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

make up

my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has

done so much to raise himself while I’ve been soldiering that I

haven’t brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and

under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have

any pleasure in such a discovery? It’s impossible. No, keep my

secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve

and keep my secret from my brother, of all men.”

 

“But not always, dear George?”

 

“Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all—though I may come to

ask that too—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it’s ever

broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could

wish,” says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, “to

break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by

the way in which he seems to take it.”

 

As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the

depth of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet’s face, his mother yields

her implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her

kindly.

 

“In all other respects, my dear mother, I’ll be as tractable and

obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I

am ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up,” he glances

at his writing on the table, “an exact account of what I knew of

the deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate

affair. It’s entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not

a word in it but what’s wanted for the facts. I did intend to read

it, straight on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything

in my defence. I hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no

longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done,

I give my promise not to have any.”

 

Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time

being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and

again the old lady hangs upon her son’s neck, and again and again

the trooper holds her to his broad chest.

 

“Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?”

 

“I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have

some business there that must be looked to directly,” Mrs.

Rouncewell answers.

 

“Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of

course I know you will. Why should I ask it!”

 

Why indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella.

 

“Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you.

Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of

the hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten

thousand pound in gold, my dear!” So saying, the trooper puts his

lips to the old girl’s tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him

in his cell.

 

No entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce

Mrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home.

Jumping out cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and

handing Mrs. Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and

trudges off, arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet

family and falling to washing the greens as if nothing had

happened.

 

My Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with

the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is

looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so

leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs.

Rouncewell. What has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so

unexpectedly?

 

“Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word

with you?”

 

What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman

tremble so? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often

thought, why does she falter in this manner and look at her with

such strange mistrust?

 

“What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath.”

 

“Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son—my youngest, who went

away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison.”

 

“For debt?”

 

“Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful.”

 

“For what is he in prison then?”

 

“Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as—as

I am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn.”

 

What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why

does she come so close? What is the letter that she holds?

 

“Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must

have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me.

I was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it.

But think of my dear son wrongfully accused.”

 

“I do not accuse him.”

 

“No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in

danger. Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to

clear him, say it!”

 

What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the

person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be

unjust? Her Lady’s handsome eyes regard her with astonishment,

almost with fear.

 

“My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son

in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost’s Walk was so constant

and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years.

Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed

through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it

fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter.”

 

“What letter is it?”

 

“Hush! Hush!” The housekeeper looks round and answers in a

frightened whisper, “My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I

don’t believe what’s written in it, I know it can’t be true, I am

sure and certain that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and

you must have a heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is

not known to others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any

clue at all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh,

my dear Lady, think of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be

known! This is the most I consider possible. I know you are not a

hard lady, but you go your own way always without help, and you are

not familiar with your friends; and all who admire you—and all do

—as a beautiful and elegant lady, know you to be one far away from

themselves who can’t be approached close. My Lady, you may have

some proud or angry reasons for disdaining to utter something that

you know; if so, pray, oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose

whole life has been passed in this family which she dearly loves,

and relent, and help to clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady,” the

old housekeeper pleads with genuine simplicity, “I am so humble in

my place and you are by nature so high and distant that you may not

think what I feel for my child, but I feel so much that I have come

here to make so bold as to beg and pray you not to be scornful of

us if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time!”

 

Lady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the

letter from her hand.

 

“Am I to read this?”

 

“When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the

most that I consider possible.”

 

“I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can

affect your son. I have never accused him.”

 

“My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after

reading the letter.”

 

The old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In

truth she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when

the sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong

earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long

accustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long

schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which

shuts up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and

spreads one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the

feeling and the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had

subdued even her wonder until now.

 

She opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed

account of the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the

floor, shot through the heart; and underneath is written her own

name, with the word “murderess” attached.

 

It falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the

ground she knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant

stands before her announcing the young man of the name of Guppy.

The words have probably been repeated several times, for they are

ringing in her head before she begins to understand them.

 

“Let him come in!”

 

He comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken

from the floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of

Mr. Guppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared,

proud, chilling state.

 

“Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit

from one who has never been welcome to your ladyship”—which he

don’t complain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has

been any particular reason on the face of things why he should be—

“but I hope when I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not

find fault with me,” says Mr. Guppy.

 

“Do so.”

 

“Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship,”

Mr. Guppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the

carpet at his feet, “that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I

formerly mentioned to your ladyship, was at one period of my life

imprinted on my ‘eart until erased by circumstances over which I

had no control, communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of

waiting on your ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to

take no steps whatever in any manner at all relating to her. And

Miss Summerson’s wishes being to me a law (except as connected with

circumstances over which I have no control), I consequently never

expected to have the distinguished honour of waiting on your

ladyship again.”

 

And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him.

 

“And yet I am here now,” Mr. Guppy admits. “My object being to

communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I

am here.”

 

He cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. “Nor

can I,” Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, “too

particularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that

it’s no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no

interested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not

for my promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred—I, in

point