Chapter 16
MINDERS AND RE-MINDERS
The Secretary lost no time in getting to work, and his vigilance and method
soon set their mark on the Golden Dustman’s affairs. His earnestness in
determining to understand the length and breadth and depth of every piece of
work submitted to him by his employer, was as special as his despatch in
transacting it. He accepted no information or explanation at second hand, but
made himself the master of everything confided to him.
One part of the Secretary’s conduct, underlying all the rest, might have been
mistrusted by a man with a better knowledge of men than the Golden Dustman
had. The Secretary was as far from being inquisitive or intrusive as Secretary could be, but nothing less than a complete understanding of the whole of the affairs would content him. It soon became apparent (from the knowledge with
which he set out) that he must have been to the office where the Harmon will was registered, and must have read the will. He anticipated Mr Boffin’s
consideration whether he should be advised with on this or that topic, by
showing that he already knew of it and understood it. He did this with no attempt
at concealment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his duty to have prepared himself at all attainable points for its utmost discharge.
This might—let it be repeated—have awakened some little vague mistrust in a
man more worldly-wise than the Golden Dustman. On the other hand, the
Secretary was discerning, discreet, and silent, though as zealous as if the affairs
had been his own. He showed no love of patronage or the command of money,
but distinctly preferred resigning both to Mr Boffin. If, in his limited sphere, he
sought power, it was the power of knowledge; the power derivable from a
perfect comprehension of his business.
As on the Secretary’s face there was a nameless cloud, so on his manner there
was a shadow equally indefinable. It was not that he was embarrassed, as on that
first night with the Wilfer family; he was habitually unembarrassed now, and yet
the something remained. It was not that his manner was bad, as on that occasion;
it was now very good, as being modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something
never left it. It has been written of men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or
who have passed through a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation have killed
a defenceless fellow-creature, that the record thereof has never faded from their countenances until they died. Was there any such record here?
He established a temporary office for himself in the new house, and all went
well under his hand, with one singular exception. He manifestly objected to
communicate with Mr Boffin’s solicitor. Two or three times, when there was
some slight occasion for his doing so, he transferred the task to Mr Boffin; and
his evasion of it soon became so curiously apparent, that Mr Boffin spoke to him
on the subject of his reluctance.
‘It is so,’ the Secretary admitted. ‘I would rather not.’
Had he any personal objection to Mr Lightwood?
‘I don’t know him.’
Had he suffered from law-suits?
‘Not more than other men,’ was his short answer.
Was he prejudiced against the race of lawyers?
‘No. But while I am in your employment, sir, I would rather be excused from
going between the lawyer and the client. Of course if you press it, Mr Boffin, I
am ready to comply. But I should take it as a great favour if you would not press
it without urgent occasion.’
Now, it could not be said that there was urgent occasion, for Lightwood retained no other affairs in his hands than such as still lingered and languished about the undiscovered criminal, and such as arose out of the purchase of the house. Many other matters that might have travelled to him, now stopped short
at the Secretary, under whose administration they were far more expeditiously
and satisfactorily disposed of than they would have been if they had got into Young Blight’s domain. This the Golden Dustman quite understood. Even the
matter immediately in hand was of very little moment as requiring personal
appearance on the Secretary’s part, for it amounted to no more than this:—The
death of Hexam rendering the sweat of the honest man’s brow unprofitable, the
honest man had shufflingly declined to moisten his brow for nothing, with that
severe exertion which is known in legal circles as swearing your way through a
stone wall. Consequently, that new light had gone sputtering out. But, the airing
of the old facts had led some one concerned to suggest that it would be well before they were reconsigned to their gloomy shelf—now probably for ever—to
induce or compel that Mr Julius Handford to reappear and be questioned. And all
traces of Mr Julius Handford being lost, Lightwood now referred to his client for
authority to seek him through public advertisement.
‘Does your objection go to writing to Lightwood, Rokesmith?’
‘Not in the least, sir.’
‘Then perhaps you’ll write him a line, and say he is free to do what he likes. I
don’t think it promises.’
‘I don’t think it promises,’ said the Secretary.
‘Still, he may do what he likes.’
‘I will write immediately. Let me thank you for so considerately yielding to
my disinclination. It may seem less unreasonable, if I avow to you that although
I don’t know Mr Lightwood, I have a disagreeable association connected with
him. It is not his fault; he is not at all to blame for it, and does not even know my
name.’
Mr Boffin dismissed the matter with a nod or two. The letter was written, and
next day Mr Julius Handford was advertised for. He was requested to place
himself in communication with Mr Mortimer Lightwood, as a possible means of
furthering the ends of justice, and a reward was offered to any one acquainted with his whereabout who would communicate the same to the said Mr Mortimer
Lightwood at his office in the Temple. Every day for six weeks this
advertisement appeared at the head of all the newspapers, and every day for six
weeks the Secretary, when he saw it, said to himself; in the tone in which he had
said to his employer,—‘I don’t think it promises!’
