OUR MUTUAL FRIEND by Charles Dickens

governor and my late mother in my eye--that Georgiana don't
seem to be of the pitching-in order.'
The respected Mr Lammle was a bully, by nature and by usual
practice. Perceiving, as Fledgeby's affronts cumulated, that
conciliation by no means answered the purpose here, he now
directed a scowling look into Fledgeby's small eyes for the effect
of the opposite treatment. Satisfied by what he saw there, he
burst into a violent passion and struck his hand upon the table,
making the china ring and dance.
'You are a very offensive fellow, sir,' cried Mr Lammle, rising.
'You are a highly offensive scoundrel. What do you mean by this
behaviour?'
'I say!' remonstrated Fledgeby. 'Don't break out.'
'You are a very offensive fellow sir,' repeated Mr Lammle. 'You
are a highly offensive scoundrel!'
'I SAY, you know!' urged Fledgeby, quailing.
'Why, you coarse and vulgar vagabond!' said Mr Lammle, looking
fiercely about him, 'if your servant was here to give me sixpence
of your money to get my boots cleaned afterwards--for you are
not worth the expenditure--I'd kick you.'
'No you wouldn't,' pleaded Fledgeby. 'I am sure you'd think better
of it.'
'I tell you what, Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle advancing on him.
'Since you presume to contradict me, I'll assert myself a little.
Give me your nose!'
Fledgeby covered it with his hand instead, and said, retreating, 'I
beg you won't!'
'Give me your nose, sir,' repeated Lammle.
Still covering that feature and backing, Mr Fledgeby reiterated
(apparently with a severe cold in his head), 'I beg, I beg, you
won't.'
'And this fellow,' exclaimed Lammle, stopping and making the
most of his chest--'This fellow presumes on my having selected
him out of all the young fellows I know, for an advantageous
opportunity! This fellow presumes on my having in my desk
round the corner, his dirty note of hand for a wretched sum
payable on the occurrence of a certain event, which event can
only be of my and my wife's bringing about! This fellow,
Fledgeby, presumes to be impertinent to me, Lammle. Give me
your nose sir!'
'No! Stop! I beg your pardon,' said Fledgeby, with humility.
'What do you say, sir?' demanded Mr Lammle, seeming too
furious to understand.
'I beg your pardon,' repeated Fledgeby.
'Repeat your words louder, sir. The just indignation of a
gentleman has sent the blood boiling to my head. I don't hear
you.'
'I say,' repeated Fledgeby, with laborious explanatory politeness, 'I
beg your pardon.'
Mr Lammle paused. 'As a man of honour,' said he, throwing
himself into a chair, 'I am disarmed.'
Mr Fledgeby also took a chair, though less demonstratively, and
by slow approaches removed his hand from his nose. Some
natural diffidence assailed him as to blowing it, so shortly after its
having assumed a personal and delicate, not to say public,
character; but he overcame his scruples by degrees, and modestly
took that liberty under an implied protest.
'Lammle,' he said sneakingly, when that was done, 'I hope we are
friends again?'
'Mr Fledgeby,' returned Lammle, 'say no more.'
'I must have gone too far in making myself disagreeable,' said
Fledgeby, 'but I never intended it.'
'Say no more, say no more!' Mr Lammle repeated in a magnificent
tone. 'Give me your'--Fledgeby started--'hand.'
They shook hands, and on Mr Lammle's part, in particular, there
ensued great geniality. For, he was quite as much of a dastard as
the other, and had been in equal danger of falling into the second
place for good, when he took heart just in time, to act upon the
information conveyed to him by Fledgeby's eye.
The breakfast ended in a perfect understanding. Incessant
machinations were to be kept at work by Mr and Mrs Lammle;
love was to be made for Fledgeby, and conquest was to be insured
to him; he on his part very humbly admitting his defects as to the
softer social arts, and entreating to be backed to the utmost by his
two able coadjutors.
Little recked Mr Podsnap of the traps and toils besetting his
Young Person. He regarded her as safe within the Temple of
Podsnappery, hiding the fulness of time when she, Georgiana,
should take him, Fitz-Podsnap, who with all his worldly goods
should her endow. It would call a blush into the cheek of his
standard Young Person to have anything to do with such matters
save to take as directed, and with worldly goods as per settlement
to be endowed. Who giveth this woman to be married to this
man? I, Podsnap. Perish the daring thought that any smaller
creation should come between!
It was a public holiday, and Fledgeby did not recover his spirits or
his usual temperature of nose until the afternoon. Walking into
the City in the holiday afternoon, he walked against a living
stream setting out of it; and thus, when he turned into the
precincts of St Mary Axe, he found a prevalent repose and quiet
there. A yellow overhanging plaster-fronted house at which be
stopped was quiet too. The blinds were all drawn down, and the
inscription Pubsey and Co. seemed to doze in the counting-house
window on the ground-floor giving on the sleepy street.
Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but
no one came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow street and looked up
at the house-windows, but nobody looked down at Fledgeby. He
got out of temper, crossed the narrow street again, and pulled the
housebell as if it were the house's nose, and he were taking a hint
from his late experience. His ear at the keyhole seemed then, at
last, to give him assurance that something stirred within. His eye
at the keyhole seemed to confirm his ear, for he angrily pulled the
house's nose again, and pulled and pulled and continued to pull,
until a human nose appeared in the dark doorway.
'Now you sir!' cried Fledgeby. 'These are nice games!'
He addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of skirt,
and wide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and shining at the top
of his head, and with long grey hair flowing down at its sides and
mingling with his beard. A man who with a graceful Eastern
action of homage bent his head, and stretched out his hands with
the palms downward, as if to deprecate the wrath of a superior.
'What have you been up to?' said Fledgeby, storming at him.
'Generous Christian master,' urged the Jewish man, 'it being
holiday, I looked for no one.'
'Holiday he blowed!' said Fledgeby, entering. 'What have YOU
got to do with holidays? Shut the door.'
With his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry hung his
rusty large-brimmed low-crowned hat, as long out of date as his
coat; in the corner near it stood his staff--no walking-stick but a
veritable staff. Fledgeby turned into the counting-house, perched
himself on a business stool, and cocked his hat. There were light
boxes on shelves in the counting-house, and strings of mock beads
hanging up. There were samples of cheap clocks, and samples of
cheap vases of flowers. Foreign toys, all.
Perched on the stool with his hat cocked on his head and one of
his legs dangling, the youth of Fledgeby hardly contrasted to
advantage with the age of the Jewish man as he stood with his
bare head bowed, and his eyes (which he only raised in speaking)
on the ground. His clothing was worn down to the rusty hue of
the hat in the entry, but though he looked shabby he did not look
mean. Now, Fledgeby, though not shabby, did look mean.
'You have not told me what you were up to, you sir,' said
Fledgeby, scratching his head with the brim of his hat.
'Sir, I was breathing the air.'
'In the cellar, that you didn't hear?'
'On the house-top.'
'Upon my soul! That's a way of doing business.'
'Sir,' the old man represented with a grave and patient air, 'there
must be two parties to the transaction of business, and the holiday
has left me alone.'
'Ah! Can't be buyer and seller too. That's what the Jews say; ain't
it?'
'At least we say truly, if we say so,' answered the old man with a
smile.
'Your people need speak the truth sometimes, for they lie enough,'
remarked Fascination Fledgeby.
'Sir, there is,' returned the old man with quiet emphasis, 'too much
untruth among all denominations of men.'
Rather dashed, Fascination Fledgeby took another scratch at his
intellectual head with his hat, to gain time for rallying.
'For instance,' he resumed, as though it were he who had spoken
last, 'who but you and I ever heard of a poor Jew?'
'The Jews,' said the old man, raising his eyes from the ground with
his former smile. 'They hear of poor Jews often, and are very
good to them.'
'Bother that!' returned Fledgeby. 'You know what I mean. You'd
persuade me if you could, that you are a poor Jew. I wish you'd
confess how much you really did make out of my late governor. I
should have a better opinion of you.'
The old man only bent his head, and stretched out his hands as
before.
'Don't go on posturing like a Deaf and Dumb School,' said the
ingenious Fledgeby, 'but express yourself like a Christian--or as
nearly as you can.'
'I had had sickness and misfortunes, and was so poor,' said the old
man, 'as hopelessly to owe the father, principal and interest. The
son inheriting, was so merciful as to forgive me both, and place
me here.'
He made a little gesture as though he kissed the hem of an
imaginary garment worn by the noble youth before him. It was
humbly done, but picturesquely, and was not abasing to the doer.
'You won't say more, I see,' said Fledgeby, looking at him as if he
would like to try the effect of extracting a double-tooth or two,
'and so it's of no use my putting it to you. But confess this, Riah;
who believes you to be poor now?'
'No one,' said the old man.
'There you're right,' assented Fledgeby.
'No one,' repeated the old man with a grave slow wave of his
head. 'All scout it as a fable. Were I to say "This little fancy
business is not mine";' with a lithe sweep of his easily-turning
hand around him, to comprehend the various objects on the
shelves; '"it is the little business of a Christian young gentleman
who places me, his servant, in trust and charge here, and to whom
I am accountable for every single bead," they would laugh.
When, in the larger money-business, I tell the borrowers--'
'I say, old chap!' interposed Fledgeby, 'I hope you mind what you
DO tell 'em?'
'Sir, I tell them no more than I am about to repeat. When I tell
them, "I cannot promise this, I cannot answer for the other, I must
see my principal, I have not the money, I am a poor man and it
does not rest with me," they are so unbelieving and so impatient,
that they sometimes curse me in Jehovah's name.'
'That's deuced good, that is!' said Fascination Fledgeby.
'And at other times they say, "Can it never be done without these
tricks, Mr Riah? Come, come, Mr Riah, we know the arts of your
people"--my people!--"If the money is to be lent, fetch it, fetch it;
if it is not to be lent, keep it and say so." They never believe me.'
'THAT'S all right,' said Fascination Fledgeby.
'They say, "We know, Mr Riah, we know. We have but to look at
you, and we know."'
'Oh, a good 'un are you for the post,' thought Fledgeby, 'and a
good 'un was I to mark you out for it! I may be slow, but I am
precious sure.'
Not a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap of Mr
Fledgeby's breath, lest it should tend to put his servant's price up.
But looking at the old man as he stood quiet with his bead bowed
and his eyes cast down, he felt that to relinquish an inch of his
baldness, an inch of his grey hair, an inch of his coat-skirt, an inch
of his hat-brim, an inch of his walking-staff, would be to relinquish
hundreds of pounds.
'Look here, Riah,' said Fledgeby, mollified by these self-approving
considerations. 'I want to go a little more into buying-up queer
bills. Look out in that direction.'
'Sir, it shall be done.'
'Casting my eye over the accounts, I find that branch of business
pays pretty fairly, and I am game for extending it. I like to know
people's affairs likewise. So look out.'
'Sir, I will, promptly.'
'Put it about in the right quarters, that you'll buy queer bills by the
lump--by the pound weight if that's all--supposing you see your
way to a fair chance on looking over the parcel. And there's one
thing more. Come to me with the books for periodical inspection
as usual, at eight on Monday morning.'
Riah drew some folding tablets from his breast and noted it down.
'That's all I wanted to say at the present time,' continued Fledgeby
in a grudging vein, as he got off the stool, 'except that I wish you'd
take the air where you can hear the bell, or the knocker, either
one of the two or both. By-the-by how DO you take the air at the
top of the house? Do you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?'
'Sir, there are leads there, and I have made a little garden there.'
'To bury your money in, you old dodger?'
'A thumbnail's space of garden would hold the treasure I bury,
master,' said Riah. 'Twelve shillings a week, even when they are
an old man's wages, bury themselves.'
'I should like to know what you really are worth,' returned
Fledgeby, with whom his growing rich on that stipend and
gratitude was a very convenient fiction. 'But come! Let's have a
look at your garden on the tiles, before I go!'
The old man took a step back, and hesitated.
'Truly, sir, I have company there.'
'Have you, by George!' said Fledgeby; 'I suppose you happen to
know whose premises these are?'
'Sir, they are yours, and I am your servant in them.'
'Oh! I thought you might have overlooked that,' retorted Fledgeby,
with his eyes on Riah's beard as he felt for his own; 'having
company on my premises, you know!'
'Come up and see the guests, sir. I hope for your admission that
they can do no harm.'
Passing him with a courteous reverence, specially unlike any
action that Mr Fledgeby could for his life have imparted to his
own head and hands, the old man began to ascend the stairs. As
he toiled on before, with his palm upon the stair-rail, and his long
black skirt, a very gaberdine, overhanging each successive step,
he might have been the leader in some pilgrimage of devotional
ascent to a prophet's tomb. Not troubled by any such weak
imagining, Fascination Fledgeby merely speculated on the time of
life at which his beard had begun, and thought once more what a
good 'un he was for the part.
Some final wooden steps conducted them, stooping under a low
penthouse roof, to the house-top. Riah stood still, and, turning to
his master, pointed out his guests.
Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with some old
instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated on
it, against no more romantic object than a blackened chimneystack
over which some bumble creeper had been trained, they
both pored over one book; both with attentive faces; Jenny with
the sharper; Lizzie with the more perplexed. Another little book
or two were lying near, and a common basket of common fruit,
and another basket full of strings of beads and tinsel scraps. A
few boxes of humble flowers and evergreens completed the
garden; and the encompassing wilderness of dowager old
chimneys twirled their cowls and fluttered their smoke, rather as if
they were bridling, and fanning themselves, and looking on in a
state of airy surprise.
Taking her eyes off the book, to test her memory of something in
it, Lizzie was the first to see herself observed. As she rose, Miss
Wren likewise became conscious, and said, irreverently
addressing the great chief of the premises: 'Whoever you are, I
can't get up, because my back's bad and my legs are queer.'
'This is my master,' said Riah, stepping forward.
('Don't look like anybody's master,' observed Miss Wren to
herself, with a hitch of her chin and eyes.)
'This, sir,' pursued the old man, 'is a little dressmaker for little
people. Explain to the master, Jenny.'
'Dolls; that's all,' said Jenny, shortly. 'Very difficult to fit too,
because their figures are so uncertain. You never know where to
expect their waists.'
'Her friend,' resumed the old man, motioning towards Lizzie; 'and
as industrious as virtuous. But that they both are. They are busy
early and late, sir, early and late; and in bye-times, as on this
holiday, they go to book-learning.'
'Not much good to be got out of that,' remarked Fledgeby.
'Depends upon the person!' quoth Miss Wren, snapping him up.
'I made acquaintance with my guests, sir,' pursued the Jew, with
an evident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, 'through their
coming here to buy of our damage and waste for Miss Jenny's
millinery. Our waste goes into the best of company, sir, on her
rosy-cheeked little customers. They wear it in their hair, and on
their ball-dresses, and even (so she tells me) are presented at
Court with it.'
'Ah!' said Fledgeby, on whose intelligence this doll-fancy made
rather strong demands; 'she's been buying that basketful to-day, I
suppose?'
'I suppose she has,' Miss Jenny interposed; 'and paying for it too,
most likely!'
'Let's have a look at it,' said the suspicious chief. Riah handed it
to him. 'How much for this now?'
'Two precious silver shillings,' said Miss Wren.
Riah confirmed her with two nods, as Fledgeby looked to him. A
nod for each shilling.
'Well,' said Fledgeby, poking into the contents of the basket with
his forefinger, 'the price is not so bad. You have got good
measure, Miss What-is-it.'
'Try Jenny,' suggested that young lady with great calmness.
'You have got good measure, Miss Jenny; but the price is not so
bad.--And you,' said Fledgeby, turning to the other visitor, 'do you
buy anything here, miss?'
'No, sir.'
'Nor sell anything neither, miss?'
'No, sir.'
Looking askew at the questioner, Jenny stole her hand up to her
friend's, and drew her friend down, so that she bent beside her on
her knee.
'We are thankful to come here for rest, sir,' said Jenny. 'You see,
you don't know what the rest of this place is to us; does he,
Lizzie? It's the quiet, and the air.'
'The quiet!' repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of his
head towards the City's roar. 'And the air!' with a 'Poof!' at the
smoke.
'Ah!' said Jenny. 'But it's so high. And you see the clouds rushing
on above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the
golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky from which the
wind comes, and you feel as if you were dead.'
The little creature looked above her, holding up her slight
transparent hand.
'How do you feel when you are dead?' asked Fledgeby, much
perplexed.
'Oh, so tranquil!' cried the little creature, smiling. 'Oh, so peaceful
and so thankful! And you hear the people who are alive, crying,
and working, and calling to one another down in the close dark
streets, and you seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen
from you, and such a strange good sorrowful happiness comes
upon you!'
Her eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly
looked on.
'Why it was only just now,' said the little creature, pointing at him,
'that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at
that low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and
stood upright, and looked all round him at the sky, and the wind
blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!--Till he
was called back to life,' she added, looking round at Fledgeby with
that lower look of sharpness. 'Why did you call him back?'
'He was long enough coming, anyhow,' grumbled Fledgeby.
'But you are not dead, you know,' said Jenny Wren. 'Get down to
life!'
Mr Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and with
a nod turned round. As Riah followed to attend him down the
stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone,
'Don't be long gone. Come back, and be dead!' And still as they
went down they heard the little sweet voice, more and more
faintly, half calling and half singing, 'Come back and be dead,
Come back and be dead!'
When they got down into the entry, Fledgeby, pausing under the
shadow of the broad old hat, and mechanically poising the staff,
said to the old man:
'That's a handsome girl, that one in her senses.'
'And as good as handsome,' answered Riah.
'At all events,' observed Fledgeby, with a dry whistle, 'I hope she
ain't bad enough to put any chap up to the fastenings, and get the
premises broken open. You look out. Keep your weather eye
awake and don't make any more acquaintances, however
handsome. Of course you always keep my name to yourself?'
'Sir, assuredly I do.'
'If they ask it, say it's Pubsey, or say it's Co, or say it's anything
you like, but what it is.'
His grateful servant--in whose race gratitude is deep, strong, and
enduring--bowed his head, and actually did now put the hem of
his coat to his lips: though so lightly that the wearer knew nothing
of it.
Thus, Fascination Fledgeby went his way, exulting in the artful
cleverness with which he had turned his thumb down on a Jew,
and the old man went his different way up-stairs. As he mounted,
the call or song began to sound in his ears again, and, looking
above, he saw the face of the little creature looking down out of a
Glory of her long bright radiant hair, and musically repeating to
him, like a vision:
'Come up and be dead! Come up and be dead!'
Chapter 6
A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER
Again Mr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn sat
together in the Temple. This evening, however, they were not
together in the place of business of the eminent solicitor, but in
another dismal set of chambers facing it on the same second-floor;
on whose dungeon-like black outer-door appeared the legend:
PRIVATE
MR EUGENE WRAYBURN
MR MORTIMER LIGHTWOOD
(Mr Lightwood's Offices opposite.)
Appearances indicated that this establishment was a very recent
institution. The white letters of the inscription were extremely
white and extremely strong to the sense of smell, the complexion
of the tables and chairs was (like Lady Tippins's) a little too
blooming to be believed in, and the carpets and floorcloth seemed
to rush at the beholder's face in the unusual prominency of their
patterns. But the Temple, accustomed to tone down both the still
life and the human life that has much to do with it, would soon get
the better of all that.
'Well!' said Eugene, on one side of the fire, 'I feel tolerably
comfortable. I hope the upholsterer may do the same.'
'Why shouldn't he?' asked Lightwood, from the other side of the
fire.
'To be sure,' pursued Eugene, reflecting, 'he is not in the secret of
our pecuniary affairs, so perhaps he may be in an easy frame of
mind.'
'We shall pay him,' said Mortimer.
'Shall we, really?' returned Eugene, indolently surprised. 'You
don't say so!'
'I mean to pay him, Eugene, for my part,' said Mortimer, in a
slightly injured tone.
'Ah! I mean to pay him too,' retorted Eugene. 'But then I mean so
much that I--that I don't mean.'
'Don't mean?'
'So much that I only mean and shall always only mean and nothing
more, my dear Mortimer. It's the same thing.'
His friend, lying back in his easy chair, watched him lying back in
his easy chair, as he stretched out his legs on the hearth-rug, and
said, with the amused look that Eugene Wrayburn could always
awaken in him without seeming to try or care:
'Anyhow, your vagaries have increased the bill.'
'Calls the domestic virtues vagaries!' exclaimed Eugene, raising his
eyes to the ceiling.
'This very complete little kitchen of ours,' said Mortimer, 'in which
nothing will ever be cooked--'
'My dear, dear Mortimer,' returned his friend, lazily lifting his head
a little to look at him, 'how often have I pointed out to you that its
moral influence is the important thing?'
'Its moral influence on this fellow!' exclaimed Lightwood,
laughing.
'Do me the favour,' said Eugene, getting out of his chair with much
gravity, 'to come and inspect that feature of our establishment
which you rashly disparage.' With that, taking up a candle, he
conducted his chum into the fourth room of the set of chambers--a
little narrow room--which was very completely and neatly fitted
as a kitchen. 'See!' said Eugene, 'miniature flour-barrel, rollingpin,
spice-box, shelf of brown jars, chopping-board, coffee-mill,
dresser elegantly furnished with crockery, saucepans and pans,
roasting jack, a charming kettle, an armoury of dish-covers. The
moral influence of these objects, in forming the domestic virtues,
may have an immense influence upon me; not upon you, for you
are a hopeless case, but upon me. In fact, I have an idea that I
feel the domestic virtues already forming. Do me the favour to
step into my bedroom. Secretaire, you see, and abstruse set of
solid mahogany pigeon-holes, one for every letter of the alphabet.
To what use do I devote them? I receive a bill--say from Jones. I
docket it neatly at the secretaire, JONES, and I put it into
pigeonhole J. It's the next thing to a receipt and is quite as
satisfactory to ME. And I very much wish, Mortimer,' sitting on
his bed, with the air of a philosopher lecturing a disciple, 'that my
example might induce YOU to cultivate habits of punctuality and
method; and, by means of the moral influences with which I have
surrounded you, to encourage the formation of the domestic
virtues.'
Mortimer laughed again, with his usual commentaries of 'How
CAN you be so ridiculous, Eugene!' and 'What an absurd fellow
you are!' but when his laugh was out, there was something serious,
if not anxious, in his face. Despite that pernicious assumption of
lassitude and indifference, which had become his second nature,
he was strongly attached to his friend. He had founded himself
upon Eugene when they were yet boys at school; and at this hour
imitated him no less, admired him no less, loved him no less, than
in those departed days.
'Eugene,' said he, 'if I could find you in earnest for a minute, I
would try to say an earnest word to you.'
'An earnest word?' repeated Eugene. 'The moral influences are
beginning to work. Say on.'
'Well, I will,' returned the other, 'though you are not earnest yet.'
'In this desire for earnestness,' murmured Eugene, with the air of
one who was meditating deeply, 'I trace the happy influences of
the little flour-barrel and the coffee-mill. Gratifying.'
'Eugene,' resumed Mortimer, disregarding the light interruption,
and laying a hand upon Eugene's shoulder, as he, Mortimer, stood
before him seated on his bed, 'you are withholding something from
me.'
Eugene looked at him, but said nothing.
'All this past summer, you have been withholding something from
me. Before we entered on our boating vacation, you were as bent
upon it as I have seen you upon anything since we first rowed
together. But you cared very little for it when it came, often
found it a tie and a drag upon you, and were constantly away.
Now it was well enough half-a-dozen times, a dozen times, twenty
times, to say to me in your own odd manner, which I know so well
and like so much, that your disappearances were precautions
against our boring one another; but of course after a short while I
began to know that they covered something. I don't ask what it is,
as you have not told me; but the fact is so. Say, is it not?'
'I give you my word of honour, Mortimer,' returned Eugene, after
a serious pause of a few moments, 'that I don't know.'
'Don't know, Eugene?'
'Upon my soul, don't know. I know less about myself than about
most people in the world, and I don't know.'
'You have some design in your mind?'
'Have I? I don't think I have.'
'At any rate, you have some subject of interest there which used
not to be there?'
'I really can't say,' replied Eugene, shaking his head blankly, after
pausing again to reconsider. 'At times I have thought yes; at other
times I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to pursue
such a subject; now I have felt that it was absurd, and that it tired
and embarrassed me. Absolutely, I can't say. Frankly and
faithfully, I would if I could.'
So replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend's
shoulder, as he rose from his seat upon the bed, and said:
'You must take your friend as he is. You know what I am, my
dear Mortimer. You know how dreadfully susceptible I am to
boredom. You know that when I became enough of a man to find
myself an embodied conundrum, I bored myself to the last degree
by trying to find out what I meant. You know that at length I gave
it up, and declined to guess any more. Then how can I possibly
give you the answer that I have not discovered? The old nursery
form runs, "Riddle-me-riddle-me-ree, p'raps you can't tell me what
this may be?" My reply runs, "No. Upon my life, I can't."'
So much of what was fantastically true to his own knowledge of
this utterly careless Eugene, mingled with the answer, that
Mortimer could not receive it as a mere evasion. Besides, it was
given with an engaging air of openness, and of special exemption
of the one friend he valued, from his reckless indifference.
'Come, dear boy!' said Eugene. 'Let us try the effect of smoking.
If it enlightens me at all on this question, I will impart
unreservedly.'
They returned to the room they had come from, and, finding it
heated, opened a window. Having lighted their cigars, they leaned
out of this window, smoking, and looking down at the moonlight,
as it shone into the court below.
'No enlightenment,' resumed Eugene, after certain minutes of
silence. 'I feel sincerely apologetic, my dear Mortimer, but
nothing comes.'
'If nothing comes,' returned Mortimer, 'nothing can come from it.
So I shall hope that this may hold good throughout, and that there
may be nothing on foot. Nothing injurious to you, Eugene, or--'
Eugene stayed him for a moment with his hand on his arm, while
he took a piece of earth from an old flowerpot on the window-sill
and dexterously shot it at a little point of light opposite; having
done which to his satisfaction, he said, 'Or?'
'Or injurious to any one else.'
'How,' said Eugene, taking another little piece of earth, and
shooting it with great precision at the former mark, 'how injurious
to any one else?'
'I don't know.'
'And,' said Eugene, taking, as he said the word, another shot, 'to
whom else?'
'I don't know.'
Checking himself with another piece of earth in his hand, Eugene
looked at his friend inquiringly and a little suspiciously. There
was no concealed or half-expressed meaning in his face.
'Two belated wanderers in the mazes of the law,' said Eugene,
attracted by the sound of footsteps, and glancing down as he
spoke, 'stray into the court. They examine the door-posts of
number one, seeking the name they want. Not finding it at
number one, they come to number two. On the hat of wanderer
number two, the shorter one, I drop this pellet. Hitting him on the
hat, I smoke serenely, and become absorbed in contemplation of
the sky.'
Both the wanderers looked up towards the window; but, after
interchanging a mutter or two, soon applied themselves to the
door-posts below. There they seemed to discover what they
wanted, for they disappeared from view by entering at the
doorway. 'When they emerge,' said Eugene, 'you shall see me
bring them both down'; and so prepared two pellets for the
purpose.
He had not reckoned on their seeking his name, or Lightwood's.
But either the one or the other would seem to be in question, for
now there came a knock at the door. 'I am on duty to-night,' said
Mortimer, 'stay you where you are, Eugene.' Requiring no
persuasion, he stayed there, smoking quietly, and not at all curious
to know who knocked, until Mortimer spoke to him from within
the room, and touched him. Then, drawing in his head, he found
the visitors to be young Charley Hexam and the schoolmaster;
both standing facing him, and both recognized at a glance.
'You recollect this young fellow, Eugene?' said Mortimer.
'Let me look at him,' returned Wrayburn, coolly. 'Oh, yes, yes. I
recollect him!'
He had not been about to repeat that former action of taking him
by the chin, but the boy had suspected him of it, and had thrown
up his arm with an angry start. Laughingly, Wrayburn looked to
Lightwood for an explanation of this odd visit.
'He says he has something to say.'
'Surely it must be to you, Mortimer.'
'So I thought, but he says no. He says it is to you.'
'Yes, I do say so,' interposed the boy. 'And I mean to say what I
want to say, too, Mr Eugene Wrayburn!'
Passing him with his eyes as if there were nothing where he stood,
Eugene looked on to Bradley Headstone. With consummate
indolence, he turned to Mortimer, inquiring: 'And who may this
other person be?'
'I am Charles Hexam's friend,' said Bradley; 'I am Charles
Hexam's schoolmaster.'
'My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners,'
returned Eugene.
Composedly smoking, he leaned an elbow on the chimneypiece, at
the side of the fire, and looked at the schoolmaster. It was a cruel
look, in its cold disdain of him, as a creature of no worth. The
schoolmaster looked at him, and that, too, was a cruel look,
though of the different kind, that it had a raging jealousy and fiery
wrath in it.
Very remarkably, neither Eugene Wrayburn nor Bradley
Headstone looked at all at the boy. Through the ensuing dialogue,
those two, no matter who spoke, or whom was addressed, looked
at each other. There was some secret, sure perception between
them, which set them against one another in all ways.
'In some high respects, Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' said Bradley,
answering him with pale and quivering lips, 'the natural feelings of
my pupils are stronger than my teaching.'
'In most respects, I dare say,' replied Eugene, enjoying his cigar,
'though whether high or low is of no importance. You have my
name very correctly. Pray what is yours?'
'It cannot concern you much to know, but--'
'True,' interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting him short at
his mistake, 'it does not concern me at all to know. I can say
Schoolmaster, which is a most respectable title. You are right,
Schoolmaster.'
It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of Bradley
Headstone, that he had made it himself in a moment of incautious
anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, but
they quivered fast.
'Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' said the boy, 'I want a word with you. I
have wanted it so much, that we have looked out your address in
the book, and we have been to your office, and we have come
from your office here.'
'You have given yourself much trouble, Schoolmaster,' observed
Eugene, blowing the feathery ash from his cigar. 'I hope it may
prove remunerative.'
'And I am glad to speak,' pursued the boy, 'in presence of Mr
Lightwood, because it was through Mr Lightwood that you ever
saw my sister.'
For a mere moment, Wrayburn turned his eyes aside from the
schoolmaster to note the effect of the last word on Mortimer, who,
standing on the opposite side of the fire, as soon as the word was
spoken, turned his face towards the fire and looked down into it.
'Similarly, it was through Mr Lightwood that you ever saw her
again, for you were with him on the night when my father was
found, and so I found you with her on the next day. Since then,
you have seen my sister often. You have seen my sister oftener
and oftener. And I want to know why?'
'Was this worth while, Schoolmaster?' murmured Eugene, with the
air of a disinterested adviser. 'So much trouble for nothing? You
should know best, but I think not.'
'I don't know, Mr Wrayburn,' answered Bradley, with his passion
rising, 'why you address me--'
'Don't you? said Eugene. 'Then I won't.'
He said it so tauntingly in his perfect placidity, that the
respectable right-hand clutching the respectable hair-guard of the
respectable watch could have wound it round his throat and
strangled him with it. Not another word did Eugene deem it worth
while to utter, but stood leaning his head upon his hand, smoking,
and looking imperturbably at the chafing Bradley Headstone with
his clutching right-hand, until Bradley was wellnigh mad.
'Mr Wrayburn,' proceeded the boy, 'we not only know this that I
have charged upon you, but we know more. It has not yet come
to my sister's knowledge that we have found it out, but we have.
We had a plan, Mr Headstone and I, for my sister's education, and
for its being advised and overlooked by Mr Headstone, who is a
much more competent authority, whatever you may pretend to
think, as you smoke, than you could produce, if you tried. Then,
what do we find? What do we find, Mr Lightwood? Why, we
find that my sister is already being taught, without our knowing it.
We find that while my sister gives an unwilling and cold ear to our
schemes for her advantage--I, her brother, and Mr Headstone, the
most competent authority, as his certificates would easily prove,
that could be produced--she is wilfully and willingly profiting by
other schemes. Ay, and taking pains, too, for I know what such
pains are. And so does Mr Headstone! Well! Somebody pays for
this, is a thought that naturally occurs to us; who pays? We apply
ourselves to find out, Mr Lightwood, and we find that your friend,
this Mr Eugene Wrayburn, here, pays. Then I ask him what right
has he to do it, and what does he mean by it, and how comes he to
be taking such a liberty without my consent, when I am raising
myself in the scale of society by my own exertions and Mr
Headstone's aid, and have no right to have any darkness cast upon
my prospects, or any imputation upon my respectability, through
my sister?'
The boyish weakness of this speech, combined with its great
selfishness, made it a poor one indeed. And yet Bradley
Headstone, used to the little audience of a school, and unused to
the larger ways of men, showed a kind of exultation in it.
'Now I tell Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' pursued the boy, forced into
the use of the third person by the hopelessness of addressing him
in the first, 'that I object to his having any acquaintance at all with
my sister, and that I request him to drop it altogether. He is not to
take it into his head that I am afraid of my sister's caring for HIM--'
(As the boy sneered, the Master sneered, and Eugene blew off the
feathery ash again.)
--'But I object to it, and that's enough. I am more important to to
my sister than he thinks. As I raise myself, I intend to raise her;
she knows that, and she has to look to me for her prospects. Now
I understand all this very well, and so does Mr Headstone. My
sister is an excellent girl, but she has some romantic notions; not
about such things as your Mr Eugene Wrayburns, but about the
death of my father and other matters of that sort. Mr Wrayburn
encourages those notions to make himself of importance, and so
she thinks she ought to be grateful to him, and perhaps even likes
to be. Now I don't choose her to be grateful to him, or to be
grateful to anybody but me, except Mr Headstone. And I tell Mr
Wrayburn that if he don't take heed of what I say, it will be worse
for her. Let him turn that over in his memory, and make sure of it.
Worse for her!'
A pause ensued, in which the schoolmaster looked very awkward.
'May I suggest, Schoolmaster,' said Eugene, removing his fastwaning
cigar from his lips to glance at it, 'that you can now take
your pupil away.'
'And Mr Lightwood,' added the boy, with a burning face, under
the flaming aggravation of getting no sort of answer or attention, 'I
hope you'll take notice of what I have said to your friend, and of
what your friend has heard me say, word by word, whatever he
pretends to the contrary. You are bound to take notice of it, Mr
Lightwood, for, as I have already mentioned, you first brought
your friend into my sister's company, and but for you we never
should have seen him. Lord knows none of us ever wanted him,
any more than any of us will ever miss him. Now Mr Headstone,
as Mr Eugene Wrayburn has been obliged to hear what I had to
say, and couldn't help himself, and as I have said it out to the last
word, we have done all we wanted to do, and may go.'
'Go down-stairs, and leave me a moment, Hexam,' he returned.
The boy complying with an indignant look and as much noise as
he could make, swung out of the room; and Lightwood went to
the window, and leaned there, looking out.
'You think me of no more value than the dirt under your feet,' said
Bradley to Eugene, speaking in a carefully weighed and measured
tone, or he could not have spoken at all.
'I assure you, Schoolmaster,' replied Eugene, 'I don't think about
you.'
'That's not true,' returned the other; 'you know better.'
'That's coarse,' Eugene retorted; 'but you DON'T know better.'
'Mr Wrayburn, at least I know very well that it would be idle to
set myself against you in insolent words or overbearing manners.
That lad who has just gone out could put you to shame in half-adozen
branches of knowledge in half an hour, but you can throw
him aside like an inferior. You can do as much by me, I have no
doubt, beforehand.'
'Possibly,' remarked Eugene.
'But I am more than a lad,' said Bradley, with his clutching hand,
'and I WILL be heard, sir.'
'As a schoolmaster,' said Eugene, 'you are always being heard.
That ought to content you.'
'But it does not content me,' replied the other, white with passion.
'Do you suppose that a man, in forming himself for the duties I
discharge, and in watching and repressing himself daily to
discharge them well, dismisses a man's nature?'
'I suppose you,' said Eugene, 'judging from what I see as I look at
you, to be rather too passionate for a good schoolmaster.' As he
spoke, he tossed away the end of his cigar.
'Passionate with you, sir, I admit I am. Passionate with you, sir, I
respect myself for being. But I have not Devils for my pupils.'
'For your Teachers, I should rather say,' replied Eugene.
'Mr Wrayburn.'
'Schoolmaster.'
'Sir, my name is Bradley Headstone.'
'As you justly said, my good sir, your name cannot concern me.
Now, what more?'
'This more. Oh, what a misfortune is mine,' cried Bradley,
breaking off to wipe the starting perspiration from his face as he
shook from head to foot, 'that I cannot so control myself as to
appear a stronger creature than this, when a man who has not felt
in all his life what I have felt in a day can so command himself!'
He said it in a very agony, and even followed it with an errant
motion of his hands as if he could have torn himself.
Eugene Wrayburn looked on at him, as if he found him beginning
to be rather an entertaining study.
'Mr Wrayburn, I desire to say something to you on my own part.'
'Come, come, Schoolmaster,' returned Eugene, with a languid
approach to impatience as the other again struggled with himself;
'say what you have to say. And let me remind you that the door is
standing open, and your young friend waiting for you on the
stairs.'
'When I accompanied that youth here, sir, I did so with the
purpose of adding, as a man whom you should not be permitted to
put aside, in case you put him aside as a boy, that his instinct is
correct and right.' Thus Bradley Headstone, with great effort and
difficulty.
'Is that all?' asked Eugene.
'No, sir,' said the other, flushed and fierce. 'I strongly support him
in his disapproval of your visits to his sister, and in his objection to
your officiousness--and worse--in what you have taken upon
yourself to do for her.'
'Is THAT all?' asked Eugene.
'No, sir. I determined to tell you that you are not justified in these
proceedings, and that they are injurious to his sister.'
'Are you her schoolmaster as well as her brother's?--Or perhaps
you would like to be?' said Eugene.
It was a stab that the blood followed, in its rush to Bradley
Headstone's face, as swiftly as if it had been dealt with a dagger.
'What do you mean by that?' was as much as he could utter.
'A natural ambition enough,' said Eugene, coolly. Far be it from
me to say otherwise. The sister who is something too much upon
your lips, perhaps--is so very different from all the associations to
which she had been used, and from all the low obscure people
about her, that it is a very natural ambition.'
'Do you throw my obscurity in my teeth, Mr Wrayburn?'
'That can hardly be, for I know nothing concerning it,
Schoolmaster, and seek to know nothing.'
'You reproach me with my origin,' said Bradley Headstone; 'you
cast insinuations at my bringing-up. But I tell you, sir, I have
worked my way onward, out of both and in spite of both, and
have a right to be considered a better man than you, with better
reasons for being proud.'
'How I can reproach you with what is not within my knowledge,
or how I can cast stones that were never in my hand, is a problem
for the ingenuity of a schoolmaster to prove,' returned Eugene. 'Is
THAT all?'
'No, sir. If you suppose that boy--'
'Who really will be tired of waiting,' said Eugene, politely.
'If you suppose that boy to be friendless, Mr Wrayburn, you
deceive yourself. I am his friend, and you shall find me so.'
'And you will find HIM on the stairs,' remarked Eugene.
'You may have promised yourself, sir, that you could do what you
chose here, because you had to deal with a mere boy,
inexperienced, friendless, and unassisted. But I give you warning
that this mean calculation is wrong. You have to do with a man
also. You have to do with me. I will support him, and, if need be,
require reparation for him. My hand and heart are in this cause,
and are open to him.'
'And--quite a coincidence--the door is open,' remarked Eugene.
'I scorn your shifty evasions, and I scorn you,' said the
schoolmaster. 'In the meanness of your nature you revile me with
the meanness of my birth. I hold you in contempt for it. But if
you don't profit by this visit, and act accordingly, you will find me
as bitterly in earnest against you as I could be if I deemed you
worth a second thought on my own account.'
With a consciously bad grace and stiff manner, as Wrayburn
looked so easily and calmly on, he went out with these words, and
the heavy door closed like a furnace-door upon his red and white
heats of rage.
'A curious monomaniac,' said Eugene. 'The man seems to believe
that everybody was acquainted with his mother!'
Mortimer Lightwood being still at the window, to which he had in
delicacy withdrawn, Eugene called to him, and he fell to slowly
pacing the room.
'My dear fellow,' said Eugene, as he lighted another cigar, 'I fear
my unexpected visitors have been troublesome. If as a set-off
(excuse the legal phrase from a barrister-at-law) you would like to
ask Tippins to tea, I pledge myself to make love to her.'
'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene,' replied Mortimer, still pacing the room,
'I am sorry for this. And to think that I have been so blind!'
'How blind, dear boy?' inquired his unmoved friend.
'What were your words that night at the river-side public-house?'
said Lightwood, stopping. 'What was it that you asked me? Did I
feel like a dark combination of traitor and pickpocket when I
thought of that girl?'
'I seem to remember the expression,' said Eugene.
'How do YOU feel when you think of her just now?'
His friend made no direct reply, but observed, after a few whiffs
of his cigar, 'Don't mistake the situation. There is no better girl in
all this London than Lizzie Hexam. There is no better among my
people at home; no better among your people.'
'Granted. What follows?'
'There,' said Eugene, looking after him dubiously as he paced
away to the other end of the room, 'you put me again upon
guessing the riddle that I have given up.'
'Eugene, do you design to capture and desert this girl?'
'My dear fellow, no.'
'Do you design to marry her?'
'My dear fellow, no.'
'Do you design to pursue her?'
'My dear fellow, I don't design anything. I have no design
whatever. I am incapable of designs. If I conceived a design, I
should speedily abandon it, exhausted by the operation.'
'Oh Eugene, Eugene!'
'My dear Mortimer, not that tone of melancholy reproach, I
entreat. What can I do more than tell you all I know, and
acknowledge my ignorance of all I don't know! How does that
little old song go, which, under pretence of being cheerful, is by
far the most lugubrious I ever heard in my life?
"Away with melancholy,
Nor doleful changes ring
On life and human folly,
But merrily merrily sing
Fal la!"
Don't let us sing Fal la, my dear Mortimer (which is comparatively
unmeaning), but let us sing that we give up guessing the riddle
altogether.'
'Are you in communication with this girl, Eugene, and is what
these people say true?'
'I concede both admissions to my honourable and learned friend.'
'Then what is to come of it? What are you doing? Where are you
going?'
'My dear Mortimer, one would think the schoolmaster had left
behind him a catechizing infection. You are ruffled by the want
of another cigar. Take one of these, I entreat. Light it at mine,
which is in perfect order. So! Now do me the justice to observe
that I am doing all I can towards self-improvement, and that you
have a light thrown on those household implements which, when
you only saw them as in a glass darkly, you were hastily--I must
say hastily--inclined to depreciate. Sensible of my deficiencies, I
have surrounded myself with moral influences expressly meant to
promote the formation of the domestic virtues. To those
influences, and to the improving society of my friend from
boyhood, commend me with your best wishes.'
'Ah, Eugene!' said Lightwood, affectionately, now standing near
him, so that they both stood in one little cloud of smoke; 'I would
that you answered my three questions! What is to come of it?
What are you doing? Where are you going?'
'And my dear Mortimer,' returned Eugene, lightly fanning away
the smoke with his hand for the better exposition of his frankness
of face and manner, 'believe me, I would answer them instantly if
I could. But to enable me to do so, I must first have found out the
troublesome conundrum long abandoned. Here it is. Eugene
Wrayburn.' Tapping his forehead and breast. 'Riddle-me, riddleme-
ree, perhaps you can't tell me what this may be?--No, upon my
life I can't. I give it up!'
Chapter 7
IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED
The arrangement between Mr Boffin and his literary man, Mr
Silas Wegg, so far altered with the altered habits of Mr Boffin's
life, as that the Roman Empire usually declined in the morning
and in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, rather than in the
evening, as of yore, and in Boffin's Bower. There were occasions,
however, when Mr Boffin, seeking a brief refuge from the
blandishments of fashion, would present himself at the Bower
after dark, to anticipate the next sallying forth of Wegg, and
would there, on the old settle, pursue the downward fortunes of
those enervated and corrupted masters of the world who were by
this time on their last legs. If Wegg had been worse paid for his
office, or better qualified to discharge it, he would have
considered these visits complimentary and agreeable; but, holding
the position of a handsomely-remunerated humbug, he resented
them. This was quite according to rule, for the incompetent
servant, by whomsoever employed, is always against his
employer. Even those born governors, noble and right honourable
creatures, who have been the most imbecile in high places, have
uniformly shown themselves the most opposed (sometimes in
belying distrust, sometimes in vapid insolence) to THEIR
employer. What is in such wise true of the public master and
servant, is equally true of the private master and servant all the
world over.
When Mr Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to 'Our House',
as he had been wont to call the mansion outside which he had sat
shelterless so long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars
as different from his mental plans of it as according to the nature
of things it well could be, that far-seeing and far-reaching
character, by way of asserting himself and making out a case for
compensation, affected to fall into a melancholy strain of musing
over the mournful past; as if the house and he had had a fall in life
together.
'And this, sir,' Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his head
and musing, 'was once Our House! This, sir, is the building from
which I have so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth,
Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker'--whose very names
were of his own inventing--'pass and repass! And has it come to
this, indeed! Ah dear me, dear me!'
So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr Boffin was
quite sorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in buying the
house he had done him an irreparable injury.
Two or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety on
Mr Wegg's part, but assuming the mask of careless yielding to a
fortuitous combination of circumstances impelling him towards
Clerkenwell, had enabled him to complete his bargain with Mr
Venus.
'Bring me round to the Bower,' said Silas, when the bargain was
closed, 'next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old
Jamaikey warm should meet your views, I am not the man to
begrudge it.'
'You are aware of my being poor company, sir,' replied Mr Venus,
'but be it so.'
It being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is Mr Venus
come, and ringing at the Bower-gate.
Mr Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper truncheon
under Mr Venus's arm, and remarks, in a dry tone: 'Oh! I thought
perhaps you might have come in a cab.'
'No, Mr Wegg,' replies Venus. 'I am not above a parcel.'
'Above a parcel! No!' says Wegg, with some dissatisfaction. But
does not openly growl, 'a certain sort of parcel might be above
you.'
'Here is your purchase, Mr Wegg,' says Venus, politely handing it
over, 'and I am glad to restore it to the source from whence it--
flowed.'
'Thankee,' says Wegg. 'Now this affair is concluded, I may
mention to you in a friendly way that I've my doubts whether, if I
had consulted a lawyer, you could have kept this article back from
me. I only throw it out as a legal point.'
'Do you think so, Mr Wegg? I bought you in open contract.'
'You can't buy human flesh and blood in this country, sir; not
alive, you can't,' says Wegg, shaking his head. 'Then query, bone?'
'As a legal point?' asks Venus.
'As a legal point.'
'I am not competent to speak upon that, Mr Wegg,' says Venus,
reddening and growing something louder; 'but upon a point of fact
I think myself competent to speak; and as a point of fact I would
have seen you--will you allow me to say, further?'
'I wouldn't say more than further, if I was you,' Mr Wegg suggests,
pacifically.
--'Before I'd have given that packet into your hand without being
paid my price for it. I don't pretend to know how the point of law
may stand, but I'm thoroughly confident upon the point of fact.'
As Mr Venus is irritable (no doubt owing to his disappointment in
love), and as it is not the cue of Mr Wegg to have him out of
temper, the latter gentleman soothingly remarks, 'I only put it as a
little case; I only put it ha'porthetically.'
'Then I'd rather, Mr Wegg, you put it another time, penn'orthetically,'
is Mr Venus's retort, 'for I tell you candidly I don't like
your little cases.'
Arrived by this time in Mr Wegg's sitting-room, made bright on
the chilly evening by gaslight and fire, Mr Venus softens and
compliments him on his abode; profiting by the occasion to
remind Wegg that he (Venus) told him he had got into a good
thing.
'Tolerable,' Wegg rejoins. 'But bear in mind, Mr Venus, that
there's no gold without its alloy. Mix for yourself and take a seat
in the chimbley-corner. Will you perform upon a pipe, sir?'
'I am but an indifferent performer, sir,' returns the other; 'but I'll
accompany you with a whiff or two at intervals.'
So, Mr Venus mixes, and Wegg mixes; and Mr Venus lights and
puffs, and Wegg lights and puffs.
'And there's alloy even in this metal of yours, Mr Wegg, you was
remarking?'
'Mystery,' returns Wegg. 'I don't like it, Mr Venus. I don't like to
have the life knocked out of former inhabitants of this house, in
the gloomy dark, and not know who did it.'
'Might you have any suspicions, Mr Wegg?'
'No,' returns that gentleman. 'I know who profits by it. But I've
no suspicions.'
Having said which, Mr Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a
most determined expression of Charity; as if he had caught that
cardinal virtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart
from him, and held her by main force.
'Similarly,' resumes Wegg, 'I have observations as I can offer upon
certain points and parties; but I make no objections, Mr Venus.
Here is an immense fortune drops from the clouds upon a person
that shall be nameless. Here is a weekly allowance, with a certain
weight of coals, drops from the clouds upon me. Which of us is
the better man? Not the person that shall be nameless. That's an
observation of mine, but I don't make it an objection. I take my
allowance and my certain weight of coals. He takes his fortune.
That's the way it works.'
'It would be a good thing for me, if I could see things in the calm
light you do, Mr Wegg.'
'Again look here,' pursues Silas, with an oratorical flourish of his
pipe and his wooden leg: the latter having an undignified tendency
to tilt him back in his chair; 'here's another observation, Mr Venus,
unaccompanied with an objection. Him that shall be nameless is
liable to be talked over. He gets talked over. Him that shall be
nameless, having me at his right hand, naturally looking to be
promoted higher, and you may perhaps say meriting to be
promoted higher--'
(Mr Venus murmurs that he does say so.)
'--Him that shall be nameless, under such circumstances passes me
by, and puts a talking-over stranger above my head. Which of us
two is the better man? Which of us two can repeat most poetry?
Which of us two has, in the service of him that shall be nameless,
tackled the Romans, both civil and military, till he has got as
husky as if he'd been weaned and ever since brought up on
sawdust? Not the talking-over stranger. Yet the house is as free
to him as if it was his, and he has his room, and is put upon a
footing, and draws about a thousand a year. I am banished to the
Bower, to be found in it like a piece of furniture whenever
wanted. Merit, therefore, don't win. That's the way it works. I
observe it, because I can't help observing it, being accustomed to
take a powerful sight of notice; but I don't object. Ever here
before, Mr Venus?'
'Not inside the gate, Mr Wegg.'
'You've been as far as the gate then, Mr Venus?'
'Yes, Mr Wegg, and peeped in from curiosity.'
'Did you see anything?'
'Nothing but the dust-yard.'
Mr Wegg rolls his eyes all round the room, in that ever unsatisfied
quest of his, and then rolls his eyes all round Mr Venus; as if
suspicious of his having something about him to be found out.
'And yet, sir,' he pursues, 'being acquainted with old Mr Harmon,
one would have thought it might have been polite in you, too, to
give him a call. And you're naturally of a polite disposition, you
are.' This last clause as a softening compliment to Mr Venus.
'It is true, sir,' replies Venus, winking his weak eyes, and running
his fingers through his dusty shock of hair, 'that I was so, before a
certain observation soured me. You understand to what I allude,
Mr Wegg? To a certain written statement respecting not wishing
to be regarded in a certain light. Since that, all is fled, save gall.'
'Not all,' says Mr Wegg, in a tone of sentimental condolence.
'Yes, sir,' returns Venus, 'all! The world may deem it harsh, but I'd
quite as soon pitch into my best friend as not. Indeed, I'd sooner!'
Involuntarily making a pass with his wooden leg to guard himself
as Mr Venus springs up in the emphasis of this unsociable
declaration, Mr Wegg tilts over on his back, chair and all, and is
rescued by that harmless misanthrope, in a disjointed state and
ruefully rubbing his head.
'Why, you lost your balance, Mr Wegg,' says Venus, handing him
his pipe.
'And about time to do it,' grumbles Silas, 'when a man's visitors,
without a word of notice, conduct themselves with the sudden
wiciousness of Jacks-in-boxes! Don't come flying out of your
chair like that, Mr Venus!'
'I ask your pardon, Mr Wegg. I am so soured.'
'Yes, but hang it,' says Wegg argumentatively, 'a well-governed
mind can be soured sitting! And as to being regarded in lights,
there's bumpey lights as well as bony. IN which,' again rubbing
his head, 'I object to regard myself.'
'I'll bear it in memory, sir.'
'If you'll be so good.' Mr Wegg slowly subdues his ironical tone
and his lingering irritation, and resumes his pipe. 'We were talking
of old Mr Harmon being a friend of yours.'
'Not a friend, Mr Wegg. Only known to speak to, and to have a
little deal with now and then. A very inquisitive character, Mr
Wegg, regarding what was found in the dust. As inquisitive as
secret.'
'Ah! You found him secret?' returns Wegg, with a greedy relish.
'He had always the look of it, and the manner of it.'
'Ah!' with another roll of his eyes. 'As to what was found in the
dust now. Did you ever hear him mention how he found it, my
dear friend? Living on the mysterious premises, one would like to
know. For instance, where he found things? Or, for instance, how
he set about it? Whether he began at the top ot the mounds, or
whether he began at the bottom. Whether he prodded'; Mr
Wegg's pantomime is skilful and expressive here; 'or whether he
scooped? Should you say scooped, my dear Mr Venus; or should
you as a man--say prodded?'
'I should say neither, Mr Wegg.'
'As a fellow-man, Mr Venus--mix again--why neither?'
'Because I suppose, sir, that what was found, was found in the
sorting and sifting. All the mounds are sorted and sifted?'
'You shall see 'em and pass your opinion. Mix again.'
On each occasion of his saying 'mix again', Mr Wegg, with a hop
on his wooden leg, hitches his chair a little nearer; more as if he
were proposing that himself and Mr Venus should mix again, than
that they should replenish their glasses.
'Living (as I said before) on the mysterious premises,' says Wegg
when the other has acted on his hospitable entreaty, 'one likes to
know. Would you be inclined to say now--as a brother--that he
ever hid things in the dust, as well as found 'em?'
'Mr Wegg, on the whole I should say he might.'
Mr Wegg claps on his spectacles, and admiringly surveys Mr
Venus from head to foot.
'As a mortal equally with myself, whose hand I take in mine for
the first time this day, having unaccountably overlooked that act
so full of boundless confidence binding a fellow-creetur TO a
fellow creetur,' says Wegg, holding Mr Venus's palm out, flat and
ready for smiting, and now smiting it; 'as such--and no other--for I
scorn all lowlier ties betwixt myself and the man walking with his
face erect that alone I call my Twin--regarded and regarding in
this trustful bond--what do you think he might have hid?'
'It is but a supposition, Mr Wegg.'
'As a Being with his hand upon his heart,' cries Wegg; and the
apostrophe is not the less impressive for the Being's hand being
actually upon his rum and water; 'put your supposition into
language, and bring it out, Mr Venus!'
'He was the species of old gentleman, sir,' slowly returns that
practical anatomist, after drinking, 'that I should judge likely to
take such opportunities as this place offered, of stowing away
money, valuables, maybe papers.'
'As one that was ever an ornament to human life,' says Mr Wegg,
again holding out Mr Venus's palm as if he were going to tell his
fortune by chiromancy, and holding his own up ready for smiting
it when the time should come; 'as one that the poet might have
had his eye on, in writing the national naval words:
Helm a-weather, now lay her close,
Yard arm and yard arm she lies;
Again, cried I, Mr Venus, give her t'other dose,
Man shrouds and grapple, sir, or she flies!
--that is to say, regarded in the light of true British Oak, for such
you are explain, Mr Venus, the expression "papers"!'
'Seeing that the old gentleman was generally cutting off some near
relation, or blocking out some natural affection,' Mr Venus rejoins,
'he most likely made a good many wills and codicils.'
The palm of Silas Wegg descends with a sounding smack upon the
palm of Venus, and Wegg lavishly exclaims, 'Twin in opinion
equally with feeling! Mix a little more!'
Having now hitched his wooden leg and his chair close in front of
Mr Venus, Mr Wegg rapidly mixes for both, gives his visitor his
glass, touches its rim with the rim of his own, puts his own to his
lips, puts it down, and spreading his hands on his visitor's knees
thus addresses him:
'Mr Venus. It ain't that I object to being passed over for a
stranger, though I regard the stranger as a more than doubtful
customer. It ain't for the sake of making money, though money is
ever welcome. It ain't for myself, though I am not so haughty as
to be above doing myself a good turn. It's for the cause of the
right.'
Mr Venus, passively winking his weak eyes both at once,
demands: 'What is, Mr Wegg?'
'The friendly move, sir, that I now propose. You see the move,
sir?'
'Till you have pointed it out, Mr Wegg, I can't say whether I do or
not.'
'If there IS anything to be found on these premises, let us find it
together. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to look for it
together. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to share the
profits of it equally betwixt us. In the cause of the right.' Thus
Silas assuming a noble air.
'Then,' says Mr Venus, looking up, after meditating with his hair
held in his hands, as if he could only fix his attention by fixing his
head; 'if anything was to be unburied from under the dust, it would
be kept a secret by you and me? Would that be it, Mr Wegg?'
'That would depend upon what it was, Mr Venus. Say it was
money, or plate, or jewellery, it would be as much ours as
anybody else's.'
Mr Venus rubs an eyebrow, interrogatively.
'In the cause of the right it would. Because it would be
unknowingly sold with the mounds else, and the buyer would get
what he was never meant to have, and never bought. And what
would that be, Mr Venus, but the cause of the wrong?'
'Say it was papers,' Mr Venus propounds.
'According to what they contained we should offer to dispose of
'em to the parties most interested,' replies Wegg, promptly.
'In the cause of the right, Mr Wegg?'
'Always so, Mr Venus. If the parties should use them in the cause
of the wrong, that would be their act and deed. Mr Venus. I have
an opinion of you, sir, to which it is not easy to give mouth. Since
I called upon you that evening when you were, as I may say,
floating your powerful mind in tea, I have felt that you required to
be roused with an object. In this friendly move, sir, you will have
a glorious object to rouse you.'
Mr Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout has been
uppermost in his crafty mind:--the qualifications of Mr Venus for
such a search. He expatiates on Mr Venus's patient habits and
delicate manipulation; on his skill in piecing little things together;
on his knowledge of various tissues and textures; on the likelihood
of small indications leading him on to the discovery of great
concealments. 'While as to myself,' says Wegg, 'I am not good at
it. Whether I gave myself up to prodding, or whether I gave
myself up to scooping, I couldn't do it with that delicate touch so
as not to show that I was disturbing the mounds. Quite different
with YOU, going to work (as YOU would) in the light of a fellowman,
holily pledged in a friendly move to his brother man.' Mr
Wegg next modestly remarks on the want of adaptation in a
wooden leg to ladders and such like airy perches, and also hints at
an inherent tendency in that timber fiction, when called into
action for the purposes of a promenade on an ashey slope, to stick
itself into the yielding foothold, and peg its owner to one spot.
Then, leaving this part of the subject, he remarks on the special
phenomenon that before his installation in the Bower, it was from
Mr Venus that he first heard of the legend of hidden wealth in the
Mounds: 'which', he observes with a vaguely pious air, 'was surely
never meant for nothing.' Lastly, he returns to the cause of the
right, gloomily foreshadowing the possibility of something being
unearthed to criminate Mr Boffin (of whom he once more
candidly admits it cannot be denied that he profits by a murder),
and anticipating his denunciation by the friendly movers to
avenging justice. And this, Mr Wegg expressly points out, not at
all for the sake of the reward--though it would be a want of
principle not to take it.
To all this, Mr Venus, with his shock of dusty hair cocked after
the manner of a terrier's ears, attends profoundly. When Mr
Wegg, having finished, opens his arms wide, as if to show Mr
Venus how bare his breast is, and then folds them pending a reply,
Mr Venus winks at him with both eyes some little time before
speaking.
'I see you have tried it by yourself, Mr Wegg,' he says when he
does speak. 'You have found out the difficulties by experience.'
'No, it can hardly be said that I have tried it,' replies Wegg, a little
dashed by the hint. 'I have just skimmed it. Skimmed it.'
'And found nothing besides the difficulties?'
Wegg shakes his head.
'I scarcely know what to say to this, Mr Wegg,' observes Venus,
after ruminating for a while.
'Say yes,' Wegg naturally urges.
'If I wasn't soured, my answer would be no. But being soured, Mr
Wegg, and driven to reckless madness and desperation, I suppose
it's Yes.'
Wegg joyfully reproduces the two glasses, repeats the ceremony
of clinking their rims, and inwardly drinks with great heartiness to
the health and success in life of the young lady who has reduced
Mr Venus to his present convenient state of mind.
The articles of the friendly move are then severally recited and
agreed upon. They are but secrecy, fidelity, and perseverance.
The Bower to be always free of access to Mr Venus for his
researches, and every precaution to be taken against their
attracting observation in the neighbourhood.
'There's a footstep!' exclaims Venus.
'Where?' cries Wegg, starting.
'Outside. St!'
They are in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move, by
shaking hands upon it. They softly break off, light their pipes
which have gone out, and lean back in their chairs. No doubt, a
footstep. It approaches the window, and a hand taps at the glass.
'Come in!' calls Wegg; meaning come round by the door. But the
heavy old-fashioned sash is slowly raised, and a head slowly looks
in out of the dark background of night.
'Pray is Mr Silas Wegg here? Oh! I see him!'
The friendly movers might not have been quite at their ease, even
though the visitor had entered in the usual manner. But, leaning
on the breast-high window, and staring in out of the darkness, they
find the visitor extremely embarrassing. Expecially Mr Venus:
who removes his pipe, draws back his head, and stares at the
starer, as if it were his own Hindoo baby come to fetch him home.
'Good evening, Mr Wegg. The yard gate-lock should be looked
to, if you please; it don't catch.'
'Is it Mr Rokesmith?' falters Wegg.
'It is Mr Rokesmith. Don't let me disturb you. I am not coming in.
I have only a message for you, which I undertook to deliver on my
way home to my lodgings. I was in two minds about coming
beyond the gate without ringing: not knowing but you might have
a dog about.'
'I wish I had,' mutters Wegg, with his back turned as he rose from
his chair. St! Hush! The talking-over stranger, Mr Venus.'
'Is that any one I know?' inquires the staring Secretary.
'No, Mr Rokesmith. Friend of mine. Passing the evening with
me.'
