THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST
The breakfast table at Mr Boffin's was usually a very pleasant one, and was
always presided over by Bella. As though he began each new day in his healthy
natural character, and some waking hours were necessary to his relapse into the
corrupting influences of his wealth, the face and the demeanour of the Golden
Dustman were generally unclouded at that meal. It would have been easy to
believe then, that there was no change in him. It was as the day went on that
the clouds gathered, and the brightness of the mornmg became obscured. One might
have said that the shadows of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow
lengthened, and that the night closed around him gradually.
But, one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it was black midnight with
the Golden Dustman when he first appeared. His altered character had never been
so grossly marked. His bearing towards his Secretary was so charged with
insolent distrust and arrogance, that the latter rose and left the table before
breakfast was half done. The look he directed at the Secretary's retiring figure
was so cunningly malignant, that Bella would have sat astounded and indignant,
even though he had not gone the length of secretly threatening Rokesmith with
his clenched fist as he closed the door. This unlucky morning, of all mornings
in the year, was the morning next after Mr Boffin's interview with Mrs Lammle in
her little carriage.
Bella looked to Mrs Boffin's face for comment on, or explanation of, this
stormy humour in her husband, but none was there. An anxious and a distressed
observation of her own face was all she could read in it. When they were left
alone together--which was not until noon, for Mr Boffin sat long in his
easy-chair, by turns jogging up and down the breakfast-room, clenching his fist
and muttering--Bella, in consternation, asked her what had happened, what was
wrong? 'I am forbidden to speak to you about it, Bella dear; I mustn't tell
you,' was all the answer she could get. And still, whenever, in her wonder and
dismay, she raised her eyes to Mrs Boffin's face, she saw in it the same anxious
and distressed observation of her own.
Oppressed by her sense that trouble was impending, and lost in speculations
why Mrs Boffin should look at her as if she had any part in it, Bella found the
day long and dreary. It was far on in the afternoon when, she being in her own
room, a servant brought her a message from Mr Boffin begging her to come to his.
Mrs Boffin was there, seated on a sofa, and Mr Boffin was jogging up and
down. On seeing Bella he stopped, beckoned her to him, and drew her arm through
his. 'Don't be alarmed, my dear,' he said, gently; 'I am not angry with you. Why
you actually tremble! Don't be alarmed, Bella my dear. I'll see you righted.'
'See me righted?' thought Bella. And then repeated aloud in a tone of
astonishment: 'see me righted, sir?'
'Ay, ay!' said Mr Boffin. 'See you righted. Send Mr Rokesmith here, you sir.'
Bella would have been lost in perplexity if there had been pause enough; but
the servant found Mr Rokesmith near at hand, and he almost immediately presented
himself.
'Shut the door, sir!' said Mr Boffin. 'I have got something to say to you
which I fancy you'll not be pleased to hear.'
'I am sorry to reply, Mr Boffin,' returned the Secretary, as, having closed
the door, he turned and faced him, 'that I think that very likely.'
'What do you mean?' blustered Mr Boffin.
'I mean that it has become no novelty to me to hear from your lips what I
would rather not hear.'
'Oh! Perhaps we shall change that,' said Mr Boffin with a threatening roll of
his head.
'I hope so,' returned the Secretary. He was quiet and respectful; but stood,
as Bella thought (and was glad to think), on his manhood too.
'Now, sir,' said Mr Boffin, 'look at this young lady on my arm.
Bella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden reference was made to
herself, met those of Mr Rokesmith. He was pale and seemed agitated. Then her
eyes passed on to Mrs Boffin's, and she met the look again. In a flash it
enlightened her, and she began to understand what she had done.
'I say to you, sir,' Mr Boffin repeated, 'look at this young lady on my arm.
'I do so,' returned the Secretary.
As his glance rested again on Bella for a moment, she thought there was
reproach in it. But it is possible that the reproach was within herself.
'How dare you, sir,' said Mr Boffin, 'tamper, unknown to me, with this young
lady? How dare you come out of your station, and your place in my house, to
pester this young lady with your impudent addresses?'
'I must decline to answer questions,' said the Secretary, 'that are so
offensively asked.'
'You decline to answer?' retorted Mr Boffin. 'You decline to answer, do you?
