第 60 页

'You are so like a friend of mine! Not so identically the same as I

supposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same in the

dusk--for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a readiness

to confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness of my

character--still, however, uncommonly like.'

'Indeed?' said Jeremiah, perversely. 'But I have not received any letter

of advice from anywhere respecting anybody of the name of Blandois.'

'Just so,' said the stranger.

'JUST so,' said Jeremiah.

Mr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the

correspondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket-book

from his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that receptacle, and

handed it to Mr Flintwinch. 'No doubt you are well acquainted with the

writing. Perhaps the letter speaks for itself, and requires no advice.

You are a far more competent judge of such affairs than I am. It is my

misfortune to be, not so much a man of business, as what the world calls

(arbitrarily) a gentleman.'

Mr Flintwinch took the letter, and read, under date of Paris, 'We have

to present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed correspondent of our

Firm, M. Blandois, of this city,' &c. &c. 'Such facilities as he may

require and such attentions as may lie in your power,' &c. &c. 'Also

have to add that if you will honour M. Blandois' drafts at sight to the

extent of, say Fifty Pounds sterling (150),' &c. &c.

'Very good, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Take a chair. To the extent of

anything that our House can do--we are in a retired, old-fashioned,

steady way of business, sir--we shall be happy to render you our best

assistance. I observe, from the date of this, that we could not yet be

advised of it. Probably you came over with the delayed mail that brings

the advice.'

'That I came over with the delayed mail, sir,' returned Mr Blandois,

passing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, 'I know to the cost

of my head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable weather having

racked them both. You see me in the plight in which I came out of the

packet within this half-hour. I ought to have been here hours ago,

and then I should not have to apologise--permit me to apologise--for

presenting myself so unreasonably, and frightening--no, by-the-bye, you

said not frightening; permit me to apologise again--the esteemed lady,

Mrs Clennam, in her invalid chamber above stairs.'

Swagger and an air of authorised condescension do so much, that

Mr Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly

personage. Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he scraped

his chin and said, what could he have the honour of doing for Mr

Blandois to-night, out of business hours?

'Faith!' returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders,

'I must change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere. Have the

kindness to advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a matter of

perfect indifference until to-morrow. The nearer the place, the better.

Next door, if that's all.'

Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, 'For a gentleman of your habits,

there is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel--' when Mr

Blandois took him up.

'So much for my habits! my dear sir,' snapping his fingers. 'A citizen

of the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a gentleman,

by Heaven! I will not deny, but I have no unaccommodating prejudiced

habits. A clean room, a hot dish for dinner, and a bottle of not

absolutely poisonous wine, are all I want tonight. But I want that much

without the trouble of going one unnecessary inch to get it.'

'There is,' said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual deliberation,

as he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois' shining eyes, which were restless;

'there is a coffee-house and tavern close here, which, so far, I can

recommend; but there's no style about it.'

'I dispense with style!' said Mr Blandois, waving his hand. 'Do me the

honour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am not too

troublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged.' Mr Flintwinch, upon

this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr Blandois across the hall again.

As he put the candle on a bracket, where the dark old panelling almost

served as an extinguisher for it, he bethought himself of going up to

tell the invalid that he would not be absent five minutes. 'Oblige me,'

said the visitor, on his saying so, 'by presenting my card of visit. Do

me the favour to add that I shall be happy to wait on Mrs Clennam, to

offer my personal compliments, and to apologise for having occasioned

any agitation in this tranquil corner, if it should suit her convenience

to endure the presence of a stranger for a few minutes, after he shall

have changed his wet clothes and fortified himself with something to eat

and drink.'

Jeremiah made all despatch, and said, on his return, 'She'll be glad

to see you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has no

attractions, wishes me to say that she won't hold you to your offer, in

case you should think better of it.'

'To think better of it,' returned the gallant Blandois, 'would be to

slight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry

towards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my

character!' Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled skirt of his

cloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch to the tavern;

taking up on the road a porter who was waiting with his portmanteau on

the outer side of the gateway.

The house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr

Blandois was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the little bar

in which the widow landlady and her two daughters received him; it was

much too big for the narrow wainscoted room with a bagatelle-board in

it, that was first proposed for his reception; it perfectly swamped the

little private holiday sitting-room of the family, which was finally

given up to him. Here, in dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked

hair, a great ring on each forefinger and a massive show of watch-chain,

Mr Blandois waiting for his dinner, lolling on a window-seat with his

knees drawn up, looked (for all the difference in the setting of the

jewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who had

once so waited for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of the iron

grating of a cell in a villainous dungeon at Marseilles.

His greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of

Monsieur Rigaud at breakfast. His avaricious manner of collecting all

the eatables about him, and devouring some with his eyes while devouring

others with his jaws, was the same manner. His utter disregard of

other people, as shown in his way of tossing the little womanly toys

of furniture about, flinging favourite cushions under his boots for a

softer rest, and crushing delicate coverings with his big body and his

great black head, had the same brute selfishness at the bottom of it.

