child, he belongs to me, my poor, bad old child!"
"Your child—belongs to you," repeated the man who was about to lift the helpless figure on to a stretcher, which had been brought for the purpose. "Aye, it's old Dolls—tipsy old Dolls," cried someone in the crowd, for it was by this name that they knew the old man.
"He's her father, sir," said Riah in a low tone to the doctor who was now bending over the stretcher.
"So much the worse," answered the doctor, "for the man is dead."
Yes, "Mr. Dolls" was dead, and many were the dresses which the weary fingers of the sorrowful little worker must make in order to pay for his humble funeral and buy a black frock for herself. Riah sat by her in her poor room, saying a word of comfort now and then, and Lizzie came and went, and did all manner of little things to help her; but often the tears rolled down on to her work. "My poor child," she said to Riah, "my poor old child, and to think I scolded him so."
"You were always a good, brave, patient girl,"returned Riah, smiling a little over her quaint fancy about herchild, "always good and patient, however tired."
And so the poor little "person of the house" was left alone but for the faithful affection of the kind Jew and her friend Lizzie. Her room grew pretty and comfortable, for she was in great request in her "profession," as she called it, and there were now no one to spend and waste her earnings. But nothing could make her life otherwise than a suffering one till the happy morning when her child-angels visited her for the last time and carried her away to the land where all such pain as hers is healed for evermore.
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ALL that little Philip Pirrip, usually called Pip, knew about his father and mother, and his five little brothers, was from seeing their tombstones in the churchyard. He was cared for by his sister, who was twenty years older than himself. She had married a blacksmith, named Joe Gargery, a kind, good man, while she, unfortunately, was a hard, stern woman, and treated her little brother and her amiable husband with great harshness. They lived in a marshy part of the country, about twenty miles from the sea.
One cold, raw day towards evening, when Pip was about six years old, he had wandered into the churchyard, and was trying to make out what he could of the inscriptions on his family tombstones. The darkness was coming on, and feeling very lonely and frightened, he began to cry.
"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice; and a man started up from among the graves close to him. "Keep still, you little imp, or I'll cut your throat!"
He was a dreadful looking man, dressed in coarse gray cloth, with a great iron on his leg. Wet, muddy, and miserable, he limped and shivered, and glared and growled; his teeth chattered in his head, as he seized Pip, by the chin.
"Oh! don't cut my throat, sir," cried Pip, in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir."
"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"
"Pip, sir."
"Once more," said the man, staring at him, "Give it mouth."
"Pip. Pip, sir."
"Show us where you live," said the man. "Point out the place."
Pip showed him the village, about a mile or more from the church.
The man looked at him for a moment, and then turned him upside down and emptied his pockets. He found nothing in them but a piece of bread, which he ate ravenously.
"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got. . . . Darn me if I couldn't eat 'em, and if I han't half a mind to!"
Pip said earnestly that he hoped he would not.
"Now lookee here," said the man. "Where's your mother?"
"There sir," said Pip.
At this the man started and seemed about to run away, but stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"There, sir," explained Pip, showing him the tombstone.
"Oh, and is that your father along of your mother?"
"Yes, sir," said Pip.
"Ha!" muttered the man, "then who d'ye live with—supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?"
"My sister, sir, Mrs. Joe Gargery, wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."
"Blacksmith, eh?" said the man, and looked down at his leg. Then he seized the trembling little boy by both arms, and glaring down at him, he said—
"Now lookee here, the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you know what wittles is. Something to eat?"
"Yes, sir."
"You get me a file, and you get me wittles—you bring 'em both to me." All this time he was tilting poor Pip backwards till he was so dreadfullyfrightened and giddy that he clung to the man with both hands.
"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live." Then he threatened all sorts of dreadful and terrible things to poor Pip if he failed to do all he had commanded, and made him solemnly promise to bring him what he wanted, and to keep the secret. Then he let him go, saying, "You remember what you've undertook, and you get home."
