Charles Dickens (12 page)

'Yes, yes. She will. Go on.'

'He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare,
dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him now, despondent
and bowed down, and striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have
seen him many times before, and striving hard in many ways for one
great sacred object. And I honour his grey head, and bless him!'

The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her
knees before him, took the grey head to her breast.

'It is my sight restored. It is my sight!' she cried. 'I have
been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! To think
I might have died, and never truly seen the father who has been so
loving to me!'

There were no words for Caleb's emotion.

'There is not a gallant figure on this earth,' exclaimed the Blind
Girl, holding him in her embrace, 'that I would love so dearly, and
would cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn,
the dearer, father! Never let them say I am blind again. There's
not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair upon his head, that
shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to Heaven!'

Caleb managed to articulate 'My Bertha!'

'And in my blindness, I believed him,' said the girl, caressing him
with tears of exquisite affection, 'to be so different! And having
him beside me, day by day, so mindful of me—always, never dreamed
of this!'

'The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,' said poor Caleb.
'He's gone!'

'Nothing is gone,' she answered. 'Dearest father, no! Everything
is here—in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that
I never loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first
began to reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me;
All are here in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that
was most dear to me is here—here, with the worn face, and the grey
head. And I am NOT blind, father, any longer!'

Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse,
upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little
Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a
few minutes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and
excited state.

'Father,' said Bertha, hesitating. 'Mary.'

'Yes, my dear,' returned Caleb. 'Here she is.'

'There is no change in HER. You never told me anything of HER that
was not true?'

'I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid,' returned Caleb, 'if
I could have made her better than she was. But I must have changed
her for the worse, if I had changed her at all. Nothing could
improve her, Bertha.'

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question,
her delight and pride in the reply and her renewed embrace of Dot,
were charming to behold.

'More changes than you think for, may happen though, my dear,' said
Dot. 'Changes for the better, I mean; changes for great joy to
some of us. You mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such
should ever happen, and affect you? Are those wheels upon the
road? You've a quick ear, Bertha. Are they wheels?'

'Yes. Coming very fast.'

'I—I—I know you have a quick ear,' said Dot, placing her hand
upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast as she could to
hide its palpitating state, 'because I have noticed it often, and
because you were so quick to find out that strange step last night.
Though why you should have said, as I very well recollect you did
say, Bertha, "Whose step is that!" and why you should have taken
any greater observation of it than of any other step, I don't know.
Though as I said just now, there are great changes in the world:
great changes: and we can't do better than prepare ourselves to be
surprised at hardly anything.'

Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him,
no less than to his daughter. He saw her, with astonishment, so
fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and
holding to a chair, to save herself from falling.

'They are wheels indeed!' she panted. 'Coming nearer! Nearer!
Very close! And now you hear them stopping at the garden-gate!
And now you hear a step outside the door—the same step, Bertha, is
it not!—and now!' -

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to
Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the
room, and flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down
upon them.

'Is it over?' cried Dot.

'Yes!'

'Happily over?'

'Yes!'

'Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear the
like of it before?' cried Dot.

'If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive'—said Caleb,
trembling.

'He is alive!' shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and
clapping them in ecstasy; 'look at him! See where he stands before
you, healthy and strong! Your own dear son! Your own dear living,
loving brother, Bertha

All honour to the little creature for her transports! All honour
to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one
another's arms! All honour to the heartiness with which she met
the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half-way,
and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to
kiss it, freely, and to press her to his bounding heart!

And honour to the Cuckoo too—why not!—for bursting out of the
trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a house-breaker, and
hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got
drunk for joy!

The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, to find
himself in such good company.

'Look, John!' said Caleb, exultingly, 'look here! My own boy from
the Golden South Americas! My own son! Him that you fitted out,
and sent away yourself! Him that you were always such a friend
to!'

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as
some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the Deaf Man in
the Cart, said:

'Edward! Was it you?'

'Now tell him all!' cried Dot. 'Tell him all, Edward; and don't
spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever
again.'

'I was the man,' said Edward.

'And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old
friend?' rejoined the Carrier. 'There was a frank boy once—how
many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had
it proved, we thought?—who never would have done that.'

