Our Mutual Friend
Good-day, Miss Jenny.’
‘Good-day, young man.’
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