Our Mutual Friend
hearthrug in Sackville Street. But, nobody is half so much amazed as
Hamilton Veneering, Esquire, M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, who instantly
begins to find out that the Lammles are the only people ever entered on
his soul’s register, who are NOT the oldest and dearest friends he has
in the world. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. for Pocket-Breaches, like a faithful
wife shares her husband’s discovery and inexpressible astonishment.
Perhaps the Veneerings twain may deem the last unutterable feeling
particularly due to their reputation, by reason that once upon a time
some of the longer heads in the City are whispered to have shaken
themselves, when Veneering’s extensive dealings and great wealth were
mentioned. But, it is certain that neither Mr nor Mrs Veneering can
find words to wonder in, and it becomes necessary that they give to the
oldest and dearest friends they have in the world, a wondering dinner.
For, it is by this time noticeable that, whatever befals, the Veneerings
must give a dinner upon it. Lady Tippins lives in a chronic state
of invitation to dine with the Veneerings, and in a chronic state of
inflammation arising from the dinners. Boots and Brewer go about in
cabs, with no other intelligible business on earth than to beat up
people to come and dine with the Veneerings. Veneering pervades the
legislative lobbies, intent upon entrapping his fellow-legislators to
dinner. Mrs Veneering dined with five-and-twenty bran-new faces over
night; calls upon them all to day; sends them every one a dinner-card
to-morrow, for the week after next; before that dinner is digested,
calls upon their brothers and sisters, their sons and daughters, their
nephews and nieces, their aunts and uncles and cousins, and invites
them all to dinner. And still, as at first, howsoever, the dining circle
widens, it is to be observed that all the diners are consistent in
appearing to go to the Veneerings, not to dine with Mr and Mrs Veneering
(which would seem to be the last thing in their minds), but to dine with
one another.
Perhaps, after all,—who knows?—Veneering may find this dining, though
expensive, remunerative, in the sense that it makes champions.
Mr Podsnap, as a representative man, is not alone in caring very
particularly for his own dignity, if not for that of his acquaintances,
and therefore in angrily supporting the acquaintances who have taken out
his Permit, lest, in their being lessened, he should be. The gold and
silver camels, and the ice-pails, and the rest of the Veneering table
decorations, make a brilliant show, and when I, Podsnap, casually remark
elsewhere that I dined last Monday with a gorgeous caravan of camels,
I find it personally offensive to have it hinted to me that they are
broken-kneed camels, or camels labouring under suspicion of any sort. ‘I
don’t display camels myself, I am above them: I am a more solid man; but
these camels have basked in the light of my countenance, and how dare
you, sir, insinuate to me that I have irradiated any but unimpeachable
camels?’
The camels are polishing up in the Analytical’s pantry for the dinner
of wonderment on the occasion of the Lammles going to pieces, and Mr
Twemlow feels a little queer on the sofa at his lodgings over the stable
yard in Duke Street, Saint James’s, in consequence of having taken
two advertised pills at about mid-day, on the faith of the printed
representation accompanying the box (price one and a penny halfpenny,
government stamp included), that the same ‘will be found highly salutary
as a precautionary measure in connection with the pleasures of the
table.’ To whom, while sickly with the fancy of an insoluble pill
sticking in his gullet, and also with the sensation of a deposit of warm
gum languidly wandering within him a little lower down, a servant enters
with the announcement that a lady wishes to speak with him.
‘A lady!’ says Twemlow, pluming his ruffled feathers. ‘Ask the favour of
the lady’s name.’
The lady’s name is Lammle. The lady will not detain Mr Twemlow longer
than a very few minutes. The lady is sure that Mr Twemlow will do her
the kindness to see her, on being told that she particularly desires
a short interview. The lady has no doubt whatever of Mr Twemlow’s
compliance when he hears her name. Has begged the servant to be
particular not to mistake her name. Would have sent in a card, but has
none.
‘Show the lady in.’ Lady shown in, comes in.
Mr Twemlow’s little rooms are modestly furnished, in an old-fashioned
manner (rather like the housekeeper’s room at Snigsworthy Park), and
would be bare of mere ornament, were it not for a full-length engraving
of the sublime Snigsworth over the chimneypiece, snorting at a
Corinthian column, with an enormous roll of paper at his feet, and a
heavy curtain going to tumble down on his head; those accessories being
understood to represent the noble lord as somehow in the act of saving
his country.
‘Pray take a seat, Mrs Lammle.’ Mrs Lammle takes a seat and opens the
conversation.
‘I have no doubt, Mr Twemlow, that you have heard of a reverse of
fortune having befallen us. Of course you have heard of it, for no kind
of news travels so fast—among one’s friends especially.’
Mindful of the wondering dinner, Twemlow, with a little twinge, admits
the imputation.
‘Probably it will not,’ says Mrs Lammle, with a certain hardened manner
upon her, that makes Twemlow shrink, ‘have surprised you so much as some
others, after what passed between us at the house which is now turned
out at windows. I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, Mr
Twemlow, to add a sort of postscript to what I said that day.’
Mr Twemlow’s dry and hollow cheeks become more dry and hollow at the
prospect of some new complication.
‘Really,’ says the uneasy little gentleman, ‘really, Mrs Lammle, I
should take it as a favour if you could excuse me from any further
confidence. It has ever been one of the objects of my life—which,
unfortunately, has not had many objects—to be inoffensive, and to keep
out of cabals and interferences.’
