Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens [top young adult novels .txt] 📗

the moment, ‘may be true, and may be false. Whichever it is, I dare say I’m no worse than other men.’

‘Not a bit,’ said Tigg. ‘Not a bit. We’re all alike—or nearly so.’

‘I want to know this,’ Jonas went on to say; ‘is it your own? You’ll not wonder at my asking the question.’

‘My own!’ repeated Montague.

‘Aye!’ returned the other, gruffly. ‘Is it known to anybody else? Come! Don’t waver about that.’

‘No!’ said Montague, without the smallest hesitation. ‘What would it be worth, do you think, unless I had the keeping of it?’

Now, for the first time, Jonas looked at him. After a pause, he put out his hand, and said, with a laugh:

‘Come! make things easy to me, and I’m yours. I don’t know that I may not be better off here, after all, than if I had gone away this morning. But here I am, and here I’ll stay now. Take your oath!’

He cleared his throat, for he was speaking hoarsely and said in a lighter tone:

‘Shall I go to Pecksniff? When? Say when!’

‘Immediately!’ cried Montague. ‘He cannot be enticed too soon.’

‘Ecod!’ cried Jonas, with a wild laugh. ‘There’s some fun in catching that old hypocrite. I hate him. Shall I go tonight?’

‘Aye! This,’ said Montague, ecstatically, ‘is like business! We understand each other now! Tonight, my good fellow, by all means.’

‘Come with me,’ cried Jonas. ‘We must make a dash; go down in state, and carry documents, for he’s a deep file to deal with, and must be drawn on with an artful hand, or he’ll not follow. I know him. As I can’t take your lodgings or your dinners down, I must take you. Will you come tonight?’

His friend appeared to hesitate; and neither to have anticipated this proposal, nor to relish it very much.

‘We can concert our plans upon the road,’ said Jonas. ‘We must not go direct to him, but cross over from some other place, and turn out of our way to see him. I may not want to introduce you, but I must have you on the spot. I know the man, I tell you.’

‘But what if the man knows me?’ said Montague, shrugging his shoulders.

‘He know!’ cried Jonas. ‘Don’t you run that risk with fifty men a day! Would your father know you? Did I know you? Ecod! You were another figure when I saw you first. Ha, ha, ha! I see the rents and patches now! No false hair then, no black dye! You were another sort of joker in those days, you were! You even spoke different then. You’ve acted the gentleman so seriously since, that you’ve taken in yourself. If he should know you, what does it matter? Such a change is a proof of your success. You know that, or you would not have made yourself known to me. Will you come?’

‘My good fellow,’ said Montague, still hesitating, ‘I can trust you alone.’

‘Trust me! Ecod, you may trust me now, far enough. I’ll try to go away no more—no more!’ He stopped, and added in a more sober tone, ‘I can’t get on without you. Will you come?’

‘I will,’ said Montague, ‘if that’s your opinion.’ And they shook hands upon it.

The boisterous manner which Jonas had exhibited during the latter part of this conversation, and which had gone on rapidly increasing with almost every word he had spoken, from the time when he looked his honourable friend in the face until now, did not now subside, but, remaining at its height, abided by him. Most unusual with him at any period; most inconsistent with his temper and constitution; especially unnatural it would appear in one so darkly circumstanced; it abided by him. It was not like the effect of wine, or any ardent drink, for he was perfectly coherent. It even made him proof against the usual influence of such means of excitement; for, although he drank deeply several times that day, with no reserve or caution, he remained exactly the same man, and his spirits neither rose nor fell in the least observable degree.

Deciding, after some discussion, to travel at night, in order that the day’s business might not be broken in upon, they took counsel together in reference to the means. Mr Montague being of opinion that four horses were advisable, at all events for the first stage, as throwing a great deal of dust into people’s eyes, in more senses than one, a travelling chariot and four lay under orders for nine o’clock. Jonas did not go home; observing, that his being obliged to leave town on business in so great a hurry, would be a good excuse for having turned back so unexpectedly in the morning. So he wrote a note for his portmanteau, and sent it by a messenger, who duly brought his luggage back, with a short note from that other piece of luggage, his wife, expressive of her wish to be allowed to come and see him for a moment. To this request he sent for answer, ‘she had better;’ and one such threatening affirmative being sufficient, in defiance of the English grammar, to express a negative, she kept away.

Mr Montague being much engaged in the course of the day, Jonas bestowed his spirits chiefly on the doctor, with whom he lunched in the medical officer’s own room. On his way thither, encountering Mr Nadgett in the outer room, he bantered that stealthy gentleman on always appearing anxious to avoid him, and inquired if he were afraid of him. Mr Nadgett slyly answered, ‘No, but he believed it must be his way as he had been charged with much the same kind of thing before.’

Mr Montague was listening to, or, to speak with greater elegance, he overheard, this dialogue. As soon as Jonas was gone he beckoned Nadgett to him with the feather of his pen, and whispered in his ear.

‘Who gave him my letter this morning?’

‘My lodger, sir,’ said Nadgett, behind the palm of his hand.

‘How came that about?’

‘I found him on the wharf, sir. Being so much hurried, and you not arrived, it was necessary to do something. It fortunately occurred to me, that if I gave it him myself I could be of no further use. I should have been blown upon immediately.’

‘Mr Nadgett, you are a jewel,’ said Montague, patting him on the back. ‘What’s your lodger’s name?’

‘Pinch, sir. Thomas Pinch.’

Montague reflected for a little while, and then asked:

‘From the country, do you know?’

‘From Wiltshire, sir, he told me.’

They parted without another word. To see Mr Nadgett’s bow when Montague and he next met, and to see Mr Montague acknowledge it, anybody might have undertaken to swear that they had never spoken to each other confidentially in all their lives.

In the meanwhile, Mr Jonas and the doctor made themselves very comfortable upstairs, over a bottle of the old Madeira and some sandwiches; for the doctor having been already invited to dine below at six o’clock, preferred a light repast for lunch. It was advisable, he said, in two points of view: First, as being healthy in itself. Secondly as being the better preparation for dinner.

‘And you are bound for all our sakes to take particular care of your digestion, Mr Chuzzlewit, my dear sir,’ said the doctor smacking his lips after a glass of wine; ‘for depend upon it, it is worth preserving. It must be in admirable condition, sir; perfect chronometer-work. Otherwise your spirits could not be so remarkable. Your bosom’s lord sits lightly on its throne, Mr Chuzzlewit, as what’s-his-name says in the play. I wish he said it in a play which did anything like common justice to our profession, by the bye. There is an apothecary in that drama, sir, which is a low thing; vulgar, sir; out of nature altogether.’

Mr Jobling pulled out his shirt-frill of fine linen, as though he would have said, ‘This is what I call nature in a medical man, sir;’ and looked at Jonas for an observation.

Jonas not being in a condition to pursue the subject, took up a case of lancets that was lying on the table, and opened it.

‘Ah!’ said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, ‘I always take ‘em out of my pocket before I eat. My pockets are rather tight. Ha, ha, ha!’

Jonas had opened one of the shining little instruments; and was scrutinizing it with a look as sharp and eager as its own bright edge.

‘Good steel, doctor. Good steel! Eh!’

‘Ye-es,’ replied the doctor, with the faltering modesty of ownership. ‘One might open a vein pretty dexterously with that, Mr Chuzzlewit.’

‘It has opened a good many in its time, I suppose?’ said Jonas looking at it with a growing interest.

‘Not a few, my dear sir, not a few. It has been engaged in a—in a pretty good practice, I believe I may say,’ replied the doctor, coughing as if the matter-of-fact were so very dry and literal that he couldn’t help it. ‘In a pretty good practice,’ repeated the doctor, putting another glass of wine to his lips.

‘Now, could you cut a man’s throat with such a thing as this?’ demanded Jonas.

‘Oh certainly, certainly, if you took him in the right place,’ returned the doctor. ‘It all depends upon that.’

‘Where you have your hand now, hey?’ cried Jonas, bending forward to look at it.

‘Yes,’ said the doctor; ‘that’s the jugular.’

Jonas, in his vivacity, made a sudden sawing in the air, so close behind the doctor’s jugular that he turned quite red. Then Jonas (in the same strange spirit of vivacity) burst into a loud discordant laugh.

‘No, no,’ said the doctor, shaking his head; ‘edge tools, edge tools; never play with ‘em. A very remarkable instance of the skillful use of edge-tools, by the way, occurs to me at this moment. It was a case of murder. I am afraid it was a case of murder, committed by a member of our profession; it was so artistically done.’

‘Aye!’ said Jonas. ‘How was that?’

‘Why, sir,’ returned Jobling, ‘the thing lies in a nutshell. A certain gentleman was found, one morning, in an obscure street, lying in an angle of a doorway—I should rather say, leaning, in an upright position, in the angle of a doorway, and supported consequently by the doorway. Upon his waistcoat there was one solitary drop of blood. He was dead and cold; and had been murdered, sir.’

‘Only one drop of blood!’ said Jonas.

‘Sir, that man,’ replied the doctor, ‘had been stabbed to the heart. Had been stabbed to the heart with such dexterity, sir, that he had died instantly, and had bled internally. It was supposed that a medical friend of his (to whom suspicion attached) had engaged him in conversation on some pretence; had taken him, very likely, by the button in a conversational manner; had examined his ground at leisure with his other hand; had marked the exact spot; drawn out the instrument, whatever it was, when he was quite prepared; and—’

‘And done the trick,’ suggested Jonas.

‘Exactly so,’ replied the doctor. ‘It was quite an operation in its way, and very neat. The medical friend never turned up; and, as I tell you, he had the credit of it. Whether he did it or not I can’t say. But, having had the honour to be called in with two or three of my professional brethren on the occasion, and having assisted to make a careful examination of the wound, I have no hesitation in saying that it would have reflected credit on any medical man; and that in an unprofessional person it could not but be considered, either as an extraordinary work of art, or the result of a still