Our Mutual Friend
‘Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!’
‘Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my dear John. Take her home!’
So, she leaning on her husband’s arm, they turned homeward by a rosy
path which the gracious sun struck out for them in its setting. And O
there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a
bright old song it is, that O ’tis love, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes
the world go round!
Chapter 5
CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE
The impressive gloom with which Mrs Wilfer received her husband on his
return from the wedding, knocked so hard at the door of the cherubic
conscience, and likewise so impaired the firmness of the cherubic legs,
that the culprit’s tottering condition of mind and body might have
roused suspicion in less occupied persons than the grimly heroic lady,
Miss Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr George Sampson.
But, the attention of all three being fully possessed by the main
fact of the marriage, they had happily none to bestow on the guilty
conspirator; to which fortunate circumstance he owed the escape for
which he was in nowise indebted to himself.
‘You do not, R. W.’ said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, ‘inquire
for your daughter Bella.’
‘To be sure, my dear,’ he returned, with a most flagrant assumption of
unconsciousness, ‘I did omit it. How—or perhaps I should rather say
where—IS Bella?’
‘Not here,’ Mrs Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms.
The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of ‘Oh,
indeed, my dear!’
‘Not here,’ repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. ‘In a word,
R. W., you have no daughter Bella.’
‘No daughter Bella, my dear?’
‘No. Your daughter Bella,’ said Mrs Wilfer, with a lofty air of never
having had the least copartnership in that young lady: of whom she now
made reproachful mention as an article of luxury which her husband had
set up entirely on his own account, and in direct opposition to her
advice: ‘—your daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendicant.’
‘Good gracious, my dear!’
‘Show your father his daughter Bella’s letter, Lavinia,’ said Mrs
Wilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament tone, and waving her hand.
‘I think your father will admit it to be documentary proof of what I
tell him. I believe your father is acquainted with his daughter Bella’s
writing. But I do not know. He may tell you he is not. Nothing will
surprise me.’
‘Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning,’ said the Irrepressible,
flouncing at her father in handing him the evidence. ‘Hopes Ma won’t be
angry, but is happily married to Mr John Rokesmith, and didn’t mention
it beforehand to avoid words, and please tell darling you, and love
to me, and I should like to know what you’d have said if any other
unmarried member of the family had done it!’
He read the letter, and faintly exclaimed ‘Dear me!’
‘You may well say Dear me!’ rejoined Mrs Wilfer, in a deep tone. Upon
which encouragement he said it again, though scarcely with the success
he had expected; for the scornful lady then remarked, with extreme
bitterness: ‘You said that before.’
‘It’s very surprising. But I suppose, my dear,’ hinted the cherub, as he
folded the letter after a disconcerting silence, ‘that we must make the
best of it? Would you object to my pointing out, my dear, that Mr
John Rokesmith is not (so far as I am acquainted with him), strictly
speaking, a Mendicant.’
‘Indeed?’ returned Mrs Wilfer, with an awful air of politeness. ‘Truly
so? I was not aware that Mr John Rokesmith was a gentleman of landed
property. But I am much relieved to hear it.’
‘I doubt if you HAVE heard it, my dear,’ the cherub submitted with
hesitation.
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Wilfer. ‘I make false statements, it appears? So
be it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my husband may. The one
thing is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in the
arrangement. By all means!’ Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a
deadly cheerfulness.
But, here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, dragging the
reluctant form of Mr Sampson after her.
‘Ma,’ interposed the young lady, ‘I must say I think it would be much
better if you would keep to the point, and not hold forth about
people’s flying into people’s faces, which is nothing more nor less than
impossible nonsense.’
‘How!’ exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, knitting her dark brows.
‘Just im-possible nonsense, Ma,’ returned Lavvy, ‘and George Sampson
knows it is, as well as I do.’
Mrs Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indignant eyes upon
the wretched George: who, divided between the support due from him to
his love, and the support due from him to his love’s mamma, supported
nobody, not even himself.
‘The true point is,’ pursued Lavinia, ‘that Bella has behaved in a most
unsisterly way to me, and might have severely compromised me with George
and with George’s family, by making off and getting married in this very
low and disreputable manner—with some pew-opener or other, I suppose,
for a bridesmaid—when she ought to have confided in me, and ought
to have said, “If, Lavvy, you consider it due to your engagement with
George, that you should countenance the occasion by being present, then
Lavvy, I beg you to BE present, keeping my secret from Ma and Pa.” As of
course I should have done.’
‘As of course you would have done? Ingrate!’ exclaimed Mrs Wilfer.
‘Viper!’
‘I say! You know ma’am. Upon my honour you mustn’t,’ Mr Sampson
remonstrated, shaking his head seriously. ‘With the highest respect for
you, ma’am, upon my life you mustn’t. No really, you know. When a man
with the feelings of a gentleman finds himself engaged to a young lady,
and it comes (even on the part of a member of the family) to vipers, you
know!—I would merely put it to your own good feeling, you know,’ said
Mr Sampson, in rather lame conclusion.
Mrs Wilfer’s baleful stare at the young gentleman in acknowledgment of
his obliging interference was of such a nature that Miss Lavinia burst
into tears, and caught him round the neck for his protection.
‘My own unnatural mother,’ screamed the young lady, ‘wants to annihilate
George! But you shan’t be annihilated, George. I’ll die first!’