Among his first occupations the pursuit of that orphan wanted by Mrs Boffin
held a conspicuous place. From the earliest moment of his engagement he
showed a particular desire to please her, and, knowing her to have this object at
heart, he followed it up with unwearying alacrity and interest.
Mr and Mrs Milvey had found their search a difficult one. Either an eligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost always happened) or was too old, or
too young, or too sickly, or too dirty, or too much accustomed to the streets, or
too likely to run away; or, it was found impossible to complete the philanthropic
transaction without buying the orphan. For, the instant it became known that
anybody wanted the orphan, up started some affectionate relative of the orphan
who put a price upon the orphan’s head. The suddenness of an orphan’s rise in
the market was not to be paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock
Exchange. He would be at five thousand per cent discount out at nurse making a
mud pie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would go up to five thousand per cent premium before noon. The market was ‘rigged’ in various
artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parents boldly represented
themselves as dead, and brought their orphans with them. Genuine orphan-stock
was surreptitiously withdrawn from the market. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that Mr and Mrs Milvey were coming down
the court, orphan scrip would be instantly concealed, and production refused,
save on a condition usually stated by the brokers as ‘a gallon of beer’. Likewise,
fluctuations of a wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned, by orphan-holders
keeping back, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, the
uniform principle at the root of all these various operations was bargain and sale;
and that principle could not be recognized by Mr and Mrs Milvey.
At length, tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a charming orphan
to be found at Brentford. One of the deceased parents (late his parishioners) had
a poor widowed grandmother in that agreeable town, and she, Mrs Betty Higden,
had carried off the orphan with maternal care, but could not afford to keep him.
The Secretary proposed to Mrs Boffin, either to go down himself and take a
preliminary survey of this orphan, or to drive her down, that she might at once
form her own opinion. Mrs Boffin preferring the latter course, they set off one morning in a hired phaeton, conveying the hammer-headed young man behind
them.
The abode of Mrs Betty Higden was not easy to find, lying in such
complicated back settlements of muddy Brentford that they left their equipage at
the sign of the Three Magpies, and went in search of it on foot. After many inquiries and defeats, there was pointed out to them in a lane, a very small cottage residence, with a board across the open doorway, hooked on to which
board by the armpits was a young gentleman of tender years, angling for mud
with a headless wooden horse and line. In this young sportsman, distinguished
by a crisply curling auburn head and a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried
the orphan.
It unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, that the orphan, lost to
considerations of personal safety in the ardour of the moment, overbalanced
himself and toppled into the street. Being an orphan of a chubby conformation,
he then took to rolling, and had rolled into the gutter before they could come up.
From the gutter he was rescued by John Rokesmith, and thus the first meeting with Mrs Higden was inaugurated by the awkward circumstance of their being in
possession—one would say at first sight unlawful possession—of the orphan,
upside down and purple in the countenance. The board across the doorway too,
acting as a trap equally for the feet of Mrs Higden coming out, and the feet of
Mrs Boffin and John Rokesmith going in, greatly increased the difficulty of the
situation: to which the cries of the orphan imparted a lugubrious and inhuman character.
At first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the orphan’s ‘holding his breath’: a most terrific proceeding, super-inducing in the orphan lead-colour
rigidity and a deadly silence, compared with which his cries were music yielding
the height of enjoyment. But as he gradually recovered, Mrs Boffin gradually
introduced herself; and smiling peace was gradually wooed back to Mrs Betty
Higden’s home.
It was then perceived to be a small home with a large mangle in it, at the handle of which machine stood a very long boy, with a very little head, and an
open mouth of disproportionate capacity that seemed to assist his eyes in staring
at the visitors. In a corner below the mangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very
little children: a boy and a girl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, took a turn at the mangle, it was alarming to see how it lunged itself at
those two innocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction, harmlessly retiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean and neat. It had
a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce hanging below the
chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to top outside the window on
which scarlet-beans were to grow in the coming season if the Fates were
propitious. However propitious they might have been in the seasons that were
gone, to Betty Higden in the matter of beans, they had not been very favourable
in the matter of coins; for it was easy to see that she was poor.
She was one of those old women, was Mrs Betty Higden, who by dint of an
indomitable purpose and a strong constitution fight out many years, though each
year has come with its new knock-down blows fresh to the fight against her,
wearied by it; an active old woman, with a bright dark eye and a resolute face,
yet quite a tender creature too; not a logically-reasoning woman, but God is
good, and hearts may count in Heaven as high as heads.
‘Yes sure!’ said she, when the business was opened, ‘Mrs Milvey had the
kindness to write to me, ma’am, and I got Sloppy to read it. It was a pretty letter.
But she’s an affable lady.’
The visitors glanced at the long boy, who seemed to indicate by a broader
stare of his mouth and eyes that in him Sloppy stood confessed.
‘For I aint, you must know,’ said Betty, ‘much of a hand at reading writing-hand, though I can read my Bible and most print. And I do love a newspaper.
You mightn’t think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the
Police in different voices.’
The visitors again considered it a point of politeness to look at Sloppy, who,
looking at them, suddenly threw back his head, extended his mouth to its utmost
width, and laughed loud and long. At this the two innocents, with their brains in that apparent danger, laughed, and Mrs Higden laughed, and the orphan laughed,
and then the visitors laughed. Which was more cheerful than intelligible.
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Then Sloppy seeming to be seized with an industrious mania or fury, turned to
at the mangle, and impelled it at the heads of the innocents with such a creaking
and rumbling, that Mrs Higden stopped him.
‘The gentlefolks can’t hear themselves speak, Sloppy. Bide a bit, bide a bit!’
‘Is that the dear child in your lap?’ said Mrs Boffin.
‘Yes, ma’am, this is Johnny.’
‘Johnny, too!’ cried Mrs Boffin, turning to the Secretary; ‘already Johnny!
Only one of the two names left to give him! He’s a pretty boy.’
With his chin tucked down in his shy childish manner, he was looking
furtively at Mrs Boffin out of his blue eyes, and reaching his fat dimpled hand up
to the lips of the old woman, who was kissing it by times.
‘Yes, ma’am, he’s a pretty boy, he’s a dear darling boy, he’s the child of my
own last left daughter’s daughter. But she’s gone the way of all the rest.’
‘Those are not his brother and sister?’ said Mrs Boffin.
‘Oh, dear no, ma’am. Those are Minders.’
‘Minders?’ the Secretary repeated.
‘Left to be Minded, sir. I keep a Minding-School. I can take only three, on account of the Mangle. But I love children, and Four-pence a week is Four-pence. Come here, Toddles and Poddles.’
Toddles was the pet-name of the boy; Poddles of the girl. At their little
unsteady pace, they came across the floor, hand-in-hand, as if they were
traversing an extremely difficult road intersected by brooks, and, when they had
had their heads patted by Mrs Betty Higden, made lunges at the orphan,
dramatically representing an attempt to bear him, crowing, into captivity and
slavery. All the three children enjoyed this to a delightful extent, and the
sympathetic Sloppy again laughed long and loud. When it was discreet to stop
the play, Betty Higden said ‘Go to your seats Toddles and Poddles,’ and they returned hand-in-hand across country, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen
by late rains.
‘And Master—or Mister—Sloppy?’ said the Secretary, in doubt whether he was man, boy, or what.
‘A love-child,’ returned Betty Higden, dropping her voice; ‘parents never
known; found in the street. He was brought up in the—’ with a shiver of
repugnance, ‘—the House.’
‘The Poor-house?’ said the Secretary.
Mrs Higden set that resolute old face of hers, and darkly nodded yes.
‘You dislike the mention of it.’
‘Dislike the mention of it?’ answered the old woman. ‘Kill me sooner than
take me there. Throw this pretty child under cart-horses feet and a loaded
waggon, sooner than take him there. Come to us and find us all a-dying, and set
a light to us all where we lie and let us all blaze away with the house into a heap
of cinders sooner than move a corpse of us there!’
A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of hard working,
and hard living, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards! What is it
that we call it in our grandiose speeches? British independence, rather perverted?
Is that, or something like it, the ring of the cant?
‘Do I never read in the newspapers,’ said the dame, fondling the child—‘God
help me and the like of me!—how the worn-out people that do come down to
that, get driven from post to pillar and pillar to post, a-purpose to tire them out!
Do I never read how they are put off, put off, put off—how they are grudged, grudged, grudged, the shelter, or the doctor, or the drop of physic, or the bit of
bread? Do I never read how they grow heartsick of it and give it up, after having
let themselves drop so low, and how they after all die out for want of help? Then
I say, I hope I can die as well as another, and I’ll die without that disgrace.’
Absolutely impossible my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, by
any stretch of legislative wisdom to set these perverse people right in their logic?
‘Johnny, my pretty,’ continued old Betty, caressing the child, and rather
mourning over it than speaking to it, ‘your old Granny Betty is nigher fourscore
year than threescore and ten. She never begged nor had a penny of the Union money in all her life. She paid scot and she paid lot when she had money to pay;
she worked when she could, and she starved when she must. You pray that your
Granny may have strength enough left her at the last (she’s strong for an old one,
Johnny), to get up from her bed and run and hide herself and swown to death in a
hole, sooner than fall into the hands of those Cruel Jacks we read of that dodge
and drive, and worry and weary, and scorn and shame, the decent poor.’
