In part relieved by the intensity of this threat, and in part (monstrous
as the fact is) by a general impression that it was in some sort a
religious proceeding, she handed back the book to the old man, and was
silent. 'Now,' said Jeremiah; 'premising that I'm not going to stand between you
two, will you let me ask (as I have been called in, and made a third)
what is all this about?' 'Take your version of it,' returned Arthur, finding it left to him to
speak, 'from my mother. Let it rest there. What I have said, was said to
my mother only.' 'Oh!' returned the old man. 'From your mother? Take
it from your mother? Well! But your mother mentioned that you had been
suspecting your father. That's not dutiful, Mr Arthur. Who will you be
suspecting next?'
'Enough,' said Mrs Clennam, turning her face so that it was addressed
for the moment to the old man only. 'Let no more be said about this.'
'Yes, but stop a bit, stop a bit,' the old man persisted. 'Let us see
how we stand. Have you told Mr Arthur that he mustn't lay offences at
his father's door? That he has no right to do it? That he has no ground
to go upon?' 'I tell him so now.' 'Ah! Exactly,' said the old man.
'You tell him so now. You hadn't told him so before, and you tell him so now.
Ay stood between you and his father so long, that it seems as if death had
made no difference, and I was still standing between you. So I will, and
so in fairness I require to have that plainly put forward. Arthur, you
please to hear that you have no right to mistrust your father, and have
no ground to go upon.'
He put his hands to the back of the wheeled chair, and muttering to
himself, slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet. 'Now,' he
resumed, standing behind her: 'in case I should go away leaving things
half done, and so should be wanted again when you come to the other half
and get into one of your flights, has Arthur told you what he means to
do about the business?'
'He has relinquished it.' 'In favour of nobody, I suppose?'
Mrs Clennam glanced at her son, leaning against one of the windows. He observed the look and said,
'To my mother, of course. She does what she pleases.'
'And if any pleasure,' she said after a short pause, 'could arise for me
out of the disappointment of my expectations that my son, in the prime
of his life, would infuse new youth and strength into it, and make it
of great profit and power, it would be in advancing an old and faithful
servant. Jeremiah, the captain deserts the ship, but you and I will sink
or float with it.'