Our Mutual Friend
the parties most interested,’ replies Wegg, promptly.
‘In the cause of the right, Mr Wegg?’
‘Always so, Mr Venus. If the parties should use them in the cause of the
wrong, that would be their act and deed. Mr Venus. I have an opinion of
you, sir, to which it is not easy to give mouth. Since I called upon you
that evening when you were, as I may say, floating your powerful mind in
tea, I have felt that you required to be roused with an object. In this
friendly move, sir, you will have a glorious object to rouse you.’
Mr Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout has been uppermost
in his crafty mind:—the qualifications of Mr Venus for such a search.
He expatiates on Mr Venus’s patient habits and delicate manipulation; on
his skill in piecing little things together; on his knowledge of various
tissues and textures; on the likelihood of small indications leading him
on to the discovery of great concealments. ‘While as to myself,’ says
Wegg, ‘I am not good at it. Whether I gave myself up to prodding,
or whether I gave myself up to scooping, I couldn’t do it with that
delicate touch so as not to show that I was disturbing the mounds.
Quite different with YOU, going to work (as YOU would) in the light of
a fellow-man, holily pledged in a friendly move to his brother man.’ Mr
Wegg next modestly remarks on the want of adaptation in a wooden leg
to ladders and such like airy perches, and also hints at an inherent
tendency in that timber fiction, when called into action for the
purposes of a promenade on an ashey slope, to stick itself into the
yielding foothold, and peg its owner to one spot. Then, leaving this
part of the subject, he remarks on the special phenomenon that before
his installation in the Bower, it was from Mr Venus that he first heard
of the legend of hidden wealth in the Mounds: ‘which’, he observes with
a vaguely pious air, ‘was surely never meant for nothing.’ Lastly,
he returns to the cause of the right, gloomily foreshadowing the
possibility of something being unearthed to criminate Mr Boffin (of whom
he once more candidly admits it cannot be denied that he profits by a
murder), and anticipating his denunciation by the friendly movers to
avenging justice. And this, Mr Wegg expressly points out, not at all for
the sake of the reward—though it would be a want of principle not to
take it.
To all this, Mr Venus, with his shock of dusty hair cocked after the
manner of a terrier’s ears, attends profoundly. When Mr Wegg, having
finished, opens his arms wide, as if to show Mr Venus how bare his
breast is, and then folds them pending a reply, Mr Venus winks at him
with both eyes some little time before speaking.
‘I see you have tried it by yourself, Mr Wegg,’ he says when he does
speak. ‘You have found out the difficulties by experience.’
‘No, it can hardly be said that I have tried it,’ replies Wegg, a little
dashed by the hint. ‘I have just skimmed it. Skimmed it.’
‘And found nothing besides the difficulties?’
Wegg shakes his head.
‘I scarcely know what to say to this, Mr Wegg,’ observes Venus, after
ruminating for a while.
‘Say yes,’ Wegg naturally urges.
‘If I wasn’t soured, my answer would be no. But being soured, Mr Wegg,
and driven to reckless madness and desperation, I suppose it’s Yes.’
Wegg joyfully reproduces the two glasses, repeats the ceremony of
clinking their rims, and inwardly drinks with great heartiness to the
health and success in life of the young lady who has reduced Mr Venus to
his present convenient state of mind.
The articles of the friendly move are then severally recited and agreed
upon. They are but secrecy, fidelity, and perseverance. The Bower to
be always free of access to Mr Venus for his researches, and every
precaution to be taken against their attracting observation in the
neighbourhood.
‘There’s a footstep!’ exclaims Venus.
‘Where?’ cries Wegg, starting.
‘Outside. St!’
They are in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move, by shaking
hands upon it. They softly break off, light their pipes which have gone
out, and lean back in their chairs. No doubt, a footstep. It approaches
the window, and a hand taps at the glass. ‘Come in!’ calls Wegg; meaning
come round by the door. But the heavy old-fashioned sash is slowly
raised, and a head slowly looks in out of the dark background of night.
‘Pray is Mr Silas Wegg here? Oh! I see him!’
The friendly movers might not have been quite at their ease, even
though the visitor had entered in the usual manner. But, leaning on the
breast-high window, and staring in out of the darkness, they find the
visitor extremely embarrassing. Especially Mr Venus: who removes his
pipe, draws back his head, and stares at the starer, as if it were his
own Hindoo baby come to fetch him home.
‘Good evening, Mr Wegg. The yard gate-lock should be looked to, if you
please; it don’t catch.’
‘Is it Mr Rokesmith?’ falters Wegg.
‘It is Mr Rokesmith. Don’t let me disturb you. I am not coming in. I
have only a message for you, which I undertook to deliver on my way home
to my lodgings. I was in two minds about coming beyond the gate without
ringing: not knowing but you might have a dog about.’
‘I wish I had,’ mutters Wegg, with his back turned as he rose from his
chair. ‘St! Hush! The talking-over stranger, Mr Venus.’
‘Is that any one I know?’ inquires the staring Secretary.
‘No, Mr Rokesmith. Friend of mine. Passing the evening with me.’
‘Oh! I beg his pardon. Mr Boffin wishes you to know that he does not
expect you to stay at home any evening, on the chance of his coming. It
has occurred to him that he may, without intending it, have been a tie
upon you. In future, if he should come without notice, he will take his
chance of finding you, and it will be all the same to him if he does
not. I undertook to tell you on my way. That’s all.’
With that, and ‘Good night,’ the Secretary lowers the window, and
disappears. They listen, and hear his footsteps go back to the gate, and
hear the gate close after him.
‘And for that individual, Mr Venus,’ remarks Wegg, when he is fully
gone, ‘I have been passed over! Let me ask you what you think of him?’
Apparently, Mr Venus does not know what to think of him, for he makes
sundry efforts to reply, without delivering himself of any other
articulate utterance than that he has ‘a singular look’.
‘A double look, you mean, sir,’ rejoins Wegg, playing bitterly upon the
word. ‘That’s HIS look. Any amount of singular look for me, but not a
double look! That’s an under-handed mind, sir.’
‘Do you say there’s something against him?’ Venus asks.
‘Something against him?’ repeats Wegg. ‘Something? What would the relief
be to my feelings—as a fellow-man—if I wasn’t the slave of truth, and
didn’t feel myself compelled to answer, Everything!’
See into what wonderful maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches plunge
their heads! It is such unspeakable moral compensation to Wegg, to be
overcome by the consideration that Mr Rokesmith has an underhanded mind!
‘On this starlight night, Mr Venus,’ he remarks, when he is showing that
friendly mover out across the yard, and both are something the worse
for mixing again and again: ‘on this starlight night to think that
talking-over strangers, and underhanded minds, can go walking home under
the sky, as if they was all square!’
‘The spectacle of those orbs,’ says Mr Venus, gazing upward with his hat
tumbling off; ‘brings heavy on me her crushing words that she did not
wish to regard herself nor yet to be regarded in that—’
‘I know! I know! You needn’t repeat ’em,’ says Wegg, pressing his hand.
‘But think how those stars steady me in the cause of the right against
some that shall be nameless. It isn’t that I bear malice. But see how
they glisten with old remembrances! Old remembrances of what, sir?’
Mr Venus begins drearily replying, ‘Of her words, in her own
handwriting, that she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet—’ when
Silas cuts him short with dignity.
‘No, sir! Remembrances of Our House, of Master George, of Aunt Jane, of
Uncle Parker, all laid waste! All offered up sacrifices to the minion of
fortune and the worm of the hour!’
Chapter 8
IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS
The minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, or in less cutting
language, Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, the Golden Dustman, had become
as much at home in his eminently aristocratic family mansion as he
was likely ever to be. He could not but feel that, like an eminently
aristocratic family cheese, it was much too large for his wants, and
bred an infinite amount of parasites; but he was content to regard this
drawback on his property as a sort of perpetual Legacy Duty. He felt the
more resigned to it, forasmuch as Mrs Boffin enjoyed herself completely,
and Miss Bella was delighted.
That young lady was, no doubt, an acquisition to the Boffins. She
was far too pretty to be unattractive anywhere, and far too quick of
perception to be below the tone of her new career. Whether it improved
her heart might be a matter of taste that was open to question; but as
touching another matter of taste, its improvement of her appearance and
manner, there could be no question whatever.
And thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set Mrs Boffin
right; and even further, that Miss Bella began to feel ill at ease, and
as it were responsible, when she saw Mrs Boffin going wrong. Not that so
sweet a disposition and so sound a nature could ever go very wrong even
among the great visiting authorities who agreed that the Boffins were
‘charmingly vulgar’ (which for certain was not their own case in saying
so), but that when she made a slip on the social ice on which all the
children of Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be saved, are required to
skate in circles, or to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped Miss
Bella up (so that young lady felt), and caused her to experience great
confusion under the glances of the more skilful performers engaged in
those ice-exercises.
At Miss Bella’s time of life it was not to be expected that she should
examine herself very closely on the congruity or stability of her
position in Mr Boffin’s house. And as she had never been sparing of
complaints of her old home when she had no other to compare it with,
so there was no novelty of ingratitude or disdain in her very much
preferring her new one.
‘An invaluable man is Rokesmith,’ said Mr Boffin, after some two or
three months. ‘But I can’t quite make him out.’
Neither could Bella, so she found the subject rather interesting.
‘He takes more care of my affairs, morning, noon, and night,’ said Mr
Boffin, ‘than fifty other men put together either could or would; and
yet he has ways of his own that are like tying a scaffolding-pole right
across the road, and bringing me up short when I am almost a-walking arm
in arm with him.’
‘May I ask how so, sir?’ inquired Bella.
‘Well, my dear,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘he won’t meet any company here, but
you. When we have visitors, I should wish him to have his regular place
at the table like ourselves; but no, he won’t take it.’
‘If he considers himself above it,’ said Miss Bella, with an airy toss
of her head, ‘I should leave him alone.’
‘It ain’t that, my dear,’ replied Mr Boffin, thinking it over. ‘He don’t
consider himself above it.’
‘Perhaps he considers himself beneath it,’ suggested Bella. ‘If so, he
ought to know best.’
‘No, my dear; nor it ain’t that, neither. No,’ repeated Mr Boffin, with
a shake of his head, after again thinking it over; ‘Rokesmith’s a modest
man, but he don’t consider himself beneath it.’
‘Then what does he consider, sir?’ asked Bella.
‘Dashed if I know!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘It seemed at first as if it