Our Mutual Friend
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.