Our Mutual Friend
it then appeared, not only that in that burst of sarcastic eloquence
Mr Boffin was considered by his two fellow-conspirators to have outdone
himself, but that in his own opinion it was a remarkable achievement.
‘Never thought of it afore the moment, my dear!’ he observed to Bella.
‘When John said, if he had been so happy as to win your affections and
possess your heart, it come into my head to turn round upon him with
“Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack quack
says the duck, and Bow-wow-wow says the dog.” I couldn’t tell you how
it come into my head or where from, but it had so much the sound of a
rasper that I own to you it astonished myself. I was awful nigh bursting
out a laughing though, when it made John stare!’
‘You said, my pretty,’ Mrs Boffin reminded Bella, ‘that there was one
other thing you couldn’t understand.’
‘O yes!’ cried Bella, covering her face with her hands; ‘but that I
never shall be able to understand as long as I live. It is, how John
could love me so when I so little deserved it, and how you, Mr and Mrs
Boffin, could be so forgetful of yourselves, and take such pains and
trouble, to make me a little better, and after all to help him to so
unworthy a wife. But I am very very grateful.’
It was John Harmon’s turn then—John Harmon now for good, and John
Rokesmith for nevermore—to plead with her (quite unnecessarily) in
behalf of his deception, and to tell her, over and over again, that it
had been prolonged by her own winning graces in her supposed station of
life. This led on to many interchanges of endearment and enjoyment
on all sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observed
staring, in a most imbecile manner, on Mrs Boffin’s breast, was
pronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the whole transaction,
and was made to declare to the ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave of
the speckled fist (with difficulty detached from an exceedingly short
waist), ‘I have already informed my venerable Ma that I know all about
it!’
Then, said John Harmon, would Mrs John Harmon come and see her house?
And a dainty house it was, and a tastefully beautiful; and they went
through it in procession; the Inexhaustible on Mrs Boffin’s bosom (still
staring) occupying the middle station, and Mr Boffin bringing up the
rear. And on Bella’s exquisite toilette table was an ivory casket, and
in the casket were jewels the like of which she had never dreamed of,
and aloft on an upper floor was a nursery garnished as with rainbows;
‘though we were hard put to it,’ said John Harmon, ‘to get it done in so
short a time.’
The house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, who was
shortly afterwards heard screaming among the rainbows; whereupon Bella
withdrew herself from the presence and knowledge of gemplemorums, and
the screaming ceased, and smiling Peace associated herself with that
young olive branch.
‘Come and look in, Noddy!’ said Mrs Boffin to Mr Boffin.
Mr Boffin, submitting to be led on tiptoe to the nursery door, looked in
with immense satisfaction, although there was nothing to see but Bella
in a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low chair upon the
hearth, with her child in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashes
shading her eyes from the fire.
‘It looks as if the old man’s spirit had found rest at last; don’t it?’
said Mrs Boffin.
‘Yes, old lady.’
‘And as if his money had turned bright again, after a long long rust in
the dark, and was at last a beginning to sparkle in the sunlight?’
‘Yes, old lady.’
‘And it makes a pretty and a promising picter; don’t it?’
‘Yes, old lady.’
But, aware at the instant of a fine opening for a point, Mr Boffin
quenched that observation in this—delivered in the grisliest growling
of the regular brown bear. ‘A pretty and a hopeful picter? Mew,
Quack quack, Bow-wow!’ And then trotted silently downstairs, with his
shoulders in a state of the liveliest commotion.
Chapter 14
CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE
Mr and Mrs John Harmon had so timed their taking possession of their
rightful name and their London house, that the event befell on the
very day when the last waggon-load of the last Mound was driven out
at the gates of Boffin’s Bower. As it jolted away, Mr Wegg felt that
the last load was correspondingly removed from his mind, and hailed
the auspicious season when that black sheep, Boffin, was to be closely
sheared.
Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas had kept
watch with rapacious eyes. But, eyes no less rapacious had watched the
growth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dust
of which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should there
be any, seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined every
waif and stray into money, long before?
Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr Wegg felt too sensibly
relieved by the close of the labour, to grumble to any great extent.
A foreman-representative of the dust contractors, purchasers of the
Mounds, had worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor of the
proceedings, asserting his employers’ rights to cart off by daylight,
nightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death of
Silas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep
himself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat
and velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and
untimely hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day’s work
in fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing,
when a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce an
approaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, to fall to
work again. At another time, he would be rumbled up out of his soundest
sleep, in the dead of the night; at another, would be kept at his post
eight-and-forty hours on end. The more his persecutor besought him not
to trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Wegg
that indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, and
that attempts were on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was
his rest through these means, that he led the life of having wagered
to keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked
piteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed.
So gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden leg showed
disproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance in contrast
with the rest of his plagued body, which might almost have been termed
chubby.
