Our Mutual Friend

The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of times, the earth moved round the sun a certain number of times, the ship upon the ocean made her voyage safely, and brought a baby-Bella home. Then who so blest and happy as Mrs John Rokesmith, saving and excepting Mr John Rokesmith!

‘Would you not like to be rich now, my darling?’

‘How can you ask me such a question, John dear? Am I not rich?’

These were among the first words spoken near the baby Bella as she lay asleep. She soon proved to be a baby of wonderful intelligence, evincing the strongest objection to her grandmother’s society, and being invariably seized with a painful acidity of the stomach when that dignified lady honoured her with any attention.

It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and finding out her own dimples in that tiny reflection, as if she were looking in the glass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarked to her husband that the baby seemed to make her younger than before, reminding him of the days when she had a pet doll and used to talk to it as she carried it about. The world might have been challenged to produce another baby who had such a store of pleasant nonsense said and sung to it, as Bella said and sung to this baby; or who was dressed and undressed as often in four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and undressed this baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop its father’s way when he came home, as this baby was; or, in a word, who did half the number of baby things, through the lively invention of a gay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible baby did.

The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella began to notice a cloud upon her husband’s brow. Watching it, she saw a gathering and deepening anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet. More than once, she awoke him muttering in his sleep; and, though he muttered nothing worse than her own name, it was plain to her that his restlessness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at length put in her claim to divide this load, and hear her half of it.

‘You know, John dear,’ she said, cheerily reverting to their former conversation, ‘that I hope I may safely be trusted in great things. And it surely cannot be a little thing that causes you so much uneasiness. It’s very considerate of you to try to hide from me that you are uncomfortable about something, but it’s quite impossible to be done, John love.’

‘I admit that I am rather uneasy, my own.’

‘Then please to tell me what about, sir.’

But no, he evaded that. ‘Never mind!’ thought Bella, resolutely. ‘John requires me to put perfect faith in him, and he shall not be disappointed.’

She went up to London one day, to meet him, in order that they might make some purchases. She found him waiting for her at her journey’s end, and they walked away together through the streets. He was in gay spirits, though still harping on that notion of their being rich; and he said, now let them make believe that yonder fine carriage was theirs, and that it was waiting to take them home to a fine house they had; what would Bella, in that case, best like to find in the house? Well! Bella didn’t know: already having everything she wanted, she couldn’t say. But, by degrees she was led on to confess that she would like to have for the inexhaustible baby such a nursery as never was seen. It was to be ‘a very rainbow for colours’, as she was quite sure baby noticed colours; and the staircase was to be adorned with the most exquisite flowers, as she was absolutely certain baby noticed flowers; and there was to be an aviary somewhere, of the loveliest little birds, as there was not the smallest doubt in the world that baby noticed birds. Was there nothing else? No, John dear. The predilections of the inexhaustible baby being provided for, Bella could think of nothing else.

They were chatting on in this way, and John had suggested, ‘No jewels for your own wear, for instance?’ and Bella had replied laughing. O! if he came to that, yes, there might be a beautiful ivory case of jewels on her dressing-table; when these pictures were in a moment darkened and blotted out.

They turned a corner, and met Mr Lightwood.

He stopped as if he were petrified by the sight of Bella’s husband, who in the same moment had changed colour.

‘Mr Lightwood and I have met before,’ he said.

‘Met before, John?’ Bella repeated in a tone of wonder. ‘Mr Lightwood told me he had never seen you.’

‘I did not then know that I had,’ said Lightwood, discomposed on her account. ‘I believed that I had only heard of – Mr Rokesmith.’ With an emphasis on the name.

‘When Mr Lightwood saw me, my love,’ observed her husband, not avoiding his eye, but looking at him, ‘my name was Julius Handford.’

Julius Handford! The name that Bella had so often seen in old newspapers, when she was an inmate of Mr Boffin’s house! Julius Handford, who had been publicly entreated to appear, and for intelligence of whom a reward had been publicly offered!

