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Chapter LIX
Esther's Narrative
It was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London
did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with
streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition
than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the
thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never
slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than
the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had
stopped exhausted halfway up hills, they had been driven through
streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become
entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been
always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard
any variation in his cool, "Get on, my lads!"
The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our
journey back I could not account for. Never wavering, he never
even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of
London. A very few words, here and there, were then enough for
him; and thus we came, at between three and four o'clock in the
morning, into Islington.
I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected
all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther
behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must
be right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in
following this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it
and discussing it during the whole journey. What was to ensue when
we found her and what could compensate us for this loss of time
were questions also that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was
quite tortured by long dwelling on such reflections when we
stopped.
We stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My
companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with
splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the
carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take
it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from
the rest.
"Why, my dear!" he said as he did this. "How wet you are!"
I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its
way into the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a
fallen horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had
penetrated my dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the
driver, who knew him, would not be dissuaded by me from running
down the street to his stable, whence he brought an armful of clean
dry straw. They shook it out and strewed it well about me, and I
found it warm and comfortable.
"Now, my dear," said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window
after I was shut up. "We're a-going to mark this person down. It
may take a little time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty
sure that I've got a motive. Ain't you?"
I little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I
should understand it better, but I assured him that I had
confidence in him.
"So you may have, my dear," he returned. "And I tell you what! If
you only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you
after what I've experienced of you, that'll do. Lord! You're no
trouble at all. I never see a young woman in any station of
society--and I've seen many elevated ones too--conduct herself like
you have conducted yourself since you was called out of your bed.
You're a pattern, you know, that's what you are," said Mr. Bucket
warmly; "you're a pattern."
I told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no
hindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now.
"My dear," he returned, "when a young lady is as mild as she's
game, and as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I
expect. She then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are
yourself."
With these encouraging words--they really were encouraging to me
under those lonely and anxious circumstances--he got upon the box,
and we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then
nor have ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the
narrowest and worst streets in London. Whenever I saw him
directing the driver, I was prepared for our descending into a
deeper complication of such streets, and we never failed to do so.
Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger
building than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at
offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I
saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down
by an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light
of his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from
various dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh
consultation would be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our
search within narrower and easier limits. Single police-officers
on duty could now tell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point
to him where to go. At last we stopped for a rather long
conversation between him and one of these men, which I supposed to
be satisfactory from his manner of nodding from time to time. When
it was finished he came to me looking very busy and very attentive.
"Now, Miss Summerson, he said to me, "you won't be alarmed whatever
comes off, I know. It's not necessary for me to give you any
further caution than to tell you that we have marked this person
down and that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I
don't like to ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a
little way?"
Of course I got out directly and took his arm.
"It ain't so easy to keep your feet," said Mr. Bucket, "but take
time."
Although I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed
the street, I thought I knew the place. "Are we in Holborn?" I
asked him.
"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "Do you know this turning?"
"It looks like Chancery Lane."
"And was christened so, my dear," said Mr. Bucket.
We turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I
heard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence
and as quickly as we could with such a foothold, when some one
coming towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak,
stopped and stood aside to give me room. In the same moment I
heard an exclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt.
I knew his voice very well.
It was so unexpected and so--I don't know what to call it, whether
pleasant or painful--to come upon it after my feverish wandering
journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back
the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange
country.
"My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and
in such weather!"
He had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some
uncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I
told him that we had but just left a coach and were going--but then
I was obliged to look at my companion.
"Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt"--he had caught the name from me--"we
are a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket."
Mr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken
off his cloak and was putting it about me. "That's a good move,
too," said Mr. Bucket, assisting, "a very good move."
"May I go with you?" said Mr. Woodcourt. I don't know whether to
me or to my companion.
"Why, Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself.
"Of course you may."
It was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped
in the cloak.
"I have just left Richard," said Mr. Woodcourt. "I have been
sitting with him since ten o'clock last night."
"Oh, dear me, he is ill!"
"No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed
and faint--you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes--and
Ada sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and
came straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little
while, and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing,
though God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained
with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep
as she is now, I hope!"
His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected
devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had
inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I
separate all this from his promise to me? How thankless I must
have been if it had not recalled the words he said to me when he
was so moved by the change in my appearance: "I will accept him as
a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!"
We now turned into another narrow street. "Mr. Woodcourt," said
Mr. Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, "our
business takes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr.
Snagsby's. What, you know him, do you?" He was so quick that he
saw it in an instant.
"Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this
place."
"Indeed, sir?" said Mr. Bucket. "Then you will be so good as to
let me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and
have half a word with him?"