'There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a father to me
than a friend;' said Edward, 'who never would have judged me, or
any other man, unheard. You were he. So I am certain you will
hear me now.'

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away
from him, replied, 'Well! that's but fair. I will.'

'You must know that when I left here, a boy,' said Edward, 'I was
in love, and my love was returned. She was a very young girl, who
perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know her own mind. But I knew
mine, and I had a passion for her.'

'You had!' exclaimed the Carrier. 'You!'

'Indeed I had,' returned the other. 'And she returned it. I have
ever since believed she did, and now I am sure she did.'

'Heaven help me!' said the Carrier. 'This is worse than all.'

'Constant to her,' said Edward, 'and returning, full of hope, after
many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, I
heard, twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had
forgotten me; and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer
man. I had no mind to reproach her; but I wished to see her, and
to prove beyond dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have
been forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. It
would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought, and on I
came. That I might have the truth, the real truth; observing
freely for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction on
the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had any) before
her, on the other; I dressed myself unlike myself—you know how;
and waited on the road—you know where. You had no suspicion of
me; neither had—had she,' pointing to Dot, 'until I whispered in
her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.'

'But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back,'
sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all
through this narrative; 'and when she knew his purpose, she advised
him by all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend John
Peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all
artifice—being a clumsy man in general,' said Dot, half laughing
and half crying—'to keep it for him. And when she—that's me,
John,' sobbed the little woman—'told him all, and how his
sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last
been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly,
dear old thing called advantageous; and when she—that's me again,
John—told him they were not yet married (though close upon it),
and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for
there was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy
to hear it; then she—that's me again—said she would go between
them, as she had often done before in old times, John, and would
sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she—me again, John—
said and thought was right. And it was right, John! And they were
brought together, John! And they were married, John, an hour ago!
And here's the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor!
And I'm a happy little woman, May, God bless you!'

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the
purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present
transports. There never were congratulations so endearing and
delicious, as those she lavished on herself and on the Bride.

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had
stood, confounded. Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched out her
hand to stop him, and retreated as before.

'No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, John, till
you've heard every word I have to say. It was wrong to have a
secret from you, John. I'm very sorry. I didn't think it any
harm, till I came and sat down by you on the little stool last
night. But when I knew by what was written in your face, that you
had seen me walking in the gallery with Edward, and when I knew
what you thought, I felt how giddy and how wrong it was. But oh,
dear John, how could you, could you, think so!'

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have
caught her in his arms. But no; she wouldn't let him.

'Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! When I
was sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because I
remembered May and Edward such young lovers; and knew that her
heart was far away from Tackleton. You believe that, now. Don't
you, John?'

John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped
him again.

'No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes
do, John, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, and names of
that sort, it's because I love you, John, so well, and take such
pleasure in your ways, and wouldn't see you altered in the least
respect to have you made a King to-morrow.'

'Hooroar!' said Caleb with unusual vigour. 'My opinion!'

'And when I speak of people being middle-aged, and steady, John,
and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot
sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John,
that I like, sometimes, to act a kind of Play with Baby, and all
that: and make believe.'

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was
very nearly too late.

'No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, John!
What I want most to tell you, I have kept to the last. My dear,
good, generous John, when we were talking the other night about the
Cricket, I had it on my lips to say, that at first I did not love
you quite so dearly as I do now; that when I first came home here,
I was half afraid I mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as
I hoped and prayed I might—being so very young, John! But, dear
John, every day and hour I loved you more and more. And if I could
have loved you better than I do, the noble words I heard you say
this morning, would have made me. But I can't. All the affection
that I had (it was a great deal, John) I gave you, as you well
deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left to give. Now, my
dear husband, take me to your heart again! That's my home, John;
and never, never think of sending me to any other!'

You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little
woman in the arms of a third party, as you would have felt if you
had seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace. It was the most
complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness
that ever you beheld in all your days.

You maybe sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and
you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all
were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and
wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of
congratulations, handed round the Baby to everybody in succession,
as if it were something to drink.

But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and
somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was coming back.
Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and
flustered.

'Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle!' said Tackleton.
'There's some mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at
the church, and I'll swear I passed her on the road, on her way
here. Oh! here she is! I beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the
pleasure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare
this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement this
morning.'