Our Mutual Friend
Having again paused as before, Eugene said: ‘I don’t know that, either.
But tell me. Did you ever see me take so much trouble about anything, as
about this disappearance of hers? I ask, for information.’
‘My dear Eugene, I wish I ever had!’
‘Then you have not? Just so. You confirm my own impression. Does that
look as if I cared for her? I ask, for information.’
‘I asked YOU for information, Eugene,’ said Mortimer reproachfully.
‘Dear boy, I know it, but I can’t give it. I thirst for information.
What do I mean? If my taking so much trouble to recover her does not
mean that I care for her, what does it mean? “If Peter Piper picked a
peck of pickled pepper, where’s the peck,” &c.?’
Though he said this gaily, he said it with a perplexed and inquisitive
face, as if he actually did not know what to make of himself. ‘Look on
to the end—’ Lightwood was beginning to remonstrate, when he caught at
the words:
‘Ah! See now! That’s exactly what I am incapable of doing. How very
acute you are, Mortimer, in finding my weak place! When we were at
school together, I got up my lessons at the last moment, day by day and
bit by bit; now we are out in life together, I get up my lessons in the
same way. In the present task I have not got beyond this:—I am bent
on finding Lizzie, and I mean to find her, and I will take any means
of finding her that offer themselves. Fair means or foul means, are all
alike to me. I ask you—for information—what does that mean? When I
have found her I may ask you—also for information—what do I mean now?
But it would be premature in this stage, and it’s not the character of
my mind.’
Lightwood was shaking his head over the air with which his friend held
forth thus—an air so whimsically open and argumentative as almost to
deprive what he said of the appearance of evasion—when a shuffling was
heard at the outer door, and then an undecided knock, as though
some hand were groping for the knocker. ‘The frolicsome youth of the
neighbourhood,’ said Eugene, ‘whom I should be delighted to pitch from
this elevation into the churchyard below, without any intermediate
ceremonies, have probably turned the lamp out. I am on duty to-night,
and will see to the door.’
His friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented gleam of
determination with which he had spoken of finding this girl, and which
had faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words, when Eugene
came back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of a man, shaking from
head to foot, and clothed in shabby grease and smear.
‘This interesting gentleman,’ said Eugene, ‘is the son—the
occasionally rather trying son, for he has his failings—of a lady of my
acquaintance. My dear Mortimer—Mr Dolls.’ Eugene had no idea what his
name was, knowing the little dressmaker’s to be assumed, but presented
him with easy confidence under the first appellation that his
associations suggested.
‘I gather, my dear Mortimer,’ pursued Eugene, as Lightwood stared at
the obscene visitor, ‘from the manner of Mr Dolls—which is occasionally
complicated—that he desires to make some communication to me. I have
mentioned to Mr Dolls that you and I are on terms of confidence, and
have requested Mr Dolls to develop his views here.’
The wretched object being much embarrassed by holding what remained
of his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to the door, and put him down in a
chair.
‘It will be necessary, I think,’ he observed, ‘to wind up Mr Dolls,
before anything to any mortal purpose can be got out of him. Brandy, Mr
Dolls, or—?’
‘Threepenn’orth Rum,’ said Mr Dolls.
A judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him in a
wine-glass, and he began to convey it to his mouth, with all kinds of
falterings and gyrations on the road.
‘The nerves of Mr Dolls,’ remarked Eugene to Lightwood, ‘are
considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient to fumigate
Mr Dolls.’
He took the shovel from the grate, sprinkled a few live ashes on it, and
from a box on the chimney-piece took a few pastiles, which he set upon
them; then, with great composure began placidly waving the shovel in
front of Mr Dolls, to cut him off from his company.
‘Lord bless my soul, Eugene!’ cried Lightwood, laughing again, ‘what a
mad fellow you are! Why does this creature come to see you?’
‘We shall hear,’ said Wrayburn, very observant of his face withal. ‘Now
then. Speak out. Don’t be afraid. State your business, Dolls.’
‘Mist Wrayburn!’ said the visitor, thickly and huskily. ‘—’tis Mist
Wrayburn, ain’t?’ With a stupid stare.
‘Of course it is. Look at me. What do you want?’
Mr Dolls collapsed in his chair, and faintly said ‘Threepenn’orth Rum.’
‘Will you do me the favour, my dear Mortimer, to wind up Mr Dolls
again?’ said Eugene. ‘I am occupied with the fumigation.’
A similar quantity was poured into his glass, and he got it to his lips
by similar circuitous ways. Having drunk it, Mr Dolls, with an evident
fear of running down again unless he made haste, proceeded to business.
‘Mist Wrayburn. Tried to nudge you, but you wouldn’t. You want that
drection. You want t’know where she lives. _Do_ you Mist Wrayburn?’
With a glance at his friend, Eugene replied to the question sternly, ‘I
do.’
‘I am er man,’ said Mr Dolls, trying to smite himself on the breast, but
bringing his hand to bear upon the vicinity of his eye, ‘er do it. I am
er man er do it.’
‘What are you the man to do?’ demanded Eugene, still sternly.
‘Er give up that drection.’
‘Have you got it?’
With a most laborious attempt at pride and dignity, Mr Dolls rolled
his head for some time, awakening the highest expectations, and then
answered, as if it were the happiest point that could possibly be
expected of him: ‘No.’
‘What do you mean then?’
Mr Dolls, collapsing in the drowsiest manner after his late intellectual
triumph, replied: ‘Threepenn’orth Rum.’
‘Wind him up again, my dear Mortimer,’ said Wrayburn; ‘wind him up
again.’