'Oh! I beg his pardon. Mr Boffin wishes you to know that he does
not expect you to stay at home any evening, on the chance of his
coming. It has occurred to him that he may, without intending it,
have been a tie upon you. In future, if he should come without
notice, he will take his chance of finding you, and it will be all the
same to him if he does not. I undertook to tell you on my way.
That's all.'
With that, and 'Good night,' the Secretary lowers the window, and
disappears. They listen, and hear his footsteps go back to the
gate, and hear the gate close after him.
'And for that individual, Mr Venus,' remarks Wegg, when he is
fully gone, 'I have been passed over! Let me ask you what you
think of him?'
Apparently, Mr Venus does not know what to think of him, for he
makes sundry efforts to reply, without delivering himself of any
other articulate utterance than that he has 'a singular look'.
'A double look, you mean, sir,' rejoins Wegg, playing bitterly upon
the word. 'That's HIS look. Any amount of singular look for me,
but not a double look! That's an under-handed mind, sir.'
'Do you say there's something against him?' Venus asks.
'Something against him?' repeats Wegg. 'Something? What would
the relief be to my feelings--as a fellow-man--if I wasn't the slave
of truth, and didn't feel myself compelled to answer, Everything!'
See into what wonderful maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches
plunge their heads! It is such unspeakable moral compensation to
Wegg, to be overcome by the consideration that Mr Rokesmith
has an underhanded mind!
'On this starlight night, Mr Venus,' he remarks, when he is showing
that friendly mover out across the yard, and both are something
the worse for mixing again and again: 'on this starlight night to
think that talking-over strangers, and underhanded minds, can go
walking home under the sky, as if they was all square!'
'The spectacle of those orbs,' says Mr Venus, gazing upward with
his hat tumbling off; 'brings heavy on me her crushing words that
she did not wish to regard herself nor yet to be regarded in that--'
'I know! I know! You needn't repeat 'em,' says Wegg, pressing
his hand. 'But think how those stars steady me in the cause of the
right against some that shall be nameless. It isn't that I bear
malice. But see how they glisten with old remembrances! Old
remembrances of what, sir?'
Mr Venus begins drearily replying, 'Of her words, in her own
handwriting, that she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet--'
when Silas cuts him short with dignity.
'No, sir! Remembrances of Our House, of Master George, of Aunt
Jane, of Uncle Parker, all laid waste! All offered up sacrifices to
the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour!'
Chapter 8
IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS
The minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, or in less cutting
language, Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, the Golden Dustman, had
become as much at home in his eminently aristocratic family
mansion as he was likely ever to be. He could not but feel that,
like an eminently aristocratic family cheese, it was much too large
for his wants, and bred an infinite amount of parasites; but he was
content to regard this drawback on his property as a sort of
perpetual Legacy Duty. He felt the more resigned to it, forasmuch
as Mrs Boffin enjoyed herself completely, and Miss Bella was
delighted.
That young lady was, no doubt, and acquisition to the Boffins.
She was far too pretty to be unattractive anywhere, and far too
quick of perception to be below the tone of her new career.
Whether it improved her heart might be a matter of taste that was
open to question; but as touching another matter of taste, its
improvement of her appearance and manner, there could be no
question whatever.
And thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set Mrs
Boffin right; and even further, that Miss Bella began to feel ill at
ease, and as it were responsible, when she saw Mrs Boffin going
wrong. Not that so sweet a disposition and so sound a nature
could ever go very wrong even among the great visiting authorities
who agreed that the Boffins were 'charmingly vulgar' (which for
certain was not their own case in saying so), but that when she
made a slip on the social ice on which all the children of
Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be saved, are required to skate
in circles, or to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped Miss
Bella up (so that young lady felt), and caused her to experience
great confusion under the glances of the more skilful performers
engaged in those ice-exercises.
At Miss Bella's time of life it was not to be expected that she
should examine herself very closely on the congruity or stability
of her position in Mr Boffin's house. And as she had never been
sparing of complaints of her old home when she had no other to
compare it with, so there was no novelty of ingratitude or disdain
in her very much preferring her new one.
'An invaluable man is Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, after some two
or three months. 'But I can't quite make him out.'
Neither could Bella, so she found the subject rather interesting.
'He takes more care of my affairs, morning, noon, and night,' said
Mr Boffin, 'than fifty other men put together either could or
would; and yet he has ways of his own that are like tying a
scaffolding-pole right across the road, and bringing me up short
when I am almost a-walking arm in arm with him.'
'May I ask how so, sir?' inquired Bella.
'Well, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'he won't meet any company here,
but you. When we have visitors, I should wish him to have his
regular place at the table like ourselves; but no, he won't take it.'
'If he considers himself above it,' said Miss Bella, with an airy toss
of her head, 'I should leave him alone.'
'It ain't that, my dear,' replied Mr Boffin, thinking it over. 'He
don't consider himself above it.'
'Perhaps he considers himself beneath it,' suggested Bella. 'If so,
he ought to know best.'
'No, my dear; nor it ain't that, neither. No,' repeated Mr Boffin,
with a shake of his head, after again thinking it over; 'Rokesmith's
a modest man, but he don't consider himself beneath it.'
'Then what does he consider, sir?' asked Bella.
'Dashed if I know!' said Mr Boffin. 'It seemed that first as if it was
only Lightwood that he objected to meet. And now it seems to be
everybody, except you.'
Oho! thought Miss Bella. 'In--deed! That's it, is it!' For Mr
Mortimer Lightwood had dined there two or three times, and she
had met him elsewhere, and he had shown her some attention.
'Rather cool in a Secretary--and Pa's lodger--to make me the
subject of his jealousy!'
That Pa's daughter should be so contemptuous of Pa's lodger was
odd; but there were odder anomalies than that in the mind of the
spoilt girl: spoilt first by poverty, and then by wealth. Be it this
history's part, however, to leave them to unravel themselves.
'A little too much, I think,' Miss Bella reflected scornfully, 'to have
Pa's lodger laying claim to me, and keeping eligible people off! A
little too much, indeed, to have the opportunities opened to me by
Mr and Mrs Boffin, appropriated by a mere Secretary and Pa's
lodger!'
Yet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been fluttered by
the discovery that this same Secretary and lodger seem to like her.
Ah! but the eminently aristocratic mansion and Mrs Boffin's
dressmaker had not come into play then.
In spite of his seemingly retiring manners a very intrusive person,
this Secretary and lodger, in Miss Bella's opinion. Always a light
in his office-room when we came home from the play or Opera,
and he always at the carriage-door to hand us out. Always a
provoking radiance too on Mrs Boffin's face, and an abominably
cheerful reception of him, as if it were possible seriously to
approve what the man had in his mind!
'You never charge me, Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary,
encountering her by chance alone in the great drawing-room, 'with
commissions for home. I shall always be happy to execute any
commands you may have in that direction.'
'Pray what may you mean, Mr Rokesmith?' inquired Miss Bella,
with languidly drooping eyelids.
'By home? I mean your father's house at Holloway.'
She coloured under the retort--so skilfully thrust, that the words
seemed to be merely a plain answer, given in plain good faith--and
said, rather more emphatically and sharply:
'What commissions and commands are you speaking of?'
'Only little words of remembrance as I assume you sent somehow
or other,' replied the Secretary with his former air. 'It would be a
pleasure to me if you would make me the bearer of them. As you
know, I come and go between the two houses every day.'
'You needn't remind me of that, sir.'
She was too quick in this petulant sally against 'Pa's lodger'; and
she felt that she had been so when she met his quiet look.
'They don't send many--what was your expression?--words of
remembrance to me,' said Bella, making haste to take refuge in illusage.
'They frequently ask me about you, and I give them such slight
intelligence as I can.'
'I hope it's truly given,' exclaimed Bella.
'I hope you cannot doubt it, for it would be very much against
you, if you could.'
'No, I do not doubt it. I deserve the reproach, which is very just
indeed. I beg your pardon, Mr Rokesmith.'
'I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you to such
admirable advantage,' he replied with earnestness. 'Forgive me; I
could not help saying that. To return to what I have digressed
from, let me add that perhaps they think I report them to you,
deliver little messages, and the like. But I forbear to trouble you,
as you never ask me.'
'I am going, sir,' said Bella, looking at him as if he had reproved
her, 'to see them tomorrow.'
'Is that,' he asked, hesitating, 'said to me, or to them?'
'To which you please.'
'To both? Shall I make it a message?'
'You can if you like, Mr Rokesmith. Message or no message, I am
going to see them tomorrow.'
'Then I will tell them so.'
He lingered a moment, as though to give her the opportunity of
prolonging the conversation if she wished. As she remained silent,
he left her. Two incidents of the little interview were felt by Miss
Bella herself, when alone again, to be very curious. The first was,
that he unquestionably left her with a penitent air upon her, and a
penitent feeling in her heart. The second was, that she had not an
intention or a thought of going home, until she had announced it to
him as a settled design.
'What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it?' was her
mental inquiry: 'He has no right to any power over me, and how
do I come to mind him when I don't care for him?'
Mrs Boffin, insisting that Bella should make tomorrow's
expedition in the chariot, she went home in great grandeur. Mrs
Wilfer and Miss Lavinia had speculated much on the probabilities
and improbabilities of her coming in this gorgeous state, and, on
beholding the chariot from the window at which they were
secreted to look out for it, agreed that it must be detained at the
door as long as possible, for the mortification and confusion of the
neighbours. Then they repaired to the usual family room, to
receive Miss Bella with a becoming show of indifference.
The family room looked very small and very mean, and the
downward staircase by which it was attained looked very narrow
and very crooked. The little house and all its arrangements were a
poor contrast to the eminently aristocratic dwelling. 'I can hardly
believe, thought Bella, that I ever did endure life in this place!'
Gloomy majesty on the part of Mrs Wilfer, and native pertness on
the part of Lavvy, did not mend the matter. Bella really stood in
natural need of a little help, and she got none.
'This,' said Mrs Wilfer, presenting a cheek to be kissed, as
sympathetic and responsive as the back of the bowl of a spoon, 'is
quite an honour! You will probably find your sister Lavvy grown,
Bella.'
'Ma,' Miss Lavinia interposed, 'there can be no objection to your
being aggravating, because Bella richly deserves it; but I really
must request that you will not drag in such ridiculous nonsense as
my having grown when I am past the growing age.'
'I grew, myself,' Mrs Wilfer sternly proclaimed, 'after I was
married.'
'Very well, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'then I think you had much better
have left it alone.'
The lofty glare with which the majestic woman received this
answer, might have embarrassed a less pert opponent, but it had
no effect upon Lavinia: who, leaving her parent to the enjoyment
of any amount of glaring at she might deem desirable under the
circumstances, accosted her sister, undismayed.
'I suppose you won't consider yourself quite disgraced, Bella, if I
give you a kiss? Well! And how do you do, Bella? And how are
your Boffins?'
'Peace!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer. 'Hold! I will not suffer this tone of
levity.'
'My goodness me! How are your Spoffins, then?' said Lavvy,
'since Ma so very much objects to your Boffins.'
'Impertinent girl! Minx!' said Mrs wilfer, with dread severity.
'I don't care whether I am a Minx, or a Sphinx,' returned Lavinia,
coolly, tossing her head; 'it's exactly the same thing to me, and I'd
every bit as soon be one as the other; but I know this--I'll not grow
after I'm married!'
'You will not? YOU will not?' repeated Mrs Wilfer, solemnly.
'No, Ma, I will not. Nothing shall induce me.'
Mrs Wilfer, having waved her gloves, became loftily pathetic.
'But it was to be expected;' thus she spake. 'A child of mine
deserts me for the proud and prosperous, and another child of
mine despises me. It is quite fitting.'
'Ma,' Bella struck in, 'Mr and Mrs Boffin are prosperous, no
doubt; but you have no right to say they are proud. You must
know very well that they are not.'
'In short, Ma,' said Lavvy, bouncing over to the enemy without a
word of notice, you must know very well--or if you don't, more
shame for you!--that Mr and Mrs Boffin are just absolute
perfection.'
'Truly,' returned Mrs Wilfer, courteously receiving the deserter, it
would seem that we are required to think so. And this, Lavinia, is
my reason for objecting to a tone of levity. Mrs Boffin (of whose
physiognomy I can never speak with the composure I would
desire to preserve), and your mother, are not on terms of intimacy.
It is not for a moment to be supposed that she and her husband
dare to presume to speak of this family as the Wilfers. I cannot
therefore condescend to speak of them as the Boffins. No; for
such a tone--call it familiarity, levity, equality, or what you will--
would imply those social interchanges which do not exist. Do I
render myself intelligible?'
Without taking the least notice of this inquiry, albeit delivered in
an imposing and forensic manner, Lavinia reminded her sister,
'After all, you know, Bella, you haven't told us how your
Whatshisnames are.'
'I don't want to speak of them here,' replied Bella, suppressing
indignation, and tapping her foot on the floor. 'They are much too
kind and too good to be drawn into these discussions.'
'Why put it so?' demanded Mrs Wilfer, with biting sarcasm. 'Why
adopt a circuitous form of speech? It is polite and it is obliging;
but why do it? Why not openly say that they are much too kind
and too good for US? We understand the allusion. Why disguise
the phrase?'
'Ma,' said Bella, with one beat of her foot, 'you are enough to
drive a saint mad, and so is Lavvy.'
'Unfortunate Lavvy!' cried Mrs Wilfer, in a tone of commiseration.
'She always comes for it. My poor child!' But Lavvy, with the
suddenness of her former desertion, now bounced over to the other
enemy: very sharply remarking, 'Don't patronize ME, Ma, because
I can take care of myself.'
'I only wonder,' resumed Mrs Wilfer, directing her observations to
her elder daughter, as safer on the whole than her utterly
unmanageable younger, 'that you found time and inclination to
tear yourself from Mr and Mrs Boffin, and come to see us at all. I
only wonder that our claims, contending against the superior
claims of Mr and Mrs Boffin, had any weight. I feel I ought to be
thankful for gaining so much, in competition with Mr and Mrs
Boffin.' (The good lady bitterly emphasized the first letter of the
word Boffin, as if it represented her chief objection to the owners
of that name, and as if she could have born Doffin, Moffin, or
Poffin much better.)
'Ma,' said Bella, angrily, 'you force me to say that I am truly sorry
I did come home, and that I never will come home again, except
when poor dear Pa is here. For, Pa is too magnanimous to feel
envy and spite towards my generous friends, and Pa is delicate
enough and gentle enough to remember the sort of little claim they
thought I had upon them and the unusually trying position in
which, through no act of my own, I had been placed. And I
always did love poor dear Pa better than all the rest of you put
together, and I always do and I always shall!'
Here Bella, deriving no comfort from her charming bonnet and her
elegant dress, burst into tears.
'I think, R.W.,' cried Mrs Wilfer, lifting up her eyes and
apostrophising the air, 'that if you were present, it would be a trial
to your feelings to hear your wife and the mother of your family
depreciated in your name. But Fate has spared you this, R.W.,
whatever it may have thought proper to inflict upon her!'
Here Mrs Wilfer burst into tears.
'I hate the Boffins!' protested Miss Lavinia. I don't care who
objects to their being called the Boffins. I WILL call 'em the
Boffins. The Boffins, the Boffins, the Boffins! And I say they are
mischief-making Boffins, and I say the Boffins have set Bella
against me, and I tell the Boffins to their faces:' which was not
strictly the fact, but the young lady was excited: 'that they are
detestable Boffins, disreputable Boffins, odious Boffins, beastly
Boffins. There!'
Here Miss Lavinia burst into tears.
The front garden-gate clanked, and the Secretary was seen coming
at a brisk pace up the steps. 'Leave Me to open the door to him,'
said Mrs Wilfer, rising with stately resignation as she shook her
head and dried her eyes; 'we have at present no stipendiary girl to
do so. We have nothing to conceal. If he sees these traces of
emotion on our cheeks, let him construe them as he may.'
With those words she stalked out. In a few moments she stalked
in again, proclaiming in her heraldic manner, 'Mr Rokesmith is the
bearer of a packet for Miss Bella Wilfer.'
Mr Rokesmith followed close upon his name, and of course saw
what was amiss. But he discreetly affected to see nothing, and
addressed Miss Bella.
'Mr Boffin intended to have placed this in the carriage for you this
morning. He wished you to have it, as a little keepsake he had
prepared--it is only a purse, Miss Wilfer--but as he was
disappointed in his fancy, I volunteered to come after you with it.'
Bella took it in her hand, and thanked him.
'We have been quarrelling here a little, Mr Rokesmith, but not
more than we used; you know our agreeable ways among
ourselves. You find me just going. Good-bye, mamma. Goodbye,
Lavvy!' and with a kiss for each Miss Bella turned to the
door. The Secretary would have attended her, but Mrs Wilfer
advancing and saying with dignity, 'Pardon me! Permit me to
assert my natural right to escort my child to the equipage which is
in waiting for her,' he begged pardon and gave place. It was a
very magnificent spectacle indeed, too see Mrs Wilfer throw open
the house-door, and loudly demand with extended gloves, 'The
male domestic of Mrs Boffin!' To whom presenting himself, she
delivered the brief but majestic charge, 'Miss Wilfer. Coming out!'
and so delivered her over, like a female Lieutenant of the Tower
relinquishing a State Prisoner. The effect of this ceremonial was
for some quarter of an hour afterwards perfectly paralyzing on the
neighbours, and was much enhanced by the worthy lady airing
herself for that term in a kind of splendidly serene trance on the
top step.
When Bella was seated in the carriage, she opened the little
packet in her hand. It contained a pretty purse, and the purse
contained a bank note for fifty pounds. 'This shall be a joyful
surprise for poor dear Pa,' said Bella, 'and I'll take it myself into
the City!'
As she was uninformed respecting the exact locality of the place
of business of Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, but knew it to be
near Mincing Lane, she directed herself to be driven to the corner
of that darksome spot. Thence she despatched 'the male domestic
of Mrs Boffin,' in search of the counting-house of Chicksey
Veneering and Stobbles, with a message importing that if R.
Wilfer could come out, there was a lady waiting who would be
glad to speak with him. The delivery of these mysterious words
from the mouth of a footman caused so great an excitement in the
counting-house, that a youthful scout was instantly appointed to
follow Rumty, observe the lady, and come in with his report. Nor
was the agitation by any means diminished, when the scout rushed
back with the intelligence that the lady was 'a slap-up gal in a
bang-up chariot.'
Rumty himself, with his pen behind his ear under his rusty hat,
arrived at the carriage-door in a breathless condition, and had
been fairly lugged into the vehicle by his cravat and embraced
almost unto choking, before he recognized his daughter. 'My dear
child!' he then panted, incoherently. 'Good gracious me! What a
lovely woman you are! I thought you had been unkind and
forgotten your mother and sister.'
'I have just been to see them, Pa dear.'
'Oh! and how--how did you find your mother?' asked R. W.,
dubiously.
'Very disagreeable, Pa, and so was Lavvy.'
'They are sometimes a little liable to it,' observed the patient
cherub; 'but I hope you made allowances, Bella, my dear?'
'No. I was disagreeable too, Pa; we were all of us disagreeable
together. But I want you to come and dine with me somewhere,
Pa.'
'Why, my dear, I have already partaken of a--if one might mention
such an article in this superb chariot--of a--Saveloy,' replied R.
Wilfer, modestly dropping his voice on the word, as he eyed the
canary-coloured fittings.
'Oh! That's nothing, Pa!'
'Truly, it ain't as much as one could sometimes wish it to be, my
dear,' he admitted, drawing his hand across his mouth. 'Still, when
circumstances over which you have no control, interpose
obstacles between yourself and Small Germans, you can't do
better than bring a contented mind to hear on'--again dropping his
voice in deference to the chariot--'Saveloys!'
'You poor good Pa! Pa, do, I beg and pray, get leave for the rest
of the day, and come and pass it with me!'
'Well, my dear, I'll cut back and ask for leave.'
'But before you cut back,' said Bella, who had already taken him
by the chin, pulled his hat off, and begun to stick up his hair in her
old way, 'do say that you are sure I am giddy and inconsiderate,
but have never really slighted you, Pa.'
'My dear, I say it with all my heart. And might I likewise observe,'
her father delicately hinted, with a glance out at window, 'that
perhaps it might he calculated to attract attention, having one's
hair publicly done by a lovely woman in an elegant turn-out in
Fenchurch Street?'
Bella laughed and put on his hat again. But when his boyish
figure bobbed away, its shabbiness and cheerful patience smote
the tears out of her eyes. 'I hate that Secretary for thinking it of
me,' she said to herself, 'and yet it seems half true!'
Back came her father, more like a boy than ever, in his release
from school. 'All right, my dear. Leave given at once. Really
very handsomely done!'
'Now where can we find some quiet place, Pa, in which I can wait
for you while you go on an errand for me, if I send the carriage
away?'
It demanded cogitation. 'You see, my dear,' he explained, 'you
really have become such a very lovely woman, that it ought to he
a very quiet place.' At length he suggested, 'Near the garden up
by the Trinity House on Tower Hill.' So, they were driven there,
and Bella dismissed the chariot; sending a pencilled note by it to
Mrs Boffin, that she was with her father.
'Now, Pa, attend to what I am going to say, and promise and vow
to be obedient.'
'I promise and vow, my dear.'
'You ask no questions. You take this purse; you go to the nearest
place where they keep everything of the very very best, ready
made; you buy and put on, the most beautiful suit of clothes, the
most beautiful hat, and the most beautiful pair of bright boots
(patent leather, Pa, mind!) that are to be got for money; and you
come back to me.'
'But, my dear Bella--'
'Take care, Pa!' pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. 'You have
promised and vowed. It's perjury, you know.'
There was water in the foolish little fellow's eyes, but she kissed
them dry (though her own were wet), and he bobbed away again.
After half an hour, he came back, so brilliantly transformed, that
Bella was obliged to walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty
times, before she could draw her arm through his, and delightedly
squeeze it.
'Now, Pa,' said Bella, hugging him close, 'take this lovely woman
out to dinner.'
'Where shall we go, my dear?'
'Greenwich!' said Bella, valiantly. 'And be sure you treat this
lovely woman with everything of the best.'
While they were going along to take boat, 'Don't you wish, my
dear,' said R. W., timidly, 'that your mother was here?'
'No, I don't, Pa, for I like to have you all to myself to-day. I was
always your little favourite at home, and you were always mine.
We have run away together often, before now; haven't we, Pa?'
'Ah, to be sure we have! Many a Sunday when your mother was--
was a little liable to it,' repeating his former delicate expression
after pausing to cough.
'Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as I ought to
have been, Pa. I made you carry me, over and over again, when
you should have made me walk; and I often drove you in harness,
when you would much rather have sat down and read your newspaper:
didn't I?'
'Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you were! What a
companion you were!'
'Companion? That's just what I want to be to-day, Pa.'
'You are safe to succeed, my love. Your brothers and sisters have
all in their turns been companions to me, to a certain extent, but
only to a certain extent. Your mother has, throughout life, been a
companion that any man might--might look up to--and--and
commit the sayings of, to memory--and--form himself upon--if he--'
'If he liked the model?' suggested Bella.
'We-ell, ye-es,' he returned, thinking about it, not quite satisfied
with the phrase: 'or perhaps I might say, if it was in him.
Supposing, for instance, that a man wanted to be always marching,
he would find your mother an inestimable companion. But if he
had any taste for walking, or should wish at any time to break into
a trot, he might sometimes find it a little difficult to keep step with
your mother. Or take it this way, Bella,' he added, after a
moment's reflection; 'Supposing that a man had to go through life,
we won't say with a companion, but we'll say to a tune. Very
good. Supposing that the tune allotted to him was the Dead
March in Saul. Well. It would be a very suitable tune for
particular occasions--none better--but it would be difficult to keep
time with in the ordinary run of domestic transactions. For
instance, if he took his supper after a hard day, to the Dead March
in Saul, his food might be likely to sit heavy on him. Or, if he was
at any time inclined to relieve his mind by singing a comic song or
dancing a hornpipe, and was obliged to do it to the Dead March in
Saul, he might find himself put out in the execution of his lively
intentions.'
'Poor Pa!' thought Bella, as she hung upon his arm.
'Now, what I will say for you, my dear,' the cherub pursued mildly
and without a notion of complaining, 'is, that you are so adaptable.
So adaptable.'
'Indeed I am afraid I have shown a wretched temper, Pa. I am
afraid I have been very complaining, and very capricious. I
seldom or never thought of it before. But when I sat in the
carriage just now and saw you coming along the pavement, I
reproached myself.'
'Not at all, my dear. Don't speak of such a thing.'
A happy and a chatty man was Pa in his new clothes that day.
Take it for all in all, it was perhaps the happiest day he had ever
known in his life; not even excepting that on which his heroic
partner had approached the nuptial altar to the tune of the Dead
March in Saul.
The little expedition down the river was delightful, and the little
room overlooking the river into which they were shown for dinner
was delightful. Everything was delightful. The park was
delightful, the punch was delightful, the dishes of fish were
delightful, the wine was delightful. Bella was more delightful than
any other item in the festival; drawing Pa out in the gayest
manner; making a point of always mentioning herself as the lovely
woman; stimulating Pa to order things, by declaring that the lovely
woman insisted on being treated with them; and in short causing
Pa to be quite enraptured with the consideration that he WAS the
Pa of such a charming daughter.
And then, as they sat looking at the ships and steamboats making
their way to the sea with the tide that was running down, the
lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa.
Now, Pa, in the character of owner of a lumbering square-sailed
collier, was tacking away to Newcastle, to fetch black diamonds
to make his fortune with; now, Pa was going to China in that
handsome threemasted ship, to bring home opium, with which he
would for ever cut out Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, and to
bring home silks and shawls without end for the decoration of his
charming daughter. Now, John Harmon's disastrous fate was all a
dream, and he had come home and found the lovely woman just
the article for him, and the lovely woman had found him just the
article for her, and they were going away on a trip, in their gallant
bark, to look after their vines, with streamers flying at all points, a
band playing on deck and Pa established in the great cabin. Now,
John Harmon was consigned to his grave again, and a merchant of
immense wealth (name unknown) had courted and married the
lovely woman, and he was so enormously rich that everything you
saw upon the river sailing or steaming belonged to him, and he
kept a perfect fleet of yachts for pleasure, and that little impudent
yacht which you saw over there, with the great white sail, was
called The Bella, in honour of his wife, and she held her state
aboard when it pleased her, like a modern Cleopatra. Anon, there
would embark in that troop-ship when she got to Gravesend, a
mighty general, of large property (name also unknown), who
wouldn't hear of going to victory without his wife, and whose wife
was the lovely woman, and she was destined to become the idol of
all the red coats and blue jackets alow and aloft. And then again:
you saw that ship being towed out by a steam-tug? Well! where
did you suppose she was going to? She was going among the coral
reefs and cocoa-nuts and all that sort of thing, and she was
chartered for a fortunate individual of the name of Pa (himself on
board, and much respected by all hands), and she was going, for
his sole profit and advantage, to fetch a cargo of sweet-smelling
woods, the most beautiful that ever were seen, and the most
profitable that ever were heard of; and her cargo would be a great
fortune, as indeed it ought to be: the lovely woman who had
purchased her and fitted her expressly for this voyage, being
married to an Indian Prince, who was a Something-or-Other, and
who wore Cashmere shawls all over himself and diamonds and
emeralds blazing in his turban, and was beautifully coffeecoloured
and excessively devoted, though a little too jealous.
Thus Bella ran on merrily, in a manner perfectly enchanting to Pa,
who was as willing to put his head into the Sultan's tub of water as
the beggar-boys below the window were to put THEIR heads in
the mud.
'I suppose, my dear,' said Pa after dinner, 'we may come to the
conclusion at home, that we have lost you for good?'
Bella shook her head. Didn't know. Couldn't say. All she was
able to report was, that she was most handsomely supplied with
everything she could possibly want, and that whenever she hinted
at leaving Mr and Mrs Boffin, they wouldn't hear of it.
'And now, Pa,' pursued Bella, 'I'll make a confession to you. I am
the most mercenary little wretch that ever lived in the world.'
'I should hardly have thought it of you, my dear,' returned her
father, first glancing at himself; and then at the dessert.
'I understand what you mean, Pa, but it's not that. It's not that I
care for money to keep as money, but I do care so much for what
it will buy!'
'Really I think most of us do,' returned R. W.
'But not to the dreadful extent that I do, Pa. O-o!' cried Bella,
screwing the exclamation out of herself with a twist of her
dimpled chin. 'I AM so mercenary!'
With a wistful glance R. W. said, in default of having anything
better to say: 'About when did you begin to feel it coming on, my
dear?'
'That's it, Pa. That's the terrible part of it. When I was at home,
and only knew what it was to be poor, I grumbled but didn't so
much mind. When I was at home expecting to be rich, I thought
vaguely of all the great things I would do. But when I had been
disappointed of my splendid fortune, and came to see it from day
to day in other hands, and to have before my eyes what it could
really do, then I became the mercenary little wretch I am.'
'It's your fancy, my dear.'
'I can assure you it's nothing of the sort, Pa!' said Bella, nodding at
him, with her very pretty eyebrows raised as high as they would
go, and looking comically frightened. 'It's a fact. I am always
avariciously scheming.'
'Lor! But how?'
'I'll tell you, Pa. I don't mind telling YOU, because we have
always been favourites of each other's, and because you are not
like a Pa, but more like a sort of a younger brother with a dear
venerable chubbiness on him. And besides,' added Bella, laughing
as she pointed a rallying finger at his face, 'because I have got you
in my power. This is a secret expedition. If ever you tell of me,
I'll tell of you. I'll tell Ma that you dined at Greenwich.'
'Well; seriously, my dear,' observed R. W., with some trepidation
of manner, 'it might be as well not to mention it.'
'Aha!' laughed Bella. 'I knew you wouldn't like it, sir! So you
keep my confidence, and I'll keep yours. But betray the lovely
woman, and you shall find her a serpent. Now, you may give me
a kiss, Pa, and I should like to give your hair a turn, because it has
been dreadfully neglected in my absence.'
R. W. submitted his head to the operator, and the operator went
on talking; at the same time putting separate locks of his hair
through a curious process of being smartly rolled over her two
revolving forefingers, which were then suddenly pulled out of it in
opposite lateral directions. On each of these occasions the patient
winced and winked.
'I have made up my mind that I must have money, Pa. I feel that I
can't beg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have resolved that I
must marry it.'
R. W. cast up his eyes towards her, as well as he could under the
operating circumstances, and said in a tone of remonstrance, 'My
de-ar Bella!'
'Have resolved, I say, Pa, that to get money I must marry money.
In consequence of which, I am always looking out for money to
captivate.'
'My de-a-r Bella!'
'Yes, Pa, that is the state of the case. If ever there was a
mercenary plotter whose thoughts and designs were always in her
mean occupation, I am the amiable creature. But I don't care. I
hate and detest being poor, and I won't be poor if I can marry
money. Now you are deliciously fluffy, Pa, and in a state to
astonish the waiter and pay the bill.'
'But, my dear Bella, this is quite alarming at your age.'
'I told you so, Pa, but you wouldn't believe it,' returned Bella, with
a pleasant childish gravity. 'Isn't it shocking?'
'It would be quite so, if you fully knew what you said, my dear, or
meant it.'
'Well, Pa, I can only tell you that I mean nothing else. Talk to me
of love!' said Bella, contemptuously: though her face and figure
certainly rendered the subject no incongruous one. 'Talk to me of
fiery dragons! But talk to me of poverty and wealth, and there
indeed we touch upon realities.'
'My De-ar, this is becoming Awful--' her father was emphatically
beginning: when she stopped him.
'Pa, tell me. Did you marry money?'
'You know I didn't, my dear.'
Bella hummed the Dead March in Saul, and said, after all it
signified very little! But seeing him look grave and downcast, she
took him round the neck and kissed him back to cheerfulness
again.
'I didn't mean that last touch, Pa; it was only said in joke. Now
mind! You are not to tell of me, and I'll not tell of you. And more
than that; I promise to have no secrets from you, Pa, and you may
make certain that, whatever mercenary things go on, I shall
always tell you all about them in strict confidence.'
Fain to be satisfied with this concession from the lovely woman,
R. W. rang the bell, and paid the bill. 'Now, all the rest of this,
Pa,' said Bella, rolling up the purse when they were alone again,
hammering it small with her little fist on the table, and cramming it
into one of the pockets of his new waistcoat, 'is for you, to buy
presents with for them at home, and to pay bills with, and to
divide as you like, and spend exactly as you think proper. Last of
all take notice, Pa, that it's not the fruit of any avaricious scheme.
Perhaps if it was, your little mercenary wretch of a daughter
wouldn't make so free with it!'
After which, she tugged at his coat with both hands, and pulled
him all askew in buttoning that garment over the precious
waistcoat pocket, and then tied her dimples into her bonnet-strings
in a very knowing way, and took him back to London. Arrived at
Mr Boffin's door, she set him with his back against it, tenderly
took him by the ears as convenient handles for her purpose, and
kissed him until he knocked muffled double knocks at the door
with the back of his head. That done, she once more reminded
him of their compact and gaily parted from him.
Not so gaily, however, but that tears filled her eyes as he went
away down the dark street. Not so gaily, but that she several
times said, 'Ah, poor little Pa! Ah, poor dear struggling shabby
little Pa!' before she took heart to knock at the door. Not so gaily,
but that the brilliant furniture seemed to stare her out of
countenance as if it insisted on being compared with the dingy
furniture at home. Not so gaily, but that she fell into very low
spirits sitting late in her own room, and very heartily wept, as she
wished, now that the deceased old John Harmon had never made
a will about her, now that the deceased young John Harmon had
lived to marry her. 'Contradictory things to wish,' said Bella, 'but
my life and fortunes are so contradictory altogether that what can
I expect myself to be!'
Chapter 9
IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL
The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next
morning, was informed that a youth waited in the hall who gave
the name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated this
intelligence made a decent pause before uttering the name, to
express that it was forced on his reluctance by the youth in
question, and that if the youth had had the good sense and good
taste to inherit some other name it would have spared the feelings
of him the bearer.
'Mrs Boffin will be very well pleased,' said the Secretary in a
perfectly composed way. 'Show him in.'
Mr Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door: revealing
in various parts of his form many surprising, confounding, and
incomprehensible buttons.
'I am glad to see you,' said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful tone of
welcome. 'I have been expecting you.'
Sloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but that the
Orphan (of whom he made mention as Our Johnny) had been
ailing, and he had waited to report him well.
'Then he is well now?' said the Secretary.
'No he ain't,' said Sloppy.
Mr Sloppy having shaken his head to a considerable extent,
proceeded to remark that he thought Johnny 'must have took 'em
from the Minders.' Being asked what he meant, he answered,
them that come out upon him and partickler his chest. Being
requested to explain himself, he stated that there was some of 'em
wot you couldn't kiver with a sixpence. Pressed to fall back upon
a nominative case, he opined that they wos about as red as ever
red could be. 'But as long as they strikes out'ards, sir,' continued
Sloppy, 'they ain't so much. It's their striking in'ards that's to be
kep off.'
John Rokesmith hoped the child had had medical attendance? Oh
yes, said Sloppy, he had been took to the doctor's shop once. And
what did the doctor call it? Rokesmith asked him. After some
perplexed reflection, Sloppy answered, brightening, 'He called it
something as wos wery long for spots.' Rokesmith suggested
measles. 'No,' said Sloppy with confidence, 'ever so much longer
than THEM, sir!' (Mr Sloppy was elevated by this fact, and
seemed to consider that it reflected credit on the poor little
patient.)
'Mrs Boffin will be sorry to hear this,' said Rokesmith.
'Mrs Higden said so, sir, when she kep it from her, hoping as Our
Johnny would work round.'
'But I hope he will?' said Rokesmith, with a quick turn upon the
messenger.
'I hope so,' answered Sloppy. 'It all depends on their striking
in'ards.' He then went on to say that whether Johnny had 'took
'em' from the Minders, or whether the Minders had 'took em from
Johnny, the Minders had been sent home and had 'got em.
Furthermore, that Mrs Higden's days and nights being devoted to
Our Johnny, who was never out of her lap, the whole of the
mangling arrangements had devolved upon himself, and he had
had 'rayther a tight time'. The ungainly piece of honesty beamed
and blushed as he said it, quite enraptured with the remembrance
of having been serviceable.
'Last night,' said Sloppy, 'when I was a-turning at the wheel pretty
late, the mangle seemed to go like Our Johnny's breathing. It
begun beautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got
unsteady, then as it took the turn to come home it had a rattle-like
and lumbered a bit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I
scarce know'd which was mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor
Our Johnny, he scarce know'd either, for sometimes when the
mangle lumbers he says, "Me choking, Granny!" and Mrs Higden
holds him up in her lap and says to me "Bide a bit, Sloppy," and
we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his breathing
again, I turns again, and we all goes on together.'
Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare
and a vacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a halfrepressed
gush of tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew
the under part of his sleeve across his eyes with a singularly
awkward, laborious, and roundabout smear.
'This is unfortunate,' said Rokesmith. 'I must go and break it to
Mrs Boffin. Stay you here, Sloppy.'
Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the wall,
until the Secretary and Mrs Boffin came back together. And with
Mrs Boffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by name) who
was better worth staring at, it occurred to Sloppy, than the best of
wall-papering.
'Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon!' exclaimed Mrs
Boffin.
'Yes mum,' said the sympathetic Sloppy.
'You don't think he is in a very, very bad way, do you?' asked the
pleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality.
Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with his
inclinations, Sloppy threw back his head and uttered a mellifluous
howl, rounded off with a sniff.
'So bad as that!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'And Betty Higden not to tell
me of it sooner!'
'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' answered Sloppy,
hesitating.
'Of what, for Heaven's sake?'
'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' returned Sloppy
with submission, 'of standing in Our Johnny's light. There's so
much trouble in illness, and so much expense, and she's seen such
a lot of its being objected to.'
'But she never can have thought,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that I would
grudge the dear child anything?'
'No mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of its
standing in Johnny's light, and might have tried to bring him
through it unbeknownst.'
Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like
a lower animal; to creep out of sight and coil herself away and die;
had become this woman's instinct. To catch up in her arms the
sick child who was dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal,
and keep off all ministration but such as her own ignorant
tenderness and patience could supply, had become this woman's
idea of maternal love, fidelity, and duty. The shameful accounts
we read, every week in the Christian year, my lords and
gentlemen and honourable boards, the infamous records of small
official inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass by us.
And hence these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, so
astonishing to our magnificence, and having no more reason in
them--God save the Queen and Confound their politics--no, than
smoke has in coming from fire!
'It's not a right place for the poor child to stay in,' said Mrs Boffin.
'Tell us, dear Mr Rokesmith, what to do for the best.'
He had already thought what to do, and the consultation was very
short. He could pave the way, he said, in half an hour, and then
they would go down to Brentford. 'Pray take me,' said Bella.
Therefore a carriage was ordered, of capacity to take them all, and
in the meantime Sloppy was regaled, feasting alone in the
Secretary's room, with a complete realization of that fairy vision--
meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding. In consequence of which his
buttons became more importunate of public notice than before,
with the exception of two or three about the region of the
waistband, which modestly withdrew into a creasy retirement.
Punctual to the time, appeared the carriage and the Secretary. He
sat on the box, and Mr Sloppy graced the rumble. So, to the Three
Magpies as before: where Mrs Boffin and Miss Bella were handed
out, and whence they all went on foot to Mrs Betty Higden's.
But, on the way down, they had stopped at a toy-shop, and had
bought that noble charger, a description of whose points and
trappings had on the last occasion conciliated the then worldlyminded
orphan, and also a Noah's ark, and also a yellow bird with
an artificial voice in him, and also a military doll so well dressed
that if he had only been of life-size his brother-officers in the
Guards might never have found him out. Bearing these gifts, they
raised the latch of Betty Higden's door, and saw her sitting in the
dimmest and furthest corner with poor Johnny in her lap.
'And how's my boy, Betty?' asked Mrs Boffin, sitting down beside
her.
'He's bad! He's bad!' said Betty. 'I begin to be afeerd he'll not be
yours any more than mine. All others belonging to him have gone
to the Power and the Glory, and I have a mind that they're
drawing him to them--leading him away.'
'No, no, no,' said Mrs Boffin.
'I don't know why else he clenches his little hand as if it had hold
of a finger that I can't see. Look at it,' said Betty, opening the
wrappers in which the flushed child lay, and showing his small
right hand lying closed upon his breast. 'It's always so. It don't
mind me.'
'Is he asleep?'
'No, I think not. You're not asleep, my Johnny?'
'No,' said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for himself; and without
opening his eyes.
'Here's the lady, Johnny. And the horse.'
Johnny could bear the lady, with complete indifference, but not
the horse. Opening his heavy eyes, he slowly broke into a smile
on beholding that splendid phenomenon, and wanted to take it in
his arms. As it was much too big, it was put upon a chair where
he could hold it by the mane and contemplate it. Which he soon
forgot to do.
But, Johnny murmuring something with his eyes closed, and Mrs
Boffin not knowing what, old Betty bent her ear to listen and took
pains to understand. Being asked by her to repeat what he had
said, he did so two or three times, and then it came out that he
must have seen more than they supposed when he looked up to
see the horse, for the murmur was, 'Who is the boofer lady?'
Now, the boofer, or beautiful, lady was Bella; and whereas this
notice from the poor baby would have touched her of itself; it was
rendered more pathetic by the late melting of her heart to her poor
little father, and their joke about the lovely woman. So, Bella's
behaviour was very tender and very natural when she kneeled on
the brick floor to clasp the child, and when the child, with a child's
admiration of what is young and pretty, fondled the boofer lady.
'Now, my good dear Betty,' said Mrs Boffin, hoping that she saw
her opportunity, and laying her hand persuasively on her arm; 'we
have come to remove Johnny from this cottage to where he can be
taken better care of.'
Instantly, and before another word could be spoken, the old
woman started up with blazing eyes, and rushed at the door with
the sick child.
'Stand away from me every one of ye!' she cried out wildly. 'I see
what ye mean now. Let me go my way, all of ye. I'd sooner kill
the Pretty, and kill myself!'
'Stay, stay!' said Rokesmith, soothing her. 'You don't understand.'
'I understand too well. I know too much about it, sir. I've run
from it too many a year. No! Never for me, nor for the child,
while there's water enough in England to cover us!'
The terror, the shame, the passion of horror and repugnance, firing
the worn face and perfectly maddening it, would have been a
quite terrible sight, if embodied in one old fellow-creature alone.
Yet it 'crops up'--as our slang goes--my lords and gentlemen and
honourable boards, in other fellow-creatures, rather frequently!
'It's been chasing me all my life, but it shall never take me nor
mine alive!' cried old Betty. 'I've done with ye. I'd have fastened
door and window and starved out, afore I'd ever have let ye in, if I
had known what ye came for!'
But, catching sight of Mrs Boffin's wholesome face, she relented,
and crouching down by the door and bending over her burden to
hush it, said humbly: 'Maybe my fears has put me wrong. If they
have so, tell me, and the good Lord forgive me! I'm quick to take
this fright, I know, and my head is summ'at light with wearying
and watching.'
'There, there, there!' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Come, come! Say no
more of it, Betty. It was a mistake, a mistake. Any one of us
might have made it in your place, and felt just as you do.'
'The Lord bless ye!' said the old woman, stretching out her hand.
'Now, see, Betty,' pursued the sweet compassionate soul, holding
the hand kindly, 'what I really did mean, and what I should have
begun by saying out, if I had only been a little wiser and handier.
We want to move Johnny to a place where there are none but
children; a place set up on purpose for sick children; where the
good doctors and nurses pass their lives with children, talk to none
but children, touch none but children, comfort and cure none but
children.'
'Is there really such a place?' asked the old woman, with a gaze of
wonder.
'Yes, Betty, on my word, and you shall see it. If my home was a
better place for the dear boy, I'd take him to it; but indeed indeed
it's not.'
'You shall take him,' returned Betty, fervently kissing the
comforting hand, 'where you will, my deary. I am not so hard, but
that I believe your face and voice, and I will, as long as I can see
and hear.'
This victory gained, Rokesmith made haste to profit by it, for he
saw how woefully time had been lost. He despatched Sloppy to
bring the carriage to the door; caused the child to be carefully
wrapped up; bade old Betty get her bonnet on; collected the toys,
enabling the little fellow to comprehend that his treasures were to
be transported with him; and had all things prepared so easily that
they were ready for the carriage as soon as it appeared, and in a
minute afterwards were on their way. Sloppy they left behind,
relieving his overcharged breast with a paroxysm of mangling.
At the Children's Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah's ark,
yellow bird, and the officer in the Guards, were made as welcome
as their child-owner. But the doctor said aside to Rokesmith, 'This
should have been days ago. Too late!'
However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and
there Johnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon or
whatever it was, to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a
little platform over his breast, on which were already arranged, to
give him heart and urge him to cheer up, the Noah's ark, the noble
steed, and the yellow bird; with the officer in the Guards doing
duty over the whole, quite as much to the satisfaction of his
country as if he had been upon Parade. And at the bed's head was
a coloured picture beautiful to see, representing as it were another
Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel surely who loved little
children. And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at: Johnny had
become one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except two
playing dominoes in little arm-chairs at a little table on the hearth):
and on all the little beds were little platforms whereon were to be
seen dolls' houses, woolly dogs with mechanical barks in them not
very dissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of
the yellow bird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers, wooden tea things,
and the riches of the earth.
As Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, the
ministering women at his bed's head asked him what he said. It
seemed that he wanted to know whether all these were brothers
and sisters of his? So they told him yes. It seemed then, that he
wanted to know whether God had brought them all together there?
So they told him yes again. They made out then, that he wanted
to know whether they would all get out of pain? So they
answered yes to that question likewise, and made him understand
that the reply included himself.
Johnny's powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so very
imperfectly developed, even in a state of health, that in sickness
they were little more than monosyllabic. But, he had to be
washed and tended, and remedies were applied, and though those
offices were far, far more skilfully and lightly done than ever
anything had been done for him in his little life, so rough and
short, they would have hurt and tired him but for an amazing
circumstance which laid hold of his attention. This was no less
than the appearance on his own little platform in pairs, of All
Creation, on its way into his own particular ark: the elephant
leading, and the fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politely
bringing up the rear. A very little brother lying in the next bed
with a broken leg, was so enchanted by this spectacle that his
delight exalted its enthralling interest; and so came rest and sleep.
'I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, Betty,'
whispered Mrs Boffin.
'No, ma'am. Most willingly, most thankfully, with all my heart and
soul.'
So, they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was to come
back early in the morning, and nobody but Rokesmith knew for
certain how that the doctor had said, 'This should have been days
ago. Too late!'
But, Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing it in
mind would be acceptable thereafter to that good woman who had
been the only light in the childhood of desolate John Harmon dead
and gone, resolved that late at night he would go back to the
bedside of John Harmon's namesake, and see how it fared with
him.
The family whom God had brought together were not all asleep,
but were all quiet. From bed to bed, a light womanly tread and a
pleasant fresh face passed in the silence of the night. A little head
would lift itself up into the softened light here and there, to be
kissed as the face went by--for these little patients are very loving
--and would then submit itself to be composed to rest again. The
mite with the broken leg was restless, and moaned; but after a
while turned his face towards Johnny's bed, to fortify himself with
a view of the ark, and fell asleep. Over most of the beds, the toys
were yet grouped as the children had left them when they last laid
themselves down, and, in their innocent grotesqueness and
incongruity, they might have stood for the children's dreams.
The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And he
and Rokesmith stood together, looking down with compassion on
him.
'What is it, Johnny?' Rokesmith was the questioner, and put an
arm round the poor baby as he made a struggle.
'Him!' said the little fellow. 'Those!'
The doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking the
horse, the ark, the yellow bird, and the man in the Guards, from
Johnny's bed, softly placed them on that of his next neighbour, the
mite with the broken leg.
With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if he
stretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved his body on
the sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith's face with his lips,
said:
'A kiss for the boofer lady.'
Having now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and arranged his
affairs in this world, Johnny, thus speaking, left it.
Chapter 10
A SUCCESSOR
Some of the Reverend Frank Milvey's brethren had found
themselves exceedingly uncomfortable in their minds, because
they were required to bury the dead too hopefully. But, the
Reverend Frank, inclining to the belief that they were required to
do one or two other things (say out of nine-and-thirty) calculated
to trouble their consciences rather more if they would think as
much about them, held his peace.
Indeed, the Reverend Frank Milvey was a forbearing man, who
noticed many sad warps and blights in the vineyard wherein he
worked, and did not profess that they made him savagely wise.
He only learned that the more he himself knew, in his little limited
human way, the better he could distantly imagine what
Omniscience might know.
Wherefore, if the Reverend Frank had had to read the words that
troubled some of his brethren, and profitably touched innumerable
hearts, in a worse case than Johnny's, he would have done so out
of the pity and humility of his soul. Reading them over Johnny, he
thought of his own six children, but not of his poverty, and read
them with dimmed eyes. And very seriously did he and his bright
little wife, who had been listening, look down into the small grave
and walk home arm-in-arm.
There was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was joy in the
Bower. Mr Wegg argued, if an orphan were wanted, was he not
an orphan himself; and could a better be desired? And why go
beating about Brentford bushes, seeking orphans forsooth who
had established no claims upon you and made no sacrifices for
you, when here was an orphan ready to your hand who had given
up in your cause, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and
Uncle Parker?
Mr Wegg chuckled, consequently, when he heard the tidings.
Nay, it was afterwards affirmed by a witness who shall at present
be nameless, that in the seclusion of the Bower he poked out his
wooden leg, in the stage-ballet manner, and executed a taunting or
triumphant pirouette on the genuine leg remaining to him.
John Rokesmith's manner towards Mrs Boffin at this time, was
more the manner of a young man towards a mother, than that of a
Secretary towards his employer's wife. It had always been marked
by a subdued affectionate deference that seemed to have sprung
up on the very day of his engagement; whatever was odd in her
dress or her ways had seemed to have no oddity for him; he had
sometimes borne a quietly-amused face in her company, but still it
had seemed as if the pleasure her genial temper and radiant nature
yielded him, could have been quite as naturally expressed in a tear
as in a smile. The completeness of his sympathy with her fancy
for having a little John Harmon to protect and rear, he had shown
in every act and word, and now that the kind fancy was
disappointed, he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect for
which she could hardly thank him enough.
'But I do thank you, Mr Rokesmith,' said Mrs Boffin, 'and I thank
you most kindly. You love children.'
'I hope everybody does.'
'They ought,' said Mrs Boffin; 'but we don't all of us do what we
ought, do us?'
John Rokesmith replied, 'Some among us supply the short-comings
of the rest. You have loved children well, Mr Boffin has told me.'
Not a bit better than he has, but that's his way; he puts all the good
upon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr Rokesmith.'
'Do I?'
'It sounds to me so. Were you one of many children?' He shook
his head.
'An only child?'
'No there was another. Dead long ago.'
'Father or mother alive?'
'Dead.'--
'And the rest of your relations?'
'Dead--if I ever had any living. I never heard of any.'
At this point of the dialogue Bella came in with a light step. She
paused at the door a moment, hesitating whether to remain or
retire; perplexed by finding that she was not observed.
'Now, don't mind an old lady's talk,' said Mrs Boffin, 'but tell me.
Are you quite sure, Mr Rokesmith, that you have never had a
disappointment in love?'
'Quite sure. Why do you ask me?'
'Why, for this reason. Sometimes you have a kind of kept-down
manner with you, which is not like your age. You can't be thirty?'
'I am not yet thirty.'
Deeming it high time to make her presence known, Bella coughed
here to attract attention, begged pardon, and said she would go,
fearing that she interrupted some matter of business.
'No, don't go,' rejoined Mrs Boffin, 'because we are coming to
business, instead of having begun it, and you belong to it as much
now, my dear Bella, as I do. But I want my Noddy to consult with
us. Would somebody be so good as find my Noddy for me?'
Rokesmith departed on that errand, and presently returned
accompanied by Mr Boffin at his jog-trot. Bella felt a little vague
trepidation as to the subject-matter of this same consultation, until
Mrs Boffin announced it.
'Now, you come and sit by me, my dear,' said that worthy soul,
taking her comfortable place on a large ottoman in the centre of
the room, and drawing her arm through Bella's; 'and Noddy, you
sit here, and Mr Rokesmith you sit there. Now, you see, what I
want to talk about, is this. Mr and Mrs Milvey have sent me the
kindest note possible (which Mr Rokesmith just now read to me
out aloud, for I ain't good at handwritings), offering to find me
another little child to name and educate and bring up. Well. This
has set me thinking.'
('And she is a steam-ingein at it,' murmured Mr Boffin, in an
admiring parenthesis, 'when she once begins. It mayn't be so easy
to start her; but once started, she's a ingein.')
'--This has set me thinking, I say,' repeated Mrs Boffin, cordially
beaming under the influence of her husband's compliment, 'and I
have thought two things. First of all, that I have grown timid of
reviving John Harmon's name. It's an unfortunate name, and I
fancy I should reproach myself if I gave it to another dear child,
and it proved again unlucky.'
'Now, whether,' said Mr Boffin, gravely propounding a case for his
Secretary's opinion; 'whether one might call that a superstition?'
'It is a matter of feeling with Mrs Boffin,' said Rokesmith, gently.
'The name has always been unfortunate. It has now this new
unfortunate association connected with it. The name has died out.
Why revive it? Might I ask Miss Wilfer what she thinks?'
'It has not been a fortunate name for me,' said Bella, colouring--'or
at least it was not, until it led to my being here--but that is not the
point in my thoughts. As we had given the name to the poor child,
and as the poor child took so lovingly to me, I think I should feel
jealous of calling another child by it. I think I should feel as if the
name had become endeared to me, and I had no right to use it so.'
'And that's your opinion?' remarked Mr Boffin, observant of the
Secretary's face and again addressing him.
'I say again, it is a matter of feeling,' returned the Secretary. 'I
think Miss Wilfer's feeling very womanly and pretty.'
'Now, give us your opinion, Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin.
'My opinion, old lady,' returned the Golden Dustman, 'is your
opinion.'
'Then,' said Mrs Boffin, 'we agree not to revive John Harmon's
name, but to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr Rokesmith says, a
matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of
feeling! Well; and so I come to the second thing I have thought
of. You must know, Bella, my dear, and Mr Rokesmith, that
when I first named to my husband my thoughts of adopting a little
orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon, I further named to
my husband that it was comforting to think that how the poor boy
would be benefited by John's own money, and protected from
John's own forlornness.'
'Hear, hear!' cried Mr Boffin. 'So she did. Ancoar!'
'No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, 'because I
am going to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as I much
as I still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the
question, seriously, whether I wasn't too bent upon pleasing
myself. Else why did I seek out so much for a pretty child, and a
child quite to my liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its
own sake, and put my tastes and likings by?'
'Perhaps,' said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little
sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers
towards the murdered man; 'perhaps, in reviving the name, you
would not have liked to give it to a less interesting child than the
original. He interested you very much.'
'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 'it's
kind of you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have been
so, and indeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am
afraid not to the whole extent. However, that don't come in
question now, because we have done with the name.'
'Laid it up as a remembrance,' suggested Bella, musingly.
'Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. Well
then; I have been thinking if I take any orphan to provide for, let it
not be a pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be helped for
its own sake.'
'Not pretty then?' said Bella.
'No,' returned Mrs Boffin, stoutly.
'Nor prepossessing then?' said Bella.
'No,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Not necessarily so. That's as it may
happen. A well-disposed boy comes in my way who may be even
a little wanting in such advantages for getting on in life, but is
honest and industrious and requires a helping hand and deserves
it. If I am very much in earnest and quite determined to be
unselfish, let me take care of HIM.'
Here the footman whose feelings had been hurt on the former
occasion, appeared, and crossing to Rokesmith apologetically
announced the objectionable Sloppy.
The four members of Council looked at one another, and paused.
'Shall he be brought here, ma'am?' asked Rokesmith.
'Yes,' said Mrs Boffin. Whereupon the footman disappeared,
reappeared presenting Sloppy, and retired much disgusted.
The consideration of Mrs Boffin had clothed Mr Sloppy in a suit
of black, on which the tailor had received personal directions from
Rokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of his art, with a view to
the concealment of the cohering and sustaining buttons. But, so
much more powerful were the frailties of Sloppy's form than the
strongest resources of tailoring science, that he now stood before
the Council, a perfect Argus in the way of buttons: shining and
winking and gleaming and twinkling out of a hundred of those
eyes of bright metal, at the dazzled spectators. The artistic taste
of some unknown hatter had furnished him with a hatband of
wholesale capacity which was fluted behind, from the crown of
his hat to the brim, and terminated in a black bunch, from which
the imagination shrunk discomfited and the reason revolted. Some
special powers with which his legs were endowed, had already
hitched up his glossy trousers at the ankles, and bagged them at
the knees; while similar gifts in his arms had raised his coatsleeves
from his wrists and accumulated them at his elbows. Thus
set forth, with the additional embellishments of a very little tail to
his coat, and a yawning gulf at his waistband, Sloppy stood
confessed.
'And how is Betty, my good fellow?' Mrs Boffin asked him.
'Thankee, mum,' said Sloppy, 'she do pretty nicely, and sending
her dooty and many thanks for the tea and all faviours and
wishing to know the family's healths.'
'Have you just come, Sloppy?'
'Yes, mum.'
'Then you have not had your dinner yet?'
'No, mum. But I mean to it. For I ain't forgotten your handsome
orders that I was never to go away without having had a good 'un
off of meat and beer and pudding--no: there was four of 'em, for I
reckoned 'em up when I had 'em; meat one, beer two, vegetables
three, and which was four?--Why, pudding, HE was four!' Here
Sloppy threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and laughed
rapturously.
'How are the two poor little Minders?' asked Mrs Boffin.
'Striking right out, mum, and coming round beautiful.'
Mrs Boffin looked on the other three members of Council, and
then said, beckoning with her finger:
'Sloppy.'
'Yes, mum.'
'Come forward, Sloppy. Should you like to dine here every day?'
'Off of all four on 'em, mum? O mum!' Sloppy's feelings obliged
him to squeeze his hat, and contract one leg at the knee.
'Yes. And should you like to be always taken care of here, if you
were industrious and deserving?'
'Oh, mum!--But there's Mrs Higden,' said Sloppy, checking himself
in his raptures, drawing back, and shaking his head with very
serious meaning. 'There's Mrs Higden. Mrs Higden goes before
all. None can ever be better friends to me than Mrs Higden's
been. And she must be turned for, must Mrs Higden. Where
would Mrs Higden be if she warn't turned for!' At the mere
thought of Mrs Higden in this inconceivable affliction, Mr
Sloppy's countenance became pale, and manifested the most
distressful emotions.
'You are as right as right can be, Sloppy,' said Mrs Boffin 'and far
be it from me to tell you otherwise. It shall be seen to. If Betty
Higden can be turned for all the same, you shall come here and be
taken care of for life, and be made able to keep her in other ways
than the turning.'
'Even as to that, mum,' answered the ecstatic Sloppy, 'the turning
might be done in the night, don't you see? I could be here in the
day, and turn in the night. I don't want no sleep, I don't. Or even
if I any ways should want a wink or two,' added Sloppy, after a
moment's apologetic reflection, 'I could take 'em turning. I've took
'em turning many a time, and enjoyed 'em wonderful!'
On the grateful impulse of the moment, Mr Sloppy kissed Mrs
Boffin's hand, and then detaching himself from that good creature
that he might have room enough for his feelings, threw back his
head, opened his mouth wide, and uttered a dismal howl. It was
creditable to his tenderness of heart, but suggested that he might
on occasion give some offence to the neighbours: the rather, as
the footman looked in, and begged pardon, finding he was not
wanted, but excused himself; on the ground 'that he thought it was
Cats.'
Chapter 11
SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART
Little Miss Peecher, from her little official dwelling-house, with its
little windows like the eyes in needles, and its little doors like the
covers of school-books, was very observant indeed of the object
of her quiet affections. Love, though said to be afflicted with
blindness, is a vigilant watchman, and Miss Peecher kept him on
double duty over Mr Bradley Headstone. It was not that she was
naturally given to playing the spy--it was not that she was at all
secret, plotting, or mean--it was simply that she loved the
irresponsive Bradley with all the primitive and homely stock of
love that had never been examined or certificated out of her. If
her faithful slate had had the latent qualities of sympathetic paper,
and its pencil those of invisible ink, many a little treatise
calculated to astonish the pupils would have come bursting
through the dry sums in school-time under the warming influence
of Miss Peecher's bosom. For, oftentimes when school was not,
and her calm leisure and calm little house were her own, Miss
Peecher would commit to the confidential slate an imaginary
description of how, upon a balmy evening at dusk, two figures
might have been observed in the market-garden ground round the
corner, of whom one, being a manly form, bent over the other,
being a womanly form of short stature and some compactness, and
breathed in a low voice the words, 'Emma Peecher, wilt thou be
my own?' after which the womanly form's head reposed upon the
manly form's shoulder, and the nightingales tuned up. Though all
unseen, and unsuspected by the pupils, Bradley Headstone even
pervaded the school exercises. Was Geography in question? He
would come triumphantly flying out of Vesuvius and Aetna ahead
of the lava, and would boil unharmed in the hot springs of Iceland,
and would float majestically down the Ganges and the Nile. Did
History chronicle a king of men? Behold him in pepper-and-salt
pantaloons, with his watch-guard round his neck. Were copies to
be written? In capital B's and H's most of the girls under Miss
Peecher's tuition were half a year ahead of every other letter in
the alphabet. And Mental Arithmetic, administered by Miss
Peecher, often devoted itself to providing Bradley Headstone with
a wardrobe of fabulous extent: fourscore and four neck-ties at two
and ninepence-halfpenny, two gross of silver watches at four
pounds fifteen and sixpence, seventy-four black hats at eighteen
shillings; and many similar superfluities.
The vigilant watchman, using his daily opportunities of turning his
eyes in Bradley's direction, soon apprized Miss Peecher that
Bradley was more preoccupied than had been his wont, and more
given to strolling about with a downcast and reserved face, turning
something difficult in his mind that was not in the scholastic
syllabus. Putting this and that together--combining under the head
'this,' present appearances and the intimacy with Charley Hexam,
and ranging under the head 'that' the visit to his sister, the
watchman reported to Miss Peecher his strong suspicions that the
sister was at the bottom of it.