A brilliant success, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards to have brought it to this in the minds of the best of the poor! Under submission, might it
be worth thinking of at any odd time?
The fright and abhorrence that Mrs Betty Higden smoothed out of her strong
face as she ended this diversion, showed how seriously she had meant it.
‘And does he work for you?’ asked the Secretary, gently bringing the
discourse back to Master or Mister Sloppy.
‘Yes,’ said Betty with a good-humoured smile and nod of the head. ‘And well
too.’
‘Does he live here?’
‘He lives more here than anywhere. He was thought to be no better than a
Natural, and first come to me as a Minder. I made interest with Mr Blogg the Beadle to have him as a Minder, seeing him by chance up at church, and
thinking I might do something with him. For he was a weak ricketty creetur
then.’
‘Is he called by his right name?’
‘Why, you see, speaking quite correctly, he has no right name. I always
understood he took his name from being found on a Sloppy night.’
‘He seems an amiable fellow.’
‘Bless you, sir, there’s not a bit of him,’ returned Betty, ‘that’s not amiable. So
you may judge how amiable he is, by running your eye along his heighth.’
Of an ungainly make was Sloppy. Too much of him longwise, too little of him
broadwise, and too many sharp angles of him angle-wise. One of those
shambling male human creatures, born to be indiscreetly candid in the revelation
of buttons; every button he had about him glaring at the public to a quite
preternatural extent. A considerable capital of knee and elbow and wrist and
ankle, had Sloppy, and he didn’t know how to dispose of it to the best advantage,
but was always investing it in wrong securities, and so getting himself into
embarrassed circumstances. Full-Private Number One in the Awkward Squad of
the rank and file of life, was Sloppy, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to the Colours.
‘And now,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘concerning Johnny.’
As Johnny, with his chin tucked in and lips pouting, reclined in Betty’s lap, concentrating his blue eyes on the visitors and shading them from observation
with a dimpled arm, old Betty took one of his fresh fat hands in her withered right, and fell to gently beating it on her withered left.
‘Yes, ma’am. Concerning Johnny.’
‘If you trust the dear child to me,’ said Mrs Boffin, with a face inviting trust,
‘he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, the best of education, the best
of friends. Please God I will be a true good mother to him!’
‘I am thankful to you, ma’am, and the dear child would be thankful if he was
old enough to understand.’ Still lightly beating the little hand upon her own. ‘I wouldn’t stand in the dear child’s light, not if I had all my life before me instead
of a very little of it. But I hope you won’t take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can tell, for he’s the last living thing left me.’
‘Take it ill, my dear soul? Is it likely? And you so tender of him as to bring
him home here!’
‘I have seen,’ said Betty, still with that light beat upon her hard rough hand,
‘so many of them on my lap. And they are all gone but this one! I am ashamed to
seem so selfish, but I don’t really mean it. It’ll be the making of his fortune, and
he’ll be a gentleman when I am dead. I—I—don’t know what comes over me. I
—try against it. Don’t notice me!’ The light beat stopped, the resolute mouth gave way, and the fine strong old face broke up into weakness and tears.
Now, greatly to the relief of the visitors, the emotional Sloppy no sooner
beheld his patroness in this condition, than, throwing back his head and throwing
open his mouth, he lifted up his voice and bellowed. This alarming note of
something wrong instantly terrified Toddles and Poddles, who were no sooner
heard to roar surprisingly, than Johnny, curving himself the wrong way and
striking out at Mrs Boffin with a pair of indifferent shoes, became a prey to despair. The absurdity of the situation put its pathos to the rout. Mrs Betty Higden was herself in a moment, and brought them all to order with that speed,
that Sloppy, stopping short in a polysyllabic bellow, transferred his energy to the
mangle, and had taken several penitential turns before he could be stopped.
‘There, there, there!’ said Mrs Boffin, almost regarding her kind self as the most ruthless of women. ‘Nothing is going to be done. Nobody need be
frightened. We’re all comfortable; ain’t we, Mrs Higden?’
‘Sure and certain we are,’ returned Betty.
‘And there really is no hurry, you know,’ said Mrs Boffin in a lower voice.
‘Take time to think of it, my good creature!’
‘Don’t you fear me no more, ma’am,’ said Betty; ‘I thought of it for good yesterday. I don’t know what come over me just now, but it’ll never come again.’
‘Well, then, Johnny shall have more time to think of it,’ returned Mrs Boffin;
‘the pretty child shall have time to get used to it. And you’ll get him more used to it, if you think well of it; won’t you?’
Betty undertook that, cheerfully and readily.
‘Lor,’ cried Mrs Boffin, looking radiantly about her, ‘we want to make
everybody happy, not dismal!—And perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting me
know how used to it you begin to get, and how it all goes on?’