Then I'll tell you what it is, Rokesmith; I'll answer for you. There are two
sides to this matter, and I'll take 'em separately. The first side is, sheer
Insolence. That's the first side.'
The Secretary smiled with some bitterness, as though he would have said, 'So
I see and hear.'
'It was sheer Insolence in you, I tell you,' said Mr Boffin, 'even to think
of this young lady. This young lady was far above YOU. This young lady was no
match for YOU. This young lady was lying in wait (as she was qualified to do)
for money, and you had no money.'
Bella hung her head and seemed to shrink a little from Mr Boffin's protecting
arm.
'What are you, I should like to know,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'that you were to
have the audacity to follow up this young lady? This young lady was looking
about the market for a good bid; she wasn't in it to be snapped up by fellows
that had no money to lay out; nothing to buy with.'
'Oh, Mr Boffin! Mrs Boffin, pray say something for me!' murmured Bella,
disengaging her arm, and covering her face with her hands.
'Old lady,' said Mr Boflin, anticipating his wife, 'you hold your tongue.
Bella, my dear, don't you let yourself be put out. I'll right you.'
'But you don't, you don't right me!' exclaimed Bella, with great emphasis.
'You wrong me, wrong me!'
'Don't you be put out, my dear,' complacently retorted Mr Boffin. 'I'll bring
this young man to book. Now, you Rokesmith! You can't decline to hear, you know,
as well as to answer. You hear me tell you that the first side of your conduct
was Insolence--Insolence and Presumption. Answer me one thing, if you can.
Didn't this young lady tell you so herself?'
'Did I, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella with her face still covered. 'O say, Mr
Rokesmith! Did I?'
'Don't be distressed, Miss Wilfer; it matters very little now.'
'Ah! You can't deny it, though!' said Mr Boffin, with a knowing shake of his
head.
'But I have asked him to forgive me since,' cried Bella; 'and I would ask him
to forgive me now again, upon my knees, if it would spare him!'
Here Mrs Boffin broke out a-crying.
'Old lady,' said Mr Boffin, 'stop that noise! Tender-hearted in you, Miss
Bella; but I mean to have it out right through with this young man, having got
him into a corner. Now, you Rokesmith. I tell you that's one side of your
conduct--Insolence and Presumption. Now, I'm a-coming to the other, which is
much worse. This was a speculation of yours.'
'I indignantly deny it.'
'It's of no use your denying it; it doesn't signify a bit whether you deny it
or not; I've got a head upon my shoulders, and it ain't a baby's. What!' said Mr
Boffin, gathering himself together in his most suspicious attitude, and
wrinkling his face into a very map of curves and corners. 'Don't I know what
grabs are made at a man with money? If I didn't keep my eyes open, and my
pockets buttoned, shouldn't I be brought to the workhouse before I knew where I
was? Wasn't the experience of Dancer, and Elwes, and Hopkins, and Blewbury
Jones, and ever so many more of 'em, similar to mine? Didn't everybody want to
make grabs at what they'd got, and bring 'em to poverty and ruin? Weren't they
forced to hide everything belonging to 'em, for fear it should be snatched from
'em? Of course they was. I shall be told next that they didn't know human
natur!'
'They! Poor creatures,' murmured the Secretary.
'What do you say?' asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him. 'However, you needn't be
at the trouble of repeating it, for it ain't worth hearing, and won't go down
with ME. I'm a-going to unfold your plan, before this young lady; I'm a-going to
show this young lady the second view of you; and nothing you can say will stave
it off. (Now, attend here, Bella, my dear.) Rokesmith, you're a needy chap.
You're a chap that I pick up in the street. Are you, or ain't you?'
'Go on, Mr Boflin; don't appeal to me.'
'Not appeal to YOU,' retorted Mr Boffin as if he hadn't done so. 'No, I
should hope not! Appealing to YOU, would be rather a rum course. As I was
saying, you're a needy chap that I pick up in the street. You come and ask me in
the street to take you for a Secretary, and I take you. Very good.'
'Very bad,' murmured the Secretary.
'What do you say?' asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him again.
He returned no answer. Mr Boffin, after eyeing him with a comical look of
discomfited curiosity, was fain to begin afresh.
