Bleak House - Charles Dickens (read this if txt) 📗

CHAPTER XLVIII

Closing in

 

The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the

house in town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past

doze in their picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the

long drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In

town the Dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed

carriages through the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock

Mercuries, with ashes (or hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic

of their great humility, loll away the drowsy mornings in the

little windows of the hall. The fashionable world—tremendous orb,

nearly five miles round—is in full swing, and the solar system

works respectfully at its appointed distances.

 

Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where

all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and

refinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has

scaled and taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of

old reposed in herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would

under her mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no

assurance that what she is to those around her she will remain

another day, it is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking

on to yield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown

more handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of

her that she’s beauty nough—tsetup shopofwomen—but rather

larming kind—remindingmanfact—inconvenient woman—who WILL

getoutofbedandbawthstahlishment—Shakespeare.

 

Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore,

he is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat

loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage

from the peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the

last who might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of

all women she is still the last who might be supposed to have any

dread of him.

 

One thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in

his turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared

to throw it off.

 

It is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little

sun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are

reposing in the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous

creatures, like overblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to

run to a deal of seed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester,

in the library, has fallen asleep for the good of the country over

the report of a Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room

in which she gave audience to the young man of the name of Guppy.

Rosa is with her and has been writing for her and reading to her.

Rosa is now at work upon embroidery or some such pretty thing, and

as she bends her head over it, my Lady watches her in silence. Not

for the first time to-day.

 

“Rosa.”

 

The pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how

serious my Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised.

 

“See to the door. Is it shut?”

 

Yes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised.

 

“I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may

trust your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to

do, I will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in

you. Say nothing to any one of what passes between us.”

 

The timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be

trustworthy.

 

“Do you know,” Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her

chair nearer, “do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from

what I am to any one?”

 

“Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as

you really are.”

 

“You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor

child!”

 

She says it with a kind of scorn—though not of Rosa—and sits

brooding, looking dreamily at her.

 

“Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you

suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful

to me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?”

 

“I don’t know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my

heart, I wish it was so.”

 

“It is so, little one.”

 

The pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark

expression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an

explanation.

 

“And if I were to say to-day, ‘Go! Leave me!’ I should say what

would give me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave

me very solitary.”

 

“My Lady! Have I offended you?”

 

“In nothing. Come here.”

 

Rosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady’s feet. My Lady, with

that motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand

upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there.

 

“I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would

make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot.

There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no

part, rendering it far better for you that you should not remain

here. You must not remain here. I have determined that you shall

not. I have written to the father of your lover, and he will be

here to-day. All this I have done for your sake.”

 

The weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall

she do, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress

kisses her on the cheek and makes no other answer.

 

“Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and

happy!”

 

“Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought—forgive my being so free—

that YOU are not happy.”

 

“I!”

 

“Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think

again. Let me stay a little while!”

 

“I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my

own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now—

not what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep

my confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between

us!”

 

She detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves

the room. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the

staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As

indifferent as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn

out in the earlier ages of the world and had perished from its

surface with its other departed monsters.

 

Mercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her

appearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs

to the library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to

him first.

 

“Sir Leicester, I am desirous—but you are engaged.”

 

Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn.

 

Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from

him for a moment.

 

“I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?”

 

With a look that plainly says, “You know you have the power to

remain if you will,” she tells him it is not necessary and moves

towards a chair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for

her with his clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite.

Interposed between her and the fading light of day in the now quiet

street, his shadow falls upon her, and he darkens all before her.

Even so does he darken her life.

 

It is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long

rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that half-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared into

stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a

street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to

liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their

own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry

and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the

stone chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work

entwines itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and

from these petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux

gasp at the upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop,

through which bold boys aspire to throw their friends’ caps (its

only present use), retains its place among the rusty foliage,

sacred to the memory of departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet

lingering at long intervals in a little absurd glass pot, with a

knob in the bottom like an oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights

every night, like its high and dry master in the House of Lords.

 

Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair,

could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn

stands. And yet—and yet—she sends a look in that direction as if

it were her heart’s desire to have that figure moved out of the

way.

 

Sir Leicester begs his Lady’s pardon. She was about to say?

 

“Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment)

and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I

am tired to death of the matter.”

 

“What can I do—to—assist?” demands Sir Leicester in some

considerable doubt.

 

“Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to

send him up?”

 

“Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request,”

says Sir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the

business term, “request the iron gentleman to walk this way.”

 

Mercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and

produces him. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person

graciously.

 

“I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor,

Mr. Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell,” Sir

Leicester skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand,

“was desirous to speak with you. Hem!”