A SOLO AND A DUETT
The wind was blowing so hard when the visitor came out at the shop-door into
the darkness and dirt of Limehouse Hole, that it almost blew him in again. Doors
were slamming violently, lamps were flickering or blown out, signs were rocking
in their frames, the water of the kennels, wind-dispersed, flew about in drops
like rain. Indifferent to the weather, and even preferring it to better weather
for its clearance of the streets, the man looked about him with a scrutinizing
glance. 'Thus much I know,' he murmured. 'I have never been here since that
night, and never was here before that night, but thus much I recognize. I wonder
which way did we take when we came out of that shop. We turned to the right as I
have turned, but I can recall no more. Did we go by this alley? Or down that
little lane?'
He tried both, but both confused him equally, and he came straying back to
the same spot. 'I remember there were poles pushed out of upper windows on which
clothes were drying, and I remember a low public-house, and the sound flowing
down a narrow passage belonging to it of the scraping of a fiddle and the
shuffling of feet. But here are all these things in the lane, and here are all
these things in the alley. And I have nothing else in my mind but a wall, a dark
doorway, a flight of stairs, and a room.'
He tried a new direction, but made nothing of it; walls, dark doorways,
flights of stairs and rooms, were too abundant. And, like most people so
puzzled, he again and again described a circle, and found himself at the point
from which he had begun. 'This is like what I have read in narratives of escape
from prison,' said he, 'where the little track of the fugitives in the night
always seems to take the shape of the great round world, on which they wander;
as if it were a secret law.'
Here he ceased to be the oakum-headed, oakum-whiskered man on whom Miss
Pleasant Riderhood had looked, and, allowing for his being still wrapped in a
nautical overcoat, became as like that same lost wanted Mr Julius Handford, as
never man was like another in this world. In the breast of the coat he stowed
the bristling hair and whisker, in a moment, as the favouring wind went with him
down a solitary place that it had swept clear of passengers. Yet in that same
moment he was the Secretary also, Mr Boffin's Secretary. For John Rokesmith,
too, was as like that same lost wanted Mr Julius Handford as never man was like
another in this world.
'I have no clue to the scene of my death,' said he. 'Not that it matters now.
But having risked discovery by venturing here at all, I should have been glad to
track some part of the way.' With which singular words he abandoned his search,
came up out of Limehouse Hole, and took the way past Limehouse Church. At the
great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in. He looked up at the
high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and he looked round at the white
tombstones, like enough to the dead in their winding-sheets, and he counted the
nine tolls of the clock- bell.
'It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,' said he, 'to be looking
into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I no more hold a place
among the living than these dead do, and even to know that I lie buried
somewhere else, as they lie buried here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that
was once a man could hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among
mankind, than I feel.
'But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real side, so
difficult that, though I think of it every day, I never thoroughly think it out.
Now, let me determine to think it out as I walk home. I know I evade it, as many
men--perhaps most men--do evade thinking their way through their greatest
perplexity. I will try to pin myself to mine. Don't evade it, John Harmon; don't
evade it; think it out!
'When I came to England, attracted to the country with which I had none but
most miserable associations, by the accounts of my fine inheritance that found
me abroad, I came back, shrinking from my father's money, shrinking from my
father's memory, mistrustful of being forced on a mercenary wife, mistrustful of
my father's intention in thrusting that marriage on me, mistrustful that I was
already growing avaricious, mistrustful that I was slackening in gratitude to
the two dear noble honest friends who had made the only sunlight in my childish
life or that of my hearthroken sister. I came back, timid, divided in my mind,
afraid of myself and everybody here, knowing of nothing but wretchedness that my
father's wealth had ever brought about. Now, stop, and so far think it out, John
Harmon. Is that so? That is exactly so.
'On board serving as third mate was George Radfoot. I knew nothing of him.
His name first became known to me about a week before we sailed, through my
being accosted by one of the ship- agent's clerks as "Mr Radfoot." It was one
day when I had gone aboard to look to my preparations, and the clerk, coming
behind me as I stood on deck, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Mr Rad-foot,
look here," referring to some papers that he had in his hand. And my name first
became known to Radfoot, through another clerk within a day or two, and while
the ship was yet in port, coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and
beginning, "I beg your pardon, Mr Harmon--." I believe we were alike in bulk and
stature but not otherwise, and that we were not strikingly alike, even in those
respects, when we were together and could be compared.
