Bleak House
only wish I wos, myself. I don’t know why I don’t go and make a hole
in the water, I’m sure I don’t.”
He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so
real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a
growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in
neglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him.
He says to the woman, “Miserable creature, what has he done?”
To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure
more amazedly than angrily, “Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at
last!”
“What has he done?” says Allan. “Has he robbed you?”
“No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by
me, and that’s the wonder of it.”
Allan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting
for one of them to unravel the riddle.
“But he was along with me, sir,” says the woman. “Oh, you Jo! He was
along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord
bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn’t,
and took him home—”
Allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror.
“Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a
thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or
heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady
that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful
looks, and wouldn’t hardly be known for the same young lady now if it
wasn’t for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet
voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this
is all along of you and of her goodness to you?” demands the woman,
beginning to rage at him as she recalls it and breaking into
passionate tears.
The boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing
his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground,
and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against
which he leans rattles.
Allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but
effectually.
“Richard told me—” He falters. “I mean, I have heard of this—don’t
mind me for a moment, I will speak presently.”
He turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered
passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except
that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very
remarkable that it absorbs the woman’s attention.
“You hear what she says. But get up, get up!”
Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the manner
of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting
one of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing his right
hand over his left and his left foot over his right.
“You hear what she says, and I know it’s true. Have you been here
ever since?”
“Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone’s till this blessed morning,”
replies Jo hoarsely.
“Why have you come here now?”
Jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no
higher than the knees, and finally answers, “I don’t know how to do
nothink, and I can’t get nothink to do. I’m wery poor and ill, and I
thought I’d come back here when there warn’t nobody about, and lay
down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go
and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me
somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on
me—like everybody everywheres.”
“Where have you come from?”
Jo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner’s knees
again, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in a
sort of resignation.
“Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?”
“Tramp then,” says Jo.
“Now tell me,” proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome his
repugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with an
expression of confidence, “tell me how it came about that you left
that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to
pity you and take you home.”
Jo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares,
addressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, that
he never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he
would sooner have hurt his own self, that he’d sooner have had his
unfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and that she wos
wery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself throughout as if in his
poor fashion he really meant it, and winding up with some very
miserable sobs.
Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains himself
to touch him. “Come, Jo. Tell me.”
“No. I dustn’t,” says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. “I
dustn’t, or I would.”
“But I must know,” returns the other, “all the same. Come, Jo.”
After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again,
looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, “Well, I’ll
tell you something. I was took away. There!”
“Took away? In the night?”
“Ah!” Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and
even glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and through
the cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be looking
over or hidden on the other side.
“Who took you away?”
“I dustn’t name him,” says Jo. “I dustn’t do it, sir.
“But I want, in the young lady’s name, to know. You may trust me. No
one else shall hear.”
“Ah, but I don’t know,” replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, “as
he DON’T hear.”
“Why, he is not in this place.”
“Oh, ain’t he though?” says Jo. “He’s in all manner of places, all at
wanst.”
Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and
good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently
awaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than
by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear.
“Aye!” says Allan. “Why, what had you been doing?”
“Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble,
’sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I’m a-moving on now. I’m
a-moving on to the berryin ground—that’s the move as I’m up to.”
“No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?”
“Put me in a horsepittle,” replied Jo, whispering, “till I was
discharged, then giv me a little money—four half-bulls, wot you may
call half-crowns—and ses ‘Hook it! Nobody wants you here,’ he ses.
‘You hook it. You go and tramp,’ he ses. ‘You move on,’ he ses.
‘Don’t let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or
you’ll repent it.’ So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he’ll see
me if I’m above ground,” concludes Jo, nervously repeating all his
former precautions and investigations.
Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but
keeping an encouraging eye on Jo, “He is not so ungrateful as you
supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an
insufficient one.”
“Thankee, sir, thankee!” exclaims Jo. “There now! See how hard you
wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and
it’s all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it.”
“Now, Jo,” says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, “come with me and I
will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I
take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you
will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise.”
“I won’t, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir.”
“Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this
time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come
along. Good day again, my good woman.”
“Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again.”
She has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and
takes it up. Jo, repeating, “Ony you tell the young lady as I never
went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!” nods and shambles and
shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a
farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan
Woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. In
this order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone’s into the broad
rays of the sunlight and the purer air.
CHAPTER XLVII
Jo’s Will
As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high
church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning
light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in
his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. “It surely is a
strange fact,” he considers, “that in the heart of a civilized world
this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of
than an unowned dog.” But it is none the less a fact because of its
strangeness, and the difficulty remains.
At first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still
really following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close
to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick
to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along,
glancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing
in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, considering
with a less divided attention what he shall do.
A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be
done. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and
comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his
right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading
dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo
is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw
the bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions
as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal.
But he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him.
“I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir,” says Jo, soon putting down
his food, “but I don’t know nothink—not even that. I don’t care for
eating wittles nor yet for drinking on ’em.” And Jo stands shivering
and looking at the breakfast wonderingly.
Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. “Draw
breath, Jo!” “It draws,” says Jo, “as heavy as a cart.” He might add,
“And rattles like it,” but he only mutters, “I’m a-moving on, sir.”
Allan looks about for an apothecary’s shop. There is none at hand,
but a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of
wine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to
revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. “We may repeat that
dose, Jo,” observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face.
“So! Now we will take five minutes’ rest, and then go on again.”
Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his
back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in
the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without
appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that
he is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his
face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice
of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of
improvement, Allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no
small wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its
consequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. When he has
finished his story and his bread, they go on again.
Intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of
refuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite,
Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered.
But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer
lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much
obscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other