Mr Sampson, in the arms of his mistress, still struggled to shake his
head at Mrs Wilfer, and to remark: ‘With every sentiment of respect for
you, you know, ma’am—vipers really doesn’t do you credit.’
‘You shall not be annihilated, George!’ cried Miss Lavinia. ‘Ma shall
destroy me first, and then she’ll be contented. Oh, oh, oh! Have I lured
George from his happy home to expose him to this! George, dear, be free!
Leave me, ever dearest George, to Ma and to my fate. Give my love to
your aunt, George dear, and implore her not to curse the viper that has
crossed your path and blighted your existence. Oh, oh, oh!’ The young
lady who, hysterically speaking, was only just come of age, and had
never gone off yet, here fell into a highly creditable crisis, which,
regarded as a first performance, was very successful; Mr Sampson,
bending over the body meanwhile, in a state of distraction, which
induced him to address Mrs Wilfer in the inconsistent expressions:
‘Demon—with the highest respect for you—behold your work!’
The cherub stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking on, but on the
whole was inclined to welcome this diversion as one in which, by reason
of the absorbent properties of hysterics, the previous question would
become absorbed. And so, indeed, it proved, for the Irrepressible
gradually coming to herself; and asking with wild emotion, ‘George dear,
are you safe?’ and further, ‘George love, what has happened? Where is
Ma?’ Mr Sampson, with words of comfort, raised her prostrate form, and
handed her to Mrs Wilfer as if the young lady were something in the
nature of refreshments. Mrs Wilfer with dignity partaking of the
refreshments, by kissing her once on the brow (as if accepting an
oyster), Miss Lavvy, tottering, returned to the protection of Mr
Sampson; to whom she said, ‘George dear, I am afraid I have been
foolish; but I am still a little weak and giddy; don’t let go my hand,
George!’ And whom she afterwards greatly agitated at intervals, by
giving utterance, when least expected, to a sound between a sob and a
bottle of soda water, that seemed to rend the bosom of her frock.
Among the most remarkable effects of this crisis may be mentioned its
having, when peace was restored, an inexplicable moral influence, of an
elevating kind, on Miss Lavinia, Mrs Wilfer, and Mr George Sampson, from
which R. W. was altogether excluded, as an outsider and non-sympathizer.
Miss Lavinia assumed a modest air of having distinguished herself; Mrs
Wilfer, a serene air of forgiveness and resignation; Mr Sampson, an air
of having been improved and chastened. The influence pervaded the spirit
in which they returned to the previous question.
‘George dear,’ said Lavvy, with a melancholy smile, ‘after what has
passed, I am sure Ma will tell Pa that he may tell Bella we shall all be
glad to see her and her husband.’
Mr Sampson said he was sure of it too; murmuring how eminently he
respected Mrs Wilfer, and ever must, and ever would. Never more
eminently, he added, than after what had passed.
‘Far be it from me,’ said Mrs Wilfer, making deep proclamation from her
corner, ‘to run counter to the feelings of a child of mine, and of a
Youth,’ Mr Sampson hardly seemed to like that word, ‘who is the object
of her maiden preference. I may feel—nay, know—that I have been
deluded and deceived. I may feel—nay, know—that I have been set
aside and passed over. I may feel—nay, know—that after having so far
overcome my repugnance towards Mr and Mrs Boffin as to receive them
under this roof, and to consent to your daughter Bella’s,’ here turning
to her husband, ‘residing under theirs, it were well if your daughter
Bella,’ again turning to her husband, ‘had profited in a worldly
point of view by a connection so distasteful, so disreputable. I may
feel—nay, know—that in uniting herself to Mr Rokesmith she has united
herself to one who is, in spite of shallow sophistry, a Mendicant. And
I may feel well assured that your daughter Bella,’ again turning to her
husband, ‘does not exalt her family by becoming a Mendicant’s bride. But
I suppress what I feel, and say nothing of it.’
Mr Sampson murmured that this was the sort of thing you might expect
from one who had ever in her own family been an example and never
an outrage. And ever more so (Mr Sampson added, with some degree of
obscurity,) and never more so, than in and through what had passed. He
must take the liberty of adding, that what was true of the mother
was true of the youngest daughter, and that he could never forget the
touching feelings that the conduct of both had awakened within him. In
conclusion, he did hope that there wasn’t a man with a beating heart who
was capable of something that remained undescribed, in consequence of
Miss Lavinia’s stopping him as he reeled in his speech.
‘Therefore, R. W.’ said Mrs Wilfer, resuming her discourse and turning
to her lord again, ‘let your daughter Bella come when she will, and she
will be received. So,’ after a short pause, and an air of having taken
medicine in it, ‘so will her husband.’
‘And I beg, Pa,’ said Lavinia, ‘that you will not tell Bella what I
have undergone. It can do no good, and it might cause her to reproach
herself.’
‘My dearest girl,’ urged Mr Sampson, ‘she ought to know it.’
‘No, George,’ said Lavinia, in a tone of resolute self-denial. ‘No,
dearest George, let it be buried in oblivion.’
Mr Sampson considered that, ‘too noble.’
‘Nothing is too noble, dearest George,’ returned Lavinia. ‘And Pa, I
hope you will be careful not to refer before Bella, if you can help