"Goo—good-night, sir," faltered Pip.
"Much of that!" said he, glancing over the cold wet flat. "I wish I was a frog or a eel!"
Pip ran home without stopping. Joe was sitting in the chimney-corner, and told him Mrs. Joe had been out to look for him, and taken Tickler with her. Tickler was a cane, and Pip was rather downhearted by this piece of news.
Mrs. Joe came in almost directly, and, after having given Pip a taste of Tickler, she sat down to prepare the tea, and, cutting a huge slice of bread and butter, she gave half of it to Joe and half to Pip. Pip managed, after some time, to slip his down the leg of his trousers, and Joe, thinking hehad swallowed it, was dreadfully alarmed and begged him not to bolt his food like that. "Pip, old chap, you'll do yourself a mischief—it'll stick somewhere, you can't have chewed it, Pip. You know, Pip, you and me is always friends and I'd be the last one to tell upon you any time, but such a—such a most uncommon bolt as that."
"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried Mrs. Joe.
"You know, old chap," said Joe. "I bolted myself when I was your age—frequent—and as a boy I've been among a many bolters; but I never see your bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't bolted dead."
Mrs. Joe made a dive at Pip, fished him up by the hair, saying, "You come along and be dosed."
It was Christmas eve, and Pip had to stir the pudding from seven to eight, and found the bread and butter dreadfully in his way. At last he slipped out and put it away in his little bedroom.
Poor Pip passed a wretched night, thinking of the dreadful promise he had made, and as soon as it was beginning to get light outside he got up and crept down-stairs, fancying that every board creaked out "Stop thief!" and "Get up, Mrs. Joe!"
As quickly as he could, he took some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mince-meat, which he tied up in a handkerchief, withthe slice of bread and butter, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat-bone with very little on it, and a pork-pipe, which he found on an upper shelf. Then he got a file from among Joe's tools, and ran for the marshes.
It was a very misty morning, and Pip imagined that all the cattle stared at him, as if to say, "Halloa, young thief!" and one black ox with a white cravat on, that made Pip think of a clergyman, looked so accusingly at him, that Pip blubbered out, "I couldn't help it, sir! It wasn't for myself I took it."
Upon which the ox put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind legs and a flourish of his tail.
Pip was soon at the place of meeting after that, and there was the man—hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all night left off hugging and limping. He was awfully cold, to be sure. Pip half expected to see him drop down before his face and die of cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry, too, that when Pip handed him the file it occurred to him he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen the bundle. He did not turn Pip upside down, this time, to get at what he had, but left him right side upwardwhile he opened the bundle and emptied his pockets.
"What's in the bottle, boy?" said he.
"Brandy," said Pip.
He was already handing mince-pie down his throat in the most curious manner, more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry than a man who was eating it—but he left off to take some of the liquor, shivering all the while so violently that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth.
"I think you have got the chills," said Pip.
"I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he.
"It's bad about here. You've been lying out on the marshes, and they're dreadful for the chills. Rheumatic, too."
"I'll eat my breakfast before they're the death of me," said he. "I'd do that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is over there directly arterward. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet you a guinea."
He was gobbling mince-meat, meat-bone, bread, cheese, and pork-pie all at once, staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round, and often stopping—even stopping his jaws—to listen. Some real or fancied sound, some clink upon theriver or breathing of beasts upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly:
"You're not a false imp? You brought no one with you?"
"No, sir! No!"
"Nor told nobody to follow you?"
"No!"
"Well," said he, "I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you should help to hunt a wretched warmint, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint is!"
Something clicked in his throat, as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged, rough sleeve over his eyes.
Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down upon the pie, Pip made bold to say, "I am glad you enjoy it."
"Did you speak?"
"I said I was glad you enjoyed it."
"Thankee, my boy—. I do."
Pip had often watched a large dog eating his food; and he now noticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating and the man's. The man took strong, sharp, sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up,every mouthful too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger of somebody's coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it to enjoy it comfortably, Pip thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.