'This Rokesmith is a needy young man that I take for my Secretary out of the
open street. This Rokesmith gets acquainted with my affairs, and gets to know
that I mean to settle a sum of money on this young lady. "Oho!" says this
Rokesmith;' here Mr Boffin clapped a finger against his nose, and tapped it
several times with a sneaking air, as embodying Rokesmith confidentially
confabulating with his own nose; '"This will be a good haul; I'll go in for
this!" And so this Rokesmith, greedy and hungering, begins a-creeping on his
hands and knees towards the money. Not so bad a speculation either: for if this
young lady had had less spirit, or had had less sense, through being at all in
the romantic line, by George he might have worked it out and made it pay! But
fortunately she was too many for him, and a pretty figure he cuts now he is
exposed. There he stands!' said Mr Boffin, addressing Rokesmith himself with
ridiculous inconsistency. 'Look at him!'
'Your unfortunate suspicions, Mr Boffin--' began the Secretary.
'Precious unfortunate for you, I can tell you,' said Mr Boffin.
'--are not to be combated by any one, and I address myself to no such
hopeless task. But I will say a word upon the truth.'
'Yah! Much you care about the truth,' said Mr Boffin, with a snap of his
fingers.
'Noddy! My dear love!' expostulated his wife.
'Old lady,' returned Mr Boffin, 'you keep still. I say to this Rokesmith
here, much he cares about the truth. I tell him again, much he cares about the
truth.'
'Our connexion being at an end, Mr Boffin,' said the Secretary, 'it can be of
very little moment to me what you say.'
'Oh! You are knowing enough,' retorted Mr Boffin, with a sly look, 'to have
found out that our connexion's at an end, eh? But you can't get beforehand with
me. Look at this in my hand. This is your pay, on your discharge. You can only
follow suit. You can't deprive me of the lead. Let's have no pretending that you
discharge yourself. I discharge you.'
'So that I go,' remarked the Secretary, waving the point aside with his hand,
'it is all one to me.'
'Is it?' said Mr Boffin. 'But it's two to me, let me tell you. Allowing a
fellow that's found out, to discharge himself, is one thing; discharging him for
insolence and presumption, and likewise for designs upon his master's money, is
another. One and one's two; not one. (Old lady, don't you cut in. You keep
still.)'
'Have you said all you wish to say to me?' demanded the Secretary.
'I don't know whether I have or not,' answered Mr Boffin. 'It depends.'
'Perhaps you will consider whether there are any other strong expressions
that you would like to bestow upon me?'
'I'll consider that,' said Mr Boffin, obstinately, 'at my convenience, and
not at yours. You want the last word. It may not be suitable to let you have
it.'
'Noddy! My dear, dear Noddy! You sound so hard!' cried poor Mrs Boffin, not
to be quite repressed.
'Old lady,' said her husband, but without harshness, 'if you cut in when
requested not, I'll get a pillow and carry you out of the room upon it. What do
you want to say, you Rokesmith?'
'To you, Mr Boffin, nothing. But to Miss Wilfer and to your good kind wife, a
word.'
'Out with it then,' replied Mr Boffin, 'and cut it short, for we've had
enough of you.'
'I have borne,' said the Secretary, in a low voice, 'with my false position
here, that I might not be separated from Miss Wilfer. To be near her, has been a
recompense to me from day to day, even for the undeserved treatment I have had
here, and for the degraded aspect in which she has often seen me. Since Miss
Wilfer rejected me, I have never again urged my suit, to the best of my belief,
with a spoken syllable or a look. But I have never changed in my devotion to
her, except--if she will forgive my saying so--that it is deeper than it was,
and better founded.'
'Now, mark this chap's saying Miss Wilfer, when he means L.s.d.!' cried Mr
Boffin, with a cunning wink. 'Now, mark this chap's making Miss Wilfer stand for
Pounds, Shillings, and Pence!'
'My feeling for Miss Wilfer,' pursued the Secretary, without deigning to
notice him, 'is not one to be ashamed of. I avow it. I love her. Let me go where
I may when I presently leave this house, I shall go into a blank life, leaving
her.'
'Leaving L.s.d. behind me,' said Mr Boffin, by way of commentary, with
another wink.
'That I am incapable,' the Secretary went on, still without heeding him, 'of
a mercenary project, or a mercenary thought, in connexion with Miss Wilfer, is
nothing meritorious in me, because any prize that I could put before my fancy
would sink into insignificance beside her. If the greatest wealth or the highest
rank were hers, it would only be important in my sight as removing her still
farther from me, and making me more hopeless, if that could be. Say,' remarked
the Secretary, looking full at his late master, 'say that with a word she could
strip Mr Boffin of his fortune and take possession of it, she would be of no
greater worth in my eyes than she is.'
