Our Mutual Friend
A man with a very odd manner indeed, and with a lurking look that was
quite oppressive.
‘No. In fact,’ said Mr Milvey, ‘since you are so interested in the
sister of your old pupil, I may as well tell you that I am going down to
marry her.’
The schoolmaster started back.
‘Not to marry her, myself,’ said Mr Milvey, with a smile, ‘because I
have a wife already. To perform the marriage service at her wedding.’
Bradley Headstone caught hold of a pillar behind him. If Mr Milvey knew
an ashy face when he saw it, he saw it then.
‘You are quite ill, Mr Headstone!’
‘It is not much, sir. It will pass over very soon. I am accustomed to be
seized with giddiness. Don’t let me detain you, sir; I stand in need
of no assistance, I thank you. Much obliged by your sparing me these
minutes of your time.’
As Mr Milvey, who had no more minutes to spare, made a suitable reply
and turned back into the office, he observed the schoolmaster to
lean against the pillar with his hat in his hand, and to pull at his
neckcloth as if he were trying to tear it off. The Reverend Frank
accordingly directed the notice of one of the attendants to him, by
saying: ‘There is a person outside who seems to be really ill, and to
require some help, though he says he does not.’
Lightwood had by this time secured their places, and the departure-bell
was about to be rung. They took their seats, and were beginning to
move out of the station, when the same attendant came running along the
platform, looking into all the carriages.
‘Oh! You are here, sir!’ he said, springing on the step, and holding
the window-frame by his elbow, as the carriage moved. ‘That person you
pointed out to me is in a fit.’
‘I infer from what he told me that he is subject to such attacks. He
will come to, in the air, in a little while.’
He was took very bad to be sure, and was biting and knocking about him
(the man said) furiously. Would the gentleman give him his card, as he
had seen him first? The gentleman did so, with the explanation that
he knew no more of the man attacked than that he was a man of a very
respectable occupation, who had said he was out of health, as his
appearance would of itself have indicated. The attendant received the
card, watched his opportunity for sliding down, slid down, and so it
ended.
Then, the train rattled among the house-tops, and among the ragged sides
of houses torn down to make way for it, and over the swarming streets,
and under the fruitful earth, until it shot across the river: bursting
over the quiet surface like a bomb-shell, and gone again as if it had
exploded in the rush of smoke and steam and glare. A little more, and
again it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the watery
turnings and doublings with ineffable contempt, and going straight to
its end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it is no matter what living
waters run high or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses,
produce their little growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there,
are noisy or still, are troubled or at rest, for their course has one
sure termination, though their sources and devices are many.
Then, a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, stealing away
by night, as all things steal away, by night and by day, so quietly
yielding to the attraction of the loadstone rock of Eternity; and the
nearer they drew to the chamber where Eugene lay, the more they feared
that they might find his wanderings done. At last they saw its dim light
shining out, and it gave them hope: though Lightwood faltered as he
thought: ‘If he were gone, she would still be sitting by him.’
But he lay quiet, half in stupor, half in sleep. Bella, entering with
a raised admonitory finger, kissed Lizzie softly, but said not a word.
Neither did any of them speak, but all sat down at the foot of the bed,
silently waiting. And now, in this night-watch, mingling with the flow
of the river and with the rush of the train, came the questions into
Bella’s mind again: What could be in the depths of that mystery of
John’s? Why was it that he had never been seen by Mr Lightwood, whom he
still avoided? When would that trial come, through which her faith
in, and her duty to, her dear husband, was to carry her, rendering him
triumphant? For, that had been his term. Her passing through the trial
was to make the man she loved with all her heart, triumphant. Term not
to sink out of sight in Bella’s breast.
Far on in the night, Eugene opened his eyes. He was sensible, and said
at once: ‘How does the time go? Has our Mortimer come back?’
Lightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. ‘Yes, Eugene,
and all is ready.’
‘Dear boy!’ returned Eugene with a smile, ‘we both thank you heartily.
Lizzie, tell them how welcome they are, and that I would be eloquent if
I could.’
‘There is no need,’ said Mr Milvey. ‘We know it. Are you better, Mr
Wrayburn?’
‘I am much happier,’ said Eugene.
‘Much better too, I hope?’
Eugene turned his eyes towards Lizzie, as if to spare her, and answered
nothing.
Then, they all stood around the bed, and Mr Milvey, opening his book,
began the service; so rarely associated with the shadow of death; so
inseparable in the mind from a flush of life and gaiety and hope and
health and joy. Bella thought how different from her own sunny little
wedding, and wept. Mrs Milvey overflowed with pity, and wept too. The
dolls’ dressmaker, with her hands before her face, wept in her golden
bower. Reading in a low clear voice, and bending over Eugene, who kept
his eyes upon him, Mr Milvey did his office with suitable simplicity.
As the bridegroom could not move his hand, they touched his fingers with
the ring, and so put it on the bride. When the two plighted their troth,
she laid her hand on his and kept it there. When the ceremony was done,
and all the rest departed from the room, she drew her arm under his
head, and laid her own head down upon the pillow by his side.
