Our Mutual Friend, Page 44

  Chapter 11

  IN THE DARK

  There was no sleep for Bradley Headstone on that night when EugeneWrayburn turned so easily in his bed; there was no sleep for littleMiss Peecher. Bradley consumed the lonely hours, and consumed himself inhaunting the spot where his careless rival lay a dreaming; little MissPeecher wore them away in listening for the return home of the masterof her heart, and in sorrowfully presaging that much was amiss with him.Yet more was amiss with him than Miss Peecher's simply arranged littlework-box of thoughts, fitted with no gloomy and dark recesses, couldhold. For, the state of the man was murderous.

  The state of the man was murderous, and he knew it. More; he irritatedit, with a kind of perverse pleasure akin to that which a sick mansometimes has in irritating a wound upon his body. Tied up all day withhis disciplined show upon him, subdued to the performance of his routineof educational tricks, encircled by a gabbling crowd, he broke loose atnight like an ill-tamed wild animal. Under his daily restraint, it washis compensation, not his trouble, to give a glance towards his state atnight, and to the freedom of its being indulged. If great criminals toldthe truth--which, being great criminals, they do not--they would veryrarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles aretowards it. They buffet with opposing waves, to gain the bloody shore,not to recede from it. This man perfectly comprehended that he hated hisrival with his strongest and worst forces, and that if he tracked him toLizzie Hexam, his so doing would never serve himself with her, or serveher. All his pains were taken, to the end that he might incense himselfwith the sight of the detested figure in her company and favour, in herplace of concealment. And he knew as well what act of his would followif he did, as he knew that his mother had borne him. Granted, that hemay not have held it necessary to make express mention to himself of theone familiar truth any more than of the other.

  He knew equally well that he fed his wrath and hatred, and that heaccumulated provocation and self-justification, by being made thenightly sport of the reckless and insolent Eugene. Knowing allthis,--and still always going on with infinite endurance, pains, andperseverance, could his dark soul doubt whither he went?

  Baffled, exasperated, and weary, he lingered opposite the Temple gatewhen it closed on Wrayburn and Lightwood, debating with himself shouldhe go home for that time or should he watch longer. Possessed in hisjealousy by the fixed idea that Wrayburn was in the secret, if it werenot altogether of his contriving, Bradley was as confident of gettingthe better of him at last by sullenly sticking to him, as he would havebeen--and often had been--of mastering any piece of study in the wayof his vocation, by the like slow persistent process. A man of rapidpassions and sluggish intelligence, it had served him often and shouldserve him again.

  The suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with his eyes uponthe Temple gate, that perhaps she was even concealed in that set ofChambers. It would furnish another reason for Wrayburn's purposelesswalks, and it might be. He thought of it and thought of it, untilhe resolved to steal up the stairs, if the gatekeeper would let himthrough, and listen. So, the haggard head suspended in the air flittedacross the road, like the spectre of one of the many heads erst hoistedupon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped before the watchman.

  The watchman looked at it, and asked: 'Who for?'

  'Mr Wrayburn.'

  'It's very late.'

  'He came back with Mr Lightwood, I know, near upon two hours ago. But ifhe has gone to bed, I'll put a paper in his letter-box. I am expected.'

  The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though ratherdoubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor went straight and fast inthe right direction, he seemed satisfied.

  The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly descendednearer to the floor outside the outer door of the chambers. The doorsof the rooms within, appeared to be standing open. There were rays ofcandlelight from one of them, and there was the sound of a footstepgoing about. There were two voices. The words they uttered were notdistinguishable, but they were both the voices of men. In a few momentsthe voices were silent, and there was no sound of footstep, and theinner light went out. If Lightwood could have seen the face which kepthim awake, staring and listening in the darkness outside the door ashe spoke of it, he might have been less disposed to sleep, through theremainder of the night.

  'Not there,' said Bradley; 'but she might have been.' The head arose toits former height from the ground, floated down the stair-case again,and passed on to the gate. A man was standing there, in parley with thewatchman.

  'Oh!' said the watchman. 'Here he is!'

  Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from thewatchman to the man.

  'This man is leaving a letter for Mr Lightwood,' the watchman explained,showing it in his hand; 'and I was mentioning that a person had justgone up to Mr Lightwood's chambers. It might be the same businessperhaps?'

  'No,' said Bradley, glancing at the man, who was a stranger to him.