The last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing
silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my
saying I heard some one crying.
"Don't be alarmed, miss," he returned. "It's Snagsby's servant."
"Why, you see," said Mr. Bucket, "the girl's subject to fits, and
has 'em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is,
for I want certain information out of that girl, and she must be
brought to reason somehow."
"At all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, Mr.
Bucket," said the other man. "She's been at it pretty well all
night, sir."
"Well, that's true," he returned. "My light's burnt out. Show
yours a moment."
All this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which
I could faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of
light produced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and
knocked. The door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he
went in, leaving us standing in the street.
"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Woodcourt, "if without obtruding myself
on your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so."
"You are truly kind," I answered. "I need wish to keep no secret
of my own from you; if I keep any, it is another's."
"I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long
as I can fully respect it."
"I trust implicitly to you," I said. "I know and deeply feel how
sacredly you keep your promise.
After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and
Mr. Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face.
"Please to come in, Miss Summerson," he said, "and sit down by the
fire. Mr. Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand
you are a medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if
anything can be done to bring her round. She has a letter
somewhere that I particularly want. It's not in her box, and I
think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up
that she is difficult to handle without hurting."
We all three went into the house together; although it was cold and
raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage
behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a
grey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke
meekly.
"Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket," said he. "The lady will
excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room.
The back is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor
thing, to a frightful extent!"
We went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the
little man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was
Mrs. Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of
face.
"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, "to wave--
not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear--hostilities for one
single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is
Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady."
She looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and
looked particularly hard at me.
"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest
corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, "it is not
unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr.
Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor
Street, at the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least
idea. If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding,
and I'd rather not be told."
He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and
I appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when
Mr. Bucket took the matter on himself.
"Now, Mr. Snagsby," said he, "the best thing you can do is to go
along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster--"
"My Guster, Mr. Bucket!" cried Mr. Snagsby. "Go on, sir, go on. I
shall be charged with that next."
"And to hold the candle," pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting
himself, "or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're
asked. Which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're
a man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of
heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so
good as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let
me have it as soon as ever you can?"
As they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the
fire and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the
fender, talking all the time.
"Don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable
look from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake
altogether. She'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to
a lady of her generally correct manner of forming her thoughts,
because I'm a-going to explain it to her." Here, standing on the
hearth with his wet hat and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of
wet, he turned to Mrs. Snagsby. "Now, the first thing that I say
to you, as a married woman possessing what you may call charms, you
know--'Believe Me, if All Those Endearing,' and cetrer--you're well
acquainted with the song, because it's in vain for you to tell me
that you and good society are strangers--charms--attractions, mind
you, that ought to give you confidence in yourself--is, that you've
done it."
Mrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered,
what did Mr. Bucket mean.
"What does Mr. Bucket mean?" he repeated, and I saw by his face
that all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of
the letter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how
important it must be; "I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and
see Othello acted. That's the tragedy for you."
Mrs. Snagsby consciously asked why.
"Why?" said Mr. Bucket. "Because you'll come to that if you don't
look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your
mind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall
I tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call
an intellectual woman--with your soul too large for your body, if
you come to that, and chafing it--and you know me, and you
recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that
circle. Don't you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that
young lady."
Mrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did
at the time.
"And Toughey--him as you call Jo--was mixed up in the same
business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was
mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with
no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up
(by Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same
business, and no other; and the whole bileing of people was mixed
up in the same business, and no other. And yet a married woman,
possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes (and sparklers too),
and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. Why, I
am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. Woodcourt might have got it by
this time.)"
Mrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Is that all?" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. "No. See what happens.
Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in
a wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to
your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there
passes a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What
do you do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that
maid-servant--knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing
will bring 'em on--in that surprising manner and with that severity
that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be
hanging upon that girl's words!"
He so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily
clasped my hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it
stopped. Mr. Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and
went away again.
"Now, Mrs, Snagsby, the only amends you can make," said Mr. Bucket,
rapidly glancing at it, "is to let me speak a word to this young
lady in private here. And if you know of any help that you can
give to that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of
any one thing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round,
do your swiftest and best!" In an instant she was gone, and he had
shut the door. "Now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of
yourself?"
"Quite," said I.
"Whose writing is that?"
It was my mother's. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece
of paper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and
directed to me at my guardian's.
"You know the hand," he said, "and if you are firm enough to read
it to me, do! But be particular to a word."
It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what
follows:
"I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the dear
one, if I could, once more--but only to see her--not to speak to
her or let her know that I was near. The other object, to elude
pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the mother for her share.
The assistance that she rendered me, she rendered on my strongest
assurance that it was for the dear one's good. You remember her
dead child. The men's consent I bought, but her help was freely
given."
