055 - Flight

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing.

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This is a Libravox Recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain

for more information or to volunteer.

Please visit Libravox.org.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens, chapter 55, flight.

Inspector Bucket of the Detective

has not yet struck his great blow,

as just now chronicled,

but is yet refreshing himself with sleep,

preparatory to his field day.

When through the night, and along the freezing wintery roads,

a shazen pair comes out of Lincolnshire,

making its way toward London.

Railroads shall soon traverse all this country,

and with a rattle and a glare of the engine

and train shall shoot like a meteor

over the wide night landscape, turning the moon paler.

But as yet, such things are nonexistent in these parts,

though not wholly unexpected.

Preparations are afoot, measurements are made,

ground is staked out, bridges are begun,

and they're not yet united peers,

decilitly look at one another over roads and streams,

like brick and mortar couples with an obstacle to their union.

Fragments of embankments are thrown up,

and left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts

and barrows tumbling over them.

Tripods of tall poles appear on hilltops,

where there are rumors of tunnels,

everything looks chaotic and abandoned in full hopelessness.

Along the freezing roads, and through the night,

the post-shez makes its way without a railroad on its mind.

Mrs. Roundswell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney-Wold,

sits within the shez, and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnant

with her grey cloak and umbrella.

The old girl would prefer the bar in front

as being exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch

more in accordance with her usual course of traveling.

But Mrs. Roundswell is too thoughtful of her comfort

to admit of her proposing it.

The old lady cannot make enough of the old girl.

She sits in her stately manner, holding her hand

and regardless of its roughness puts it off into her lips.

You are a mother, my dear soul, says she many times,

and you found out my George's mother.

Why George returns Mrs. Bagnant was always free with me, ma'am,

and when he said at our house to my will witch

that of all the things my will witch could have to think of

when he grew to be a man, the comfortableist would be

that he had never brought a sorrowful line into his mother's face

or turned a hair of her head grey.

Then I felt sure from his way that something fresh

had brought his own mother into his mind.

I had often known him say to me in past times

that he had behaved bad to her.

Never my dear returns Mrs. Roundswell bursting into tears.

My blessing on him never, he was always fond of me

and loving to me was my George, but he had a bold spirit

and he ran a little wild and went for a soldier.

And I know he waited at first in letting us know about himself

until he should rise to be an officer,

and when he didn't rise I know he considered himself beneath us

and wouldn't be a disgrace to us.

For he had a lie in heart had my George always from the baby.

The old lady's hands stray about her as of your

while she recalls all in a tremble.

What a likely lad, what a fine lad,

what a gay good-humored clever lad he was.

How they all took to him down at Chesney World.

How Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young gentleman.

How the dogs took to him, how even the people

who had been angry with him forgave him the moment

he was gone poor boy.

And now to see him after all, and in a prison too.

And the broad stomacher heaves and the quaint upright

old-fashioned figure bends under its load

of affectionate distress.

Mrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart,

leaves the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while,

not without passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes,

and presently chirps up in her cheery manner.

So I says to George when I goes to call him into tea.

He pretended to be smoking his pipe outside.

What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake.

I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often

in season and out of season, abroad and at home,

and I never see you so melancholy penitent.

Why Mrs. Bagnet says George, it's because I am melancholy

and penitent both this afternoon that you see me so.

What have you done, old fellow, I says?

Why Mrs. Bagnet says George shaking his head?

What have I done has been done this many a long year

and is best not tried to be undone now?

If I ever get to heaven, it won't be for being a good son

to a without mother, I say no more.

Now, ma'am, when George says to me that it's best not tried

to be undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before,

and I draw it out of George how he comes

to have such things on him that afternoon.

Then George tells me that he has seen by chance

at the lawyer's office a fine old lady

that has brought his mother plain before him,

and he runs on about that old lady

till he quite forgets himself, and paints her picture to me

as she used to be, years upon years back.

So I says to George when he has done,

who is this old lady he has seen?

And George tells me it's Mrs. Roundswell,

housekeeper for more than half a century

to the deadlock family down at Chessney World

in Lincolnshire.

