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.