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

CHAPTER LIX

Esther’s Narrative

 

It was three o’clock in the morning when the houses outside London

did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with

streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition

than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the

thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never

slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than

the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had

stopped exhausted half-way up hills, they had been driven through

streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become

entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been

always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard

any variation in his cool, “Get on, my lads!”

 

The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our

journey back I could not account for. Never wavering, he never

even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of

London. A very few words, here and there, were then enough for

him; and thus we came, at between three and four o’clock in the

morning, into Islington.

 

I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected

all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther

behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must

be right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in

following this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it

and discussing it during the whole journey. What was to ensue when

we found her and what could compensate us for this loss of time

were questions also that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was

quite tortured by long dwelling on such reflections when we

stopped.

 

We stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My

companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with

splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the

carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take

it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from

the rest.

 

“Why, my dear!” he said as he did this. “How wet you are!”

 

I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its

way into the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a

fallen horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had

penetrated my dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the

driver, who knew him, would not be dissuaded by me from running

down the street to his stable, whence he brought an armful of clean

dry straw. They shook it out and strewed it well about me, and I

found it warm and comfortable.

 

“Now, my dear,” said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window

after I was shut up. “We’re a-going to mark this person down. It

may take a little time, but you don’t mind that. You’re pretty

sure that I’ve got a motive. Ain’t you?”

 

I little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I

should understand it better, but I assured him that I had

confidence in him.

 

“So you may have, my dear,” he returned. “And I tell you what! If

you only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you

after what I’ve experienced of you, that’ll do. Lord! You’re no

trouble at all. I never see a young woman in any station of

society—and I’ve seen many elevated ones too—conduct herself like

you have conducted yourself since you was called out of your bed.

You’re a pattern, you know, that’s what you are,” said Mr. Bucket

warmly; “you’re a pattern.”

 

I told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no

hindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now.

 

“My dear,” he returned, “when a young lady is as mild as she’s

game, and as game as she’s mild, that’s all I ask, and more than I

expect. She then becomes a queen, and that’s about what you are

yourself.”

 

With these encouraging words—they really were encouraging to me

under those lonely and anxious circumstances—he got upon the box,

and we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then

nor have ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the

narrowest and worst streets in London. Whenever I saw him

directing the driver, I was prepared for our descending into a

deeper complication of such streets, and we never failed to do so.

 

Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger

building than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at

offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I

saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down

by an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light

of his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from

various dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh

consultation would be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our

search within narrower and easier limits. Single police-officers

on duty could now tell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point

to him where to go. At last we stopped for a rather long

conversation between him and one of these men, which I supposed to

be satisfactory from his manner of nodding from time to time. When

it was finished he came to me looking very busy and very attentive.

 

“Now, Miss Summerson,” he said to me, “you won’t be alarmed whatever

comes off, I know. It’s not necessary for me to give you any

further caution than to tell you that we have marked this person

down and that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I

don’t like to ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a

little way?”

 

Of course I got out directly and took his arm.

 

“It ain’t so easy to keep your feet,” said Mr. Bucket, “but take

time.”

 

Although I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed

the street, I thought I knew the place. “Are we in Holborn?” I

asked him.

 

“Yes,” said Mr. Bucket. “Do you know this turning?”

 

“It looks like Chancery Lane.”

 

“And was christened so, my dear,” said Mr. Bucket.

 

We turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I

heard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence

and as quickly as we could with such a foot-hold, when some one

coming towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak,

stopped and stood aside to give me room. In the same moment I

heard an exclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt.

I knew his voice very well.

 

It was so unexpected and so—I don’t know what to call it, whether

pleasant or painful—to come upon it after my feverish wandering

journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back

the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange

country.

 

“My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and

in such weather!”

 

He had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some

uncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I

told him that we had but just left a coach and were going—but then

I was obliged to look at my companion.

 

“Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt”—he had caught the name from me—“we

are a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket.”

 

Mr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken

off his cloak and was putting it about me. “That’s a good move,

too,” said Mr. Bucket, assisting, “a very good move.”

 

“May I go with you?” said Mr. Woodcourt. I don’t know whether to

me or to my companion.

 

“Why, Lord!” exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself.

“Of course you may.”

 

It was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped

in the cloak.

 

“I have just left Richard,” said Mr. Woodcourt. “I have been

sitting with him since ten o’clock last night.”

 

“Oh, dear me, he is ill!”

 

“No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed

and faint—you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes—and

Ada sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and

came straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little

while, and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing,

though God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained

with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep

as she is now, I hope!”

 

His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected

devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had

inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I

separate all this from his promise to me? How thankless I must

have been if it had not recalled the words he said to me when he

was so moved by the change in my appearance: “I will accept him as

a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!”

 

We now turned into another narrow street. “Mr. Woodcourt,” said

Mr. Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, “our

business takes us to a lawstationer’s here, a certain Mr.

Snagsby’s. What, you know him, do you?” He was so quick that he

saw it in an instant.

 

“Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this

place.”

 

“Indeed, sir?” said Mr. Bucket. “Then you will be so good as to

let me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and

have half a word with him?”

 

The last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing

silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my

saying I heard some one crying.

 

“Don’t be alarmed, miss,” he returned. “It’s Snagsby’s servant.”

 

“Why, you see,” said Mr. Bucket, “the girl’s subject to fits, and

has ‘em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is,

for I want certain information out of that girl, and she must be

brought to reason somehow.”

 

“At all events, they wouldn’t be up yet if it wasn’t for her, Mr.

Bucket,” said the other man. “She’s been at it pretty well all

night, sir.”

 

“Well, that’s true,” he returned. “My light’s burnt out. Show

yours a moment.”

 

All this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which

I could faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of

light produced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and

knocked. The door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he

went in, leaving us standing in the street.

 

“Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Woodcourt, “if without obtruding myself

on your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me