Mrs Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, scarcely finds it
necessary to look at Twemlow while he speaks, so easily does she read
him.
‘My postscript—to retain the term I have used’—says Mrs Lammle, fixing
her eyes on his face, to enforce what she says herself—‘coincides
exactly with what you say, Mr Twemlow. So far from troubling you with
any new confidence, I merely wish to remind you what the old one was. So
far from asking you for interference, I merely wish to claim your strict
neutrality.’
Twemlow going on to reply, she rests her eyes again, knowing her ears to
be quite enough for the contents of so weak a vessel.
‘I can, I suppose,’ says Twemlow, nervously, ‘offer no reasonable
objection to hearing anything that you do me the honour to wish to say
to me under those heads. But if I may, with all possible delicacy and
politeness, entreat you not to range beyond them, I—I beg to do so.’
‘Sir,’ says Mrs Lammle, raising her eyes to his face again, and quite
daunting him with her hardened manner, ‘I imparted to you a certain
piece of knowledge, to be imparted again, as you thought best, to a
certain person.’
‘Which I did,’ says Twemlow.
‘And for doing which, I thank you; though, indeed, I scarcely know why
I turned traitress to my husband in the matter, for the girl is a poor
little fool. I was a poor little fool once myself; I can find no better
reason.’ Seeing the effect she produces on him by her indifferent laugh
and cold look, she keeps her eyes upon him as she proceeds. ‘Mr Twemlow,
if you should chance to see my husband, or to see me, or to see both of
us, in the favour or confidence of any one else—whether of our common
acquaintance or not, is of no consequence—you have no right to use
against us the knowledge I intrusted you with, for one special purpose
which has been accomplished. This is what I came to say. It is not a
stipulation; to a gentleman it is simply a reminder.’
Twemlow sits murmuring to himself with his hand to his forehead.
‘It is so plain a case,’ Mrs Lammle goes on, ‘as between me (from the
first relying on your honour) and you, that I will not waste another
word upon it.’ She looks steadily at Mr Twemlow, until, with a shrug,
he makes her a little one-sided bow, as though saying ‘Yes, I think you
have a right to rely upon me,’ and then she moistens her lips, and shows
a sense of relief.
‘I trust I have kept the promise I made through your servant, that I
would detain you a very few minutes. I need trouble you no longer, Mr
Twemlow.’
‘Stay!’ says Twemlow, rising as she rises. ‘Pardon me a moment. I should
never have sought you out, madam, to say what I am going to say, but
since you have sought me out and are here, I will throw it off my mind.
Was it quite consistent, in candour, with our taking that resolution
against Mr Fledgeby, that you should afterwards address Mr Fledgeby as
your dear and confidential friend, and entreat a favour of Mr Fledgeby?
Always supposing that you did; I assert no knowledge of my own on the
subject; it has been represented to me that you did.’
‘Then he told you?’ retorts Mrs Lammle, who again has saved her eyes
while listening, and uses them with strong effect while speaking.
‘Yes.’
‘It is strange that he should have told you the truth,’ says Mrs
Lammle, seriously pondering. ‘Pray where did a circumstance so very
extraordinary happen?’
Twemlow hesitates. He is shorter than the lady as well as weaker, and,
as she stands above him with her hardened manner and her well-used eyes,
he finds himself at such a disadvantage that he would like to be of the
opposite sex.
‘May I ask where it happened, Mr Twemlow? In strict confidence?’
‘I must confess,’ says the mild little gentleman, coming to his answer
by degrees, ‘that I felt some compunctions when Mr Fledgeby mentioned
it. I must admit that I could not regard myself in an agreeable light.
More particularly, as Mr Fledgeby did, with great civility, which I
could not feel that I deserved from him, render me the same service that
you had entreated him to render you.’
It is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman’s soul to say
this last sentence. ‘Otherwise,’ he has reflected, ‘I shall assume the
superior position of having no difficulties of my own, while I know of
hers. Which would be mean, very mean.’
‘Was Mr Fledgeby’s advocacy as effectual in your case as in ours?’ Mrs
Lammle demands.
‘As ineffectual.’
‘Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw Mr Fledgeby, Mr
Twemlow?’
‘I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The reservation
was not intentional. I encountered Mr Fledgeby, quite by accident, on
the spot.—By the expression, on the spot, I mean at Mr Riah’s in Saint
Mary Axe.’
‘Have you the misfortune to be in Mr Riah’s hands then?’
‘Unfortunately, madam,’ returns Twemlow, ‘the one money obligation to
which I stand committed, the one debt of my life (but it is a just debt;
pray observe that I don’t dispute it), has fallen into Mr Riah’s hands.’
‘Mr Twemlow,’ says Mrs Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers: which he would
prevent her doing if he could, but he can’t; ‘it has fallen into Mr
Fledgeby’s hands. Mr Riah is his mask. It has fallen into Mr Fledgeby’s
hands. Let me tell you that, for your guidance. The information may be
of use to you, if only to prevent your credulity, in judging another
man’s truthfulness by your own, from being imposed upon.’
‘Impossible!’ cries Twemlow, standing aghast. ‘How do you know it?’
‘I scarcely know how I know it. The whole train of circumstances seemed
to take fire at once, and show it to me.’
‘Oh! Then you have no proof.’
‘It is very strange,’ says Mrs Lammle, coldly and boldly, and with some