  'No,' the man assented in a surly way; 'my letter--it's wrote by mydaughter, but it's mine--is about my business, and my business ain'tnobody else's business.'

  As Bradley passed out at the gate with an undecided foot, he heard itshut behind him, and heard the footstep of the man coming after him.

  ''Scuse me,' said the man, who appeared to have been drinking and ratherstumbled at him than touched him, to attract his attention: 'but mightyou be acquainted with the T'other Governor?'

  'With whom?' asked Bradley.

  'With,' returned the man, pointing backward over his right shoulder withhis right thumb, 'the T'other Governor?'

  'I don't know what you mean.'

  'Why look here,' hooking his proposition on his left-hand fingers withthe forefinger of his right. 'There's two Governors, ain't there? Oneand one, two--Lawyer Lightwood, my first finger, he's one, ain't he?Well; might you be acquainted with my middle finger, the T'other?'

  'I know quite as much of him,' said Bradley, with a frown and a distantlook before him, 'as I want to know.'

  'Hooroar!' cried the man. 'Hooroar T'other t'other Governor. HooroarT'otherest Governor! I am of your way of thinkin'.'

  'Don't make such a noise at this dead hour of the night. What are youtalking about?'

  'Look here, T'otherest Governor,' replied the man, becoming hoarselyconfidential. 'The T'other Governor he's always joked his jokes agin me,owing, as I believe, to my being a honest man as gets my living by thesweat of my brow. Which he ain't, and he don't.'

  'What is that to me?'

  'T'otherest Governor,' returned the man in a tone of injured innocence,'if you don't care to hear no more, don't hear no more. You begun it.You said, and likeways showed pretty plain, as you warn't by no meansfriendly to him. But I don't seek to force my company nor yet myopinions on no man. I am a honest man, that's what I am. Put me in thedock anywhere--I don't care where--and I says, "My Lord, I am a honestman." Put me in the witness-box anywhere--I don't care where--and Isays the same to his lordship, and I kisses the book. I don't kiss mycoat-cuff; I kisses the book.'

  It was not so much in deference to these strong testimonials tocharacter, as in his restless casting about for any way or help towardsthe discovery on which he was concentrated, that Bradley Headstonereplied: 'You needn't take offence. I didn't mean to stop you. You weretoo--loud in the open street; that was all.'

  ''Totherest Governor,' replied Mr Riderhood, mollified and mysterious,'I know wot it is to be loud, and I know wot it is to be soft. Nat'rallyI do. It would be a wonder if I did not, being by the Chris'en name ofRoger, which took it arter my own father, which took it from his ownfather, though which of our fam'ly fust took it nat'ral I will not inany ways mislead you by undertakin' to say. And wishing that your elthmay be better than your looks, which your inside must be bad indeed ifit's on the footing of your out.'

  Startled by the implication that his face revealed too much of his mind,Bradley made an effort to clear his brow. It might be worth knowing whatthis strange man
's business was with Lightwood, or Wrayburn, or both, atsuch an unseasonable hour. He set himself to find out, for the man mightprove to be a messenger between those two.

  'You call at the Temple late,' he remarked, with a lumbering show ofease.

  'Wish I may die,' cried Mr Riderhood, with a hoarse laugh, 'if I warn'ta goin' to say the self-same words to you, T'otherest Governor!'

  'It chanced so with me,' said Bradley, looking disconcertedly about him.

  'And it chanced so with me,' said Riderhood. 'But I don't mind tellingyou how. Why should I mind telling you? I'm a Deputy Lock-keeper up theriver, and I was off duty yes'day, and I shall be on to-morrow.'

  'Yes?'

  'Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private affairs. My privateaffairs is to get appinted to the Lock as reg'lar keeper at fust hand,and to have the law of a busted B'low-Bridge steamer which drownded ofme. I ain't a goin' to be drownded and not paid for it!'

  Bradley looked at him, as though he were claiming to be a Ghost.

  'The steamer,' said Mr Riderhood, obstinately, 'run me down and drowndedof me. Interference on the part of other parties brought me round; butI never asked 'em to bring me round, nor yet the steamer never asked 'emto it. I mean to be paid for the life as the steamer took.'

  'Was that your business at Mr Lightwood's chambers in the middle of thenight?' asked Bradley, eyeing him with distrust.

