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diff --git a/883-0.txt b/883-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..621df2e --- /dev/null +++ b/883-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,38662 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 883 *** + + + + +OUR MUTUAL FRIEND + +Charles Dickens + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Book the First—THE CUP AND THE LIP + + 1. ON THE LOOK OUT + 2. THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE + 3. ANOTHER MAN + 4. THE R. WILFER FAMILY + 5. BOFFIN’S BOWER + 6. CUT ADRIFT + 7. MR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF + 8. MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION + 9. MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION + 10. A MARRIAGE CONTRACT + 11. PODSNAPPERY + 12. THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’S BROW + 13. TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY + 14. THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN + 15. TWO NEW SERVANTS + 16. MINDERS AND RE-MINDERS + 17. A DISMAL SWAMP + + + Book the Second—BIRDS OF A FEATHER + + 1. OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER + 2. STILL EDUCATIONAL + 3. A PIECE OF WORK + 4. CUPID PROMPTED + 5. MERCURY PROMPTING + 6. A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER + 7. IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED + 8. IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS + 9. IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL + 10. A SUCCESSOR + 11. SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART + 12. MORE BIRDS OF PREY + 13. A SOLO AND A DUETT + 14. STRONG OF PURPOSE + 15. THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR + 16. AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION + + + Book the Third—A LONG LANE + + 1. LODGERS IN QUEER STREET + 2. A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT + 3. THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE + 4. A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY + 5. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY + 6. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY + 7. THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION + 8. THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY + 9. SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION + 10. SCOUTS OUT + 11. IN THE DARK + 12. MEANING MISCHIEF + 13. GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM + 14. MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN’S NOSE + 15. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST + 16. THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS + 17. A SOCIAL CHORUS + + + Book the Fourth—A TURNING + + 1. SETTING TRAPS + 2. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE + 3. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN + 4. A RUNAWAY MATCH + 5. CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE + 6. A CRY FOR HELP + 7. BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN + 8. A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER + 9. TWO PLACES VACATED + 10. THE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD + 11. EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER’S DISCOVERY + 12. THE PASSING SHADOW + 13. SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST + 14. CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE + 15. WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET + 16. PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL + 17. THE VOICE OF SOCIETY + + + POSTSCRIPT, IN LIEU OF PREFACE + + + + +BOOK THE FIRST — THE CUP AND THE LIP + +Chapter 1 + +ON THE LOOK OUT + + +In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no +need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with +two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which +is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening +was closing in. + +The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled +hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or twenty, +sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girl +rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with the +rudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waistband, +kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he could +not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no +inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope, +and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too small +to take in cargo for delivery, and he could not be a lighterman or +river-carrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked +for something, with a most intent and searching gaze. The tide, which +had turned an hour before, was running down, and his eyes watched +every little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight +head-way against it, or drove stern foremost before it, according as he +directed his daughter by a movement of his head. She watched his face +as earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look +there was a touch of dread or horror. + +Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by reason of +the slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its sodden state, this +boat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that they +often did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the +man showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown arms +bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of a +looser kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard +and whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be made out of the +mud that begrimed his boat, still there was a business-like usage in his +steady gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of +her wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; they +were things of usage. + +‘Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. Keep her well afore the +sweep of it.’ + +Trusting to the girl’s skill and making no use of the rudder, he eyed +the coming tide with an absorbed attention. So the girl eyed him. But, +it happened now, that a slant of light from the setting sun glanced into +the bottom of the boat, and, touching a rotten stain there which bore +some resemblance to the outline of a muffled human form, coloured it as +though with diluted blood. This caught the girl’s eye, and she shivered. + +‘What ails you?’ said the man, immediately aware of it, though so intent +on the advancing waters; ‘I see nothing afloat.’ + +The red light was gone, the shudder was gone, and his gaze, which had +come back to the boat for a moment, travelled away again. Wheresoever +the strong tide met with an impediment, his gaze paused for an instant. +At every mooring-chain and rope, at every stationery boat or barge that +split the current into a broad-arrowhead, at the offsets from the piers +of Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steamboats as they beat +the filthy water, at the floating logs of timber lashed together lying +off certain wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry look. After a +darkening hour or so, suddenly the rudder-lines tightened in his hold, +and he steered hard towards the Surrey shore. + +Always watching his face, the girl instantly answered to the action in +her sculling; presently the boat swung round, quivered as from a sudden +jerk, and the upper half of the man was stretched out over the stern. + +The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and over her +face, and, looking backward so that the front folds of this hood were +turned down the river, kept the boat in that direction going before the +tide. Until now, the boat had barely held her own, and had hovered about +one spot; but now, the banks changed swiftly, and the deepening shadows +and the kindling lights of London Bridge were passed, and the tiers of +shipping lay on either hand. + +It was not until now that the upper half of the man came back into the +boat. His arms were wet and dirty, and he washed them over the side. In +his right hand he held something, and he washed that in the river too. +It was money. He chinked it once, and he blew upon it once, and he spat +upon it once,—‘for luck,’ he hoarsely said—before he put it in his +pocket. + +‘Lizzie!’ + +The girl turned her face towards him with a start, and rowed in silence. +Her face was very pale. He was a hook-nosed man, and with that and his +bright eyes and his ruffled head, bore a certain likeness to a roused +bird of prey. + +‘Take that thing off your face.’ + +She put it back. + +‘Here! and give me hold of the sculls. I’ll take the rest of the spell.’ + +‘No, no, father! No! I can’t indeed. Father!—I cannot sit so near it!’ + +He was moving towards her to change places, but her terrified +expostulation stopped him and he resumed his seat. + +‘What hurt can it do you?’ + +‘None, none. But I cannot bear it.’ + +‘It’s my belief you hate the sight of the very river.’ + +‘I—I do not like it, father.’ + +‘As if it wasn’t your living! As if it wasn’t meat and drink to you!’ + +At these latter words the girl shivered again, and for a moment paused +in her rowing, seeming to turn deadly faint. It escaped his attention, +for he was glancing over the stern at something the boat had in tow. + +‘How can you be so thankless to your best friend, Lizzie? The very +fire that warmed you when you were a babby, was picked out of the river +alongside the coal barges. The very basket that you slept in, the tide +washed ashore. The very rockers that I put it upon to make a cradle +of it, I cut out of a piece of wood that drifted from some ship or +another.’ + +Lizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, and touched her +lips with it, and for a moment held it out lovingly towards him: then, +without speaking, she resumed her rowing, as another boat of similar +appearance, though in rather better trim, came out from a dark place and +dropped softly alongside. + +‘In luck again, Gaffer?’ said a man with a squinting leer, who sculled +her and who was alone, ‘I know’d you was in luck again, by your wake as +you come down.’ + +‘Ah!’ replied the other, drily. ‘So you’re out, are you?’ + +‘Yes, pardner.’ + +There was now a tender yellow moonlight on the river, and the new comer, +keeping half his boat’s length astern of the other boat, looked hard at +its track. + +‘I says to myself,’ he went on, ‘directly you hove in view, yonder’s +Gaffer, and in luck again, by George if he ain’t! Scull it is, +pardner—don’t fret yourself—I didn’t touch him.’ This was in answer +to a quick impatient movement on the part of Gaffer: the speaker at the +same time unshipping his scull on that side, and laying his hand on the +gunwale of Gaffer’s boat and holding to it. + +‘He’s had touches enough not to want no more, as well as I make him +out, Gaffer! Been a knocking about with a pretty many tides, ain’t he +pardner? Such is my out-of-luck ways, you see! He must have passed me +when he went up last time, for I was on the lookout below bridge here. I +a’most think you’re like the wulturs, pardner, and scent ’em out.’ + +He spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than one glance at Lizzie who +had pulled on her hood again. Both men then looked with a weird unholy +interest in the wake of Gaffer’s boat. + +‘Easy does it, betwixt us. Shall I take him aboard, pardner?’ + +‘No,’ said the other. In so surly a tone that the man, after a blank +stare, acknowledged it with the retort: + +‘—Arn’t been eating nothing as has disagreed with you, have you, +pardner?’ + +‘Why, yes, I have,’ said Gaffer. ‘I have been swallowing too much of +that word, Pardner. I am no pardner of yours.’ + +‘Since when was you no pardner of mine, Gaffer Hexam Esquire?’ + +‘Since you was accused of robbing a man. Accused of robbing a live man!’ +said Gaffer, with great indignation. + +‘And what if I had been accused of robbing a dead man, Gaffer?’ + +‘You COULDN’T do it.’ + +‘Couldn’t you, Gaffer?’ + +‘No. Has a dead man any use for money? Is it possible for a dead man to +have money? What world does a dead man belong to? ‘Tother world. What +world does money belong to? This world. How can money be a corpse’s? Can +a corpse own it, want it, spend it, claim it, miss it? Don’t try to go +confounding the rights and wrongs of things in that way. But it’s worthy +of the sneaking spirit that robs a live man.’ + +‘I’ll tell you what it is—.’ + +‘No you won’t. I’ll tell you what it is. You got off with a short time +of it for putting your hand in the pocket of a sailor, a live sailor. +Make the most of it and think yourself lucky, but don’t think after +that to come over ME with your pardners. We have worked together in time +past, but we work together no more in time present nor yet future. Let +go. Cast off!’ + +‘Gaffer! If you think to get rid of me this way—.’ + +‘If I don’t get rid of you this way, I’ll try another, and chop you over +the fingers with the stretcher, or take a pick at your head with the +boat-hook. Cast off! Pull you, Lizzie. Pull home, since you won’t let +your father pull.’ + +Lizzie shot ahead, and the other boat fell astern. Lizzie’s father, +composing himself into the easy attitude of one who had asserted the +high moralities and taken an unassailable position, slowly lighted a +pipe, and smoked, and took a survey of what he had in tow. What he had +in tow, lunged itself at him sometimes in an awful manner when the boat +was checked, and sometimes seemed to try to wrench itself away, though +for the most part it followed submissively. A neophyte might have +fancied that the ripples passing over it were dreadfully like faint +changes of expression on a sightless face; but Gaffer was no neophyte +and had no fancies. + + + + +Chapter 2 + +THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE + + +Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a +bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick +and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, +all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was +new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures +were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was +lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they had +set up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from the +Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crown +of his head. + +For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the new +coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairs +again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish +and polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in +the Veneerings—the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and +was a trifle sticky. + +There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy +castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint +James’s, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blind +confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. Being first cousin +to Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent requisition, and at many houses +might be said to represent the dining-table in its normal state. Mr and +Mrs Veneering, for example, arranging a dinner, habitually started with +Twemlow, and then put leaves in him, or added guests to him. Sometimes, +the table consisted of Twemlow and half a dozen leaves; sometimes, of +Twemlow and a dozen leaves; sometimes, Twemlow was pulled out to his +utmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr and Mrs Veneering on occasions of +ceremony faced each other in the centre of the board, and thus the +parallel still held; for, it always happened that the more Twemlow was +pulled out, the further he found himself from the center, and nearer +to the sideboard at one end of the room, or the window-curtains at the +other. + +But, it was not this which steeped the feeble soul of Twemlow in +confusion. This he was used to, and could take soundings of. The abyss +to which he could find no bottom, and from which started forth the +engrossing and ever-swelling difficulty of his life, was the insoluble +question whether he was Veneering’s oldest friend, or newest friend. +To the excogitation of this problem, the harmless gentleman had devoted +many anxious hours, both in his lodgings over the livery stable-yard, +and in the cold gloom, favourable to meditation, of Saint James’s +Square. Thus. Twemlow had first known Veneering at his club, where +Veneering then knew nobody but the man who made them known to one +another, who seemed to be the most intimate friend he had in the world, +and whom he had known two days—the bond of union between their souls, +the nefarious conduct of the committee respecting the cookery of +a fillet of veal, having been accidentally cemented at that date. +Immediately upon this, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with +Veneering, and dined: the man being of the party. Immediately upon +that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with the man, and dined: +Veneering being of the party. At the man’s were a Member, an Engineer, a +Payer-off of the National Debt, a Poem on Shakespeare, a Grievance, and +a Public Office, who all seem to be utter strangers to Veneering. And +yet immediately after that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine at +Veneerings, expressly to meet the Member, the Engineer, the Payer-off +of the National Debt, the Poem on Shakespeare, the Grievance, and the +Public Office, and, dining, discovered that all of them were the most +intimate friends Veneering had in the world, and that the wives of all +of them (who were all there) were the objects of Mrs Veneering’s most +devoted affection and tender confidence. + +Thus it had come about, that Mr Twemlow had said to himself in his +lodgings, with his hand to his forehead: ‘I must not think of this. This +is enough to soften any man’s brain,’—and yet was always thinking of +it, and could never form a conclusion. + +This evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in the +Twemlow; fourteen in company all told. Four pigeon-breasted retainers in +plain clothes stand in line in the hall. A fifth retainer, proceeding up +the staircase with a mournful air—as who should say, ‘Here is another +wretched creature come to dinner; such is life!’—announces, ‘Mis-ter +Twemlow!’ + +Mrs Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr Twemlow. Mr Veneering welcomes +his dear Twemlow. Mrs Veneering does not expect that Mr Twemlow can in +nature care much for such insipid things as babies, but so old a friend +must please to look at baby. ‘Ah! You will know the friend of your +family better, Tootleums,’ says Mr Veneering, nodding emotionally at +that new article, ‘when you begin to take notice.’ He then begs to make +his dear Twemlow known to his two friends, Mr Boots and Mr Brewer—and +clearly has no distinct idea which is which. + +But now a fearful circumstance occurs. + +‘Mis-ter and Mis-sus Podsnap!’ + +‘My dear,’ says Mr Veneering to Mrs Veneering, with an air of much +friendly interest, while the door stands open, ‘the Podsnaps.’ + +A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, appearing +with his wife, instantly deserts his wife and darts at Twemlow with: + +‘How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. I +hope we are not late. So glad of the opportunity, I am sure!’ + +When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped back in +his neat little shoes and his neat little silk stockings of a bygone +fashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind him; but the large +man closed with him and proved too strong. + +‘Let me,’ says the large man, trying to attract the attention of his +wife in the distance, ‘have the pleasure of presenting Mrs Podsnap +to her host. She will be,’ in his fatal freshness he seems to find +perpetual verdure and eternal youth in the phrase, ‘she will be so glad +of the opportunity, I am sure!’ + +In the meantime, Mrs Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake on her own +account, because Mrs Veneering is the only other lady there, does her +best in the way of handsomely supporting her husband’s, by looking +towards Mr Twemlow with a plaintive countenance and remarking to Mrs +Veneering in a feeling manner, firstly, that she fears he has been +rather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already very +like him. + +It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken for +any other man; but, Mr Veneering having this very evening set up the +shirt-front of the young Antinous in new worked cambric just come home, +is not at all complimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who is dry +and weazen and some thirty years older. Mrs Veneering equally resents +the imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow, he is +so sensible of being a much better bred man than Veneering, that he +considers the large man an offensive ass. + +In this complicated dilemma, Mr Veneering approaches the large man with +extended hand and, smilingly assures that incorrigible personage that he +is delighted to see him: who in his fatal freshness instantly replies: + +‘Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this moment recall +where we met, but I am so glad of this opportunity, I am sure!’ + +Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble might, he +is haling him off to present him, as Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when the +arrival of more guests unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having re-shaken +hands with Veneering as Veneering, he re-shakes hands with Twemlow as +Twemlow, and winds it all up to his own perfect satisfaction by saying +to the last-named, ‘Ridiculous opportunity—but so glad of it, I am +sure!’ + +Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, having likewise +noted the fusion of Boots in Brewer and Brewer in Boots, and having +further observed that of the remaining seven guests four discrete +characters enter with wandering eyes and wholly declined to commit +themselves as to which is Veneering, until Veneering has them in his +grasp;—Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds his brain +wholesomely hardening as he approaches the conclusion that he really is +Veneering’s oldest friend, when his brain softens again and all is +lost, through his eyes encountering Veneering and the large man linked +together as twin brothers in the back drawing-room near the conservatory +door, and through his ears informing him in the tones of Mrs Veneering +that the same large man is to be baby’s godfather. + +‘Dinner is on the table!’ + +Thus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, ‘Come down and be +poisoned, ye unhappy children of men!’ + +Twemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in the rear, with +his hand to his forehead. Boots and Brewer, thinking him indisposed, +whisper, ‘Man faint. Had no lunch.’ But he is only stunned by the +unvanquishable difficulty of his existence. + +Revived by soup, Twemlow discourses mildly of the Court Circular with +Boots and Brewer. Is appealed to, at the fish stage of the banquet, by +Veneering, on the disputed question whether his cousin Lord Snigsworth +is in or out of town? Gives it that his cousin is out of town. ‘At +Snigsworthy Park?’ Veneering inquires. ‘At Snigsworthy,’ Twemlow +rejoins. Boots and Brewer regard this as a man to be cultivated; and +Veneering is clear that he is a remunerative article. Meantime the +retainer goes round, like a gloomy Analytical Chemist: always seeming +to say, after ‘Chablis, sir?’—‘You wouldn’t if you knew what it’s made +of.’ + +The great looking-glass above the sideboard, reflects the table and the +company. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver, +frosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The Heralds’ College found +out a Crusading ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield +(or might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan of camels +take charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and kneel down to be +loaded with the salt. Reflects Veneering; forty, wavy-haired, dark, +tending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy—a kind of sufficiently +well-looking veiled-prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs Veneering; +fair, aquiline-nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she might +have, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory, +conscious that a corner of her husband’s veil is over herself. Reflects +Podsnap; prosperously feeding, two little light-coloured wiry wings, one +on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hairbrushes as +his hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance +of crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs Podsnap; fine woman +for Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like a +rocking-horse, hard features, majestic head-dress in which Podsnap has +hung golden offerings. Reflects Twemlow; grey, dry, polite, susceptible +to east wind, First-Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn +in as if he had made a great effort to retire into himself some years +ago, and had got so far and had never got any farther. Reflects mature +young lady; raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when well +powdered—as it is—carrying on considerably in the captivation of +mature young gentleman; with too much nose in his face, too much ginger +in his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in +his studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects +charming old Lady Tippins on Veneering’s right; with an immense obtuse +drab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon, and a dyed Long Walk up +the top of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch of +false hair behind, pleased to patronize Mrs Veneering opposite, who +is pleased to be patronized. Reflects a certain ‘Mortimer’, another +of Veneering’s oldest friends; who never was in the house before, +and appears not to want to come again, who sits disconsolate on Mrs +Veneering’s left, and who was inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend of +his boyhood) to come to these people’s and talk, and who won’t talk. +Reflects Eugene, friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the back of his +chair, behind a shoulder—with a powder-epaulette on it—of the mature +young lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice whenever +proffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass reflects +Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the +rest of the company and possible accidents. + +The Veneering dinners are excellent dinners—or new people wouldn’t +come—and all goes well. Notably, Lady Tippins has made a series of +experiments on her digestive functions, so extremely complicated and +daring, that if they could be published with their results it might +benefit the human race. Having taken in provisions from all parts of the +world, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the North Pole, when, +as the ice-plates are being removed, the following words fall from her: + +‘I assure you, my dear Veneering—’ + +(Poor Twemlow’s hand approaches his forehead, for it would seem now, +that Lady Tippins is going to be the oldest friend.) + +‘I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest affair! Like +the advertising people, I don’t ask you to trust me, without offering +a respectable reference. Mortimer there, is my reference, and knows all +about it.’ + +Mortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens his mouth. But +a faint smile, expressive of ‘What’s the use!’ passes over his face, and +he drops his eyelids and shuts his mouth. + +‘Now, Mortimer,’ says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks of her closed +green fan upon the knuckles of her left hand—which is particularly rich +in knuckles, ‘I insist upon your telling all that is to be told about +the man from Jamaica.’ + +‘Give you my honour I never heard of any man from Jamaica, except the +man who was a brother,’ replies Mortimer. + +‘Tobago, then.’ + +‘Nor yet from Tobago.’ + +‘Except,’ Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly that the mature young lady, +who has forgotten all about him, with a start takes the epaulette out +of his way: ‘except our friend who long lived on rice-pudding and +isinglass, till at length to his something or other, his physician said +something else, and a leg of mutton somehow ended in daygo.’ + +A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming out. An +unfulfilled impression, for he goes in again. + +‘Now, my dear Mrs Veneering,’ quoth Lady Tippins, I appeal to you +whether this is not the basest conduct ever known in this world? I carry +my lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition that they are very +obedient and devoted; and here is my oldest lover-in-chief, the head of +all my slaves, throwing off his allegiance before company! And here is +another of my lovers, a rough Cymon at present certainly, but of whom +I had most hopeful expectations as to his turning out well in course of +time, pretending that he can’t remember his nursery rhymes! On purpose +to annoy me, for he knows how I doat upon them!’ + +A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins’s point. +She is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a little list +of her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, or striking out an +old lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to +her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book. +Mrs Veneering is charmed by the humour, and so is Veneering. Perhaps it +is enhanced by a certain yellow play in Lady Tippins’s throat, like the +legs of scratching poultry. + +‘I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him out of +my Cupidon (my name for my Ledger, my dear,) this very night. But I am +resolved to have the account of the man from Somewhere, and I beg you +to elicit it for me, my love,’ to Mrs Veneering, ‘as I have lost my own +influence. Oh, you perjured man!’ This to Mortimer, with a rattle of her +fan. + +‘We are all very much interested in the man from Somewhere,’ Veneering +observes. + +Then the four Buffers, taking heart of grace all four at once, say: + +‘Deeply interested!’ + +‘Quite excited!’ + +‘Dramatic!’ + +‘Man from Nowhere, perhaps!’ + +And then Mrs Veneering—for the Lady Tippins’s winning wiles are +contagious—folds her hands in the manner of a supplicating child, turns +to her left neighbour, and says, ‘Tease! Pay! Man from Tumwhere!’ At +which the four Buffers, again mysteriously moved all four at once, +explain, ‘You can’t resist!’ + +‘Upon my life,’ says Mortimer languidly, ‘I find it immensely +embarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me to this extent, and my +only consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins in +your secret hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the man from +Somewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by fixing him with a local +habitation, but he comes from the place, the name of which escapes me, +but will suggest itself to everybody else here, where they make the +wine.’ + +Eugene suggests ‘Day and Martin’s.’ + +‘No, not that place,’ returns the unmoved Mortimer, ‘that’s where they +make the Port. My man comes from the country where they make the Cape +Wine. But look here, old fellow; it’s not at all statistical and it’s +rather odd.’ + +It is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that no man +troubles himself much about the Veneerings themselves, and that any +one who has anything to tell, generally tells it to anybody else in +preference. + +‘The man,’ Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, ‘whose name is Harmon, +was only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust.’ + +‘Red velveteens and a bell?’ the gloomy Eugene inquires. + +‘And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, or by others, he +grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived in a hollow in a hilly country +entirely composed of Dust. On his own small estate the growling old +vagabond threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and its +geological formation was Dust. Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, +crockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust,—all manner of Dust.’ + +A passing remembrance of Mrs Veneering, here induces Mortimer to address +his next half-dozen words to her; after which he wanders away again, +tries Twemlow and finds he doesn’t answer, ultimately takes up with the +Buffers who receive him enthusiastically. + +‘The moral being—I believe that’s the right expression—of this +exemplary person, derived its highest gratification from anathematizing +his nearest relations and turning them out of doors. Having begun (as +was natural) by rendering these attentions to the wife of his bosom, +he next found himself at leisure to bestow a similar recognition on the +claims of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his own +satisfaction and not in the least to hers, and proceeded to settle upon +her, as her marriage portion, I don’t know how much Dust, but something +immense. At this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfully +intimated that she was secretly engaged to that popular character whom +the novelists and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriage +would make Dust of her heart and Dust of her life—in short, would +set her up, on a very extensive scale, in her father’s business. +Immediately, the venerable parent—on a cold winter’s night, it is +said—anathematized and turned her out.’ + +Here, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a very low +opinion of Mortimer’s story) concedes a little claret to the Buffers; +who, again mysteriously moved all four at once, screw it slowly into +themselves with a peculiar twist of enjoyment, as they cry in chorus, +‘Pray go on.’ + +‘The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, of a very +limited nature. I believe I am not using too strong an expression when +I say that Another was hard up. However, he married the young lady, and +they lived in a humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamented +with honeysuckle and woodbine twining, until she died. I must refer +you to the Registrar of the District in which the humble dwelling was +situated, for the certified cause of death; but early sorrow and anxiety +may have had to do with it, though they may not appear in the ruled +pages and printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with Another, +for he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he outlived +her a year it was as much as he did.’ + +There is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if good +society might on any account allow itself to be impressible, he, one of +good society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he here +relates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy +Eugene too, is not without some kindred touch; for, when that appalling +Lady Tippins declares that if Another had survived, he should have gone +down at the head of her list of lovers—and also when the mature young +lady shrugs her epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidential +comment from the mature young gentleman—his gloom deepens to that +degree that he trifles quite ferociously with his dessert-knife. + +Mortimer proceeds. + +‘We must now return, as novelists say, and as we all wish they wouldn’t, +to the man from Somewhere. Being a boy of fourteen, cheaply educated +at Brussels when his sister’s expulsion befell, it was some little time +before he heard of it—probably from herself, for the mother was dead; +but that I don’t know. Instantly, he absconded, and came over here. He +must have been a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stopped +allowance of five sous a week; but he did it somehow, and he burst in +on his father, and pleaded his sister’s cause. Venerable parent promptly +resorts to anathematization, and turns him out. Shocked and terrified +boy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimately +turns up on dry land among the Cape wine: small proprietor, farmer, +grower—whatever you like to call it.’ + +At this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping is heard +at the dining-room door. Analytical Chemist goes to the door, confers +angrily with unseen tapper, appears to become mollified by descrying +reason in the tapping, and goes out. + +‘So he was discovered, only the other day, after having been expatriated +about fourteen years.’ + +A Buffer, suddenly astounding the other three, by detaching himself, and +asserting individuality, inquires: ‘How discovered, and why?’ + +‘Ah! To be sure. Thank you for reminding me. Venerable parent dies.’ + +Same Buffer, emboldened by success, says: ‘When?’ + +‘The other day. Ten or twelve months ago.’ + +Same Buffer inquires with smartness, ‘What of?’ But herein perishes a +melancholy example; being regarded by the three other Buffers with a +stony stare, and attracting no further attention from any mortal. + +‘Venerable parent,’ Mortimer repeats with a passing remembrance that +there is a Veneering at table, and for the first time addressing +him—‘dies.’ + +The gratified Veneering repeats, gravely, ‘dies’; and folds his arms, +and composes his brow to hear it out in a judicial manner, when he finds +himself again deserted in the bleak world. + +‘His will is found,’ said Mortimer, catching Mrs Podsnap’s +rocking-horse’s eye. ‘It is dated very soon after the son’s flight. It +leaves the lowest of the range of dust-mountains, with some sort of a +dwelling-house at its foot, to an old servant who is sole executor, and +all the rest of the property—which is very considerable—to the son. +He directs himself to be buried with certain eccentric ceremonies and +precautions against his coming to life, with which I need not bore you, +and that’s all—except—’ and this ends the story. + +The Analytical Chemist returning, everybody looks at him. Not because +anybody wants to see him, but because of that subtle influence in nature +which impels humanity to embrace the slightest opportunity of looking at +anything, rather than the person who addresses it. + +‘—Except that the son’s inheriting is made conditional on his marrying +a girl, who at the date of the will, was a child of four or five years +old, and who is now a marriageable young woman. Advertisement and +inquiry discovered the son in the man from Somewhere, and at the present +moment, he is on his way home from there—no doubt, in a state of great +astonishment—to succeed to a very large fortune, and to take a wife.’ + +Mrs Podsnap inquires whether the young person is a young person of +personal charms? Mortimer is unable to report. + +Mr Podsnap inquires what would become of the very large fortune, in the +event of the marriage condition not being fulfilled? Mortimer replies, +that by special testamentary clause it would then go to the old servant +above mentioned, passing over and excluding the son; also, that if +the son had not been living, the same old servant would have been sole +residuary legatee. + +Mrs Veneering has just succeeded in waking Lady Tippins from a snore, by +dexterously shunting a train of plates and dishes at her knuckles across +the table; when everybody but Mortimer himself becomes aware that the +Analytical Chemist is, in a ghostly manner, offering him a folded paper. +Curiosity detains Mrs Veneering a few moments. + +Mortimer, in spite of all the arts of the chemist, placidly refreshes +himself with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious of the Document +which engrosses the general attention, until Lady Tippins (who has a +habit of waking totally insensible), having remembered where she is, and +recovered a perception of surrounding objects, says: ‘Falser man than +Don Juan; why don’t you take the note from the commendatore?’ Upon +which, the chemist advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who looks +round at him, and says: + +‘What’s this?’ + +Analytical Chemist bends and whispers. + +‘WHO?’ says Mortimer. + +Analytical Chemist again bends and whispers. + +Mortimer stares at him, and unfolds the paper. Reads it, reads it twice, +turns it over to look at the blank outside, reads it a third time. + +‘This arrives in an extraordinarily opportune manner,’ says Mortimer +then, looking with an altered face round the table: ‘this is the +conclusion of the story of the identical man.’ + +‘Already married?’ one guesses. + +‘Declines to marry?’ another guesses. + +‘Codicil among the dust?’ another guesses. + +‘Why, no,’ says Mortimer; ‘remarkable thing, you are all wrong. The +story is completer and rather more exciting than I supposed. Man’s +drowned!’ + + + + +Chapter 3 + +ANOTHER MAN + + +As the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneering +staircase, Mortimer, following them forth from the dining-room, turned +into a library of bran-new books, in bran-new bindings liberally gilded, +and requested to see the messenger who had brought the paper. He was a +boy of about fifteen. Mortimer looked at the boy, and the boy looked +at the bran-new pilgrims on the wall, going to Canterbury in more gold +frame than procession, and more carving than country. + +‘Whose writing is this?’ + +‘Mine, sir.’ + +‘Who told you to write it?’ + +‘My father, Jesse Hexam.’ + +‘Is it he who found the body?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘What is your father?’ + +The boy hesitated, looked reproachfully at the pilgrims as if they had +involved him in a little difficulty, then said, folding a plait in the +right leg of his trousers, ‘He gets his living along-shore.’ + +‘Is it far?’ + +‘Is which far?’ asked the boy, upon his guard, and again upon the road +to Canterbury. + +‘To your father’s?’ + +‘It’s a goodish stretch, sir. I come up in a cab, and the cab’s waiting +to be paid. We could go back in it before you paid it, if you liked. +I went first to your office, according to the direction of the papers +found in the pockets, and there I see nobody but a chap of about my age +who sent me on here.’ + +There was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted savagery, and +uncompleted civilization. His voice was hoarse and coarse, and his face +was coarse, and his stunted figure was coarse; but he was cleaner than +other boys of his type; and his writing, though large and round, +was good; and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened +curiosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks +at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot. + +‘Were any means taken, do you know, boy, to ascertain if it was possible +to restore life?’ Mortimer inquired, as he sought for his hat. + +‘You wouldn’t ask, sir, if you knew his state. Pharaoh’s multitude that +were drowned in the Red Sea, ain’t more beyond restoring to life. If +Lazarus was only half as far gone, that was the greatest of all the +miracles.’ + +‘Halloa!’ cried Mortimer, turning round with his hat upon his head, ‘you +seem to be at home in the Red Sea, my young friend?’ + +‘Read of it with teacher at the school,’ said the boy. + +‘And Lazarus?’ + +‘Yes, and him too. But don’t you tell my father! We should have no peace +in our place, if that got touched upon. It’s my sister’s contriving.’ + +‘You seem to have a good sister.’ + +‘She ain’t half bad,’ said the boy; ‘but if she knows her letters it’s +the most she does—and them I learned her.’ + +The gloomy Eugene, with his hands in his pockets, had strolled in and +assisted at the latter part of the dialogue; when the boy spoke these +words slightingly of his sister, he took him roughly enough by the chin, +and turned up his face to look at it. + +‘Well, I’m sure, sir!’ said the boy, resisting; ‘I hope you’ll know me +again.’ + +Eugene vouchsafed no answer; but made the proposal to Mortimer, ‘I’ll +go with you, if you like?’ So, they all three went away together in the +vehicle that had brought the boy; the two friends (once boys together at +a public school) inside, smoking cigars; the messenger on the box beside +the driver. + +‘Let me see,’ said Mortimer, as they went along; ‘I have been, Eugene, +upon the honourable roll of solicitors of the High Court of Chancery, +and attorneys at Common Law, five years; and—except gratuitously taking +instructions, on an average once a fortnight, for the will of Lady +Tippins who has nothing to leave—I have had no scrap of business but +this romantic business.’ + +‘And I,’ said Eugene, ‘have been “called” seven years, and have had no +business at all, and never shall have any. And if I had, I shouldn’t +know how to do it.’ + +‘I am far from being clear as to the last particular,’ returned +Mortimer, with great composure, ‘that I have much advantage over you.’ + +‘I hate,’ said Eugene, putting his legs up on the opposite seat, ‘I hate +my profession.’ + +‘Shall I incommode you, if I put mine up too?’ returned Mortimer. ‘Thank +you. I hate mine.’ + +‘It was forced upon me,’ said the gloomy Eugene, ‘because it was +understood that we wanted a barrister in the family. We have got a +precious one.’ + +‘It was forced upon me,’ said Mortimer, ‘because it was understood that +we wanted a solicitor in the family. And we have got a precious one.’ + +‘There are four of us, with our names painted on a door-post in right of +one black hole called a set of chambers,’ said Eugene; ‘and each of us +has the fourth of a clerk—Cassim Baba, in the robber’s cave—and Cassim +is the only respectable member of the party.’ + +‘I am one by myself, one,’ said Mortimer, ‘high up an awful staircase +commanding a burial-ground, and I have a whole clerk to myself, and he +has nothing to do but look at the burial-ground, and what he will turn +out when arrived at maturity, I cannot conceive. Whether, in that shabby +rook’s nest, he is always plotting wisdom, or plotting murder; whether +he will grow up, after so much solitary brooding, to enlighten his +fellow-creatures, or to poison them; is the only speck of interest that +presents itself to my professional view. Will you give me a light? Thank +you.’ + +‘Then idiots talk,’ said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking +with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, ‘of Energy. +If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that +I abominate, it is energy. It is such a conventional superstition, such +parrot gabble! What the deuce! Am I to rush out into the street, collar +the first man of a wealthy appearance that I meet, shake him, and say, +“Go to law upon the spot, you dog, and retain me, or I’ll be the death +of you”? Yet that would be energy.’ + +‘Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a good opportunity, +show me something really worth being energetic about, and I’ll show you +energy.’ + +‘And so will I,’ said Eugene. + +And it is likely enough that ten thousand other young men, within the +limits of the London Post-office town delivery, made the same hopeful +remark in the course of the same evening. + +The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument and by the Tower, +and by the Docks; down by Ratcliffe, and by Rotherhithe; down by where +accumulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from higher grounds, +like so much moral sewage, and to be pausing until its own weight forced +it over the bank and sunk it in the river. In and out among vessels +that seemed to have got ashore, and houses that seemed to have got +afloat—among bowsprits staring into windows, and windows staring +into ships—the wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner, +river-washed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy alighted and +opened the door. + +‘You must walk the rest, sir; it’s not many yards.’ He spoke in the +singular number, to the express exclusion of Eugene. + +‘This is a confoundedly out-of-the-way place,’ said Mortimer, slipping +over the stones and refuse on the shore, as the boy turned the corner +sharp. + +‘Here’s my father’s, sir; where the light is.’ + +The low building had the look of having once been a mill. There was a +rotten wart of wood upon its forehead that seemed to indicate where +the sails had been, but the whole was very indistinctly seen in the +obscurity of the night. The boy lifted the latch of the door, and they +passed at once into a low circular room, where a man stood before a red +fire, looking down into it, and a girl sat engaged in needlework. The +fire was in a rusty brazier, not fitted to the hearth; and a common +lamp, shaped like a hyacinth-root, smoked and flared in the neck of a +stone bottle on the table. There was a wooden bunk or berth in a corner, +and in another corner a wooden stair leading above—so clumsy and steep +that it was little better than a ladder. Two or three old sculls and +oars stood against the wall, and against another part of the wall was a +small dresser, making a spare show of the commonest articles of crockery +and cooking-vessels. The roof of the room was not plastered, but was +formed of the flooring of the room above. This, being very old, knotted, +seamed, and beamed, gave a lowering aspect to the chamber; and roof, and +walls, and floor, alike abounding in old smears of flour, red-lead (or +some such stain which it had probably acquired in warehousing), and +damp, alike had a look of decomposition. + +‘The gentleman, father.’ + +The figure at the red fire turned, raised its ruffled head, and looked +like a bird of prey. + +‘You’re Mortimer Lightwood Esquire; are you, sir?’ + +‘Mortimer Lightwood is my name. What you found,’ said Mortimer, glancing +rather shrinkingly towards the bunk; ‘is it here?’ + +‘’Tain’t not to say here, but it’s close by. I do everything reg’lar. +I’ve giv’ notice of the circumstarnce to the police, and the police have +took possession of it. No time ain’t been lost, on any hand. The police +have put into print already, and here’s what the print says of it.’ + +Taking up the bottle with the lamp in it, he held it near a paper on +the wall, with the police heading, BODY FOUND. The two friends read the +handbill as it stuck against the wall, and Gaffer read them as he held +the light. + +‘Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see,’ said Lightwood, glancing +from the description of what was found, to the finder. + +‘Only papers.’ + +Here the girl arose with her work in her hand, and went out at the door. + +‘No money,’ pursued Mortimer; ‘but threepence in one of the +skirt-pockets.’ + +‘Three. Penny. Pieces,’ said Gaffer Hexam, in as many sentences. + +‘The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out.’ + +Gaffer Hexam nodded. ‘But that’s common. Whether it’s the wash of the +tide or no, I can’t say. Now, here,’ moving the light to another similar +placard, ‘HIS pockets was found empty, and turned inside out. And here,’ +moving the light to another, ‘HER pocket was found empty, and turned +inside out. And so was this one’s. And so was that one’s. I can’t read, +nor I don’t want to it, for I know ’em by their places on the wall. This +one was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm. +Look and see if he warn’t.’ + +‘Quite right.’ + +‘This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her linen marked with a +cross. Look and see if she warn’t.’ + +‘Quite right.’ + +‘This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them two young +sisters what tied themselves together with a handkecher. This the +drunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers and a nightcap, wot had +offered—it afterwards come out—to make a hole in the water for a +quartern of rum stood aforehand, and kept to his word for the first and +last time in his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see; but I +know ’em all. I’m scholar enough!’ + +He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of his +scholarly intelligence, and then put it down on the table and stood +behind it looking intently at his visitors. He had the special +peculiarity of some birds of prey, that when he knitted his brow, his +ruffled crest stood highest. + +‘You did not find all these yourself; did you?’ asked Eugene. + +To which the bird of prey slowly rejoined, ‘And what might YOUR name be, +now?’ + +‘This is my friend,’ Mortimer Lightwood interposed; ‘Mr Eugene +Wrayburn.’ + +‘Mr Eugene Wrayburn, is it? And what might Mr Eugene Wrayburn have asked +of me?’ + +‘I asked you, simply, if you found all these yourself?’ + +‘I answer you, simply, most on ’em.’ + +‘Do you suppose there has been much violence and robbery, beforehand, +among these cases?’ + +‘I don’t suppose at all about it,’ returned Gaffer. ‘I ain’t one of the +supposing sort. If you’d got your living to haul out of the river every +day of your life, you mightn’t be much given to supposing. Am I to show +the way?’ + +As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, an +extremely pale and disturbed face appeared in the doorway—the face of a +man much agitated. + +‘A body missing?’ asked Gaffer Hexam, stopping short; ‘or a body found? +Which?’ + +‘I am lost!’ replied the man, in a hurried and an eager manner. + +‘Lost?’ + +‘I—I—am a stranger, and don’t know the way. I—I—want to find the +place where I can see what is described here. It is possible I may know +it.’ He was panting, and could hardly speak; but, he showed a copy of +the newly-printed bill that was still wet upon the wall. Perhaps its +newness, or perhaps the accuracy of his observation of its general look, +guided Gaffer to a ready conclusion. + +‘This gentleman, Mr Lightwood, is on that business.’ + +‘Mr Lightwood?’ + +During a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted each other. Neither +knew the other. + +‘I think, sir,’ said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence with his +airy self-possession, ‘that you did me the honour to mention my name?’ + +‘I repeated it, after this man.’ + +‘You said you were a stranger in London?’ + +‘An utter stranger.’ + +‘Are you seeking a Mr Harmon?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruitless errand, and +will not find what you fear to find. Will you come with us?’ + +A little winding through some muddy alleys that might have been +deposited by the last ill-savoured tide, brought them to the +wicket-gate and bright lamp of a Police Station; where they found the +Night-Inspector, with a pen and ink, and ruler, posting up his books in +a whitewashed office, as studiously as if he were in a monastery on +top of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were banging +herself against a cell-door in the back-yard at his elbow. With the +same air of a recluse much given to study, he desisted from his books to +bestow a distrustful nod of recognition upon Gaffer, plainly importing, +‘Ah! we know all about YOU, and you’ll overdo it some day;’ and to +inform Mr Mortimer Lightwood and friends, that he would attend them +immediately. Then, he finished ruling the work he had in hand (it might +have been illuminating a missal, he was so calm), in a very neat and +methodical manner, showing not the slightest consciousness of the woman +who was banging herself with increased violence, and shrieking most +terrifically for some other woman’s liver. + +‘A bull’s-eye,’ said the Night-Inspector, taking up his keys. Which a +deferential satellite produced. ‘Now, gentlemen.’ + +With one of his keys, he opened a cool grot at the end of the yard, +and they all went in. They quickly came out again, no one speaking but +Eugene: who remarked to Mortimer, in a whisper, ‘Not MUCH worse than +Lady Tippins.’ + +So, back to the whitewashed library of the monastery—with that liver +still in shrieking requisition, as it had been loudly, while they looked +at the silent sight they came to see—and there through the merits of +the case as summed up by the Abbot. No clue to how body came into river. +Very often was no clue. Too late to know for certain, whether injuries +received before or after death; one excellent surgical opinion said, +before; other excellent surgical opinion said, after. Steward of ship in +which gentleman came home passenger, had been round to view, and could +swear to identity. Likewise could swear to clothes. And then, you +see, you had the papers, too. How was it he had totally disappeared on +leaving ship, till found in river? Well! Probably had been upon some +little game. Probably thought it a harmless game, wasn’t up to things, +and it turned out a fatal game. Inquest to-morrow, and no doubt open +verdict. + +‘It appears to have knocked your friend over—knocked him completely off +his legs,’ Mr Inspector remarked, when he had finished his summing up. +‘It has given him a bad turn to be sure!’ This was said in a very low +voice, and with a searching look (not the first he had cast) at the +stranger. + +Mr Lightwood explained that it was no friend of his. + +‘Indeed?’ said Mr Inspector, with an attentive ear; ‘where did you pick +him up?’ + +Mr Lightwood explained further. + +Mr Inspector had delivered his summing up, and had added these words, +with his elbows leaning on his desk, and the fingers and thumb of his +right hand, fitting themselves to the fingers and thumb of his left. +Mr Inspector moved nothing but his eyes, as he now added, raising his +voice: + +‘Turned you faint, sir! Seems you’re not accustomed to this kind of +work?’ + +The stranger, who was leaning against the chimneypiece with drooping +head, looked round and answered, ‘No. It’s a horrible sight!’ + +‘You expected to identify, I am told, sir?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘HAVE you identified?’ + +‘No. It’s a horrible sight. O! a horrible, horrible sight!’ + +‘Who did you think it might have been?’ asked Mr Inspector. ‘Give us a +description, sir. Perhaps we can help you.’ + +‘No, no,’ said the stranger; ‘it would be quite useless. Good-night.’ + +Mr Inspector had not moved, and had given no order; but, the satellite +slipped his back against the wicket, and laid his left arm along the top +of it, and with his right hand turned the bull’s-eye he had taken from +his chief—in quite a casual manner—towards the stranger. + +‘You missed a friend, you know; or you missed a foe, you know; or you +wouldn’t have come here, you know. Well, then; ain’t it reasonable to +ask, who was it?’ Thus, Mr Inspector. + +‘You must excuse my telling you. No class of man can understand better +than you, that families may not choose to publish their disagreements +and misfortunes, except on the last necessity. I do not dispute that you +discharge your duty in asking me the question; you will not dispute my +right to withhold the answer. Good-night.’ + +Again he turned towards the wicket, where the satellite, with his eye +upon his chief, remained a dumb statue. + +‘At least,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘you will not object to leave me your +card, sir?’ + +‘I should not object, if I had one; but I have not.’ He reddened and was +much confused as he gave the answer. + +‘At least,’ said Mr Inspector, with no change of voice or manner, ‘you +will not object to write down your name and address?’ + +‘Not at all.’ + +Mr Inspector dipped a pen in his inkstand, and deftly laid it on a +piece of paper close beside him; then resumed his former attitude. +The stranger stepped up to the desk, and wrote in a rather tremulous +hand—Mr Inspector taking sidelong note of every hair of his head when +it was bent down for the purpose—‘Mr Julius Handford, Exchequer Coffee +House, Palace Yard, Westminster.’ + +‘Staying there, I presume, sir?’ + +‘Staying there.’ + +‘Consequently, from the country?’ + +‘Eh? Yes—from the country.’ + +‘Good-night, sir.’ + +The satellite removed his arm and opened the wicket, and Mr Julius +Handford went out. + +‘Reserve!’ said Mr Inspector. ‘Take care of this piece of paper, keep +him in view without giving offence, ascertain that he IS staying there, +and find out anything you can about him.’ + +The satellite was gone; and Mr Inspector, becoming once again the quiet +Abbot of that Monastery, dipped his pen in his ink and resumed +his books. The two friends who had watched him, more amused by the +professional manner than suspicious of Mr Julius Handford, inquired +before taking their departure too whether he believed there was anything +that really looked bad here? + +The Abbot replied with reticence, couldn’t say. If a murder, anybody +might have done it. Burglary or pocket-picking wanted ’prenticeship. Not +so, murder. We were all of us up to that. Had seen scores of people come +to identify, and never saw one person struck in that particular way. +Might, however, have been Stomach and not Mind. If so, rum stomach. +But to be sure there were rum everythings. Pity there was not a word +of truth in that superstition about bodies bleeding when touched by the +hand of the right person; you never got a sign out of bodies. You got +row enough out of such as her—she was good for all night now (referring +here to the banging demands for the liver), ‘but you got nothing out of +bodies if it was ever so.’ + +There being nothing more to be done until the Inquest was held next day, +the friends went away together, and Gaffer Hexam and his son went their +separate way. But, arriving at the last corner, Gaffer bade his boy go +home while he turned into a red-curtained tavern, that stood dropsically +bulging over the causeway, ‘for a half-a-pint.’ + +The boy lifted the latch he had lifted before, and found his sister +again seated before the fire at her work. Who raised her head upon his +coming in and asking: + +‘Where did you go, Liz?’ + +‘I went out in the dark.’ + +‘There was no necessity for that. It was all right enough.’ + +‘One of the gentlemen, the one who didn’t speak while I was there, +looked hard at me. And I was afraid he might know what my face meant. +But there! Don’t mind me, Charley! I was all in a tremble of another +sort when you owned to father you could write a little.’ + +‘Ah! But I made believe I wrote so badly, as that it was odds if any one +could read it. And when I wrote slowest and smeared but with my finger +most, father was best pleased, as he stood looking over me.’ + +The girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to his seat by +the fire, laid her arm gently on his shoulder. + +‘You’ll make the most of your time, Charley; won’t you?’ + +‘Won’t I? Come! I like that. Don’t I?’ + +‘Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I know. And I work +a little, Charley, and plan and contrive a little (wake out of my +sleep contriving sometimes), how to get together a shilling now, and a +shilling then, that shall make father believe you are beginning to earn +a stray living along shore.’ + +‘You are father’s favourite, and can make him believe anything.’ + +‘I wish I could, Charley! For if I could make him believe that learning +was a good thing, and that we might lead better lives, I should be +a’most content to die.’ + +‘Don’t talk stuff about dying, Liz.’ + +She placed her hands in one another on his shoulder, and laying her +rich brown cheek against them as she looked down at the fire, went on +thoughtfully: + +‘Of an evening, Charley, when you are at the school, and father’s—’ + +‘At the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters,’ the boy struck in, with a +backward nod of his head towards the public-house. + +‘Yes. Then as I sit a-looking at the fire, I seem to see in the burning +coal—like where that glow is now—’ + +‘That’s gas, that is,’ said the boy, ‘coming out of a bit of a forest +that’s been under the mud that was under the water in the days of Noah’s +Ark. Look here! When I take the poker—so—and give it a dig—’ + +‘Don’t disturb it, Charley, or it’ll be all in a blaze. It’s that dull +glow near it, coming and going, that I mean. When I look at it of an +evening, it comes like pictures to me, Charley.’ + +‘Show us a picture,’ said the boy. ‘Tell us where to look.’ + +‘Ah! It wants my eyes, Charley.’ + +‘Cut away then, and tell us what your eyes make of it.’ + +‘Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were quite a baby that +never knew a mother—’ + +‘Don’t go saying I never knew a mother,’ interposed the boy, ‘for I knew +a little sister that was sister and mother both.’ + +The girl laughed delightedly, and her eyes filled with pleasant tears, +as he put both his arms round her waist and so held her. + +‘There are you and me, Charley, when father was away at work and locked +us out, for fear we should set ourselves afire or fall out of window, +sitting on the door-sill, sitting on other door-steps, sitting on the +bank of the river, wandering about to get through the time. You +are rather heavy to carry, Charley, and I am often obliged to rest. +Sometimes we are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, sometimes +we are very hungry, sometimes we are a little frightened, but what is +oftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, Charley?’ + +‘I remember,’ said the boy, pressing her to him twice or thrice, ‘that I +snuggled under a little shawl, and it was warm there.’ + +‘Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like of that: +sometimes it’s dark, and we get among the gaslights, sitting watching +the people as they go along the streets. At last, up comes father and +takes us home. And home seems such a shelter after out of doors! And +father pulls my shoes off, and dries my feet at the fire, and has me +to sit by him while he smokes his pipe long after you are abed, and +I notice that father’s is a large hand but never a heavy one when it +touches me, and that father’s is a rough voice but never an angry one +when it speaks to me. So, I grow up, and little by little father trusts +me, and makes me his companion, and, let him be put out as he may, never +once strikes me.’ + +The listening boy gave a grunt here, as much as to say ‘But he strikes +ME though!’ + +‘Those are some of the pictures of what is past, Charley.’ + +‘Cut away again,’ said the boy, ‘and give us a fortune-telling one; a +future one.’ + +‘Well! There am I, continuing with father and holding to father, because +father loves me and I love father. I can’t so much as read a book, +because, if I had learned, father would have thought I was deserting +him, and I should have lost my influence. I have not the influence I +want to have, I cannot stop some dreadful things I try to stop, but I +go on in the hope and trust that the time will come. In the meanwhile +I know that I am in some things a stay to father, and that if I was +not faithful to him he would—in revenge-like, or in disappointment, or +both—go wild and bad.’ + +‘Give us a touch of the fortune-telling pictures about me.’ + +‘I was passing on to them, Charley,’ said the girl, who had not changed +her attitude since she began, and who now mournfully shook her head; +‘the others were all leading up. There are you—’ + +‘Where am I, Liz?’ + +‘Still in the hollow down by the flare.’ + +‘There seems to be the deuce-and-all in the hollow down by the flare,’ +said the boy, glancing from her eyes to the brazier, which had a grisly +skeleton look on its long thin legs. + +‘There are you, Charley, working your way, in secret from father, at +the school; and you get prizes; and you go on better and better; and you +come to be a—what was it you called it when you told me about that?’ + +‘Ha, ha! Fortune-telling not know the name!’ cried the boy, seeming to +be rather relieved by this default on the part of the hollow down by the +flare. ‘Pupil-teacher.’ + +‘You come to be a pupil-teacher, and you still go on better and better, +and you rise to be a master full of learning and respect. But the secret +has come to father’s knowledge long before, and it has divided you from +father, and from me.’ + +‘No it hasn’t!’ + +‘Yes it has, Charley. I see, as plain as plain can be, that your way is +not ours, and that even if father could be got to forgive your taking +it (which he never could be), that way of yours would be darkened by our +way. But I see too, Charley—’ + +‘Still as plain as plain can be, Liz?’ asked the boy playfully. + +‘Ah! Still. That it is a great work to have cut you away from father’s +life, and to have made a new and good beginning. So there am I, Charley, +left alone with father, keeping him as straight as I can, watching +for more influence than I have, and hoping that through some fortunate +chance, or when he is ill, or when—I don’t know what—I may turn him to +wish to do better things.’ + +‘You said you couldn’t read a book, Lizzie. Your library of books is the +hollow down by the flare, I think.’ + +‘I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my want of +learning very much, Charley. But I should feel it much more, if I didn’t +know it to be a tie between me and father.—Hark! Father’s tread!’ + +It being now past midnight, the bird of prey went straight to roost. At +mid-day following he reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, in +the character, not new to him, of a witness before a Coroner’s Jury. + +Mr Mortimer Lightwood, besides sustaining the character of one of the +witnesses, doubled the part with that of the eminent solicitor who +watched the proceedings on behalf of the representatives of the +deceased, as was duly recorded in the newspapers. Mr Inspector watched +the proceedings too, and kept his watching closely to himself. Mr Julius +Handford having given his right address, and being reported in solvent +circumstances as to his bill, though nothing more was known of him at +his hotel except that his way of life was very retired, had no summons +to appear, and was merely present in the shades of Mr Inspector’s mind. + +The case was made interesting to the public, by Mr Mortimer Lightwood’s +evidence touching the circumstances under which the deceased, Mr John +Harmon, had returned to England; exclusive private proprietorship in +which circumstances was set up at dinner-tables for several days, by +Veneering, Twemlow, Podsnap, and all the Buffers: who all related them +irreconcilably with one another, and contradicted themselves. It was +also made interesting by the testimony of Job Potterson, the ship’s +steward, and one Mr Jacob Kibble, a fellow-passenger, that the deceased +Mr John Harmon did bring over, in a hand-valise with which he did +disembark, the sum realized by the forced sale of his little landed +property, and that the sum exceeded, in ready money, seven hundred +pounds. It was further made interesting, by the remarkable experiences +of Jesse Hexam in having rescued from the Thames so many dead bodies, +and for whose behoof a rapturous admirer subscribing himself ‘A friend +to Burial’ (perhaps an undertaker), sent eighteen postage stamps, and +five ‘Now Sir’s to the editor of the Times. + +Upon the evidence adduced before them, the Jury found, That the body +of Mr John Harmon had been discovered floating in the Thames, in an +advanced state of decay, and much injured; and that the said Mr John +Harmon had come by his death under highly suspicious circumstances, +though by whose act or in what precise manner there was no evidence +before this Jury to show. And they appended to their verdict, a +recommendation to the Home Office (which Mr Inspector appeared to think +highly sensible), to offer a reward for the solution of the mystery. +Within eight-and-forty hours, a reward of One Hundred Pounds was +proclaimed, together with a free pardon to any person or persons not the +actual perpetrator or perpetrators, and so forth in due form. + +This Proclamation rendered Mr Inspector additionally studious, and +caused him to stand meditating on river-stairs and causeways, and to go +lurking about in boats, putting this and that together. But, according +to the success with which you put this and that together, you get a +woman and a fish apart, or a Mermaid in combination. And Mr Inspector +could turn out nothing better than a Mermaid, which no Judge and Jury +would believe in. + +Thus, like the tides on which it had been borne to the knowledge of men, +the Harmon Murder—as it came to be popularly called—went up and down, +and ebbed and flowed, now in the town, now in the country, now among +palaces, now among hovels, now among lords and ladies and gentlefolks, +now among labourers and hammerers and ballast-heavers, until at last, +after a long interval of slack water it got out to sea and drifted away. + + + + +Chapter 4 + +THE R. WILFER FAMILY + + +Reginald Wilfer is a name with rather a grand sound, suggesting on +first acquaintance brasses in country churches, scrolls in stained-glass +windows, and generally the De Wilfers who came over with the Conqueror. +For, it is a remarkable fact in genealogy that no De Any ones ever came +over with Anybody else. + +But, the Reginald Wilfer family were of such commonplace extraction and +pursuits that their forefathers had for generations modestly subsisted +on the Docks, the Excise Office, and the Custom House, and the existing +R. Wilfer was a poor clerk. So poor a clerk, through having a limited +salary and an unlimited family, that he had never yet attained the +modest object of his ambition: which was, to wear a complete new suit +of clothes, hat and boots included, at one time. His black hat was brown +before he could afford a coat, his pantaloons were white at the seams +and knees before he could buy a pair of boots, his boots had worn out +before he could treat himself to new pantaloons, and, by the time he +worked round to the hat again, that shining modern article roofed-in an +ancient ruin of various periods. + +If the conventional Cherub could ever grow up and be clothed, he might +be photographed as a portrait of Wilfer. His chubby, smooth, innocent +appearance was a reason for his being always treated with condescension +when he was not put down. A stranger entering his own poor house at +about ten o’clock P.M. might have been surprised to find him sitting up +to supper. So boyish was he in his curves and proportions, that his +old schoolmaster meeting him in Cheapside, might have been unable to +withstand the temptation of caning him on the spot. In short, he was +the conventional cherub, after the supposititious shoot just mentioned, +rather grey, with signs of care on his expression, and in decidedly +insolvent circumstances. + +He was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, as being too +aspiring and self-assertive a name. In his signature he used only the +initial R., and imparted what it really stood for, to none but chosen +friends, under the seal of confidence. Out of this, the facetious habit +had arisen in the neighbourhood surrounding Mincing Lane of making +christian names for him of adjectives and participles beginning with R. +Some of these were more or less appropriate: as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, +Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ruminative; others, derived their point from +their want of application: as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish. But, +his popular name was Rumty, which in a moment of inspiration had been +bestowed upon him by a gentleman of convivial habits connected with the +drug-markets, as the beginning of a social chorus, his leading part in +the execution of which had led this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, and +of which the whole expressive burden ran: + + ‘Rumty iddity, row dow dow, + Sing toodlely, teedlely, bow wow wow.’ + +Thus he was constantly addressed, even in minor notes on business, as +‘Dear Rumty’; in answer to which, he sedately signed himself, ‘Yours +truly, R. Wilfer.’ + +He was clerk in the drug-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles. +Chicksey and Stobbles, his former masters, had both become absorbed in +Veneering, once their traveller or commission agent: who had signalized +his accession to supreme power by bringing into the business a quantity +of plate-glass window and French-polished mahogany partition, and a +gleaming and enormous doorplate. + +R. Wilfer locked up his desk one evening, and, putting his bunch of keys +in his pocket much as if it were his peg-top, made for home. His home +was in the Holloway region north of London, and then divided from it by +fields and trees. Between Battle Bridge and that part of the Holloway +district in which he dwelt, was a tract of suburban Sahara, where tiles +and bricks were burnt, bones were boiled, carpets were beat, rubbish was +shot, dogs were fought, and dust was heaped by contractors. Skirting +the border of this desert, by the way he took, when the light of its +kiln-fires made lurid smears on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed and shook his +head. + +‘Ah me!’ said he, ‘what might have been is not what is!’ + +With which commentary on human life, indicating an experience of it +not exclusively his own, he made the best of his way to the end of his +journey. + +Mrs Wilfer was, of course, a tall woman and an angular. Her lord being +cherubic, she was necessarily majestic, according to the principle which +matrimonially unites contrasts. She was much given to tying up her head +in a pocket-handkerchief, knotted under the chin. This head-gear, in +conjunction with a pair of gloves worn within doors, she seemed to +consider as at once a kind of armour against misfortune (invariably +assuming it when in low spirits or difficulties), and as a species of +full dress. It was therefore with some sinking of the spirit that her +husband beheld her thus heroically attired, putting down her candle in +the little hall, and coming down the doorsteps through the little front +court to open the gate for him. + +Something had gone wrong with the house-door, for R. Wilfer stopped on +the steps, staring at it, and cried: + +‘Hal-loa?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mrs Wilfer, ‘the man came himself with a pair of pincers, +and took it off, and took it away. He said that as he had no expectation +of ever being paid for it, and as he had an order for another LADIES’ +SCHOOL door-plate, it was better (burnished up) for the interests of all +parties.’ + +‘Perhaps it was, my dear; what do you think?’ + +‘You are master here, R. W.,’ returned his wife. ‘It is as you think; +not as I do. Perhaps it might have been better if the man had taken the +door too?’ + +‘My dear, we couldn’t have done without the door.’ + +‘Couldn’t we?’ + +‘Why, my dear! Could we?’ + +‘It is as you think, R. W.; not as I do.’ With those submissive words, +the dutiful wife preceded him down a few stairs to a little basement +front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, +with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and +petulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in +her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing +draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of +Wilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the Wilfers in detail +and casting them up in the gross, it is enough for the present that the +rest were what is called ‘out in the world,’ in various ways, and that +they were Many. So many, that when one of his dutiful children called in +to see him, R. Wilfer generally seemed to say to himself, after a little +mental arithmetic, ‘Oh! here’s another of ’em!’ before adding aloud, +‘How de do, John,’ or Susan, as the case might be. + +‘Well Piggywiggies,’ said R. W., ‘how de do to-night? What I was +thinking of, my dear,’ to Mrs Wilfer already seated in a corner with +folded gloves, ‘was, that as we have let our first floor so well, and as +we have now no place in which you could teach pupils even if pupils—’ + +‘The milkman said he knew of two young ladies of the highest +respectability who were in search of a suitable establishment, and he +took a card,’ interposed Mrs Wilfer, with severe monotony, as if she +were reading an Act of Parliament aloud. ‘Tell your father whether it +was last Monday, Bella.’ + +‘But we never heard any more of it, ma,’ said Bella, the elder girl. + +‘In addition to which, my dear,’ her husband urged, ‘if you have no +place to put two young persons into—’ + +‘Pardon me,’ Mrs Wilfer again interposed; ‘they were not young persons. +Two young ladies of the highest respectability. Tell your father, Bella, +whether the milkman said so.’ + +‘My dear, it is the same thing.’ + +‘No it is not,’ said Mrs Wilfer, with the same impressive monotony. +‘Pardon me!’ + +‘I mean, my dear, it is the same thing as to space. As to space. If you +have no space in which to put two youthful fellow-creatures, however +eminently respectable, which I do not doubt, where are those youthful +fellow-creatures to be accommodated? I carry it no further than that. +And solely looking at it,’ said her husband, making the stipulation at +once in a conciliatory, complimentary, and argumentative tone—‘as I am +sure you will agree, my love—from a fellow-creature point of view, my +dear.’ + +‘I have nothing more to say,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, with a meek +renunciatory action of her gloves. ‘It is as you think, R. W.; not as I +do.’ + +Here, the huffing of Miss Bella and the loss of three of her men at a +swoop, aggravated by the coronation of an opponent, led to that young +lady’s jerking the draught-board and pieces off the table: which her +sister went down on her knees to pick up. + +‘Poor Bella!’ said Mrs Wilfer. + +‘And poor Lavinia, perhaps, my dear?’ suggested R. W. + +‘Pardon me,’ said Mrs Wilfer, ‘no!’ + +It was one of the worthy woman’s specialities that she had an amazing +power of gratifying her splenetic or worldly-minded humours by extolling +her own family: which she thus proceeded, in the present case, to do. + +‘No, R. W. Lavinia has not known the trial that Bella has known. The +trial that your daughter Bella has undergone, is, perhaps, without +a parallel, and has been borne, I will say, Nobly. When you see your +daughter Bella in her black dress, which she alone of all the family +wears, and when you remember the circumstances which have led to +her wearing it, and when you know how those circumstances have been +sustained, then, R. W., lay your head upon your pillow and say, “Poor +Lavinia!”’ + +Here, Miss Lavinia, from her kneeling situation under the table, put in +that she didn’t want to be ‘poored by pa’, or anybody else. + +‘I am sure you do not, my dear,’ returned her mother, ‘for you have a +fine brave spirit. And your sister Cecilia has a fine brave spirit +of another kind, a spirit of pure devotion, a beau-ti-ful spirit! The +self-sacrifice of Cecilia reveals a pure and womanly character, very +seldom equalled, never surpassed. I have now in my pocket a letter from +your sister Cecilia, received this morning—received three months after +her marriage, poor child!—in which she tells me that her husband must +unexpectedly shelter under their roof his reduced aunt. “But I will be +true to him, mamma,” she touchingly writes, “I will not leave him, I +must not forget that he is my husband. Let his aunt come!” If this is +not pathetic, if this is not woman’s devotion—!’ The good lady waved +her gloves in a sense of the impossibility of saying more, and tied the +pocket-handkerchief over her head in a tighter knot under her chin. + +Bella, who was now seated on the rug to warm herself, with her brown +eyes on the fire and a handful of her brown curls in her mouth, laughed +at this, and then pouted and half cried. + +‘I am sure,’ said she, ‘though you have no feeling for me, pa, I am one +of the most unfortunate girls that ever lived. You know how poor we are’ +(it is probable he did, having some reason to know it!), ‘and what a +glimpse of wealth I had, and how it melted away, and how I am here in +this ridiculous mourning—which I hate!—a kind of a widow who never was +married. And yet you don’t feel for me.—Yes you do, yes you do.’ + +This abrupt change was occasioned by her father’s face. She stopped +to pull him down from his chair in an attitude highly favourable to +strangulation, and to give him a kiss and a pat or two on the cheek. + +‘But you ought to feel for me, you know, pa.’ + +‘My dear, I do.’ + +‘Yes, and I say you ought to. If they had only left me alone and told +me nothing about it, it would have mattered much less. But that nasty Mr +Lightwood feels it his duty, as he says, to write and tell me what is in +reserve for me, and then I am obliged to get rid of George Sampson.’ + +Here, Lavinia, rising to the surface with the last draughtman rescued, +interposed, ‘You never cared for George Sampson, Bella.’ + +‘And did I say I did, miss?’ Then, pouting again, with the curls in her +mouth; ‘George Sampson was very fond of me, and admired me very much, +and put up with everything I did to him.’ + +‘You were rude enough to him,’ Lavinia again interposed. + +‘And did I say I wasn’t, miss? I am not setting up to be sentimental +about George Sampson. I only say George Sampson was better than +nothing.’ + +‘You didn’t show him that you thought even that,’ Lavinia again +interposed. + +‘You are a chit and a little idiot,’ returned Bella, ‘or you wouldn’t +make such a dolly speech. What did you expect me to do? Wait till you +are a woman, and don’t talk about what you don’t understand. You only +show your ignorance!’ Then, whimpering again, and at intervals biting +the curls, and stopping to look how much was bitten off, ‘It’s a shame! +There never was such a hard case! I shouldn’t care so much if it wasn’t +so ridiculous. It was ridiculous enough to have a stranger coming over +to marry me, whether he liked it or not. It was ridiculous enough to +know what an embarrassing meeting it would be, and how we never +could pretend to have an inclination of our own, either of us. It was +ridiculous enough to know I shouldn’t like him—how COULD I like him, +left to him in a will, like a dozen of spoons, with everything cut and +dried beforehand, like orange chips. Talk of orange flowers indeed! +I declare again it’s a shame! Those ridiculous points would have been +smoothed away by the money, for I love money, and want money—want it +dreadfully. I hate to be poor, and we are degradingly poor, offensively +poor, miserably poor, beastly poor. But here I am, left with all the +ridiculous parts of the situation remaining, and, added to them all, +this ridiculous dress! And if the truth was known, when the Harmon +murder was all over the town, and people were speculating on its being +suicide, I dare say those impudent wretches at the clubs and places made +jokes about the miserable creature’s having preferred a watery grave to +me. It’s likely enough they took such liberties; I shouldn’t wonder! I +declare it’s a very hard case indeed, and I am a most unfortunate girl. +The idea of being a kind of a widow, and never having been married! +And the idea of being as poor as ever after all, and going into black, +besides, for a man I never saw, and should have hated—as far as HE was +concerned—if I had seen!’ + +The young lady’s lamentations were checked at this point by a knuckle, +knocking at the half-open door of the room. The knuckle had knocked two +or three times already, but had not been heard. + +‘Who is it?’ said Mrs Wilfer, in her Act-of-Parliament manner. ‘Enter!’ + +A gentleman coming in, Miss Bella, with a short and sharp exclamation, +scrambled off the hearth-rug and massed the bitten curls together in +their right place on her neck. + +‘The servant girl had her key in the door as I came up, and directed me +to this room, telling me I was expected. I am afraid I should have asked +her to announce me.’ + +‘Pardon me,’ returned Mrs Wilfer. ‘Not at all. Two of my daughters. R. +W., this is the gentleman who has taken your first-floor. He was so good +as to make an appointment for to-night, when you would be at home.’ + +A dark gentleman. Thirty at the utmost. An expressive, one might say +handsome, face. A very bad manner. In the last degree constrained, +reserved, diffident, troubled. His eyes were on Miss Bella for an +instant, and then looked at the ground as he addressed the master of the +house. + +‘Seeing that I am quite satisfied, Mr Wilfer, with the rooms, and with +their situation, and with their price, I suppose a memorandum between us +of two or three lines, and a payment down, will bind the bargain? I wish +to send in furniture without delay.’ + +Two or three times during this short address, the cherub addressed had +made chubby motions towards a chair. The gentleman now took it, laying +a hesitating hand on a corner of the table, and with another hesitating +hand lifting the crown of his hat to his lips, and drawing it before his +mouth. + +‘The gentleman, R. W.,’ said Mrs Wilfer, ‘proposes to take your +apartments by the quarter. A quarter’s notice on either side.’ + +‘Shall I mention, sir,’ insinuated the landlord, expecting it to be +received as a matter of course, ‘the form of a reference?’ + +‘I think,’ returned the gentleman, after a pause, ‘that a reference is +not necessary; neither, to say the truth, is it convenient, for I am +a stranger in London. I require no reference from you, and perhaps, +therefore, you will require none from me. That will be fair on both +sides. Indeed, I show the greater confidence of the two, for I will pay +in advance whatever you please, and I am going to trust my furniture +here. Whereas, if you were in embarrassed circumstances—this is merely +supposititious—’ + +Conscience causing R. Wilfer to colour, Mrs Wilfer, from a corner (she +always got into stately corners) came to the rescue with a deep-toned +‘Per-fectly.’ + +‘—Why then I—might lose it.’ + +‘Well!’ observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, ‘money and goods are certainly +the best of references.’ + +‘Do you think they ARE the best, pa?’ asked Miss Bella, in a low voice, +and without looking over her shoulder as she warmed her foot on the +fender. + +‘Among the best, my dear.’ + +‘I should have thought, myself, it was so easy to add the usual kind of +one,’ said Bella, with a toss of her curls. + +The gentleman listened to her, with a face of marked attention, though +he neither looked up nor changed his attitude. He sat, still and silent, +until his future landlord accepted his proposals, and brought writing +materials to complete the business. He sat, still and silent, while the +landlord wrote. + +When the agreement was ready in duplicate (the landlord having worked +at it like some cherubic scribe, in what is conventionally called a +doubtful, which means a not at all doubtful, Old Master), it was signed +by the contracting parties, Bella looking on as scornful witness. The +contracting parties were R. Wilfer, and John Rokesmith Esquire. + +When it came to Bella’s turn to sign her name, Mr Rokesmith, who was +standing, as he had sat, with a hesitating hand upon the table, looked +at her stealthily, but narrowly. He looked at the pretty figure bending +down over the paper and saying, ‘Where am I to go, pa? Here, in this +corner?’ He looked at the beautiful brown hair, shading the coquettish +face; he looked at the free dash of the signature, which was a bold one +for a woman’s; and then they looked at one another. + +‘Much obliged to you, Miss Wilfer.’ + +‘Obliged?’ + +‘I have given you so much trouble.’ + +‘Signing my name? Yes, certainly. But I am your landlord’s daughter, +sir.’ + +As there was nothing more to do but pay eight sovereigns in earnest of +the bargain, pocket the agreement, appoint a time for the arrival of his +furniture and himself, and go, Mr Rokesmith did that as awkwardly as it +might be done, and was escorted by his landlord to the outer air. When +R. Wilfer returned, candlestick in hand, to the bosom of his family, he +found the bosom agitated. + +‘Pa,’ said Bella, ‘we have got a Murderer for a tenant.’ + +‘Pa,’ said Lavinia, ‘we have got a Robber.’ + +‘To see him unable for his life to look anybody in the face!’ said +Bella. ‘There never was such an exhibition.’ + +‘My dears,’ said their father, ‘he is a diffident gentleman, and I +should say particularly so in the society of girls of your age.’ + +‘Nonsense, our age!’ cried Bella, impatiently. ‘What’s that got to do +with him?’ + +‘Besides, we are not of the same age:—which age?’ demanded Lavinia. + +‘Never YOU mind, Lavvy,’ retorted Bella; ‘you wait till you are of an +age to ask such questions. Pa, mark my words! Between Mr Rokesmith and +me, there is a natural antipathy and a deep distrust; and something will +come of it!’ + +‘My dear, and girls,’ said the cherub-patriarch, ‘between Mr Rokesmith +and me, there is a matter of eight sovereigns, and something for supper +shall come of it, if you’ll agree upon the article.’ + +This was a neat and happy turn to give the subject, treats being rare in +the Wilfer household, where a monotonous appearance of Dutch-cheese at +ten o’clock in the evening had been rather frequently commented on by +the dimpled shoulders of Miss Bella. Indeed, the modest Dutchman himself +seemed conscious of his want of variety, and generally came before the +family in a state of apologetic perspiration. After some discussion on +the relative merits of veal-cutlet, sweetbread, and lobster, a decision +was pronounced in favour of veal-cutlet. Mrs Wilfer then solemnly +divested herself of her handkerchief and gloves, as a preliminary +sacrifice to preparing the frying-pan, and R. W. himself went out +to purchase the viand. He soon returned, bearing the same in a fresh +cabbage-leaf, where it coyly embraced a rasher of ham. Melodious sounds +were not long in rising from the frying-pan on the fire, or in seeming, +as the firelight danced in the mellow halls of a couple of full bottles +on the table, to play appropriate dance-music. + +The cloth was laid by Lavvy. Bella, as the acknowledged ornament of the +family, employed both her hands in giving her hair an additional +wave while sitting in the easiest chair, and occasionally threw in a +direction touching the supper: as, ‘Very brown, ma;’ or, to her sister, +‘Put the saltcellar straight, miss, and don’t be a dowdy little puss.’ + +Meantime her father, chinking Mr Rokesmith’s gold as he sat expectant +between his knife and fork, remarked that six of those sovereigns came +just in time for their landlord, and stood them in a little pile on the +white tablecloth to look at. + +‘I hate our landlord!’ said Bella. + +But, observing a fall in her father’s face, she went and sat down by him +at the table, and began touching up his hair with the handle of a fork. +It was one of the girl’s spoilt ways to be always arranging the family’s +hair—perhaps because her own was so pretty, and occupied so much of her +attention. + +‘You deserve to have a house of your own; don’t you, poor pa?’ + +‘I don’t deserve it better than another, my dear.’ + +‘At any rate I, for one, want it more than another,’ said Bella, holding +him by the chin, as she stuck his flaxen hair on end, ‘and I grudge +this money going to the Monster that swallows up so much, when we all +want—Everything. And if you say (as you want to say; I know you want +to say so, pa) “that’s neither reasonable nor honest, Bella,” then I +answer, “Maybe not, pa—very likely—but it’s one of the consequences +of being poor, and of thoroughly hating and detesting to be poor, and +that’s my case.” Now, you look lovely, pa; why don’t you always wear +your hair like that? And here’s the cutlet! If it isn’t very brown, ma, +I can’t eat it, and must have a bit put back to be done expressly.’ + +However, as it was brown, even to Bella’s taste, the young lady +graciously partook of it without reconsignment to the frying-pan, and +also, in due course, of the contents of the two bottles: whereof +one held Scotch ale and the other rum. The latter perfume, with +the fostering aid of boiling water and lemon-peel, diffused itself +throughout the room, and became so highly concentrated around the warm +fireside, that the wind passing over the house roof must have rushed off +charged with a delicious whiff of it, after buzzing like a great bee at +that particular chimneypot. + +‘Pa,’ said Bella, sipping the fragrant mixture and warming her favourite +ankle; ‘when old Mr Harmon made such a fool of me (not to mention +himself, as he is dead), what do you suppose he did it for?’ + +‘Impossible to say, my dear. As I have told you time out of number since +his will was brought to light, I doubt if I ever exchanged a hundred +words with the old gentleman. If it was his whim to surprise us, his +whim succeeded. For he certainly did it.’ + +‘And I was stamping my foot and screaming, when he first took notice of +me; was I?’ said Bella, contemplating the ankle before mentioned. + +‘You were stamping your little foot, my dear, and screaming with your +little voice, and laying into me with your little bonnet, which you +had snatched off for the purpose,’ returned her father, as if the +remembrance gave a relish to the rum; ‘you were doing this one Sunday +morning when I took you out, because I didn’t go the exact way you +wanted, when the old gentleman, sitting on a seat near, said, “That’s a +nice girl; that’s a VERY nice girl; a promising girl!” And so you were, +my dear.’ + +‘And then he asked my name, did he, pa?’ + +‘Then he asked your name, my dear, and mine; and on other Sunday +mornings, when we walked his way, we saw him again, and—and really +that’s all.’ + +As that was all the rum and water too, or, in other words, as R. W. +delicately signified that his glass was empty, by throwing back his head +and standing the glass upside down on his nose and upper lip, it might +have been charitable in Mrs Wilfer to suggest replenishment. But that +heroine briefly suggesting ‘Bedtime’ instead, the bottles were put away, +and the family retired; she cherubically escorted, like some severe +saint in a painting, or merely human matron allegorically treated. + +‘And by this time to-morrow,’ said Lavinia when the two girls were alone +in their room, ‘we shall have Mr Rokesmith here, and shall be expecting +to have our throats cut.’ + +‘You needn’t stand between me and the candle for all that,’ retorted +Bella. ‘This is another of the consequences of being poor! The idea of a +girl with a really fine head of hair, having to do it by one flat candle +and a few inches of looking-glass!’ + +‘You caught George Sampson with it, Bella, bad as your means of dressing +it are.’ + +‘You low little thing. Caught George Sampson with it! Don’t talk about +catching people, miss, till your own time for catching—as you call +it—comes.’ + +‘Perhaps it has come,’ muttered Lavvy, with a toss of her head. + +‘What did you say?’ asked Bella, very sharply. ‘What did you say, miss?’ + +Lavvy declining equally to repeat or to explain, Bella gradually lapsed +over her hair-dressing into a soliloquy on the miseries of being poor, +as exemplified in having nothing to put on, nothing to go out in, +nothing to dress by, only a nasty box to dress at instead of a +commodious dressing-table, and being obliged to take in suspicious +lodgers. On the last grievance as her climax, she laid great stress—and +might have laid greater, had she known that if Mr Julius Handford had a +twin brother upon earth, Mr John Rokesmith was the man. + + + + +Chapter 5 + +BOFFIN’S BOWER + + +Over against a London house, a corner house not far from Cavendish +Square, a man with a wooden leg had sat for some years, with his +remaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living on +this wise:—Every morning at eight o’clock, he stumped to the corner, +carrying a chair, a clothes-horse, a pair of trestles, a board, a +basket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating these, the +board and trestles became a counter, the basket supplied the few small +lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it and became a +foot-warmer, the unfolded clothes-horse displayed a choice collection of +halfpenny ballads and became a screen, and the stool planted within it +became his post for the rest of the day. All weathers saw the man at the +post. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived a +back to his wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp-post. When the +weather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade, not +over himself; when the weather was dry, he furled that faded article, +tied it round with a piece of yarn, and laid it cross-wise under the +trestles: where it looked like an unwholesomely-forced lettuce that had +lost in colour and crispness what it had gained in size. + +He had established his right to the corner, by imperceptible +prescription. He had never varied his ground an inch, but had in the +beginning diffidently taken the corner upon which the side of the house +gave. A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summer +time, an undesirable corner at the best of times. Shelterless fragments +of straw and paper got up revolving storms there, when the main street +was at peace; and the water-cart, as if it were drunk or short-sighted, +came blundering and jolting round it, making it muddy when all else was +clean. + +On the front of his sale-board hung a little placard, like a +kettle-holder, bearing the inscription in his own small text: + + Errands gone + On with fi + Delity By + Ladies and Gentlemen + I remain + Your humble Servt. + Silas Wegg. + +He had not only settled it with himself in course of time, that he +was errand-goer by appointment to the house at the corner (though he +received such commissions not half a dozen times in a year, and then +only as some servant’s deputy), but also that he was one of the house’s +retainers and owed vassalage to it and was bound to leal and loyal +interest in it. For this reason, he always spoke of it as ‘Our House,’ +and, though his knowledge of its affairs was mostly speculative and +all wrong, claimed to be in its confidence. On similar grounds he never +beheld an inmate at any one of its windows but he touched his hat. Yet, +he knew so little about the inmates that he gave them names of his own +invention: as ‘Miss Elizabeth’, ‘Master George’, ‘Aunt Jane’, ‘Uncle +Parker’—having no authority whatever for any such designations, but +particularly the last—to which, as a natural consequence, he stuck with +great obstinacy. + +Over the house itself, he exercised the same imaginary power as over its +inhabitants and their affairs. He had never been in it, the length of +a piece of fat black water-pipe which trailed itself over the area-door +into a damp stone passage, and had rather the air of a leech on the +house that had ‘taken’ wonderfully; but this was no impediment to his +arranging it according to a plan of his own. It was a great dingy house +with a quantity of dim side window and blank back premises, and it +cost his mind a world of trouble so to lay it out as to account for +everything in its external appearance. But, this once done, was quite +satisfactory, and he rested persuaded, that he knew his way about the +house blindfold: from the barred garrets in the high roof, to the two +iron extinguishers before the main door—which seemed to request all +lively visitors to have the kindness to put themselves out, before +entering. + +Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg’s was the hardest little stall of +all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache +to look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the +tooth-ache to look at his nuts. Of the latter commodity he had always +a grim little heap, on which lay a little wooden measure which had +no discernible inside, and was considered to represent the penn’orth +appointed by Magna Charta. Whether from too much east wind or no—it was +an easterly corner—the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all as +dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a close-grained, with a +face carved out of very hard material, that had just as much play +of expression as a watchman’s rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks +occurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden +a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather +suggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expected—if his +development received no untimely check—to be completely set up with a +pair of wooden legs in about six months. + +Mr Wegg was an observant person, or, as he himself said, ‘took a +powerful sight of notice’. He saluted all his regular passers-by every +day, as he sat on his stool backed up by the lamp-post; and on the +adaptable character of these salutes he greatly plumed himself. Thus, +to the rector, he addressed a bow, compounded of lay deference, and +a slight touch of the shady preliminary meditation at church; to the +doctor, a confidential bow, as to a gentleman whose acquaintance with +his inside he begged respectfully to acknowledge; before the Quality he +delighted to abase himself; and for Uncle Parker, who was in the army +(at least, so he had settled it), he put his open hand to the side +of his hat, in a military manner which that angry-eyed buttoned-up +inflammatory-faced old gentleman appeared but imperfectly to appreciate. + +The only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, was +gingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched infant having purchased the +damp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out of condition), and the adhesive +bird-cage, which had been exposed for the day’s sale, he had taken a tin +box from under his stool to produce a relay of those dreadful specimens, +and was going to look in at the lid, when he said to himself, pausing: +‘Oh! Here you are again!’ + +The words referred to a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow in +mourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea +over-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick +leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger’s. Both as to his dress +and to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros build, with folds +in his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his +ears; but with bright, eager, childishly-inquiring, grey eyes, under his +ragged eyebrows, and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellow +altogether. + +‘Here you are again,’ repeated Mr Wegg, musing. ‘And what are you now? +Are you in the Funns, or where are you? Have you lately come to settle +in this neighbourhood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are you +in independent circumstances, or is it wasting the motions of a bow on +you? Come! I’ll speculate! I’ll invest a bow in you.’ + +Which Mr Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly did, as he rose +to bait his gingerbread-trap for some other devoted infant. The salute +was acknowledged with: + +‘Morning, sir! Morning! Morning!’ + +(‘Calls me Sir!’ said Mr Wegg, to himself; ‘HE won’t answer. A bow +gone!’) + +‘Morning, morning, morning!’ + +‘Appears to be rather a ’arty old cock, too,’ said Mr Wegg, as before; +‘Good morning to YOU, sir.’ + +‘Do you remember me, then?’ asked his new acquaintance, stopping in +his amble, one-sided, before the stall, and speaking in a pounding way, +though with great good-humour. + +‘I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times in the course +of the last week or so.’ + +‘Our house,’ repeated the other. ‘Meaning—?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the clumsy forefinger +of his right glove at the corner house. + +‘Oh! Now, what,’ pursued the old fellow, in an inquisitive manner, +carrying his knotted stick in his left arm as if it were a baby, ‘what +do they allow you now?’ + +‘It’s job work that I do for our house,’ returned Silas, drily, and with +reticence; ‘it’s not yet brought to an exact allowance.’ + +‘Oh! It’s not yet brought to an exact allowance? No! It’s not yet +brought to an exact allowance. Oh!—Morning, morning, morning!’ + +‘Appears to be rather a cracked old cock,’ thought Silas, qualifying his +former good opinion, as the other ambled off. But, in a moment he was +back again with the question: + +‘How did you get your wooden leg?’ + +Mr Wegg replied, (tartly to this personal inquiry), ‘In an accident.’ + +‘Do you like it?’ + +‘Well! I haven’t got to keep it warm,’ Mr Wegg made answer, in a sort of +desperation occasioned by the singularity of the question. + +‘He hasn’t,’ repeated the other to his knotted stick, as he gave it a +hug; ‘he hasn’t got—ha!—ha!—to keep it warm! Did you ever hear of the +name of Boffin?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Wegg, who was growing restive under this examination. ‘I +never did hear of the name of Boffin.’ + +‘Do you like it?’ + +‘Why, no,’ retorted Mr Wegg, again approaching desperation; ‘I can’t say +I do.’ + +‘Why don’t you like it?’ + +‘I don’t know why I don’t,’ retorted Mr Wegg, approaching frenzy, ‘but I +don’t at all.’ + +‘Now, I’ll tell you something that’ll make you sorry for that,’ said the +stranger, smiling. ‘My name’s Boffin.’ + +‘I can’t help it!’ returned Mr Wegg. Implying in his manner the +offensive addition, ‘and if I could, I wouldn’t.’ + +‘But there’s another chance for you,’ said Mr Boffin, smiling still, ‘Do +you like the name of Nicodemus? Think it over. Nick, or Noddy.’ + +‘It is not, sir,’ Mr Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on his stool, with an +air of gentle resignation, combined with melancholy candour; ‘it is not +a name as I could wish any one that I had a respect for, to call ME +by; but there may be persons that would not view it with the same +objections.—I don’t know why,’ Mr Wegg added, anticipating another +question. + +‘Noddy Boffin,’ said that gentleman. ‘Noddy. That’s my name. Noddy—or +Nick—Boffin. What’s your name?’ + +‘Silas Wegg.—I don’t,’ said Mr Wegg, bestirring himself to take the +same precaution as before, ‘I don’t know why Silas, and I don’t know why +Wegg.’ + +‘Now, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, hugging his stick closer, ‘I want to make a +sort of offer to you. Do you remember when you first see me?’ + +The wooden Wegg looked at him with a meditative eye, and also with a +softened air as descrying possibility of profit. ‘Let me think. I ain’t +quite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight of notice, too. +Was it on a Monday morning, when the butcher-boy had been to our house +for orders, and bought a ballad of me, which, being unacquainted with +the tune, I run it over to him?’ + +‘Right, Wegg, right! But he bought more than one.’ + +‘Yes, to be sure, sir; he bought several; and wishing to lay out his +money to the best, he took my opinion to guide his choice, and we went +over the collection together. To be sure we did. Here was him as it +might be, and here was myself as it might be, and there was you, Mr +Boffin, as you identically are, with your self-same stick under your +very same arm, and your very same back towards us. To—be—sure!’ added +Mr Wegg, looking a little round Mr Boffin, to take him in the rear, +and identify this last extraordinary coincidence, ‘your wery self-same +back!’ + +‘What do you think I was doing, Wegg?’ + +‘I should judge, sir, that you might be glancing your eye down the +street.’ + +‘No, Wegg. I was a listening.’ + +‘Was you, indeed?’ said Mr Wegg, dubiously. + +‘Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg, because you was singing to the +butcher; and you wouldn’t sing secrets to a butcher in the street, you +know.’ + +‘It never happened that I did so yet, to the best of my remembrance,’ +said Mr Wegg, cautiously. ‘But I might do it. A man can’t say what he +might wish to do some day or another.’ (This, not to release any little +advantage he might derive from Mr Boffin’s avowal.) + +‘Well,’ repeated Boffin, ‘I was a listening to you and to him. And what +do you—you haven’t got another stool, have you? I’m rather thick in my +breath.’ + +‘I haven’t got another, but you’re welcome to this,’ said Wegg, +resigning it. ‘It’s a treat to me to stand.’ + +‘Lard!’ exclaimed Mr Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as he settled +himself down, still nursing his stick like a baby, ‘it’s a pleasant +place, this! And then to be shut in on each side, with these ballads, +like so many book-leaf blinkers! Why, its delightful!’ + +‘If I am not mistaken, sir,’ Mr Wegg delicately hinted, resting a hand +on his stall, and bending over the discursive Boffin, ‘you alluded to +some offer or another that was in your mind?’ + +‘I’m coming to it! All right. I’m coming to it! I was going to say that +when I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration amounting to +haw. I thought to myself, “Here’s a man with a wooden leg—a literary +man with—“’ + +‘N—not exactly so, sir,’ said Mr Wegg. + +‘Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you +want to read or to sing any one on ’em off straight, you’ve only to whip +on your spectacles and do it!’ cried Mr Boffin. ‘I see you at it!’ + +‘Well, sir,’ returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head; +‘we’ll say literary, then.’ + +‘“A literary man—WITH a wooden leg—and all Print is open to him!” + That’s what I thought to myself, that morning,’ pursued Mr Boffin, +leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large an +arc as his right arm could make; ‘“all Print is open to him!” And it is, +ain’t it?’ + +‘Why, truly, sir,’ Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; ‘I believe you +couldn’t show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn’t be equal to +collaring and throwing.’ + +‘On the spot?’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘On the spot.’ + +‘I know’d it! Then consider this. Here am I, a man without a wooden leg, +and yet all print is shut to me.’ + +‘Indeed, sir?’ Mr Wegg returned with increasing self-complacency. +‘Education neglected?’ + +‘Neg—lected!’ repeated Boffin, with emphasis. ‘That ain’t no word for +it. I don’t mean to say but what if you showed me a B, I could so far +give you change for it, as to answer Boffin.’ + +‘Come, come, sir,’ said Mr Wegg, throwing in a little encouragement, +‘that’s something, too.’ + +‘It’s something,’ answered Mr Boffin, ‘but I’ll take my oath it ain’t +much.’ + +‘Perhaps it’s not as much as could be wished by an inquiring mind, sir,’ +Mr Wegg admitted. + +‘Now, look here. I’m retired from business. Me and Mrs +Boffin—Henerietty Boffin—which her father’s name was Henery, and her +mother’s name was Hetty, and so you get it—we live on a compittance, +under the will of a diseased governor.’ + +‘Gentleman dead, sir?’ + +‘Man alive, don’t I tell you? A diseased governor? Now, it’s too late +for me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books. +I’m getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I want +some reading—some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging +Lord-Mayor’s-Show of wollumes’ (probably meaning gorgeous, but misled +by association of ideas); ‘as’ll reach right down your pint of view, and +take time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By,’ tapping +him on the breast with the head of his thick stick, ‘paying a man truly +qualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it.’ + +‘Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,’ said Wegg, beginning to regard himself +in quite a new light. ‘Hew! This is the offer you mentioned, sir?’ + +‘Yes. Do you like it?’ + +‘I am considering of it, Mr Boffin.’ + +‘I don’t,’ said Boffin, in a free-handed manner, ‘want to tie a literary +man—WITH a wooden leg—down too tight. A halfpenny an hour shan’t part +us. The hours are your own to choose, after you’ve done for the day +with your house here. I live over Maiden Lane way—out Holloway +direction—and you’ve only got to go East-and-by-North when you’ve +finished here, and you’re there. Twopence halfpenny an hour,’ said +Boffin, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket and getting off the +stool to work the sum on the top of it in his own way; ‘two long’uns and +a short’un—twopence halfpenny; two short’uns is a long’un and two two +long’uns is four long’uns—making five long’uns; six nights a week at +five long’uns a night,’ scoring them all down separately, ‘and you mount +up to thirty long’uns. A round’un! Half a crown!’ + +Pointing to this result as a large and satisfactory one, Mr Boffin +smeared it out with his moistened glove, and sat down on the remains. + +‘Half a crown,’ said Wegg, meditating. ‘Yes. (It ain’t much, sir.) Half +a crown.’ + +‘Per week, you know.’ + +‘Per week. Yes. As to the amount of strain upon the intellect now. Was +you thinking at all of poetry?’ Mr Wegg inquired, musing. + +‘Would it come dearer?’ Mr Boffin asked. + +‘It would come dearer,’ Mr Wegg returned. ‘For when a person comes to +grind off poetry night after night, it is but right he should expect to +be paid for its weakening effect on his mind.’ + +‘To tell you the truth Wegg,’ said Boffin, ‘I wasn’t thinking of poetry, +except in so fur as this:—If you was to happen now and then to feel +yourself in the mind to tip me and Mrs Boffin one of your ballads, why +then we should drop into poetry.’ + +‘I follow you, sir,’ said Wegg. ‘But not being a regular musical +professional, I should be loath to engage myself for that; and therefore +when I dropped into poetry, I should ask to be considered so fur, in the +light of a friend.’ + +At this, Mr Boffin’s eyes sparkled, and he shook Silas earnestly by the +hand: protesting that it was more than he could have asked, and that he +took it very kindly indeed. + +‘What do you think of the terms, Wegg?’ Mr Boffin then demanded, with +unconcealed anxiety. + +Silas, who had stimulated this anxiety by his hard reserve of manner, +and who had begun to understand his man very well, replied with an air; +as if he were saying something extraordinarily generous and great: + +‘Mr Boffin, I never bargain.’ + +‘So I should have thought of you!’ said Mr Boffin, admiringly. ‘No, sir. +I never did ’aggle and I never will ’aggle. Consequently I meet you at +once, free and fair, with—Done, for double the money!’ + +Mr Boffin seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, but assented, +with the remark, ‘You know better what it ought to be than I do, Wegg,’ +and again shook hands with him upon it. + +‘Could you begin to night, Wegg?’ he then demanded. + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr Wegg, careful to leave all the eagerness to him. +‘I see no difficulty if you wish it. You are provided with the needful +implement—a book, sir?’ + +‘Bought him at a sale,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Eight wollumes. Red and gold. +Purple ribbon in every wollume, to keep the place where you leave off. +Do you know him?’ + +‘The book’s name, sir?’ inquired Silas. + +‘I thought you might have know’d him without it,’ said Mr +Boffin slightly disappointed. ‘His name is +Decline-And-Fall-Off-The-Rooshan-Empire.’ (Mr Boffin went over these +stones slowly and with much caution.) + +‘Ay indeed!’ said Mr Wegg, nodding his head with an air of friendly +recognition. + +‘You know him, Wegg?’ + +‘I haven’t been not to say right slap through him, very lately,’ Mr Wegg +made answer, ‘having been otherways employed, Mr Boffin. But know him? +Old familiar declining and falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir! Ever +since I was not so high as your stick. Ever since my eldest brother left +our cottage to enlist into the army. On which occasion, as the ballad +that was made about it describes: + + ‘Beside that cottage door, Mr Boffin, + A girl was on her knees; + She held aloft a snowy scarf, Sir, + Which (my eldest brother noticed) fluttered in the breeze. + She breathed a prayer for him, Mr Boffin; + A prayer he coold not hear. + And my eldest brother lean’d upon his sword, Mr Boffin, + And wiped away a tear.’ + +Much impressed by this family circumstance, and also by the friendly +disposition of Mr Wegg, as exemplified in his so soon dropping into +poetry, Mr Boffin again shook hands with that ligneous sharper, and +besought him to name his hour. Mr Wegg named eight. + +‘Where I live,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘is called The Bower. Boffin’s Bower is +the name Mrs Boffin christened it when we come into it as a property. +If you should meet with anybody that don’t know it by that name (which +hardly anybody does), when you’ve got nigh upon about a odd mile, or +say and a quarter if you like, up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, ask for +Harmony Jail, and you’ll be put right. I shall expect you, Wegg,’ said +Mr Boffin, clapping him on the shoulder with the greatest enthusiasm, +‘most joyfully. I shall have no peace or patience till you come. Print +is now opening ahead of me. This night, a literary man—WITH a wooden +leg—’ he bestowed an admiring look upon that decoration, as if it +greatly enhanced the relish of Mr Wegg’s attainments—‘will begin to +lead me a new life! My fist again, Wegg. Morning, morning, morning!’ + +Left alone at his stall as the other ambled off, Mr Wegg subsided +into his screen, produced a small pocket-handkerchief of a +penitentially-scrubbing character, and took himself by the nose with +a thoughtful aspect. Also, while he still grasped that feature, he +directed several thoughtful looks down the street, after the retiring +figure of Mr Boffin. But, profound gravity sat enthroned on Wegg’s +countenance. For, while he considered within himself that this was +an old fellow of rare simplicity, that this was an opportunity to +be improved, and that here might be money to be got beyond present +calculation, still he compromised himself by no admission that his new +engagement was at all out of his way, or involved the least element of +the ridiculous. Mr Wegg would even have picked a handsome quarrel with +any one who should have challenged his deep acquaintance with those +aforesaid eight volumes of Decline and Fall. His gravity was unusual, +portentous, and immeasurable, not because he admitted any doubt of +himself but because he perceived it necessary to forestall any doubt of +himself in others. And herein he ranged with that very numerous class +of impostors, who are quite as determined to keep up appearances to +themselves, as to their neighbours. + +A certain loftiness, likewise, took possession of Mr Wegg; a +condescending sense of being in request as an official expounder of +mysteries. It did not move him to commercial greatness, but rather to +littleness, insomuch that if it had been within the possibilities of +things for the wooden measure to hold fewer nuts than usual, it would +have done so that day. But, when night came, and with her veiled eyes +beheld him stumping towards Boffin’s Bower, he was elated too. + +The Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Rosamond’s without the clue. +Mr Wegg, having reached the quarter indicated, inquired for the Bower +half a dozen times without the least success, until he remembered to +ask for Harmony Jail. This occasioned a quick change in the spirits of a +hoarse gentleman and a donkey, whom he had much perplexed. + +‘Why, yer mean Old Harmon’s, do yer?’ said the hoarse gentleman, who was +driving his donkey in a truck, with a carrot for a whip. ‘Why didn’t yer +niver say so? Eddard and me is a goin’ by HIM! Jump in.’ + +Mr Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited his attention to the +third person in company, thus; + +‘Now, you look at Eddard’s ears. What was it as you named, agin? +Whisper.’ + +Mr Wegg whispered, ‘Boffin’s Bower.’ + +‘Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Boffin’s Bower!’ + +Edward, with his ears lying back, remained immoveable. + +‘Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Old Harmon’s.’ Edward +instantly pricked up his ears to their utmost, and rattled off at such +a pace that Mr Wegg’s conversation was jolted out of him in a most +dislocated state. + +‘Was-it-Ev-verajail?’ asked Mr Wegg, holding on. + +‘Not a proper jail, wot you and me would get committed to,’ returned +his escort; ‘they giv’ it the name, on accounts of Old Harmon living +solitary there.’ + +‘And-why-did-they-callitharm-Ony?’ asked Wegg. + +‘On accounts of his never agreeing with nobody. Like a speeches of +chaff. Harmon’s Jail; Harmony Jail. Working it round like.’ + +‘Doyouknow-Mist-Erboff-in?’ asked Wegg. + +‘I should think so! Everybody do about here. Eddard knows him. (Keep yer +hi on his ears.) Noddy Boffin, Eddard!’ + +The effect of the name was so very alarming, in respect of causing a +temporary disappearance of Edward’s head, casting his hind hoofs in the +air, greatly accelerating the pace and increasing the jolting, that Mr +Wegg was fain to devote his attention exclusively to holding on, and to +relinquish his desire of ascertaining whether this homage to Boffin was +to be considered complimentary or the reverse. + +Presently, Edward stopped at a gateway, and Wegg discreetly lost no time +in slipping out at the back of the truck. The moment he was landed, his +late driver with a wave of the carrot, said ‘Supper, Eddard!’ and he, +the hind hoofs, the truck, and Edward, all seemed to fly into the air +together, in a kind of apotheosis. + +Pushing the gate, which stood ajar, Wegg looked into an enclosed space +where certain tall dark mounds rose high against the sky, and where the +pathway to the Bower was indicated, as the moonlight showed, between two +lines of broken crockery set in ashes. A white figure advancing along +this path, proved to be nothing more ghostly than Mr Boffin, easily +attired for the pursuit of knowledge, in an undress garment of short +white smock-frock. Having received his literary friend with great +cordiality, he conducted him to the interior of the Bower and there +presented him to Mrs Boffin:—a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful +aspect, dressed (to Mr Wegg’s consternation) in a low evening-dress of +sable satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers. + +‘Mrs Boffin, Wegg,’ said Boffin, ‘is a highflyer at Fashion. And her +make is such, that she does it credit. As to myself I ain’t yet as +Fash’nable as I may come to be. Henerietty, old lady, this is the +gentleman that’s a going to decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire.’ + +‘And I am sure I hope it’ll do you both good,’ said Mrs Boffin. + +It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more like a luxurious +amateur tap-room than anything else within the ken of Silas Wegg. There +were two wooden settles by the fire, one on either side of it, with +a corresponding table before each. On one of these tables, the eight +volumes were ranged flat, in a row, like a galvanic battery; on the +other, certain squat case-bottles of inviting appearance seemed to stand +on tiptoe to exchange glances with Mr Wegg over a front row of tumblers +and a basin of white sugar. On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, +a cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, +and a little table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs Boffin. +They were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles of +drawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the settles +and the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. There was a flowery +carpet on the floor; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, its +glowing vegetation stopped short at Mrs Boffin’s footstool, and gave +place to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr Wegg also noticed, with +admiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such hollow +ornamentation as stuffed birds and waxen fruits under glass-shades, +there were, in the territory where vegetation ceased, compensatory +shelves on which the best part of a large pie and likewise of a cold +joint were plainly discernible among other solids. The room itself was +large, though low; and the heavy frames of its old-fashioned windows, +and the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, seemed to indicate that it +had once been a house of some mark standing alone in the country. + +‘Do you like it, Wegg?’ asked Mr Boffin, in his pouncing manner. + +‘I admire it greatly, sir,’ said Wegg. ‘Peculiar comfort at this +fireside, sir.’ + +‘Do you understand it, Wegg?’ + +‘Why, in a general way, sir,’ Mr Wegg was beginning slowly and +knowingly, with his head stuck on one side, as evasive people do begin, +when the other cut him short: + +‘You DON’T understand it, Wegg, and I’ll explain it. These arrangements +is made by mutual consent between Mrs Boffin and me. Mrs Boffin, as I’ve +mentioned, is a highflyer at Fashion; at present I’m not. I don’t go +higher than comfort, and comfort of the sort that I’m equal to the +enjoyment of. Well then. Where would be the good of Mrs Boffin and me +quarrelling over it? We never did quarrel, before we come into Boffin’s +Bower as a property; why quarrel when we HAVE come into Boffin’s Bower +as a property? So Mrs Boffin, she keeps up her part of the room, in her +way; I keep up my part of the room in mine. In consequence of which +we have at once, Sociability (I should go melancholy mad without Mrs +Boffin), Fashion, and Comfort. If I get by degrees to be a higher-flyer +at Fashion, then Mrs Boffin will by degrees come for’arder. If Mrs +Boffin should ever be less of a dab at Fashion than she is at the +present time, then Mrs Boffin’s carpet would go back’arder. If we should +both continny as we are, why then HERE we are, and give us a kiss, old +lady.’ + +Mrs Boffin who, perpetually smiling, had approached and drawn her plump +arm through her lord’s, most willingly complied. Fashion, in the form +of her black velvet hat and feathers, tried to prevent it; but got +deservedly crushed in the endeavour. + +‘So now, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, wiping his mouth with an air of much +refreshment, ‘you begin to know us as we are. This is a charming spot, +is the Bower, but you must get to apprechiate it by degrees. It’s a spot +to find out the merits of; little by little, and a new’un every day. +There’s a serpentining walk up each of the mounds, that gives you the +yard and neighbourhood changing every moment. When you get to the top, +there’s a view of the neighbouring premises, not to be surpassed. The +premises of Mrs Boffin’s late father (Canine Provision Trade), you look +down into, as if they was your own. And the top of the High Mound is +crowned with a lattice-work Arbour, in which, if you don’t read out loud +many a book in the summer, ay, and as a friend, drop many a time into +poetry too, it shan’t be my fault. Now, what’ll you read on?’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Wegg, as if there were nothing new in his +reading at all. ‘I generally do it on gin and water.’ + +‘Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg?’ asked Mr Boffin, with innocent +eagerness. + +‘N-no, sir,’ replied Wegg, coolly, ‘I should hardly describe it so, sir. +I should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the word I should employ, Mr +Boffin.’ + +His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the delighted +expectation of his victim. The visions rising before his mercenary mind, +of the many ways in which this connexion was to be turned to account, +never obscured the foremost idea natural to a dull overreaching man, +that he must not make himself too cheap. + +Mrs Boffin’s Fashion, as a less inexorable deity than the idol usually +worshipped under that name, did not forbid her mixing for her literary +guest, or asking if he found the result to his liking. On his returning +a gracious answer and taking his place at the literary settle, Mr Boffin +began to compose himself as a listener, at the opposite settle, with +exultant eyes. + +‘Sorry to deprive you of a pipe, Wegg,’ he said, filling his own, ‘but +you can’t do both together. Oh! and another thing I forgot to name! When +you come in here of an evening, and look round you, and notice anything +on a shelf that happens to catch your fancy, mention it.’ + +Wegg, who had been going to put on his spectacles, immediately laid them +down, with the sprightly observation: + +‘You read my thoughts, sir. DO my eyes deceive me, or is that object up +there a—a pie? It can’t be a pie.’ + +‘Yes, it’s a pie, Wegg,’ replied Mr Boffin, with a glance of some little +discomfiture at the Decline and Fall. + +‘HAVE I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir?’ asked +Wegg. + +‘It’s a veal and ham pie,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘Is it indeed, sir? And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie that is +a better pie than a weal and hammer,’ said Mr Wegg, nodding his head +emotionally. + +‘Have some, Wegg?’ + +‘Thank you, Mr Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. I wouldn’t +at any other party’s, at the present juncture; but at yours, sir!—And +meaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case where +there’s ham, is mellering to the organ, is very mellering to the organ.’ +Mr Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality. + +So, the pie was brought down, and the worthy Mr Boffin exercised his +patience until Wegg, in the exercise of his knife and fork, had finished +the dish: only profiting by the opportunity to inform Wegg that although +it was not strictly Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder thus +exposed to view, he (Mr Boffin) considered it hospitable; for the +reason, that instead of saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, to +a visitor, ‘There are such and such edibles down stairs; will you have +anything up?’ you took the bold practical course of saying, ‘Cast your +eye along the shelves, and, if you see anything you like there, have it +down.’ + +And now, Mr Wegg at length pushed away his plate and put on his +spectacles, and Mr Boffin lighted his pipe and looked with beaming +eyes into the opening world before him, and Mrs Boffin reclined in a +fashionable manner on her sofa: as one who would be part of the audience +if she found she could, and would go to sleep if she found she couldn’t. + +‘Hem!’ began Wegg, ‘This, Mr Boffin and Lady, is the first chapter of +the first wollume of the Decline and Fall off—’ here he looked hard at +the book, and stopped. + +‘What’s the matter, Wegg?’ + +‘Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir,’ said Wegg with an air +of insinuating frankness (having first again looked hard at the book), +‘that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had meant to set +you right in, only something put it out of my head. I think you said +Rooshan Empire, sir?’ + +‘It is Rooshan; ain’t it, Wegg?’ + +‘No, sir. Roman. Roman.’ + +‘What’s the difference, Wegg?’ + +‘The difference, sir?’ Mr Wegg was faltering and in danger of breaking +down, when a bright thought flashed upon him. ‘The difference, sir? +There you place me in a difficulty, Mr Boffin. Suffice it to observe, +that the difference is best postponed to some other occasion when Mrs +Boffin does not honour us with her company. In Mrs Boffin’s presence, +sir, we had better drop it.’ + +Mr Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a chivalrous air, +and not only that, but by dint of repeating with a manly delicacy, +‘In Mrs Boffin’s presence, sir, we had better drop it!’ turned the +disadvantage on Boffin, who felt that he had committed himself in a very +painful manner. + +Then, Mr Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his task; going +straight across country at everything that came before him; taking all +the hard words, biographical and geographical; getting rather shaken by +Hadrian, Trajan, and the Antonines; stumbling at Polybius (pronounced +Polly Beeious, and supposed by Mr Boffin to be a Roman virgin, and by +Mrs Boffin to be responsible for that necessity of dropping it); heavily +unseated by Titus Antoninus Pius; up again and galloping smoothly with +Augustus; finally, getting over the ground well with Commodus: who, +under the appellation of Commodious, was held by Mr Boffin to have been +quite unworthy of his English origin, and ‘not to have acted up to his +name’ in his government of the Roman people. With the death of this +personage, Mr Wegg terminated his first reading; long before which +consummation several total eclipses of Mrs Boffin’s candle behind +her black velvet disc, would have been very alarming, but for being +regularly accompanied by a potent smell of burnt pens when her feathers +took fire, which acted as a restorative and woke her. Mr Wegg, having +read on by rote and attached as few ideas as possible to the text, came +out of the encounter fresh; but, Mr Boffin, who had soon laid down his +unfinished pipe, and had ever since sat intently staring with his eyes +and mind at the confounding enormities of the Romans, was so severely +punished that he could hardly wish his literary friend Good-night, and +articulate ‘Tomorrow.’ + +‘Commodious,’ gasped Mr Boffin, staring at the moon, after letting +Wegg out at the gate and fastening it: ‘Commodious fights in that +wild-beast-show, seven hundred and thirty-five times, in one character +only! As if that wasn’t stunning enough, a hundred lions is turned into +the same wild-beast-show all at once! As if that wasn’t stunning enough, +Commodious, in another character, kills ’em all off in a hundred goes! +As if that wasn’t stunning enough, Vittle-us (and well named too) eats +six millions’ worth, English money, in seven months! Wegg takes it easy, +but upon-my-soul to a old bird like myself these are scarers. And even +now that Commodious is strangled, I don’t see a way to our bettering +ourselves.’ Mr Boffin added as he turned his pensive steps towards the +Bower and shook his head, ‘I didn’t think this morning there was half so +many Scarers in Print. But I’m in for it now!’ + + + + +Chapter 6 + +CUT ADRIFT + + +The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, already mentioned as a tavern of +a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of hale +infirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and +hardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet +outlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house. +Externally, it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows +heaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, +with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed the whole +house, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended +over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a +faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will +never go in at all. + +This description applies to the river-frontage of the Six Jolly +Fellowship Porters. The back of the establishment, though the chief +entrance was there, so contracted that it merely represented in its +connexion with the front, the handle of a flat iron set upright on its +broadest end. This handle stood at the bottom of a wilderness of court +and alley: which wilderness pressed so hard and close upon the Six Jolly +Fellowship Porters as to leave the hostelry not an inch of ground beyond +its door. For this reason, in combination with the fact that the house +was all but afloat at high water, when the Porters had a family wash the +linen subjected to that operation might usually be seen drying on lines +stretched across the reception-rooms and bed-chambers. + +The wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, partitions, floors and +doors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, seemed in its old age +fraught with confused memories of its youth. In many places it had +become gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees; knots +started out of it; and here and there it seemed to twist itself into +some likeness of boughs. In this state of second childhood, it had an +air of being in its own way garrulous about its early life. Not without +reason was it often asserted by the regular frequenters of the Porters, +that when the light shone full upon the grain of certain panels, and +particularly upon an old corner cupboard of walnut-wood in the bar, you +might trace little forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree, +in full umbrageous leaf. + +The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters was a bar to soften the +human breast. The available space in it was not much larger than a +hackney-coach; but no one could have wished the bar bigger, that space +was so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial-bottles +radiant with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, and +by biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that made low +bows when customers were served with beer, and by the cheese in a snug +corner, and by the landlady’s own small table in a snugger corner near +the fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. This haven was divided from +the rough world by a glass partition and a half-door, with a leaden +sill upon it for the convenience of resting your liquor; but, over this +half-door the bar’s snugness so gushed forth that, albeit customers +drank there standing, in a dark and draughty passage where they were +shouldered by other customers passing in and out, they always appeared +to drink under an enchanting delusion that they were in the bar itself. + +For the rest, both the tap and parlour of the Six Jolly Fellowship +Porters gave upon the river, and had red curtains matching the noses of +the regular customers, and were provided with comfortable fireside tin +utensils, like models of sugar-loaf hats, made in that shape that they +might, with their pointed ends, seek out for themselves glowing nooks +in the depths of the red coals, when they mulled your ale, or heated for +you those delectable drinks, Purl, Flip, and Dog’s Nose. The first of +these humming compounds was a speciality of the Porters, which, through +an inscription on its door-posts, gently appealed to your feelings as, +‘The Early Purl House’. For, it would seem that Purl must always be +taken early; though whether for any more distinctly stomachic reason +than that, as the early bird catches the worm, so the early purl catches +the customer, cannot here be resolved. It only remains to add that in +the handle of the flat iron, and opposite the bar, was a very little +room like a three-cornered hat, into which no direct ray of sun, moon, +or star, ever penetrated, but which was superstitiously regarded as a +sanctuary replete with comfort and retirement by gaslight, and on the +door of which was therefore painted its alluring name: Cosy. + +Miss Potterson, sole proprietor and manager of the Fellowship Porters, +reigned supreme on her throne, the Bar, and a man must have drunk +himself mad drunk indeed if he thought he could contest a point with +her. Being known on her own authority as Miss Abbey Potterson, some +water-side heads, which (like the water) were none of the clearest, +harboured muddled notions that, because of her dignity and firmness, she +was named after, or in some sort related to, the Abbey at Westminster. +But, Abbey was only short for Abigail, by which name Miss Potterson had +been christened at Limehouse Church, some sixty and odd years before. + +‘Now, you mind, you Riderhood,’ said Miss Abbey Potterson, with emphatic +forefinger over the half-door, ‘the Fellowship don’t want you at all, +and would rather by far have your room than your company; but if you +were as welcome here as you are not, you shouldn’t even then have +another drop of drink here this night, after this present pint of beer. +So make the most of it.’ + +‘But you know, Miss Potterson,’ this was suggested very meekly though, +‘if I behave myself, you can’t help serving me, miss.’ + +‘CAN’T I!’ said Abbey, with infinite expression. + +‘No, Miss Potterson; because, you see, the law—’ + +‘I am the law here, my man,’ returned Miss Abbey, ‘and I’ll soon +convince you of that, if you doubt it at all.’ + +‘I never said I did doubt it at all, Miss Abbey.’ + +‘So much the better for you.’ + +Abbey the supreme threw the customer’s halfpence into the till, and, +seating herself in her fireside-chair, resumed the newspaper she had +been reading. She was a tall, upright, well-favoured woman, though +severe of countenance, and had more of the air of a schoolmistress than +mistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The man on the other side +of the half-door, was a waterside-man with a squinting leer, and he eyed +her as if he were one of her pupils in disgrace. + +‘You’re cruel hard upon me, Miss Potterson.’ + +Miss Potterson read her newspaper with contracted brows, and took no +notice until he whispered: + +‘Miss Potterson! Ma’am! Might I have half a word with you?’ + +Deigning then to turn her eyes sideways towards the suppliant, Miss +Potterson beheld him knuckling his low forehead, and ducking at her with +his head, as if he were asking leave to fling himself head foremost over +the half-door and alight on his feet in the bar. + +‘Well?’ said Miss Potterson, with a manner as short as she herself was +long, ‘say your half word. Bring it out.’ + +‘Miss Potterson! Ma’am! Would you ’sxcuse me taking the liberty of +asking, is it my character that you take objections to?’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Miss Potterson. + +‘Is it that you’re afraid of—’ + +‘I am not afraid OF YOU,’ interposed Miss Potterson, ‘if you mean that.’ + +‘But I humbly don’t mean that, Miss Abbey.’ + +‘Then what do you mean?’ + +‘You really are so cruel hard upon me! What I was going to make +inquiries was no more than, might you have any apprehensions—leastways +beliefs or suppositions—that the company’s property mightn’t be +altogether to be considered safe, if I used the house too regular?’ + +‘What do you want to know for?’ + +‘Well, Miss Abbey, respectfully meaning no offence to you, it would +be some satisfaction to a man’s mind, to understand why the Fellowship +Porters is not to be free to such as me, and is to be free to such as +Gaffer.’ + +The face of the hostess darkened with some shadow of perplexity, as she +replied: ‘Gaffer has never been where you have been.’ + +‘Signifying in Quod, Miss? Perhaps not. But he may have merited it. He +may be suspected of far worse than ever I was.’ + +‘Who suspects him?’ + +‘Many, perhaps. One, beyond all doubts. I do.’ + +‘YOU are not much,’ said Miss Abbey Potterson, knitting her brows again +with disdain. + +‘But I was his pardner. Mind you, Miss Abbey, I was his pardner. As +such I know more of the ins and outs of him than any person living does. +Notice this! I am the man that was his pardner, and I am the man that +suspects him.’ + +‘Then,’ suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper shade of perplexity +than before, ‘you criminate yourself.’ + +‘No I don’t, Miss Abbey. For how does it stand? It stands this way. When +I was his pardner, I couldn’t never give him satisfaction. Why couldn’t +I never give him satisfaction? Because my luck was bad; because I +couldn’t find many enough of ’em. How was his luck? Always good. Notice +this! Always good! Ah! There’s a many games, Miss Abbey, in which +there’s chance, but there’s a many others in which there’s skill too, +mixed along with it.’ + +‘That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who doubts, man?’ +asked Miss Abbey. + +‘A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps,’ said Riderhood, shaking +his evil head. + +Miss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered at her. ‘If +you’re out upon the river pretty nigh every tide, and if you want to +find a man or woman in the river, you’ll greatly help your luck, Miss +Abbey, by knocking a man or woman on the head aforehand and pitching ’em +in.’ + +‘Gracious Lud!’ was the involuntary exclamation of Miss Potterson. + +‘Mind you!’ returned the other, stretching forward over the half door +to throw his words into the bar; for his voice was as if the head of his +boat’s mop were down his throat; ‘I say so, Miss Abbey! And mind you! +I’ll follow him up, Miss Abbey! And mind you! I’ll bring him to hook at +last, if it’s twenty year hence, I will! Who’s he, to be favoured along +of his daughter? Ain’t I got a daughter of my own!’ + +With that flourish, and seeming to have talked himself rather more drunk +and much more ferocious than he had begun by being, Mr Riderhood took up +his pint pot and swaggered off to the taproom. + +Gaffer was not there, but a pretty strong muster of Miss Abbey’s pupils +were, who exhibited, when occasion required, the greatest docility. On +the clock’s striking ten, and Miss Abbey’s appearing at the door, and +addressing a certain person in a faded scarlet jacket, with ‘George +Jones, your time’s up! I told your wife you should be punctual,’ +Jones submissively rose, gave the company good-night, and retired. At +half-past ten, on Miss Abbey’s looking in again, and saying, ‘William +Williams, Bob Glamour, and Jonathan, you are all due,’ Williams, Bob, +and Jonathan with similar meekness took their leave and evaporated. +Greater wonder than these, when a bottle-nosed person in a glazed hat +had after some considerable hesitation ordered another glass of gin and +water of the attendant potboy, and when Miss Abbey, instead of sending +it, appeared in person, saying, ‘Captain Joey, you have had as much as +will do you good,’ not only did the captain feebly rub his knees and +contemplate the fire without offering a word of protest, but the rest +of the company murmured, ‘Ay, ay, Captain! Miss Abbey’s right; you +be guided by Miss Abbey, Captain.’ Nor, was Miss Abbey’s vigilance in +anywise abated by this submission, but rather sharpened; for, looking +round on the deferential faces of her school, and descrying two other +young persons in need of admonition, she thus bestowed it: ‘Tom Tootle, +it’s time for a young fellow who’s going to be married next month, to +be at home and asleep. And you needn’t nudge him, Mr Jack Mullins, for +I know your work begins early tomorrow, and I say the same to you. +So come! Good-night, like good lads!’ Upon which, the blushing Tootle +looked to Mullins, and the blushing Mullins looked to Tootle, on the +question who should rise first, and finally both rose together and went +out on the broad grin, followed by Miss Abbey; in whose presence the +company did not take the liberty of grinning likewise. + +In such an establishment, the white-aproned pot-boy with his +shirt-sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each bare shoulder, was a mere +hint of the possibility of physical force, thrown out as a matter of +state and form. Exactly at the closing hour, all the guests who were +left, filed out in the best order: Miss Abbey standing at the half door +of the bar, to hold a ceremony of review and dismissal. All wished +Miss Abbey good-night and Miss Abbey wished good-night to all, except +Riderhood. The sapient pot-boy, looking on officially, then had the +conviction borne in upon his soul, that the man was evermore outcast and +excommunicate from the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. + +‘You Bob Gliddery,’ said Miss Abbey to this pot-boy, ‘run round to +Hexam’s and tell his daughter Lizzie that I want to speak to her.’ + +With exemplary swiftness Bob Gliddery departed, and returned. Lizzie, +following him, arrived as one of the two female domestics of the +Fellowship Porters arranged on the snug little table by the bar fire, +Miss Potterson’s supper of hot sausages and mashed potatoes. + +‘Come in and sit ye down, girl,’ said Miss Abbey. ‘Can you eat a bit?’ + +‘No thank you, Miss. I have had my supper.’ + +‘I have had mine too, I think,’ said Miss Abbey, pushing away the +untasted dish, ‘and more than enough of it. I am put out, Lizzie.’ + +‘I am very sorry for it, Miss.’ + +‘Then why, in the name of Goodness,’ quoth Miss Abbey, sharply, ‘do you +do it?’ + +‘I do it, Miss!’ + +‘There, there. Don’t look astonished. I ought to have begun with a word +of explanation, but it’s my way to make short cuts at things. I always +was a pepperer. You Bob Gliddery there, put the chain upon the door and +get ye down to your supper.’ + +With an alacrity that seemed no less referable to the pepperer fact +than to the supper fact, Bob obeyed, and his boots were heard descending +towards the bed of the river. + +‘Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam,’ then began Miss Potterson, ‘how often have +I held out to you the opportunity of getting clear of your father, and +doing well?’ + +‘Very often, Miss.’ + +‘Very often? Yes! And I might as well have spoken to the iron funnel of +the strongest sea-going steamer that passes the Fellowship Porters.’ + +‘No, Miss,’ Lizzie pleaded; ‘because that would not be thankful, and I +am.’ + +‘I vow and declare I am half ashamed of myself for taking such an +interest in you,’ said Miss Abbey, pettishly, ‘for I don’t believe I +should do it if you were not good-looking. Why ain’t you ugly?’ + +Lizzie merely answered this difficult question with an apologetic +glance. + +‘However, you ain’t,’ resumed Miss Potterson, ‘so it’s no use going into +that. I must take you as I find you. Which indeed is what I’ve done. And +you mean to say you are still obstinate?’ + +‘Not obstinate, Miss, I hope.’ + +‘Firm (I suppose you call it) then?’ + +‘Yes, Miss. Fixed like.’ + +‘Never was an obstinate person yet, who would own to the word!’ remarked +Miss Potterson, rubbing her vexed nose; ‘I’m sure I would, if I was +obstinate; but I am a pepperer, which is different. Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie +Hexam, think again. Do you know the worst of your father?’ + +‘Do I know the worst of father!’ she repeated, opening her eyes. + +‘Do you know the suspicions to which your father makes himself liable? +Do you know the suspicions that are actually about, against him?’ + +The consciousness of what he habitually did, oppressed the girl heavily, +and she slowly cast down her eyes. + +‘Say, Lizzie. Do you know?’ urged Miss Abbey. + +‘Please to tell me what the suspicions are, Miss,’ she asked after a +silence, with her eyes upon the ground. + +‘It’s not an easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be told. It is +thought by some, then, that your father helps to their death a few of +those that he finds dead.’ + +The relief of hearing what she felt sure was a false suspicion, in place +of the expected real and true one, so lightened Lizzie’s breast for the +moment, that Miss Abbey was amazed at her demeanour. She raised her eyes +quickly, shook her head, and, in a kind of triumph, almost laughed. + +‘They little know father who talk like that!’ + +(‘She takes it,’ thought Miss Abbey, ‘very quietly. She takes it with +extraordinary quietness!’) + +‘And perhaps,’ said Lizzie, as a recollection flashed upon her, ‘it is +some one who has a grudge against father; some one who has threatened +father! Is it Riderhood, Miss?’ + +‘Well; yes it is.’ + +‘Yes! He was father’s partner, and father broke with him, and now he +revenges himself. Father broke with him when I was by, and he was very +angry at it. And besides, Miss Abbey!—Will you never, without strong +reason, let pass your lips what I am going to say?’ + +She bent forward to say it in a whisper. + +‘I promise,’ said Miss Abbey. + +‘It was on the night when the Harmon murder was found out, through +father, just above bridge. And just below bridge, as we were sculling +home, Riderhood crept out of the dark in his boat. And many and many +times afterwards, when such great pains were taken to come to the bottom +of the crime, and it never could be come near, I thought in my own +thoughts, could Riderhood himself have done the murder, and did he +purposely let father find the body? It seemed a’most wicked and cruel +to so much as think such a thing; but now that he tries to throw it upon +father, I go back to it as if it was a truth. Can it be a truth? That +was put into my mind by the dead?’ + +She asked this question, rather of the fire than of the hostess of the +Fellowship Porters, and looked round the little bar with troubled eyes. + +But, Miss Potterson, as a ready schoolmistress accustomed to bring her +pupils to book, set the matter in a light that was essentially of this +world. + +‘You poor deluded girl,’ she said, ‘don’t you see that you can’t open +your mind to particular suspicions of one of the two, without opening +your mind to general suspicions of the other? They had worked together. +Their goings-on had been going on for some time. Even granting that it +was as you have had in your thoughts, what the two had done together +would come familiar to the mind of one.’ + +‘You don’t know father, Miss, when you talk like that. Indeed, indeed, +you don’t know father.’ + +‘Lizzie, Lizzie,’ said Miss Potterson. ‘Leave him. You needn’t break +with him altogether, but leave him. Do well away from him; not because +of what I have told you to-night—we’ll pass no judgment upon that, +and we’ll hope it may not be—but because of what I have urged on you +before. No matter whether it’s owing to your good looks or not, I like +you and I want to serve you. Lizzie, come under my direction. Don’t +fling yourself away, my girl, but be persuaded into being respectable +and happy.’ + +In the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty, Miss Abbey +had softened into a soothing tone, and had even drawn her arm round the +girl’s waist. But, she only replied, ‘Thank you, thank you! I can’t. I +won’t. I must not think of it. The harder father is borne upon, the more +he needs me to lean on.’ + +And then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they do soften, +felt that there was considerable compensation owing to her, underwent +reaction and became frigid. + +‘I have done what I can,’ she said, ‘and you must go your way. You make +your bed, and you must lie on it. But tell your father one thing: he +must not come here any more.’ + +‘Oh, Miss, will you forbid him the house where I know he’s safe?’ + +‘The Fellowships,’ returned Miss Abbey, ‘has itself to look to, as well +as others. It has been hard work to establish order here, and make the +Fellowships what it is, and it is daily and nightly hard work to keep it +so. The Fellowships must not have a taint upon it that may give it a bad +name. I forbid the house to Riderhood, and I forbid the house to Gaffer. +I forbid both, equally. I find from Riderhood and you together, that +there are suspicions against both men, and I’m not going to take upon +myself to decide betwixt them. They are both tarred with a dirty brush, +and I can’t have the Fellowships tarred with the same brush. That’s all +I know.’ + +‘Good-night, Miss!’ said Lizzie Hexam, sorrowfully. + +‘Hah!—Good-night!’ returned Miss Abbey with a shake of her head. + +‘Believe me, Miss Abbey, I am truly grateful all the same.’ + +‘I can believe a good deal,’ returned the stately Abbey, ‘so I’ll try to +believe that too, Lizzie.’ + +No supper did Miss Potterson take that night, and only half her usual +tumbler of hot Port Negus. And the female domestics—two robust sisters, +with staring black eyes, shining flat red faces, blunt noses, and strong +black curls, like dolls—interchanged the sentiment that Missis had had +her hair combed the wrong way by somebody. And the pot-boy afterwards +remarked, that he hadn’t been ‘so rattled to bed’, since his late mother +had systematically accelerated his retirement to rest with a poker. + +The chaining of the door behind her, as she went forth, disenchanted +Lizzie Hexam of that first relief she had felt. The night was black and +shrill, the river-side wilderness was melancholy, and there was a sound +of casting-out, in the rattling of the iron-links, and the grating of +the bolts and staples under Miss Abbey’s hand. As she came beneath +the lowering sky, a sense of being involved in a murky shade of Murder +dropped upon her; and, as the tidal swell of the river broke at her feet +without her seeing how it gathered, so, her thoughts startled her by +rushing out of an unseen void and striking at her heart. + +Of her father’s being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure. +And yet, repeat the word inwardly as often as she would, the attempt to +reason out and prove that she was sure, always came after it and failed. +Riderhood had done the deed, and entrapped her father. Riderhood had +not done the deed, but had resolved in his malice to turn against her +father, the appearances that were ready to his hand to distort. Equally +and swiftly upon either putting of the case, followed the frightful +possibility that her father, being innocent, yet might come to be +believed guilty. She had heard of people suffering Death for bloodshed +of which they were afterwards proved pure, and those ill-fated persons +were not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her father stood. Then +at the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against, +and avoided, was a certain fact. It dated from that very night. And as +the great black river with its dreary shores was soon lost to her view +in the gloom, so, she stood on the river’s brink unable to see into the +vast blank misery of a life suspected, and fallen away from by good and +bad, but knowing that it lay there dim before her, stretching away to +the great ocean, Death. + +One thing only, was clear to the girl’s mind. Accustomed from her very +babyhood promptly to do the thing that could be done—whether to keep +out weather, to ward off cold, to postpone hunger, or what not—she +started out of her meditation, and ran home. + +The room was quiet, and the lamp burnt on the table. In the bunk in the +corner, her brother lay asleep. She bent over him softly, kissed him, +and came to the table. + +‘By the time of Miss Abbey’s closing, and by the run of the tide, it +must be one. Tide’s running up. Father at Chiswick, wouldn’t think of +coming down, till after the turn, and that’s at half after four. I’ll +call Charley at six. I shall hear the church-clocks strike, as I sit +here.’ + +Very quietly, she placed a chair before the scanty fire, and sat down in +it, drawing her shawl about her. + +‘Charley’s hollow down by the flare is not there now. Poor Charley!’ + +The clock struck two, and the clock struck three, and the clock struck +four, and she remained there, with a woman’s patience and her own +purpose. When the morning was well on between four and five, she slipped +off her shoes (that her going about might not wake Charley), trimmed +the fire sparingly, put water on to boil, and set the table for +breakfast. Then she went up the ladder, lamp in hand, and came down +again, and glided about and about, making a little bundle. Lastly, from +her pocket, and from the chimney-piece, and from an inverted basin +on the highest shelf she brought halfpence, a few sixpences, fewer +shillings, and fell to laboriously and noiselessly counting them, and +setting aside one little heap. She was still so engaged, when she was +startled by: + +‘Hal-loa!’ From her brother, sitting up in bed. + +‘You made me jump, Charley.’ + +‘Jump! Didn’t you make ME jump, when I opened my eyes a moment ago, and +saw you sitting there, like the ghost of a girl miser, in the dead of +the night.’ + +‘It’s not the dead of the night, Charley. It’s nigh six in the morning.’ + +‘Is it though? But what are you up to, Liz?’ + +‘Still telling your fortune, Charley.’ + +‘It seems to be a precious small one, if that’s it,’ said the boy. ‘What +are you putting that little pile of money by itself for?’ + +‘For you, Charley.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘Get out of bed, Charley, and get washed and dressed, and then I’ll tell +you.’ + +Her composed manner, and her low distinct voice, always had an influence +over him. His head was soon in a basin of water, and out of it again, +and staring at her through a storm of towelling. + +‘I never,’ towelling at himself as if he were his bitterest enemy, ‘saw +such a girl as you are. What IS the move, Liz?’ + +‘Are you almost ready for breakfast, Charley?’ + +‘You can pour it out. Hal-loa! I say? And a bundle?’ + +‘And a bundle, Charley.’ + +‘You don’t mean it’s for me, too?’ + +‘Yes, Charley; I do; indeed.’ + +More serious of face, and more slow of action, than he had been, the +boy completed his dressing, and came and sat down at the little +breakfast-table, with his eyes amazedly directed to her face. + +‘You see, Charley dear, I have made up my mind that this is the right +time for your going away from us. Over and above all the blessed change +of by-and-bye, you’ll be much happier, and do much better, even so soon +as next month. Even so soon as next week.’ + +‘How do you know I shall?’ + +‘I don’t quite know how, Charley, but I do.’ In spite of her unchanged +manner of speaking, and her unchanged appearance of composure, she +scarcely trusted herself to look at him, but kept her eyes employed on +the cutting and buttering of his bread, and on the mixing of his tea, +and other such little preparations. ‘You must leave father to me, +Charley—I will do what I can with him—but you must go.’ + +‘You don’t stand upon ceremony, I think,’ grumbled the boy, throwing his +bread and butter about, in an ill-humour. + +She made him no answer. + +‘I tell you what,’ said the boy, then, bursting out into an angry +whimpering, ‘you’re a selfish jade, and you think there’s not enough for +three of us, and you want to get rid of me.’ + +‘If you believe so, Charley,—yes, then I believe too, that I am a +selfish jade, and that I think there’s not enough for three of us, and +that I want to get rid of you.’ + +It was only when the boy rushed at her, and threw his arms round her +neck, that she lost her self-restraint. But she lost it then, and wept +over him. + +‘Don’t cry, don’t cry! I am satisfied to go, Liz; I am satisfied to go. +I know you send me away for my good.’ + +‘O, Charley, Charley, Heaven above us knows I do!’ + +‘Yes yes. Don’t mind what I said. Don’t remember it. Kiss me.’ + +After a silence, she loosed him, to dry her eyes and regain her strong +quiet influence. + +‘Now listen, Charley dear. We both know it must be done, and I alone +know there is good reason for its being done at once. Go straight to the +school, and say that you and I agreed upon it—that we can’t overcome +father’s opposition—that father will never trouble them, but will never +take you back. You are a credit to the school, and you will be a greater +credit to it yet, and they will help you to get a living. Show what +clothes you have brought, and what money, and say that I will send some +more money. If I can get some in no other way, I will ask a little help +of those two gentlemen who came here that night.’ + +‘I say!’ cried her brother, quickly. ‘Don’t you have it of that chap +that took hold of me by the chin! Don’t you have it of that Wrayburn +one!’ + +Perhaps a slight additional tinge of red flushed up into her face and +brow, as with a nod she laid a hand upon his lips to keep him silently +attentive. + +‘And above all things mind this, Charley! Be sure you always speak well +of father. Be sure you always give father his full due. You can’t deny +that because father has no learning himself he is set against it in +you; but favour nothing else against him, and be sure you say—as you +know—that your sister is devoted to him. And if you should ever happen +to hear anything said against father that is new to you, it will not be +true. Remember, Charley! It will not be true.’ + +The boy looked at her with some doubt and surprise, but she went on +again without heeding it. + +‘Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have nothing more to +say, Charley dear, except, be good, and get learning, and only think of +some things in the old life here, as if you had dreamed them in a dream +last night. Good-bye, my Darling!’ + +Though so young, she infused in these parting words a love that was far +more like a mother’s than a sister’s, and before which the boy was quite +bowed down. After holding her to his breast with a passionate cry, he +took up his bundle and darted out at the door, with an arm across his +eyes. + +The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a +frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the river slowly changed to black +substances; and the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark +masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on +fire. Lizzie, looking for her father, saw him coming, and stood upon the +causeway that he might see her. + +He had nothing with him but his boat, and came on apace. A knot of those +amphibious human-creatures who appear to have some mysterious power +of extracting a subsistence out of tidal water by looking at it, were +gathered together about the causeway. As her father’s boat grounded, +they became contemplative of the mud, and dispersed themselves. She saw +that the mute avoidance had begun. + +Gaffer saw it, too, in so far as that he was moved when he set foot on +shore, to stare around him. But, he promptly set to work to haul up his +boat, and make her fast, and take the sculls and rudder and rope out of +her. Carrying these with Lizzie’s aid, he passed up to his dwelling. + +‘Sit close to the fire, father, dear, while I cook your breakfast. +It’s all ready for cooking, and only been waiting for you. You must be +frozen.’ + +‘Well, Lizzie, I ain’t of a glow; that’s certain. And my hands seem +nailed through to the sculls. See how dead they are!’ Something +suggestive in their colour, and perhaps in her face, struck him as he +held them up; he turned his shoulder and held them down to the fire. + +‘You were not out in the perishing night, I hope, father?’ + +‘No, my dear. Lay aboard a barge, by a blazing coal-fire.—Where’s that +boy?’ + +‘There’s a drop of brandy for your tea, father, if you’ll put it in +while I turn this bit of meat. If the river was to get frozen, there +would be a deal of distress; wouldn’t there, father?’ + +‘Ah! there’s always enough of that,’ said Gaffer, dropping the liquor +into his cup from a squat black bottle, and dropping it slowly that it +might seem more; ‘distress is for ever a going about, like sut in the +air—Ain’t that boy up yet?’ + +‘The meat’s ready now, father. Eat it while it’s hot and comfortable. +After you have finished, we’ll turn round to the fire and talk.’ + +But, he perceived that he was evaded, and, having thrown a hasty angry +glance towards the bunk, plucked at a corner of her apron and asked: + +‘What’s gone with that boy?’ + +‘Father, if you’ll begin your breakfast, I’ll sit by and tell you.’ He +looked at her, stirred his tea and took two or three gulps, then cut at +his piece of hot steak with his case-knife, and said, eating: + +‘Now then. What’s gone with that boy?’ + +‘Don’t be angry, dear. It seems, father, that he has quite a gift of +learning.’ + +‘Unnat’ral young beggar!’ said the parent, shaking his knife in the air. + +‘And that having this gift, and not being equally good at other things, +he has made shift to get some schooling.’ + +’unnat’ral young beggar!’ said the parent again, with his former action. + +‘—And that knowing you have nothing to spare, father, and not wishing +to be a burden on you, he gradually made up his mind to go seek his +fortune out of learning. He went away this morning, father, and he cried +very much at going, and he hoped you would forgive him.’ + +‘Let him never come a nigh me to ask me my forgiveness,’ said the +father, again emphasizing his words with the knife. ‘Let him never come +within sight of my eyes, nor yet within reach of my arm. His own father +ain’t good enough for him. He’s disowned his own father. His own father +therefore, disowns him for ever and ever, as a unnat’ral young beggar.’ + +He had pushed away his plate. With the natural need of a strong rough +man in anger, to do something forcible, he now clutched his knife +overhand, and struck downward with it at the end of every succeeding +sentence. As he would have struck with his own clenched fist if there +had chanced to be nothing in it. + +‘He’s welcome to go. He’s more welcome to go than to stay. But let him +never come back. Let him never put his head inside that door. And let +you never speak a word more in his favour, or you’ll disown your own +father, likewise, and what your father says of him he’ll have to come to +say of you. Now I see why them men yonder held aloof from me. They says +to one another, “Here comes the man as ain’t good enough for his own +son!” Lizzie—!’ + +But, she stopped him with a cry. Looking at her he saw her, with a face +quite strange to him, shrinking back against the wall, with her hands +before her eyes. + +‘Father, don’t! I can’t bear to see you striking with it. Put it down!’ + +He looked at the knife; but in his astonishment still held it. + +‘Father, it’s too horrible. O put it down, put it down!’ + +Confounded by her appearance and exclamation, he tossed it away, and +stood up with his open hands held out before him. + +‘What’s come to you, Liz? Can you think I would strike at you with a +knife?’ + +‘No, father, no; you would never hurt me.’ + +‘What should I hurt?’ + +‘Nothing, dear father. On my knees, I am certain, in my heart and soul +I am certain, nothing! But it was too dreadful to bear; for it looked—’ +her hands covering her face again, ‘O it looked—’ + +‘What did it look like?’ + +The recollection of his murderous figure, combining with her trial of +last night, and her trial of the morning, caused her to drop at his +feet, without having answered. + +He had never seen her so before. He raised her with the utmost +tenderness, calling her the best of daughters, and ‘my poor pretty +creetur’, and laid her head upon his knee, and tried to restore her. But +failing, he laid her head gently down again, got a pillow and placed it +under her dark hair, and sought on the table for a spoonful of brandy. +There being none left, he hurriedly caught up the empty bottle, and ran +out at the door. + +He returned as hurriedly as he had gone, with the bottle still empty. +He kneeled down by her, took her head on his arm, and moistened her lips +with a little water into which he dipped his fingers: saying, fiercely, +as he looked around, now over this shoulder, now over that: + +‘Have we got a pest in the house? Is there summ’at deadly sticking to my +clothes? What’s let loose upon us? Who loosed it?’ + + + + +Chapter 7 + +MR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF + + +Silas Wegg, being on his road to the Roman Empire, approaches it by way +of Clerkenwell. The time is early in the evening; the weather moist and +raw. Mr Wegg finds leisure to make a little circuit, by reason that he +folds his screen early, now that he combines another source of income +with it, and also that he feels it due to himself to be anxiously +expected at the Bower. ‘Boffin will get all the eagerer for waiting a +bit,’ says Silas, screwing up, as he stumps along, first his right eye, +and then his left. Which is something superfluous in him, for Nature has +already screwed both pretty tight. + +‘If I get on with him as I expect to get on,’ Silas pursues, stumping +and meditating, ‘it wouldn’t become me to leave it here. It wouldn’t be +respectable.’ Animated by this reflection, he stumps faster, and looks +a long way before him, as a man with an ambitious project in abeyance +often will do. + +Aware of a working-jeweller population taking sanctuary about the church +in Clerkenwell, Mr Wegg is conscious of an interest in, and a respect +for, the neighbourhood. But, his sensations in this regard halt as to +their strict morality, as he halts in his gait; for, they suggest the +delights of a coat of invisibility in which to walk off safely with the +precious stones and watch-cases, but stop short of any compunction for +the people who would lose the same. + +Not, however, towards the ‘shops’ where cunning artificers work in +pearls and diamonds and gold and silver, making their hands so rich, +that the enriched water in which they wash them is bought for the +refiners;—not towards these does Mr Wegg stump, but towards the poorer +shops of small retail traders in commodities to eat and drink and keep +folks warm, and of Italian frame-makers, and of barbers, and of brokers, +and of dealers in dogs and singing-birds. From these, in a narrow and +a dirty street devoted to such callings, Mr Wegg selects one dark +shop-window with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by a +muddle of objects vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, +but among which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, save +the candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved frogs +fighting a small-sword duel. Stumping with fresh vigour, he goes in at +the dark greasy entry, pushes a little greasy dark reluctant side-door, +and follows the door into the little dark greasy shop. It is so dark +that nothing can be made out in it, over a little counter, but another +tallow candle in another old tin candlestick, close to the face of a man +stooping low in a chair. + +Mr Wegg nods to the face, ‘Good evening.’ + +The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by a +tangle of reddish-dusty hair. The owner of the face has no cravat on, +and has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with the more ease. +For the same reason he has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over his +yellow linen. His eyes are like the over-tried eyes of an engraver, but +he is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoemaker, +but he is not that. + +‘Good evening, Mr Venus. Don’t you remember?’ + +With slowly dawning remembrance, Mr Venus rises, and holds his candle +over the little counter, and holds it down towards the legs, natural and +artificial, of Mr Wegg. + +‘To be SURE!’ he says, then. ‘How do you do?’ + +‘Wegg, you know,’ that gentleman explains. + +‘Yes, yes,’ says the other. ‘Hospital amputation?’ + +‘Just so,’ says Mr Wegg. + +‘Yes, yes,’ quoth Venus. ‘How do you do? Sit down by the fire, and warm +your—your other one.’ + +The little counter being so short a counter that it leaves the +fireplace, which would have been behind it if it had been longer, +accessible, Mr Wegg sits down on a box in front of the fire, and inhales +a warm and comfortable smell which is not the smell of the shop. ‘For +that,’ Mr Wegg inwardly decides, as he takes a corrective sniff or two, +‘is musty, leathery, feathery, cellary, gluey, gummy, and,’ with another +sniff, ‘as it might be, strong of old pairs of bellows.’ + +‘My tea is drawing, and my muffin is on the hob, Mr Wegg; will you +partake?’ + +It being one of Mr Wegg’s guiding rules in life always to partake, he +says he will. But, the little shop is so excessively dark, is stuck so +full of black shelves and brackets and nooks and corners, that he sees +Mr Venus’s cup and saucer only because it is close under the candle, and +does not see from what mysterious recess Mr Venus produces another +for himself until it is under his nose. Concurrently, Wegg perceives a +pretty little dead bird lying on the counter, with its head drooping +on one side against the rim of Mr Venus’s saucer, and a long stiff wire +piercing its breast. As if it were Cock Robin, the hero of the ballad, +and Mr Venus were the sparrow with his bow and arrow, and Mr Wegg were +the fly with his little eye. + +Mr Venus dives, and produces another muffin, yet untoasted; taking the +arrow out of the breast of Cock Robin, he proceeds to toast it on the +end of that cruel instrument. When it is brown, he dives again and +produces butter, with which he completes his work. + +Mr Wegg, as an artful man who is sure of his supper by-and-bye, presses +muffin on his host to soothe him into a compliant state of mind, or, as +one might say, to grease his works. As the muffins disappear, little by +little, the black shelves and nooks and corners begin to appear, and Mr +Wegg gradually acquires an imperfect notion that over against him on the +chimney-piece is a Hindoo baby in a bottle, curved up with his big +head tucked under him, as he would instantly throw a summersault if the +bottle were large enough. + +When he deems Mr Venus’s wheels sufficiently lubricated, Mr Wegg +approaches his object by asking, as he lightly taps his hands together, +to express an undesigning frame of mind: + +‘And how have I been going on, this long time, Mr Venus?’ + +‘Very bad,’ says Mr Venus, uncompromisingly. + +‘What? Am I still at home?’ asks Wegg, with an air of surprise. + +‘Always at home.’ + +This would seem to be secretly agreeable to Wegg, but he veils his +feelings, and observes, ‘Strange. To what do you attribute it?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ replies Venus, who is a haggard melancholy man, speaking +in a weak voice of querulous complaint, ‘to what to attribute it, Mr +Wegg. I can’t work you into a miscellaneous one, no how. Do what I will, +you can’t be got to fit. Anybody with a passable knowledge would pick +you out at a look, and say,—“No go! Don’t match!”’ + +‘Well, but hang it, Mr Venus,’ Wegg expostulates with some little +irritation, ‘that can’t be personal and peculiar in ME. It must often +happen with miscellaneous ones.’ + +‘With ribs (I grant you) always. But not else. When I prepare a +miscellaneous one, I know beforehand that I can’t keep to nature, and +be miscellaneous with ribs, because every man has his own ribs, and no +other man’s will go with them; but elseways I can be miscellaneous. I +have just sent home a Beauty—a perfect Beauty—to a school of art. One +leg Belgian, one leg English, and the pickings of eight other people in +it. Talk of not being qualified to be miscellaneous! By rights you OUGHT +to be, Mr Wegg.’ + +Silas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim light, and after +a pause sulkily opines ‘that it must be the fault of the other people. +Or how do you mean to say it comes about?’ he demands impatiently. + +‘I don’t know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold the light.’ +Mr Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones of a leg and foot, +beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These he +compares with Mr Wegg’s leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he were +being measured for a riding-boot. ‘No, I don’t know how it is, but so it +is. You have got a twist in that bone, to the best of my belief. I never +saw the likes of you.’ + +Mr Wegg having looked distrustfully at his own limb, and suspiciously at +the pattern with which it has been compared, makes the point: + +‘I’ll bet a pound that ain’t an English one!’ + +‘An easy wager, when we run so much into foreign! No, it belongs to that +French gentleman.’ + +As he nods towards a point of darkness behind Mr Wegg, the latter, with +a slight start, looks round for ‘that French gentleman,’ whom he at +length descries to be represented (in a very workmanlike manner) by his +ribs only, standing on a shelf in another corner, like a piece of armour +or a pair of stays. + +‘Oh!’ says Mr Wegg, with a sort of sense of being introduced; ‘I +dare say you were all right enough in your own country, but I hope no +objections will be taken to my saying that the Frenchman was never yet +born as I should wish to match.’ + +At this moment the greasy door is violently pushed inward, and a boy +follows it, who says, after having let it slam: + +‘Come for the stuffed canary.’ + +‘It’s three and ninepence,’ returns Venus; ‘have you got the money?’ + +The boy produces four shillings. Mr Venus, always in exceedingly low +spirits and making whimpering sounds, peers about for the stuffed +canary. On his taking the candle to assist his search, Mr Wegg observes +that he has a convenient little shelf near his knees, exclusively +appropriated to skeleton hands, which have very much the appearance of +wanting to lay hold of him. From these Mr Venus rescues the canary in a +glass case, and shows it to the boy. + +‘There!’ he whimpers. ‘There’s animation! On a twig, making up his mind +to hop! Take care of him; he’s a lovely specimen.—And three is four.’ + +The boy gathers up his change and has pulled the door open by a leather +strap nailed to it for the purpose, when Venus cries out: + +‘Stop him! Come back, you young villain! You’ve got a tooth among them +halfpence.’ + +‘How was I to know I’d got it? You giv it me. I don’t want none of your +teeth; I’ve got enough of my own.’ So the boy pipes, as he selects it +from his change, and throws it on the counter. + +‘Don’t sauce ME, in the wicious pride of your youth,’ Mr Venus retorts +pathetically. ‘Don’t hit ME because you see I’m down. I’m low enough +without that. It dropped into the till, I suppose. They drop into +everything. There was two in the coffee-pot at breakfast time. Molars.’ + +‘Very well, then,’ argues the boy, ‘what do you call names for?’ + +To which Mr Venus only replies, shaking his shock of dusty hair, and +winking his weak eyes, ‘Don’t sauce ME, in the wicious pride of your +youth; don’t hit ME, because you see I’m down. You’ve no idea how small +you’d come out, if I had the articulating of you.’ + +This consideration seems to have its effect on the boy, for he goes out +grumbling. + +‘Oh dear me, dear me!’ sighs Mr Venus, heavily, snuffing the candle, +‘the world that appeared so flowery has ceased to blow! You’re casting +your eye round the shop, Mr Wegg. Let me show you a light. My working +bench. My young man’s bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, +warious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, +warious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good preservation. +The mouldy ones a-top. What’s in those hampers over them again, I don’t +quite remember. Say, human warious. Cats. Articulated English baby. +Dogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied bird. Dried cuticle, warious. +Oh, dear me! That’s the general panoramic view.’ + +Having so held and waved the candle as that all these heterogeneous +objects seemed to come forward obediently when they were named, and +then retire again, Mr Venus despondently repeats, ‘Oh dear me, dear +me!’ resumes his seat, and with drooping despondency upon him, falls to +pouring himself out more tea. + +‘Where am I?’ asks Mr Wegg. + +‘You’re somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir; and speaking +quite candidly, I wish I’d never bought you of the Hospital Porter.’ + +‘Now, look here, what did you give for me?’ + +‘Well,’ replies Venus, blowing his tea: his head and face peering out +of the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were modernizing the old +original rise in his family: ‘you were one of a warious lot, and I don’t +know.’ + +Silas puts his point in the improved form of ‘What will you take for +me?’ + +‘Well,’ replies Venus, still blowing his tea, ‘I’m not prepared, at a +moment’s notice, to tell you, Mr Wegg.’ + +‘Come! According to your own account I’m not worth much,’ Wegg reasons +persuasively. + +‘Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr Wegg; but you might +turn out valuable yet, as a—’ here Mr Venus takes a gulp of tea, so +hot that it makes him choke, and sets his weak eyes watering; ‘as a +Monstrosity, if you’ll excuse me.’ + +Repressing an indignant look, indicative of anything but a disposition +to excuse him, Silas pursues his point. + +‘I think you know me, Mr Venus, and I think you know I never bargain.’ + +Mr Venus takes gulps of hot tea, shutting his eyes at every gulp, and +opening them again in a spasmodic manner; but does not commit himself to +assent. + +‘I have a prospect of getting on in life and elevating myself by my own +independent exertions,’ says Wegg, feelingly, ‘and I shouldn’t like—I +tell you openly I should NOT like—under such circumstances, to be what +I may call dispersed, a part of me here, and a part of me there, but +should wish to collect myself like a genteel person.’ + +‘It’s a prospect at present, is it, Mr Wegg? Then you haven’t got the +money for a deal about you? Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you; +I’ll hold you over. I am a man of my word, and you needn’t be afraid of +my disposing of you. I’ll hold you over. That’s a promise. Oh dear me, +dear me!’ + +Fain to accept his promise, and wishing to propitiate him, Mr Wegg looks +on as he sighs and pours himself out more tea, and then says, trying to +get a sympathetic tone into his voice: + +‘You seem very low, Mr Venus. Is business bad?’ + +‘Never was so good.’ + +‘Is your hand out at all?’ + +‘Never was so well in. Mr Wegg, I’m not only first in the trade, but I’m +THE trade. You may go and buy a skeleton at the West End if you like, +and pay the West End price, but it’ll be my putting together. I’ve as +much to do as I can possibly do, with the assistance of my young man, +and I take a pride and a pleasure in it.’ + +Mr Venus thus delivers himself, his right hand extended, his smoking +saucer in his left hand, protesting as though he were going to burst +into a flood of tears. + +‘That ain’t a state of things to make you low, Mr Venus.’ + +‘Mr Wegg, I know it ain’t. Mr Wegg, not to name myself as a workman +without an equal, I’ve gone on improving myself in my knowledge of +Anatomy, till both by sight and by name I’m perfect. Mr Wegg, if you was +brought here loose in a bag to be articulated, I’d name your smallest +bones blindfold equally with your largest, as fast as I could pick ’em +out, and I’d sort ’em all, and sort your wertebrae, in a manner that +would equally surprise and charm you.’ + +‘Well,’ remarks Silas (though not quite so readily as last time), ‘THAT +ain’t a state of things to be low about.—Not for YOU to be low about, +leastways.’ + +‘Mr Wegg, I know it ain’t; Mr Wegg, I know it ain’t. But it’s the heart +that lowers me, it is the heart! Be so good as take and read that card +out loud.’ + +Silas receives one from his hand, which Venus takes from a wonderful +litter in a drawer, and putting on his spectacles, reads: + +‘“Mr Venus,”’ + +‘Yes. Go on.’ + +‘“Preserver of Animals and Birds,”’ + +‘Yes. Go on.’ + +‘“Articulator of human bones.”’ + +‘That’s it,’ with a groan. ‘That’s it! Mr Wegg, I’m thirty-two, and a +bachelor. Mr Wegg, I love her. Mr Wegg, she is worthy of being loved by +a Potentate!’ Here Silas is rather alarmed by Mr Venus’s springing to +his feet in the hurry of his spirits, and haggardly confronting him with +his hand on his coat collar; but Mr Venus, begging pardon, sits down +again, saying, with the calmness of despair, ‘She objects to the +business.’ + +‘Does she know the profits of it?’ + +‘She knows the profits of it, but she don’t appreciate the art of +it, and she objects to it. “I do not wish,” she writes in her own +handwriting, “to regard myself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boney +light”.’ + +Mr Venus pours himself out more tea, with a look and in an attitude of +the deepest desolation. + +‘And so a man climbs to the top of the tree, Mr Wegg, only to see that +there’s no look-out when he’s up there! I sit here of a night surrounded +by the lovely trophies of my art, and what have they done for me? Ruined +me. Brought me to the pass of being informed that “she does not wish to +regard herself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boney light”!’ Having +repeated the fatal expressions, Mr Venus drinks more tea by gulps, and +offers an explanation of his doing so. + +‘It lowers me. When I’m equally lowered all over, lethargy sets in. By +sticking to it till one or two in the morning, I get oblivion. Don’t let +me detain you, Mr Wegg. I’m not company for any one.’ + +‘It is not on that account,’ says Silas, rising, ‘but because I’ve got +an appointment. It’s time I was at Harmon’s.’ + +‘Eh?’ said Mr Venus. ‘Harmon’s, up Battle Bridge way?’ + +Mr Wegg admits that he is bound for that port. + +‘You ought to be in a good thing, if you’ve worked yourself in there. +There’s lots of money going, there.’ + +‘To think,’ says Silas, ‘that you should catch it up so quick, and know +about it. Wonderful!’ + +‘Not at all, Mr Wegg. The old gentleman wanted to know the nature and +worth of everything that was found in the dust; and many’s the bone, and +feather, and what not, that he’s brought to me.’ + +‘Really, now!’ + +‘Yes. (Oh dear me, dear me!) And he’s buried quite in this +neighbourhood, you know. Over yonder.’ + +Mr Wegg does not know, but he makes as if he did, by responsively +nodding his head. He also follows with his eyes, the toss of Venus’s +head: as if to seek a direction to over yonder. + +‘I took an interest in that discovery in the river,’ says Venus. +‘(She hadn’t written her cutting refusal at that time.) I’ve got up +there—never mind, though.’ + +He had raised the candle at arm’s length towards one of the dark +shelves, and Mr Wegg had turned to look, when he broke off. + +‘The old gentleman was well known all round here. There used to be +stories about his having hidden all kinds of property in those dust +mounds. I suppose there was nothing in ’em. Probably you know, Mr Wegg?’ + +‘Nothing in ’em,’ says Wegg, who has never heard a word of this before. + +‘Don’t let me detain you. Good night!’ + +The unfortunate Mr Venus gives him a shake of the hand with a shake of +his own head, and drooping down in his chair, proceeds to pour himself +out more tea. Mr Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls the +door open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes the crazy +shop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the candle, as that the +babies—Hindoo, African, and British—the ‘human warious’, the French +gentleman, the green glass-eyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and all +the rest of the collection, show for an instant as if paralytically +animated; while even poor little Cock Robin at Mr Venus’s elbow turns +over on his innocent side. Next moment, Mr Wegg is stumping under the +gaslights and through the mud. + + + + +Chapter 8 + +MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION + + +Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date of +this history, and had wandered disconsolate about the Temple until he +stumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal windows +commanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of them +all he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grand +comprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk, +common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement +and department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called in +the newspapers eminent solicitor. + +Mr Boffin having been several times in communication with this clerkly +essence, both on its own ground and at the Bower, had no difficulty in +identifying it when he saw it up in its dusty eyrie. To the second floor +on which the window was situated, he ascended, much pre-occupied in mind +by the uncertainties besetting the Roman Empire, and much regretting the +death of the amiable Pertinax: who only last night had left the Imperial +affairs in a state of great confusion, by falling a victim to the fury +of the praetorian guards. + +‘Morning, morning, morning!’ said Mr Boffin, with a wave of his hand, as +the office door was opened by the dismal boy, whose appropriate name was +Blight. ‘Governor in?’ + +‘Mr Lightwood gave you an appointment, sir, I think?’ + +‘I don’t want him to give it, you know,’ returned Mr Boffin; ‘I’ll pay +my way, my boy.’ + +‘No doubt, sir. Would you walk in? Mr Lightwood ain’t in at the present +moment, but I expect him back very shortly. Would you take a seat in Mr +Lightwood’s room, sir, while I look over our Appointment Book?’ +Young Blight made a great show of fetching from his desk a long thin +manuscript volume with a brown paper cover, and running his finger down +the day’s appointments, murmuring, ‘Mr Aggs, Mr Baggs, Mr Caggs, Mr +Daggs, Mr Faggs, Mr Gaggs, Mr Boffin. Yes, sir; quite right. You are a +little before your time, sir. Mr Lightwood will be in directly.’ + +‘I’m not in a hurry,’ said Mr Boffin + +‘Thank you, sir. I’ll take the opportunity, if you please, of entering +your name in our Callers’ Book for the day.’ Young Blight made another +great show of changing the volume, taking up a pen, sucking it, dipping +it, and running over previous entries before he wrote. As, ‘Mr Alley, +Mr Balley, Mr Calley, Mr Dalley, Mr Falley, Mr Galley, Mr Halley, Mr +Lalley, Mr Malley. And Mr Boffin.’ + +‘Strict system here; eh, my lad?’ said Mr Boffin, as he was booked. + +‘Yes, sir,’ returned the boy. ‘I couldn’t get on without it.’ + +By which he probably meant that his mind would have been shattered to +pieces without this fiction of an occupation. Wearing in his solitary +confinement no fetters that he could polish, and being provided with no +drinking-cup that he could carve, he had fallen on the device of ringing +alphabetical changes into the two volumes in question, or of entering +vast numbers of persons out of the Directory as transacting business +with Mr Lightwood. It was the more necessary for his spirits, because, +being of a sensitive temperament, he was apt to consider it personally +disgraceful to himself that his master had no clients. + +‘How long have you been in the law, now?’ asked Mr Boffin, with a +pounce, in his usual inquisitive way. + +‘I’ve been in the law, now, sir, about three years.’ + +‘Must have been as good as born in it!’ said Mr Boffin, with admiration. +‘Do you like it?’ + +‘I don’t mind it much,’ returned Young Blight, heaving a sigh, as if its +bitterness were past. + +‘What wages do you get?’ + +‘Half what I could wish,’ replied young Blight. + +‘What’s the whole that you could wish?’ + +‘Fifteen shillings a week,’ said the boy. + +‘About how long might it take you now, at a average rate of going, to be +a Judge?’ asked Mr Boffin, after surveying his small stature in silence. + +The boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out that little +calculation. + +‘I suppose there’s nothing to prevent your going in for it?’ said Mr +Boffin. + +The boy virtually replied that as he had the honour to be a Briton who +never never never, there was nothing to prevent his going in for it. Yet +he seemed inclined to suspect that there might be something to prevent +his coming out with it. + +‘Would a couple of pound help you up at all?’ asked Mr Boffin. + +On this head, young Blight had no doubt whatever, so Mr Boffin made him +a present of that sum of money, and thanked him for his attention to his +(Mr Boffin’s) affairs; which, he added, were now, he believed, as good +as settled. + +Then Mr Boffin, with his stick at his ear, like a Familiar Spirit +explaining the office to him, sat staring at a little bookcase of Law +Practice and Law Reports, and at a window, and at an empty blue bag, and +at a stick of sealing-wax, and a pen, and a box of wafers, and an apple, +and a writing-pad—all very dusty—and at a number of inky smears +and blots, and at an imperfectly-disguised gun-case pretending to be +something legal, and at an iron box labelled HARMON ESTATE, until Mr +Lightwood appeared. + +Mr Lightwood explained that he came from the proctor’s, with whom he had +been engaged in transacting Mr Boffin’s affairs. + +‘And they seem to have taken a deal out of you!’ said Mr Boffin, with +commiseration. + +Mr Lightwood, without explaining that his weariness was chronic, +proceeded with his exposition that, all forms of law having been at +length complied with, will of Harmon deceased having been proved, death +of Harmon next inheriting having been proved, &c., and so forth, Court +of Chancery having been moved, &c. and so forth, he, Mr Lightwood, had +now the gratification, honour, and happiness, again &c. and so forth, of +congratulating Mr Boffin on coming into possession as residuary legatee, +of upwards of one hundred thousand pounds, standing in the books of the +Governor and Company of the Bank of England, again &c. and so forth. + +‘And what is particularly eligible in the property Mr Boffin, is, that +it involves no trouble. There are no estates to manage, no rents to +return so much per cent upon in bad times (which is an extremely dear +way of getting your name into the newspapers), no voters to become +parboiled in hot water with, no agents to take the cream off the +milk before it comes to table. You could put the whole in a cash-box +to-morrow morning, and take it with you to—say, to the Rocky Mountains. +Inasmuch as every man,’ concluded Mr Lightwood, with an indolent smile, +‘appears to be under a fatal spell which obliges him, sooner or later, +to mention the Rocky Mountains in a tone of extreme familiarity to some +other man, I hope you’ll excuse my pressing you into the service of that +gigantic range of geographical bores.’ + +Without following this last remark very closely, Mr Boffin cast his +perplexed gaze first at the ceiling, and then at the carpet. + +‘Well,’ he remarked, ‘I don’t know what to say about it, I am sure. I +was a’most as well as I was. It’s a great lot to take care of.’ + +‘My dear Mr Boffin, then DON’T take care of it!’ + +‘Eh?’ said that gentleman. + +‘Speaking now,’ returned Mortimer, ‘with the irresponsible imbecility +of a private individual, and not with the profundity of a professional +adviser, I should say that if the circumstance of its being too much, +weighs upon your mind, you have the haven of consolation open to you +that you can easily make it less. And if you should be apprehensive of +the trouble of doing so, there is the further haven of consolation that +any number of people will take the trouble off your hands.’ + +‘Well! I don’t quite see it,’ retorted Mr Boffin, still perplexed. +‘That’s not satisfactory, you know, what you’re a-saying.’ + +‘Is Anything satisfactory, Mr Boffin?’ asked Mortimer, raising his +eyebrows. + +‘I used to find it so,’ answered Mr Boffin, with a wistful look. ‘While +I was foreman at the Bower—afore it WAS the Bower—I considered the +business very satisfactory. The old man was a awful Tartar (saying +it, I’m sure, without disrespect to his memory) but the business was +a pleasant one to look after, from before daylight to past dark. It’s +a’most a pity,’ said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear, ‘that he ever went and +made so much money. It would have been better for him if he hadn’t so +given himself up to it. You may depend upon it,’ making the discovery +all of a sudden, ‘that HE found it a great lot to take care of!’ + +Mr Lightwood coughed, not convinced. + +‘And speaking of satisfactory,’ pursued Mr Boffin, ‘why, Lord save +us! when we come to take it to pieces, bit by bit, where’s the +satisfactoriness of the money as yet? When the old man does right the +poor boy after all, the poor boy gets no good of it. He gets made away +with, at the moment when he’s lifting (as one may say) the cup and +sarser to his lips. Mr Lightwood, I will now name to you, that on behalf +of the poor dear boy, me and Mrs Boffin have stood out against the old +man times out of number, till he has called us every name he could lay +his tongue to. I have seen him, after Mrs Boffin has given him her mind +respecting the claims of the nat’ral affections, catch off Mrs Boffin’s +bonnet (she wore, in general, a black straw, perched as a matter of +convenience on the top of her head), and send it spinning across +the yard. I have indeed. And once, when he did this in a manner that +amounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for himself, if +Mrs Boffin hadn’t thrown herself betwixt us, and received flush on the +temple. Which dropped her, Mr Lightwood. Dropped her.’ + +Mr Lightwood murmured ‘Equal honour—Mrs Boffin’s head and heart.’ + +‘You understand; I name this,’ pursued Mr Boffin, ‘to show you, now the +affairs are wound up, that me and Mrs Boffin have ever stood as we were +in Christian honour bound, the children’s friend. Me and Mrs Boffin +stood the poor girl’s friend; me and Mrs Boffin stood the poor boy’s +friend; me and Mrs Boffin up and faced the old man when we momently +expected to be turned out for our pains. As to Mrs Boffin,’ said Mr +Boffin lowering his voice, ‘she mightn’t wish it mentioned now she’s +Fashionable, but she went so far as to tell him, in my presence, he was +a flinty-hearted rascal.’ + +Mr Lightwood murmured ‘Vigorous Saxon spirit—Mrs Boffin’s +ancestors—bowmen—Agincourt and Cressy.’ + +‘The last time me and Mrs Boffin saw the poor boy,’ said Mr Boffin, +warming (as fat usually does) with a tendency to melt, ‘he was a child +of seven year old. For when he came back to make intercession for his +sister, me and Mrs Boffin were away overlooking a country contract which +was to be sifted before carted, and he was come and gone in a single +hour. I say he was a child of seven year old. He was going away, all +alone and forlorn, to that foreign school, and he come into our place, +situate up the yard of the present Bower, to have a warm at our fire. +There was his little scanty travelling clothes upon him. There was his +little scanty box outside in the shivering wind, which I was going to +carry for him down to the steamboat, as the old man wouldn’t hear of +allowing a sixpence coach-money. Mrs Boffin, then quite a young woman +and pictur of a full-blown rose, stands him by her, kneels down at the +fire, warms her two open hands, and falls to rubbing his cheeks; but +seeing the tears come into the child’s eyes, the tears come fast into +her own, and she holds him round the neck, like as if she was protecting +him, and cries to me, “I’d give the wide wide world, I would, to run +away with him!” I don’t say but what it cut me, and but what it at the +same time heightened my feelings of admiration for Mrs Boffin. The poor +child clings to her for awhile, as she clings to him, and then, when +the old man calls, he says “I must go! God bless you!” and for a moment +rests his heart against her bosom, and looks up at both of us, as if it +was in pain—in agony. Such a look! I went aboard with him (I gave him +first what little treat I thought he’d like), and I left him when he had +fallen asleep in his berth, and I came back to Mrs Boffin. But tell +her what I would of how I had left him, it all went for nothing, for, +according to her thoughts, he never changed that look that he had looked +up at us two. But it did one piece of good. Mrs Boffin and me had no +child of our own, and had sometimes wished that how we had one. But not +now. “We might both of us die,” says Mrs Boffin, “and other eyes might +see that lonely look in our child.” So of a night, when it was very +cold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, she would +wake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, “Don’t you see the poor child’s +face? O shelter the poor child!”—till in course of years it gently wore +out, as many things do.’ + +‘My dear Mr Boffin, everything wears to rags,’ said Mortimer, with a +light laugh. + +‘I won’t go so far as to say everything,’ returned Mr Boffin, on whom +his manner seemed to grate, ‘because there’s some things that I never +found among the dust. Well, sir. So Mrs Boffin and me grow older and +older in the old man’s service, living and working pretty hard in it, +till the old man is discovered dead in his bed. Then Mrs Boffin and me +seal up his box, always standing on the table at the side of his bed, +and having frequently heerd tell of the Temple as a spot where lawyer’s +dust is contracted for, I come down here in search of a lawyer to +advise, and I see your young man up at this present elevation, chopping +at the flies on the window-sill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy! +not then having the pleasure of your acquaintance, and by that +means come to gain the honour. Then you, and the gentleman in the +uncomfortable neck-cloth under the little archway in Saint Paul’s +Churchyard—’ + +‘Doctors’ Commons,’ observed Lightwood. + +‘I understood it was another name,’ said Mr Boffin, pausing, ‘but you +know best. Then you and Doctor Scommons, you go to work, and you do the +thing that’s proper, and you and Doctor S. take steps for finding out +the poor boy, and at last you do find out the poor boy, and me and Mrs +Boffin often exchange the observation, “We shall see him again, +under happy circumstances.” But it was never to be; and the want of +satisfactoriness is, that after all the money never gets to him.’ + +‘But it gets,’ remarked Lightwood, with a languid inclination of the +head, ‘into excellent hands.’ + +‘It gets into the hands of me and Mrs Boffin only this very day and +hour, and that’s what I am working round to, having waited for this day +and hour a’ purpose. Mr Lightwood, here has been a wicked cruel +murder. By that murder me and Mrs Boffin mysteriously profit. For the +apprehension and conviction of the murderer, we offer a reward of one +tithe of the property—a reward of Ten Thousand Pound.’ + +‘Mr Boffin, it’s too much.’ + +‘Mr Lightwood, me and Mrs Boffin have fixed the sum together, and we +stand to it.’ + +‘But let me represent to you,’ returned Lightwood, ‘speaking now with +professional profundity, and not with individual imbecility, that the +offer of such an immense reward is a temptation to forced suspicion, +forced construction of circumstances, strained accusation, a whole +tool-box of edged tools.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr Boffin, a little staggered, ‘that’s the sum we put o’ +one side for the purpose. Whether it shall be openly declared in the new +notices that must now be put about in our names—’ + +‘In your name, Mr Boffin; in your name.’ + +‘Very well; in my name, which is the same as Mrs Boffin’s, and means +both of us, is to be considered in drawing ’em up. But this is the first +instruction that I, as the owner of the property, give to my lawyer on +coming into it.’ + +‘Your lawyer, Mr Boffin,’ returned Lightwood, making a very short +note of it with a very rusty pen, ‘has the gratification of taking the +instruction. There is another?’ + +‘There is just one other, and no more. Make me as compact a little will +as can be reconciled with tightness, leaving the whole of the property +to “my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole executrix”. Make it as +short as you can, using those words; but make it tight.’ + +At some loss to fathom Mr Boffin’s notions of a tight will, Lightwood +felt his way. + +‘I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be exact. When you +say tight—’ + +‘I mean tight,’ Mr Boffin explained. + +‘Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But is the tightness to +bind Mrs Boffin to any and what conditions?’ + +‘Bind Mrs Boffin?’ interposed her husband. ‘No! What are you thinking +of! What I want is, to make it all hers so tight as that her hold of it +can’t be loosed.’ + +‘Hers freely, to do what she likes with? Hers absolutely?’ + +‘Absolutely?’ repeated Mr Boffin, with a short sturdy laugh. ‘Hah! I +should think so! It would be handsome in me to begin to bind Mrs Boffin +at this time of day!’ + +So that instruction, too, was taken by Mr Lightwood; and Mr Lightwood, +having taken it, was in the act of showing Mr Boffin out, when Mr Eugene +Wrayburn almost jostled him in the door-way. Consequently Mr Lightwood +said, in his cool manner, ‘Let me make you two known to one another,’ +and further signified that Mr Wrayburn was counsel learned in the +law, and that, partly in the way of business and partly in the way of +pleasure, he had imparted to Mr Wrayburn some of the interesting facts +of Mr Boffin’s biography. + +‘Delighted,’ said Eugene—though he didn’t look so—‘to know Mr Boffin.’ + +‘Thankee, sir, thankee,’ returned that gentleman. ‘And how do YOU like +the law?’ + +‘A—not particularly,’ returned Eugene. + +‘Too dry for you, eh? Well, I suppose it wants some years of sticking +to, before you master it. But there’s nothing like work. Look at the +bees.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, ‘but will +you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to +the bees?’ + +‘Do you!’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘I object on principle,’ said Eugene, ‘as a biped—’ + +‘As a what?’ asked Mr Boffin. + +‘As a two-footed creature;—I object on principle, as a two-footed +creature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed +creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according +to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. +I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate +person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I +have only one. Besides, I am not fitted up with a convenient cool cellar +to keep my drink in.’ + +‘But I said, you know,’ urged Mr Boffin, rather at a loss for an answer, +‘the bee.’ + +‘Exactly. And may I represent to you that it’s injudicious to say the +bee? For the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a moment that there is +any analogy between a bee, and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (which +I deny), and that it is settled that the man is to learn from the bee +(which I also deny), the question still remains, what is he to learn? +To imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends the bees worry themselves to +that highly fluttered extent about their sovereign, and become perfectly +distracted touching the slightest monarchical movement, are we men to +learn the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the +Court Circular? I am not clear, Mr Boffin, but that the hive may be +satirical.’ + +‘At all events, they work,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘Ye-es,’ returned Eugene, disparagingly, ‘they work; but don’t you think +they overdo it? They work so much more than they need—they make so much +more than they can eat—they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at +their one idea till Death comes upon them—that don’t you think they +overdo it? And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of the +bees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don’t? Mr +Boffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast; but, regarded in the light +of my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the +tyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest respect for +you.’ + +‘Thankee,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Morning, morning!’ + +But, the worthy Mr Boffin jogged away with a comfortless impression he +could have dispensed with, that there was a deal of unsatisfactoriness +in the world, besides what he had recalled as appertaining to the Harmon +property. And he was still jogging along Fleet Street in this condition +of mind, when he became aware that he was closely tracked and observed +by a man of genteel appearance. + +‘Now then?’ said Mr Boffin, stopping short, with his meditations brought +to an abrupt check, ‘what’s the next article?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr Boffin.’ + +‘My name too, eh? How did you come by it? I don’t know you.’ + +‘No, sir, you don’t know me.’ + +Mr Boffin looked full at the man, and the man looked full at him. + +‘No,’ said Mr Boffin, after a glance at the pavement, as if it were made +of faces and he were trying to match the man’s, ‘I DON’T know you.’ + +‘I am nobody,’ said the stranger, ‘and not likely to be known; but Mr +Boffin’s wealth—’ + +‘Oh! that’s got about already, has it?’ muttered Mr Boffin. + +‘—And his romantic manner of acquiring it, make him conspicuous. You +were pointed out to me the other day.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘I should say I was a disappintment to you when +I WAS pinted out, if your politeness would allow you to confess it, for +I am well aware I am not much to look at. What might you want with me? +Not in the law, are you?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘No information to give, for a reward?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +There may have been a momentary mantling in the face of the man as he +made the last answer, but it passed directly. + +‘If I don’t mistake, you have followed me from my lawyer’s and tried +to fix my attention. Say out! Have you? Or haven’t you?’ demanded Mr +Boffin, rather angry. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Why have you?’ + +‘If you will allow me to walk beside you, Mr Boffin, I will tell you. +Would you object to turn aside into this place—I think it is called +Clifford’s Inn—where we can hear one another better than in the roaring +street?’ + +(‘Now,’ thought Mr Boffin, ‘if he proposes a game at skittles, or meets +a country gentleman just come into property, or produces any article +of jewellery he has found, I’ll knock him down!’ With this discreet +reflection, and carrying his stick in his arms much as Punch carries +his, Mr Boffin turned into Clifford’s Inn aforesaid.) + +‘Mr Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this morning, when I saw +you going along before me. I took the liberty of following you, trying +to make up my mind to speak to you, till you went into your lawyer’s. +Then I waited outside till you came out.’ + +(‘Don’t quite sound like skittles, nor yet country gentleman, nor yet +jewellery,’ thought Mr Boffin, ‘but there’s no knowing.’) + +‘I am afraid my object is a bold one, I am afraid it has little of the +usual practical world about it, but I venture it. If you ask me, or if +you ask yourself—which is more likely—what emboldens me, I answer, I +have been strongly assured, that you are a man of rectitude and plain +dealing, with the soundest of sound hearts, and that you are blessed in +a wife distinguished by the same qualities.’ + +‘Your information is true of Mrs Boffin, anyhow,’ was Mr Boffin’s +answer, as he surveyed his new friend again. There was something +repressed in the strange man’s manner, and he walked with his eyes +on the ground—though conscious, for all that, of Mr Boffin’s +observation—and he spoke in a subdued voice. But his words came easily, +and his voice was agreeable in tone, albeit constrained. + +‘When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue says of +you—that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, and not uplifted—I trust +you will not, as a man of an open nature, suspect that I mean to flatter +you, but will believe that all I mean is to excuse myself, these being +my only excuses for my present intrusion.’ + +(‘How much?’ thought Mr Boffin. ‘It must be coming to money. How much?’) + +‘You will probably change your manner of living, Mr Boffin, in your +changed circumstances. You will probably keep a larger house, have many +matters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of correspondents. If you +would try me as your Secretary—’ + +‘As WHAT?’ cried Mr Boffin, with his eyes wide open. + +‘Your Secretary.’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr Boffin, under his breath, ‘that’s a queer thing!’ + +‘Or,’ pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr Boffin’s wonder, ‘if you +would try me as your man of business under any name, I know you would +find me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. You +may naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, for +I would willingly serve you a year—two years—any term you might +appoint—before that should begin to be a consideration between us.’ + +‘Where do you come from?’ asked Mr Boffin. + +‘I come,’ returned the other, meeting his eye, ‘from many countries.’ + +Boffin’s acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign lands +being limited in extent and somewhat confused in quality, he shaped his +next question on an elastic model. + +‘From—any particular place?’ + +‘I have been in many places.’ + +‘What have you been?’ asked Mr Boffin. + +Here again he made no great advance, for the reply was, ‘I have been a +student and a traveller.’ + +‘But if it ain’t a liberty to plump it out,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘what do +you do for your living?’ + +‘I have mentioned,’ returned the other, with another look at him, and +a smile, ‘what I aspire to do. I have been superseded as to some slight +intentions I had, and I may say that I have now to begin life.’ + +Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling the +more embarrassed because his manner and appearance claimed a delicacy +in which the worthy Mr Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that +gentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or cat-preserve, of +Clifford’s Inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows +were there, cats were there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was +not otherwise a suggestive spot. + +‘All this time,’ said the stranger, producing a little pocket-book and +taking out a card, ‘I have not mentioned my name. My name is Rokesmith. +I lodge at one Mr Wilfer’s, at Holloway.’ + +Mr Boffin stared again. + +‘Father of Miss Bella Wilfer?’ said he. + +‘My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt.’ + +Now, this name had been more or less in Mr Boffin’s thoughts all the +morning, and for days before; therefore he said: + +‘That’s singular, too!’ unconsciously staring again, past all bounds of +good manners, with the card in his hand. ‘Though, by-the-bye, I suppose +it was one of that family that pinted me out?’ + +‘No. I have never been in the streets with one of them.’ + +‘Heard me talked of among ’em, though?’ + +‘No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely any communication +with them.’ + +‘Odder and odder!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I +don’t know what to say to you.’ + +‘Say nothing,’ returned Mr Rokesmith; ‘allow me to call on you in a few +days. I am not so unconscionable as to think it likely that you would +accept me on trust at first sight, and take me out of the very street. +Let me come to you for your further opinion, at your leisure.’ + +‘That’s fair, and I don’t object,’ said Mr Boffin; ‘but it must be on +condition that it’s fully understood that I no more know that I shall +ever be in want of any gentleman as Secretary—it WAS Secretary you +said; wasn’t it?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +Again Mr Boffin’s eyes opened wide, and he stared at the applicant from +head to foot, repeating ‘Queer!—You’re sure it was Secretary? Are you?’ + +‘I am sure I said so.’ + +—‘As Secretary,’ repeated Mr Boffin, meditating upon the word; ‘I no +more know that I may ever want a Secretary, or what not, than I do that +I shall ever be in want of the man in the moon. Me and Mrs Boffin have +not even settled that we shall make any change in our way of life. Mrs +Boffin’s inclinations certainly do tend towards Fashion; but, being +already set up in a fashionable way at the Bower, she may not make +further alterations. However, sir, as you don’t press yourself, I wish +to meet you so far as saying, by all means call at the Bower if you +like. Call in the course of a week or two. At the same time, I consider +that I ought to name, in addition to what I have already named, that I +have in my employment a literary man—WITH a wooden leg—as I have no +thoughts of parting from.’ + +‘I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated,’ Mr Rokesmith answered, +evidently having heard it with surprise; ‘but perhaps other duties might +arise?’ + +‘You see,’ returned Mr Boffin, with a confidential sense of dignity, ‘as +to my literary man’s duties, they’re clear. Professionally he declines +and he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.’ + +Without observing that these duties seemed by no means clear to Mr +Rokesmith’s astonished comprehension, Mr Boffin went on: + +‘And now, sir, I’ll wish you good-day. You can call at the Bower any +time in a week or two. It’s not above a mile or so from you, and your +landlord can direct you to it. But as he may not know it by its new +name of Boffin’s Bower, say, when you inquire of him, it’s Harmon’s; +will you?’ + +‘Harmoon’s,’ repeated Mr Rokesmith, seeming to have caught the sound +imperfectly, ‘Harmarn’s. How do you spell it?’ + +‘Why, as to the spelling of it,’ returned Mr Boffin, with great presence +of mind, ‘that’s YOUR look out. Harmon’s is all you’ve got to say to +HIM. Morning, morning, morning!’ And so departed, without looking back. + + + + +Chapter 9 + +MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION + + +Betaking himself straight homeward, Mr Boffin, without further let or +hindrance, arrived at the Bower, and gave Mrs Boffin (in a walking dress +of black velvet and feathers, like a mourning coach-horse) an account of +all he had said and done since breakfast. + +‘This brings us round, my dear,’ he then pursued, ‘to the question +we left unfinished: namely, whether there’s to be any new go-in for +Fashion.’ + +‘Now, I’ll tell you what I want, Noddy,’ said Mrs Boffin, smoothing her +dress with an air of immense enjoyment, ‘I want Society.’ + +‘Fashionable Society, my dear?’ + +‘Yes!’ cried Mrs Boffin, laughing with the glee of a child. ‘Yes! It’s +no good my being kept here like Wax-Work; is it now?’ + +‘People have to pay to see Wax-Work, my dear,’ returned her husband, +‘whereas (though you’d be cheap at the same money) the neighbours is +welcome to see YOU for nothing.’ + +‘But it don’t answer,’ said the cheerful Mrs Boffin. ‘When we worked +like the neighbours, we suited one another. Now we have left work off; +we have left off suiting one another.’ + +‘What, do you think of beginning work again?’ Mr Boffin hinted. + +‘Out of the question! We have come into a great fortune, and we must do +what’s right by our fortune; we must act up to it.’ + +Mr Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife’s intuitive wisdom, +replied, though rather pensively: ‘I suppose we must.’ + +‘It’s never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no good has come of +it,’ said Mrs Boffin. + +‘True, to the present time,’ Mr Boffin assented, with his former +pensiveness, as he took his seat upon his settle. ‘I hope good may be +coming of it in the future time. Towards which, what’s your views, old +lady?’ + +Mrs Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple of nature, +with her hands folded in her lap, and with buxom creases in her throat, +proceeded to expound her views. + +‘I say, a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things about us, +good living, and good society. I say, live like our means, without +extravagance, and be happy.’ + +‘Yes. I say be happy, too,’ assented the still pensive Mr Boffin. +‘Lor-a-mussy!’ exclaimed Mrs Boffin, laughing and clapping her hands, +and gaily rocking herself to and fro, ‘when I think of me in a light +yellow chariot and pair, with silver boxes to the wheels—’ + +‘Oh! you was thinking of that, was you, my dear?’ + +‘Yes!’ cried the delighted creature. ‘And with a footman up behind, with +a bar across, to keep his legs from being poled! And with a coachman +up in front, sinking down into a seat big enough for three of him, all +covered with upholstery in green and white! And with two bay horses +tossing their heads and stepping higher than they trot long-ways! And +with you and me leaning back inside, as grand as ninepence! Oh-h-h-h My! +Ha ha ha ha ha!’ + +Mrs Boffin clapped her hands again, rocked herself again, beat her feet +upon the floor, and wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. + +‘And what, my old lady,’ inquired Mr Boffin, when he also had +sympathetically laughed: ‘what’s your views on the subject of the +Bower?’ + +‘Shut it up. Don’t part with it, but put somebody in it, to keep it.’ + +‘Any other views?’ + +‘Noddy,’ said Mrs Boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to his side +on the plain settle, and hooking her comfortable arm through his, +‘Next I think—and I really have been thinking early and late—of the +disappointed girl; her that was so cruelly disappointed, you know, both +of her husband and his riches. Don’t you think we might do something for +her? Have her to live with us? Or something of that sort?’ + +‘Ne-ver once thought of the way of doing it!’ cried Mr Boffin, smiting +the table in his admiration. ‘What a thinking steam-ingein this old lady +is. And she don’t know how she does it. Neither does the ingein!’ + +Mrs Boffin pulled his nearest ear, in acknowledgment of this piece of +philosophy, and then said, gradually toning down to a motherly strain: +‘Last, and not least, I have taken a fancy. You remember dear little +John Harmon, before he went to school? Over yonder across the yard, at +our fire? Now that he is past all benefit of the money, and it’s come to +us, I should like to find some orphan child, and take the boy and adopt +him and give him John’s name, and provide for him. Somehow, it would +make me easier, I fancy. Say it’s only a whim—’ + +‘But I don’t say so,’ interposed her husband. + +‘No, but deary, if you did—’ + +‘I should be a Beast if I did,’ her husband interposed again. + +‘That’s as much as to say you agree? Good and kind of you, and like you, +deary! And don’t you begin to find it pleasant now,’ said Mrs Boffin, +once more radiant in her comely way from head to foot, and once more +smoothing her dress with immense enjoyment, ‘don’t you begin to find +it pleasant already, to think that a child will be made brighter, and +better, and happier, because of that poor sad child that day? And isn’t +it pleasant to know that the good will be done with the poor sad child’s +own money?’ + +‘Yes; and it’s pleasant to know that you are Mrs Boffin,’ said her +husband, ‘and it’s been a pleasant thing to know this many and many a +year!’ It was ruin to Mrs Boffin’s aspirations, but, having so spoken, +they sat side by side, a hopelessly Unfashionable pair. + +These two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves so far on +in their journey of life, by a religious sense of duty and desire to do +right. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities might have been detected +in the breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, in +the breast of the woman. But the hard wrathful and sordid nature that +had wrung as much work out of them as could be got in their best days, +for as little money as could be paid to hurry on their worst, had never +been so warped but that it knew their moral straightness and respected +it. In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, it +had done so. And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at +itself and dies with the doer of it; but Good, never. + +Through his most inveterate purposes, the dead Jailer of Harmony Jail +had known these two faithful servants to be honest and true. While he +raged at them and reviled them for opposing him with the speech of the +honest and true, it had scratched his stony heart, and he had perceived +the powerlessness of all his wealth to buy them if he had addressed +himself to the attempt. So, even while he was their griping taskmaster +and never gave them a good word, he had written their names down in his +will. So, even while it was his daily declaration that he mistrusted all +mankind—and sorely indeed he did mistrust all who bore any resemblance +to himself—he was as certain that these two people, surviving him, +would be trustworthy in all things from the greatest to the least, as he +was that he must surely die. + +Mr and Mrs Boffin, sitting side by side, with Fashion withdrawn to an +immeasurable distance, fell to discussing how they could best find their +orphan. Mrs Boffin suggested advertisement in the newspapers, requesting +orphans answering annexed description to apply at the Bower on a certain +day; but Mr Boffin wisely apprehending obstruction of the neighbouring +thoroughfares by orphan swarms, this course was negatived. Mrs Boffin +next suggested application to their clergyman for a likely orphan. Mr +Boffin thinking better of this scheme, they resolved to call upon the +reverend gentleman at once, and to take the same opportunity of making +acquaintance with Miss Bella Wilfer. In order that these visits might be +visits of state, Mrs Boffin’s equipage was ordered out. + +This consisted of a long hammer-headed old horse, formerly used in the +business, attached to a four-wheeled chaise of the same period, which +had long been exclusively used by the Harmony Jail poultry as the +favourite laying-place of several discreet hens. An unwonted application +of corn to the horse, and of paint and varnish to the carriage, when +both fell in as a part of the Boffin legacy, had made what Mr Boffin +considered a neat turn-out of the whole; and a driver being added, in +the person of a long hammer-headed young man who was a very good match +for the horse, left nothing to be desired. He, too, had been formerly +used in the business, but was now entombed by an honest jobbing tailor +of the district in a perfect Sepulchre of coat and gaiters, sealed with +ponderous buttons. + +Behind this domestic, Mr and Mrs Boffin took their seats in the back +compartment of the vehicle: which was sufficiently commodious, but had +an undignified and alarming tendency, in getting over a rough crossing, +to hiccup itself away from the front compartment. On their being +descried emerging from the gates of the Bower, the neighbourhood turned +out at door and window to salute the Boffins. Among those who were ever +and again left behind, staring after the equipage, were many youthful +spirits, who hailed it in stentorian tones with such congratulations as +‘Nod-dy Bof-fin!’ ‘Bof-fin’s mon-ey!’ ‘Down with the dust, Bof-fin!’ and +other similar compliments. These, the hammer-headed young man took in +such ill part that he often impaired the majesty of the progress by +pulling up short, and making as though he would alight to exterminate +the offenders; a purpose from which he only allowed himself to be +dissuaded after long and lively arguments with his employers. + +At length the Bower district was left behind, and the peaceful dwelling +of the Reverend Frank Milvey was gained. The Reverend Frank Milvey’s +abode was a very modest abode, because his income was a very modest +income. He was officially accessible to every blundering old woman who +had incoherence to bestow upon him, and readily received the Boffins. +He was quite a young man, expensively educated and wretchedly paid, with +quite a young wife and half a dozen quite young children. He was under +the necessity of teaching and translating from the classics, to eke out +his scanty means, yet was generally expected to have more time to spare +than the idlest person in the parish, and more money than the richest. +He accepted the needless inequalities and inconsistencies of his life, +with a kind of conventional submission that was almost slavish; and any +daring layman who would have adjusted such burdens as his, more decently +and graciously, would have had small help from him. + +With a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latent smile that +showed a quick enough observation of Mrs Boffin’s dress, Mr Milvey, in +his little book-room—charged with sounds and cries as though the six +children above were coming down through the ceiling, and the roasting +leg of mutton below were coming up through the floor—listened to Mrs +Boffin’s statement of her want of an orphan. + +‘I think,’ said Mr Milvey, ‘that you have never had a child of your own, +Mr and Mrs Boffin?’ + +Never. + +‘But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I suppose you have +wished for one?’ + +In a general way, yes. + +Mr Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself ‘Those kings and +queens were always wishing for children.’ It occurring to him, perhaps, +that if they had been Curates, their wishes might have tended in the +opposite direction. + +‘I think,’ he pursued, ‘we had better take Mrs Milvey into our Council. +She is indispensable to me. If you please, I’ll call her.’ + +So, Mr Milvey called, ‘Margaretta, my dear!’ and Mrs Milvey came down. +A pretty, bright little woman, something worn by anxiety, who had +repressed many pretty tastes and bright fancies, and substituted in +their stead, schools, soup, flannel, coals, and all the week-day cares +and Sunday coughs of a large population, young and old. As gallantly had +Mr Milvey repressed much in himself that naturally belonged to his old +studies and old fellow-students, and taken up among the poor and their +children with the hard crumbs of life. + +‘Mr and Mrs Boffin, my dear, whose good fortune you have heard of.’ + +Mrs Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, congratulated +them, and was glad to see them. Yet her engaging face, being an open as +well as a perceptive one, was not without her husband’s latent smile. + +‘Mrs Boffin wishes to adopt a little boy, my dear.’ + +Mrs Milvey, looking rather alarmed, her husband added: + +‘An orphan, my dear.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mrs Milvey, reassured for her own little boys. + +‘And I was thinking, Margaretta, that perhaps old Mrs Goody’s grandchild +might answer the purpose. + +‘Oh my DEAR Frank! I DON’T think that would do!’ + +‘No?’ + +‘Oh NO!’ + +The smiling Mrs Boffin, feeling it incumbent on her to take part in the +conversation, and being charmed with the emphatic little wife and her +ready interest, here offered her acknowledgments and inquired what there +was against him? + +‘I DON’T think,’ said Mrs Milvey, glancing at the Reverend Frank, ‘—and +I believe my husband will agree with me when he considers it again—that +you could possibly keep that orphan clean from snuff. Because his +grandmother takes so MANY ounces, and drops it over him.’ + +‘But he would not be living with his grandmother then, Margaretta,’ said +Mr Milvey. + +‘No, Frank, but it would be impossible to keep her from Mrs Boffin’s +house; and the MORE there was to eat and drink there, the oftener she +would go. And she IS an inconvenient woman. I HOPE it’s not uncharitable +to remember that last Christmas Eve she drank eleven cups of tea, and +grumbled all the time. And she is NOT a grateful woman, Frank. You +recollect her addressing a crowd outside this house, about her wrongs, +when, one night after we had gone to bed, she brought back the petticoat +of new flannel that had been given her, because it was too short.’ + +‘That’s true,’ said Mr Milvey. ‘I don’t think that would do. Would +little Harrison—’ + +‘Oh, FRANK!’ remonstrated his emphatic wife. + +‘He has no grandmother, my dear.’ + +‘No, but I DON’T think Mrs Boffin would like an orphan who squints so +MUCH.’ + +‘That’s true again,’ said Mr Milvey, becoming haggard with perplexity. +‘If a little girl would do—’ + +‘But, my DEAR Frank, Mrs Boffin wants a boy.’ + +‘That’s true again,’ said Mr Milvey. ‘Tom Bocker is a nice boy’ +(thoughtfully). + +‘But I DOUBT, Frank,’ Mrs Milvey hinted, after a little hesitation, ‘if +Mrs Boffin wants an orphan QUITE nineteen, who drives a cart and waters +the roads.’ + +Mr Milvey referred the point to Mrs Boffin in a look; on that smiling +lady’s shaking her black velvet bonnet and bows, he remarked, in lower +spirits, ‘that’s true again.’ + +‘I am sure,’ said Mrs Boffin, concerned at giving so much trouble, ‘that +if I had known you would have taken so much pains, sir—and you too, ma’ +am—I don’t think I would have come.’ + +‘PRAY don’t say that!’ urged Mrs Milvey. + +‘No, don’t say that,’ assented Mr Milvey, ‘because we are so much +obliged to you for giving us the preference.’ Which Mrs Milvey +confirmed; and really the kind, conscientious couple spoke, as if they +kept some profitable orphan warehouse and were personally patronized. +‘But it is a responsible trust,’ added Mr Milvey, ‘and difficult to +discharge. At the same time, we are naturally very unwilling to lose the +chance you so kindly give us, and if you could afford us a day or two +to look about us,—you know, Margaretta, we might carefully examine the +workhouse, and the Infant School, and your District.’ + +‘To be SURE!’ said the emphatic little wife. + +‘We have orphans, I know,’ pursued Mr Milvey, quite with the air as if +he might have added, ‘in stock,’ and quite as anxiously as if there were +great competition in the business and he were afraid of losing an order, +‘over at the clay-pits; but they are employed by relations or friends, +and I am afraid it would come at last to a transaction in the way of +barter. And even if you exchanged blankets for the child—or books +and firing—it would be impossible to prevent their being turned into +liquor.’ + +Accordingly, it was resolved that Mr and Mrs Milvey should search for +an orphan likely to suit, and as free as possible from the foregoing +objections, and should communicate again with Mrs Boffin. Then, Mr +Boffin took the liberty of mentioning to Mr Milvey that if Mr Milvey +would do him the kindness to be perpetually his banker to the extent +of ‘a twenty-pound note or so,’ to be expended without any reference +to him, he would be heartily obliged. At this, both Mr Milvey and Mrs +Milvey were quite as much pleased as if they had no wants of their own, +but only knew what poverty was, in the persons of other people; and +so the interview terminated with satisfaction and good opinion on all +sides. + +‘Now, old lady,’ said Mr Boffin, as they resumed their seats behind the +hammer-headed horse and man: ‘having made a very agreeable visit there, +we’ll try Wilfer’s.’ + +It appeared, on their drawing up at the family gate, that to try +Wilfer’s was a thing more easily projected than done, on account of the +extreme difficulty of getting into that establishment; three pulls +at the bell producing no external result; though each was attended +by audible sounds of scampering and rushing within. At the fourth +tug—vindictively administered by the hammer-headed young man—Miss +Lavinia appeared, emerging from the house in an accidental manner, with +a bonnet and parasol, as designing to take a contemplative walk. The +young lady was astonished to find visitors at the gate, and expressed +her feelings in appropriate action. + +‘Here’s Mr and Mrs Boffin!’ growled the hammer-headed young man through +the bars of the gate, and at the same time shaking it, as if he were on +view in a Menagerie; ‘they’ve been here half an hour.’ + +‘Who did you say?’ asked Miss Lavinia. + +‘Mr and Mrs BOFFIN’ returned the young man, rising into a roar. + +Miss Lavinia tripped up the steps to the house-door, tripped down the +steps with the key, tripped across the little garden, and opened the +gate. ‘Please to walk in,’ said Miss Lavinia, haughtily. ‘Our servant is +out.’ + +Mr and Mrs Boffin complying, and pausing in the little hall until Miss +Lavinia came up to show them where to go next, perceived three pairs of +listening legs upon the stairs above. Mrs Wilfer’s legs, Miss Bella’s +legs, Mr George Sampson’s legs. + +‘Mr and Mrs Boffin, I think?’ said Lavinia, in a warning voice. Strained +attention on the part of Mrs Wilfer’s legs, of Miss Bella’s legs, of Mr +George Sampson’s legs. + +‘Yes, Miss.’ + +‘If you’ll step this way—down these stairs—I’ll let Ma know.’ +Excited flight of Mrs Wilfer’s legs, of Miss Bella’s legs, of Mr George +Sampson’s legs. + +After waiting some quarter of an hour alone in the family sitting-room, +which presented traces of having been so hastily arranged after a meal, +that one might have doubted whether it was made tidy for visitors, +or cleared for blindman’s buff, Mr and Mrs Boffin became aware of the +entrance of Mrs Wilfer, majestically faint, and with a condescending +stitch in her side: which was her company manner. + +‘Pardon me,’ said Mrs Wilfer, after the first salutations, and as soon +as she had adjusted the handkerchief under her chin, and waved her +gloved hands, ‘to what am I indebted for this honour?’ + +‘To make short of it, ma’am,’ returned Mr Boffin, ‘perhaps you may be +acquainted with the names of me and Mrs Boffin, as having come into a +certain property.’ + +‘I have heard, sir,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, with a dignified bend of her +head, ‘of such being the case.’ + +‘And I dare say, ma’am,’ pursued Mr Boffin, while Mrs Boffin added +confirmatory nods and smiles, ‘you are not very much inclined to take +kindly to us?’ + +‘Pardon me,’ said Mrs Wilfer. ‘’Twere unjust to visit upon Mr and Mrs +Boffin, a calamity which was doubtless a dispensation.’ These words +were rendered the more effective by a serenely heroic expression of +suffering. + +‘That’s fairly meant, I am sure,’ remarked the honest Mr Boffin; ‘Mrs +Boffin and me, ma’am, are plain people, and we don’t want to pretend +to anything, nor yet to go round and round at anything because there’s +always a straight way to everything. Consequently, we make this call +to say, that we shall be glad to have the honour and pleasure of your +daughter’s acquaintance, and that we shall be rejoiced if your daughter +will come to consider our house in the light of her home equally with +this. In short, we want to cheer your daughter, and to give her +the opportunity of sharing such pleasures as we are a going to take +ourselves. We want to brisk her up, and brisk her about, and give her a +change.’ + +‘That’s it!’ said the open-hearted Mrs Boffin. ‘Lor! Let’s be +comfortable.’ + +Mrs Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady visitor, and +with majestic monotony replied to the gentleman: + +‘Pardon me. I have several daughters. Which of my daughters am I to +understand is thus favoured by the kind intentions of Mr Boffin and his +lady?’ + +‘Don’t you see?’ the ever-smiling Mrs Boffin put in. ‘Naturally, Miss +Bella, you know.’ + +‘Oh-h!’ said Mrs Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced look. ‘My daughter +Bella is accessible and shall speak for herself.’ Then opening the door +a little way, simultaneously with a sound of scuttling outside it, +the good lady made the proclamation, ‘Send Miss Bella to me!’ which +proclamation, though grandly formal, and one might almost say heraldic, +to hear, was in fact enunciated with her maternal eyes reproachfully +glaring on that young lady in the flesh—and in so much of it that she +was retiring with difficulty into the small closet under the stairs, +apprehensive of the emergence of Mr and Mrs Boffin. + +‘The avocations of R. W., my husband,’ Mrs Wilfer explained, on resuming +her seat, ‘keep him fully engaged in the City at this time of the day, +or he would have had the honour of participating in your reception +beneath our humble roof.’ + +‘Very pleasant premises!’ said Mr Boffin, cheerfully. + +‘Pardon me, sir,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, correcting him, ‘it is the abode +of conscious though independent Poverty.’ + +Finding it rather difficult to pursue the conversation down this road, +Mr and Mrs Boffin sat staring at mid-air, and Mrs Wilfer sat silently +giving them to understand that every breath she drew required to be +drawn with a self-denial rarely paralleled in history, until Miss Bella +appeared: whom Mrs Wilfer presented, and to whom she explained the +purpose of the visitors. + +‘I am much obliged to you, I am sure,’ said Miss Bella, coldly shaking +her curls, ‘but I doubt if I have the inclination to go out at all.’ + +‘Bella!’ Mrs Wilfer admonished her; ‘Bella, you must conquer this.’ + +‘Yes, do what your Ma says, and conquer it, my dear,’ urged Mrs Boffin, +‘because we shall be so glad to have you, and because you are much too +pretty to keep yourself shut up.’ With that, the pleasant creature gave +her a kiss, and patted her on her dimpled shoulders; Mrs Wilfer sitting +stiffly by, like a functionary presiding over an interview previous to +an execution. + +‘We are going to move into a nice house,’ said Mrs Boffin, who was woman +enough to compromise Mr Boffin on that point, when he couldn’t very well +contest it; ‘and we are going to set up a nice carriage, and we’ll go +everywhere and see everything. And you mustn’t,’ seating Bella beside +her, and patting her hand, ‘you mustn’t feel a dislike to us to begin +with, because we couldn’t help it, you know, my dear.’ + +With the natural tendency of youth to yield to candour and sweet temper, +Miss Bella was so touched by the simplicity of this address that she +frankly returned Mrs Boffin’s kiss. Not at all to the satisfaction +of that good woman of the world, her mother, who sought to hold the +advantageous ground of obliging the Boffins instead of being obliged. + +‘My youngest daughter, Lavinia,’ said Mrs Wilfer, glad to make a +diversion, as that young lady reappeared. ‘Mr George Sampson, a friend +of the family.’ + +The friend of the family was in that stage of tender passion which bound +him to regard everybody else as the foe of the family. He put the round +head of his cane in his mouth, like a stopper, when he sat down. As if +he felt himself full to the throat with affronting sentiments. And he +eyed the Boffins with implacable eyes. + +‘If you like to bring your sister with you when you come to stay with +us,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘of course we shall be glad. The better you please +yourself, Miss Bella, the better you’ll please us.’ + +‘Oh, my consent is of no consequence at all, I suppose?’ cried Miss +Lavinia. + +‘Lavvy,’ said her sister, in a low voice, ‘have the goodness to be seen +and not heard.’ + +‘No, I won’t,’ replied the sharp Lavinia. ‘I’m not a child, to be taken +notice of by strangers.’ + +‘You ARE a child.’ + +‘I’m not a child, and I won’t be taken notice of. “Bring your sister,” + indeed!’ + +‘Lavinia!’ said Mrs Wilfer. ‘Hold! I will not allow you to utter in my +presence the absurd suspicion that any strangers—I care not what their +names—can patronize my child. Do you dare to suppose, you ridiculous +girl, that Mr and Mrs Boffin would enter these doors upon a patronizing +errand; or, if they did, would remain within them, only for one single +instant, while your mother had the strength yet remaining in her vital +frame to request them to depart? You little know your mother if you +presume to think so.’ + +‘It’s all very fine,’ Lavinia began to grumble, when Mrs Wilfer +repeated: + +‘Hold! I will not allow this. Do you not know what is due to guests? +Do you not comprehend that in presuming to hint that this lady and +gentleman could have any idea of patronizing any member of your +family—I care not which—you accuse them of an impertinence little less +than insane?’ + +‘Never mind me and Mrs Boffin, ma’am,’ said Mr Boffin, smilingly: ‘we +don’t care.’ + +‘Pardon me, but I do,’ returned Mrs Wilfer. + +Miss Lavinia laughed a short laugh as she muttered, ‘Yes, to be sure.’ + +‘And I require my audacious child,’ proceeded Mrs Wilfer, with a +withering look at her youngest, on whom it had not the slightest effect, +‘to please to be just to her sister Bella; to remember that her sister +Bella is much sought after; and that when her sister Bella accepts an +attention, she considers herself to be conferring qui-i-ite as much +honour,’—this with an indignant shiver,—‘as she receives.’ + +But, here Miss Bella repudiated, and said quietly, ‘I can speak for +myself; you know, ma. You needn’t bring ME in, please.’ + +‘And it’s all very well aiming at others through convenient me,’ said +the irrepressible Lavinia, spitefully; ‘but I should like to ask George +Sampson what he says to it.’ + +‘Mr Sampson,’ proclaimed Mrs Wilfer, seeing that young gentleman take +his stopper out, and so darkly fixing him with her eyes as that he put +it in again: ‘Mr Sampson, as a friend of this family and a frequenter of +this house, is, I am persuaded, far too well-bred to interpose on such +an invitation.’ + +This exaltation of the young gentleman moved the conscientious Mrs +Boffin to repentance for having done him an injustice in her mind, and +consequently to saying that she and Mr Boffin would at any time be glad +to see him; an attention which he handsomely acknowledged by replying, +with his stopper unremoved, ‘Much obliged to you, but I’m always +engaged, day and night.’ + +However, Bella compensating for all drawbacks by responding to the +advances of the Boffins in an engaging way, that easy pair were on the +whole well satisfied, and proposed to the said Bella that as soon as +they should be in a condition to receive her in a manner suitable to +their desires, Mrs Boffin should return with notice of the fact. This +arrangement Mrs Wilfer sanctioned with a stately inclination of her +head and wave of her gloves, as who should say, ‘Your demerits shall be +overlooked, and you shall be mercifully gratified, poor people.’ + +‘By-the-bye, ma’am,’ said Mr Boffin, turning back as he was going, ‘you +have a lodger?’ + +‘A gentleman,’ Mrs Wilfer answered, qualifying the low expression, +‘undoubtedly occupies our first floor.’ + +‘I may call him Our Mutual Friend,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘What sort of a +fellow IS Our Mutual Friend, now? Do you like him?’ + +‘Mr Rokesmith is very punctual, very quiet, a very eligible inmate.’ + +‘Because,’ Mr Boffin explained, ‘you must know that I’m not particularly +well acquainted with Our Mutual Friend, for I have only seen him once. +You give a good account of him. Is he at home?’ + +‘Mr Rokesmith is at home,’ said Mrs Wilfer; ‘indeed,’ pointing through +the window, ‘there he stands at the garden gate. Waiting for you, +perhaps?’ + +‘Perhaps so,’ replied Mr Boffin. ‘Saw me come in, maybe.’ + +Bella had closely attended to this short dialogue. Accompanying Mrs +Boffin to the gate, she as closely watched what followed. + +‘How are you, sir, how are you?’ said Mr Boffin. ‘This is Mrs Boffin. Mr +Rokesmith, that I told you of; my dear.’ + +She gave him good day, and he bestirred himself and helped her to her +seat, and the like, with a ready hand. + +‘Good-bye for the present, Miss Bella,’ said Mrs Boffin, calling out a +hearty parting. ‘We shall meet again soon! And then I hope I shall have +my little John Harmon to show you.’ + +Mr Rokesmith, who was at the wheel adjusting the skirts of her dress, +suddenly looked behind him, and around him, and then looked up at her, +with a face so pale that Mrs Boffin cried: + +‘Gracious!’ And after a moment, ‘What’s the matter, sir?’ + +‘How can you show her the Dead?’ returned Mr Rokesmith. + +‘It’s only an adopted child. One I have told her of. One I’m going to +give the name to!’ + +‘You took me by surprise,’ said Mr Rokesmith, ‘and it sounded like an +omen, that you should speak of showing the Dead to one so young and +blooming.’ + +Now, Bella suspected by this time that Mr Rokesmith admired her. Whether +the knowledge (for it was rather that than suspicion) caused her to +incline to him a little more, or a little less, than she had done at +first; whether it rendered her eager to find out more about him, because +she sought to establish reason for her distrust, or because she sought +to free him from it; was as yet dark to her own heart. But at most +times he occupied a great amount of her attention, and she had set her +attention closely on this incident. + +That he knew it as well as she, she knew as well as he, when they were +left together standing on the path by the garden gate. + +‘Those are worthy people, Miss Wilfer.’ + +‘Do you know them well?’ asked Bella. + +He smiled, reproaching her, and she coloured, reproaching herself—both, +with the knowledge that she had meant to entrap him into an answer not +true—when he said ‘I know OF them.’ + +‘Truly, he told us he had seen you but once.’ + +‘Truly, I supposed he did.’ + +Bella was nervous now, and would have been glad to recall her question. + +‘You thought it strange that, feeling much interested in you, I should +start at what sounded like a proposal to bring you into contact with the +murdered man who lies in his grave. I might have known—of course in a +moment should have known—that it could not have that meaning. But my +interest remains.’ + +Re-entering the family-room in a meditative state, Miss Bella was +received by the irrepressible Lavinia with: + +‘There, Bella! At last I hope you have got your wishes realized—by your +Boffins. You’ll be rich enough now—with your Boffins. You can have as +much flirting as you like—at your Boffins. But you won’t take ME to +your Boffins, I can tell you—you and your Boffins too!’ + +‘If,’ quoth Mr George Sampson, moodily pulling his stopper out, ‘Miss +Bella’s Mr Boffin comes any more of his nonsense to ME, I only wish him +to understand, as betwixt man and man, that he does it at his per—’ and +was going to say peril; but Miss Lavinia, having no confidence in his +mental powers, and feeling his oration to have no definite application +to any circumstances, jerked his stopper in again, with a sharpness that +made his eyes water. + +And now the worthy Mrs Wilfer, having used her youngest daughter as a +lay-figure for the edification of these Boffins, became bland to her, +and proceeded to develop her last instance of force of character, +which was still in reserve. This was, to illuminate the family with her +remarkable powers as a physiognomist; powers that terrified R. W. when +ever let loose, as being always fraught with gloom and evil which no +inferior prescience was aware of. And this Mrs Wilfer now did, be it +observed, in jealousy of these Boffins, in the very same moments when +she was already reflecting how she would flourish these very same +Boffins and the state they kept, over the heads of her Boffinless +friends. + +‘Of their manners,’ said Mrs Wilfer, ‘I say nothing. Of their +appearance, I say nothing. Of the disinterestedness of their intentions +towards Bella, I say nothing. But the craft, the secrecy, the dark +deep underhanded plotting, written in Mrs Boffin’s countenance, make me +shudder.’ + +As an incontrovertible proof that those baleful attributes were all +there, Mrs Wilfer shuddered on the spot. + + + + +Chapter 10 + +A MARRIAGE CONTRACT + + +There is excitement in the Veneering mansion. The mature young lady is +going to be married (powder and all) to the mature young gentleman, and +she is to be married from the Veneering house, and the Veneerings are to +give the breakfast. The Analytical, who objects as a matter of principle +to everything that occurs on the premises, necessarily objects to the +match; but his consent has been dispensed with, and a spring-van is +delivering its load of greenhouse plants at the door, in order that +to-morrow’s feast may be crowned with flowers. + +The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature young gentleman +is a gentleman of property. He invests his property. He goes, in +a condescending amateurish way, into the City, attends meetings of +Directors, and has to do with traffic in Shares. As is well known to the +wise in their generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to have to +do with in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, no +cultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. Have Shares enough to +be on Boards of Direction in capital letters, oscillate on mysterious +business between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he come +from? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares. +Has he any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into Parliament? +Shares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything, never +originated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all; +Shares. O mighty Shares! To set those blaring images so high, and to +cause us smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or opium, to +cry out, night and day, ‘Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buy +us and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech ye take rank among the powers +of the earth, and fatten on us’! + +While the Loves and Graces have been preparing this torch for Hymen, +which is to be kindled to-morrow, Mr Twemlow has suffered much in his +mind. It would seem that both the mature young lady and the mature young +gentleman must indubitably be Veneering’s oldest friends. Wards of his, +perhaps? Yet that can scarcely be, for they are older than himself. +Veneering has been in their confidence throughout, and has done much to +lure them to the altar. He has mentioned to Twemlow how he said to +Mrs Veneering, ‘Anastatia, this must be a match.’ He has mentioned to +Twemlow how he regards Sophronia Akershem (the mature young lady) in the +light of a sister, and Alfred Lammle (the mature young gentleman) in the +light of a brother. Twemlow has asked him whether he went to school as +a junior with Alfred? He has answered, ‘Not exactly.’ Whether Sophronia +was adopted by his mother? He has answered, ‘Not precisely so.’ +Twemlow’s hand has gone to his forehead with a lost air. + +But, two or three weeks ago, Twemlow, sitting over his newspaper, +and over his dry-toast and weak tea, and over the stable-yard in Duke +Street, St James’s, received a highly-perfumed cocked-hat and monogram +from Mrs Veneering, entreating her dearest Mr T., if not particularly +engaged that day, to come like a charming soul and make a fourth at +dinner with dear Mr Podsnap, for the discussion of an interesting family +topic; the last three words doubly underlined and pointed with a note +of admiration. And Twemlow replying, ‘Not engaged, and more than +delighted,’ goes, and this takes place: + +‘My dear Twemlow,’ says Veneering, ‘your ready response to Anastatia’s +unceremonious invitation is truly kind, and like an old, old friend. You +know our dear friend Podsnap?’ + +Twemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who covered him with so +much confusion, and he says he does know him, and Podsnap reciprocates. +Apparently, Podsnap has been so wrought upon in a short time, as to +believe that he has been intimate in the house many, many, many years. +In the friendliest manner he is making himself quite at home with his +back to the fire, executing a statuette of the Colossus at Rhodes. +Twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneering +guests become infected with the Veneering fiction. Not, however, that he +has the least notion of its being his own case. + +‘Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia,’ pursues Veneering the veiled +prophet: ‘our friends Alfred and Sophronia, you will be glad to hear, my +dear fellows, are going to be married. As my wife and I make it a family +affair the entire direction of which we take upon ourselves, of course +our first step is to communicate the fact to our family friends.’ + +(‘Oh!’ thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, ‘then there are only +two of us, and he’s the other.’) + +‘I did hope,’ Veneering goes on, ‘to have had Lady Tippins to meet you; +but she is always in request, and is unfortunately engaged.’ + +(‘Oh!’ thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, ‘then there are three of +us, and SHE’S the other.’) + +‘Mortimer Lightwood,’ resumes Veneering, ‘whom you both know, is out of +town; but he writes, in his whimsical manner, that as we ask him to be +bridegroom’s best man when the ceremony takes place, he will not refuse, +though he doesn’t see what he has to do with it.’ + +(‘Oh!’ thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, ‘then there are four of +us, and HE’S the other.’) + +‘Boots and Brewer,’ observes Veneering, ‘whom you also know, I have not +asked to-day; but I reserve them for the occasion.’ + +(‘Then,’ thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, ‘there are si—’ But here +collapses and does not completely recover until dinner is over and the +Analytical has been requested to withdraw.) + +‘We now come,’ says Veneering, ‘to the point, the real point, of our +little family consultation. Sophronia, having lost both father and +mother, has no one to give her away.’ + +‘Give her away yourself,’ says Podsnap. + +‘My dear Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, because I couldn’t +take so much upon myself when I have respected family friends to +remember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I look +the part. Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the +subject and feels averse to my giving away anybody until baby is old +enough to be married.’ + +‘What would happen if he did?’ Podsnap inquires of Mrs Veneering. + +‘My dear Mr Podsnap, it’s very foolish I know, but I have an instinctive +presentiment that if Hamilton gave away anybody else first, he would +never give away baby.’ Thus Mrs Veneering; with her open hands pressed +together, and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like +her one aquiline nose that the bran-new jewels on them seem necessary +for distinction’s sake. + +‘But, my dear Podsnap,’ quoth Veneering, ‘there IS a tried friend of +our family who, I think and hope you will agree with me, Podsnap, is +the friend on whom this agreeable duty almost naturally devolves. That +friend,’ saying the words as if the company were about a hundred and +fifty in number, ‘is now among us. That friend is Twemlow.’ + +‘Certainly!’ from Podsnap. + +‘That friend,’ Veneering repeats with greater firmness, ‘is our dear +good Twemlow. And I cannot sufficiently express to you, my dear Podsnap, +the pleasure I feel in having this opinion of mine and Anastatia’s so +readily confirmed by you, that other equally familiar and tried friend +who stands in the proud position—I mean who proudly stands in the +position—or I ought rather to say, who places Anastatia and myself in +the proud position of himself standing in the simple position—of baby’s +godfather.’ And, indeed, Veneering is much relieved in mind to find that +Podsnap betrays no jealousy of Twemlow’s elevation. + +So, it has come to pass that the spring-van is strewing flowers on +the rosy hours and on the staircase, and that Twemlow is surveying the +ground on which he is to play his distinguished part to-morrow. He has +already been to the church, and taken note of the various impediments in +the aisle, under the auspices of an extremely dreary widow who opens the +pews, and whose left hand appears to be in a state of acute rheumatism, +but is in fact voluntarily doubled up to act as a money-box. + +And now Veneering shoots out of the Study wherein he is accustomed, +when contemplative, to give his mind to the carving and gilding of +the Pilgrims going to Canterbury, in order to show Twemlow the little +flourish he has prepared for the trumpets of fashion, describing how +that on the seventeenth instant, at St James’s Church, the Reverend +Blank Blank, assisted by the Reverend Dash Dash, united in the bonds of +matrimony, Alfred Lammle Esquire, of Sackville Street, Piccadilly, +to Sophronia, only daughter of the late Horatio Akershem, Esquire, +of Yorkshire. Also how the fair bride was married from the house of +Hamilton Veneering, Esquire, of Stucconia, and was given away by Melvin +Twemlow, Esquire, of Duke Street, St James’s, second cousin to Lord +Snigsworth, of Snigsworthy Park. While perusing which composition, +Twemlow makes some opaque approach to perceiving that if the Reverend +Blank Blank and the Reverend Dash Dash fail, after this introduction, to +become enrolled in the list of Veneering’s dearest and oldest friends, +they will have none but themselves to thank for it. + +After which, appears Sophronia (whom Twemlow has seen twice in his +lifetime), to thank Twemlow for counterfeiting the late Horatio Akershem +Esquire, broadly of Yorkshire. And after her, appears Alfred (whom +Twemlow has seen once in his lifetime), to do the same and to make a +pasty sort of glitter, as if he were constructed for candle-light only, +and had been let out into daylight by some grand mistake. And after +that, comes Mrs Veneering, in a pervadingly aquiline state of figure, +and with transparent little knobs on her temper, like the little +transparent knob on the bridge of her nose, ‘Worn out by worry and +excitement,’ as she tells her dear Mr Twemlow, and reluctantly revived +with curacoa by the Analytical. And after that, the bridesmaids begin +to come by rail-road from various parts of the country, and to come like +adorable recruits enlisted by a sergeant not present; for, on arriving +at the Veneering depot, they are in a barrack of strangers. + +So, Twemlow goes home to Duke Street, St James’s, to take a plate of +mutton broth with a chop in it, and a look at the marriage-service, in +order that he may cut in at the right place to-morrow; and he is low, +and feels it dull over the livery stable-yard, and is distinctly aware +of a dint in his heart, made by the most adorable of the adorable +bridesmaids. For, the poor little harmless gentleman once had his fancy, +like the rest of us, and she didn’t answer (as she often does not), +and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like the fancy as she was then +(which she is not at all), and that if the fancy had not married some +one else for money, but had married him for love, he and she would +have been happy (which they wouldn’t have been), and that she has a +tenderness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb). Brooding +over the fire, with his dried little head in his dried little hands, +and his dried little elbows on his dried little knees, Twemlow is +melancholy. ‘No Adorable to bear me company here!’ thinks he. ‘No +Adorable at the club! A waste, a waste, a waste, my Twemlow!’ And so +drops asleep, and has galvanic starts all over him. + +Betimes next morning, that horrible old Lady Tippins (relict of the late +Sir Thomas Tippins, knighted in mistake for somebody else by His +Majesty King George the Third, who, while performing the ceremony, was +graciously pleased to observe, ‘What, what, what? Who, who, who? +Why, why, why?’) begins to be dyed and varnished for the interesting +occasion. She has a reputation for giving smart accounts of things, and +she must be at these people’s early, my dear, to lose nothing of the +fun. Whereabout in the bonnet and drapery announced by her name, any +fragment of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to her +maid; but you could easily buy all you see of her, in Bond Street; or +you might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape her, and make two Lady +Tippinses out of her, and yet not penetrate to the genuine article. She +has a large gold eye-glass, has Lady Tippins, to survey the proceedings +with. If she had one in each eye, it might keep that other drooping +lid up, and look more uniform. But perennial youth is in her artificial +flowers, and her list of lovers is full. + +‘Mortimer, you wretch,’ says Lady Tippins, turning the eyeglass about +and about, ‘where is your charge, the bridegroom?’ + +‘Give you my honour,’ returns Mortimer, ‘I don’t know, and I don’t +care.’ + +‘Miserable! Is that the way you do your duty?’ + +‘Beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee and be seconded +at some point of the solemnities, like a principal at a prizefight, I +assure you I have no notion what my duty is,’ returns Mortimer. + +Eugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon him of having +presupposed the ceremony to be a funeral, and of being disappointed. The +scene is the Vestry-room of St James’s Church, with a number of leathery +old registers on shelves, that might be bound in Lady Tippinses. + +But, hark! A carriage at the gate, and Mortimer’s man arrives, looking +rather like a spurious Mephistopheles and an unacknowledged member +of that gentleman’s family. Whom Lady Tippins, surveying through her +eye-glass, considers a fine man, and quite a catch; and of whom Mortimer +remarks, in the lowest spirits, as he approaches, ‘I believe this is my +fellow, confound him!’ More carriages at the gate, and lo the rest of +the characters. Whom Lady Tippins, standing on a cushion, surveying +through the eye-glass, thus checks off. ‘Bride; five-and-forty if a +day, thirty shillings a yard, veil fifteen pound, pocket-handkerchief +a present. Bridesmaids; kept down for fear of outshining bride, +consequently not girls, twelve and sixpence a yard, Veneering’s flowers, +snub-nosed one rather pretty but too conscious of her stockings, bonnets +three pound ten. Twemlow; blessed release for the dear man if she really +was his daughter, nervous even under the pretence that she is, well he +may be. Mrs Veneering; never saw such velvet, say two thousand pounds +as she stands, absolute jeweller’s window, father must have been a +pawnbroker, or how could these people do it? Attendant unknowns; pokey.’ + +Ceremony performed, register signed, Lady Tippins escorted out of sacred +edifice by Veneering, carriages rolling back to Stucconia, servants +with favours and flowers, Veneering’s house reached, drawing-rooms most +magnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, with +his hair-brushes made the most of; that imperial rocking-horse, Mrs +Podsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and +the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his +hair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, +if anything had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly. +Here, too, the bride’s aunt and next relation; a widowed female of +a Medusa sort, in a stoney cap, glaring petrifaction at her +fellow-creatures. Here, too, the bride’s trustee; an oilcake-fed style +of business-gentleman with mooney spectacles, and an object of much +interest. Veneering launching himself upon this trustee as his oldest +friend (which makes seven, Twemlow thought), and confidentially retiring +with him into the conservatory, it is understood that Veneering is his +co-trustee, and that they are arranging about the fortune. Buffers are +even overheard to whisper Thir-ty Thou-sand Pou-nds! with a smack and a +relish suggestive of the very finest oysters. Pokey unknowns, amazed +to find how intimately they know Veneering, pluck up spirit, fold +their arms, and begin to contradict him before breakfast. What time Mrs +Veneering, carrying baby dressed as a bridesmaid, flits about among +the company, emitting flashes of many-coloured lightning from diamonds, +emeralds, and rubies. + +The Analytical, in course of time achieving what he feels to be due to +himself in bringing to a dignified conclusion several quarrels he has on +hand with the pastrycook’s men, announces breakfast. Dining-room no less +magnificent than drawing-room; tables superb; all the camels out, and +all laden. Splendid cake, covered with Cupids, silver, and true-lovers’ +knots. Splendid bracelet, produced by Veneering before going down, and +clasped upon the arm of bride. Yet nobody seems to think much more of +the Veneerings than if they were a tolerable landlord and landlady +doing the thing in the way of business at so much a head. The bride and +bridegroom talk and laugh apart, as has always been their manner; +and the Buffers work their way through the dishes with systematic +perseverance, as has always been THEIR manner; and the pokey unknowns +are exceedingly benevolent to one another in invitations to take +glasses of champagne; but Mrs Podsnap, arching her mane and rocking her +grandest, has a far more deferential audience than Mrs Veneering; and +Podsnap all but does the honours. + +Another dismal circumstance is, that Veneering, having the captivating +Tippins on one side of him and the bride’s aunt on the other, finds +it immensely difficult to keep the peace. For, Medusa, besides +unmistakingly glaring petrifaction at the fascinating Tippins, follows +every lively remark made by that dear creature, with an audible snort: +which may be referable to a chronic cold in the head, but may also be +referable to indignation and contempt. And this snort being regular in +its reproduction, at length comes to be expected by the company, who +make embarrassing pauses when it is falling due, and by waiting for it, +render it more emphatic when it comes. The stoney aunt has likewise an +injurious way of rejecting all dishes whereof Lady Tippins partakes: +saying aloud when they are proffered to her, ‘No, no, no, not for me. +Take it away!’ As with a set purpose of implying a misgiving that if +nourished upon similar meats, she might come to be like that charmer, +which would be a fatal consummation. Aware of her enemy, Lady Tippins +tries a youthful sally or two, and tries the eye-glass; but, from the +impenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stoney aunt all weapons +rebound powerless. + +Another objectionable circumstance is, that the pokey unknowns support +each other in being unimpressible. They persist in not being frightened +by the gold and silver camels, and they are banded together to defy +the elaborately chased ice-pails. They even seem to unite in some vague +utterance of the sentiment that the landlord and landlady will make a +pretty good profit out of this, and they almost carry themselves +like customers. Nor is there compensating influence in the adorable +bridesmaids; for, having very little interest in the bride, and none +at all in one another, those lovely beings become, each one of her own +account, depreciatingly contemplative of the millinery present; while +the bridegroom’s man, exhausted, in the back of his chair, appears to be +improving the occasion by penitentially contemplating all the wrong he +has ever done; the difference between him and his friend Eugene, being, +that the latter, in the back of HIS chair, appears to be contemplating +all the wrong he would like to do—particularly to the present company. + +In which state of affairs, the usual ceremonies rather droop and flag, +and the splendid cake when cut by the fair hand of the bride has but +an indigestible appearance. However, all the things indispensable to +be said are said, and all the things indispensable to be done are +done (including Lady Tippins’s yawning, falling asleep, and waking +insensible), and there is hurried preparation for the nuptial journey +to the Isle of Wight, and the outer air teems with brass bands and +spectators. In full sight of whom, the malignant star of the Analytical +has pre-ordained that pain and ridicule shall befall him. For he, +standing on the doorsteps to grace the departure, is suddenly caught a +most prodigious thump on the side of his head with a heavy shoe, which +a Buffer in the hall, champagne-flushed and wild of aim, has borrowed on +the spur of the moment from the pastrycook’s porter, to cast after the +departing pair as an auspicious omen. + +So they all go up again into the gorgeous drawing-rooms—all of them +flushed with breakfast, as having taken scarlatina sociably—and there +the combined unknowns do malignant things with their legs to ottomans, +and take as much as possible out of the splendid furniture. And so, Lady +Tippins, quite undetermined whether today is the day before yesterday, +or the day after to-morrow, or the week after next, fades away; and +Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene fade away, and Twemlow fades away, and +the stoney aunt goes away—she declines to fade, proving rock to the +last—and even the unknowns are slowly strained off, and it is all over. + +All over, that is to say, for the time being. But, there is another time +to come, and it comes in about a fortnight, and it comes to Mr and Mrs +Lammle on the sands at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight. + +Mr and Mrs Lammle have walked for some time on the Shanklin sands, and +one may see by their footprints that they have not walked arm in arm, +and that they have not walked in a straight track, and that they have +walked in a moody humour; for, the lady has prodded little spirting +holes in the damp sand before her with her parasol, and the gentleman +has trailed his stick after him. As if he were of the Mephistopheles +family indeed, and had walked with a drooping tail. + +‘Do you mean to tell me, then, Sophronia—’ + +Thus he begins after a long silence, when Sophronia flashes fiercely, +and turns upon him. + +‘Don’t put it upon ME, sir. I ask you, do YOU mean to tell me?’ + +Mr Lammle falls silent again, and they walk as before. Mrs Lammle opens +her nostrils and bites her under-lip; Mr Lammle takes his gingerous +whiskers in his left hand, and, bringing them together, frowns furtively +at his beloved, out of a thick gingerous bush. + +‘Do I mean to say!’ Mrs Lammle after a time repeats, with indignation. +‘Putting it on me! The unmanly disingenuousness!’ + +Mr Lammle stops, releases his whiskers, and looks at her. ‘The what?’ + +Mrs Lammle haughtily replies, without stopping, and without looking +back. ‘The meanness.’ + +He is at her side again in a pace or two, and he retorts, ‘That is not +what you said. You said disingenuousness.’ + +‘What if I did?’ + +‘There is no “if” in the case. You did.’ + +‘I did, then. And what of it?’ + +‘What of it?’ says Mr Lammle. ‘Have you the face to utter the word to +me?’ + +‘The face, too!’ replied Mrs Lammle, staring at him with cold scorn. +‘Pray, how dare you, sir, utter the word to me?’ + +‘I never did.’ + +As this happens to be true, Mrs Lammle is thrown on the feminine +resource of saying, ‘I don’t care what you uttered or did not utter.’ + +After a little more walking and a little more silence, Mr Lammle breaks +the latter. + +‘You shall proceed in your own way. You claim a right to ask me do I +mean to tell you. Do I mean to tell you what?’ + +‘That you are a man of property?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Then you married me on false pretences?’ + +‘So be it. Next comes what you mean to say. Do you mean to say you are a +woman of property?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Then you married me on false pretences.’ + +‘If you were so dull a fortune-hunter that you deceived yourself, or +if you were so greedy and grasping that you were over-willing to be +deceived by appearances, is it my fault, you adventurer?’ the lady +demands, with great asperity. + +‘I asked Veneering, and he told me you were rich.’ + +‘Veneering!’ with great contempt. ‘And what does Veneering know about +me!’ + +‘Was he not your trustee?’ + +‘No. I have no trustee, but the one you saw on the day when you +fraudulently married me. And his trust is not a very difficult one, for +it is only an annuity of a hundred and fifteen pounds. I think there are +some odd shillings or pence, if you are very particular.’ + +Mr Lammle bestows a by no means loving look upon the partner of his joys +and sorrows, and he mutters something; but checks himself. + +‘Question for question. It is my turn again, Mrs Lammle. What made you +suppose me a man of property?’ + +‘You made me suppose you so. Perhaps you will deny that you always +presented yourself to me in that character?’ + +‘But you asked somebody, too. Come, Mrs Lammle, admission for admission. +You asked somebody?’ + +‘I asked Veneering.’ + +‘And Veneering knew as much of me as he knew of you, or as anybody knows +of him.’ + +After more silent walking, the bride stops short, to say in a passionate +manner: + +‘I never will forgive the Veneerings for this!’ + +‘Neither will I,’ returns the bridegroom. + +With that, they walk again; she, making those angry spirts in the sand; +he, dragging that dejected tail. The tide is low, and seems to have +thrown them together high on the bare shore. A gull comes sweeping by +their heads and flouts them. There was a golden surface on the brown +cliffs but now, and behold they are only damp earth. A taunting roar +comes from the sea, and the far-out rollers mount upon one another, +to look at the entrapped impostors, and to join in impish and exultant +gambols. + +‘Do you pretend to believe,’ Mrs Lammle resumes, sternly, ‘when you talk +of my marrying you for worldly advantages, that it was within the bounds +of reasonable probability that I would have married you for yourself?’ + +‘Again there are two sides to the question, Mrs Lammle. What do you +pretend to believe?’ + +‘So you first deceive me and then insult me!’ cries the lady, with a +heaving bosom. + +‘Not at all. I have originated nothing. The double-edged question was +yours.’ + +‘Was mine!’ the bride repeats, and her parasol breaks in her angry hand. + +His colour has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks have come to +light about his nose, as if the finger of the very devil himself had, +within the last few moments, touched it here and there. But he has +repressive power, and she has none. + +‘Throw it away,’ he coolly recommends as to the parasol; ‘you have made +it useless; you look ridiculous with it.’ + +Whereupon she calls him in her rage, ‘A deliberate villain,’ and so +casts the broken thing from her as that it strikes him in falling. The +finger-marks are something whiter for the instant, but he walks on at +her side. + +She bursts into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, the most +deceived, the worst-used, of women. Then she says that if she had +the courage to kill herself, she would do it. Then she calls him vile +impostor. Then she asks him, why, in the disappointment of his base +speculation, he does not take her life with his own hand, under the +present favourable circumstances. Then she cries again. Then she is +enraged again, and makes some mention of swindlers. Finally, she sits +down crying on a block of stone, and is in all the known and unknown +humours of her sex at once. Pending her changes, those aforesaid marks +in his face have come and gone, now here now there, like white steps +of a pipe on which the diabolical performer has played a tune. Also his +livid lips are parted at last, as if he were breathless with running. +Yet he is not. + +‘Now, get up, Mrs Lammle, and let us speak reasonably.’ + +She sits upon her stone, and takes no heed of him. + +‘Get up, I tell you.’ + +Raising her head, she looks contemptuously in his face, and repeats, +‘You tell me! Tell me, forsooth!’ + +She affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her as she droops +her head again; but her whole figure reveals that she knows it uneasily. + +‘Enough of this. Come! Do you hear? Get up.’ + +Yielding to his hand, she rises, and they walk again; but this time with +their faces turned towards their place of residence. + +‘Mrs Lammle, we have both been deceiving, and we have both been +deceived. We have both been biting, and we have both been bitten. In a +nut-shell, there’s the state of the case.’ + +‘You sought me out—’ + +‘Tut! Let us have done with that. WE know very well how it was. Why +should you and I talk about it, when you and I can’t disguise it? To +proceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure.’ + +‘Am I no one?’ + +‘Some one—and I was coming to you, if you had waited a moment. You, +too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure.’ + +‘An injured figure!’ + +‘You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can’t be injured +without my being equally injured; and that therefore the mere word is +not to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been such +a fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust.’ + +‘And when I look back—’ the bride cries, interrupting. + +‘And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been—you’ll excuse +the word?’ + +‘Most certainly, with so much reason.’ + +‘—Such a fool as to take ME to so great an extent upon trust. But the +folly is committed on both sides. I cannot get rid of you; you cannot +get rid of me. What follows?’ + +‘Shame and misery,’ the bride bitterly replies. + +‘I don’t know. A mutual understanding follows, and I think it may carry +us through. Here I split my discourse (give me your arm, Sophronia), +into three heads, to make it shorter and plainer. Firstly, it’s enough +to have been done, without the mortification of being known to have been +done. So we agree to keep the fact to ourselves. You agree?’ + +‘If it is possible, I do.’ + +‘Possible! We have pretended well enough to one another. Can’t we, +united, pretend to the world? Agreed. Secondly, we owe the Veneerings +a grudge, and we owe all other people the grudge of wishing them to be +taken in, as we ourselves have been taken in. Agreed?’ + +‘Yes. Agreed.’ + +‘We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an adventurer, +Sophronia. So I am. In plain uncomplimentary English, so I am. So are +you, my dear. So are many people. We agree to keep our own secret, and +to work together in furtherance of our own schemes.’ + +‘What schemes?’ + +‘Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own schemes, I mean our +joint interest. Agreed?’ + +She answers, after a little hesitation, ‘I suppose so. Agreed.’ + +‘Carried at once, you see! Now, Sophronia, only half a dozen words more. +We know one another perfectly. Don’t be tempted into twitting me with +the past knowledge that you have of me, because it is identical with +the past knowledge that I have of you, and in twitting me, you +twit yourself, and I don’t want to hear you do it. With this good +understanding established between us, it is better never done. To wind +up all:—You have shown temper today, Sophronia. Don’t be betrayed into +doing so again, because I have a Devil of a temper myself.’ + +So, the happy pair, with this hopeful marriage contract thus signed, +sealed, and delivered, repair homeward. If, when those infernal +finger-marks were on the white and breathless countenance of Alfred +Lammle, Esquire, they denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduing +his dear wife Mrs Alfred Lammle, by at once divesting her of any +lingering reality or pretence of self-respect, the purpose would seem +to have been presently executed. The mature young lady has mighty little +need of powder, now, for her downcast face, as he escorts her in the +light of the setting sun to their abode of bliss. + + + + +Chapter 11 + +PODSNAPPERY + + +Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap’s opinion. +Beginning with a good inheritance, he had married a good inheritance, +and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and was +quite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite +satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example +in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all +other things, with himself. + +Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr Podsnap +settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. There +was a dignified conclusiveness—not to add a grand convenience—in +this way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards +establishing Mr Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr Podsnap’s satisfaction. +‘I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t +admit it!’ Mr Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of his +right arm in often clearing the world of its most difficult problems, by +sweeping them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those words +and a flushed face. For they affronted him. + +Mr Podsnap’s world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even +geographically: seeing that although his business was sustained upon +commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that +important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would +conclusively observe, ‘Not English!’ when, PRESTO! with a flourish of +the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. Elsewise, the +world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted at +nine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined +at seven. Mr Podsnap’s notions of the Arts in their integrity might have +been stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive of +getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting +at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, +and dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and portraits +representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a +quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming +home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Music; a respectable +performance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments, +sedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter +past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at +half-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to +those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing else +To Be—anywhere! + +As a so eminently respectable man, Mr Podsnap was sensible of its being +required of him to take Providence under his protection. Consequently he +always knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectable +men might fall short of that mark, but Mr Podsnap was always up to it. +And it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that +what Providence meant, was invariably what Mr Podsnap meant. + +These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school +which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, after its +representative man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close bounds, +as Mr Podsnap’s own head was confined by his shirt-collar; and they +were enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of the creaking of Mr +Podsnap’s own boots. + +There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse was being trained +in her mother’s art of prancing in a stately manner without ever getting +on. But the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, and +in truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, low +spirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed to +take occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and to +shrink back again, overcome by her mother’s head-dress and her father +from head to foot—crushed by the mere dead-weight of Podsnappery. + +A certain institution in Mr Podsnap’s mind which he called ‘the young +person’ may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his +daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring +everything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The +question about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of +the young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that, +according to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into +blushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line of +demarcation between the young person’s excessive innocence, and another +person’s guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap’s word for it, and the +soberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red to +this troublesome Bull of a young person. + +The Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoining Portman Square. They were +a kind of people certain to dwell in the shade, wherever they dwelt. +Miss Podsnap’s life had been, from her first appearance on this planet, +altogether of a shady order; for, Mr Podsnap’s young person was likely +to get little good out of association with other young persons, and had +therefore been restricted to companionship with not very congenial older +persons, and with massive furniture. Miss Podsnap’s early views of life +being principally derived from the reflections of it in her father’s +boots, and in the walnut and rosewood tables of the dim drawing-rooms, +and in their swarthy giants of looking-glasses, were of a sombre cast; +and it was not wonderful that now, when she was on most days solemnly +tooled through the Park by the side of her mother in a great tall +custard-coloured phaeton, she showed above the apron of that vehicle +like a dejected young person sitting up in bed to take a startled look +at things in general, and very strongly desiring to get her head under +the counterpane again. + +Said Mr Podsnap to Mrs Podsnap, ‘Georgiana is almost eighteen.’ + +Said Mrs Podsnap to Mr Podsnap, assenting, ‘Almost eighteen.’ + +Said Mr Podsnap then to Mrs Podsnap, ‘Really I think we should have some +people on Georgiana’s birthday.’ + +Said Mrs Podsnap then to Mr Podsnap, ‘Which will enable us to clear off +all those people who are due.’ + +So it came to pass that Mr and Mrs Podsnap requested the honour of the +company of seventeen friends of their souls at dinner; and that they +substituted other friends of their souls for such of the seventeen +original friends of their souls as deeply regretted that a prior +engagement prevented their having the honour of dining with Mr and Mrs +Podsnap, in pursuance of their kind invitation; and that Mrs Podsnap +said of all these inconsolable personages, as she checked them off with +a pencil in her list, ‘Asked, at any rate, and got rid of;’ and that +they successfully disposed of a good many friends of their souls in this +way, and felt their consciences much lightened. + +There were still other friends of their souls who were not entitled to +be asked to dinner, but had a claim to be invited to come and take a +haunch of mutton vapour-bath at half-past nine. For the clearing off +of these worthies, Mrs Podsnap added a small and early evening to the +dinner, and looked in at the music-shop to bespeak a well-conducted +automaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance. + +Mr and Mrs Veneering, and Mr and Mrs Veneering’s bran-new bride and +bridegroom, were of the dinner company; but the Podsnap establishment +had nothing else in common with the Veneerings. Mr Podsnap could +tolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sort +of thing, but was far above it himself. Hideous solidity was the +characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as +heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything +said boastfully, ‘Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if I +were only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much +an ounce;—wouldn’t you like to melt me down?’ A corpulent straddling +epergne, blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption rather +than been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silver +platform in the centre of the table. Four silver wine-coolers, each +furnished with four staring heads, each head obtrusively carrying a big +silver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down the +table, and handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. All the +big silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the company expressly +for the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their throats with every +morsel they ate. + +The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included several +heavy articles weighing ever so much. But there was a foreign gentleman +among them: whom Mr Podsnap had invited after much debate with +himself—believing the whole European continent to be in mortal alliance +against the young person—and there was a droll disposition, not only on +the part of Mr Podsnap but of everybody else, to treat him as if he were +a child who was hard of hearing. + +As a delicate concession to this unfortunately-born foreigner, Mr +Podsnap, in receiving him, had presented his wife as ‘Madame Podsnap;’ +also his daughter as ‘Mademoiselle Podsnap,’ with some inclination to +add ‘ma fille,’ in which bold venture, however, he checked himself. The +Veneerings being at that time the only other arrivals, he had added (in +a condescendingly explanatory manner), ‘Monsieur Vey-nair-reeng,’ and +had then subsided into English. + +‘How Do You Like London?’ Mr Podsnap now inquired from his station of +host, as if he were administering something in the nature of a powder or +potion to the deaf child; ‘London, Londres, London?’ + +The foreign gentleman admired it. + +‘You find it Very Large?’ said Mr Podsnap, spaciously. + +The foreign gentleman found it very large. + +‘And Very Rich?’ + +The foreign gentleman found it, without doubt, enormement riche. + +‘Enormously Rich, We say,’ returned Mr Podsnap, in a condescending +manner. ‘Our English adverbs do Not terminate in Mong, and We Pronounce +the “ch” as if there were a “t” before it. We say Ritch.’ + +‘Reetch,’ remarked the foreign gentleman. + +‘And Do You Find, Sir,’ pursued Mr Podsnap, with dignity, ‘Many +Evidences that Strike You, of our British Constitution in the Streets Of +The World’s Metropolis, London, Londres, London?’ + +The foreign gentleman begged to be pardoned, but did not altogether +understand. + +‘The Constitution Britannique,’ Mr Podsnap explained, as if he were +teaching in an infant school. ‘We Say British, But You Say Britannique, +You Know’ (forgivingly, as if that were not his fault). ‘The +Constitution, Sir.’ + +The foreign gentleman said, ‘Mais, yees; I know eem.’ + +A youngish sallowish gentleman in spectacles, with a lumpy forehead, +seated in a supplementary chair at a corner of the table, here caused +a profound sensation by saying, in a raised voice, ‘ESKER,’ and then +stopping dead. + +‘Mais oui,’ said the foreign gentleman, turning towards him. ‘Est-ce +que? Quoi donc?’ + +But the gentleman with the lumpy forehead having for the time delivered +himself of all that he found behind his lumps, spake for the time no +more. + +‘I Was Inquiring,’ said Mr Podsnap, resuming the thread of his +discourse, ‘Whether You Have Observed in our Streets as We should say, +Upon our Pavvy as You would say, any Tokens—’ + +The foreign gentleman, with patient courtesy entreated pardon; ‘But what +was tokenz?’ + +‘Marks,’ said Mr Podsnap; ‘Signs, you know, Appearances—Traces.’ + +‘Ah! Of a Orse?’ inquired the foreign gentleman. + +‘We call it Horse,’ said Mr Podsnap, with forbearance. ‘In England, +Angleterre, England, We Aspirate the “H,” and We Say “Horse.” Only our +Lower Classes Say “Orse!”’ + +‘Pardon,’ said the foreign gentleman; ‘I am alwiz wrong!’ + +‘Our Language,’ said Mr Podsnap, with a gracious consciousness of being +always right, ‘is Difficult. Ours is a Copious Language, and Trying to +Strangers. I will not Pursue my Question.’ + +But the lumpy gentleman, unwilling to give it up, again madly said, +‘ESKER,’ and again spake no more. + +‘It merely referred,’ Mr Podsnap explained, with a sense of meritorious +proprietorship, ‘to Our Constitution, Sir. We Englishmen are Very Proud +of our Constitution, Sir. It Was Bestowed Upon Us By Providence. No +Other Country is so Favoured as This Country.’ + +‘And ozer countries?—’ the foreign gentleman was beginning, when Mr +Podsnap put him right again. + +‘We do not say Ozer; we say Other: the letters are “T” and “H;” You say +Tay and Aish, You Know; (still with clemency). The sound is “th”—“th!”’ + +‘And OTHER countries,’ said the foreign gentleman. ‘They do how?’ + +‘They do, Sir,’ returned Mr Podsnap, gravely shaking his head; ‘they +do—I am sorry to be obliged to say it—AS they do.’ + +‘It was a little particular of Providence,’ said the foreign gentleman, +laughing; ‘for the frontier is not large.’ + +‘Undoubtedly,’ assented Mr Podsnap; ‘But So it is. It was the Charter +of the Land. This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion of +such Other Countries as—as there may happen to be. And if we were all +Englishmen present, I would say,’ added Mr Podsnap, looking round upon +his compatriots, and sounding solemnly with his theme, ‘that there is in +the Englishman a combination of qualities, a modesty, an independence, +a responsibility, a repose, combined with an absence of everything +calculated to call a blush into the cheek of a young person, which one +would seek in vain among the Nations of the Earth.’ + +Having delivered this little summary, Mr Podsnap’s face flushed, as he +thought of the remote possibility of its being at all qualified by +any prejudiced citizen of any other country; and, with his favourite +right-arm flourish, he put the rest of Europe and the whole of Asia, +Africa, and America nowhere. + +The audience were much edified by this passage of words; and Mr Podsnap, +feeling that he was in rather remarkable force to-day, became smiling +and conversational. + +‘Has anything more been heard, Veneering,’ he inquired, ‘of the lucky +legatee?’ + +‘Nothing more,’ returned Veneering, ‘than that he has come into +possession of the property. I am told people now call him The Golden +Dustman. I mentioned to you some time ago, I think, that the young lady +whose intended husband was murdered is daughter to a clerk of mine?’ + +‘Yes, you told me that,’ said Podsnap; ‘and by-the-bye, I wish you would +tell it again here, for it’s a curious coincidence—curious that the +first news of the discovery should have been brought straight to your +table (when I was there), and curious that one of your people should +have been so nearly interested in it. Just relate that, will you?’ + +Veneering was more than ready to do it, for he had prospered exceedingly +upon the Harmon Murder, and had turned the social distinction it +conferred upon him to the account of making several dozen of bran-new +bosom-friends. Indeed, such another lucky hit would almost have set him +up in that way to his satisfaction. So, addressing himself to the most +desirable of his neighbours, while Mrs Veneering secured the next most +desirable, he plunged into the case, and emerged from it twenty minutes +afterwards with a Bank Director in his arms. In the mean time, Mrs +Veneering had dived into the same waters for a wealthy Ship-Broker, and +had brought him up, safe and sound, by the hair. Then Mrs Veneering had +to relate, to a larger circle, how she had been to see the girl, and how +she was really pretty, and (considering her station) presentable. +And this she did with such a successful display of her eight aquiline +fingers and their encircling jewels, that she happily laid hold of a +drifting General Officer, his wife and daughter, and not only restored +their animation which had become suspended, but made them lively friends +within an hour. + +Although Mr Podsnap would in a general way have highly disapproved of +Bodies in rivers as ineligible topics with reference to the cheek of the +young person, he had, as one may say, a share in this affair which made +him a part proprietor. As its returns were immediate, too, in the way +of restraining the company from speechless contemplation of the +wine-coolers, it paid, and he was satisfied. + +And now the haunch of mutton vapour-bath having received a gamey +infusion, and a few last touches of sweets and coffee, was quite ready, +and the bathers came; but not before the discreet automaton had got +behind the bars of the piano music-desk, and there presented the +appearance of a captive languishing in a rose-wood jail. And who now +so pleasant or so well assorted as Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, he all +sparkle, she all gracious contentment, both at occasional intervals +exchanging looks like partners at cards who played a game against All +England. + +There was not much youth among the bathers, but there was no youth +(the young person always excepted) in the articles of Podsnappery. Bald +bathers folded their arms and talked to Mr Podsnap on the hearthrug; +sleek-whiskered bathers, with hats in their hands, lunged at Mrs Podsnap +and retreated; prowling bathers, went about looking into ornamental +boxes and bowls as if they had suspicions of larceny on the part of the +Podsnaps, and expected to find something they had lost at the bottom; +bathers of the gentler sex sat silently comparing ivory shoulders. All +this time and always, poor little Miss Podsnap, whose tiny efforts (if +she had made any) were swallowed up in the magnificence of her mother’s +rocking, kept herself as much out of sight and mind as she could, +and appeared to be counting on many dismal returns of the day. It was +somehow understood, as a secret article in the state proprieties of +Podsnappery that nothing must be said about the day. Consequently this +young damsel’s nativity was hushed up and looked over, as if it were +agreed on all hands that it would have been better that she had never +been born. + +The Lammles were so fond of the dear Veneerings that they could not for +some time detach themselves from those excellent friends; but at length, +either a very open smile on Mr Lammle’s part, or a very secret elevation +of one of his gingerous eyebrows—certainly the one or the other—seemed +to say to Mrs Lammle, ‘Why don’t you play?’ And so, looking about her, +she saw Miss Podsnap, and seeming to say responsively, ‘That card?’ and +to be answered, ‘Yes,’ went and sat beside Miss Podsnap. + +Mrs Lammle was overjoyed to escape into a corner for a little quiet +talk. + +It promised to be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap replied in a +flutter, ‘Oh! Indeed, it’s very kind of you, but I am afraid I DON’T +talk.’ + +‘Let us make a beginning,’ said the insinuating Mrs Lammle, with her +best smile. + +‘Oh! I am afraid you’ll find me very dull. But Ma talks!’ + +That was plainly to be seen, for Ma was talking then at her usual +canter, with arched head and mane, opened eyes and nostrils. + +‘Fond of reading perhaps?’ + +‘Yes. At least I—don’t mind that so much,’ returned Miss Podsnap. + +‘M-m-m-m-music.’ So insinuating was Mrs Lammle that she got half a dozen +ms into the word before she got it out. + +‘I haven’t nerve to play even if I could. Ma plays.’ + +(At exactly the same canter, and with a certain flourishing appearance +of doing something, Ma did, in fact, occasionally take a rock upon the +instrument.) + +‘Of course you like dancing?’ + +‘Oh no, I don’t,’ said Miss Podsnap. + +‘No? With your youth and attractions? Truly, my dear, you surprise me!’ + +‘I can’t say,’ observed Miss Podsnap, after hesitating considerably, and +stealing several timid looks at Mrs Lammle’s carefully arranged face, +‘how I might have liked it if I had been a—you won’t mention it, WILL +you?’ + +‘My dear! Never!’ + +‘No, I am sure you won’t. I can’t say then how I should have liked it, +if I had been a chimney-sweep on May-day.’ + +‘Gracious!’ was the exclamation which amazement elicited from Mrs +Lammle. + +‘There! I knew you’d wonder. But you won’t mention it, will you?’ + +‘Upon my word, my love,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘you make me ten times more +desirous, now I talk to you, to know you well than I was when I sat over +yonder looking at you. How I wish we could be real friends! Try me as a +real friend. Come! Don’t fancy me a frumpy old married woman, my dear; +I was married but the other day, you know; I am dressed as a bride now, +you see. About the chimney-sweeps?’ + +‘Hush! Ma’ll hear.’ + +‘She can’t hear from where she sits.’ + +‘Don’t you be too sure of that,’ said Miss Podsnap, in a lower voice. +‘Well, what I mean is, that they seem to enjoy it.’ + +‘And that perhaps you would have enjoyed it, if you had been one of +them?’ + +Miss Podsnap nodded significantly. + +‘Then you don’t enjoy it now?’ + +‘How is it possible?’ said Miss Podsnap. ‘Oh it is such a dreadful +thing! If I was wicked enough—and strong enough—to kill anybody, it +should be my partner.’ + +This was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean art as +socially practised, that Mrs Lammle looked at her young friend in some +astonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling her fingers in +a pinioned attitude, as if she were trying to hide her elbows. But this +latter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the great +inoffensive aim of her existence. + +‘It sounds horrid, don’t it?’ said Miss Podsnap, with a penitential +face. + +Mrs Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, resolved herself into +a look of smiling encouragement. + +‘But it is, and it always has been,’ pursued Miss Podsnap, ‘such a trial +to me! I so dread being awful. And it is so awful! No one knows what +I suffered at Madame Sauteuse’s, where I learnt to dance and make +presentation-curtseys, and other dreadful things—or at least where they +tried to teach me. Ma can do it.’ + +‘At any rate, my love,’ said Mrs Lammle, soothingly, ‘that’s over.’ + +‘Yes, it’s over,’ returned Miss Podsnap, ‘but there’s nothing gained by +that. It’s worse here, than at Madame Sauteuse’s. Ma was there, and Ma’s +here; but Pa wasn’t there, and company wasn’t there, and there were not +real partners there. Oh there’s Ma speaking to the man at the piano! Oh +there’s Ma going up to somebody! Oh I know she’s going to bring him +to me! Oh please don’t, please don’t, please don’t! Oh keep away, keep +away, keep away!’ These pious ejaculations Miss Podsnap uttered with her +eyes closed, and her head leaning back against the wall. + +But the Ogre advanced under the pilotage of Ma, and Ma said, ‘Georgiana, +Mr Grompus,’ and the Ogre clutched his victim and bore her off to his +castle in the top couple. Then the discreet automaton who had surveyed +his ground, played a blossomless tuneless ‘set,’ and sixteen disciples +of Podsnappery went through the figures of - 1, Getting up at eight and +shaving close at a quarter past - 2, Breakfasting at nine - 3, Going to +the City at ten - 4, Coming home at half-past five - 5, Dining at seven, +and the grand chain. + +While these solemnities were in progress, Mr Alfred Lammle (most loving +of husbands) approached the chair of Mrs Alfred Lammle (most loving of +wives), and bending over the back of it, trifled for some few seconds +with Mrs Lammle’s bracelet. Slightly in contrast with this brief airy +toying, one might have noticed a certain dark attention in Mrs Lammle’s +face as she said some words with her eyes on Mr Lammle’s waistcoat, and +seemed in return to receive some lesson. But it was all done as a breath +passes from a mirror. + +And now, the grand chain riveted to the last link, the discreet +automaton ceased, and the sixteen, two and two, took a walk among +the furniture. And herein the unconsciousness of the Ogre Grompus was +pleasantly conspicuous; for, that complacent monster, believing that +he was giving Miss Podsnap a treat, prolonged to the utmost stretch +of possibility a peripatetic account of an archery meeting; while his +victim, heading the procession of sixteen as it slowly circled about, +like a revolving funeral, never raised her eyes except once to steal a +glance at Mrs Lammle, expressive of intense despair. + +At length the procession was dissolved by the violent arrival of a +nutmeg, before which the drawing-room door bounced open as if it were a +cannon-ball; and while that fragrant article, dispersed through several +glasses of coloured warm water, was going the round of society, Miss +Podsnap returned to her seat by her new friend. + +‘Oh my goodness,’ said Miss Podsnap. ‘THAT’S over! I hope you didn’t +look at me.’ + +‘My dear, why not?’ + +‘Oh I know all about myself,’ said Miss Podsnap. + +‘I’ll tell you something I know about you, my dear,’ returned Mrs Lammle +in her winning way, ‘and that is, you are most unnecessarily shy.’ + +‘Ma ain’t,’ said Miss Podsnap. ‘—I detest you! Go along!’ This shot +was levelled under her breath at the gallant Grompus for bestowing an +insinuating smile upon her in passing. + +‘Pardon me if I scarcely see, my dear Miss Podsnap,’ Mrs Lammle was +beginning when the young lady interposed. + +‘If we are going to be real friends (and I suppose we are, for you are +the only person who ever proposed it) don’t let us be awful. It’s awful +enough to BE Miss Podsnap, without being called so. Call me Georgiana.’ + +‘Dearest Georgiana,’ Mrs Lammle began again. + +‘Thank you,’ said Miss Podsnap. + +‘Dearest Georgiana, pardon me if I scarcely see, my love, why your +mamma’s not being shy, is a reason why you should be.’ + +‘Don’t you really see that?’ asked Miss Podsnap, plucking at her fingers +in a troubled manner, and furtively casting her eyes now on Mrs Lammle, +now on the ground. ‘Then perhaps it isn’t?’ + +‘My dearest Georgiana, you defer much too readily to my poor opinion. +Indeed it is not even an opinion, darling, for it is only a confession +of my dullness.’ + +‘Oh YOU are not dull,’ returned Miss Podsnap. ‘I am dull, but you +couldn’t have made me talk if you were.’ + +Some little touch of conscience answering this perception of her having +gained a purpose, called bloom enough into Mrs Lammle’s face to make it +look brighter as she sat smiling her best smile on her dear Georgiana, +and shaking her head with an affectionate playfulness. Not that it meant +anything, but that Georgiana seemed to like it. + +‘What I mean is,’ pursued Georgiana, ‘that Ma being so endowed with +awfulness, and Pa being so endowed with awfulness, and there being +so much awfulness everywhere—I mean, at least, everywhere where I +am—perhaps it makes me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightened +at it—I say it very badly—I don’t know whether you can understand what +I mean?’ + +‘Perfectly, dearest Georgiana!’ Mrs Lammle was proceeding with every +reassuring wile, when the head of that young lady suddenly went back +against the wall again and her eyes closed. + +‘Oh there’s Ma being awful with somebody with a glass in his eye! Oh I +know she’s going to bring him here! Oh don’t bring him, don’t bring him! +Oh he’ll be my partner with his glass in his eye! Oh what shall I do!’ +This time Georgiana accompanied her ejaculations with taps of her feet +upon the floor, and was altogether in quite a desperate condition. But, +there was no escape from the majestic Mrs Podsnap’s production of an +ambling stranger, with one eye screwed up into extinction and the other +framed and glazed, who, having looked down out of that organ, as if he +descried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some perpendicular shaft, brought +her to the surface, and ambled off with her. And then the captive at the +piano played another ‘set,’ expressive of his mournful aspirations after +freedom, and other sixteen went through the former melancholy motions, +and the ambler took Miss Podsnap for a furniture walk, as if he had +struck out an entirely original conception. + +In the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had wandered +to the hearthrug and got among the heads of tribes assembled there in +conference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap’s flush and +flourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to the +circumstance that some half-dozen people had lately died in the streets, +of starvation. It was clearly ill-timed after dinner. It was not adapted +to the cheek of the young person. It was not in good taste. + +‘I don’t believe it,’ said Mr Podsnap, putting it behind him. + +The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because there were +the Inquests and the Registrar’s returns. + +‘Then it was their own fault,’ said Mr Podsnap. + +Veneering and other elders of tribes commended this way out of it. At +once a short cut and a broad road. + +The man of meek demeanour intimated that truly it would seem from +the facts, as if starvation had been forced upon the culprits in +question—as if, in their wretched manner, they had made their weak +protests against it—as if they would have taken the liberty of staving +it off if they could—as if they would rather not have been starved upon +the whole, if perfectly agreeable to all parties. + +‘There is not,’ said Mr Podsnap, flushing angrily, ‘there is not a +country in the world, sir, where so noble a provision is made for the +poor as in this country.’ + +The meek man was quite willing to concede that, but perhaps it +rendered the matter even worse, as showing that there must be something +appallingly wrong somewhere. + +‘Where?’ said Mr Podsnap. + +The meek man hinted Wouldn’t it be well to try, very seriously, to find +out where? + +‘Ah!’ said Mr Podsnap. ‘Easy to say somewhere; not so easy to say +where! But I see what you are driving at. I knew it from the first. +Centralization. No. Never with my consent. Not English.’ + +An approving murmur arose from the heads of tribes; as saying, ‘There +you have him! Hold him!’ + +He was not aware (the meek man submitted of himself) that he was driving +at any ization. He had no favourite ization that he knew of. But he +certainly was more staggered by these terrible occurrences than he was +by names, of howsoever so many syllables. Might he ask, was dying of +destitution and neglect necessarily English? + +‘You know what the population of London is, I suppose,’ said Mr Podsnap. + +The meek man supposed he did, but supposed that had absolutely nothing +to do with it, if its laws were well administered. + +‘And you know; at least I hope you know;’ said Mr Podsnap, with +severity, ‘that Providence has declared that you shall have the poor +always with you?’ + +The meek man also hoped he knew that. + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr Podsnap with a portentous air. ‘I am +glad to hear it. It will render you cautious how you fly in the face of +Providence.’ + +In reference to that absurd and irreverent conventional phrase, the meek +man said, for which Mr Podsnap was not responsible, he the meek man had +no fear of doing anything so impossible; but— + +But Mr Podsnap felt that the time had come for flushing and flourishing +this meek man down for good. So he said: + +‘I must decline to pursue this painful discussion. It is not pleasant to +my feelings; it is repugnant to my feelings. I have said that I do not +admit these things. I have also said that if they do occur (not that I +admit it), the fault lies with the sufferers themselves. It is not for +ME’—Mr Podsnap pointed ‘me’ forcibly, as adding by implication though +it may be all very well for YOU—‘it is not for me to impugn the +workings of Providence. I know better than that, I trust, and I have +mentioned what the intentions of Providence are. Besides,’ said +Mr Podsnap, flushing high up among his hair-brushes, with a strong +consciousness of personal affront, ‘the subject is a very disagreeable +one. I will go so far as to say it is an odious one. It is not one to be +introduced among our wives and young persons, and I—’ He finished with +that flourish of his arm which added more expressively than any words, +And I remove it from the face of the earth. + +Simultaneously with this quenching of the meek man’s ineffectual fire; +Georgiana having left the ambler up a lane of sofa, in a No Thoroughfare +of back drawing-room, to find his own way out, came back to Mrs Lammle. +And who should be with Mrs Lammle, but Mr Lammle. So fond of her! + +‘Alfred, my love, here is my friend. Georgiana, dearest girl, you must +like my husband next to me.’ + +Mr Lammle was proud to be so soon distinguished by this special +commendation to Miss Podsnap’s favour. But if Mr Lammle were prone to be +jealous of his dear Sophronia’s friendships, he would be jealous of her +feeling towards Miss Podsnap. + +‘Say Georgiana, darling,’ interposed his wife. + +‘Towards—shall I?—Georgiana.’ Mr Lammle uttered the name, with a +delicate curve of his right hand, from his lips outward. ‘For never have +I known Sophronia (who is not apt to take sudden likings) so attracted +and so captivated as she is by—shall I once more?—Georgiana.’ + +The object of this homage sat uneasily enough in receipt of it, and then +said, turning to Mrs Lammle, much embarrassed: + +‘I wonder what you like me for! I am sure I can’t think.’ + +‘Dearest Georgiana, for yourself. For your difference from all around +you.’ + +‘Well! That may be. For I think I like you for your difference from all +around me,’ said Georgiana with a smile of relief. + +‘We must be going with the rest,’ observed Mrs Lammle, rising with a +show of unwillingness, amidst a general dispersal. ‘We are real friends, +Georgiana dear?’ + +‘Real.’ + +‘Good night, dear girl!’ + +She had established an attraction over the shrinking nature upon which +her smiling eyes were fixed, for Georgiana held her hand while she +answered in a secret and half-frightened tone: + +‘Don’t forget me when you are gone away. And come again soon. Good +night!’ + +Charming to see Mr and Mrs Lammle taking leave so gracefully, and going +down the stairs so lovingly and sweetly. Not quite so charming to see +their smiling faces fall and brood as they dropped moodily into separate +corners of their little carriage. But to be sure that was a sight behind +the scenes, which nobody saw, and which nobody was meant to see. + +Certain big, heavy vehicles, built on the model of the Podsnap plate, +took away the heavy articles of guests weighing ever so much; and the +less valuable articles got away after their various manners; and the +Podsnap plate was put to bed. As Mr Podsnap stood with his back to the +drawing-room fire, pulling up his shirtcollar, like a veritable cock +of the walk literally pluming himself in the midst of his possessions, +nothing would have astonished him more than an intimation that Miss +Podsnap, or any other young person properly born and bred, could not be +exactly put away like the plate, brought out like the plate, polished +like the plate, counted, weighed, and valued like the plate. That such +a young person could possibly have a morbid vacancy in the heart for +anything younger than the plate, or less monotonous than the plate; +or that such a young person’s thoughts could try to scale the region +bounded on the north, south, east, and west, by the plate; was a +monstrous imagination which he would on the spot have flourished into +space. This perhaps in some sort arose from Mr Podsnap’s blushing young +person being, so to speak, all cheek; whereas there is a possibility +that there may be young persons of a rather more complex organization. + +If Mr Podsnap, pulling up his shirt-collar, could only have heard +himself called ‘that fellow’ in a certain short dialogue, which passed +between Mr and Mrs Lammle in their opposite corners of their little +carriage, rolling home! + +‘Sophronia, are you awake?’ + +‘Am I likely to be asleep, sir?’ + +‘Very likely, I should think, after that fellow’s company. Attend to +what I am going to say.’ + +‘I have attended to what you have already said, have I not? What else +have I been doing all to-night.’ + +‘Attend, I tell you,’ (in a raised voice) ‘to what I am going to say. +Keep close to that idiot girl. Keep her under your thumb. You have her +fast, and you are not to let her go. Do you hear?’ + +‘I hear you.’ + +‘I foresee there is money to be made out of this, besides taking that +fellow down a peg. We owe each other money, you know.’ + +Mrs Lammle winced a little at the reminder, but only enough to shake her +scents and essences anew into the atmosphere of the little carriage, as +she settled herself afresh in her own dark corner. + + + + +Chapter 12 + +THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’S BROW + + +Mr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn took a coffee-house dinner +together in Mr Lightwood’s office. They had newly agreed to set up a +joint establishment together. They had taken a bachelor cottage near +Hampton, on the brink of the Thames, with a lawn, and a boat-house; and +all things fitting, and were to float with the stream through the summer +and the Long Vacation. + +It was not summer yet, but spring; and it was not gentle spring +ethereally mild, as in Thomson’s Seasons, but nipping spring with an +easterly wind, as in Johnson’s, Jackson’s, Dickson’s, Smith’s, and +Jones’s Seasons. The grating wind sawed rather than blew; and as it +sawed, the sawdust whirled about the sawpit. Every street was a sawpit, +and there were no top-sawyers; every passenger was an under-sawyer, with +the sawdust blinding him and choking him. + +That mysterious paper currency which circulates in London when the +wind blows, gyrated here and there and everywhere. Whence can it come, +whither can it go? It hangs on every bush, flutters in every tree, is +caught flying by the electric wires, haunts every enclosure, drinks at +every pump, cowers at every grating, shudders upon every plot of grass, +seeks rest in vain behind the legions of iron rails. In Paris, where +nothing is wasted, costly and luxurious city though it be, but where +wonderful human ants creep out of holes and pick up every scrap, there +is no such thing. There, it blows nothing but dust. There, sharp eyes +and sharp stomachs reap even the east wind, and get something out of it. + +The wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs wrung their many +hands, bemoaning that they had been over-persuaded by the sun to bud; +the young leaves pined; the sparrows repented of their early marriages, +like men and women; the colours of the rainbow were discernible, not +in floral spring, but in the faces of the people whom it nibbled and +pinched. And ever the wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. + +When the spring evenings are too long and light to shut out, and such +weather is rife, the city which Mr Podsnap so explanatorily called +London, Londres, London, is at its worst. Such a black shrill city, +combining the qualities of a smoky house and a scolding wife; such a +gritty city; such a hopeless city, with no rent in the leaden canopy of +its sky; such a beleaguered city, invested by the great Marsh Forces of +Essex and Kent. So the two old schoolfellows felt it to be, as, their +dinner done, they turned towards the fire to smoke. Young Blight was +gone, the coffee-house waiter was gone, the plates and dishes were gone, +the wine was going—but not in the same direction. + +‘The wind sounds up here,’ quoth Eugene, stirring the fire, ‘as if we +were keeping a lighthouse. I wish we were.’ + +‘Don’t you think it would bore us?’ Lightwood asked. + +‘Not more than any other place. And there would be no Circuit to go. But +that’s a selfish consideration, personal to me.’ + +‘And no clients to come,’ added Lightwood. ‘Not that that’s a selfish +consideration at all personal to ME.’ + +‘If we were on an isolated rock in a stormy sea,’ said Eugene, smoking +with his eyes on the fire, ‘Lady Tippins couldn’t put off to visit us, +or, better still, might put off and get swamped. People couldn’t ask one +to wedding breakfasts. There would be no Precedents to hammer at, +except the plain-sailing Precedent of keeping the light up. It would be +exciting to look out for wrecks.’ + +‘But otherwise,’ suggested Lightwood, ‘there might be a degree of +sameness in the life.’ + +‘I have thought of that also,’ said Eugene, as if he really had been +considering the subject in its various bearings with an eye to the +business; ‘but it would be a defined and limited monotony. It would +not extend beyond two people. Now, it’s a question with me, Mortimer, +whether a monotony defined with that precision and limited to that +extent, might not be more endurable than the unlimited monotony of one’s +fellow-creatures.’ + +As Lightwood laughed and passed the wine, he remarked, ‘We shall have an +opportunity, in our boating summer, of trying the question.’ + +‘An imperfect one,’ Eugene acquiesced, with a sigh, ‘but so we shall. I +hope we may not prove too much for one another.’ + +‘Now, regarding your respected father,’ said Lightwood, bringing him +to a subject they had expressly appointed to discuss: always the most +slippery eel of eels of subjects to lay hold of. + +‘Yes, regarding my respected father,’ assented Eugene, settling himself +in his arm-chair. ‘I would rather have approached my respected father by +candlelight, as a theme requiring a little artificial brilliancy; but we +will take him by twilight, enlivened with a glow of Wallsend.’ + +He stirred the fire again as he spoke, and having made it blaze, +resumed. + +‘My respected father has found, down in the parental neighbourhood, a +wife for his not-generally-respected son.’ + +‘With some money, of course?’ + +‘With some money, of course, or he would not have found her. My +respected father—let me shorten the dutiful tautology by substituting +in future M. R. F., which sounds military, and rather like the Duke of +Wellington.’ + +‘What an absurd fellow you are, Eugene!’ + +‘Not at all, I assure you. M. R. F. having always in the clearest manner +provided (as he calls it) for his children by pre-arranging from the +hour of the birth of each, and sometimes from an earlier period, what +the devoted little victim’s calling and course in life should be, M. R. +F. pre-arranged for myself that I was to be the barrister I am (with +the slight addition of an enormous practice, which has not accrued), and +also the married man I am not.’ + +‘The first you have often told me.’ + +‘The first I have often told you. Considering myself sufficiently +incongruous on my legal eminence, I have until now suppressed my +domestic destiny. You know M. R. F., but not as well as I do. If you +knew him as well as I do, he would amuse you.’ + +‘Filially spoken, Eugene!’ + +‘Perfectly so, believe me; and with every sentiment of affectionate +deference towards M. R. F. But if he amuses me, I can’t help it. When my +eldest brother was born, of course the rest of us knew (I mean the rest +of us would have known, if we had been in existence) that he was heir +to the Family Embarrassments—we call it before the company the Family +Estate. But when my second brother was going to be born by-and-by, +“this,” says M. R. F., “is a little pillar of the church.” Was born, +and became a pillar of the church; a very shaky one. My third brother +appeared, considerably in advance of his engagement to my mother; but +M. R. F., not at all put out by surprise, instantly declared him +a Circumnavigator. Was pitch-forked into the Navy, but has not +circumnavigated. I announced myself and was disposed of with the highly +satisfactory results embodied before you. When my younger brother was +half an hour old, it was settled by M. R. F. that he should have a +mechanical genius. And so on. Therefore I say that M. R. F. amuses me.’ + +‘Touching the lady, Eugene.’ + +‘There M. R. F. ceases to be amusing, because my intentions are opposed +to touching the lady.’ + +‘Do you know her?’ + +‘Not in the least.’ + +‘Hadn’t you better see her?’ + +‘My dear Mortimer, you have studied my character. Could I possibly go +down there, labelled “ELIGIBLE. ON VIEW,” and meet the lady, similarly +labelled? Anything to carry out M. R. F.’s arrangements, I am sure, with +the greatest pleasure—except matrimony. Could I possibly support it? I, +so soon bored, so constantly, so fatally?’ + +‘But you are not a consistent fellow, Eugene.’ + +‘In susceptibility to boredom,’ returned that worthy, ‘I assure you I am +the most consistent of mankind.’ + +‘Why, it was but now that you were dwelling in the advantages of a +monotony of two.’ + +‘In a lighthouse. Do me the justice to remember the condition. In a +lighthouse.’ + +Mortimer laughed again, and Eugene, having laughed too for the first +time, as if he found himself on reflection rather entertaining, relapsed +into his usual gloom, and drowsily said, as he enjoyed his cigar, ‘No, +there is no help for it; one of the prophetic deliveries of M. R. F. +must for ever remain unfulfilled. With every disposition to oblige him, +he must submit to a failure.’ + +It had grown darker as they talked, and the wind was sawing and the +sawdust was whirling outside paler windows. The underlying churchyard +was already settling into deep dim shade, and the shade was creeping up +to the housetops among which they sat. ‘As if,’ said Eugene, ‘as if the +churchyard ghosts were rising.’ + +He had walked to the window with his cigar in his mouth, to exalt its +flavour by comparing the fireside with the outside, when he stopped +midway on his return to his arm-chair, and said: + +‘Apparently one of the ghosts has lost its way, and dropped in to be +directed. Look at this phantom!’ + +Lightwood, whose back was towards the door, turned his head, and there, +in the darkness of the entry, stood a something in the likeness of a +man: to whom he addressed the not irrelevant inquiry, ‘Who the devil are +you?’ + +‘I ask your pardons, Governors,’ replied the ghost, in a hoarse +double-barrelled whisper, ‘but might either on you be Lawyer Lightwood?’ + +‘What do you mean by not knocking at the door?’ demanded Mortimer. + +‘I ask your pardons, Governors,’ replied the ghost, as before, ‘but +probable you was not aware your door stood open.’ + +‘What do you want?’ + +Hereunto the ghost again hoarsely replied, in its double-barrelled +manner, ‘I ask your pardons, Governors, but might one on you be Lawyer +Lightwood?’ + +‘One of us is,’ said the owner of that name. + +‘All right, Governors Both,’ returned the ghost, carefully closing the +room door; ‘’tickler business.’ + +Mortimer lighted the candles. They showed the visitor to be an +ill-looking visitor with a squinting leer, who, as he spoke, fumbled +at an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangey, that looked like a furry +animal, dog or cat, puppy or kitten, drowned and decaying. + +‘Now,’ said Mortimer, ‘what is it?’ + +‘Governors Both,’ returned the man, in what he meant to be a wheedling +tone, ‘which on you might be Lawyer Lightwood?’ + +‘I am.’ + +‘Lawyer Lightwood,’ ducking at him with a servile air, ‘I am a man as +gets my living, and as seeks to get my living, by the sweat of my brow. +Not to risk being done out of the sweat of my brow, by any chances, I +should wish afore going further to be swore in.’ + +‘I am not a swearer in of people, man.’ + +The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, doggedly +muttered ‘Alfred David.’ + +‘Is that your name?’ asked Lightwood. + +‘My name?’ returned the man. ‘No; I want to take a Alfred David.’ + +(Which Eugene, smoking and contemplating him, interpreted as meaning +Affidavit.) + +‘I tell you, my good fellow,’ said Lightwood, with his indolent laugh, +‘that I have nothing to do with swearing.’ + +‘He can swear AT you,’ Eugene explained; ‘and so can I. But we can’t do +more for you.’ + +Much discomfited by this information, the visitor turned the drowned +dog or cat, puppy or kitten, about and about, and looked from one of +the Governors Both to the other of the Governors Both, while he deeply +considered within himself. At length he decided: + +‘Then I must be took down.’ + +‘Where?’ asked Lightwood. + +‘Here,’ said the man. ‘In pen and ink.’ + +‘First, let us know what your business is about.’ + +‘It’s about,’ said the man, taking a step forward, dropping his hoarse +voice, and shading it with his hand, ‘it’s about from five to ten +thousand pound reward. That’s what it’s about. It’s about Murder. That’s +what it’s about.’ + +‘Come nearer the table. Sit down. Will you have a glass of wine?’ + +‘Yes, I will,’ said the man; ‘and I don’t deceive you, Governors.’ + +It was given him. Making a stiff arm to the elbow, he poured the wine +into his mouth, tilted it into his right cheek, as saying, ‘What do you +think of it?’ tilted it into his left cheek, as saying, ‘What do YOU +think of it?’ jerked it into his stomach, as saying, ‘What do YOU think +of it?’ To conclude, smacked his lips, as if all three replied, ‘We +think well of it.’ + +‘Will you have another?’ + +‘Yes, I will,’ he repeated, ‘and I don’t deceive you, Governors.’ And +also repeated the other proceedings. + +‘Now,’ began Lightwood, ‘what’s your name?’ + +‘Why, there you’re rather fast, Lawyer Lightwood,’ he replied, in a +remonstrant manner. ‘Don’t you see, Lawyer Lightwood? There you’re a +little bit fast. I’m going to earn from five to ten thousand pound by +the sweat of my brow; and as a poor man doing justice to the sweat of my +brow, is it likely I can afford to part with so much as my name without +its being took down?’ + +Deferring to the man’s sense of the binding powers of pen and ink and +paper, Lightwood nodded acceptance of Eugene’s nodded proposal to take +those spells in hand. Eugene, bringing them to the table, sat down as +clerk or notary. + +‘Now,’ said Lightwood, ‘what’s your name?’ + +But further precaution was still due to the sweat of this honest +fellow’s brow. + +‘I should wish, Lawyer Lightwood,’ he stipulated, ‘to have that T’other +Governor as my witness that what I said I said. Consequent, will the +T’other Governor be so good as chuck me his name and where he lives?’ + +Eugene, cigar in mouth and pen in hand, tossed him his card. After +spelling it out slowly, the man made it into a little roll, and tied it +up in an end of his neckerchief still more slowly. + +‘Now,’ said Lightwood, for the third time, ‘if you have quite completed +your various preparations, my friend, and have fully ascertained that +your spirits are cool and not in any way hurried, what’s your name?’ + +‘Roger Riderhood.’ + +‘Dwelling-place?’ + +‘Lime’us Hole.’ + +‘Calling or occupation?’ + +Not quite so glib with this answer as with the previous two, Mr +Riderhood gave in the definition, ‘Waterside character.’ + +‘Anything against you?’ Eugene quietly put in, as he wrote. + +Rather baulked, Mr Riderhood evasively remarked, with an innocent air, +that he believed the T’other Governor had asked him summa’t. + +‘Ever in trouble?’ said Eugene. + +‘Once.’ (Might happen to any man, Mr Riderhood added incidentally.) + +‘On suspicion of—’ + +‘Of seaman’s pocket,’ said Mr Riderhood. ‘Whereby I was in reality the +man’s best friend, and tried to take care of him.’ + +‘With the sweat of your brow?’ asked Eugene. + +‘Till it poured down like rain,’ said Roger Riderhood. + +Eugene leaned back in his chair, and smoked with his eyes negligently +turned on the informer, and his pen ready to reduce him to more writing. +Lightwood also smoked, with his eyes negligently turned on the informer. + +‘Now let me be took down again,’ said Riderhood, when he had turned the +drowned cap over and under, and had brushed it the wrong way (if it had +a right way) with his sleeve. ‘I give information that the man that done +the Harmon Murder is Gaffer Hexam, the man that found the body. The hand +of Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer on the river and along shore, is +the hand that done that deed. His hand and no other.’ + +The two friends glanced at one another with more serious faces than they +had shown yet. + +‘Tell us on what grounds you make this accusation,’ said Mortimer +Lightwood. + +‘On the grounds,’ answered Riderhood, wiping his face with his sleeve, +‘that I was Gaffer’s pardner, and suspected of him many a long day and +many a dark night. On the grounds that I knowed his ways. On the grounds +that I broke the pardnership because I see the danger; which I warn you +his daughter may tell you another story about that, for anythink I can +say, but you know what it’ll be worth, for she’d tell you lies, the +world round and the heavens broad, to save her father. On the grounds +that it’s well understood along the cause’ays and the stairs that he +done it. On the grounds that he’s fell off from, because he done it. On +the grounds that I will swear he done it. On the grounds that you may +take me where you will, and get me sworn to it. I don’t want to back out +of the consequences. I have made up MY mind. Take me anywheres.’ + +‘All this is nothing,’ said Lightwood. + +‘Nothing?’ repeated Riderhood, indignantly and amazedly. + +‘Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you suspect this man of +the crime. You may do so with some reason, or you may do so with no +reason, but he cannot be convicted on your suspicion.’ + +‘Haven’t I said—I appeal to the T’other Governor as my witness—haven’t +I said from the first minute that I opened my mouth in this here +world-without-end-everlasting chair’ (he evidently used that form of +words as next in force to an affidavit), ‘that I was willing to swear +that he done it? Haven’t I said, Take me and get me sworn to it? Don’t I +say so now? You won’t deny it, Lawyer Lightwood?’ + +‘Surely not; but you only offer to swear to your suspicion, and I tell +you it is not enough to swear to your suspicion.’ + +‘Not enough, ain’t it, Lawyer Lightwood?’ he cautiously demanded. + +‘Positively not.’ + +‘And did I say it WAS enough? Now, I appeal to the T’other Governor. +Now, fair! Did I say so?’ + +‘He certainly has not said that he had no more to tell,’ Eugene observed +in a low voice without looking at him, ‘whatever he seemed to imply.’ + +‘Hah!’ cried the informer, triumphantly perceiving that the remark was +generally in his favour, though apparently not closely understanding it. +‘Fort’nate for me I had a witness!’ + +‘Go on, then,’ said Lightwood. ‘Say out what you have to say. No +after-thought.’ + +‘Let me be took down then!’ cried the informer, eagerly and anxiously. +‘Let me be took down, for by George and the Draggin I’m a coming to it +now! Don’t do nothing to keep back from a honest man the fruits of the +sweat of his brow! I give information, then, that he told me that he +done it. Is THAT enough?’ + +‘Take care what you say, my friend,’ returned Mortimer. + +‘Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say; for I judge you’ll be +answerable for follering it up!’ Then, slowly and emphatically beating +it all out with his open right hand on the palm of his left; ‘I, +Roger Riderhood, Lime’us Hole, Waterside character, tell you, Lawyer +Lightwood, that the man Jesse Hexam, commonly called upon the river and +along-shore Gaffer, told me that he done the deed. What’s more, he told +me with his own lips that he done the deed. What’s more, he said that he +done the deed. And I’ll swear it!’ + +‘Where did he tell you so?’ + +‘Outside,’ replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with his head +determinedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing their +attention between his two auditors, ‘outside the door of the Six Jolly +Fellowships, towards a quarter after twelve o’clock at midnight—but I +will not in my conscience undertake to swear to so fine a matter as +five minutes—on the night when he picked up the body. The Six Jolly +Fellowships won’t run away. If it turns out that he warn’t at the Six +Jolly Fellowships that night at midnight, I’m a liar.’ + +‘What did he say?’ + +‘I’ll tell you (take me down, T’other Governor, I ask no better). He +come out first; I come out last. I might be a minute arter him; I might +be half a minute, I might be a quarter of a minute; I cannot swear to +that, and therefore I won’t. That’s knowing the obligations of a Alfred +David, ain’t it?’ + +‘Go on.’ + +‘I found him a waiting to speak to me. He says to me, “Rogue +Riderhood”—for that’s the name I’m mostly called by—not for any +meaning in it, for meaning it has none, but because of its being similar +to Roger.’ + +‘Never mind that.’ + +‘’Scuse ME, Lawyer Lightwood, it’s a part of the truth, and as such I +do mind it, and I must mind it and I will mind it. “Rogue Riderhood,” + he says, “words passed betwixt us on the river tonight.” Which they had; +ask his daughter! “I threatened you,” he says, “to chop you over the +fingers with my boat’s stretcher, or take a aim at your brains with my +boathook. I did so on accounts of your looking too hard at what I had in +tow, as if you was suspicious, and on accounts of your holding on to the +gunwale of my boat.” I says to him, “Gaffer, I know it.” He says to me, +“Rogue Riderhood, you are a man in a dozen”—I think he said in a score, +but of that I am not positive, so take the lowest figure, for precious +be the obligations of a Alfred David. “And,” he says, “when your +fellow-men is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, sharp is +ever the word with you. Had you suspicions?” I says, “Gaffer, I had; +and what’s more, I have.” He falls a shaking, and he says, “Of what?” I +says, “Of foul play.” He falls a shaking worse, and he says, “There WAS +foul play then. I done it for his money. Don’t betray me!” Those were +the words as ever he used.’ + +There was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the grate. +An opportunity which the informer improved by smearing himself all +over the head and neck and face with his drowned cap, and not at all +improving his own appearance. + +‘What more?’ asked Lightwood. + +‘Of him, d’ye mean, Lawyer Lightwood?’ + +‘Of anything to the purpose.’ + +‘Now, I’m blest if I understand you, Governors Both,’ said the informer, +in a creeping manner: propitiating both, though only one had spoken. +‘What? Ain’t THAT enough?’ + +‘Did you ask him how he did it, where he did it, when he did it?’ + +‘Far be it from me, Lawyer Lightwood! I was so troubled in my mind, that +I wouldn’t have knowed more, no, not for the sum as I expect to earn +from you by the sweat of my brow, twice told! I had put an end to the +pardnership. I had cut the connexion. I couldn’t undo what was done; and +when he begs and prays, “Old pardner, on my knees, don’t split upon me!” + I only makes answer “Never speak another word to Roger Riderhood, nor +look him in the face!” and I shuns that man.’ + +Having given these words a swing to make them mount the higher and go +the further, Rogue Riderhood poured himself out another glass of wine +unbidden, and seemed to chew it, as, with the half-emptied glass in his +hand, he stared at the candles. + +Mortimer glanced at Eugene, but Eugene sat glowering at his paper, +and would give him no responsive glance. Mortimer again turned to the +informer, to whom he said: + +‘You have been troubled in your mind a long time, man?’ + +Giving his wine a final chew, and swallowing it, the informer answered +in a single word: + +‘Hages!’ + +‘When all that stir was made, when the Government reward was offered, +when the police were on the alert, when the whole country rang with the +crime!’ said Mortimer, impatiently. + +‘Hah!’ Mr Riderhood very slowly and hoarsely chimed in, with several +retrospective nods of his head. ‘Warn’t I troubled in my mind then!’ + +‘When conjecture ran wild, when the most extravagant suspicions were +afloat, when half a dozen innocent people might have been laid by the +heels any hour in the day!’ said Mortimer, almost warming. + +‘Hah!’ Mr Riderhood chimed in, as before. ‘Warn’t I troubled in my mind +through it all!’ + +‘But he hadn’t,’ said Eugene, drawing a lady’s head upon his +writing-paper, and touching it at intervals, ‘the opportunity then of +earning so much money, you see.’ + +‘The T’other Governor hits the nail, Lawyer Lightwood! It was that as +turned me. I had many times and again struggled to relieve myself of the +trouble on my mind, but I couldn’t get it off. I had once very nigh +got it off to Miss Abbey Potterson which keeps the Six Jolly +Fellowships—there is the ’ouse, it won’t run away,—there lives the +lady, she ain’t likely to be struck dead afore you get there—ask +her!—but I couldn’t do it. At last, out comes the new bill with your +own lawful name, Lawyer Lightwood, printed to it, and then I asks the +question of my own intellects, Am I to have this trouble on my mind for +ever? Am I never to throw it off? Am I always to think more of Gaffer +than of my own self? If he’s got a daughter, ain’t I got a daughter?’ + +‘And echo answered—?’ Eugene suggested. + +‘“You have,”’ said Mr Riderhood, in a firm tone. + +‘Incidentally mentioning, at the same time, her age?’ inquired Eugene. + +‘Yes, governor. Two-and-twenty last October. And then I put it to +myself, “Regarding the money. It is a pot of money.” For it IS a pot,’ +said Mr Riderhood, with candour, ‘and why deny it?’ + +‘Hear!’ from Eugene as he touched his drawing. + +‘“It is a pot of money; but is it a sin for a labouring man that +moistens every crust of bread he earns, with his tears—or if not with +them, with the colds he catches in his head—is it a sin for that man to +earn it? Say there is anything again earning it.” This I put to myself +strong, as in duty bound; “how can it be said without blaming Lawyer +Lightwood for offering it to be earned?” And was it for ME to blame +Lawyer Lightwood? No.’ + +‘No,’ said Eugene. + +‘Certainly not, Governor,’ Mr Riderhood acquiesced. ‘So I made up my +mind to get my trouble off my mind, and to earn by the sweat of my brow +what was held out to me. And what’s more,’ he added, suddenly turning +bloodthirsty, ‘I mean to have it! And now I tell you, once and away, +Lawyer Lightwood, that Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer, his hand and +no other, done the deed, on his own confession to me. And I give him up +to you, and I want him took. This night!’ + +After another silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the +grate, which attracted the informer’s attention as if it were the +chinking of money, Mortimer Lightwood leaned over his friend, and said +in a whisper: + +‘I suppose I must go with this fellow to our imperturbable friend at the +police-station.’ + +‘I suppose,’ said Eugene, ‘there is no help for it.’ + +‘Do you believe him?’ + +‘I believe him to be a thorough rascal. But he may tell the truth, for +his own purpose, and for this occasion only.’ + +‘It doesn’t look like it.’ + +‘HE doesn’t,’ said Eugene. ‘But neither is his late partner, whom he +denounces, a prepossessing person. The firm are cut-throat Shepherds +both, in appearance. I should like to ask him one thing.’ + +The subject of this conference sat leering at the ashes, trying with +all his might to overhear what was said, but feigning abstraction as the +‘Governors Both’ glanced at him. + +‘You mentioned (twice, I think) a daughter of this Hexam’s,’ said +Eugene, aloud. ‘You don’t mean to imply that she had any guilty +knowledge of the crime?’ + +The honest man, after considering—perhaps considering how his answer +might affect the fruits of the sweat of his brow—replied, unreservedly, +‘No, I don’t.’ + +‘And you implicate no other person?’ + +‘It ain’t what I implicate, it’s what Gaffer implicated,’ was the dogged +and determined answer. ‘I don’t pretend to know more than that his words +to me was, “I done it.” Those was his words.’ + +‘I must see this out, Mortimer,’ whispered Eugene, rising. ‘How shall we +go?’ + +‘Let us walk,’ whispered Lightwood, ‘and give this fellow time to think +of it.’ + +Having exchanged the question and answer, they prepared themselves +for going out, and Mr Riderhood rose. While extinguishing the candles, +Lightwood, quite as a matter of course took up the glass from which that +honest gentleman had drunk, and coolly tossed it under the grate, where +it fell shivering into fragments. + +‘Now, if you will take the lead,’ said Lightwood, ‘Mr Wrayburn and I +will follow. You know where to go, I suppose?’ + +‘I suppose I do, Lawyer Lightwood.’ + +‘Take the lead, then.’ + +The waterside character pulled his drowned cap over his ears with both +hands, and making himself more round-shouldered than nature had made +him, by the sullen and persistent slouch with which he went, went +down the stairs, round by the Temple Church, across the Temple into +Whitefriars, and so on by the waterside streets. + +‘Look at his hang-dog air,’ said Lightwood, following. + +‘It strikes me rather as a hang-MAN air,’ returned Eugene. ‘He has +undeniable intentions that way.’ + +They said little else as they followed. He went on before them as an +ugly Fate might have done, and they kept him in view, and would have +been glad enough to lose sight of him. But on he went before them, +always at the same distance, and the same rate. Aslant against the hard +implacable weather and the rough wind, he was no more to be driven back +than hurried forward, but held on like an advancing Destiny. There came, +when they were about midway on their journey, a heavy rush of hail, +which in a few minutes pelted the streets clear, and whitened them. It +made no difference to him. A man’s life being to be taken and the price +of it got, the hailstones to arrest the purpose must lie larger and +deeper than those. He crashed through them, leaving marks in the +fast-melting slush that were mere shapeless holes; one might have +fancied, following, that the very fashion of humanity had departed from +his feet. + +The blast went by, and the moon contended with the fast-flying clouds, +and the wild disorder reigning up there made the pitiful little tumults +in the streets of no account. It was not that the wind swept all +the brawlers into places of shelter, as it had swept the hail still +lingering in heaps wherever there was refuge for it; but that it seemed +as if the streets were absorbed by the sky, and the night were all in +the air. + +‘If he has had time to think of it,’ said Eugene, ‘he has not had time to +think better of it—or differently of it, if that’s better. There is no +sign of drawing back in him; and as I recollect this place, we must be +close upon the corner where we alighted that night.’ + +In fact, a few abrupt turns brought them to the river side, where they +had slipped about among the stones, and where they now slipped more; the +wind coming against them in slants and flaws, across the tide and the +windings of the river, in a furious way. With that habit of getting +under the lee of any shelter which waterside characters acquire, the +waterside character at present in question led the way to the leeside of +the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters before he spoke. + +‘Look round here, Lawyer Lightwood, at them red curtains. It’s the +Fellowships, the ’ouse as I told you wouldn’t run away. And has it run +away?’ + +Not showing himself much impressed by this remarkable confirmation of +the informer’s evidence, Lightwood inquired what other business they had +there? + +‘I wished you to see the Fellowships for yourself, Lawyer Lightwood, +that you might judge whether I’m a liar; and now I’ll see Gaffer’s +window for myself, that we may know whether he’s at home.’ + +With that, he crept away. + +‘He’ll come back, I suppose?’ murmured Lightwood. + +‘Ay! and go through with it,’ murmured Eugene. + +He came back after a very short interval indeed. + +‘Gaffer’s out, and his boat’s out. His daughter’s at home, sitting +a-looking at the fire. But there’s some supper getting ready, so +Gaffer’s expected. I can find what move he’s upon, easy enough, +presently.’ + +Then he beckoned and led the way again, and they came to the +police-station, still as clean and cool and steady as before, saving +that the flame of its lamp—being but a lamp-flame, and only attached to +the Force as an outsider—flickered in the wind. + +Also, within doors, Mr Inspector was at his studies as of yore. +He recognized the friends the instant they reappeared, but their +reappearance had no effect on his composure. Not even the circumstance +that Riderhood was their conductor moved him, otherwise than that as he +took a dip of ink he seemed, by a settlement of his chin in his stock, +to propound to that personage, without looking at him, the question, +‘What have YOU been up to, last?’ + +Mortimer Lightwood asked him, would he be so good as look at those +notes? Handing him Eugene’s. + +Having read the first few lines, Mr Inspector mounted to that (for him) +extraordinary pitch of emotion that he said, ‘Does either of you two +gentlemen happen to have a pinch of snuff about him?’ Finding that +neither had, he did quite as well without it, and read on. + +‘Have you heard these read?’ he then demanded of the honest man. + +‘No,’ said Riderhood. + +‘Then you had better hear them.’ And so read them aloud, in an official +manner. + +‘Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you bring here and +the evidence you mean to give?’ he asked, when he had finished reading. + +‘They are. They are as correct,’ returned Mr Riderhood, ‘as I am. I +can’t say more than that for ’em.’ + +‘I’ll take this man myself, sir,’ said Mr Inspector to Lightwood. Then +to Riderhood, ‘Is he at home? Where is he? What’s he doing? You have +made it your business to know all about him, no doubt.’ + +Riderhood said what he did know, and promised to find out in a few +minutes what he didn’t know. + +‘Stop,’ said Mr Inspector; ‘not till I tell you: We mustn’t look like +business. Would you two gentlemen object to making a pretence of taking +a glass of something in my company at the Fellowships? Well-conducted +house, and highly respectable landlady.’ + +They replied that they would be happy to substitute a reality for the +pretence, which, in the main, appeared to be as one with Mr Inspector’s +meaning. + +‘Very good,’ said he, taking his hat from its peg, and putting a pair of +handcuffs in his pocket as if they were his gloves. ‘Reserve!’ Reserve +saluted. ‘You know where to find me?’ Reserve again saluted. ‘Riderhood, +when you have found out concerning his coming home, come round to the +window of Cosy, tap twice at it, and wait for me. Now, gentlemen.’ + +As the three went out together, and Riderhood slouched off from under +the trembling lamp his separate way, Lightwood asked the officer what he +thought of this? + +Mr Inspector replied, with due generality and reticence, that it was +always more likely that a man had done a bad thing than that he hadn’t. +That he himself had several times ‘reckoned up’ Gaffer, but had never +been able to bring him to a satisfactory criminal total. That if this +story was true, it was only in part true. That the two men, very shy +characters, would have been jointly and pretty equally ‘in it;’ but that +this man had ‘spotted’ the other, to save himself and get the money. + +‘And I think,’ added Mr Inspector, in conclusion, ‘that if all goes +well with him, he’s in a tolerable way of getting it. But as this is the +Fellowships, gentlemen, where the lights are, I recommend dropping +the subject. You can’t do better than be interested in some lime works +anywhere down about Northfleet, and doubtful whether some of your lime +don’t get into bad company as it comes up in barges.’ + +‘You hear Eugene?’ said Lightwood, over his shoulder. ‘You are deeply +interested in lime.’ + +‘Without lime,’ returned that unmoved barrister-at-law, ‘my existence +would be unilluminated by a ray of hope.’ + + + + +Chapter 13 + +TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY + + +The two lime merchants, with their escort, entered the dominions of +Miss Abbey Potterson, to whom their escort (presenting them and their +pretended business over the half-door of the bar, in a confidential +way) preferred his figurative request that ‘a mouthful of fire’ might +be lighted in Cosy. Always well disposed to assist the constituted +authorities, Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentlemen to +that retreat, and promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. Of this +commission the bare-armed Bob, leading the way with a flaming wisp of +paper, so speedily acquitted himself, that Cosy seemed to leap out of a +dark sleep and embrace them warmly, the moment they passed the lintels +of its hospitable door. + +‘They burn sherry very well here,’ said Mr Inspector, as a piece of +local intelligence. ‘Perhaps you gentlemen might like a bottle?’ + +The answer being By all means, Bob Gliddery received his instructions +from Mr Inspector, and departed in a becoming state of alacrity +engendered by reverence for the majesty of the law. + +‘It’s a certain fact,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘that this man we have +received our information from,’ indicating Riderhood with his thumb over +his shoulder, ‘has for some time past given the other man a bad name +arising out of your lime barges, and that the other man has been avoided +in consequence. I don’t say what it means or proves, but it’s a certain +fact. I had it first from one of the opposite sex of my acquaintance,’ +vaguely indicating Miss Abbey with his thumb over his shoulder, ‘down +away at a distance, over yonder.’ + +Then probably Mr Inspector was not quite unprepared for their visit that +evening? Lightwood hinted. + +‘Well you see,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘it was a question of making a move. +It’s of no use moving if you don’t know what your move is. You had +better by far keep still. In the matter of this lime, I certainly had +an idea that it might lie betwixt the two men; I always had that idea. +Still I was forced to wait for a start, and I wasn’t so lucky as to get +a start. This man that we have received our information from, has got +a start, and if he don’t meet with a check he may make the running and +come in first. There may turn out to be something considerable for him +that comes in second, and I don’t mention who may or who may not try +for that place. There’s duty to do, and I shall do it, under any +circumstances; to the best of my judgment and ability.’ + +‘Speaking as a shipper of lime—’ began Eugene. + +‘Which no man has a better right to do than yourself, you know,’ said Mr +Inspector. + +‘I hope not,’ said Eugene; ‘my father having been a shipper of lime +before me, and my grandfather before him—in fact we having been a +family immersed to the crowns of our heads in lime during several +generations—I beg to observe that if this missing lime could be got +hold of without any young female relative of any distinguished gentleman +engaged in the lime trade (which I cherish next to my life) being +present, I think it might be a more agreeable proceeding to the +assisting bystanders, that is to say, lime-burners.’ + +‘I also,’ said Lightwood, pushing his friend aside with a laugh, ‘should +much prefer that.’ + +‘It shall be done, gentlemen, if it can be done conveniently,’ said +Mr Inspector, with coolness. ‘There is no wish on my part to cause any +distress in that quarter. Indeed, I am sorry for that quarter.’ + +‘There was a boy in that quarter,’ remarked Eugene. ‘He is still there?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Inspector. ‘He has quitted those works. He is otherwise +disposed of.’ + +‘Will she be left alone then?’ asked Eugene. + +‘She will be left,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘alone.’ + +Bob’s reappearance with a steaming jug broke off the conversation. But +although the jug steamed forth a delicious perfume, its contents had not +received that last happy touch which the surpassing finish of the Six +Jolly Fellowship Porters imparted on such momentous occasions. Bob +carried in his left hand one of those iron models of sugar-loaf hats, +before mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and the pointed end of +which he thrust deep down into the fire, so leaving it for a few moments +while he disappeared and reappeared with three bright drinking-glasses. +Placing these on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriously +sensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of +steam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up the iron +vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth one +gentle hiss. Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over the +steam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in succession; +finally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited the +applause of his fellow-creatures. + +It was bestowed (Mr Inspector having proposed as an appropriate +sentiment ‘The lime trade!’) and Bob withdrew to report the +commendations of the guests to Miss Abbey in the bar. It may be here +in confidence admitted that, the room being close shut in his absence, +there had not appeared to be the slightest reason for the elaborate +maintenance of this same lime fiction. Only it had been regarded by Mr +Inspector as so uncommonly satisfactory, and so fraught with mysterious +virtues, that neither of his clients had presumed to question it. + +Two taps were now heard on the outside of the window. Mr Inspector, +hastily fortifying himself with another glass, strolled out with a +noiseless foot and an unoccupied countenance. As one might go to survey +the weather and the general aspect of the heavenly bodies. + +‘This is becoming grim, Mortimer,’ said Eugene, in a low voice. ‘I don’t +like this.’ + +‘Nor I’ said Lightwood. ‘Shall we go?’ + +‘Being here, let us stay. You ought to see it out, and I won’t leave +you. Besides, that lonely girl with the dark hair runs in my head. It +was little more than a glimpse we had of her that last time, and yet +I almost see her waiting by the fire to-night. Do you feel like a dark +combination of traitor and pickpocket when you think of that girl?’ + +‘Rather,’ returned Lightwood. ‘Do you?’ + +‘Very much so.’ + +Their escort strolled back again, and reported. Divested of its various +lime-lights and shadows, his report went to the effect that Gaffer was +away in his boat, supposed to be on his old look-out; that he had been +expected last high-water; that having missed it for some reason or +other, he was not, according to his usual habits at night, to be counted +on before next high-water, or it might be an hour or so later; that his +daughter, surveyed through the window, would seem to be so expecting +him, for the supper was not cooking, but set out ready to be cooked; +that it would be high-water at about one, and that it was now barely +ten; that there was nothing to be done but watch and wait; that the +informer was keeping watch at the instant of that present reporting, but +that two heads were better than one (especially when the second was +Mr Inspector’s); and that the reporter meant to share the watch. And +forasmuch as crouching under the lee of a hauled-up boat on a night when +it blew cold and strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts of +hail at times, might be wearisome to amateurs, the reporter closed with +the recommendation that the two gentlemen should remain, for a while at +any rate, in their present quarters, which were weather-tight and warm. + +They were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, but they wanted +to know where they could join the watchers when so disposed. Rather than +trust to a verbal description of the place, which might mislead, Eugene +(with a less weighty sense of personal trouble on him than he usually +had) would go out with Mr Inspector, note the spot, and come back. + +On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of a +causeway—not the special causeway of the Six Jolly Fellowships, which +had a landing-place of its own, but another, a little removed, and +very near to the old windmill which was the denounced man’s +dwelling-place—were a few boats; some, moored and already beginning to +float; others, hauled up above the reach of the tide. Under one of these +latter, Eugene’s companion disappeared. And when Eugene had observed its +position with reference to the other boats, and had made sure that he +could not miss it, he turned his eyes upon the building where, as he had +been told, the lonely girl with the dark hair sat by the fire. + +He could see the light of the fire shining through the window. Perhaps +it drew him on to look in. Perhaps he had come out with the express +intention. That part of the bank having rank grass growing on it, there +was no difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: it +was but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty hard mud some three or +four feet high and come upon the grass and to the window. He came to the +window by that means. + +She had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lamp +stood on the table. She sat on the ground, looking at the brazier, with +her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on +her face, which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a +second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and solitary spectacle, +as shown him by the rising and the falling of the fire. + +It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not +curtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was. It showed +him the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the drowned people +starting out and receding by turns. But he glanced slightly at them, +though he looked long and steadily at her. A deep rich piece of colour, +with the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her hair, +though sad and solitary, weeping by the rising and the falling of the +fire. + +She started up. He had been so very still that he felt sure it was not +he who had disturbed her, so merely withdrew from the window and stood +near it in the shadow of the wall. She opened the door, and said in an +alarmed tone, ‘Father, was that you calling me?’ And again, ‘Father!’ +And once again, after listening, ‘Father! I thought I heard you call me +twice before!’ + +No response. As she re-entered at the door, he dropped over the bank and +made his way back, among the ooze and near the hiding-place, to Mortimer +Lightwood: to whom he told what he had seen of the girl, and how this +was becoming very grim indeed. + +‘If the real man feels as guilty as I do,’ said Eugene, ‘he is +remarkably uncomfortable.’ + +‘Influence of secrecy,’ suggested Lightwood. + +‘I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes in the vault and +a Sneak in the area both at once,’ said Eugene. ‘Give me some more of +that stuff.’ + +Lightwood helped him to some more of that stuff, but it had been +cooling, and didn’t answer now. + +‘Pooh,’ said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. ‘Tastes like the +wash of the river.’ + +‘Are you so familiar with the flavour of the wash of the river?’ + +‘I seem to be to-night. I feel as if I had been half drowned, and +swallowing a gallon of it.’ + +‘Influence of locality,’ suggested Lightwood. + +‘You are mighty learned to-night, you and your influences,’ returned +Eugene. ‘How long shall we stay here?’ + +‘How long do you think?’ + +‘If I could choose, I should say a minute,’ replied Eugene, ‘for the +Jolly Fellowship Porters are not the jolliest dogs I have known. But +I suppose we are best here until they turn us out with the other +suspicious characters, at midnight.’ + +Thereupon he stirred the fire, and sat down on one side of it. It struck +eleven, and he made believe to compose himself patiently. But gradually +he took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other leg, and then in +one arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his chin, and then in +his back, and then in his forehead, and then in his hair, and then in +his nose; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, and +groaned; and then he started up. + +‘Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I am +tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed a burglary +under the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of justice are at my +heels.’ + +‘I am quite as bad,’ said Lightwood, sitting up facing him, with a +tumbled head; after going through some wonderful evolutions, in which +his head had been the lowest part of him. ‘This restlessness began with +me, long ago. All the time you were out, I felt like Gulliver with the +Lilliputians firing upon him.’ + +‘It won’t do, Mortimer. We must get into the air; we must join our dear +friend and brother, Riderhood. And let us tranquillize ourselves by +making a compact. Next time (with a view to our peace of mind) we’ll +commit the crime, instead of taking the criminal. You swear it?’ + +‘Certainly.’ + +‘Sworn! Let Tippins look to it. Her life’s in danger.’ + +Mortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared to transact +that business with him: whom Eugene, in his careless extravagance, asked +if he would like a situation in the lime-trade? + +‘Thankee sir, no sir,’ said Bob. ‘I’ve a good sitiwation here, sir.’ + +‘If you change your mind at any time,’ returned Eugene, ‘come to me at +my works, and you’ll always find an opening in the lime-kiln.’ + +‘Thankee sir,’ said Bob. + +‘This is my partner,’ said Eugene, ‘who keeps the books and attends to +the wages. A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work is ever my partner’s +motto.’ + +‘And a very good ’un it is, gentlemen,’ said Bob, receiving his fee, and +drawing a bow out of his head with his right hand, very much as he would +have drawn a pint of beer out of the beer engine. + +‘Eugene,’ Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite heartily when they +were alone again, ‘how CAN you be so ridiculous?’ + +‘I am in a ridiculous humour,’ quoth Eugene; ‘I am a ridiculous fellow. +Everything is ridiculous. Come along!’ + +It passed into Mortimer Lightwood’s mind that a change of some sort, +best expressed perhaps as an intensification of all that was wildest and +most negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon him in the last +half-hour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, he found something +new and strained in him that was for the moment perplexing. This passed +into his mind, and passed out again; but he remembered it afterwards. + +‘There’s where she sits, you see,’ said Eugene, when they were standing +under the bank, roared and riven at by the wind. ‘There’s the light of +her fire.’ + +‘I’ll take a peep through the window,’ said Mortimer. + +‘No, don’t!’ Eugene caught him by the arm. ‘Best, not make a show of +her. Come to our honest friend.’ + +He led him to the post of watch, and they both dropped down and crept +under the lee of the boat; a better shelter than it had seemed before, +being directly contrasted with the blowing wind and the bare night. + +‘Mr Inspector at home?’ whispered Eugene. + +‘Here I am, sir.’ + +‘And our friend of the perspiring brow is at the far corner there? Good. +Anything happened?’ + +‘His daughter has been out, thinking she heard him calling, unless it +was a sign to him to keep out of the way. It might have been.’ + +‘It might have been Rule Britannia,’ muttered Eugene, ‘but it wasn’t. +Mortimer!’ + +‘Here!’ (On the other side of Mr Inspector.) + +‘Two burglaries now, and a forgery!’ + +With this indication of his depressed state of mind, Eugene fell silent. + +They were all silent for a long while. As it got to be flood-tide, and +the water came nearer to them, noises on the river became more frequent, +and they listened more. To the turning of steam-paddles, to the clinking +of iron chain, to the creaking of blocks, to the measured working +of oars, to the occasional violent barking of some passing dog on +shipboard, who seemed to scent them lying in their hiding-place. The +night was not so dark but that, besides the lights at bows and mastheads +gliding to and fro, they could discern some shadowy bulk attached; and +now and then a ghostly lighter with a large dark sail, like a warning +arm, would start up very near them, pass on, and vanish. At this time +of their watch, the water close to them would be often agitated by some +impulsion given it from a distance. Often they believed this beat and +plash to be the boat they lay in wait for, running in ashore; and again +and again they would have started up, but for the immobility with which +the informer, well used to the river, kept quiet in his place. + +The wind carried away the striking of the great multitude of city +church clocks, for those lay to leeward of them; but there were bells to +windward that told them of its being One—Two—Three. Without that aid +they would have known how the night wore, by the falling of the tide, +recorded in the appearance of an ever-widening black wet strip of shore, +and the emergence of the paved causeway from the river, foot by foot. + +As the time so passed, this slinking business became a more and more +precarious one. It would seem as if the man had had some intimation of +what was in hand against him, or had taken fright? His movements might +have been planned to gain for him, in getting beyond their reach, twelve +hours’ advantage? The honest man who had expended the sweat of his brow +became uneasy, and began to complain with bitterness of the proneness of +mankind to cheat him—him invested with the dignity of Labour! + +Their retreat was so chosen that while they could watch the river, they +could watch the house. No one had passed in or out, since the daughter +thought she heard the father calling. No one could pass in or out +without being seen. + +‘But it will be light at five,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘and then WE shall be +seen.’ + +‘Look here,’ said Riderhood, ‘what do you say to this? He may have +been lurking in and out, and just holding his own betwixt two or three +bridges, for hours back.’ + +‘What do you make of that?’ said Mr Inspector. Stoical, but +contradictory. + +‘He may be doing so at this present time.’ + +‘What do you make of that?’ said Mr Inspector. + +‘My boat’s among them boats here at the cause’ay.’ + +‘And what do you make of your boat?’ said Mr Inspector. + +‘What if I put off in her and take a look round? I know his ways, and +the likely nooks he favours. I know where he’d be at such a time of the +tide, and where he’d be at such another time. Ain’t I been his pardner? +None of you need show. None of you need stir. I can shove her off +without help; and as to me being seen, I’m about at all times.’ + +‘You might have given a worse opinion,’ said Mr Inspector, after brief +consideration. ‘Try it.’ + +‘Stop a bit. Let’s work it out. If I want you, I’ll drop round under the +Fellowships and tip you a whistle.’ + +‘If I might so far presume as to offer a suggestion to my honourable and +gallant friend, whose knowledge of naval matters far be it from me to +impeach,’ Eugene struck in with great deliberation, ‘it would be, that +to tip a whistle is to advertise mystery and invite speculation. +My honourable and gallant friend will, I trust, excuse me, as an +independent member, for throwing out a remark which I feel to be due to +this house and the country.’ + +‘Was that the T’other Governor, or Lawyer Lightwood?’ asked Riderhood. +For, they spoke as they crouched or lay, without seeing one another’s +faces. + +‘In reply to the question put by my honourable and gallant friend,’ +said Eugene, who was lying on his back with his hat on his face, as an +attitude highly expressive of watchfulness, ‘I can have no hesitation in +replying (it not being inconsistent with the public service) that those +accents were the accents of the T’other Governor.’ + +‘You’ve tolerable good eyes, ain’t you, Governor? You’ve all tolerable +good eyes, ain’t you?’ demanded the informer. + +All. + +‘Then if I row up under the Fellowship and lay there, no need to +whistle. You’ll make out that there’s a speck of something or another +there, and you’ll know it’s me, and you’ll come down that cause’ay to +me. Understood all?’ + +Understood all. + +‘Off she goes then!’ + +In a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, he was +staggering down to his boat; in a few moments he was clear, and creeping +up the river under their own shore. + +Eugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the darkness after +him. ‘I wish the boat of my honourable and gallant friend,’ he murmured, +lying down again and speaking into his hat, ‘may be endowed +with philanthropy enough to turn bottom-upward and extinguish +him!—Mortimer.’ + +‘My honourable friend.’ + +‘Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassination.’ Yet +in spite of having those weights on his conscience, Eugene was somewhat +enlivened by the late slight change in the circumstances of affairs. So +were his two companions. Its being a change was everything. The suspense +seemed to have taken a new lease, and to have begun afresh from a recent +date. There was something additional to look for. They were all three +more sharply on the alert, and less deadened by the miserable influences +of the place and time. + +More than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, when one of the +three—each said it was he, and he had NOT dozed—made out Riderhood +in his boat at the spot agreed on. They sprang up, came out from their +shelter, and went down to him. When he saw them coming, he dropped +alongside the causeway; so that they, standing on the causeway, could +speak with him in whispers, under the shadowy mass of the Six Jolly +Fellowship Porters fast asleep. + +‘Blest if I can make it out!’ said he, staring at them. + +‘Make what out? Have you seen him?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘What HAVE you seen?’ asked Lightwood. For, he was staring at them in +the strangest way. + +‘I’ve seen his boat.’ + +‘Not empty?’ + +‘Yes, empty. And what’s more,—adrift. And what’s more,—with one scull +gone. And what’s more,—with t’other scull jammed in the thowels and +broke short off. And what’s more,—the boat’s drove tight by the tide +’atwixt two tiers of barges. And what’s more,—he’s in luck again, by +George if he ain’t!’ + + + + +Chapter 14 + +THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN + + +Cold on the shore, in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in the +four-and-twenty hours when the vital force of all the noblest and +prettiest things that live is at its lowest, the three watchers looked +each at the blank faces of the other two, and all at the blank face of +Riderhood in his boat. + +‘Gaffer’s boat, Gaffer in luck again, and yet no Gaffer!’ So spake +Riderhood, staring disconsolate. + +As if with one accord, they all turned their eyes towards the light of +the fire shining through the window. It was fainter and duller. Perhaps +fire, like the higher animal and vegetable life it helps to sustain, has +its greatest tendency towards death, when the night is dying and the day +is not yet born. + +‘If it was me that had the law of this here job in hand,’ growled +Riderhood with a threatening shake of his head, ‘blest if I wouldn’t lay +hold of HER, at any rate!’ + +‘Ay, but it is not you,’ said Eugene. With something so suddenly fierce +in him that the informer returned submissively; ‘Well, well, well, +t’other governor, I didn’t say it was. A man may speak.’ + +‘And vermin may be silent,’ said Eugene. ‘Hold your tongue, you +water-rat!’ + +Astonished by his friend’s unusual heat, Lightwood stared too, and then +said: ‘What can have become of this man?’ + +‘Can’t imagine. Unless he dived overboard.’ The informer wiped his +brow ruefully as he said it, sitting in his boat and always staring +disconsolate. + +‘Did you make his boat fast?’ + +‘She’s fast enough till the tide runs back. I couldn’t make her faster +than she is. Come aboard of mine, and see for your own-selves.’ + +There was a little backwardness in complying, for the freight looked too +much for the boat; but on Riderhood’s protesting ‘that he had had half a +dozen, dead and alive, in her afore now, and she was nothing deep in the +water nor down in the stern even then, to speak of;’ they carefully took +their places, and trimmed the crazy thing. While they were doing so, +Riderhood still sat staring disconsolate. + +‘All right. Give way!’ said Lightwood. + +‘Give way, by George!’ repeated Riderhood, before shoving off. ‘If he’s +gone and made off any how Lawyer Lightwood, it’s enough to make me give +way in a different manner. But he always WAS a cheat, con-found him! +He always was a infernal cheat, was Gaffer. Nothing straightfor’ard, +nothing on the square. So mean, so underhanded. Never going through with +a thing, nor carrying it out like a man!’ + +‘Hallo! Steady!’ cried Eugene (he had recovered immediately on +embarking), as they bumped heavily against a pile; and then in a lower +voice reversed his late apostrophe by remarking (‘I wish the boat of my +honourable and gallant friend may be endowed with philanthropy enough +not to turn bottom-upward and extinguish us!) Steady, steady! Sit close, +Mortimer. Here’s the hail again. See how it flies, like a troop of wild +cats, at Mr Riderhood’s eyes!’ + +Indeed he had the full benefit of it, and it so mauled him, though he +bent his head low and tried to present nothing but the mangy cap to it, +that he dropped under the lee of a tier of shipping, and they lay there +until it was over. The squall had come up, like a spiteful messenger +before the morning; there followed in its wake a ragged tear of light +which ripped the dark clouds until they showed a great grey hole of day. + +They were all shivering, and everything about them seemed to be +shivering; the river itself; craft, rigging, sails, such early smoke as +there yet was on the shore. Black with wet, and altered to the eye by +white patches of hail and sleet, the huddled buildings looked lower +than usual, as if they were cowering, and had shrunk with the cold. Very +little life was to be seen on either bank, windows and doors were shut, +and the staring black and white letters upon wharves and warehouses +‘looked,’ said Eugene to Mortimer, ‘like inscriptions over the graves of +dead businesses.’ + +As they glided slowly on, keeping under the shore and sneaking in and +out among the shipping by back-alleys of water, in a pilfering way +that seemed to be their boatman’s normal manner of progression, all +the objects among which they crept were so huge in contrast with their +wretched boat, as to threaten to crush it. Not a ship’s hull, with its +rusty iron links of cable run out of hawse-holes long discoloured with +the iron’s rusty tears, but seemed to be there with a fell intention. +Not a figure-head but had the menacing look of bursting forward to run +them down. Not a sluice gate, or a painted scale upon a post or wall, +showing the depth of water, but seemed to hint, like the dreadfully +facetious Wolf in bed in Grandmamma’s cottage, ‘That’s to drown YOU in, +my dears!’ Not a lumbering black barge, with its cracked and blistered +side impending over them, but seemed to suck at the river with a +thirst for sucking them under. And everything so vaunted the spoiling +influences of water—discoloured copper, rotten wood, honey-combed +stone, green dank deposit—that the after-consequences of being crushed, +sucked under, and drawn down, looked as ugly to the imagination as the +main event. + +Some half-hour of this work, and Riderhood unshipped his sculls, stood +holding on to a barge, and hand over hand long-wise along the barge’s +side gradually worked his boat under her head into a secret little +nook of scummy water. And driven into that nook, and wedged as he had +described, was Gaffer’s boat; that boat with the stain still in it, +bearing some resemblance to a muffled human form. + +‘Now tell me I’m a liar!’ said the honest man. + +(‘With a morbid expectation,’ murmured Eugene to Lightwood, ‘that +somebody is always going to tell him the truth.’) + +‘This is Hexam’s boat,’ said Mr Inspector. ‘I know her well.’ + +‘Look at the broken scull. Look at the t’other scull gone. NOW tell me I +am a liar!’ said the honest man. + +Mr Inspector stepped into the boat. Eugene and Mortimer looked on. + +‘And see now!’ added Riderhood, creeping aft, and showing a stretched +rope made fast there and towing overboard. ‘Didn’t I tell you he was in +luck again?’ + +‘Haul in,’ said Mr Inspector. + +‘Easy to say haul in,’ answered Riderhood. ‘Not so easy done. His luck’s +got fouled under the keels of the barges. I tried to haul in last time, +but I couldn’t. See how taut the line is!’ + +‘I must have it up,’ said Mr Inspector. ‘I am going to take this boat +ashore, and his luck along with it. Try easy now.’ + +He tried easy now; but the luck resisted; wouldn’t come. + +‘I mean to have it, and the boat too,’ said Mr Inspector, playing the +line. + +But still the luck resisted; wouldn’t come. + +‘Take care,’ said Riderhood. ‘You’ll disfigure. Or pull asunder +perhaps.’ + +‘I am not going to do either, not even to your Grandmother,’ said Mr +Inspector; ‘but I mean to have it. Come!’ he added, at once persuasively +and with authority to the hidden object in the water, as he played the +line again; ‘it’s no good this sort of game, you know. You MUST come up. +I mean to have you.’ + +There was so much virtue in this distinctly and decidedly meaning to +have it, that it yielded a little, even while the line was played. + +‘I told you so,’ quoth Mr Inspector, pulling off his outer coat, and +leaning well over the stern with a will. ‘Come!’ + +It was an awful sort of fishing, but it no more disconcerted Mr +Inspector than if he had been fishing in a punt on a summer evening by +some soothing weir high up the peaceful river. After certain minutes, +and a few directions to the rest to ‘ease her a little for’ard,’ and +‘now ease her a trifle aft,’ and the like, he said composedly, ‘All +clear!’ and the line and the boat came free together. + +Accepting Lightwood’s proffered hand to help him up, he then put on his +coat, and said to Riderhood, ‘Hand me over those spare sculls of yours, +and I’ll pull this in to the nearest stairs. Go ahead you, and keep out +in pretty open water, that I mayn’t get fouled again.’ + +His directions were obeyed, and they pulled ashore directly; two in one +boat, two in the other. + +‘Now,’ said Mr Inspector, again to Riderhood, when they were all on the +slushy stones; ‘you have had more practice in this than I have had, and +ought to be a better workman at it. Undo the tow-rope, and we’ll help +you haul in.’ + +Riderhood got into the boat accordingly. It appeared as if he had +scarcely had a moment’s time to touch the rope or look over the stern, +when he came scrambling back, as pale as the morning, and gasped out: + +‘By the Lord, he’s done me!’ + +‘What do you mean?’ they all demanded. + +He pointed behind him at the boat, and gasped to that degree that he +dropped upon the stones to get his breath. + +‘Gaffer’s done me. It’s Gaffer!’ + +They ran to the rope, leaving him gasping there. Soon, the form of the +bird of prey, dead some hours, lay stretched upon the shore, with a new +blast storming at it and clotting the wet hair with hail-stones. + +Father, was that you calling me? Father! I thought I heard you call me +twice before! Words never to be answered, those, upon the earth-side +of the grave. The wind sweeps jeeringly over Father, whips him with the +frayed ends of his dress and his jagged hair, tries to turn him where he +lies stark on his back, and force his face towards the rising sun, that +he may be shamed the more. A lull, and the wind is secret and prying +with him; lifts and lets falls a rag; hides palpitating under another +rag; runs nimbly through his hair and beard. Then, in a rush, it cruelly +taunts him. Father, was that you calling me? Was it you, the voiceless +and the dead? Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap? Was +it you, thus baptized unto Death, with these flying impurities now flung +upon your face? Why not speak, Father? Soaking into this filthy ground +as you lie here, is your own shape. Did you never see such a shape +soaked into your boat? Speak, Father. Speak to us, the winds, the only +listeners left you! + +‘Now see,’ said Mr Inspector, after mature deliberation: kneeling on one +knee beside the body, when they had stood looking down on the drowned +man, as he had many a time looked down on many another man: ‘the way of +it was this. Of course you gentlemen hardly failed to observe that he +was towing by the neck and arms.’ + +They had helped to release the rope, and of course not. + +‘And you will have observed before, and you will observe now, that this +knot, which was drawn chock-tight round his neck by the strain of his +own arms, is a slip-knot’: holding it up for demonstration. + +Plain enough. + +‘Likewise you will have observed how he had run the other end of this +rope to his boat.’ + +It had the curves and indentations in it still, where it had been twined +and bound. + +‘Now see,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘see how it works round upon him. It’s a +wild tempestuous evening when this man that was,’ stooping to wipe +some hailstones out of his hair with an end of his own drowned jacket, +‘—there! Now he’s more like himself; though he’s badly bruised,—when +this man that was, rows out upon the river on his usual lay. He carries +with him this coil of rope. He always carries with him this coil of +rope. It’s as well known to me as he was himself. Sometimes it lay in +the bottom of his boat. Sometimes he hung it loose round his neck. +He was a light-dresser was this man;—you see?’ lifting the loose +neckerchief over his breast, and taking the opportunity of wiping the +dead lips with it—‘and when it was wet, or freezing, or blew cold, he +would hang this coil of line round his neck. Last evening he does this. +Worse for him! He dodges about in his boat, does this man, till he gets +chilled. His hands,’ taking up one of them, which dropped like a leaden +weight, ‘get numbed. He sees some object that’s in his way of business, +floating. He makes ready to secure that object. He unwinds the end of +his coil that he wants to take some turns on in his boat, and he takes +turns enough on it to secure that it shan’t run out. He makes it too +secure, as it happens. He is a little longer about this than usual, his +hands being numbed. His object drifts up, before he is quite ready for +it. He catches at it, thinks he’ll make sure of the contents of the +pockets anyhow, in case he should be parted from it, bends right over +the stern, and in one of these heavy squalls, or in the cross-swell of +two steamers, or in not being quite prepared, or through all or most or +some, gets a lurch, overbalances and goes head-foremost overboard. Now +see! He can swim, can this man, and instantly he strikes out. But in +such striking-out he tangles his arms, pulls strong on the slip-knot, +and it runs home. The object he had expected to take in tow, floats by, +and his own boat tows him dead, to where we found him, all entangled +in his own line. You’ll ask me how I make out about the pockets? First, +I’ll tell you more; there was silver in ’em. How do I make that out? +Simple and satisfactory. Because he’s got it here.’ The lecturer held up +the tightly clenched right hand. + +‘What is to be done with the remains?’ asked Lightwood. + +‘If you wouldn’t object to standing by him half a minute, sir,’ was +the reply, ‘I’ll find the nearest of our men to come and take charge of +him;—I still call it HIM, you see,’ said Mr Inspector, looking back as +he went, with a philosophical smile upon the force of habit. + +‘Eugene,’ said Lightwood and was about to add ‘we may wait at a little +distance,’ when turning his head he found that no Eugene was there. + +He raised his voice and called ‘Eugene! Holloa!’ But no Eugene replied. + +It was broad daylight now, and he looked about. But no Eugene was in all +the view. + +Mr Inspector speedily returning down the wooden stairs, with a police +constable, Lightwood asked him if he had seen his friend leave them? Mr +Inspector could not exactly say that he had seen him go, but had noticed +that he was restless. + +‘Singular and entertaining combination, sir, your friend.’ + +‘I wish it had not been a part of his singular entertaining combination +to give me the slip under these dreary circumstances at this time of the +morning,’ said Lightwood. ‘Can we get anything hot to drink?’ + +We could, and we did. In a public-house kitchen with a large fire. We +got hot brandy and water, and it revived us wonderfully. Mr Inspector +having to Mr Riderhood announced his official intention of ‘keeping +his eye upon him’, stood him in a corner of the fireplace, like a wet +umbrella, and took no further outward and visible notice of that honest +man, except ordering a separate service of brandy and water for him: +apparently out of the public funds. + +As Mortimer Lightwood sat before the blazing fire, conscious of drinking +brandy and water then and there in his sleep, and yet at one and the +same time drinking burnt sherry at the Six Jolly Fellowships, and +lying under the boat on the river shore, and sitting in the boat that +Riderhood rowed, and listening to the lecture recently concluded, and +having to dine in the Temple with an unknown man, who described himself +as M. H. F. Eugene Gaffer Harmon, and said he lived at Hailstorm,—as +he passed through these curious vicissitudes of fatigue and slumber, +arranged upon the scale of a dozen hours to the second, he became aware +of answering aloud a communication of pressing importance that had +never been made to him, and then turned it into a cough on beholding +Mr Inspector. For, he felt, with some natural indignation, that that +functionary might otherwise suspect him of having closed his eyes, or +wandered in his attention. + +‘Here just before us, you see,’ said Mr Inspector. + +‘I see,’ said Lightwood, with dignity. + +‘And had hot brandy and water too, you see,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘and +then cut off at a great rate.’ + +‘Who?’ said Lightwood. + +‘Your friend, you know.’ + +‘I know,’ he replied, again with dignity. + +After hearing, in a mist through which Mr Inspector loomed vague and +large, that the officer took upon himself to prepare the dead man’s +daughter for what had befallen in the night, and generally that he took +everything upon himself, Mortimer Lightwood stumbled in his sleep to +a cab-stand, called a cab, and had entered the army and committed a +capital military offence and been tried by court martial and found +guilty and had arranged his affairs and been marched out to be shot, +before the door banged. + +Hard work rowing the cab through the City to the Temple, for a cup of +from five to ten thousand pounds value, given by Mr Boffin; and hard +work holding forth at that immeasurable length to Eugene (when he had +been rescued with a rope from the running pavement) for making off in +that extraordinary manner! But he offered such ample apologies, and was +so very penitent, that when Lightwood got out of the cab, he gave +the driver a particular charge to be careful of him. Which the driver +(knowing there was no other fare left inside) stared at prodigiously. + +In short, the night’s work had so exhausted and worn out this actor in +it, that he had become a mere somnambulist. He was too tired to rest in +his sleep, until he was even tired out of being too tired, and dropped +into oblivion. Late in the afternoon he awoke, and in some anxiety sent +round to Eugene’s lodging hard by, to inquire if he were up yet? + +Oh yes, he was up. In fact, he had not been to bed. He had just come +home. And here he was, close following on the heels of the message. + +‘Why what bloodshot, draggled, dishevelled spectacle is this!’ cried +Mortimer. + +‘Are my feathers so very much rumpled?’ said Eugene, coolly going up to +the looking-glass. They ARE rather out of sorts. But consider. Such a +night for plumage!’ + +‘Such a night?’ repeated Mortimer. ‘What became of you in the morning?’ + +‘My dear fellow,’ said Eugene, sitting on his bed, ‘I felt that we +had bored one another so long, that an unbroken continuance of those +relations must inevitably terminate in our flying to opposite points of +the earth. I also felt that I had committed every crime in the Newgate +Calendar. So, for mingled considerations of friendship and felony, I +took a walk.’ + + + + +Chapter 15 + +TWO NEW SERVANTS + + +Mr and Mrs Boffin sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a prey to +prosperity. Mr Boffin’s face denoted Care and Complication. Many +disordered papers were before him, and he looked at them about as +hopefully as an innocent civilian might look at a crowd of troops whom +he was required at five minutes’ notice to manoeuvre and review. He had +been engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers; but being +troubled (as men of his stamp often are) with an exceedingly distrustful +and corrective thumb, that busy member had so often interposed to +smear his notes, that they were little more legible than the various +impressions of itself; which blurred his nose and forehead. It is +curious to consider, in such a case as Mr Boffin’s, what a cheap article +ink is, and how far it may be made to go. As a grain of musk will scent +a drawer for many years, and still lose nothing appreciable of its +original weight, so a halfpenny-worth of ink would blot Mr Boffin to the +roots of his hair and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a line +on the paper before him, or appearing to diminish in the inkstand. + +Mr Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his eyes were +prominent and fixed, and his breathing was stertorous, when, to the +great relief of Mrs Boffin, who observed these symptoms with alarm, the +yard bell rang. + +‘Who’s that, I wonder!’ said Mrs Boffin. + +Mr Boffin drew a long breath, laid down his pen, looked at his notes +as doubting whether he had the pleasure of their acquaintance, and +appeared, on a second perusal of their countenances, to be confirmed +in his impression that he had not, when there was announced by the +hammer-headed young man: + +‘Mr Rokesmith.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Oh indeed! Our and the Wilfers’ Mutual Friend, my +dear. Yes. Ask him to come in.’ + +Mr Rokesmith appeared. + +‘Sit down, sir,’ said Mr Boffin, shaking hands with him. ‘Mrs Boffin +you’re already acquainted with. Well, sir, I am rather unprepared to see +you, for, to tell you the truth, I’ve been so busy with one thing and +another, that I’ve not had time to turn your offer over.’ + +‘That’s apology for both of us: for Mr Boffin, and for me as well,’ said +the smiling Mrs Boffin. ‘But Lor! we can talk it over now; can’t us?’ + +Mr Rokesmith bowed, thanked her, and said he hoped so. + +‘Let me see then,’ resumed Mr Boffin, with his hand to his chin. ‘It was +Secretary that you named; wasn’t it?’ + +‘I said Secretary,’ assented Mr Rokesmith. + +‘It rather puzzled me at the time,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘and it rather +puzzled me and Mrs Boffin when we spoke of it afterwards, because (not +to make a mystery of our belief) we have always believed a Secretary to +be a piece of furniture, mostly of mahogany, lined with green baize or +leather, with a lot of little drawers in it. Now, you won’t think I take +a liberty when I mention that you certainly ain’t THAT.’ + +Certainly not, said Mr Rokesmith. But he had used the word in the sense +of Steward. + +‘Why, as to Steward, you see,’ returned Mr Boffin, with his hand still +to his chin, ‘the odds are that Mrs Boffin and me may never go upon the +water. Being both bad sailors, we should want a Steward if we did; but +there’s generally one provided.’ + +Mr Rokesmith again explained; defining the duties he sought to +undertake, as those of general superintendent, or manager, or +overlooker, or man of business. + +‘Now, for instance—come!’ said Mr Boffin, in his pouncing way. ‘If you +entered my employment, what would you do?’ + +‘I would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you sanctioned, +Mr Boffin. I would write your letters, under your direction. I would +transact your business with people in your pay or employment. I would,’ +with a glance and a half-smile at the table, ‘arrange your papers—’ + +Mr Boffin rubbed his inky ear, and looked at his wife. + +‘—And so arrange them as to have them always in order for immediate +reference, with a note of the contents of each outside it.’ + +‘I tell you what,’ said Mr Boffin, slowly crumpling his own blotted note +in his hand; ‘if you’ll turn to at these present papers, and see what +you can make of ’em, I shall know better what I can make of you.’ + +No sooner said than done. Relinquishing his hat and gloves, Mr Rokesmith +sat down quietly at the table, arranged the open papers into an orderly +heap, cast his eyes over each in succession, folded it, docketed it on +the outside, laid it in a second heap, and, when that second heap was +complete and the first gone, took from his pocket a piece of string and +tied it together with a remarkably dexterous hand at a running curve and +a loop. + +‘Good!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Very good! Now let us hear what they’re all +about; will you be so good?’ + +John Rokesmith read his abstracts aloud. They were all about the new +house. Decorator’s estimate, so much. Furniture estimate, so much. +Estimate for furniture of offices, so much. Coach-maker’s estimate, so +much. Horse-dealer’s estimate, so much. Harness-maker’s estimate, so +much. Goldsmith’s estimate, so much. Total, so very much. Then came +correspondence. Acceptance of Mr Boffin’s offer of such a date, and to +such an effect. Rejection of Mr Boffin’s proposal of such a date and to +such an effect. Concerning Mr Boffin’s scheme of such another date to +such another effect. All compact and methodical. + +‘Apple-pie order!’ said Mr Boffin, after checking off each inscription +with his hand, like a man beating time. ‘And whatever you do with your +ink, I can’t think, for you’re as clean as a whistle after it. Now, as +to a letter. Let’s,’ said Mr Boffin, rubbing his hands in his pleasantly +childish admiration, ‘let’s try a letter next.’ + +‘To whom shall it be addressed, Mr Boffin?’ + +‘Anyone. Yourself.’ + +Mr Rokesmith quickly wrote, and then read aloud: + +‘“Mr Boffin presents his compliments to Mr John Rokesmith, and begs +to say that he has decided on giving Mr John Rokesmith a trial in the +capacity he desires to fill. Mr Boffin takes Mr John Rokesmith at his +word, in postponing to some indefinite period, the consideration of +salary. It is quite understood that Mr Boffin is in no way committed +on that point. Mr Boffin has merely to add, that he relies on Mr John +Rokesmith’s assurance that he will be faithful and serviceable. Mr John +Rokesmith will please enter on his duties immediately.”’ + +‘Well! Now, Noddy!’ cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, ‘That IS a +good one!’ + +Mr Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, he regarded +both the composition itself and the device that had given birth to it, +as a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity. + +‘And I tell you, my deary,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘that if you don’t close +with Mr Rokesmith now at once, and if you ever go a muddling yourself +again with things never meant nor made for you, you’ll have an +apoplexy—besides iron-moulding your linen—and you’ll break my heart.’ + +Mr Boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom, and then, +congratulating John Rokesmith on the brilliancy of his achievements, +gave him his hand in pledge of their new relations. So did Mrs Boffin. + +‘Now,’ said Mr Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it did not +become him to have a gentleman in his employment five minutes, without +reposing some confidence in him, ‘you must be let a little more into our +affairs, Rokesmith. I mentioned to you, when I made your acquaintance, +or I might better say when you made mine, that Mrs Boffin’s inclinations +was setting in the way of Fashion, but that I didn’t know how +fashionable we might or might not grow. Well! Mrs Boffin has carried the +day, and we’re going in neck and crop for Fashion.’ + +‘I rather inferred that, sir,’ replied John Rokesmith, ‘from the scale +on which your new establishment is to be maintained.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘it’s to be a Spanker. The fact is, my +literary man named to me that a house with which he is, as I may say, +connected—in which he has an interest—’ + +‘As property?’ inquired John Rokesmith. + +‘Why no,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘not exactly that; a sort of a family tie.’ + +‘Association?’ the Secretary suggested. + +‘Ah!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Perhaps. Anyhow, he named to me that the house +had a board up, “This Eminently Aristocratic Mansion to be let or sold.” + Me and Mrs Boffin went to look at it, and finding it beyond a doubt +Eminently Aristocratic (though a trifle high and dull, which after all +may be part of the same thing) took it. My literary man was so friendly +as to drop into a charming piece of poetry on that occasion, in which he +complimented Mrs Boffin on coming into possession of—how did it go, my +dear?’ + +Mrs Boffin replied: + + ‘“The gay, the gay and festive scene, + The halls, the halls of dazzling light.”’ + +‘That’s it! And it was made neater by there really being two halls +in the house, a front ’un and a back ’un, besides the servants’. +He likewise dropped into a very pretty piece of poetry to be sure, +respecting the extent to which he would be willing to put himself out +of the way to bring Mrs Boffin round, in case she should ever get low +in her spirits in the house. Mrs Boffin has a wonderful memory. Will you +repeat it, my dear?’ + +Mrs Boffin complied, by reciting the verses in which this obliging offer +had been made, exactly as she had received them. + + ‘“I’ll tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs Boffin, + When her true love was slain ma’am, + And how her broken spirit slept, Mrs Boffin, + And never woke again ma’am. + I’ll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr Boffin) how the steed drew + nigh, + And left his lord afar; + And if my tale (which I hope Mr Boffin might excuse) should + make you sigh, + I’ll strike the light guitar.”’ + +‘Correct to the letter!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘And I consider that the poetry +brings us both in, in a beautiful manner.’ + +The effect of the poem on the Secretary being evidently to astonish +him, Mr Boffin was confirmed in his high opinion of it, and was greatly +pleased. + +‘Now, you see, Rokesmith,’ he went on, ‘a literary man—WITH a wooden +leg—is liable to jealousy. I shall therefore cast about for comfortable +ways and means of not calling up Wegg’s jealousy, but of keeping you in +your department, and keeping him in his.’ + +‘Lor!’ cried Mrs Boffin. ‘What I say is, the world’s wide enough for all +of us!’ + +‘So it is, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘when not literary. But when so, +not so. And I am bound to bear in mind that I took Wegg on, at a time +when I had no thought of being fashionable or of leaving the Bower. To +let him feel himself anyways slighted now, would be to be guilty of +a meanness, and to act like having one’s head turned by the halls of +dazzling light. Which Lord forbid! Rokesmith, what shall we say about +your living in the house?’ + +‘In this house?’ + +‘No, no. I have got other plans for this house. In the new house?’ + +‘That will be as you please, Mr Boffin. I hold myself quite at your +disposal. You know where I live at present.’ + +‘Well!’ said Mr Boffin, after considering the point; ‘suppose you keep +as you are for the present, and we’ll decide by-and-by. You’ll begin to +take charge at once, of all that’s going on in the new house, will you?’ + +‘Most willingly. I will begin this very day. Will you give me the +address?’ + +Mr Boffin repeated it, and the Secretary wrote it down in his +pocket-book. Mrs Boffin took the opportunity of his being so engaged, +to get a better observation of his face than she had yet taken. It +impressed her in his favour, for she nodded aside to Mr Boffin, ‘I like +him.’ + +‘I will see directly that everything is in train, Mr Boffin.’ + +‘Thank’ee. Being here, would you care at all to look round the Bower?’ + +‘I should greatly like it. I have heard so much of its story.’ + +‘Come!’ said Mr Boffin. And he and Mrs Boffin led the way. + +A gloomy house the Bower, with sordid signs on it of having been, +through its long existence as Harmony Jail, in miserly holding. Bare of +paint, bare of paper on the walls, bare of furniture, bare of experience +of human life. Whatever is built by man for man’s occupation, must, +like natural creations, fulfil the intention of its existence, or soon +perish. This old house had wasted—more from desuetude than it would +have wasted from use, twenty years for one. + +A certain leanness falls upon houses not sufficiently imbued with life +(as if they were nourished upon it), which was very noticeable here. +The staircase, balustrades, and rails, had a spare look—an air of being +denuded to the bone—which the panels of the walls and the jambs of the +doors and windows also bore. The scanty moveables partook of it; save +for the cleanliness of the place, the dust into which they were all +resolving would have lain thick on the floors; and those, both in colour +and in grain, were worn like old faces that had kept much alone. + +The bedroom where the clutching old man had lost his grip on life, was +left as he had left it. There was the old grisly four-post bedstead, +without hangings, and with a jail-like upper rim of iron and spikes; and +there was the old patch-work counterpane. There was the tight-clenched +old bureau, receding atop like a bad and secret forehead; there was the +cumbersome old table with twisted legs, at the bed-side; and there +was the box upon it, in which the will had lain. A few old chairs with +patch-work covers, under which the more precious stuff to be preserved +had slowly lost its quality of colour without imparting pleasure to any +eye, stood against the wall. A hard family likeness was on all these +things. + +‘The room was kept like this, Rokesmith,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘against the +son’s return. In short, everything in the house was kept exactly as it +came to us, for him to see and approve. Even now, nothing is changed +but our own room below-stairs that you have just left. When the son came +home for the last time in his life, and for the last time in his life +saw his father, it was most likely in this room that they met.’ + +As the Secretary looked all round it, his eyes rested on a side door in +a corner. + +‘Another staircase,’ said Mr Boffin, unlocking the door, ‘leading down +into the yard. We’ll go down this way, as you may like to see the yard, +and it’s all in the road. When the son was a little child, it was up +and down these stairs that he mostly came and went to his father. He was +very timid of his father. I’ve seen him sit on these stairs, in his +shy way, poor child, many a time. Mr and Mrs Boffin have comforted him, +sitting with his little book on these stairs, often.’ + +‘Ah! And his poor sister too,’ said Mrs Boffin. ‘And here’s the sunny +place on the white wall where they one day measured one another. Their +own little hands wrote up their names here, only with a pencil; but the +names are here still, and the poor dears gone for ever.’ + +‘We must take care of the names, old lady,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘We must +take care of the names. They shan’t be rubbed out in our time, nor yet, +if we can help it, in the time after us. Poor little children!’ + +‘Ah, poor little children!’ said Mrs Boffin. + +They had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on the +yard, and they stood in the sunlight, looking at the scrawl of the two +unsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase. There was +something in this simple memento of a blighted childhood, and in the +tenderness of Mrs Boffin, that touched the Secretary. + +Mr Boffin then showed his new man of business the Mounds, and his own +particular Mound which had been left him as his legacy under the will +before he acquired the whole estate. + +‘It would have been enough for us,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘in case it had +pleased God to spare the last of those two young lives and sorrowful +deaths. We didn’t want the rest.’ + +At the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the house, and at +the detached building which Mr Boffin pointed out as the residence +of himself and his wife during the many years of their service, the +Secretary looked with interest. It was not until Mr Boffin had shown +him every wonder of the Bower twice over, that he remembered his having +duties to discharge elsewhere. + +‘You have no instructions to give me, Mr Boffin, in reference to this +place?’ + +‘Not any, Rokesmith. No.’ + +‘Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you have any +intention of selling it?’ + +‘Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our old master’s +children, and our old service, me and Mrs Boffin mean to keep it up as +it stands.’ + +The Secretary’s eyes glanced with so much meaning in them at the Mounds, +that Mr Boffin said, as if in answer to a remark: + +‘Ay, ay, that’s another thing. I may sell THEM, though I should be sorry +to see the neighbourhood deprived of ’em too. It’ll look but a poor dead +flat without the Mounds. Still I don’t say that I’m going to keep ’em +always there, for the sake of the beauty of the landscape. There’s no +hurry about it; that’s all I say at present. I ain’t a scholar in much, +Rokesmith, but I’m a pretty fair scholar in dust. I can price the Mounds +to a fraction, and I know how they can be best disposed of; and likewise +that they take no harm by standing where they do. You’ll look in +to-morrow, will you be so kind?’ + +‘Every day. And the sooner I can get you into your new house, complete, +the better you will be pleased, sir?’ + +‘Well, it ain’t that I’m in a mortal hurry,’ said Mr Boffin; ‘only when +you DO pay people for looking alive, it’s as well to know that they ARE +looking alive. Ain’t that your opinion?’ + +‘Quite!’ replied the Secretary; and so withdrew. + +‘Now,’ said Mr Boffin to himself; subsiding into his regular series of +turns in the yard, ‘if I can make it comfortable with Wegg, my affairs +will be going smooth.’ + +The man of low cunning had, of course, acquired a mastery over the man +of high simplicity. The mean man had, of course, got the better of the +generous man. How long such conquests last, is another matter; that they +are achieved, is every-day experience, not even to be flourished away by +Podsnappery itself. The undesigning Boffin had become so far immeshed +by the wily Wegg that his mind misgave him he was a very designing man +indeed in purposing to do more for Wegg. It seemed to him (so skilful +was Wegg) that he was plotting darkly, when he was contriving to do the +very thing that Wegg was plotting to get him to do. And thus, while he +was mentally turning the kindest of kind faces on Wegg this morning, he +was not absolutely sure but that he might somehow deserve the charge of +turning his back on him. + +For these reasons Mr Boffin passed but anxious hours until evening came, +and with it Mr Wegg, stumping leisurely to the Roman Empire. At about +this period Mr Boffin had become profoundly interested in the fortunes +of a great military leader known to him as Bully Sawyers, but perhaps +better known to fame and easier of identification by the classical +student, under the less Britannic name of Belisarius. Even this +general’s career paled in interest for Mr Boffin before the clearing of +his conscience with Wegg; and hence, when that literary gentleman had +according to custom eaten and drunk until he was all a-glow, and when +he took up his book with the usual chirping introduction, ‘And now, Mr +Boffin, sir, we’ll decline and we’ll fall!’ Mr Boffin stopped him. + +‘You remember, Wegg, when I first told you that I wanted to make a sort +of offer to you?’ + +‘Let me get on my considering cap, sir,’ replied that gentleman, turning +the open book face downward. ‘When you first told me that you wanted +to make a sort of offer to me? Now let me think.’ (as if there were the +least necessity) ‘Yes, to be sure I do, Mr Boffin. It was at my corner. +To be sure it was! You had first asked me whether I liked your name, +and Candour had compelled a reply in the negative case. I little thought +then, sir, how familiar that name would come to be!’ + +‘I hope it will be more familiar still, Wegg.’ + +‘Do you, Mr Boffin? Much obliged to you, I’m sure. Is it your pleasure, +sir, that we decline and we fall?’ with a feint of taking up the book. + +‘Not just yet awhile, Wegg. In fact, I have got another offer to make +you.’ + +Mr Wegg (who had had nothing else in his mind for several nights) took +off his spectacles with an air of bland surprise. + +‘And I hope you’ll like it, Wegg.’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ returned that reticent individual. ‘I hope it may +prove so. On all accounts, I am sure.’ (This, as a philanthropic +aspiration.) + +‘What do you think,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘of not keeping a stall, Wegg?’ + +‘I think, sir,’ replied Wegg, ‘that I should like to be shown the +gentleman prepared to make it worth my while!’ + +‘Here he is,’ said Mr Boffin. + +Mr Wegg was going to say, My Benefactor, and had said My Bene, when a +grandiloquent change came over him. + +‘No, Mr Boffin, not you sir. Anybody but you. Do not fear, Mr Boffin, +that I shall contaminate the premises which your gold has bought, with +MY lowly pursuits. I am aware, sir, that it would not become me to carry +on my little traffic under the windows of your mansion. I have already +thought of that, and taken my measures. No need to be bought out, sir. +Would Stepney Fields be considered intrusive? If not remote enough, I +can go remoter. In the words of the poet’s song, which I do not quite +remember: + + Thrown on the wide world, doom’d to wander and roam, + Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home, + A stranger to something and what’s his name joy, + Behold little Edmund the poor Peasant boy. + +—And equally,’ said Mr Wegg, repairing the want of direct application +in the last line, ‘behold myself on a similar footing!’ + +‘Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg,’ remonstrated the excellent Boffin. ‘You are too +sensitive.’ + +‘I know I am, sir,’ returned Wegg, with obstinate magnanimity. ‘I am +acquainted with my faults. I always was, from a child, too sensitive.’ + +‘But listen,’ pursued the Golden Dustman; ‘hear me out, Wegg. You have +taken it into your head that I mean to pension you off.’ + +‘True, sir,’ returned Wegg, still with an obstinate magnanimity. ‘I am +acquainted with my faults. Far be it from me to deny them. I HAVE taken +it into my head.’ + +‘But I DON’T mean it.’ + +The assurance seemed hardly as comforting to Mr Wegg, as Mr Boffin +intended it to be. Indeed, an appreciable elongation of his visage might +have been observed as he replied: + +‘Don’t you, indeed, sir?’ + +‘No,’ pursued Mr Boffin; ‘because that would express, as I understand +it, that you were not going to do anything to deserve your money. But +you are; you are.’ + +‘That, sir,’ replied Mr Wegg, cheering up bravely, ‘is quite another +pair of shoes. Now, my independence as a man is again elevated. Now, I +no longer + + Weep for the hour, + When to Boffinses bower, + The Lord of the valley with offers came; + Neither does the moon hide her light + From the heavens to-night, + And weep behind her clouds o’er any individual in the present + Company’s shame. + +—Please to proceed, Mr Boffin.’ + +‘Thank’ee, Wegg, both for your confidence in me and for your frequent +dropping into poetry; both of which is friendly. Well, then; my idea is, +that you should give up your stall, and that I should put you into the +Bower here, to keep it for us. It’s a pleasant spot; and a man with +coals and candles and a pound a week might be in clover here.’ + +‘Hem! Would that man, sir—we will say that man, for the purposes of +argueyment;’ Mr Wegg made a smiling demonstration of great perspicuity +here; ‘would that man, sir, be expected to throw any other capacity in, +or would any other capacity be considered extra? Now let us (for the +purposes of argueyment) suppose that man to be engaged as a reader: say +(for the purposes of argueyment) in the evening. Would that man’s pay as +a reader in the evening, be added to the other amount, which, adopting +your language, we will call clover; or would it merge into that amount, +or clover?’ + +‘Well,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘I suppose it would be added.’ + +‘I suppose it would, sir. You are right, sir. Exactly my own views, +Mr Boffin.’ Here Wegg rose, and balancing himself on his wooden leg, +fluttered over his prey with extended hand. ‘Mr Boffin, consider it +done. Say no more, sir, not a word more. My stall and I are for ever +parted. The collection of ballads will in future be reserved for private +study, with the object of making poetry tributary’—Wegg was so proud +of having found this word, that he said it again, with a capital +letter—‘Tributary, to friendship. Mr Boffin, don’t allow yourself to +be made uncomfortable by the pang it gives me to part from my stock and +stall. Similar emotion was undergone by my own father when promoted +for his merits from his occupation as a waterman to a situation under +Government. His Christian name was Thomas. His words at the time (I was +then an infant, but so deep was their impression on me, that I committed +them to memory) were: + + Then farewell, my trim-built wherry, + Oars and coat and badge farewell! + Never more at Chelsea Ferry, + Shall your Thomas take a spell! + +—My father got over it, Mr Boffin, and so shall I.’ + +While delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg continually +disappointed Mr Boffin of his hand by flourishing it in the air. He now +darted it at his patron, who took it, and felt his mind relieved of a +great weight: observing that as they had arranged their joint affairs +so satisfactorily, he would now be glad to look into those of Bully +Sawyers. Which, indeed, had been left over-night in a very unpromising +posture, and for whose impending expedition against the Persians the +weather had been by no means favourable all day. + +Mr Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers was not to be of +the party that night; for, before Wegg had found his place, Mrs Boffin’s +tread was heard upon the stairs, so unusually heavy and hurried, that Mr +Boffin would have started up at the sound, anticipating some occurrence +much out of the common course, even though she had not also called to +him in an agitated tone. + +Mr Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, panting, +with a lighted candle in her hand. + +‘What’s the matter, my dear?’ + +‘I don’t know; I don’t know; but I wish you’d come up-stairs.’ + +Much surprised, Mr Boffin went up stairs and accompanied Mrs Boffin into +their own room: a second large room on the same floor as the room in +which the late proprietor had died. Mr Boffin looked all round him, +and saw nothing more unusual than various articles of folded linen on a +large chest, which Mrs Boffin had been sorting. + +‘What is it, my dear? Why, you’re frightened! YOU frightened?’ + +‘I am not one of that sort certainly,’ said Mrs Boffin, as she sat down +in a chair to recover herself, and took her husband’s arm; ‘but it’s +very strange!’ + +‘What is, my dear?’ + +‘Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children are all over the +house to-night.’ + +‘My dear?’ exclaimed Mr Boffin. But not without a certain uncomfortable +sensation gliding down his back. + +‘I know it must sound foolish, and yet it is so.’ + +‘Where did you think you saw them?’ + +‘I don’t know that I think I saw them anywhere. I felt them.’ + +‘Touched them?’ + +‘No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on the chest, and +not thinking of the old man or the children, but singing to myself, when +all in a moment I felt there was a face growing out of the dark.’ + +‘What face?’ asked her husband, looking about him. + +‘For a moment it was the old man’s, and then it got younger. For a +moment it was both the children’s, and then it got older. For a moment +it was a strange face, and then it was all the faces.’ + +‘And then it was gone?’ + +‘Yes; and then it was gone.’ + +‘Where were you then, old lady?’ + +‘Here, at the chest. Well; I got the better of it, and went on sorting, +and went on singing to myself. “Lor!” I says, “I’ll think of something +else—something comfortable—and put it out of my head.” So I thought +of the new house and Miss Bella Wilfer, and was thinking at a great rate +with that sheet there in my hand, when all of a sudden, the faces seemed +to be hidden in among the folds of it and I let it drop.’ + +As it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr Boffin picked it up +and laid it on the chest. + +‘And then you ran down stairs?’ + +‘No. I thought I’d try another room, and shake it off. I says to myself, +“I’ll go and walk slowly up and down the old man’s room three times, +from end to end, and then I shall have conquered it.” I went in with the +candle in my hand; but the moment I came near the bed, the air got thick +with them.’ + +‘With the faces?’ + +‘Yes, and I even felt that they were in the dark behind the side-door, +and on the little staircase, floating away into the yard. Then, I called +you.’ + +Mr Boffin, lost in amazement, looked at Mrs Boffin. Mrs Boffin, lost in +her own fluttered inability to make this out, looked at Mr Boffin. + +‘I think, my dear,’ said the Golden Dustman, ‘I’ll at once get rid of +Wegg for the night, because he’s coming to inhabit the Bower, and it +might be put into his head or somebody else’s, if he heard this and it +got about that the house is haunted. Whereas we know better. Don’t we?’ + +‘I never had the feeling in the house before,’ said Mrs Boffin; ‘and I +have been about it alone at all hours of the night. I have been in the +house when Death was in it, and I have been in the house when Murder was +a new part of its adventures, and I never had a fright in it yet.’ + +‘And won’t again, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Depend upon it, it comes of +thinking and dwelling on that dark spot.’ + +‘Yes; but why didn’t it come before?’ asked Mrs Boffin. + +This draft on Mr Boffin’s philosophy could only be met by that gentleman +with the remark that everything that is at all, must begin at some time. +Then, tucking his wife’s arm under his own, that she might not be left +by herself to be troubled again, he descended to release Wegg. Who, +being something drowsy after his plentiful repast, and constitutionally +of a shirking temperament, was well enough pleased to stump away, +without doing what he had come to do, and was paid for doing. + +Mr Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs Boffin her shawl; and the pair, +further provided with a bunch of keys and a lighted lantern, went +all over the dismal house—dismal everywhere, but in their own two +rooms—from cellar to cock-loft. Not resting satisfied with giving that +much chace to Mrs Boffin’s fancies, they pursued them into the yard and +outbuildings, and under the Mounds. And setting the lantern, when all +was done, at the foot of one of the Mounds, they comfortably trotted to +and fro for an evening walk, to the end that the murky cobwebs in Mrs +Boffin’s brain might be blown away. + +‘There, my dear!’ said Mr Boffin when they came in to supper. ‘That was +the treatment, you see. Completely worked round, haven’t you?’ + +‘Yes, deary,’ said Mrs Boffin, laying aside her shawl. ‘I’m not nervous +any more. I’m not a bit troubled now. I’d go anywhere about the house +the same as ever. But—’ + +‘Eh!’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘But I’ve only to shut my eyes.’ + +‘And what then?’ + +‘Why then,’ said Mrs Boffin, speaking with her eyes closed, and her +left hand thoughtfully touching her brow, ‘then, there they are! The old +man’s face, and it gets younger. The two children’s faces, and they get +older. A face that I don’t know. And then all the faces!’ + +Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband’s face across the table, +she leaned forward to give it a pat on the cheek, and sat down to +supper, declaring it to be the best face in the world. + + + + +Chapter 16 + +MINDERS AND RE-MINDERS + + +The Secretary lost no time in getting to work, and his vigilance +and method soon set their mark on the Golden Dustman’s affairs. His +earnestness in determining to understand the length and breadth and +depth of every piece of work submitted to him by his employer, was as +special as his despatch in transacting it. He accepted no information +or explanation at second hand, but made himself the master of everything +confided to him. + +One part of the Secretary’s conduct, underlying all the rest, might have +been mistrusted by a man with a better knowledge of men than the +Golden Dustman had. The Secretary was as far from being inquisitive +or intrusive as Secretary could be, but nothing less than a complete +understanding of the whole of the affairs would content him. It soon +became apparent (from the knowledge with which he set out) that he must +have been to the office where the Harmon will was registered, and must +have read the will. He anticipated Mr Boffin’s consideration whether he +should be advised with on this or that topic, by showing that he +already knew of it and understood it. He did this with no attempt at +concealment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his duty to +have prepared himself at all attainable points for its utmost discharge. + +This might—let it be repeated—have awakened some little vague mistrust +in a man more worldly-wise than the Golden Dustman. On the other hand, +the Secretary was discerning, discreet, and silent, though as zealous as +if the affairs had been his own. He showed no love of patronage or the +command of money, but distinctly preferred resigning both to Mr +Boffin. If, in his limited sphere, he sought power, it was the power +of knowledge; the power derivable from a perfect comprehension of his +business. + +As on the Secretary’s face there was a nameless cloud, so on his +manner there was a shadow equally indefinable. It was not that he was +embarrassed, as on that first night with the Wilfer family; he was +habitually unembarrassed now, and yet the something remained. It was not +that his manner was bad, as on that occasion; it was now very good, as +being modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something never left it. It +has been written of men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or who +have passed through a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation have +killed a defenceless fellow-creature, that the record thereof has never +faded from their countenances until they died. Was there any such record +here? + +He established a temporary office for himself in the new house, and all +went well under his hand, with one singular exception. He manifestly +objected to communicate with Mr Boffin’s solicitor. Two or three times, +when there was some slight occasion for his doing so, he transferred +the task to Mr Boffin; and his evasion of it soon became so curiously +apparent, that Mr Boffin spoke to him on the subject of his reluctance. + +‘It is so,’ the Secretary admitted. ‘I would rather not.’ + +Had he any personal objection to Mr Lightwood? + +‘I don’t know him.’ + +Had he suffered from law-suits? + +‘Not more than other men,’ was his short answer. + +Was he prejudiced against the race of lawyers? + +‘No. But while I am in your employment, sir, I would rather be excused +from going between the lawyer and the client. Of course if you press it, +Mr Boffin, I am ready to comply. But I should take it as a great favour +if you would not press it without urgent occasion.’ + +Now, it could not be said that there WAS urgent occasion, for Lightwood +retained no other affairs in his hands than such as still lingered and +languished about the undiscovered criminal, and such as arose out of the +purchase of the house. Many other matters that might have travelled to +him, now stopped short at the Secretary, under whose administration they +were far more expeditiously and satisfactorily disposed of than they +would have been if they had got into Young Blight’s domain. This the +Golden Dustman quite understood. Even the matter immediately in hand +was of very little moment as requiring personal appearance on the +Secretary’s part, for it amounted to no more than this:—The death of +Hexam rendering the sweat of the honest man’s brow unprofitable, the +honest man had shufflingly declined to moisten his brow for nothing, +with that severe exertion which is known in legal circles as swearing +your way through a stone wall. Consequently, that new light had gone +sputtering out. But, the airing of the old facts had led some one +concerned to suggest that it would be well before they were reconsigned +to their gloomy shelf—now probably for ever—to induce or compel that +Mr Julius Handford to reappear and be questioned. And all traces of Mr +Julius Handford being lost, Lightwood now referred to his client for +authority to seek him through public advertisement. + +‘Does your objection go to writing to Lightwood, Rokesmith?’ + +‘Not in the least, sir.’ + +‘Then perhaps you’ll write him a line, and say he is free to do what he +likes. I don’t think it promises.’ + +‘I don’t think it promises,’ said the Secretary. + +‘Still, he may do what he likes.’ + +‘I will write immediately. Let me thank you for so considerately +yielding to my disinclination. It may seem less unreasonable, if I avow +to you that although I don’t know Mr Lightwood, I have a disagreeable +association connected with him. It is not his fault; he is not at all to +blame for it, and does not even know my name.’ + +Mr Boffin dismissed the matter with a nod or two. The letter was +written, and next day Mr Julius Handford was advertised for. He was +requested to place himself in communication with Mr Mortimer Lightwood, +as a possible means of furthering the ends of justice, and a reward was +offered to any one acquainted with his whereabout who would communicate +the same to the said Mr Mortimer Lightwood at his office in the Temple. +Every day for six weeks this advertisement appeared at the head of all +the newspapers, and every day for six weeks the Secretary, when he +saw it, said to himself; in the tone in which he had said to his +employer,—‘I don’t think it promises!’ + +Among his first occupations the pursuit of that orphan wanted by +Mrs Boffin held a conspicuous place. From the earliest moment of his +engagement he showed a particular desire to please her, and, knowing her +to have this object at heart, he followed it up with unwearying alacrity +and interest. + +Mr and Mrs Milvey had found their search a difficult one. Either an +eligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost always happened) +or was too old, or too young, or too sickly, or too dirty, or too much +accustomed to the streets, or too likely to run away; or, it was found +impossible to complete the philanthropic transaction without buying the +orphan. For, the instant it became known that anybody wanted the orphan, +up started some affectionate relative of the orphan who put a price upon +the orphan’s head. The suddenness of an orphan’s rise in the market was +not to be paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. He +would be at five thousand per cent discount out at nurse making a mud +pie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would go up to +five thousand per cent premium before noon. The market was ‘rigged’ in +various artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parents +boldly represented themselves as dead, and brought their orphans with +them. Genuine orphan-stock was surreptitiously withdrawn from the +market. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that +Mr and Mrs Milvey were coming down the court, orphan scrip would be +instantly concealed, and production refused, save on a condition usually +stated by the brokers as ‘a gallon of beer’. Likewise, fluctuations of +a wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned, by orphan-holders keeping +back, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, the +uniform principle at the root of all these various operations was +bargain and sale; and that principle could not be recognized by Mr and +Mrs Milvey. + +At length, tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a charming +orphan to be found at Brentford. One of the deceased parents (late his +parishioners) had a poor widowed grandmother in that agreeable town, and +she, Mrs Betty Higden, had carried off the orphan with maternal care, +but could not afford to keep him. + +The Secretary proposed to Mrs Boffin, either to go down himself and +take a preliminary survey of this orphan, or to drive her down, that +she might at once form her own opinion. Mrs Boffin preferring the latter +course, they set off one morning in a hired phaeton, conveying the +hammer-headed young man behind them. + +The abode of Mrs Betty Higden was not easy to find, lying in such +complicated back settlements of muddy Brentford that they left their +equipage at the sign of the Three Magpies, and went in search of it on +foot. After many inquiries and defeats, there was pointed out to them +in a lane, a very small cottage residence, with a board across the open +doorway, hooked on to which board by the armpits was a young gentleman +of tender years, angling for mud with a headless wooden horse and line. +In this young sportsman, distinguished by a crisply curling auburn head +and a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan. + +It unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, that the orphan, +lost to considerations of personal safety in the ardour of the moment, +overbalanced himself and toppled into the street. Being an orphan of a +chubby conformation, he then took to rolling, and had rolled into the +gutter before they could come up. From the gutter he was rescued by John +Rokesmith, and thus the first meeting with Mrs Higden was inaugurated by +the awkward circumstance of their being in possession—one would say at +first sight unlawful possession—of the orphan, upside down and purple +in the countenance. The board across the doorway too, acting as a trap +equally for the feet of Mrs Higden coming out, and the feet of Mrs +Boffin and John Rokesmith going in, greatly increased the difficulty of +the situation: to which the cries of the orphan imparted a lugubrious +and inhuman character. + +At first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the orphan’s +‘holding his breath’: a most terrific proceeding, super-inducing in the +orphan lead-colour rigidity and a deadly silence, compared with which +his cries were music yielding the height of enjoyment. But as he +gradually recovered, Mrs Boffin gradually introduced herself; and +smiling peace was gradually wooed back to Mrs Betty Higden’s home. + +It was then perceived to be a small home with a large mangle in it, at +the handle of which machine stood a very long boy, with a very little +head, and an open mouth of disproportionate capacity that seemed to +assist his eyes in staring at the visitors. In a corner below the +mangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very little children: a boy and a +girl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, took a turn +at the mangle, it was alarming to see how it lunged itself at those two +innocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction, harmlessly +retiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean and +neat. It had a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce +hanging below the chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to top +outside the window on which scarlet-beans were to grow in the coming +season if the Fates were propitious. However propitious they might have +been in the seasons that were gone, to Betty Higden in the matter of +beans, they had not been very favourable in the matter of coins; for it +was easy to see that she was poor. + +She was one of those old women, was Mrs Betty Higden, who by dint of +an indomitable purpose and a strong constitution fight out many years, +though each year has come with its new knock-down blows fresh to the +fight against her, wearied by it; an active old woman, with a bright +dark eye and a resolute face, yet quite a tender creature too; not a +logically-reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in +Heaven as high as heads. + +‘Yes sure!’ said she, when the business was opened, ‘Mrs Milvey had the +kindness to write to me, ma’am, and I got Sloppy to read it. It was a +pretty letter. But she’s an affable lady.’ + +The visitors glanced at the long boy, who seemed to indicate by a +broader stare of his mouth and eyes that in him Sloppy stood confessed. + +‘For I aint, you must know,’ said Betty, ‘much of a hand at reading +writing-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love a +newspaper. You mightn’t think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a +newspaper. He do the Police in different voices.’ + +The visitors again considered it a point of politeness to look at +Sloppy, who, looking at them, suddenly threw back his head, extended his +mouth to its utmost width, and laughed loud and long. At this the two +innocents, with their brains in that apparent danger, laughed, and Mrs +Higden laughed, and the orphan laughed, and then the visitors laughed. +Which was more cheerful than intelligible. + +Then Sloppy seeming to be seized with an industrious mania or fury, +turned to at the mangle, and impelled it at the heads of the innocents +with such a creaking and rumbling, that Mrs Higden stopped him. + +‘The gentlefolks can’t hear themselves speak, Sloppy. Bide a bit, bide a +bit!’ + +‘Is that the dear child in your lap?’ said Mrs Boffin. + +‘Yes, ma’am, this is Johnny.’ + +‘Johnny, too!’ cried Mrs Boffin, turning to the Secretary; ‘already +Johnny! Only one of the two names left to give him! He’s a pretty boy.’ + +With his chin tucked down in his shy childish manner, he was looking +furtively at Mrs Boffin out of his blue eyes, and reaching his fat +dimpled hand up to the lips of the old woman, who was kissing it by +times. + +‘Yes, ma’am, he’s a pretty boy, he’s a dear darling boy, he’s the child +of my own last left daughter’s daughter. But she’s gone the way of all +the rest.’ + +‘Those are not his brother and sister?’ said Mrs Boffin. + +‘Oh, dear no, ma’am. Those are Minders.’ + +‘Minders?’ the Secretary repeated. + +‘Left to be Minded, sir. I keep a Minding-School. I can take only three, +on account of the Mangle. But I love children, and Four-pence a week is +Four-pence. Come here, Toddles and Poddles.’ + +Toddles was the pet-name of the boy; Poddles of the girl. At their +little unsteady pace, they came across the floor, hand-in-hand, as if +they were traversing an extremely difficult road intersected by brooks, +and, when they had had their heads patted by Mrs Betty Higden, made +lunges at the orphan, dramatically representing an attempt to bear him, +crowing, into captivity and slavery. All the three children enjoyed this +to a delightful extent, and the sympathetic Sloppy again laughed long +and loud. When it was discreet to stop the play, Betty Higden said +‘Go to your seats Toddles and Poddles,’ and they returned hand-in-hand +across country, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen by late rains. + +‘And Master—or Mister—Sloppy?’ said the Secretary, in doubt whether he +was man, boy, or what. + +‘A love-child,’ returned Betty Higden, dropping her voice; ‘parents +never known; found in the street. He was brought up in the—’ with a +shiver of repugnance, ‘—the House.’ + +‘The Poor-house?’ said the Secretary. + +Mrs Higden set that resolute old face of hers, and darkly nodded yes. + +‘You dislike the mention of it.’ + +‘Dislike the mention of it?’ answered the old woman. ‘Kill me sooner +than take me there. Throw this pretty child under cart-horses feet and +a loaded waggon, sooner than take him there. Come to us and find us all +a-dying, and set a light to us all where we lie and let us all blaze +away with the house into a heap of cinders sooner than move a corpse of +us there!’ + +A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of hard +working, and hard living, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable +Boards! What is it that we call it in our grandiose speeches? British +independence, rather perverted? Is that, or something like it, the ring +of the cant? + +‘Do I never read in the newspapers,’ said the dame, fondling the +child—‘God help me and the like of me!—how the worn-out people that +do come down to that, get driven from post to pillar and pillar to post, +a-purpose to tire them out! Do I never read how they are put off, put +off, put off—how they are grudged, grudged, grudged, the shelter, or +the doctor, or the drop of physic, or the bit of bread? Do I never +read how they grow heartsick of it and give it up, after having let +themselves drop so low, and how they after all die out for want of help? +Then I say, I hope I can die as well as another, and I’ll die without +that disgrace.’ + +Absolutely impossible my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, by +any stretch of legislative wisdom to set these perverse people right in +their logic? + +‘Johnny, my pretty,’ continued old Betty, caressing the child, and +rather mourning over it than speaking to it, ‘your old Granny Betty is +nigher fourscore year than threescore and ten. She never begged nor had +a penny of the Union money in all her life. She paid scot and she +paid lot when she had money to pay; she worked when she could, and +she starved when she must. You pray that your Granny may have strength +enough left her at the last (she’s strong for an old one, Johnny), to +get up from her bed and run and hide herself and swown to death in a +hole, sooner than fall into the hands of those Cruel Jacks we read of +that dodge and drive, and worry and weary, and scorn and shame, the +decent poor.’ + +A brilliant success, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards to +have brought it to this in the minds of the best of the poor! Under +submission, might it be worth thinking of at any odd time? + +The fright and abhorrence that Mrs Betty Higden smoothed out of her +strong face as she ended this diversion, showed how seriously she had +meant it. + +‘And does he work for you?’ asked the Secretary, gently bringing the +discourse back to Master or Mister Sloppy. + +‘Yes,’ said Betty with a good-humoured smile and nod of the head. ‘And +well too.’ + +‘Does he live here?’ + +‘He lives more here than anywhere. He was thought to be no better than a +Natural, and first come to me as a Minder. I made interest with Mr Blogg +the Beadle to have him as a Minder, seeing him by chance up at church, +and thinking I might do something with him. For he was a weak ricketty +creetur then.’ + +‘Is he called by his right name?’ + +‘Why, you see, speaking quite correctly, he has no right name. I always +understood he took his name from being found on a Sloppy night.’ + +‘He seems an amiable fellow.’ + +‘Bless you, sir, there’s not a bit of him,’ returned Betty, ‘that’s not +amiable. So you may judge how amiable he is, by running your eye along +his heighth.’ + +Of an ungainly make was Sloppy. Too much of him longwise, too little of +him broadwise, and too many sharp angles of him angle-wise. One of those +shambling male human creatures, born to be indiscreetly candid in the +revelation of buttons; every button he had about him glaring at the +public to a quite preternatural extent. A considerable capital of knee +and elbow and wrist and ankle, had Sloppy, and he didn’t know how to +dispose of it to the best advantage, but was always investing it in +wrong securities, and so getting himself into embarrassed circumstances. +Full-Private Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of +life, was Sloppy, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to +the Colours. + +‘And now,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘concerning Johnny.’ + +As Johnny, with his chin tucked in and lips pouting, reclined in Betty’s +lap, concentrating his blue eyes on the visitors and shading them from +observation with a dimpled arm, old Betty took one of his fresh fat +hands in her withered right, and fell to gently beating it on her +withered left. + +‘Yes, ma’am. Concerning Johnny.’ + +‘If you trust the dear child to me,’ said Mrs Boffin, with a face +inviting trust, ‘he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, the +best of education, the best of friends. Please God I will be a true good +mother to him!’ + +‘I am thankful to you, ma’am, and the dear child would be thankful if +he was old enough to understand.’ Still lightly beating the little hand +upon her own. ‘I wouldn’t stand in the dear child’s light, not if I had +all my life before me instead of a very little of it. But I hope you +won’t take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can tell, +for he’s the last living thing left me.’ + +‘Take it ill, my dear soul? Is it likely? And you so tender of him as to +bring him home here!’ + +‘I have seen,’ said Betty, still with that light beat upon her hard +rough hand, ‘so many of them on my lap. And they are all gone but this +one! I am ashamed to seem so selfish, but I don’t really mean it. It’ll +be the making of his fortune, and he’ll be a gentleman when I am dead. +I—I—don’t know what comes over me. I—try against it. Don’t notice +me!’ The light beat stopped, the resolute mouth gave way, and the fine +strong old face broke up into weakness and tears. + +Now, greatly to the relief of the visitors, the emotional Sloppy no +sooner beheld his patroness in this condition, than, throwing back his +head and throwing open his mouth, he lifted up his voice and bellowed. +This alarming note of something wrong instantly terrified Toddles and +Poddles, who were no sooner heard to roar surprisingly, than Johnny, +curving himself the wrong way and striking out at Mrs Boffin with a pair +of indifferent shoes, became a prey to despair. The absurdity of the +situation put its pathos to the rout. Mrs Betty Higden was herself in +a moment, and brought them all to order with that speed, that Sloppy, +stopping short in a polysyllabic bellow, transferred his energy to +the mangle, and had taken several penitential turns before he could be +stopped. + +‘There, there, there!’ said Mrs Boffin, almost regarding her kind self +as the most ruthless of women. ‘Nothing is going to be done. Nobody need +be frightened. We’re all comfortable; ain’t we, Mrs Higden?’ + +‘Sure and certain we are,’ returned Betty. + +‘And there really is no hurry, you know,’ said Mrs Boffin in a lower +voice. ‘Take time to think of it, my good creature!’ + +‘Don’t you fear ME no more, ma’am,’ said Betty; ‘I thought of it for +good yesterday. I don’t know what come over me just now, but it’ll never +come again.’ + +‘Well, then, Johnny shall have more time to think of it,’ returned Mrs +Boffin; ‘the pretty child shall have time to get used to it. And you’ll +get him more used to it, if you think well of it; won’t you?’ + +Betty undertook that, cheerfully and readily. + +‘Lor,’ cried Mrs Boffin, looking radiantly about her, ‘we want to make +everybody happy, not dismal!—And perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting me +know how used to it you begin to get, and how it all goes on?’ + +‘I’ll send Sloppy,’ said Mrs Higden. + +‘And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him for his trouble,’ +said Mrs Boffin. ‘And Mr Sloppy, whenever you come to my house, be +sure you never go away without having had a good dinner of meat, beer, +vegetables, and pudding.’ + +This still further brightened the face of affairs; for, the highly +sympathetic Sloppy, first broadly staring and grinning, and then roaring +with laughter, Toddles and Poddles followed suit, and Johnny trumped +the trick. T and P considering these favourable circumstances for +the resumption of that dramatic descent upon Johnny, again came +across-country hand-in-hand upon a buccaneering expedition; and this +having been fought out in the chimney corner behind Mrs Higden’s chair, +with great valour on both sides, those desperate pirates returned +hand-in-hand to their stools, across the dry bed of a mountain torrent. + +‘You must tell me what I can do for you, Betty my friend,’ said Mrs +Boffin confidentially, ‘if not to-day, next time.’ + +‘Thank you all the same, ma’am, but I want nothing for myself. I can +work. I’m strong. I can walk twenty mile if I’m put to it.’ Old Betty +was proud, and said it with a sparkle in her bright eyes. + +‘Yes, but there are some little comforts that you wouldn’t be the worse +for,’ returned Mrs Boffin. ‘Bless ye, I wasn’t born a lady any more than +you.’ + +‘It seems to me,’ said Betty, smiling, ‘that you were born a lady, and +a true one, or there never was a lady born. But I couldn’t take anything +from you, my dear. I never did take anything from any one. It ain’t that +I’m not grateful, but I love to earn it better.’ + +‘Well, well!’ returned Mrs Boffin. ‘I only spoke of little things, or I +wouldn’t have taken the liberty.’ + +Betty put her visitor’s hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of the +delicate answer. Wonderfully upright her figure was, and wonderfully +self-reliant her look, as, standing facing her visitor, she explained +herself further. + +‘If I could have kept the dear child, without the dread that’s always +upon me of his coming to that fate I have spoken of, I could never have +parted with him, even to you. For I love him, I love him, I love him! I +love my husband long dead and gone, in him; I love my children dead and +gone, in him; I love my young and hopeful days dead and gone, in him. I +couldn’t sell that love, and look you in your bright kind face. It’s a +free gift. I am in want of nothing. When my strength fails me, if I +can but die out quick and quiet, I shall be quite content. I have stood +between my dead and that shame I have spoken of; and it has been kept +off from every one of them. Sewed into my gown,’ with her hand upon +her breast, ‘is just enough to lay me in the grave. Only see that it’s +rightly spent, so as I may rest free to the last from that cruelty and +disgrace, and you’ll have done much more than a little thing for me, and +all that in this present world my heart is set upon.’ + +Mrs Betty Higden’s visitor pressed her hand. There was no more breaking +up of the strong old face into weakness. My Lords and Gentlemen and +Honourable Boards, it really was as composed as our own faces, and +almost as dignified. + +And now, Johnny was to be inveigled into occupying a temporary +position on Mrs Boffin’s lap. It was not until he had been piqued into +competition with the two diminutive Minders, by seeing them successively +raised to that post and retire from it without injury, that he could be +by any means induced to leave Mrs Betty Higden’s skirts; towards which +he exhibited, even when in Mrs Boffin’s embrace, strong yearnings, +spiritual and bodily; the former expressed in a very gloomy visage, +the latter in extended arms. However, a general description of the +toy-wonders lurking in Mr Boffin’s house, so far conciliated this +worldly-minded orphan as to induce him to stare at her frowningly, +with a fist in his mouth, and even at length to chuckle when a +richly-caparisoned horse on wheels, with a miraculous gift of cantering +to cake-shops, was mentioned. This sound being taken up by the Minders, +swelled into a rapturous trio which gave general satisfaction. + +So, the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs Boffin was +pleased, and all were satisfied. Not least of all, Sloppy, who undertook +to conduct the visitors back by the best way to the Three Magpies, and +whom the hammer-headed young man much despised. + +This piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove Mrs Boffin +back to the Bower, and found employment for himself at the new house +until evening. Whether, when evening came, he took a way to his lodgings +that led through fields, with any design of finding Miss Bella Wilfer +in those fields, is not so certain as that she regularly walked there at +that hour. + +And, moreover, it is certain that there she was. + +No longer in mourning, Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty colours as +she could muster. There is no denying that she was as pretty as they, +and that she and the colours went very prettily together. She was +reading as she walked, and of course it is to be inferred, from her +showing no knowledge of Mr Rokesmith’s approach, that she did not know +he was approaching. + +‘Eh?’ said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, when he stopped +before her. ‘Oh! It’s you.’ + +‘Only I. A fine evening!’ + +‘Is it?’ said Bella, looking coldly round. ‘I suppose it is, now you +mention it. I have not been thinking of the evening.’ + +‘So intent upon your book?’ + +‘Ye-e-es,’ replied Bella, with a drawl of indifference. + +‘A love story, Miss Wilfer?’ + +‘Oh dear no, or I shouldn’t be reading it. It’s more about money than +anything else.’ + +‘And does it say that money is better than anything?’ + +‘Upon my word,’ returned Bella, ‘I forget what it says, but you can find +out for yourself if you like, Mr Rokesmith. I don’t want it any more.’ + +The Secretary took the book—she had fluttered the leaves as if it were +a fan—and walked beside her. + +‘I am charged with a message for you, Miss Wilfer.’ + +‘Impossible, I think!’ said Bella, with another drawl. + +‘From Mrs Boffin. She desired me to assure you of the pleasure she has +in finding that she will be ready to receive you in another week or two +at furthest.’ + +Bella turned her head towards him, with her prettily-insolent eyebrows +raised, and her eyelids drooping. As much as to say, ‘How did YOU come +by the message, pray?’ + +‘I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you that I am Mr +Boffin’s Secretary.’ + +‘I am as wise as ever,’ said Miss Bella, loftily, ‘for I don’t know what +a Secretary is. Not that it signifies.’ + +‘Not at all.’ + +A covert glance at her face, as he walked beside her, showed him that +she had not expected his ready assent to that proposition. + +‘Then are you going to be always there, Mr Rokesmith?’ she inquired, as +if that would be a drawback. + +‘Always? No. Very much there? Yes.’ + +‘Dear me!’ drawled Bella, in a tone of mortification. + +‘But my position there as Secretary, will be very different from yours +as guest. You will know little or nothing about me. I shall transact +the business: you will transact the pleasure. I shall have my salary to +earn; you will have nothing to do but to enjoy and attract.’ + +‘Attract, sir?’ said Bella, again with her eyebrows raised, and her +eyelids drooping. ‘I don’t understand you.’ + +Without replying on this point, Mr Rokesmith went on. + +‘Excuse me; when I first saw you in your black dress—’ + +(‘There!’ was Miss Bella’s mental exclamation. ‘What did I say to them +at home? Everybody noticed that ridiculous mourning.’) + +‘When I first saw you in your black dress, I was at a loss to account +for that distinction between yourself and your family. I hope it was not +impertinent to speculate upon it?’ + +‘I hope not, I am sure,’ said Miss Bella, haughtily. ‘But you ought to +know best how you speculated upon it.’ + +Mr Rokesmith inclined his head in a deprecatory manner, and went on. + +‘Since I have been entrusted with Mr Boffin’s affairs, I have +necessarily come to understand the little mystery. I venture to remark +that I feel persuaded that much of your loss may be repaired. I +speak, of course, merely of wealth, Miss Wilfer. The loss of a perfect +stranger, whose worth, or worthlessness, I cannot estimate—nor you +either—is beside the question. But this excellent gentleman and lady +are so full of simplicity, so full of generosity, so inclined towards +you, and so desirous to—how shall I express it?—to make amends for +their good fortune, that you have only to respond.’ + +As he watched her with another covert look, he saw a certain ambitious +triumph in her face which no assumed coldness could conceal. + +‘As we have been brought under one roof by an accidental combination of +circumstances, which oddly extends itself to the new relations before +us, I have taken the liberty of saying these few words. You don’t +consider them intrusive I hope?’ said the Secretary with deference. + +‘Really, Mr Rokesmith, I can’t say what I consider them,’ returned the +young lady. ‘They are perfectly new to me, and may be founded altogether +on your own imagination.’ + +‘You will see.’ + +These same fields were opposite the Wilfer premises. The discreet +Mrs Wilfer now looking out of window and beholding her daughter in +conference with her lodger, instantly tied up her head and came out for +a casual walk. + +‘I have been telling Miss Wilfer,’ said John Rokesmith, as the majestic +lady came stalking up, ‘that I have become, by a curious chance, Mr +Boffin’s Secretary or man of business.’ + +‘I have not,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, waving her gloves in her chronic +state of dignity, and vague ill-usage, ‘the honour of any intimate +acquaintance with Mr Boffin, and it is not for me to congratulate that +gentleman on the acquisition he has made.’ + +‘A poor one enough,’ said Rokesmith. + +‘Pardon me,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, ‘the merits of Mr Boffin may be highly +distinguished—may be more distinguished than the countenance of Mrs +Boffin would imply—but it were the insanity of humility to deem him +worthy of a better assistant.’ + +‘You are very good. I have also been telling Miss Wilfer that she is +expected very shortly at the new residence in town.’ + +‘Having tacitly consented,’ said Mrs Wilfer, with a grand shrug of her +shoulders, and another wave of her gloves, ‘to my child’s acceptance of +the proffered attentions of Mrs Boffin, I interpose no objection.’ + +Here Miss Bella offered the remonstrance: ‘Don’t talk nonsense, ma, +please.’ + +‘Peace!’ said Mrs Wilfer. + +‘No, ma, I am not going to be made so absurd. Interposing objections!’ + +‘I say,’ repeated Mrs Wilfer, with a vast access of grandeur, ‘that I am +NOT going to interpose objections. If Mrs Boffin (to whose countenance +no disciple of Lavater could possibly for a single moment subscribe),’ +with a shiver, ‘seeks to illuminate her new residence in town with the +attractions of a child of mine, I am content that she should be favoured +by the company of a child of mine.’ + +‘You use the word, ma’am, I have myself used,’ said Rokesmith, with a +glance at Bella, ‘when you speak of Miss Wilfer’s attractions there.’ + +‘Pardon me,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, with dreadful solemnity, ‘but I had +not finished.’ + +‘Pray excuse me.’ + +‘I was about to say,’ pursued Mrs Wilfer, who clearly had not had +the faintest idea of saying anything more: ‘that when I use the term +attractions, I do so with the qualification that I do not mean it in any +way whatever.’ + +The excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of her views +with an air of greatly obliging her hearers, and greatly distinguishing +herself. Whereat Miss Bella laughed a scornful little laugh and said: + +‘Quite enough about this, I am sure, on all sides. Have the goodness, Mr +Rokesmith, to give my love to Mrs Boffin—’ + +‘Pardon me!’ cried Mrs Wilfer. ‘Compliments.’ + +‘Love!’ repeated Bella, with a little stamp of her foot. + +‘No!’ said Mrs Wilfer, monotonously. ‘Compliments.’ + +(‘Say Miss Wilfer’s love, and Mrs Wilfer’s compliments,’ the Secretary +proposed, as a compromise.) + +‘And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. The sooner, +the better.’ + +‘One last word, Bella,’ said Mrs Wilfer, ‘before descending to the +family apartment. I trust that as a child of mine you will ever be +sensible that it will be graceful in you, when associating with Mr +and Mrs Boffin upon equal terms, to remember that the Secretary, Mr +Rokesmith, as your father’s lodger, has a claim on your good word.’ + +The condescension with which Mrs Wilfer delivered this proclamation of +patronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which the lodger +had lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired down +stairs; but his face fell, as the daughter followed. + +‘So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so +hard to touch, so hard to turn!’ he said, bitterly. + +And added as he went upstairs. ‘And yet so pretty, so pretty!’ + +And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. ‘And if she +knew!’ + +She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; and +she declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that you couldn’t +get rid of a haunting Secretary, stump—stump—stumping overhead in the +dark, like a Ghost. + + + + +Chapter 17 + +A DISMAL SWAMP + + +And now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr and Mrs Boffin +established in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, and behold +all manner of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures, +attracted by the gold dust of the Golden Dustman! + +Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic door +before it is quite painted, are the Veneerings: out of breath, one +might imagine, from the impetuosity of their rush to the eminently +aristocratic steps. One copper-plate Mrs Veneering, two copper-plate +Mr Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate Mr and Mrs Veneering, +requesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin’s company at dinner with +the utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady Tippins leaves a +card. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall custard-coloured phaeton tooling up +in a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr Podsnaps, a +Mrs Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife and daughter +leave cards. Sometimes the world’s wife has so many daughters, that her +card reads rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction; comprising Mrs +Tapkins, Miss Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins, +Miss Malvina Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the same time, +the same lady leaves the card of Mrs Henry George Alfred Swoshle, NEE +Tapkins; also, a card, Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland +Place. + +Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, of the +eminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs Boffin bears Miss Bella away to +her Milliner’s and Dressmaker’s, and she gets beautifully dressed. The +Veneerings find with swift remorse that they have omitted to invite Miss +Bella Wilfer. One Mrs Veneering and one Mr and Mrs Veneering requesting +that additional honour, instantly do penance in white cardboard on +the hall table. Mrs Tapkins likewise discovers her omission, and +with promptitude repairs it; for herself; for Miss Tapkins, for Miss +Frederica Tapkins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina Tapkins, +and for Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Henry George Alfred +Swoshle NEE Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, +Music, Portland Place. + +Tradesmen’s books hunger, and tradesmen’s mouths water, for the gold +dust of the Golden Dustman. As Mrs Boffin and Miss Wilfer drive out, or +as Mr Boffin walks out at his jog-trot pace, the fishmonger pulls off +his hat with an air of reverence founded on conviction. His men cleanse +their fingers on their woollen aprons before presuming to touch their +foreheads to Mr Boffin or Lady. The gaping salmon and the golden mullet +lying on the slab seem to turn up their eyes sideways, as they would +turn up their hands if they had any, in worshipping admiration. The +butcher, though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn’t know what to do +with himself; so anxious is he to express humility when discovered by +the passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton grove. Presents are made +to the Boffin servants, and bland strangers with business-cards +meeting said servants in the street, offer hypothetical corruption. As, +‘Supposing I was to be favoured with an order from Mr Boffin, my dear +friend, it would be worth my while’—to do a certain thing that I hope +might not prove wholly disagreeable to your feelings. + +But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and reads the +letters, what a set is made at the man marked by a stroke of notoriety. +Oh the varieties of dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for the +gold dust of the Golden Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected with +half-crowns, forty-two parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings, +seven-and-twenty organs to be built with halfpence, twelve hundred +children to be brought up on postage stamps. Not that a half-crown, +shilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be particularly acceptable +from Mr Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man to make up the +deficiency. And then the charities, my Christian brother! And mostly in +difficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive articles of print +and paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet. +‘Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. My Dear Sir,—Having consented to preside +at the forthcoming Annual Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feeling +deeply impressed with the immense usefulness of that noble Institution +and the great importance of its being supported by a List of Stewards +that shall prove to the public the interest taken in it by popular and +distinguished men, I have undertaken to ask you to become a Steward on +that occasion. Soliciting your favourable reply before the 14th instant, +I am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, LINSEED. P.S. The Steward’s +fee is limited to three Guineas.’ Friendly this, on the part of the Duke +of Linseed (and thoughtful in the postscript), only lithographed by +the hundred and presenting but a pale individuality of an address to +Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two noble +Earls and a Viscount, combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, +in an equally flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the West of +England has offered to present a purse containing twenty pounds, to +the Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming Members of the Middle +Classes, if twenty individuals will previously present purses of one +hundred pounds each. And those benevolent noblemen very kindly point out +that if Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or more +purses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the estimable +lady in the West of England, provided each purse be coupled with the +name of some member of his honoured and respected family. + +These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the individual +beggars; and how does the heart of the Secretary fail him when he has +to cope with THEM! And they must be coped with to some extent, because +they all enclose documents (they call their scraps documents; but they +are, as to papers deserving the name, what minced veal is to a calf), +the non-return of which would be their ruin. That is to say, they +are utterly ruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. +Among these correspondents are several daughters of general officers, +long accustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who little +thought, when their gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula, that +they would ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in its +inscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold gold, and from among whom +they select the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effort +in this wise, understanding that he has such a heart as never was. +The Secretary learns, too, that confidence between man and wife would +seem to obtain but rarely when virtue is in distress, so numerous are +the wives who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money without +the knowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it; +while, on the other hand, so numerous are the husbands who take up +their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money without the knowledge of their +devoted wives, who would instantly go out of their senses if they +had the least suspicion of the circumstance. There are the inspired +beggars, too. These were sitting, only yesterday evening, musing over +a fragment of candle which must soon go out and leave them in the dark +for the rest of their nights, when surely some Angel whispered the name +of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays of hope, +nay confidence, to which they had long been strangers! Akin to these +are the suggestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a cold +potato and water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifer-match, +in their lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landlady +threatening expulsion ‘like a dog’ into the streets), when a gifted +friend happening to look in, said, ‘Write immediately to Nicodemus +Boffin, Esquire,’ and would take no denial. There are the nobly +independent beggars too. These, in the days of their abundance, ever +regarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only impediment +in the way of their amassing wealth, but they want no dross from +Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; No, Mr Boffin; the world may term it pride, +paltry pride if you will, but they wouldn’t take it if you offered it; +a loan, sir—for fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at the +rate of five per cent per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitable +institution you may name—is all they want of you, and if you have the +meanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these great spirits. +There are the beggars of punctual business-habits too. These will +make an end of themselves at a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, if no +Post-office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, +Esquire; arriving after a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, it need not +be sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum of the +heartless circumstances) be ‘cold in death.’ There are the beggars +on horseback too, in another sense from the sense of the proverb. +These are mounted and ready to start on the highway to affluence. The +goal is before them, the road is in the best condition, their spurs +are on, the steed is willing, but, at the last moment, for want of +some special thing—a clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an +electrifying machine—they must dismount for ever, unless they receive +its equivalent in money from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. Less given to +detail are the beggars who make sporting ventures. These, usually to +be addressed in reply under initials at a country post-office, inquire +in feminine hands, Dare one who cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus +Boffin, Esquire, but whose name might startle him were it revealed, +solicit the immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected +riches exercising their noblest privilege in the trust of a common +humanity? + +In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it does +the Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all the people +alive who have made inventions that won’t act, and all the jobbers who +job in all the jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as the +Alligators of the Dismal Swamp, and are always lying by to drag the +Golden Dustman under. + +But the old house. There are no designs against the Golden Dustman +there? There are no fish of the shark tribe in the Bower waters? Perhaps +not. Still, Wegg is established there, and would seem, judged by his +secret proceedings, to cherish a notion of making a discovery. For, +when a man with a wooden leg lies prone on his stomach to peep under +bedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct bird, to survey the +tops of presses and cupboards; and provides himself an iron rod which he +is always poking and prodding into dust-mounds; the probability is that +he expects to find something. + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND — BIRDS OF A FEATHER + +Chapter 1 + +OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER + + +The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a +book—the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great Preparatory +Establishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learned +without and before book—was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its +atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, +and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of +waking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition by +maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out +of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animated +solely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentable +jumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours. + +It was a school for all ages, and for both sexes. The latter were kept +apart, and the former were partitioned off into square assortments. But, +all the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pretence that every +pupil was childish and innocent. This pretence, much favoured by the +lady-visitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities. Young women old in +the vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to profess +themselves enthralled by the good child’s book, the Adventures of +Little Margery, who resided in the village cottage by the mill; severely +reproved and morally squashed the miller, when she was five and he was +fifty; divided her porridge with singing birds; denied herself a new +nankeen bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear nankeen +bonnets, neither did the sheep who ate them; who plaited straw and +delivered the dreariest orations to all comers, at all sorts of +unseasonable times. So, unwieldy young dredgers and hulking mudlarks +were referred to the experiences of Thomas Twopence, who, having +resolved not to rob (under circumstances of uncommon atrocity) his +particular friend and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came into +supernatural possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining light +ever afterwards. (Note, that the benefactor came to no good.) Several +swaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain; +it always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons, +that you were to do good, not because it WAS good, but because you were +to make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils were taught +to read (if they could learn) out of the New Testament; and by dint of +stumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes on the +particular syllables coming round to their turn, were as absolutely +ignorant of the sublime history, as if they had never seen or heard of +it. An exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing jumble of a school, +in fact, where black spirits and grey, red spirits and white, jumbled +jumbled jumbled jumbled, jumbled every night. And particularly every +Sunday night. For then, an inclined plane of unfortunate infants would +be handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good +intentions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand on +the floor before them as chief executioner, would be attended by a +conventional volunteer boy as executioner’s assistant. When and where it +first became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infant +in a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when +and where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in +operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, +matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, +and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, +yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their +wretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing them +for a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion of +blinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this department for a +mortal hour; the exponent drawling on to My Dearert Childerrenerr, let +us say, for example, about the beautiful coming to the Sepulchre; and +repeating the word Sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundred +times, and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional boy +smoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the whole +hot-bed of flushed and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes, +whooping-cough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembled +in High Market for the purpose. + +Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boy +exceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, having +learned it, could impart it much better than the teachers; as being +more knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stood +towards the shrewder pupils. In this way it had come about that Charley +Hexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been received +from the jumble into a better school. + +‘So you want to go and see your sister, Hexam?’ + +‘If you please, Mr Headstone.’ + +‘I have half a mind to go with you. Where does your sister live?’ + +‘Why, she is not settled yet, Mr Headstone. I’d rather you didn’t see +her till she is settled, if it was all the same to you.’ + +‘Look here, Hexam.’ Mr Bradley Headstone, highly certificated +stipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right forefinger through one of the +buttonholes of the boy’s coat, and looked at it attentively. ‘I hope +your sister may be good company for you?’ + +‘Why do you doubt it, Mr Headstone?’ + +‘I did not say I doubted it.’ + +‘No, sir; you didn’t say so.’ + +Bradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out of the +buttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it and looked at it +again. + +‘You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time you are sure to +pass a creditable examination and become one of us. Then the question +is—’ + +The boy waited so long for the question, while the schoolmaster looked +at a new side of his finger, and bit it, and looked at it again, that at +length the boy repeated: + +‘The question is, sir—?’ + +‘Whether you had not better leave well alone.’ + +‘Is it well to leave my sister alone, Mr Headstone?’ + +‘I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. I ask you to +think of it. I want you to consider. You know how well you are doing +here.’ + +‘After all, she got me here,’ said the boy, with a struggle. + +‘Perceiving the necessity of it,’ acquiesced the schoolmaster, ‘and +making up her mind fully to the separation. Yes.’ + +The boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle or whatever +it was, seemed to debate with himself. At length he said, raising his +eyes to the master’s face: + +‘I wish you’d come with me and see her, Mr Headstone, though she is not +settled. I wish you’d come with me, and take her in the rough, and judge +her for yourself.’ + +‘You are sure you would not like,’ asked the schoolmaster, ‘to prepare +her?’ + +‘My sister Lizzie,’ said the boy, proudly, ‘wants no preparing, Mr +Headstone. What she is, she is, and shows herself to be. There’s no +pretending about my sister.’ + +His confidence in her, sat more easily upon him than the indecision with +which he had twice contended. It was his better nature to be true to +her, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. And as yet the +better nature had the stronger hold. + +‘Well, I can spare the evening,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘I am ready to +walk with you.’ + +‘Thank you, Mr Headstone. And I am ready to go.’ + +Bradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and decent +white shirt, and decent formal black tie, and decent pantaloons of +pepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket and its +decent hair-guard round his neck, looked a thoroughly decent young man +of six-and-twenty. He was never seen in any other dress, and yet there +was a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, as if there were +a want of adaptation between him and it, recalling some mechanics in +their holiday clothes. He had acquired mechanically a great store of +teacher’s knowledge. He could do mental arithmetic mechanically, sing +at sight mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, even +play the great church organ mechanically. From his early childhood up, +his mind had been a place of mechanical stowage. The arrangement of +his wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet the +demands of retail dealers—history here, geography there, astronomy to +the right, political economy to the left—natural history, the physical +sciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics, and what not, all in +their several places—this care had imparted to his countenance a look +of care; while the habit of questioning and being questioned had given +him a suspicious manner, or a manner that would be better described as +one of lying in wait. There was a kind of settled trouble in the face. +It was the face belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellect +that had toiled hard to get what it had won, and that had to hold it now +that it was gotten. He always seemed to be uneasy lest anything should +be missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to assure +himself. + +Suppression of so much to make room for so much, had given him a +constrained manner, over and above. Yet there was enough of what was +animal, and of what was fiery (though smouldering), still visible in +him, to suggest that if young Bradley Headstone, when a pauper lad, had +chanced to be told off for the sea, he would not have been the last man +in a ship’s crew. Regarding that origin of his, he was proud, moody, and +sullen, desiring it to be forgotten. And few people knew of it. + +In some visits to the Jumble his attention had been attracted to this +boy Hexam. An undeniable boy for a pupil-teacher; an undeniable boy +to do credit to the master who should bring him on. Combined with this +consideration, there may have been some thought of the pauper lad now +never to be mentioned. Be that how it might, he had with pains gradually +worked the boy into his own school, and procured him some offices to +discharge there, which were repaid with food and lodging. Such were the +circumstances that had brought together, Bradley Headstone and young +Charley Hexam that autumn evening. Autumn, because full half a year had +come and gone since the bird of prey lay dead upon the river-shore. + +The schools—for they were twofold, as the sexes—were down in that +district of the flat country tending to the Thames, where Kent and +Surrey meet, and where the railways still bestride the market-gardens +that will soon die under them. The schools were newly built, and there +were so many like them all over the country, that one might have thought +the whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift of +Aladdin’s palace. They were in a neighbourhood which looked like a toy +neighbourhood taken in blocks out of a box by a child of particularly +incoherent mind, and set up anyhow; here, one side of a new street; +there, a large solitary public-house facing nowhere; here, another +unfinished street already in ruins; there, a church; here, an immense +new warehouse; there, a dilapidated old country villa; then, a medley +of black ditch, sparkling cucumber-frame, rank field, richly cultivated +kitchen-garden, brick viaduct, arch-spanned canal, and disorder of +frowziness and fog. As if the child had given the table a kick, and gone +to sleep. + +But, even among school-buildings, school-teachers, and school-pupils, +all according to pattern and all engendered in the light of the latest +Gospel according to Monotony, the older pattern into which so many +fortunes have been shaped for good and evil, comes out. It came out in +Miss Peecher the schoolmistress, watering her flowers, as Mr Bradley +Headstone walked forth. It came out in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress, +watering the flowers in the little dusty bit of garden attached to her +small official residence, with little windows like the eyes in needles, +and little doors like the covers of school-books. + +Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher; +cherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pincushion, a little +housewife, a little book, a little workbox, a little set of tables and +weights and measures, and a little woman, all in one. She could write +a little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at the +left-hand top of one side and ending at the right-hand bottom of the +other, and the essay should be strictly according to rule. If Mr Bradley +Headstone had addressed a written proposal of marriage to her, she would +probably have replied in a complete little essay on the theme exactly a +slate long, but would certainly have replied Yes. For she loved him. The +decent hair-guard that went round his neck and took care of his decent +silver watch was an object of envy to her. So would Miss Peecher have +gone round his neck and taken care of him. Of him, insensible. Because +he did not love Miss Peecher. + +Miss Peecher’s favourite pupil, who assisted her in her little +household, was in attendance with a can of water to replenish her little +watering-pot, and sufficiently divined the state of Miss Peecher’s +affections to feel it necessary that she herself should love young +Charley Hexam. So, there was a double palpitation among the double +stocks and double wall-flowers, when the master and the boy looked over +the little gate. + +‘A fine evening, Miss Peecher,’ said the Master. + +‘A very fine evening, Mr Headstone,’ said Miss Peecher. ‘Are you taking +a walk?’ + +‘Hexam and I are going to take a long walk.’ + +‘Charming weather,’ remarked Miss Peecher, ‘FOR a long walk.’ + +‘Ours is rather on business than mere pleasure,’ said the Master. Miss +Peecher inverting her watering-pot, and very carefully shaking out the +few last drops over a flower, as if there were some special virtue in +them which would make it a Jack’s beanstalk before morning, called for +replenishment to her pupil, who had been speaking to the boy. + +‘Good-night, Miss Peecher,’ said the Master. + +‘Good-night, Mr Headstone,’ said the Mistress. + +The pupil had been, in her state of pupilage, so imbued with the +class-custom of stretching out an arm, as if to hail a cab or omnibus, +whenever she found she had an observation on hand to offer to Miss +Peecher, that she often did it in their domestic relations; and she did +it now. + +‘Well, Mary Anne?’ said Miss Peecher. + +‘If you please, ma’am, Hexam said they were going to see his sister.’ + +‘But that can’t be, I think,’ returned Miss Peecher: ‘because Mr +Headstone can have no business with HER.’ + +Mary Anne again hailed. + +‘Well, Mary Anne?’ + +‘If you please, ma’am, perhaps it’s Hexam’s business?’ + +‘That may be,’ said Miss Peecher. ‘I didn’t think of that. Not that it +matters at all.’ + +Mary Anne again hailed. + +‘Well, Mary Anne?’ + +‘They say she’s very handsome.’ + +‘Oh, Mary Anne, Mary Anne!’ returned Miss Peecher, slightly colouring +and shaking her head, a little out of humour; ‘how often have I told you +not to use that vague expression, not to speak in that general way? When +you say THEY say, what do you mean? Part of speech They?’ + +Mary Anne hooked her right arm behind her in her left hand, as being +under examination, and replied: + +‘Personal pronoun.’ + +‘Person, They?’ + +‘Third person.’ + +‘Number, They?’ + +‘Plural number.’ + +‘Then how many do you mean, Mary Anne? Two? Or more?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ said Mary Anne, disconcerted now she came +to think of it; ‘but I don’t know that I mean more than her brother +himself.’ As she said it, she unhooked her arm. + +‘I felt convinced of it,’ returned Miss Peecher, smiling again. ‘Now +pray, Mary Anne, be careful another time. He says is very different from +they say, remember. Difference between he says and they say? Give it +me.’ + +Mary Anne immediately hooked her right arm behind her in her left +hand—an attitude absolutely necessary to the situation—and replied: +‘One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verb +active to say. Other is indicative mood, present tense, third person +plural, verb active to say.’ + +‘Why verb active, Mary Anne?’ + +‘Because it takes a pronoun after it in the objective case, Miss +Peecher.’ + +‘Very good indeed,’ remarked Miss Peecher, with encouragement. ‘In fact, +could not be better. Don’t forget to apply it, another time, Mary Anne.’ +This said, Miss Peecher finished the watering of her flowers, and +went into her little official residence, and took a refresher of the +principal rivers and mountains of the world, their breadths, depths, and +heights, before settling the measurements of the body of a dress for her +own personal occupation. + +Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey side of +Westminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, and made along the Middlesex +shore towards Millbank. In this region are a certain little street +called Church Street, and a certain little blind square, called Smith +Square, in the centre of which last retreat is a very hideous church +with four towers at the four corners, generally resembling some +petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legs +in the air. They found a tree near by in a corner, and a blacksmith’s +forge, and a timber yard, and a dealer’s in old iron. What a rusty +portion of a boiler and a great iron wheel or so meant by lying +half-buried in the dealer’s fore-court, nobody seemed to know or to want +to know. Like the Miller of questionable jollity in the song, They cared +for Nobody, no not they, and Nobody cared for them. + +After making the round of this place, and noting that there was a deadly +kind of repose on it, more as though it had taken laudanum than fallen +into a natural rest, they stopped at the point where the street and the +square joined, and where there were some little quiet houses in a row. +To these Charley Hexam finally led the way, and at one of these stopped. + +‘This must be where my sister lives, sir. This is where she came for a +temporary lodging, soon after father’s death.’ + +‘How often have you seen her since?’ + +‘Why, only twice, sir,’ returned the boy, with his former reluctance; +‘but that’s as much her doing as mine.’ + +‘How does she support herself?’ + +‘She was always a fair needlewoman, and she keeps the stockroom of a +seaman’s outfitter.’ + +‘Does she ever work at her own lodging here?’ + +‘Sometimes; but her regular hours and regular occupation are at their +place of business, I believe, sir. This is the number.’ + +The boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened with a spring +and a click. A parlour door within a small entry stood open, and +disclosed a child—a dwarf—a girl—a something—sitting on a little low +old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working bench before +it. + +‘I can’t get up,’ said the child, ‘because my back’s bad, and my legs +are queer. But I’m the person of the house.’ + +‘Who else is at home?’ asked Charley Hexam, staring. + +‘Nobody’s at home at present,’ returned the child, with a glib assertion +of her dignity, ‘except the person of the house. What did you want, +young man?’ + +‘I wanted to see my sister.’ + +‘Many young men have sisters,’ returned the child. ‘Give me your name, +young man?’ + +The queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, with +its bright grey eyes, were so sharp, that the sharpness of the manner +seemed unavoidable. As if, being turned out of that mould, it must be +sharp. + +‘Hexam is my name.’ + +‘Ah, indeed?’ said the person of the house. ‘I thought it might be. Your +sister will be in, in about a quarter of an hour. I am very fond of your +sister. She’s my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman’s +name?’ + +‘Mr Headstone, my schoolmaster.’ + +‘Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first? I +can’t very well do it myself; because my back’s so bad, and my legs are +so queer.’ + +They complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work of +gumming or gluing together with a camel’s-hair brush certain pieces +of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The +scissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut +them; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn +upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was +there), she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble +fingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two thin edges accurately +together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors +out of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened all +her other sharpness. + +‘You can’t tell me the name of my trade, I’ll be bound,’ she said, after +taking several of these observations. + +‘You make pincushions,’ said Charley. + +‘What else do I make?’ + +‘Pen-wipers,’ said Bradley Headstone. + +‘Ha! ha! What else do I make? You’re a schoolmaster, but you can’t tell +me.’ + +‘You do something,’ he returned, pointing to a corner of the little +bench, ‘with straw; but I don’t know what.’ + +‘Well done you!’ cried the person of the house. ‘I only make pincushions +and pen-wipers, to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong to +my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?’ + +‘Dinner-mats?’ + +‘A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I’ll give you a clue to my trade, +in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she’s Beautiful; +I hate my love with a B because she is Brazen; I took her to the sign of +the Blue Boar, and I treated her with Bonnets; her name’s Bouncer, and +she lives in Bedlam.—Now, what do I make with my straw?’ + +‘Ladies’ bonnets?’ + +‘Fine ladies’,’ said the person of the house, nodding assent. ‘Dolls’. +I’m a Doll’s Dressmaker.’ + +‘I hope it’s a good business?’ + +The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. ‘No. +Poorly paid. And I’m often so pressed for time! I had a doll married, +last week, and was obliged to work all night. And it’s not good for me, +on account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer.’ + +They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish, +and the schoolmaster said: ‘I am sorry your fine ladies are so +inconsiderate.’ + +‘It’s the way with them,’ said the person of the house, shrugging her +shoulders again. ‘And they take no care of their clothes, and they +never keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with three +daughters. Bless you, she’s enough to ruin her husband!’ The person of +the house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them another look out +of the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable of +great expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin +up. As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires. + +‘Are you always as busy as you are now?’ + +‘Busier. I’m slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day +before yesterday. Doll I work for, lost a canary-bird.’ The person of +the house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head several +times, as who should moralize, ‘Oh this world, this world!’ + +‘Are you alone all day?’ asked Bradley Headstone. ‘Don’t any of the +neighbouring children—?’ + +‘Ah, lud!’ cried the person of the house, with a little scream, as +if the word had pricked her. ‘Don’t talk of children. I can’t bear +children. I know their tricks and their manners.’ She said this with an +angry little shake of her tight fist close before her eyes. + +Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit, to perceive that the +doll’s dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference between +herself and other children. But both master and pupil understood it so. + +‘Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, +always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement and chalking it for their +games! Oh! I know their tricks and their manners!’ Shaking the little +fist as before. ‘And that’s not all. Ever so often calling names in +through a person’s keyhole, and imitating a person’s back and legs. Oh! +I know their tricks and their manners. And I’ll tell you what I’d do, to +punish ’em. There’s doors under the church in the Square—black doors, +leading into black vaults. Well! I’d open one of those doors, and I’d +cram ’em all in, and then I’d lock the door and through the keyhole I’d +blow in pepper.’ + +‘What would be the good of blowing in pepper?’ asked Charley Hexam. + +‘To set ’em sneezing,’ said the person of the house, ‘and make their +eyes water. And when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I’d mock ’em +through the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners, +mock a person through a person’s keyhole!’ + +An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes, +seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she added +with recovered composure, ‘No, no, no. No children for me. Give me +grown-ups.’ + +It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poor +figure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so young and so +old. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark. + +‘I always did like grown-ups,’ she went on, ‘and always kept company +with them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don’t go prancing and capering +about! And I mean always to keep among none but grown-ups till I marry. +I suppose I must make up my mind to marry, one of these days.’ + +She listened to a step outside that caught her ear, and there was a soft +knock at the door. Pulling at a handle within her reach, she said, +with a pleased laugh: ‘Now here, for instance, is a grown-up that’s my +particular friend!’ and Lizzie Hexam in a black dress entered the room. + +‘Charley! You!’ + +Taking him to her arms in the old way—of which he seemed a little +ashamed—she saw no one else. + +‘There, there, there, Liz, all right my dear. See! Here’s Mr Headstone +come with me.’ + +Her eyes met those of the schoolmaster, who had evidently expected +to see a very different sort of person, and a murmured word or two +of salutation passed between them. She was a little flurried by the +unexpected visit, and the schoolmaster was not at his ease. But he never +was, quite. + +‘I told Mr Headstone you were not settled, Liz, but he was so kind as to +take an interest in coming, and so I brought him. How well you look!’ + +Bradley seemed to think so. + +‘Ah! Don’t she, don’t she?’ cried the person of the house, resuming her +occupation, though the twilight was falling fast. ‘I believe you she +does! But go on with your chat, one and all: + + “You one two three, + My com-pa-nie, + And don’t mind me;” + +—pointing this impromptu rhyme with three points of her thin +fore-finger. + +‘I didn’t expect a visit from you, Charley,’ said his sister. ‘I +supposed that if you wanted to see me you would have sent to me, +appointing me to come somewhere near the school, as I did last time. +I saw my brother near the school, sir,’ to Bradley Headstone, ‘because +it’s easier for me to go there, than for him to come here. I work about +midway between the two places.’ + +‘You don’t see much of one another,’ said Bradley, not improving in +respect of ease. + +‘No.’ With a rather sad shake of her head. ‘Charley always does well, Mr +Headstone?’ + +‘He could not do better. I regard his course as quite plain before him.’ + +‘I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, Charley dear! It is +better for me not to come (except when he wants me) between him and his +prospects. You think so, Mr Headstone?’ + +Conscious that his pupil-teacher was looking for his answer, that he +himself had suggested the boy’s keeping aloof from this sister, now seen +for the first time face to face, Bradley Headstone stammered: + +‘Your brother is very much occupied, you know. He has to work hard. One +cannot but say that the less his attention is diverted from his work, +the better for his future. When he shall have established himself, why +then—it will be another thing then.’ + +Lizzie shook her head again, and returned, with a quiet smile: ‘I always +advised him as you advise him. Did I not, Charley?’ + +‘Well, never mind that now,’ said the boy. ‘How are you getting on?’ + +‘Very well, Charley. I want for nothing.’ + +‘You have your own room here?’ + +‘Oh yes. Upstairs. And it’s quiet, and pleasant, and airy.’ + +‘And she always has the use of this room for visitors,’ said the +person of the house, screwing up one of her little bony fists, like an +opera-glass, and looking through it, with her eyes and her chin in that +quaint accordance. ‘Always this room for visitors; haven’t you, Lizzie +dear?’ + +It happened that Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight action of +Lizzie Hexam’s hand, as though it checked the doll’s dressmaker. And it +happened that the latter noticed him in the same instant; for she made +a double eyeglass of her two hands, looked at him through it, and cried, +with a waggish shake of her head: ‘Aha! Caught you spying, did I?’ + +It might have fallen out so, any way; but Bradley Headstone also noticed +that immediately after this, Lizzie, who had not taken off her bonnet, +rather hurriedly proposed that as the room was getting dark they should +go out into the air. They went out; the visitors saying good-night to +the doll’s dressmaker, whom they left, leaning back in her chair with +her arms crossed, singing to herself in a sweet thoughtful little voice. + +‘I’ll saunter on by the river,’ said Bradley. ‘You will be glad to talk +together.’ + +As his uneasy figure went on before them among the evening shadows, the +boy said to his sister, petulantly: + +‘When are you going to settle yourself in some Christian sort of place, +Liz? I thought you were going to do it before now.’ + +‘I am very well where I am, Charley.’ + +‘Very well where you are! I am ashamed to have brought Mr Headstone with +me. How came you to get into such company as that little witch’s?’ + +‘By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think it must have +been by something more than chance, for that child—You remember the +bills upon the walls at home?’ + +‘Confound the bills upon the walls at home! I want to forget the bills +upon the walls at home, and it would be better for you to do the same,’ +grumbled the boy. ‘Well; what of them?’ + +‘This child is the grandchild of the old man.’ + +‘What old man?’ + +‘The terrible drunken old man, in the list slippers and the night-cap.’ + +The boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half expressed vexation +at hearing so much, and half curiosity to hear more: ‘How came you to +make that out? What a girl you are!’ + +‘The child’s father is employed by the house that employs me; that’s how +I came to know it, Charley. The father is like his own father, a weak +wretched trembling creature, falling to pieces, never sober. But a good +workman too, at the work he does. The mother is dead. This poor ailing +little creature has come to be what she is, surrounded by drunken people +from her cradle—if she ever had one, Charley.’ + +‘I don’t see what you have to do with her, for all that,’ said the boy. + +‘Don’t you, Charley?’ + +The boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at Millbank, and +the river rolled on their left. His sister gently touched him on the +shoulder, and pointed to it. + +‘Any compensation—restitution—never mind the word, you know my +meaning. Father’s grave.’ + +But he did not respond with any tenderness. After a moody silence he +broke out in an ill-used tone: + +‘It’ll be a very hard thing, Liz, if, when I am trying my best to get up +in the world, you pull me back.’ + +‘I, Charley?’ + +‘Yes, you, Liz. Why can’t you let bygones be bygones? Why can’t you, as +Mr Headstone said to me this very evening about another matter, leave +well alone? What we have got to do, is, to turn our faces full in our +new direction, and keep straight on.’ + +‘And never look back? Not even to try to make some amends?’ + +‘You are such a dreamer,’ said the boy, with his former petulance. ‘It +was all very well when we sat before the fire—when we looked into the +hollow down by the flare—but we are looking into the real world, now.’ + +‘Ah, we were looking into the real world then, Charley!’ + +‘I understand what you mean by that, but you are not justified in it. I +don’t want, as I raise myself to shake you off, Liz. I want to carry you +up with me. That’s what I want to do, and mean to do. I know what I owe +you. I said to Mr Headstone this very evening, “After all, my sister got +me here.” Well, then. Don’t pull me back, and hold me down. That’s all I +ask, and surely that’s not unconscionable.’ + +She had kept a steadfast look upon him, and she answered with composure: + +‘I am not here selfishly, Charley. To please myself I could not be too +far from that river.’ + +‘Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us get quit of it +equally. Why should you linger about it any more than I? I give it a +wide berth.’ + +‘I can’t get away from it, I think,’ said Lizzie, passing her hand +across her forehead. ‘It’s no purpose of mine that I live by it still.’ + +‘There you go, Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge yourself of your own +accord in a house with a drunken—tailor, I suppose—or something of the +sort, and a little crooked antic of a child, or old person, or whatever +it is, and then you talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now, do +be more practical.’ + +She had been practical enough with him, in suffering and striving +for him; but she only laid her hand upon his shoulder—not +reproachfully—and tapped it twice or thrice. She had been used to +do so, to soothe him when she carried him about, a child as heavy as +herself. Tears started to his eyes. + +‘Upon my word, Liz,’ drawing the back of his hand across them, ‘I mean +to be a good brother to you, and to prove that I know what I owe you. +All I say is, that I hope you’ll control your fancies a little, on my +account. I’ll get a school, and then you must come and live with me, +and you’ll have to control your fancies then, so why not now? Now, say I +haven’t vexed you.’ + +‘You haven’t, Charley, you haven’t.’ + +‘And say I haven’t hurt you.’ + +‘You haven’t, Charley.’ But this answer was less ready. + +‘Say you are sure I didn’t mean to. Come! There’s Mr Headstone stopping +and looking over the wall at the tide, to hint that it’s time to go. +Kiss me, and tell me that you know I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ + +She told him so, and they embraced, and walked on and came up with the +schoolmaster. + +‘But we go your sister’s way,’ he remarked, when the boy told him he was +ready. And with his cumbrous and uneasy action he stiffly offered her +his arm. Her hand was just within it, when she drew it back. He looked +round with a start, as if he thought she had detected something that +repelled her, in the momentary touch. + +‘I will not go in just yet,’ said Lizzie. ‘And you have a distance +before you, and will walk faster without me.’ + +Being by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge, they resolved, in +consequence, to take that way over the Thames, and they left her; +Bradley Headstone giving her his hand at parting, and she thanking him +for his care of her brother. + +The master and the pupil walked on, rapidly and silently. They had +nearly crossed the bridge, when a gentleman came coolly sauntering +towards them, with a cigar in his mouth, his coat thrown back, and his +hands behind him. Something in the careless manner of this person, +and in a certain lazily arrogant air with which he approached, holding +possession of twice as much pavement as another would have claimed, +instantly caught the boy’s attention. As the gentleman passed the boy +looked at him narrowly, and then stood still, looking after him. + +‘Who is it that you stare after?’ asked Bradley. + +‘Why!’ said the boy, with a confused and pondering frown upon his face, +‘It IS that Wrayburn one!’ + +Bradley Headstone scrutinized the boy as closely as the boy had +scrutinized the gentleman. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr Headstone, but I couldn’t help wondering what in +the world brought HIM here!’ + +Though he said it as if his wonder were past—at the same time resuming +the walk—it was not lost upon the master that he looked over his +shoulder after speaking, and that the same perplexed and pondering frown +was heavy on his face. + +‘You don’t appear to like your friend, Hexam?’ + +‘I DON’T like him,’ said the boy. + +‘Why not?’ + +‘He took hold of me by the chin in a precious impertinent way, the first +time I ever saw him,’ said the boy. + +‘Again, why?’ + +‘For nothing. Or—it’s much the same—because something I happened to +say about my sister didn’t happen to please him.’ + +‘Then he knows your sister?’ + +‘He didn’t at that time,’ said the boy, still moodily pondering. + +‘Does now?’ + +The boy had so lost himself that he looked at Mr Bradley Headstone +as they walked on side by side, without attempting to reply until the +question had been repeated; then he nodded and answered, ‘Yes, sir.’ + +‘Going to see her, I dare say.’ + +‘It can’t be!’ said the boy, quickly. ‘He doesn’t know her well enough. +I should like to catch him at it!’ + +When they had walked on for a time, more rapidly than before, the master +said, clasping the pupil’s arm between the elbow and the shoulder with +his hand: + +‘You were going to tell me something about that person. What did you say +his name was?’ + +‘Wrayburn. Mr Eugene Wrayburn. He is what they call a barrister, with +nothing to do. The first time he came to our old place was when my +father was alive. He came on business; not that it was HIS business—HE +never had any business—he was brought by a friend of his.’ + +‘And the other times?’ + +‘There was only one other time that I know of. When my father was killed +by accident, he chanced to be one of the finders. He was mooning about, +I suppose, taking liberties with people’s chins; but there he was, +somehow. He brought the news home to my sister early in the morning, and +brought Miss Abbey Potterson, a neighbour, to help break it to her. +He was mooning about the house when I was fetched home in the +afternoon—they didn’t know where to find me till my sister could be +brought round sufficiently to tell them—and then he mooned away.’ + +‘And is that all?’ + +‘That’s all, sir.’ + +Bradley Headstone gradually released the boy’s arm, as if he were +thoughtful, and they walked on side by side as before. After a long +silence between them, Bradley resumed the talk. + +‘I suppose—your sister—’ with a curious break both before and after +the words, ‘has received hardly any teaching, Hexam?’ + +‘Hardly any, sir.’ + +‘Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father’s objections. I remember them in +your case. Yet—your sister—scarcely looks or speaks like an ignorant +person.’ + +‘Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr Headstone. Too much, +perhaps, without teaching. I used to call the fire at home, her books, +for she was always full of fancies—sometimes quite wise fancies, +considering—when she sat looking at it.’ + +‘I don’t like that,’ said Bradley Headstone. + +His pupil was a little surprised by this striking in with so sudden +and decided and emotional an objection, but took it as a proof of the +master’s interest in himself. It emboldened him to say: + +‘I have never brought myself to mention it openly to you, Mr Headstone, +and you’re my witness that I couldn’t even make up my mind to take it +from you before we came out to-night; but it’s a painful thing to think +that if I get on as well as you hope, I shall be—I won’t say disgraced, +because I don’t mean disgraced—but—rather put to the blush if it was +known—by a sister who has been very good to me.’ + +‘Yes,’ said Bradley Headstone in a slurring way, for his mind scarcely +seemed to touch that point, so smoothly did it glide to another, ‘and +there is this possibility to consider. Some man who had worked his way +might come to admire—your sister—and might even in time bring himself +to think of marrying—your sister—and it would be a sad drawback and a +heavy penalty upon him, if; overcoming in his mind other inequalities of +condition and other considerations against it, this inequality and this +consideration remained in full force.’ + +‘That’s much my own meaning, sir.’ + +‘Ay, ay,’ said Bradley Headstone, ‘but you spoke of a mere brother. +Now, the case I have supposed would be a much stronger case; because an +admirer, a husband, would form the connexion voluntarily, besides being +obliged to proclaim it: which a brother is not. After all, you know, it +must be said of you that you couldn’t help yourself: while it would be +said of him, with equal reason, that he could.’ + +‘That’s true, sir. Sometimes since Lizzie was left free by father’s +death, I have thought that such a young woman might soon acquire more +than enough to pass muster. And sometimes I have even thought that +perhaps Miss Peecher—’ + +‘For the purpose, I would advise Not Miss Peecher,’ Bradley Headstone +struck in with a recurrence of his late decision of manner. + +‘Would you be so kind as to think of it for me, Mr Headstone?’ + +‘Yes, Hexam, yes. I’ll think of it. I’ll think maturely of it. I’ll +think well of it.’ + +Their walk was almost a silent one afterwards, until it ended at the +school-house. There, one of neat Miss Peecher’s little windows, like the +eyes in needles, was illuminated, and in a corner near it sat Mary Anne +watching, while Miss Peecher at the table stitched at the neat little +body she was making up by brown paper pattern for her own wearing. N.B. +Miss Peecher and Miss Peecher’s pupils were not much encouraged in the +unscholastic art of needlework, by Government. + +Mary Anne with her face to the window, held her arm up. + +‘Well, Mary Anne?’ + +‘Mr Headstone coming home, ma’am.’ + +In about a minute, Mary Anne again hailed. + +‘Yes, Mary Anne?’ + +‘Gone in and locked his door, ma’am.’ + +Miss Peecher repressed a sigh as she gathered her work together for bed, +and transfixed that part of her dress where her heart would have been if +she had had the dress on, with a sharp, sharp needle. + + + + +Chapter 2 + +STILL EDUCATIONAL + + +The person of the house, doll’s dressmaker and manufacturer of +ornamental pincushions and pen-wipers, sat in her quaint little low +arm-chair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back. The person +of the house had attained that dignity while yet of very tender years +indeed, through being the only trustworthy person IN the house. + +‘Well Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie,’ said she, breaking off in her song, ‘what’s +the news out of doors?’ + +‘What’s the news in doors?’ returned Lizzie, playfully smoothing the +bright long fair hair which grew very luxuriant and beautiful on the +head of the doll’s dressmaker. + +‘Let me see, said the blind man. Why the last news is, that I don’t mean +to marry your brother.’ + +‘No?’ + +‘No-o,’ shaking her head and her chin. ‘Don’t like the boy.’ + +‘What do you say to his master?’ + +‘I say that I think he’s bespoke.’ + +Lizzie finished putting the hair carefully back over the misshapen +shoulders, and then lighted a candle. It showed the little parlour to +be dingy, but orderly and clean. She stood it on the mantelshelf, remote +from the dressmaker’s eyes, and then put the room door open, and the +house door open, and turned the little low chair and its occupant +towards the outer air. It was a sultry night, and this was a +fine-weather arrangement when the day’s work was done. To complete +it, she seated herself in a chair by the side of the little chair, and +protectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that crept up to her. + +‘This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time in the day and +night,’ said the person of the house. Her real name was Fanny Cleaver; +but she had long ago chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation of +Miss Jenny Wren. + +‘I have been thinking,’ Jenny went on, ‘as I sat at work to-day, what +a thing it would be, if I should be able to have your company till I am +married, or at least courted. Because when I am courted, I shall make +Him do some of the things that you do for me. He couldn’t brush my hair +like you do, or help me up and down stairs like you do, and he couldn’t +do anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he could +call for orders in his clumsy way. And he shall too. I’LL trot him +about, I can tell him!’ + +Jenny Wren had her personal vanities—happily for her—and no intentions +were stronger in her breast than the various trials and torments that +were, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon ‘him.’ + +‘Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he may happen +to be,’ said Miss Wren, ‘I know his tricks and his manners, and I give +him warning to look out.’ + +‘Don’t you think you are rather hard upon him?’ asked her friend, +smiling, and smoothing her hair. + +‘Not a bit,’ replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of vast experience. +‘My dear, they don’t care for you, those fellows, if you’re NOT hard +upon ’em. But I was saying If I should be able to have your company. Ah! +What a large If! Ain’t it?’ + +‘I have no intention of parting company, Jenny.’ + +‘Don’t say that, or you’ll go directly.’ + +‘Am I so little to be relied upon?’ + +‘You’re more to be relied upon than silver and gold.’ As she said it, +Miss Wren suddenly broke off, screwed up her eyes and her chin, and +looked prodigiously knowing. ‘Aha! + + Who comes here? + A Grenadier. + What does he want? + A pot of beer. + +And nothing else in the world, my dear!’ + +A man’s figure paused on the pavement at the outer door. ‘Mr Eugene +Wrayburn, ain’t it?’ said Miss Wren. + +‘So I am told,’ was the answer. + +‘You may come in, if you’re good.’ + +‘I am not good,’ said Eugene, ‘but I’ll come in.’ + +He gave his hand to Jenny Wren, and he gave his hand to Lizzie, and he +stood leaning by the door at Lizzie’s side. He had been strolling with +his cigar, he said, (it was smoked out and gone by this time,) and he +had strolled round to return in that direction that he might look in as +he passed. Had she not seen her brother to-night? + +‘Yes,’ said Lizzie, whose manner was a little troubled. + +Gracious condescension on our brother’s part! Mr Eugene Wrayburn thought +he had passed my young gentleman on the bridge yonder. Who was his +friend with him? + +‘The schoolmaster.’ + +‘To be sure. Looked like it.’ + +Lizzie sat so still, that one could not have said wherein the fact of +her manner being troubled was expressed; and yet one could not have +doubted it. Eugene was as easy as ever; but perhaps, as she sat with +her eyes cast down, it might have been rather more perceptible that +his attention was concentrated upon her for certain moments, than its +concentration upon any subject for any short time ever was, elsewhere. + +‘I have nothing to report, Lizzie,’ said Eugene. ‘But, having promised +you that an eye should be always kept on Mr Riderhood through my friend +Lightwood, I like occasionally to renew my assurance that I keep my +promise, and keep my friend up to the mark.’ + +‘I should not have doubted it, sir.’ + +‘Generally, I confess myself a man to be doubted,’ returned Eugene, +coolly, ‘for all that.’ + +‘Why are you?’ asked the sharp Miss Wren. + +‘Because, my dear,’ said the airy Eugene, ‘I am a bad idle dog.’ + +‘Then why don’t you reform and be a good dog?’ inquired Miss Wren. + +‘Because, my dear,’ returned Eugene, ‘there’s nobody who makes it worth +my while. Have you considered my suggestion, Lizzie?’ This in a lower +voice, but only as if it were a graver matter; not at all to the +exclusion of the person of the house. + +‘I have thought of it, Mr Wrayburn, but I have not been able to make up +my mind to accept it.’ + +‘False pride!’ said Eugene. + +‘I think not, Mr Wrayburn. I hope not.’ + +‘False pride!’ repeated Eugene. ‘Why, what else is it? The thing is +worth nothing in itself. The thing is worth nothing to me. What can it +be worth to me? You know the most I make of it. I propose to be of some +use to somebody—which I never was in this world, and never shall be on +any other occasion—by paying some qualified person of your own sex and +age, so many (or rather so few) contemptible shillings, to come here, +certain nights in the week, and give you certain instruction which you +wouldn’t want if you hadn’t been a self-denying daughter and sister. +You know that it’s good to have it, or you would never have so devoted +yourself to your brother’s having it. Then why not have it: especially +when our friend Miss Jenny here would profit by it too? If I proposed to +be the teacher, or to attend the lessons—obviously incongruous!—but +as to that, I might as well be on the other side of the globe, or not +on the globe at all. False pride, Lizzie. Because true pride wouldn’t +shame, or be shamed by, your thankless brother. True pride wouldn’t have +schoolmasters brought here, like doctors, to look at a bad case. True +pride would go to work and do it. You know that, well enough, for you +know that your own true pride would do it to-morrow, if you had the ways +and means which false pride won’t let me supply. Very well. I add no +more than this. Your false pride does wrong to yourself and does wrong +to your dead father.’ + +‘How to my father, Mr Wrayburn?’ she asked, with an anxious face. + +‘How to your father? Can you ask! By perpetuating the consequences of +his ignorant and blind obstinacy. By resolving not to set right the +wrong he did you. By determining that the deprivation to which he +condemned you, and which he forced upon you, shall always rest upon his +head.’ + +It chanced to be a subtle string to sound, in her who had so spoken to +her brother within the hour. It sounded far more forcibly, because of +the change in the speaker for the moment; the passing appearance of +earnestness, complete conviction, injured resentment of suspicion, +generous and unselfish interest. All these qualities, in him usually so +light and careless, she felt to be inseparable from some touch of their +opposites in her own breast. She thought, had she, so far below him +and so different, rejected this disinterestedness, because of some vain +misgiving that he sought her out, or heeded any personal attractions +that he might descry in her? The poor girl, pure of heart and purpose, +could not bear to think it. Sinking before her own eyes, as she +suspected herself of it, she drooped her head as though she had done him +some wicked and grievous injury, and broke into silent tears. + +‘Don’t be distressed,’ said Eugene, very, very kindly. ‘I hope it is not +I who have distressed you. I meant no more than to put the matter in its +true light before you; though I acknowledge I did it selfishly enough, +for I am disappointed.’ + +Disappointed of doing her a service. How else COULD he be disappointed? + +‘It won’t break my heart,’ laughed Eugene; ‘it won’t stay by me +eight-and-forty hours; but I am genuinely disappointed. I had set my +fancy on doing this little thing for you and for our friend Miss Jenny. +The novelty of my doing anything in the least useful, had its charms. I +see, now, that I might have managed it better. I might have affected to +do it wholly for our friend Miss J. I might have got myself up, morally, +as Sir Eugene Bountiful. But upon my soul I can’t make flourishes, and I +would rather be disappointed than try.’ + +If he meant to follow home what was in Lizzie’s thoughts, it was +skilfully done. If he followed it by mere fortuitous coincidence, it was +done by an evil chance. + +‘It opened out so naturally before me,’ said Eugene. ‘The ball seemed so +thrown into my hands by accident! I happen to be originally brought into +contact with you, Lizzie, on those two occasions that you know of. I +happen to be able to promise you that a watch shall be kept upon that +false accuser, Riderhood. I happen to be able to give you some little +consolation in the darkest hour of your distress, by assuring you that I +don’t believe him. On the same occasion I tell you that I am the idlest +and least of lawyers, but that I am better than none, in a case I have +noted down with my own hand, and that you may be always sure of my best +help, and incidentally of Lightwood’s too, in your efforts to clear +your father. So, it gradually takes my fancy that I may help you—so +easily!—to clear your father of that other blame which I mentioned +a few minutes ago, and which is a just and real one. I hope I have +explained myself; for I am heartily sorry to have distressed you. I hate +to claim to mean well, but I really did mean honestly and simply well, +and I want you to know it.’ + +‘I have never doubted that, Mr Wrayburn,’ said Lizzie; the more +repentant, the less he claimed. + +‘I am very glad to hear it. Though if you had quite understood my whole +meaning at first, I think you would not have refused. Do you think you +would?’ + +‘I—don’t know that I should, Mr Wrayburn.’ + +‘Well! Then why refuse now you do understand it?’ + +‘It’s not easy for me to talk to you,’ returned Lizzie, in some +confusion, ‘for you see all the consequences of what I say, as soon as I +say it.’ + +‘Take all the consequences,’ laughed Eugene, ‘and take away my +disappointment. Lizzie Hexam, as I truly respect you, and as I am your +friend and a poor devil of a gentleman, I protest I don’t even now +understand why you hesitate.’ + +There was an appearance of openness, trustfulness, unsuspecting +generosity, in his words and manner, that won the poor girl over; and +not only won her over, but again caused her to feel as though she had +been influenced by the opposite qualities, with vanity at their head. + +‘I will not hesitate any longer, Mr Wrayburn. I hope you will not +think the worse of me for having hesitated at all. For myself and for +Jenny—you let me answer for you, Jenny dear?’ + +The little creature had been leaning back, attentive, with her elbows +resting on the elbows of her chair, and her chin upon her hands. Without +changing her attitude, she answered, ‘Yes!’ so suddenly that it rather +seemed as if she had chopped the monosyllable than spoken it. + +‘For myself and for Jenny, I thankfully accept your kind offer.’ + +‘Agreed! Dismissed!’ said Eugene, giving Lizzie his hand before lightly +waving it, as if he waved the whole subject away. ‘I hope it may not be +often that so much is made of so little!’ + +Then he fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren. ‘I think of setting +up a doll, Miss Jenny,’ he said. + +‘You had better not,’ replied the dressmaker. + +‘Why not?’ + +‘You are sure to break it. All you children do.’ + +‘But that makes good for trade, you know, Miss Wren,’ returned Eugene. +‘Much as people’s breaking promises and contracts and bargains of all +sorts, makes good for MY trade.’ + +‘I don’t know about that,’ Miss Wren retorted; ‘but you had better by +half set up a pen-wiper, and turn industrious, and use it.’ + +‘Why, if we were all as industrious as you, little Busy-Body, we should +begin to work as soon as we could crawl, and there would be a bad +thing!’ + +‘Do you mean,’ returned the little creature, with a flush suffusing her +face, ‘bad for your backs and your legs?’ + +‘No, no, no,’ said Eugene; shocked—to do him justice—at the thought of +trifling with her infirmity. ‘Bad for business, bad for business. If we +all set to work as soon as we could use our hands, it would be all over +with the dolls’ dressmakers.’ + +‘There’s something in that,’ replied Miss Wren; ‘you have a sort of an +idea in your noddle sometimes.’ Then, in a changed tone; ‘Talking of +ideas, my Lizzie,’ they were sitting side by side as they had sat at +first, ‘I wonder how it happens that when I am work, work, working here, +all alone in the summer-time, I smell flowers.’ + +‘As a commonplace individual, I should say,’ Eugene suggested +languidly—for he was growing weary of the person of the house—‘that +you smell flowers because you DO smell flowers.’ + +‘No I don’t,’ said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbow +of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly +before her; ‘this is not a flowery neighbourhood. It’s anything but +that. And yet as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses, +till I think I see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the +floor. I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my hand—so—and expect to +make them rustle. I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and +all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very few +flowers indeed, in my life.’ + +‘Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!’ said her friend: with a glance +towards Eugene as if she would have asked him whether they were given +the child in compensation for her losses. + +‘So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!’ +cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, ‘how +they sing!’ + +There was something in the face and action for the moment, quite +inspired and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand +again. + +‘I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell +better than other flowers. For when I was a little child,’ in a tone as +though it were ages ago, ‘the children that I used to see early in the +morning were very different from any others that I ever saw. They were +not like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they +were never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbours; +they never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises, and +they never mocked me. Such numbers of them too! All in white dresses, +and with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I +have never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so +well. They used to come down in long bright slanting rows, and say all +together, “Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!” When I told them +who it was, they answered, “Come and play with us!” When I said “I never +play! I can’t play!” they swept about me and took me up, and made me +light. Then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me +down, and said, all together, “Have patience, and we will come again.” + Whenever they came back, I used to know they were coming before I saw +the long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, +“Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!” And I used to cry out, “O my +blessed children, it’s poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make me +light!”’ + +By degrees, as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised, +the late ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful. Having +so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face, +she looked round and recalled herself. + +‘What poor fun you think me; don’t you, Mr Wrayburn? You may well look +tired of me. But it’s Saturday night, and I won’t detain you.’ + +‘That is to say, Miss Wren,’ observed Eugene, quite ready to profit by +the hint, ‘you wish me to go?’ + +‘Well, it’s Saturday night,’ she returned, ‘and my child’s coming +home. And my child is a troublesome bad child, and costs me a world of +scolding. I would rather you didn’t see my child.’ + +‘A doll?’ said Eugene, not understanding, and looking for an +explanation. + +But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, ‘Her father,’ he +delayed no longer. He took his leave immediately. At the corner of the +street he stopped to light another cigar, and possibly to ask himself +what he was doing otherwise. If so, the answer was indefinite and vague. +Who knows what he is doing, who is careless what he does! + +A man stumbled against him as he turned away, who mumbled some maudlin +apology. Looking after this man, Eugene saw him go in at the door by +which he himself had just come out. + +On the man’s stumbling into the room, Lizzie rose to leave it. + +‘Don’t go away, Miss Hexam,’ he said in a submissive manner, speaking +thickly and with difficulty. ‘Don’t fly from unfortunate man in +shattered state of health. Give poor invalid honour of your company. It +ain’t—ain’t catching.’ + +Lizzie murmured that she had something to do in her own room, and went +away upstairs. + +‘How’s my Jenny?’ said the man, timidly. ‘How’s my Jenny Wren, best of +children, object dearest affections broken-hearted invalid?’ + +To which the person of the house, stretching out her arm in an attitude +of command, replied with irresponsive asperity: ‘Go along with you! Go +along into your corner! Get into your corner directly!’ + +The wretched spectacle made as if he would have offered some +remonstrance; but not venturing to resist the person of the house, +thought better of it, and went and sat down on a particular chair of +disgrace. + +‘Oh-h-h!’ cried the person of the house, pointing her little finger, +‘You bad old boy! Oh-h-h you naughty, wicked creature! WHAT do you mean +by it?’ + +The shaking figure, unnerved and disjointed from head to foot, put +out its two hands a little way, as making overtures of peace and +reconciliation. Abject tears stood in its eyes, and stained the blotched +red of its cheeks. The swollen lead-coloured under lip trembled with a +shameful whine. The whole indecorous threadbare ruin, from the broken +shoes to the prematurely-grey scanty hair, grovelled. Not with any sense +worthy to be called a sense, of this dire reversal of the places of +parent and child, but in a pitiful expostulation to be let off from a +scolding. + +‘I know your tricks and your manners,’ cried Miss Wren. ‘I know where +you’ve been to!’ (which indeed it did not require discernment to +discover). ‘Oh, you disgraceful old chap!’ + +The very breathing of the figure was contemptible, as it laboured and +rattled in that operation, like a blundering clock. + +‘Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night,’ pursued the person of the +house, ‘and all for this! WHAT do you mean by it?’ + +There was something in that emphasized ‘What,’ which absurdly frightened +the figure. As often as the person of the house worked her way round to +it—even as soon as he saw that it was coming—he collapsed in an extra +degree. + +‘I wish you had been taken up, and locked up,’ said the person of the +house. ‘I wish you had been poked into cells and black holes, and run +over by rats and spiders and beetles. I know their tricks and their +manners, and they’d have tickled you nicely. Ain’t you ashamed of +yourself?’ + +‘Yes, my dear,’ stammered the father. + +‘Then,’ said the person of the house, terrifying him by a grand muster +of her spirits and forces before recurring to the emphatic word, ‘WHAT +do you mean by it?’ + +‘Circumstances over which had no control,’ was the miserable creature’s +plea in extenuation. + +‘I’LL circumstance you and control you too,’ retorted the person of the +house, speaking with vehement sharpness, ‘if you talk in that way. I’ll +give you in charge to the police, and have you fined five shillings when +you can’t pay, and then I won’t pay the money for you, and you’ll be +transported for life. How should you like to be transported for life?’ + +‘Shouldn’t like it. Poor shattered invalid. Trouble nobody long,’ cried +the wretched figure. + +‘Come, come!’ said the person of the house, tapping the table near her +in a business-like manner, and shaking her head and her chin; ‘you know +what you’ve got to do. Put down your money this instant.’ + +The obedient figure began to rummage in its pockets. + +‘Spent a fortune out of your wages, I’ll be bound!’ said the person of +the house. ‘Put it here! All you’ve got left! Every farthing!’ + +Such a business as he made of collecting it from his dogs’-eared +pockets; of expecting it in this pocket, and not finding it; of not +expecting it in that pocket, and passing it over; of finding no pocket +where that other pocket ought to be! + +‘Is this all?’ demanded the person of the house, when a confused heap of +pence and shillings lay on the table. + +‘Got no more,’ was the rueful answer, with an accordant shake of the +head. + +‘Let me make sure. You know what you’ve got to do. Turn all your pockets +inside out, and leave ’em so!’ cried the person of the house. + +He obeyed. And if anything could have made him look more abject or more +dismally ridiculous than before, it would have been his so displaying +himself. + +‘Here’s but seven and eightpence halfpenny!’ exclaimed Miss Wren, after +reducing the heap to order. ‘Oh, you prodigal old son! Now you shall be +starved.’ + +‘No, don’t starve me,’ he urged, whimpering. + +‘If you were treated as you ought to be,’ said Miss Wren, ‘you’d be fed +upon the skewers of cats’ meat;—only the skewers, after the cats had +had the meat. As it is, go to bed.’ + +When he stumbled out of the corner to comply, he again put out both his +hands, and pleaded: ‘Circumstances over which no control—’ + +‘Get along with you to bed!’ cried Miss Wren, snapping him up. ‘Don’t +speak to me. I’m not going to forgive you. Go to bed this moment!’ + +Seeing another emphatic ‘What’ upon its way, he evaded it by complying +and was heard to shuffle heavily up stairs, and shut his door, and throw +himself on his bed. Within a little while afterwards, Lizzie came down. + +‘Shall we have our supper, Jenny dear?’ + +‘Ah! bless us and save us, we need have something to keep us going,’ +returned Miss Jenny, shrugging her shoulders. + +Lizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for the person of +the house than an ordinary table), and put upon it such plain fare as +they were accustomed to have, and drew up a stool for herself. + +‘Now for supper! What are you thinking of, Jenny darling?’ + +‘I was thinking,’ she returned, coming out of a deep study, ‘what I +would do to Him, if he should turn out a drunkard.’ + +‘Oh, but he won’t,’ said Lizzie. ‘You’ll take care of that, beforehand.’ + +‘I shall try to take care of it beforehand, but he might deceive me. +Oh, my dear, all those fellows with their tricks and their manners do +deceive!’ With the little fist in full action. ‘And if so, I tell you +what I think I’d do. When he was asleep, I’d make a spoon red hot, and +I’d have some boiling liquor bubbling in a saucepan, and I’d take it +out hissing, and I’d open his mouth with the other hand—or perhaps he’d +sleep with his mouth ready open—and I’d pour it down his throat, and +blister it and choke him.’ + +‘I am sure you would do no such horrible thing,’ said Lizzie. + +‘Shouldn’t I? Well; perhaps I shouldn’t. But I should like to!’ + +‘I am equally sure you would not.’ + +‘Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. Only you haven’t +always lived among it as I have lived—and your back isn’t bad and your +legs are not queer.’ + +As they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her round to +that prettier and better state. But, the charm was broken. The person +of the house was the person of a house full of sordid shames and cares, +with an upper room in which that abased figure was infecting even +innocent sleep with sensual brutality and degradation. The doll’s +dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew; of the world, worldly; of +the earth, earthy. + +Poor doll’s dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should +have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the +eternal road, and asking guidance! Poor, poor little doll’s dressmaker! + + + + +Chapter 3 + +A PIECE OF WORK + + +Britannia, sitting meditating one fine day (perhaps in the attitude in +which she is presented on the copper coinage), discovers all of a sudden +that she wants Veneering in Parliament. It occurs to her that Veneering +is ‘a representative man’—which cannot in these times be doubted—and +that Her Majesty’s faithful Commons are incomplete without him. So, +Britannia mentions to a legal gentleman of her acquaintance that if +Veneering will ‘put down’ five thousand pounds, he may write a couple +of initial letters after his name at the extremely cheap rate of two +thousand five hundred per letter. It is clearly understood between +Britannia and the legal gentleman that nobody is to take up the five +thousand pounds, but that being put down they will disappear by magical +conjuration and enchantment. + +The legal gentleman in Britannia’s confidence going straight from that +lady to Veneering, thus commissioned, Veneering declares himself highly +flattered, but requires breathing time to ascertain ‘whether his friends +will rally round him.’ Above all things, he says, it behoves him to be +clear, at a crisis of this importance, ‘whether his friends will rally +round him.’ The legal gentleman, in the interests of his client cannot +allow much time for this purpose, as the lady rather thinks she knows +somebody prepared to put down six thousand pounds; but he says he will +give Veneering four hours. + +Veneering then says to Mrs Veneering, ‘We must work,’ and throws himself +into a Hansom cab. Mrs Veneering in the same moment relinquishes baby +to Nurse; presses her aquiline hands upon her brow, to arrange the +throbbing intellect within; orders out the carriage; and repeats in +a distracted and devoted manner, compounded of Ophelia and any +self-immolating female of antiquity you may prefer, ‘We must work.’ + +Veneering having instructed his driver to charge at the Public in the +streets, like the Life-Guards at Waterloo, is driven furiously to Duke +Street, Saint James’s. There, he finds Twemlow in his lodgings, fresh +from the hands of a secret artist who has been doing something to his +hair with yolks of eggs. The process requiring that Twemlow shall, for +two hours after the application, allow his hair to stick upright and dry +gradually, he is in an appropriate state for the receipt of startling +intelligence; looking equally like the Monument on Fish Street Hill, and +King Priam on a certain incendiary occasion not wholly unknown as a neat +point from the classics. + +‘My dear Twemlow,’ says Veneering, grasping both his hands, ‘as the +dearest and oldest of my friends—’ + +(‘Then there can be no more doubt about it in future,’ thinks Twemlow, +‘and I AM!’) + +‘—Are you of opinion that your cousin, Lord Snigsworth, would give his +name as a Member of my Committee? I don’t go so far as to ask for his +lordship; I only ask for his name. Do you think he would give me his +name?’ + +In sudden low spirits, Twemlow replies, ‘I don’t think he would.’ + +‘My political opinions,’ says Veneering, not previously aware of having +any, ‘are identical with those of Lord Snigsworth, and perhaps as a +matter of public feeling and public principle, Lord Snigsworth would +give me his name.’ + +‘It might be so,’ says Twemlow; ‘but—’ And perplexedly scratching his +head, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, is the more discomfited by being +reminded how stickey he is. + +‘Between such old and intimate friends as ourselves,’ pursues Veneering, +‘there should in such a case be no reserve. Promise me that if I ask you +to do anything for me which you don’t like to do, or feel the slightest +difficulty in doing, you will freely tell me so.’ + +This, Twemlow is so kind as to promise, with every appearance of most +heartily intending to keep his word. + +‘Would you have any objection to write down to Snigsworthy Park, and ask +this favour of Lord Snigsworth? Of course if it were granted I should +know that I owed it solely to you; while at the same time you would put +it to Lord Snigsworth entirely upon public grounds. Would you have any +objection?’ + +Says Twemlow, with his hand to his forehead, ‘You have exacted a promise +from me.’ + +‘I have, my dear Twemlow.’ + +‘And you expect me to keep it honourably.’ + +‘I do, my dear Twemlow.’ + +‘ON the whole, then;—observe me,’ urges Twemlow with great nicety, as +if; in the case of its having been off the whole, he would have done it +directly—‘ON the whole, I must beg you to excuse me from addressing any +communication to Lord Snigsworth.’ + +‘Bless you, bless you!’ says Veneering; horribly disappointed, but +grasping him by both hands again, in a particularly fervent manner. + +It is not to be wondered at that poor Twemlow should decline to inflict +a letter on his noble cousin (who has gout in the temper), inasmuch +as his noble cousin, who allows him a small annuity on which he lives, +takes it out of him, as the phrase goes, in extreme severity; putting +him, when he visits at Snigsworthy Park, under a kind of martial law; +ordaining that he shall hang his hat on a particular peg, sit on a +particular chair, talk on particular subjects to particular people, and +perform particular exercises: such as sounding the praises of the Family +Varnish (not to say Pictures), and abstaining from the choicest of the +Family Wines unless expressly invited to partake. + +‘One thing, however, I CAN do for you,’ says Twemlow; ‘and that is, work +for you.’ + +Veneering blesses him again. + +‘I’ll go,’ says Twemlow, in a rising hurry of spirits, ‘to the +club;—let us see now; what o’clock is it?’ + +‘Twenty minutes to eleven.’ + +‘I’ll be,’ says Twemlow, ‘at the club by ten minutes to twelve, and I’ll +never leave it all day.’ + +Veneering feels that his friends are rallying round him, and says, +‘Thank you, thank you. I knew I could rely upon you. I said to Anastatia +before leaving home just now to come to you—of course the first friend +I have seen on a subject so momentous to me, my dear Twemlow—I said to +Anastatia, “We must work.”’ + +‘You were right, you were right,’ replies Twemlow. ‘Tell me. Is SHE +working?’ + +‘She is,’ says Veneering. + +‘Good!’ cries Twemlow, polite little gentleman that he is. ‘A woman’s +tact is invaluable. To have the dear sex with us, is to have everything +with us.’ + +‘But you have not imparted to me,’ remarks Veneering, ‘what you think of +my entering the House of Commons?’ + +‘I think,’ rejoins Twemlow, feelingly, ‘that it is the best club in +London.’ + +Veneering again blesses him, plunges down stairs, rushes into his +Hansom, and directs the driver to be up and at the British Public, and +to charge into the City. + +Meanwhile Twemlow, in an increasing hurry of spirits, gets his hair down +as well as he can—which is not very well; for, after these glutinous +applications it is restive, and has a surface on it somewhat in the +nature of pastry—and gets to the club by the appointed time. At the +club he promptly secures a large window, writing materials, and all +the newspapers, and establishes himself; immoveable, to be respectfully +contemplated by Pall Mall. Sometimes, when a man enters who nods to +him, Twemlow says, ‘Do you know Veneering?’ Man says, ‘No; member of +the club?’ Twemlow says, ‘Yes. Coming in for Pocket-Breaches.’ Man says, +‘Ah! Hope he may find it worth the money!’ yawns, and saunters out. +Towards six o’clock of the afternoon, Twemlow begins to persuade +himself that he is positively jaded with work, and thinks it much to be +regretted that he was not brought up as a Parliamentary agent. + +From Twemlow’s, Veneering dashes at Podsnap’s place of business. Finds +Podsnap reading the paper, standing, and inclined to be oratorical +over the astonishing discovery he has made, that Italy is not England. +Respectfully entreats Podsnap’s pardon for stopping the flow of his +words of wisdom, and informs him what is in the wind. Tells Podsnap that +their political opinions are identical. Gives Podsnap to understand that +he, Veneering, formed his political opinions while sitting at the feet +of him, Podsnap. Seeks earnestly to know whether Podsnap ‘will rally +round him?’ + +Says Podsnap, something sternly, ‘Now, first of all, Veneering, do you +ask my advice?’ + +Veneering falters that as so old and so dear a friend— + +‘Yes, yes, that’s all very well,’ says Podsnap; ‘but have you made up +your mind to take this borough of Pocket-Breaches on its own terms, or +do you ask my opinion whether you shall take it or leave it alone?’ + +Veneering repeats that his heart’s desire and his soul’s thirst are, +that Podsnap shall rally round him. + +‘Now, I’ll be plain with you, Veneering,’ says Podsnap, knitting his +brows. ‘You will infer that I don’t care about Parliament, from the fact +of my not being there?’ + +Why, of course Veneering knows that! Of course Veneering knows that if +Podsnap chose to go there, he would be there, in a space of time that +might be stated by the light and thoughtless as a jiffy. + +‘It is not worth my while,’ pursues Podsnap, becoming handsomely +mollified, ‘and it is the reverse of important to my position. But it +is not my wish to set myself up as law for another man, differently +situated. You think it IS worth YOUR while, and IS important to YOUR +position. Is that so?’ + +Always with the proviso that Podsnap will rally round him, Veneering +thinks it is so. + +‘Then you don’t ask my advice,’ says Podsnap. ‘Good. Then I won’t give +it you. But you do ask my help. Good. Then I’ll work for you.’ + +Veneering instantly blesses him, and apprises him that Twemlow is +already working. Podsnap does not quite approve that anybody should +be already working—regarding it rather in the light of a liberty—but +tolerates Twemlow, and says he is a well-connected old female who will +do no harm. + +‘I have nothing very particular to do to-day,’ adds Podsnap, ‘and I’ll +mix with some influential people. I had engaged myself to dinner, but +I’ll send Mrs Podsnap and get off going myself; and I’ll dine with you +at eight. It’s important we should report progress and compare notes. +Now, let me see. You ought to have a couple of active energetic fellows, +of gentlemanly manners, to go about.’ + +Veneering, after cogitation, thinks of Boots and Brewer. + +‘Whom I have met at your house,’ says Podsnap. ‘Yes. They’ll do very +well. Let them each have a cab, and go about.’ + +Veneering immediately mentions what a blessing he feels it, to possess +a friend capable of such grand administrative suggestions, and really +is elated at this going about of Boots and Brewer, as an idea wearing +an electioneering aspect and looking desperately like business. Leaving +Podsnap, at a hand-gallop, he descends upon Boots and Brewer, who +enthusiastically rally round him by at once bolting off in cabs, taking +opposite directions. Then Veneering repairs to the legal gentleman in +Britannia’s confidence, and with him transacts some delicate affairs +of business, and issues an address to the independent electors of +Pocket-Breaches, announcing that he is coming among them for their +suffrages, as the mariner returns to the home of his early childhood: a +phrase which is none the worse for his never having been near the place +in his life, and not even now distinctly knowing where it is. + +Mrs Veneering, during the same eventful hours, is not idle. No sooner +does the carriage turn out, all complete, than she turns into it, all +complete, and gives the word ‘To Lady Tippins’s.’ That charmer dwells +over a staymaker’s in the Belgravian Borders, with a life-size model +in the window on the ground floor of a distinguished beauty in a blue +petticoat, stay-lace in hand, looking over her shoulder at the town in +innocent surprise. As well she may, to find herself dressing under the +circumstances. + +Lady Tippins at home? Lady Tippins at home, with the room darkened, +and her back (like the lady’s at the ground-floor window, though for a +different reason) cunningly turned towards the light. Lady Tippins is +so surprised by seeing her dear Mrs Veneering so early—in the middle of +the night, the pretty creature calls it—that her eyelids almost go up, +under the influence of that emotion. + +To whom Mrs Veneering incoherently communicates, how that Veneering +has been offered Pocket-Breaches; how that it is the time for rallying +round; how that Veneering has said ‘We must work’; how that she is here, +as a wife and mother, to entreat Lady Tippins to work; how that the +carriage is at Lady Tippins’s disposal for purposes of work; how that +she, proprietress of said bran new elegant equipage, will return home on +foot—on bleeding feet if need be—to work (not specifying how), until +she drops by the side of baby’s crib. + +‘My love,’ says Lady Tippins, ‘compose yourself; we’ll bring him in.’ +And Lady Tippins really does work, and work the Veneering horses too; +for she clatters about town all day, calling upon everybody she knows, +and showing her entertaining powers and green fan to immense advantage, +by rattling on with, My dear soul, what do you think? What do +you suppose me to be? You’ll never guess. I’m pretending to be an +electioneering agent. And for what place of all places? Pocket-Breaches. +And why? Because the dearest friend I have in the world has bought it. +And who is the dearest friend I have in the world? A man of the name of +Veneering. Not omitting his wife, who is the other dearest friend I have +in the world; and I positively declare I forgot their baby, who is the +other. And we are carrying on this little farce to keep up appearances, +and isn’t it refreshing! Then, my precious child, the fun of it is that +nobody knows who these Veneerings are, and that they know nobody, and +that they have a house out of the Tales of the Genii, and give dinners +out of the Arabian Nights. Curious to see ’em, my dear? Say you’ll know +’em. Come and dine with ’em. They shan’t bore you. Say who shall meet +you. We’ll make up a party of our own, and I’ll engage that they shall +not interfere with you for one single moment. You really ought to see +their gold and silver camels. I call their dinner-table, the Caravan. +Do come and dine with my Veneerings, my own Veneerings, my exclusive +property, the dearest friends I have in the world! And above all, my +dear, be sure you promise me your vote and interest and all sorts of +plumpers for Pocket-Breaches; for we couldn’t think of spending sixpence +on it, my love, and can only consent to be brought in by the spontaneous +thingummies of the incorruptible whatdoyoucallums. + +Now, the point of view seized by the bewitching Tippins, that this same +working and rallying round is to keep up appearances, may have something +in it, but not all the truth. More is done, or considered to be +done—which does as well—by taking cabs, and ‘going about,’ than the +fair Tippins knew of. Many vast vague reputations have been made, +solely by taking cabs and going about. This particularly obtains in all +Parliamentary affairs. Whether the business in hand be to get a man in, +or get a man out, or get a man over, or promote a railway, or jockey +a railway, or what else, nothing is understood to be so effectual as +scouring nowhere in a violent hurry—in short, as taking cabs and going +about. + +Probably because this reason is in the air, Twemlow, far from being +singular in his persuasion that he works like a Trojan, is capped by +Podsnap, who in his turn is capped by Boots and Brewer. At eight o’clock +when all these hard workers assemble to dine at Veneering’s, it is +understood that the cabs of Boots and Brewer mustn’t leave the door, but +that pails of water must be brought from the nearest baiting-place, +and cast over the horses’ legs on the very spot, lest Boots and Brewer +should have instant occasion to mount and away. Those fleet messengers +require the Analytical to see that their hats are deposited where they +can be laid hold of at an instant’s notice; and they dine (remarkably +well though) with the air of firemen in charge of an engine, expecting +intelligence of some tremendous conflagration. + +Mrs Veneering faintly remarks, as dinner opens, that many such days +would be too much for her. + +‘Many such days would be too much for all of us,’ says Podsnap; ‘but +we’ll bring him in!’ + +‘We’ll bring him in,’ says Lady Tippins, sportively waving her green +fan. ‘Veneering for ever!’ + +‘We’ll bring him in!’ says Twemlow. + +‘We’ll bring him in!’ say Boots and Brewer. + +Strictly speaking, it would be hard to show cause why they should not +bring him in, Pocket-Breaches having closed its little bargain, and +there being no opposition. However, it is agreed that they must ‘work’ +to the last, and that if they did not work, something indefinite would +happen. It is likewise agreed that they are all so exhausted with the +work behind them, and need to be so fortified for the work before them, +as to require peculiar strengthening from Veneering’s cellar. Therefore, +the Analytical has orders to produce the cream of the cream of his +binns, and therefore it falls out that rallying becomes rather a trying +word for the occasion; Lady Tippins being observed gamely to inculcate +the necessity of rearing round their dear Veneering; Podsnap advocating +roaring round him; Boots and Brewer declaring their intention of reeling +round him; and Veneering thanking his devoted friends one and all, with +great emotion, for rarullarulling round him. + +In these inspiring moments, Brewer strikes out an idea which is the +great hit of the day. He consults his watch, and says (like Guy Fawkes), +he’ll now go down to the House of Commons and see how things look. + +‘I’ll keep about the lobby for an hour or so,’ says Brewer, with a +deeply mysterious countenance, ‘and if things look well, I won’t come +back, but will order my cab for nine in the morning.’ + +‘You couldn’t do better,’ says Podsnap. + +Veneering expresses his inability ever to acknowledge this last service. +Tears stand in Mrs Veneering’s affectionate eyes. Boots shows envy, +loses ground, and is regarded as possessing a second-rate mind. They all +crowd to the door, to see Brewer off. Brewer says to his driver, ‘Now, +is your horse pretty fresh?’ eyeing the animal with critical scrutiny. +Driver says he’s as fresh as butter. ‘Put him along then,’ says Brewer; +‘House of Commons.’ Driver darts up, Brewer leaps in, they cheer him as +he departs, and Mr Podsnap says, ‘Mark my words, sir. That’s a man of +resource; that’s a man to make his way in life.’ + +When the time comes for Veneering to deliver a neat and appropriate +stammer to the men of Pocket-Breaches, only Podsnap and Twemlow +accompany him by railway to that sequestered spot. The legal gentleman +is at the Pocket-Breaches Branch Station, with an open carriage with a +printed bill ‘Veneering for ever’ stuck upon it, as if it were a wall; +and they gloriously proceed, amidst the grins of the populace, to a +feeble little town hall on crutches, with some onions and bootlaces +under it, which the legal gentleman says are a Market; and from the +front window of that edifice Veneering speaks to the listening earth. +In the moment of his taking his hat off, Podsnap, as per agreement made +with Mrs Veneering, telegraphs to that wife and mother, ‘He’s up.’ + +Veneering loses his way in the usual No Thoroughfares of speech, and +Podsnap and Twemlow say Hear hear! and sometimes, when he can’t by any +means back himself out of some very unlucky No Thoroughfare, ‘He-a-a-r +He-a-a-r!’ with an air of facetious conviction, as if the ingenuity of +the thing gave them a sensation of exquisite pleasure. But Veneering +makes two remarkably good points; so good, that they are supposed +to have been suggested to him by the legal gentleman in Britannia’s +confidence, while briefly conferring on the stairs. + +Point the first is this. Veneering institutes an original comparison +between the country, and a ship; pointedly calling the ship, the Vessel +of the State, and the Minister the Man at the Helm. Veneering’s object +is to let Pocket-Breaches know that his friend on his right (Podsnap) is +a man of wealth. Consequently says he, ‘And, gentlemen, when the timbers +of the Vessel of the State are unsound and the Man at the Helm is +unskilful, would those great Marine Insurers, who rank among our +world-famed merchant-princes—would they insure her, gentlemen? Would +they underwrite her? Would they incur a risk in her? Would they have +confidence in her? Why, gentlemen, if I appealed to my honourable friend +upon my right, himself among the greatest and most respected of that +great and much respected class, he would answer No!’ + +Point the second is this. The telling fact that Twemlow is related to +Lord Snigsworth, must be let off. Veneering supposes a state of public +affairs that probably never could by any possibility exist (though this +is not quite certain, in consequence of his picture being unintelligible +to himself and everybody else), and thus proceeds. ‘Why, gentlemen, if +I were to indicate such a programme to any class of society, I say it +would be received with derision, would be pointed at by the finger of +scorn. If I indicated such a programme to any worthy and intelligent +tradesman of your town—nay, I will here be personal, and say Our +town—what would he reply? He would reply, “Away with it!” That’s what +HE would reply, gentlemen. In his honest indignation he would reply, +“Away with it!” But suppose I mounted higher in the social scale. +Suppose I drew my arm through the arm of my respected friend upon my +left, and, walking with him through the ancestral woods of his family, +and under the spreading beeches of Snigsworthy Park, approached the +noble hall, crossed the courtyard, entered by the door, went up the +staircase, and, passing from room to room, found myself at last in +the august presence of my friend’s near kinsman, Lord Snigsworth. And +suppose I said to that venerable earl, “My Lord, I am here before your +lordship, presented by your lordship’s near kinsman, my friend upon my +left, to indicate that programme;” what would his lordship answer? Why, +he would answer, “Away with it!” That’s what he would answer, gentlemen. +“Away with it!” Unconsciously using, in his exalted sphere, the exact +language of the worthy and intelligent tradesman of our town, the near +and dear kinsman of my friend upon my left would answer in his wrath, +“Away with it!”’ + +Veneering finishes with this last success, and Mr Podsnap telegraphs to +Mrs Veneering, ‘He’s down.’ + +Then, dinner is had at the Hotel with the legal gentleman, and then +there are in due succession, nomination, and declaration. Finally Mr +Podsnap telegraphs to Mrs Veneering, ‘We have brought him in.’ + +Another gorgeous dinner awaits them on their return to the Veneering +halls, and Lady Tippins awaits them, and Boots and Brewer await +them. There is a modest assertion on everybody’s part that everybody +single-handed ‘brought him in’; but in the main it is conceded by all, +that that stroke of business on Brewer’s part, in going down to the +house that night to see how things looked, was the master-stroke. + +A touching little incident is related by Mrs Veneering, in the course of +the evening. Mrs Veneering is habitually disposed to be tearful, and +has an extra disposition that way after her late excitement. Previous +to withdrawing from the dinner-table with Lady Tippins, she says, in a +pathetic and physically weak manner: + +‘You will all think it foolish of me, I know, but I must mention it. As +I sat by Baby’s crib, on the night before the election, Baby was very +uneasy in her sleep.’ + +The Analytical chemist, who is gloomily looking on, has diabolical +impulses to suggest ‘Wind’ and throw up his situation; but represses +them. + +‘After an interval almost convulsive, Baby curled her little hands in +one another and smiled.’ + +Mrs Veneering stopping here, Mr Podsnap deems it incumbent on him to +say: ‘I wonder why!’ + +‘Could it be, I asked myself,’ says Mrs Veneering, looking about her for +her pocket-handkerchief, ‘that the Fairies were telling Baby that her +papa would shortly be an M. P.?’ + +So overcome by the sentiment is Mrs Veneering, that they all get up +to make a clear stage for Veneering, who goes round the table to the +rescue, and bears her out backward, with her feet impressively scraping +the carpet: after remarking that her work has been too much for her +strength. Whether the fairies made any mention of the five thousand +pounds, and it disagreed with Baby, is not speculated upon. + +Poor little Twemlow, quite done up, is touched, and still continues +touched after he is safely housed over the livery-stable yard in +Duke Street, Saint James’s. But there, upon his sofa, a tremendous +consideration breaks in upon the mild gentleman, putting all softer +considerations to the rout. + +‘Gracious heavens! Now I have time to think of it, he never saw one of +his constituents in all his days, until we saw them together!’ + +After having paced the room in distress of mind, with his hand to his +forehead, the innocent Twemlow returns to his sofa and moans: + +‘I shall either go distracted, or die, of this man. He comes upon me too +late in life. I am not strong enough to bear him!’ + + + + +Chapter 4 + +CUPID PROMPTED + + +To use the cold language of the world, Mrs Alfred Lammle rapidly +improved the acquaintance of Miss Podsnap. To use the warm language of +Mrs Lammle, she and her sweet Georgiana soon became one: in heart, in +mind, in sentiment, in soul. + +Whenever Georgiana could escape from the thraldom of Podsnappery; could +throw off the bedclothes of the custard-coloured phaeton, and get up; +could shrink out of the range of her mother’s rocking, and (so to speak) +rescue her poor little frosty toes from being rocked over; she repaired +to her friend, Mrs Alfred Lammle. Mrs Podsnap by no means objected. As +a consciously ‘splendid woman,’ accustomed to overhear herself so +denominated by elderly osteologists pursuing their studies in dinner +society, Mrs Podsnap could dispense with her daughter. Mr Podsnap, for +his part, on being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with patronage +of the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, should +respectfully grasp at the hem of his mantle; that they, when they could +not bask in the glory of him the sun, should take up with the pale +reflected light of the watery young moon his daughter; appeared quite +natural, becoming, and proper. It gave him a better opinion of the +discretion of the Lammles than he had heretofore held, as showing that +they appreciated the value of the connexion. So, Georgiana repairing +to her friend, Mr Podsnap went out to dinner, and to dinner, and yet to +dinner, arm in arm with Mrs Podsnap: settling his obstinate head in his +cravat and shirt-collar, much as if he were performing on the Pandean +pipes, in his own honour, the triumphal march, See the conquering +Podsnap comes, Sound the trumpets, beat the drums! + +It was a trait in Mr Podsnap’s character (and in one form or other +it will be generally seen to pervade the depths and shallows of +Podsnappery), that he could not endure a hint of disparagement of any +friend or acquaintance of his. ‘How dare you?’ he would seem to say, in +such a case. ‘What do you mean? I have licensed this person. This person +has taken out MY certificate. Through this person you strike at me, +Podsnap the Great. And it is not that I particularly care for the +person’s dignity, but that I do most particularly care for Podsnap’s.’ +Hence, if any one in his presence had presumed to doubt the +responsibility of the Lammles, he would have been mightily huffed. Not +that any one did, for Veneering, M.P., was always the authority for +their being very rich, and perhaps believed it. As indeed he might, if +he chose, for anything he knew of the matter. + +Mr and Mrs Lammle’s house in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, was but +a temporary residence. It has done well enough, they informed their +friends, for Mr Lammle when a bachelor, but it would not do now. So, +they were always looking at palatial residences in the best situations, +and always very nearly taking or buying one, but never quite concluding +the bargain. Hereby they made for themselves a shining little reputation +apart. People said, on seeing a vacant palatial residence, ‘The very +thing for the Lammles!’ and wrote to the Lammles about it, and the +Lammles always went to look at it, but unfortunately it never exactly +answered. In short, they suffered so many disappointments, that they +began to think it would be necessary to build a palatial residence. +And hereby they made another shining reputation; many persons of their +acquaintance becoming by anticipation dissatisfied with their own +houses, and envious of the non-existent Lammle structure. + +The handsome fittings and furnishings of the house in Sackville Street +were piled thick and high over the skeleton up-stairs, and if it ever +whispered from under its load of upholstery, ‘Here I am in the closet!’ +it was to very few ears, and certainly never to Miss Podsnap’s. What +Miss Podsnap was particularly charmed with, next to the graces of +her friend, was the happiness of her friend’s married life. This was +frequently their theme of conversation. + +‘I am sure,’ said Miss Podsnap, ‘Mr Lammle is like a lover. At least +I—I should think he was.’ + +‘Georgiana, darling!’ said Mrs Lammle, holding up a forefinger, ‘Take +care!’ + +‘Oh my goodness me!’ exclaimed Miss Podsnap, reddening. ‘What have I +said now?’ + +‘Alfred, you know,’ hinted Mrs Lammle, playfully shaking her head. ‘You +were never to say Mr Lammle any more, Georgiana.’ + +‘Oh! Alfred, then. I am glad it’s no worse. I was afraid I had said +something shocking. I am always saying something wrong to ma.’ + +‘To me, Georgiana dearest?’ + +‘No, not to you; you are not ma. I wish you were.’ + +Mrs Lammle bestowed a sweet and loving smile upon her friend, which Miss +Podsnap returned as she best could. They sat at lunch in Mrs Lammle’s +own boudoir. + +‘And so, dearest Georgiana, Alfred is like your notion of a lover?’ + +‘I don’t say that, Sophronia,’ Georgiana replied, beginning to conceal +her elbows. ‘I haven’t any notion of a lover. The dreadful wretches that +ma brings up at places to torment me, are not lovers. I only mean that +Mr—’ + +‘Again, dearest Georgiana?’ + +‘That Alfred—’ + +‘Sounds much better, darling.’ + +‘—Loves you so. He always treats you with such delicate gallantry and +attention. Now, don’t he?’ + +‘Truly, my dear,’ said Mrs Lammle, with a rather singular expression +crossing her face. ‘I believe that he loves me, fully as much as I love +him.’ + +‘Oh, what happiness!’ exclaimed Miss Podsnap. + +‘But do you know, my Georgiana,’ Mrs Lammle resumed presently, ‘that +there is something suspicious in your enthusiastic sympathy with +Alfred’s tenderness?’ + +‘Good gracious no, I hope not!’ + +‘Doesn’t it rather suggest,’ said Mrs Lammle archly, ‘that my +Georgiana’s little heart is—’ + +‘Oh don’t!’ Miss Podsnap blushingly besought her. ‘Please don’t! I +assure you, Sophronia, that I only praise Alfred, because he is your +husband and so fond of you.’ + +Sophronia’s glance was as if a rather new light broke in upon her. It +shaded off into a cool smile, as she said, with her eyes upon her lunch, +and her eyebrows raised: + +‘You are quite wrong, my love, in your guess at my meaning. What I +insinuated was, that my Georgiana’s little heart was growing conscious +of a vacancy.’ + +‘No, no, no,’ said Georgiana. ‘I wouldn’t have anybody say anything to +me in that way for I don’t know how many thousand pounds.’ + +‘In what way, my Georgiana?’ inquired Mrs Lammle, still smiling coolly +with her eyes upon her lunch, and her eyebrows raised. + +‘YOU know,’ returned poor little Miss Podsnap. ‘I think I should go out +of my mind, Sophronia, with vexation and shyness and detestation, if +anybody did. It’s enough for me to see how loving you and your husband +are. That’s a different thing. I couldn’t bear to have anything of that +sort going on with myself. I should beg and pray to—to have the person +taken away and trampled upon.’ + +Ah! here was Alfred. Having stolen in unobserved, he playfully leaned on +the back of Sophronia’s chair, and, as Miss Podsnap saw him, put one +of Sophronia’s wandering locks to his lips, and waved a kiss from it +towards Miss Podsnap. + +‘What is this about husbands and detestations?’ inquired the captivating +Alfred. + +‘Why, they say,’ returned his wife, ‘that listeners never hear any good +of themselves; though you—but pray how long have you been here, sir?’ + +‘This instant arrived, my own.’ + +‘Then I may go on—though if you had been here but a moment or two +sooner, you would have heard your praises sounded by Georgiana.’ + +‘Only, if they were to be called praises at all which I really don’t +think they were,’ explained Miss Podsnap in a flutter, ‘for being so +devoted to Sophronia.’ + +‘Sophronia!’ murmured Alfred. ‘My life!’ and kissed her hand. In return +for which she kissed his watch-chain. + +‘But it was not I who was to be taken away and trampled upon, I hope?’ +said Alfred, drawing a seat between them. + +‘Ask Georgiana, my soul,’ replied his wife. + +Alfred touchingly appealed to Georgiana. + +‘Oh, it was nobody,’ replied Miss Podsnap. ‘It was nonsense.’ + +‘But if you are determined to know, Mr Inquisitive Pet, as I suppose you +are,’ said the happy and fond Sophronia, smiling, ‘it was any one who +should venture to aspire to Georgiana.’ + +‘Sophronia, my love,’ remonstrated Mr Lammle, becoming graver, ‘you are +not serious?’ + +‘Alfred, my love,’ returned his wife, ‘I dare say Georgiana was not, but +I am.’ + +‘Now this,’ said Mr Lammle, ‘shows the accidental combinations that +there are in things! Could you believe, my Ownest, that I came in here +with the name of an aspirant to our Georgiana on my lips?’ + +‘Of course I could believe, Alfred,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘anything that YOU +told me.’ + +‘You dear one! And I anything that YOU told me.’ + +How delightful those interchanges, and the looks accompanying them! Now, +if the skeleton up-stairs had taken that opportunity, for instance, of +calling out ‘Here I am, suffocating in the closet!’ + +‘I give you my honour, my dear Sophronia—’ + +‘And I know what that is, love,’ said she. + +‘You do, my darling—that I came into the room all but uttering young +Fledgeby’s name. Tell Georgiana, dearest, about young Fledgeby.’ + +‘Oh no, don’t! Please don’t!’ cried Miss Podsnap, putting her fingers in +her ears. ‘I’d rather not.’ + +Mrs Lammle laughed in her gayest manner, and, removing her Georgiana’s +unresisting hands, and playfully holding them in her own at arms’ +length, sometimes near together and sometimes wide apart, went on: + +‘You must know, you dearly beloved little goose, that once upon a +time there was a certain person called young Fledgeby. And this young +Fledgeby, who was of an excellent family and rich, was known to two +other certain persons, dearly attached to one another and called Mr and +Mrs Alfred Lammle. So this young Fledgeby, being one night at the play, +there sees with Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, a certain heroine called—’ + +‘No, don’t say Georgiana Podsnap!’ pleaded that young lady almost in +tears. ‘Please don’t. Oh do do do say somebody else! Not Georgiana +Podsnap. Oh don’t, don’t, don’t!’ + +‘No other,’ said Mrs Lammle, laughing airily, and, full of affectionate +blandishments, opening and closing Georgiana’s arms like a pair of +compasses, ‘than my little Georgiana Podsnap. So this young Fledgeby goes +to that Alfred Lammle and says—’ + +‘Oh ple-e-e-ease don’t!’ Georgiana, as if the supplication were being +squeezed out of her by powerful compression. ‘I so hate him for saying +it!’ + +‘For saying what, my dear?’ laughed Mrs Lammle. + +‘Oh, I don’t know what he said,’ cried Georgiana wildly, ‘but I hate him +all the same for saying it.’ + +‘My dear,’ said Mrs Lammle, always laughing in her most captivating way, +‘the poor young fellow only says that he is stricken all of a heap.’ + +‘Oh, what shall I ever do!’ interposed Georgiana. ‘Oh my goodness what a +Fool he must be!’ + +‘—And implores to be asked to dinner, and to make a fourth at the play +another time. And so he dines to-morrow and goes to the Opera with +us. That’s all. Except, my dear Georgiana—and what will you think of +this!—that he is infinitely shyer than you, and far more afraid of you +than you ever were of any one in all your days!’ + +In perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and plucked at her +hands a little, but could not help laughing at the notion of anybody’s +being afraid of her. With that advantage, Sophronia flattered her and +rallied her more successfully, and then the insinuating Alfred flattered +her and rallied her, and promised that at any moment when she might +require that service at his hands, he would take young Fledgeby out and +trample on him. Thus it remained amicably understood that young Fledgeby +was to come to admire, and that Georgiana was to come to be admired; and +Georgiana with the entirely new sensation in her breast of having that +prospect before her, and with many kisses from her dear Sophronia in +present possession, preceded six feet one of discontented footman (an +amount of the article that always came for her when she walked home) to +her father’s dwelling. + +The happy pair being left together, Mrs Lammle said to her husband: + +‘If I understand this girl, sir, your dangerous fascinations have +produced some effect upon her. I mention the conquest in good time +because I apprehend your scheme to be more important to you than your +vanity.’ + +There was a mirror on the wall before them, and her eyes just caught +him smirking in it. She gave the reflected image a look of the deepest +disdain, and the image received it in the glass. Next moment they +quietly eyed each other, as if they, the principals, had had no part in +that expressive transaction. + +It may have been that Mrs Lammle tried in some manner to excuse her +conduct to herself by depreciating the poor little victim of whom she +spoke with acrimonious contempt. It may have been too that in this she +did not quite succeed, for it is very difficult to resist confidence, +and she knew she had Georgiana’s. + +Nothing more was said between the happy pair. Perhaps conspirators +who have once established an understanding, may not be over-fond of +repeating the terms and objects of their conspiracy. Next day came; came +Georgiana; and came Fledgeby. + +Georgiana had by this time seen a good deal of the house and its +frequenters. As there was a certain handsome room with a billiard table +in it—on the ground floor, eating out a backyard—which might have +been Mr Lammle’s office, or library, but was called by neither name, but +simply Mr Lammle’s room, so it would have been hard for stronger female +heads than Georgiana’s to determine whether its frequenters were men +of pleasure or men of business. Between the room and the men there were +strong points of general resemblance. Both were too gaudy, too slangey, +too odorous of cigars, and too much given to horseflesh; the latter +characteristic being exemplified in the room by its decorations, and in +the men by their conversation. High-stepping horses seemed necessary to +all Mr Lammle’s friends—as necessary as their transaction of business +together in a gipsy way at untimely hours of the morning and evening, +and in rushes and snatches. There were friends who seemed to be always +coming and going across the Channel, on errands about the Bourse, and +Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount +and three quarters and seven eighths. There were other friends who +seemed to be always lolling and 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. They +were all feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose; and they all ate and +drank a great deal; and made bets in eating and drinking. They all spoke +of sums of money, and only mentioned the sums and left the money to +be understood; as ‘five and forty thousand Tom,’ or ‘Two hundred and +twenty-two on every individual share in the lot Joe.’ They seemed to +divide the world into two classes of people; people who were making +enormous fortunes, and people who were being enormously ruined. They +were always in a hurry, and yet seemed to have nothing tangible to do; +except a few of them (these, mostly asthmatic and thick-lipped) who were +for ever demonstrating to the rest, with gold pencil-cases which they +could hardly hold because of the big rings on their forefingers, how +money was to be made. Lastly, they all swore at their grooms, and the +grooms were not quite as respectful or complete as other men’s grooms; +seeming somehow to fall short of the groom point as their masters fell +short of the gentleman point. + +Young Fledgeby was none of these. Young Fledgeby had a peachy cheek, +or a cheek compounded of the peach and the red red red wall on which +it grows, and was an awkward, sandy-haired, small-eyed youth, exceeding +slim (his enemies would have said lanky), and prone to self-examination +in the articles of whisker and moustache. While feeling for the whisker +that he anxiously expected, Fledgeby underwent remarkable fluctuations +of spirits, ranging along the whole scale from confidence to despair. +There were times when he started, as exclaiming ‘By Jupiter here it is +at last!’ There were other times when, being equally depressed, he would +be seen to shake his head, and give up hope. To see him at those periods +leaning on a chimneypiece, like as on an urn containing the ashes of his +ambition, with the cheek that would not sprout, upon the hand on which +that cheek had forced conviction, was a distressing sight. + +Not so was Fledgeby seen on this occasion. Arrayed in superb raiment, +with his opera hat under his arm, he concluded his self-examination +hopefully, awaited the arrival of Miss Podsnap, and talked small-talk +with Mrs Lammle. In facetious homage to the smallness of his talk, and +the jerky nature of his manners, Fledgeby’s familiars had agreed to +confer upon him (behind his back) the honorary title of Fascination +Fledgeby. + +‘Warm weather, Mrs Lammle,’ said Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle +thought it scarcely as warm as it had been yesterday. ‘Perhaps not,’ +said Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; ‘but I +expect it will be devilish warm to-morrow.’ + +He threw off another little scintillation. ‘Been out to-day, Mrs +Lammle?’ + +Mrs Lammle answered, for a short drive. + +‘Some people,’ said Fascination Fledgeby, ‘are accustomed to take long +drives; but it generally appears to me that if they make ’em too long, +they overdo it.’ + +Being in such feather, he might have surpassed himself in his next +sally, had not Miss Podsnap been announced. Mrs Lammle flew to embrace +her darling little Georgy, and when the first transports were over, +presented Mr Fledgeby. Mr Lammle came on the scene last, for he was +always late, and so were the frequenters always late; all hands being +bound to be made late, by private information about the Bourse, and +Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount +and three quarters and seven eighths. + +A handsome little dinner was served immediately, and Mr Lammle sat +sparkling at his end of the table, with his servant behind his chair, +and HIS ever-lingering doubts upon the subject of his wages behind +himself. Mr Lammle’s utmost powers of sparkling were in requisition +to-day, for Fascination Fledgeby and Georgiana not only struck each +other speechless, but struck each other into astonishing attitudes; +Georgiana, as she sat facing Fledgeby, making such efforts to conceal +her elbows as were totally incompatible with the use of a knife and +fork; and Fledgeby, as he sat facing Georgiana, avoiding her countenance +by every possible device, and betraying the discomposure of his mind in +feeling for his whiskers with his spoon, his wine glass, and his bread. + +So, Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle had to prompt, and this is how they +prompted. + +‘Georgiana,’ said Mr Lammle, low and smiling, and sparkling all over, +like a harlequin; ‘you are not in your usual spirits. Why are you not in +your usual spirits, Georgiana?’ + +Georgiana faltered that she was much the same as she was in general; she +was not aware of being different. + +‘Not aware of being different!’ retorted Mr Alfred Lammle. ‘You, my dear +Georgiana! Who are always so natural and unconstrained with us! Who are +such a relief from the crowd that are all alike! Who are the embodiment +of gentleness, simplicity, and reality!’ + +Miss Podsnap looked at the door, as if she entertained confused thoughts +of taking refuge from these compliments in flight. + +‘Now, I will be judged,’ said Mr Lammle, raising his voice a little, ‘by +my friend Fledgeby.’ + +‘Oh DON’T!’ Miss Podsnap faintly ejaculated: when Mrs Lammle took the +prompt-book. + +‘I beg your pardon, Alfred, my dear, but I cannot part with Mr Fledgeby +quite yet; you must wait for him a moment. Mr Fledgeby and I are engaged +in a personal discussion.’ + +Fledgeby must have conducted it on his side with immense art, for no +appearance of uttering one syllable had escaped him. + +‘A personal discussion, Sophronia, my love? What discussion? Fledgeby, I +am jealous. What discussion, Fledgeby?’ + +‘Shall I tell him, Mr Fledgeby?’ asked Mrs Lammle. + +Trying to look as if he knew anything about it, Fascination replied, +‘Yes, tell him.’ + +‘We were discussing then,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘if you MUST know, Alfred, +whether Mr Fledgeby was in his usual flow of spirits.’ + +‘Why, that is the very point, Sophronia, that Georgiana and I were +discussing as to herself! What did Fledgeby say?’ + +‘Oh, a likely thing, sir, that I am going to tell you everything, and be +told nothing! What did Georgiana say?’ + +‘Georgiana said she was doing her usual justice to herself to-day, and I +said she was not.’ + +‘Precisely,’ exclaimed Mrs Lammle, ‘what I said to Mr Fledgeby.’ Still, +it wouldn’t do. They would not look at one another. No, not even +when the sparkling host proposed that the quartette should take an +appropriately sparkling glass of wine. Georgiana looked from her wine +glass at Mr Lammle and at Mrs Lammle; but mightn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t, +wouldn’t, look at Mr Fledgeby. Fascination looked from his wine glass +at Mrs Lammle and at Mr Lammle; but mightn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t, +wouldn’t, look at Georgiana. + +More prompting was necessary. Cupid must be brought up to the mark. The +manager had put him down in the bill for the part, and he must play it. + +‘Sophronia, my dear,’ said Mr Lammle, ‘I don’t like the colour of your +dress.’ + +‘I appeal,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘to Mr Fledgeby.’ + +‘And I,’ said Mr Lammle, ‘to Georgiana.’ + +‘Georgy, my love,’ remarked Mrs Lammle aside to her dear girl, ‘I rely +upon you not to go over to the opposition. Now, Mr Fledgeby.’ + +Fascination wished to know if the colour were not called rose-colour? +Yes, said Mr Lammle; actually he knew everything; it was really +rose-colour. Fascination took rose-colour to mean the colour of roses. +(In this he was very warmly supported by Mr and Mrs Lammle.) Fascination +had heard the term Queen of Flowers applied to the Rose. Similarly, it +might be said that the dress was the Queen of Dresses. (‘Very happy, +Fledgeby!’ from Mr Lammle.) Notwithstanding, Fascination’s opinion +was that we all had our eyes—or at least a large majority of us—and +that—and—and his farther opinion was several ands, with nothing beyond +them. + +‘Oh, Mr Fledgeby,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘to desert me in that way! Oh, Mr +Fledgeby, to abandon my poor dear injured rose and declare for blue!’ + +‘Victory, victory!’ cried Mr Lammle; ‘your dress is condemned, my dear.’ + +‘But what,’ said Mrs Lammle, stealing her affectionate hand towards her +dear girl’s, ‘what does Georgy say?’ + +‘She says,’ replied Mr Lammle, interpreting for her, ‘that in her eyes +you look well in any colour, Sophronia, and that if she had expected to +be embarrassed by so pretty a compliment as she has received, she would +have worn another colour herself. Though I tell her, in reply, that it +would not have saved her, for whatever colour she had worn would have +been Fledgeby’s colour. But what does Fledgeby say?’ + +‘He says,’ replied Mrs Lammle, interpreting for him, and patting the +back of her dear girl’s hand, as if it were Fledgeby who was patting it, +‘that it was no compliment, but a little natural act of homage that +he couldn’t resist. And,’ expressing more feeling as if it were more +feeling on the part of Fledgeby, ‘he is right, he is right!’ + +Still, no not even now, would they look at one another. Seeming to gnash +his sparkling teeth, studs, eyes, and buttons, all at once, Mr Lammle +secretly bent a dark frown on the two, expressive of an intense desire +to bring them together by knocking their heads together. + +‘Have you heard this opera of to-night, Fledgeby?’ he asked, stopping +very short, to prevent himself from running on into ‘confound you.’ + +‘Why no, not exactly,’ said Fledgeby. ‘In fact I don’t know a note of +it.’ + +‘Neither do you know it, Georgy?’ said Mrs Lammle. ‘N-no,’ replied +Georgiana, faintly, under the sympathetic coincidence. + +‘Why, then,’ said Mrs Lammle, charmed by the discovery which flowed from +the premises, ‘you neither of you know it! How charming!’ + +Even the craven Fledgeby felt that the time was now come when he must +strike a blow. He struck it by saying, partly to Mrs Lammle and partly +to the circumambient air, ‘I consider myself very fortunate in being +reserved by—’ + +As he stopped dead, Mr Lammle, making that gingerous bush of his +whiskers to look out of, offered him the word ‘Destiny.’ + +‘No, I wasn’t going to say that,’ said Fledgeby. ‘I was going to say +Fate. I consider it very fortunate that Fate has written in the book +of—in the book which is its own property—that I should go to that +opera for the first time under the memorable circumstances of going with +Miss Podsnap.’ + +To which Georgiana replied, hooking her two little fingers in one +another, and addressing the tablecloth, ‘Thank you, but I generally go +with no one but you, Sophronia, and I like that very much.’ + +Content perforce with this success for the time, Mr Lammle let Miss +Podsnap out of the room, as if he were opening her cage door, and Mrs +Lammle followed. Coffee being presently served up stairs, he kept a +watch on Fledgeby until Miss Podsnap’s cup was empty, and then directed +him with his finger (as if that young gentleman were a slow Retriever) +to go and fetch it. This feat he performed, not only without failure, +but even with the original embellishment of informing Miss Podsnap that +green tea was considered bad for the nerves. Though there Miss Podsnap +unintentionally threw him out by faltering, ‘Oh, is it indeed? How does +it act?’ Which he was not prepared to elucidate. + +The carriage announced, Mrs Lammle said; ‘Don’t mind me, Mr Fledgeby, my +skirts and cloak occupy both my hands, take Miss Podsnap.’ And he +took her, and Mrs Lammle went next, and Mr Lammle went last, savagely +following his little flock, like a drover. + +But he was all sparkle and glitter in the box at the Opera, and there he +and his dear wife made a conversation between Fledgeby and Georgiana in +the following ingenious and skilful manner. They sat in this order: +Mrs Lammle, Fascination Fledgeby, Georgiana, Mr Lammle. Mrs Lammle made +leading remarks to Fledgeby, only requiring monosyllabic replies. Mr +Lammle did the like with Georgiana. At times Mrs Lammle would lean +forward to address Mr Lammle to this purpose. + +‘Alfred, my dear, Mr Fledgeby very justly says, apropos of the last +scene, that true constancy would not require any such stimulant as the +stage deems necessary.’ To which Mr Lammle would reply, ‘Ay, Sophronia, +my love, but as Georgiana has observed to me, the lady had no sufficient +reason to know the state of the gentleman’s affections.’ To which Mrs +Lammle would rejoin, ‘Very true, Alfred; but Mr Fledgeby points +out,’ this. To which Alfred would demur: ‘Undoubtedly, Sophronia, but +Georgiana acutely remarks,’ that. Through this device the two young +people conversed at great length and committed themselves to a variety +of delicate sentiments, without having once opened their lips, save to +say yes or no, and even that not to one another. + +Fledgeby took his leave of Miss Podsnap at the carriage door, and the +Lammles dropped her at her own home, and on the way Mrs Lammle archly +rallied her, in her fond and protecting manner, by saying at intervals, +‘Oh little Georgiana, little Georgiana!’ Which was not much; but the +tone added, ‘You have enslaved your Fledgeby.’ + +And thus the Lammles got home at last, and the lady sat down moody and +weary, looking at her dark lord engaged in a deed of violence with a +bottle of soda-water as though he were wringing the neck of some unlucky +creature and pouring its blood down his throat. As he wiped his dripping +whiskers in an ogreish way, he met her eyes, and pausing, said, with no +very gentle voice: + +‘Well?’ + +‘Was such an absolute Booby necessary to the purpose?’ + +‘I know what I am doing. He is no such dolt as you suppose.’ + +‘A genius, perhaps?’ + +‘You sneer, perhaps; and you take a lofty air upon yourself perhaps! +But I tell you this:—when that young fellow’s interest is concerned, +he holds as tight as a horse-leech. When money is in question with that +young fellow, he is a match for the Devil.’ + +‘Is he a match for you?’ + +‘He is. Almost as good a one as you thought me for you. He has no +quality of youth in him, but such as you have seen to-day. Touch him +upon money, and you touch no booby then. He really is a dolt, I suppose, +in other things; but it answers his one purpose very well.’ + +‘Has she money in her own right in any case?’ + +‘Ay! she has money in her own right in any case. You have done so well +to-day, Sophronia, that I answer the question, though you know I object +to any such questions. You have done so well to-day, Sophronia, that you +must be tired. Get to bed.’ + + + + +Chapter 5 + +MERCURY PROMPTING + + +Fledgeby deserved Mr Alfred Lammle’s eulogium. He was the meanest +cur existing, with a single pair of legs. And instinct (a word we all +clearly understand) going largely on four legs, and reason always on +two, meanness on four legs never attains the perfection of meanness on +two. + +The father of this young gentleman had been a money-lender, who +had transacted professional business with the mother of this +young gentleman, when he, the latter, was waiting in the vast dark +ante-chambers of the present world to be born. The lady, a widow, being +unable to pay the money-lender, married him; and in due course, Fledgeby +was summoned out of the vast dark ante-chambers to come and be presented +to the Registrar-General. Rather a curious speculation how Fledgeby +would otherwise have disposed of his leisure until Doomsday. + +Fledgeby’s mother offended her family by marrying Fledgeby’s father. It +is one of the easiest achievements in life to offend your family when +your family want to get rid of you. Fledgeby’s mother’s family had +been very much offended with her for being poor, and broke with her +for becoming comparatively rich. Fledgeby’s mother’s family was the +Snigsworth family. She had even the high honour to be cousin to Lord +Snigsworth—so many times removed that the noble Earl would have had no +compunction in removing her one time more and dropping her clean outside +the cousinly pale; but cousin for all that. + +Among her pre-matrimonial transactions with Fledgeby’s father, +Fledgeby’s mother had raised money of him at a great disadvantage on a +certain reversionary interest. The reversion falling in soon after they +were married, Fledgeby’s father laid hold of the cash for his separate +use and benefit. This led to subjective differences of opinion, not to +say objective interchanges of boot-jacks, backgammon boards, and other +such domestic missiles, between Fledgeby’s father and Fledgeby’s mother, +and those led to Fledgeby’s mother spending as much money as she +could, and to Fledgeby’s father doing all he couldn’t to restrain her. +Fledgeby’s childhood had been, in consequence, a stormy one; but the +winds and the waves had gone down in the grave, and Fledgeby flourished +alone. + +He lived in chambers in the Albany, did Fledgeby, and maintained a +spruce appearance. But his youthful fire was all composed of sparks from +the grindstone; and as the sparks flew off, went out, and never warmed +anything, be sure that Fledgeby had his tools at the grindstone, and +turned it with a wary eye. + +Mr Alfred Lammle came round to the Albany to breakfast with Fledgeby. +Present on the table, one scanty pot of tea, one scanty loaf, two scanty +pats of butter, two scanty rashers of bacon, two pitiful eggs, and an +abundance of handsome china bought a secondhand bargain. + +‘What did you think of Georgiana?’ asked Mr Lammle. + +‘Why, I’ll tell you,’ said Fledgeby, very deliberately. + +‘Do, my boy.’ + +‘You misunderstand me,’ said Fledgeby. ‘I don’t mean I’ll tell you that. +I mean I’ll tell you something else.’ + +‘Tell me anything, old fellow!’ + +‘Ah, but there you misunderstand me again,’ said Fledgeby. ‘I mean I’ll +tell you nothing.’ + +Mr Lammle sparkled at him, but frowned at him too. + +‘Look here,’ said Fledgeby. ‘You’re deep and you’re ready. Whether I am +deep or not, never mind. I am not ready. But I can do one thing, Lammle, +I can hold my tongue. And I intend always doing it.’ + +‘You are a long-headed fellow, Fledgeby.’ + +‘May be, or may not be. If I am a short-tongued fellow, it may amount to +the same thing. Now, Lammle, I am never going to answer questions.’ + +‘My dear fellow, it was the simplest question in the world.’ + +‘Never mind. It seemed so, but things are not always what they seem. I +saw a man examined as a witness in Westminster Hall. Questions put to +him seemed the simplest in the world, but turned out to be anything +rather than that, after he had answered ’em. Very well. Then he should +have held his tongue. If he had held his tongue he would have kept out +of scrapes that he got into.’ + +‘If I had held my tongue, you would never have seen the subject of my +question,’ remarked Lammle, darkening. + +‘Now, Lammle,’ said Fascination Fledgeby, calmly feeling for his +whisker, ‘it won’t do. I won’t be led on into a discussion. I can’t +manage a discussion. But I can manage to hold my tongue.’ + +‘Can?’ Mr Lammle fell back upon propitiation. ‘I should think you could! +Why, when these fellows of our acquaintance drink and you drink with +them, the more talkative they get, the more silent you get. The more +they let out, the more you keep in.’ + +‘I don’t object, Lammle,’ returned Fledgeby, with an internal chuckle, +‘to being understood, though I object to being questioned. That +certainly IS the way I do it.’ + +‘And when all the rest of us are discussing our ventures, none of us +ever know what a single venture of yours is!’ + +‘And none of you ever will from me, Lammle,’ replied Fledgeby, with +another internal chuckle; ‘that certainly IS the way I do it.’ + +‘Why of course it is, I know!’ rejoined Lammle, with a flourish of +frankness, and a laugh, and stretching out his hands as if to show +the universe a remarkable man in Fledgeby. ‘If I hadn’t known it of my +Fledgeby, should I have proposed our little compact of advantage, to my +Fledgeby?’ + +‘Ah!’ remarked Fascination, shaking his head slyly. ‘But I am not to +be got at in that way. I am not vain. That sort of vanity don’t pay, +Lammle. No, no, no. Compliments only make me hold my tongue the more.’ + +Alfred Lammle pushed his plate away (no great sacrifice under the +circumstances of there being so little in it), thrust his hands in his +pockets, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated Fledgeby in silence. +Then he slowly released his left hand from its pocket, and made that +bush of his whiskers, still contemplating him in silence. Then he slowly +broke silence, and slowly said: ‘What—the—Dev-il is this fellow about +this morning?’ + +‘Now, look here, Lammle,’ said Fascination Fledgeby, with the meanest +of twinkles in his meanest of eyes: which were too near together, by +the way: ‘look here, Lammle; I am very well aware that I didn’t show to +advantage last night, and that you and your wife—who, I consider, is +a very clever woman and an agreeable woman—did. I am not calculated to +show to advantage under that sort of circumstances. I know very well you +two did show to advantage, and managed capitally. But don’t you on that +account come talking to me as if I was your doll and puppet, because I +am not. + +‘And all this,’ cried Alfred, after studying with a look the meanness +that was fain to have the meanest help, and yet was so mean as to turn +upon it: ‘all this because of one simple natural question!’ + +‘You should have waited till I thought proper to say something about it +of myself. I don’t like your coming over me with your Georgianas, as if +you was her proprietor and mine too.’ + +‘Well, when you are in the gracious mind to say anything about it of +yourself,’ retorted Lammle, ‘pray do.’ + +‘I have done it. I have said you managed capitally. You and your wife +both. If you’ll go on managing capitally, I’ll go on doing my part. Only +don’t crow.’ + +‘I crow!’ exclaimed Lammle, shrugging his shoulders. + +‘Or,’ pursued the other—‘or take it in your head that people are your +puppets because they don’t come out to advantage at the particular +moments when you do, with the assistance of a very clever and agreeable +wife. All the rest keep on doing, and let Mrs Lammle keep on doing. Now, +I have held my tongue when I thought proper, and I have spoken when I +thought proper, and there’s an end of that. And now the question is,’ +proceeded Fledgeby, with the greatest reluctance, ‘will you have another +egg?’ + +‘No, I won’t,’ said Lammle, shortly. + +‘Perhaps you’re right and will find yourself better without it,’ replied +Fascination, in greatly improved spirits. ‘To ask you if you’ll have +another rasher would be unmeaning flattery, for it would make you +thirsty all day. Will you have some more bread and butter?’ + +‘No, I won’t,’ repeated Lammle. + +‘Then I will,’ said Fascination. And it was not a mere retort for the +sound’s sake, but was a cheerful cogent consequence of the refusal; for +if Lammle had applied himself again to the loaf, it would have been so +heavily visited, in Fledgeby’s opinion, as to demand abstinence from +bread, on his part, for the remainder of that meal at least, if not for +the whole of the next. + +Whether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and-twenty) combined +with the miserly vice of an old man, any of the open-handed vices of +a young one, was a moot point; so very honourably did he keep his own +counsel. He was sensible of the value of appearances as an investment, +and liked to dress well; but he drove a bargain for every moveable about +him, from the coat on his back to the china on his breakfast-table; +and every bargain by representing somebody’s ruin or somebody’s loss, +acquired a peculiar charm for him. It was a part of his avarice to take, +within narrow bounds, long odds at races; if he won, he drove harder +bargains; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why money +should be so precious to an Ass too dull and mean to exchange it for any +other satisfaction, is strange; but there is no animal so sure to get +laden with it, as the Ass who sees nothing written on the face of the +earth and sky but the three letters L. S. D.—not Luxury, Sensuality, +Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry letters. +Your concentrated Fox is seldom comparable to your concentrated Ass in +money-breeding. + +Fascination Fledgeby feigned to be a young gentleman living on his +means, but was known secretly to be a kind of outlaw in the bill-broking +line, and to put money out at high interest in various ways. His circle +of familiar acquaintance, from Mr Lammle round, all had a touch of the +outlaw, as to their rovings in the merry greenwood of Jobbery Forest, +lying on the outskirts of the Share-Market and the Stock Exchange. + +‘I suppose you, Lammle,’ said Fledgeby, eating his bread and butter, +‘always did go in for female society?’ + +‘Always,’ replied Lammle, glooming considerably under his late +treatment. + +‘Came natural to you, eh?’ said Fledgeby. + +‘The sex were pleased to like me, sir,’ said Lammle sulkily, but with +the air of a man who had not been able to help himself. + +‘Made a pretty good thing of marrying, didn’t you?’ asked Fledgeby. + +The other smiled (an ugly smile), and tapped one tap upon his nose. + +‘My late governor made a mess of it,’ said Fledgeby. ‘But Geor—is the +right name Georgina or Georgiana?’ + +‘Georgiana.’ + +‘I was thinking yesterday, I didn’t know there was such a name. I +thought it must end in ina.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘Why, you play—if you can—the Concertina, you know,’ replied +Fledgeby, meditating very slowly. ‘And you have—when you catch it—the +Scarlatina. And you can come down from a balloon in a parach—no you +can’t though. Well, say Georgeute—I mean Georgiana.’ + +‘You were going to remark of Georgiana—?’ Lammle moodily hinted, after +waiting in vain. + +‘I was going to remark of Georgiana, sir,’ said Fledgeby, not at all +pleased to be reminded of his having forgotten it, ‘that she don’t seem +to be violent. Don’t seem to be of the pitching-in order.’ + +‘She has the gentleness of the dove, Mr Fledgeby.’ + +‘Of course you’ll say so,’ replied Fledgeby, sharpening, the moment his +interest was touched by another. ‘But you know, the real look-out is +this:—what I say, not what you say. I say having my late 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 he 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 head 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 chimney-stack 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, rolling-pin, 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 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 fast-waning +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-a-dozen 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, riddle-me-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’orth-etically,’ +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 of 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 fellow-man, 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. Especially 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, an 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 at 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 ill-usage. + +‘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. Good-bye, 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, to 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 bear 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 be 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 be 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 news-paper: 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 coffee-coloured 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 half-repressed 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 worldly-minded 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 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 coat-sleeves +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 heart?’ 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 boat-builders, 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 +disrespectfully—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 shop-door, 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 looseness +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 oakum-coloured 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 self-denying +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 clasp-knife, +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 sleeve-lining (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 clock-bell. + +‘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 heartbroken 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 ship-agent’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 he 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, which 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 down-cast 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), he 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, to-morrow. +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 +letter-writing—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 oakum-headed 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 house-encompassed 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 porters 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 best-looking 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 healthfully 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 marriage, 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 self-reliant +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 Wrayburn, 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 +be 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 armour-plated 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 self-evident +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 delightful 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 night-creatures 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 counting-house 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 +suppressed 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 invariable 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 window-blind 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 copper-coloured 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 crutch-stick: + +‘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 lay-to, 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 a-head!’ +‘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 important 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 +woman 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 bonnet-strings 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. ‘Men-tion +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 be 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 stumbling-block 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 is 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 to-night. 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 half-guineas; +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, apple-woman 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 Boffin, 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 +twenty-one 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 be 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 disappointingly +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 to-night, 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 self-communing +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 +belief 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 yard-gate 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 written 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 sleeping-place. ‘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 invariably 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 +light-headed, 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 corner, 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! Bee-baa, 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 infamous +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 respected 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 +wine-glass, 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 +fire-shovel, 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 anything I know he watches at the Temple +Gate all night.’ + +‘This is an extraordinary story,’ observed Lightwood, who had heard it +out with serious attention. ‘I don’t like it.’ + +‘You are a little hipped, dear fellow,’ said Eugene; ‘you have been too +sedentary. Come and enjoy the pleasures of the chase.’ + +‘Do you mean that you believe he is watching now?’ + +‘I have not the slightest doubt he is.’ + +‘Have you seen him to-night?’ + +‘I forgot to look for him when I was last out,’ returned Eugene with the +calmest indifference; ‘but I dare say he was there. Come! Be a British +sportsman and enjoy the pleasures of the chase. It will do you good.’ + +Lightwood hesitated; but, yielding to his curiosity, rose. + +‘Bravo!’ cried Eugene, rising too. ‘Or, if Yoicks would be in better +keeping, consider that I said Yoicks. Look to your feet, Mortimer, for +we shall try your boots. When you are ready, I am—need I say with a Hey +Ho Chivey, and likewise with a Hark Forward, Hark Forward, Tantivy?’ + +‘Will nothing make you serious?’ said Mortimer, laughing through his +gravity. + +‘I am always serious, but just now I am a little excited by the glorious +fact that a southerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaim a hunting evening. +Ready? So. We turn out the lamp and shut the door, and take the field.’ + +As the two friends passed out of the Temple into the public street, +Eugene demanded with a show of courteous patronage in which direction +Mortimer would you like the run to be? ‘There is a rather difficult +country about Bethnal Green,’ said Eugene, ‘and we have not taken in +that direction lately. What is your opinion of Bethnal Green?’ Mortimer +assented to Bethnal Green, and they turned eastward. ‘Now, when we come +to St Paul’s churchyard,’ pursued Eugene, ‘we’ll loiter artfully, and +I’ll show you the schoolmaster.’ But, they both saw him, before they got +there; alone, and stealing after them in the shadow of the houses, on +the opposite side of the way. + +‘Get your wind,’ said Eugene, ‘for I am off directly. Does it occur +to you that the boys of Merry England will begin to deteriorate in an +educational light, if this lasts long? The schoolmaster can’t attend to +me and the boys too. Got your wind? I am off!’ + +At what a rate he went, to breathe the schoolmaster; and how he then +lounged and loitered, to put his patience to another kind of wear; +what preposterous ways he took, with no other object on earth than to +disappoint and punish him; and how he wore him out by every piece of +ingenuity that his eccentric humour could devise; all this Lightwood +noted, with a feeling of astonishment that so careless a man could be so +wary, and that so idle a man could take so much trouble. At last, far on +in the third hour of the pleasures of the chase, when he had brought the +poor dogging wretch round again into the City, he twisted Mortimer up +a few dark entries, twisted him into a little square court, twisted him +sharp round again, and they almost ran against Bradley Headstone. + +‘And you see, as I was saying, Mortimer,’ remarked Eugene aloud with +the utmost coolness, as though there were no one within hearing +by themselves: ‘and you see, as I was saying—undergoing grinding +torments.’ + +It was not too strong a phrase for the occasion. Looking like the hunted +and not the hunter, baffled, worn, with the exhaustion of deferred +hope and consuming hate and anger in his face, white-lipped, wild-eyed, +draggle-haired, seamed with jealousy and anger, and torturing himself +with the conviction that he showed it all and they exulted in it, he +went by them in the dark, like a haggard head suspended in the air: so +completely did the force of his expression cancel his figure. + +Mortimer Lightwood was not an extraordinarily impressible man, but this +face impressed him. He spoke of it more than once on the remainder of +the way home, and more than once when they got home. + +They had been abed in their respective rooms two or three hours, when +Eugene was partly awakened by hearing a footstep going about, and was +fully awakened by seeing Lightwood standing at his bedside. + +‘Nothing wrong, Mortimer?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘What fancy takes you, then, for walking about in the night?’ + +‘I am horribly wakeful.’ + +‘How comes that about, I wonder!’ + +‘Eugene, I cannot lose sight of that fellow’s face.’ + +‘Odd!’ said Eugene with a light laugh, ‘I can.’ And turned over, and +fell asleep again. + + + + +Chapter 11 + +IN THE DARK + + +There was no sleep for Bradley Headstone on that night when Eugene +Wrayburn turned so easily in his bed; there was no sleep for little +Miss Peecher. Bradley consumed the lonely hours, and consumed himself in +haunting the spot where his careless rival lay a dreaming; little Miss +Peecher wore them away in listening for the return home of the master +of her heart, and in sorrowfully presaging that much was amiss with him. +Yet more was amiss with him than Miss Peecher’s simply arranged little +work-box of thoughts, fitted with no gloomy and dark recesses, could +hold. For, the state of the man was murderous. + +The state of the man was murderous, and he knew it. More; he irritated +it, with a kind of perverse pleasure akin to that which a sick man +sometimes has in irritating a wound upon his body. Tied up all day with +his disciplined show upon him, subdued to the performance of his routine +of educational tricks, encircled by a gabbling crowd, he broke loose at +night like an ill-tamed wild animal. Under his daily restraint, it was +his compensation, not his trouble, to give a glance towards his state at +night, and to the freedom of its being indulged. If great criminals told +the truth—which, being great criminals, they do not—they would very +rarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles are +towards it. They buffet with opposing waves, to gain the bloody shore, +not to recede from it. This man perfectly comprehended that he hated his +rival with his strongest and worst forces, and that if he tracked him to +Lizzie Hexam, his so doing would never serve himself with her, or serve +her. All his pains were taken, to the end that he might incense himself +with the sight of the detested figure in her company and favour, in her +place of concealment. And he knew as well what act of his would follow +if he did, as he knew that his mother had borne him. Granted, that he +may not have held it necessary to make express mention to himself of the +one familiar truth any more than of the other. + +He knew equally well that he fed his wrath and hatred, and that he +accumulated provocation and self-justification, by being made the +nightly sport of the reckless and insolent Eugene. Knowing all +this,—and still always going on with infinite endurance, pains, and +perseverance, could his dark soul doubt whither he went? + +Baffled, exasperated, and weary, he lingered opposite the Temple gate +when it closed on Wrayburn and Lightwood, debating with himself should +he go home for that time or should he watch longer. Possessed in his +jealousy by the fixed idea that Wrayburn was in the secret, if it were +not altogether of his contriving, Bradley was as confident of getting +the better of him at last by sullenly sticking to him, as he would have +been—and often had been—of mastering any piece of study in the way +of his vocation, by the like slow persistent process. A man of rapid +passions and sluggish intelligence, it had served him often and should +serve him again. + +The suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with his eyes upon +the Temple gate, that perhaps she was even concealed in that set of +Chambers. It would furnish another reason for Wrayburn’s purposeless +walks, and it might be. He thought of it and thought of it, until +he resolved to steal up the stairs, if the gatekeeper would let him +through, and listen. So, the haggard head suspended in the air flitted +across the road, like the spectre of one of the many heads erst hoisted +upon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped before the watchman. + +The watchman looked at it, and asked: ‘Who for?’ + +‘Mr Wrayburn.’ + +‘It’s very late.’ + +‘He came back with Mr Lightwood, I know, near upon two hours ago. But if +he has gone to bed, I’ll put a paper in his letter-box. I am expected.’ + +The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though rather +doubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went straight and fast in +the right direction, he seemed satisfied. + +The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly descended +nearer to the floor outside the outer door of the chambers. The doors +of the rooms within, appeared to be standing open. There were rays of +candlelight from one of them, and there was the sound of a footstep +going about. There were two voices. The words they uttered were not +distinguishable, but they were both the voices of men. In a few moments +the voices were silent, and there was no sound of footstep, and the +inner light went out. If Lightwood could have seen the face which kept +him awake, staring and listening in the darkness outside the door as +he spoke of it, he might have been less disposed to sleep, through the +remainder of the night. + +‘Not there,’ said Bradley; ‘but she might have been.’ The head arose to +its former height from the ground, floated down the stair-case again, +and passed on to the gate. A man was standing there, in parley with the +watchman. + +‘Oh!’ said the watchman. ‘Here he is!’ + +Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from the +watchman to the man. + +‘This man is leaving a letter for Mr Lightwood,’ the watchman explained, +showing it in his hand; ‘and I was mentioning that a person had just +gone up to Mr Lightwood’s chambers. It might be the same business +perhaps?’ + +‘No,’ said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a stranger to him. + +‘No,’ the man assented in a surly way; ‘my letter—it’s wrote by my +daughter, but it’s mine—is about my business, and my business ain’t +nobody else’s business.’ + +As Bradley passed out at the gate with an undecided foot, he heard it +shut behind him, and heard the footstep of the man coming after him. + +‘’Scuse me,’ said the man, who appeared to have been drinking and rather +stumbled at him than touched him, to attract his attention: ‘but might +you be acquainted with the T’other Governor?’ + +‘With whom?’ asked Bradley. + +‘With,’ returned the man, pointing backward over his right shoulder with +his right thumb, ‘the T’other Governor?’ + +‘I don’t know what you mean.’ + +‘Why look here,’ hooking his proposition on his left-hand fingers with +the forefinger of his right. ‘There’s two Governors, ain’t there? One +and one, two—Lawyer Lightwood, my first finger, he’s one, ain’t he? +Well; might you be acquainted with my middle finger, the T’other?’ + +‘I know quite as much of him,’ said Bradley, with a frown and a distant +look before him, ‘as I want to know.’ + +‘Hooroar!’ cried the man. ‘Hooroar T’other t’other Governor. Hooroar +T’otherest Governor! I am of your way of thinkin’.’ + +‘Don’t make such a noise at this dead hour of the night. What are you +talking about?’ + +‘Look here, T’otherest Governor,’ replied the man, becoming hoarsely +confidential. ‘The T’other Governor he’s always joked his jokes agin me, +owing, as I believe, to my being a honest man as gets my living by the +sweat of my brow. Which he ain’t, and he don’t.’ + +‘What is that to me?’ + +‘T’otherest Governor,’ returned the man in a tone of injured innocence, +‘if you don’t care to hear no more, don’t hear no more. You begun it. +You said, and likeways showed pretty plain, as you warn’t by no means +friendly to him. But I don’t seek to force my company nor yet my +opinions on no man. I am a honest man, that’s what I am. Put me in the +dock anywhere—I don’t care where—and I says, “My Lord, I am a honest +man.” Put me in the witness-box anywhere—I don’t care where—and I +says the same to his lordship, and I kisses the book. I don’t kiss my +coat-cuff; I kisses the book.’ + +It was not so much in deference to these strong testimonials to +character, as in his restless casting about for any way or help towards +the discovery on which he was concentrated, that Bradley Headstone +replied: ‘You needn’t take offence. I didn’t mean to stop you. You were +too—loud in the open street; that was all.’ + +‘’Totherest Governor,’ replied Mr Riderhood, mollified and mysterious, +‘I know wot it is to be loud, and I know wot it is to be soft. Nat’rally +I do. It would be a wonder if I did not, being by the Chris’en name of +Roger, which took it arter my own father, which took it from his own +father, though which of our fam’ly fust took it nat’ral I will not in +any ways mislead you by undertakin’ to say. And wishing that your elth +may be better than your looks, which your inside must be bad indeed if +it’s on the footing of your out.’ + +Startled by the implication that his face revealed too much of his mind, +Bradley made an effort to clear his brow. It might be worth knowing what +this strange man’s business was with Lightwood, or Wrayburn, or both, at +such an unseasonable hour. He set himself to find out, for the man might +prove to be a messenger between those two. + +‘You call at the Temple late,’ he remarked, with a lumbering show of +ease. + +‘Wish I may die,’ cried Mr Riderhood, with a hoarse laugh, ‘if I warn’t +a goin’ to say the self-same words to you, T’otherest Governor!’ + +‘It chanced so with me,’ said Bradley, looking disconcertedly about him. + +‘And it chanced so with me,’ said Riderhood. ‘But I don’t mind telling +you how. Why should I mind telling you? I’m a Deputy Lock-keeper up the +river, and I was off duty yes’day, and I shall be on to-morrow.’ + +‘Yes?’ + +‘Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private affairs. My private +affairs is to get appinted to the Lock as reg’lar keeper at fust hand, +and to have the law of a busted B’low-Bridge steamer which drownded of +me. I ain’t a goin’ to be drownded and not paid for it!’ + +Bradley looked at him, as though he were claiming to be a Ghost. + +‘The steamer,’ said Mr Riderhood, obstinately, ‘run me down and drownded +of me. Interference on the part of other parties brought me round; but +I never asked ’em to bring me round, nor yet the steamer never asked ’em +to it. I mean to be paid for the life as the steamer took.’ + +‘Was that your business at Mr Lightwood’s chambers in the middle of the +night?’ asked Bradley, eyeing him with distrust. + +‘That and to get a writing to be fust-hand Lock Keeper. A recommendation +in writing being looked for, who else ought to give it to me? As I says +in the letter in my daughter’s hand, with my mark put to it to make it +good in law, Who but you, Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this here +stifficate, and who but you ought to go in for damages on my account +agin the Steamer? For (as I says under my mark) I have had trouble +enough along of you and your friend. If you, Lawyer Lightwood, had +backed me good and true, and if the T’other Governor had took me down +correct (I says under my mark), I should have been worth money at the +present time, instead of having a barge-load of bad names chucked at me, +and being forced to eat my words, which is a unsatisfying sort of food +wotever a man’s appetite! And when you mention the middle of the night, +T’otherest Governor,’ growled Mr Riderhood, winding up his monotonous +summary of his wrongs, ‘throw your eye on this here bundle under my arm, +and bear in mind that I’m a walking back to my Lock, and that the Temple +laid upon my line of road.’ + +Bradley Headstone’s face had changed during this latter recital, and he +had observed the speaker with a more sustained attention. + +‘Do you know,’ said he, after a pause, during which they walked on side +by side, ‘that I believe I could tell you your name, if I tried?’ + +‘Prove your opinion,’ was the answer, accompanied with a stop and a +stare. ‘Try.’ + +‘Your name is Riderhood.’ + +‘I’m blest if it ain’t,’ returned that gentleman. ‘But I don’t know +your’n.’ + +‘That’s quite another thing,’ said Bradley. ‘I never supposed you did.’ + +As Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on at his side +muttering. The purport of the muttering was: ‘that Rogue Riderhood, by +George! seemed to be made public property on, now, and that every man +seemed to think himself free to handle his name as if it was a Street +Pump.’ The purport of the meditating was: ‘Here is an instrument. Can I +use it?’ + +They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, and had turned +up-hill towards Hyde Park Corner; Bradley Headstone waiting on the pace +and lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to indicate the course. So slow +were the schoolmaster’s thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes when +they were but tributary to the one absorbing purpose or rather when, +like dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista at +the end of which he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie on +which his eyes were fixed—that at least a good half-mile was traversed +before he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask: + +‘Where is your Lock?’ + +‘Twenty mile and odd—call it five-and-twenty mile and odd, if you +like—up stream,’ was the sullen reply. + +‘How is it called?’ + +‘Plashwater Weir Mill Lock.’ + +‘Suppose I was to offer you five shillings; what then?’ + +‘Why, then, I’d take it,’ said Mr Riderhood. + +The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced two +half-crowns, and placed them in Mr Riderhood’s palm: who stopped at +a convenient doorstep to ring them both, before acknowledging their +receipt. + +‘There’s one thing about you, T’otherest Governor,’ said Riderhood, +faring on again, ‘as looks well and goes fur. You’re a ready money man. +Now;’ when he had carefully pocketed the coins on that side of himself +which was furthest from his new friend; ‘what’s this for?’ + +‘For you.’ + +‘Why, o’ course I know THAT,’ said Riderhood, as arguing something that +was self-evident. ‘O’ course I know very well as no man in his right +senses would suppose as anythink would make me give it up agin when I’d +once got it. But what do you want for it?’ + +‘I don’t know that I want anything for it. Or if I do want anything +for it, I don’t know what it is.’ Bradley gave this answer in a stolid, +vacant, and self-communing manner, which Mr Riderhood found very +extraordinary. + +‘You have no goodwill towards this Wrayburn,’ said Bradley, coming to +the name in a reluctant and forced way, as if he were dragged to it. + +‘No.’ + +‘Neither have I.’ + +Riderhood nodded, and asked: ‘Is it for that?’ + +‘It’s as much for that as anything else. It’s something to be agreed +with, on a subject that occupies so much of one’s thoughts.’ + +‘It don’t agree with YOU,’ returned Mr Riderhood, bluntly. ‘No! It +don’t, T’otherest Governor, and it’s no use a lookin’ as if you wanted +to make out that it did. I tell you it rankles in you. It rankles in +you, rusts in you, and pisons you.’ + +‘Say that it does so,’ returned Bradley with quivering lips; ‘is there +no cause for it?’ + +‘Cause enough, I’ll bet a pound!’ cried Mr Riderhood. + +‘Haven’t you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped provocations, +insults, and affronts on you, or something to that effect? He has done +the same by me. He is made of venomous insults and affronts, from the +crown of his head to the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or so +stupid, as not to know that he and the other will treat your application +with contempt, and light their cigars with it?’ + +‘I shouldn’t wonder if they did, by George!’ said Riderhood, turning +angry. + +‘If they did! They will. Let me ask you a question. I know something +more than your name about you; I knew something about Gaffer Hexam. When +did you last set eyes upon his daughter?’ + +‘When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T’otherest Governor?’ +repeated Mr Riderhood, growing intentionally slower of comprehension as +the other quickened in his speech. + +‘Yes. Not to speak to her. To see her—anywhere?’ + +The Rogue had got the clue he wanted, though he held it with a clumsy +hand. Looking perplexedly at the passionate face, as if he were trying +to work out a sum in his mind, he slowly answered: + +‘I ain’t set eyes upon her—never once—not since the day of Gaffer’s +death.’ + +‘You know her well, by sight?’ + +‘I should think I did! No one better.’ + +‘And you know him as well?’ + +‘Who’s him?’ asked Riderhood, taking off his hat and rubbing his +forehead, as he directed a dull look at his questioner. + +‘Curse the name! Is it so agreeable to you that you want to hear it +again?’ + +‘Oh! HIM!’ said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the schoolmaster into +this corner, that he might again take note of his face under its evil +possession. ‘I’d know HIM among a thousand.’ + +‘Did you—’ Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do what he might +with his voice, he could not subdue his face;—‘did you ever see them +together?’ + +(The Rogue had got the clue in both hands now.) + +‘I see ’em together, T’otherest Governor, on the very day when Gaffer +was towed ashore.’ + +Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharp +eyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil from the eyes +of the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question next in his breast. +‘You shall put it plain if you want it answered,’ thought the Rogue, +doggedly; ‘I ain’t a-going a wolunteering.’ + +‘Well! was he insolent to her too?’ asked Bradley after a struggle. ‘Or +did he make a show of being kind to her?’ + +‘He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her,’ said Riderhood. ‘By +George! now I—’ + +His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked at +him for the reason. + +‘Now I think of it,’ said Mr Riderhood, evasively, for he was +substituting those words for ‘Now I see you so jealous,’ which was the +phrase really in his mind; ‘P’r’aps he went and took me down wrong, a +purpose, on account o’ being sweet upon her!’ + +The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of one (for +he could not have really entertained it), was a line’s breadth beyond +the mark the schoolmaster had reached. The baseness of communing and +intriguing with the fellow who would have set that stain upon her, and +upon her brother too, was attained. The line’s breadth further, lay +beyond. He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face. + +What he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not work out in his +slow and cumbrous thoughts. The man had an injury against the object of +his hatred, and that was something; though it was less than he supposed, +for there dwelt in the man no such deadly rage and resentment as burned +in his own breast. The man knew her, and might by a fortunate chance see +her, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyes +and ears the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be in +his pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose were as +bad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support from the +possession of a congenial instrument, though it might never be used. + +Suddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood point-blank if he knew +where she was? Clearly, he did not know. He asked Riderhood if he would +be willing, in case any intelligence of her, or of Wrayburn as seeking +her or associating with her, should fall in his way, to communicate it +if it were paid for? He would be very willing indeed. He was ‘agin ’em +both,’ he said with an oath, and for why? ’Cause they had both stood +betwixt him and his getting his living by the sweat of his brow. + +‘It will not be long then,’ said Bradley Headstone, after some more +discourse to this effect, ‘before we see one another again. Here is the +country road, and here is the day. Both have come upon me by surprise.’ + +‘But, T’otherest Governor,’ urged Mr Riderhood, ‘I don’t know where to +find you.’ + +‘It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I’ll come to +your Lock.’ + +‘But, T’otherest Governor,’ urged Mr Riderhood again, ‘no luck never +come yet of a dry acquaintance. Let’s wet it, in a mouth-fill of rum and +milk, T’otherest Governor.’ + +Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public-house, haunted by +unsavoury smells of musty hay and stale straw, where returning carts, +farmers’ men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain human +nightbirds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves after +their several manners; and where not one of the nightbirds hovering +about the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passion-wasted +nightbird with respectable feathers, the worst nightbird of all. + +An inspiration of affection for a half-drunken carter going his way led +to Mr Riderhood’s being elevated on a high heap of baskets on a waggon, +and pursuing his journey recumbent on his back with his head on his +bundle. Bradley then turned to retrace his steps, and by-and-by struck +off through little-traversed ways, and by-and-by reached school and +home. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, methodically +dressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, and +pepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his decent silver watch in its pocket, +and its decent hair-guard round his neck: a scholastic huntsman clad for +the field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him. + +Yet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures of the +much-lamented times, who accused themselves of impossibilities under a +contagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences of Torture, +he had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night that was newly +gone. He had been spurred and whipped and heavily sweated. If a record +of the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scripture +on the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken fright +and run away from the master. + + + + +Chapter 12 + +MEANING MISCHIEF + + +Up came the sun, streaming all over London, and in its glorious +impartiality even condescending to make prismatic sparkles in the +whiskers of Mr Alfred Lammle as he sat at breakfast. In need of some +brightening from without, was Mr Alfred Lammle, for he had the air of +being dull enough within, and looked grievously discontented. + +Mrs Alfred Lammle faced her lord. The happy pair of swindlers, with +the comfortable tie between them that each had swindled the other, sat +moodily observant of the tablecloth. Things looked so gloomy in the +breakfast-room, albeit on the sunny side of Sackville Street, that any +of the family tradespeople glancing through the blinds might have taken +the hint to send in his account and press for it. But this, indeed, most +of the family tradespeople had already done, without the hint. + +‘It seems to me,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘that you have had no money at all, +ever since we have been married.’ + +‘What seems to you,’ said Mr Lammle, ‘to have been the case, may +possibly have been the case. It doesn’t matter.’ + +Was it the speciality of Mr and Mrs Lammle, or does it ever obtain +with other loving couples? In these matrimonial dialogues they never +addressed each other, but always some invisible presence that appeared +to take a station about midway between them. Perhaps the skeleton in the +cupboard comes out to be talked to, on such domestic occasions? + +‘I have never seen any money in the house,’ said Mrs Lammle to the +skeleton, ‘except my own annuity. That I swear.’ + +‘You needn’t take the trouble of swearing,’ said Mr Lammle to the +skeleton; ‘once more, it doesn’t matter. You never turned your annuity +to so good an account.’ + +‘Good an account! In what way?’ asked Mrs Lammle. + +‘In the way of getting credit, and living well,’ said Mr Lammle. Perhaps +the skeleton laughed scornfully on being intrusted with this question +and this answer; certainly Mrs Lammle did, and Mr Lammle did. + +‘And what is to happen next?’ asked Mrs Lammle of the skeleton. + +‘Smash is to happen next,’ said Mr Lammle to the same authority. + +After this, Mrs Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeleton—but without +carrying the look on to Mr Lammle—and drooped her eyes. After that, Mr +Lammle did exactly the same thing, and drooped HIS eyes. A servant then +entering with toast, the skeleton retired into the closet, and shut +itself up. + +‘Sophronia,’ said Mr Lammle, when the servant had withdrawn. And then, +very much louder: ‘Sophronia!’ + +‘Well?’ + +‘Attend to me, if you please.’ He eyed her sternly until she did attend, +and then went on. ‘I want to take counsel with you. Come, come; no more +trifling. You know our league and covenant. We are to work together for +our joint interest, and you are as knowing a hand as I am. We shouldn’t +be together, if you were not. What’s to be done? We are hemmed into a +corner. What shall we do?’ + +‘Have you no scheme on foot that will bring in anything?’ + +Mr Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and came out +hopeless: ‘No; as adventurers we are obliged to play rash games for +chances of high winnings, and there has been a run of luck against us.’ + +She was resuming, ‘Have you nothing—’ when he stopped her. + +‘We, Sophronia. We, we, we.’ + +‘Have we nothing to sell?’ + +‘Deuce a bit. I have given a Jew a bill of sale on this furniture, and +he could take it to-morrow, to-day, now. He would have taken it before +now, I believe, but for Fledgeby.’ + +‘What has Fledgeby to do with him?’ + +‘Knew him. Cautioned me against him before I got into his claws. +Couldn’t persuade him then, in behalf of somebody else.’ + +‘Do you mean that Fledgeby has at all softened him towards you?’ + +‘Us, Sophronia. Us, us, us.’ + +‘Towards us?’ + +‘I mean that the Jew has not yet done what he might have done, and that +Fledgeby takes the credit of having got him to hold his hand.’ + +‘Do you believe Fledgeby?’ + +‘Sophronia, I never believe anybody. I never have, my dear, since I +believed you. But it looks like it.’ + +Having given her this back-handed reminder of her mutinous observations +to the skeleton, Mr Lammle rose from table—perhaps, the better to +conceal a smile, and a white dint or two about his nose—and took a turn +on the carpet and came to the hearthrug. + +‘If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana;—but however; +that’s spilled milk.’ + +As Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dressing-gown with +his back to the fire, said this, looking down at his wife, she turned +pale and looked down at the ground. With a sense of disloyalty upon +her, and perhaps with a sense of personal danger—for she was afraid of +him—even afraid of his hand and afraid of his foot, though he had never +done her violence—she hastened to put herself right in his eyes. + +‘If we could borrow money, Alfred—’ + +‘Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It would be all one to us, +Sophronia,’ her husband struck in. + +‘—Then, we could weather this?’ + +‘No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable remark, Sophronia, +two and two make four.’ + +But, seeing that she was turning something in her mind, he gathered up +the skirts of his dressing-gown again, and, tucking them under one arm, +and collecting his ample whiskers in his other hand, kept his eye upon +her, silently. + +‘It is natural, Alfred,’ she said, looking up with some timidity into +his face, ‘to think in such an emergency of the richest people we know, +and the simplest.’ + +‘Just so, Sophronia.’ + +‘The Boffins.’ + +‘Just so, Sophronia.’ + +‘Is there nothing to be done with them?’ + +‘What is there to be done with them, Sophronia?’ + +She cast about in her thoughts again, and he kept his eye upon her as +before. + +‘Of course I have repeatedly thought of the Boffins, Sophronia,’ he +resumed, after a fruitless silence; ‘but I have seen my way to nothing. +They are well guarded. That infernal Secretary stands between them +and—people of merit.’ + +‘If he could be got rid of?’ said she, brightening a little, after more +casting about. + +‘Take time, Sophronia,’ observed her watchful husband, in a patronizing +manner. + +‘If working him out of the way could be presented in the light of a +service to Mr Boffin?’ + +‘Take time, Sophronia.’ + +‘We have remarked lately, Alfred, that the old man is turning very +suspicious and distrustful.’ + +‘Miserly too, my dear; which is far the most unpromising for us. +Nevertheless, take time, Sophronia, take time.’ + +She took time and then said: + +‘Suppose we should address ourselves to that tendency in him of which we +have made ourselves quite sure. Suppose my conscience—’ + +‘And we know what a conscience it is, my soul. Yes?’ + +‘Suppose my conscience should not allow me to keep to myself any +longer what that upstart girl told me of the Secretary’s having made a +declaration to her. Suppose my conscience should oblige me to repeat it +to Mr Boffin.’ + +‘I rather like that,’ said Lammle. + +‘Suppose I so repeated it to Mr Boffin, as to insinuate that my +sensitive delicacy and honour—’ + +‘Very good words, Sophronia.’ + +‘—As to insinuate that OUR sensitive delicacy and honour,’ she resumed, +with a bitter stress upon the phrase, ‘would not allow us to be silent +parties to so mercenary and designing a speculation on the Secretary’s +part, and so gross a breach of faith towards his confiding employer. +Suppose I had imparted my virtuous uneasiness to my excellent husband, +and he had said, in his integrity, “Sophronia, you must immediately +disclose this to Mr Boffin.”’ + +‘Once more, Sophronia,’ observed Lammle, changing the leg on which he +stood, ‘I rather like that.’ + +‘You remark that he is well guarded,’ she pursued. ‘I think so too. But +if this should lead to his discharging his Secretary, there would be a +weak place made.’ + +‘Go on expounding, Sophronia. I begin to like this very much.’ + +‘Having, in our unimpeachable rectitude, done him the service of opening +his eyes to the treachery of the person he trusted, we shall have +established a claim upon him and a confidence with him. Whether it +can be made much of, or little of, we must wait—because we can’t help +it—to see. Probably we shall make the most of it that is to be made.’ + +‘Probably,’ said Lammle. + +‘Do you think it impossible,’ she asked, in the same cold plotting way, +‘that you might replace the Secretary?’ + +‘Not impossible, Sophronia. It might be brought about. At any rate it +might be skilfully led up to.’ + +She nodded her understanding of the hint, as she looked at the fire. ‘Mr +Lammle,’ she said, musingly: not without a slight ironical touch: ‘Mr +Lammle would be so delighted to do anything in his power. Mr Lammle, +himself a man of business as well as a capitalist. Mr Lammle, accustomed +to be intrusted with the most delicate affairs. Mr Lammle, who has +managed my own little fortune so admirably, but who, to be sure, began +to make his reputation with the advantage of being a man of property, +above temptation, and beyond suspicion.’ + +Mr Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. In his sinister +relish of the scheme, as he stood above her, making it the subject of +his cogitations, he seemed to have twice as much nose on his face as he +had ever had in his life. + +He stood pondering, and she sat looking at the dusty fire without +moving, for some time. But, the moment he began to speak again she +looked up with a wince and attended to him, as if that double-dealing of +hers had been in her mind, and the fear were revived in her of his hand +or his foot. + +‘It appears to me, Sophronia, that you have omitted one branch of the +subject. Perhaps not, for women understand women. We might oust the girl +herself?’ + +Mrs Lammle shook her head. ‘She has an immensely strong hold upon them +both, Alfred. Not to be compared with that of a paid secretary.’ + +‘But the dear child,’ said Lammle, with a crooked smile, ‘ought to have +been open with her benefactor and benefactress. The darling love +ought to have reposed unbounded confidence in her benefactor and +benefactress.’ + +Sophronia shook her head again. + +‘Well! Women understand women,’ said her husband, rather disappointed. +‘I don’t press it. It might be the making of our fortune to make a +clean sweep of them both. With me to manage the property, and my wife to +manage the people—Whew!’ + +Again shaking her head, she returned: ‘They will never quarrel with the +girl. They will never punish the girl. We must accept the girl, rely +upon it.’ + +‘Well!’ cried Lammle, shrugging his shoulders, ‘so be it: only always +remember that we don’t want her.’ + +‘Now, the sole remaining question is,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘when shall I +begin?’ + +‘You cannot begin too soon, Sophronia. As I have told you, the condition +of our affairs is desperate, and may be blown upon at any moment.’ + +‘I must secure Mr Boffin alone, Alfred. If his wife was present, she +would throw oil upon the waters. I know I should fail to move him to an +angry outburst, if his wife was there. And as to the girl herself—as I +am going to betray her confidence, she is equally out of the question.’ + +‘It wouldn’t do to write for an appointment?’ said Lammle. + +‘No, certainly not. They would wonder among themselves why I wrote, and +I want to have him wholly unprepared.’ + +‘Call, and ask to see him alone?’ suggested Lammle. + +‘I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare me the little +carriage for to-day, and for to-morrow (if I don’t succeed to-day), and +I’ll lie in wait for him.’ + +It was barely settled when a manly form was seen to pass the windows +and heard to knock and ring. ‘Here’s Fledgeby,’ said Lammle. ‘He admires +you, and has a high opinion of you. I’ll be out. Coax him to use his +influence with the Jew. His name is Riah, of the House of Pubsey and +Co.’ Adding these words under his breath, lest he should be audible +in the erect ears of Mr Fledgeby, through two keyholes and the hall, +Lammle, making signals of discretion to his servant, went softly up +stairs. + +‘Mr Fledgeby,’ said Mrs Lammle, giving him a very gracious reception, +‘so glad to see you! My poor dear Alfred, who is greatly worried just +now about his affairs, went out rather early. Dear Mr Fledgeby, do sit +down.’ + +Dear Mr Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, judging from +the expression of his countenance, DISsatisfied himself) that nothing +new had occurred in the way of whisker-sprout since he came round the +corner from the Albany. + +‘Dear Mr Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you that my poor dear +Alfred is much worried about his affairs at present, for he has told me +what a comfort you are to him in his temporary difficulties, and what a +great service you have rendered him.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Mr Fledgeby. + +‘Yes,’ said Mrs Lammle. + +‘I didn’t know,’ remarked Mr Fledgeby, trying a new part of his chair, +‘but that Lammle might be reserved about his affairs.’ + +‘Not to me,’ said Mrs Lammle, with deep feeling. + +‘Oh, indeed?’ said Fledgeby. + +‘Not to me, dear Mr Fledgeby. I am his wife.’ + +‘Yes. I—I always understood so,’ said Mr Fledgeby. + +‘And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr Fledgeby, wholly without his +authority or knowledge, as I am sure your discernment will perceive, +entreat you to continue that great service, and once more use your +well-earned influence with Mr Riah for a little more indulgence? The +name I have heard Alfred mention, tossing in his dreams, IS Riah; is it +not?’ + +‘The name of the Creditor is Riah,’ said Mr Fledgeby, with a rather +uncompromising accent on his noun-substantive. ‘Saint Mary Axe. Pubsey +and Co.’ + +‘Oh yes!’ exclaimed Mrs Lammle, clasping her hands with a certain +gushing wildness. ‘Pubsey and Co.!’ + +‘The pleading of the feminine—’ Mr Fledgeby began, and there stuck so +long for a word to get on with, that Mrs Lammle offered him sweetly, +‘Heart?’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Fledgeby, ‘Gender—is ever what a man is bound to listen +to, and I wish it rested with myself. But this Riah is a nasty one, Mrs +Lammle; he really is.’ + +‘Not if YOU speak to him, dear Mr Fledgeby.’ + +‘Upon my soul and body he is!’ said Fledgeby. + +‘Try. Try once more, dearest Mr Fledgeby. What is there you cannot do, +if you will!’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Fledgeby, ‘you’re very complimentary to say so. I +don’t mind trying him again, at your request. But of course I can’t +answer for the consequences. Riah is a tough subject, and when he says +he’ll do a thing, he’ll do it.’ + +‘Exactly so,’ cried Mrs Lammle, ‘and when he says to you he’ll wait, +he’ll wait.’ + +(‘She is a devilish clever woman,’ thought Fledgeby. ‘I didn’t see that +opening, but she spies it out and cuts into it as soon as it’s made.’) + +‘In point of fact, dear Mr Fledgeby,’ Mrs Lammle went on in a very +interesting manner, ‘not to affect concealment of Alfred’s hopes, to you +who are so much his friend, there is a distant break in his horizon.’ + +This figure of speech seemed rather mysterious to Fascination Fledgeby, +who said, ‘There’s a what in his—eh?’ + +‘Alfred, dear Mr Fledgeby, discussed with me this very morning before he +went out, some prospects he has, which might entirely change the aspect +of his present troubles.’ + +‘Really?’ said Fledgeby. + +‘O yes!’ Here Mrs Lammle brought her handkerchief into play. ‘And you +know, dear Mr Fledgeby—you who study the human heart, and study the +world—what an affliction it would be to lose position and to lose +credit, when ability to tide over a very short time might save all +appearances.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Fledgeby. ‘Then you think, Mrs Lammle, that if Lammle +got time, he wouldn’t burst up?—To use an expression,’ Mr Fledgeby +apologetically explained, ‘which is adopted in the Money Market.’ + +‘Indeed yes. Truly, truly, yes!’ + +‘That makes all the difference,’ said Fledgeby. ‘I’ll make a point of +seeing Riah at once.’ + +‘Blessings on you, dearest Mr Fledgeby!’ + +‘Not at all,’ said Fledgeby. She gave him her hand. ‘The hand,’ said Mr +Fledgeby, ‘of a lovely and superior-minded female is ever the repayment +of a—’ + +‘Noble action!’ said Mrs Lammle, extremely anxious to get rid of him. + +‘It wasn’t what I was going to say,’ returned Fledgeby, who never would, +under any circumstances, accept a suggested expression, ‘but you’re very +complimentary. May I imprint a—a one—upon it? Good morning!’ + +‘I may depend upon your promptitude, dearest Mr Fledgeby?’ + +Said Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully kissing his +hand, ‘You may depend upon it.’ + +In fact, Mr Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through the streets, +at so brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the good +spirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station +in his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh +trill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, +and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the +staircase: ‘Now, Judah, what are you up to there?’ + +The old man appeared, with his accustomed deference. + +‘Halloa!’ said Fledgeby, falling back, with a wink. ‘You mean mischief, +Jerusalem!’ + +The old man raised his eyes inquiringly. + +‘Yes you do,’ said Fledgeby. ‘Oh, you sinner! Oh, you dodger! What! +You’re going to act upon that bill of sale at Lammle’s, are you? Nothing +will turn you, won’t it? You won’t be put off for another single minute, +won’t you?’ + +Ordered to immediate action by the master’s tone and look, the old man +took up his hat from the little counter where it lay. + +‘You have been told that he might pull through it, if you didn’t go in +to win, Wide-Awake; have you?’ said Fledgeby. ‘And it’s not your game +that he should pull through it; ain’t it? You having got security, and +there being enough to pay you? Oh, you Jew!’ + +The old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment, as if there +might be further instructions for him in reserve. + +‘Do I go, sir?’ he at length asked in a low voice. + +‘Asks me if he is going!’ exclaimed Fledgeby. ‘Asks me, as if he didn’t +know his own purpose! Asks me, as if he hadn’t got his hat on ready! +Asks me, as if his sharp old eye—why, it cuts like a knife—wasn’t +looking at his walking-stick by the door!’ + +‘Do I go, sir?’ + +‘Do you go?’ sneered Fledgeby. ‘Yes, you do go. Toddle, Judah!’ + + + + +Chapter 13 + +GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM + + +Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house, strolled about +with his hat on one side, whistling, and investigating the drawers, and +prying here and there for any small evidences of his being cheated, +but could find none. ‘Not his merit that he don’t cheat me,’ was Mr +Fledgeby’s commentary delivered with a wink, ‘but my precaution.’ He +then with a lazy grandeur asserted his rights as lord of Pubsey and +Co. by poking his cane at the stools and boxes, and spitting in the +fireplace, and so loitered royally to the window and looked out into the +narrow street, with his small eyes just peering over the top of Pubsey +and Co.’s blind. As a blind in more senses than one, it reminded him +that he was alone in the counting-house with the front door open. He was +moving away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously identified with +the establishment, when he was stopped by some one coming to the door. + +This some one was the dolls’ dressmaker, with a little basket on her +arm, and her crutch stick in her hand. Her keen eyes had espied Mr +Fledgeby before Mr Fledgeby had espied her, and he was paralysed in his +purpose of shutting her out, not so much by her approaching the door, as +by her favouring him with a shower of nods, the instant he saw her. This +advantage she improved by hobbling up the steps with such despatch that +before Mr Fledgeby could take measures for her finding nobody at home, +she was face to face with him in the counting-house. + +‘Hope I see you well, sir,’ said Miss Wren. ‘Mr Riah in?’ + +Fledgeby had dropped into a chair, in the attitude of one waiting +wearily. ‘I suppose he will be back soon,’ he replied; ‘he has cut +out and left me expecting him back, in an odd way. Haven’t I seen you +before?’ + +‘Once before—if you had your eyesight,’ replied Miss Wren; the +conditional clause in an under-tone. + +‘When you were carrying on some games up at the top of the house. I +remember. How’s your friend?’ + +‘I have more friends than one, sir, I hope,’ replied Miss Wren. ‘Which +friend?’ + +‘Never mind,’ said Mr Fledgeby, shutting up one eye, ‘any of your +friends, all your friends. Are they pretty tolerable?’ + +Somewhat confounded, Miss Wren parried the pleasantry, and sat down in a +corner behind the door, with her basket in her lap. By-and-by, she said, +breaking a long and patient silence: + +‘I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr Riah at this time, and +so I generally come at this time. I only want to buy my poor little two +shillings’ worth of waste. Perhaps you’ll kindly let me have it, and +I’ll trot off to my work.’ + +‘I let you have it?’ said Fledgeby, turning his head towards her; for he +had been sitting blinking at the light, and feeling his cheek. ‘Why, you +don’t really suppose that I have anything to do with the place, or the +business; do you?’ + +‘Suppose?’ exclaimed Miss Wren. ‘He said, that day, you were the +master!’ + +‘The old cock in black said? Riah said? Why, he’d say anything.’ + +‘Well; but you said so too,’ returned Miss Wren. ‘Or at least you took +on like the master, and didn’t contradict him.’ + +‘One of his dodges,’ said Mr Fledgeby, with a cool and contemptuous +shrug. ‘He’s made of dodges. He said to me, “Come up to the top of the +house, sir, and I’ll show you a handsome girl. But I shall call you +the master.” So I went up to the top of the house and he showed me the +handsome girl (very well worth looking at she was), and I was called the +master. I don’t know why. I dare say he don’t. He loves a dodge for +its own sake; being,’ added Mr Fledgeby, after casting about for an +expressive phrase, ‘the dodgerest of all the dodgers.’ + +‘Oh my head!’ cried the dolls’ dressmaker, holding it with both her +hands, as if it were cracking. ‘You can’t mean what you say.’ + +‘I can, my little woman, retorted Fledgeby, ‘and I do, I assure you.’ + +This repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy on Fledgeby’s +part, in case of his being surprised by any other caller, but was also a +retort upon Miss Wren for her over-sharpness, and a pleasant instance +of his humour as regarded the old Jew. ‘He has got a bad name as an old +Jew, and he is paid for the use of it, and I’ll have my money’s worth +out of him.’ This was Fledgeby’s habitual reflection in the way of +business, and it was sharpened just now by the old man’s presuming +to have a secret from him: though of the secret itself, as annoying +somebody else whom he disliked, he by no means disapproved. + +Miss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door looking +thoughtfully at the ground, and the long and patient silence had +again set in for some time, when the expression of Mr Fledgeby’s face +betokened that through the upper portion of the door, which was of +glass, he saw some one faltering on the brink of the counting-house. +Presently there was a rustle and a tap, and then some more rustling and +another tap. Fledgeby taking no notice, the door was at length softly +opened, and the dried face of a mild little elderly gentleman looked in. + +‘Mr Riah?’ said this visitor, very politely. + +‘I am waiting for him, sir,’ returned Mr Fledgeby. ‘He went out and left +me here. I expect him back every minute. Perhaps you had better take a +chair.’ + +The gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his forehead, as if +he were in a melancholy frame of mind. Mr Fledgeby eyed him aside, and +seemed to relish his attitude. + +‘A fine day, sir,’ remarked Fledgeby. + +The little dried gentleman was so occupied with his own depressed +reflections that he did not notice the remark until the sound of Mr +Fledgeby’s voice had died out of the counting-house. Then he started, +and said: ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I fear you spoke to me?’ + +‘I said,’ remarked Fledgeby, a little louder than before, ‘it was a fine +day.’ + +‘I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. Yes.’ + +Again the little dried gentleman put his hand to his forehead, and again +Mr Fledgeby seemed to enjoy his doing it. When the gentleman changed his +attitude with a sigh, Fledgeby spake with a grin. + +‘Mr Twemlow, I think?’ + +The dried gentleman seemed much surprised. + +‘Had the pleasure of dining with you at Lammle’s,’ said Fledgeby. ‘Even +have the honour of being a connexion of yours. An unexpected sort of +place this to meet in; but one never knows, when one gets into the City, +what people one may knock up against. I hope you have your health, and +are enjoying yourself.’ + +There might have been a touch of impertinence in the last words; on the +other hand, it might have been but the native grace of Mr Fledgeby’s +manner. Mr Fledgeby sat on a stool with a foot on the rail of another +stool, and his hat on. Mr Twemlow had uncovered on looking in at the +door, and remained so. Now the conscientious Twemlow, knowing what he +had done to thwart the gracious Fledgeby, was particularly disconcerted +by this encounter. He was as ill at ease as a gentleman well could be. +He felt himself bound to conduct himself stiffly towards Fledgeby, +and he made him a distant bow. Fledgeby made his small eyes smaller +in taking special note of his manner. The dolls’ dressmaker sat in her +corner behind the door, with her eyes on the ground and her hands folded +on her basket, holding her crutch-stick between them, and appearing to +take no heed of anything. + +‘He’s a long time,’ muttered Mr Fledgeby, looking at his watch. ‘What +time may you make it, Mr Twemlow?’ + +Mr Twemlow made it ten minutes past twelve, sir. + +‘As near as a toucher,’ assented Fledgeby. ‘I hope, Mr Twemlow, your +business here may be of a more agreeable character than mine.’ + +‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mr Twemlow. + +Fledgeby again made his small eyes smaller, as he glanced with great +complacency at Twemlow, who was timorously tapping the table with a +folded letter. + +‘What I know of Mr Riah,’ said Fledgeby, with a very disparaging +utterance of his name, ‘leads me to believe that this is about the shop +for disagreeable business. I have always found him the bitingest and +tightest screw in London.’ + +Mr Twemlow acknowledged the remark with a little distant bow. It +evidently made him nervous. + +‘So much so,’ pursued Fledgeby, ‘that if it wasn’t to be true to a +friend, nobody should catch me waiting here a single minute. But if you +have friends in adversity, stand by them. That’s what I say and act up +to.’ + +The equitable Twemlow felt that this sentiment, irrespective of the +utterer, demanded his cordial assent. ‘You are very right, sir,’ he +rejoined with spirit. ‘You indicate the generous and manly course.’ + +‘Glad to have your approbation,’ returned Fledgeby. ‘It’s a coincidence, +Mr Twemlow;’ here he descended from his perch, and sauntered towards +him; ‘that the friends I am standing by to-day are the friends at whose +house I met you! The Lammles. She’s a very taking and agreeable woman?’ + +Conscience smote the gentle Twemlow pale. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She is.’ + +‘And when she appealed to me this morning, to come and try what I could +do to pacify their creditor, this Mr Riah—that I certainly have gained +some little influence with in transacting business for another friend, +but nothing like so much as she supposes—and when a woman like that +spoke to me as her dearest Mr Fledgeby, and shed tears—why what could I +do, you know?’ + +Twemlow gasped ‘Nothing but come.’ + +‘Nothing but come. And so I came. But why,’ said Fledgeby, putting +his hands in his pockets and counterfeiting deep meditation, ‘why Riah +should have started up, when I told him that the Lammles entreated him +to hold over a Bill of Sale he has on all their effects; and why he +should have cut out, saying he would be back directly; and why he should +have left me here alone so long; I cannot understand.’ + +The chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was not in a +condition to offer any suggestion. He was too penitent, too remorseful. +For the first time in his life he had done an underhanded action, and he +had done wrong. He had secretly interposed against this confiding young +man, for no better real reason than because the young man’s ways were +not his ways. + +But, the confiding young man proceeded to heap coals of fire on his +sensitive head. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr Twemlow; you see I am acquainted with the nature +of the affairs that are transacted here. Is there anything I can do for +you here? You have always been brought up as a gentleman, and never as a +man of business;’ another touch of possible impertinence in this place; +‘and perhaps you are but a poor man of business. What else is to be +expected!’ + +‘I am even a poorer man of business than I am a man, sir,’ returned +Twemlow, ‘and I could hardly express my deficiency in a stronger way. I +really do not so much as clearly understand my position in the matter +on which I am brought here. But there are reasons which make me +very delicate of accepting your assistance. I am greatly, greatly, +disinclined to profit by it. I don’t deserve it.’ + +Good childish creature! Condemned to a passage through the world by such +narrow little dimly-lighted ways, and picking up so few specks or spots +on the road! + +‘Perhaps,’ said Fledgeby, ‘you may be a little proud of entering on the +topic,—having been brought up as a gentleman.’ + +‘It’s not that, sir,’ returned Twemlow, ‘it’s not that. I hope I +distinguish between true pride and false pride.’ + +‘I have no pride at all, myself,’ said Fledgeby, ‘and perhaps I don’t +cut things so fine as to know one from t’other. But I know this is a +place where even a man of business needs his wits about him; and if mine +can be of any use to you here, you’re welcome to them.’ + +‘You are very good,’ said Twemlow, faltering. ‘But I am most +unwilling—’ + +‘I don’t, you know,’ proceeded Fledgeby with an ill-favoured glance, +‘entertain the vanity of supposing that my wits could be of any use +to you in society, but they might be here. You cultivate society and +society cultivates you, but Mr Riah’s not society. In society, Mr Riah +is kept dark; eh, Mr Twemlow?’ + +Twemlow, much disturbed, and with his hand fluttering about his +forehead, replied: ‘Quite true.’ + +The confiding young man besought him to state his case. The innocent +Twemlow, expecting Fledgeby to be astounded by what he should unfold, +and not for an instant conceiving the possibility of its happening every +day, but treating of it as a terrible phenomenon occurring in the course +of ages, related how that he had had a deceased friend, a married civil +officer with a family, who had wanted money for change of place or +change of post, and how he, Twemlow, had ‘given him his name,’ with the +usual, but in the eyes of Twemlow almost incredible result that he had +been left to repay what he had never had. How, in the course of years, +he had reduced the principal by trifling sums, ‘having,’ said Twemlow, +‘always to observe great economy, being in the enjoyment of a fixed +income limited in extent, and that depending on the munificence of +a certain nobleman,’ and had always pinched the full interest out of +himself with punctual pinches. How he had come, in course of time, +to look upon this one only debt of his life as a regular quarterly +drawback, and no worse, when ‘his name’ had some way fallen into the +possession of Mr Riah, who had sent him notice to redeem it by paying up +in full, in one plump sum, or take tremendous consequences. This, with +hazy remembrances of how he had been carried to some office to ‘confess +judgment’ (as he recollected the phrase), and how he had been carried +to another office where his life was assured for somebody not wholly +unconnected with the sherry trade whom he remembered by the remarkable +circumstance that he had a Straduarius violin to dispose of, and also a +Madonna, formed the sum and substance of Mr Twemlow’s narrative. Through +which stalked the shadow of the awful Snigsworth, eyed afar off by +money-lenders as Security in the Mist, and menacing Twemlow with his +baronial truncheon. + +To all, Mr Fledgeby listened with the modest gravity becoming a +confiding young man who knew it all beforehand, and, when it was +finished, seriously shook his head. ‘I don’t like, Mr Twemlow,’ said +Fledgeby, ‘I don’t like Riah’s calling in the principal. If he’s +determined to call it in, it must come.’ + +‘But supposing, sir,’ said Twemlow, downcast, ‘that it can’t come?’ + +‘Then,’ retorted Fledgeby, ‘you must go, you know.’ + +‘Where?’ asked Twemlow, faintly. + +‘To prison,’ returned Fledgeby. Whereat Mr Twemlow leaned his innocent +head upon his hand, and moaned a little moan of distress and disgrace. + +‘However,’ said Fledgeby, appearing to pluck up his spirits, ‘we’ll hope +it’s not so bad as that comes to. If you’ll allow me, I’ll mention to Mr +Riah when he comes in, who you are, and I’ll tell him you’re my friend, +and I’ll say my say for you, instead of your saying it for yourself; I +may be able to do it in a more business-like way. You won’t consider it +a liberty?’ + +‘I thank you again and again, sir,’ said Twemlow. ‘I am strong, +strongly, disinclined to avail myself of your generosity, though my +helplessness yields. For I cannot but feel that I—to put it in the +mildest form of speech—that I have done nothing to deserve it.’ + +‘Where CAN he be?’ muttered Fledgeby, referring to his watch again. +‘What CAN he have gone out for? Did you ever see him, Mr Twemlow?’ + +‘Never.’ + +‘He is a thorough Jew to look at, but he is a more thorough Jew to deal +with. He’s worst when he’s quiet. If he’s quiet, I shall take it as a +very bad sign. Keep your eye upon him when he comes in, and, if he’s +quiet, don’t be hopeful. Here he is!—He looks quiet.’ + +With these words, which had the effect of causing the harmless Twemlow +painful agitation, Mr Fledgeby withdrew to his former post, and the old +man entered the counting-house. + +‘Why, Mr Riah,’ said Fledgeby, ‘I thought you were lost!’ + +The old man, glancing at the stranger, stood stock-still. He perceived +that his master was leading up to the orders he was to take, and he +waited to understand them. + +‘I really thought,’ repeated Fledgeby slowly, ‘that you were lost, Mr +Riah. Why, now I look at you—but no, you can’t have done it; no, you +can’t have done it!’ + +Hat in hand, the old man lifted his head, and looked distressfully at +Fledgeby as seeking to know what new moral burden he was to bear. + +‘You can’t have rushed out to get the start of everybody else, and put +in that bill of sale at Lammle’s?’ said Fledgeby. ‘Say you haven’t, Mr +Riah.’ + +‘Sir, I have,’ replied the old man in a low voice. + +‘Oh my eye!’ cried Fledgeby. ‘Tut, tut, tut! Dear, dear, dear! Well! I +knew you were a hard customer, Mr Riah, but I never thought you were as +hard as that.’ + +‘Sir,’ said the old man, with great uneasiness, ‘I do as I am directed. +I am not the principal here. I am but the agent of a superior, and I +have no choice, no power.’ + +‘Don’t say so,’ retorted Fledgeby, secretly exultant as the old man +stretched out his hands, with a shrinking action of defending himself +against the sharp construction of the two observers. ‘Don’t play the +tune of the trade, Mr Riah. You’ve a right to get in your debts, if +you’re determined to do it, but don’t pretend what every one in your +line regularly pretends. At least, don’t do it to me. Why should you, Mr +Riah? You know I know all about you.’ + +The old man clasped the skirt of his long coat with his disengaged hand, +and directed a wistful look at Fledgeby. + +‘And don’t,’ said Fledgeby, ‘don’t, I entreat you as a favour, Mr Riah, +be so devilish meek, for I know what’ll follow if you are. Look here, Mr +Riah. This gentleman is Mr Twemlow.’ + +The Jew turned to him and bowed. That poor lamb bowed in return; polite, +and terrified. + +‘I have made such a failure,’ proceeded Fledgeby, ‘in trying to do +anything with you for my friend Lammle, that I’ve hardly a hope of doing +anything with you for my friend (and connexion indeed) Mr Twemlow. But +I do think that if you would do a favour for anybody, you would for me, +and I won’t fail for want of trying, and I’ve passed my promise to Mr +Twemlow besides. Now, Mr Riah, here is Mr Twemlow. Always good for his +interest, always coming up to time, always paying his little way. Now, +why should you press Mr Twemlow? You can’t have any spite against Mr +Twemlow! Why not be easy with Mr Twemlow?’ + +The old man looked into Fledgeby’s little eyes for any sign of leave to +be easy with Mr Twemlow; but there was no sign in them. + +‘Mr Twemlow is no connexion of yours, Mr Riah,’ said Fledgeby; ‘you +can’t want to be even with him for having through life gone in for a +gentleman and hung on to his Family. If Mr Twemlow has a contempt for +business, what can it matter to you?’ + +‘But pardon me,’ interposed the gentle victim, ‘I have not. I should +consider it presumption.’ + +‘There, Mr Riah!’ said Fledgeby, ‘isn’t that handsomely said? Come! Make +terms with me for Mr Twemlow.’ + +The old man looked again for any sign of permission to spare the poor +little gentleman. No. Mr Fledgeby meant him to be racked. + +‘I am very sorry, Mr Twemlow,’ said Riah. ‘I have my instructions. I am +invested with no authority for diverging from them. The money must be +paid.’ + +‘In full and slap down, do you mean, Mr Riah?’ asked Fledgeby, to make +things quite explicit. + +‘In full, sir, and at once,’ was Riah’s answer. + +Mr Fledgeby shook his head deploringly at Twemlow, and mutely expressed +in reference to the venerable figure standing before him with eyes upon +the ground: ‘What a Monster of an Israelite this is!’ + +‘Mr Riah,’ said Fledgeby. + +The old man lifted up his eyes once more to the little eyes in Mr +Fledgeby’s head, with some reviving hope that the sign might be coming +yet. + +‘Mr Riah, it’s of no use my holding back the fact. There’s a certain +great party in the background in Mr Twemlow’s case, and you know it.’ + +‘I know it,’ the old man admitted. + +‘Now, I’ll put it as a plain point of business, Mr Riah. Are you fully +determined (as a plain point of business) either to have that said great +party’s security, or that said great party’s money?’ + +‘Fully determined,’ answered Riah, as he read his master’s face, and +learnt the book. + +‘Not at all caring for, and indeed as it seems to me rather enjoying,’ +said Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, ‘the precious kick-up and row that +will come off between Mr Twemlow and the said great party?’ + +This required no answer, and received none. Poor Mr Twemlow, who had +betrayed the keenest mental terrors since his noble kinsman loomed in +the perspective, rose with a sigh to take his departure. ‘I thank you +very much, sir,’ he said, offering Fledgeby his feverish hand. ‘You have +done me an unmerited service. Thank you, thank you!’ + +‘Don’t mention it,’ answered Fledgeby. ‘It’s a failure so far, but I’ll +stay behind, and take another touch at Mr Riah.’ + +‘Do not deceive yourself Mr Twemlow,’ said the Jew, then addressing him +directly for the first time. ‘There is no hope for you. You must expect +no leniency here. You must pay in full, and you cannot pay too promptly, +or you will be put to heavy charges. Trust nothing to me, sir. Money, +money, money.’ When he had said these words in an emphatic manner, he +acknowledged Mr Twemlow’s still polite motion of his head, and that +amiable little worthy took his departure in the lowest spirits. + +Fascination Fledgeby was in such a merry vein when the counting-house +was cleared of him, that he had nothing for it but to go to the window, +and lean his arms on the frame of the blind, and have his silent laugh +out, with his back to his subordinate. When he turned round again with a +composed countenance, his subordinate still stood in the same place, and +the dolls’ dressmaker sat behind the door with a look of horror. + +‘Halloa!’ cried Mr Fledgeby, ‘you’re forgetting this young lady, Mr +Riah, and she has been waiting long enough too. Sell her her waste, +please, and give her good measure if you can make up your mind to do the +liberal thing for once.’ + +He looked on for a time, as the Jew filled her little basket with such +scraps as she was used to buy; but, his merry vein coming on again, he +was obliged to turn round to the window once more, and lean his arms on +the blind. + +‘There, my Cinderella dear,’ said the old man in a whisper, and with a +worn-out look, ‘the basket’s full now. Bless you! And get you gone!’ + +‘Don’t call me your Cinderella dear,’ returned Miss Wren. ‘O you cruel +godmother!’ + +She shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face at +parting, as earnestly and reproachfully as she had ever shaken it at her +grim old child at home. + +‘You are not the godmother at all!’ said she. ‘You are the Wolf in +the Forest, the wicked Wolf! And if ever my dear Lizzie is sold and +betrayed, I shall know who sold and betrayed her!’ + + + + +Chapter 14 + +MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN’S NOSE + + +Having assisted at a few more expositions of the lives of Misers, Mr +Venus became almost indispensable to the evenings at the Bower. The +circumstance of having another listener to the wonders unfolded by +Wegg, or, as it were, another calculator to cast up the guineas found in +teapots, chimneys, racks and mangers, and other such banks of deposit, +seemed greatly to heighten Mr Boffin’s enjoyment; while Silas Wegg, for +his part, though of a jealous temperament which might under ordinary +circumstances have resented the anatomist’s getting into favour, was +so very anxious to keep his eye on that gentleman—lest, being too +much left to himself, he should be tempted to play any tricks with the +precious document in his keeping—that he never lost an opportunity of +commending him to Mr Boffin’s notice as a third party whose company was +much to be desired. Another friendly demonstration towards him Mr Wegg +now regularly gratified. After each sitting was over, and the patron +had departed, Mr Wegg invariably saw Mr Venus home. To be sure, he as +invariably requested to be refreshed with a sight of the paper in which +he was a joint proprietor; but he never failed to remark that it was the +great pleasure he derived from Mr Venus’s improving society which had +insensibly lured him round to Clerkenwell again, and that, finding +himself once more attracted to the spot by the social powers of Mr V., +he would beg leave to go through that little incidental procedure, as a +matter of form. ‘For well I know, sir,’ Mr Wegg would add, ‘that a +man of your delicate mind would wish to be checked off whenever the +opportunity arises, and it is not for me to baulk your feelings.’ + +A certain rustiness in Mr Venus, which never became so lubricated by +the oil of Mr Wegg but that he turned under the screw in a creaking and +stiff manner, was very noticeable at about this period. While assisting +at the literary evenings, he even went so far, on two or three +occasions, as to correct Mr Wegg when he grossly mispronounced a word, +or made nonsense of a passage; insomuch that Mr Wegg took to surveying +his course in the day, and to making arrangements for getting round +rocks at night instead of running straight upon them. Of the slightest +anatomical reference he became particularly shy, and, if he saw a bone +ahead, would go any distance out of his way rather than mention it by +name. + +The adverse destinies ordained that one evening Mr Wegg’s labouring +bark became beset by polysyllables, and embarrassed among a perfect +archipelago of hard words. It being necessary to take soundings every +minute, and to feel the way with the greatest caution, Mr Wegg’s +attention was fully employed. Advantage was taken of this dilemma by +Mr Venus, to pass a scrap of paper into Mr Boffin’s hand, and lay his +finger on his own lip. + +When Mr Boffin got home at night he found that the paper contained Mr +Venus’s card and these words: ‘Should be glad to be honoured with a call +respecting business of your own, about dusk on an early evening.’ + +The very next evening saw Mr Boffin peeping in at the preserved frogs +in Mr Venus’s shop-window, and saw Mr Venus espying Mr Boffin with the +readiness of one on the alert, and beckoning that gentleman into his +interior. Responding, Mr Boffin was invited to seat himself on the box +of human miscellanies before the fire, and did so, looking round the +place with admiring eyes. The fire being low and fitful, and the dusk +gloomy, the whole stock seemed to be winking and blinking with both +eyes, as Mr Venus did. The French gentleman, though he had no eyes, was +not at all behind-hand, but appeared, as the flame rose and fell, to +open and shut his no eyes, with the regularity of the glass-eyed dogs +and ducks and birds. The big-headed babies were equally obliging in +lending their grotesque aid to the general effect. + +‘You see, Mr Venus, I’ve lost no time,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Here I am.’ + +‘Here you are, sir,’ assented Mr Venus. + +‘I don’t like secrecy,’ pursued Mr Boffin—‘at least, not in a general +way I don’t—but I dare say you’ll show me good reason for being secret +so far.’ + +‘I think I shall, sir,’ returned Venus. + +‘Good,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘You don’t expect Wegg, I take it for granted?’ + +‘No, sir. I expect no one but the present company.’ + +Mr Boffin glanced about him, as accepting under that inclusive +denomination the French gentleman and the circle in which he didn’t +move, and repeated, ‘The present company.’ + +‘Sir,’ said Mr Venus, ‘before entering upon business, I shall have to +ask you for your word and honour that we are in confidence.’ + +‘Let’s wait a bit and understand what the expression means,’ answered Mr +Boffin. ‘In confidence for how long? In confidence for ever and a day?’ + +‘I take your hint, sir,’ said Venus; ‘you think you might consider the +business, when you came to know it, to be of a nature incompatible with +confidence on your part?’ + +‘I might,’ said Mr Boffin with a cautious look. + +‘True, sir. Well, sir,’ observed Venus, after clutching at his dusty +hair, to brighten his ideas, ‘let us put it another way. I open the +business with you, relying upon your honour not to do anything in it, +and not to mention me in it, without my knowledge.’ + +‘That sounds fair,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘I agree to that.’ + +‘I have your word and honour, sir?’ + +‘My good fellow,’ retorted Mr Boffin, ‘you have my word; and how you +can have that, without my honour too, I don’t know. I’ve sorted a lot +of dust in my time, but I never knew the two things go into separate +heaps.’ + +This remark seemed rather to abash Mr Venus. He hesitated, and said, +‘Very true, sir;’ and again, ‘Very true, sir,’ before resuming the +thread of his discourse. + +‘Mr Boffin, if I confess to you that I fell into a proposal of which you +were the subject, and of which you oughtn’t to have been the subject, +you will allow me to mention, and will please take into favourable +consideration, that I was in a crushed state of mind at the time.’ + +The Golden Dustman, with his hands folded on the top of his stout +stick, with his chin resting upon them, and with something leering and +whimsical in his eyes, gave a nod, and said, ‘Quite so, Venus.’ + +‘That proposal, sir, was a conspiring breach of your confidence, to +such an extent, that I ought at once to have made it known to you. But I +didn’t, Mr Boffin, and I fell into it.’ + +Without moving eye or finger, Mr Boffin gave another nod, and placidly +repeated, ‘Quite so, Venus.’ + +‘Not that I was ever hearty in it, sir,’ the penitent anatomist went +on, ‘or that I ever viewed myself with anything but reproach for having +turned out of the paths of science into the paths of—’ he was going +to say ‘villany,’ but, unwilling to press too hard upon himself, +substituted with great emphasis—‘Weggery.’ + +Placid and whimsical of look as ever, Mr Boffin answered: + +‘Quite so, Venus.’ + +‘And now, sir,’ said Venus, ‘having prepared your mind in the rough, I +will articulate the details.’ With which brief professional exordium, he +entered on the history of the friendly move, and truly recounted it. One +might have thought that it would have extracted some show of surprise or +anger, or other emotion, from Mr Boffin, but it extracted nothing beyond +his former comment: + +‘Quite so, Venus.’ + +‘I have astonished you, sir, I believe?’ said Mr Venus, pausing +dubiously. + +Mr Boffin simply answered as aforesaid: ‘Quite so, Venus.’ + +By this time the astonishment was all on the other side. It did not, +however, so continue. For, when Venus passed to Wegg’s discovery, and +from that to their having both seen Mr Boffin dig up the Dutch bottle, +that gentleman changed colour, changed his attitude, became extremely +restless, and ended (when Venus ended) by being in a state of manifest +anxiety, trepidation, and confusion. + +‘Now, sir,’ said Venus, finishing off; ‘you best know what was in that +Dutch bottle, and why you dug it up, and took it away. I don’t pretend +to know anything more about it than I saw. All I know is this: I am +proud of my calling after all (though it has been attended by one +dreadful drawback which has told upon my heart, and almost equally upon +my skeleton), and I mean to live by my calling. Putting the same meaning +into other words, I do not mean to turn a single dishonest penny by this +affair. As the best amends I can make you for having ever gone into it, +I make known to you, as a warning, what Wegg has found out. My opinion +is, that Wegg is not to be silenced at a modest price, and I build that +opinion on his beginning to dispose of your property the moment he knew +his power. Whether it’s worth your while to silence him at any price, +you will decide for yourself, and take your measures accordingly. As +far as I am concerned, I have no price. If I am ever called upon for +the truth, I tell it, but I want to do no more than I have now done and +ended.’ + +‘Thank’ee, Venus!’ said Mr Boffin, with a hearty grip of his hand; +‘thank’ee, Venus, thank’ee, Venus!’ And then walked up and down the +little shop in great agitation. ‘But look here, Venus,’ he by-and-by +resumed, nervously sitting down again; ‘if I have to buy Wegg up, I +shan’t buy him any cheaper for your being out of it. Instead of his +having half the money—it was to have been half, I suppose? Share and +share alike?’ + +‘It was to have been half, sir,’ answered Venus. + +‘Instead of that, he’ll now have all. I shall pay the same, if not more. +For you tell me he’s an unconscionable dog, a ravenous rascal.’ + +‘He is,’ said Venus. + +‘Don’t you think, Venus,’ insinuated Mr Boffin, after looking at the +fire for a while—‘don’t you feel as if—you might like to pretend to be +in it till Wegg was bought up, and then ease your mind by handing over +to me what you had made believe to pocket?’ + +‘No I don’t, sir,’ returned Venus, very positively. + +‘Not to make amends?’ insinuated Mr Boffin. + +‘No, sir. It seems to me, after maturely thinking it over, that the best +amends for having got out of the square is to get back into the square.’ + +‘Humph!’ mused Mr Boffin. ‘When you say the square, you mean—’ + +‘I mean,’ said Venus, stoutly and shortly, ‘the right.’ + +‘It appears to me,’ said Mr Boffin, grumbling over the fire in an +injured manner, ‘that the right is with me, if it’s anywhere. I have +much more right to the old man’s money than the Crown can ever have. +What was the Crown to him except the King’s Taxes? Whereas, me and my +wife, we was all in all to him.’ + +Mr Venus, with his head upon his hands, rendered melancholy by the +contemplation of Mr Boffin’s avarice, only murmured to steep himself +in the luxury of that frame of mind: ‘She did not wish so to regard +herself, nor yet to be so regarded.’ + +‘And how am I to live,’ asked Mr Boffin, piteously, ‘if I’m to be going +buying fellows up out of the little that I’ve got? And how am I to set +about it? When am I to get my money ready? When am I to make a bid? You +haven’t told me when he threatens to drop down upon me.’ + +Venus explained under what conditions, and with what views, the dropping +down upon Mr Boffin was held over until the Mounds should be cleared +away. Mr Boffin listened attentively. ‘I suppose,’ said he, with a +gleam of hope, ‘there’s no doubt about the genuineness and date of this +confounded will?’ + +‘None whatever,’ said Mr Venus. + +‘Where might it be deposited at present?’ asked Mr Boffin, in a +wheedling tone. + +‘It’s in my possession, sir.’ + +‘Is it?’ he cried, with great eagerness. ‘Now, for any liberal sum of +money that could be agreed upon, Venus, would you put it in the fire?’ + +‘No, sir, I wouldn’t,’ interrupted Mr Venus. + +‘Nor pass it over to me?’ + +‘That would be the same thing. No, sir,’ said Mr Venus. + +The Golden Dustman seemed about to pursue these questions, when a +stumping noise was heard outside, coming towards the door. ‘Hush! here’s +Wegg!’ said Venus. ‘Get behind the young alligator in the corner, Mr +Boffin, and judge him for yourself. I won’t light a candle till he’s +gone; there’ll only be the glow of the fire; Wegg’s well acquainted with +the alligator, and he won’t take particular notice of him. Draw your +legs in, Mr Boffin, at present I see a pair of shoes at the end of his +tail. Get your head well behind his smile, Mr Boffin, and you’ll lie +comfortable there; you’ll find plenty of room behind his smile. He’s a +little dusty, but he’s very like you in tone. Are you right, sir?’ + +Mr Boffin had but whispered an affirmative response, when Wegg came +stumping in. ‘Partner,’ said that gentleman in a sprightly manner, +‘how’s yourself?’ + +‘Tolerable,’ returned Mr Venus. ‘Not much to boast of.’ + +‘In-deed!’ said Wegg: ‘sorry, partner, that you’re not picking up +faster, but your soul’s too large for your body, sir; that’s where +it is. And how’s our stock in trade, partner? Safe bind, safe find, +partner? Is that about it?’ + +‘Do you wish to see it?’ asked Venus. + +‘If you please, partner,’ said Wegg, rubbing his hands. ‘I wish to see +it jintly with yourself. Or, in similar words to some that was set to +music some time back: + + “I wish you to see it with your eyes, + And I will pledge with mine.”’ + +Turning his back and turning a key, Mr Venus produced the document, +holding on by his usual corner. Mr Wegg, holding on by the opposite +corner, sat down on the seat so lately vacated by Mr Boffin, and looked +it over. ‘All right, sir,’ he slowly and unwillingly admitted, in his +reluctance to loose his hold, ‘all right!’ And greedily watched his +partner as he turned his back again, and turned his key again. + +‘There’s nothing new, I suppose?’ said Venus, resuming his low chair +behind the counter. + +‘Yes there is, sir,’ replied Wegg; ‘there was something new this +morning. That foxey old grasper and griper—’ + +‘Mr Boffin?’ inquired Venus, with a glance towards the alligator’s yard +or two of smile. + +‘Mister be blowed!’ cried Wegg, yielding to his honest indignation. +‘Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old grunter and grinder, sir, turns +into the yard this morning, to meddle with our property, a menial tool +of his own, a young man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him, +“What do you want here, young man? This is a private yard,” he pulls out +a paper from Boffin’s other blackguard, the one I was passed over for. +“This is to authorize Sloppy to overlook the carting and to watch the +work.” That’s pretty strong, I think, Mr Venus?’ + +‘Remember he doesn’t know yet of our claim on the property,’ suggested +Venus. + +‘Then he must have a hint of it,’ said Wegg, ‘and a strong one that’ll +jog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, and he’ll take an ell. Let him +alone this time, and what’ll he do with our property next? I tell you +what, Mr Venus; it comes to this; I must be overbearing with Boffin, or +I shall fly into several pieces. I can’t contain myself when I look +at him. Every time I see him putting his hand in his pocket, I see him +putting it into my pocket. Every time I hear him jingling his money, I +hear him taking liberties with my money. Flesh and blood can’t bear it. +No,’ said Mr Wegg, greatly exasperated, ‘and I’ll go further. A wooden +leg can’t bear it!’ + +‘But, Mr Wegg,’ urged Venus, ‘it was your own idea that he should not be +exploded upon, till the Mounds were carted away.’ + +‘But it was likewise my idea, Mr Venus,’ retorted Wegg, ‘that if he came +sneaking and sniffing about the property, he should be threatened, given +to understand that he has no right to it, and be made our slave. Wasn’t +that my idea, Mr Venus?’ + +‘It certainly was, Mr Wegg.’ + +‘It certainly was, as you say, partner,’ assented Wegg, put into +a better humour by the ready admission. ‘Very well. I consider his +planting one of his menial tools in the yard, an act of sneaking and +sniffing. And his nose shall be put to the grindstone for it.’ + +‘It was not your fault, Mr Wegg, I must admit,’ said Venus, ‘that he got +off with the Dutch bottle that night.’ + +‘As you handsomely say again, partner! No, it was not my fault. I’d have +had that bottle out of him. Was it to be borne that he should come, like +a thief in the dark, digging among stuff that was far more ours than his +(seeing that we could deprive him of every grain of it, if he didn’t buy +us at our own figure), and carrying off treasure from its bowels? No, +it was not to be borne. And for that, too, his nose shall be put to the +grindstone.’ + +‘How do you propose to do it, Mr Wegg?’ + +‘To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose,’ returned that estimable +man, ‘to insult him openly. And, if looking into this eye of mine, he +dares to offer a word in answer, to retort upon him before he can take +his breath, “Add another word to that, you dusty old dog, and you’re a +beggar.”’ + +‘Suppose he says nothing, Mr Wegg?’ + +‘Then,’ replied Wegg, ‘we shall have come to an understanding with very +little trouble, and I’ll break him and drive him, Mr Venus. I’ll put +him in harness, and I’ll bear him up tight, and I’ll break him and drive +him. The harder the old Dust is driven, sir, the higher he’ll pay. And I +mean to be paid high, Mr Venus, I promise you.’ + +‘You speak quite revengefully, Mr Wegg.’ + +‘Revengefully, sir? Is it for him that I have declined and falled, +night after night? Is it for his pleasure that I’ve waited at home of an +evening, like a set of skittles, to be set up and knocked over, set up +and knocked over, by whatever balls—or books—he chose to bring against +me? Why, I’m a hundred times the man he is, sir; five hundred times!’ + +Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his worst +that Mr Venus looked as if he doubted that. + +‘What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its disgrace, +by that minion of fortune and worm of the hour,’ said Wegg, falling back +upon his strongest terms of reprobation, and slapping the counter, +‘that I, Silas Wegg, five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in all +weathers, waiting for a errand or a customer? Was it outside that very +house as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when I +was selling halfpenny ballads there for a living? And am I to grovel in +the dust for HIM to walk over? No!’ + +There was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the French gentleman +under the influence of the firelight, as if he were computing how many +thousand slanderers and traitors array themselves against the fortunate, +on premises exactly answering to those of Mr Wegg. One might have +fancied that the big-headed babies were toppling over with their +hydrocephalic attempts to reckon up the children of men who transform +their benefactors into their injurers by the same process. The yard or +two of smile on the part of the alligator might have been invested with +the meaning, ‘All about this was quite familiar knowledge down in the +depths of the slime, ages ago.’ + +‘But,’ said Wegg, possibly with some slight perception to the foregoing +effect, ‘your speaking countenance remarks, Mr Venus, that I’m duller +and savager than usual. Perhaps I HAVE allowed myself to brood too much. +Begone, dull Care! ’tis gone, sir. I’ve looked in upon you, and empire +resumes her sway. For, as the song says—subject to your correction, +sir— + + “When the heart of a man is depressed with cares, + The mist is dispelled if Venus appears. + Like the notes of a fiddle, you sweetly, sir, sweetly, + Raises our spirits and charms our ears.” + +Good-night, sir.’ + +‘I shall have a word or two to say to you, Mr Wegg, before long,’ +remarked Venus, ‘respecting my share in the project we’ve been speaking +of.’ + +‘My time, sir,’ returned Wegg, ‘is yours. In the meanwhile let it be +fully understood that I shall not neglect bringing the grindstone to +bear, nor yet bringing Dusty Boffin’s nose to it. His nose once brought +to it, shall be held to it by these hands, Mr Venus, till the sparks +flies out in showers.’ + +With this agreeable promise Wegg stumped out, and shut the shop-door +after him. ‘Wait till I light a candle, Mr Boffin,’ said Venus, ‘and +you’ll come out more comfortable.’ So, he lighting a candle and holding +it up at arm’s length, Mr Boffin disengaged himself from behind the +alligator’s smile, with an expression of countenance so very downcast +that it not only appeared as if the alligator had the whole of the joke +to himself, but further as if it had been conceived and executed at Mr +Boffin’s expense. + +‘That’s a treacherous fellow,’ said Mr Boffin, dusting his arms and legs +as he came forth, the alligator having been but musty company. ‘That’s a +dreadful fellow.’ + +‘The alligator, sir?’ said Venus. + +‘No, Venus, no. The Serpent.’ + +‘You’ll have the goodness to notice, Mr Boffin,’ remarked Venus, ‘that I +said nothing to him about my going out of the affair altogether, because +I didn’t wish to take you anyways by surprise. But I can’t be too soon +out of it for my satisfaction, Mr Boffin, and I now put it to you when +it will suit your views for me to retire?’ + +‘Thank’ee, Venus, thank’ee, Venus; but I don’t know what to say,’ +returned Mr Boffin, ‘I don’t know what to do. He’ll drop down on me any +way. He seems fully determined to drop down; don’t he?’ + +Mr Venus opined that such was clearly his intention. + +‘You might be a sort of protection for me, if you remained in it,’ said +Mr Boffin; ‘you might stand betwixt him and me, and take the edge off +him. Don’t you feel as if you could make a show of remaining in it, +Venus, till I had time to turn myself round?’ + +Venus naturally inquired how long Mr Boffin thought it might take him to +turn himself round? + +‘I am sure I don’t know,’ was the answer, given quite at a loss. +‘Everything is so at sixes and sevens. If I had never come into the +property, I shouldn’t have minded. But being in it, it would be very +trying to be turned out; now, don’t you acknowledge that it would, +Venus?’ + +Mr Venus preferred, he said, to leave Mr Boffin to arrive at his own +conclusions on that delicate question. + +‘I am sure I don’t know what to do,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘If I ask advice of +any one else, it’s only letting in another person to be bought out, and +then I shall be ruined that way, and might as well have given up the +property and gone slap to the workhouse. If I was to take advice of my +young man, Rokesmith, I should have to buy HIM out. Sooner or later, of +course, he’d drop down upon me, like Wegg. I was brought into the world +to be dropped down upon, it appears to me.’ + +Mr Venus listened to these lamentations in silence, while Mr Boffin +jogged to and fro, holding his pockets as if he had a pain in them. + +‘After all, you haven’t said what you mean to do yourself, Venus. When +you do go out of it, how do you mean to go?’ + +Venus replied that as Wegg had found the document and handed it to him, +it was his intention to hand it back to Wegg, with the declaration that +he himself would have nothing to say to it, or do with it, and that Wegg +must act as he chose, and take the consequences. + +‘And then he drops down with his whole weight upon ME!’ cried Mr Boffin, +ruefully. ‘I’d sooner be dropped upon by you than by him, or even by you +jintly, than by him alone!’ + +Mr Venus could only repeat that it was his fixed intention to betake +himself to the paths of science, and to walk in the same all the days +of his life; not dropping down upon his fellow-creatures until they were +deceased, and then only to articulate them to the best of his humble +ability. + +‘How long could you be persuaded to keep up the appearance of remaining +in it?’ asked Mr Boffin, retiring on his other idea. ‘Could you be got +to do so, till the Mounds are gone?’ + +No. That would protract the mental uneasiness of Mr Venus too long, he +said. + +‘Not if I was to show you reason now?’ demanded Mr Boffin; ‘not if I was +to show you good and sufficient reason?’ + +If by good and sufficient reason Mr Boffin meant honest and +unimpeachable reason, that might weigh with Mr Venus against his +personal wishes and convenience. But he must add that he saw no opening +to the possibility of such reason being shown him. + +‘Come and see me, Venus,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘at my house.’ + +‘Is the reason there, sir?’ asked Mr Venus, with an incredulous smile +and blink. + +‘It may be, or may not be,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘just as you view it. But +in the meantime don’t go out of the matter. Look here. Do this. Give me +your word that you won’t take any steps with Wegg, without my knowledge, +just as I have given you my word that I won’t without yours.’ + +‘Done, Mr Boffin!’ said Venus, after brief consideration. + +‘Thank’ee, Venus, thank’ee, Venus! Done!’ + +‘When shall I come to see you, Mr Boffin.’ + +‘When you like. The sooner the better. I must be going now. Good-night, +Venus.’ + +‘Good-night, sir.’ + +‘And good-night to the rest of the present company,’ said Mr Boffin, +glancing round the shop. ‘They make a queer show, Venus, and I should +like to be better acquainted with them some day. Good-night, Venus, +good-night! Thankee, Venus, thankee, Venus!’ With that he jogged out +into the street, and jogged upon his homeward way. + +‘Now, I wonder,’ he meditated as he went along, nursing his stick, +‘whether it can be, that Venus is setting himself to get the better of +Wegg? Whether it can be, that he means, when I have bought Wegg out, to +have me all to himself and to pick me clean to the bones!’ + +It was a cunning and suspicious idea, quite in the way of his school +of Misers, and he looked very cunning and suspicious as he went jogging +through the streets. More than once or twice, more than twice or thrice, +say half a dozen times, he took his stick from the arm on which he +nursed it, and hit a straight sharp rap at the air with its head. +Possibly the wooden countenance of Mr Silas Wegg was incorporeally +before him at those moments, for he hit with intense satisfaction. + +He was within a few streets of his own house, when a little private +carriage, coming in the contrary direction, passed him, turned round, +and passed him again. It was a little carriage of eccentric movement, +for again he heard it stop behind him and turn round, and again he saw +it pass him. Then it stopped, and then went on, out of sight. But, not +far out of sight, for, when he came to the corner of his own street, +there it stood again. + +There was a lady’s face at the window as he came up with this carriage, +and he was passing it when the lady softly called to him by his name. + +‘I beg your pardon, Ma’am?’ said Mr Boffin, coming to a stop. + +‘It is Mrs Lammle,’ said the lady. + +Mr Boffin went up to the window, and hoped Mrs Lammle was well. + +‘Not very well, dear Mr Boffin; I have fluttered myself by +being—perhaps foolishly—uneasy and anxious. I have been waiting for +you some time. Can I speak to you?’ + +Mr Boffin proposed that Mrs Lammle should drive on to his house, a few +hundred yards further. + +‘I would rather not, Mr Boffin, unless you particularly wish it. I feel +the difficulty and delicacy of the matter so much that I would rather +avoid speaking to you at your own home. You must think this very +strange?’ + +Mr Boffin said no, but meant yes. + +‘It is because I am so grateful for the good opinion of all my +friends, and am so touched by it, that I cannot bear to run the risk of +forfeiting it in any case, even in the cause of duty. I have asked my +husband (my dear Alfred, Mr Boffin) whether it is the cause of duty, +and he has most emphatically said Yes. I wish I had asked him sooner. It +would have spared me much distress.’ + +(‘Can this be more dropping down upon me!’ thought Mr Boffin, quite +bewildered.) + +‘It was Alfred who sent me to you, Mr Boffin. Alfred said, “Don’t +come back, Sophronia, until you have seen Mr Boffin, and told him all. +Whatever he may think of it, he ought certainly to know it.” Would you +mind coming into the carriage?’ + +Mr Boffin answered, ‘Not at all,’ and took his seat at Mrs Lammle’s +side. + +‘Drive slowly anywhere,’ Mrs Lammle called to her coachman, ‘and don’t +let the carriage rattle.’ + +‘It MUST be more dropping down, I think,’ said Mr Boffin to himself. +‘What next?’ + + + + +Chapter 15 + +THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST + + +The breakfast table at Mr Boffin’s was usually a very pleasant one, and +was always presided over by Bella. As though he began each new day in +his healthy natural character, and some waking hours were necessary to +his relapse into the corrupting influences of his wealth, the face and +the demeanour of the Golden Dustman were generally unclouded at that +meal. It would have been easy to believe then, that there was no change +in him. It was as the day went on that the clouds gathered, and the +brightness of the morning became obscured. One might have said that the +shadows of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow lengthened, +and that the night closed around him gradually. + +But, one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it was black midnight +with the Golden Dustman when he first appeared. His altered character +had never been so grossly marked. His bearing towards his Secretary was +so charged with insolent distrust and arrogance, that the latter rose +and left the table before breakfast was half done. The look he directed +at the Secretary’s retiring figure was so cunningly malignant, that +Bella would have sat astounded and indignant, even though he had not +gone the length of secretly threatening Rokesmith with his clenched +fist as he closed the door. This unlucky morning, of all mornings in the +year, was the morning next after Mr Boffin’s interview with Mrs Lammle +in her little carriage. + +Bella looked to Mrs Boffin’s face for comment on, or explanation of, +this stormy humour in her husband, but none was there. An anxious and +a distressed observation of her own face was all she could read in it. +When they were left alone together—which was not until noon, for Mr +Boffin sat long in his easy-chair, by turns jogging up and down +the breakfast-room, clenching his fist and muttering—Bella, in +consternation, asked her what had happened, what was wrong? ‘I am +forbidden to speak to you about it, Bella dear; I mustn’t tell you,’ +was all the answer she could get. And still, whenever, in her wonder and +dismay, she raised her eyes to Mrs Boffin’s face, she saw in it the same +anxious and distressed observation of her own. + +Oppressed by her sense that trouble was impending, and lost in +speculations why Mrs Boffin should look at her as if she had any part in +it, Bella found the day long and dreary. It was far on in the afternoon +when, she being in her own room, a servant brought her a message from Mr +Boffin begging her to come to his. + +Mrs Boffin was there, seated on a sofa, and Mr Boffin was jogging up and +down. On seeing Bella he stopped, beckoned her to him, and drew her arm +through his. ‘Don’t be alarmed, my dear,’ he said, gently; ‘I am not +angry with you. Why you actually tremble! Don’t be alarmed, Bella my +dear. I’ll see you righted.’ + +‘See me righted?’ thought Bella. And then repeated aloud in a tone of +astonishment: ‘see me righted, sir?’ + +‘Ay, ay!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘See you righted. Send Mr Rokesmith here, you +sir.’ + +Bella would have been lost in perplexity if there had been pause +enough; but the servant found Mr Rokesmith near at hand, and he almost +immediately presented himself. + +‘Shut the door, sir!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘I have got something to say to +you which I fancy you’ll not be pleased to hear.’ + +‘I am sorry to reply, Mr Boffin,’ returned the Secretary, as, having +closed the door, he turned and faced him, ‘that I think that very +likely.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ blustered Mr Boffin. + +‘I mean that it has become no novelty to me to hear from your lips what +I would rather not hear.’ + +‘Oh! Perhaps we shall change that,’ said Mr Boffin with a threatening +roll of his head. + +‘I hope so,’ returned the Secretary. He was quiet and respectful; but +stood, as Bella thought (and was glad to think), on his manhood too. + +‘Now, sir,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘look at this young lady on my arm.’ + +Bella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden reference was +made to herself, met those of Mr Rokesmith. He was pale and seemed +agitated. Then her eyes passed on to Mrs Boffin’s, and she met the look +again. In a flash it enlightened her, and she began to understand what +she had done. + +‘I say to you, sir,’ Mr Boffin repeated, ‘look at this young lady on my +arm.’ + +‘I do so,’ returned the Secretary. + +As his glance rested again on Bella for a moment, she thought there was +reproach in it. But it is possible that the reproach was within herself. + +‘How dare you, sir,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘tamper, unknown to me, with this +young lady? How dare you come out of your station, and your place in my +house, to pester this young lady with your impudent addresses?’ + +‘I must decline to answer questions,’ said the Secretary, ‘that are so +offensively asked.’ + +‘You decline to answer?’ retorted Mr Boffin. ‘You decline to answer, +do you? Then I’ll tell you what it is, Rokesmith; I’ll answer for you. +There are two sides to this matter, and I’ll take ’em separately. The +first side is, sheer Insolence. That’s the first side.’ + +The Secretary smiled with some bitterness, as though he would have said, +‘So I see and hear.’ + +‘It was sheer Insolence in you, I tell you,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘even to +think of this young lady. This young lady was far above YOU. This young +lady was no match for YOU. This young lady was lying in wait (as she was +qualified to do) for money, and you had no money.’ + +Bella hung her head and seemed to shrink a little from Mr Boffin’s +protecting arm. + +‘What are you, I should like to know,’ pursued Mr Boffin, ‘that you were +to have the audacity to follow up this young lady? This young lady was +looking about the market for a good bid; she wasn’t in it to be snapped +up by fellows that had no money to lay out; nothing to buy with.’ + +‘Oh, Mr Boffin! Mrs Boffin, pray say something for me!’ murmured Bella, +disengaging her arm, and covering her face with her hands. + +‘Old lady,’ said Mr Boffin, anticipating his wife, ‘you hold your +tongue. Bella, my dear, don’t you let yourself be put out. I’ll right +you.’ + +‘But you don’t, you don’t right me!’ exclaimed Bella, with great +emphasis. ‘You wrong me, wrong me!’ + +‘Don’t you be put out, my dear,’ complacently retorted Mr Boffin. ‘I’ll +bring this young man to book. Now, you Rokesmith! You can’t decline +to hear, you know, as well as to answer. You hear me tell you that the +first side of your conduct was Insolence—Insolence and Presumption. +Answer me one thing, if you can. Didn’t this young lady tell you so +herself?’ + +‘Did I, Mr Rokesmith?’ asked Bella with her face still covered. ‘O say, +Mr Rokesmith! Did I?’ + +‘Don’t be distressed, Miss Wilfer; it matters very little now.’ + +‘Ah! You can’t deny it, though!’ said Mr Boffin, with a knowing shake of +his head. + +‘But I have asked him to forgive me since,’ cried Bella; ‘and I would +ask him to forgive me now again, upon my knees, if it would spare him!’ + +Here Mrs Boffin broke out a-crying. + +‘Old lady,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘stop that noise! Tender-hearted in you, +Miss Bella; but I mean to have it out right through with this young man, +having got him into a corner. Now, you Rokesmith. I tell you that’s one +side of your conduct—Insolence and Presumption. Now, I’m a-coming to +the other, which is much worse. This was a speculation of yours.’ + +‘I indignantly deny it.’ + +‘It’s of no use your denying it; it doesn’t signify a bit whether +you deny it or not; I’ve got a head upon my shoulders, and it ain’t a +baby’s. What!’ said Mr Boffin, gathering himself together in his most +suspicious attitude, and wrinkling his face into a very map of curves +and corners. ‘Don’t I know what grabs are made at a man with money? If +I didn’t keep my eyes open, and my pockets buttoned, shouldn’t I +be brought to the workhouse before I knew where I was? Wasn’t the +experience of Dancer, and Elwes, and Hopkins, and Blewbury Jones, and +ever so many more of ’em, similar to mine? Didn’t everybody want to make +grabs at what they’d got, and bring ’em to poverty and ruin? Weren’t +they forced to hide everything belonging to ’em, for fear it should be +snatched from ’em? Of course they was. I shall be told next that they +didn’t know human natur!’ + +‘They! Poor creatures,’ murmured the Secretary. + +‘What do you say?’ asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him. ‘However, you +needn’t be at the trouble of repeating it, for it ain’t worth hearing, +and won’t go down with ME. I’m a-going to unfold your plan, before this +young lady; I’m a-going to show this young lady the second view of you; +and nothing you can say will stave it off. (Now, attend here, Bella, my +dear.) Rokesmith, you’re a needy chap. You’re a chap that I pick up in +the street. Are you, or ain’t you?’ + +‘Go on, Mr Boffin; don’t appeal to me.’ + +‘Not appeal to YOU,’ retorted Mr Boffin as if he hadn’t done so. ‘No, +I should hope not! Appealing to YOU, would be rather a rum course. As I +was saying, you’re a needy chap that I pick up in the street. You come +and ask me in the street to take you for a Secretary, and I take you. +Very good.’ + +‘Very bad,’ murmured the Secretary. + +‘What do you say?’ asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him again. + +He returned no answer. Mr Boffin, after eyeing him with a comical look +of discomfited curiosity, was fain to begin afresh. + +‘This Rokesmith is a needy young man that I take for my Secretary out +of the open street. This Rokesmith gets acquainted with my affairs, and +gets to know that I mean to settle a sum of money on this young lady. +“Oho!” says this Rokesmith;’ here Mr Boffin clapped a finger against +his nose, and tapped it several times with a sneaking air, as embodying +Rokesmith confidentially confabulating with his own nose; ‘“This will +be a good haul; I’ll go in for this!” And so this Rokesmith, greedy and +hungering, begins a-creeping on his hands and knees towards the money. +Not so bad a speculation either: for if this young lady had had less +spirit, or had had less sense, through being at all in the romantic +line, by George he might have worked it out and made it pay! But +fortunately she was too many for him, and a pretty figure he cuts now +he is exposed. There he stands!’ said Mr Boffin, addressing Rokesmith +himself with ridiculous inconsistency. ‘Look at him!’ + +‘Your unfortunate suspicions, Mr Boffin—’ began the Secretary. + +‘Precious unfortunate for you, I can tell you,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘—are not to be combated by any one, and I address myself to no such +hopeless task. But I will say a word upon the truth.’ + +‘Yah! Much you care about the truth,’ said Mr Boffin, with a snap of his +fingers. + +‘Noddy! My dear love!’ expostulated his wife. + +‘Old lady,’ returned Mr Boffin, ‘you keep still. I say to this Rokesmith +here, much he cares about the truth. I tell him again, much he cares +about the truth.’ + +‘Our connexion being at an end, Mr Boffin,’ said the Secretary, ‘it can +be of very little moment to me what you say.’ + +‘Oh! You are knowing enough,’ retorted Mr Boffin, with a sly look, ‘to +have found out that our connexion’s at an end, eh? But you can’t get +beforehand with me. Look at this in my hand. This is your pay, on your +discharge. You can only follow suit. You can’t deprive me of the lead. +Let’s have no pretending that you discharge yourself. I discharge you.’ + +‘So that I go,’ remarked the Secretary, waving the point aside with his +hand, ‘it is all one to me.’ + +‘Is it?’ said Mr Boffin. ‘But it’s two to me, let me tell you. +Allowing a fellow that’s found out, to discharge himself, is one thing; +discharging him for insolence and presumption, and likewise for designs +upon his master’s money, is another. One and one’s two; not one. (Old +lady, don’t you cut in. You keep still.)’ + +‘Have you said all you wish to say to me?’ demanded the Secretary. + +‘I don’t know whether I have or not,’ answered Mr Boffin. ‘It depends.’ + +‘Perhaps you will consider whether there are any other strong +expressions that you would like to bestow upon me?’ + +‘I’ll consider that,’ said Mr Boffin, obstinately, ‘at my convenience, +and not at yours. You want the last word. It may not be suitable to let +you have it.’ + +‘Noddy! My dear, dear Noddy! You sound so hard!’ cried poor Mrs Boffin, +not to be quite repressed. + +‘Old lady,’ said her husband, but without harshness, ‘if you cut in when +requested not, I’ll get a pillow and carry you out of the room upon it. +What do you want to say, you Rokesmith?’ + +‘To you, Mr Boffin, nothing. But to Miss Wilfer and to your good kind +wife, a word.’ + +‘Out with it then,’ replied Mr Boffin, ‘and cut it short, for we’ve had +enough of you.’ + +‘I have borne,’ said the Secretary, in a low voice, ‘with my false +position here, that I might not be separated from Miss Wilfer. To be +near her, has been a recompense to me from day to day, even for the +undeserved treatment I have had here, and for the degraded aspect in +which she has often seen me. Since Miss Wilfer rejected me, I have never +again urged my suit, to the best of my belief, with a spoken syllable or +a look. But I have never changed in my devotion to her, except—if she +will forgive my saying so—that it is deeper than it was, and better +founded.’ + +‘Now, mark this chap’s saying Miss Wilfer, when he means L.s.d.!’ cried +Mr Boffin, with a cunning wink. ‘Now, mark this chap’s making Miss +Wilfer stand for Pounds, Shillings, and Pence!’ + +‘My feeling for Miss Wilfer,’ pursued the Secretary, without deigning to +notice him, ‘is not one to be ashamed of. I avow it. I love her. Let +me go where I may when I presently leave this house, I shall go into a +blank life, leaving her.’ + +‘Leaving L.s.d. behind me,’ said Mr Boffin, by way of commentary, with +another wink. + +‘That I am incapable,’ the Secretary went on, still without heeding him, +‘of a mercenary project, or a mercenary thought, in connexion with Miss +Wilfer, is nothing meritorious in me, because any prize that I could +put before my fancy would sink into insignificance beside her. If +the greatest wealth or the highest rank were hers, it would only be +important in my sight as removing her still farther from me, and making +me more hopeless, if that could be. Say,’ remarked the Secretary, +looking full at his late master, ‘say that with a word she could strip +Mr Boffin of his fortune and take possession of it, she would be of no +greater worth in my eyes than she is.’ + +‘What do you think by this time, old lady,’ asked Mr Boffin, turning to +his wife in a bantering tone, ‘about this Rokesmith here, and his caring +for the truth? You needn’t say what you think, my dear, because I don’t +want you to cut in, but you can think it all the same. As to taking +possession of my property, I warrant you he wouldn’t do that himself if +he could.’ + +‘No,’ returned the Secretary, with another full look. + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed Mr Boffin. ‘There’s nothing like a good ’un while +you ARE about it.’ + +‘I have been for a moment,’ said the Secretary, turning from him and +falling into his former manner, ‘diverted from the little I have to say. +My interest in Miss Wilfer began when I first saw her; even began when I +had only heard of her. It was, in fact, the cause of my throwing myself +in Mr Boffin’s way, and entering his service. Miss Wilfer has never +known this until now. I mention it now, only as a corroboration (though +I hope it may be needless) of my being free from the sordid design +attributed to me.’ + +‘Now, this is a very artful dog,’ said Mr Boffin, with a deep look. +‘This is a longer-headed schemer than I thought him. See how patiently +and methodically he goes to work. He gets to know about me and my +property, and about this young lady, and her share in poor young John’s +story, and he puts this and that together, and he says to himself, “I’ll +get in with Boffin, and I’ll get in with this young lady, and I’ll work +’em both at the same time, and I’ll bring my pigs to market somewhere.” + I hear him say it, bless you! I look at him, now, and I see him say it!’ + +Mr Boffin pointed at the culprit, as it were in the act, and hugged +himself in his great penetration. + +‘But luckily he hadn’t to deal with the people he supposed, Bella, my +dear!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘No! Luckily he had to deal with you, and with +me, and with Daniel and Miss Dancer, and with Elwes, and with Vulture +Hopkins, and with Blewbury Jones and all the rest of us, one down +t’other come on. And he’s beat; that’s what he is; regularly beat. He +thought to squeeze money out of us, and he has done for himself instead, +Bella my dear!’ + +Bella my dear made no response, gave no sign of acquiescence. When she +had first covered her face she had sunk upon a chair with her hands +resting on the back of it, and had never moved since. There was a short +silence at this point, and Mrs Boffin softly rose as if to go to her. +But, Mr Boffin stopped her with a gesture, and she obediently sat down +again and stayed where she was. + +‘There’s your pay, Mister Rokesmith,’ said the Golden Dustman, +jerking the folded scrap of paper he had in his hand, towards his late +Secretary. ‘I dare say you can stoop to pick it up, after what you have +stooped to here.’ + +‘I have stooped to nothing but this,’ Rokesmith answered as he took it +from the ground; ‘and this is mine, for I have earned it by the hardest +of hard labour.’ + +‘You’re a pretty quick packer, I hope,’ said Mr Boffin; ‘because the +sooner you are gone, bag and baggage, the better for all parties.’ + +‘You need have no fear of my lingering.’ + +‘There’s just one thing though,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘that I should like to +ask you before we come to a good riddance, if it was only to show this +young lady how conceited you schemers are, in thinking that nobody finds +out how you contradict yourselves.’ + +‘Ask me anything you wish to ask,’ returned Rokesmith, ‘but use the +expedition that you recommend.’ + +‘You pretend to have a mighty admiration for this young lady?’ said Mr +Boffin, laying his hand protectingly on Bella’s head without looking +down at her. + +‘I do not pretend.’ + +‘Oh! Well. You HAVE a mighty admiration for this young lady—since you +are so particular?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘How do you reconcile that, with this young lady’s being a +weak-spirited, improvident idiot, not knowing what was due to herself, +flinging up her money to the church-weathercocks, and racing off at a +splitting pace for the workhouse?’ + +‘I don’t understand you.’ + +‘Don’t you? Or won’t you? What else could you have made this young lady +out to be, if she had listened to such addresses as yours?’ + +‘What else, if I had been so happy as to win her affections and possess +her heart?’ + +‘Win her affections,’ retorted Mr Boffin, with ineffable contempt, +‘and possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack-quack says the duck, +Bow-wow-wow says the dog! Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew, +Quack-quack, Bow-wow!’ + +John Rokesmith stared at him in his outburst, as if with some faint idea +that he had gone mad. + +‘What is due to this young lady,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘is Money, and this +young lady right well knows it.’ + +‘You slander the young lady.’ + +‘YOU slander the young lady; you with your affections and hearts and +trumpery,’ returned Mr Boffin. ‘It’s of a piece with the rest of your +behaviour. I heard of these doings of yours only last night, or you +should have heard of ’em from me, sooner, take your oath of it. I heard +of ’em from a lady with as good a headpiece as the best, and she knows +this young lady, and I know this young lady, and we all three know that +it’s Money she makes a stand for—money, money, money—and that you and +your affections and hearts are a Lie, sir!’ + +‘Mrs Boffin,’ said Rokesmith, quietly turning to her, ‘for your delicate +and unvarying kindness I thank you with the warmest gratitude. Good-bye! +Miss Wilfer, good-bye!’ + +‘And now, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin, laying his hand on Bella’s head +again, ‘you may begin to make yourself quite comfortable, and I hope you +feel that you’ve been righted.’ + +But, Bella was so far from appearing to feel it, that she shrank from +his hand and from the chair, and, starting up in an incoherent passion +of tears, and stretching out her arms, cried, ‘O Mr Rokesmith, before +you go, if you could but make me poor again! O! Make me poor again, +Somebody, I beg and pray, or my heart will break if this goes on! Pa, +dear, make me poor again and take me home! I was bad enough there, but +I have been so much worse here. Don’t give me money, Mr Boffin, I won’t +have money. Keep it away from me, and only let me speak to good little +Pa, and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my griefs. +Nobody else can understand me, nobody else can comfort me, nobody else +knows how unworthy I am, and yet can love me like a little child. I am +better with Pa than any one—more innocent, more sorry, more glad!’ So, +crying out in a wild way that she could not bear this, Bella drooped her +head on Mrs Boffin’s ready breast. + +John Rokesmith from his place in the room, and Mr Boffin from his, +looked on at her in silence until she was silent herself. Then Mr Boffin +observed in a soothing and comfortable tone, ‘There, my dear, there; you +are righted now, and it’s ALL right. I don’t wonder, I’m sure, at your +being a little flurried by having a scene with this fellow, but it’s all +over, my dear, and you’re righted, and it’s—and it’s ALL right!’ Which +Mr Boffin repeated with a highly satisfied air of completeness and +finality. + +‘I hate you!’ cried Bella, turning suddenly upon him, with a stamp of +her little foot—‘at least, I can’t hate you, but I don’t like you!’ + +‘HUL—LO!’ exclaimed Mr Boffin in an amazed under-tone. + +‘You’re a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature!’ +cried Bella. ‘I am angry with my ungrateful self for calling you names; +but you are, you are; you know you are!’ + +Mr Boffin stared here, and stared there, as misdoubting that he must be +in some sort of fit. + +‘I have heard you with shame,’ said Bella. ‘With shame for myself, and +with shame for you. You ought to be above the base tale-bearing of a +time-serving woman; but you are above nothing now.’ + +Mr Boffin, seeming to become convinced that this was a fit, rolled his +eyes and loosened his neckcloth. + +‘When I came here, I respected you and honoured you, and I soon loved +you,’ cried Bella. ‘And now I can’t bear the sight of you. At least, I +don’t know that I ought to go so far as that—only you’re a—you’re a +Monster!’ Having shot this bolt out with a great expenditure of force, +Bella hysterically laughed and cried together. + +‘The best wish I can wish you is,’ said Bella, returning to the charge, +‘that you had not one single farthing in the world. If any true friend +and well-wisher could make you a bankrupt, you would be a Duck; but as a +man of property you are a Demon!’ + +After despatching this second bolt with a still greater expenditure of +force, Bella laughed and cried still more. + +‘Mr Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one word from me before +you go! I am deeply sorry for the reproaches you have borne on my +account. Out of the depths of my heart I earnestly and truly beg your +pardon.’ + +As she stepped towards him, he met her. As she gave him her hand, he put +it to his lips, and said, ‘God bless you!’ No laughing was mixed with +Bella’s crying then; her tears were pure and fervent. + +‘There is not an ungenerous word that I have heard addressed to +you—heard with scorn and indignation, Mr Rokesmith—but it has wounded +me far more than you, for I have deserved it, and you never have. Mr +Rokesmith, it is to me you owe this perverted account of what passed +between us that night. I parted with the secret, even while I was angry +with myself for doing so. It was very bad in me, but indeed it was not +wicked. I did it in a moment of conceit and folly—one of my many such +moments—one of my many such hours—years. As I am punished for it +severely, try to forgive it!’ + +‘I do with all my soul.’ + +‘Thank you. O thank you! Don’t part from me till I have said one other +word, to do you justice. The only fault you can be truly charged with, +in having spoken to me as you did that night—with how much delicacy +and how much forbearance no one but I can know or be grateful to you +for—is, that you laid yourself open to be slighted by a worldly shallow +girl whose head was turned, and who was quite unable to rise to the +worth of what you offered her. Mr Rokesmith, that girl has often seen +herself in a pitiful and poor light since, but never in so pitiful +and poor a light as now, when the mean tone in which she answered +you—sordid and vain girl that she was—has been echoed in her ears by +Mr Boffin.’ + +He kissed her hand again. + +‘Mr Boffin’s speeches were detestable to me, shocking to me,’ said +Bella, startling that gentleman with another stamp of her little +foot. ‘It is quite true that there was a time, and very lately, when I +deserved to be so “righted,” Mr Rokesmith; but I hope that I shall never +deserve it again!’ + +He once more put her hand to his lips, and then relinquished it, and +left the room. Bella was hurrying back to the chair in which she had +hidden her face so long, when, catching sight of Mrs Boffin by the +way, she stopped at her. ‘He is gone,’ sobbed Bella indignantly, +despairingly, in fifty ways at once, with her arms round Mrs Boffin’s +neck. ‘He has been most shamefully abused, and most unjustly and most +basely driven away, and I am the cause of it!’ + +All this time, Mr Boffin had been rolling his eyes over his loosened +neckerchief, as if his fit were still upon him. Appearing now to think +that he was coming to, he stared straight before him for a while, tied +his neckerchief again, took several long inspirations, swallowed several +times, and ultimately exclaimed with a deep sigh, as if he felt himself +on the whole better: ‘Well!’ + +No word, good or bad, did Mrs Boffin say; but she tenderly took care of +Bella, and glanced at her husband as if for orders. Mr Boffin, without +imparting any, took his seat on a chair over against them, and there +sat leaning forward, with a fixed countenance, his legs apart, a hand on +each knee, and his elbows squared, until Bella should dry her eyes and +raise her head, which in the fulness of time she did. + +‘I must go home,’ said Bella, rising hurriedly. ‘I am very grateful to +you for all you have done for me, but I can’t stay here.’ + +‘My darling girl!’ remonstrated Mrs Boffin. + +‘No, I can’t stay here,’ said Bella; ‘I can’t indeed.—Ugh! you vicious +old thing!’ (This to Mr Boffin.) + +‘Don’t be rash, my love,’ urged Mrs Boffin. ‘Think well of what you do.’ + +‘Yes, you had better think well,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘I shall never more think well of YOU,’ cried Bella, cutting him +short, with intense defiance in her expressive little eyebrows, and +championship of the late Secretary in every dimple. ‘No! Never again! +Your money has changed you to marble. You are a hard-hearted Miser. You +are worse than Dancer, worse than Hopkins, worse than Blackberry Jones, +worse than any of the wretches. And more!’ proceeded Bella, breaking +into tears again, ‘you were wholly undeserving of the Gentleman you have +lost.’ + +‘Why, you don’t mean to say, Miss Bella,’ the Golden Dustman slowly +remonstrated, ‘that you set up Rokesmith against me?’ + +‘I do!’ said Bella. ‘He is worth a Million of you.’ + +Very pretty she looked, though very angry, as she made herself as +tall as she possibly could (which was not extremely tall), and utterly +renounced her patron with a lofty toss of her rich brown head. + +‘I would rather he thought well of me,’ said Bella, ‘though he swept the +street for bread, than that you did, though you splashed the mud upon +him from the wheels of a chariot of pure gold.—There!’ + +‘Well I’m sure!’ cried Mr Boffin, staring. + +‘And for a long time past, when you have thought you set yourself above +him, I have only seen you under his feet,’ said Bella—‘There! And +throughout I saw in him the master, and I saw in you the man—There! And +when you used him shamefully, I took his part and loved him—There! I +boast of it!’ + +After which strong avowal Bella underwent reaction, and cried to any +extent, with her face on the back of her chair. + +‘Now, look here,’ said Mr Boffin, as soon as he could find an opening +for breaking the silence and striking in. ‘Give me your attention, +Bella. I am not angry.’ + +‘I AM!’ said Bella. + +‘I say,’ resumed the Golden Dustman, ‘I am not angry, and I mean kindly +to you, and I want to overlook this. So you’ll stay where you are, and +we’ll agree to say no more about it.’ + +‘No, I can’t stay here,’ cried Bella, rising hurriedly again; ‘I can’t +think of staying here. I must go home for good.’ + +‘Now, don’t be silly,’ Mr Boffin reasoned. ‘Don’t do what you can’t +undo; don’t do what you’re sure to be sorry for.’ + +‘I shall never be sorry for it,’ said Bella; ‘and I should always be +sorry, and should every minute of my life despise myself if I remained +here after what has happened.’ + +‘At least, Bella,’ argued Mr Boffin, ‘let there be no mistake about it. +Look before you leap, you know. Stay where you are, and all’s well, and +all’s as it was to be. Go away, and you can never come back.’ + +‘I know that I can never come back, and that’s what I mean,’ said Bella. + +‘You mustn’t expect,’ Mr Boffin pursued, ‘that I’m a-going to settle +money on you, if you leave us like this, because I am not. No, Bella! Be +careful! Not one brass farthing.’ + +‘Expect!’ said Bella, haughtily. ‘Do you think that any power on earth +could make me take it, if you did, sir?’ + +But there was Mrs Boffin to part from, and, in the full flush of her +dignity, the impressible little soul collapsed again. Down upon her +knees before that good woman, she rocked herself upon her breast, and +cried, and sobbed, and folded her in her arms with all her might. + +‘You’re a dear, a dear, the best of dears!’ cried Bella. ‘You’re the +best of human creatures. I can never be thankful enough to you, and I +can never forget you. If I should live to be blind and deaf I know I +shall see and hear you, in my fancy, to the last of my dim old days!’ + +Mrs Boffin wept most heartily, and embraced her with all fondness; but +said not one single word except that she was her dear girl. She said +that often enough, to be sure, for she said it over and over again; but +not one word else. + +Bella broke from her at length, and was going weeping out of the room, +when in her own little queer affectionate way, she half relented towards +Mr Boffin. + +‘I am very glad,’ sobbed Bella, ‘that I called you names, sir, because +you richly deserved it. But I am very sorry that I called you names, +because you used to be so different. Say good-bye!’ + +‘Good-bye,’ said Mr Boffin, shortly. + +‘If I knew which of your hands was the least spoilt, I would ask you +to let me touch it,’ said Bella, ‘for the last time. But not because I +repent of what I have said to you. For I don’t. It’s true!’ + +‘Try the left hand,’ said Mr Boffin, holding it out in a stolid manner; +‘it’s the least used.’ + +‘You have been wonderfully good and kind to me,’ said Bella, ‘and I kiss +it for that. You have been as bad as bad could be to Mr Rokesmith, and I +throw it away for that. Thank you for myself, and good-bye!’ + +‘Good-bye,’ said Mr Boffin as before. + +Bella caught him round the neck and kissed him, and ran out for ever. + +She ran up-stairs, and sat down on the floor in her own room, and cried +abundantly. But the day was declining and she had no time to lose. She +opened all the places where she kept her dresses; selected only those +she had brought with her, leaving all the rest; and made a great +misshapen bundle of them, to be sent for afterwards. + +‘I won’t take one of the others,’ said Bella, tying the knots of the +bundle very tight, in the severity of her resolution. ‘I’ll leave all +the presents behind, and begin again entirely on my own account.’ That +the resolution might be thoroughly carried into practice, she even +changed the dress she wore, for that in which she had come to the grand +mansion. Even the bonnet she put on, was the bonnet that had mounted +into the Boffin chariot at Holloway. + +‘Now, I am complete,’ said Bella. ‘It’s a little trying, but I have +steeped my eyes in cold water, and I won’t cry any more. You have been +a pleasant room to me, dear room. Adieu! We shall never see each other +again.’ + +With a parting kiss of her fingers to it, she softly closed the door and +went with a light foot down the great staircase, pausing and listening +as she went, that she might meet none of the household. No one chanced +to be about, and she got down to the hall in quiet. The door of the late +Secretary’s room stood open. She peeped in as she passed, and divined +from the emptiness of his table, and the general appearance of things, +that he was already gone. Softly opening the great hall door, and +softly closing it upon herself, she turned and kissed it on the +outside—insensible old combination of wood and iron that it +was!—before she ran away from the house at a swift pace. + +‘That was well done!’ panted Bella, slackening in the next street, and +subsiding into a walk. ‘If I had left myself any breath to cry with, I +should have cried again. Now poor dear darling little Pa, you are going +to see your lovely woman unexpectedly.’ + + + + +Chapter 16 + +THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS + + +The City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made her way along its +gritty streets. Most of its money-mills were slackening sail, or had +left off grinding for the day. The master-millers had already departed, +and the journeymen were departing. There was a jaded aspect on +the business lanes and courts, and the very pavements had a weary +appearance, confused by the tread of a million of feet. There must be +hours of night to temper down the day’s distraction of so feverish a +place. As yet the worry of the newly-stopped whirling and grinding on +the part of the money-mills seemed to linger in the air, and the quiet +was more like the prostration of a spent giant than the repose of one +who was renewing his strength. + +If Bella thought, as she glanced at the mighty Bank, how agreeable it +would be to have an hour’s gardening there, with a bright copper shovel, +among the money, still she was not in an avaricious vein. Much improved +in that respect, and with certain half-formed images which had little +gold in their composition, dancing before her bright eyes, she arrived +in the drug-flavoured region of Mincing Lane, with the sensation of +having just opened a drawer in a chemist’s shop. + +The counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles was pointed out +by an elderly female accustomed to the care of offices, who dropped upon +Bella out of a public-house, wiping her mouth, and accounted for its +humidity on natural principles well known to the physical sciences, by +explaining that she had looked in at the door to see what o’clock it +was. The counting-house was a wall-eyed ground floor by a dark gateway, +and Bella was considering, as she approached it, could there be any +precedent in the City for her going in and asking for R. Wilfer, when +whom should she see, sitting at one of the windows with the plate-glass +sash raised, but R. Wilfer himself, preparing to take a slight +refection. + +On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection had +the appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth of milk. +Simultaneously with this discovery on her part, her father discovered +her, and invoked the echoes of Mincing Lane to exclaim ‘My gracious me!’ + +He then came cherubically flying out without a hat, and embraced her, +and handed her in. ‘For it’s after hours and I am all alone, my dear,’ +he explained, ‘and am having—as I sometimes do when they are all +gone—a quiet tea.’ + +Looking round the office, as if her father were a captive and this his +cell, Bella hugged him and choked him to her heart’s content. + +‘I never was so surprised, my dear!’ said her father. ‘I couldn’t +believe my eyes. Upon my life, I thought they had taken to lying! The +idea of your coming down the Lane yourself! Why didn’t you send the +footman down the Lane, my dear?’ + +‘I have brought no footman with me, Pa.’ + +‘Oh indeed! But you have brought the elegant turn-out, my love?’ + +‘No, Pa.’ + +‘You never can have walked, my dear?’ + +‘Yes, I have, Pa.’ + +He looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not make up her mind +to break it to him just yet. + +‘The consequence is, Pa, that your lovely woman feels a little faint, +and would very much like to share your tea.’ + +The cottage loaf and the pennyworth of milk had been set forth on a +sheet of paper on the window-seat. The cherubic pocket-knife, with the +first bit of the loaf still on its point, lay beside them where it had +been hastily thrown down. Bella took the bit off, and put it in her +mouth. ‘My dear child,’ said her father, ‘the idea of your partaking of +such lowly fare! But at least you must have your own loaf and your own +penn’orth. One moment, my dear. The Dairy is just over the way and round +the corner.’ + +Regardless of Bella’s dissuasions he ran out, and quickly returned with +the new supply. ‘My dear child,’ he said, as he spread it on another +piece of paper before her, ‘the idea of a splendid—!’ and then looked +at her figure, and stopped short. + +‘What’s the matter, Pa?’ + +‘—of a splendid female,’ he resumed more slowly, ‘putting up with +such accommodation as the present!—Is that a new dress you have on, my +dear?’ + +‘No, Pa, an old one. Don’t you remember it?’ + +‘Why, I THOUGHT I remembered it, my dear!’ + +‘You should, for you bought it, Pa.’ + +‘Yes, I THOUGHT I bought it my dear!’ said the cherub, giving himself a +little shake, as if to rouse his faculties. + +‘And have you grown so fickle that you don’t like your own taste, Pa +dear?’ + +‘Well, my love,’ he returned, swallowing a bit of the cottage loaf with +considerable effort, for it seemed to stick by the way: ‘I should have +thought it was hardly sufficiently splendid for existing circumstances.’ + +‘And so, Pa,’ said Bella, moving coaxingly to his side instead of +remaining opposite, ‘you sometimes have a quiet tea here all alone? I +am not in the tea’s way, if I draw my arm over your shoulder like this, +Pa?’ + +‘Yes, my dear, and no, my dear. Yes to the first question, and Certainly +Not to the second. Respecting the quiet tea, my dear, why you see the +occupations of the day are sometimes a little wearing; and if there’s +nothing interposed between the day and your mother, why SHE is sometimes +a little wearing, too.’ + +‘I know, Pa.’ + +‘Yes, my dear. So sometimes I put a quiet tea at the window here, with +a little quiet contemplation of the Lane (which comes soothing), between +the day, and domestic—’ + +‘Bliss,’ suggested Bella, sorrowfully. + +‘And domestic Bliss,’ said her father, quite contented to accept the +phrase. + +Bella kissed him. ‘And it is in this dark dingy place of captivity, +poor dear, that you pass all the hours of your life when you are not at +home?’ + +‘Not at home, or not on the road there, or on the road here, my love. +Yes. You see that little desk in the corner?’ + +‘In the dark corner, furthest both from the light and from the +fireplace? The shabbiest desk of all the desks?’ + +‘Now, does it really strike you in that point of view, my dear?’ said +her father, surveying it artistically with his head on one side: ‘that’s +mine. That’s called Rumty’s Perch.’ + +‘Whose Perch?’ asked Bella with great indignation. + +‘Rumty’s. You see, being rather high and up two steps they call it a +Perch. And they call ME Rumty.’ + +‘How dare they!’ exclaimed Bella. + +‘They’re playful, Bella my dear; they’re playful. They’re more or less +younger than I am, and they’re playful. What does it matter? It might +be Surly, or Sulky, or fifty disagreeable things that I really shouldn’t +like to be considered. But Rumty! Lor, why not Rumty?’ + +To inflict a heavy disappointment on this sweet nature, which had been, +through all her caprices, the object of her recognition, love, and +admiration from infancy, Bella felt to be the hardest task of her hard +day. ‘I should have done better,’ she thought, ‘to tell him at first; +I should have done better to tell him just now, when he had some slight +misgiving; he is quite happy again, and I shall make him wretched.’ + +He was falling back on his loaf and milk, with the pleasantest +composure, and Bella stealing her arm a little closer about him, and at +the same time sticking up his hair with an irresistible propensity +to play with him founded on the habit of her whole life, had prepared +herself to say: ‘Pa dear, don’t be cast down, but I must tell you +something disagreeable!’ when he interrupted her in an unlooked-for +manner. + +‘My gracious me!’ he exclaimed, invoking the Mincing Lane echoes as +before. ‘This is very extraordinary!’ + +‘What is, Pa?’ + +‘Why here’s Mr Rokesmith now!’ + +‘No, no, Pa, no,’ cried Bella, greatly flurried. ‘Surely not.’ + +‘Yes there is! Look here!’ + +Sooth to say, Mr Rokesmith not only passed the window, but came into the +counting-house. And not only came into the counting-house, but, finding +himself alone there with Bella and her father, rushed at Bella and +caught her in his arms, with the rapturous words ‘My dear, dear girl; my +gallant, generous, disinterested, courageous, noble girl!’ And not only +that even, (which one might have thought astonishment enough for one +dose), but Bella, after hanging her head for a moment, lifted it up and +laid it on his breast, as if that were her head’s chosen and lasting +resting-place! + +‘I knew you would come to him, and I followed you,’ said Rokesmith. ‘My +love, my life! You ARE mine?’ + +To which Bella responded, ‘Yes, I AM yours if you think me worth +taking!’ And after that, seemed to shrink to next to nothing in the +clasp of his arms, partly because it was such a strong one on his part, +and partly because there was such a yielding to it on hers. + +The cherub, whose hair would have done for itself under the influence of +this amazing spectacle, what Bella had just now done for it, staggered +back into the window-seat from which he had risen, and surveyed the pair +with his eyes dilated to their utmost. + +‘But we must think of dear Pa,’ said Bella; ‘I haven’t told dear Pa; let +us speak to Pa.’ Upon which they turned to do so. + +‘I wish first, my dear,’ remarked the cherub faintly, ‘that you’d have +the kindness to sprinkle me with a little milk, for I feel as if I +was—Going.’ + +In fact, the good little fellow had become alarmingly limp, and his +senses seemed to be rapidly escaping, from the knees upward. Bella +sprinkled him with kisses instead of milk, but gave him a little of that +article to drink; and he gradually revived under her caressing care. + +‘We’ll break it to you gently, dearest Pa,’ said Bella. + +‘My dear,’ returned the cherub, looking at them both, ‘you broke so much +in the first—Gush, if I may so express myself—that I think I am equal +to a good large breakage now.’ + +‘Mr Wilfer,’ said John Rokesmith, excitedly and joyfully, ‘Bella takes +me, though I have no fortune, even no present occupation; nothing but +what I can get in the life before us. Bella takes me!’ + +‘Yes, I should rather have inferred, my dear sir,’ returned the cherub +feebly, ‘that Bella took you, from what I have within these few minutes +remarked.’ + +‘You don’t know, Pa,’ said Bella, ‘how ill I have used him!’ + +‘You don’t know, sir,’ said Rokesmith, ‘what a heart she has!’ + +‘You don’t know, Pa,’ said Bella, ‘what a shocking creature I was +growing, when he saved me from myself!’ + +‘You don’t know, sir,’ said Rokesmith, ‘what a sacrifice she has made +for me!’ + +‘My dear Bella,’ replied the cherub, still pathetically scared, ‘and my +dear John Rokesmith, if you will allow me so to call you—’ + +‘Yes do, Pa, do!’ urged Bella. ‘I allow you, and my will is his law. +Isn’t it—dear John Rokesmith?’ + +There was an engaging shyness in Bella, coupled with an engaging +tenderness of love and confidence and pride, in thus first calling him +by name, which made it quite excusable in John Rokesmith to do what he +did. What he did was, once more to give her the appearance of vanishing +as aforesaid. + +‘I think, my dears,’ observed the cherub, ‘that if you could make it +convenient to sit one on one side of me, and the other on the other, we +should get on rather more consecutively, and make things rather +plainer. John Rokesmith mentioned, a while ago, that he had no present +occupation.’ + +‘None,’ said Rokesmith. + +‘No, Pa, none,’ said Bella. + +‘From which I argue,’ proceeded the cherub, ‘that he has left Mr +Boffin?’ + +‘Yes, Pa. And so—’ + +‘Stop a bit, my dear. I wish to lead up to it by degrees. And that Mr +Boffin has not treated him well?’ + +‘Has treated him most shamefully, dear Pa!’ cried Bella with a flashing +face. + +‘Of which,’ pursued the cherub, enjoining patience with his hand, ‘a +certain mercenary young person distantly related to myself, could not +approve? Am I leading up to it right?’ + +‘Could not approve, sweet Pa,’ said Bella, with a tearful laugh and a +joyful kiss. + +‘Upon which,’ pursued the cherub, ‘the certain mercenary young person +distantly related to myself, having previously observed and mentioned +to myself that prosperity was spoiling Mr Boffin, felt that she must not +sell her sense of what was right and what was wrong, and what was true +and what was false, and what was just and what was unjust, for any +price that could be paid to her by any one alive? Am I leading up to it +right?’ + +With another tearful laugh Bella joyfully kissed him again. + +‘And therefore—and therefore,’ the cherub went on in a glowing voice, +as Bella’s hand stole gradually up his waistcoat to his neck, ‘this +mercenary young person distantly related to myself, refused the +price, took off the splendid fashions that were part of it, put on the +comparatively poor dress that I had last given her, and trusting to my +supporting her in what was right, came straight to me. Have I led up to +it?’ + +Bella’s hand was round his neck by this time, and her face was on it. + +‘The mercenary young person distantly related to myself,’ said her +good father, ‘did well! The mercenary young person distantly related +to myself, did not trust to me in vain! I admire this mercenary young +person distantly related to myself, more in this dress than if she had +come to me in China silks, Cashmere shawls, and Golconda diamonds. I +love this young person dearly. I say to the man of this young person’s +heart, out of my heart and with all of it, “My blessing on this +engagement betwixt you, and she brings you a good fortune when she +brings you the poverty she has accepted for your sake and the honest +truth’s!”’ + +The stanch little man’s voice failed him as he gave John Rokesmith his +hand, and he was silent, bending his face low over his daughter. But, +not for long. He soon looked up, saying in a sprightly tone: + +‘And now, my dear child, if you think you can entertain John Rokesmith +for a minute and a half, I’ll run over to the Dairy, and fetch HIM a +cottage loaf and a drink of milk, that we may all have tea together.’ + +It was, as Bella gaily said, like the supper provided for the three +nursery hobgoblins at their house in the forest, without their +thunderous low growlings of the alarming discovery, ‘Somebody’s been +drinking MY milk!’ It was a delicious repast; by far the most delicious +that Bella, or John Rokesmith, or even R. Wilfer had ever made. The +uncongenial oddity of its surroundings, with the two brass knobs of the +iron safe of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles staring from a corner, +like the eyes of some dull dragon, only made it the more delightful. + +‘To think,’ said the cherub, looking round the office with unspeakable +enjoyment, ‘that anything of a tender nature should come off here, is +what tickles me. To think that ever I should have seen my Bella folded +in the arms of her future husband, HERE, you know!’ + +It was not until the cottage loaves and the milk had for some time +disappeared, and the foreshadowings of night were creeping over Mincing +Lane, that the cherub by degrees became a little nervous, and said to +Bella, as he cleared his throat: + +‘Hem!—Have you thought at all about your mother, my dear?’ + +‘Yes, Pa.’ + +‘And your sister Lavvy, for instance, my dear?’ + +‘Yes, Pa. I think we had better not enter into particulars at home. I +think it will be quite enough to say that I had a difference with Mr +Boffin, and have left for good.’ + +‘John Rokesmith being acquainted with your Ma, my love,’ said her +father, after some slight hesitation, ‘I need have no delicacy in +hinting before him that you may perhaps find your Ma a little wearing.’ + +‘A little, patient Pa?’ said Bella with a tuneful laugh: the tune fuller +for being so loving in its tone. + +‘Well! We’ll say, strictly in confidence among ourselves, wearing; +we won’t qualify it,’ the cherub stoutly admitted. ‘And your sister’s +temper is wearing.’ + +‘I don’t mind, Pa.’ + +‘And you must prepare yourself you know, my precious,’ said her father, +with much gentleness, ‘for our looking very poor and meagre at home, and +being at the best but very uncomfortable, after Mr Boffin’s house.’ + +‘I don’t mind, Pa. I could bear much harder trials—for John.’ + +The closing words were not so softly and blushingly said but that John +heard them, and showed that he heard them by again assisting Bella to +another of those mysterious disappearances. + +‘Well!’ said the cherub gaily, and not expressing disapproval, ‘when +you—when you come back from retirement, my love, and reappear on the +surface, I think it will be time to lock up and go.’ + +If the counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles had ever been +shut up by three happier people, glad as most people were to shut it up, +they must have been superlatively happy indeed. But first Bella mounted +upon Rumty’s Perch, and said, ‘Show me what you do here all day long, +dear Pa. Do you write like this?’ laying her round cheek upon her plump +left arm, and losing sight of her pen in waves of hair, in a highly +unbusiness-like manner. Though John Rokesmith seemed to like it. + +So, the three hobgoblins, having effaced all traces of their feast, and +swept up the crumbs, came out of Mincing Lane to walk to Holloway; and +if two of the hobgoblins didn’t wish the distance twice as long as it +was, the third hobgoblin was much mistaken. Indeed, that modest spirit +deemed himself so much in the way of their deep enjoyment of the +journey, that he apologetically remarked: ‘I think, my dears, I’ll take +the lead on the other side of the road, and seem not to belong to you.’ +Which he did, cherubically strewing the path with smiles, in the absence +of flowers. + +It was almost ten o’clock when they stopped within view of Wilfer +Castle; and then, the spot being quiet and deserted, Bella began a +series of disappearances which threatened to last all night. + +‘I think, John,’ the cherub hinted at last, ‘that if you can spare me +the young person distantly related to myself, I’ll take her in.’ + +‘I can’t spare her,’ answered John, ‘but I must lend her to you.—My +Darling!’ A word of magic which caused Bella instantly to disappear +again. + +‘Now, dearest Pa,’ said Bella, when she became visible, ‘put your hand +in mine, and we’ll run home as fast as ever we can run, and get it over. +Now, Pa. Once!—’ + +‘My dear,’ the cherub faltered, with something of a craven air, ‘I was +going to observe that if your mother—’ + +‘You mustn’t hang back, sir, to gain time,’ cried Bella, putting out her +right foot; ‘do you see that, sir? That’s the mark; come up to the mark, +sir. Once! Twice! Three times and away, Pa!’ Off she skimmed, bearing +the cherub along, nor ever stopped, nor suffered him to stop, until she +had pulled at the bell. ‘Now, dear Pa,’ said Bella, taking him by both +ears as if he were a pitcher, and conveying his face to her rosy lips, +‘we are in for it!’ + +Miss Lavvy came out to open the gate, waited on by that attentive +cavalier and friend of the family, Mr George Sampson. ‘Why, it’s never +Bella!’ exclaimed Miss Lavvy starting back at the sight. And then +bawled, ‘Ma! Here’s Bella!’ + +This produced, before they could get into the house, Mrs Wilfer. Who, +standing in the portal, received them with ghostly gloom, and all her +other appliances of ceremony. + +‘My child is welcome, though unlooked for,’ said she, at the time +presenting her cheek as if it were a cool slate for visitors to enrol +themselves upon. ‘You too, R. W., are welcome, though late. Does the +male domestic of Mrs Boffin hear me there?’ This deep-toned inquiry was +cast forth into the night, for response from the menial in question. + +‘There is no one waiting, Ma, dear,’ said Bella. + +‘There is no one waiting?’ repeated Mrs Wilfer in majestic accents. + +‘No, Ma, dear.’ + +A dignified shiver pervaded Mrs Wilfer’s shoulders and gloves, as +who should say, ‘An Enigma!’ and then she marched at the head of the +procession to the family keeping-room, where she observed: + +‘Unless, R. W.:’ who started on being solemnly turned upon: ‘you have +taken the precaution of making some addition to our frugal supper on +your way home, it will prove but a distasteful one to Bella. Cold neck +of mutton and a lettuce can ill compete with the luxuries of Mr Boffin’s +board.’ + +‘Pray don’t talk like that, Ma dear,’ said Bella; ‘Mr Boffin’s board is +nothing to me.’ + +But, here Miss Lavinia, who had been intently eyeing Bella’s bonnet, +struck in with ‘Why, Bella!’ + +‘Yes, Lavvy, I know.’ + +The Irrepressible lowered her eyes to Bella’s dress, and stooped to look +at it, exclaiming again: ‘Why, Bella!’ + +‘Yes, Lavvy, I know what I have got on. I was going to tell Ma when you +interrupted. I have left Mr Boffin’s house for good, Ma, and I have come +home again.’ + +Mrs Wilfer spake no word, but, having glared at her offspring for a +minute or two in an awful silence, retired into her corner of state +backward, and sat down: like a frozen article on sale in a Russian +market. + +‘In short, dear Ma,’ said Bella, taking off the depreciated bonnet and +shaking out her hair, ‘I have had a very serious difference with Mr +Boffin on the subject of his treatment of a member of his household, and +it’s a final difference, and there’s an end of all.’ + +‘And I am bound to tell you, my dear,’ added R. W., submissively, ‘that +Bella has acted in a truly brave spirit, and with a truly right feeling. +And therefore I hope, my dear, you’ll not allow yourself to be greatly +disappointed.’ + +‘George!’ said Miss Lavvy, in a sepulchral, warning voice, founded on +her mother’s; ‘George Sampson, speak! What did I tell you about those +Boffins?’ + +Mr Sampson perceiving his frail bark to be labouring among shoals and +breakers, thought it safest not to refer back to any particular thing +that he had been told, lest he should refer back to the wrong thing. +With admirable seamanship he got his bark into deep water by murmuring +‘Yes indeed.’ + +‘Yes! I told George Sampson, as George Sampson tells you,’ said Miss +Lavvy, ‘that those hateful Boffins would pick a quarrel with Bella, as +soon as her novelty had worn off. Have they done it, or have they not? +Was I right, or was I wrong? And what do you say to us, Bella, of your +Boffins now?’ + +‘Lavvy and Ma,’ said Bella, ‘I say of Mr and Mrs Boffin what I always +have said; and I always shall say of them what I always have said. But +nothing will induce me to quarrel with any one to-night. I hope you +are not sorry to see me, Ma dear,’ kissing her; ‘and I hope you are not +sorry to see me, Lavvy,’ kissing her too; ‘and as I notice the lettuce +Ma mentioned, on the table, I’ll make the salad.’ + +Bella playfully setting herself about the task, Mrs Wilfer’s impressive +countenance followed her with glaring eyes, presenting a combination +of the once popular sign of the Saracen’s Head, with a piece of +Dutch clock-work, and suggesting to an imaginative mind that from the +composition of the salad, her daughter might prudently omit the vinegar. +But no word issued from the majestic matron’s lips. And this was more +terrific to her husband (as perhaps she knew) than any flow of eloquence +with which she could have edified the company. + +‘Now, Ma dear,’ said Bella in due course, ‘the salad’s ready, and it’s +past supper-time.’ + +Mrs Wilfer rose, but remained speechless. ‘George!’ said Miss Lavinia +in her voice of warning, ‘Ma’s chair!’ Mr Sampson flew to the excellent +lady’s back, and followed her up close chair in hand, as she stalked +to the banquet. Arrived at the table, she took her rigid seat, after +favouring Mr Sampson with a glare for himself, which caused the young +gentleman to retire to his place in much confusion. + +The cherub not presuming to address so tremendous an object, transacted +her supper through the agency of a third person, as ‘Mutton to your Ma, +Bella, my dear’; and ‘Lavvy, I dare say your Ma would take some lettuce +if you were to put it on her plate.’ Mrs Wilfer’s manner of receiving +those viands was marked by petrified absence of mind; in which state, +likewise, she partook of them, occasionally laying down her knife and +fork, as saying within her own spirit, ‘What is this I am doing?’ and +glaring at one or other of the party, as if in indignant search of +information. A magnetic result of such glaring was, that the person +glared at could not by any means successfully pretend to be ignorant of +the fact: so that a bystander, without beholding Mrs Wilfer at all, must +have known at whom she was glaring, by seeing her refracted from the +countenance of the beglared one. + +Miss Lavinia was extremely affable to Mr Sampson on this special +occasion, and took the opportunity of informing her sister why. + +‘It was not worth troubling you about, Bella, when you were in a sphere +so far removed from your family as to make it a matter in which you +could be expected to take very little interest,’ said Lavinia with a +toss of her chin; ‘but George Sampson is paying his addresses to me.’ + +Bella was glad to hear it. Mr Sampson became thoughtfully red, and +felt called upon to encircle Miss Lavinia’s waist with his arm; but, +encountering a large pin in the young lady’s belt, scarified a finger, +uttered a sharp exclamation, and attracted the lightning of Mrs Wilfer’s +glare. + +‘George is getting on very well,’ said Miss Lavinia which might not have +been supposed at the moment—‘and I dare say we shall be married, one of +these days. I didn’t care to mention it when you were with your Bof—’ +here Miss Lavinia checked herself in a bounce, and added more placidly, +‘when you were with Mr and Mrs Boffin; but now I think it sisterly to +name the circumstance.’ + +‘Thank you, Lavvy dear. I congratulate you.’ + +‘Thank you, Bella. The truth is, George and I did discuss whether +I should tell you; but I said to George that you wouldn’t be much +interested in so paltry an affair, and that it was far more likely you +would rather detach yourself from us altogether, than have him added to +the rest of us.’ + +‘That was a mistake, dear Lavvy,’ said Bella. + +‘It turns out to be,’ replied Miss Lavinia; ‘but circumstances have +changed, you know, my dear. George is in a new situation, and his +prospects are very good indeed. I shouldn’t have had the courage to tell +you so yesterday, when you would have thought his prospects poor, and +not worth notice; but I feel quite bold tonight.’ + +‘When did you begin to feel timid, Lavvy?’ inquired Bella, with a smile. + +‘I didn’t say that I ever felt timid, Bella,’ replied the Irrepressible. +‘But perhaps I might have said, if I had not been restrained by delicacy +towards a sister’s feelings, that I have for some time felt independent; +too independent, my dear, to subject myself to have my intended match +(you’ll prick yourself again, George) looked down upon. It is not that I +could have blamed you for looking down upon it, when you were looking up +to a rich and great match, Bella; it is only that I was independent.’ + +Whether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella’s declaration that she +would not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness was evoked by Bella’s +return to the sphere of Mr George Sampson’s courtship, or whether it was +a necessary fillip to her spirits that she should come into collision +with somebody on the present occasion,—anyhow she made a dash at her +stately parent now, with the greatest impetuosity. + +‘Ma, pray don’t sit staring at me in that intensely aggravating manner! +If you see a black on my nose, tell me so; if you don’t, leave me +alone.’ + +‘Do you address Me in those words?’ said Mrs Wilfer. ‘Do you presume?’ + +‘Don’t talk about presuming, Ma, for goodness’ sake. A girl who is old +enough to be engaged, is quite old enough to object to be stared at as +if she was a Clock.’ + +‘Audacious one!’ said Mrs Wilfer. ‘Your grandmamma, if so addressed by +one of her daughters, at any age, would have insisted on her retiring to +a dark apartment.’ + +‘My grandmamma,’ returned Lavvy, folding her arms and leaning back +in her chair, ‘wouldn’t have sat staring people out of countenance, I +think.’ + +‘She would!’ said Mrs Wilfer. + +‘Then it’s a pity she didn’t know better,’ said Lavvy. ‘And if my +grandmamma wasn’t in her dotage when she took to insisting on people’s +retiring to dark apartments, she ought to have been. A pretty exhibition +my grandmamma must have made of herself! I wonder whether she ever +insisted on people’s retiring into the ball of St Paul’s; and if she +did, how she got them there!’ + +‘Silence!’ proclaimed Mrs Wilfer. ‘I command silence!’ + +‘I have not the slightest intention of being silent, Ma,’ returned +Lavinia coolly, ‘but quite the contrary. I am not going to be eyed as if +I had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. I am not going +to have George Sampson eyed as if HE had come from the Boffins, and sit +silent under it. If Pa thinks proper to be eyed as if HE had come from +the Boffins also, well and good. I don’t choose to. And I won’t!’ + +Lavinia’s engineering having made this crooked opening at Bella, Mrs +Wilfer strode into it. + +‘You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me this, Lavinia. If +in violation of your mother’s sentiments, you had condescended to allow +yourself to be patronized by the Boffins, and if you had come from those +halls of slavery—’ + +‘That’s mere nonsense, Ma,’ said Lavinia. + +‘How!’ exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, with sublime severity. + +‘Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense,’ returned the unmoved +Irrepressible. + +‘I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the neighbourhood of +Portland Place, bending under the yoke of patronage and attended by its +domestics in glittering garb to visit me, do you think my deep-seated +feelings could have been expressed in looks?’ + +‘All I think about it, is,’ returned Lavinia, ‘that I should wish them +expressed to the right person.’ + +‘And if,’ pursued her mother, ‘if making light of my warnings that the +face of Mrs Boffin alone was a face teeming with evil, you had clung to +Mrs Boffin instead of to me, and had after all come home rejected by Mrs +Boffin, trampled under foot by Mrs Boffin, and cast out by Mrs Boffin, +do you think my feelings could have been expressed in looks?’ + +Lavinia was about replying to her honoured parent that she might as well +have dispensed with her looks altogether then, when Bella rose and said, +‘Good night, dear Ma. I have had a tiring day, and I’ll go to bed.’ This +broke up the agreeable party. Mr George Sampson shortly afterwards took +his leave, accompanied by Miss Lavinia with a candle as far as the hall, +and without a candle as far as the garden gate; Mrs Wilfer, washing her +hands of the Boffins, went to bed after the manner of Lady Macbeth; and +R. W. was left alone among the dilapidations of the supper table, in a +melancholy attitude. + +But, a light footstep roused him from his meditations, and it was +Bella’s. Her pretty hair was hanging all about her, and she had tripped +down softly, brush in hand, and barefoot, to say good-night to him. + +‘My dear, you most unquestionably ARE a lovely woman,’ said the cherub, +taking up a tress in his hand. + +‘Look here, sir,’ said Bella; ‘when your lovely woman marries, you shall +have that piece if you like, and she’ll make you a chain of it. Would +you prize that remembrance of the dear creature?’ + +‘Yes, my precious.’ + +‘Then you shall have it if you’re good, sir. I am very, very sorry, +dearest Pa, to have brought home all this trouble.’ + +‘My pet,’ returned her father, in the simplest good faith, ‘don’t make +yourself uneasy about that. It really is not worth mentioning, because +things at home would have taken pretty much the same turn any way. If +your mother and sister don’t find one subject to get at times a little +wearing on, they find another. We’re never out of a wearing subject, +my dear, I assure you. I am afraid you find your old room with Lavvy, +dreadfully inconvenient, Bella?’ + +‘No I don’t, Pa; I don’t mind. Why don’t I mind, do you think, Pa?’ + +‘Well, my child, you used to complain of it when it wasn’t such a +contrast as it must be now. Upon my word, I can only answer, because you +are so much improved.’ + +‘No, Pa. Because I am so thankful and so happy!’ + +Here she choked him until her long hair made him sneeze, and then she +laughed until she made him laugh, and then she choked him again that +they might not be overheard. + +‘Listen, sir,’ said Bella. ‘Your lovely woman was told her fortune +to night on her way home. It won’t be a large fortune, because if the +lovely woman’s Intended gets a certain appointment that he hopes to get +soon, she will marry on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. But that’s at +first, and even if it should never be more, the lovely woman will make +it quite enough. But that’s not all, sir. In the fortune there’s a +certain fair man—a little man, the fortune-teller said—who, it seems, +will always find himself near the lovely woman, and will always have +kept, expressly for him, such a peaceful corner in the lovely woman’s +little house as never was. Tell me the name of that man, sir.’ + +‘Is he a Knave in the pack of cards?’ inquired the cherub, with a +twinkle in his eyes. + +‘Yes!’ cried Bella, in high glee, choking him again. ‘He’s the Knave of +Wilfers! Dear Pa, the lovely woman means to look forward to this fortune +that has been told for her, so delightfully, and to cause it to make her +a much better lovely woman than she ever has been yet. What the little +fair man is expected to do, sir, is to look forward to it also, by +saying to himself when he is in danger of being over-worried, “I see +land at last!” + +‘I see land at last!’ repeated her father. + +‘There’s a dear Knave of Wilfers!’ exclaimed Bella; then putting out her +small white bare foot, ‘That’s the mark, sir. Come to the mark. Put your +boot against it. We keep to it together, mind! Now, sir, you may kiss +the lovely woman before she runs away, so thankful and so happy. O yes, +fair little man, so thankful and so happy!’ + + + + +Chapter 17 + +A SOCIAL CHORUS + + +Amazement sits enthroned upon the countenances of Mr and Mrs Alfred +Lammle’s circle of acquaintance, when the disposal of their first-class +furniture and effects (including a Billiard Table in capital letters), +‘by auction, under a bill of sale,’ is publicly announced on a waving +hearthrug in Sackville Street. But, nobody is half so much amazed as +Hamilton Veneering, Esquire, M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, who instantly +begins to find out that the Lammles are the only people ever entered on +his soul’s register, who are NOT the oldest and dearest friends he has +in the world. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, like a faithful +wife shares her husband’s discovery and inexpressible astonishment. +Perhaps the Veneerings twain may deem the last unutterable feeling +particularly due to their reputation, by reason that once upon a time +some of the longer heads in the City are whispered to have shaken +themselves, when Veneering’s extensive dealings and great wealth were +mentioned. But, it is certain that neither Mr nor Mrs Veneering can +find words to wonder in, and it becomes necessary that they give to the +oldest and dearest friends they have in the world, a wondering dinner. + +For, it is by this time noticeable that, whatever befals, the Veneerings +must give a dinner upon it. Lady Tippins lives in a chronic state +of invitation to dine with the Veneerings, and in a chronic state of +inflammation arising from the dinners. Boots and Brewer go about in +cabs, with no other intelligible business on earth than to beat up +people to come and dine with the Veneerings. Veneering pervades the +legislative lobbies, intent upon entrapping his fellow-legislators to +dinner. Mrs Veneering dined with five-and-twenty bran-new faces over +night; calls upon them all to day; sends them every one a dinner-card +to-morrow, for the week after next; before that dinner is digested, +calls upon their brothers and sisters, their sons and daughters, their +nephews and nieces, their aunts and uncles and cousins, and invites +them all to dinner. And still, as at first, howsoever, the dining circle +widens, it is to be observed that all the diners are consistent in +appearing to go to the Veneerings, not to dine with Mr and Mrs Veneering +(which would seem to be the last thing in their minds), but to dine with +one another. + +Perhaps, after all,—who knows?—Veneering may find this dining, though +expensive, remunerative, in the sense that it makes champions. +Mr Podsnap, as a representative man, is not alone in caring very +particularly for his own dignity, if not for that of his acquaintances, +and therefore in angrily supporting the acquaintances who have taken out +his Permit, lest, in their being lessened, he should be. The gold and +silver camels, and the ice-pails, and the rest of the Veneering table +decorations, make a brilliant show, and when I, Podsnap, casually remark +elsewhere that I dined last Monday with a gorgeous caravan of camels, +I find it personally offensive to have it hinted to me that they are +broken-kneed camels, or camels labouring under suspicion of any sort. ‘I +don’t display camels myself, I am above them: I am a more solid man; but +these camels have basked in the light of my countenance, and how dare +you, sir, insinuate to me that I have irradiated any but unimpeachable +camels?’ + +The camels are polishing up in the Analytical’s pantry for the dinner +of wonderment on the occasion of the Lammles going to pieces, and Mr +Twemlow feels a little queer on the sofa at his lodgings over the stable +yard in Duke Street, Saint James’s, in consequence of having taken +two advertised pills at about mid-day, on the faith of the printed +representation accompanying the box (price one and a penny halfpenny, +government stamp included), that the same ‘will be found highly salutary +as a precautionary measure in connection with the pleasures of the +table.’ To whom, while sickly with the fancy of an insoluble pill +sticking in his gullet, and also with the sensation of a deposit of warm +gum languidly wandering within him a little lower down, a servant enters +with the announcement that a lady wishes to speak with him. + +‘A lady!’ says Twemlow, pluming his ruffled feathers. ‘Ask the favour of +the lady’s name.’ + +The lady’s name is Lammle. The lady will not detain Mr Twemlow longer +than a very few minutes. The lady is sure that Mr Twemlow will do her +the kindness to see her, on being told that she particularly desires +a short interview. The lady has no doubt whatever of Mr Twemlow’s +compliance when he hears her name. Has begged the servant to be +particular not to mistake her name. Would have sent in a card, but has +none. + +‘Show the lady in.’ Lady shown in, comes in. + +Mr Twemlow’s little rooms are modestly furnished, in an old-fashioned +manner (rather like the housekeeper’s room at Snigsworthy Park), and +would be bare of mere ornament, were it not for a full-length engraving +of the sublime Snigsworth over the chimneypiece, snorting at a +Corinthian column, with an enormous roll of paper at his feet, and a +heavy curtain going to tumble down on his head; those accessories being +understood to represent the noble lord as somehow in the act of saving +his country. + +‘Pray take a seat, Mrs Lammle.’ Mrs Lammle takes a seat and opens the +conversation. + +‘I have no doubt, Mr Twemlow, that you have heard of a reverse of +fortune having befallen us. Of course you have heard of it, for no kind +of news travels so fast—among one’s friends especially.’ + +Mindful of the wondering dinner, Twemlow, with a little twinge, admits +the imputation. + +‘Probably it will not,’ says Mrs Lammle, with a certain hardened manner +upon her, that makes Twemlow shrink, ‘have surprised you so much as some +others, after what passed between us at the house which is now turned +out at windows. I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, Mr +Twemlow, to add a sort of postscript to what I said that day.’ + +Mr Twemlow’s dry and hollow cheeks become more dry and hollow at the +prospect of some new complication. + +‘Really,’ says the uneasy little gentleman, ‘really, Mrs Lammle, I +should take it as a favour if you could excuse me from any further +confidence. It has ever been one of the objects of my life—which, +unfortunately, has not had many objects—to be inoffensive, and to keep +out of cabals and interferences.’ + +Mrs Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, scarcely finds it +necessary to look at Twemlow while he speaks, so easily does she read +him. + +‘My postscript—to retain the term I have used’—says Mrs Lammle, fixing +her eyes on his face, to enforce what she says herself—‘coincides +exactly with what you say, Mr Twemlow. So far from troubling you with +any new confidence, I merely wish to remind you what the old one was. So +far from asking you for interference, I merely wish to claim your strict +neutrality.’ + +Twemlow going on to reply, she rests her eyes again, knowing her ears to +be quite enough for the contents of so weak a vessel. + +‘I can, I suppose,’ says Twemlow, nervously, ‘offer no reasonable +objection to hearing anything that you do me the honour to wish to say +to me under those heads. But if I may, with all possible delicacy and +politeness, entreat you not to range beyond them, I—I beg to do so.’ + +‘Sir,’ says Mrs Lammle, raising her eyes to his face again, and quite +daunting him with her hardened manner, ‘I imparted to you a certain +piece of knowledge, to be imparted again, as you thought best, to a +certain person.’ + +‘Which I did,’ says Twemlow. + +‘And for doing which, I thank you; though, indeed, I scarcely know why +I turned traitress to my husband in the matter, for the girl is a poor +little fool. I was a poor little fool once myself; I can find no better +reason.’ Seeing the effect she produces on him by her indifferent laugh +and cold look, she keeps her eyes upon him as she proceeds. ‘Mr Twemlow, +if you should chance to see my husband, or to see me, or to see both of +us, in the favour or confidence of any one else—whether of our common +acquaintance or not, is of no consequence—you have no right to use +against us the knowledge I intrusted you with, for one special purpose +which has been accomplished. This is what I came to say. It is not a +stipulation; to a gentleman it is simply a reminder.’ + +Twemlow sits murmuring to himself with his hand to his forehead. + +‘It is so plain a case,’ Mrs Lammle goes on, ‘as between me (from the +first relying on your honour) and you, that I will not waste another +word upon it.’ She looks steadily at Mr Twemlow, until, with a shrug, +he makes her a little one-sided bow, as though saying ‘Yes, I think you +have a right to rely upon me,’ and then she moistens her lips, and shows +a sense of relief. + +‘I trust I have kept the promise I made through your servant, that I +would detain you a very few minutes. I need trouble you no longer, Mr +Twemlow.’ + +‘Stay!’ says Twemlow, rising as she rises. ‘Pardon me a moment. I should +never have sought you out, madam, to say what I am going to say, but +since you have sought me out and are here, I will throw it off my mind. +Was it quite consistent, in candour, with our taking that resolution +against Mr Fledgeby, that you should afterwards address Mr Fledgeby as +your dear and confidential friend, and entreat a favour of Mr Fledgeby? +Always supposing that you did; I assert no knowledge of my own on the +subject; it has been represented to me that you did.’ + +‘Then he told you?’ retorts Mrs Lammle, who again has saved her eyes +while listening, and uses them with strong effect while speaking. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘It is strange that he should have told you the truth,’ says Mrs +Lammle, seriously pondering. ‘Pray where did a circumstance so very +extraordinary happen?’ + +Twemlow hesitates. He is shorter than the lady as well as weaker, and, +as she stands above him with her hardened manner and her well-used eyes, +he finds himself at such a disadvantage that he would like to be of the +opposite sex. + +‘May I ask where it happened, Mr Twemlow? In strict confidence?’ + +‘I must confess,’ says the mild little gentleman, coming to his answer +by degrees, ‘that I felt some compunctions when Mr Fledgeby mentioned +it. I must admit that I could not regard myself in an agreeable light. +More particularly, as Mr Fledgeby did, with great civility, which I +could not feel that I deserved from him, render me the same service that +you had entreated him to render you.’ + +It is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman’s soul to say +this last sentence. ‘Otherwise,’ he has reflected, ‘I shall assume the +superior position of having no difficulties of my own, while I know of +hers. Which would be mean, very mean.’ + +‘Was Mr Fledgeby’s advocacy as effectual in your case as in ours?’ Mrs +Lammle demands. + +‘As ineffectual.’ + +‘Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw Mr Fledgeby, Mr +Twemlow?’ + +‘I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The reservation +was not intentional. I encountered Mr Fledgeby, quite by accident, on +the spot.—By the expression, on the spot, I mean at Mr Riah’s in Saint +Mary Axe.’ + +‘Have you the misfortune to be in Mr Riah’s hands then?’ + +‘Unfortunately, madam,’ returns Twemlow, ‘the one money obligation to +which I stand committed, the one debt of my life (but it is a just debt; +pray observe that I don’t dispute it), has fallen into Mr Riah’s hands.’ + +‘Mr Twemlow,’ says Mrs Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers: which he would +prevent her doing if he could, but he can’t; ‘it has fallen into Mr +Fledgeby’s hands. Mr Riah is his mask. It has fallen into Mr Fledgeby’s +hands. Let me tell you that, for your guidance. The information may be +of use to you, if only to prevent your credulity, in judging another +man’s truthfulness by your own, from being imposed upon.’ + +‘Impossible!’ cries Twemlow, standing aghast. ‘How do you know it?’ + +‘I scarcely know how I know it. The whole train of circumstances seemed +to take fire at once, and show it to me.’ + +‘Oh! Then you have no proof.’ + +‘It is very strange,’ says Mrs Lammle, coldly and boldly, and with some +disdain, ‘how like men are to one another in some things, though their +characters are as different as can be! No two men can have less affinity +between them, one would say, than Mr Twemlow and my husband. Yet my +husband replies to me “You have no proof,” and Mr Twemlow replies to me +with the very same words!’ + +‘But why, madam?’ Twemlow ventures gently to argue. ‘Consider why +the very same words? Because they state the fact. Because you HAVE no +proof.’ + +‘Men are very wise in their way,’ quoth Mrs Lammle, glancing haughtily +at the Snigsworth portrait, and shaking out her dress before departing; +‘but they have wisdom to learn. My husband, who is not over-confiding, +ingenuous, or inexperienced, sees this plain thing no more than Mr +Twemlow does—because there is no proof! Yet I believe five women out of +six, in my place, would see it as clearly as I do. However, I will never +rest (if only in remembrance of Mr Fledgeby’s having kissed my hand) +until my husband does see it. And you will do well for yourself to see +it from this time forth, Mr Twemlow, though I CAN give you no proof.’ + +As she moves towards the door, Mr Twemlow, attending on her, expresses +his soothing hope that the condition of Mr Lammle’s affairs is not +irretrievable. + +‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Lammle answers, stopping, and sketching out the +pattern of the paper on the wall with the point of her parasol; ‘it +depends. There may be an opening for him dawning now, or there may be +none. We shall soon find out. If none, we are bankrupt here, and must go +abroad, I suppose.’ + +Mr Twemlow, in his good-natured desire to make the best of it, remarks +that there are pleasant lives abroad. + +‘Yes,’ returns Mrs Lammle, still sketching on the wall; ‘but I doubt +whether billiard-playing, card-playing, and so forth, for the means to +live under suspicion at a dirty table-d’hote, is one of them.’ + +It is much for Mr Lammle, Twemlow politely intimates (though greatly +shocked), to have one always beside him who is attached to him in all +his fortunes, and whose restraining influence will prevent him from +courses that would be discreditable and ruinous. As he says it, Mrs +Lammle leaves off sketching, and looks at him. + +‘Restraining influence, Mr Twemlow? We must eat and drink, and dress, +and have a roof over our heads. Always beside him and attached in all +his fortunes? Not much to boast of in that; what can a woman at my age +do? My husband and I deceived one another when we married; we must bear +the consequences of the deception—that is to say, bear one another, and +bear the burden of scheming together for to-day’s dinner and to-morrow’s +breakfast—till death divorces us.’ + +With those words, she walks out into Duke Street, Saint James’s. Mr +Twemlow returning to his sofa, lays down his aching head on its slippery +little horsehair bolster, with a strong internal conviction that a +painful interview is not the kind of thing to be taken after the dinner +pills which are so highly salutary in connexion with the pleasures of +the table. + +But, six o’clock in the evening finds the worthy little gentleman +getting better, and also getting himself into his obsolete little silk +stockings and pumps, for the wondering dinner at the Veneerings. And +seven o’clock in the evening finds him trotting out into Duke Street, to +trot to the corner and save a sixpence in coach-hire. + +Tippins the divine has dined herself into such a condition by this time, +that a morbid mind might desire her, for a blessed change, to sup +at last, and turn into bed. Such a mind has Mr Eugene Wrayburn, whom +Twemlow finds contemplating Tippins with the moodiest of visages, +while that playful creature rallies him on being so long overdue at the +woolsack. Skittish is Tippins with Mortimer Lightwood too, and has raps +to give him with her fan for having been best man at the nuptials of +these deceiving what’s-their-names who have gone to pieces. Though, +indeed, the fan is generally lively, and taps away at the men in +all directions, with something of a grisly sound suggestive of the +clattering of Lady Tippins’s bones. + +A new race of intimate friends has sprung up at Veneering’s since he +went into Parliament for the public good, to whom Mrs Veneering is very +attentive. These friends, like astronomical distances, are only to be +spoken of in the very largest figures. Boots says that one of them is a +Contractor who (it has been calculated) gives employment, directly and +indirectly, to five hundred thousand men. Brewer says that another of +them is a Chairman, in such request at so many Boards, so far apart, +that he never travels less by railway than three thousand miles a week. +Buffer says that another of them hadn’t a sixpence eighteen months ago, +and, through the brilliancy of his genius in getting those shares issued +at eighty-five, and buying them all up with no money and selling them +at par for cash, has now three hundred and seventy-five thousand +pounds—Buffer particularly insisting on the odd seventy-five, and +declining to take a farthing less. With Buffer, Boots, and Brewer, Lady +Tippins is eminently facetious on the subject of these Fathers of the +Scrip-Church: surveying them through her eyeglass, and inquiring whether +Boots and Brewer and Buffer think they will make her fortune if she +makes love to them? with other pleasantries of that nature. Veneering, +in his different way, is much occupied with the Fathers too, piously +retiring with them into the conservatory, from which retreat the word +‘Committee’ is occasionally heard, and where the Fathers instruct +Veneering how he must leave the valley of the piano on his left, +take the level of the mantelpiece, cross by an open cutting at the +candelabra, seize the carrying-traffic at the console, and cut up the +opposition root and branch at the window curtains. + +Mr and Mrs Podsnap are of the company, and the Fathers descry in Mrs +Podsnap a fine woman. She is consigned to a Father—Boots’s Father, +who employs five hundred thousand men—and is brought to anchor on +Veneering’s left; thus affording opportunity to the sportive Tippins on +his right (he, as usual, being mere vacant space), to entreat to be told +something about those loves of Navvies, and whether they really do live +on raw beefsteaks, and drink porter out of their barrows. But, in spite +of such little skirmishes it is felt that this was to be a wondering +dinner, and that the wondering must not be neglected. Accordingly, +Brewer, as the man who has the greatest reputation to sustain, becomes +the interpreter of the general instinct. + +‘I took,’ says Brewer in a favourable pause, ‘a cab this morning, and I +rattled off to that Sale.’ + +Boots (devoured by envy) says, ‘So did I.’ + +Buffer says, ‘So did I’; but can find nobody to care whether he did or +not. + +‘And what was it like?’ inquires Veneering. + +‘I assure you,’ replies Brewer, looking about for anybody else to +address his answer to, and giving the preference to Lightwood; ‘I assure +you, the things were going for a song. Handsome things enough, but +fetching nothing.’ + +‘So I heard this afternoon,’ says Lightwood. + +Brewer begs to know now, would it be fair to ask a professional man +how—on—earth—these—people—ever—did—come—TO—such—A—total +smash? (Brewer’s divisions being for emphasis.) + +Lightwood replies that he was consulted certainly, but could give no +opinion which would pay off the Bill of Sale, and therefore violates no +confidence in supposing that it came of their living beyond their means. + +‘But how,’ says Veneering, ‘CAN people do that!’ + +Hah! That is felt on all hands to be a shot in the bull’s eye. How CAN +people do that! The Analytical Chemist going round with champagne, looks +very much as if HE could give them a pretty good idea how people did +that, if he had a mind. + +‘How,’ says Mrs Veneering, laying down her fork to press her aquiline +hands together at the tips of the fingers, and addressing the Father who +travels the three thousand miles per week: ‘how a mother can look at +her baby, and know that she lives beyond her husband’s means, I cannot +imagine.’ + +Eugene suggests that Mrs Lammle, not being a mother, had no baby to look +at. + +‘True,’ says Mrs Veneering, ‘but the principle is the same.’ + +Boots is clear that the principle is the same. So is Buffer. It is the +unfortunate destiny of Buffer to damage a cause by espousing it. The +rest of the company have meekly yielded to the proposition that the +principle is the same, until Buffer says it is; when instantly a general +murmur arises that the principle is not the same. + +‘But I don’t understand,’ says the Father of the three hundred and +seventy-five thousand pounds, ‘—if these people spoken of, occupied the +position of being in society—they were in society?’ + +Veneering is bound to confess that they dined here, and were even +married from here. + +‘Then I don’t understand,’ pursues the Father, ‘how even their living +beyond their means could bring them to what has been termed a total +smash. Because, there is always such a thing as an adjustment of +affairs, in the case of people of any standing at all.’ + +Eugene (who would seem to be in a gloomy state of suggestiveness), +suggests, ‘Suppose you have no means and live beyond them?’ + +This is too insolvent a state of things for the Father to entertain. It +is too insolvent a state of things for any one with any self-respect +to entertain, and is universally scouted. But, it is so amazing how any +people can have come to a total smash, that everybody feels bound to +account for it specially. One of the Fathers says, ‘Gaming table.’ +Another of the Fathers says, ‘Speculated without knowing that +speculation is a science.’ Boots says ‘Horses.’ Lady Tippins says to her +fan, ‘Two establishments.’ Mr Podsnap, saying nothing, is referred +to for his opinion; which he delivers as follows; much flushed and +extremely angry: + +‘Don’t ask me. I desire to take no part in the discussion of these +people’s affairs. I abhor the subject. It is an odious subject, an +offensive subject, a subject that makes me sick, and I—’ And with his +favourite right-arm flourish which sweeps away everything and settles it +for ever, Mr Podsnap sweeps these inconveniently unexplainable wretches +who have lived beyond their means and gone to total smash, off the face +of the universe. + +Eugene, leaning back in his chair, is observing Mr Podsnap with an +irreverent face, and may be about to offer a new suggestion, when +the Analytical is beheld in collision with the Coachman; the Coachman +manifesting a purpose of coming at the company with a silver salver, +as though intent upon making a collection for his wife and family; the +Analytical cutting him off at the sideboard. The superior stateliness, +if not the superior generalship, of the Analytical prevails over a man +who is as nothing off the box; and the Coachman, yielding up his salver, +retires defeated. + +Then, the Analytical, perusing a scrap of paper lying on the salver, +with the air of a literary Censor, adjusts it, takes his time about +going to the table with it, and presents it to Mr Eugene Wrayburn. +Whereupon the pleasant Tippins says aloud, ‘The Lord Chancellor has +resigned!’ + +With distracting coolness and slowness—for he knows the curiosity of +the Charmer to be always devouring—Eugene makes a pretence of getting +out an eyeglass, polishing it, and reading the paper with difficulty, +long after he has seen what is written on it. What is written on it in +wet ink, is: + +‘Young Blight.’ + +‘Waiting?’ says Eugene over his shoulder, in confidence, with the +Analytical. + +‘Waiting,’ returns the Analytical in responsive confidence. + +Eugene looks ‘Excuse me,’ towards Mrs Veneering, goes out, and finds +Young Blight, Mortimer’s clerk, at the hall-door. + +‘You told me to bring him, sir, to wherever you was, if he come while +you was out and I was in,’ says that discreet young gentleman, standing +on tiptoe to whisper; ‘and I’ve brought him.’ + +‘Sharp boy. Where is he?’ asks Eugene. + +‘He’s in a cab, sir, at the door. I thought it best not to show him, you +see, if it could be helped; for he’s a-shaking all over, like—Blight’s +simile is perhaps inspired by the surrounding dishes of sweets—‘like +Glue Monge.’ + +‘Sharp boy again,’ returns Eugene. ‘I’ll go to him.’ + +Goes out straightway, and, leisurely leaning his arms on the open window +of a cab in waiting, looks in at Mr Dolls: who has brought his own +atmosphere with him, and would seem from its odour to have brought it, +for convenience of carriage, in a rum-cask. + +‘Now Dolls, wake up!’ + +‘Mist Wrayburn? Drection! Fifteen shillings!’ + +After carefully reading the dingy scrap of paper handed to him, and as +carefully tucking it into his waistcoat pocket, Eugene tells out the +money; beginning incautiously by telling the first shilling into Mr +Dolls’s hand, which instantly jerks it out of window; and ending by +telling the fifteen shillings on the seat. + +‘Give him a ride back to Charing Cross, sharp boy, and there get rid of +him.’ + +Returning to the dining-room, and pausing for an instant behind the +screen at the door, Eugene overhears, above the hum and clatter, the +fair Tippins saying: ‘I am dying to ask him what he was called out for!’ + +‘Are you?’ mutters Eugene, ‘then perhaps if you can’t ask him, you’ll +die. So I’ll be a benefactor to society, and go. A stroll and a cigar, +and I can think this over. Think this over.’ Thus, with a thoughtful +face, he finds his hat and cloak, unseen of the Analytical, and goes his +way. + + + + +BOOK THE FOURTH — A TURNING + +Chapter 1 + +SETTING TRAPS + + +Plashwater Weir Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on an evening in +the summer time. A soft air stirred the leaves of the fresh green trees, +and passed like a smooth shadow over the river, and like a smoother +shadow over the yielding grass. The voice of the falling water, like +the voices of the sea and the wind, were as an outer memory to a +contemplative listener; but not particularly so to Mr Riderhood, who sat +on one of the blunt wooden levers of his lock-gates, dozing. Wine must +be got into a butt by some agency before it can be drawn out; and the +wine of sentiment never having been got into Mr Riderhood by any agency, +nothing in nature tapped him. + +As the Rogue sat, ever and again nodding himself off his balance, his +recovery was always attended by an angry stare and growl, as if, in the +absence of any one else, he had aggressive inclinations towards himself. +In one of these starts the cry of ‘Lock, ho! Lock!’ prevented his +relapse into a doze. Shaking himself as he got up like the surly brute +he was, he gave his growl a responsive twist at the end, and turned his +face down-stream to see who hailed. + +It was an amateur-sculler, well up to his work though taking it easily, +in so light a boat that the Rogue remarked: ‘A little less on you, and +you’d a’most ha’ been a Wagerbut’; then went to work at his windlass +handles and sluices, to let the sculler in. As the latter stood in his +boat, holding on by the boat-hook to the woodwork at the lock side, +waiting for the gates to open, Rogue Riderhood recognized his ‘T’other +governor,’ Mr Eugene Wrayburn; who was, however, too indifferent or too +much engaged to recognize him. + +The creaking lock-gates opened slowly, and the light boat passed in as +soon as there was room enough, and the creaking lock-gates closed upon +it, and it floated low down in the dock between the two sets of gates, +until the water should rise and the second gates should open and let it +out. When Riderhood had run to his second windlass and turned it, and +while he leaned against the lever of that gate to help it to swing +open presently, he noticed, lying to rest under the green hedge by the +towing-path astern of the Lock, a Bargeman. + +The water rose and rose as the sluice poured in, dispersing the scum +which had formed behind the lumbering gates, and sending the boat up, +so that the sculler gradually rose like an apparition against the light +from the bargeman’s point of view. Riderhood observed that the bargeman +rose too, leaning on his arm, and seemed to have his eyes fastened on +the rising figure. + +But, there was the toll to be taken, as the gates were now complaining +and opening. The T’other governor tossed it ashore, twisted in a piece +of paper, and as he did so, knew his man. + +‘Ay, ay? It’s you, is it, honest friend?’ said Eugene, seating himself +preparatory to resuming his sculls. ‘You got the place, then?’ + +‘I got the place, and no thanks to you for it, nor yet none to Lawyer +Lightwood,’ gruffly answered Riderhood. + +‘We saved our recommendation, honest fellow,’ said Eugene, ‘for the next +candidate—the one who will offer himself when you are transported or +hanged. Don’t be long about it; will you be so good?’ + +So imperturbable was the air with which he gravely bent to his work that +Riderhood remained staring at him, without having found a retort, until +he had rowed past a line of wooden objects by the weir, which showed +like huge teetotums standing at rest in the water, and was almost hidden +by the drooping boughs on the left bank, as he rowed away, keeping +out of the opposing current. It being then too late to retort with +any effect—if that could ever have been done—the honest man confined +himself to cursing and growling in a grim under-tone. Having then +got his gates shut, he crossed back by his plank lock-bridge to the +towing-path side of the river. + +If, in so doing, he took another glance at the bargeman, he did it by +stealth. He cast himself on the grass by the Lock side, in an indolent +way, with his back in that direction, and, having gathered a few blades, +fell to chewing them. The dip of Eugene Wrayburn’s sculls had become +hardly audible in his ears when the bargeman passed him, putting the +utmost width that he could between them, and keeping under the hedge. +Then, Riderhood sat up and took a long look at his figure, and then +cried: ‘Hi—I—i! Lock, ho! Lock! Plashwater Weir Mill Lock!’ + +The bargeman stopped, and looked back. + +‘Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, T’otherest gov—er—nor—or—or—or!’ cried +Mr Riderhood, with his hands to his mouth. + +The bargeman turned back. Approaching nearer and nearer, the bargeman +became Bradley Headstone, in rough water-side second-hand clothing. + +‘Wish I may die,’ said Riderhood, smiting his right leg, and laughing, +as he sat on the grass, ‘if you ain’t ha’ been a imitating me, +T’otherest governor! Never thought myself so good-looking afore!’ + +Truly, Bradley Headstone had taken careful note of the honest man’s +dress in the course of that night-walk they had had together. He must +have committed it to memory, and slowly got it by heart. It was +exactly reproduced in the dress he now wore. And whereas, in his own +schoolmaster clothes, he usually looked as if they were the clothes of +some other man, he now looked, in the clothes of some other man or men, +as if they were his own. + +‘THIS your Lock?’ said Bradley, whose surprise had a genuine air; ‘they +told me, where I last inquired, it was the third I should come to. This +is only the second.’ + +‘It’s my belief, governor,’ returned Riderhood, with a wink and shake of +his head, ‘that you’ve dropped one in your counting. It ain’t Locks as +YOU’VE been giving your mind to. No, no!’ + +As he expressively jerked his pointing finger in the direction the boat +had taken, a flush of impatience mounted into Bradley’s face, and he +looked anxiously up the river. + +‘It ain’t Locks as YOU’VE been a reckoning up,’ said Riderhood, when the +schoolmaster’s eyes came back again. ‘No, no!’ + +‘What other calculations do you suppose I have been occupied with? +Mathematics?’ + +‘I never heerd it called that. It’s a long word for it. Hows’ever, +p’raps you call it so,’ said Riderhood, stubbornly chewing his grass. + +‘It. What?’ + +‘I’ll say them, instead of it, if you like,’ was the coolly growled +reply. ‘It’s safer talk too.’ + +‘What do you mean that I should understand by them?’ + +‘Spites, affronts, offences giv’ and took, deadly aggrawations, such +like,’ answered Riderhood. + +Do what Bradley Headstone would, he could not keep that former flush of +impatience out of his face, or so master his eyes as to prevent their +again looking anxiously up the river. + +‘Ha ha! Don’t be afeerd, T’otherest,’ said Riderhood. ‘The T’other’s got +to make way agin the stream, and he takes it easy. You can soon come up +with him. But wot’s the good of saying that to you! YOU know how fur +you could have outwalked him betwixt anywheres about where he lost the +tide—say Richmond—and this, if you had a mind to it.’ + +‘You think I have been following him?’ said Bradley. + +‘I KNOW you have,’ said Riderhood. + +‘Well! I have, I have,’ Bradley admitted. ‘But,’ with another anxious +look up the river, ‘he may land.’ + +‘Easy you! He won’t be lost if he does land,’ said Riderhood. ‘He must +leave his boat behind him. He can’t make a bundle or a parcel on it, and +carry it ashore with him under his arm.’ + +‘He was speaking to you just now,’ said Bradley, kneeling on one knee on +the grass beside the Lock-keeper. ‘What did he say?’ + +‘Cheek,’ said Riderhood. + +‘What?’ + +‘Cheek,’ repeated Riderhood, with an angry oath; ‘cheek is what he said. +He can’t say nothing but cheek. I’d ha’ liked to plump down aboard of +him, neck and crop, with a heavy jump, and sunk him.’ + +Bradley turned away his haggard face for a few moments, and then said, +tearing up a tuft of grass: + +‘Damn him!’ + +‘Hooroar!’ cried Riderhood. ‘Does you credit! Hooroar! I cry chorus to +the T’otherest.’ + +‘What turn,’ said Bradley, with an effort at self-repression that forced +him to wipe his face, ‘did his insolence take to-day?’ + +‘It took the turn,’ answered Riderhood, with sullen ferocity, ‘of hoping +as I was getting ready to be hanged.’ + +‘Let him look to that,’ cried Bradley. ‘Let him look to that! It will +be bad for him when men he has injured, and at whom he has jeered, are +thinking of getting hanged. Let HIM get ready for HIS fate, when that +comes about. There was more meaning in what he said than he knew of, or +he wouldn’t have had brains enough to say it. Let him look to it; let +him look to it! When men he has wronged, and on whom he has bestowed +his insolence, are getting ready to be hanged, there is a death-bell +ringing. And not for them.’ + +Riderhood, looking fixedly at him, gradually arose from his recumbent +posture while the schoolmaster said these words with the utmost +concentration of rage and hatred. So, when the words were all spoken, +he too kneeled on one knee on the grass, and the two men looked at one +another. + +‘Oh!’ said Riderhood, very deliberately spitting out the grass he had +been chewing. ‘Then, I make out, T’otherest, as he is a-going to her?’ + +‘He left London,’ answered Bradley, ‘yesterday. I have hardly a doubt, +this time, that at last he is going to her.’ + +‘You ain’t sure, then?’ + +‘I am as sure here,’ said Bradley, with a clutch at the breast of his +coarse shirt, ‘as if it was written there;’ with a blow or a stab at the +sky. + +‘Ah! But judging from the looks on you,’ retorted Riderhood, completely +ridding himself of his grass, and drawing his sleeve across his mouth, +‘you’ve made ekally sure afore, and have got disapinted. It has told +upon you.’ + +‘Listen,’ said Bradley, in a low voice, bending forward to lay his hand +upon the Lock-keeper’s shoulder. ‘These are my holidays.’ + +‘Are they, by George!’ muttered Riderhood, with his eyes on the +passion-wasted face. ‘Your working days must be stiff ’uns, if these is +your holidays.’ + +‘And I have never left him,’ pursued Bradley, waving the interruption +aside with an impatient hand, ‘since they began. And I never will leave +him now, till I have seen him with her.’ + +‘And when you have seen him with her?’ said Riderhood. + +‘—I’ll come back to you.’ + +Riderhood stiffened the knee on which he had been resting, got up, and +looked gloomily at his new friend. After a few moments they walked side +by side in the direction the boat had taken, as if by tacit consent; +Bradley pressing forward, and Riderhood holding back; Bradley getting +out his neat prim purse into his hand (a present made him by penny +subscription among his pupils); and Riderhood, unfolding his arms to +smear his coat-cuff across his mouth with a thoughtful air. + +‘I have a pound for you,’ said Bradley. + +‘You’ve two,’ said Riderhood. + +Bradley held a sovereign between his fingers. Slouching at his side with +his eyes upon the towing-path, Riderhood held his left hand open, with +a certain slight drawing action towards himself. Bradley dipped in his +purse for another sovereign, and two chinked in Riderhood’s hand, the +drawing action of which, promptly strengthening, drew them home to his +pocket. + +‘Now, I must follow him,’ said Bradley Headstone. ‘He takes this +river-road—the fool!—to confuse observation, or divert attention, if +not solely to baffle me. But he must have the power of making himself +invisible before he can shake Me off.’ + +Riderhood stopped. ‘If you don’t get disapinted agin, T’otherest, maybe +you’ll put up at the Lock-house when you come back?’ + +‘I will.’ + +Riderhood nodded, and the figure of the bargeman went its way along the +soft turf by the side of the towing-path, keeping near the hedge and +moving quickly. They had turned a point from which a long stretch of +river was visible. A stranger to the scene might have been certain that +here and there along the line of hedge a figure stood, watching the +bargeman, and waiting for him to come up. So he himself had often +believed at first, until his eyes became used to the posts, bearing the +dagger that slew Wat Tyler, in the City of London shield. + +Within Mr Riderhood’s knowledge all daggers were as one. Even to Bradley +Headstone, who could have told to the letter without book all about Wat +Tyler, Lord Mayor Walworth, and the King, that it is dutiful for youth +to know, there was but one subject living in the world for every sharp +destructive instrument that summer evening. So, Riderhood looking after +him as he went, and he with his furtive hand laid upon the dagger as he +passed it, and his eyes upon the boat, were much upon a par. + +The boat went on, under the arching trees, and over their tranquil +shadows in the water. The bargeman skulking on the opposite bank of the +stream, went on after it. Sparkles of light showed Riderhood when +and where the rower dipped his blades, until, even as he stood idly +watching, the sun went down and the landscape was dyed red. And then the +red had the appearance of fading out of it and mounting up to Heaven, as +we say that blood, guiltily shed, does. + +Turning back towards his Lock (he had not gone out of view of it), the +Rogue pondered as deeply as it was within the contracted power of such +a fellow to do. ‘Why did he copy my clothes? He could have looked like +what he wanted to look like, without that.’ This was the subject-matter +in his thoughts; in which, too, there came lumbering up, by times, like +any half floating and half sinking rubbish in the river, the question, +Was it done by accident? The setting of a trap for finding out whether +it was accidentally done, soon superseded, as a practical piece of +cunning, the abstruser inquiry why otherwise it was done. And he devised +a means. + +Rogue Riderhood went into his Lock-house, and brought forth, into the +now sober grey light, his chest of clothes. Sitting on the grass beside +it, he turned out, one by one, the articles it contained, until he came +to a conspicuous bright red neckerchief stained black here and there by +wear. It arrested his attention, and he sat pausing over it, until he +took off the rusty colourless wisp that he wore round his throat, and +substituted the red neckerchief, leaving the long ends flowing. ‘Now,’ +said the Rogue, ‘if arter he sees me in this neckhankecher, I see him in +a sim’lar neckhankecher, it won’t be accident!’ Elated by his device, he +carried his chest in again and went to supper. + +‘Lock ho! Lock!’ It was a light night, and a barge coming down summoned +him out of a long doze. In due course he had let the barge through +and was alone again, looking to the closing of his gates, when Bradley +Headstone appeared before him, standing on the brink of the Lock. + +‘Halloa!’ said Riderhood. ‘Back a’ ready, T’otherest?’ + +‘He has put up for the night, at an Angler’s Inn,’ was the fatigued and +hoarse reply. ‘He goes on, up the river, at six in the morning. I have +come back for a couple of hours’ rest.’ + +‘You want ’em,’ said Riderhood, making towards the schoolmaster by his +plank bridge. + +‘I don’t want them,’ returned Bradley, irritably, ‘because I would +rather not have them, but would much prefer to follow him all night. +However, if he won’t lead, I can’t follow. I have been waiting about, +until I could discover, for a certainty, at what time he starts; if I +couldn’t have made sure of it, I should have stayed there.—This would +be a bad pit for a man to be flung into with his hands tied. These +slippery smooth walls would give him no chance. And I suppose those +gates would suck him down?’ + +‘Suck him down, or swaller him up, he wouldn’t get out,’ said Riderhood. +‘Not even, if his hands warn’t tied, he wouldn’t. Shut him in at both +ends, and I’d give him a pint o’ old ale ever to come up to me standing +here.’ + +Bradley looked down with a ghastly relish. ‘You run about the brink, and +run across it, in this uncertain light, on a few inches width of rotten +wood,’ said he. ‘I wonder you have no thought of being drowned.’ + +‘I can’t be!’ said Riderhood. + +‘You can’t be drowned?’ + +‘No!’ said Riderhood, shaking his head with an air of thorough +conviction, ‘it’s well known. I’ve been brought out o’ drowning, and I +can’t be drowned. I wouldn’t have that there busted B’lowbridger aware +on it, or her people might make it tell agin’ the damages I mean to get. +But it’s well known to water-side characters like myself, that him as +has been brought out o drowning, can never be drowned.’ + +Bradley smiled sourly at the ignorance he would have corrected in one of +his pupils, and continued to look down into the water, as if the place +had a gloomy fascination for him. + +‘You seem to like it,’ said Riderhood. + +He took no notice, but stood looking down, as if he had not heard the +words. There was a very dark expression on his face; an expression +that the Rogue found it hard to understand. It was fierce, and full +of purpose; but the purpose might have been as much against himself as +against another. If he had stepped back for a spring, taken a leap, and +thrown himself in, it would have been no surprising sequel to the look. +Perhaps his troubled soul, set upon some violence, did hover for the +moment between that violence and another. + +‘Didn’t you say,’ asked Riderhood, after watching him for a while with +a sidelong glance, ‘as you had come back for a couple o’ hours’ rest?’ +But, even then he had to jog him with his elbow before he answered. + +‘Eh? Yes.’ + +‘Hadn’t you better come in and take your couple o’ hours’ rest?’ + +‘Thank you. Yes.’ + +With the look of one just awakened, he followed Riderhood into the +Lock-house, where the latter produced from a cupboard some cold salt +beef and half a loaf, some gin in a bottle, and some water in a jug. The +last he brought in, cool and dripping, from the river. + +‘There, T’otherest,’ said Riderhood, stooping over him to put it on +the table. ‘You’d better take a bite and a sup, afore you takes +your snooze.’ The draggling ends of the red neckerchief caught the +schoolmaster’s eyes. Riderhood saw him look at it. + +‘Oh!’ thought that worthy. ‘You’re a-taking notice, are you? Come! You +shall have a good squint at it then.’ With which reflection he sat down +on the other side of the table, threw open his vest, and made a pretence +of re-tying the neckerchief with much deliberation. + +Bradley ate and drank. As he sat at his platter and mug, Riderhood saw +him, again and yet again, steal a look at the neckerchief, as if he were +correcting his slow observation and prompting his sluggish memory. +‘When you’re ready for your snooze,’ said that honest creature, ‘chuck +yourself on my bed in the corner, T’otherest. It’ll be broad day afore +three. I’ll call you early.’ + +‘I shall require no calling,’ answered Bradley. And soon afterwards, +divesting himself only of his shoes and coat, laid himself down. + +Riderhood, leaning back in his wooden arm-chair with his arms folded +on his breast, looked at him lying with his right hand clenched in his +sleep and his teeth set, until a film came over his own sight, and he +slept too. He awoke to find that it was daylight, and that his +visitor was already astir, and going out to the river-side to cool his +head:—‘Though I’m blest,’ muttered Riderhood at the Lock-house door, +looking after him, ‘if I think there’s water enough in all the Thames +to do THAT for you!’ Within five minutes he had taken his departure, +and was passing on into the calm distance as he had passed yesterday. +Riderhood knew when a fish leaped, by his starting and glancing round. + +‘Lock ho! Lock!’ at intervals all day, and ‘Lock ho! Lock!’ thrice in +the ensuing night, but no return of Bradley. The second day was sultry +and oppressive. In the afternoon, a thunderstorm came up, and had but +newly broken into a furious sweep of rain when he rushed in at the door, +like the storm itself. + +‘You’ve seen him with her!’ exclaimed Riderhood, starting up. + +‘I have.’ + +‘Where?’ + +‘At his journey’s end. His boat’s hauled up for three days. I heard +him give the order. Then, I saw him wait for her and meet her. I saw +them’—he stopped as though he were suffocating, and began again—‘I saw +them walking side by side, last night.’ + +‘What did you do?’ + +‘Nothing.’ + +‘What are you going to do?’ + +He dropped into a chair, and laughed. Immediately afterwards, a great +spirt of blood burst from his nose. + +‘How does that happen?’ asked Riderhood. + +‘I don’t know. I can’t keep it back. It has happened twice—three +times—four times—I don’t know how many times—since last night. I +taste it, smell it, see it, it chokes me, and then it breaks out like +this.’ + +He went into the pelting rain again with his head bare, and, bending low +over the river, and scooping up the water with his two hands, washed the +blood away. All beyond his figure, as Riderhood looked from the door, +was a vast dark curtain in solemn movement towards one quarter of the +heavens. He raised his head and came back, wet from head to foot, but +with the lower parts of his sleeves, where he had dipped into the river, +streaming water. + +‘Your face is like a ghost’s,’ said Riderhood. + +‘Did you ever see a ghost?’ was the sullen retort. + +‘I mean to say, you’re quite wore out.’ + +‘That may well be. I have had no rest since I left here. I don’t +remember that I have so much as sat down since I left here.’ + +‘Lie down now, then,’ said Riderhood. + +‘I will, if you’ll give me something to quench my thirst first.’ + +The bottle and jug were again produced, and he mixed a weak draught, and +another, and drank both in quick succession. ‘You asked me something,’ +he said then. + +‘No, I didn’t,’ replied Riderhood. + +‘I tell you,’ retorted Bradley, turning upon him in a wild and desperate +manner, ‘you asked me something, before I went out to wash my face in +the river. + +‘Oh! Then?’ said Riderhood, backing a little. ‘I asked you wot you wos +a-going to do.’ + +‘How can a man in this state know?’ he answered, protesting with both +his tremulous hands, with an action so vigorously angry that he shook +the water from his sleeves upon the floor, as if he had wrung them. ‘How +can I plan anything, if I haven’t sleep?’ + +‘Why, that’s what I as good as said,’ returned the other. ‘Didn’t I say +lie down?’ + +‘Well, perhaps you did.’ + +‘Well! Anyways I says it again. Sleep where you slept last; the sounder +and longer you can sleep, the better you’ll know arterwards what you’re +up to.’ + +His pointing to the truckle bed in the corner, seemed gradually to bring +that poor couch to Bradley’s wandering remembrance. He slipped off his +worn down-trodden shoes, and cast himself heavily, all wet as he was, +upon the bed. + +Riderhood sat down in his wooden arm-chair, and looked through the +window at the lightning, and listened to the thunder. But, his thoughts +were far from being absorbed by the thunder and the lightning, for again +and again and again he looked very curiously at the exhausted man upon +the bed. The man had turned up the collar of the rough coat he wore, +to shelter himself from the storm, and had buttoned it about his neck. +Unconscious of that, and of most things, he had left the coat so, both +when he had laved his face in the river, and when he had cast himself +upon the bed; though it would have been much easier to him if he had +unloosened it. + +The thunder rolled heavily, and the forked lightning seemed to make +jagged rents in every part of the vast curtain without, as Riderhood sat +by the window, glancing at the bed. Sometimes, he saw the man upon the +bed, by a red light; sometimes, by a blue; sometimes, he scarcely saw +him in the darkness of the storm; sometimes he saw nothing of him in +the blinding glare of palpitating white fire. Anon, the rain would come +again with a tremendous rush, and the river would seem to rise to meet +it, and a blast of wind, bursting upon the door, would flutter the hair +and dress of the man, as if invisible messengers were come around the +bed to carry him away. From all these phases of the storm, Riderhood +would turn, as if they were interruptions—rather striking interruptions +possibly, but interruptions still—of his scrutiny of the sleeper. + +‘He sleeps sound,’ he said within himself; ‘yet he’s that up to me and +that noticing of me that my getting out of my chair may wake him, when a +rattling peal won’t; let alone my touching of him.’ + +He very cautiously rose to his feet. ‘T’otherest,’ he said, in a low, +calm voice, ‘are you a lying easy? There’s a chill in the air, governor. +Shall I put a coat over you?’ + +No answer. + +‘That’s about what it is a’ready, you see,’ muttered Riderhood in a +lower and a different voice; ‘a coat over you, a coat over you!’ + +The sleeper moving an arm, he sat down again in his chair, and feigned +to watch the storm from the window. It was a grand spectacle, but not so +grand as to keep his eyes, for half a minute together, from stealing a +look at the man upon the bed. + +It was at the concealed throat of the sleeper that Riderhood so often +looked so curiously, until the sleep seemed to deepen into the stupor +of the dead-tired in mind and body. Then, Riderhood came from the window +cautiously, and stood by the bed. + +‘Poor man!’ he murmured in a low tone, with a crafty face, and a very +watchful eye and ready foot, lest he should start up; ‘this here coat +of his must make him uneasy in his sleep. Shall I loosen it for him, +and make him more comfortable? Ah! I think I ought to do it, poor man. I +think I will.’ + +He touched the first button with a very cautious hand, and a step +backward. But, the sleeper remaining in profound unconsciousness, he +touched the other buttons with a more assured hand, and perhaps the more +lightly on that account. Softly and slowly, he opened the coat and drew +it back. + +The draggling ends of a bright-red neckerchief were then disclosed, and +he had even been at the pains of dipping parts of it in some liquid, +to give it the appearance of having become stained by wear. With a +much-perplexed face, Riderhood looked from it to the sleeper, and from +the sleeper to it, and finally crept back to his chair, and there, with +his hand to his chin, sat long in a brown study, looking at both. + + + + +Chapter 2 + +THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE + + +Mr and Mrs Lammle had come to breakfast with Mr and Mrs Boffin. They +were not absolutely uninvited, but had pressed themselves with so much +urgency on the golden couple, that evasion of the honour and pleasure +of their company would have been difficult, if desired. They were in a +charming state of mind, were Mr and Mrs Lammle, and almost as fond of Mr +and Mrs Boffin as of one another. + +‘My dear Mrs Boffin,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘it imparts new life to me, to +see my Alfred in confidential communication with Mr Boffin. The two +were formed to become intimate. So much simplicity combined with so much +force of character, such natural sagacity united to such amiability and +gentleness—these are the distinguishing characteristics of both.’ + +This being said aloud, gave Mr Lammle an opportunity, as he came with Mr +Boffin from the window to the breakfast table, of taking up his dear and +honoured wife. + +‘My Sophronia,’ said that gentleman, ‘your too partial estimate of your +husband’s character—’ + +‘No! Not too partial, Alfred,’ urged the lady, tenderly moved; ‘never +say that.’ + +‘My child, your favourable opinion, then, of your husband—you don’t +object to that phrase, darling?’ + +‘How can I, Alfred?’ + +‘Your favourable opinion then, my Precious, does less than justice to Mr +Boffin, and more than justice to me.’ + +‘To the first charge, Alfred, I plead guilty. But to the second, oh no, +no!’ + +‘Less than justice to Mr Boffin, Sophronia,’ said Mr Lammle, soaring +into a tone of moral grandeur, ‘because it represents Mr Boffin as on my +lower level; more than justice to me, Sophronia, because it represents +me as on Mr Boffin’s higher level. Mr Boffin bears and forbears far more +than I could.’ + +‘Far more than you could for yourself, Alfred?’ + +‘My love, that is not the question.’ + +‘Not the question, Lawyer?’ said Mrs Lammle, archly. + +‘No, dear Sophronia. From my lower level, I regard Mr Boffin as too +generous, as possessed of too much clemency, as being too good to +persons who are unworthy of him and ungrateful to him. To those noble +qualities I can lay no claim. On the contrary, they rouse my indignation +when I see them in action.’ + +‘Alfred!’ + +‘They rouse my indignation, my dear, against the unworthy persons, +and give me a combative desire to stand between Mr Boffin and all such +persons. Why? Because, in my lower nature I am more worldly and less +delicate. Not being so magnanimous as Mr Boffin, I feel his injuries +more than he does himself, and feel more capable of opposing his +injurers.’ + +It struck Mrs Lammle that it appeared rather difficult this morning +to bring Mr and Mrs Boffin into agreeable conversation. Here had been +several lures thrown out, and neither of them had uttered a word. Here +were she, Mrs Lammle, and her husband discoursing at once affectingly +and effectively, but discoursing alone. Assuming that the dear old +creatures were impressed by what they heard, still one would like to be +sure of it, the more so, as at least one of the dear old creatures +was somewhat pointedly referred to. If the dear old creatures were too +bashful or too dull to assume their required places in the discussion, +why then it would seem desirable that the dear old creatures should be +taken by their heads and shoulders and brought into it. + +‘But is not my husband saying in effect,’ asked Mrs Lammle, therefore, +with an innocent air, of Mr and Mrs Boffin, ‘that he becomes unmindful +of his own temporary misfortunes in his admiration of another whom he is +burning to serve? And is not that making an admission that his nature is +a generous one? I am wretched in argument, but surely this is so, dear +Mr and Mrs Boffin?’ + +Still, neither Mr and Mrs Boffin said a word. He sat with his eyes on +his plate, eating his muffins and ham, and she sat shyly looking at the +teapot. Mrs Lammle’s innocent appeal was merely thrown into the air, to +mingle with the steam of the urn. Glancing towards Mr and Mrs Boffin, +she very slightly raised her eyebrows, as though inquiring of her +husband: ‘Do I notice anything wrong here?’ + +Mr Lammle, who had found his chest effective on a variety of occasions, +manoeuvred his capacious shirt front into the largest demonstration +possible, and then smiling retorted on his wife, thus: + +‘Sophronia, darling, Mr and Mrs Boffin will remind you of the old adage, +that self-praise is no recommendation.’ + +‘Self-praise, Alfred? Do you mean because we are one and the same?’ + +‘No, my dear child. I mean that you cannot fail to remember, if you +reflect for a single moment, that what you are pleased to compliment me +upon feeling in the case of Mr Boffin, you have yourself confided to me +as your own feeling in the case of Mrs Boffin.’ + +(‘I shall be beaten by this Lawyer,’ Mrs Lammle gaily whispered to +Mrs Boffin. ‘I am afraid I must admit it, if he presses me, for it’s +damagingly true.’) + +Several white dints began to come and go about Mr Lammle’s nose, as he +observed that Mrs Boffin merely looked up from the teapot for a moment +with an embarrassed smile, which was no smile, and then looked down +again. + +‘Do you admit the charge, Sophronia?’ inquired Alfred, in a rallying +tone. + +‘Really, I think,’ said Mrs Lammle, still gaily, ‘I must throw myself +on the protection of the Court. Am I bound to answer that question, my +Lord?’ To Mr Boffin. + +‘You needn’t, if you don’t like, ma’am,’ was his answer. ‘It’s not of +the least consequence.’ + +Both husband and wife glanced at him, very doubtfully. His manner was +grave, but not coarse, and derived some dignity from a certain repressed +dislike of the tone of the conversation. + +Again Mrs Lammle raised her eyebrows for instruction from her husband. +He replied in a slight nod, ‘Try ’em again.’ + +‘To protect myself against the suspicion of covert self-laudation, my +dear Mrs Boffin,’ said the airy Mrs Lammle therefore, ‘I must tell you +how it was.’ + +‘No. Pray don’t,’ Mr Boffin interposed. + +Mrs Lammle turned to him laughingly. ‘The Court objects?’ + +‘Ma’am,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘the Court (if I am the Court) does object. The +Court objects for two reasons. First, because the Court don’t think it +fair. Secondly, because the dear old lady, Mrs Court (if I am Mr) gets +distressed by it.’ + +A very remarkable wavering between two bearings—between her +propitiatory bearing there, and her defiant bearing at Mr Twemlow’s—was +observable on the part of Mrs Lammle as she said: + +‘What does the Court not consider fair?’ + +‘Letting you go on,’ replied Mr Boffin, nodding his head soothingly, as +who should say, We won’t be harder on you than we can help; we’ll make +the best of it. ‘It’s not above-board and it’s not fair. When the old +lady is uncomfortable, there’s sure to be good reason for it. I see she +is uncomfortable, and I plainly see this is the good reason wherefore. +HAVE you breakfasted, ma’am.’ + +Mrs Lammle, settling into her defiant manner, pushed her plate away, +looked at her husband, and laughed; but by no means gaily. + +‘Have YOU breakfasted, sir?’ inquired Mr Boffin. + +‘Thank you,’ replied Alfred, showing all his teeth. ‘If Mrs Boffin will +oblige me, I’ll take another cup of tea.’ + +He spilled a little of it over the chest which ought to have been so +effective, and which had done so little; but on the whole drank it with +something of an air, though the coming and going dints got almost as +large, the while, as if they had been made by pressure of the teaspoon. +‘A thousand thanks,’ he then observed. ‘I have breakfasted.’ + +‘Now, which,’ said Mr Boffin softly, taking out a pocket-book, ‘which of +you two is Cashier?’ + +‘Sophronia, my dear,’ remarked her husband, as he leaned back in his +chair, waving his right hand towards her, while he hung his left hand +by the thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat: ‘it shall be your +department.’ + +‘I would rather,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘that it was your husband’s, ma’am, +because—but never mind, because, I would rather have to do with him. +However, what I have to say, I will say with as little offence as +possible; if I can say it without any, I shall be heartily glad. You two +have done me a service, a very great service, in doing what you did (my +old lady knows what it was), and I have put into this envelope a bank +note for a hundred pound. I consider the service well worth a hundred +pound, and I am well pleased to pay the money. Would you do me the +favour to take it, and likewise to accept my thanks?’ + +With a haughty action, and without looking towards him, Mrs Lammle held +out her left hand, and into it Mr Boffin put the little packet. When she +had conveyed it to her bosom, Mr Lammle had the appearance of feeling +relieved, and breathing more freely, as not having been quite certain +that the hundred pounds were his, until the note had been safely +transferred out of Mr Boffin’s keeping into his own Sophronia’s. + +‘It is not impossible,’ said Mr Boffin, addressing Alfred, ‘that you +have had some general idea, sir, of replacing Rokesmith, in course of +time?’ + +‘It is not,’ assented Alfred, with a glittering smile and a great deal +of nose, ‘not impossible.’ + +‘And perhaps, ma’am,’ pursued Mr Boffin, addressing Sophronia, ‘you have +been so kind as to take up my old lady in your own mind, and to do her +the honour of turning the question over whether you mightn’t one of +these days have her in charge, like? Whether you mightn’t be a sort of +Miss Bella Wilfer to her, and something more?’ + +‘I should hope,’ returned Mrs Lammle, with a scornful look and in a loud +voice, ‘that if I were anything to your wife, sir, I could hardly fail +to be something more than Miss Bella Wilfer, as you call her.’ + +‘What do YOU call her, ma’am?’ asked Mr Boffin. + +Mrs Lammle disdained to reply, and sat defiantly beating one foot on the +ground. + +‘Again I think I may say, that’s not impossible. Is it, sir?’ asked Mr +Boffin, turning to Alfred. + +‘It is not,’ said Alfred, smiling assent as before, ‘not impossible.’ + +‘Now,’ said Mr Boffin, gently, ‘it won’t do. I don’t wish to say a +single word that might be afterwards remembered as unpleasant; but it +won’t do.’ + +‘Sophronia, my love,’ her husband repeated in a bantering manner, ‘you +hear? It won’t do.’ + +‘No,’ said Mr Boffin, with his voice still dropped, ‘it really won’t. +You positively must excuse us. If you’ll go your way, we’ll go ours, and +so I hope this affair ends to the satisfaction of all parties.’ + +Mrs Lammle gave him the look of a decidedly dissatisfied party demanding +exemption from the category; but said nothing. + +‘The best thing we can make of the affair,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘is a matter +of business, and as a matter of business it’s brought to a conclusion. +You have done me a great service, a very great service, and I have paid +for it. Is there any objection to the price?’ + +Mr and Mrs Lammle looked at one another across the table, but neither +could say that there was. Mr Lammle shrugged his shoulders, and Mrs +Lammle sat rigid. + +‘Very good,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘We hope (my old lady and me) that you’ll +give us credit for taking the plainest and honestest short-cut that +could be taken under the circumstances. We have talked it over with a +deal of care (my old lady and me), and we have felt that at all to lead +you on, or even at all to let you go on of your own selves, wouldn’t be +the right thing. So, I have openly given you to understand that—’ +Mr Boffin sought for a new turn of speech, but could find none so +expressive as his former one, repeated in a confidential tone, ‘—that +it won’t do. If I could have put the case more pleasantly I would; but +I hope I haven’t put it very unpleasantly; at all events I haven’t meant +to. So,’ said Mr Boffin, by way of peroration, ‘wishing you well in the +way you go, we now conclude with the observation that perhaps you’ll go +it.’ + +Mr Lammle rose with an impudent laugh on his side of the table, and Mrs +Lammle rose with a disdainful frown on hers. At this moment a hasty foot +was heard on the staircase, and Georgiana Podsnap broke into the room, +unannounced and in tears. + +‘Oh, my dear Sophronia,’ cried Georgiana, wringing her hands as she ran +up to embrace her, ‘to think that you and Alfred should be ruined! Oh, +my poor dear Sophronia, to think that you should have had a Sale at your +house after all your kindness to me! Oh, Mr and Mrs Boffin, pray forgive +me for this intrusion, but you don’t know how fond I was of Sophronia +when Pa wouldn’t let me go there any more, or what I have felt for +Sophronia since I heard from Ma of her having been brought low in the +world. You don’t, you can’t, you never can, think, how I have lain awake +at night and cried for my good Sophronia, my first and only friend!’ + +Mrs Lammle’s manner changed under the poor silly girl’s embraces, and +she turned extremely pale: directing one appealing look, first to Mrs +Boffin, and then to Mr Boffin. Both understood her instantly, with +a more delicate subtlety than much better educated people, whose +perception came less directly from the heart, could have brought to bear +upon the case. + +‘I haven’t a minute,’ said poor little Georgiana, ‘to stay. I am out +shopping early with Ma, and I said I had a headache and got Ma to leave +me outside in the phaeton, in Piccadilly, and ran round to Sackville +Street, and heard that Sophronia was here, and then Ma came to see, oh +such a dreadful old stony woman from the country in a turban in Portland +Place, and I said I wouldn’t go up with Ma but would drive round and +leave cards for the Boffins, which is taking a liberty with the name; +but oh my goodness I am distracted, and the phaeton’s at the door, and +what would Pa say if he knew it!’ + +‘Don’t ye be timid, my dear,’ said Mrs Boffin. ‘You came in to see us.’ + +‘Oh, no, I didn’t,’ cried Georgiana. ‘It’s very impolite, I know, but +I came to see my poor Sophronia, my only friend. Oh! how I felt the +separation, my dear Sophronia, before I knew you were brought low in the +world, and how much more I feel it now!’ + +There were actually tears in the bold woman’s eyes, as the soft-headed +and soft-hearted girl twined her arms about her neck. + +‘But I’ve come on business,’ said Georgiana, sobbing and drying her +face, and then searching in a little reticule, ‘and if I don’t despatch +it I shall have come for nothing, and oh good gracious! what would Pa +say if he knew of Sackville Street, and what would Ma say if she was +kept waiting on the doorsteps of that dreadful turban, and there never +were such pawing horses as ours unsettling my mind every moment more +and more when I want more mind than I have got, by pawing up Mr Boffin’s +street where they have no business to be. Oh! where is, where is it? +Oh! I can’t find it!’ All this time sobbing, and searching in the little +reticule. + +‘What do you miss, my dear?’ asked Mr Boffin, stepping forward. + +‘Oh! it’s little enough,’ replied Georgiana, ‘because Ma always treats +me as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I wish I was!), but I hardly +ever spend it and it has mounted up to fifteen pounds, Sophronia, and I +hope three five-pound notes are better than nothing, though so little, +so little! And now I have found that—oh, my goodness! there’s the other +gone next! Oh no, it isn’t, here it is!’ + +With that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, Georgiana +produced a necklace. + +‘Ma says chits and jewels have no business together,’ pursued Georgiana, +‘and that’s the reason why I have no trinkets except this, but I suppose +my aunt Hawkinson was of a different opinion, because she left me this, +though I used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it’s +always kept in jewellers’ cotton. However, here it is, I am thankful +to say, and of use at last, and you’ll sell it, dear Sophronia, and buy +things with it.’ + +‘Give it to me,’ said Mr Boffin, gently taking it. ‘I’ll see that it’s +properly disposed of.’ + +‘Oh! are you such a friend of Sophronia’s, Mr Boffin?’ cried Georgiana. +‘Oh, how good of you! Oh, my gracious! there was something else, and +it’s gone out of my head! Oh no, it isn’t, I remember what it was. My +grandmamma’s property, that’ll come to me when I am of age, Mr Boffin, +will be all my own, and neither Pa nor Ma nor anybody else will have +any control over it, and what I wish to do is to make some of it over +somehow to Sophronia and Alfred, by signing something somewhere that’ll +prevail on somebody to advance them something. I want them to have +something handsome to bring them up in the world again. Oh, my goodness +me! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia’s, you won’t refuse me, +will you?’ + +‘No, no,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘it shall be seen to.’ + +‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ cried Georgiana. ‘If my maid had a little +note and half a crown, I could run round to the pastrycook’s to sign +something, or I could sign something in the Square if somebody would +come and cough for me to let ’em in with the key, and would bring a pen +and ink with ’em and a bit of blotting-paper. Oh, my gracious! I must +tear myself away, or Pa and Ma will both find out! Dear, dear Sophronia, +good, good-bye!’ + +The credulous little creature again embraced Mrs Lammle most +affectionately, and then held out her hand to Mr Lammle. + +‘Good-bye, dear Mr Lammle—I mean Alfred. You won’t think after to-day +that I have deserted you and Sophronia because you have been brought low +in the world, will you? Oh me! oh me! I have been crying my eyes out of +my head, and Ma will be sure to ask me what’s the matter. Oh, take me +down, somebody, please, please, please!’ + +Mr Boffin took her down, and saw her driven away, with her poor +little red eyes and weak chin peering over the great apron of the +custard-coloured phaeton, as if she had been ordered to expiate some +childish misdemeanour by going to bed in the daylight, and were peeping +over the counterpane in a miserable flutter of repentance and low +spirits. Returning to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs Lammle still +standing on her side of the table, and Mr Lammle on his. + +‘I’ll take care,’ said Mr Boffin, showing the money and the necklace, +‘that these are soon given back.’ + +Mrs Lammle had taken up her parasol from a side table, and stood +sketching with it on the pattern of the damask cloth, as she had +sketched on the pattern of Mr Twemlow’s papered wall. + +‘You will not undeceive her I hope, Mr Boffin?’ she said, turning her +head towards him, but not her eyes. + +‘No,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend,’ Mrs Lammle explained, +in a measured voice, and with an emphasis on her last word. + +‘No,’ he returned. ‘I may try to give a hint at her home that she is in +want of kind and careful protection, but I shall say no more than that +to her parents, and I shall say nothing to the young lady herself.’ + +‘Mr and Mrs Boffin,’ said Mrs Lammle, still sketching, and seeming to +bestow great pains upon it, ‘there are not many people, I think, who, +under the circumstances, would have been so considerate and sparing as +you have been to me just now. Do you care to be thanked?’ + +‘Thanks are always worth having,’ said Mrs Boffin, in her ready good +nature. + +‘Then thank you both.’ + +‘Sophronia,’ asked her husband, mockingly, ‘are you sentimental?’ + +‘Well, well, my good sir,’ Mr Boffin interposed, ‘it’s a very good +thing to think well of another person, and it’s a very good thing to be +thought well of BY another person. Mrs Lammle will be none the worse for +it, if she is.’ + +‘Much obliged. But I asked Mrs Lammle if she was.’ + +She stood sketching on the table-cloth, with her face clouded and set, +and was silent. + +‘Because,’ said Alfred, ‘I am disposed to be sentimental myself, on +your appropriation of the jewels and the money, Mr Boffin. As our little +Georgiana said, three five-pound notes are better than nothing, and if +you sell a necklace you can buy things with the produce.’ + +‘IF you sell it,’ was Mr Boffin’s comment, as he put it in his pocket. + +Alfred followed it with his looks, and also greedily pursued the notes +until they vanished into Mr Boffin’s waistcoat pocket. Then he directed +a look, half exasperated and half jeering, at his wife. She still stood +sketching; but, as she sketched, there was a struggle within her, which +found expression in the depth of the few last lines the parasol point +indented into the table-cloth, and then some tears fell from her eyes. + +‘Why, confound the woman,’ exclaimed Lammle, ‘she _is_ sentimental.’ + +She walked to the window, flinching under his angry stare, looked out +for a moment, and turned round quite coldly. + +‘You have had no former cause of complaint on the sentimental score, +Alfred, and you will have none in future. It is not worth your noticing. +We go abroad soon, with the money we have earned here?’ + +‘You know we do; you know we must.’ + +‘There is no fear of my taking any sentiment with me. I should soon be +eased of it, if I did. But it will be all left behind. It IS all left +behind. Are you ready, Alfred?’ + +‘What the deuce have I been waiting for but you, Sophronia?’ + +‘Let us go then. I am sorry I have delayed our dignified departure.’ + +She passed out and he followed her. Mr and Mrs Boffin had the curiosity +softly to raise a window and look after them as they went down the long +street. They walked arm-in-arm, showily enough, but without appearing +to interchange a syllable. It might have been fanciful to suppose that +under their outer bearing there was something of the shamed air of two +cheats who were linked together by concealed handcuffs; but, not so, to +suppose that they were haggardly weary of one another, of themselves, +and of all this world. In turning the street corner they might have +turned out of this world, for anything Mr and Mrs Boffin ever saw of +them to the contrary; for, they set eyes on the Lammles never more. + + + + +Chapter 3 + +THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN + + +The evening of that day being one of the reading evenings at the Bower, +Mr Boffin kissed Mrs Boffin after a five o’clock dinner, and trotted +out, nursing his big stick in both arms, so that, as of old, it seemed +to be whispering in his ear. He carried so very attentive an expression +on his countenance that it appeared as if the confidential discourse of +the big stick required to be followed closely. Mr Boffin’s face was like +the face of a thoughtful listener to an intricate communication, and, in +trotting along, he occasionally glanced at that companion with the look +of a man who was interposing the remark: ‘You don’t mean it!’ + +Mr Boffin and his stick went on alone together, until they arrived at +certain cross-ways where they would be likely to fall in with any one +coming, at about the same time, from Clerkenwell to the Bower. Here they +stopped, and Mr Boffin consulted his watch. + +‘It wants five minutes, good, to Venus’s appointment,’ said he. ‘I’m +rather early.’ + +But Venus was a punctual man, and, even as Mr Boffin replaced his watch +in its pocket, was to be descried coming towards him. He quickened his +pace on seeing Mr Boffin already at the place of meeting, and was soon +at his side. + +‘Thank’ee, Venus,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Thank’ee, thank’ee, thank’ee!’ + +It would not have been very evident why he thanked the anatomist, but +for his furnishing the explanation in what he went on to say. + +‘All right, Venus, all right. Now, that you’ve been to see me, and have +consented to keep up the appearance before Wegg of remaining in it for a +time, I have got a sort of a backer. All right, Venus. Thank’ee, Venus. +Thank’ee, thank’ee, thank’ee!’ + +Mr Venus shook the proffered hand with a modest air, and they pursued +the direction of the Bower. + +‘Do you think Wegg is likely to drop down upon me to-night, Venus?’ +inquired Mr Boffin, wistfully, as they went along. + +‘I think he is, sir.’ + +‘Have you any particular reason for thinking so, Venus?’ + +‘Well, sir,’ returned that personage, ‘the fact is, he has given me +another look-in, to make sure of what he calls our stock-in-trade being +correct, and he has mentioned his intention that he was not to be put +off beginning with you the very next time you should come. And this,’ +hinted Mr Venus, delicately, ‘being the very next time, you know, sir—’ + +—‘Why, therefore you suppose he’ll turn to at the grindstone, eh, +Wegg?’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘Just so, sir.’ + +Mr Boffin took his nose in his hand, as if it were already excoriated, +and the sparks were beginning to fly out of that feature. ‘He’s a +terrible fellow, Venus; he’s an awful fellow. I don’t know how ever I +shall go through with it. You must stand by me, Venus like a good man +and true. You’ll do all you can to stand by me, Venus; won’t you?’ + +Mr Venus replied with the assurance that he would; and Mr Boffin, +looking anxious and dispirited, pursued the way in silence until they +rang at the Bower gate. The stumping approach of Wegg was soon heard +behind it, and as it turned upon its hinges he became visible with his +hand on the lock. + +‘Mr Boffin, sir?’ he remarked. ‘You’re quite a stranger!’ + +‘Yes. I’ve been otherwise occupied, Wegg.’ + +‘Have you indeed, sir?’ returned the literary gentleman, with a +threatening sneer. ‘Hah! I’ve been looking for you, sir, rather what I +may call specially.’ + +‘You don’t say so, Wegg?’ + +‘Yes, I do say so, sir. And if you hadn’t come round to me tonight, dash +my wig if I wouldn’t have come round to you tomorrow. Now! I tell you!’ + +‘Nothing wrong, I hope, Wegg?’ + +‘Oh no, Mr Boffin,’ was the ironical answer. ‘Nothing wrong! What should +be wrong in Boffinses Bower! Step in, sir.’ + + ‘“If you’ll come to the Bower I’ve shaded for you, + Your bed shan’t be roses all spangled with doo: + Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to the Bower? + Oh, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, come to the + Bower?”’ + +An unholy glare of contradiction and offence shone in the eyes of Mr +Wegg, as he turned the key on his patron, after ushering him into the +yard with this vocal quotation. Mr Boffin’s air was crestfallen and +submissive. Whispered Wegg to Venus, as they crossed the yard behind +him: ‘Look at the worm and minion; he’s down in the mouth already.’ +Whispered Venus to Wegg: ‘That’s because I’ve told him. I’ve prepared +the way for you.’ + +Mr Boffin, entering the usual chamber, laid his stick upon the settle +usually reserved for him, thrust his hands into his pockets, and, +with his shoulders raised and his hat drooping back upon them, looking +disconsolately at Wegg. ‘My friend and partner, Mr Venus, gives me to +understand,’ remarked that man of might, addressing him, ‘that you are +aware of our power over you. Now, when you have took your hat off, we’ll +go into that pint.’ + +Mr Boffin shook it off with one shake, so that it dropped on the floor +behind him, and remained in his former attitude with his former rueful +look upon him. + +‘First of all, I’m a-going to call you Boffin, for short,’ said Wegg. +‘If you don’t like it, it’s open to you to lump it.’ + +‘I don’t mind it, Wegg,’ Mr Boffin replied. + +‘That’s lucky for you, Boffin. Now, do you want to be read to?’ + +‘I don’t particularly care about it to-night, Wegg.’ + +‘Because if you did want to,’ pursued Mr Wegg, the brilliancy of whose +point was dimmed by his having been unexpectedly answered: ‘you wouldn’t +be. I’ve been your slave long enough. I’m not to be trampled under-foot +by a dustman any more. With the single exception of the salary, I +renounce the whole and total sitiwation.’ + +‘Since you say it is to be so, Wegg,’ returned Mr Boffin, with folded +hands, ‘I suppose it must be.’ + +‘I suppose it must be,’ Wegg retorted. ‘Next (to clear the ground before +coming to business), you’ve placed in this yard a skulking, a sneaking, +and a sniffing, menial.’ + +‘He hadn’t a cold in his head when I sent him here,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘Boffin!’ retorted Wegg, ‘I warn you not to attempt a joke with me!’ + +Here Mr Venus interposed, and remarked that he conceived Mr Boffin to +have taken the description literally; the rather, forasmuch as he, Mr +Venus, had himself supposed the menial to have contracted an affliction +or a habit of the nose, involving a serious drawback on the pleasures of +social intercourse, until he had discovered that Mr Wegg’s description +of him was to be accepted as merely figurative. + +‘Anyhow, and every how,’ said Wegg, ‘he has been planted here, and he +is here. Now, I won’t have him here. So I call upon Boffin, before I say +another word, to fetch him in and send him packing to the right-about.’ + +The unsuspecting Sloppy was at that moment airing his many buttons +within view of the window. Mr Boffin, after a short interval of +impassive discomfiture, opened the window and beckoned him to come in. + +‘I call upon Boffin,’ said Wegg, with one arm a-kimbo and his head on +one side, like a bullying counsel pausing for an answer from a witness, +‘to inform that menial that I am Master here!’ + +In humble obedience, when the button-gleaming Sloppy entered Mr Boffin +said to him: ‘Sloppy, my fine fellow, Mr Wegg is Master here. He doesn’t +want you, and you are to go from here.’ + +‘For good!’ Mr Wegg severely stipulated. + +‘For good,’ said Mr Boffin. + +Sloppy stared, with both his eyes and all his buttons, and his mouth +wide open; but was without loss of time escorted forth by Silas Wegg, +pushed out at the yard gate by the shoulders, and locked out. + +‘The atomspear,’ said Wegg, stumping back into the room again, a +little reddened by his late exertion, ‘is now freer for the purposes of +respiration. Mr Venus, sir, take a chair. Boffin, you may sit down.’ + +Mr Boffin, still with his hands ruefully stuck in his pockets, sat on +the edge of the settle, shrunk into a small compass, and eyed the potent +Silas with conciliatory looks. + +‘This gentleman,’ said Silas Wegg, pointing out Venus, ‘this gentleman, +Boffin, is more milk and watery with you than I’ll be. But he hasn’t +borne the Roman yoke as I have, nor yet he hasn’t been required to +pander to your depraved appetite for miserly characters.’ + +‘I never meant, my dear Wegg—’ Mr Boffin was beginning, when Silas +stopped him. + +‘Hold your tongue, Boffin! Answer when you’re called upon to answer. +You’ll find you’ve got quite enough to do. Now, you’re aware—are +you—that you’re in possession of property to which you’ve no right at +all? Are you aware of that?’ + +‘Venus tells me so,’ said Mr Boffin, glancing towards him for any +support he could give. + +‘I tell you so,’ returned Silas. ‘Now, here’s my hat, Boffin, and here’s +my walking-stick. Trifle with me, and instead of making a bargain with +you, I’ll put on my hat and take up my walking-stick, and go out, and +make a bargain with the rightful owner. Now, what do you say?’ + +‘I say,’ returned Mr Boffin, leaning forward in alarmed appeal, with his +hands on his knees, ‘that I am sure I don’t want to trifle, Wegg. I have +said so to Venus.’ + +‘You certainly have, sir,’ said Venus. + +‘You’re too milk and watery with our friend, you are indeed,’ +remonstrated Silas, with a disapproving shake of his wooden head. ‘Then +at once you confess yourself desirous to come to terms, do you Boffin? +Before you answer, keep this hat well in your mind and also this +walking-stick.’ + +‘I am willing, Wegg, to come to terms.’ + +‘Willing won’t do, Boffin. I won’t take willing. Are you desirous to +come to terms? Do you ask to be allowed as a favour to come to terms?’ +Mr Wegg again planted his arm, and put his head on one side. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Yes what?’ said the inexorable Wegg: ‘I won’t take yes. I’ll have it +out of you in full, Boffin.’ + +‘Dear me!’ cried that unfortunate gentleman. ‘I am so worrited! I ask to +be allowed to come to terms, supposing your document is all correct.’ + +‘Don’t you be afraid of that,’ said Silas, poking his head at him. ‘You +shall be satisfied by seeing it. Mr Venus will show it you, and I’ll +hold you the while. Then you want to know what the terms are. Is +that about the sum and substance of it? Will you or won’t you answer, +Boffin?’ For he had paused a moment. + +‘Dear me!’ cried that unfortunate gentleman again, ‘I am worrited to +that degree that I’m almost off my head. You hurry me so. Be so good as +name the terms, Wegg.’ + +‘Now, mark, Boffin,’ returned Silas: ‘Mark ’em well, because they’re +the lowest terms and the only terms. You’ll throw your Mound (the little +Mound as comes to you any way) into the general estate, and then you’ll +divide the whole property into three parts, and you’ll keep one and hand +over the others.’ + +Mr Venus’s mouth screwed itself up, as Mr Boffin’s face lengthened +itself, Mr Venus not having been prepared for such a rapacious demand. + +‘Now, wait a bit, Boffin,’ Wegg proceeded, ‘there’s something more. +You’ve been a squandering this property—laying some of it out on +yourself. _That_ won’t do. You’ve bought a house. You’ll be charged for +it.’ + +‘I shall be ruined, Wegg!’ Mr Boffin faintly protested. + +‘Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there’s something more. You’ll leave me in +sole custody of these Mounds till they’re all laid low. If any waluables +should be found in ’em, I’ll take care of such waluables. You’ll produce +your contract for the sale of the Mounds, that we may know to a penny +what they’re worth, and you’ll make out likewise an exact list of +all the other property. When the Mounds is cleared away to the last +shovel-full, the final diwision will come off.’ + +‘Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! I shall die in a workhouse!’ cried the +Golden Dustman, with his hands to his head. + +‘Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there’s something more. You’ve been unlawfully +ferreting about this yard. You’ve been seen in the act of ferreting +about this yard. Two pair of eyes at the present moment brought to bear +upon you, have seen you dig up a Dutch bottle.’ + +‘It was mine, Wegg,’ protested Mr Boffin. ‘I put it there myself.’ + +‘What was in it, Boffin?’ inquired Silas. + +‘Not gold, not silver, not bank notes, not jewels, nothing that you +could turn into money, Wegg; upon my soul!’ + +‘Prepared, Mr Venus,’ said Wegg, turning to his partner with a knowing +and superior air, ‘for an ewasive answer on the part of our dusty friend +here, I have hit out a little idea which I think will meet your views. +We charge that bottle against our dusty friend at a thousand pound.’ + +Mr Boffin drew a deep groan. + +‘Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there’s something more. In your employment +is an under-handed sneak, named Rokesmith. It won’t answer to have HIM +about, while this business of ours is about. He must be discharged.’ + +‘Rokesmith is already discharged,’ said Mr Boffin, speaking in a muffled +voice, with his hands before his face, as he rocked himself on the +settle. + +‘Already discharged, is he?’ returned Wegg, surprised. ‘Oh! Then, +Boffin, I believe there’s nothing more at present.’ + +The unlucky gentleman continuing to rock himself to and fro, and to +utter an occasional moan, Mr Venus besought him to bear up against his +reverses, and to take time to accustom himself to the thought of his new +position. But, his taking time was exactly the thing of all others that +Silas Wegg could not be induced to hear of. ‘Yes or no, and no half +measures!’ was the motto which that obdurate person many times repeated; +shaking his fist at Mr Boffin, and pegging his motto into the floor with +his wooden leg, in a threatening and alarming manner. + +At length, Mr Boffin entreated to be allowed a quarter of an hour’s +grace, and a cooling walk of that duration in the yard. With some +difficulty Mr Wegg granted this great favour, but only on condition +that he accompanied Mr Boffin in his walk, as not knowing what he might +fraudulently unearth if he were left to himself. A more absurd sight +than Mr Boffin in his mental irritation trotting very nimbly, and Mr +Wegg hopping after him with great exertion, eager to watch the slightest +turn of an eyelash, lest it should indicate a spot rich with some +secret, assuredly had never been seen in the shadow of the Mounds. Mr +Wegg was much distressed when the quarter of an hour expired, and came +hopping in, a very bad second. + +‘I can’t help myself!’ cried Mr Boffin, flouncing on the settle in a +forlorn manner, with his hands deep in his pockets, as if his pockets +had sunk. ‘What’s the good of my pretending to stand out, when I can’t +help myself? I must give in to the terms. But I should like to see the +document.’ + +Wegg, who was all for clinching the nail he had so strongly driven home, +announced that Boffin should see it without an hour’s delay. Taking him +into custody for that purpose, or overshadowing him as if he really were +his Evil Genius in visible form, Mr Wegg clapped Mr Boffin’s hat +upon the back of his head, and walked him out by the arm, asserting a +proprietorship over his soul and body that was at once more grim and +more ridiculous than anything in Mr Venus’s rare collection. That +light-haired gentleman followed close upon their heels, at least backing +up Mr Boffin in a literal sense, if he had not had recent opportunities +of doing so spiritually; while Mr Boffin, trotting on as hard as he +could trot, involved Silas Wegg in frequent collisions with the public, +much as a pre-occupied blind man’s dog may be seen to involve his +master. + +Thus they reached Mr Venus’s establishment, somewhat heated by the +nature of their progress thither. Mr Wegg, especially, was in a flaming +glow, and stood in the little shop, panting and mopping his head with +his pocket-handkerchief, speechless for several minutes. + +Meanwhile, Mr Venus, who had left the duelling frogs to fight it out in +his absence by candlelight for the public delectation, put the shutters +up. When all was snug, and the shop-door fastened, he said to the +perspiring Silas: ‘I suppose, Mr Wegg, we may now produce the paper?’ + +‘Hold on a minute, sir,’ replied that discreet character; ‘hold on a +minute. Will you obligingly shove that box—which you mentioned on a +former occasion as containing miscellanies—towards me in the midst of +the shop here?’ + +Mr Venus did as he was asked. + +‘Very good,’ said Silas, looking about: ‘ve—ry good. Will you hand me +that chair, sir, to put a-top of it?’ + +Venus handed him the chair. + +‘Now, Boffin,’ said Wegg, ‘mount up here and take your seat, will you?’ + +Mr Boffin, as if he were about to have his portrait painted, or to be +electrified, or to be made a Freemason, or to be placed at any other +solitary disadvantage, ascended the rostrum prepared for him. + +‘Now, Mr Venus,’ said Silas, taking off his coat, ‘when I catches our +friend here round the arms and body, and pins him tight to the back of +the chair, you may show him what he wants to see. If you’ll open it and +hold it well up in one hand, sir, and a candle in the other, he can read +it charming.’ + +Mr Boffin seemed rather inclined to object to these precautionary +arrangements, but, being immediately embraced by Wegg, resigned himself. +Venus then produced the document, and Mr Boffin slowly spelt it out +aloud: so very slowly, that Wegg, who was holding him in the chair +with the grip of a wrestler, became again exceedingly the worse for his +exertions. ‘Say when you’ve put it safe back, Mr Venus,’ he uttered with +difficulty, ‘for the strain of this is terrimenjious.’ + +At length the document was restored to its place; and Wegg, whose +uncomfortable attitude had been that of a very persevering man +unsuccessfully attempting to stand upon his head, took a seat to recover +himself. Mr Boffin, for his part, made no attempt to come down, but +remained aloft disconsolate. + +‘Well, Boffin!’ said Wegg, as soon as he was in a condition to speak. +‘Now, you know.’ + +‘Yes, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, meekly. ‘Now, I know.’ + +‘You have no doubts about it, Boffin.’ + +‘No, Wegg. No, Wegg. None,’ was the slow and sad reply. + +‘Then, take care, you,’ said Wegg, ‘that you stick to your conditions. +Mr Venus, if on this auspicious occasion, you should happen to have a +drop of anything not quite so mild as tea in the ’ouse, I think I’d take +the friendly liberty of asking you for a specimen of it.’ + +Mr Venus, reminded of the duties of hospitality, produced some rum. +In answer to the inquiry, ‘Will you mix it, Mr Wegg?’ that gentleman +pleasantly rejoined, ‘I think not, sir. On so auspicious an occasion, I +prefer to take it in the form of a Gum-Tickler.’ + +Mr Boffin, declining rum, being still elevated on his pedestal, was in +a convenient position to be addressed. Wegg having eyed him with an +impudent air at leisure, addressed him, therefore, while refreshing +himself with his dram. + +‘Bof—fin!’ + +‘Yes, Wegg,’ he answered, coming out of a fit of abstraction, with a +sigh. + +‘I haven’t mentioned one thing, because it’s a detail that comes of +course. You must be followed up, you know. You must be kept under +inspection.’ + +‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘Don’t you?’ sneered Wegg. ‘Where’s your wits, Boffin? Till the Mounds +is down and this business completed, you’re accountable for all the +property, recollect. Consider yourself accountable to me. Mr Venus here +being too milk and watery with you, I am the boy for you.’ + +‘I’ve been a-thinking,’ said Mr Boffin, in a tone of despondency, ‘that +I must keep the knowledge from my old lady.’ + +‘The knowledge of the diwision, d’ye mean?’ inquired Wegg, helping +himself to a third Gum-Tickler—for he had already taken a second. + +‘Yes. If she was to die first of us two she might then think all her +life, poor thing, that I had got the rest of the fortune still, and was +saving it.’ + +‘I suspect, Boffin,’ returned Wegg, shaking his head sagaciously, and +bestowing a wooden wink upon him, ‘that you’ve found out some account +of some old chap, supposed to be a Miser, who got himself the credit of +having much more money than he had. However, I don’t mind.’ + +‘Don’t you see, Wegg?’ Mr Boffin feelingly represented to him: ‘don’t +you see? My old lady has got so used to the property. It would be such a +hard surprise.’ + +‘I don’t see it at all,’ blustered Wegg. ‘You’ll have as much as I +shall. And who are you?’ + +‘But then, again,’ Mr Boffin gently represented; ‘my old lady has very +upright principles.’ + +‘Who’s your old lady,’ returned Wegg, ‘to set herself up for having +uprighter principles than mine?’ + +Mr Boffin seemed a little less patient at this point than at any other +of the negotiations. But he commanded himself, and said tamely enough: +‘I think it must be kept from my old lady, Wegg.’ + +‘Well,’ said Wegg, contemptuously, though, perhaps, perceiving some hint +of danger otherwise, ‘keep it from your old lady. I ain’t going to tell +her. I can have you under close inspection without that. I’m as good a +man as you, and better. Ask me to dinner. Give me the run of your ’ouse. +I was good enough for you and your old lady once, when I helped you out +with your weal and hammers. Was there no Miss Elizabeth, Master George, +Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, before YOU two?’ + +‘Gently, Mr Wegg, gently,’ Venus urged. + +‘Milk and water-erily you mean, sir,’ he returned, with some little +thickness of speech, in consequence of the Gum-Ticklers having tickled +it. ‘I’ve got him under inspection, and I’ll inspect him. + + “Along the line the signal ran, + England expects as this present man + Will keep Boffin to his duty.” + +—Boffin, I’ll see you home.’ + +Mr Boffin descended with an air of resignation, and gave himself up, +after taking friendly leave of Mr Venus. Once more, Inspector and +Inspected went through the streets together, and so arrived at Mr +Boffin’s door. + +But even there, when Mr Boffin had given his keeper good-night, and had +let himself in with his key, and had softly closed the door, even there +and then, the all-powerful Silas must needs claim another assertion of +his newly-asserted power. + +‘Bof—fin!’ he called through the keyhole. + +‘Yes, Wegg,’ was the reply through the same channel. + +‘Come out. Show yourself again. Let’s have another look at you!’ +Mr Boffin—ah, how fallen from the high estate of his honest +simplicity!—opened the door and obeyed. + +‘Go in. You may get to bed now,’ said Wegg, with a grin. + +The door was hardly closed, when he again called through the keyhole: +‘Bof—fin!’ + +‘Yes, Wegg.’ + +This time Silas made no reply, but laboured with a will at turning an +imaginary grindstone outside the keyhole, while Mr Boffin stooped at it +within; he then laughed silently, and stumped home. + + + + +Chapter 4 + +A RUNAWAY MATCH + + +Cherubic Pa arose with as little noise as possible from beside majestic +Ma, one morning early, having a holiday before him. Pa and the lovely +woman had a rather particular appointment to keep. + +Yet Pa and the lovely woman were not going out together. Bella was up +before four, but had no bonnet on. She was waiting at the foot of the +stairs—was sitting on the bottom stair, in fact—to receive Pa when he +came down, but her only object seemed to be to get Pa well out of the +house. + +‘Your breakfast is ready, sir,’ whispered Bella, after greeting him with +a hug, ‘and all you have to do, is, to eat it up and drink it up, and +escape. How do you feel, Pa?’ + +‘To the best of my judgement, like a housebreaker new to the business, +my dear, who can’t make himself quite comfortable till he is off the +premises.’ + +Bella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, and they went +down to the kitchen on tiptoe; she stopping on every separate stair to +put the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, and then lay it on his +lips, according to her favourite petting way of kissing Pa. + +‘How do YOU feel, my love?’ asked R. W., as she gave him his breakfast. + +‘I feel as if the Fortune-teller was coming true, dear Pa, and the fair +little man was turning out as was predicted.’ + +‘Ho! Only the fair little man?’ said her father. + +Bella put another of those finger-seals upon his lips, and then said, +kneeling down by him as he sat at table: ‘Now, look here, sir. If you +keep well up to the mark this day, what do you think you deserve? +What did I promise you should have, if you were good, upon a certain +occasion?’ + +‘Upon my word I don’t remember, Precious. Yes, I do, though. Wasn’t +it one of these beau—tiful tresses?’ with his caressing hand upon her +hair. + +‘Wasn’t it, too!’ returned Bella, pretending to pout. ‘Upon my word! Do +you know, sir, that the Fortune-teller would give five thousand guineas +(if it was quite convenient to him, which it isn’t) for the lovely piece +I have cut off for you? You can form no idea, sir, of the number of +times he kissed quite a scrubby little piece—in comparison—that I cut +off for HIM. And he wears it, too, round his neck, I can tell you! Near +his heart!’ said Bella, nodding. ‘Ah! very near his heart! However, you +have been a good, good boy, and you are the best of all the dearest boys +that ever were, this morning, and here’s the chain I have made of +it, Pa, and you must let me put it round your neck with my own loving +hands.’ + +As Pa bent his head, she cried over him a little, and then said (after +having stopped to dry her eyes on his white waistcoat, the discovery of +which incongruous circumstance made her laugh): ‘Now, darling Pa, +give me your hands that I may fold them together, and do you say after +me:—My little Bella.’ + +‘My little Bella,’ repeated Pa. + +‘I am very fond of you.’ + +‘I am very fond of you, my darling,’ said Pa. + +‘You mustn’t say anything not dictated to you, sir. You daren’t do it in +your responses at Church, and you mustn’t do it in your responses out of +Church.’ + +‘I withdraw the darling,’ said Pa. + +‘That’s a pious boy! Now again:—You were always—’ + +‘You were always,’ repeated Pa. + +‘A vexatious—’ + +‘No you weren’t,’ said Pa. + +‘A vexatious (do you hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, thankless, +troublesome, Animal; but I hope you’ll do better in the time to come, +and I bless you and forgive you!’ Here, she quite forgot that it was +Pa’s turn to make the responses, and clung to his neck. ‘Dear Pa, if you +knew how much I think this morning of what you told me once, about the +first time of our seeing old Mr Harmon, when I stamped and screamed +and beat you with my detestable little bonnet! I feel as if I had been +stamping and screaming and beating you with my hateful little bonnet, +ever since I was born, darling!’ + +‘Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have always been nice +bonnets, for they have always become you—or you have become them; +perhaps it was that—at every age.’ + +‘Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa?’ asked Bella, laughing +(notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic pleasure in the +picture, ‘when I beat you with my bonnet?’ + +‘No, my child. Wouldn’t have hurt a fly!’ + +‘Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn’t have beat you at all, unless I had +meant to hurt you,’ said Bella. ‘Did I pinch your legs, Pa?’ + +‘Not much, my dear; but I think it’s almost time I—’ + +‘Oh, yes!’ cried Bella. ‘If I go on chattering, you’ll be taken alive. +Fly, Pa, fly!’ + +So, they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and Bella with +her light hand softly removed the fastenings of the house door, and Pa, +having received a parting hug, made off. When he had gone a little way, +he looked back. Upon which, Bella set another of those finger seals upon +the air, and thrust out her little foot expressive of the mark. Pa, in +appropriate action, expressed fidelity to the mark, and made off as fast +as he could go. + +Bella walked thoughtfully in the garden for an hour and more, and then, +returning to the bedroom where Lavvy the Irrepressible still slumbered, +put on a little bonnet of quiet, but on the whole of sly appearance, +which she had yesterday made. ‘I am going for a walk, Lavvy,’ she said, +as she stooped down and kissed her. The Irrepressible, with a bounce in +the bed, and a remark that it wasn’t time to get up yet, relapsed into +unconsciousness, if she had come out of it. + +Behold Bella tripping along the streets, the dearest girl afoot under +the summer sun! Behold Pa waiting for Bella behind a pump, at least +three miles from the parental roof-tree. Behold Bella and Pa aboard an +early steamboat for Greenwich. + +Were they expected at Greenwich? Probably. At least, Mr John Rokesmith +was on the pier looking out, about a couple of hours before the coaly +(but to him gold-dusty) little steamboat got her steam up in London. +Probably. At least, Mr John Rokesmith seemed perfectly satisfied when +he descried them on board. Probably. At least, Bella no sooner stepped +ashore than she took Mr John Rokesmith’s arm, without evincing surprise, +and the two walked away together with an ethereal air of happiness +which, as it were, wafted up from the earth and drew after them a gruff +and glum old pensioner to see it out. Two wooden legs had this gruff and +glum old pensioner, and, a minute before Bella stepped out of the boat, +and drew that confiding little arm of hers through Rokesmith’s, he had +had no object in life but tobacco, and not enough of that. Stranded was +Gruff and Glum in a harbour of everlasting mud, when all in an instant +Bella floated him, and away he went. + +Say, cherubic parent taking the lead, in what direction do we steer +first? With some such inquiry in his thoughts, Gruff and Glum, stricken +by so sudden an interest that he perked his neck and looked over the +intervening people, as if he were trying to stand on tiptoe with his two +wooden legs, took an observation of R. W. There was no ‘first’ in the +case, Gruff and Glum made out; the cherubic parent was bearing down and +crowding on direct for Greenwich church, to see his relations. + +For, Gruff and Glum, though most events acted on him simply as +tobacco-stoppers, pressing down and condensing the quids within him, +might be imagined to trace a family resemblance between the cherubs in +the church architecture, and the cherub in the white waistcoat. Some +remembrance of old Valentines, wherein a cherub, less appropriately +attired for a proverbially uncertain climate, had been seen conducting +lovers to the altar, might have been fancied to inflame the ardour of +his timber toes. Be it as it might, he gave his moorings the slip, and +followed in chase. + +The cherub went before, all beaming smiles; Bella and John Rokesmith +followed; Gruff and Glum stuck to them like wax. For years, the wings +of his mind had gone to look after the legs of his body; but Bella had +brought them back for him per steamer, and they were spread again. + +He was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness, but he took a cross cut +for the rendezvous, and pegged away as if he were scoring furiously +at cribbage. When the shadow of the church-porch swallowed them up, +victorious Gruff and Glum likewise presented himself to be swallowed up. +And by this time the cherubic parent was so fearful of surprise, that, +but for the two wooden legs on which Gruff and Glum was reassuringly +mounted, his conscience might have introduced, in the person of that +pensioner, his own stately lady disguised, arrived at Greenwich in a +car and griffins, like the spiteful Fairy at the christenings of the +Princesses, to do something dreadful to the marriage service. And truly +he had a momentary reason to be pale of face, and to whisper to Bella, +‘You don’t think that can be your Ma; do you, my dear?’ on account of +a mysterious rustling and a stealthy movement somewhere in the remote +neighbourhood of the organ, though it was gone directly and was heard no +more. Albeit it was heard of afterwards, as will afterwards be read in +this veracious register of marriage. + +Who taketh? I, John, and so do I, Bella. Who giveth? I, R. W. Forasmuch, +Gruff and Glum, as John and Bella have consented together in holy +wedlock, you may (in short) consider it done, and withdraw your two +wooden legs from this temple. To the foregoing purport, the Minister +speaking, as directed by the Rubric, to the People, selectly represented +in the present instance by G. and G. above mentioned. + +And now, the church-porch having swallowed up Bella Wilfer for ever and +ever, had it not in its power to relinquish that young woman, but slid +into the happy sunlight, Mrs John Rokesmith instead. And long on the +bright steps stood Gruff and Glum, looking after the pretty bride, with +a narcotic consciousness of having dreamed a dream. + +After which, Bella took out from her pocket a little letter, and read it +aloud to Pa and John; this being a true copy of the same. + + +‘DEAREST MA, + +I hope you won’t be angry, but I am most happily married to Mr John +Rokesmith, who loves me better than I can ever deserve, except by loving +him with all my heart. I thought it best not to mention it beforehand, +in case it should cause any little difference at home. Please tell +darling Pa. With love to Lavvy, + +Ever dearest Ma, Your affectionate daughter, BELLA (P.S.—Rokesmith).’ + + +Then, John Rokesmith put the queen’s countenance on the letter—when had +Her Gracious Majesty looked so benign as on that blessed morning!—and +then Bella popped it into the post-office, and said merrily, ‘Now, +dearest Pa, you are safe, and will never be taken alive!’ + +Pa was, at first, in the stirred depths of his conscience, so far from +sure of being safe yet, that he made out majestic matrons lurking in +ambush among the harmless trees of Greenwich Park, and seemed to see a +stately countenance tied up in a well-known pocket-handkerchief glooming +down at him from a window of the Observatory, where the Familiars of the +Astronomer Royal nightly outwatch the winking stars. But, the minutes +passing on and no Mrs Wilfer in the flesh appearing, he became more +confident, and so repaired with good heart and appetite to Mr and Mrs +John Rokesmith’s cottage on Blackheath, where breakfast was ready. + +A modest little cottage but a bright and a fresh, and on the snowy +tablecloth the prettiest of little breakfasts. In waiting, too, like +an attendant summer breeze, a fluttering young damsel, all pink and +ribbons, blushing as if she had been married instead of Bella, and yet +asserting the triumph of her sex over both John and Pa, in an exulting +and exalted flurry: as who should say, ‘This is what you must all come +to, gentlemen, when we choose to bring you to book.’ This same young +damsel was Bella’s serving-maid, and unto her did deliver a bunch of +keys, commanding treasures in the way of dry-saltery, groceries, jams +and pickles, the investigation of which made pastime after breakfast, +when Bella declared that ‘Pa must taste everything, John dear, or it +will never be lucky,’ and when Pa had all sorts of things poked into +his mouth, and didn’t quite know what to do with them when they were put +there. + +Then they, all three, out for a charming ride, and for a charming stroll +among heath in bloom, and there behold the identical Gruff and Glum with +his wooden legs horizontally disposed before him, apparently sitting +meditating on the vicissitudes of life! To whom said Bella, in her +light-hearted surprise: ‘Oh! How do you do again? What a dear old +pensioner you are!’ To which Gruff and Glum responded that he see her +married this morning, my Beauty, and that if it warn’t a liberty he +wished her ji and the fairest of fair wind and weather; further, in a +general way requesting to know what cheer? and scrambling up on his two +wooden legs to salute, hat in hand, ship-shape, with the gallantry of a +man-of-warsman and a heart of oak. + +It was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, to see this +salt old Gruff and Glum, waving his shovel hat at Bella, while his thin +white hair flowed free, as if she had once more launched him into blue +water again. ‘You are a charming old pensioner,’ said Bella, ‘and I am +so happy that I wish I could make you happy, too.’ Answered Gruff and +Glum, ‘Give me leave to kiss your hand, my Lovely, and it’s done!’ So it +was done to the general contentment; and if Gruff and Glum didn’t in the +course of the afternoon splice the main brace, it was not for want of +the means of inflicting that outrage on the feelings of the Infant Bands +of Hope. + +But, the marriage dinner was the crowning success, for what had bride +and bridegroom plotted to do, but to have and to hold that dinner in the +very room of the very hotel where Pa and the lovely woman had once dined +together! Bella sat between Pa and John, and divided her attentions +pretty equally, but felt it necessary (in the waiter’s absence before +dinner) to remind Pa that she was HIS lovely woman no longer. + +‘I am well aware of it, my dear,’ returned the cherub, ‘and I resign you +willingly.’ + +‘Willingly, sir? You ought to be brokenhearted.’ + +‘So I should be, my dear, if I thought that I was going to lose you.’ + +‘But you know you are not; don’t you, poor dear Pa? You know that you +have only made a new relation who will be as fond of you and as thankful +to you—for my sake and your own sake both—as I am; don’t you, dear +little Pa? Look here, Pa!’ Bella put her finger on her own lip, and then +on Pa’s, and then on her own lip again, and then on her husband’s. ‘Now, +we are a partnership of three, dear Pa.’ + +The appearance of dinner here cut Bella short in one of her +disappearances: the more effectually, because it was put on under the +auspices of a solemn gentleman in black clothes and a white cravat, who +looked much more like a clergyman than THE clergyman, and seemed to +have mounted a great deal higher in the church: not to say, scaled the +steeple. This dignitary, conferring in secrecy with John Rokesmith on +the subject of punch and wines, bent his head as though stooping to +the Papistical practice of receiving auricular confession. Likewise, +on John’s offering a suggestion which didn’t meet his views, his face +became overcast and reproachful, as enjoining penance. + +What a dinner! Specimens of all the fishes that swim in the sea, surely +had swum their way to it, and if samples of the fishes of divers +colours that made a speech in the Arabian Nights (quite a ministerial +explanation in respect of cloudiness), and then jumped out of the +frying-pan, were not to be recognized, it was only because they had all +become of one hue by being cooked in batter among the whitebait. And the +dishes being seasoned with Bliss—an article which they are sometimes +out of, at Greenwich—were of perfect flavour, and the golden drinks +had been bottled in the golden age and hoarding up their sparkles ever +since. + +The best of it was, that Bella and John and the cherub had made a +covenant that they would not reveal to mortal eyes any appearance +whatever of being a wedding party. Now, the supervising dignitary, the +Archbishop of Greenwich, knew this as well as if he had performed the +nuptial ceremony. And the loftiness with which his Grace entered into +their confidence without being invited, and insisted on a show +of keeping the waiters out of it, was the crowning glory of the +entertainment. + +There was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and with weakish +legs, as yet unversed in the wiles of waiterhood, and but too evidently +of a romantic temperament, and deeply (it were not too much to add +hopelessly) in love with some young female not aware of his merit. +This guileless youth, descrying the position of affairs, which even +his innocence could not mistake, limited his waiting to languishing +admiringly against the sideboard when Bella didn’t want anything, and +swooping at her when she did. Him, his Grace the Archbishop perpetually +obstructed, cutting him out with his elbow in the moment of success, +despatching him in degrading quest of melted butter, and, when by any +chance he got hold of any dish worth having, bereaving him of it, and +ordering him to stand back. + +‘Pray excuse him, madam,’ said the Archbishop in a low stately voice; +‘he is a very young man on liking, and we DON’T like him.’ + +This induced John Rokesmith to observe—by way of making the thing more +natural—‘Bella, my love, this is so much more successful than any +of our past anniversaries, that I think we must keep our future +anniversaries here.’ + +Whereunto Bella replied, with probably the least successful attempt at +looking matronly that ever was seen: ‘Indeed, I think so, John, dear.’ + +Here the Archbishop of Greenwich coughed a stately cough to attract the +attention of three of his ministers present, and staring at them, seemed +to say: ‘I call upon you by your fealty to believe this!’ + +With his own hands he afterwards put on the dessert, as remarking to the +three guests, ‘The period has now arrived at which we can dispense with +the assistance of those fellows who are not in our confidence,’ and +would have retired with complete dignity but for a daring action issuing +from the misguided brain of the young man on liking. He finding, by +ill-fortune, a piece of orange flower somewhere in the lobbies now +approached undetected with the same in a finger-glass, and placed it on +Bella’s right hand. The Archbishop instantly ejected and excommunicated +him; but the thing was done. + +‘I trust, madam,’ said his Grace, returning alone, ‘that you will have +the kindness to overlook it, in consideration of its being the act of a +very young man who is merely here on liking, and who will never answer.’ + +With that, he solemnly bowed and retired, and they all burst into +laughter, long and merry. ‘Disguise is of no use,’ said Bella; ‘they +all find me out; I think it must be, Pa and John dear, because I look so +happy!’ + +Her husband feeling it necessary at this point to demand one of those +mysterious disappearances on Bella’s part, she dutifully obeyed; saying +in a softened voice from her place of concealment: + +‘You remember how we talked about the ships that day, Pa?’ + +‘Yes, my dear.’ + +‘Isn’t it strange, now, to think that there was no John in all the +ships, Pa?’ + +‘Not at all, my dear.’ + +‘Oh, Pa! Not at all?’ + +‘No, my dear. How can we tell what coming people are aboard the ships +that may be sailing to us now from the unknown seas!’ + +Bella remaining invisible and silent, her father remained at his +dessert and wine, until he remembered it was time for him to get home to +Holloway. ‘Though I positively cannot tear myself away,’ he cherubically +added, ‘—it would be a sin—without drinking to many, many happy +returns of this most happy day.’ + +‘Here! ten thousand times!’ cried John. ‘I fill my glass and my precious +wife’s.’ + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the cherub, inaudibly addressing, in his Anglo-Saxon +tendency to throw his feelings into the form of a speech, the boys down +below, who were bidding against each other to put their heads in the mud +for sixpence: ‘Gentlemen—and Bella and John—you will readily suppose +that it is not my intention to trouble you with many observations on the +present occasion. You will also at once infer the nature and even +the terms of the toast I am about to propose on the present occasion. +Gentlemen—and Bella and John—the present occasion is an occasion +fraught with feelings that I cannot trust myself to express. But +gentlemen—and Bella and John—for the part I have had in it, for the +confidence you have placed in me, and for the affectionate good-nature +and kindness with which you have determined not to find me in the way, +when I am well aware that I cannot be otherwise than in it more or less, +I do most heartily thank you. Gentlemen—and Bella and John—my love +to you, and may we meet, as on the present occasion, on many future +occasions; that is to say, gentlemen—and Bella and John—on many happy +returns of the present happy occasion.’ + +Having thus concluded his address, the amiable cherub embraced his +daughter, and took his flight to the steamboat which was to convey him +to London, and was then lying at the floating pier, doing its best to +bump the same to bits. But, the happy couple were not going to part with +him in that way, and before he had been on board two minutes, there they +were, looking down at him from the wharf above. + +‘Pa, dear!’ cried Bella, beckoning him with her parasol to approach the +side, and bending gracefully to whisper. + +‘Yes, my darling.’ + +‘Did I beat you much with that horrid little bonnet, Pa?’ + +‘Nothing to speak of; my dear.’ + +‘Did I pinch your legs, Pa?’ + +‘Only nicely, my pet.’ + +‘You are sure you quite forgive me, Pa? Please, Pa, please, forgive me +quite!’ Half laughing at him and half crying to him, Bella besought him +in the prettiest manner; in a manner so engaging and so playful and +so natural, that her cherubic parent made a coaxing face as if she had +never grown up, and said, ‘What a silly little Mouse it is!’ + +‘But you do forgive me that, and everything else; don’t you, Pa?’ + +‘Yes, my dearest.’ + +‘And you don’t feel solitary or neglected, going away by yourself; do +you, Pa?’ + +‘Lord bless you! No, my Life!’ + +‘Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!’ + +‘Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my dear John. Take her home!’ + +So, she leaning on her husband’s arm, they turned homeward by a rosy +path which the gracious sun struck out for them in its setting. And O +there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a +bright old song it is, that O ’tis love, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes +the world go round! + + + + +Chapter 5 + +CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE + + +The impressive gloom with which Mrs Wilfer received her husband on his +return from the wedding, knocked so hard at the door of the cherubic +conscience, and likewise so impaired the firmness of the cherubic legs, +that the culprit’s tottering condition of mind and body might have +roused suspicion in less occupied persons than the grimly heroic lady, +Miss Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr George Sampson. +But, the attention of all three being fully possessed by the main +fact of the marriage, they had happily none to bestow on the guilty +conspirator; to which fortunate circumstance he owed the escape for +which he was in nowise indebted to himself. + +‘You do not, R. W.’ said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, ‘inquire +for your daughter Bella.’ + +‘To be sure, my dear,’ he returned, with a most flagrant assumption of +unconsciousness, ‘I did omit it. How—or perhaps I should rather say +where—IS Bella?’ + +‘Not here,’ Mrs Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms. + +The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of ‘Oh, +indeed, my dear!’ + +‘Not here,’ repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. ‘In a word, +R. W., you have no daughter Bella.’ + +‘No daughter Bella, my dear?’ + +‘No. Your daughter Bella,’ said Mrs Wilfer, with a lofty air of never +having had the least copartnership in that young lady: of whom she now +made reproachful mention as an article of luxury which her husband had +set up entirely on his own account, and in direct opposition to her +advice: ‘—your daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendicant.’ + +‘Good gracious, my dear!’ + +‘Show your father his daughter Bella’s letter, Lavinia,’ said Mrs +Wilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament tone, and waving her hand. +‘I think your father will admit it to be documentary proof of what I +tell him. I believe your father is acquainted with his daughter Bella’s +writing. But I do not know. He may tell you he is not. Nothing will +surprise me.’ + +‘Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning,’ said the Irrepressible, +flouncing at her father in handing him the evidence. ‘Hopes Ma won’t be +angry, but is happily married to Mr John Rokesmith, and didn’t mention +it beforehand to avoid words, and please tell darling you, and love +to me, and I should like to know what you’d have said if any other +unmarried member of the family had done it!’ + +He read the letter, and faintly exclaimed ‘Dear me!’ + +‘You may well say Dear me!’ rejoined Mrs Wilfer, in a deep tone. Upon +which encouragement he said it again, though scarcely with the success +he had expected; for the scornful lady then remarked, with extreme +bitterness: ‘You said that before.’ + +‘It’s very surprising. But I suppose, my dear,’ hinted the cherub, as he +folded the letter after a disconcerting silence, ‘that we must make the +best of it? Would you object to my pointing out, my dear, that Mr +John Rokesmith is not (so far as I am acquainted with him), strictly +speaking, a Mendicant.’ + +‘Indeed?’ returned Mrs Wilfer, with an awful air of politeness. ‘Truly +so? I was not aware that Mr John Rokesmith was a gentleman of landed +property. But I am much relieved to hear it.’ + +‘I doubt if you HAVE heard it, my dear,’ the cherub submitted with +hesitation. + +‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Wilfer. ‘I make false statements, it appears? So +be it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my husband may. The one +thing is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in the +arrangement. By all means!’ Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a +deadly cheerfulness. + +But, here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, dragging the +reluctant form of Mr Sampson after her. + +‘Ma,’ interposed the young lady, ‘I must say I think it would be much +better if you would keep to the point, and not hold forth about +people’s flying into people’s faces, which is nothing more nor less than +impossible nonsense.’ + +‘How!’ exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, knitting her dark brows. + +‘Just im-possible nonsense, Ma,’ returned Lavvy, ‘and George Sampson +knows it is, as well as I do.’ + +Mrs Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indignant eyes upon +the wretched George: who, divided between the support due from him to +his love, and the support due from him to his love’s mamma, supported +nobody, not even himself. + +‘The true point is,’ pursued Lavinia, ‘that Bella has behaved in a most +unsisterly way to me, and might have severely compromised me with George +and with George’s family, by making off and getting married in this very +low and disreputable manner—with some pew-opener or other, I suppose, +for a bridesmaid—when she ought to have confided in me, and ought +to have said, “If, Lavvy, you consider it due to your engagement with +George, that you should countenance the occasion by being present, then +Lavvy, I beg you to BE present, keeping my secret from Ma and Pa.” As of +course I should have done.’ + +‘As of course you would have done? Ingrate!’ exclaimed Mrs Wilfer. +‘Viper!’ + +‘I say! You know ma’am. Upon my honour you mustn’t,’ Mr Sampson +remonstrated, shaking his head seriously. ‘With the highest respect for +you, ma’am, upon my life you mustn’t. No really, you know. When a man +with the feelings of a gentleman finds himself engaged to a young lady, +and it comes (even on the part of a member of the family) to vipers, you +know!—I would merely put it to your own good feeling, you know,’ said +Mr Sampson, in rather lame conclusion. + +Mrs Wilfer’s baleful stare at the young gentleman in acknowledgment of +his obliging interference was of such a nature that Miss Lavinia burst +into tears, and caught him round the neck for his protection. + +‘My own unnatural mother,’ screamed the young lady, ‘wants to annihilate +George! But you shan’t be annihilated, George. I’ll die first!’ + +Mr Sampson, in the arms of his mistress, still struggled to shake his +head at Mrs Wilfer, and to remark: ‘With every sentiment of respect for +you, you know, ma’am—vipers really doesn’t do you credit.’ + +‘You shall not be annihilated, George!’ cried Miss Lavinia. ‘Ma shall +destroy me first, and then she’ll be contented. Oh, oh, oh! Have I lured +George from his happy home to expose him to this! George, dear, be free! +Leave me, ever dearest George, to Ma and to my fate. Give my love to +your aunt, George dear, and implore her not to curse the viper that has +crossed your path and blighted your existence. Oh, oh, oh!’ The young +lady who, hysterically speaking, was only just come of age, and had +never gone off yet, here fell into a highly creditable crisis, which, +regarded as a first performance, was very successful; Mr Sampson, +bending over the body meanwhile, in a state of distraction, which +induced him to address Mrs Wilfer in the inconsistent expressions: +‘Demon—with the highest respect for you—behold your work!’ + +The cherub stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking on, but on the +whole was inclined to welcome this diversion as one in which, by reason +of the absorbent properties of hysterics, the previous question would +become absorbed. And so, indeed, it proved, for the Irrepressible +gradually coming to herself; and asking with wild emotion, ‘George dear, +are you safe?’ and further, ‘George love, what has happened? Where is +Ma?’ Mr Sampson, with words of comfort, raised her prostrate form, and +handed her to Mrs Wilfer as if the young lady were something in the +nature of refreshments. Mrs Wilfer with dignity partaking of the +refreshments, by kissing her once on the brow (as if accepting an +oyster), Miss Lavvy, tottering, returned to the protection of Mr +Sampson; to whom she said, ‘George dear, I am afraid I have been +foolish; but I am still a little weak and giddy; don’t let go my hand, +George!’ And whom she afterwards greatly agitated at intervals, by +giving utterance, when least expected, to a sound between a sob and a +bottle of soda water, that seemed to rend the bosom of her frock. + +Among the most remarkable effects of this crisis may be mentioned its +having, when peace was restored, an inexplicable moral influence, of an +elevating kind, on Miss Lavinia, Mrs Wilfer, and Mr George Sampson, from +which R. W. was altogether excluded, as an outsider and non-sympathizer. +Miss Lavinia assumed a modest air of having distinguished herself; Mrs +Wilfer, a serene air of forgiveness and resignation; Mr Sampson, an air +of having been improved and chastened. The influence pervaded the spirit +in which they returned to the previous question. + +‘George dear,’ said Lavvy, with a melancholy smile, ‘after what has +passed, I am sure Ma will tell Pa that he may tell Bella we shall all be +glad to see her and her husband.’ + +Mr Sampson said he was sure of it too; murmuring how eminently he +respected Mrs Wilfer, and ever must, and ever would. Never more +eminently, he added, than after what had passed. + +‘Far be it from me,’ said Mrs Wilfer, making deep proclamation from her +corner, ‘to run counter to the feelings of a child of mine, and of a +Youth,’ Mr Sampson hardly seemed to like that word, ‘who is the object +of her maiden preference. I may feel—nay, know—that I have been +deluded and deceived. I may feel—nay, know—that I have been set +aside and passed over. I may feel—nay, know—that after having so far +overcome my repugnance towards Mr and Mrs Boffin as to receive them +under this roof, and to consent to your daughter Bella’s,’ here turning +to her husband, ‘residing under theirs, it were well if your daughter +Bella,’ again turning to her husband, ‘had profited in a worldly +point of view by a connection so distasteful, so disreputable. I may +feel—nay, know—that in uniting herself to Mr Rokesmith she has united +herself to one who is, in spite of shallow sophistry, a Mendicant. And +I may feel well assured that your daughter Bella,’ again turning to her +husband, ‘does not exalt her family by becoming a Mendicant’s bride. But +I suppress what I feel, and say nothing of it.’ + +Mr Sampson murmured that this was the sort of thing you might expect +from one who had ever in her own family been an example and never +an outrage. And ever more so (Mr Sampson added, with some degree of +obscurity,) and never more so, than in and through what had passed. He +must take the liberty of adding, that what was true of the mother +was true of the youngest daughter, and that he could never forget the +touching feelings that the conduct of both had awakened within him. In +conclusion, he did hope that there wasn’t a man with a beating heart who +was capable of something that remained undescribed, in consequence of +Miss Lavinia’s stopping him as he reeled in his speech. + +‘Therefore, R. W.’ said Mrs Wilfer, resuming her discourse and turning +to her lord again, ‘let your daughter Bella come when she will, and she +will be received. So,’ after a short pause, and an air of having taken +medicine in it, ‘so will her husband.’ + +‘And I beg, Pa,’ said Lavinia, ‘that you will not tell Bella what I +have undergone. It can do no good, and it might cause her to reproach +herself.’ + +‘My dearest girl,’ urged Mr Sampson, ‘she ought to know it.’ + +‘No, George,’ said Lavinia, in a tone of resolute self-denial. ‘No, +dearest George, let it be buried in oblivion.’ + +Mr Sampson considered that, ‘too noble.’ + +‘Nothing is too noble, dearest George,’ returned Lavinia. ‘And Pa, I +hope you will be careful not to refer before Bella, if you can help +it, to my engagement to George. It might seem like reminding her of her +having cast herself away. And I hope, Pa, that you will think it equally +right to avoid mentioning George’s rising prospects, when Bella is +present. It might seem like taunting her with her own poor fortunes. +Let me ever remember that I am her younger sister, and ever spare her +painful contrasts, which could not but wound her sharply.’ + +Mr Sampson expressed his belief that such was the demeanour of Angels. +Miss Lavvy replied with solemnity, ‘No, dearest George, I am but too +well aware that I am merely human.’ + +Mrs Wilfer, for her part, still further improved the occasion by sitting +with her eyes fastened on her husband, like two great black notes of +interrogation, severely inquiring, Are you looking into your breast? Do +you deserve your blessings? Can you lay your hand upon your heart and +say that you are worthy of so hysterical a daughter? I do not ask you if +you are worthy of such a wife—put Me out of the question—but are +you sufficiently conscious of, and thankful for, the pervading moral +grandeur of the family spectacle on which you are gazing? These +inquiries proved very harassing to R. W. who, besides being a little +disturbed by wine, was in perpetual terror of committing himself by the +utterance of stray words that would betray his guilty foreknowledge. +However, the scene being over, and—all things considered—well over, he +sought refuge in a doze; which gave his lady immense offence. + +‘Can you think of your daughter Bella, and sleep?’ she disdainfully +inquired. + +To which he mildly answered, ‘Yes, I think I can, my dear.’ + +‘Then,’ said Mrs Wilfer, with solemn indignation, ‘I would recommend +you, if you have a human feeling, to retire to bed.’ + +‘Thank you, my dear,’ he replied; ‘I think it IS the best place for me.’ +And with these unsympathetic words very gladly withdrew. + +Within a few weeks afterwards, the Mendicant’s bride (arm-in-arm with +the Mendicant) came to tea, in fulfilment of an engagement made through +her father. And the way in which the Mendicant’s bride dashed at the +unassailable position so considerately to be held by Miss Lavy, and +scattered the whole of the works in all directions in a moment, was +triumphant. + +‘Dearest Ma,’ cried Bella, running into the room with a radiant face, +‘how do you do, dearest Ma?’ And then embraced her, joyously. ‘And Lavvy +darling, how do YOU do, and how’s George Sampson, and how is he getting +on, and when are you going to be married, and how rich are you going +to grow? You must tell me all about it, Lavvy dear, immediately. +John, love, kiss Ma and Lavvy, and then we shall all be at home and +comfortable.’ + +Mrs Wilfer stared, but was helpless. Miss Lavinia stared, but was +helpless. Apparently with no compunction, and assuredly with no +ceremony, Bella tossed her bonnet away, and sat down to make the tea. + +‘Dearest Ma and Lavvy, you both take sugar, I know. And Pa (you good +little Pa), you don’t take milk. John does. I didn’t before I was +married; but I do now, because John does. John dear, did you kiss Ma and +Lavvy? Oh, you did! Quite correct, John dear; but I didn’t see you do +it, so I asked. Cut some bread and butter, John; that’s a love. Ma likes +it doubled. And now you must tell me, dearest Ma and Lavvy, upon your +words and honours! Didn’t you for a moment—just a moment—think I was a +dreadful little wretch when I wrote to say I had run away?’ + +Before Mrs Wilfer could wave her gloves, the Mendicant’s bride in her +merriest affectionate manner went on again. + +‘I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma and Lavvy, and I +know I deserved that you should be very cross. But you see I had been +such a heedless, heartless creature, and had led you so to expect that +I should marry for money, and so to make sure that I was incapable of +marrying for love, that I thought you couldn’t believe me. Because, you +see, you didn’t know how much of Good, Good, Good, I had learnt from +John. Well! So I was sly about it, and ashamed of what you supposed me +to be, and fearful that we couldn’t understand one another and might +come to words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, and so I +said to John that if he liked to take me without any fuss, he might. And +as he did like, I let him. And we were married at Greenwich church in +the presence of nobody—except an unknown individual who dropped in,’ +here her eyes sparkled more brightly, ‘and half a pensioner. And now, +isn’t it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to know that no words have been +said which any of us can be sorry for, and that we are all the best of +friends at the pleasantest of teas!’ + +Having got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to her chair +(after a loop on the road to squeeze her husband round the neck) and +again went on. + +‘And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma and Lavvy, how +we live, and what we have got to live upon. Well! And so we live on +Blackheath, in the charm—ingest of dolls’ houses, de—lightfully +furnished, and we have a clever little servant who is de—cidedly +pretty, and we are economical and orderly, and do everything by +clockwork, and we have a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and we +have all we want, and more. And lastly, if you would like to know in +confidence, as perhaps you may, what is my opinion of my husband, my +opinion is—that I almost love him!’ + +‘And if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may,’ +said her husband, smiling, as he stood by her side, without her having +detected his approach, ‘my opinion of my wife, my opinion is—.’ But +Bella started up, and put her hand upon his lips. + +‘Stop, Sir! No, John, dear! Seriously! Please not yet a while! I want to +be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll’s house.’ + +‘My darling, are you not?’ + +‘Not half, not a quarter, so much worthier as I hope you may some +day find me! Try me through some reverse, John—try me through some +trial—and tell them after THAT, what you think of me.’ + +‘I will, my Life,’ said John. ‘I promise it.’ + +‘That’s my dear John. And you won’t speak a word now; will you?’ + +‘And I won’t,’ said John, with a very expressive look of admiration +around him, ‘speak a word now!’ + +She laid her laughing cheek upon his breast to thank him, and said, +looking at the rest of them sideways out of her bright eyes: ‘I’ll go +further, Pa and Ma and Lavvy. John don’t suspect it—he has no idea of +it—but I quite love him!’ + +Even Mrs Wilfer relaxed under the influence of her married daughter, and +seemed in a majestic manner to imply remotely that if R. W. had been a +more deserving object, she too might have condescended to come down from +her pedestal for his beguilement. Miss Lavinia, on the other hand, had +strong doubts of the policy of the course of treatment, and whether it +might not spoil Mr Sampson, if experimented on in the case of that young +gentleman. R. W. himself was for his part convinced that he was father +of one of the most charming of girls, and that Rokesmith was the most +favoured of men; which opinion, if propounded to him, Rokesmith would +probably not have contested. + +The newly-married pair left early, so that they might walk at leisure to +their starting-place from London, for Greenwich. At first they were +very cheerful and talked much; but after a while, Bella fancied that her +husband was turning somewhat thoughtful. So she asked him: + +‘John dear, what’s the matter?’ + +‘Matter, my love?’ + +‘Won’t you tell me,’ said Bella, looking up into his face, ‘what you are +thinking of?’ + +‘There’s not much in the thought, my soul. I was thinking whether you +wouldn’t like me to be rich?’ + +‘You rich, John?’ repeated Bella, shrinking a little. + +‘I mean, really rich. Say, as rich as Mr Boffin. You would like that?’ + +‘I should be almost afraid to try, John dear. Was he much the better for +his wealth? Was I much the better for the little part I once had in it?’ + +‘But all people are not the worse for riches, my own.’ + +‘Most people?’ Bella musingly suggested with raised eyebrows. + +‘Nor even most people, it may be hoped. If you were rich, for instance, +you would have a great power of doing good to others.’ + +‘Yes, sir, for instance,’ Bella playfully rejoined; ‘but should I +exercise the power, for instance? And again, sir, for instance; should +I, at the same time, have a great power of doing harm to myself?’ + +Laughing and pressing her arm, he retorted: ‘But still, again for +instance; would you exercise that power?’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Bella, thoughtfully shaking her head. ‘I hope not. +I think not. But it’s so easy to hope not and think not, without the +riches.’ + +‘Why don’t you say, my darling—instead of that phrase—being poor?’ he +asked, looking earnestly at her. + +‘Why don’t I say, being poor! Because I am not poor. Dear John, it’s not +possible that you suppose I think we are poor?’ + +‘I do, my love.’ + +‘Oh John!’ + +‘Understand me, sweetheart. I know that I am rich beyond all wealth in +having you; but I think OF you, and think FOR you. In such a dress as +you are wearing now, you first charmed me, and in no dress could you +ever look, to my thinking, more graceful or more beautiful. But you have +admired many finer dresses this very day; and is it not natural that I +wish I could give them to you?’ + +‘It’s very nice that you should wish it, John. It brings these tears of +grateful pleasure into my eyes, to hear you say so with such tenderness. +But I don’t want them.’ + +‘Again,’ he pursued, ‘we are now walking through the muddy streets. I +love those pretty feet so dearly, that I feel as if I could not bear the +dirt to soil the sole of your shoe. Is it not natural that I wish you +could ride in a carriage?’ + +‘It’s very nice,’ said Bella, glancing downward at the feet in question, +‘to know that you admire them so much, John dear, and since you do, I +am sorry that these shoes are a full size too large. But I don’t want a +carriage, believe me.’ + +‘You would like one if you could have one, Bella?’ + +‘I shouldn’t like it for its own sake, half so well as such a wish for +it. Dear John, your wishes are as real to me as the wishes in the Fairy +story, that were all fulfilled as soon as spoken. Wish me everything +that you can wish for the woman you dearly love, and I have as good as +got it, John. I have better than got it, John!’ + +They were not the less happy for such talk, and home was not the less +home for coming after it. Bella was fast developing a perfect genius +for home. All the loves and graces seemed (her husband thought) to have +taken domestic service with her, and to help her to make home engaging. + +Her married life glided happily on. She was alone all day, for, after an +early breakfast her husband repaired every morning to the City, and did +not return until their late dinner hour. He was ‘in a China house,’ he +explained to Bella: which she found quite satisfactory, without pursuing +the China house into minuter details than a wholesale vision of tea, +rice, odd-smelling silks, carved boxes, and tight-eyed people in more +than double-soled shoes, with their pigtails pulling their heads of +hair off, painted on transparent porcelain. She always walked with her +husband to the railroad, and was always there again to meet him; her old +coquettish ways a little sobered down (but not much), and her dress +as daintily managed as if she managed nothing else. But, John gone to +business and Bella returned home, the dress would be laid aside, trim +little wrappers and aprons would be substituted, and Bella, putting back +her hair with both hands, as if she were making the most business-like +arrangements for going dramatically distracted, would enter on the +household affairs of the day. Such weighing and mixing and chopping +and grating, such dusting and washing and polishing, such snipping +and weeding and trowelling and other small gardening, such making and +mending and folding and airing, such diverse arrangements, and above all +such severe study! For Mrs J. R., who had never been wont to do too much +at home as Miss B. W., was under the constant necessity of referring for +advice and support to a sage volume entitled The Complete British Family +Housewife, which she would sit consulting, with her elbows on the table +and her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poring +over the Black Art. This, principally because the Complete British +Housewife, however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means an expert +Briton at expressing herself with clearness in the British tongue, +and sometimes might have issued her directions to equal purpose in the +Kamskatchan language. In any crisis of this nature, Bella would suddenly +exclaim aloud, ‘Oh you ridiculous old thing, what do you mean by that? +You must have been drinking!’ And having made this marginal note, would +try the Housewife again, with all her dimples screwed into an expression +of profound research. + +There was likewise a coolness on the part of the British Housewife, +which Mrs John Rokesmith found highly exasperating. She would say, +‘Take a salamander,’ as if a general should command a private to catch +a Tartar. Or, she would casually issue the order, ‘Throw in a handful—’ +of something entirely unattainable. In these, the Housewife’s most +glaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her up and knock her on +the table, apostrophising her with the compliment, ‘O you ARE a stupid +old Donkey! Where am I to get it, do you think?’ + +Another branch of study claimed the attention of Mrs John Rokesmith for +a regular period every day. This was the mastering of the newspaper, so +that she might be close up with John on general topics when John came +home. In her desire to be in all things his companion, she would have +set herself with equal zeal to master Algebra, or Euclid, if he had +divided his soul between her and either. Wonderful was the way in which +she would store up the City Intelligence, and beamingly shed it +upon John in the course of the evening; incidentally mentioning the +commodities that were looking up in the markets, and how much gold had +been taken to the Bank, and trying to look wise and serious over it +until she would laugh at herself most charmingly and would say, kissing +him: ‘It all comes of my love, John dear.’ + +For a City man, John certainly did appear to care as little as might be +for the looking up or looking down of things, as well as for the gold +that got taken to the Bank. But he cared, beyond all expression, for his +wife, as a most precious and sweet commodity that was always looking up, +and that never was worth less than all the gold in the world. And she, +being inspired by her affection, and having a quick wit and a fine ready +instinct, made amazing progress in her domestic efficiency, though, +as an endearing creature, she made no progress at all. This was her +husband’s verdict, and he justified it by telling her that she had begun +her married life as the most endearing creature that could possibly be. + +‘And you have such a cheerful spirit!’ he said, fondly. ‘You are like a +bright light in the house.’ + +‘Am I truly, John?’ + +‘Are you truly? Yes, indeed. Only much more, and much better.’ + +‘Do you know, John dear,’ said Bella, taking him by a button of his +coat, ‘that I sometimes, at odd moments—don’t laugh, John, please.’ + +Nothing should induce John to do it, when she asked him not to do it. + +‘—That I sometimes think, John, I feel a little serious.’ + +‘Are you too much alone, my darling?’ + +‘O dear, no, John! The time is so short that I have not a moment too +much in the week.’ + +‘Why serious, my life, then? When serious?’ + +‘When I laugh, I think,’ said Bella, laughing as she laid her head upon +his shoulder. ‘You wouldn’t believe, sir, that I feel serious now? But I +do.’ And she laughed again, and something glistened in her eyes. + +‘Would you like to be rich, pet?’ he asked her coaxingly. + +‘Rich, John! How CAN you ask such goose’s questions?’ + +‘Do you regret anything, my love?’ + +‘Regret anything? No!’ Bella confidently answered. But then, suddenly +changing, she said, between laughing and glistening: ‘Oh yes, I do +though. I regret Mrs Boffin.’ + +‘I, too, regret that separation very much. But perhaps it is only +temporary. Perhaps things may so fall out, as that you may sometimes see +her again—as that we may sometimes see her again.’ Bella might be very +anxious on the subject, but she scarcely seemed so at the moment. With +an absent air, she was investigating that button on her husband’s coat, +when Pa came in to spend the evening. + +Pa had his special chair and his special corner reserved for him on +all occasions, and—without disparagement of his domestic joys—was far +happier there, than anywhere. It was always pleasantly droll to see Pa +and Bella together; but on this present evening her husband thought her +more than usually fantastic with him. + +‘You are a very good little boy,’ said Bella, ‘to come unexpectedly, +as soon as you could get out of school. And how have they used you at +school to-day, you dear?’ + +‘Well, my pet,’ replied the cherub, smiling and rubbing his hands as she +sat him down in his chair, ‘I attend two schools. There’s the Mincing +Lane establishment, and there’s your mother’s Academy. Which might you +mean, my dear?’ + +‘Both,’ said Bella. + +‘Both, eh? Why, to say the truth, both have taken a little out of me +to-day, my dear, but that was to be expected. There’s no royal road to +learning; and what is life but learning!’ + +‘And what do you do with yourself when you have got your learning by +heart, you silly child?’ + +‘Why then, my dear,’ said the cherub, after a little consideration, ‘I +suppose I die.’ + +‘You are a very bad boy,’ retorted Bella, ‘to talk about dismal things +and be out of spirits.’ + +‘My Bella,’ rejoined her father, ‘I am not out of spirits. I am as gay +as a lark.’ Which his face confirmed. + +‘Then if you are sure and certain it’s not you, I suppose it must be +I,’ said Bella; ‘so I won’t do so any more. John dear, we must give this +little fellow his supper, you know.’ + +‘Of course we must, my darling.’ + +‘He has been grubbing and grubbing at school,’ said Bella, looking at +her father’s hand and lightly slapping it, ‘till he’s not fit to be +seen. O what a grubby child!’ + +‘Indeed, my dear,’ said her father, ‘I was going to ask to be allowed to +wash my hands, only you find me out so soon.’ + +‘Come here, sir!’ cried Bella, taking him by the front of his coat, +‘come here and be washed directly. You are not to be trusted to do it +for yourself. Come here, sir!’ + +The cherub, to his genial amusement, was accordingly conducted to a +little washing-room, where Bella soaped his face and rubbed his face, +and soaped his hands and rubbed his hands, and splashed him and rinsed +him and towelled him, until he was as red as beet-root, even to his very +ears: ‘Now you must be brushed and combed, sir,’ said Bella, busily. +‘Hold the light, John. Shut your eyes, sir, and let me take hold of your +chin. Be good directly, and do as you are told!’ + +Her father being more than willing to obey, she dressed his hair in her +most elaborate manner, brushing it out straight, parting it, winding it +over her fingers, sticking it up on end, and constantly falling back on +John to get a good look at the effect of it. Who always received her +on his disengaged arm, and detained her, while the patient cherub stood +waiting to be finished. + +‘There!’ said Bella, when she had at last completed the final touches. +‘Now, you are something like a genteel boy! Put your jacket on, and come +and have your supper.’ + +The cherub investing himself with his coat was led back to his +corner—where, but for having no egotism in his pleasant nature, he +would have answered well enough for that radiant though self-sufficient +boy, Jack Horner—Bella with her own hands laid a cloth for him, and +brought him his supper on a tray. ‘Stop a moment,’ said she, ‘we must +keep his little clothes clean;’ and tied a napkin under his chin, in a +very methodical manner. + +While he took his supper, Bella sat by him, sometimes admonishing him +to hold his fork by the handle, like a polite child, and at other times +carving for him, or pouring out his drink. Fantastic as it all was, and +accustomed as she ever had been to make a plaything of her good father, +ever delighted that she should put him to that account, still there was +an occasional something on Bella’s part that was new. It could not be +said that she was less playful, whimsical, or natural, than she always +had been; but it seemed, her husband thought, as if there were some +rather graver reason than he had supposed for what she had so lately +said, and as if throughout all this, there were glimpses of an +underlying seriousness. + +It was a circumstance in support of this view of the case, that when she +had lighted her father’s pipe, and mixed him his glass of grog, she sat +down on a stool between her father and her husband, leaning her arm upon +the latter, and was very quiet. So quiet, that when her father rose to +take his leave, she looked round with a start, as if she had forgotten +his being there. + +‘You go a little way with Pa, John?’ + +‘Yes, my dear. Do you?’ + +‘I have not written to Lizzie Hexam since I wrote and told her that I +really had a lover—a whole one. I have often thought I would like to +tell her how right she was when she pretended to read in the live coals +that I would go through fire and water for him. I am in the humour to +tell her so to-night, John, and I’ll stay at home and do it.’ + +‘You are tired.’ + +‘Not at all tired, John dear, but in the humour to write to Lizzie. Good +night, dear Pa. Good night, you dear, good, gentle Pa!’ + +Left to herself she sat down to write, and wrote Lizzie a long letter. +She had but completed it and read it over, when her husband came back. +‘You are just in time, sir,’ said Bella; ‘I am going to give you your +first curtain lecture. It shall be a parlour-curtain lecture. You shall +take this chair of mine when I have folded my letter, and I will take +the stool (though you ought to take it, I can tell you, sir, if it’s +the stool of repentance), and you’ll soon find yourself taken to task +soundly.’ + +Her letter folded, sealed, and directed, and her pen wiped, and her +middle finger wiped, and her desk locked up and put away, and these +transactions performed with an air of severe business sedateness, which +the Complete British Housewife might have assumed, and certainly would +not have rounded off and broken down in with a musical laugh, as Bella +did: she placed her husband in his chair, and placed herself upon her +stool. + +‘Now, sir! To begin at the beginning. What is your name?’ + +A question more decidedly rushing at the secret he was keeping from +her, could not have astounded him. But he kept his countenance and his +secret, and answered, ‘John Rokesmith, my dear.’ + +‘Good boy! Who gave you that name?’ + +With a returning suspicion that something might have betrayed him to +her, he answered, interrogatively, ‘My godfathers and my godmothers, +dear love?’ + +‘Pretty good!’ said Bella. ‘Not goodest good, because you hesitate about +it. However, as you know your Catechism fairly, so far, I’ll let you off +the rest. Now, I am going to examine you out of my own head. John dear, +why did you go back, this evening, to the question you once asked me +before—would I like to be rich?’ + +Again, his secret! He looked down at her as she looked up at him, with +her hands folded on his knee, and it was as nearly told as ever secret +was. + +Having no reply ready, he could do no better than embrace her. + +‘In short, dear John,’ said Bella, ‘this is the topic of my lecture: I +want nothing on earth, and I want you to believe it.’ + +‘If that’s all, the lecture may be considered over, for I do.’ + +‘It’s not all, John dear,’ Bella hesitated. ‘It’s only Firstly. There’s +a dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly to come—as I used to say to +myself in sermon-time when I was a very small-sized sinner at church.’ + +‘Let them come, my dearest.’ + +‘Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely certain in your innermost +heart of hearts—?’ + +‘Which is not in my keeping,’ he rejoined. + +‘No, John, but the key is.—Are you absolutely certain that down at the +bottom of that heart of hearts, which you have given to me as I +have given mine to you, there is no remembrance that I was once very +mercenary?’ + +‘Why, if there were no remembrance in me of the time you speak of,’ he +softly asked her with his lips to hers, ‘could I love you quite as well +as I do; could I have in the Calendar of my life the brightest of its +days; could I whenever I look at your dear face, or hear your dear +voice, see and hear my noble champion? It can never have been that which +made you serious, darling?’ + +‘No John, it wasn’t that, and still less was it Mrs Boffin, though I +love her. Wait a moment, and I’ll go on with the lecture. Give me a +moment, because I like to cry for joy. It’s so delicious, John dear, to +cry for joy.’ + +She did so on his neck, and, still clinging there, laughed a little when +she said, ‘I think I am ready now for Thirdly, John.’ + +‘I am ready for Thirdly,’ said John, ‘whatever it is.’ + +‘I believe, John,’ pursued Bella, ‘that you believe that I believe—’ + +‘My dear child,’ cried her husband gaily, ‘what a quantity of +believing!’ + +‘Isn’t there?’ said Bella, with another laugh. ‘I never knew such a +quantity! It’s like verbs in an exercise. But I can’t get on with less +believing. I’ll try again. I believe, dear John, that you believe that +I believe that we have as much money as we require, and that we want for +nothing.’ + +‘It is strictly true, Bella.’ + +‘But if our money should by any means be rendered not so much—if we +had to stint ourselves a little in purchases that we can afford to +make now—would you still have the same confidence in my being quite +contented, John?’ + +‘Precisely the same confidence, my soul.’ + +‘Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands of times. And I may take +it for granted, no doubt,’ with a little faltering, ‘that you would be +quite as contented yourself John? But, yes, I know I may. For, knowing +that I should be so, how surely I may know that you would be so; you who +are so much stronger, and firmer, and more reasonable and more generous, +than I am.’ + +‘Hush!’ said her husband, ‘I must not hear that. You are all wrong +there, though otherwise as right as can be. And now I am brought to a +little piece of news, my dearest, that I might have told you earlier +in the evening. I have strong reason for confidently believing that +we shall never be in the receipt of a smaller income than our present +income.’ + +She might have shown herself more interested in the intelligence; +but she had returned to the investigation of the coat-button that had +engaged her attention a few hours before, and scarcely seemed to heed +what he said. + +‘And now we have got to the bottom of it at last,’ cried her husband, +rallying her, ‘and this is the thing that made you serious?’ + +‘No dear,’ said Bella, twisting the button and shaking her head, ‘it +wasn’t this.’ + +‘Why then, Lord bless this little wife of mine, there’s a Fourthly!’ +exclaimed John. + +‘This worried me a little, and so did Secondly,’ said Bella, occupied +with the button, ‘but it was quite another sort of seriousness—a much +deeper and quieter sort of seriousness—that I spoke of John dear.’ + +As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid her +little right hand on his eyes, and kept it there. + +‘Do you remember, John, on the day we were married, Pa’s speaking of the +ships that might be sailing towards us from the unknown seas?’ + +‘Perfectly, my darling!’ + +‘I think...among them...there is a ship upon the ocean...bringing...to +you and me...a little baby, John.’ + + + + +Chapter 6 + +A CRY FOR HELP + + +The Paper Mill had stopped work for the night, and the paths and roads +in its neighbourhood were sprinkled with clusters of people going home +from their day’s labour in it. There were men, women, and children in +the groups, and there was no want of lively colour to flutter in the +gentle evening wind. The mingling of various voices and the sound of +laughter made a cheerful impression upon the ear, analogous to that of +the fluttering colours upon the eye. Into the sheet of water reflecting +the flushed sky in the foreground of the living picture, a knot of +urchins were casting stones, and watching the expansion of the rippling +circles. So, in the rosy evening, one might watch the ever-widening +beauty of the landscape—beyond the newly-released workers wending +home—beyond the silver river—beyond the deep green fields of corn, so +prospering, that the loiterers in their narrow threads of pathway seemed +to float immersed breast-high—beyond the hedgerows and the clumps of +trees—beyond the windmills on the ridge—away to where the sky appeared +to meet the earth, as if there were no immensity of space between +mankind and Heaven. + +It was a Saturday evening, and at such a time the village dogs, always +much more interested in the doings of humanity than in the affairs of +their own species, were particularly active. At the general shop, at +the butcher’s and at the public-house, they evinced an inquiring spirit +never to be satiated. Their especial interest in the public-house would +seem to imply some latent rakishness in the canine character; for little +was eaten there, and they, having no taste for beer or tobacco (Mrs +Hubbard’s dog is said to have smoked, but proof is wanting), could only +have been attracted by sympathy with loose convivial habits. Moreover, +a most wretched fiddle played within; a fiddle so unutterably vile, that +one lean long-bodied cur, with a better ear than the rest, found himself +under compulsion at intervals to go round the corner and howl. Yet, even +he returned to the public-house on each occasion with the tenacity of a +confirmed drunkard. + +Fearful to relate, there was even a sort of little Fair in the village. +Some despairing gingerbread that had been vainly trying to dispose of +itself all over the country, and had cast a quantity of dust upon its +head in its mortification, again appealed to the public from an infirm +booth. So did a heap of nuts, long, long exiled from Barcelona, and yet +speaking English so indifferently as to call fourteen of themselves +a pint. A Peep-show which had originally started with the Battle of +Waterloo, and had since made it every other battle of later date +by altering the Duke of Wellington’s nose, tempted the student of +illustrated history. A Fat Lady, perhaps in part sustained upon +postponed pork, her professional associate being a Learned Pig, +displayed her life-size picture in a low dress as she appeared when +presented at Court, several yards round. All this was a vicious +spectacle as any poor idea of amusement on the part of the rougher +hewers of wood and drawers of water in this land of England ever is and +shall be. They MUST NOT vary the rheumatism with amusement. They may +vary it with fever and ague, or with as many rheumatic variations as +they have joints; but positively not with entertainment after their own +manner. + +The various sounds arising from this scene of depravity, and floating +away into the still evening air, made the evening, at any point which +they just reached fitfully, mellowed by the distance, more still by +contrast. Such was the stillness of the evening to Eugene Wrayburn, as +he walked by the river with his hands behind him. + +He walked slowly, and with the measured step and preoccupied air of one +who was waiting. He walked between the two points, an osier-bed at this +end and some floating lilies at that, and at each point stopped and +looked expectantly in one direction. + +‘It is very quiet,’ said he. + +It was very quiet. Some sheep were grazing on the grass by the +river-side, and it seemed to him that he had never before heard the +crisp tearing sound with which they cropped it. He stopped idly, and +looked at them. + +‘You are stupid enough, I suppose. But if you are clever enough to get +through life tolerably to your satisfaction, you have got the better of +me, Man as I am, and Mutton as you are!’ + +A rustle in a field beyond the hedge attracted his attention. ‘What’s +here to do?’ he asked himself leisurely going towards the gate and +looking over. ‘No jealous paper-miller? No pleasures of the chase in +this part of the country? Mostly fishing hereabouts!’ + +The field had been newly mown, and there were yet the marks of the +scythe on the yellow-green ground, and the track of wheels where the hay +had been carried. Following the tracks with his eyes, the view closed +with the new hayrick in a corner. + +Now, if he had gone on to the hayrick, and gone round it? But, say +that the event was to be, as the event fell out, and how idle are such +suppositions! Besides, if he had gone; what is there of warning in a +Bargeman lying on his face? + +‘A bird flying to the hedge,’ was all he thought about it; and came +back, and resumed his walk. + +‘If I had not a reliance on her being truthful,’ said Eugene, after +taking some half-dozen turns, ‘I should begin to think she had given me +the slip for the second time. But she promised, and she is a girl of her +word.’ + +Turning again at the water-lilies, he saw her coming, and advanced to +meet her. + +‘I was saying to myself, Lizzie, that you were sure to come, though you +were late.’ + +‘I had to linger through the village as if I had no object before me, +and I had to speak to several people in passing along, Mr Wrayburn.’ + +‘Are the lads of the village—and the ladies—such scandal-mongers?’ he +asked, as he took her hand and drew it through his arm. + +She submitted to walk slowly on, with downcast eyes. He put her hand to +his lips, and she quietly drew it away. + +‘Will you walk beside me, Mr Wrayburn, and not touch me?’ For, his arm +was already stealing round her waist. + +She stopped again, and gave him an earnest supplicating look. ‘Well, +Lizzie, well!’ said he, in an easy way though ill at ease with himself +‘don’t be unhappy, don’t be reproachful.’ + +‘I cannot help being unhappy, but I do not mean to be reproachful. Mr +Wrayburn, I implore you to go away from this neighbourhood, to-morrow +morning.’ + +‘Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!’ he remonstrated. ‘As well be reproachful as +wholly unreasonable. I can’t go away.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘Faith!’ said Eugene in his airily candid manner. ‘Because you won’t let +me. Mind! I don’t mean to be reproachful either. I don’t complain that +you design to keep me here. But you do it, you do it.’ + +‘Will you walk beside me, and not touch me;’ for, his arm was coming +about her again; ‘while I speak to you very seriously, Mr Wrayburn?’ + +‘I will do anything within the limits of possibility, for you, Lizzie,’ +he answered with pleasant gaiety as he folded his arms. ‘See here! +Napoleon Buonaparte at St Helena.’ + +‘When you spoke to me as I came from the Mill the night before last,’ +said Lizzie, fixing her eyes upon him with the look of supplication +which troubled his better nature, ‘you told me that you were much +surprised to see me, and that you were on a solitary fishing excursion. +Was it true?’ + +‘It was not,’ replied Eugene composedly, ‘in the least true. I came +here, because I had information that I should find you here.’ + +‘Can you imagine why I left London, Mr Wrayburn?’ + +‘I am afraid, Lizzie,’ he openly answered, ‘that you left London to get +rid of me. It is not flattering to my self-love, but I am afraid you +did.’ + +‘I did.’ + +‘How could you be so cruel?’ + +‘O Mr Wrayburn,’ she answered, suddenly breaking into tears, ‘is the +cruelty on my side! O Mr Wrayburn, Mr Wrayburn, is there no cruelty in +your being here to-night!’ + +‘In the name of all that’s good—and that is not conjuring you in my +own name, for Heaven knows I am not good’—said Eugene, ‘don’t be +distressed!’ + +‘What else can I be, when I know the distance and the difference between +us? What else can I be, when to tell me why you came here, is to put me +to shame!’ said Lizzie, covering her face. + +He looked at her with a real sentiment of remorseful tenderness and +pity. It was not strong enough to impell him to sacrifice himself and +spare her, but it was a strong emotion. + +‘Lizzie! I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who +could affect me so much by saying so little. But don’t be hard in your +construction of me. You don’t know what my state of mind towards you is. +You don’t know how you haunt me and bewilder me. You don’t know how the +cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other +turning of my life, WON’T help me here. You have struck it dead, I +think, and I sometimes almost wish you had struck me dead along with +it.’ + +She had not been prepared for such passionate expressions, and they +awakened some natural sparks of feminine pride and joy in her breast. To +consider, wrong as he was, that he could care so much for her, and that +she had the power to move him so! + +‘It grieves you to see me distressed, Mr Wrayburn; it grieves me to see +you distressed. I don’t reproach you. Indeed I don’t reproach you. +You have not felt this as I feel it, being so different from me, and +beginning from another point of view. You have not thought. But I +entreat you to think now, think now!’ + +‘What am I to think of?’ asked Eugene, bitterly. + +‘Think of me.’ + +‘Tell me how NOT to think of you, Lizzie, and you’ll change me +altogether.’ + +‘I don’t mean in that way. Think of me, as belonging to another station, +and quite cut off from you in honour. Remember that I have no protector +near me, unless I have one in your noble heart. Respect my good name. +If you feel towards me, in one particular, as you might if I was a lady, +give me the full claims of a lady upon your generous behaviour. I am +removed from you and your family by being a working girl. How true a +gentleman to be as considerate of me as if I was removed by being a +Queen!’ + +He would have been base indeed to have stood untouched by her appeal. +His face expressed contrition and indecision as he asked: + +‘Have I injured you so much, Lizzie?’ + +‘No, no. You may set me quite right. I don’t speak of the past, Mr +Wrayburn, but of the present and the future. Are we not here now, +because through two days you have followed me so closely where there +are so many eyes to see you, that I consented to this appointment as an +escape?’ + +‘Again, not very flattering to my self-love,’ said Eugene, moodily; ‘but +yes. Yes. Yes.’ + +‘Then I beseech you, Mr Wrayburn, I beg and pray you, leave this +neighbourhood. If you do not, consider to what you will drive me.’ + +He did consider within himself for a moment or two, and then retorted, +‘Drive you? To what shall I drive you, Lizzie?’ + +‘You will drive me away. I live here peacefully and respected, and I am +well employed here. You will force me to quit this place as I quitted +London, and—by following me again—will force me to quit the next place +in which I may find refuge, as I quitted this.’ + +‘Are you so determined, Lizzie—forgive the word I am going to use, for +its literal truth—to fly from a lover?’ + +‘I am so determined,’ she answered resolutely, though trembling, ‘to fly +from such a lover. There was a poor woman died here but a little while +ago, scores of years older than I am, whom I found by chance, lying on +the wet earth. You may have heard some account of her?’ + +‘I think I have,’ he answered, ‘if her name was Higden.’ + +‘Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and old, she kept true to +one purpose to the very last. Even at the very last, she made me promise +that her purpose should be kept to, after she was dead, so settled +was her determination. What she did, I can do. Mr Wrayburn, if I +believed—but I do not believe—that you could be so cruel to me as +to drive me from place to place to wear me out, you should drive me to +death and not do it.’ + +He looked full at her handsome face, and in his own handsome face there +was a light of blended admiration, anger, and reproach, which she—who +loved him so in secret whose heart had long been so full, and he the +cause of its overflowing—drooped before. She tried hard to retain her +firmness, but he saw it melting away under his eyes. In the moment of +its dissolution, and of his first full knowledge of his influence upon +her, she dropped, and he caught her on his arm. + +‘Lizzie! Rest so a moment. Answer what I ask you. If I had not been what +you call removed from you and cut off from you, would you have made this +appeal to me to leave you?’ + +‘I don’t know, I don’t know. Don’t ask me, Mr Wrayburn. Let me go back.’ + +‘I swear to you, Lizzie, you shall go directly. I swear to you, you +shall go alone. I’ll not accompany you, I’ll not follow you, if you will +reply.’ + +‘How can I, Mr Wrayburn? How can I tell you what I should have done, if +you had not been what you are?’ + +‘If I had not been what you make me out to be,’ he struck in, skilfully +changing the form of words, ‘would you still have hated me?’ + +‘O Mr Wrayburn,’ she replied appealingly, and weeping, ‘you know me +better than to think I do!’ + +‘If I had not been what you make me out to be, Lizzie, would you still +have been indifferent to me?’ + +‘O Mr Wrayburn,’ she answered as before, ‘you know me better than that +too!’ + +There was something in the attitude of her whole figure as he supported +it, and she hung her head, which besought him to be merciful and not +force her to disclose her heart. He was not merciful with her, and he +made her do it. + +‘If I know you better than quite to believe (unfortunate dog though I +am!) that you hate me, or even that you are wholly indifferent to me, +Lizzie, let me know so much more from yourself before we separate. Let +me know how you would have dealt with me if you had regarded me as being +what you would have considered on equal terms with you.’ + +‘It is impossible, Mr Wrayburn. How can I think of you as being on equal +terms with me? If my mind could put you on equal terms with me, you +could not be yourself. How could I remember, then, the night when I +first saw you, and when I went out of the room because you looked at +me so attentively? Or, the night that passed into the morning when you +broke to me that my father was dead? Or, the nights when you used to +come to see me at my next home? Or, your having known how uninstructed +I was, and having caused me to be taught better? Or, my having so looked +up to you and wondered at you, and at first thought you so good to be at +all mindful of me?’ + +‘Only “at first” thought me so good, Lizzie? What did you think me after +“at first”? So bad?’ + +‘I don’t say that. I don’t mean that. But after the first wonder and +pleasure of being noticed by one so different from any one who had ever +spoken to me, I began to feel that it might have been better if I had +never seen you.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘Because you WERE so different,’ she answered in a lower voice. ‘Because +it was so endless, so hopeless. Spare me!’ + +‘Did you think for me at all, Lizzie?’ he asked, as if he were a little +stung. + +‘Not much, Mr Wrayburn. Not much until to-night.’ + +‘Will you tell me why?’ + +‘I never supposed until to-night that you needed to be thought for. But +if you do need to be; if you do truly feel at heart that you have indeed +been towards me what you have called yourself to-night, and that there +is nothing for us in this life but separation; then Heaven help you, and +Heaven bless you!’ + +The purity with which in these words she expressed something of her +own love and her own suffering, made a deep impression on him for the +passing time. He held her, almost as if she were sanctified to him by +death, and kissed her, once, almost as he might have kissed the dead. + +‘I promised that I would not accompany you, nor follow you. Shall I keep +you in view? You have been agitated, and it’s growing dark.’ + +‘I am used to be out alone at this hour, and I entreat you not to do +so.’ + +‘I promise. I can bring myself to promise nothing more tonight, Lizzie, +except that I will try what I can do.’ + +‘There is but one means, Mr Wrayburn, of sparing yourself and of sparing +me, every way. Leave this neighbourhood to-morrow morning.’ + +‘I will try.’ + +As he spoke the words in a grave voice, she put her hand in his, removed +it, and went away by the river-side. + +‘Now, could Mortimer believe this?’ murmured Eugene, still remaining, +after a while, where she had left him. ‘Can I even believe it myself?’ + +He referred to the circumstance that there were tears upon his hand, +as he stood covering his eyes. ‘A most ridiculous position this, to be +found out in!’ was his next thought. And his next struck its root in a +little rising resentment against the cause of the tears. + +‘Yet I have gained a wonderful power over her, too, let her be as much +in earnest as she will!’ + +The reflection brought back the yielding of her face and form as she +had drooped under his gaze. Contemplating the reproduction, he seemed +to see, for the second time, in the appeal and in the confession of +weakness, a little fear. + +‘And she loves me. And so earnest a character must be very earnest in +that passion. She cannot choose for herself to be strong in this fancy, +wavering in that, and weak in the other. She must go through with her +nature, as I must go through with mine. If mine exacts its pains and +penalties all round, so must hers, I suppose.’ + +Pursuing the inquiry into his own nature, he thought, ‘Now, if I married +her. If, outfacing the absurdity of the situation in correspondence with +M. R. F., I astonished M. R. F. to the utmost extent of his respected +powers, by informing him that I had married her, how would M. R. F. +reason with the legal mind? “You wouldn’t marry for some money and some +station, because you were frightfully likely to become bored. Are you +less frightfully likely to become bored, marrying for no money and no +station? Are you sure of yourself?” Legal mind, in spite of forensic +protestations, must secretly admit, “Good reasoning on the part of M. R. +F. NOT sure of myself.”’ + +In the very act of calling this tone of levity to his aid, he felt it to +be profligate and worthless, and asserted her against it. + +‘And yet,’ said Eugene, ‘I should like to see the fellow (Mortimer +excepted) who would undertake to tell me that this was not a real +sentiment on my part, won out of me by her beauty and her worth, +in spite of myself, and that I would not be true to her. I should +particularly like to see the fellow to-night who would tell me so, or +who would tell me anything that could be construed to her disadvantage; +for I am wearily out of sorts with one Wrayburn who cuts a sorry figure, +and I would far rather be out of sorts with somebody else. “Eugene, +Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business.” Ah! So go the Mortimer +Lightwood bells, and they sound melancholy to-night.’ + +Strolling on, he thought of something else to take himself to task for. +‘Where is the analogy, Brute Beast,’ he said impatiently, ‘between a +woman whom your father coolly finds out for you and a woman whom you +have found out for yourself, and have ever drifted after with more and +more of constancy since you first set eyes upon her? Ass! Can you reason +no better than that?’ + +But, again he subsided into a reminiscence of his first full knowledge +of his power just now, and of her disclosure of her heart. To try no +more to go away, and to try her again, was the reckless conclusion it +turned uppermost. And yet again, ‘Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad +business!’ And, ‘I wish I could stop the Lightwood peal, for it sounds +like a knell.’ + +Looking above, he found that the young moon was up, and that the stars +were beginning to shine in the sky from which the tones of red and +yellow were flickering out, in favour of the calm blue of a summer +night. He was still by the river-side. Turning suddenly, he met a man, +so close upon him that Eugene, surprised, stepped back, to avoid a +collision. The man carried something over his shoulder which might +have been a broken oar, or spar, or bar, and took no notice of him, but +passed on. + +‘Halloa, friend!’ said Eugene, calling after him, ‘are you blind?’ + +The man made no reply, but went his way. + +Eugene Wrayburn went the opposite way, with his hands behind him and his +purpose in his thoughts. He passed the sheep, and passed the gate, and +came within hearing of the village sounds, and came to the bridge. The +inn where he stayed, like the village and the mill, was not across +the river, but on that side of the stream on which he walked. However, +knowing the rushy bank and the backwater on the other side to be a +retired place, and feeling out of humour for noise or company, he +crossed the bridge, and sauntered on: looking up at the stars as they +seemed one by one to be kindled in the sky, and looking down at the +river as the same stars seemed to be kindled deep in the water. A +landing-place overshadowed by a willow, and a pleasure-boat lying moored +there among some stakes, caught his eye as he passed along. The spot was +in such dark shadow, that he paused to make out what was there, and then +passed on again. + +The rippling of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in his +uneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, but they +were in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strong +current. As the ripple under the moon broke unexpectedly now and then, +and palely flashed in a new shape and with a new sound, so parts of +his thoughts started, unbidden, from the rest, and revealed their +wickedness. ‘Out of the question to marry her,’ said Eugene, ‘and out of +the question to leave her. The crisis!’ + +He had sauntered far enough. Before turning to retrace his steps, he +stopped upon the margin, to look down at the reflected night. In an +instant, with a dreadful crash, the reflected night turned crooked, +flames shot jaggedly across the air, and the moon and stars came +bursting from the sky. + +Was he struck by lightning? With some incoherent half-formed thought +to that effect, he turned under the blows that were blinding him and +mashing his life, and closed with a murderer, whom he caught by a red +neckerchief—unless the raining down of his own blood gave it that hue. + +Eugene was light, active, and expert; but his arms were broken, or he +was paralysed, and could do no more than hang on to the man, with his +head swung back, so that he could see nothing but the heaving sky. After +dragging at the assailant, he fell on the bank with him, and then there +was another great crash, and then a splash, and all was done. + +Lizzie Hexam, too, had avoided the noise, and the Saturday movement of +people in the straggling street, and chose to walk alone by the water +until her tears should be dry, and she could so compose herself as +to escape remark upon her looking ill or unhappy on going home. The +peaceful serenity of the hour and place, having no reproaches or evil +intentions within her breast to contend against, sank healingly into +its depths. She had meditated and taken comfort. She, too, was turning +homeward, when she heard a strange sound. + +It startled her, for it was like a sound of blows. She stood still, and +listened. It sickened her, for blows fell heavily and cruelly on the +quiet of the night. As she listened, undecided, all was silent. As she +yet listened, she heard a faint groan, and a fall into the river. + +Her old bold life and habit instantly inspired her. Without vain waste +of breath in crying for help where there were none to hear, she ran +towards the spot from which the sounds had come. It lay between her and +the bridge, but it was more removed from her than she had thought; the +night being so very quiet, and sound travelling far with the help of +water. + +At length, she reached a part of the green bank, much and newly trodden, +where there lay some broken splintered pieces of wood and some torn +fragments of clothes. Stooping, she saw that the grass was bloody. +Following the drops and smears, she saw that the watery margin of the +bank was bloody. Following the current with her eyes, she saw a bloody +face turned up towards the moon, and drifting away. + +Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, and grant, O Blessed +Lord, that through thy wonderful workings it may turn to good at last! +To whomsoever the drifting face belongs, be it man’s or woman’s, help +my humble hands, Lord God, to raise it from death and restore it to some +one to whom it must be dear! + +It was thought, fervently thought, but not for a moment did the prayer +check her. She was away before it welled up in her mind, away, swift +and true, yet steady above all—for without steadiness it could never +be done—to the landing-place under the willow-tree, where she also had +seen the boat lying moored among the stakes. + +A sure touch of her old practised hand, a sure step of her old practised +foot, a sure light balance of her body, and she was in the boat. A +quick glance of her practised eye showed her, even through the deep dark +shadow, the sculls in a rack against the red-brick garden-wall. Another +moment, and she had cast off (taking the line with her), and the boat +had shot out into the moonlight, and she was rowing down the stream as +never other woman rowed on English water. + +Intently over her shoulder, without slackening speed, she looked ahead +for the driving face. She passed the scene of the struggle—yonder it +was, on her left, well over the boat’s stern—she passed on her right, +the end of the village street, a hilly street that almost dipped into +the river; its sounds were growing faint again, and she slackened; +looking as the boat drove, everywhere, everywhere, for the floating +face. + +She merely kept the boat before the stream now, and rested on her oars, +knowing well that if the face were not soon visible, it had gone down, +and she would overshoot it. An untrained sight would never have seen by +the moonlight what she saw at the length of a few strokes astern. She +saw the drowning figure rise to the surface, slightly struggle, and as +if by instinct turn over on its back to float. Just so had she first +dimly seen the face which she now dimly saw again. + +Firm of look and firm of purpose, she intently watched its coming on, +until it was very near; then, with a touch unshipped her sculls, and +crept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. Once, she let the +body evade her, not being sure of her grasp. Twice, and she had seized +it by its bloody hair. + +It was insensible, if not virtually dead; it was mutilated, and streaked +the water all about it with dark red streaks. As it could not help +itself, it was impossible for her to get it on board. She bent over the +stern to secure it with the line, and then the river and its shores rang +to the terrible cry she uttered. + +But, as if possessed by supernatural spirit and strength, she lashed +it safe, resumed her seat, and rowed in, desperately, for the nearest +shallow water where she might run the boat aground. Desperately, but not +wildly, for she knew that if she lost distinctness of intention, all was +lost and gone. + +She ran the boat ashore, went into the water, released him from the +line, and by main strength lifted him in her arms and laid him in the +bottom of the boat. He had fearful wounds upon him, and she bound them +up with her dress torn into strips. Else, supposing him to be still +alive, she foresaw that he must bleed to death before he could be landed +at his inn, which was the nearest place for succour. + +This done very rapidly, she kissed his disfigured forehead, looked up +in anguish to the stars, and blessed him and forgave him, ‘if she had +anything to forgive.’ It was only in that instant that she thought of +herself, and then she thought of herself only for him. + +Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, enabling me, without +a wasted moment, to have got the boat afloat again, and to row back +against the stream! And grant, O Blessed Lord God, that through poor me +he may be raised from death, and preserved to some one else to whom he +may be dear one day, though never dearer than to me! + +She rowed hard—rowed desperately, but never wildly—and seldom removed +her eyes from him in the bottom of the boat. She had so laid him there, +as that she might see his disfigured face; it was so much disfigured +that his mother might have covered it, but it was above and beyond +disfigurement in her eyes. + +The boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn, sloping gently to +the water. There were lights in the windows, but there chanced to be +no one out of doors. She made the boat fast, and again by main strength +took him up, and never laid him down until she laid him down in the +house. + +Surgeons were sent for, and she sat supporting his head. She had +oftentimes heard in days that were gone, how doctors would lift the hand +of an insensible wounded person, and would drop it if the person were +dead. She waited for the awful moment when the doctors might lift this +hand, all broken and bruised, and let it fall. + +The first of the surgeons came, and asked, before proceeding to his +examination, ‘Who brought him in?’ + +‘I brought him in, sir,’ answered Lizzie, at whom all present looked. + +‘You, my dear? You could not lift, far less carry, this weight.’ + +‘I think I could not, at another time, sir; but I am sure I did.’ + +The surgeon looked at her with great attention, and with some +compassion. Having with a grave face touched the wounds upon the head, +and the broken arms, he took the hand. + +O! would he let it drop? + +He appeared irresolute. He did not retain it, but laid it gently down, +took a candle, looked more closely at the injuries on the head, and at +the pupils of the eyes. That done, he replaced the candle and took the +hand again. Another surgeon then coming in, the two exchanged a whisper, +and the second took the hand. Neither did he let it fall at once, but +kept it for a while and laid it gently down. + +‘Attend to the poor girl,’ said the first surgeon then. ‘She is quite +unconscious. She sees nothing and hears nothing. All the better for +her! Don’t rouse her, if you can help it; only move her. Poor girl, poor +girl! She must be amazingly strong of heart, but it is much to be feared +that she has set her heart upon the dead. Be gentle with her.’ + + + + +Chapter 7 + +BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN + + +Day was breaking at Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. Stars were yet visible, +but there was dull light in the east that was not the light of night. +The moon had gone down, and a mist crept along the banks of the river, +seen through which the trees were the ghosts of trees, and the water +was the ghost of water. This earth looked spectral, and so did the +pale stars: while the cold eastern glare, expressionless as to heat or +colour, with the eye of the firmament quenched, might have been likened +to the stare of the dead. + +Perhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman, standing on the brink +of the lock. For certain, Bradley Headstone looked that way, when a +chill air came up, and when it passed on murmuring, as if it +whispered something that made the phantom trees and water tremble—or +threaten—for fancy might have made it either. + +He turned away, and tried the Lock-house door. It was fastened on the +inside. + +‘Is he afraid of me?’ he muttered, knocking. + +Rogue Riderhood was soon roused, and soon undrew the bolt and let him +in. + +‘Why, T’otherest, I thought you had been and got lost! Two nights away! +I a’most believed as you’d giv’ me the slip, and I had as good as half a +mind for to advertise you in the newspapers to come for’ard.’ + +Bradley’s face turned so dark on this hint, that Riderhood deemed it +expedient to soften it into a compliment. + +‘But not you, governor, not you,’ he went on, stolidly shaking his head. +‘For what did I say to myself arter having amused myself with that there +stretch of a comic idea, as a sort of a playful game? Why, I says to +myself; “He’s a man o’ honour.” That’s what I says to myself. “He’s a +man o’ double honour.”’ + +Very remarkably, Riderhood put no question to him. He had looked at him +on opening the door, and he now looked at him again (stealthily this +time), and the result of his looking was, that he asked him no question. + +‘You’ll be for another forty on ’em, governor, as I judges, afore you +turns your mind to breakfast,’ said Riderhood, when his visitor sat +down, resting his chin on his hand, with his eyes on the ground. And +very remarkably again: Riderhood feigned to set the scanty furniture in +order, while he spoke, to have a show of reason for not looking at him. + +‘Yes. I had better sleep, I think,’ said Bradley, without changing his +position. + +‘I myself should recommend it, governor,’ assented Riderhood. ‘Might you +be anyways dry?’ + +‘Yes. I should like a drink,’ said Bradley; but without appearing to +attend much. + +Mr Riderhood got out his bottle, and fetched his jug-full of water, +and administered a potation. Then, he shook the coverlet of his bed and +spread it smooth, and Bradley stretched himself upon it in the clothes +he wore. Mr Riderhood poetically remarking that he would pick the bones +of his night’s rest, in his wooden chair, sat in the window as before; +but, as before, watched the sleeper narrowly until he was very sound +asleep. Then, he rose and looked at him close, in the bright daylight, +on every side, with great minuteness. He went out to his Lock to sum up +what he had seen. + +‘One of his sleeves is tore right away below the elber, and the +t’other’s had a good rip at the shoulder. He’s been hung on to, pretty +tight, for his shirt’s all tore out of the neck-gathers. He’s been in +the grass and he’s been in the water. And he’s spotted, and I know with +what, and with whose. Hooroar!’ + +Bradley slept long. Early in the afternoon a barge came down. Other +barges had passed through, both ways, before it; but the Lock-keeper +hailed only this particular barge, for news, as if he had made a time +calculation with some nicety. The men on board told him a piece of news, +and there was a lingering on their part to enlarge upon it. + +Twelve hours had intervened since Bradley’s lying down, when he got up. +‘Not that I swaller it,’ said Riderhood, squinting at his Lock, when he +saw Bradley coming out of the house, ‘as you’ve been a sleeping all the +time, old boy!’ + +Bradley came to him, sitting on his wooden lever, and asked what o’clock +it was? Riderhood told him it was between two and three. + +‘When are you relieved?’ asked Bradley. + +‘Day arter to-morrow, governor.’ + +‘Not sooner?’ + +‘Not a inch sooner, governor.’ + +On both sides, importance seemed attached to this question of relief. +Riderhood quite petted his reply; saying a second time, and prolonging a +negative roll of his head, ‘n—n—not a inch sooner, governor.’ + +‘Did I tell you I was going on to-night?’ asked Bradley. + +‘No, governor,’ returned Riderhood, in a cheerful, affable, and +conversational manner, ‘you did not tell me so. But most like you meant +to it and forgot to it. How, otherways, could a doubt have come into +your head about it, governor?’ + +‘As the sun goes down, I intend to go on,’ said Bradley. + +‘So much the more necessairy is a Peck,’ returned Riderhood. ‘Come in +and have it, T’otherest.’ + +The formality of spreading a tablecloth not being observed in Mr +Riderhood’s establishment, the serving of the ‘peck’ was the affair of +a moment; it merely consisting in the handing down of a capacious baking +dish with three-fourths of an immense meat pie in it, and the production +of two pocket-knives, an earthenware mug, and a large brown bottle of +beer. + +Both ate and drank, but Riderhood much the more abundantly. In lieu of +plates, that honest man cut two triangular pieces from the thick crust +of the pie, and laid them, inside uppermost, upon the table: the one +before himself, and the other before his guest. Upon these platters he +placed two goodly portions of the contents of the pie, thus imparting +the unusual interest to the entertainment that each partaker scooped out +the inside of his plate, and consumed it with his other fare, besides +having the sport of pursuing the clots of congealed gravy over the plain +of the table, and successfully taking them into his mouth at last from +the blade of his knife, in case of their not first sliding off it. + +Bradley Headstone was so remarkably awkward at these exercises, that the +Rogue observed it. + +‘Look out, T’otherest!’ he cried, ‘you’ll cut your hand!’ + +But, the caution came too late, for Bradley gashed it at the instant. +And, what was more unlucky, in asking Riderhood to tie it up, and in +standing close to him for the purpose, he shook his hand under the smart +of the wound, and shook blood over Riderhood’s dress. + +When dinner was done, and when what remained of the platters and what +remained of the congealed gravy had been put back into what remained of +the pie, which served as an economical investment for all miscellaneous +savings, Riderhood filled the mug with beer and took a long drink. And +now he did look at Bradley, and with an evil eye. + +‘T’otherest!’ he said, hoarsely, as he bent across the table to touch +his arm. ‘The news has gone down the river afore you.’ + +‘What news?’ + +‘Who do you think,’ said Riderhood, with a hitch of his head, as if he +disdainfully jerked the feint away, ‘picked up the body? Guess.’ + +‘I am not good at guessing anything.’ + +‘She did. Hooroar! You had him there agin. She did.’ + +The convulsive twitching of Bradley Headstone’s face, and the sudden +hot humour that broke out upon it, showed how grimly the intelligence +touched him. But he said not a single word, good or bad. He only smiled +in a lowering manner, and got up and stood leaning at the window, +looking through it. Riderhood followed him with his eyes. Riderhood cast +down his eyes on his own besprinkled clothes. Riderhood began to have an +air of being better at a guess than Bradley owned to being. + +‘I have been so long in want of rest,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘that with +your leave I’ll lie down again.’ + +‘And welcome, T’otherest!’ was the hospitable answer of his host. He had +laid himself down without waiting for it, and he remained upon the bed +until the sun was low. When he arose and came out to resume his journey, +he found his host waiting for him on the grass by the towing-path +outside the door. + +‘Whenever it may be necessary that you and I should have any further +communication together,’ said Bradley, ‘I will come back. Good-night!’ + +‘Well, since no better can be,’ said Riderhood, turning on his heel, +‘Good-night!’ But he turned again as the other set forth, and added +under his breath, looking after him with a leer: ‘You wouldn’t be let to +go like that, if my Relief warn’t as good as come. I’ll catch you up in +a mile.’ + +In a word, his real time of relief being that evening at sunset, his +mate came lounging in, within a quarter of an hour. Not staying to fill +up the utmost margin of his time, but borrowing an hour or so, to be +repaid again when he should relieve his reliever, Riderhood straightway +followed on the track of Bradley Headstone. + +He was a better follower than Bradley. It had been the calling of his +life to slink and skulk and dog and waylay, and he knew his calling +well. He effected such a forced march on leaving the Lock House that he +was close up with him—that is to say, as close up with him as he deemed +it convenient to be—before another Lock was passed. His man looked back +pretty often as he went, but got no hint of him. HE knew how to take +advantage of the ground, and where to put the hedge between them, and +where the wall, and when to duck, and when to drop, and had a thousand +arts beyond the doomed Bradley’s slow conception. + +But, all his arts were brought to a standstill, like himself when +Bradley, turning into a green lane or riding by the river-side—a +solitary spot run wild in nettles, briars, and brambles, and encumbered +with the scathed trunks of a whole hedgerow of felled trees, on the +outskirts of a little wood—began stepping on these trunks and dropping +down among them and stepping on them again, apparently as a schoolboy +might have done, but assuredly with no schoolboy purpose, or want of +purpose. + +‘What are you up to?’ muttered Riderhood, down in the ditch, and holding +the hedge a little open with both hands. And soon his actions made a +most extraordinary reply. ‘By George and the Draggin!’ cried Riderhood, +‘if he ain’t a going to bathe!’ + +He had passed back, on and among the trunks of trees again, and has +passed on to the water-side and had begun undressing on the grass. For +a moment it had a suspicious look of suicide, arranged to counterfeit +accident. ‘But you wouldn’t have fetched a bundle under your arm, from +among that timber, if such was your game!’ said Riderhood. Nevertheless +it was a relief to him when the bather after a plunge and a few strokes +came out. ‘For I shouldn’t,’ he said in a feeling manner, ‘have liked to +lose you till I had made more money out of you neither.’ + +Prone in another ditch (he had changed his ditch as his man had changed +his position), and holding apart so small a patch of the hedge that the +sharpest eyes could not have detected him, Rogue Riderhood watched the +bather dressing. And now gradually came the wonder that he stood up, +completely clothed, another man, and not the Bargeman. + +‘Aha!’ said Riderhood. ‘Much as you was dressed that night. I see. +You’re a taking me with you, now. You’re deep. But I knows a deeper.’ + +When the bather had finished dressing, he kneeled on the grass, doing +something with his hands, and again stood up with his bundle under his +arm. Looking all around him with great attention, he then went to the +river’s edge, and flung it in as far, and yet as lightly as he could. It +was not until he was so decidedly upon his way again as to be beyond a +bend of the river and for the time out of view, that Riderhood scrambled +from the ditch. + +‘Now,’ was his debate with himself ‘shall I foller you on, or shall I +let you loose for this once, and go a fishing?’ The debate continuing, +he followed, as a precautionary measure in any case, and got him again +in sight. ‘If I was to let you loose this once,’ said Riderhood then, +still following, ‘I could make you come to me agin, or I could find +you out in one way or another. If I wasn’t to go a fishing, others +might.—I’ll let you loose this once, and go a fishing!’ With that, he +suddenly dropped the pursuit and turned. + +The miserable man whom he had released for the time, but not for long, +went on towards London. Bradley was suspicious of every sound he heard, +and of every face he saw, but was under a spell which very commonly +falls upon the shedder of blood, and had no suspicion of the real danger +that lurked in his life, and would have it yet. Riderhood was much +in his thoughts—had never been out of his thoughts since the +night-adventure of their first meeting; but Riderhood occupied a very +different place there, from the place of pursuer; and Bradley had been +at the pains of devising so many means of fitting that place to him, and +of wedging him into it, that his mind could not compass the possibility +of his occupying any other. And this is another spell against which +the shedder of blood for ever strives in vain. There are fifty doors by +which discovery may enter. With infinite pains and cunning, he double +locks and bars forty-nine of them, and cannot see the fiftieth standing +wide open. + +Now, too, was he cursed with a state of mind more wearing and more +wearisome than remorse. He had no remorse; but the evildoer who can hold +that avenger at bay, cannot escape the slower torture of incessantly +doing the evil deed again and doing it more efficiently. In the +defensive declarations and pretended confessions of murderers, the +pursuing shadow of this torture may be traced through every lie they +tell. If I had done it as alleged, is it conceivable that I would have +made this and this mistake? If I had done it as alleged, should I have +left that unguarded place which that false and wicked witness against me +so infamously deposed to? The state of that wretch who continually finds +the weak spots in his own crime, and strives to strengthen them when +it is unchangeable, is a state that aggravates the offence by doing +the deed a thousand times instead of once; but it is a state, too, that +tauntingly visits the offence upon a sullen unrepentant nature with its +heaviest punishment every time. + +Bradley toiled on, chained heavily to the idea of his hatred and his +vengeance, and thinking how he might have satiated both in many better +ways than the way he had taken. The instrument might have been better, +the spot and the hour might have been better chosen. To batter a man +down from behind in the dark, on the brink of a river, was well enough, +but he ought to have been instantly disabled, whereas he had turned and +seized his assailant; and so, to end it before chance-help came, and +to be rid of him, he had been hurriedly thrown backward into the river +before the life was fully beaten out of him. Now if it could be done +again, it must not be so done. Supposing his head had been held down +under water for a while. Supposing the first blow had been truer. +Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been strangled. Suppose +this way, that way, the other way. Suppose anything but getting +unchained from the one idea, for that was inexorably impossible. + +The school reopened next day. The scholars saw little or no change in +their master’s face, for it always wore its slowly labouring expression. +But, as he heard his classes, he was always doing the deed and doing it +better. As he paused with his piece of chalk at the black board before +writing on it, he was thinking of the spot, and whether the water was +not deeper and the fall straighter, a little higher up, or a little +lower down. He had half a mind to draw a line or two upon the board, and +show himself what he meant. He was doing it again and improving on +the manner, at prayers, in his mental arithmetic, all through his +questioning, all through the day. + +Charley Hexam was a master now, in another school, under another head. +It was evening, and Bradley was walking in his garden observed from +behind a blind by gentle little Miss Peecher, who contemplated offering +him a loan of her smelling salts for headache, when Mary Anne, in +faithful attendance, held up her arm. + +‘Yes, Mary Anne?’ + +‘Young Mr Hexam, if you please, ma’am, coming to see Mr Headstone.’ + +‘Very good, Mary Anne.’ + +Again Mary Anne held up her arm. + +‘You may speak, Mary Anne?’ + +‘Mr Headstone has beckoned young Mr Hexam into his house, ma’am, and he +has gone in himself without waiting for young Mr Hexam to come up, and +now HE has gone in too, ma’am, and has shut the door.’ + +‘With all my heart, Mary Anne.’ + +Again Mary Anne’s telegraphic arm worked. + +‘What more, Mary Anne?’ + +‘They must find it rather dull and dark, Miss Peecher, for the parlour +blind’s down, and neither of them pulls it up.’ + +‘There is no accounting,’ said good Miss Peecher with a little sad sigh +which she repressed by laying her hand on her neat methodical boddice, +‘there is no accounting for tastes, Mary Anne.’ + +Charley, entering the dark room, stopped short when he saw his old +friend in its yellow shade. + +‘Come in, Hexam, come in.’ + +Charley advanced to take the hand that was held out to him; but stopped +again, short of it. The heavy, bloodshot eyes of the schoolmaster, +rising to his face with an effort, met his look of scrutiny. + +‘Mr Headstone, what’s the matter?’ + +‘Matter? Where?’ + +‘Mr Headstone, have you heard the news? This news about the fellow, Mr +Eugene Wrayburn? That he is killed?’ + +‘He is dead, then!’ exclaimed Bradley. + +Young Hexam standing looking at him, he moistened his lips with his +tongue, looked about the room, glanced at his former pupil, and looked +down. ‘I heard of the outrage,’ said Bradley, trying to constrain his +working mouth, ‘but I had not heard the end of it.’ + +‘Where were you,’ said the boy, advancing a step as he lowered his +voice, ‘when it was done? Stop! I don’t ask that. Don’t tell me. If you +force your confidence upon me, Mr Headstone, I’ll give up every word of +it. Mind! Take notice. I’ll give up it, and I’ll give up you. I will!’ + +The wretched creature seemed to suffer acutely under this renunciation. +A desolate air of utter and complete loneliness fell upon him, like a +visible shade. + +‘It’s for me to speak, not you,’ said the boy. ‘If you do, you’ll do +it at your peril. I am going to put your selfishness before you, Mr +Headstone—your passionate, violent, and ungovernable selfishness—to +show you why I can, and why I will, have nothing more to do with you.’ + +He looked at young Hexam as if he were waiting for a scholar to go on +with a lesson that he knew by heart and was deadly tired of. But he had +said his last word to him. + +‘If you had any part—I don’t say what—in this attack,’ pursued the +boy; ‘or if you know anything about it—I don’t say how much—or if you +know who did it—I go no closer—you did an injury to me that’s never +to be forgiven. You know that I took you with me to his chambers in the +Temple when I told him my opinion of him, and made myself responsible +for my opinion of you. You know that I took you with me when I was +watching him with a view to recovering my sister and bringing her to her +senses; you know that I have allowed myself to be mixed up with you, all +through this business, in favouring your desire to marry my sister. And +how do you know that, pursuing the ends of your own violent temper, you +have not laid me open to suspicion? Is that your gratitude to me, Mr +Headstone?’ + +Bradley sat looking steadily before him at the vacant air. As often +as young Hexam stopped, he turned his eyes towards him, as if he were +waiting for him to go on with the lesson, and get it done. As often as +the boy resumed, Bradley resumed his fixed face. + +‘I am going to be plain with you, Mr Headstone,’ said young Hexam, +shaking his head in a half-threatening manner, ‘because this is no time +for affecting not to know things that I do know—except certain things +at which it might not be very safe for you, to hint again. What I mean +is this: if you were a good master, I was a good pupil. I have done you +plenty of credit, and in improving my own reputation I have improved +yours quite as much. Very well then. Starting on equal terms, I want to +put before you how you have shown your gratitude to me, for doing all +I could to further your wishes with reference to my sister. You have +compromised me by being seen about with me, endeavouring to counteract +this Mr Eugene Wrayburn. That’s the first thing you have done. If my +character, and my now dropping you, help me out of that, Mr Headstone, +the deliverance is to be attributed to me, and not to you. No thanks to +you for it!’ + +The boy stopping again, he moved his eyes again. + +‘I am going on, Mr Headstone, don’t you be afraid. I am going on to the +end, and I have told you beforehand what the end is. Now, you know my +story. You are as well aware as I am, that I have had many disadvantages +to leave behind me in life. You have heard me mention my father, and you +are sufficiently acquainted with the fact that the home from which I, as +I may say, escaped, might have been a more creditable one than it was. +My father died, and then it might have been supposed that my way to +respectability was pretty clear. No. For then my sister begins.’ + +He spoke as confidently, and with as entire an absence of any tell-tale +colour in his cheek, as if there were no softening old time behind him. +Not wonderful, for there WAS none in his hollow empty heart. What is +there but self, for selfishness to see behind it? + +‘When I speak of my sister, I devoutly wish that you had never seen +her, Mr Headstone. However, you did see her, and that’s useless now. I +confided in you about her. I explained her character to you, and how she +interposed some ridiculous fanciful notions in the way of our being as +respectable as I tried for. You fell in love with her, and I favoured +you with all my might. She could not be induced to favour you, and so +we came into collision with this Mr Eugene Wrayburn. Now, what have you +done? Why, you have justified my sister in being firmly set against you +from first to last, and you have put me in the wrong again! And why +have you done it? Because, Mr Headstone, you are in all your passions +so selfish, and so concentrated upon yourself that you have not bestowed +one proper thought on me.’ + +The cool conviction with which the boy took up and held his position, +could have been derived from no other vice in human nature. + +‘It is,’ he went on, actually with tears, ‘an extraordinary circumstance +attendant on my life, that every effort I make towards perfect +respectability, is impeded by somebody else through no fault of mine! +Not content with doing what I have put before you, you will drag my name +into notoriety through dragging my sister’s—which you are pretty sure +to do, if my suspicions have any foundation at all—and the worse you +prove to be, the harder it will be for me to detach myself from being +associated with you in people’s minds.’ + +When he had dried his eyes and heaved a sob over his injuries, he began +moving towards the door. + +‘However, I have made up my mind that I will become respectable in the +scale of society, and that I will not be dragged down by others. I have +done with my sister as well as with you. Since she cares so little for +me as to care nothing for undermining my respectability, she shall go +her way and I will go mine. My prospects are very good, and I mean to +follow them alone. Mr Headstone, I don’t say what you have got upon your +conscience, for I don’t know. Whatever lies upon it, I hope you will see +the justice of keeping wide and clear of me, and will find a consolation +in completely exonerating all but yourself. I hope, before many years +are out, to succeed the master in my present school, and the mistress +being a single woman, though some years older than I am, I might even +marry her. If it is any comfort to you to know what plans I may work out +by keeping myself strictly respectable in the scale of society, these +are the plans at present occurring to me. In conclusion, if you feel a +sense of having injured me, and a desire to make some small reparation, +I hope you will think how respectable you might have been yourself and +will contemplate your blighted existence.’ + +Was it strange that the wretched man should take this heavily to +heart? Perhaps he had taken the boy to heart, first, through some +long laborious years; perhaps through the same years he had found +his drudgery lightened by communication with a brighter and more +apprehensive spirit than his own; perhaps a family resemblance of face +and voice between the boy and his sister, smote him hard in the gloom +of his fallen state. For whichsoever reason, or for all, he drooped his +devoted head when the boy was gone, and shrank together on the floor, +and grovelled there, with the palms of his hands tight-clasping his hot +temples, in unutterable misery, and unrelieved by a single tear. + + +Rogue Riderhood had been busy with the river that day. He had fished +with assiduity on the previous evening, but the light was short, and +he had fished unsuccessfully. He had fished again that day with better +luck, and had carried his fish home to Plashwater Weir Mill Lock-house, +in a bundle. + + + + +Chapter 8 + +A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER + + +The dolls’ dressmaker went no more to the business-premises of Pubsey +and Co. in St Mary Axe, after chance had disclosed to her (as she +supposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of Mr Riah. She often +moralized over her work on the tricks and the manners of that venerable +cheat, but made her little purchases elsewhere, and lived a secluded +life. After much consultation with herself, she decided not to put +Lizzie Hexam on her guard against the old man, arguing that the +disappointment of finding him out would come upon her quite soon enough. +Therefore, in her communication with her friend by letter, she was +silent on this theme, and principally dilated on the backslidings of her +bad child, who every day grew worse and worse. + +‘You wicked old boy,’ Miss Wren would say to him, with a menacing +forefinger, ‘you’ll force me to run away from you, after all, you will; +and then you’ll shake to bits, and there’ll be nobody to pick up the +pieces!’ + +At this foreshadowing of a desolate decease, the wicked old boy would +whine and whimper, and would sit shaking himself into the lowest of low +spirits, until such time as he could shake himself out of the house and +shake another threepennyworth into himself. But dead drunk or dead +sober (he had come to such a pass that he was least alive in the latter +state), it was always on the conscience of the paralytic scarecrow that +he had betrayed his sharp parent for sixty threepennyworths of rum, +which were all gone, and that her sharpness would infallibly detect his +having done it, sooner or later. All things considered therefore, and +addition made of the state of his body to the state of his mind, the bed +on which Mr Dolls reposed was a bed of roses from which the flowers +and leaves had entirely faded, leaving him to lie upon the thorns and +stalks. + +On a certain day, Miss Wren was alone at her work, with the house-door +set open for coolness, and was trolling in a small sweet voice a +mournful little song which might have been the song of the doll she was +dressing, bemoaning the brittleness and meltability of wax, when whom +should she descry standing on the pavement, looking in at her, but Mr +Fledgeby. + +‘I thought it was you?’ said Fledgeby, coming up the two steps. + +‘Did you?’ Miss Wren retorted. ‘And I thought it was you, young man. +Quite a coincidence. You’re not mistaken, and I’m not mistaken. How +clever we are!’ + +‘Well, and how are you?’ said Fledgeby. + +‘I am pretty much as usual, sir,’ replied Miss Wren. ‘A very unfortunate +parent, worried out of my life and senses by a very bad child.’ + +Fledgeby’s small eyes opened so wide that they might have passed for +ordinary-sized eyes, as he stared about him for the very young person +whom he supposed to be in question. + +‘But you’re not a parent,’ said Miss Wren, ‘and consequently it’s of no +use talking to you upon a family subject.—To what am I to attribute the +honour and favour?’ + +‘To a wish to improve your acquaintance,’ Mr Fledgeby replied. + +Miss Wren, stopping to bite her thread, looked at him very knowingly. + +‘We never meet now,’ said Fledgeby; ‘do we?’ + +‘No,’ said Miss Wren, chopping off the word. + +‘So I had a mind,’ pursued Fledgeby, ‘to come and have a talk with you +about our dodging friend, the child of Israel.’ + +‘So HE gave you my address; did he?’ asked Miss Wren. + +‘I got it out of him,’ said Fledgeby, with a stammer. + +‘You seem to see a good deal of him,’ remarked Miss Wren, with shrewd +distrust. ‘A good deal of him you seem to see, considering.’ + +‘Yes, I do,’ said Fledgeby. ‘Considering.’ + +‘Haven’t you,’ inquired the dressmaker, bending over the doll on which +her art was being exercised, ‘done interceding with him yet?’ + +‘No,’ said Fledgeby, shaking his head. + +‘La! Been interceding with him all this time, and sticking to him +still?’ said Miss Wren, busy with her work. + +‘Sticking to him is the word,’ said Fledgeby. + +Miss Wren pursued her occupation with a concentrated air, and asked, +after an interval of silent industry: + +‘Are you in the army?’ + +‘Not exactly,’ said Fledgeby, rather flattered by the question. + +‘Navy?’ asked Miss Wren. + +‘N—no,’ said Fledgeby. He qualified these two negatives, as if he were +not absolutely in either service, but was almost in both. + +‘What are you then?’ demanded Miss Wren. + +‘I am a gentleman, I am,’ said Fledgeby. + +‘Oh!’ assented Jenny, screwing up her mouth with an appearance of +conviction. ‘Yes, to be sure! That accounts for your having so much +time to give to interceding. But only to think how kind and friendly a +gentleman you must be!’ + +Mr Fledgeby found that he was skating round a board marked Dangerous, +and had better cut out a fresh track. ‘Let’s get back to the dodgerest +of the dodgers,’ said he. ‘What’s he up to in the case of your friend +the handsome gal? He must have some object. What’s his object?’ + +‘Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!’ returned Miss Wren, +composedly. + +‘He won’t acknowledge where she’s gone,’ said Fledgeby; ‘and I have +a fancy that I should like to have another look at her. Now I know he +knows where she is gone.’ + +‘Cannot undertake to say, sir, I am sure!’ Miss Wren again rejoined. + +‘And you know where she is gone,’ hazarded Fledgeby. + +‘Cannot undertake to say, sir, really,’ replied Miss Wren. + +The quaint little chin met Mr Fledgeby’s gaze with such a baffling +hitch, that that agreeable gentleman was for some time at a loss how to +resume his fascinating part in the dialogue. At length he said: + +‘Miss Jenny!—That’s your name, if I don’t mistake?’ + +‘Probably you don’t mistake, sir,’ was Miss Wren’s cool answer; ‘because +you had it on the best authority. Mine, you know.’ + +‘Miss Jenny! Instead of coming up and being dead, let’s come out and +look alive. It’ll pay better, I assure you,’ said Fledgeby, bestowing +an inveigling twinkle or two upon the dressmaker. ‘You’ll find it pay +better.’ + +‘Perhaps,’ said Miss Jenny, holding out her doll at arm’s length, and +critically contemplating the effect of her art with her scissors on her +lips and her head thrown back, as if her interest lay there, and not in +the conversation; ‘perhaps you’ll explain your meaning, young man, which +is Greek to me.—You must have another touch of blue in your trimming, +my dear.’ Having addressed the last remark to her fair client, Miss +Wren proceeded to snip at some blue fragments that lay before her, among +fragments of all colours, and to thread a needle from a skein of blue +silk. + +‘Look here,’ said Fledgeby.—‘Are you attending?’ + +‘I am attending, sir,’ replied Miss Wren, without the slightest +appearance of so doing. ‘Another touch of blue in your trimming, my +dear.’ + +‘Well, look here,’ said Fledgeby, rather discouraged by the +circumstances under which he found himself pursuing the conversation. +‘If you’re attending—’ + +(‘Light blue, my sweet young lady,’ remarked Miss Wren, in a sprightly +tone, ‘being best suited to your fair complexion and your flaxen +curls.’) + +‘I say, if you’re attending,’ proceeded Fledgeby, ‘it’ll pay better in +this way. It’ll lead in a roundabout manner to your buying damage and +waste of Pubsey and Co. at a nominal price, or even getting it for +nothing.’ + +‘Aha!’ thought the dressmaker. ‘But you are not so roundabout, Little +Eyes, that I don’t notice your answering for Pubsey and Co. after all! +Little Eyes, Little Eyes, you’re too cunning by half.’ + +‘And I take it for granted,’ pursued Fledgeby, ‘that to get the most of +your materials for nothing would be well worth your while, Miss Jenny?’ + +‘You may take it for granted,’ returned the dressmaker with many knowing +nods, ‘that it’s always well worth my while to make money.’ + +‘Now,’ said Fledgeby approvingly, ‘you’re answering to a sensible +purpose. Now, you’re coming out and looking alive! So I make so free, +Miss Jenny, as to offer the remark, that you and Judah were too thick +together to last. You can’t come to be intimate with such a deep file +as Judah without beginning to see a little way into him, you know,’ said +Fledgeby with a wink. + +‘I must own,’ returned the dressmaker, with her eyes upon her work, +‘that we are not good friends at present.’ + +‘I know you’re not good friends at present,’ said Fledgeby. ‘I know all +about it. I should like to pay off Judah, by not letting him have his +own deep way in everything. In most things he’ll get it by hook or +by crook, but—hang it all!—don’t let him have his own deep way in +everything. That’s too much.’ Mr Fledgeby said this with some display of +indignant warmth, as if he was counsel in the cause for Virtue. + +‘How can I prevent his having his own way?’ began the dressmaker. + +‘Deep way, I called it,’ said Fledgeby. + +‘—His own deep way, in anything?’ + +‘I’ll tell you,’ said Fledgeby. ‘I like to hear you ask it, because +it’s looking alive. It’s what I should expect to find in one of your +sagacious understanding. Now, candidly.’ + +‘Eh?’ cried Miss Jenny. + +‘I said, now candidly,’ Mr Fledgeby explained, a little put out. + +‘Oh-h!’ + +‘I should be glad to countermine him, respecting the handsome gal, your +friend. He means something there. You may depend upon it, Judah means +something there. He has a motive, and of course his motive is a dark +motive. Now, whatever his motive is, it’s necessary to his motive’—Mr +Fledgeby’s constructive powers were not equal to the avoidance of some +tautology here—‘that it should be kept from me, what he has done with +her. So I put it to you, who know: What HAS he done with her? I ask no +more. And is that asking much, when you understand that it will pay?’ + +Miss Jenny Wren, who had cast her eyes upon the bench again after her +last interruption, sat looking at it, needle in hand but not working, +for some moments. She then briskly resumed her work, and said with a +sidelong glance of her eyes and chin at Mr Fledgeby: + +‘Where d’ye live?’ + +‘Albany, Piccadilly,’ replied Fledgeby. + +‘When are you at home?’ + +‘When you like.’ + +‘Breakfast-time?’ said Jenny, in her abruptest and shortest manner. + +‘No better time in the day,’ said Fledgeby. + +‘I’ll look in upon you to-morrow, young man. Those two ladies,’ pointing +to dolls, ‘have an appointment in Bond Street at ten precisely. When +I’ve dropped ’em there, I’ll drive round to you.’ With a weird little +laugh, Miss Jenny pointed to her crutch-stick as her equipage. + +‘This is looking alive indeed!’ cried Fledgeby, rising. + +‘Mark you! I promise you nothing,’ said the dolls’ dressmaker, dabbing +two dabs at him with her needle, as if she put out both his eyes. + +‘No no. I understand,’ returned Fledgeby. ‘The damage and waste question +shall be settled first. It shall be made to pay; don’t you be afraid. +Good-day, Miss Jenny.’ + +‘Good-day, young man.’ + +Mr Fledgeby’s prepossessing form withdrew itself; and the little +dressmaker, clipping and snipping and stitching, and stitching and +snipping and clipping, fell to work at a great rate; musing and +muttering all the time. + +‘Misty, misty, misty. Can’t make it out. Little Eyes and the wolf in a +conspiracy? Or Little Eyes and the wolf against one another? Can’t make +it out. My poor Lizzie, have they both designs against you, either way? +Can’t make it out. Is Little Eyes Pubsey, and the wolf Co? Can’t make it +out. Pubsey true to Co, and Co to Pubsey? Pubsey false to Co, and Co to +Pubsey? Can’t make it out. What said Little Eyes? “Now, candidly?” + Ah! However the cat jumps, HE’S a liar. That’s all I can make out at +present; but you may go to bed in the Albany, Piccadilly, with THAT for +your pillow, young man!’ Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbed +out his eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread and +deftly catching it into a knot with her needle, seemed to bowstring him +into the bargain. + +For the terrors undergone by Mr Dolls that evening when his little +parent sat profoundly meditating over her work, and when he imagined +himself found out, as often as she changed her attitude, or turned her +eyes towards him, there is no adequate name. Moreover it was her habit +to shake her head at that wretched old boy whenever she caught his eye +as he shivered and shook. What are popularly called ‘the trembles’ being +in full force upon him that evening, and likewise what are popularly +called ‘the horrors,’ he had a very bad time of it; which was not +made better by his being so remorseful as frequently to moan ‘Sixty +threepennorths.’ This imperfect sentence not being at all intelligible +as a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a dram, +brought him into new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounce +at him in a more than usually snappish manner, and to overwhelm him with +bitter reproaches. + +What was a bad time for Mr Dolls, could not fail to be a bad time for +the dolls’ dressmaker. However, she was on the alert next morning, and +drove to Bond Street, and set down the two ladies punctually, and then +directed her equipage to conduct her to the Albany. Arrived at the +doorway of the house in which Mr Fledgeby’s chambers were, she found a +lady standing there in a travelling dress, holding in her hand—of all +things in the world—a gentleman’s hat. + +‘You want some one?’ said the lady in a stern manner. + +‘I am going up stairs to Mr Fledgeby’s.’ + +‘You cannot do that at this moment. There is a gentleman with him. I am +waiting for the gentleman. His business with Mr Fledgeby will very soon +be transacted, and then you can go up. Until the gentleman comes down, +you must wait here.’ + +While speaking, and afterwards, the lady kept watchfully between her and +the staircase, as if prepared to oppose her going up, by force. The +lady being of a stature to stop her with a hand, and looking mightily +determined, the dressmaker stood still. + +‘Well? Why do you listen?’ asked the lady. + +‘I am not listening,’ said the dressmaker. + +‘What do you hear?’ asked the lady, altering her phrase. + +‘Is it a kind of a spluttering somewhere?’ said the dressmaker, with an +inquiring look. + +‘Mr Fledgeby in his shower-bath, perhaps,’ remarked the lady, smiling. + +‘And somebody’s beating a carpet, I think?’ + +‘Mr Fledgeby’s carpet, I dare say,’ replied the smiling lady. + +Miss Wren had a reasonably good eye for smiles, being well accustomed +to them on the part of her young friends, though their smiles mostly ran +smaller than in nature. But she had never seen so singular a smile +as that upon this lady’s face. It twitched her nostrils open in a +remarkable manner, and contracted her lips and eyebrows. It was a smile +of enjoyment too, though of such a fierce kind that Miss Wren thought +she would rather not enjoy herself than do it in that way. + +‘Well!’ said the lady, watching her. ‘What now?’ + +‘I hope there’s nothing the matter!’ said the dressmaker. + +‘Where?’ inquired the lady. + +‘I don’t know where,’ said Miss Wren, staring about her. ‘But I never +heard such odd noises. Don’t you think I had better call somebody?’ + +‘I think you had better not,’ returned the lady with a significant +frown, and drawing closer. + +On this hint, the dressmaker relinquished the idea, and stood looking +at the lady as hard as the lady looked at her. Meanwhile the dressmaker +listened with amazement to the odd noises which still continued, and the +lady listened too, but with a coolness in which there was no trace of +amazement. + +Soon afterwards, came a slamming and banging of doors; and then came +running down stairs, a gentleman with whiskers, and out of breath, who +seemed to be red-hot. + +‘Is your business done, Alfred?’ inquired the lady. + +‘Very thoroughly done,’ replied the gentleman, as he took his hat from +her. + +‘You can go up to Mr Fledgeby as soon as you like,’ said the lady, +moving haughtily away. + +‘Oh! And you can take these three pieces of stick with you,’ added the +gentleman politely, ‘and say, if you please, that they come from Mr +Alfred Lammle, with his compliments on leaving England. Mr Alfred +Lammle. Be so good as not to forget the name.’ + +The three pieces of stick were three broken and frayed fragments of a +stout lithe cane. Miss Jenny taking them wonderingly, and the gentleman +repeating with a grin, ‘Mr Alfred Lammle, if you’ll be so good. +Compliments, on leaving England,’ the lady and gentleman walked away +quite deliberately, and Miss Jenny and her crutch-stick went up stairs. +‘Lammle, Lammle, Lammle?’ Miss Jenny repeated as she panted from stair +to stair, ‘where have I heard that name? Lammle, Lammle? I know! Saint +Mary Axe!’ + +With a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the dolls’ +dressmaker pulled at Fledgeby’s bell. No one answered; but, from within +the chambers, there proceeded a continuous spluttering sound of a highly +singular and unintelligible nature. + +‘Good gracious! Is Little Eyes choking?’ cried Miss Jenny. + +Pulling at the bell again and getting no reply, she pushed the outer +door, and found it standing ajar. No one being visible on her opening it +wider, and the spluttering continuing, she took the liberty of opening +an inner door, and then beheld the extraordinary spectacle of Mr +Fledgeby in a shirt, a pair of Turkish trousers, and a Turkish cap, +rolling over and over on his own carpet, and spluttering wonderfully. + +‘Oh Lord!’ gasped Mr Fledgeby. ‘Oh my eye! Stop thief! I am strangling. +Fire! Oh my eye! A glass of water. Give me a glass of water. Shut the +door. Murder! Oh Lord!’ And then rolled and spluttered more than ever. + +Hurrying into another room, Miss Jenny got a glass of water, and brought +it for Fledgeby’s relief: who, gasping, spluttering, and rattling in his +throat betweenwhiles, drank some water, and laid his head faintly on her +arm. + +‘Oh my eye!’ cried Fledgeby, struggling anew. ‘It’s salt and snuff. It’s +up my nose, and down my throat, and in my wind-pipe. Ugh! Ow! Ow! Ow! +Ah—h—h—h!’ And here, crowing fearfully, with his eyes starting out of +his head, appeared to be contending with every mortal disease incidental +to poultry. + +‘And Oh my Eye, I’m so sore!’ cried Fledgeby, starting, over on his +back, in a spasmodic way that caused the dressmaker to retreat to the +wall. ‘Oh I smart so! Do put something to my back and arms, and legs and +shoulders. Ugh! It’s down my throat again and can’t come up. Ow! Ow! Ow! +Ah—h—h—h! Oh I smart so!’ Here Mr Fledgeby bounded up, and bounded +down, and went rolling over and over again. + +The dolls’ dressmaker looked on until he rolled himself into a corner +with his Turkish slippers uppermost, and then, resolving in the first +place to address her ministration to the salt and snuff, gave him more +water and slapped his back. But, the latter application was by no means +a success, causing Mr Fledgeby to scream, and to cry out, ‘Oh my eye! +don’t slap me! I’m covered with weales and I smart so!’ + +However, he gradually ceased to choke and crow, saving at intervals, +and Miss Jenny got him into an easy-chair: where, with his eyes red and +watery, with his features swollen, and with some half-dozen livid bars +across his face, he presented a most rueful sight. + +‘What ever possessed you to take salt and snuff, young man?’ inquired +Miss Jenny. + +‘I didn’t take it,’ the dismal youth replied. ‘It was crammed into my +mouth.’ + +‘Who crammed it?’ asked Miss Jenny. + +‘He did,’ answered Fledgeby. ‘The assassin. Lammle. He rubbed it into +my mouth and up my nose and down my throat—Ow! Ow! Ow! Ah—h—h—h! +Ugh!—to prevent my crying out, and then cruelly assaulted me.’ + +‘With this?’ asked Miss Jenny, showing the pieces of cane. + +‘That’s the weapon,’ said Fledgeby, eyeing it with the air of an +acquaintance. ‘He broke it over me. Oh I smart so! How did you come by +it?’ + +‘When he ran down stairs and joined the lady he had left in the hall +with his hat’—Miss Jenny began. + +‘Oh!’ groaned Mr Fledgeby, writhing, ‘she was holding his hat, was she? +I might have known she was in it.’ + +‘When he came down stairs and joined the lady who wouldn’t let me come +up, he gave me the pieces for you, and I was to say, “With Mr Alfred +Lammle’s compliments on his leaving England.”’ Miss Jenny said it with +such spiteful satisfaction, and such a hitch of her chin and eyes as +might have added to Mr Fledgeby’s miseries, if he could have noticed +either, in his bodily pain with his hand to his head. + +‘Shall I go for the police?’ inquired Miss Jenny, with a nimble start +towards the door. + +‘Stop! No, don’t!’ cried Fledgeby. ‘Don’t, please. We had better keep it +quiet. Will you be so good as shut the door? Oh I do smart so!’ + +In testimony of the extent to which he smarted, Mr Fledgeby came +wallowing out of the easy-chair, and took another roll on the carpet. + +‘Now the door’s shut,’ said Mr Fledgeby, sitting up in anguish, with +his Turkish cap half on and half off, and the bars on his face getting +bluer, ‘do me the kindness to look at my back and shoulders. They must +be in an awful state, for I hadn’t got my dressing-gown on, when the +brute came rushing in. Cut my shirt away from the collar; there’s a pair +of scissors on that table. Oh!’ groaned Mr Fledgeby, with his hand to +his head again. ‘How I do smart, to be sure!’ + +‘There?’ inquired Miss Jenny, alluding to the back and shoulders. + +‘Oh Lord, yes!’ moaned Fledgeby, rocking himself. ‘And all over! +Everywhere!’ + +The busy little dressmaker quickly snipped the shirt away, and laid +bare the results of as furious and sound a thrashing as even Mr Fledgeby +merited. ‘You may well smart, young man!’ exclaimed Miss Jenny. And +stealthily rubbed her little hands behind him, and poked a few exultant +pokes with her two forefingers over the crown of his head. + +‘What do you think of vinegar and brown paper?’ inquired the suffering +Fledgeby, still rocking and moaning. ‘Does it look as if vinegar and +brown paper was the sort of application?’ + +‘Yes,’ said Miss Jenny, with a silent chuckle. ‘It looks as if it ought +to be Pickled.’ + +Mr Fledgeby collapsed under the word ‘Pickled,’ and groaned again. +‘My kitchen is on this floor,’ he said; ‘you’ll find brown paper in a +dresser-drawer there, and a bottle of vinegar on a shelf. Would you have +the kindness to make a few plasters and put ’em on? It can’t be kept too +quiet.’ + +‘One, two—hum—five, six. You’ll want six,’ said the dress-maker. + +‘There’s smart enough,’ whimpered Mr Fledgeby, groaning and writhing +again, ‘for sixty.’ + +Miss Jenny repaired to the kitchen, scissors in hand, found the brown +paper and found the vinegar, and skilfully cut out and steeped six +large plasters. When they were all lying ready on the dresser, an idea +occurred to her as she was about to gather them up. + +‘I think,’ said Miss Jenny with a silent laugh, ‘he ought to have a +little pepper? Just a few grains? I think the young man’s tricks and +manners make a claim upon his friends for a little pepper?’ + +Mr Fledgeby’s evil star showing her the pepper-box on the chimneypiece, +she climbed upon a chair, and got it down, and sprinkled all the +plasters with a judicious hand. She then went back to Mr Fledgeby, and +stuck them all on him: Mr Fledgeby uttering a sharp howl as each was put +in its place. + +‘There, young man!’ said the dolls’ dressmaker. ‘Now I hope you feel +pretty comfortable?’ + +Apparently, Mr Fledgeby did not, for he cried by way of answer, ‘Oh—h +how I do smart!’ + +Miss Jenny got his Persian gown upon him, extinguished his eyes +crookedly with his Persian cap, and helped him to his bed: upon which he +climbed groaning. ‘Business between you and me being out of the question +to-day, young man, and my time being precious,’ said Miss Jenny then, +‘I’ll make myself scarce. Are you comfortable now?’ + +‘Oh my eye!’ cried Mr Fledgeby. ‘No, I ain’t. Oh—h—h! how I do smart!’ + +The last thing Miss Jenny saw, as she looked back before closing the +room door, was Mr Fledgeby in the act of plunging and gambolling all +over his bed, like a porpoise or dolphin in its native element. She then +shut the bedroom door, and all the other doors, and going down stairs +and emerging from the Albany into the busy streets, took omnibus for +Saint Mary Axe: pressing on the road all the gaily-dressed ladies whom +she could see from the window, and making them unconscious lay-figures +for dolls, while she mentally cut them out and basted them. + + + + +Chapter 9 + +TWO PLACES VACATED + + +Set down by the omnibus at the corner of Saint Mary Axe, and trusting +to her feet and her crutch-stick within its precincts, the dolls’ +dressmaker proceeded to the place of business of Pubsey and Co. All +there was sunny and quiet externally, and shady and quiet internally. +Hiding herself in the entry outside the glass door, she could see from +that post of observation the old man in his spectacles sitting writing +at his desk. + +‘Boh!’ cried the dressmaker, popping in her head at the glass-door. ‘Mr +Wolf at home?’ + +The old man took his glasses off, and mildly laid them down beside him. +‘Ah Jenny, is it you? I thought you had given me up.’ + +‘And so I had given up the treacherous wolf of the forest,’ she replied; +‘but, godmother, it strikes me you have come back. I am not quite sure, +because the wolf and you change forms. I want to ask you a question or +two, to find out whether you are really godmother or really wolf. May +I?’ + +‘Yes, Jenny, yes.’ But Riah glanced towards the door, as if he thought +his principal might appear there, unseasonably. + +‘If you’re afraid of the fox,’ said Miss Jenny, ‘you may dismiss all +present expectations of seeing that animal. HE won’t show himself +abroad, for many a day.’ + +‘What do you mean, my child?’ + +‘I mean, godmother,’ replied Miss Wren, sitting down beside the Jew, +‘that the fox has caught a famous flogging, and that if his skin and +bones are not tingling, aching, and smarting at this present instant, no +fox did ever tingle, ache, and smart.’ Therewith Miss Jenny related what +had come to pass in the Albany, omitting the few grains of pepper. + +‘Now, godmother,’ she went on, ‘I particularly wish to ask you what has +taken place here, since I left the wolf here? Because I have an idea +about the size of a marble, rolling about in my little noddle. First and +foremost, are you Pubsey and Co., or are you either? Upon your solemn +word and honour.’ + +The old man shook his head. + +‘Secondly, isn’t Fledgeby both Pubsey and Co.?’ + +The old man answered with a reluctant nod. + +‘My idea,’ exclaimed Miss Wren, ‘is now about the size of an orange. But +before it gets any bigger, welcome back, dear godmother!’ + +The little creature folded her arms about the old man’s neck with great +earnestness, and kissed him. ‘I humbly beg your forgiveness, godmother. +I am truly sorry. I ought to have had more faith in you. But what could +I suppose when you said nothing for yourself, you know? I don’t mean to +offer that as a justification, but what could I suppose, when you were a +silent party to all he said? It did look bad; now didn’t it?’ + +‘It looked so bad, Jenny,’ responded the old man, with gravity, ‘that I +will straightway tell you what an impression it wrought upon me. I was +hateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hateful +to the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, +and to pass out far and broad beyond myself—I reflected that evening, +sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonour +to my ancient faith and race. I reflected—clearly reflected for the +first time—that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, +I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in +Christian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, “This +is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there +are good Turks.” Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily +enough—among what peoples are the bad not easily found?—but they take +the worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us as +presentations of the highest; and they say “All Jews are alike.” If, +doing what I was content to do here, because I was grateful for the past +and have small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could have +done it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as a +Jew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions and +all countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the truth. I would +that all our people remembered it! Though I have little right to say so, +seeing that it came home so late to me.’ + +The dolls’ dressmaker sat holding the old man by the hand, and looking +thoughtfully in his face. + +‘Thus I reflected, I say, sitting that evening in my garden on the +housetop. And passing the painful scene of that day in review before +me many times, I always saw that the poor gentleman believed the story +readily, because I was one of the Jews—that you believed the story +readily, my child, because I was one of the Jews—that the story itself +first came into the invention of the originator thereof, because I was +one of the Jews. This was the result of my having had you three before +me, face to face, and seeing the thing visibly presented as upon a +theatre. Wherefore I perceived that the obligation was upon me to leave +this service. But Jenny, my dear,’ said Riah, breaking off, ‘I promised +that you should pursue your questions, and I obstruct them.’ + +‘On the contrary, godmother; my idea is as large now as a pumpkin—and +YOU know what a pumpkin is, don’t you? So you gave notice that you +were going? Does that come next?’ asked Miss Jenny with a look of close +attention. + +‘I indited a letter to my master. Yes. To that effect.’ + +‘And what said Tingling-Tossing-Aching-Screaming-Scratching-Smarter?’ +asked Miss Wren with an unspeakable enjoyment in the utterance of those +honourable titles and in the recollection of the pepper. + +‘He held me to certain months of servitude, which were his lawful term +of notice. They expire to-morrow. Upon their expiration—not before—I +had meant to set myself right with my Cinderella.’ + +‘My idea is getting so immense now,’ cried Miss Wren, clasping her +temples, ‘that my head won’t hold it! Listen, godmother; I am going to +expound. Little Eyes (that’s Screaming-Scratching-Smarter) owes you a +heavy grudge for going. Little Eyes casts about how best to pay you off. +Little Eyes thinks of Lizzie. Little Eyes says to himself, “I’ll find +out where he has placed that girl, and I’ll betray his secret because +it’s dear to him.” Perhaps Little Eyes thinks, “I’ll make love to her +myself too;” but that I can’t swear—all the rest I can. So, Little Eyes +comes to me, and I go to Little Eyes. That’s the way of it. And now the +murder’s all out, I’m sorry,’ added the dolls’ dressmaker, rigid from +head to foot with energy as she shook her little fist before her eyes, +‘that I didn’t give him Cayenne pepper and chopped pickled Capsicum!’ + +This expression of regret being but partially intelligible to Mr Riah, +the old man reverted to the injuries Fledgeby had received, and hinted +at the necessity of his at once going to tend that beaten cur. + +‘Godmother, godmother, godmother!’ cried Miss Wren irritably, ‘I really +lose all patience with you. One would think you believed in the Good +Samaritan. How can you be so inconsistent?’ + +‘Jenny dear,’ began the old man gently, ‘it is the custom of our people +to help—’ + +‘Oh! Bother your people!’ interposed Miss Wren, with a toss of her head. +‘If your people don’t know better than to go and help Little Eyes, it’s +a pity they ever got out of Egypt. Over and above that,’ she added, ‘he +wouldn’t take your help if you offered it. Too much ashamed. Wants to +keep it close and quiet, and to keep you out of the way.’ + +They were still debating this point when a shadow darkened the entry, +and the glass door was opened by a messenger who brought a letter +unceremoniously addressed, ‘Riah.’ To which he said there was an answer +wanted. + +The letter, which was scrawled in pencil uphill and downhill and round +crooked corners, ran thus: + + +‘OLD RIAH, + +Your accounts being all squared, go. Shut up the place, turn out +directly, and send me the key by bearer. Go. You are an unthankful dog +of a Jew. Get out. + +F.’ + + +The dolls’ dressmaker found it delicious to trace the screaming and +smarting of Little Eyes in the distorted writing of this epistle. She +laughed over it and jeered at it in a convenient corner (to the great +astonishment of the messenger) while the old man got his few goods +together in a black bag. That done, the shutters of the upper windows +closed, and the office blind pulled down, they issued forth upon the +steps with the attendant messenger. There, while Miss Jenny held the +bag, the old man locked the house door, and handed over the key to him; +who at once retired with the same. + +‘Well, godmother,’ said Miss Wren, as they remained upon the steps +together, looking at one another. ‘And so you’re thrown upon the world!’ + +‘It would appear so, Jenny, and somewhat suddenly.’ + +‘Where are you going to seek your fortune?’ asked Miss Wren. + +The old man smiled, but looked about him with a look of having lost his +way in life, which did not escape the dolls’ dressmaker. + +‘Verily, Jenny,’ said he, ‘the question is to the purpose, and more +easily asked than answered. But as I have experience of the ready +goodwill and good help of those who have given occupation to Lizzie, I +think I will seek them out for myself.’ + +‘On foot?’ asked Miss Wren, with a chop. + +‘Ay!’ said the old man. ‘Have I not my staff?’ + +It was exactly because he had his staff, and presented so quaint an +aspect, that she mistrusted his making the journey. + +‘The best thing you can do,’ said Jenny, ‘for the time being, at all +events, is to come home with me, godmother. Nobody’s there but my bad +child, and Lizzie’s lodging stands empty.’ The old man when satisfied +that no inconvenience could be entailed on any one by his compliance, +readily complied; and the singularly-assorted couple once more went +through the streets together. + +Now, the bad child having been strictly charged by his parent to remain +at home in her absence, of course went out; and, being in the very last +stage of mental decrepitude, went out with two objects; firstly, +to establish a claim he conceived himself to have upon any licensed +victualler living, to be supplied with threepennyworth of rum for +nothing; and secondly, to bestow some maudlin remorse on Mr Eugene +Wrayburn, and see what profit came of it. Stumblingly pursuing these +two designs—they both meant rum, the only meaning of which he was +capable—the degraded creature staggered into Covent Garden Market and +there bivouacked, to have an attack of the trembles succeeded by an +attack of the horrors, in a doorway. + +This market of Covent Garden was quite out of the creature’s line of +road, but it had the attraction for him which it has for the worst of +the solitary members of the drunken tribe. It may be the companionship +of the nightly stir, or it may be the companionship of the gin and +beer that slop about among carters and hucksters, or it may be the +companionship of the trodden vegetable refuse which is so like their own +dress that perhaps they take the Market for a great wardrobe; but be +it what it may, you shall see no such individual drunkards on doorsteps +anywhere, as there. Of dozing women-drunkards especially, you shall come +upon such specimens there, in the morning sunlight, as you might +seek out of doors in vain through London. Such stale vapid rejected +cabbage-leaf and cabbage-stalk dress, such damaged-orange countenance, +such squashed pulp of humanity, are open to the day nowhere else. So, +the attraction of the Market drew Mr Dolls to it, and he had out his two +fits of trembles and horrors in a doorway on which a woman had had out +her sodden nap a few hours before. + +There is a swarm of young savages always flitting about this same place, +creeping off with fragments of orange-chests, and mouldy litter—Heaven +knows into what holes they can convey them, having no home!—whose bare +feet fall with a blunt dull softness on the pavement as the policeman +hunts them, and who are (perhaps for that reason) little heard by +the Powers that be, whereas in top-boots they would make a deafening +clatter. These, delighting in the trembles and the horrors of Mr Dolls, +as in a gratuitous drama, flocked about him in his doorway, butted +at him, leaped at him, and pelted him. Hence, when he came out of +his invalid retirement and shook off that ragged train, he was much +bespattered, and in worse case than ever. But, not yet at his worst; +for, going into a public-house, and being supplied in stress of business +with his rum, and seeking to vanish without payment, he was collared, +searched, found penniless, and admonished not to try that again, +by having a pail of dirty water cast over him. This application +superinduced another fit of the trembles; after which Mr Dolls, as +finding himself in good cue for making a call on a professional friend, +addressed himself to the Temple. + +There was nobody at the chambers but Young Blight. That discreet youth, +sensible of a certain incongruity in the association of such a +client with the business that might be coming some day, with the best +intentions temporized with Dolls, and offered a shilling for coach-hire +home. Mr Dolls, accepting the shilling, promptly laid it out in +two threepennyworths of conspiracy against his life, and two +threepennyworths of raging repentance. Returning to the Chambers with +which burden, he was descried coming round into the court, by the wary +young Blight watching from the window: who instantly closed the outer +door, and left the miserable object to expend his fury on the panels. + +The more the door resisted him, the more dangerous and imminent became +that bloody conspiracy against his life. Force of police arriving, +he recognized in them the conspirators, and laid about him hoarsely, +fiercely, staringly, convulsively, foamingly. A humble machine, familiar +to the conspirators and called by the expressive name of Stretcher, +being unavoidably sent for, he was rendered a harmless bundle of torn +rags by being strapped down upon it, with voice and consciousness gone +out of him, and life fast going. As this machine was borne out at the +Temple gate by four men, the poor little dolls’ dressmaker and her +Jewish friend were coming up the street. + +‘Let us see what it is,’ cried the dressmaker. ‘Let us make haste and +look, godmother.’ + +The brisk little crutch-stick was but too brisk. ‘O gentlemen, +gentlemen, he belongs to me!’ + +‘Belongs to you?’ said the head of the party, stopping it. + +‘O yes, dear gentlemen, he’s my child, out without leave. My poor bad, +bad boy! and he don’t know me, he don’t know me! O what shall I do,’ +cried the little creature, wildly beating her hands together, ‘when my +own child don’t know me!’ + +The head of the party looked (as well he might) to the old man for +explanation. He whispered, as the dolls’ dressmaker bent over the +exhausted form and vainly tried to extract some sign of recognition from +it: ‘It’s her drunken father.’ + +As the load was put down in the street, Riah drew the head of the party +aside, and whispered that he thought the man was dying. ‘No, surely +not?’ returned the other. But he became less confident, on looking, and +directed the bearers to ‘bring him to the nearest doctor’s shop.’ + +Thither he was brought; the window becoming from within, a wall of +faces, deformed into all kinds of shapes through the agency of globular +red bottles, green bottles, blue bottles, and other coloured bottles. A +ghastly light shining upon him that he didn’t need, the beast so furious +but a few minutes gone, was quiet enough now, with a strange mysterious +writing on his face, reflected from one of the great bottles, as if +Death had marked him: ‘Mine.’ + +The medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose than it +sometimes is in a Court of Justice. ‘You had better send for something +to cover it. All’s over.’ + +Therefore, the police sent for something to cover it, and it was covered +and borne through the streets, the people falling away. After it, +went the dolls’ dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish skirts, and +clinging to them with one hand, while with the other she plied her +stick. It was carried home, and, by reason that the staircase was very +narrow, it was put down in the parlour—the little working-bench being +set aside to make room for it—and there, in the midst of the dolls with +no speculation in their eyes, lay Mr Dolls with no speculation in his. + +Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in +the dressmaker’s pocket to get mourning for Mr Dolls. As the old man, +Riah, sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it +difficult to make out whether she really did realize that the deceased +had been her father. + +‘If my poor boy,’ she would say, ‘had been brought up better, he might +have done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope I have no cause for +that.’ + +‘None indeed, Jenny, I am very certain.’ + +‘Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see it +is so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day. +When he was out of employment, I couldn’t always keep him near me. He +got fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into the +streets. And he never did well in the streets, he never did well out of +sight. How often it happens with children!’ + +‘Too often, even in this sad sense!’ thought the old man. + +‘How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for my back +having been so bad and my legs so queer, when I was young!’ the +dressmaker would go on. ‘I had nothing to do but work, and so I worked. +I couldn’t play. But my poor unfortunate child could play, and it turned +out the worse for him.’ + +‘And not for him alone, Jenny.’ + +‘Well! I don’t know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate +boy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quantity of +names;’ shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. ‘I don’t +know that his going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, let +us forget it.’ + +‘You are a good girl, you are a patient girl.’ + +‘As for patience,’ she would reply with a shrug, ‘not much of that, +godmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names. +But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility +as a mother, so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried +coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding and scolding failed. But I +was bound to try everything, you know, with such a charge upon my hands. +Where would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried +everything!’ + +With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious +little creature, the day-work and the night-work were beguiled until +enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring into the kitchen, +where the working-bench now stood, the sombre stuff that the occasion +required, and to bring into the house the other sombre preparations. +‘And now,’ said Miss Jenny, ‘having knocked off my rosy-cheeked young +friends, I’ll knock off my white-cheeked self.’ This referred to her +making her own dress, which at last was done. ‘The disadvantage of +making for yourself,’ said Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a chair to look +at the result in the glass, ‘is, that you can’t charge anybody else for +the job, and the advantage is, that you haven’t to go out to try on. +Humph! Very fair indeed! If He could see me now (whoever he is) I hope +he wouldn’t repent of his bargain!’ + +The simple arrangements were of her own making, and were stated to Riah +thus: + +‘I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, and you’ll be so +kind as keep house while I am gone. It’s not far off. And when I return, +we’ll have a cup of tea, and a chat over future arrangements. It’s a +very plain last house that I have been able to give my poor unfortunate +boy; but he’ll accept the will for the deed if he knows anything about +it; and if he doesn’t know anything about it,’ with a sob, and wiping +her eyes, ‘why, it won’t matter to him. I see the service in the +Prayer-book says, that we brought nothing into this world and it is +certain we can take nothing out. It comforts me for not being able to +hire a lot of stupid undertaker’s things for my poor child, and seeming +as if I was trying to smuggle ’em out of this world with him, when of +course I must break down in the attempt, and bring ’em all back again. +As it is, there’ll be nothing to bring back but me, and that’s quite +consistent, for I shan’t be brought back, some day!’ + +After that previous carrying of him in the streets, the wretched old +fellow seemed to be twice buried. He was taken on the shoulders of half +a dozen blossom-faced men, who shuffled with him to the churchyard, +and who were preceded by another blossom-faced man, affecting a +stately stalk, as if he were a Policeman of the D(eath) Division, and +ceremoniously pretending not to know his intimate acquaintances, as he +led the pageant. Yet, the spectacle of only one little mourner hobbling +after, caused many people to turn their heads with a look of interest. + +At last the troublesome deceased was got into the ground, to be buried +no more, and the stately stalker stalked back before the solitary +dressmaker, as if she were bound in honour to have no notion of the way +home. Those Furies, the conventionalities, being thus appeased, he left +her. + +‘I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer up for good,’ +said the little creature, coming in. ‘Because after all a child is a +child, you know.’ + +It was a longer cry than might have been expected. Howbeit, it wore +itself out in a shadowy corner, and then the dressmaker came forth, and +washed her face, and made the tea. ‘You wouldn’t mind my cutting out +something while we are at tea, would you?’ she asked her Jewish friend, +with a coaxing air. + +‘Cinderella, dear child,’ the old man expostulated, ‘will you never +rest?’ + +‘Oh! It’s not work, cutting out a pattern isn’t,’ said Miss Jenny, with +her busy little scissors already snipping at some paper. ‘The truth is, +godmother, I want to fix it while I have it correct in my mind.’ + +‘Have you seen it to-day then?’ asked Riah. + +‘Yes, godmother. Saw it just now. It’s a surplice, that’s what it +is. Thing our clergymen wear, you know,’ explained Miss Jenny, in +consideration of his professing another faith. + +‘And what have you to do with that, Jenny?’ + +‘Why, godmother,’ replied the dressmaker, ‘you must know that we +Professors who live upon our taste and invention, are obliged to keep +our eyes always open. And you know already that I have many extra +expenses to meet just now. So, it came into my head while I was weeping +at my poor boy’s grave, that something in my way might be done with a +clergyman.’ + +‘What can be done?’ asked the old man. + +‘Not a funeral, never fear!’ returned Miss Jenny, anticipating his +objection with a nod. ‘The public don’t like to be made melancholy, I +know very well. I am seldom called upon to put my young friends into +mourning; not into real mourning, that is; Court mourning they are +rather proud of. But a doll clergyman, my dear,—glossy black curls +and whiskers—uniting two of my young friends in matrimony,’ said Miss +Jenny, shaking her forefinger, ‘is quite another affair. If you don’t +see those three at the altar in Bond Street, in a jiffy, my name’s Jack +Robinson!’ + +With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll into +whitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and was displaying +it for the edification of the Jewish mind, when a knock was heard at the +street-door. Riah went to open it, and presently came back, ushering in, +with the grave and courteous air that sat so well upon him, a gentleman. + +The gentleman was a stranger to the dressmaker; but even in the moment +of his casting his eyes upon her, there was something in his manner +which brought to her remembrance Mr Eugene Wrayburn. + +‘Pardon me,’ said the gentleman. ‘You are the dolls’ dressmaker?’ + +‘I am the dolls’ dressmaker, sir.’ + +‘Lizzie Hexam’s friend?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ replied Miss Jenny, instantly on the defensive. ‘And Lizzie +Hexam’s friend.’ + +‘Here is a note from her, entreating you to accede to the request of +Mr Mortimer Lightwood, the bearer. Mr Riah chances to know that I am Mr +Mortimer Lightwood, and will tell you so.’ + +Riah bent his head in corroboration. + +‘Will you read the note?’ + +‘It’s very short,’ said Jenny, with a look of wonder, when she had read +it. + +‘There was no time to make it longer. Time was so very precious. My dear +friend Mr Eugene Wrayburn is dying.’ + +The dressmaker clasped her hands, and uttered a little piteous cry. + +‘Is dying,’ repeated Lightwood, with emotion, ‘at some distance from +here. He is sinking under injuries received at the hands of a villain +who attacked him in the dark. I come straight from his bedside. He is +almost always insensible. In a short restless interval of sensibility, +or partial sensibility, I made out that he asked for you to be brought +to sit by him. Hardly relying on my own interpretation of the indistinct +sounds he made, I caused Lizzie to hear them. We were both sure that he +asked for you.’ + +The dressmaker, with her hands still clasped, looked affrightedly from +the one to the other of her two companions. + +‘If you delay, he may die with his request ungratified, with his +last wish—intrusted to me—we have long been much more than +brothers—unfulfilled. I shall break down, if I try to say more.’ + +In a few moments the black bonnet and the crutch-stick were on duty, the +good Jew was left in possession of the house, and the dolls’ dressmaker, +side by side in a chaise with Mortimer Lightwood, was posting out of +town. + + + + +Chapter 10 + +THE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD + + +A darkened and hushed room; the river outside the windows flowing on +to the vast ocean; a figure on the bed, swathed and bandaged and bound, +lying helpless on its back, with its two useless arms in splints at its +sides. Only two days of usage so familiarized the little dressmaker +with this scene, that it held the place occupied two days ago by the +recollections of years. + +He had scarcely moved since her arrival. Sometimes his eyes were open, +sometimes closed. When they were open, there was no meaning in their +unwinking stare at one spot straight before them, unless for a moment +the brow knitted into a faint expression of anger, or surprise. Then, +Mortimer Lightwood would speak to him, and on occasions he would be so +far roused as to make an attempt to pronounce his friend’s name. But, in +an instant consciousness was gone again, and no spirit of Eugene was in +Eugene’s crushed outer form. + +They provided Jenny with materials for plying her work, and she had a +little table placed at the foot of his bed. Sitting there, with her rich +shower of hair falling over the chair-back, they hoped she might attract +his notice. With the same object, she would sing, just above her breath, +when he opened his eyes, or she saw his brow knit into that faint +expression, so evanescent that it was like a shape made in water. But +as yet he had not heeded. The ‘they’ here mentioned were the medical +attendant; Lizzie, who was there in all her intervals of rest; and +Lightwood, who never left him. + +The two days became three, and the three days became four. At length, +quite unexpectedly, he said something in a whisper. + +‘What was it, my dear Eugene?’ + +‘Will you, Mortimer—’ + +‘Will I—? + +—‘Send for her?’ + +‘My dear fellow, she is here.’ + +Quite unconscious of the long blank, he supposed that they were still +speaking together. + +The little dressmaker stood up at the foot of the bed, humming her song, +and nodded to him brightly. ‘I can’t shake hands, Jenny,’ said Eugene, +with something of his old look; ‘but I am very glad to see you.’ + +Mortimer repeated this to her, for it could only be made out by bending +over him and closely watching his attempts to say it. In a little while, +he added: + +‘Ask her if she has seen the children.’ + +Mortimer could not understand this, neither could Jenny herself, until +he added: + +‘Ask her if she has smelt the flowers.’ + +‘Oh! I know!’ cried Jenny. ‘I understand him now!’ Then, Lightwood +yielded his place to her quick approach, and she said, bending over the +bed, with that better look: ‘You mean my long bright slanting rows of +children, who used to bring me ease and rest? You mean the children who +used to take me up, and make me light?’ + +Eugene smiled, ‘Yes.’ + +‘I have not seen them since I saw you. I never see them now, but I am +hardly ever in pain now.’ + +‘It was a pretty fancy,’ said Eugene. + +‘But I have heard my birds sing,’ cried the little creature, ‘and I have +smelt my flowers. Yes, indeed I have! And both were most beautiful and +most Divine!’ + +‘Stay and help to nurse me,’ said Eugene, quietly. ‘I should like you to +have the fancy here, before I die.’ + +She touched his lips with her hand, and shaded her eyes with that same +hand as she went back to her work and her little low song. He heard the +song with evident pleasure, until she allowed it gradually to sink away +into silence. + +‘Mortimer.’ + +‘My dear Eugene.’ + +‘If you can give me anything to keep me here for only a few minutes—’ + +‘To keep you here, Eugene?’ + +‘To prevent my wandering away I don’t know where—for I begin to be +sensible that I have just come back, and that I shall lose myself +again—do so, dear boy!’ + +Mortimer gave him such stimulants as could be given him with safety +(they were always at hand, ready), and bending over him once more, was +about to caution him, when he said: + +‘Don’t tell me not to speak, for I must speak. If you knew the +harassing anxiety that gnaws and wears me when I am wandering in those +places—where are those endless places, Mortimer? They must be at an +immense distance!’ + +He saw in his friend’s face that he was losing himself; for he added +after a moment: ‘Don’t be afraid—I am not gone yet. What was it?’ + +‘You wanted to tell me something, Eugene. My poor dear fellow, you +wanted to say something to your old friend—to the friend who has always +loved you, admired you, imitated you, founded himself upon you, been +nothing without you, and who, God knows, would be here in your place if +he could!’ + +‘Tut, tut!’ said Eugene with a tender glance as the other put his hand +before his face. ‘I am not worth it. I acknowledge that I like it, +dear boy, but I am not worth it. This attack, my dear Mortimer; this +murder—’ + +His friend leaned over him with renewed attention, saying: ‘You and I +suspect some one.’ + +‘More than suspect. But, Mortimer, while I lie here, and when I lie +here no longer, I trust to you that the perpetrator is never brought to +justice.’ + +‘Eugene?’ + +‘Her innocent reputation would be ruined, my friend. She would be +punished, not he. I have wronged her enough in fact; I have wronged her +still more in intention. You recollect what pavement is said to be made +of good intentions. It is made of bad intentions too. Mortimer, I am +lying on it, and I know!’ + +‘Be comforted, my dear Eugene.’ + +‘I will, when you have promised me. Dear Mortimer, the man must never be +pursued. If he should be accused, you must keep him silent and save +him. Don’t think of avenging me; think only of hushing the story +and protecting her. You can confuse the case, and turn aside the +circumstances. Listen to what I say to you. It was not the schoolmaster, +Bradley Headstone. Do you hear me? Twice; it was not the schoolmaster, +Bradley Headstone. Do you hear me? Three times; it was not the +schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone.’ + +He stopped, exhausted. His speech had been whispered, broken, and +indistinct; but by a great effort he had made it plain enough to be +unmistakeable. + +‘Dear fellow, I am wandering away. Stay me for another moment, if you +can.’ + +Lightwood lifted his head at the neck, and put a wine-glass to his lips. +He rallied. + +‘I don’t know how long ago it was done, whether weeks, days, or hours. +No matter. There is inquiry on foot, and pursuit. Say! Is there not?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Check it; divert it! Don’t let her be brought in question. Shield +her. The guilty man, brought to justice, would poison her name. Let the +guilty man go unpunished. Lizzie and my reparation before all! Promise +me!’ + +‘Eugene, I do. I promise you!’ + +In the act of turning his eyes gratefully towards his friend, he +wandered away. His eyes stood still, and settled into that former intent +unmeaning stare. + +Hours and hours, days and nights, he remained in this same condition. +There were times when he would calmly speak to his friend after a long +period of unconsciousness, and would say he was better, and would ask +for something. Before it could be given him, he would be gone again. + +The dolls’ dressmaker, all softened compassion now, watched him with an +earnestness that never relaxed. She would regularly change the ice, or +the cooling spirit, on his head, and would keep her ear at the pillow +betweenwhiles, listening for any faint words that fell from him in his +wanderings. It was amazing through how many hours at a time she would +remain beside him, in a crouching attitude, attentive to his slightest +moan. As he could not move a hand, he could make no sign of distress; +but, through this close watching (if through no secret sympathy or +power) the little creature attained an understanding of him that +Lightwood did not possess. Mortimer would often turn to her, as if she +were an interpreter between this sentient world and the insensible man; +and she would change the dressing of a wound, or ease a ligature, or +turn his face, or alter the pressure of the bedclothes on him, with an +absolute certainty of doing right. The natural lightness and delicacy of +touch which had become very refined by practice in her miniature work, +no doubt was involved in this; but her perception was at least as fine. + +The one word, Lizzie, he muttered millions of times. In a certain phase +of his distressful state, which was the worst to those who tended him, +he would roll his head upon the pillow, incessantly repeating the name +in a hurried and impatient manner, with the misery of a disturbed mind, +and the monotony of a machine. Equally, when he lay still and staring, +he would repeat it for hours without cessation, but then, always in a +tone of subdued warning and horror. Her presence and her touch upon his +breast or face would often stop this, and then they learned to expect +that he would for some time remain still, with his eyes closed, and that +he would be conscious on opening them. But, the heavy disappointment of +their hope—revived by the welcome silence of the room—was, that his +spirit would glide away again and be lost, in the moment of their joy +that it was there. + +This frequent rising of a drowning man from the deep, to sink again, was +dreadful to the beholders. But, gradually the change stole upon him that +it became dreadful to himself. His desire to impart something that was +on his mind, his unspeakable yearning to have speech with his friend +and make a communication to him, so troubled him when he recovered +consciousness, that its term was thereby shortened. As the man rising +from the deep would disappear the sooner for fighting with the water, so +he in his desperate struggle went down again. + +One afternoon when he had been lying still, and Lizzie, unrecognized, +had just stolen out of the room to pursue her occupation, he uttered +Lightwood’s name. + +‘My dear Eugene, I am here.’ + +‘How long is this to last, Mortimer?’ + +Lightwood shook his head. ‘Still, Eugene, you are no worse than you +were.’ + +‘But I know there’s no hope. Yet I pray it may last long enough for you +to do me one last service, and for me to do one last action. Keep me +here a few moments, Mortimer. Try, try!’ + +His friend gave him what aid he could, and encouraged him to believe +that he was more composed, though even then his eyes were losing the +expression they so rarely recovered. + +‘Hold me here, dear fellow, if you can. Stop my wandering away. I am +going!’ + +‘Not yet, not yet. Tell me, dear Eugene, what is it I shall do?’ + +‘Keep me here for only a single minute. I am going away again. Don’t let +me go. Hear me speak first. Stop me—stop me!’ + +‘My poor Eugene, try to be calm.’ + +‘I do try. I try so hard. If you only knew how hard! Don’t let me wander +till I have spoken. Give me a little more wine.’ + +Lightwood complied. Eugene, with a most pathetic struggle against the +unconsciousness that was coming over him, and with a look of appeal that +affected his friend profoundly, said: + +‘You can leave me with Jenny, while you speak to her and tell her what I +beseech of her. You can leave me with Jenny, while you are gone. There’s +not much for you to do. You won’t be long away.’ + +‘No, no, no. But tell me what it is that I shall do, Eugene!’ + +‘I am going! You can’t hold me.’ + +‘Tell me in a word, Eugene!’ + +His eyes were fixed again, and the only word that came from his lips was +the word millions of times repeated. Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie. + +But, the watchful little dressmaker had been vigilant as ever in her +watch, and she now came up and touched Lightwood’s arm as he looked down +at his friend, despairingly. + +‘Hush!’ she said, with her finger on her lips. ‘His eyes are closing. +He’ll be conscious when he next opens them. Shall I give you a leading +word to say to him?’ + +‘O Jenny, if you could only give me the right word!’ + +‘I can. Stoop down.’ + +He stooped, and she whispered in his ear. She whispered in his ear one +short word of a single syllable. Lightwood started, and looked at her. + +‘Try it,’ said the little creature, with an excited and exultant face. +She then bent over the unconscious man, and, for the first time, kissed +him on the cheek, and kissed the poor maimed hand that was nearest to +her. Then, she withdrew to the foot of the bed. + +Some two hours afterwards, Mortimer Lightwood saw his consciousness come +back, and instantly, but very tranquilly, bent over him. + +‘Don’t speak, Eugene. Do no more than look at me, and listen to me. You +follow what I say.’ + +He moved his head in assent. + +‘I am going on from the point where we broke off. Is the word we should +soon have come to—is it—Wife?’ + +‘O God bless you, Mortimer!’ + +‘Hush! Don’t be agitated. Don’t speak. Hear me, dear Eugene. Your mind +will be more at peace, lying here, if you make Lizzie your wife. You +wish me to speak to her, and tell her so, and entreat her to be your +wife. You ask her to kneel at this bedside and be married to you, that +your reparation may be complete. Is that so?’ + +‘Yes. God bless you! Yes.’ + +‘It shall be done, Eugene. Trust it to me. I shall have to go away +for some few hours, to give effect to your wishes. You see this is +unavoidable?’ + +‘Dear friend, I said so.’ + +‘True. But I had not the clue then. How do you think I got it?’ + +Glancing wistfully around, Eugene saw Miss Jenny at the foot of the bed, +looking at him with her elbows on the bed, and her head upon her hands. +There was a trace of his whimsical air upon him, as he tried to smile at +her. + +‘Yes indeed,’ said Lightwood, ‘the discovery was hers. Observe my dear +Eugene; while I am away you will know that I have discharged my trust +with Lizzie, by finding her here, in my present place at your bedside, +to leave you no more. A final word before I go. This is the right course +of a true man, Eugene. And I solemnly believe, with all my soul, that if +Providence should mercifully restore you to us, you will be blessed with +a noble wife in the preserver of your life, whom you will dearly love.’ + +‘Amen. I am sure of that. But I shall not come through it, Mortimer.’ + +‘You will not be the less hopeful or less strong, for this, Eugene.’ + +‘No. Touch my face with yours, in case I should not hold out till you +come back. I love you, Mortimer. Don’t be uneasy for me while you are +gone. If my dear brave girl will take me, I feel persuaded that I shall +live long enough to be married, dear fellow.’ + +Miss Jenny gave up altogether on this parting taking place between the +friends, and sitting with her back towards the bed in the bower made by +her bright hair, wept heartily, though noiselessly. Mortimer Lightwood +was soon gone. As the evening light lengthened the heavy reflections of +the trees in the river, another figure came with a soft step into the +sick room. + +‘Is he conscious?’ asked the little dressmaker, as the figure took its +station by the pillow. For, Jenny had given place to it immediately, and +could not see the sufferer’s face, in the dark room, from her new and +removed position. + +‘He is conscious, Jenny,’ murmured Eugene for himself. ‘He knows his +wife.’ + + + + +Chapter 11 + +EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER’S DISCOVERY + + +Mrs John Rokesmith sat at needlework in her neat little room, beside a +basket of neat little articles of clothing, which presented so much of +the appearance of being in the dolls’ dressmaker’s way of business, that +one might have supposed she was going to set up in opposition to Miss +Wren. Whether the Complete British Family Housewife had imparted sage +counsel anent them, did not appear, but probably not, as that cloudy +oracle was nowhere visible. For certain, however, Mrs John Rokesmith +stitched at them with so dexterous a hand, that she must have taken +lessons of somebody. Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher, +and perhaps love (from a pictorial point of view, with nothing on but +a thimble), had been teaching this branch of needlework to Mrs John +Rokesmith. + +It was near John’s time for coming home, but as Mrs John was desirous to +finish a special triumph of her skill before dinner, she did not go out +to meet him. Placidly, though rather consequentially smiling, she sat +stitching away with a regular sound, like a sort of dimpled little +charming Dresden-china clock by the very best maker. + +A knock at the door, and a ring at the bell. Not John; or Bella would +have flown out to meet him. Then who, if not John? Bella was asking +herself the question, when that fluttering little fool of a servant +fluttered in, saying, ‘Mr Lightwood!’ + +Oh good gracious! + +Bella had but time to throw a handkerchief over the basket, when Mr +Lightwood made his bow. There was something amiss with Mr Lightwood, for +he was strangely grave and looked ill. + +With a brief reference to the happy time when it had been his privilege +to know Mrs Rokesmith as Miss Wilfer, Mr Lightwood explained what was +amiss with him and why he came. He came bearing Lizzie Hexam’s earnest +hope that Mrs John Rokesmith would see her married. + +Bella was so fluttered by the request, and by the short narrative he had +feelingly given her, that there never was a more timely smelling-bottle +than John’s knock. ‘My husband,’ said Bella; ‘I’ll bring him in.’ + +But, that turned out to be more easily said than done; for, the instant +she mentioned Mr Lightwood’s name, John stopped, with his hand upon the +lock of the room door. + +‘Come up stairs, my darling.’ + +Bella was amazed by the flush in his face, and by his sudden turning +away. ‘What can it mean?’ she thought, as she accompanied him up stairs. + +‘Now, my life,’ said John, taking her on his knee, ‘tell me all about +it.’ + +All very well to say, ‘Tell me all about it;’ but John was very much +confused. His attention evidently trailed off, now and then, even while +Bella told him all about it. Yet she knew that he took a great interest +in Lizzie and her fortunes. What could it mean? + +‘You will come to this marriage with me, John dear?’ + +‘N—no, my love; I can’t do that.’ + +‘You can’t do that, John?’ + +‘No, my dear, it’s quite out of the question. Not to be thought of.’ + +‘Am I to go alone, John?’ + +‘No, my dear, you will go with Mr Lightwood.’ + +‘Don’t you think it’s time we went down to Mr Lightwood, John dear?’ +Bella insinuated. + +‘My darling, it’s almost time you went, but I must ask you to excuse me +to him altogether.’ + +‘You never mean, John dear, that you are not going to see him? Why, he +knows you have come home. I told him so.’ + +‘That’s a little unfortunate, but it can’t be helped. Unfortunate or +fortunate, I positively cannot see him, my love.’ + +Bella cast about in her mind what could be his reason for this +unaccountable behaviour; as she sat on his knee looking at him in +astonishment and pouting a little. A weak reason presented itself. + +‘John dear, you never can be jealous of Mr Lightwood?’ + +‘Why, my precious child,’ returned her husband, laughing outright: ‘how +could I be jealous of him? Why should I be jealous of him?’ + +‘Because, you know, John,’ pursued Bella, pouting a little more, ‘though +he did rather admire me once, it was not my fault.’ + +‘It was your fault that I admired you,’ returned her husband, with a +look of pride in her, ‘and why not your fault that he admired you? But, +I jealous on that account? Why, I must go distracted for life, if I +turned jealous of every one who used to find my wife beautiful and +winning!’ + +‘I am half angry with you, John dear,’ said Bella, laughing a little, +‘and half pleased with you; because you are such a stupid old fellow, +and yet you say nice things, as if you meant them. Don’t be mysterious, +sir. What harm do you know of Mr Lightwood?’ + +‘None, my love.’ + +‘What has he ever done to you, John?’ + +‘He has never done anything to me, my dear. I know no more against +him than I know against Mr Wrayburn; he has never done anything to me; +neither has Mr Wrayburn. And yet I have exactly the same objection to +both of them.’ + +‘Oh, John!’ retorted Bella, as if she were giving him up for a bad job, +as she used to give up herself. ‘You are nothing better than a sphinx! +And a married sphinx isn’t a—isn’t a nice confidential husband,’ said +Bella, in a tone of injury. + +‘Bella, my life,’ said John Rokesmith, touching her cheek, with a grave +smile, as she cast down her eyes and pouted again; ‘look at me. I want +to speak to you.’ + +‘In earnest, Blue Beard of the secret chamber?’ asked Bella, clearing +her pretty face. + +‘In earnest. And I confess to the secret chamber. Don’t you remember +that you asked me not to declare what I thought of your higher qualities +until you had been tried?’ + +‘Yes, John dear. And I fully meant it, and I fully mean it.’ + +‘The time will come, my darling—I am no prophet, but I say so,—when +you WILL be tried. The time will come, I think, when you will undergo +a trial through which you will never pass quite triumphantly for me, +unless you can put perfect faith in me.’ + +‘Then you may be sure of me, John dear, for I can put perfect faith in +you, and I do, and I always, always will. Don’t judge me by a little +thing like this, John. In little things, I am a little thing myself—I +always was. But in great things, I hope not; I don’t mean to boast, John +dear, but I hope not!’ + +He was even better convinced of the truth of what she said than she was, +as he felt her loving arms about him. If the Golden Dustman’s riches had +been his to stake, he would have staked them to the last farthing on the +fidelity through good and evil of her affectionate and trusting heart. + +‘Now, I’ll go down to, and go away with, Mr Lightwood,’ said Bella, +springing up. ‘You are the most creasing and tumbling Clumsy-Boots of a +packer, John, that ever was; but if you’re quite good, and will promise +never to do so any more (though I don’t know what you have done!) you +may pack me a little bag for a night, while I get my bonnet on.’ + +He gaily complied, and she tied her dimpled chin up, and shook her head +into her bonnet, and pulled out the bows of her bonnet-strings, and +got her gloves on, finger by finger, and finally got them on her +little plump hands, and bade him good-bye and went down. Mr Lightwood’s +impatience was much relieved when he found her dressed for departure. + +‘Mr Rokesmith goes with us?’ he said, hesitating, with a look towards +the door. + +‘Oh, I forgot!’ replied Bella. ‘His best compliments. His face is +swollen to the size of two faces, and he is to go to bed directly, poor +fellow, to wait for the doctor, who is coming to lance him.’ + +‘It is curious,’ observed Lightwood, ‘that I have never yet seen Mr +Rokesmith, though we have been engaged in the same affairs.’ + +‘Really?’ said the unblushing Bella. + +‘I begin to think,’ observed Lightwood, ‘that I never shall see him.’ + +‘These things happen so oddly sometimes,’ said Bella with a steady +countenance, ‘that there seems a kind of fatality in them. But I am +quite ready, Mr Lightwood.’ + +They started directly, in a little carriage that Lightwood had brought +with him from never-to-be-forgotten Greenwich; and from Greenwich they +started directly for London; and in London they waited at a railway +station until such time as the Reverend Frank Milvey, and Margaretta +his wife, with whom Mortimer Lightwood had been already in conference, +should come and join them. + +That worthy couple were delayed by a portentous old parishioner of the +female gender, who was one of the plagues of their lives, and with whom +they bore with most exemplary sweetness and good-humour, notwithstanding +her having an infection of absurdity about her, that communicated itself +to everything with which, and everybody with whom, she came in contact. +She was a member of the Reverend Frank’s congregation, and made a point +of distinguishing herself in that body, by conspicuously weeping at +everything, however cheering, said by the Reverend Frank in his public +ministration; also by applying to herself the various lamentations of +David, and complaining in a personally injured manner (much in arrear of +the clerk and the rest of the respondents) that her enemies were digging +pit-falls about her, and breaking her with rods of iron. Indeed, this +old widow discharged herself of that portion of the Morning and Evening +Service as if she were lodging a complaint on oath and applying for +a warrant before a magistrate. But this was not her most inconvenient +characteristic, for that took the form of an impression, usually +recurring in inclement weather and at about daybreak, that she had +something on her mind and stood in immediate need of the Reverend Frank +to come and take it off. Many a time had that kind creature got up, and +gone out to Mrs Sprodgkin (such was the disciple’s name), suppressing +a strong sense of her comicality by his strong sense of duty, and +perfectly knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. However, +beyond themselves, the Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs Milvey seldom +hinted that Mrs Sprodgkin was hardly worth the trouble she gave; but +both made the best of her, as they did of all their troubles. + +This very exacting member of the fold appeared to be endowed with a +sixth sense, in regard of knowing when the Reverend Frank Milvey least +desired her company, and with promptitude appearing in his little hall. +Consequently, when the Reverend Frank had willingly engaged that he and +his wife would accompany Lightwood back, he said, as a matter of course: +‘We must make haste to get out, Margaretta, my dear, or we shall be +descended on by Mrs Sprodgkin.’ To which Mrs Milvey replied, in her +pleasantly emphatic way, ‘Oh YES, for she IS such a marplot, Frank, and +DOES worry so!’ Words that were scarcely uttered when their theme +was announced as in faithful attendance below, desiring counsel on a +spiritual matter. The points on which Mrs Sprodgkin sought elucidation +being seldom of a pressing nature (as Who begat Whom, or some +information concerning the Amorites), Mrs Milvey on this special +occasion resorted to the device of buying her off with a present of tea +and sugar, and a loaf and butter. These gifts Mrs Sprodgkin accepted, +but still insisted on dutifully remaining in the hall, to curtsey to the +Reverend Frank as he came forth. Who, incautiously saying in his genial +manner, ‘Well, Sally, there you are!’ involved himself in a discursive +address from Mrs Sprodgkin, revolving around the result that she +regarded tea and sugar in the light of myrrh and frankincense, and +considered bread and butter identical with locusts and wild honey. +Having communicated this edifying piece of information, Mrs Sprodgkin +was left still unadjourned in the hall, and Mr and Mrs Milvey hurried in +a heated condition to the railway station. All of which is here recorded +to the honour of that good Christian pair, representatives of hundreds +of other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as useful, who merge +the smallness of their work in its greatness, and feel in no danger of +losing dignity when they adapt themselves to incomprehensible humbugs. + +‘Detained at the last moment by one who had a claim upon me,’ was the +Reverend Frank’s apology to Lightwood, taking no thought of himself. +To which Mrs Milvey added, taking thought for him, like the championing +little wife she was; ‘Oh yes, detained at the last moment. But AS to +the claim, Frank, I MUST say that I DO think you are OVER-considerate +sometimes, and allow THAT to be a LITTLE abused.’ + +Bella felt conscious, in spite of her late pledge for herself, that her +husband’s absence would give disagreeable occasion for surprise to the +Milveys. Nor could she appear quite at her ease when Mrs Milvey asked: + +‘HOW is Mr Rokesmith, and IS he gone before us, or DOES he follow us?’ + +It becoming necessary, upon this, to send him to bed again and hold him +in waiting to be lanced again, Bella did it. But not half as well on +the second occasion as on the first; for, a twice-told white one seems +almost to become a black one, when you are not used to it. + +‘Oh DEAR!’ said Mrs Milvey, ‘I am SO sorry! Mr Rokesmith took SUCH an +interest in Lizzie Hexam, when we were there before. And if we had ONLY +known of his face, we COULD have given him something that would have +kept it down long enough for so SHORT a purpose.’ + +By way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened to stipulate that +he was not in pain. Mrs Milvey was SO glad of it. + +‘I don’t know HOW it is,’ said Mrs Milvey, ‘and I am SURE you don’t, +Frank, but the clergy and their wives seem to CAUSE swelled faces. +Whenever I take notice of a child in the school, it seems to me as if +its face swelled INSTANTLY. Frank NEVER makes acquaintance with a new +old woman, but she gets the face-ache. And another thing is, we DO make +the poor children sniff so. I don’t know HOW we do it, and I should +be so glad not to; but the MORE we take notice of them, the MORE they +sniff. Just as they do when the text is given out.—Frank, that’s a +schoolmaster. I have seen him somewhere.’ + +The reference was to a young man of reserved appearance, in a coat and +waistcoat of black, and pantaloons of pepper and salt. He had come +into the office of the station, from its interior, in an unsettled way, +immediately after Lightwood had gone out to the train; and he had been +hurriedly reading the printed bills and notices on the wall. He had had +a wandering interest in what was said among the people waiting there +and passing to and fro. He had drawn nearer, at about the time when +Mrs Milvey mentioned Lizzie Hexam, and had remained near, since: though +always glancing towards the door by which Lightwood had gone out. He +stood with his back towards them, and his gloved hands clasped behind +him. There was now so evident a faltering upon him, expressive of +indecision whether or no he should express his having heard himself +referred to, that Mr Milvey spoke to him. + +‘I cannot recall your name,’ he said, ‘but I remember to have seen you +in your school.’ + +‘My name is Bradley Headstone, sir,’ he replied, backing into a more +retired place. + +‘I ought to have remembered it,’ said Mr Milvey, giving him his hand. ‘I +hope you are well? A little overworked, I am afraid?’ + +‘Yes, I am overworked just at present, sir.’ + +‘Had no play in your last holiday time?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘All work and no play, Mr Headstone, will not make dulness, in your +case, I dare say; but it will make dyspepsia, if you don’t take care.’ + +‘I will endeavour to take care, sir. Might I beg leave to speak to you, +outside, a moment?’ + +‘By all means.’ + +It was evening, and the office was well lighted. The schoolmaster, who +had never remitted his watch on Lightwood’s door, now moved by another +door to a corner without, where there was more shadow than light; and +said, plucking at his gloves: + +‘One of your ladies, sir, mentioned within my hearing a name that I am +acquainted with; I may say, well acquainted with. The name of the sister +of an old pupil of mine. He was my pupil for a long time, and has got on +and gone upward rapidly. The name of Hexam. The name of Lizzie Hexam.’ +He seemed to be a shy man, struggling against nervousness, and spoke in +a very constrained way. The break he set between his last two sentences +was quite embarrassing to his hearer. + +‘Yes,’ replied Mr Milvey. ‘We are going down to see her.’ + +‘I gathered as much, sir. I hope there is nothing amiss with the sister +of my old pupil? I hope no bereavement has befallen her. I hope she is +in no affliction? Has lost no—relation?’ + +Mr Milvey thought this a man with a very odd manner, and a dark downward +look; but he answered in his usual open way. + +‘I am glad to tell you, Mr Headstone, that the sister of your old pupil +has not sustained any such loss. You thought I might be going down to +bury some one?’ + +‘That may have been the connexion of ideas, sir, with your clerical +character, but I was not conscious of it.—Then you are not, sir?’ + +A man with a very odd manner indeed, and with a lurking look that was +quite oppressive. + +‘No. In fact,’ said Mr Milvey, ‘since you are so interested in the +sister of your old pupil, I may as well tell you that I am going down to +marry her.’ + +The schoolmaster started back. + +‘Not to marry her, myself,’ said Mr Milvey, with a smile, ‘because I +have a wife already. To perform the marriage service at her wedding.’ + +Bradley Headstone caught hold of a pillar behind him. If Mr Milvey knew +an ashy face when he saw it, he saw it then. + +‘You are quite ill, Mr Headstone!’ + +‘It is not much, sir. It will pass over very soon. I am accustomed to be +seized with giddiness. Don’t let me detain you, sir; I stand in need +of no assistance, I thank you. Much obliged by your sparing me these +minutes of your time.’ + +As Mr Milvey, who had no more minutes to spare, made a suitable reply +and turned back into the office, he observed the schoolmaster to +lean against the pillar with his hat in his hand, and to pull at his +neckcloth as if he were trying to tear it off. The Reverend Frank +accordingly directed the notice of one of the attendants to him, by +saying: ‘There is a person outside who seems to be really ill, and to +require some help, though he says he does not.’ + +Lightwood had by this time secured their places, and the departure-bell +was about to be rung. They took their seats, and were beginning to +move out of the station, when the same attendant came running along the +platform, looking into all the carriages. + +‘Oh! You are here, sir!’ he said, springing on the step, and holding +the window-frame by his elbow, as the carriage moved. ‘That person you +pointed out to me is in a fit.’ + +‘I infer from what he told me that he is subject to such attacks. He +will come to, in the air, in a little while.’ + +He was took very bad to be sure, and was biting and knocking about him +(the man said) furiously. Would the gentleman give him his card, as he +had seen him first? The gentleman did so, with the explanation that +he knew no more of the man attacked than that he was a man of a very +respectable occupation, who had said he was out of health, as his +appearance would of itself have indicated. The attendant received the +card, watched his opportunity for sliding down, slid down, and so it +ended. + +Then, the train rattled among the house-tops, and among the ragged sides +of houses torn down to make way for it, and over the swarming streets, +and under the fruitful earth, until it shot across the river: bursting +over the quiet surface like a bomb-shell, and gone again as if it had +exploded in the rush of smoke and steam and glare. A little more, and +again it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the watery +turnings and doublings with ineffable contempt, and going straight to +its end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it is no matter what living +waters run high or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses, +produce their little growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there, +are noisy or still, are troubled or at rest, for their course has one +sure termination, though their sources and devices are many. + +Then, a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, stealing away +by night, as all things steal away, by night and by day, so quietly +yielding to the attraction of the loadstone rock of Eternity; and the +nearer they drew to the chamber where Eugene lay, the more they feared +that they might find his wanderings done. At last they saw its dim light +shining out, and it gave them hope: though Lightwood faltered as he +thought: ‘If he were gone, she would still be sitting by him.’ + +But he lay quiet, half in stupor, half in sleep. Bella, entering with +a raised admonitory finger, kissed Lizzie softly, but said not a word. +Neither did any of them speak, but all sat down at the foot of the bed, +silently waiting. And now, in this night-watch, mingling with the flow +of the river and with the rush of the train, came the questions into +Bella’s mind again: What could be in the depths of that mystery of +John’s? Why was it that he had never been seen by Mr Lightwood, whom he +still avoided? When would that trial come, through which her faith +in, and her duty to, her dear husband, was to carry her, rendering him +triumphant? For, that had been his term. Her passing through the trial +was to make the man she loved with all her heart, triumphant. Term not +to sink out of sight in Bella’s breast. + +Far on in the night, Eugene opened his eyes. He was sensible, and said +at once: ‘How does the time go? Has our Mortimer come back?’ + +Lightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. ‘Yes, Eugene, +and all is ready.’ + +‘Dear boy!’ returned Eugene with a smile, ‘we both thank you heartily. +Lizzie, tell them how welcome they are, and that I would be eloquent if +I could.’ + +‘There is no need,’ said Mr Milvey. ‘We know it. Are you better, Mr +Wrayburn?’ + +‘I am much happier,’ said Eugene. + +‘Much better too, I hope?’ + +Eugene turned his eyes towards Lizzie, as if to spare her, and answered +nothing. + +Then, they all stood around the bed, and Mr Milvey, opening his book, +began the service; so rarely associated with the shadow of death; so +inseparable in the mind from a flush of life and gaiety and hope and +health and joy. Bella thought how different from her own sunny little +wedding, and wept. Mrs Milvey overflowed with pity, and wept too. The +dolls’ dressmaker, with her hands before her face, wept in her golden +bower. Reading in a low clear voice, and bending over Eugene, who kept +his eyes upon him, Mr Milvey did his office with suitable simplicity. +As the bridegroom could not move his hand, they touched his fingers with +the ring, and so put it on the bride. When the two plighted their troth, +she laid her hand on his and kept it there. When the ceremony was done, +and all the rest departed from the room, she drew her arm under his +head, and laid her own head down upon the pillow by his side. + +‘Undraw the curtains, my dear girl,’ said Eugene, after a while, ‘and +let us see our wedding-day.’ + +The sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room, as she came +back, and put her lips to his. ‘I bless the day!’ said Eugene. ‘I bless +the day!’ said Lizzie. + +‘You have made a poor marriage of it, my sweet wife,’ said Eugene. ‘A +shattered graceless fellow, stretched at his length here, and next to +nothing for you when you are a young widow.’ + +‘I have made the marriage that I would have given all the world to dare +to hope for,’ she replied. + +‘You have thrown yourself away,’ said Eugene, shaking his head. ‘But you +have followed the treasure of your heart. My justification is, that you +had thrown that away first, dear girl!’ + +‘No. I had given it to you.’ + +‘The same thing, my poor Lizzie!’ + +‘Hush! hush! A very different thing.’ + +There were tears in his eyes, and she besought him to close them. ‘No,’ +said Eugene, again shaking his head; ‘let me look at you, Lizzie, while +I can. You brave devoted girl! You heroine!’ + +Her own eyes filled under his praises. And when he mustered strength to +move his wounded head a very little way, and lay it on her bosom, the +tears of both fell. + +‘Lizzie,’ said Eugene, after a silence: ‘when you see me wandering away +from this refuge that I have so ill deserved, speak to me by my name, +and I think I shall come back.’ + +‘Yes, dear Eugene.’ + +‘There!’ he exclaimed, smiling. ‘I should have gone then, but for that!’ + +A little while afterwards, when he appeared to be sinking into +insensibility, she said, in a calm loving voice: ‘Eugene, my dear +husband!’ He immediately answered: ‘There again! You see how you can +recall me!’ And afterwards, when he could not speak, he still answered +by a slight movement of his head upon her bosom. + +The sun was high in the sky, when she gently disengaged herself to give +him the stimulants and nourishment he required. The utter helplessness +of the wreck of him that lay cast ashore there, now alarmed her, but he +himself appeared a little more hopeful. + +‘Ah, my beloved Lizzie!’ he said, faintly. ‘How shall I ever pay all I +owe you, if I recover!’ + +‘Don’t be ashamed of me,’ she replied, ‘and you will have more than paid +all.’ + +‘It would require a life, Lizzie, to pay all; more than a life.’ + +‘Live for that, then; live for me, Eugene; live to see how hard I will +try to improve myself, and never to discredit you.’ + +‘My darling girl,’ he replied, rallying more of his old manner than +he had ever yet got together. ‘On the contrary, I have been thinking +whether it is not the best thing I can do, to die.’ + +‘The best thing you can do, to leave me with a broken heart?’ + +‘I don’t mean that, my dear girl. I was not thinking of that. What I was +thinking of was this. Out of your compassion for me, in this maimed and +broken state, you make so much of me—you think so well of me—you love +me so dearly.’ + +‘Heaven knows I love you dearly!’ + +‘And Heaven knows I prize it! Well. If I live, you’ll find me out.’ + +‘I shall find out that my husband has a mine of purpose and energy, and +will turn it to the best account?’ + +‘I hope so, dearest Lizzie,’ said Eugene, wistfully, and yet somewhat +whimsically. ‘I hope so. But I can’t summon the vanity to think so. How +can I think so, looking back on such a trifling wasted youth as mine! I +humbly hope it; but I daren’t believe it. There is a sharp misgiving +in my conscience that if I were to live, I should disappoint your good +opinion and my own—and that I ought to die, my dear!’ + + + + +Chapter 12 + +THE PASSING SHADOW + + +The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of times, the earth +moved round the sun a certain number of times, the ship upon the ocean +made her voyage safely, and brought a baby-Bella home. Then who so blest +and happy as Mrs John Rokesmith, saving and excepting Mr John Rokesmith! + +‘Would you not like to be rich NOW, my darling?’ + +‘How can you ask me such a question, John dear? Am I not rich?’ + +These were among the first words spoken near the baby Bella as she lay +asleep. She soon proved to be a baby of wonderful intelligence, +evincing the strongest objection to her grandmother’s society, and +being invariably seized with a painful acidity of the stomach when that +dignified lady honoured her with any attention. + +It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and finding out +her own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if she were looking in the +glass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarked +to her husband that the baby seemed to make her younger than before, +reminding him of the days when she had a pet doll and used to talk to it +as she carried it about. The world might have been challenged to produce +another baby who had such a store of pleasant nonsense said and sung +to it, as Bella said and sung to this baby; or who was dressed and +undressed as often in four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and +undressed this baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop +its father’s way when he came home, as this baby was; or, in a word, who +did half the number of baby things, through the lively invention of a +gay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible baby did. + +The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella began to +notice a cloud upon her husband’s brow. Watching it, she saw a gathering +and deepening anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet. More than +once, she awoke him muttering in his sleep; and, though he muttered +nothing worse than her own name, it was plain to her that his +restlessness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at length +put in her claim to divide this load, and hear her half of it. + +‘You know, John dear,’ she said, cheerily reverting to their former +conversation, ‘that I hope I may safely be trusted in great things. And +it surely cannot be a little thing that causes you so much uneasiness. +It’s very considerate of you to try to hide from me that you are +uncomfortable about something, but it’s quite impossible to be done, +John love.’ + +‘I admit that I am rather uneasy, my own.’ + +‘Then please to tell me what about, sir.’ + +But no, he evaded that. ‘Never mind!’ thought Bella, resolutely. +‘John requires me to put perfect faith in him, and he shall not be +disappointed.’ + +She went up to London one day, to meet him, in order that they might +make some purchases. She found him waiting for her at her journey’s +end, and they walked away together through the streets. He was in gay +spirits, though still harping on that notion of their being rich; and +he said, now let them make believe that yonder fine carriage was theirs, +and that it was waiting to take them home to a fine house they had; what +would Bella, in that case, best like to find in the house? Well! Bella +didn’t know: already having everything she wanted, she couldn’t say. +But, by degrees she was led on to confess that she would like to have +for the inexhaustible baby such a nursery as never was seen. It was +to be ‘a very rainbow for colours’, as she was quite sure baby noticed +colours; and the staircase was to be adorned with the most exquisite +flowers, as she was absolutely certain baby noticed flowers; and there +was to be an aviary somewhere, of the loveliest little birds, as there +was not the smallest doubt in the world that baby noticed birds. +Was there nothing else? No, John dear. The predilections of the +inexhaustible baby being provided for, Bella could think of nothing +else. + +They were chatting on in this way, and John had suggested, ‘No jewels +for your own wear, for instance?’ and Bella had replied laughing. O! if +he came to that, yes, there might be a beautiful ivory case of jewels +on her dressing-table; when these pictures were in a moment darkened and +blotted out. + +They turned a corner, and met Mr Lightwood. + +He stopped as if he were petrified by the sight of Bella’s husband, who +in the same moment had changed colour. + +‘Mr Lightwood and I have met before,’ he said. + +‘Met before, John?’ Bella repeated in a tone of wonder. ‘Mr Lightwood +told me he had never seen you.’ + +‘I did not then know that I had,’ said Lightwood, discomposed on her +account. ‘I believed that I had only heard of—Mr Rokesmith.’ With an +emphasis on the name. + +‘When Mr Lightwood saw me, my love,’ observed her husband, not avoiding +his eye, but looking at him, ‘my name was Julius Handford.’ + +Julius Handford! The name that Bella had so often seen in old +newspapers, when she was an inmate of Mr Boffin’s house! Julius +Handford, who had been publicly entreated to appear, and for +intelligence of whom a reward had been publicly offered! + +‘I would have avoided mentioning it in your presence,’ said Lightwood to +Bella, delicately; ‘but since your husband mentions it himself, I must +confirm his strange admission. I saw him as Mr Julius Handford, and I +afterwards (unquestionably to his knowledge) took great pains to trace +him out.’ + +‘Quite true. But it was not my object or my interest,’ said Rokesmith, +quietly, ‘to be traced out.’ + +Bella looked from the one to the other, in amazement. + +‘Mr Lightwood,’ pursued her husband, ‘as chance has brought us face to +face at last—which is not to be wondered at, for the wonder is, that, +in spite of all my pains to the contrary, chance has not confronted +us together sooner—I have only to remind you that you have been at my +house, and to add that I have not changed my residence.’ + +‘Sir’ returned Lightwood, with a meaning glance towards Bella, ‘my +position is a truly painful one. I hope that no complicity in a very +dark transaction may attach to you, but you cannot fail to know that +your own extraordinary conduct has laid you under suspicion.’ + +‘I know it has,’ was all the reply. + +‘My professional duty,’ said Lightwood hesitating, with another glance +towards Bella, ‘is greatly at variance with my personal inclination; but +I doubt, Mr Handford, or Mr Rokesmith, whether I am justified in taking +leave of you here, with your whole course unexplained.’ + +Bella caught her husband by the hand. + +‘Don’t be alarmed, my darling. Mr Lightwood will find that he is quite +justified in taking leave of me here. At all events,’ added Rokesmith, +‘he will find that I mean to take leave of him here.’ + +‘I think, sir,’ said Lightwood, ‘you can scarcely deny that when I came +to your house on the occasion to which you have referred, you avoided me +of a set purpose.’ + +‘Mr Lightwood, I assure you I have no disposition to deny it, or +intention to deny it. I should have continued to avoid you, in pursuance +of the same set purpose, for a short time longer, if we had not met now. +I am going straight home, and shall remain at home to-morrow until noon. +Hereafter, I hope we may be better acquainted. Good-day.’ + +Lightwood stood irresolute, but Bella’s husband passed him in the +steadiest manner, with Bella on his arm; and they went home without +encountering any further remonstrance or molestation from any one. + +When they had dined and were alone, John Rokesmith said to his wife, who +had preserved her cheerfulness: ‘And you don’t ask me, my dear, why I +bore that name?’ + +‘No, John love. I should dearly like to know, of course;’ (which her +anxious face confirmed;) ‘but I wait until you can tell me of your own +free will. You asked me if I could have perfect faith in you, and I said +yes, and I meant it.’ + +It did not escape Bella’s notice that he began to look triumphant. She +wanted no strengthening in her firmness; but if she had had need of any, +she would have derived it from his kindling face. + +‘You cannot have been prepared, my dearest, for such a discovery as that +this mysterious Mr Handford was identical with your husband?’ + +‘No, John dear, of course not. But you told me to prepare to be tried, +and I prepared myself.’ + +He drew her to nestle closer to him, and told her it would soon be over, +and the truth would soon appear. ‘And now,’ he went on, ‘lay stress, +my dear, on these words that I am going to add. I stand in no kind of +peril, and I can by possibility be hurt at no one’s hand.’ + +‘You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear?’ + +‘Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no wrong, and have injured +no man. Shall I swear it?’ + +‘No, John!’ cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a proud +look. ‘Never to me!’ + +‘But circumstances,’ he went on ‘—I can, and I will, disperse them in +a moment—have surrounded me with one of the strangest suspicions ever +known. You heard Mr Lightwood speak of a dark transaction?’ + +‘Yes, John.’ + +‘You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant?’ + +‘Yes, John.’ + +‘My life, he meant the murder of John Harmon, your allotted husband.’ + +With a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the arm. ‘You cannot +be suspected, John?’ + +‘Dear love, I can be—for I am!’ + +There was silence between them, as she sat looking in his face, with the +colour quite gone from her own face and lips. ‘How dare they!’ she cried +at length, in a burst of generous indignation. ‘My beloved husband, how +dare they!’ + +He caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her to his heart. +‘Even knowing this, you can trust me, Bella?’ + +‘I can trust you, John dear, with all my soul. If I could not trust you, +I should fall dead at your feet.’ + +The kindling triumph in his face was bright indeed, as he looked up and +rapturously exclaimed, what had he done to deserve the blessing of this +dear confiding creature’s heart! Again she put her hand upon his lips, +saying, ‘Hush!’ and then told him, in her own little natural pathetic +way, that if all the world were against him, she would be for him; that +if all the world repudiated him, she would believe him; that if he were +infamous in other eyes, he would be honoured in hers; and that, under +the worst unmerited suspicion, she could devote her life to consoling +him, and imparting her own faith in him to their little child. + +A twilight calm of happiness then succeeding to their radiant noon, they +remained at peace, until a strange voice in the room startled them both. +The room being by that time dark, the voice said, ‘Don’t let the lady +be alarmed by my striking a light,’ and immediately a match rattled, and +glimmered in a hand. The hand and the match and the voice were then seen +by John Rokesmith to belong to Mr Inspector, once meditatively active in +this chronicle. + +‘I take the liberty,’ said Mr Inspector, in a business-like manner, ‘to +bring myself to the recollection of Mr Julius Handford, who gave me his +name and address down at our place a considerable time ago. Would the +lady object to my lighting the pair of candles on the chimneypiece, to +throw a further light upon the subject? No? Thank you, ma’am. Now, we +look cheerful.’ + +Mr Inspector, in a dark-blue buttoned-up frock coat and pantaloons, +presented a serviceable, half-pay, Royal Arms kind of appearance, as he +applied his pocket handkerchief to his nose and bowed to the lady. + +‘You favoured me, Mr Handford,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘by writing down your +name and address, and I produce the piece of paper on which you wrote +it. Comparing the same with the writing on the fly-leaf of this book on +the table—and a sweet pretty volume it is—I find the writing of the +entry, “Mrs John Rokesmith. From her husband on her birthday”—and very +gratifying to the feelings such memorials are—to correspond exactly. +Can I have a word with you?’ + +‘Certainly. Here, if you please,’ was the reply. + +‘Why,’ retorted Mr Inspector, again using his pocket handkerchief, +‘though there’s nothing for the lady to be at all alarmed at, still, +ladies are apt to take alarm at matters of business—being of that +fragile sex that they’re not accustomed to them when not of a strictly +domestic character—and I do generally make it a rule to propose +retirement from the presence of ladies, before entering upon business +topics. Or perhaps,’ Mr Inspector hinted, ‘if the lady was to step +up-stairs, and take a look at baby now!’ + +‘Mrs Rokesmith,’—her husband was beginning; when Mr Inspector, +regarding the words as an introduction, said, ‘Happy I am sure, to have +the honour.’ And bowed, with gallantry. + +‘Mrs Rokesmith,’ resumed her husband, ‘is satisfied that she can have no +reason for being alarmed, whatever the business is.’ + +‘Really? Is that so?’ said Mr Inspector. ‘But it’s a sex to live and +learn from, and there’s nothing a lady can’t accomplish when she once +fully gives her mind to it. It’s the case with my own wife. Well, ma’am, +this good gentleman of yours has given rise to a rather large amount +of trouble which might have been avoided if he had come forward and +explained himself. Well you see! He DIDN’T come forward and explain +himself. Consequently, now that we meet, him and me, you’ll say—and say +right—that there’s nothing to be alarmed at, in my proposing to him +TO come forward—or, putting the same meaning in another form, to come +along with me—and explain himself.’ + +When Mr Inspector put it in that other form, ‘to come along with me,’ +there was a relishing roll in his voice, and his eye beamed with an +official lustre. + +‘Do you propose to take me into custody?’ inquired John Rokesmith, very +coolly. + +‘Why argue?’ returned Mr Inspector in a comfortable sort of +remonstrance; ‘ain’t it enough that I propose that you shall come along +with me?’ + +‘For what reason?’ + +‘Lord bless my soul and body!’ returned Mr Inspector, ‘I wonder at it in +a man of your education. Why argue?’ + +‘What do you charge against me?’ + +‘I wonder at you before a lady,’ said Mr Inspector, shaking his head +reproachfully: ‘I wonder, brought up as you have been, you haven’t a +more delicate mind! I charge you, then, with being some way concerned +in the Harmon Murder. I don’t say whether before, or in, or after, the +fact. I don’t say whether with having some knowledge of it that hasn’t +come out.’ + +‘You don’t surprise me. I foresaw your visit this afternoon.’ + +‘Don’t!’ said Mr Inspector. ‘Why, why argue? It’s my duty to inform you +that whatever you say, will be used against you.’ + +‘I don’t think it will.’ + +‘But I tell you it will,’ said Mr Inspector. ‘Now, having received the +caution, do you still say that you foresaw my visit this afternoon?’ + +‘Yes. And I will say something more, if you will step with me into the +next room.’ + +With a reassuring kiss on the lips of the frightened Bella, her husband +(to whom Mr Inspector obligingly offered his arm), took up a candle, and +withdrew with that gentleman. They were a full half-hour in conference. +When they returned, Mr Inspector looked considerably astonished. + +‘I have invited this worthy officer, my dear,’ said John, ‘to make a +short excursion with me in which you shall be a sharer. He will take +something to eat and drink, I dare say, on your invitation, while you +are getting your bonnet on.’ + +Mr Inspector declined eating, but assented to the proposal of a glass of +brandy and water. Mixing this cold, and pensively consuming it, he broke +at intervals into such soliloquies as that he never did know such a +move, that he never had been so gravelled, and that what a game was +this to try the sort of stuff a man’s opinion of himself was made +of! Concurrently with these comments, he more than once burst out a +laughing, with the half-enjoying and half-piqued air of a man, who +had given up a good conundrum, after much guessing, and been told the +answer. Bella was so timid of him, that she noted these things in a +half-shrinking, half-perceptive way, and similarly noted that there was +a great change in his manner towards John. That coming-along-with-him +deportment was now lost in long musing looks at John and at herself and +sometimes in slow heavy rubs of his hand across his forehead, as if he +were ironing out the creases which his deep pondering made there. He had +had some coughing and whistling satellites secretly gravitating towards +him about the premises, but they were now dismissed, and he eyed John as +if he had meant to do him a public service, but had unfortunately been +anticipated. Whether Bella might have noted anything more, if she +had been less afraid of him, she could not determine; but it was all +inexplicable to her, and not the faintest flash of the real state of the +case broke in upon her mind. Mr Inspector’s increased notice of herself +and knowing way of raising his eyebrows when their eyes by any chance +met, as if he put the question ‘Don’t you see?’ augmented her timidity, +and, consequently, her perplexity. For all these reasons, when he +and she and John, at towards nine o’clock of a winter evening went to +London, and began driving from London Bridge, among low-lying water-side +wharves and docks and strange places, Bella was in the state of a +dreamer; perfectly unable to account for her being there, perfectly +unable to forecast what would happen next, or whither she was going, or +why; certain of nothing in the immediate present, but that she confided +in John, and that John seemed somehow to be getting more triumphant. But +what a certainty was that! + +They alighted at last at the corner of a court, where there was a +building with a bright lamp and wicket gate. Its orderly appearance was +very unlike that of the surrounding neighbourhood, and was explained by +the inscription POLICE STATION. + +‘We are not going in here, John?’ said Bella, clinging to him. + +‘Yes, my dear; but of our own accord. We shall come out again as easily, +never fear.’ + +The whitewashed room was pure white as of old, the methodical +book-keeping was in peaceful progress as of old, and some distant howler +was banging against a cell door as of old. The sanctuary was not a +permanent abiding-place, but a kind of criminal Pickford’s. The lower +passions and vices were regularly ticked off in the books, warehoused in +the cells, carted away as per accompanying invoice, and left little mark +upon it. + +Mr Inspector placed two chairs for his visitors, before the fire, and +communed in a low voice with a brother of his order (also of a half-pay, +and Royal Arms aspect), who, judged only by his occupation at the +moment, might have been a writing-master, setting copies. Their +conference done, Mr Inspector returned to the fireplace, and, having +observed that he would step round to the Fellowships and see how matters +stood, went out. He soon came back again, saying, ‘Nothing could be +better, for they’re at supper with Miss Abbey in the bar;’ and then they +all three went out together. + +Still, as in a dream, Bella found herself entering a snug old-fashioned +public-house, and found herself smuggled into a little three-cornered +room nearly opposite the bar of that establishment. Mr Inspector +achieved the smuggling of herself and John into this queer room, called +Cosy in an inscription on the door, by entering in the narrow passage +first in order, and suddenly turning round upon them with extended arms, +as if they had been two sheep. The room was lighted for their reception. + +‘Now,’ said Mr Inspector to John, turning the gas lower; ‘I’ll mix with +’em in a casual way, and when I say Identification, perhaps you’ll show +yourself.’ + +John nodded, and Mr Inspector went alone to the half-door of the bar. +From the dim doorway of Cosy, within which Bella and her husband stood, +they could see a comfortable little party of three persons sitting at +supper in the bar, and could hear everything that was said. + +The three persons were Miss Abbey and two male guests. To whom +collectively, Mr Inspector remarked that the weather was getting sharp +for the time of year. + +‘It need be sharp to suit your wits, sir,’ said Miss Abbey. ‘What have +you got in hand now?’ + +‘Thanking you for your compliment: not much, Miss Abbey,’ was Mr +Inspector’s rejoinder. + +‘Who have you got in Cosy?’ asked Miss Abbey. + +‘Only a gentleman and his wife, Miss.’ + +‘And who are they? If one may ask it without detriment to your deep +plans in the interests of the honest public?’ said Miss Abbey, proud of +Mr Inspector as an administrative genius. + +‘They are strangers in this part of the town, Miss Abbey. They are +waiting till I shall want the gentleman to show himself somewhere, for +half a moment.’ + +‘While they’re waiting,’ said Miss Abbey, ‘couldn’t you join us?’ + +Mr Inspector immediately slipped into the bar, and sat down at the side +of the half-door, with his back towards the passage, and directly facing +the two guests. ‘I don’t take my supper till later in the night,’ said +he, ‘and therefore I won’t disturb the compactness of the table. But +I’ll take a glass of flip, if that’s flip in the jug in the fender.’ + +‘That’s flip,’ replied Miss Abbey, ‘and it’s my making, and if even you +can find out better, I shall be glad to know where.’ Filling him, with +hospitable hands, a steaming tumbler, Miss Abbey replaced the jug by +the fire; the company not having yet arrived at the flip-stage of their +supper, but being as yet skirmishing with strong ale. + +‘Ah—h!’ cried Mr Inspector. ‘That’s the smack! There’s not a Detective +in the Force, Miss Abbey, that could find out better stuff than that.’ + +‘Glad to hear you say so,’ rejoined Miss Abbey. ‘You ought to know, if +anybody does.’ + +‘Mr Job Potterson,’ Mr Inspector continued, ‘I drink your health. Mr +Jacob Kibble, I drink yours. Hope you have made a prosperous voyage +home, gentlemen both.’ + +Mr Kibble, an unctuous broad man of few words and many mouthfuls, said, +more briefly than pointedly, raising his ale to his lips: ‘Same to you.’ +Mr Job Potterson, a semi-seafaring man of obliging demeanour, said, +‘Thank you, sir.’ + +‘Lord bless my soul and body!’ cried Mr Inspector. ‘Talk of trades, Miss +Abbey, and the way they set their marks on men’ (a subject which nobody +had approached); ‘who wouldn’t know your brother to be a Steward! +There’s a bright and ready twinkle in his eye, there’s a neatness in his +action, there’s a smartness in his figure, there’s an air of reliability +about him in case you wanted a basin, which points out the steward! And +Mr Kibble; ain’t he Passenger, all over? While there’s that mercantile +cut upon him which would make you happy to give him credit for five +hundred pound, don’t you see the salt sea shining on him too?’ + +‘YOU do, I dare say,’ returned Miss Abbey, ‘but I don’t. And as for +stewarding, I think it’s time my brother gave that up, and took his +House in hand on his sister’s retiring. The House will go to pieces if +he don’t. I wouldn’t sell it for any money that could be told out, to a +person that I couldn’t depend upon to be a Law to the Porters, as I have +been.’ + +‘There you’re right, Miss,’ said Mr Inspector. ‘A better kept house is +not known to our men. What do I say? Half so well a kept house is not +known to our men. Show the Force the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, +and the Force—to a constable—will show you a piece of perfection, Mr +Kibble.’ + +That gentleman, with a very serious shake of his head, subscribed the +article. + +‘And talk of Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal at rustic +sports with its tail soaped,’ said Mr Inspector (again, a subject which +nobody had approached); ‘why, well you may. Well you may. How has it +slipped by us, since the time when Mr Job Potterson here present, Mr +Jacob Kibble here present, and an Officer of the Force here present, +first came together on a matter of Identification!’ + +Bella’s husband stepped softly to the half-door of the bar, and stood +there. + +‘How has Time slipped by us,’ Mr Inspector went on slowly, with his eyes +narrowly observant of the two guests, ‘since we three very men, at an +Inquest in this very house—Mr Kibble? Taken ill, sir?’ + +Mr Kibble had staggered up, with his lower jaw dropped, catching +Potterson by the shoulder, and pointing to the half-door. He now cried +out: ‘Potterson! Look! Look there!’ Potterson started up, started back, +and exclaimed: ‘Heaven defend us, what’s that!’ Bella’s husband stepped +back to Bella, took her in his arms (for she was terrified by the +unintelligible terror of the two men), and shut the door of the little +room. A hurry of voices succeeded, in which Mr Inspector’s voice was +busiest; it gradually slackened and sank; and Mr Inspector reappeared. +‘Sharp’s the word, sir!’ he said, looking in with a knowing wink. ‘We’ll +get your lady out at once.’ Immediately, Bella and her husband were +under the stars, making their way back, alone, to the vehicle they had +kept in waiting. + +All this was most extraordinary, and Bella could make nothing of it but +that John was in the right. How in the right, and how suspected of being +in the wrong, she could not divine. Some vague idea that he had never +really assumed the name of Handford, and that there was a remarkable +likeness between him and that mysterious person, was her nearest +approach to any definite explanation. But John was triumphant; that much +was made apparent; and she could wait for the rest. + +When John came home to dinner next day, he said, sitting down on the +sofa by Bella and baby-Bella: ‘My dear, I have a piece of news to tell +you. I have left the China House.’ + +As he seemed to like having left it, Bella took it for granted that +there was no misfortune in the case. + +‘In a word, my love,’ said John, ‘the China House is broken up and +abolished. There is no such thing any more.’ + +‘Then, are you already in another House, John?’ + +‘Yes, my darling. I am in another way of business. And I am rather +better off.’ + +The inexhaustible baby was instantly made to congratulate him, and +to say, with appropriate action on the part of a very limp arm and a +speckled fist: ‘Three cheers, ladies and gemplemorums. Hoo—ray!’ + +‘I am afraid, my life,’ said John, ‘that you have become very much +attached to this cottage?’ + +‘Afraid I have, John? Of course I have.’ + +‘The reason why I said afraid,’ returned John, ‘is, because we must +move.’ + +‘O John!’ + +‘Yes, my dear, we must move. We must have our head-quarters in London +now. In short, there’s a dwelling-house rent-free, attached to my new +position, and we must occupy it.’ + +‘That’s a gain, John.’ + +‘Yes, my dear, it is undoubtedly a gain.’ + +He gave her a very blithe look, and a very sly look. Which occasioned +the inexhaustible baby to square at him with the speckled fists, and +demand in a threatening manner what he meant? + +‘My love, you said it was a gain, and I said it was a gain. A very +innocent remark, surely.’ + +‘I won’t,’ said the inexhaustible baby, +‘—allow—you—to—make—game—of—my—venerable—Ma.’ At each division +administering a soft facer with one of the speckled fists. + +John having stooped down to receive these punishing visitations, Bella +asked him, would it be necessary to move soon? Why yes, indeed (said +John), he did propose that they should move very soon. Taking the +furniture with them, of course? (said Bella). Why, no (said John), the +fact was, that the house was—in a sort of a kind of a way—furnished +already. + +The inexhaustible baby, hearing this, resumed the offensive, and said: +‘But there’s no nursery for me, sir. What do you mean, marble-hearted +parent?’ To which the marble-hearted parent rejoined that there was +a—sort of a kind of a—nursery, and it might be ‘made to do’. ‘Made to +do?’ returned the Inexhaustible, administering more punishment, ‘what do +you take me for?’ And was then turned over on its back in Bella’s lap, +and smothered with kisses. + +‘But really, John dear,’ said Bella, flushed in quite a lovely manner +by these exercises, ‘will the new house, just as it stands, do for baby? +That’s the question.’ + +‘I felt that to be the question,’ he returned, ‘and therefore I arranged +that you should come with me and look at it, to-morrow morning.’ +Appointment made, accordingly, for Bella to go up with him to-morrow +morning; John kissed; and Bella delighted. + +When they reached London in pursuance of their little plan, they took +coach and drove westward. Not only drove westward, but drove into that +particular westward division, which Bella had seen last when she turned +her face from Mr Boffin’s door. Not only drove into that particular +division, but drove at last into that very street. Not only drove into +that very street, but stopped at last at that very house. + +‘John dear!’ cried Bella, looking out of window in a flutter. ‘Do you +see where we are?’ + +‘Yes, my love. The coachman’s quite right.’ + +The house-door was opened without any knocking or ringing, and John +promptly helped her out. The servant who stood holding the door, asked +no question of John, neither did he go before them or follow them as +they went straight up-stairs. It was only her husband’s encircling arm, +urging her on, that prevented Bella from stopping at the foot of the +staircase. As they ascended, it was seen to be tastefully ornamented +with most beautiful flowers. + +‘O John!’ said Bella, faintly. ‘What does this mean?’ + +‘Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on.’ + +Going on a little higher, they came to a charming aviary, in which a +number of tropical birds, more gorgeous in colour than the flowers, +were flying about; and among those birds were gold and silver fish, and +mosses, and water-lilies, and a fountain, and all manner of wonders. + +‘O my dear John!’ said Bella. ‘What does this mean?’ + +‘Nothing, my darling, nothing. Let us go on.’ + +They went on, until they came to a door. As John put out his hand to +open it, Bella caught his hand. + +‘I don’t know what it means, but it’s too much for me. Hold me, John, +love.’ + +John caught her up in his arm, and lightly dashed into the room with +her. + +Behold Mr and Mrs Boffin, beaming! Behold Mrs Boffin clapping her hands +in an ecstacy, running to Bella with tears of joy pouring down her +comely face, and folding her to her breast, with the words: ‘My deary +deary, deary girl, that Noddy and me saw married and couldn’t wish joy +to, or so much as speak to! My deary, deary, deary, wife of John and +mother of his little child! My loving loving, bright bright, Pretty +Pretty! Welcome to your house and home, my deary!’ + + + + +Chapter 13 + +SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST + + +In all the first bewilderment of her wonder, the most bewilderingly +wonderful thing to Bella was the shining countenance of Mr Boffin. That +his wife should be joyous, open-hearted, and genial, or that her face +should express every quality that was large and trusting, and no quality +that was little or mean, was accordant with Bella’s experience. But, +that he, with a perfectly beneficent air and a plump rosy face, should +be standing there, looking at her and John, like some jovial good +spirit, was marvellous. For, how had he looked when she last saw him in +that very room (it was the room in which she had given him that piece of +her mind at parting), and what had become of all those crooked lines of +suspicion, avarice, and distrust, that twisted his visage then? + +Mrs Boffin seated Bella on the large ottoman, and seated herself beside +her, and John her husband seated himself on the other side of her, and +Mr Boffin stood beaming at every one and everything he could see, with +surpassing jollity and enjoyment. Mrs Boffin was then taken with a +laughing fit of clapping her hands, and clapping her knees, and rocking +herself to and fro, and then with another laughing fit of embracing +Bella, and rocking her to and fro—both fits, of considerable duration. + +‘Old lady, old lady,’ said Mr Boffin, at length; ‘if you don’t begin +somebody else must.’ + +‘I’m a going to begin, Noddy, my dear,’ returned Mrs Boffin. ‘Only it +isn’t easy for a person to know where to begin, when a person is in this +state of delight and happiness. Bella, my dear. Tell me, who’s this?’ + +‘Who is this?’ repeated Bella. ‘My husband.’ + +‘Ah! But tell me his name, deary!’ cried Mrs Boffin. + +‘Rokesmith.’ + +‘No, it ain’t!’ cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, and shaking her +head. ‘Not a bit of it.’ + +‘Handford then,’ suggested Bella. + +‘No, it ain’t!’ cried Mrs Boffin, again clapping her hands and shaking +her head. ‘Not a bit of it.’ + +‘At least, his name is John, I suppose?’ said Bella. + +‘Ah! I should think so, deary!’ cried Mrs Boffin. ‘I should hope so! +Many and many is the time I have called him by his name of John. But +what’s his other name, his true other name? Give a guess, my pretty!’ + +‘I can’t guess,’ said Bella, turning her pale face from one to another. + +‘I could,’ cried Mrs Boffin, ‘and what’s more, I did! I found him out, +all in a flash as I may say, one night. Didn’t I, Noddy?’ + +‘Ay! That the old lady did!’ said Mr Boffin, with stout pride in the +circumstance. + +‘Harkee to me, deary,’ pursued Mrs Boffin, taking Bella’s hands between +her own, and gently beating on them from time to time. ‘It was after a +particular night when John had been disappointed—as he thought—in +his affections. It was after a night when John had made an offer to a +certain young lady, and the certain young lady had refused it. It was +after a particular night, when he felt himself cast-away-like, and had +made up his mind to go seek his fortune. It was the very next night. My +Noddy wanted a paper out of his Secretary’s room, and I says to Noddy, +“I am going by the door, and I’ll ask him for it.” I tapped at his door, +and he didn’t hear me. I looked in, and saw him a sitting lonely by his +fire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up with a pleased kind of +smile in my company when he saw me, and then in a single moment every +grain of the gunpowder that had been lying sprinkled thick about him +ever since I first set eyes upon him as a man at the Bower, took fire! +Too many a time had I seen him sitting lonely, when he was a poor child, +to be pitied, heart and hand! Too many a time had I seen him in need of +being brightened up with a comforting word! Too many and too many a time +to be mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last! No, no! I just +makes out to cry, “I know you now! You’re John!” And he catches me as +I drops.—So what,’ says Mrs Boffin, breaking off in the rush of her +speech to smile most radiantly, ‘might you think by this time that your +husband’s name was, dear?’ + +‘Not,’ returned Bella, with quivering lips; ‘not Harmon? That’s not +possible?’ + +‘Don’t tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things are +possible?’ demanded Mrs Boffin, in a soothing tone. + +‘He was killed,’ gasped Bella. + +‘Thought to be,’ said Mrs Boffin. ‘But if ever John Harmon drew the +breath of life on earth, that is certainly John Harmon’s arm round your +waist now, my pretty. If ever John Harmon had a wife on earth, that wife +is certainly you. If ever John Harmon and his wife had a child on earth, +that child is certainly this.’ + +By a master-stroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible baby here +appeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by invisible agency. Mrs +Boffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella’s lap, where both Mrs and Mr +Boffin (as the saying is) ‘took it out of’ the Inexhaustible in a shower +of caresses. It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella from +swooning. This, and her husband’s earnestness in explaining further to +her how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, and +had even been suspected of his own murder; also, how he had put a pious +fraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its +disclosure approached, lest she might not make full allowance for +the object with which it had originated, and in which it had fully +developed. + +‘But bless ye, my beauty!’ cried Mrs Boffin, taking him up short at this +point, with another hearty clap of her hands. ‘It wasn’t John only that +was in it. We was all of us in it.’ + +‘I don’t,’ said Bella, looking vacantly from one to another, ‘yet +understand—’ + +‘Of course you don’t, my deary,’ exclaimed Mrs Boffin. ‘How can you till +you’re told! So now I am a going to tell you. So you put your two hands +between my two hands again,’ cried the comfortable creature, embracing +her, ‘with that blessed little picter lying on your lap, and you shall +be told all the story. Now, I’m a going to tell the story. Once, twice, +three times, and the horses is off. Here they go! When I cries out that +night, “I know you now, you’re John!”—which was my exact words; wasn’t +they, John?’ + +‘Your exact words,’ said John, laying his hand on hers. + +‘That’s a very good arrangement,’ cried Mrs Boffin. ‘Keep it there, +John. And as we was all of us in it, Noddy you come and lay yours a top +of his, and we won’t break the pile till the story’s done.’ + +Mr Boffin hitched up a chair, and added his broad brown right hand to +the heap. + +‘That’s capital!’ said Mrs Boffin, giving it a kiss. ‘Seems quite a +family building; don’t it? But the horses is off. Well! When I cries +out that night, “I know you now! you’re John!” John catches of me, it +is true; but I ain’t a light weight, bless ye, and he’s forced to let me +down. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in he trots, and as soon as I anyways +comes to myself I calls to him, “Noddy, well I might say as I did say, +that night at the Bower, for the Lord be thankful this is John!” On +which he gives a heave, and down he goes likewise, with his head under +the writing-table. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings him +round comfortable, and then John and him and me we all fall a crying for +joy.’ + +‘Yes! They cry for joy, my darling,’ her husband struck in. ‘You +understand? These two, whom I come to life to disappoint and dispossess, +cry for joy!’ + +Bella looked at him confusedly, and looked again at Mrs Boffin’s radiant +face. + +‘That’s right, my dear, don’t you mind him,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘stick +to me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually gets cool, and holds a +confabulation. John, he tells us how he is despairing in his mind on +accounts of a certain fair young person, and how, if I hadn’t found him +out, he was going away to seek his fortune far and wide, and had fully +meant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our wrongful +inheritance for ever and a day. At which you never see a man so +frightened as my Noddy was. For to think that he should have come into +the property wrongful, however innocent, and—more than that—might have +gone on keeping it to his dying day, turned him whiter than chalk.’ + +‘And you too,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘Don’t you mind him, neither, my deary,’ resumed Mrs Boffin; ‘stick +to me. This brings up a confabulation regarding the certain fair young +person; when Noddy he gives it as his opinion that she is a deary +creetur. “She may be a leetle spoilt, and nat’rally spoilt,” he says, +“by circumstances, but that’s only the surface, and I lay my life,” he +says, “that she’s the true golden gold at heart.”’ + +‘So did you,’ said Mr Boffin. + +‘Don’t you mind him a single morsel, my dear,’ proceeded Mrs Boffin, +‘but stick to me. Then says John, O, if he could but prove so! Then we +both of us ups and says, that minute, “Prove so!”’ + +With a start, Bella directed a hurried glance towards Mr Boffin. But, +he was sitting thoughtfully smiling at that broad brown hand of his, and +either didn’t see it, or would take no notice of it. + +‘“Prove it, John!” we says,’ repeated Mrs Boffin. ‘“Prove it and +overcome your doubts with triumph, and be happy for the first time in +your life, and for the rest of your life.” This puts John in a state, +to be sure. Then we says, “What will content you? If she was to stand up +for you when you was slighted, if she was to show herself of a generous +mind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to you when you was +poorest and friendliest, and all this against her own seeming interest, +how would that do?” “Do?” says John, “it would raise me to the skies.” + “Then,” says my Noddy, “make your preparations for the ascent, John, it +being my firm belief that up you go!”’ + +Bella caught Mr Boffin’s twinkling eye for half an instant; but he got +it away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand. + +‘From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy’s,’ said +Mrs Boffin, shaking her head. ‘O you were! And if I had been inclined +to be jealous, I don’t know what I mightn’t have done to you. But as I +wasn’t—why, my beauty,’ with a hearty laugh and an embrace, ‘I made you +a special favourite of my own too. But the horses is coming round the +corner. Well! Then says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit to +make ’em ache again: “Look out for being slighted and oppressed, John, +for if ever a man had a hard master, you shall find me from this present +time to be such to you.” And then he began!’ cried Mrs Boffin, in an +ecstacy of admiration. ‘Lord bless you, then he began! And how he DID +begin; didn’t he!’ + +Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed. + +‘But, bless you,’ pursued Mrs Boffin, ‘if you could have seen him of a +night, at that time of it! The way he’d sit and chuckle over himself! +The way he’d say “I’ve been a regular brown bear to-day,” and take +himself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had +pretended. But every night he says to me: “Better and better, old lady. +What did we say of her? She’ll come through it, the true golden gold. +This’ll be the happiest piece of work we ever done.” And then he’d say, +“I’ll be a grislier old growler to-morrow!” and laugh, he would, till +John and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his +windpipes with a little water.’ + +Mr Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound, +but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were vastly +enjoying himself. + +‘And so, my good and pretty,’ pursued Mrs Boffin, ‘you was married, and +there was we hid up in the church-organ by this husband of yours; for +he wouldn’t let us out with it then, as was first meant. “No,” he says, +“she’s so unselfish and contented, that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I +must wait a little longer.” Then, when baby was expected, he says, “She +is such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can’t afford to be rich +yet. I must wait a little longer.” Then when baby was born, he says, +“She is so much better than she ever was, that I can’t afford to be rich +yet. I must wait a little longer.” And so he goes on and on, till I says +outright, “Now, John, if you don’t fix a time for setting her up in her +own house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I’ll turn Informer.” + Then he says he’ll only wait to triumph beyond what we ever thought +possible, and to show her to us better than even we ever supposed; and +he says, “She shall see me under suspicion of having murdered myself, +and YOU shall see how trusting and how true she’ll be.” Well! Noddy and +me agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses is +in, and the story is done, and God bless you my Beauty, and God bless us +all!’ + +The pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs Boffin took a good long +hug of one another: to the apparent peril of the inexhaustible baby, +lying staring in Bella’s lap. + +‘But IS the story done?’ said Bella, pondering. ‘Is there no more of +it?’ + +‘What more of it should there be, deary?’ returned Mrs Boffin, full of +glee. + +‘Are you sure you have left nothing out of it?’ asked Bella. + +‘I don’t think I have,’ said Mrs Boffin, archly. + +‘John dear,’ said Bella, ‘you’re a good nurse; will you please hold +baby?’ Having deposited the Inexhaustible in his arms with those words, +Bella looked hard at Mr Boffin, who had moved to a table where he was +leaning his head upon his hand with his face turned away, and, quietly +settling herself on her knees at his side, and drawing one arm over his +shoulder, said: ‘Please I beg your pardon, and I made a small mistake of +a word when I took leave of you last. Please I think you are better (not +worse) than Hopkins, better (not worse) than Dancer, better (not worse) +than Blackberry Jones, better (not worse) than any of them! Please +something more!’ cried Bella, with an exultant ringing laugh as she +struggled with him and forced him to turn his delighted face to hers. +‘Please I have found out something not yet mentioned. Please I don’t +believe you are a hard-hearted miser at all, and please I don’t believe +you ever for one single minute were!’ + +At this, Mrs Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat beating her +feet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and bobbing herself backwards +and forwards, like a demented member of some Mandarin’s family. + +‘O, I understand you now, sir!’ cried Bella. ‘I want neither you nor any +one else to tell me the rest of the story. I can tell it to YOU, now, if +you would like to hear it.’ + +‘Can you, my dear?’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Tell it then.’ + +‘What?’ cried Bella, holding him prisoner by the coat with both hands. +‘When you saw what a greedy little wretch you were the patron of, you +determined to show her how much misused and misprized riches could +do, and often had done, to spoil people; did you? Not caring what she +thought of you (and Goodness knows THAT was of no consequence!) you +showed her, in yourself, the most detestable sides of wealth, saying in +your own mind, “This shallow creature would never work the truth out of +her own weak soul, if she had a hundred years to do it in; but a glaring +instance kept before her may open even her eyes and set her thinking.” + That was what you said to yourself, was it, sir?’ + +‘I never said anything of the sort,’ Mr Boffin declared in a state of +the highest enjoyment. + +‘Then you ought to have said it, sir,’ returned Bella, giving him two +pulls and one kiss, ‘for you must have thought and meant it. You saw +that good fortune was turning my stupid head and hardening my silly +heart—was making me grasping, calculating, insolent, insufferable—and +you took the pains to be the dearest and kindest fingerpost that ever +was set up anywhere, pointing out the road that I was taking and the end +it led to. Confess instantly!’ + +‘John,’ said Mr Boffin, one broad piece of sunshine from head to foot, +‘I wish you’d help me out of this.’ + +‘You can’t be heard by counsel, sir,’ returned Bella. ‘You must speak +for yourself. Confess instantly!’ + +‘Well, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘the truth is, that when we did go in +for the little scheme that my old lady has pinted out, I did put it to +John, what did he think of going in for some such general scheme as YOU +have pinted out? But I didn’t in any way so word it, because I didn’t in +any way so mean it. I only said to John, wouldn’t it be more consistent, +me going in for being a reg’lar brown bear respecting him, to go in as a +reg’lar brown bear all round?’ + +‘Confess this minute, sir,’ said Bella, ‘that you did it to correct and +amend me!’ + +‘Certainly, my dear child,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘I didn’t do it to harm you; +you may be sure of that. And I did hope it might just hint a caution. +Still, it ought to be mentioned that no sooner had my old lady found out +John, than John made known to her and me that he had had his eye upon a +thankless person by the name of Silas Wegg. Partly for the punishment of +which Wegg, by leading him on in a very unhandsome and underhanded +game that he was playing, them books that you and me bought so many +of together (and, by-the-by, my dear, he wasn’t Blackberry Jones, but +Blewberry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name of Silas Wegg +aforesaid.’ + +Bella, who was still on her knees at Mr Boffin’s feet, gradually sank +down into a sitting posture on the ground, as she meditated more and +more thoughtfully, with her eyes upon his beaming face. + +‘Still,’ said Bella, after this meditative pause, ‘there remain two +things that I cannot understand. Mrs Boffin never supposed any part of +the change in Mr Boffin to be real; did she?—You never did; did you?’ +asked Bella, turning to her. + +‘No!’ returned Mrs Boffin, with a most rotund and glowing negative. + +‘And yet you took it very much to heart,’ said Bella. ‘I remember its +making you very uneasy, indeed.’ + +‘Ecod, you see Mrs John has a sharp eye, John!’ cried Mr Boffin, shaking +his head with an admiring air. ‘You’re right, my dear. The old lady +nearly blowed us into shivers and smithers, many times.’ + +‘Why?’ asked Bella. ‘How did that happen, when she was in your secret?’ + +‘Why, it was a weakness in the old lady,’ said Mr Boffin; ‘and yet, to +tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I’m rather proud of +it. My dear, the old lady thinks so high of me that she couldn’t abear +to see and hear me coming out as a reg’lar brown one. Couldn’t abear +to make-believe as I meant it! In consequence of which, we was +everlastingly in danger with her.’ + +Mrs Boffin laughed heartily at herself; but a certain glistening in her +honest eyes revealed that she was by no means cured of that dangerous +propensity. + +‘I assure you, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘that on the celebrated +day when I made what has since been agreed upon to be my grandest +demonstration—I allude to Mew says the cat, Quack quack says the +duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog—I assure you, my dear, that on that +celebrated day, them flinty and unbelieving words hit my old lady so hard +on my account, that I had to hold her, to prevent her running out after +you, and defending me by saying I was playing a part.’ + +Mrs Boffin laughed heartily again, and her eyes glistened again, and +it then appeared, not only that in that burst of sarcastic eloquence +Mr Boffin was considered by his two fellow-conspirators to have outdone +himself, but that in his own opinion it was a remarkable achievement. +‘Never thought of it afore the moment, my dear!’ he observed to Bella. +‘When John said, if he had been so happy as to win your affections and +possess your heart, it come into my head to turn round upon him with +“Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack quack +says the duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog.” I couldn’t tell you how +it come into my head or where from, but it had so much the sound of a +rasper that I own to you it astonished myself. I was awful nigh bursting +out a laughing though, when it made John stare!’ + +‘You said, my pretty,’ Mrs Boffin reminded Bella, ‘that there was one +other thing you couldn’t understand.’ + +‘O yes!’ cried Bella, covering her face with her hands; ‘but that I +never shall be able to understand as long as I live. It is, how John +could love me so when I so little deserved it, and how you, Mr and Mrs +Boffin, could be so forgetful of yourselves, and take such pains and +trouble, to make me a little better, and after all to help him to so +unworthy a wife. But I am very very grateful.’ + +It was John Harmon’s turn then—John Harmon now for good, and John +Rokesmith for nevermore—to plead with her (quite unnecessarily) in +behalf of his deception, and to tell her, over and over again, that it +had been prolonged by her own winning graces in her supposed station of +life. This led on to many interchanges of endearment and enjoyment +on all sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observed +staring, in a most imbecile manner, on Mrs Boffin’s breast, was +pronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the whole transaction, +and was made to declare to the ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave of +the speckled fist (with difficulty detached from an exceedingly short +waist), ‘I have already informed my venerable Ma that I know all about +it!’ + +Then, said John Harmon, would Mrs John Harmon come and see her house? +And a dainty house it was, and a tastefully beautiful; and they went +through it in procession; the Inexhaustible on Mrs Boffin’s bosom (still +staring) occupying the middle station, and Mr Boffin bringing up the +rear. And on Bella’s exquisite toilette table was an ivory casket, and +in the casket were jewels the like of which she had never dreamed of, +and aloft on an upper floor was a nursery garnished as with rainbows; +‘though we were hard put to it,’ said John Harmon, ‘to get it done in so +short a time.’ + +The house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, who was +shortly afterwards heard screaming among the rainbows; whereupon Bella +withdrew herself from the presence and knowledge of gemplemorums, and +the screaming ceased, and smiling Peace associated herself with that +young olive branch. + +‘Come and look in, Noddy!’ said Mrs Boffin to Mr Boffin. + +Mr Boffin, submitting to be led on tiptoe to the nursery door, looked in +with immense satisfaction, although there was nothing to see but Bella +in a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low chair upon the +hearth, with her child in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashes +shading her eyes from the fire. + +‘It looks as if the old man’s spirit had found rest at last; don’t it?’ +said Mrs Boffin. + +‘Yes, old lady.’ + +‘And as if his money had turned bright again, after a long long rust in +the dark, and was at last a beginning to sparkle in the sunlight?’ + +‘Yes, old lady.’ + +‘And it makes a pretty and a promising picter; don’t it?’ + +‘Yes, old lady.’ + +But, aware at the instant of a fine opening for a point, Mr Boffin +quenched that observation in this—delivered in the grisliest growling +of the regular brown bear. ‘A pretty and a hopeful picter? Mew, +Quack quack, Bow-wow!’ And then trotted silently downstairs, with his +shoulders in a state of the liveliest commotion. + + + + +Chapter 14 + +CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE + + +Mr and Mrs John Harmon had so timed their taking possession of their +rightful name and their London house, that the event befell on the +very day when the last waggon-load of the last Mound was driven out +at the gates of Boffin’s Bower. As it jolted away, Mr Wegg felt that +the last load was correspondingly removed from his mind, and hailed +the auspicious season when that black sheep, Boffin, was to be closely +sheared. + +Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas had kept +watch with rapacious eyes. But, eyes no less rapacious had watched the +growth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dust +of which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should there +be any, seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined every +waif and stray into money, long before? + +Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr Wegg felt too sensibly +relieved by the close of the labour, to grumble to any great extent. +A foreman-representative of the dust contractors, purchasers of the +Mounds, had worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor of the +proceedings, asserting his employers’ rights to cart off by daylight, +nightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death of +Silas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep +himself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat +and velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and +untimely hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day’s work +in fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing, +when a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce an +approaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, to fall to +work again. At another time, he would be rumbled up out of his soundest +sleep, in the dead of the night; at another, would be kept at his post +eight-and-forty hours on end. The more his persecutor besought him not +to trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Wegg +that indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, and +that attempts were on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was +his rest through these means, that he led the life of having wagered +to keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked +piteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed. +So gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden leg showed +disproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance in contrast +with the rest of his plagued body, which might almost have been termed +chubby. + +However, Wegg’s comfort was, that all his disagreeables were now over, +and that he was immediately coming into his property. Of late, the +grindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling at his own nose +rather than Boffin’s, but Boffin’s nose was now to be sharpened fine. +Thus far, Mr Wegg had let his dusty friend off lightly, having been +baulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with him, by the +machinations of the sleepless dustman. He had been constrained to depute +Mr Venus to keep their dusty friend, Boffin, under inspection, while he +himself turned lank and lean at the Bower. + +To Mr Venus’s museum Mr Wegg repaired when at length the Mounds +were down and gone. It being evening, he found that gentleman, as he +expected, seated over his fire; but did not find him, as he expected, +floating his powerful mind in tea. + +‘Why, you smell rather comfortable here!’ said Wegg, seeming to take it +ill, and stopping and sniffing as he entered. + +‘I AM rather comfortable, sir,’ said Venus. + +‘You don’t use lemon in your business, do you?’ asked Wegg, sniffing +again. + +‘No, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus. ‘When I use it at all, I mostly use it in +cobblers’ punch.’ + +‘What do you call cobblers’ punch?’ demanded Wegg, in a worse humour +than before. + +‘It’s difficult to impart the receipt for it, sir,’ returned Venus, +‘because, however particular you may be in allotting your materials, +so much will still depend upon the individual gifts, and there being a +feeling thrown into it. But the groundwork is gin.’ + +‘In a Dutch bottle?’ said Wegg gloomily, as he sat himself down. + +‘Very good, sir, very good!’ cried Venus. ‘Will you partake, sir?’ + +‘Will I partake?’ returned Wegg very surlily. ‘Why, of course I will! +WILL a man partake, as has been tormented out of his five senses by +an everlasting dustman with his head tied up! WILL he, too! As if he +wouldn’t!’ + +‘Don’t let it put you out, Mr Wegg. You don’t seem in your usual +spirits.’ + +‘If you come to that, you don’t seem in your usual spirits,’ growled +Wegg. ‘You seem to be setting up for lively.’ + +This circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to give Mr Wegg +uncommon offence. + +‘And you’ve been having your hair cut!’ said Wegg, missing the usual +dusty shock. + +‘Yes, Mr Wegg. But don’t let that put you out, either.’ + +‘And I am blest if you ain’t getting fat!’ said Wegg, with culminating +discontent. ‘What are you going to do next?’ + +‘Well, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, smiling in a sprightly manner, ‘I suspect +you could hardly guess what I am going to do next.’ + +‘I don’t want to guess,’ retorted Wegg. ‘All I’ve got to say is, that +it’s well for you that the diwision of labour has been what it has been. +It’s well for you to have had so light a part in this business, when +mine has been so heavy. You haven’t had YOUR rest broke, I’ll be bound.’ + +‘Not at all, sir,’ said Venus. ‘Never rested so well in all my life, I +thank you.’ + +‘Ah!’ grumbled Wegg, ‘you should have been me. If you had been me, and +had been fretted out of your bed, and your sleep, and your meals, and +your mind, for a stretch of months together, you’d have been out of +condition and out of sorts.’ + +‘Certainly, it has trained you down, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, contemplating +his figure with an artist’s eye. ‘Trained you down very low, it has! So +weazen and yellow is the kivering upon your bones, that one might almost +fancy you had come to give a look-in upon the French gentleman in the +corner, instead of me.’ + +Mr Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gentleman’s +corner, seemed to notice something new there, which induced him to +glance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his glasses and stare +at all the nooks and corners of the dim shop in succession. + +‘Why, you’ve been having the place cleaned up!’ he exclaimed. + +‘Yes, Mr Wegg. By the hand of adorable woman.’ + +‘Then what you’re going to do next, I suppose, is to get married?’ + +‘That’s it, sir.’ + +Silas took off his glasses again—finding himself too intensely +disgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend and partner to bear +a magnified view of him and made the inquiry: + +‘To the old party?’ + +‘Mr Wegg!’ said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. ‘The lady in +question is not a old party.’ + +‘I meant,’ exclaimed Wegg, testily, ‘to the party as formerly objected?’ + +‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘in a case of so much delicacy, I must trouble +you to say what you mean. There are strings that must not be played +upon. No sir! Not sounded, unless in the most respectful and tuneful +manner. Of such melodious strings is Miss Pleasant Riderhood formed.’ + +‘Then it IS the lady as formerly objected?’ said Wegg. + +‘Sir,’ returned Venus with dignity, ‘I accept the altered phrase. It is +the lady as formerly objected.’ + +‘When is it to come off?’ asked Silas. + +‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, with another flush. ‘I cannot permit it to be +put in the form of a Fight. I must temperately but firmly call upon you, +sir, to amend that question.’ + +‘When is the lady,’ Wegg reluctantly demanded, constraining his ill +temper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in trade, ‘a +going to give her ’and where she has already given her ’art?’ + +‘Sir,’ returned Venus, ‘I again accept the altered phrase, and with +pleasure. The lady is a going to give her ’and where she has already +given her ’art, next Monday.’ + +‘Then the lady’s objection has been met?’ said Silas. + +‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘as I did name to you, I think, on a former +occasion, if not on former occasions—’ + +‘On former occasions,’ interrupted Wegg. + +‘—What,’ pursued Venus, ‘what the nature of the lady’s objection was, I +may impart, without violating any of the tender confidences since sprung +up between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kind +interference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquainted +with the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by those two +friends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to +try if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear—the +pint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage, +I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower +animals, it might not relieve the lady’s mind of her feeling respecting +being as a lady—regarded in a bony light. It was a happy thought, sir, +and it took root.’ + +‘It would seem, Mr Venus,’ observed Wegg, with a touch of distrust, +‘that you are flush of friends?’ + +‘Pretty well, sir,’ that gentleman answered, in a tone of placid +mystery. ‘So-so, sir. Pretty well.’ + +‘However,’ said Wegg, after eyeing him with another touch of distrust, +‘I wish you joy. One man spends his fortune in one way, and another in +another. You are going to try matrimony. I mean to try travelling.’ + +‘Indeed, Mr Wegg?’ + +‘Change of air, sea-scenery, and my natural rest, I hope may bring me +round after the persecutions I have undergone from the dustman with his +head tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended and +the Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten +to-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing Boffin’s nose +to the grindstone?’ + +Ten to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr Venus for that excellent +purpose. + +‘You have had him well under inspection, I hope?’ said Silas. + +Mr Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every day. + +‘Suppose you was just to step round to-night then, and give him orders +from me—I say from me, because he knows I won’t be played with—to be +ready with his papers, his accounts, and his cash, at that time in the +morning?’ said Wegg. ‘And as a matter of form, which will be agreeable +to your own feelings, before we go out (for I’ll walk with you part of +the way, though my leg gives under me with weariness), let’s have a look +at the stock in trade.’ + +Mr Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr Venus undertook +to produce it again in the morning, and to keep tryst with Mr Wegg on +Boffin’s doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a certain point of the +road between Clerkenwell and Boffin’s house (Mr Wegg expressly insisted +that there should be no prefix to the Golden Dustman’s name) the +partners separated for the night. + +It was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad morning. The +streets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and miserable, in the morning, +that Wegg rode to the scene of action; arguing that a man who was, as +it were, going to the Bank to draw out a handsome property, could well +afford that trifling expense. + +Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, and conduct +the conference. Door knocked at. Door opened. + +‘Boffin at home?’ + +The servant replied that MR Boffin was at home. + +‘He’ll do,’ said Wegg, ‘though it ain’t what I call him.’ + +The servant inquired if they had any appointment? + +‘Now, I tell you what, young fellow,’ said Wegg, ‘I won’t have it. This +won’t do for me. I don’t want menials. I want Boffin.’ + +They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful Wegg wore +his hat, and whistled, and with his forefinger stirred up a clock that +stood upon the chimneypiece, until he made it strike. In a few minutes +they were shown upstairs into what used to be Boffin’s room; which, +besides the door of entrance, had folding-doors in it, to make it one +of a suite of rooms when occasion required. Here, Boffin was seated at a +library-table, and here Mr Wegg, having imperiously motioned the servant +to withdraw, drew up a chair and seated himself, in his hat, close +beside him. Here, also, Mr Wegg instantly underwent the remarkable +experience of having his hat twitched off his head and thrown out of a +window, which was opened and shut for the purpose. + +‘Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman’s +presence,’ said the owner of the hand which had done this, ‘or I will +throw you after it.’ + +Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at the +Secretary. For, it was he addressed him with a severe countenance, and +who had come in quietly by the folding-doors. + +‘Oh!’ said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended power of speech. +‘Very good! I gave directions for YOU to be dismissed. And you ain’t +gone, ain’t you? Oh! We’ll look into this presently. Very good!’ + +‘No, nor I ain’t gone,’ said another voice. + +Somebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. Turning his +head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred +with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his +tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was +Sloppy’s. + +‘Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!’ roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and with +immeasureable relish. ‘He never thought as I could sleep standing, and +often done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I used +to give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did lead +him a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and truly DID!’ +Here, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, and +throwing back his head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons. + +‘Oh!’ said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: ‘one and one +is two not dismissed, is it? Bof—fin! Just let me ask a question. Who +set this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employed +this fellow?’ + +‘I say!’ remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. ‘No fellows, or +I’ll throw you out of winder!’ + +Mr Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said: ‘I employed +him, Wegg.’ + +‘Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr Venus, we raise our terms, +and we can’t do better than proceed to business. Bof—fin! I want the +room cleared of these two scum.’ + +‘That’s not going to be done, Wegg,’ replied Mr Boffin, sitting +composedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary sat +composedly on it at the other. + +‘Bof—fin! Not going to be done?’ repeated Wegg. ‘Not at your peril?’ + +‘No, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, shaking his head good-humouredly. ‘Not at my +peril, and not on any other terms.’ + +Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: ‘Mr Venus, will you be so good +as hand me over that same dockyment?’ + +‘Certainly, sir,’ replied Venus, handing it to him with much politeness. +‘There it is. Having now, sir, parted with it, I wish to make a small +observation: not so much because it is anyways necessary, or expresses +any new doctrine or discovery, as because it is a comfort to my mind. +Silas Wegg, you are a precious old rascal.’ + +Mr Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been beating +time with the paper to the other’s politeness until this unexpected +conclusion came upon him, stopped rather abruptly. + +‘Silas Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘know that I took the liberty of taking Mr +Boffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, at a very early period of +our firm’s existence.’ + +‘Quite true,’ added Mr Boffin; ‘and I tested Venus by making him a +pretended proposal or two; and I found him on the whole a very honest +man, Wegg.’ + +‘So Mr Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say,’ Venus remarked: +‘though in the beginning of this dirt, my hands were not, for a few +hours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I made early and full +amends.’ + +‘Venus, you did,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Certainly, certainly, certainly.’ + +Venus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. ‘Thank you, sir. +I am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For your good opinion now, for +your way of receiving and encouraging me when I first put myself in +communication with you, and for the influence since so kindly brought +to bear upon a certain lady, both by yourself and by Mr John Harmon.’ To +whom, when thus making mention of him, he also bowed. + +Wegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action with sharp eyes, +and a certain cringing air was infusing itself into his bullying air, +when his attention was re-claimed by Venus. + +‘Everything else between you and me, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘now explains +itself, and you can now make out, sir, without further words from me. +But totally to prevent any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise on +what I consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the close +of our acquaintance, I beg the leave of Mr Boffin and Mr John Harmon to +repeat an observation which I have already had the pleasure of bringing +under your notice. You are a precious old rascal!’ + +‘You are a fool,’ said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, ‘and I’d have +got rid of you before now, if I could have struck out any way of doing +it. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may go, and welcome. You +leave the more for me. Because, you know,’ said Wegg, dividing his next +observation between Mr Boffin and Mr Harmon, ‘I am worth my price, and +I mean to have it. This getting off is all very well in its way, and it +tells with such an anatomical Pump as this one,’ pointing out Mr Venus, +‘but it won’t do with a Man. I am here to be bought off, and I have +named my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me.’ + +‘I’ll leave you, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, laughing, ‘as far as I am +concerned.’ + +‘Bof—fin!’ replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air, ‘I +understand YOUR new-born boldness. I see the brass underneath YOUR +silver plating. YOU have got YOUR nose out of joint. Knowing that you’ve +nothing at stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why, +you’re just so much smeary glass to see through, you know! But Mr Harmon +is in another sitiwation. What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pair +of shoes. Now, I’ve heerd something lately about this being Mr +Harmon—I make out now, some hints that I’ve met on that subject in +the newspaper—and I drop you, Bof—fin, as beneath my notice. I ask Mr +Harmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this present paper?’ + +‘It is a will of my late father’s, of more recent date than the will +proved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as you have addressed him +already, and I’ll knock you down), leaving the whole of his property +to the Crown,’ said John Harmon, with as much indifference as was +compatible with extreme sternness. + +‘Right you are!’ cried Wegg. ‘Then,’ screwing the weight of his body +upon his wooden leg, and screwing his wooden head very much on one side, +and screwing up one eye: ‘then, I put the question to you, what’s this +paper worth?’ + +‘Nothing,’ said John Harmon. + +Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on some +sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found himself +gripped by the cravat; shaken until his teeth chattered; shoved back, +staggering, into a corner of the room; and pinned there. + +‘You scoundrel!’ said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was like that of +a vice. + +‘You’re knocking my head against the wall,’ urged Silas faintly. + +‘I mean to knock your head against the wall,’ returned John Harmon, +suiting his action to his words, with the heartiest good will; ‘and I’d +give a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you +scoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle.’ + +Sloppy held it up, for his edification. + +‘That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the many +wills made by my unhappy self-tormenting father. That will gives +everything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, Mr Boffin, +excluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already dead of a broken +heart), by name. That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor and +yours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That Dutch bottle +distressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister were +both no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had +done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, +therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay +while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking—often very +near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the +light; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, +even with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. After +the discovery was made here who I was, Mr Boffin, still restless on the +subject, told me, upon certain conditions impossible for such a hound as +you to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged upon him the +necessity of its being dug up, and the paper being legally produced and +established. The first thing you saw him do, and the second thing has +been done without your knowledge. Consequently, the paper now rattling +in your hand as I shake you—and I should like to shake the life out +of you—is worth less than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do you +understand?’ + +Judging from the fallen countenance of Silas as his head wagged +backwards and forwards in a most uncomfortable manner, he did +understand. + +‘Now, scoundrel,’ said John Harmon, taking another sailor-like turn on +his cravat and holding him in his corner at arms’ length, ‘I shall make +two more short speeches to you, because I hope they will torment you. +Your discovery was a genuine discovery (such as it was), for nobody had +thought of looking into that place. Neither did we know you had made it, +until Venus spoke to Mr Boffin, though I kept you under good observation +from my first appearance here, and though Sloppy has long made it +the chief occupation and delight of his life, to attend you like your +shadow. I tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you to +persuade Mr Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded, to the last possible +moment, in order that your disappointment might be the heaviest possible +disappointment. That’s the first short speech, do you understand?’ + +Here, John Harmon assisted his comprehension with another shake. + +‘Now, scoundrel,’ he pursued, ‘I am going to finish. You supposed me +just now, to be the possessor of my father’s property.—So I am. But +through any act of my father’s, or by any right I have? No. Through the +munificence of Mr Boffin. The conditions that he made with me, before +parting with the secret of the Dutch bottle, were, that I should take +the fortune, and that he should take his Mound and no more. I owe +everything I possess, solely to the disinterestedness, uprightness, +tenderness, goodness (there are no words to satisfy me) of Mr and Mrs +Boffin. And when, knowing what I knew, I saw such a mud-worm as you +presume to rise in this house against this noble soul, the wonder is,’ +added John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with a very ugly turn +indeed on Wegg’s cravat, ‘that I didn’t try to twist your head off, +and fling THAT out of window! So. That’s the last short speech, do you +understand?’ + +Silas, released, put his hand to his throat, cleared it, and looked as +if he had a rather large fishbone in that region. Simultaneously with +this action on his part in his corner, a singular, and on the surface +an incomprehensible, movement was made by Mr Sloppy: who began backing +towards Mr Wegg along the wall, in the manner of a porter or heaver who +is about to lift a sack of flour or coals. + +‘I am sorry, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, in his clemency, ‘that my old lady +and I can’t have a better opinion of you than the bad one we are forced +to entertain. But I shouldn’t like to leave you, after all said and +done, worse off in life than I found you. Therefore say in a word, +before we part, what it’ll cost to set you up in another stall.’ + +‘And in another place,’ John Harmon struck in. ‘You don’t come outside +these windows.’ + +‘Mr Boffin,’ returned Wegg in avaricious humiliation: ‘when I first had +the honour of making your acquaintance, I had got together a collection +of ballads which was, I may say, above price.’ + +‘Then they can’t be paid for,’ said John Harmon, ‘and you had better not +try, my dear sir.’ + +‘Pardon me, Mr Boffin,’ resumed Wegg, with a malignant glance in the +last speaker’s direction, ‘I was putting the case to you, who, if my +senses did not deceive me, put the case to me. I had a very choice +collection of ballads, and there was a new stock of gingerbread in the +tin box. I say no more, but would rather leave it to you.’ + +‘But it’s difficult to name what’s right,’ said Mr Boffin uneasily, with +his hand in his pocket, ‘and I don’t want to go beyond what’s right, +because you really have turned out such a very bad fellow. So artful, +and so ungrateful you have been, Wegg; for when did I ever injure you?’ + +‘There was also,’ Mr Wegg went on, in a meditative manner, ‘a errand +connection, in which I was much respected. But I would not wish to be +deemed covetous, and I would rather leave it to you, Mr Boffin.’ + +‘Upon my word, I don’t know what to put it at,’ the Golden Dustman +muttered. + +‘There was likewise,’ resumed Wegg, ‘a pair of trestles, for which alone +a Irish person, who was deemed a judge of trestles, offered five and +six—a sum I would not hear of, for I should have lost by it—and there +was a stool, a umbrella, a clothes-horse, and a tray. But I leave it to +you, Mr Boffin.’ + +The Golden Dustman seeming to be engaged in some abstruse calculation, +Mr Wegg assisted him with the following additional items. + +‘There was, further, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle +Parker. Ah! When a man thinks of the loss of such patronage as that; +when a man finds so fair a garden rooted up by pigs; he finds it hard +indeed, without going high, to work it into money. But I leave it wholly +to you, sir.’ + +Mr Sloppy still continued his singular, and on the surface his +incomprehensible, movement. + +‘Leading on has been mentioned,’ said Wegg with a melancholy air, ‘and +it’s not easy to say how far the tone of my mind may have been lowered +by unwholesome reading on the subject of Misers, when you was leading me +and others on to think you one yourself, sir. All I can say is, that +I felt my tone of mind a lowering at the time. And how can a man put a +price upon his mind! There was likewise a hat just now. But I leave the +ole to you, Mr Boffin.’ + +‘Come!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Here’s a couple of pound.’ + +‘In justice to myself, I couldn’t take it, sir.’ + +The words were but out of his mouth when John Harmon lifted his finger, +and Sloppy, who was now close to Wegg, backed to Wegg’s back, stooped, +grasped his coat collar behind with both hands, and deftly swung him +up like the sack of flour or coals before mentioned. A countenance of +special discontent and amazement Mr Wegg exhibited in this position, +with his buttons almost as prominently on view as Sloppy’s own, and +with his wooden leg in a highly unaccommodating state. But, not for many +seconds was his countenance visible in the room; for, Sloppy lightly +trotted out with him and trotted down the staircase, Mr Venus attending +to open the street door. Mr Sloppy’s instructions had been to deposit +his burden in the road; but, a scavenger’s cart happening to stand +unattended at the corner, with its little ladder planted against the +wheel, Mr S. found it impossible to resist the temptation of shooting Mr +Silas Wegg into the cart’s contents. A somewhat difficult feat, achieved +with great dexterity, and with a prodigious splash. + + + + +Chapter 15 + +WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET + + +How Bradley Headstone had been racked and riven in his mind since the +quiet evening when by the river-side he had risen, as it were, out of +the ashes of the Bargeman, none but he could have told. Not even he +could have told, for such misery can only be felt. + +First, he had to bear the combined weight of the knowledge of what he +had done, of that haunting reproach that he might have done it so much +better, and of the dread of discovery. This was load enough to crush +him, and he laboured under it day and night. It was as heavy on him in +his scanty sleep, as in his red-eyed waking hours. It bore him down with +a dread unchanging monotony, in which there was not a moment’s variety. +The overweighted beast of burden, or the overweighted slave, can for +certain instants shift the physical load, and find some slight respite +even in enforcing additional pain upon such a set of muscles or such +a limb. Not even that poor mockery of relief could the wretched man +obtain, under the steady pressure of the infernal atmosphere into which +he had entered. + +Time went by, and no visible suspicion dogged him; time went by, and +in such public accounts of the attack as were renewed at intervals, +he began to see Mr Lightwood (who acted as lawyer for the injured man) +straying further from the fact, going wider of the issue, and evidently +slackening in his zeal. By degrees, a glimmering of the cause of this +began to break on Bradley’s sight. Then came the chance meeting with Mr +Milvey at the railway station (where he often lingered in his leisure +hours, as a place where any fresh news of his deed would be circulated, +or any placard referring to it would be posted), and then he saw in the +light what he had brought about. + +For, then he saw that through his desperate attempt to separate those +two for ever, he had been made the means of uniting them. That he had +dipped his hands in blood, to mark himself a miserable fool and tool. +That Eugene Wrayburn, for his wife’s sake, set him aside and left him to +crawl along his blasted course. He thought of Fate, or Providence, or +be the directing Power what it might, as having put a fraud upon +him—overreached him—and in his impotent mad rage bit, and tore, and +had his fit. + +New assurance of the truth came upon him in the next few following days, +when it was put forth how the wounded man had been married on his bed, +and to whom, and how, though always in a dangerous condition, he was a +shade better. Bradley would far rather have been seized for his murder, +than he would have read that passage, knowing himself spared, and +knowing why. + +But, not to be still further defrauded and overreached—which he would +be, if implicated by Riderhood, and punished by the law for his abject +failure, as though it had been a success—he kept close in his school +during the day, ventured out warily at night, and went no more to the +railway station. He examined the advertisements in the newspapers for +any sign that Riderhood acted on his hinted threat of so summoning him +to renew their acquaintance, but found none. Having paid him handsomely +for the support and accommodation he had had at the Lock House, and +knowing him to be a very ignorant man who could not write, he began to +doubt whether he was to be feared at all, or whether they need ever meet +again. + +All this time, his mind was never off the rack, and his raging sense of +having been made to fling himself across the chasm which divided those +two, and bridge it over for their coming together, never cooled down. +This horrible condition brought on other fits. He could not have said +how many, or when; but he saw in the faces of his pupils that they had +seen him in that state, and that they were possessed by a dread of his +relapsing. + +One winter day when a slight fall of snow was feathering the sills and +frames of the schoolroom windows, he stood at his black board, crayon in +hand, about to commence with a class; when, reading in the countenances +of those boys that there was something wrong, and that they seemed in +alarm for him, he turned his eyes to the door towards which they faced. +He then saw a slouching man of forbidding appearance standing in the +midst of the school, with a bundle under his arm; and saw that it was +Riderhood. + +He sat down on a stool which one of his boys put for him, and he had a +passing knowledge that he was in danger of falling, and that his face +was becoming distorted. But, the fit went off for that time, and he +wiped his mouth, and stood up again. + +‘Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave!’ said Riderhood, knuckling +his forehead, with a chuckle and a leer. ‘What place may this be?’ + +‘This is a school.’ + +‘Where young folks learns wot’s right?’ said Riderhood, gravely nodding. +‘Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave! But who teaches this school?’ + +‘I do.’ + +‘You’re the master, are you, learned governor?’ + +‘Yes. I am the master.’ + +‘And a lovely thing it must be,’ said Riderhood, ‘fur to learn young +folks wot’s right, and fur to know wot THEY know wot you do it. Beg your +pardon, learned governor! By your leave!—That there black board; wot’s +it for?’ + +‘It is for drawing on, or writing on.’ + +‘Is it though!’ said Riderhood. ‘Who’d have thought it, from the +looks on it! WOULD you be so kind as write your name upon it, learned +governor?’ (In a wheedling tone.) + +Bradley hesitated for a moment; but placed his usual signature, +enlarged, upon the board. + +‘I ain’t a learned character myself,’ said Riderhood, surveying the +class, ‘but I do admire learning in others. I should dearly like to hear +these here young folks read that there name off, from the writing.’ + +The arms of the class went up. At the miserable master’s nod, the shrill +chorus arose: ‘Bradley Headstone!’ + +‘No?’ cried Riderhood. ‘You don’t mean it? Headstone! Why, that’s in a +churchyard. Hooroar for another turn!’ + +Another tossing of arms, another nod, and another shrill chorus: + +‘Bradley Headstone!’ + +‘I’ve got it now!’ said Riderhood, after attentively listening, and +internally repeating: ‘Bradley. I see. Chris’en name, Bradley sim’lar to +Roger which is my own. Eh? Fam’ly name, Headstone, sim’lar to Riderhood +which is my own. Eh?’ + +Shrill chorus. ‘Yes!’ + +‘Might you be acquainted, learned governor,’ said Riderhood, ‘with a +person of about your own heighth and breadth, and wot ’ud pull down in +a scale about your own weight, answering to a name sounding summat like +Totherest?’ + +With a desperation in him that made him perfectly quiet, though his jaw +was heavily squared; with his eyes upon Riderhood; and with traces of +quickened breathing in his nostrils; the schoolmaster replied, in a +suppressed voice, after a pause: ‘I think I know the man you mean.’ + +‘I thought you knowed the man I mean, learned governor. I want the man.’ + +With a half glance around him at his pupils, Bradley returned: + +‘Do you suppose he is here?’ + +‘Begging your pardon, learned governor, and by your leave,’ said +Riderhood, with a laugh, ‘how could I suppose he’s here, when there’s +nobody here but you, and me, and these young lambs wot you’re a learning +on? But he is most excellent company, that man, and I want him to come +and see me at my Lock, up the river.’ + +‘I’ll tell him so.’ + +‘D’ye think he’ll come?’ asked Riderhood. + +‘I am sure he will.’ + +‘Having got your word for him,’ said Riderhood, ‘I shall count upon him. +P’raps you’d so fur obleege me, learned governor, as tell him that if he +don’t come precious soon, I’ll look him up.’ + +‘He shall know it.’ + +‘Thankee. As I says a while ago,’ pursued Riderhood, changing his hoarse +tone and leering round upon the class again, ‘though not a learned +character my own self, I do admire learning in others, to be sure! Being +here and having met with your kind attention, Master, might I, afore I +go, ask a question of these here young lambs of yourn?’ + +‘If it is in the way of school,’ said Bradley, always sustaining his +dark look at the other, and speaking in his suppressed voice, ‘you may.’ + +‘Oh! It’s in the way of school!’ cried Riderhood. ‘I’ll pound it, +Master, to be in the way of school. Wot’s the diwisions of water, my +lambs? Wot sorts of water is there on the land?’ + +Shrill chorus: ‘Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds.’ + +‘Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds,’ said Riderhood. ‘They’ve got all the +lot, Master! Blowed if I shouldn’t have left out lakes, never having +clapped eyes upon one, to my knowledge. Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds. +Wot is it, lambs, as they ketches in seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds?’ + +Shrill chorus (with some contempt for the ease of the question): + +‘Fish!’ + +‘Good a-gin!’ said Riderhood. ‘But wot else is it, my lambs, as they +sometimes ketches in rivers?’ + +Chorus at a loss. One shrill voice: ‘Weed!’ + +‘Good agin!’ cried Riderhood. ‘But it ain’t weed neither. You’ll never +guess, my dears. Wot is it, besides fish, as they sometimes ketches in +rivers? Well! I’ll tell you. It’s suits o’ clothes.’ + +Bradley’s face changed. + +‘Leastways, lambs,’ said Riderhood, observing him out of the corners +of his eyes, ‘that’s wot I my own self sometimes ketches in rivers. For +strike me blind, my lambs, if I didn’t ketch in a river the wery bundle +under my arm!’ + +The class looked at the master, as if appealing from the irregular +entrapment of this mode of examination. The master looked at the +examiner, as if he would have torn him to pieces. + +‘I ask your pardon, learned governor,’ said Riderhood, smearing his +sleeve across his mouth as he laughed with a relish, ‘tain’t fair to the +lambs, I know. It wos a bit of fun of mine. But upon my soul I drawed +this here bundle out of a river! It’s a Bargeman’s suit of clothes. You +see, it had been sunk there by the man as wore it, and I got it up.’ + +‘How do you know it was sunk by the man who wore it?’ asked Bradley. + +‘Cause I see him do it,’ said Riderhood. + +They looked at each other. Bradley, slowly withdrawing his eyes, turned +his face to the black board and slowly wiped his name out. + +‘A heap of thanks, Master,’ said Riderhood, ‘for bestowing so much of +your time, and of the lambses’ time, upon a man as hasn’t got no other +recommendation to you than being a honest man. Wishing to see at my Lock +up the river, the person as we’ve spoke of, and as you’ve answered for, +I takes my leave of the lambs and of their learned governor both.’ + +With those words, he slouched out of the school, leaving the master +to get through his weary work as he might, and leaving the whispering +pupils to observe the master’s face until he fell into the fit which had +been long impending. + +The next day but one was Saturday, and a holiday. Bradley rose early, +and set out on foot for Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. He rose so early that +it was not yet light when he began his journey. Before extinguishing the +candle by which he had dressed himself, he made a little parcel of his +decent silver watch and its decent guard, and wrote inside the paper: +‘Kindly take care of these for me.’ He then addressed the parcel to Miss +Peecher, and left it on the most protected corner of the little seat in +her little porch. + +It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden gate +and turned away. The light snowfall which had feathered his schoolroom +windows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, and was falling +white, while the wind blew black. The tardy day did not appear until he +had been on foot two hours, and had traversed a greater part of London +from east to west. Such breakfast as he had, he took at the comfortless +public-house where he had parted from Riderhood on the occasion of +their night-walk. He took it, standing at the littered bar, and looked +loweringly at a man who stood where Riderhood had stood that early +morning. + +He outwalked the short day, and was on the towing-path by the river, +somewhat footsore, when the night closed in. Still two or three miles +short of the Lock, he slackened his pace then, but went steadily on. The +ground was now covered with snow, though thinly, and there were floating +lumps of ice in the more exposed parts of the river, and broken sheets +of ice under the shelter of the banks. He took heed of nothing but the +ice, the snow, and the distance, until he saw a light ahead, which he +knew gleamed from the Lock House window. It arrested his steps, and he +looked all around. The ice, and the snow, and he, and the one light, had +absolute possession of the dreary scene. In the distance before him, lay +the place where he had struck the worse than useless blows that mocked +him with Lizzie’s presence there as Eugene’s wife. In the distance +behind him, lay the place where the children with pointing arms had +seemed to devote him to the demons in crying out his name. Within there, +where the light was, was the man who as to both distances could give him +up to ruin. To these limits had his world shrunk. + +He mended his pace, keeping his eyes upon the light with a strange +intensity, as if he were taking aim at it. When he approached it so +nearly as that it parted into rays, they seemed to fasten themselves +to him and draw him on. When he struck the door with his hand, his foot +followed so quickly on his hand, that he was in the room before he was +bidden to enter. + +The light was the joint product of a fire and a candle. Between the two, +with his feet on the iron fender, sat Riderhood, pipe in mouth. + +He looked up with a surly nod when his visitor came in. His visitor +looked down with a surly nod. His outer clothing removed, the visitor +then took a seat on the opposite side of the fire. + +‘Not a smoker, I think?’ said Riderhood, pushing a bottle to him across +the table. + +‘No.’ + +They both lapsed into silence, with their eyes upon the fire. + +‘You don’t need to be told I am here,’ said Bradley at length. ‘Who is +to begin?’ + +‘I’ll begin,’ said Riderhood, ‘when I’ve smoked this here pipe out.’ + +He finished it with great deliberation, knocked out the ashes on the +hob, and put it by. + +‘I’ll begin,’ he then repeated, ‘Bradley Headstone, Master, if you wish +it.’ + +‘Wish it? I wish to know what you want with me.’ + +‘And so you shall.’ Riderhood had looked hard at his hands and his +pockets, apparently as a precautionary measure lest he should have any +weapon about him. But, he now leaned forward, turning the collar of +his waistcoat with an inquisitive finger, and asked, ‘Why, where’s your +watch?’ + +‘I have left it behind.’ + +‘I want it. But it can be fetched. I’ve took a fancy to it.’ + +Bradley answered with a contemptuous laugh. + +‘I want it,’ repeated Riderhood, in a louder voice, ‘and I mean to have +it.’ + +‘That is what you want of me, is it?’ + +‘No,’ said Riderhood, still louder; ‘it’s on’y part of what I want of +you. I want money of you.’ + +‘Anything else?’ + +‘Everythink else!’ roared Riderhood, in a very loud and furious way. +‘Answer me like that, and I won’t talk to you at all.’ + +Bradley looked at him. + +‘Don’t so much as look at me like that, or I won’t talk to you at all,’ +vociferated Riderhood. ‘But, instead of talking, I’ll bring my hand +down upon you with all its weight,’ heavily smiting the table with great +force, ‘and smash you!’ + +‘Go on,’ said Bradley, after moistening his lips. + +‘O! I’m a going on. Don’t you fear but I’ll go on full-fast enough for +you, and fur enough for you, without your telling. Look here, Bradley +Headstone, Master. You might have split the T’other governor to chips +and wedges, without my caring, except that I might have come upon you +for a glass or so now and then. Else why have to do with you at all? But +when you copied my clothes, and when you copied my neckhankercher, and +when you shook blood upon me after you had done the trick, you did wot +I’ll be paid for and paid heavy for. If it come to be throw’d upon you, +you was to be ready to throw it upon me, was you? Where else but +in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a man dressed according as +described? Where else but in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a +man as had had words with him coming through in his boat? Look at the +Lock-keeper in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, in them same answering clothes +and with that same answering red neckhankercher, and see whether his +clothes happens to be bloody or not. Yes, they do happen to be bloody. +Ah, you sly devil!’ + +Bradley, very white, sat looking at him in silence. + +‘But two could play at your game,’ said Riderhood, snapping his fingers +at him half a dozen times, ‘and I played it long ago; long afore you +tried your clumsy hand at it; in days when you hadn’t begun croaking +your lecters or what not in your school. I know to a figure how you +done it. Where you stole away, I could steal away arter you, and do it +knowinger than you. I know how you come away from London in your own +clothes, and where you changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I see +you with my own eyes take your own clothes from their hiding-place +among them felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account for +your dressing yourself, to any one as might come by. I see you rise up +Bradley Headstone, Master, where you sat down Bargeman. I see you pitch +your Bargeman’s bundle into the river. I hooked your Bargeman’s bundle +out of the river. I’ve got your Bargeman’s clothes, tore this way and +that way with the scuffle, stained green with the grass, and spattered +all over with what bust from the blows. I’ve got them, and I’ve got you. +I don’t care a curse for the T’other governor, alive or dead, but I care +a many curses for my own self. And as you laid your plots agin me and +was a sly devil agin me, I’ll be paid for it—I’ll be paid for it—I’ll +be paid for it—till I’ve drained you dry!’ + +Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for a +while. At last he said, with what seemed an inconsistent composure of +voice and feature: + +‘You can’t get blood out of a stone, Riderhood.’ + +‘I can get money out of a schoolmaster though.’ + +‘You can’t get out of me what is not in me. You can’t wrest from me what +I have not got. Mine is but a poor calling. You have had more than two +guineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me (allowing +for a long and arduous training) to earn such a sum?’ + +‘I don’t know, nor I don’t care. Yours is a ’spectable calling. To +save your ’spectability, it’s worth your while to pawn every article of +clothes you’ve got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow +every penny you can get trusted with. When you’ve done that and handed +over, I’ll leave you. Not afore.’ + +‘How do you mean, you’ll leave me?’ + +‘I mean as I’ll keep you company, wherever you go, when you go away from +here. Let the Lock take care of itself. I’ll take care of you, once I’ve +got you.’ + +Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took up +his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat smoking. Bradley leaned his +elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the fire +with a most intent abstraction. + +‘Riderhood,’ he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long +silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it on the table. ‘Say +I part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you have +my watch; say that every quarter, when I draw my salary, I pay you a +certain portion of it.’ + +‘Say nothink of the sort,’ retorted Riderhood, shaking his head as he +smoked. ‘You’ve got away once, and I won’t run the chance agin. I’ve had +trouble enough to find you, and shouldn’t have found you, if I hadn’t +seen you slipping along the street overnight, and watched you till you +was safe housed. I’ll have one settlement with you for good and all.’ + +‘Riderhood, I am a man who has lived a retired life. I have no resources +beyond myself. I have absolutely no friends.’ + +‘That’s a lie,’ said Riderhood. ‘You’ve got one friend as I knows of; +one as is good for a Savings-Bank book, or I’m a blue monkey!’ + +Bradley’s face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the purse and +drew it back, as he sat listening for what the other should go on to +say. + +‘I went into the wrong shop, fust, last Thursday,’ said Riderhood. +‘Found myself among the young ladies, by George! Over the young ladies, +I see a Missis. That Missis is sweet enough upon you, Master, to sell +herself up, slap, to get you out of trouble. Make her do it then.’ + +Bradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not quite knowing +how to take it, affected to be occupied with the encircling smoke from +his pipe; fanning it away with his hand, and blowing it off. + +‘You spoke to the mistress, did you?’ inquired Bradley, with that +former composure of voice and feature that seemed inconsistent, and with +averted eyes. + +‘Poof! Yes,’ said Riderhood, withdrawing his attention from the smoke. +‘I spoke to her. I didn’t say much to her. She was put in a fluster by +my dropping in among the young ladies (I never did set up for a lady’s +man), and she took me into her parlour to hope as there was nothink +wrong. I tells her, “O no, nothink wrong. The master’s my wery good +friend.” But I see how the land laid, and that she was comfortable off.’ + +Bradley put the purse in his pocket, grasped his left wrist with his +right hand, and sat rigidly contemplating the fire. + +‘She couldn’t live more handy to you than she does,’ said Riderhood, +‘and when I goes home with you (as of course I am a going), I recommend +you to clean her out without loss of time. You can marry her, arter you +and me have come to a settlement. She’s nice-looking, and I know +you can’t be keeping company with no one else, having been so lately +disapinted in another quarter.’ + +Not one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not once did he +change his attitude, or loosen his hold upon his wrist. Rigid before the +fire, as if it were a charmed flame that was turning him old, he sat, +with the dark lines deepening in his face, its stare becoming more and +more haggard, its surface turning whiter and whiter as if it were being +overspread with ashes, and the very texture and colour of his hair +degenerating. + +Not until the late daylight made the window transparent, did this +decaying statue move. Then it slowly arose, and sat in the window +looking out. + +Riderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier part of the night +he had muttered twice or thrice that it was bitter cold; or that the +fire burnt fast, when he got up to mend it; but, as he could elicit from +his companion neither sound nor movement, he had afterwards held his +peace. He was making some disorderly preparations for coffee, when +Bradley came from the window and put on his outer coat and hat. + +‘Hadn’t us better have a bit o’ breakfast afore we start?’ said +Riderhood. ‘It ain’t good to freeze a empty stomach, Master.’ + +Without a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked out of the Lock +House. Catching up from the table a piece of bread, and taking his +Bargeman’s bundle under his arm, Riderhood immediately followed him. +Bradley turned towards London. Riderhood caught him up, and walked at +his side. + +The two men trudged on, side by side, in silence, full three miles. +Suddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his course. Instantly, Riderhood +turned likewise, and they went back side by side. + +Bradley re-entered the Lock House. So did Riderhood. Bradley sat down in +the window. Riderhood warmed himself at the fire. After an hour or more, +Bradley abruptly got up again, and again went out, but this time turned +the other way. Riderhood was close after him, caught him up in a few +paces, and walked at his side. + +This time, as before, when he found his attendant not to be shaken off, +Bradley suddenly turned back. This time, as before, Riderhood turned +back along with him. But, not this time, as before, did they go into the +Lock House, for Bradley came to a stand on the snow-covered turf by the +Lock, looking up the river and down the river. Navigation was impeded by +the frost, and the scene was a mere white and yellow desert. + +‘Come, come, Master,’ urged Riderhood, at his side. ‘This is a dry game. +And where’s the good of it? You can’t get rid of me, except by coming to +a settlement. I am a going along with you wherever you go.’ + +Without a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from him over the wooden +bridge on the lock gates. ‘Why, there’s even less sense in this move +than t’other,’ said Riderhood, following. ‘The Weir’s there, and you’ll +have to come back, you know.’ + +Without taking the least notice, Bradley leaned his body against a post, +in a resting attitude, and there rested with his eyes cast down. ‘Being +brought here,’ said Riderhood, gruffly, ‘I’ll turn it to some use by +changing my gates.’ With a rattle and a rush of water, he then swung-to +the lock gates that were standing open, before opening the others. So, +both sets of gates were, for the moment, closed. + +‘You’d better by far be reasonable, Bradley Headstone, Master,’ said +Riderhood, passing him, ‘or I’ll drain you all the dryer for it, when we +do settle.—Ah! Would you!’ + +Bradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to be girdled with an +iron ring. They were on the brink of the Lock, about midway between the +two sets of gates. + +‘Let go!’ said Riderhood, ‘or I’ll get my knife out and slash you +wherever I can cut you. Let go!’ + +Bradley was drawing to the Lock-edge. Riderhood was drawing away from +it. It was a strong grapple, and a fierce struggle, arm and leg. Bradley +got him round, with his back to the Lock, and still worked him backward. + +‘Let go!’ said Riderhood. ‘Stop! What are you trying at? You can’t drown +Me. Ain’t I told you that the man as has come through drowning can never +be drowned? I can’t be drowned.’ + +‘I can be!’ returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. ‘I am +resolved to be. I’ll hold you living, and I’ll hold you dead. Come +down!’ + +Riderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley Headstone +upon him. When the two were found, lying under the ooze and scum behind +one of the rotting gates, Riderhood’s hold had relaxed, probably in +falling, and his eyes were staring upward. But, he was girdled still +with Bradley’s iron ring, and the rivets of the iron ring held tight. + + + + +Chapter 16 + +PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL + + +Mr and Mrs John Harmon’s first delightful occupation was, to set all +matters right that had strayed in any way wrong, or that might, could, +would, or should, have strayed in any way wrong, while their name was in +abeyance. In tracing out affairs for which John’s fictitious death was +to be considered in any way responsible, they used a very broad and free +construction; regarding, for instance, the dolls’ dressmaker as having +a claim on their protection, because of her association with Mrs Eugene +Wrayburn, and because of Mrs Eugene’s old association, in her turn, with +the dark side of the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as a +good and serviceable friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor even +Mr Inspector, as having been trepanned into an industrious hunt on a +false scent. It may be remarked, in connexion with that worthy officer, +that a rumour shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect that +he had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug of mellow flip in +the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that he ‘didn’t stand to +lose a farthing’ through Mr Harmon’s coming to life, but was quite as +well satisfied as if that gentleman had been barbarously murdered, and +he (Mr Inspector) had pocketed the government reward. + +In all their arrangements of such nature, Mr and Mrs John Harmon derived +much assistance from their eminent solicitor, Mr Mortimer Lightwood; who +laid about him professionally with such unwonted despatch and intention, +that a piece of work was vigorously pursued as soon as cut out; whereby +Young Blight was acted on as by that transatlantic dram which is +poetically named An Eye-Opener, and found himself staring at real +clients instead of out of window. The accessibility of Riah proving +very useful as to a few hints towards the disentanglement of Eugene’s +affairs, Lightwood applied himself with infinite zest to attacking and +harassing Mr Fledgeby: who, discovering himself in danger of being blown +into the air by certain explosive transactions in which he had been +engaged, and having been sufficiently flayed under his beating, came +to a parley and asked for quarter. The harmless Twemlow profited by +the conditions entered into, though he little thought it. Mr Riah +unaccountably melted; waited in person on him over the stable yard in +Duke Street, St James’s, no longer ravening but mild, to inform him +that payment of interest as heretofore, but henceforth at Mr Lightwood’s +offices, would appease his Jewish rancour; and departed with the secret +that Mr John Harmon had advanced the money and become the creditor. +Thus, was the sublime Snigsworth’s wrath averted, and thus did he snort +no larger amount of moral grandeur at the Corinthian column in the +print over the fireplace, than was normally in his (and the British) +constitution. + + +Mrs Wilfer’s first visit to the Mendicant’s bride at the new abode of +Mendicancy, was a grand event. Pa had been sent for into the City, +on the very day of taking possession, and had been stunned with +astonishment, and brought-to, and led about the house by one ear, to +behold its various treasures, and had been enraptured and enchanted. Pa +had also been appointed Secretary, and had been enjoined to give instant +notice of resignation to Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, for ever and +ever. But Ma came later, and came, as was her due, in state. + +The carriage was sent for Ma, who entered it with a bearing worthy of +the occasion, accompanied, rather than supported, by Miss Lavinia, who +altogether declined to recognize the maternal majesty. Mr George Sampson +meekly followed. He was received in the vehicle, by Mrs Wilfer, as if +admitted to the honour of assisting at a funeral in the family, and she +then issued the order, ‘Onward!’ to the Mendicant’s menial. + +‘I wish to goodness, Ma,’ said Lavvy, throwing herself back among the +cushions, with her arms crossed, ‘that you’d loll a little.’ + +‘How!’ repeated Mrs Wilfer. ‘Loll!’ + +‘Yes, Ma.’ + +‘I hope,’ said the impressive lady, ‘I am incapable of it.’ + +‘I am sure you look so, Ma. But why one should go out to dine with one’s +own daughter or sister, as if one’s under-petticoat was a backboard, I +do NOT understand.’ + +‘Neither do I understand,’ retorted Mrs Wilfer, with deep scorn, ‘how +a young lady can mention the garment in the name of which you have +indulged. I blush for you.’ + +‘Thank you, Ma,’ said Lavvy, yawning, ‘but I can do it for myself, I am +obliged to you, when there’s any occasion.’ + +Here, Mr Sampson, with the view of establishing harmony, which he never +under any circumstances succeeded in doing, said with an agreeable +smile: ‘After all, you know, ma’am, we know it’s there.’ And immediately +felt that he had committed himself. + +‘We know it’s there!’ said Mrs Wilfer, glaring. + +‘Really, George,’ remonstrated Miss Lavinia, ‘I must say that I don’t +understand your allusions, and that I think you might be more delicate +and less personal.’ + +‘Go it!’ cried Mr Sampson, becoming, on the shortest notice, a prey to +despair. ‘Oh yes! Go it, Miss Lavinia Wilfer!’ + +‘What you may mean, George Sampson, by your omnibus-driving expressions, +I cannot pretend to imagine. Neither,’ said Miss Lavinia, ‘Mr George +Sampson, do I wish to imagine. It is enough for me to know in my own +heart that I am not going to—’ having imprudently got into a sentence +without providing a way out of it, Miss Lavinia was constrained to +close with ‘going to it’. A weak conclusion which, however, derived some +appearance of strength from disdain. + +‘Oh yes!’ cried Mr Sampson, with bitterness. ‘Thus it ever is. I +never—’ + +‘If you mean to say,’ Miss Lavvy cut him short, that you never brought +up a young gazelle, you may save yourself the trouble, because nobody +in this carriage supposes that you ever did. We know you better.’ (As if +this were a home-thrust.) + +‘Lavinia,’ returned Mr Sampson, in a dismal vein, ‘I did not mean to +say so. What I did mean to say, was, that I never expected to retain my +favoured place in this family, after Fortune shed her beams upon it. Why +do you take me,’ said Mr Sampson, ‘to the glittering halls with which +I can never compete, and then taunt me with my moderate salary? Is it +generous? Is it kind?’ + +The stately lady, Mrs Wilfer, perceiving her opportunity of delivering a +few remarks from the throne, here took up the altercation. + +‘Mr Sampson,’ she began, ‘I cannot permit you to misrepresent the +intentions of a child of mine.’ + +‘Let him alone, Ma,’ Miss Lavvy interposed with haughtiness. ‘It is +indifferent to me what he says or does.’ + +‘Nay, Lavinia,’ quoth Mrs Wilfer, ‘this touches the blood of the family. +If Mr George Sampson attributes, even to my youngest daughter—’ + +(‘I don’t see why you should use the word “even”, Ma,’ Miss Lavvy +interposed, ‘because I am quite as important as any of the others.’) + +‘Peace!’ said Mrs Wilfer, solemnly. ‘I repeat, if Mr George Sampson +attributes, to my youngest daughter, grovelling motives, he attributes +them equally to the mother of my youngest daughter. That mother +repudiates them, and demands of Mr George Sampson, as a youth of honour, +what he WOULD have? I may be mistaken—nothing is more likely—but Mr +George Sampson,’ proceeded Mrs Wilfer, majestically waving her gloves, +‘appears to me to be seated in a first-class equipage. Mr George Sampson +appears to me to be on his way, by his own admission, to a residence +that may be termed Palatial. Mr George Sampson appears to me to be +invited to participate in the—shall I say the—Elevation which has +descended on the family with which he is ambitious, shall I say to +Mingle? Whence, then, this tone on Mr Sampson’s part?’ + +‘It is only, ma’am,’ Mr Sampson explained, in exceedingly low spirits, +‘because, in a pecuniary sense, I am painfully conscious of my +unworthiness. Lavinia is now highly connected. Can I hope that she will +still remain the same Lavinia as of old? And is it not pardonable if +I feel sensitive, when I see a disposition on her part to take me up +short?’ + +‘If you are not satisfied with your position, sir,’ observed Miss +Lavinia, with much politeness, ‘we can set you down at any turning you +may please to indicate to my sister’s coachman.’ + +‘Dearest Lavinia,’ urged Mr Sampson, pathetically, ‘I adore you.’ + +‘Then if you can’t do it in a more agreeable manner,’ returned the young +lady, ‘I wish you wouldn’t.’ + +‘I also,’ pursued Mr Sampson, ‘respect you, ma’am, to an extent which +must ever be below your merits, I am well aware, but still up to an +uncommon mark. Bear with a wretch, Lavinia, bear with a wretch, ma’am, +who feels the noble sacrifices you make for him, but is goaded almost to +madness,’ Mr Sampson slapped his forehead, ‘when he thinks of competing +with the rich and influential.’ + +‘When you have to compete with the rich and influential, it will +probably be mentioned to you,’ said Miss Lavvy, ‘in good time. At least, +it will if the case is MY case.’ + +Mr Sampson immediately expressed his fervent Opinion that this was ‘more +than human’, and was brought upon his knees at Miss Lavinia’s feet. + +It was the crowning addition indispensable to the full enjoyment of both +mother and daughter, to bear Mr Sampson, a grateful captive, into the +glittering halls he had mentioned, and to parade him through the same, +at once a living witness of their glory, and a bright instance of their +condescension. Ascending the staircase, Miss Lavinia permitted him to +walk at her side, with the air of saying: ‘Notwithstanding all these +surroundings, I am yours as yet, George. How long it may last is another +question, but I am yours as yet.’ She also benignantly intimated to him, +aloud, the nature of the objects upon which he looked, and to which he +was unaccustomed: as, ‘Exotics, George,’ ‘An aviary, George,’ ‘An +ormolu clock, George,’ and the like. While, through the whole of the +decorations, Mrs Wilfer led the way with the bearing of a Savage Chief, +who would feel himself compromised by manifesting the slightest token of +surprise or admiration. + +Indeed, the bearing of this impressive woman, throughout the day, was a +pattern to all impressive women under similar circumstances. She renewed +the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Boffin, as if Mr and Mrs Boffin had said +of her what she had said of them, and as if Time alone could quite wear +her injury out. She regarded every servant who approached her, as her +sworn enemy, expressly intending to offer her affronts with the dishes, +and to pour forth outrages on her moral feelings from the decanters. +She sat erect at table, on the right hand of her son-in-law, as half +suspecting poison in the viands, and as bearing up with native force of +character against other deadly ambushes. Her carriage towards Bella was +as a carriage towards a young lady of good position, whom she had met in +society a few years ago. Even when, slightly thawing under the influence +of sparkling champagne, she related to her son-in-law some passages of +domestic interest concerning her papa, she infused into the narrative +such Arctic suggestions of her having been an unappreciated blessing to +mankind, since her papa’s days, and also of that gentleman’s having +been a frosty impersonation of a frosty race, as struck cold to the +very soles of the feet of the hearers. The Inexhaustible being produced, +staring, and evidently intending a weak and washy smile shortly, no +sooner beheld her, than it was stricken spasmodic and inconsolable. When +she took her leave at last, it would have been hard to say whether it +was with the air of going to the scaffold herself, or of leaving the +inmates of the house for immediate execution. Yet, John Harmon enjoyed +it all merrily, and told his wife, when he and she were alone, that her +natural ways had never seemed so dearly natural as beside this foil, +and that although he did not dispute her being her father’s daughter, +he should ever remain stedfast in the faith that she could not be her +mother’s. + + +This visit was, as has been said, a grand event. Another event, not +grand but deemed in the house a special one, occurred at about the same +period; and this was, the first interview between Mr Sloppy and Miss +Wren. + +The dolls’ dressmaker, being at work for the Inexhaustible upon a +full-dressed doll some two sizes larger than that young person, Mr +Sloppy undertook to call for it, and did so. + +‘Come in, sir,’ said Miss Wren, who was working at her bench. ‘And who +may you be?’ + +Mr Sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons. + +‘Oh indeed!’ cried Jenny. ‘Ah! I have been looking forward to knowing +you. I heard of your distinguishing yourself.’ + +‘Did you, Miss?’ grinned Sloppy. ‘I am sure I am glad to hear it, but I +don’t know how.’ + +‘Pitching somebody into a mud-cart,’ said Miss Wren. + +‘Oh! That way!’ cried Sloppy. ‘Yes, Miss.’ And threw back his head and +laughed. + +‘Bless us!’ exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start. ‘Don’t open your mouth +as wide as that, young man, or it’ll catch so, and not shut again some +day.’ + +Mr Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open until his +laugh was out. + +‘Why, you’re like the giant,’ said Miss Wren, ‘when he came home in the +land of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack for supper.’ + +‘Was he good-looking, Miss?’ asked Sloppy. + +‘No,’ said Miss Wren. ‘Ugly.’ + +Her visitor glanced round the room—which had many comforts in it now, +that had not been in it before—and said: ‘This is a pretty place, +Miss.’ + +‘Glad you think so, sir,’ returned Miss Wren. ‘And what do you think of +Me?’ + +The honesty of Mr Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, he +twisted a button, grinned, and faltered. + +‘Out with it!’ said Miss Wren, with an arch look. ‘Don’t you think me +a queer little comicality?’ In shaking her head at him after asking the +question, she shook her hair down. + +‘Oh!’ cried Sloppy, in a burst of admiration. ‘What a lot, and what a +colour!’ + +Miss Wren, with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her work. But, +left her hair as it was; not displeased by the effect it had made. + +‘You don’t live here alone; do you, Miss?’ asked Sloppy. + +‘No,’ said Miss Wren, with a chop. ‘Live here with my fairy godmother.’ + +‘With;’ Mr Sloppy couldn’t make it out; ‘with who did you say, Miss?’ + +‘Well!’ replied Miss Wren, more seriously. ‘With my second father. Or +with my first, for that matter.’ And she shook her head, and drew a +sigh. ‘If you had known a poor child I used to have here,’ she added, +‘you’d have understood me. But you didn’t, and you can’t. All the +better!’ + +‘You must have been taught a long time,’ said Sloppy, glancing at the +array of dolls in hand, ‘before you came to work so neatly, Miss, and +with such a pretty taste.’ + +‘Never was taught a stitch, young man!’ returned the dress-maker, +tossing her head. ‘Just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to do +it. Badly enough at first, but better now.’ + +‘And here have I,’ said Sloppy, in something of a self-reproachful tone, +‘been a learning and a learning, and here has Mr Boffin been a paying +and a paying, ever so long!’ + +‘I have heard what your trade is,’ observed Miss Wren; ‘it’s +cabinet-making.’ + +Mr Sloppy nodded. ‘Now that the Mounds is done with, it is. I’ll tell +you what, Miss. I should like to make you something.’ + +‘Much obliged. But what?’ + +‘I could make you,’ said Sloppy, surveying the room, ‘I could make you +a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. Or I could make you a handy +little set of drawers, to keep your silks and threads and scraps in. Or +I could turn you a rare handle for that crutch-stick, if it belongs to +him you call your father.’ + +‘It belongs to me,’ returned the little creature, with a quick flush of +her face and neck. ‘I am lame.’ + +Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind +his buttons, and his own hand had struck it. He said, perhaps, the best +thing in the way of amends that could be said. ‘I am very glad it’s +yours, because I’d rather ornament it for you than for any one else. +Please may I look at it?’ + +Miss Wren was in the act of handing it to him over her bench, when she +paused. ‘But you had better see me use it,’ she said, sharply. ‘This is +the way. Hoppetty, Kicketty, Pep-peg-peg. Not pretty; is it?’ + +‘It seems to me that you hardly want it at all,’ said Sloppy. + +The little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, saying, +with that better look upon her, and with a smile: ‘Thank you!’ + +‘And as concerning the nests and the drawers,’ said Sloppy, after +measuring the handle on his sleeve, and softly standing the stick aside +against the wall, ‘why, it would be a real pleasure to me. I’ve heerd +tell that you can sing most beautiful; and I should be better paid with +a song than with any money, for I always loved the likes of that, and +often giv’ Mrs Higden and Johnny a comic song myself, with “Spoken” in +it. Though that’s not your sort, I’ll wager.’ + +‘You are a very kind young man,’ returned the dressmaker; ‘a really kind +young man. I accept your offer.—I suppose He won’t mind,’ she added as +an afterthought, shrugging her shoulders; ‘and if he does, he may!’ + +‘Meaning him that you call your father, Miss,’ asked Sloppy. + +‘No, no,’ replied Miss Wren. ‘Him, Him, Him!’ + +‘Him, him, him?’ repeated Sloppy; staring about, as if for Him. + +‘Him who is coming to court and marry me,’ returned Miss Wren. ‘Dear me, +how slow you are!’ + +‘Oh! HIM!’ said Sloppy. And seemed to turn thoughtful and a little +troubled. ‘I never thought of him. When is he coming, Miss?’ + +‘What a question!’ cried Miss Wren. ‘How should I know!’ + +‘Where is he coming from, Miss?’ + +‘Why, good gracious, how can I tell! He is coming from somewhere or +other, I suppose, and he is coming some day or other, I suppose. I don’t +know any more about him, at present.’ + +This tickled Mr Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he threw +back his head and laughed with measureless enjoyment. At the sight of +him laughing in that absurd way, the dolls’ dressmaker laughed very +heartily indeed. So they both laughed, till they were tired. + +‘There, there, there!’ said Miss Wren. ‘For goodness’ sake, stop, Giant, +or I shall be swallowed up alive, before I know it. And to this minute +you haven’t said what you’ve come for.’ + +‘I have come for little Miss Harmonses doll,’ said Sloppy. + +‘I thought as much,’ remarked Miss Wren, ‘and here is little Miss +Harmonses doll waiting for you. She’s folded up in silver paper, you +see, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new Bank notes. Take +care of her, and there’s my hand, and thank you again.’ + +‘I’ll take more care of her than if she was a gold image,’ said Sloppy, +‘and there’s both MY hands, Miss, and I’ll soon come back again.’ + + +But, the greatest event of all, in the new life of Mr and Mrs John +Harmon, was a visit from Mr and Mrs Eugene Wrayburn. Sadly wan and worn +was the once gallant Eugene, and walked resting on his wife’s arm, and +leaning heavily upon a stick. But, he was daily growing stronger and +better, and it was declared by the medical attendants that he might not +be much disfigured by-and-by. It was a grand event, indeed, when Mr +and Mrs Eugene Wrayburn came to stay at Mr and Mrs John Harmon’s house: +where, by the way, Mr and Mrs Boffin (exquisitely happy, and daily +cruising about, to look at shops,) were likewise staying indefinitely. + +To Mr Eugene Wrayburn, in confidence, did Mrs John Harmon impart what +she had known of the state of his wife’s affections, in his reckless +time. And to Mrs John Harmon, in confidence, did Mr Eugene Wrayburn +impart that, please God, she should see how his wife had changed him! + +‘I make no protestations,’ said Eugene; ‘—who does, who means them!—I +have made a resolution.’ + +‘But would you believe, Bella,’ interposed his wife, coming to resume +her nurse’s place at his side, for he never got on well without her: +‘that on our wedding day he told me he almost thought the best thing he +could do, was to die?’ + +‘As I didn’t do it, Lizzie,’ said Eugene, ‘I’ll do that better thing you +suggested—for your sake.’ + +That same afternoon, Eugene lying on his couch in his own room upstairs, +Lightwood came to chat with him, while Bella took his wife out for a +ride. ‘Nothing short of force will make her go,’ Eugene had said; so, +Bella had playfully forced her. + +‘Dear old fellow,’ Eugene began with Lightwood, reaching up his hand, +‘you couldn’t have come at a better time, for my mind is full, and I +want to empty it. First, of my present, before I touch upon my future. +M. R. F., who is a much younger cavalier than I, and a professed admirer +of beauty, was so affable as to remark the other day (he paid us a visit +of two days up the river there, and much objected to the accommodation +of the hotel), that Lizzie ought to have her portrait painted. Which, +coming from M. R. F., may be considered equivalent to a melodramatic +blessing.’ + +‘You are getting well,’ said Mortimer, with a smile. + +‘Really,’ said Eugene, ‘I mean it. When M. R. F. said that, and followed +it up by rolling the claret (for which he called, and I paid), in his +mouth, and saying, “My dear son, why do you drink this trash?” it was +tantamount in him—to a paternal benediction on our union, accompanied +with a gush of tears. The coolness of M. R. F. is not to be measured by +ordinary standards.’ + +‘True enough,’ said Lightwood. + +‘That’s all,’ pursued Eugene, ‘that I shall ever hear from M. R. F. on +the subject, and he will continue to saunter through the world with +his hat on one side. My marriage being thus solemnly recognized at the +family altar, I have no further trouble on that score. Next, you really +have done wonders for me, Mortimer, in easing my money-perplexities, and +with such a guardian and steward beside me, as the preserver of my life +(I am hardly strong yet, you see, for I am not man enough to refer +to her without a trembling voice—she is so inexpressibly dear to me, +Mortimer!), the little that I can call my own will be more than it ever +has been. It need be more, for you know what it always has been in my +hands. Nothing.’ + +‘Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small income (I devoutly +wish that my grandfather had left it to the Ocean rather than to me!) +has been an effective Something, in the way of preventing me from +turning to at Anything. And I think yours has been much the same.’ + +‘There spake the voice of wisdom,’ said Eugene. ‘We are shepherds both. +In turning to at last, we turn to in earnest. Let us say no more of +that, for a few years to come. Now, I have had an idea, Mortimer, of +taking myself and my wife to one of the colonies, and working at my +vocation there.’ + +‘I should be lost without you, Eugene; but you may be right.’ + +‘No,’ said Eugene, emphatically. ‘Not right. Wrong!’ + +He said it with such a lively—almost angry—flash, that Mortimer showed +himself greatly surprised. + +‘You think this thumped head of mine is excited?’ Eugene went on, with a +high look; ‘not so, believe me. I can say to you of the healthful music +of my pulse what Hamlet said of his. My blood is up, but wholesomely up, +when I think of it. Tell me! Shall I turn coward to Lizzie, and sneak +away with her, as if I were ashamed of her! Where would your friend’s +part in this world be, Mortimer, if she had turned coward to him, and on +immeasurably better occasion?’ + +‘Honourable and stanch,’ said Lightwood. ‘And yet, Eugene—’ + +‘And yet what, Mortimer?’ + +‘And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her sake, I say for +her sake) any slight coldness towards her on the part of—Society?’ + +‘O! You and I may well stumble at the word,’ returned Eugene, laughing. +‘Do we mean our Tippins?’ + +‘Perhaps we do,’ said Mortimer, laughing also. + +‘Faith, we DO!’ returned Eugene, with great animation. ‘We may hide +behind the bush and beat about it, but we DO! Now, my wife is something +nearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, and I owe her a little +more than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I ever +was of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out to the last gasp, with +her and for her, here, in the open field. When I hide her, or strike +for her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, do you whom I love next +best upon earth, tell me what I shall most righteously deserve to be +told:—that she would have done well to turn me over with her foot that +night when I lay bleeding to death, and spat in my dastard face.’ + +The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words, so irradiated his +features that he looked, for the time, as though he had never been +mutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond, +and they discoursed of the future until Lizzie came back. After resuming +her place at his side, and tenderly touching his hands and his head, she +said: + +‘Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have stayed with you. +You are more flushed than you have been for many days. What have you +been doing?’ + +‘Nothing,’ replied Eugene, ‘but looking forward to your coming back.’ + +‘And talking to Mr Lightwood,’ said Lizzie, turning to him with a smile. +‘But it cannot have been Society that disturbed you.’ + +‘Faith, my dear love!’ retorted Eugene, in his old airy manner, as he +laughed and kissed her, ‘I rather think it WAS Society though!’ + +The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood’s thoughts as he went home to +the Temple that night, that he resolved to take a look at Society, which +he had not seen for a considerable period. + + + + +Chapter 17 + +THE VOICE OF SOCIETY + + +Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a dinner card from Mr +and Mrs Veneering requesting the honour, and to signify that Mr Mortimer +Lightwood will be happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings have +been, as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner cards to Society, and +whoever desires to take a hand had best be quick about it, for it is +written in the Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make a +resounding smash next week. Yes. Having found out the clue to that great +mystery how people can contrive to live beyond their means, and having +over-jobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe by the +pure electors of Pocket-Breaches, it shall come to pass next week that +Veneering will accept the Chiltern Hundreds, that the legal gentleman in +Britannia’s confidence will again accept the Pocket-Breaches Thousands, +and that the Veneerings will retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs +Veneering’s diamonds (in which Mr Veneering, as a good husband, has from +time to time invested considerable sums), and to relate to Neptune and +others, how that, before Veneering retired from Parliament, the House +of Commons was composed of himself and the six hundred and fifty-seven +dearest and oldest friends he had in the world. It shall likewise come +to pass, at as nearly as possible the same period, that Society will +discover that it always did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneering, +and that when it went to Veneering’s to dinner it always had +misgivings—though very secretly at the time, it would seem, and in a +perfectly private and confidential manner. + +The next week’s books of the Insolvent Fates, however, being not yet +opened, there is the usual rush to the Veneerings, of the people who go +to their house to dine with one another and not with them. There is Lady +Tippins. There are Podsnap the Great, and Mrs Podsnap. There is Twemlow. +There are Buffer, Boots, and Brewer. There is the Contractor, who +is Providence to five hundred thousand men. There is the Chairman, +travelling three thousand miles per week. There is the brilliant genius +who turned the shares into that remarkably exact sum of three hundred +and seventy five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence. + +To whom, add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among them with a +reassumption of his old languid air, founded on Eugene, and belonging to +the days when he told the story of the man from Somewhere. + +That fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her false +swain. She summons the deserter to her with her fan; but the deserter, +predetermined not to come, talks Britain with Podsnap. Podsnap always +talks Britain, and talks as if he were a sort of Private Watchman +employed, in the British interests, against the rest of the world. ‘We +know what Russia means, sir,’ says Podsnap; ‘we know what France wants; +we see what America is up to; but we know what England is. That’s enough +for us.’ + +However, when dinner is served, and Lightwood drops into his old place +over against Lady Tippins, she can be fended off no longer. ‘Long +banished Robinson Crusoe,’ says the charmer, exchanging salutations, +‘how did you leave the Island?’ + +‘Thank you,’ says Lightwood. ‘It made no complaint of being in pain +anywhere.’ + +‘Say, how did you leave the savages?’ asks Lady Tippins. + +‘They were becoming civilized when I left Juan Fernandez,’ says +Lightwood. ‘At least they were eating one another, which looked like +it.’ + +‘Tormentor!’ returns the dear young creature. ‘You know what I mean, and +you trifle with my impatience. Tell me something, immediately, about the +married pair. You were at the wedding.’ + +‘Was I, by-the-by?’ Mortimer pretends, at great leisure, to consider. +‘So I was!’ + +‘How was the bride dressed? In rowing costume?’ + +Mortimer looks gloomy, and declines to answer. + +‘I hope she steered herself, skiffed herself, paddled herself, +larboarded and starboarded herself, or whatever the technical term may +be, to the ceremony?’ proceeds the playful Tippins. + +‘However she got to it, she graced it,’ says Mortimer. + +Lady Tippins with a skittish little scream, attracts the general +attention. ‘Graced it! Take care of me if I faint, Veneering. He means +to tell us, that a horrid female waterman is graceful!’ + +‘Pardon me. I mean to tell you nothing, Lady Tippins,’ replies +Lightwood. And keeps his word by eating his dinner with a show of the +utmost indifference. + +‘You shall not escape me in this way, you morose backwoodsman,’ retorts +Lady Tippins. ‘You shall not evade the question, to screen your friend +Eugene, who has made this exhibition of himself. The knowledge shall be +brought home to you that such a ridiculous affair is condemned by the +voice of Society. My dear Mrs Veneering, do let us resolve ourselves +into a Committee of the whole House on the subject.’ + +Mrs Veneering, always charmed by this rattling sylph, cries. ‘Oh yes! +Do let us resolve ourselves into a Committee of the whole House! +So delicious!’ Veneering says, ‘As many as are of that opinion, say +Aye,—contrary, No—the Ayes have it.’ But nobody takes the slightest +notice of his joke. + +‘Now, I am Chairwoman of Committees!’ cries Lady Tippins. + +(‘What spirits she has!’ exclaims Mrs Veneering; to whom likewise nobody +attends.) + +‘And this,’ pursues the sprightly one, ‘is a Committee of the whole +House to what-you-may-call-it—elicit, I suppose—the voice of Society. +The question before the Committee is, whether a young man of very fair +family, good appearance, and some talent, makes a fool or a wise man of +himself in marrying a female waterman, turned factory girl.’ + +‘Hardly so, I think,’ the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. ‘I take the +question to be, whether such a man as you describe, Lady Tippins, does +right or wrong in marrying a brave woman (I say nothing of her beauty), +who has saved his life, with a wonderful energy and address; whom he +knows to be virtuous, and possessed of remarkable qualities; whom he has +long admired, and who is deeply attached to him.’ + +‘But, excuse me,’ says Podsnap, with his temper and his shirt-collar +about equally rumpled; ‘was this young woman ever a female waterman?’ + +‘Never. But she sometimes rowed in a boat with her father, I believe.’ + +General sensation against the young woman. Brewer shakes his head. Boots +shakes his head. Buffer shakes his head. + +‘And now, Mr Lightwood, was she ever,’ pursues Podsnap, with his +indignation rising high into those hair-brushes of his, ‘a factory +girl?’ + +‘Never. But she had some employment in a paper mill, I believe.’ + +General sensation repeated. Brewer says, ‘Oh dear!’ Boots says, ‘Oh +dear!’ Buffer says, ‘Oh dear!’ All, in a rumbling tone of protest. + +‘Then all I have to say is,’ returns Podsnap, putting the thing away +with his right arm, ‘that my gorge rises against such a marriage—that +it offends and disgusts me—that it makes me sick—and that I desire to +know no more about it.’ + +(‘Now I wonder,’ thinks Mortimer, amused, ‘whether YOU are the Voice of +Society!’) + +‘Hear, hear, hear!’ cries Lady Tippins. ‘Your opinion of this +MESALLIANCE, honourable colleagues of the honourable member who has just +sat down?’ + +Mrs Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters there should be an +equality of station and fortune, and that a man accustomed to Society +should look out for a woman accustomed to Society and capable of bearing +her part in it with—an ease and elegance of carriage—that.’ Mrs +Podsnap stops there, delicately intimating that every such man should +look out for a fine woman as nearly resembling herself as he may hope to +discover. + +(‘Now I wonder,’ thinks Mortimer, ‘whether you are the Voice!’) + +Lady Tippins next canvasses the Contractor, of five hundred thousand +power. It appears to this potentate, that what the man in question +should have done, would have been, to buy the young woman a boat and a +small annuity, and set her up for herself. These things are a question +of beefsteaks and porter. You buy the young woman a boat. Very good. You +buy her, at the same time, a small annuity. You speak of that annuity in +pounds sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and +so many pints of porter. On the one hand, the young woman has the boat. +On the other hand, she consumes so many pounds of beefsteaks and so many +pints of porter. Those beefsteaks and that porter are the fuel to that +young woman’s engine. She derives therefrom a certain amount of power to +row the boat; that power will produce so much money; you add that to the +small annuity; and thus you get at the young woman’s income. That (it +seems to the Contractor) is the way of looking at it. + +The fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle sleeps during the +last exposition, nobody likes to wake her. Fortunately, she comes +awake of herself, and puts the question to the Wandering Chairman. The +Wanderer can only speak of the case as if it were his own. If such a +young woman as the young woman described, had saved his own life, he +would have been very much obliged to her, wouldn’t have married her, and +would have got her a berth in an Electric Telegraph Office, where young +women answer very well. + +What does the Genius of the three hundred and seventy-five thousand +pounds, no shillings, and nopence, think? He can’t say what he thinks, +without asking: Had the young woman any money? + +‘No,’ says Lightwood, in an uncompromising voice; ‘no money.’ + +‘Madness and moonshine,’ is then the compressed verdict of the Genius. +‘A man may do anything lawful, for money. But for no money!—Bosh!’ + +What does Boots say? + +Boots says he wouldn’t have done it under twenty thousand pound. + +What does Brewer say? + +Brewer says what Boots says. + +What does Buffer say? + +Buffer says he knows a man who married a bathing-woman, and bolted. + +Lady Tippins fancies she has collected the suffrages of the whole +Committee (nobody dreaming of asking the Veneerings for their opinion), +when, looking round the table through her eyeglass, she perceives Mr +Twemlow with his hand to his forehead. + +Good gracious! My Twemlow forgotten! My dearest! My own! What is his +vote? + +Twemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his hand from his +forehead and replies. + +‘I am disposed to think,’ says he, ‘that this is a question of the +feelings of a gentleman.’ + +‘A gentleman can have no feelings who contracts such a marriage,’ +flushes Podsnap. + +‘Pardon me, sir,’ says Twemlow, rather less mildly than usual, ‘I don’t +agree with you. If this gentleman’s feelings of gratitude, of respect, +of admiration, and affection, induced him (as I presume they did) to +marry this lady—’ + +‘This lady!’ echoes Podsnap. + +‘Sir,’ returns Twemlow, with his wristbands bristling a little, ‘YOU +repeat the word; I repeat the word. This lady. What else would you call +her, if the gentleman were present?’ + +This being something in the nature of a poser for Podsnap, he merely +waves it away with a speechless wave. + +‘I say,’ resumes Twemlow, ‘if such feelings on the part of this +gentleman, induced this gentleman to marry this lady, I think he is the +greater gentleman for the action, and makes her the greater lady. I beg +to say, that when I use the word, gentleman, I use it in the sense in +which the degree may be attained by any man. The feelings of a gentleman +I hold sacred, and I confess I am not comfortable when they are made the +subject of sport or general discussion.’ + +‘I should like to know,’ sneers Podsnap, ‘whether your noble relation +would be of your opinion.’ + +‘Mr Podsnap,’ retorts Twemlow, ‘permit me. He might be, or he might not +be. I cannot say. But, I could not allow even him to dictate to me on a +point of great delicacy, on which I feel very strongly.’ + +Somehow, a canopy of wet blanket seems to descend upon the company, and +Lady Tippins was never known to turn so very greedy or so very cross. +Mortimer Lightwood alone brightens. He has been asking himself, as to +every other member of the Committee in turn, ‘I wonder whether you are +the Voice!’ But he does not ask himself the question after Twemlow has +spoken, and he glances in Twemlow’s direction as if he were grateful. +When the company disperse—by which time Mr and Mrs Veneering have had +quite as much as they want of the honour, and the guests have had quite +as much as THEY want of the other honour—Mortimer sees Twemlow home, +shakes hands with him cordially at parting, and fares to the Temple, +gaily. + + + +POSTSCRIPT + +IN LIEU OF PREFACE + + +When I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a class of +readers and commentators would suppose that I was at great pains to +conceal exactly what I was at great pains to suggest: namely, that Mr +John Harmon was not slain, and that Mr John Rokesmith was he. Pleasing +myself with the idea that the supposition might in part arise out +of some ingenuity in the story, and thinking it worth while, in the +interests of art, to hint to an audience that an artist (of whatever +denomination) may perhaps be trusted to know what he is about in his +vocation, if they will concede him a little patience, I was not alarmed +by the anticipation. + +To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working itself out, +another purpose originating in that leading incident, and turning it to +a pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the most interesting +and the most difficult part of my design. Its difficulty was much +enhanced by the mode of publication; for, it would be very unreasonable +to expect that many readers, pursuing a story in portions from month +to month through nineteen months, will, until they have it before them +complete, perceive the relations of its finer threads to the whole +pattern which is always before the eyes of the story-weaver at his loom. +Yet, that I hold the advantages of the mode of publication to outweigh +its disadvantages, may be easily believed of one who revived it in the +Pickwick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since. + +There is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dispute as +improbable in fiction, what are the commonest experiences in fact. +Therefore, I note here, though it may not be at all necessary, that +there are hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), far more +remarkable than that fancied in this book; and that the stores of the +Prerogative Office teem with instances of testators who have made, +changed, contradicted, hidden, forgotten, left cancelled, and left +uncancelled, each many more wills than were ever made by the elder Mr +Harmon of Harmony Jail. + +In my social experiences since Mrs Betty Higden came upon the scene and +left it, I have found Circumlocutional champions disposed to be +warm with me on the subject of my view of the Poor Law. My friend Mr +Bounderby could never see any difference between leaving the Coketown +‘hands’ exactly as they were, and requiring them to be fed with turtle +soup and venison out of gold spoons. Idiotic propositions of a parallel +nature have been freely offered for my acceptance, and I have been +called upon to admit that I would give Poor Law relief to anybody, +anywhere, anyhow. Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed a +suspicious tendency in the champions to divide into two parties; the +one, contending that there are no deserving Poor who prefer death by +slow starvation and bitter weather, to the mercies of some Relieving +Officers and some Union Houses; the other, admitting that there are such +Poor, but denying that they have any cause or reason for what they do. +The records in our newspapers, the late exposure by THE LANCET, and the +common sense and senses of common people, furnish too abundant evidence +against both defences. But, that my view of the Poor Law may not be +mistaken or misrepresented, I will state it. I believe there has been +in England, since the days of the STUARTS, no law so often infamously +administered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so +ill-supervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease and +death from destitution, that shock the Public and disgrace the country, +the illegality is quite equal to the inhumanity—and known language +could say no more of their lawlessness. + +On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in +their manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast) +were on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive +accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back +into my carriage—nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon +the turn—to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but +otherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on +her wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone’s red +neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that I +can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than +I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words +with which I have this day closed this book:—THE END. + +September 2nd, 1865. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 883 *** |