Works of Charles Dickens - Charles Dickens [5414]
Yet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been fluttered by the discovery that this same Secretary and lodger seem to like her. Ah! but the eminently aristocratic mansion and Mrs Boffin's dressmaker had not come into play then.
In spite of his seemingly retiring manners a very intrusive person, this Secretary and lodger, in Miss Bella's opinion. Always a light in his office-room when we came home from the play or Opera, and he always at the carriage-door to hand us out. Always a provoking radiance too on Mrs Boffin's face, and an abominably cheerful reception of him, as if it were possible seriously to approve what the man had in his mind!
'You never charge me, Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary, encountering her by chance alone in the great drawing-room, 'with commissions for home. I shall always be happy to execute any commands you may have in that direction.'
'Pray what may you mean, Mr Rokesmith?' inquired Miss Bella, with languidly drooping eyelids.
'By home? I mean your father's house at Holloway.'
She coloured under the retort--so skilfully thrust, that the words seemed to be merely a plain answer, given in plain good faith--and said, rather more emphatically and sharply:
'What commissions and commands are you speaking of?'
'Only little words of remembrance as I assume you sent somehow or other,' replied the Secretary with his former air. 'It would be a pleasure to me if you would make me the bearer of them. As you know, I come and go between the two houses every day.'
'You needn't remind me of that, sir.'
She was too quick in this petulant sally against 'Pa's lodger'; and she felt that she had been so when she met his quiet look.
'They don't send many--what was your expression?--words of remembrance to me,' said Bella, making haste to take refuge in ill-usage.
'They frequently ask me about you, and I give them such slight intelligence as I can.'
'I hope it's truly given,' exclaimed Bella.
'I hope you cannot doubt it, for it would be very much against you, if you could.'
'No, I do not doubt it. I deserve the reproach, which is very just indeed. I beg your pardon, Mr Rokesmith.'
'I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you to such admirable advantage,' he replied with earnestness. 'Forgive me; I could not help saying that. To return to what I have digressed from, let me add that perhaps they think I report them to you, deliver little messages, and the like. But I forbear to trouble you, as you never ask me.'
'I am going, sir,' said Bella, looking at him as if he had reproved her, 'to see them tomorrow.'
'Is that,' he asked, hesitating, 'said to me, or to them?'
'To which you please.'
'To both? Shall I make it a message?'
'You can if you like, Mr Rokesmith. Message or no message, I am going to see them tomorrow.'
'Then I will tell them so.'
He lingered a moment, as though to give her the opportunity of prolonging the conversation if she wished. As she remained silent, he left her. Two incidents of the little interview were felt by Miss Bella herself, when alone again, to be very curious. The first was, that he unquestionably left her with a penitent air upon her, and a penitent feeling in her heart. The second was, that she had not an intention or a thought of going home, until she had announced it to him as a settled design.
'What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it?' was her mental inquiry: 'He has no right to any power over me, and how do I come to mind him when I don't care for him?'
Mrs Boffin, insisting that Bella should make tomorrow's expedition in the chariot, she went home in great grandeur. Mrs Wilfer and Miss Lavinia had speculated much on the probabilities and improbabilities of her coming in this gorgeous state, and, on beholding the chariot from the window at which they were secreted to look out for it, agreed that it must be detained at the door as long as possible, for the mortification and confusion