Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi)

by Charles Dickens

  If the dark little parlour had been filled with a dense fog, which, clearing away in an instant, left it all radiance and brightness, it could not have been more suddenly cheered than by this outbreak on the part of the hearty locksmith. In a voice nearly as full and round as his own, Mr Haredale cried 'Well said!' and bade him come away without more parley. The locksmith complied right willingly; and both getting into a hackney coach which was waiting at the door, drove off straightway.

  They alighted at the street corner, and dismissing their conveyance, walked to the house. To their first knock at the door there was no response. A second met with the like result. But in answer to the third, which was of a more vigorous kind, the parlour window-sash was gently raised, and a musical voice cried:

  'Haredale, my dear fellow, I am extremely glad to see you. How very much you have improved in your appearance since our last meeting! I never saw you looking better. HOW do you do?'

  Mr Haredale turned his eyes towards the casement whence the voice proceeded, though there was no need to do so, to recognise the speaker, and Mr Chester waved his hand, and smiled a courteous welcome.

  'The door will be opened immediately,' he said. 'There is nobody but a very dilapidated female to perform such offices. You will excuse her infirmities? If she were in a more elevated station of society, she would be gouty. Being but a hewer of wood and drawer of water, she is rheumatic. My dear Haredale, these are natural class distinctions, depend upon it.'

  Mr Haredale, whose face resumed its lowering and distrustful look the moment he heard the voice, inclined his head stiffly, and turned his back upon the speaker.

  'Not opened yet,' said Mr Chester. 'Dear me! I hope the aged soul has not caught her foot in some unlucky cobweb by the way. She is there at last! Come in, I beg!'

  Mr Haredale entered, followed by the locksmith. Turning with a look of great astonishment to the old woman who had opened the door, he inquired for Mrs Rudge--for Barnaby. They were both gone, she replied, wagging her ancient head, for good. There was a gentleman in the parlour, who perhaps could tell them more. That was all SHE knew.

  'Pray, sir,' said Mr Haredale, presenting himself before this new tenant, 'where is the person whom I came here to see?'

  'My dear friend,' he returned, 'I have not the least idea.'

  'Your trifling is ill-timed,' retorted the other in a suppressed tone and voice, 'and its subject ill-chosen. Reserve it for those who are your friends, and do not expend it on me. I lay no claim to the distinction, and have the self-denial to reject it.'

  'My dear, good sir,' said Mr Chester, 'you are heated with walking. Sit down, I beg. Our friend is--'

  'Is but a plain honest man,' returned Mr Haredale, 'and quite unworthy of your notice.'

  'Gabriel Varden by name, sir,' said the locksmith bluntly.

  'A worthy English yeoman!' said Mr Chester. 'A most worthy yeoman, of whom I have frequently heard my son Ned--darling fellow--speak, and have often wished to see. Varden, my good friend, I am glad to know you. You wonder now,' he said, turning languidly to Mr Haredale, 'to see me here. Now, I am sure you do.'

  Mr Haredale glanced at him--not fondly or admiringly--smiled, and held his peace.

  'The mystery is solved in a moment,' said Mr Chester; 'in a moment. Will you step aside with me one instant. You remember our little compact in reference to Ned, and your dear niece, Haredale? You remember the list of assistants in their innocent intrigue? You remember these two people being among them? My dear fellow, congratulate yourself, and me. I have bought them off.'

  'You have done what?' said Mr Haredale.

  'Bought them off,' returned his smiling friend. 'I have found it necessary to take some active steps towards setting this boy and girl attachment quite at rest, and have begun by removing these two agents. You are surprised? Who CAN withstand the influence of a little money! They wanted it, and have been bought off. We have nothing more to fear from them. They are gone.'

  'Gone!' echoed Mr Haredale. 'Where?'

  'My dear fellow--and you must permit me to say again, that you never looked so young; so positively boyish as you do to-night--the Lord knows where; I believe Columbus himself wouldn't find them. Between you and me they have their hidden reasons, but upon that point I have pledged myself to secrecy. She appointed to see you here to-night, I know, but found it inconvenient, and couldn't wait. Here is the key of the door. I am afraid you'll find it inconveniently large; but as the tenement is yours, your good-nature will excuse that, Haredale, I am certain!'