  'That and to get a writing to be fust-hand Lock Keeper. A recommendationin writing being looked for, who else ought to give it to me? As I saysin the letter in my daughter's hand, with my mark put to it to make itgood in law, Who but you, Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this herestifficate, and who but you ought to go in for damages on my accountagin the Steamer? For (as I says under my mark) I have had troubleenough along of you and your friend. If you, Lawyer Lightwood, hadbacked me good and true, and if the T'other Governor had took me downcorrect (I says under my mark), I should have been worth money at thepresent time, instead of having a barge-load of bad names chucked at me,and being forced to eat my words, which is a unsatisfying sort of foodwotever a man's appetite! And when you mention the middle of the night,T'otherest Governor,' growled Mr Riderhood, winding up his monotonoussummary of his wrongs, 'throw your eye on this here bundle under my arm,and bear in mind that I'm a walking back to my Lock, and that the Templelaid upon my line of road.'

  Bradley Headstone's face had changed during this latter recital, and hehad observed the speaker with a more sustained attention.

  'Do you know,' said he, after a pause, during which they walked on sideby side, 'that I believe I could tell you your name, if I tried?'

  'Prove your opinion,' was the answer, accompanied with a stop and astare. 'Try.'

  'Your name is Riderhood.'

  'I'm blest if it ain't,' returned that gentleman. 'But I don't knowyour'n.'

  'That's quite another thing,' said Bradley. 'I never supposed you did.'

  As Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on at his sidemuttering. The purport of the muttering was: 'that Rogue Riderhood, byGeorge! seemed to be made public property on, now, and that every manseemed to think himself free to handle his name as if it was a StreetPump.' The purport of the meditating was: 'Here is an instrument. Can Iuse it?'

  They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, and had turnedup-hill towards Hyde Park Corner; Bradley Headstone waiting on the paceand lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to indicate the course. So slowwere the schoolmaster's thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes whenthey were but tributary to the one absorbing purpose or rather when,like dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista atthe end of which he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie onwhich his eyes were fixed--that at least a good half-mile was traversedbefore he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask:

  'Where is your Lock?'

  'Twenty mile and odd--call it five-and-twenty mile and odd, if youlike--up stream,' was the sullen reply.

  'How is it called?'

  'Plashwater Weir Mill Lock.'

  'Suppose I was to offer you five shillings; what then?'

  'Why, then, I'd take it,' said Mr Riderhood.

  The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced twohalf-crowns, and placed them in Mr Riderhood's palm: who stopped ata convenient doorstep to ring them both, before acknowledging theirreceipt.

  'There's one thing about you, T'otherest Governor,' said Riderhood,faring on again, 'as looks well and goes fur. You're a ready money man.Now;' when he had carefully pocketed the coins on that side of himselfwhich was furthest from his new friend; 'what's this for?'

  'For you.'

  'Why, o' course I know THAT,' said Riderhood, as arguing something thatwas self-evident. 'O' course I know very well as no man in his rightsenses would suppose as anythink would make me give it up agin when I'donce got it. But what do you want for it?'

  'I don't know that I want anything for it. Or if I do want anythingfor it, I don't know what it is.' Bradley gave this answer in a stolid,vacant, and self-communing manner, which Mr Riderhood found veryextraordinary.

  'You have no goodwill towards this Wrayburn,' said Bradley, coming tothe name in a reluctant and forced way, as if he were dragged to it.

  'No.'

  'Neither have I.'

  Riderhood nodded, and asked: 'Is it for that?'

  'It's as much for that as anything else. It's something to be agreedwith, on a subject that occupies so much of one's thoughts.'

  'It don't agree with YOU,' returned Mr Riderhood, bluntly. 'No! Itdon't, T'otherest Governor, and it's no use a lookin' as if you wantedto make out that it did. I tell you it rankles in you. It rankles inyou, rusts in you, and pisons you.'

  'Say that it does so,' returned Bradley with quivering lips; 'is thereno cause for it?'

  'Cause enough, I'll bet a pound!' cried Mr Riderhood.

  'Haven't you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped provocations,insults, and affronts on you, or something to that effect? He has donethe same by me. He is made of venomous insults and affronts, from thecrown of his head to the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or sostupid, as not to know that he and the other will treat your applicationwith contempt, and light their cigars with it?'

  'I shouldn't wonder if they did, by George!' said Riderhood, turningangry.

