Percy Fitzgerald

Bardell v. Pickwick Percy Fitzgerald

Mr. Pickwick was a well-to-do bachelor, who lived by himself near the city, where he had been in trade. His age was about fifty, as can be accurately calculated by his remark on the sliding at Manor Farm. "I used to do so on the gutters when I was a boy . . . but I hav'nt done such a thing these thirty years." This was said in 1828. He resided in Goswell Street-now Goswell Road-with a widow lady, whose husband had been in the Excise. He cannot have paid more than a pound a week, if so much, for two rooms on the first floor. There was no servant, and the hardworking landlady, Mrs. Martha Bardell, performed all the duties of her household single-handed. As her Counsel later described it, -and see all she did for him!-"She waited on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen for the washer-woman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared it for his wear when it came home, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest trust and confidence." Thus Sergeant Buzfuz, duly "instructed." Not only was there Mr. Pickwick, but there was another lodger, and her little boy Tommy. The worthy woman took care of and looked after all three. This might incline us to take a favorable view of her. She regarded her lodger with feelings of veneration and attachment, of which proof is found in her later talk with Sam. To him she said that "he had always behaved himself like a perfect gentlemen," and then added this significant speech: "It's a terrible thing to be dragged in this p.way before the public, but I now see that it's the only thing that I ought to do." That is, she seems to have held out as long as possible, believing that her amiable lodger would act as a perfect gentlemen and like himself. But when she found that even an action had no terrors for him, she saw that there was nothing else to do but to let the action go on.