Bleak House, Charles Dickens [the beginning after the end novel read .txt] 📗

I know, of

tears downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of

chivalry, breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on

paper before, that if you don’t go and occupy his whole house, he

having already turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by

heaven and by earth he’ll pull it down and not leave one brick

standing on another!”

 

And my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary

beginning such as “My dear Jarndyce,” but rushing at once into the

words, “I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take

possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one

o’clock, P.M.,” and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the

most emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration

he had quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for

laughing heartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a

letter of thanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most

agreeable one to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I

should have liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold.

 

“Now, little housewife,” said my guardian, looking at his watch, “I

was strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be

tired too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I

have one other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that

you were ill, made nothing of walking down here—twenty miles, poor

soul, in a pair of dancing shoes—to inquire. It was heaven’s

mercy we were at home, or she would have walked back again.”

 

The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it!

 

“Now, pet,” said my guardian, “if it would not be irksome to you to

admit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save

Boythorn’s otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you

would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I—

though my eminent name is Jarndyce—could do in a lifetime.”

 

I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple

image of the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle

lesson on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I

could not tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her.

I had always pitied her, never so much as now. I had always been

glad of my little power to soothe her under her calamity, but

never, never, half so glad before.

 

We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and

share my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face

away upon my couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by

such blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had

to undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had

aspired to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do

good to some one and win some love to myself if I could came back

into my mind with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had

since enjoyed and all the affectionate hearts that had been turned

towards me. If I were weak now, what had I profited by those

mercies? I repeated the old childish prayer in its old childish

words and found that its old peace had not departed from it.

 

My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk

about our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the

window-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the

courage to look at the dear face, though I could have done so

easily without her seeing me.

 

On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature

ran into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying

from her very heart of hearts, “My dear Fitz Jarndyce!” fell upon

my neck and kissed me twenty times.

 

“Dear me!” said she, putting her hand into her reticule, “I have

nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a

pocket handkerchief.”

 

Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of

it, for she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so,

shedding tears for the next ten minutes.

 

“With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce,” she was careful to explain.

“Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at

having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much

fonder of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend

court regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket

handkerchiefs—”

 

Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the

place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked

unwilling to pursue the suggestion.

 

“Ve-ry right!” said Miss Flite, “Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly

indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I

am afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn’t think it)

a little—rambling you know,” said Miss Flite, touching her

forehead. “Nothing more.”

 

“What were you going to tell me?” said I, smiling, for I saw she

wanted to go on. “You have roused my curiosity, and now you must

gratify it.”

 

Miss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis,

who said, “If you please, ma’am, you had better tell then,” and

therein gratified Miss Flite beyond measure.

 

“So sagacious, our young friend,” said she to me in her mysterious

way. “Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it’s a

pretty anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who

should follow us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor

person in a very ungenteel bonnet—”

 

“Jenny, if you please, miss,” said Charley.

 

“Just so!” Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity.

“Jenny. Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that

there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my

dear Fitz Jarndyce’s health and taking a handkerchief away with her

as a little keepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz

Jarndyce’s! Now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with

the veil!”

 

“If you please, miss,” said Charley, to whom I looked in some

astonishment, “Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a

handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the

baby’s little things. I think, if you please, partly because it

was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby.”

 

“Diminutive,” whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions

about her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. “But exceedingly sagacious! And so dear! My love, she’s clearer than any

counsel I ever heard!”

 

“Yes, Charley,” I returned. “I remember it. Well?”

 

“Well, miss,” said Charley, “and that’s the handkerchief the lady

took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn’t have made away

with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and

left some money instead. Jenny don’t know her at all, if you

please, miss!”

 

“Why, who can she be?” said I.

 

“My love,” Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with

her most mysterious look, “in MY opinion—don’t mention this to our

diminutive friend—she’s the Lord Chancellor’s wife. He’s married,

you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws

his lordship’s papers into the fire, my dear, if he won’t pay the

jeweller!”

 

I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an

impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was

diverted by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked

hungry and who, our dinner being brought in, required some little

assistance in arraying herself with great satisfaction in a

pitiable old scarf and a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves,

which she had brought down in a paper parcel. I had to preside,

too, over the entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast

fowl, a sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so

pleasant to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and

ceremony she did honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing

else.

 

When we had finished and had our little dessert before us,

embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the

superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite

was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her

own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I

began by saying “You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many

years, Miss Flite?”

 

“Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment.

Shortly.”

 

There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful

if I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would

say no more about it.

 

“My father expected a judgment,” said Miss Flite. “My brother. My

sister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect.”

 

“They are all—”

 

“Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear,” said she.

 

As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be

serviceable to her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it.

 

“Would it not be wiser,” said I, “to expect this judgment no more?”

 

“Why, my dear,” she answered promptly, “of course it would!”

 

“And to attend the court no more?”

 

“Equally of course,” said she. “Very wearing to be always in

expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I

assure you, to the bone!”

 

She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed.

 

“But, my dear,” she went on in her mysterious way, “there’s a

dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don’t mention it to our

diminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With

good reason. There’s a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN’T

leave it. And you MUST expect.”

 

I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently

and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer.

 

“Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing,

too. To the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there

many years, and I have noticed. It’s the mace and seal upon the

table.”

 

What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her.

 

“Draw,” returned Miss Flite. “Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace

out of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good

qualities out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away

in the night. Cold and glittering devils!”

 

She tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly

as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to

fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful

secrets to me.

 

“Let me see,” said she. “I’ll tell you my own case. Before they

ever drew me—before I had ever seen them—what was it I used to

do? Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister

worked at tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder’s

business. We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear!

First, our father was drawn—slowly. Home was drawn with him. In

a few years he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind