Chapter 15
TWO NEW SERVANTS
Mr and Mrs Boffin sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a prey toprosperity. Mr Boffin's face denoted Care and Complication. Manydisordered papers were before him, and he looked at them about ashopefully as an innocent civilian might look at a crowd of troops whomhe was required at five minutes' notice to manoeuvre and review. He hadbeen engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers; but beingtroubled (as men of his stamp often are) with an exceedingly distrustfuland corrective thumb, that busy member had so often interposed tosmear his notes, that they were little more legible than the variousimpressions of itself; which blurred his nose and forehead. It iscurious to consider, in such a case as Mr Boffin's, what a cheap articleink is, and how far it may be made to go. As a grain of musk will scenta drawer for many years, and still lose nothing appreciable of itsoriginal weight, so a halfpenny-worth of ink would blot Mr Boffin to theroots of his hair and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a lineon the paper before him, or appearing to diminish in the inkstand.
Mr Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his eyes wereprominent and fixed, and his breathing was stertorous, when, to thegreat relief of Mrs Boffin, who observed these symptoms with alarm, theyard bell rang.
'Who's that, I wonder!' said Mrs Boffin.
Mr Boffin drew a long breath, laid down his pen, looked at his notesas doubting whether he had the pleasure of their acquaintance, andappeared, on a second perusal of their countenances, to be confirmedin his impression that he had not, when there was announced by thehammer-headed young man:
'Mr Rokesmith.'
'Oh!' said Mr Boffin. 'Oh indeed! Our and the Wilfers' Mutual Friend, mydear. Yes. Ask him to come in.'
Mr Rokesmith appeared.
'Sit down, sir,' said Mr Boffin, shaking hands with him. 'Mrs Boffinyou're already acquainted with. Well, sir, I am rather unprepared to seeyou, for, to tell you the truth, I've been so busy with one thing andanother, that I've not had time to turn your offer over.'
'That's apology for both of us: for Mr Boffin, and for me as well,' saidthe smiling Mrs Boffin. 'But Lor! we can talk it over now; can't us?'
Mr Rokesmith bowed, thanked her, and said he hoped so.
'Let me see then,' resumed Mr Boffin, with his hand to his chin. 'It wasSecretary that you named; wasn't it?'
'I said Secretary,' assented Mr Rokesmith.
'It rather puzzled me at the time,' said Mr Boffin, 'and it ratherpuzzled me and Mrs Boffin when we spoke of it afterwards, because (notto make a mystery of our belief) we have always believed a Secretary tobe a piece of furniture, mostly of mahogany, lined with green baize orleather, with a lot of little drawers in it. Now, you won't think I takea liberty when I mention that you certainly ain't THAT.'
Certainly not, said Mr Rokesmith. But he had used the word in the senseof Steward.
'Why, as to Steward, you see,' returned Mr Boffin, with his hand stillto his chin, 'the odds are that Mrs Boffin and me may never go upon thewater. Being both bad sailors, we should want a Steward if we did; butthere's generally one provided.'
Mr Rokesmith again explained; defining the duties he sought toundertake, as those of general superintendent, or manager, oroverlooker, or man of business.
'Now, for instance--come!' said Mr Boffin, in his pouncing way. 'If youentered my employment, what would you do?'
'I would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you sanctioned,Mr Boffin. I would write your letters, under your direction. I wouldtransact your business with people in your pay or employment. I would,'with a glance and a half-smile at the table, 'arrange your papers--'
Mr Boffin rubbed his inky ear, and looked at his wife.
'--And so arrange them as to have them always in order for immediatereference, with a note of the contents of each outside it.'
'I tell you what,' said Mr Boffin, slowly crumpling his own blotted notein his hand; 'if you'll turn to at these present papers, and see whatyou can make of 'em, I shall know better what I can make of you.'