Pip watched him trying to file the iron off his leg, and then being afraid of stopping longer away from home, he ran off.
Pip passed a wretched morning, expecting every moment that the disappearance of the pie would be found out. But Mrs. Joe was too much taken up with preparing the dinner, for they were expecting visitors, and were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls, a mince-pie, and a pudding.
Just at the end of the dinner Pip thought his time had come to be found out, for his sister said graciously to her guests—
"You must taste a most delightful and delicious present I have had. It's a pie, a savory pork-pie."
Pip could bear it no longer, and ran for the door, and there ran head foremost into a party ofsoldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to him, saying, "Here you are, look sharp, come on." But they had not come for him, they only wanted Joe to mend the handcuffs, for they were on the search for two convicts who had escaped and were somewhere hid in the marshes. This turned the attention of Mrs. Joe from the disappearance of the pie, without which she had come back, in great astonishment. When the handcuffs were mended the soldiers went off, accompanied by Joe and one of the visitors, and Joe took Pip and carried him on his back.
Pip whispered, "I hope, Joe, we shan't find them," and Joe answered, "I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip."
But the soldiers soon caught them, and one was the wretched man who had talked with Pip; and once when he looked at Pip, the child shook his head to try and let him know he had said nothing.
But the convict, without looking at anyone, told the sergeant he wanted to say something to prevent other people being under suspicion, and said he had taken some "wittles" from the blacksmith's. "It was some broken wittles, that's what it was, and a dram of liquor, and a pie."
"Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?" inquired the sergeant.
"My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip?"
"So," said the convict, looking at Joe, "you're the blacksmith, are you? Then, I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie."
"God knows you're welcome to it," said Joe. "We don't know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creature. Would us, Pip?"
Then the boat came, and the convicts were taken back to their prison, and Joe carried Pip home.
Some years after, some mysterious friend sent money for Pip to be educated and brought up as a gentleman; but it was only when Pip was quite grown up that he discovered this mysterious friend was the wretched convict who had frightened him so dreadfully that cold, dark Christmas eve. He had been sent to a far away land, and there had grown rich; but he never forgot the little boy who had been kind to him.
THIS is the story of a visit made by Mr. Pecksniff, a very pompous man, and his two daughters Miss Mercy and Miss Charity, to the boarding-house kept by Mrs. Todgers, in London; and a call while there on Miss Pinch, a governess or young lady teaching in a rich family.
Mr. Pecksniff with his two beautiful young daughters looked about him for a moment, and then knocked at the door of a very dingy building, even among the choice collection of dingy houses around, on the front of which was a little oval board, like a tea-tray, with this inscription—"Commercial Boarding-house: M. Todgers."
It seemed that M. Todgers was not up yet, for Mr. Pecksniff knocked twice and rang three times without making any impression on anything but a dog over the way. At last a chain and some bolts were withdrawn with a rusty noise, and a small boy with a large red head, and no nose to speak of, and a very dirty boot on his left arm, appeared; who (being surprised) rubbed the nosejust mentioned with the back of a shoe-brush, and said nothing.
"Still abed, my man?" asked Mr. Pecksniff.
"Still abed!" replied the boy. "I wish they was still abed. They're very noisy abed; all calling for their boots at once. I thought you was the paper, and wondered why you didn't shove yourselfthroughthe grating as usual. What do you want?"
Considering his years, which were tender, the youth may be said to have asked this question sternly, and in something of a defiant manner. But Mr. Pecksniff, without taking offense at his bearing, put a card in his hand, and bade him take that up-stairs, and show them in the meanwhile into a room where there was a fire.
Surely there never was, in any other borough, city, or hamlet, in the world, such a singular sort of a place as Todgers'. And surely London, to judge from that part of it which hemmed Todgers' round, and hustled it, and crushed it, and stuck its brick-and-mortar elbows into it, and kept the air from it, and stood perpetually between it and the light, was worthy of Todgers'.