'However, a sociable word or two on these mistakes became an easy
introduction between us, and the weather was hot, and he helped me to a cool
cabin on deck alongside his own, and his first school had been at Brussels as
mine had been, and he had learnt French as I had learnt it, and he had a little
history of himself to relate--God only knows how much of it true, and how much
of it false--that had its likeness to mine. I had been a seaman too. So we got
to be confidential together, and the more easily yet, because he and every one
on board had known by general rumour what I was making the voyage to England
for. By such degrees and means, he came to the knowledge of my uneasiness of
mind, and of its setting at that time in the direction of desiring to see and
form some judgment of my allotted wife, before she could possibly know me for
myself; also to try Mrs Boffin and give her a glad surprise. So the plot was
made out of our getting common sailors' dresses (as he was able to guide me
about London), and throwing ourselves in Bella Wilfer's neighbourhood, and
trying to put ourselves in her way, and doing whatever chance might favour on
the spot, and seeing what came of it. If nothing came of it, I should be no
worse off, and there would merely be a short delay in my presenting myself to
Lightwood. I have all these facts right? Yes. They are all accurately right.
'His advantage in all this was, that for a time I was to be lost. It might be
for a day or for two days, but I must be lost sight of on landing, or there
would be recognition, anticipation, and failure. Therefore, I disembarked with
my valise in my hand--as Potterson the steward and Mr Jacob Kibble my
fellow-passenger afterwards remembered--and waited for him in the dark by that
very Limehouse Church which is now behind me.
'As I had always shunned the port of London, I only knew the church through
his pointing out its spire from on board. Perhaps I might recall, if it were any
good to try, the way by which I went to it alone from the river; but how we two
went from it to Riderhood's shop, I don't know--any more than I know what turns
we took and doubles we made, after we left it. The way was purposely confused,
no doubt.
'But let me go on thinking the facts out, and avoid confusing them with my
speculations. Whether be took me by a straight way or a crooked way, what is
that to the purpose now? Steady, John Harmon.
'When we stopped at Riderhood's, and he asked that scoundrel a question or
two, purporting to refer only to the lodging-houses in which there was
accommodation for us, had I the least suspicion of him? None. Certainly none
until afterwards when I held the clue. I think he must have got from Riderhood
in a paper, the drug, or whatever it was, that afterwards stupefied me, but I am
far from sure. All I felt safe in charging on him to-night, was old
companionship in villainy between them. Their undisguised intimacy, and the
character I now know Riderhood to bear, made that not at all adventurous. But I
am not clear about the drug. Thinking out the circumstances on which I found my
suspicion, they are only two. One: I remember his changing a small folded paper
from one pocket to another, after we came out, which he had not touched before.
Two: I now know Riderhood to have been previously taken up for being concerned
in the robbery of an unlucky seaman, to whom some such poison had been given.
'It is my conviction that we cannot have gone a mile from that shop, before
we came to the wall, the dark doorway, the flight of stairs, and the room. The
night was particularly dark and it rained hard. As I think the circumstances
back, I hear the rain splashing on the stone pavement of the passage, whch was
not under cover. The room overlooked the river, or a dock, or a creek, and the
tide was out. Being possessed of the time down to that point, I know by the hour
that it must have been about low water; but while the coffee was getting ready,
I drew back the curtain (a dark-brown curtain), and, looking out, knew by the
kind of reflection below, of the few neighbouring lights, that they were
reflected in tidal mud.
'He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing a suit of his clothes.
I had no change of outer clothes with me, as I was to buy slops. "You are very
wet, Mr Harmon,"--I can hear him saying--"and I am quite dry under this good
waterproof coat. Put on these clothes of mine. You may find on trying them that
they will answer your purpose to-morrow, as well as the slops you mean to buy,
or better. While you change, I'll hurry the hot coffee." When he came back, I
had his clothes on, and there was a black man with him, wearing a linen jacket,
like a steward, who put the smoking coffee on the table in a tray and never
looked at me. I am so far literal and exact? Literal and exact, I am certain.
'Now, I pass to sick and deranged impressions; they are so strong, that I
rely upon them; but there are spaces between them that I know nothing about, and
they are not pervaded by any idea of time.
'I had drank some coffee, when to my sense of sight he began to swell
immensely, and something urged me to rush at him. We had a struggle near the
door. He got from me, through my not knowing where to strike, in the whirling
round of the room, and the flashing of flames of fire between us. I dropped
down. Lying helpless on the ground, I was turned over by a foot. I was dragged
by the neck into a corner. I heard men speak together. I was turned over by
other feet. I saw a figure like myself lying dressed in my clothes on a bed.
What might have been, for anything I knew, a silence of days, weeks, months,
years, was broken by a violent wrestling of men all over the room. The figure
like myself was assailed, and my valise was in its hand. I was trodden upon and
fallen over. I heard a noise of blows, and thought it was a wood-cutter cutting
down a tree. I could not have said that my name was John Harmon--I could not
have thought it--I didn't know it--but when I heard the blows, I thought of the
wood-cutter and his axe, and had some dead idea that I was lying in a forest.
'This is still correct? Still correct, with the exception that I cannot
possibly express it to myself without using the word I. But it was not I. There
was no such thing as I, within my knowledge.
'It was only after a downward slide through something like a tube, and then a
great noise and a sparkling and crackling as of fires, that the consciousness
came upon me, "This is John Harmon drowning! John Harmon, struggle for your
life. John Harmon, call on Heaven and save yourself!" I think I cried it out
aloud in a great agony, and then a heavy horrid unintelligible something
vanished, and it was I who was struggling there alone in the water.
'I was very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with drowsiness, and
driving fast with the tide. Looking over the black water, I saw the lights
racing past me on the two banks of the river, as if they were eager to be gone
and leave me dying in the dark. The tide was running down, but I knew nothing of
up or down then. When, guiding myself safely with Heaven's assistance before the
fierce set of the water, I at last caught at a boat moored, one of a tier of
boats at a causeway, I was sucked under her, and came up, only just alive, on
the other side.
'Was I long in the water? Long enough to be chilled to the heart, but I don't
know how long. Yet the cold was merciful, for it was the cold night air and the
rain that restored me from a swoon on the stones of the causeway. They naturally
supposed me to have toppled in, drunk, when I crept to the public-house it
belonged to; for I had no notion where I was, and could not articulate--through
the poison that had made me insensible having affected my speech--and I supposed
the night to be the previous night, as it was still dark and raining. But I had
lost twenty-four hours.
'I have checked the calculation often, and it must have been two nights that
I lay recovering in that public-house. Let me see. Yes. I am sure it was while I
lay in that bed there, that the thought entered my head of turning the danger I
had passed through, to the account of being for some time supposed to have
disappeared mysteriously, and of proving Bella. The dread of our being forced on
one another, and perpetuating the fate that seemed to have fallen on my father's
riches--the fate that they should lead to nothing but evil--was strong upon the
moral timidity that dates from my childhood with my poor sister.
'As to this hour I cannot understand that side of the river where I recovered
the shore, being the opposite side to that on which I was ensnared, I shall
never understand it now. Even at this moment, while I leave the river behind me,
going home, I cannot conceive that it rolls between me and that spot, or that
the sea is where it is. But this is not thinking it out; this is making a leap
to the present time.
'I could not have done it, but for the fortune in the waterproof belt round
my body. Not a great fortune, forty and odd pounds for the inheritor of a
hundred and odd thousand! But it was enough. Without it I must have disclosed
myself. Without it, I could never have gone to that Exchequer Coffee House, or
taken Mrs Wilfer's lodgings.
'Some twelve days I lived at that hotel, before the night when I saw the
corpse of Radfoot at the Police Station. The inexpressible mental horror that I
laboured under, as one of the consequences of the poison, makes the interval
seem greatly longer, but I know it cannot have been longer. That suffering has
gradually weakened and weakened since, and has only come upon me by starts, and
I hope I am free from it now; but even now, I have sometimes to think, constrain
myself, and stop before speaking, or I could not say the words I want to say.
'Again I ramble away from thinking it out to the end. It is not so far to the
end that I need be tempted to break off. Now, on straight!
