V
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL"
All the while these things were happening, Mrs. Clennam and Flintwinch had continued their grim partnership.
Mrs. Clennam at last decided to burn the part of the will she had hidden, so that her share in the wicked plan could never be found out. Flintwinch, however, wishing for his own purposes to keep her in his power, deceived her. He cunningly put in its place a worthless piece of paper, and this Mrs. Clennam burned instead. Flintwinch then locked up the real piece in an iron box, with a lot of private letters that had been written by the poor crazed singer to Mrs. Clennam, begging her forgiveness. The box he gave to his brother, who took it to Holland with him for safe-keeping.
But Flintwinch, in this deception, overreached himself.
There was an adventurer in Holland named Rigaud, who used to drink and smoke with this brother. He was an oily villain, who had been in jail in France on suspicion of having murdered his wife. He had shaggy dry hair streaked with red, and a thick mustache, and when he smiled his eyes went close together, his mustache went up under his hooked nose, and his nose came down over his mustache. Rigaud saw the box, concluded it contained something valuable, and made up his mind to get it. His chance came when the brother of Flintwinch died suddenly one day, and he lost no time in making away with the iron box.
By means of the letters it contained, he soon guessed the secret which Mrs. Clennam had been for so many years at such pains to conceal, and, deciding that by this knowledge he could squeeze money out of her, he came to London to find and threaten her.
But she, believing she had burned the part of the will which Rigaud claimed to possess, refused to listen to him, until at last, maddened by her refusals, he searched out the Dorrits.
He soon discovered that the man who had educated the singer (Arthur's real mother) was Frederick Dorrit, Little Dorrit's dead uncle, and that it was Little Dorrit herself, since she was his youngest niece, from whom the money was now being unjustly kept.
Rigaud easily found Little Dorrit, for she was now in the Marshalsea nursing Arthur, where he lay sick, and to her the cunning adventurer sent a copy of the paper in a sealed packet, asking her, if it was not reclaimed before the prison closed that same night, to open and read it herself.
He then went to the Clennam house, told Mrs. Clennam and Flintwinch what he had done and demanded money at once as the price of his reclaiming the packet before Little Dorrit should learn the secret it held.
At this Flintwinch had to confess what he had done, and Mrs. Clennam knew that the fatal paper had not been burned, after all.
The wretched woman, seeing this sharp end to all her scheming, was almost distracted. She had not walked a step for twelve years, but now her excitement and frenzy gave her unnatural strength. She rose from her invalid chair and ran with all her speed from the house. Old Affery, the servant, followed her mistress, wringing her hands as she tried vainly to overtake her.
Mrs. Clennam did not pause till she had reached the prison and found Little Dorrit. She told her to open the packet at once and to read what it contained, and then, kneeling at her feet, she promised to restore to her all she had withheld, and begged her to forgive and to come back with her to tell Rigaud that she already knew the secret and that he might do his worst.
Little Dorrit was greatly moved to see the stern, gray-haired woman at her feet. She raised and comforted her, assuring her that, come what would, Arthur should never learn the truth from her lips. This return of good for evil from the one she had most injured brought the tears to the hard woman's eyes. "God bless you," she said in a broken voice.
Side by side they hastened back to the Clennam house, but as they reached the entrance of its dark courtyard there came a sudden noise like thunder. For one instant they saw the building, with the insolent Rigaud waiting smoking in the window; then the walls heaved, surged outward, opened and fell into pieces. Its great pile of chimneys rocked, broke and tumbled on the fragments, and only a huge mass of timbers and stone, with a cloud of dust hovering over it, marked the spot where it had stood.
The rotten old building, propped up so long, had fallen at last. For years old Affery had insisted that the house was haunted. She had often heard mysterious rustlings and noises, and in the mornings sometimes she would find little heaps of dust on the floors. Curious, crooked cracks would appear, too, in the walls, and the doors would stick with no apparent reason. These things, of course, had been caused by the gradual settling of the crazy walls and timbers, which now finally had collapsed all at once.
Frightened, they ran back to the street and there Mrs. Clennam's strange strength left her, and she fell in a heap upon the pavement.
She never from that hour was able to speak a word or move a finger. She lived for three years in a wheel-chair, but she lived – and died – like a statue.
For two days workmen dug industriously in the ruins before they found the body of Rigaud, with his head smashed to atoms beneath a huge beam.
They dug longer than that for the body of Flintwinch, and stopped at last when they came to the conclusion that he was not there. By that time, however, he had had a chance to get together all of the firm's money he could lay his hands on and to decamp. He was never seen again in England, but travelers claimed to have seen him in Holland, where he lived comfortably under the name of "Mynheer Von Flyntevynge" – which is, after all, about as near as one can come to saying "Flintwinch" in Dutch.
No one grieved greatly over his loss. It was long before Arthur knew of these events, and Little Dorrit was too happy in nursing him back to health to think much about it.
