Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (ebooks children's books free TXT) 📕

MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND, ARRIVING AT A PLEASANT UNDERSTANDING, SET FORTH UPON AN ENTERPRISE

The office of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company being near at hand, and Mr Montague driving Jonas straight there, they had very little way to go. But the journey might have been one of several hours’ duration, without provoking a remark from either; for it was clear that Jonas did not mean to break the silence which prevailed between them, and that it was not, as yet, his dear friend’s cue to tempt them into conversation.

He had thrown aside his cloak, as having now no motive for concealment, and with that garment huddled on his knees, sat as far removed from his companion as the limited space in such a carriage would allow. There was a striking difference in his manner, compared with what it had been, within a few minutes, when Tom encountered him so unexpectedly on board the packet, or when the ugly change had fallen on him in Mr Montague’s dressing-room. He had the aspect of a man found out and held at bay; of being baffled, hunted, and beset; but there was now a dawning and increasing purpose in his face, which changed it very much. It was gloomy, distrustful, lowering; pale with anger and defeat; it still was humbled, abject, cowardly and mean; but, let the conflict go on as it would, there was one strong purpose wrestling with every emotion of his mind, and casting the whole series down as they arose.

Not prepossessing in appearance at the best of times, it may be readily supposed that he was not so now. He had left deep marks of his front teeth in his nether lip; and those tokens of the agitation he had lately undergone improved his looks as little as the heavy corrugations in his forehead. But he was self-possessed now; unnaturally self-possessed, indeed, as men quite otherwise than brave are known to be in desperate extremities; and when the carriage stopped, he waited for no invitation, but leapt hardily out, and went upstairs.

The chairman followed him; and closing the board-room door as soon as they had entered, threw himself upon a sofa. Jonas stood before the window, looking down into the street; and leaned against the sash, resting his head upon his arms.

‘This is not handsome, Chuzzlewit!’ said Montague at length. ‘Not handsome upon my soul!’

‘What would you have me do?’ he answered, looking round abruptly; ‘What do you expect?’

‘Confidence, my good fellow. Some confidence!’ said Montague in an injured tone.

‘Ecod! You show great confidence in me,’ retorted Jonas. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Do I not?’ said his companion, raising his head, and looking at him, but he had turned again. ‘Do I not? Have I not confided to you the easy schemes I have formed for our advantage; OUR advantage, mind; not mine alone; and what is my return? Attempted flight!’

‘How do you know that? Who said I meant to fly?’

‘Who said? Come, come. A foreign boat, my friend, an early hour, a figure wrapped up for disguise! Who said? If you didn’t mean to jilt me, why were you there? If you didn’t mean to jilt me, why did you come back?’

‘I came back,’ said Jonas, ‘to avoid disturbance.’

‘You were wise,’ rejoined his friend.

Jonas stood quite silent; still looking down into the street, and resting his head upon his arms.

‘Now, Chuzzlewit,’ said Montague, ‘notwithstanding what has passed I will be plain with you. Are you attending to me there? I only see your back.’

‘I hear you. Go on!’

‘I say that notwithstanding what has passed, I will be plain with you.’

‘You said that before. And I have told you once I heard you say it. Go on.’

‘You are a little chafed, but I can make allowance for that, and am, fortunately, myself in the very best of tempers. Now, let us see how circumstances stand. A day or two ago, I mentioned to you, my dear fellow, that I thought I had discovered—’

‘Will you hold your tongue?’ said Jonas, looking fiercely round, and glancing at the door.

‘Well, well!’ said Montague. ‘Judicious! Quite correct! My discoveries being published, would be like many other men’s discoveries in this honest world; of no further use to me. You see, Chuzzlewit, how ingenuous and frank I am in showing you the weakness of my own position! To return. I make, or think I make, a certain discovery which I take an early opportunity of mentioning in your ear, in that spirit of confidence which I really hoped did prevail between us, and was reciprocated by you. Perhaps there is something in it; perhaps there is nothing. I have my knowledge and opinion on the subject. You have yours. We will not discuss the question. But, my good fellow, you have been weak; what I wish to point out to you is, that you have been weak. I may desire to turn this little incident to my account (indeed, I do—I’ll not deny it), but my account does not lie in probing it, or using it against you.’

‘What do you call using it against me?’ asked Jonas, who had not yet changed his attitude.

‘Oh!’ said Montague, with a laugh. ‘We’ll not enter into that.’

‘Using it to make a beggar of me. Is that the use you mean?’

‘No.’

‘Ecod,’ muttered Jonas, bitterly. ‘That’s the use in which your account DOES lie. You speak the truth there.’

‘I wish you to venture (it’s a very safe venture) a little more with us, certainly, and to keep quiet,’ said Montague. ‘You promised me you would; and you must. I say it plainly, Chuzzlewit, you MUST. Reason the matter. If you don’t, my secret is worthless to me: and being so, it may as well become the public property as mine; better, for I shall gain some credit, bringing it to light. I want you, besides, to act as a decoy in a case I have already told you of. You don’t mind that, I know. You care nothing for the man (you care nothing for any man; you are too sharp; so am I, I hope); and could bear any loss of his with pious fortitude. Ha, ha, ha! You have tried to escape from the first consequence. You cannot escape it, I assure you. I have shown you that to-day. Now, I am not a moral man, you know. I am not the least in the world affected by anything you may have done; by any little indiscretion you may have committed; but I wish to profit by it if I can; and to a man of your intelligence I make that free confession. I am not at all singular in that infirmity. Everybody profits by the indiscretion of his neighbour; and the people in the best repute, the most. Why do you give me this trouble? It must come to a friendly agreement, or an unfriendly crash. It must. If the former, you are very little hurt. If the latter—well! you know best what is likely to happen then.’

Jonas left the window, and walked up close to him. He did not look him in the face; it was not his habit to do that; but he kept his eyes towards him—on his breast, or thereabouts—and was at great pains to speak slowly and distinctly in reply. Just as a man in a state of conscious drunkenness might be.

‘Lying is of no use now,’ he said. ‘I DID think of getting away this morning, and making better terms with you from a distance.’

‘To be sure! to be sure!’ replied Montague. ‘Nothing more natural. I foresaw that, and provided against it. But I am afraid I am interrupting you.’

‘How the devil,’ pursued Jonas, with a still greater effort, ‘you made choice of your messenger, and where you found him, I’ll not ask you. I owed him one good turn before to-day. If you are so careless of men in general, as you said you were just now, you are quite indifferent to what becomes of such a crop-tailed cur as that, and will leave me to settle my account with him in my own manner.’

If he had raised his eyes to his companion’s face, he would have seen that Montague was evidently unable to comprehend his meaning. But continuing to stand before him, with his furtive gaze directed as before, and pausing here only to moisten his dry lips with his tongue, the fact was lost upon him. It might have struck a close observer that this fixed and steady glance of Jonas’s was a part of the alteration which had taken place in his demeanour. He kept it riveted on one spot, with which his thoughts had manifestly nothing to do; like as a juggler walking on a cord or wire to any dangerous end, holds some object in his sight to steady him, and never wanders from it, lest he trip.

Montague was quick in his rejoinder, though he made it at a venture. There was no difference of opinion between him and his friend on THAT point. Not the least.

‘Your great discovery,’ Jonas proceeded, with a savage sneer that got the better of him for