George has frequently told me before

that he's a Lincolnshire man, and I says

to my old Lignum that night, Lignum,

that's his mother for five and forty pound.

All this Mrs. Bagnet now relates

for the 20th time at least within the last four hours,

trilling it out like a kind of bird

with a pretty high note that it may be audible

to the old lady above the hum of the wheels.

Bless you and thank you, says Mrs. Roundswell.

Bless you and thank you, my worthy soul.

Dear heart, Christ, Mrs. Bagnet, in the most natural manner.

No thanks to me, I am sure, thanks to your self-man

for being so ready to pay him and mind once more, ma'am.

What you had best do on finding George to be your own son

is to make him for your sake.

Have every sort of help to put himself in the right

and clear himself of a charge of which he is as innocent

as you or me.

It won't do to have truth and justice on his side.

He must have law and lawyers, exclaims the old girl.

Apparently persuaded that the latter form a separate establishment

and have dissolved partnership with truth and justice

forever and a day.

He shall have, says Mrs. Roundswell,

all the help that can be got for him in the world, my dear.

I will spend all I have and, thankfully, to procure it.

Sir Leicester will do his best.

The whole family will do their best.

I know something, my dear, and will make my own appeal

as his mother parted from him all these years

and finding him in a jail at last.

The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner

in saying this, her broken words and her ringing of her hands

make a powerful impression on Mrs. magnet

and would astonish her but that she

refers them all to her sorrow for her son's condition.

And yet Mrs. magnet wonders too

why Mrs. Roundswell should murmur so distractedly.

My lady, my lady, my lady, over and over again.

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The frosty night wears away and the dawn breaks

and the post-shez comes rolling on through the early mist

like the ghost of a chez deported.

It is plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and hedges,

slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day.

London reached the travellers of light,

the old housekeeper in great tribulation and confusion.

Mrs. magnet quite fresh and collected,

as she would be, if her next point,

with no new equipage and outfit,

were the cape of good hope,

the island of ascension, Hong Kong,

or any other military station.

But when they set out for the prison

where the trooper is confined,

the old lady has managed to draw about her

with her lavender-colored dress,

much of the state calmness,

which is its usual accompaniment.

A wonderfully grave, precise and handsome piece of old China,

she looks, though her heart beats fast,

and her stomacher is ruffled,

more than even the remembrance

of this wayward sun has ruffled it these many years.

Approaching the cell,

they find the door opening and a water

in the act of coming out.

The old girl promptly makes a sign

of entreated to him to say nothing,

a scenting with a nod,

he suffers them to enter,

as he shuts the door.

So, George, who is writing at his table,

supposing himself to be alone,

does not raise his eyes,

but remains absorbed.

The old housekeeper looks at him,

and those wandering hands of hers

are quite enough for Mrs.

Bagnitz' confirmations,

even if she could see the mother and the son together,

knowing what she knows and doubt their relationship.

Not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress,

not a gesture, not a word betrays her.

She stands looking at him as he writes on,

all unconscious,

and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her emotions,

but they are very eloquent,

very, very eloquent.

Mrs. Bagnitz understands them.

They speak of gratitude,

of joy, of grief, of hope,

of inextinguishable affection,

cherished with no return

since this stalwart man was a stripling,

of a better son loved less,

and this son loved so fondly and so proudly,

and they speak in such touching language

that Mrs. Bagnitz' eyes brim up with tears,

and they run glistening down her sun-brown face.

George Ronswell,

all my dear child, turn and look at me.

The trooper starts up,

clasps his mother round the neck,

and falls down on his knees before her.

Whether, in a late repentance,

whether in the first association

that comes back upon him,

he puts his hands together

as a child does when it says its prayers,

and raising them toward her breast,

bows down his head and cries.

My George, my dear son,

always my favorite and my favorite still,

where have you been these cruel years and years?

Grown such a man too,

grown such a fine, strong man,

grown so like what I knew he must be,

if it pleased God he were alive.

She can ask and he can answer,

nothing connected for a time.

All that time the old girl turned away,

leans one arm against the white and wall,

leans her honest forehead upon it,

wipes her eyes with her serviceable grey cloak,

and quite enjoys herself

like the best of old girls as she is.