The softly moving hands that were so busy among the dishes had the old

wicked facility of the hands that had clung to the bars. And when he

could eat no more, and sat sucking his delicate fingers one by one and

wiping them on a cloth, there wanted nothing but the substitution of

vine-leaves to finish the picture.

On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down in

that most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as if they

belonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power of reflecting

light stopped by some similar process, Nature, always true, and never

working in vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was not her fault, if the

warning were fruitless. She is never to blame in any such instance.

Mr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers, took

a cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat again, smoked it

out at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke as it parted

from his thin lips in a thin stream:

'Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child. Haha!

Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an excellent

master in English or French; a man for the bosom of families! You have

a quick perception, you have humour, you have ease, you have insinuating

manners, you have a good appearance; in effect, you are a gentleman! A

gentleman you shall live, my small boy, and a gentleman you shall die.

You shall win, however the game goes. They shall all confess your merit,

Blandois. You shall subdue the society which has grievously wronged

you, to your own high spirit. Death of my soul! You are high spirited by

right and by nature, my Blandois!'

To such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and

drink out his bottle of wine. Both being finished, he shook himself into

a sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious apostrophe, 'Hold,

then! Blandois, you ingenious one, have all your wits about you!' arose

and went back to the house of Clennam and Co.

He was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under instructions

from her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall and a third on the

staircase, and who conducted him to Mrs Clennam's room. Tea was prepared

there, and such little company arrangements had been made as usually

attended the reception of expected visitors. They were slight on the

greatest occasion, never extending beyond the production of the China

tea-service, and the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery.

For the rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and

the figure in the widow's dress, as if attired for execution; the fire

topped by the mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second little

mound of ashes; the kettle and the smell of black dye; all as they had

been for fifteen years.

Mr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the consideration of

Clennam and Co. Mrs Clennam, who had the letter lying before her, bent

her head and requested him to sit. They looked very closely at one

another. That was but natural curiosity. 'I thank you, sir, for thinking

of a disabled woman like me. Few who come here on business have any

remembrance to bestow on one so removed from observation. It would be

idle to expect that they should have. Out of sight, out of mind. While I

am grateful for the exception, I don't complain of the rule.'

Mr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had disturbed

her by unhappily presenting himself at such an unconscionable time. For

which he had already offered his best apologies to Mr--he begged

pardon--but by name had not the distinguished honour--'Mr Flintwinch

has been connected with the House many years.'

Mr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch's most obedient humble servant. He

entreated Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest

consideration.

'My husband being dead,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and my son preferring

another pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these days

than Mr Flintwinch.'

'What do you call yourself?' was the surly demand of that gentleman.

'You have the head of two men.'

'My sex disqualifies me,' she proceeded with merely a slight turn of

her eyes in jeremiah's direction, 'from taking a responsible part in

the business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr Flintwinch

combines my interest with his own, and conducts it. It is not what it

used to be; but some of our old friends (principally the writers of this

letter) have the kindness not to forget us, and we retain the power

of doing what they entrust to us as efficiently as we ever did. This

however is not interesting to you. You are English, sir?'

'Faith, madam, no; I am neither born nor bred in England. In effect, I

am of no country,' said Mr Blandois, stretching out his leg and smiting

it: 'I descend from half-a-dozen countries.'

'You have been much about the world?'

'It is true. By Heaven, madam, I have been here and there and

everywhere!'

'You have no ties, probably. Are not married?'

'Madam,' said Mr Blandois, with an ugly fall of his eyebrows, 'I adore

your sex, but I am not married--never was.'

Mistress Affery, who stood at the table near him, pouring out the tea,

happened in her dreamy state to look at him as he said these words, and

to fancy that she caught an expression in his eyes which attracted her

own eyes so that she could not get them away. The effect of this fancy

was to keep her staring at him with the tea-pot in her hand, not only to

her own great uneasiness, but manifestly to his, too; and, through them

both, to Mrs Clennam's and Mr Flintwinch's. Thus a few ghostly moments

supervened, when they were all confusedly staring without knowing why.

'Affery,' her mistress was the first to say, 'what is the matter with

you?'

'I don't know,' said Mistress Affery, with her disengaged left hand

extended towards the visitor. 'It ain't me. It's him!'

'What does this good woman mean?' cried Mr Blandois, turning white, hot,

and slowly rising with a look of such deadly wrath that it contrasted

surprisingly with the slight force of his words. 'How is it possible to

understand this good creature?'

'It's NOT possible,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself rapidly

in that direction. 'She don't know what she means. She's an idiot, a

wanderer in her mind. She shall have a dose, she shall have such a dose!

Get along with you, my woman,' he added in her ear, 'get along with you,

while you know you're Affery, and before you're shaken to yeast.'

Mistress Affery, sensible of the danger in which her identity stood,