'I wonder,' said Miss Peecher, as she sat making up her weekly
report on a half-holiday afternoon, 'what they call Hexam's sister?'
Mary Anne, at her needlework, attendant and attentive, held her
arm up.
'Well, Mary Anne?'
'She is named Lizzie, ma'am.'
'She can hardly be named Lizzie, I think, Mary Anne,' returned
Miss Peecher, in a tunefully instructive voice. 'Is Lizzie a
Christian name, Mary Anne?'
Mary Anne laid down her work, rose, hooked herself behind, as
being under catechization, and replied: 'No, it is a corruption, Miss
Peecher.'
'Who gave her that name?' Miss Peecher was going on, from the
mere force of habit, when she checked herself; on Mary Anne's
evincing theological impatience to strike in with her godfathers
and her godmothers, and said: 'I mean of what name is it a
corruption?'
'Elizabeth, or Eliza, Miss Peecher.'
'Right, Mary Anne. Whether there were any Lizzies in the early
Christian Church must be considered very doubtful, very
doubtful.' Miss Peecher was exceedingly sage here. 'Speaking
correctly, we say, then, that Hexam's sister is called Lizzie; not
that she is named so. Do we not, Mary Anne?'
'We do, Miss Peecher.'
'And where,' pursued Miss Peecher, complacent in her little
transparent fiction of conducting the examination in a semiofficial
manner for Mary Anne's benefit, not her own, 'where does this
young woman, who is called but not named Lizzie, live? Think,
now, before answering.'
'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ma'am.'
'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss
Peecher, as if possessed beforehand of the book in which it was
written. Exactly so. And what occupation does this young
woman pursue, Mary Anne? Take time.'
'She has a place of trust at an outfitter's in the City, ma'am.'
'Oh!' said Miss Peecher, pondering on it; but smoothly added, in a
confirmatory tone, 'At an outfitter's in the City. Ye-es?'
'And Charley--' Mary Anne was proceeding, when Miss Peecher
stared.
'I mean Hexam, Miss Peecher.'
'I should think you did, Mary Anne. I am glad to hear you do.
And Hexam--'
'Says,' Mary Anne went on, 'that he is not pleased with his sister,
and that his sister won't be guided by his advice, and persists in
being guided by somebody else's; and that--'
'Mr Headstone coming across the garden!' exclaimed Miss
Peecher, with a flushed glance at the looking-glass. 'You have
answered very well, Mary Anne. You are forming an excellent
habit of arranging your thoughts clearly. That will do.'
The discreet Mary Anne resumed her seat and her silence, and
stitched, and stitched, and was stitching when the schoolmaster's
shadow came in before him, announcing that he might be instantly
expected.
'Good evening, Miss Peecher,' he said, pursuing the shadow, and
taking its place.
'Good evening, Mr Headstone. Mary Anne, a chair.'
'Thank you,' said Bradley, seating himself in his constrained
manner. 'This is but a flying visit. I have looked in, on my way, to
ask a kindness of you as a neighbour.'
'Did you say on your way, Mr Headstone?' asked Miss Peecher.
'On my way to--where I am going.'
'Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss
Peecher, in her own thoughts.
'Charley Hexam has gone to get a book or two he wants, and will
probably be back before me. As we leave my house empty, I took
the liberty of telling him I would leave the key here. Would you
kindly allow me to do so?'
'Certainly, Mr Headstone. Going for an evening walk, sir?'
'Partly for a walk, and partly for--on business.'
'Business in Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated
Miss Peecher to herself.
'Having said which,' pursued Bradley, laying his door-key on the
table, 'I must be already going. There is nothing I can do for you,
Miss Peecher?'
'Thank you, Mr Headstone. In which direction?'
'In the direction of Westminster.'
'Mill Bank,' Miss Peecher repeated in her own thoughts once
again. 'No, thank you, Mr Headstone; I'll not trouble you.'
'You couldn't trouble me,' said the schoolmaster.
'Ah!' returned Miss Peecher, though not aloud; 'but you can
trouble ME!' And for all her quiet manner, and her quiet smile,
she was full of trouble as he went his way.
She was right touching his destination. He held as straight a
course for the house of the dolls' dressmaker as the wisdom of his
ancestors, exemplified in the construction of the intervening
streets, would let him, and walked with a bent head hammering at
one fixed idea. It had been an immoveable idea since he first set
eyes upon her. It seemed to him as if all that he could suppress in
himself he had suppressed, as if all that he could restrain in
himself he had restrained, and the time had come--in a rush, in a
moment--when the power of self-command had departed from
him. Love at first sight is a trite expression quite sufficiently
discussed; enough that in certain smouldering natures like this
man's, that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such head as fire
does in a rage of wind, when other passions, but for its mastery,
could be held in chains. As a multitude of weak, imitative natures
are always lying by, ready to go mad upon the next wrong idea
that may be broached--in these times, generally some form of
tribute to Somebody for something that never was done, or, if ever
done, that was done by Somebody Else--so these less ordinary
natures may lie by for years, ready on the touch of an instant to
burst into flame.
The schoolmaster went his way, brooding and brooding, and a
sense of being vanquished in a struggle might have been pieced
out of his worried face. Truly, in his breast there lingered a
resentful shame to find himself defeated by this passion for
Charley Hexam's sister, though in the very self-same moments he
was concentrating himself upon the object of bringing the passion
to a successful issue.
He appeared before the dolls' dressmaker, sitting alone at her
work. 'Oho!' thought that sharp young personage, 'it's you, is it? I
know your tricks and your manners, my friend!'
'Hexam's sister,' said Bradley Headstone, 'is not come home yet?'
'You are quite a conjuror,' returned Miss Wren.
'I will wait, if you please, for I want to speak to her.'
'Do you?' returned Miss Wren. 'Sit down. I hope it's mutual.'
Bradley glanced distrustfully at the shrewd face again bending
over the work, and said, trying to conquer doubt and hesitation:
'I hope you don't imply that my visit will be unacceptable to
Hexam's sister?'
'There! Don't call her that. I can't bear you to call her that,'
returned Miss Wren, snapping her fingers in a volley of impatient
snaps, 'for I don't like Hexam.'
'Indeed?'
'No.' Miss Wren wrinkled her nose, to express dislike. 'Selfish.
Thinks only of himself. The way with all of you.'
'The way with all of us? Then you don't like ME?'
'So-so,' replied Miss Wren, with a shrug and a laugh. 'Don't know
much about you.'
'But I was not aware it was the way with all of us,' said Bradley,
returning to the accusation, a little injured. 'Won't you say, some
of us?'
'Meaning,' returned the little creature, 'every one of you, but you.
Hah! Now look this lady in the face. This is Mrs Truth. The
Honourable. Full-dressed.'
Bradley glanced at the doll she held up for his observation--which
had been lying on its face on her bench, while with a needle and
thread she fastened the dress on at the back--and looked from it to
her.
'I stand the Honourable Mrs T. on my bench in this corner against
the wall, where her blue eyes can shine upon you,' pursued Miss
Wren, doing so, and making two little dabs at him in the air with
her needle, as if she pricked him with it in his own eyes; 'and I
defy you to tell me, with Mrs T. for a witness, what you have
come here for.'
'To see Hexam's sister.'
'You don't say so!' retorted Miss Wren, hitching her chin. 'But on
whose account?'
'Her own.'
'O Mrs T.!' exclaimed Miss Wren. 'You hear him!'
'To reason with her,' pursued Bradley, half humouring what was
present, and half angry with what was not present; 'for her own
sake.'
'Oh Mrs T.!' exclaimed the dressmaker.
'For her own sake,' repeated Bradley, warming, 'and for her
brother's, and as a perfectly disinterested person.'
'Really, Mrs T.,' remarked the dressmaker, 'since it comes to this,
we must positively turn you with your face to the wall.' She had
hardly done so, when Lizzie Hexam arrived, and showed some
surprise on seeing Bradley Headstone there, and Jenny shaking
her little fist at him close before her eyes, and the Honourable Mrs
T. with her face to the wall.
'Here's a perfectly disinterested person, Lizzie dear,' said the
knowing Miss Wren, 'come to talk with you, for your own sake
and your brother's. Think of that. I am sure there ought to be no
third party present at anything so very kind and so very serious;
and so, if you'll remove the third party upstairs, my dear, the third
party will retire.'
Lizzie took the hand which the dolls' dressmaker held out to her
for the purpose of being supported away, but only looked at her
with an inquiring smile, and made no other movement.
'The third party hobbles awfully, you know, when she's left to
herself;' said Miss Wren, 'her back being so bad, and her legs so
queer; so she can't retire gracefully unless you help her, Lizzie.'
'She can do no better than stay where she is,' returned Lizzie,
releasing the hand, and laying her own lightly on Miss Jenny's
curls. And then to Bradley: 'From Charley, sir?'
In an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, Bradley
rose to place a chair for her, and then returned to his own.
'Strictly speaking,' said he, 'I come from Charley, because I left
him only a little while ago; but I am not commissioned by Charley.
I come of my own spontaneous act.'
With her elbows on her bench, and her chin upon her hands, Miss
Jenny Wren sat looking at him with a watchful sidelong look.
Lizzie, in her different way, sat looking at him too.
'The fact is,' began Bradley, with a mouth so dry that he had some
difficulty in articulating his words: the consciousness of which
rendered his manner still more ungainly and undecided; 'the truth
is, that Charley, having no secrets from me (to the best of my
belief), has confided the whole of this matter to me.'
He came to a stop, and Lizzie asked: 'what matter, sir?'
'I thought,' returned the schoolmaster, stealing another look at her,
and seeming to try in vain to sustain it; for the look dropped as it
lighted on her eyes, 'that it might be so superfluous as to be almost
impertinent, to enter upon a definition of it. My allusion was to
this matter of your having put aside your brother's plans for you,
and given the preference to those of Mr--I believe the name is Mr
Eugene Wrayburn.'
He made this point of not being certain of the name, with another
uneasy look at her, which dropped like the last.
Nothing being said on the other side, he had to begin again, and
began with new embarrassment.
'Your brother's plans were communicated to me when he first had
them in his thoughts. In point of fact he spoke to me about them
when I was last here--when we were walking back together, and
when I--when the impression was fresh upon me of having seen
his sister.'
There might have been no meaning in it, but the little dressmaker
here removed one of her supporting hands from her chin, and
musingly turned the Honourable Mrs T. with her face to the
company. That done, she fell into her former attitude.
'I approved of his idea,' said Bradley, with his uneasy look
wandering to the doll, and unconsciously resting there longer than
it had rested on Lizzie, 'both because your brother ought naturally
to be the originator of any such scheme, and because I hoped to
be able to promote it. I should have had inexpressible pleasure, I
should have taken inexpressible interest, in promoting it.
Therefore I must acknowledge that when your brother was
disappointed, I too was disappointed. I wish to avoid reservation
or concealment, and I fully acknowledge that.'
He appeared to have encouraged himself by having got so far. At
all events he went on with much greater firmness and force of
emphasis: though with a curious disposition to set his teeth, and
with a curious tight-screwing movement of his right hand in the
clenching palm of his left, like the action of one who was being
physically hurt, and was unwilling to cry out.
'I am a man of strong feelings, and I have strongly felt this
disappointment. I do strongly feel it. I don't show what I feel;
some of us are obliged habitually to keep it down. To keep it
down. But to return to your brother. He has taken the matter so
much to heart that he has remonstrated (in my presence he
remonstrated) with Mr Eugene Wrayburn, if that be the name. He
did so, quite ineffectually. As any one not blinded to the real
character of Mr--Mr Eugene Wrayburn--would readily suppose.'
He looked at Lizzie again, and held the look. And his face turned
from burning red to white, and from white back to burning red,
and so for the time to lasting deadly white.
'Finally, I resolved to come here alone, and appeal to you. I
resolved to come here alone, and entreat you to retract the course
you have chosen, and instead of confiding in a mere stranger--a
person of most insolent behaviour to your brother and others--to
prefer your brother and your brother's friend.'
Lizzie Hexam had changed colour when those changes came over
him, and her face now expressed some anger, more dislike, and
even a touch of fear. But she answered him very steadily.
'I cannot doubt, Mr Headstone, that your visit is well meant. You
have been so good a friend to Charley that I have no right to
doubt it. I have nothing to tell Charley, but that I accepted the
help to which he so much objects before he made any plans for
me; or certainly before I knew of any. It was considerately and
delicately offered, and there were reasons that had weight with me
which should be as dear to Charley as to me. I have no more to
say to Charley on this subject.'
His lips trembled and stood apart, as he followed this repudiation
of himself; and limitation of her words to her brother.
'I should have told Charley, if he had come to me,' she resumed, as
though it were an after-thought, 'that Jenny and I find our teacher
very able and very patient, and that she takes great pains with us.
So much so, that we have said to her we hope in a very little while
to be able to go on by ourselves. Charley knows about teachers,
and I should also have told him, for his satisfaction, that ours
comes from an institution where teachers are regularly brought
up.'
'I should like to ask you,' said Bradley Headstone, grinding his
words slowly out, as though they came from a rusty mill; 'I should
like to ask you, if I may without offence, whether you would have
objected--no; rather, I should like to say, if I may without offence,
that I wish I had had the opportunity of coming here with your
brother and devoting my poor abilities and experience to your
service.'
'Thank you, Mr Headstone.'
'But I fear,' he pursued, after a pause, furtively wrenching at the
seat of his chair with one hand, as if he would have wrenched the
chair to pieces, and gloomily observing her while her eyes were
cast down, 'that my humble services would not have found much
favour with you?'
She made no reply, and the poor stricken wretch sat contending
with himself in a heat of passion and torment. After a while he
took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and hands.
'There is only one thing more I had to say, but it is the most
important. There is a reason against this matter, there is a
personal relation concerned in this matter, not yet explained to
you. It might--I don't say it would--it might--induce you to think
differently. To proceed under the present circumstances is out of
the question. Will you please come to the understanding that
there shall be another interview on the subject?'
'With Charley, Mr Headstone?'
'With--well,' he answered, breaking off, 'yes! Say with him too.
Will you please come to the understanding that there must be
another interview under more favourable circumstances, before
the whole case can be submitted?'
'I don't,' said Lizzie, shaking her head, 'understand your meaning,
Mr Headstone.'
'Limit my meaning for the present,' he interrupted, 'to the whole
case being submitted to you in another interview.'
'What case, Mr Headstone? What is wanting to it?'
'You--you shall be informed in the other interview.' Then he said,
as if in a burst of irrepressible despair, 'I--I leave it all incomplete!
There is a spell upon me, I think!' And then added, almost as if he
asked for pity, 'Good-night!'
He held out his hand. As she, with manifest hesitation, not to say
reluctance, touched it, a strange tremble passed over him, and his
face, so deadly white, was moved as by a stroke of pain. Then he
was gone.
The dolls' dressmaker sat with her attitude unchanged, eyeing the
door by which he had departed, until Lizzie pushed her bench
aside and sat down near her. Then, eyeing Lizzie as she had
previously eyed Bradley and the door, Miss Wren chopped that
very sudden and keen chop in which her jaws sometimes indulged,
leaned back in her chair with folded arms, and thus expressed
herself:
'Humph! If he--I mean, of course, my dear, the party who is
coming to court me when the time comes--should be THAT sort of
man, he may spare himself the trouble. HE wouldn't do to be
trotted about and made useful. He'd take fire and blow up while
he was about it.
'And so you would be rid of him,' said Lizzie, humouring her.
'Not so easily,' returned Miss Wren. 'He wouldn't blow up alone.
He'd carry me up with him. I know his tricks and his manners.'
'Would he want to hurt you, do you mean?' asked Lizzie.
'Mightn't exactly want to do it, my dear,' returned Miss Wren; 'but
a lot of gunpowder among lighted lucifer-matches in the next
room might almost as well be here.'
'He is a very strange man,' said Lizzie, thoughtfully.
'I wish he was so very strange a man as to be a total stranger,'
answered the sharp little thing.
It being Lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an
evening to brush out and smooth the long fair hair of the dolls'
dressmaker, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the
little creature was at her work, and it fell in a beautiful shower
over the poor shoulders that were much in need of such adorning
rain. 'Not now, Lizzie, dear,' said Jenny; 'let us have a talk by the
fire.' With those words, she in her turn loosened her friend's dark
hair, and it dropped of its own weight over her bosom, in two rich
masses. Pretending to compare the colours and admire the
contrast, Jenny so managed a mere touch or two of her nimble
hands, as that she herself laying a cheek on one of the dark folds,
seemed blinded by her own clustering curls to all but the fire,
while the fine handsome face and brow of Lizzie were revealed
without obstruction in the sombre light.
'Let us have a talk,' said Jenny, 'about Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'
Something sparkled down among the fair hair resting on the dark
hair; and if it were not a star--which it couldn't be--it was an eye;
and if it were an eye, it was Jenny Wren's eye, bright and watchful
as the bird's whose name she had taken.
'Why about Mr Wrayburn?' Lizzie asked.
'For no better reason than because I'm in the humour. I wonder
whether he's rich!'
'No, not rich.'
'Poor?'
'I think so, for a gentleman.'
'Ah! To be sure! Yes, he's a gentleman. Not of our sort; is he?'
A shake of the head, a thoughtful shake of the head, and the
answer, softly spoken, 'Oh no, oh no!'
The dolls' dressmaker had an arm round her friend's waist.
Adjusting the arm, she slyly took the opportunity of blowing at her
own hair where it fell over her face; then the eye down there,
under lighter shadows sparkled more brightly and appeared more
watchful.
'When He turns up, he shan't be a gentleman; I'll very soon send
him packing, if he is. However, he's not Mr Wrayburn; I haven't
captivated HIM. I wonder whether anybody has, Lizzie!'
'It is very likely.'
'Is it very likely? I wonder who!'
'Is it not very likely that some lady has been taken by him, and
that he may love her dearly?'
'Perhaps. I don't know. What would you think of him, Lizzie, if
you were a lady?'
'I a lady!' she repeated, laughing. 'Such a fancy!'
'Yes. But say: just as a fancy, and for instance.'
'I a lady! I, a poor girl who used to row poor father on the river.
I, who had rowed poor father out and home on the very night
when I saw him for the first time. I, who was made so timid by his
looking at me, that I got up and went out!'
('He did look at you, even that night, though you were not a lady!'
thought Miss Wren.)
'I a lady!' Lizzie went on in a low voice, with her eyes upon the
fire. 'I, with poor father's grave not even cleared of undeserved
stain and shame, and he trying to clear it for me! I a lady!'
'Only as a fancy, and for instance,' urged Miss Wren.
'Too much, Jenny, dear, too much! My fancy is not able to get
that far.' As the low fire gleamed upon her, it showed her smiling,
mournfully and abstractedly.
'But I am in the humour, and I must be humoured, Lizzie, because
after all I am a poor little thing, and have had a hard day with my
bad child. Look in the fire, as I like to hear you tell how you used
to do when you lived in that dreary old house that had once been
a windmill. Look in the--what was its name when you told
fortunes with your brother that I DON'T like?'
'The hollow down by the flare?'
'Ah! That's the name! You can find a lady there, I know.'
'More easily than I can make one of such material as myself,
Jenny.'
The sparkling eye looked steadfastly up, as the musing face
looked thoughtfully down. 'Well?' said the dolls' dressmaker, 'We
have found our lady?'
Lizzie nodded, and asked, 'Shall she be rich?'
'She had better be, as he's poor.'
'She is very rich. Shall she be handsome?'
'Even you can be that, Lizzie, so she ought to be.'
'She is very handsome.'
'What does she say about him?' asked Miss Jenny, in a low voice:
watchful, through an intervening silence, of the face looking down
at the fire.
'She is glad, glad, to be rich, that he may have the money. She is
glad, glad, to be beautiful, that he may be proud of her. Her poor
heart--'
'Eh? Her poor hear?' said Miss Wren.
'Her heart--is given him, with all its love and truth. She would
joyfully die with him, or, better than that, die for him. She knows
he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his
being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and
care for, and think well of. And she says, that lady rich and
beautiful that I can never come near, "Only put me in that empty
place, only try how little I mind myself, only prove what a world
of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you might
even come to be much better than you are, through me who am so
much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside you."'
As the face looking at the fire had become exalted and forgetful in
the rapture of these words, the little creature, openly clearing
away her fair hair with her disengaged hand, had gazed at it with
earnest attention and something like alarm. Now that the speaker
ceased, the little creature laid down her head again, and moaned,
'O me, O me, O me!'
'In pain, dear Jenny?' asked Lizzie, as if awakened.
'Yes, but not the old pain. Lay me down, lay me down. Don't go
out of my sight to-night. Lock the door and keep close to me.
Then turning away her face, she said in a whisper to herself, 'My
Lizzie, my poor Lizzie! O my blessed children, come back in the
long bright slanting rows, and come for her, not me. She wants
help more than I, my blessed children!'
She had stretched her hands up with that higher and better look,
and now she turned again, and folded them round Lizzie's neck,
and rocked herself on Lizzie's breast.
Chapter 12
MORE BIRDS OF PREY
Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole, among
the riggers, and the mast, oar and block makers, and the boatbuilders,
and the sail-lofts, as in a kind of ship's hold stored full of
waterside characters, some no better than himself, some very
much better, and none much worse. The Hole, albeit in a general
way not over nice in its choice of company, was rather shy in
reference to the honour of cultivating the Rogue's acquaintance;
more frequently giving him the cold shoulder than the warm hand,
and seldom or never drinking with him unless at his own expense.
A part of the Hole, indeed, contained so much public spirit and
private virtue that not even this strong leverage could move it to
good fellowship with a tainted accuser. But, there may have been
the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that its exponents
held a true witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly
and accursed character to a false one.
Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, Mr
Riderhood might have found the Hole a mere grave as to any
means it would yield him of getting a living. But Miss Pleasant
Riderhood had some little position and connection in Limehouse
Hole. Upon the smallest of small scales, she was an unlicensed
pawnbroker, keeping what was popularly called a Leaving Shop,
by lending insignificant sums on insignificant articles of property
deposited with her as security. In her four-and-twentieth year of
life, Pleasant was already in her fifth year of this way of trade.
Her deceased mother had established the business, and on that
parent's demise she had appropriated a secret capital of fifteen
shillings to establishing herself in it; the existence of such capital
in a pillow being the last intelligible confidential communication
made to her by the departed, before succumbing to dropsical
conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally with coherence
and existence.
Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs Riderhood might possibly
have been at some time able to explain, and possibly not. Her
daughter had no information on that point. Pleasant she found
herself, and she couldn't help it. She had not been consulted on
the question, any more than on the question of her coming into
these terrestrial parts, to want a name. Similarly, she found
herself possessed of what is colloquially termed a swivel eye
(derived from her father), which she might perhaps have declined
if her sentiments on the subject had been taken. She was not
otherwise positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a
muddy complexion, and looking as old again as she really was.
As some dogs have it in the blood, or are trained, to worry certain
creatures to a certain point, so--not to make the comparison
disrespectfially--Pleasant Riderhood had it in the blood, or had
been trained, to regard seamen, within certain limits, as her prey.
Show her a man in a blue jacket, and, figuratively speaking, she
pinned him instantly. Yet, all things considered, she was not of an
evil mind or an unkindly disposition. For, observe how many
things were to be considered according to her own unfortunate
experience. Show Pleasant Riderhood a Wedding in the street,
and she only saw two people taking out a regular licence to
quarrel and fight. Show her a Christening, and she saw a little
heathen personage having a quite superfluous name bestowed
upon it, inasmuch as it would be commonly addressed by some
abusive epithet: which little personage was not in the least wanted
by anybody, and would be shoved and banged out of everybody's
way, until it should grow big enough to shove and bang. Show her
a Funeral, and she saw an unremunerative ceremony in the nature
of a black masquerade, conferring a temporary gentility on the
performers, at an immense expense, and representing the only
formal party ever given by the deceased. Show her a live father,
and she saw but a duplicate of her own father, who from her
infancy had been taken with fits and starts of discharging his duty
to her, which duty was always incorporated in the form of a fist or
a leathern strap, and being discharged hurt her. All things
considered, therefore, Pleasant Riderhood was not so very, very
bad. There was even a touch of romance in her--of such romance
as could creep into Limehouse Hole--and maybe sometimes of a
summer evening, when she stood with folded arms at her shopdoor,
looking from the reeking street to the sky where the sun was
setting, she may have had some vaporous visions of far-off islands
in the southern seas or elsewhere (not being geographically
particular), where it would be good to roam with a congenial
partner among groves of bread-fruit, waiting for ships to be wafted
from the hollow ports of civilization. For, sailors to be got the
better of, were essential to Miss Pleasant's Eden.
Not on a summer evening did she come to her little shop-door,
when a certain man standing over against the house on the
opposite side of the street took notice of her. That was on a cold
shrewd windy evening, after dark. Pleasant Riderhood shared
with most of the lady inhabitants of the Hole, the peculiarity that
her hair was a ragged knot, constantly coming down behind, and
that she never could enter upon any undertaking without first
twisting it into place. At that particular moment, being newly
come to the threshold to take a look out of doors, she was winding
herself up with both hands after this fashion. And so prevalent
was the fashion, that on the occasion of a fight or other
disturbance in the Hole, the ladies would be seen flocking from all
quarters universally twisting their back-hair as they came along,
and many of them, in the hurry of the moment, carrying their
back-combs in their mouths.
It was a wretched little shop, with a roof that any man standing in
it could touch with his hand; little better than a cellar or cave,
down three steps. Yet in its ill-lighted window, among a flaring
handkerchief or two, an old peacoat or so, a few valueless
watches and compasses, a jar of tobacco and two crossed pipes, a
bottle of walnut ketchup, and some horrible sweets these creature
discomforts serving as a blind to the main business of the Leaving
Shop--was displayed the inscription SEAMAN'S BOARDING-HOUSE.
Taking notice of Pleasant Riderhood at the door, the man crossed
so quickly that she was still winding herself up, when he stood
close before her.
'Is your father at home?' said he.
'I think he is,' returned Pleasant, dropping her arms; 'come in.'
It was a tentative reply, the man having a seafaring appearance.
Her father was not at home, and Pleasant knew it. 'Take a seat by
the fire,' were her hospitable words when she had got him in; 'men
of your calling are always welcome here.'
'Thankee,' said the man.
His manner was the manner of a sailor, and his hands were the
hands of a sailor, except that they were smooth. Pleasant had an
eye for sailors, and she noticed the unused colour and texture of
the hands, sunburnt though they were, as sharply as she noticed
their unmistakable loosneness and suppleness, as he sat himself
down with his left arm carelessly thrown across his left leg a little
above the knee, and the right arm as carelessly thrown over the
elbow of the wooden chair, with the hand curved, half open and
half shut, as if it had just let go a rope.
'Might you be looking for a Boarding-House?' Pleasant inquired,
taking her observant stand on one side of the fire.
'I don't rightly know my plans yet,' returned the man.
'You ain't looking for a Leaving Shop?'
'No,' said the man.
'No,' assented Pleasant, 'you've got too much of an outfit on you
for that. But if you should want either, this is both.'
'Ay, ay!' said the man, glancing round the place. 'I know. I've
been here before.'
'Did you Leave anything when you were here before?' asked
Pleasant, with a view to principal and interest.
'No.' The man shook his head.
'I am pretty sure you never boarded here?'
'No.' The man again shook his head.
'What DID you do here when you were here before?' asked
Pleasant. 'For I don't remember you.'
'It's not at all likely you should. I only stood at the door, one
night--on the lower step there--while a shipmate of mine looked in
to speak to your father. I remember the place well.' Looking very
curiously round it.
'Might that have been long ago?'
'Ay, a goodish bit ago. When I came off my last voyage.'
'Then you have not been to sea lately?'
'No. Been in the sick bay since then, and been employed ashore.'
'Then, to be sure, that accounts for your hands.'
The man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of manner,
caught her up. 'You're a good observer. Yes. That accounts for
my hands.'
Pleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and returned it
suspiciously. Not only was his change of manner, though very
sudden, quite collected, but his former manner, which he resumed,
had a certain suppressed confidence and sense of power in it that
were half threatening.
'Will your father be long?' he inquired.
'I don't know. I can't say.'
'As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has just
gone out? How's that?'
'I supposed he had come home,' Pleasant explained.
'Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has been some
time out? How's that?'
'I don't want to deceive you. Father's on the river in his boat.'
'At the old work?' asked the man.
'I don't know what you mean,' said Pleasant, shrinking a step back.
'What on earth d'ye want?'
'I don't want to hurt your father. I don't want to say I might, if I
chose. I want to speak to him. Not much in that, is there? There
shall be no secrets from you; you shall be by. And plainly, Miss
Riderhood, there's nothing to be got out of me, or made of me. I
am not good for the Leaving Shop, I am not good for the
Boarding-House, I am not good for anything in your way to the
extent of sixpenn'orth of halfpence. Put the idea aside, and we
shall get on together.'
'But you're a seafaring man?' argued Pleasant, as if that were a
sufficient reason for his being good for something in her way.
'Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But I am not for
you. Won't you take my word for it?'
The conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss Pleasant's
hair in tumbling down. It tumbled down accordingly, and she
twisted it up, looking from under her bent forehead at the man. In
taking stock of his familiarly worn rough-weather nautical clothes,
piece by piece, she took stock of a formidable knife in a sheath at
his waist ready to his hand, and of a whistle hanging round his
neck, and of a short jagged knotted club with a loaded head that
peeped out of a pocket of his loose outer jacket or frock. He sat
quietly looking at her; but, with these appendages partially
revealing themselves, and with a quantity of bristling oakumcoloured
head and whisker, he had a formidable appearance.
'Won't you take my word for it?' he asked again.
Pleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined with
another short dumb nod. Then he got up and stood with his arms
folded, in front of the fire, looking down into it occasionally, as
she stood with her arms folded, leaning against the side of the
chimney-piece.
'To wile away the time till your father comes,' he said,--'pray is
there much robbing and murdering of seamen about the water-side
now?'
'No,' said Pleasant.
'Any?'
'Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about Ratcliffe and
Wapping and up that way. But who knows how many are true?'
'To be sure. And it don't seem necessary.'
'That's what I say,' observed Pleasant. 'Where's the reason for it?
Bless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could keep what they have,
without it.'
'You're right. Their money may be soon got out of them, without
violence,' said the man.
'Of course it may,' said Pleasant; 'and then they ship again and get
more. And the best thing for 'em, too, to ship again as soon as
ever they can be brought to it. They're never so well off as when
they're afloat.'
'I'll tell you why I ask,' pursued the visitor, looking up from the
fire. 'I was once beset that way myself, and left for dead.'
'No?' said Pleasant. 'Where did it happen?'
'It happened,' returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he drew
his right hand across his chin, and dipped the other in the pocket
of his rough outer coat, 'it happened somewhere about here as I
reckon. I don't think it can have been a mile from here.'
'Were you drunk?' asked Pleasant.
'I was muddled, but not with fair drinking. I had not been
drinking, you understand. A mouthful did it.'
Pleasant with a grave look shook her head; importing that she
understood the process, but decidedly disapproved.
'Fair trade is one thing,' said she, 'but that's another. No one has a
right to carry on with Jack in THAT way.'
'The sentiment does you credit,' returned the man, with a grim
smile; and added, in a mutter, 'the more so, as I believe it's not
your father's.--Yes, I had a bad time of it, that time. I lost
everything, and had a sharp struggle for my life, weak as I was.'
'Did you get the parties punished?' asked Pleasant.
'A tremendous punishment followed,' said the man, more
seriously; 'but it was not of my bringing about.'
'Of whose, then?' asked Pleasant.
The man pointed upward with his forefinger, and, slowly
recovering that hand, settled his chin in it again as he looked at the
fire. Bringing her inherited eye to bear upon him, Pleasant
Riderhood felt more and more uncomfortable, his manner was so
mysterious, so stern, so self-possessed.
'Anyways,' said the damsel, 'I am glad punishment followed, and I
say so. Fair trade with seafaring men gets a bad name through
deeds of violence. I am as much against deeds of violence being
done to seafaring men, as seafaring men can be themselves. I am
of the same opinion as my mother was, when she was living. Fair
trade, my mother used to say, but no robbery and no blows.' In
the way of trade Miss Pleasant would have taken--and indeed did
take when she could--as much as thirty shillings a week for board
that would be dear at five, and likewise conducted the Leaving
business upon correspondingly equitable principles; yet she had
that tenderness of conscience and those feelings of humanity, that
the moment her ideas of trade were overstepped, she became the
seaman's champion, even against her father whom she seldom
otherwise resisted.
But, she was here interrupted by her father's voice exclaiming
angrily, 'Now, Poll Parrot!' and by her father's hat being heavily
flung from his hand and striking her face. Accustomed to such
occasional manifestations of his sense of parental duty, Pleasant
merely wiped her face on her hair (which of course had tumbled
down) before she twisted it up. This was another common
procedure on the part of the ladies of the Hole, when heated by
verbal or fistic altercation.
'Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned to
speak!' growled Mr Riderhood, stooping to pick up his hat, and
making a feint at her with his head and right elbow; for he took
the delicate subject of robbing seamen in extraordinary dudgeon,
and was out of humour too. 'What are you Poll Parroting at now?
Ain't you got nothing to do but fold your arms and stand a Poll
Parroting all night?'
'Let her alone,' urged the man. 'She was only speaking to me.'
'Let her alone too!' retorted Mr Riderhood, eyeing him all over.
'Do you know she's my daughter?'
'Yes.'
'And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on the
part of my daughter? No, nor yet that I won't take no Poll
Parroting from no man? And who may YOU be, and what may
YOU want?'
'How can I tell you until you are silent?' returned the other
fiercely.
'Well,' said Mr Riderhood, quailing a little, 'I am willing to be
silent for the purpose of hearing. But don't Poll Parrot me.'
'Are you thirsty, you?' the man asked, in the same fierce short
way, after returning his look.
'Why nat'rally,' said Mr Riderhood, 'ain't I always thirsty!'
(Indignant at the absurdity of the question.)
'What will you drink?' demanded the man.
'Sherry wine,' returned Mr Riderhood, in the same sharp tone, 'if
you're capable of it.'
The man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sovereign, and
begged the favour of Miss Pleasant that she would fetch a bottle.
'With the cork undrawn,' he added, emphatically, looking at her
father.
'I'll take my Alfred David,' muttered Mr Riderhood, slowly
relaxing into a dark smile, 'that you know a move. Do I know
YOU? N--n--no, I don't know you.'
The man replied, 'No, you don't know me.' And so they stood
looking at one another surlily enough, until Pleasant came back.
'There's small glasses on the shelf,' said Riderhood to his daughter.
'Give me the one without a foot. I gets my living by the sweat of
my brow, and it's good enough for ME.' This had a modest selfdenying
appearance; but it soon turned out that as, by reason of
the impossibility of standing the glass upright while there was
anything in it, it required to be emptied as soon as filled, Mr
Riderhood managed to drink in the proportion of three to one.
With his Fortunatus's goblet ready in his hand, Mr Riderhood sat
down on one side of the table before the fire, and the strange man
on the other: Pleasant occupying a stool between the latter and the
fireside. The background, composed of handkerchiefs, coats,
shirts, hats, and other old articles 'On Leaving,' had a general dim
resemblance to human listeners; especially where a shiny black
sou'wester suit and hat hung, looking very like a clumsy mariner
with his back to the company, who was so curious to overhear,
that he paused for the purpose with his coat half pulled on, and his
shoulders up to his ears in the uncompleted action.
The visitor first held the bottle against the light of the candle, and
next examined the top of the cork. Satisfied that it had not been
tampered with, he slowly took from his breastpocket a rusty claspknife,
and, with a corkscrew in the handle, opened the wine. That
done, he looked at the cork, unscrewed it from the corkscrew, laid
each separately on the table, and, with the end of the sailor's knot
of his neckerchief, dusted the inside of the neck of the bottle. All
this with great deliberation.
At first Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended at arm's
length for filling, while the very deliberate stranger seemed
absorbed in his preparations. But, gradually his arm reverted
home to him, and his glass was lowered and lowered until he
rested it upside down upon the table. By the same degrees his
attention became concentrated on the knife. And now, as the man
held out the bottle to fill all round, Riderhood stood up, leaned
over the table to look closer at the knife, and stared from it to him.
'What's the matter?' asked the man.
'Why, I know that knife!' said Riderhood.
'Yes, I dare say you do.'
He motioned to him to hold up his glass, and filled it. Riderhood
emptied it to the last drop and began again.
'That there knife--'
'Stop,' said the man, composedly. 'I was going to drink to your
daughter. Your health, Miss Riderhood.'
'That knife was the knife of a seaman named George Radfoot.'
'It was.'
'That seaman was well beknown to me.'
'He was.'
'What's come to him?'
'Death has come to him. Death came to him in an ugly shape. He
looked,' said the man, 'very horrible after it.'
'Arter what?' said Riderhood, with a frowning stare.
'After he was killed.'
'Killed? Who killed him?'
Only answering with a shrug, the man filled the footless glass, and
Riderhood emptied it: looking amazedly from his daughter to his
visitor.
'You don't mean to tell a honest man--' he was recommencing with
his empty glass in his hand, when his eye became fascinated by
the stranger's outer coat. He leaned across the table to see it
nearer, touched the sleeve, turned the cuff to look at the sleevelining
(the man, in his perfect composure, offering not the least
objection), and exclaimed, 'It's my belief as this here coat was
George Radfoot's too!'
'You are right. He wore it the last time you ever saw him, and the
last time you ever will see him--in this world.'
'It's my belief you mean to tell me to my face you killed him!'
exclaimed Riderhood; but, nevertheless, allowing his glass to be
filled again.
The man only answered with another shrug, and showed no
symptom of confusion.
'Wish I may die if I know what to be up to with this chap!' said
Riderhood, after staring at him, and tossing his last glassful down
his throat. 'Let's know what to make of you. Say something
plain.'
'I will,' returned the other, leaning forward across the table, and
speaking in a low impressive voice. 'What a liar you are!'
The honest witness rose, and made as though he would fling his
glass in the man's face. The man not wincing, and merely shaking
his forefinger half knowingly, half menacingly, the piece of
honesty thought better of it and sat down again, putting the glass
down too.
'And when you went to that lawyer yonder in the Temple with that
invented story,' said the stranger, in an exasperatingly comfortable
sort of confidence, 'you might have had your strong suspicions of
a friend of your own, you know. I think you had, you know.'
'Me my suspicions? Of what friend?'
'Tell me again whose knife was this?' demanded the man.
'It was possessed by, and was the property of--him as I have made
mention on,' said Riderhood, stupidly evading the actual mention
of the name.
'Tell me again whose coat was this?'
'That there article of clothing likeways belonged to, and was wore
by--him as I have made mention on,' was again the dull Old Bailey
evasion.
'I suspect that you gave him the credit of the deed, and of keeping
cleverly out of the way. But there was small cleverness in HIS
keeping out of the way. The cleverness would have been, to have
got back for one single instant to the light of the sun.'
'Things is come to a pretty pass,' growled Mr Riderhood, rising to
his feet, goaded to stand at bay, 'when bullyers as is wearing dead
men's clothes, and bullyers as is armed with dead men's knives, is
to come into the houses of honest live men, getting their livings by
the sweats of their brows, and is to make these here sort of
charges with no rhyme and no reason, neither the one nor yet the
other! Why should I have had my suspicions of him?'
'Because you knew him,' replied the man; 'because you had been
one with him, and knew his real character under a fair outside;
because on the night which you had afterwards reason to believe
to be the very night of the murder, he came in here, within an hour
of his having left his ship in the docks, and asked you in what
lodgings he could find room. Was there no stranger with him?'
'I'll take my world-without-end everlasting Alfred David that you
warn't with him,' answered Riderhood. 'You talk big, you do, but
things look pretty black against yourself, to my thinking. You
charge again' me that George Radfoot got lost sight of, and was no
more thought of. What's that for a sailor? Why there's fifty such,
out of sight and out of mind, ten times as long as him--through
entering in different names, re-shipping when the out'ard voyage is
made, and what not--a turning up to light every day about here,
and no matter made of it. Ask my daughter. You could go on Poll
Parroting enough with her, when I warn't come in: Poll Parrot a
little with her on this pint. You and your suspicions of my
suspicions of him! What are my suspicions of you? You tell me
George Radfoot got killed. I ask you who done it and how you
know it. You carry his knife and you wear his coat. I ask you
how you come by 'em? Hand over that there bottle!' Here Mr
Riderhood appeared to labour under a virtuous delusion that it
was his own property. 'And you,' he added, turning to his
daughter, as he filled the footless glass, 'if it warn't wasting good
sherry wine on you, I'd chuck this at you, for Poll Parroting with
this man. It's along of Poll Parroting that such like as him gets
their suspicions, whereas I gets mine by argueyment, and being
nat'rally a honest man, and sweating away at the brow as a honest
man ought.' Here he filled the footless goblet again, and stood
chewing one half of its contents and looking down into the other
as he slowly rolled the wine about in the glass; while Pleasant,
whose sympathetic hair had come down on her being
apostrophised, rearranged it, much in the style of the tail of a
horse when proceeding to market to be sold.
'Well? Have you finished?' asked the strange man.
'No,' said Riderhood, 'I ain't. Far from it. Now then! I want to
know how George Radfoot come by his death, and how you come
by his kit?'
'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'
'And next I want to know,' proceeded Riderhood 'whether you
mean to charge that what-you-may-call-it-murder--'
'Harmon murder, father,' suggested Pleasant.
'No Poll Parroting!' he vociferated, in return. 'Keep your mouth
shut!--I want to know, you sir, whether you charge that there
crime on George Radfoot?'
'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'
'Perhaps you done it yourself?' said Riderhood, with a threatening
action.
'I alone know,' returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 'the
mysteries of that crime. I alone know that your trumped-up story
cannot possibly be true. I alone know that it must be altogether
false, and that you must know it to be altogether false. I come
here to-night to tell you so much of what I know, and no more.'
Mr Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated
for some moments, and then refilled his glass, and tipped the
contents down his throat in three tips.
'Shut the shop-door!' he then said to his daughter, putting the glass
suddenly down. 'And turn the key and stand by it! If you know
all this, you sir,' getting, as he spoke, between the visitor and the
door, 'why han't you gone to Lawyer Lightwood?'
'That, also, is alone known to myself,' was the cool answer.
'Don't you know that, if you didn't do the deed, what you say you
could tell is worth from five to ten thousand pound?' asked
Riderhood.
'I know it very well, and when I claim the money you shall share it.'
The honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the visitor, and
a little further from the door.
'I know it,' repeated the man, quietly, 'as well as I know that you
and George Radfoot were one together in more than one dark
business; and as well as I know that you, Roger Riderhood,
conspired against an innocent man for blood-money; and as well
as I know that I can--and that I swear I will!--give you up on both
scores, and be the proof against you in my own person, if you defy
me!'
'Father!' cried Pleasant, from the door. 'Don't defy him! Give
way to him! Don't get into more trouble, father!'
'Will you leave off a Poll Parroting, I ask you?' cried Mr
Riderhood, half beside himself between the two. Then,
propitiatingly and crawlingly: 'You sir! You han't said what you
want of me. Is it fair, is it worthy of yourself, to talk of my
defying you afore ever you say what you want of me?'
'I don't want much,' said the man. 'This accusation of yours must
not be left half made and half unmade. What was done for the
blood-money must be thoroughly undone.'
'Well; but Shipmate--'
'Don't call me Shipmate,' said the man.
'Captain, then,' urged Mr Riderhood; 'there! You won't object to
Captain. It's a honourable title, and you fully look it. Captain!
Ain't the man dead? Now I ask you fair. Ain't Gaffer dead?'
'Well,' returned the other, with impatience, 'yes, he is dead. What
then?'
'Can words hurt a dead man, Captain? I only ask you fair.'
'They can hurt the memory of a dead man, and they can hurt his
living children. How many children had this man?'
'Meaning Gaffer, Captain?'
'Of whom else are we speaking?' returned the other, with a
movement of his foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning to
sneak before him in the body as well as the spirit, and he spurned
him off. 'I have heard of a daughter, and a son. I ask for
information; I ask YOUR daughter; I prefer to speak to her. What
children did Hexam leave?'
Pleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that honest
man exclaimed with great bitterness:
'Why the devil don't you answer the Captain? You can Poll Parrot
enough when you ain't wanted to Poll Parrot, you perwerse jade!'
Thus encouraged, Pleasant explained that there were only Lizzie,
the daughter in question, and the youth. Both very respectable,
she added.
'It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them,' said the
visitor, whom the consideration rendered so uneasy that he rose,
and paced to and fro, muttering, 'Dreadful! Unforeseen? How
could it be foreseen!' Then he stopped, and asked aloud: 'Where
do they live?'
Pleasant further explained that only the daughter had resided with
the father at the time of his accidental death, and that she had
immediately afterwards quitted the neighbourhood.
'I know that,' said the man, 'for I have been to the place they dwelt
in, at the time of the inquest. Could you quietly find out for me
where she lives now?'
Pleasant had no doubt she could do that. Within what time, did
she think? Within a day. The visitor said that was well, and he
would return for the information, relying on its being obtained. To
this dialogue Riderhood had attended in silence, and he now
obsequiously bespake the Captain.
'Captain! Mentioning them unfort'net words of mine respecting
Gaffer, it is contrairily to be bore in mind that Gaffer always were
a precious rascal, and that his line were a thieving line. Likeways
when I went to them two Governors, Lawyer Lightwood and the
t'other Governor, with my information, I may have been a little
over-eager for the cause of justice, or (to put it another way) a
little over-stimilated by them feelings which rouses a man up,
when a pot of money is going about, to get his hand into that pot
of money for his family's sake. Besides which, I think the wine of
them two Governors was--I will not say a hocussed wine, but fur
from a wine as was elthy for the mind. And there's another thing
to be remembered, Captain. Did I stick to them words when
Gaffer was no more, and did I say bold to them two Governors,
"Governors both, wot I informed I still inform; wot was took down
I hold to"? No. I says, frank and open--no shuffling, mind you,
Captain!--"I may have been mistook, I've been a thinking of it, it
mayn't have been took down correct on this and that, and I won't
swear to thick and thin, I'd rayther forfeit your good opinions than
do it. And so far as I know,' concluded Mr Riderhood, by way of
proof and evidence to character, 'I HAVE actiwally forfeited the
good opinions of several persons--even your own, Captain, if I
understand your words--but I'd sooner do it than be forswore.
There; if that's conspiracy, call me conspirator.'
'You shall sign,' said the visitor, taking very little heed of this
oration, 'a statement that it was all utterly false, and the poor girl
shall have it. I will bring it with me for your signature, when I
come again.'
'When might you be expected, Captain?' inquired Riderhood,
again dubiously getting between him and door.
'Quite soon enough for you. I shall not disappoint you; don't be
afraid.'
'Might you be inclined to leave any name, Captain?'
'No, not at all. I have no such intention.'
'"Shall" is summ'at of a hard word, Captain,' urged Riderhood, still
feebly dodging between him and the door, as he advanced. 'When
you say a man "shall" sign this and that and t'other, Captain, you
order him about in a grand sort of a way. Don't it seem so to
yourself?'
The man stood still, and angrily fixed him with his eyes.
'Father, father!' entreated Pleasant, from the door, with her
disengaged hand nervously trembling at her lips; 'don't! Don't get
into trouble any more!'
'Hear me out, Captain, hear me out! All I was wishing to mention,
Captain, afore you took your departer,' said the sneaking Mr
Riderhood, falling out of his path, 'was, your handsome words
relating to the reward.'
'When I claim it,' said the man, in a tone which seemed to leave
some such words as 'you dog,' very distinctly understood, 'you
shall share it.'
Looking stedfastly at Riderhood, he once more said in a low
voice, this time with a grim sort of admiration of him as a perfect
piece of evil, 'What a liar you are!' and, nodding his head twice or
thrice over the compliment, passed out of the shop. But, to
Pleasant he said good-night kindly.
The honest man who gained his living by the sweat of his brow
remained in a state akin to stupefaction, until the footless glass
and the unfinished bottle conveyed themselves into his mind.
From his mind he conveyed them into his hands, and so conveyed
the last of the wine into his stomach. When that was done, he
awoke to a clear perception that Poll Parroting was solely
chargeable with what had passed. Therefore,not to be remiss in
his duty as a father, he threw a pair of sea-boots at Pleasant,
which she ducked to avoid, and then cried, poor thing, using her
hair for a pocket-handkerchief.
Chapter 13
A SOLO AND A DUETT
The wind was blowing so hard when the visitor came out at the
shop-door into the darkness and dirt of Limehouse Hole, that it
almost blew him in again. Doors were slamming violently, lamps
were flickering or blown out, signs were rocking in their frames,
the water of the kennels, wind-dispersed, flew about in drops like
rain. Indifferent to the weather, and even preferring it to better
weather for its clearance of the streets, the man looked about him
with a scrutinizing glance. 'Thus much I know,' he murmured. 'I
have never been here since that night, and never was here before
that night, but thus much I recognize. I wonder which way did we
take when we came out of that shop. We turned to the right as I
have turned, but I can recall no more. Did we go by this alley?
Or down that little lane?'
He tried both, but both confused him equally, and he came
straying back to the same spot. 'I remember there were poles
pushed out of upper windows on which clothes were drying, and I
remember a low public-house, and the sound flowing down a
narrow passage belonging to it of the scraping of a fiddle and the
shuffling of feet. But here are all these things in the lane, and here
are all these things in the alley. And I have nothing else in my
mind but a wall, a dark doorway, a flight of stairs, and a room.'
He tried a new direction, but made nothing of it; walls, dark
doorways, flights of stairs and rooms, were too abundant. And,
like most people so puzzled, he again and again described a circle,
and found himself at the point from which he had begun. 'This is
like what I have read in narratives of escape from prison,' said he,
'where the little track of the fugitives in the night always seems to
take the shape of the great round world, on which they wander; as
if it were a secret law.'
Here he ceased to be the oakum-headed, oakum-whiskered man
on whom Miss Pleasant Riderhood had looked, and, allowing for
his being still wrapped in a nautical overcoat, became as like that
same lost wanted Mr Julius Handford, as never man was like
another in this world. In the breast of the coat he stowed the
bristling hair and whisker, in a moment, as the favouring wind
went with him down a solitary place that it had swept clear of
passengers. Yet in that same moment he was the Secretary also,
Mr Boffin's Secretary. For John Rokesmith, too, was as like that
same lost wanted Mr Julius Handford as never man was like
another in this world.
'I have no clue to the scene of my death,' said he. 'Not that it
matters now. But having risked discovery by venturing here at all,
I should have been glad to track some part of the way.' With
which singular words he abandoned his search, came up out of
Limehouse Hole, and took the way past Limehouse Church. At
the great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in.
He looked up at the high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and
he looked round at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead
in their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine tolls of the clockbell.
'It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,' said he, 'to be
looking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I
no more hold a place among the living than these dead do, and
even to know that I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie buried
here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that was once a man could
hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among
mankind, than I feel.
'But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real side, so
difficult that, though I think of it every day, I never thoroughly
think it out. Now, let me determine to think it out as I walk home.
I know I evade it, as many men--perhaps most men--do evade
thinking their way through their greatest perplexity. I will try to
pin myself to mine. Don't evade it, John Harmon; don't evade it;
think it out!
'When I came to England, attracted to the country with which I
had none but most miserable associations, by the accounts of my
fine inheritance that found me abroad, I came back, shrinking
from my father's money, shrinking from my father's memory,
mistrustful of being forced on a mercenary wife, mistrustful of my
father's intention in thrusting that marriage on me, mistrustful that
I was already growing avaricious, mistrustful that I was slackening
in gratitude to the two dear noble honest friends who had made
the only sunlight in my childish life or that of my hearthroken
sister. I came back, timid, divided in my mind, afraid of myself
and everybody here, knowing of nothing but wretchedness that
my father's wealth had ever brought about. Now, stop, and so far
think it out, John Harmon. Is that so? That is exactly so.
'On board serving as third mate was George Radfoot. I knew
nothing of him. His name first became known to me about a week
before we sailed, through my being accosted by one of the shipagent's
clerks as "Mr Radfoot." It was one day when I had gone
aboard to look to my preparations, and the clerk, coming behind
me as I stood on deck, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Mr
Rad-foot, look here," referring to some papers that he had in his
hand. And my name first became known to Radfoot, through
another clerk within a day or two, and while the ship was yet in
port, coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and
beginning, "I beg your pardon, Mr Harmon--." I believe we were
alike in bulk and stature but not otherwise, and that we were not
strikingly alike, even in those respects, when we were together
and could be compared.
'However, a sociable word or two on these mistakes became an
easy introduction between us, and the weather was hot, and he
helped me to a cool cabin on deck alongside his own, and his first
school had been at Brussels as mine had been, and he had learnt
French as I had learnt it, and he had a little history of himself to
relate--God only knows how much of it true, and how much of it
false--that had its likeness to mine. I had been a seaman too. So
we got to be confidential together, and the more easily yet,
because he and every one on board had known by general rumour
what I was making the voyage to England for. By such degrees
and means, he came to the knowledge of my uneasiness of mind,
and of its setting at that time in the direction of desiring to see and
form some judgment of my allotted wife, before she could
possibly know me for myself; also to try Mrs Boffin and give her a
glad surprise. So the plot was made out of our getting common
sailors' dresses (as he was able to guide me about London), and
throwing ourselves in Bella Wilfer's neighbourhood, and trying to
put ourselves in her way, and doing whatever chance might favour
on the spot, and seeing what came of it. If nothing came of it, I
should be no worse off, and there would merely be a short delay
in my presenting myself to Lightwood. I have all these facts right?
Yes. They are all accurately right.
'His advantage in all this was, that for a time I was to be lost. It
might be for a day or for two days, but I must be lost sight of on
landing, or there would be recognition, anticipation, and failure.
Therefore, I disembarked with my valise in my hand--as Potterson
the steward and Mr Jacob Kibble my fellow-passenger afterwards
remembered--and waited for him in the dark by that very
Limehouse Church which is now behind me.
'As I had always shunned the port of London, I only knew the
church through his pointing out its spire from on board. Perhaps I
might recall, if it were any good to try, the way by which I went to
it alone from the river; but how we two went from it to
Riderhood's shop, I don't know--any more than I know what turns
we took and doubles we made, after we left it. The way was
purposely confused, no doubt.
'But let me go on thinking the facts out, and avoid confusing them
with my speculations. Whether be took me by a straight way or a
crooked way, what is that to the purpose now? Steady, John
Harmon.
'When we stopped at Riderhood's, and he asked that scoundrel a
question or two, purporting to refer only to the lodging-houses in
which there was accommodation for us, had I the least suspicion
of him? None. Certainly none until afterwards when I held the
clue. I think he must have got from Riderhood in a paper, the
drug, or whatever it was, that afterwards stupefied me, but I am
far from sure. All I felt safe in charging on him to-night, was old
companionship in villainy between them. Their undisguised
intimacy, and the character I now know Riderhood to bear, made
that not at all adventurous. But I am not clear about the drug.
Thinking out the circumstances on which I found my suspicion,
they are only two. One: I remember his changing a small folded
paper from one pocket to another, after we came out, which he
had not touched before. Two: I now know Riderhood to have
been previously taken up for being concerned in the robbery of an
unlucky seaman, to whom some such poison had been given.
'It is my conviction that we cannot have gone a mile from that
shop, before we came to the wall, the dark doorway, the flight of
stairs, and the room. The night was particularly dark and it rained
hard. As I think the circumstances back, I hear the rain splashing
on the stone pavement of the passage, whch was not under cover.
The room overlooked the river, or a dock, or a creek, and the tide
was out. Being possessed of the time down to that point, I know
by the hour that it must have been about low water; but while the
coffee was getting ready, I drew back the curtain (a dark-brown
curtain), and, looking out, knew by the kind of reflection below,
of the few neighbouring lights, that they were reflected in tidal
mud.
'He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing a suit of
his clothes. I had no change of outer clothes with me, as I was to
buy slops. "You are very wet, Mr Harmon,"--I can hear him
saying--"and I am quite dry under this good waterproof coat. Put
on these clothes of mine. You may find on trying them that they
will answer your purpose to-morrow, as well as the slops you
mean to buy, or better. While you change, I'll hurry the hot
coffee." When he came back, I had his clothes on, and there was
a black man with him, wearing a linen jacket, like a steward, who
put the smoking coffee on the table in a tray and never looked at
me. I am so far literal and exact? Literal and exact, I am certain.
'Now, I pass to sick and deranged impressions; they are so strong,
that I rely upon them; but there are spaces between them that I
know nothing about, and they are not pervaded by any idea of
time.
'I had drank some coffee, when to my sense of sight he began to
swell immensely, and something urged me to rush at him. We had
a struggle near the door. He got from me, through my not
knowing where to strike, in the whirling round of the room, and
the flashing of flames of fire between us. I dropped down. Lying
helpless on the ground, I was turned over by a foot. I was dragged
by the neck into a corner. I heard men speak together. I was
turned over by other feet. I saw a figure like myself lying dressed
in my clothes on a bed. What might have been, for anything I
knew, a silence of days, weeks, months, years, was broken by a
violent wrestling of men all over the room. The figure like myself
was assailed, and my valise was in its hand. I was trodden upon
and fallen over. I heard a noise of blows, and thought it was a
wood-cutter cutting down a tree. I could not have said that my
name was John Harmon--I could not have thought it--I didn't
know it--but when I heard the blows, I thought of the wood-cutter
and his axe, and had some dead idea that I was lying in a forest.
'This is still correct? Still correct, with the exception that I cannot
possibly express it to myself without using the word I. But it was
not I. There was no such thing as I, within my knowledge.
'It was only after a downward slide through something like a tube,
and then a great noise and a sparkling and crackling as of fires,
that the consciousness came upon me, "This is John Harmon
drowning! John Harmon, struggle for your life. John Harmon,
call on Heaven and save yourself!" I think I cried it out aloud in a
great agony, and then a heavy horrid unintelligible something
vanished, and it was I who was struggling there alone in the water.
'I was very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with drowsiness,
and driving fast with the tide. Looking over the black water, I saw
the lights racing past me on the two banks of the river, as if they
were eager to be gone and leave me dying in the dark. The tide
was running down, but I knew nothing of up or down then. When,
guiding myself safely with Heaven's assistance before the fierce
set of the water, I at last caught at a boat moored, one of a tier of
boats at a causeway, I was sucked under her, and came up, only
just alive, on the other side.
'Was I long in the water? Long enough to be chilled to the heart,
but I don't know how long. Yet the cold was merciful, for it was
the cold night air and the rain that restored me from a swoon on
the stones of the causeway. They naturally supposed me to have
toppled in, drunk, when I crept to the public-house it belonged to;
for I had no notion where I was, and could not articulate--through
the poison that had made me insensible having affected my
speech--and I supposed the night to be the previous night, as it
was still dark and raining. But I had lost twenty-four hours.
'I have checked the calculation often, and it must have been two
nights that I lay recovering in that public-house. Let me see. Yes.
I am sure it was while I lay in that bed there, that the thought
entered my head of turning the danger I had passed through, to the
account of being for some time supposed to have disappeared
mysteriously, and of proving Bella. The dread of our being forced
on one another, and perpetuating the fate that seemed to have
fallen on my father's riches--the fate that they should lead to
nothing but evil--was strong upon the moral timidity that dates
from my childhood with my poor sister.
'As to this hour I cannot understand that side of the river where I
recovered the shore, being the opposite side to that on which I
was ensnared, I shall never understand it now. Even at this
moment, while I leave the river behind me, going home, I cannot
conceive that it rolls between me and that spot, or that the sea is
where it is. But this is not thinking it out; this is making a leap to
the present time.
'I could not have done it, but for the fortune in the waterproof belt
round my body. Not a great fortune, forty and odd pounds for the
inheritor of a hundred and odd thousand! But it was enough.
Without it I must have disclosed myself. Without it, I could never
have gone to that Exchequer Coffee House, or taken Mrs Wilfer's
lodgings.
'Some twelve days I lived at that hotel, before the night when I
saw the corpse of Radfoot at the Police Station. The inexpressible
mental horror that I laboured under, as one of the consequences of
the poison, makes the interval seem greatly longer, but I know it
cannot have been longer. That suffering has gradually weakened
and weakened since, and has only come upon me by starts, and I
hope I am free from it now; but even now, I have sometimes to
think, constrain myself, and stop before speaking, or I could not
say the words I want to say.
'Again I ramble away from thinking it out to the end. It is not so
far to the end that I need be tempted to break off. Now, on
straight!
'I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that I was
missing, but saw none. Going out that night to walk (for I kept
retired while it was light), I found a crowd assembled round a
placard posted at Whitehall. It described myself, John Harmon, as
found dead and mutilated in the river under circumstances of
strong suspicion, described my dress, described the papers in my
pockets, and stated where I was lying for recognition. In a wild
incautious way I hurried there, and there--with the horror of the
death I had escaped, before my eyes in its most appalling shape,
added to the inconceivable horror tormenting me at that time
when the poisonous stuff was strongest on me--I perceived that
Radfoot had been murdered by some unknown hands for the
money for which he would have murdered me, and that probably
we had both been shot into the river from the same dark place into
the same dark tide, when the stream ran deep and strong.
'That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I suspected no
one, could offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save that
the murdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while I
hesitated, and next day while I hesitated, it seemed as if the whole
country were determined to have me dead. The Inquest declared
me dead, the Government proclaimed me dead; I could not listen
at my fireside for five minutes to the outer noises, but it was borne
into my ears that I was dead.
'So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and John
Rokesmith was born. John Rokesmith's intent to-night has been to
repair a wrong that he could never have imagined possible,
coming to his ears through the Lightwood talk related to him, and
which he is bound by every consideration to remedy. In that
intent John Rokesmith will persevere, as his duty is.
'Now, is it all thought out? All to this time? Nothing omitted?
No, nothing. But beyond this time? To think it out through the
future, is a harder though a much shorter task than to think it out
through the past. John Harmon is dead. Should John Harmon
come to life?
'If yes, why? If no, why?'
'Take yes, first. To enlighten human Justice concerning the
offence of one far beyond it who may have a living mother. To
enlighten it with the lights of a stone passage, a flight of stairs, a
brown window-curtain, and a black man. To come into possession
of my father's money, and with it sordidly to buy a beautiful
creature whom I love--I cannot help it; reason has nothing to do
with it; I love her against reason--but who would as soon love me
for my own sake, as she would love the beggar at the corner.