  'If they did! They will. Let me ask you a question. I know somethingmore than your name about you; I knew something about Gaffer Hexam. Whendid you last set eyes upon his daughter?'

  'When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T'otherest Governor?'repeated Mr Riderhood, growing intentionally slower of comprehension asthe other quickened in his speech.

  'Yes. Not to speak to her. To see her--anywhere?'

  The Rogue had got the clue he wanted, though he held it with a clumsyhand. Looking perplexedly at the passionate face, as if he were tryingto work out a sum in his mind, he slowly answered:

  'I ain't set eyes upon her--never once--not since the day of Gaffer'sdeath.'

  'You know her well, by sight?'

  'I should think I did! No one better.'

  'And you know him as well?'

  'Who's him?' asked Riderhood, taking off his hat and rubbing hisforehead, as he directed a dull look at his questioner.

  'Curse the name! Is it so agreeable to you that you want to hear itagain?'

  'Oh! HIM!' said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the schoolmaster intothis corner, that he might again take note of his face under its evilpossession. 'I'd know HIM among a thousand.'

  'Did you--' Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do what he mightwith his voice, he could not subdue his face;--'did you ever see themtogether?'

  (The Rogue had got the clue in both hands now.)

  'I see 'em together, T'otherest Governor, on the very day when Gafferwas towed ashore.'

  Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharpeyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil from the eyesof the ignorant Riderhood t
he withheld question next in his breast.'You shall put it plain if you want it answered,' thought the Rogue,doggedly; 'I ain't a-going a wolunteering.'

  'Well! was he insolent to her too?' asked Bradley after a struggle. 'Ordid he make a show of being kind to her?'

  'He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her,' said Riderhood. 'ByGeorge! now I--'

  His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked athim for the reason.

  'Now I think of it,' said Mr Riderhood, evasively, for he wassubstituting those words for 'Now I see you so jealous,' which was thephrase really in his mind; 'P'r'aps he went and took me down wrong, apurpose, on account o' being sweet upon her!'

  The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of one (forhe could not have really entertained it), was a line's breadth beyondthe mark the schoolmaster had reached. The baseness of communing andintriguing with the fellow who would have set that stain upon her, andupon her brother too, was attained. The line's breadth further, laybeyond. He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face.

  What he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not work out in hisslow and cumbrous thoughts. The man had an injury against the object ofhis hatred, and that was something; though it was less than he supposed,for there dwelt in the man no such deadly rage and resentment as burnedin his own breast. The man knew her, and might by a fortunate chance seeher, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyesand ears the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be inhis pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose were asbad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support from thepossession of a congenial instrument, though it might never be used.

  Suddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood point-blank if he knewwhere she was? Clearly, he did not know. He asked Riderhood if he wouldbe willing, in case any intelligence of her, or of Wrayburn as seekingher or associating with her, should fall in his way, to communicate itif it were paid for? He would be very willing indeed. He was 'agin 'emboth,' he said with an oath, and for why? 'Cause they had both stoodbetwixt him and his getting his living by the sweat of his brow.

  'It will not be long then,' said Bradley Headstone, after some morediscourse to this effect, 'before we see one another again. Here is thecountry road, and here is the day. Both have come upon me by surprise.'

  'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood, 'I don't know where tofind you.'

  'It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I'll come toyour Lock.'

  'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood again, 'no luck nevercome yet of a dry acquaintance. Let's wet it, in a mouth-fill of rum andmilk, T'otherest Governor.'

  Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public-house, haunted byunsavoury smells of musty hay and stale straw, where returning carts,farmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain humannightbirds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves aftertheir several manners; and where not one of the nightbirds hoveringabout the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passion-wastednightbird with respectable feathers, the worst nightbird of all.

  An inspiration of affection for a half-drunken carter going his way ledto Mr Riderhood's being elevated on a high heap of baskets on a waggon,and pursuing his journey recumbent on his back with his head on hisbundle. Bradley then turned to retrace his steps, and by-and-by struckoff through little-traversed ways, and by-and-by reached school andhome. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, methodicallydressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, andpepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his decent silver watch in its pocket,and its decent hair-guard round his neck: a scholastic huntsman clad forthe field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him.

  Yet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures of themuch-lamented times, who accused themselves of impossibilities under acontagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences of Torture,he had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night that was newlygone. He had been spurred and whipped and heavily sweated. If a recordof the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scriptureon the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken frightand run away from the master.