'I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that I was missing, but saw
none. Going out that night to walk (for I kept retired while it was light), I
found a crowd assembled round a placard posted at Whitehall. It described
myself, John Harmon, as found dead and mutilated in the river under
circumstances of strong suspicion, described my dress, described the papers in
my pockets, and stated where I was lying for recognition. In a wild incautious
way I hurried there, and there--with the horror of the death I had escaped,
before my eyes in its most appalling shape, added to the inconceivable horror
tormenting me at that time when the poisonous stuff was strongest on me--I
perceived that Radfoot had been murdered by some unknown hands for the money for
which he would have murdered me, and that probably we had both been shot into
the river from the same dark place into the same dark tide, when the stream ran
deep and strong.
'That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I suspected no one, could
offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save that the murdered man was not
I, but Radfoot. Next day while I hesitated, and next day while I hesitated, it
seemed as if the whole country were determined to have me dead. The Inquest
declared me dead, the Government proclaimed me dead; I could not listen at my
fireside for five minutes to the outer noises, but it was borne into my ears
that I was dead.
'So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and John Rokesmith was
born. John Rokesmith's intent to-night has been to repair a wrong that he could
never have imagined possible, coming to his ears through the Lightwood talk
related to him, and which he is bound by every consideration to remedy. In that
intent John Rokesmith will persevere, as his duty is.
'Now, is it all thought out? All to this time? Nothing omitted? No, nothing.
But beyond this time? To think it out through the future, is a harder though a
much shorter task than to think it out through the past. John Harmon is dead.
Should John Harmon come to life?
'If yes, why? If no, why?'
'Take yes, first. To enlighten human Justice concerning the offence of one
far beyond it who may have a living mother. To enlighten it with the lights of a
stone passage, a flight of stairs, a brown window-curtain, and a black man. To
come into possession of my father's money, and with it sordidly to buy a
beautiful creature whom I love--I cannot help it; reason has nothing to do with
it; I love her against reason--but who would as soon love me for my own sake, as
she would love the beggar at the corner. What a use for the money, and how
worthy of its old misuses!
'Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should not come to life. Because
he has passively allowed these dear old faithful friends to pass into possession
of the property. Because he sees them happy with it, making a good use of it,
effacing the old rust and tarnish on the money. Because they have virtually
adopted Bella, and will provide for her. Because there is affection enough in
her nature, and warmth enough in her heart, to develop into something enduringly
good, under favourable conditions. Because her faults have been intensified by
her place in my father's will, and she is already growing better. Because her
marriage with John Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would be a
shocking mockery, of which both she and I must always be conscious, and which
would degrade her in her mind, and me in mine, and each of us in the other's.
Because if John Harmon comes to life and does not marry her, the property falls
into the very hands that hold it now.
'What would I have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my lifetime still
as true as tender and as faithful as when I was alive, and making my memory an
incentive to good actions done in my name. Dead, I have found them when they
might have slighted my name, and passed greedily over my grave to ease and
wealth, lingering by the way, like single-hearted children, to recall their love
for me when I was a poor frightened child. Dead, I have heard from the woman who
would have been my wife if I had lived, the revolting truth that I should have
purchased her, caring nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave.
'What would I have? If the dead could know, or do know, how the living use
them, who among the hosts of dead has found a more disinterested fidelity on
earth than I? Is not that enough for me? If I had come back, these noble
creatures would have welcomed me, wept over me, given up everything to me with
joy. I did not come back, and they have passed unspoiled into my place. Let them
rest in it, and let Bella rest in hers.
'What course for me then? This. To live the same quiet Secretary life,
carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they shall have become more
accustomed to their altered state, and until the great swarm of swindlers under
many names shall have found newer prey. By that time, the method I am
establishing through all the affairs, and with which I will every day take new
pains to make them both familiar, will be, I may hope, a machine in such working
order as that they can keep it going. I know I need but ask of their generosity,
to have. When the right time comes, I will ask no more than will replace me in
my former path of life, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he
may. But John Harmon shall come back no more.
'That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak misgiving that
Bella might, in any contingency, have taken me for my own sake if I had plainly
asked her, I WILL plainly ask her: proving beyond all question what I already
know too well. And now it is all thought out, from the beginning to the end, and
my mind is easier.'