‘Eugene, Eugene,’ urged Lightwood in a low voice, as he complied, ‘can
you stoop to the use of such an instrument as this?’
‘I said,’ was the reply, made with that former gleam of determination,
‘that I would find her out by any means, fair or foul. These are foul,
and I’ll take them—if I am not first tempted to break the head of Mr
Dolls with the fumigator. Can you get the direction? Do you mean that?
Speak! If that’s what you have come for, say how much you want.’
‘Ten shillings—Threepenn’orths Rum,’ said Mr Dolls.
‘You shall have it.’
‘Fifteen shillings—Threepenn’orths Rum,’ said Mr Dolls, making an
attempt to stiffen himself.
‘You shall have it. Stop at that. How will you get the direction you
talk of?’
‘I am er man,’ said Mr Dolls, with majesty, ‘er get it, sir.’
‘How will you get it, I ask you?’
‘I am ill-used vidual,’ said Mr Dolls. ‘Blown up morning t’night. Called
names. She makes Mint money, sir, and never stands Threepenn’orth Rum.’
‘Get on,’ rejoined Eugene, tapping his palsied head with the
fire-shovel, as it sank on his breast. ‘What comes next?’
Making a dignified attempt to gather himself together, but, as it were,
dropping half a dozen pieces of himself while he tried in vain to pick
up one, Mr Dolls, swaying his head from side to side, regarded his
questioner with what he supposed to be a haughty smile and a scornful
glance.
‘She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am NOT mere child, sir. Man.
Man talent. Lerrers pass betwixt ’em. Postman lerrers. Easy for man
talent er get drection, as get his own drection.’
‘Get it then,’ said Eugene; adding very heartily under his breath,
‘—You Brute! Get it, and bring it here to me, and earn the money for
sixty threepenn’orths of rum, and drink them all, one a top of another,
and drink yourself dead with all possible expedition.’ The latter
clauses of these special instructions he addressed to the fire, as he
gave it back the ashes he had taken from it, and replaced the shovel.
Mr Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery that he had been
insulted by Lightwood, and stated his desire to ‘have it out with him’
on the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the liberal terms of
a sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr Dolls then fell a crying, and then
exhibited a tendency to fall asleep. This last manifestation as by far
the most alarming, by reason of its threatening his prolonged stay
on the premises, necessitated vigorous measures. Eugene picked up his
worn-out hat with the tongs, clapped it on his head, and, taking him by
the collar—all this at arm’s length—conducted him down stairs and out
of the precincts into Fleet Street. There, he turned his face westward,
and left him.
When he got back, Lightwood was standing over the fire, brooding in a
sufficiently low-spirited manner.
‘I’ll wash my hands of Mr Dolls physically—’ said Eugene, ‘and be with
you again directly, Mortimer.’
‘I would much prefer,’ retorted Mortimer, ‘your washing your hands of Mr
Dolls, morally, Eugene.’
‘So would I,’ said Eugene; ‘but you see, dear boy, I can’t do without
him.’
In a minute or two he resumed his chair, as perfectly unconcerned as
usual, and rallied his friend on having so narrowly escaped the prowess
of their muscular visitor.
‘I can’t be amused on this theme,’ said Mortimer, restlessly. ‘You can
make almost any theme amusing to me, Eugene, but not this.’
‘Well!’ cried Eugene, ‘I am a little ashamed of it myself, and therefore
let us change the subject.’
‘It is so deplorably underhanded,’ said Mortimer. ‘It is so unworthy of
you, this setting on of such a shameful scout.’
‘We have changed the subject!’ exclaimed Eugene, airily. ‘We have found
a new one in that word, scout. Don’t be like Patience on a mantelpiece
frowning at Dolls, but sit down, and I’ll tell you something that you
really will find amusing. Take a cigar. Look at this of mine. I
light it—draw one puff—breathe the smoke out—there it goes—it’s
Dolls!—it’s gone—and being gone you are a man again.’
‘Your subject,’ said Mortimer, after lighting a cigar, and comforting
himself with a whiff or two, ‘was scouts, Eugene.’
‘Exactly. Isn’t it droll that I never go out after dark, but I find
myself attended, always by one scout, and often by two?’
Lightwood took his cigar from his lips in surprise, and looked at his
friend, as if with a latent suspicion that there must be a jest or
hidden meaning in his words.
‘On my honour, no,’ said Wrayburn, answering the look and smiling
carelessly; ‘I don’t wonder at your supposing so, but on my honour, no.
I say what I mean. I never go out after dark, but I find myself in the
ludicrous situation of being followed and observed at a distance, always
by one scout, and often by two.’
‘Are you sure, Eugene?’
‘Sure? My dear boy, they are always the same.’
‘But there’s no process out against you. The Jews only threaten. They
have done nothing. Besides, they know where to find you, and I represent
you. Why take the trouble?’
‘Observe the legal mind!’ remarked Eugene, turning round to the
furniture again, with an air of indolent rapture. ‘Observe the dyer’s
hand, assimilating itself to what it works in,—or would work in, if
anybody would give it anything to do. Respected solicitor, it’s not
that. The schoolmaster’s abroad.’
‘The schoolmaster?’
‘Ay! Sometimes the schoolmaster and the pupil are both abroad. Why, how
soon you rust in my absence! You don’t understand yet? Those fellows
who were here one night. They are the scouts I speak of, as doing me the
honour to attend me after dark.’
‘How long has this been going on?’ asked Lightwood, opposing a serious
face to the laugh of his friend.
‘I apprehend it has been going on, ever since a certain person went off.
Probably, it had been going on some little time before I noticed it: