Our Mutual Friend
him to belong to it, that it gives her a sensation she never experienced
before. Some hazy idea that if affairs could remain thus for a long time
it would be a respectable change, floats in her mind. Also some vague
idea that the old evil is drowned out of him, and that if he should
happily come back to resume his occupation of the empty form that lies
upon the bed, his spirit will be altered. In which state of mind she
kisses the stony lips, and quite believes that the impassive hand she
chafes will revive a tender hand, if it revive ever.
Sweet delusion for Pleasant Riderhood. But they minister to him with
such extraordinary interest, their anxiety is so keen, their vigilance
is so great, their excited joy grows so intense as the signs of life
strengthen, that how can she resist it, poor thing! And now he begins
to breathe naturally, and he stirs, and the doctor declares him to have
come back from that inexplicable journey where he stopped on the dark
road, and to be here.
Tom Tootle, who is nearest to the doctor when he says this, grasps
the doctor fervently by the hand. Bob Glamour, William Williams, and
Jonathan of the no surname, all shake hands with one another round, and
with the doctor too. Bob Glamour blows his nose, and Jonathan of the
no surname is moved to do likewise, but lacking a pocket handkerchief
abandons that outlet for his emotion. Pleasant sheds tears deserving her
own name, and her sweet delusion is at its height.
There is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a question. He
wonders where he is. Tell him.
‘Father, you were run down on the river, and are at Miss Abbey
Potterson’s.’
He stares at his daughter, stares all around him, closes his eyes, and
lies slumbering on her arm.
The short-lived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad, unimpressible
face is coming up from the depths of the river, or what other depths, to
the surface again. As he grows warm, the doctor and the four men cool.
As his lineaments soften with life, their faces and their hearts harden
to him.
‘He will do now,’ says the doctor, washing his hands, and looking at the
patient with growing disfavour.
‘Many a better man,’ moralizes Tom Tootle with a gloomy shake of the
head, ‘ain’t had his luck.’
‘It’s to be hoped he’ll make a better use of his life,’ says Bob
Glamour, ‘than I expect he will.’
‘Or than he done afore,’ adds William Williams.
‘But no, not he!’ says Jonathan of the no surname, clinching the
quartette.
They speak in a low tone because of his daughter, but she sees that they
have all drawn off, and that they stand in a group at the other end of
the room, shunning him. It would be too much to suspect them of being
sorry that he didn’t die when he had done so much towards it, but they
clearly wish that they had had a better subject to bestow their pains
on. Intelligence is conveyed to Miss Abbey in the bar, who reappears on
the scene, and contemplates from a distance, holding whispered discourse
with the doctor. The spark of life was deeply interesting while it was
in abeyance, but now that it has got established in Mr Riderhood, there
appears to be a general desire that circumstances had admitted of its
being developed in anybody else, rather than that gentleman.
‘However,’ says Miss Abbey, cheering them up, ‘you have done your duty
like good and true men, and you had better come down and take something
at the expense of the Porters.’
This they all do, leaving the daughter watching the father. To whom, in
their absence, Bob Gliddery presents himself.
‘His gills looks rum; don’t they?’ says Bob, after inspecting the
patient.
Pleasant faintly nods.
‘His gills’ll look rummer when he wakes; won’t they?’ says Bob.
Pleasant hopes not. Why?
‘When he finds himself here, you know,’ Bob explains. ‘Cause Miss Abbey
forbid him the house and ordered him out of it. But what you may call
the Fates ordered him into it again. Which is rumness; ain’t it?’
‘He wouldn’t have come here of his own accord,’ returns poor Pleasant,
with an effort at a little pride.
‘No,’ retorts Bob. ‘Nor he wouldn’t have been let in, if he had.’
The short delusion is quite dispelled now. As plainly as she sees on her
arm the old father, unimproved, Pleasant sees that everybody there will
cut him when he recovers consciousness. ‘I’ll take him away ever so soon
as I can,’ thinks Pleasant with a sigh; ‘he’s best at home.’
Presently they all return, and wait for him to become conscious that
they will all be glad to get rid of him. Some clothes are got together
for him to wear, his own being saturated with water, and his present
dress being composed of blankets.
Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the prevalent dislike
were finding him out somewhere in his sleep and expressing itself to
him, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted by his
daughter to sit up in bed.
‘Well, Riderhood,’ says the doctor, ‘how do you feel?’
He replies gruffly, ‘Nothing to boast on.’ Having, in fact, returned to
life in an uncommonly sulky state.
‘I don’t mean to preach; but I hope,’ says the doctor, gravely shaking
his head, ‘that this escape may have a good effect upon you, Riderhood.’
The patient’s discontented growl of a reply is not intelligible; his
daughter, however, could interpret, if she would, that what he says is,
he ‘don’t want no Poll-Parroting’.
Mr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his head (with
his daughter’s help) exactly as if he had just had a Fight.
‘Warn’t it a steamer?’ he pauses to ask her.
‘Yes, father.’
‘I’ll have the law on her, bust her! and make her pay for it.’
He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping to
examine his arms and hands, as if to see what punishment he has received
in the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other garments, and slowly
gets them on, with an appearance of great malevolence towards his late
opponent and all the spectators. He has an impression that his nose is
bleeding, and several times draws the back of his hand across it, and
looks for the result, in a pugilistic manner, greatly strengthening that
incongruous resemblance.
‘Where’s my fur cap?’ he asks in a surly voice, when he has shuffled his
clothes on.
‘In the river,’ somebody rejoins.
‘And warn’t there no honest man to pick it up? O’ course there was
though, and to cut off with it arterwards. You are a rare lot, all on
you!’
Thus, Mr Riderhood: taking from the hands of his daughter, with special
ill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he pulls it down over his ears.
Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily upon her, and
growling, ‘Hold still, can’t you? What! You must be a staggering next,
must you?’ he takes his departure out of the ring in which he has had
that little turn-up with Death.
Chapter 4
A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY
Mr and Mrs Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred more
anniversaries of their wedding day than Mr and Mrs Lammle had seen of
theirs, but they still celebrated the occasion in the bosom of
their family. Not that these celebrations ever resulted in anything
particularly agreeable, or that the family was ever disappointed by that
circumstance on account of having looked forward to the return of the
auspicious day with sanguine anticipations of enjoyment. It was kept
morally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, enabling Mrs Wilfer to hold
a sombre darkling state, which exhibited that impressive woman in her
choicest colours.
The noble lady’s condition on these delightful occasions was one
compounded of heroic endurance and heroic forgiveness. Lurid indications
of the better marriages she might have made, shone athwart the awful
gloom of her composure, and fitfully revealed the cherub as a little
monster unaccountably favoured by Heaven, who had possessed himself of a
blessing for which many of his superiors had sued and contended in vain.
So firmly had this his position towards his treasure become established,
that when the anniversary arrived, it always found him in an apologetic
state. It is not impossible that his modest penitence may have even gone
the length of sometimes severely reproving him for that he ever took the
liberty of making so exalted a character his wife.
As for the children of the union, their experience of these festivals
had been sufficiently uncomfortable to lead them annually to wish, when
out of their tenderest years, either that Ma had married somebody else
instead of much-teased Pa, or that Pa had married somebody else instead
of Ma. When there came to be but two sisters left at home, the daring
mind of Bella on the next of these occasions scaled the height of
wondering with droll vexation ‘what on earth Pa ever could have seen in
Ma, to induce him to make such a little fool of himself as to ask her to
have him.’
The revolving year now bringing the day round in its orderly sequence,
Bella arrived in the Boffin chariot to assist at the celebration. It was
the family custom when the day recurred, to sacrifice a pair of fowls
on the altar of Hymen; and Bella had sent a note beforehand, to intimate
that she would bring the votive offering with her. So, Bella and the
fowls, by the united energies of two horses, two men, four wheels, and a
plum-pudding carriage dog with as uncomfortable a collar on as if he
had been George the Fourth, were deposited at the door of the parental
dwelling. They were there received by Mrs Wilfer in person, whose
dignity on this, as on most special occasions, was heightened by a
mysterious toothache.
‘I shall not require the carriage at night,’ said Bella. ‘I shall walk
back.’
The male domestic of Mrs Boffin touched his hat, and in the act of
departure had an awful glare bestowed upon him by Mrs Wilfer, intended
to carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance that, whatever his
private suspicions might be, male domestics in livery were no rarity
there.
‘Well, dear Ma,’ said Bella, ‘and how do you do?’
‘I am as well, Bella,’ replied Mrs Wilfer, ‘as can be expected.’
‘Dear me, Ma,’ said Bella; ‘you talk as if one was just born!’
‘That’s exactly what Ma has been doing,’ interposed Lavvy, over the
maternal shoulder, ‘ever since we got up this morning. It’s all very
well to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is impossible to
conceive.’
Mrs Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accompanied by any
words, attended both her daughters to the kitchen, where the sacrifice
was to be prepared.
‘Mr Rokesmith,’ said she, resignedly, ‘has been so polite as to place
his sitting-room at our disposal to-day. You will therefore, Bella, be
entertained in the humble abode of your parents, so far in accordance
with your present style of living, that there will be a drawing-room for
your reception as well as a dining-room. Your papa invited Mr Rokesmith
to partake of our lowly fare. In excusing himself on account of a
particular engagement, he offered the use of his apartment.’
Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his own room at
Mr Boffin’s, but she approved of his staying away. ‘We should only have
put one another out of countenance,’ she thought, ‘and we do that quite
often enough as it is.’
Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up to it with
the least possible delay, and make a close inspection of its contents.
It was tastefully though economically furnished, and very neatly
arranged. There were shelves and stands of books, English, French, and
Italian; and in a portfolio on the writing-table there were sheets upon
sheets of memoranda and calculations in figures, evidently referring to
the Boffin property. On that table also, carefully backed with canvas,
varnished, mounted, and rolled like a map, was the placard descriptive