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This was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out. As Clennam

followed, she said to him, with the same external composure and in the

same level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on cruel faces: a

very faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely touching the lips, and

not breaking away gradually, but instantly dismissed when done with:

'I hope the wife of your dear friend Mr Gowan, may be happy in the

contrast of her extraction to this girl's and mine, and in the high good

fortune that awaits her.'

CHAPTER 28. Nobody's Disappearance

Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his

lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing

nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too. No answer

coming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl

by the hand of her late young mistress, which might have melted her

if anything could (all three letters were returned weeks afterwards as

having been refused at the house-door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make

the experiment of a personal interview. That worthy lady being unable to

obtain one, and being steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought

Arthur to essay once more what he could do. All that came of his

compliance was, his discovery that the empty house was left in charge

of the old woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of

furniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number of

half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information whatever

to exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering for perusal a

memorandum relative to fixtures, which the house-agent's young man had

left in the hall.

Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and leave

her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining the mastery

over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for six successive

days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in the morning papers,

to the effect that if a certain young person who had lately left

home without reflection, would at any time apply to his address at

Twickenham, everything would be as it had been before, and no reproaches

need be apprehended. The unexpected consequences of this notification

suggested to the dismayed Mr Meagles for the first time that some

hundreds of young persons must be leaving their homes without reflection

every day; for shoals of wrong young people came down to Twickenham,

who, not finding themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded

compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and

back. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the advertisement

produced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who would seem to be

always watching eagerly for any hook, however small, to hang a letter

upon, wrote to say that having seen the advertisement, they were induced

to apply with confidence for various sums, ranging from ten shillings to

fifty pounds: not because they knew anything about the young person,

but because they felt that to part with those donations would greatly

relieve the advertiser's mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed

themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles; as,

for example, to apprise him that their attention having been called to

the advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that if they should

ever hear anything of the young person, they would not fail to make it

known to him immediately, and that in the meantime if he would oblige

them with the funds necessary for bringing to perfection a certain

entirely novel description of Pump, the happiest results would ensue to

mankind.

Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements, had

begun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when the new

and active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private capacities,

went down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until Monday. The senior

partner took the coach, and the junior partner took his walking-stick.

A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of

his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had

that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which

country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns. Everything

within his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage of the trees,

the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, the little green

islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the water-lilies floating on

the surface of the stream, the distant voices in boats borne musically

towards him on the ripple of the water and the evening air, were all

expressive of rest. In the occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar,

or twittering of a bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog,

or lowing of a cow--in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath

of rest, which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened

the fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the

glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon the

purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand up which

the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. Between the

real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no division; both

were so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with solemn mystery

of life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer's soothed heart,

because so tenderly and mercifully beautiful.

Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to look about

him and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the shadows, looked

at, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the water. He was slowly

resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the path before him which he

had, perhaps, already associated with the evening and its impressions.

Minnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and seemed to

have stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her face was towards

him, and she appeared to have been coming from the opposite direction.

There was a flutter in her manner, which Clennam had never seen in it

before; and as he came near her, it entered his mind all at once that

she was there of a set purpose to speak to him.

She gave him her hand, and said, 'You wonder to see me here by myself?

But the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than I meant

at first. I thought it likely I might meet you, and that made me more

confident. You always come this way, do you not?'

As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand falter

on his arm, and saw the roses shake.

'Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I came out

of the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you, thinking it so

likely I might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than an hour ago, and

told us you were walking down.'

His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and thanked

her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they turned into it on

his movement or on hers matters little. He never knew how that was.

'It is very grave here,' said Clennam, 'but very pleasant at this hour.

Passing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of light at the

other end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the best approach,

I think.' In her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her

rich brown hair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes

raised to his for a moment with a look in which regard for him and

trustfulness in him were strikingly blended with a kind of timid sorrow

for him, she was so beautiful that it was well for his peace--or ill for

his peace, he did not quite know which--that he had made that vigorous

resolution he had so often thought about.

She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had been

thinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it mentioned. She

broke another momentary silence by adding, with some hesitation, that

papa had abandoned the idea.

At this, he thought directly, 'they are to be married.'

'Mr Clennam,' she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking so low

that he bent his head to hear her. 'I should very much like to give you

my confidence, if you would not mind having the goodness to receive

it. I should have very much liked to have given it to you long ago,

because--I felt that you were becoming so much our friend.'

'How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give it to

me. Pray trust me.'

'I could never have been afraid of trusting you,' she returned, raising

her eyes frankly to his face. 'I think I would have done so some time

ago, if I had known how. But I scarcely know how, even now.'

'Mr Gowan,' said Arthur Clennam, 'has reason to be very happy. God bless

his wife and him!'

She wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her hand

as it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the remaining

roses from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it seemed to him,

he first finally resigned the dying hope that had flickered in nobody's

heart so much to its pain and trouble; and from that time he became in

his own eyes, as to any similar hope or prospect, a very much older man

who had done with that part of life.

He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little while,

slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he asked her, in

a voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else that she would

say to him as her friend and her father's friend, many years older than

herself; was there any trust she would repose in him, any service she

would ask of him, any little aid to her happiness that she could give

him the lasting gratification of believing it was in his power to

render?

She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little hidden

sorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said, bursting

into tears again: 'O Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr Clennam, pray tell

me you do not blame me.'

'I blame you?' said Clennam. 'My dearest girl! I blame you? No!'

After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking confidentially

up into his face, with some hurried words to the effect that she thanked

him from her heart (as she did, if it be the source of earnestness), she

gradually composed herself, with now and then a word of encouragement

from him, as they walked on slowly and almost silently under the

darkening trees.

'And, now, Minnie Gowan,' at length said Clennam, smiling; 'will you ask

me nothing?'

'Oh! I have very much to ask of you.'

'That's well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.'

'You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can hardly

think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great agitation,

'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so

dearly love it!'

'I am sure of that,' said Clennam. 'Can you suppose I doubt it?'

'No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and

being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems so

neglectful of it, so unthankful.'

'My dear girl,' said Clennam, 'it is in the natural progress and change

of time. All homes are left so.'

'Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them as

there will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any scarcity of

far better and more endearing and more accomplished girls than I am; not

that I am much, but that they have made so much of me!'

Pet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she

pictured what would happen.

'I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at first

I cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many years.

And it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, that I beg and

entreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep him company when you

can spare a little while; and to tell him that you know I was fonder

of him when I left him, than I ever was in all my life. For there is

nobody--he told me so himself when he talked to me this very day--there

is nobody he likes so well as you, or trusts so much.'

A clue to what had passed between the father and daughter dropped like

a heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and swelled the water

to his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so cheerily as he tried to

say, that it should be done--that he gave her his faithful promise.

'If I do not speak of mama,' said Pet, more moved by, and more pretty

in, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself even to

consider--for which reason he counted the trees between them and the

fading light as they slowly diminished in number--'it is because mama

will understand me better in this action, and will feel my loss in a

different way, and will look forward in a different manner. But you know

what a dear, devoted mother she is, and you will remember her too; will

you not?'

Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all she

wished.

'And, dear Mr Clennam,' said Minnie, 'because papa and one whom I need

not name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another yet, as

they will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and the pride,

and pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better knowledge of one

another, and to be a happiness to one another, and to be proud of one

another, and to love one another, both loving me so dearly; oh, as you

are a kind, true man! when I am first separated from home (I am going a

long distance away), try to reconcile papa to him a little more, and use

your great influence to keep him before papa's mind free from

prejudice and in his real form. Will you do this for me, as you are a

noble-hearted friend?'

Poor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such changes

ever made in men's natural relations to one another: when was such