What a use for the money, and how worthy of its old misuses!
'Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should not come to
life. Because he has passively allowed these dear old faithful
friends to pass into possession of the property. Because he sees
them happy with it, making a good use of it, effacing the old rust
and tarnish on the money. Because they have virtually adopted
Bella, and will provide for her. Because there is affection enough
in her nature, and warmth enough in her heart, to develop into
something enduringly good, under favourable conditions. Because
her faults have been intensified by her place in my father's will,
and she is already growing better. Because her marriage with
John Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would
be a shocking mockery, of which both she and I must always be
conscious, and which would degrade her in her mind, and me in
mine, and each of us in the other's. Because if John Harmon
comes to life and does not marry her, the property falls into the
very hands that hold it now.
'What would I have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my
lifetime still as true as tender and as faithful as when I was alive,
and making my memory an incentive to good actions done in my
name. Dead, I have found them when they might have slighted
my name, and passed greedily over my grave to ease and wealth,
lingering by the way, like single-hearted children, to recall their
love for me when I was a poor frightened child. Dead, I have
heard from the woman who would have been my wife if I had
lived, the revolting truth that I should have purchased her, caring
nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave.
'What would I have? If the dead could know, or do know, how
the living use them, who among the hosts of dead has found a
more disinterested fidelity on earth than I? Is not that enough for
me? If I had come back, these noble creatures would have
welcomed me, wept over me, given up everything to me with joy.
I did not come back, and they have passed unspoiled into my
place. Let them rest in it, and let Bella rest in hers.
'What course for me then? This. To live the same quiet Secretary
life, carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they shall
have become more accustomed to their altered state, and until the
great swarm of swindlers under many names shall have found
newer prey. By that time, the method I am establishing through
all the affairs, and with which I will every day take new pains to
make them both familiar, will be, I may hope, a machine in such
working order as that they can keep it going. I know I need but
ask of their generosity, to have. When the right time comes, I will
ask no more than will replace me in my former path of life, and
John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he may. But John
Harmon shall come back no more.
'That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak
misgiving that Bella might, in any contingency, have taken me for
my own sake if I had plainly asked her, I WILL plainly ask her:
proving beyond all question what I already know too well. And
now it is all thought out, from the beginning to the end, and my
mind is easier.'
So deeply engaged had the living-dead man been, in thus
communing with himself, that he had regarded neither the wind
nor the way, and had resisted the former instinctively as he had
pursued the latter. But being now come into the City, where there
was a coach-stand, he stood irresolute whether to go to his
lodgings, or to go first to Mr Boffin's house. He decided to go
round by the house, arguing, as he carried his overcoat upon his
arm, that it was less likely to attract notice if left there, than if
taken to Holloway: both Mrs Wilfer and Miss Lavinia being
ravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger
stood possessed.
Arriving at the house, he found that Mr and Mrs Boffin were out,
but that Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. Miss Wilfer had
remained at home, in consequence of not feeling very well, and
had inquired in the evening if Mr Rokesmith were in his room.
'Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am here now.'
Miss Wilfer's compliments came down in return, and, if it were
not too much trouble, would Mr Rokesmith be so kind as to come
up before he went?
It was not too much trouble, and Mr Rokesmith came up.
Oh she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! If the
father of the late John Harmon had but left his money
unconditionally to his son, and if his son had but lighted on this
loveable girl for himself, and had the happiness to make her loving
as well as loveable!
'Dear me! Are you not well, Mr Rokesmith?'
'Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, that YOU
were not.'
'A mere nothing. I had a headache--gone now--and was not quite
fit for a hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I asked you if you were
not well, because you look so white.'
'Do I? I have had a busy evening.'
She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining
jewel of a table, and her book and her work, beside her. Ah! what
a different life the late John Harmon's, if it had been his happy
privilege to take his place upon that ottoman, and draw his arm
about that waist, and say, 'I hope the time has been long without
me? What a Home Goddess you look, my darling!'
But, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late John
Harmon, remained standing at a distance. A little distance in
respect of space, but a great distance in respect of separation.
'Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting it
all round the corners, 'I wanted to say something to you when I
could have the opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude to
you the other day. You have no right to think ill of me, sir.'
The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half
sensitively injured, and half pettishly, would have been very much
admired by the late John Harmon.
'You don't know how well I think of you, Miss Wilfer.'
'Truly, you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr Rokesmith,
when you believe that in prosperity I neglect and forget my old
home.'
'Do I believe so?'
'You DID, sir, at any rate,' returned Bella.
'I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into which
you had fallen--insensibly and naturally fallen. It was no more
than that.'
'And I beg leave to ask you, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, 'why you
took that liberty?--I hope there is no offence in the phrase; it is
your own, remember.'
'Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, Miss
Wilfer. Because I wish to see you always at your best. Because
I--shall I go on?'
'No, sir,' returned Bella, with a burning face, 'you have said more
than enough. I beg that you will NOT go on. If you have any
generosity, any honour, you will say no more.'
The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the downcast
eyes, and at the quick breathing as it stirred the fall of bright
brown hair over the beautiful neck, would probably have
remained silent.
'I wish to speak to you, sir,' said Bella, 'once for all, and I don't
know how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, wishing to
speak to you, and determining to speak to you, and feeling that I
must. I beg for a moment's time.'
He remained silent, and she remained with her face averted,
sometimes making a slight movement as if she would turn and
speak. At length she did so.
'You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I am
situated at home. I must speak to you for myself, since there is no
one about me whom I could ask to do so. It is not generous in
you, it is not honourable in you, to conduct yourself towards me
as you do.'
'Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you; fascinated
by you?'
'Preposterous!' said Bella.
The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a
contemptuous and lofty word of repudiation.
'I now feel obliged to go on,' pursued the Secretary, 'though it
were only in self-explanation and self-defence. I hope, Miss
Wilfer, that it is not unpardonable--even in me--to make an honest
declaration of an honest devotion to you.'
'An honest declaration!' repeated Bella, with emphasis.
'Is it otherwise?'
'I must request, sir,' said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of timely
resentment, 'that I may not be questioned. You must excuse me if
I decline to be cross-examined.'
'Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing but
what your own emphasis suggests. However, I waive even that
question. But what I have declared, I take my stand by. I cannot
recall the avowal of my earnest and deep attachment to you, and I
do not recall it.'
'I reject it, sir,' said Bella.
'I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the reply.
Forgive my offence, for it carries its punishment with it.'
'What punishment?' asked Bella.
'Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did not mean to
cross-examine you again.'
'You take advantage of a hasty word of mine,' said Bella with a
little sting of self-reproach, 'to make me seem--I don't know what.
I spoke without consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I
am sorry; but you repeat it after consideration, and that seems to
me to be at least no better. For the rest, I beg it may be
understood, Mr Rokesmith, that there is an end of this between us,
now and for ever.'
'Now and for ever,' he repeated.
'Yes. I appeal to you, sir,' proceeded Bella with increasing spirit,
'not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage of your
position in this house to make my position in it distressing and
disagreeable. I appeal to you to discontinue your habit of making
your misplaced attentions as plain to Mrs Boffin as to me.'
'Have I done so?'
'I should think you have,' replied Bella. 'In any case it is not your
fault if you have not, Mr Rokesmith.'
'I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should be very sorry to
have justified it. I think I have not. For the future there is no
apprehension. It is all over.'
'I am much relieved to hear it,' said Bella. 'I have far other views
in life, and why should you waste your own?'
'Mine!' said the Secretary. 'My life!'
His curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile with
which he said it. It was gone as he glanced back. 'Pardon me,
Miss Wilfer,' he proceeded, when their eyes met; 'you have used
some hard words, for which I do not doubt you have a justification
in your mind, that I do not understand. Ungenerous and
dishonourable. In what?'
'I would rather not be asked,' said Bella, haughtily looking down.
'I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon me.
Kindly explain; or if not kindly, justly.'
'Oh, sir!' said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little struggle to
forbear, 'is it generous and honourable to use the power here
which your favour with Mr and Mrs Boffin and your ability in
your place give you, against me?'
'Against you?'
'Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually
bringing their influence to bear upon a suit which I have shown
you that I do not like, and which I tell you that I utterly reject?'
The late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but he would
have been cut to the heart by such a suspicion as this.
'Would it be generous and honourable to step into your place--if
you did so, for I don't know that you did, and I hope you did not--
anticipating, or knowing beforehand, that I should come here, and
designing to take me at this disadvantage?'
'This mean and cruel disadvantage,' said the Secretary.
'Yes,' assented Bella.
The Secretary kept silence for a little while; then merely said,
'You are wholly mistaken, Miss Wilfer; wonderfully mistaken. I
cannot say, however, that it is your fault. If I deserve better
things of you, you do not know it.'
'At least, sir,' retorted Bella, with her old indignation rising, 'you
know the history of my being here at all. I have heard Mr Boffin
say that you are master of every line and word of that will, as you
are master of all his affairs. And was it not enough that I should
have been willed away, like a horse, or a dog, or a bird; but must
you too begin to dispose of me in your mind, and speculate in me,
as soon as I had ceased to be the talk and the laugh of the town?
Am I for ever to be made the property of strangers?'
'Believe me,' returned the Secretary, 'you are wonderfully
mistaken.'
'I should be glad to know it,' answered Bella.
'I doubt if you ever will. Good-night. Of course I shall be careful
to conceal any traces of this interview from Mr and Mrs Boffin, as
long as I remain here. Trust me, what you have complained of is
at an end for ever.'
'I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr Rokesmith. It has been painful
and difficult, but it is done. If I have hurt you, I hope you will
forgive me. I am inexperienced and impetuous, and I have been a
little spoilt; but I really am not so bad as I dare say I appear, or as
you think me.'
He quitted the room when Bella had said this, relenting in her
wilful inconsistent way. Left alone, she threw herself back on her
ottoman, and said, 'I didn't know the lovely woman was such a
Dragon!' Then, she got up and looked in the glass, and said to her
image, 'You have been positively swelling your features, you little
fool!' Then, she took an impatient walk to the other end of the
room and back, and said, 'I wish Pa was here to have a talk about
an avaricious marriage; but he is better away, poor dear, for I
know I should pull his hair if he WAS here.' And then she threw
her work away, and threw her book after it, and sat down and
hummed a tune, and hummed it out of tune, and quarrelled with it.
And John Rokesmith, what did he?
He went down to his room, and buried John Harmon many
additional fathoms deep. He took his hat, and walked out, and, as
he went to Holloway or anywhere else--not at all minding where--
heaped mounds upon mounds of earth over John Harmon's grave.
His walking did not bring him home until the dawn of day. And so
busy had he been all night, piling and piling weights upon weights
of earth above John Harmon's grave, that by that time John
Harmon lay buried under a whole Alpine range; and still the
Sexton Rokesmith accumulated mountains over him, lightening his
labour with the dirge, 'Cover him, crush him, keep him down!'
Chapter 14
STRONG OF PURPOSE
The sexton-task of piling earth above John Harmon all night long,
was not conducive to sound sleep; but Rokesmith had some
broken morning rest, and rose strengthened in his purpose. It was
all over now. No ghost should trouble Mr and Mrs Boffin's peace;
invisible and voiceless, the ghost should look on for a little while
longer at the state of existence out of which it had departed, and
then should for ever cease to haunt the scenes in which it had no
place.
He went over it all again. He had lapsed into the condition in
which he found himself, as many a man lapses into many a
condition, without perceiving the accumulative power of its
separate circumstances. When in the distrust engendered by his
wretched childhood and the action for evil--never yet for good
within his knowledge then--of his father and his father's wealth on
all within their influence, he conceived the idea of his first
deception, it was meant to be harmless, it was to last but a few
hours or days, it was to involve in it only the girl so capriciously
forced upon him and upon whom he was so capriciously forced,
and it was honestly meant well towards her. For, if he had found
her unhappy in the prospect of that marriage (through her heart
inclining to another man or for any other cause), be would
seriously have said: 'This is another of the old perverted uses of
the misery-making money. I will let it go to my and my sister's
only protectors and friends.' When the snare into which he fell so
outstripped his first intention as that he found himself placarded
by the police authorities upon the London walls for dead, he
confusedly accepted the aid that fell upon him, without
considering how firmly it must seem to fix the Boffins in their
accession to the fortune. When he saw them, and knew them, and
even from his vantage-ground of inspection could find no flaw in
them, he asked himself, 'And shall I come to life to dispossess
such people as these?' There was no good to set against the
putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from Bella's own
lips when he stood tapping at the door on that night of his taking
the lodgings, that the marriage would have been on her part
thoroughly mercenary. He had since tried her, in his own
unknown person and supposed station, and she not only rejected
his advances but resented them. Was it for him to have the shame
of buying her, or the meanness of punishing her? Yet, by coming
to life and accepting the condition of the inheritance, he must do
the former; and by coming to life and rejecting it, he must do the
latter.
Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the
implication of an innocent man in his supposed murder. He would
obtain complete retraction from the accuser, and set the wrong
right; but clearly the wrong could never have been done if he had
never planned a deception. Then, whatever inconvenience or
distress of mind the deception cost him, it was manful repentantly
to accept as among its consequences, and make no complaint.
Thus John Rokesmith in the morning, and it buried John Harmon
still many fathoms deeper than he had been buried in the night.
Going out earlier than he was accustomed to do, he encountered
the cherub at the door. The cherub's way was for a certain space
his way, and they walked together.
It was impossible not to notice the change in the cherub's
appearance. The cherub felt very conscious of it, and modestly
remarked:
'A present from my daughter Bella, Mr Rokesmith.'
The words gave the Secretary a stroke of pleasure, for he
remembered the fifty pounds, and he still loved the girl. No doubt
it was very weak--it always IS very weak, some authorities hold--
but he loved the girl.
'I don't know whether you happen to have read many books of
African Travel, Mr Rokesmith?' said R. W.
'I have read several.'
'Well, you know, there's usually a King George, or a King Boy, or
a King Sambo, or a King Bill, or Bull, or Rum, or Junk, or
whatever name the sailors may have happened to give him.'
'Where?' asked Rokesmith.
'Anywhere. Anywhere in Africa, I mean. Pretty well everywhere,
I may say; for black kings are cheap--and I think'--said R. W.,
with an apologetic air, 'nasty'.
'I am much of your opinion, Mr Wilfer. You were going to say--?'
'I was going to say, the king is generally dressed in a London hat
only, or a Manchester pair of braces, or one epaulette, or an
uniform coat with his legs in the sleeves, or something of that
kind.'
'Just so,' said the Secretary.
'In confidence, I assure you, Mr Rokesmith,' observed the cheerful
cherub, 'that when more of my family were at home and to be
provided for, I used to remind myself immensely of that king.
You have no idea, as a single man, of the difficulty I have had in
wearing more than one good article at a time.'
'I can easily believe it, Mr Wilfer.'
'I only mention it,' said R. W. in the warmth of his heart, 'as a
proof of the amiable, delicate, and considerate affection of my
daughter Bella. If she had been a little spoilt, I couldn't have
thought so very much of it, under the circumstances. But no, not
a bit. And she is so very pretty! I hope you agree with me in
finding her very pretty, Mr Rokesmith?'
'Certainly I do. Every one must.'
'I hope so,' said the cherub. 'Indeed, I have no doubt of it. This is
a great advancement for her in life, Mr Rokesmith. A great
opening of her prospects?'
'Miss Wilfer could have no better friends than Mr and Mrs Boffin.'
'Impossible!' said the gratified cherub. 'Really I begin to think
things are very well as they are. If Mr John Harmon had lived--'
'He is better dead,' said the Secretary.
'No, I won't go so far as to say that,' urged the cherub, a little
remonstrant against the very decisive and unpitying tone; 'but he
mightn't have suited Bella, or Bella mightn't have suited him, or
fifty things, whereas now I hope she can choose for herself.'
'Has she--as you place the confidence in me of speaking on the
subject, you will excuse my asking--has she--perhaps--chosen?'
faltered the Secretary.
'Oh dear no!' returned R. W.
'Young ladies sometimes,' Rokesmith hinted, 'choose without
mentioning their choice to their fathers.'
'Not in this case, Mr Rokesmith. Between my daughter Bella and
me there is a regular league and covenant of confidence. It was
ratified only the other day. The ratification dates from--these,'
said the cherub, giving a little pull at the lappels of his coat and
the pockets of his trousers. 'Oh no, she has not chosen. To be
sure, young George Sampson, in the days when Mr John Harmon--'
'Who I wish had never been born!' said the Secretary, with a
gloomy brow.
R. W. looked at him with surprise, as thinking he had contracted
an unaccountable spite against the poor deceased, and continued:
'In the days when Mr John Harmon was being sought out, young
George Sampson certainly was hovering about Bella, and Bella let
him hover. But it never was seriously thought of, and it's still less
than ever to be thought of now. For Bella is ambitious, Mr
Rokesmith, and I think I may predict will marry fortune. This
time, you see, she will have the person and the property before
her together, and will be able to make her choice with her eyes
open. This is my road. I am very sorry to part company so soon.
Good morning, sir!'
The Secretary pursued his way, not very much elevated in spirits
by this conversation, and, arriving at the Boffin mansion, found
Betty Higden waiting for him.
'I should thank you kindly, sir,' said Betty, 'if I might make so bold
as have a word or two wi' you.'
She should have as many words as she liked, he told her; and took
her into his room, and made her sit down.
''Tis concerning Sloppy, sir,' said Betty. 'And that's how I come
here by myself. Not wishing him to know what I'm a-going to say
to you, I got the start of him early and walked up.'
'You have wonderful energy,' returned Rokesmith. 'You are as
young as I am.'
Betty Higden gravely shook her head. 'I am strong for my time of
life, sir, but not young, thank the Lord!'
'Are you thankful for not being young?'
'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through
again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see? But
never mind me; 'tis concerning Sloppy.'
'And what about him, Betty?'
''Tis just this, sir. It can't be reasoned out of his head by any
powers of mine but what that he can do right by your kind lady
and gentleman and do his work for me, both together. Now he
can't. To give himself up to being put in the way of arning a good
living and getting on, he must give me up. Well; he won't.'
'I respect him for it,' said Rokesmith.
'DO ye, sir? I don't know but what I do myself. Still that don't
make it right to let him have his way. So as he won't give me up,
I'm a-going to give him up.'
'How, Betty?'
'I'm a-going to run away from him.'
With an astonished look at the indomitable old face and the bright
eyes, the Secretary repeated, 'Run away from him?'
'Yes, sir,' said Betty, with one nod. And in the nod and in the firm
set of her mouth, there was a vigour of purpose not to be doubted.
'Come, come!' said the Secretary. 'We must talk about this. Let
us take our time over it, and try to get at the true sense of the case
and the true course, by degrees.'
'Now, lookee here, by dear,' returned old Betty--'asking your
excuse for being so familiar, but being of a time of life a'most to
be your grandmother twice over. Now, lookee, here. 'Tis a poor
living and a hard as is to be got out of this work that I'm a doing
now, and but for Sloppy I don't know as I should have held to it
this long. But it did just keep us on, the two together. Now that
I'm alone--with even Johnny gone--I'd far sooner be upon my feet
and tiring of myself out, than a sitting folding and folding by the
fire. And I'll tell you why. There's a deadness steals over me at
times, that the kind of life favours and I don't like. Now, I seem to
have Johnny in my arms--now, his mother--now, his mother's
mother--now, I seem to be a child myself, a lying once again in the
arms of my own mother--then I get numbed, thought and sense,
till I start out of my seat, afeerd that I'm a growing like the poor
old people that they brick up in the Unions, as you may sometimes
see when they let 'em out of the four walls to have a warm in the
sun, crawling quite scared about the streets. I was a nimble girl,
and have always been a active body, as I told your lady, first time
ever I see her good face. I can still walk twenty mile if I am put to
it. I'd far better be a walking than a getting numbed and dreary.
I'm a good fair knitter, and can make many little things to sell.
The loan from your lady and gentleman of twenty shillings to fit
out a basket with, would be a fortune for me. Trudging round the
country and tiring of myself out, I shall keep the deadness off, and
get my own bread by my own labour. And what more can I
want?'
'And this is your plan,' said the Secretary, 'for running away?'
'Show me a better! My deary, show me a better! Why, I know
very well,' said old Betty Higden, 'and you know very well, that
your lady and gentleman would set me up like a queen for the rest
of my life, if so be that we could make it right among us to have it
so. But we can't make it right among us to have it so. I've never
took charity yet, nor yet has any one belonging to me. And it
would be forsaking of myself indeed, and forsaking of my children
dead and gone, and forsaking of their children dead and gone, to
set up a contradiction now at last.'
'It might come to be justifiable and unavoidable at last,' the
Secretary gently hinted, with a slight stress on the word.
'I hope it never will! It ain't that I mean to give offence by being
anyways proud,' said the old creature simply, 'but that I want to be
of a piece like, and helpful of myself right through to my death.'
'And to be sure,' added the Secretary, as a comfort for her, 'Sloppy
will be eagerly looking forward to his opportunity of being to you
what you have been to him.'
'Trust him for that, sir!' said Betty, cheerfully. 'Though he had
need to be something quick about it, for I'm a getting to be an old
one. But I'm a strong one too, and travel and weather never hurt
me yet! Now, be so kind as speak for me to your lady and
gentleman, and tell 'em what I ask of their good friendliness to let
me do, and why I ask it.'
The Secretary felt that there was no gainsaying what was urged by
this brave old heroine, and he presently repaired to Mrs Boffin
and recommended her to let Betty Higden have her way, at all
events for the time. 'It would be far more satisfactory to your kind
heart, I know,' he said, 'to provide for her, but it may be a duty to
respect this independent spirit.' Mrs Boffin was not proof against
the consideration set before her. She and her husband had worked
too, and had brought their simple faith and honour clean out of
dustheaps. If they owed a duty to Betty Higden, of a surety that
duty must be done.
'But, Betty,' said Mrs Boffin, when she accompanied John
Rokesmith back to his room, and shone upon her with the light of
her radiant face, 'granted all else, I think I wouldn't run away'.
''Twould come easier to Sloppy,' said Mrs Higden, shaking her
head. ''Twould come easier to me too. But 'tis as you please.'
'When would you go?'
'Now,' was the bright and ready answer. 'To-day, my deary, tomorrow.
Bless ye, I am used to it. I know many parts of the
country well. When nothing else was to be done, I have worked
in many a market-garden afore now, and in many a hop-garden
too.'
'If I give my consent to your going, Betty--which Mr Rokesmith
thinks I ought to do--'
Betty thanked him with a grateful curtsey.
'--We must not lose sight of you. We must not let you pass out of
our knowledge. We must know all about you.'
'Yes, my deary, but not through letter-writing, because letterwriting--
indeed, writing of most sorts hadn't much come up for
such as me when I was young. But I shall be to and fro. No fear
of my missing a chance of giving myself a sight of your reviving
face. Besides,' said Betty, with logical good faith, 'I shall have a
debt to pay off, by littles, and naturally that would bring me back,
if nothing else would.'
'MUST it be done?' asked Mrs Boffin, still reluctant, of the
Secretary.
'I think it must.'
After more discussion it was agreed that it should be done, and
Mrs Boffin summoned Bella to note down the little purchases that
were necessary to set Betty up in trade. 'Don't ye be timorous for
me, my dear,' said the stanch old heart, observant of Bella's face:
when I take my seat with my work, clean and busy and fresh, in a
country market-place, I shall turn a sixpence as sure as ever a
farmer's wife there.'
The Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the practical
question of Mr Sloppy's capabilities. He would have made a
wonderful cabinet-maker, said Mrs Higden, 'if there had been the
money to put him to it.' She had seen him handle tools that he had
borrowed to mend the mangle, or to knock a broken piece of
furniture together, in a surprising manner. As to constructing toys
for the Minders, out of nothing, he had done that daily. And once
as many as a dozen people had got together in the lane to see the
neatness with which he fitted the broken pieces of a foreign
monkey's musical instrument. 'That's well,' said the Secretary. 'It
will not be hard to find a trade for him.'
John Harmon being buried under mountains now, the Secretary
that very same day set himself to finish his affairs and have done
with him. He drew up an ample declaration, to be signed by
Rogue Riderhood (knowing he could get his signature to it, by
making him another and much shorter evening call), and then
considered to whom should he give the document? To Hexam's
son, or daughter? Resolved speedily, to the daughter. But it
would be safer to avoid seeing the daughter, because the son had
seen Julius Handford, and--he could not be too careful--there
might possibly be some comparison of notes between the son and
daughter, which would awaken slumbering suspicion, and lead to
consequences. 'I might even,' he reflected, 'be apprehended as
having been concerned in my own murder!' Therefore, best to
send it to the daughter under cover by the post. Pleasant
Riderhood had undertaken to find out where she lived, and it was
not necessary that it should be attended by a single word of
explanation. So far, straight.
But, all that he knew of the daughter he derived from Mrs Boffin's
accounts of what she heard from Mr Lightwood, who seemed to
have a reputation for his manner of relating a story, and to have
made this story quite his own. It interested him, and he would like
to have the means of knowing more--as, for instance, that she
received the exonerating paper, and that it satisfied her--by
opening some channel altogether independent of Lightwood: who
likewise had seen Julius Handford, who had publicly advertised
for Julius Handford, and whom of all men he, the Secretary, most
avoided. 'But with whom the common course of things might
bring me in a moment face to face, any day in the week or any
hour in the day.'
Now, to cast about for some likely means of opening such a
channel. The boy, Hexam, was training for and with a
schoolmaster. The Secretary knew it, because his sister's share in
that disposal of him seemed to be the best part of Lightwood's
account of the family. This young fellow, Sloppy, stood in need of
some instruction. If he, the Secretary, engaged that schoolmaster
to impart it to him, the channel might be opened. The next point
was, did Mrs Boffin know the schoolmaster's name? No, but she
knew where the school was. Quite enough. Promptly the
Secretary wrote to the master of that school, and that very
evening Bradley Headstone answered in person.
The Secretary stated to the schoolmaster how the object was, to
send to him for certain occasional evening instruction, a youth
whom Mr and Mrs Boffin wished to help to an industrious and
useful place in life. The schoolmaster was willing to undertake the
charge of such a pupil. The Secretary inquired on what terms?
The schoolmaster stated on what terms. Agreed and disposed of.
'May I ask, sir,' said Bradley Headstone, 'to whose good opinion I
owe a recommendation to you?'
'You should know that I am not the principal here. I am Mr
Boffin's Secretary. Mr Boffin is a gentleman who inherited a
property of which you may have heard some public mention; the
Harmon property.'
'Mr Harmon,' said Bradley: who would have been a great deal
more at a loss than he was, if he had known to whom he spoke:
'was murdered and found in the river.'
'Was murdered and found in the river.'
'It was not--'
'No,' interposed the Secretary, smiling, 'it was not he who
recommended you. Mr Boffin heard of you through a certain Mr
Lightwood. I think you know Mr Lightwood, or know of him?'
'I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have no
acquaintance with Mr Lightwood, and I desire none. I have no
objection to Mr Lightwood, but I have a particular objection to
some of Mr Lightwood's friends--in short, to one of Mr
Lightwood's friends. His great friend.'
He could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so fierce
did he grow (though keeping himself down with infinite pains of
repression), when the careless and contemptuous bearing of
Eugene Wrayburn rose before his mind.
The Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some sore
point, and he would have made a diversion from it, but for
Bradley's holding to it in his cumbersome way.
'I have no objection to mention the friend by name,' he said,
doggedly. 'The person I object to, is Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'
The Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recollection of
that night when he was striving against the drugged drink, there
was but a dim image of Eugene's person; but he remembered his
name, and his manner of speaking, and how he had gone with
them to view the body, and where he had stood, and what he had
said.
'Pray, Mr Headstone, what is the name,' he asked, again trying to
make a diversion, 'of young Hexam's sister?'
'Her name is Lizzie,' said the schoolmaster, with a strong
contraction of his whole face.
'She is a young woman of a remarkable character; is she not?'
'She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to Mr Eugene
Wrayburn--though an ordinary person might be that,' said the
schoolmaster; 'and I hope you will not think it impertinent in me,
sir, to ask why you put the two names together?'
'By mere accident,' returned the Secretary. 'Observing that Mr
Wrayburn was a disagreeable subject with you, I tried to get away
from it: though not very successfully, it would appear.'
'Do you know Mr Wrayburn, sir?'
'No.'
'Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the authority
of any representation of his?'
'Certainly not.'
'I took the liberty to ask,' said Bradley, after casting his eyes on
the ground, 'because he is capable of making any representation,
in the swaggering levity of his insolence. I--I hope you will not
misunderstand me, sir. I--I am much interested in this brother and
sister, and the subject awakens very strong feelings within me.
Very, very, strong feelings.' With a shaking hand, Bradley took
out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.
The Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster's face,
that he had opened a channel here indeed, and that it was an
unexpectedly dark and deep and stormy one, and difficult to
sound. All at once, in the midst of his turbulent emotions, Bradley
stopped and seemed to challenge his look. Much as though he
suddenly asked him, 'What do you see in me?'
'The brother, young Hexam, was your real recommendation here,'
said the Secretary, quietly going back to the point; 'Mr and Mrs
Boffin happening to know, through Mr Lightwood, that he was
your pupil. Anything that I ask respecting the brother and sister,
or either of them, I ask for myself out of my own interest in the
subject, and not in my official character, or on Mr Boffin's behalf.
How I come to be interested, I need not explain. You know the
father's connection with the discovery of Mr Harmon's body.'
'Sir,' replied Bradley, very restlessly indeed, 'I know all the
circumstances of that case.'
'Pray tell me, Mr Headstone,' said the Secretary. 'Does the sister
suffer under any stigma because of the impossible accusation--
groundless would be a better word--that was made against the
father, and substantially withdrawn?'
'No, sir,' returned Bradley, with a kind of anger.
'I am very glad to hear it.'
'The sister,' said Bradley, separating his words over-carefully, and
speaking as if he were repeating them from a book, 'suffers under
no reproach that repels a man of unimpeachable character who
had made for himself every step of his way in life, from placing
her in his own station. I will not say, raising her to his own
station; I say, placing her in it. The sister labours under no
reproach, unless she should unfortunately make it for herself.
When such a man is not deterred from regarding her as his equal,
and when he has convinced himself that there is no blemish on
her, I think the fact must be taken to be pretty expressive.'
'And there is such a man?' said the Secretary.
Bradley Headstone knotted his brows, and squared his large lower
jaw, and fixed his eyes on the ground with an air of determination
that seemed unnecessary to the occasion, as he replied: 'And there
is such a man.'
The Secretary had no reason or excuse for prolonging the
conversation, and it ended here. Within three hours the oakumheaded
apparition once more dived into the Leaving Shop, and
that night Rogue Riderhood's recantation lay in the post office,
addressed under cover to Lizzie Hexam at her right address.
All these proceedings occupied John Rokesmith so much, that it
was not until the following day that he saw Bella again. It seemed
then to be tacitly understood between them that they were to be
as distantly easy as they could, without attracting the attention of
Mr and Mrs Boffin to any marked change in their manner. The
fitting out of old Betty Higden was favourable to this, as keeping
Bella engaged and interested, and as occupying the general
attention.
'I think,' said Rokesmith, when they all stood about her, while she
packed her tidy basket--except Bella, who was busily helping on
her knees at the chair on which it stood; 'that at least you might
keep a letter in your pocket, Mrs Higden, which I would write for
you and date from here, merely stating, in the names of Mr and
Mrs Boffin, that they are your friends;--I won't say patrons,
because they wouldn't like it.'
'No, no, no,' said Mr Boffin; 'no patronizing! Let's keep out of
THAT, whatever we come to.'
'There's more than enough of that about, without us; ain't there,
Noddy?' said Mrs Boffin.
'I believe you, old lady!' returned the Golden Dustman.
'Overmuch indeed!'
'But people sometimes like to be patronized; don't they, sir?' asked
Bella, looking up.
'I don't. And if THEY do, my dear, they ought to learn better,'
said Mr Boffin. 'Patrons and Patronesses, and Vice-Patrons and
Vice-Patronesses, and Deceased Patrons and Deceased
Patronesses, and Ex-Vice-Patrons and Ex-Vice-Patronesses, what
does it all mean in the books of the Charities that come pouring in
on Rokesmith as he sits among 'em pretty well up to his neck! If
Mr Tom Noakes gives his five shillings ain't he a Patron, and if
Mrs Jack Styles gives her five shillings ain't she a Patroness?
What the deuce is it all about? If it ain't stark staring impudence,
what do you call it?'
'Don't be warm, Noddy,' Mrs Boffin urged.
'Warm!' cried Mr Boffin. 'It's enough to make a man smoking hot.
I can't go anywhere without being Patronized. I don't want to be
Patronized. If I buy a ticket for a Flower Show, or a Music Show,
or any sort of Show, and pay pretty heavy for it, why am I to be
Patroned and Patronessed as if the Patrons and Patronesses
treated me? If there's a good thing to be done, can't it be done on
its own merits? If there's a bad thing to be done, can it ever be
Patroned and Patronessed right? Yet when a new Institution's
going to be built, it seems to me that the bricks and mortar ain't
made of half so much consequence as the Patrons and
Patronesses; no, nor yet the objects. I wish somebody would tell
me whether other countries get Patronized to anything like the
extent of this one! And as to the Patrons and Patronesses
themselves, I wonder they're not ashamed of themselves. They
ain't Pills, or Hair-Washes, or Invigorating Nervous Essences, to
be puffed in that way!'
Having delivered himself of these remarks, Mr Boffin took a trot,
according to his usual custom, and trotted back to the spot from
which he had started.
'As to the letter, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, 'you're as right as a
trivet. Give her the letter, make her take the letter, put it in her
pocket by violence. She might fall sick. You know you might fall
sick,' said Mr Boffin. 'Don't deny it, Mrs Higden, in your
obstinacy; you know you might.'
Old Betty laughed, and said that she would take the letter and be
thankful.
'That's right!' said Mr Boffin. 'Come! That's sensible. And don't
be thankful to us (for we never thought of it), but to Mr
Rokesmith.'
The letter was written, and read to her, and given to her.
'Now, how do you feel?' said Mr Boffin. 'Do you like it?'
'The letter, sir?' said Betty. 'Ay, it's a beautiful letter!'
'No, no, no; not the letter,' said Mr Boffin; 'the idea. Are you sure
you're strong enough to carry out the idea?'
'I shall be stronger, and keep the deadness off better, this way,
than any way left open to me, sir.'
'Don't say than any way left open, you know,' urged Mr Boffin;
'because there are ways without end. A housekeeper would be
acceptable over yonder at the Bower, for instance. Wouldn't you
like to see the Bower, and know a retired literary man of the name
of Wegg that lives there--WITH a wooden leg?'
Old Betty was proof even against this temptation, and fell to
adjusting her black bonnet and shawl.
'I wouldn't let you go, now it comes to this, after all,' said Mr
Boffin, 'if I didn't hope that it may make a man and a workman of
Sloppy, in as short a time as ever a man and workman was made
yet. Why, what have you got there, Betty? Not a doll?'
It was the man in the Guards who had been on duty over Johnny's
bed. The solitary old woman showed what it was, and put it up
quietly in her dress. Then, she gratefully took leave of Mrs
Boffin, and of Mr Boffin, and of Rokesmith, and then put her old
withered arms round Bella's young and blooming neck, and said,
repeating Johnny's words: 'A kiss for the boofer lady.'
The Secretary looked on from a doorway at the boofer lady thus
encircled, and still looked on at the boofer lady standing alone
there, when the determined old figure with its steady bright eyes
was trudging through the streets, away from paralysis and
pauperism.
Chapter 15
THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR
Bradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he was to
have with Lizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it, he had been
impelled by a feeling little short of desperation, and the feeling
abided by him. It was very soon after his interview with the
Secretary, that he and Charley Hexam set out one leaden evening,
not unnoticed by Miss Peecher, to have this desperate interview
accomplished.
'That dolls' dressmaker,' said Bradley, 'is favourable neither to me
nor to you, Hexam.'
'A pert crooked little chit, Mr Headstone! I knew she would put
herself in the way, if she could, and would be sure to strike in with
something impertinent. It was on that account that I proposed our
going to the City to-night and meeting my sister.'
'So I supposed,' said Bradley, getting his gloves on his nervous
hands as he walked. 'So I supposed.'
'Nobody but my sister,' pursued Charley, 'would have found out
such an extraordinary companion. She has done it in a ridiculous
fancy of giving herself up to another. She told me so, that night
when we went there.'
'Why should she give herself up to the dressmaker?' asked
Bradley.
'Oh!' said the boy, colouring. 'One of her romantic ideas! I tried
to convince her so, but I didn't succeed. However, what we have
got to do, is, to succeed to-night, Mr Headstone, and then all the
rest follows.'
'You are still sanguine, Hexam.'
'Certainly I am, sir. Why, we have everything on our side.'
'Except your sister, perhaps,' thought Bradley. But he only
gloomily thought it, and said nothing.
'Everything on our side,' repeated the boy with boyish confidence.
'Respectability, an excellent connexion for me, common sense,
everything!'
'To be sure, your sister has always shown herself a devoted sister,'
said Bradley, willing to sustain himself on even that low ground of
hope.
'Naturally, Mr Headstone, I have a good deal of influence with
her. And now that you have honoured me with your confidence
and spoken to me first, I say again, we have everything on our
side.'
And Bradley thought again, 'Except your sister, perhaps.'
A grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful
aspect. The closed warehouses and offices have an air of death
about them, and the national dread of colour has an air of
mourning. The towers and steeples of the many houseencompassed
churches, dark and dingy as the sky that seems
descending on them, are no relief to the general gloom; a sun-dial
on a church-wall has the look, in its useless black shade, of having
failed in its business enterprise and stopped payment for ever;
melancholy waifs and strays of housekeepers and porter sweep
melancholy waifs and strays of papers and pins into the kennels,
and other more melancholy waifs and strays explore them,
searching and stooping and poking for anything to sell. The set of
humanity outward from the City is as a set of prisoners departing
from gaol, and dismal Newgate seems quite as fit a stronghold for
the mighty Lord Mayor as his own state-dwelling.
On such an evening, when the city grit gets into the hair and eyes
and skin, and when the fallen leaves of the few unhappy city trees
grind down in corners under wheels of wind, the schoolmaster and
the pupil emerged upon the Leadenhall Street region, spying
eastward for Lizzie. Being something too soon in their arrival,
they lurked at a corner, waiting for her to appear. The bestlooking
among us will not look very well, lurking at a corner, and
Bradley came out of that disadvantage very poorly indeed.
'Here she comes, Mr Headstone! Let us go forward and meet her.'
As they advanced, she saw them coming, and seemed rather
troubled. But she greeted her brother with the usual warmth, and
touched the extended hand of Bradley.
'Why, where are you going, Charley, dear?' she asked him then.
'Nowhere. We came on purpose to meet you.'
'To meet me, Charley?'
'Yes. We are going to walk with you. But don't let us take the
great leading streets where every one walks, and we can't hear
ourselves speak. Let us go by the quiet backways. Here's a large
paved court by this church, and quiet, too. Let us go up here.'
'But it's not in the way, Charley.'
'Yes it is,' said the boy, petulantly. 'It's in my way, and my way is
yours.'
She had not released his hand, and, still holding it, looked at him
with a kind of appeal. He avoided her eyes, under pretence of
saying, 'Come along, Mr Headstone.' Bradley walked at his side--
not at hers--and the brother and sister walked hand in hand. The
court brought them to a churchyard; a paved square court, with a
raised bank of earth about breast high, in the middle, enclosed by
iron rails. Here, conveniently and heathfully elevated above the
level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones; some of the
latter droopingly inclined from the perpendicular, as if they were
ashamed of the lies they told.
They paced the whole of this place once, in a constrained and
uncomfortable manner, when the boy stopped and said:
'Lizzie, Mr Headstone has something to say to you. I don't wish to
be an interruption either to him or to you, and so I'll go and take a
little stroll and come back. I know in a general way what Mr
Headstone intends to say, and I very highly approve of it, as I
hope--and indeed I do not doubt--you will. I needn't tell you,
Lizzie, that I am under great obligations to Mr Headstone, and that
I am very anxious for Mr Headstone to succeed in all he
undertakes. As I hope--and as, indeed, I don't doubt--you must
be.'
'Charley,' returned his sister, detaining his hand as he withdrew it,
'I think you had better stay. I think Mr Headstone had better not
say what he thinks of saying.'
'Why, how do you know what it is?' returned the boy.
'Perhaps I don't, but--'
'Perhaps you don't? No, Liz, I should think not. If you knew what
it was, you would give me a very different answer. There; let go;
be sensible. I wonder you don't remember that Mr Headstone is
looking on.'
She allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, after
saying, 'Now Liz, be a rational girl and a good sister,' walked
away. She remained standing alone with Bradley Headstone, and
it was not until she raised her eyes, that he spoke.
'I said,' he began, 'when I saw you last, that there was something
unexplained, which might perhaps influence you. I have come
this evening to explain it. I hope you will not judge of me by my
hesitating manner when I speak to you. You see me at my
greatest disadvantage. It is most unfortunate for me that I wish
you to see me at my best, and that I know you see me at my
worst.'
She moved slowly on when he paused, and he moved slowly on
beside her.
'It seems egotistical to begin by saying so much about myself,' he
resumed, 'but whatever I say to you seems, even in my own ears,
below what I want to say, and different from what I want to say. I
can't help it. So it is. You are the ruin of me.'
She started at the passionate sound of the last words, and at the
passionate action of his hands, with which they were
accompanied.
'Yes! you are the ruin--the ruin--the ruin--of me. I have no
resources in myself, I have no confidence in myself, I have no
government of myself when you are near me or in my thoughts.
And you are always in my thoughts now. I have never been quit
of you since I first saw you. Oh, that was a wretched day for me!
That was a wretched, miserable day!'
A touch of pity for him mingled with her dislike of him, and she
said: 'Mr Headstone, I am grieved to have done you any harm, but
I have never meant it.'
'There!' he cried, despairingly. 'Now, I seem to have reproached
you, instead of revealing to you the state of my own mind! Bear
with me. I am always wrong when you are in question. It is my
doom.'
Struggling with himself, and by times looking up at the deserted
windows of the houses as if there could be anything written in
their grimy panes that would help him, he paced the whole
pavement at her side, before he spoke again.
'I must try to give expression to what is in my mind; it shall and
must be spoken. Though you see me so confounded--though you
strike me so helpless--I ask you to believe that there are many
people who think well of me; that there are some people who
highly esteem me; that I have in my way won a Station which is
considered worth winning.'
'Surely, Mr Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have always
known it from Charley.'
'I ask you to believe that if I were to offer my home such as it is,
my station such as it is, my affections such as they are, to any one
of the best considered, and best qualified, and most distinguished,
among the young women engaged in my calling, they would
probably be accepted. Even readily accepted.'
'I do not doubt it,' said Lizzie, with her eyes upon the ground.
'I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that offer and to
settle down as many men of my class do: I on the one side of a
school, my wife on the other, both of us interested in the same
work.'
'Why have you not done so?' asked Lizzie Hexam. 'Why do you
not do so?'
'Far better that I never did! The only one grain of comfort I have
had these many weeks,' he said, always speaking passionately,
and, when most emphatic, repeating that former action of his
hands, which was like flinging his heart's blood down before her in
drops upon the pavement-stones; 'the only one grain of comfort I
have had these many weeks is, that I never did. For if I had, and
if the same spell had come upon me for my ruin, I know I should
have broken that tie asunder as if it had been thread.'
She glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking gesture.
He answered, as if she had spoken.
'No! It would not have been voluntary on my part, any more than
it is voluntary in me to be here now. You draw me to you. If I
were shut up in a strong prison, you would draw me out. I should
break through the wall to come to you. If I were lying on a sick
bed, you would draw me up--to stagger to your feet and fall there.'
The wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was absolutely
terrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a piece of the coping
of the burial-ground enclosure, as if he would have dislodged the
stone.
'No man knows till the time comes, what depths are within him.
To some men it never comes; let them rest and be thankful! To
me, you brought it; on me, you forced it; and the bottom of this
raging sea,' striking himself upon the breast, 'has been heaved up
ever since.'
'Mr Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It
will be better for you and better for me. Let us find my brother.'
'Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in torments
ever since I stopped short of it before. You are alarmed. It is
another of my miseries that I cannot speak to you or speak of you
without stumbling at every syllable, unless I let the check go
altogether and run mad. Here is a man lighting the lamps. He will
be gone directly. I entreat of you let us walk round this place
again. You have no reason to look alarmed; I can restrain myself,
and I will.'
She yielded to the entreaty--how could she do otherwise!--and
they paced the stones in silence. One by one the lights leaped up
making the cold grey church tower more remote, and they were
alone again. He said no more until they had regained the spot
where he had broken off; there, he again stood still, and again
grasped the stone. In saying what he said then, he never looked at
her; but looked at it and wrenched at it.
'You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men
may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I
mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous
attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters
me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you
could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death,
you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could
draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of
my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your
being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer
to my offer of myself in marringe, you could draw me to any
good--every good--with equal force. My circumstances are quite
easy, and you would want for nothing. My reputation stands quite
high, and would be a shield for yours. If you saw me at my work,
able to do it well and respected in it, you might even come to take
a sort of pride in me;--I would try hard that you should. Whatever
considerations I may have thought of against this offer, I have
conquered, and I make it with all my heart. Your brother favours
me to the utmost, and it is likely that we might live and work
together; anyhow, it is certain that he would have my best
influence and support. I don't know what I could say more if I
tried. I might only weaken what is ill enough said as it is. I only
add that if it is any claim on you to be in earnest, I am in thorough
earnest, dreadful earnest.'
The powdered mortar from under the stone at which he wrenched,
rattled on the pavement to confirm his words.
'Mr Headstone--'
'Stop! I implore you, before you answer me, to walk round this
place once more. It will give you a minute's time to think, and me
a minute's time to get some fortitude together.'
Again she yielded to the entreaty, and again they came back to the
same place, and again he worked at the stone.
'Is it,' he said, with his attention apparently engrossed by it, 'yes, or
no?'
'Mr Headstone, I thank you sincerely, I thank you gratefully, and
hope you may find a worthy wife before long and be very happy.
But it is no.'
'Is no short time necessary for reflection; no weeks or days?' he
asked, in the same half-suffocated way.
'None whatever.'
'Are you quite decided, and is there no chance of any change in
my favour?'
'I am quite decided, Mr Headstone, and I am bound to answer I
am certain there is none.'
'Then,' said he, suddenly changing his tone and turning to her, and
bringing his clenched hand down upon the stone with a force that
laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; 'then I hope that I may never
kill him!'
The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke
from his livid lips, and with which he stood holding out his
smeared hand as if it held some weapon and had just struck a
mortal blow, made her so afraid of him that she turned to run
away. But he caught her by the arm.
'Mr Headstone, let me go. Mr Headstone, I must call for help!'
'It is I who should call for help,' he said; 'you don't know yet how
much I need it.'
The working of his face as she shrank from it, glancing round for
her brother and uncertain what to do, might have extorted a cry
from her in another instant; but all at once he sternly stopped it
and fixed it, as if Death itself had done so.
'There! You see I have recovered myself. Hear me out.'
With much of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her selfreliant
life and her right to be free from accountability to this man,
she released her arm from his grasp and stood looking full at him.
She had never been so handsome, in his eyes. A shade came over
them while he looked back at her, as if she drew the very light out
of them to herself.
'This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid,' he went on, folding
his hands before him, clearly to prevent his being betrayed into
any impetuous gesture; 'this last time at least I will not be tortured
with after-thoughts of a lost opportunity. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'
'Was it of him you spoke in your ungovernable rage and violence?'
Lizzie Hexam demanded with spirit.
He bit his lip, and looked at her, and said never a word.
'Was it Mr Wrayburn that you threatened?'
He bit his lip again, and looked at her, and said never a word.
'You asked me to hear you out, and you will not speak. Let me
find my brother.'
'Stay! I threatened no one.'
Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted it
to his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again folded it over the
other. 'Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' he repeated.
'Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr Headstone?'
'Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe!
There are no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop me, and fasten it
upon me. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'
A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the
name, could hardly have escaped him.
'He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are willing
enough to listen to HIM. I know it, as well as he does.'
'Mr Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir,' said
Lizzie, proudly, 'in connexion with the death and with the memory
of my poor father.'
'No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good
man, Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'
'He is nothing to you, I think,' said Lizzie, with an indignation she
could not repress.
'Oh yes, he is. There you mistake. He is much to me.'
'What can he be to you?'
'He can be a rival to me among other things,' said Bradley.
'Mr Headstone,' returned Lizzie, with a burning face, 'it is
cowardly in you to speak to me in this way. But it makes me able
to tell you that I do not like you, and that I never have liked you
from the first, and that no other living creature has anything to do
with the effect you have produced upon me for yourself.'
His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then
looked up again, moistening his lips. 'I was going on with the little
I had left to say. I knew all this about Mr Eugene Wrayhurn, all
the while you were drawing me to you. I strove against the
knowledge, but quite in vain. It made no difference in me. With
Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I went on. With Mr Eugene
Wrayburn in my mind, I spoke to you just now. With Mr Eugene
Wrayburn in my mind, I have been set aside and I have been cast
out.'
'If you give those names to my thanking you for your proposal and
declining it, is it my fault, Mr Headstone?' said Lizzie,
compassionating the bitter struggle he could not conceal, almost as
much as she was repelled and alarmed by it.
'I am not complaining,' he returned, 'I am only stating the case. I
had to wrestle with my self-respect when I submitted to be drawn
to you in spite of Mr Wrayburn. You may imagine how low my
self-respect lies now.'
She was hurt and angry; but repressed herself in consideration of
his suffering, and of his being her brother's friend.
'And it lies under his feet,' said Bradley, unfolding his hands in
spite of himself, and fiercely motioning with them both towards
the stones of the pavement. 'Remember that! It lies under that
fellow's feet, and he treads upon it and exults above it.'
'He does not!' said Lizzie.
'He does!' said Bradley. 'I have stood before him face to face, and
he crushed me down in the dirt of his contempt, and walked over
me. Why? Because he knew with triumph what was in store for
me to-night.'
'O, Mr Headstone, you talk quite wildly.'
'Quite collectedly. I know what I say too well. Now I have said
all. I have used no threat, remember; I have done no more than
show you how the case stands;--how the case stands, so far.'
At this moment her brother sauntered into view close by. She
darted to him, and caught him by the hand. Bradley followed, and
laid his heavy hand on the boy's opposite shoulder.
'Charley Hexam, I am going home. I must walk home by myself
to-night, and get shut up in my room without being spoken to.
Give me half an hour's start, and let me be, till you find me at my
work in the morning. I shall be at my work in the morning just as
usual.'
Clasping his hands, he uttered a short unearthly broken cry, and
went his way. The brother and sister were left looking at one
another near a lamp in the solitary churchyard, and the boy's face
clouded and darkened, as he said in a rough tone: 'What is the
meaning of this? What have you done to my best friend? Out
with the truth!'
'Charley!' said his sister. 'Speak a little more considerately!'
'I am not in the humour for consideration, or for nonsense of any
sort,' replied the boy. 'What have you been doing? Why has Mr
Headstone gone from us in that way?'
'He asked me--you know he asked me--to be his wife, Charley.'
'Well?' said the boy, impatiently.
'And I was obliged to tell him that I could not be his wife.'
'You were obliged to tell him,' repeated the boy angrily, between
his teeth, and rudely pushing her away. 'You were obliged to tell
him! Do you know that he is worth fifty of you?'
'It may easily be so, Charley, but I cannot marry him.'
'You mean that you are conscious that you can't appreciate him,
and don't deserve him, I suppose?'
'I mean that I do not like him, Charley, and that I will never marry
him.'
'Upon my soul,' exclaimed the boy, 'you are a nice picture of a
sister! Upon my soul, you are a pretty piece of disinterestedness!
And so all my endeavours to cancel the past and to raise myself in
the world, and to raise you with me, are to be beaten down by
YOUR low whims; are they?'
'I will not reproach you, Charley.'
'Hear her!' exclaimed the boy, looking round at the darkness. 'She
won't reproach me! She does her best to destroy my fortunes and
her own, and she won't reproach me! Why, you'll tell me, next,
that you won't reproach Mr Headstone for coming out of the
sphere to which he is an ornament, and putting himself at YOUR
feet, to be rejected by YOU!'
'No, Charley; I will only tell you, as I told himself, that I thank him
for doing so, that I am sorry he did so, and that I hope he will do
much better, and be happy.'
Some touch of compunction smote the boy's hardening heart as he
looked upon her, his patient little nurse in infancy, his patient
friend, adviser, and reclaimer in boyhood, the self-forgetting sister
who had done everything for him. His tone relented, and he drew
her arm through his.
'Now, come, Liz; don't let us quarrel: let us be reasonable and talk
this over like brother and sister. Will you listen to me?'
'Oh, Charley!' she replied through her starting tears; 'do I not listen
to you, and hear many hard things!'
'Then I am sorry. There, Liz! I am unfeignedly sorry. Only you
do put me out so. Now see. Mr Headstone is perfectly devoted to
you. He has told me in the strongest manner that he has never
been his old self for one single minute since I first brought him to
see you. Miss Peecher, our schoolmistress--pretty and young, and
all that--is known to be very much attached to him, and he won't
so much as look at her or hear of her. Now, his devotion to you
must be a disinterested one; mustn't it? If he married Miss
Peecher, he would be a great deal better off in all worldly
respects, than in marrying you. Well then; he has nothing to get
by it, has he?'
'Nothing, Heaven knows!'
'Very well then,' said the boy; 'that's something in his favour, and a
great thing. Then I come in. Mr Headstone has always got me on,
and he has a good deal in his power, and of course if he was my
brother-in-law he wouldn't get me on less, but would get me on
more. Mr Headstone comes and confides in me, in a very delicate
way, and says, "I hope my marrying your sister would be
agreeable to you, Hexam, and useful to you?" I say, "There's
nothing in the world, Mr Headstone, that I could he better pleased
with." Mr Headstone says, "Then I may rely upon your intimate
knowledge of me for your good word with your sister, Hexam?"
And I say, "Certainly, Mr Headstone, and naturally I have a good
deal of influence with her." So I have; haven't I, Liz?'
'Yes, Charley.'
'Well said! Now, you see, we begin to get on, the moment we
begin to be really talking it over, like brother and sister. Very
well. Then YOU come in. As Mr Headstone's wife you would be
occupying a most respectable station, and you would be holding a
far better place in society than you hold now, and you would at
length get quit of the river-side and the old disagreeables
belonging to it, and you would be rid for good of dolls'
dressmakers and their drunken fathers, and the like of that. Not
that I want to disparage Miss Jenny Wren: I dare say she is all
very well in her way; but her way is not your way as Mr
Headstone's wife. Now, you see, Liz, on all three accounts--on
Mr Headstone's, on mine, on yours--nothing could be better or
more desirable.'
They were walking slowly as the boy spoke, and here he stood
still, to see what effect he had made. His sister's eyes were fixed
upon him; but as they showed no yielding, and as she remained
silent, he walked her on again. There was some discomfiture in
his tone as he resumed, though he tried to conceal it.
'Having so much influence with you, Liz, as I have, perhaps I
should have done better to have had a little chat with you in the
first instance, before Mr Headstone spoke for himself. But really
all this in his favour seemed so plain and undeniable, and I knew
you to have always been so reasonable and sensible, that I didn't
consider it worth while. Very likely that was a mistake of mine.
However, it's soon set right. All that need be done to set it right, is
for you to tell me at once that I may go home and tell Mr
Headstone that what has taken place is not final, and that it will all
come round by-and-by.'
He stopped again. The pale face looked anxiously and lovingly at
him, but she shook her head.
'Can't you speak?' said the boy sharply.
'I am very unwilling to speak, Charley. If I must, I must. I cannot
authorize you to say any such thing to Mr Headstone: I cannot
allow you to say any such thing to Mr Headstone. Nothing
remains to be said to him from me, after what I have said for good
and all, to-night.'
'And this girl,' cried the boy, contemptuously throwing her off
again, 'calls herself a sister!'
'Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have almost struck
me. Don't be hurt by my words. I don't mean--Heaven forbid!--
that you intended it; but you hardly know with what a sudden
swing you removed yourself from me.'
'However!' said the boy, taking no heed of the remonstrance, and
pursuing his own mortified disappointment, 'I know what this
means, and you shall not disgrace me.'
'It means what I have told you, Charley, and nothing more.'
'That's not true,' said the boy in a violent tone, 'and you know it's
not. It means your precious Mr Wrayburn; that's what it means.'
'Charley! If you remember any old days of ours together,
forbear!'
'But you shall not disgrace me,' doggedly pursued the boy. 'I am
determined that after I have climbed up out of the mire, you shall
not pull me down. You can't disgrace me if I have nothing to do
with you, and I will have nothing to do with you for the future.'
'Charley! On many a night like this, and many a worse night, I
have sat on the stones of the street, hushing you in my arms.
Unsay those words without even saying you are sorry for them,
and my arms are open to you still, and so is my heart.'
'I'll not unsay them. I'll say them again. You are an inveterately
bad girl, and a false sister, and I have done with you. For ever, I
have done with you!'
He threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it set up a
barrier between them, and flung himself upon his heel and left her.
She remained impassive on the same spot, silent and motionless,
until the striking of the church clock roused her, and she turned
away. But then, with the breaking up of her immobility came the
breaking up of the waters that the cold heart of the selfish boy had
frozen. And 'O that I were lying here with the dead!' and 'O
Charley, Charley, that this should be the end of our pictures in the
fire!' were all the words she said, as she laid her face in her hands
on the stone coping.
A figure passed by, and passed on, but stopped and looked round
at her. It was the figure of an old man with a bowed head,
wearing a large brimmed low-crowned hat, and a long-skirted
coat. After hesitating a little, the figure turned back, and,
advancing with an air of gentleness and compassion, said:
'Pardon me, young woman, for speaking to you, but you are under
some distress of mind. I cannot pass upon my way and leave you
weeping here alone, as if there was nothing in the place. Can I
help you? Can I do anything to give you comfort?'
She raised her head at the sound of these kind words, and
answered gladly, 'O, Mr Riah, is it you?'
'My daughter,' said the old man, 'I stand amazed! I spoke as to a
stranger. Take my arm, take my arm. What grieves you? Who
has done this? Poor girl, poor girl!'
'My brother has quarrelled with me,' sobbed Lizzie, 'and
renounced me.'
'He is a thankless dog,' said the Jew, angrily. 'Let him go.' Shake
the dust from thy feet and let him go. Come, daughter! Come
home with me--it is but across the road--and take a little time to
recover your peace and to make your eyes seemly, and then I will
bear you company through the streets. For it is past your usual
time, and will soon be late, and the way is long, and there is much
company out of doors to-night.'
She accepted the support he offered her, and they slowly passed
out of the churchyard. They were in the act of emerging into the
main thoroughfare, when another figure loitering discontentedly
by, and looking up the street and down it, and all about, started
and exclaimed, 'Lizzie! why, where have you been? Why, what's
the matter?'
As Eugene Wrayburn thus addressed her, she drew closer to the
Jew, and bent her head. The Jew having taken in the whole of
Eugene at one sharp glance, cast his eyes upon the ground, and
stood mute.
'Lizzie, what is the matter?'
'Mr Wrayburn, I cannot tell you now. I cannot tell you to-night, if
I ever can tell you. Pray leave me.'
'But, Lizzie, I came expressly to join you. I came to walk home
with you, having dined at a coffee-house in this neighbourhood
and knowing your hour. And I have been lingering about,' added
Eugene, 'like a bailiff; or,' with a look at Riah, 'an old clothesman.'
The Jew lifted up his eyes, and took in Eugene once more, at
another glance.
'Mr Wrayburn, pray, pray, leave me with this protector. And one
thing more. Pray, pray be careful of yourself.'
'Mysteries of Udolpho!' said Eugene, with a look of wonder. 'May
I be excused for asking, in the elderly gentleman's presence, who
is this kind protector?'
'A trustworthy friend,' said Lizzie.
'I will relieve him of his trust,' returned Eugene. 'But you must tell
me, Lizzie, what is the matter?'
'Her brother is the matter,' said the old man, lifting up his eyes
again.
'Our brother the matter?' returned Eugene, with airy contempt.
'Our brother is not worth a thought, far less a tear. What has our
brother done?'
The old man lifted up his eyes again, with one grave look at
Wrayburn, and one grave glance at Lizzie, as she stood looking
down. Both were so full of meaning that even Eugene was
checked in his light career, and subsided into a thoughtful
'Humph!'
With an air of perfect patience the old man, remaining mute and
keeping his eyes cast down, stood, retaining Lizzie's arm, as
though in his habit of passive endurance, it would be all one to
him if he had stood there motionless all night.
'If Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, who soon found this fatiguing, 'will be
good enough to relinquish his charge to me, he will be quite free
for any engagement he may have at the Synagogue. Mr Aaron,
will you have the kindness?'
But the old man stood stock still.
'Good evening, Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, politely; 'we need not
detain you.' Then turning to Lizzie, 'Is our friend Mr Aaron a little
deaf?'
'My hearing is very good, Christian gentleman,' replied the old
man, calmly; 'but I will hear only one voice to-night, desiring me
to leave this damsel before I have conveyed her to her home. If
she requests it, I will do it. I will do it for no one else.'
'May I ask why so, Mr Aaron?' said Eugene, quite undisturbed in
his ease.
'Excuse me. If she asks me, I will tell her,' replied the old man. 'I
will tell no one else.'
'I do not ask you,' said Lizzie, 'and I beg you to take me home. Mr
Wrayburn, I have had a bitter trial to-night, and I hope you will
not think me ungrateful, or mysterious, or changeable. I am
neither; I am wretched. Pray remember what I said to you. Pray,
pray, take care.'
'My dear Lizzie,' he returned, in a low voice, bending over her on
the other side; 'of what? Of whom?'
'Of any one you have lately seen and made angry.'
He snapped his fingers and laughed. 'Come,' said he, 'since no
better may be, Mr Aaron and I will divide this trust, and see you
home together. Mr Aaron on that side; I on this. If perfectly
agreeable to Mr Aaron, the escort will now proceed.'