‘I would have avoided mentioning it in your presence,’ said Lightwood to Bella, delicately; ‘but since your husband mentions it himself, I must confirm his strange admission. I saw him as Mr Julius Handford, and I afterwards (unquestionably to his knowledge) took great pains to trace him out.’

‘Quite true. But it was not my object or my interest,’ said Rokesmith, quietly, ‘to be traced out.’

Bella looked from the one to the other, in amazement.

‘Mr Lightwood,’ pursued her husband, ‘as chance has brought us face to face at last – which is not to be wondered at, for the wonder is, that, in spite of all my pains to the contrary, chance has not confronted us together sooner – I have only to remind you that you have been at my house, and to add that I have not changed my residence.’

‘Sir’ returned Lightwood, with a meaning glance towards Bella, ‘my position is a truly painful one. I hope that no complicity in a very dark transaction may attach to you, but you cannot fail to know that your own extraordinary conduct has laid you under suspicion.’

‘I know it has,’ was all the reply.

‘My professional duty,’ said Lightwood hesitating, with another glance towards Bella, ‘is greatly at variance with my personal inclination; but I doubt, Mr Handford, or Mr Rokesmith, whether I am justified in taking leave of you here, with your whole course unexplained.’

Bella caught her husband by the hand.

‘Don’t be alarmed, my darling. Mr Lightwood will find that he is quite justified in taking leave of me here. At all events,’ added Rokesmith, ‘he will find that I mean to take leave of him here.’

‘I think, sir,’ said Lightwood, ‘you can scarcely deny that when I came to your house on the occasion to which you have referred, you avoided me of a set purpose.’

‘Mr Lightwood, I assure you I have no disposition to deny it, or intention to deny it. I should have continued to avoid you, in pursuance of the same set purpose, for a short time longer, if we had not met now. I am going straight home, and shall remain at home to-morrow until noon. Hereafter, I hope we may be better acquainted. Good-day.’

Lightwood stood irresolute, but Bella’s husband passed him in the steadiest manner, with Bella on his arm; and they went home without encountering any further remonstrance or molestation from any one.

When they had dined and were alone, John Rokesmith said to his wife, who had preserved her cheerfulness: ‘And you don’t ask me, my dear, why I bore that name?’

‘No, John love. I should dearly like to know, of course;’ (which her anxious face confirmed;) ‘but I wait until you can tell me of your own free will. You asked me if I could have perfect faith in you, and I said yes, and I meant it.’

It did not escape Bella’s notice that he began to look triumphant. She wanted no strengthening in her firmness; but if she had had need of any, she would have derived it from his kindling face.

‘You cannot have been prepared, my dearest, for such a discovery as that this mysterious Mr Handford was identical with your husband?’

‘No, John dear, of course not. But you told me to prepare to be tried, and I prepared myself.’

He drew her to nestle closer to him, and told her it would soon be over, and the truth would soon appear. ‘And now,’ he went on, ‘lay stress, my dear, on these words that I am going to add. I stand in no kind of peril, and I can by possibility be hurt at no one’s hand.’

‘You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear?’

‘Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no wrong, and have injured no man. Shall I swear it?’

‘No, John!’ cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a proud look. ‘Never to me!’

‘But circumstances,’ he went on ‘ – I can, and I will, disperse them in a moment – have surrounded me with one of the strangest suspicions ever known. You heard Mr Lightwood speak of a dark transaction?’

‘Yes, John.’

‘You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant?’

‘Yes, John.’

‘My life, he meant the murder of John Harmon, your allotted husband.’

With a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the arm. ‘You cannot be suspected, John?’

‘Dear love, I can be – for I am!’

There was silence between them, as she sat looking in his face, with the colour quite gone from her own face and lips. ‘How dare they!’ she cried at length, in a burst of generous indignation. ‘My beloved husband, how dare they!’

He caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her to his heart. ‘Even knowing this, you can trust me, Bella?’

‘I can trust you, John dear, with all my soul. If I could not trust you, I should fall dead at your feet.’