So deeply engaged had the living-dead man been, in thus communing with
himself, that he had regarded neither the wind nor the way, and had resisted the
former instinctively as he had pursued the latter. But being now come into the
City, where there was a coach-stand, he stood irresolute whether to go to his
lodgings, or to go first to Mr Boffin's house. He decided to go round by the
house, arguing, as he carried his overcoat upon his arm, that it was less likely
to attract notice if left there, than if taken to Holloway: both Mrs Wilfer and
Miss Lavinia being ravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger
stood possessed.
Arriving at the house, he found that Mr and Mrs Boffin were out, but that
Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. Miss Wilfer had remained at home, in
consequence of not feeling very well, and had inquired in the evening if Mr
Rokesmith were in his room.
'Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am here now.'
Miss Wilfer's compliments came down in return, and, if it were not too much
trouble, would Mr Rokesmith be so kind as to come up before he went?
It was not too much trouble, and Mr Rokesmith came up.
Oh she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! If the father of the
late John Harmon had but left his money unconditionally to his son, and if his
son had but lighted on this loveable girl for himself, and had the happiness to
make her loving as well as loveable!
'Dear me! Are you not well, Mr Rokesmith?'
'Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, that YOU were not.'
'A mere nothing. I had a headache--gone now--and was not quite fit for a hot
theatre, so I stayed at home. I asked you if you were not well, because you look
so white.'
'Do I? I have had a busy evening.'
She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining jewel of a
table, and her book and her work, beside her. Ah! what a different life the late
John Harmon's, if it had been his happy privilege to take his place upon that
ottoman, and draw his arm about that waist, and say, 'I hope the time has been
long without me? What a Home Goddess you look, my darling!'
But, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late John Harmon,
remained standing at a distance. A little distance in respect of space, but a
great distance in respect of separation.
'Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting it all round
the corners, 'I wanted to say something to you when I could have the
opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude to you the other day. You have no
right to think ill of me, sir.'
The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half sensitively
injured, and half pettishly, would have been very much admired by the late John
Harmon.
'You don't know how well I think of you, Miss Wilfer.'
'Truly, you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr Rokesmith, when you
believe that in prosperity I neglect and forget my old home.'
'Do I believe so?'
'You DID, sir, at any rate,' returned Bella.
'I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into which you had
fallen--insensibly and naturally fallen. It was no more than that.'
'And I beg leave to ask you, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, 'why you took that
liberty?--I hope there is no offence in the phrase; it is your own, remember.'
'Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, Miss Wilfer.
Because I wish to see you always at your best. Because I--shall I go on?'
'No, sir,' returned Bella, with a burning face, 'you have said more than
enough. I beg that you will NOT go on. If you have any generosity, any honour,
you will say no more.'
The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the down- cast eyes, and
at the quick breathing as it stirred the fall of bright brown hair over the
beautiful neck, would probably have remained silent.
'I wish to speak to you, sir,' said Bella, 'once for all, and I don't know
how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, wishing to speak to you, and
determining to speak to you, and feeling that I must. I beg for a moment's
time.'
He remained silent, and she remained with her face averted, sometimes making
a slight movement as if she would turn and speak. At length she did so.
'You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I am situated at
home. I must speak to you for myself, since there is no one about me whom I
could ask to do so. It is not generous in you, it is not honourable in you, to
conduct yourself towards me as you do.'
'Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you; fascinated by you?'
'Preposterous!' said Bella.
The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a contemptuous and lofty
word of repudiation.
'I now feel obliged to go on,' pursued the Secretary, 'though it were only in
self-explanation and self-defence. I hope, Miss Wilfer, that it is not
unpardonable--even in me--to make an honest declaration of an honest devotion to
you.'
'An honest declaration!' repeated Bella, with emphasis.
'Is it otherwise?'
'I must request, sir,' said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of timely
resentment, 'that I may not be questioned. You must excuse me if I decline to be
cross-examined.'
'Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing but what your
own emphasis suggests. However, I waive even that question. But what I have
declared, I take my stand by. I cannot recall the avowal of my earnest and deep
attachment to you, and I do not recall it.'
'I reject it, sir,' said Bella.
'I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the reply. Forgive my
offence, for it carries its punishment with it.'
'What punishment?' asked Bella.
'Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did not mean to cross-examine
you again.'
'You take advantage of a hasty word of mine,' said Bella with a little sting
of self-reproach, 'to make me seem--I don't know what. I spoke without
consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but you repeat it
after consideration, and that seems to me to be at least no better. For the
rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr Rokesmith, that there is an end of this
between us, now and for ever.'
