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

case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir,” said Mr. Vholes,

coming after us, “you’ll find him in court. I left him there

resting himself a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss

Summerson.” As he gave me that slowly devouring look of his, while

twisting up the strings of his bag before he hastened with it after

Mr. Kenge, the benignant shadow of whose conversational presence he

seemed afraid to leave, he gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the

last morsel of his client, and his black buttoned-up unwholesome

figure glided away to the low door at the end of the Hall.

 

“My dear love,” said Allan, “leave to me, for a little while, the

charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to

Ada’s by and by!”

 

I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to

Richard without a moment’s delay and leave me to do as he wished.

Hurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what

news I had returned. “Little woman,” said he, quite unmoved for

himself, “to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater

blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!”

 

We talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was

possible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to

Symond’s Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my

darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and

threw her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and

said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found

him sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone

figure. On being roused, he had broken away and made as if he

would have spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped

by his mouth being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home.

 

He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There

were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as

possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan

stood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to

be quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his

seeing me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was.

But he looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day.

 

I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he

said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, “Dame Durden, kiss

me, my dear!”

 

It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low

state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in

our intended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My

husband had been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us

both and wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost

felt as if my own heart would have broken when I saw him take my

husband’s hand and hold it to his breast.

 

We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several

times that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand

upon his feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said.

“Yes, surely, dearest Richard!” But as my darling answered him

thus hopefully, so serene and beautiful, with the help that was to

come to her so near—I knew—I knew!

 

It was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent,

we were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of

working for my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my

being busy. Ada leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her

arm. He dozed often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him,

said first of all, “Where is Woodcourt?”

 

Evening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian

standing in the little hall. “Who is that, Dame Durden?” Richard

asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face

that some one was there.

 

I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded “Yes,” bent over

Richard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by

me in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard’s. “Oh, sir,” said

Richard, “you are a good man, you are a good man!” and burst into

tears for the first time.

 

My guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place,

keeping his hand on Richard’s.

 

“My dear Rick,” said he, “the clouds have cleared away, and it is

bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or

less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?”

 

“I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to

begin the world.”

 

“Aye, truly; well said!” cried my guardian.

 

“I will not begin it in the old way now,” said Richard with a sad

smile. “I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but

you shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it.”

 

“Well, well,” said my guardian, comforting him; “well, well, well,

dear boy!”

 

“I was thinking, sir,” resumed Richard, “that there is nothing on

earth I should so much like to see as their house—Dame Durden’s

and Woodcourt’s house. If I could be removed there when I begin to

recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner

than anywhere.”

 

“Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick,” said my guardian, “and

our little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this

very day. I dare say her husband won’t object. What do you

think?”

 

Richard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood

behind the head of the couch.

 

“I say nothing of Ada,” said Richard, “but I think of her, and have

thought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending

over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself,

my dear love, my poor girl!”

 

He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually

released her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and

moved her lips.

 

“When I get down to Bleak House,” said Richard, “I shall have much

to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go,

won’t you?”

 

“Undoubtedly, dear Rick.”

 

“Thank you; like you, like you,” said Richard. “But it’s all like

you. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you

remembered all Esther’s familiar tastes and ways. It will be like

coming to the old Bleak House again.”

 

“And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man

now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity

to come to me, my love!” he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his

hand over her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I

think he vowed within himself to cherish her if she were left

alone.)

 

“It was a troubled dream?” said Richard, clasping both my

guardian’s hands eagerly.

 

“Nothing more, Rick; nothing more.”

 

“And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and

pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?”

 

“Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?”

 

“I will begin the world!” said Richard with a light in his eyes.

 

My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly

lift up his hand to warn my guardian.

 

“When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the

old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has

been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and

blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my

unborn child?” said Richard. “When shall I go?”

 

“Dear Rick, when you are strong enough,” returned my guardian.

 

“Ada, my darling!”

 

He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she

could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted.

 

“I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor

stray shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and

trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds. You will

forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?”

 

A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly

laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her

neck, and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world,

oh, not this! The world that sets this right.

 

When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came

weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty.