Our Mutual Friend · Book the Second · Chapter 2 13 (2/3)

“I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that I was missing, but saw none. Going out that night to walk (for I kept retired while it was light), I found a crowd assembled round a placard posted at Whitehall. It described myself, John Harmon, as found dead and mutilated in the river under circumstances of strong suspicion, described my dress, described the papers in my pockets, and stated where I was lying for recognition. In a wild incautious way I hurried there, and there⁠—with the horror of the death I had escaped, before my eyes in its most appalling shape, added to the inconceivable horror tormenting me at that time when the poisonous stuff was strongest on me⁠—I perceived that Radfoot had been murdered by some unknown hands for the money for which he would have murdered me, and that probably we had both been shot into the river from the same dark place into the same dark tide, when the stream ran deep and strong.

“That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I suspected no one, could offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save that the murdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while I hesitated, and next day while I hesitated, it seemed as if the whole country were determined to have me dead. The Inquest declared me dead, the Government proclaimed me dead; I could not listen at my fireside for five minutes to the outer noises, but it was borne into my ears that I was dead.

“So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and John Rokesmith was born. John Rokesmith’s intent tonight has been to repair a wrong that he could never have imagined possible, coming to his ears through the Lightwood talk related to him, and which he is bound by every consideration to remedy. In that intent John Rokesmith will persevere, as his duty is.

“Now, is it all thought out? All to this time? Nothing omitted? No, nothing. But beyond this time? To think it out through the future, is a harder though a much shorter task than to think it out through the past. John Harmon is dead. Should John Harmon come to life?

“If yes, why? If no, why?”

“Take yes, first. To enlighten human justice concerning the offence of one far beyond it who may have a living mother. To enlighten it with the lights of a stone passage, a flight of stairs, a brown window-curtain, and a black man. To come into possession of my father’s money, and with it sordidly to buy a beautiful creature whom I love⁠—I cannot help it; reason has nothing to do with it; I love her against reason⁠—but who would as soon love me for my own sake, as she would love the beggar at the corner. What a use for the money, and how worthy of its old misuses!

“Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should not come to life. Because he has passively allowed these dear old faithful friends to pass into possession of the property. Because he sees them happy with it, making a good use of it, effacing the old rust and tarnish on the money. Because they have virtually adopted Bella, and will provide for her. Because there is affection enough in her nature, and warmth enough in her heart, to develop into something enduringly good, under favourable conditions. Because her faults have been intensified by her place in my father’s will, and she is already growing better. Because her marriage with John Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would be a shocking mockery, of which both she and I must always be conscious, and which would degrade her in her mind, and me in mine, and each of us in the other’s. Because if John Harmon comes to life and does not marry her, the property falls into the very hands that hold it now.

“What would I have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my lifetime still as true as tender and as faithful as when I was alive, and making my memory an incentive to good actions done in my name. Dead, I have found them when they might have slighted my name, and passed greedily over my grave to ease and wealth, lingering by the way, like single-hearted children, to recall their love for me when I was a poor frightened child. Dead, I have heard from the woman who would have been my wife if I had lived, the revolting truth that I should have purchased her, caring nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave.

“What would I have? If the dead could know, or do know, how the living use them, who among the hosts of dead has found a more disinterested fidelity on earth than I? Is not that enough for me? If I had come back, these noble creatures would have welcomed me, wept over me, given up everything to me with joy. I did not come back, and they have passed unspoiled into my place. Let them rest in it, and let Bella rest in hers.

“What course for me then? This. To live the same quiet Secretary life, carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they shall have become more accustomed to their altered state, and until the great swarm of swindlers under many names shall have found newer prey. By that time, the method I am establishing through all the affairs, and with which I will every day take new pains to make them both familiar, will be, I may hope, a machine in such working order as that they can keep it going. I know I need but ask of their generosity, to have. When the right time comes, I will ask no more than will replace me in my former path of life, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he may. But John Harmon shall come back no more.