  Chapter 27

  Mr Haredale stood in the widow's parlour with the door-key in his hand, gazing by turns at Mr Chester and at Gabriel Varden, and occasionally glancing downward at the key as in the hope that of its own accord it would unlock the mystery; until Mr Chester, putting on his hat and gloves, and sweetly inquiring whether they were walking in the same direction, recalled him to himself.

  'No,' he said. 'Our roads diverge--widely, as you know. For the present, I shall remain here.'

  'You will be hipped, Haredale; you will be miserable, melancholy, utterly wretched,' returned the other. 'It's a place of the very last description for a man of your temper. I know it will make you very miserable.'

  'Let it,' said Mr Haredale, sitting down; 'and thrive upon the thought. Good night!'

  Feigning to be wholly unconscious of the abrupt wave of the hand which rendered this farewell tantamount to a dismissal, Mr Chester retorted with a bland and heartfelt benediction, and inquired of Gabriel in what direction HE was going.

  'Yours, sir, would be too much honour for the like of me,' replied the locksmith, hesitating.

  'I wish you to remain here a little while, Varden,' said Mr Haredale, without looking towards them. 'I have a word or two to say to you.'

  'I will not intrude upon your conference another moment,' said Mr Chester with inconceivable politeness. 'May it be satisfactory to you both! God bless you!' So saying, and bestowing upon the locksmith a most refulgent smile, he left them.

  'A deplorably constituted creature, that rugged person,' he said, as he walked along the street; 'he is an atrocity that carries its own punishment along with it--a bear that gnaws himself. And here is one of the inestimable advantages of having a perfect command over one's inclinations. I have been tempted in these two short interviews, to draw upon that fellow, fifty times. Five men in six would have yielded to the impulse. By suppressing mine, I wound him deeper and more keenly than if I were the best swordsman in all Europe, and he the worst. You are the wise man's very last resource,' he said, tapping the hilt of his weapon; 'we can but appeal to you when all else is said and done. To come to you before, and thereby spare our adversaries so much, is a barbarian mode of warfare, quite unworthy of any man with the remotest pretensions to delicacy of feeling, or refinement.'

  He smiled so very pleasantly as he communed with himself after this manner, that a beggar was emboldened to follow for alms, and to dog his footsteps for some distance. He was gratified by the circumstance, feeling it complimentary to his power of feature, and as a reward suffered the man to follow him until he called a chair, when he graciously dismissed him with a fervent blessing.

  'Which is as easy as cursing,' he wisely added, as he took his seat, 'and more becoming to the face.--To Clerkenwell, my good creatures, if you please!' The chairmen were rendered quite vivacious by having such a courteous burden, and to Clerkenwell they went at a fair round trot.

  Alighting at a certain point he had indicated to them upon the road, and paying them something less than they expected from a fare of such gentle speech, he turned into the street in which the locksmith dwelt, and presently stood beneath the shadow of the Golden Key. Mr Tappertit, who was hard at work by lamplight, in a corner of the workshop, remained unconscious of his presence until a hand upon his shoulder made him start and turn his head.

  'Industry,' said Mr Chester, 'is the soul of business, and the keystone of prosperity. Mr Tappertit, I shall expect you to invite me to dinner
when you are Lord Mayor of London.'

  'Sir,' returned the 'prentice, laying down his hammer, and rubbing his nose on the back of a very sooty hand, 'I scorn the Lord Mayor and everything that belongs to him. We must have another state of society, sir, before you catch me being Lord Mayor. How de do, sir?'

  'The better, Mr Tappertit, for looking into your ingenuous face once more. I hope you are well.'

  'I am as well, sir,' said Sim, standing up to get nearer to his ear, and whispering hoarsely, 'as any man can be under the aggrawations to which I am exposed. My life's a burden to me. If it wasn't for wengeance, I'd play at pitch and toss with it on the losing hazard.'

  'Is Mrs Varden at home?' said Mr Chester.

  'Sir,' returned Sim, eyeing him over with a look of concentrated expression,--'she is. Did you wish to see her?'

  Mr Chester nodded.

  'Then come this way, sir,' said Sim, wiping his face upon his apron. 'Follow me, sir.--Would you permit me to whisper in your ear, one half a second?'

  'By all means.'

