That afternoon, when he had slept off his fatigue; had shaved, andwashed, and dressed, and freshened himself from top to toe; when hehad dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap inthe great arm-chair, and a quiet chat with Mrs Varden on everythingthat had happened, was happening, or about to happen, within thesphere of their domestic concern; the locksmith sat himself down atthe tea-table in the little back-parlour: the rosiest, cosiest,merriest, heartiest, best-contented old buck, in Great Britain orout of it.
There he sat, with his beaming eye on Mrs V., and his shining facesuffused with gladness, and his capacious waistcoat smiling inevery wrinkle, and his jovial humour peeping from under the tablein the very plumpness of his legs; a sight to turn the vinegar ofmisanthropy into purest milk of human kindness. There he sat,watching his wife as she decorated the room with flowers for thegreater honour of Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone outwalking, and for whom the tea-kettle had been singing gaily on thehob full twenty minutes, chirping as never kettle chirped before;for whom the best service of real undoubted china, patterned withdivers round-faced mandarins holding up broad umbrellas, was nowdisplayed in all its glory; to tempt whose appetites a clear,transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green lettuce-leavesand fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table, covered with asnow-white cloth; for whose delight, preserves and jams, crispcakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists, andcottage loaves, and rolls of bread both white and brown, were allset forth in rich profusion; in whose youth Mrs V. herself hadgrown quite young, and stood there in a gown of red and white:
symmetrical in figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip,faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respectsdelicious to behold--there sat the locksmith among all and everythese delights, the sun that shone upon them all: the centre of thesystem: the source of light, heat, life, and frank enjoyment in thebright household world.
And when had Dolly ever been the Dolly of that afternoon? To seehow she came in, arm-in-arm with Joe; and how she made an effortnot to blush or seem at all confused; and how she made believe shedidn"t care to sit on his side of the table; and how she coaxed thelocksmith in a whisper not to joke; and how her colour came andwent in a little restless flutter of happiness, which made her doeverything wrong, and yet so charmingly wrong that it was betterthan right!--why, the locksmith could have looked on at this (as hementioned to Mrs Varden when they retired for the night) for fourand-twenty hours at a stretch, and never wished it done.
The recollections, too, with which they made merry over that longprotracted tea! The glee with which the locksmith asked Joe if heremembered that stormy night at the Maypole when he first askedafter Dolly--the laugh they all had, about that night when she wasgoing out to the party in the sedan-chair--the unmerciful manner inwhich they rallied Mrs Varden about putting those flowers outsidethat very window--the difficulty Mrs Varden found in joining thelaugh against herself, at first, and the extraordinary perceptionshe had of the joke when she overcame it--the confidentialstatements of Joe concerning the precise day and hour when he wasfirst conscious of being fond of Dolly, and Dolly"s blushingadmissions, half volunteered and half extorted, as to the time fromwhich she dated the discovery that she "didn"t mind" Joe--here wasan exhaustless fund of mirth and conversation.
Then, there was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs Varden"sdoubts, and motherly alarms, and shrewd suspicions; and it appearedthat from Mrs Varden"s penetration and extreme sagacity nothing hadever been hidden. She had known it all along. She had seen itfrom the first. She had always predicted it. She had been awareof it before the principals. She had said within herself (for sheremembered the exact words) "that young Willet is certainlylooking after our Dolly, and I must look after HIM." Accordingly,she had looked after him, and had observed many littlecircumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly minute thatnobody else could make anything out of them even now; and had, itseemed from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact andmost consummate generalship.
Of course the night when Joe WOULD ride homeward by the side of thechaise, and when Mrs Varden WOULD insist upon his going back again,was not forgotten--nor the night when Dolly fainted on his namebeing mentioned--nor the times upon times when Mrs Varden, everwatchful and prudent, had found her pining in her own chamber. Inshort, nothing was forgotten; and everything by some means or otherbrought them back to the conclusion, that that was the happiesthour in all their lives; consequently, that everything must haveoccurred for the best, and nothing could be suggested which wouldhave made it better.
While they were in the full glow of such discourse as this, therecame a startling knock at the door, opening from the street intothe workshop, which had been kept closed all day that the housemight be more quiet. Joe, as in duty bound, would hear of nobodybut himself going to open it; and accordingly left the room forthat purpose.
It would have been odd enough, certainly, if Joe had forgotten theway to this door; and even if he had, as it was a pretty large oneand stood straight before him, he could not easily have missed it.
But Dolly, perhaps because she was in the flutter of spirits beforementioned, or perhaps because she thought he would not be able toopen it with his one arm--she could have had no other reason-hurriedout after him; and they stopped so long in the passage--nodoubt owing to Joe"s entreaties that she would not expose herselfto the draught of July air which must infallibly come rushing in onthis same door being opened--that the knock was repeated, in a yetmore startling manner than before.
"Is anybody going to open that door?" cried the locksmith. "Orshall I come?"