'What do you think by this time, old lady,' asked Mr Boffin, turning to his
wife in a bantering tone, 'about this Rokesmith here, and his caring for the
truth? You needn't say what you think, my dear, because I don't want you to cut
in, but you can think it all the same. As to taking possession of my property, I
warrant you he wouldn't do that himself if he could.'
'No,' returned the Secretary, with another full look.
'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr Boffin. 'There's nothing like a good 'un while you
ARE about it.'
'I have been for a moment,' said the Secretary, turning from him and falling
into his former manner, 'diverted from the little I have to say. My interest in
Miss Wilfer began when I first saw her; even began when I had only heard of her.
It was, in fact, the cause of my throwing myself in Mr Boffin's way, and
entering his service. Miss Wilfer has never known this until now. I mention it
now, only as a corroboration (though I hope it may be needless) of my being free
from the sordid design attributed to me.'
'Now, this is a very artful dog,' said Mr Boffin, with a deep look. 'This is
a longer-headed schemer than I thought him. See how patiently and methodically
he goes to work. He gets to know about me and my property, and about this young
lady, and her share in poor young John's story, and he puts this and that
together, and he says to himself, "I'll get in with Boffin, and I'll get in with
this young lady, and I'll work 'em both at the same time, and I'll bring my pigs
to market somewhere." I hear him say it, bless you! I look at him, now, and I
see him say it!'
Mr Boffin pointed at the culprit, as it were in the act, and hugged himself
in his great penetration.
'But luckily he hadn't to deal with the people he supposed, Bella, my dear!'
said Mr Boffin. 'No! Luckily he had to deal with you, and with me, and with
Daniel and Miss Dancer, and with Elwes, and with Vulture Hopkins, and with
Blewbury Jones and all the rest of us, one down t'other come on. And he's beat;
that's what he is; regularly beat. He thought to squeeze money out of us, and he
has done for himself instead, Bella my dear!'
Bella my dear made no response, gave no sign of acquiescence. When she had
first covered her face she had sunk upon a chair with her hands resting on the
back of it, and had never moved since. There was a short silence at this point,
and Mrs Boffin softly rose as if to go to her. But, Mr Boffin stopped her with a
gesture, and she obediently sat down again and stayed where she was.
'There's your pay, Mister Rokesmith,' said the Golden Dustman, jerking the
folded scrap of paper he had in his hand, towards his late Secretary. 'I dare
say you can stoop to pick it up, after what you have stooped to here.'
'I have stooped to nothing but this,' Rokesmith answered as he took it from
the ground; 'and this is mine, for I have earned it by the hardest of hard
labour.'
'You're a pretty quick packer, I hope,' said Mr Boffin; 'because the sooner
you are gone, bag and baggage, the better for all parties.'
'You need have no fear of my lingering.'
'There's just one thing though,' said Mr Boffin, 'that I should like to ask
you before we come to a good riddance, if it was only to show this young lady
how conceited you schemers are, in thinking that nobody finds out how you
contradict yourselves.'
'Ask me anything you wish to ask,' returned Rokesmith, 'but use the
expedition that you recommend.'
'You pretend to have a mighty admiration for this young lady?' said Mr
Boffin, laying his hand protectingly on Bella's head without looking down at
her.
'I do not pretend.'
'Oh! Well. You HAVE a mighty admiration for this young lady-- since you are
so particular?'
'Yes.'
'How do you reconcile that, with this young lady's being a weak- spirited,
improvident idiot, not knowing what was due to herself, flinging up her money to
the church-weathercocks, and racing off at a splitting pace for the workhouse?'
'I don't understand you.'
'Don't you? Or won't you? What else could you have made this young lady out
to be, if she had listened to such addresses as yours?'
'What else, if I had been so happy as to win her affections and possess her
heart?'
'Win her affections,' retorted Mr Boffin, with ineffable contempt, 'and
possess her heart! Mew says the cat, Quack-quack says the duck, Bow-wow-wow says
the dog! Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew, Quack-quack, Bow-wow!'
