Bleak House
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 word or a kind
look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was
drawn to a debtors’ prison. There he died. Then our brother was
drawn—swiftly—to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister
was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and
heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of
Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then
I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there.”
Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she
had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon
her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance.
“You don’t quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day.
I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new
faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal
in these many years. As my father’s came there. As my brother’s. As
my sister’s. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of
them say to the new faces, ‘Here’s little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new
here; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!’ Ve-ry
good. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz
Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do,
when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them
begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love,”
speaking low again, “I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in
Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he’ll be drawn to ruin.”
She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually
softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy,
and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely
as she sipped her glass of wine, “Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I
expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know,
and confer estates.”
I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad
meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its
way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite
complacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles.
“But, my dear,” she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon
mine. “You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not
once, yet!”
I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant.
“My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly
attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite
gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that
will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal.”
“Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now,” said I, “that I thought the time
for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite.”
“But, my child,” she returned, “is it possible that you don’t know
what has happened?”
“No,” said I.
“Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!”
“No,” said I. “You forget how long I have been here.”
“True! My dear, for the moment—true. I blame myself. But my memory
has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned.
Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a
terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas.”
“Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!”
“Don’t be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all
shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness.
Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it
all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything.
Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped
naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to
do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the
poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated
creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when
they got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with
it. Stay! Where’s my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you
shall read it, you shall read it!”
And I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and
imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the
words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down
the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so
triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and
gallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I so
admired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn
people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver.
I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him
in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that
no one—mother, sister, wife—could honour him more than I. I did,
indeed!
My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as
the evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she
should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full
of the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to
understand in all its details.
“My dear,” said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves,
“my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no
doubt he will. You are of that opinion?”
That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no.
“Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?” she asked rather sharply.
I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men
distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless
occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very
large amount of money.
“Why, good gracious,” said Miss Flite, “how can you say that? Surely
you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in
knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every
sort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and
consider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don’t
know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the
land!”
I am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when
she was very mad indeed.
And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to
keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that
if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me
before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done
so, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now
that this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had
had to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as
mine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him from his
bondage to one whom he had never seen!
Oh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully
spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all
he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone:
no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please
God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler
way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey,
I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than
he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the
journey’s end.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Chesney Wold
Charley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into
Lincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of
me until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn’s house, so he accompanied us,
and we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and
every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every
passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful
to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my
illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of
delight for me.
My guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our
way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter,
of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our
arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early
summer-time.
If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand,
and I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not
have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for
me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little
tastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen
times before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that,
however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley’s delight
calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley
had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as
tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to
be able to say to myself after tea, “Esther, my dear, I think you are
quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to
your host.” He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own
face, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his
highest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him
in London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were
looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the
honours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how,
after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my
little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage,
but whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and
sent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and
arranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I
should want her no more that night.
For I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my
own restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be
overcome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh
when I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone,
and therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, “Esther, if you are
to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted,
you must keep your word, my dear.” I was quite resolved to keep it,
but I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my
blessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more.
My hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than
once. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and
went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little
muslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment
looking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing
else. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the
mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very