Of Wills

There are two distinct Wills in our Mutual Friend. First, there are the multiple versions of old Mr. Harmon’s Will, and second, there is little Johnny’s spoken Will just before he dies. Dickens  is known for using children as motif’s of innocence, vulnerability and purity within his novels,  and he does so again when he sets these two Wills up for comparison in Our Mutual Friend. 

Towards the beginning of the novel, Mr. Harmon’s Will is talked about during the Veneering’s dinner party. The conditions are explained: there is an heir, John Harmon, who is to inherit all of Mr. Harmon’s estate and also to marry Miss Bella Wilfer. The story moves ahead when it is discovered that John Harmon was murdered, and the Boffins come into this substantial fortune. Either way, the Will is a catalyst for all the turbulent and frankly convoluted happenings in Our Mutual Friend, with the fortune that it promises to its recipient a large looming spectre that seems to corrupt everything in its path (thankfully, not the Boffins).  John Harmon’s own articulation of his inheritance is not one of joy, but rather one of imprisonment: 

“When I came to England, attracted to the country with which I had none but most miserable associations, by the accounts of my fine inheritance that found me abroad, I came back, shrinking from my father's money, shrinking from my father's memory, mistrustful of being forced on a mercenary wife, mistrustful of my father's intention in thrusting that marriage on me, mistrustful that I was already growing avaricious, mistrustful that I was slackening in gratitude to the two dear noble honest friends who had made the only sunlight in my childish life or that of my heartbroken sister. I came back, timid, divided in my mind, afraid of myself and everybody here, knowing of nothing but wretchedness that my father's wealth had ever brought about.”

The will here is tied to the very adult world of corruption, avarice, greed and deception. Almost everything that comes of this Will is in some way tainted by the adult world. Meanwhile, little Johnny’s will, or rather his bequeathal of all his worldly possessions just before his death, is a symbol of the purity or the innocence that is present within a child’s world, a world that grows increasingly darker as the adults who operate within this world make it so. The simplicity of Johnny’s will, with no demands, is indicative of Dickens’ view of children as pure and innocent:

“The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And he and Rokesmith stood together, looking down with compassion on him.
    'What is it, Johnny?' Rokesmith was the questioner, and put an arm round the poor baby as he made a struggle.
    'Him!' said the little fellow. 'Those!'
    The doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking the horse, the ark, the yellow bird, and the man in the Guards, from Johnny's bed, softly placed them on that of his next neighbour, the mite with the broken leg.
    With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if he stretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved his body on the sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith's face with his lips, said:
    'A kiss for the boofer lady.'
    Having now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and arranged his affairs in this world, Johnny, thus speaking, left it.”

Dickens also makes both Wills similar, which sets them up as foils to each other very well. Both wills include the giving away of some material possessions – the toys in Johnny’s case and Mr. Harmon’s very substantial fortune in his own Will – and they also both involved John Harmon and Bella Wilfer. In Mr. Harmon’s will, John and Bella were tied together by a demand for their marriage. It required something of them, and in some ways, the fortune that it also contained was not freely given. Little Johnny gave into John’s keeping a kiss for Bella, the ‘boofer lady’, and tied them together in a way that made no demands on either of them. The kiss was freely given to Bella, with no conditions, and all John had to do was deliver it to her. Moreover, moving to the material aspects of the Wills themselves, Old Man Harmon’s Will did not bring in its wake simple happiness. In contrast, Johnny’s will would have brought much joy to the mite with the broken leg when he woke up, and brought no unhappiness. 

Thus, the first Will is demanding and slightly diabolical, an accurate picture of the world of adults in Dickens’ London, while the second is generous, innocent and undemanding, a similarly accurate picture of a child. 

While these two Wills are foils for each other, the way they are used in terms of the plot is interesting, and this is perhaps the most important way in which they contribute to Dickens’ views of adults and children in London. Little Johnny’s will was, through the plot, a direct result of the chain of events that Old Man Harmon’s Will set in motion. Though it may only seem to be so in terms of narrative sequence, it is an important point to note because it means that no matter how corrupt the adult world is or how pure the child’s world is, they are irrevocably connected to each other, and indeed, the latter always emerges from the former.  Death and Life are very interestingly laid out in Our Mutual friend. Death is what is there above the ground and below it, while the dark, dusty, smoky sphere that exists on the ground is the narrow belt in which life is sustained. Jenny talks about coming up to die while Harmon buries his identity, both finding death above and below themselves. Little Johnny, however, exists in the middle, in the sphere of life, and shares it with the adults who live around him. Therefore, no matter how polarized the two worlds seem, those of adults and children, both eke out an existence in the smoggy sphere of life in 19^th century industrial London.