Our Mutual Friend
And a married sphinx isn’t a—isn’t a nice confidential husband,’ said
Bella, in a tone of injury.
‘Bella, my life,’ said John Rokesmith, touching her cheek, with a grave
smile, as she cast down her eyes and pouted again; ‘look at me. I want
to speak to you.’
‘In earnest, Blue Beard of the secret chamber?’ asked Bella, clearing
her pretty face.
‘In earnest. And I confess to the secret chamber. Don’t you remember
that you asked me not to declare what I thought of your higher qualities
until you had been tried?’
‘Yes, John dear. And I fully meant it, and I fully mean it.’
‘The time will come, my darling—I am no prophet, but I say so,—when
you WILL be tried. The time will come, I think, when you will undergo
a trial through which you will never pass quite triumphantly for me,
unless you can put perfect faith in me.’
‘Then you may be sure of me, John dear, for I can put perfect faith in
you, and I do, and I always, always will. Don’t judge me by a little
thing like this, John. In little things, I am a little thing myself—I
always was. But in great things, I hope not; I don’t mean to boast, John
dear, but I hope not!’
He was even better convinced of the truth of what she said than she was,
as he felt her loving arms about him. If the Golden Dustman’s riches had
been his to stake, he would have staked them to the last farthing on the
fidelity through good and evil of her affectionate and trusting heart.
‘Now, I’ll go down to, and go away with, Mr Lightwood,’ said Bella,
springing up. ‘You are the most creasing and tumbling Clumsy-Boots of a
packer, John, that ever was; but if you’re quite good, and will promise
never to do so any more (though I don’t know what you have done!) you
may pack me a little bag for a night, while I get my bonnet on.’
He gaily complied, and she tied her dimpled chin up, and shook her head
into her bonnet, and pulled out the bows of her bonnet-strings, and
got her gloves on, finger by finger, and finally got them on her
little plump hands, and bade him good-bye and went down. Mr Lightwood’s
impatience was much relieved when he found her dressed for departure.
‘Mr Rokesmith goes with us?’ he said, hesitating, with a look towards
the door.
‘Oh, I forgot!’ replied Bella. ‘His best compliments. His face is
swollen to the size of two faces, and he is to go to bed directly, poor
fellow, to wait for the doctor, who is coming to lance him.’
‘It is curious,’ observed Lightwood, ‘that I have never yet seen Mr
Rokesmith, though we have been engaged in the same affairs.’
‘Really?’ said the unblushing Bella.
‘I begin to think,’ observed Lightwood, ‘that I never shall see him.’
‘These things happen so oddly sometimes,’ said Bella with a steady
countenance, ‘that there seems a kind of fatality in them. But I am
quite ready, Mr Lightwood.’
They started directly, in a little carriage that Lightwood had brought
with him from never-to-be-forgotten Greenwich; and from Greenwich they
started directly for London; and in London they waited at a railway
station until such time as the Reverend Frank Milvey, and Margaretta
his wife, with whom Mortimer Lightwood had been already in conference,
should come and join them.
That worthy couple were delayed by a portentous old parishioner of the
female gender, who was one of the plagues of their lives, and with whom
they bore with most exemplary sweetness and good-humour, notwithstanding
her having an infection of absurdity about her, that communicated itself
to everything with which, and everybody with whom, she came in contact.
She was a member of the Reverend Frank’s congregation, and made a point
of distinguishing herself in that body, by conspicuously weeping at
everything, however cheering, said by the Reverend Frank in his public
ministration; also by applying to herself the various lamentations of
David, and complaining in a personally injured manner (much in arrear of
the clerk and the rest of the respondents) that her enemies were digging
pit-falls about her, and breaking her with rods of iron. Indeed, this
old widow discharged herself of that portion of the Morning and Evening
Service as if she were lodging a complaint on oath and applying for
a warrant before a magistrate. But this was not her most inconvenient
characteristic, for that took the form of an impression, usually
recurring in inclement weather and at about daybreak, that she had
something on her mind and stood in immediate need of the Reverend Frank
to come and take it off. Many a time had that kind creature got up, and
gone out to Mrs Sprodgkin (such was the disciple’s name), suppressing
a strong sense of her comicality by his strong sense of duty, and
perfectly knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. However,
beyond themselves, the Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs Milvey seldom
hinted that Mrs Sprodgkin was hardly worth the trouble she gave; but
both made the best of her, as they did of all their troubles.
This very exacting member of the fold appeared to be endowed with a
sixth sense, in regard of knowing when the Reverend Frank Milvey least
desired her company, and with promptitude appearing in his little hall.
Consequently, when the Reverend Frank had willingly engaged that he and
his wife would accompany Lightwood back, he said, as a matter of course:
‘We must make haste to get out, Margaretta, my dear, or we shall be
descended on by Mrs Sprodgkin.’ To which Mrs Milvey replied, in her
pleasantly emphatic way, ‘Oh YES, for she IS such a marplot, Frank, and
DOES worry so!’ Words that were scarcely uttered when their theme
was announced as in faithful attendance below, desiring counsel on a
spiritual matter. The points on which Mrs Sprodgkin sought elucidation
being seldom of a pressing nature (as Who begat Whom, or some
information concerning the Amorites), Mrs Milvey on this special
occasion resorted to the device of buying her off with a present of tea
and sugar, and a loaf and butter. These gifts Mrs Sprodgkin accepted,
but still insisted on dutifully remaining in the hall, to curtsey to the
Reverend Frank as he came forth. Who, incautiously saying in his genial
manner, ‘Well, Sally, there you are!’ involved himself in a discursive
address from Mrs Sprodgkin, revolving around the result that she
regarded tea and sugar in the light of myrrh and frankincense, and
considered bread and butter identical with locusts and wild honey.
