第 117 页

'Only that night, and the last night.'

'What did you see of him on the last night, after I was gone?'

'Them two clever ones had him all alone to themselves. Jeremiah come

a dancing at me sideways, after I had let you out (he always comes a

dancing at me sideways when he's going to hurt me), and he said to me,

"Now, Affery," he said, "I am a coming behind you, my woman, and a going

to run you up." So he took and squeezed the back of my neck in his hand,

till it made me open MY mouth, and then he pushed me before him to bed,

squeezing all the way. That's what he calls running me up, he do. Oh,

he's a wicked one!'

'And did you hear or see no more, Affery?'

'Don't I tell you I was sent to bed, Arthur! Here he is!'

'I assure you he is still at the door. Those whisperings and

counsellings, Affery, that you have spoken of. What are they?'

'How should I know? Don't ask me nothing about 'em, Arthur. Get away!'

'But my dear Affery; unless I can gain some insight into these hidden

things, in spite of your husband and in spite of my mother, ruin will

come of it.'

'Don't ask me nothing,' repeated Affery. 'I have been in a dream for

ever so long. Go away, go away!'

'You said that before,' returned Arthur. 'You used the same expression

that night, at the door, when I asked you what was going on here. What

do you mean by being in a dream?'

'I an't a going to tell you. Get away! I shouldn't tell you, if you was

by yourself; much less with your old sweetheart here.'

It was equally vain for Arthur to entreat, and for Flora to protest.

Affery, who had been trembling and struggling the whole time, turned a

deaf ear to all adjuration, and was bent on forcing herself out of the

closet.

'I'd sooner scream to Jeremiah than say another word! I'll call out to

him, Arthur, if you don't give over speaking to me. Now here's the very

last word I'll say afore I call to him--If ever you begin to get the

better of them two clever ones your own self (you ought to it, as I told

you when you first come home, for you haven't been a living here long

years, to be made afeared of your life as I have), then do you get the

better of 'em afore my face; and then do you say to me, Affery tell your

dreams! Maybe, then I'll tell 'em!'

The shutting of the door stopped Arthur from replying. They glided into

the places where Jeremiah had left them; and Clennam, stepping forward

as that old gentleman returned, informed him that he had accidentally

extinguished the candle. Mr Flintwinch looked on as he re-lighted it at

the lamp in the hall, and preserved a profound taciturnity respecting

the person who had been holding him in conversation. Perhaps his

irascibility demanded compensation for some tediousness that the visitor

had expended on him; however that was, he took such umbrage at seeing

his wife with her apron over her head, that he charged at her, and

taking her veiled nose between his thumb and finger, appeared to throw

the whole screw-power of his person into the wring he gave it.

Flora, now permanently heavy, did not release Arthur from the survey of

the house, until it had extended even to his old garret bedchamber. His

thoughts were otherwise occupied than with the tour of inspection; yet

he took particular notice at the time, as he afterwards had occasion to

remember, of the airlessness and closeness of the house; that they left

the track of their footsteps in the dust on the upper floors; and that

there was a resistance to the opening of one room door, which occasioned

Affery to cry out that somebody was hiding inside, and to continue to

believe so, though somebody was sought and not discovered. When they at

last returned to his mother's room, they found her shading her face

with her muffled hand, and talking in a low voice to the Patriarch as he

stood before the fire, whose blue eyes, polished head, and silken locks,

turning towards them as they came in, imparted an inestimable value and

inexhaustible love of his species to his remark:

'So you have been seeing the premises, seeing the

premises--premises--seeing the premises!'

it was not in itself a jewel of benevolence or wisdom, yet he made it an

exemplar of both that one would have liked to have a copy of.

CHAPTER 24. The Evening of a Long Day

That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, continued

his shining course. It began to be widely understood that one who had

done society the admirable service of making so much money out of it,

could not be suffered to remain a commoner. A baronetcy was spoken of

with confidence; a peerage was frequently mentioned. Rumour had it

that Mr Merdle had set his golden face against a baronetcy; that he had

plainly intimated to Lord Decimus that a baronetcy was not enough

for him; that he had said, 'No--a Peerage, or plain Merdle.' This was

reported to have plunged Lord Decimus as nigh to his noble chin in a

slough of doubts as so lofty a person could be sunk. For the Barnacles,

as a group of themselves in creation, had an idea that such distinctions

belonged to them; and that when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer became

ennobled, they let him in, as it were, by an act of condescension, at

the family door, and immediately shut it again. Not only (said Rumour)

had the troubled Decimus his own hereditary part in this impression, but

he also knew of several Barnacle claims already on the file, which came

into collision with that of the master spirit.

Right or wrong, Rumour was very busy; and Lord Decimus, while he was, or

was supposed to be, in stately excogitation of the difficulty, lent her

some countenance by taking, on several public occasions, one of those

elephantine trots of his through a jungle of overgrown sentences, waving

Mr Merdle about on his trunk as Gigantic Enterprise, The Wealth of

England, Elasticity, Credit, Capital, Prosperity, and all manner of

blessings.

So quietly did the mowing of the old scythe go on, that fully three

months had passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had been laid

in one tomb in the strangers' cemetery at Rome. Mr and Mrs Sparkler were

established in their own house: a little mansion, rather of the Tite

Barnacle class, quite a triumph of inconvenience, with a perpetual smell

in it of the day before yesterday's soup and coach-horses, but extremely

dear, as being exactly in the centre of the habitable globe. In this

enviable abode (and envied it really was by many people), Mrs Sparkler

had intended to proceed at once to the demolition of the Bosom, when

active hostilities had been suspended by the arrival of the Courier with

his tidings of death. Mrs Sparkler, who was not unfeeling, had received

them with a violent burst of grief, which had lasted twelve hours;

after which, she had arisen to see about her mourning, and to take every

precaution that could ensure its being as becoming as Mrs Merdle's. A

gloom was then cast over more than one distinguished family (according

to the politest sources of intelligence), and the Courier went back

again.