'Now and for ever,' he repeated.
'Yes. I appeal to you, sir,' proceeded Bella with increasing spirit, 'not to
pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage of your position in this house
to make my position in it distressing and disagreeable. I appeal to you to
discontinue your habit of making your misplaced attentions as plain to Mrs
Boffin as to me.'
'Have I done so?'
'I should think you have,' replied Bella. 'In any case it is not your fault
if you have not, Mr Rokesmith.'
'I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should be very sorry to have
justified it. I think I have not. For the future there is no apprehension. It is
all over.'
'I am much relieved to hear it,' said Bella. 'I have far other views in life,
and why should you waste your own?'
'Mine!' said the Secretary. 'My life!'
His curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile with which he
said it. It was gone as he glanced back. 'Pardon me, Miss Wilfer,' he proceeded,
when their eyes met; 'you have used some hard words, for which I do not doubt
you have a justification in your mind, that I do not understand. Ungenerous and
dishonourable. In what?'
'I would rather not be asked,' said Bella, haughtily looking down.
'I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon me. Kindly explain;
or if not kindly, justly.'
'Oh, sir!' said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little struggle to
forbear, 'is it generous and honourable to use the power here which your favour
with Mr and Mrs Boffin and your ability in your place give you, against me?'
'Against you?'
'Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually bringing their
influence to bear upon a suit which I have shown you that I do not like, and
which I tell you that I utterly reject?'
The late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but he would have been cut
to the heart by such a suspicion as this.
'Would it be generous and honourable to step into your place--if you did so,
for I don't know that you did, and I hope you did not-- anticipating, or knowing
beforehand, that I should come here, and designing to take me at this
disadvantage?'
'This mean and cruel disadvantage,' said the Secretary.
'Yes,' assented Bella.
The Secretary kept silence for a little while; then merely said, 'You are
wholly mistaken, Miss Wilfer; wonderfully mistaken. I cannot say, however, that
it is your fault. If I deserve better things of you, you do not know it.'
'At least, sir,' retorted Bella, with her old indignation rising, 'you know
the history of my being here at all. I have heard Mr Boffin say that you are
master of every line and word of that will, as you are master of all his
affairs. And was it not enough that I should have been willed away, like a
horse, or a dog, or a bird; but must you too begin to dispose of me in your
mind, and speculate in me, as soon as I had ceased to be the talk and the laugh
of the town? Am I for ever to be made the property of strangers?'
'Believe me,' returned the Secretary, 'you are wonderfully mistaken.'
'I should be glad to know it,' answered Bella.
'I doubt if you ever will. Good-night. Of course I shall be careful to
conceal any traces of this interview from Mr and Mrs Boffin, as long as I remain
here. Trust me, what you have complained of is at an end for ever.'
'I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr Rokesmith. It has been painful and
difficult, but it is done. If I have hurt you, I hope you will forgive me. I am
inexperienced and impetuous, and I have been a little spoilt; but I really am
not so bad as I dare say I appear, or as you think me.'
He quitted the room when Bella had said this, relenting in her wilful
inconsistent way. Left alone, she threw herself back on her ottoman, and said,
'I didn't know the lovely woman was such a Dragon!' Then, she got up and looked
in the glass, and said to her image, 'You have been positively swelling your
features, you little fool!' Then, she took an impatient walk to the other end of
the room and back, and said, 'I wish Pa was here to have a talk about an
avaricious marriage; but he is better away, poor dear, for I know I should pull
his hair if he WAS here.' And then she threw her work away, and threw her book
after it, and sat down and hummed a tune, and hummed it out of tune, and
quarrelled with it.
And John Rokesmith, what did he?
He went down to his room, and buried John Harmon many additional fathoms
deep. He took his hat, and walked out, and, as he went to Holloway or anywhere
else--not at all minding where-- heaped mounds upon mounds of earth over John
Harmon's grave. His walking did not bring him home until the dawn of day. And so
busy had he been all night, piling and piling weights upon weights of earth
above John Harmon's grave, that by that time John Harmon lay buried under a
whole Alpine range; and still the Sexton Rokesmith accumulated mountains over
him, lightening his labour with the dirge, 'Cover him, crush him, keep him
down!'
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