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Read books online » Fiction » Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖

Book online «Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖». Author Charles Dickens



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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. Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that

while my heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of

having been beloved by you.”

 

He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I

felt still more encouraged.

 

“I am induced by what you said just now,” said I, “to hope that you

have succeeded in your endeavour.”

 

“I have,” he answered. “With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you

who know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have

succeeded.”

 

“Heaven bless him for it,” said I, giving him my hand; “and heaven

bless you in all you do!”

 

“I shall do it better for the wish,” he answered; “it will make me

enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you.”

 

“Ah! Richard!” I exclaimed involuntarily, “What will he do when

you are gone!”

 

“I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss

Summerson, even if I were.”

 

One other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me.

I knew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take

if I reserved it.

 

“Mr. Woodcourt,” said I, “you will be glad to know from my lips

before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and

bright before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to

regret or desire.”

 

It was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied.

 

“From my childhood I have been,” said I, “the object of the

untiring goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so

bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing

I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a

single day.”

 

“I share those feelings,” he returned. “You speak of Mr.

Jarndyce.”

 

“You know his virtues well,” said I, “but few can know the

greatness of his character as I know it. All its highest and best

qualities have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in

the shaping out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your

highest homage and respect had not been his already—which I know

they are—they would have been his, I think, on this assurance and

in the feeling it would have awakened in you towards him for my

sake.”

 

He fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. I

gave him my hand again.

 

“Good night,” I said, “Good-bye.”

 

“The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to

this theme between us for ever.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good night; good-bye.”

 

He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street.

His love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly

upon me that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way

again and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears.

 

But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called

me the beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear

to him as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the

triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had

died away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too

late to be animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and

contented. How easy my path, how much easier than his!

CHAPTER LXII

Another Discovery

 

I had not the courage to see any one that night. I had not even

the courage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a

little reproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and prayed

in the dark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of

any light to read my guardian’s letter by, for I knew it by heart.

I took it from the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents

by its own clear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep

with it on my pillow.

 

I was up very early in the morning and called Charley to come for a

walk. We bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and

arranged them, and were as busy as possible. We were so early that

I had a good time still for Charley’s lesson before breakfast;

Charley (who was not in the least improved in the old defective

article of grammar) came through it with great applause; and we

were altogether very notable. When my guardian appeared he

said, “Why, little woman, you look fresher than your flowers!”

And Mrs. Woodcourt repeated and translated a passage from the

Mewlinnwillinwodd expressive of my being like a mountain with

the sun upon it.

 

This was all so pleasant that I hope it made me still more like the

mountain than I had been before. After breakfast I waited my

opportunity and peeped about a little until I saw my guardian in

his own room—the room of last night—by himself. Then I made an

excuse to go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after

me.

 

“Well, Dame Durden?” said my guardian; the post had brought him

several letters, and he was writing. “You want money?”

 

“No, indeed, I have plenty in hand.”

 

“There never was such a Dame Durden,” said my guardian, “for making

money last.”

 

He had laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair looking at

me. I have often spoken of his bright face, but I thought I had

never seen it look so bright and good. There was a high happiness

upon it which made me think, “He has been doing some great kindness

this morning.”

 

“There never was,” said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me,

“such a Dame Durden for making money last.”

 

He had never yet altered his old manner. I loved it and him so

much that when I now went up to him and took my usual chair, which

was always put at his side—for sometimes I read to him, and

sometimes I talked to him, and sometimes I silently worked by him—

I hardly liked to disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. But

I found I did not disturb it at all.

 

“Dear guardian,” said I, “I want to speak to you. Have I been

remiss in anything?”

 

“Remiss in anything, my dear!”

 

“Have I not been what I have meant to be since—I brought the

answer to your letter, guardian?”

 

“You have been everything I could desire, my love.”

 

“I am very glad indeed to hear that,” I returned. “You know, you

said to me, was this the mistress of Bleak House. And I said,

yes.”

 

“Yes,” said my guardian, nodding his head. He had put his arm

about me as if there were something to protect me from and looked

in my face, smiling.

 

“Since then,” said I, “we have never spoken on the subject except

once.”

 

“And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my

dear.”

 

“And I said,” I timidly reminded him, “but its mistress remained.”

 

He still held me in the same protecting manner and with the same

bright goodness in his face.

 

“Dear guardian,” said I, “I know how you have felt all that has

happened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has

passed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well

again, perhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought

to do so. I will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please.”

 

“See,” he returned gaily, “what a sympathy there must be between

us! I have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted—it’s a large

exception—in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When

shall we give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?”

 

“When you please.”

 

“Next month?”

 

“Next month, dear guardian.”

 

“The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life—the

day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than

any other man in the world—the day on which I give Bleak House its

little mistress—shall be next month then,” said my guardian.

 

I put my arms round his neck and kissed him just as I had done on

the day when I brought my answer.

 

A servant came to the door to announce Mr. Bucket, which was quite

unnecessary, for Mr.

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