Bleak House by Charles Dickens (best ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📕

example⁠—I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and unhappiness of my mother’s life? ‘No, George.’ Such were my words, mother, when I passed this in review before me: ‘You have made your bed. Now, lie upon it.’ ”

Mrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, “I told you so!” The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her interest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again.

“This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old comrade’s wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and might.”

To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes.

And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence, that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be got, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised to act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise to think only of his poor old mother’s anxiety and suffering until he is released, or he will break her heart.

“Mother, ’tis little enough to consent to,” returns the trooper, stopping her with a kiss; “tell me what I shall do, and I’ll make a late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you’ll take care of my mother, I know?”

A very hard poke from the old girl’s umbrella.

“If you’ll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the best advice and assistance.”

“And, George,” says the old lady, “we must send with all haste for your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me⁠—out in the world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don’t know much of it myself⁠—and will be of great service.”

“Mother,” returns the trooper, “is it too soon to ask a favour?”

“Surely not, my dear.”

“Then grant me this one great favour. Don’t let my brother know.”

“Not know what, my dear?”

“Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can’t bear it; I can’t make up my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while I’ve been soldiering that I haven’t brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? It’s impossible. No, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my secret from my brother, of all men.”

“But not always, dear George?”

“Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all⁠—though I may come to ask that too⁠—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it’s ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish,” says the trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, “to break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems to take it.”

As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet’s face, his mother yields her implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly.

“In all other respects, my dear mother, I’ll be as tractable and obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up,” he glances at his writing on the table, “an exact account of what I knew of the deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. It’s entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in it but what’s wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not to have any.”

Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again the old lady hangs upon her son’s neck, and again and again the trooper holds her to his broad chest.

“Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?”

“I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some business there that must be looked to directly,” Mrs. Rouncewell answers.

“Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of course I know you will. Why should I ask it!”

Why indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella.

“Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand pound in gold, my dear!” So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the old girl’s tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell.

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