Mother says the trooper when they are more composed.

Forgive me first of all,

for I know my need of it.

Forgive him.

She does it with all her heart and soul.

She always has done it.

She tells him how she has has it written in her will,

these many years,

that he was her beloved son, George.

She has never believed any ill of him, never.

If she had died without this happiness,

and she is an old woman now,

and can't look to live very long.

She would have blessed him with her last breath

if she had had her senses

as her beloved son, George.

Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you,

and I have my reward,

but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering

of a purpose in me too.

When I left home I didn't care much mother.

I am afraid not a great deal for leaving,

and went away and listed,

Heram Scaram,

making believe to think that I cared for nobody.

No, not I,

and that nobody cared for me.

The trooper has dried his eyes

and put away his hand-couchef,

but there is an extraordinary contrast

between his habitual manner of expressing himself

and carrying himself,

and the softened tone in which he speaks,

interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob.

So I wrote a line home, mother,

as you too well know,

to say I had listed under another name,

and I went abroad.

A broad,

at one time I thought I would write home next year

when I might be better off,

and when that year was out,

I thought I would write home next year

when I might be better off,

and when that year was out,

perhaps I didn't think much about it.

So on, from year to year,

through a service of 10 years,

till I began to get older,

and to ask myself,

why should I ever write?

I don't find any fault, child,

but not to ease my mind, George,

not a word to your loving mother

who is growing older, too.

This almost overturns the trooper of fresh,

but he sets himself up

with a great, rough sounding clearance of his throat.

Heaven forgive me, mother,

but I thought there would be small consolation

then in hearing anything about me.

There were you, respected and esteemed.

There was my brother,

as I read in chants,

North country papers now,

and then rising to be prosperous and famous.

There was I, a Dragoon,

roving, unsettled, not self-made like him,

but self-unmade.

All my earlier advantages thrown away.

All my little learning unlearned.

Nothing picked up,

but what unfitted me for most things that I could think of.

What business had I to make myself known?

After letting all that time go by me,

what good could come of it?

The worst was passed with you, mother.

I knew by that time, being a man,

how you had mourned for me,

and wept for me, and prayed for me,

and the pain was over, all softened down,

and I was better in your mind as it was.

The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head,

and taking one of her powerful hands

lays it lovingly upon his shoulder.

No, I don't say that it was so, mother,

but that I made it out to be so.

I said just now, what good could come of it?

Well, my dear mother,

some good might have come of it to myself,

and there was the meanness of it.

You would have sought me out.

You would have purchased my discharge.

You would have taken me down to Chesney Wald.

You who would have brought me,

and my brother and my brother's family together.

You would all have considered anxiously

how to do something for me,

and set me up as a respectable civilian.

But how could any of you feel sure of me

when I couldn't so much as feel sure of myself?

How could you help regarding as an incompetence

and a discredit to you,

an idle drugooning chap,

who was an incompetence

and a discredit to himself,

accepting under discipline?

How could I look?

My brother's children in the face

and pretend to set them an example.

I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home

and had 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. Ronswell, 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 whiteened wall and the gray 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 World when you little thought of me,

but for my old comrades wife here,

who I find has been too many for me.

But I thank her for it.

I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnant,

with all my heart and might,

to which Mrs. Bagnant responds with two pokes.

And now the old lady oppresses upon her son, George,

her own dear recovered boy, her joy and pride,

the light of her eyes, the happy clothes 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 God, 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.

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Mother, it is 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. Bagnett, 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. Jornus

in 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 world, 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 favor?

Surely not, my dear,

then grant me this one great favor,

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.

My 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 hand 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. Bagna's face,

his mother yields her implicit ascent to what he asks.

For this, he thanks her kindly.

In all other respects, my dear mother,

I'll be as tractable and as 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 didn't tend to read it straight on end,

when so ever I was called upon to say anything in my defense.

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 way,

Mrs. Bagna 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. Bagna?

I am going to the townhouse, my dear, the family house.

I have some business there that must be looked to directly,

Mrs. Roundswell answers.

Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagna?

But of course, I know you will.