There were more trucks near Todgers' than you would suppose a whole city could ever need; not trucks at work but a vagabond race, foreverlounging in the narrow lanes before their masters' doors and stopping up the pass; so that when a stray hackney-coach or lumbering wagon came that way, they were the cause of such an uproar as enlivened the whole neighborhood, and made the very bells in the next church-tower ring again. In the narrow dark streets near Todgers', wine-merchants and wholesale dealers in grocery-ware had perfect little towns of their own; and, deep among the very foundations of these buildings, the ground was undermined and burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by rats, might be heard on a quiet Sunday, rattling their halters, as disturbed spirits in tales of haunted houses are said to clank their chains.
To tell of half the queer old taverns that had a drowsy and secret existence near Todgers' would fill a goodly book; while a second volume no less in size might be given to an account of the quaint old guests who frequented their dimly-lighted parlors.
The top of the house was worthy of notice. There was a sort of terrace on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once intended to dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests out there, full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking-sticks. Whoeverclimbed to this observatory was stunned at first from having knocked his head against the little door in coming out; and, after that, was for the moment choked from having looked, perforce, straight down the kitchen chimney; but these two stages over, there were things to gaze at from the top of Todgers', well worth your seeing, too. For, first and foremost, if the day were bright, you observed upon the house-tops, stretching far away, a long dark path—the shadow of the tall Monument which stands in memory of the great fire in London many years before: and turning round, the Monument itself was close beside you, with every hair erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him. Then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes and masts of ships, a very forest. Gables, house-tops, garret-windows, wilderness upon wilderness. Smoke and noise enough for all the world at once.
After the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of this crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as it were, and took hold of the attention whether the spectator would or no. Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then,and whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going on below. Others, of a crooked-back shape, appeared to be maliciously holding themselves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and baffle Todgers'. The man who was mending a pen at an upper window over the way became of vast importance in the scene, and made a blank in it, ridiculously large in its size, when he went away. The fluttering of a piece of cloth upon the dyer's pole had far more interest for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd. Yet even while the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken and expand a hundredfold; and after gazing round him, quite scared, he turned into Todgers' again, much more rapidly than he came out; and ten to one he told M. Todgers afterwards that if he hadn't done so, he would certainly have come into the street by the shortest cut: that is to say, head-foremost.
So said the two Miss Pecksniffs, when they came down with Mrs. Todgers from the roof of the house; leaving the youthful porter to close the door and follow them down-stairs: who being of a playful temperament, and contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of life any chanceof dashing himself into small fragments, lingered behind to walk upon the wall around the roof.
It was the second day of their stay in London, and by this time the Misses Pecksniff and Mrs. Todgers were becoming very friendly, insomuch that the last-named lady had already told the story of three early disappointments in love; and had furthermore given her young friends a general account of the life, conduct, and character of Mr. Todgers: who, it seemed, had cut his life as a husband rather short, by unlawfully running away from his happiness, and staying for a time in foreign countries as a bachelor.
"Your pa was once a little particular in his attentions, my dears," said Mrs. Todgers, "but to be your ma was too much happiness denied me. You'd hardly know who this was done for, perhaps?"
She called their attention to an oval miniature, like a little blister, which was tacked up over the kettle-holder, and in which there was a dreamy shadowing forth of her own visage.
"It's a speaking likeness!" cried the two Misses Pecksniff.
"It was considered so once," said Mrs. Todgers, warming herself in a gentlemanly manner at the fire: "but I hardly thought you would have known it, my loves."
They would have known it anywhere. If they could have met with it in the street or seen it in a shop-window, they would have cried, "Good gracious! Mrs. Todgers!"
"Being in charge of a boarding-house like this makes sad havoc with the features, my dear Misses Pecksniff," said Mrs. Todgers. "The gravy alone is enough to add twenty years to one's age, I do assure you."
