The Solitary House (124 page)

“Ve-ry right!” said Miss Flite, “ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz-Jarndyce, I am afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn’t think it) a little—rambling you know,” said Miss Flite, touching her forehead. “Nothing more.”

“What were you going to tell me?” said I, smiling, for I saw she wanted to go on. “You have roused my curiosity, and now you must gratify it.”

Miss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, who said, “If you please, ma’am, you had better tell then,” and therein gratified Miss Flite beyond measure.

“So sagacious, our young friend,” said she to me, in her mysterious way. “Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it’s a pretty anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very ungenteel bonnet—”

“Jenny, if you please, miss,” said Charley.

“Just so!” Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. “Jenny. Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend, but that there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz-Jarndyce’s health, and taking a handkerchief away
with her as a little keepsake, merely because it was my amiable Fitz-Jarndyce’s! Now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!”

“If you please, miss,” said Charley, to whom I looked in some astonishment, “Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the baby’s little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby.”

“Diminutive,” whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. “But ex-ceedingly sagacious! And so clear! My love, she’s clearer than any Counsel I ever heard!”

“Yes, Charley,” I returned. “I remember it. Well?”

“Well, miss,” said Charley, “and that’s the handkerchief the lady took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn’t have made away with it herself for a heap of money, but that the lady took it, and left some money instead. Jenny don’t know her at all, if you please, miss?”

“Why, who can she be?” said I.

“My love,” Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with her most mysterious look, “in
my
opinion—don’t mention this to our diminutive friend—she’s the Lord Chancellor’s wife. He’s married, you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his lordship’s papers into the fire, my dear, if he won’t pay the jeweller!”

I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted by my visitor, who was cold after her ride, and looked hungry; and who, our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else.

When we had finished, and had our little dessert before us, embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one; Miss Flite was so very chatty and happy, that I thought I would lead her to her own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began by saying: “You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss Flite?”

“O many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a Judgment. Shortly.”

There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no more about it.

“My father expected a Judgment,” said Miss Flite. “My brother. My sister. They all expected a Judgment. The same that I expect.”

“They are all—”

“Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear,” said she.

As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable to her by meeting the theme, rather than avoiding it.

“Would it not be wiser,” said I, “to expect this Judgment no more?”

“Why, my dear,” she answered promptly, “of course it would!”

“And to attend the Court no more?”

“Equally of course,” said she. “Very wearing to be always in expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz-Jarndyce! Wearing, I assure you, to the bone!”

She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed.

“But, my dear,” she went on, in her mysterious way, “there’s a dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don’t mention it to our diminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With good reason. There’s a cruel attraction in the place. You
can’t
leave it. And you
must
expect.”

I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer.

“Aye, aye, aye! You think so, because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing,
too. To the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years, and I have noticed. It’s the Mace and Seal upon the table.”

What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her.

“Draw,” returned Miss Flite. “Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. Cold and glittering devils!”

She tapped me several times upon the arm, and nodded good-humouredly, as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful secrets to me.

“Let me see,” said she. “I’ll tell you my own case. Before they ever drew me—before I had ever seen them—what was it I used to do? Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder’s business. We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father was drawn—slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years, he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt, without a kind word or a kind look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz-Jarndyce. He was drawn to a debtors’ prison. There he died. Then our brother was drawn—swiftly—to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill, and in misery; and heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the Monster. And then I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there.”

Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance.

“You don’t quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day. I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the Mace and Seal, in these many years. As my father’s came there. As my brother’s. As my sister’s. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge, and the rest of them say to the new faces, ‘Here’s little Miss Flite. O you are new here; and you must come and be presented
to little Miss Flite!’ Ve-ry good. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz-Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do, when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz-Jarndyce, my love,” speaking low again, “I saw them beginning in our friend the Ward in Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he’ll be drawn to ruin.”

She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy, and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said, politely, as she sipped her glass of wine, “Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I expect a Judgment. Shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know, and confer estates.”

I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard, and by the sad meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite complacent again now, and beamed with nods and smiles.

“But, my dear,” she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon mine. “You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not once, yet!”

I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant.

“My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean
the
judgment that will dissolve the spell upon me of the Mace and Seal.”

“Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now,” said I, “that I thought the time for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite.”

“But, my child,” she returned, “is it possible that you don’t know what has happened?”

“No,” said I.

“Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz-Jarndyce!”

“No,” said I. “You forget how long I have been here.”

“True! My dear, for the moment—true. I blame myself. But my memory has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned. Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my
dear, there has been a terrible shipwreck over in those East-Indian seas.”

“Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!”

“Don’t be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness. Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything. Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet, when they got to the land, and blessed him. The whole country rings with it. Stay! Where’s my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you shall read it, you shall read it!”

And I
did
read all the noble history; though very slowly and imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and gallant deeds; I felt such glowing exultation in his renown; I so admired and loved what he had done; that I envied the storm-worn people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver. I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him, in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that no one—mother, sister, wife—could honour him more than I. I did, indeed!

My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when, as the evening began to close in, she rose to take her leave, lest she should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full of the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to understand in all its details.

“My dear,” said she, as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves, “my brave physician ought to have a Title bestowed upon him. And no doubt he will. You are of that opinion?”

That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no.

“Why not, Fitz-Jarndyce?” she asked, rather sharply.

I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men distinguished by peaceful service, however good and great; unless occasionally, when they consisted of the accumulation of some very large amount of money.

“Why, good gracious,” said Miss Flite, “how can you say that? Surely you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every sort, are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and consider.
You
must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don’t know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the land!”

I am afraid she believed what she said; for there were moments when she was very mad indeed.

And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me; and that if he had been richer, he would perhaps have told me that he loved me, before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done so, I should have been glad of it. But, how much better it was now, that this had never happened! What should I have suffered, if I had had to write to him, and tell him that the poor face he had known as mine was quite gone from me, and that I freely released him from his bondage to one whom he had never seen!

O, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone: no chain for me to break, or for him to drag; and I could go, please God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the journey’s end.

*

CHAPTER 36