‘I’ll send Sloppy,’ said Mrs Higden.
‘And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him for his trouble,’ said
Mrs Boffin. ‘And Mr Sloppy, whenever you come to my house, be sure you
never go away without having had a good dinner of meat, beer, vegetables, and
pudding.’
This still further brightened the face of affairs; for, the highly sympathetic Sloppy, first broadly staring and grinning, and then roaring with laughter,
Toddles and Poddles followed suit, and Johnny trumped the trick. T and P
considering these favourable circumstances for the resumption of that dramatic
descent upon Johnny, again came across-country hand-in-hand upon a
buccaneering expedition; and this having been fought out in the chimney corner
behind Mrs Higden’s chair, with great valour on both sides, those desperate
pirates returned hand-in-hand to their stools, across the dry bed of a mountain torrent.
‘You must tell me what I can do for you, Betty my friend,’ said Mrs Boffin confidentially, ‘if not to-day, next time.’
‘Thank you all the same, ma’am, but I want nothing for myself. I can work.
I’m strong. I can walk twenty mile if I’m put to it.’ Old Betty was proud, and said it with a sparkle in her bright eyes.
‘Yes, but there are some little comforts that you wouldn’t be the worse for,’
returned Mrs Boffin. ‘Bless ye, I wasn’t born a lady any more than you.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Betty, smiling, ‘that you were born a lady, and a true one, or there never was a lady born. But I couldn’t take anything from you, my
dear. I never did take anything from any one. It ain’t that I’m not grateful, but I
love to earn it better.’
‘Well, well!’ returned Mrs Boffin. ‘I only spoke of little things, or I wouldn’t
have taken the liberty.’
Betty put her visitor’s hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of the delicate
answer. Wonderfully upright her figure was, and wonderfully self-reliant her
look, as, standing facing her visitor, she explained herself further.
‘If I could have kept the dear child, without the dread that’s always upon me of his coming to that fate I have spoken of, I could never have parted with him,
even to you. For I love him, I love him, I love him! I love my husband long dead
and gone, in him; I love my children dead and gone, in him; I love my young and hopeful days dead and gone, in him. I couldn’t sell that love, and look you in
your bright kind face. It’s a free gift. I am in want of nothing. When my strength
fails me, if I can but die out quick and quiet, I shall be quite content. I have stood
between my dead and that shame I have spoken of; and it has been kept off from
every one of them. Sewed into my gown,’ with her hand upon her breast, ‘is just
enough to lay me in the grave. Only see that it’s rightly spent, so as I may rest
free to the last from that cruelty and disgrace, and you’ll have done much more
than a little thing for me, and all that in this present world my heart is set upon.’
Mrs Betty Higden’s visitor pressed her hand. There was no more breaking up
of the strong old face into weakness. My Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable
Boards, it really was as composed as our own faces, and almost as dignified.
And now, Johnny was to be inveigled into occupying a temporary position on
Mrs Boffin’s lap. It was not until he had been piqued into competition with the
two diminutive Minders, by seeing them successively raised to that post and
retire from it without injury, that he could be by any means induced to leave Mrs
Betty Higden’s skirts; towards which he exhibited, even when in Mrs Boffin’s
embrace, strong yearnings, spiritual and bodily; the former expressed in a very
gloomy visage, the latter in extended arms. However, a general description of the
toy-wonders lurking in Mr Boffin’s house, so far conciliated this worldly-minded
orphan as to induce him to stare at her frowningly, with a fist in his mouth, and
even at length to chuckle when a richly-caparisoned horse on wheels, with a
miraculous gift of cantering to cake-shops, was mentioned. This sound being
taken up by the Minders, swelled into a rapturous trio which gave general
satisfaction.
So, the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs Boffin was
pleased, and all were satisfied. Not least of all, Sloppy, who undertook to
conduct the visitors back by the best way to the Three Magpies, and whom the
hammer-headed young man much despised.
This piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove Mrs Boffin back
to the Bower, and found employment for himself at the new house until evening.
Whether, when evening came, he took a way to his lodgings that led through
fields, with any design of finding Miss Bella Wilfer in those fields, is not so certain as that she regularly walked there at that hour.
And, moreover, it is certain that there she was.
No longer in mourning, Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty colours as she could muster. There is no denying that she was as pretty as they, and that she and
the colours went very prettily together. She was reading as she walked, and of course it is to be inferred, from her showing no knowledge of Mr Rokesmith’s approach, that she did not know he was approaching.
‘Eh?’ said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, when he stopped before
her. ‘Oh! It’s you.’
‘Only I. A fine evening!’
‘Is it?’ said Bella, looking coldly round. ‘I suppose it is, now you mention it. I
have not been thinking of the evening.’
‘So intent upon your book?’
‘Ye-e-es,’ replied Bella, with a drawl of indifference.