John Rokesmith stared at him in his outburst, as if with some faint idea that
he had gone mad.
'What is due to this young lady,' said Mr Boffin, 'is Money, and this young
lady right well knows it.'
'You slander the young lady.'
'YOU slander the young lady; you with your affections and hearts and
trumpery,' returned Mr Boffin. 'It's of a piece with the rest of your behaviour.
I heard of these doings of yours only last night, or you should have heard of
'em from me, sooner, take your oath of it. I heard of 'em from a lady with as
good a headpiece as the best, and she knows this young lady, and I know this
young lady, and we all three know that it's Money she makes a stand for--money,
money, money--and that you and your affections and hearts are a Lie, sir!'
'Mrs Boffin,' said Rokesmith, quietly turning to her, 'for your delicate and
unvarying kindness I thank you with the warmest gratitude. Good-bye! Miss
Wilfer, good-bye!'
'And now, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, laying his hand on Bella's head again,
'you may begin to make yourself quite comfortable, and I hope you feel that
you've been righted.'
But, Bella was so far from appearing to feel it, that she shrank from his
hand and from the chair, and, starting up in an incoherent passion of tears, and
stretching out her arms, cried, 'O Mr Rokesmith, before you go, if you could but
make me poor again! O! Make me poor again, Somebody, I beg and pray, or my heart
will break if this goes on! Pa, dear, make me poor again and take me home! I was
bad enough there, but I have been so much worse here. Don't give me money, Mr
Boffin, I won't have money. Keep it away from me, and only let me speak to good
little Pa, and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my griefs. Nobody
else can understand me, nobody else can comfort me, nobody else knows how
unworthy I am, and yet can love me like a little child. I am better with Pa than
any one--more innocent, more sorry, more glad!' So, crying out in a wild way
that she could not bear this, Bella drooped her head on Mrs Boffin's ready
breast.
John Rokesmith from his place in the room, and Mr Boffin from his, looked on
at her in silence until she was silent herself. Then Mr Boffin observed in a
soothing and comfortable tone, 'There, my dear, there; you are righted now, and
it's ALL right. I don't wonder, I'm sure, at your being a little flurried by
having a scene with this fellow, but it's all over, my dear, and you're righted,
and it's--and it's ALL right!' Which Mr Boffin repeated with a highly satisfied
air of completeness and finality.
'I hate you!' cried Bella, turning suddenly upon him, with a stamp of her
little foot--'at least, I can't hate you, but I don't like you!'
'HUL--LO!' exclaimed Mr Boffin in an amazed under-tone.
'You're a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature!' cried
Bella. 'I am angry with my ungrateful self for calling you names; but you are,
you are; you know you are!'
Mr Boffin stared here, and stared there, as misdoubting that he must be in
some sort of fit.
'I have heard you with shame,' said Bella. 'With shame for myself, and with
shame for you. You ought to be above the base tale- bearing of a time-serving
woman; but you are above nothing now.'
Mr Boffin, seeming to become convinced that this was a fit, rolled his eyes
and loosened his neckcloth.
'When I came here, I respected you and honoured you, and I soon loved you,'
cried Bella. 'And now I can't bear the sight of you. At least, I don't know that
I ought to go so far as that--only you're a-- you're a Monster!' Having shot
this bolt out with a great expenditure of force, Bella hysterically laughed and
cried together.
'The best wish I can wish you is,' said Bella, returning to the charge, 'that
you had not one single farthing in the world. If any true friend and well-wisher
could make you a bankrupt, you would be a Duck; but as a man of property you are
a Demon!'
After despatching this second bolt with a still greater expenditure of force,
Bella laughed and cried still more.
'Mr Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one word from me before you
go! I am deeply sorry for the reproaches you have borne on my account. Out of
the depths of my heart I earnestly and truly beg your pardon.'
As she stepped towards him, he met her. As she gave him her hand, he put it
to his lips, and said, 'God bless you!' No laughing was mixed with Bella's
crying then; her tears were pure and fervent.
'There is not an ungenerous word that I have heard addressed to you--heard
with scorn and indignation, Mr Rokesmith--but it has wounded me far more than
you, for I have deserved it, and you never have. Mr Rokesmith, it is to me you
owe this perverted account of what passed between us that night. I parted with
the secret, even while I was angry with myself for doing so. It was very bad in
me, but indeed it was not wicked. I did it in a moment of conceit and folly--one
of my many such moments--one of my many such hours--years. As I am punished for
it severely, try to forgive it!'
