The dinner was a most doleful breakdown. The philanthropist deranged the symmetry of the table, sat himself in the way of the waiting, blocked up the thoroughfare, and drove Mr. Tope (who assisted the parlour-maid) to the verge of distraction by passing plates and dishes on, over his own head. Nobody could talk to anybody, because he held forth to everybody at once, as if the company had no individual existence, but were a Meeting. He impounded the Reverend Mr. Septimus, as an official personage to be addressed, or kind of human peg to hang his oratorical hat on, and fell into the exasperating habit, common among such orators, of impersonating him as a wicked and weak opponent. Thus, he would ask: ‘And will you, sir, now stultify yourself by telling me’ – and so forth, when the innocent man had not opened his lips, nor meant to open them. Or he would say: ‘Now see, sir, to what a position you are reduced. I will leave you no escape. After exhausting all the resources of fraud and falsehood, during years upon years; after exhibiting a combination of dastardly meanness with ensanguined daring, such as the world has not often witnessed; you have now the hypocrisy to bend the knee before the most degraded of mankind, and to sue and whine and howl for mercy!’ Whereat the unfortunate Minor Canon would look, in part indignant and in part perplexed; while his worthy mother sat bridling, with tears in her eyes, and the remainder of the party lapsed into a sort of gelatinous state, in which there was no flavour or solidity, and very little resistance.
But the gush of philanthropy that burst forth when the departure of Mr. Honeythunder began to impend, must have been highly gratifying to the feelings of that distinguished man. His coffee was produced, by the special activity of Mr. Tope, a full hour before he wanted it. Mr. Crisparkle sat with his watch in his hand for about the same period, lest he should overstay his time. The four young people were unanimous in believing that the Cathedral clock struck three-quarters, when it actually struck but one. Miss Twinkleton estimated the distance to the omnibus at five-and-twenty minutes’ walk, when it was really five. The affectionate kindness of the whole circle hustled him into his greatcoat, and shoved him out into the moonlight, as if he were a fugitive traitor with whom they sympathised, and a troop of horse were at the back door. Mr. Crisparkle and his new charge, who took him to the omnibus, were so fervent in their apprehensions of his catching cold, that they shut him up in it instantly and left him, with still half-an-hour to spare.
CHAPTER VII – MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE
‘I know very little of that gentleman, sir,’ said Neville to the Minor Canon as they turned back.
‘You know very little of your guardian?’ the Minor Canon repeated.
‘Almost nothing!’
‘How came he – ’
‘To be my guardian? I’ll tell you, sir. I suppose you know that we come (my sister and I) from Ceylon?’
‘Indeed, no.’
‘I wonder at that. We lived with a stepfather there. Our mother died there, when we were little children. We have had a wretched existence. She made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat, and clothes to wear. At his death, he passed us over to this man; for no better reason that I know of, than his being a friend or connexion of his, whose name was always in print and catching his attention.’
‘That was lately, I suppose?’
‘Quite lately, sir. This stepfather of ours was a cruel brute as well as a grinding one. It is well he died when he did, or I might have killed him.’
Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked at his hopeful pupil in consternation.
‘I surprise you, sir?’ he said, with a quick change to a submissive manner.
‘You shock me; unspeakably shock me.’
The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked on, and then said: ‘You never saw him beat your sister. I have seen him beat mine, more than once or twice, and I never forgot it.’
‘Nothing,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘not even a beloved and beautiful sister’s tears under dastardly ill-usage;’ he became less severe, in spite of himself, as his indignation rose; ‘could justify those horrible expressions that you used.’
‘I am sorry I used them, and especially to you, sir. I beg to recall them. But permit me to set you right on one point. You spoke of my sister’s tears. My sister would have let him tear her to pieces, before she would have let him believe that he could make her shed a tear.’
Mr. Crisparkle reviewed those mental notes of his, and was neither at all surprised to hear it, nor at all disposed to question it.
‘Perhaps you will think it strange, sir,’ – this was said in a hesitating voice – ‘that I should so soon ask you to allow me to confide in you, and to have the kindness to hear a word or two from me in my defence?’
‘Defence?’ Mr. Crisparkle repeated. ‘You are not on your defence, Mr. Neville.’
‘I think I am, sir. At least I know I should be, if you were better acquainted with my character.’
‘Well, Mr. Neville,’ was the rejoinder. ‘What if you leave me to find it out?’
‘Since it is your pleasure, sir,’ answered the young man, with a quick change in his manner to sullen disappointment: ‘since it is your pleasure to check me in my impulse, I must submit.’
There was that in the tone of this short speech which made the conscientious man to whom it was addressed uneasy. It hinted to him that he might, without meaning it, turn aside a trustfulness beneficial to a mis-shapen young mind and perhaps to his own power of directing and improving it. They were within sight of the lights in his windows, and he stopped.
‘Let us turn back and take a turn or two up and down, Mr. Neville, or you may not have time to finish what you wish to say to me. You are hasty in thinking that I mean to check you. Quite the contrary. I invite your confidence.’
‘You have invited it, sir, without knowing it, ever since I came here. I say “ever since,” as if I had been here a week. The truth is, we came here (my sister and I) to quarrel with you, and affront you, and break away again.’
‘Really?’ said Mr. Crisparkle, at a dead loss for anything else to say.
‘You see, we could not know what you were beforehand, sir; could