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Bleak House

C >> Charles Dickens >> Bleak House




"He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman.

"Is he your child?"

"Mine."

The other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops
down again and kisses it as it lies asleep.

"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says
Mr. Bucket.

"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died."

"Ah, Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her. "Better so. Much
better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!"

"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket
sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?"

"God knows you are right, master," she returns. "I am not. I'd
stand between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as
any pretty lady."

"Then don't talk in that wrong manner," says Mr. Bucket, mollified
again. "Why do you do it?"

"It's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes
filling with tears, "when I look down at the child lying so. If it
was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so.
I know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers--warn't
I, Jenny?--and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this
place. Look at them," glancing at the sleepers on the ground.
"Look at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good
turn. Think of the children that your business lays with often and
often, and that YOU see grow up!"

"Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and
he'll be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you
know."

"I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have
been a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the
ague, of all the many things that'll come in his way. My master
will be against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to
fear his home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever
so much, and ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he
should be turned bad 'spite of all I could do, and the time should
come when I should sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed,
an't it likely I should think of him as he lies in my lap now and
wish he had died as Jenny's child died!"

"There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me
take him."

In doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly
readjusts it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has
been lying.

"It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she
nurses, "that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead
child that makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its
being taken away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what
fortune would I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same
thing, if we knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor
hearts!"

As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a
step is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the
doorway and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy?
Will HE do?"

"That's Jo," says Mr. Snagsby.

Jo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a
magic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the
law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however,
giving him the consolatory assurance, "It's only a job you will be
paid for, Jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr.
Bucket for a little private confabulation, tells his tale
satisfactorily, though out of breath.

"I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and
it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you."

First, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over
the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic
verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly,
Mr. Snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual
panacea for an immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket
has to take Jo by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on
before him, without which observance neither the Tough Subject nor
any other Subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's
Inn Fields. These arrangements completed, they give the women good
night and come out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's.

By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit,
they gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling,
and skulking about them until they come to the verge, where
restoration of the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd,
like a concourse of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is
seen no more. Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so
clear and fresh to Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride
until they come to Mr. Tulkinghorn's gate.

As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on
the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the
outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a
man so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to
open the door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a
note of preparation.

Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning,
and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank
his old wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned
candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light.

Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing
to Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a
little way into this room, when Jo starts and stops.

"What's the matter?" says Bucket in a whisper.

"There she is!" cries Jo.

"Who!"

"The lady!"

A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room,
where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The
front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of
their entrance and remains like a statue.

"Now, tell me," says Bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the
lady."

"I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the
gownd."

"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough," returns Bucket, narrowly
observant of him. "Look again."

"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo with starting
eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd."

"What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket.

"A-sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his
left hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from
the figure.

The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand.

"Now, what do you say to that?" asks Bucket.

Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like
that."

"What are you talking of?" says Bucket, evidently pleased though,
and well pleased too.

"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller,"
returns Jo.

"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do
you recollect the lady's voice?"

"I think I does," says Jo.

The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long
as you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like
this voice?"

Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!"

"Then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you
say it was the lady for?"

"Cos," says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all
shaken in his certainty, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet,
and the gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor
yet her rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the
bonnet, and the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore
'em, and it's her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and
hooked it."

"Well!" says Mr. Bucket slightly, "we haven't got much good out of
YOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how
you spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket
stealthily tells the coins from one hand into the other like
counters--which is a way he has, his principal use of them being in
these games of skill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into
the boy's hand and takes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby,
not by any means comfortable under these mysterious circumstances,
alone with the veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into
the room, the veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking
Frenchwoman is revealed, though her expression is something of the
intensest.

"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his
usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this
little wager."

"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at
present placed?" says mademoiselle.

"Certainly, certainly!"

"And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished
recommendation?"

"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense."

"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful."

"It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle."

"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir."

"Good night."

Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr.
Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of
the ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs,
not without gallantry.

"Well, Bucket?" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return.

"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There
an't a doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on.
The boy was exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby,
I promised you as a man that he should be sent away all right.
Don't say it wasn't done!"

"You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I
can be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little
woman will be getting anxious--"

"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am
quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already."

"Not at all, sir. I wish you good night."

"You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the
door and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what I like
in you is that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU
are. When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away,
and it's done with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what
YOU do."

"That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir," returns Mr.
Snagsby.

"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to
do," says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in
the tenderest manner, "it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in
a man in your way of business."

Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused
by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake
and out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he
goes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him.
He is presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable
reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect
beehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to
the police-station with official intelligence of her husband's
being made away with, and who within the last two hours has passed
through every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as
the little woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it!



CHAPTER XXIII

Esther's Narrative


We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were
often in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge
where we had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the
keeper's wife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church
on Sundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although
several beautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same
influence on me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether
it was painful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or
made me shrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of
fear, and I know that in her presence my thoughts always wandered
back, as they had done at first, to that old time of my life.

I had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this
lady so curiously was to me, I was to her--I mean that I disturbed
her thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way.
But when I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and
distant and unapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness.
Indeed, I felt the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be
weak and unreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself about it as
much as I could.

One incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house,
I had better mention in this place.

I was walking in the garden with Ada and when I was told that some
one wished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this
person was waiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast
off her shoes and walked through the wet grass on the day when it
thundered and lightened.

"Mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager
eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and
speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "I have taken a great
liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so
amiable, mademoiselle."

"No excuse is necessary," I returned, "if you wish to speak to me."

"That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the
permission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?" she said in a
quick, natural way.

"Certainly," said I.

"Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I
have left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so
very high. Pardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!" Her quickness
anticipated what I might have said presently but as yet had only
thought. "It is not for me to come here to complain of my Lady.
But I say she is so high, so very high. I will not say a word
more. All the world knows that."

"Go on, if you please," said I.

"Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness.
Mademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a
young lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good,
accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the
honour of being your domestic!"

"I am sorry--" I began.

"Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!" she said with an
involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "Let me hope a
moment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired
than that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this
service would be less distinguished than that which I have quitted.
Well! I wish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here.
Good. I am content."

"I assure you," said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of
having such an attendant, "that I keep no maid--"

"Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so
devoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be
so true, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I
wish with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at
present. Take me as I am. For nothing!"

She was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of
her. Without appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still
pressed herself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though
always with a certain grace and propriety.

"Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and
where we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for
me; I was too high for her. It is done--past--finlshed! Receive
me as your domestic, and I will serve you well. I will do more for
you than you figure to yourself now. Chut! Mademoiselle, I will--
no matter, I will do my utmost possible in all things. If you
accept my service, you will not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will
not repent it, and I will serve you well. You don't know how
well!"

There was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me
while I explained the impossibility of my engagmg her (without
thinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so),
which seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets
of Paris in the reign of terror.

She heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty
accent and in her mildest voice, "Hey, mademoiselle, I have
received my answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere and
seek what I have not found here. Will you graciously let me kiss
your hand?"

She looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take
note, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. "I fear I
surprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?" she said
with a parting curtsy.

I confessed that she had surprised us all.

"I took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, "and I wanted to
stamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I
will! Adieu, mademoiselle!"

So ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close.
I supposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more;
and nothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures
until six weeks were out and we returned home as I began just now
by saying.

At that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard
was constant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or
Sunday and remaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes
rode out on horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us
and rode back again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever
and told us he was very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind
about him. It appeared to me that his industry was all
misdirected. I could not find that it led to anything but the
formation of delusive hopes in connexion with the suit already the
pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. He had got at the
core of that mystery now, he told us, and nothing could be plainer
than that the will under which he and Ada were to take I don't know
how many thousands of pounds must be finally established if there
were any sense or justice in the Court of Chancery--but oh, what a
great IF that sounded in my ears--and that this happy conclusion
could not be much longer delayed. He proved this to himself by all
the weary arguments on that side he had read, and every one of them
sunk him deeper in the infatuation. He had even begun to haunt the
court. He told us how he saw Miss Flite there daily, how they
talked together, and how he did her little kindnesses, and how,
while he laughed at her, he pitied her from his heart. But he
never thought--never, my poor, dear, sanguine Richard, capable of
so much happiness then, and with such better things before him--
what a fatal link was riveting between his fresh youth and her
faded age, between his free hopes and her caged birds, and her
hungry garret, and her wandering mind.

