Our Mutual Friend
as I never had another client, and in all likelihood never shall have, I
am rather proud of him as a natural curiosity probably unique.’
Although as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is not quite as easy
as usual below it. With an air of not minding Eugene at all, he feels
that the subject is not altogether a safe one in that connexion.
‘The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of my professional
museum,’ he resumes, ‘hereupon desires his Secretary—an individual
of the hermit-crab or oyster species, and whose name, I think, is
Chokesmith—but it doesn’t in the least matter—say Artichoke—to put
himself in communication with Lizzie Hexam. Artichoke professes his
readiness so to do, endeavours to do so, but fails.’
‘Why fails?’ asks Boots.
‘How fails?’ asks Brewer.
‘Pardon me,’ returns Lightwood, ‘I must postpone the reply for one
moment, or we shall have an anti-climax. Artichoke failing signally, my
client refers the task to me: his purpose being to advance the interests
of the object of his search. I proceed to put myself in communication
with her; I even happen to possess some special means,’ with a glance
at Eugene, ‘of putting myself in communication with her; but I fail too,
because she has vanished.’
‘Vanished!’ is the general echo.
‘Disappeared,’ says Mortimer. ‘Nobody knows how, nobody knows when,
nobody knows where. And so ends the story to which my honourable and
fair enslaver opposite referred.’
Tippins, with a bewitching little scream, opines that we shall every one
of us be murdered in our beds. Eugene eyes her as if some of us would
be enough for him. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P., remarks that these social
mysteries make one afraid of leaving Baby. Veneering, M.P., wishes to
be informed (with something of a second-hand air of seeing the Right
Honourable Gentleman at the head of the Home Department in his place)
whether it is intended to be conveyed that the vanished person has been
spirited away or otherwise harmed? Instead of Lightwood’s answering,
Eugene answers, and answers hastily and vexedly: ‘No, no, no; he doesn’t
mean that; he means voluntarily vanished—but utterly—completely.’
However, the great subject of the happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle must
not be allowed to vanish with the other vanishments—with the vanishing
of the murderer, the vanishing of Julius Handford, the vanishing of
Lizzie Hexam,—and therefore Veneering must recall the present sheep
to the pen from which they have strayed. Who so fit to discourse of
the happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle, they being the dearest and oldest
friends he has in the world; or what audience so fit for him to take
into his confidence as that audience, a noun of multitude or signifying
many, who are all the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world?
So Veneering, without the formality of rising, launches into a familiar
oration, gradually toning into the Parliamentary sing-song, in which he
sees at that board his dear friend Twemlow who on that day twelvemonth
bestowed on his dear friend Lammle the fair hand of his dear friend
Sophronia, and in which he also sees at that board his dear friends
Boots and Brewer whose rallying round him at a period when his dear
friend Lady Tippins likewise rallied round him—ay, and in the foremost
rank—he can never forget while memory holds her seat. But he is free
to confess that he misses from that board his dear old friend Podsnap,
though he is well represented by his dear young friend Georgiana. And he
further sees at that board (this he announces with pomp, as if exulting
in the powers of an extraordinary telescope) his friend Mr Fledgeby, if
he will permit him to call him so. For all of these reasons, and many
more which he right well knows will have occurred to persons of your
exceptional acuteness, he is here to submit to you that the time has
arrived when, with our hearts in our glasses, with tears in our eyes,
with blessings on our lips, and in a general way with a profusion of
gammon and spinach in our emotional larders, we should one and all drink
to our dear friends the Lammles, wishing them many years as happy as
the last, and many many friends as congenially united as themselves. And
this he will add; that Anastatia Veneering (who is instantly heard to
weep) is formed on the same model as her old and chosen friend Sophronia
Lammle, in respect that she is devoted to the man who wooed and won her,
and nobly discharges the duties of a wife.
Seeing no better way out of it, Veneering here pulls up his oratorical
Pegasus extremely short, and plumps down, clean over his head, with:
‘Lammle, God bless you!’
Then Lammle. Too much of him every way; pervadingly too much nose of a
coarse wrong shape, and his nose in his mind and his manners; too much
smile to be real; too much frown to be false; too many large teeth to be
visible at once without suggesting a bite. He thanks you, dear friends,
for your kindly greeting, and hopes to receive you—it may be on the
next of these delightful occasions—in a residence better suited to
your claims on the rites of hospitality. He will never forget that at
Veneering’s he first saw Sophronia. Sophronia will never forget that at
Veneering’s she first saw him. ‘They spoke of it soon after they
were married, and agreed that they would never forget it. In fact, to
Veneering they owe their union. They hope to show their sense of this
some day (‘No, no, from Veneering)—oh yes, yes, and let him rely
upon it, they will if they can! His marriage with Sophronia was not a
marriage of interest on either side: she had her little fortune, he had
his little fortune: they joined their little fortunes: it was a marriage
of pure inclination and suitability. Thank you! Sophronia and he are
fond of the society of young people; but he is not sure that their house
would be a good house for young people proposing to remain single, since
the contemplation of its domestic bliss might induce them to change
their minds. He will not apply this to any one present; certainly not
to their darling little Georgiana. Again thank you! Neither, by-the-by,
will he apply it to his friend Fledgeby. He thanks Veneering for the
feeling manner in which he referred to their common friend Fledgeby, for
he holds that gentleman in the highest estimation. Thank you. In fact
(returning unexpectedly to Fledgeby), the better you know him, the more
you find in him that you desire to know. Again thank you! In his dear
Sophronia’s name and in his own, thank you!