Why should I ask it?

Why indeed, Mrs. Bagna 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 10,000 pounds

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.

No entities on the part of the good old housekeeper

will induce Mrs. Bagna to retain the coach

for her own conveyance home, jumping out cheerfully

at the door of the deadlock mansion,

and handling Mrs. Roundswell up the steps,

the old girl shakes hands and trudges off,

arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagna family,

and falling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened.

My lady is in that room in which she held her last conference

with a murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night,

and is looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth,

studying her so leisurely when a tap comes at the door.

Who is it?

Mrs. Roundswell.

What has brought Mrs. Roundswell to town so unexpectedly?

Trouble, my lady, sad trouble.

Oh, my lady, may I beg a word with you?

What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble so?

Far happier than her lady, as her lady has often thought,

why does she falter in this manner and look at her

with such strange mistrust?

What is the matter?

Sit down and take your breath.

Oh, my lady, my lady, I have found my son, my youngest,

who went away for a soldier so long ago,

and he is in prison for debt.

Oh, no, my lady, I would have paid any debt and joyful.

For what is he in prison then?

Charge with a murder, my lady, of which

he is as innocent as I am, accused of the murder

of Mr. Tolkien Horn.

What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture?

Why does she come so close?

What is the letter that she holds?

Lady, deadlock, my dear lady, my good lady, my kind lady.

You must have a heart to feel for me.

You must have a heart to forgive me.

I was in this family before you were born.

I am devoted to it, but think of my dear son

wrongfully accused.

I do not accuse him.

No, my lady, no, but others do.

And he is in prison and in danger.

Oh, lady, deadlock, if you can, but say a word to help

to clear him, say it.

What delusion can this be?

What power does she suppose is in the person she petitions

to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust?

Her lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment,

almost with fear.

My lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wool

to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the ghost

walk was so constant and so solemn that I never

heard the like in all these years.

Night after night, as it is fallen dark,

the sound has echoed through your rooms,

but last night it was off-list.

And as it fell dark last night, my lady, I got this letter.

What letter is it?

Hush, hush.

The housekeeper looks round and answers

in a frightened whisper.

My lady, I have not breathed a word of it.

I don't believe what's written in it.

I know it can't be true.

I am sure and certain that it is not true,

but my son is in danger, and you must have a heart to pity me.

If you know of anything that is not known to others,

if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all,

and any reason for keeping it in your own breast,

oh, my dear lady, think of me and conquer that reason

and let it be known.

This is the most I consider possible.

I know you are not a hard lady,

but you go your own way, always without help,

and you are not familiar with your friends,

and all who admire you, and all do,

as a beautiful and elegant lady.

Know you to be one far away from themselves

who can't be approached close.

My lady, you may have some proud or angry reasons

for disdaining to utter something that you know.

If so, pray, oh, pray, think of a faithful servant

whose whole life has been passed in this family

which she dearly loves and relent

and help clear my son.

My lady, my good lady, the old housekeeper pleads

with genuine simplicity.

I am so humble in my place, and you are by nature

so high and distant that you may not think

what I feel for my child, but I feel so much

that I have come here to make so bold as to beg and pray,

you not to be scornful of us

if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time.

Lady deadlock raises her without one word

until she takes the letter from her hand.

Am I to read this?

When I am gone, my lady, if you please,

and then remembering the most that I consider possible.

I know of nothing I can do.

I know of nothing I reserve that can affect your son.

I have never accused him.

My lady, you may pity him the more

under a false accusation after reading the letter.

The old housekeeper leaves her with a letter in her hand.

In truth, she is not a hard lady, naturally,

and the time has been when the sight

of the venerable figures suing to her

with such strong earnestness would have moved her

to great compassion, but so long a custom

to suppress emotion and keep down reality,

so long schooled for her own purposes

in that destructive school which shuts up

the natural feelings of the heart,

like flies an amber and spreads one uniform

and dreary gloss over the good and the bad,

and the feeling and the unfeeling,

the sensible and the senseless.

She had subdued even her wonder until now.