He knew his power over her. He knew that she would not insist
upon his leaving her. He knew that, her fears for him being
aroused, she would be uneasy if he were out of her sight. For all
his seeming levity and carelessness, he knew whatever he chose to
know of the thoughts of her heart.
And going on at her side, so gaily, regardless of all that had been
urged against him; so superior in his sallies and self-possession to
the gloomy constraint of her suitor and the selfish petulance of her
brother; so faithful to her, as it seemed, when her own stock was
faithless; what an immense advantage, what an overpowering
influence, were his that night! Add to the rest, poor girl, that she
had heard him vilified for her sake, and that she had suffered for
his, and where the wonder that his occasional tones of serious
interest (setting off his carelessness, as if it were assumed to calm
her), that his lightest touch, his lightest look, his very presence
beside her in the dark common street, were like glimpses of an
enchanted world, which it was natural for jealousy and malice and
all meanness to be unable to bear the brightness of, and to gird at
as bad spirits might.
Nothing more being said of repairing to Riah's, they went direct to
Lizzie's lodging. A little short of the house-door she parted from
them, and went in alone.
'Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, when they were left together in the
street, 'with many thanks for your company, it remains for me
unwillingly to say Farewell.'
'Sir,' returned the other, 'I give you good night, and I wish that you
were not so thoughtless.'
'Mr Aaron,' returned Eugene, 'I give you good night, and I wish
(for you are a little dull) that you were not so thoughtful.'
But now, that his part was played out for the evening, and when in
turning his back upon the Jew he came off the stage, he was
thoughtful himself. 'How did Lightwood's catechism run?' he
murmured, as he stopped to light his cigar. 'What is to come of it?
What are you doing? Where are you going? We shall soon know
now. Ah!' with a heavy sigh.
The heavy sigh was repeated as if by an echo, an hour afterwards,
when Riah, who had been sitting on some dark steps in a corner
over against the house, arose and went his patient way; stealing
through the streets in his ancient dress, like the ghost of a departed
Time.
Chapter 16
AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION
The estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings over the
stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, and hearing the horses at
their toilette below, finds himself on the whole in a
disadvantageous position as compared with the noble animals at
livery. For whereas, on the one hand, he has no attendant to slap
him soundingly and require him in gruff accents to come up and
come over, still, on the other hand, he has no attendant at all; and
the mild gentleman's finger-joints and other joints working rustily
in the morning, he could deem it agreeable even to be tied up by
the countenance at his chamber-door, so he were there skilfully
rubbed down and slushed and sluiced and polished and clothed,
while himself taking merely a passive part in these trying
transactions.
How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself for the
bewilderment of the senses of men, is known only to the Graces
and her maid; but perhaps even that engaging creature, though not
reduced to the self-dependence of Twemlow could dispense with
a good deal of the trouble attendant on the daily restoration of her
charms, seeing that as to her face and neck this adorable divinity
is, as it were, a diurnal species of lobster--throwing off a shell
every forenoon, and needing to keep in a retired spot until the new
crust hardens.
Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar and
cravat and wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth forth to
breakfast. And to breakfast with whom but his near neighbours,
the Lammles of Sackville Street, who have imparted to him that
he will meet his distant kinsman, Mr Fledgely. The awful
Snigsworth might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, but the peaceable
Twemlow reasons, If he IS my kinsman I didn't make him so, and
to meet a man is not to know him.'
It is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr and Mrs
Lammle, and the celebration is a breakfast, because a dinner on
the desired scale of sumptuosity cannot be achieved within less
limits than those of the non-existent palatial residence of which so
many people are madly envious. So, Twemlow trips with not a
little stiffness across Piccadilly, sensible of having once been more
upright in figure and less in danger of being knocked down by
swift vehicles. To be sure that was in the days when he hoped for
leave from the dread Snigsworth to do something, or be
something, in life, and before that magnificent Tartar issued the
ukase, 'As he will never distinguish himself, he must be a poor
gentleman-pensioner of mine, and let him hereby consider himself
pensioned.'
Ah! my Twemlow! Say, little feeble grey personage, what
thoughts are in thy breast to-day, of the Fancy--so still to call her
who bruised thy heart when it was green and thy head brown--and
whether it be better or worse, more painful or less, to believe in
the Fancy to this hour, than to know her for a greedy armourplated
crocodile, with no more capacity of imagining the delicate
and sensitive and tender spot behind thy waistcoat, than of going
straight at it with a knitting-needle. Say likewise, my Twemlow,
whether it be the happier lot to be a poor relation of the great, or
to stand in the wintry slush giving the hack horses to drink out of
the shallow tub at the coach-stand, into which thou has so nearly
set thy uncertain foot. Twemlow says nothing, and goes on.
As he approaches the Lammles' door, drives up a little one-horse
carriage, containing Tippins the divine. Tippins, letting down the
window, playfully extols the vigilance of her cavalier in being in
waiting there to hand her out. Twemlow hands her out with as
much polite gravity as if she were anything real, and they proceed
upstairs. Tippins all abroad about the legs, and seeking to express
that those unsteady articles are only skipping in their native
buoyancy.
And dear Mrs Lammle and dear Mr Lammle, how do you do, and
when are you going down to what's-its-name place--Guy, Earl of
Warwick, you know--what is it?--Dun Cow--to claim the flitch of
bacon? And Mortimer, whose name is for ever blotted out from
my list of lovers, by reason first of fickleness and then of base
desertion, how do YOU do, wretch? And Mr Wrayburn, YOU
here! What can YOU come for, because we are all very sure
before-hand that you are not going to talk! And Veneering, M.P.,
how are things going on down at the house, and when will you
turn out those terrible people for us? And Mrs Veneering, my
dear, can it positively be true that you go down to that stifling
place night after night, to hear those men prose? Talking of
which, Veneering, why don't you prose, for you haven't opened
your lips there yet, and we are dying to hear what you have got to
say to us! Miss Podsnap, charmed to see you. Pa, here? No!
Ma, neither? Oh! Mr Boots! Delighted. Mr Brewer! This IS a
gathering of the clans. Thus Tippins, and surveys Fledgeby and
outsiders through golden glass, murmuring as she turns about and
about, in her innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know? No, I
think not. Nobody there. Nobody THERE. Nobody anywhere!
Mr Lammle, all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying
for the honour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby
presented, has the air of going to say something, has the air of
going to say nothing, has an air successively of meditation, of
resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the tour of
Boots, and fades into the extreme background, feeling for his
whisker, as if it might have turned up since he was there five
minutes ago.
But Lammle has him out again before he has so much as
completely ascertained the bareness of the land. He would seem
to be in a bad way, Fledgeby; for Lammle represents him as dying
again. He is dying now, of want of presentation to Twemlow.
Twemlow offers his hand. Glad to see him. 'Your mother, sir,
was a connexion of mine.'
'I believe so,' says Fledgeby, 'but my mother and her family were
two.'
'Are you staying in town?' asks Twemlow.
'I always am,' says Fledgeby.
'You like town,' says Twemlow. But is felled flat by Fledgeby's
taking it quite ill, and replying, No, he don't like town. Lammle
tries to break the force of the fall, by remarking that some people
do not like town. Fledgeby retorting that he never heard of any
such case but his own, Twemlow goes down again heavily.
'There is nothing new this morning, I suppose?' says Twemlow,
returning to the mark with great spirit.
Fledgeby has not heard of anything.
'No, there's not a word of news,' says Lammle.
'Not a particle,' adds Boots.
'Not an atom,' chimes in Brewer.
Somehow the execution of this little concerted piece appears to
raise the general spirits as with a sense of duty done, and sets the
company a going. Everybody seems more equal than before, to
the calamity of being in the society of everybody else. Even
Eugene standing in a window, moodily swinging the tassel of a
blind, gives it a smarter jerk now, as if he found himself in better
case.
Breakfast announced. Everything on table showy and gaudy, but
with a self-assertingly temporary and nomadic air on the
decorations, as boasting that they will be much more showy and
gaudy in the palatial residence. Mr Lammle's own particular
servant behind his chair; the Analytical behind Veneering's chair;
instances in point that such servants fall into two classes: one
mistrusting the master's acquaintances, and the other mistrusting
the master. Mr Lammle's servant, of the second class. Appearing
to be lost in wonder and low spirits because the police are so long
in coming to take his master up on some charge of the first
magnitude.
Veneering, M.P., on the right of Mrs Lammle; Twemlow on her
left; Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. (wife of Member of Parliament), and
Lady Tippins on Mr Lammle's right and left. But be sure that well
within the fascination of Mr Lammle's eye and smile sits little
Georgiana. And be sure that close to little Georgiana, also under
inspection by the same gingerous gentleman, sits Fledgeby.
Oftener than twice or thrice while breakfast is in progress, Mr
Twemlow gives a little sudden turn towards Mrs Lammle, and
then says to her, 'I beg your pardon!' This not being Twemlow's
usual way, why is it his way to-day? Why, the truth is, Twemlow
repeatedly labours under the impression that Mrs Lammle is going
to speak to him, and turning finds that it is not so, and mostly that
she has her eyes upon Veneering. Strange that this impression so
abides by Twemlow after being corrected, yet so it is.
Lady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the earth
(including grape-juice in the category) becomes livelier, and
applies herself to elicit sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. It is
always understood among the initiated, that that faithless lover
must be planted at table opposite to Lady Tippins, who will then
strike conversational fire out of him. In a pause of mastication
and deglutition, Lady Tippins, contemplating Mortimer, recalls
that it was at our dear Veneerings, and in the presence of a party
who are surely all here, that he told them his story of the man
from somewhere, which afterwards became so horribly interesting
and vulgarly popular.
'Yes, Lady Tippins,' assents Mortimer; 'as they say on the stage,
"Even so!"
'Then we expect you,' retorts the charmer, 'to sustain your
reputation, and tell us something else.'
'Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and there is
nothing more to be got out of me.'
Mortimer parries thus, with a sense upon him that elsewhere it is
Eugene and not he who is the jester, and that in these circles
where Eugene persists in being speechless, he, Mortimer, is but
the double of the friend on whom he has founded himself.
'But,' quoth the fascinating Tippins, 'I am resolved on getting
something more out of you. Traitor! what is this I hear about
another disappearance?'
'As it is you who have heard it,' returns Lightwood, 'perhaps you'll
tell us.'
'Monster, away!' retorts Lady Tippins. 'Your own Golden
Dustman referred me to you.'
Mr Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there is a sequel
to the story of the man from somewhere. Silence ensues upon the
proclamation.
'I assure you,' says Lightwood, glancing round the table, 'I have
nothing to tell.' But Eugene adding in a low voice, 'There, tell it,
tell it!' he corrects himself with the addition, 'Nothing worth
mentioning.'
Boots and Brewer immediately perceive that it is immensely
worth mentioning, and become politely clamorous. Veneering is
also visited by a perception to the same effect. But it is
understood that his attention is now rather used up, and difficult to
hold, that being the tone of the House of Commons.
'Pray don't be at the trouble of composing yourselves to listen,'
says Mortimer Lightwood, 'because I shall have finished long
before you have fallen into comfortable attitudes. It's like--'
'It's like,' impatiently interrupts Eugene, 'the children's narrative:
"I'll tell you a story
Of Jack a Manory,
And now my story's begun;
I'll tell you another
Of Jack and his brother,
And now my story is done."
--Get on, and get it over!'
Eugene says this with a sound of vexation in his voice, leaning
back in his chair and looking balefully at Lady Tippins, who nods
to him as her dear Bear, and playfully insinuates that she (a selfevident
proposition) is Beauty, and he Beast.
'The reference,' proceeds Mortimer, 'which I suppose to be made
by my honourable and fair enslaver opposite, is to the following
circumstance. Very lately, the young woman, Lizzie Hexam,
daughter of the late Jesse Hexam, otherwise Gaffer, who will be
remembered to have found the body of the man from somewhere,
mysteriously received, she knew not from whom, an explicit
retraction of the charges made against her father, by another
water-side character of the name of Riderhood. Nobody believed
them, because little Rogue Riderhood--I am tempted into the
paraphrase by remembering the charming wolf who would have
rendered society a great service if he had devoured Mr
Riderhood's father and mother in their infancy--had previously
played fast and loose with the said charges, and, in fact,
abandoned them. However, the retraction I have mentioned
found its way into Lizzie Hexam's hands, with a general flavour on
it of having been favoured by some anonymous messenger in a
dark cloak and slouched hat, and was by her forwarded, in her
father's vindication, to Mr Boffin, my client. You will excuse the
phraseology of the shop, but as I never had another client, and in
all likelihood never shall have, I am rather proud of him as a
natural curiosity probably unique.'
Although as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is not quite
as easy as usual below it. With an air of not minding Eugene at
all, he feels that the subject is not altogether a safe one in that
connexion.
'The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of my
professional museum,' he resumes, 'hereupon desires his
Secretary--an individual of the hermit-crab or oyster species, and
whose name, I think, is Chokesmith--but it doesn't in the least
matter--say Artichoke--to put himself in communication with
Lizzie Hexam. Artichoke professes his readiness so to do,
endeavours to do so, but fails.'
'Why fails?' asks Boots.
'How fails?' asks Brewer.
'Pardon me,' returns Lightwood,' I must postpone the reply for one
moment, or we shall have an anti-climax. Artichoke failing
signally, my client refers the task to me: his purpose being to
advance the interests of the object of his search. I proceed to put
myself in communication with her; I even happen to possess some
special means,' with a glance at Eugene, 'of putting myself in
communication with her; but I fail too, because she has vanished.'
'Vanished!' is the general echo.
'Disappeared,' says Mortimer. 'Nobody knows how, nobody
knows when, nobody knows where. And so ends the story to
which my honourable and fair enslaver opposite referred.'
Tippins, with a bewitching little scream, opines that we shall every
one of us be murdered in our beds. Eugene eyes her as if some of
us would be enough for him. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P., remarks
that these social mysteries make one afraid of leaving Baby.
Veneering, M.P., wishes to be informed (with something of a
second-hand air of seeing the Right Honourable Gentleman at the
head of the Home Department in his place) whether it is intended
to be conveyed that the vanished person has been spirited away or
otherwise harmed? Instead of Lightwood's answering, Eugene
answers, and answers hastily and vexedly: 'No, no, no; he doesn't
mean that; he means voluntarily vanished--but utterly--
completely.'
However, the great subject of the happiness of Mr and Mrs
Lammle must not be allowed to vanish with the other
vanishments--with the vanishing of the murderer, the vanishing of
Julius Handford, the vanishing of Lizzie Hexam,--and therefore
Veneering must recall the present sheep to the pen from which
they have strayed. Who so fit to discourse of the happiness of Mr
and Mrs Lammle, they being the dearest and oldest friends he has
in the world; or what audience so fit for him to take into his
confidence as that audience, a noun of multitude or signifying
many, who are all the oldest and dearest friends he has in the
world? So Veneering, without the formality of rising, launches
into a familiar oration, gradually toning into the Parliamentary
sing-song, in which he sees at that board his dear friend Twemlow
who on that day twelvemonth bestowed on his dear friend
Lammle the fair hand of his dear friend Sophronia, and in which
he also sees at that board his dear friends Boots and Brewer
whose rallying round him at a period when his dear friend Lady
Tippins likewise rallied round him--ay, and in the foremost rank--
he can never forget while memory holds her seat. But he is free to
confess that he misses from that board his dear old friend
Podsnap, though he is well represented by his dear young friend
Georgiana. And he further sees at that board (this he announces
with pomp, as if exulting in the powers of an extraordinary
telescope) his friend Mr Fledgeby, if he will permit him to call him
so. For all of these reasons, and many more which he right well
knows will have occurred to persons of your exceptional
acuteness, he is here to submit to you that the time has arrived
when, with our hearts in our glasses, with tears in our eyes, with
blessings on our lips, and in a general way with a profusion of
gammon and spinach in our emotional larders, we should one and
all drink to our dear friends the Lammles, wishing them many
years as happy as the last, and many many friends as congenially
united as themselves. And this he will add; that Anastatia
Veneering (who is instantly heard to weep) is formed on the same
model as her old and chosen friend Sophronia Lammle, in respect
that she is devoted to the man who wooed and won her, and nobly
discharges the duties of a wife.
Seeing no better way out of it, Veneering here pulls up his
oratorical Pegasus extremely short, and plumps down, clean over
his head, with: 'Lammle, God bless you!'
Then Lammle. Too much of him every way; pervadingly too
much nose of a coarse wrong shape, and his nose in his mind and
his manners; too much smile to be real; too much frown to be
false; too many large teeth to be visible at once without suggesting
a bite. He thanks you, dear friends, for your kindly greeting, and
hopes to receive you--it may be on the next of these delightfiil
occasions--in a residence better suited to your claims on the rites
of hospitality. He will never forget that at Veneering's he first saw
Sophronia. Sophronia will never forget that at Veneering's she
first saw him. 'They spoke of it soon after they were married, and
agreed that they would never forget it. In fact, to Veneering they
owe their union. They hope to show their sense of this some day
('No, no, from Veneering)--oh yes, yes, and let him rely upon it,
they will if they can! His marriage with Sophronia was not a
marriage of interest on either side: she had her little fortune, he
had his little fortune: they joined their little fortunes: it was a
marriage of pure inclination and suitability. Thank you!
Sophronia and he are fond of the society of young people; but he
is not sure that their house would be a good house for young
people proposing to remain single, since the contemplation of its
domestic bliss might induce them to change their minds. He will
not apply this to any one present; certainly not to their darling
little Georgiana. Again thank you! Neither, by-the-by, will he
apply it to his friend Fledgeby. He thanks Veneering for the
feeling manner in which he referred to their common friend
Fledgeby, for he holds that gentleman in the highest estimation.
Thank you. In fact (returning unexpectedly to Fledgeby), the
better you know him, the more you find in him that you desire to
know. Again thank you! In his dear Sophronia's name and in his
own, thank you!
Mrs Lammle has sat quite still, with her eyes cast down upon the
table-cloth. As Mr Lammle's address ends, Twemlow once more
turns to her involuntarily, not cured yet of that often recurring
impression that she is going to speak to him. This time she really
is going to speak to him. Veneering is talking with his other next
neighbour, and she speaks in a low voice.
'Mr Twemlow.'
He answers, 'I beg your pardon? Yes?' Still a little doubtful,
because of her not looking at him.
'You have the soul of a gentleman, and I know I may trust you.
Will you give me the opportunity of saying a few words to you
when you come up stairs?'
'Assuredly. I shall be honoured.'
'Don't seem to do so, if you please, and don't think it inconsistent
if my manner should be more careless than my words. I may be
watched.'
Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, and
sinks back in his chair meditating. Mrs Lammle rises. All rise.
The ladies go up stairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after them.
Fledgeby has devoted the interval to taking an observation of
Boots's whiskers, Brewer's whiskers, and Lammle's whiskers, and
considering which pattern of whisker he would prefer to produce
out of himself by friction, if the Genie of the cheek would only
answer to his rubbing.
In the drawing-room, groups form as usual. Lightwood, Boots,
and Brewer, flutter like moths around that yellow wax candle--
guttering down, and with some hint of a winding-sheet in it--Lady
Tippins. Outsiders cultivate Veneering, M P., and Mrs Veneering,
W.M.P. Lammle stands with folded arms, Mephistophelean in a
corner, with Georgiana and Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle, on a sofa by
a table, invites Mr Twemlow's attention to a book of portraits in
her hand.
Mr Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and Mrs
Lammle shows him a portrait.
'You have reason to be surprised,' she says softly, 'but I wish you
wouldn't look so.'
Disturbed Twemlow, making an effort not to look so, looks much
more so.
'I think, Mr Twemlow, you never saw that distant connexion of
yours before to-day?'
'No, never.'
'Now that you do see him, you see what he is. You are not proud
of him?'
'To say the truth, Mrs Lammle, no.'
'If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to
acknowledge him. Here is another portrait. What do you think of
it?'
Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud: 'Very
like! Uncommonly like!'
'You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his attentions?
You notice where he is now, and how engaged?'
'Yes. But Mr Lammle--'
She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows
him another portrait.
'Very good; is it not?'
'Charming!' says Twemlow.
'So like as to be almost a caricature?--Mr Twemlow, it is
impossible to tell you what the struggle in my mind has been,
before I could bring myself to speak to you as I do now. It is only
in the conviction that I may trust you never to betray me, that I
can proceed. Sincerely promise me that you never will betray my
confidence--that you will respect it, even though you may no
longer respect me,--and I shall be as satisfied as if you had sworn
it.'
'Madam, on the honour of a poor gentleman--'
'Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr Twemlow, I implore you to
save that child!'
'That child?'
'Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and
married to that connexion of yours. It is a partnership affair, a
money-speculation. She has no strength of will or character to
help herself and she is on the brink of being sold into
wretchedness for life.'
'Amazing! But what can I do to prevent it?' demands Twemlow,
shocked and bewildered to the last degree.
'Here is another portrait. And not good, is it?'
Aghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back to look
at it critically, Twemlow still dimly perceives the expediency of
throwing his own head back, and does so. Though he no more
sees the portrait than if it were in China.
'Decidedly not good,' says Mrs Lammle. 'Stiff and exaggerated!'
'And ex--' But Twemlow, in his demolished state, cannot
command the word, and trails off into '--actly so.'
'Mr Twemlow, your word will have weight with her pompous,
self-blinded father. You know how much he makes of your
family. Lose no time. Warn him.'
'But warn him against whom?'
'Against me.'
By great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at this
critical instant. The stimulant is Lammle's voice.
'Sophronia, my dear, what portraits are you showing Twemlow?'
'Public characters, Alfred.'
'Show him the last of me.'
'Yes, Alfred.'
She puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the leaves,
and presents the portrait to Twemlow.
'That is the last of Mr Lammle. Do you think it good?--Warn her
father against me. I deserve it, for I have been in the scheme from
the first. It is my husband's scheme, your connexion's, and mine.
I tell you this, only to show you the necessity of the poor little
foolish affectionate creature's being befriended and rescued. You
will not repeat this to her father. You will spare me so far, and
spare my husband. For, though this celebration of to-day is all a
mockery, he is my husband, and we must live.--Do you think it
like?'
Twemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the portrait in
his hand with the original looking towards him from his
Mephistophelean corner.
'Very well indeed!' are at length the words which Twemlow with
great difficulty extracts from himself.
'I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself consider it the
best. The others are so dark. Now here, for instance, is another
of Mr Lammle--'
'But I don't understand; I don't see my way,' Twemlow stammers,
as he falters over the book with his glass at his eye. 'How warn
her father, and not tell him? Tell him how much? Tell him how
little? I--I--am getting lost.'
'Tell him I am a match-maker; tell him I am an artful and
designing woman; tell him you are sure his daughter is best out of
my house and my company. Tell him any such things of me; they
will all be true. You know what a puffed-up man he is, and how
easily you can cause his vanity to take the alarm. Tell him as
much as will give him the alarm and make him careful of her, and
spare me the rest. Mr Twemlow, I feel my sudden degradation in
your eyes; familiar as I am with my degradation in my own eyes, I
keenly feel the change that must have come upon me in yours, in
these last few moments. But I trust to your good faith with me as
implicitly as when I began. If you knew how often I have tried to
speak to you to-day, you would almost pity me. I want no new
promise from you on my own account, for I am satisfied, and I
always shall be satisfied, with the promise you have given me. I
can venture to say no more, for I see that I am watched. If you
would set my mind at rest with the assurance that you will
interpose with the father and save this harmless girl, close that
book before you return it to me, and I shall know what you mean,
and deeply thank you in my heart.--Alfred, Mr Twemlow thinks
the last one the best, and quite agrees with you and me.'
Alfred advances. The groups break up. Lady Tippins rises to go,
and Mrs Veneering follows her leader. For the moment, Mrs
Lammle does not turn to them, but remains looking at Twemlow
looking at Alfred's portrait through his eyeglass. The moment
past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at its ribbon's length, rises, and
closes the book with an emphasis which makes that fragile
nursling of the fairies, Tippins, start.
Then good-bye and good-bye, and charming occasion worthy of
the Golden Age, and more about the flitch of bacon, and the like
of that; and Twemlow goes staggering across Piccadilly with his
hand to his forehead, and is nearly run down by a flushed
lettercart, and at last drops safe in his easy-chair, innocent good
gentleman, with his hand to his forehead still, and his head in a
whirl.
BOOK THE THIRD
A LONG LANE
Chapter 1
LODGERS IN QUEER STREET
It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark.
Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was
blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty
spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible,
and so being wholly neither. Gaslights flared in the shops with a
haggard and unblest air, as knowing themselves to be nightcreatures
that had no business abroad under the sun; while the sun
itself when it was for a few moments dimly indicated through
circling eddies of fog, showed as if it had gone out and were
collapsing flat and cold. Even in the surrounding country it was a
foggy day, but there the fog was grey, whereas in London it was, at
about the boundary line, dark yellow, and a little within it brown,
and then browner, and then browner, until at the heart of the City--
which call Saint Mary Axe--it was rusty-black. From any point of
the high ridge of land northward, it might have been discerned that
the loftiest buildings made an occasional struggle to get their heads
above the foggy sea, and especially that the great dome of Saint
Paul's seemed to die hard; but this was not perceivable in the
streets at their feet, where the whole metropolis was a heap of
vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels, and enfolding a
gigantic catarrh.
At nine o'clock on such a morning, the place of business of Pubsey
and Co. was not the liveliest object even in Saint Mary Axe--which
is not a very lively spot--with a sobbing gaslight in the countinghouse
window, and a burglarious stream of fog creeping in to
strangle it through the keyhole of the main door. But the light
went out, and the main door opened, and Riah came forth with a
bag under his arm.
Almost in the act of coming out at the door, Riah went into the fog,
and was lost to the eyes of Saint Mary Axe. But the eyes of this
history can follow him westward, by Cornhill, Cheapside, Fleet
Street, and the Strand, to Piccadilly and the Albany. Thither he
went at his grave and measured pace, staff in hand, skirt at heel;
and more than one head, turning to look back at his venerable
figure already lost in the mist, supposed it to be some ordinary
figure indistinctly seen, which fancy and the fog had worked into
that passing likeness.
Arrived at the house in which his master's chambers were on the
second floor, Riah proceeded up the stairs, and paused at
Fascination Fledgeby's door. Making free with neither bell nor
knocker, he struck upon the door with the top of his staff, and,
having listened, sat down on the threshold. It was characteristic of
his habitual submission, that he sat down on the raw dark
staircase, as many of his ancestors had probably sat down in
dungeons, taking what befell him as it might befall.
After a time, when he had grown so cold as to be fain to blow upon
his fingers, he arose and knocked with his staff again, and listened
again, and again sat down to wait. Thrice he repeated these
actions before his listening ears were greeted by the voice of
Fledgeby, calling from his bed, 'Hold your row!--I'll come and open
the door directly!' But, in lieu of coming directly, he fell into a
sweet sleep for some quarter of an hour more, during which added
interval Riah sat upon the stairs and waited with perfect patience.
At length the door stood open, and Mr Fledgeby's retreating
drapery plunged into bed again. Following it at a respectful
distance, Riah passed into the bed-chamber, where a fire had been
sometime lighted, and was burning briskly.
'Why, what time of night do you mean to call it?' inquired
Fledgeby, turning away beneath the clothes, and presenting a
comfortable rampart of shoulder to the chilled figure of the old
man.
'Sir, it is full half-past ten in the morning.'
'The deuce it is! Then it must be precious foggy?'
'Very foggy, sir.'
'And raw, then?'
'Chill and bitter,' said Riah, drawing out a handkerchief, and
wiping the moisture from his beard and long grey hair as he stood
on the verge of the rug, with his eyes on the acceptable fire.
With a plunge of enjoyment, Fledgeby settled himself afresh.
'Any snow, or sleet, or slush, or anything of that sort?' he asked.
'No, sir, no. Not quite so bad as that. The streets are pretty clean.'
'You needn't brag about it,' returned Fledgeby, disappointed in his
desire to heighten the contrast between his bed and the streets.
'But you're always bragging about something. Got the books
there?'
'They are here, sir.'
'All right. I'll turn the general subject over in my mind for a
minute or two, and while I'm about it you can empty your bag and
get ready for me.'
With another comfortable plunge, Mr Fledgeby fell asleep again.
The old man, having obeyed his directions, sat down on the edge of
a chair, and, folding his hands before him, gradually yielded to the
influence of the warmth, and dozed. He was roused by Mr
Fledgeby's appearing erect at the foot of the bed, in Turkish
slippers, rose-coloured Turkish trousers (got cheap from somebody
who had cheated some other somebody out of them), and a gown
and cap to correspond. In that costume he would have left nothing
to be desired, if he had been further fitted out with a bottomless
chair, a lantern, and a bunch of matches.
'Now, old 'un!' cried Fascination, in his light raillery, 'what dodgery
are you up to next, sitting there with your eyes shut? You ain't
asleep. Catch a weasel at it, and catch a Jew!'
'Truly, sir, I fear I nodded,' said the old man.
'Not you!' returned Fledgeby, with a cunning look. 'A telling move
with a good many, I dare say, but it won't put ME off my guard.
Not a bad notion though, if you want to look indifferent in driving
a bargain. Oh, you are a dodger!'
The old man shook his head, gently repudiating the imputation,
and suppresed a sigh, and moved to the table at which Mr
Fledgeby was now pouring out for himself a cup of steaming and
fragrant coffee from a pot that had stood ready on the hob. It was
an edifying spectacle, the young man in his easy chair taking his
coffee, and the old man with his grey head bent, standing awaiting
his pleasure.
'Now!' said Fledgeby. 'Fork out your balance in hand, and prove
by figures how you make it out that it ain't more. First of all, light
that candle.'
Riah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and referring
to the sum in the accounts for which they made him responsible,
told it out upon the table. Fledgeby told it again with great care,
and rang every sovereign.
'I suppose,' he said, taking one up to eye it closely, 'you haven't
been lightening any of these; but it's a trade of your people's, you
know. YOU understand what sweating a pound means, don't
you?'
'Much as you do, sir,' returned the old man, with his hands under
opposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he stood at the table,
deferentially observant of the master's face. 'May I take the liberty
to say something?'
'You may,' Fledgeby graciously conceded.
'Do you not, sir--without intending it--of a surety without intending
it--sometimes mingle the character I fairly earn in your
employment, with the character which it is your policy that I
should bear?'
'I don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go into the
inquiry,' Fascination coolly answered.
'Not in justice?'
'Bother justice!' said Fledgeby.
'Not in generosity?'
'Jews and generosity!' said Fledgeby. 'That's a good connexion!
Bring out your vouchers, and don't talk Jerusalem palaver.'
The vouchers were produced, and for the next half-hour Mr
Fledgeby concentrated his sublime attention on them. They and
the accounts were all found correct, and the books and the papers
resumed their places in the bag.
'Next,' said Fledgeby, 'concerning that bill-broking branch of the
business; the branch I like best. What queer bills are to be bought,
and at what prices? You have got your list of what's in the
market?'
'Sir, a long list,' replied Riah, taking out a pocket-book, and
selecting from its contents a folded paper, which, being unfolded,
became a sheet of foolscap covered with close writing.
'Whew!' whistled Fledgeby, as he took it in his hand. 'Queer Street
is full of lodgers just at present! These are to be disposed of in
parcels; are they?'
'In parcels as set forth,' returned the old man, looking over his
master's shoulder; 'or the lump.'
'Half the lump will be waste-paper, one knows beforehand,' said
Fledgeby. 'Can you get it at waste-paper price? That's the
question.'
Riah shook his head, and Fledgeby cast his small eyes down the
list. They presently began to twinkle, and he no sooner became
conscious of their twinkling, than he looked up over his shoulder at
the grave face above him, and moved to the chimney-piece.
Making a desk of it, he stood there with his back to the old man,
warming his knees, perusing the list at his leisure, and often
returning to some lines of it, as though they were particularly
interesting. At those times he glanced in the chimney-glass to see
what note the old man took of him. He took none that could be
detected, but, aware of his employer's suspicions, stood with his
eyes on the ground.
Mr Fledgeby was thus amiably engaged when a step was heard at
the outer door, and the door was heard to open hastily. 'Hark!
That's your doing, you Pump of Israel,' said Fledgeby; 'you can't
have shut it.' Then the step was heard within, and the voice of Mr
Alfred Lammle called aloud, 'Are you anywhere here, Fledgeby?'
To which Fledgeby, after cautioning Riah in a low voice to take his
cue as it should be given him, replied, 'Here I am!' and opened his
bedroom door.
'Come in!' said Fledgeby. 'This gentleman is only Pubsey and Co.
of Saint Mary Axe, that I am trying to make terms for an
unfortunate friend with in a matter of some dishonoured bills. But
really Pubsey and Co. are so strict with their debtors, and so hard
to move, that I seem to be wasting my time. Can't I make ANY
terms with you on my friend's part, Mr Riah?'
'I am but the representative of another, sir,' returned the Jew in a
low voice. 'I do as I am bidden by my principal. It is not my
capital that is invested in the business. It is not my profit that
arises therefrom.'
'Ha ha!' laughed Fledgeby. 'Lammle?'
'Ha ha!' laughed Lammle. 'Yes. Of course. We know.'
'Devilish good, ain't it, Lammle?' said Fledgeby, unspeakably
amused by his hidden joke.
'Always the same, always the same!' said Lammle. 'Mr--'
'Riah, Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe,' Fledgeby put in, as he
wiped away the tears that trickled from his eyes, so rare was his
enjoyment of his secret joke.
'Mr Riah is bound to observe the invaRiahle forms for such cases
made and provided,' said Lammle.
'He is only the representative of another!' cried Fledgeby. 'Does as
he is told by his principal! Not his capital that's invested in the
business. Oh, that's good! Ha ha ha ha!' Mr Lammle joined in the
laugh and looked knowing; and the more he did both, the more
exquisite the secret joke became for Mr Fledgeby.
'However,' said that fascinating gentleman, wiping his eyes again,
'if we go on in this way, we shall seem to be almost making game
of Mr Riah, or of Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe, or of somebody:
which is far from our intention. Mr Riah, if you would have the
kindness to step into the next room for a few moments while I
speak with Mr Lammle here, I should like to try to make terms
with you once again before you go.'
The old man, who had never raised his eyes during the whole
transaction of Mr Fledgeby's joke, silently bowed and passed out
by the door which Fledgeby opened for him. Having closed it on
him, Fledgeby returned to Lammle, standing with his back to the
bedroom fire, with one hand under his coat-skirts, and all his
whiskers in the other.
'Halloa!' said Fledgeby. 'There's something wrong!'
'How do you know it?' demanded Lammle.
'Because you show it,' replied Fledgeby in unintentional rhyme.
'Well then; there is,' said Lammle; 'there IS something wrong; the
whole thing's wrong.'
'I say!' remonstrated Fascination very slowly, and sitting down
with his hands on his knees to stare at his glowering friend with
his back to the fire.
'I tell you, Fledgeby,' repeated Lammle, with a sweep of his right
arm, 'the whole thing's wrong. The game's up.'
'What game's up?' demanded Fledgeby, as slowly as before, and
more sternly.
'THE game. OUR game. Read that.'
Fledgeby took a note from his extended hand and read it aloud.
'Alfred Lammle, Esquire. Sir: Allow Mrs Podsnap and myself to
express our united sense of the polite attentions of Mrs Alfred
Lammle and yourself towards our daughter, Georgiana. Allow us
also, wholly to reject them for the future, and to communicate our
final desire that the two families may become entire strangers. I
have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient and very humble
servant, JOHN PODSNAP.' Fledgeby looked at the three blank
sides of this note, quite as long and earnestly as at the first
expressive side, and then looked at Lammle, who responded with
another extensive sweep of his right arm.
'Whose doing is this?' said Fledgeby.
'Impossible to imagine,' said Lammle.
'Perhaps,' suggested Fledgeby, after reflecting with a very
discontented brow, 'somebody has been giving you a bad
character.'
'Or you,' said Lammle, with a deeper frown.
Mr Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous
expressions, when his hand happened to touch his nose. A certain
remembrance connected with that feature operating as a timely
warning, he took it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger,
and pondered; Lammle meanwhile eyeing him with furtive eyes.
'Well!' said Fledgeby. 'This won't improve with talking about. If
we ever find out who did it, we'll mark that person. There's
nothing more to be said, except that you undertook to do what
circumstances prevent your doing.'
'And that you undertook to do what you might have done by this
time, if you had made a prompter use of circumstances,' snarled
Lammle.
'Hah! That,' remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in the Turkish
trousers, 'is matter of opinion.'
'Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle, in a bullying tone, 'am I to understand
that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with
me, in this affair?'
'No,' said Fledgeby; 'provided you have brought my promissory
note in your pocket, and now hand it over.'
Lammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby looked at it,
identified it, twisted it up, and threw it into the fire. They both
looked at it as it blazed, went out, and flew in feathery ash up the
chimney.
'NOW, Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle, as before; 'am I to understand
that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with
me, in this affair?'
'No,' said Fledgeby.
'Finally and unreservedly no?'
'Yes.'
'Fledgeby, my hand.'
Mr Fledgeby took it, saying, 'And if we ever find out who did this,
we'll mark that person. And in the most friendly manner, let me
mention one thing more. I don't know what your circumstances
are, and I don't ask. You have sustained a loss here. Many men
are liable to be involved at times, and you may be, or you may not
be. But whatever you do, Lammle, don't--don't--don't, I beg of
you--ever fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co. in the next room,
for they are grinders. Regular flayers and grinders, my dear
Lammle,' repeated Fledgeby with a peculiar relish, 'and they'll skin
you by the inch, from the nape of your neck to the sole of your foot,
and grind every inch of your skin to tooth-powder. You have seen
what Mr Riah is. Never fall into his hands, Lammle, I beg of you
as a friend!'
Mr Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of this
affectionate adjuration, demanded why the devil he ever should fall
into the hands of Pubsey and Co.?
'To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy,' said the candid
Fledgeby, 'by the manner in which that Jew looked at you when he
heard your name. I didn't like his eye. But it may have been the
heated fancy of a friend. Of course if you are sure that you have no
personal security out, which you may not be quite equal to
meeting, and which can have got into his hands, it must have been
fancy. Still, I didn't like his eye.'
The brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going
in his palpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were
pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean
face which did duty there for a smile, looked very like the
tormentor who was pinching.
'But I mustn't keep him waiting too long,' said Fledgeby, 'or he'll
revenge it on my unfortunate friend. How's your very clever and
agreeable wife? She knows we have broken down?'
'I showed her the letter.'
'Very much surprised?' asked Fledgeby.
'I think she would have been more so,' answered Lammle, 'if there
had been more go in YOU?'
'Oh!--She lays it upon me, then?'
'Mr Fledgeby, I will not have my words misconstrued.'
'Don't break out, Lammle,' urged Fledgeby, in a submissive tone,
'because there's no occasion. I only asked a question. Then she
don't lay it upon me? To ask another question.'
'No, sir.'
'Very good,' said Fledgeby, plainly seeing that she did. 'My
compliments to her. Good-bye!'
They shook hands, and Lammle strode out pondering. Fledgeby
saw him into the fog, and, returning to the fire and musing with his
face to it, stretched the legs of the rose-coloured Turkish trousers
wide apart, and meditatively bent his knees, as if he were going
down upon them.
'You have a pair of whiskers, Lammle, which I never liked,'
murmured Fledgeby, 'and which money can't produce; you are
boastful of your manners and your conversation; you wanted to
pull my nose, and you have let me in for a failure, and your wife
says I am the cause of it. I'll bowl you down. I will, though I have
no whiskers,' here he rubbed the places where they were due, 'and
no manners, and no conversation!'
Having thus relieved his noble mind, he collected the legs of the
Turkish trousers, straightened himself on his knees, and called out
to Riah in the next room, 'Halloa, you sir!' At sight of the old man
re-entering with a gentleness monstrously in contrast with the
character he had given him, Mr Fledgeby was so tickled again, that
he exclaimed, laughing, 'Good! Good! Upon my soul it is
uncommon good!'
'Now, old 'un,' proceeded Fledgeby, when he had had his laugh
out, 'you'll buy up these lots that I mark with my pencil--there's a
tick there, and a tick there, and a tick there--and I wager two-pence
you'll afterwards go on squeezing those Christians like the Jew you
are. Now, next you'll want a cheque--or you'll say you want it,
though you've capital enough somewhere, if one only knew where,
but you'd be peppered and salted and grilled on a gridiron before
you'd own to it--and that cheque I'll write.'
When he had unlocked a drawer and taken a key from it to open
another drawer, in which was another key that opened another
drawer, in which was another key that opened another drawer, in
which was the cheque book; and when he had written the cheque;
and when, reversing the key and drawer process, he had placed his
cheque book in safety again; he beckoned the old man, with the
folded cheque, to come and take it.
'Old 'un,' said Fledgeby, when the Jew had put it in his
pocketbook, and was putting that in the breast of his outer
garment; 'so much at present for my affairs. Now a word about
affairs that are not exactly mine. Where is she?'
With his hand not yet withdrawn from the breast of his garment,
Riah started and paused.
'Oho!' said Fledgeby. 'Didn't expect it! Where have you hidden
her?'
Showing that he was taken by surprise, the old man looked at his
master with some passing confusion, which the master highly
enjoyed.
'Is she in the house I pay rent and taxes for in Saint Mary Axe?'
demanded Fledgeby.
'No, sir.'
'Is she in your garden up atop of that house--gone up to be dead, or
whatever the game is?' asked Fledgeby.
'No, sir.'
'Where is she then?'
Riah bent his eyes upon the ground, as if considering whether he
could answer the question without breach of faith, and then silently
raised them to Fledgeby's face, as if he could not.
'Come!' said Fledgeby. 'I won't press that just now. But I want to
know this, and I will know this, mind you. What are you up to?'
The old man, with an apologetic action of his head and hands, as
not comprehending the master's meaning, addressed to him a look
of mute inquiry.
'You can't be a gallivanting dodger,' said Fledgeby. 'For you're a
"regular pity the sorrows", you know--if you DO know any
Christian rhyme--"whose trembling limbs have borne him to"--et
cetrer. You're one of the Patriarchs; you're a shaky old card; and
you can't be in love with this Lizzie?'
'O, sir!' expostulated Riah. 'O, sir, sir, sir!'
'Then why,' retorted Fledgeby, with some slight tinge of a blush,
'don't you out with your reason for having your spoon in the soup at
all?'
'Sir, I will tell you the truth. But (your pardon for the stipulation) it
is in sacred confidence; it is strictly upon honour.'
'Honour too!' cried Fledgeby, with a mocking lip. 'Honour among
Jews. Well. Cut away.'
'It is upon honour, sir?' the other still stipulated, with respectful
firmness.
'Oh, certainly. Honour bright,' said Fledgeby.
The old man, never bidden to sit down, stood with an earnest hand
laid on the back of the young man's easy chair. The young man sat
looking at the fire with a face of listening curiosity, ready to check
him off and catch him tripping.
'Cut away,' said Fledgeby. 'Start with your motive.'
'Sir, I have no motive but to help the helpless.'
Mr Fledgeby could only express the feelings to which this
incredible statement gave rise in his breast, by a prodigiously long
derisive sniff.
'How I came to know, and much to esteem and to respect, this
damsel, I mentioned when you saw her in my poor garden on the
house-top,' said the Jew.
'Did you?' said Fledgeby, distrustfully. 'Well. Perhaps you did,
though.'
'The better I knew her, the more interest I felt in her fortunes. They
gathered to a crisis. I found her beset by a selfish and ungrateful
brother, beset by an unacceptable wooer, beset by the snares of a
more powerful lover, beset by the wiles of her own heart.'
'She took to one of the chaps then?'
'Sir, it was only natural that she should incline towards him, for he
had many and great advantages. But he was not of her station, and
to marry her was not in his mind. Perils were closing round her,
and the circle was fast darkening, when I--being as you have said,
sir, too old and broken to be suspected of any feeling for her but a
father's--stepped in, and counselled flight. I said, "My daughter,
there are times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous
resolution to form is flight, and when the most heroic bravery is
flight." She answered, she had had this in her thoughts; but
whither to fly without help she knew not, and there were none to
help her. I showed her there was one to help her, and it was I.
And she is gone.'
'What did you do with her?' asked Fledgeby, feeling his cheek.
'I placed her,' said the old man, 'at a distance;' with a grave smooth
outward sweep from one another of his two open hands at arm's
length; 'at a distance--among certain of our people, where her
industry would serve her, and where she could hope to exercise it,
unassailed from any quarter.'
Fledgeby's eyes had come from the fire to notice the action of his
hands when he said 'at a distance.' Fledgeby now tried (very
unsuccessfully) to imitate that action, as he shook his head and
said, 'Placed her in that direction, did you? Oh you circular old
dodger!'
With one hand across his breast and the other on the easy chair,
Riah, without justifying himself, waited for further questioning.
But, that it was hopeless to question him on that one reserved
point, Fledgeby, with his small eyes too near together, saw full
well.
'Lizzie,' said Fledgeby, looking at the fire again, and then looking
up. 'Humph, Lizzie. You didn't tell me the other name in your
garden atop of the house. I'll be more communicative with you.
The other name's Hexam.'
Riah bent his head in assent.
'Look here, you sir,' said Fledgeby. 'I have a notion I know
something of the inveigling chap, the powerful one. Has he
anything to do with the law?'
'Nominally, I believe it his calling.'
'I thought so. Name anything like Lightwood?'
'Sir, not at all like.'
'Come, old 'un,' said Fledgeby, meeting his eyes with a wink, 'say
the name.'
'Wrayburn.'
'By Jupiter!' cried Fledgeby. 'That one, is it? I thought it might be
the other, but I never dreamt of that one! I shouldn't object to your
baulking either of the pair, dodger, for they are both conceited
enough; but that one is as cool a customer as ever I met with. Got
a beard besides, and presumes upon it. Well done, old 'un! Go on
and prosper!'
Brightened by this unexpected commendation, Riah asked were
there more instructions for him?
'No,' said Fledgeby, 'you may toddle now, Judah, and grope about
on the orders you have got.' Dismissed with those pleasing words,
the old man took his broad hat and staff, and left the great
presence: more as if he were some superior creature benignantly
blessing Mr Fledgeby, than the poor dependent on whom he set his
foot. Left alone, Mr Fledgeby locked his outer door, and came
back to his fire.
'Well done you!' said Fascination to himself. 'Slow, you may be;
sure, you are!' This he twice or thrice repeated with much
complacency, as he again dispersed the legs of the Turkish trousers
and bent the knees.
'A tidy shot that, I flatter myself,' he then soliloquised. 'And a Jew
brought down with it! Now, when I heard the story told at
Lammle's, I didn't make a jump at Riah. Not a hit of it; I got at
him by degrees.' Herein he was quite accurate; it being his habit,
not to jump, or leap, or make an upward spring, at anything in life,
but to crawl at everything.
'I got at him,' pursued Fledgeby, feeling for his whisker, 'by
degrees. If your Lammles or your Lightwoods had got at him
anyhow, they would have asked him the question whether he
hadn't something to do with that gal's disappearance. I knew a
better way of going to work. Having got behind the hedge, and put
him in the light, I took a shot at him and brought him down plump.
Oh! It don't count for much, being a Jew, in a match against ME!'
Another dry twist in place of a smile, made his face crooked here.
'As to Christians,' proceeded Fledgeby, 'look out, fellow-
Christians, particularly you that lodge in Queer Street! I have got
the run of Queer Street now, and you shall see some games there.
To work a lot of power over you and you not know it, knowing as
you think yourselves, would be almost worth laying out money
upon. But when it comes to squeezing a profit out of you into the
bargain, it's something like!'
With this apostrophe Mr Fledgeby appropriately proceeded to
divest himself of his Turkish garments, and invest himself with
Christian attire. Pending which operation, and his morning
ablutions, and his anointing of himself with the last infallible
preparation for the production of luxuriant and glossy hair upon the
human countenance (quacks being the only sages he believed in
besides usurers), the murky fog closed about him and shut him up
in its sooty embrace. If it had never let him out any more, the
world would have had no irreparable loss, but could have easily
replaced him from its stock on hand.
Chapter 2
A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT
In the evening of this same foggy day when the yellow windowblind
of Pubsey and Co. was drawn down upon the day's work,
Riah the Jew once more came forth into Saint Mary Axe. But this
time he carried no bag, and was not bound on his master's affairs.
He passed over London Bridge, and returned to the Middlesex
shore by that of Westminster, and so, ever wading through the fog,
waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker.
Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the window
by the light of her low fire--carefully banked up with damp cinders
that it might last the longer and waste the less when she was out--
sitting waiting for him in her bonnet. His tap at the glass roused
her from the musing solitude in which she sat, and she came to the
door to open it; aiding her steps with a little crutch-stick.
'Good evening, godmother!' said Miss Jenny Wren.
The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on.
'Won't you come in and warm yourself, godmother?' asked Miss
Jenny Wren.
'Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear.'
'Well!' exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. 'Now you ARE a clever
old boy! If we gave prizes at this establishment (but we only keep
blanks), you should have the first silver medal, for taking me up so
quick.' As she spake thus, Miss Wren removed the key of the
house-door from the keyhole and put it in her pocket, and then
bustlingly closed the door, and tried it as they both stood on the
step. Satisfied that her dwelling was safe, she drew one hand
through the old man's arm and prepared to ply her crutch-stick
with the other. But the key was an instrument of such gigantic
proportions, that before they started Riah proposed to carry it.
'No, no, no! I'll carry it myself,' returned Miss Wren. 'I'm awfully
lopsided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket it'll trim the
ship. To let you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my
high side, o' purpose.'
With that they began their plodding through the fog.
'Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother,' resumed Miss Wren
with great approbation, 'to understand me. But, you see, you ARE
so like the fairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so
unlike the rest of people, and so much as if you had changed
yourself into that shape, just this moment, with some benevolent
object. Boh!' cried Miss Jenny, putting her face close to the old
man's. 'I can see your features, godmother, behind the beard.'
'Does the fancy go to my changing other objects too, Jenny?'
'Ah! That it does! If you'd only borrow my stick and tap this piece
of pavement--this dirty stone that my foot taps--it would start up a
coach and six. I say! Let's believe so!'
'With all my heart,' replied the good old man.
'And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I must ask
you to be so kind as give my child a tap, and change him
altogether. O my child has been such a bad, bad child of late! It
worries me nearly out of my wits. Not done a stroke of work these
ten days. Has had the horrors, too, and fancied that four coppercoloured
men in red wanted to throw him into a fiery furnace.'
'But that's dangerous, Jenny.'
'Dangerous, godmother? My child is always dangerous, more or
less. He might'--here the little creature glanced back over her
shoulder at the sky--'be setting the house on fire at this present
moment. I don't know who would have a child, for my part! It's
no use shaking him. I have shaken him till I have made myself
giddy. "Why don't you mind your Commandments and honour
your parent, you naughty old boy?" I said to him all the time. But
he only whimpered and stared at me.'
'What shall be changed, after him?' asked Riah in a compassionately
playful voice.
'Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and
get you to set me right in the back and the legs. It's a little thing to
you with your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor weak
aching me.'
There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were
not the less touching for that.
'And then?'
'Yes, and then--YOU know, godmother. We'll both jump up into
the coach and six and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, godmother,
to ask you a serious question. You are as wise as wise can be
(having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is
it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had
it?'
'Explain, god-daughter.'
'I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now, than
I used to feel before I knew her.' (Tears were in her eyes as she
said so.)
'Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear,'
said the Jew,--'that of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son of
promise, has faded out of my own life--but the happiness was.'
'Ah!' said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced, and
chopping the exclamation with that sharp little hatchet of hers;
'then I tell you what change I think you had better begin with,
godmother. You had better change Is into Was and Was into Is,
and keep them so.'
'Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in pain
then?' asked the old man tenderly.
'Right!' exclaimed Miss Wren with another chop. 'You have
changed me wiser, godmother.--Not,' she added with the quaint
hitch of her chin and eyes, 'that you need be a very wonderful
godmother to do that deed.'
Thus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, they
traversed the ground that Riah had lately traversed, and new
ground likewise; for, when they had recrossed the Thames by way
of London Bridge, they struck down by the river and held their still
foggier course that way.
But previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted her
venerable friend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and
said: 'Now look at 'em! All my work!'
This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colours of
the rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going
to balls, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for
going out walking, for going to get married, for going to help other
dolls to get married, for all the gay events of life.'
'Pretty, pretty, pretty!' said the old man with a clap of his hands.
'Most elegant taste!'
'Glad you like 'em,' returned Miss Wren, loftily. 'But the fun is,
godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though
it's the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back
were not bad and my legs queer.'
He looked at her as not understanding what she said.
'Bless you, godmother,' said Miss Wren, 'I have to scud about town
at all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and
sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on
by the great ladies that takes it out of me.'
'How, the trying-on?' asked Riah.
'What a mooney godmother you are, after all!' returned Miss Wren.
'Look here. There's a Drawing Room, or a grand day in the Park,
or a Show, or a Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze
among the crowd, and I look about me. When I see a great lady
very suitable for my business, I say "You'll do, my dear!' and I take
particular notice of her, and run home and cut her out and baste
her. Then another day, I come scudding back again to try on, and
then I take particular notice of her again. Sometimes she plainly
seems to say, 'How that little creature is staring!' and sometimes
likes it and sometimes don't, but much more often yes than no. All
the time I am only saying to myself, "I must hollow out a bit here; I
must slope away there;" and I am making a perfect slave of her,
with making her try on my doll's dress. Evening parties are severer
work for me, because there's only a doorway for a full view, and
what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and the legs
of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. However,
there I have 'em, just the same. When they go bobbing into the
hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little
physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman's cape in the
rain, I dare say they think I am wondering and admiring with all
my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my
dolls! There was Lady Belinda Whitrose. I made her do double
duty in one night. I said when she came out of the carriage,
"YOU'll do, my dear!" and I ran straight home and cut her out and
basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the men that
called the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, "Lady Belinda
Whitrose's carriage! Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down!" And
I made her try on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got
seated. That's Lady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too
near the gaslight for a wax one, with her toes turned in.'
When they had plodded on for some time nigh the river, Riah
asked the way to a certain tavern called the Six Jolly Fellowship
Porters. Following the directions he received, they arrived, after
two or three puzzled stoppages for consideration, and some
uncertain looking about them, at the door of Miss Abbey
Potterson's dominions. A peep through the glass portion of the
door revealed to them the glories of the bar, and Miss Abbey
herself seated in state on her snug throne, reading the newspaper.
To whom, with deference, they presented themselves.
Taking her eyes off her newspaper, and pausing with a suspended
expression of countenance, as if she must finish the paragraph in
hand before undertaking any other business whatever, Miss Abbey
demanded, with some slight asperity: 'Now then, what's for you?'
'Could we see Miss Potterson?' asked the old man, uncovering his
head.
'You not only could, but you can and you do,' replied the hostess.
'Might we speak with you, madam?'
By this time Miss Abbey's eyes had possessed themselves of the
small figure of Miss Jenny Wren. For the closer observation of
which, Miss Abbey laid aside her newspaper, rose, and looked
over the half-door of the bar. The crutch-stick seemed to entreat
for its owner leave to come in and rest by the fire; so, Miss Abbey
opened the half-door, and said, as though replying to the crutchstick:
'Yes, come in and rest by the fire.'
'My name is Riah,' said the old man, with courteous action, 'and
my avocation is in London city. This, my young companion--'
'Stop a bit,' interposed Miss Wren. 'I'll give the lady my card.' She
produced it from her pocket with an air, after struggling with the
gigantic door-key which had got upon the top of it and kept it
down. Miss Abbey, with manifest tokens of astonishment, took
the diminutive document, and found it to run concisely thus:--
MISS JENNY WREN
DOLLS' DRESSMAKER.
Dolls attended at their own residences.
'Lud!' exclaimed Miss Potterson, staring. And dropped the card.
'We take the liberty of coming, my young companion and I,
madam,' said Riah, 'on behalf of Lizzie Hexam.'
Miss Potterson was stooping to loosen the bonnet-strings of the
dolls' dressmaker. She looked round rather angrily, and said:
'Lizzie Hexam is a very proud young woman.'
'She would be so proud,' returned Riah, dexterously, 'to stand well
in your good opinion, that before she quitted London for--'
'For where, in the name of the Cape of Good Hope?' asked Miss
Potterson, as though supposing her to have emigrated.
'For the country,' was the cautious answer,--'she made us promise
to come and show you a paper, which she left in our hands for that
special purpose. I am an unserviceable friend of hers, who began
to know her after her departure from this neighbourhood. She has
been for some time living with my young companion, and has been
a helpful and a comfortable friend to her. Much needed, madam,'
he added, in a lower voice. 'Believe me; if you knew all, much
needed.'
'I can believe that,' said Miss Abbey, with a softening glance at the
little creature.
'And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temper
that never tires, and a touch that never hurts,' Miss Jenny struck in,
flushed, 'she is proud. And if it's not, she is NOT.'
Her set purpose of contradicting Miss Abbey point blank, was so
far from offending that dread authority, as to elicit a gracious
smile. 'You do right, child,' said Miss Abbey, 'to speak well of
those who deserve well of you.'
'Right or wrong,' muttered Miss Wren, inaudibly, with a visible
hitch of her chin, 'I mean to do it, and you may make up your mind
to THAT, old lady.'
'Here is the paper, madam,' said the Jew, delivering into Miss
Potterson's hands the original document drawn up by Rokesmith,
and signed by Riderhood. 'Will you please to read it?'
'But first of all,' said Miss Abbey, '-- did you ever taste shrub,
child?'
Miss Wren shook her head.
'Should you like to?'
'Should if it's good,' returned Miss Wren.
'You shall try. And, if you find it good, I'll mix some for you with
hot water. Put your poor little feet on the fender. It's a cold, cold
night, and the fog clings so.' As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her
chair, her loosened bonnet dropped on the floor. 'Why, what lovely
hair!' cried Miss Abbey. 'And enough to make wigs for all the
dolls in the world. What a quantity!'
'Call THAT a quantity?' returned Miss Wren. 'Poof! What do you
say to the rest of it?' As she spoke, she untied a band, and the
golden stream fell over herself and over the chair, and flowed down
to the ground. Miss Abbey's admiration seemed to increase her
perplexity. She beckoned the Jew towards her, as she reached
down the shrub-bottle from its niche, and whispered:
'Child, or woman?'
'Child in years,' was the answer; 'woman in self-reliance and trial.'
'You are talking about Me, good people,' thought Miss Jenny,
sitting in her golden bower, warming her feet. 'I can't hear what
you say, but I know your tricks and your manners!'
The shrub, when tasted from a spoon, perfectly harmonizing with
Miss Jenny's palate, a judicious amount was mixed by Miss
Potterson's skilful hands, whereof Riah too partook. After this
preliminary, Miss Abbey read the document; and, as often as she
raised her eyebrows in so doing, the watchful Miss Jenny
accompanied the action with an expressive and emphatic sip of the
shrub and water.
'As far as this goes,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, when she had
read it several times, and thought about it, 'it proves (what didn't
much need proving) that Rogue Riderhood is a villain. I have my
doubts whether he is not the villain who solely did the deed; but I
have no expectation of those doubts ever being cleared up now. I
believe I did Lizzie's father wrong, but never Lizzie's self; because
when things were at the worst I trusted her, had perfect confidence
in her, and tried to persuade her to come to me for a refuge. I am
very sorry to have done a man wrong, particularly when it can't be
undone. Be kind enough to let Lizzie know what I say; not
forgetting that if she will come to the Porters, after all, bygones
being bygones, she will find a home at the Porters, and a friend at
the Porters. She knows Miss Abbey of old, remind her, and she
knows what-like the home, and what-like the friend, is likely to
turn out. I am generally short and sweet--or short and sour,
according as it may be and as opinions vary--' remarked Miss
Abbey, 'and that's about all I have got to say, and enough too.'
But before the shrub and water was sipped out, Miss Abbey
bethought herself that she would like to keep a copy of the paper
by her. 'It's not long, sir,' said she to Riah, 'and perhaps you
wouldn't mind just jotting it down.' The old man willingly put on
his spectacles, and, standing at the little desk in the corner where
Miss Abbey filed her receipts and kept her sample phials
(customers' scores were interdicted by the strict administration of
the Porters), wrote out the copy in a fair round character. As he
stood there, doing his methodical penmanship, his ancient
scribelike figure intent upon the work, and the little dolls'
dressmaker sitting in her golden bower before the fire, Miss Abbey
had her doubts whether she had not dreamed those two rare figures
into the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not wake with
a nod next moment and find them gone.
Miss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting her eyes
and opening them again, still finding the figures there, when,
dreamlike, a confused hubbub arose in the public room. As she
started up, and they all three looked at one another, it became a
noise of clamouring voices and of the stir of feet; then all the
windows were heard to be hastily thrown up, and shouts and cries
came floating into the house from the river. A moment more, and
Bob Gliddery came clattering along the passage, with the noise of
all the nails in his boots condensed into every separate nail.
'What is it?' asked Miss Abbey.
'It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am,' answered Bob. 'There's
ever so many people in the river.'
'Tell 'em to put on all the kettles!' cried Miss Abbey. 'See that the
boiler's full. Get a bath out. Hang some blankets to the fire. Heat
some stone bottles. Have your senses about you, you girls down
stairs, and use 'em.'
While Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to Bob--whom
she seized by the hair, and whose head she knocked against the
wall, as a general injunction to vigilance and presence of mind--
and partly hailed the kitchen with them--the company in the public
room, jostling one another, rushed out to the causeway, and the
outer noise increased.
'Come and look,' said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They all three
hurried to the vacated public room, and passed by one of the
windows into the wooden verandah overhanging the river.
'Does anybody down there know what has happened?' demanded
Miss Abbey, in her voice of authority.
'It's a steamer, Miss Abbey,' cried one blurred figure in the fog.
'It always IS a steamer, Miss Abbey,' cried another.
'Them's her lights, Miss Abbey, wot you see a-blinking yonder,'
cried another.
'She's a-blowing off her steam, Miss Abbey, and that's what makes
the fog and the noise worse, don't you see?' explained another.
Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were
rushing tumultuously to the water's edge. Some man fell in with a
splash, and was pulled out again with a roar of laughter. The
drags were called for. A cry for the life-buoy passed from mouth to
mouth. It was impossible to make out what was going on upon the
river, for every boat that put off sculled into the fog and was lost to
view at a boat's length. Nothing was clear but that the unpopular
steamer was assailed with reproaches on all sides. She was the
Murderer, bound for Gallows Bay; she was the Manslaughterer,
bound for Penal Settlement; her captain ought to be tried for his
life; her crew ran down men in row-boats with a relish; she
mashed up Thames lightermen with her paddles; she fired property
with her funnels; she always was, and she always would be,
wreaking destruction upon somebody or something, after the
manner of all her kind. The whole bulk of the fog teemed with
such taunts, uttered in tones of universal hoarseness. All the
while, the steamer's lights moved spectrally a very little, as she layto,
waiting the upshot of whatever accident had happened. Now,
she began burning blue-lights. These made a luminous patch
about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in the patch--the
cries changing their note, and becoming more fitful and more
excited--shadows of men and boats could be seen moving, while
voices shouted: 'There!' 'There again!' 'A couple more strokes ahead!'
'Hurrah!' 'Look out!' 'Hold on!' 'Haul in!' and the like. Lastly,
with a few tumbling clots of blue fire, the night closed in dark
again, the wheels of the steamer were heard revolving, and her
lights glided smoothly away in the direction of the sea.
It appeared to Miss Abbey and her two companions that a
considerable time had been thus occupied. There was now as
eager a set towards the shore beneath the house as there had been
from it; and it was only on the first boat of the rush coming in that
it was known what had occurred.
'If that's Tom Tootle,' Miss Abbey made proclamation, in her most
commanding tones, 'let him instantly come underneath here.'
The submissive Tom complied, attended by a crowd.
'What is it, Tootle?' demanded Miss Abbey.
'It's a foreign steamer, miss, run down a wherry.'
'How many in the wherry?'
'One man, Miss Abbey.'
'Found?'
'Yes. He's been under water a long time, Miss; but they've
grappled up the body.'
'Let 'em bring it here. You, Bob Gliddery, shut the house-door and
stand by it on the inside, and don't you open till I tell you. Any
police down there?'
'Here, Miss Abbey,' was official rejoinder.
'After they have brought the body in, keep the crowd out, will you?
And help Bob Gliddery to shut 'em out.'
'All right, Miss Abbey.'
The autocratic landlady withdrew into the house with Riah and
Miss Jenny, and disposed those forces, one on either side of her,
within the half-door of the bar, as behind a breastwork.
'You two stand close here,' said Miss Abbey, 'and you'll come to no
hurt, and see it brought in. Bob, you stand by the door.'
That sentinel, smartly giving his rolled shirt-sleeves an extra and a
final tuck on his shoulders, obeyed.
Sound of advancing voices, sound of advancing steps. Shuffle and
talk without. Momentary pause. Two peculiarly blunt knocks or
pokes at the door, as if the dead man arriving on his back were
striking at it with the soles of his motionless feet.
'That's the stretcher, or the shutter, whichever of the two they are
carrying,' said Miss Abbey, with experienced ear. 'Open, you Bob!'
Door opened. Heavy tread of laden men. A halt. A rush.
Stoppage of rush. Door shut. Baffled boots from the vexed souls
of disappointed outsiders.
'Come on, men!' said Miss Abbey; for so potent was she with her
subjects that even then the bearers awaited her permission. 'First
floor.'
The entry being low, and the staircase being low, they so took up
the burden they had set down, as to carry that low. The recumbent
figure, in passing, lay hardly as high as the half door.
Miss Abbey started back at sight of it. 'Why, good God!' said she,
turning to her two companions, 'that's the very man who made the
declaration we have just had in our hands. That's Riderhood!'
Chapter 3
THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE
In sooth, it is Riderhood and no other, or it is the outer husk and
shell of Riderhood and no other, that is borne into Miss Abbey's
first-floor bedroom. Supple to twist and turn as the Rogue has ever
been, he is sufficiently rigid now; and not without much shuffling
of attendant feet, and tilting of his bier this way and that way, and
peril even of his sliding off it and being tumbled in a heap over the
balustrades, can he be got up stairs.
'Fetch a doctor,' quoth Miss Abbey. And then, 'Fetch his daughter.'
On both of which errands, quick messengers depart.
The doctor-seeking messenger meets the doctor halfway, coming
under convoy of police. Doctor examines the dank carcase, and
pronounces, not hopefully, that it is worth while trying to
reanimate the same. All the best means are at once in action, and
everybody present lends a hand, and a heart and soul. No one has
the least regard for the man; with them all, he has been an object of
avoidance, suspicion, and aversion; but the spark of life within him
is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep
interest in it, probably because it IS life, and they are living and
must die.
In answer to the doctor's inquiry how did it happen, and was
anyone to blame, Tom Tootle gives in his verdict, unavoidable
accident and no one to blame but the sufferer. 'He was slinking
about in his boat,' says Tom, 'which slinking were, not to speak ill
of the dead, the manner of the man, when he come right athwart
the steamer's bows and she cut him in two.' Mr Tootle is so far
figurative, touching the dismemberment, as that he means the boat,
and not the man. For, the man lies whole before them.
Captain Joey, the bottle-nosed regular customer in the glazed hat,
is a pupil of the much-respected old school, and (having insinuated
himself into the chamber, in the execution of the impontant service
of carrying the drowned man's neck-kerchief) favours the doctor
with a sagacious old-scholastic suggestion that the body should be
hung up by the heels, 'sim'lar', says Captain Joey, 'to mutton in a
butcher's shop,' and should then, as a particularly choice
manoeuvre for promoting easy respiration, be rolled upon casks.
These scraps of the wisdom of the captain's ancestors are received
with such speechless indignation by Miss Abbey, that she instantly
seizes the Captain by the collar, and without a single word ejects
him, not presuming to remonstrate, from the scene.
There then remain, to assist the doctor and Tom, only those three
other regular customers, Bob Glamour, William Williams, and
Jonathan (family name of the latter, if any, unknown to man-kind),
who are quite enough. Miss Abbey having looked in to make sure
that nothing is wanted, descends to the bar, and there awaits the
result, with the gentle Jew and Miss Jenny Wren.
If you are not gone for good, Mr Riderhood, it would be something
to know where you are hiding at present. This flabby lump of
mortality that we work so hard at with such patient perseverance,
yields no sign of you. If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very
solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in
the suspense and mystery of the latter question, involving that of
where you may be now, there is a solemnity even added to that of
death, making us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you
and to look off you, and making those below start at the least
sound of a creaking plank in the floor.
Stay! Did that eyelid tremble? So the doctor, breathing low, and
closely watching, asks himself.
No.
Did that nostril twitch?
No.
This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any faint flutter under
my hand upon the chest?
No.
Over and over again No. No. But try over and over again,
nevertheless.
See! A token of life! An indubitable token of life! The spark may
smoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, but see! The four
rough fellows, seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in this world,
nor Riderhood in the other, could draw tears from them; but a
striving human soul between the two can do it easily.
He is struggling to come back. Now, he is almost here, now he is
far away again. Now he is struggling harder to get back. And yet-
-like us all, when we swoon--like us all, every day of our lives
when we wake--he is instinctively unwilling to be restored to the
consciousness of this existence, and would be left dormant, if he
could.
Bob Gliddery returns with Pleasant Riderhood, who was out when
sought for, and hard to find. She has a shawl over her head, and
her first action, when she takes it off weeping, and curtseys to Miss
Abbey, is to wind her hair up.
'Thank you, Miss Abbey, for having father here.'
'I am bound to say, girl, I didn't know who it was,' returns Miss
Abbey; 'but I hope it would have been pretty much the same if I
had known.'
Poor Pleasant, fortified with a sip of brandy, is ushered into the
first-floor chamber. She could not express much sentiment about
her father if she were called upon to pronounce his funeral oration,
but she has a greater tenderness for him than he ever had for her,
and crying bitterly when she sees him stretched unconscious, asks
the doctor, with clasped hands: 'Is there no hope, sir? O poor
father! Is poor father dead?'
To which the doctor, on one knee beside the body, busy and
watchful, only rejoins without looking round: 'Now, my girl, unless
you have the self-command to be perfectly quiet, I cannot allow
you to remain in the room.'
Pleasant, consequently, wipes her eyes with her back-hair, which is
in fresh need of being wound up, and having got it out of the way,
watches with terrified interest all that goes on. Her natural
woman's aptitude soon renders her able to give a little help.
Anticipating the doctor's want of this or that, she quietly has it
ready for him, and so by degrees is intrusted with the charge of
supporting her father's head upon her arm.
It is something so new to Pleasant to see her father an object of
sympathy and interest, to find any one very willing to tolerate his
society in this world, not to say pressingly and soothingly
entreating him to belong to it, that it gives her a sensation she
never experienced before. Some hazy idea that if affairs could
remain thus for a long time it would be a respectable change, floats
in her mind. Also some vague idea that the old evil is drowned out
of him, and that if he should happily come back to resume his
occupation of the empty form that lies upon the bed, his spirit will
be altered. In which state of mind she kisses the stony lips, and
quite believes that the impassive hand she chafes will revive a
tender hand, if it revive ever.
Sweet delusion for Pleasant Riderhood. But they minister to him
with such extraordinary interest, their anxiety is so keen, their
vigilance is so great, their excited joy grows so intense as the signs
of life strengthen, that how can she resist it, poor thing! And now
he begins to breathe naturally, and he stirs, and the doctor declares
him to have come back from that inexplicable journey where he
stopped on the dark road, and to be here.
Tom Tootle, who is nearest to the doctor when he says this, grasps
the doctor fervently by the hand. Bob Glamour, William Williams,
and Jonathan of the no surname, all shake hands with one another
round, and with the doctor too. Bob Glamour blows his nose, and
Jonathan of the no surname is moved to do likewise, but lacking a
pocket handkerchief abandons that outlet for his emotion. Pleasant
sheds tears deserving her own name, and her sweet delusion is at
its height.
There is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a question. He
wonders where he is. Tell him.
'Father, you were run down on the river, and are at Miss Abbey
Potterson's.'
He stares at his daughter, stares all around him, closes his eyes,
and lies slumbering on her arm.
The short-lived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad,
unimpressible face is coming up from the depths of the river, or
what other depths, to the surface again. As he grows warm, the
doctor and the four men cool. As his lineaments soften with life,
their faces and their hearts harden to him.
'He will do now,' says the doctor, washing his hands, and looking
at the patient with growing disfavour.
'Many a better man,' moralizes Tom Tootle with a gloomy shake of
the head, 'ain't had his luck.'
'It's to be hoped he'll make a better use of his life,' says Bob
Glamour, 'than I expect he will.'
'Or than he done afore,' adds William Williams.
'But no, not he!' says Jonathan of the no surname, clinching the
quartette.
They speak in a low tone because of his daughter, but she sees that
they have all drawn off, and that they stand in a group at the other
end of the room, shunning him. It would be too much to suspect
them of being sorry that he didn't die when he had done so much
towards it, but they clearly wish that they had had a better subject
to bestow their pains on. Intelligence is conveyed to Miss Abbey
in the bar, who reappears on the scene, and contemplates from a
distance, holding whispered discourse with the doctor. The spark
of life was deeply interesting while it was in abeyance, but now
that it has got established in Mr Riderhood, there appears to be a
general desire that circumstances had admitted of its being
developed in anybody else, rather than that gentleman.
'However,' says Miss Abbey, cheering them up, 'you have done
your duty like good and true men, and you had better come down
and take something at the expense of the Porters.'
This they all do, leaving the daughter watching the father. To
whom, in their absence, Bob Gliddery presents himself.
'His gills looks rum; don't they?' says Bob, after inspecting the
patient.
Pleasant faintly nods.
'His gills'll look rummer when he wakes; won't they?' says Bob.
Pleasant hopes not. Why?
'When he finds himself here, you know,' Bob explains. 'Cause
Miss Abbey forbid him the house and ordered him out of it. But
what you may call the Fates ordered him into it again. Which is
rumness; ain't it?'
'He wouldn't have come here of his own accord,' returns poor
Pleasant, with an effort at a little pride.
'No,' retorts Bob. 'Nor he wouldn't have been let in, if he had.'
The short delusion is quite dispelled now. As plainly as she sees
on her arm the old father, unimproved, Pleasant sees that
everybody there will cut him when he recovers consciousness. 'I'll
take him away ever so soon as I can,' thinks Pleasant with a sigh;
'he's best at home.'
Presently they all return, and wait for him to become conscious that
they will all be glad to get rid of him. Some clothes are got
together for him to wear, his own being saturated with water, and
his present dress being composed of blankets.
Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the prevalent
dislike were finding him out somewhere in his sleep and
expressing itself to him, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and
is assisted by his daughter to sit up in bed.
'Well, Riderhood,' says the doctor, 'how do you feel?'
He replies gruffly, 'Nothing to boast on.' Having, in fact, returned
to life in an uncommonly sulky state.
'I don't mean to preach; but I hope,' says the doctor, gravely
shaking his head, 'that this escape may have a good effect upon
you, Riderhood.'
The patient's discontented growl of a reply is not intelligible; his
daughter, however, could interpret, if she would, that what he says
is, he 'don't want no Poll-Parroting'.
Mr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his
head (with his daughter's help) exactly as if he had just had a
Fight.
'Warn't it a steamer?' he pauses to ask her.
'Yes, father.'
'I'll have the law on her, bust her! and make her pay for it.'
He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping to
examine his arms and hands, as if to see what punishment he has
received in the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other
garments, and slowly gets them on, with an appearance of great
malevolence towards his late opponent and all the spectators. He
has an impression that his nose is bleeding, and several times
draws the back of his hand across it, and looks for the result, in a
pugilistic manner, greatly strengthening that incongruous
resemblance.
'Where's my fur cap?' he asks in a surly voice, when he has
shuffled his clothes on.
'In the river,' somebody rejoins.
'And warn't there no honest man to pick it up? O' course there was
though, and to cut off with it arterwards. You are a rare lot, all on
you!'
Thus, Mr Riderhood: taking from the hands of his daughter, with
special ill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he pulls it down over
his ears. Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily upon
her, and growling, 'Hold still, can't you? What! You must be a
staggering next, must you?' he takes his departure out of the ring in
which he has had that little turn-up with Death.
Chapter 4
A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY
Mr and Mrs Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred more
anniversaries of their wedding day than Mr and Mrs Lammle had
seen of theirs, but they still celebrated the occasion in the bosom of
their family. Not that these celebrations ever resulted in anything
particularly agreeable, or that the family was ever disappointed by
that circumstance on account of having looked forward to the
return of the auspicious day with sanguine anticipations of
enjoyment. It was kept morally, rather as a Fast than a Feast,
enabling Mrs Wilfer to hold a sombre darkling state, which
exhibited that impressive woman in her choicest colours.
The noble lady's condition on these delightful occasions was one
compounded of heroic endurance and heroic forgiveness. Lurid
indications of the better marriages she might have made, shone
athwart the awful gloom of her composure, and fitfully revealed the
cherub as a little monster unaccountably favoured by Heaven, who
had possessed himself of a blessing for which many of his
superiors had sued and contended in vain. So firmly had this his
position towards his treasure become established, that when the
anniversary arrived, it always found him in an apologetic state. It
is not impossible that his modest penitence may have even gone
the length of sometimes severely reproving him for that he ever
took the liberty of making so exalted a character his wife.
As for the children of the union, their experience of these festivals
had been sufficiently uncomfortable to lead them annually to wish,
when out of their tenderest years, either that Ma had married
somebody else instead of much-teased Pa, or that Pa had married
somebody else instead of Ma. When there came to be but two
sisters left at home, the daring mind of Bella on the next of these
occasions scaled the height of wondering with droll vexation 'what
on earth Pa ever could have seen in Ma, to induce him to make
such a little fool of himself as to ask her to have him.'
The revolving year now bringing the day round in its orderly
sequence, Bella arrived in the Boffin chariot to assist at the
celebration. It was the family custom when the day recurred, to
sacrifice a pair of fowls on the altar of Hymen; and Bella had sent a
note beforehand, to intimate that she would bring the votive
offering with her. So, Bella and the fowls, by the united energies
of two horses, two men, four wheels, and a plum-pudding carriage
dog with as uncomfortable a collar on as if he had been George the
Fourth, were deposited at the door of the parental dwelling. They
were there received by Mrs Wilfer in person, whose dignity on this,
as on most special occasions, was heightened by a mysterious
toothache.
'I shall not require the carriage at night,' said Bella. 'I shall walk
back.'
The male domestic of Mrs Boffin touched his hat, and in the act of
departure had an awful glare bestowed upon him by Mrs Wilfer,
intended to carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance that,
whatever his private suspicions might be, male domestics in livery
were no rarity there.
'Well, dear Ma,' said Bella, 'and how do you do?'
'I am as well, Bella,' replied Mrs Wilfer, 'as can be expected.'
'Dear me, Ma,' said Bella; 'you talk as if one was just born!'
'That's exactly what Ma has been doing,' interposed Lavvy, over
the maternal shoulder, 'ever since we got up this morning. It's all
very well to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is
impossible to conceive.'
Mrs Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accompanied by
any words, attended both her daughters to the kitchen, where the
sacrifice was to be prepared.
'Mr Rokesmith,' said she, resignedly, 'has been so polite as to place
his sitting-room at our disposal to-day. You will therefore, Bella,
be entertained in the humble abode of your parents, so far in
accordance with your present style of living, that there will be a
drawing-room for your reception as well as a dining-room. Your
papa invited Mr Rokesmith to partake of our lowly fare. In
excusing himself on account of a particular engagement, he offered
the use of his apartment.'
Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his own
room at Mr Boffin's, but she approved of his staying away. 'We
should only have put one another out of countenance,' she thought,
'and we do that quite often enough as it is.'
Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up to it with
the least possible delay, and make a close inspection of its
contents. It was tastefully though economically furnished, and
very neatly arranged. There were shelves and stands of books,
English, French, and Italian; and in a portfolio on the writing-table
there were sheets upon sheets of memoranda and calculations in
figures, evidently referring to the Boffin property. On that table
also, carefully backed with canvas, varnished, mounted, and rolled
like a map, was the placard descriptive of the murdered man who
had come from afar to be her husband. She shrank from this
ghostly surprise, and felt quite frightened as she rolled and tied it
up again. Peeping about here and there, she came upon a print, a
graceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, hanging in the
corner by the easy chair. 'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Bella, after
stopping to ruminate before it. 'Oh, indeed, sir! I fancy I can guess
whom you think THAT'S like. But I'll tell you what it's much
more like--your impudence!' Having said which she decamped:
not solely because she was offended, but because there was
nothing else to look at.
'Now, Ma,' said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with some
remains of a blush, 'you and Lavvy think magnificent me fit for
nothing, but I intend to prove the contrary. I mean to be Cook
today.'
'Hold!' rejoined her majestic mother. 'I cannot permit it. Cook, in
that dress!'
'As for my dress, Ma,' returned Bella, merrily searching in a
dresser-drawer, 'I mean to apron it and towel it all over the front;
and as to permission, I mean to do without.'
'YOU cook?' said Mrs Wilfer. 'YOU, who never cooked when you
were at home?'
'Yes, Ma,' returned Bella; 'that is precisely the state of the case.'
She girded herself with a white apron, and busily with knots and
pins contrived a bib to it, coming close and tight under her chin, as
if it had caught her round the neck to kiss her. Over this bib her
dimples looked delightful, and under it her pretty figure not less so.
'Now, Ma,' said Bella, pushing back her hair from her temples
with both hands, 'what's first?'
'First,' returned Mrs Wilfer solemnly, 'if you persist in what I
cannot but regard as conduct utterly incompatible with the
equipage in which you arrived--'
('Which I do, Ma.')
'First, then, you put the fowls down to the fire.'
'To--be--sure!' cried Bella; 'and flour them, and twirl them round,
and there they go!' sending them spinning at a great rate. 'What's
next, Ma?'
'Next,' said Mrs Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive of
abdication under protest from the culinary throne, 'I would
recommend examination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire,
and also of the potatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation of
the greens will further become necessary if you persist in this
unseemly demeanour.'
'As of course I do, Ma.'
Persisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and forgot the
other, and gave her attention to the other and forgot the third, and
remembering the third was distracted by the fourth, and made
amends whenever she went wrong by giving the unfortunate fowls
an extra spin, which made their chance of ever getting cooked
exceedingly doubtful. But it was pleasant cookery too. Meantime
Miss Lavinia, oscillating between the kitchen and the opposite
room, prepared the dining-table in the latter chamber. This office
she (always doing her household spiriting with unwillingness)
performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps; laying the
table-cloth as if she were raising the wind, putting down the
glasses and salt-cellars as if she were knocking at the door, and
clashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner suggestive
of hand-to-hand conflict.
'Look at Ma,' whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and
they stood over the roasting fowls. 'If one was the most dutiful
child in existence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn't
she enough to make one want to poke her with something wooden,
sitting there bolt upright in a corner?'
'Only suppose,' returned Bella, 'that poor Pa was to sit bolt upright
in another corner.'
'My dear, he couldn't do it,' said Lavvy. 'Pa would loll directly.
But indeed I do not believe there ever was any human creature who
could keep so bolt upright as Ma, 'or put such an amount of
aggravation into one back! What's the matter, Ma? Ain't you well,
Ma?'
'Doubtless I am very well,' returned Mrs Wilfer, turning her eyes
upon her youngest born, with scornful fortitude. 'What should be
the matter with Me?'
'You don't seem very brisk, Ma,' retorted Lavvy the bold.
'Brisk?' repeated her parent, 'Brisk? Whence the low expression,
Lavinia? If I am uncomplaining, if I am silently contented with my
lot, let that suffice for my family.'
'Well, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'since you will force it out of me, I
must respectfully take leave to say that your family are no doubt
under the greatest obligations to you for having an annual
toothache on your wedding day, and that it's very disinterested in
you, and an immense blessing to them. Still, on the whole, it is
possible to be too boastful even of that boon.'
'You incarnation of sauciness,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'do you speak like
that to me? On this day, of all days in the year? Pray do you know
what would have become of you, if I had not bestowed my hand
upon R. W., your father, on this day?'
'No, Ma,' replied Lavvy, 'I really do not; and, with the greatest
respect for your abilities and information, I very much doubt if you
do either.'
Whether or no the sharp vigour of this sally on a weak point of Mrs
Wilfer's entrenchments might have routed that heroine for the time,
is rendered uncertain by the arrival of a flag of truce in the person
of Mr George Sampson: bidden to the feast as a friend of the
family, whose affections were now understood to be in course of
transference from Bella to Lavinia, and whom Lavinia kept--
possibly in remembrance of his bad taste in having overlooked her
in the first instance--under a course of stinging discipline.
'I congratulate you, Mrs Wilfer,' said Mr George Sampson, who
had meditated this neat address while coming along, 'on the day.'
Mrs Wilfer thanked him with a magnanimous sigh, and again
became an unresisting prey to that inscrutable toothache.
'I am surprised,' said Mr Sampson feebly, 'that Miss Bella
condescends to cook.'
Here Miss Lavinia descended on the ill-starred young gentleman
with a crushing supposition that at all events it was no business of
his. This disposed of Mr Sampson in a melancholy retirement of
spirit, until the cherub arrived, whose amazement at the lovely
woman's occupation was great.
However, she persisted in dishing the dinner as well as cooking it,
and then sat down, bibless and apronless, to partake of it as an
illustrious guest: Mrs Wilfer first responding to her husband's
cheerful 'For what we are about to receive--'with a sepulchral
Amen, calculated to cast a damp upon the stoutest appetite.
'But what,' said Bella, as she watched the carving of the fowls,
'makes them pink inside, I wonder, Pa! Is it the breed?'
'No, I don't think it's the breed, my dear,' returned Pa. 'I rather
think it is because they are not done.'
'They ought to be,' said Bella.
'Yes, I am aware they ought to be, my dear,' rejoined her father,
'but they--ain't.'
So, the gridiron was put in requisition, and the good-tempered
cherub, who was often as un-cherubically employed in his own
family as if he had been in the employment of some of the Old
Masters, undertook to grill the fowls. Indeed, except in respect of
staring about him (a branch of the public service to which the
pictorial cherub is much addicted), this domestic cherub
discharged as many odd functions as his prototype; with the
difference, say, that he performed with a blacking-brush on the
family's boots, instead of performing on enormous wind
instruments and double-basses, and that he conducted himself with
cheerful alacrity to much useful purpose, instead of foreshortening
himself in the air with the vaguest intentions.
Bella helped him with his supplemental cookery, and made him
very happy, but put him in mortal terror too by asking him when
they sat down at table again, how he supposed they cooked fowls
at the Greenwich dinners, and whether he believed they really were
such pleasant dinners as people said? His secret winks and nods
of remonstrance, in reply, made the mischievous Bella laugh until
she choked, and then Lavinia was obliged to slap her on the back,
and then she laughed the more.
But her mother was a fine corrective at the other end of the table; to
whom her father, in the innocence of his good-fellowship, at
intervals appealed with: 'My dear, I am afraid you are not enjoying
yourself?'
'Why so, R. W.?' she would sonorously reply.
'Because, my dear, you seem a little out of sorts.'
'Not at all,' would be the rejoinder, in exactly the same tone.
'Would you take a merry-thought, my dear?'
'Thank you. I will take whatever you please, R. W.'
'Well, but my dear, do you like it?'
'I like it as well as I like anything, R. W.' The stately woman
would then, with a meritorious appearance of devoting herself to
the general good, pursue her dinner as if she were feeding
somebody else on high public grounds.
Bella had brought dessert and two bottles of wine, thus shedding
unprecedented splendour on the occasion. Mrs Wilfer did the
honours of the first glass by proclaiming: 'R. W. I drink to you.
'Thank you, my dear. And I to you.'
'Pa and Ma!' said Bella.
'Permit me,' Mrs Wilfer interposed, with outstretched glove. 'No. I
think not. I drank to your papa. If, however, you insist on
including me, I can in gratitude offer no objection.'
'Why, Lor, Ma,' interposed Lavvy the bold, 'isn't it the day that
made you and Pa one and the same? I have no patience!'
'By whatever other circumstance the day may be marked, it is not
the day, Lavinia, on which I will allow a child of mine to pounce
upon me. I beg--nay, command!--that you will not pounce. R. W.,
it is appropriate to recall that it is for you to command and for me
to obey. It is your house, and you are master at your own table.
Both our healths!' Drinking the toast with tremendous stiffness.
'I really am a little afraid, my dear,' hinted the cherub meekly, 'that
you are not enjoying yourself?'
'On the contrary,' returned Mrs Wilfer, 'quite so. Why should I
not?'
'I thought, my dear, that perhaps your face might--'
'My face might be a martyrdom, but what would that import, or
who should know it, if I smiled?'
And she did smile; manifestly freezing the blood of Mr George
Sampson by so doing. For that young gentleman, catching her
smiling eye, was so very much appalled by its expression as to cast
about in his thoughts concerning what he had done to bring it
down upon himself.
'The mind naturally falls,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'shall I say into a
reverie, or shall I say into a retrospect? on a day like this.'
Lavvy, sitting with defiantly folded arms, replied (but not audibly),
'For goodness' sake say whichever of the two you like best, Ma,
and get it over.'
'The mind,' pursued Mrs Wilfer in an oratorical manner, 'naturally
reverts to Papa and Mamma--I here allude to my parents--at a
period before the earliest dawn of this day. I was considered tall;
perhaps I was. Papa and Mamma were unquestionably tall. I have
rarely seen a finer women than my mother; never than my father.'
The irrepressible Lavvy remarked aloud, 'Whatever grandpapa
was, he wasn't a female.'
'Your grandpapa,' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with an awful look, and in
an awful tone, 'was what I describe him to have been, and would
have struck any of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to
question it. It was one of mamma's cherished hopes that I should
become united to a tall member of society. It may have been a
weakness, but if so, it was equally the weakness, I believe, of King
Frederick of Prussia.' These remarks being offered to Mr George
Sampson, who had not the courage to come out for single combat,
but lurked with his chest under the table and his eyes cast down,
Mrs Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of increasing sternness and
impressiveness, until she should force that skulker to give himself
up. 'Mamma would appear to have had an indefinable foreboding
of what afterwards happened, for she would frequently urge upon
me, "Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man.
Never, never, never, marry a little man!" Papa also would remark
to me (he possessed extraordinary humour),"that a family of
whales must not ally themselves with sprats." His company was
eagerly sought, as may be supposed, by the wits of the day, and our
house was their continual resort. I have known as many as three
copper-plate engravers exchanging the most exquisite sallies and
retorts there, at one time.' (Here Mr Sampson delivered himself
captive, and said, with an uneasy movement on his chair, that three
was a large number, and it must have been highly entertaining.)
'Among the most prominent members of that distinguished circle,
was a gentleman measuring six feet four in height. HE was NOT
an engraver.' (Here Mr Sampson said, with no reason whatever,
Of course not.) 'This gentleman was so obliging as to honour me
with attentions which I could not fail to understand.' (Here Mr
Sampson murmured that when it came to that, you could always
tell.) 'I immediately announced to both my parents that those
attentions were misplaced, and that I could not favour his suit.
They inquired was he too tall? I replied it was not the stature, but
the intellect was too lofty. At our house, I said, the tone was too
brilliant, the pressure was too high, to be maintained by me, a mere
woman, in every-day domestic life. I well remember mamma's
clasping her hands, and exclaiming "This will end in a little man!"'
(Here Mr Sampson glanced at his host and shook his head with
despondency.) 'She afterwards went so far as to predict that it
would end in a little man whose mind would be below the average,
but that was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of maternal
disappointment. Within a month,' said Mrs Wilfer, deepening her
voice, as if she were relating a terrible ghost story, 'within a-month,
I first saw R. W. my husband. Within a year, I married him. It is
natural for the mind to recall these dark coincidences on the
present day.'
Mr Sampson at length released from the custody of Mrs Wilfer's
eye, now drew a long breath, and made the original and striking
remark that there was no accounting for these sort of
presentiments. R. W. scratched his head and looked apologetically
all round the table until he came to his wife, when observing her as
it were shrouded in a more sombre veil than before, he once more
hinted, 'My dear, I am really afraid you are not altogether enjoying
yourself?' To which she once more replied, 'On the contrary, R. W.
Quite so.'
The wretched Mr Sampson's position at this agreeable entertainment
was truly pitiable. For, not only was he exposed defenceless
to the harangues of Mrs Wilfer, but he received the utmost
contumely at the hands of Lavinia; who, partly to show Bella that
she (Lavinia) could do what she liked with him, and partly to pay
him off for still obviously admiring Bella's beauty, led him
the life of a dog. Illuminated on the one hand by the stately
graces of Mrs Wilfer's oratory, and shadowed on the other by the
checks and frowns of the young lady to whom he had devoted
himself in his destitution, the sufferings of this young gentleman
were distressing to witness. If his mind for the moment reeled
under them, it may be urged, in extenuation of its weakness, that it
was constitutionally a knock-knee'd mind and never very strong
upon its legs.
The rosy hours were thus beguiled until it was time for Bella to
have Pa's escort back. The dimples duly tied up in the bonnetstrings
and the leave-taking done, they got out into the air, and the
cherub drew a long breath as if he found it refreshing.
'Well, dear Pa,' said Bella, 'the anniversary may be considered
over.'
'Yes, my dear,' returned the cherub, 'there's another of 'em gone.'
Bella drew his arm closer through hers as they walked along, and
gave it a number of consolatory pats. 'Thank you, my dear,' he
said, as if she had spoken; 'I am all right, my dear. Well, and how
do you get on, Bella?'
'I am not at all improved, Pa.'
'Ain't you really though?'
'No, Pa. On the contrary, I am worse.'
'Lor!' said the cherub.
'I am worse, Pa. I make so many calculations how much a year I
must have when I marry, and what is the least I can manage to do
with, that I am beginning to get wrinkles over my nose. Did you
notice any wrinkles over my nose this evening, Pa?'
Pa laughing at this, Bella gave him two or three shakes.
'You won't laugh, sir, when you see your lovely woman turning
haggard. You had better be prepared in time, I can tell you. I shall
not be able to keep my greediness for money out of my eyes long,
and when you see it there you'll be sorry, and serve you right for
not being warned in time. Now, sir, we entered into a bond of
confidence. Have you anything to impart?'
'I thought it was you who was to impart, my love.'
'Oh! did you indeed, sir? Then why didn't you ask me, the moment
we came out? The confidences of lovely women are not to be
slighted. However, I forgive you this once, and look here, Pa;
that's'--Bella laid the little forefinger of her right glove on her lip,
and then laid it on her father's lip--'that's a kiss for you. And now I
am going seriously to tell you--let me see how many--four secrets.
Mind! Serious, grave, weighty secrets. Strictly between
ourselves.'
'Number one, my dear?' said her father, settling her arm
comfortably and confidentially.
'Number one,' said Bella, 'will electrify you, Pa. Who do you think
has'--she was confused here in spite of her merry way of beginning
'has made an offer to me?'
Pa looked in her face, and looked at the ground, and looked in her
face again, and declared he could never guess.
'Mr Rokesmith.'
'You don't tell me so, my dear!'
'Mis--ter Roke--smith, Pa,' said Bella separating the syllables for
emphasis. 'What do you say to THAT?'
Pa answered quietly with the counter-question, 'What did YOU say
to that, my love?'
'I said No,' returned Bella sharply. 'Of course.'
'Yes. Of course,' said her father, meditating.
'And I told him why I thought it a betrayal of trust on his part, and
an affront to me,' said Bella.
'Yes. To be sure. I am astonished indeed. I wonder he committed
himself without seeing more of his way first. Now I think of it, I
suspect he always has admired you though, my dear.'
'A hackney coachman may admire me,' remarked Bella, with a
touch of her mother's loftiness.
'It's highly probable, my love. Number two, my dear?'
'Number two, Pa, is much to the same purpose, though not so
preposterous. Mr Lightwood would propose to me, if I would let
him.'
'Then I understand, my dear, that you don't intend to let him?'
Bella again saying, with her former emphasis, 'Why, of course not!'
her father felt himself bound to echo, 'Of course not.'
'I don't care for him,' said Bella.
'That's enough,' her father interposed.
'No, Pa, it's NOT enough,' rejoined Bella, giving him another
shake or two. 'Haven't I told you what a mercenary little wretch I
am? It only becomes enough when he has no money, and no
clients, and no expectations, and no anything but debts.'
'Hah!' said the cherub, a little depressed. 'Number three, my dear?'
'Number three, Pa, is a better thing. A generous thing, a noble
thing, a delightful thing. Mrs Boffin has herself told me, as a
secret, with her own kind lips--and truer lips never opened or
closed in this life, I am sure--that they wish to see me well
married; and that when I marry with their consent they will portion
me most handsomely.' Here the grateful girl burst out crying very
heartily.
'Don't cry, my darling,' said her father, with his hand to his eyes;
'it's excusable in me to be a little overcome when I find that my
dear favourite child is, after all disappointments, to be so provided
for and so raised in the world; but don't YOU cry, don't YOU cry.
I am very thankful. I congratulate you with all my heart, my dear.'
The good soft little fellow, drying his eyes, here, Bella put her arms
round his neck and tenderly kissed him on the high road,
passionately telling him he was the best of fathers and the best of
friends, and that on her wedding-morning she would go down on
her knees to him and beg his pardon for having ever teased him or
seemed insensible to the worth of such a patient, sympathetic,
genial, fresh young heart. At every one of her adjectives she
redoubled her kisses, and finally kissed his hat off, and then
laughed immoderately when the wind took it and he ran after it.
When he had recovered his hat and his breath, and they were going
on again once more, said her father then: 'Number four, my dear?'
Bella's countenance fell in the midst of her mirth. 'After all,
perhaps I had better put off number four, Pa. Let me try once
more, if for never so short a time, to hope that it may not really be
so.'
The change in her, strengthened the cherub's interest in number
four, and he said quietly: 'May not be so, my dear? May not be
how, my dear?'
Bella looked at him pensively, and shook her head.
'And yet I know right well it is so, Pa. I know it only too well.'
'My love,' returned her father, 'you make me quite uncomfortable.
Have you said No to anybody else, my dear?'
'No, Pa.'
'Yes to anybody?' he suggested, lifting up his eyebrows.
'No, Pa.'
'Is there anybody else who would take his chance between Yes and
No, if you would let him, my dear?'
'Not that I know of, Pa.'
'There can't be somebody who won't take his chance when you
want him to?' said the cherub, as a last resource.
'Why, of course not, Pa, said Bella, giving him another shake or
two.
'No, of course not,' he assented. 'Bella, my dear, I am afraid I must
either have no sleep to-night, or I must press for number four.'
'Oh, Pa, there is no good in number four! I am so sorry for it, I am
so unwilling to believe it, I have tried so earnestly not to see it, that
it is very hard to tell, even to you. But Mr Boffin is being spoilt by
prosperity, and is changing every day.'
'My dear Bella, I hope and trust not.'
'I have hoped and trusted not too, Pa; but every day he changes for
the worse, and for the worse. Not to me--he is always much the
same to me--but to others about him. Before my eyes he grows
suspicious, capricious, hard, tyrannical, unjust. If ever a good man
were ruined by good fortune, it is my benefactor. And yet, Pa,
think how terrible the fascination of money is! I see this, and hate
this, and dread this, and don't know but that money might make a
much worse change in me. And yet I have money always in my
thoughts and my desires; and the whole life I place before myself is
money, money, money, and what money can make of life!'
Chapter 5
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY
Were Bella Wilfer's bright and ready little wits at fault, or was the
Golden Dustman passing through the furnace of proof and coming
out dross? Ill news travels fast. We shall know full soon.
On that very night of her return from the Happy Return, something
chanced which Bella closely followed with her eyes and ears.
There was an apartment at the side of the Boffin mansion, known
as Mr Boffin's room. Far less grand than the rest of the house, it
was far more comfortable, being pervaded by a certain air of
homely snugness, which upholstering despotism had banished to
that spot when it inexorably set its face against Mr Boffin's appeals
for mercy in behalf of any other chamber. Thus, although a room
of modest situation--for its windows gave on Silas Wegg's old
corner--and of no pretensions to velvet, satin, or gilding, it had got
itself established in a domestic position analogous to that of an
easy dressing-gown or pair of slippers; and whenever the family
wanted to enjoy a particularly pleasant fireside evening, they
enjoyed it, as an institution that must be, in Mr Boffin's room.
Mr and Mrs Boffin were reported sitting in this room, when Bella
got back. Entering it, she found the Secretary there too; in official
attendance it would appear, for he was standing with some papers
in his hand by a table with shaded candles on it, at which Mr
Boffin was seated thrown back in his easy chair.
'You are busy, sir,' said Bella, hesitating at the door.
'Not at all, my dear, not at all. You're one of ourselves. We never
make company of you. Come in, come in. Here's the old lady in
her usual place.'
Mrs Boffin adding her nod and smile of welcome to Mr Boffin's
words, Bella took her book to a chair in the fireside corner, by Mrs
Boffin's work-table. Mr Boffin's station was on the opposite side.
'Now, Rokesmith,' said the Golden Dustman, so sharply rapping
the table to bespeak his attention as Bella turned the leaves of her
book, that she started; 'where were we?'
'You were saying, sir,' returned the Secretary, with an air of some
reluctance and a glance towards those others who were present,
'that you considered the time had come for fixing my salary.'
'Don't be above calling it wages, man,' said Mr Boffin, testily.
'What the deuce! I never talked of any salary when I was in
service.'
'My wages,' said the Secretary, correcting himself.
'Rokesmith, you are not proud, I hope?' observed Mr Boffin, eyeing
him askance.
'I hope not, sir.'
'Because I never was, when I was poor,' said Mr Boffin. 'Poverty
and pride don't go at all well together. Mind that. How can they
go well together? Why it stands to reason. A man, being poor, has
nothing to be proud of. It's nonsense.'
With a slight inclination of his head, and a look of some surprise,
the Secretary seemed to assent by forming the syllables of the word
'nonsense' on his lips.
'Now, concerning these same wages,' said Mr Boffin. 'Sit down.'
The Secretary sat down.
'Why didn't you sit down before?' asked Mr Boffin, distrustfully. 'I
hope that wasn't pride? But about these wages. Now, I've gone
into the matter, and I say two hundred a year. What do you think
of it? Do you think it's enough?'
'Thank you. It is a fair proposal.'
'I don't say, you know,' Mr Boffin stipulated, 'but what it may be
more than enough. And I'll tell you why, Rokesmith. A man of
property, like me, is bound to consider the market-price. At first I
didn't enter into that as much as I might have done; but I've got
acquainted with other men of property since, and I've got
acquainted with the duties of property. I mustn't go putting the
market-price up, because money may happen not to be an object
with me. A sheep is worth so much in the market, and I ought to
give it and no more. A secretary is worth so much in the market,
and I ought to give it and no more. However, I don't mind
stretching a point with you.'
'Mr Boffin, you are very good,' replied the Secretary, with an effort.
'Then we put the figure,' said Mr Boffin, 'at two hundred a year.
Then the figure's disposed of. Now, there must be no
misunderstanding regarding what I buy for two hundred a year. If
I pay for a sheep, I buy it out and out. Similarly, if I pay for a
secretary, I buy HIM out and out.'
'In other words, you purchase my whole time?'
'Certainly I do. Look here,' said Mr Boffin, 'it ain't that I want to
occupy your whole time; you can take up a book for a minute or
two when you've nothing better to do, though I think you'll a'most
always find something useful to do. But I want to keep you in
attendance. It's convenient to have you at all times ready on the
premises. Therefore, betwixt your breakfast and your supper,--on
the premises I expect to find you.'
The Secretary bowed.
'In bygone days, when I was in service myself,' said Mr Boffin, 'I
couldn't go cutting about at my will and pleasure, and you won't
expect to go cutting about at your will and pleasure. You've rather
got into a habit of that, lately; but perhaps it was for want of a right
specification betwixt us. Now, let there be a right specification
betwixt us, and let it be this. If you want leave, ask for it.'
Again the Secretary bowed. His manner was uneasy and
astonished, and showed a sense of humiliation.
'I'll have a bell,' said Mr Boffin, 'hung from this room to yours, and
when I want you, I'll touch it. I don't call to mind that I have
anything more to say at the present moment.'
The Secretary rose, gathered up his papers, and withdrew. Bella's
eyes followed him to the door, lighted on Mr Boffin complacently
thrown back in his easy chair, and drooped over her book.
'I have let that chap, that young man of mine,' said Mr Boffin,
taking a trot up and down the room, get above his work. It won't
do. I must have him down a peg. A man of property owes a duty
to other men of property, and must look sharp after his inferiors.'
Bella felt that Mrs Boffin was not comfortable, and that the eyes of
that good creature sought to discover from her face what attention
she had given to this discourse, and what impression it had made
upon her. For which reason Bella's eyes drooped more engrossedly
over her book, and she turned the page with an air of profound
absorption in it.
'Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin, after thoughtfully pausing in her work.
'My dear,' returned the Golden Dustman, stopping short in his trot.
'Excuse my putting it to you, Noddy, but now really! Haven't you
been a little strict with Mr Rokesmith to-night? Haven't you been
a little--just a little little--not quite like your old self?'
'Why, old woman, I hope so,' returned Mr Boffin, cheerfully, if not
boastfully.
'Hope so, deary?'
'Our old selves wouldn't do here, old lady. Haven't you found that
out yet? Our old selves would be fit for nothing here but to be
robbed and imposed upon. Our old selves weren't people of
fortune; our new selves are; it's a great difference.'
'Ah!' said Mrs Boffin, pausing in her work again, softly to draw a
long breath and to look at the fire. 'A great difference.'
'And we must be up to the difference,' pursued her husband; 'we
must be equal to the change; that's what we must be. We've got to
hold our own now, against everybody (for everybody's hand is
stretched out to be dipped into our pockets), and we have got to
recollect that money makes money, as well as makes everything
else.'
'Mentioning recollecting,' said Mrs Boffin, with her work
abandoned, her eyes upon the fire, and her chin upon her hand, 'do
you recollect, Noddy, how you said to Mr Rokesmith when he first
came to see us at the Bower, and you engaged him--how you said
to him that if it had pleased Heaven to send John Harmon to his
fortune safe, we could have been content with the one Mound
which was our legacy, and should never have wanted the rest?'
'Ay, I remember, old lady. But we hadn't tried what it was to have
the rest then. Our new shoes had come home, but we hadn't put
'em on. We're wearing 'em now, we're wearing 'em, and must step
out accordingly.'
Mrs Boffin took up her work again, and plied her needle in silence.
'As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine,' said Mr Boffin,
dropping his voice and glancing towards the door with an
apprehension of being overheard by some eavesdropper there, 'it's
the same with him as with the footmen. I have found out that you
must either scrunch them, or let them scrunch you. If you ain't
imperious with 'em, they won't believe in your being any better
than themselves, if as good, after the stories (lies mostly) that they
have heard of your beginnings. There's nothing betwixt stiffening
yourself up, and throwing yourself away; take my word for that,
old lady.'
Bella ventured for a moment to look stealthily towards him under
her eyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of suspicion,
covetousness, and conceit, overshadowing the once open face.
'Hows'ever,' said he, 'this isn't entertaining to Miss Bella. Is it,
Bella?'
A deceiving Bella she was, to look at him with that pensively
abstracted air, as if her mind were full of her book, and she had not
heard a single word!
'Hah! Better employed than to attend to it,' said Mr Boffin. 'That's
right, that's right. Especially as you have no call to be told how to
value yourself, my dear.'
Colouring a little under this compliment, Bella returned, 'I hope
sir, you don't think me vain?'
'Not a bit, my dear,' said Mr Boffin. 'But I think it's very creditable
in you, at your age, to be so well up with the pace of the world, and
to know what to go in for. You are right. Go in for money, my
love. Money's the article. You'll make money of your good looks,
and of the money Mrs Boffin and me will have the pleasure of
settling upon you, and you'll live and die rich. That's the state to
live and die in!' said Mr Boffin, in an unctuous manner. R--r--
rich!'
There was an expression of distress in Mrs Boffin's face, as, after
watching her husband's, she turned to their adopted girl, and said:
'Don't mind him, Bella, my dear.'
'Eh?' cried Mr Boffin. 'What! Not mind him?'
'I don't mean that,' said Mrs Boffin, with a worried look, 'but I
mean, don't believe him to be anything but good and generous,
Bella, because he is the best of men. No, I must say that much,
Noddy. You are always the best of men.'
She made the declaration as if he were objecting to it: which
assuredly he was not in any way.
'And as to you, my dear Bella,' said Mrs Boffin, still with that
distressed expression, 'he is so much attached to you, whatever he
says, that your own father has not a truer interest in you and can
hardly like you better than he does.'
'Says too!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Whatever he says! Why, I say so,
openly. Give me a kiss, my dear child, in saying Good Night, and
let me confirm what my old lady tells you. I am very fond of you,
my dear, and I am entirely of your mind, and you and I will take
care that you shall be rich. These good looks of yours (which you
have some right to be vain of; my dear, though you are not, you
know) are worth money, and you shall make money of 'em. The
money you will have, will be worth money, and you shall make
money of that too. There's a golden ball at your feet. Good night,
my dear.'
Somehow, Bella was not so well pleased with this assurance and
this prospect as she might have been. Somehow, when she put her
arms round Mrs Boffin's neck and said Good Night, she derived a
sense of unworthiness from the still anxious face of that good
woman and her obvious wish to excuse her husband. 'Why, what
need to excuse him?' thought Bella, sitting down in her own room.
'What he said was very sensible, I am sure, and very true, I am
sure. It is only what I often say to myself. Don't I like it then? No,
I don't like it, and, though he is my liberal benefactor, I disparage
him for it. Then pray,' said Bella, sternly putting the question to
herself in the looking-glass as usual, 'what do you mean by this,
you inconsistent little Beast?'
The looking-glass preserving a discreet ministerial silence when
thus called upon for explanation, Bella went to bed with a
weariness upon her spirit which was more than the weariness of
want of sleep. And again in the morning, she looked for the cloud,
and for the deepening of the cloud, upon the Golden Dustman's
face.
She had begun by this time to be his frequent companion in his
morning strolls about the streets, and it was at this time that he
made her a party to his engaging in a curious pursuit. Having been
hard at work in one dull enclosure all his life, he had a child's
delight in looking at shops. It had been one of the first novelties
and pleasures of his freedom, and was equally the delight of his
wife. For many years their only walks in London had been taken
on Sundays when the shops were shut; and when every day in the
week became their holiday, they derived an enjoyment from the
variety and fancy and beauty of the display in the windows, which
seemed incapable of exhaustion. As if the principal streets were a
great Theatre and the play were childishly new to them, Mr and
Mrs Boffin, from the beginning of Bella's intimacy in their house,
had been constantly in the front row, charmed with all they saw
and applauding vigorously. But now, Mr Boffin's interest began to
centre in book-shops; and more than that--for that of itself would
not have been much--in one exceptional kind of book.
'Look in here, my dear,' Mr Boffin would say, checking Bella's arm
at a bookseller's window; 'you can read at sight, and your eyes are
as sharp as they're bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and
tell me if you see any book about a Miser.'
If Bella saw such a book, Mr Boffin would instantly dart in and
buy it. And still, as if they had not found it, they would seek out
another book-shop, and Mr Boffin would say, 'Now, look well all
round, my dear, for a Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort; any
Lives of odd characters who may have been Misers.'
Bella, thus directed, would examine the window with the greatest
attention, while Mr Boffin would examine her face. The moment
she pointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric
personages, Anecdotes of strange characters, Records of
remarkable individuals, or anything to that purpose, Mr Boffin's
countenance would light up, and he would instantly dart in and
buy it. Size, price, quality, were of no account. Any book that
seemed to promise a chance of miserly biography, Mr Boffin
purchased without a moment's delay and carried home. Happening
to be informed by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual
Register was devoted to 'Characters', Mr Boffin at once bought a
whole set of that ingenious compilation, and began to carry it home
piecemeal, confiding a volume to Bella, and bearing three himself.
The completion of this labour occupied them about a fortnight.
When the task was done, Mr Boffin, with his appetite for Misers
whetted instead of satiated, began to look out again.
It very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look for, and
an understanding was established between her and Mr Boffin that
she was always to look for Lives of Misers. Morning after
morning they roamed about the town together, pursuing this
singular research. Miserly literature not being abundant, the
proportion of failures to successes may have been as a hundred to
one; still Mr Boffin, never wearied, remained as avaricious for
misers as he had been at the first onset. It was curious that Bella
never saw the books about the house, nor did she ever hear from
Mr Boffin one word of reference to their contents. He seemed to
save up his Misers as they had saved up their money. As they had
been greedy for it, and secret about it, and had hidden it, so he was
greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. But beyond
all doubt it was to be noticed, and was by Bella very clearly
noticed, that, as he pursued the acquisition of those dismal records
with the ardour of Don Quixote for his books of chivalry, he began
to spend his money with a more sparing hand. And often when he
came out of a shop with some new account of one of those
wretched lunatics, she would almost shrink from the sly dry
chuckle with which he would take her arm again and trot away. It
did not appear that Mrs Boffin knew of this taste. He made no
allusion to it, except in the morning walks when he and Bella were
always alone; and Bella, partly under the impression that he took
her into his confidence by implication, and partly in remembrance
of Mrs Boffin's anxious face that night, held the same reserve.
While these occurrences were in progress, Mrs Lammle made the
discovery that Bella had a fascinating influence over her. The
Lammles, originally presented by the dear Veneerings, visited the
Boffins on all grand occasions, and Mrs Lammle had not
previously found this out; but now the knowledge came upon her
all at once. It was a most extraordinary thing (she said to Mrs
Boffin); she was foolishly susceptible of the power of beauty, but it
wasn't altogether that; she never had been able to resist a natural
grace of manner, but it wasn't altogether that; it was more than
that, and there was no name for the indescribable extent and degree
to which she was captivated by this charming girl.
This charming girl having the words repeated to her by Mrs Boffin
(who was proud of her being admired, and would have done
anything to give her pleasure), naturally recognized in Mrs
Lammle a woman of penetration and taste. Responding to the
sentiments, by being very gracious to Mrs Lammle, she gave that
lady the means of so improving her opportunity, as that the
captivation became reciprocal, though always wearing an
appearance of greater sobriety on Bella's part than on the
enthusiastic Sophronia's. Howbeit, they were so much together
that, for a time, the Boffin chariot held Mrs Lammle oftener than
Mrs Boffin: a preference of which the latter worthy soul was not in
the least jealous, placidly remarking, 'Mrs Lammle is a younger
companion for her than I am, and Lor! she's more fashionable.'
But between Bella Wilfer and Georgiana Podsnap there was this
one difference, among many others, that Bella was in no danger of
being captivated by Alfred. She distrusted and disliked him.
Indeed, her perception was so quick, and her observation so sharp,
that after all she mistrusted his wife too, though with her giddy
vanity and wilfulness she squeezed the mistrust away into a corner
of her mind, and blocked it up there.
Mrs Lammle took the friendliest interest in Bella's making a good
match. Mrs Lammle said, in a sportive way, she really must show
her beautiful Bella what kind of wealthy creatures she and Alfred
had on hand, who would as one man fall at her feet enslaved.
Fitting occasion made, Mrs Lammle accordingly produced the
most passable of those feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose
gentlemen who were always lounging in and out of the City on
questions of the Bourse and Greek and Spanish and India and
Mexican and par and premium and discount and three-quarters and
seven-eighths. Who in their agreeable manner did homage to
Bella as if she were a compound of fine girl, thorough-bred horse,
well-built drag, and remarkable pipe. But without the least effect,
though even Mr Fledgeby's attractions were cast into the scale.
'I fear, Bella dear,' said Mrs Lammle one day in the chariot, 'that
you will be very hard to please.'
'I don't expect to be pleased, dear,' said Bella, with a languid turn
of her eyes.
'Truly, my love,' returned Sophronia, shaking her head, and smiling
her best smile, 'it would not be very easy to find a man worthy of
your attractions.'
'The question is not a man, my dear,' said Bella, coolly, 'but an
establishment.'
'My love,' returned Mrs Lammle, 'your prudence amazes me--
where DID you study life so well!--you are right. In such a case as
yours, the object is a fitting establishment. You could not descend
to an inadequate one from Mr Boffin's house, and even if your
beauty alone could not command it, it is to be assumed that Mr and
Mrs Boffin will--'
'Oh! they have already,' Bella interposed.
'No! Have they really?'
A little vexed by a suspicion that she had spoken precipitately, and
withal a little defiant of her own vexation, Bella determined not to
retreat.
'That is to say,' she explained, 'they have told me they mean to
portion me as their adopted child, if you mean that. But don't
mention it.'
'Mention it!' replied Mrs Lammle, as if she were full of awakened
feeling at the suggestion of such an impossibility. 'Men-tion it!'
'I don't mind telling you, Mrs Lammle--' Bella began again.
'My love, say Sophronia, or I must not say Bella.'
With a little short, petulant 'Oh!' Bella complied. 'Oh!--Sophronia
then--I don't mind telling you, Sophronia, that I am convinced I
have no heart, as people call it; and that I think that sort of thing is
nonsense.'
'Brave girl!' murmured Mrs Lammle.
'And so,' pursued Bella, 'as to seeking to please myself, I don't;
except in the one respect I have mentioned. I am indifferent
otherwise.'
'But you can't help pleasing, Bella,' said Mrs Lammle, rallying her
with an arch look and her best smile, 'you can't help making a
proud and an admiring husband. You may not care to please
yourself, and you may not care to please him, but you are not a free
agent as to pleasing: you are forced to do that, in spite of yourself,
my dear; so it may be a question whether you may not as well
please yourself too, if you can.'
Now, the very grossness of this flattery put Bella upon proving that
she actually did please in spite of herself. She had a misgiving that
she was doing wrong--though she had an indistinct foreshadowing
that some harm might come of it thereafter, she little thought what
consequences it would really bring about--but she went on with her
confidence.
'Don't talk of pleasing in spite of one's self, dear,' said Bella. 'I
have had enough of that.'
'Ay?' cried Mrs Lammle. 'Am I already corroborated, Bella?'
'Never mind, Sophronia, we will not speak of it any more. Don't
ask me about it.'
This plainly meaning Do ask me about it, Mrs Lammle did as she
was requested.
'Tell me, Bella. Come, my dear. What provoking burr has been
inconveniently attracted to the charming skirts, and with difficulty
shaken off?'
'Provoking indeed,' said Bella, 'and no burr to boast of! But don't
ask me.'
'Shall I guess?'
'You would never guess. What would you say to our Secretary?'
'My dear! The hermit Secretary, who creeps up and down the back
stairs, and is never seen!'
'I don't know about his creeping up and down the back stairs,' said
Bella, rather contemptuously, 'further than knowing that he does no
such thing; and as to his never being seen, I should be content
never to have seen him, though he is quite as visible as you are.
But I pleased HIM (for my sins) and he had the presumption to tell
me so.'
'The man never made a declaration to you, my dear Bella!'
'Are you sure of that, Sophronia?' said Bella. 'I am not. In fact, I
am sure of the contrary.'
'The man must be mad,' said Mrs Lammle, with a kind of resignation.
'He appeared to be in his senses,' returned Bella, tossing her head,
'and he had plenty to say for himself. I told him my opinion of his
declaration and his conduct, and dismissed him. Of course this
has all been very inconvenient to me, and very disagreeable. It has
remained a secret, however. That word reminds me to observe,
Sophronia, that I have glided on into telling you the secret, and that
I rely upon you never to mention it.'
'Mention it!' repeated Mrs Lammle with her former feeling. 'Mention
it!'
This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it
necessary to bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a kiss. A
Judas order of kiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed Bella's
hand after giving it, 'Upon your own showing, you vain heartless
girl, puffed up by the doting folly of a dustman, I need have no
relenting towards YOU. If my husband, who sends me here,
should form any schemes for making YOU a victim, I should
certainly not cross him again.' In those very same moments, Bella
was thinking, 'Why am I always at war with myself? Why have I
told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have
withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in
spite of the whispers against her that I hear in my heart?'
As usual, there was no answer in the looking-glass when she got
home and referred these questions to it. Perhaps if she had
consulted some better oracle, the result might have been more
satisfactory; but she did not, and all things consequent marched the
march before them.
On one point connected with the watch she kept on Mr Boffin, she
felt very inquisitive, and that was the question whether the
Secretary watched him too, and followed the sure and steady
change in him, as she did? Her very limited intercourse with Mr
Rokesmith rendered this hard to find out. Their communication
now, at no time extended beyond the preservation of commonplace
appearances before Mr and Mrs Boffin; and if Bella and the
Secretary were ever left alone together by any chance, he
immediately withdrew. She consulted his face when she could do
so covertly, as she worked or read, and could make nothing of it.
He looked subdued; but he had acquired a strong command of
feature, and, whenever Mr Boffin spoke to him in Bella's presence,
or whatever revelation of himself Mr Boffin made, the Secretary's
face changed no more than a wall. A slightly knitted brow, that
expressed nothing but an almost mechanical attention, and a
compression of the mouth, that might have been a guard against a
scornful smile--these she saw from morning to night, from day to
day, from week to week, monotonous, unvarying, set, as in a piece
of sculpture.
The worst of the matter was, that it thus fell out insensibly--and
most provokingly, as Bella complained to herself, in her impetuous
little manner--that her observation of Mr Boffin involved a
continual observation of Mr Rokesmith. 'Won't THAT extract a
look from him?'--'Can it be possible THAT makes no impression
on him?' Such questions Bella would propose to herself, often as
many times in a day as there were hours in it. Impossible to know.
Always the same fixed face.
'Can he be so base as to sell his very nature for two hundred a
year?' Bella would think. And then, 'But why not? It's a mere
question of price with others besides him. I suppose I would sell
mine, if I could get enough for it.' And so she would come round
again to the war with herself.
A kind of illegibility, though a different kind, stole over Mr
Boffin's face. Its old simplicity of expression got masked by a
certain craftiness that assimilated even his good-humour to itself.
His very smile was cunning, as if he had been studying smiles
among the portraits of his misers. Saving an occasional burst of
impatience, or coarse assertion of his mastery, his good-humour
remained to him, but it had now a sordid alloy of distrust; and
though his eyes should twinkle and all his face should laugh, he
would sit holding himself in his own arms, as if he had an
inclination to hoard himself up, and must always grudgingly stand
on the defensive.
What with taking heed of these two faces, and what with feeling
conscious that the stealthy occupation must set some mark on her
own, Bella soon began to think that there was not a candid or a
natural face among them all but Mrs Boffin's. None the less
because it was far less radiant than of yore, faithfully reflecting in
its anxiety and regret every line of change in the Golden
Dustman's.
'Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin one evening when they were all in his
room again, and he and the Secretary had been going over some
accounts, 'I am spending too much money. Or leastways, you are
spending too much for me.'
'You are rich, sir.'
'I am not,' said Mr Boffin.
The sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secretary that he
lied. But it brought no change of expression into the set face.
'I tell you I am not rich,' repeated Mr Boffin, 'and I won't have it.'
'You are not rich, sir?' repeated the Secretary, in measured words.
'Well,' returned Mr Boffin, 'if I am, that's my business. I am not
going to spend at this rate, to please you, or anybody. You
wouldn't like it, if it was your money.'
'Even in that impossible case, sir, I--'
'Hold your tongue!' said Mr Boffin. 'You oughtn't to like it in any
case. There! I didn't mean to he rude, but you put me out so, and
after all I'm master. I didn't intend to tell you to hold your tongue.
I beg your pardon. Don't hold your tongue. Only, don't contradict.
Did you ever come across the life of Mr Elwes?' referring to his
favourite subject at last.
'The miser?'
'Ah, people called him a miser. People are always calling other
people something. Did you ever read about him?'
'I think so.'
'He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have bought me
twice over. Did you ever hear of Daniel Dancer?'
'Another miser? Yes.'
'He was a good 'un,' said Mr Boffin, 'and he had a sister worthy of
him. They never called themselves rich neither. If they HAD
called themselves rich, most likely they wouldn't have been so.'
'They lived and died very miserably. Did they not, sir?'
'No, I don't know that they did,' said Mr Boffin, curtly.
'Then they are not the Misers I mean. Those abject wretches--'
'Don't call names, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin.
'--That exemplary brother and sister--lived and died in the foulest
and filthiest degradation.'