No sooner said than done. Relinquishing his hat and gloves, Mr Rokesmithsat down quietly at the table, arranged the open papers into an orderlyheap, cast his eyes over each in succession, folded it, docketed it onthe outside, laid it in a second heap, and, when that second heap wascomplete and the first gone, took from his pocket a piece of string andtied it together with a remarkably dexterous hand at a running curve anda loop.
'Good!' said Mr Boffin. 'Very good! Now let us hear what they're allabout; will you be so good?'
John Rokesmith read his abstracts aloud. They were all about the newhouse. Decorator's estimate, so much. Furniture estimate, so much.Estimate for furniture of offices, so much. Coach-maker's estimate, somuch. Horse-dealer's estimate, so much. Harness-maker's estimate, somuch. Goldsmith's estimate, so much. Total, so very much. Then camecorrespondence. Acceptance of Mr Boffin's offer of such a date, and tosuch an effect. Rejection of Mr Boffin's proposal of such a date and tosuch an effect. Concerning Mr Boffin's scheme of such another date tosuch another effect. All compact and methodical.
'Apple-pie order!' said Mr Boffin, after checking off each inscriptionwith his hand, like a man beating time. 'And whatever you do with yourink, I can't think, for you're as clean as a whistle after it. Now, asto a letter. Let's,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his hands in his pleasantlychildish admiration, 'let's try a letter next.'
'To whom shall it be addressed, Mr Boffin?'
'Anyone. Yourself.'
Mr Rokesmith quickly wrote, and then read aloud:
'"Mr Boffin presents his compliments to Mr John Rokesmith, and begsto say that he has decided on giving Mr John Rokesmith a trial in thecapacity he desires to fill. Mr Boffin takes Mr John Rokesmith at hisword, in postponing to some indefinite period, the consideration ofsalary. It is quite understood that Mr Boffin is in no way committedon that point. Mr Boffin has merely to add, that he relies on Mr JohnRokesmith's assurance that he will be faithful and serviceable. Mr JohnRokesmith will please enter on his duties immediately."'
'Well! Now, Noddy!' cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, 'That IS agood one!'
Mr Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, he regardedboth the composition itself and the device that had given birth to it,as a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity.
'And I tell you, my deary,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that if you don't closewith Mr Rokesmith now at once, and if you ever go a muddling yourselfagain with things never meant nor made for you, you'll have anapoplexy--besides iron-moulding your linen--and you'll break my heart.'
Mr Boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom, and then,congratulating John Rokesmith on the brilliancy of his achievements,gave him his hand in pledge of their new relations. So did Mrs Boffin.
'Now,' said Mr Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it did notbecome him to have a gentleman in his employment five minutes, withoutreposing some confidence in him, 'you must be let a little more into ouraffairs, Rokesmith. I mentioned to you, when I made your acquaintance,or I might better say when you made mine, that Mrs Boffin's inclinationswas setting in the way of Fashion, but that I didn't know howfashionable we might or might not grow. Well! Mrs Boffin has carried theday, and we're going in neck and crop for Fashion.'
'I rather inferred that, sir,' replied John Rokesmith, 'from the scaleon which your new establishment is to be maintained.'
'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, 'it's to be a Spanker. The fact is, myliterary man named to me that a house with which he is, as I may say,connected--in which he has an interest--'
'As property?' inquired John Rokesmith.
'Why no,' said Mr Boffin, 'not exactly that; a sort of a family tie.'
'Association?' the Secretary suggested.
'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Perhaps. Anyhow, he named to me that the househad a board up, "This Eminently Aristocratic Mansion to be let or sold."Me and Mrs Boffin went to look at it, and finding it beyond a doubtEminently Aristocratic (though a trifle high and dull,
which after allmay be part of the same thing) took it. My literary man was so friendlyas to drop into a charming piece of poetry on that occasion, in which hecomplimented Mrs Boffin on coming into possession of--how did it go, mydear?'
Mrs Boffin replied:
'"The gay, the gay and festive scene, The halls, the halls of dazzling light."'