Mr and Mrs Sparkler had been dining alone, with their gloom cast over

them, and Mrs Sparkler reclined on a drawing-room sofa. It was a hot

summer Sunday evening. The residence in the centre of the habitable

globe, at all times stuffed and close as if it had an incurable cold in

its head, was that evening particularly stifling.

The bells of the churches had done their worst in the way of clanging

among the unmelodious echoes of the streets, and the lighted windows of

the churches had ceased to be yellow in the grey dusk, and had died out

opaque black. Mrs Sparkler, lying on her sofa, looking through an open

window at the opposite side of a narrow street over boxes of mignonette

and flowers, was tired of the view. Mrs Sparkler, looking at another

window where her husband stood in the balcony, was tired of that view.

Mrs Sparkler, looking at herself in her mourning, was even tired of that

view: though, naturally, not so tired of that as of the other two.

'It's like lying in a well,' said Mrs Sparkler, changing her position

fretfully. 'Dear me, Edmund, if you have anything to say, why don't you

say it?'

Mr Sparkler might have replied with ingenuousness, 'My life, I have

nothing to say.' But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he contented

himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side of his

wife's couch.

'Good gracious, Edmund!' said Mrs Sparkler more fretfully still, you are

absolutely putting mignonette up your nose! Pray don't!'

Mr Sparkler, in absence of mind--perhaps in a more literal absence of

mind than is usually understood by the phrase--had smelt so hard at a

sprig in his hand as to be on the verge of the offence in question. He

smiled, said, 'I ask your pardon, my dear,' and threw it out of window.

'You make my head ache by remaining in that position, Edmund,' said Mrs

Sparkler, raising her eyes to him after another minute; 'you look so

aggravatingly large by this light. Do sit down.'

'Certainly, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler, and took a chair on the same

spot.

'If I didn't know that the longest day was past,' said Fanny, yawning in

a dreary manner, 'I should have felt certain this was the longest day. I

never did experience such a day.'

'Is that your fan, my love?' asked Mr Sparkler, picking up one and

presenting it.

'Edmund,' returned his wife, more wearily yet, 'don't ask weak

questions, I entreat you not. Whose can it be but mine?'

'Yes, I thought it was yours,' said Mr Sparkler.

'Then you shouldn't ask,' retorted Fanny. After a little while she

turned on her sofa and exclaimed, 'Dear me, dear me, there never was

such a long day as this!' After another little while, she got up slowly,

walked about, and came back again.

'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler, flashing with an original conception, 'I

think you must have got the fidgets.'

'Oh, Fidgets!' repeated Mrs Sparkler. 'Don't.'

'My adorable girl,' urged Mr Sparkler, 'try your aromatic vinegar. I

have often seen my mother try it, and it seemingly refreshed her.

And she is, as I believe you are aware, a remarkably fine woman, with no

non--'

'Good Gracious!' exclaimed Fanny, starting up again. 'It's beyond all

patience! This is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn upon the

world, I am certain.'

Mr Sparkler looked meekly after her as she lounged about the room, and

he appeared to be a little frightened. When she had tossed a few trifles

about, and had looked down into the darkening street out of all the

three windows, she returned to her sofa, and threw herself among its

pillows.

'Now Edmund, come here! Come a little nearer, because I want to be able

to touch you with my fan, that I may impress you very much with what I

am going to say. That will do. Quite close enough. Oh, you do look so

big!'

Mr Sparkler apologised for the circumstance, pleaded that he couldn't

help it, and said that 'our fellows,' without more particularly

indicating whose fellows, used to call him by the name of Quinbus

Flestrin, Junior, or the Young Man Mountain.

'You ought to have told me so before,' Fanny complained.

'My dear,' returned Mr Sparkler, rather gratified, 'I didn't know

It would interest you, or I would have made a point of telling you.'

'There! For goodness sake, don't talk,' said Fanny; 'I want to talk,

myself. Edmund, we must not be alone any more. I must take such

precautions as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the state of

dreadful depression in which I am this evening.'

'My dear,' answered Mr Sparkler; 'being as you are well known to be, a

remarkably fine woman with no--'

'Oh, good GRACIOUS!' cried Fanny.

Mr Sparkler was so discomposed by the energy of this exclamation,

accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a flouncing down

again, that a minute or two elapsed before he felt himself equal to

saying in explanation:

'I mean, my dear, that everybody knows you are calculated to shine in

society.'

'Calculated to shine in society,' retorted Fanny with great

irritability; 'yes, indeed! And then what happens? I no sooner recover,

in a visiting point of view, the shock of poor dear papa's death, and my

poor uncle's--though I do not disguise from myself that the last was

a happy release, for, if you are not presentable you had much better

die--'

'You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?' Mr Sparkler humbly

interrupted.

'Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly speaking

of my poor uncle?'

'You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,' said Mr

Sparkler, 'that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my love.'

'Now you have put me out,' observed Fanny with a resigned toss of her

fan, 'and I had better go to bed.'

'Don't do that, my love,' urged Mr Sparkler. 'Take time.'

Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and her

eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had utterly given

up all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the slightest notice, she

opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a short, sharp manner:

'What happens then, I ask! What happens? Why, I find myself at the very

period when I might shine most in society, and should most like for

very momentous reasons to shine in society--I find myself in a situation

which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into society. It's

too bad, really!'