She opens the letter, spread out upon the paper,

is a printed account of the discovery of the body,

as it lay face downward on the floor,

shot through the heart and underneath

is written her own name with the word murderous attached.

It falls out of her hand.

How long it may have lain upon the ground?

She knows not, but it lies where it fell.

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When a servant stands before her,

announcing the young man of the name of guppy,

the words have probably been repeated several times,

for they are ringing in her head

before she begins to understand them.

Let him come in.

He comes in holding the letter in her hand,

which she has taken from the floor.

She tries to collect her thoughts.

In the eyes of Mr. Guppy,

she is the same lady deadlock,

holding the same prepared, proud, chilling state.

Your lady ship may not be at first

disposed to excuse this visit

from one who has never been welcome to your lady ship,

which she don't complain of,

for he is bound to confess

that there never has been any particular reason

on the face of things why he should be.

But I hope when I mention my motives to your lady ship,

you will not find fault with me, says Mr. Guppy.

Do so.

Thank your lady ship.

I ought first to explain to your lady ship.

Mr. Guppy sits on the edge of a chair

and puts his hat on the carpet at his feet.

That Miss Summerson, whose image,

as I formerly mentioned to your lady ship,

was at one period of my life,

imprinted on my art until erased by circumstances

over which I had no control,

communicated to me after I had the pleasure

of waiting on your lady ship last,

that she particularly wished me to take no steps

whatever in any manner at all relating to her.

And Miss Summerson's wishes being to me a law

accepted with circumstances over which I have no control.

I consequently never expected to have the distinguished honor

of waiting on your lady ship again.

And yet he is here now, lady deadlock,

moodily reminds him.

And yet I am here now, Mr. Guppy admits,

my object being to communicate to your lady ship

under the seal of confidence why I am here.

He cannot do so, she tells him too plainly or too briefly.

Nor can I, Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him.

Too particularly request your lady ship to take

particular notice that it's no personal affair of mine

that brings me here.

I have no interested views of my own to serve in coming here.

If it was not for my promise to Miss Summerson

and my keeping of its sacred eye in point of fact

shouldn't have darkened these doors again,

but should have seen him further first.

Mr. Guppy considers this a favorable moment

for sticking up his hair with both hands.

Your lady ship will remember when I mention it

that the last time I was here,

I run against a party very eminent in our profession

and whose loss we all deplore.

That party certainly did from that time imply himself

to cutting in against me in a way that I will call

sharp practice and did make it at every turn and point.

Extremely difficult for me to be sure that I hadn't

inadvertently led up to something contrary

to Miss Summerson's wishes.

Self praise is no recommendation,

but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man

of business neither.

Lady Deadlock looks at him in stern inquiry.

Mr. Guppy immediately withdraws his eyes from her face

and looks anywhere else.

Indeed, it has been made so hard he goes on

to have any idea what that party was up to

in combination with others, that until the loss

which we all deplore, I was graveled.

An expression which your lady ship moving

in the higher circles will be so good as to consider

tantamount to knocked over.

Small likewise, a name by which I refer to another party,

a friend of mine that your lady ship is not acquainted with,

got to be so close and double faced that at times

it wasn't easy to keep one's hands off his head.

However, what with the exertion of my humble abilities

and what with the help of a mutual friend

by the name of Mr. Tony Weevil,

who is of a high aristocratic turn

and has your lady ship's portrait always hanging up in his room?

I have now reasons for an apprehension

as to which I come to put your lady ship upon your guard.

First, will your lady ship allow me to ask you

whether you have had any strange visitors this morning?

I don't mean fashionable visitors,

but such visitors, for instance,

as Miss Barbara's old servant or a person

without the use of his lower extremities

carried upstairs similarly to a guy?

No, then I assure your lady ship

that such visitors have been here

and have been received here

because I saw them at the door

and waited at the corner of the square till they came out

and took half an hour's turn afterwards to avoid them.

What have I to do with that or what have you?

I do not understand you.

What do you mean?

Your lady ship, I come to put you on your guard.

There may be no occasion for it very well.

Then I have only done my best to keep my promise

to Miss Summerson.

I strongly suspect from what small has dropped

and from what we have corkscrewed out of him

that those letters I was to have brought to your lady ship

were not destroyed when I suppose they were,

that if there was anything to be blown upon it,

it is blown upon that the visitors I have alluded to

have been here this morning to make money of it

and that the money is made or making.

Mr. Guppy picks up his hat and rises.

Your lady ship, you know best whether there's anything

in what I say or whether there's nothing,

something or nothing.

I have acted up to Miss Summerson's wishes

in letting things alone and in undoing

what I had begun to do as far as possible.

That's sufficient for me.

In case I should be taking a liberty

in putting your lady ship on your guard

where there's no necessity for it,

you will endeavor I should hope to outlive my presumption

and I shall endeavor to outlive your disapprobation.

I now take my farewell of your lady ship

and I assure you that there's no danger

of your ever being waited on by me again.

She scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look

but when he has been gone a little while

she rings her bell, where is Sir Leicester?

Mercury reports that he is at present

shut up in the library alone.

Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?

Several on business, Mercury proceeds

to his description of them

which has been anticipated by Mr. Guppy.

Enough, he may go.

So all is broken down.

Her name is in these many months.

Her husband knows his wrongs.

Her shame will be published.

Maybe spreading while she thinks about it

and in addition to the thunderbolts

so long foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him,

she is denounced by an invisible accuser

as the murderers of her enemy.

Her enemy he was and she has often, often, often wished him dead.

Her enemy he is even in his grave,

this dreadful accusation comes upon her

like a new torment at his lifeless hand

and when she recalls how she was secretly

at his door that night and how she may be represented

to have sent her favorite girl away so soon before,

merely to release herself from observation.

She shutters as if the hangman's hands were at her neck.

She has thrown herself upon the floor

and lies with her hair all wildly scattered

and her face buried in the cushions of a couch.

She rises up, hurries to and froth,

flings herself down again in rocks and moans.

The horror that is upon her is unutterable.

If she really were the murderist,

it could hardly be for the moment more intense.

For, as her murderous perspective,

before the doing of the deed,

however subtle the precautions for its commission

would have been closed up by a gigantic

dilation of the hateful figure,

preventing her from seeing any consequence beyond it.

And as those consequences would have rushed in

in an unimaginable flood,

the moment the figure was laid low,

which always happens when a murder is done.

So now she sees that when he used to be

on the watch before her and she used to think,

if some mortal stroke would but fall upon this old man

and take him from my way,

it was but wishing that all he held against her

in his hand might be flung to the winds

and chance sewn in many places.

So too, with the wicked relief,

she has felt in his death.

What was his death but the keystone

of a gloomy arch removed?

And now the arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments,

each crushing and mangling piecemeal.

Thus a terrible impression steals upon

and overshadows her that from this pursuer living or dead

obter it and imperturbable before her

in his well-remembered shape,

or not more obter it and imperturbable in his coffin bed.

There is no escape but in death.

Hunted, she flies,

the complication of her shame,

her dread, remorse and misery,

overwhelms her at its height

and even her strength of self-reliance

is overturned and world away,

like a leaf before a mighty wind.

She hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband,

seals and leaves them on her table.

If I am sought for or accused of his murder,

believe that I am holy innocent,

believe no other good of me

for I am innocent of nothing else

that you have heard or will hear laid to my charge.

He prepared me on that fatal night

for his disclosure of my guilt to you.

After he had left me,

I went out on pretence of walking in the garden

where I sometimes walk,

but really to follow him

and make one last petition

that he would not protract the dreadful suspense

on which I have been racked by him.

You do not know how long

but would mercifully strike next morning.

I found his house dark and silent.

I rang twice at his door,

but there was no reply and I came home.

I have no home left.

I will encumber you no more.

May you in your just resentment

be able to forget the unworthy woman

on whom you have wasted a most generous devotion.

Who avoids you,

only with a deeper shame

than that with which she hurries from herself

and who writes this last adieu.

She veils and dresses quickly,

leaves all her jewels and her money.

Listen, goes downstairs at a moment

when the hall is empty.

Opens and shuts the great door,

flutters away in the shrill frosty wind.

End of chapter 56.

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing.

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