'That's it! And it was made neater by there really being two hallsin the house, a front 'un and a back 'un, besides the servants'.He likewise dropped into a very pretty piece of poetry to be sure,respecting the extent to which he would be willing to put himself outof the way to bring Mrs Boffin round, in case she should ever get lowin her spirits in the house. Mrs Boffin has a wonderful memory. Will yourepeat it, my dear?'
Mrs Boffin complied, by reciting the verses in which this obliging offerhad been made, exactly as she had received them.
'"I'll tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs Boffin, When her true love was slain ma'am, And how her broken spirit slept, Mrs Boffin, And never woke again ma'am. I'll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr Boffin) how the steed drew nigh, And left his lord afar; And if my tale (which I hope Mr Boffin might excuse) should make you sigh, I'll strike the light guitar."'
'Correct to the letter!' said Mr Boffin. 'And I consider that the poetrybrings us both in, in a beautiful manner.'
The effect of the poem on the Secretary being evidently to astonishhim, Mr Boffin was confirmed in his high opinion of it, and was greatlypleased.
'Now, you see, Rokesmith,' he went on, 'a literary man--WITH a woodenleg--is liable to jealousy. I shall therefore cast about for comfortableways and means of not calling up Wegg's jealousy, but of keeping you inyour department, and keeping him in his.'
'Lor!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'What I say is, the world's wide enough for allof us!'
'So it is, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'when not literary. But when so,not so. And I am bound to bear in mind that I took Wegg on, at a timewhen I had no thought of being fashionable or of leaving the Bower. Tolet him feel himself anyways slighted now, would be to be guilty ofa meanness, and to act like having one's head turned by the halls ofdazzling light. Which Lord forbid! Rokesmith, what shall we say aboutyour living in the house?'
'In this house?'
'No, no. I have got other plans for this house. In the new house?'
'That will be as you please, Mr Boffin. I hold myself quite at yourdisposal. You know where I live at present.'
'Well!' said Mr Boffin, after considering the point; 'suppose you keepas you are for the present, and we'll decide by-and-by. You'll begin totake charge at once, of all that's going on in the new house, will you?'
'Most willingly. I will begin this very day. Will you give me theaddress?'
Mr Boffin repeated it, and the Secretary wrote it down in hispocket-book. Mrs Boffin took the opportunity of his being so engaged,to get a better observation of his face than she had yet taken. Itimpressed her in his favour, for she nodded aside to Mr Boffin, 'I likehim.'
'I will see directly that everything is in train, Mr Boffin.'
'Thank'ee. Being here, would you care at all to look round the Bower?'
'I should greatly like it. I have heard so much of its story.'
'Come!' said Mr Boffin. And he and Mrs Boffin led the way.
A gloomy house the Bower, with sordid signs on it of having been,through its long existence as Harmony Jail, in miserly holding. Bare ofpaint, bare of paper on the walls, bare of furniture, bare of experienceof human life. Whatever is built by man for man's occupation, must,like natural creations, fulfil the intention of its existence, or soonperish. This old house had wasted--more from desuetude than it wouldhave wasted from use, twenty years for one.
A certain leanness falls upon houses not sufficiently imbued with life(as if they were nourished upon it), which was very noticeable here.The staircase, balustrades, and rails, had a spare look--an air of beingdenuded to the bone--which the panels of the walls and the jambs of thedoors and windows also bore. The scanty moveables partook of it; savefor the cleanliness of the place, the dust--into which they were allresolving would have lain thick on the floors; and those, both in colourand in grain, were worn like old faces that had kept much alone.
The bedroom where the clutching old man had lost his grip on life, wasleft as he had left it. There was the old grisly four-post bedstead,without hangings, and with a jail-like upper rim of iron and spikes; andthere was the old patch-work counterpane. There was the tight-clenchedold bureau, receding atop like a bad and secret forehead; there was thecumbersome old table with twisted legs, at the bed-side; and therewas the box upon it, in which the will had lain. A few old chairs withpatch-work covers, under which the more precious stuff to be preservedhad slowly lost its quality of colour without imparting pleasure to anyeye, stood against the wall. A hard family likeness was on all thesethings.
