`A gentleman who is a friend of mine, or at least who is not exactly a friend so much as a sort of acquaintance -- oh upon my word, I hardly know what I say, Mr. Pinch. you mustn't suppose there is any engagement between us; or at least if there is, that it is at all a settled thing as yet -- is going to Furnival's Inn immediately, I believe upon a little business, and I am sure he would be very glad to accompany you, so as to prevent your going wrong again. You had better walk in. You will very likely find my sister Merry here,' she said with a curious toss of her head, and anything but an agreeable smile.
`Then, I think, I'll endeavour to find my way alone,' said Tom: `for I fear she would not be very glad to see me. That unfortunate occurrence, in relation to which you and I had some amicable words together, in private, is not likely to have impressed her with any friendly feeling towards me.
Though it really was not my fault.'
`She has never heard of that, you may depend,' said Cherry, gathering up the corners of her mouth, and nodding at Tom. `I am far from sure that she would bear you any mighty ill will for it, if she had.'
`You don't say so?' cried Tom, who was really concerned by this insinuation.
`I say nothing,' said Charity. `If I had not already known what shocking things treachery and deceit are in themselves, Mr. Pinch, I might perhaps have learnt it from the success they meet with -- from the success they meet with.' Here she smiled as before. `But I don't say anything. On the contrary, I should scorn it. You had better walk in!'
There was something hidden here, which piqued Tom's interest and troubled his tender heart. When, in a moment's irresolution, he looked at Charity, he could not but observe a struggle in her face between a sense of triumph and a sense of shame; nor could he but remark how, meeting even his eyes, which she cared so little for, she turned away her own, for all the splenetic defiance in her manner.
An uneasy thought entered Tom's head; a shadowy misgiving that the altered relations between himself and Pecksniff were somehow to involve an altered knowledge on his part of other people, and were to give him an insight into much of which he had had no previous suspicion. And yet he put no definite construction upon Charity's proceedings. He certainly had no idea that as he had been the audience and spectator of her mortification, she grasped with eager delight at any opportunity of reproaching her sister with his presence in her far deeper misery; for he knew nothing of it, and only pictured that sister as the same giddy, careless, trivial creature she always had been, with the same slight estimation of himself which she had never been at the least pains to conceal. In short, he had merely a confused impression that Miss Pecksniff was not quite sisterly or kind; and being curious to set it right, accompanied her as she desired.
The house-door being opened, she went in before Tom, requesting him to follow her. and led the way to the parlour door.
`Oh, Merry!' she said, looking in, `I am so glad you have not gone home.
Who do you think I have met in the street, and brought to see you! Mr. Pinch! There. Now you are surprised, I am sure!'
Not more surprised than Tom was, when he looked upon her. Not so much.
Not half so much.
`Mr. Pinch has left Papa, my dear,' said Cherry, `and his prospects are quite flourishing. I have promised that Augustus, who is going that way, shall escort him to the place he wants. Augustus, my child, where are you?'
With these words Miss Pecksniff screamed her way out of the parlour, calling on Augustus Moddle to appear; and left Tom Pinch alone with her sister.
If she had always been his kindest friend; if she had treated him through all his servitude with such consideration as was never yet received by struggling man; if she had lightened every moment of those many years, and had ever spared and never wounded him; his honest heart could not have swelled before her with a deeper pity, or a purer ******* from all base remembrance, than it did then.
`My gracious me! You are really the last person in the world I should have thought of seeing, I am sure!'
Tom was sorry to hear her speaking in her old manner. He had not expected that. Yet he did not feel it a contradiction that he should be sorry to see her so unlike her old self, and sorry at the same time to hear her speaking in her old manner. The two things seemed quite natural.
`I wonder you find any gratification in coming to see me. I can't think what put it in your head. I never had much in seeing you. There was no love lost between us, Mr. Pinch, at any time, I think.'
Her bonnet lay beside her on the sofa, and she was very busy with the ribbons as she spoke. Much too busy to be conscious of the work her fingers did.
`We never quarrelled,' said Tom. -- Tom was right in that, for one person can no more quarrel without an adversary, than one person can play at chess, or fight a duel. `I hoped you would be glad to shake hands with an old friend. Don't let us rake up bygones,' said Tom. `If I ever offended you, forgive me.'
She looked at him for a moment; dropped her bonnet from her hands; spread them before her altered face, and burst into tears.
`Oh, Mr. Pinch!' she said, `although I never used you well, I did believe your nature was forgiving. I did not think you could be cruel.'
She spoke as little like her old self now, for certain, as Tom could possibly have wished. But she seemed to be appealing to him reproachfully, and he did not understand her.
`I seldom showed it -- never -- I know that. But I had that belief in you, that if I had been asked to name the person in the world least likely to retort upon me, I would have named you, confidently.'
`Would have named me!' Tom repeated.
`Yes,' she said with energy, `and I have often thought so.'
After a moment's reflection, Tom sat himself upon a chair beside her.
`Do you believe,' said Tom, `oh, can you think, that what I said just now, I said with any but the true and plain intention which my words professed?