Our Mutual Friend Part 59

'Call, and ask to see him alone?' suggested Lammle.

'I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare me the little carriage for to-day, and for to-morrow (if I don't succeed to-day), and I'll lie in wait for him.'

It was barely settled when a manly form was seen to pa.s.s the windows and heard to knock and ring. 'Here's Fledgeby,' said Lammle. 'He admires you, and has a high opinion of you. I'll be out. Coax him to use his influence with the Jew. His name is Riah, of the House of Pubsey and Co.' Adding these words under his breath, lest he should be audible in the erect ears of Mr Fledgeby, through two keyholes and the hall, Lammle, making signals of discretion to his servant, went softly up stairs.

'Mr Fledgeby,' said Mrs Lammle, giving him a very gracious reception, 'so glad to see you! My poor dear Alfred, who is greatly worried just now about his affairs, went out rather early. Dear Mr Fledgeby, do sit down.'

Dear Mr Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, judging from the expression of his countenance, DISsatisfied himself) that nothing new had occurred in the way of whisker-sprout since he came round the corner from the Albany.

'Dear Mr Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you that my poor dear Alfred is much worried about his affairs at present, for he has told me what a comfort you are to him in his temporary difficulties, and what a great service you have rendered him.'

'Oh!' said Mr Fledgeby.

'Yes,' said Mrs Lammle.

'I didn't know,' remarked Mr Fledgeby, trying a new part of his chair, 'but that Lammle might be reserved about his affairs.'

'Not to me,' said Mrs Lammle, with deep feeling.

'Oh, indeed?' said Fledgeby.

'Not to me, dear Mr Fledgeby. I am his wife.'

'Yes. I--I always understood so,' said Mr Fledgeby.

'And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr Fledgeby, wholly without his authority or knowledge, as I am sure your discernment will perceive, entreat you to continue that great service, and once more use your well-earned influence with Mr Riah for a little more indulgence? The name I have heard Alfred mention, tossing in his dreams, IS Riah; is it not?'

'The name of the Creditor is Riah,' said Mr Fledgeby, with a rather uncompromising accent on his noun-substantive. 'Saint Mary Axe. Pubsey and Co.'

'Oh yes!' exclaimed Mrs Lammle, clasping her hands with a certain gus.h.i.+ng wildness. 'Pubsey and Co.!'

'The pleading of the feminine--' Mr Fledgeby began, and there stuck so long for a word to get on with, that Mrs Lammle offered him sweetly, 'Heart?'

'No,' said Mr Fledgeby, 'Gender--is ever what a man is bound to listen to, and I wish it rested with myself. But this Riah is a nasty one, Mrs Lammle; he really is.'

'Not if YOU speak to him, dear Mr Fledgeby.'

'Upon my soul and body he is!' said Fledgeby.

'Try. Try once more, dearest Mr Fledgeby. What is there you cannot do, if you will!'

'Thank you,' said Fledgeby, 'you're very complimentary to say so. I don't mind trying him again, at your request. But of course I can't answer for the consequences. Riah is a tough subject, and when he says he'll do a thing, he'll do it.'

'Exactly so,' cried Mrs Lammle, 'and when he says to you he'll wait, he'll wait.'

('She is a devilish clever woman,' thought Fledgeby. 'I didn't see that opening, but she spies it out and cuts into it as soon as it's made. ') 'In point of fact, dear Mr Fledgeby,' Mrs Lammle went on in a very interesting manner, 'not to affect concealment of Alfred's hopes, to you who are so much his friend, there is a distant break in his horizon.'

This figure of speech seemed rather mysterious to Fascination Fledgeby, who said, 'There's a what in his--eh?'

'Alfred, dear Mr Fledgeby, discussed with me this very morning before he went out, some prospects he has, which might entirely change the aspect of his present troubles.'

'Really?' said Fledgeby.

'O yes!' Here Mrs Lammle brought her handkerchief into play. 'And you know, dear Mr Fledgeby--you who study the human heart, and study the world--what an affliction it would be to lose position and to lose credit, when ability to tide over a very short time might save all appearances.'

'Oh!' said Fledgeby. 'Then you think, Mrs Lammle, that if Lammle got time, he wouldn't burst up?--To use an expression,' Mr Fledgeby apologetically explained, 'which is adopted in the Money Market.'

'Indeed yes. Truly, truly, yes!'

'That makes all the difference,' said Fledgeby. 'I'll make a point of seeing Riah at once.'

'Blessings on you, dearest Mr Fledgeby!'

'Not at all,' said Fledgeby. She gave him her hand. 'The hand,' said Mr Fledgeby, 'of a lovely and superior-minded female is ever the repayment of a--'

'n.o.ble action!' said Mrs Lammle, extremely anxious to get rid of him.

'It wasn't what I was going to say,' returned Fledgeby, who never would, under any circ.u.mstances, accept a suggested expression, 'but you're very complimentary. May I imprint a--a one--upon it? Good morning!'

'I may depend upon your prompt.i.tude, dearest Mr Fledgeby?'

Said Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully kissing his hand, 'You may depend upon it.'

