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

change and be disfigured, even if she recovered—she was such a

child with her dimpled face—but that thought was, for the greater

part, lost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and

her mind rambled again to the cares of her father’s sick bed and

the little children, she still knew me so far as that she would be

quiet in my arms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur

out the wanderings of her mind less restlessly. At those times I

used to think, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that

the baby who had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to

them in their need was dead!

There were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me,

telling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was

sure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley

would speak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she

could to comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried

who was the only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the

ruler’s daughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of

death. And Charley told me that when her father died she had

kneeled down and prayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might

be raised up and given back to his poor children, and that if she

should never get better and should die too, she thought it likely

that it might come into Tom’s mind to offer the same prayer for

her. Then would I show Tom how these people of old days had been

brought back to life on earth, only that we might know our hope to

be restored to heaven!

But of all the various times there were in Charley’s illness, there

was not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of.

And there were many, many when I thought in the night of the last

high belief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in

God, on the part of her poor despised father.

And Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the

dangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to

mend. The hope that never had been given, from the first, of

Charley being in outward appearance Charley any more soon began to

be encouraged; and even that prospered, and I saw her growing into

her old childish likeness again.

It was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood

out in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at

last took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening,

I felt that I was stricken cold.

Happily for both of us, it was not until Charley was safe in bed

again and placidly asleep that I began to think the contagion of

her illness was upon me. I had been able easily to hide what I

felt at tea-time, but I was past that already now, and I knew that

I was rapidly following in Charley’s steps.

I was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to

return my darling’s cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk

with her as long as usual. But I was not free from an impression

that I had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little

beside myself, though knowing where I was; and I felt confused at

times—with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too

large altogether.

In the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare

Charley, with which view I said, “You’re getting quite strong,

Charley, are you not?”

“Oh, quite!” said Charley.

“Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?”

“Quite strong enough for that, miss!” cried Charley. But Charley’s

face fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in

MY face; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my

bosom, and said “Oh, miss, it’s my doing! It’s my doing!” and a

great deal more out of the fullness of her grateful heart.

“Now, Charley,” said I after letting her go on for a little while,

“if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you.

And unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were

for yourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley.”

“If you’ll let me cry a little longer, miss,” said Charley. “Oh,

my dear, my dear! If you’ll only let me cry a little longer. Oh,

my dear!”—how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as

she clung to my neck, I never can remember without tears—“I’ll be

good.”

So I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good.

“Trust in me now, if you please, miss,” said Charley quietly. “I

am listening to everything you say.”

“It’s very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor

to-night that I don’t think I am well and that you are going to

nurse me.”

For that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. “And in

the morning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not

be quite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go,

Charley, and say I am asleep—that I have rather tired myself, and

am asleep. At all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley,

and let no one come.”

Charley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the

doctor that night and asked the favour of him that I wished to ask

relative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet.

I have a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into

day, and of day melting into night again; but I was just able on

the first morning to get to the window and speak to my darling.

On the second morning I heard her dear voice—Oh, how dear now!—

outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech being

painful to me), to go and say I was asleep. I heard her answer

softly, “Don’t disturb her, Charley, for the world!”

“How does my own Pride look, Charley?” I inquired.

“Disappointed, miss,” said Charley, peeping through the curtain.

“But I know she is very beautiful this morning.”

“She is indeed, miss,” answered Charley, peeping. “Still looking

up at the window.”

With her blue clear eyes, God bless them, always loveliest when

raised like that!

I called Charley to me and gave her her last charge.

“Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her

way into the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to

the last! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon

me for one moment as I lie here, I shall die.”

“I never will! I never will!” she promised me.

“I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for

a little while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you,

Charley; I am blind.”