  Mr Tappertit raised himself on tiptoe, applied his lips to Mr Chester's ear, drew back his head without saying anything, looked hard at him, applied them to his ear again, again drew back, and finally whispered--'The name is Joseph Willet. Hush! I say no more.'

  Having said that much, he beckoned the visitor with a mysterious aspect to follow him to the parlour-door, where he announced him in the voice of a gentleman-usher. 'Mr Chester.'

  'And not Mr Ed'dard, mind,' said Sim, looking into the door again, and adding this by way of postscript in his own person; 'it's his father.'

  'But do not let his father,' said Mr Chester, advancing hat in hand, as he observed the effect of this last explanatory announcement, 'do not let his father be any check or restraint on your domestic occupations, Miss Varden.'

  'Oh! Now! There! An't I always a-saying it!' exclaimed Miggs, clapping her hands. 'If he an't been and took Missis for her own daughter. Well, she DO look like it, that she do. Only think of that, mim!'

  'Is it possible,' said Mr Chester in his softest tones, 'that this is Mrs Varden! I am amazed. That is not your daughter, Mrs Varden? No, no. Your sister.'

  'My daughter, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs V., blushing with great juvenility.

  'Ah, Mrs Varden!' cried the visitor. 'Ah, ma'am--humanity is indeed a happy lot, when we can repeat ourselves in others, and still be young as they. You must allow me to salute you--the custom of the country, my dear madam--your daughter too.'

  Dolly showed some reluctance to perform this ceremony, but was sharply reproved by Mrs Varden, who insisted on her undergoing it that minute. For pride, she said with great severity, was one of the seven deadly sins, and humility and lowliness of heart were virtues. Wherefore she desired that Dolly would be kissed immediately, on pain of her just displeasure; at the same time giving her to understand that whatever she saw her mother do, she might safely do herself, without being at the trouble of any reasoning or reflection on the subject--which, indeed, was offensive and undutiful, and in direct contravention of the church catechism.

  Thus admonished, Dolly complied, though by no means willingly; for there was a broad, bold look of admiration in Mr Chester's face, refined and polished though it sought to be, which distressed her very much. As she stood with downcast eyes, not liking to look up and meet his, he gazed upon her with an approving air, and then turned to her mother.

  'My friend Gabriel (whose acquaintance I only made this very evening) should be a happy man, Mrs Varden.'

  'Ah!' sighed Mrs V., shaking her head.

  'Ah!' echoed Miggs.

  'Is that the case?' said Mr Chester, compassionately. 'Dear me!'

  'Master has no intentions, sir,' murmured Miggs as she sidled up to him, 'but to be as grateful as his natur will let him, for everythink he owns which it is in his powers to appreciate. But we never, sir'--said Miggs, looking sideways at Mrs Varden, and interlarding her discourse with a sigh--'we never know the full value of SOME wines and fig-trees till we lose 'em. So much the worse, sir, for them as has the slighting of 'em on their consciences when they're gone to be in full blow elsewhere.' And Miss Miggs cast up her eyes to signify where that might be.

  As Mrs Varden distinctly heard, and was intended to hear, all that Miggs said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical terms a presage or foreboding that she would at some early period droop beneath her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, she immediately began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from a neighbouring table, leant her arm upon it as though she were Hope and that her Anchor. Mr Chester perceiving this, and seeing how the volume was lettered on the back, took it gently from her hand, and turned the fluttering leaves.

  'My favourite book, dear madam. How often, how very often in his early life--before he can remember'--(this clause was strictly true) 'have I deduced little easy moral lessons from its pages, for my dear son Ned! You know Ned?'

  Mrs Varden had that honour, and a fine affable young gentleman he was.

  'You're a mother, Mrs Varden,' said Mr Chester, taking a pinch of snuff, 'and you know what I, as a father, feel, when he is praised. He gives me some uneasiness--much uneasiness--he's of a roving nature, ma'am--from flower to flower--from sweet to sweet--but his is the butterfly time of life, and we must not be hard upon such trifling.'

  He glanced at Dolly. She was attending evidently to what he said. Just what he desired!

