Bleak House
her senses, as her beloved son George.
“Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my
reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a
purpose in me too. When I left home I didn’t care much, mother—I am
afraid not a great deal—for leaving; and went away and ’listed,
harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not
I, and that nobody cared for me.”
The trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but
there is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of
expressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in
which he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob.
“So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had
’listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I
thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and
when that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when
I might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I
didn’t think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a
service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself
why should I ever write.”
“I don’t find any fault, child—but not to ease my mind, George? Not
a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?”
This almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up with
a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat.
“Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small
consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you,
respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance
North Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and
famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like
him, but self-unmade—all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my
little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for
most things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself
known? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of
it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a
man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me;
and the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your
mind as it was.”
The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his
powerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder.
“No, I don’t say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be
so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear
mother, some good might have come of it to myself—and there was the
meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have
purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold;
you would have brought me and my brother and my brother’s family
together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something
for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of
you feel sure of me when I couldn’t so much as feel sure of myself?
How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you
an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to
himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother’s
children in the face and pretend to set them an example—I, the
vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and
unhappiness of my mother’s life? ‘No, George.’ Such were my words,
mother, when I passed this in review before me: ‘You have made your
bed. Now, lie upon it.’”
Mrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the
old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, “I told
you so!” The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her
interest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke
between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards
repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never
failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to
resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again.
“This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best
amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I
should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once
down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old
comrade’s wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank
her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and
might.”
To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes.
And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear
recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy
close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must
be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence,
that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be
got, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised
to act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise
to think only of his poor old mother’s anxiety and suffering until he
is released, or he will break her heart.
“Mother, ’tis little enough to consent to,” returns the trooper,
stopping her with a kiss; “tell me what I shall do, and I’ll make a
late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you’ll take care of my mother,
I know?”
A very hard poke from the old girl’s umbrella.
“If you’ll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson,
she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the
best advice and assistance.”
“And, George,” says the old lady, “we must send with all haste for
your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me—out in the
world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don’t know much of it
myself—and will be of great service.”
“Mother,” returns the trooper, “is it too soon to ask a favour?”
“Surely not, my dear.”
“Then grant me this one great favour. Don’t let my brother know.”
“Not know what, my dear?”
“Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can’t bear it; I can’t make up my
mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done
so much to raise himself while I’ve been soldiering that I haven’t
brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under
this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any
pleasure in such a discovery? It’s impossible. No, keep my secret
from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my
secret from my brother, of all men.”
“But not always, dear George?”
“Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all—though I may come to ask
that too—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it’s ever broke to
him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish,” says the
trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, “to break it myself and be
governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems
to take it.”
As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth
of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet’s face, his mother yields her
implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly.
“In all other respects, my dear mother, I’ll be as tractable and
obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am
ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up,” he glances at
his writing on the table, “an exact account of what I knew of the
deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair.
It’s entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in
it but what’s wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight
on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I
hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my
own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not
to have any.”
Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time
being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again
the old lady hangs upon her son’s neck, and again and again the
trooper holds her to his broad chest.
“Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?”
“I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some
business there that must be looked to directly,” Mrs. Rouncewell
answers.
“Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of
course I know you will. Why should I ask it!”
Why indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella.
“Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you.
Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the
hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand
pound in gold, my dear!” So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the
old girl’s tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell.
No entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce
Mrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. Jumping
out cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and handing Mrs.
Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off,
arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet family and
falling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened.
My Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with
the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is
looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so
leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs. Rouncewell.
What has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly?
“Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with
you?”
What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble
so? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often thought, why
does she falter in this manner and look at her with such strange
mistrust?
“What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath.”
“Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son—my youngest, who went
away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison.”
“For debt?”
“Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful.”
“For what is he in prison then?”
“Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as—as I
am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn.”
What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why does
she come so close? What is the letter that she holds?
“Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must
have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I
was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But
think of my dear son wrongfully accused.”
“I do not accuse him.”
“No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger.
Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say
it!”
What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the
person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust?
Her Lady’s handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with
fear.
“My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in
my old age, and the step upon the Ghost’s Walk was so constant and so
solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after
night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your
rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last
night, my Lady, I got this letter.”
“What letter is it?”
“Hush! Hush!” The housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened
whisper, “My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don’t believe
what’s written in it, I know it can’t be true, I am sure and certain
that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a
heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to
others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and
any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think
of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most