As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was wheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall cabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself at its desk, Jeremiah withdrew--as it might be, to hang himself more effectually--and her son appeared.
'Are you any better this morning, mother?'
She shook her head, with the same austere air of luxuriousness that she had shown over-night when speaking of the weather.
'I shall never be better any more. It is well for me, Arthur, that I know it and can bear it.'
Sitting with her hands laid separately upon the desk, and the tall cabinet towering before her, she looked as if she were performing on a dumb church organ. Her son thought so (it was an old thought with him), while he took his seat beside it.
She opened a drawer or two, looked over some business papers, and put them back again. Her severe face had no thread of relaxation in it, by which any explorer could have been guided to the gloomy labyrinth of her thoughts.
'Shall I speak of our affairs, mother? Are you inclined to enter upon business?'
'Am I inclined, Arthur? Rather, are you? Your father has been dead a year and more. I have been at your disposal, and waiting your pleasure, ever since.'
'There was much to arrange before I could leave; and when I did leave, I travelled a little for rest and relief.'
She turned her face towards him, as not having heard or understood his last words.
'For rest and relief.'
She glanced round the sombre room, and appeared from the motion of her lips to repeat the words to herself, as calling it to witness how little of either it afforded her.
'Besides, mother, you being sole executrix, and having the direction and management of the estate, there remained little business, or I might say none, that I could transact, until you had had time to arrange matters to your satisfaction.'
'The accounts are made out,' she returned. 'I have them here. The vouchers have all been examined and passed. You can inspect them when you like, Arthur; now, if you please.'
'It is quite enough, mother, to know that the business is completed. Shall I proceed then?'
'Why not?' she said, in her frozen way.
'Mother, our House has done less and less for some years past, and our dealings have been progressively on the decline. We have never shown much confidence, or invited much; we have attached no people to us; the track we have kept is not the track of the time; and we have been left far behind. I need not dwell on this to you, mother. You know it necessarily.'
'I know what you mean,' she answered, in a qualified tone.
'Even this old house in which we speak,' pursued her son, 'is an instance of what I say. In my father's earlier time, and in his uncle's time before him, it was a place of business--really a place of business, and business resort. Now, it is a mere anomaly and incongruity here, out of date and out of purpose. All our consignments have long been made to Rovinghams' the commission-merchants; and although, as a check upon them, and in the stewardship of my father's resources, your judgment and watchfulness have been actively exerted, still those qualities would have influenced my father's fortunes equally, if you had lived in any private dwelling: would they not?'
'Do you consider,' she returned, without answering his question, 'that a house serves no purpose, Arthur, in sheltering your infirm and afflicted--justly infirm and righteously afflicted--mother?'
'I was speaking only of business purposes.'
'With what object?'
'I am coming to it.'
'I foresee,' she returned, fixing her eyes upon him, 'what it is.
But the Lord forbid that I should repine under any visitation. In my sinfulness I merit bitter disappointment, and I accept it.'
'Mother, I grieve to hear you speak like this, though I have had my apprehensions that you would--'
'You knew I would. You knew ME,' she interrupted.
Her son paused for a moment. He had struck fire out of her, and was surprised.
'Well!' she said, relapsing into stone. 'Go on. Let me hear.'
'You have anticipated, mother, that I decide for my part, to abandon the business. I have done with it. I will not take upon myself to advise you; you will continue it, I see. If I had any influence with you, I would simply use it to soften your judgment of me in causing you this disappointment: to represent to you that I have lived the half of a long term of life, and have never before set my own will against yours. I cannot say that I have been able to conform myself, in heart and spirit, to your rules; I cannot say that I believe my forty years have been profitable or pleasant to myself, or any one; but I have habitually submitted, and I only ask you to remember it.'
Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there were or ever had been, who had any concession to look for in the inexorable face at the cabinet. Woe to the defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes presided. Great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and destruction, flashing through the sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite Thou my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do, and Thou shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she built up to scale Heaven.
'Have you finished, Arthur, or have you anything more to say to me?
I think there can be nothing else. You have been short, but full of matter!'
'Mother, I have yet something more to say. It has been upon my mind, night and day, this long time. It is far more difficult to say than what I have said. That concerned myself; this concerns us all.'
'Us all! Who are us all?'
'Yourself, myself, my dead father.'
She took her hands from the desk; folded them in her lap; and sat looking towards the fire, with the impenetrability of an old Egyptian sculpture.