Mrs Lammle has sat quite still, with her eyes cast down upon the
table-cloth. As Mr Lammle’s address ends, Twemlow once more turns to her
involuntarily, not cured yet of that often recurring impression that she
is going to speak to him. This time she really is going to speak to him.
Veneering is talking with his other next neighbour, and she speaks in a
low voice.
‘Mr Twemlow.’
He answers, ‘I beg your pardon? Yes?’ Still a little doubtful, because
of her not looking at him.
‘You have the soul of a gentleman, and I know I may trust you. Will you
give me the opportunity of saying a few words to you when you come up
stairs?’
‘Assuredly. I shall be honoured.’
‘Don’t seem to do so, if you please, and don’t think it inconsistent if
my manner should be more careless than my words. I may be watched.’
Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, and sinks
back in his chair meditating. Mrs Lammle rises. All rise. The ladies go
up stairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after them. Fledgeby has devoted
the interval to taking an observation of Boots’s whiskers, Brewer’s
whiskers, and Lammle’s whiskers, and considering which pattern of
whisker he would prefer to produce out of himself by friction, if the
Genie of the cheek would only answer to his rubbing.
In the drawing-room, groups form as usual. Lightwood, Boots, and Brewer,
flutter like moths around that yellow wax candle—guttering down,
and with some hint of a winding-sheet in it—Lady Tippins. Outsiders
cultivate Veneering, M P., and Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. Lammle stands with
folded arms, Mephistophelean in a corner, with Georgiana and Fledgeby.
Mrs Lammle, on a sofa by a table, invites Mr Twemlow’s attention to a
book of portraits in her hand.
Mr Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and Mrs Lammle
shows him a portrait.
‘You have reason to be surprised,’ she says softly, ‘but I wish you
wouldn’t look so.’
Disturbed Twemlow, making an effort not to look so, looks much more so.
‘I think, Mr Twemlow, you never saw that distant connexion of yours
before to-day?’
‘No, never.’
‘Now that you do see him, you see what he is. You are not proud of him?’
‘To say the truth, Mrs Lammle, no.’
‘If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to acknowledge him.
Here is another portrait. What do you think of it?’
Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud: ‘Very like!
Uncommonly like!’
‘You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his attentions? You
notice where he is now, and how engaged?’
‘Yes. But Mr Lammle—’
She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows him
another portrait.
‘Very good; is it not?’
‘Charming!’ says Twemlow.
‘So like as to be almost a caricature?—Mr Twemlow, it is impossible
to tell you what the struggle in my mind has been, before I could bring
myself to speak to you as I do now. It is only in the conviction that I
may trust you never to betray me, that I can proceed. Sincerely promise
me that you never will betray my confidence—that you will respect it,
even though you may no longer respect me,—and I shall be as satisfied
as if you had sworn it.’
‘Madam, on the honour of a poor gentleman—’
‘Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr Twemlow, I implore you to save that
child!’
‘That child?’
‘Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and married
to that connexion of yours. It is a partnership affair, a
money-speculation. She has no strength of will or character to help
herself and she is on the brink of being sold into wretchedness for
life.’
‘Amazing! But what can I do to prevent it?’ demands Twemlow, shocked and
bewildered to the last degree.
‘Here is another portrait. And not good, is it?’
Aghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back to look at it
critically, Twemlow still dimly perceives the expediency of throwing his
own head back, and does so. Though he no more sees the portrait than if
it were in China.
‘Decidedly not good,’ says Mrs Lammle. ‘Stiff and exaggerated!’
‘And ex—’ But Twemlow, in his demolished state, cannot command the
word, and trails off into ‘—actly so.’
‘Mr Twemlow, your word will have weight with her pompous, self-blinded
father. You know how much he makes of your family. Lose no time. Warn
him.’
‘But warn him against whom?’
‘Against me.’
By great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at this critical
instant. The stimulant is Lammle’s voice.
‘Sophronia, my dear, what portraits are you showing Twemlow?’
‘Public characters, Alfred.’
‘Show him the last of me.’
‘Yes, Alfred.’
She puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the leaves, and
presents the portrait to Twemlow.
‘That is the last of Mr Lammle. Do you think it good?—Warn her father
against me. I deserve it, for I have been in the scheme from the first.
It is my husband’s scheme, your connexion’s, and mine. I tell you this,
only to show you the necessity of the poor little foolish affectionate
creature’s being befriended and rescued. You will not repeat this to her
father. You will spare me so far, and spare my husband. For, though this
celebration of to-day is all a mockery, he is my husband, and we must
live.—Do you think it like?’
Twemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the portrait in his