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drawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor

and still at the back of the house to confirm my words--when that dreary

period had passed a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F. became

acquainted with us at a mutual friend's, he was all attention he called

next day he soon began to call three evenings a week and to send

in little things for supper it was not love on Mr F.'s part it was

adoration, Mr F. proposed with the full approval of Papa and what could

I do?'

'Nothing whatever,' said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, 'but

what you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that

you did quite right.'

'One last remark,' proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a

wave of her hand, 'I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer,

there was a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable of being

mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no

longer wear a golden chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here

is Papa who is always tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where

he is not wanted.'

With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid

caution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old

time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a long long way

behind again; and came to a full stop at last.

Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age

behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus

making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated

with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the

comical were curiously blended.

For example. As if there were a secret understanding between herself

and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first of a train of

post-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, were at that

moment round the corner; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) have

walked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family

umbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect

concurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of

mysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation

of becoming more and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the

relict of the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner,

by putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all

the old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery

was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was

empty, when the lights were out. And still, through all this grotesque

revival of what he remembered as having once been prettily natural to

her, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that

there was a tender memory in it.

The Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora signalled

'Yes!' Clennam so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner--so

heartily wished he could have found the Flora that had been, or that

never had been--that he thought the least atonement he could make for

the disappointment he almost felt ashamed of, was to give himself up to

the family desire. Therefore, he stayed to dinner.

Pancks dined with them. Pancks steamed out of his little dock at a

quarter before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who

happened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant

account of Bleeding Heart Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him and

hauled him out.

'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Pancks, with a puff and a snort. 'It's a

troublesome property. Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to

get there. You have more trouble with that one place than with all the

places belonging to you.'

Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of

being the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said

himself whatever Pancks said for him.

'Indeed?' returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently

made by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead

of the Tug. 'The people are so poor there?'

'You can't say, you know,' snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands

out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find

any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, 'whether they're

poor or not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says

he's rich, you're generally sure he isn't. Besides, if they ARE poor,

you can't help it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents.'

'True enough,' said Arthur.

'You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,'

pursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not

going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if you know it,

you ain't.'

Mr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality.

'If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week

comes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you

got the room, then? If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got

the other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean

by it? What are you up to? That's what YOU say to a man of that sort;

and if you didn't say it, more shame for you!' Mr Pancks here made a

singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the

region of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one.

'You have some extent of such property about the east and north-east

here, I believe?' said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to address.

'Oh, pretty well,' said Pancks. 'You're not particular to east or

north-east, any point of the compass will do for you. What you want is

a good investment and a quick return. You take it where you can find it.

You ain't nice as to situation--not you.'

There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who

also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with

a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff

yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who

owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only

got fastened on. Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was,

that the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three

places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon; her

countenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the

phenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that

article. A further remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that

she had no name but Mr F.'s Aunt.

She broke upon the visitor's view under the following circumstances:

Flora said when the first dish was being put on the table, perhaps Mr

Clennam might not have heard that Mr F. had left her a legacy? Clennam

in return implied his hope that Mr F. had endowed the wife whom he

adored, with the greater part of his worldly substance, if not with all.

Flora said, oh yes, she didn't mean that, Mr F. had made a beautiful

will, but he had left her as a separate legacy, his Aunt. She then

went out of the room to fetch the legacy, and, on her return, rather

triumphantly presented 'Mr F.'s Aunt.'

The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F.'s Aunt,

were extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes interrupted by

a propensity to offer remarks in a deep warning voice, which, being

totally uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no

association of ideas, confounded and terrified the Mind. Mr F.'s Aunt

may have thrown in these observations on some system of her own, and it

may have been ingenious, or even subtle: but the key to it was wanted.

The neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for everything about the

Patriarchal household promoted quiet digestion) began with some soup,

some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes.

The conversation still turned on the receipt of rents. Mr F.'s Aunt,

after regarding the company for ten minutes with a malevolent gaze,

delivered the following fearful remark:

'When we lived at Henley, Barnes's gander was stole by tinkers.' Mr

Pancks courageously nodded his head and said, 'All right, ma'am.' But

the effect of this mysterious communication upon Clennam was absolutely

to frighten him. And another circumstance invested this old lady with

peculiar terrors. Though she was always staring, she never acknowledged

that she saw any individual.

The polite and attentive stranger would desire, say, to consult her

inclinations on the subject of potatoes. His expressive action would be

hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he do? No man could say, 'Mr

F.'s Aunt, will you permit me?' Every man retired from the spoon, as

Clennam did, cowed and baffled.

There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie--nothing in the remotest

way connected with ganders--and the dinner went on like a disenchanted

feast, as it truly was. Once upon a time Clennam had sat at that table

taking no heed of anything but Flora; now the principal heed he took

of Flora was to observe, against his will, that she was very fond of

porter, that she combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and

that if she were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds.

The last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he

disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a

good soul who was feeding some one else. Mr Pancks, who was always in a

hurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he

kept beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant

to look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were

coaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a

puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away.

All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and

drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made

Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not

look towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or

warning, as if they were engaged in a plot. Mr F.'s Aunt sat silently

defying him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal

of the cloth and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated

another observation--struck into the conversation like a clock, without

consulting anybody.

Flora had just said, 'Mr Clennam, will you give me a glass of port for

Mr F.'s Aunt?'

'The Monument near London Bridge,' that lady instantly proclaimed, 'was

put up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was

not the fire in which your uncle George's workshops was burned down.'

Mr Pancks, with his former courage, said, 'Indeed, ma'am? All right!'

But appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, or other

ill-usage, Mr F.'s Aunt, instead of relapsing into silence, made the

following additional proclamation:

'I hate a fool!'

She imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so extremely

injurious and personal a character by levelling it straight at the

visitor's head, that it became necessary to lead Mr F.'s Aunt from

the room. This was quietly done by Flora; Mr F.'s Aunt offering no

resistance, but inquiring on her way out, 'What he come there for,

then?' with implacable animosity.

When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever

old lady, but was sometimes a little singular, and 'took

dislikes'--peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than

otherwise. As Flora's good nature shone in the case, Clennam had no

fault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was

relieved from the terrors of her presence; and they took a glass or

two of wine in peace. Foreseeing then that the Pancks would shortly get

under weigh, and that the Patriarch would go to sleep, he pleaded the

necessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr Pancks in which direction

he was going?

'Citywards, sir,' said Pancks. 'Shall we walk together?' said Arthur.

'Quite agreeable,' said Pancks.

Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there

was a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and that a

golden chain no longer bound him and that she revered the memory of the

late Mr F. and that she should be at home to-morrow at half-past one

and that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall and that she considered

nothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the north-west side of

Gray's-Inn Gardens at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon. He tried

at parting to give his hand in frankness to the existing Flora--not the

vanished Flora, or the mermaid--but Flora wouldn't have it, couldn't

have it, was wholly destitute of the power of separating herself and him

from their bygone characters. He left the house miserably enough; and

so much more light-headed than ever, that if it had not been his good

fortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter of an hour,

have drifted anywhere.

When he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence of

Flora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pasturage of

nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. These, in conjunction

with one hand in his pocket and his roughened hat hind side before, were

evidently the conditions under which he reflected.

'A fresh night!' said Arthur.

'Yes, it's pretty fresh,' assented Pancks. 'As a stranger you feel the

climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time to feel