Mistress Affery, fixedly attentive in the window-seat, biting the rolled up end of her apron, and trembling from head to foot, here cried out, ‘Jeremiah, keep off from me! I’ve heerd, in my dreams, of Arthur’s father and his uncle. He’s a talking of them. It was before my time here; but I’ve heerd in my dreams that Arthur’s father was a poor, irresolute, frightened chap, who had had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he was young, and that he had no voice in the choice of his wife even, but his uncle chose her. There she sits! I heerd it in my dreams, and you said it to her own self.’
As Mr Flintwinch shook his fist at her, and as Mrs Clennam gazed upon her, Rigaud kissed his hand to her.
‘Perfectly right, dear Madame Flintwinch. You have a genius for dreaming.’
‘I don’t want none of your praises,’ returned Affery. ‘I don’t want to have nothing at all to say to you. But Jeremiah said they was dreams, and I’ll tell ‘em as such!’ Here she put her apron in her mouth again, as if she were stopping somebody else’s mouth—perhaps Jeremiah’s, which was chattering with threats as if he were grimly cold.
‘Our beloved Madame Flintwinch,’ said Rigaud, ‘developing all of a sudden a fine susceptibility and spirituality, is right to a marvel. Yes. So runs the history. Monsieur, the uncle, commands the nephew to marry. Monsieur says to him in effect, “My nephew, I introduce to you a lady of strong force of character, like myself—a resolved lady, a stern lady, a lady who has a will that can break the weak to powder: a lady without pity, without love, implacable, revengeful, cold as the stone, but raging as the fire.” Ah! what fortitude! Ah, what superiority of intellectual strength! Truly, a proud and noble character that I describe in the supposed words of Monsieur, the uncle. Ha, ha, ha! Death of my soul, I love the sweet lady!’
Mrs Clennam’s face had changed. There was a remarkable darkness of colour on it, and the brow was more contracted. ‘Madame, madame,’ said Rigaud, tapping her on the arm, as if his cruel hand were sounding a musical instrument, ‘I perceive I interest you. I perceive I awaken your sympathy. Let us go on.’
The drooping nose and the ascending moustache had, however, to be hidden for a moment with the white hand, before he could go on; he enjoyed the effect he made so much.
‘The nephew, being, as the lucid Madame Flintwinch has remarked, a poor devil who has had everything but his orphan life frightened and famished out of him—the nephew abases his head, and makes response: “My uncle, it is to you to command. Do as you will!” Monsieur, the uncle, does as he will. It is what he always does. The auspicious nuptials take place; the newly married come home to this charming mansion; the lady is received, let us suppose, by Flintwinch. Hey, old intriguer?’
Jeremiah, with his eyes upon his mistress, made no reply. Rigaud looked from one to the other, struck his ugly nose, and made a clucking with his tongue.
‘Soon the lady makes a singular and exciting discovery. Thereupon, full of anger, full of jealousy, full of vengeance, she forms—see you, madame!—a scheme of retribution, the weight of which she ingeniously forces her crushed husband to bear himself, as well as execute upon her enemy. What superior intelligence!’