'I do with all my soul.'
'Thank you. O thank you! Don't part from me till I have said one other word,
to do you justice. The only fault you can be truly charged with, in having
spoken to me as you did that night--with how much delicacy and how much
forbearance no one but I can know or be grateful to you for--is, that you laid
yourself open to be slighted by a worldly shallow girl whose head was turned,
and who was quite unable to rise to the worth of what you offered her. Mr
Rokesmith, that girl has often seen herself in a pitiful and poor light since,
but never in so pitiful and poor a light as now, when the mean tone in which she
answered you--sordid and vain girl that she was--has been echoed in her ears by
Mr Boffin.'
He kissed her hand again.
'Mr Boffin's speeches were detestable to me, shocking to me,' said Bella,
startling that gentleman with another stamp of her little foot. 'It is quite
true that there was a time, and very lately, when I deserved to be so "righted,"
Mr Rokesmith; but I hope that I shall never deserve it again!'
He once more put her hand to his lips, and then relinquished it, and left the
room. Bella was hurrying back to the chair in which she had hidden her face so
long, when, catching sight of Mrs Boffin by the way, she stopped at her. 'He is
gone,' sobbed Bella indignantly, despairingly, in fifty ways at once, with her
arms round Mrs Boffin's neck. 'He has been most shamefully abused, and most
unjustly and most basely driven away, and I am the cause of it!'
All this time, Mr Boffin had been rolling his eyes over his loosened
neckerchief, as if his fit were still upon him. Appearing now to think that he
was coming to, he stared straight before him for a while, tied his neckerchief
again, took several long inspirations, swallowed several times, and ultimately
exclaimed with a deep sigh, as if he felt himself on the whole better: 'Well!'
No word, good or bad, did Mrs Boffin say; but she tenderly took care of
Bella, and glanced at her husband as if for orders. Mr Boffin, without imparting
any, took his seat on a chair over against them, and there sat leaning forward,
with a fixed countenance, his legs apart, a hand on each knee, and his elbows
squared, until Bella should dry her eyes and raise her head, which in the
fulness of time she did.
'I must go home,' said Bella, rising hurriedly. 'I am very grateful to you
for all you have done for me, but I can't stay here.'
'My darling girl!' remonstrated Mrs Boffin.
'No, I can't stay here,' said Bella; 'I can't indeed.--Ugh! you vicious old
thing!' (This to Mr Boffin.)
'Don't be rash, my love,' urged Mrs Boffin. 'Think well of what you do.'
'Yes, you had better think well,' said Mr Boffin.
'I shall never more think well of YOU,' cried Bella, cutting him short, with
intense defiance in her expressive little eyebrows, and championship of the late
Secretary in every dimple. 'No! Never again! Your money has changed you to
marble. You are a hard- hearted Miser. You are worse than Dancer, worse than
Hopkins, worse than Blackberry Jones, worse than any of the wretches. And more!'
proceeded Bella, breaking into tears again, 'you were wholly undeserving of the
Gentleman you have lost.'
'Why, you don't mean to say, Miss Bella,' the Golden Dustman slowly
remonstrated, 'that you set up Rokesmith against me?'
'I do!' said Bella. 'He is worth a Million of you.'
Very pretty she looked, though very angry, as she made herself as tall as she
possibly could (which was not extremely tall), and utterly renounced her patron
with a lofty toss of her rich brown head.
'I would rather he thought well of me,' said Bella, 'though he swept the
street for bread, than that you did, though you splashed the mud upon him from
the wheels of a chariot of pure gold.--There!'
'Well I'm sure!' cried Mr Boffin, staring.
'And for a long time past, when you have thought you set yourself above him,
I have only seen you under his feet,' said Bella--'There! And throughout I saw
in him the master, and I saw in you the man--There! And when you used him
shamefully, I took his part and loved him--There! I boast of it!'
After which strong avowal Bella underwent reaction, and cried to any extent,
with her face on the back of her chair.
'Now, look here,' said Mr Boffin, as soon as he could find an opening for
breaking the silence and striking in. 'Give me your attention, Bella. I am not
angry.'
'I AM!' said Bella.
