Home › By Charles Dickens › By Charles Dickens: Headstone

By Charles Dickens: Headstone

Lizzie found refuge with Fanny Cleaver, better known as the Dolls' Dressmaker, a fantastic little creature with a tongue as sharp as the needle she so incessantly plied. Intruding into Lizzie's life came the love of Bradley Headstone, a morose man, and of Eugene Wrayburn, conscious that she was too far below him for marriage, unwilling to do her harm, and yet unable to resist his longing to be near her.

Rejected, Bradley Headstone vowed vengeance upon the man whom he believed responsible. In the Boffin home, too, unhappiness was brooding. Bella Wilfer, her head turned by wealth, remembering poverty at home, set her heart upon wedding a rich man and discouraged John Rokesmith. The secretary had other troubles. He was trying to put together the past. He recalled a voyage, a ship upon which he was known as John Harmon. He remembered coming ashore and going with a mate to the house of Rogue Riderhood. Somewhere was a room where he drank coffee. Then stupefaction, with gleams of memory concerned with a fight, a slide, cold water swirling about him, a rescue, and a decision to test Bella by taking another name. After that the discovery of the mate's body, mistaken for that of John Harmon.

Suddenly Mr. Boffin seemed to lose his amiability. He was gruff with his secretary; he turned to stories about misers. "The more I save, the more you shall have," he said to Bella, but she did not like the cunning look in his eyes. Nor was Silas Wegg aloof from the lust for money. He cast covetous eyes upon the mounds that had made Mr. Boffin "the Golden Dustman." He explored their lowlands and their summits, poking about for treasure. Perhaps there might be another will. He did find a later Harmon will and cherished it as a weapon wherewith he would bleed his benefactor.

Lizzie Hexam, frightened by her lovers, disappeared. Neither Headstone nor Eugene could trace her. But Headstone fancied that Eugene would find her, and for weeks he trailed his rival. Eugene was aware of this morose figure that was never far behind him and he took an impish delight in roaming after nightfall through all the four quarters of London.

At the same time matters were approaching a climax with the Boffins. Silas Wegg was preparing his trap; Mr. Boffin was daily growing more surly. At last he blazed forth and discharged John Rokesmith for aspiring to the hand of Bella to secure the Harmon fortune. But Bella took the part of the dismissed secretary and cried bitterly as she recalled the lovable Mr. Boffin, now transformed into this terrible monster of greed. She sought again the poverty of her childhood home. It did not take John Rokesmith long to find her, and the cherubic Mr. Wilfer felt happily faint when he saw his Bella's head find what seemed a natural resting-place upon John's breast. Meanwhile Eugene had found Lizzie's hiding-place, near Plash-water Weir Mill Lock. Eugene rowed up the river to the hamlet, but he did not notice the interested lockkeeper who swung open the gates for him. Nor did he know that a man dressed like the lockkeeper was near, watching him with baleful eyes. The latter was Bradley Headstone; the gatekeeper was Rogue Riderhood, who was known to hate Eugene. Riderhood puzzled more than a little when he saw Headstone, with murder in his eyes, in clothes precisely like his own. Eugene walked at nightfall with Lizzie by the banks of the river. Headstone could not know that Lizzie had begged Eugene to go away, but he saw their lips meet. A shadowy figure kept close to Eugene after that until something seemed suddenly to crash in his head and the stars and moon reeled in his sight. He closed with his assailant; there was a scuffle and a splash. Lizzie, tormented by her talk, had not gone to her room. She heard the splash and rushed to the river-bank. When she saw a face in the river she hurriedly leaped into a boat. No man could have been more skilful with oars. She reached the floating body, caught it by the hair, secured it, and screamed for help. Help did not come before she had bound and kissed that face that was so dear to her. Scarred and marred as he was, Eugene struggled back from the borderland of death. He did not expect to recover when he asked Lizzie to marry him, but she was as proud of him when she was made his wife as though he had been standing in full strength by her side instead of lying helplessly in bed. Rogue Riderhood remembered that Headstone had intended him to suffer for the crime. So he announced that he would dog Headstone until he was paid handsomely. Headstone knew that the scoundrel would trail him forever, as he had trailed Eugene. He walked away without a word, with Riderhood at his heels. He stepped out upon the bridge that held back the Thames and then suddenly caught his tormentor with a grip that could not be shaken. They wrestled back and forth on the brink, steadily nearing the edge. Riderhood tried in vain to draw a knife. He fought, he tried to squirm free from that relentless embrace. At last he went over backward, with Headstone gripping him. They found the bodies locked together.

In the mean time Silas Wegg tightened his screws upon the hapless Boffin. But the dramatic scene that he had planned did not work out, for there was a later will than the one he had found, giving everything to Mr. Boffin. So Mr. Wegg was suddenly swung out of the house and into a passing scavenger's cart. His wooden leg waved a gyrating farewell as he passed out of the Boffin house. Bella Wilfer had become Bella Rokesmith and there was a wonderful, tiny Bella before she understood Mr. Boffin's strange miserliness. Not till then did she learn that her name was Bella Harmon and that Mr. Boffin had been troubled by her hardness of heart. So he had decided to try her. It was for that reason that he had been so gruff and miserly. He was glad he had done it, for it had proved Bella's worth and given her to the man who loved her. And now, although the Harmon fortune had been left by the last will to Mr. Boffin, he resolutely refused to take it. He kept only money enough to live comfortably for the rest of his happy days.

The magnificence of the new home where Bella was to live impressed even her impressive mother, and the cherubic father was made John's secretary and released from the numbing life that had been his for many years. But perhaps John and Bella, and the Boffins, too, who were living with them, were made happiest by the long visit that they had from Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Wrayburn. Eugene was slowly winning his way back to health and the old affected cynicism had departed. He was prouder of his wife from the slums than he was of his own distinguished family and the place in society that had been his. JACKSON ("H. H.") HELEN FISKE was born at Amherst, Massachusetts, October 18, 1831. She was the daughter of Prof. N.W. Fiske. She was twice married, first to Major Edward B. Hunt of the United States Engineers; he died in 1863; it was while living as a widow at Newport that she made her pen name of "H. H." (Helen Hunt) well known. Years later she married W.S. Jackson, a banker of Colorado Springs. She was a pen-woman of great industry and success. She first won attention by "Verses by H. H." Her poems were widely read and were praised by Emerson and T.W. Higginson. She wrote for the famous "No Name Stories" two novels, "Mercy Philbrick's Choice" and "Hetty's Strange History." She was author of books of many types, including those for children. She became greatly interested in the Indians. She was appointed a special commissioner to investigate their condition. From this work resulted "A Century of Dishonor," and the novel by which she will be remembered, "Ramona." She died August 12, 1885, in San Francisco. She possessed the affectionate regard of many readers. RAMONA