"Lor!" cried the two Misses Pecksniff.
"The anxiety of that one thing, my dears," said Mrs. Todgers, "keeps the mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human nature as the passion for gravy among business men. It's nothing to say a joint won't yield—a whole animal wouldn't yield—the amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. And what I have undergone in consequence," cried Mrs. Todgers, raising her eyes and shaking her head, "no one would believe!"
"Just like Mr. Pinch, Mercy!" said Charity. "We have always noticed it in him, you remember?"
"Yes, my dear," giggled Mercy, "but we have never given it him, you know."
Mr. Pecksniff kept what was called a school for architects, and Tom Pinch was one of his students.
"You, my dears, having to deal with your pa's pupils who can't help themselves, are able to take your own way," said Mrs. Todgers, "but in a boarding-house, where any gentleman may say, any Saturday evening, 'Mrs. Todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the cheese,' it is not so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding. Your pa was kind enough," added the good lady, "to invite me to take a ride with you to-day; and I think he mentioned that you were going to call upon Miss Pinch. Any relation to the gentleman you were speaking of just now, Miss Pecksniff?"
"For goodness' sake, Mrs. Todgers," interposed the lively Mercy, "don't call him a gentleman. My dear Cherry, Pinch a gentleman! The idea!"
"What a wicked girl you are!" cried Mrs. Todgers, embracing her with great affection. "You are quite a joker, I do declare! My dear Miss Pecksniff, what a happiness your sister's spirits must be to your pa and self!"
"That Pinch is the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, Mrs. Todgers, in existence," resumed Mercy: "quite an ogre. The ugliest, awkwardest, frightfullest being, you can imagine. This is his sister, so I leave you to suppose whatsheis.I shall be obliged to laugh outright, I know I shall!" cried the charming girl. "I never shall be able to keep my face straight. The notion of a Miss Pinch really living at all is sufficient to kill one, but to see her—oh my stars!"
Mrs. Todgers laughed immensely at the dear love's humor, and declared she was quite afraid of her, that she was. She was so very severe.
"Who is severe?" cried a voice at the door. "There is no such thing as severity in our family, I hope!" And then Mr. Pecksniff peeped smilingly into the room, and said, "May I come in, Mrs. Todgers?"
Mrs. Todgers almost screamed, for the little door between that room and the inner one being wide open, there was a full showing of the sofa-bedstead open as a bed, and not closed as a sofa. But she had the presence of mind to close it in the twinkling of an eye; and having done so, said, though not without confusion, "Oh yes, Mr. Pecksniff, you can come in if you please."
"How are we to-day," said Mr. Pecksniff, jocosely; "and what are our plans? Are we ready to go and see Tom Pinch's sister? Ha, ha, ha! Poor Thomas Pinch!"
"Are we ready," returned Mrs. Todgers, nodding her head in a mysterious manner, "to send afavorable reply to Mr. Jinkins' round-robin?[D]That's the first question, Mr. Pecksniff."
"Why Mr. Jinkins' robin, my dear madam?" asked Mr. Pecksniff, putting one arm round Mercy and the other round Mrs. Todgers, whom he seemed for the moment, to mistake for Charity. "Why Mr. Jinkins'?"
"Because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in the house," said Mrs. Todgers, playfully. "That's why, sir."
"Jinkins is a man of superior talents," observed Mr. Pecksniff. "I have formed a great regard for Jinkins. I take Jinkins' desire to pay polite attention to my daughters as an additional proof of the friendly feelings of Jinkins, Mrs. Todgers."
"Well now," returned the lady, "having said so much, you must say the rest, Mr. Pecksniff: so tell the dear young ladies all about it."
