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

thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind

of any word he said that his words really had come to sound as if

there were something in them. But now he can only whisper, and

what he whispers sounds like what it is—mere jumble and jargon.

 

His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It

is the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from

it. After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he

makes signs for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at

first understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what

he wants and brings in a slate.

 

After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand

that is not his, “Chesney Wold?”

 

No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the

library this morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to

come to London and is able to attend upon him.

 

“It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester.

You will be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the

gentlemen say so.” This, with the tears coursing down her fair old

face.

 

After making a survey of the room and looking with particular

attention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, “My

Lady.”

 

“My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and

don’t know of your illness yet.”

 

He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all

try to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On

their looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the

slate once more and writes “My Lady. For God’s sake, where?” And

makes an imploring moan.

 

It is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady

Dedlock’s letter, the contents of which no one knows or can

surmise. She opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal.

Having read it twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it

shall not be seen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of

relapse or into a swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his

eyes, reclining on his faithful and attached old servant’s arm.

The doctors know that he is best with her, and when not actively

engaged about him, stand aloof.

 

The slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to

write he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and

affliction at this pass are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he

must go mad in the necessity he feels for haste and the inability

under which he labours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom.

He has written the letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in

the height of his misery, he puts Mr. before it. The old

housekeeper suggests Bucket. Thank heaven! That’s his meaning.

 

Mr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he

come up?

 

There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester’s burning

wish to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared

of every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr.

Bucket appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen

from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this

man.

 

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I’m sorry to see you like this. I

hope you’ll cheer up. I’m sure you will, on account of the family

credit.”

 

Sir Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his

face while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket’s

eye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is

still glancing over the words, he indicates, “Sir Leicester

Dedlock, Baronet, I understand you.”

 

Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. “Full forgiveness. Find—”

Mr. Bucket stops his hand.

 

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I’ll find her. But my search

after her must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost.”

 

With the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock’s

look towards a little box upon a table.

 

“Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open

it with one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO

be sure. Take the notes out? So I will. Count ‘em? That’s soon

done. Twenty and thirty’s fifty, and twenty’s seventy, and fifty’s

one twenty, and forty’s one sixty. Take ‘em for expenses? That

I’ll do, and render an account of course. Don’t spare money? No I

won’t.”

 

The velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket’s interpretation on all

these heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who

holds the light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands

as he starts up, furnished for his journey.

 

“You’re George’s mother, old lady; that’s about what you are, I

believe?” says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and

buttoning his coat.

 

“Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother.”

 

“So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now.

Well, then, I’ll tell you something. You needn’t be distressed no

more. Your son’s all right. Now, don’t you begin a-crying,

because what you’ve got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester

Dedlock, Baronet, and you won’t do that by crying. As to your son,

he’s all right, I tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and

hoping you’re the same. He’s discharged honourable; that’s about

what HE is; with no more imputation on his character than there is

on yours, and yours is a tidy one, I’LL bet a pound. You may trust

me, for I took your son. He conducted himself in a game way, too,

on that occasion; and he’s a fine-made man, and you’re a fine-made

old lady, and you’re a mother and son, the pair of you, as might be

showed for models in a caravan. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,

what you’ve trusted to me I’ll go through with. Don’t you be

afraid of my turning out of my way, right or left, or taking a

sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found what I go in search

of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on your part? Sir

Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you better, and

these family affairs smoothed over—as, Lord, many other family

affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of time.”

 

With this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out,

looking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the

night in quest of the fugitive.

 

His first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock’s rooms and look

all over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The

rooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light

in his hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental

inventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance

with himself, would be to see a sight—which nobody DOES see, as he

is particular to lock himself in.

 

“A spicy boudoir, this,” says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner

furbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. “Must have

cost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she

must have been hard put to it!”

 

Opening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and

jewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors,

and moralizes thereon.

 

“One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and

getting myself up for almac’s,” says Mr. Bucket. “I begin to think

I must be a swell in the Guards without knowing it.”

 

Ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner

drawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can

scarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a

white handkerchief.

 

“Hum! Let’s have a look at YOU,” says Mr. Bucket, putting down the

light. “What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What’s YOUR

motive? Are you her ladyship’s property, or somebody else’s?

You’ve got a mark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?”

 

He finds it as he speaks, “Esther Summerson.”

 

“Oh!” says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. “Come,

I’ll take YOU.”

 

He completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has

carried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it,

glides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the

street. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir

Leicester’s room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest coach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be driven

to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a

scientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the

principal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge

of the subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go,

he knows him.

 

His knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering

over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his

keen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the

midnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where

people are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he

rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the

snow lies thin—for something may present itself to assist him,

anywhere—he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he

stops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam.

 

“Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I’ll be back.”

 

He runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his

pipe.

 

“I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my

lad. I haven’t a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a

woman. Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died—that was

the name, I know—all right—where does she live?”

 

The trooper has just come from there and gives him the address,

near Oxford Street.

 

“You won’t repent it, George. Good night!”

 

He is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by

the frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away

again, and gets out in a cloud of steam again.

 

Mr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to

bed, rises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell,

and comes down to the door in his dressing-gown.

 

“Don’t be alarmed, sir.” In a moment his visitor is confidential

with him in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand

upon the lock. “I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you before.

Inspector Bucket. Look at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther

Summerson’s. Found it myself put away in a drawer of Lady

Dedlock’s, quarter of an hour ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter

of life or death. You know Lady Dedlock?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come

out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit—apoplexy or

paralysis—and couldn’t be brought to, and precious time has been

lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter

for him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!”

 

Mr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks.

 

“I don’t know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there’s more and

more danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I’d give