My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you.
We were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do anything but
accept our separation.--Pray think how long ago,' gently remonstrated
Arthur. 'One more remark,' proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility,
'I wish to make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I
had a cold in the head from crying which I passed entirely in the back
drawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor
and still at the back of the house to confirm my words--when that dreary
period had passed a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F. became
acquainted with us at a mutual friend's, he was all attention he called
next day he soon began to call three evenings a week and to send
in little things for supper it was not love on Mr F.'s part it was
adoration, Mr F. proposed with the full approval of Papa and what could
I do?'
'Nothing whatever,' said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, 'but
what you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that
you did quite right.' 'One last remark,' proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a
wave of her hand, 'I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer,
there was a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable of being
mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no
longer wear a golden chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here
is Papa who is always tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where
he is not wanted.' With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid
caution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old
time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a long long way
behind again; and came to a full stop at last.
Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age
behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus
making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated
with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the
comical were curiously blended. For example.
As if there were a secret understanding between herself
and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first of a train of
post-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, were at that
moment round the corner; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) have
walked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family
umbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect
concurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of
mysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation
of becoming more and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the
relict of the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner,
by putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all
the old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery
was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was
empty, when the lights were out. And still, through all this grotesque
revival of what he remembered as having once been prettily natural to
her, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that
there was a tender memory in it.