With these words, she gently drew away from Mr. Pecksniff's grasp, and took Miss Charity into her own embrace; though whether she was led to this act solely by the affection she had conceived for that young lady, or whether it had any reference to a lowering, not to say distinctly spiteful expression which had been visible in herface for some moments, has never been exactly ascertained. Be this as it may, Mr. Pecksniff went on to inform his daughters of the purpose and history of the round-robin aforesaid, which was, in brief, that the young men who helped to make up the sum and substance of that company, called Todgers', desired the honor of their presence at the general table so long as they remained in the house, and besought that they would grace the board at dinner-time next day, the same being Sunday. He further said that, Mrs. Todgers having consented to this invitation, he was willing, for his part, to accept it; and so left them that he might write his gracious answer, the while they armed themselves with their best bonnets for the utter defeat and overthrow of Miss Pinch.
Tom Pinch's sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founder's family known to mankind. They lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant's castle, struck terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate, with a great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a great lodge, which, being close to the house, rather spoiled the look-out certainly, but made the look-intremendous. At this entry, a great porter kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high leave to pass, he rang a second great bell, answering to whose notes a great footman appeared in due time at the great hall-door with such great tags upon his liveried shoulders that he was perpetually entangling and hooking himself among the chairs and tables and led a life of torment which could scarcely have been surpassed if he had been a blue-bottle in a world of cobwebs.
To this mansion, Mr. Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs. Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies having been all performed, they were ushered into the house, and so, by degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr. Pinch's sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil: to wit, a little woman thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her; which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends.
"Visitors for Miss Pinch!" said the footman. He must have been an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice distinction in his manner between the cold respect with which he would have announced visitors to the familyand the warm personal interest with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.
"Visitors for Miss Pinch!"
Miss Pinch rose hastily with such tokens of agitation as plainly declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time, the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take notice of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties concerned, very proper, improving, and pleasant.
It is a melancholy fact, but it must be related, that Mr. Pinch's sister was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face—a very mild and friendly face; and a pretty little figure—slight and short, but remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid truthfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else predicted by the two Misses Pecksniff, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to see.
Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gayety, bore up the best against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain, expressed it pretty openly in her looks. As to Mrs. Todgers, she leaned on Mr. Pecksniff's arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness, suitable to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion.
"Don't be alarmed, Miss Pinch," said Mr. Pecksniff, taking her hand condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. "I have called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother, Thomas Pinch. My name—compose yourself, Miss Pinch—is Pecksniff."
The good man spoke these words as though he would have said, "You see in me, young person, the friend of your race; the patron of your house; the preserver of your brother, who is fed with manna daily from my table; and in right of whom there is a considerable balance in my favor at present standing in the books beyond the sky. But I have no pride, for I can afford to do without it!"
The poor girl felt it all as if it had been Gospel Truth. Her brother, writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told her so, and howmuch more! As Mr. Pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung her head, and dropped a tear upon his hand.
"Oh, very well, Miss Pinch!" thought the sharp pupil, "crying before strangers as if you didn't like the situation!"
"Thomas is well," said Mr. Pecksniff; "and sends his love and this letter. I cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever become great in our profession; but he has the will to do well, which is the next thing to having the power; and, therefore, we must bear with him. Eh?"
"I know he has the will, sir," said Tom Pinch's sister, "and I know how kindly and thoughtfully you cherish it, for which neither he nor I can ever be grateful enough, as we often say in writing to each other. The young ladies, too," she added, glancing gratefully at his two daughters. "I know how much we owe to them."
"My dears," said Mr. Pecksniff, turning to them with a smile: "Thomas' sister is saying something you will be glad to hear, I think."
"We can't take any merit to ourselves, papa!" cried Cherry, as they both showed Tom Pinch's sister, with a courtesy, that they would feel obliged if she would keep her distance. "Mr. Pinch's being so well provided for is owing to youalone, and we can only say how glad we are to hear that he is as grateful as he ought to be."
"Oh, very well, Miss Pinch!" thought the pupil again. "Got a grateful brother, living on other people's kindness!"
