Bleak House
all his own, “I can’t be bribed.”
“Not by Mr. Bucket?” said I.
“No,” said he. “Not by anybody. I don’t attach any value to money. I
don’t care about it, I don’t know about it, I don’t want it, I don’t
keep it—it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?”
I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the
capacity for arguing the question.
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Skimpole, “I am exactly the man to be
placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the
rest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in
such a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian
baby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far
above suspicion as Caesar’s wife.”
Anything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful
impartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed
the matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in
anybody else!
“Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received
into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to.
The boy being in bed, a man arrives—like the house that Jack built.
Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house
and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a
bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received
into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to.
Here is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man
who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in
a state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well.
Should the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY should the Skimpole
have refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, ‘What’s this for?
I don’t understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.’ Bucket
still entreats Skimpole to accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole,
not being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole
perceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is
a tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person
of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception
and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they
run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us
comfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer and
intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong
faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very
useful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket because I want
it myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket’s weapons; shall
I positively paralyse Bucket in his next detective operation? And
again. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is
blameable in Bucket to offer the note—much more blameable in Bucket,
because he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of
Bucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the
general cohesion of things, that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The
state expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that’s
all he does!”
I had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took
my leave. Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would
not hear of my returning home attended only by “Little Coavinses,”
and accompanied me himself. He entertained me on the way with a
variety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that
he should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out
for him about our young friends.
As it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once
finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and
my guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his
having heartlessly disregarded my guardian’s entreaties (as we
afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being
heavily in my guardian’s debt had nothing to do with their
separation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary
behind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which
was published and which showed him to have been the victim of a
combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was
considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself
than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It
was this: “Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is
the incarnation of selfishness.”
And now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly
indeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance
occurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in
my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as
belonging to a part of my life that was gone—gone like my infancy or
my childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that
subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has
recalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the
last words of these pages, which I see now not so very far before me.
The months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the
hopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the
miserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court
day after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when he knew
there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and became
one of the stock sights of the place. I wonder whether any of the
gentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there.
So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow
in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh
air now “but for Woodcourt.” It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could
occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse
him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed
us greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the
months went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued
his errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that
his desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense
by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a
gamester.
I was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at
night, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my
guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home
together. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o’clock. I
could not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at the time, for
I was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to
finish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour
when I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss
for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as
it was dusk.
When we came to the usual place of meeting—it was close by, and Mr.
Woodcourt had often accompanied me before—my guardian was not there.
We waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs
of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he
had come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with
me.
It was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very
short one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada
the whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done—my
appreciation of it had risen above all words then—but I hoped he
might not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly.
Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was
out and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same
room into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful
lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart,
the very same room from which my guardian and I had watched them
going away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and
promise.
We were standing by the opened window looking down into the street
when Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved
me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to
him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and
compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know
it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I
had. Too late.
“When I returned,” he told me, “when I came back, no richer than when
I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so
inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish
thought—”
“Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!” I entreated him. “I do not
deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time,
many!”
“Heaven knows, beloved of my life,” said he, “that my praise is not a
lover’s praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you
see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens,
what sacred admiration and what love she wins.”
“Oh, Mr. Woodcourt,” cried I, “it is a great thing to win love, it is
a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and
the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and
sorrow—joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it
better; but I am not free to think of yours.”
I said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when
I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true,
I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that.
Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could
be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me,
and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was
derived from him when I thought so.
He broke the silence.
“I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will
evermore be as dear to me as now”—and the deep earnestness with
which he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep—“if, after
her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it.
Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I
took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have
always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of
good fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should
tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night.
I distress you. I have said enough.”
Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he
thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I
wished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he
showed that first commiseration for me.
“Dear Mr. Woodcourt,” said I, “before we part to-night, something is
left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish—I never
shall—but—”
I had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his
affliction before I could go on.
“—I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its
remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I
know you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a
noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me
could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none
that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall
make me better.”
He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could
I ever be worthy of those tears?
“If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together—in tending
Richard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life—you ever
find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it
used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and
that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr.