AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION
The estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings over the stable-yard
in Duke Street, Saint James's, and hearing the horses at their toilette below,
finds himself on the whole in a disadvantageous position as compared with the
noble animals at livery. For whereas, on the one hand, he has no attendant to
slap him soundingly and require him in gruff accents to come up and come over,
still, on the other hand, he has no attendant at all; and the mild gentleman's
finger-joints and other joints working rustily in the morning, he could deem it
agreeable even to be tied up by the countenance at his chamber-door, so he were
there skilfully rubbed down and slushed and sluiced and polished and clothed,
while himself taking merely a passive part in these trying transactions.
How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself for the
bewilderment of the senses of men, is known only to the Graces and her maid; but
perhaps even that engaging creature, though not reduced to the self-dependence
of Twemlow could dispense with a good deal of the trouble attendant on the daily
restoration of her charms, seeing that as to her face and neck this adorable
divinity is, as it were, a diurnal species of lobster--throwing off a shell
every forenoon, and needing to keep in a retired spot until the new crust
hardens.
Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar and cravat and
wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth forth to breakfast. And to breakfast with
whom but his near neighbours, the Lammles of Sackville Street, who have imparted
to him that he will meet his distant kinsman, Mr Fledgely. The awful Snigsworth
might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, but the peaceable Twemlow reasons, If he IS
my kinsman I didn't make him so, and to meet a man is not to know him.'
It is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr and Mrs Lammle, and
the celebration is a breakfast, because a dinner on the desired scale of
sumptuosity cannot be achieved within less limits than those of the non-existent
palatial residence of which so many people are madly envious. So, Twemlow trips
with not a little stiffness across Piccadilly, sensible of having once been more
upright in figure and less in danger of being knocked down by swift vehicles. To
be sure that was in the days when he hoped for leave from the dread Snigsworth
to do something, or be something, in life, and before that magnificent Tartar
issued the ukase, 'As he will never distinguish himself, he must be a poor
gentleman-pensioner of mine, and let him hereby consider himself pensioned.'
Ah! my Twemlow! Say, little feeble grey personage, what thoughts are in thy
breast to-day, of the Fancy--so still to call her who bruised thy heart when it
was green and thy head brown--and whether it be better or worse, more painful or
less, to believe in the Fancy to this hour, than to know her for a greedy
armour- plated crocodile, with no more capacity of imagining the delicate and
sensitive and tender spot behind thy waistcoat, than of going straight at it
with a knitting-needle. Say likewise, my Twemlow, whether it be the happier lot
to be a poor relation of the great, or to stand in the wintry slush giving the
hack horses to drink out of the shallow tub at the coach-stand, into which thou
has so nearly set thy uncertain foot. Twemlow says nothing, and goes on.
As he approaches the Lammles' door, drives up a little one-horse carriage,
containing Tippins the divine. Tippins, letting down the window, playfully
extols the vigilance of her cavalier in being in waiting there to hand her out.
Twemlow hands her out with as much polite gravity as if she were anything real,
and they proceed upstairs. Tippins all abroad about the legs, and seeking to
express that those unsteady articles are only skipping in their native buoyancy.
And dear Mrs Lammle and dear Mr Lammle, how do you do, and when are you going
down to what's-its-name place--Guy, Earl of Warwick, you know--what is it?--Dun
Cow--to claim the flitch of bacon? And Mortimer, whose name is for ever blotted
out from my list of lovers, by reason first of fickleness and then of base
desertion, how do YOU do, wretch? And Mr Wrayburn, YOU here! What can YOU come
for, because we are all very sure before-hand that you are not going to talk!
And Veneering, M.P., how are things going on down at the house, and when will
you turn out those terrible people for us? And Mrs Veneering, my dear, can it
positively be true that you go down to that stifling place night after night, to
hear those men prose? Talking of which, Veneering, why don't you prose, for you
haven't opened your lips there yet, and we are dying to hear what you have got
to say to us! Miss Podsnap, charmed to see you. Pa, here? No! Ma, neither? Oh!
Mr Boots! Delighted. Mr Brewer! This IS a gathering of the clans. Thus Tippins,
and surveys Fledgeby and outsiders through golden glass, murmuring as she turns
about and about, in her innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know? No, I think
not. Nobody there. Nobody THERE. Nobody anywhere!