However, Wegg’s comfort was, that all his disagreeables were now over,
and that he was immediately coming into his property. Of late, the
grindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling at his own nose
rather than Boffin’s, but Boffin’s nose was now to be sharpened fine.
Thus far, Mr Wegg had let his dusty friend off lightly, having been
baulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with him, by the
machinations of the sleepless dustman. He had been constrained to depute
Mr Venus to keep their dusty friend, Boffin, under inspection, while he
himself turned lank and lean at the Bower.
To Mr Venus’s museum Mr Wegg repaired when at length the Mounds
were down and gone. It being evening, he found that gentleman, as he
expected, seated over his fire; but did not find him, as he expected,
floating his powerful mind in tea.
‘Why, you smell rather comfortable here!’ said Wegg, seeming to take it
ill, and stopping and sniffing as he entered.
‘I AM rather comfortable, sir,’ said Venus.
‘You don’t use lemon in your business, do you?’ asked Wegg, sniffing
again.
‘No, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus. ‘When I use it at all, I mostly use it in
cobblers’ punch.’
‘What do you call cobblers’ punch?’ demanded Wegg, in a worse humour
than before.
‘It’s difficult to impart the receipt for it, sir,’ returned Venus,
‘because, however particular you may be in allotting your materials,
so much will still depend upon the individual gifts, and there being a
feeling thrown into it. But the groundwork is gin.’
‘In a Dutch bottle?’ said Wegg gloomily, as he sat himself down.
‘Very good, sir, very good!’ cried Venus. ‘Will you partake, sir?’
‘Will I partake?’ returned Wegg very surlily. ‘Why, of course I will!
WILL a man partake, as has been tormented out of his five senses by
an everlasting dustman with his head tied up! WILL he, too! As if he
wouldn’t!’
‘Don’t let it put you out, Mr Wegg. You don’t seem in your usual
spirits.’
‘If you come to that, you don’t seem in your usual spirits,’ growled
Wegg. ‘You seem to be setting up for lively.’
This circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to give Mr Wegg
uncommon offence.
‘And you’ve been having your hair cut!’ said Wegg, missing the usual
dusty shock.
‘Yes, Mr Wegg. But don’t let that put you out, either.’
‘And I am blest if you ain’t getting fat!’ said Wegg, with culminating
discontent. ‘What are you going to do next?’
‘Well, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, smiling in a sprightly manner, ‘I suspect
you could hardly guess what I am going to do next.’
‘I don’t want to guess,’ retorted Wegg. ‘All I’ve got to say is, that
it’s well for you that the diwision of labour has been what it has been.
It’s well for you to have had so light a part in this business, when
mine has been so heavy. You haven’t had YOUR rest broke, I’ll be bound.’
‘Not at all, sir,’ said Venus. ‘Never rested so well in all my life, I
thank you.’
‘Ah!’ grumbled Wegg, ‘you should have been me. If you had been me, and
had been fretted out of your bed, and your sleep, and your meals, and
your mind, for a stretch of months together, you’d have been out of
condition and out of sorts.’
‘Certainly, it has trained you down, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, contemplating
his figure with an artist’s eye. ‘Trained you down very low, it has! So
weazen and yellow is the kivering upon your bones, that one might almost
fancy you had come to give a look-in upon the French gentleman in the
corner, instead of me.’
Mr Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gentleman’s
corner, seemed to notice something new there, which induced him to
glance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his glasses and stare
at all the nooks and corners of the dim shop in succession.
‘Why, you’ve been having the place cleaned up!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes, Mr Wegg. By the hand of adorable woman.’
‘Then what you’re going to do next, I suppose, is to get married?’
‘That’s it, sir.’
Silas took off his glasses again—finding himself too intensely
disgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend and partner to bear
a magnified view of him and made the inquiry:
‘To the old party?’
‘Mr Wegg!’ said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. ‘The lady in
question is not a old party.’
‘I meant,’ exclaimed Wegg, testily, ‘to the party as formerly objected?’
‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘in a case of so much delicacy, I must trouble
you to say what you mean. There are strings that must not be played
upon. No sir! Not sounded, unless in the most respectful and tuneful
manner. Of such melodious strings is Miss Pleasant Riderhood formed.’
‘Then it IS the lady as formerly objected?’ said Wegg.
‘Sir,’ returned Venus with dignity, ‘I accept the altered phrase. It is
the lady as formerly objected.’
‘When is it to come off?’ asked Silas.
‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, with another flush. ‘I cannot permit it to be
put in the form of a Fight. I must temperately but firmly call upon you,
sir, to amend that question.’
‘When is the lady,’ Wegg reluctantly demanded, constraining his ill
temper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in trade, ‘a
going to give her ’and where she has already given her ’art?’