'They pleased themselves,' said Mr Boffin, 'and I suppose they
could have done no more if they had spent their money. But
however, I ain't going to fling mine away. Keep the expenses
down. The fact is, you ain't enough here, Rokesmith. It wants
constant attention in the littlest things. Some of us will be dying in
a workhouse next.'
'As the persons you have cited,' quietly remarked the Secretary,
'thought they would, if I remember, sir.'
'And very creditable in 'em too,' said Mr Boffin. 'Very independent
in 'em! But never mind them just now. Have you given notice to
quit your lodgings?'
'Under your direction, I have, sir.'
'Then I tell you what,' said Mr Boffin; 'pay the quarter's rent--pay
the quarter's rent, it'll be the cheapest thing in the end--and come
here at once, so that you may be always on the spot, day and night,
and keep the expenses down. You'll charge the quarter's rent to
me, and we must try and save it somewhere. You've got some
lovely furniture; haven't you?'
'The furniture in my rooms is my own.'
'Then we shan't have to buy any for you. In case you was to think
it,' said Mr Boffin, with a look of peculiar shrewdness, 'so
honourably independent in you as to make it a relief to your mind,
to make that furniture over to me in the light of a set-off against the
quarter's rent, why ease your mind, ease your mind. I don't ask it,
but I won't stand in your way if you should consider it due to
yourself. As to your room, choose any empty room at the top of the
house.'
'Any empty room will do for me,' said the Secretary.
'You can take your pick,' said Mr Boffin, 'and it'll be as good as
eight or ten shillings a week added to your income. I won't deduct
for it; I look to you to make it up handsomely by keeping the
expenses down. Now, if you'll show a light, I'll come to your
office-room and dispose of a letter or two.'
On that clear, generous face of Mrs Boffin's, Bella had seen such
traces of a pang at the heart while this dialogue was being held,
that she had not the courage to turn her eyes to it when they were
left alone. Feigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying
her needle until her busy hand was stopped by Mrs Boffin's hand
being lightly laid upon it. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand
carried to the good soul's lips, and felt a tear fall on it.
'Oh, my loved husband!' said Mrs Boffin. 'This is hard to see and
hear. But my dear Bella, believe me that in spite of all the change
in him, he is the best of men.'
He came back, at the moment when Bella had taken the hand
comfortingly between her own.
'Eh?' said he, mistrustfully looking in at the door. 'What's she
telling you?'
'She is only praising you, sir,' said Bella.
'Praising me? You are sure? Not blaming me for standing on my
own defence against a crew of plunderers, who could suck me dry
by driblets? Not blaming me for getting a little hoard together?'
He came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon his
shoulder, and shook her head as she laid it on her hands.
'There, there, there!' urged Mr Boffin, not unkindly. 'Don't take on,
old lady.'
'But I can't bear to see you so, my dear.'
'Nonsense! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recollect, we
must scrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we must hold our own.
Recollect, money makes money. Don't you be uneasy, Bella, my
child; don't you be doubtful. The more I save, the more you shall
have.'
Bella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing with her
affectionate face on his shoulder; for there was a cunning light in
his eyes as he said all this, which seemed to cast a disagreeable
illumination on the change in him, and make it morally uglier.
Chapter 6
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY
It had come to pass that Mr Silas Wegg now rarely attended the
minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, at his (the worm's and
minion's) own house, but lay under general instructions to await
him within a certain margin of hours at the Bower. Mr Wegg took
this arrangement in great dudgeon, because the appointed hours
were evening hours, and those he considered precious to the
progress of the friendly move. But it was quite in character, he
bitterly remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstart who had trampled
on those eminent creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt
Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress his literary man.
The Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, Mr Boffin
next appeared in a cab with Rollin's Ancient History, which
valuable work being found to possess lethargic properties, broke
down, at about the period when the whole of the army of
Alexander the Macedonian (at that time about forty thousand
strong) burst into tears simultaneously, on his being taken with a
shivering fit after bathing. The Wars of the Jews, likewise
languishing under Mr Wegg's generalship, Mr Boffin arrived in
another cab with Plutarch: whose Lives he found in the sequel
extremely entertaining, though he hoped Plutarch might not expect
him to believe them all. What to believe, in the course of his
reading, was Mr Boffin's chief literary difficulty indeed; for some
time he was divided in his mind between half, all, or none; at
length, when he decided, as a moderate man, to compound with
half, the question still remained, which half? And that stumblingblock
he never got over.
One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the
arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane
historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible
peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years
and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about,
with the greatest ease, beyond the confines of geography--one
evening the usual time passed by, and no patron appeared. After
half an hour's grace, Mr Wegg proceeded to the outer gate, and
there executed a whistle, conveying to Mr Venus, if perchance
within hearing, the tidings of his being at home and disengaged.
Forth from the shelter of a neighbouring wall, Mr Venus then
emerged.
'Brother in arms,' said Mr Wegg, in excellent spirits, 'welcome!'
In return, Mr Venus gave him a rather dry good evening.
'Walk in, brother,' said Silas, clapping him on the shoulder, 'and
take your seat in my chimley corner; for what says the ballad?
"No malice to dread, sir,
And no falsehood to fear,
But truth to delight me, Mr Venus,
And I forgot what to cheer.
Li toddle de om dee.
And something to guide,
My ain fireside, sir,
My ain fireside."'
With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the spirit
than the words), Mr Wegg conducted his guest to his hearth.
'And you come, brother,' said Mr Wegg, in a hospitable glow, 'you
come like I don't know what--exactly like it--I shouldn't know you
from it--shedding a halo all around you.'
'What kind of halo?' asked Mr Venus.
''Ope sir,' replied Silas. 'That's YOUR halo.'
Mr Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked rather
discontentedly at the fire.
'We'll devote the evening, brother,' exclaimed Wegg, 'to prosecute
our friendly move. And arterwards, crushing a flowing wine-cup--
which I allude to brewing rum and water--we'll pledge one
another. For what says the Poet?
"And you needn't Mr Venus be your black bottle,
For surely I'll be mine,
And we'll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which
you're partial,
For auld lang syne."'
This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his
observation of some little querulousness on the part of Venus.
'Why, as to the friendly move,' observed the last-named gentleman,
rubbing his knees peevishly, 'one of my objections to it is, that it
DON'T move.'
'Rome, brother,' returned Wegg: 'a city which (it may not be
generally known) originated in twins and a wolf; and ended in
Imperial marble: wasn't built in a day.'
'Did I say it was?' asked Venus.
'No, you did not, brother. Well-inquired.'
'But I do say,' proceeded Venus, 'that I am taken from among my
trophies of anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human
warious for mere coal-ashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I
think I must give up.'
'No, sir!' remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. 'No, Sir!
"Charge, Chester, charge,
On, Mr Venus, on!"
Never say die, sir! A man of your mark!'
'It's not so much saying it that I object to,' returned Mr Venus, 'as
doing it. And having got to do it whether or no, I can't afford to
waste my time on groping for nothing in cinders.'
'But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all,'
urged Wegg. 'Add the evenings so occupied together, and what do
they come to? And you, sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions,
views, and feelings, you with the patience to fit together on wires
the whole framework of society--I allude to the human skelinton--
you to give in so soon!'
'I don't like it,' returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head
between his knees and stuck up his dusty hair. 'And there's no
encouragement to go on.'
'Not them Mounds without,' said Mr Wegg, extending his right
hand with an air of solemn reasoning, 'encouragement? Not them
Mounds now looking down upon us?'
'They're too big,' grumbled Venus. 'What's a scratch here and a
scrape there, a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to them.
Besides; what have we found?'
'What HAVE we found?' cried Wegg, delighted to be able to
acquiesce. 'Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But on the
contrary, comrade, what MAY we find? There you'll grant me.
Anything.'
'I don't like it,' pettishly returned Venus as before. 'I came into it
without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn't your own
Mr Boffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn't he well
acquainted with the deceased and his ways? And has he ever
showed any expectation of finding anything?'
At that moment wheels were heard.
'Now, I should be loth,' said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient
injury, 'to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming
at this time of night. And yet it sounds like him.'
A ring at the yard bell.
'It is him,' said Mr Wegg, 'and he it capable of it. I am sorry,
because I could have wished to keep up a little lingering fragment
of respect for him.'
Here Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 'Halloa!
Wegg! Halloa!'
'Keep your seat, Mr Venus,' said Wegg. 'He may not stop.' And
then called out, 'Halloa, sir! Halloa! I'm with you directly, sir!
Half a minute, Mr Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring
me!' And so with a show of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to
the gate with a light, and there, through the window of a cab,
descried Mr Boffin inside, blocked up with books.
'Here! lend a hand, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin excitedly, 'I can't get out
till the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg,
in a cab-full of wollumes. Do you know him?'
'Know the Animal Register, sir?' returned the Impostor, who had
caught the name imperfectly. 'For a trifling wager, I think I could
find any Animal in him, blindfold, Mr Boffin.'
'And here's Kirby's Wonderful Museum,' said Mr Boffin, 'and
Caulfield's Characters, and Wilson's. Such Characters, Wegg,
such Characters! I must have one or two of the best of 'em tonight.
It's amazing what places they used to put the guineas in,
wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that pile of wollumes, Wegg, or
it'll bulge out and burst into the mud. Is there anyone about, to
help?'
'There's a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spending the
evening with me when I gave you up--much against my will--for
the night.'
'Call him out,' cried Mr Boffin in a bustle; 'get him to bear a hand.
Don't drop that one under your arm. It's Dancer. Him and his
sister made pies of a dead sheep they found when they were out a
walking. Where's your friend? Oh, here's your friend. Would you
be so good as help Wegg and myself with these books? But don't
take Jemmy Taylor of Southwark, nor yet Jemmy Wood of
Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I'll carry them myself.'
Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, Mr
Boffin directed the removal and arrangement of the books,
appearing to be in some sort beside himself until they were all
deposited on the floor, and the cab was dismissed.
'There!' said Mr Boffin, gloating over them. 'There they are, like
the four-and-twenty fiddlers--all of a row. Get on your spectacles,
Wegg; I know where to find the best of 'em, and we'll have a taste
at once of what we have got before us. What's your friend's name?'
Mr Wegg presented his friend as Mr Venus.
'Eh?' cried Mr Boffin, catching at the name. 'Of Clerkenwell?'
'Of Clerkenwell, sir,' said Mr Venus.
'Why, I've heard of you,' cried Mr Boffin, 'I heard of you in the old
man's time. You knew him. Did you ever buy anything of him?'
With piercing eagerness.
'No, sir,' returned Venus.
'But he showed you things; didn't he?'
Mr Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the affirmative.
'What did he show you?' asked Mr Boffin, putting his hands
behind him, and eagerly advancing his head. 'Did he show you
boxes, little cabinets, pocket-books, parcels, anything locked or
sealed, anything tied up?'
Mr Venus shook his head.
'Are you a judge of china?'
Mr Venus again shook his head.
'Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad to
know of it,' said Mr Boffin. And then, with his right hand at his
lips, repeated thoughtfully, 'a Teapot, a Teapot', and glanced over
the books on the floor, as if he knew there was something
interesting connected with a teapot, somewhere among them.
Mr Wegg and Mr Venus looked at one another wonderingly: and
Mr Wegg, in fitting on his spectacles, opened his eyes wide, over
their rims, and tapped the side of his nose: as an admonition to
Venus to keep himself generally wide awake.
'A Teapot,' repeated Mr Boffin, continuing to muse and survey the
books; 'a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, Wegg?'
'I am at your service, sir,' replied that gentleman, taking his usual
seat on the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg under the table
before it. 'Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful, and take a
seat beside me, sir, for the conveniency of snuffing the candles?'
Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given,
Silas pegged at him with his wooden leg, to call his particular
attention to Mr Boffin standing musing before the fire, in the space
between the two settles.
'Hem! Ahem!' coughed Mr Wegg to attract his employer's
attention. 'Would you wish to commence with an Animal, sir--
from the Register?'
'No,' said Mr Boffin, 'no, Wegg.' With that, producing a little book
from his breast-pocket, he handed it with great care to the literary
gentlemen, and inquired, 'What do you call that, Wegg?'
'This, sir,' replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring to
the title-page, 'is Merryweather's Lives and Anecdotes of Misers.
Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful and draw the candles a
little nearer, sir?' This to have a special opportunity of bestowing a
stare upon his comrade.
'Which of 'em have you got in that lot?' asked Mr Boffin. 'Can you
find out pretty easy?'
'Well, sir,' replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowly
fluttering the leaves of the book, 'I should say they must be pretty
well all here, sir; here's a large assortment, sir; my eye catches
John Overs, sir, John Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the
Reverend Mr Jones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer-
-'
'Give us Dancer, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin.
With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the
place.
'Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of
chapter, "His birth and estate. His garments and outward
appearance. Miss Dancer and her feminine graces. The Miser's
Mansion. The finding of a treasure. The Story of the Mutton Pies.
A Miser's Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser's cur. Griffiths and his
Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for a Fire. The
Advantages of keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without a
Shirt. The Treasures of a Dunghill--"'
'Eh? What's that?' demanded Mr Boffin.
'"The Treasures," sir,' repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, '"of a
Dunghill." Mr Venus, sir, would you obleege with the snuffers?'
This, to secure attention to his adding with his lips only, 'Mounds!'
Mr Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and
said, seating himself and slyly rubbing his hands:
'Give us Dancer.'
Mr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its
various phases of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer's death on
a sick regimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr Dancer's keeping
his rags together with a hayband, and warming his dinner by
sitting upon it, down to the consolatory incident of his dying naked
in a sack. After which he read on as follows:
'"The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived,
and which at his death devolved to the right of Captain Holmes,
was a most miserable, decayed building, for it had not been
repaired for more than half a century."'
(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat:
which had not been repaired for a long time.)
'"But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was very
rich in the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole
contents; and Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to
dive into the miser's secret hoards."'
(Here Mr Wegg repeated 'secret hoards', and pegged his comrade
again.)
'"One of Mr Dancer's richest escretoires was found to be a
dungheap in the cowhouse; a sum but little short of two thousand
five hundred pounds was contained in this rich piece of manure;
and in an old jacket, carefully tied, and strongly nailed down to the
manger, in bank notes and gold were found five hundred pounds
more."'
(Here Mr Wegg's wooden leg started forward under the table, and
slowly elevated itself as he read on.)
'"Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and halfguineas;
and at different times on searching the corners of the
house they found various parcels of bank notes. Some were
crammed into the crevices of the wall"';
(Here Mr Venus looked at the wall.)
'"Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the chairs"';
(Here Mr Venus looked under himself on the settle.)
'"Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers; and notes
amounting to six hundred pounds were found neatly doubled up in
the inside of an old teapot. In the stable the Captain found jugs
full of old dollars and shillings. The chimney was not left
unsearched, and paid very well for the trouble; for in nineteen
different holes, all filled with soot, were found various sums of
money, amounting together to more than two hundred pounds."'
On the way to this crisis Mr Wegg's wooden leg had gradually
elevated itself more and more, and he had nudged Mr Venus with
his opposite elbow deeper and deeper, until at length the
preservation of his balance became incompatible with the two
actions, and he now dropped over sideways upon that gentleman,
squeezing him against the settle's edge. Nor did either of the two,
for some few seconds, make any effort to recover himself; both
remaining in a kind of pecuniary swoon.
But the sight of Mr Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging himself,
with his eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. Counterfeiting a
sneeze to cover their movements, Mr Wegg, with a spasmodic
'Tish-ho!' pulled himself and Mr Venus up in a masterly manner.
'Let's have some more,' said Mr Boffin, hungrily.
'John Elwes is the next, sir. Is it your pleasure to take John
Elwes?'
'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Let's hear what John did.'
He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather
flatly. But an exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who had stowed
away gold and silver in a pickle-pot in a clock-case, a canister-full
of treasure in a hole under her stairs, and a quantity of money in an
old rat-trap, revived the interest. To her succeeded another lady,
claiming to be a pauper, whose wealth was found wrapped up in
little scraps of paper and old rag. To her, another lady, applewoman
by trade, who had saved a fortune of ten thousand pounds
and hidden it 'here and there, in cracks and corners, behind bricks
and under the flooring.' To her, a French gentleman, who had
crammed up his chimney, rather to the detriment of its drawing
powers, 'a leather valise, containing twenty thousand francs, gold
coins, and a large quantity of precious stones,' as discovered by a
chimneysweep after his death. By these steps Mr Wegg arrived at
a concluding instance of the human Magpie:
'"Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly old couple of
the name of Jardine: they had two sons: the father was a perfect
miser, and at his death one thousand guineas were discovered
secreted in his bed. The two sons grew up as parsimonious as
their sire. When about twenty years of age, they commenced
business at Cambridge as drapers, and they continued there until
their death. The establishment of the Messrs Jardine was the most
dirty of all the shops in Cambridge. Customers seldom went in to
purchase, except perhaps out of curiosity. The brothers were most
disreputable-looking beings; for, although surrounded with gay
apparel as their staple in trade, they wore the most filthy rags
themselves. It is said that they had no bed, and, to save the
expense of one, always slept on a bundle of packing-cloths under
the counter. In their housekeeping they were penurious in the
extreme. A joint of meat did not grace their board for twenty years.
Yet when the first of the brothers died, the other, much to his
surprise, found large sums of money which had been secreted even
from him.'
'There!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Even from him, you see! There was only
two of 'em, and yet one of 'em hid from the other.'
Mr Venus, who since his introduction to the French gentleman,
had been stooping to peer up the chimney, had his attention
recalled by the last sentence, and took the liberty of repeating it.
'Do you like it?' asked Mr Boffin, turning suddenly.
'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'Do you like what Wegg's been a-reading?'
Mr Venus answered that he found it extremely interesting.
'Then come again,' said Mr Boffin, 'and hear some more. Come
when you like; come the day after to-morrow, half an hour sooner.
There's plenty more; there's no end to it.'
Mr Venus expressed his acknowledgments and accepted the
invitation.
'It's wonderful what's been hid, at one time and another,' said Mr
Boffin, ruminating; 'truly wonderful.'
'Meaning sir,' observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face to draw him
out, and with another peg at his friend and brother, 'in the way of
money?'
'Money,' said Mr Boffin. 'Ah! And papers.'
Mr Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr
Venus, and again recovering himself, masked his emotions with a
sneeze.
'Tish-ho! Did you say papers too, sir? Been hidden, sir?'
'Hidden and forgot,' said Mr Boffin. 'Why the bookseller that sold
me the Wonderful Museum--where's the Wonderful Museum?' He
was on his knees on the floor in a moment, groping eagerly among
the books.
'Can I assist you, sir?' asked Wegg.
'No, I have got it; here it is,' said Mr Boflin, dusting it with the
sleeve of his coat. 'Wollume four. I know it was the fourth
wollume, that the bookseller read it to me out of. Look for it,
Wegg.'
Silas took the book and turned the leaves.
'Remarkable petrefaction, sir?'
'No, that's not it,' said Mr Boffin. 'It can't have been a petrefaction.'
'Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The Walking
Rushlight, sir? With portrait?'
'No, nor yet him,' said Mr Boffin.
'Remarkable case of a person who swallowed a crown-piece, sir?'
'To hide it?' asked Mr Boffin.
'Why, no, sir,' replied Wegg, consulting the text, 'it appears to have
been done by accident. Oh! This next must be it. "Singular
discovery of a will, lost twenty-one years."'
'That's it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Read that.'
'"A most extraordinary case,"' read Silas Wegg aloud, '"was tried at
the last Maryborough assizes in Ireland. It was briefly this.
Robert Baldwin, in March 1782, made his will, in which he
devised the lands now in question, to the children of his youngest
son; soon after which his faculties failed him, and he became
altogether childish and died, above eighty years old. The
defendant, the eldest son, immediately afterwards gave out that his
father had destroyed the will; and no will being found, he entered
into possession of the lands in question, and so matters remained
for twenty-one years, the whole family during all that time
believing that the father had died without a will. But after twentyone
years the defendant's wife died, and he very soon afterwards, at
the age of seventy-eight, married a very young woman: which
caused some anxiety to his two sons, whose poignant expressions
of this feeling so exasperated their father, that he in his resentment
executed a will to disinherit his eldest son, and in his fit of anger
showed it to his second son, who instantly determined to get at it,
and destroy it, in order to preserve the property to his brother.
With this view, he broke open his father's desk, where he found--
not his father's will which he sought after, but the will of his
grandfather, which was then altogether forgotten in the family."'
'There!' said Mr Boffin. 'See what men put away and forget, or
mean to destroy, and don't!' He then added in a slow tone, 'As--
ton--ish--ing!' And as he rolled his eyes all round the room, Wegg
and Venus likewise rolled their eyes all round the room. And then
Wegg, singly, fixed his eyes on Mr Boffin looking at the fire again;
as if he had a mind to spring upon him and demand his thoughts or
his life.
'However, time's up for to-night,' said Mr Boffin, waving his hand
after a silence. 'More, the day after to-morrow. Range the books
upon the shelves, Wegg. I dare say Mr Venus will be so kind as
help you.'
While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer coat,
and struggled with some object there that was too large to be got
out easily. What was the stupefaction of the friendly movers when
this object at last emerging, proved to be a much-dilapidated dark
lantern!
Without at all noticing the effect produced by this little instrument,
Mr Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing a box of matches,
deliberately lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out the kindled
match, and cast the end into the fire. 'I'm going, Wegg,' he then
announced, 'to take a turn about the place and round the yard. I
don't want you. Me and this same lantern have taken hundreds--
thousands--of such turns in our time together.'
'But I couldn't think, sir--not on any account, I couldn't,'--Wegg
was politely beginning, when Mr Boffin, who had risen and was
going towards the door, stopped:
'I have told you that I don't want you, Wegg.'
Wegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not occurred to
his mind until he now brought it to bear on the circumstance. He
had nothing for it but to let Mr Boffin go out and shut the door
behind him. But, the instant he was on the other side of it, Wegg
clutched Venus with both hands, and said in a choking whisper, as
if he were being strangled:
'Mr Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he mustn't
be lost sight of for a moment.'
'Why mustn't he?' asked Venus, also strangling.
'Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in spirits
when you come in to-night. I've found something.'
'What have you found?' asked Venus, clutching him with both
hands, so that they stood interlocked like a couple of preposterous
gladiators.
'There's no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone to look
for it. We must have an eye upon him instantly.'
Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, and
peeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the black shadow of the
Mounds made the dark yard darker. 'If not a double swindler,'
whispered Wegg, 'why a dark lantern? We could have seen what
he was about, if he had carried a light one. Softly, this way.'
Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of
crockery set in ashes, the two stole after him. They could hear him
at his peculiar trot, crushing the loose cinders as he went. 'He
knows the place by heart,' muttered Silas, 'and don't need to turn
his lantern on, confound him!' But he did turn it on, almost in that
same instant, and flashed its light upon the first of the Mounds.
'Is that the spot?' asked Venus in a whisper.
'He's warm,' said Silas in the same tone. 'He's precious warm.
He's close. I think he must be going to look for it. What's that he's
got in his hand?'
'A shovel,' answered Venus. 'And he knows how to use it,
remember, fifty times as well as either of us.'
'If he looks for it and misses it, partner,' suggested Wegg, 'what
shall we do?'
'First of all, wait till he does,' said Venus.
Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the
mound turned black. After a few seconds, he turned the light on
once more, and was seen standing at the foot of the second mound,
slowly raising the lantern little by little until he held it up at arm's
length, as if he were examining the condition of the whole surface.
'That can't be the spot too?' said Venus.
'No,' said Wegg, 'he's getting cold.'
'It strikes me,' whispered Venus, 'that he wants to find out whether
any one has been groping about there.'
'Hush!' returned Wegg, 'he's getting colder and colder.--Now he's
freezing!'
This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern off
again, and on again, and being visible at the foot of the third
mound.
'Why, he's going up it!' said Venus.
'Shovel and all!' said Wegg.
At a nimbler trot, as if the shovel over his shoulder stimulated him
by reviving old associations, Mr Boffin ascended the 'serpentining
walk', up the Mound which he had described to Silas Wegg on the
occasion of their beginning to decline and fall. On striking into it
he turned his lantern off. The two followed him, stooping low, so
that their figures might make no mark in relief against the sky
when he should turn his lantern on again. Mr Venus took the lead,
towing Mr Wegg, in order that his refractory leg might be
promptly extricated from any pitfalls it should dig for itself. They
could just make out that the Golden Dustman stopped to breathe.
Of course they stopped too, instantly.
'This is his own Mound,' whispered Wegg, as he recovered his
wind, 'this one.
'Why all three are his own,' returned Venus.
'So he thinks; but he's used to call this his own, because it's the one
first left to him; the one that was his legacy when it was all he took
under the will.'
'When he shows his light,' said Venus, keeping watch upon his
dusky figure all the time, 'drop lower and keep closer.'
He went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the top of the
Mound, he turned on his light--but only partially--and stood it on
the ground. A bare lopsided weatherbeaten pole was planted in the
ashes there, and had been there many a year. Hard by this pole, his
lantern stood: lighting a few feet of the lower part of it and a little
of the ashy surface around, and then casting off a purposeless little
clear trail of light into the air.
'He can never be going to dig up the pole!' whispered Venus as
they dropped low and kept close.
'Perhaps it's holler and full of something,' whispered Wegg.
He was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked up his
cuffs and spat on his hands, and then went at it like an old digger
as he was. He had no design upon the pole, except that he
measured a shovel's length from it before beginning, nor was it his
purpose to dig deep. Some dozen or so of expert strokes sufficed.
Then, he stopped, looked down into the cavity, bent over it, and
took out what appeared to be an ordinary case-bottle: one of those
squat, high-shouldered, short-necked glass bottles which the
Dutchman is said to keep his Courage in. As soon as he had done
this, he turned off his lantern, and they could hear that he was
filling up the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily moved by a
skilful hand, the spies took this as a hint to make off in good time.
Accordingly, Mr Venus slipped past Mr Wegg and towed him
down. But Mr Wegg's descent was not accomplished without
some personal inconvenience, for his self-willed leg sticking into
the ashes about half way down, and time pressing, Mr Venus took
the liberty of hauling him from his tether by the collar: which
occasioned him to make the rest of the journey on his back, with
his head enveloped in the skirts of his coat, and his wooden leg
coming last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr Wegg by this mode
of travelling, that when he was set on the level ground with his
intellectual developments uppermost, he was quite unconscious of
his bearings, and had not the least idea where his place of
residence was to be found, until Mr Venus shoved him into it.
Even then he staggered round and round, weakly staring about
him, until Mr Venus with a hard brush brushed his senses into him
and the dust out of him.
Mr Boffin came down leisurely, for this brushing process had been
well accomplished, and Mr Venus had had time to take his breath,
before he reappeared. That he had the bottle somewhere about him
could not be doubted; where, was not so clear. He wore a large
rough coat, buttoned over, and it might be in any one of half a
dozen pockets.
'What's the matter, Wegg?' said Mr Boffin. 'You are as pale as a
candle.'
Mr Wegg replied, with literal exactness, that he felt as if he had
had a turn.
'Bile,' said Mr Boffin, blowing out the light in the lantern, shutting
it up, and stowing it away in the breast of his coat as before. 'Are
you subject to bile, Wegg?'
Mr Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, that he
didn't think he had ever had a similar sensation in his head, to
anything like the same extent.
'Physic yourself to-morrow, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, 'to be in order
for next night. By-the-by, this neighbourhood is going to have a
loss, Wegg.'
'A loss, sir?'
'Going to lose the Mounds.'
The friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to look at one
another, that they might as well have stared at one another with all
their might.
'Have you parted with them, Mr Boffin?' asked Silas.
'Yes; they're going. Mine's as good as gone already.'
'You mean the little one of the three, with the pole atop, sir.'
'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, with that new
touch of craftiness added to it. 'It has fetched a penny. It'll begin
to be carted off to-morrow.'
'Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?' asked
Silas, jocosely.
'No,' said Mr Boffin. 'What the devil put that in your head?'
He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering
closer and closer to his skirts, despatching the back of his hand on
exploring expeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two
or three paces.
'No offence, sir,' said Wegg, humbly. 'No offence.'
Mr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted
his bone; and actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might
have retorted.
'Good-night,' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, with
his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously
wandering about Wegg.--'No! stop there. I know the way out, and
I want no light.'
Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the
inflammatory effect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of
his ill-conditioned blood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas
Wegg to such a pitch of insatiable appetite, that when the door
closed he made a swoop at it and drew Venus along with him.
'He mustn't go,' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got that
bottle about him. We must have that bottle.'
'Why, you wouldn't take it by force?' said Venus, restraining him.
'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at
any price! Are you so afraid of one old man as to let him go, you
coward?'
'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go,' muttered Venus,
sturdily, clasping him in his arms.
'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he
was resolved to disappoint us? Did you hear him say, you cur, that
he was going to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the
whole place will be rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a
mouse to defend your rights, I have. Let me go after him.'
As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr
Venus deemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with
him; well knowing that, once down, he would not he up again
easily with his wooden leg. So they both rolled on the floor, and,
as they did so, Mr Boffin shut the gate.
Chapter 7
THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION
The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing
one another, after Mr Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away.
In the weak eyes of Venus, and in every reddish dust-coloured hair
in his shock of hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an
alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion. In the
hard-grained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked
like a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic
conciliation, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed,
flustered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; and Wegg, in coming to
the ground, had received a humming knock on the back of his
devoted head, which caused him still to rub it with an air of having
been highly--but disagreeably--astonished. Each was silent for
some time, leaving it to the other to begin.
'Brother,' said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, 'you were
right, and I was wrong. I forgot myself.'
Mr Venus knowingly cocked his shock of hair, as rather thinking
Mr Wegg had remembered himself, in respect of appearing
without any disguise.
'But comrade,' pursued Wegg, 'it was never your lot to know Miss
Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor Uncle Parker.'
Mr Venus admitted that he had never known those distinguished
persons, and added, in effect, that he had never so much as desired
the honour of their acquaintance.
'Don't say that, comrade!' retorted Wegg: 'No, don't say that!
Because, without having known them, you never can fully know
what it is to be stimilated to frenzy by the sight of the Usurper.'
Offering these excusatory words as if they reflected great credit on
himself, Mr Wegg impelled himself with his hands towards a chair
in a corner of the room, and there, after a variety of awkward
gambols, attained a perpendicular position. Mr Venus also rose.
'Comrade,' said Wegg, 'take a seat. Comrade, what a speaking
countenance is yours!'
Mr Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and looked at
his hand, as if to see whether any of its speaking properties came
off.
'For clearly do I know, mark you,' pursued Wegg, pointing his
words with his forefinger, 'clearly do I know what question your
expressive features puts to me.'
'What question?' said Venus.
'The question,' returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful affability, 'why
I didn't mention sooner, that I had found something. Says your
speaking countenance to me: "Why didn't you communicate that,
when I first come in this evening? Why did you keep it back till
you thought Mr Boffin had come to look for the article?" Your
speaking countenance,' said Wegg, 'puts it plainer than language.
Now, you can't read in my face what answer I give?'
'No, I can't,' said Venus.
'I knew it! And why not?' returned Wegg, with the same joyful
candour. 'Because I lay no claims to a speaking countenance.
Because I am well aware of my deficiencies. All men are not
gifted alike. But I can answer in words. And in what words?
These. I wanted to give you a delightful sap--pur--IZE!'
Having thus elongated and emphasized the word Surprise, Mr
Wegg shook his friend and brother by both hands, and then
clapped him on both knees, like an affectionate patron who
entreated him not to mention so small a service as that which it
had been his happy privilege to render.
'Your speaking countenance, ' said Wegg, 'being answered to its
satisfaction, only asks then, "What have you found?" Why, I hear
it say the words!'
'Well?' retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. 'If you
hear it say the words, why don't you answer it?'
'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'I'm a-going to. Hear me out! Man and
brother, partner in feelings equally with undertakings and actions, I
have found a cash-box.'
'Where?'
'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could,
and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke into a
radiant gush of Hear me out.) 'On a certain day, sir--'
'When?' said Venus bluntly.
'N--no,' returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly,
thoughtfully, and playfully. 'No, sir! That's not your expressive
countenance which asks that question. That's your voice; merely
your voice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened to be
walking in the yard--taking my lonely round--for in the words of a
friend of my own family, the author of All's Well arranged as a
duett:
"Deserted, as you will remember Mr Venus, by the waning
moon,
When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim
night's cheerless noon,
On tower, fort, or tented ground,
The sentry walks his lonely round,
The sentry walks:"
--under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the
yard early one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my
hand, with which I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile
the monotony of a literary life, when I struck it against an object
not necessary to trouble you by naming--'
'It is necessary. What object?' demanded Venus, in a wrathful
tone.
'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'The Pump.--When I struck it against
the Pump, and found, not only that the top was loose and opened
with a lid, but that something in it rattled. That something,
comrade, I discovered to be a small flat oblong cash-box. Shall I
say it was disappintingly light?'
'There were papers in it,' said Venus.
'There your expressive countenance speaks indeed!' cried Wegg.
'A paper. The box was locked, tied up, and sealed, and on the
outside was a parchment label, with the writing, "MY WILL,
JOHN HARMON, TEMPORARILY DEPOSITED HERE."'
'We must know its contents,' said Venus.
'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so, and I broke the box open.
'Without coming to me!' exclaimed Venus.
'Exactly so, sir!' returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. 'I see I
take you with me! Hear, hear, hear! Resolved, as your
discriminating good sense perceives, that if you was to have a sap-
-pur--IZE, it should be a complete one! Well, sir. And so, as you
have honoured me by anticipating, I examined the document.
Regularly executed, regularly witnessed, very short. Inasmuch as
he has never made friends, and has ever had a rebellious family,
he, John Harmon, gives to Nicodemus Boffin the Little Mound,
which is quite enough for him, and gives the whole rest and
residue of his property to the Crown.'
'The date of the will that has been proved, must be looked to,'
remarked Venus. 'It may be later than this one.'
'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so. I paid a shilling (never
mind your sixpence of it) to look up that will. Brother, that will is
dated months before this will. And now, as a fellow-man, and as a
partner in a friendly move,' added Wegg, benignantly taking him
by both hands again, and clapping him on both knees again, 'say
have I completed my labour of love to your perfect satisfaction, and
are you sap--pur--IZED?'
Mr Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with doubting
eyes, and then rejoined stiffly:
'This is great news indeed, Mr Wegg. There's no denying it. But I
could have wished you had told it me before you got your fright tonight,
and I could have wished you had ever asked me as your
partner what we were to do, before you thought you were dividing
a responsibility.'
'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I knew you was a-going to say so.
But alone I bore the anxiety, and alone I'll bear the blame!' This
with an air of great magnanimity.
'No,' said Venus. 'Let's see this will and this box.'
'Do I understand, brother,' returned Wegg with considerable
reluctance, 'that it is your wish to see this will and this--?'
Mr Venus smote the table with his hand.
'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'Hear me out! I'll go and fetch 'em.'
After being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he could
hardly make up his mind to produce the treasure to his partner, he
returned with an old leathern hat-box, into which he had put the
other box, for the better preservation of commonplace appearances,
and for the disarming of suspicion. 'But I don't half like opening it
here,' said Silas in a low voice, looking around: 'he might come
back, he may not be gone; we don't know what he may be up to,
after what we've seen.'
'There's something in that,' assented Venus. 'Come to my place.'
Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening it
under the existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. 'Come, I tell
you,' repeated Venus, chafing, 'to my place.' Not very well seeing
his way to a refusal, Mr Wegg then rejoined in a gush, '--Hear me
out!--Certainly.' So he locked up the Bower and they set forth: Mr
Venus taking his arm, and keeping it with remarkable tenacity.
They found the usual dim light burning in the window of Mr
Venus's establishment, imperfectly disclosing to the public the
usual pair of preserved frogs, sword in hand, with their point of
honour still unsettled. Mr Venus had closed his shop door on
coming out, and now opened it with the key and shut it again as
soon as they were within; but not before he had put up and barred
the shutters of the shop window. 'No one can get in without being
let in,' said he then, 'and we couldn't be more snug than here.' So
he raked together the yet warm cinders in the rusty grate, and made
a fire, and trimmed the candle on the little counter. As the fire cast
its flickering gleams here and there upon the dark greasy walls; the
Hindoo baby, the African baby, the articulated English baby, the
assortment of skulls, and the rest of the collection, came starting to
their various stations as if they had all been out, like their master
and were punctual in a general rendezvous to assist at the secret.
The French gentleman had grown considerably since Mr Wegg last
saw him, being now accommodated with a pair of legs and a head,
though his arms were yet in abeyance. To whomsoever the head
had originally belonged, Silas Wegg would have regarded it as a
personal favour if he had not cut quite so many teeth.
Silas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the fire, and
Venus dropping into his low chair produced from among his
skeleton hands, his tea-tray and tea-cups, and put the kettle on.
Silas inwardly approved of these preparations, trusting they might
end in Mr Venus's diluting his intellect.
'Now, sir,' said Venus, 'all is safe and quiet. Let us see this
discovery.'
With still reluctant hands, and not without several glances towards
the skeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that a couple of them might
spring forth and clutch the document, Wegg opened the hat-box
and revealed the cash-box, opened the cash-box and revealed the
will. He held a corner of it tight, while Venus, taking hold of
another corner, searchingly and attentively read it.
'Was I correct in my account of it, partner?' said Mr Wegg at
length.
'Partner, you were,' said Mr Venus.
Mr Wegg thereupon made an easy, graceful movement, as though
he would fold it up; but Mr Venus held on by his corner.
'No, sir,' said Mr Venus, winking his weak eyes and shaking his
head. 'No, partner. The question is now brought up, who is going
to take care of this. Do you know who is going to take care of this,
partner?'
'I am,' said Wegg.
'Oh dear no, partner,' retorted Venus. 'That's a mistake. I am.
Now look here, Mr Wegg. I don't want to have any words with
you, and still less do I want to have any anatomical pursuits with
you.'
'What do you mean?' said Wegg, quickly.
'I mean, partner,' replied Venus, slowly, 'that it's hardly possible
for a man to feel in a more amiable state towards another man than
I do towards you at this present moment. But I am on my own
ground, I am surrounded by the trophies of my art, and my tools is
very handy.'
'What do you mean, Mr Venus?' asked Wegg again.
'I am surrounded, as I have observed,' said Mr Venus, placidly, 'by
the trophies of my art. They are numerous, my stock of human
warious is large, the shop is pretty well crammed, and I don't just
now want any more trophies of my art. But I like my art, and I
know how to exercise my art.'
'No man better,' assented Mr Wegg, with a somewhat staggered
air.
'There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens,' said Venus,
'(though you mightn't think it) in the box on which you're sitting.
There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens, in the lovely
compo-one behind the door'; with a nod towards the French
gentleman. 'It still wants a pair of arms. I DON'T say that I'm in
any hurry for 'em.'
'You must be wandering in your mind, partner,' Silas remonstrated.
'You'll excuse me if I wander,' returned Venus; 'I am sometimes
rather subject to it. I like my art, and I know how to exercise my
art, and I mean to have the keeping of this document.'
'But what has that got to do with your art, partner?' asked Wegg, in
an insinuating tone.
Mr Venus winked his chronically-fatigued eyes both at once, and
adjusting the kettle on the fire, remarked to himself, in a hollow
voice, 'She'll bile in a couple of minutes.'
Silas Wegg glanced at the kettle, glanced at the shelves, glanced at
the French gentleman behind the door, and shrank a little as he
glanced at Mr Venus winking his red eyes, and feeling in his
waistcoat pocket--as for a lancet, say--with his unoccupied hand.
He and Venus were necessarily seated close together, as each held
a corner of the document, which was but a common sheet of paper.
'Partner,' said Wegg, even more insinuatingly than before, 'I
propose that we cut it in half, and each keep a half.'
Venus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, 'It wouldn't do to
mutilate it, partner. It might seem to be cancelled.'
'Partner,' said Wegg, after a silence, during which they had
contemplated one another, 'don't your speaking countenance say
that you're a-going to suggest a middle course?'
Venus shook his shock of hair as he replied, 'Partner, you have
kept this paper from me once. You shall never keep it from me
again. I offer you the box and the label to take care of, but I'll take
care of the paper.'
Silas hesitated a little longer, and then suddenly releasing his
corner, and resuming his buoyant and benignant tone, exclaimed,
'What's life without trustfulness! What's a fellow-man without
honour! You're welcome to it, partner, in a spirit of trust and
confidence.'
Continuing to wink his red eyes both together--but in a selfcommuning
way, and without any show of triumph--Mr Venus
folded the paper now left in his hand, and locked it in a drawer
behind him, and pocketed the key. He then proposed 'A cup of tea,
partner?' To which Mr Wegg returned, 'Thank'ee, partner,' and the
tea was made and poured out.
'Next,' said Venus, blowing at his tea in his saucer, and looking
over it at his confidential friend, 'comes the question, What's the
course to be pursued?'
On this head, Silas Wegg had much to say. Silas had to say That,
he would beg to remind his comrade, brother, and partner, of the
impressive passages they had read that evening; of the evident
parallel in Mr Boffin's mind between them and the late owner of
the Bower, and the present circumstances of the Bower; of the
bottle; and of the box. That, the fortunes of his brother and
comrade, and of himself were evidently made, inasmuch as they
had but to put their price upon this document, and get that price
from the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour: who now
appeared to be less of a minion and more of a worm than had been
previously supposed. That, he considered it plain that such price
was stateable in a single expressive word, and that the word was,
'Halves!' That, the question then arose when 'Halves!' should be
called. That, here he had a plan of action to recommend, with a
conditional clause. That, the plan of action was that they should
lie by with patience; that, they should allow the Mounds to be
gradually levelled and cleared away, while retaining to themselves
their present opportunity of watching the process--which would be,
he conceived, to put the trouble and cost of daily digging and
delving upon somebody else, while they might nightly turn such
complete disturbance of the dust to the account of their own private
investigations--and that, when the Mounds were gone, and they
had worked those chances for their own joint benefit solely, they
should then, and not before, explode on the minion and worm. But
here came the conditional clause, and to this he entreated the
special attention of his comrade, brother, and partner. It was not to
be borne that the minion and worm should carry off any of that
property which was now to be regarded as their own property.
When he, Mr Wegg, had seen the minion surreptitiously making
off with that bottle, and its precious contents unknown, he had
looked upon him in the light of a mere robber, and, as such, would
have despoiled him of his ill-gotten gain, but for the judicious
interference of his comrade, brother, and partner. Therefore, the
conditional clause he proposed was, that, if the minion should
return in his late sneaking manner, and if, being closely watched,
he should be found to possess himself of anything, no matter what,
the sharp sword impending over his head should be instantly
shown him, he should be strictly examined as to what he knew or
suspected, should be severely handled by them his masters, and
should be kept in a state of abject moral bondage and slavery until
the time when they should see fit to permit him to purchase his
freedom at the price of half his possessions. If, said Mr Wegg by
way of peroration, he had erred in saying only 'Halves!' he trusted
to his comrade, brother, and partner not to hesitate to set him right,
and to reprove his weakness. It might be more according to the
rights of things, to say Two-thirds; it might be more according to
the rights of things, to say Three-fourths. On those points he was
ever open to correction.
Mr Venus, having wafted his attention to this discourse over three
successive saucers of tea, signified his concurrence in the views
advanced. Inspirited hereby, Mr Wegg extended his right hand,
and declared it to be a hand which never yet. Without entering into
more minute particulars. Mr Venus, sticking to his tea, briefly
professed his beliet as polite forms required of him, that it WAS a
hand which never yet. But contented himself with looking at it,
and did not take it to his bosom.
'Brother,' said Wegg, when this happy understanding was
established, 'I should like to ask you something. You remember
the night when I first looked in here, and found you floating your
powerful mind in tea?'
Still swilling tea, Mr Venus nodded assent.
'And there you sit, sir,' pursued Wegg with an air of thoughtful
admiration, 'as if you had never left off! There you sit, sir, as if you
had an unlimited capacity of assimilating the flagrant article!
There you sit, sir, in the midst of your works, looking as if you'd
been called upon for Home, Sweet Home, and was obleeging the
company!
"A exile from home splendour dazzles in vain,
O give you your lowly Preparations again,
The birds stuffed so sweetly that can't be expected to come at
your call,
Give you these with the peace of mind dearer than all.
Home, Home, Home, sweet Home!"
--Be it ever,' added Mr Wegg in prose as he glanced about the
shop, 'ever so ghastly, all things considered there's no place like it.'
'You said you'd like to ask something; but you haven't asked it,'
remarked Venus, very unsympathetic in manner.
'Your peace of mind,' said Wegg, offering condolence, 'your peace
of mind was in a poor way that night. HOW'S it going on? IS it
looking up at all?'
'She does not wish,' replied Mr Venus with a comical mixture of
indignant obstinacy and tender melancholy, 'to regard herself, nor
yet to be regarded, in that particular light. There's no more to be
said.'
'Ah, dear me, dear me!' exclaimed Wegg with a sigh, but eyeing
him while pretending to keep him company in eyeing the fire, 'such
is Woman! And I remember you said that night, sitting there as I
sat here--said that night when your peace of mind was first laid
low, that you had taken an interest in these very affairs. Such is
coincidence!'
'Her father,' rejoined Venus, and then stopped to swallow more tea,
'her father was mixed up in them.'
'You didn't mention her name, sir, I think?' observed Wegg,
pensively. 'No, you didn't mention her name that night.'
'Pleasant Riderhood.'
'In--deed!' cried Wegg. 'Pleasant Riderhood. There's something
moving in the name. Pleasant. Dear me! Seems to express what
she might have been, if she hadn't made that unpleasant remark--
and what she ain't, in consequence of having made it. Would it at
all pour balm into your wounds, Mr Venus, to inquire how you
came acquainted with her?'
'I was down at the water-side,' said Venus, taking another gulp of
tea and mournfully winking at the fire--'looking for parrots'--taking
another gulp and stopping.
Mr Wegg hinted, to jog his attention: 'You could hardly have been
out parrot-shooting, in the British climate, sir?'
'No, no, no,' said Venus fretfully. 'I was down at the water-side,
looking for parrots brought home by sailors, to buy for stuffing.'
'Ay, ay, ay, sir!'
'--And looking for a nice pair of rattlesnakes, to articulate for a
Museum--when I was doomed to fall in with her and deal with her.
It was just at the time of that discovery in the river. Her father had
seen the discovery being towed in the river. I made the popularity
of the subject a reason for going back to improve the acquaintance,
and I have never since been the man I was. My very bones is
rendered flabby by brooding over it. If they could be brought to me
loose, to sort, I should hardly have the face to claim 'em as mine.
To such an extent have I fallen off under it.'
Mr Wegg, less interested than he had been, glanced at one
particular shelf in the dark.
'Why I remember, Mr Venus,' he said in a tone of friendly
commiseration '(for I remember every word that falls from you,
sir), I remember that you said that night, you had got up there--and
then your words was, "Never mind."'
'--The parrot that I bought of her,' said Venus, with a despondent
rise and fall of his eyes. 'Yes; there it lies on its side, dried up;
except for its plumage, very like myself. I've never had the heart to
prepare it, and I never shall have now.'
With a disappointed face, Silas mentally consigned this parrot to
regions more than tropical, and, seeming for the time to have lost
his power of assuming an interest in the woes of Mr Venus, fell to
tightening his wooden leg as a preparation for departure: its
gymnastic performances of that evening having severely tried its
constitution.
After Silas had left the shop, hat-box in hand, and had left Mr
Venus to lower himself to oblivion-point with the requisite weight
of tea, it greatly preyed on his ingenuous mind that he had taken
this artist into partnership at all. He bitterly felt that he had
overreached himself in the beginning, by grasping at Mr Venus's
mere straws of hints, now shown to be worthless for his purpose.
Casting about for ways and means of dissolving the connexion
without loss of money, reproaching himself for having been
betrayed into an avowal of his secret, and complimenting himself
beyond measure on his purely accidental good luck, he beguiled
the distance between Clerkenwell and the mansion of the Golden
Dustman.
For, Silas Wegg felt it to be quite out of the question that he could
lay his head upon his pillow in peace, without first hovering over
Mr Boffin's house in the superior character of its Evil Genius.
Power (unless it be the power of intellect or virtue) has ever the
greatest attraction for the lowest natures; and the mere defiance of
the unconscious house-front, with his power to strip the roof off the
inhabiting family like the roof of a house of cards, was a treat
which had a charm for Silas Wegg.
As he hovered on the opposite side of the street, exulting, the
carriage drove up.
'There'll shortly be an end of YOU,' said Wegg, threatening it with
the hat-box. 'YOUR varnish is fading.'
Mrs Boffin descended and went in.
'Look out for a fall, my Lady Dustwoman,' said Wegg.
Bella lightly descended, and ran in after her.
'How brisk we are!' said Wegg. 'You won't run so gaily to your old
shabby home, my girl. You'll have to go there, though.'
A little while, and the Secretary came out.
'I was passed over for you,' said Wegg. 'But you had better provide
yourself with another situation, young man.'
Mr Boffin's shadow passed upon the blinds of three large windows
as he trotted down the room, and passed again as he went back.
'Yoop!'cried Wegg. 'You're there, are you? Where's the bottle?
You would give your bottle for my box, Dustman!'
Having now composed his mind for slumber, he turned homeward.
Such was the greed of the fellow, that his mind had shot beyond
halves, two-thirds, three-fourths, and gone straight to spoliation of
the whole. 'Though that wouldn't quite do,' he considered, growing
cooler as he got away. 'That's what would happen to him if he
didn't buy us up. We should get nothing by that.'
We so judge others by ourselves, that it had never come into his
head before, that he might not buy us up, and might prove honest,
and prefer to be poor. It caused him a slight tremor as it passed;
but a very slight one, for the idle thought was gone directly.
'He's grown too fond of money for that,' said Wegg; 'he's grown too
fond of money.' The burden fell into a strain or tune as he stumped
along the pavements. All the way home he stumped it out of the
rattling streets, PIANO with his own foot, and FORTE with his
wooden leg, 'He's GROWN too FOND of MONEY for THAT, he's
GROWN too FOND of MONEY.'
Even next day Silas soothed himself with this melodious strain,
when he was called out of bed at daybreak, to set open the yardgate
and admit the train of carts and horses that came to carry off
the little Mound. And all day long, as he kept unwinking watch on
the slow process which promised to protract itself through many
days and weeks, whenever (to save himself from being choked
with dust) he patrolled a little cinderous beat he established for the
purpose, without taking his eyes from the diggers, he still stumped
to the tune: He's GROWN too FOND of MONEY for THAT, he's
GROWN too FOND of MONEY.'
Chapter 8
THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY
The train of carts and horses came and went all day from dawn to
nightfall, making little or no daily impression on the heap of ashes,
though, as the days passed on, the heap was seen to be slowly
melting. My lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, when
you in the course of your dust-shovelling and cinder-raking have
piled up a mountain of pretentious failure, you must off with your
honourable coats for the removal of it, and fall to the work with the
power of all the queen's horses and all the queen's men, or it will
come rushing down and bury us alive.
Yes, verily, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards,
adapting your Catechism to the occasion, and by God's help so you
must. For when we have got things to the pass that with an
enormous treasure at disposal to relieve the poor, the best of the
poor detest our mercies, hide their heads from us, and shame us by
starving to death in the midst of us, it is a pass impossible of
prosperity, impossible of continuance. It may not be so wrirten in
the Gospel according to Podsnappery; you may not 'find these
words' for the text of a sermon, in the Returns of the Board of
Trade; but they have been the truth since the foundations of the
universe were laid, and they will be the truth until the foundations
of the universe are shaken by the Builder. This boastful handiwork
of ours, which fails in its terrors for the professional pauper, the
sturdy breaker of windows and the rampant tearer of clothes,
strikes with a cruel and a wicked stab at the stricken sufferer, and
is a horror to the deserving and unfortunate. We must mend it,
lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, or in its own evil hour
it will mar every one of us.
Old Betty Higden fared upon her pilgrimage as many ruggedly
honest creatures, women and men, fare on their toiling way along
the roads of life. Patiently to earn a spare bare living, and quietly
to die, untouched by workhouse hands--this was her highest
sublunary hope.
Nothing had been heard of her at Mr Boffin's house since she
trudged off. The weather had been hard and the roads had been
bad, and her spirit was up. A less stanch spirit might have been
subdued by such adverse influences; but the loan for her little outfit
was in no part repaid, and it had gone worse with her than she had
foreseen, and she was put upon proving her case and maintaining
her independence.
Faithful soul! When she had spoken to the Secretary of that
'deadness that steals over me at times', her fortitude had made too
little of it. Oftener and ever oftener, it came stealing over her;
darker and ever darker, like the shadow of advancing Death. That
the shadow should be deep as it came on, like the shadow of an
actual presence, was in accordance with the laws of the physical
world, for all the Light that shone on Betty Higden lay beyond
Death.
The poor old creature had taken the upward course of the river
Thames as her general track; it was the track in which her last
home lay, and of which she had last had local love and knowledge.
She had hovered for a little while in the near neighbourhood of her
abandoned dwelling, and had sold, and knitted and sold, and gone
on. In the pleasant towns of Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and
Staines, her figure came to be quite well known for some short
weeks, and then again passed on.
She would take her stand in market-places, where there were such
things, on market days; at other times, in the busiest (that was
seldom very busy) portion of the little quiet High Street; at still
other times she would explore the outlying roads for great houses,
and would ask leave at the Lodge to pass in with her basket, and
would not often get it. But ladies in carriages would frequently
make purchases from her trifling stock, and were usually pleased
with her bright eyes and her hopeful speech. In these and her clean
dress originated a fable that she was well to do in the world: one
might say, for her station, rich. As making a comfortable provision
for its subject which costs nobody anything, this class of fable has
long been popular.
In those pleasant little towns on Thames, you may hear the fall of
the water over the weirs, or even, in still weather, the rustle of the
rushes; and from the bridge you may see the young river, dimpled
like a young child, playfully gliding away among the trees,
unpolluted by the defilements that lie in wait for it on its course,
and as yet out of hearing of the deep summons of the sea. It were
too much to pretend that Betty Higden made out such thoughts; no;
but she heard the tender river whispering to many like herself,
'Come to me, come to me! When the cruel shame and terror you
have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me! I am the
Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work; I
am not held in estimation according as I shirk it. My breast is
softer than the pauper-nurse's; death in my arms is peacefuller than
among the pauper-wards. Come to me!'
There was abundant place for gentler fancies too, in her untutored
mind. Those gentlefolks and their children inside those fine
houses, could they think, as they looked out at her, what it was to
be really hungry, really cold? Did they feel any of the wonder
about her, that she felt about them? Bless the dear laughing
children! If they could have seen sick Johnny in her arms, would
they have cried for pity? If they could have seen dead Johnny on
that little bed, would they have understood it? Bless the dear
children for his sake, anyhow! So with the humbler houses in the
little street, the inner firelight shining on the panes as the outer
twilight darkened. When the families gathered in-doors there, for
the night, it was only a foolish fancy to feel as if it were a little
hard in them to close the shutter and blacken the flame. So with
the lighted shops, and speculations whether their masters and
mistresses taking tea in a perspective of back-parlour--not so far
within but that the flavour of tea and toast came out, mingled with
the glow of light, into the street--ate or drank or wore what they
sold, with the greater relish because they dealt in it. So with the
churchyard on a branch of the solitary way to the night's sleepingplace.
'Ah me! The dead and I seem to have it pretty much to
ourselves in the dark and in this weather! But so much the better
for all who are warmly housed at home.' The poor soul envied no
one in bitterness, and grudged no one anything.
But, the old abhorrence grew stronger on her as she grew weaker,
and it found more sustaining food than she did in her wanderings.
Now, she would light upon the shameful spectacle of some
desolate creature--or some wretched ragged groups of either sex, or
of both sexes, with children among them, huddled together like the
smaller vermin for a little warmth--lingering and lingering on a
doorstep, while the appointed evader of the public trust did his
dirty office of trying to weary them out and so get rid of them.
Now, she would light upon some poor decent person, like herself,
going afoot on a pilgrimage of many weary miles to see some
worn-out relative or friend who had been charitably clutched off to
a great blank barren Union House, as far from old home as the
County Jail (the remoteness of which is always its worst
punishment for small rural offenders), and in its dietary, and in its
lodging, and in its tending of the sick, a much more penal
establishment. Sometimes she would hear a newspaper read out,
and would learn how the Registrar General cast up the units that
had within the last week died of want and of exposure to the
weather: for which that Recording Angel seemed to have a regular
fixed place in his sum, as if they were its halfpence. All such
things she would hear discussed, as we, my lords and gentlemen
and honourable boards, in our unapproachable magnificence never
hear them, and from all such things she would fly with the wings
of raging Despair.
This is not to be received as a figure of speech. Old Betty Higden
however tired, however footsore, would start up and be driven
away by her awakened horror of falling into the hands of Charity.
It is a remarkable Christian improvement, to have made a pursuing
Fury of the Good Samaritan; but it was so in this case, and it is a
type of many, many, many.
Two incidents united to intensify the old unreasoning abhorrence--
granted in a previous place to be unreasoning, because the people
always are unreasoning, and invaRiahly make a point of producing
all their smoke without fire.
One day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench outside an
inn, with her little wares for sale, when the deadness that she
strove against came over her so heavily that the scene departed
from before her eyes; when it returned, she found herself on the
ground, her head supported by some good-natured market-women,
and a little crowd about her.
'Are you better now, mother?' asked one of the women. 'Do you
think you can do nicely now?'
'Have I been ill then?' asked old Betty.
'You have had a faint like,' was the answer, 'or a fit. It ain't that
you've been a-struggling, mother, but you've been stiff and
numbed.'
'Ah!' said Betty, recovering her memory. 'It's the numbness. Yes.
It comes over me at times.'
Was it gone? the women asked her.
'It's gone now,' said Betty. 'I shall be stronger than I was afore.
Many thanks to ye, my dears, and when you come to be as old as I
am, may others do as much for you!'
They assisted her to rise, but she could not stand yet, and they
supported her when she sat down again upon the bench.
'My head's a bit light, and my feet are a bit heavy,' said old Betty,
leaning her face drowsily on the breast of the woman who had
spoken before. 'They'll both come nat'ral in a minute. There's
nothing more the matter.'
'Ask her,' said some farmers standing by, who had come out from
their market-dinner, 'who belongs to her.'
'Are there any folks belonging to you, mother?' said the woman.
'Yes sure,' answered Betty. 'I heerd the gentleman say it, but I
couldn't answer quick enough. There's plenty belonging to me.
Don't ye fear for me, my dear.'
'But are any of 'em near here? 'said the men's voices; the women's
voices chiming in when it was said, and prolonging the strain.
'Quite near enough,' said Betty, rousing herself. 'Don't ye be afeard
for me, neighbours.'
'But you are not fit to travel. Where are you going?' was the next
compassionate chorus she heard.
'I'm a going to London when I've sold out all,' said Betty, rising
with difficulty. 'I've right good friends in London. I want for
nothing. I shall come to no harm. Thankye. Don't ye be afeard for
me.'
A well-meaning bystander, yellow-legginged and purple-faced,
said hoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to her feet, that
she 'oughtn't to be let to go'.
'For the Lord's love don't meddle with me!' cried old Betty, all her
fears crowding on her. 'I am quite well now, and I must go this
minute.'
She caught up her basket as she spoke and was making an
unsteady rush away from them, when the same bystander checked
her with his hand on her sleeve, and urged her to come with him
and see the parish-doctor. Strengthening herself by the utmost
exercise of her resolution, the poor trembling creature shook him
off, almost fiercely, and took to flight. Nor did she feel safe until
she had set a mile or two of by-road between herself and the
marketplace, and had crept into a copse, like a hunted animal, to
hide and recover breath. Not until then for the first time did she
venture to recall how she had looked over her shoulder before
turning out of the town, and had seen the sign of the White Lion
hanging across the road, and the fluttering market booths, and the
old grey church, and the little crowd gazing after her but not
attempting to follow her.
The second frightening incident was this. She had been again as
bad, and had been for some days better, and was travelling along
by a part of the road where it touched the river, and in wet seasons
was so often overflowed by it that there were tall white posts set up
to mark the way. A barge was being towed towards her, and she
sat down on the bank to rest and watch it. As the tow-rope was
slackened by a turn of the stream and dipped into the water, such a
confusion stole into her mind that she thought she saw the forms of
her dead children and dead grandchildren peopling the barge, and
waving their hands to her in solemn measure; then, as the rope
tightened and came up, dropping diamonds, it seemed to vibrate
into two parallel ropes and strike her, with a twang, though it was
far off. When she looked again, there was no barge, no river, no
daylight, and a man whom she had never before seen held a candle
close to her face.
'Now, Missis,' said he; 'where did you come from and where are
you going to?'
The poor soul confusedly asked the counter-question where she
was?
'I am the Lock,' said the man.
'The Lock?'
'I am the Deputy Lock, on job, and this is the Lock-house. (Lock
or Deputy Lock, it's all one, while the t'other man's in the hospital.)
What's your Parish?'
'Parish!' She was up from the truckle-bed directly, wildly feeling
about her for her basket, and gazing at him in affright.
'You'll be asked the question down town,' said the man. 'They
won't let you be more than a Casual there. They'll pass you on to
your settlement, Missis, with all speed. You're not in a state to be
let come upon strange parishes 'ceptin as a Casual.'
''Twas the deadness again!' murmured Betty Higden, with her hand
to her head.
'It was the deadness, there's not a doubt about it,' returned the man.
'I should have thought the deadness was a mild word for it, if it
had been named to me when we brought you in. Have you got any
friends, Missis?'
'The best of friends, Master.'
'I should recommend your looking 'em up if you consider 'em game
to do anything for you,' said the Deputy Lock. 'Have you got any
money?'
'Just a morsel of money, sir.'
'Do you want to keep it?'
'Sure I do!'
'Well, you know,' said the Deputy Lock, shrugging his shoulders
with his hands in his pockets, and shaking his head in a sulkily
ominous manner, 'the parish authorities down town will have it out
of you, if you go on, you may take your Alfred David.'
'Then I'll not go on.'
'They'll make you pay, as fur as your money will go,' pursued the
Deputy, 'for your relief as a Casual and for your being passed to
your Parish.'
'Thank ye kindly, Master, for your warning, thank ye for your
shelter, and good night.'