‘A love story, Miss Wilfer?’
‘Oh dear no, or I shouldn’t be reading it. It’s more about money than anything
else.’
‘And does it say that money is better than anything?’
‘Upon my word,’ returned Bella, ‘I forget what it says, but you can find out for yourself if you like, Mr Rokesmith. I don’t want it any more.’
The Secretary took the book—she had fluttered the leaves as if it were a fan—
and walked beside her.
‘I am charged with a message for you, Miss Wilfer.’
‘Impossible, I think!’ said Bella, with another drawl.
‘From Mrs Boffin. She desired me to assure you of the pleasure she has in
finding that she will be ready to receive you in another week or two at furthest.’
Bella turned her head towards him, with her prettily-insolent eyebrows raised,
and her eyelids drooping. As much as to say, ‘How did you come by the message, pray?’
‘I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you that I am Mr Boffin’s Secretary.’
‘I am as wise as ever,’ said Miss Bella, loftily, ‘for I don’t know what a Secretary is. Not that it signifies.’
‘Not at all.’
A covert glance at her face, as he walked beside her, showed him that she had
not expected his ready assent to that proposition.
‘Then are you going to be always there, Mr Rokesmith?’ she inquired, as if
that would be a drawback.
‘Always? No. Very much there? Yes.’
‘Dear me!’ drawled Bella, in a tone of mortification.
‘But my position there as Secretary, will be very different from yours as guest.
You will know little or nothing about me. I shall transact the business: you will
transact the pleasure. I shall have my salary to earn; you will have nothing to do
but to enjoy and attract.’
‘Attract, sir?’ said Bella, again with her eyebrows raised, and her eyelids
drooping. ‘I don’t understand you.’
Without replying on this point, Mr Rokesmith went on.
‘Excuse me; when I first saw you in your black dress—’
(‘There!’ was Miss Bella’s mental exclamation. ‘What did I say to them at
home? Everybody noticed that ridiculous mourning.’)
‘When I first saw you in your black dress, I was at a loss to account for that
distinction between yourself and your family. I hope it was not impertinent to speculate upon it?’
‘I hope not, I am sure,’ said Miss Bella, haughtily. ‘But you ought to know best how you speculated upon it.’
Mr Rokesmith inclined his head in a deprecatory manner, and went on.
‘Since I have been entrusted with Mr Boffin’s affairs, I have necessarily come
to understand the little mystery. I venture to remark that I feel persuaded that much of your loss may be repaired. I speak, of course, merely of wealth, Miss Wilfer. The loss of a perfect stranger, whose worth, or worthlessness, I cannot estimate—nor you either—is beside the question. But this excellent gentleman
and lady are so full of simplicity, so full of generosity, so inclined towards you,
and so desirous to—how shall I express it?—to make amends for their good
fortune, that you have only to respond.’
As he watched her with another covert look, he saw a certain ambitious
triumph in her face which no assumed coldness could conceal.
‘As we have been brought under one roof by an accidental combination of
circumstances, which oddly extends itself to the new relations before us, I have
taken the liberty of saying these few words. You don’t consider them intrusive I
hope?’ said the Secretary with deference.
‘Really, Mr Rokesmith, I can’t say what I consider them,’ returned the young
lady. ‘They are perfectly new to me, and may be founded altogether on your own
imagination.’
‘You will see.’
These same fields were opposite the Wilfer premises. The discreet Mrs Wilfer
now looking out of window and beholding her daughter in conference with her
lodger, instantly tied up her head and came out for a casual walk.
‘I have been telling Miss Wilfer,’ said John Rokesmith, as the majestic lady
came stalking up, ‘that I have become, by a curious chance, Mr Boffin’s
Secretary or man of business.’
‘I have not,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, waving her gloves in her chronic state of dignity, and vague ill-usage, ‘the honour of any intimate acquaintance with Mr Boffin, and it is not for me to congratulate that gentleman on the acquisition he
has made.’
‘A poor one enough,’ said Rokesmith.
‘Pardon me,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, ‘the merits of Mr Boffin may be highly
distinguished—may be more distinguished than the countenance of Mrs Boffin
would imply—but it were the insanity of humility to deem him worthy of a
better assistant.’
‘You are very good. I have also been telling Miss Wilfer that she is expected
very shortly at the new residence in town.’
‘Having tacitly consented,’ said Mrs Wilfer, with a grand shrug of her
shoulders, and another wave of her gloves, ‘to my child’s acceptance of the
proffered attentions of Mrs Boffin, I interpose no objection.’
Here Miss Bella offered the remonstrance: ‘Don’t talk nonsense, ma, please.’
‘Peace!’ said Mrs Wilfer.
‘No, ma, I am not going to be made so absurd. Interposing objections!’