In fact, Mr Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through the streets, at so brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the good spirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station in his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the staircase: 'Now, Judah, what are you up to there?'

The old man appeared, with his accustomed deference.

'Halloa!' said Fledgeby, falling back, with a wink. 'You mean mischief, Jerusalem!'

The old man raised his eyes inquiringly.

'Yes you do,' said Fledgeby. 'Oh, you sinner! Oh, you dodger! What! You're going to act upon that bill of sale at Lammle's, are you? Nothing will turn you, won't it? You won't be put off for another single minute, won't you?'

Ordered to immediate action by the master's tone and look, the old man took up his hat from the little counter where it lay.

'You have been told that he might pull through it, if you didn't go in to win, Wide-Awake; have you?' said Fledgeby. 'And it's not your game that he should pull through it; ain't it? You having got security, and there being enough to pay you? Oh, you Jew!'

The old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment, as if there might be further instructions for him in reserve.

'Do I go, sir?' he at length asked in a low voice.

'Asks me if he is going!' exclaimed Fledgeby. 'Asks me, as if he didn't know his own purpose! Asks me, as if he hadn't got his hat on ready! Asks me, as if his sharp old eye--why, it cuts like a knife--wasn't looking at his walking-stick by the door!'

'Do I go, sir?'

'Do you go?' sneered Fledgeby. 'Yes, you do go. Toddle, Judah!'

Chapter 13.

GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM.

Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house, strolled about with his hat on one side, whistling, and investigating the drawers, and prying here and there for any small evidences of his being cheated, but could find none. 'Not his merit that he don't cheat me,' was Mr Fledgeby's commentary delivered with a wink, 'but my precaution.' He then with a lazy grandeur a.s.serted his rights as lord of Pubsey and Co. by poking his cane at the stools and boxes, and spitting in the fireplace, and so loitered royally to the window and looked out into the narrow street, with his small eyes just peering over the top of Pubsey and Co.'s blind. As a blind in more senses than one, it reminded him that he was alone in the counting-house with the front door open. He was moving away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously identified with the establishment, when he was stopped by some one coming to the door.

This some one was the dolls' dressmaker, with a little basket on her arm, and her crutch stick in her hand. Her keen eyes had espied Mr Fledgeby before Mr Fledgeby had espied her, and he was paralysed in his purpose of shutting her out, not so much by her approaching the door, as by her favouring him with a shower of nods, the instant he saw her. This advantage she improved by hobbling up the steps with such despatch that before Mr Fledgeby could take measures for her finding n.o.body at home, she was face to face with him in the counting-house.

'Hope I see you well, sir,' said Miss Wren. 'Mr Riah in?'

Fledgeby had dropped into a chair, in the att.i.tude of one waiting wearily. 'I suppose he will be back soon,' he replied; 'he has cut out and left me expecting him back, in an odd way. Haven't I seen you before?'

'Once before--if you had your eyesight,' replied Miss Wren; the conditional clause in an under-tone.

'When you were carrying on some games up at the top of the house. I remember. How's your friend?'

'I have more friends than one, sir, I hope,' replied Miss Wren. 'Which friend?'

'Never mind,' said Mr Fledgeby, shutting up one eye, 'any of your friends, all your friends. Are they pretty tolerable?'

Somewhat confounded, Miss Wren parried the pleasantry, and sat down in a corner behind the door, with her basket in her lap. By-and-by, she said, breaking a long and patient silence: 'I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr Riah at this time, and so I generally come at this time. I only want to buy my poor little two s.h.i.+llings' worth of waste. Perhaps you'll kindly let me have it, and I'll trot off to my work.'

'I let you have it?' said Fledgeby, turning his head towards her; for he had been sitting blinking at the light, and feeling his cheek. 'Why, you don't really suppose that I have anything to do with the place, or the business; do you?'

'Suppose?' exclaimed Miss Wren. 'He said, that day, you were the master!'

'The old c.o.c.k in black said? Riah said? Why, he'd say anything.'

'Well; but you said so too,' returned Miss Wren. 'Or at least you took on like the master, and didn't contradict him.'

'One of his dodges,' said Mr Fledgeby, with a cool and contemptuous shrug. 'He's made of dodges. He said to me, "Come up to the top of the house, sir, and I'll show you a handsome girl. But I shall call you the master." So I went up to the top of the house and he showed me the handsome girl (very well worth looking at she was), and I was called the master. I don't know why. I dare say he don't. He loves a dodge for its own sake; being,' added Mr Fledgeby, after casting about for an expressive phrase, 'the dodgerest of all the dodgers.'

'Oh my head!' cried the dolls' dressmaker, holding it with both her hands, as if it were cracking. 'You can't mean what you say.'

'I can, my little woman, retorted Fledgeby, 'and I do, I a.s.sure you.

This repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy on Fledgeby's part, in case of his being surprised by any other caller, but was also a retort upon Miss Wren for her over-sharpness, and a pleasant instance of his humour as regarded the old Jew. 'He has got a bad name as an old Jew, and he is paid for the use of it, and I'll have my money's worth out of him.' This was Fledgeby's habitual reflection in the way of business, and it was sharpened just now by the old man's presuming to have a secret from him: though of the secret itself, as annoying somebody else whom he disliked, he by no means disapproved.