Having communicated this edifying piece of information, Mrs Sprodgkin
was left still unadjourned in the hall, and Mr and Mrs Milvey hurried in
a heated condition to the railway station. All of which is here recorded
to the honour of that good Christian pair, representatives of hundreds
of other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as useful, who merge
the smallness of their work in its greatness, and feel in no danger of
losing dignity when they adapt themselves to incomprehensible humbugs.
‘Detained at the last moment by one who had a claim upon me,’ was the
Reverend Frank’s apology to Lightwood, taking no thought of himself.
To which Mrs Milvey added, taking thought for him, like the championing
little wife she was; ‘Oh yes, detained at the last moment. But AS to
the claim, Frank, I MUST say that I DO think you are OVER-considerate
sometimes, and allow THAT to be a LITTLE abused.’
Bella felt conscious, in spite of her late pledge for herself, that her
husband’s absence would give disagreeable occasion for surprise to the
Milveys. Nor could she appear quite at her ease when Mrs Milvey asked:
‘HOW is Mr Rokesmith, and IS he gone before us, or DOES he follow us?’
It becoming necessary, upon this, to send him to bed again and hold him
in waiting to be lanced again, Bella did it. But not half as well on
the second occasion as on the first; for, a twice-told white one seems
almost to become a black one, when you are not used to it.
‘Oh DEAR!’ said Mrs Milvey, ‘I am SO sorry! Mr Rokesmith took SUCH an
interest in Lizzie Hexam, when we were there before. And if we had ONLY
known of his face, we COULD have given him something that would have
kept it down long enough for so SHORT a purpose.’
By way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened to stipulate that
he was not in pain. Mrs Milvey was SO glad of it.
‘I don’t know HOW it is,’ said Mrs Milvey, ‘and I am SURE you don’t,
Frank, but the clergy and their wives seem to CAUSE swelled faces.
Whenever I take notice of a child in the school, it seems to me as if
its face swelled INSTANTLY. Frank NEVER makes acquaintance with a new
old woman, but she gets the face-ache. And another thing is, we DO make
the poor children sniff so. I don’t know HOW we do it, and I should
be so glad not to; but the MORE we take notice of them, the MORE they
sniff. Just as they do when the text is given out.—Frank, that’s a
schoolmaster. I have seen him somewhere.’
The reference was to a young man of reserved appearance, in a coat and
waistcoat of black, and pantaloons of pepper and salt. He had come
into the office of the station, from its interior, in an unsettled way,
immediately after Lightwood had gone out to the train; and he had been
hurriedly reading the printed bills and notices on the wall. He had had
a wandering interest in what was said among the people waiting there
and passing to and fro. He had drawn nearer, at about the time when
Mrs Milvey mentioned Lizzie Hexam, and had remained near, since: though
always glancing towards the door by which Lightwood had gone out. He
stood with his back towards them, and his gloved hands clasped behind
him. There was now so evident a faltering upon him, expressive of
indecision whether or no he should express his having heard himself
referred to, that Mr Milvey spoke to him.
‘I cannot recall your name,’ he said, ‘but I remember to have seen you
in your school.’
‘My name is Bradley Headstone, sir,’ he replied, backing into a more
retired place.
‘I ought to have remembered it,’ said Mr Milvey, giving him his hand. ‘I
hope you are well? A little overworked, I am afraid?’
‘Yes, I am overworked just at present, sir.’
‘Had no play in your last holiday time?’
‘No, sir.’
‘All work and no play, Mr Headstone, will not make dulness, in your
case, I dare say; but it will make dyspepsia, if you don’t take care.’
‘I will endeavour to take care, sir. Might I beg leave to speak to you,
outside, a moment?’
‘By all means.’
It was evening, and the office was well lighted. The schoolmaster, who
had never remitted his watch on Lightwood’s door, now moved by another
door to a corner without, where there was more shadow than light; and
said, plucking at his gloves:
‘One of your ladies, sir, mentioned within my hearing a name that I am
acquainted with; I may say, well acquainted with. The name of the sister
of an old pupil of mine. He was my pupil for a long time, and has got on
and gone upward rapidly. The name of Hexam. The name of Lizzie Hexam.’
He seemed to be a shy man, struggling against nervousness, and spoke in
a very constrained way. The break he set between his last two sentences
was quite embarrassing to his hearer.
‘Yes,’ replied Mr Milvey. ‘We are going down to see her.’
‘I gathered as much, sir. I hope there is nothing amiss with the sister
of my old pupil? I hope no bereavement has befallen her. I hope she is
in no affliction? Has lost no—relation?’
Mr Milvey thought this a man with a very odd manner, and a dark downward
look; but he answered in his usual open way.
‘I am glad to tell you, Mr Headstone, that the sister of your old pupil
has not sustained any such loss. You thought I might be going down to
bury some one?’
‘That may have been the connexion of ideas, sir, with your clerical
character, but I was not conscious of it.—Then you are not, sir?’