Ada loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or
did, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east
wind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict
silence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London
to meet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to
be in waiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a
little talk together. I found him there when I arrived, and we
walked away arm in arm.

"Well, Richard," said I as soon as I could begin to be grave with
him, "are you beginning to feel more settled now?"

"Oh, yes, my dear!" returned Richard. "I'm all right enough."

"But settled?" said I.

"How do you mean, settled?" returned Richard with his gay laugh.

"Settled in the law," said I.

"Oh, aye," replied Richard, "I'm all right enough."

"You said that before, my dear Richard."

"And you don't think it's an answer, eh? Well! Perhaps it's not.
Settled? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?"

"Yes."

"Why, no, I can't say I am settling down," said Richard, strongly
emphasizing "down," as if that expressed the difficulty, "because
one can't settle down while this business remains in such an
unsettled state. When I say this business, of course I mean the--
forbidden subject."

"Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?" said I.

"Not the least doubt of it," answered Richard.

We walked a little way without speaking, and presently Richard
addressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: "My
dear Esther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more
constant sort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love
her dearly--better and better every day--but constant to myself.
(Somehow, I mean something that I can't very well express, but
you'll make it out.) If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I
should have held on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy like
grim death, and should have begun to be steady and systematic by
this time, and shouldn't be in debt, and--"

"ARE you in debt, Richard?"

"Yes," said Richard, "I am a little so, my dear. Also, I have
taken rather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the
murder's out; you despise me, Esther, don't you?"

"You know I don't," said I.

"You are kinder to me than I often am to myself," he returned. "My
dear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled,
but how CAN I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished
house, you couldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to
leave everything you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard
to apply yourself to anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I
was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and
changes, and it began to unsettle me before I quite knew the
difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has
gone on unsettling me ever since; and here I am now, conscious
sometimes that I am but a worthless fellow to love my confiding
cousin Ada."

We were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes
and sobbed as he said the words.

"Oh, Richard!" said I. "Do not be so moved. You have a noble
nature, and Ada's love may make you worthier every day."

"I know, my dear," he replied, pressing my arm, "I know all that.
You mustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all
this upon my mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to
you, and have sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage.
I know what the thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't
do it. I am too unsettled even for that. I love her most
devotedly, and yet I do her wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day
and hour. But it can't last for ever. We shall come on for a
final hearing and get judgment in our favour, and then you and Ada
shall see what I can really be!"

It had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out
between his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me
than the hopeful animation with which he said these words.

"I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in
them for months," he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a
moment, "and you may rely upon it that we shall come out
triumphant. As to years of delay, there has been no want of them,
heaven knows! And there is the greater probability of our bringing
the matter to a speedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. It
will be all right at last, and then you shall see!"

Recalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in
the same category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to
be articled in Lincoln's Inn.

"There again! I think not at all, Esther," he returned with an
effort. "I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at
Jarndyce and Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst
for the law and satisfied myself that I shouldn't like it.
Besides, I find it unsettles me more and more to be so constantly
upon the scene of action. So what," continued Richard, confident
again by this time, "do I naturally turn my thoughts to?"

"I can't imagine," said I.

"Don't look so serious," returned Richard, "because it's the best
thing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I
wanted a profession for life. These proceedings will come to a
termination, and then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a
pursuit which is in its nature more or less unsettled, and
therefore suited to my temporary condition--I may say, precisely
suited. What is it that I naturally turn my thoughts to?"

I looked at him and shook my head.

"What," said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, "but the
army!"

"The army?" said I.

"The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission;
and--there I am, you know!" said Richard.

And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his
pocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred
pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he
contracted no debt at all within a corresponding period in the
army--as to which he had quite made up his mind; this step must
involve a saving of four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand
pounds in five years, which was a considerable sum. And then he
spoke so ingenuously and sincerely of the sacrifice he made in
withdrawing himself for a time from Ada, and of the earnestness
with which he aspired--as in thought he always did, I know full
well--to repay her love, and to ensure her happiness, and to
conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire the very soul of
decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely. For, I
thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon and
so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal blight
that ruined everything it rested on!

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