“That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak misgiving that Bella might, in any contingency, have taken me for my own sake if I had plainly asked her, I will plainly ask her: proving beyond all question what I already know too well. And now it is all thought out, from the beginning to the end, and my mind is easier.”

So deeply engaged had the living-dead man been, in thus communing with himself, that he had regarded neither the wind nor the way, and had resisted the former instinctively as he had pursued the latter. But being now come into the City, where there was a coach-stand, he stood irresolute whether to go to his lodgings, or to go first to Mr. Boffin’s house. He decided to go round by the house, arguing, as he carried his overcoat upon his arm, that it was less likely to attract notice if left there, than if taken to Holloway: both Mrs. Wilfer and Miss Lavinia being ravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger stood possessed.

Arriving at the house, he found that Mr. and Mrs. Boffin were out, but that Miss Wilfer was in the drawing-room. Miss Wilfer had remained at home, in consequence of not feeling very well, and had inquired in the evening if Mr. Rokesmith were in his room.

“Make my compliments to Miss Wilfer, and say I am here now.”

Miss Wilfer’s compliments came down in return, and, if it were not too much trouble, would Mr. Rokesmith be so kind as to come up before he went?

It was not too much trouble, and Mr. Rokesmith came up.

Oh she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! If the father of the late John Harmon had but left his money unconditionally to his son, and if his son had but lighted on this loveable girl for himself, and had the happiness to make her loving as well as loveable!

“Dear me! Are you not well, Mr. Rokesmith?”

“Yes, quite well. I was sorry to hear, when I came in, that you were not.”

“A mere nothing. I had a headache⁠—gone now⁠—and was not quite fit for a hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I asked you if you were not well, because you look so white.”

“Do I? I have had a busy evening.”

She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining jewel of a table, and her book and her work, beside her. Ah! what a different life the late John Harmon’s, if it had been his happy privilege to take his place upon that ottoman, and draw his arm about that waist, and say, “I hope the time has been long without me? What a Home Goddess you look, my darling!”

But, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late John Harmon, remained standing at a distance. A little distance in respect of space, but a great distance in respect of separation.

“Mr. Rokesmith,” said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting it all round the corners, “I wanted to say something to you when I could have the opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude to you the other day. You have no right to think ill of me, sir.”

The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half sensitively injured, and half pettishly, would have been very much admired by the late John Harmon.

“You don’t know how well I think of you, Miss Wilfer.”

“Truly, you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr. Rokesmith, when you believe that in prosperity I neglect and forget my old home.”

“Do I believe so?”

“You did, sir, at any rate,” returned Bella.

“I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into which you had fallen⁠—insensibly and naturally fallen. It was no more than that.”

“And I beg leave to ask you, Mr. Rokesmith,” said Bella, “why you took that liberty?⁠—I hope there is no offence in the phrase; it is your own, remember.”

“Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, Miss Wilfer. Because I wish to see you always at your best. Because I⁠—shall I go on?”

“No, sir,” returned Bella, with a burning face, “you have said more than enough. I beg that you will not go on. If you have any generosity, any honour, you will say no more.”

The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the downcast eyes, and at the quick breathing as it stirred the fall of bright brown hair over the beautiful neck, would probably have remained silent.

“I wish to speak to you, sir,” said Bella, “once for all, and I don’t know how to do it. I have sat here all this evening, wishing to speak to you, and determining to speak to you, and feeling that I must. I beg for a moment’s time.”

He remained silent, and she remained with her face averted, sometimes making a slight movement as if she would turn and speak. At length she did so.

“You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I am situated at home. I must speak to you for myself, since there is no one about me whom I could ask to do so. It is not generous in you, it is not honourable in you, to conduct yourself towards me as you do.”

“Is it ungenerous or dishonourable to be devoted to you; fascinated by you?”

“Preposterous!” said Bella.

The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a contemptuous and lofty word of repudiation.

