0756m
‘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.
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 donotunderstand.’
‘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 hewouldhave? 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 ismycase.’
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 bothmyhands, 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, wedo!’ returned Eugene, with great animation. ‘We may hide behind the bush and beat about it, but wedo! 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 itwasSociety 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.
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, ‘whetheryouare the Voice of Society!’)
‘Hear, hear, hear!’ cries Lady Tippins. ‘Your opinion of thismesalliance, 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, ‘yourepeat 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 astheywant of the other honour—Mortimer sees Twemlow home, shakes hands with him cordially at parting, and fares to the Temple, gaily.
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 byThe 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 theStuarts, 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.