'Stop a bit,' said the Deputy, striking in between her and the door.
'Why are you all of a shake, and what's your hurry, Missis?'
'Oh, Master, Master,' returned Betty Higden, I've fought against the
Parish and fled from it, all my life, and I want to die free of it!'
'I don't know,' said the Deputy, with deliberation, 'as I ought to let
you go. I'm a honest man as gets my living by the sweat of my
brow, and I may fall into trouble by letting you go. I've fell into
trouble afore now, by George, and I know what it is, and it's made
me careful. You might be took with your deadness again, half a
mile off--or half of half a quarter, for the matter of that--and then it
would be asked, Why did that there honest Deputy Lock, let her
go, instead of putting her safe with the Parish? That's what a man
of his character ought to have done, it would be argueyfied,' said
the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping on the strong string of her
terror; 'he ought to have handed her over safe to the Parish. That
was to be expected of a man of his merits.'
As he stood in the doorway, the poor old careworn wayworn
woman burst into tears, and clasped her hands, as if in a very
agony she prayed to him.
'As I've told you, Master, I've the best of friends. This letter will
show how true I spoke, and they will be thankful for me.'
The Deputy Lock opened the letter with a grave face, which
underwent no change as he eyed its contents. But it might have
done, if he could have read them.
'What amount of small change, Missis,' he said, with an abstracted
air, after a little meditation, 'might you call a morsel of money?'
Hurriedly emptying her pocket, old Betty laid down on the table, a
shilling, and two sixpenny pieces, and a few pence.
'If I was to let you go instead of handing you over safe to the
Parish,' said the Deputy, counting the money with his eyes, 'might
it be your own free wish to leave that there behind you?'
'Take it, Master, take it, and welcome and thankful!'
'I'm a man,' said the Deputy, giving her back the letter, and
pocketing the coins, one by one, 'as earns his living by the sweat of
his brow;' here he drew his sleeve across his forehead, as if this
particular portion of his humble gains were the result of sheer hard
labour and virtuous industry; 'and I won't stand in your way. Go
where you like.'
She was gone out of the Lock-house as soon as he gave her this
permission, and her tottering steps were on the road again. But,
afraid to go back and afraid to go forward; seeing what she fled
from, in the sky-glare of the lights of the little town before her, and
leaving a confused horror of it everywhere behind her, as if she had
escaped it in every stone of every market-place; she struck off by
side ways, among which she got bewildered and lost. That night
she took refuge from the Samaritan in his latest accredited form,
under a farmer's rick; and if--worth thinking of, perhaps, my
fellow-Christians--the Samaritan had in the lonely night, 'passed
by on the other side', she would have most devoutly thanked High
Heaven for her escape from him.
The morning found her afoot again, but fast declining as to the
clearness of her thoughts, though not as to the steadiness of her
purpose. Comprehending that her strength was quitting her, and
that the struggle of her life was almost ended, she could neither
reason out the means of getting back to her protectors, nor even
form the idea. The overmastering dread, and the proud stubborn
resolution it engendered in her to die undegraded, were the two
distinct impressions left in her failing mind. Supported only by a
sense that she was bent on conquering in her life-long fight, she
went on.
The time was come, now, when the wants of this little life were
passing away from her. She could not have swallowed food,
though a table had been spread for her in the next field. The day
was cold and wet, but she scarcely knew it. She crept on, poor
soul, like a criminal afraid of being taken, and felt little beyond the
terror of falling down while it was yet daylight, and being found
alive. She had no fear that she would live through another night.
Sewn in the breast of her gown, the money to pay for her burial
was still intact. If she could wear through the day, and then lie
down to die under cover of the darkness, she would die
independent. If she were captured previously, the money would be
taken from her as a pauper who had no right to it, and she would
be carried to the accursed workhouse. Gaining her end, the letter
would be found in her breast, along with the money, and the
gentlefolks would say when it was given back to them, 'She prized
it, did old Betty Higden; she was true to it; and while she lived, she
would never let it be disgraced by falling into the hands of those
that she held in horror.' Most illogical, inconsequential, and lightheaded,
this; but travellers in the valley of the shadow of death are
apt to be light-headed; and worn-out old people of low estate have
a trick of reasoning as indifferently as they live, and doubtless
would appreciate our Poor Law more philosophically on an income
of ten thousand a year.
So, keeping to byways, and shunning human approach, this
troublesome old woman hid herself, and fared on all through the
dreary day. Yet so unlike was she to vagrant hiders in general, that
sometimes, as the day advanced, there was a bright fire in her eyes,
and a quicker beating at her feeble heart, as though she said
exultingly, 'The Lord will see me through it!'
By what visionary hands she was led along upon that journey of
escape from the Samaritan; by what voices, hushed in the grave,
she seemed to be addressed; how she fancied the dead child in her
arms again, and times innumerable adjusted her shawl to keep it
warm; what infinite variety of forms of tower and roof and steeple
the trees took; how many furious horsemen rode at her, crying,
'There she goes! Stop! Stop, Betty Higden!' and melted away as
they came close; be these things left untold. Faring on and hiding,
hiding and faring on, the poor harmless creature, as though she
were a Murderess and the whole country were up after her, wore
out the day, and gained the night.
'Water-meadows, or such like,' she had sometimes murmured, on
the day's pilgrimage, when she had raised her head and taken any
note of the real objects about her. There now arose in the darkness,
a great building, full of lighted windows. Smoke was issuing from
a high chimney in the rear of it, and there was the sound of a
water-wheel at the side. Between her and the building, lay a piece
of water, in which the lighted windows were reflected, and on its
nearest margin was a plantation of trees. 'I humbly thank the
Power and the Glory,' said Betty Higden, holding up her withered
hands, 'that I have come to my journey's end!'
She crept among the trees to the trunk of a tree whence she could
see, beyond some intervening trees and branches, the lighted
windows, both in their reality and their reflection in the water. She
placed her orderly little basket at her side, and sank upon the
ground, supporting herself against the tree. It brought to her mind
the foot of the Cross, and she committed herself to Him who died
upon it. Her strength held out to enable her to arrange the letter in
her breast, so as that it could be seen that she had a paper there. It
had held out for this, and it departed when this was done.
'I am safe here,' was her last benumbed thought. 'When I am
found dead at the foot of the Cross, it will be by some of my own
sort; some of the working people who work among the lights
yonder. I cannot see the lighted windows now, but they are there.
I am thankful for all!'
The darkness gone, and a face bending down.
'It cannot be the boofer lady?'
'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again with
this brandy. I have been away to fetch it. Did you think that I was
long gone?'
It is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich dark hair.
It is the earnest face of a woman who is young and handsome. But
all is over with me on earth, and this must be an Angel.
'Have I been long dead?'
'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again. I
hurried all I could, and brought no one back with me, lest you
should die of the shock of strangers.'
'Am I not dead?'
'I cannot understand what you say. Your voice is so low and
broken that I cannot hear you. Do you hear me?'
'Yes.'
'Do you mean Yes?'
'Yes.'
'I was coming from my work just now, along the path outside (I
was up with the night-hands last night), and I heard a groan, and
found you lying here.'
'What work, deary?'
'Did you ask what work? At the paper-mill.'
'Where is it?'
'Your face is turned up to the sky, and you can't see it. It is close
by. You can see my face, here, between you and the sky?'
'Yes.'
'Dare I lift you?'
'Not yet.'
'Not even lift your head to get it on my arm? I will do it by very
gentle degrees. You shall hardly feel it.'
'Not yet. Paper. Letter.'
'This paper in your breast?'
'Bless ye!'
'Let me wet your lips again. Am I to open it? To read it?'
'Bless ye!'
She reads it with surprise, and looks down with a new expression
and an added interest on the motionless face she kneels beside.
'I know these names. I have heard them often.'
'Will you send it, my dear?'
'I cannot understand you. Let me wet your lips again, and your
forehead. There. O poor thing, poor thing!' These words through
her fast-dropping tears. 'What was it that you asked me? Wait till
I bring my ear quite close.'
'Will you send it, my dear?'
'Will I send it to the writers? Is that your wish? Yes, certainly.'
'You'll not give it up to any one but them?'
'No.'
'As you must grow old in time, and come to your dying hour, my
dear, you'll not give it up to any one but them?'
'No. Most solemnly.'
'Never to the Parish!' with a convulsed struggle.
'No. Most solemnly.'
'Nor let the Parish touch me, not yet so much as look at me!' with
another struggle.
'No. Faithfully.'
A look of thankfulness and triumph lights the worn old face.
The eyes, which have been darkly fixed upon the sky, turn with
meaning in them towards the compassionate face from which the
tears are dropping, and a smile is on the aged lips as they ask:
'What is your name, my dear?'
'My name is Lizzie Hexam.'
'I must be sore disfigured. Are you afraid to kiss me?'
The answer is, the ready pressure of her lips upon the cold but
smiling mouth.
'Bless ye! NOW lift me, my love.'
Lizzie Hexam very softly raised the weather-stained grey head, and
lifted her as high as Heaven.
Chapter 9
SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION
'"We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to
deliver this our sister out of the miseries of this sinful world."'
So read the Reverend Frank Milvey in a not untroubled voice,
for his heart misgave him that all was not quite right between
us and our sister--or say our sister in Law--Poor Law--and that
we sometimes read these words in an awful manner, over our Sister
and our Brother too.
And Sloppy--on whom the brave deceased had never turned her
back until she ran away from him, knowing that otherwise he
would not be separated from her--Sloppy could not in his
conscience as yet find the hearty thanks required of it. Selfish in
Sloppy, and yet excusable, it may be humbly hoped, because our
sister had been more than his mother.
The words were read above the ashes of Betty Higden, in a corner
of a churchyard near the river; in a churchyard so obscure that there
was nothing in it but grass-mounds, not so much as one single
tombstone. It might not be to do an unreasonably great deal for the
diggers and hewers, in a registering age, if we ticketed their graves
at the common charge; so that a new generation might know which
was which: so that the soldier, sailor, emigrant, coming home,
should be able to identify the resting-place of father, mother, playmate,
or betrothed. For, we turn up our eyes and say that we are all
alike in death, and we might turn them down and work the saying
out in this world, so far. It would be sentimental, perhaps? But
how say ye, my lords and gentleman and honourable boards, shall
we not find good standing-room left for a little sentiment, if we
look into our crowds?
Near unto the Reverend Frank Milvey as he read, stood his little
wife, John Rokesmith the Secretary, and Bella Wilfer. These, over
and above Sloppy, were the mourners at the lowly grave. Not a
penny had been added to the money sewn in her dress: what her
honest spirit had so long projected, was fulfilled.
'I've took it in my head,' said Sloppy, laying it, inconsolable,
against the church door, when all was done: I've took it in my
wretched head that I might have sometimes turned a little harder
for her, and it cuts me deep to think so now.'
The Reverend Frank Milvey, comforting Sloppy, expounded to him
how the best of us were more or less remiss in our turnings at our
respective Mangles--some of us very much so--and how we were
all a halting, failing, feeble, and inconstant crew.
'SHE warn't, sir,' said Sloppy, taking this ghostly counsel rather ill,
in behalf of his late benefactress. 'Let us speak for ourselves, sir.
She went through with whatever duty she had to do. She went
through with me, she went through with the Minders, she went
through with herself, she went through with everythink. O Mrs
Higden, Mrs Higden, you was a woman and a mother and a
mangler in a million million!'
With those heartfelt words, Sloppy removed his dejected head from
the church door, and took it back to the grave in the comer, and
laid it down there, and wept alone. 'Not a very poor grave,' said
the Reverend Frank Milvey, brushing his hand across his eyes,
'when it has that homely figure on it. Richer, I think, than it could
be made by most of the sculpture in Westminster Abbey!'
They left him undisturbed, and passed out at the wicket-gate. The
water-wheel of the paper-mill was audible there, and seemed to
have a softening influence on the bright wintry scene. They had
arrived but a little while before, and Lizzie Hexam now told them
the little she could add to the letter in which she had enclosed Mr
Rokesmith's letter and had asked for their instructions. This was
merely how she had heard the groan, and what had afterwards
passed, and how she had obtained leave for the remains to be
placed in that sweet, fresh, empty store-room of the mill from
which they had just accompanied them to the churchyard, and how
the last requests had been religiously observed.
'I could not have done it all, or nearly all, of myself,' said Lizzie. 'I
should not have wanted the will; but I should not have had the
power, without our managing partner.'
'Surely not the Jew who received us?' said Mrs Milvey.
('My dear,' observed her husband in parenthesis, 'why not?')
'The gentleman certainly is a Jew,' said Lizzie, 'and the lady, his
wife, is a Jewess, and I was first brought to their notice by a Jew.
But I think there cannot be kinder people in the world.'
'But suppose they try to convert you!' suggested Mrs Milvey,
bristling in her good little way, as a clergyman's wife.
'To do what, ma'am?' asked Lizzie, with a modest smile.
'To make you change your religion,' said Mrs Milvey.
Lizzie shook her head, still smiling. 'They have never asked me
what my religion is. They asked me what my story was, and I told
them. They asked me to be industrious and faithful, and I
promised to be so. They most willingly and cheerfully do their
duty to all of us who are employed here, and we try to do ours to
them. Indeed they do much more than their duty to us, for they are
wonderfully mindful of us in many ways.
'It is easy to see you're a favourite, my dear,' said little Mrs Milvey,
not quite pleased.
'It would be very ungrateful in me to say I am not,' returned Lizzie,
'for I have been already raised to a place of confidence here. But
that makes no difference in their following their own religion and
leaving all of us to ours. They never talk of theirs to us, and they
never talk of ours to us. If I was the last in the mill, it would be
just the same. They never asked me what religion that poor thing
had followed.'
'My dear,' said Mrs Milvey, aside to the Reverend Frank, 'I wish
you would talk to her.'
'My dear,' said the Reverend Frank aside to his good little wife, 'I
think I will leave it to somebody else. The circumstances are
hardly favourable. There are plenty of talkers going about, my
love, and she will soon find one.'
While this discourse was interchanging, both Bella and the
Secretary observed Lizzie Hexam with great attention. Brought
face to face for the first time with the daughter of his supposed
murderer, it was natural that John Harmon should have his own
secret reasons for a careful scrutiny of her countenance and
manner. Bella knew that Lizzie's father had been falsely accused
of the crime which had had so great an influence on her own life
and fortunes; and her interest, though it had no secret springs, like
that of the Secretary, was equally natural. Both had expected to
see something very different from the real Lizzie Hexam, and thus
it fell out that she became the unconscious means of bringing them
together.
For, when they had walked on with her to the little house in the
clean village by the paper-mill, where Lizzie had a lodging with an
elderly couple employed in the establishment, and when Mrs
Milvey and Bella had been up to see her room and had come down,
the mill bell rang. This called Lizzie away for the time, and left the
Secretary and Bella standing rather awkwardly in the small street;
Mrs Milvey being engaged in pursuing the village children, and
her investigations whether they were in danger of becoming
children of Israel; and the Reverend Frank being engaged--to say
the truth--in evading that branch of his spiritual functions, and
getting out of sight surreptitiously.
Bella at length said:
'Hadn't we better talk about the commission we have undertaken,
Mr Rokesmith?'
'By all means,' said the Secretary.
'I suppose,' faltered Bella, 'that we ARE both commissioned, or we
shouldn't both be here?'
'I suppose so,' was the Secretary's answer.
'When I proposed to come with Mr and Mrs Milvey,' said Bella,
'Mrs Boffin urged me to do so, in order that I might give her my
small report--it's not worth anything, Mr Rokesmith, except for it's
being a woman's--which indeed with you may be a fresh reason for
it's being worth nothing--of Lizzie Hexam.'
'Mr Boffin,' said the Secretary, 'directed me to come for the same
purpose.'
As they spoke they were leaving the little street and emerging on
the wooded landscape by the river.
'You think well of her, Mr Rokesmith?' pursued Bella, conscious
of making all the advances.
'I think highly of her.'
'I am so glad of that! Something quite refined in her beauty, is
there not?'
'Her appearance is very striking.'
'There is a shade of sadness upon her that is quite touching. At
least I--I am not setting up my own poor opinion, you know, Mr
Rokesmith,' said Bella, excusing and explaining herself in a pretty
shy way; 'I am consulting you.'
'I noticed that sadness. I hope it may not,' said the Secretary in a
lower voice, 'be the result of the false accusation which has been
retracted.'
When they had passed on a little further without speaking, Bella,
after stealing a glance or two at the Secretary, suddenly said:
'Oh, Mr Rokesmith, don't be hard with me, don't be stern with me;
be magnanimous! I want to talk with you on equal terms.'
The Secretary as suddenly brightened, and returned: 'Upon my
honour I had no thought but for you. I forced myself to be
constrained, lest you might misinterpret my being more natural.
There. It's gone.'
'Thank you,' said Bella, holding out her little hand. 'Forgive me.'
'No!' cried the Secretary, eagerly. 'Forgive ME!' For there were
tears in her eyes, and they were prettier in his sight (though they
smote him on the heart rather reproachfully too) than any other
glitter in the world.
When they had walked a little further:
'You were going to speak to me,' said the Secretary, with the
shadow so long on him quite thrown off and cast away, 'about
Lizzie Hexam. So was I going to speak to you, if I could have
begun.'
'Now that you CAN begin, sir,' returned Bella, with a look as if she
italicized the word by putting one of her dimples under it, 'what
were you going to say?'
'You remember, of course, that in her short letter to Mrs Boffin--
short, but containing everything to the purpose--she stipulated that
either her name, or else her place of residence, must be kept strictly
a secret among us.'
Bella nodded Yes.
'It is my duty to find out why she made that stipulation. I have it in
charge from Mr Boffin to discover, and I am very desirous for
myself to discover, whether that retracted accusation still leaves
any stain upon her. I mean whether it places her at any
disadvantage towards any one, even towards herself.'
'Yes,' said Bella, nodding thoughtfully; 'I understand. That seems
wise, and considerate.'
'You may not have noticed, Miss Wilfer, that she has the same
kind of interest in you, that you have in her. Just as you are
attracted by her beaut--by her appearance and manner, she is
attracted by yours.'
'I certainly have NOT noticed it,' returned Bella, again italicizing
with the dimple, 'and I should have given her credit for--'
The Secretary with a smile held up his hand, so plainly interposing
'not for better taste', that Bella's colour deepened over the little
piece of coquetry she was checked in.
'And so,' resumed the Secretary, 'if you would speak with her alone
before we go away from here, I feel quite sure that a natural and
easy confidence would arise between you. Of course you would
not be asked to betray it; and of course you would not, if you were.
But if you do not object to put this question to her--to ascertain for
us her own feeling in this one matter--you can do so at a far greater
advantage than I or any else could. Mr Boffin is anxious on the
subject. And I am,' added the Secretary after a moment, 'for a
special reason, very anxious.'
'I shall be happy, Mr Rokesmith,' returned Bella, 'to be of the least
use; for I feel, after the serious scene of to-day, that I am useless
enough in this world.'
'Don't say that,' urged the Secretary.
'Oh, but I mean that,' said Bella, raising her eyebrows.
'No one is useless in this world,' retorted the Secretary, 'who
lightens the burden of it for any one else.'
'But I assure you I DON'T, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella. half-crying.
'Not for your father?'
'Dear, loving, self-forgetting, easily-satisfied Pa! Oh, yes! He
thinks so.'
'It is enough if he only thinks so,' said the Secretary. 'Excuse the
interruption: I don't like to hear you depreciate yourself.'
'But YOU once depreciated ME, sir,' thought Bella, pouting, 'and I
hope you may be satisfied with the consequences you brought upon
your head!' However, she said nothing to that purpose; she even
said something to a different purpose.
'Mr Rokesmith, it seems so long since we spoke together naturally,
that I am embarrassed in approaching another subject. Mr Boffin.
You know I am very grateful to him; don't you? You know I feel a
true respect for him, and am bound to him by the strong ties of his
own generosity; now don't you?'
'Unquestionably. And also that you are his favourite companion.'
'That makes it,' said Bella, 'so very difficult to speak of him. But--.
Does he treat you well?'
'You see how he treats me,' the Secretary answered, with a patient
and yet proud air.
'Yes, and I see it with pain,' said Bella, very energetically.
The Secretary gave her such a radiant look, that if he had thanked
her a hundred times, he could not have said as much as the look
said.
'I see it with pain,' repeated Bella, 'and it often makes me
miserable. Miserable, because I cannot bear to be supposed to
approve of it, or have any indirect share in it. Miserable, because I
cannot bear to be forced to admit to myself that Fortune is spoiling
Mr Boffin.'
'Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary, with a beaming face, 'if you could
know with what delight I make the discovery that Fortune isn't
spoiling YOU, you would know that it more than compensates me
for any slight at any other hands.'
'Oh, don't speak of ME,' said Bella, giving herself an impatient
little slap with her glove. 'You don't know me as well as--'
'As you know yourself?' suggested the Secretary, finding that she
stopped. 'DO you know yourself?'
'I know quite enough of myself,' said Bella, with a charming air of
being inclined to give herself up as a bad job, 'and I don't improve
upon acquaintance. But Mr Boffin.'
'That Mr Boffin's manner to me, or consideration for me, is not
what it used to be,' observed the Secretary, 'must be admitted. It is
too plain to be denied.'
'Are you disposed to deny it, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella, with a
look of wonder.
'Ought I not to be glad to do so, if I could: though it were only for
my own sake?'
'Truly,' returned Bella, 'it must try you very much, and--you must
please promise me that you won't take ill what I am going to add,
Mr Rokesmith?'
'I promise it with all my heart.'
'--And it must sometimes, I should think,' said Bella, hesitating, 'a
little lower you in your own estimation?'
Assenting with a movement of his head, though not at all looking
as if it did, the Secretary replied:
'I have very strong reasons, Miss Wilfer, for bearing with the
drawbacks of my position in the house we both inhabit. Believe
that they are not all mercenary, although I have, through a series of
strange fatalities, faded out of my place in life. If what you see
with such a gracious and good sympathy is calculated to rouse my
pride, there are other considerations (and those you do not see)
urging me to quiet endurance. The latter are by far the stronger.'
'I think I have noticed, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, looking at him
with curiosity, as not quite making him out, 'that you repress
yourself, and force yourself, to act a passive part.'
'You are right. I repress myself and force myself to act a part. It is
not in tameness of spirit that I submit. I have a settled purpose.'
'And a good one, I hope,' said Bella.
'And a good one, I hope,' he answered, looking steadily at her.
'Sometimes I have fancied, sir,' said Bella, turning away her eyes,
'that your great regard for Mrs Boffin is a very powerful motive
with you.'
'You are right again; it is. I would do anything for her, bear
anything for her. There are no words to express how I esteem that
good, good woman.'
'As I do too! May I ask you one thing more, Mr Rokesmith?'
'Anything more.'
'Of course you see that she really suffers, when Mr Boffin shows
how he is changing?'
'I see it, every day, as you see it, and am grieved to give her pain.'
'To give her pain?' said Bella, repeating the phrase quickly, with
her eyebrows raised.
'I am generally the unfortunate cause of it.'
'Perhaps she says to you, as she often says to me, that he is the best
of men, in spite of all.'
'I often overhear her, in her honest and beautiful devotion to him,
saying so to you,' returned the Secretary, with the same steady
look, 'but I cannot assert that she ever says so to me.'
Bella met the steady look for a moment with a wistful, musing
little look of her own, and then, nodding her pretty head several
times, like a dimpled philosopher (of the very best school) who
was moralizing on Life, heaved a little sigh, and gave up things in
general for a bad job, as she had previously been inclined to give
up herself.
But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees were
bare of leaves, and the river was bare of water-lilies; but the sky
was not bare of its beautiful blue, and the water reflected it, and a
delicious wind ran with the stream, touching the surface crisply.
Perhaps the old mirror was never yet made by human hands,
which, if all the images it has in its time reflected could pass
across its surface again, would fail to reveal some scene of horror
or distress. But the great serene mirror of the river seemed as if it
might have reproduced all it had ever reflected between those
placid banks, and brought nothing to the light save what was
peaceful, pastoral, and blooming.
So, they walked, speaking of the newly filled-up grave, and of
Johnny, and of many things. So, on their return, they met brisk
Mrs Milvey coming to seek them, with the agreeable intelligence
that there was no fear for the village children, there being a
Christian school in the village, and no worse Judaical interference
with it than to plant its garden. So, they got back to the village as
Lizzie Hexam was coming from the paper-mill, and Bella detached
herself to speak with her in her own home.
'I am afraid it is a poor room for you,' said Lizzie, with a smile of
welcome, as she offered the post of honour by the fireside.
'Not so poor as you think, my dear,' returned Bella, 'if you knew
all.' Indeed, though attained by some wonderful winding narrow
stairs, which seemed to have been erected in a pure white chimney,
and though very low in the ceiling, and very rugged in the floor,
and rather blinking as to the proportions of its lattice window, it
was a pleasanter room than that despised chamber once at home,
in which Bella had first bemoaned the miseries of taking lodgers.
The day was closing as the two girls looked at one another by the
fireside. The dusky room was lighted by the fire. The grate might
have been the old brazier, and the glow might have been the old
hollow down by the flare.
'It's quite new to me,' said Lizzie, 'to be visited by a lady so nearly
of my own age, and so pretty, as you. It's a pleasure to me to look
at you.'
'I have nothing left to begin with,' returned Bella, blushing,
'because I was going to say that it was a pleasure to me to look at
you, Lizzie. But we can begin without a beginning, can't we?'
Lizzie took the pretty little hand that was held out in as pretty a
little frankness.
'Now, dear,' said Bella, drawing her chair a little nearer, and taking
Lizzie's arm as if they were going out for a walk, 'I am
commissioned with something to say, and I dare say I shall say it
wrong, but I won't if I can help it. It is in reference to your letter to
Mr and Mrs Boffin, and this is what it is. Let me see. Oh yes!
This is what it is.'
With this exordium, Bella set forth that request of Lizzie's touching
secrecy, and delicately spoke of that false accusation and its
retraction, and asked might she beg to be informed whether it had
any bearing, near or remote, on such request. 'I feel, my dear,' said
Bella, quite amazing herself by the business-like manner in which
she was getting on, 'that the subject must be a painful one to you,
but I am mixed up in it also; for--I don't know whether you may
know it or suspect it--I am the willed-away girl who was to have
been married to the unfortunate gentleman, if he had been pleased
to approve of me. So I was dragged into the subject without my
consent, and you were dragged into it without your consent, and
there is very little to choose between us.'
'I had no doubt,' said Lizzie, 'that you were the Miss Wilfer I have
often heard named. Can you tell me who my unknown friend is?'
'Unknown friend, my dear?' said Bella.
'Who caused the charge against poor father to be contradicted, and
sent me the written paper.'
Bella had never heard of him. Had no notion who he was.
'I should have been glad to thank him,' returned Lizzie. 'He has
done a great deal for me. I must hope that he will let me thank him
some day. You asked me has it anything to do--'
'It or the accusation itself,' Bella put in.
'Yes. Has either anything to do with my wishing to live quite
secret and retired here? No.'
As Lizzie Hexam shook her head in giving this reply and as her
glance sought the fire, there was a quiet resolution in her folded
hands, not lost on Bella's bright eyes.
'Have you lived much alone?' asked Bella.
'Yes. It's nothing new to me. I used to be always alone many
hours together, in the day and in the night, when poor father was
alive.'
'You have a brother, I have been told?'
'I have a brother, but he is not friendly with me. He is a very good
boy though, and has raised himself by his industry. I don't
complain of him.'
As she said it, with her eyes upon the fire-glow, there was an
instantaneous escape of distress into her face. Bella seized the
moment to touch her hand.
'Lizzie, I wish you would tell me whether you have any friend of
your own sex and age.'
'I have lived that lonely kind of life, that I have never had one,' was
the answer.
'Nor I neither,' said Bella. 'Not that my life has been lonely, for I
could have sometimes wished it lonelier, instead of having Ma
going on like the Tragic Muse with a face-ache in majestic corners,
and Lavvy being spiteful--though of course I am very fond of them
both. I wish you could make a friend of me, Lizzie. Do you think
you could? I have no more of what they call character, my dear,
than a canary-bird, but I know I am trustworthy.'
The wayward, playful, affectionate nature, giddy for want of the
weight of some sustaining purpose, and capricious because it was
always fluttering among little things, was yet a captivating one. To
Lizzie it was so new, so pretty, at once so womanly and so
childish, that it won her completely. And when Bella said again,
'Do you think you could, Lizzie?' with her eyebrows raised, her
head inquiringly on one side, and an odd doubt about it in her own
bosom, Lizzie showed beyond all question that she thought she
could.
'Tell me, my dear,' said Bella, 'what is the matter, and why you live
like this.'
Lizzie presently began, by way of prelude, 'You must have many
lovers--' when Bella checked her with a little scream of
astonishment.
'My dear, I haven't one!'
'Not one?'
'Well! Perhaps one,' said Bella. 'I am sure I don't know. I HAD
one, but what he may think about it at the present time I can't say.
Perhaps I have half a one (of course I don't count that Idiot, George
Sampson). However, never mind me. I want to hear about you.'
'There is a certain man,' said Lizzie, 'a passionate and angry man,
who says he loves me, and who I must believe does love me. He is
the friend of my brother. I shrank from him within myself when
my brother first brought him to me; but the last time I saw him he
terrified me more than I can say.' There she stopped.
'Did you come here to escape from him, Lizzie?'
'I came here immediately after he so alarmed me.'
'Are you afraid of him here?'
'I am not timid generally, but I am always afraid of him. I am
afraid to see a newspaper, or to hear a word spoken of what is done
in London, lest he should have done some violence.'
'Then you are not afraid of him for yourself, dear?' said Bella, after
pondering on the words.
'I should be even that, if I met him about here. I look round for
him always, as I pass to and fro at night.'
'Are you afraid of anything he may do to himself in London, my
dear?'
'No. He might be fierce enough even to do some violence to
himself, but I don't think of that.'
'Then it would almost seem, dear,' said Bella quaintly, 'as if there
must be somebody else?'
Lizzie put her hands before her face for a moment before replying:
'The words are always in my ears, and the blow he struck upon a
stone wall as he said them is always before my eyes. I have tried
hard to think it not worth remembering, but I cannot make so little
of it. His hand was trickling down with blood as he said to me,
"Then I hope that I may never kill him!"
Rather startled, Bella made and clasped a girdle of her arms round
Lizzie's waist, and then asked quietly, in a soft voice, as they both
looked at the fire:
'Kill him! Is this man so jealous, then?'
'Of a gentleman,' said Lizzie. '--I hardly know how to tell you--of a
gentleman far above me and my way of life, who broke father's
death to me, and has shown an interest in me since.'
'Does he love you?'
Lizzie shook her head.
'Does he admire you?'
Lizzie ceased to shake her head, and pressed her hand upon her
living girdle.
'Is it through his influence that you came here?'
'O no! And of all the world I wouldn't have him know that I am
here, or get the least clue where to find me.'
'Lizzie, dear! Why?' asked Bella, in amazement at this burst. But
then quickly added, reading Lizzie's face: 'No. Don't say why.
That was a foolish question of mine. I see, I see.'
There was silence between them. Lizzie, with a drooping head,
glanced down at the glow in the fire where her first fancies had
been nursed, and her first escape made from the grim life out of
which she had plucked her brother, foreseeing her reward.
'You know all now,' she said, raising her eyes to Bella's. 'There is
nothing left out. This is my reason for living secret here, with the
aid of a good old man who is my true friend. For a short part of
my life at home with father, I knew of things--don't ask me what--
that I set my face against, and tried to better. I don't think I could
have done more, then, without letting my hold on father go; but
they sometimes lie heavy on my mind. By doing all for the best, I
hope I may wear them out.'
'And wear out too,' said Bella soothingly, 'this weakness, Lizzie, in
favour of one who is not worthy of it.'
'No. I don't want to wear that out,' was the flushed reply, 'nor do I
want to believe, nor do I believe, that he is not worthy of it. What
should I gain by that, and how much should I lose!'
Bella's expressive little eyebrows remonstrated with the fire for
some short time before she rejoined:
'Don't think that I press you, Lizzie; but wouldn't you gain in
peace, and hope, and even in freedom? Wouldn't it be better not to
live a secret life in hiding, and not to be shut out from your natural
and wholesome prospects? Forgive my asking you, would that be
no gain?'
'Does a woman's heart that--that has that weakness in it which you
have spoken of,' returned Lizzie, 'seek to gain anything?'
The question was so directly at variance with Bella's views in life,
as set forth to her father, that she said internally, 'There, you little
mercenary wretch! Do you hear that? Ain't you ashamed of your
self?' and unclasped the girdle of her arms, expressly to give
herself a penitential poke in the side.
'But you said, Lizzie,' observed Bella, returning to her subject
when she had administered this chastisement, 'that you would lose,
besides. Would you mind telling me what you would lose, Lizzie?'
'I should lose some of the best recollections, best encouragements,
and best objects, that I carry through my daily life. I should lose
my belief that if I had been his equal, and he had loved me, I
should have tried with all my might to make him better and
happier, as he would have made me. I should lose almost all the
value that I put upon the little learning I have, which is all owing
to him, and which I conquered the difficulties of, that he might not
think it thrown away upon me. I should lose a kind of picture of
him--or of what he might have been, if I had been a lady, and he
had loved me--which is always with me, and which I somehow
feel that I could not do a mean or a wrong thing before. I should
leave off prizing the remembrance that he has done me nothing but
good since I have known him, and that he has made a change
within me, like--like the change in the grain of these hands, which
were coarse, and cracked, and hard, and brown when I rowed on
the river with father, and are softened and made supple by this new
work as you see them now.'
They trembled, but with no weakness, as she showed them.
'Understand me, my dear;' thus she went on. I have never dreamed
of the possibility of his being anything to me on this earth but the
kind picture that I know I could not make you understand, if the
understanding was not in your own breast already. I have no more
dreamed of the possibility of MY being his wife, than he ever has--
and words could not be stronger than that. And yet I love him. I
love him so much, and so dearly, that when I sometimes think my
life may be but a weary one, I am proud of it and glad of it. I am
proud and glad to suffer something for him, even though it is of no
service to him, and he will never know of it or care for it.'
Bella sat enchained by the deep, unselfish passion of this girl or
woman of her own age, courageously revealing itself in the
confidence of her sympathetic perception of its truth. And yet she
had never experienced anything like it, or thought of the existence
of anything like it.
'It was late upon a wretched night,' said Lizzie, 'when his eyes first
looked at me in my old river-side home, very different from this.
His eyes may never look at me again. I would rather that they
never did; I hope that they never may. But I would not have the
light of them taken out of my life, for anything my life can give me.
I have told you everything now, my dear. If it comes a little
strange to me to have parted with it, I am not sorry. I had no
thought of ever parting with a single word of it, a moment before
you came in; but you came in, and my mind changed.'
Bella kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her warmly for her
confidence. 'I only wish,' said Bella, 'I was more deserving of it.'
'More deserving of it?' repeated Lizzie, with an incredulous smile.
'I don't mean in respect of keeping it,' said Bella, 'because any one
should tear me to bits before getting at a syllable of it--though
there's no merit in that, for I am naturally as obstinate as a Pig.
What I mean is, Lizzie, that I am a mere impertinent piece of
conceit, and you shame me.'
Lizzie put up the pretty brown hair that came tumbling down,
owing to the energy with which Bella shook her head; and she
remonstrated while thus engaged, 'My dear!'
'Oh, it's all very well to call me your dear,' said Bella, with a
pettish whimper, 'and I am glad to be called so, though I have
slight enough claim to be. But I AM such a nasty little thing!'
'My dear!' urged Lizzie again.
'Such a shallow, cold, worldly, Limited little brute!' said Bella,
bringing out her last adjective with culminating force.
'Do you think,' inquired Lizzie with her quiet smile, the hair being
now secured, 'that I don't know better?'
'DO you know better though?' said Bella. 'Do you really believe
you know better? Oh, I should be so glad if you did know better,
but I am so very much afraid that I must know best!'
Lizzie asked her, laughing outright, whether she ever saw her own
face or heard her own voice?
'I suppose so,' returned Bella; 'I look in the glass often enough, and
I chatter like a Magpie.'
'I have seen your face, and heard your voice, at any rate,' said
Lizzie, 'and they have tempted me to say to you--with a certainty of
not going wrong--what I thought I should never say to any one.
Does that look ill?'
'No, I hope it doesn't,' pouted Bella, stopping herself in something
between a humoured laugh and a humoured sob.
'I used once to see pictures in the fire,' said Lizzie playfully, 'to
please my brother. Shall I tell you what I see down there where the
fire is glowing?'
They had risen, and were standing on the hearth, the time being
come for separating; each had drawn an arm around the other to
take leave.
'Shall I tell you,' asked Lizzie, 'what I see down there?'
'Limited little b?' suggested Bella with her eyebrows raised.
'A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once
won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never
changes, and is never daunted.'
'Girl's heart?' asked Bella, with accompanying eyebrows. Lizzie
nodded. 'And the figure to which it belongs--'
Is yours,' suggested Bella.
'No. Most clearly and distinctly yours.'
So the interview terminated with pleasant words on both sides, and
with many reminders on the part of Bella that they were friends,
and pledges that she would soon come down into that part of the
country again. There with Lizzie returned to her occupation, and
Bella ran over to the little inn to rejoin her company.
'You look rather serious, Miss Wilfer,' was the Secretary's first
remark.
'I feel rather serious,' returned Miss Wilfer.
She had nothing else to tell him but that Lizzie Hexam's secret had
no reference whatever to the cruel charge, or its withdrawal. Oh
yes though! said Bella; she might as well mention one other thing;
Lizzie was very desirous to thank her unknown friend who had
sent her the written retractation. Was she, indeed? observed the
Secretary. Ah! Bella asked him, had he any notion who that
unknown friend might be? He had no notion whatever.
They were on the borders of Oxfordshire, so far had poor old Betty
Higden strayed. They were to return by the train presently, and, the
station being near at hand, the Reverend Frank and Mrs Frank, and
Sloppy and Bella and the Secretary, set out to walk to it. Few
rustic paths are wide enough for five, and Bella and the Secretary
dropped behind.
'Can you believe, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, 'that I feel as if whole
years had passed since I went into Lizzie Hexam's cottage?'
'We have crowded a good deal into the day,' he returned, 'and you
were much affected in the churchyard. You are over-tired.'
'No, I am not at all tired. I have not quite expressed what I mean.
I don't mean that I feel as if a great space of time had gone by, but
that I feel as if much had happened--to myself, you know.'
'For good, I hope?'
'I hope so,' said Bella.
'You are cold; I felt you tremble. Pray let me put this wrapper of
mine about you. May I fold it over this shoulder without injuring
your dress? Now, it will be too heavy and too long. Let me carry
this end over my arm, as you have no arm to give me.'
Yes she had though. How she got it out, in her muffled state,
Heaven knows; but she got it out somehow--there it was--and
slipped it through the Secretary's.
'I have had a long and interesting talk with Lizzie, Mr Rokesmith,
and she gave me her full confidence.'
'She could not withhold it,' said the Secretary.
'I wonder how you come,' said Bella, stopping short as she glanced
at him, 'to say to me just what she said about it!'
'I infer that it must be because I feel just as she felt about it.'
'And how was that, do you mean to say, sir?' asked Bella, moving
again.
'That if you were inclined to win her confidence--anybody's
confidence--you were sure to do it.'
The railway, at this point, knowingly shutting a green eye and
opening a red one, they had to run for it. As Bella could not run
easily so wrapped up, the Secretary had to help her. When she
took her opposite place in the carriage corner, the brightness in her
face was so charming to behold, that on her exclaiming, 'What
beautiful stars and what a glorious night!' the Secretary said 'Yes,'
but seemed to prefer to see the night and the stars in the light of her
lovely little countenance, to looking out of window.
O boofer lady, fascinating boofer lady! If I were but legally
executor of Johnny's will! If I had but the right to pay your legacy
and to take your receipt!--Something to this purpose surely
mingled with the blast of the train as it cleared the stations, all
knowingly shutting up their green eyes and opening their red ones
when they prepared to let the boofer lady pass.
Chapter 10
SCOUTS OUT
'And so, Miss Wren,' said Mr Eugene Wrayburn, 'I cannot
persuade you to dress me a doll?'
'No,' replied Miss Wren snappishly; 'if you want one, go and buy
one at the shop.'
'And my charming young goddaughter,' said Mr Wrayburn
plaintively, 'down in Hertfordshire--'
('Humbugshire you mean, I think,' interposed Miss Wren.)
'--is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and is to
derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the Court
Dressmaker?'
'If it's any advantage to your charming godchild--and oh, a
precious godfather she has got!'--replied Miss Wren, pricking at
him in the air with her needle, 'to be informed that the Court
Dressmaker knows your tricks and your manners, you may tell her
so by post, with my compliments.'
Miss Wren was busy at her work by candle-light, and Mr
Wrayburn, half amused and half vexed, and all idle and shiftless,
stood by her bench looking on. Miss Wren's troublesome child
was in the corner in deep disgrace, and exhibiting great
wretchedness in the shivering stage of prostration from drink.
'Ugh, you disgraceful boy!' exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by the
sound of his chattering teeth, 'I wish they'd all drop down your
throat and play at dice in your stomach! Boh, wicked child! Beebaa,
black sheep!'
On her accompanying each of these reproaches with a threatening
stamp of the foot, the wretched creature protested with a whine.
'Pay five shillings for you indeed!' Miss Wren proceeded; 'how
many hours do you suppose it costs me to earn five shillings, you
imfamous boy?--Don't cry like that, or I'll throw a doll at you. Pay
five shillings fine for you indeed. Fine in more ways than one, I
think! I'd give the dustman five shillings, to carry you off in the
dust cart.'
'No, no,' pleaded the absurd creature. 'Please!'
'He's enough to break his mother's heart, is this boy,' said Miss
Wren, half appealing to Eugene. 'I wish I had never brought him
up. He'd be sharper than a serpent's tooth, if he wasn't as dull as
ditch water. Look at him. There's a pretty object for a parent's
eyes!'
Assuredly, in his worse than swinish state (for swine at least fatten
on their guzzling, and make themselves good to eat), he was a
pretty object for any eyes.
'A muddling and a swipey old child,' said Miss Wren, rating him
with great severity, 'fit for nothing but to be preserved in the liquor
that destroys him, and put in a great glass bottle as a sight for other
swipey children of his own pattern,--if he has no consideration for
his liver, has he none for his mother?'
'Yes. Deration, oh don't!' cried the subject of these angry remarks.
'Oh don't and oh don't,' pursued Miss Wren. 'It's oh do and oh do.
And why do you?'
'Won't do so any more. Won't indeed. Pray!'
'There!' said Miss Wren, covering her eyes with her hand. 'I can't
bear to look at you. Go up stairs and get me my bonnet and shawl.
Make yourself useful in some way, bad boy, and let me have your
room instead of your company, for one half minute.'
Obeying her, he shambled out, and Eugene Wrayburn saw the
tears exude from between the little creature's fingers as she kept
her hand before her eyes. He was sorry, but his sympathy did not
move his carelessness to do anything but feel sorry.
'I'm going to the Italian Opera to try on,' said Miss Wren, taking
away her hand after a little while, and laughing satirically to hide
that she had been crying; 'I must see your back before I go, Mr
Wrayburn. Let me first tell you, once for all, that it's of no use your
paying visits to me. You wouldn't get what you want, of me, no,
not if you brought pincers with you to tear it out.'
'Are you so obstinate on the subject of a doll's dress for my
godchild?'
'Ah!' returned Miss Wren with a hitch of her chin, 'I am so
obstinate. And of course it's on the subject of a doll's dress--or
ADdress--whichever you like. Get along and give it up!'
Her degraded charge had come back, and was standing behind her
with the bonnet and shawl.
'Give 'em to me and get back into your corner, you naughty old
thing!' said Miss Wren, as she turned and espied him. 'No, no, I
won't have your help. Go into your corner, this minute!'
The miserable man, feebly rubbing the back of his faltering hands
downward from the wrists, shuffled on to his post of disgrace; but
not without a curious glance at Eugene in passing him,
accompanied with what seemed as if it might have been an action
of his elbow, if any action of any limb or joint he had, would have
answered truly to his will. Taking no more particular notice of him
than instinctively falling away from the disagreeable contact,
Eugene, with a lazy compliment or so to Miss Wren, begged leave
to light his cigar, and departed.
'Now you prodigal old son,' said Jenny, shaking her head and her
emphatic little forefinger at her burden, 'you sit there till I come
back. You dare to move out of your corner for a single instant
while I'm gone, and I'll know the reason why.'
With this admonition, she blew her work candles out, leaving him
to the light of the fire, and, taking her big door-key in her pocket
and her crutch-stick in her hand, marched off.
Eugene lounged slowly towards the Temple, smoking his cigar,
but saw no more of the dolls' dressmaker, through the accident of
their taking opposite sides of the street. He lounged along
moodily, and stopped at Charing Cross to look about him, with as
little interest in the crowd as any man might take, and was
lounging on again, when a most unexpected object caught his eyes.
No less an object than Jenny Wren's bad boy trying to make up his
mind to cross the road.
A more ridiculous and feeble spectacle than this tottering wretch
making unsteady sallies into the roadway, and as often staggering
back again, oppressed by terrors of vehicles that were a long way
off or were nowhere, the streets could not have shown. Over and
over again, when the course was perfectly clear, he set out, got half
way, described a loop, turned, and went back again; when he
might have crossed and re-crossed half a dozen times. Then, he
would stand shivering on the edge of the pavement, looking up the
street and looking down, while scores of people jostled him, and
crossed, and went on. Stimulated in course of time by the sight of
so many successes, he would make another sally, make another
loop, would all but have his foot on the opposite pavement, would
see or imagine something coming, and would stagger back again.
There, he would stand making spasmodic preparations as if for a
great leap, and at last would decide on a start at precisely the
wrong moment, and would be roared at by drivers, and would
shrink back once more, and stand in the old spot shivering, with
the whole of the proceedings to go through again.
'It strikes me,' remarked Eugene coolly, after watching him for
some minutes, 'that my friend is likely to be rather behind time if
he has any appointment on hand.' With which remark he strolled
on, and took no further thought of him.
Lightwood was at home when he got to the Chambers, and had
dined alone there. Eugene drew a chair to the fire by which he was
having his wine and reading the evening paper, and brought a
glass, and filled it for good fellowship's sake.
'My dear Mortimer, you are the express picture of contented
industry, reposing (on credit) after the virtuous labours of the day.'
'My dear Eugene, you are the express picture of discontented
idleness not reposing at all. Where have you been?'
'I have been,' replied Wrayburn, '--about town. I have turned up at
the present juncture, with the intention of consulting my highly
intelligent and respected solicitor on the position of my affairs.'
'Your highly intelligent and respect solicitor is of opinion that your
affairs are in a bad way, Eugene.'
'Though whether,' said Eugene thoughtfully, 'that can be
intelligently said, now, of the affairs of a client who has nothing to
lose and who cannot possibly be made to pay, may be open to
question.'
'You have fallen into the hands of the Jews, Eugene.'
'My dear boy,' returned the debtor, very composedly taking up his
glass, 'having previously fallen into the hands of some of the
Christians, I can bear it with philosophy.'
'I have had an interview to-day, Eugene, with a Jew, who seems
determined to press us hard. Quite a Shylock, and quite a
Patriarch. A picturesque grey-headed and grey-bearded old Jew, in
a shovel-hat and gaberdine.'
'Not,' said Eugene, pausing in setting down his glass, 'surely not
my worthy friend Mr Aaron?'
'He calls himself Mr Riah.'
'By-the-by,' said Eugene, 'it comes into my mind that--no doubt
with an instinctive desire to receive him into the bosom of our
Church--I gave him the name of Aaron!'
'Eugene, Eugene,' returned Lightwood, 'you are more ridiculous
than usual. Say what you mean.'
'Merely, my dear fellow, that I have the honour and pleasure of a
speaking acquaintance with such a Patriarch as you describe, and
that I address him as Mr Aaron, because it appears to me Hebraic,
expressive, appropriate, and complimentary. Notwithstanding
which strong reasons for its being his name, it may not be his
name.'
'I believe you are the absurdest man on the face of the earth,' said
Lightwood, laughing.
'Not at all, I assure you. Did he mention that he knew me?'
'He did not. He only said of you that he expected to be paid by
you.'
'Which looks,' remarked Eugene with much gravity, 'like NOT
knowing me. I hope it may not be my worthy friend Mr Aaron,
for, to tell you the truth, Mortimer, I doubt he may have a
prepossession against me. I strongly suspect him of having had a
hand in spiriting away Lizzie.'
'Everything,' returned Lightwood impatiently, 'seems, by a fatality,
to bring us round to Lizzie. "About town" meant about Lizzie, just
now, Eugene.'
'My solicitor, do you know,' observed Eugene, turning round to the
furniture, 'is a man of infinite discernment!'
'Did it not, Eugene?'
'Yes it did, Mortimer.'
'And yet, Eugene, you know you do not really care for her.'
Eugene Wrayburn rose, and put his hands in his pockets, and stood
with a foot on the fender, indolently rocking his body and looking
at the fire. After a prolonged pause, he replied: 'I don't know that.
I must ask you not to say that, as if we took it for granted.'
'But if you do care for her, so much the more should you leave her
to herself.'
Having again paused as before, Eugene said: 'I don't know that,
either. But tell me. Did you ever see me take so much trouble
about anything, as about this disappearance of hers? I ask, for
information.'
'My dear Eugene, I wish I ever had!'
'Then you have not? Just so. You confirm my own impression.
Does that look as if I cared for her? I ask, for information.'
'I asked YOU for information, Eugene,' said Mortimer
reproachfully.
'Dear boy, I know it, but I can't give it. I thirst for information.
What do I mean? If my taking so much trouble to recover her does
not mean that I care for her, what does it mean? "If Peter Piper
picked a peck of pickled pepper, where's the peck," &c.?'
Though he said this gaily, he said it with a perplexed and
inquisitive face, as if he actually did not know what to make of
himself. 'Look on to the end--' Lightwood was beginning to
remonstrate, when he caught at the words:
'Ah! See now! That's exactly what I am incapable of doing. How
very acute you are, Mortimer, in finding my weak place! When we
were at school together, I got up my lessons at the last moment,
day by day and bit by bit; now we are out in life together, I get up
my lessons in the same way. In the present task I have not got
beyond this:--I am bent on finding Lizzie, and I mean to find her,
and I will take any means of finding her that offer themselves. Fair
means or foul means, are all alike to me. I ask you--for
information--what does that mean? When I have found her I may
ask you--also for information--what do I mean now? But it would
be premature in this stage, and it's not the character of my mind.'
Lightwood was shaking his head over the air with which his friend
held forth thus--an air so whimsically open and argumentative as
almost to deprive what he said of the appearance of evasion--when
a shuffling was heard at the outer door, and then an undecided
knock, as though some hand were groping for the knocker. 'The
frolicsome youth of the neighbourhood,' said Eugene, 'whom I
should be delighted to pitch from this elevation into the churchyard
below, without any intermediate ceremonies, have probably turned
the lamp out. I am on duty to-night, and will see to the door.'
His friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented gleam of
determination with which he had spoken of finding this girl, and
which had faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words,
when Eugene came back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of
a man, shaking from head to foot, and clothed in shabby grease
and smear.
'This interesting gentleman,' said Eugene, 'is the son--the
occasionally rather trying son, for he has his failings--of a lady of
my acquaintance. My dear Mortimer--Mr Dolls.' Eugene had no
idea what his name was, knowing the little dressmaker's to be
assumed, but presented him with easy confidence under the first
appellation that his associations suggested.
'I gather, my dear Mortimer,' pursued Eugene, as Lightwood stared
at the obscene visitor, 'from the manner of Mr Dolls--which is
occasionally complicated--that he desires to make some
communication to me. I have mentioned to Mr Dolls that you and
I are on terms of confidence, and have requested Mr Dolls to
develop his views here.'
The wretched object being much embarrassed by holding what
remained of his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to the door, and put him
down in a chair.
'It will be necessary, I think,' he observed, 'to wind up Mr Dolls,
before anything to any mortal purpose can be got out of him.
Brandy, Mr Dolls, or--?'
'Threepenn'orth Rum,' said Mr Dolls.
A judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him in a wineglass,
and he began to convey it to his mouth, with all kinds of
falterings and gyrations on the road.
'The nerves of Mr Dolls,' remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 'are
considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient to
fumigate Mr Dolls.'
He took the shovel from the grate, sprinkled a few live ashes on it,
and from a box on the chimney-piece took a few pastiles, which he
set upon them; then, with great composure began placidly waving
the shovel in front of Mr Dolls, to cut him off from his company.
'Lord bless my soul, Eugene!' cried Lightwood, laughing again,
'what a mad fellow you are! Why does this creature come to see
you?'
'We shall hear,' said Wrayburn, very observant of his face withal.
'Now then. Speak out. Don't be afraid. State your business,
Dolls.'
'Mist Wrayburn!' said the visitor, thickly and huskily. '--'TIS Mist
Wrayburn, ain't?' With a stupid stare.
'Of course it is. Look at me. What do you want?'
Mr Dolls collapsed in his chair, and faintly said 'Threepenn'orth
Rum.'
'Will you do me the favour, my dear Mortimer, to wind up Mr
Dolls again?' said Eugene. 'I am occupied with the fumigation.'
A similar quantity was poured into his glass, and he got it to his
lips by similar circuitous ways. Having drunk it, Mr Dolls, with
an evident fear of running down again unless he made haste,
proceeded to business.
'Mist Wrayburn. Tried to nudge you, but you wouldn't. You want
that drection. You want t'know where she lives. DO you Mist
Wrayburn?'
With a glance at his friend, Eugene replied to the question sternly,
'I do.'
'I am er man,' said Mr Dolls, trying to smite himself on the breast,
but bringing his hand to bear upon the vicinity of his eye, 'er do it.
I am er man er do it.'
'What are you the man to do?' demanded Eugene, still sternly.
'Er give up that drection.'
'Have you got it?'
With a most laborious attempt at pride and dignity, Mr Dolls
rolled his head for some time, awakening the highest expectations,
and then answered, as if it were the happiest point that could
possibly be expected of him: 'No.'
'What do you mean then?'
Mr Dolls, collapsing in the drowsiest manner after his late
intellectual triumph, replied: 'Threepenn'orth Rum.'
'Wind him up again, my dear Mortimer,' said Wrayburn; 'wind him
up again.'
'Eugene, Eugene,' urged Lightwood in a low voice, as he complied,
'can you stoop to the use of such an instrument as this?'
'I said,' was the reply, made with that former gleam of
determination, 'that I would find her out by any means, fair or foul.
These are foul, and I'll take them--if I am not first tempted to break
the head of Mr Dolls with the fumigator. Can you get the
direction? Do you mean that? Speak! If that's what you have
come for, say how much you want.'
'Ten shillings--Threepenn'orths Rum,' said Mr Dolls.
'You shall have it.'
'Fifteen shillings--Threepenn'orths Rum,' said Mr Dolls, making an
attempt to stiffen himself.
'You shall have it. Stop at that. How will you get the direction you
talk of?'
'I am er man,' said Mr Dolls, with majesty, 'er get it, sir.'
'How will you get it, I ask you?'
'I am ill-used vidual,' said Mr Dolls. 'Blown up morning t'night.
Called names. She makes Mint money, sir, and never stands
Threepenn'orth Rum.'
'Get on,' rejoined Eugene, tapping his palsied head with the fireshovel,
as it sank on his breast. 'What comes next?'
Making a dignified attempt to gather himself together, but, as it
were, dropping half a dozen pieces of himself while he tried in vain
to pick up one, Mr Dolls, swaying his head from side to side,
regarded his questioner with what he supposed to be a haughty
smile and a scornful glance.
'She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am NOT mere child, sir.
Man. Man talent. Lerrers pass betwixt 'em. Postman lerrers.
Easy for man talent er get drection, as get his own drection.'
'Get it then,' said Eugene; adding very heartily under his breath,
'--You Brute! Get it, and bring it here to me, and earn the money for
sixty threepenn'orths of rum, and drink them all, one a top of
another, and drink yourself dead with all possible expedition.' The
latter clauses of these special instructions he addressed to the fire,
as he gave it back the ashes he had taken from it, and replaced the
shovel.
Mr Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery that he
had been insulted by Lightwood, and stated his desire to 'have it
out with him' on the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the
liberal terms of a sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr Dolls then fell a
crying, and then exhibited a tendency to fall asleep. This last
manifestation as by far the most alarming, by reason of its
threatening his prolonged stay on the premises, necessitated
vigorous measures. Eugene picked up his worn-out hat with the
tongs, clapped it on his head, and, taking him by the collar--all this
at arm's length--conducted him down stairs and out of the precincts
into Fleet Street. There, he turned his face westward, and left him.
When he got back, Lightwood was standing over the fire, brooding
in a sufficiently low-spirited manner.
'I'll wash my hands of Mr Dolls physically--' said Eugene, 'and be
with you again directly, Mortimer.'
'I would much prefer,' retorted Mortimer, 'your washing your hands
of Mr Dolls, morally, Eugene.'
'So would I,' said Eugene; 'but you see, dear boy, I can't do without
him.'
In a minute or two he resumed his chair, as perfectly unconcerned
as usual, and rallied his friend on having so narrowly escaped the
prowess of their muscular visitor.
'I can't be amused on this theme,' said Mortimer, restlessly. 'You
can make almost any theme amusing to me, Eugene, but not this.'
'Well!' cried Eugene, 'I am a little ashamed of it myself, and
therefore let us change the subject.'
'It is so deplorably underhanded,' said Mortimer. 'It is so unworthy
of you, this setting on of such a shameful scout.'
'We have changed the subject!' exclaimed Eugene, airily. 'We have
found a new one in that word, scout. Don't be like Patience on a
mantelpiece frowning at Dolls, but sit down, and I'll tell you
something that you really will find amusing. Take a cigar. Look
at this of mine. I light it--draw one puff--breathe the smoke out--
there it goes--it's Dolls!--it's gone--and being gone you are a man
again.'
'Your subject,' said Mortimer, after lighting a cigar, and
comforting himself with a whiff or two, 'was scouts, Eugene.'
'Exactly. Isn't it droll that I never go out after dark, but I find
myself attended, always by one scout, and often by two?'
Lightwood took his cigar from his lips in surprise, and looked at
his friend, as if with a latent suspicion that there must be a jest or
hidden meaning in his words.
'On my honour, no,' said Wrayburn, answering the look and
smiling carelessly; 'I don't wonder at your supposing so, but on my
honour, no. I say what I mean. I never go out after dark, but I find
myself in the ludicrous situation of being followed and observed at
a distance, always by one scout, and often by two.'
'Are you sure, Eugene?'
'Sure? My dear boy, they are always the same.'
'But there's no process out against you. The Jews only threaten.
They have done nothing. Besides, they know where to find you,
and I represent you. Why take the trouble?'
'Observe the legal mind!' remarked Eugene, turning round to the
furniture again, with an air of indolent rapture. 'Observe the dyer's
hand, assimilating itself to what it works in,--or would work in, if
anybody would give it anything to do. Respected solicitor, it's not
that. The schoolmaster's abroad.'
'The schoolmaster?'
'Ay! Sometimes the schoolmaster and the pupil are both abroad.
Why, how soon you rust in my absence! You don't understand yet?
Those fellows who were here one night. They are the scouts I
speak of, as doing me the honour to attend me after dark.'
'How long has this been going on?' asked Lightwood, opposing a
serious face to the laugh of his friend.
'I apprehend it has been going on, ever since a certain person went
off. Probably, it had been going on some little time before I
noticed it: which would bring it to about that time.'
'Do you think they suppose you to have inveigled her away?'
'My dear Mortimer, you know the absorbing nature of my
professional occupations; I really have not had leisure to think
about it.'
'Have you asked them what they want? Have you objected?'
'Why should I ask them what they want, dear fellow, when I am
indifferent what they want? Why should I express objection, when
I don't object?'
'You are in your most reckless mood. But you called the situation
just now, a ludicrous one; and most men object to that, even those
who are utterly indifferent to everything else.'
'You charm me, Mortimer, with your reading of my weaknesses.
(By-the-by, that very word, Reading, in its critical use, always
charms me. An actress's Reading of a chambermaid, a dancer's
Reading of a hornpipe, a singer's Reading of a song, a marine
painter's Reading of the sea, the kettle-drum's Reading of an
instrumental passage, are phrases ever youthful and delightful.) I
was mentioning your perception of my weaknesses. I own to the
weakness of objecting to occupy a ludicrous position, and therefore
I transfer the position to the scouts.'
'I wish, Eugene, you would speak a little more soberly and plainly,
if it were only out of consideration for my feeling less at ease than
you do.'
'Then soberly and plainly, Mortimer, I goad the schoolmaster to
madness. I make the schoolmaster so ridiculous, and so aware of
being made ridiculous, that I see him chafe and fret at every pore
when we cross one another. The amiable occupation has been the
solace of my life, since I was baulked in the manner unnecessary to
recall. I have derived inexpressible comfort from it. I do it thus: I
stroll out after dark, stroll a little way, look in at a window and
furtively look out for the schoolmaster. Sooner or later, I perceive
the schoolmaster on the watch; sometimes accompanied by his
hopeful pupil; oftener, pupil-less. Having made sure of his
watching me, I tempt him on, all over London. One night I go
east, another night north, in a few nights I go all round the
compass. Sometimes, I walk; sometimes, I proceed in cabs,
draining the pocket of the schoolmaster who then follows in cabs.
I study and get up abstruse No Thoroughfares in the course of the
day. With Venetian mystery I seek those No Thoroughfares at
night, glide into them by means of dark courts, tempt the
schoolmaster to follow, turn suddenly, and catch him before he can
retreat. Then we face one another, and I pass him as unaware of
his existence, and he undergoes grinding torments. Similarly, I
walk at a great pace down a short street, rapidly turn the corner,
and, getting out of his view, as rapidly turn back. I catch him
coming on post, again pass him as unaware of his existence, and
again he undergoes grinding torments. Night after night his
disappointment is acute, but hope springs eternal in the scholastic
breast, and he follows me again to-morrow. Thus I enjoy the
pleasures of the chase, and derive great benefit from the healthful
exercise. When I do not enjoy the pleasures of the chase, for