Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖

do so.”

 

“You are truly kind,” I answered. “I need wish to keep no secret

of my own from you; if I keep any, it is another’s.”

 

“I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long

as I can fully respect it.”

 

“I trust implicitly to you,” I said. “I know and deeply feel how

sacredly you keep your promise.”

 

After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and

Mr. Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face.

“Please to come in, Miss Summerson,” he said, “and sit down by the

fire. Mr. Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand

you are a medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if

anything can be done to bring her round. She has a letter

somewhere that I particularly want. It’s not in her box, and I

think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up

that she is difficult to handle without hurting.”

 

We all three went into the house together; although it was cold and

raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage

behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a

grey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke

meekly.

 

“Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket,” said he. “The lady will

excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room.

The back is Guster’s bedroom, and in it she’s a-carrying on, poor

thing, to a frightful extent!”

 

We went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the

little man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was

Mrs. Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of

face.

 

“My little woman,” said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, “to wave—

not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear—hostilities for one

single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is

Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady.”

 

She looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and

looked particularly hard at me.

 

“My little woman,” said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest

corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, “it is not

unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr.

Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook’s Court, Cursitor

Street, at the present hour. I don’t know. I have not the least

idea. If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding,

and I’d rather not be told.”

 

He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and

I appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when

Mr. Bucket took the matter on himself.

 

“Now, Mr. Snagsby,” said he, “the best thing you can do is to go

along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster—”

 

“My Guster, Mr. Bucket!” cried Mr. Snagsby. “Go on, sir, go on. I

shall be charged with that next.”

 

“And to hold the candle,” pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting

himself, “or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you’re

asked. Which there’s not a man alive more ready to do, for you’re

a man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you’ve got the sort of

heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so

good as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let

me have it as soon as ever you can?”

 

As they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the

fire and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the

fender, talking all the time.

 

“Don’t you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable

look from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she’s under a mistake

altogether. She’ll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to

a lady of her generally correct manner of forming her thoughts,

because I’m a-going to explain it to her.” Here, standing on the

hearth with his wet hat and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of

wet, he turned to Mrs. Snagsby. “Now, the first thing that I say

to you, as a married woman possessing what you may call charms, you

know—‘Believe Me, if All Those Endearing,’ and cetrer—you’re well

acquainted with the song, because it’s in vain for you to tell me

that you and good society are strangers—charms—attractions, mind

you, that ought to give you confidence in yourself—is, that you’ve

done it.”

 

Mrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered,

what did Mr. Bucket mean.

 

“What does Mr. Bucket mean?” he repeated, and I saw by his face

that all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of

the letter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how

important it must be; “I’ll tell you what he means, ma’am. Go and

see Othello acted. That’s the tragedy for you.”

 

Mrs. Snagsby consciously asked why.

 

“Why?” said Mr. Bucket. “Because you’ll come to that if you don’t

look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your

mind’s not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall

I tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you’re what I call

an intellectual woman—with your soul too large for your body, if

you come to that, and chafing it—and you know me, and you

recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that

circle. Don’t you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that

young lady.”

 

Mrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did

at the time.

 

“And Toughey—him as you call Jo—was mixed up in the same

business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was

mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with

no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up

(by Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same

business, and no other; and the whole bileing of people was mixed

up in the same business, and no other. And yet a married woman,

possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes (and sparklers too),

and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. Why, I

am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. Woodcourt might have got it by

this time.)”

 

Mrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes.

 

“Is that all?” said Mr. Bucket excitedly. “No. See what happens.

Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in

a wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to

your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there

passes a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What

do you do? You hide and you watch ‘em, and you pounce upon that

maid-servant—knowing what she’s subject to and what a little thing

will bring ‘em on—in that surprising manner and with that severity

that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be

hanging upon that girl’s words!”

 

He so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily

clasped my hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it

stopped. Mr. Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and

went away again.

 

“Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make,” said Mr. Bucket,

rapidly glancing at it, “is to let me speak a word to this young

lady in private here. And if you know of any help that you can

give to that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of

any one thing that’s likelier than another to bring the girl round,

do your swiftest and best!” In an instant she was gone, and he had

shut the door. “Now my dear, you’re steady and quite sure of

yourself?”

 

“Quite,” said I.

 

“Whose writing is that?”

 

It was my mother’s. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece

of paper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and

directed to me at my guardian’s.

 

“You know the hand,” he said, “and if you are firm enough to read

it to me, do! But be particular to a word.”

 

It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what

follows:

 

“I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the dear

one, if I could, once more—but only to see her—not to speak to

her or let her know that I was near. The other object, to elude

pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the mother for her share.

The assistance that she rendered me, she rendered on my strongest

assurance that it was for the dear one’s good. You remember her

dead child. The men’s consent I bought, but her help was freely

given.”

 

“‘I came.’ That was written,” said my companion, “when she rested

there. It bears out what I made of it. I was right.”

 

The next was written at another time:

 

“I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and I know

that I must soon die. These streets! I have no purpose but to

die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am saved from adding that

guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and fatigue are sufficient causes

for my being found dead, but I shall die of others, though I suffer

from these. It was right that all that had sustained me should

give way at once and that I should die of terror and my conscience.”

 

“Take courage,” said Mr. Bucket. “There’s only a few words more.”

 

Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance,

almost in the dark:

 

“I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon forgotten

so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing about me by which

I can be recognized. This paper I part with now. The place where

I shall lie down, if I can get so far, has been often in my mind.

Farewell. Forgive.”

 

Mr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my

chair. “Cheer up! Don’t think me hard with you, my dear, but as

soon as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready.”

 

I did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for

my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and

I heard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At

length he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important

to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for

whatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that

she could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not

alarmed. The questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the

letter, what passed between her and the person who gave her the

letter, and where the person went. Holding my mind as steadily as

I could to these points, I went into the next room with them. Mr.

Woodcourt would have remained outside, but at my solicitation went

in with us.

 

The poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her

down. They stood around her, though at a little distance, that she

might have air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but

she had a plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little

wild. I kneeled on the ground beside her