“I now feel obliged to go on,” pursued the Secretary, “though it were only in self-explanation and self-defence. I hope, Miss Wilfer, that it is not unpardonable⁠—even in me⁠—to make an honest declaration of an honest devotion to you.”

“An honest declaration!” repeated Bella, with emphasis.

“Is it otherwise?”

“I must request, sir,” said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of timely resentment, “that I may not be questioned. You must excuse me if I decline to be cross-examined.”

“Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing but what your own emphasis suggests. However, I waive even that question. But what I have declared, I take my stand by. I cannot recall the avowal of my earnest and deep attachment to you, and I do not recall it.”

“I reject it, sir,” said Bella.

“I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the reply. Forgive my offence, for it carries its punishment with it.”

“What punishment?” asked Bella.

“Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did not mean to cross-examine you again.”

“You take advantage of a hasty word of mine,” said Bella with a little sting of self-reproach, “to make me seem⁠—I don’t know what. I spoke without consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but you repeat it after consideration, and that seems to me to be at least no better. For the rest, I beg it may be understood, Mr. Rokesmith, that there is an end of this between us, now and forever.”

“Now and forever,” he repeated.

“Yes. I appeal to you, sir,” proceeded Bella with increasing spirit, “not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage of your position in this house to make my position in it distressing and disagreeable. I appeal to you to discontinue your habit of making your misplaced attentions as plain to Mrs. Boffin as to me.”

“Have I done so?”

“I should think you have,” replied Bella. “In any case it is not your fault if you have not, Mr. Rokesmith.”

“I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should be very sorry to have justified it. I think I have not. For the future there is no apprehension. It is all over.”

“I am much relieved to hear it,” said Bella. “I have far other views in life, and why should you waste your own?”

“Mine!” said the Secretary. “My life!”

His curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile with which he said it. It was gone as he glanced back. “Pardon me, Miss Wilfer,” he proceeded, when their eyes met; “you have used some hard words, for which I do not doubt you have a justification in your mind, that I do not understand. Ungenerous and dishonourable. In what?”

“I would rather not be asked,” said Bella, haughtily looking down.

“I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon me. Kindly explain; or if not kindly, justly.”

“Oh, sir!” said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little struggle to forbear, “is it generous and honourable to use the power here which your favour with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin and your ability in your place give you, against me?”

“Against you?”

“Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually bringing their influence to bear upon a suit which I have shown you that I do not like, and which I tell you that I utterly reject?”

The late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but he would have been cut to the heart by such a suspicion as this.

“Would it be generous and honourable to step into your place⁠—if you did so, for I don’t know that you did, and I hope you did not⁠—anticipating, or knowing beforehand, that I should come here, and designing to take me at this disadvantage?”

“This mean and cruel disadvantage,” said the Secretary.

“Yes,” assented Bella.

The Secretary kept silence for a little while; then merely said, “You are wholly mistaken, Miss Wilfer; wonderfully mistaken. I cannot say, however, that it is your fault. If I deserve better things of you, you do not know it.”

“At least, sir,” retorted Bella, with her old indignation rising, “you know the history of my being here at all. I have heard Mr. Boffin say that you are master of every line and word of that will, as you are master of all his affairs. And was it not enough that I should have been willed away, like a horse, or a dog, or a bird; but must you too begin to dispose of me in your mind, and speculate in me, as soon as I had ceased to be the talk and the laugh of the town? Am I forever to be made the property of strangers?”

“Believe me,” returned the Secretary, “you are wonderfully mistaken.”

“I should be glad to know it,” answered Bella.

“I doubt if you ever will. Good night. Of course I shall be careful to conceal any traces of this interview from Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, as long as I remain here. Trust me, what you have complained of is at an end forever.”

“I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr. Rokesmith. It has been painful and difficult, but it is done. If I have hurt you, I hope you will forgive me. I am inexperienced and impetuous, and I have been a little spoilt; but I really am not so bad as I dare say I appear, or as you think me.”