'The room was kept like this, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, 'against theson's return. In short, everything in the house was kept exactly as itcame to us, for him to see and approve. Even now, nothing is changedbut our own room below-stairs that you have just left. When the son camehome for the last time in his life, and for the last time in his lifesaw his father, it was most likely in this room that they met.'
As the Secretary looked all round it, his eyes rested on a side door ina corner.
'Another staircase,' said Mr Boffin, unlocking the door, 'leading downinto the yard. We'll go down this way, as you may like to see the yard,and it's all in the road. When the son was a little child, it was upand down these stairs that he mostly came and went to his father. He wasvery timid of his father. I've seen him sit on these stairs, in hisshy way, poor child, many a time. Mr and Mrs Boffin have comforted him,sitting with his little book on these stairs, often.'
'Ah! And his poor sister too,' said Mrs Boffin. 'And here's the sunnyplace on the white wall where they one day measured one another. Theirown little hands wrote up their names here, only with a pencil; but thenames are here still, and the poor dears gone for ever.'
'We must take care of the names, old lady,' said Mr Boffin. 'We musttake care of the names. They shan't be rubbed out in our time, nor yet,if we can help it, in the time after us. Poor little children!'
'Ah, poor little children!' said Mrs Boffin.
They had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on theyard, and they stood in the sunlight, looking at the scrawl of the twounsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase. There wassomething in this simple memento of a blighted childhood, and in thetenderness of Mrs Boffin, that touched the Secretary.
Mr Boffin then showed his new man of business the Mounds, and his ownparticular Mound which had been left him as his legacy under the willbefore he acquired the whole estate.
'It would have been enough for us,' said Mr Boffin, 'in case it hadpleased God to spare the last of those two young lives and sorrowfuldeaths. We didn't want the rest.'
At the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the house, and atthe detached building which Mr Boffin pointed out as the residenceof himself and his wife during the many years of their service, theSecretary looked with interest. It was not until Mr Boffin had shownhim every wonder of the Bower twice over, that he remembered his havingduties to discharge elsewhere.
'You have no instructions to give me, Mr Boffin, in reference to thisplace?'
'Not any, Rokesmith. No.'
'Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you have anyintention of selling it?'
'Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our old master'schildren, and our old service, me and Mrs Boffin mean to keep it up asit stands.'
The Secretary's eyes glanced with so much meaning in them at the Mounds,that Mr Boffin said, as if in answer to a remark:
'Ay, ay, that's another thing. I may sell THEM, though I should be sorryto see the neighbourhood deprived of 'em too. It'll look but a poor deadflat without the Mounds. Still I don't say that I'm going to keep 'e
malways there, for the sake of the beauty of the landscape. There's nohurry about it; that's all I say at present. I ain't a scholar in much,Rokesmith, but I'm a pretty fair scholar in dust. I can price the Moundsto a fraction, and I know how they can be best disposed of; and likewisethat they take no harm by standing where they do. You'll look into-morrow, will you be so kind?'
'Every day. And the sooner I can get you into your new house, complete,the better you will be pleased, sir?'
'Well, it ain't that I'm in a mortal hurry,' said Mr Boffin; 'only whenyou DO pay people for looking alive, it's as well to know that they ARElooking alive. Ain't that your opinion?'
'Quite!' replied the Secretary; and so withdrew.
'Now,' said Mr Boffin to himself; subsiding into his regular series ofturns in the yard, 'if I can make it comfortable with Wegg, my affairswill be going smooth.'
The man of low cunning had, of course, acquired a mastery over the manof high simplicity. The mean man had, of course, got the better of thegenerous man. How long such conquests last, is another matter; that theyare achieved, is every-day experience, not even to be flourished away byPodsnappery itself. The undesigning Boffin had become so far immeshedby the wily Wegg that his mind misgave him he was a very designing manindeed in purposing to do more for Wegg. It seemed to him (so skilfulwas Wegg) that he was plotting darkly, when he was contriving to do thevery thing that Wegg was plotting to get him to do. And thus, while hewas mentally turning the kindest of kind faces on Wegg this morning, hewas not absolutely sure but that he might somehow deserve the charge ofturning his back on him.
