The Solitary House (177 page)

“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 needed 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 said.

“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 they would have been. I gave him my hand again.

“Good night,” I said; “good-bye.”

“The first, until we meet tomorrow; 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 62

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 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 Mewlinwillinwodd, 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 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. Bucket was already looking in over the servant’s shoulder. “Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson,” said he, rather out of breath, “with all apologies for intruding,
will
you allow me to order up a person that’s on the stairs, and that objects to being left there in case of becoming the subject of observations in his absence? Thank you. Be so good as chair that there Member in this direction, will you?” said Mr. Bucket, beckoning over the banisters.

This singular request produced an old man in a black skullcap, unable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers, and deposited in the room near the door. Mr. Bucket immediately got rid of the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it.

“Now you see, Mr. Jarndyce,” he then began, putting down his hat, and opening his subject with a flourish of his well-remembered finger, “you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman likewise knows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line is his line principally, and he’s what you may call a dealer in bills. That’s about what
you
are, you know, ain’t you?” said Mr. Bucket, stopping a little to address the gentleman in question, who was exceedingly suspicious of him.

He seemed about to dispute this designation of himself, when he was seized with a violent fit of coughing.

“Now, Moral, you know!” said Mr. Bucket, improving the accident. “Don’t you contradict when there ain’t no occasion, and you won’t be took in that way. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I address myself to you. I’ve been negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet; and one way and another I’ve been in and out and about his premises a deal. His premises are the premises formerly occupied by Krook, Marine Store Dealer—a relation of this gentleman’s, that you saw in his life-time, if I don’t mistake?”

My guardian replied, “Yes.”

“Well! You are to understand,” said Mr. Bucket, “that this
gentleman he come into Krook’s property, and a good deal of Magpie property there was. Vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. Lord bless you, of no use to nobody!”

The cunning of Mr. Bucket’s eye, and the masterly manner in which he contrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful auditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case according to previous agreement, and could say much more of Mr. Smallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in quite understanding him. His difficulty was increased by Mr. Smallweed’s being deaf as well as suspicious, and watching his face with the closest attention.

“Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don’t you see?” said Mr. Bucket.

“To which? Say that again,” cried Mr. Smallweed, in a shrill, sharp voice.

“To rummage,” repeated Mr. Bucket. “Being a prudent man, and accustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage among the papers as you have come into; don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” cried Mr. Smallweed.

“Of course you do,” said Mr. Bucket, conversationally, “and much to blame you would be if you didn’t. And so you chance to find, you know,” Mr. Bucket went on, stooping over him with an air of cheerful raillery which Mr. Smallweed by no means reciprocated, “and so you chance to find, you know, a paper, with the signature of Jarndyce to it. Don’t you?”

Mr. Smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us, and grudgingly nodded assent.

“And coming to look at that paper, at your full leisure and convenience—all in good time, for you’re not curious to read it, and why should you be?—what do you find it to be but a Will, you see. That’s the drollery of it,” said Mr. Bucket, with the same lively air of recalling a joke for the enjoyment of Mr. Smallweed, who still had the same crest-fallen appearance of not enjoying it at all; “what do you find it to be, but a Will?”

“I don’t know that it’s good as a Will, or as anything else,” snarled Mr. Smallweed.

Mr. Bucket eyed the old man for a moment—he had slipped
and shrunk down in his chair into a mere bundle—as if he were much disposed to pounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him with the same agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes upon us.

“Notwithstanding which,” said Mr. Bucket, “you get a little doubtful and uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of your own.”

“Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?” asked Mr. Smallweed, with his hand to his ear.

“A very tender mind.”

“Ho! Well, go on,” said Mr. Smallweed.

“And as you’ve heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated Chancery Will case, of the same name; and as you know what a card Krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniture, and books, and papers and what not, and never liking to part with ’em, and always a-going to teach himself to read; you begin to think—and you never was more correct in your born days—‘Ecod, if I don’t look about me, I may get into trouble regarding this Will.’ ”

“Now, mind how you put it, Bucket,” cried the old man anxiously, with his hand at his ear. “Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick me up; I want to hear better. O Lord, I am shaken to bits!”

Mr. Bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. However, as soon as he could be heard through Mr. Smallweed’s coughing, and his vicious ejaculations of “O my bones! O dear! I’ve no breath in my body! I’m worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone pig at home!” Mr. Bucket proceeded in the same convivial manner as before.

“So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises, you take me into your confidence, don’t you?”

I think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill-will, and a worse grace, than Mr. Smallweed displayed when he admitted this; rendering it perfectly evident that Mr. Bucket was the very last person he would have thought of taking into his confidence, if he could by any possibility have kept him out of it.

“And I go into the business with you—very pleasant we are
over it; and I confirm you in your well-founded fears, that you will-get-yourself-in-to-a-most-precious line if you don’t come out with that there Will,” said Mr. Bucket, emphatically; “and accordingly you arrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr. Jarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you trusting yourself to him for your reward; that’s about where it is, ain’t it?”