Bleak House by Charles Dickens (ebook reader that looks like a book TXT) 📕

girl.”

“Well, sir?”

“And you know—and I know—that you have not sent her away for the

reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as

much as possible from—excuse my mentioning it as a matter of

business—any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself.”

“Well, sir?”

“Well, Lady Dedlock,” returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and

nursing the uppermost knee. “I object to that. I consider that a

dangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated

to awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don’t know what, in the

house. Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to

be exactly what you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to

yourself, as it is to me, that you have been this evening very

different from what you were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady

Dedlock, transparently so!”

“If, sir,” she begins, “in my knowledge of my secret—” But he

interrupts her.

“Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter

of business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer

your secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my

secret, in trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your

secret, Lady Dedlock, we should not be here holding this

conversation.”

“That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I

can to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own

reference to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at

Chesney Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a

resolution I have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the

world, could shake it or could move me.” This she says with great

deliberation and distinctness and with no more outward passion than

himself. As for him, he methodically discusses his matter of

business as if she were any insensible instrument used in business.

“Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock,” he returns, “you are not to

be trusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and

according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not

to be trusted.”

“Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this

same point when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?”

“Yes,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the

hearth. “Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly

referred to the girl, but that was before we came to our

arrangement, and both the letter and the spirit of our arrangement

altogether precluded any action on your part founded upon my

discovery. There can be no doubt about that. As to sparing the

girl, of what importance or value is she? Spare! Lady Dedlock,

here is a family name compromised. One might have supposed that

the course was straight on—over everything, neither to the right

nor to the left, regardless of all considerations in the way,

sparing nothing, treading everything under foot.”

She has been looking at the table. She lifts up her eyes and looks

at him. There is a stern expression on her face and a part of her

lower lip is compressed under her teeth. “This woman understands

me,” Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again.

“SHE cannot be spared. Why should she spare others?”

For a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock has eaten no

dinner, but has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand

and drunk it. She rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and

reclines in it, shading her face. There is nothing in her manner

to express weakness or excite compassion. It is thoughtful,

gloomy, concentrated. “This woman,” thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn,

standing on the hearth, again a dark object closing up her view,

“is a study.”

He studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. She too

studies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak,

appearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until

midnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence.

“Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business

interview remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A

lady of your sense and strength of character will be prepared for

my now declaring it void and taking my own course.”

“I am quite prepared.”

Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. “That is all I have to trouble

you with, Lady Dedlock.”

She stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, “This is

the notice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you.”

“Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because

the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been

observed. But virtually the same, virtually the same. The

difference is merely in a lawyer’s mind.”

“You intend to give me no other notice?”

“You are right. No.”

“Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?”

“A home question!” says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile and

cautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. “No, not to-night.”

“To-morrow?”

“All things considered, I had better decline answering that

question, Lady Dedlock. If I were to say I don’t know when,

exactly, you would not believe me, and it would answer no purpose.

It may be to-morrow. I would rather say no more. You are

prepared, and I hold out no expectations which circumstances might

fail to justify. I wish you good evening.”

She removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks

silently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to

open it.

“Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were

writing in the library. Are you going to return there?”

“Only for my hat. I am going home.”

She bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight

and curious, and he withdraws. Clear of the room he looks at his

watch but is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts.

There is a splendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid

clocks not often are, for its accuracy. “And what do YOU say,” Mr.

Tulkinghorn inquires, referring to it. “What do you say?”

If it said now, “Don’t go home!” What a famous clock, hereafter,

if it said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to

this old man of all the young and old men who have ever stood

before it, “Don’t go home!” With its sharp clear bell it strikes

three quarters after seven and ticks on again. “Why, you are worse

than I thought you,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his

watch. “Two minutes wrong? At this rate you won’t last my time.”

What a watch to return good for evil if it ticked in answer, “Don’t

go home!”

He passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind

him, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries,

difficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are

treasured up within his old black satin waistcoat. He is in the

confidence of the very bricks and mortar. The high chimney-stacks

telegraph family secrets to him. Yet there is not a voice in a

mile of them to whisper, “Don’t go home!”

Through the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the

roar and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the

blazing shop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on,

and the crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way,

and nothing meets him murmuring, “Don’t go home!” Arrived at last

in his dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and

see the Roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new

significance in the Roman’s hand to-night or in the flutter of the

attendant groups to give him the late warning, “Don’t come here!”

It is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only

now rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are

shining as they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This

woman, as he has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out

upon them. Her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart

and restless. The large rooms are too cramped and close. She

cannot endure their restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring

garden.

Too capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of

much surprise in those about her as to anything she does, this

woman, loosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury

attends with the key. Having opened the garden-gate, he delivers

the key into his Lady’s hands at her request and is bidden to go

back. She will walk there some time to ease her aching head. She

may be an hour, she may be more. She needs no further escort. The

gate shuts upon its spring with a clash, and he leaves her passing

on into the dark shade of some trees.

A fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars.

Mr. Tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and

shutting those resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like

yard. He looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a

bright large moon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too.

A very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a

solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even

crowded places full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty

high roads and on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country

may be seen in repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into

a fringe of trees against the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom

upon them; not only is it a still night in gardens and in woods,

and on the river where the water-meadows are fresh and green, and

the stream sparkles on among pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and

whispering rushes; not only does the stillness attend it as it

flows where houses cluster thick, where many bridges are reflected

in it, where wharves and shipping make it black and awful, where it

winds from these disfigurements through marshes whose grim beacons

stand like skeletons washed ashore, where it expands through the

bolder region of rising grounds, rich in cornfield windmill and

steeple, and where it mingles with the ever-heaving sea; not only

is it a still night on the deep, and on the shore where the watcher

stands to see the ship with her spread wings cross the path of

light that appears to be presented to only him; but even on this

stranger’s wilderness of London there is some rest. Its steeples

and towers and its one great dome grow more ethereal; its smoky

housetops lose their grossness in the pale effulgence; the noises

that arise from the streets are fewer and are softened, and the

footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly away. In these

fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn’s inhabiting, where the shepherds play on

Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their sheep in the fold

by hook and by crook until they have shorn them exceeding close,

every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing

hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating.

What’s that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it?

The few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. Some

windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was