Whatever you may think; you will. I seem to remember to have heard: I really don't know where, or how:' he added, with bewitching frankness, `that you and Martin junior, when you were children, had a sort of childish fondness for each other. When we are married, you shall have the satisfaction of thinking that it didn't last to ruin him, but passed away to do him good; for we'll see then what we can do to put some trifling help in Martin junior's way. Have I any influence with our venerable friend? Well! Perhaps I have. Perhaps I have.'
The outlet from the wood in which these tender passages occurred, was close to Mr. Pecksniff's house. They were now so near it that he stopped, and holding up her little finger, said in playful accents, as a parting fancy:
`Shall I bite it?'
Receiving no reply he kissed it instead; and then stooping down, inclined his flabby face to hers (he had a flabby face, although he was a good man), and with a blessing, which from such a source was quite enough to set her up in life, and prosper her from that time forth permitted her to leave him.
Gallantry in its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons. But Mr. Pecksniff: perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere grossnesses: certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now that he was left alone. On the contrary, he seemed to be shrunk and reduced; to be trying to hide himself within himself; and to be wretched at not having the power to do it. His shoes looked too large; his sleeve looked too long; his hair looked too limp; his features looked too mean; his exposed throat looked as if a halter would have done it good. For a minute or two, in fact, he was hot, and pale, and mean, and shy, and slinking, and consequently not at all Pecksniffian. But after that, he recovered himself, and went home with as beneficent an air as if he had been the High Priest of the summer weather.
`I have arranged to go, Papa,' said Charity, `to-morrow.'
`So soon, my child!'
`I can't go too soon,' said Charity, `under the circumstances. I have written to Mrs. Todgers to propose an arrangement, and have requested her to meet me at the coach, at all events. You'll be quite your own master now, Mr. Pinch!'
Mr. Pecksniff had just gone out of the room, and Tom had just come into it.
`My own master!' repeated Tom.
`Yes, you'll have nobody to interfere with you,' said Charity. `At least I hope you won't. Hem! It's a changing world.'
`What! are you going to be married, Miss Pecksniff?' asked Tom in great surprise.
`Not exactly,' faltered Cherry. `I haven't made up my mind to be. I believe I could be, if I chose, Mr. Pinch.'
`Of course you could!' said Tom. And he said it in perfect good faith.
He believed it from the bottom of his heart.
`No,' said Cherry, `I am not going to be married. Nobody is, that I know of. Hem! But I am not going to live with Papa. I have my reasons, but it's all a secret. I shall always feel very kindly towards you, I assure you, for the boldness you showed that night. As to you and me, Mr. Pinch, we part the best friends possible!'
Tom thanked her for her confidence, and for her friendship, but there was a mystery in the former which perfectly bewildered him. In his extravagant devotion to the family, he had felt the loss of Merry more than any one but those who knew that for all the slights he underwent he thought his own demerits were to blame, could possibly have understood. He had scarcely reconciled himself to that when here was Charity about to leave them. She had grown up, as it were, under Tom's eye. The sisters were a part of Pecksniff, and a part of Tom; items in Pecksniff's goodness, and in Tom's service.
He couldn't bear it: not two hours' sleep had Tom that night, through dwelling in his bed upon these dreadful changes.
When morning dawned he thought he must have dreamed this piece of ambiguity; but no, on going down-stairs he found them packing trunks and cording boxes, and making other preparations for Miss Charity's departure, which lasted all day long. In good time for the evening coach, Miss Charity deposited her housekeeping keys with much ceremony upon the parlour table: took a gracious leave of all the house; and quitted her paternal roof--a blessing for which the Pecksniffian servant was observed by some profane persons to be particularly active in the thanksgiving at church next Sunday.
