Mary sighed again — the letter was so very affecting.
‘Goodbye!’ said Sam.
‘Goodbye,’ rejoined the pretty housemaid, turning her head away.
‘Well, shake hands, won’t you?’ said Sam.
The pretty housemaid put out a hand which, although it was a housemaid’s, was a very small one, and rose to go.
‘I shan’t be wery long avay,’ said Sam.
‘You’re always away,’ said Mary, giving her head the slightest possible toss in the air. ‘You no sooner come, Mr. Weller, than you go again.’
Mr. Weller drew the household beauty closer to him, and entered upon a whispering conversation, which had not proceeded far, when she turned her face round and condescended to look at him again. When they parted, it was somehow or other indispensably necessary for her to go to her room, and arrange the cap and curls before she could think of presenting herself to her mistress; which preparatory ceremony she went off to perform, bestowing many nods and smiles on Sam over the banisters as she tripped upstairs.
‘I shan’t be avay more than a day, or two, Sir, at the furthest,’ said Sam, when he had communicated to Mr. Pickwick the intelligence of his father’s loss.
‘As long as may be necessary, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘you have my full permission to remain.’
Sam bowed.
‘You will tell your father, Sam, that if I can be of any assistance to him in his present situation, I shall be most willing and ready to lend him any aid in my power,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Thank’ee, sir,’ rejoined Sam. ‘I’ll mention it, sir.’
And with some expressions of mutual goodwill and interest, master and man separated.
It was just seven o’clock when Samuel Weller, alighting from the box of a stagecoach which passed through Dorking, stood within a few hundred yards of the Marquis of Granby. It was a cold, dull evening; the little street looked dreary and dismal; and the mahogany countenance of the noble and gallant marquis seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy expression than it was wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking mournfully in the wind. The blinds were pulled down, and the shutters partly closed; of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the door, not one was to be seen; the place was silent and desolate.
Seeing nobody of whom he could ask any preliminary questions, Sam walked softly in, and glancing round, he quickly recognised his parent in the distance.
The widower was seated at a small round table in the little room behind the bar, smoking a pipe, with his eyes intently fixed upon the fire. The funeral had evidently taken place that day, for attached to his hat, which he still retained on his head, was a hatband measuring about a yard and a half in length, which hung over the top rail of the chair and streamed negligently down. Mr. Weller was in a very abstracted and contemplative mood. Notwithstanding that Sam called him by name several times, he still continued to smoke with the same fixed and quiet countenance, and was only roused ultimately by his son’s placing the palm of his hand on his shoulder.
‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘you’re welcome.’
‘I’ve been a-callin’ to you half a dozen times,’ said Sam, hanging his hat on a peg, ‘but you didn’t hear me.’
‘No, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, again looking thoughtfully at the fire. ‘I was in a referee, Sammy.’
‘Wot about?’ inquired Sam, drawing his chair up to the fire.
‘In a referee, Sammy,’ replied the elder Mr. Weller, ‘regarding HER, Samivel.’ Here Mr. Weller jerked his head in the direction of Dorking churchyard, in mute explanation that his words referred to the late Mrs. Weller.
‘I wos a-thinkin’, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, eyeing his son, with great earnestness, over his pipe, as if to assure him that however extraordinary and incredible the declaration might appear, it was nevertheless calmly and deliberately uttered. ‘I wos a-thinkin’, Sammy, that upon the whole I wos wery sorry she wos gone.’
‘Vell, and so you ought to be,’ replied Sam.
Mr. Weller nodded his acquiescence in the sentiment, and again fastening his eyes on the fire, shrouded himself in a cloud, and mused deeply.
‘Those wos wery sensible observations as she made, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, driving the smoke away with his hand, after a long silence.
‘Wot observations?’ inquired Sam.
‘Them as she made, arter she was took ill,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘Wot was they?’
‘Somethin’ to this here effect. “Veller,” she says, “I’m afeered I’ve not done by you quite wot I ought to have done; you’re a wery kindhearted man, and I might ha’ made your home more comfortabler. I begin to see now,” she says, “ven it’s too late, that if a married ‘ooman vishes to be religious, she should begin vith dischargin’ her dooties at home, and makin’ them as is about her cheerful and happy, and that vile she goes to church, or chapel, or wot not, at all proper times, she should be wery careful not to conwert this sort o’ thing into a excuse for idleness or self-indulgence. I have done this,” she says, “and I’ve vasted time and substance on them as has done it more than me; but I hope ven I’m gone, Veller, that you’ll think on me as I wos afore I know’d them people, and as I raly wos by natur.”
‘“Susan,” says I — I wos took up wery short by this, Samivel; I von’t deny it, my boy — “Susan,” I says, “you’ve been a wery good vife to me, altogether; don’t say nothin’ at all about it; keep a good heart, my dear; and you’ll live to see me punch that ‘ere Stiggins’s head yet.” She smiled at this, Samivel,’ said the old gentleman, stifling a sigh with his pipe, ‘but she died arter all!’
‘Vell,’ said Sam, venturing to offer a little homely consolation, after the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old gentleman in slowly shaking his head from side to side, and solemnly smoking, ‘vell, gov’nor, ve must all come to it, one day or another.’
‘So we must, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller the elder.
‘There’s a Providence in it all,’ said Sam.
‘O’ course there is,’ replied his father, with a nod of grave approval. ‘Wot ‘ud become of the undertakers vithout it, Sammy?’
Lost in the immense field of conjecture opened by this reflection, the elder Mr. Weller laid his pipe on the table, and stirred the fire with a meditative visage.
While the old gentleman was thus engaged, a very buxom-looking cook, dressed in mourning, who had been bustling about, in the bar, glided into the room, and bestowing many smirks of recognition upon Sam, silently stationed herself at the back of his father’s chair, and announced her presence by a slight cough, the which, being disregarded, was followed by a louder one.
‘Hollo!’ said the elder Mr. Weller, dropping the poker as he looked round, and hastily drew his chair away. ‘Wot’s the matter now?’
‘Have a cup of tea, there’s a good soul,’ replied the buxom female coaxingly. ‘I von’t,’ replied Mr. Weller, in a somewhat boisterous manner. ‘I’ll see you — ‘ Mr. Weller hastily checked himself, and added in a low tone, ‘furder fust.’
‘Oh, dear, dear! How adwersity does change people!’ said the lady, looking upwards.
‘It’s the only thing ‘twixt this and the doctor as shall change my condition,’ muttered Mr. Weller.
‘I really never saw a man so cross,’ said the buxom female.
‘Never mind. It’s all for my own good; vich is the reflection vith vich the penitent schoolboy comforted his feelin’s