Mr Lammle, all a-glitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying for the
honour of presentation to Lady Tippins. Fledgeby presented, has the air of going
to say something, has the air of going to say nothing, has an air successively
of meditation, of resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the
tour of Boots, and fades into the extreme background, feeling for his whisker,
as if it might have turned up since he was there five minutes ago.
But Lammle has him out again before he has so much as completely ascertained
the bareness of the land. He would seem to be in a bad way, Fledgeby; for Lammle
represents him as dying again. He is dying now, of want of presentation to
Twemlow.
Twemlow offers his hand. Glad to see him. 'Your mother, sir, was a connexion
of mine.'
'I believe so,' says Fledgeby, 'but my mother and her family were two.'
'Are you staying in town?' asks Twemlow.
'I always am,' says Fledgeby.
'You like town,' says Twemlow. But is felled flat by Fledgeby's taking it
quite ill, and replying, No, he don't like town. Lammle tries to break the force
of the fall, by remarking that some people do not like town. Fledgeby retorting
that he never heard of any such case but his own, Twemlow goes down again
heavily.
'There is nothing new this morning, I suppose?' says Twemlow, returning to
the mark with great spirit.
Fledgeby has not heard of anything.
'No, there's not a word of news,' says Lammle.
'Not a particle,' adds Boots.
'Not an atom,' chimes in Brewer.
Somehow the execution of this little concerted piece appears to raise the
general spirits as with a sense of duty done, and sets the company a going.
Everybody seems more equal than before, to the calamity of being in the society
of everybody else. Even Eugene standing in a window, moodily swinging the tassel
of a blind, gives it a smarter jerk now, as if he found himself in better case.
Breakfast announced. Everything on table showy and gaudy, but with a
self-assertingly temporary and nomadic air on the decorations, as boasting that
they will be much more showy and gaudy in the palatial residence. Mr Lammle's
own particular servant behind his chair; the Analytical behind Veneering's
chair; instances in point that such servants fall into two classes: one
mistrusting the master's acquaintances, and the other mistrusting the master. Mr
Lammle's servant, of the second class. Appearing to be lost in wonder and low
spirits because the police are so long in coming to take his master up on some
charge of the first magnitude.
Veneering, M.P., on the right of Mrs Lammle; Twemlow on her left; Mrs
Veneering, W.M.P. (wife of Member of Parliament), and Lady Tippins on Mr
Lammle's right and left. But be sure that well
within the fascination of Mr Lammle's eye and smile sits little Georgiana.
And be sure that close to little Georgiana, also under inspection by the same
gingerous gentleman, sits Fledgeby.
Oftener than twice or thrice while breakfast is in progress, Mr Twemlow gives
a little sudden turn towards Mrs Lammle, and then says to her, 'I beg your
pardon!' This not being Twemlow's usual way, why is it his way to-day? Why, the
truth is, Twemlow repeatedly labours under the impression that Mrs Lammle is
going to speak to him, and turning finds that it is not so, and mostly that she
has her eyes upon Veneering. Strange that this impression so abides by Twemlow
after being corrected, yet so it is.
Lady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the earth (including
grape-juice in the category) becomes livelier, and applies herself to elicit
sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. It is always understood among the initiated,
that that faithless lover must be planted at table opposite to Lady Tippins, who
will then strike conversational fire out of him. In a pause of mastication and
deglutition, Lady Tippins, contemplating Mortimer, recalls that it was at our
dear Veneerings, and in the presence of a party who are surely all here, that he
told them his story of the man from somewhere, which afterwards became so
horribly interesting and vulgarly popular.
'Yes, Lady Tippins,' assents Mortimer; 'as they say on the stage, "Even so!"
'Then we expect you,' retorts the charmer, 'to sustain your reputation, and
tell us something else.'
'Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and there is nothing
more to be got out of me.'
Mortimer parries thus, with a sense upon him that elsewhere it is Eugene and
not he who is the jester, and that in these circles where Eugene persists in
being speechless, he, Mortimer, is but the double of the friend on whom he has
founded himself.
'But,' quoth the fascinating Tippins, 'I am resolved on getting something
more out of you. Traitor! what is this I hear about another disappearance?'
'As it is you who have heard it,' returns Lightwood, 'perhaps you'll tell
us.'
'Monster, away!' retorts Lady Tippins. 'Your own Golden Dustman referred me
to you.'
Mr Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there is a sequel to the
story of the man from somewhere. Silence ensues upon the proclamation.
'I assure you,' says Lightwood, glancing round the table, 'I have nothing to
tell.' But Eugene adding in a low voice, 'There, tell it, tell it!' he corrects
himself with the addition, 'Nothing worth mentioning.'
Boots and Brewer immediately perceive that it is immensely worth mentioning,
and become politely clamorous. Veneering is also visited by a perception to the
same effect. But it is understood that his attention is now rather used up, and
difficult to hold, that being the tone of the House of Commons.
'Pray don't be at the trouble of composing yourselves to listen,' says
Mortimer Lightwood, 'because I shall have finished long before you have fallen
into comfortable attitudes. It's like--'
'It's like,' impatiently interrupts Eugene, 'the children's narrative:
"I'll tell you a story Of Jack a Manory, And now my story's begun; I'll tell
you another Of Jack and his brother, And now my story is done."
--Get on, and get it over!'
Eugene says this with a sound of vexation in his voice, leaning back in his
chair and looking balefully at Lady Tippins, who nods to him as her dear Bear,
and playfully insinuates that she (a self- evident proposition) is Beauty, and
he Beast.
'The reference,' proceeds Mortimer, 'which I suppose to be made by my
honourable and fair enslaver opposite, is to the following circumstance. Very
lately, the young woman, Lizzie Hexam, daughter of the late Jesse Hexam,
otherwise Gaffer, who will be remembered to have found the body of the man from
somewhere, mysteriously received, she knew not from whom, an explicit retraction
of the charges made against her father, by another water-side character of the
name of Riderhood. Nobody believed them, because little Rogue Riderhood--I am
tempted into the paraphrase by remembering the charming wolf who would have
rendered society a great service if he had devoured Mr Riderhood's father and
mother in their infancy--had previously played fast and loose with the said
charges, and, in fact, abandoned them. However, the retraction I have mentioned
found its way into Lizzie Hexam's hands, with a general flavour on it of having
been favoured by some anonymous messenger in a dark cloak and slouched hat, and
was by her forwarded, in her father's vindication, to Mr Boffin, my client. You
will excuse the phraseology of the shop, but 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 delightfiil
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 hand
with the original looking towards him from his Mephistophelean corner.
'Very well indeed!' are at length the words which Twemlow with great
difficulty extracts from himself.
'I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself consider it the best. The
others are so dark. Now here, for instance, is another of Mr Lammle--'
'But I don't understand; I don't see my way,' Twemlow stammers, as he falters
over the book with his glass at his eye. 'How warn her father, and not tell him?
Tell him how much? Tell him how little? I--I--am getting lost.'
'Tell him I am a match-maker; tell him I am an artful and designing woman;
tell him you are sure his daughter is best out of my house and my company. Tell
him any such things of me; they will all be true. You know what a puffed-up man
he is, and how easily you can cause his vanity to take the alarm. Tell him as
much as will give him the alarm and make him careful of her, and spare me the
rest. Mr Twemlow, I feel my sudden degradation in your eyes; familiar as I am
with my degradation in my own eyes, I keenly feel the change that must have come
upon me in yours, in these last few moments. But I trust to your good faith with
me as implicitly as when I began. If you knew how often I have tried to speak to
you to-day, you would almost pity me. I want no new promise from you on my own
account, for I am satisfied, and I always shall be satisfied, with the promise
you have given me. I can venture to say no more, for I see that I am watched. If
you would set my mind at rest with the assurance that you will interpose with
the father and save this harmless girl, close that book before you return it to
me, and I shall know what you mean, and deeply thank you in my heart.--Alfred,
Mr Twemlow thinks the last one the best, and quite agrees with you and me.'
Alfred advances. The groups break up. Lady Tippins rises to go, and Mrs
Veneering follows her leader. For the moment, Mrs Lammle does not turn to them,
but remains looking at Twemlow looking at Alfred's portrait through his
eyeglass. The moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at its ribbon's length,
rises, and closes the book with an emphasis which makes that fragile nursling of
the fairies, Tippins, start.
Then good-bye and good-bye, and charming occasion worthy of the Golden Age,
and more about the flitch of bacon, and the like of that; and Twemlow goes
staggering across Piccadilly with his hand to his forehead, and is nearly run
down by a flushed lettercart, and at last drops safe in his easy-chair, innocent
good gentleman, with his hand to his forehead still, and his head in a whirl.
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