"Why, bless her, Mat!" returns the trooper, "I think the higher of her for it!"
"You are right!" says Mr. Bagnet, with the warmest enthusiasm, though without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "Think as high of the old girl--as the rock of Gibraltar--and still you'll be thinking low--of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained."
These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant, and to Grandfather Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who having surveyed them from top to toe, with no particular favor, but indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there, while she consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred to give consent, from the circumstances of her returning with the words on her honey lips "that they can come in if they want to it." Thus privileged they come in, and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath, and Mrs. Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing.
"My dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, with those two lean affectionate arms of his stretched forth. "How de do? How de do? Who is our friend, my dear friend?"
"Why, this," returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at first, "is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours, you know."
"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!" The old man looks at him under his hand.
"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air, sir!"
No chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet, and one for himself. They sit down; Mr. Bagnet as if he had no power of bending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose.
"Judy," says Mr. Smallweed, "bring the pipe."
"Why, I don't know," Mr. George interposes, "that the young woman need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not inclined to smoke it today."
"Ain't you?" returns the old man. "Judy, bring the pipe."
"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed," proceeds George, "that I find myself in rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your friend in the city has been playing tricks."
"O dear no!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "He never does that!"
"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be his doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter."
Grandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way, in recognition of the letter.
"What does it mean?" asks Mr. George.
"Judy," says the old man. "Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did you say what does it mean, my good friend?"
"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed," urges the trooper, constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he can, holding the open letter in one hand, and resting the broad knuckles of the other on his thigh; "a good lot of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are both well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am prepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly, and to keep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you before, and I have been a little put about by it this morning; because here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of the money--"
"I don't know it, you know," says the old man, quietly.
"Why, confound you--it, I mean--I tell you so; don't I?"
"Oh, yes, you tell me so," returns Grandfather Smallweed. "But I don't know it."
"Well!" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. "I know it."
Mr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, "Ah, that's quite another thing!" And adds, "but it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's situation is all one, whether or no."
The unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair comfortably, and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his own terms.
"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's Matthew Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now you see that makes his good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too; for, whereas I'm a harum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought, that more kicks than halfpence come natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? Now, Mr. Smallweed," says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds in his soldierly mode of doing business; "although you and I are good friends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I can't ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely."
"O dear, you are too modest. You can ask me anything, Mr. George." (There is an Ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed today.)
"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!"
"Ha ha ha!" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard manner, and with eyes so particularly green, that Mr. Bagnet's natural gravity is much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man.
"Come!" says the sanguine George, "I am glad to find we can be pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my friend Bagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, if you please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my friend Bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal, if you'll just mention to him what our understanding is."
Here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, "O good gracious! O!"--unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is found to be silent when the startled visitors look round, and whose chin has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. Mr. Bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound.
"But I think you asked me, Mr. George"; old Smallweed, who all this time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now; "I think you asked me, what did the letter mean?"
"Why, yes, I did," returns the trooper, in his off-hand way: "but I don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant."
Mr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces.
"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll crumble you. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!"
The two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity has now attained its profoundest point.
"Go to the devil!" repeats the old man. "I'll have no more of your pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent dragoon too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before), and show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend, there's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these blusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em out!"
He vociferates this so loudly, that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on the shoulders of his comrade, before the latter can recover from his amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door; which is instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr. George awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window, like a sentry, and looks in every time he passes; apparently revolving something in his mind.
"Come, Mat!" says Mr. George, when he has recovered himself, "we must try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?"
Mr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour replies, with one shake of his head directed at the interior, "If my old girl had been here--I'd have told him!" Having so discharged himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step, and marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder.
When they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn is engaged, and not to be seen. He is not at all willing to see them; for when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings forth no more encouraging message than that Mr. Tulkinghorn has nothing to say to them, and they had better not wait. They do wait, however, with the perseverance of military tactics; and at last the bell rings again, and the client in possession comes out of Mr. Tulkinghorn's room.
The client is a handsome old lady; no other than Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a fair o
ld-fashioned curtsey, and softly shuts the door. She is treated with some distinction there; for the clerk steps out of his pew to show her through the outer office, and to let her out. The old lady is thanking him for his attention, when she observes the comrades in waiting.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?"
The clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. George not turning round from the almanack over the fireplace, Mr. Bagnet takes upon himself to reply, "Yes, ma'am. Formerly."
"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you, gentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman; but I had a son once who went for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold way, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!"