For these reasons Mr Boffin passed but anxious hours until evening came,and with it Mr Wegg, stumping leisurely to the Roman Empire. At aboutthis period Mr Boffin had become profoundly interested in the fortunesof a great military leader known to him as Bully Sawyers, but perhapsbetter known to fame and easier of identification by the classicalstudent, under the less Britannic name of Belisarius. Even thisgeneral's career paled in interest for Mr Boffin before the clearing ofhis conscience with Wegg; and hence, when that literary gentleman hadaccording to custom eaten and drunk until he was all a-glow, and whenhe took up his book with the usual chirping introduction, 'And now, MrBoffin, sir, we'll decline and we'll fall!' Mr Boffin stopped him.
'You remember, Wegg, when I first told you that I wanted to make a sortof offer to you?'
'Let me get on my considering cap, sir,' replied that gentleman, turningthe open book face downward. 'When you first told me that you wantedto make a sort of offer to me? Now let me think.' (as if there were theleast necessity) 'Yes, to be sure I do, Mr Boffin. It was at my corner.To be sure it was! You had first asked me whether I liked your name,and Candour had compelled a reply in the negative case. I little thoughtthen, sir, how familiar that name would come to be!'
'I hope it will be more familiar still, Wegg.'
'Do you, Mr Boffin? Much obliged to you, I'm sure. Is it your pleasure,sir, that we decline and we fall?' with a feint of taking up the book.
'Not just yet awhile, Wegg. In fact, I have got another offer to makeyou.'
Mr Wegg (who had had nothing else in his mind for several nights) tookoff his spectacles with an air of bland surprise.
'And I hope you'll like it, Wegg.'
'Thank you, sir,' returned that reticent individual. 'I hope it mayprove so. On all accounts, I am sure.' (This, as a philanthropicaspiration.)
'What do you think,' said Mr Boffin, 'of not keeping a stall, Wegg?'
'I think, sir,' replied Wegg, 'that I should like to be shown thegentleman prepared to make it worth my while!'
'Here he is,' said Mr Boffin.
Mr Wegg was going to say, My Benefactor, and had said My Bene, when agrandiloquent change came over him.
'No, Mr Boffin, not you sir. Anybody but you. Do not fear, Mr Boffin,that I shall contaminate the premises which your gold has bought, withMY lowly pursuits. I am aware, sir, that it would not become me to carryon my little traffic under the windows of your mansion. I have alreadythought of that, and taken my measures. No need to be bought out, sir.Would Stepney Fields be considered intrusive? If not remote enough, Ican go remoter. In the words of the poet's song, which I do not quiteremember:
Thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and roam, Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home, A stranger to something and what's his name joy, Behold little Edmund the poor Peasant boy.
--And equally,' said Mr Wegg, repairing the want of direct applicationin the last line, 'behold myself on a similar footing!'
'Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg,' remonstrated the excellent Boffin. 'You are toosensitive.'
'I know I am, sir,' returned Wegg, with obstinate magnanimity. 'I amacquainted with my faults. I always was, from a child, too sensitive.'
'But listen,' pursued the Golden Dustman; 'hear me out, Wegg. You havetaken it into your head that I mean to pension you off.'
'True, sir,' returned Wegg, still with an obstinate magnanimity. 'I amacquainted with my faults. Far be it from me to deny them. I HAVE takenit into my head.'
'But I DON'T mean it.'
The assurance seemed hardly as comforting to Mr Wegg, as Mr Boffinintended it to be. Indeed, an appreciable elongation of his visage mighthave been observed as he replied:
'Don't you, indeed, sir?'