"It was very kind of you," said Tom Pinch's sister, with Tom's own simplicity and Tom's own smile, "to come here—very kind indeed: though how great a kindness you have done me in gratifying my wish to see you, and to thank you with my own lips, you, who make so light of benefits conferred, can scarcely think."
"Very grateful; very pleasant; very proper;" murmured Mr. Pecksniff.
"It makes me happy too," said Ruth Pinch, who, now that her first surprise was over, had a chatty, cheerful way with her, and a single-hearted desire to look upon the best side of everything, which was the very moral and image of Tom; "very happy to think that you will be able to tell him how more than comfortably I am situated here, and how unnecessary it is that he should ever waste a regret on my being cast upon my own resources. Dear me! So long as I heard that he was happy and he heard that I was," said Tom's sister, "we could both bear, without one impatient or complaining thought, a great deal more thanever we have had to endure, I am certain." And if ever the plain truth were spoken on this occasionally false earth, Tom's sister spoke it when she said that.
"Ah!" cried Mr. Pecksniff, whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to the pupil; "certainly. And how doyoudo, my very interesting child?"
"Quite well, I thank you, sir," replied that frosty innocent.
"A sweet face this, my dears," said Mr. Pecksniff, turning to his daughters. "A charming manner!"
Both young ladies had been in delight with the child of a wealthy house (through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents might be supposed to lie) from the first. Mrs. Todgers vowed that anything one-quarter so angelic she had never seen. "She wanted but a pair of wings, a dear," said that good woman, "to be a young syrup"—meaning, possibly, young sylph or seraph.
"If you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable little friend," said Mr. Pecksniff, producing one of his professional cards, "and will say that I and my daughters——"
"And Mrs. Todgers, pa," said Mercy.
"And Mrs. Todgers, of London," added Mr.Pecksniff, "that I, and my daughters, and Mrs. Todgers, of London, did not intrude upon them, as our object simply was to take some notice of Miss Pinch, whose brother is a young man in my employment; but that I could not leave this very noble mansion without adding my humble tribute, as an architect, to the correctness and elegance of the owner's taste, and to his just appreciation of that beautiful art, to the cultivation of which I have devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and advancement I have sacrificed a—a fortune—I shall be very much obliged to you."
"Missis' compliments to Miss Pinch," said the footman, suddenly appearing and speaking in exactly the same key as before, "and begs to know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now."
"Oh!" said Mr. Pecksniff, "here is the young man.Hewill take the card. With my compliments, if you please, young man. My dears, we are interrupting the studies. Let us go."
One evening, following the visit to Miss Pinch, there was a great bustle at Todgers', partly owing to some additional domestic preparations for the morrow and partly to the excitement always arising in that house from Saturday night, when every gentleman's linen arrived at a different hour in his own little bundle, with his privateaccount pinned on the outside. Shrill quarrels from time to time arose between Mrs. Todgers and the girls in remote back kitchens; and sounds were occasionally heard, indicative of small articles of ironmongery and hardware being thrown at the boy. It was the custom of that youth on Saturdays to roll up his shirt sleeves to his shoulders, and pervade all parts of the house in an apron of coarse green baize; moreover, he was more strongly tempted on Saturdays than on other days (it being a busy time) to make bolts into the neighboring alleys when he answered the door, and there to play at leap-frog and other sports with vagrant lads, until pursued and brought back by the hair of his head or the lobe of his ear; thus, he was quite a conspicuous feature among the peculiar incidents of the last day in the week at Todgers'.
He was especially so on this particular Saturday evening, and honored the Misses Pecksniff with a deal of notice; seldom passing the door of Mrs. Todgers' private room, where they sat alone before the fire, without putting in his head and greeting them with some such compliments as, "There you are again!" "Ain't it nice?"—and similar humorous attentions.
"I say," he whispered, stopping in one of hisjourneys to and fro, "young ladies, there's soup to-morrow. She's a-making it now. Ain't she a-putting in the water? Oh! not at all neither!"