  'The only thing I object to in this little trait of Ned's, is,' said Mr Chester, '--and the mention of his name reminds me, by the way, that I am about to beg the favour of a minute's talk with you alone--the only thing I object to in it, is, that it DOES partake of insincerity. Now, however I may attempt to disguise the fact from myself in my affection for Ned, still I always revert to this--that if we are not sincere, we are nothing. Nothing upon earth. Let us be sincere, my dear madam--'

  '--and Protestant,' murmured Mrs Varden.

  '--and Protestant above all things. Let us be sincere and Protestant, strictly moral, strictly just (though always with a leaning towards mercy), strictly honest, and strictly true, and we gain--it is a slight point, certainly, but still it is something tangible; we throw up a groundwork and foundation, so to speak, of goodness, on which we may afterwards erect some worthy superstructure.'

  Now, to be sure, Mrs Varden thought, here is a perfect character. Here is a meek, righteous, thoroughgoing Christian, who, having mastered all these qualities, so difficult of attainment; who, having dropped a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues, and caught them every one; makes light of their possession, and pants for more morality. For the good woman never doubted (as many good men and women never do), that this slighting kind of profession, this setting so little store by great matters, this seeming to say, 'I am not proud, I am what you hear, but I consider myself no better than other people; let us change the subject, pray'--was perfectly genuine and true. He so contrived it, and said it in that way that it appeared to have been forced from him, and its effect was marvellous.

  Aware of the impression he had made--few men were quicker than he at such discoveries--Mr Chester followed up the blow by propounding certain virtuous maxims, somewhat vague and general in their nature, doubtless, and occasionally partaking of the character of truisms, worn a little out at elbow, but delivered in so charming a voice and with such uncommon serenity and peace of mind, that they answered as well as the best. Nor is this to be wondered at; for as hollow vessels produce a far more musical sound in falling than those which are substantial, so it will oftentimes be found that sentiments which have nothing in them make the loudest ringing in the world, and are the most relished.

  Mr Chester, with the volume gently extended in one hand, and with the other planted lightly on his breast, talked to them in the most delicious manner possible; and quite enchanted all his hearers, notwithstanding their conflicting interests and thoughts. Even Dolly, who, between his keen regards and her eyeing over by M
r Tappertit, was put quite out of countenance, could not help owning within herself that he was the sweetest-spoken gentleman she had ever seen. Even Miss Miggs, who was divided between admiration of Mr Chester and a mortal jealousy of her young mistress, had sufficient leisure to be propitiated. Even Mr Tappertit, though occupied as we have seen in gazing at his heart's delight, could not wholly divert his thoughts from the voice of the other charmer. Mrs Varden, to her own private thinking, had never been so improved in all her life; and when Mr Chester, rising and craving permission to speak with her apart, took her by the hand and led her at arm's length upstairs to the best sitting-room, she almost deemed him something more than human.

  'Dear madam,' he said, pressing her hand delicately to his lips; 'be seated.'

  Mrs Varden called up quite a courtly air, and became seated.

  'You guess my object?' said Mr Chester, drawing a chair towards her. 'You divine my purpose? I am an affectionate parent, my dear Mrs Varden.'

  'That I am sure you are, sir,' said Mrs V.

  'Thank you,' returned Mr Chester, tapping his snuff-box lid. 'Heavy moral responsibilities rest with parents, Mrs Varden.'

  Mrs Varden slightly raised her hands, shook her head, and looked at the ground as though she saw straight through the globe, out at the other end, and into the immensity of space beyond.

  'I may confide in you,' said Mr Chester, 'without reserve. I love my son, ma'am, dearly; and loving him as I do, I would save him from working certain misery. You know of his attachment to Miss Haredale. You have abetted him in it, and very kind of you it was to do so. I am deeply obliged to you--most deeply obliged to you--for your interest in his behalf; but my dear ma'am, it is a mistaken one, I do assure you.'

  Mrs Varden stammered that she was sorry--'

  'Sorry, my dear ma'am,' he interposed. 'Never be sorry for what is so very amiable, so very good in intention, so perfectly like yourself. But there are grave and weighty reasons, pressing family considerations, and apart even from these, points of religious difference, which interpose themselves, and render their union impossible; utterly im-possible. I should have mentioned these circumstances to your husband; but he has--you will excuse my saying this so freely--he has NOT your quickness of apprehension or depth of moral sense. What an extremely airy house this is, and how beautifully kept! For one like myself--a widower so long--these tokens of female care and superintendence have inexpressible charms.'