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

CHAPTER LVII

Esther’s Narrative

 

I had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the

door of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying

to speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a

word or two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir

Leicester Dedlock’s. That my mother had fled, that a person was

now at our door who was empowered to convey to her the fullest

assurances of affectionate protection and forgiveness if he could

possibly find her, and that I was sought for to accompany him in

the hope that my entreaties might prevail upon her if his failed.

Something to this general purpose I made out, but I was thrown into

such a tumult of alarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of

every effort I could make to subdue my agitation, I did not seem,

to myself, fully to recover my right mind until hours had passed.

 

But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley

or any one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person

entrusted with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me

this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of

me. Mr. Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian’s

candle, read to me in the hall a letter that my mother had left

upon her table; and I suppose within ten minutes of my having been

aroused I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the

streets.

 

His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to

me that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer,

without confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These

were, chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother

(to whom he only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had

spoken with her last, and how she had become possessed of my

handkerchief. When I had satisfied him on these points, he asked

me particularly to consider—taking time to think—whether within

my knowledge there was any one, no matter where, in whom she might

be at all likely to confide under circumstances of the last

necessity. I could think of no one but my guardian. But by and by

I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He came into my mind as connected with

his old chivalrous manner of mentioning my mother’s name and with

what my guardian had informed me of his engagement to her sister

and his unconscious connexion with her unhappy story.

 

My companion had stopped the driver while we held this

conversation, that we might the better hear each other. He now

told him to go on again and said to me, after considering within

himself for a few moments, that he had made up his mind how to

proceed. He was quite willing to tell me what his plan was, but I

did not feel clear enough to understand it.

 

We had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a

by-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr.

Bucket took me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. It

was now past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two

police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all

like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk;

and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating

and calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid

any attention.

 

A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he

whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others

advised together while one wrote from Mr. Bucket’s subdued

dictation. It was a description of my mother that they were busy

with, for Mr. Bucket brought it to me when it was done and read it

in a whisper. It was very accurate indeed.

 

The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it

out and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an

outer room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was

done with the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment;

yet nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out

upon its travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work

of writing with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came

and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at

the fire.

 

“Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?” he asked me as his eyes

met mine. “It’s a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out

in.”

 

I told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed.

 

“It may be a long job,” he observed; “but so that it ends well,

never mind, miss.”

 

“I pray to heaven it may end well!” said I.

 

He nodded comfortingly. “You see, whatever you do, don’t you go

and fret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything

that may happen, and it’ll be the better for you, the better for

me, the better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester

Dedlock, Baronet.”

 

He was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire

warming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt

a confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a

quarter to two when I heard horses’ feet and wheels outside. “Now,

Miss Summerson,” said he, “we are off, if you please!”

 

He gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out,

and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and

post horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the

box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage

then handed him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had

given a few directions to the driver, we rattled away.

 

I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with

great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost

all idea where we were, except that we had crossed and recrossed

the river, and still seemed to be traversing a lowlying,

waterside, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by

docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and

masts of ships. At length we stopped at the corner of a little

slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did

not purify; and I saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in

conference with several men who looked like a mixture of police and

sailors. Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there

was a bill, on which I could discern the words, “Found Drowned”;

and this and an inscription about drags possessed me with the awful

suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place.

 

I had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the

indulgence of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of

the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I

remained quiet, but what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never

can forget. And still it was like the horror of a dream. A man

yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like

them, was called out of a boat and whispered