In the course of answering another knock, he thrust in his head again:
"I say—there's fowls to-morrow. Not skinny ones. Oh no!"
Presently he called through the keyhole:
"There's a fish to-morrow—just come. Don't eat none of him!" and with this spectral warning vanished again.
By-and-by, he returned to lay the cloth for supper. He entertained them on this occasion by thrusting the lighted candle into his mouth, after the performance of which feat, he went on with his professional duties; brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, by breathing on the blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron already mentioned. When he had completed his preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and expressed his belief that the approaching meal would be of "rather a spicy sort."
"Will it be long before it's ready, Bailey?" asked Mercy.
"No," said Bailey, "itiscooked. When I come up she was dodging among the tender pieces with a fork, and eating of 'em."
But he had scarcely achieved the utterance of these words, when he received a sudden blow on the head, which sent him staggering against the wall; and Mrs. Todgers, dish in hand, stood indignantly before him.
"Oh you little villain!" said that lady. "Oh you bad, false boy!"
"No worse than yerself," retorted Bailey, guarding his head with his arm. "Ah! Come now! Do that agin, will yer!"
"He's the most dreadful child," said Mrs. Todgers, setting down the dish, "I ever had to deal with. The gentlemen spoil him to that extent, and teach him such things, that I'm afraid nothing but hanging will ever do him any good."
"Won't it!" cried Bailey. "Oh! Yes! Wot do you go a-lowerin' the table-beer for, then, and destroying my constitooshun?"
"Go down-stairs, you vicious boy!" said Mrs. Todgers, holding the door open. "Do you hear me? Go along!"
After two or three skilful dodges he went, and was seen no more that night, save once, when he brought up some tumblers and hot water, and much disturbed the two Misses Pecksniff by squinting hideously behind the back of the unconscious Mrs. Todgers. Having done this justice to hiswounded feelings, he retired under-ground; where, in company with a swarm of black beetles and a kitchen candle, he employed himself in cleaning boots and brushing clothes until the night was far advanced.
Benjamin was supposed to be the real name of this young servant, but he was known by a great variety of names. Benjamin, for instance, had been converted into Uncle Ben, and that again had been corrupted into Uncle. The gentlemen at Todgers' had a merry habit, too, of bestowing upon him, for the time being, the name of any notorious criminal or minister; and sometimes, when current events were flat, they even sought the pages of history for these distinctions; as Mr. Pitt, Young Brownrigg, and the like. At the period of which we write, he was generally known among the gentlemen as Bailey junior; a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction, perhaps, to the Old Bailey prison; and possibly as involving the recollection of an unfortunate lady of the same name, who perished by her own hand early in life, and has been made famous in a song.
The usual Sunday dinner-hour at Todgers' was two o'clock—a suitable time, it was considered, for all parties; convenient to Mrs. Todgers, on account of the baker's; and convenient to thegentlemen, with reference to their afternoon engagements. But on the Sunday which was to introduce the two Misses Pecksniff to a full knowledge of Todgers' and its society, the dinner was postponed until five, in order that everything might be as genteel as the occasion demanded.
When the hour drew nigh, Bailey junior, testifying great excitement, appeared in a complete suit of cast-off clothes several sizes too large for him, and, in particular, mounted a clean shirt of such extraordinary magnitude that one of the gentlemen (remarkable for his ready wit) called him "collars" on the spot. At about a quarter before five a deputation, consisting of Mr. Jinkins and another gentleman whose name was Gander, knocked at the door of Mrs. Todgers' room, and, being formally introduced to the two Misses Pecksniff by their parent, who was in waiting, besought the honor of showing them up-stairs.
Here the gentlemen were all assembled. There was a general cry of "Hear, hear!" and "Bravo, Jink!" when Mr. Jinkins appeared with Charity on his arm: which became quite rapturous as Mr. Gander followed, escorting Mercy, and Mr. Pecksniff brought up the rear with Mrs. Todgers.
"The wittles is up!"