Miss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door looking thoughtfully at the ground, and the long and patient silence had again set in for some time, when the expression of Mr Fledgeby's face betokened that through the upper portion of the door, which was of gla.s.s, he saw some one faltering on the brink of the counting-house. Presently there was a rustle and a tap, and then some more rustling and another tap. Fledgeby taking no notice, the door was at length softly opened, and the dried face of a mild little elderly gentleman looked in.

'Mr Riah?' said this visitor, very politely.

'I am waiting for him, sir,' returned Mr Fledgeby. 'He went out and left me here. I expect him back every minute. Perhaps you had better take a chair.'

The gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his forehead, as if he were in a melancholy frame of mind. Mr Fledgeby eyed him aside, and seemed to relish his att.i.tude.

'A fine day, sir,' remarked Fledgeby.

The little dried gentleman was so occupied with his own depressed reflections that he did not notice the remark until the sound of Mr Fledgeby's voice had died out of the counting-house. Then he started, and said: 'I beg your pardon, sir. I fear you spoke to me?'

'I said,' remarked Fledgeby, a little louder than before, 'it was a fine day.'

'I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. Yes.'

Again the little dried gentleman put his hand to his forehead, and again Mr Fledgeby seemed to enjoy his doing it. When the gentleman changed his att.i.tude with a sigh, Fledgeby spake with a grin.

'Mr Twemlow, I think?'

The dried gentleman seemed much surprised.

'Had the pleasure of dining with you at Lammle's,' said Fledgeby. 'Even have the honour of being a connexion of yours. An unexpected sort of place this to meet in; but one never knows, when one gets into the City, what people one may knock up against. I hope you have your health, and are enjoying yourself.'

There might have been a touch of impertinence in the last words; on the other hand, it might have been but the native grace of Mr Fledgeby's manner. Mr Fledgeby sat on a stool with a foot on the rail of another stool, and his hat on. Mr Twemlow had uncovered on looking in at the door, and remained so. Now the conscientious Twemlow, knowing what he had done to thwart the gracious Fledgeby, was particularly disconcerted by this encounter. He was as ill at ease as a gentleman well could be. He felt himself bound to conduct himself stiffly towards Fledgeby, and he made him a distant bow. Fledgeby made his small eyes smaller in taking special note of his manner. The dolls' dressmaker sat in her corner behind the door, with her eyes on the ground and her hands folded on her basket, holding her crutch-stick between them, and appearing to take no heed of anything.

'He's a long time,' muttered Mr Fledgeby, looking at his watch. 'What time may you make it, Mr Twemlow?'

Mr Twemlow made it ten minutes past twelve, sir.

'As near as a toucher,' a.s.sented Fledgeby. 'I hope, Mr Twemlow, your business here may be of a more agreeable character than mine.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Mr Twemlow.

Fledgeby again made his small eyes smaller, as he glanced with great complacency at Twemlow, who was timorously tapping the table with a folded letter.

'What I know of Mr Riah,' said Fledgeby, with a very disparaging utterance of his name, 'leads me to believe that this is about the shop for disagreeable business. I have always found him the bitingest and tightest screw in London.'

Mr Twemlow acknowledged the remark with a little distant bow. It evidently made him nervous.

'So much so,' pursued Fledgeby, 'that if it wasn't to be true to a friend, n.o.body should catch me waiting here a single minute. But if you have friends in adversity, stand by them. That's what I say and act up to.'

The equitable Twemlow felt that this sentiment, irrespective of the utterer, demanded his cordial a.s.sent. 'You are very right, sir,' he rejoined with spirit. 'You indicate the generous and manly course.

'Glad to have your approbation,' returned Fledgeby. 'It's a coincidence, Mr Twemlow;' here he descended from his perch, and sauntered towards him; 'that the friends I am standing by to-day are the friends at whose house I met you! The Lammles. She's a very taking and agreeable woman?'

Conscience smote the gentle Twemlow pale. 'Yes,' he said. 'She is.'

'And when she appealed to me this morning, to come and try what I could do to pacify their creditor, this Mr Riah--that I certainly have gained some little influence with in transacting business for another friend, but nothing like so much as she supposes--and when a woman like that spoke to me as her dearest Mr Fledgeby, and shed tears--why what could I do, you know?'

Twemlow gasped 'Nothing but come.'

'Nothing but come. And so I came. But why,' said Fledgeby, putting his hands in his pockets and counterfeiting deep meditation, 'why Riah should have started up, when I told him that the Lammles entreated him to hold over a Bill of Sale he has on all their effects; and why he should have cut out, saying he would be back directly; and why he should have left me here alone so long; I cannot understand.'

The chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was not in a condition to offer any suggestion. He was too penitent, too remorseful. For the first time in his life he had done an underhanded action, and he had done wrong. He had secretly interposed against this confiding young man, for no better real reason than because the young man's ways were not his ways.