‘Undraw the curtains, my dear girl,’ said Eugene, after a while, ‘and
let us see our wedding-day.’
The sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room, as she came
back, and put her lips to his. ‘I bless the day!’ said Eugene. ‘I bless
the day!’ said Lizzie.
‘You have made a poor marriage of it, my sweet wife,’ said Eugene. ‘A
shattered graceless fellow, stretched at his length here, and next to
nothing for you when you are a young widow.’
‘I have made the marriage that I would have given all the world to dare
to hope for,’ she replied.
‘You have thrown yourself away,’ said Eugene, shaking his head. ‘But you
have followed the treasure of your heart. My justification is, that you
had thrown that away first, dear girl!’
‘No. I had given it to you.’
‘The same thing, my poor Lizzie!’
‘Hush! hush! A very different thing.’
There were tears in his eyes, and she besought him to close them. ‘No,’
said Eugene, again shaking his head; ‘let me look at you, Lizzie, while
I can. You brave devoted girl! You heroine!’
Her own eyes filled under his praises. And when he mustered strength to
move his wounded head a very little way, and lay it on her bosom, the
tears of both fell.
‘Lizzie,’ said Eugene, after a silence: ‘when you see me wandering away
from this refuge that I have so ill deserved, speak to me by my name,
and I think I shall come back.’
‘Yes, dear Eugene.’
‘There!’ he exclaimed, smiling. ‘I should have gone then, but for that!’
A little while afterwards, when he appeared to be sinking into
insensibility, she said, in a calm loving voice: ‘Eugene, my dear
husband!’ He immediately answered: ‘There again! You see how you can
recall me!’ And afterwards, when he could not speak, he still answered
by a slight movement of his head upon her bosom.
The sun was high in the sky, when she gently disengaged herself to give
him the stimulants and nourishment he required. The utter helplessness
of the wreck of him that lay cast ashore there, now alarmed her, but he
himself appeared a little more hopeful.
‘Ah, my beloved Lizzie!’ he said, faintly. ‘How shall I ever pay all I
owe you, if I recover!’
‘Don’t be ashamed of me,’ she replied, ‘and you will have more than paid
all.’
‘It would require a life, Lizzie, to pay all; more than a life.’
‘Live for that, then; live for me, Eugene; live to see how hard I will
try to improve myself, and never to discredit you.’
‘My darling girl,’ he replied, rallying more of his old manner than
he had ever yet got together. ‘On the contrary, I have been thinking
whether it is not the best thing I can do, to die.’
‘The best thing you can do, to leave me with a broken heart?’
‘I don’t mean that, my dear girl. I was not thinking of that. What I was
thinking of was this. Out of your compassion for me, in this maimed and
broken state, you make so much of me—you think so well of me—you love
me so dearly.’
‘Heaven knows I love you dearly!’
‘And Heaven knows I prize it! Well. If I live, you’ll find me out.’
‘I shall find out that my husband has a mine of purpose and energy, and
will turn it to the best account?’
‘I hope so, dearest Lizzie,’ said Eugene, wistfully, and yet somewhat
whimsically. ‘I hope so. But I can’t summon the vanity to think so. How
can I think so, looking back on such a trifling wasted youth as mine! I
humbly hope it; but I daren’t believe it. There is a sharp misgiving
in my conscience that if I were to live, I should disappoint your good
opinion and my own—and that I ought to die, my dear!’
Chapter 12
THE PASSING SHADOW
The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of times, the earth
moved round the sun a certain number of times, the ship upon the ocean
made her voyage safely, and brought a baby-Bella home. Then who so blest
and happy as Mrs John Rokesmith, saving and excepting Mr John Rokesmith!
‘Would you not like to be rich NOW, my darling?’
‘How can you ask me such a question, John dear? Am I not rich?’
These were among the first words spoken near the baby Bella as she lay
asleep. She soon proved to be a baby of wonderful intelligence,
evincing the strongest objection to her grandmother’s society, and
being invariably seized with a painful acidity of the stomach when that
dignified lady honoured her with any attention.
It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and finding out
her own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if she were looking in the
glass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarked
to her husband that the baby seemed to make her younger than before,
reminding him of the days when she had a pet doll and used to talk to it
as she carried it about. The world might have been challenged to produce
another baby who had such a store of pleasant nonsense said and sung
to it, as Bella said and sung to this baby; or who was dressed and
undressed as often in four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and
undressed this baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop
its father’s way when he came home, as this baby was; or, in a word, who
did half the number of baby things, through the lively invention of a
gay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible baby did.
The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella began to
notice a cloud upon her husband’s brow. Watching it, she saw a gathering
and deepening anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet. More than
once, she awoke him muttering in his sleep; and, though he muttered
nothing worse than her own name, it was plain to her that his
restlessness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at length
put in her claim to divide this load, and hear her half of it.
‘You know, John dear,’ she said, cheerily reverting to their former
conversation, ‘that I hope I may safely be trusted in great things. And