Bleak House
elevation of his one eyebrow, “Hold up, my boy! Hold up!” There, too,
is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both
thinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast
in the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a
frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and,
from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down
temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in
answer to his cheerful words.
Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly
arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a
while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards
him—just as he sat in the law-writer’s room—and touches his chest
and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little
more.
The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped
in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr.
Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and
attention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper,
signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next
used, there will be a speck of rust upon it.
“Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don’t be frightened.”
“I thought,” says Jo, who has started and is looking round, “I
thought I was in Tom-all-Alone’s agin. Ain’t there nobody here but
you, Mr. Woodcot?”
“Nobody.”
“And I ain’t took back to Tom-all-Alone’s. Am I, sir?”
“No.” Jo closes his eyes, muttering, “I’m wery thankful.”
After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very
near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, “Jo! Did you
ever know a prayer?”
“Never knowd nothink, sir.”
“Not so much as one short prayer?”
“No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr.
Sangsby’s and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin’ to
hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn’t make out
nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down
Tom-all-Alone’s a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t’other
’wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to
theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t’others, and not a-talkin to
us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about.”
It takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and
attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a
short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong
effort to get out of bed.
“Stay, Jo! What now?”
“It’s time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir,” he
returns with a wild look.
“Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?”
“Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed,
he wos. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground,
sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be
berried. He used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,’
he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have
come there to be laid along with him.”
“By and by, Jo. By and by.”
“Ah! P’raps they wouldn’t do it if I wos to go myself. But will you
promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?”
“I will, indeed.”
“Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They’ll have to get the key of the gate
afore they can take me in, for it’s allus locked. And there’s a step
there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It’s turned wery dark,
sir. Is there any light a-comin?”
“It is coming fast, Jo.”
Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very
near its end.
“Jo, my poor fellow!”
“I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I’m a-gropin—a-gropin—let me
catch hold of your hand.”
“Jo, can you say what I say?”
“I’ll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it’s good.”
“Our Father.”
“Our Father! Yes, that’s wery good, sir.”
“Which art in heaven.”
“Art in heaven—is the light a-comin, sir?”
“It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!”
“Hallowed be—thy—”
The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead!
Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right
reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women,
born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around
us every day.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Closing In
The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house
in town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past doze in
their picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the long
drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In town the
Dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through
the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock Mercuries, with ashes (or
hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility,
loll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The
fashionable world—tremendous orb, nearly five miles round—is in
full swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed
distances.
Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where
all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and
refinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has scaled
and taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of old reposed
in herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under
her mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no assurance
that what she is to those around her she will remain another day,
it is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking on to
yield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown
more handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of
her that she’s beauty nough—tsetup shopofwomen—but rather
larming kind—remindingmanfact—inconvenient woman—who WILL
getoutofbedandbawthstahlishment—Shakespeare.
Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, he
is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat
loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from
the peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who
might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women
she is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him.
One thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his
turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared to
throw it off.
It is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little
sun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing
in the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like
overblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of
seed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, in the library, has
fallen asleep for the good of the country over the report of a
Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave
audience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her and
has been writing for her and reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon
embroidery or some such pretty thing, and as she bends her head over
it, my Lady watches her in silence. Not for the first time to-day.
“Rosa.”
The pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how serious
my Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised.
“See to the door. Is it shut?”
Yes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised.
“I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust
your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I
will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say
nothing to any one of what passes between us.”
The timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be
trustworthy.
“Do you know,” Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her
chair nearer, “do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from
what I am to any one?”
“Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you
really are.”
“You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child!”
She says it with a kind of scorn—though not of Rosa—and sits
brooding, looking dreamily at her.
“Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you
suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to
me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?”
“I don’t know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my
heart, I wish it was so.”
“It is so, little one.”
The pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark
expression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an
explanation.
“And if I were to say to-day, ‘Go! Leave me!’ I should say what would
give me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave me very
solitary.”
“My Lady! Have I offended you?”
“In nothing. Come here.”
Rosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady’s feet. My Lady, with
that motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand
upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there.
“I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would
make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot.
There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part,
rendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You
must not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have
written to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All
this I have done for your sake.”
The weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she
do, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress kisses
her on the cheek and makes no other answer.
“Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and
happy!”
“Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought—forgive my being so
free—that YOU are not happy.”
“I!”
“Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think
again. Let me stay a little while!”
“I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my
own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now—not
what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my
confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!”
She detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves the
room. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the
staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As indifferent
as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the
earlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its
other departed monsters.
Mercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her
appearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs to
the library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him
first.
“Sir Leicester, I am desirous—but you are engaged.”
Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn.
Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him
for a moment.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?”
With a look that plainly says, “You know you have the power to remain
if you will,” she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a
chair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his
clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her
and the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls
upon her, and he darkens all before her. Even so does he darken her
life.
It is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long
rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that
half-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared
into stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a
street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to
liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their