"'I came.' That was written," said my companion, "when she rested
there. It bears out what I made of it. I was right."
The next was written at another time:
"I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and I know
that I must soon die. These streets! I have no purpose but to
die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am saved from adding that
guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and fatigue are sufficient causes
for my being found dead, but I shall die of others, though I suffer
from these. It was right that all that had sustained me should
give way at once and that I should die of terror and my conscience.
"Take courage," said Mr. Bucket. "There's only a few words more."
Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance,
almost in the dark:
"I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon forgotten
so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing about me by which
I can be recognized. This paper I part with now. The place where
I shall lie down, if I can get so far, has been often in my mind.
Farewell. Forgive."
Mr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my
chair. "Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as
soon as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready."
I did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for
my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and
I heard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At
length he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important
to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for
whatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that
she could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not
alarmed. The questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the
letter, what passed between her and the person who gave her the
letter, and where the person went. Holding my mind as steadily as
I could to these points, I went into the next room with them. Mr.
Woodcourt would have remained outside, but at my solicitation went
in with us.
The poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her
down. They stood around her, though at a little distance, that she
might have air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but
she had a plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little
wild. I kneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head
upon my shoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and
burst into tears.
"My poor girl," said I, laying my face against her forehead, for
indeed I was crying too, and trembling, "it seems cruel to trouble
you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this
letter than I could tell you in an hour."
She began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she
didn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby!
"We are all sure of that," said I. "But pray tell me how you got
it."
"Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I'll tell true,
indeed, Mrs. Snagsby."
"I am sure of that," said I. "And how was it?"
"I had been out on an errand, dear lady--long after it was dark--
quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking person,
all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me coming
in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here. And I
said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here,
but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I do,
what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm
to me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!"
It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her--which she did, I
must say, with a good deal of contrition--before she could be got
beyond this.
"She could not find those places," said I.
"No!" cried the girl, shaking her head. "No! Couldn't find them.
And she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that
if you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a
crown, I know!"
"Well, Guster, my girl," said he, at first not knowing what to say.
"I hope I should."
"And yet she was so well spoken," said the girl, looking at me with
wide open eyes, "that it made a person's heart bleed. And so she
said to me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked
her which burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground.
And so I told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was
according to parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying
ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a
step, and an iron gate."
As I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr.
Bucket received this with a look which I could not separate from
one of alarm.
"Oh, dear, dear!" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her
hands. "What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying
ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff--that
you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby--that frightened me so,
Mrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!"
"You are so much better now," sald I. "Pray, pray tell me more."
"Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear
lady, because I have been so ill."
Angry with her, poor soul!
"There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how
to find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me
with eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving
back. And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said
if she was to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out
and not minded and never sent; and would I take it from her, and
send it, and the messenger would be paid at the house. And so I
said yes, if it was no harm, and she said no--no harm. And so I
took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and I
said I was poor myself and consequently wanted nothing. And so she
said God bless you, and went."
"And did she go--"
"Yes," cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. "Yes! She went
the way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came
behind me from somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was
frightened."
Mr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up,
and immediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated,
but I said, "Don't leave me now!" and Mr. Bucket added, "You'll be
better with us, we may want you; don't lose time!"
I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect
that it was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the
street-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling
and that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled
people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the
clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of
blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the
courts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor
girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my
hearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained
house-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great
water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the
air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the
real.
At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one
lamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly
struggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground
--a dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but
where I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones,
hemmed in by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows
and on whose walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On
the step at the gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place,
which oozed and splashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity
and horror, a woman lying--Jenny, the mother of the dead child.
I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me
with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to
the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did
so, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure.
"Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They
changed clothes at the cottage."
They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in
my mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached
no meaning to them in any other connexion.
"And one returned," said Mr. Bucket, "and one went on. And the one
that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and
then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!"
I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea
what it meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of
the dead child. She lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of
the iron gate and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so
lately spoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed,
unsheltered, senseless creature. She who had brought my mother's
letter, who could give me the only clue to where my mother was;
she, who was to guide us to rescue and save her whom we had sought
so far, who had come to this condition by some means connected with
my mother that I could not follow, and might be passing beyond our
reach and help at that moment; she lay there, and they stopped me!
I saw but did not comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in
Mr. Woodcourt's face. I saw but did not comprehend his touching
the other on the breast to keep him back. I saw him stand
uncovered in the bitter air, with a reverence for something. But
my understanding for all this was gone.
I even heard it said between them, "Shall she go?"
"She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her.
They have a higher right than ours."
I passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head,
put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my
mother, cold and dead.
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