‘I say,’ repeated Mrs Wilfer, with a vast access of grandeur, ‘that I am not going to interpose objections. If Mrs Boffin (to whose countenance no disciple
of Lavater could possibly for a single moment subscribe),’ with a shiver, ‘seeks
to illuminate her new residence in town with the attractions of a child of mine, I
am content that she should be favoured by the company of a child of mine.’
‘You use the word, ma’am, I have myself used,’ said Rokesmith, with a glance
at Bella, ‘when you speak of Miss Wilfer’s attractions there.’
‘Pardon me,’ returned Mrs Wilfer, with dreadful solemnity, ‘but I had not
finished.’
‘Pray excuse me.’
‘I was about to say,’ pursued Mrs Wilfer, who clearly had not had the faintest
idea of saying anything more: ‘that when I use the term attractions, I do so with the qualification that I do not mean it in any way whatever.’
The excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of her views with an air
of greatly obliging her hearers, and greatly distinguishing herself. Whereat Miss
Bella laughed a scornful little laugh and said:
‘Quite enough about this, I am sure, on all sides. Have the goodness, Mr
Rokesmith, to give my love to Mrs Boffin—’
‘Pardon me!’ cried Mrs Wilfer. ‘Compliments.’
‘Love!’ repeated Bella, with a little stamp of her foot.
‘No!’ said Mrs Wilfer, monotonously. ‘Compliments.’
(‘Say Miss Wilfer’s love, and Mrs Wilfer’s compliments,’ the Secretary
proposed, as a compromise.)
‘And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. The sooner, the
better.’
‘One last word, Bella,’ said Mrs Wilfer, ‘before descending to the family
apartment. I trust that as a child of mine you will ever be sensible that it will be
graceful in you, when associating with Mr and Mrs Boffin upon equal terms, to
remember that the Secretary, Mr Rokesmith, as your father’s lodger, has a claim
on your good word.’
The condescension with which Mrs Wilfer delivered this proclamation of
patronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which the lodger had lost
caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired down stairs; but his face
fell, as the daughter followed.
‘So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so hard to touch, so hard to turn!’ he said, bitterly.
And added as he went upstairs. ‘And yet so pretty, so pretty!’
And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. ‘And if she knew!’
She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; and she
declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that you couldn’t get rid of a haunting Secretary, stump—stump—stumping overhead in the dark, like a
Ghost.
Chapter 17
A DISMAL SWAMP
And now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr and Mrs Boffin
established in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, and behold all manner
of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures, attracted by the gold dust of the Golden Dustman!
Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic door before
it is quite painted, are the Veneerings: out of breath, one might imagine, from the
impetuosity of their rush to the eminently aristocratic steps. One copper-plate Mrs Veneering, two copper-plate Mr Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate
Mr and Mrs Veneering, requesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin’s company
at dinner with the utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady Tippins
leaves a card. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall custard-coloured phaeton tooling up
in a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr Podsnaps, a Mrs Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife and daughter leave
cards. Sometimes the world’s wife has so many daughters, that her card reads
rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction; comprising Mrs Tapkins, Miss
Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins, Miss Malvina
Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the same time, the same lady leaves the
card of Mrs Henry George Alfred Swoshle, nee Tapkins; also, a card, Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place.
Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, of the
eminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs Boffin bears Miss Bella away to her
Milliner’s and Dressmaker’s, and she gets beautifully dressed. The Veneerings
find with swift remorse that they have omitted to invite Miss Bella Wilfer. One
Mrs Veneering and one Mr and Mrs Veneering requesting that additional honour,
instantly do penance in white cardboard on the hall table. Mrs Tapkins likewise
discovers her omission, and with promptitude repairs it; for herself; for Miss Tapkins, for Miss Frederica Tapkins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss
Malvina Tapkins, and for Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Henry
George Alfred Swoshle nee Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Tapkins at Home,
Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place.
Tradesmen’s books hunger, and tradesmen’s mouths water, for the gold dust of
the Golden Dustman. As Mrs Boffin and Miss Wilfer drive out, or as Mr Boffin walks out at his jog-trot pace, the fishmonger pulls off his hat with an air of reverence founded on conviction. His men cleanse their fingers on their woollen
aprons before presuming to touch their foreheads to Mr Boffin or Lady. The
gaping salmon and the golden mullet lying on the slab seem to turn up their eyes
sideways, as they would turn up their hands if they had any, in worshipping
admiration. The butcher, though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn’t know
what to do with himself; so anxious is he to express humility when discovered by the passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton grove. Presents are made to the
Boffin servants, and bland strangers with business-cards meeting said servants in
the street, offer hypothetical corruption. As, ‘Supposing I was to be favoured with an order from Mr Boffin, my dear friend, it would be worth my while’—to
do a certain thing that I hope might not prove wholly disagreeable to your
feelings.