"Same to you, ma'am!" returns Mr. Bagnet, with right good will.
There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's voice, and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. But Mr. George is so occupied with the almanack over the fireplace (calculating the coming months by it perhaps), that he does not look round until she has gone away, and the door is closed upon her.
"George," Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers, when he does turn from the almanack at last. "Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should we be melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!"
The clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there, and Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility, "Let 'em come in then!" they pass into the great room with the painted ceiling, and find him standing before the fire.
"Now, you men, what do you want? Serjeant, I told you the last time I saw you that I don't desire your company here."
Serjeant replies--dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual manner of speech, or even as to his usual carriage that he has received this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and has been referred there.
"I have nothing to say to you," rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. "If you get into debt, you must pay your debts, or take the consequences. You have no occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?"
Serjeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money.
"Very well! Then the other man--this man, if this is he--must pay it for you."
Serjeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the money either.
"Very well! Then you must pay it between you, or you must both be sued for it, and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it. You are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence, and escape scot free."
The lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. Mr. George hopes he will have the goodness to--
"I tell you, Serjeant, I have nothing to say to you. I don't like your associates, and don't want you here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice, and is not in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs to me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn."
"I must make an apology to you, sir," says Mr. George, "for pressing myself upon you with so little encouragement--which is almost as unpleasant to me as it can be to you; but would you let me say a private word to you?"
Mr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets, and walks into one of the window recesses. "Now! I have no time to waste." In the midst of his perfect assumption of indifference he directs a sharp look at the trooper; taking care to stand with his own back to the light, and to have the other with his face towards it.
"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "this man with me is the other party implicated in this unfortunate affair--nominally, only nominally--and my sole object is to prevent him getting into trouble on my account. He is a most respectable man with a wife and family; formerly in the Royal Artillery--"
"My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal Artillery establishment--officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses, guns, and ammunition."
"'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any other consideration, what you wanted of me the other day."
"Have you got it here?"
"I have got it here, sir."
"Serjeant," the lawyer proceeds in his dry, passionless manner, far more hopeless in the dealing with, than any amount of vehemence, "make up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re-open it. Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you have brought here, if you choose; you can take it away at once, if you choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you--I can replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded against to the utmost--that your means shall be exhausted before the creditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you decided?"
The trooper puts his hand into his breast, and answers with a long breath, "I must do it, sir."
So Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes the undertaking; which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who has all this time been staring at the ceiling, and who puts his hand on his bald head again under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow. "'Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from him."
Look at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression, and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn when he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it, and lays it in his desk, with a countenance as imperturbable as Death.
Nor has he anything more to say or do, but to nod once in the same frigid and discourteous manner, and to say briefly, "You can go. Show these men out, there!" Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnet's residence to dine.
Boiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former repast of boiled pork and greens; and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal in the same way, and seasons it with the best of temper; being that rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a hint that it might be Better; and catches light from any little spot of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow of Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first Mrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to restore him; but finding those young ladies sensible that their existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry, and leaves him to deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth.
But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed. During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr. Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his pipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay, by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco.
Therefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the invigorating pail. and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, "Old girl!" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter.
"Why, George!" says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. "How low you are!"
"Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not."
"He ain't at all like Bluffy, mother!" cries little Malta.
"Because he ain't well, I think, mother," adds Quebec.
"Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!" returns the trooper, kissing the young damsels. "But it's true," with a sigh--"true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!"
"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, work
ing busily, "if I thought you cross enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife--who could have bitten her tongue off afterwards, and ought to have done it almost--said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to you now."
"My kind soul of a darling," returns the trooper. "Not a morsel of it."
"Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say, was that I trusted Lignum to you, and was sure you'd bring him through it. And you have brought him through it, noble!"
"Thank'ee, my dear!" says George. "I am glad of your good opinion."
In giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly shake--for she took her seat beside him--the trooper's attention is attracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she plies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in the corner, and beckons that fifer to him.
"See there, my boy," says George, very gently smoothing the mother's hair with his hand, "there's a good loving forehead for you! All bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the weather through following your father about and taking care of you, but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree."
Mr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies, the highest approbation and acquiescence.
"The time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair of your mother's will be gray, and this forehead all crossed and re-crossed with wrinkles--and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never whitened a hair of her dear head --I never marked a sorrowful line in her face!' For of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better have that by you, Woolwich!"
Mr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him, that he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit.
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XXXV
Esther's Narrative
I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time, so much as of the change in all my habits, made by the helplessness and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance, where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake, and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore.