Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) đ
- Author: Charles Dickens
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acceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it,
he did not express to me.
âNow, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard,â said Mr.
Skimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his
drawing with his head on one side, âhere you see me utterly
incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only
ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not
deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!â
âMy dear Miss Summerson,â said Richard in a whisper, âI have ten
pounds that I received from Mr. Kenge. I must try what that will
do.â
I possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which I had saved from
my quarterly allowance during several years. I had always thought
that some accident might happen which would throw me suddenly,
without any relation or any property, on the world and had always
tried to keep some little money by me that I might not be quite
penniless. I told Richard of my having this little store and
having no present need of it, and I asked him delicately to inform
Mr. Skimpole, while I should be gone to fetch it, that we would
have the pleasure of paying his debt.
When I came back, Mr. Skimpole kissed my hand and seemed quite
touched. Not on his own account (I was again aware of that
perplexing and extraordinary contradiction), but on ours, as if
personal considerations were impossible with him and the
contemplation of our happiness alone affected him. Richard,
begging me, for the greater grace of the transaction, as he said,
to settle with Coavinses (as Mr. Skimpole now jocularly called
him), I counted out the money and received the necessary
acknowledgment. This, too, delighted Mr. Skimpole.
His compliments were so delicately administered that I blushed less
than I might have done and settled with the stranger in the white
coat without making any mistakes. He put the money in his pocket
and shortly said, âWell, then, Iâll wish you a good evening, miss.â
âMy friend,â said Mr. Skimpole, standing with his back to the fire
after giving up the sketch when it was half finished, âI should
like to ask you something, without offence.â
I think the reply was, âCut away, then!â
âDid you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this
errand?â said Mr. Skimpole.
âKnowâd it yesâday aftânoon at tea-time,â said Coavinses.
âIt didnât affect your appetite? Didnât make you at all uneasy?â
âNot a bit,â said Coavinses. âI knowâd if you wos missed to-day,
you wouldnât be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds.â
âBut when you came down here,â proceeded Mr. Skimpole, âit was a
fine day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights
and shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were
singing.â
âNobody said they warnât, in MY hearing,â returned Coavinses.
âNo,â observed Mr. Skimpole. âBut what did you think upon the
road?â
âWot do you mean?â growled Coavinses with an appearance of strong
resentment. âThink! Iâve got enough to do, and little enough to
get for it without thinking. Thinking!â (with profound contempt).
âThen you didnât think, at all events,â proceeded Mr. Skimpole, âto
this effect: âHarold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to
hear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows,
loves to hear the birds, those choristers in Natureâs great
cathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive
Harold Skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his
only birthright!â You thought nothing to that effect?â
âIâcertainlyâdidâNOT,â said Coavinses, whose doggedness in
utterly renouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could
only give adequate expression to it by putting a long interval
between each word, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might
have dislocated his neck.
âVery odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of
business!â said Mr. Skimpole thoughtfully. âThank you, my friend.
Good night.â
As our absence had been long enough already to seem strange
downstairs, I returned at once and found Ada sitting at work by the
fireside talking to her cousin John. Mr. Skimpole presently
appeared, and Richard shortly after him. I was sufficiently
engaged during the remainder of the evening in taking my first
lesson in backgammon from Mr. Jarndyce, who was very fond of the
game and from whom I wished of course to learn it as quickly as I
could in order that I might be of the very small use of being able
to play when he had no better adversary. But I thought,
occasionally, when Mr. Skimpole played some fragments of his own
compositions or when, both at the piano and the violoncello, and at
our table, he preserved with an absence of all effort his
delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that Richard
and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having been
arrested since dinner and that it was very curious altogether.
It was late before we separated, for when Ada was going at eleven
oâclock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano and rattled hilariously
that the best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few
hours from night, my dear! It was past twelve before he took his
candle and his radiant face out of the room, and I think he might
have kept us there, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and
Richard were lingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering
whether Mrs. Jellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day,
when Mr. Jarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned.