'No,' pursued Mr Boffin; 'because that would express, as I understandit, that you were not going to do anything to deserve your money. Butyou are; you are.'
'That, sir,' replied Mr Wegg, cheering up bravely, 'is quite anotherpair of shoes. Now, my independence as a man is again elevated. Now, Ino longer
Weep for the hour, When to Boffinses bower, The Lord of the valley with offers came; Neither does the moon hide her light From the heavens to-night, And weep behind her clouds o'er any individual in the present Company's shame.
--Please to proceed, Mr Boffin.'
'Thank'ee, Wegg, both for your confidence in me and for your frequentdropping into poetry; both of which is friendly. Well, then; my idea is,that you should give up your stall, and that I should put you into theBower here, to keep it for us. It's a pleasant spot; and a man withcoals and candles and a pound a week might be in clover here.'
'Hem! Would that man, sir--we will say that man, for the purposes ofargueyment;' Mr Wegg made a smiling demonstration of great perspicuityhere; 'would that man, sir, be expected to throw any other capacity in,or would any other capacity be considered extra? Now let us (for thepurposes of argueyment) suppose that man to be engaged as a reader: say(for the purposes of argueyment) in the evening. Would that man's pay asa reader in the evening, be added to the other amount, which, adoptingyour language, we will call clover; or would it merge into that amount,or clover?'
'Well,' said Mr Boffin, 'I suppose it would be added.'
'I suppose it would, sir. You are right, sir. Exactly my own views,Mr Boffin.' Here Wegg rose, and balancing himself on his wooden leg,fluttered over his prey with extended hand. 'Mr Boffin, consider itdone. Say no more, sir, not a word more. My stall and I are for everparted. The collection of ballads will in future be reserved for privatestudy, with the object of making poetry tributary'--Wegg was so proudof having found this word, that he said it again, with a capitalletter--'Tributary, to friendship. Mr Boffin, don't allow yourself tobe made uncomfortable by the pang it gives me to part from my stock andstall. Similar emotion was undergone by my own father when promotedfor his merits from his occupation as a waterman to a situation underGovernment. His Christian name was Thomas. His words at the time (I wasthen an infant, but so deep was their impression on me, that I committedthem to memory) were:
Then farewell my trim-built wherry, Oars and coat and badge farewell! Never more at Chelsea Ferry, Shall your Thomas take a spell!
--My father got over it, Mr Boffin, and so shall I.'
While delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg continuallydisappointed Mr Boffin of his hand by flourishing it in the air. He nowd
arted it at his patron, who took it, and felt his mind relieved of agreat weight: observing that as they had arranged their joint affairsso satisfactorily, he would now be glad to look into those of BullySawyers. Which, indeed, had been left over-night in a very unpromisingposture, and for whose impending expedition against the Persians theweather had been by no means favourable all day.
Mr Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers was not to be ofthe party that night; for, before Wegg had found his place, Mrs Boffin'stread was heard upon the stairs, so unusually heavy and hurried, that MrBoffin would have started up at the sound, anticipating some occurrencemuch out of the common course, even though she had not also called tohim in an agitated tone.
Mr Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, panting,with a lighted candle in her hand.
'What's the matter, my dear?'
'I don't know; I don't know; but I wish you'd come up-stairs.'
Much surprised, Mr Boffin went up stairs and accompanied Mrs Boffin intotheir own room: a second large room on the same floor as the room inwhich the late proprietor had died. Mr Boffin looked all round him,and saw nothing more unusual than various articles of folded linen on alarge chest, which Mrs Boffin had been sorting.
'What is it, my dear? Why, you're frightened! YOU frightened?'
'I am not one of that sort certainly,' said Mrs Boffin, as she sat downin a chair to recover herself, and took her husband's arm; 'but it'svery strange!'
'What is, my dear?'
'Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children are all over thehouse to-night.'
'My dear?' exclaimed Mr Boffin. But not without a certain uncomfortablesensation gliding down his back.
'I know it must sound foolish, and yet it is so.'