'I say,' resumed the Golden Dustman, 'I am not angry, and I mean kindly to
you, and I want to overlook this. So you'll stay where you are, and we'll agree
to say no more about it.'
'No, I can't stay here,' cried Bella, rising hurriedly again; 'I can't think
of staying here. I must go home for good.'
'Now, don't be silly,' Mr Boffin reasoned. 'Don't do what you can't undo;
don't do what you're sure to be sorry for.'
'I shall never be sorry for it,' said Bella; 'and I should always be sorry,
and should every minute of my life despise myself if I remained here after what
has happened.'
'At least, Bella,' argued Mr Boffin, 'let there be no mistake about it. Look
before you leap, you know. Stay where you are, and all's well, and all's as it
was to be. Go away, and you can never come back.'
'I know that I can never come back, and that's what I mean,' said Bella.
'You mustn't expect,' Mr Boffin pursued, 'that I'm a-going to settle money on
you, if you leave us like this, because I am not. No, Bella! Be careful! Not one
brass farthing.'
'Expect!' said Bella, haughtily. 'Do you think that any power on earth could
make me take it, if you did, sir?'
But there was Mrs Boffin to part from, and, in the full flush of her dignity,
the impressible little soul collapsed again. Down upon her knees before that
good woman, she rocked herself upon her breast, and cried, and sobbed, and
folded her in her arms with all her might.
'You're a dear, a dear, the best of dears!' cried Bella. 'You're the best of
human creatures. I can never be thankful enough to you, and I can never forget
you. If I should live to be blind and deaf I know I shall see and hear you, in
my fancy, to the last of my dim old days!'
Mrs Boffin wept most heartily, and embraced her with all fondness; but said
not one single word except that she was her dear girl. She said that often
enough, to be sure, for she said it over and over again; but not one word else.
Bella broke from her at length, and was going weeping out of the room, when
in her own little queer affectionate way, she half relented towards Mr Boffin.
'I am very glad,' sobbed Bella, 'that I called you names, sir, because you
richly deserved it. But I am very sorry that I called you names, because you
used to be so different. Say good-bye!'
'Good-bye,' said Mr Boffin, shortly.
'If I knew which of your hands was the least spoilt, I would ask you to let
me touch it,' said Bella, 'for the last time. But not because I repent of what I
have said to you. For I don't. It's true!'
'Try the left hand,' said Mr Boffin, holding it out in a stolid manner; 'it's
the least used.'
'You have been wonderfully good and kind to me,' said Bella, 'and I kiss it
for that. You have been as bad as bad could be to Mr Rokesmith, and I throw it
away for that. Thank you for myself, and good-bye!'
'Good-bye,' said Mr Boffin as before.
Bella caught him round the neck and kissed him, and ran out for ever.
She ran up-stairs, and sat down on the floor in her own room, and cried
abundantly. But the day was declining and she had no time to lose. She opened
all the places where she kept her dresses; selected only those she had brought
with her, leaving all the rest; and made a great misshapen bundle of them, to be
sent for afterwards.
'I won't take one of the others,' said Bella, tying the knots of the bundle
very tight, in the severity of her resolution. 'I'll leave all the presents
behind, and begin again entirely on my own account.' That the resolution might
be thoroughly carried into practice, she even changed the dress she wore, for
that in which she had come to the grand mansion. Even the bonnet she put on, was
the bonnet that had mounted into the Boffin chariot at Holloway.
'Now, I am complete,' said Bella. 'It's a little trying, but I have steeped
my eyes in cold water, and I won't cry any more. You have been a pleasant room
to me, dear room. Adieu! We shall never see each other again.'
With a parting kiss of her fingers to it, she softly closed the door and went
with a light foot down the great staircase, pausing and listening as she went,
that she might meet none of the household. No one chanced to be about, and she
got down to the hall in quiet. The door of the late Secretary's room stood open.
She peeped in as she passed, and divined from the emptiness of his table, and
the general appearance of things, that he was already gone. Softly opening the
great hall door, and softly closing it upon herself, she turned and kissed it on
the outside--insensible old combination of wood and iron that it was!--before
she ran away from the house at a swift pace.
'That was well done!' panted Bella, slackening in the next street, and
subsiding into a walk. 'If I had left myself any breath to cry with, I should
have cried again. Now poor dear darling little Pa, you are going to see your
lovely woman unexpectedly.'
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