But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and reads the letters, what a set is made at the man marked by a stroke of notoriety. Oh the varieties of
dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for the gold dust of the Golden
Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected with half-crowns, forty-two
parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings, seven-and-twenty organs to be
built with halfpence, twelve hundred children to be brought up on postage
stamps. Not that a half-crown, shilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be particularly acceptable from Mr Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man to
make up the deficiency. And then the charities, my Christian brother! And
mostly in difficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive articles of print and
paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet. ‘Nicodemus
Boffin, Esquire. My Dear Sir,—Having consented to preside at the forthcoming
Annual Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feeling deeply impressed with the
immense usefulness of that noble Institution and the great importance of its
being supported by a List of Stewards that shall prove to the public the interest
taken in it by popular and distinguished men, I have undertaken to ask you to become a Steward on that occasion. Soliciting your favourable reply before the
14th instant, I am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, Linseed. P.S. The Steward’s fee is limited to three Guineas.’ Friendly this, on the part of the Duke
of Linseed (and thoughtful in the postscript), only lithographed by the hundred
and presenting but a pale individuality of an address to Nicodemus Boffin,
Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two noble Earls and a Viscount,
combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in an equally flattering manner,
that an estimable lady in the West of England has offered to present a purse
containing twenty pounds, to the Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming Members of the Middle Classes, if twenty individuals will previously present
purses of one hundred pounds each. And those benevolent noblemen very kindly
point out that if Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or more
purses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the estimable lady in the West of England, provided each purse be coupled with the name of some
member of his honoured and respected family.
These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the individual beggars;
and how does the heart of the Secretary fail him when he has to cope with them!
And they must be coped with to some extent, because they all enclose
documents (they call their scraps documents; but they are, as to papers deserving
the name, what minced veal is to a calf), the non-return of which would be their
ruin. That is say, they are utterly ruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. Among these correspondents are several daughters of general
officers, long accustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who little thought, when their gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula, that they would
ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has
blessed with untold gold, and from among whom they select the name of
Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effort in this wise, understanding that
he has such a heart as never was. The Secretary learns, too, that confidence between man and wife would seem to obtain but rarely when virtue is in distress,
so numerous are the wives who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money
without the knowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it;
while, on the other hand, so numerous are the husbands who take up their pens
to ask Mr Boffin for money without the knowledge of their devoted wives, who
would instantly go out of their senses if they had the least suspicion of the circumstance. There are the inspired beggars, too. These were sitting, only
yesterday evening, musing over a fragment of candle which must soon go out
and leave them in the dark for the rest of their nights, when surely some Angel
whispered the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays
of hope, nay confidence, to which they had long been strangers! Akin to these are the suggestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a cold potato
and water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifer-match, in their lodgings
(rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landlady threatening expulsion ‘like a
dog’ into the streets), when a gifted friend happening to look in, said, ‘Write immediately to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire,’ and would take no denial. There are
the nobly independent beggars too. These, in the days of their abundance, ever regarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only impediment in the
way of their amassing wealth, but they want no dross from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; No, Mr Boffin; the world may term it pride, paltry pride if you will, but
they wouldn’t take it if you offered it; a loan, sir—for fourteen weeks to the day,
interest calculated at the rate of five per cent per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitable institution you may name—is all they want of you, and if you
have the meanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these great spirits.
There are the beggars of punctual business-habits too. These will make an end of
themselves at a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, if no Post-office order is in the
interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; arriving after a quarter to one
P.M. on Tuesday, it need not be sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum of the heartless circumstances) be ‘cold in death.’ There are the
beggars on horseback too, in another sense from the sense of the proverb. These
are mounted and ready to start on the highway to affluence. The goal is before
them, the road is in the best condition, their spurs are on, the steed is willing, but, at the last moment, for want of some special thing—a clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an electrifying machine—they must dismount for ever,
unless they receive its equivalent in money from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire.
Less given to detail are the beggars who make sporting ventures. These, usually
to be addressed in reply under initials at a country post-office, inquire in
feminine hands, Dare one who cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin,
Esquire, but whose name might startle him were it revealed, solicit the
immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected riches exercising
their noblest privilege in the trust of a common humanity?
In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it does the
Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all the people alive who
have made inventions that won’t act, and all the jobbers who job in all the jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as the Alligators of the Dismal
Swamp, and are always lying by to drag the Golden Dustman under.
But the old house. There are no designs against the Golden Dustman there?
There are no fish of the shark tribe in the Bower waters? Perhaps not. Still, Wegg
is established there, and would seem, judged by his secret proceedings, to
cherish a notion of making a discovery. For, when a man with a wooden leg lies
prone on his stomach to peep under bedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct bird, to survey the tops of presses and cupboards; and provides himself an iron rod which he is always poking and prodding into dust-mounds; the
probability is that he expects to find something.