'Where did you think you saw them?'
'I don't know that I think I saw them anywhere. I felt them.'
'Touched them?'
'No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on the chest, andnot thinking of the old man or the children, but singing to myself, whenall in a moment I felt there was a face growing out of the dark.'
'What face?' asked her husband, looking about him.
'For a moment it was the old man's, and then it got younger. For amoment it was both the children's, and then it got older. For a momentit was a strange face, and then it was all the faces.'
'And then it was gone?'
'Yes; and then it was gone.'
'Where were you then, old lady?'
'Here, at the chest. Well; I got the better of it, and went on sorting,and went on singing to myself. "Lor!" I says, "I'll think of somethingelse--something comfortable--and put it out of my head." So I thoughtof the new house and Miss Bella Wilfer, and was thinking at a great ratewith that sheet there in my hand, when all of a sudden, the faces seemedto be hidden in among the folds of it and I let it drop.'
As it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr Boffin picked it upand laid it on the chest.
'And then you ran down stairs?'
'No. I thought I'd try another room, and shake it off. I says to myself,"I'll go and walk slowly up and down the old man's room three times,from end to end, and then I shall have conquered it." I went in with thecandle in my hand; but the moment I came near the bed, the air got thickwith them.'
'With the faces?'
'Yes, and I even felt that they were in the dark behind the side-door,and on the little staircase, floating away into the yard. Then, I calledyou.'
Mr Boffin, lost in amazement, looked at Mrs Boffin. Mrs Boffin, lost inher own fluttered inability to make this out, looked at Mr Boffin.
'I think, my dear,' said the Golden Dustman, 'I'll at once get rid ofWegg for the night, because he's coming to inhabit the Bower, and itmight be put into his head or somebody else's, if he heard this and itgot about that the house is haunted. Whereas we know better. Don't we?'
'I never had the feeling in the house before,' said Mrs Boffin; 'and Ihave been about it alone at all hours of the night. I have been in thehouse when Death was in it, and I have been in the house when Murder wasa new part of its adventures, and I never had a fright in it yet.'
'And won't again, my dear,' said Mr Boffin. 'Depend upon it, it comes ofthinking and dwelling on that dark spot.'
'Yes; but why didn't it come before?' asked Mrs Boffin.
This draft on Mr Boffin's philosophy could only be met by that gentlemanwith the remark that everything that is at all, must begin at some time.Then, tucking his wife's arm under his own, that she might not be leftby herself to be troubled again, he descended to release Wegg. Who,being something drowsy after his plentiful repast, and constitutionallyof a shirking temperament, was well enough pleased to stump away,without doing what he had come to do, and was paid for doing.
Mr Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs Boffin her shawl; and the pair,further provided with a bunch of keys and a lighted lantern, wentall over the dismal house--dismal everywhere, but in their own tworooms--from cellar to cock-loft. Not resting satisfied with giving thatmuch chace to Mrs Boffin's fancies, they pursued them into the yard andoutbuildings, and under the Mounds. And setting the lantern, when allwas done, at the foot of one of the Mounds, they comfortably trotted toand fro for an evening walk, to the end that the murky cobwebs in MrsBoffin's brain might be blown away.
'There, my dear!' said Mr Boffin when they came in to supper. 'That wasthe treatment, you see. Completely worked round, haven't you?'
'Yes, deary,' said Mrs Boffin, laying aside her shawl. 'I'm not nervousany more. I'm not a bit troubled now. I'd go anywhere about the housethe same as ever. But--'
'Eh!' said Mr Boffin.
'But I've only to shut my eyes.'
'And what then?'
'Why then,' said Mrs Boffin, speaking with her eyes closed, and herleft hand thoughtfully touching her brow, 'then, there they are! The oldman's face, and it gets younger. The two children's faces, and they getolder. A face that I don't know. And then all the faces!'
Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband's face across the table,she leaned forward to give it a pat on the cheek, and sat down tosupper, declaring it to be the best face in the world.