Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend

'Not,' returned Bella, with quivering lips; 'not Harmon? That's not possible?'

'Don't tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things are possible?' demanded Mrs Boffin, in a soothing tone.

'He was killed,' gasped Bella.

'Thought to be,' said Mrs Boffin. 'But if ever John Harmon drew the breath of life on earth, that is certainly John Harmon's arm round your waist now, my pretty. If ever John Harmon had a wife on earth, that wife is certainly you. If ever John Harmon and his wife had a child on earth, that child is certainly this.'

By a master-stroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible baby here appeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by invisible agency. Mrs Boffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella's lap, where both Mrs and Mr Boffin (as the saying is) 'took it out of' the Inexhaustible in a shower of caresses. It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella from swooning. This, and her husband's earnestness in explaining further to her how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, and had even been suspected of his own murder; also, how he had put a pious fraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its disclosure approached, lest she might not make full allowance for the object with which it had originated, and in which it had fully developed.

'But bless ye, my beauty!' cried Mrs Boflin, taking him up short at this point, with another hearty clap of her hands. 'It wasn't John only that was in it. We was all of us in it.'

'I don't,' said Bella, looking vacantly from one to another, 'yet understand — '

'Of course you don't, my deary,' exclaimed Mrs Boffin. 'How can you till you're told! So now I am a going to tell you. So you put your two hands between my two hands again,' cried the comfortable creature, embracing her, 'with that blessed little picter lying on your lap, and you shall be told all the story. Now, I'm a going to tell the story. Once, twice, three times, and the horses is off. Here they go! When I cries out that night, "I know you now, you're John! " — which was my exact words; wasn't they, John?'

'Your exact words,' said John, laying his hand on hers.

'That's a very good arrangement,' cried Mrs Boffin. 'Keep it there, John. And as we was all of us in it, Noddy you come and lay yours a top of his, and we won't break the pile till the story's done.'

Mr Boffin hitched up a chair, and added his broad brown right hand to the heap.

'That's capital!' said Mrs Boffin, giving it a kiss. 'Seems quite a family building; don't it? But the horses is off. Well! When I cries out that night, "I know you now! you're John!" John catches of me, it is true; but I ain't a light weight, bless ye, and he's forced to let me down. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in he trots, and as soon as I anyways comes to myself I calls to him, "Noddy, well I might say as I did say, that night at the Bower, for the Lord be thankful this is John!" On which he gives a heave, and down he goes likewise, with his head under the writing-table. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings him round comfortable, and then John and him and me we all fall a crying for joy.'

'Yes! They cry for joy, my darling,' her husband struck in. 'You understand? These two, whom I come to life to disappoint and dispossess, cry for joy!'

Bella looked at him confusedly, and looked again at Mrs Boffin's radiant face.

'That's right, my dear, don't you mind him,' said Mrs Boffin, 'stick to me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually gets cool, and holds a confabulation. John, he tells us how he is despairing in his mind on accounts of a certain fair young person, and how, if I hadn't found him out, he was going away to seek his fortune far and wide, and had fully meant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our wrongful inheritance for ever and a day. At which you never see a man so frightened as my Noddy was. For to think that he should have come into the property wrongful, however innocent, and — more than that — might have gone on keeping it to his dying day, turned him whiter than chalk.'

'And you too,' said Mr Boffin.

'Don't you mind him, neither, my deary,' resumed Mrs Boffin; 'stick to me. This brings up a confabulation regarding the certain fair young person; when Noddy he gives it as his opinion that she is a deary creetur. "She may be a leetle spoilt, and nat'rally spoilt," he says, "by circumstances, but that's only the surface, and I lay my life," he says, "that she's the true golden gold at heart."

'So did you,' said Mr Boffin.

'Don't you mind him a single morsel, my dear,' proceeded Mrs Boffin, 'but stick to me. Then says John, O, if he could but prove so! Then we both of us ups and says, that minute, "Prove so!"'

With a start, Bella directed a hurried glance towards Mr Boffin. But, he was sitting thoughtfully smiling at that broad brown hand of his, and either didn't see it, or would take no notice of it.

'"Prove it, John!" we says,' repeated Mrs Boffin. '"Prove it and overcome your doubts with triumph, and be happy for the first time in your life, and for the rest of your life." This puts John in a state, to be sure. Then we says, "What will content you? If she was to stand up for you when you was slighted, if she was to show herself of a generous mind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to you when you was poorest and friendliest, and all this against her own seeming interest, how would that do?" "Do?" says John, "it would raise me to the skies." "Then," says my Noddy, "make your preparations for the ascent, John, it being my firm belief that up you go!"'

Bella caught Mr Boffin's twinkling eye for half an instant; but he got it away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand.

'From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy's,' said Mrs Boffin, shaking her head. 'O you were! And if I had been inclined to be jealous, I don't know what I mightn't have done to you. But as I wasn't — why, my beauty,' with a hearty laugh and an embrace, 'I made you a special favourite of my own too. But the horses is coming round the corner. Well! Then says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit to make 'em ache again: "Look out for being slighted and oppressed, John, for if ever a man had a hard master, you shall find me from this present time to be such to you. And then he began!' cried Mrs Boffin, in an ecstacy of admiration. 'Lord bless you, then he began! And how he DID begin; didn't he!'

Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed.

'But, bless you,' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'if you could have seen him of a night, at that time of it! The way he'd sit and chuckle over himself! The way he'd say "I've been a regular brown bear to-day," and take himself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had pretended. But every night he says to me: "Better and better, old lady. What did we say of her? She'll come through it, the true golden gold. This'll be the happiest piece of work we ever done." And then he'd say, "I'll be a grislier old growler to– morrow!" and laugh, he would, till John and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his windpipes with a little water.'

Mr Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were vastly enjoying himself.

'And so, my good and pretty,' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'you was married, and there was we hid up in the church-organ by this husband of yours; for he wouldn't let us out with it then, as was first meant. "No," he says, "she's so unselfish and contented, that I can't afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer." Then, when baby was expected, he says, "She is such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can't afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer." Then when baby was born, he says, "She is so much better than she ever was, that I can't afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer." And so he goes on and on, till I says outright, "Now, John, if you don't fix a time for setting her up in her own house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I'll turn Informer." Then he says he'll only wait to triumph beyond what we ever thought possible, and to show her to us better than even we ever supposed; and he says, "She shall see me under suspicion of having murdered myself, and YOU shall see how trusting and how true she'll be." Well! Noddy and me agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses is in, and the story is done, and God bless you my Beauty, and God bless us all!'