âOh, dear me, whatâs this, whatâs this!â he said, rubbing his head
and walking about with his good-humoured vexation. âWhatâs this
they tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been
doing? Why did you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece
was it? The windâs round again. I feel it all over me!â
We neither of us quite knew what to answer.
âCome, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much
are you out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why
did you? How could you? Oh, Lord, yes, itâs due eastâmust be!â
âReally, sir,â said Richard, âI donât think it would be honourable
in me to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon usââ
âLord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!â said Mr.
Jarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short.
âIndeed, sir?â
âEverybody! And heâll be in the same scrape again next week!â said
Mr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his
hand that had gone out. âHeâs always in the same scrape. He was
born in the same scrape. I verily believe that the announcement in
the newspapers when his mother was confined was âOn Tuesday last,
at her residence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son
in difficulties.ââ
Richard laughed heartily but added, âStill, sir, I donât want to
shake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to
your better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I
hope you will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if
you do press me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you.â
âWell!â cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several
absent endeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. âIâhere!
Take it away, my dear. I donât know what I am about with it; itâs
all the windâinvariably has that effectâI wonât press you, Rick;
you may be right. But reallyâto get hold of you and Estherâand
to squeeze you like a couple of tender young Saint Michaelâs
oranges! Itâll blow a gale in the course of the night!â
He was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he
were going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out
again and vehemently rubbing them all over his head.
I ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole,
being in all such matters quite a childâ
âEh, my dear?â said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word.
âBeing quite a child, sir,â said I, âand so different from other
peopleââ
âYou are right!â said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening. âYour womanâs wit
hits the mark. He is a childâan absolute child. I told you he
was a child, you know, when I first mentioned him.â
Certainly! Certainly! we said.
âAnd he IS a child. Now, isnât he?â asked Mr. Jarndyce,
brightening more and more.
He was indeed, we said.
âWhen you come to think of it, itâs the height of childishness in
youâI mean meââ said Mr. Jarndyce, âto regard him for a moment as
a man. You canât make HIM responsible. The idea of Harold
Skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha,
ha, ha!â
It was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face
clearing, and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it
was impossible not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the
goodness which was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or
secretly accusing any one, that I saw the tears in Adaâs eyes,
while she echoed his laugh, and felt them in my own.
âWhy, what a codâs head and shoulders I am,â said Mr. Jarndyce, âto
require reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from
beginning to end. Nobody but a child would have thought of
singling YOU two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child
would have thought of YOUR having the money! If it had been a
thousand pounds, it would have been just the same!â said Mr.
Jarndyce with his whole face in a glow.
We all confirmed it from our nightâs experience.
âTo be sure, to be sure!â said Mr. Jarndyce. âHowever, Rick,
Esther, and you too, Ada, for I donât know that even your little
purse is safe from his inexperienceâI must have a promise all
round that nothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No
advances! Not even sixpences.â
We all promised faithfully, Richard with a merry glance at me
touching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of
OUR transgressing.
âAs to Skimpole,â said Mr. Jarndyce, âa habitable dollâs house with
good board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow
money of would set the boy up in life. He is in a childâs sleep by
this time, I suppose; itâs time I should take my craftier head to
my more worldly pillow. Good night, my dears. God bless you!â
He peeped in again, with a smiling face, before we had lighted our
candles, and said, âOh! I have been looking at the weathercock. I
find it was a false alarm about the wind. Itâs in the south!â And
went away singing to himself.
Ada and I agreed, as we talked together for a little while upstairs,
that this caprice about the wind was a fiction and that he used the
pretence to account for any disappointment he could not conceal,
rather than he would blame the real cause of it or disparage or
depreciate any one. We thought this very characteristic of his
eccentric gentleness and of the difference between him and those
petulant people who make the weather and the winds (particularly
that unlucky wind which he had chosen for such a different
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