She was not content with this, either, but wrote to Mr. and Mrs. Meagles, who were abroad, of the sick man's misfortune. The former went at once in search of Doyce and brought him back to London, where together they set the firm of "Doyce and Clennam" on its feet again and arranged to buy Arthur's liberty. They did not tell Arthur anything of this, however, in order that they might surprise him.
Mr. Meagles, for Little Dorrit's sake, tried hard to find the fragment of the will which Rigaud had kept in the iron box. But it was Tattycoram, the little maid with the bad temper, who finally found it in a lodging Rigaud had occupied, and brought it to Mr. Meagles, praying on her knees that he take her back into his service, which, to be sure, he was very glad to do.
Arthur, while he was slowly growing better, had thought much of his condition. Though Little Dorrit had begged him again and again to take her money and use it as his own, he had refused, telling her as gently as he could that now that she was rich and he a ruined man, this could never be, and that, as the time had long gone by when she and the Marshalsea had anything in common, they two must soon part.
One day, however, when he was well enough to sit up, Little Dorrit came to his room in the prison and told him she had received a very great fortune and asked him again if he would not take it.
"Never," he told her.
"You will not take even half of it?" she asked pleadingly.
"Never, dear Little Dorrit!" he said emphatically.
Then, at last, she laid her face on his breast crying:
"I have nothing in the world. I am as poor as when I lived here in the Marshalsea. I have just found that papa gave all we had to Mr. Merdle and it is swept away with the rest. My great fortune now is poverty, because it is all you will take. Oh, my dearest and best, are you quite sure you will not share my fortune with me now?"
He had locked her in his arms, and his tears were falling on her cheek as she said joyfully:
"I never was rich before, or proud, or happy. I would rather pass my life here in prison with you, and work daily for my bread, than to have the greatest fortune that ever was told and be the greatest lady that ever was honored!"
But Arthur's prison life was to be short. For Mr. Meagles and Doyce burst upon them with all the other good news at once. Arthur was free, the firm had been reëstablished with him at its head, and to-morrow the debtors' prison would be only a memory.
Next morning, before they left the Marshalsea for ever, Little Dorrit handed Arthur a folded paper, and asked him to please her by putting it into the fire with his own hand.
"Is it a charm?" he asked.
"It is anything you like best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "Only say 'I love you' as you do it!"
He said it, and the paper burned away. And so the will that had been the cause of so much pain and wrong was turned to ashes. Little Dorrit kept the promise she had made, and Arthur never learned of the sin of which the woman he had always called his mother had been guilty.
Then, when all good-bys had been said, they walked together to the very same church where Little Dorrit had slept on the cushions the night she had been locked out of the Marshalsea, and there she and Arthur were married. Doyce gave the bride away.
And among the many who came to witness the wedding were not only Pancks, and Maggie, the half-witted woman, but even a group of Little Dorrit's old turnkey friends from the prison – among whom was the disconsolate Chivery, who had so long solaced himself by composing epitaphs for his own tombstone, and who went home to meditate over his last inscription:
STRANGER! Respect the Tomb of
JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR
Who Died at an Advanced Age not Necessary to
Mention. He Encountered His Rival and
Felt Inclined
To Have a Round with Him;
But, for the Sake of the Loved One, Conquered
Those Feelings of Bitterness and Became
MAGNANIMOUS
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT
Published 1843–1844
CHARACTERS
MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT
I
HOW MARTIN LEFT ENGLAND
Martin Chuzzlewit was the grandson of an old man who, from being poor, became so rich that he found not only that people bowed low and flattered him, but that many of his relatives were trying by every trick to get some of his money.
The old man was naturally suspicious and obstinate, and when he saw this he began to distrust everybody and to think the whole world selfish and deceitful. He had loved most of all his grandson, Martin, but at length his heart became hardened to him also.
This was partly Martin's own fault, for he was somewhat selfish, but he had, nevertheless, a great deal of good in him. And perhaps his selfishness was partly his grandfather's fault, too, because the latter had brought him up to believe he would inherit all his money and would sometime be very rich.
At last, ill and grown suspicious of every one he met, old Chuzzlewit gave a home to a beautiful orphan girl named Mary Graham, and kept her near him as his nurse and secretary. In order that she might not have any selfish interest in being kind to him, he took an oath in her presence that he would not leave her a cent when he died. He paid her monthly wages and it was agreed that there should be no affection shown between them.
In spite of his seeming harshness, Mary knew his heart was naturally kind, and she soon loved him as a father. And he, softened by her sympathy, came in spite of himself to love her as a daughter.
It was not long before young Martin, too, had fallen very deeply in love with Mary. He concluded too hastily, however, that his grandfather would not approve of his marrying her, and told the old man his intentions in such a fiery way that Chuzzlewit resented it.
The old man accused Martin of a selfish attempt to steal from him Mary's care, and at this, Martin, whose temper was as quick as his grandfather's flew to anger. They quarreled and Martin left him, declaring he would henceforth make his own way until he was able to claim Mary for his wife.
While he was wondering what he should do, Martin saw in a newspaper the 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.